No ordinary circumstance would have availed to keep Mrs. Varian
at Idlewild after she had discovered Everard Dawn’s return to the
neighborhood, but on the same day of her sudden determination to leave,
fate intervened to prevent her immediate flight.
Her clever, skillful maid, the faithful attendant of many years,
without whom Mrs. Varian was as helpless as a child, was taken ill with
a serious cold and confined to her bed for several days.
Her mistress was in despair, but even her imperious will was powerless
now against the inroads of illness. She had to abide the woman’s
recovery with patience, however much she chafed in secret against the
unwelcome delay.
Mrs. Bowles cheerfully took on herself the duties of lady’s-maid in
addition to her housekeeping tasks, and called in a sick-nurse from the
neighborhood to attend to the invalid. In about three days she began
to convalesce, though it was five before she was able to assist Mrs.
Bowles with the necessary packing for the southward fight.
In the meantime, Mrs. Flint was also improving fast, the pleasing
prospect of the journey southward having exerted on her mind a more
beneficial effect than all Doctor Savoy’s pills and potions.
She dwelt with keen delight on the thought of seeing her niece again,
and disconcerted her brother by wondering if Cinthia had recovered
from her disappointment at losing Arthur Varian.
“Oh, yes, yes; she was over all that long ago,” he replied, hastily,
anxious to dismiss the subject.
But Mrs. Flint continued, feelingly:
“Poor Cinthy! it was hard on her to have to give him up, he was such a
dear young man. And such a grand match, too, for a poor girl like her!
Oh, I never can forget the night she came home from Idlewild in the
grand carriage with Arthur, in his mother’s grand dress and cloak, and
told me she was engaged to him. It was all so sudden, it nearly took my
breath away. And what a beauty she looked! and how happy she was! Oh,
my! _Poor_ Cinthy!”
She sighed deeply, but Everard Dawn made no comment, only looked out of
the window at the cold winter sunshine on the leaf-strewn garden-walks,
where a light snow of last night’s falling was fast melting away.
Mrs. Flint continued, retrospectively:
“She told me how sweet and kind Mrs. Varian was to her that night--not
proud and haughty as she had imagined she would be. She could see
plainly that she did not mind it a bit for Arthur to fall in love with
her, though she was a poor girl. And how bad that kind lady must have
felt when Arthur told her you would not let him have your daughter.”
“It is all past and done now, Rebecca, and no use discussing it,” her
brother said, restlessly.
“I know--but I have just been wondering whether you had changed your
mind yet, seeing as they are both single, and maybe anxious to make it
up with each other.”
“I have not changed my mind,” he answered, watching the loosened
icicles drop crackling from the eaves, and wishing she would change the
subject.
She went on sadly:
“I would give anything to see poor Cinthy real happy again like she
was that night. I used to be too strict with the child, I know, and
I’ve repented it now. How happy she might have been if she’d had such
a mother as Mrs. Varian, who would have spoiled and petted her as
mothers do, and made her life so bright. I tell you, Everard, she is a
good woman in spite of her pride. Our minister says she is so good to
the poor, and, besides, she has given a thousand dollars to repair the
church. He told me he did not believe she was so proud and exclusive as
some people thought. He had called on her once, and she was very kind
and sweet in a way, but there was something rather sad in her manner,
or cynical, maybe, as if she had some trouble and was not resigned to
it.”
Would she never get done talking on this (to her) most interesting
subject?
Everard Dawn yawned impatiently, and answered thoughtlessly:
“Yes, she was always like that, generous to a fault, noble at heart,
charming, but jealous, passionate, unreasonable.”
“Why, Everard, did you know her some time?” she exclaimed.
“I know a nun who did,” he answered curtly, getting up from his seat,
and adding: “Rebecca, it is about sunset, and I will take a walk and a
smoke before our early tea.”
Donning great-coat and hat, he hurried out-of-doors, thinking:
“If I had not got away from her chatter of Pauline Varian, I should
have screamed out aloud like a nervous woman, I verily believe.”
He walked away in the dying glow of the rosy sunset toward the little
town, passing Idlewild, as he did daily, and watched by eyes of which
he little recked, for he was too proud to glance toward her windows.
Every day, with an angry pain, she had seen him pass and she thanked
fate there would be but one day more of it, for the maid was well again
now, though why she should have watched him when she need not, no man
could have told, since the sex is rather obtuse on feminine caprices.
Why need she follow him with such straining gaze, she, the proud,
wealthy Mrs. Varian, admired of men, envied of women, no less for her
charms than her gifts of fortune? She had everything life could give
but happiness. He--and she knew it--was but a poor lawyer, too careless
of fortune to woo her successfully, too weary of life to find pleasure
in it; not quite so blue-blooded as the Varians, either, yet not a man
to look down on, for nature at least had been lavish of brains and
beauty and stubborn pride, not to mention an unenviable capacity for
suffering stolidly borne.
In her heart she believed him weak and unstable and scorned him
accordingly; but as for him, he understood her better than she did
herself, yet never relaxed his resentment over a cruel wrong, never
contemplated forgiveness, even if she should pray for it.
Watching her carriage yesterday, as it dashed past the steps where he
had stood, he had recalled with grim pain some fitting words:
“You walk the sunny side of fate,
The wise world smiles and calls you great,
The golden fruitage of success
Drops at your feet in plenteousness;
And you have blessings manifold,
Renown and power, and friends and gold,
They build a wall between us twain
That may not be thrown down again,
Alas! for I, the long time through,
Have loved you better than you knew.”
It was no more pleasant for him than for her that they should meet
again, and he also was glad that to-morrow would be the last day of
it. His sister would be able to travel then, and they would start for
Florida.
Since the maid’s sickness Mrs. Bowles had not come to see Mrs. Flint
any more. The occupants of the grand mansion and the lofty cottage did
not know they had each planned for a flitting the same day, by the same
train, and to the same destination.
They could not have believed that the grim fates would have so mocked
them, but yet, when Mrs. Varian and her maid swept to their seats
in the train that Thursday, Everard Dawn and his party had already
arrived, and he had arranged the still weak invalid very comfortably
with the load of shawls and cushions carried by Rachel Dane.
Mrs. Varian, ignoring the passengers with her usual queenly air, sunk
to her seat in blissful unconsciousness, and buried herself in her
novel. Not for two hours did she discover the identity of her traveling
companions, because at first she did not vouchsafe them even one
curious glance.
Not so Everard Dawn, who had started in surprise and perturbation at
her first entrance.
“The fates have made us traveling companions--not for the first time,
but I pray Heaven for the last!” was his grim thought.
He was sitting some seats ahead, and he resolutely turned his back to
her, hoping not to disturb her peace by the disclosure of her identity,
and thinking it hardly possible they should be fellow-travelers long.
She was probably going to Richmond or Washington.
There were but few passengers, and they were very quiet as the train
rushed on through the dull gray afternoon. Mrs. Flint, weary from the
getting ready for the journey, dozed fitfully among her cushions, and
Rachel Dane glued her face to the window-pane, and watched the flying
landscape. As for Everard Dawn, he looked neither to the right nor
left, but stared straight before him in a brown study. Mrs. Varian’s
maid amused herself by studying the passengers, and discovered that
some of them belonged to the town they had just left, though she did
not suppose her haughty mistress would take any interest in that fact.