MR. WYNDHAM'S MOTHER.
Mr. Wyndham and Miss Henderson had had but one confidential interview
after that first one, during the length of their brief engagement. It
was the day after the evening at the theater. Mr. Wyndham had called
early and found the heiress waiting for him in the drawing-room. There
was no terror, no humiliation in her manner now, nothing but reckless,
scornful defiance, and fierce pride, with which she seemed to dare him
and Fate to do their worst.
"I was afraid of you yesterday, Mr. Paul Wyndham," she said, with an
unpleasant laugh. "I shall never be afraid of you again. I see that it
is of no use to struggle against Destiny--Providence, good people would
say, but I make no pretense of goodness. The French have a saying that
embodies the character of the nation: '_Couronnons nous des roses avant
qu'elles ne se fleurissent._' I take that for my motto from henceforth,
and crown myself with roses before they fade. I shall dress and spend
money and enjoy this fortune while I may--when it goes, why, let it
go,--I, shall know what to do when that time comes!"
Mr. Wyndham bowed in grave silence, and waited to hear all she might
have to say. "To retain this wealth," she went on in the same reckless
tone, and with her black deriding eyes seeming to mock him, "I consent
to marry you; that is, I consent to go through a civil and religious
ceremony which the world will call a marriage, and which to us will
simply mean nothing but an empty form. It will give you a right to my
money, which is all you want; it will give you a right to dwell under
the same roof, but no right ever to intrude yourself upon me for one
second, except when others are present and it is necessary to avoid
suspicion. The world will call me by your name; but I shall still remain
Olive Henderson, free and unfettered--free to come and go and do as I
please, without interference or hindrance from you. Do I make myself
understood?"
"Perfectly," Mr. Wyndham said, coolly, "and express my views entirely. I
am delighted with your good sense, Miss Henderson, and I foresee we
shall make a model couple, and get on together famously. Now, as to our
wedding arrangements. When is it to be?"
"Whenever you please," she said, scornfully; "it is a matter of perfect
indifference to me."
"I do not like to hurry you too much, but if the end of June----"
Olive made a careless gesture with her ringed hand:
"That will do! One tune is as good as another."
"And our bridal tour? There must be a bridal tour, you know, or people
will talk."
"I told you," she said, impatiently, "it was of no consequence to me!
Arrange it as you please--I shall make no objection."
"Then suppose we go to Canada for a couple of months? The villa at
Redmon can be ready upon our return."
And this tender tête-à-tête between the plighted pair settled the
matter. And in due time the solemn mockery was performed by the Rev.
Augustus Tod, and Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham departed on their wedding tour.
The upholsterer had received his orders, and the villa would be in
readiness upon their return, and there would be a famous house-warming,
to which half Speckport was to be invited. About three weeks after the
amicable adjustment of affairs between the author and the heiress, Mr.
Wyndham made a little investment in landed property on his own account.
There was a delightful little dwelling, known as "Rosebush Cottage," for
sale. A real bijou of a cottage, painted cream color, with vivid green
window-shutters and door, and with a garden in front that was a perfect
sea of roses--crimson roses, and monthly roses, and damask roses, and
bridal roses, all kinds bloomed here, until the air became faint with
perfume; and behind there was a gnarled old orchard, where apple-trees
and plum-trees nearly covered the creamy cottage with their long green
arms. This delicious Rosebush Cottage was for sale; and Mr. Wyndham, who
had for some time been quietly on the look-out for just such a place,
became its purchaser. When asked what he could possibly want of it, Mr.
Wyndham answered it was for his mother.
"For your mother!" exclaimed Mr. Blake, when Mr. Wyndham first told him.
"You never mean to say, Wyndham, your mother is going to exchange the
genial and spicy breezes of Westchester County for our bleak
province--hey?"
"Westchester County is a delightful place, no doubt," responded Mr.
Wyndham; "but in my absence, it is only vanity and vexation of spirit to
my poor mother. What are all the Westchester Counties in America to her
without her Paul, her only one! I shall send for her as soon as I return
from Canada, to come here."
"Perhaps she won't come," said Val; "perhaps she will think of the old
adage, 'My son's my son till he gets him a wife,' and prefer remaining
where she is."
"No," said Mr. Wyndham, "my mother knows her son will be her son all the
days of his life. She is very much changed, Blake, since you knew her;
she never was very fond of society, as you are aware; but of late she
has become a perfect recluse, shutting herself in and shutting the world
out. Rosebush Cottage will make her a very nice hermitage, I think, and
it is conveniently near Redmon. The next thing is to look out for a
competent and trustworthy servant--not a young girl, you know, giddy and
frivolous, but a quiet and sensible woman, who would not object to the
loneliness."
Mr. Blake put on his considering-cap.
"There's Midge," he said, "she's out of place, and stopping with us--you
saw her at our house last night, you remember; but I'm afraid she
mightn't suit."
"That little dwarf, do you mean? She would do well enough, as far as
looks are concerned, if that is the only objection."
"But that isn't the only objection," said Val; "more's the pity, for she
is perfectly trustworthy, and can work like a horse. As for the
loneliness, she would rather prefer it on that very account."
"Then what is the objection?"'
"Why, you see," said Mr. Blake, "we're none of us perfect in this lower
world, and Midge, though but one remove from an angel in a general point
of view, has yet her failings. For instance, there's her temper."
"Bad?" inquired Mr. Wyndham.
Mr. Blake nodded intelligently.
"It never was of the best, you know; but after she lost Nathalie Marsh,
it became--well, she is never kept in any place over a week, and then
she comes to us and makes a purgatory of No. 16 Great St. Peter Street,
until she finds another situation. I'm afraid she wouldn't do."
Mr. Blake, smelling audibly at the roses as he said this, did not see
the sudden change that had come over Mr. Wyndham's face nor the
eagerness hardly repressed in his voice when he spoke.
"She was formerly a servant, then, of this Miss Nathalie Marsh, of whom
I have heard so many speak since I came here?"
"Yes, for years, and devotedly attached to her. Poor Natty! I think
Midge felt her loss ten degrees more than her own mother; but grief, I
regret to say, hasn't a sweetening effect on Midge's temper."
"Still I think I shall try her," said Paul Wyndham, carelessly. "My
mother is very quiet and easy, and I don't believe they will quarrel. I
will see Midge about it this very day."
Which he did accordingly, sending her off at once to keep the cottage
until his mother's arrival. The upholsterer furnishing Redmon Villa had
his orders for Rosebush Cottage also, and both were to be in readiness
when September came round.
Olive Henderson heard with extreme indifference of the expected arrival
of Mr. Wyndham's mother, from the lips of Miss Jo Blake, next day.
"Ah! is she?" the heiress said, suppressing a yawn; "well, as she is to
reside a mile and a half from Redmon, I don't suppose she will be much
trouble to me. If the mistress be like the maid, Laura," said the
heiress, turning with a scornful laugh to her friend, "I am likely to
have a charming mamma-in-law."
Good Miss Jo, who thought the motherless heiress would rejoice at the
tidings she brought her, was scandalized at the speech. Indeed, Miss
Jo--the best of women and old maids--did not approve of Miss Henderson's
capers at all. She had always thought her too proud; for Miss Jo's
simple Irish belief was, that we earthly worms have no business at all
with that sin which drove Lucifer, Star of the Morning, from Paradise,
and was sorry to see her favorite Laura so much taken up with the
queenly coquette.
"Laura was such a nice little girl, Val," Miss Jo said, to the editor of
the "Speckport Spouter," across the tea-table that evening; "and now, I
am afraid, she will fall into the ways of that young girl, whom
everybody is running crazy after. If Miss Henderson was like poor Natty,
or that little angel, Miss Rose, now!"
"How is Miss Rose, Jo?" asked Val; "I haven't seen her this month of
Sundays?"
"She isn't out much," said Miss Blake; "Mrs. Wheatly keeps her busy; and
when she does come out, it's to Mrs. Marsh's she goes, or to see her
poor pensioners. Miss Henderson asked her to be one of her bridemaids, I
hear, but she refused."
"Stuff!" said Val, politely. "Miss Henderson isn't the woman to ask a
governess to be her bridemaid. Not but that Miss Rose is as good as she
is!"
"As good!" cried Miss Jo, in shrill indignation, "she's fifty thousand
times better. Miss Rose is a little pale-faced angel on the face of the
earth; and that rich young woman with the big black eyes is no more an
angel than I am!"
Miss Jo manifested her disapprobation of the heiress by not going to see
her married, and by declining an invitation to the wedding-breakfast;
neither of which slights, had she known of them, which she didn't, would
have troubled the high-stepping young lady in the least.
But Miss Jo was destined to become an heiress herself; for, a fortnight
after the great wedding, and just as Speckport was getting nicely round
after the shock, it received another staggerer in the news that a great
fortune had been left to Miss Jo Blake. Thirty thousand pounds, the
first startling announcement had it; thirteen, the second; and three,
the final and correct one.
Yes; Miss Jo had been left the neat little sum of three thousand pounds
sterling, and was going home to take possession of the fortune. An old
maiden aunt, after whom Miss Joanna had been named, and from whom she
had long had expectations--as all Speckport had heard a million times,
more or less--had died at last, and left Miss Jo the three thousand and
her blessing.
Upon receiving the tidings, Miss Blake was seized with a violent desire
to revisit the scenes of her infantile sports, and gave warning of her
intention of starting in the first vessel bound for Liverpool.
"And it's not in one of them dirty steamboats I'll go," said Miss Jo,
decisively, "that's liable to blow up any minute; but I'll go an a ship
that's slow and sure, and not put a hand in my own life by trusting to
one of them new-fangled inventions!"
Mr. Blake expostulated with his sister on the impropriety of leaving him
alone and unprotected to the mercies of heartless servant-girls. Miss Jo
was inexorable.
"If you don't like keeping house and fighting with the servants," said
Miss Blake, "go and board. If you don't like boarding, why, go and get
married! it won't hurt your growth any, I'm sure!"
As Mr. Blake was on the wrong side of thirty, and had probably done
growing, there was a great deal of sound truth in Miss Jo's remark. Mr.
Blake, however, only stood aghast at the proposal.
"It's time you were getting married, Val," pursued Miss Jo, busily
packing; "particularly now, that I'm going to leave you. You're well
enough off, and there's lots of nice girls in Speckport who would be
glad to snap at you. Not that I should like to see you marry a
Bluenose--Lord forbid! if it could be helped; but there's Miss Rose, or
there's Laura Blair, both of them as nice girls as you will find. Now,
why can't you take and marry one of them?"
Mr. Blake was beyond the power of replying. He could only stare in blank
and helpless consternation at his brisk, match-making sister.
"I would rather you took Miss Rose," pursued Miss Blake, "she's the best
of the two, and a rock of sense; but Laura's very fond of you,
and--where are you going now?"
For Mr. Blake had snatched up his hat and started out, banging the door
after him. The first person he met, turning the corner, was Mr. Blair.
"So you're going to lose Jo, Blake," he said, taking his arm. "Laura
tells me she is off next week in the Ocean Star. What are you going to
do with yourself when you lose her?"
"Become a monk, I think," said Mr. Blake, helplessly. "I don't know
anything else for it! Jo talks of boarding, but I hate boarding-houses,
and where else can I go?"
"Come to us," cried Mr. Blair, heartily. "Mrs. B. thinks there's nobody
like you, and you and I will have a fine chance to talk things over
together. Come to us, old boy, and make our house your home!"
Mr. Blake closed with this friendly offer at once, on condition that the
ladies of the house were satisfied.
"No danger of that," said Laura's father; "they will be in transports.
Come up this evening and have a smoke with me, and see if they don't."
Laura Blair's eyes danced in her head when her father told them the
news; but the little hypocrite affected to object.
"It will make so much trouble, pa," the young lady said, in a
dissatisfied tone, "trouble for ma and me, I mean. I wish he wasn't
coming."
Mr. Blair listened to the shocking fib with the greatest indifference.
He didn't care whether she liked it or not, and said so, with paternal
frankness.
So Miss Jo kissed everybody and departed, and Val translated his Lares
and Penates to Mr. Blair's; at least, such of them as were not disposed
of by public auction.
Speckport was just settling its nerves after this, when it was thrown
into another little flutter by the unexpected return of Captain
Cavendish.
Yes, Captain Cavendish, the defeated conqueror, came back to the scene
of his defeat, rather swaggering than otherwise, and carrying things
with a high hand. Perhaps the gallant captain wanted to show Speckport
how little he cared for being jilted; perhaps he wanted to see what kind
of life Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham would lead together; perhaps he found
himself too well known as a roué and gambler in Montreal; or perhaps he
was not tired bleeding young Alick McGregor and young Speckport
generally, in that quiet house in Prince Street. He was back, anyway,
handsome, and nonchalant, and unprincipled as ever.
Miss Blair received a letter from her friend three weeks after her
departure, dated Niagara. Mrs. Wyndham was not a good correspondent, it
seemed; her letter was very brief and unsatisfactory, and she only
mentioned her husband once, and then merely to say Mr. Wyndham was well.
She signed the letter simply, "Olive," not using her real name, and told
Laura that Montreal was tiresome and the Canadians stupid. Miss Blair
sent her half a quire of note-paper by way of answer, recording every
item of information, and every possible scrap of news, and imploring a
speedy reply. But Olive never replied, although August wore itself out
while Laura waited. On the last day of that month, Mrs. Hill received a
telegram from Portland, Me., from Mr. Wyndham, informing her her master
and mistress would arrive next day.
It was a glorious September afternoon that on which the wedded pair
returned from their short bridal-tour. The steamer swept up to the
crowded wharf in a sort of sun-burst of glory, and the air was opaque
with amber mist, as if it were raining impalpable gold-dust. Not a sign
of fog in the cloudless blue sky; it might have been Venice instead of
Speckport, so luminously brilliant was sky and earth that afternoon.
The passengers poured out of the steamer, and came up the bustling
floats, where cabmen, porters, hotel-runners and the steamer-hands were
making a Babel of discord, and the passengers wondered to see the crowd
of people looking curiously down upon them from the wharf above. Laura
Blair stood straining her eyes for a sight of her friend. Olive
Henderson, with her dangerous gift of fascination, had won the girl's
love as it had never been won before, and Laura had missed her sadly
during these two last months. As she stood impatiently waiting, she was
thinking of that pleasant March evening when Olive Henderson had first
come to Speckport, and they had watched her walk up these very floats,
stately and tall, leaning on Mr. Darcy's arm, and wearing a vail over
her face. And while Laura thought of it, and could scarcely believe it
was only six months ago, she saw the same Olive--Olive Wyndham
now--coming toward her on her husband's arm. She was not vailed this
time, although a long drab gossamer vail floated back from the pretty
jockey-hat she wore, and Laura saw how pale and fagged and spiritless
she looked. The next moment, she had thrown her arms impetuously around
her, and was kissing her rapturously.
"My darling Olly! my darling Olly!" she was crying out. "Oh, how glad I
am to see you again!"
Her darling Olly did not return the embrace very enthusiastically,
though her face lit up at sight of her friend. Laura shook hands with
Mr. Wyndham, who was smiling at her effusions, and then turned again to
the friend she loved.
"Oh, Olly! how dull it has been since you went away, and how cruel of
you never to write to me! Why didn't you write?"
"Writing is such a bore," Olive said, drearily. "I hate writing. Is that
the carriage waiting up there?"
"Yes," said Laura; "and how did you enjoy your travel? You look pale and
tired."
"I am tired to death," Mrs. Wyndham said, impatiently, "and I have not
enjoyed myself at all. Every place was stupid, and I am glad to be home!
Do let us get out of this mob, Mr. Wyndham!"
Mr. Wyndham had paused for a moment to give some directions about the
baggage, and his wife addressed him so sharply that Laura stared. Laura
noticed during the homeward drive how seldom she spoke to her husband,
and how cold her tone always was when she addressed him. But Mr. Wyndham
did not seem to mind much. He talked to Laura--and Mr. Wyndham knew how
to talk--and told her about their travels, and the places they had
been, and the people they had met, and the adventures they had
encountered.
"Olive reigned Lady Paramount wherever we went," he said, smiling (he
never called her Mrs. Wyndham or "my wife," always Olive). "Our tour was
a long succession of brilliant triumphs for her."
Olive merely shrugged her shoulders disdainfully, and looked at the
swelling meadows as they drove along Redmon road. A beautiful road in
summer time, and the Nettleby cottage was quite lost in a sea of green
verdure, sprinkled with red stars of the scarlet-runners. Ann Nettleby
stood in the door as they drove by in a cloud of dust--in that doorway
where pretty Cherrie used to stand, pretty, flighty little Cherrie, whom
Speckport was fast learning to forget.
And Redmon! Could Mrs. Leroy have risen from her grave and looked on
Redmon, she might well have stared aghast at the magical changes. A
lovely little villa, with miniature peaks and turrets, and a long piazza
running around it, and verdant with climbing roses and sweetbrier. A
sloping velvety lawn, on which the drawing-room and dining-rooms windows
opened, led from the house to the avenue; and fair flower-gardens, where
fountains played in marble basins, and bees and butterflies disported in
the September sunshine, spread away on all sides. Beyond them lay the
swelling meadows, the dark woods; and, beyond all, the shining sea
aglitter in the summer sunshine. The groom came up to lead away the
horse, and Mrs. Hill, in a black silk dress and new cap, stood in the
doorway to receive them. The dark, sunless face of Olive lit up and
became luminous for the first time as she saw all this.
"How pretty it is, Laura!" she said. "I am glad I am home."
The servants were gathered in the hall to welcome their master and
mistress as they entered arm-in-arm. The upholsterer had done his work
well, the drawing-room was one long vista of splendor, the dining-room
almost too beautiful for eating in, and there was a conservatory the
like of which Speckport had never seen before. Mrs. Wyndham had a suite
of rooms, too--sleeping-room, dressing-room, bath-room, and boudoir--all
opening into one another in a long vision of brightness and beauty, and
there was a library which was a library, and not a mockery and a
delusion, and was lined with books from floor to ceiling. Speckport had
been shown the house, and pronounced it perfection.
Olive Wyndham forgot her languor and weariness, and broke out in her old
delighted way as she went through it.
"How beautiful it all is!" she cried, "and it is all mine--my own! I am
going to be happy here--I will be happy here!"
Her black eyes flashed strangely upon her husband walking by her side,
and the hand clenched, as if she defied Fate from henceforth.
"I hope so," Paul Wyndham said, gravely. "I hope, with all my heart, you
may be happy here."
Laura looked from one to the other in silent wonder. Mr. Wyndham turned
to her as they finished the tour of the house.
"I suppose Rosebush Cottage is hardly equal to this, Miss Laura? Have
you been there lately?"
"Yes," said Laura. "Val and I--he stops with us now, you know--went
through it last week. The rooms are very pretty, and the garden is one
wilderness of roses; and Midge reminds me of Eve in Eden, only there is
no Adam."
"And Midge does not exactly correspond with our ideas of our fair first
mother," laughed Mr. Wyndham. "I must go there to-morrow and see the
place. Will you come, Olive?"'
"No, thank you," she said, coldly. "Rosebush Cottage has very little
interest for me."
Again Laura stared.
"Why is she so cross?" she thought. "How can she be cross, when he seems
so kind? How soon do you expect your mother, Mr. Wyndham?" she said
aloud.
"This is Friday--I shall leave on Monday morning for New York to fetch
her."
There was an announcement that dinner was ready, and nothing more was
said of Mr. Wyndham's mother. He rode over to Rosebush Cottage early
next morning, attended only by a big Canadian wolf-hound, of which
animals he had brought two splendid specimens with him, and told Midge
he was going to leave him as guardian of the premises. Before he left
the cottage, he called Midge into the pretty drawing-room, and held a
very long and very confidential interview with her, from which she
emerged with her ruddy face blanched to the hue of a sheet. Whatever was
said in that long conversation, its effect was powerful on Midge; for
she remained in a dazed and bewildered state for the rest of the day,
capable of doing nothing but sitting with her arms folded on the
kitchen-table, staring very hard at vacancy with her little round eyes.
Mr. Wyndham departed for New York on Monday morning, taking the other
big dog, Faust, with him. Mrs. Wyndham took his departure with superb
indifference--it was nothing to her. John, the coachman, was of as much
consequence in her eyes as the man she had promised to love, honor, and
obey. She did not ask him when he was coming back--what was it to her if
he never came?--but he volunteered the information. "I will be back next
week, Olive," he said. "Good-bye." And Olive had said good-bye, icily,
and swept past him in the hall, and never once cast a look after him, as
he drove down the long avenue in the hazy September sunshine.
The house-warming at Redmon could not very well come off until Mr.
Wyndham's return; and the preparations for that great event being going
on in magnificent style, and Olive eager for it to take place, she was
not sorry when, toward the close of the following week, she learned her
husband had returned. It was Miss McGregor who drove up to the villa to
make a call, and related the news.
"The boat got in about two o'clock, my dear Mrs. Wyndham," Jeannette
said, "and Mr. Wyndham and his mother came in her. I chanced to be on
the wharf, and I saw them go up together, and enter a cab and drive
off. I am surprised they are not here."
"They drove to Rosebush Cottage, I presume," Olive said, rather
haughtily. "Everything is in readiness for Mrs. Wyndham there."
"What is she like, Jeannette?" asked Laura, who was always at Redmon,
familiarly. "I suppose she was dressed in black?"
"Yes," Miss McGregor said, "she was dressed in black, and wore a thick
black vail over her face, and they had driven off before any one had
time to speak to them. No doubt, she would be present at the
house-warming, and then they could call on her afterward."
But Mrs. Wyndham, Senior, did not appear at the house-warming; and
society was given to understand, very quietly, by Mr. Wyndham, that his
mother would receive no callers. Her health forbade all exertion or
excitement, it appeared. She seldom, if ever, crossed her own threshold,
from week's end to week's end; and it was her habit to keep her room,
and she did not care to be disturbed by any one. Her health was not so
very poor as to require medical attendance; but Mr. Wyndham owned she
was somewhat eccentric, and he liked to humor her. Speckport was quite
disappointed, and said it thought Mr. Wyndham's mother was a very
singular person, indeed!