THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE.
Hester was better. Her long sleep had done her good, and when she awoke
it was evident that her fever was broken and the crisis of her disease
passed. She was perfectly rational, and evidently retained no
recollection of what she had said of the garret and Mrs. Walter Scott.
Indeed, she was very civil to that lady, who, on her way to breakfast,
came in to see her, looking very bright and fresh in her black wrapper,
trimmed with scarlet, and her pretty little breakfast cap set on the
back of her head. Good fare, which she did not have to pay for,—pure
country air, and freedom from all care, had had a rejuvenating effect on
Mrs. Walter Scott, and for a woman of forty-seven or thereabouts, she
was remarkably handsome and well preserved. This morning she complained
of feeling a little languid. She could not have slept as well as usual,
she said, and she dreamed that some one came into her room, or tried to
come in, and when she woke she was sure she heard footsteps at the
extremity of the hall.
“It was Roger, most likely,” Hester rejoined. “Like the good boy he is,
he got up about twelve, or thereabouts, and stayed up the rest of the
night with me and Magdalen.”
“Oh-h,” Mrs. Irving replied, and her eyes had in them a puzzled look as
she left Hester’s room and repaired to the breakfast table.
“Hester tells me that you spent the night with her, or with
Magdalen,—which was it?” she said to Roger playfully, as she leisurely
sipped her cup of coffee.
There was no reason why Magdalen should have colored scarlet as she did,
or why Roger should stammer and seem so confused as he replied, “Yes,
Hester was very restless, and Magdalen very tired, and so I stayed with
them.”
“And proved a very efficient watcher, it seems; for Hester is better and
Magdalen as blooming as a rose,” was Mrs. Irving’s next remark, as she
shot a quick, curious glance at Magdalen, whose burning cheeks confirmed
her in the suspicion which until that morning had never entered her
mind.
Magdalen cared for Roger, and Roger cared for Magdalen, and at last she
had the key to Magdalen’s refusal of her son.
Mrs. Irving had heard from Frank of his ill success, and while
expressing some surprise, had told him not to despair, and had promised
to do what she could for the furtherance of his cause. It was no part of
her plan to speak to Magdalen then upon the subject, but she was more
than usually kind and affectionate in her manner towards the girl,
hoping that by this means the mother might succeed where the son had
failed. Now, however, an unlooked-for obstacle had arisen, and for once
Mrs. Walter Scott was uncertain what to do. She had never dreamed that
_Roger_ might fancy Magdalen, he was so much older and seemed to care so
little for women; but she was sure now that he did, and the hundred
thousand dollars she had looked upon as eventually sure seemed to be
fading from her grasp. There were wrinkles in her forehead when she left
the breakfast table, and her face wore a kind of abstracted look, as if
she were intently studying some new device or plan. It came to her at
last, and when next she was alone with Frank, she said, “I have been
thinking that it might be well for you to get _Roger’s_ consent for you
to address Magdalen.”
“Roger’s consent!” Frank repeated, in some surprise. “I should say
Magdalen’s consent was of more consequence than Roger’s.”
“Yes, I know,” and the lady smiled meaningly. “You said to me once that
you loved Magdalen well enough to take her on any terms, and wait for
the affection she withholds from you now.”
“Yes, I said so; but what of it?” Frank asked; and his mother replied,
“I think I know Magdalen better than you do. She has implicit confidence
in Roger’s judgment, and an intense desire to please him. Let her once
believe he wishes her to marry you, and the thing is done. At least, it
is worth the trial, and I would speak to Roger without delay and get his
consent. Or stay,” she added, as she reflected that Frank would probably
make a bungle and let out that Magdalen had refused him once, “I will do
it for you. A woman knows so much better what to say than a man.”
Frank had but little faith in his mother’s scheme, and he was about to
tell her so, when Magdalen herself came in. She had just returned from
accompanying Roger as far as the end of the avenue on his way to his
office. He told her that a walk in the bracing air would do her good,
and had taken her with him to the gate which was the entrance to the
Millbank grounds. There they had lingered a little, and Roger had seemed
more lover-like than ever before, and Magdalen’s eyes had shone on him
like stars and kept him at her side long after he knew he ought to be at
his office, where some of his men were waiting for him. At last, warned
by the striking of the village clock of the lateness of the hour, he
said a final good-by, and Magdalen returned to the house, flushed with
excitement and radiant with happiness, which showed itself in her eyes
and face, and in her unusual graciousness towards Frank. Now that she
began herself to know what it was to love, and how terrible it would be
to lose the object of her love, she pitied Frank so much, and never
since that night in the library had she seemed to him so much like the
Magdalen of old as she did, when, with her large straw hat upon her arm,
she stood talking with him a few moments, mingling much of her old
coquetry of manner with what she said, and leaving him at last perfectly
willing that his mother should do anything which would further his cause
with Magdalen.
That night, when dinner was over and Magdalen was with Hester, who was
recovering rapidly, Mrs. Walter Scott took her balls of worsted and her
crocheting, and knocking softly at the door of the library, where she
knew Roger was, asked if she might come in. He thought it was Magdalen’s
knock, and looked a little disappointed when he found who his visitor
was. But he bade her come in, and bringing a chair for her near to the
light, asked what he could do for her.
“I want to talk with you about Frank and Magdalen,” Mrs. Irving said.
“You must of course have seen the growing affection between the young
people?”
Mrs. Walter Scott pretended to be very busy counting her stitches, but
she managed to steal a side glance at her companion, who fairly gasped
at what he had heard, and whose fingers fluttered nervously among the
papers on the table, on one of which he kept writing, in an absent kind
of way and in every variety of hand, the name of Magdalen. He had _not_
noticed the growing affection between the young people; that is, he had
seen nothing on Magdalen’s part to warrant such a conclusion. Once, just
after his return from Europe, he had thought his nephew’s attentions
very marked, and a thought had crossed his mind as to what might
possibly be the result. But all this was past, as he believed, and his
sister’s intelligence came upon him like a thunderbolt, stunning him for
an instant, and making him powerless to speak. Those were fierce
heart-pangs which Roger was enduring, and they showed themselves upon
his face, which was very pale, and the corners of his mouth twitched
painfully, but his voice was steady and natural as he said at last,—
“And Magdalen,—does she—have you reason to believe she would return a
favorable answer to Frank’s suit?”
Mrs. Irving was sure now that what she had suspected was true, and that
nothing but a belief in Magdalen’s preference for another would avail
with him, so she replied unhesitatingly,—
“Certainly I do. I have suspected for years that she was strongly
attached to Frank, and her manner towards him fully warrants me in that
belief. She is the soul of honor, and never professes what she does not
feel.”
“Ye-es,” Roger said, with something between a sigh and a long-drawn
breath, assenting thus to what his sister said, and trying to reconcile
with it Magdalen’s demeanor toward himself of late.
If she was attached to Frank, and had been for years, why that sudden
kindling of her eyes, and that lighting up of her whole face whenever he
was with her, and why that sweet graciousness of manner towards him
which she had of late evinced? Was Magdalen a coquette, or was that the
way of girls? Roger did not know,—he had never made them a study, never
been interested in any girl or woman except Magdalen; and now, when he
must lose her, he began to feel that he had loved her always from the
moment when he took her as his child and first held her baby hands in
his, and laid her soft cheek against his own. She _was_ his,—he had a
better right to her than Frank, and he wrote her name all over the sheet
of paper on the table, and thought of all the castles he had built
within the last few weeks,—castles of the time when Magdalen would be
really his and he could lavish upon her the love and tender caresses he
would be coy of giving any one who was not his wife. Roger was naturally
very reserved,—and in his intercourse with Magdalen he had only shown
her glimpses of the deep, warm love he felt for her. He held peculiar
notions about such things, and he was sorry now that he did,—sorry that
he had not improved his opportunities and won her for his own before
Frank appealed to him, as he had done through his mother, and thus
sealed his lips forever. He was thinking of all this, and was so
absorbed in it that he forgot his sister was there watching him
narrowly, but veiling her watchfulness with her apparent interest in her
worsted work, which became strangely tangled and mixed, and required her
whole attention to unravel and set right. But she could not sit still
all the evening and let Roger fill that sheet of foolscap with
“Magdalen;” she must recall him to the point at issue, and so she said
at last,—
“Frank will do nothing without your sanction, and what he wants is your
permission, as Magdalen’s guardian, for him to address her. Can he have
it?”
Then Roger looked up a moment, and the pencil which had been so busy
began to trace a long black line through every name as if he thus would
blot out the sweetest dream of his life.
“Have my permission to address Magdalen? Yes—certainly, if he wants it.
I had thought—yes, I had hoped—I had supposed—”
Here Roger came to a full stop, and then, as the only thing he could do,
he added,—
“I thought I had heard something about a Miss Grey of New York, and that
probably has misled me. Was there nothing in that report?”
“Nothing,” Mrs. Irving replied. “Frank knew her in New Haven and met her
abroad, and so it was only natural he should call upon her in New York.
There is nothing in that rumor; absolutely nothing. Frank’s mind was too
full of Magdalen for him to care for a hundred Miss Greys. Poor foolish
boy, it brings my own youth back to me to see him so infatuated. I must
go to him now, for I know how anxiously he is waiting for me. Thank you
for the favorable answer I can give him.”
She hurried from the room and out into the hall, never stopping to heed
the voice which called after her,—
“Helen, oh, Helen!”
Roger did not know what he wanted to say to her. His call was a kind of
protest against her considering the matter settled as wholly as she
seemed to think it was. He could not give Magdalen up so easily,—he must
make one effort for himself,—and so he had tried to call his sister
back, but she did not hear him, and went on her way, leaving him alone
with his great sorrow.
Frank was in his own room, lazily reclining in his easy chair and about
finishing the second cigar in which he had indulged since dinner. He
took his third when his mother came in, for he saw that she had
something to tell him, and he could listen so much better when he was
smoking. With a faint protest against the atmosphere of the room, which
was thick with the fumes of tobacco, Mrs. Walter Scott began her story,
telling him that he had Roger’s consent to speak to Magdalen as soon as
he liked, but not telling him of her suspicions that Roger, too, would
in time have spoken for himself, if his nephew had not first taken the
field. It was strange that such a possibility had never occurred to
Frank. He, too, had a fancy that Roger was too old for Magdalen,—that he
was really more her father than her lover, and he never dreamed of him
as a rival.
“I wish you could arrange it with Magdalen as easily as you have with
Roger,” he said; and his mother replied, “She will think better of it
another time. Girls frequently say no at first.”
“But not the way Magdalen said it,” Frank rejoined. “She was in earnest.
She meant it, I am sure.”
“Try her with Roger’s consent. Tell her _he_ wishes it; not that he is
_willing_, but that he _wishes_ it. You will find that argument
all-powerful,” Mrs. Irving said.
Being a woman herself she knew how to work upon another woman’s
feelings, and she talked to and encouraged her son until he caught
something of her hopefulness, and saw himself the fortunate possessor of
all the glorious beauty and sprightliness embodied in Magdalen, who
little dreamed of what lay before her, and who next morning, at the
breakfast table, wondered at Frank’s exhilaration of spirits and Roger’s
evident depression. He was very pale, and bore the look of one who had
not slept; but he tried to be cheerful, and smiled a faint, sickly kind
of smile at Magdalen’s lively badinage with Frank, whom she teased and
coquetted with something after her olden fashion, not because she
enjoyed it, but because she saw there was a cloud somewhere, and would
fain dispel it. She never joked with Roger as she did with Frank; but
this morning when she met him in the hall, where he was drawing on his
gloves preparatory to going out, she asked him what was the matter, and
if he had one of his bad headaches coming on.
“His throat was a little sore,” he said; “he did not sleep much last
night, but the walk to the village would do him good.”
Magdalen had taken a long scarf from the hall-stand, and holding it
toward him, said, “It’s cold this morning, and my teeth fairly chattered
when I went out on the piazza for my run with old Rover. Please wear
this round your throat, Mr. Irving. Let me put it on for you.”
There was a soft light in her eyes and a look of tender interest in her
face, and Roger bent his head before her and let her wind the warm scarf
round his neck and throw the fringed ends over his shoulder. Roger was
tall, and Magdalen stood on tiptoe, with her arms almost meeting round
his neck as she adjusted the scarf behind, and her face came so near to
his that he could feel her breath stir his hair just as her presence
stirred the inmost depths of his heart, tempting him to take her in his
arms and beg of her not to heed Frank’s suit, but listen first to him,
who had the better right to her. But Roger was a prudent man; the hall
was not the place for love-making, so he restrained himself, and only
took one of Magdalen’s hands in his and held it while he thanked her for
her thoughtfulness.
“You are better than a physician, Magda. I don’t know what I should do
without you. I hope you will never leave Millbank.”
So much he did say, and his eyes had an earnest, pleading look in them,
which haunted Magdalen all the morning, and made her very happy as she
flitted about the house, or dashed off one brilliant piece after another
upon her piano, which seemed almost to talk beneath her spirited touch.
Meanwhile, Roger and Frank were alone in the office. The brisk wind
which was blowing in the morning had brought on an April shower of sleet
and rain, and there was not much prospect of visitors or clients. Roger
sat by his desk, pretending to read, while Frank at his table was doing
just what Roger had done the previous night, viz., writing Magdalen’s
name on slips of paper, and adding to it once the name of Irving, just
to see how it would look; and Roger, who got up for a book which was
over Frank’s head, saw it, and smiled sadly as he remembered that he,
too, had written “Magdalen Irving,” just as Frank was doing. There was a
little mirror over the table, where Frank had placed it for his own use;
for he was vain of his personal appearance, and his hair and collar and
necktie needed frequent fixing. Into this mirror Roger glanced and then
looked down upon his nephew, who at that moment seemed a boy compared
with him. Frank’s light hair and skin, and whitish, silky mustache, gave
him a very youthful appearance and made him look younger than he was,
while Roger had grown old within the night. There were no gray hairs, it
is true, among his luxuriant brown locks; but he was haggard and pale,
and there were dark circles beneath his eyes, and he felt tired and worn
and old,—too old to mate with Magdalen’s bright beauty. Frank was better
suited to her in point of age, and Frank should have her if she
preferred him. Roger reached this conclusion hastily, and then, by way
of strengthening it, pointed playfully to the name on the paper, and
asked, “Have you spoken to her yet?”
Frank was glad Roger had broached the subject, and he began at once to
tell what he meant to do and be, if Magdalen would but listen favorably
to him. He would study so hard, and overcome his laziness and his
expensive habits, and be a man, such as he knew he had not been, but
such as he felt he was capable of being with Magdalen as his leading
star. He had _not_ spoken to her yet, he said, but he should do so that
night, and he was glad to have Roger’s approval, as that would surely
bias Magdalen’s decision. Frank grew very enthusiastic, and drove his
penknife repeatedly into the table, and ran his fingers through his
hair, and pulled up his collar and looked in the glass; but never
glanced at Roger, to whom every word he uttered was like a stab, and
whose face was wet with perspiration as he listened and felt that his
heart was breaking.
“I’d better go away for a day or two, until the matter is settled, for
if I stay I might say that to Magdalen which would hardly be fair to
say, after Frank’s confiding in me as he has,” Roger thought; and, after
the mail came in, and he had some pretext for doing so, he announced his
intention of going to New York in the afternoon train. “I shall not go
to the house,” he said, “as I have some writing to do; so please tell
your mother where I have gone, and that I may not return until day after
to-morrow.”
With all his efforts to seem natural, there was something hurried and
excited in his manner, which Frank observed and wondered at, but he
attributed it to some perplexity in business matters, and never
suspected that it had anything to do with him and his prospective
affairs.
Roger talked but little that morning, but busied himself at his own
desk, until time for the train, when, with some directions to Frank as
to what to do in case certain persons called, he left his office and
went on his way to New York.
After Roger’s departure, Frank grew tired of staying alone. The day had
continued wet and uncomfortable, and few had dropped in at the office,
and these for only a moment. So, after a little, he started for
Millbank, resolving, if a good opportunity occurred, to speak to
Magdalen again on the subject uppermost in his mind. He did not see his
mother as he entered the house, but he met a servant in the hall and
asked for Magdalen.
“Miss Lennox was in Mrs. Floyd’s room,” the servant said, and Frank went
there to find her.
“I sent her up garret to shet a winder and hain’t seen her sense,”
Hester said in answer to his question. “She’s somewheres round, most
likely. Did you want anything particular?”
“No, nothing very particular,” was Frank’s reply, as he left the room
and continued his search for Magdalen, first in the parlors, and then in
the little room at the end of the upper hall, which had been fitted up
for a fernery.
Not finding her there and remembering what Hester had said about the
garret, he started at last in that direction, though he had but little
idea that she was there. If she had come down, as he supposed, she had
left the door open behind her, and he was about to shut it, when a sound
met his ear, which made him stop and listen until it was repeated. It
came again ere long,—a sound half way between a moan and a low, gasping
sob, and Frank ran swiftly up the stairs, for it was Magdalen’s voice,
and he knew now that Magdalen was in the garret.