THE FRANKLYNS AT LAST!
I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms that a cottage was near
And I said, "If there's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that was humble might hope for it here."
THOMAS MOORE.
River Cottage was one of the prettiest spots on the banks of the James,
and so far away from any other habitation that it was lonely to the
last degree; yet embowered in trees and vines and flowers, and lulled
by the murmuring voice of the majestic river, its inhabitants were
so happy and content that they did not pine for the world that at a
little distance surged busily around them. The family consisted of but
two--Mrs. Franklyn, a lovely old woman somewhat past fifty, and her
grandson, a youth of twenty-three years. Here at River Cottage they
lived quietly together on a modest competency, the woman with her sad
face and dreamy eyes absorbed altogether in dreams of her past and in
tender care for Chester, the blue-eyed boy under whose crown of yellow
curls throbbed the restless brain of a genius that was beginning to
express itself in dainty bits of verse--the first callow flights of
ambition.
The boy was restless. Genius was beginning to burn. Sometimes he
walked the floor for hours while the midnight oil burned on his study
table. At times he loved to walk on the banks of the river, setting
his beautiful thoughts to the music of its melodious rhythm. On that
dark, cold night Chester had wandered from the cottage porch down to
the river's edge, and so he caught with startled ears the sound of that
sullen splash into the waves--caught the sound, and scarce a minute
later saw, with keen eyes strained into the gloom, a body floating in
the river past the cottage.
"A suicide!" he muttered, in a voice of horror.
The next minute he threw off his coat and shoes and plunged into the
stream.
It was a brave deed, and sometimes in the anguished months that came
afterward Chester wondered if he would have risked so much could he
but have known all that was to follow on this night--the full draught
of life's chalice filled to the brim with love and pain that he was
to quaff. But no presentiment of the future came to him now as he
struggled in the almost freezing waves until he caught and held the
form drifting rapidly from him, and by almost superhuman efforts drew
it with him to the shore.
Mrs. Franklyn always dwelt with loving pride on that night when the
cottage door was pushed open and her brave boy staggered in with his
unconscious burden, both of them dripping water upon her pretty ingrain
carpet, and Chester faltered weakly:
"I--I have saved--some one--from the river!" Then he fell upon the
floor, too exhausted to utter another word.
Mrs. Franklyn did not look at the stranger at first. She hastened
to revive Chester by pouring some wine between his pale lips and
chattering teeth. As soon as he could he sat up, saying, anxiously:
"There, grandma! I'm all right. See about the woman, please."
And then they found that the woman he had rescued was a young girl--the
most beautiful golden-haired young creature they had ever beheld. When
they had used some little effort at restoring her to consciousness, she
opened on their faces a pair of large, dark, wondering eyes, at whose
gaze Chester Franklyn's romantic heart leaped up in a sort of ecstasy.
He stooped down, almost unconsciously, and pressed his lips to her icy
little hand, carried out of himself by some strange, delicious emotion
he could not resist.
Tears started to Mrs. Franklyn's eyes as she busied herself about the
patient, who did not answer one word when she spoke to her, but lay
watching her face with dazed, uncomprehending eyes. The good lady sent
Chester up to his room to put on dry garments, and brought some of her
own for the strange young girl thrown upon her care.
She supposed that this was an attempted suicide, and wondered
what terrible sorrow had driven this beautiful young girl to
self-destruction.
She ventured to ask the patient the question, but Kathleen seemed dazed
as yet, and did not comprehend anything very clearly. She answered to
every question that was asked her a feeble: "I don't know."
"I must wait until she gets better," was her thought; and she put
Kathleen to bed, carefully spreading out her long gold curls over the
pillow to dry. Soon the girl fell asleep, and then Mrs. Franklyn turned
down the lamp and slipped away to ask Chester all about it.
He could tell her nothing but that he had heard the dull thud of her
body striking the water, and that he jumped into the river to save her.
He believed it was a suicide, as he had heard no sound or cry.
"Some poor girl, perhaps, who can not make an honest living and has
sought death in her despair," he said, and the gentle lady agreed with
him.
"We will keep her here until she gets well and strong, and then we will
see how we can help her out of her trouble," she added, kindly.
"Yes, we will take care of her," cried Chester Franklyn, eagerly. "It
may be she has some deadly enemies from whom she sought to escape in
that terrible fashion. We will say nothing of her being here until she
herself tells us what to do."
When the morrow dawned Kathleen was ill with a low fever, and so it
chanced that while her friends were frantic with anxiety over her fate,
Kathleen lay passive in the river cottage, carefully watched by Mrs.
Franklyn, who wondered much over her mysterious guest.
"So young and beautiful; and she can not be a poor girl, for her
clothing is of the finest quality," Mrs. Franklyn said to her grandson.
"Perhaps there are people who are anxious over her fate. Do you think
we ought to let it be known through the papers?" she added.
"No, not yet. Let us wait till she gets well and tells us what to do,"
he replied.
Chester Franklyn had fallen in love at first sight with the beautiful
creature whose life he had saved. He was afraid that some one would
take her away from him if he let her presence be known.
"Let me have my chance first," he said to himself, with all the selfish
ardor of a young lover.
It seemed strange that Kathleen lay passive so long after the fever
left her, without seeming to take any interest in anything. They asked
her her name; they asked her where her home was, and how she came to be
in the river. To everything she answered dreamily:
"I do not know."
They did not know that before Kathleen had been thrown into the river
she had swallowed with her food a potent drug intended to produce
death. It was entirely owing to the small quantity of food she had
taken that she survived at all, but the strange drug had partially
paralyzed her faculties. Memory was dormant, or returned in such faint
gleams that it threw no light on her present state.
She knew that two beautiful, kindly faces--a woman's old but strangely
lovely, and a young man's with deep blue eyes and curls of gold--bent
daily over her pillow. She watched them eagerly, she smiled at them
faintly and sweetly, but so numb were her reasoning faculties that she
did not wonder at their presence there. She was utterly quiescent.
Mrs. Franklyn became alarmed, fearing the girl was an idiot, but
Chester was indignant at the very idea.
"She has had some shock; that is it," he said. "Be patient, grandma.
She will come to herself."
It was strange how his heart went out to the girl, who lay so silently
on the pillow all day, looking up at him with dark, inscrutable eyes,
like an infant's in their wondering expression.
In a week she seemed stronger. She could sit up in an easy-chair. She
even talked a little, but it was just about things that she saw in the
room--books, pictures, flowers. She would say, softly:
"How sweet! How pretty!"
At last she was strong enough to walk about the room.
"Grandma, I think she would like it better in the parlor," said
Chester, one day. He took her hand and led her into a pretty, cozy
apartment.