THE FORREST HOUSE.
Just where it was located is not my purpose to tell, except that it was
in the southern part of Ohio, in one of those pretty little towns which
skirt the river, and that from the bluff on which it stood you could
look across the water into the green fields and fertile plains of the
fair State of Kentucky.
It was a large, rambling house of dark gray stone, with double piazza on
the front and river side, and huge chimneys, with old-time fire-places,
where cheery wood fires burned always when the wind was chill. There was
the usual wide hall of the South, with doors opening front and rear, and
on one side the broad oak staircase and square landing two-thirds of the
way up, where stood the tall, old-fashioned clock, which had ticked
there for fifty years, and struck the hour when the first Forrest, the
father of the present proprietor, brought home his bride, a fair
Southern girl, who drooped and pined in her Northern home until her
husband took her back to her native city, Charleston, where she died
when her boy was born. This boy, the father of our hero, was christened
James Everard, in the grim old church, St. Michael’s, and the years of
his boyhood were passed in Charleston, except on the few occasions when
he visited his father, who lived at Forrest House without other
companionship than his horses and dogs, and the bevy of black servants
he had brought from the South.
When James was nearly twenty-one his father died, and then the house was
closed until the heir was married, and came to it with a sweet,
pale-faced Bostonian, of rare culture and refinement, who introduced
into her new home many of the fashions and comforts of New England, and
made the house very attractive to the educated families in the
neighborhood.
Between the lady and her husband, however, there was this point of
difference;—while she would, if possible, have changed, and improved,
and modernized the house, he clung to everything savoring of the past,
and though liberal in his expenditures where his table, and wines, and
horses, and servants were concerned, he held a tight purse-string when
it came to what he called luxuries of any kind. What had been good
enough for his father was good enough for him, he said, when his wife
proposed new furniture for the rooms which looked so bare and cheerless.
Matting and oil-cloth were better than carpets for his muddy boots and
muddier dogs, while curtains and shades were nuisances and only served
to keep out the light of heaven. There were blinds at all the windows,
and if his wife wished for anything more she could hang up her shawl or
apron when she was dressing and afraid of being seen.
He did, however, give her five hundred dollars to do with as she
pleased, and with that and her exquisite taste and Yankee ingenuity, she
transformed a few of the dark, musty old rooms into the coziest,
prettiest apartments imaginable, and, with the exception of absolutely
necessary repairs and supplies, that was the last, so far as
expenditures for furniture were concerned.
As the house had been when James Everard, Jr., was born, so it was now
when he was twenty years old. But what it lacked in its interior
adornments was more than made up in the grounds, which covered a space
of three or four acres, and were beautiful in the extreme.
Here the judge lavished his money without stint, and people came from
miles around to see the place, which was at its best that warm July
morning when, tired and worn with his rapid journey, Everard entered the
highway gate, and walked up the road to the house, under the tall maples
which formed an arch over his head.
It was very still about the house, and two or three dogs lay in the
sunshine asleep on the piazza. At the sound of footsteps they awoke, and
recognizing their young master, ran toward him, with a bark of welcome.
The windows of his mother’s room were open, and at the bark of the dogs
a girlish face was visible for an instant, then disappeared from view,
and Rosamond Hastings came out to meet him, looking very fresh and sweet
in her short gingham dress and white apron, with her rippling hair tied
with a blue ribbon, and falling down her back.
“Oh, Mr. Everard,” she cried, as she gave him her hand, “I am so glad
you have come. Your mother has wanted you so much. She is a little
better this morning, and asleep just now; so come in here and rest. You
are tired, and worn, and pale. Are you sick?” and she looked anxiously
into the handsome face, where even she saw a change, for the shadow of
his secret was there, haunting every moment of his life.
“No; I’m just used up, and so hungry,” he said, as he followed her into
the cool family room, looking out upon the river, which she had made
bright with flowers in expectation of his coming.
“Hungry, are you?” she said. “I’m so glad, for there’s the fattest
little chicken waiting to be broiled for you, and we have such splendid
black and white raspberries. I’m going to pick them now, while you wash
and brush yourself. You will find everything ready in your room, with
some curtains, and tidies on the chairs. I did it myself, hoping you’d
find it pleasant, and stay home all the vacation, even if your mother
gets better, she is so happy to have you here. Will you go up now?”
He went to the room which had always been his,—a large, airy chamber,
which, with nothing modern or expensive in it, looked cool and pretty,
with its clean matting, snowy bed, fresh muslin curtains, and new blue
and white tidies on the high-backed chairs, all showing Rossie’s
handiwork. Rossie had been in Miss Beatrice Belknap’s lovely room
furnished with blue, and thought it a little heaven, and tried her best
to make Mr. Everard’s a blue room too, though she had nothing to do it
with except the tidies, and toilet set, and lambrequins made of plain
white muslin bordered with strips of blue cambric. The material for this
she had bought with her own allowance, at the cost of some personal
sacrifice; and when it was all done, and the two large blue vases were
filled with flowers and placed upon the mantel, she felt that it was
almost equal to Miss Belknap’s, and that Mr. Everard, as she always
called him, was sure to like it. And he did like it, and breathed more
freely, as if he were in a purer, more wholesome atmosphere than that of
the brown house in far-off Holburton, where he had left his secret and
his wife. It came to him with a sudden wrench of pain in his quiet
room,—the difference between Josephine and all his early associates and
surroundings. She was not like anything at the Forrest House, though she
was marvelously beautiful and fair,—so much fairer than little Rossie,
whose white cape bonnet he could see flitting among the bushes in the
garden, where in the hot sunshine she soiled and pricked her fingers
gathering berries for him. He had a photograph of Josephine, and he took
it out and looked at the great blue eyes and fair, blonde face, which
seemed to smile on him, and saying to himself, “She is very lovely,”
went down to the sitting-room, where Rossie brought him his breakfast.
It was so hot in the dining-room, she said, and Aunt Axie was so out of
sorts this morning, that she was going to serve his breakfast there in
the bay window, where the breeze came cool from the river. So she
brought in the tray of dishes, and creamed his coffee, and sugared his
berries, and carved his chicken, as if he had been a prince, and she his
lawful slave.
At Mrs. Fleming’s he had also been treated like a prince, but there it
was lame Agnes who served, with her sleeves rolled up, and Josephine had
acted the part of the fine lady, and never to his recollection had she
soiled her hands with household work of any kind. How soft and white
they were,—while Rossie’s hands were thin and tanned from exposure to
the sun, and stained and scratched, with a rag around one thumb which a
cruel thorn had torn; but what deft, nimble hands they were,
nevertheless, and how gladly they waited upon this tired, indolent young
man, who took it as a matter of course, for had not Rossie Hastings
ministered to him since she was old enough to hunt up his missing cap,
and bring him the book he was reading. Now, as she flitted about, urging
him to eat, she talked to him incessantly, asking if he had received her
letter and its contents safely,—if it was very pleasant at Ellicottville
with his friend Stafford, and if,—she did not finish that question, but
her large black eyes, clear as crystal, looked anxiously at him, and he
knew what she meant.
“No, Rossie,” he said, laughingly, “I do not owe a dollar to anybody,
except your dear little self, and that I mean to pay with compound
interest; and I haven’t been in a single scrape,—that is, not a very bad
one, since I went back;” and a flush crept to the roots of his hair as
he wondered what Rosamond would think if she knew just the scrape he was
in.
And why should she not know? Why didn’t he tell her, and have her help
him keep the secret tormenting him so sorely? He knew he could trust
her, for he had done so many a time and she had not betrayed him, but
stood bravely between him and his irascible father, who, forgetting that
he once was young, was sometimes hard and severe with his wayward son.
Yes, he would tell Rossie, and so make a friend for Josephine, but
before he had decided how to begin, Rosamond said:
“I’m so glad you are doing better, for——” here she hesitated and colored
painfully, while Everard said:
“Well, go on. What is it? Do you mean the governor rides a high horse on
account of my misdemeanors?”
“Yes, Mr. Everard, just that. He is dreadful when you write for more
money, which he says you squander on cigars, and fast horses, and fine
clothes, and _girls_; he actually said girls, but my,—your mother told
him she knew you were not the kind of person to think of girls, and you
so young; absurd!”
And Rossie pursed up her little mouth as if it were a perfectly
preposterous idea for Everard Forrest to be thinking of the girls!
The young man laughed a low, musical laugh, and replied, “I don’t know
about that. I should say it was just in my line. There are ever so many
pretty girls in Ellicottville and Holburton, and one of them is so very
beautiful that I’m half tempted to run away with and marry her. What
would you think of that, Rossie?”
For a moment the matter-of-fact Rossie looked at him curiously, and then
replied:
“I should think you crazy, and you not through college. I believe your
father would disinherit you, and serve you right, too.”
“And you, Rossie; wouldn’t you stand by me and help me if I got into
such a muss?”
“Never!” and Rossie spoke with all the decision and dignity of thirty.
“It would kill your mother, too. I sometimes think she means you for
Miss Belknap; she _is_ so handsome this summer!”
“Without her hair?” Everard asked, and Rossie replied, “Yes, without her
hair. She has a wig, but does not quite like it. She means to get
another.”
“And she offered fifty dollars for your hair!” Everard continued,
stroking with his hand the chestnut brown tresses flowing down Rossie’s
back.
“Yes, she did; but I could not part with my hair even to oblige her. Of
course I should give it to her, not sell it, but I can’t spare it.”
What an unselfish child she was, Everard thought, and yet she was so
unlike the golden-haired Josephine, who would make fun of such a plain,
simple, unformed girl as Rosamond, and call her green and awkward and
countrified; and perhaps she was all these, but she was so good, and
pure, and truthful that he felt abashed before her and shrank from the
earnest, truthful eyes that rested so proudly on him, lest they should
read more than he cared to have them.
Outside, in the hall, there was the sound of a heavy step, and the next
moment there appeared in the door a tall, heavily-built man of fifty,
with iron-gray hair and keen, restless eyes, which always seemed on the
alert to discover something hidden, and drag it to the light. Judge
Forrest meant to be a just man, but, like many just men, when the
justice is not tempered with mercy, he was harsh and hard with those who
did not come up to his standard of integrity, and seldom made allowances
for one’s youth or inexperience, or the peculiar temptations which might
have assailed them. Though looked up to as the great man of the town, he
was far less popular with the people of Rothsay than his scamp of a son,
with whom they thought him unnecessarily strict and close. It was well
known that there was generally trouble between them and always on the
money question, for Everard was a spendthrift, and scattered his dollars
right and left with a reckless generosity and thoughtlessness, while the
judge was the reverse, and gave out every cent not absolutely needed
with an unwillingness which amounted to actual stinginess. And now he
stood at the door, tall, grand-looking, and cold as an icicle, and his
first greeting was:
“I thought I should track you by the tobacco smoke; they told me you
were here. How do you do, sir?”
It was strange the effect that voice had upon Everard, who, from an
indolent, care-for-nothing, easy-going youth was transformed into a
circumspect, dignified young man, who rose at once, and, taking his
father’s hand, said that he was very well, had come on the morning train
from Cleveland, and had started as soon as he could after receiving the
telegram.
“It must have been delayed, then. You ought to have had it Wednesday
morning,” Judge Forrest replied: and blushing like a girl Everard said
that it did reach Ellicottville Wednesday, but he was in Holburton, just
over the line in New York.
“And what were you doing at Holburton?” the father asked, always
suspicious of some new trick or escapade for which he would have to pay.
“I was invited there to an entertainment,” Everard said, growing still
redder and more confused. “You know I boarded there a few weeks last
summer, and have acquaintances, so I went down the night before, and
Stafford came the next day and brought the telegram, but did not tell me
till the play was over and we were in our room; then it was too late,
but I took the first train in the morning. I hope my delay has not made
mother worse. I am very sorry, sir.”
He had made his explanation, which his father accepted without a
suspicion of the chasm bridged over in silence.
“You have seen your mother, of course,” was his next remark, and, still
apologetically, nay, almost abjectly, for Everard was terribly afraid of
his father, he replied, “She was sleeping when I came, and Rossie
thought I’d better not disturb her, but have my breakfast first. I have
finished now, and will go to her at once if she is awake.”
He had put Rossie in the gap, knowing that she was a tower of strength
between himself and his father. During the years she had been in the
family Rossie had become very dear to the cold, stern judge, who was
kinder and gentler to her than to any living being, except, indeed, his
dying wife, to whom he was, in his way, sincerely attached.
“Yes, very right and proper that you should have your breakfast first,
and not disturb her. Rossie, see if she is now awake,” he said, and in
his voice there was a kindliness which Everard was quick to note, and
which made his pulse beat more naturally, while there suddenly woke
within him an intense desire to stand well with his father, between whom
and himself there had been so much variance.
For Josephine’s sake he must have his father’s good opinion, or he was
ruined, and though it cost him a tremendous effort to do so, the moment
Rosamond left the room, he said: “Father, I want to tell you now,
because I think you will be glad to know, that I’ve come home and left
no debt, however small, for you to pay. And I mean to do better. I
really do, father, and quit my fast associates, and study so hard that
when I am graduated you and mother will be proud of me.”
The flushed, eager face, on which, young as it was, there were marks of
revels and dissipation, was very handsome and winning, and the dark eyes
were moist with tears as the boy finished his confession, which told
visibly upon the father.
“Yes, yes, my son. I’m glad; I’m glad; but your poor mother will not be
here when you graduate. She is going from us fast.”
And under cover of the dying mother’s name, the judge vailed his own
emotions of softening toward Everard, whose heart was lighter and
happier than it had been since that night when Matthewson’s voice had
said, “I pronounce you man and wife.” And he would be a man worthy of
the wife, and his mother should live to see it, and to see Josephine,
too, and love her as a daughter. She was not dying; she must not die,
when he needed and loved her so much, he thought, as, at a word from
Rosamond, he went to the sick room where his mother lay. What a sweet,
dainty little woman she was, with such a lovely expression on the
exquisitely chiseled features, and how the soft brown eyes, so like the
son’s, brightened at the sight of her boy, who did not shrink from her
as he did from his father. She knew all his faults, and that under them
there was a noble, manly nature, and she loved him so much.
“Oh, Everard!” she cried, “I am so glad you have come. I feared once I
should never see you again.”
He had his arms around her, and was kissing her white face, which, for
the moment, glowed with what seemed to be the hue of health, and so
misled him into thinking her better than she was.
“Now that I have come, mother, you will be well again,” he said, hanging
fondly over her, and looking into the dear face which had never worn a
frown for him.
“No, Everard,” she said, as her wasted fingers threaded his luxuriant
hair, “I shall never be well again. It’s only now a matter of time; a
few days or weeks at the most, and I shall be gone from here forever, to
that better home, where I pray Heaven you will one day meet me. Hush,
hush, my child; don’t cry like that,” she added, soothingly, for, struck
with the expression on her white, pinched face, from which all the color
had faded, and which told him the truth more forcibly than she had done,
Everard had felt suddenly that his mother was going from him, and
nothing in all the wide world could ever fill her place.
Laying his head upon her pillow he sobbed a few moments like a child,
while the memory of all the errors of his past life, all his waywardness
and folly, rushed into his mind like a mountain, crushing him with its
magnitude. But he was going to do better; he had told his father so; he
would tell it to his mother; and God would not let her die, but give her
back to him as a kind of reward for his reformation. So he reasoned, and
with the hopefulness of youth grew calm, and could listen to what his
mother was saying to him. She was asking him of his visit in
Ellicottville, and if he had found it pleasant there, just as Rossie had
done, and he told her of the play in Holburton, but for which he should
have been with her sooner, and told her of his complete reform, he
called it, although it had but just begun. He had abjured forever all
his wild associates; he had kept out of debt; he was going to study and
win the first honors of his class; he was going to be a man worthy of
such a mother. And she, the mother, listening rapturously, believed it
all; that is, believed in the noble man he would one day be, though she
knew there would be many a slip, many a backward step, but in the end he
would conquer, and from the realms of bliss she might, perhaps, be
permitted to look down and see him all she hoped him to be. Over and
above all he said to her was a thought of Josephine. His mother ought to
know of her, and he must tell her, but not in the first moments of
meeting. He would wait till to-morrow, and then make a clean breast of
it.
He wrote to Josephine that night just a few brief lines, to tell her of
his safe arrival home and of his mother’s illness, more serious than he
feared.
“My dear little wife,” he began. “It seems so funny to call you wife,
and I cannot yet quite realize that you are mine, but I suppose it is
true. I reached home this morning quite overcome with the long, dusty
ride; found mother worse than I expected. Josie, I am afraid mother is
going to die, and then what shall I do, and who will stand between me
and father. I mean to tell her of you, for I think it will not be
right to let her die in ignorance of what I have done. I hope you are
well. Please write to me very soon. With kind regards to your mother
and Agnes,
“Your loving husband,
“J. EVERARD FORREST.”
It was not just the style of letter which young and ardent husbands
usually write to their brides; nor, in fact, such as Everard had been in
the habit of writing to Josephine, and the great difference struck him
as he read over his rather stiff note, and mentally compared it with the
gushing effusions of other times.
“By Jove,” he said, “I’m afraid she will think I have fallen off
amazingly, but I haven’t. I’m only tired to-night. To-morrow I’ll send
her a regular love-letter after I have told mother;” and thus reasoning
to himself, he folded the letter and directed it to—
“MISS JOSEPHINE FLEMING, Holburton, N. Y.”