"And a romantic one. He had this intention from the first, as I have
said, but he wished to make himself sure of her heart. He knew how his
advantages counted; how hard it is for a woman to disassociate the man
from his belongings, and having a spirit of some daring, he resolved
that this 'pearl of the west'--so I have heard him call her--should
marry the man and not his money."
"Was he as wealthy then as now?"
"Almost. Possibly he was not quite such a power in the financial world,
but he had Homewood in almost as beautiful a condition as now, though
the new house was not put up till after his marriage. He courted
her--not as the landscape painter of Tennyson's poem--but as a rising
young business man who had made his way sufficiently to give her a good
home. This home he did not have to describe, since her own imagination
immediately pictured it as much below the one she lived in, as he was
years younger than her hardworked father. Delighted with this naïveté,
he took pains not to disabuse her mind of the simple prospects with
which she was evidently so well satisfied, and succeeded in marrying her
and bringing her as far as our station below there, without her having
the least suspicion of the splendor she was destined for. And now, Mr.
Trevitt, picture, if you can, the scene of that first arrival. I have
heard it described by him and I have heard it described by her. He was
dressed plainly; so was she; and lest the surprise should come before
the proper moment, he had brought her on a train little patronized by
his friends. The sumptuousness of the solitary equipage standing at the
depot platform must, in consequence, have struck her all the more
forcibly, and when he turned and asked her if she did not admire this
fine turn-out, you can imagine the lovely smile with which she
acknowledged its splendor and then turned away to look up and down for
the street-car she expected to take with him to their bridal home.
"He says that he caught her back with the remark that he was glad she
liked it because it was hers and many more like it. But she insists that
he did not say a word, only smiled in a way to make her see for whom the
carriage door was being held open. Such was her entrance into wealth and
love and alas! into trouble. For the latter followed hard upon the two
first. Mr. Ocumpaugh's mother, who had held sway at Homewood for thirty
years or more, was hard as the nether millstone. She was a Rathbone and
had brought both wealth and aristocratic connections into the family.
She had no sympathy for penniless beauties (she was a very plain woman
herself) and made those first few years of her daughter-in-law's life as
nearly miserable as any woman's can be who adores her husband. I have
heard that it was a common experience for this sharp-tongued old lady to
taunt her with the fact that she brought nothing into the family but
herself--not even a _towel_; and when two years passed and no child
came, the biting criticisms became so frequent that a cloud fell over
the young wife's sensitive beauty, which no after happiness has ever
succeeded in fully dispelling. Matters went better after Gwendolen came,
but in reckoning up the possible defects in Mrs. Ocumpaugh's character
you should never forget the twist that may have been given to it by that
mother-in-law."
"I have heard of Madam Ocumpaugh," I remarked, rising, anxious to end an
interview whose purport was more or less enigmatic to me.
"She is dead now--happily. A woman like that is accountable for much
more than she herself ever realizes. But one thing she never succeeded
in doing: she never shook Mr. Ocumpaugh's love for his wife or hers for
him. Whether it was the result of that early romantic episode of which I
have spoken, or whether their natures are peculiarly congenial, the bond
between them has been one of exceptional strength and purity."
"It will be their comfort now," I remarked.
Mrs. Carew smiled, but in a dubious way that added to my perplexity and
made me question more seriously than ever just what her motive had been
in subjecting me to these very intimate reminiscences of one I was about
to approach on an errand of whose purport she could have only a general
idea.
Had she read my inmost soul? Did she wish to save her friend, or save
herself, or even to save me from the result of a blind use of such tools
as were the only ones afforded me? Impossible to determine. She was at
this present moment, as she had always been, in fact, an unsolvable
problem to me, and it was not at this hurried time and with such serious
work before me that I could venture to make any attempt to understand
her.
"You will let me know the outcome of your talk with Mrs. Ocumpaugh?" she
cried, as I moved to the front of the porch.
It was for me to look dubious now. I could make no such promise as that.
"I will let you know the instant there is any good news," I assured her.
And with that I moved off, but not before hearing the peremptory command
with which she entered the house:
"Now, Dinah, quick!"
Evidently, her preparations for departure were to be pushed.