WHAT DAISY DID.
She flirted with every man on the ship who would flirt with her. Even
Allen Browne was not insensible to her charms. During the last few
months he had developed amazingly, and had put on all the airs of a
first-class dandy. He parted his hair in the middle, carried an
eye-glass and a cane, wore a long overcoat, and pants so tight that it
was a matter of speculation with his friends how he ever got into them,
or being in, how he ever got out! His last purchase in London had been a
pair of pointed shoes, which were just coming into vogue, as was the
species of the male gender called "dudes."
"A dudle I call 'em, and think 'em too shaller for, anything," was Mrs.
Rossiter-Browne's comment, and she looked a little askance at her son,
wondering how he would impress the Ridgevillians at home, and especially
what Miss Boughton would think of him. "I wouldn't make a 'tarnel fool
of myself if 'twas the fashion," she said to him when the pointed toes
appeared.
But Allen had his own ideas, and, encouraged by Daisy, who, though
wonderfully amused at his appearance, told him he was "_tout-a-fait
parisien_," he followed his own inclinations, and, arrayed in all his
finery, made himself the laughing-stock of the passengers. But he did
not care so long as Daisy smiled upon him, and allowed him to attend
her. He walked with her on deck and brought her chair for her, and her
shawl, and rug, and wrapped her feet carefully, and held the umbrella
over her head to screen her from the wind, and hovered over her
constantly, leaving his mother to stagger, or rather crawl up the stairs
as best she could, with her rug, and shawl, and waterproof, and saw her
umbrella turned inside out, and carried out to sea, without offering her
any assistance, even when, as she expressed it, she was "sick enough to
die."
Augusta did not need his attentions, for Lord Hardy devoted himself to
her, and nothing which Daisy could do availed to lure him from her side.
Once when Allen said to her that "Hardy seemed pretty hard hit with
Gus," her lip curled scornfully, but she dared not express her real
feelings and say how little the Irish lord cared for the girl herself.
She must not offend the Rossiter-Brownes, and she smiled sweetly upon
her rival, and called her "Gussie dear," and flattered Mrs. Browne, and
made eyes at Mr. Browne, and asked him to _bet_ for her in the
smoking-room, where he spent most of his time with a set of men who are
always there, smoking, drinking, joking, and betting upon the daily
speed of the ship, or any other trivial thing to pass away the time. So,
while his son flirted with the fair lady on deck, Mr. Browne bet for her
in the smoking-room with so good success, that when the losses and gains
were footed up she found herself richer by one hundred and fifty dollars
than when she left Liverpool. Mrs. Browne did not believe in betting. It
was as bad as gambling, she said. And Daisy admitted it, but said, with,
tears in her eyes, that it would do so much good to Bessie and her sick
husband, to whom she should send every farthing as soon as she reached
New York.
The voyage had been unusually long, but this was their last day out. New
York was in sight, and in her most becoming attire Daisy stood upon the
deck, looking eagerly at the, to her, new world, and wholly unconscious
of the shock awaiting her on the shore which they were slowly nearing.
At last the ship reached the dock, the plank was thrown out, and a
throng of passengers crowed the gangway.
"Is Mrs. Archibald McPherson on board?" was shouted through the ship,
and in a flutter of expectation Daisy went forward, announcing herself
as the lady in question. "A telegram has been waiting for you more than
a week," was the response, as the officer placed in her hand the yellow
missive whose purport he knew.
"A message for me! Where could it have come from, I wonder," Daisy said,
as, without a suspicion of the truth, she broke the seal and read:
"STONELEIGH, June ----.
"Your husband died this morning, quietly and peacefully. Bessie
well, but very tired.
"GREY JERROLD."
"Oh-h! Archie, my husband!" Daisy cried, bitterly as she sank down into
a chair and covered her face with her hands, while over her for a moment
there swept a great wave of regret for the man she had loved in the days
when she was innocent and young, and not the hard, selfish woman of the
world that she was now. "Archie is dead, dead!" she moaned, as the
Rossiter-Brownes gathered around her, together with Lord Hardy, who took
the telegram from her and read it aloud, while he, too, experienced a
throb of pain for the man he had known so long and esteemed so highly,
even while he despised him for his weakness in suffering his wife to
lead the life she had.
How vividly it all came back to him--the day when he first saw Archibald
McPherson, the fair English boy, for he was scarcely more than that,
with his young girl-wife, so innocent and lovely then. And she was
lovely still and he pitied her, for he believed her grief genuine,
mingled as it must be with remorse for the past, and laying his hand on
her bowed head, he said to her, kindly:
"I am very sorry for you, and if I can do anything for you, do not
hesitate to command me."
Alas for poor weak human nature when perverted from its better side! The
sound of Teddy's voice, so different from what it had been before during
the voyage, awoke a throb in Daisy's heart, which she would not like to
have confessed to those around her. She was free now, and who knew that
she might not one day be mistress of that handsome place in Ireland,
Lord Hardy's home, if she only played her cards well. Surely that
low-born Yankee girl, Augusta Browne, could never be her rival, even if
she had money. Such was the thought which flashed like lightning through
Daisy's mind as she felt the touch of Lord Hardy's hand and heard his
sympathetic voice.
Her first impulse, when she read the telegram, had been that she must go
back to Bessie in the first ship which sailed, but now her decision was
reversed. Archie was dead and buried. She could do no good to him, and
she might as well stay a little while, especially as she knew Lord Hardy
had accepted Mrs. Browne's invitation to spend a few days with them at
the Ridge House. It would never do to abandon the field to Augusta, she
reflected, but her tears flowed just as fast, and, to do her justice,
there was a sense of bitter pain in her heart, as she sat with her head
bowed down, while the Brownes and Lord Hardy stood around trying to
comfort her. Mrs. Browne offered her sal-volatile and called her "my
poor dear;" Augusta put her arms around her neck; Allen fanned her
gently, and Lord Hardy asked what he could do, while Mr. Browne said it
was "plaguey hard on her, but somebody must go and see to them
confounded custom-house chaps, or they would have every dud out of the
ten trunks, and there'd be a pretty how-d'ye-do."
Thus reminded of what had been a terror to her all the voyage, Mrs.
Browne suggested that Daisy should leave the ship and sit on the wharf
with "Gusty to attend to her, while she helped her husband pull
through."
It was in vain that Mr. Browne protested against any help, telling his
better-half to mind her business, and saying that she'd only upset
everything with her fussiness and red face. But Mrs. Browne would not
listen. She was not going to let him lie. She had given him numerous
lectures on that point during the voyage, and had always ended them with
the assertion that she wouldn't pay duty either! Just what she meant to
do she did not know, but she went with her husband to the field of
combat, and was soon hotly engaged with three officers, who, seeing her
nervousness and hearing her excited voice, scented mischief, of course,
and notwithstanding that she declared she was Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, of
Ridgeville, a church member in good standing, and asked if they thought
she would do a thing she believed was wrong, they answered that her idea
of wrong and theirs might not agree, and they went to the bottom of her
largest trunk, and found the silk dress she had bought for her friend,
Mrs. Boughton, who had told her "to get one _worth_ four dollars a yard,
but not to give over two, and on no account pay duty."
"I trust to your Yankee wit to get it through," Mrs. Boughton had
written, citing several instances where similar things had been done and
no lies told either!
And it was this particular dress at the very bottom of her trunk for
which Mrs. Browne felt the most anxiety. But the remorseless officers
found it, and found a plush table-spread she had bought in Paris and a
cushion to match, and, as they held them up, they facetiously asked her
to what church she belonged.
She told them none of their business, and as her principles and patience
were both at a low ebb by this time, and the meaning of rendering to
Cæsar the things which were Cæsar's did not seem at all clear to her,
she whispered fiercely to her husband:
"Ike, you fool, why don't you fee 'em? I can't have 'em riddlen' all
them tother trunks, with my seal-skin, and Gusty's fur-lined cloak, and
Allen's new overcoat, and that clock and mosaic table. Fee 'em high,
too, and do it quick! there's that wretch now liftin' out a tray!"
To those who have witnessed similar scenes it is needless to say that by
some magic the search was stopped, and neither Mrs. Browne's seal-skin,
nor Augusta's fur-lined cloak, nor Allen's overcoat were molested, and
the ten trunks were chalked and deposited in the express wagons, and the
Rossiter-Brownes, with Lord Hardy and Daisy, were driven to the Windsor.
Meantime Daisy had cried a good deal, and leaned her head against
Augusta and once against Lord Hardy's arm, and sobbed:
"Oh, Teddy, you knew my Archie, and know just how good and patient he
was, and how lonely I shall be without him. Oh, what shall I do?"
Teddy did not suggest anything she could do, though he naturally thought
she would go home at once; and Mrs. Browne thought so, too, when she had
recovered from her encounter with the custom-house officers and could
think of anything. But she would not be the first to suggest it
outright. She merely said it was a pity that Mrs. McPherson could not
see anything of America except New York, which was much like any great
city.
"Yes," Daisy sobbed, "such a pity, and I had anticipated so much. Oh,
Mrs. Browne, I do want to do right, and you must advise me. Now that I
am here, and poor, dear Archie is dead and buried, and I can do him no
good by going back at once, do you think it would look very bad and
heartless in me if I stay a little while--just long enough to see your
lovely country home, and rest? I am so tired!" and as Allen happened to
be the nearest to her, she leaned her head against him and cried aloud.
Before Mrs. Browne could reply, Augusta asked:
"What of Bessie? Will she not be very lonely without you?"
"Nasty cat! She is as jealous as she can be, and I will stay to spite
her," Daisy thought, but she said: "Oh, yes, I ought to go home to
Bessie, though she would bid me stay now that I am here; she is so
unselfish, and I shall never come again. Her cousin's family in London
will take her directly home, so she will not be alone. Poor Bessie!"
Daisy knew that the London family would not take Bessie to their home,
but it answered her purpose to say so, and seemed some excuse for her
remaining, as she finally decided to do, greatly to Allen's delight and
somewhat to Mrs. Browne's surprise. Yet the glamour of Daisy's beauty,
and style, and position was over her still, and she was not sorry to
show her off to the people in the hotel, and anticipated in no small
degree what would be said by her friends at home when she showed them a
live lord and an English lady like Daisy. She was going to Ridgeville in
a day or two, but Daisy's mourning must first be bought, and in the
excitement of shopping, and trying on dresses and bonnets, and deciding
which shape was the most becoming, Daisy came near forgetting "poor,
dear, dead Archie," of whom she talked so pathetically when she spoke of
him at all.
"Don't, I beg of you, think that I ever for a moment forget my loss,"
she said to Mrs. Browne, when she had with a hand-glass studied the hang
of her crape vail for at least fifteen minutes. "It hurts me to speak
of him, but there is a moan in my heart for him all the time."
And Mrs. Browne believed her, and thought she was bearing it bravely,
and paid all the bills, and thought her the most beautiful creature in
her weeds that she had ever seen. And truly she was a lovely little
widow, with just enough pallor in her face to be interesting and show
that her sorrow had robbed her of some of her roses, or, as Lord Hardy
suspected, that she had purposely omitted the roses, when making her
toilet, for the sake of effect.
Lord Hardy knew the lady perfectly, and knew there was not a real thing
about her except, indeed, her hair, which was wavy and abundant still,
and of which she was very proud, often allowing it to fall on her neck,
and always arranging it in the most negligent and girlish manner. Once
her complexion had been her own, but the life she had led was not
conducive to bloom, and much of her bright color and the pearly tint of
her skin was now the work of art, so skillfully done, however, that few
could detect it. Mrs. Browne did not. She never suspected anything, and
took Daisy for what she seemed, and was glad Allen was so fond of her as
in her society he was safe, she said, "and could not help getting kind
of refined and cultivated up."
Daisy wrote to Bessie, telling her how prostrated with grief she was,
and that she should have taken the first ship home if the
Rossiter-Brownes had not insisted that she should stay and see a little
of America.
"But it will not be for long," she wrote. "I shall soon return, and I
send you thirty pounds, absolutely my own. This will last till I am with
you, and then we will contrive together how to live respectably and
happily."
The day after the letter was sent, the Browne party started for
Ridgeville, reaching the Allington station about three in the afternoon
of a lovely July day.
The news of their coming had preceded them, and the Ridge House, which
was a large, imposing mansion, had for days been the scene of much
bustle and excitement, for it was known that an Irish lord was to
accompany the family, and an English lady, who, if not titled, was
connected with some of the best families in England.
There was a great deal of talk and gossip among the neighbors, who had
known the Rossiter-Brownes with out an "e" or a hyphen, when he was
simply Ike and she was Angeline, Miss Lucy Grey's hired girl. But they
were rich people now; they owned the finest house in Ridgeville, and
every room was covered with what Mrs. Browne called a Mocha carpet, and
they kept negroes instead of white servants, and the barn was full of
boxes of all sizes, which had arrived, from time to time, bearing
foreign marks upon them, thus impressing the lower class with a species
of awe as they thought how far they had come, and how much they had
probably cost.
Then, the family had traveled and consorted with nobility, and seen the
Queen and the Pope, and in consequence of all this there was quite a
crowd of people at the station when the New York express stopped then
and deposited upon the platform twelve trunks, three hat boxes, an
English terrier, a Dongola cat, with innumeral satchels and
port-manteaus, and seven people--Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter-Browne, Augusta
Browne, Allen Browne, Daisy McPherson, a French maid, and Lord Hardy.
_He_, plainly dressed in a gray suit, which did not fit him at all, but
with a decidedly aristocratic look upon his face as he glanced curiously
at the crowd gathering around the Brownes, and greeting them with noisy
demonstrations: Daisy, in deep black, with her vail thrown back from her
lovely lace and a gleam of ridicule and contempt in her blue eyes as
they flashed upon Lord Hardy as if for sympathy; the French maid, in
white apron and cap, tired, homesick and bewildered with Mrs. Browne's
repeated calls to know if she was sure she had all the bags, and shawls,
and fans, and umbrellas, and the shrill voice of a little boy who
shouted to her as the train moved off, "I say, hain't you left your
bunnet in the cars; 'tain't on your head;" Allen, stunning in his long,
light overcoat, tight pants, pointed shoes, cane, and eye-glasses, which
he found very necessary as he pointed out his luggage, and in reply to
the baggage-master's hearty "How are you, my boy?" drawled out, "Quite
well--thanks--but awful tired, you know;" Augusta, in a Jersey jacket,
with gloves buttoned to her elbows, and an immense hat, with two
feathers on the back; Mr. Browne in a long ulster, and soft hat, with
gloves, which his wife made him wear; and Mrs. Browne, in a Paris dress,
fearfully and wonderfully made, and a poke bonnet, so long and so pokey
that to see her face was like looking down a narrow lane.
No wonder the plain people of Ridgeville, to whom poke bonnets, and
jersey jackets, and long gloves, and pointed toes, were then new, were
startled, and a little abashed at so much foreign style, especially as
it was accompanied by nobility in the person of Lord Hardy. At him the
people stared curiously, deciding that he was not much to look at if he
was a lord, and wondering if he was after Augusta.
"Her mother will bust, if he is. She has about as much as she can do to
keep herself together now. I wonder if she has forgot that she was once
a hired girl, and worked like the rest of us?" was whispered by some of
the envious ones.
But this was before they had received Mrs. Browne's greeting, which was
just as cordial as of old, and her voice was just as loud and hearty.
She didn't mean to be stuck up because she'd been abroad; she was a
democrat to her back-bone, she had frequently asserted, and she carried
out her principles, and shook hands with everybody, and kissed a great
many, and thanked them for coming to meet her; and then, with her
husband, Augusta, and Lord Hardy, entered her handsome carriage and was
driven toward home.
The French maid went in the omnibus, while Allen drove Daisy himself in
the pony phaeton, not a little proud of the honor, and the attention he
was attracting as he took his seat beside the beautiful woman, whose
face had never looked fairer or sweeter than it did under the widow's
bonnet.
"What a lovely pony! Is he gentle? and do you think I might venture to
drive him?" Daisy asked, with a pretty affectation of girlishness, as
they left the station; and Allen instantly put the reins in her hands,
and leaning languidly back, watched her admiringly, with a strange
thrill of something undefinable in his heart.
"Do we pass Miss McPherson's house?" Daisy asked and he replied:
"Yes, at a little distance; and we can go very near to it by taking the
road across the common," and he indicated the direction. "That is the
place, with all those cherry trees," he continued, pointing toward the
unpretentious house where Miss Betsey McPherson had lived for so many
years, and where she now sat upon the piazza, with Hannah Jerrold at her
side.
Miss Betsey had been in Boston for two weeks, and had only returned home
that morning, finding Bessie's letter of thanks, written so long ago and
not forwarded to her until one of the firm in London heard of Archie's
death. This letter she had read with a great feeling of pity for and
yearning toward the young girl who had written it.
"I wish I had sent her more, and I will by and by," she thought, never
dreaming that Archie was dead, or that his wife was so near.
She had not even heard of the arrival in New York of the Brownes, and
was talking with Hannah Jerrold, who had come over to see her, when the
carriage containing Mr. and Mrs. Browne, Augusta and Lord Hardy, came
into view across the common.
"Why, that's the Brownes!" she exclaimed. "Are they home? and who is
that tow-headed chap with them? Not Allen, surely?"
Hannah explained that the Brownes were expected that afternoon, and that
an Irish lord was coming with them, and that half Ridgeville had gone to
the station to meet them.
"Irish fiddlesticks! After Augusta's money, of course," Miss Betsey
returned, with a snort, but whatever else she might have said was cut
short by the appearance of the phaeton with Allen and Daisy in it.
"I wonder who she is. I hope she stares well. Seems to me I have seen
her before," Miss Betsey said, adding, as Daisy half inclined her head,
and smiled upon her, "Who can she be? Somebody they have picked up to
make a splurge with. A widow, at any rate."
"Oh, yes, I remember now to have heard from the cook at Ridge House that
an English lady was to accompany the family home, and--yes, her name was
McPherson, too--Lady McPherson, the cook called her. This is she, no
doubt."
"Lady McPherson," Miss Betsey repeated "There is no Lady McPherson
except my brother's wife, Lady Jane, and she is almost as dried up and
yellow by this time as I am, while this lady is young, and--good
gracious! It is she! The Jezebel! Lady McPherson indeed!" and Miss
Betsey sprang to her feet so energetically as to startle her visitor,
who had no idea what she meant.
The face seen on the terrace at Aberystwyth years ago had come back to
Miss Betsey, and she felt sure that she had just seen it again, smiling
upon Allen Browne as it had then smiled upon Lord Hardy. But why in
widow's weeds? Was Archie dead? she asked herself, as she resumed her
seat and tried to seem natural.
Hannah saw that something ailed her; but she was too well bred to ask
any questions, and soon took her leave.
Alone with her own thoughts, Miss Betsey fell to soliloquizing:
"That letter was written long ago; Archie may be dead, and this painted
gambler has gulled the Brownes and come to America as their guest, with
the snipper-snapper of a Hardy. I must find out if Archie is dead, and
what has become of the girl."
After she had had her tea. Miss Betsey ordered her old white horse and
old-fashioned buggy to be brought round, and started for a drive, taking
the Ridgeville road and passing the house of the Brownes, where the
family were assembled upon the wide piazza, enjoying the evening breeze.
At a glance she singled out Daisy, who was reclining gracefully in an
arm-chair, with a pond-lily at her throat, relieving the blackness of
her dress, and Allen Browne leaning over and evidently talking to her.
As Miss McPherson drove very slowly, and looked earnestly toward the
house, which was at a little distance from the road, Mrs. Browne, who
was watching her, ventured down the walk, bowing half hesitatingly, for
she had never been on terms of intimacy with Miss Betsey, of whom she
stood a little in awe.
Reining up old Whitey, the lady stopped and waited until Mrs. Browne
came to her. Then, extending her hand, she said:
"You are welcome home again. I did not know you had come until I saw
your carriage go by, and the phaetons with Allen and a lady in it," and
she glanced toward Daisy, who, having heard from Allen that the stiff,
queer-looking woman in the buggy was her aunt, had arisen to her feet
for the purpose of getting a better view of her.
"Yes," Mrs. Browne began, "we got home to-day, and a more tuckered out
lot you never saw. Home is home, if it's ever so homely, I tell 'em. By
the way, I'm glad you happened this way. I was goin' to send you word,
I've brought home with me one of your relations, Mrs. Archibald
McPherson, your nephew's wife, and I hope you'll call and see her. She
is very nice, and so pretty, too. That's her in black."
"Ahem!" and Miss Betsey's thin lips were firmly compressed. "Ahem!
yes--Mrs. Archibald McPherson. Why is she in black?"
Then followed the story of the telegram received on the Celtic, and the
terrible shock it was to Daisy, who was for a time wholly overcome.
"Seems pretty brisk now," Miss Betsey said, glancing sharply toward the
airy figure now walking up and down the piazza with Allen at its side.
"Why didn't she go home at once to her daughter?"
"She did talk of it," Mrs. Browne replied, uneasily for she detected
disapprobation of her guest in Miss McPherson's tone. "I think she would
of went, but it seemed a pity not to see a little of America first. She
will not stay long, and I hope you'll call soon. I b'lieve you have
never been in my new house."
"No, I have not. Who, may I ask, is that tow-headed man, with his hair
parted in the middle?"
"Oh, excuse me," and Mrs. Browne brightened at once. "That is Lord
Hardy. We met him in Nice. He is going West, and we persuaded him to
stop here first. He is very nice, and not at all stuck up."
"Yes, an Irishman. I've seen him before. If he is poor, my advice is,
look out for Augusta, and, anyway, have a care for your boy. Good-night.
It's growing late. Get up, Whitey," and with a jerk at the reins the old
lady drove on, while Mrs. Browne, rather crestfallen and disappointed,
went slowly back to the house, wondering why she was to have a care for
her _boy_, her Allen, still walking up and down at Daisy's side, and
talking eagerly to her.
"I suppose I am meaner than dirt, but I cannot help it, I will not
notice that woman--no, not a woman, but a gambler, an adventuress, a
flirt, who, if she cannot capture that Irishman, will try her luck with
Allen! I hate her, but I pity the girl, and I'll send her a hundred
pounds at once," Miss Betsey soliloquized, as she went home through the
gathering twilight.
And before she slept she wrote to her bankers in London, bidding them
forward to Bessie's address another hundred pounds, and charge it to her
account.
The next morning Miss Betsey was sitting in her hop-vine-covered porch,
shelling peas for her early dinner, and thinking of Archie and the
painted Jezebel, as she designated Daisy, when a shadow fell upon the
floor, and looking up she saw the subject of her thoughts standing
before her, with her yellow hair arranged low in her neck, and a round
black hat set coquettishly upon her head. Miss Betsey did not manifest
the least surprise, but adjusting her spectacles from her forehead to
her eyes, looked up inquiringly at her visitor, who, seating herself
upon the threshold of the door, took off her hat, and in the silvery
tones she could assume so well, said:
"You must excuse me, dear auntie. I could not wait for you to call, I
wanted to see you so badly, and, as Allen Browne was going to the
post-office, I rode down with him, I am Daisy--Archie's wife, or widow,
for Archie is dead, you know."
She said this very sadly and low, and there were great tears in the blue
eyes lifted timidly and appealingly to the little sharp, bead like eyes
confronting her so steadily through the spectacles. How very lovely and
youthful-looking she was as she sat there in the doorway, and Miss
Betsey acknowledged the youth and the loveliness, but did not unbend one
whit.
"Ahem!" she began, and the tone was not very reassuring "I knew you were
here. Mrs. Browne told me, and I saw you there with Allen yesterday. I
saw you years ago on the terrace at Aberystwyth, and remembered you
well. Was Archie very sick when you left him?"
"Yes--no," Daisy said, stammeringly; "that is, he had been sick a long
time, but I did not think him so bad or I should never have left him.
Oh, auntie, it almost killed me when I heard he was dead, and there is a
moan for him in my heart all the time."
She adopted this form of speech because it had sounded prettily to
herself when she said it to Mrs. Browne, who had believed in the moan,
but Miss Betsey did not.
"Ahem!" she said; "how much time have you spent with Archie the last ten
years or so?"
"Not as much as I wish I had now. I was obliged to be away from him,"
Daisy replied, and the spinster continued:
"Why?"
"My health was poor, and I was so much better out of England; and so,
when people invited me, I went with them--it saved expense at home, and
we are so poor, oh! you cannot know how poor;" and Daisy clasped her
hands together despairingly as she gazed up at the stern face above her,
which did not relax in its sternness, but remained so hard and stony
that Daisy burst out impetuously: "Oh, auntie, why are you so cold to
me. Why do you hate me so? I have never harmed you. I want you for my
friend--mine and Bessie's; and we need a friend so much in our
loneliness and poverty. Bessie is the sweetest, truest girl you ever
knew."
For a moment Miss Betsey's hands moved rapidly among the pea-pods; then
removing her spectacles and wiping them with the corner of her apron,
she began:
"I mean to treat everybody civilly in my own house, but if I say
anything I must tell the naked truth. I believe Bessie is a true girl,
as you say; but I have my doubts of you. I have heard much of your
career; have talked with those who have seen you in that hell at Monte
Carlo, bandying jests with young profligates and blear-eyed old men,
more dangerous than the younger ones because better skilled in evil. I
saw you myself on the terrace at Aberystwyth, flirting as no married
woman should flirt with that whiffet, Lord Hardy, who, it seems, is here
with you, and whom perhaps you think to capture now that you are free.
But let me tell you that men seldom pick up and wear a soiled garment,
particularly when they have helped to soil it. Lord Hardy will never
marry you, and my advice is that you go home, as you ought to have done
at once. Go back to your child and be a mother to her; but, as you hope
for heaven, never try to drag her down where you are. You talk of
poverty. You do not show it. Those diamonds in your ears never cost a
small sum, nor that solitaire upon your finger."
"They were given to me," Daisy sobbed, as she rose to her feet and put
on her hat preparatory to leaving, while Miss Betsey continued:
"Given to you! The more shame for you to take them. Better throw them
away than wear them as a badge of degradation. Yes, throw them away, or
send them back whence they came. Wash that paint off your face. Get rid
of that made-up smirk around your mouth. Remember that you are going on
toward forty."
"Oh-h!" Daisy groaned; "I am not quite thirty-six."
"Well, thirty-six, then," the spinster rejoined. "There's a wide
difference between thirty-six and sixteen. You are a widow; you have a
grown-up daughter. You are no longer young, though you are good enough
looking, but good looks will not support you honestly. Go home and go to
work, if it is only to be a bar-maid at the George Hotel; and when I see
you have reformed, I do not say I will not do something for you, but
just so long as you go round sponging your living and making eyes at
men--and boys, too, for that matter--not a penny of my money shall you
ever touch. I've said my say, and there comes the boy Allen for you.
Good-morning."
She arose to take her peas to the kitchen. The conference was ended, and
with a flushed face and wet eyes Daisy went out to the phaeton, into
which Allen handed her very carefully, and then took his seat beside
her. He noticed her agitation, but did not guess its cause, until she
said, with a little gasping sob:
"I was never so insulted in my life as by that horrid old woman. Had I
been the vilest creature in the world she could not have talked worse to
me. She said I was living upon your people--sponging she called it; that
I was after Lord Hardy--and--and--oh, Allen--even you--the _boy_ she
called you, and she bade me go home and hire out as bar-maid at the
George Hotel in Bangor."
"The wretch! Boy, indeed!" Allen said, bristling with indignation at
this fling at his youth, but feeling a strange stir in his young blood
at the thought of this fair creature being after him.
Arrived at the Ridge House, Daisy went directly to her room and had the
headache all day; and gave Mrs. Browne a most exaggerated account of her
interview with her aunt, but omitted the part pertaining to Lord Hardy
and Allen, the latter of whom hovered disconsolately near the door of
her room and sent her messages and a bouquet, and was radiant with
delight when after tea-time she was so far restored as to be able to
join the family upon the piazza. It was Allen who brought a pillow for
her, and a footstool, and asked if she was in a draught, and when she
said she was, moved her chair at her request nearer to Lord Hardy, who
scarcely looked at her, and did not manifest the slightest interest in
her headache, or in her. Nothing which Daisy could do was of any avail
to attract him to her, and she tried every wile and art upon him during
the next few days, but to no purpose. At last, when she had been at the
Ridge House a week, and she had an opportunity of seeing him alone, she
said, in a half playful, half complaining voice:
"What is it, Teddy? What has come between us that you are so cold to me?
Has the fair Gusty, as her mother calls her, driven from your mind all
thoughts of your old friend? You used to care for me, Teddy, in the good
old days when we were all so happy together. Don't you like me a little
now, and I so lonely and sad, and all the more so that I have to keep up
and smile before these people, who, kind as they are, bore me with their
vulgarities? Say, Teddy, are you angry with me?"
As she talked Daisy had put her hand on that of Lord Hardy, who once
would have thrilled at its touch, but who now shrank from it as
something poisonous. He knew the woman so thoroughly that nothing she
could do or say would in the least affect him now, and when she asked if
he were angry with her, he replied:
"Not angry, no--but, Mrs. McPherson--"
"Oh, Teddy, now I know you hate me when you call me Mrs. McPherson,"
Daisy sobbed, and he continued:
"Well, Daisy, then, if that suits you better, I am not angry, but you
must know that we can never again be to each other what we were in the
days when I was foolish enough to follow where you led, even to my ruin.
All that is past, and I will not reproach you more; but, Daisy, I must
speak one word of warning. I owe so much to these kind people, whose
vulgarities bore you, but do not prevent you from accepting their
hospitality. I am not blind to what you are doing."
"And what am I doing?" Daisy asked, and he replied: "Making a fool of a
boy, for mercenary purposes of your own. I have seen it ever since we
left Liverpool and I tell you I will not allow it, and if you persist in
luring Allen to your side on all occasions, and throw over him the
glamour of your charms, the family shall know all I know of your past
life, even if it compromises me with you. They think you pure and good.
What would they say if they knew you to be a professional gambler, an
adventuress about whom men jest and smile derisively, even while they
flatter and admire you in a certain way? Bad, in the common acceptation
of the word, you may not be, but your womanhood is certainly soiled, and
you are not a fit associate for a young, susceptible man, or for an
innocent girl. If you were a true woman you would have gone home at
once, to your daughter, who, rumor says, is as sweet and lovely as an
angel. Go back now to her, and by fulfilling the duties of a mother try
to retrieve the past. It is not impossible. I do not mean to be harsh,
and hardly know why I have said all this to you, except it were to save
Allen Browne, who is each day becoming more and more in love with you."
"In love with me! A woman old enough to be his mother! Absurd!" Daisy
exclaimed, adding scornfully: "Thanks for your lecture, which shall not
be lost on me. I have no wish to prolong my stay in this stupid place,
and only wish I had never come here; and since my presence is so
distastful to you, I will go at once and leave you to prosecute your
suit with the fair Augusta, wishing you joy with your Yankee bride and
her refined family. Shall you invite them to your home in Ireland? If
so, may I be there to see! _Addio!_" and with a mocking courtsey she
left the room, and going to her chamber wrote to Bessie that she was
coming home immediately. Daisy had lost her game, and she knew it. She
had nothing to expect from Miss McPherson, nothing from Lord Hardy, and
as her deep mourning prevented Mrs. Browne from giving the party she had
talked about so much, she might better be in Europe, she thought, and
accordingly she acquainted her hostess with her decision. There was a
faint protest on the part of Mrs. Browne, but only a faint one, for she
was beginning to be a little afraid of her fair visitor, whom Augusta
disliked thoroughly. Only Allen was sorry, for the wily woman had
stirred his boyish heart to its very depths, and when at last he said
good-by to her, and stood until the train which bore her away was out of
sight, he felt, perhaps, as keen a pang of regret as a young man of
twenty-two ever felt for a woman many years his senior.
Mr. Browne accompanied her to New York, and saw her on board the ship,
and on his return home reported that he had left her in the cabin "a
smellin' of and admirin' a basket of flowers most as big as herself,
which she said a very dear friend had ordered sent to her with his
love."
"She didn't say who 'twas," he continued, "and I didn't ask her, but I
thought 'fool and his money soon parted,' for they'd smell awful in a
day or two, and be flung into the sea. She giv' me one of the posies for
Allen. I guess it's pretty well jammed, for I chucked it into my vest
pocket; here it is," and he handed a faded rosebud to Allen, whose face
was very red, and whose eyes, as they met those of Lord Hardy, betrayed
the fact that he was the very dear friend who had ordered the flowers as
his farewell to Daisy.
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
IN ROME.
The carnival was raging through the streets of Rome, and the Corso was
thronged with masqueraders and lined with spectators--Italians, English,
and Americans--all eager for the sight. Upon the balcony of a private
dwelling, for which an enormous price had been paid because it commanded
a fine view of the street below, sat Miss Lucy Grey, with Grey Jerrold
and a party of friends. Lucy had been in Rome three or four weeks,
staying at a pension, in the Via Nazzionale, which she preferred to the
fashionable and noisy hotels.
Grey, who had taken the trip to Egypt, had only been in Rome a few days,
and as there was no room for him at the pension, he was stopping at the
Quirinal, near by. He had seen the carnival twice before, and cared but
little for it; but it was new to his Aunt Lucy, and for her sake he was
there, standing at her side and apparently watching the gay pageant as
it moved by, though in reality he was scarcely thinking of it at all,
for all his thoughts and interest were centered in the white, worn face
he had seen that morning in a close, dark room at the hotel, where
Bessie McPherson lay dying, he verily believed.
On the night of his arrival at the hotel, which was very full, he had
been given a room on the fourth floor looking into a court, and his rest
had been disturbed by the murmur of voices in the room adjoining his
own.
An Italian voice, which he was sure was a doctor's--a clear, decided,
youthful voice, with a slight Irish brogue, which he knew must belong to
a young girl, and an older, softer voice, often choked with tears, and
occasionally a moaning sound, and wild snatches of song, which affected
him strangely, for this voice, broken and weak as it was, had in it
something familiar, and he tried in vain to recall where he had heard it
before and under what circumstances. Once he thought he heard his own
name, as if the sick girl (he felt intuitively that it was a girl) were
calling for him, and, starting up, he listened intently, but caught only
the tones of the tearful, sobbing voice which said:
"Hush, darling, hush! We are all here; try to be quiet and sleep."
At last, worn out with wakefulness and the fatigue of his long journey
from Naples, Grey fell into a deep sleep, from which he did not waken
until nearly ten the next morning. Dressing himself hastily he went at
once to the office and asked who occupied the room adjoining his own.
"An English lady and her daughter," was the reply; and the clerk, who
was not noted for suavity of manner, turned to a little bright-eyed,
black haired girl, who came up, evidently with the intention of
preferring some request.
There was something in the toss of the curly head, and the saucy look in
the eyes, and the slightly upward turn of the nose, which always
commanded attention from the rudest of porters and clerks: and this one
at the Quirinal bowed respectfully to her, and was about to ask what he
could do for her, when Grey interrupted him with another question, or
rather assertion and question both:
"The young lady is sick. What is the matter with her?"
A flush of annoyance passed over the clerk's face, as he replied:
"A severe cold, taken in Naples. What can I do for you, Miss Meredith?"
And he loftily bowed Grey aside to make room for the young girl, whose
black eyes flashed upon Grey with a half-comical expression, and whose
shoulders shrugged involuntarily as she heard the clerk's explanation.
"I will ask the names of the English lady and her daughter another
time," Grey thought, as he moved away to make room for the young lady.
He had finished his breakfast, an hour later, and was making his way
from the winter garden into the parlor, when he again encountered the
young girl with the bright, laughing black eyes.
"Excuse me," she said, flashing upon him a bright, bewildering smile. "I
looked on the register, and found that you are Mr. Grey Jerrold, of whom
I have heard Sir Jack Trevellian speak. Sir Hal, from whom Sir Jack
inherited Trevellian Castle, was my cousin, and I used to live there
before poor Hal was killed. I am Flossie Meredith, and live now with my
grandmother, at Port Rush, in Ireland."
Grey bowed low to the vivacious little lady, who went on rapidly,
gesticulating as she talked, and emphasizing what she said with most
expressive shrugs and elevations of her eyelids and nose:
"I heard what that horrid clerk at the bureau told you ailed the young
lady in No.----. A severe cold, indeed! I should think it was. It is the
typhoid fever of the very worst form, and if you are afraid of it you
had better change your room. There are awful big cracks over and under
the door. I have stopped them up with paper as well as I can, but the
air can get through, and you might take the fever. The gentleman who
occupied the room before you came, left it in a hurry when he heard of
the fever, but I don't know where he went to escape it, for it's all
over the hotel. There is an American girl on the same floor, whom they
think is dying this morning, and a young man down stairs, and two or
three more somewhere else; and yet the clerks will tell you there is not
a single case of fever in the hotel. What liars they are, to be sure!
Grandma is frightened almost to death, and burns sugar, and camphor, and
brimstone, as disinfectants, and keeps chloride of lime under her bed,
till her room smells worse, if possible, than the hotel itself. But I am
not afraid. My room adjoins Bessie's, and I am with her half the time."
"What did you say? What did you call the young lady?" Grey asked,
excitedly, and Flossie replied:
"Bessie--Bessie McPherson, from Wales. I remember now, you must know
her, for Sir Jack told me that he once spent a Christmas at Stoneleigh,
and you were there with him."
"Yes, I know her," Grey said, with a tremor in his voice, and a pallor
about his lips. "Tell me how long she has been sick, and who is with
her."
Then Flossie told him that immediately on her return home from America,
Daisy had taken Bessie with her to Switzerland, where they spent the
remainder of the summer and a part of the autumn, making their way to
Paris in October, and going on to Italy sometime in November; that she,
Flossie, had come abroad with her grandmother and had fallen in with the
McPhersons at the Italian lakes, and kept with them ever since; that
Bessie had not seemed well or happy for some weeks; and that almost
immediately after her arrival in Rome she had taken her bed and had been
rapidly growing worse until now, when the doctor gave little hope of her
recovery.
"She does not know us," Flossie said, "and she talks so piteously of her
old home, and wants us to take her back to the garden where the birds
are singing in the yews, and where she says there is just one place
between her father and the wall, and that is for her. Oh, Mr. Jerrold,
what if she should die!"
"She must not--she shall not," Grey answered her, energetically, and by
the sense of bitter pain in his heart he knew that Bessie McPherson was
more to him than any other girl could ever be, and if she died the world
would lose much of its brightness for him.
He had never forgotten her, and over and over again in both his sleeping
and waking hours there had arisen before him a vision of her face, as he
had seen it when first he went to Stoneleigh, and as he saw it there
last, pale and worn and sad, but inexpressibly lovely and sweet. And
now, Flossie told him, she was dying, and for a moment he grew cold and
faint; then he rallied, and saying, "I will go and see Mrs. McPherson,"
bade Flossie good-morning, and started for No.----, fourth floor.
His knock was answered by Daisy herself, whose face was very pale, and
whose eyes were swollen and red with watching and tears. All her better
nature had been aroused; the mother love was in the ascendant now, and
in her anxiety for her child she had forgotten much of her coquetry and
was almost womanly in her grief.
"You are Mrs. McPherson?" Grey said to her, as she stepped out into the
hall and closed the door of the sick-room.
She bowed in the affirmative, and he continued:
"I am Grey Jerrold, I knew your husband; I was with him when he died. I
have just heard from Miss Meredith of your daughter's illness, and have
come to offer you my services. Is there anything I can do for you?"
Daisy's tears fell like rain as she replied:
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Jerrold; it will be something to know I have a
friend, for we are all alone. Neil is in Cairo, and there is no one
beside him on whom we have any claim. I have heard Bessie speak of you;
only last night she called you by name in her delirium."
"Yes, I heard her," Grey said, explaining that he occupied the adjoining
room, and thus had learned that there was some one sick near him.
In an instant Daisy's face brightened as something of her old managing
nature asserted itself, and in a few moments she adroitly contrived to
let Grey know how very much alone she felt with no male friend to
counsel her; how bitterly disappointed she was that the last mail from
England did not bring her the expected funds which she so sorely needed;
how exorbitant the proprietor of the hotel was in his charges, taking
every possible advantage of her helpless condition; and how much she had
desired an adjoining room, in order that Bessie might have better air,
and those who took care of her more space.
"Not that it matters so very much, except for the air," she added; "for
I cannot afford a nurse, so there is one less breath in the room. Oh,
Mr. Jerrold, it is dreadful to be sick in Rome, with no friends and very
little money. If Neil were here, or my remittances from England would
come, it would be all right."
"No nurse," Grey exclaimed. "Have you no nurse for your daughter? Who,
then, takes care of her?"
"I do, with Miss Meredith's help. She is very kind, and occasionally one
of the servants in the hotel stays with us during the night; but I hear
Bessie moving, and I must go. I am so glad that you are here.
Good-morning."
It is needless to say that within two hours' time Grey's room was at
Daisy's disposal, and the proprietor had orders to charge the same to
Mr. Jerrold's account instead of Mrs. McPherson's, while Grey's own
luggage was transported to a little, close, eight-by-twelve apartment,
which smelled worse than old Mrs. Meredith's could possibly have smelled
with all her burnt brimstone and camphor and chloride of lime. The
physician, an Italian, was also interviewed, and a competent nurse
secured and introduced into the sick-room, and when Daisy protested that
she could not meet the expense, Grey said to her:
"Give yourself no uneasiness on that score; that is my business. We
cannot let Bessie die."
And then he asked to see her. Very cautiously he entered the room, and
with a great throb of pain in his heart stood looking upon the pallid
face and the bright blue eyes which met his inquiringly, but had in them
no sign of recognition. Taking one of her hands in his and bending over
her, Grey said, very softly:
"Do you know me, Bessie?"
There was tenderness and pity in the tone of his voice as he said the
name Bessie, and the sick girl looked at him curiously, as if struggling
to recall something in the far past; then a smile broke over her face
and the lip quivered a little as she replied:
"Yes, you are Neil. I have waited for you, I am so glad you have come."
Still holding the feverish hand which clung to his, Grey hesitated a
moment, and then said:
"I am not Neil; he will be here soon. I am Grey Jerrold; don't you
remember I spent a Christmas with you once?"
Again she regarded him fixedly a moment, and then she said:
"Yes, I remember Grey Jerrold, the American: he was to have had my room,
but said he preferred the cold and the rats! Ugh!" and she shivered a
little, as she continued, "Where is he, Neil? He was with me when father
died, and was so very kind. Thank him for me, when you see him, and now
I am so tired. I cannot talk any more, but stay by me, Neil, and hold
my hand I am better with you here."
She persisted in thinking him Neil, and Grey humored the fancy. He had
never heard of her engagement, for Jack had not betrayed her confidence;
but he knew that she and Neil were greatly attached to each other, and
were, as he thought, more like brother and sister than cousins, and,
believing as he did with the world in general, that Neil was pledged to
Blanche Trevellian, he had no suspicion of the real state of affairs,
though he wondered that all Bessie's thoughts should be concentrated
upon her absent cousin. How sick she was, and how high the fever ran,
and how strangely she talked, as he sat there watching her with a
terrible fear in his heart, and a constant prayer for the dear life
which seemed balancing so evenly in the scale for the next two or three
days, during which he was with her all the time he could spare from his
Aunt Lucy, who never suspected why he seemed so abstracted and sad, or
that the fever was in the hotel where he was staying. He knew how much
afraid she was of it, and how anxious she would be for him if she knew
where he spent the hours not given to her. So he did not tell her of
poor little Bessie, who grew weaker and weaker every day, until at last
the old doctor shook his head, and between the pinches of snuff which he
blew about vigorously, said there was one chance in a hundred for her,
and if she had any friends who wished to see her, they should be sent
for at once. But there was no one save Neil, whom Daisy expected every
day, and Grey filled his place altogether with Bessie. She always called
him Neil, and once, with a most grieved expression on her face, she said
to him:
"Why don't you kiss me, Neil? You have not since you came."
Daisy and Flossie had gone to dinner, and the nurse was resting a few
moments in the adjoining room, while Grey sat by her patient; thus he
was alone with Bessie, when she startled him with the question, "Why
don't you kiss me, Neil?"
Bending over her, he said:
"Would you like me to kiss you Bessie?"
"Ye-es," she answered, faintly, and then Grey pressed his lips to hers
in a long, passionate kiss, with no thought that there was danger and
possible death in the hot breath which he felt upon his cheek as he laid
it against hers.
He thought of nothing but the sick girl before him, whom he had kissed,
and whom he now knew that he loved better than anything it life; ay,
whom he had loved since the Christmas-time when he first looked into her
blue eyes and played for the knot of ribbon she wore at her throat.
Grey had seen much of the world, and many bright eyes had flashed upon
him glances which mean so much, but which had never affected him.
Nothing, in fact, had touched him until he saw Bessie McPherson, whom he
had remembered always, and sometimes to himself he had said:
"I will see her again. I will know her better, and if--"
He never got farther than that "if," though he was conscious that in all
his pictures of a future home there was a face like hers as he had seen
it in the old stone house at Stoneleigh. He had not sought her again,
but he had found her unsought--sick, helpless, dying perhaps, and he
knew how much he loved her, and how dark would be the future if she were
snatched from him.
"Oh, Heaven, I can't let her die!" he cried; and, falling on his knees
by the bedside, he prayed long and earnestly that she might live for
him, who loved her so devotedly.
This was the night before the second day of the carnival, when Grey felt
obliged to leave her for a few hours and do duty at his Aunt Lucy's
side. Miss Grey had that morning heard rumors of fever in Rome, and with
her fears aroused she signified to Grey her wish to leave the city the
following Monday.
"You are looking very thin," she said, regarding him anxiously as he
bent over her chair, "and I am not feeling very well myself. It is time
we were out of Rome I am sure it is not healthy here."
She did look pale, Grey noticed, and, as his first duty was to her, he
signified his readiness to leave with her on Monday.
"I shall know the worst by that time," he thought "If she is better, I
can go with a good heart; if she is dead, it matters little where I am.
All places will be the same to me."
And so it was settled that with his Aunt Lucy he should leave for
Florence on the following Monday, and with a heavy heart he said good-by
to her when the festivities of the day were over, and went back to his
hotel.
CHAPTER II.
FAREWELL.
It was Sunday, and the gay pageant of the carnival was moving through
the Via Nazzionale, on which the Hotel du Quirinal stands. This was the
grandest, gayest day of all, and the spectacle which the long street
presented, as carriage after carriage, and company after company pressed
on, had in it nothing of the calm, quiet repose which we are wont to
associate with Sunday. It was not Sunday to the throng of masqueraders
filling the streets, or the multitude of spectators crowding the
balconies and windows of the tall houses on either side of the way. But
to the little group of friends gathered in the room where Bessie lay it
was the holy Sabbath time, and, save when by the opening of some door
across the hall a strain of music or shout of merriment was borne to
their ears, they would never have guessed what was passing. The fever
had burned itself out on Bessie's cheeks and left them colorless as
marble; while in her eyes, so large and heavy with restlessness and
pain, there was a look of recognition, and on the pale lips a smile for
those around her. She had known them all since the early morning, when,
awaking from a heavy sleep, she called her mother by name, and asked
where she was and what had happened to her.
The last three weeks had been a blank, and they broke it to her
gradually, and told her of Grey Jerrold's presence, and how she had
mistaken him for Neil, from whom they had that day heard, and who would
be with them on Monday. It was Flossie who told Bessie this last, as
she kissed the white forehead, and said through her tears:
"I am so glad to see you better; it nearly broke my heart when I thought
that you might die--and Mr. Jerrold, too, I am sure would have died if
you had. Oh, Bessie, I never saw this Neil, but he can not be as nice as
Mr. Jerrold, who, next to Sir Jack, is the best man in the world."
"Hush, Flossie!" Bessie whispered, for she had not strength to speak
aloud, "such things are over with me now. I shall never see Sir Jack
again; never see Neil, for when he comes to-morrow I shall not be here."
"Oh, Bessie," Flossie cried, with a great gush of tears; but Bessie
motioned her to be silent, and went on:
"Tell Sir Jack that I might have loved him had I seen him first, but it
will not matter soon whom I have loved, or who has loved me. Tell Neil,
when he comes and stands beside me, and I cannot speak to him, that I
loved him to the last, and if I had lived I would have been his wife
whenever he wished it; but it is better to die, for perhaps I could not
have borne the burden and the care again. I am so tired, and the rest
beyond the grave looks very sweet to me. You say Mr. Jerrold is here. I
should like to see him and thank him for his kindness."
Grey had not been to the room that morning, but he soon came and was
admitted to Bessie's presence. Smiling sweetly upon him as he came in,
Bessie said:
"I cannot offer you my hand, for I have no power to move it; the life
has all gone from me--see," and she tried in vain to lift one of the
thin, transparent hands which lay so helplessly just where Flossie had
put them.
"Don't try," Grey said, sitting down beside her, and placing one of his
own broad, warm palms upon the little hands, as if he would thus
communicate to them some of his own strength and vitality. "I am glad to
find you better," he continued; but Bessie shook her head and answered
him:
"Sane, but not better. I shall never be that; but I want to thank you
for all you have done for us--for mother and me. You were with me when
father died I remember all you did for me then, and I prayed God to
bless you for it many a time; and now, I am going where father has
gone, and shall sleep by him in the little yard at home, for they will
take me back; mother has promised--I could not rest here in Rome, lovely
as the grave-yard is. Flossie told me you were to leave to-morrow, and I
wanted to say good-by, and tell you how much good you have done me,
though you do not know it. Neil told me once of your resolve to make
somebody happy every day, and I have never forgotten it, and have in my
poor way tried to do so, too, in imitation of you, but have failed so
miserably; while you--oh, Mr. Jerrold, you are so noble and good. You
have made so many happy. God bless you, and give you everything which
you desire most."
She was too much exhausted to talk any more, and closing her eyes, she
lay as if asleep, while Grey watched her with the bitterest pain in his
heart he had ever known. Would she die? Must he give her up? Was there
yet no brightness, no happiness in the world for her, whose life had
been one of sacrifice and toil? He could not think so, and all his soul
went out in one continuous prayer: "Don't let Bessie die."
All day she lay motionless as the dead, scarcely lifting even an eyelid,
or showing that she was conscious of what was passing around her, save
when her mother's low, moaning cry, "Bessie, oh, Bessie, I cannot give
you up," sounded through the room. Then she moved uneasily, and said:
"Don't, mother, please; God knows best. He will care for you--and
you--you--will keep your promise?"
"Yes, child; so help me God!" Daisy answered, excitedly. "I promised you
to be a better woman, and I will; but oh, my Heavenly Father, don't let
Bessie die."
It was the echo of Grey's prayer, and Flossie took it up and made it
hers, and so the day wore on and the night stole into the quiet room,
and it was time for Grey to say good-by, for he was to leave on the
early train, and he had yet much to do in settling bills both for
himself and Daisy, and providing for her needs in case Neil did not
come.
"If I thought he would not be with you to-morrow I would stay, though to
do so would greatly disappoint my Aunt Lucy," he said to Daisy, who was
unselfish enough to bid him go, though she knew how she should miss
him, and fell intuitively that twenty Neils could not fill his place.
"I cannot ask you to stay longer. May God bless you for all you have
been to us," she said, as she took his hand at parting, and then turned
away with a feeling of utter desolation in her heart.
Only Flossie was with Bessie, who was sleeping quietly, when Grey
entered the room to say farewell to the young girl, whose face looked so
small and thin, and white as it rested upon the pillows. When her fever
was at its height and her heavy hair seemed to trouble her, her
physician had commanded it to be cut off.
"It will all come out anyway if she lives," he said, and so the cruel
scissors had severed the long, bright tresses which had been Bessie's
crowning glory.
But the hair, which had only been cut short, grew rapidly and lay in
little curls all over her head making her look more like a child than a
girl of nineteen.
Flossie knew it was Grey's farewell, and guessed that he would rather be
alone with Bessie, even though she were sleeping. So she arose, and
offering him her chair, stole softly out and closed the door behind her.
For a few moments Grey sat gazing intently upon the beautiful face as if
he would stamp its image upon his heart, so that whatever came, whether
for weal or woe, he should never forget it; and then he prayed
fervently, that, if possible, God would give back the life now ebbing so
low, and that he yet might win the prize he longed for so ardently.
"Oh, Bessie, poor, little tired Bessie," he whispered, as he gently
touched one of the hands near him; "if I might call you mine, might take
you to my home across the sea, how happy I would make you. I cannot let
you die just as I know how much I love you, and something tells me you
will yet be mine. We should all love you so much, my mother, Aunt Lucy,
Aunt Hannah, and all."
And then suddenly, as his mind leaped to the future, Grey seemed to see
the old farm-house in the rocky pasture-land far away, and Bessie was
there with him, sitting just where he had so often sat when a child, on
the little bench in the wood-shed close against the wall, beyond which
was that hidden grave whose shadow had, in a way, darkened his whole
life. And it fell upon him now with an added blackness as he thought:
"Could I take Bessie and not tell her of that grave? I don't know; but
God will help me to do right, and all things will seem possible if He
gives Bessie to me."
She was breathing a little more heavily now; she might be waking; he
must kiss her good-by before she was conscious of the act, and bending
over her he kissed her forehead and lips and cheeks, on which his hot
tears fell fast.
"Good-by, my darling," he whispered. "In this world you may never know
how much I love you, but in the next, perhaps, I may be permitted to
tell you how it broke my heart to see you lying so low and to know that
I must leave you. Darling Bessie, good-by;" and with another kiss upon
her lips he lifted up his head to meet the wondering gaze of the blue
eyes, in which for an instant there was a puzzled, startled expression,
then they filled with tears, and Bessie's lips quivered as she said:
"Don't, Mr. Jerrold, such words are not for me. I--don't you know?"
She hesitated a moment, and he said:
"I know nothing except that I love you with my whole heart and soul, and
whether you live or die you will be the sweetest memory of my life.
Don't talk; it is not necessary," he continued rapidly, as he saw her
about to speak. "I am not going to trouble you now; you are too weak for
that. I am here to say good-by, for I must leave to-morrow; but in the
future, when you are well, as something tells me you will be--"
"Oh, Mr. Jerrold, listen," Bessie began, just as the door opened and
Flossie came in.
"Time's up," she said, smilingly, as she glanced at Bessie's flushed
cheek and Grey's white face, and guessed that something exciting had
taken place.
When Jack Trevellian returned from his unsuccessful wooing the previous
summer, he had in strict confidence told Flossie _why_ he failed, so
that she knew of Bessie's engagement to Neil, but did not feel at
liberty to communicate what she knew to Grey, even though she guessed
the nature of his feelings for Bessie. And so he was ignorant that he
had a rival, and did not in the least suspect the truth, as he once
more said farewell and followed Flossie out into the hall.
"Wait a minute, I have something for you," she said to him, and, putting
her hand into her pocket, she drew out a piece of soft white paper in
which was carefully wrapped one of the curls she had cut from Bessie's
head. "I brought this to you, thinking you might like it when you were
far away and she was dead," she said, in a choking voice.
"Thank you, Flossie," he said, taking the package from her, "God bless
you for all you are to her. Write me at Venice, Hotel New York, and tell
me how she is. We shall stay there a day or two before going on to
Vienna and Berlin."
He wrung her hands and walked away down the broad flight of stairs, and
Flossie saw him no more.
CHAPTER III.
DEAD.
That was what Adolph, a messenger boy from the Quirinal, said to Grey
three days later, when the latter accidentally met him in Florence and
inquired for the young English girl who was so sick with the fever.
Adolph had left the Quirinal for Florence, his home, on the evening of
the same day of Grey's departure from Rome. The next afternoon the two
met accidentally on one of the bridges which cross the river Arno.
"Dead!" Grey repeated, turning white to his lips and staggering as if he
had been smitten with a heavy blow. "How can she be dead? They told me
she was better the morning I left. When did she die?"
"A little after twelve," the boy replied, and Grey continued:
"Did her cousin come--a young man from Naples?"
"Yes," the boy answered, "Some gentleman was there--a big swell, who
swore awfully at the clerk about the bills; there was no end of a row."
"The bills! What does it mean?" Grey thought, for he had paid them all
up to the time of his leaving.
Then, remembering to have heard what exorbitant sums were demanded by
the proprietors of hotels when a person died in their house, he
concluded that this must be the bill which Neil was disputing so hotly,
and bidding good-day to the boy, he walked on across the river, with a
feeling that life could never be to him again just what it had been
before. On the morning when he left the hotel he had seen the nurse, and
inquired after the patient, who, she reported, had slept well and seemed
a little better. And now she was dead! the girl he loved so much. Dead,
in all her soft beauty, with only the suns of nineteen summers upon her
head. Dead in Rome, and he not there with her to take a last look at the
fair face which, as he walked rapidly on through street after street,
seemed close beside him, sometimes touching his own and making him
shiver, it was so cold and dead.
"Dead and gone! Dead and gone!" he kept repeating to himself, as he
tried to fancy what was passing in the room where he had spent so many
hours and where he had kissed the girl now dead and gone forever.
"If I were only there," he thought. "If I could but kiss her again and
hold her hand in mine," and for a moment he felt that he must go back
and take the matter away from Neil, who could swear at the expense,
however great it was.
He must go back and himself carry Bessie to the old home in Wales and
bury her in the nook between the father and the wall--the spot which,
when he saw it last, he little dreamed would be her grave, and she so
young and fair. But to go back would necessitate his telling his Aunt
Lucy of the fever, and to excite in her alarm and anxiety for his
safety. So he gave it up, but walked on mile after mile, until the night
shades were beginning to fall, and be realized how late it was, and that
his aunt must be getting anxious about him. Hailing a carriage, he was
driven back to his hotel, and found, as he expected, his aunt alarmed at
his protracted absence, and still more alarmed at the whiteness of his
face and the strange look in his eyes. He had never told her a word of
Bessie, or the fever, and he would not do so now. So he merely said he
had walked too far and was tired. He should be all right in the morning,
and he asked permission to retire early to his room where he could be
alone with his sorrow.
They left Florence the next day, for Miss Grey, who had made a long stop
there early in the winter, when on her way to Rome, was anxious to leave
Italy as soon as possible, fancying that the climate did not agree with
Grey, who had not seemed himself since he came from Egypt and joined her
in Rome. Arrived in Venice, Grey's first act was to inquire for letters,
but there was nothing from Rome, nothing from Flossie, who had promised
him to write. They were too busy with their preparations for taking
Bessie home. They must be on their way by this time, he thought, and
with a heavy heart he journeyed on from Venice until Vienna was reached,
and there, at the Hotel Métropole, he found Jack Trevellian's name
registered. It would be a relief to talk to him, Grey thought. He had
known Bessie, too; and Grey must speak to some one of the sorrow
weighing so heavily upon him, or the burden would break him down.
That night in Jack Trevellian's room two young men sat opposite each
other with only a small table between them, and on it a single wax
candle, which threw a faint, glimmering light upon the white faces which
looked so sadly at each other, as in dumb silence the two sat motionless
for a few moments after Grey had told his news.
"What is it, old fellow?" Jack had said, cheerily, as, after expressing
his joy and surprise at meeting his friend so unexpectedly, and
motioning him to a seat, he noticed the care-worn look upon his face and
the set expression upon his mouth. "What makes you look so like a
grave-yard? Crossed in love, hey? I thought it would come to that
sometime, and knew you would be hard hit when hit at all. Tell me about
it, do! Maybe I, too, know how it feels," and Jack laughed a little
meaning laugh as he remembered the time when Bessie's blue eyes had
looked at him and Bessie's voice had said, "I cannot be your wife."
"Hush, Jack!" and Grey put up his hand deprecatingly. "You don't know
how you hurt me. Bessie is dead!"
"Dead! Bessie dead! Oh, Grey!" and Jack nearly leaped from his chair in
his first surprise and horror; then he sat down again, and there was
silence between the two for a moment, when he said, in a voice Grey
would never have known as his: "When did she die? Tell me all about it,
please, but tell it very slowly, word by word, or I shall not understand
you. I seem to be terribly unstrung, it is so sudden and awful. Bessie
dead!" and he stared at Grey with eyes which did not seem to see
anything before them, but rather to be looking at something far away in
the past.
And Grey, who was regarding him curiously, knew that mere friendship,
however strong, never wore such semblance of grief as this, and there
flashed upon him the conviction that, like himself, Jack too had loved
the beautiful girl now lost forever to them both, while a chill ran
through his veins as he thought that possibly Jack was an accepted
lover, and that was why Bessie had shrunk from his words of love, as
something she must not listen to. She was engaged to Jack Trevellian;
nothing could be plainer, and with this conviction, which each moment
gathered strength in his mind, he resolved to conceal his own
heart-wound from his rival, and talk of the dead girl as if he had only
been her friend. Slowly, as Jack had bidden him, he told the story of
her sickness, dwelling long on Flossie Meredith's untiring devotion, but
saying nothing of the services he had rendered, saying only that he was
so glad he was there, as a gentleman friend was necessary at such a time
and in such a place, where greed is the rule and not the exception.
"They were expecting Neil from Naples the day I left, or I should have
staid," he said, and then into Jack's eyes there crept a strange, hard
expression, and he wiped the perspiration from his forehead and lips, as
he said:
"Neil; yes. It was his place, not yours, or mine, but, oh, Grey, if I
might have seen her; if I could have held her dead hand but for a moment
and kissed her dear face--"
Here Jack stopped, for his voice was choked with sobs, and ere he knew
what he was doing, Grey said to him:
"Jack, you loved Bessie McPherson!"
"Yes," Jack answered him, unhesitatingly. "I do not mind telling it to
you. I think I have loved her since I first saw her, a demure,
old-fashioned little thing, in the funniest bonnet and dress you ever
saw, sitting with her father, in Hyde Park, and looking at the
passers-by. I watched her for some time, wondering who she was, and
then, at last, I ventured to speak to her, and standing by her chair
told her who the people were, and found out who she was, and called upon
her in Abingdon Road, and then she went away, but her face haunted me
continually, and even the remembrance of it and of her helped me to a
better life than I had lead before. You knew her mother, or rather you
knew of her. Not the woman whom you saw in Rome, full of anxiety for her
child, but a vain, selfish, intriguing woman, whom no good man could
respect, much as he might admire her dazzling beauty. Well, she had me
on her string, when I met her daughter, but something Bessie said to me
made me strong to resist coils and arts which Satan himself would find
it hard to withstand. I used to ride with her, and flirt with her, and
bet with her, and play at her side in Monte Carlo, and let her fleece me
out of money, just as she did every one with whom she came in contact;
but after I knew Bessie, I broke with her mother entirely, and have
never played with her or any one since for money. You remember the
Christmas we spent together at Stoneleigh. You did not guess, perhaps,
how much I loved her then, or that I would have asked her to be my wife
if I had not been so poor. Then her father died, and you were there
before me, and I was horribly jealous, for I meant she should be mine.
There was nothing in the way, I thought. Poor Hal was dead, and had left
me his title and estate. I could pour some brightness into her weary
life, and two weeks after the funeral I went again to Stoneleigh and
asked her to marry me."
Jack paused a moment, and leaning forward eagerly, Grey said:
"Yes, you asked her to marry you, and she consented?"
"No; oh, no" Jack groaned, "If she had, she might not now have been
dead; my Bessie, whom I loved so much. She refused me, and worst of all,
she told me she was plighted to Neil, her cousin."
"To Neil! Bessie plighted to Neil! That is impossible, for he is to
marry Blanche Trevellian, so everybody says," Grey exclaimed, conscious
of a keener pang than he had experienced when he thought Jack his rival.
"And everybody is right," Jack replied: "he will marry Blanche, but he
was engaged to Bessie under the promise of strictest secrecy until his
mother, who had threatened to disinherit him, was reconciled, or he
found something which would support him without any effort on his part,
Neil McPherson would never exert himself, or deny himself either, even
for the woman he loved, and, Grey, I speak the truth when I tell you
that I would rather know that Bessie was dead than to see her Neil's
wife."
Grey did not answer, but something in the pallor of his face and the
expression of his eyes, struck Jack suddenly, and stretching his hand
across the table he said, very low and very sadly:
"Jerrold, you loved her, too. I see it in your face."
"Yes," Grey answered him, "I loved her, too, and would have given years
of my life to have saved her, though not for Neil. Better far as it
is--better for her, I mean, though our lives are wrecked; at least, mine
is; but for you there may still be a happy future, and on the ashes of
the dead love a new one may arise to bless you."
"Never!" Jack answered, emphatically; then after a moment, as if his
thoughts had followed Grey's, he asked:
"Do you know how long Mrs. Meredith intends remaining in Rome, or where
she expects to go after leaving there?"
Grey replied that he did not, while a faint smile played round his
mouth, as he looked at his friend, who detected the smile, and
comprehending its meaning, said, with a heightened color:
"I know you are thinking of Flossie. Bessie thought of her, too, and
asked why I did not marry her. But that will never be, though, she is as
bright and beautiful an Irish lassie as ever gladdened the eyes of man
and the castle is so lonesome without her buzzing about and stirring up
things generally, that I have serious thoughts of inviting her
grandmother, to take up her abode there, so I can have Flossie back. The
servants adore her. But she will never be my wife. She would tire and
worry me to death with her restlessness and activity. When I lost Bessie
I lost everything, and have nothing left but her memory--not even a
flower which she has worn."
Grey hesitated a moment, then taking from his pocket the package which
Flossie had given him, he opened it, and holding to view the long silken
curl, said to Jack:
"Flossie cut this from Bessie's head when the fever was at its height,
and though there is not in the world gold enough to buy it from me, I
will divide with you," and parting it carefully he laid one-half of it
upon Jack's hand, around which it seemed to cling with a loving
tenacity. It was strange how vividly that wavy hair brought Bessie back
to the young men who had loved her so much, and who, at sight of it,
broke down entirely, and laying their heads upon the table, cried for a
moment, as only strong men can cry, for the dear little girl who, they
felt sure, was lying in her grave in far off Stoneleigh.
CHAPTER IV.
POOR DAISY.
Four weeks passed away, and Grey, with his Aunt Lucy, was journeying
through Russia, bearing with him a sense of loss and pain. The mails
were very irregular, and he had never heard a word either from Flossie
or Neil, nor had he written to them. He could not yet bring himself to
speak of Bessie, even upon paper, though he sometimes felt a little
aggrieved that Neil did not write to him and tell him of his loss. And
so the weeks went on, and one day, toward the middle of April, when the
English skies were at their best and the hyacinths and crocuses were
blooming in the yew-shaded garden at Stoneleigh, a little band of
mourners went down the broad graveled walk to the inclosure, where in
the narrow space between Archie's grave and the wall another grave was
made, and there in silence and in tears they buried--not Bessie--but her
mother, poor, weak, frivolous Daisy, who had succumbed to the fever and
died after a three weeks' illness.
Bessie was not dead, as the messenger boy had reported to Grey in
Florence, but the young girl from America, sick on the same floor, had
died about noon on the day of Grey's departure, and with his rather
limited knowledge of English the boy had mistaken her for Bessie. And as
her brother had arrived that morning and had sworn roundly at the
frightful bill presented to him, the boy had naturally confounded this
party with the one for whom Grey inquired, and thus had been the cause
of much needless pain and sorrow to both Jack Trevellian and Grey. Neil
had come from Naples on the morning train, very tired and worn with his
trip to Egypt, and a good deal out of sorts because of a letter received
from his mother in Naples in which she rated him soundly for his
extravagance, telling him he must economize, and that the check she sent
him--a very small one--must suffice until his return to England, where
she confidently expected him to marry Cousin Blanche before the season
was over.
"I hear," she wrote in conclusion, "that the widow of Archibald
McPherson is in Rome with her daughter, but I trust you will not allow
them to entangle you in any way. The mother will fleece you out of every
farthing you have, while the daughter--well I do not know her, so will
not say what she may do; only keep clear of them both and shun that
crafty woman as you would the plague."
With this letter in his pocket and barely enough money to defray his own
expenses for a few weeks longer, it is not to be wondered at, if Neil
was not in a very jubilant state of mind when he reached the Quirinal,
and found matters as they were--Bessie very low with the fever, of which
he had a mortal terror and her mother destitute of funds except as Grey
Jerrold had supplied them, or as she had borrowed from Mrs. Meredith,
to whom she owed twenty pounds, with no possible means of paying. All
this and more, she tearfully explained to Neil, who listened to her with
a great sinking at his heart and a feeling that he had plunged into
something dreadful, from which he could not escape. There was manliness
enough in his nature to make him wince a little, when he heard what Grey
had done, while at the same time he was conscious of a pang of jealousy
as he reflected that only a stronger sentiment than mere friendship for
Bessie could have actuated Grey, generous and noble as he knew him to
be.
"Oh, if I were rich," he sighed, as with a conviction that he was about
the most abused person in the world, he went into the room where Bessie
lay, white, and worn, and motionless almost as the dead, for though the
fever had left her she was very weak, and could only whisper her
welcome, while the great tears rolled down her cheeks.
Neil was awfully afraid of her. There might still be infection in her
breath and infection in the room. He fancied he smelled it, and
involuntarily put his hands to his mouth and nose, as he drew near the
bed. Bessie saw the motion, and interpreted it aright.
"Oh, Neil," she said, with a sob, "you are not afraid of me?"
"No, certainly not; only this fever is a confounded thing when it takes
hold of a great hulking fellow like myself, and just now I am very
tired," he said; then, heartily ashamed of himself as he saw the look of
distress on Bessie's face, he bent and kissed her forehead, and told her
how sorry he was to find her so sick, and that he would not leave her
till she was strong again.
But all the time he talked he fidgeted in his chair, and kept looking at
the door as if anxious to escape into the fresher air.
"Do you think there is any danger?" he said to Flossie, whom he
encountered in the adjoining room.
Flossie knew he was afraid, and there was mischief in the merry Irish
lassie's heart, as she replied:
"Danger, oh, no, if she is kept quiet and carefully nursed, the doctor
says she will soon get well enough to be moved."
"Yes, I know that, of course," Neil stammered. "I mean, is there any
danger of my taking it from her--from the room--from the air, you know?
"Are you afraid of it?" Flossie asked him, very demurely, and he
replied:
"N--no; yes--I believe I am. Does that make any difference?"
"I should say it did, very decidedly," Flossie answered, with great
earnestness and evident concern. "Mr. Jerrold was not one bit afraid,
and he was in there all the time;" this, with a saucy twinkle in her
black eyes, as she saw the flush in Neil's face and guessed its cause.
"You did not kiss her, of course?" she continued, with the utmost
gravity.
"Yes, I did," he answered promptly. "Do you think--do you think--"
"Yes I do," she said, decidedly, adding to herself: "I think you are a
fool!" To him she continued: "I'll tell you what to do. Grandma is
afraid, like you, so I know all the preventives. Let me burn a match or
two under your nose so that the fumes will saturate your face; that will
counteract any bad effects from the kiss, and to prevent contagion
hereafter, get a good sized leek. You can find one at any grocer's: put
it in a bit of cloth, with a piece of camphor-gum, and wear it over the
pit of your stomach. You may even brave the small-pox with that about
your person."
"But won't it smell awfully?" Neil asked, with a shudder, as he thought
of wearing about his person an obnoxious leek, whose odor he abominated.
"It will smell some, but what of that? You can endure a great deal in
order to feel safe," Flossie replied.
Neil could endure a great deal where his personal safety was concerned,
and wholly deceived by Flossie's manner, he submitted to the burnt
matches, which nearly strangled him, and brought on so violent a fit of
coughing as made him fear lest he should burst a blood-vessel.
"I guess you are all right as far as the kiss is concerned," Flossie
said, nearly bursting with merriment. "And now for the leek and camphor.
I'll fix it for you."
He found the leek and the camphor and Flossie tied them up for him in a
bit of linen and bade him be quite easy in his mind, as with these
disinfectants he was impervious to the plague itself.
"What a coward he is, to be sure!" she said, as she watched him hurrying
down the hall to his room with his disinfectants. "Sir Jack told me he
was a milksop and not half worthy of Bessie, and he was right. I think
him an idiot. Leeks, indeed! Won't he smell, though, when the leek gets
warmed through and begins to fume! Phew!" and the little nose went up
higher than its wont as Flossie returned to the sick-room.
That night Neil wrote to his mother the exact condition of affairs,
telling her how he had found his aunt and cousin, whom he could not
leave without being stigmatized as a brute; telling her what Grey had
done for them; telling her that they owed old Mrs. Meredith twenty
pounds, and that unless she wished a subscription paper to be started
for them in the hotel, among the English, many of whom were her
acquaintances, she must send money to relieve their necessities, and pay
their bills. Neil felt almost sure that this last would touch his
mother, when nothing else could reach her, and he was right. Neither she
nor her husband cared to have their friends contribute to the needs of
any one who bore their name, and the letter which Lady Jane sent to her
son contained sixty pounds, which she bade him use to the best possible
advantage, adding that he was to leave Rome as soon as he could, with
any show of decency. This, Neil would gladly have done if he could, but
when his mother's letter arrived it found him plunged into a
complication of difficulties from which he could not extricate himself.
Daisy had suddenly been stricken down with the fever, which developed so
rapidly and assumed so violent a form that Neil's strength, and courage,
and patience were taxed to the utmost, and he might have succumbed
entirely, if it had not been for Flossie, who was equal to any
emergency, and who resisted all her grandmother's efforts to get her out
of the fever-hole, as she designated the hotel.
Flossie would not go so long as Bessie needed her. She was not afraid,
she said, and every morning her eyes were just as saucy and mirthful,
and the roses on her cheek just as bright, as if she had not been up
half the night, soothing the wildly delirious Daisy, and encouraging
Neil, who, as the days went by, rose a little in her estimation. He
threw the obnoxious leek from his window, when, as Flossie had
predicted, its fumes became intolerable, and he gave up the large, sunny
room which he had occupied at first, and took a smaller, less expensive
one, and he learned to deny himself many things before that terrible
fever had burned itself out. He gave up _table d'hote_ and lunch, and
took to the restaurants outside. He gave up driving on the Pincian Hill,
or having carriages at all, and patronized the street-cars and omnibuses
when he went out for an airing, as Flossie insisted that he should do
each day.
"I do believe I could make something of him in time," the energetic
little lady thought. "But, dear me! Bessie would humor all his fancies,
and be a perfect slave to his caprices; even now she will not let him
wait upon her much, for fear of tiring him."
And so the days went on until two weeks were gone, and then one April
morning it was whispered among the few guests remaining in the hotel,
that death was again in the house, and more trunks were packed in haste,
and more people left, until the fourth floor was almost as silent as the
room in which Daisy lay dead, with a strange beauty in her face, to
which had returned, as it sometimes does, all the freshness and
loveliness of youth, so that she looked like some fair young girl as she
lay upon her pillow, with her hands upon her bosom, just as she had
folded them, when at the last she said to those around her:
"It is growing late. I think I will retire; good-night;" then, clasping
her hands together, she began the prayer of her childhood: "Now I lay me
down to sleep," repeating the whole distinctly, while, with the words,
"I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take," she went to meet the God who is so
pitiful and kind, and who knew all the good that was in her, and knew,
too, what thoughts of remorse for the past and prayers for forgiveness
had been in her heart during the few lucid intervals which had been
given to her. She had been delirious most of the time, and in her
delirium had talked of things which made poor Bessie shudder, they
revealed to her so much more of her mother's past than she had ever
known.
Monte Carlo was the field to which her fancy oftenest took flight, and
there, at the gaming-table she sat again, going through the excitement
of the olden time, losing and winning--winning and losing--sometimes
with Teddy at her side, and sometimes with men of a baser, lower type,
with whom she bandied jests, until the scene was too horrible even for
the iron-nerved Flossie to endure. Then, there were moments of perfect
consciousness, when she knew and spoke rationally to those about her,
and tried to comfort Bessie, who insisted upon having a lounge taken
into the room so that she might see her mother, if she could not
minister to her.
Once, startled by the expression of the faces around her, Daisy said:
"Why do you all look so sorry? Am I very sick? Am I going to die? Oh,
_am_ I going to die? I cannot die. I cannot! Don't let me die! Don't;
don't."
It was like the cry of a frightened child begging a reprieve from
punishment, and that piteous "Don't! don't!" rang in Bessie's ears long
after the lips which uttered the words were silent in death.
During their journeyings together, Daisy had shown the best there was in
her and had really seemed trying to reform. When, on her return from
America, she had suggested that they go abroad, saying she would sell
her diamonds to defray the expenses, Bessie had refused at first, and
had only consented on condition that her mother abandoned all her old
habits of life, and neither played nor bet, nor practiced any of her
wiles upon the opposite sex for the purpose of extorting money from
them. And all this Daisy promised.
"I'll be as circumspect as a Methodist parson's wife," she said; and she
kept her word as well as it was possible for her to do.
She neither played, nor bet, nor coaxed money from her acquaintances by
pretty tales of poverty, and if she sometimes bandied familiar jests
with her gentlemen friends, Bessie did not know it, and there was
springing up in her heart a strong feeling of respect for her mother
who, just as the new life was beginning, was to be taken from her.
"Oh, mamma," she sobbed, putting her poor, pale, face close to that of
the dying woman, for Neil had taken her in his arms and laid her beside
her mother "oh, mamma, how can I give you up." Then, as the greater
fear for her mother's future overmastered every other feeling, she said:
"Speak to me, mother; tell me you are not afraid; tell me you are sorry;
tell me, oh, my Heavenly Father, if mother must die, forgive her all the
past and take her to Thyself."
"Yes," Daisy murmured, moving a little uneasily, "Forgive me all the
past--and there is so much to forgive. I am sorry, and most of all for
Archie and Bessie, whom I neglected so long. Oh, how pleasant the old
home at Stoneleigh looks to me now. Bury me by Archie in the grass, it
is so quiet there; and now it is getting late. I think I will retire.
Good-night!"
And then, folding her hands together, she said the "Now I lay me," and
Flossie, who was bending over her, knew that she was dead, and motioning
to Neil, bade him take Bessie away.
Neil was very tender and very kind and loving to the poor little girl
quivering with pain, but uttering no sound and shedding no tear as she
lay passive in his arms, but he felt that he was badly abused, and that
the burden laid upon him was heavier than he could bear. Could he have
had his way, Daisy would have been buried in the Protestant cemetery, in
Rome. This would have been far less expensive and have saved him no end
of trouble. But when he suggested it to Bessie, she said "No" so
decidedly that he gave it up and nerved himself to meet what he never
could have met but for Flossie, who, as far as she could, managed
everything, even to battling fiercely with the proprietor, whose bill
she compelled him to lessen by several hundred francs, and when he
demanded payment for four dozen towels which he said had been ruined,
she insisted upon taking the towels, which she said were hers, if she
paid for them. Never had portier or clerk encountered such a tempest as
she proved to be, and they finally surrendered the field and let her
have her own way, shrugging their shoulders significantly, as they
called her "_la petite diable Irelandaise_."
It was old Mrs. Meredith who furnished the necessary funds, for there
was no time to send to England. Neil telegraphed to his father, asking
him to go down to Stoneleigh and meet them on their arrival with the
body. But the Hon. John was suffering with the gout, and only Anthony
and Dorothy were there, when Neil and Flossie and Bessie came, the
latter utterly exhausted and unable to sit up a moment after entering
the house. So they took her to her old room, which Dorothy had made as
comfortable and pleasant as she could; and there Bessie lay, weak as a
little child, while the kind neighbors came again and stood in the
yew-shaded cemetery where Daisy was buried and where there was room for
no more of the McPhersons.
"Now what?" Flossie said to Neil, when the burial was over and they sat
alone in the parlor; "now what are you going to do?" and when he
answered, gloomily, "I am sure I don't know," she flashed her black eyes
upon him and replied: "You don't know? Then let me tell you; marry
Bessie at once. What else can you do? Surely you will not leave her here
alone?"
"I know I ought not to leave her here," Neil said, despondingly. "But I
cannot marry her now."
"Why not?" Flossie asked him sharply, and he replied:
"I cannot marry her and starve, as we surely should do. I have no means
of my own, and mother would turn me from her door if I brought her
Bessie as my wife. As it is, I dread going to her with all these heavy
bills. It was a foolish thing to bring Mrs. McPherson home, and I said
so at the time. That woman has been a curse to every one with whom she
ever came in contact."
"Oh, mamma, poor mamma, I wish I, too, were dead, as you are," moaned,
or rather gasped a little white-faced girl who was standing just outside
the door, and had heard all Neil was saying.
Bessie had remained upstairs as long as she could endure it, and when
she heard voices in the parlor and knew that Neil and Flossie were
there, she arose, and, putting on a dressing-gown and shawl, crept down
stairs to go to them. But Flossie's question arrested her steps, and
leaning against the side of the door, she heard all their conversation,
and knew the bitterness there was in Neil's heart toward her mother,
less by what he said, than by the tone of his voice as he said it, for
there was in it a cold, hard ring which made her shiver and sent her
back to the bed she had quitted, where she lay for hours, until she had
thought it out and knew what she meant to do. But she said nothing of
her decision either to Neil or Flossie, the latter of whom left her the
next day to join her grandmother, in London.
Neil waited a few days longer, loath to leave Bessie and dreading to go
home and meet what he knew he must meet when he told his mother the
amount of her indebtedness to Mrs. Meredith, who had signified her wish
to be paid as soon as possible.
Naturally dull of perception as he was, Neil was vaguely conscious of a
change in Bessie's manner, but he attributed it to grief for the loss of
her mother, wondering a little that she could mourn so deeply, a death,
which, to him, seemed a relief, for Daisy was not a person whom he would
care to acknowledge as his mother-in-law.
Bessie could not forget the words she had overheard, and though they
might be true, she knew Neil ought not to have spoken them to a
comparative stranger, and she began to realize, as she never had before,
that in Neil's nature there was much which did not accord with hers.
Many and many a time thoughts of Grey Jerrold filled her mind, and in
her half-waking hours at night, she heard again his voice, so full of
sympathy, and felt an inexpressible longing to see him again, and hear
him speak to her. Still, she meant to be loyal to Neil, and on the
morning of his departure, when he was deploring his inability to marry
her at once, she lifted her sad eyes to him and said:
"Is there nothing you can do to help yourself? I will do my part gladly,
and it cannot cost us much to live--just us two."
The next moment her face was crimson, as she reflected that what she had
said, seemed like begging Neil to marry her, and his answer was not very
reassuring.
"There is _nothing_ for me to do; absolutely nothing."
"Don't other men find employment if they want it?" Bessie asked, and he
replied:
"Yes, if they want it; but I do not. You know as well as I the prejudice
among people of my rank against clerkships, and trade, and the like. As
a rule the McPhersons do not work."
"But I am not ashamed to work, and I am as much a McPherson as you,"
Bessie answered him, emboldened for once to say what she thought.
"Yes," he answered, slowly, "and I am sorry for it. You told me at one
time you thought of going out as governess. Never harbor that idea
again, if you care for me. I cannot have people pointing out my wife as
one who had taught their children."
Bessie bowed her head silently as if in acquiescence, and Neil never
suspected what was passing in her mind, nor dreamed that a tide was set
in motion which would take Bessie away from him forever.
CHAPTER V.
BESSIE'S DECISION.
"And so you have determined to go to America?" Neil said to Bessie about
four weeks later, when he came to Stoneleigh in obedience to a letter
from Bessie telling him she wished to see him on a matter of importance.
"Yes," she replied, "I am going to America. My passage is engaged, and I
sail in two weeks, in company with a Mrs. Goodnough, of Bangor, a nice
old lady, who will take good care of me."
"Well," and Neil stroked his mustache thoughtfully, "I am not sure but
that it is a good idea to beard the old woman in her den. You will be
likely to succeed where others would fail, and when you are sure of her
fortune send for me."
There was a levity in his manner which Bessie resented, and she said to
him, quickly:
"If by the 'old woman' you mean my Aunt Betsey, I would rather you did
not speak of her thus. She has been kind to father and me--very kind.
But it is not her fortune I am going after. It is my own! I have always
thought I had one somewhere, and as it does not seem to be here, it may
be in America. But, jesting aside. I am going to find something to do.
It is no disgrace to work there, and your friends will never know."
"I am not sure of that," Neil said. "But what do you mean to do?"
"Anything I can find," Bessie answered, decidedly.
Neil only smiled and thought how sure it was that once with her aunt she
would become a favorite, and eventually, an heiress to the fortune he so
greatly coveted.
He should miss her, he knew, and still it would be a relief not to have
her on his mind, as she would be, if left alone at Stoneleigh. So, on
the whole, she had done wisely when she planned to go to America, and he
did not oppose her, but said he would be in Liverpool the 25th, to see
her off. He did not ask if she had the necessary funds for the voyage;
he had trouble enough on that score, and was not likely soon to forget
the scene, or rather succession of scenes, enacted at Trevellian House,
when Mrs. Meredith's bills were presented to his mother, who, but for
shame's sake, would have repudiated them at once as something she was
not lawfully obliged to pay.
Neither did he inquire who Mrs. Goodnough was, and did not know that she
was a poor woman who had worked in the fields, and was going out to New
York, not as first-class passenger nor even second, but as steerage, and
Bessie's ticket was of the same nature. She had but little money, and
when she heard from Mrs. Goodnough, who was a friend of Dorothy's, and
who had once been in America, that a steerage passage was oftentimes
very comfortable, and that many respectable people took it because of
its cheapness, she put aside all feelings of pride, and said to Mrs.
Goodnough:
"I will go steerage with you," and from this plan she never swerved.
But she would not tell Neil then; time enough at the last when he came
to see her off, and must, of course, know the truth.
She knew he would be very angry, and probably insist upon paying the
difference, but she could take no more money from him, and her blood was
hot whenever she reflected what she had heard him say to Flossie of the
bills incurred in Rome, and which she meant to pay to the uttermost
farthing, if her life was spared and she found something to do in the
new world, where to work was not degrading. But she must know the
amount, and she timidly asked Neil to tell her how much it was.
"Enough! I assure you. Those Italians are rascals and cheats--the whole
of them; but it need not trouble you, the debt is paid," he said, a
little bitterly. But Bessie insisted upon knowing, and finally wrung
from him that two hundred and fifty pounds would probably cover the
whole indebtedness.
"Bringing mother home and all?" Bessie asked, and he replied:
"Yes, bringing her home and all; that was a useless expense."
He spoke before he thought, and when he saw how quickly the tears came
to Bessie's eyes, he repented the act, and stooping down to kiss her,
said:
"Forgive me, Bessie, I did not mean to wound you; but mother did fret so
about the bills. You know she did not like your mother."
"Tell her I shall pay them all," Bessie answered, as she withdrew
herself from the arm he had thrown round her. "My mother was my own, and
with all her faults I loved her, and I believe she was a good woman at
the last. I should die if I did not."
"Yes, oh yes, of course," Neil said, feeling very awkward and uncertain
what to say next.
At last he asked, rather abruptly, if Bessie knew where Jack Trevellian
and Grey Jerrold were, saying he had never heard from either of them
since he was in Rome.
Bessie replied that Flossie had written that Sir Jack was somewhere in
the Bavarian Alps leading a kind of Bohemian life, and that he had
written to his steward at Trevellian Castle that he should not be home
until he had seen the Passion Play, then in process of presentation at
Oberammergau.
"He never writes Flossie," Bessie said; "neither does she know where Mr.
Jerrold is. She wrote to him at Venice, but he did net answer her
letter. Perhaps he has gone home."
Neil said it was possible, adding, that she would probably see him in
America, as his Aunt Lucy lived in Allington.
"But you are not to fall in love with him," he continued, laughingly.
"You are mine, and I shall come to claim you as soon as you write me you
have found that fortune you are going after. Do your best, little Bess,
and if you cannot untie the old maid's purse strings nobody can."
Bessie made no reply, but in her heart there was a feeling which boded
no good to Neil, who left her the next day, promising to come down to
Liverpool and see her off.
CHAPTER VI.
IN LIVERPOOL.
It was a steady down-pour, and the streets of Liverpool, always black
and dirty, looked dirtier and blacker than ever on the day when Neil
McPherson walked restlessly up and down the entrance hall of the
North-western Hotel, now scanning the piles of baggage waiting to be
taken to the Germanic, and then looking ruefully out upon the rain
falling so steadily.
"It is a dreary day for her to start, poor little girl. I wish I had
money of my own, and I would never let her go," he said to himself, as
he began to realize what it would be to have Bessie separated from him
the breadth of the great ocean.
Selfish and weak as we have shown Neil to be, he loved Bessie better
than he loved anything except himself, and there was a load on his heart
and a lump in his throat every time he thought of her. She was to sail
that afternoon at three, and he had come from London on the night
express to meet her and say good-by. His father, and mother, and Blanche
were staying at a gentleman's house, a few miles from the city, and he
was to join them there in the evening, and make one of a large
dinner-party given in honor of Lady Jane. He had told his mother that
Bessie was going to America, and in her delight at the good news she did
not oppose his going to see her off, and actually handed him a
five-pound note, which he was to give to Bessie with her best wishes for
a pleasant voyage and happiness in the new world.
Thus armed and equipped, Neil waited until a whiz and a shriek outside
told him the train from Chester was in, and, going out, he stood at the
gate when Bessie came through, accompanied by Mrs. Goodnough, who
carried her bag and waterproof, and who courtesied very low to Neil.
Never had the latter seen Bessie look as lovely, as she did to him then
in her simple traveling-dress of black, which brought out so clearly the
dazzling purity of her complexion, and seemed to intensify the deep blue
of her large, sad eyes.
"Oh, Bessie!" he exclaimed, taking her hand and putting it under his
arm, "how can I let you go? Where is Mrs. Goodnough? and who is this
woman bobbing up and down and staring so at me?"
Neil had a great contempt for people like Mrs. Goodnough, and when
Bessie said to him, in a low tone, "It is my _compagnon du voyage_. She
is rough-looking, but kind and good. I wish you would speak to her," he
answered, quickly:
"That woman! You going out with her! Why, she looks like a fish-woman!
She is only fit to be a steerage passenger!"
"She is a steerage passenger, and I am steerage, too," Bessie said, very
quietly, while Neil dropped her hand as if it had burned him.
"Bessie, what do you mean?" he exclaimed, glancing down upon her and
stopping suddenly.
"Let us go inside. Do not make a scene here, please," Bessie answered
him, in a low, firm voice, while her cheek grew a shade paler and
something shone in her eyes which Neil had never seen there before.
"A private parlor, please; a small one will answer," he said to the
clerk at the bureau; and in a few moments he was sitting with Bessie at
his side, asking her to tell him what she meant by saying she was
steerage, too.
"It means," she began, unfalteringly, "that I have no money for a first
class ticket, which costs more than three times as much as steerage.
Many respectable people go out that way, and it is very comfortable. The
Germanic is a new boat, and all the apartments are clean and nice, I am
not ashamed of it. I am ashamed of nothing, except the debt I owe your
mother, and that I had to borrow five pounds of Anthony, who insisted
upon giving it to me but I would not take it. Why do you look at me so
strangely, Neil? Do you think I have committed the unpardonable sin?"
"Bessie," Neil began, huskily, and in a voice choked with passion, "this
is the drop too much. I knew you had some low instincts, but never
dreamed you could stoop to this degradation, which affects me as much as
it does you. But it is not too late to change, and you must do it."
"No, Neil, I cannot. I have barely enough to get there as it is," she
replied, and he continued:
"Mother sent you five pounds with her compliments. Will that do? Here it
is," and he offered her the note, which she put aside quickly, as she
said:
"I cannot take that from your mother. Give it back to her, and, if you
think she meant it well, thank her for me, and tell her I shall pay the
whole some day when I earn it."
She emphasized the last words, and, more angry than before, Neil
exclaimed:
"Earn it! Why will you persist in such nonsense, as if you were a common
char-woman? You know as well as I that you are going to Aunt Betsey with
the hope to get some of her money, as you unquestionably will."
"Neil, I am not," Bessie answered, firmly. "I am going to America,
because there I can work and be respected, too, while here, according to
your code, I cannot."
"Then, for Heaven's sake, go decently, and not herd with a lot of
cattle, for emigrants are little better; and do not make yourself a
spectacle for the other passengers to gaze upon and wonder about, as
they will be sure to do. If you have no pride for yourself, you have no
right to disgrace me. How do you think it will sound, some day, that
Neil McPherson's wife went out as steerage? Have you no feeling about
it?"
"Not in that way--no," Bessie replied. "It seems to me I have been in
the steerage all my life, and this can be no worse. Lady Bothwaite went
thus to Australia to see how it fared with the passengers."
"Yes, and got herself well laughed at as a lunatic," Neil rejoined.
Then, after a pause, he continued, excitedly: "But to come to the
point--you must either give up this crazy plan or me. I can have no
share in this disgrace, which the world would never forget, and which
mother would never forgive. My wife must not come from the steerage."
He spoke with great decision, for he was very angry, and for a moment
there was perfect silence between them, while Bessie regarded him
fixedly, with an expression on her face which made him uneasy, for he
did not quite mean all he had said to her, and there was a strong
clinging of his heart to this fragile little girl, who said at last,
very softly and low:
"You mean it, Neil?--mean what you say?"
"Yes," he answered her. "You must choose steerage or me!"
"Then, Neil," she continued, taking off her engagement-ring and putting
it into his hand, "I am afraid it must be steerage. There is your ring;
it is all ended between us. And it is better that it is so. I have
thought for some time that we could not be happy together with our
dissimilar tastes. I should always be doing something you did not like,
and which I could not think was wrong. Besides this, we need not deceive
ourselves longer with the hope that your mother will ever give her
consent to our marriage, for she will not, and as we cannot marry
without it, I think it better that we should part; not in anger, Neil,"
and she laid her hand caressingly upon his arm. "We have loved each
other too well for that. We will be friends always, as we are cousins,
but never man and wife. We are free, both of us;" and as she spoke there
kept coming over her a most delicious sense of relief, as if some burden
were being rolled from her, and the expression of her face was not that
of a young girl who has just broken with the man she loved.
And Neil felt the change in her, and rebelled against it, saying that he
would not give her up though she went steerage a hundred times, and in
his excitement he offered to marry her that day, if she were willing,
and take her at once to his mother, who would not shut the door against
them, when she knew the deed was done.
But Bessie was resolute, and Neil was obliged to abide with her
decision, but his face was very gloomy, and there was a sense of pain
and loss in his heart when at last he entered the carriage which was to
take Bessie to the wharf.
Mrs. Goodnough was to attend to the luggage and see that it was on
board, consequently Neil was spared all trouble, as Bessie meant he
should be. The rain was still falling, and there were many cabs and
hansoms crowding the dock when Neil and Bessie reached it.
"Where will you go? With the steerage gang? If so, for Heaven's sake
keep your veil over your face. I should not like to have any friend of
mine, who might chance to be here, see you," Neil said, impatiently, and
Bessie replied:
"I shall stay by Mrs. Goodnough till the tug takes us out. There she is
now, in the distance, I can make my way to her very well alone, and as
it is raining hard, we had better say good-by here in the carriage. You
cannot help me any, and--" she hesitated an instant, and then added:
"You might be recognized."
Neil hated himself cordially, and called himself a sneak and a coward,
but he followed Bessie's advice, and drawing up the window of the
carriage, clasped her to his bosom as he said farewell, telling her it
was not forever, that she was his still, and he should come for her some
day, and claim her promise to him.
Bessie did not contradict him. She knew he was suffering greatly, and
she pitied him, while all the time there was in her heart a little song
of gladness that she was free. Taking his face between her hand, she
kissed it tenderly, and said:
"Good-by, Neil, and may God bless you and make you a good and noble man.
I know you will never forget me. Too much has passed between us for
that; but you will learn to be very happy without me. Good-by."
She touched his lips again; then, opening the door herself, she sprang
to the ground before he could stop her.
"Don't get out; good-by," she said, waving him back as he was about to
alight, and opening her umbrella and pulling the hood of her waterproof
over her head, she started in the direction of Mrs. Goodnough, leaving
Neil with such a tumult of thought crowding his brain as nearly drove
him wild.