MAGDALEN’S DECISION.
It was a warm morning in early August when Magdalen came fully to
herself and looked around her with a feeling of wonder and uncertainty
as to where she was and what had happened to her. The last thing she
could remember distinctly was of being cold and chilly, and that the
night wind blew upon her as she groped her way back to her room. Now the
doors and windows were opened, and the warm summer rain was falling on
the lawn outside and sifting down among the green leaves of the
honeysuckle which was trained across the window. There were flowers in
her room,—summer flowers,—such as grew in the garden beds, and it must
be that it was summer now, and many weeks had passed since that dreadful
night whose incidents she finally recalled, knowing at last what had
happened in part. _She_ had found the will, and Mrs. Walter Scott had
carried it to Roger, who was not as angry as she had feared he might be.
Nay, he was not angry at all, and his manner towards her when she went
to him in the library had belied what Frank had said, and her cheeks
flushed and her pulse throbbed with delight as she felt again the kisses
Roger had rained upon her lips and forehead and hair, and heard his
voice calling her—“Magda, my darling, my darling.” He had done all this
on that night which must have been so long ago, and that meant _love_,
and Frank was mistaken or wished to deceive her, and she should tell him
so and free herself wholly from him and then wait for Roger to follow up
his words and acts, as he was bound in honor to do. Of all this Magdalen
thought, and then she wondered what had been done about the will, and if
Roger would really go away from Millbank; and if so, would he take her
with him or leave her for awhile and come for her again. That he _had_
gone she never for a moment suspected. She had been delirious, she knew,
but not so much so that some subtle influence would not have told her
when Roger came to say good-by. He was there still. He had arranged
those beautiful bouquets which looked so fresh and bright, and had set
those violets just where she could see them. He had remembered all her
tastes, and would come soon to see her and be so glad when he found how
much better she was. At last there was a step in the hall; somebody was
coming, but it was not Roger, nor Frank, nor yet Celine. _She_ had
finally been sent away, though she had stood her ground bravely for a
time in spite of Mrs. Walter Scott’s lofty ways and cool hints that Miss
Lennox would do quite as well with a stranger, inasmuch as she did not
know one person from another. She called her _Miss Lennox_ now
altogether. _Magdalen_ would have been too familiar and savored too much
of relationship, real or prospective, and this the lady was determined
to prevent. But she said nothing as yet. The time for talking had not
come, and might never come if Magdalen only had sense enough to answer
Frank in the negative. He was still anxious, still waiting for that
torpor to pass away and leave Magdalen herself again. In his estimation
she was already his, for surely she could not refuse him now when
everybody looked upon the marriage as a settled thing, and he insisted
that everything should be done for her comfort, and every care given to
her which would be given to Mrs. Franklin Irving. And in this his mother
dared not cross him. His will was stronger on that point than her own,
and hence the perfect order in the sick-room, and the evidences of kind,
thoughtful attention which Magdalen had been so quick to detect. In one
thing, however, Mrs. Walter Scott had had her way. She had dismissed
Celine outright, and put in her place a maid of her own choosing, and it
was her step which Magdalen heard, coming towards her room. She was not
a bad-faced girl, and she smiled pleasantly as she spoke to Magdalen and
said, “You are better this morning, Miss Lennox.”
“Yes, a great deal better. Have I been sick long, and where are they
all? Who are you, and where is Celine?” Magdalen asked, and the girl
replied, “She left here some two weeks ago and I came in her place; I am
Sarah King; can I do anything for you?”
“Nothing but answer my questions. How long have I been sick, and where
are Hester Floyd and Mr. Irving?”
She meant Roger, but the girl was thinking of Frank, and replied, “Mr.
Irving went to Springfield yesterday, but will be home to-night, I
guess, and so glad to find you better; he has been so concerned about
you, and is in here two or three times a day.”
“Is he?” and Magdalen’s face flushed at this proof of Roger’s interest
in her.
“Don’t you remember anything about it?” the girl asked, and Magdalen
replied, “Nothing; it is all like a long, disturbed sleep. Where is
Hester, did you say?”
“You mean Mrs. Floyd, I suppose; she has been gone some time,—to
Schodick, or some such place. She went with _old_ Mr. Irving, Mr.
Franklin’s uncle, I believe. He is West somewhere now, I heard madam
say. I have never seen him, nor Mrs. Floyd.”
She meant Roger by _old Mr. Irving_, and ordinarily Magdalen would have
laughed merrily at the mistake, but now she was too much surprised and
pained to give it more than a thought.
“Roger, Mr. Roger Irving gone, and Hester, too?” she cried. “When did
they go, and why did they leave me here so sick? Has everybody gone?
Tell me, please, all you know about it.”
Sarah knew very little, but that little she told, and then Magdalen knew
that of all the once happy household at Millbank she was left alone.
Hester was gone, the old servants gone, and Roger was gone, too. That
was the hardest part of all, and the tears sprang to her eyes as a
feeling of homesickness came stealing over her.
“I’d better call Mrs. Irving,” Sarah said, puzzled to know why Magdalen
should cry, and she left the room to do so.
Fifteen minutes later and Mrs. Walter Scott came in, habited in white,
with puffs and tucks and rich embroidery wherever there was a place for
it, and on her head a jaunty little morning cap of the softest
Valenciennes, with a bit of lavender ribbon to relieve it. She was not
all smiles and tenderness now, and there was about her a studied
politeness wholly different from her old caressing manner toward
Magdalen.
“Sarah tells me you are better this morning, and you do look greatly
improved,” she said, standing back a little from the bed and feigning
not to see the hand which Magdalen held toward her.
Magdalen felt the change in a moment and understood the cause. Mrs.
Irving was now the undisputed mistress of Millbank, and she the poor
dependant, left there on the lady’s hands, a burden and a drag whom
nobody wanted. That was the way Magdalen put it, and her tears fell like
rain as she replied, “Yes, I am better, but I,—I—don’t understand it at
all, or why I should be left here alone; why didn’t they take me with
them?”
“I suppose because you were too sick to be moved, though I knew but
little about their movements. Mrs. Floyd was so very rude and ill-bred
that I kept out of her way as much as possible, and as Roger avoided me,
I saw but little of them. It is not worth while to distress yourself
unnecessarily,” the cruel woman went on as she saw how Magdalen cried.
“We have taken every possible care of you and shall continue to do so
until you are well, when, if you, wish to join your friends in Schodick,
we will provide the means for you to do so.”
Nothing could be cooler than her tone and manner and words, and but for
her face, which there was no mistaking, Magdalen would have doubted her
identity with the oily-tongued woman who used to caress and pet her so
much, and to whom at one time she had paid a kind of child-worship. But
it _was_ the same woman, and she stood a moment longer, looking coldly
at Magdalen, and picking a dried leaf or two from the vase of flowers on
the stand; then consulting her watch she said, “You must excuse me now,
as I have an engagement at ten. Sarah will see that you have everything
you want. You will find her an excellent nurse. I chose her myself from
a dozen applicants for the place. I’ll see you again by and by. I wish
you good-morning.”
For a few moments Magdalen lay like one stunned; then, as she began to
reason upon the matter and to understand it more clearly, her pride came
to her aid; and when at last Sarah went back to her, she found her with
flushed cheeks and a resolute, determined look in her eyes, which
flashed and sparkled with much of their former fire.
Frank did not return till the next night. There was a horserace in
Springfield and he had Firefly there and put him on the course and won a
bet and made for himself quite a reputation as a horse-jockey; and he
paid Holt’s bills at the Massasoit House, and sent bottles of champagne
to sundry other “good fellows” who had praised his skill in driving and
praised his horse and flattered him generally. Then he promised to look
at another horse which somebody recommended as unsurpassed in the
saddle, and took several shares in a new speculation which was sure to
go if “the rich Mr. Irving patronized it,” and which if it went was sure
to pay double. Judge Burleigh, of Boston, who was stopping at the
Massasoit, had sought him out and introduced his daughter Bell, a
handsome, haughty girl, who had made fun of his light mustache and
boyish face before she knew who he was, and then been very gracious to
him after. Bell Burleigh was poor and fashionable and extravagant, and
on the lookout for a husband. Frank Irving was rich, and master of the
finest residence in the county, and worth cultivating, and so she
expended upon him every art known to a thorough woman of the world, and
walked with him through the halls and sat with him in the parlor in the
evening, and went out in the morning to see him drive Firefly round the
course, and had her father ask him to their table at dinner time, and
flattered and courted him until he began to wonder why other people
beside Bell Burleigh had not discovered what an entertaining and
agreeable man he was! But through it all he never for a moment wavered
in his allegiance to Magdalen. Bell’s influence could not make him do
that; but it inflated his pride and made him less able to bear the
humiliation to which Magdalen was about to subject him.
After her first interview with Magdalen, Mrs. Walter Scott did not see
her again until her son returned, though she sent twice to know how she
was feeling and if she would have anything. To these inquiries Magdalen
had answered that she was doing very well and did not want anything more
than she already had, and this was all that had passed between the two
ladies when Frank came home from Springfield. He heard from Sarah of the
change in Magdalen; but heard, too, that she could not see him that
night, as she had been sitting up some little time and was very tired.
The next day it was the same, and the next. She was too weak to talk,
and would rather Mr. Irving should wait before she saw him. And so Frank
waited and chafed and fretted and lost his temper with his mother, who
maintained through all the utmost reserve with regard to Magdalen,
feeling intuitively that matters were adjusting themselves to her
satisfaction. She guessed what the delay portended, and on the strength
of it went once or twice to the sick-room, and was a little more
gracious than at first. But Magdalen was very reserved toward her now,
barely answering her questions, and seeming relieved when she went away.
Frank saw her at last. She was sitting up in her easy chair, and her
face was very pale at first, but flushed and grew crimson as Frank bent
over her and kissed her forehead and called her his darling, and told
her how glad he was to find her better, and how miserable he had been
during the last few days because he could not see her.
“It was naughty in you to banish me so long. Don’t you think so,
darling?” he said playfully, as he stooped again to kiss her.
He was taking everything for granted, and Magdalen gasped for breath as
she put up both hands to thrust him aside, for she felt as if she were
smothering with him so near to her.
“Sit down, Frank,” she said, “sit there by the window,” and she pointed
to a seat so far from her that more kisses were out of the question.
Something in her tone startled him, and he sat where she bade him sit
and then listened breathlessly while she went over the whole ground
carefully, and at last, as gently as possible, for she would not
unnecessarily wound him, told him she could not be his wife.
“I decided that before I knew Roger had the will,” she said, “and I sent
for you to tell you so on that dreadful day when so much happened here.
I like you, Frank, and I know you have been very kind to me, but I
cannot be your wife; I do not love you well enough for that.”
It was in vain that Frank begged her to consider, to take time to think.
She surely did not know what she was doing when she refused _him_; and
he thought of Bell Burleigh and all the flattery he had received in
Springfield, and wished Magdalen could know how highly some people
esteemed him.
Magdalen understood him in part, and smiled a little derisively as she
replied: “I know well what I am doing, Frank; I am refusing one who, the
world would say, was far above me,—a poor girl, with neither home, nor
friends, nor name.”
“What, then, do you propose to do?” Frank asked, “if, as you say, you
are without home or friends.”
“I don’t know. Oh, I don’t know. Some way will be provided,” Magdalen
answered sadly, her heart going out in a longing cry after Roger.
As if divining the thought, and feeling jealous and angry on account of
it, Frank continued:
“You surely would not go to Schodick now. Even your love for Roger would
not allow you to do so unmaidenly a thing as that.”
He spoke bitterly, for he felt bitterly, and when he saw how white
Magdalen grew, and how she gasped for breath, he went on pitilessly,—“I
think I know what stands between us. You fancy you love Roger best.”
“Hush! Frank, hush!” Magdalen cried, and the color came rushing back
into her face. “If I _do_ love Roger best, _it_ is not to be mentioned
between us, and you must respect the feeling. He does not care for me,
or he would not have left me here so sick, without a word of farewell to
be given when I could understand it. _Did_ he leave any message, Frank?”
Had Magdalen been stronger, she would never have admitted what she was
admitting to Frank, who, still more piqued and irritated, answered her,
“None that I ever heard of.”
“Or come to see me either? Didn’t he do so much as that?”
Frank could have told her of the many nights and days when Roger never
left her side, except as it was absolutely necessary; but he would not
even tell her that; he merely said: “I dare say he looked in upon you
before he left, but I do not know. He was very busy those last few days,
and had a great deal to do.”
Magdalen’s lip quivered, but she made a great effort not to show how
much she was pained by Roger’s seeming indifference and neglect. Still,
it did show upon her face, for she was weak, and tired, and worn, and
the great tears came dropping from her eyes, as she thought how mistaken
she had been, and how desolate and alone she was in the great world. And
Frank pitied her at last, and tried to comfort her, but would not say a
word which would give her hope, with regard to Roger. He should not
consider her answer as final, he said, when she begged him to leave her.
She would feel differently by and by, when she saw matters as they
really were. She had no other home but Millbank, as she, of course,
would not follow Roger to Schodick. He placed great emphasis on the word
_follow_, and Magdalen felt her blood tingle to her finger tips as he
went on to say, that, let her decision be what it might, her rightful
place was there at Millbank, which he wished her to consider her home,
just as she always had done. She surely ought to be as willing to look
to him for support as to Roger, who was in no condition now to enlarge
his household, even if he wished to do it.
He left her then, and went at once to his mother. He had staked his all
on Magdalen, and he must not lose her,—for aside from the great trial it
would be to him, there was the bitter mortification he would be
compelled to endure, for he had suffered the people of Belvidere to
believe in his engagement, and Magdalen must be won, or at least kept at
Millbank and in order to do this there must be a perfect understanding
between himself and his mother. And after a half hour’s interview there
_was_ a perfect understanding, and Mrs. Walter Scott knew that if by
word or sign she helped Magdalen to a knowledge of Roger’s love for her,
and so separated her from Frank, just so sure would he carry out his
former threat, of deeding Millbank away. That point was settled, and
another too, which was, that Magdalen should be treated with all the
kindness and attention due to an inmate of the house, and one who might,
perhaps, be its mistress.
“But whether she is or not, mother, you’ve got to come down from your
stilts, and treat her as you did before the confounded will was found,
or, by the Harry, I’ll do something you’ll be sorry for.”
Frank’s recent intercourse with horse-jockeys, and men of the
race-course, had not improved his language; but he was in earnest, and
his mother promised whatever he required, and kept her promise all the
more readily, because she knew that do what he would, and plead as he
might, Magdalen would never be his wife.