"But," said her hearer, suddenly, "did not Prescott Avery meet him at Melbourne?"
"Oh, if you knew Prescott, you would know that he meets everybody. If it had been a Mr. Percival of Java, instead of Ponsonby of Australia, he would have remembered him or something about him. Still, that was a dreadful moment. I felt like Frankenstein when his creature stalks out alive. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! I shall send him hiscoup-de-grâceby the next Australian mail. People will say that I did it in the hope of catching you, and have failed. Let them—I deserve it. And now, Mr. Van Voorst, please to go. I have humiliated myself before you enough. I said I would tell you the truth, and you have heard it all. If you must despise me, have pity and don't show it."
Lily's voice, so clear at first, had grown hoarse, and her cheeks were burning in a way that caused her physical pain. She rose to her feet and stood leaning on the back of her chair and looking at the floor.
"Go! and without a word? Do you think I have nothing to say? Sit down!"—as shemade some little motion to go. "I have heard you, and now you must hear me."
Lily sank unresistingly into her chair, while he went on, "You say girls have a hard time; so they do—I have always been sorry for them. But don't you suppose men have troubles of their own? You say a pretty girl has the worst of it. How much better off is the man, who, according to the common talk, has only to 'pick and choose'; who walks along the row of pretty faces to find a partner for the dance or for life, as it happens—it is much the same. The blue angel is the prettiest and the pink the wittiest; very likely he takes the yellow one, who is neither, while in the corner sits the white one, who would have suited him best, and whom he hardly saw at all. If he thinks he is satisfied, it is just as well. I was not unduly vain nor unduly humble. I knew my wealth was the first thing about me in most people's minds, but I was not a monster, and a girl might like me well enough without it. A woman is not often forced into marriage in this country. I had no notions of disguising myself, or educating a child to marry, as men have done, to be loved for themselves alone. What is a man's self? My wealth, my place in the world were part of me. I was born with them. I should probably find some nice girl who appreciated them and liked me wellenough, and I felt that I ought to give some such one the chance—and yet—and yet—I wanted something more.
"In this state of mind I met you at the ball. Very likely if I had seen you among the other girls, I might not have given you more than a passing glance; but I thought you were married, and the thrill of disappointment had as much pleasure as pain, for I felt I could have loved. But you were not married, only engaged. What's an engagement? It may mean everything or nothing. For the life of me I could not help trying how much it meant to you. What must the man be, I thought, as I sat by you on the stairs, whom this girl loves? He should be a hero, and yet, as such things go, he's just as likely to be a noodle. You laughed—I could have sworn you knew what I was thinking."
"Yes! I remember. I was thinking how nicely you would do for a model for my Ponsonby," Lily said. Their eyes met for a moment with a swift flash of intelligence, but the light in hers was quenched with hot, unshed tears.
"No laugh ever sounded more fancy free! I felt as if you challenged me; and if he had been here I would have taken up the challenge—he or I, once for all. But he was alone and far away, and I could not take his place. Whydid I meet you on the pond, then? why did I come here to-night? Because I wanted to see if I could not go a little further with you. I wanted something to remember, a look, a tone, a word, that ought not to have been given to any man but your promised husband; something I could not have asked if I had hoped to be your husband. My magnanimity toward Ponsonby, you see, did not go the length of behaving to his future wife with the respect I would show my own."
"You have shown how much you despise me," said Lily, springing to her feet, her hot tears dried with hotter anger, but her face white again. "That might have been spared me. I suppose you think I deserve it. Very well, I do, and you need not stay to argue the matter. Go!"
"Go! Why I should be a fool to go now, and you would be—well, we will call it mistaken—to let me. After we have got as far as we have, it would be absurd to suppose we can go back again. We know each other now better than nine tenths of the couples who have been married a year. I don't ask you to say you love me now; I am very sure you can, and I know I can love you—infinitely——"
"Oh, but—but you said you would not take his place—Mr. Ponsonby's. Can you let everyone think you capable of such an act of meanness?And if you could not respect me as your wife, how can you expect others to? Can we appear to act in a way to deserve contempt without despising each other?"
"There will be a good deal that is unpleasant about it, no doubt; but everyone's life has some unpleasantness. It would be worse to let a dream, even a dream of honor, come between us and our future. You made a mistake and underestimated its consequences, but it would be foolish to lose the substance of happiness because we have lost the shadow. We will live it down together and be glad it is no worse."
"But I have been so wrong, so very wrong—I have too many faults ever to make anyone happy."
"Of course you have faults, but I know the worst of them and can put up with them. I have plenty of my own which you may be finding out by this time. I am very domineering—you will have to promise to obey me, and I shall keep you to it; and then I can, under provocation, be furiously jealous."
"You are not jealous of Jack Allston?" she whispered.
"Jealous of old Jack? Oh, no! I shall keep my jealousy for poor Mr. Ponsonby."
Society had been so often agitated by Lily Carey's affairs that it took with comparativecoolness the tidings that she was to be married to Arend Van Voorst in six weeks. Miss Morgan said she supposed Lily was tired of "engagements," and wanted to be married this time. Her niece Emmeline shed tears over "poor Mr. Ponsonby," and refused to act as bridesmaid at his rival's nuptials; and in spite of her aunt's scoldings and Lily's entreaties, and all the temptations of the bridesmaids' pearl "lily" brooches and nosegays of Easter lilies, arranged a visit to her cousins in Philadelphia to avoid being present. Miss Thorne had no such scruples, and it is to her the world owes a lively account of the wedding; how it was fixed at so early a date lest "poor Mr. Ponsonby" should hurry over to forbid the banns, and how terribly nervous Lily seemed lest he might, in spite of the absolute impossibility, and though Ponsonby, true gentleman to the last, never troubled her then or after.
"Poor Mr. Van Voorst, I should say!" exclaimed Mrs. Jack Allston. "I am sure he is the one to be pitied. But do tell me all the presents that have come in, for Jack says that I must give them something handsome after such a present as he gave me when we were married."
Mrs. Van Voorst received the tidings of her son's approaching marriage rather doubtfully."Yes—the Careys were a very nice family; she knew Mrs. Carey was an Arlington, and her mother a Berkeley, and his mother—but—Miss Carey was very handsome, she had heard—with the Berkeley style of beauty and the Arlington manner, but—but—she did not mind their being Unitarians, for many of the very best people were, in Boston, but—but—but—indeed, my dear Arend, I have heard a good deal about her that I do not altogether like. I hope it may not be true—about her keeping Jack Allston hanging on for years, aspis-allerto that young Englishman she was engaged to all the while—and finally throwing him over—and now she has thrown over this Mr. Ponsonby too!"
"Will you do just one thing for me, dear mother," asked her son; "will you forget all you haveheardabout Lily, and judge her by what yousee?"
Mrs. Van Voorst had never refused Arend anything in his life, and could not now. By what magic Lily, in their very first interview, won over the good lady is not known, but afterwards no mother-in-law's heart could have withstood the splendid son and heir with which she enriched the Van Voorst line. The young Van Voorsts were allowed by all their friends to be much happier than they deserved to be. Long after the gossip over their marriage hadceased, and it was an old story even to them, Arend was still in love with his wife. Lily was interesting; she had that quality or combination of qualities, impossible to analyse, which wins love where beauty fails, and keeps it when goodness tires. Her own happiness was more simple in its elements. She was better off than most women, and knew it—the last, the crowning gift, so often lacking to the fortunate of earth. She thought her husband much too good for her, though she never told him so. Nay, sometimes when she was a little fretted by his exacting disposition, for Arend was a strict martinet in all social and household matters and, as he had said, would be minded, she would sometimes more or less jestingly tell him that perhaps after all she had made a mistake in not keeping faith with "poor Mr. Ponsonby."
"Well, Lucy, I must say I never saw anything go off more delightfully!"
"It would hardly fail to, with such interesting people," said Mrs. Henry Wilson.
"Why, every one said they thought it would be most difficult to manage; a sort of half-public thing, you know, to entertain those delegates or whatever they call them; they said it was well you had it, for no one else could possibly have made it go so well."
"I have no doubt most of them could, if they had all the help I had—from you, especially! I only wish I could have made it a dinner, instead of a lunch; but Henry is so very busy, just now, and I dared not attempt a dinner without him."
"Oh, my dear!" said her mother-in-law, "a doctor's time is always so occupied; they all know that. And dear Henry, of course, is more occupied than most."
"Perhaps it is as well," said the younger lady, "that they could come by daylight, as itis so far out of town; Medford is pretty, even in winter."
"Oh, yes! so they all said. Lady Bayswater thinks it is the prettiest suburb of Boston she has yet seen; and she admired the house, too, and you, and everything. 'Mrs. Wilson,' she said to me, 'your charming daughter-in-law is the prettiest American woman I have seen yet.'" And Mrs. Wilson, senior, a little elderly woman, to whom even her rich mourning dress could not impart dignity, jerked her heavy black Astrachan cape upon her shoulders, and tied its wide ribbons in a fluttering, one-sided way.
"She is very kind."
"And they all said so many things—I can't remember them."
"I am glad if they were pleased," said Mrs. Henry Wilson, rousing herself; "to tell the truth, I have not been able to think much of the lunch, or how it went off."
"Why, dear Henry is well, isn't he?"
"Yes, as well as usual, but a good deal troubled about——"
"Oh, the poor little Talbot boy! how is he?"
"I do not know. Henry, of course, gives no opinion; but I am afraid it is a very serious case. Membranous croup always is alarming, you know."
"Yes, indeed! sad—very sad; and their only boy, too, now. To be sure, if any one can save him, dear Henry can; but then, what with losing the other, and so much sickness as they have had, and Mabel expecting again, I really don't see how they are to get along," said Mrs. Wilson, fussing with her pocket handkerchief.
"It is very hard," assented her daughter-in-law, with a sigh.
"I do pity poor Eugene. What can a man do? I saw all those children paddling in the wet snow only last week; very likely that brought it on. If I had let mine do so when they were little, I should have expected them to have croup, and diphtheria, and everything else. I would not mention it to any one but you, but I do think Mabel has always been very careless of her children."
"Poor Mabel!" said Mrs. Henry Wilson, with a look of angelic compassion. "Remember how many cares and troubles she has had, and all her own ill-health. We all make mistakes sometimes in the care of our children, with the very best intentions. I let Harry play out in that very snow. I feared then that you might not approve; but you were not here, and he was so eager!"
"Oh, but, my dear, you always look after Harry so well! Those Talbot children had norubbers on; and then, Harry is so much stronger than his father was. I do think your management most successful. I only wish poor Eugene had a wife like you." And as her hearer was silent: "I must go. Darling Harry is still at gymnasium, isn't he? and I suppose it is no use waiting for dear Henry, now. My love to them both; and do come round when you can, dear, won't you?" And after a little more fuss in looking for her muff and letting down her veil, and a prolonged series of embraces of her daughter-in-law, she departed.
Young Mrs. Wilson, left alone, sat down in front of a glowing fire to review her day; but earlier memories appealed so much more powerfully, that in another moment she was reviewing her whole past life—an indulgence she rarely allowed herself.
If the poet in the country churchyard was struck with the thought of greatness that had perished unknown for lack of opportunity, how doubly he might have pointed his moral with renown missed by being of the wrong sex. In clear perception of her ends, and resistless pursuit of them, Lucy Morton had not been inferior in her sphere to Napoleon in his; and if, after all, she was not so clever as she thought herself, why, neither was he. To begin with, she was born in acul-de-sacending at a cowpasture. But what is that to genius? "This lane," she thought, "shall never hem me in"; and from earliest childhood she struggled to grow out of it, like a creeper out of a hole, catching at every aid.
She was early left an orphan, and lived with her grandfather, a well-to-do retired grocer, and her grandmother, and a maiden aunt. There was one other house in the lane, and in it lived a great-aunt, widow of the grocer's brother and partner, and a maiden first cousin once removed. They were a contented family, and liked the seclusion of their place of abode, which was clean and quiet, and where the old gentleman could prune his trees, and prick out his lettuces unobserved. He read the daily paper, and took a nap after his early dinner. The women made their own clothes, and dusted their parlours, and washed their dishes, and as thecul-de-sacwas loathed of servants, they often had the opportunity of doing all their own work, which they found a pleasant excitement, and in their secret souls preferred. They belonged to the Unitarian church, which marked them as slightly superior to the reigning grocer, who went to the "Orthodox meeting," but did not give them the social intercourse they would have found in churches of inferior pretensions. The elite of Medford, in those early days, was chiefly Unitarian, and it respected the Mortons,who gave generously of their time and money whenever they were asked. Its men spoke highly of "old Morton," and were civil to him at town and parish meetings; and its women would bow pleasantly to his female relatives after service and speak to them at sewing circles; and would inquire after the rest of the family when they could remember who they were. More, the Mortons did not ask or wish. They knew enough people on whom to make formal calls, gave or went to about six tea-parties a year, and exchanged visits with cousins who lived in Braintree.
Lucy was sent to the public school, and taught sewing and housework at home. She proved an apt pupil at both, and showed no discontent with her daily routine. She was early allowed to sit up to tea, even when company came; and had she asked to bring home any little girl in her school to play with her, her grandmother would not have objected. But she did not ask, nor was she ever seen with her schoolmates in the shady, rural Medford roads.
Perhaps she might have pined for companions of her own age, but that fortune had provided her with some near by. At the entrance of the lane where she lived, but fronting on a wider thoroughfare, was the house of Mrs. Wilson, a widow of good means and family,who filled less than her proper space among her own connections, for she went out but little, being engrossed with the care and education of her two delicate little boys to a degree which rendered her fatiguing as a companion—the poorness of their physical constitutions, and the excellence of their moral natures, being her one unending theme. They were not strong enough for the most private of schools, and were too good to be exposed to its temptations, and always had a governess at home.
"Henny" and "Cocky" Wilson—their names were Henry and Cockburn, and their light red hair, combed into scanty crests on top of their heads, had suggested these soubriquets—were the amusement of their mother's contemporaries, and the scorn of their own. A hundred tales were told of them: as, how when Mrs. Wilson first came home from abroad, where she had lived long after her husband's death there, she brought her boys to Sunday-school, with the audible request to the superintendent that as they were such good little children, they might, if possible, be placed among those of similar, if not equal, qualities; thereby provoking the whole school for the next month to a riotous behaviour which poor Mr. Milliken found it difficult to subdue.
Mrs. Wilson's friends made some efforts to induce their boys to be friendly with hers, withthe result that one July evening, Eugene Talbot, a bright-eyed, curly-haired little dare-devil, who led the revels, patronisingly invited them to join a swimming party after dark in the reservoir which supplied Medford with water—one of those illegal, delicious sprees which to look back on stirs the blood of age. Henny and Cocky gave no answer till they had gone, as in duty bound, to consult their mother, who replied: "My dears, I think this would be a very uncomfortable amusement. Should you not enjoy much more taking a bath in our own bathroom, with plenty of soap and hot-water?" It required a great effort of self-control on Eugene's part not to knock the heads of the two together when they reported their mother's opinion to himverbatim; but he had the feeling that it would be as mean to hit one of the Wilsons as to hit a girl, and he only sent them to Coventry, where they grew up, apparently careless. They were content at home, and they could now and then play with Lucy Morton, who had contrived to make their acquaintance through the garden fence, and who, though three years younger than Cocky, the youngest, was quite as advanced in every way.
When Mrs. Richard Reed, the social leader of the town, tired of taking her children into Boston to Papanti's dancing-class, prevailed upon the great man to come out and open onein Medford, she could not be over-particular in her selection of applicants, the requisite number being hard to make up; but when she opened a note signed, "Sarah C. Morton," asking admission for the writer's granddaughter, she paused doubtfully. "It is a queerly written note, but it looks like a lady's somehow," she said, consulting her privy council.
"Oh, that is old Mrs. Morton, who comes to our church, don't you know? They are very respectable, quiet people. I don't believe there's any harm in the little girl," said adviser number one.
"She is a pretty, well-behaved child. I have noticed her at Sunday-school," added councillor number two.
"She is a sweet little thing," said Mrs. Wilson, who was present, though not esteemed of any use in the matter. "My dear boys sometimes play with her, and are so fond of her, and they would not like any little girl who was not nice."
"Oh, well, she can come!" said Mrs. Reed, dashing off a hasty consenting line, and thinking, "She will do to dance with Henny and Cocky; none of the other girls will care to, I imagine, and I don't want to hurt the old lady's feelings. What can have made her think of asking?"
It will easily be guessed that Miss Lucy hadbeen the instigator of this daring move. She had begun by asking her grandfather, who never refused her anything, and backed by his sanction had succeeded in persuading her grandmother, who wrote an occasional letter, but who hardly knew what a note was, to sit down and write one to Mrs. Reed. So to the dancing-school she went, alone; for neither grandmother, aunts, nor cousin ever dreamed of accompanying her. But she felt no fears. She was a pretty little girl, and took to dancing as a duck to water; but she did not presume on the popularity these qualities might have won her with the older boys, but patiently devoted herself to Henny and Cocky and the younger fry, whom Mr. Papanti was only too glad to consign to her skilful pilotage. Their mothers approved of her, especially after she had asked Mrs. Reed, with many blushes, "if she might not sit near her, when she was not dancing?" "I have to come alone," she added shyly, "for my dear grandmamma is so old, you know, and my aunt is far from strong." Both of these women could have done a good day's washing, and slept soundly for nine hours after it; but of this Mrs. Reed knew nothing, and pronounced Lucy a charming child, with such sweet manners, took her home when it rained, and asked her to her next juvenile party.
It was an easy step from this to Lucy Morton at one-and-twenty, where her quick backward glance next lighted, the popular favourite of the best "set" of girls in Medford, and extending her easy flight beyond under the drilling chaperonage of their mammas. She pleased all she met of whatever age or sex, though to more dangerous distinctions she made no pretensions. She had early learned the great secret of popularity, so rarely understood at any age, that people do not want to admire you—they want you to admire them. No one called Lucy Morton a beauty; but it was wonderful how many beauties were numbered among her intimate friends, how many compliments they received, what hosts of admirers they had, and how brilliant, clever, and full of promise were these admirers. Indeed, after a dance or a talk with Miss Morton, the young men could not help thinking so themselves.
As for Lucy, she was early consigned by public opinion to one or other of the Wilsons. Henny and Cocky had miraculously survived their mother's coddling and clucking, and had kept alive through college and professional training, though looking as if it had been a hard struggle. Henny had, at the period on which his wife was now dwelling, returned from his medical studies at Vienna, whileCocky still lingered in Paris studying architecture.
There was very little opening for Dr. Henry Wilson in his native town; but his mother would have been wretched had he gone anywhere else. He set up an office in her house, and his friends said it was a good thing he had money enough to live on, for really none of them could be expected to call him in. He practised among the poor, who seemed to like him; but of course they could not afford to be particular.
He would be a very good match for Lucy Morton, if not for any girl of his own circle. They lived close by each other and had always been intimate; and she was such a sweet, amiable girl, just the one to put up with Mrs. Wilson's tiresome ways! If her relations were scarcely up to the Wilson claims, at least they were quiet and harmless, and would probably leave her a little money.
With such reasoning did all the neighbouring matrons allay their anxieties as to their favourite's future. Their daughters dissented. The latter had gradually come to perceive that Lucy had no intentions of the kind. Not one of them but thought her justified in looking higher, and not one envious or grudging comment was spoken or even thought when they began to regard her as destined for EugeneTalbot—not even by those, and they were many, who themselves cherished a budding preference for Eugene, a flirt in a harmless, careless way. Everyone allowed that his attentions this time were serious. How naturally, how irresistibly, the pleasing conviction stole upon Lucy's own heart!
Mrs. Wilson, a wife of many years, here sprang to her feet, with her heart beating hard, and her cheeks flushing scarlet with shame. So would they flush on her death-bed, if the remembrance of that time came to disturb her then—the only time when her prudence had for once failed, the only time when she had trusted any one but herself, when she had really, truly, been so sure that Eugene Talbot loved her, that she had let others see she thought so. She had disclaimed, indeed, all knowledge of his devotion, but she had disclaimed it with a blushing cheek and conscious smile, like a little—little—oh,whata little fool!
There was no open wound to her pride to resent. He had never spoken out plainly, and no mere attentions from an emperor would have won a premature response from Miss Morton; nor was it possible for her to betray her preference to anyone else. How she found out, as early and as surely as she did, that his hour for speaking was never to come, was marvellous even to herself; but she wasclairvoyant, so to speak, so fully did she extract from those who surrounded her all they knew, and much they did not know. Before Eugene's engagement to Mabel Andrews was a fixed fact, before Mabel herself knew it was to come, she did, and took her measures accordingly.
One terrible, long afternoon she spent in her own room behind closed shutters, seeing even then, in the darkness, Eugene, proud and handsome, breathing words of love in the Andrews's beautiful blossoming garden among all the flowers of May, while a glow of rapturous surprise lighted up Mabel's sweet, impassive face. It might have been some consolation to another girl to know her own superiority, and to feel sure that Eugene was marrying the amiable, refined, utterly commonplace Miss Andrews with the view to the push her highly placed relatives could, and doubtless would, give him in his business; but the knowledge only added a sting to Lucy's sufferings. She bore them silently, tasting their full bitterness, and then left the room, the very little bit of girlishness in her composition gone forever, but still ready to draw from life the gratifications proper to maturer years. She could imagine that revenge might not lose its taste with time, and she had already some faint conception of the form hers might take.
She walked down the lane and far enough along the street to turn about and be overtaken by Dr. Wilson on his way home. Of course he stopped to speak to her, and then walked a little way up the lane with her; and when Miss Morton once had Dr. Wilson all to herself in acul-de-sac, it was impossible for him to help proposing to her if she were inclined to have him. Indeed, he was much readier at the business than she had expected. In an hour both families knew all about it; and the next day the engagement was "out," to the excitement of their whole world. It was such a romantic affair—childish attachment—Henry Wilson so deeply in love, and so hopeless of success, his feelings accidentally betrayed at last! On these details dilated all Lucy's young friends. They did not think they could ever have loved him themselves, but they admired her for doing so. When, some time after, the grander but less interesting match between the Talbot and Andrews clans was announced, it chiefly roused excitement as having doubtless been the result of pique on Eugene's part—an idea to which his subdued appearance gave some colour; and he was pitied accordingly.
His wedding was a quiet one, overshadowed by the glories of Lucy's. No one would have dreamed of her grandparents doing the thingwith such magnificence; but they were so surprised and pleased, for to them the Wilson connection was a lofty one; and Mrs. Wilson was so flatteringly eager and delighted, that Lucy found them pliant to her will. Her grandfather unhesitatingly put at her disposal a larger sum than his yearly expenditure had ever amounted to; and her exquisite taste in using it made her wedding a spectacle to be remembered, and conferring distinction on everyone who assisted in the humblest capacity, while still each one of these had the flattering conviction that without his or her presence the whole thing would have been a failure. The bride of ten years back could not but recall with approval her own demeanour on the occasion, when, "as one in a dream, pale and stately she went," the very personification of feeling too deep to be stirred by the unregarded trifles of her wedding pomp.
The tale of the ensuing years she ran briefly over, for it was one of uncheckered prosperity. Dr. Wilson's reputation had steadily grown. Hardly a year after his marriage he had successfully performed the operation of tracheotomy upon a patient almostin articulo mortis; and although it was only on the ninth child of an Irish labourer, it got into all the newspapers, and ran the rounds of all circles. It was wonderful how such cases came in his way afterthat, till no one in town dreamed of calling in anyone else for a sore throat; the other physicians being, as Mrs. Henry Wilson was wont to say, "very good general practitioners,but—" At thirty-five he had an established fame as a specialist, with an immense consulting practice extending all over and about Boston, his personal disadvantages forgotten in the prestige of his marvellous skill, indeed, rather enhancing it.
He took his successes very indifferently; but his wife showed a loving pride in them, too simple and too well controlled to excite envy, gently checking his mother's more outspoken exultation, and backing him up in his refusal of all solicitations to move into Boston, well knowing his constitution could never stand a town life. Money was now less of an object to him than ever. Lucy's grandfather had died in peace and honour, leaving a much larger estate than any one had dreamed possible. The lane had been extended into a road, and the cow pasture had been cut up into building lots. All the Morton property had risen in value, and all was one day to be Lucy's; and on the very prettiest spot in it she now lived, in a charming house designed (with her assistance) by her brother-in-law, that rising young architect, Cockburn Wilson, so strikingly original, and so delightfully convenient,that photographs and plans of it were circulated in every direction, bringing the architect more orders than he wanted or needed; for though with not much more to boast of in the way of looks than his brother, he had made another amazing stroke of Wilson luck in marrying that great heiress, Miss Jenny Diman. She was a heavy, shy young person, who had been educated in foreign convents, and had missed her proper duty of marrying a foreign nobleman by being called suddenly home to settle her estate. She had taken a fancy to the clever, amusing Mrs. Wilson, had visited her, and found the littlepartie carréeat her pretty house delightful, she hardly knew why; but it was evident that her hostess's married life was most successful, and Lucy told her that dear Cockburn had in him the making of as devoted a husband as dear Henry.
Dear Cockburn for some time showed no eagerness to exercise his latent powers; but his delicacy in addressing so great an heiress once overcome, swelled into heroic proportions, and made the love affairs of two extremely plain and quiet people into a wildly romantic drama. They seemed surprised, but well content, when they found themselves settled in their pretty home, still prettier than Dr. Wilson's, because it showed yet newer ideas; and Mrs. Cockburn Wilson, who had never knownsociety, developed a taste for it, which her sister-in-law well knew how to direct.
Lucy's active mind had just run down the stream of time to the present, and was boldly projecting itself forward into the future, and the throbbing pulses her one painful memory had raised were subsiding in the soothing task of planning the decorations for a dinner party for which Jenny's invitations were already out. She had just decided that it would make a good winter effect to fill all Jenny's lovely Benares brass bowls with red carnations, when her husband entered the room.
The crest of sandy locks, which had won Dr. Wilson his boyish title, had thinned and faded now. It was difficult to say of what colour it had been; and his face was of no colour at all. He had no salient points, and won attention chiefly by always looking very tired. This evening he looked doubly so. "Dear Henry, I am so glad!" cried his wife, springing up to give him an affectionate embrace. "You will have something to eat?" and, as he nodded silently, she rang the bell twice, the only signal needed at any hour to produce an appetising little meal at once; and she herself waited on him while he ate.
"How is the little boy?" she asked timidly.
"Very low."
"Are you going back?"
"Directly. I am going to operate as soon as Stevens gets there. I have telephoned for him."
"Is there any hope?"
"Can't say."
"Can I do anything?"
"You might come and take the other children home with you—all but the baby."
"I can just as well have her too."
"I would rather have her there; her mother needs her."
"Yes, I suppose you don't want Mabel in the room while the operation is going on."
"I don't want her there at all. She's of no use."
"Poor thing!"
"She can't help it."
"Could I do anything there? If I can, Jenny will take the children, I know."
"No, there's no need of that." The doctor threw out his sentences between mouthfuls of food automatically taken from a plate replenished by his wife.
"What nurse have they?"
"They've had Nelly Fuller—she is a very fair one; but of course they need two now, and one of them first rate, so I got Julia Mitchell for them."
"Julia! but how ever could you make Mrs. Sypher give her up?"
"I had no trouble."
"And how can the Talbots ever manage to pay her?"
"That will be all right. I told them she would not expect her full price for such a short engagement, in a gap between two others. I settled it with her myself beforehand, of course."
"I am very glad you did," said Lucy, with another loving caress, which he hardly seemed to notice. He looked at his watch, and told her she had better hurry and change her dress. In five minutes they walked together down the street under the beautiful arch of leafless elms, where the snowy air brought glowing roses into Lucy's cheeks, and an elastic spring into her tread. Her husband shrank up closer inside his fur-lined coat, and slipped a case he had taken from his study from one cold hand to another.
"I hope the children will be ready," from her; "Julia will see to that," from him,—were all the words that passed between them on their way.
The Talbot house was but a few streets off. Lucy did not often enter it; but the picture of battered, faded prettiness it presented, taken in at a few glances, and heightened each time it was seen, was deeply stamped on her mind. There was no spare money to keep up appearanceshere. Mabel's father had been unfortunate in his investments and extravagant in his expenditures, and died a poor man, while her relations had grown tired of helping Eugene, whose business talents had not fulfilled their early promise. He always seemed, somehow, to miss in his calculations.
What little order there now was in the place was due to the energetic rule of Julia Mitchell, already felt from garret to cellar. By her care the three little girls were dressed and ready, and were hanging, eager and excited, round their mother, who sat, her baby on her lap, with tear-washed cheeks and absent gaze, all pretence to the art of dress abandoned. She hardly looked up as her beautiful, richly clad visitor entered; but when she felt the tender pressure of the hand that Lucy silently extended, she gave way to a fresh burst of grief.
"Stevens here? asked Dr. Wilson, aside, of Miss Mitchell.
"Yes, sir; he's upstairs; and Miss Fuller, and Mr. Talbot—he'ssome use, and the boy wants him. I don't believe you'll ever get him to take the ether unless his papa's 'round; and I thought, if Miss Fuller would stay outside and look afterher?"
"Certainly."
"Then, if Mrs. Wilson will take the others off, why, the sooner the better."
The doctor looked at his wife, who was quick to respond, though with her whole soul she longed to stay. She wanted to see Eugene; to know how he was taking it; to hear him say something to her, no matter what; to give him the comfort and support his wife was evidently past giving; and then, she wanted to see her husband as nearly as possible at the moment he had saved the child's life. She did not let the thought that he might fail enter her mind,—not in this case, the crowning case of his life! For this alone he had toiled, and she had striven. She gave his hand one hard squeeze, as if to make him catch some of the passionate longing of her heart, and then drew back with the fear that it might weaken rather than strengthen his nerve. He looked as immobile as ever; and she turned to take the children's little hands in hers.
"Oh, Lucy!" faltered out her successful rival, "how good of you! I can't tell you—it does not seem as if it could be true that my beautiful Eugene—" Here another burst of sobs shook her all over. Lucy's own tears, as she kissed the poor mother, were bright in her eyes, but they did not fail. She led the two older girls silently away, and young Dr. Walker, who had been standing in the background, followed with the third in his arms, his cool business air, just tempered by a proper considerationfor the parents' feelings, covering his inward excitement at this first chance of assisting the great physician at an operation. As he helped the pretty Mrs. Wilson, adored of all her husband's pupils, into her handsome carriage, which had come for her, and settled his little charge on her lap, he was astonished, and even awe-struck, to see that she was crying. "I never thought," he said to himself, "that Mrs. Wilson had so much feeling! but to be sure she has a boy just this little fellow's age!"
At nine o'clock, the Talbot children, weary of the delights of that earthly paradise, Harry Wilson's nursery, had been put to bed, and Lucy was waiting for her husband. She looked anxiously at his face when he came, but it told her nothing.
"How—is he?" she faltered out at last.
"Can't tell as yet."
"Was the operation successful?"
"Yes, that was all right enough."
"And how soon shall you know if he's likely to rally?"
"Impossible to say."
"Any bad signs?"
"No, nothing apparent as yet."
"You must be very tired," she said, with a tender, unnoticed touch of her hand to his forehead.
"Not very."
"Have you been there all this time?"
"No, I have made one or two other calls. I was there again just now."
"Do have some tea," said Lucy, striking a match and lighting the alcohol lamp under her little brass kettle, to prepare the cup of weak, sugarless, creamless tea, the only luxury of taste which the doctor, otherwise rigidly keeping to a special unvaried regimen, allowed himself; and while he sipped it languidly, she watched him intently. If only he would say anything without being asked! But she could not wait.
"How is Mabel?"
"Very much overcome."
"She has no self-control."
"She is fairly worn out."
"I am glad Julia is there."
"Yes, I should not feel easy unless she were. But Talbot himself behaved very well. He is more of a hand with the boy than the mother is. He seems bound up in him."
"Poor fellow!" said Lucy, sympathetically. Her husband did not respond. "You had better go to bed, dear, and get some sleep," she went on. "You must need it."
"I told Julia I would be there before six," said Dr. Wilson, rising. "She must get some rest then. So if you'll wake me at five—"
"Of course," said Lucy, who was as certain and much more agreeable than an alarm clock; "and now go to sleep, and forget it all. You have had a hard day, you poor fellow!"
The doctor threw his arm round his wife, as she nestled closer to him, and they turned with a common impulse to the next room, where there own only child lay sleeping. Father and mother stood long without a word, looking at the bright-haired boy, whose healthy breathing came and went without a sound or a quiver; but when the mother turned to go, the father lingered still. She did not wait for him, for her exquisite tact could allow for shyness in a husband as well as in anyone else, and she had no manner of jealousy of it. If he wanted to say his prayers, or shed a few tears, or go through any other such sentimental performance which he would feel ashamed to have her witness, why, by all means let him have the chance; and she kept on diligently brushing her rich, dark hair, that he might not find her waiting.
There was no dramatic scene when little Eugene Talbot was declared out of danger; it came gradually as blessings are apt to do; but after Dr. Wilson had informed his wife day after day for a week that the child was "no worse," he began to report him as "a little better," and finally somewhat grudgingly toallow that with care there was no reason why he should not recover. By early springtime the little fellow was playing about in the sun and air; his sisters had been sent home all well and blooming, with many a gift from Mrs. Wilson, and their wardrobes bearing everywhere traces of her dainty handiwork; the mother had overflowed in tearful thanks, and the father had struggled to speak his in vain.
"I wish I knew how small I could decently make Talbot's fee," said Dr. Wilson, as he sat at his desk, in a half-soliloquising tone, but still designed to catch his wife's ear, and win her judicious advice.
But it was not till after he had repeated the words, that she said without raising her head from her work, while her fingers ran nervously on, "I will tell you what I should do."
"Well?" as she paused.
"I should make out my bill for the usual amount, and send it in receipted. Won't you, Henry? I wish you would, so very, very much!" she went on, surprised at the dawning of a look she had never seen before on his face.
"That would be hardly treating him like a gentleman," he began; and then suddenly, "Lucy, how can you keep up such a grudge against Eugene Talbot?"
Lucy's work dropped, and she sat lookingfull at him, her pretty face white as ashes, and her eyes dilated as if she had heard a voice from the grave.
"I know," he resumed, "that he has injured you on the tenderest point on which a man can injure a woman, but surely you should have got over thinking of that by this time. Is it noble, is it Christian to bear malice so long? Can't you be satisfied without crowding down the coals of fire so very hard upon his head? I never," went on Dr. Wilson, reflectively, "did like that passage, though it is in the Bible."
"Oh, Henry!"
"Put it on a lower ground. Is it just to me? Do you owe me nothing? I don't forget how much I owe you. You have made the better part of what little reputation I have; you are proud of it; you would like to have me more so. But do you suppose I can feel pride in anything earthly, while another man has the power so to move my wife? You may think you do not love him now; but where you make a parade of forgiveness, resentment lingers; and where revenge is hot, love is still warm."
"Then you knew it all?" gasped Lucy; "but how—how could you ever want to marry me?"
"Because, my dear, I loved you—all the time—too well not to be thankful to get youon any terms. I gave you credit for too much good sense and high principle to let yourself care for him when you were once married; and—I am but a poor creature, God knows! but I hoped I could win your love in time. There, my dear, don't! I knew I could! I am very sure I did."
He raised her head from where she had buried it among the sofa pillows, and let her weep out a flood of the bitterest tears she had ever shed, on his shoulder. It was long before she could check them enough to murmur, "Forgive me—only forgive me!"
"Dearest, we will both of us forget it."
"Mr. Talbot wants to see you, ma'am."
"Is the doctor out?"
"Yes, ma'am. He did not ask for the doctor. He said he wanted to speak to you for a minute."
"Show him into the library, and tell anyone else who calls that I am engaged for a few moments."
Mrs. Wilson hastened downstairs, to find her visitor rather nervously turning over the books on her table. Eugene's once bright chestnut curls were as thin now as Henry Wilson's sandy locks, and his attire was elegant with an effort, though he still kept his fine eyes and winning smile.
"Won't you sit down?"
"No, thank you. I only came—I have not much time—I came on business—if you are not too much engaged?"
"Not at all," said Lucy, quietly seating herself, which seemed to soothe her companion's nerves.
He sat down, too, and began abruptly, "I cannot begin to tell you how much we owe to your husband!"
"We have both sympathised so much in your sorrow and anxiety! If he could do anything at all, I am sure he is only too glad, and so am I."
"It was not only his saving our child's life, but he has done—I can't tell you what he has done for us in every way, as if he had been a brother—"
Lucy raised her head proudly, with a glad light in her eyes. Eugene looked at her a moment, and then went on with a sigh; "I couldn't say this to him, but I must to you, though of course you don't need any praise I can give him to tell you what he is."
"No," said Lucy, "it is the greatest happiness of my life to know it—it would be if no one else did; not but what it is very pleasant to have him appreciated," she added, smiling.
"I know," said Eugene, now growing red and confused, "that no recompense could everexpress all we felt. Such services as his are not to be bought with a price, but I could not feel satisfied if I did not give him all that was in my power. I shall never rest till I have done so,—but—the fact is," he hurried on desperately, "I know his charges are very small—they seem ridiculously so for a man of his reputation—but the fact is, I am unable just now to meet all my obligations; the ill-health of my family has been terribly expensive—I must ask a little time—I am ashamed to do so, but I can do it better from him than from anyone else—and from you."
"Oh, don't mention it!" cried Lucy, eagerly, "the sum is a mere trifle to us; it would not matter if we never had it. To whom should you turn to be helped or understood, if not to old friends like us?"
"I hope to be able to pay all my just debts, and this among the first."
"Oh, of course! but don't feel the least bit hurried about it! Henry will never think of it till the time comes. He always forgets all about his bills when they are once out. Wait till it is perfectly convenient."
"Thank you," said Eugene huskily; "you are all goodness. I have not deserved this of you." He had already risen to go: but as he drew near the door he turned back: "Oh, Lucy, don't believe I was ever quite as heartlessas I seemed. I know I treated you in a scoundrelly way, but I loved you all the time—indeed, indeed, I did."
"Stop, Mr. Talbot! This is no language for you to use! If you have no regard for me, recollect at least what is due to your wife."
"I have nothing to say against Mabel. She's a dear good girl, a great deal too good for me. It isn't her fault that things have gone against me. I always felt it was to pay me up for my conduct to you. I loved you as well as I ever could love anyone; but I was a selfish brute, and thought to better myself in the world—"
"Stop, Mr. Talbot! I ought not to hear any more of this! I was too much overcome by surprise at first to check you, but now I must ask you to leave me at once if you cannot control yourself."
"I haven't a word to say that need offend you," said Eugene, humbly. "I only wanted to ask you to forgive me for old time's sake."
"There is nothing I know of for me to forgive. I am sorry, for your own sake, to hear that you ever had such feelings. I never dreamed of them."
"It seemed to me as if you could not help knowing."
"Indeed? I don't remember," said Mrs. Wilson, smiling. "I was so engrossed with my own affairs then, you see," she added withengaging candour; "and if I thought about you, I supposed you were the same. You can understand, after what you have seen of Henry, how little attention a girl who loved him would have to spare for anyone else."
Eugene assented absently. He was unable to discipline his wandering memory, which just then was vividly picturing Lucy Morton at her prettiest, as with a sparkle in her eye and a curl on her lip she had, for the amusement of them both, flung some gentle sarcasm at "Henny Wilson." He could still hear her ringing laugh at his affected jealousy of her neighbour. But those days were past, and there before him sat Mrs. Wilson, her face lighted up with earnest emotion, grown more lovely still, and her voice thrilling with a deeper music. He allowed with a pang of mortification that he was not as clever as he had supposed himself in sounding the depths of womankind; and then with keener shame he stifled his incredulous doubts of Dr. Wilson's being able to win and keep love. "He deserves it all," he said aloud, while still a secret whisper told him that love does not go by desert.
"Does he not?" said Lucy. "And now we will not talk of this any more. You must know how glad we are to be able to give you any little help, and you must be willing to takeit as freely as it is given. I am very sure that brighter days are coming for Mabel and you; and when they do, we will all enjoy them together, will we not?"
"You are an angel," said Eugene, taking the hand she held out; and then he let it go and turned away without another word. Lucy stood looking after him a longer time than she usually allowed herself to waste in revery; and then, starting, hastened off intent on household duties.
"Why are these boots in such a condition?" she asked, in a more emphatic tone than was her wont to use to her servants, as a muddy pair in her back entry caught her eye.
"I am very sorry, ma'am. I brought them down here to be cleaned, but Crossman has gone, as you ordered, to take Mrs. Talbot a little drive, and James is out with the doctor somewhere, and there are two clean pair in his dressing-room. Shall I black these, ma'am?" inquired the highly trained parlour maid, who would have gone down on her very knees to scrub the stable floor at a hint that such a proceeding might be agreeable to Dr. Wilson.
"Oh, no; never mind," said her mistress, carelessly; but when the girl had gone, she stooped and, picking up the boots, bore them to her own room, and bringing blacking also,cleaned and blacked them all over in the neatest manner, with her own delicate hands.
"I know I'm not worthy to black Henry's boots," she thought to herself, as a tear or two, which she made haste to rub away, dropped on their polished surface; "but I can do them well, at least. No one shall ever say that I have not made him a good wife!"