THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
Wanted,— A young woman of pleasing address, and cultivated manners, as
companion for a young lady who suffers greatly from ill health and
nervous depression. It is desirable that the applicant should be both
a good reader and good musician.
“Address, for four weeks,
“MRS. PENELOPE SEYMOUR,
‘St. Denis, New York.’
This advertisement was in the _Herald_, which Frank laid upon the table
in the room where both his mother and Magdalen were sitting. It was four
weeks since Magdalen’s first awakening to perfect consciousness after
her long illness, and in that time she had improved rapidly. She went to
the table now, and had ridden two or three times with Mrs. Walter Scott,
between whom and herself there was a kind of tacit understanding that,
so long as they remained together, each was to be as civil and polite to
the other as possible, knowing the while that each would be glad to be
relieved of the other’s society. Frank had made several efforts to ride
with Magdalen. He wanted to exhibit her in town with his new bays, which
he had bought for an enormous sum. But Magdalen always made some excuse;
and without seeming to do it, Mrs. Walter Scott helped her to avoid him,
so that he had had no opportunity for seeing her alone, since the
interview in her chamber, when she told him her answer was final, and he
had refused to consider it as such. He had been invited to join a party
of young men from Hartford and Springfield, who were going on a fishing
excursion to the Thousand Islands and from thence into Canada, if there
should prove to be good hunting there, and when he brought the _Herald_
into the sitting-room, he came also to say good-by to his mother and
Magdalen.
“Perhaps I shall be gone six weeks,” he said, in reply to his mother’s
questions as to his return, and he looked at Magdalen to see how she
would take it.
She was relieved rather than sorry, and he saw it, and felt a good deal
chagrined, as he shook her hand at parting, and received her kind wishes
for a pleasant trip. After he was gone, she took up the _Herald_, and
ran her eye over its columns, till she reached the list of “Wanted.” She
had studied that list before, for she had it in her mind to find some
situation, as teacher or governess, which would take her from Millbank
and make her independent of every one. She saw the advertisement for a
young woman, who was “a good reader, and good musician.” She knew she
was both, and knew, too, that she was of “pleasing address” and
“cultivated manners.” She did not object to being a companion for an
invalid. It would be easier than a teacher’s life, and she would write
to “Mrs. Penelope Seymour” and see what that lady had to say.
Accordingly, the very next mail which went to New York from Belvidere
carried a letter of inquiry from Magdalen to Mrs. Seymour, whose reply
came at once; a short note, written in a plain, square hand, and
directly to the point. There had been many applications for the
situation, but something in Miss Lennox’s manner of expressing herself
had turned the scale in her favor, and Mrs. Seymour would be glad to see
her at the St. Denis, as soon as possible. Terms, five hundred dollars a
year, with a great deal of leisure.
Five hundred dollars a year seemed a vast amount of money to Magdalen,
who had never earned a penny since the berries picked for that
photograph sent to Roger, and she began at once to think how she would
lay it up, until she had enough to make it worth giving to Roger, who
should not know from whence it came, so adroitly would she manage. She
had in her own mind accepted the situation, but, before she wrote again
to Mrs. Seymour, it would be proper to lay the case before Mrs. Walter
Scott, and, for form’s sake, ask her advice. That lady was delighted,
for now a riddance from Magdalen was sure without her intervention, but
she kept her delight to herself and seemed, for several minutes, to be
considering. Then she said something about its not being what her son
expected or wished, and asked if Magdalen was fully resolved not to
marry Frank.
Magdalen knew this to be a mere ruse, done for politeness’ sake, and she
bit her lip to keep from answering hastily.
Her decision was final, she said. She should probably never marry any
one certainly not Frank; and she could not remain at Millbank longer
than was absolutely necessary. Mrs. Irving must know how very unpleasant
it was, and what an awkward position it placed her in.
Mrs. Irving did know, and fully appreciated Magdalen’s nice sense of
propriety, and she was very gracious to the young girl, and said she was
welcome to stay at Millbank as long as she liked, but, if she preferred
to be less dependent, she respected the feeling, and thought, perhaps,
Mrs. Seymour’s offer was as good as she would have, and it might be well
to accept it.
And so it was accepted, and Magdalen made haste to get away, before
Frank’s return. She hunted for the little dress, impelled by a feeling
that somewhere in the wide world, into which she was going, she might
find her mother, and she would have every possible link by which the
identity could be proven. Mrs. Walter Scott had told her that Hester
Floyd took the chest of linen in which the dress was laid and so she
wrote to Hester the letter we have seen. Once she thought to send some
word direct to Roger, but her pride came up to prevent that. He had
never written to _her_, or sent to inquire for her that she knew of, for
Frank had not told her of a letter written on the prairies, in which
Roger had inquired anxiously for her and asked to be remembered. Roger
did not care for her messages, she thought, and she wrote as formally as
possible, and then, with a strange inconsistency, expected that Roger
would answer the letter. But only the package came, directed in his
handwriting, and Magdalen could have cried when she saw there was
nothing more. She cut the direction out, and put it away in a little
box, with all the letters Roger had written her from Europe, and then
went steadily on with her preparations for leaving Millbank.
It was known, now, in town, that Magdalen was going away, and it created
quite a sensation among her circle of friends. She was _not_ to marry
Frank. She was not as mercenary as many had believed her to be, and the
tide turned in her favor, and Mrs. Johnson called with her daughter
Nellie, now Mrs. Marsh, of Boston, and all the _élite_ of the town came
up to see her, and without expressing it in words, managed to let her
know how much she had risen in their estimation by the step she was
taking. They could not quite understand it all, but they spoke
encouragingly to her, and invited her to their houses, whenever she
chose to come, and went to the depot to see her off, on the bright
autumnal day when she finally left Millbank for a home with Mrs.
Penelope Seymour.