COUSIN MAUDE.
Three days had passed since the bridal, and James still lingered at
Laurel Hill, while not very many miles away his mother waited and
wondered why he did not come. J.C. and Nellie were gone, but ere
they had left the former sought an interview with Maude, whose
placid brow he kissed tenderly as he whispered in her ear: "Fate
decreed that you should not be my wife, but I have made you my
sister, and, if I mistake not, another wishes to make you my
cousin."
To James he had given back the ornaments intended for another bride
than Nellie, saying, as he did so, "Maude De Vere may wear them
yet."
"What do you mean?" asked James, and J.C. replied: "I mean that I,
and not you, will have a Cousin Maude."
Two days had elapsed since then, and it was night again--but to the
blind girl, drinking in the words of love which fell like music on
her ear, it was high noon-day, and the sky undimmed by a single
cloud.
"I once called you my cousin, Maude," the deep-toned voice said,
"and I thought it the sweetest name I had ever heard, but there is a
nearer, dearer name which I would give to you, even my wife--Maude--shall
it be?" and he looked into her sightless eyes to read her
answer.
She had listened eagerly to the story of his love born so long
ago--had held her breath lest she should lose a single word when he told
her how he had battled with that love, and how his heart had
thrilled with joy when he heard that she was free--but when he asked
her to be his wife the bright vision faded, and she answered
mournfully, "You know not what you say. You would not take a blind
girl in her helplessness."
"A thousandfold dearer to me for that very helplessness," he said,
and then he told her of the land beyond the sea, where the
physicians were well skilled in everything pertaining to the eye.
"Thither they would go," he said, "when the April winds were
blowing, and should the experiment not succeed, he would love and
cherish her all the more."
Maude knew he was in earnest, and was about to answer him, when
along the hall there came the sound of little crutches, and over her
face there flitted a shadow of pain. It was the sister-love warring
with the love of self, but James De Vere understood it all, and he
hastened to say, "Louis will go, too, my darling. I have never had a
thought of separating you. In Europe he will have a rare opportunity
for developing his taste. Shall it not be so?"
"Let him decide," was Maude's answer, as the crutches struck the
soft carpet of the room.
"Louis," said Mr. De Vere, "shall Maude go with me to Europe as my
wife?"
"Yes, yes--yes, yes," was Louis' hasty answer, his brown eyes
filling with tears of joy when he heard that he, too, was to
accompany them.
Maude could no longer refuse, and she half fancied she saw the
flashing of the diamonds, when James placed upon her finger the ring
which bore the inscription of "Cousin Maude." Before coming there
that night, Mr. De Vere had consulted a New York paper, and found
that a steamship would sail for Liverpool on the 20th of April,
about six weeks from that day.
"We will go in it," he said, "my blind bird, Louis, and I," and he
parted lovingly the silken tresses of her to whom this new
appellation was given.
There was much in the future to anticipate, and much in the past
which he wished to talk over; so he remained late that night, and on
passing through the lower hall was greatly surprised to see Mrs.
Kennedy still sitting in the parlor. She had divined the object and
result of his visit, and the moment he was gone she glided up the
stairs to the room where Maude was quietly weeping for very joy. The
story of the engagement was soon told, and winding her arm around
Maude's neck Mrs. Kennedy said, "I rejoice with you, daughter, in
your happiness, but I shall be left so desolate when you and Louis
are both gone."
Just then her eye caught the ring upon Maude's finger, and taking it
in her hand, she admired its chaste beauty, and was calculating its
probable cost, when glancing at the inside she started suddenly,
exclaiming, "'Cousin Maude'--that is my name--the one by which he
always called me. Has it been given to you, too?" and as the throng
of memories that name awakened came rushing over her, the impulsive
woman folded the blind girl to her bosom, saying to her, "My child,
my, child, you should have been!"
"I do not understand you," said Maude, and Mrs. Kennedy replied, "It
is not meet that we should part ere I tell you who and what I am. Is
the name of Maude Glendower strange to you? Did you never hear it in
your Vernon home?"
"It seemed familiar to me when J.C. De Vere first told me of you,"
answered Maude, "but I cannot recall any particular time when I
heard it spoken. Did you know my mother?"
"Yes, father and mother both, and loved them too. Listen to me,
Maude, while I tell you of the past. Though it seems so long ago, I
was a schoolgirl once, and nightly in my arms there slept a
fair-haired, blue-eyed maiden, four years my junior, over whom I
exercised an elder sister's care. She loved me, this little blue-eyed
girl, and when your brother first spoke to me I seemed again to
hear her voice whispering in my ear, 'I love you, beautiful Maude.'"
"It was mother--it was mother!" and Maude Remington drew nearer to
the excited woman, who answered:
"Yes, it was your mother, then little Matty Reed; we were at school
together in New Haven, and she was my roommate. We were not at all
alike, for I was wholly selfish, while she found her greatest
pleasure in ministering to others' happiness; but she crossed my
path at last, and then I thought I hated her."
"Not my mother, lady. You could not hate my mother!" and the blind
eyes flashed as if they would tear away the veil of darkness in
which they were enshrouded, and gaze upon a woman who could hate
sweet Matty Remington.
"Hush, child! don't look so fiercely at me," said Maude Glendower.
"Upon your mother's grave I have wept that sin away, and I know I am
forgiven as well as if her own soft voice had told me so. I loved
your father, Maude, and this was my great error. He was a distant
relative of your mother, whom he always called his cousin. He
visited her often, for he was a college student, and ere I was aware
of it, I loved him, oh, so madly, vainly fancying my affection was
returned. He was bashful, I thought, for he was not then twenty-one,
and by way of rousing him to action. I trifled with another--with
Dr. Kennedy," and she uttered the name spitefully, as if it were
even now hateful to her.
"I know it--I know it," returned Maude, "he told me that when he
first talked with me of you, but I did not suppose the dark-eyed
student was my father."
"It was none other," said Mrs. Kennedy, "and you can form some
conception of my love for him, when I tell you that it has never
died away, but is as fresh within my heart this night as when I
walked with him upon the College Green and he Called me 'Cousin
Maude,' for he gave me that name because of my fondness for Matty,
and he sealed it with a kiss. Matty was present at that time, and
had I not been blind I should have seen how his whole soul was bound
up in her, even while kissing me. I regarded her as a child, and so
she was; but men sometimes love children, you know. When she was
fifteen, she left New Haven. I, too, had ceased to be a schoolgirl,
but I still remained in the city and wrote to her regularly, until
at last your father came to me, and with the light of a great joy
shining all over his face, told me she was to be his bride on her
sixteenth birthday. She would have written it herself, he said, only
she was a bashful little creature, and would rather he should tell
me. I know not what I did, for the blow was sudden, and took my
senses away. He had been so kind to me of late--had visited me so
often, that my heart was full of hope. But it was all gone now.
Matty Reed was preferred to me, and while my Spanish blood boiled at
the fancied indignity, I said many a harsh thing of her--I called
her designing, deceitful, and false; and then in my frenzy quitted
the room. I never saw Harry, again, for he left the city next
morning; but to my dying hour I shall not forget the expression of
his face when I talked to him of Matty. Turn away, Maude, turn away!
for there is the same look now upon your face. But I have repented
of that act, though not till years after. I tore up Mattie's
letters. I. said I would burn the soft brown tress--"
"Oh, woman, woman! you did not burn my mother's hair!" and with a
shudder Maude unwound the soft, white arm which so closely encircled
her.
"No, Maude, no. I couldn't. It would not leave my fingers, but
coiled around them with a loving grasp. I have it now, and esteem it
my choicest treasure. When I heard that you were born, my heart
softened toward the young girl. Mother and I wrote, asking that
Harry's child might be called for me. I did not disguise my love for
him, and I said it would be some consolation to know that his
daughter bore my name. My letter did not reach them until you had
been baptized Matilda, which was the name of your mother and
grandmother, but to prove their goodness, they ever after called you
Maude."
"Then I was named for you;" and Maude Remington came back to the
embrace of Maude Glendower, who, kissing, her white brow, continued:
"Two years afterward I found myself in Vernon, stopping for a night
at the hotel. 'I will see them in the morning,' I said; 'Harry,
Matty, and the little child;' and I asked the landlord where you
lived. I was standing upon the stairs, and in the partial darkness
he could not see my anguish when he replied, 'Bless you, miss. Harry
Remington died a fortnight ago.'"
"How I reached my room I never knew, but reach it I did, and half an
hour later I knelt by his grave, where I wept away every womanly
feeling of my heart, and then went back to the giddy world, the
gayest of the gay. I did not seek an interview with your mother,
though I have often regretted it since. Did she never speak of me?
Think. Did you never hear my name?"
"In Vernon, I am sure I did," answered Maude, "but I was then too
young to receive a very vivid impression, and after we came here
mother, I fear, was too unhappy to talk much of the past."
"I understand it," answered Maude Glendower, and over her fine
features there stole a hard, dark look, as she continued, "I can see
how one of her gentle nature would wither and die in this
atmosphere, and forgive me, Maude, she never loved your father as I
loved him, for had he called me wife I should never have been here."
"What made you come?" asked Maude; and the lady answered, "For
Louis' sake and yours I came. I never lost sight of your mother. I
knew she married the man I rejected, and from my inmost soul I
pitied her. But I am redressing her wrongs and those of that other
woman who wore her life away within these gloomy walls. Money is his
idol, and when you touch his purse you touch his tenderest point.
But I have opened it, and, struggle as he may, it shall not be
closed again."
She spoke bitterly, and Maude knew that Dr. Kennedy had more than
met his equal in that woman of iron will.
"I should have made a splendid carpenter," the lady continued, "for
nothing pleases me more than the sound of the hammer and saw, and
when you are gone I shall solace myself with fixing the entire
house. I must have excitement, or die as the others did."
"Maude--Mrs. Kennedy, do you know what time it is?" came from the
foot of the stairs, and Mrs. Kennedy answered, "It is one o'clock, I
believe."
"Then why are you sitting up so late, and why is that lamp left
burning in the parlor, with four tubes going off at once? It's a
maxim of mine--"
"Spare your maxims, do. I'm coming directly," and kissing the blind
girl affectionately, Mrs. Kennedy went down to her liege lord, whom
she found extinguishing the light, and gently shaking the lamp to
see how much fluid had been uselessly wasted.
He might have made some conjugal remark, but the expression of her
face forbade anything like reproof, and he soon found use for his
powers of speech in the invectives he heaped upon the long rocker of
the chair over which he stumbled as he groped his way back to the
bedroom, where his wife rather enjoyed, than otherwise, the
lamentations which he made over his "bruised shin." The story she
had been telling had awakened many bitter memories in Maude
Glendower's bosom, and for hours she turned uneasily from side to
side, trying in vain to sleep. Maude Remington, too, was wakeful,
thinking over the strange tale she had heard, and marveling that her
life should be so closely interwoven with that of the woman whom she
called her mother.
"I love her all the more," she said; "I shall pity her so, staying
here alone, when I am gone."
Then her thoughts turned upon the future, when she would be the wife
of James De Vere, and while wondering if she should really ever see
again, she fell asleep just as the morning was dimly breaking in the
east.