MADDY AND LUCY.
Supper was over, and Guy was back again in his library. He had not
stopped as he usually did, to romp with Jessie or talk to Maddy Clyde,
until it was so dark that he could not see her sparkling face, but had
come directly back, dropping the heavy curtains and piling fresh coal
upon the fire. Mrs. Noah had lighted the lamps and then gone after
Maddy, explaining to Jessie how she must stay with her while Maddy went
to Mr. Guy, who wanted to talk with her.
“Is he angry with me, Mrs. Noah?” and remembering his moody looks when
she went in quest of the book, Maddy felt her heart misgive her as to
what might be the result of an interview with Guy.
Mrs. Noah, however, reassured her, and Maddy stole for a moment to her
own room to see how she was looking. The crimson dress, with its soft
edge of lace about the slender throat, became her well, and smoothing
the folds of her black silk apron, whose jaunty shoulder pieces gave
her a very girlish appearance, she went down to where Guy was waiting
for her. He heard her coming, and involuntarily drew nearer to him the
chair where he intended she should sit. But Maddy took instead a stool,
and leaning her elbow on the chair, turned her face fully toward him,
waiting for him to speak.
“Maddy,” he began, “are you happy here at Aikenside?”
“Oh, yes, very, very happy,” and Maddy’s soft eyes shone with the
happiness she tried to express.
It was at least a minute before he spoke again, and when he did, it
came out how he had concluded it best to send her and Jessie to school,
for a year or two at least; not that he was tired of teaching her, but
it would be better for her, he thought, to mingle with other girls and
learn the ways of the world. Aikenside would still be her home, still
the place where her vacations would be spent with Jessie if she chose,
and then he spoke of New York as the place he had in view, and asked
her what she thought of it.
Maddy was too much stunned to think of anything at first. That the good
she had coveted most should be placed within her grasp, and by Guy
Remington too, was almost too much to credit. She was happy at
Aikenside, but she had never expected her life there to continue very
long, and had often wished that when it ended she might devise some
means of entering a seminary as other young ladies did. But she had
never dreamed of being sent to school by Guy, nor could she conceive of
his motive. He hardly knew himself, only he liked her, and wished to do
something for her. This was his reply to her tearful question:
“Oh, Mr. Remington, you are so good to me; what makes you?”
He liked her, and all over Maddy’s face there spread a beautiful flush
as the words rang in her ears. And then she told Guy how much she
wished to be a teacher, and so take care of her grandparents and her
poor Uncle Joseph. It seemed almost cruel for that young creature to be
burdened with the care of those three half-helpless people, and Guy
shuddered just as he usually did when he associated Maddy with them,
but when he listened while she told him of all the castles she had
built, and in every one of which there was a place for “our folks,” as
she termed them, it was more in the form of a blessing than a caress
that his hand rested on her shining hair.
“You are a good girl, Maddy,” he said, “and I am glad now that I have
concluded to send you where you can be better fitted for the office you
mean to fill than you could be here, but I shall miss you sadly. I like
little girls, and though you can hardly be classed there now, you seem
to me much like Jessie, and I take pleasure in doing for you as I would
for her. Maddy—-”
Guy stopped, uncertain what to say next, while Maddy’s eyes again
looked up inquiringly.
He was going now to tell “the little girl much like Jessie” of Lucy
Atherstone, and the words would not come at first.
“Maddy,” he said, again blushing guiltily, “I have said I liked you,
and so I hope will some one else. I have written of you to her.”
Up to this point Maddy had a vague idea that he meant the doctor, but
the “her” dispelled that thought, and a most inexplicable feeling of
numbness crept over her as she asked faintly:
“Written to whom?”
Guy did not look at Maddy. He only knew that her head moved out from
beneath his hand as he replied:
“To Miss Atherstone—Miss Lucy Atherstone. Have you never heard of her?”
No, Maddy never had, and with that same numbness she could not
understand, she listened while Guy told her who Lucy Atherstone was,
and why she was not at that moment the mistress of Aikenside. There was
no reason why Guy should be excited, but he was, and he talked very
rapidly, never once glancing at Maddy until he had finished speaking.
She was looking at him intently, wondering if he could hear as she did
the beatings of her heart. Had her life depended upon it, she could not
at first have spoken, for the numbness which, like bands of steel,
seemed to press all the feeling out of it. She did not know why it was
that hearing of Lucy Atherstone should affect her so. Surely she ought
to be glad for Guy that he possessed the love of so sweet a creature as
he described her to be. He was glad, she knew, he talked so
energetically—so much as if it were a pleasure to talk; and she was
glad, too, only it had taken her so by surprise to know that Mr. Guy,
whom she had rather considered as exclusively her own and Jessie’s was
engaged, and that some time, before long it might be, Aikenside would
really have a mistress. She did not quite understand Guy’s last words,
although she was looking at him, and he asked her twice if she would
like to see Lucy’s picture ere she comprehended what he meant.
“Yes,” came faintly from the parted lips, about which there was a
slight quiver as she put up her hand to take the case Guy drew from his
bosom.
Turning it to the light she gazed silently upon the sweet young face,
which seemed to return her gaze with a look as earnest and lifelike as
her own.
“What do you think of her—of my Lucy? Is she not pretty?” Guy asked,
bending down so that his dark hair swept against Maddy’s, while his
warm breath touched her burning cheeks.
“Yes, she’s beautiful, oh! so beautiful, and happy, too. I wish I had
been like her. I wish—” and Maddy burst into a most uncontrollable fit
of weeping, her tears dropping like rain upon the inanimate features of
Lucy Atherstone.
Guy looked at her amazed, his own heart throbbing with a keen pang of
something undefinable as he listened to her stormy weeping. What did
ail her? he wondered. Could it be that the evil against which he was
providing had really come upon her? Was Maddy more interested in him
than he supposed? He hoped not, though with a man’s vanity he felt a
slight thrill of satisfaction in thinking that it might be so. Guy knew
this feeling was not worthy of him, and he struggled to cast it off,
while he asked Maddy why she cried.
Child as she was, the real cause of her tears never entered her brain,
and she answered:
“I can’t tell why, unless I was thinking how different Miss Atherstone
is from me. She’s rich and handsome. I am poor and homely, and—”
“No, Maddy, you are not;” and Guy interrupted her.
Gently lifting up her head, he smoothed back her hair, and keeping a
hand on each side of her face, said, pleasantly:
“You are not homely. I think you quite as pretty as Lucy; I do,
really,” he continued, as her eyes kindled at the compliment. “I am
going to write to her to-night, and shall tell her more about you. I
want you to like each other very much when she comes, so that you may
live with us. Aikenside would not be Aikenside without you, Maddy.”
In all his wooings of Lucy Atherstone, Guy’s voice had never been
tenderer in its tone than when he said this to Maddy, whose lip
quivered again, and who involuntarily laid her head now upon his knee
as she cried a second time, not noisily, but quietly, softly, as if
this crying did her good. For several minutes they sat there thus, the
nature of their thoughts known only to each other, for neither spoke,
until Maddy, half ashamed of her emotions, lifted up her head, and
said:
“I do not know what made me cry, only I’d been so happy here that I
guess I’d come to think that you only liked Jessie and me. Of course I
knew that some time you would see and think all the world of somebody
else, but I did not expect it so soon. I am afraid Miss Atherstone will
not fancy me, and I know most I shall not feel as free here, after she
comes, as I do now. Then your being so good, sending me to school,
helped me to cry more, and so I was very foolish. Don’t tell Miss
Atherstone that I cried. Tell her, though, how beautiful she is, and
how glad I am that she loves you, and is going to be your wife.”
Maddy’s voice was very steady in its tone. She evidently meant what she
said, but Guy, the bad man, did not feel as graciously as he ought to
have felt in knowing that Maddy Clyde was glad “Lucy loved him, and was
to be his wife.”
Guy was rather uncomfortable, and as Maddy was in some way associated
with his discomfort, he did not oppose her when she arose to leave him.
Had Maddy been more a woman, or less a child, she would have seen that
it was well for her to know of Lucy Atherstone before her feelings for
Guy Remington had assumed a definite form. As it was, she never dreamed
how near she was to loving Aikenside’s young heir; and while talking
with Jessie of the grand times they should have at school, she marveled
at that little round spot of pain which was burning at her heart, or
why she should wish that Guy would not speak of her in his letter to
Lucy Atherstone.
But Guy did speak of her, frankly confessing the interest he felt in
her, telling just how people were beginning to talk, and asking Lucy if
she cared, declaring that if she did, he would not see Maddy Clyde any
more than was necessary. In a little less than four weeks there came an
answer from Lucy, who, with health somewhat improved, had returned to
England, and wrote to Guy from Brighton, where she expected to spend
the summer, half hoping Guy might join her there, though she could not
urge it, as mamma still insisted that she was not able to take upon
herself the duties of a wife. Then she spoke of Maddy Clyde, saying
“She was not one bit jealous of her dear Guy, Of course ignorant,
meddling people, of whom she feared there were a great many in America,
would gossip, but he was not to mind them.” Then she said that if Maddy
were willing, she would so much like her picture, as she had a
curiosity to know just how she looked, and if Maddy pleased, “would she
write a few lines, so as not to seem so much a stranger?”
Lucy Atherstone had been educated to think a great deal of birth, and
blood, and family, and Guy never did a wiser thing than when he told
her that according to English views, Maddy was a lady. It went far
toward reconciling Lucy to his interest in one whom her haughtier and
more sanguine mother called a rival, advising her mother to ignore her
altogether. But Lucy’s was a different nature, and though it cost her
pride a pang, she asked for a line from Maddy, partly to mortify that
pride, and partly to prove to Guy how free she was from jealousy.
“Darling little Lucy, I do love her very dearly,” was Guy’s comment, as
he finished reading her letter, feeling somewhat as if her mother were
a kind of cruel ogress, bent on preventing him from being happy. Then,
as he remembered Lucy’s hope that he might join her, and thought how
much easier of access New York was than Brighton, he said, half
petulantly:
“I’ve been to England for nothing times enough. When that mother of
hers says I may have Lucy, I’ll go again, but not before. It don’t
pay.”
And crushing the letter into his pocket, he went out upon the piazza
where were assembled Maddy, Jessie and Mrs. Agnes, the latter of whom
had come to Aikenside the day before.
At first she had objected to the boarding-school arrangement, saying
Jessie was too young, but Guy as usual had overruled her objections, as
he had those of Grandpa Markham, and it was now a settled thing that
Maddy and Jessie both should go to New York, Mrs. Agnes to accompany
them if she chose, and having a general supervision of her child. This
was Guy’s plan, the one which had prevailed with the fashionable woman,
who, tired of Boston, was well pleased with the prospect of a life in
New York. Guy’s interest in Maddy was wholly inexplicable to her,
unless she explained it on the principal that in the Remington nature
there was a fondness for governesses, as had been exemplified in her
own history. That Guy would ever marry Maddy she doubted, but the mere
possibility of it made her set her teeth firmly together as she thought
how embarrassing it would be to acknowledge as the mistress of
Aikenside the little girl whom she had sought to banish from her table.
Since her return she had had no opportunity of judging for herself how
matters stood, and was consequently much relieved when, as Guy joined
them, he began at once to speak of Lucy, telling of the letter, and her
request for Maddy’s picture.
“Me? Mine? You cannot mean that?” Maddy exclaimed, her eyes opening
wide with wonder, but Guy did mean it, and began to plan a drive on the
morrow to Devonshire, where there was at that time a tolerably fair
artist.
Accordingly the next day the four went down to Devonshire, calling
first upon the doctor, whose face brightened when he heard why they had
come. During the weeks that had passed, the doctor had not been blind
to at that was passing at Aikenside, and the fear that Guy was more
interested in Maddy than he ought to be, had grown almost to a
certainty. Now, however, he was not so sure. Indeed, the fact that Guy
had told her of Lucy Atherstone would indicate that his suspicions were
groundless, and he entered heartily into the picture plan, saying
laughingly that if he supposed Miss Lucy would like his face he’d sit
himself, and bidding Guy be sure to ask her. The doctor’s gay spirits
helped raise those of Maddy, and as that little burning spot in her
heart was fast wearing away, she was in just the mood for a most
admirable likeness. Indeed, the artist’s delight at his achievement was
unbounded, as he declared it the very best picture he had ever taken.
It was beautiful, even Agnes acknowledged to herself, while Jessie wait
into raptures, and Maddy blushed to hear her own praises. Guy said
nothing, except to ask that Maddy should sit again; this was good, but
a second might be better. So Maddy sat again, succeeding quite as well
as at first, but as the artist’s preference was for the former, it was
left to be finished up, with the understanding that Guy would call for
it. As the ladies passed down the stairs, Guy lingered behind, and when
sure they were out of hearing, said in a low voice:
“You may as well finish both; they are too good to be lost.”
The artist bowed, and Guy, with a half guilty blush, hurried down into
the street, where Agues was waiting for him. Two hours later, Guy, in
Mrs. Conner’s parlor, was exhibiting the finished picture, which in its
handsome casing, was more beautiful than ever, and more natural, if
possible.
“I think I might have one of Maddy’s,” Jessie said, half poutingly;
then, as she remembered the second sitting, she begged of Guy to get it
for her, “that was a dear brother.”
But the “dear brother” did not seem inclined to comply with her
request, putting her off, until, despairing of success, Jessie, when
alone with the doctor, tried her powers of persuasion on him, coaxing
until in self-defense he crossed the street, and entering the
daguerrean gallery asked for the remaining picture of Miss Clyde,
saying that he wished it for little Miss Remington.
“Mr. Remington took them both,” the artist replied, commencing a
dissertation on the style and beauty of the young girl, all of which
was lost upon the doctor, who, in a kind of maze, quitted the room, and
returning to Jessie, said to her carelessly: “He hasn’t it. You know
they rub out those they do not use. So you’ll have to do without; and,
Jessie, I wouldn’t tell Guy I tried to get it for you.”
Jessie wondered why she must not tell Guy, but the fact that the doctor
requested her not was sufficient. Consequently Guy little guessed that
the doctor knew what it was he carried so carefully in his coat pocket,
looking at it earnestly when at home and alone in his own room,
admiring its soft, girlish beauty, half shrinking from the lifelike
expression of the large, bright eyes, and trying to convince himself
that his sole object in getting it was to give it to the doctor after
Maddy was gone! It would be such a surprise, and the doctor would be so
glad, that Guy finally made himself believe that he had done a most
generous thing!
“I am going to send Lucy your picture to-day, and as she asked that you
should write her a few lines, suppose you do it now,” Guy said to Maddy
next morning, as they were leaving the breakfast table.
It was a sore trial to Maddy to write to Lucy Atherstone, but she
offered no remonstrance, and so accompanying the picture was a little
note, filled mostly with praises of Mr. Guy, and which would be very
gratifying to the unsuspecting Lucy.
Now that it was fully decided for Jessie to go with Maddy, her lessons
were suspended, and Aikenside for the time being was turned into a vast
dressmaking and millinery establishment. With his usual generosity, Guy
had given Agnes permission to draw upon his purse for whatever was
needed, either for herself or Jessie, with the definite understanding
that Maddy should have an equal share of dress and attention.
“It will not be necessary,” he said, “for you to enlighten the citizens
of New York with regard to Maddy’s position. She goes there as Jessie’s
equal, and as such her wardrobe must be suitable.”
No one could live long with Maddy Clyde without becoming interested in
her, and in spite of herself Agnes’ dislike was wearing away,
particularly as of late she had seen no signs of special attention on
the doctor’s part. He had gotten over his weakness, she thought, and so
was very gracious toward Maddy, who, naturally forgiving, began to like
her better than she had ever dreamed it possible for her to like so
proud and haughty a woman. Down at the cottage in Honedale there were
many consultations held and many fears expressed by the aged couple as
to what would be the result of all Guy was doing for their child.
Womanlike, Grandma Markham felt a flutter of pride in thinking that
Maddy was going to school in a big city like New York. It gave her
something to talk about with her less fortunate neighbors, who
wondered, and gossiped, and envied, but could not bring themselves to
feel unkindly toward the girl Maddy, who had grown up in their midst,
and who as yet was wholly unchanged by prosperity. Grandpa Markham, on
the contrary, though pleased that Maddy should have every opportunity
for acquiring the education she so much desired, was fearful of the
result—fearful that there might come a time when his darling would
shrink from the relations to whom she was as sunshine to the flowers.
He knew that the difference between Aikenside and the cottage must
strike her unpleasantly every time she came home, and he did not blame
her for her always apparent readiness to go back. That was natural, he
thought, but a life in New York, that great city which to the
simple-hearted old man seemed a very Babylon of iniquity, was
different, and for a time he demurred to sending her there. But Guy
persuaded him, and when he heard that Agnes was going, too, he
consented, for he had faith in Agnes as a protector. Maddy had never
told him of the scene which followed that lady’s return from Saratoga.
Indeed, Maddy never told anything but good of Aikenside or its inmates,
and so Mrs. Agnes came in for a share of the old people’s gratitude,
while even Uncle Joseph, hearing daily a prayer for the “young madam,”
as grandpa termed her, learned to pray for her himself, coupling her
name with that of Sarah, and asking in his crazy way that God would
“forgive Sarah” first, and then “bless the madam—the madam—the madam.”
A few days before Maddy’s departure, grandpa went up to see “the
madam;” anxious to know something more than hearsay about a person to
whose care his child was to be partially intrusted. Agnes was in her
room when told who wanted to see her. Starting quickly, she turned so
deadly white that Maddy, who brought the message, flew to her side,
asking in much alarm, what was the matter.
“Only a little faint. It will soon pass off,” Agnes said, and then,
dismissing Maddy, she tried to compose herself sufficiently to pass the
ordeal she so much dreaded, and from which there was no possible
escape.
Thirteen years! Had they changed her past recognition? She hoped, she
believed so, and yet, never in her life had Agnes Remington’s heart
beaten with so much terror and apprehension as when she entered the
reception room where Guy sat talking with the infirm old man she
remembered so well. He had grown older, thinner, poorer looking, than
when she saw him last, but in his wrinkled face there was the same
benignant, heavenly expression which, when she was better than she was
now, used to remind her of the angels. His snowy hair was parted just
the same as ever, but the mild blue eye was dimmer, and it rested on
her with no suspicious glance as, partially reassured, she glided
across the threshold, and bowed civilly when Guy presented her.
A little anxious as to how her grandfather would acquit herself, Maddy
sat by, wondering why Agnes appeared so ill at ease, and why her
grandsire started sometimes at the sound of her voice, and looked
earnestly at her.
“We’ve never met before to my knowledge, young woman,” he said once to
Agnes, “but you are mighty like somebody, and your voice when you talk
low keeps makin’ me jump as if I’d heard it summers or other.”
After that Agnes spoke in elevated tones, as if she thought him deaf,
and the mystified look of wonder did not return to his face. Numerous
were the charges he gave to Agnes concerning Maddy, bidding her be
watchful of his child, and see that she did not “get too much drinked
in with the wicked things on Broadway!” then, as he arose to go, he
laid his trembling hand on her head and said solemnly: “You are young
yet, lady, and there may be a long life before you. God bless you,
then, and prosper you in proportion as you are kind to Maddy. I’ve
nothing to give you nor Mr. Guy for your goodness only my prayers, and
them you have every day. We all pray for you, lady, Joseph and all,
though I doubt me he knows much the meaning of what he says.” “Who,
sir? What did you say?” and Agnes’ face was scarlet, as grandpa
replied: “Joseph, our unfortunate boy; Maddy must have told you, the
one who’s taken such a shine to Jessie. He’s crazy-like, and from the
corner where he sits so much, I can hear him whispering by the hour,
sometimes of folks he used to know, and then of you, who we call madam.
He says for ten minutes on the stretch: “God bless the madam—the
madam—the madam!” You’re sick, lady; talkin’ about crazy folks makes
you faint,” grandpa added, hastily, as Agnes turned white, like the
dress she wore. “No—oh, no, I’m better now,” Agnes gasped, bowing him
to the door with a feeling that she could not breathe a moment longer
in his presence. He did not hear her faint cry of bitter, bitter
remorse, as he walked through the hall, nor know she watched him as he
went slowly down the walk, stopping often to admire the fair blossoms
which Maddy did not feel at liberty to pick. “He loved flowers,” Agnes
whispered, as her better nature prevailed over every other feeling,
and, starting eagerly forward, she ran after the old man, who,
surprised at her evident haste, waited a little anxiously for her to
speak. It was rather difficult to do so with Maddy’s inquiring eyes
upon her, but Agnes managed at last to say: “Does that crazy man like
flowers—the one who prays for the madam?” “Yes, he used to years ago,”
grandpa replied; and, bending down, Agnes began to pick and arrange
into a most tasteful bouquet the blossoms and buds of May, growing so
profusely within the borders.
“Take them to him, will you?” and her hand shook as she passed to
Grandpa Markham the gift which would thrill poor crazy Joseph with a
strange delight, making him hold converse a while with the unseen
presence which he called “she,” and then whisper blessings on the
madam’s head. Three days after this, a party of four left Aikenside,
which presented a most forlorn and cheerless appearance to the
passers-by, who were glad almost as the servants when, at the
expiration of a week, Guy came back and took up his olden life of
solitude and loneliness, with nothing in particular to interest him,
except his books the letters he wrote to Lucy; unless, indeed, it were
those he was going to write to Maddy, who, with Jessie, had promised to
become his correspondents. Nothing but these and the picture—the
doctor’s picture—the one designed expressly for him, and which troubled
him greatly. Believing that he had fully intended it for the doctor,
Guy felt as if it were, in a measure, stolen property, and this made
him prize it all the more.
Now that Maddy was away, Guy missed her terribly, wondering how he had
ever lived without her, and sometimes working himself into a violent
passion against the meddlesome neighbors who would not let her remain
with him in peace, and who, now that she was gone, did not stop their
talking one whit. Of this last, however, he was ignorant, as there was
no one to tell him how people marveled more than ever, feeling
confident now that he was educating his own wife, and making sundry
hateful remarks as to what he intended doing with her relations. Guy
only knew that he was very lonely, that Lucy’s letters seemed insipid,
that even the doctor failed to interest him, as of old, and that his
greatest comfort was in looking at the bright young face which seemed
to smile so trustfully upon him from the tiny casing, just as Maddy had
smiled upon him when, in Madam ——’s parlor, he bade her good-by. The
doctor could not have that picture, he finally decided. Hal ought to be
satisfied with getting Maddy, as of course he would, for wasn’t he
educating her for that very purpose? Certainly he was, and, as a kind
of atonement for what he deemed treachery to his friend, he talked with
him often of her, always taking it for granted that when she was old
enough, the doctor would woo and win the little girl who had come to
him in his capacity of inspector, as candidate number one.
At first, the doctor suspected him of acting a part in order to cover
up some design of his own with regard to Maddy, and affected an
indifference he did not feel; but, as time passed on, Guy, who really
believed himself sincere, managed to make the doctor believe so, too.
Consequently, the latter abandoned his suspicions, and gave himself up
to blissful dreams of what might possibly be when Maddy should have
become the brilliant woman she was sure one day to be. Alas! for the
doctor’s dreams.