MARK RAY AT SILVERTON.
The last day of summer was dying out in a fierce storm of rain which
swept in sheets across the Silverton hills, hiding the pond from view,
and beating against the windows of the farm-house, whose inmates were
nevertheless unmindful of the storm save as they hoped the morrow would
prove bright and fair, such as the day should be which brought them back
their Katy. Nearly worn out with constant reference was her letter, the
mother catching it up from time to time to read the part referring to
herself, where Katy had told how blessed it would be “to rest again on
mother’s bed,” just as she had so often wished to do, “and hear mother’s
voice;” the deacon spelling out by his spluttering tallow candle, with
its long, smoky wick, what she had said of “darling old Uncle Eph,” and
the rides into the fields; Aunt Betsy, too, reading mostly from memory
the words: “Good old Aunt Betsy, with her skirts so limp and short, tell
her she will look handsomer to me than the fairest belle at Newport;”
and as often as Aunt Betsy read it she would ejaculate: “The land! what
kind of company must the child have kept?” wondering next if Helen had
never written of the _hoop_, for which she paid a dollar, and which was
carefully hung in her closet, waiting for the event of to-morrow, while
the hem of her pongee had been let down and one breadth gored to
accommodate the hoop. On the whole, Aunt Betsy expected to make a
stylish appearance before the little lady of whom she stood in awe,
always speaking of her to the neighbors as “My niece, Miss Cammen, from
New York,” and taking good care to report what she had heard of “Miss
Cammen’s” costly dress and the grandeur of her house, where the
furniture of the best chamber cost over fifteen hundred dollars.
“What could it be?” Aunt Betsy had asked in her simplicity, feeling an
increased respect for Katy, and consenting the more readily to the
change in her pongee, as suggested to her by Helen.
But that was for to-morrow when Katy came; to-night she only wore a
dotted brown, whose hem just reached the top of her “bootees,” as she
went to strain the milk brought in by Uncle Ephraim, while Helen took
her position near the window, looking drearily out upon the leaden
clouds, and hoping it would brighten before the morrow. Like the others,
Helen had read Katy’s letter many times, dwelling longest upon the part
which said: “I have been so bad, so frivolous and wicked here at
Newport, that it will be a relief to make you my confessor, depending,
as I do, upon your love to grant me absolution.”
From a family in Silverton, who had spent a few days at a private house
in Newport, Helen had heard something of her sister’s life; the lady had
seen her once driving a tandem team down the avenue, with Wilford at her
side giving her instructions. Since then there had been some anxiety
felt for her at the farm-house, and more than Dr. Grant had prayed that
she might be kept unspotted from the world; but when her letter came, so
full of love and self-reproaches, the burden was lifted, and there was
nothing to mar the anticipations of the event for which they had made so
many preparations, Uncle Ephraim going to the expense of buying at
auction a half-worn covered buggy, which he fancied would suit Katy
better than the corn-colored wagon in which she used to ride. To pay for
this the deacon had parted with the money set aside for the “_great
coat_” he so much needed for the coming winter, his old gray having done
him service for fifteen years. But his comfort was nothing compared with
Katy’s happiness, and so, with his wrinkled face beaming with delight,
he had brought home his buggy, putting it carefully in the barn, and
saying no one should ride in it till Katy came. With untiring patience
the old man mended up his harness, for what he had heard of Katy’s
driving had impressed him strongly with her powers of horsemanship, and
raised her somewhat in his respect. Could he have afforded it Uncle
Ephraim in his younger days would have been a horse jockey, and even now
he liked nothing better than to make Old Whitey run when alone in the
strip of woods between his house and the head of the pond.
“Katy inherits her love of horses from me,” he said complacently; and
with a view of improving Whitey’s style and mettle, he took to feeding
him on oats, talking to him at times, and telling him who was coming.
Dear, simple-hearted Uncle Ephraim! the days which he must wait seemed
long to him as they did to the other members of his family. But they
were all gone now,—Katy would be home on the morrow, and with the
shutting in of night the candles were lighted in the sitting-room, and
Helen sat down to her work, wishing it was to-night that Katy was
coming. As if in answer to her wish there was the sound of wheels, which
stopped before the house, and dropping her work Helen ran quickly to the
door, just as from under the dripping umbrella held by a driver boy, a
tall young man sprang upon the step, nearly upsetting her, but passing
an arm around her shoulders in time to keep her from falling.
“I beg pardon for this assault upon you,” the stranger said; and then
turning to the boy he continued: “It’s all right, you need not wait.”
With a chirrup and a blow the horse started forward, and the
mud-bespattered vehicle was moving down the road ere Helen had recovered
her surprise at recognizing Mark Ray, who shook the rain-drops from his
hair, and offering her his hand said in reply to her involuntary
exclamation: “I thought it was Katy,” “Shall I infer then that I am the
less welcome?” and his bright, saucy eyes looked laughingly into hers.
Business had brought him to Southbridge, he said, and it was his
intention to take the cars that afternoon for New York, but having been
detained longer than he expected, and not liking the looks of the hotel
arrangements, he had decided to presume upon his acquaintance with Dr.
Grant, and spend the night at Linwood. “But,” and again his eyes looked
straight at Helen, “it rained so hard and the light from your window was
so inviting that I ventured to stop, so here I am, claiming your
hospitality until morning, if convenient; if not, I will find my way to
Linwood.”
There was something in this pleasant familiarity which won Uncle Ephraim
at once, and he bade the young man stay, as did Aunt Hannah and Mrs.
Lennox, who now for the first time was presented to Mark Ray. Always
capable of adapting himself to the circumstances around him, Mark did so
now with so much ease and courteousness as to astonish Helen, and partly
thaw the reserve she had assumed when she found the visitor was from the
hated city.
“Are you expecting Mrs. Cameron?” he asked, adding, as Helen explained
that she was coming to-morrow, “That is strange. Wilford wrote decidedly
that he should be in New York to-morrow. Possibly, though, he does not
intend himself to stop.”
“I presume not,” Helen replied, a weight suddenly lifting from her heart
at the prospect of not having to entertain the formidable brother-in-law
who, if he stayed long, would spoil all her pleasure.
Thus at her ease on this point, she grew more talkative, half wishing
that her dress was not a shilling-calico, or her hair combed back quite
so straight, giving her that severe look which Morris had said was
unbecoming. It was very smooth and glossy, and Sybil Grandon would have
given her best diamond to have had in her own natural right the heavy
coil of hair bound so many times around the back of Helen’s head, and
ornamented with neither ribbon, comb, nor bow. Only a single geranium
leaf, with a white and scarlet blossom, was fastened just below the ear,
and on the side where Mark could see it best, admiring its effect and
forgetting the arrangement of the hair in his admiration of the
well-shaped head, bending so industriously over the work which Helen had
resumed—not crocheting, nor yet embroidery, but the very homely work of
darning Uncle Ephraim’s socks, a task which Helen always did, and on
that particular night. Helen knew it was not delicate employment, and
there was a moment’s hesitancy as she wondered what Mark would
think—then, with a grim delight in letting him see that she did not
care, she resumed her darning-needle, and as a kind of penance for the
flash of pride in which she had indulged, selected from the basket the
very coarsest, ugliest sock she could find, stretching out the huge
fracture at the heel to its utmost extent, and attacking it with a right
good will, while Mark, with a comical look on his face, sat watching
her. She knew he was looking at her, and her cheeks were growing very
red, while her hatred of him was increasing, when he said, abruptly:
“You follow my mother’s custom, I see. She used to mend my socks on
Tuesday nights.”
“Your mother mend socks!” and Helen started so suddenly as to run the
point of her darning-needle a long way into her thumb, the wound
bringing a stream of blood which she tried to wipe away with her
handkerchief.
“Bind it tightly round. Let me show you, please,” Mark said, and ere she
was aware of what she was doing, Helen was quietly permitting the young
man to wind her handkerchief around her thumb which he held in his hand,
pressing it until the blood ceased flowing, and the sharp pain had
abated.
Perhaps Mark Ray liked holding that small, warm hand, even though it
were not as white and soft as Juno’s; at all events he did hold it until
Helen drew it from him with a quick, sudden motion, telling him it would
do very well, and she would not trouble him. Mark did not look as if he
had been troubled, but went back to his seat and took up the
conversation just where the needle had stopped it.
“My mother did not always mend herself, but she caused it to be done,
and sometimes helped. I remember she used to say a woman should know how
to do everything pertaining to a household, and she carried out her
theory in the education of my sister.”
“Have you a sister?” Helen asked, now really interested, and listening
intently while Mark told her of his only sister Julia, now Mrs. Ernst,
whose home was in New Orleans, though she at present was in Paris, and
his mother was there with her. “After Julia’s marriage, nine years ago,
mother went to live with her,” he said, “but latterly, as the little
Ernsts increase so fast, she wishes for a more quiet home, and this
winter she is coming to New York to keep house for me.”
Helen thought she might like Mark’s mother, who, he told her, had been
twice married, and was now Mrs. Banker, and a widow. She must be
different from Mrs. Cameron; and Helen let herself down to another
degree of toleration for the man whose mother taught her daughter to
mend the family socks. Still there was about her a reserve, which Mark
wondered at, for it was not thus that ladies were accustomed to receive
his advances. He did not guess that Wilford Cameron stood between him
and Helen’s good opinion; but when, after the family came in, the
conversation turned upon Katy and her life in New York, the secret came
out in the sharp, caustic manner with which she spoke of New York and
its people.
“It’s Will and the Camerons,” Mark thought, blaming Helen less than he
would have done, if he, too, had not known something of the Cameron
pride.
It was a novel position in which Mark found himself that night, an
inmate of a humble farm-house, where he could almost touch the ceiling
with his hand, and where his surroundings were so different from what he
had been accustomed to; but, unlike Wilford Cameron, he did not wish
himself away, nor feel indignant at Aunt Betsy’s old-fashioned ways, or
Uncle Ephraim’s grammar. He noticed Aunt Betsy’s oddities, it is true,
and noticed Uncle Ephraim’s grammar; but the sight of Helen sitting
there, with so much dignity and self-respect, made him look beyond all
else, straight into her open face and clear brown eyes, where there was
nothing obnoxious or distasteful. Her language was correct, her manner,
saving a little stiffness, lady-like and refined: and Mark enjoyed his
situation as self-invited guest, making himself so agreeable that Uncle
Ephraim forgot his hour of retiring, nor discovered his mistake until,
with a loud yawn, Aunt Betsy told him that it was half-past nine, and
she was “desput sleepy.”
Owing to Helen’s influence there had been a change of the olden custom,
and instead of the long chapter, through which Uncle Ephraim used to
plod so wearily, there were now read the Evening Psalms. Aunt Betsy
herself joined in the reading, which she mentally classed with the
“quirks,” but confessed to herself that it “was most as good as the
Bible.”
As there were only Prayer Books enough for the family, Helen, in
distributing them, purposely passed Mark by, thinking he might not care
to join them. But when the verse came round to Helen he quickly drew his
chair near to hers, and taking one side of her book, performed his part,
while Helen’s face grew red as the blossoms in her hair, and her hand,
so near to Mark’s, trembled visibly.
“A right nice chap, and not an atom stuck up,” was Aunt Betsy’s mental
comment, and then, as he often will do, Satan followed the saintly woman
even to her knees, making her wonder if “Mr. Ray hadn’t some notion
after Helen.” She hoped not, for she meant that Morris should have
Helen, “though if ’twas to be it was, and she should not go agin it;”
and while Aunt Betsy thus settled the case, Uncle Ephraim’s prayer
ended, and the conscience-smitten woman arose from her knees with the
conviction that “the evil one had got the better of her once,” mentally
asking pardon for her wandering thoughts and promising to do better.
Mark was in no haste to retire, and when Uncle Ephraim offered to
conduct him to his room, he frankly answered that he was not sleepy,
adding, as he turned to Helen: “Please let me stay until Miss Lennox
finishes her socks. There are several pairs yet undarned. I will not
detain you, though,” he continued, bowing to Uncle Ephraim, who, a
little uncertain what to do, finally departed, as did Aunt Hannah and
his sister, leaving Helen and her mother to entertain Mark Ray. It had
been Mrs. Lennox’s first intention to retire also, but a look from Helen
kept her, and she sat down by that basket of socks, while Mark wished
her away. Awhile they talked of Katy and New York, Mark laboring to
convince Helen that its people were not all heartless and fickle, and at
last citing his mother as an instance.
“You would like mother, Miss Lennox. I hope you will know her some
time,” he said, and then they talked of books, Helen forgetting that
Mark was city-bred in the interest with which she listened to him, while
Mark forgot that the girl who appreciated and understood his views
almost before they were expressed, was country born, and clad in homely
garb, with no ornaments save those of her fine mind and the sparkling
face turned so fully towards him.
“Mark Ray is not like Wilford Cameron,” Helen said to herself, when as
the clock was striking eleven she bade him good night and went up to her
room, and opening her window she leaned her hot cheek against the wet
casement, and looked out upon the night, now so beautiful and clear, for
the rain was over, and up in the heavens the bright stars were shining,
each one bearing some resemblance to Mark’s eyes as they kindled and
grew bright with his excitement, resting always kindly on her—on Helen,
who leaning thus from the window, felt stealing over her that feeling
which, once born, can never be quite forgotten.
Helen did not recognize the feeling, for it was a strange one to her.
She was only conscious of a sensation half pleasurable, half sad, of
which Mark Ray had been the cause, and which she tried in vain to put
aside. And then there swept over her a feeling of desolation such as she
had never experienced before, a shrinking from living all her life in
Silverton, as she fully expected to do, and laying her head upon the
little stand, she cried passionately.
“This is weak, this is folly,” she suddenly exclaimed, as she became
conscious of acting as Helen Lennox was not wont to act, and with a
strong effort she dried her tears and crept quietly to bed just as Mark
was falling into his first sleep and dreaming of smothering.
Helen would not have acknowledged it, and yet it was a truth not to be
denied, that she stayed next morning a much longer time than usual
before her glass, arranging her hair, which was worn more becomingly
than on the previous night, and which softened the somewhat too
intellectual expression of her face, and made her seem more womanly and
modest. Once she thought to wear the light buff gown in which she looked
so well, but the thought was repudiated as soon as formed, and donning
the same dark calico she would have worn if Mark had not been there, she
finished her simple toilet and went down stairs, just as Mark came in at
the side door, his hands full of water lilies, and his boots bearing
marks of what he had been through to get them.
“Early country air is healthful,” he said, “and as I do not often have a
chance to try it, I thought I would improve the present opportunity. So
I have been down by the pond, and spying these lilies I persevered until
I reached them, in spite of mud and mire. There is no blossom I like so
well. Were I a young girl I would always wear one in my hair, as your
sister did one night at Newport, and I never saw her look better. Just
let me try the effect on you;” and selecting a half-opened bud, Mark
placed it among Helen’s braids as skillfully as if hair-dressing were
one of his accomplishments. “The effect is good,” he continued, turning
her blushing face to the glass and asking if it were not.
“Yes,” Helen stammered, seeing more the saucy eyes looking over her head
than the lily in her hair. “Yes, good enough, but hardly in keeping with
this old dress,” and vanity whispered the wish that the _buff_ had
really been worn.
“Your dress is suitable for morning, I am sure,” Mark replied, turning a
little more to the right the lily, and noticing as he did so how very
white and pretty was the neck and throat seen above the collar.
Mark liked a pretty neck, and he was glad to know that Helen had one,
though why he should care was a puzzle. He could hardly have analyzed
his feelings then, or told what he did think of Helen. He only knew that
by her efforts to repel him she attracted him the more, she was so
different from any young ladies he had known—so different from Juno,
into whose hair he had never twined a water lily. It would not become
her as it did Helen, he thought, as he sat opposite her at the table,
admiring his handiwork, which even Aunt Betsy observed, remarking that
“Helen was mightily spruced up for morning,” a compliment which Helen
acknowledged with a painful blush, while Mark began a disquisition upon
the nature of lilies generally, which lasted until breakfast was ended.
It was arranged that Mark should ride to the cars with Uncle Ephraim
when he went for Katy, and as this gave him a good two hours of leisure,
he spoke of Dr. Grant, asking Helen if she did not suppose he would call
round. Helen thought it possible, and then remembering how many things
were to be done that morning, she excused herself from the parlor, and
repairing to the platform out by the back door, where it was shady and
cool, she tied on a broad check apron, and rolling her sleeves above her
elbows, was just bringing the churn-dasher to bear vigorously upon the
thick cream she was turning into butter, when, having finished his
cigar, Mark went out into the yard, and following the winding path came
suddenly upon her. Helen’s first impulse was to stop, but with a strong
nerving of herself she kept on while Mark, coming as near as he dared,
said to her: “Why do you do that? Is there no one else?”
“No,” Helen answered; “that is, we keep no servant, and my young arms
are stronger than the others.”
“And _mine_ are stronger still,” Mark laughingly rejoined, as he put
Helen aside and plied the dasher himself, in spite of her protestations
that he would certainly ruin his clothes.
“Tie that apron round me, then,” he said, with the utmost nonchalance,
and Helen obeyed, tying her check apron around the young man’s neck, who
felt her hands as they touched his hair, and knew that they were
brushing queer fancies into his brain—fancies which made him wonder what
his mother would think of Helen, or what she would say if she knew just
how he was occupied that morning, absolutely churning cream until it
turned to butter, for Mark persisted until the task was done, standing
by while Helen gathered up the golden lumps, and admiring her plump,
round arms quite as much as he had her neck.
She would be a belle like her sister, though of a different stamp, he
thought, as he again bent down his head while she removed the apron and
disclosed more than one big spot upon his broadcloth. Mark assured her
that it did not matter; his coat was nearly worn out, and any way he
never should regret that he had _churned_ once in his life, or forget it
either; and then he asked if Helen would be in New York the coming
winter, talking of the pleasure it would be to meet her there, until
Helen began to feel what she never before had felt, a desire to visit
Katy in her own home.
“Remember if you come that I am your debtor for numerous hospitalities,”
he said, when he at last bade her good-bye and sprang into the covered
buggy, which Uncle Ephraim had brought out in honor of Katy’s arrival.
* * * * *
Old Whitey was hitched at a safe distance from all possible harm. Uncle
Ephraim had returned from the store near by, laden with the six pounds
of crush sugar and the two pounds of real old Java he had been
commissioned to purchase with a view to Katy’s taste, and now upon the
platform at West Silverton his stood, with Mark Ray, waiting for the
arrival of the train just appearing in view across the level plain.
“It’s fifteen months since she went away,” he said, and Mark saw that
the old man’s form trembled with the excitement of meeting her again,
while his eyes scanned eagerly every window and door of the cars now
slowly stopping before him. “There, there!” and he laid his hand
nervously on Mark’s shoulder, as a white, jaunty feather appeared in
view; but that was not Katy, and the dim eyes ran again along the whole
line of the cars, from which so many were alighting.
But Katy did not come, and with a long breath of wonder and
disappointment the deacon said: “Can it be she is asleep? Young man, you
are spryer than I. Go through the cars and find her.”
Mark knew there was plenty of time, and so he made the tour of the cars,
but found, alas, no Katy.
“She’s not there,” was the report carried to the poor old man, who
tremblingly repeated the words: “Not there, not come!” while over his
aged face there broke a look of touching sadness, which Mark never
forgot, remembering it always just as he remembered the big tear drops
which from his seat by the window he saw the old man wipe away with his
coat-sleeve, as whispering softly to Whitey of his disappointment he
unhitched the horse and drove away alone.
“Maybe she’s writ. I’ll go and see,” he said, and driving to their
regular office he found a letter directed by Wilford Cameron, but
written by Katy; but he could not read it then, and thrusting it into
his pocket he went slowly back to the home where the tempting dinner was
prepared and the family waiting so eagerly for him. Even before he
reached them they knew of the disappointment, for from the garret window
Helen had watched the road by which he would come, and when the buggy
appeared in sight she saw he was alone.
There was a mistake; Katy had missed the train, she said to her mother
and aunts, who hoped she might be right. But Katy had not missed the
train, as was indicated by the letter which Uncle Ephraim without a word
put into Helen’s hand, leaning on old Whitey’s neck while she read aloud
the attempt at an explanation which Katy had hurriedly written, a stain
on the paper where a tear had fallen, attesting her distress at the
bitter disappointment.
“Wilford did not know of the other letter,” she said, “and had made
arrangements for her to go back with him to New York, inasmuch as the
house was already opened and the servants there wanting a _head_;
besides that, Wilford had been absent so long that he could not possibly
stop at Silverton himself, and as he would not think of living without
her, even for a few days, there was no alternative but for her to go
with him on the boat directly to New York. I am sorry, oh, so sorry, but
indeed I am not to blame,” she added in conclusion, and this was the
nearest approach there was to an admission that anybody was to blame for
this disappointment which cut so cruelly, making Uncle Ephraim cry, as
out in the barn he hung away the mended harness and covered the new
buggy, which had been bought for naught.
“I might have had the overcoat, for Katy will never come home again,
never. God grant that it’s the Cameron pride, not hers that kept her
from us,” the old man said, as on the hay he knelt down and prayed that
Katy had not learned to despise the home where she was so beloved.
“Katy will never come to us again,” seemed the prevailing opinion at
Silverton, where more than Uncle Ephraim felt a chilling doubt at times
as to whether she really wished to come or not. If she did, it seemed
easy of accomplishment to those who knew not how perfect and complete
were the fetters thrown around her, and how unbending the will which
governed hers. Could they have seen the look in Katy’s face when she
first understood that she was not going to Silverton, their hearts would
have bled for the thwarted creature who fled up the stairs to her own
room, where Esther found her twenty minutes later, cold and fainting
upon the bed, her face as white as ashes, and her hands clenched so
tightly that the nails left marks upon the palms.
“It was not strange that the poor child should faint—indeed, it was only
natural that nature should give way after so many weeks of gayety, and
she very far from being strong,” Mrs. Cameron said to Wilford, who was
beginning to repent of his decision, and who but for that remark perhaps
might have revoked it.
Indeed, he made an attempt to do so when, as consciousness came back,
Katy lay so pale and still before him; but Katy did not understand him,
or guess that he wished her to meet him more than half the way, and so
the verdict was unchanged, and in a kind of bewilderment, Katy wrote the
hurried letter, feeling less actual pain than did its readers, for the
disappointment had stunned her for a time, and all she could remember of
the passage home on that same night when Mark Ray sat with Helen in the
sitting-room at Silverton, was that there was a fearful storm of rain
mingled with lightning flashes and thunder peals, which terrified the
other ladies, but brought to her no other sensation save that it would
not be so very hard to perish in the dark waters dashing so madly about
the vessel’s side.