THE DRIVE.
Latterly the doctor had taken to driving in his buggy, and when Maddy
was strong enough he took her with him one day, himself adjusting the
shawl which grandma wrapped around her, and pulling a little farther on
the white sunbonnet which shaded the sweet, pale face, where the roses
were just beginning to bloom again. The doctor was very happy that
morning, and so, too, was Maddy, talking to him upon the theme of which
she never tired, Guy Remington, Jessie and Aikenside. Was it as
beautiful a place as she had heard it was, and didn’t he think it would
be delightful to live there?
“I suppose Mr. Guy will be bringing a wife there some day when he finds
one,” and leaning back in the buggy Maddy heaved a little sigh, not at
thoughts of Guy Remington’s wife, but because she began to feel tired,
and thus gave vent to her weariness.
The doctor, however, did not so construe it. He heard the sigh, and for
the first time when listening to her as she talked of Guy, a keen throb
of pain shot through his heart, a something as near akin to jealousy as
it was possible for him then to feel. But all unused as he was to the
workings of love he did not at that moment dream of such an emotion in
connection with Madeline Clyde. He only knew that something affected
him unpleasantly, prompting him, for some reason, to tell Maddy Clyde
about Lucy Atherstone, who, in all probability, would one day come to
Aikenside as its mistress.
“Yes, Guy will undoubtedly marry,” he began, just as over the top of
the easy hill they were ascending horses’ heads were visible, and the
Aikenside carriage appeared in view. “There he is now,” he exclaimed,
adding quickly: “No, I am mistaken, there’s only a lady inside. It must
be Agnes.”
It was Agnes driving out alone, for the sole purpose of passing a place
which had a singular attraction for her, the old, red cottage in
Honedale. She recognized the doctor, and guessed whom he had with him,
Putting up her glass, for which she had no more need than Jessie, she
scrutinized the little figure bundled up in shawls, while she smiled
her sweetest smile upon the doctor, showing to good advantage her white
teeth, and shaking back her wealth of curls with the air and manner of
a young coquettish girl.
“Oh, what a handsome lady! Who is she?” Maddy asked, turning to look
after the carriage now swiftly descending the hill.
“That was Jessie’s mother, Mrs. Agnes Remington,” the doctor replied.
“She’ll feel flattered with your compliment.”
“I did not mean to flatter. I said what I thought. She is handsome,
beautiful, and so young, too. Was that a gold bracelet which flashed so
on her arm?”
The doctor presumed it was, though he had not noticed. Gold bracelets
were not new to him as they were to Maddy, who continued:
“I wonder if I’ll ever wear a bracelet like that?”
“Would you like to?” the doctor asked, glancing at the small white
wrist, around which the dark calico sleeve was closely buttoned, and
thinking how much prettier and modest-looking it was than Agnes’
half-bare arms, where the ornaments were flashing.
“Y-e-s,” came hesitatingly from Maddy, who had a strong passion for
jewelry. “I guess I would, though grandpa classes all such things with
the pomps and vanities which I must renounce when I get to be good.”
“And when will that be?” the doctor asked.
Again Maddy sighed, as she replied: “I cannot tell. I thought so much
about it while I was sick, that is, when I could think; but now I’m
better, it goes away from me some. I know it is wrong, but I cannot
help it. I’ve seen only a bit of pomp and vanity, but I must say that I
like what I have seen, and I wish to see more. It’s very wicked, I
know,” she kept on, as she met the queer expression of the doctor’s
face; “and I know you think me so bad. You are good—a Christian, I
suppose?”
There was a strange light in the doctor’s eye as he answered, half
sadly: “No, Maddy, I am not what you call a Christian, I have not
renounced the pomps and vanities yet.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” and Maddy’s eyes expressed all the sorrow she
professed to feel. “You ought to be, now you’ve got so old.”
The doctor colored crimson, and stopping his horse under the dim shadow
of a maple in a little hollow, he said:
“I’m not so very old, Maddy; only twenty-five—only ten years older than
yourself; and Agnes’ husband was more than twenty years her senior.”
The doctor did not know why he dragged that last in, when it had
nothing whatever to do with their conversation; but as the most trivial
thing often leads to great results, so far from the pang caused by
Maddy’s thinking him so old, was born the first real consciousness he
had ever had that the little girl beside him was very dear, and that
the ten years difference between them might prove a most impassable
gulf. With this feeling, it was exceedingly painful for him to hear
Maddy’s sudden exclamation:
“Oh, oh! over twenty years—that’s dreadful. She must be most glad he’s
dead. I would not marry a man more than five years older than I am.”
“Not if you loved him, and he loved you very, very dearly?” the doctor
asked, his voice low and tender in its tone.
Wholly unsuspicious of the wild storm beating in his heart, Maddy
untied her white sunbonnet, and, taking it in her lap, smoothed back
her soft hair, saying, with a long breath: “Oh! I’m so hot,” and then,
as just thinking of his question, replied: “I shouldn’t love him—I
couldn’t. Grandma is five years younger than grandpa, mother was five
years younger than father, Mrs. Green is five years younger than Mr.
Green, and, oh! ever so many. You are warm, too; ain’t you?” and she
turned her innocent eyes full upon the doctor, who was wiping from his
lips the great drops of water, induced not so much by the heat as by
the apparent hopelessness of the love he now knew was growing in his
heart for Maddy Clyde. Recurring again to Agnes, Maddy said: “I wonder
why she married that old man? It is worse than if you were to marry
Jessie.”
“Money and position were the attractions, I imagine,” the doctor said.
“Agnes was poor, and esteemed it a great honor to be made Mrs.
Remington.”
“Poor, was she?” Maddy rejoined. “Then maybe Mr. Guy will some day
marry a poor girl. Do you think he will?”
Again Lucy Atherstone trembled on the doctor’s lips, but he did not
speak of her—it was preposterous that Maddy should have any thoughts of
Guy Remington, who was quite as old as himself, besides being engaged,
and with this comforting assurance the doctor turned his horse in the
direction of the cottage, for Maddy was growing tired and needed to be
at home.
“Perhaps you’ll some time change your mind about people so much older,
and if you do you’ll remember our talk this morning,” he said, as he
drove up at last before the gate.
Oh, yes! Maddy would never forget that morning or the nice ride they’d
had. She had enjoyed it so much, and she thanked him many times for his
kindness, as she stood waiting for him to drive away, feeling no tremor
whatever when at parting he took and held her hand, smoothing it
gently, and telling her it was growing fat and plump again. He was a
very nice doctor, much better than she had imagined, she thought, as
she went slowly to the house and entered the neat kitchen, where her
grandmother sat shelling peas for dinner, and her grandfather in his
leathern chair was whispering over his weekly paper.
“Did you meet a grand lady in a carriage?” grandma asked, as Maddy sat
down beside her.
“Yes; and Dr. Holbrook said it was Mrs. Remington, from Aikenside, Mr.
Guy’s stepmother, and that she was more than twenty years younger than
her husband—isn’t it dreadful? I thought so; but the doctor didn’t seem
to,” and in a perfectly artless manner Maddy repeated much of the
conversation which had passed between the doctor and herself, appealing
to her grandma to know if she had not taken the right side of the
argument.
“Yes, child, you did,” and grandma’s hands lingered among the light
green peas in her pan, as if she were thinking of an entirely foreign
subject. “I knows nothing about this Mrs. Remington, only that she
stared a good deal at the house as she went by, even looking at us
through a glass, and lifting her spotted veil after she got by. She may
have been as happy as a queen with her man, but as a general thing
these unequal matches don’t work, and had better not be thought on.
S’posin’ you should think you was in love with somebody, and in a few
years, when you got older, be sick of him. It might do him a sight of
harm. That’s what spoilt your poor Great-uncle Joseph, who’s been in
the hospital at Worcester goin’ on nine years.”
“It was!” and Maddy’s face was all aglow with the interest she always
evinced whenever mention was made of the one great living sorrow of her
grandmother’s life—the shattered intellect and isolation from the world
of her youngest brother, who, as she said, had for nearly nine long
years been an inmate of a madhouse.
“Tell me about it,” Maddy continued, bringing a pillow, and lying down
upon the faded lounge beneath the window.
“There is no great to tell, only he was many years younger than I. He’s
only forty-one now, and was thirteen years older than the girl he
wanted. Joseph was smart and handsome, and a lawyer, and folks said a
sight too good for the girl, whose folks were just nothing, but she had
a pretty face, and her long curls bewitched him. She couldn’t have been
older than you when he first saw her, and she was only sixteen when
they got engaged. Joseph’s life was bound up in her; he worshiped the
very air she breathed, and when she mittened him, it almost took his
life. He was too old for her, she said, and then right on top of that
we heard after a little that she married some big bug, I never knew
who, plenty old enough to be her father. That settled it with Joseph;
he went into a kind of melancholy, grew worse and worse, till we put
him in the hospital, usin’ his little property to pay the bill until it
was all gone, and now he’s on charity, you know, exceptin’ what we do.
That’s what ’tis about your Uncle Joseph, and I warn all young girls of
thirteen or fourteen not to think too much of nobody. They are bound to
get sick of ’em, and it makes dreadful work.”
Grandma had an object in telling this to Maddy, for she was not blind
to the nature of the doctor’s interest in her child, and though it
gratified her pride, she felt that it must not be, both for his sake
and Maddy’s, so she told the sad story of Uncle Joseph as a warning to
Maddy, who could scarcely be said to need it. Still it made an
impression on her, and all that afternoon she was thinking of the
unfortunate man, whom she had seen but once, and that in his prison
home, where she had been with her grandfather the only time she had
ever ridden in the cars. He had taken her in his arms then, she
remembered, and called her his little Sarah. That must have been the
name of his treacherous betrothed. She would ask if it were not so, and
she did.
“Yes, Sarah Morris, that was her name, and her face was handsome as a
doll,” grandma replied, and wondering if she were as beautiful as
Jessie, or Jessie’s mother, Maddy went back to her reveries of the poor
maniac, whom Sarah Morris had wronged so cruelly.