THE RESULT.
Reason said to her, “Perhaps there is no such person as Joe Fleming. Mr.
Everard is crazy and does not know what he is saying;” but to this
Rossie replied, “That may be, but even then there can be no harm in
writing. The letter will go to the dead-letter office and no one be the
wiser, and if there is a Joe, he deserves to have a piece of my mind. I
shall write any way.” And she did write, and this is a copy of the
letter:
“FORREST HOUSE, ROTHSAY, OHIO,
“August 3d, 18—.
“MR. FLEMING—_Sir_: I take the liberty of writing to you, because I
think you ought to know how sick Mr. Everard Forrest is, and how much
he is troubled about the money he owes you. He was thrown from a
carriage and hurt, more than ten days ago, and his mother died that
same night, and you wrote for money, and everything together made him
very sick and out of his head, and that is the way I came to know
about you and that gambling debt of his. I am Rosamond Hastings, a
little girl who lives in the family, and Mr. Everard is like a brother
to me, and I take care of him, and heard him talk of _Joe_ and money
which he had to pay, and he wanted to sell his clothes to raise it,
and I found out from him that your name was Fleming, and that he owed
you fifty dollars which must be paid at once.
“I suppose men would call it a debt of _honor_, but, Mr. Fleming, do
you think it right to gamble and entice young men like Mr. Everard to
play? I think it is very wicked, and dishonorable, and disreputable,
and that you ought not to expect him to pay. Why, he _cannot_, for he
has no money of his own, and his father would not give it to him for
that, and would be so very angry that whatever comes _he_ must never
know it,—never.
“Now, will you give up the debt and not bother him any more? If you
will, please write to him and say so. If you will not, write to me,
and I shall try what I can do, for Mr. Everard must not be troubled
with it.
“Hoping you will excuse me, and that you will reform and be a better
man, I am,
“Yours respectfully,
“ROSAMOND HASTINGS.”
“P. S.—You are not to suppose that Mr. Everard knows I am writing, for
he does not; nor are you to think that he has spoken ill of you in his
delirium. On the contrary, I imagine that he likes you very much
indeed, and so I am led to hope that there is much good in you, and
that you will not only release him, but quit gambling yourself.”
She sealed the letter, and directing it to “MR. JOE FLEMING, ESQ.,
Holburton, Mass.,” posted it herself, and then anxiously waited the
answer.
Three days later, and the clerk in the post-office at Holburton said, in
reply to Josey’s inquiry for letters:
“There’s one here for Mr. Joe Fleming; that can’t be you.”
“Let me see it,” Josey said; and when she saw that it was from Rothsay,
Ohio, she continued: “It is for me, and it is done for a joke. I will
take it.”
Then, hurrying home, she broke the seal and read the curious letter,
amid screams of convulsive laughter, which brought both her mother and
Agnes to her side.
“Look here; just listen, will you?” she said, “somebody thinks I’m a
man, and a gambler, and everything bad.” And she read the letter aloud,
while the tears ran down her face, and she grew almost hysterical with
her glee. “Did you ever know a richer joke? What a stupid thing that
girl must be,” she said.
But Agnes made no reply, and went quietly back to her work, while
Josephine read the letter a third time, feeling a little sorry for and a
little anxious about Everard. Rossie’s postscript that he seemed to like
her very much touched her and brought something like moisture to her
eyes; but she never for a moment thought of giving up the _debt_. She
must have the fifty dollars, for the brown silk was nearly finished, and
the merchant expected his money, so she wrote to Rossie as follows:
“HOLBURTON, August 7th, 18—.
“MISS ROSAMOND HASTINGS:—
“Your letter is received, and though I am very sorry for Mr. Forrest’s
illness, and agree with you that it is wrong to gamble, I must still
insist upon the money, as I am in great want of it, and Mr. Forrest
will tell you that my claim is a just one. I may as well add that
twenty-five dollars more are due me, which I shall be glad to have you
send. I have written Mr. Forrest about it, but presume he has not been
able to attend to it.
“Hoping he is better, I am
“Yours truly,
“JOE FLEMING.”
Josephine’s handwriting was large and plain, and she took great pains to
make it still plainer and more masculine, and Rossie, when she received
the letter, had no suspicion that it was not written by a man. Hastily
breaking the seal, she read, with sinking heart, that the money must be
paid, and, worse than all, that it was seventy-five instead of fifty
dollars, as she had supposed. And she must raise it, and save Mr.
Everard from all further trouble and anxiety. He was better now, and
very quiet, and had allowed her to remove the satchel of clothes from
his bed. Occasionally he spoke to her of Joe, and asked if she was sure
she could help him out of the scrape.
“Yes, sure,” was always the reply of the brave little girl; and she must
keep her word at the sacrifice of what she held most dear, her abundant
and beautiful hair.
Rossie’s mind was made up, and, after lunch was over, she started for
Elm Park, where Miss Belknap lived. Bee was at home, and glad to see her
little friend. She was very fond of Rossie, whose quaint, old-fashioned
ways amused and rested her; and she took her at once to the pretty blue
chamber, which Rossie admired so much, and which seemed so in keeping
with its lovely mistress. All Bee’s tastes were of the most luxurious
kind, and, as she had no lack of means, she gratified them to the full.
The fever, which had deprived her of her hair, had hurt her pride
sorely; for the wig which she was wearing until her own hair grew again
was not a success, and she chafed against it, and hated herself every
time she looked in the glass; and when Rosamond, who could not wait lest
her courage should fail her, said, “Miss Beatrice, are you in earnest
about my hair? Will you buy it now?” she answered,
“Buy it? Yes, in a moment.”
“And give me seventy-five dollars?” Rossie faltered, ashamed of herself
for asking this enormous sum.
But it did not at all appall Miss Belknap. Seventy-five dollars was
nothing if she wished for anything, and she did want Rossie’s hair. It
was just the color and texture of her own, and she could have such a
natural looking wig made of it.
“Yes, give you seventy-five dollars willingly;” she said. “But it seems
very mean and selfish in me to take it,” she continued; and Rossie,
fearful lest the bargain should fall through, answered eagerly:
“Oh, no, it don’t. I want the money very much indeed. I am anxious to
sell it, and, if you do not buy it, I shall go to some one else. But you
must not ask me why,—I can’t tell that; only, it is not for myself,—it’s
for a friend; I don’t think the hair worth seventy-five dollars, but
that is what I must have, and so I asked it. Maybe if you can give me
fifty, and loan me twenty-five, I can pay it when my allowance is due.”
“You conscientious little chit,” Bee said, laughingly, “you have not yet
learned the world’s creed,—take all you can get. I am willing to give
you seventy-five dollars, and, even at that price, think it cheap. But
you are a little girl, and will not look badly with short hair.”
With her natural shrewdness and her knowledge of some of Everard’s
shortcomings, Bee guessed that it was for him the sacrifice was made,
and, when the barber’s scissors gleamed among the shining tresses, she
saw that they did not cut too close and make the girl a fright. But the
loss of her hair changed Rossie very much, and when she went back to the
Forrest House she shrank from the eyes of the servants, and stole up to
her own room, where she could inspect herself freely, and see just how
she looked.
“Oh, how ugly I am, and how big my eyes are!”, she said, and two hot
tears rolled down her cheeks; but she resolutely dashed them away, and
thought, “His mother would be so glad if she knew I was doing it for
him.”
And the memory of the dead woman, who had been so kind to her, helped
her. For her sake she could bear almost anything, and, putting on her
hat, she left the house again, going this time to the office of the
family lawyer, Mr. Russell, a kind, elderly man, who was very fond of
Rossie, and at once put aside his papers when she came in.
“Can I do anything for you to-day?” he asked, and she replied:
“I’ve come to ask you to write me just such a receipt as you would write
if somebody owed you seventy-five dollars and you paid it in full. Don’t
ask me anything, only write it, and make it read as if the debtor didn’t
owe the creditor a penny after the date.”
Mr. Russell looked curiously at the flushed face raised so eagerly to
him, and in part guessed her secret. Like Bee, he knew of Everard’s
expensive habits, and suspected that this money had something to do with
him. But he merely said:
“What name shall I use? The receipt will read like this: ‘Received
of,—blank,—seventy-five dollars,’ and so forth. Now, how shall I fill
the blank?”
Rossie thought a moment, and then replied:
“Will it make any difference who writes the receipt?”
“Not at all; the signature is what gives it its value.”
“Then will you please give me a form,—a true one, you know,—which I can
copy and send, and ought I not to register the letter to make it safe?”
She was quite a little business woman, and the old lawyer looked at her
admiringly as he gave her the necessary directions, suggesting that a
draft or post-office order would be better than to send the money. But
Rossie did not care for so much publicity as she fancied drafts and
post-office orders would involve. She preferred to send the bills, a
fifty, a twenty, and a five, directly to _Joe_, and she did so that very
afternoon, for, as good luck would have it, Beatrice asked her to drive
to an adjoining town, where she registered and posted her letter, and
felt as if a weight were lifted from her mind. She had no suspicion of
_Joe’s_ playing her false. He would, of course, return the receipt, and
Mr. Everard would be free, and her heart was almost as light as her head
when she returned home and went to Everard’s room. That poor shorn head,
how it stared at her in the glass, and how she tried to brush up the
short, wavy hair, and make the most of it. But do the best she could,
she presented rather a forlorn appearance when she went in to Everard,
and asked him how he was.
He had missed her very much that day, and greeted her with a bright
smile, so much like himself, that she exclaimed, joyfully:
“Oh, Mr. Everard, you are better; you are almost well!”
He was better, but his mind was still unsettled, and running upon the
_scrape_ from which Rossie was to extricate him, and he said to her:
“Have you fixed it yet? Is it all right?”
“Yes, all right,” she answered; and he continued:
“Every single bit right? Am I cut loose from the whole thing?”
She thought he was, and soothed him into quiet until he suddenly noticed
her head, and exclaimed:
“Halloa, what have you been doing? Where’s your hair? Have you taken it
off and laid it in the drawer as mother used to do? I thought yours was
a different sort from that; not store hair, but genuine. I say, Rossie,
you look like a guy.”
She knew he was not responsible for what he said, but it hurt her all
the same, and tears sprang to her eyes as she answered him:
“My hair was very heavy and very warm this hot, sultry weather. I am
sorry you do not like my looks. It will grow again in time.”
That was Rossie’s one comfort. Her hair would grow again, and she met
bravely the exclamations of her girl friends and of the servants, who
asked her numberless questions. But she kept her own counsel, and waited
impatiently for the assurance that the money had gone in safety to
Holburton. It came at last, on the very day when Everard began to seem
like himself, and spoke to those about him rationally and naturally. His
reason had returned, and his first question to Rossie was to ask if any
letters had come to him during his illness, and his second, to
interrogate her with regard to her hair, and why she had cut it off. She
told him the old story of its being heavy and warm, and then hastened to
bring his letters, of which she had taken charge. She was certain that
some of them were from Joe Fleming, though the handwriting was much
finer than that which had come to her in that morning’s mail. _Joe_ had
sent back the receipt without a word of comment, but Rossie did not care
for that; she only felt that Everard was free, and she had the receipt
in her pocket, and her face was almost pretty in her bright eagerness
and gladness as she came to his bedside and handed him his letters.
Three were from college chums, and three from Josephine. These he opened
first, beginning with the one bearing the oldest date. She had not then
heard of his mother’s death, and she wrote for more money,—twenty-five
dollars more, which were absolutely needed. Seventy-five in all it was
now, and the perspiration started from every pore and stood thickly on
Everard’s forehead and about his lips, as, with an involuntary moan, he
dropped the letter from his nerveless hand and turned his eyes toward
Rossie, not with a thought that she could help him, only with a feeling
that he would tell her, and ask her what to do, and if it were not
better to leave college at once, acknowledge his marriage, and hire out
as a day laborer, if nothing better offered.
She saw the hunted, hopeless expression in his eyes, and guessed the
cause of it. In hers there was a great gladness shining, as she said:
“I am almost certain that letter is from Mr. Joe Fleming, and I have one
from him, too, or rather, a receipt in full for the gambling debt!” and
taking the receipt from her pocket, she handed it to Everard, and
watched him while he read it.
There it was in black and white, an acknowledgment of seventy-five
dollars, and a receipt in full of all Everard Forrest’s indebtedness to
Joe Fleming up to that date. What did it mean? What could it mean?
Everard asked, while through his mind there flitted a vague remembrance
of something about Joe, and money, and the scrape from which Rossie was
to extricate him.
“Rossie, tell me, what do you know of Joe? What does it mean?” he asked,
and then Rossie told him how he had raved about a _Joe_, to whom he said
he owed money, and how once, when he seemed a little rational, she had
questioned him, and found out that the man was Joe Fleming, who lived in
Holburton, and to whom he owed fifty dollars which he could not pay.
“You had your best clothes in your valise on the bed, and were going to
sell them to get it,” Rossie said, “and I felt so sorry for you that I
wrote to Mr. Fleming myself, and told him what I thought about such
debts, and how sick and crazy you were, and your mother just dead, and
you no way to pay, and asked him to give up the debt.”
“Yes, yes,” Everard gasped, while his face grew white as ashes; and
still he could not forbear a smile at the mistake with regard to Joe’s
sex, a mistake of which he was very glad, however. “Yes,” he continued,
“you wrote all this, and what was the reply?”
“Just what you might expect from the bad, unprincipled, grasping man,”
Rossie said, energetically, shaking her shorn head. “I told him it was
wrong to gamble and tempt you to play, and told him how sick you were,
and how angry your father would be, and added that, if after all this,
he still insisted upon the money, he was not to trouble you, but write
directly to me, and he was mean enough to do it. He said he was sorry
you were sick, but he must have the money, and that you owed him
seventy-five, and you would tell me he had a right to ask it.”
“Yes,” Everard said again, but the yes was like a groan, and every
muscle of his face twitched painfully, “yes. He wrote this to you, and
you raised the money; but how?”
Rosamond hesitated a moment, and then replied:
“Do you remember I told you that Miss Belknap once offered to buy my
hair?”
“Oh, Rossie!” Everard exclaimed, as the truth flashed upon him, making
the plain face of that heroic little girl seem like the face of an
angel,—“oh, Rossie, you sold your beautiful hair for me, a scamp, a
sneak, a coward! Oh, why did you humiliate me so, and make me hate and
loathe myself?” and in his great weakness and utter shame Everard
covered his face with his hands and sobbed like a child.
Rosamond was crying, too,—was shedding bitter tears of disappointment
that she had made the great sacrifice for nothing except to displease
Mr. Everard.
“Forgive me,” she said at last, “I thought you would like it. I did not
want you to sell your clothes,—did not want your father to know. I meant
to do right. I am sorry you are angry.”
“Angry!” and in the eyes which looked at Rossie there was anything but
anger. “I am not angry except with myself; only I am so mortified, so
ashamed. I think you the dearest, most unselfish person in the world.
Who else would have done what you have?”
“Oh, ever so many,” Rossie said, “if they were sorry for you and loved
you; for, Mr. Everard, I am so sorry, and I love you a heap, and
then,—and then, I did it some because I thought your mother would like
it if she knew.”
Rosamond’s lip quivered as she said this, and there was such a pitiful
look in her soft eyes that Everard raised himself in bed, and drawing
her toward him, took the thin little face between his hands and kissed
it tenderly, while his tears flowed afresh at the mention of his dead
mother, who had been so much to him.
“Rossie,” he said, “what can I ever do to show you how much I appreciate
all you have done for, and all you are to me?”
The girl hesitated a moment, and then said:
“If you will promise never to have anything to do with Joe Fleming, I
shall be so happy, for I am sure he is a bad man, and leads you into
mischief. Will you promise not to go near Joe Fleming again?”
Everard groaned as he answered her:
“You do not know what you ask. I cannot break with Joe Fleming. I,—oh,
Rossie, I am a coward, a fool, and I wish I were dead,—I do, upon my
word! But there is one thing I can promise you, and I will. I pledge
myself solemnly, from this day forth, never to touch a card of any kind
in the way of gambling, never to touch a drop of spirits, or a cigar, or
a fast horse, or to bet, or do anything of which you would not approve.”
“I am so glad,” Rossie said, “and to make it quite sure, suppose you
sign something just as they do the pledge to keep from drinking.”
He did not quite know what she meant, but he answered, unhesitatingly:
“I’ll sign anything you choose to bring me.”
“I’m going to write it now,” Rossie said, and the next moment she left
the room, and Everard was free to finish his letters alone.
Taking the second one from Josephine, he read that she was sorry to hear
of his affliction, and wished she could comfort him, and that it must be
a consolation for him to know that his mother was in heaven, where he
would one day meet her if he was a good man.
This attempt at piety disgusted Everard, who knew how little Josephine
cared for anything sacred, and how prone she was to ridicule what she
called pious people.
Immediately following this mention of his mother, she said she was
missing and longing for him so much, and hoped he would write at once,
and send her the money for which she was obliged to ask him. Then she
added the following:
“I find myself in rather a peculiar position. So long as I am known as
Miss Fleming, I shall of course be subject to the attentions of
gentlemen, and what am I to do? Shall I go on as usual,—discreetly, of
course,—and receive whatever attentions are paid to me, never allowing
any one to get so far as an offer? I ask you this because I wish to
please you, and because, since my marriage, it seems as if so many men
were inclined to be polite to me. Even old Captain Sparks, the
millionaire, has asked me to ride after his fast horses; and as there
was no reason which I could give him why I should not, I went, and he
acted as silly as an old fool well can act. Tell me your wishes in the
matter, and they shall be to me commands.”
For an instant Everard felt indignant at Captain Sparks for presuming to
ride with and say silly things to Josephine, but when he reflected a
moment he knew that to the captain there was no reason why he should not
do so. Josephine was to him a young, marriageable maiden, and rumor said
that the old man was looking for a fourth wife, and as he would, of
course, look only at the young girls, it was natural for him to single
out Josephine as an object of favor.
“Josey must, of course, hold her place as an unmarried person,” he
thought, “but oh! the horror of this deception. I’d give worlds to undo
the work of that night.”
He thought so more than ever when he read the third and last letter, in
which, after expressing her sorrow and concern for his sickness, she
told him of her correspondence with Rosamond, and which, as it gives a
still clearer insight into the young lady’s character, we give, in part,
to the reader:
“DEAR EVERARD:—What _do_ you suppose has happened? Why, I laughed
until I nearly split my sides, and I almost scream every time I think
of the funny letter I got from Rosamond Hastings, the little girl who
lives with you, and who actually thinks I am a _man_, a bad, good for
nothing, gambling, swearing _man_, who leads you into all sorts of
scrapes, and to whom you owe money. It seems she gathered this when
you were crazy, and took it upon herself to write to _Mr. Joe
Fleming_;—that’s what she called me,—and lecture him soundly on his
badness. You ought to hear her once; but I’ll keep the letter and show
you. She wished me to give up the debt, which she took for granted was
a gambling one, but said if I would not I must write to _her_ and not
trouble you. Now, I suppose it would have been generous and nice in me
to say I did not care for the money, but you see I did; I must have it
to pay my bills; and so I wrote to her and said _you_ would tell her
my claim was a just one, if she asked you about it. In due time she
sent me seventy-five dollars, though how she raised it I am sure I
cannot guess, unless she coaxed it from your father, and I hardly
think she did that, as she seemed in great fear lest he should know
that you owed _Joe Fleming_! She is a good business woman,—for,
accompanying the money was a receipt, correctly drawn up, and
declaring you discharged in full from all indebtedness to me. I wonder
what the child would have done if I had not returned it, and just for
the mischief of it I thought once I wouldn’t, for a while at least,
and see what she would do. But Agnes made such a fuss that I thought
better of it, and shall send the receipt in the same mail which takes
this to you. By the way, you’ve no idea how much Agnes has you and
your interests at heart. I believe, upon my word, she thinks you did a
dreadful thing to marry me as you did, and she says her prayers in
your behalf, to my certain knowledge, three or four times a day.
Verily, it ought to make your calling and election sure.
“Dr. Matthewson was in town yesterday, and inquired particularly for
you. I told him of your mother’s death, and that I had written to
Clarence as he bade me do, and made inquiries about him, and had not
received a very good report of his character as a clergyman. He took
it good-humoredly, and said that the Gospel didn’t agree with him very
well. I like the doctor immensely, he is so amusing and friendly. I
hope you will not care because I told him of Rosamond’s mistake, and
showed him her letter. How he did roar! Why, he actually laid down on
the grass, and rolled and kicked, and would not believe me till I
showed him the letter. He left town this morning, saying he should be
here again in the fall, and would like to board with mother.
“How I hate this life,—planning how to get your bread and butter,—and
how glad I shall be when I am out of it; but I mean to be patient and
bear it, knowing what happiness there is in the future for me. When
shall I see you, I wonder? Will you not come as soon as you are able
to travel and spend the remainder of your vacation with me? You will
at least stop here on the way to Amherst, and for that time I live.
“Lovingly yours, JOE.”
It would be impossible to describe the nature of Everard’s feelings as
he read this letter, which seemed to him coarse, and selfish, and
heartless in the extreme. Couldn’t Josephine, understand such a
character as Rossie’s, or appreciate the noble thing she had done? Could
she only see in it a pretext for laughing till “she split her sides,”
and was it a nice thing in her to tell Dr. Matthewson of the letter, and
even show it to him, making him roll on the grass, and _roar_ and _kick_
in her presence? Had she no delicacy or refinement, to allow such a
thing? Would any man dare do that with Bee or even Rossie, child though
she was? Was Josey devoid of that womanly dignity which puts a man
always on his best behavior? He feared she was, he said sadly to
himself, as he recalled the free and easy manner he had always assumed
with her. How many times had he sat with his feet higher than his head,
and smoked directly in her face, or stretching himself full length upon
the grass while she sat beside him, laid his head in her lap and talked
such slang as he would blush to have Rossie hear; and she had laughed,
and jested, and allowed it all, or at the most reproved him by asking if
he were not ashamed of himself. Josey was _not_ modest and womanly, like
his mother, and Bee, and Rosamond. She was not like them at all, and for
a moment there swept over the young man such a feeling of revulsion and
disgust that his whole being rose up against the position in which he
was placed, and from his inmost soul he cried out, “I cannot have it
so!”
He had sown the wind, and he was beginning to reap the whirlwind; and it
was a very nervous, feverish patient which Rossie found when she came
back to him, bringing the paper he was to sign, and which was to keep
him straight. She called it a pledge, and it read:
“I hereby solemnly promise never to drink a drop of liquor, never to
smoke a pipe or cigar, never to race with fast horses, never to play
cards or any other game for money, never to bet, and to have just as
little to do with Joe Fleming as I possibly can.
“Signed by me, at the Forrest House, this —— day of August, 18—.”
“There!” Rossie said, as she read it to him, and offered him the pen;
“you’ll sign that and then be very safe.”
“Rossie,” he said vehemently, “I wish to Heaven I could honorably
subscribe to the whole of it, but I cannot. I must erase the part about
Joe Fleming. I cannot explain to you why, but I must keep my
acquaintance with Joe, but I’ll promise not to be influenced in that
direction any more. Will that do?”
“Yes, but I did so hope you would break with him entirely. I know he
makes you bad. You told me when you came home you had no debts, and I
believed you, and yet you owed this man seventy-five dollars, and I was
so sorry to find you did not tell me true.”
Rossie’s eyes were full of tears as she said this, for losing faith in
Everard had hurt her sorely, but he hastened to reassure her.
“Rossie,” he said, “I did not know of this debt then. It has come up
since. What I told you was told in good faith. Bad as I am, I would not
tell a deliberate lie, and you must believe me.”
She did believe him, and watched him as he put his pen through the
sentence, “have just as little to do with Joe Fleming as I possibly
can,” and then signed his name to the paper.
“There!” he said, as he handed it to her with a sickly effort to smile.
“Keep it, Rossie, and if I break that pledge, may I never succeed in
anything I undertake so long as I live; and now bathe my head with the
coldest ice-water in the house, for it feels as if there was a bass drum
in it.”
He was very restless and nervous, and did not improve as fast as the
doctor had said he would, if once his reason returned. Indeed, for a few
days he did not seem to improve at all, and Beatrice and Rosamond both
nursed him tenderly, and pitied him so much when they saw him lying so
weak and still, with his eyes shut, and the great tears rolling down his
face.
“It’s for his mother,” Rossie whispered to her companion, and her own
tears gathered as she remembered the sweet woman whose grave was so
fresh in the church-yard.
But it was not altogether for the dead mother that Everard’s tears were
shed. It was rather from remorse and sorrow for the deed he would have
given so much to undo; for he was conscious of an intense desire to be
free from the chain which bound him. Not free from Josephine, he tried
to make himself believe, for if that were so he would indeed be the most
wretched of men, but free from his marriage vow, made so rashly. How was
it that he was tempted to do it? he asked himself, as he went over in
his mind with the events of that night. He was always more or less
intoxicated with Josephine’s beauty when he was with her, and he
remembered how she had bewitched and bewildered him with the touch of
her soft hands, and sight of her bare arms and neck. She had challenged
him to the act, and Dr. Matthewson had given him the wine, which he knew
now must have clouded his reason and judgment, and so he was left to his
fate. And a terrible one it seemed, as, in his weakness and languor, he
looked at it in all its aspects, and saw no brightness in it. Even
Josephine’s beauty seemed fading into nothing, though he tried so hard
to keep his hold on that, for he must hold to something,—must retain his
love for _her_ or go mad. But she was so unlike Beatrice, so unlike
Rosamond, so unlike what his mother had been, and they were his
standards for all that was noble, and pure, and sweet in womankind.
Josey was selfish and unrefined; he could not put it in any milder form
when he remembered the past as connected with her, and remembered how
she had ridiculed little Rossie Hastings, whose letter she had shown to
Dr. Matthewson. How plainly he could see that scene, when the doctor
rolled upon the grass and roared and kicked, and Josephine laughed with
him at the generous, unselfish child who, to save him, had sacrificed
her only beauty. And Josephine was his wife, and he must not cease to
respect her one iota, for that was his only chance for happiness, and he
struggled so hard to keep her in his heart and love that it is not
strange the great drops of sweat stood thickly on his brow, or that the
hot tears at intervals rolled down his cheeks.
It was Rossie who brushed them away, Rossie who wiped the sweat from his
face, and whispered to him once:
“Don’t cry, Mr. Everard. Your mother is so happy where she has gone, and
I don’t believe she has lost all care for you either, she loved you so
much when she was here.”
Then Everard broke down entirely, and holding Rossie’s little, brown,
tanned hands in his, said to her:
“It isn’t that, though Heaven knows how much I loved my mother, and how
sorry I am she is dead; but there are troubles worse than death, and I
am in one now, and the future looks so dark and the burden so heavy to
carry.”
“Can I help you bear it?” Rossie asked, softly, with a great pity in her
heart for this young man who had given way like a child.
“No, Rossie, nobody can help me,—nobody,” he said; and after a moment
Rossie asked timidly: “Is it Joe Fleming again?”
“Yes, Rossie, Joe Fleming again;” and Everard could scarcely restrain a
smile, even in his grief, at this queer mistake of Rossie’s.
In her mind Joe Fleming was a dreadful man, through whom Mr. Everard had
come to grief, and she ventured at last to speak of him to Beatrice as
somebody of whom Everard had talked when he was crazy, and who had led
him into a great trouble of some kind.
“And that’s what ails him now, and keeps him so weak and low, and makes
him cry like a girl,” she said.
And then Beatrice resolved to help the sick youth, if possible, and that
afternoon when she sat alone with him for a few moments, she said to
him:
“Everard, I am quite sure that something is troubling you, something
which retards your recovery. I do not ask to know what it is, but if
money can lighten it let me help you, please. I have so much more than I
know what to do with. Let me lend you some, do.”
“Oh, Bee,” Everard cried, “don’t talk to me that way; you will kill me,
you and Rossie together; and you can’t help me. Nobody can. It is past
all help.”
She did not at all know what he meant, but with her knowledge of what
money could do, she felt sure it could help, and so she said:
“Not so bad as that, I am sure. You have probably been led astray by
some designing person, but there is always a backward path, you know,
and you will take it sure; and if you should want money, as you may,
will you ask me for it, Everard? Will you let me give it to you, as if I
were your sister?”
He did not know; he could not tell what he might do in sore need, for he
felt intuitively that the call on him for money, commenced so soon,
would increase with every year; so he thanked her for her kind offer,
which, he said, he would consider, should the time ever come when he
wanted help.
For ten days more Everard kept his room, and then arose suddenly one
morning and said that he was able to go back to college, where he ought
to have been two weeks ago, for he was getting far behind his class, and
would have to study hard to overtake and keep up with it as he meant to
do. Nothing could restrain him; go he must, and go he did, early one
morning in September, before the people of Rothsay were astir. He had
held a short conference with Rosamond, and bidden her tell the
postmaster to forward to Amherst any letters which might come to him,
and on no account let them go to the Forrest House. And Rossie had
promised to comply with all his wishes, and pressed upon him a
twenty-dollar bill which she made him take, because, as she said, she
did not need it a bit, and should just squander it for peanuts, and
worsteds, and things which would do her no good. It was a part of her
quarterly interest, and she could do what she liked with it, and so
Everard took it, and felt humiliated, and hated himself, especially as
he knew just where the money would go. A letter from Josephine had come
to him, asking for more funds, with which to replenish her wardrobe for
the autumn. They had no boarders now except Dr. Matthewson, who was
occasionally in town for a day or two and stopped with them, and Mrs.
Fleming did not get as much sewing as usual, and so Josey was compelled
to come to her husband for money, though sorely against her will, for
she feared she must seem mercenary to him, and she hoped he would
forgive her and love her just the same.
It was this letter which had determined him to return to Amherst without
delay. On his way thither, he should stop in Holburton over a train, and
tell Josephine how impossible it was for him to supply her demands until
in a position to help himself.
“If father would only give me something more than my actual needs,” he
thought; and, strangely enough, his father did.
Possibly the memory of the dead mother pleaded for her boy, and prompted
the judge to give his son at parting a fifty-dollar bill over and above
what he knew was needed for board and tuition.
“Make it go as far as you can; it ought to last you the whole year,” he
said, and Everard’s spirits sank like lead as he foresaw the increasing
drain there would be on him, and felt how impossible it would be to ask
his father for more.
There was still his best suit of clothes; and a little diamond pin and a
ring Rossie had given him, and his books, which he could sell, and
perhaps he could find something to do after study hours which would
bring him money. He might write for the magazines or illustrate stories;
he had a natural taste for drawing, and could dash off a sketch from
nature in a very few minutes. He could do something, he assured himself,
and his heart was a little lighter, when he at last said good-by to
Rossie and his father, and started northward for college and Josephine.