FRANK AT MILLBANK.
Four days later Magdalen received a letter from Frank, who was
inconsolable. Alice Grey had left school suddenly, without giving him a
chance to say good-by. Why she had gone or where, he did not know. He
only knew she _was_ gone, and that he thought college a bore, and New
Haven a stupid place, and was mighty glad that vacation was so close at
hand, as he wanted to come up to Millbank and fish again in the river.
“I think he might just as well spend a part of his time at home, as to
be lazin’ ’round here for me to wait on,” Hester said, when Magdalen
communicated the news of Frank’s projected visit to her.
Hester did not favor Frank’s frequent visits to Millbank. They made her
too much work, for what with opening the dining-room and bringing out
the silver, and getting extra meals, and seeing to his sleeping room,
and ironing his seven fine shirts every week, with as many collars and
pairs of socks, to say nothing of linen coats and pants, and white
vests, she had her own and Bessie’s hands quite full.
“Then, too, Magdalen was jest good for nothin’ when he was there,” she
said, “and made a deal more work; for, of course, she must eat with the
young gentleman instead of out in the kitchen, as was her custom when
they were alone; and it took more time to cook for two than one.”
Of Hester’s opinion Frank knew nothing, and he came to Millbank one
delightful morning after a heavy shower of the previous night, when the
air was pure and sweet with the scent of the grass just cut on the lawn,
and the perfume of the flowers blooming in such profusion in the garden.
Millbank was beautiful to the tired, lazy young college student, who
hated books and tutors, and rules and early recitations, and was glad to
get away from them all and revel awhile at Millbank. He felt perfectly
at home there, and always called for what he wanted, and ordered the
servants with as much assurance as if he had been the master. He had not
forgotten about the will. He understood it far better now than he had
done when, a little white-haired boy, he fidgeted at his mother’s side
and longed to go back to the baby in the candle-box. He had heard every
particular many a time from his mother, who still adhered to her olden
belief that there was another will which, if not destroyed, would one
day be found.
“I wish it would hurry up, then,” Frank had sometimes said, for with his
expensive habits, four hundred dollars a year seemed a very paltry sum.
In his wish that “it would hurry up,” he intended no harm to Roger.
Frank was not often guilty of reasoning or thinking very deeply about
anything, and it did not occur to him how disastrously the finding of
the will which gave him Millbank would result for Roger. He only knew
that he wanted money, and unconsciously to himself had formed a habit of
occasionally wondering if the missing will ever would be found. This was
always in New York or New Haven, when he wanted something beyond his
means or had some old debt to pay. At Millbank, where he was free from
care, with his debts in the distance and plenty of servants and horses
at his command, he did not often think of the will, though the
possibility that there was one might have added a little to his assured
manner, which was far more like one who had a right to command than
Roger’s had ever been.
Magdalen was waiting for him by the gate at the end of the avenue, on
the afternoon, when, with his carpet-bag in hand, he came leisurely up
the street from the depot, thinking as he came how beautiful the
Millbank grounds were looking, and what a “lucky dog” Roger was to have
stepped into so fair an inheritance without any exertion of his own. And
with these thoughts came a remembrance of the will, and Frank began to
plan what he would do if it should ever be found. He would share equally
with Roger, he said. He would not stint him to four hundred a year. He
would let him live at Millbank just the same, and Magdalen, too,
provided his mother did not raise too many objections; and that reminded
him of what his mother had said to him that morning as he sat,
breakfasting with her, in the same little room where we first saw her.
Mrs. Walter Scott had not been in a very amiable mood when she came down
to breakfast that morning. Eleven years of the wear and tear of
fashionable life had changed her from the fair, smooth-faced woman of
twenty-eight into a rather faded woman of thirty-nine, who still had
some pretensions to beauty, but who found that she did not attract quite
so much attention as she used to do a few years ago, when she was
younger, and Frank was not so tall, and so fearful a proof that her
youthful days were in the past. Her hair still fell in long limp curls
about her face, but part of its brightness and luxuriance was gone, and
this morning, as she arranged it in a stronger light than usual, she
discovered to her horror more than one white hair showing here and there
among the brown, and warning her that middle age was creeping on, while
the same strong light showed her how lines were deepening across her
forehead and about her eyes, effects more of dissipation and late hours
than of Father Time. Mrs. Walter Scott did not like to grow old and gray
and ugly and poor with all the rest, as she felt that she was doing. Her
house in Lexington Avenue could only afford her a shelter. It would not
feed or clothe her, or pay her bills at Saratoga or Long Branch or
Newport. Neither would the interest of the ten thousand dollars given
her by Squire Irving, and she had long ago begun to use the principal,
and had nothing to rely on when that was gone except Roger’s generosity,
and the possibility of the lost will turning up at last. She was wanting
to go to Long Branch this summer; her dear friends were all going, and
had urged her to join them, but her account at the bank was too low to
admit of that, and yesterday she had given her final answer, and seen
the last of her set depart without her. She had not hinted to them the
reason for her refusal to join them. She had said she did not care for
Long Branch, and when they exclaimed against her remaining in the dusty
city, she had mentioned Millbank and the possibility of her going there
for the month of August. She did not really mean it; but when Frank, who
had only been home from college three days, told her at the breakfast
table that he was going to Millbank after pure air, and rich sweet
cream, which was a weakness of his, she felt a longing to go, too,—a
desire for the cool house and pleasant grounds, to say nothing of the
luxuries which were to be had there in so great abundance. But since the
morning of her departure from Millbank she had received no invitation to
cross its threshold, and had not seen Roger over half a dozen times. He
felt that she disliked him, and kept out of her way, stopping always at
a hotel when in New York, instead of going to her house on Lexington
Avenue. He had called there, however, and taken tea the day before he
sailed for Europe, and Mrs. Walter Scott remembered with pleasure that
she had been very affable on that occasion, and pressed him to spend the
night. Surely, after that, she might venture to Millbank, and she hinted
as much to Frank, who would rather she should stay where she was. But he
was not quite unfilial enough to say so. He only suggested that an
invitation from the proper authorities might be desirable before she
took so bold a step.
“You used to snub Roger awfully,” he said; “and if he was like anybody
else, he wouldn’t forget it in a hurry; but, then, he isn’t like anybody
else. He’s the best-hearted and most generous chap I ever knew.”
“Generous!” Mrs. Walter Scott repeated, with a tinge of sarcasm in her
voice.
“Yes, generous,” said Frank. “He has always allowed me more than the
will said he must, and he’s helped me out of more than forty scrapes. I
say, again, he is the most generous chap I ever knew.”
“I hope he will prove it in a few weeks, when you are of age, by giving
you more than that five thousand named in the will,” was Mrs. Walter
Scott’s next remark. “Frank,”—and she lowered her voice lest the walls
should hear and report,—“we are _poor_. This house and three thousand
dollars are all we have in the world; and unless Roger does something
handsome for you, there is no alternative for us but to mortgage the
house, or sell it, and acknowledge our poverty to the world. I have sold
your father’s watch and his diamond cross.”
“Mother!” Frank exclaimed, his tone indicative of his surprise and
indignation.
“I had to pay Bridget’s wages, and defray the expense of that little
party I gave last winter,” was the lady’s apology, to which Frank
responded:
“Confound your party! People as poor as we are have no business with
parties. Sell father’s watch! and I was intending to claim it myself
when I came of age. It’s too bad! You’ll be selling me next! I’ll be
hanged if it isn’t deuced inconvenient to be so poor! I mean to go to
Millbank and stay. I’m seldom troubled with the blues when there.”
“I wish you could get me an invitation to go there, too,” Mrs. Walter
Scott said. “It will look so queer to stay in the city all summer, as I
am likely to do. I should suppose Roger would want somebody besides old
Hester to look after Magdalen. She must be a large girl now.”
It was the first sign of interest Mrs. Walter Scott had shown in
Magdalen, and Frank, who liked the girl, followed it up by expatiating
upon her good qualities, telling how bright and smart she was, and how
handsome she would be if only she could be dressed decently. Then he
told her of Roger’s intention to send her to school, and after a few
more remarks arose from the table and began his preparations for
Millbank. Frank was usually very light-hearted and hopeful, but there
was a weight on his spirits, and his face wore a gloomy look all the way
from New York to Hartford. But it began to clear as Millbank drew near.
There was his Eldorado, and by the time the station was reached, he had
forgotten the impending mortgage, and his father’s watch, and his own
poverty. It all came back, however, with a thought of the will, and he
found himself wishing most devoutly that the missing document could be
found, or else that Roger would do the handsome thing, and come down
with a few thousands on his twenty-first birthday, now only three weeks
in the distance. The sight of Magdalen, however, in her new white
ruffled apron, with her hair curling in rings about her head, and her
great round eyes dancing with joy, diverted his mind from Roger and the
will, and scattered the blues at once.
“Oh; Mag, is that you?” he exclaimed, coming quickly to her side. “How
bright and pretty you look!”
And the tall young man bent down to kiss the little girl, who was very
glad to see him, and who told him how dull it had been at Millbank, and
how Aleck said there was good fishing now in the creek, and a great many
squirrels in the woods, though she did not want him to kill them, and
that he was going to have the blue room instead of his old one, which
was damp from a leak around the chimney; that she had put lots of
flowers in it, and a photograph of herself, in a little frame made of
twigs. This last she had meant to keep a secret, and surprise the young
man, who was sure to be so delighted. But she had let it out, and she
rattled on about it, till the house was reached, and Frank stood in the
blue room, where the wonderful picture was.
“Here, Frank, this is it. This is me;” and she directed his attention at
once to the picture of herself, sitting up very stiff and prim, with
mitts on her hands, and Hester’s best collar pinned around her
high-necked dress, and Bessie’s handkerchief, trimmed with cotton lace,
fastened conspicuously at her belt.
Frank laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which had more of ridicule in it
than approval; and Magdalen, who knew him so well, detected the
ridicule, and knew he was making fun of what she thought so nice.
“You don’t like it, and I got it on purpose for you and Mr. Roger, and
sold strawberries to pay for it, because Hester said a present we earned
ourselves was always worth more than if we took somebody else’s money to
buy it,” Magdalen said, her lip beginning to quiver and her eyes to fill
with tears.
“The man was a bungler who took you in that stiff position,” Frank
replied, “and your dress is too old. I’ll show you one I have of Alice
Grey, and maybe take you to Springfield, where you can sit just as she
does.”
This did not mend the matter much, and Magdalen felt as if something had
been lost from the brightness of the day, and wondered if Roger too
would laugh at her photograph, which had gone to him in Hester’s letter.
Frank knew he had wounded her, and was very kind and gracious to her by
way of making amends, and gave her the book with colored plates which he
had bought for Alice Grey just before she left New Haven so suddenly. It
happened to be in his trunk, which was brought from the station that
night, and he blessed his good stars that it was there, and gave it as a
peace-offering to Magdalen, whose face cleared entirely; and who next
day went with him down to the old haunt by the river, and fastened to
his hook the worms she dug before he was up; and told him all about the
stranger in the graveyard, and about her going to school. And then she
asked him about Alice Grey, and the picture which he had of her.
“Did she give it to you?” Magdalen asked; but Frank affected not to hear
her, and pretended to be busy with something which hurt his foot. He did
not care to tell her that he had bought the picture at the gallery where
it was taken. He would rather she should think Alice gave it to him, and
after a moment he took it from his pocket and handed it to Magdalen, who
stood for a long time gazing at it without saying a word. It was the
picture of a sweet-faced young girl, whose short, chestnut hair rippled
in waves all over her head just as Magdalen’s did. Her dress was a white
muslin, with clusters of tucks nearly to the waist, and her little
rosetted slipper showed below the hem. Her head was leaning upon one
hand, and the other held a spray of flowers, while around her were
pictures, and vases, and statuettes, with her straw hat lying at her
feet, where she had evidently thrown it when she sat down to rest. It
was a beautiful picture, and nothing could be more graceful than Alice’s
attitude, or afford a more striking contrast to the stiff position of
poor Mag in that picture on Frank’s table, in the blue room. Magdalen
saw the difference at once, and ceased to wonder at Frank’s
non-appreciation of her photograph. It _was_ a botch, compared with
Alice’s, and she herself was a botch, an awkward, unsightly thing in her
long dress and coarse shoes, two sizes too big for her, such as she
always insisted upon wearing for fear of pinching her toes. She had them
on now, and a pair of stockings which wrinkled on the top of her foot,
and she glanced first at them and then at the delicate slipper in the
picture, and the small round waist, and pretty tucked skirt, and then,
greatly to Frank’s amazement, burst into a flood of tears.
“I don’t wonder you like her best,” she said, when Frank asked what was
the matter. “I don’t look like that. I can’t, I haven’t any slippers,
nor any muslin dress; and if I had, Hester wouldn’t let me have it
tucked, it’s such hard work to iron it. Alice has a mother, I know,—a
good, kind mother, to take care of her and make her look like other
little girls. Oh, I wish her mother was mine, or I had one just like
her.”
Alas, poor Magdalen. She little guessed the truth, or dreamed how dark a
shadow lay across the pathway of pretty Alice Grey. She only thought of
her as handsome and graceful and happy in mother and friends, and she
wept on for a moment, while Frank tried to comfort her.
There was no more fishing that day, for Maggie’s head began to ache, and
they went back to Millbank, across the pleasant fields, in the quiet of
the summer afternoon. Frank missed Magdalen’s photograph from his table
the next day, and had he been out by the little brook which ran through
the grounds, he would have seen the fragments of it floating down the
stream, with Magdalen standing by and watching them silently. They
fished again after a day or two, and hunted in the woods and sat
together beneath an old gnarled oak where Frank grew confidential, and
told Magdalen of his moneyed troubles, and wondered if Roger would allow
him more than five thousand when he came of age. And then he
inadvertently alluded to the missing will, and told Magdalen about it,
and said it might be well enough for her to hunt for it occasionally, as
she had access to all parts of the house. And Magdalen promised that she
would, without a thought of how the finding of it might affect Roger.
She would not for the world have harmed one whom she esteemed and
venerated as she did Roger, but he was across the sea, and Frank had her
ear and her sympathy. It would be a fine thing to find the will,
particularly as Frank had promised her a dress like Alice Grey’s and a
piano, if she succeeded.
Frank was not a scoundrel, as some reader may be ready to suppose. He
had no idea that the finding of the will would ruin Roger. He had
received no such impression from his mother. She had not thought best to
tell him all she believed, and had only insinuated that the missing will
was more in his favor than the one then in force. Frank wanted money,—a
great deal of money, and his want was growing constantly, and so he
casually recommended Magdalen to hunt for the will, and then for a time
gave the subject no more thought. But not so with Magdalen. She dreamed
of the will by night, and hunted for it by day, when Frank did not claim
her attention, until at last Hester stumbled upon her turning over the
identical barrel of papers which Mrs. Walter Scott had once looked
through.
“In the name of the people, what are you doing?” she asked; and
Magdalen, who never thought of keeping her intentions a secret, replied,
“I’m looking for that will which Mrs. Walter Scott says Squire Irving
made before he died.”
For an instant Hester was white as a ghost, and her voice was thick with
passion or fright, as she exclaimed, “A nice business, after all Roger
has done for you, and a pretty pickle you’d be in, too, if such a will
could be found. Don’t you know you’d be hustled out of this house in
less than no time? You’d be a beggar in the streets. Put up them papers
quick, and don’t let me catch you rummagin’ again. If Frank is goin’ to
put such notions into your head, he’d better stay away from Millbank.
Come with me, I say!”
Hester was terribly excited, and Magdalen looked at her curiously, while
there flashed across her mind a thought, which yet was hardly a thought,
that, if there _was_ a will, Hester knew something of it. Let a woman
once imagine there is a secret or a mystery in the house, and she seldom
rests until she has ferreted it out. So Magdalen, though not a woman,
had the instincts of one, and her interest in the lost document was
doubled by Hester’s excitement, but she did not look any more that day,
nor for many succeeding ones.
On Frank’s birthday there came letters from Roger, and the same train
which brought them brought also Mrs. Walter Scott. She had found the
city unendurable with all her acquaintance away, and had ventured to
come unasked to Millbank. Hester was not glad to see her. Since finding
Magdalen in the garret, she had suspected Frank of all manner of evil
designs, and now his mother had come to help him carry them out. She had
no fears of their succeeding. She knew they would not; but she did not
want them there, and she spoke very short and crisp to Mrs. Walter
Scott, and was barely civil to her. Mrs. Walter Scott, on the contrary,
was extremely urbane and sweet. She did not feel as assured as she had
done when last at Millbank. There was nothing of the mistress about her
now. She was all smiles and softness, and gentleness, and called Hester
“My dear Mrs. Floyd,” and squeezed her hand, and told her how well and
young she was looking, and petted Magdalen, and ran her white fingers
through her rings of hair, and said it was partly on her account she had
come to Millbank.
“I heard from Frank that she was to go to school in the autumn, and
knowing what a bore it would be for you, Mrs. Floyd, to see to her
wardrobe, with all the rest you have to do, I ventured to come,
especially as I have been longing to see the old place once more. How
beautiful it is looking, and how nicely you and your good husband have
kept everything! How is Mr. Floyd?”
Hester knew there was a good deal of what she called “soft-soap” in all
the lady said; but kind words go a great ways with everybody, and Hester
insensibly relaxed her stiffness and went herself with Mrs. Walter Scott
to her room and opened the shutters, and brought clean towels for the
rack, and asked if her guest would have a lunch or wait till dinner was
ready.
“Oh, I’ll wait, of course. I do not mean to give you one bit of
trouble,” was the suave reply, and Hester departed, wondering to herself
at the change, and if “Mrs. Walter Scott hadn’t j’ined the church or
something.”