CONNIE’S ARRIVAL
March that year came in like a roaring lion, and continued to roar at
intervals for two weeks, when it gathered its forces together for a
farewell which should outdo all that had gone before. For three days the
storm continued, until the tops of the fences were covered and roads
were cut through the fields in some places, as the highways were blocked
with drifts. And still the snow fell in great billowy clouds, which the
wind drove before it through the valleys and over the hills of
Millville. Nearly all day Kenneth had been gone, as he had been called
in consultation with Dr. Catherin at Rocky Point, and it was not until
five o’clock that he reached home, where he found Connie’s telegram.
“Coming to-night on the six o’clock train, which is sure to be late,” he
exclaimed, with a thrill of delight, and no thought of the trouble it
would be to meet her.
“Father will go to the train, you are so tired,” his mother said, but
had he been ten times as fatigued as he was, Kenneth would not have
foregone the pleasure of meeting Connie.
“The house is as warm as it can be,” he said, felicitating himself upon
the fact that there was now a furnace in the cellar, with sundry other
modern improvements since Connie was there.
Some of the fireplaces had been stopped up, but one was left open in the
sitting-room to please his father, and one in the guest-chamber to
please him. It was here Connie had slept and sat on the hearth and held
her little hands to the blaze, which she had liked. His mother, on
receipt of the telegram, had opened the register in the room, and made
it ready for her.
“Warm as toast,” she said to Kenneth, when he inquired about it. But he
insisted upon a fire in the fireplace, which he made himself, charging
his mother to keep it bright until he returned with Connie.
The storm was awful at half-past five, when Kenneth went to harness his
horses, Pro and Con, to the covered sleigh. Con, who had been to Rocky
Point and back, did not like going out a second time, and showed her
dislike by pulling back when Kenneth tried to lead her out.
“Easy, Con, easy! It’s hard, I know, but Connie is coming, and I would
sacrifice both you and Pro for her sake,” he said, soothing the
refractory animal, who, after a few protesting snorts, and throwing up
of her head, squared herself to meet the storm, and went plunging
through the drifts, dragging Pro after her, until the shelter was
reached, where Kenneth left them until the train came in.
It was very late before it came puffing up to the station, looking like
a huge snow bank, with the light from the frosty windows showing dimly
through the darkness. All along the line of coaches Kenneth looked
anxiously, with a fear that she had not come, when the conductor
appeared, and clinging to him was a slight form, which seemed to sway
like a reed in the wind.
“Is Dr. Stannard here?” was shouted through the darkness, and “Aye,
aye,” came in response from Kenneth, as he sprang up the steps and
passed his arms around the figure of the young girl.
“Connie?” he asked, as he could not see her face.
“Yes,” she answered, clinging to him like a child.
“She’s been bad all the way. I guess she’s sick, or going to be,” the
conductor said, giving her up to Kenneth, who took her in his arms just
as he had taken little Connie sixteen years before, when she came in her
blue cloak and hood and crept into his heart.
As he had done then, so now he carried her to the sleigh and put her in
and tucked the robes around her and took his seat beside her, and was
out upon the road before a word was spoken. Then he said, “Connie, are
you ill?”
She had sat in a drooping posture till now, when she straightened up,
and moving a little nearer to him, she replied: “I don’t know. I was
sick on the ship, and I am so tired, and my head feels queer; but I am
glad to be here. Are you glad? Is your mother glad?”
“Glad?” Kenneth repeated, and there was a world of tenderness in his
voice as he drew Connie close to him and put her head upon his shoulder,
where it lay through the drive home, which did not take long, for Pro
and Con, and especially the latter, defying the snow and the wind and
the drifts, went swiftly up the hill, nearly upsetting the sleigh as
they turned into a field, but finally reaching the house in safety.
Once during the drive Connie said, by way of explanation for her
unexpected appearance: “I had to come. I couldn’t stay in that dreary
old palace in Genoa after Count Costello said words to me he never
should have said. You know my aunt married him?”
Kenneth did know, but forebore to ask any questions, they were so near
home.
“Oh, I am so glad, so glad!” Connie kept saying, when carried into the
warmth and light, where Mrs. Stannard’s motherly arms received her.
As his father took care of the horses, Kenneth removed Connie’s hat and
sack and gloves and chafed her cold hands, and thought how thin and pale
she was, and how she sometimes rambled in her talk. She was not hungry,
she said. She was only tired and sleepy. She did not sleep at all upon
the ship. She did not think she had slept since she left Genoa, or for
some time before. She would not eat, and Kenneth, who was watching her
closely, advised his mother to take her to her room.
“Oh, this is so nice; this takes me back to long ago,” Connie said,
kneeling on the hearth when there, and holding her hands to the blaze
just as Kenneth had seen her do when a child. “There are pictures in the
fire,” she continued; “pictures of me as I was a happy little girl and
as I am now an unhappy woman,” and she clasped her white hands together.
“Why are you unhappy? Has anything happened?” Mrs. Stannard asked,
smoothing the soft golden hair on the small head, which was lying back
against the cushions of a chair.
Connie looked at her a moment, and then told very briefly of Count
Costello’s offer to herself, of her refusal, of his marriage with her
aunt, to whom she said he was kind; of the dreary house he called a
palace, and of his saying to her: “Your young face is daily a painful
contrast to that of the countess, handsome as she is.”
“After that I could not stay, a foil to my aunt, who cares for him,
while I hate him,” she said, “and so I came here. Are you glad?”
She had asked the same question of Kenneth, who had answered by drawing
her close to him, while his mother stooped and kissed her, as she
replied: “Very glad; and now go to bed. You will be better to-morrow.”
Connie had said nothing of the real pain eating into her heart, and Mrs.
Stannard, while indignant at Count Costello, wondered why he should have
had the power to change this once bright, rosy girl into the wan, pale
woman who had scarcely strength to get into bed, and who, when there,
looked almost as white as the pillow on which she was resting.