SOMETHING DOES HAPPEN.
It had rained all day in Dresden,—a steady, persistent rain, which kept
the guests of the Hotel Victoria in-doors, and made them so tired, and
uncomfortable, and restless that by night every shadow of reserve was
swept away, and they were ready to talk to any one who would answer them
in their own tongue. Conspicuous among the guests assembled in the
parlor was Miss Fleming,—“Miss Josephine Fleming, Boston, U. S. A.,” she
was registered, and she passed for one of those Bostonians who, whether
deservedly or not, get the reputation abroad of being very exclusive,
and proud, and unapproachable. Just now this character suited Josephine,
for she found that she was more talked about when she was reserved and
dignified than when she was forward and flippant; so, though they had
been at the Victoria some weeks, she had made but few acquaintances, and
these among the English and the most aristocratic of the Americans. And
Josephine had never been so beautiful as she was now. And she had the
satisfaction of knowing that she was always the most attractive woman in
every company, and the one most sought after. Of her poverty she made no
secret, and did not try to conceal the fact that she was Mrs. Arnold’s
companion. But she had seen better days, of course, before papa died and
left his affairs so involved that they lost everything, and mamma was
compelled to take a few boarders to eke out their income.
This was her story, which took well when told by herself, with sweet
pathos in her voice and a drooping of her long lashes over her lovely
blue eyes. Every one of her acquaintances of any account in America had
been stepping-stones in Europe, where she met people who knew the
Gerards, and John Hayden, and Miss Belknap, who was her very heaviest
card, the one she played most frequently, and with the best success. The
New Yorkers all knew Beatrice, and were inclined to be very gracious to
her friend. Occasionally she had come across some graduate from Amherst,
whom she had met before, but never till the rainy day with which this
chapter opens had she seen any one from the vicinity of Rothsay, or who
knew her husband personally. She was in the habit of looking over the
list of arrivals, and had seen the names of “Mr. and Mrs. Philip Evarts,
Cincinnati, U. S. A.,” and had readily singled out the new-comers at
_table d’hote_, divining at once that the lady was a bride; but no words
had passed between them until the evening of the rainy day; then
Josephine entered the parlor faultlessly gotten up, and looking very
sweet and lovely in her dark-blue silk and velvet jacket, with her
golden hair caught up with an ivory comb. Nothing could be prettier than
she was, and Phil Evarts, who, as Everard had said, was just the man to
be attracted by such a woman as Josephine, and whose wife was sick with
a headache in her room, managed to get near the beauty, who took a seat
apart from the others, and met his advance with a swift glance of her
dreamy eyes, which made his heart beat faster than a man’s heart ought
to beat when his wife is up stairs with the headache.
It was her business to speak first, and she said, very modestly:
“Excuse me, sir, but do you know if there has been a mail since lunch?”
“I don’t,” he replied, “but I will inquire. I am just going to the
office. What name shall I ask for?”
She told him, and during the few minutes he was gone he found out who
Miss Fleming from Boston was, and all about her that the
English-speaking clerk knew. But there was no letter for her, for which
he was very sorry. She was sorry, too; she did so want to hear from home
and sister. She did not say _mamma_, for she knew her mother was dead,
and had known it for a week, and kept it to herself until she could
decide whether to wear black or not, and so shut herself out from any
amusements they might have in Paris, where they were going next.
Naturally the two began to talk of America, and when Mr. Evarts spoke of
Cincinnati as his home, she said:
“I have a friend who was once at school there. Everard Forrest, of
Rothsay, do you know him?”
She had no idea that he did, and was astonished at the vehemence with
which he responded:
“Ned Forrest, of Rothsay! Of course I know him. We were at school
together. He’s the best fellow in the world. And he is your friend,
too?”
“Yes,” Josey answered, beginning at once to calculate how much knowledge
of Everard she would confess to. “I knew him when he was in college at
Amherst. We lived in Holburton then, a little town over the line in New
York, and he was sometimes there, but I have not seen him for a long
time. I hope he is well.”
“He was the last time I saw him, which was three or four months ago,
perhaps more,” Mr. Evarts replied. “He was in the city for a day, and I
saw him just a moment. He is working like a dog; sticks to his business
like a burr, which is so different from what I thought he’d do, and he
so rich, too.”
“Is he?” Josephine asked; and Evarts replied:
“Why, yes; his father must have been worth half a million, at least, and
Ned got the whole, I suppose. There are no other heirs, unless something
was given to that girl who lived in the family. Rosamond Hastings was
the name, I think.”
“Is his father dead?” Josephine asked; and in her voice there was a
sharp ring which even stupid Phil Evarts detected and wondered at.
“Dead? Yes,” he replied. “He has been dead I should say nearly, if not
quite, two years.”
Josephine was for a moment speechless. Never in her life had she
received so great a shock. That Judge Forrest should have been dead two
years and she in ignorance of it seemed impossible, and her first
feeling after she began to rally a little was one of incredulity, and
she asked:
“Are you not mistaken?”
“No, I’m not,” Mr. Evarts replied. “I saw Everard in Covington a few
weeks after his father’s death, and talked to him of the sickness, which
was apoplexy or something of that sort. Anyway, it was sudden, and Ned
looked as if he hadn’t a friend in the world. I did not suppose he cared
so much for his father, who, I always thought, was a cross old tyrant. I
used to visit at Forrest House occasionally years ago, when we were
boys, but have not been there since the judge’s death. Ned does not
often come to Cincinnati, and as I have been gone most of the time for
the last two years, I have heard but little of him.”
“How long, did you say, has his father been dead?” Josephine asked; and
Mr. Evarts replied:
“It must be two years in November, or thereabouts.”
“And this Rosamond Hastings who lives there, how old is she, and is he
going to marry her?” Josephine asked next; while Evarts thought to
himself:
“Jealous, I do believe,” but he answered her:
“Miss Hastings must be seventeen or eighteen, and when I saw her, five
or six years ago, was not so very handsome.”
“Yes, thank you,” Josey said, and as she just then saw Mrs. Arnold
coming into the salon, she bowed to her new acquaintance, and walked
away, with such a tumult in her bosom as she had never before
experienced.
It would take her a little time to recover herself and decide what to
do. She must have leisure for reflection; and she took it that night in
her room, and sat up the entire night thinking over the events of the
last two years, as connected with Everard, and coming at last to the
conclusion that he was a _scoundrel_, whom it was her duty as well as
pleasure to punish by going to America at once and claiming him as her
husband.
In the first days of her sudden bereavement, Agnes’ kind heart had gone
out with a great yearning for her young sister, to whom she had at once
written of their mutual loss, saying how lonely she was, and how she
hoped they would henceforth be more to each other than they ever had
been. And Josephine had been touched and softened, and had written very
kindly to Agnes, and had cried several times in secret for the dead
mother she would never see again, but whose death she did not then see
fit to announce to Mrs. Arnold; but she would do so now, and make it a
pretext for going home at once. Nothing should keep her from wreaking
swift vengeance on the man who had deliberately deceived her for two
years, and who, she had no doubt, was faithless to her in feeling, if
not in act. Of course there was a woman concerned in the matter, and
that woman was probably Rossie Hastings, who, Mr. Evarts said, was still
living at the Forrest House, whither she meant to go in her own person
as Mrs. J. E. Forrest, and so rout the enemy, and establish her own
claims as a much-injured wife. She did not mean to be violent or harsh,
only grieved, and hurt, and forgiving, and she had no doubt that in time
she should be the most popular woman in Rothsay, not even excepting
Beatrice, whose silence with regard to the judge’s death she could not
understand, inasmuch as she could have had no reason for keeping it a
secret.
It may seem strange that as a friend of Everard’s Phil Evarts had not
heard of the judge’s will, but for the last two or three years he had
led a wandering kind of life, and spent most of his time in Rio Janeiro,
and as Everard had never spoken of his affairs on the few occasions they
had met since the judge’s death, he was in total ignorance of the manner
in which the judge had disposed of his property. Had he known it, and
told Josephine, she might have acted differently, and hesitated a little
before she gave up a situation of perfect ease and comparative luxury
for the sake of a husband whom she did not love, and who had nothing for
her support except his own earnings. But she did _not_ know this, and
she was eager to confront him and _the jade_, as she stigmatized
Rosamond, and she packed some of her clothes that night that she might
start at once.
Fortunately for her plans the next morning’s mail from Paris brought her
another letter from Agnes, who thought she might be anxious to know what
she had decided to do, for the present, at least, until they could
consult together. But Josephine cared very little what Agnes did. _She_
was going to the Forrest House, and she was glad that Dr. Matthewson,
who had been with her for a time at the hotel, had started for Italy
only a few days before. He might have opposed her plan, and she knew
from experience that it was hard to resist the influence he had over
her. Utterly reckless and unprincipled, he seemed really to like this
woman, whom he thoroughly understood, and in whose nature he recognized
something which responded to his own. Two or three times he had talked
openly to her of a divorce, and had hinted at a glorious life in Italy
or wherever she chose to go. But Josephine was too shrewd to consider
that for a moment. Dr. Matthewson lived only by his wits, or to put it
in plainer terms, by gambling and speculation and intrigue. To-day he
was rich, indulging in every possible luxury and extravagance, and
to-morrow he was poor and unable to pay even his board; and much as she
liked him she had no fancy to share his style of living. She preferred
rather to be the hated wife of Everard Forrest and the mistress of his
house; so she took Agnes’s letter to Mrs. Arnold, and with a great show
of feeling told her her mother was dead, and her sister Aggie left all
alone, and wanting her so badly that she felt it her imperative duty to
start at once for America.
“I am sorry, of course, to leave you,” she said, “but you have so many
acquaintances now, and your health is so much better, that you will do
very nicely without me, I am sure, and I have long felt that my position
was merely a sinecure. I am only an unnecessary expense.”
Mrs. Arnold knew that to some extent this was true. Josephine was rather
an expensive luxury, and she had more than once seen in her signs of
selfishness and duplicity which shocked and displeased her. But the girl
had been uniformly kind and attentive to her, and she was loth to part
with her, and tried to persuade her to wait till spring. But Josephine
was determined, and seeing this Mrs. Arnold ceased to oppose her, and
generously gave her two hundred dollars for her expenses home; and
Josephine took it, and smiled sweetly through her tears, and kissed her
friend gushingly, and then hurried away to complete her preparations.
The next day she left Dresden for Paris, where she staid a week, while
she selected a most becoming wardrobe in black, and was delighted to see
what a pretty, appealing woman she was in her mourning, and how fair and
pure her skin showed through her long crape vail, and how blue and
pathetic her eyes looked, especially when she managed to bring a tear
into them.
Of course she was noticed, and commented upon, and admired on shipboard,
and when it was known why she was going home alone, and why she was in
such deep mourning, she had everybody’s sympathies, and was much sought
after and petted.
She was certainly a very fair picture to contemplate, and the male
portion of her fellow travelers indulged in that pastime often, and
anticipated her every movement, and vied with each other in taking her
chair to the most sheltered and comfortable place, and adjusting her
wraps, and drawing her shawl a little closer around her neck, and
helping her below whenever she was at all dizzy, as she frequently was;
and when at last the _Ville de Paris_ came into port, and she stood on
shore, frightened, bewildered, and so much afraid of those _dreadful
custom-house officers_, though she had nothing dutiable except a Madonna
bought for _mamma_ before she knew she was dead, at least ten gentlemen
stood by her, reassuring her and promising to see her through, and
succeeding so well that not one of her four big trunks was molested, and
the captain himself helped her into the carriage which was to take her
to the Harlem depot. With all the gallantry of a Frenchman he saw her
comfortably adjusted, and squeezing her hand a little, lifted his hat
politely, and wishing her _bon voyage_, left her to drive away toward
the new life which was to be so different from the old.