MARIAN HAZELTON.
The last days of June had come, and Wilford was beginning to make
arrangements for removing Katy from the city before the warmer weather.
To this he had been urged by Mark Ray’s remarking that Katy was not
looking as well as when he first saw her, one year ago. “She has grown
thin and pale,” he said. “Had Wilford remarked it?”
Wilford had not. She complained much of headache, but that was only
natural. Still he wrote to the Mountain House that afternoon to secure
rooms for himself and wife, and then at an earlier hour than usual went
home to tell her of the arrangement. Katy was out shopping, Esther said,
and had not yet returned, adding,
“There is a note for her up stairs, left by a woman who I guess came for
work.”
That a woman should come for work was not strange, but that she should
leave a note seemed rather too familiar; and when on going to the
library he saw it upon the table, he took it in his hand and examined
the superscription closely, holding it up to the light and forgetting to
open it in his perplexity and the train of thought it awakened.
“They are singularly alike,” he said, and still holding the note in his
hand he opened a drawer of his writing desk, which was always kept
locked, and took from it a _picture_ and a bit of soiled paper, on which
was written, “I am _not_ guilty, Wilford, and God will never forgive the
wrong you have done to me.”
There was no name or date, but Wilford knew whose hand had penned those
lines, and he sat comparing them with the “Mrs. Wilford Cameron” which
the strange woman had written. Then opening the note, he read that,
having returned to New York, and wishing employment either as seamstress
or dressmaker, Marian Hazelton had ventured to call upon Mrs. Cameron,
remembering her promise to give her work if she should desire it.
“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked himself as he threw down the
missive. “Some of Katy’s country friends, I dare say. Seems to me I have
heard that name. She certainly writes as Genevra did, except that this
Hazelton’s is more decided and firm. Poor Genevra!”
There was a pallor about Wilford’s lips as he said this, and taking up
the picture he gazed for a long time upon the handsome, girlish face,
whose dark eyes seemed to look reproachfully upon him, just as they must
have looked when the words were penned, “God will never forgive the
wrong you have done to me.”
“Genevra was mistaken,” he said. “At least if God has not forgiven, he
has prospered me, which amounts to the same thing;” and without a single
throb of gratitude to Him who had thus prospered him, Wilford laid
Genevra’s picture and Genevra’s note back with the withered grass and
flowers plucked from Genevra’s grave, just as Katy’s ring was heard and
Katy herself came in.
As thoughts of Genevra always made Wilford kinder towards his wife, so
now he kissed her white cheek, noticing that, as Mark had said, it was
whiter than last year in June. But mountain air would bring back the
roses, he thought, as he handed her the note.
“Oh, yes, from Marian Hazelton,” Katy said, glancing first at the name
and then hastily reading it through.
“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked, and Katy replied by repeating
all she knew of Marian, and how she chanced to know her at all. “Don’t
you remember Helen wrote that she fainted at our wedding, and I was so
sorry, fearing I might have overworked her?”
Wilford did remember something about it, and then dismissing Marian from
his mind, he told Katy of his plan for taking her to the Mountain House
a few weeks before going to Saratoga.
“Would you not like it?” he asked, as she continued silent, with her
eyes fixed upon the window opposite.
“Yes,” and Katy drew a long and weary breath. “I shall like any place
where there are birds, and rocks, and trees, and real grass, such as
grows of itself in the country; but Wilford,” and Katy crept close to
him now, “if I might go to Silverton, I should get strong so fast! You
don’t know how I long to see home once more. I dream about it nights and
think about it days, knowing just how pleasant it is there, with the
roses in bloom and the meadows so fresh and green. May I go, Wilford?
May I go home to mother?”
Had Katy asked for half his fortune, just as she asked to go home,
Wilford would have given it to her; but Silverton had a power to lock
all the softer avenues of his heart, and so he answered that the
Mountain House was preferable, that the rooms were engaged, and that as
he should enjoy it so much better he thought they would make no change.
Katy did not cry, nor utter a word of remonstrance; she was learning
that quiet submission was better than useless opposition, and so
Silverton was again given up. But there was one consolation. Seeing
Marian Hazelton would be almost as good as going home, for had she not
recently come from that neighborhood, bringing with her the odor from
the hills and freshness from the woods? Perhaps, too, she had lately
seen Helen or Morris at church, and had heard the music of the organ
which Helen played, and the singing of the children just as it sometimes
came to Katy in her dreams, making her start in her sleep and murmur
snatches of the sacred songs which Dr. Morris had taught. Yes, Marian
could tell her of all this, and very impatiently Katy waited for the
morning when she started for No.—— Fourth Street, with the piles of
sewing intended for Marian.
It was a fault of Marian’s not to remain long contented in any place.
Tiring of the country, she had returned to the city, and thinking she
might succeed better alone, had hired a room far up the narrow stairway
of a high, sombre-looking building, and then from her old acquaintances,
of whom she had several in the city, she had solicited work. More than
once she had passed the handsome house on Madison Square where Katy
lived, walking slowly, and contrasting it with her _one_ room, which was
not wholly uninviting, for where Marian went there was always an air of
comfort; and Katy, as she crossed the threshold, uttered an exclamation
of delight at the cheerful, airy aspect of the apartment, with its
bright ingrain carpet, its simple shades of white, its chintz-covered
lounge, its one rocking-chair, its small parlor stove, and its pots of
flowers upon the broad window sill.
“Oh Marian,” she exclaimed, tripping across the floor, and impulsively
throwing her arms around Miss Hazelton’s neck, “I am so glad to meet
some one from home. It seems almost like Helen I am kissing,” and her
lips again met those of Marian Hazelton, amid her joy at finding Katy
unchanged, wondered what the Camerons would say to see their Mrs.
Wilford kissing a poor seamstress whom they would have spurned.
But Katy did not care for _Camerons_ then, or even think of them, as in
her rich basquine and pretty hat, with emeralds and diamonds sparkling
on her fingers, she sat down by Marian.
“Tell me of Silverton; you don’t know how I want to go there; but
Wilford does not think it best, at present. Next fall I am surely going,
and I picture to myself just how it will look: Morris’s garden, full of
the autumnal flowers—the ripe peaches in our orchard, the grapes
ripening on the wall, and the long shadows on the grass, just as I used
to watch them, wondering what made them move so fast, and where they
could be going. Will it be unchanged, Marian? Do places seem the same
when once we have left them?” and Katy’s eager eyes looked wistfully at
Marian, who replied, “Not always—not often, in fact; but in your case
they may. You have not been long away.”
“Only a year,” Katy said. “I was as long as that in Canandaigua; but
this past year is different. I have seen so much, and lived so much,
that I feel ten years older than I did last spring, when you and Helen
made my wedding dress. Darling Helen! When did you see her last?”
“I was there five weeks ago,” Marian replied; “I saw them all, and told
them I was coming to New York.”
“Do they miss me any? Do they talk of me? Do they wish me back again?”
Katy asked, and Marian replied, “They talked of little else, that is
your own family. Dr. Morris, I think, did not mention your name. He has
grown very silent and reserved,” and Marian’s eyes were fixed
inquiringly upon Katy, as if to ascertain how much she knew of the cause
for Morris’s reserve.
But Katy had no suspicion, and only replied, “Perhaps he is vexed that I
do not write to him oftener, but I can’t. I think of him a great deal,
and respect him more than any living man, except, of course, Wilford;
but when I try to write, something comes in between me and what I wish
to say, for I want to convince him that I am _not_ as frivolous as he
thinks I am. I have _not_ forgotten the Sunday-school, nor the church
service; but in the city it is so hard to be good, and the service and
music seem all for show, and I feel so hateful when I see Juno and
Wilford’s mother putting their heads down on velvet cushions, knowing as
I do that they both are thinking either of their own bonnets or those
just in front.”
“Are you not a little uncharitable?” Marian asked, laughing in spite of
herself at the picture Katy drew of fashion trying to imitate religion
in its humility.
“Perhaps so,” Katy answered. “I grow bad from looking behind the scenes,
and the worst is that I do not care,” and then Katy went back again to
the farm-house asking numberless questions and reaching finally the
_business_ which had brought her to Marian’s room.
There were spots on Marian’s neck, and her lips were white, as she
grasped the bundles tossed into her lap—the yards and yards of lace and
embroidery, linen, and cambric, which she was expected to make for the
wife of Wilford Cameron; and her voice was husky as she asked directions
or made suggestions of her own.
“It’s because she has no such joy in expectation. I should feel so, too,
if I were thirty and unmarried,” Katy thought, as she noticed Marian’s
agitation, and tried to divert her mind by talking of Europe and the
places she had visited.
“By the way, you were born in England? Were you ever at Alnwick?” Katy
asked, and Marian replied, “Once, yes. I’ve seen the castle and the
church. Did you go there—to St. Mary’s, I mean?”
“Oh, yes, and I was never tired of that old churchyard. Wilford liked
it, too, and we wandered by the hour among the sunken graves and quaint
headstones.”
“Do you remember any of the names upon the stones? Perhaps I may know
them?” Marian asked; but Katy did not remember any, or if she did, it
was not “Genevra Lambert, aged 22.” And so Marian asked her no more
questions concerning Alnwick, but talked instead of London and other
places, until three hours went by, and down in the street the coachman
chafed and fretted at the long delay, wondering what kept his mistress
in that neighborhood so long. Had she friends, or had she come on some
errand of mercy? The latter most likely, he concluded, and so his face
was not quite so cross when Katy at last appeared, looking at her watch
and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour.
Katy was very happy that morning, for seeing Marian had brought
Silverton near to her, and airy as a bird she ran up the steps of her
own dwelling, where the door opened as by magic, and Wilford himself
confronted her, asking, with the tone which always made her heart beat,
where she had been, and he waiting for her two whole hours. “Surely it
was not necessary to stop so long with a seamstress,” he continued when
she tried to explain. “Ten minutes would suffice for directions,” and he
could not imagine what attraction there was in Miss Hazelton to keep her
there three hours, and then the real cause of his vexation came out. He
had come expressly for the carriage to take her and Sybil Grandon to a
picnic up the river, whither his mother, Juno and Bell, had already
gone. Mrs. Grandon must wonder why he stayed so long, and perhaps give
up going. Could Katy be ready soon? and Wilford walked rapidly up and
down the parlor with a restless motion of his hands which always
betokened impatience. Poor Katy! how the brightness of the morning
faded, and how averse she felt to joining that picnic, which she knew
had been in prospect for some time, and had fancied she should enjoy!
But not to-day, with that look on Wilford’s face, and the feeling that
he was vexed. Still she could think of no reasonable excuse, and so an
hour later found her driving into the country with Sybil Grandon, who
received her apologies with as much good-natured grace as if she too had
not worked herself into a passion at the delay, for Sybil had been very
cross and impatient; but all this vanished when she met Wilford and saw
that he was disturbed and irritated. Soft, and sweet, and smooth was she
both in word and manner, so that by the time the grove was reached
Wilford’s ruffled spirits had been soothed, and he was himself again,
ready to enjoy the pleasures of the day as keenly as if no harsh word
had been said to Katy, who, silent and unhappy, listened to the graceful
badinage between Sybil and her husband, thinking how differently his
voice had sounded when addressing her only a little while before.
“Pray put some animation into your face, or Mrs. Grandon will think we
have been quarreling,” Wilford whispered, as he lifted his wife from the
carriage, and with a great effort Katy tried to be gay and natural.
But all the while she was fighting back her tears and wishing she were
away. Even Marian’s room, looking into the dingy court, was preferable
to that place, and she was glad when the long day came to an end, and
with a fearful headache she was riding back to the city.
The next morning was dark and rainy; but in spite of the weather Katy
found her way to Marian’s room, this time taking the —— avenue cars,
which left her independent as regarded the length of her stay. About
Marian there was something more congenial than about her city friends,
and day after day found her there, watching while Marian fashioned into
shape the beautiful little garments, the sight of which had a strangely
quieting influence upon Katy, sobering her down and maturing her more
than all the years of her life had done. Those were happy hours spent
with Marian Hazelton, and Katy felt it keenly when Wilford at last
interfered, telling her she was growing quite too familiar with that
sewing woman, and her calls must be discontinued, except, indeed, such
as were necessary to the work in progress.
With one great gush of tears, when there was no one to see her, Katy
gave Marian up, writing her a note, in which were sundry directions for
the work, which would go on even after she had left for the Mountain
House, as she intended doing the last of June. And Marian guessed at
more than Katy meant she should, and with a bitter sigh laid it in her
basket, and then resumed the work, which seemed doubly monotonous now
that there was no more listening for the little feet tripping up the
stairs, or for the bird-like voice which had brought so much of music
and sunshine to her lonely room.