MADDY AND LUCY.
Supper was over, and Guy had returned to his library. He had not
stopped, as he usually did, to romp with Jessie or talk to Maddy Clyde,
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 that she must stay with her while Maddy went
to Mr. Guy, who wanted to talk with her.
“Is he angry with me, Mrs. Noah?” Maddy asked, and, remembering his
moody looks when she went in quest of the book, she 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 muslin 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, he told
her he had concluded 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, where her vacation 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 goal
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 would 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.
“Oh, Mr. Remington, you are so good to me; what makes you?” she cried;
and then she told him how much she wished to be a teacher, so as to help
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 with them now, you
seem to be 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?”
Maddy never had, and with the 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 was engaged, and that some time
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 before 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 curious 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 it
mean? 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 upon the arm of his chair 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 have been so happy here that I
guess I thought it might go on forever. I am afraid Miss Atherstone will
not fancy me, and I know I shall not feel as free here, after she comes,
as I do now. Then your being so good in 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, and it made Guy
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, and less a child, he 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 master; and while talking
with Jessie of the grand times they should have at school, she marveled
at that little 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 Switzerland, where she expected to spend
the summer, half hoping Guy might join her there, though she could not
urge it, as her mother 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 at all 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?”
“Darling little Lucy, I do love her very dearly,” was Guy’s comment, as
he finished reading her letter, feeling for the moment 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 many times he had crossed the sea to no purpose, he said, half
petulantly:
“I’ve been to England for nothing times enough. When that mother of hers
says I may have her daughter, 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 was to accompany
them if she chose, and having a general supervision of her child. This
was Guy’s plan, and it 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 principle 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.
“My picture? 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. This, it must be remembered, was in the day of ambrotypes, and
before the introduction of photographs.
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 all 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 to 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 went into raptures, and Maddy
blushed to hear her own praises. Guy said nothing, except to ask that
Maddy should sit again; the first 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 Agnes was waiting for him. Three 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,” Jessie said, half-poutingly; then, as she
remembered the second sitting, she begged of Guy to get it for her.
But he did not seem inclined to comply with her request, and kept
putting her off, until, despairing of success, Jessie, when alone with
the doctor, tried her powers of persuasion on him, 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 it;
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 to do so was sufficient. Consequently, Guy little
guessed that the doctor knew what it was he carried so carefully in his
coat pocket, looking at it often when alone in his own room, and
admiring its soft, girlish beauty, 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 to New York with Maddy,
her lessons were suspended, and Aikenside for the time being was turned
into a vast dress-making 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’s dislike was wearing away,
particularly as of late she had seen no signs of special attention on
the doctor’s part. He had recovered from his weakness, she thought, and
she was very gracious toward Maddy, who, naturally forgiving, began to
like her better than she had ever deemed 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. Woman-like, 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 lest 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, the great city,
which to the simple-hearted old man seemed a very Babylon of iniquity,
was different, and for a time he objected 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 a daily 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.”
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 had asked for 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 eyes were dimmer, and rested on her
with no suspicious glance, as, partially reassured, she glided across
the threshold, and bowed civilly when Guy presented grandfather to her.
A little anxious as to how her grandfather would acquit himself, Maddy
sat by, wondering why Agnes appeared so ill at ease, and why her
grandfather 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 taken 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 nothin’ 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’s 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, whom he calls _madam_. He
says, for ten minutes on the stretch: ‘God bless the madam—the madam—the
madam!’ that’s because you are good to Maddy. You’re sick, lady; talkin’
about crazy folks makes you faint,” grandpa added hastily, as Agnes
turned white as 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 remorse, as he walked through
the hall, or 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, growing so profusely within the borders.
“Take them to him, will you?” and her hands shook as she passed to
Grandpa Markham the gift which would thrill poor crazy Joseph with a
strange delight, making him hold converse awhile with the unseen
presence which he called “she,” and then to 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 and the letters he wrote to
Lucy. Nothing but these and 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
talk one whit, for the people marveled more than ever, feeling confident
now that he was educating his own wife, and making sundry spiteful
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, just as Maddy had smiled upon him when, in Madam
——’s parlor, he bade her good-bye. The doctor could not have that
picture, he finally decided. “Hal ought to be satisfied with getting
Maddy, as of course he will, for am I not educating her for that very
purpose?” he said to himself; 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 No. 1. 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 to be.