THE snows of ten winters had powdered the nameless stranger's grave in
the servant's burial-ground of the Ridgeley plantation. For nine years
the wallet taken from his person had lain unopened in a hidden drawer of
Mabel Dorrance's escritoire, and the half-guessed secret been hidden
in her breast. Mammy Phillis had followed her mistress to the tomb,
six months after her removal from her beloved cottage to the despised
“quarters.” She never held up her head from the day of her degradation,
died from a broken heart, murmured those who best knew her--of a “fit
of spleen,” said Mrs. Aylett, in cool reprehension of her unmannerly
vassal.
Mabel had guarded the mystery well. Her husband examined her--covertly,
as he thought; awkwardly, according to her ideas--with regard to the
vagaries of her delirium, and was foiled by the grave simplicity of her
manner and replies.
“All she knows or remembers is substantially this,” Herbert jotted
down in his notes for his sister's perusal: “she has associated in some
way--she cannot tell exactly how or why--the name with the tramp who
died in the garret. She is not sure that it was his designation. Thinks
it was not, or that, if used by him, it was an alias. Has an impression
that it was marked upon his clothing, or upon a paper found in his
pocket. Showed no agitation and little interest in the subject, except
when she inquired if I saw the stranger at all--living or dead. Was glad
I could reply truly, 'No.' Answer seemed to gratify her, which you may
consider a disagreeable augury. Am convinced that her illness
resulted from natural and unavoidable causes--that neither F---C---nor
J----L---had any connection with it. It will be months before mind and
body recover their tone.”
“Lawyerly! ergo, absurd and unsatisfactory!” pronounced the reader,
to whom the foregoing leaf had been committed on the morning of her
brother's departure with his slowly-convalescing wife for their Albany
home. “But until the nettle pricks more nearly, I shall continue to
enjoy my roses.”
They had blossomed thickly about her path during this decade. Her
matronly beauty was the wonder and praise of the community. The changing
seasons that had bleached the locks upon her husband's temples and
heightened his forehead had spared the bronzed chestnut of her luxuriant
tresses. Her figure was larger and fuller, but graceful, and more
queenly than of yore--if that could be. There was not an untuneful
inflection in her voice, or a furrow between her brows. Under her
careful management the homestead wore every year an air of increased
elegance. No other furniture for many miles on both sides of the river
could compare with hers; no other servants were so well-trained, no
grounds so beautifully ornamented and trimly kept.
“But for all that Ridgeley is a lonely, desolate place to me,” said Mrs.
Sutton, one early spring morning to her niece and crony, Mrs. William
Sutton. “A house without children is worse than a last year's bird's
nest. It is a riddle to me how Clara Aylett contrives to occupy her
time.”
“She should have some of these socks to darn, if it hangs upon her
hands,” replied Mrs. William, humorously, running her five fingers
through the toe of one she had just picked up from the great willow
basket set between the two upon the porch-floor.
“The Lord isn't very apt to make mothers out of that sort of material,”
said the elder lady. “Nor fathers out of Winston Ayletts. They are so
wrapped up in their self-consequence as to have no thought for others.”
“Yet they say Mr. Aylett regrets that he has no heir. It is a great pity
Mabel lost her only child as she did. The family will become extinct in
another generation. It is such a noble estate, too!”
“Large families were never the rule among the Ayletts,” responded Aunt
Rachel. “But I did hope my dear Mabel would be an exception to the rest
in this respect. She would adopt a little girl, but her husband will not
consent. Those Dorrances are a cold-hearted race. He, too, is heaping up
riches, without knowing who shall gather them. Heigh-ho!”
Her darning-needle quilted the yawning heel of Tommy Sutton's sock with
precision and celerity, and she ruminated silently upon the vicissitudes
and failures of mortal life until she was interrupted by Mrs. William's
exclamation:
“There is Mrs. Tazewell's carriage at the gate, and the driver has a
letter in his hand. I hope the old lady is not worse!”
Aunt Rachel met the man at the steps, with neighborly anxiety.
“How is your mistress, Jack?”
“'Bout the same, ma'am. But Miss Rosa--she came last night very
unexpected, and it kinder worsted Mistis to see her so poorly. This note
is from Miss Rosa, ma'am, and I am to take back an answer.”
Mrs. Sutton read it standing in the porch--the scented leaflet that had
a look of the writer all over it, from the scarlet monogram at the
top of the sheet and upon the envelope, to the flourish of the
signature--“Rosa T. C.”--the curl of the C carried around the rest like
a medallion frame:
“DEAR, GOOD AUNT RACHEL,--I have come to Old Virginia to try and shake
off an uncomfortable cough which has haunted me all winter. The Northern
quacks can do nothing for me. One ray of this delicious sunshine is
worth all their nostrums. I was not prepared to find mamma helpless, or
I should not have descended upon her so unceremoniously. Being here, I
cannot retreat in good order or with safety to my health, nor without
wounding her. Frederic must return to Philadelphia next week, by which
time I hope to be quite invigorated. Now for my audacious proposal.
Can you come over and tell me how to get well in the quickest and least
troublesome way? Dear Auntie! you loved me once. When you see what a
poor, spiritless shadow I have grown--or lessened--to be, you will care
a little bit for me again, for the sake of lang syne.”
Mrs. Sutton wiped her spectacles and gave the note to her niece.
“There is but one thing for me to do, you see, my dear. Jack! I shall be
ready in twenty minutes.”
If the line of duty wavered before her sight during the three-mile
drive, it lay straight and distinct ahead of her when she stood in
Rosa's chamber.
“My child!” she ejaculated, upon the threshold “you did not tell me that
you were confined to your bed!”
“I ought not to be!”
The rebellious pout and tone were Rosa's, as were also the black
eyes--unnaturally large and bright though they were--but the pretty lips
were wan, and strained by lines of pain; the pomegranate flush was no
longer variable, and was nestled in hollows, and the hands were wasted
to translucency.
“I am quite strong enough to be up, and would be, if my tyrannical
doctors and their tractable tool, my lord and master, had not decreed
that I shall lie here until midday, if I am very obedient; eat my meals;
take their poisonous medicines, and abstain from coughing. If I offend
in any of these particulars I am not to rise until three o'clock--when
they are in an especially glum humor--not at all that day. But now you
are here, we shall combat them valorously. Dear Auntie!” putting the
thin arms about the old lady's plump neck, and laughing through a spring
rain of tears, “how good and safe it is to be with you again! And you
are the same kind, lovely darling! no older by a day--no uglier by a
solitary wrinkle! I couldn't sleep last night, for fearing you would not
come to me!”
“You should not have doubted it, dear!” said the motherly voice, blithe
as affectionate, while soft, agile fingers undid the tight embrace, and
commenced, from the force of habit, to arrange the tumbled bed-clothes.
“Wherever I can be of most use is the place in which I wish to be.”
“I know you have always lived for others,” answered Rosa, with an
involuntary sigh, a shadow glooming her eyes.
“For whom else should I live and work?” laughed Mrs. Sutton, in her
cheerful, guileless fashion. “My personal wants are few and easily
supplied, and I like to be busy. I account it a privilege to be able to
fuss about my friends when they are ailing.”
By way of doing as she liked, she attacked the disorderly room. Rosa's
three trunks stood in a row against the wall--all of them open--the tray
of the largest lying beside it upon the carpet, the lid of this thrown
back and the contents in utter confusion; laces hanging over the sides
and trailing upon the floor. A casket of medicines was uppermost in the
next trunk, crushing a confused medley of collars, ribbons, gloves, and
handkerchiefs. A dressing-gown lay upon the seat of one chair, a skirt
over the back of another; boots and slippers peeped from the valance
of the antique bedstead; there was a formidable array of bottles upon
mantel and bureau--conspicuous among them cod-liver oil, cologne,
and laudanum--incongruous appendages to the various appliances of the
toilette scattered between them.
Mrs. Sutton understood it all--the hurry and agitation of the
unlooked-for arrival; the faintness and prostration of the consumptive;
the restless night, and the well-meant but inefficient ministrations
of negroes in an establishment where the mistress had been feeble for
years, and was now chained to her room and chair by paralysis.
“And Rosa was always an indolent flyabout in health; accustomed to have
a score of servants at her heels to pick up whatever she dropped or
threw aside,” she said to herself. “My Mabel was a pink of neatness and
order compared with her. Dear me! here is a bottle of oil, cracked, and
an immense grease-spot in the front breadth of a splendid silk dress! I
hope these things do not annoy her as they would me!”
Whether the universal disarray made Rosa uncomfortable or not, she
enjoyed the aspect of the tidy apartment, when her nurse brought her
noiseless labors to a close by exchanging her night-gown for a flannel
wrapper; putting clean linen upon her and the bed; combing the tangled
hair and washing her hands, wrists, and face in tepid water, interfused
with cologne.
“It prevents a sick person from taking cold when bathed, and freshens
her up wonderfully, I think,” was her explanation of the fragrant
preparation.
“YOU freshen me more than all things else combined!” said Rosa,
gratefully. “Ah, auntie! how often I have thought of, and wished for
you this tedious and dismal winter! I used to spend entire weeks in bed,
attended by a horrid hired nurse, who took snuff and drank--ugh! and
snubbed and terrified me whenever I--as she described it--'took a notion
into my head;' that is, when I asked for something she thought was too
troublesome for her ladyship to prepare, or wanted Fred to stay all
night in my room, or sit by me in the evening, and pet me. She 'couldn't
bear to have men around, cluttering up everything!' she would growl the
instant his back was turned, with a deal more of the same talk, until
I was afraid to ask him to take a seat the next time he came in. He was
continually bringing home baskets of fruit, and game, and bouquets for
me. She let me have the flowers, but she ate nine-tenths of the nice
things herself, I never suspecting her, and he was too delicate to ask
if I enjoyed his presents. At length he surprised her in the act of
devouring a bunch of hot-house grapes, for which he had paid almost
their weight in gold, and then all came to light, and he sent her off in
a hurry. Poor Fred, there were great tears in his eyes when he learned
what persecution I had undergone, rather than vex him by complaints.”
“It would have been better had you told him sooner, dear! It would have
spared you and him much suffering.”
“I knew how engrossed he was by his business, and how ignorant he was of
household or medical matters, and I saved him all the bother I could.
I have tried, in some things and some times, to be a good wife, Aunt
Rachel! But often I have failed, O, how egregiously! and”--beginning to
weep--“the thought pierces my heart by day and by night. What if I never
have an opportunity of doing any better, of covering up the traces of my
footsteps?”
Mrs. Sutton patted the wasted hand with her cool one, but essayed no
other soothing.
“Where is your husband now? I understood from your note that he was with
you.”
“He rode over to Dr. Ritchie's this morning, directly he had given me my
breakfast. He thinks highly of his skill, and he would not be contented
without bringing him to see me. I really believe he is anxious I should
get well! Strange--isn't it? when I am such a burden upon his mind and
hands.”
Aunt Rachel smiled.
“Not at all strange, you ridiculous child! Two of the most dearly-loved
wives I ever knew were invalids, and bedridden, not for weeks only,
but for years. You can best show your gratitude for his affection and
kindness by getting better rapidly while he is here, that he may leave
you with a lighter heart.”
“He is kind! too kind!” murmured Rosa, composing herself among the
cushions, as if to sleep.
She was quiet so long that Mrs. Button had leisure for some reflections
relating to her own personal action in the somewhat embarrassing
position she occupied. She had never seen Frederic Chrlton from the day
he left Ridgeley as Mabel's betrothed. His visits to the neighborhood
since his marriage had been few and brief, and she had studied to avoid
him whenever she happened to be with the William Suttons during one of
these. He might have guessed her design, or unwittingly favored it on
his own account. The meeting would not be more pleasant to him than to
her. But why had he allowed his wife to send for her? The alteration in
him must indeed be great, if he could, without a conflict with resentful
and painful memories, bow his pride to sue for the services of a
relative of the Ayletts, and formerly one of their household, even in
such a cause as that which now commanded her sympathies.
At this point of her cogitation she became aware that Rosa's eyes were
wide open, and staring at her with a whimsical blending of curiosity,
melancholy, and gratification.
“Aunt Rachel!” she said, bluntly, “you are a very good woman! the best
and most forgiving human being I ever heard of. I should not feel one
particle of surprise to see you float up gently through the roof, at
any minute--cap, spectacles, and all--translated to the society of
your sister angels--and no questions asked by St. Peter at the gate of
Paradise!”
“My love!”
Well as she knew her erratic disposition and wild style of speech, Mrs.
Sutton moved her hand toward the patient's pulse.
“I am not raving! I speak the words of truth and soberness--very sad
soberness, too! Believing as you do that Frederic was once the cause of
much sorrow to you and to one you loved, and having no reason to care
one iota for me, but rather to distrust me, you nevertheless obey my
call upon you for service, as if I had every right to make it. And
when here, you treat me just as you would Mabel, were her situation as
deplorable, her need equal to mine.”
“Why shouldn't I?” questioned Mrs. Sutton, simply. “I have no ground for
a quarrel with you. And if I had--well, the truth is, my dear, I have a
poor memory for such things!”
Rosa caught at the scarcely perceptible emphasis upon the “YOU,” and
disregarded the remainder of the remark.
“You cannot yet acquit Frederic of wrong-doing! Indeed, Mrs. Sutton, he
has been foully wronged among you. It is not because he is my husband
that I say this. Mabel's name has never passed his lips---nor mine in
his hearing, since I became his wife. And every one of the family has
been equally guarded when he was by. I doubt, sometimes, if he has ever
heard whom she married or where she lives--so carefully has he shunned
every reference to her or any of the Ridgeley people. During the nine
years we have lived together, he has given me no cause to suspect that
he ever thinks of her, or laments the broken engagement. If I have made
myself wretched by imagining the contrary, it was my fault, not
his--my foolish, wicked jealousy. I would scorn to imply a doubt of
his integrity, by reminding him of the charges proferred against him
by Winston Aylett, and believed by his sister--much less ask him to
contradict them. I never put any faith in them from the outset. It
comforts me to recollect that my confidence in him stood fast when
everybody else distrusted him--my noble, slandered darling! But my
declaration of his innocence is founded upon his blameless life and
upright principles. No one could be with him as I have been, and
doubt him. He is a perfect man--if there was ever a sinless
mortal--great-hearted, gentle, and sincere. Do not I know this? Have I
not proved him to the utmost?”
Her rapid, impassioned declamation was ended by a copious flood of grief
that provoked a frightful fit of coughing. When this was subdued she was
weaker than a year-old infant, and lay between stupor and dreaming for
so long a time, that Mrs. Sutton became alarmed.
There must be no repetition of this scene. She most ward off similar
mishaps by whatever measures she could force or cajole her conscience
into adopting. Rosa's state was more precarious than her account had led
her friend to believe, or than the nurse's experienced eye had seen at
their meeting. The main hope of her recovery was in the warmer climate
and assiduous attendance. Above all, she should not be allowed to
exhaust herself by talking, or hysterical paroxysms. She had no more
self-control than a child, and she must be treated as such. Mrs.
Sutton's jesuitical resolve was to humor her by every imaginable device,
even to feigned friendship for Frederic Chilton.
Fortified by this resolution, she heard, without any show of pride or
trepidation, the clatter of horses' hoofs in the yard; the sound of
voices below stairs, as Mr. Chilton ushered the physician into the
parlor, and the light, careful tread with which he mounted to his wife's
apartment. His momentary pause at the entrance, and surprised look at
beholding the other tenant of the chamber, were the best passport to
her indulgence he could have desired. It was clear to her instantly that
poor Rosa's passion for manoeuvring had survived the wreck of health and
prostration of spirits. She had never chosen the straight path if she
could find a crooked or a by-road, and her project for obtaining Mrs.
Sutton's services and company had been put into execution, without
consultation with her husband. However reprehensible this might be in
the abstract, it was not in the kind old soul to betray her, as she
advanced, placidly and civilly, to reassure the startled man.
“How are you, Mr. Chilton? You hardly expected to meet me here, I
suppose? But I am a near neighbor of Mrs. Tazewell now, and hearing
that Rosa was sick, I came over to see if I could do anything for her,
knowing how infirm her mother is.”
“You are very kind!” He grasped her hand more tightly than he intended,
or was conscious of. “We were ignorant ourselves of Mrs. Tazewell's
true condition. Mrs. Chilton's sisters have forwarded more encouraging
reports to her of her mother's illness than they would have been
warranted in doing by anything except the fear that a faithful account
would operate injuriously upon the daughter's health. I should have
chosen some other home for my wife, had I known the actual state of
affairs here. Change of scene and climate was imperatively demanded.”
He spoke low and rapidly--hardly above his breath; but the black eyes,
unclosing, flashed upon him.
“So you have come back!” said Rosa's weak voice. “You stayed away an
eternity!”
Her coquettish displeasure and the asperity of her accent contrasted
so oddly with her vehemently expressed attachment for her husband and
extolment of his virtues, that Mrs. Sutton regarded her in speechless
amazement. She submitted to his kiss, without returning it--even raising
her hand pettishly as to repel further endearments. “I should have died
of the blue devils if Aunt Rachel hadn't, by the merest accident, heard
that I was ailing, and driven over, like the Good Samaritan she is, to
take pity upon me in my destitution; to pour oil--not cod-liver--into my
wounds, and wine into my mouth. She is better than all the men-doctors
that were ever created; so if you have brought your bearded Esculapius
home with you, you may tell him, with my compliments, that I won't see
him yet awhile. He was an old beau of mine, and I hope I have too much
respect for what I used to be, to let him get a glimpse of me until
Dr. Sutton has set me up in better flesh and looks. She brought me some
enchanting jelly--one of her magical preparations for the amelioration
of human misery, and I am to have a bowl of her unparalleled
chicken-broth for dinner. I wish dinner-time were come! the very thought
makes me ravenous. I am to do nothing for a week, but eat, drink, and
sleep, at the end of which period I shall be dismissed as thoroughly
cured. So, Mr. Chilton, you can go back to your beloved clients whenever
you please!”
To Mrs. Sutton's apprehension this was an infelicitous introduction of
herself to the husband's toleration. Certainly, she did not know many
men who would have parried the thrusts at themselves with the dexterity
he manifested, and acknowledged her merits and kindly offices willingly
and gracefully. He did not apologize for his protracted absence, nor
insist upon conveying his physician to the sick-chamber; but he chatted
for five minutes or thereabouts upon such topics as he knew would
entertain the captious invalid, and finally arose from the bed-side,
where he had been sitting, fondling her hot hands, with a good-humored
laugh.
“But all the while I am enjoying myself here, the hirsute Galen
aforesaid is munching the invisible salad of the solitary in the parlor!
I am to eject him incontinently, am I? My conscience will not let me
withhold the admission, when I do this, that my wife's judgment in the
matter of medical attendants is vastly superior to mine. While Mrs.
Sutton is so good as to remain with you, you are right in thinking that
you have need of no other physician.”
Aunt Rachel would have entered a disclaimer, but Rosa spoke before she
could open her mouth.
“I didn't say that, Frederic! There was never such another impatient
and inconsiderate creature upon the globe as yourself. It would be
unpardonably rude in us to send the man away, if he is a charlatan,
without letting him see me. Have him up, by all means, and let us hear
what priggish nonsense he has to say. He will feel the easier when it is
done.”
Dr. Ritchie's private report to Mrs. Sutton, who accompanied him to the
lower floor, under color of seeing that he was served with luncheon, was
discouraging. The disease had made fearful inroads upon a constitution
that had never been robust, and the nervous excitability of the patient
was likely to accelerate her decline. She might linger for several
months. It would not surprise him to hear that she had died within
twelve hours after his visit. It was but fair and professional he added,
that he should, through Mrs. Sutton, advise Mr. Chilton of her state,
although, unless he were mistaken, he had already anticipated his
verdict.
This Mrs. Sutton found was the case, when she essayed that evening to
insure him against the awful shock of his wife's unexpected dissolution.
“She has never been entirely well since the death of our second child, a
year ago,” he said. “The little one was buried on a very stormy day, and
the mother would not be dissuaded from going to the cemetery. The severe
cold, acting upon a system enfeebled by grief, induced an attack of
pneumonia. Dr. Ritchie but coincides with every other physician I have
consulted.”
“It is a pity you are obliged to leave her so soon,” observed the
sympathizing nurse. “Although she may be more comfortable a week hence
than she is now.”
“A week! I had no intention of returning in less than a month's time.
I made all my arrangements to that effect before leaving home.
Rosa's reference to my desire to go back to my clients was sheer
badinage”--smiling mournfully. “You have heard her talk often enough
to understand how little of earnest there is in the raillery.” More
insincerity! For, contradictory as it may appear, Mrs. Sutton felt
constrained to believe his unsupported word, in opposition to his wife's
written assertion that he designed to return to his practice the ensuing
week.
“She thought I would be more apt to come if I imagined that he would
soon be gone!” was her grieved reflection. “If she could beguile me
hither by this assurance, she trusted to her coaxings and my compassion
to retain me. O Rosa! Rosa! cannot even the honest hour teach you to be
truthful?”