The servant who summoned Mabel to supper brought down word that she was
not feeling well, and did not wish any.
“Not well! Bless me!” exclaimed Mrs. Sutton, starting up. “Rosa, love,
excuse me for three seconds, please. I must see what is the matter. I
do hope there is no bad news from--” (arrested by the recollection that
there were servants in the room, she substituted for the name upon her
lips)--“in her letters.”
“I don't think she's much sick ma'am,” said the maid. “She is a-settin'
in the window.”
“Where I left her with her letters, an hour and more ago,” observed
Rosa. “Don't hurry back if she needs you, Aunt Rachel. I will make
myself at home; shall not mind eating alone for once.”
Not withstanding the array of dainties before her, she only nibbled the
edge of a cream biscuit with her little white teeth, and crumbled
the rest of it upon her plate in listlessness or profound and active
reverie, while the hostess was away. She, too, had her conjectures and
her anxieties--a knotty problem to work out, and the longer she pondered
the more confident was she that she had grasped at least one filament of
the clue leading to elucidation.
Mabel had not stirred from her place--sat yet with her brother's letter
in her lap, her hands lying heavily upon it, although her muslin dress
was ghostly in the stream of moonlight flowing across the chamber. She
had wept her eyes dry, and her voice was monotonous, but unfaltering.
“I am not really sick, aunt, but I have no appetite, and having a great
deal to think of, I preferred staying here to going to the table,” was
her answer to Mrs Sutton's inquiries.
“Your hands are cold and lifeless as clay, my child. What is the matter?
It is not like you to be moping up here, alone in the dark.”
“Won't you leave me to myself for a while, and keep Rosa down-stairs?”
asked Mabel, more patiently than peevishly. “Before bed-time I will see
you in your room, and we can talk of what has disturbed me.”
“My daughter,” murmured the gentle-hearted chaperone, trying to draw the
erect head to her shoulder, as she stood by her niece.
Mabel resisted the kindly force.
“No, no, aunt. I cannot bear that yet. I have just begun to think
connectedly, and petting would unnerve me.”
This was strange talk from the frank-hearted child she had reared from
babyhood, and while she desisted from further attempts at consolation,
Aunt Rachel took a very sober visage back to the supper-room with her,
and as little appetite as Rosa had manifested. The meal was quickly
over, and by way of obeying the second part of Mabel's behest, the
innocent diplomatist begged Rosa to go to the piano.
“I always enjoy your delightful music, my dear. It makes the house more
lively.”
“Thank you, dear Mrs. Sutton. I should take pleasure in obliging you;
but if Mabel is out of sorts, I don't believe she will care to have the
house lively to-night,” was the amiable rejoinder. “Moreover, I am dying
to finish 'David Copperfield.' Will you allow me to curl myself up in
the big chair here, and read for an hour?”
Mrs. Sutton gave a consent that was almost glad in its alacrity, and
pretended to occupy herself with the newspapers brought by the evening
mail, until she judged that Mabel had had season in which to compose her
thoughts. Then she muttered something about “breakfast,” “muffins,” and
“Daphne,” caught up her key-basket, and bustled out.
Rosa's book fell from before her face at the sound of the closing door.
The liquid eyes were turbid; her features moved by some passion mightier
far than curiosity or compassion for her friend's distress.
“I have done nothing--literally nothing, to bring this on!” was the
reflection which brought most calm to her agitated mind. “If it should
be as I think, I am guiltless of treachery. My skirts are clear. My
hands are clean! Yet there have been moments when I could have dipped
them in blood that this end might be attained!”
Too restless to remain quiet, she tossed her book aside and wandered
from side to side of the room, halting frequently to hearken for Mrs.
Sutton's return, or some noise from the conference chamber that might
alleviate her suspense.
“I tried to put her on her guard,” she broke forth at length, bent, it
would seem, upon self-justification against an invisible accuser. “I saw
aversion in Winston's eye the day he came home to find the other here.
He would never forgive his slave the presumption of choosing a husband
for herself. Did I not tell her so? Yet this has caught her like a
rabbit in a trap--unprepared for endurance or resistance. The spiritless
baby! Would I give him up, except with life, if he loved me as he does
her?”
It was not a baby's face that was confronting Mrs. Sutton's just then.
It was no weak, spiritless slave who sustained the pelting shower of her
comments, her wonderment and her entreaties that Mabel would refuse to
abide by her brother's decision--her guardian though he was--and if she
would not write to Frederic with her own hand, empower her aunt to apply
to him for an explanation of the disgraceful mystery.
“We should condemn no man unheard,” she argued.
“It is but fair to give him an opportunity of telling his side of the
story.”
“Winston's letter will inform him of what and by whom he is accused,”
said Mabel. “He will have the opportunity you speak of. I should not be
content with my brother's action, were this not so. I have been over
the whole ground again and again, since sunset. We--you and I--are
powerless. This story is either true or false. If what we have read
really happened, what could arise from our correspondence with the
offender against honor and virtue? It would but complicate difficulties.
If he is unjustly accused, he can prove it, and put his slanderers to
shame without our promptings. Our interference would be an intimation
that he needed our championship.”
“I believe he will clear himself of every stain,” returned Mrs. Sutton
earnestly. “This is either a vile plot concocted by some secret foe, or
the Frederic Chilton mentioned here,” pushing the letter away from her
on the table, with a gesture of loathing, “is another person.”
“That is very unlikely!”
Mabel leaned her forehead wearily upon her hand, and did not finish the
sentence immediately.
“I will be candid with you, aunt, upon this subject, as I have tried to
be in every other confidence with which I have burdened you. Frederic
Chilton was a student in the law-school, which was also attended by
Winston's correspondent, and at the date specified by him. I have reason
to think there was something unpleasant--something he wished to conceal
from me, and perhaps from everybody else, connected with his stay there.
He referred to it ambiguously on the last evening of his visit here, as
a folly, a youthful indiscretion. I have the impression, moreover, that
a married woman was mixed up in this trouble, whatever it was--a lady,
some years older than himself, whose husband, a naval officer, was
absent upon a long cruise. This may be the germ of the story related
here, and it may have nothing whatever to do with it.”
In saying “here,” she pointed to the letter. Both avoided touching it
as it lay between them, the big seal uppermost, and looking more like
bright, fresh blood than ever, in the lamplight.
“My dear, all this proves nothing--absolutely nothing--except that
the shock and overmuch solitary musing have made you morbid and
unreasonable.”
Mrs. Sutton assumed a collected air, and delivered herself with the mien
of one who was determined to submit to no trifling, and to credit no
scrap of evidence against her friend which counter-reasoning could set
aside.
“My husband's godson--we must remember he is that, Mabel!--could never
be guilty of the infamous conduct ascribed to this Chilton by Winston
Aylett's anonymous friend. I am accounted a tolerable judge of
character, and I maintain that it is a moral impossibility for my
instincts and experience to be so utterly at fault as these two men
would make you believe. As to the corroboration of your 'impression,'
that would be consummate nonsense in the eye of the law. Let us sift
the pros and cons of this affair as rational, unprejudiced beings
should--not jump at conclusions. And I must say, Mabel”--was the
consistent peroration of this address, uttered in a mildly-aggrieved
tone, while the blue eyes began to shine through a rising fog--“it
seems to me very singular--really wounds me--is not what I looked for in
you--that you should rank yourself with my poor boy's enemies!”
“I, his enemy!” The word was a sharp cry--not loud, but telling of
unfathomed deeps of anguish, from the verge of which the listener drew
back with a shudder. “I would have married him without a single glance
at the past! Let him but say 'it is untrue--all that you fear and they
declare,' and I would disbelieve this tale, instantly and utterly,
though a thousand witnesses swore to the truth of it. Or, let him be all
that they say, I would marry him to-night, if I had the right to do it.
But I promised--and to promise with an Aylett is to fulfil--that I
would be ruled by my guardian's will, should the investigation, to which
Frederic himself did not object, terminate unfavorably for my hopes, and
contrary to his declaration.”
“It was a rash promise, and such are better broken than kept.”
“Your Bible, Aunt Rachel--to-night, I cannot call it mine!--commends him
who swears to his own heart and changes not,” replied the niece, with
restored steadiness. “It would have been the same had I refused my
consent to Winston's proposal. I am a minor, and who would wait two
years for me?”
“Anybody who loved you, provided your trust in him equalled his in you,”
said Mrs. Sutton, slyly.
Mabel's answer was direct.
“You want me to say that I do not believe this tale of Mr. Chilton's
early errors; to brand it as a mistake or fabrication. You insinuate
that, in reserving my sentence until I shall have heard both sides of
it, I show myself unworthy of the love of a true man; betray of what
mean stuff my affection is made. I suppose blind faith is sublime! But
for my part, I had rather be loved in spite of my known faults, than
receive wilfully ignorant worship.”
The daring stroke at Mrs. Sutton's hypothesis of the inseparable union
between esteem and affection, excited her into an impolitic admission.
“My child, you make my blood run cold! You do not mean that you could
love a man for whose character you had no respect!”
“There is a difference between learning to love and continuing to love,”
said Mabel, sententiously. “But we have had enough of useless talk,
aunt. In two days more Winston will be here. Until then, let matters
remain as they are. You can tell Rosa as much or as little as you like
of what has happened. She must suspect that something has gone awry.
To-morrow, I will look up this Mr. Jenkyns, and deliver the messages
with which I am charged--likewise consult the mason about the 'baronial'
fireplace,” smiling bitterly.
“You never saw another creature so altered as she is,” Mrs. Sutton
bewailed to Rosa, in rehearsing the scene. “If this thing should turn
out to be true, she is ruined and heart-broken for life. She will
become a cold, cynical, unfeeling woman--a feminine copy of her granite
brother.”
“If!” reiterated Rosa, testily. “There is not one syllable of truth in
it from Alpha to Omega! I know he is your nephew, and that it is one af
the Medo-Persian laws of Ridgeley that the king can do no wrong; but
I would sooner believe that Winston Aylett invented the slander
throughout, than question Fred Chilton's integrity. There is foul play
somewhere, as you will discover in time--or out of it!”
To Mabel, Frederic's spirited champion said never a word of the event
that held their eyes waking until dawn--each motionless as sleepless
lest her bed fellow should discover her real state.
“I have had no share in causing the rupture. I am not called upon to
heal it,” meditated she. “In this, the law of self-preservation is my
surest guide.”
Her resolve to remain neutral was sharply and unexpectedly tested the
next afternoon.
The two girls went out for a ramble about four o'clock, taking the
beaten foot-path that led through cultivated fields, and between wooded
hills, to a small post-town two miles distant. The day was sunless, but
not chilly, and when they had outwalked the hearing of the murmur of
rural life that pervaded the barnyard and adjacent “quarters,” the
silence was oppressive, except when broken by the whirr of a partridge,
the melancholy caw of the crows, scared from their feast upon the
scattered grains knocked from over-ripe ears of corn during the recent
“fodder-pulling,” and, as they neared it, by the fretting of a rapid
brook over its stony bottom.
The pretence of social converse had been given up before the friends
cleared the first field beyond the orchard. Rosa's exquisite tact
withheld her from obtruding commonplaces upon the attention of a mind
torn by suspense--distracted between disappointment and outraged pride,
and Mabel had not besought her sympathy in her grievous strait. They
walked on swiftly, the one staring straight forward, yet seeing
nothing; the other, although thoughtful, losing not one feature of
the landscape--the light-gray sky, the encircling forest, the yellow
broom-straw clothing the hill-sides, the crooked fences, lined with
purple brush, golden-rod, black-bearded alder and sumach, flaming with
scarlet berry cones and motley leaves. It was her principle and habit to
seize upon whatever morsels of delight were dropped in her way, and she
had a taste for attractive bits of scenery, as for melody. There was no
reason why the evil estate of her companion should debar her from quiet
enjoyment of the autumn day. She was sorry that Mabel was suffering.
It was unpleasant to see pain or grief. Smiles were prettier than glum
looks. She hoped she had enough humanity about her to enable her to
recognize these facts. But, in her soul, she despised the girl for her
tacit acquiescence in her brother's decree; contemned her yet more for
her partial credence of the rumor of her lover's unworthiness. It was as
well, taking these things into account, that Mabel was not communicative
with regard to the great change that had befallen her since this
hour yesterday, when she had exultingly proclaimed that her trust was
“founded upon a rock.”
“Varium et mutabile semper faemina!” reflected Rosa, who knew that much
Latin--and attracted by the waving of the bright grasses beneath the
waves of the rivulet they were crossing, she stopped to lean over the
railing and poke them aside from the stones with a chincapin switch she
had picked up a little way back.
Mabel did not look around; apparently did not observe that she walked on
alone.
“I dare say she would not miss me for the next mile!” soliloquized the
idle lounger, snatching foam-flakes from their nestling-places behind
the rocks, and watching them as they danced down the stream.
Something, whiter and more regular in shape than they, lay upon the
margin of the brook, partly concealed by a clump of sedge. A letter,
with the address uppermost! Rosa's optics were keen. She easily made out
the direction upon the envelope from where she stood. It was Frederic
Chilton's name in Mrs. Sutton's quaint, old-fashioned “back-hand”
chirography. An hour before, as Rosa now recollected, she had seen, from
her window, a negro man take the path to the village, arranging some
papers in the crown of his tattered straw hat. He had dropped this, the
most important of all, probably in stooping to drink from his hollowed
palms at the spring-stream. However this might be, there it lay--the
warning to the calumniated lover that his traducers were making clean
(or foul) work with his fair fame in the quarter where he wished to
stand at his best; perhaps citing him to appear and answer the damaging
charges in person before the same tribunal.
“If she would only let me drop him a friendly line asking him, for her
sake, to contradict this horrid slander!” the distraught matron had
sighed, last night, in her recapitulation of the conversation with her
obdurate niece. “But she will not hear of it.”
“I hardly think he would like it either,” Rosa had rejoined. “It would
hint at distrust on your part or on hers. Mr. Aylett's letter should be
sufficient to elicit the defence you crave.”
“You are in the right, perhaps!” But Mrs. Sutton had looked miserably
discontented. “Yet to be frank with you, Rosa, Winston is not apt to
be conciliatory in his measures when he takes it into his head that the
family honor is assailed. I am afraid he has written haughtily, if not
insolently, to poor Frederic.”
Rosa had no doubt of this, even while she answered, “Neither haughtiness
nor downright insolence would prevent a man who has so much at stake as
has Mr. Chilton, from taking instant steps to re-establish himself in
the respect of the family he desires to enter. This is a very delicate
matter--take what view of it we may. Hadn't you better wait a few days
before you interfere? Nothing can be lost--something may be gained by
prudent delay.”
“And I suppose Winston WOULD be very much displeased at my
officiousness, as he would term it,” had been Mrs. Sutton's reluctant
concession to her young guest's discreet counsels. “But it is very hard
to remain quiet, and see everything going to destruction about one!”
She had evidently reconsidered her resolution to let things take their
wrong-headed course, and in virtue of her prerogatives as match-maker
and mender, had thrust her oar into the very muddy whirlpool boiling
about the bark of her darling's happiness.
Rosa wrought out this chain of sequences, with many other links,
stretching far past present exigences and possibilities, ere Mabel's
figure disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill rising beyond the
brook. Should Frederic Chilton receive that letter, in less than a
week--in three days, perhaps, for he was a man prompt to resolve and to
do--he would present himself at Ridgeley to speak in his own behalf--an
event Rosa considered eminently undesirable. Certainly Mabel's
pusillanimity merited no such reward. She had no right to question the
rectitude that one she professed to love, nor her aunt the right to act
as mediator. If Mabel Aylett, with her found sense and judgment, and
her inherent strength of will, would not hold fast to her faith in her
affianced husband, and defy her brother to sunder them, let her lose
that which she prized so lightly.
If the epistle, soaking slowly there in the wet, had been committed
to Rosa's charge, she would have scorned to intercept it; would have
deposited it safely and punctually in the post-office. As it was, if
she left it alone, Frederic would never get it, and Mrs. Sutton remain
unconscious of its fate--unless some other passer-by should perceive and
rescue it from illegibility and dissolution; unless Mabel should espy
it on their return-walk, or, coming back, the next moment, to seek her
truant mate, catch sight of the snowy leaflet of peace in its snuggery
under the sedge.
A startled partridge flew over Rosa's head from the thither rising
ground, and in the belief that he was the harbinger of the approach she
dreaded, she dislodged the envelope from its covert, with a quick touch
of her little wand, and it floated down the stream.
Slowly--all too gradually at first--swinging lazily wound in the eddies,
catching, now against a jutting stone, now entangled by a blade of
grass--Rosa's heart in her throat as she watched it, lest Mabel's
footsteps should be audible upon the rocky path, Mabel's hat appear
above the spur of the hill. Then the channel caught it, whirled it over
and over, faster and faster, and sucked it downward.
Mrs. Sutton was at the tea-table with the girls that evening, when
Johnson, the sable Mercury, showed himself at the door, to inform his
superior that he had “got everything at de sto' she sent him fur to
buy.”
“You mailed the letters, Johnson?” said the mild mistress, rather
anxiously.
“All on dem, Mistis!”
“The unconscionable liar!” thought Rosa, virtuously, “he ought to be
flogged! But it is none of my business to contradict him.”
She did not say now, “My hands are clean!”