HOME AGAIN.
Frederic was coming home again—“Marster Frederic,” who, as Dinah said,
“had been so near to kingdom come that he could hear the _himes_ they
sung on Sundays.”
Joyfully the blacks told to each other the glad news, which was an
incentive for them all to bestir themselves as they had not done before
during the whole period of their master’s absence. Old Dinah, whose mind
turned naturally upon eatables, busied herself in conjuring up some new
and harmless relish for the invalid, while Uncle Phil spent all the
whole day in rubbing down the horses and rubbing up the carriage with
which he intended meeting his master at Frankfort. Josh, too, caught the
general spirit, and remembering how much his master was wont to chide
him for his slovenly appearance, he cast rueful glances at his sorry
coat and red cowhides, wishing to goodness he had some “clothes to honor
the ’casion with.”
“I m-m-might sh-sh-shine these up a little,” he said, examining his
boots, and, purloining a tallow candle from Hetty’s cupboard, he set
himself to the task, succeeding so well that he was almost certain of
commendation.
A coat of uncle Phil’s was borrowed next, and though it hung like a tent
cloth about Josh’s lank proportions, the effect was entirely
satisfactory to the boy, who had a consciousness of having done all that
could reasonably be expected of him.
In the house Alice was not idle. From the earliest dawn she had been up,
for there was something on her mind which kept her wakeful and restless.
Frederic’s letters, which were read to her by the wife of the overseer,
who lived near by, had told her of the blue-eyed girl who had been with
him in his sickness, and in one letter, written ere he had given up the
search, he had said, while referring to the girl: “Darling Alice, I am
so glad you sent me here, for I hope to bring you a great and joyful
surprise.”
Not the least mention did he make of Marian, but Alice understood at
once that he meant her. Marian and the blue-eyed girl were the same, and
he would bring her back to them again. She was certain of it, and though
in his last letter, dated at Riverside, and apprising them of his
intended return, he had not alluded to the subject, it made no
difference with her. He wished really to surprise her, she thought, and
seeking out Dinah, she said to her, rather cautiously, for she would let
no one into her secret:
“Supposing Frederic had never been married to Marian, but had gone now
after a bride—I don’t mean Isabel,” she said, as she felt the defiant
expression of Dinah’s face—“but somebody else—somebody real nice.
Supposing, I say, he was going to bring her home, which room do you
think he would wish her to have?”
“The best chamber, in course,” answered Dinah—“the one whar the ’hogany
bedstead and silk quilt is. You wouldn’t go to puttin’ Marster
Frederic’s wife off with poor truck, I hope. But what made you ask that
question? What have you hearn?”
“Nothing in particular,” answered Alice, “only it would be nice if he
should bring somebody with him, and I want to fix the room just as
though I knew he would. May Lid sweep and dust it for me?”
For a moment Dinah looked at her as if she thought her crazy. Then
thinking to herself, “it’ll ’muse her a spell any way, and I may as well
humor her whim,” she replied. “Sakes alive, yes, and I’ll ar the bed.
Thar haint nobody slep’ in’t sence Marian run away, ’cept Miss Agnes one
night and that trollop, Isabel, who consulted me by sayin’ how’t they
done clarmbered onto a table afore they could get inter bed, ’twas so
high. Ain’t used to feathers whar she was raised, I reckon, and if
you’ll b’lieve it, she said how’t she allus slep’ on har afore she come
here! Pretty stuff that must be to lie on; but Lord, them Yankees is
mostly as poor as poverty, and don’t know no differ.”
Having relieved herself of this speech, which involved both her opinion
of Yankees in general and Isabel in particular, the old lady proceeded
to business, first _arin’_ the bed, as she said, and then making it
higher, if possible, than it was made on the night when Isabel so
injured her feelings by laughing at its height. Lid’s services were next
brought into requisition; and when the chamber was swept and dusted, the
arrangement of the furniture was left entirely to Alice, who felt that
what she did was right, and wished so much that she could see just how
Marian’s favorite chair looked standing by the window, from which the
gorgeous sunsets Marian so much admired could be plainly seen. Just
opposite, and on the other side of the window, Frederic’s easy chair was
placed—the one in which he always sat when tired, and where Alice
fancied he would now delight to sit with Marian, so near that he could
look into her eyes and tell her that he was glad to have her there. He
was beginning to love her Alice knew by the tone of his letters; and her
heart thrilled with joy as she thought of the happiness in store for
them all. She would not be lonely now in her own pleasant chamber, for
it was so near to Marian’s. She could leave the doors open between, and
that would be so much nicer than having black Ellen sleeping on the
floor.
Dear little Alice! She built bright castles in the air that summer day,
and they were as real to her as if Frederic had written, “Marian is
found, and coming home with me.”
“She loved a great many flowers around her,” she said, and groping her
way down the stairs and out into the yard, she gathered from the tree
beneath the library window a profusion of buds and half opened roses,
which she arranged into bouquets, and placed in vases for Marian, just
as Marian had gathered flowers for her from the garden far away on the
river.
It was done at last; and very inviting that pleasant, airy apartment
looked with its handsome furniture, its bright carpet and muslin
curtains of snowy white, to say nothing of the towering bed. There were
flowers on the mantle, flowers on the table, flowers in the window,
flowers everywhere, and their sweet perfume filled the air with a
delicious fragrance which Dinah declared was “a heap sight better than
that scent Miss Isabel used to put on her handkercher and fan. Ugh, that
fan!” and Dinah’s nose was elevated at the very thought of Isabel’s
sandal-wood fan which had been her special abhorrence.
“Isn’t it most time for Uncle Phil to start?” asked Alice, when Dinah
had finished fixing the room.
“Yes, high time,” answered Dinah, “but Phil is so slow. I’ll jest hurry
him up,” and followed by Alice she descended the stairs, meeting in the
lower hall with Lyd, who held in her hand a brown envelope, which she
passed to Alice, saying “One dem letters what come like lightnin’ on the
telegraph. A boy done brung it.”
“A telegram,” cried Alice, feeling at first alarmed. “Go for Mrs. Warren
to read it.”
But the overseer’s wife was absent, as was also her husband, and neither
the blacks nor Alice knew what to do.
“There isn’t more than a line and a half,” said Alice, passing her
finger over the paper and feeling the thick sand which had been sifted
upon it. “I presume something has detained Frederic, and he has sent
word that he will not be here to-day.”
“Let me see dat ar,” said Phil, who liked to impress his companions with
a sense of his superior wisdom, and, adjusting his iron-bowed specs, he
took the letter, which in reality was Greek to him.
After an immense amount of wry faces and loud whispering he said:
“Yes, honey, you’re correct, though Marster Frederic has sich an onery
hand-write that it takes me a a heap of time to make it out. It reads,
‘Somethin’ has detained Frederic, and he has sent word that he’ll be
here to-morry.’” And, with the utmost gravity, Phil took off his specs,
and was walking away with the air of one who has done something his
companions could never hope to do, when Hetty called out:
“Wonder if he ’spects us to swaller dat ar, and think he kin read, when
he jest done said over what Miss Alice say. Can’t fool dis chile.”
This insinuation Uncle Phil felt constrained to answer, and with an
injured air he replied:
“Kin read, too, for don’t you mind how’t Miss Alice say. ‘Won’t be here
to-day,’ and it’s writ on the paper, ‘Comin’ to-morry.’” And, fully
satisfied that he had convinced his audience, Uncle Phil hastened off,
ere Hetty had time for further argument. So certain was Phil that
Alice’s surmises were correct and the telegram interpreted aright, and
so anxious withal to prove himself sure, that he would not go to
Frankfort, as he proposed doing.
“There was no use on’t,” he said. “Marster wouldn’t be thar till
to-morry,” and he whiled away the afternoon at leisure.
But alas for Uncle Phil. Mrs. Warren had made a mistake in Frederic’s
last letter, the young man writing he should be home on the 15th,
whereas she had read it the 17th; afterward, Frederic had decided to
leave Riverside one day earlier, and he telegraphed from Cincinnati for
Phil to meet him. Finding neither carriage nor servant in waiting, he
hired a conveyance, and about four o’clock P. M. from every cabin door
there came the joyful cry—
“Marster Frederic has come.”
“Told you so,” said Hetty, with an exultant glance at Uncle Phil, who
wisely made no reply, but hastened with the rest to tell his master,
“How d’ye?”
“How is it that some one did not meet me?” Frederic asked, after the
first noisy outbreak had somewhat subsided. “Didn’t you get the
dispatch?”
The negroes looked at Phil, who stammered out—
“Yes, we done got it, but dem ole iron specs of mine is mighty nigh wore
out—can’t see in ’em at all, and I read ‘to-morry’ instead of ‘to-day.’”
The loud shout which followed this excuse enlightened Frederic as to the
true state of the case, and he, too, joined in the laugh, telling the
crest-fallen Phil that “he should surely have a new pair of silver specs
which would read ‘to-day’ instead of ‘to-morry.’”
“But where is Alice?” he continued. “Why don’t she come to greet me?”
“Sure ’nough,” returned Dinah. “Whar can she be, when she was so fierce
to have you come? Reckon she’s up in the best charmber she’s been fixin’
up for somethin’, she wouldn’t tell what.”
“I’ll go and see,” said Frederic, starting in quest of the little girl,
who, as Dinah had conjectured, was in the front chamber—the one prepared
with so much care for Marian.
She had been sitting by the window when she heard the sound of wheels
coming up the avenue.—Then the joyful cry of “Marster’s comin’,” came to
her quick ear, and, starting up, she bent her head to listen for another
voice—a voice she had not heard for many a weary month. But she listened
in vain, for Marian was not there. Gradually she became convinced of the
fact, and, laying her face on the window sill, she was weeping bitterly
when Frederic came in. Pausing for a moment in the door, he glanced
around first at the well-remembered chair, then at the books upon the
table, then at the flowers, and then he knew why all this had been done.
“I would that it might have been so,” he thought, and going to the
weeping Alice he lifted up her head and pushing her hair from her
forehead, whispered to her softly, “Darling, was it for Marian you
gathered all these flowers?”
“Yes, Frederic, for Marian,” and Alice sobbed aloud.
Taking her in his lap, Frederic replied, “Did you think I would bring
her home?”
“Yes, I thought you had found her, and I was so glad. What made you
write me that?”
“Alice I did find her,” returned Frederic; “I have seen her, I have
talked with her. Marian is alive.”
At these words, so decidedly spoken, the blind eyes flashed up into
Frederic’s face eagerly, wistfully, as if they fain would burst their
vail of darkness and see if he told her truly.
“Is it true? Oh, Frederic, you are not deceiving me? I can’t bear any
more disappointment,” and Alice’s face and lips were as white as ashes,
as she proceeded further to question Frederic, who told her of the
blue-eyed girl who, just as he was treading the brink of the river of
death, had come to him and called him back to life by her kind acts and
words of love.
“She had a sweet, childish face,” said he, “fairer, sweeter than
Marian’s when she went away—but Marian must have changed; for I knew
that this was she.”
Then he told her of her sudden disappearance when Isabel came—of his
fruitless efforts to find her, and how while searching for her, he had
met another girl, whose hands reminded him of those which he had felt so
many times upon his brow.
“Wasn’t that Marian?” said Alice, who had forgotten her grief in
listening.
There was a mournful pathos in the tone of his voice, and it emboldened
Alice to ask another question.
“Frederic,” she began, and her little hand played with his hair, as it
always did when she was uncertain as to how her remarks would be
received, “Frederic, ain’t you loving Marian a heap more than you did
when she went away?”
Frederic did not hesitate a moment ere replying, “Yes, darling, I am,
for that young girl crept away down into my heart where Marian ought to
have been, before I asked her to be my wife; and I shall find her too. I
only stopped long enough to come home for you. The house is ready at
Riverside, and your room is charming.”
“Will Isabel be there?” was Alice’s next inquiry, and Frederic answered
by telling her all he knew of the matter.
He did not say he was beginning to understand her and consequently to
like her less, but Alice inferred as much, and with this fear removed
from her mind, she could endure patiently to become again a pupil of
Miss Huntington. For a long time they talked together, wondering who
wrote the letter purporting to have come from Sarah Green, and why it
had been written. Then Frederic told her of the peddler Ben, and of his
sister, _Marian Grey_, who, at that moment, had his daguerreotype in her
keeping. Of Marian Grey Alice did not say to him “She is our Marian,”
for she had not such a thought, but she seemed interested both in her
and in Ben, and when told that the latter had asked for her picture she
consented at once, saying he should have it as soon as they were settled
at Riverside.
“I would not tell any one that Marian was with me,” said Frederic, as
their conversation drew to a close; “I had rather the subject should not
be discussed until I really find her and bring her home; then we will
set apart a day of general thanksgiving.”
To this suggestion Alice readily assented, and as the supper bell just
then rang, and the two went together to the delicious repast, which
Dinah had prepared with unusual care, insisting the while that “thar was
nothin’ fit for nobody to eat.”
Frederic, however, whose appetite was increasing each day, convinced her
to the contrary, and while watching him as he did justice to her viands,
the old negress thought to herself, “’Clar for’t, how he does eat. I
should know he come from Yankee land. You can allus tell ’em, the way
they crams, when they get whar thar is somethin’.”
The news of Frederic’s return spread rapidly, and that night he received
calls from several of his neighbors, together with an invitation to
Agnes Gibson’s wedding, which was to take place in a few days. In the
invitation Alice was included, and though Dinah demurred, saying that
“trundle-bed truck or to stay at home,” Alice ventured to differ from
her, and at the appointed time went with Frederic to the party, which
was splendid in all its parts, having been got up with a direct
reference to the newspaper articles which were sure to be published
concerning it. Agnes, of course, was charming in white satin, point
lace, orange flowers, flowing vail, and all other _et ceteras_ which
complete the dress of a fashionable bride. And the bridegroom—poor old
man—looked very well in his new suit of broadcloth, even if his knees
did shake—not from fear, however, but as one of the guests remarked,
“Because it was a way they’d had for several years!” The top of his head
was bald, it is true, and his hair as white as snow, but for every
silver thread Agnes knew there was a golden eagle in his purse, and this
consoled her somewhat, though it did not prevent her from watching
jealously to see if any one was talking of the palsied man, her husband.
Her expected present from Isabel had never come, and the three _fish
knives_, ranged in a row, looked as if two of them, at least, were
rather more ornamental than useful, as did also the four card baskets,
and three gold thimbles, which occupied a conspicuous place. To
Frederic, Agnes was especially gracious, asking him numberless questions
concerning her “dear friend,” and saying “she hoped to meet her in her
travels, as they were going North and were intending to spend the Summer
at Saratoga, Newport, and Nahant. I thought once you would be taking
your bridal tour about this time,” she said to him, when several were
standing near.
“I assure you I had no such idea,” was Frederic’s reply, and Agnes
continued, “Indeed I supposed you were engaged, of course.”
“Then you supposed wrong,” he answered, glad of this public opportunity
to contradict a story he knew had gained a wide circulation. “I esteem
Miss Huntington as a friend and distant relative, but I certainly have
no intention whatever of making her my wife.”
Frequently, during the evening, he was asked if he had found any clue to
Sarah Green or her letter; and as he could in all sincerity reply in the
negative, no one guessed that instead of Sarah Green he had found his
wife—only, however to lose her again.
“But he would find her,” he said to himself, and as he looked at the
ill-matched bride and groom, he could not forebear wishing that it were
himself and Marian. He would stay by her now, he thought, and when it
grew dark in the parlor instead of suffering her to go away alone and
read the fatal letter, he would draw her to his side, and telling her of
its contents, would sue for her forgiveness, and offer to her love in
return for the fraud imposed upon her.
It was a pleasant picture Frederic drew that night of what his bridal
might have been, and so absorbed was he in it that when, as they were
going home, Alice with a yawn said to him, “Wasn’t it so tiresome
hearing those young folks say such foolish things to each other, and
hearing the old ones talk about their servants?” he replied, “why no,
child, I spent a most delightful evening.”
“I—don’t—see—how you could,” was the drowsy answer, and in a moment more
Alice lay upon the carriage cushions fast asleep!
It was nearly three weeks after this party ere Frederic’s arrangements
for leaving Kentucky were entirely completed, and it was not until the
latter part of July that he finally started for his now home. The
lamentations of the negroes were noisy in the extreme, though far more
moderate than they would have been if their master had not said that it
was very probable he should return in the Autumn, and merely make
Riverside a Summer residence. If he found Marian he should come back, of
course, he thought, but he did not deem it best to raise hopes which
might never be realized, so he said nothing of her to the blacks who
supposed of course she was dead.
The parting between Dinah and Alice was a bitter one, the former hugging
the little girl to her bosom and wondering how Marster Frederic ‘spected
a child what had never waited on itself even to fotch a drop of water,
could get along way off dar whar thar warn’t nary nigger nor nothin’ but
a pack o’ low flung Irish. “Order ’em ’round,” she said to Alice, wiping
her eyes with her checked apron, “order ’em round jist like they warn’t
white. Make ’em think you be somebody. Say your pra’rs evey night—war
your white cambric wrappers in the mornin’, and don’t on no count catch
any poor folksy’s marners ’mong them Yankees for I shouldn’t get my
nateral sleep o’ nights, till you got shet of ’em, and—” lowering her
voice, “if so be that you tell any of the quality ’bout us blacks,
s’posin you kinder set me ’bove Hetty and them Higginses, bein’ that I
the same as nussed you.”
To nearly all these requirements Alice promised compliance, and then, as
the carriage was waiting, she followed Frederic down to the gate, and
soon both were lost to the sight of the tearful group which from the
piazza of Redstone Hall, gazed wistfully after them.
It was at the close of a sultry Summer day when the travelers reached
Riverside, where they found Mrs. Huntington waiting to receive them.
Frederic had written, apprising her of the time when he should probably
arrive, and asking her to be there if possible. Something, too, he had
said of Isabel, but that young lady was not in the most amiable mood,
and as she was comfortably domesticated with another distant relative,
she declined going to Frederic until he came to some understanding, or
at least manifested a greater desire to have her with him than his
recent letters indicated. Accordingly her mother went alone, and
Frederic was not sorry, while Alice was delighted. Everything seemed so
bright and airy, she said, just as though a load were taken from them,
and like a bird she flitted about the house, for she needed to pass
through a room but once ere she was familiar with its location, and
could find it easily. With her own cozy chamber she was especially
pleased, and in less than half an hour her little hands had examined
every article of furniture, even to the vases which held the withered
blossoms gathered so long ago.
“Somebody must have put these here for me,” she said, and then her mind
went back to the morning when she, too, had gathered flowers for her
expected friend, and she wondered much who had done a similar service
for her.
“It’s me,” returned Mrs. Russell, who was still staying at Riverside.
“How I wonder if you found them dried-up things so soon,” she continued,
advancing into room. “I should of hove them out, only that the girl who
fixed ’em made me promise to leave ’em till you came. ’Pears like she
b’lieved you’d think more on ’em for knowin’ that she picked ’em.”
“Girl! Mrs. Russell. What girl?” and Alice’s eyes lighted up, for she
thought at once of Marian, who would know of course about the house, and
as she would naturally wish to see it, she had come some day and left
these flowers, which would be so dear to her if she found her suspicions
correct. “Who was the girl?” she asked again, and Mrs. Russell replied:
“I don’t remember her name, but she went all over the house, fixing
things in Mr. Raymond’s room, which I didn’t think was very marnerly,
bein’ that ’twa’n’t none o’ hern. Then she come in here and set ever so
long before she picked these posys, which she told me not to throw
away.”
“Yes, it was Marian,” came involuntarily from Alice’s lips, while the
woman, catching at the name rejoined:
“That sounds like what he called her—that tall spooky chap, her
brother—Ben something. She said he had seen you at the South.”
“Oh, Ben Butterworth. It was his adopted sister;” and Alice turned away,
feeling greatly disappointed that _Marian Grey_, and not Marian Lindsey,
had arranged those flowers for her.
This allusion to Ben reminded Alice of his request for her picture, and
one morning, when Frederic was going to New York, she asked to go with
him and sit for her daguerreotype. There was no reason why she should
not, and in an hour or two, she was listening, half stunned, to the
noise and uproar of the city.
“Oh, Frederic,” she cried, holding fast to his hand, as they made their
way up town—“oh, Frederic, I wonder Marian didn’t get crazy and die. I’m
sure I should. I’m almost distracted now. Where are all those people and
carts going that I hear running by us so fast, and what makes them keep
pushing me so hard. Oh, dear, I wish I hadn’t come!” and as some one
just then jostled her more rudely than usual, Alice began to cry.
“Never mind,” said Frederic soothingly, “we are almost there, and we
will take a carriage back. Folks can’t push you then;” and in stooping
down to comfort the little girl, he failed to see the graceful figure
passing so near him that the hem of her dress fluttered against his
boot.
They had come upon each other so suddenly that there was not time for
the brown vail to be dropped, neither was it needful, for so absorbed
was Frederic with his charge that he neither knew nor dreamed how near
to _Marian Lindsey_ he had been.
Alice’s tears being dried, they kept on their way, and when the picture
was taken, Frederic did it up and directing it to Ben Butterworth, sent
it to the office, then calling a carriage, he took Alice, as he had
promised, all over the great city. And Alice enjoyed it very much,
laying back on the soft cushions, and knowing that no one could touch
her of all the noisy throng she heard so distinctly, but could not see.
It was a day long talked of by the blind girl, and she asked Mrs.
Huntington to write a description of it to the negroes, who she knew
fancied that Louisville was the largest city in the world.
Not long after this, something which Mrs. Huntington said about her
daughter determined Frederic to visit her and make the explanation which
he felt it his duty to make, for he knew he had given her some reason to
think he intended asking her to be his wife. He accordingly feigned some
excuse for going to New Haven, and one morning found himself at the door
where Isabel was stopping.
“Give her this,” he said, handing his card to the servant who carried it
at once to the delighted young lady.
“Frederic Raymond,” read Isabel. “Oh, yes. Tell him I’ll be down in a
moment,” and she proceeded to arrange her hair a little more becomingly,
and made several changes in her dress, so that the one minute was nearly
fifteen ere she started for the parlor, where Frederic was rather
dreading her coming, for he scarcely knew what he wished to say.
Half timidly she greeted him as a bashful maiden is supposed to meet her
lover, and seating herself at a respectful distance from him, she asked
numberless questions concerning his health, her numberless friends in
Kentucky, her mother, and dear little Alice, who, she presumed, did not
miss her much.
“Your mother’s presence reminds us of you very often, of course,”
returned Frederic, “but you know we can get accustomed to almost
anything, and Alice seems very happy.”
“Yes,” sighed Isabel. “You will all forget me, I suppose, even to
mother—but for me I have not been quite contented since I left Kentucky.
I thought it tiresome to teach, and perhaps was sometimes impatient and
unreasonable, but I have often wished myself back again. I don’t seem to
be living for anything now,” and Isabel’s black eyes studied the pattern
of the carpet quite industriously.
This long speech called for a reply, and Frederic said, “You would not
care to come back again, would you?”
“Why, yes,” returned Isabel; “I would rather do that than nothing.”
For a time there was silence, while Frederic fidgeted in his chair and
Isabel fidgeted in hers, until at last the former said:
“I owe you an explanation, Isabel, and I have come to make it. Do you
remember our conversation in the parlor, and to what it was apparently
tending, when we were interrupted by Alice?”
“Yes,” replied Isabel, “and I have thought of it so often, wondering if
you were in earnest, or if you were merely trifling with my feelings.”
“I certainly had no intention of trifling with you,” returned Frederic:
“neither do I know as I was really in earnest. At all events it is
fortunate for us both that Alice came in as she did;” and having said so
much, Frederic could now look calmly upon a face which changed from a
serene Summer sky to a dark, lightning-laden thunder-cloud as he told
her the story he had came to tell.
In her terrible disappointment, Isabel so far forgot herself as to lose
her temper entirely, and Frederic, while listening to her as she railed
at him for what she called his perfidy, wondered how he ever could have
thought her womanly or good.
“It was false that Marian was living, and had taken care of him when
sick,” she said. “He could not impose that story upon her, and he only
wished to do it because he fancied that he was in some way pledged to
her and wished for an excuse, but he might have saved himself the
trouble, for even had Alice not appeared she should have told him No.
She liked him once, she would admit, but there was nothing like living
beneath the same roof to make one person tire of another, and even if
she were not disgusted with him before, she should have become so while
taking care of him in New York, and so she wrote to Agnes Gibson, who,
she heard, had spread the news that she was engaged, though she had no
authority for doing so, but it was just like the tattling
mischief-maker!”
“Are you through?” Frederic coolly asked, when she had finished
speaking. “If you are I will consider our interview at an end.”
Isabel did not reply and he arose to go, saying to her as he reached the
door, “I did not come here to quarrel with you, Bell, I wish still to be
your friend, and if you are ever in trouble come to me as to a brother.
Marian will, I trust, be with me then; but she will be kind to you, for
’tis her nature.”
“Plague on that Marian,” was Isabel’s unlady-like thought as the door
closed after Frederic. “I wonder how many times she’s coming to life!
How I wanted to charge him with his meanness in marrying her fortune,
but as that is a secret between the two, he would have suspected me of
treachery. The villain! I believe I hate him—and only to think how those
folks in Kentucky will laugh. But it’s all Agnes’ doings. She inveigled
more out of me than there was to tell, and then repeated it to suit
herself. The jade! I hope she’s happy with that old man”—and at this
point Isabel broke down in a flood of tears, in the midst of which the
door bell rang again, and hurrying up the stairs she listened to the
names, which this time were “Mr. and Mrs. Rivers,” (Agnes and her
husband) and they asked for her.
Drying her tears, and bathing her eyes until the redness was gone,
Isabel went down to meet the “tattling mischief-maker,” embracing her
very affectionately, and telling her how delighted she was to see her
again, and how well she was looking.
“Then why do you not embark on the sea of matrimony yourself, if you
think it such a beautifier,” said Agnes.
“Me?” returned Isabel, with a toss of her head; “I thought I wrote you
that I had given up that foolish fancy.”
“Indeed, so you did,” said Agnes, “but I had forgotten it, and when I
saw Mr. Raymond at the Tontine, where we are stopping, I supposed of
course he had come to see you, and I said to Mr. Rivers it really was
too bad, for from what he said at our wedding I fancied there was
nothing in it, and had made up my mind to take you with us to Florida,
as I once talked of doing. Husband’s sister wants a teacher for her
children, don’t she, dear?”
Mr. Rivers was about to answer in the affirmative, but ere he could
speak Isabel chimed in, “Oh, you kind, thoughtful soul. Let me go with
you now; do. Nothing could please me more. I have missed your society so
much, and am so unhappy here!” and in the black eyes there was certainly
a tear, which instantly touched the heart of the sympathetic old man who
anticipated his wife’s reply, by saying, “Certainly you shall go, if you
like. You’ll be company for Mrs. Rivers, and if I am in my dotage, as
some say, I’ve sense enough to know that she can’t be contented all the
time with her grandfather. Eh, Aggie?” and chucked his bride under the
chin.
“Disgusting!” thought Isabel.
“Old fool!” thought Agnes, who was really rather pleased with the idea
of having Isabel go with her to her new home, for though she did not
love her dear friend, she rather enjoyed her company, and she felt that
anybody was acceptable who would stand as a third person between herself
and the grandfather she had chosen.
The more she thought of the plan the better she was pleased with it, and
before parting the whole was amicably adjusted. Early in October, Isabel
was to join her friend in Kentucky, and go with her from thence to
Florida, where she was either to remain with Mrs. Rivers, or to teach in
the family of Mrs. McGregor, Mr. Rivers’ sister. The former was what
Isabel intended to do, for she thoroughly disliked teaching, and if she
could live without it, she would. Still she did not so express herself
to her visitors, and she appeared so gracious and so grateful withal,
that, the heart of the bridegroom was wholly won, and after his return
to their hotel, he extolled her so highly that Agnes began to pout, a
circumstance which pleased her fatherly spouse, inasmuch as it augured
more affection for himself than he had supposed her to possess.
The story of Isabel’s intended trip to Florida was not long in reaching
Rudolph McVicar, who had been wondering why something didn’t occur, and
if he were really to be disappointed after all.
“I wasted that paper and ink for nothing,” was his mental comment when
he heard from her own lips that Isabel was going; for, presuming upon
his former acquaintance, he finally ventured to call upon her, demeaning
himself so well that, like her mother, Isabel began to think he had
reformed.
Still there was an expression in his eye which she did not like, and
when at last he left her, she experienced a feeling of relief, as if a
spell had been removed. After her recent interview with Frederic she
would not go to his house, so her mother went to New Haven, staying with
her daughter a week and then returning to Riverside, while Isabel
started for Kentucky, where, as she had expected, she met with Mr. and
Mrs. Rivers, and was soon on her way to Florida.
When sure that Isabel was gone, and that Sarah Green’s letter had indeed
been written in vain, Rudolph, who cared nothing now whether Marian were
ever discovered to her husband or not, went to New York and embarked on
a whaling voyage, as he had long thought of doing, fancying that the
roving life of a seaman would suit his restless nature.
And now, with Rudolph on the sea, with Isabel in Florida, with Marian at
school, and Frederic at Riverside, we draw a vail over the different
characters of our story, nor lift it again until three years have passed
away, bringing changes to all, but to none a greater change than to the
so-called Marian Grey.