THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW.
After Mr. Tom Henderson had left the Mayflower with John Temple in Fern
Dene, he walked onward with a frowning brow and an angry heart. He was
in love with the pretty girl he had just seen sitting with another man
lying at her feet; in love with her, and jealous of her very words, and
moreover he knew who this other man was.
He had seen John Temple at poor young Phil Temple's funeral the day
before, and knew therefore that this good-looking, pleasant-tongued man
was the new heir of Woodlea.
"And how on earth did Margaret Churchill pick up his acquaintance?" he
asked himself, scowlingly. He felt savage at the very thought. He was a
hot-tempered man, and had been brought up at home, and always had had
very much his own way at Stourton Grange. And now he was master there,
and had no small opinion of his own importance.
He knew that in point of family and position he was a good match for
Margaret Churchill. Margaret's father was a tenant farmer, and Tom
Henderson a land-owner, and he quite appreciated the difference. But
the beauty of the neighborhood apparently did not. She did not treat
the young squire of Stourton as he expected to be treated, and perhaps
this really only added to her attractions in his eyes.
At all events he felt very angry at seeing her with John Temple. He
walked on with hasty steps, and never noticed that presently he was
followed by a woman. By and by he came to a field of tall uncut corn,
which was swaying in the summer breeze. Then she made haste to overtake
him. She quickened her steps, she almost ran, and a few moments later
she called out his name.
"Tom!" she cried, and young Henderson hearing her voice turned quickly
round, and a dusky flush rose to his face as he did so.
"Well, Elsie," he said, stopping and looking by no means well-pleased,
"where have you cast up from?"
"Ah! I've followed you ever so far, Tom," panted the girl; "I've been
waiting about all the morning trying to see you."
"That was wasting your time then, Elsie."
"No, don't say that, but I could not rest till I saw you. Why did you
not come last night, Tom, as you promised?"
"I could not get away; some one came to the Grange."
"Well I've got something to tell you; something that's nearly driven me
mad, though I know it's nothing but lies--oh, yes, I know that, Tom."
She looked up in his handsome face as she spoke--the half-averted
face--and there was beseeching love and tenderness in her eyes.
"And what is this wonderful thing then, Elsie?" he asked.
"It was Elizabeth Jenkins, and she said--"
"Well, what did she say?"
"I know it's all nonsense, and you mustn't be angry, Tom--but she said
you often went to Woodside Farm; that you--were running after Miss
Churchill, in fact."
The flush deepened on young Henderson's face.
"Oh! that I was running after her, was I? Well, I haven't caught her
yet, Elsie," he said, with an uneasy laugh.
"Oh, don't jest about it, Tom, don't laugh; it was a cruel thing to
say--cruel to me."
The young man did not speak; he cast his brown eyes down on the path;
he moved the arm restlessly with which he was carrying his gun.
"Of course she just said it from spite--just because she knew--"
continued the girl, hesitatingly.
Then Henderson looked up.
"What does she know, Elsie?" he said, glancing at the girl's face.
Her lips quivered and her bosom heaved as he asked the question.
"What everyone must soon know, Tom," she answered; "what you are and
must be to me."
An expression of great annoyance contracted Henderson's features.
"And you mean to say you have talked to this woman?" he said, angrily.
"I have not said much," she replied, half-sullenly, "but she knows."
"Then you are a fool for your pains."
He said this roughly enough, and a sudden rush of tears filled the poor
girl's eyes as he spoke.
"It can't go on, Tom!" she cried, piteously, "your father's dead now;
you know you always promised to marry me when your father died."
"This is folly," muttered Henderson, under his thick mustache.
"What is folly?" asked the girl, sharply, looking up.
"This talk about our marriage--it's an old story, Elsie, and we may as
well drop it."
The change in her expression was something terrible, as she listened
to these heartless words. She grew deadly pale, and her whole frame
trembled.
"Drop it--never!" she repeated, with passionate earnestness. "Tom, if
you hate me now you must marry me; I will kill myself or you if you
don't."
"It's no good talking folly."
"It's not folly; it's truth, as there is a God above us it is truth!
What, after all, after all," and she wrung her hands, "you would go
back! But you shall not, Tom! You may think to throw me over because
you are tired of me, and take up with another girl, but there are two
words to that--I will go to Miss Churchill myself--"
"If you do," interrupted Henderson, with a fierce oath, "I will strike
you dead!"
"You can't strike me worse than you've struck me now, but strike me or
not, I'll do what I say unless you keep your word."
She stood there defying him, with her eyes gleaming and her hands
clenched. She was a handsome woman, of a certain type, with a clear
brown skin and thick, coarse black hair. She looked also determined and
passionate, and perhaps Henderson was afraid to excite her further. At
all events he moderated his tone.
"Well, don't make any more row," he said; "we can talk it over some
other time."
"But it must be settled, Tom; I can't wait," she answered.
An evil look came over Tom Henderson's face.
"You are always worrying a man," he said; "there's no such wonderful
hurry about it, and there's my mother to consider."
"There's always something to consider; first it was your father, now
your mother. But I am to be considered too, I--I and something besides."
Henderson did not speak for a moment; he stood as though irresolute.
Again he looked at the excited face before him; at the gleaming dark
eyes and full quivering lips, and then he said more soothingly:
"Well, go home now, Elsie, and keep quiet, and we'll see what can be
done."
"I am not going to be put off."
"I must consider things, and see what I think best. If you go home now
I'll come and have a talk with you to-night at the old place about nine
o'clock."
"Will you be sure to come?"
"Yes, I'll be sure. And now, good-by, Elsie; you go your way and I'll
go home."
He nodded to her carelessly, and then turned away, and the girl stood
looking after him as he went. And there was infinite pain in her
expression, infinite distress.
"And he loved me once," she muttered; "he loved me once."
These words seemed like an epitaph on her life's happiness. She knew it
was all over, and that the young man to whom she had given so much was
weary of her; weary of the frail bondage by which she held him.
And, in truth, never was man more weary. Young Henderson's face was
black as night as he strode on after he had left the girl he called
Elsie. She was a chain around his neck, an intolerable burden, from
which he could see no way to free himself.
And yet he must be free! Margaret Churchill's lovely face rose before
him as he passed down the fields of waving corn. He would not give her
up, he told himself; he would not let this folly of his almost boyhood
come between himself and his fair love.
He remembered the days when he had first known Elsie Wray; the days
when he used to ride past the pretty, rather picturesque wayside public
house where her father lived, and where the handsome, motherless girl
occasionally acted as barmaid.
He was just about nineteen when he had first spoken to her--a handsome,
dark-browned lad--and, having been caught in a passing storm, he
had taken shelter at the wayside house. Elsie was about his own
age--perhaps a year younger--and these two had drifted first into a
flirtation, and then, on the girl's part at least, into a deep and
passionate love.
It went on for years, always, young Henderson believed, in secret, on
account of his father. The squire of Stourton was an irascible old
gentleman, and would have allowed "no folly," as he would have called
it, between his son and a barmaid. Alas, for the poor girl! The young,
ardent, handsome lover came night after night in the gloaming, and
the two wandered together in the dewy fields, and sat on the lone
hillsides, and talked of the days when they would be free to wed, and
when there would be no partings between them any more.
So it went on until, in an evil hour for poor Elsie, young Henderson
saw Margaret Churchill's (the Mayflower's) fairer face, and his first
love-dream was over. Over for him but not for Elsie Wray, with all its
bitter fruits. She could not believe at first that he had changed;
it seemed impossible, and she so fond. Then his father died, and her
hopes of speedy marriage revived. But there was always some excuse from
the once ardent lover. It was too soon after his father's death, his
affairs were not settled, and so on.
And now for the first time she had heard from some friend that he went
to Woodside Farm, and, naturally, as Miss Churchill was considered the
prettiest girl in all the country round, her jealousy was aroused. She,
however, little guessed how far her false lover had committed himself
with his new love. He had, in fact, asked Margaret Churchill to be his
wife, and though she had said him nay, he still held determinately to
his purpose.
"No one and nothing shall come between us," he muttered, with gloomy
emphasis, with his teeth set hard, as he walked on homeward after his
stormy interview with Elsie. And there was a look on his face, a dark,
savage look, that boded ill for the poor girl who had loved him too
well.