CHAPTER XVII.WHERE EDNA WENT.
To Canandaigua first, but not to the seminary, nor yet the jeweller’s, as she had once thought of doing. She had heard from her aunt that Mr. Greenough was paid, and she shrank from meeting him face to face, or from seeing any of her old friends. So she sat quietly in the ladies’ room, waiting for the first train going east, and thinking it would never come. She had bought her ticket for Albany, but, with her thick black veil drawn closely over her face, the ticket agent never suspected that she was the gay, light-hearted girl he used sometimes to see at the station,and who recently had become so noted for the tragic ending of her marriage.
No one recognized her, for it was not the hour when the seminary girls were ever at the depot, and when, at last, the train came and took her away with it, nobody was the wiser for her having been there.
Andwherewas she going? Have you, my reader, ever crossed the mountain range between Pittsfield and Albany? And if you have, do you remember how many little villages you saw, some to the right, some to the left, and all nestled among and sheltered by those tall mountains and rocky hills, with here and there a stream of water, as clear and bright as crystal, rippling along under the shadow of the willow and the birch, or dancing headlong down some declivity?
Edna was bound for one of these towns, where Uncle Phil Overton had lived for many years. He was her great uncle on her mother’s side, though she had never heard of him until she met her cousin, Mrs. Dana, in Chicago. Mrs. Dana had known Mr. Overton well, and had lived with him for a few months while she taught in the little academy which stood upon the common. He was an eccentric old man, who for years had lived among the mountains, in the same yellow farm-house, a mile, or more, from the village, which represented to him the world, and which we call Rocky Point.
Edna could not tell why her thoughts kept turning to Uncle Phil as they did. In her utter despair, while listening to Aunt Jerry’s abusive greeting, her heart had cried out:
“Oh, what shall I do?”
“Go to Uncle Phil,” was the answer which came to her cry, and she had clung to that as a drowning man to a straw.
Mrs. Dana had said he was kind and generous, if you touched the right chord. He had no wife, or children, but lived alone with a colored woman, who had been in the family for years. He was getting to be old,—sixty, if not more,—and,perhaps, he would be glad of some young creature in the house, or, at all events, would let her stay till she could look about and find something to do. Maybe she could teach in the academy. Mrs. Dana had done so, and Edna felt that her acquirements were certainly equal to those of her cousin. And so she was going to Rocky Point, and Albany lay in her way, and she stopped there until Monday, and took her watch and coral to a jeweller’s, and asked what they were worth.
It was a beautiful little watch, and the chain was of exquisitely wrought gold; and, as the jeweller chanced to be an honest man, he told her frankly what it was worth, but said, as it was second-hand, he could not dispose of it so readily, and consequently could not afford to give her quite so much as if it were new. Edna accepted his offer, and, with a bitter pang, left the watch and coral lying in the glass case, and, going back to the hotel, wrote a letter to Roy, and sent him one hundred dollars.
How near Roy seemed to her there in Albany, which was not so very far from Leighton Place, and how she was tempted to take the New York train, and go to Charlie’s home; not into it, but to the town, where she could see it and visit Charlie’s grave. But a few moments’ reflection showed her the inexpediency of such an act. She had no money to waste in useless trips. She should need it all, and more, unless Uncle Phil opened his door to her; and so she put the scheme aside, and took, instead, the Boston train, which long before noon left her upon the platform at Rocky Point. Everybody knew Uncle Phil Overton, and half a dozen or more answered her questions at once, and wondered who she was, and what the queer old chap would do with such a dainty bit of femininity as she seemed to be. One man, a farmer, whose road homeward lay past the Overton place, offered to take her there, and she was soon ridingalong through scenery so wild and romantic, even in early December, as to elicit from her many an exclamation of surprise and delight, while her fingers fairly ached to grasp her pencil and paper and sketch some of the beautiful views with which the neighborhood abounded. The man was very respectful, but rather inquisitive; and as his curiosity was in no wise abated by the sight of her glowing face when, at the top of a hill, she threw back her veil, and asked him to stop a moment while she gazed at the scenery around her, he began to question her, and found that she was Phil Overton’s grand-niece, an orphan without friends, and that she had come to Rocky Point, hoping to find something to do. Did he know whether they were in want of a teacher in the academy, and did any of the scholars take lessons in drawing or music? She could teach both, though drawing was her preference.
Mr. Belknap was very sorry to tell her that the old academy was closed,—“played out,” he said; and the “Deestrict” School had been commenced for a week, or more. “But then,” he added, as he saw the look of disappointment on Edna’s face, “maybe we could scare up a s’leck school. We had one last winter, kep’ by a man in a room of the academy; but he was a poor stick, and the boys raised the very old Harry with him. They wouldn’t with you, a slip of a girl. Ain’t you pretty young to teach?”
“Yes, perhaps so; but I must do something,” Edna replied.
She did not tell him she was a widow; and, seeing her clothed in so deep mourning, the man naturally concluded it was for her parents, and he began to feel a deep interest in her, telling her she might count on his children if she opened a school; that he would also help her to get scholars, if needful, and then he asked if she had any idea of the kind of man Uncle Phil Overton was. Something in Mr. Belknap’squestion set Edna’s heart to beating rapidly, but before she could reply, they turned the corner in the road and came close to the house.
“I wish you success with Uncle Phil,” Mr. Belknap said, as he handed Edna from the wagon and deposited her trunk upon the stoop. “Maybe I and the girls will drop in to-night and see how you get on,” he added, as he climbed over the wheel, and chirruping to his horse, drove off, leaving Edna standing by the door, whose huge brass knocker sent back a dull, heavy echo, but did not for some little time bring any answering response.