"That damned Salyers is the traitor! mean, cowardly rascal!"
But Mr. Hammond would not tell me more of what passed; perhaps he was
afraid of frightening me. This only he told me that night, when thanking
me with glance, voice, and pressure of the hand for all I had done for
him. The blood rushed quick and hot through my veins, I was delirious
with an undreamed-of happiness, which took away from me all power of
answering, of even raising my eyes to his face, and the same delirium
followed me to my pillow. He had called me his friend, his little Janet,
who was so quick and ready, so fertile in invention, so brave in
execution: what should he have done without me? I repeated his words to
myself till they lost all their meaning; they were only replete with
blissful content, and filled me with their music till I dropped asleep
for very weariness in saying them over.
The next morning, before I waked, George Hammond had gone. He had left
for Catlettsburg to direct the new hands. The works lay idle, the men
(those who had been dismissed) lounged around gloomy and sullen, and so
passed the week. Then came the news that Mr. Hammond and Tom Salyers had
gone to Cincinnati, and would not return for the present, and that such
men as were satisfied with the former wages were to be put to work
again. Readily did the miners come back to their duty, all but a few of
the Sandy men, who returned to their own homes, and all fell into the
usual train.
And I? There was first the calm sense of happy security, then the
impatience to test again its reality, then the longing homesickness of
the heart. As weeks passed on and I saw nothing of him, as I heard of
his protracted stay, as I saw Miss Hammond make her preparations to join
him, as I watched the boat which carried her away, my sense of
loneliness became too heavy for me, and the same pillow on which I had
known those happy slumbers was wet with tears of bitter despondency.
And yet I understood neither the happiness nor the tears. I did not know
(how should I?) what were the new feelings which made my heart beat at
George Hammond's name. I did not know why I yearned towards his sister
with a warmth of love that would fain show itself in kindly word or
deed. I did not know why the news that he was coming again, which
greeted me after long weeks of weariness, brightened with joyful
radiance everything that I saw, and glorified the aspect of my little
garret, as I had seen a brilliant bunch of flowers glorify and refine
with a light of beauty the every-day ugliness of our sitting-room.
I sang my merriest songs that night, and my feet kept time to their
music in almost dancing measures. The next day, yes, by noon, he would
be at home. I could see his boat land from my little window, and then,
giving Miss Hammond time to be safely housed, I would row myself over to
the store and meet him there. How much I should have to tell him, how
much to hear!
The morning came, and with it came a nervous bashfulness. I should never
dare to go over to see him. No, I would wait quietly until night, when
he would surely come himself to see me. Still I could watch his boat.
And nervously did I stand, my face pressed against the window-pane,
through the long morning hours, my sewing dropped neglected in my lap at
the risk of a scolding from my mother, watching the slow-passing river,
and the leaves hanging motionless over it in the stillness of the summer
noon. At last there was a stir on the opposite shore. Yes, the boat must
be in sight; I could even hear the shouts of the boatmen; and there,
rounding the bluff, she was; there, too, was Mr. Hammond in the stern,
with the rudder in his hand; there sat Miss Hammond, book in hand, with
her usual look of listless disdain. But whose was that girlish face
raised towards Mr. Hammond, while he pointed out so eagerly the
surrounding objects? whose that slight, girlish figure crowned with the
light garden-hat, with its wealth of golden hair escaping from under it?
A sharp pang shot through me. Some one was coming to disturb my happy
hours with my teacher and friend; and the chill of disappointment was on
me already. I saw the boat land, saw George Hammond assist carefully
every step of the strange girl, saw an elderly gentleman step also upon
the bank and give his hand to Miss Hammond, and in two minutes the trees
of the landing hid them from my sight.
And how slowly went the hours of that afternoon! how nervously I
listened to every tread, to every click of the gate! nay, my sharpened
hearing took note of every sway of the branches. But the day passed, the
night, and no one came. The next morning brought with it an impatience
which mastered me. I _must_ go, I must see him, and in five minutes I
was pushing my boat from its cove under the water-maple.
But I needed not to have left my room; my visit would be useless; for,
lifting my eyes, as my boat came out from under the leaves, there, on
the path by the river-side opposite, I saw the strange lady mounted on
Swiftfoot, her light figure set off by a cloth riding-habit such as I
had never seen before, the graceful folds of which struck me even then
with a sense of beauty and fitness. I could even distinguish the golden
curls again, which fell close on George Hammond's face, as he stood by
her side arranging her stirrup, his own horse's bridle over his arm. A
backward motion of the oar sent my boat under the branches again, and I
sat motionless, watching them as they rode away.
Two hours afterward they stopped at our gate, and I heard George
Hammond's voice calling me. The blood rushed to my forehead. Had I been
alone, I would not have heard; but my mother was in the room, and I had
no excuse for not going forward. He leaned from his horse and shook
hands cordially, while, at the same time, he said,--
"I have brought Miss Worthington to see you, Janet. She has heard so
much of your kindness to me, and of your courage last spring, that she
was anxious to know you.
"This is Janet Rainsford, Amy," he continued, turning to her.
The lovely, bright young face was bent towards me, the tiny hand
stretched out to mine, and I heard a gentle voice say,--
"Mr. Hammond has told me so much of you, Janet, (I may call you Janet,
may I not?) that I was determined to come and see you. I hope we shall
know each other."
A great fear seized me then,--a fear which seemed to clutch my heart and
stop its beatings, leaving me without any power of reply. I only
stammered a few words, and Mr. Hammond, pitying what he thought my
bashfulness, rode on with a nod of farewell and some words, I could not
take in their sense, which seemed to be requests that I would teach Miss
Worthington all that I knew of the woods and the country.
I sat down with a stunned feeling, dizzied with the knowledge that
seemed to blaze upon me with that horrid fear. Yes, I knew now what it
all meant,--the happiness, the loneliness of the past weeks, the
shrinking bashfulness of yesterday morning, and the chill that fell upon
me when I first saw the stranger in the boat.
I loved George Hammond,--I, the country-girl, without one beauty, one
accomplishment, so ignorant, so beneath him. I had been fool enough to
fling away my heart,--and now, now that it was gone from me, there came
this terrible fear. What was this young girl to him? Were my intuitions
right? Did he love her? Would she take him away from me? take away even
that poor friendship which was all I asked?
That night,--I cannot tell of it,--the rapid, wearying walk from side to
side of my little garret, the despairing flinging myself on the bed, the
restlessness that would bring me to my feet again, the pressing my hot
face against the cool window-pane, the convulsive sobs with which the
struggle ended, the heavy, unrefreshing sleep that came at last, and the
dull wakening in the morning, when nothing seemed left about my heart
but a dead weight of insensibility. But with the brightening hours came
again the restlessness. I would at least know the worst; let me face all
my wretchedness; it could not be but strength would come to me when the
worst was over.
And so I went doggedly through my morning tasks, and the early afternoon
saw me at the store. I would not go to Miss Hammond's house, but I was
sure to hear something of the new-comers among the gossiping miners and
workmen,--or, if not there, I had only to drop into some of the
cottages, to learn from their wives all that they knew or imagined. How
little I learned,--how little compared to what my fierce, craving heart
asked!
"Miss Worthington was here with her father; they had come to see the
mines, so they said; but who knows the truth? More like it was to be a
wedding between the young folks, and the father wanted to see the Sandy
country before he let his daughter come into it. She was a sweet-spoken
young thing,--not like Miss Hammond, with her proud, quality airs."
But all this was only conjecture, and I must have certainty. The
certainty came that evening. Mr. Hammond passed the store as I was
standing by the counter, and insisted that I should go home to tea with
him. I had often done so before, and had no excuse, even when he said,--
"I want so much to make Miss Worthington like our Sandy people, Janet. I
want her father to see that there are people worth knowing even here.
You will tell her of all the pleasures we have,--our walks, our rides.
You cannot be afraid of her, dear Janet,--she is so gentle, so lovely."
A strange feeling seized me, one mingled of gentleness and bitterness.
Yes, for his sake, I would help him. I would do all I could to welcome
to his home her who was to be its blessing, and (here my good angel left
me and some evil one whispered) I would show her, too, that I was not so
altogether to be contemned; she should see that I was not merely the
poor country-girl she thought me. And all I had of thought or feeling,
all that George Hammond had called my inborn poetry, came out that
evening. I talked, I talked well, for I was talking of what I
understood,--of my own forests and streams, of the flowers whose haunts
I knew so well, of the changing seasons in their varying beauty,--nay,
as I gained courage, as I saw that I commanded attention, the books that
I had read so well, the thoughts of those great writers that I had made
my own, came to my aid, and quotation and allusion pressed readily to my
lips.
I saw Esther Hammond's cold look fixed upon my face, but I dared it back
again, and my color rose and my eye sparkled from the excitement. I felt
my triumph when I saw the surprise on Mr. Hammond's face, when I heard
the patronizing tone of Mr. Worthington's voice changed to one of
equality, as he said,--
"You are a worthy champion of Sandy life, Miss Janet. I believe Amy will
be tempted to try it."
There was a quick blush on Amy's face as I turned to look at it, and a
glance of proud affection towards her from George Hammond, which took
away my false strength as I stood, leaving me, weak and trembling, to
seek my home in the evening twilight.
That evening's short-lived triumph cost me dear. It betrayed my scarcely
self-acknowledged secret to another. Miss Hammond's woman's-eye had read
the poor fool who laid her heart open before her. I was made to feel my
weakness before her the next morning, when, walking into our kitchen,
she asked, with her hard, yet dignified calmness, that I should gather
for her some of the Summer Sweetings that hung so thick on the tree
behind our house.
She followed me to the orchard. I gathered the apples diligently and
spoke no word, but not for that did I escape. She stood calmly looking
on till I had finished, then began with that terrible opening from which
we all shrink.
"I should like to speak to you a few moments, Janet."
I quailed before her, for I had somehow a perception of what she was
going to say, though I scarcely dreamed of the hardness with which it
would by said. The blow came, however.
"My brother has been in the habit of taking notice of you ever since he
has been on the Sandy, and he has been of great advantage to you; but
you must be aware that such notice as he gave you when you were a mere
child cannot be continued now that you are a woman."