CRUEL WORDS.
What these inclinations were we may easily guess. To walk as quickly
to Fern Dene as possible, yet when he arrived there he found that May
Churchill was just preparing to go home.
"I could not come before," he explained, hastily; "my uncle's wife took
into her head to go into the garden, and asked me to go with her, and
what could I do?"
"Poor Mrs. Temple!" said May, pityingly.
"Yes, indeed, she is greatly to be pitied."
"Her loss was terrible, most terrible. Phil was such a dear, bright
boy, and to die unconscious, as he did, must have nearly broken his
mother's heart."
"Do you know her?" inquired John Temple.
"A little; merely through things connected with the schools and the
church, you know. I used to teach at the schools once," added the
Mayflower, with a smile rippling over her rosy lips; "but Mrs. Layton
made herself so disagreeable that I left off, and since then I have
been one of her black sheep."
"I hope I shall be one of her black sheep, too."
"It has its disadvantages though, I assure you. If you have any little
peccadillos or failings, Mrs. Layton will find them out and preach them
on the housetops, unless you are in her good graces."
"I am sure you have neither peccadillos nor failings."
"Ask Mrs. Layton," laughed May.
"Mrs. Layton's opinion would never change mine."
"Then you are stanch to your friends," said May, looking at him with
her beautiful eyes.
"I know I shall always be stanch to you."
May laughed and turned away her head, and John saw the white throat
color and the lovely bloom on her smooth cheeks deepen.
"We are forgetting the ferns," she said.
"So we are; tell me the best place to find them."
She led him up a green arcade, through which a shallow stream went
bubbling on. By the marge of the water strong, hardy ferns were
plentiful, but these were principally of the larger kinds. But here
and there in little mossy dells, the rarer fronds in their delicate
greenery grew, and John Temple, pen-knife in hand, was speedily engaged
in cutting them from the earth. The Mayflower stood by his side, while
John knelt on the ground, and John felt conscious that the situation
was a dangerous one. Alone in the woods with a beautiful girl,
kneeling practically at her feet! Yet he felt wonderfully happy. His
years seemed to roll back; he was a youth again, with all the hopes and
aspirations of youth.
He looked up at the fresh, bright face bending over him, and he forgot
many things that he ought to have remembered. As for May Churchill she
also felt perfectly happy. She had never known anyone she liked half so
much as Mr. Temple, she was thinking. "And he is so good-looking, too,"
pretty May also reflected, glancing down on John's brown head.
These two, in truth, were fast drifting into that dangerous stream
where too often lives are wrecked and hearts are broken. Standing
on the marge the golden tide flows by, and we only see the shining
surface, not the rocks below. But sweet are these hours; sweet the
dawn, the dream, of joys to come! The dawn may cloud, the dream be
broken, but the coming shadows seem far away.
It was only the early dawn for John and May. Neither of them, indeed,
had for a moment reflected that this meeting would make any difference
in their lives. Feelings are strange and subtle, and creep in unawares
to the human heart. They only both felt very happy, and the world
seemed very bright. Bright to them, and dark and black to jealous eyes
watching them from the higher ground above.
These jealous, fiery brown eyes were those of young Henderson of
Stourton Grange. He had hoped to meet May Churchill during the
afternoon in Fern Dene, as she often went there, and to his rage, when
he arrived at the crest of the hill above the Dene, he saw May again
with John Temple.
He could see John look up in her face, as he knelt on the ground, and
May look down and smile on his. Henderson had gone to the Dene in a
most unhappy and unsettled state of mind, and this sight seemed to
half-madden him. His brow grew black as night, and a bitter curse broke
from his lips.
"But if I swing for it, this shall not be," he muttered.
Then he thought darkly of his interview with Elsie Wray the night
before, and now this girl stood as an obstacle in his way. He had not
dared openly to refuse to marry her, yet he never meant to do so.
He feared her; she might fulfill her threat, and write or go to May
Churchill, and then he knew that in that case all hope of winning May
was over.
"I must try to get her to go away," he thought, frowning and knitting
his black brows. "But then there's that confounded old fool, her
father."
It was certainly a miserable enough position in which he found himself.
Bound by his honor, by a hundred promises, to marry one woman, and
passionately in love with another! He stood mentally cursing his folly,
his fate, and the unhappy girl who had trusted him too much. But give
up May he would not. There was a dogged obstinacy about this young
man; the sullen, unreasonable obstinacy of a low order of mind, and
when once he had determined on a thing nothing would turn him from his
purpose.
So gnawing his thick, red underlip beneath his brown mustache, and
grinding his strong white teeth in his wrath, he watched the two below
dallying on the green sward. He did not seek to interrupt them. He had
already learnt to hate the smiling indifference of John Temple's manner
to him, and he knew he could not rely on his own temper. No; he saw
them arrange the ferns they had got in May's little basket; he saw them
stand side by side, looking at the bubbling stream, and then he watched
them leave the Dene and cross the rustic bridge which led to it.
They were still together when he lost sight of them, and then he turned
homeward, with a gloomy brow and an angry heart. As he strode on,
various plans crossed his brain. But of one thing he was determined.
Cost what it might, he would get rid of Elsie Wray.
As he neared Stourton Grange, a substantial square stone house,
standing in an extensive well-kept garden, he encountered a tall,
good-looking lady in deep mourning. This was his widowed mother, and
Tom Henderson was her only son. Her face brightened when she saw him,
and she put out her hand when she met him, and laid it on his arm.
"My dear, how lucky that I should come upon you," she said, smiling
affectionately.
Young Henderson's smile in return was a somewhat forced one, and her
fond eyes instantly perceived this.
"Something is worrying you, Tom," she said, quickly. "What is it?"
Tom did not speak; something was worrying him, more than worrying him,
but it was not a thing he could exactly tell his mother.
She looked up fondly into his eyes.
"My dear," she asked, "can I help you in anything? I am sure there is
something wrong."
"You are quite right," he answered abruptly.
"What is it, Tom? Surely you can trust your mother."
"Oh, I can't tell you about it."
He said this very impatiently, and Mrs. Henderson looked at him
anxiously.
"Is it about some woman, Tom?" she said.
Tom replied by a sort of a groan.
"I wish you would marry, Tom," continued Mrs. Henderson, earnestly.
"Many mothers don't wish their sons to marry because they say it takes
them away from themselves, but I don't feel this. Your happiness would
be mine. Tom, a little bird has whispered to me that you run after a
certain very pretty girl; is this true?"
"You mean May Churchill?" answered Tom Henderson; "well, I certainly do
admire her very much."
"And--are you engaged to her?"
"No; there are always worries in the way."
"Not surely--"
"Mother, I may as well tell you that I have made a fool of myself, but
I must get out of it."
"But Tom--"
"There! don't talk of it like a good old woman; I'll get out of it,
that I'm determined."
Mrs. Henderson did not say anything more. She walked on with her
hand through her son's arm, feeling very anxious. Tom Henderson had
been a wayward boy, and he was a wayward man, and his mother was
conscious perhaps that she had spoilt her only child. She had heard a
rumor--got one of those painful hints which friends do not scruple to
give--about her son's connection with Elsie Wray of the Wayside Inn.
But she had never spoken of it to Tom. She was a delicate-minded woman,
and extremely attached to him, and there were subjects on which Mrs.
Henderson felt she could not speak to her boy.
The mother and son walked home together and then parted, Mrs. Henderson
to see after some household arrangements, Tom to retire to his own room
to write a letter to Elsie Wray.
Let us look over his shoulder as he sat, pen in hand, with his black
brows knitted and his handsome face distorted with the angry passions
in his heart. He began:
"Dear Elsie," and then paused. He did not in truth know what to say.
He knew he was acting shamefully, but he told himself it was folly to
sacrifice the happiness of his whole life because a foolish girl had
loved him too well.
Again he began "Dear Elsie," on a fresh note-sheet, and this time
continued his letter:
"DEAR ELSIE: Our interview of last night was very unsatisfactory,
and I want to see you again, and I hope we will come to some lasting
agreement. I am quite willing to come down handsomely for any supposed
wrong I may have done you, and I hope you will act like a sensible girl
and accept my proposition. Will you meet me to-night at nine o'clock,
on the ridge above Fern Dene? It's a quiet place, and we can have
our talk out there without being interrupted as we were last night.
There is always someone about near your house, seemingly. But do act
sensibly, and don't make a row about what can not be helped now.
"Yours sincerely,
"T. H."
He finished this letter, and then put it in his pocket and walked to
the stables, and gave it to his groom. This man was engaged rubbing
down a horse when his master appeared, and he seemed quite accustomed
to receive such missions.
"Take that over to Miss Wray, Jack," said young Henderson; "make some
excuse--have a pot of beer or something--but give it into her own
hands, and no one else's, and here's a shilling for the beer."
"Very well, master," answered Jack, pocketing the note and the shilling
with something between a grin and a nod, and then touching his
forelock. "Must I go directly?"
"Yes," said Henderson, and then he turned away, and went whistling out
of the stables with his hands in his pockets.
Upon which Jack took a rough towel and rubbed his own face and hands,
and otherwise improved his appearance, and then started off on his way
to the wayside public house.
"The game's nearly up," he thought, with another grin, as he went
shambling on. "Miss Elsie will ha' to look a bit lower than the young
master before she's done."
He speedily arrived at his destination. It was a pretty spot--this
wayside house, with its trellised walls, covered with creepers and
roses, and its open porch. In the porch the master of the house, James
Wray, was sitting smoking a long white pipe, and he took it from his
mouth and nodded in a friendly manner when the groom from Stourton
Grange appeared.
"Well, Jack, my lad," he said, "and how are ye all at the Grange?"
James Wray was not unaware of the intimacy of his daughter with the
young owner of the Grange, or without his private hopes that some day
he might see Elsie the mistress there. He therefore made room for Jack,
the groom, to take a seat beside him in the porch, but this did not
suit Jack's views.
"No, master," he said, "I'm that dry I must ha' a drop o' beer first,
and I'll go in and get it, and then come out and ha' a bit crack."
The landlord nodded his head and resumed his pipe, and Jack entered the
house. Two or three men were sitting drinking, and a good-looking smart
girl was acting as barmaid, but Elsie Wray was not visible. Jack looked
around, called for his beer, but had a word to whisper in the barmaid's
ears as she was serving it.
"Where's the young missis?" he asked.
"She's in the parlor, I think, Mr. Impudence," answered the smart
barmaid, tossing her head.
"Tell her one of the lads fra' the Grange wants a word wi' her," said
Jack, winking one eye, upon which, with another toss of the head, the
barmaid vanished; and a few moments later Elsie Wray, who looked pale,
agitated, and handsome, appeared.
Jack touched his forelock and went up to her, and produced Tom
Henderson's letter.
"The young master sent this for you, miss," he said.
Elsie put out a shapely brown hand and eagerly caught at the letter,
and then without another word retired with it and ran hastily upstairs
to her own little bedroom to read it.
When she got there she tore it open with trembling fingers, and, as her
eyes fell on the insulting words it contained, the poor girl turned
deadly pale, and staggered back as if something had struck her.
"How dare he! How dare he!" she cried aloud, in sharp bitter tones of
anguish.
Again she read the cruel words. She stared at them as though they
burned into her brain, and then with sudden passion she flung the
letter on the floor and trampled it beneath her feet.
"The coward! The base coward!" she muttered. "So he would buy me off,
would he? Me! But he shall see; he shall see!"
She began to pace up and down the room after this, evidently revolving
some question in her mind. Then she suddenly remembered that the groom
from Stourton would probably be waiting for an answer. And with her
eyes flashing, and her head thrown back, she returned to the bar in the
room below.
Jack was still sitting there drinking his beer, and he rose when Elsie
appeared.
Without a moment's hesitation she went up to him.
"Tell him," she said, in concentrated tones of suppressed anger and
passion, "that I will be there."
That was all; without another word she turned and left the bar, and the
men sitting there looked at each other as she did so. The expression of
her face was so tragic that it seemed to forebode evil. Jack Reid--the
groom's surname was Reid--said nothing. He looked rather frightened,
and shortly afterward left the Wayside Inn, declining the offer of the
landlord, who was still sitting on the porch, to remain any longer.
Meanwhile in her room upstairs Elsie Wray was in a state of mind
bordering on distraction. All the hopes of her future life seemed
dashed to dust. But with hard-set teeth she told herself that she would
not give in. Tom Henderson must keep his word and marry her, even if he
never spoke to her afterward.
"Or he or I shall die for it," she muttered with bated breath.
Then she stole to her father's room, and from a locked cupboard there
drew out a loaded revolver. Elsie, a favorite daughter, and one whom he
completely trusted, always kept the landlord's keys.
Having thus secured the weapon, about two hours later she started with
a determined heart to keep the tryst that Tom Henderson had given her.
By this time a fitful moon had risen, the light being constantly
obscured by drifting clouds. It was a wild-looking night, and seemed to
suit the mood of the unhappy woman who went out to meet her false lover
under such cruel circumstances.