DOMESTIC TROUBLES.
From the bathroom, which adjoined Katy's sickroom, Wilford had heard all
that passed between the sisters, and his face grew dark as he thought of
having his "ruffled feathers smoothed" even by the little thin white
hand, which, the first time it had a chance laid itself upon his face
with a caressing motion, from which he involuntarily drew back, thinking
the affection thus timidly expressed was all put on with a view to being
good, as he termed it.
Wilford was in a most unhappy frame of mind. He was not pleased that
Katy had heard of Genevra, and imparted his secret to others. He did not
like being humbled as he had been, even Mrs. Lennox taking it upon
herself to lecture him for his misdemeanors, sobbing as she lectured,
and asking "how he could treat Katy so?" He did not like, either, to
lose Helen's good opinion, as he was sure he had, while, worse than all
the rest, was the galling fact that Morris Grant loved his wife, and was
undoubtedly more worthy of her than himself. He had said that he forgave
Morris, and at the time he said it he fancied he did, but as the days
went by, and thought was all the busier from the moody silence he
maintained, there gradually came to life a feeling of dislike, if not of
hatred, for the man, whose name he could not hear without a frown,
telling Katy very sharply once that he wished she would not talk so much
of Cousin Morris, as if there were no other physician in the world! Dr.
Craig would have done quite as well, and for his part he wished they had
employed him.
Wilford knew he did not mean what he said, but he was in a very
unamiable frame of mind, and watched Katy close, to detect, if possible,
some sign by which he should know that Morris' love was reciprocated.
But Katy was innocence itself, and as the weeks of convalescence went by
she tried so hard to do her duty as a wife, going often to the Friend of
whom Helen had told her, and finding there the grace which helped her
bear what otherwise she could not have borne and lived. The entire
history of her life during that wretched winter was never told save as
it was written on her face, which was a volume in itself of meek and
patient suffering.
Wilford had never mentioned Genevra to her since the day of his return,
and Katy sometimes felt that it would be well to talk that matter over.
It might lead to a more perfect understanding than existed between them
now, and dissipate the cloud which hung so darkly on their domestic
horizon. But Wilford repulsed all her advances upon that subject, and
Genevra was a dead name in their household, save as it was on Katy's
lips when she prayed, asking that she might feel only perfect kindness
toward the Genevra who had so darkened her life.
Wilford's home was not pleasant to him now, but the fault was with
himself. Katy did well her part, meeting him always with a smile, and
trying to win him from the dark mood she could not fathom. Times there
were when for an entire day he would appear like his former self,
caressing her with unwonted tenderness, calling her his "poor crushed
dove," but never asking her forgiveness for all he had made her endure.
He was too proud to do that now, and his tenderness always passed away
when he remembered Morris Grant and Katy's remark to Helen: "I am afraid
it can never be with us as it was once. I have not the same trust in
him."
"She had no right to complain of me to Helen," he thought, forgetting
the time when he had been guilty of a similar offense in a more
aggravated form.
He could not reason upon anything naturally, and matters grew daily
worse, while Katy's face grew whiter and her voice sadder in its tone.
Sometimes Wilford would spend the entire evening away from home,
tarrying till the clock struck twelve before he came, and Katy would
afterward hear that he had been at the house of some friend, or with
Sybil Grandon, whose influence over him increased in proportion as her
own was lessened.
When the Lenten days came on, oh, how Katy longed to be in Silverton, to
kneel again in its quiet church, and offer up her penitential prayers
with the loved ones at home. At last she ventured to ask Wilford if she
might go, her spirits rising when he did not refuse her request at once,
but asked:
"Whom do you wish to see the most?"
His black eyes seemed reading her through, and something in their
expression brought to her face the blush which he construed according to
his jealousy, and when she answered:
"I wish to see them all," he retorted:
"Say, rather, you wish to see that doctor, who has loved you so long,
and who but for me would have asked you to be his wife!"
"What doctor, Wilford? Whom do you mean?" and Wilford replied:
"Dr. Grant, of course. Did you never suspect it?"
"Never," and Katy's face grew very white, as she asked how Wilford knew
what he had asserted.
"I had it from his own lips; he sitting on one side of you and I upon
the other. I so far forgot myself as to charge him with loving you, and
he did not deny it, but confessed as pretty a piece of romance as I ever
read, except that, according to his story, it was a one-sided affair,
confined wholly to himself. You never dreamed of it, he said."
"Never, no, never," Katy said, panting for her breath, and remembering
suddenly many things which confirmed what she had heard.
"Poor Morris, how my thoughtlessness must have wounded him," she
murmured, and then all the pent up passion in Wilford's heart burst out
in an impetuous storm.
He did not charge his wife directly with returning Morris' love, but he
said he was sorry she had not known it earlier; asking her pointedly if
it were not so, and pressing her for an answer until the bewildered
creature cried out:
"Oh, I don't know. I never thought of it before."
"But you can think of it now," Wilford continued, his cold, icy tone
making Katy shiver, as more to herself than him she said:
"A life at Linwood would be perfect rest, compared to this."
Wilford had wrung from her all he cared to know, and believing himself
the most injured man in existence, he left the house, and Katy heard his
step as it went furiously down the walk. For a time she seemed stunned
with what she had heard, and then there came stealing into her heart a
glad feeling that Morris deemed her worthy of his love when she had so
often feared the contrary. It was not a wicked emotion, nor one
faithless to Wilford. She could pray with just as pure a heart as
before, and she did pray, thanking God for the love of this good man,
and asking that long ere this he might have learned to be content
without her. Never once did the thought "It might have been," intrude
itself upon her, nor did she picture to herself the life which she had
missed. She seemed to rise above all that, and Wilford, had he read her
heart, would have found no evil there.
"Poor Morris," she kept repeating, while little throbs of pleasure went
dancing through her veins, and the world was not one-half so dreary for
knowing he had loved her. Toward Wilford, too, her heart went out in a
fresh gush of tenderness, for she knew how one of his jealous nature
must have suffered.
"I'll drive down to the office for him this afternoon," she said. "That
will surely please him; and to prove still further that I never dreamed
of Morris' love, I'll tell him coming home how in the great sorrow about
Genevra I went to him for counsel, and how he sent, or rather, brought
me back."
But this confession would necessitate her telling that Genevra was not
dead, and it was better for them both, she thought, that he should not
know this until the relations between herself and him were more as they
used to be; so she decided finally to withhold the fact for a time at
least. But she would go for him, as she had at first intended, and she
counted the hours impatiently, thinking once her watch had stopped, and
seeming brighter and happier than she had been since her illness, when
at last she stepped into her carriage, and was driven down Broadway.
Business had gone wrong with Wilford that day, and Tom Tubbs had
mentally pronounced his master "crosser than a bear," and sighing
secretly for the always cheerful Mark, he had taken up his book, and was
quietly reading by the office window when Katy came in, her white face
seeming whiter from contrast with her black dress, and her eyes looking
unnaturally large and bright as she darted across the room to Wilford,
who, surprised to see her there, and a good deal displeased withal,
inasmuch as he had often said that the office was no place for his wife,
never smiled or spoke, but with pent up brows waited for her to open the
conversation. Katy saw she was not welcome, and with a tremulous voice
she began:
"The day is so fine I thought I would come in the carriage for you. It
is early yet, and if you like, we can have a little drive. It might do
you good. You look tired," she continued, and unmindful of Tom, trying
to smooth his hair.
With an impatient gesture, Wilford drew his hand away from the pale
fingers which sought their fellows in a nervous clasp as Katy tried not
to think Wilford cross, even after he replied:
"You need not have come for me, as I always prefer a stage; besides
that, I can't go home just yet, I am not ready."
Katy stood a moment in silence, a flush on her cheek and a pallor about
her lips, which Tom Tubbs saw, secretly shaking his fist and thinking
how he would like to knock down the man who could speak so to a wife as
beautiful and sweet as Katy seemed.
"I have not been here before since my illness, and I wanted to come once
more," she said at last, apologetically, while Wilford, still looking
over papers, replied: "A sweet place to come to. I sometimes hate it
myself. By the way, I have something to tell you," and his face began to
brighten. "Mrs. Mills, from Yonkers, was in town to-day, and as she had
not time to see you, she found me and insisted upon your keeping the
promise you made last summer of spending some days with her. The
Beverleys are there and the Lincolns--quite a nice party--so I ventured
to say that you should go out to-morrow and I would come out Saturday
afternoon to spend Sunday."
"Oh, Wilford, I can't," and Katy's lip began to quiver at the very
thought of meeting people like the Beverleys and Lincolns in her present
state of mind.
"You can't! Why not?" Wilford asked, and Katy replied: "I've never been
in so much company as I shall meet there since baby died, and then--did
you forget that it was Lent?"
"You are getting very good to think a few days' visit in the country
will harm you," Wilford replied; "besides that, neither Mrs. Mills, nor
the Beverleys, nor Lincolns, are church people, and cannot, of course,
sympathize in this superstitious fancy."
Katy looked up in astonishment, for never before had she heard Wilford
speak thus of the Fast which his whole family honored. But Wilford was
growing hard, and with a sigh Katy turned away, knowing how useless it
was to reason with him then. Driving home alone, she gave vent to a
passionate flood of tears as she wondered how it all would end. For some
reason Wilford had set his heart upon the visit to Mrs. Mills, a
pleasant, fascinating woman, who liked Katy very much and had
anticipated the promised visit with a great deal of pleasure, making all
her plans with a direct reference to Mrs. Cameron, whose absence would
have been a great disappointment. Wilford knew this and resolved that
Katy should go, and as opposition to his will was always useless, the
close of the next day found Katy at Mrs. Mills' handsome dwelling
overlooking the broad river and the blue mountains beyond. Wilford was
with her; he had come out to spend the night, returning to the city in
the morning. Now that he had accomplished his purpose he was in the best
of spirits, treating Katy with unwonted kindness and wondering why he
hated so to leave her, while she, too, clung to him, wishing he could
stay. Their parting was only for two days, for this was Thursday, and he
was to return on Saturday, but in the hearts of both there was that dark
foreboding which is so often a sure precursor of evil. Twice Wilford
turned back to kiss his wife, feeling tempted once to tell her he was
sorry for his jealousy and distrust, but such confession was hard for
him and so he left it unsaid, looking back to the window against which
Katy's face was pressed as she watched him going from her, but little
guessing what would be ere she looked on him again.
* * * * *
Tom Tubbs sat reading Chitty as usual when Mr. Cameron came in from his
trip up the river. Since Katy's last call at the office Tom had been
haunted with her face as it looked when Wilford's cold greeting fell on
her ear, and after a private conference with Mattie, who listened
eagerly to every item of information with regard to Katy, he had come to
the conclusion that his employer was a brute, and that his wife was not
as happy as it was his duty to make her.
"It's mean in him to speak so hateful to her," he was thinking just as
Wilford came in, appearing so very amiable and good-humored that the boy
ventured to inquire for Mrs. Cameron. "She looked so pale and sick, the
other day," he said, "almost as bad in fact as she did that night in the
cars with Dr. Grant, just before she was so dangerously ill."
"What's that? What did you say?" Wilford asked quickly, and Tom,
thinking he had not been understood, repeated his words, while in a
voice which Tom scarcely knew, it was so low and husky, Wilford asked:
"What night was Mrs. Cameron in the cars with Dr. Grant? When was it,
and where?"
As suspicion is an intense magnifier, so the absence of it will blind
one completely, and Tom was thus blindfolded as he stated in detail how
two months or more ago, while Mr. Cameron was absent, he had been sent
by Mr. Ray to Hartford, returning in the early train, that just before
him, in the car, a gentleman sat with a lady who seemed to be sick, at
all events her head lay on his shoulder and he occasionally bent over
her to see if she wanted anything.
"I did not mind much about them," Tom said, "till it got to broad
daylight, when I saw the man was Dr. Grant, and when we reached New York
the lady threw back her veil and I saw it was Mrs. Cameron."
"Are you sure?" and Wilford grasped Tom's arm with an energy which made
the boy wince, while there came over him a suspicion that he had talked
too much.
But it could not now be helped, and to Wilford's question he answered:
"Yes, for she bowed to me and smiled."
"Where did they go?" was the next question, put in thunder tones, for
Wilford was remembering things Katy said in her delirium, and which were
now explained, if Tom's statement was true.
"They went off in a carriage toward your house, and that night I heard
she was sick," Tom said, going back to his book, while Wilford seized
his hat and started up Broadway. It was not his intention when he left
the office to question the servants with regard to his wife, for every
feeling and principle of his nature shrank from such an act, but by the
time his home could be reached it could scarcely be said that he was in
his right mind, and meeting Phillips in the hall, he demanded of her "if
she remembered the day when Mrs. Cameron was first taken ill."
Yes. Phillips remembered how sick Esther said she looked when she came
home from his father's, where she spent the night.
"Oh, yes; she stayed at my father's then. It was very proper she
should," Wilford replied, recollecting himself, and trying to appear
natural, so that Phillips would not suspect him of any special purpose
in questioning her.
If Katy spent the night at his father's then Tom's statement was not
true, and dismissing Phillips he hastened to his mother, to whom he put
the question:
"Did Katy stay here a night while I was gone, the night but one after
that dinner when she heard of Genevra, I mean?"
"Why, no," Mrs. Cameron replied, in some surprise. "Katy has not stayed
here since last October, just after she came from Silverton, and you
were in Detroit. Why do you ask? What is the matter? What do you fear?"
Wilford would not tell his mother what he feared, but waived her
question by bidding her repeat what she could remember of the day when
she was first summoned to Katy, and to tell him also who was there.
"Dr. Grant was there, and Dr. Craig," she said. "The former, as I
understood from Esther, had just come to the city and called on Katy,
finding her so ill that he sent for me immediately."
"And you do not know that Katy was away from home at all?" was Wilford's
next inquiry, to which his mother replied:
"Esther spoke of her looking very sick when she came in, from which I
inferred she had been driving or shopping, but she was not here, sure."
Esther, it would seem, was the only one who could throw light upon the
mystery, and as by this time the jealous man did not care whom he
questioned, he left his mother without a word of explanation, and
hurried home, where he found Esther, and in a voice which made her
tremble, bade her answer his questions truthfully, without the slightest
attempt at evasion.
"Yes, sir," Esther replied, and Wilford continued:
"Where was your mistress the night before Dr. Grant came here, and she
was so very sick?"
"I don't know, sir. I had the impression that she at your mother's.
Wasn't she there?" and Esther looked very innocent, while Wilford
replied:
"It is your business to answer questions, not to ask them. Tell me then
the particulars of her going away, and what she said."
As nearly as she could remember Esther repeated what had passed between
herself and Katy that morning, but her manner was such as to convince
Wilford she was keeping back something, and in a paroxysm of excitement
he seized her arm, exclaiming:
"You know more than you admit. Tell me then the truth. Who came home
with Mrs. Cameron, and when?"
Esther was afraid of Wilford, and at last between tears and sobs
confessed that Mrs. Wilford said she had been out of town, but asked her
not to tell, that she guessed it was Silverton where she had been, and
also that when she opened the door to her, Dr. Morris was going down the
steps; "not in a hurry--not like making off as if there was something
wrong," she added, in her eagerness to exonerate her mistress.
"Who hinted there was anything wrong?" Wilford exclaimed, in tones which
made poor Esther tremble, for now that he had heard all he cared to
hear, he began to be ashamed of having gained his information in the way
he had.
"Nobody hinted," Esther sobbed, with her face hidden in her apron; "and
if they did it's false. There never was a truer, sweeter lady."
"See that you stick to that whatever may occur, and, mind you, let there
be no repeating this conversation in the kitchen or elsewhere," Wilford
hurled at her savagely, going next to a telegraph office, and sending
over the wires the following:
"NEW YORK, March --, 1862.
"To MR. EPHRAIM BARLOW, Silverton, Mass.
"Has Mrs. Wilford Cameron been in Silverton since last September?
W. CAMERON."
To this he was prompted by Esther's having suggested Silverton, as the
place where her mistress had possibly been, and taking warning by his
past experience with Genevra, he resolved to give Katy the benefit of
every doubt, to investigate closely, before taking the decisive step,
which even while Tom Tubbs was talking to him had flashed into his mind.
Perhaps Katy had been to Silverton in her excited state, and if so the
case was not so bad, though he blamed her much for concealing it from
him. At first he thought of telegraphing to Morris, but pride kept him
from that, and Uncle Ephraim was made the recipient of the telegram,
which startled him greatly, being the first of the kind sent directly to
him.
As it chanced the deacon was in town that day, and at the store just
across the street from the telegraph office. This the agent knew by old
Whitey, who was standing meekly at the hitching-post, covered with his
blanket, a faded woolen bedspread, which years before Aunt Betsy had
spun and woven herself.
"A letter for me!" Uncle Ephraim said, when the message was put into his
hands. "Who writ it?" and he turned it to the light trying to recognize
the handwriting.
"I think it wants an answer," the boy said, as Uncle Ephraim thrust it
into his pocket, and taking up his molasses jug and codfish started for
the door.
"May be it does. I'll look again," and depositing his fish and jug
safely under the wagon box, the old man adjusted his spectacles, and
with the aid of the boy deciphered the dispatch.
"What does it mean?" he asked, but the boy volunteered no ideas, and the
simple-hearted deacon asked next: "What shall I tell him?"
"Why, tell him whether she has been here or not since last September.
Write on the envelope what you want sent, so I can take it back; and
come, hurry up your cakes, I can't wait all day," and young America,
having thus asserted its superiority over old, began to kick the melting
snow, while Uncle Ephraim, greatly bewildered and perplexed, bent
himself to the tremendous task of writing the four words:
"Not to my knowledge." To this he appended: "Yours, with regret, Ephraim
Barlow," and handing it to the waiting boy, unhitched old Whitey, and
stepping into his wagon, drove home as rapidly as the half-frozen March
mud would allow.
"I wonder what he sent me that word for?" he kept repeating to himself.
"We had a letter from Katy yesterday, and there can't be nothing wrong.
I won't tell the folks yet a while anyway till I see what comes of it,
Lucy is so fidgety."
It was this resolution, whether wise or unwise, which kept from Morris
and the deacon's family a knowledge of the telegram, the answer to which
was read by Wilford within half an hour after the deacon's arrival home.
"She has not been to Silverton," Wilford said. "The case then is very
clear."
Indeed, it had been growing clear to the suspicious man ever since Tom
Tubbs' unfortunate remark. There are no glasses as perfect as those
which jealousy wears, no magnifying lens as powerful, and Wilford was
"fully convinced." Had he been asked of what he was convinced he could
hardly have told unless it were that in some way he had been deceived,
that Morris had spoken falsely when he said his love for Katy was not
returned or even suspected, that Katy had acted the hypocrite, and that
both had been guilty of a great indiscretion, at least, by being seen as
they were in the New Haven train, and then keeping the occurrences of
that night a secret from him. Wilford did not believe Katy had fallen,
but she had surely stepped upon forbidden ground, and it was not in his
nature to forgive the error--at least, not then, when he was so sore
with past remembrances which had come so fast upon him. First, the
baby's death, just when he was learning to love it so much, then the
Genevra affair about which Katy had acted so foolishly, then the talk
with Dr. Grant, and then his last offense, so much worse than all the
rest.
It was a sad catalogue of grievances, and Wilford made it sadder by
brooding over and magnifying it until he reached a point from which he
would not swerve.
"I shall do it," he said, and his lips were pressed firmly together, as
before his lonely fire he sat that chill March night, revolving the past
and then turning to the future opening so darkly before him, and making
him shudder as he thought of what it might bring. "I will spare Katy as
much as possible," he said, "for hers is a different nature from
Genevra's. She cannot bear as well," and a bitter groan broke the
silence of the room as Katy came up before him just as she had looked
that very morning standing by the window, with tears in her eyes, and a
wistful, sorry look on her white face.
Could she be false to him and wear that look? The question staggered
Wilford for a moment, but when he remembered the proof, he steeled his
heart against her and prepared to act.