EVERARD.
He was so giddy, and sick, and faint, when he returned to the house from
his mother’s grave, that he had scarcely strength to reach his room,
where the first object which caught his eye was Josephine’s letter upon
the table. Very eagerly he caught it up, and breaking the seal, began to
read it, his pulse quickening and his heart beating rapidly as he
thought, “She would be so sorry for me if she knew.”
He was so heart-sore and wretched in his bereavement, and he wanted the
sympathy of some one,—wanted to be petted, as his mother had always
petted him in all his griefs, and as she would never pet him again. She
was dead, and his heart went out with a great yearning after his young
wife, as the proper person to comfort and soothe him now. Had she been
there he would have declared her his in the face of all the world, and
laying his aching head in her lap would have sobbed out his sorrow. But
she was far away, and he was reading her letter, which did not give him
much satisfaction from the very first. There was an eagerness to assure
him that the marriage was valid, and he was glad, of course, that it was
so, and could not blame her for chafing against the secrecy which they
must for a time maintain; but what was this request for fifty
dollars,—this hint that she had a right to ask support from him? In all
his dread of the evils involved in a secret marriage he had never
dreamed that she would ask him so soon for fifty dollars, when he had
not five in the world, and but for Rosamond’s generous forethought in
sending him the ten he would have been obliged to borrow to get home.
Fifty dollars! It seemed to the young man like a fabulous sum, which he
could never procure. For how was he to do it? He had told his father
distinctly that he was free from debt, that he did not owe a dollar, and
if he should go to him now with a request for fifty dollars what would
he say? It made Everard shiver just to think of confronting his stern
father with that demand. The thing was impossible. “I can’t do it,” he
said; and then, in his despair, it occurred to him that Josey had no
right to make this demand upon him so soon; she might have known he
could only meet it by asking his father, which was sure to bring a
fearful storm about his head. It was not modest, it was not nice in her,
it was not womanly; Bee would never have done it, Rossie would never
have done it; but they were different—and there came back to him the
remembrance of what his mother had said, and with it a great horror lest
Josephine might really lack that innate refinement which marks a true
lady. But he would not be disloyal to her even in thought; she was his
wife, and she had a right to look to him for support when she could have
nothing else. She could not take his name, she could not have his
society, and he was a brute to feel annoyed because she asked him for
money with which to fit herself for his wife. “She is to be commended
for it,” he thought. “I wish her to be accomplished when I present her
to Bee, who is such a splendid performer, and jabbers French like a
native. Oh, if I had the money,” he continued, feeling as by a
revelation that Josephine would never cease her importunings until she
had what she wanted.
But how should he get it? Could he work at something and earn it, or
could he sell his watch, his mother’s gift when he was eighteen?
“No, not that; I can’t part with that,” he groaned; and then he
remembered his best suit of clothes, which had cost nearly a hundred
dollars, and a great many hard words from his father. He could sell
these in Cincinnati; he had just money enough to go there and back, and
he would do it the next day, and make some excuse for taking a valise,
and no one need be the wiser. That was the very best thing he could do,
and comforted with this decision he crept shivering to bed just as the
clock was striking the hour of eleven.
Breakfast waited a long time for him the next morning, and when she saw
how impatient the judge was growing, Rosamond went to his door and
knocked loudly upon it, but received no answer, except a faint sound
like a moan of pain, which frightened her, and sent her at once to the
judge, who went himself to his son’s room. Everard was not asleep, nor
did he look as if he had ever slept, with his blood-shot, wide-open eyes
rolling restlessly in his head, which moved from side to side as if in
great distress. He did not know his father; he did not know anybody; and
said that he was not sick, when the doctor came, and he would not be
blistered and he wouldn’t be bled; he must get up and have his
clothes,—his best ones,—and he made Rossie bring them to him and fold
them up and put them in his satchel, which he kept upon his bed all
during the two weeks when he lay raving with delirium and burning with
fever induced by the cut on his head, and aggravated by the bleeding and
blistering which he had without stint. Rossie was the nurse who staid
constantly with him, and who alone could quiet him when he was
determined to get up and sell his clothes. This was the burden of his
talk.
“I must sell them and get the money,” he would say,—but, with a singular
kind of cunning common to crazy people, he never said money before his
father. It was only to Rosamond that he talked of that, and once, when
she sat alone with him, he said:
“Don’t let the governor know, for your life.”
“No, I won’t; you can trust me,” she replied; then, while she bathed his
throbbing head, she asked: “Why do you want the money, Mr. Everard? What
will you do with it?”
“Send it to _Joe_,” he said. “Do you know Joe?”
Rossie didn’t know Joe, and she innocently asked:
“Who is he?”
“Who is he?” Everard repeated: “ha, ha! that’s a good joke. _He_,—Joe
would enjoy that; _he_ is a splendid fellow, I tell you.”
“And you owe him?” Rossie asked, her heart sinking like lead at his
prompt reply.
“Yes, that’s it; you’ve hit the nail. I owe him and I must pay, and
that’s why I sell my clothes. I owe him money,—_him_,—that’s capital.”
He had told her that he had no debts and she believed him, and had been
so glad, and thought he had broken from his old associates and habits,
and was trying to do better. And it was not so at all; he had not broken
off; he still had dealings with a mysterious Joe, whoever he might be.
Some great hulking fellow, no doubt, who drank, and raced, and gambled,
and had led Everard astray. Rossie’s heart was very sad and her voice
full of sorrow as she asked next:
“Was it gambling? Was it at play that you incurred this debt?”
“Yes, by George, you’ve hit it again!” he exclaimed, catching at the
word _play_. “It was a play, and for fun I thought at first, but it
proved to be the real thing,—a lark,—a sell,—a trap. By Jove, I b’lieve
it was a trap, and they meant me to fall into it; I do, upon my word,
and I fell, and now Joe must have fifty dollars from me.”
“Fifty dollars!” and Rossie gasped at the enormous sum.
Where would he get it? Where could he get it? Not from his father, that
was certain, and not from her, for her quarterly interest on her two
thousand dollars was not due in weeks, and even if it were, it was not
fifty dollars. Perhaps Miss Belknap would loan it if she were to ask
her, and assume the payment herself. But in that case she must give the
reason, and she would not for the world compromise Everard by so much as
a breath of censure. Bee must think well of him at all costs, for
Rossie’s heart was quite as much set on Beatrice’s being the mistress of
Forrest House, some day, as the mother’s had been. She could not borrow
of Miss Belknap, but,—Rossie started from her chair as quickly as if she
had been struck, while her hands involuntarily clutched her luxuriant
hair, rippling in heavy masses down her back. She _could_ do that for
Mr. Everard, but her face was white to her lips, which quivered a little
as she resumed her seat, and said:
“What is Joe’s other name? Joe what?”
Everard looked at her cunningly a moment, and then replied:
“Guess!”
“I can’t,” she replied, “I have nothing to start from; nothing to guide
me; I might guess all day, and not get it.”
“Suppose you start with some kind of fruit, say _pears_. What varieties
have we in our garden?” he said; and Rossie answered:
“There are the Seckels. Is it Joe Seckels?”
“No.”
“Joe Bartlett?”
“No.”
“Joe Bell?”
“No.”
“Joe Vergelieu?”
“No.”
“Joe Sheldon?”
“No.”
“There’s the Louise Bonne de Jersey. It can’t be Joe Bonne de Jersey.”
“No, stupid.”
“Well, Flemish Beauty? It can’t be that.”
“How do you know? Joe is a beauty, and a Flemish one, if you change the
_sh_ into _ng_. No, try ’em again.”
“Joe Fleming?” Rossie asked, and with an insane chuckle Everard replied:
“_You bet!_ Rossie, you are a brick! You are a trump! You’ve hit it
exactly,—_Joe Fleming_.”
Rossie had in her pocket a pencil, and on a bit of newspaper wrote the
name rapidly, and then asked:
“Does he live in Amherst?”
“No.”
“In Ellicottville?”
“No.”
“Well, then, in Holburton, where you were last summer. Didn’t you board
with a Fleming?”
“You are right again. He lives in Holburton,” Everard replied, laughing
immoderately at the idea of _he_ as applied to Josephine.
Thus far he had answered all Rossie’s questions correctly, but when she
said, “Tell me, please, his right name. Is it Joel, or Joseph, or what?”
the old look of cunning leaped into his eyes, and he answered her:
“No, you don’t. Joe is enough for you to know. Besides, why are you
questioning me so closely? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try and get you out of your trouble,” Rossie said, and
starting up in bed, Everard exclaimed:
“Get me out of the scrape! Oh, Rossie, if you only would,—if you only
could!”
“I can, I will!” Rossie said, emphatically, and he continued:
“Out of every single bit of it?—the whole thing, so I’ll be free again?”
“Yes,” Rossie answered at random; “I think, I am sure, I will. But you
must keep very quiet and not get excited, or talk. Try to sleep, and
I’ll fix it for you beautifully.”
How hopeful she was, and the delirious man believed and trusted in her,
and promised to sleep while she was gone to fix it.
“But it may take a few days, you know,” she said, “so you must be
patient, and wait.”
He acceded to everything, and closed his eyes as she left the room and
repaired to her own, where she went straight to the glass, and letting
out her heavy braids of hair, suffered it to fall over her shoulders
like a vail. Then Rossie studied herself, and saw a thin face, with
great, wide-open, black eyes, which would look larger, more wide-open
still, with all that hair gone. What a fright she would be without her
hair, which was beautiful. Bee Belknap had said so, others had said so,
and, if she was not mistaken, Everard had said so, too, and for his sake
she’d like to keep it, though for his sake she was deciding to part with
it. Maybe he did not think it pretty, after all. She wished she knew;
and, yielding to a sudden impulse, she went back to his room with all
her shining tresses about her, and so astonished him that he called out:
“Halloo, Lady Godiva! Are you going to ride through the town, clothed
with modesty?”
Rossie was not well versed in Tennyson, and knew nothing of Lady Godiva,
but she said to him:
“Mr. Everard, do you think my hair pretty?”
“Nothing extra,” was his reply. “I’ve seen hair handsomer than that.
Don’t be vain, Rossie. You will never be a beauty, hair or no hair.”
Her pride was hurt a little, but her mind was made up, and retiring to
her room and fastening herself in, she sat down to write to _Joe
Fleming_.