WILFORD CAMERON.
The day succeeding Katy Lennox's return to Silverton was rainy and cold
for the season, the storm extending as far westward as the city of New
York, and making Wilford Cameron shiver as he stepped from the Hudson
River cars into the carriage waiting for him, first greeting pleasantly
the white-gloved driver, who, carefully closing the carriage door,
mounted to his seat and drove his handsome bays in the direction of
No. ---- Fifth Avenue. And Wilford, leaning back among the yielding
cushions, thought how pleasant it was to be going home again, feeling
glad, as he frequently did, that the home to which he was going was in
every particular unexceptionable. The Camerons he knew were an old and
highly respectable family, while it was his mother's pride that, go back
as far as one might on either side, there could not be found a single
blemish or a member of whom to be ashamed. On the Cameron side there were
millionaires, merchant princes, bankers and stockholders, professors and
scholars, while on hers, the Rossiter side, there were LL.D.'s and
D.D.'s, lawyers and clergymen, authors and artists, beauties and belles,
the whole forming an illustrious line of ancestry, admirably represented
and sustained by the present family of Camerons, occupying the
brownstone front, corner of ---- Street and Fifth Avenue, where the
handsome carriage stopped and a tall figure ran quickly up the marble
steps. There was a soft rustle of silk, an odor of delicate perfume,
and from the luxurious chair before the fire kindled in the grate an
elderly lady arose and advanced a step or two toward the parlor door. In
another moment she was kissing the young man bending over her and
saluting her as mother, kissing him quietly, properly, as the Camerons
always kissed. She was very glad to have Wilford home again, for he was
her favorite child, and brushing the raindrops from his coat she led him
to the fire, offering him her own easy-chair and starting herself in
quest of another. But Wilford held her back, and making her sit down, he
drew an ottoman beside her and then asked her first how she had been and
then how Jamie was, then where his sisters were, and if his father had
come home--for there was a father, the elder Cameron, a quiet,
unassuming man, who stayed all day in Wall Street, seldom coming home in
time to carve at his own dinner table, and when he was at home, asking
for nothing except to be left by his fashionable wife and daughters to
himself, free to smoke and doze over his evening paper in the seclusion
of his own reading-room.
As Wilford's question concerning his sire had been the last one asked,
so it was the last one answered, his mother parting his dark hair with
her jeweled hand, and telling him first that with the exception of a
cold taken at the park on Saturday afternoon when she drove out to try
the new carriage, she was in usual health; second, that Jamie was very
well, but impatient for his uncle's return; third, that Juno was
spending a few days in Orange, and that Bell had gone to pass the night
with her particular friend, Mrs. Meredith, the bluest, most bookish
woman in New York.
"Your father," the lady added, "has not yet returned, but as the dinner
is ready I think we will not wait."
She touched a silver bell beside her, and ordering dinner to be sent up
at once, went on to ask her son concerning his journey, and the people
he had met. But Wilford, though intending to tell her all, for he kept
nothing from his mother, would wait till after dinner. So, offering her
his arm, he led her out to where the table was spread, widely different
from the table prepared for Katy Lennox away among the Silverton hills,
for where at the farmhouse there had been only the homely wares common
to the country, with Aunt Betsy's onions served in a bowl, there was
here the finest of damask, the choicest of china, the costliest of
cut-glass, and the heaviest of silver, with the well-trained waiter
gliding in and out, himself the very personification of strict table
etiquette, such as the Barlows had never dreamed about. There was no
fricasseed chicken here, or flaky crust, with pickled beans and apple
sauce; no custard pie with strawberries and rich, sweet cream, poured
from a blue earthen pitcher, but there were soups, and fish, and roasted
meats, and dishes with French names and taste, and desert elaborately
gotten up and served with the utmost precision, and wines, with fruit
and colored cloth, and handsome finger bowl; and Mrs. Cameron presiding
over all, with the ladylike decorum so much a part of herself, her soft,
glossy silk of brown, with her rich lace and diamond pin seeming in
keeping with herself and her surroundings. And opposite to her Wilford
sat, a tall, dark, handsome man of thirty or thereabouts--a man whose
polished manners betokened at once a perfect knowledge of the world, and
whose face to a close observer indicated how little satisfaction he had
as yet found in that world. He had tried its pleasures, drinking the cup
of freedom and happiness to its very dregs, and though he thought he
liked it, he often found himself dissatisfied and reaching after
something which should make life more real, more worth the living for.
He had traveled all over Europe twice, had visited every spot worth
visiting in his own country, had been a frequenter of every fashionable
resort in New York, from the skating pond to the theatres, had been
admitted as a lawyer, had opened an office on Broadway, acquiring some
reputation in his profession, had looked at more than twenty girls with
the view of making them his wife, and found them as he believed, alike
fickle, selfish, artificial and hollow-hearted. In short, while thinking
far more of family, and accomplishments, and style, than he ought, he
was yet heartily tired of the butterflies who flitted so constantly
around him, offering to be caught if he would but stretch out his hand
to catch them. This he would not do, and disgusted with the world as he
saw it in New York, he had gone to the Far West, roaming a while amid
the solitude of the broad prairies, and finding there much that was
soothing to him, but not discovering the fulfillment of the great want
he was craving, until, coming back to Canandaigua, he met with Katy
Lennox. He had smiled wearily when asked by Mrs. Woodhull to go with her
to the examination then in progress at the seminary. There was nothing
there to interest him, he thought, as Euclid and algebra, French and
rhetoric were bygone things, while young school misses in braided hair
and pantalets were shockingly insipid. Still, to be polite to Mrs.
Woodhull, a childless, fashionable woman, who patronized Canandaigua
generally, and Katy Lennox in particular, he consented to go, and soon
found himself in the crowded room, the cynosure of many eyes as the
whisper ran around that the fine-looking man with Mrs. Woodhull was the
Wilford Cameron from New York, and brother to the proud, dashing Juno
Cameron, who once spent a few weeks in town, Wilford knew they were
talking about him, but he did not care, and assuming as easy an attitude
as possible, he leaned hack in his chair, yawning indolently, and
wishing the time away, until the class in algebra was called and Katy
Lennox came tripping on to the stage, a pale blue ribbon in her golden
hair and her simple dress of white relieved by no ornament except the
cluster of wild flowers fastened in her belt and at her graceful throat.
But Katy needed no ornaments to make her more beautiful than she was at
the moment when, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, modestly cast
down for a moment as she took her place, and then as modestly uplifted
to her teacher's face, she first burst upon Wilford's vision, a creature
of rare, bewitching beauty, such as he had never dreamed about.
Wilford had met his destiny, and he felt it in every throb of blood
which went rushing through his veins.
"Who is she?" he asked of Mrs. Woodhull, and that lady knew at once whom
he meant, even though he had not designated her.
An old acquaintance of Mrs. Lennox when she lived in East Bloomfield,
Mrs. Woodhull had petted Katy from the first day of her arrival in
Canandaigua with a letter of introduction to herself from the ambitious
mother, and being rather inclined to match-making, she had had Katy in
her mind when she urged Wilford to accompany her to the seminary.
Accordingly, she answered him at once: "That is Katy Lennox, daughter of
Judge Lennox, who died in East Bloomfield a few years ago."
Lennox was a good name, while the title of judge increased its value.
Wilford would not have acknowledged that, perhaps, but it was
nevertheless the truth, and Mrs. Woodhull, who understood exactly the
claim which Mr. Lennox had to the title, knew it was true, and that was
why she spoke as she did. It was time Wilford Cameron was settled in
life, and with the exception of wealth and family position, he could not
find a better wife than Katy Lennox, and she would do what she could to
bring the marriage about.
"Pretty, is she not?" was her question put to Wilford after answering
his inquiry, but Wilford did not hear, having neither eye nor ear for
anything save Kitty, acquitting herself with a good deal of credit as
she worked out a rather difficult problem, her dimpled white hand
showing to good advantage against the deep black of the board; and then
her voice, soft-toned and silvery as a lady's voice should be, thrilled
Wilford's ear, awaking a strange feeling of disquiet, as if the world
would never again be quite the same to him that it was before he met
that fair young girl now passing from the room.
Mrs. Woodhull saw that he was interested, and mentally congratulating
herself upon the successful working of her plan, first gained the
preceptress' consent, and then asked Katy home with her to tea that
night. And this was how Wilford Cameron came to know little Katy Lennox,
the simple-hearted child, who blushed so prettily when first presented
to him, and blushed again when he praised her recitations, but who after
that forgot the difference in their social relations, laughing and
chatting as merrily in his presence as if she had been alone with Mrs.
Woodhull. This was the great charm to Wilford, Katy was so wholly
unconscious of himself or what he might think of her, that he could not
sit in judgment upon her, and he watched her eagerly as she sported, and
flashed, and sparkled, filling the room with sunshine, and putting to
rout the entire regiment of blues which had been for months harassing
the city-bred young man.
If there was any one thing in which Katy excelled, it was music, both
vocal and instrumental, a taste for which had been developed very early,
and fostered by Morris Grant, who had seen that his cousin had every
advantage which Silverton could afford. Great pains, too, had been given
to her style of playing while at Canandaigua, so that as a performer
upon the piano she had few rivals in the seminary, while her bird-like
voice filled every nook and corner of the room, where, on the night
after her visit to Mrs. Woodhull, a select exhibition was held, Katy
shining as the one bright star, and winning golden laurels for beauty,
grace and perfect self-possession from others than Wilford Cameron, who
was one of the invited auditors.
"Juno herself could not equal that," he thought, as Katy's fingers flew
over the keys, executing a brilliant and difficult piece without a
single mistake, and receiving the applause of the spectators easily,
naturally, as if it were an everyday occurrence. But when by request she
sang "Comin' through the Rye," Wilford's heart, if he had any before,
was wholly gone, and he dreamed of Katy Lennox that night, wondering
all the ensuing day how his haughty mother would receive that young
schoolgirl as her daughter, wife of the son whose bride she fancied must
be equal to the first lady in the land. And if Katy were not now equal
she could be made so, Wilford thought, wondering if Canandaigua were the
best place for her, and if she would consent to receive a year or two
years' tuition from him, provided her family were poor. He did not know
as they were, but he would ask, and he did, feeling a pang of regret
when he heard to some extent how Katy was circumstanced. Mrs. Woodhull
had never been to Silverton, and so she did not know of Uncle Ephraim,
with his old-fashioned spouse and his older-fashioned sister, but she
knew that they were poor--that some relation sent Katy to school; and
she frankly told Wilford so, adding, as she detected the shadow on his
face, that one could not expect everything, and that a girl like Katy
was not found every day. Wilford admitted all this, growing more and
more infatuated, until at last he consented to join the traveling
party, provided Katy joined it too, and when on the morning of their
departure for the Falls he seated himself beside her in the car, he
could not well have been happier, unless she had really been his wife,
as he so much wished she was.
It was a most delightful trip, and Wilford was better satisfied with
himself than he had been before in years. His past life was not all free
from error, and there were many sad memories haunting him, but with Katy
at his side, seeing what he saw, admiring what he admired, and doing
what he bade her do, he gave the bygones to the wind, feeling only an
intense desire to clasp the young girl in his arms and bear her away to
some spot where with her pure fresh life all his own he could begin the
world anew, and retrieve the past which he had lost. This was when he
was with Katy. Away from her he could remember the difference in their
position, and prudential motives began to make themselves heard. Never
but once had he taken an important step without consulting his mother,
and then, alas! the trouble it brought him was not ended yet, and never
would be ended until death had set its seal upon the brow of one almost
as dear as Katy, though in a far different way. And this was why Katy
came back to Silverton unengaged, leaving her heart with Wilford
Cameron, who would first seek advice from his mother ere committing
himself by word. He had seen the white-haired man with his coarse, linen
coat and coarser pants, waiting eagerly for her when the train stopped
at Silverton, but standing there as he did, with his silvery locks
parted in the center, and shading his honest, open face, Uncle Ephraim
looked like some patriarch of old rather than a man to be despised, and
Wilford felt only a respect for him until he saw Katy's arms wound so
lovingly around his neck as she kissed and called him Uncle Eph. That
sight grated harshly, and Wilford, knowing this was the uncle of whom
Katy had often spoken, felt glad that he was not bound to her by any
pledge. Very curiously he looked after the couple, witnessing the
meeting between Katy and old Whitey, and guessing rightly that the
corn-colored vehicle was the one sent to transport Katy home. He was
very moody for the remainder of the route between Silverton and Albany,
where he parted with his Canandaigua friends, they going on to the
westward, while he stopped all night in Albany, where he had some
business to transact for his father. And this was why he did not reach
New York until late in the afternoon of the following day.
He was intending to tell his mother everything, except indeed that he
paid Katy's bills. He would rather keep that to himself, as it might
shock his mother's sense of propriety and make her think less of Katy,
impulsive, confiding Katy, little dreaming as on that rainy afternoon
she sat in the kitchen at Silverton, with her feet in the stove-oven and
the cat asleep in her lap, of the conversation taking place between
Wilford Cameron and his mother. They had left the dinner table, and
lighting his cigar, which for that one time the mother permitted in the
parlor, Wilford opened the subject by asking her to guess what took him
off so suddenly with Mrs. Woodhull.
The mother did not know--unless--and a strange light gleamed in her
eyes, as she asked if it were some girl.
"Yea, mother, it was," and without any reservation Wilford frankly told
the story of his interest in Katy Lennox.
He admitted that she was poor and unaccustomed to society, but he loved
her more than words could express.
"Not as I loved Genevra," he said, as he saw his mother about to speak,
and there came a look of intense pain into his fine eyes as he
continued: "That was the passion of a boy of nineteen, simulated by
secrecy, but this is different--this is the love of a mature man of
thirty, who feels that he is capable of judging for himself."
In Wilford's voice there was a tone warning the mother that opposition
would only feed the flame, and so she offered none directly, but heard
him patiently to the end, and then quietly questioned him of Katy and
her family, especially the last. What did he know of it? Was it one to
detract from the Cameron line kept untarnished so long? Were the
relatives such as he never need blush to own, even if they came there
into their drawing-room, as they would come if Katy did?
Wilford thought of Uncle Ephraim as he had seen him upon the platform at
Silverton, and could scarcely repress a smile as he pictured to himself
his mother's consternation at beholding that man in her drawing-room,
but he did not mention the deacon, though he acknowledged that Katy's
family friends were not exactly the Cameron style. But Katy was young;
Katy could be easily molded, and once away from her old associates, his
mother and sisters could make of her what they pleased.
"I understand, then, that if you marry her you do not marry the family,"
and in the handsome, matronly face there was an expression from which
Katy would have shrunk; could she have seen it and understood its
meaning.
"No, I do not marry the family," Wilford rejoined, emphatically, but the
expression of his face was different from his mother's, for where she
thought only of herself, not hesitating to trample on all Katy's love of
home and friends, Wilford remembered Katy, thinking how he would make
amends for separating her wholly from her home, as he surely meant to do
if he should win her. "Did I tell you," he continued, "that her father
was a judge? She must be well connected on that side, though I never
heard of a Judge Lennox in any of our courts."
"It must have been when you were in Europe the first time," Mrs. Cameron
suggested, and as if the mention of Europe reminded him of something
else, Wilford rejoined: "Katy would be kind to Jamie, mother. In some
things she is almost as much a child as he, poor fellow," and again
there came into his eyes a look of pain, while his voice was sadder in
its tone, just as it always was when he spoke of little Jamie. "And now,
what shall I do?" he asked, playfully. "Shall I propose to Katy Lennox,
or shall I try to forget her?"
"I should not do either," was Mrs. Cameron's reply for she well knew
that trying to forget her was the surest way of keeping her in mind, and
she dared not confess to him how wholly she was determined that Katy
Lennox should never be her daughter if she could prevent it.
If she could not, then as a lady and a woman of policy, she should make
the most of it, receiving Katy kindly and doing her best to educate her
up to the Cameron ideas of style and manner.
"Let matters take their course for a while," she said, "and see how you
feel after a little. We are going to Newport the first of August, Jamie
and all, and perhaps you may find somebody there infinitely superior to
this Katy Lennox. That's your father's ring. He is earlier than usual
to-night. I would not tell him yet till you are more decided," and the
lady went hastily out into the hall to meet her husband.
A moment more and the elder Cameron appeared--a short, square-built man,
with a face seamed with lines of care and eyes much like Wilford's, save
that the shaggy eyebrows gave them a different expression. He was very
glad to see his son, though he merely shook his hand, asking what
nonsense took him off around the Lakes with Mrs. Woodhull, and wondering
if women were never happy unless they were chasing after fashion. The
elder Cameron was evidently not of his wife's way of thinking, but she
let him go on until he was through, and then, with the most unruffled
mien, suggested that his dinner would he cold. He was accustomed to
that, and so he did not mind, but he hurried through his lonely meal
to-night, for Wilford was home, and the father was always happier when
he knew his son was in the house. Contrary to his usual custom, he spent
the short summer evening in the parlor, talking with Wilford on various
items of business, and thus preventing any further conversation
concerning Katy Lennox, who just as their evening was commencing, was
bowing the knee reverently between her sister and her uncle, listening
while the good old man invoked the nightly blessing, without which he
never retired to sleep. But in that household on Fifth Avenue there was
no blessing asked of Heaven, no word of thanksgiving for the prosperity
so long vouchsafed, no prayer said except by the crippled Jamie, who,
remembering the Savior of whom Morris Grant had told him when across the
sea, whispered his childish prayer, thanking him most for bringing back
the uncle so dearly loved, the Wilford who, on his way to his own room,
had stopped as he always did to say good-night to Jamie, folding his
arms around him and kissing his sweet face with a fondness in which
there was something half regretful, half sad, as well as pleasing.
It took but a short time for Wilford to fall back into his old way of
living, passing a few hours of each day in his office, driving with his
mother, reading to little Jamie, sparring with his imperious sister,
Juno, and teasing his blue sister, Bell, but never after that first
night breathing a word to any one of Katy Lennox. And still Katy was not
forgotten, as his mother sometimes believed. On the contrary, the very
silence he kept concerning her increased his passion, until he began
seriously to contemplate a trip to Silverton. The family's removal to
Newport, however, diverted his attention for a little, making him decide
to wait and see what Newport might have in store for him. But Newport
was dull this season, at least to him, though Juno and Bell both found
ample scope for their different powers of attraction, and his mother was
always happy when showing off her children and knowing that they were
appreciated. With Wilford it was different. Listless and taciturn, he
went through with the daily routine, wondering how he had ever found
happiness there, and finally, at the close of the season, casting all
policy and prudence aside, he wrote to Katy Lennox that he was coming
to Silverton on his way home, and that he presumed he should have no
difficulty in finding his way to the farmhouse.