JOSEPHINE’S CONFIDENCE.
The next day Josephine wrote Everard the first real letter she had sent
him for many weeks. Heretofore she had merely acknowledged his drafts
made payable to her mother, but now she filled an entire sheet, and
called him her _dear husband_, and told him of Miss Belknap’s presence
in the house, and what she had said of his habits and strict economy.
“I know it is all for me,” she wrote, “and I felt like crying when she
was talking about you. I am so glad she told me, for it has made me
resolve to be worthy of you and the position I am one day to fill as
your wife. When will that be, Everard? Must we wait forever? Sometimes I
get desperate, and am tempted to start at once for Rothsay, and, facing
your father, tell him the truth, and brave the storm which I suppose
would follow. But then I know you would be angry at such a proceeding,
and so I give it up, and go on waiting patiently, for I do wish to
please you, and am glad this Miss Belknap is here, as I am sure of her
friendship when the time of trial comes. She is very sweet and lovely,
and I wonder you did not prefer her to your unworthy but loving Josey.”
Beatrice also wrote to Everard that day, and told him where she was, and
why, and said of Josephine, “there must be good in her, or she could not
seem so sweet, and amiable, and affectionate. A little vain she may be,
and fond of attention, and why not? She cannot look in the glass and not
know how beautiful she is. And her voice is so soft, and low, and
musical, and her manners so lady-like. You see I am more than half in
love with her, and I am quite disposed to advise a recognition on your
part of her claim upon you. Of course I shall not betray you. That is
not my business here. I came to see what this girl is, whose life is
joined with yours. I find her quite up to the average of women, and
think it your safer course to acknowledge her, and not leave her subject
to the temptations which must necessarily beset a pretty woman like her,
in the shape of admiration and attention from every marriageable man in
town. It is your safer way, Everard, for remember there is a bar between
you and any other face which may look to you inexpressibly fair and
sweet, and all the sweeter and fairer because possession is impossible.”
These letters reached Everard the same evening, and he found them in his
office on his return from the Forrest House, where he had sat with
Rossie an hour on the piazza, with the moonlight falling on her face and
softening the brilliancy of her great black eyes. How beautiful those
eyes were to him now, and how modestly and confidingly they looked up
occasionally in his face, and drooped beneath the long lashes which
rested on the fair cheeks. She was so sweet and loving, this pure, fresh
young girl; and her face and eyes haunted Everard all the way down the
avenue and the long street to his office, where he found his
letters,—one from Beatrice, one from Josephine, and this last he saw
first, recoiling from it as from a serpent’s touch, and remembering with
a bitter pain the face seen in the moonlight, and the pressure of the
hand he had held in his at parting. Then he took Bee’s letter, and
turned it over, and saw it was postmarked at Holburton, and with a start
of fear and apprehension tore it open and read it eagerly.
“But I shall never do it,” he said, as he read Bee’s advice with regard
to recognizing Josephine. “The goodness is not there; and so Bee will
discover if she stops there long enough.”
Then, as he finished her letter, he felt as if all the blood in his body
were rushing to his head, for he guessed what she meant by “that other
face, so inexpressibly fair and sweet.” It was Rossie’s, and he ground
his teeth together as he thought of the bar which made it sinful for him
to look too often upon that face, fast budding into rare beauty, lest he
should find it _too sweet_ and _fair_ for his own peace of mind. And
then he told himself that Rosamond was only his sister; his ward, in
whom he must necessarily have an unusual interest. Beatrice was too
fastidious, and did not trust enough to his good sense. He was not in
love with Rosamond, nor in danger of becoming so.
Thus the young man reasoned, while he tore Josey’s letter into shreds,
which he tossed into the waste-basket. He did not believe in her or
intend to answer it, for whenever he thought of her now it was as he saw
her last, at midnight in the car, sleeping on Dr. Matthewson’s arm. He
wrote to Beatrice, however, within a few days, expressing his surprise
at what she had done,—and telling her that any interference between
Josephine and himself was useless, and that if she staid long in
Holburton she would probably change her mind with regard to the young
lady.
And in this he was right, for before his letter reached Holburton,
Beatrice and Mrs. Morton both had learned that the voice, so soft and
flute-like and well-bred when it addressed themselves, had another ring
when alone in the kitchen with Agnes, who drudged from morning till
night, that the unusually large household might be kept up. There were
more boarders now in the house, for Mrs. Julia Hayden and husband had
come to Holburton, hoping a change would benefit Mr. Hayden, who liked
the quiet, pleasant town, and the pure air from the hills, which was not
quite so bracing as that which blew down from the mountains around
Bronson. The Haydens occupied the parlor below, greatly to the annoyance
of Miss Josey, who was thus compelled to receive her numerous calls
either in the dining-room or on the back piazza, or on the horse-block
near the gate.
It was not unusual for Josey to receive three admirers at a time, and
she managed so admirably that she kept them all amiable and civil,
though each hated the other cordially, and wondered why he would persist
in coming where he was not wanted. Night after night Mrs. Morton and Mr.
Hayden were kept awake till after midnight by the low hum of voices and
occasional bursts of suppressed laughter which came from the vicinity of
the horse-block, and when Mrs. Morton complained of it in the presence
of Josephine, that young lady was very sorry, and presumed it was some
of the hired girls in town, who had a great way of hanging over gates
with their lovers, and sitting upon horse-blocks into all hours of the
night.
But Mrs. Julia was not deceived. Her great black eyes read the girl
aright, and when she saw a female figure steal cautiously up the walk
into the house, and heard the footsteps of two or three individuals
going down the road, she guessed _who_ the “hired girls” were, and
Josephine suspected that she did, and removed her trysting-place from
the horse-block to the rear of the garden, where she was out of ear-shot
of the “old muffs,” as she styled Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Hayden. And here
she received her _friends_, as she called them,—and laughed, and
flirted, and played with them, but was very careful not to overstep
certain bounds of propriety, and thus give Everard an excuse on which to
base an action for divorce, should he ever bring himself to consider
such an act, which she doubted. He was too proud for that, and would
rather live with and dislike her, than repudiate her openly, and bring a
stain upon the Forrest name. It was impossible for her to understand his
real feelings toward her. Indifferent he was, of course, and sorry, no
doubt, for the tie which bound them; but she was so thoroughly convinced
of her own charms and power to fascinate, that she had little fear of
winning him back to something like allegiance when she once had him
under her influence again. He could not resist her; no man could, except
the old judge; and secure in this belief she went on her way, while
Beatrice watched her narrowly, and began at last to believe there was no
real good in her.
“The most shameless flirt I ever saw, with claws like a cat,” Mrs.
Hayden said of her,—“why, she has actually tried her power on Harry, and
asked him so insinuatingly and pityingly if he really thought oatmeal
agreed with him as well as a juicy steak or mutton-chop.”
Bee laughed merrily at the idea of Josey’s casting her eyes upon poor,
shriveled, dyspeptic Harry Hayden, whom, to do her justice, she did
pity, for the cold baths he was compelled to take every morning, and the
rigid diet on which he was kept. That he lacked brain force, as his wife
asserted, she did not doubt, or he would never have submitted as meekly
as he did, with the stereotyped phrase, “Julie knows best,” but she
pitied him just the same, and occasionally conveyed to him on the sly
hot cups of beef-tea or mutton-broth, and once coaxed him to drink
lager-beer, but Mrs. Julia found it out by the culprit’s breath, and
disliked Josey worse than ever.
It was now five weeks since Beatrice first came to Holburton, and as
Mrs. Morton did not seem to improve, she was thinking of finding another
place for her, when Josephine came to her one morning as she was sitting
alone with her work, and, taking a seat beside her, began to talk of
herself and the life she was leading.
“I am of no use to any one,” she said, “for both mother and Agnes are
afraid I shall soil my hands or burn my face. I am tired of this kind of
life. I want to see the world and have larger experiences; and
fortunately I have an opportunity to do so. When I was at the sea-side I
met a widow-lady, a Mrs. Arnold, who is rich and an invalid. She was
kind enough to pretend to like me, and I think she did, for I have
received a letter from her, asking me to go as a companion with her to
Europe, she defraying all the expenses, of course, and leaving me
nothing to do but to make myself agreeable to her, and enjoy what I see.
Now, would you go or not?”
“I think I would,” Beatrice replied, for it seemed to her as if this
going to Europe would somehow be the severing link between Everard and
Josephine. Something would happen to bring on the crisis which must come
sooner or later.
“I would go, most certainly,” she said again, and then she asked some
questions concerning Mrs. Arnold, whose letter Josey showed to her.
Evidently she was not a woman of great discernment or culture, but she
was sincere in her wish to take Josephine abroad, and disposed to be
very generous with her.
“She will be gone a year at least, and possibly two, and I can see so
much in that time, I am quite dizzy with anticipation,” Josephine said,
while Beatrice entered heart and soul into the project, which was soon
known to the entire household. That night young Gerard from Albany
called on Josephine as usual, and hearing of the proposed trip to Europe
offered himself to her, and cried like a baby when she gave him her
final “no,” and made him understand that she meant it. But she held his
hand in hers, and there was one of her tears on his boyish face when at
last he said good-night and walked away, somewhat soothed and comforted
with the thought that he was to be her friend of friends, the one held
as the dearest and best in her memory when she was far over the sea.
The news of the intended journey made Everard wild with delight, for,
with the ocean between them, he felt that he should almost be free
again; and he sent her a hundred dollars, and told her he hoped she
would enjoy herself, and then, intoxicated with what seemed to him like
his freedom, went up to see Rosamond, and staid with her until the clock
was striking ten, and Mrs. Markham came into the room to break up the
_tete-a-tete_.
It was the last day of August that the _Nova Zembla_ sailed out of the
harbor of Boston with Josephine on board, her fair hands waving kisses
and adieux to the two men on the shore, watching her so intently,—young
Gerard and old Captain Sparks, who had followed her to the very last,
each vieing with the other in the size and cost of the bouquets, which
filled one entire half of a table in the dining saloon, and stamped as
somebody the beautiful girl who paraded them rather ostentatiously
before her fellow-passengers.
For two days they adorned the table at which she sat, and filled the
saloon with perfume, and were examined and talked about, and she was
pointed out as that young lady who had so many large and elegant
bouquets; and then, the third day out, when their beauty and perfume
were gone, they were thrown overboard by the cabin-boy, and a great wave
came and carried them far out to sea, while Josey lay in her berth limp,
wretched and helpless, with no thought of flowers, or Gerard, or Captain
Sparks, but with a feeling of genuine longing for the mother and Agnes,
whose care and ministrations she missed so much in her miserable
condition.