THE STRANGER IN BELVIDERE.
During the eleven years since her disappointment, Mrs. Walter Scott had
never once been to Millbank. She had seen the house several times from
the car window as she was whirled by on her way to Boston, and she
managed to keep a kind of oversight of all that was transpiring there,
but she never crossed the threshold, and had said she never would.
Frank, on the contrary, was a frequent visitor there. He bore no malice
to its inmates on account of the missing will. Roger had been very
generous with him, allowing him more than the four hundred a year, and
assisting him out of many a “deuced scrape,” as Frank termed the debts
he was constantly incurring, with no ostensible way of liquidating them
except through his _Uncle Roger_. He called him uncle frequently for
fun, and Roger always laughed good-humoredly upon his fair-haired
nephew, whom he liked in spite of his many faults.
Frank was now at Yale; but he was no student, and would have left
college the very first year but for Roger, who had more influence over
him than any other living person. Frank believed in Roger, and listened
to him as he would listen to no one else, and when at last, with his
college diploma and his profession as a lawyer, won, Roger went for two
or three years’ travel in the old world, Frank felt as if his anchorage
was swept away and he was left to float wherever the tide and his own
vacillating disposition might take him. The most of his vacations were
spent at Millbank, where he hunted in the grand old woods, with Magdalen
trudging obediently at his side in the capacity of game carrier, or
fished in the creek or river, with Magdalen to carry the worms and put
them on his hook. Frank was lazy,—terribly, fearfully lazy,—and whatever
service another would render him, he was ready to receive. So Magdalen,
whose hands and feet never seemed to tire, ministered willingly to the
city-bred young man, who teased her about her dark face and pulled her
wavy hair, and laughed at her clothes with the Hester stamp upon them,
and called her a little Gypsy, petting her one moment, and then in a
moody fit sending her away “to wait somewhere within call,” until he
wanted her. And Magdalen, who never dreamed of rebelling from the
slavery in which he held her when at Millbank, looked forward with eager
delight to his coming, and cried when he went away.
Roger she held in the utmost veneration and esteem, regarding him as
something more than mortal. She had never carried the game-bag for him,
or put worms upon his hook, for he neither fished nor hunted; but she
used to ride with him on horseback, biting her lips and winking hard to
keep down her tears and conquer her fear of the spirited animal he bade
her ride. She would have walked straight into the crater of Vesuvius if
Roger had told her to, and at his command she tried to overcome her
mortal terror of horses,—to sit and ride, and carry her reins and whip
as he taught her, until at last she grew accustomed to the big black
horse, and Roger’s commendations of her skill in managing it were a
sufficient recompense for weary hours of riding through the lanes, and
meadows, and woods of Millbank.
So, too, when Roger gave her a Latin grammar and bade her learn its
pages, she set herself at once to the task, studying day and night, and
growing feverish and thin, and nervous, until Hester interfered, and
said “a child of ten was no more fit to study Latin than she was to
build a ship, and Roger must let her alone till she was older if he did
not want to kill her.”
Then Roger, who in his love for books had forgotten that children did
not all possess his tastes or powers of endurance, put the grammar away
and took Magdalen with him to New York to a scientific lecture, of which
she did not understand a word, and during which she went fast asleep
with her head on his shoulder, and her queer little straw bonnet
dreadfully jammed and hanging down her back. Roger tied on her bonnet
when the lecture was over, and tried to straighten the pinch in front,
and never suspected that it was at all different from the other bonnets
around him. The next night he took her to Niblo’s, where she nearly went
crazy with delight; and for weeks after, her little room at Millbank was
the scene of many a pantomime, as she tried to reproduce for Bessie’s
benefit the wonderful things she had seen.
That was nearly two years before the summer day of which we write. She
had fished and hunted with Frank since then, and told him of Niblo’s as
of a place he had never seen, and said good-by to Roger, who was going
off to Europe, and who had enjoined upon her sundry things she was to do
during his absence, one of which was always to carry the Saturday’s
bouquet to his father’s grave. This practice Roger had kept up ever
since his father died, taking the flowers himself when he was at home,
and leaving orders for Hester to see that they were sent when he was
away. Magdalen, who had frequently been with him to the graveyard, knew
that the Jessie whose name was on the marble was buried in the sea, for
Roger had told her of the burning ship, and the beautiful woman who went
down with it. And with her shrewd perceptions, Magdalen had guessed that
the flowers offered weekly to the dead were more for the mother, who was
not there, than for the father, who was. And after Roger went away she
adopted the plan of taking with her two bouquets, one large and
beautiful for Jessie, and a smaller one for the old squire, whose
picture on the library-wall she did not altogether fancy.
A visit to the cemetery was always one of the duties of Saturday, and
toward the middle of the afternoon, on a bright day in July, Magdalen
started as usual with her basket of flowers on her arm. She liked going
to that little yard where the shadows from the evergreens fell so softly
upon the grass, and the white rose-bush which Roger had planted was
climbing up the tall monument and shedding its sweet perfume on the air.
There was an iron chair in the yard, where Magdalen sat down, and
divesting herself of her shoes and stockings, cooled her bare feet on
the grass and hummed snatches of songs learned from Frank, who affected
to play the guitar and accompany it with his voice. And while she is
sitting there we will give a pen-and-ink photograph of her as she was at
twelve years of age. A straight, lithe little figure, with head set so
erect upon her shoulders that it leaned back rather than forward. A
full, round face, with features very regular, except the nose, which had
a slight inclination upward, and which Frank teasingly called “a
turn-up.” Masses of dark hair, which neither curled nor lay straight
upon the well-shaped head, but rippled in soft waves all over it, and
was kept short in the neck by Hester, who “didn’t believe much in hair,”
and who often deplored Magdalen’s “heavy mop,” until the child was old
enough to attend to it herself. A clear, brown complexion, with a rich,
healthful tint on cheek and lip, and a fairer, lighter coloring upon the
low, wide forehead; dark, hazel eyes, which, under strong excitement,
would grow black as night and flash forth fiery gleams, but which
ordinarily were soft and mild and bright, as the stars to which Frank
likened them. The eyes were the strongest point in Magdalen’s face, and
made her very handsome in spite of the outlandish dress in which Hester
always arrayed her, and the rather awkward manner in which she carried
her hands and elbows. Hester ignored fashions. If Magdalen was only
clean and neat, that was all she thought necessary, and she put the
child in clothes old enough for herself, and Frank often ridiculed the
queer-looking dresses buttoned up before, and far too long for a girl of
Magdalen’s age.
Except for Frank’s teasing remarks, Magdalen would have cared very
little for her personal appearance, and as he was in New Haven now she
was having a nice time alone in the cemetery, with her shoes and
stockings off to cool her feet, and her bonnet off to cool her head,
round which her short, damp hair was curling more than usual. She was
thinking of Jessie, and wondering how she happened to be on the ocean,
and where she was going, and she did not at first see the stranger
coming down the walk in the direction of the yard where she was sitting.
He was apparently between fifty and sixty, for his hair was very gray,
and there were deep-cut lines about his eyes and mouth; but he was very
fine-looking still, and a man to be noticed and commented upon among a
thousand.
He was coming directly to Squire Irving’s lot, where he stood a moment
with his hand upon the iron fence before Magdalen saw him. With a blush
and a start she sprang up, and tried, by bending her knees, to make her
dress cover her bare feet, which, nevertheless, were plainly visible, as
she modestly answered the stranger’s questions.
“Good afternoon, Miss,” he said, touching his hat to her as politely as
if she had been a princess, instead of a barefoot girl. “You have chosen
a novel, but very pleasant place for an afternoon reverie. Whose yard is
this, and whose little girl are you?”
“I am Mr. Roger’s little girl, and this is Squire Irving’s lot. That’s
his monument,” Magdalen replied; and at the sound of her voice and the
lifting up of her eyes the stranger looked curiously at her.
“What is your name, and what are you doing here?” he asked her next; and
she replied, “I came with flowers for the grave. I bring them every
Saturday, and my name is Magdalen.”
This time the stranger started, and without waiting to go round to the
gate, sprang over the iron fence and came to Magdalen’s side.
“Magdalen whom?” he asked. “Magdalen Rogers?”
“No, sir. Magdalen Lennox. I haven’t any father nor mother, and I live
up at Millbank. You can just see it through the trees. Squire Irving
used to live there, but since he died it belongs to Mr. Roger, and he
has gone to Europe, and told me to bring flowers every Saturday to the
graves. That’s his father,” she continued, pointing to the squire’s
name, “and that,” pointing to Jessie’s name, “is his mother; only she is
not here, you know. She died on the sea.”
If the stranger had not been interested before, he was now, and he went
close to the stone where Jessie’s name was cut, and stood there for a
moment without saying a word to the little girl at his side. His back
was toward her, and she could not see his face until he turned to her
again, and said,—
“And you live there at Millbank, where—where Mrs. Irving did. You
certainly could not have been there when she died.”
Magdalen colored scarlet, and stood staring at him with those bright,
restless, eager eyes, which so puzzled and perplexed him. She had heard
from Hester some of the particulars of her early life, while from her
young girl friends she had heard a great deal more which distressed and
worried her, and sent her at last to Roger for an explanation. And
Roger, thinking it was best to do so, had told her the whole truth, and
given into her keeping the locket which she had worn about her neck, and
the dress in which she came to Millbank. She was old enough to
understand in part her true position, and she was very sensitive with
regard to her early history. That there was something wrong about both
her parents, she knew; but still there was a warm, tender spot in her
heart for her mother, who, Roger had said, bent over her with a kiss and
a few whispered words of affection, ere abandoning her in the cars.
Magdalen could sometimes feel that kiss upon her cheek and see the
restless, burning eyes which Roger described so minutely. There was a
look like them in her own eyes, and she was glad of it, and glad her
hair was dark and glossy, as Roger said her mother’s was. She was proud
to look _like_ her mother; though she was not proud _of_ her mother, and
she never mentioned her to any one save Roger, or alluded to the time
when she had been deserted. So when the stranger’s words seemed to ask
how long she had been at Millbank, she hesitated, and at last replied:
“Of course I was not born when Mrs. Irving died. I’m only twelve years
old. I was a poor little girl, with nobody to care for me, and Mr. Roger
took me to live with him. He is not very old, though. He is only
twenty-six; and his nephew Frank is twenty-one in August.”
The stranger smiled upon the quaint, old-fashioned little girl, whose
eyes, fastened so curiously upon him, made him slightly uneasy.
“Magdalen,” he said at last, but more as if speaking to himself and
repeating a name which had once been familiar to him.
“What, sir?” was Magdalen’s reply, which recalled him back to the
present.
He must say something to her, and so he asked:
“Who gave you the name of Magdalen? It is a very pretty name.”
There was a suavity and winning graciousness in his manner, which, young
as she was, Magdalen felt, and it inclined her to be more familiar and
communicative than she would otherwise have been to a stranger.
“It was _her_ second name,” she said, touching the word Jessie on the
marble. “And Mr. Roger gave it to me when I went to live with him.”
“Then you were named for Mrs. Irving?” and the stranger involuntarily
drew a step nearer to the little girl, on whose hair his hand rested for
a moment. “Do they talk much of her at Millbank?”
“No; nobody but Mr. Roger, when he is at home. Her picture is in the
library, and I think it is so lovely, with the pearls on her neck and
arms, and the flowers in her hair. She must have been beautiful.”
“Yes, very beautiful,” fell mechanically from the stranger’s lips; and
Magdalen asked, in some surprise: “Did you know her, sir?”
“I judge from your description,” was the reply; and then he asked “if
the flowers were for Mrs. Irving.”
“The large bouquet is. I always make a difference, because I think Mr.
Roger loved her best,” Magdalen said.
Just then there came across the fields the sound of the village clock
striking the hour of five, and Magdalen started, exclaiming, “I must go
now; Hester will be looking for me.”
The stranger saw her anxious glance at her stockings and shoes, and
thoughtfully turned his back while she gathered them up and thrust them
into her basket.
“You’d better put them on,” he said, when he saw the disposition she had
made of them. “The gravel stones will hurt your feet, and there may be
thistles, too.”
He seemed very kind indeed, and walked to another enclosure, while
Magdalen put on her stockings and shoes and then arose to go. She
thought he would accompany her as far as the highway, sure, and began to
feel a little elated at the prospect of being seen in company with so
fine a gentleman by old Bettie, the gate-keeper, and her granddaughter
Lottie. But he was in no hurry to leave the spot.
“This is a very pretty cemetery; I believe I will walk about a little,”
he said, as he saw that the girl seemed to be waiting for him.
Magdalen knew this was intended as a dismissal, and walked rapidly away.
Pausing at the stile over which she passed into the street, she looked
back and saw the stranger,—not walking about the grounds, but standing
by the monument and apparently leaning his head upon it. Had she passed
that place an hour later, she would have missed from its cup of water
the largest bouquet, the one she had brought for Mrs. Irving, and would
have missed, too, the half-open rose which hung very near Jessie’s name.
But she would have charged the theft to the children by the gate, who
sometimes did rob the grave of flowers, and not to the splendid-looking
man with the big gold chain, who had spoken so kindly to her, and of
whom her head was full as she went back to Millbank, where she was met
by Hester with an open letter in her hand, bearing a foreign post-mark.