AFTER TWO YEARS.
It is not my intention to linger over the incidents of the next two
years, or more than glance at the Forrest House, where Rosamond Hastings
laughed, and played, and romped, gaining each day health, and strength,
and girlish beauty, but retaining always the same straightforward,
generous, self-denying, truthful character which made her a favorite
with every one. To Everard she was literally a good angel, and never was
a son watched more carefully by an anxious mother than she watched and
guarded him. She wrote him letters of advice and sage counsel such as a
grandmother of seventy might have written, and which frequently had in
them some word of warning against bad associates in general, and Joe
Fleming in particular. She knew he had not broken with Joe altogether,
for he told her so, and more than once in his sore need he had taken the
money she never failed to send him when her quarterly allowance was
paid. But for the rest, he was manfully keeping to the pledge which she
had drawn for him to sign. Only once in all the two years had he
ventured to ask his father for more money than that close-dealing man
chose to give him, and the storm of anger which that request had evoked
determined him never to repeat the act. He sent his father’s letter to
Josephine, that she, too, might understand how difficult it was for him
to supply her constantly increasing wants, and for a time the effect was
good; but an inordinate fondness for dress was one of Josey’s
weaknesses, and having once indulged it to a certain extent she could
not readily deny herself, especially as she felt she had a right to a
part, at least, of the Forrest money. So she wrote to Everard again and
again, sometimes for five dollars, sometimes for ten, or twenty, and
when she found that sooner or later it came she ventured to ask for
more, and at last demanded fifty dollars, which she needed for furs, as
her old ones were worn-out. Then Everard sold the little diamond pin his
mother had given him, and parted with it almost without a pang, he was
getting so accustomed to these things. He had long before parted with
his best suit of clothes, and from the most exquisitely dressed young
man in college he was fast becoming the plainest, and was getting the
reputation of penuriousness in everything. His first-class
boarding-house was exchanged for a third-rate club, where the poorest
young men lived; he wrote articles for the magazines and sold them for
whatever he could get, and once, when the janitor was sick for a week,
he took his place, and earned a few dollars with which to swell the
amount he found it necessary to keep on hand for the woman who sported a
handsomer wardrobe than the greatest lady in Holburton.
Of course the world must have some explanation for this, or the girl’s
reputation be ruined forever. And Josey made the explanation, and said a
distant relative of her father’s had died in Ireland, and left her a few
pounds to do with as she liked. And in this story there was a semblance
of truth, for a maiden aunt, who for years had lived in Portrush, on the
northern coast of Ireland, and taken lodgers during the summer season,
did die and leave to her grand-nieces in America the sum of fifty
pounds, which was ostensibly divided between Agnes and Josephine, though
the latter had the greater share, and immediately appeared on the street
in an expensive velvet sack, which attracted much attention and elicited
a great many remarks from those who were watching the career of the
young girl. She was not popular, for with her fine dress she had also
put on all sorts of airs, and her manner was haughty and offensive in
the extreme, while her flirtations with gentlemen were so marked as to
make her notorious as a heartless and unprincipled coquette. Captain
Sparks had laid himself and his immense fortune at her feet, only, of
course, to be refused; but she had told him no so sweetly, with tears in
her liquid blue eyes, that he was not more than half convinced that she
meant it, and dangled still in her train of hangers-on. Dr. Matthewson,
too, was there frequently, and people had good reasons for thinking him
the favored one, judging from the familiar relations in which they
seemed to stand to each other. Once in a great while Everard himself
went over to Holburton, but he never stopped more than a few hours at
the most, and was seldom seen in the street with Josephine, who was
supposed to have lost her hold on him,—and so in fact she had; all his
fancied love for her was dead, and her beauty never moved him now, or
made his pulses quicken one whit faster than their wont. She was his
wife, and he accepted the fact, and resolved to make the best of it, but
the future held nothing bright in store for him. On the contrary, he
shrank from it with a kind of nervous terror, and felt no throb of joy
when his college days drew near their close, and he knew that he stood
first in his class, and should graduate with every possible honor. He
had worked hard for that, but it was more to please Beatrice and
Rosamond than for any good to himself that he had studied early and
late, and made himself what he was. They were coming on from Rothsay
with his father, to see him graduated, and hear his valedictory, for
that honor was awarded him, and he had engaged rooms for them at a
private house where he knew they would be more comfortable than at the
hotel. Rossie was all eagerness and excitement, and wrote frequently to
Everard, telling him once that if _Joe Fleming_ was there not to let him
know who _she_ was, but to be sure to point _him_ out to her, as she had
a great desire to see a real gambler and blackleg. She had recently
applied this last term to Joe Fleming, and Everard smiled when he read
the letter, but felt a great pang of fear lest Josephine should thrust
herself upon the notice of his father and Beatrice. He had given her no
hint that her presence would be agreeable to him, but he knew she did
not need it, and was not at all disappointed when he received a note
from her saying that she was coming down to see him graduate, but should
not trouble him more than she could help, as a friend who lived about a
mile from town had asked her to spend a few days with her, and be
present at the exercises. She should, of course, expect him to call and
pay her any little attention which he consistently could.
It was long since Josephine had attempted anything like love-making with
Everard, for she felt that he understood her perfectly now, and had no
respect whatever for her. He had found her a sham, just as Rossie had
said she was, and had accepted his fate with a bitterness and remorse
such as few men of his age had ever experienced. He did not believe in
her at all, and whenever he was with her, and met the soft, pleading
glance of the eyes which had once so fascinated and bewitched him, he
only felt indignant and disgusted, for he knew how false it all was, and
that the eyes which looked so beseechingly up to him would the next hour
rest as lovingly upon Dr. Matthewson, or Captain Sparks, or any other
man whom she deemed worthy of her notice. Once, when he was in
Holburton, he accidentally discovered that the washing and ironing, with
which Agnes seemed always busy, were done to pay the music bills and
sundry other expenses, for which he had sent the money, and in his
surprise he asked a few leading questions and learned more than he had
dreamed of. As the worm will turn when trodden upon, so Agnes, who
chanced to be smarting under some fresh indignity imposed upon her,
turned upon her tyrant and told many things which, for Everard’s peace
of mind, would have been better unsaid, for she dwelt mostly upon
Josey’s free-and-easy manner with the gentlemen who came to the house to
call, or chanced to be boarding there.
“I don’t mean she does anything bad,” she said, “anything you could _sue
for_ if you wanted to, but she just _makes eyes_ at them, and leads them
on, and gets them all dangling on her string, and wants to be their
_sister_, and all that sort of stuff, and when the fools offer
themselves, as some of them do, she rises up on her tiptoes and wonders
how they could presume to do such a thing, as she had never meant to
encourage them,—she was simply their friend; and, if you’ll believe it,
they mostly stick to her just the same, and the _sister_ business goes
on, and she a married woman! I’m sorry for you, Mr. Forrest!”
And oh, how sorry he was for himself, and how after this revelation he
shrank from the gay butterfly which flitted around him so gracefully,
and treated him to the _eyes_ of which Agnes had spoken so
significantly. And still there was no open rupture between the two, no
words of recrimination or reproach on either side. He was always
courteous and polite, though cold as the polar sea; while she was
sweetness itself, and only the expression of her face told occasionally
that she fully realized the situation, and knew just how she stood with
him. But he was her husband, and as such would one day be known to the
world, and she was far prouder of him now in his character as a man than
she had been when she took him, a boy; and she meant to see him on the
stage in Amherst, and compel him to pay her some attention which should
mark her as an object of preference. She knew he did not wish to have
her there, but she did not care for that, and wrote to him her intention
to be present at the Commencement, and her wish that he should pay her
some attention.
The old, weary, hopeless look, which had become habitual to his face,
deepened in intensity as Everard read the note, and then began to
calculate the chances of a meeting between his friends and Josey. He was
very morbid about this secret, which he had kept so long that it seemed
to him now that he never could divulge it, even if sure that his
father’s bitter anger would not follow. And he did not wish Beatrice and
Rossie to see his wife, if he could help it, and perhaps he could. There
would be a great crowd in the church; they could not see her there; and,
as Mrs. Everts lived more than a mile from town, they might not meet her
at all, unless at the reception given by the president, and to this
Josey would hardly be invited. So he breathed a little more freely, and
completed his arrangements for his family, and wrote a line to Josey,
saying he would call upon her at Mrs. Everts’ when she came, but should
be so very busy that he could not be with her a great deal.
To Rosamond he wrote quite differently, and told her how glad he was
that she was coming, and how much he hoped she would enjoy the trip, and
that there was the coziest, prettiest room imaginable waiting for her in
one of the pleasantest houses in town. And Rossie was crazy with delight
and anticipation, and scarcely slept a wink the night before they
started. And still she was very bright, and fresh, and pretty, in her
suit of Holland linen, and never was journey more enjoyed than she
enjoyed hers, seeing everything, and appreciating everything, and
declaring that she was not a whit tired when at last they reached
Amherst, and found Everard waiting for them.