EDNA BROWNING;OR,The Leighton Homestead.
EDNA BROWNING;OR,The Leighton Homestead.
EDNA BROWNING;OR,The Leighton Homestead.
EDNA BROWNING;
OR,
The Leighton Homestead.
CHAPTER I.ROY, OUR HERO.
“Robert, son of Arthur and Anna Leighton, born April 5th, 18——,” was the record which the old family Bible bore of our hero’s birth, parentage, and name, but by his mother and those who knew him best, he was always calledRoy, and by that name we introduce him to our readers on a pleasant morning in May, when, wrapped in a heavy shawl, he sat in a corner of a car with a tired, worn look upon his face, and his teeth almost chattering with the cold.
A four-month’s acquaintance with the chill fever, taken at the time the river rose so high, and he worked all day to save some of his tenants who lived along the meadows, had wasted him to a shadow, and he was on his way to the West, hoping that change of air and scene would accomplish what bottles and bottles of quinine, with all the usual remedies for fever and ague, had failed to do.
Beside him sat his mother, a fair-haired, proud-faced little lady of fifty, or more, who conducted herself with a dignitybecoming the mistress of Leighton Homestead, her son’s beautiful home on the Hudson.
Anna Leighton had been much younger than her husband, and at the time of her marriage there were rumors of another suitor in whose brown beard there were no threads of gray, and of whom Mr. Leighton had been fearfully jealous. If this were true, it accounted in part for his strange will, by which only a small portion of his large fortune was left to his wife, who was to forfeit even this in the event of a second marriage. In her case, love proved more potent than gold, and, two years after her husband’s death, she married Charlie Churchill, who made up in family and blood what he lacked in lands and money. There was a trip to Europe, adolce far nientedream of happiness for eighteen months amid the glories of the eastern hemisphere, and then, widowed a second time, Anna Churchill came one dreary autumn day to the Leighton Place, on the river side, where, six months after, she gave birth to a little boy, for whom Roy, then a mere lad, stood as one of the sponsors in the old ivy-grown church at the foot of the hill.
Since that time, Mrs. Churchill had lived at the Leighton Homestead, and been, with her younger son, altogether dependent upon her eldest born, who had made her, to all intents and purposes, the honored and welcome mistress of his house. Only one sore point was there between them, and that was handsome and winning, but unprincipled Charlie,—who, looking upon his brother’s fortune as his own, would, if uncontrolled, have spent it with a recklessness which would soon have brought the Leighton Homestead under the auctioneer’s hammer.
Charlie was a spoiled boy, the neighbors said; and when, at sixteen, he coolly appropriated his brother’s gold watch, together with a hundred dollars in money, and went off to Canada, “to travel and see a little of the world,” theyshook their heads, and said Roy would be justified in never taking him again into favor.
But Roy did not think so, and when Charlie had fished all summer among the Thousand Islands, and spent his hundred dollars, and pawned his watch, and fallen sick in Montreal, Roy went for the young scamp, who cried like a child at sight of him, and called him “a brick,” and a “dear old Roy,” and promised he would never be bad again, and in proof thereof would, if Roy said so, join the church, or take a class in Sunday-school, or go through college, he did not care which. And so Roy took him to the Academy in Canandaigua, and said that to the teachers which resulted in Mr. Charlie’s being kept rather closer than was altogether agreeable to him. After a time, however, the strict surveillance was relaxed, and by his winning ways, he grew to be very popular with both teachers and pupils, and many a slight misdemeanor was winked at and overlooked, so powerfully did his soft blue eyes and pleasant smile plead for him.
At the time our story opens he had been in Canandaigua nearly a year and a half, and Mrs. Churchill and Roy were intending to stop for a day at the hotel and visit him. There were but few passengers in the car occupied by Roy and his mother, and these were mostly of the quiet, undemonstrative kind, who nodded in their seats, or read the newspaper, and accepted matters,airincluded, as they found them; consequently, poor Roy, who, shaking with ague, had a morbid dread of open windows, had for hours luxuriated in an atmosphere which made a group of young girls exclaim with disgust, when at a station thirty miles or so from Canandaigua they came trooping in, their cheeks glowing with health and their eyes sparkling with excitement.
There were four of them, and appropriating the two seats directly opposite Roy, they turned one of them back, and to thegreat horror of the invalid opened both the windows, thereby letting in a gust of air which blew directly across Roy’s face, while Mrs. Churchill received an ugly cinder in her eye, which nearly blinded her. In blissful ignorance of the discomfort they were causing, or of the very uncomplimentary things the sick man and his mother were thinking, the girls chattered on, and the cool wind blew the ribbons on their hats far out behind, and tossed their veils airily, and lifted the golden brown curls of the one who seemed to be the life of the party, and who talked the most, and kept the others shrieking with laughter, while her bright eyes glanced rapidly around the car, noting everything and everybody, until at last they lighted upon the pair just across the aisle, Mrs. Churchill working away at the obstinate cinder, and Roy wrapping his shawl more closely about him, and wondering why girls would always persist in keeping the windows open when everybody else was freezing. Roy was not in a very amiable state of mind, and he showed it in his eyes, which flashed a savage glance at the girl with the curls of golden brown, whom her companions addressed as Edna. She was the worst of them all, for she had opened both the windows, and then with the exclamation that she was “roasted alive,” sat fanning herself briskly with the coquettish little hat she had taken from her head. As she met Roy’s angry glance, the smile which a moment before had wreathed her lips, vanished suddenly, and she looked at him curiously, as if half expecting him to speak. But Roy was silent for a time; then, as the bright, restless eyes of the offender kept meeting his own inquiringly, he mustered courage to say:
“Young lady, you’ll oblige me by shutting that window. Don’t you see I am catching cold?” and a loud sneeze attested to the truth of what he said.
It was not like Roy Leighton thus to address any one, and he repented of his surliness in an instant, and wishedhe might do something to atone. But it was now too late. He had shown himself a savage, and must abide the result.
The window was shut with a bang, and the gay laughter and merry talk were hushed for a time, while the girl called Edna busied herself with writing or drawing something upon a bit of paper, which elicited peals of laughter from her companions to whom it was shown. Roy could not help fancying that it in some way related to himself, and his mother thought the same, and was mentally styling them “a set of ill-bred, impertinent chits,” when the train stopped before the Canandaigua depot, where, as usual, a crowd of people was assembled. This was the destination of the girls, who, gathering up their satchels and parasols, hurried from the car in such haste that the bit of paper which had so much amused them was forgotten, and fluttered down at Mrs. Churchill’s feet. Her first impulse, as she stooped to pick it up, was to restore it to its owner, but when she saw what it was, she uttered an angry exclamation, and thrust it into her son’s hand, saying:
“Look, Roy, at the caricature the hussy has made of us.”
No man likes to be ridiculed, and Roy Leighton was not an exception, and the hot blood tingled in his pale cheeks as he saw a very correct likeness of himself, wrapped in a bundle of shawls, with his eyes cast reproachfully toward a shadowy group of girls across the aisle, while from his mouth issued the words, “Shut that window, miss. Don’t you see I am freezing?”
Beside him was his mother, her handkerchief to her eye, and the expression of her face exactly what it had been when she worked at the troublesome cinder. Instead of a hat, the mischievous Edna had perched a bonnet on Roy’s head, and under this abominable picture had written, “Miss Betty and her mother, as they looked on their travellingexcursion. Drawn by Edna Browning, Ont. Fem. Sem., May 10th.”
It was only a caricature; but so admirably was it done, and so striking was his own likeness in spite of the bonnet, that Roy could not help acknowledging to himself that Edna Browning was a natural artist; and he involuntarily began to feel an interest in the young girl who, if she could execute this sketch in so short a time, must be capable of better things. Still, mingled with this interest was a feeling of indignation that he should have been so insulted by a mere school-girl, and when, as he alighted from the car, he caught the flutter of her blue ribbons, and heard her merry laugh as she made her way through the crowd to the long flight of stairs, and then with her companions walked rapidly toward Main street, he felt a desire to box her ears, as she deserved that they should be boxed.
Thrusting the picture into his pocket, he conducted his mother through the crowd, and then looked about in quest of his brother, who was to have been there to meet them, and who soon appeared, panting for breath and apologizing for his delay.
“Professor Hollister wouldn’t let me out till the last minute, and then I stopped an instant to speak to some girls who came on this train. How are you, mother, and you, old Roy? I don’t believe I should have known you. That ague has given you a hard one, and made you shaky on your legs, hasn’t it? Here, lean on me, while we climb these infernally steep stairs. Mother, I’ll carry that satchel. What ails your eye? looks as if you’d been fighting. Here, this way. Don’t go into that musty parlor. Come on to No. —. I’ve got your rooms all engaged, the best in the hotel.”
And thus talking, with his invalid brother leaning on his arm, Charlie Churchill led the way to the handsome roomswhich overlooked the lake and the hills beyond. Roy was very tired, and he lay down at once, while his mother made some changes in her toilet, and from a travel-soiled, rather dowdy-looking woman in gray, was transformed into a fair, comely and stylish matron, whose rich black silk trailed far behind her, and whose frills of costly lace fell softly about her neck and plump white hands as she went in to dinner with Charlie, who was having a holiday, and who ordered claret and champagne, and offered it to those about him with as much freedom as if it was his money instead of his brother’s which would pay for it all.
Roy’s dinner was served in his room, and while waiting for it he studied Edna Browning’s sketch, which had a strange fascination for him, despite the pangs of wounded vanity he felt when he saw what a guy she had made of him.
“I wonder if I do look like that,” he said, and he went to the glass and examined himself carefully. “Yes, I do,” he continued. “Put a poke bonnet on me and the likeness is perfect, hollows in my cheeks, fretful expression and all. I’ve been sick and coddled, and petted until I’ve grown a complete baby, and a perfect boor, but there’s no reason why I need to look so confounded cross and ill-tempered, and I won’t either. Edna Browning has done me some good at least. I wonder who the little wretch is. Perhaps Charlie knows; she seems to be here at school.”
But Roy did not ask Charlie, for the asking would have involved an explanation, and he would a little rather not show his teasing brother the picture which he put away so carefully in his pocket-book. They drove that afternoon in the most stylish turnout the town afforded, a handsome open barouche, and Roy declined the cushion his mother suggested for his back, and only suffered her to spread his shawl across his lap instead of wrapping it around him to his chin. His overcoat and scarf were all he should need,he said, and he tried to sit up straight, and not look sick, as Charlie, who managed the reins himself, drove them through the principal streets of the town, and then out into the country for a mile or two.
On their way back they passed the seminary just as a group of girls came out accompanied by a teacher, and equipped apparently for a walk. There were thirty or more of them, but Roy saw only one, and of her he caught a glimpse, as she tossed back her golden brown curls and bowed familiarly to Charlie, whose hat went up and whose horses sheered just enough to make his mother utter an exclamation of fear. She, too, had recognized the wicked Edna by her dress, had seen the bow to Charlie, with Charlie’s acknowledgment of it, and when the gay horses were trotting soberly down the street, she asked,—
“Who was that girl you bowed to, Charlie? the bold-faced thing with curls, I mean.”
Now if she had left off that last, the chances are that Charlie would have told her at once, for he knew just whom she meant. A dozen of the girls had bowed to him, but he had had butonein his mind when he lifted his hat so gracefully, and it hurt him to hear her called “a bold-faced thing.” So he answered with the utmost nonchalance.
“I don’t know which one you mean. I bowed to them all collectively, and to no one individually. They are girls from the seminary.”
“Yes, I know; but I mean the one in blue with the long curls.”
“Big is she?” and Charlie tried to think.
“No, very small.”
“Dark face and turned-up nose?” was the next query.
“No, indeed; fair-faced, but as to her nose I did not notice. I think she was on the same car with us.”
“Oh, I guess you must mean Edna Browning. She’sshort, and has long curls,” and Charlie just touched his spirited horses, causing them to bound so suddenly as to jerk his mother’s head backward, making her teeth strike together with such force as to hurt her lip; but she asked no more questions with regard to Edna Browning, who had recognized in Charlie Churchill’s companions her fellow-passengers in the car, and was wondering if that dumpy woman and that muff of a man could be the brother and mother whom Charlie had said he was expecting when she met him that morning in the street.