CHAPTER XXIV.GEORGIE AND JACK.
Georgie staid in Chicago nearly two months, and for that sacrifice mentally arrogated to herself the right to a martyr’s crown, if not to be canonized as a saint. She had found Annie better than she expected, and that of itself was in some sort a grievance, as it implied undue anxiety, if not actual deception, on Jack’s part. In order to get her there, he had represented Annie as worse than she was, Georgie thought; and at first she was inclined to resent it, and made herself generally disagreeable, to Jack and Aunt Luna, but not to Annie, whose arms closed convulsively around her neck, and whose whole body quivered withemotion when she first saw her sister, and knew she had really come. For two days Georgie sat by her, continually gazing at her, and listening to her prattle, until there came a softer look into her face, and her eyes lost somewhat of their cold, haughty expression. Annie told her everything she could think of about Mrs. Churchill, who had gone, no one knew where, and about herself and her little joys, and griefs, and faults. Everything bad which she had done was confessed, her impatience and fretfulness, and the falsehoods she had told, and then with a faltering voice Annie said:
“I have asked Jesus to forgive, and I most know He has, for I don’t feel afraid of the dark any more, and I love to think He is here with me when my back aches, and I lies awake nights and can’t sleep a bit. And will you forgive me too, sister Georgie; and did you ever tells a lie, though in course you never. You’s always so good. I wonder what makes me bad? Do you know, sister Georgie?”
Oh, how abased and sinful Georgie felt while listening to this innocent little child, whose garment she was not worthy to touch, but who had exalted her so highly, and held her as something perfect. Perhaps she might have solved the mystery which troubled Annie so much as to what made her so given to the bad, when she wanted to be good. She might have told of blood, so tainted with deceit that a single drop of it in one’s veins would make the fountain impure. But she did not; she kissed and comforted the child, and folding her arms about her said, with a gush of real, womanly feeling:
“Oh, Annie, my darling, what would I give to be as innocent as you; continue what you are; shun a lie or deceit of any kind as you would shun the plague, and pray for me that I may be half as good as you.”
She lifted herself up, panting with emotion, while Annie looked wonderingly at her.
“Why, sister Georgie,” she said. “You can’t be bad. You are the goodest woman I know. I does pray for you that Jesus will take care of you, but never that He’d make you good, because I thought you were.”
“No, child, I am not,—” and the proud Georgie sobbed aloud. “I’m not good, but I love you. I want you to remember that, Annie, whatever may happen; remember that Idolove you, oh my darling, my darling.”
There was some terrible pain tugging at Georgie’s heart,—some fierce struggle going on, and for a few moments she cried aloud while Annie looked wonderingly on and tried to comfort her. After that she never gave way again, but was her old, assured self. Of the influences warring within her the wrong one had prevailed, and she had chosen to return to her formal life of ease rather than remain where her duty clearly lay, and where the touch of a little child’s hand might have availed to lead her away from the ruinous path she was treading.
Between herself and Jack there was a stormy interview one night after Annie was asleep, and the brother and sister sat together before the grate, talking first of the past and then of the future. Jack had received, as he thought, an advantageous offer to go to Jersey City and enter an insurance office. There was a house there for sale on very reasonable terms, and Jack’s friend urged him to buy it, and have a home of his own. How Jack’s heart beat at the thought of a home of his own, with no constantly recurring rent-bill to pay, and no troublesome landlord spying about for damages! A home of his own, which he could improve and beautify as he pleased, with a sense of security and ownership, and where, perhaps, Georgie might be induced to stay a portion of the time. In Annie’s present helpless condition it was desirable that she should not often be left alone, and as old Luna must at times be out, it seemed necessarythat a third person should form a part of Jack’s household, and who more fitting and proper than Georgie, provided she could be made to think so. Jack did not expect her to give up Aunt Burton’s home, with its luxuries, altogether; only for a time he wanted her, and he was revolving in his mind how to tell her so, when she surprised him with the announcement that “she was going back to New York in a few days; that she had already stayed longer than she intended doing, especially after she found how well Annie was, and how little she needed her except for company.”
Jack was astonished. He had fully expected Georgie to remain with him until spring, and he told her so, and told her further of his plans for the future, and his hope that she would be interested in his new home, if he had one, and stay there a portion of the time. Georgie heard him through, but there was an expression in her black eyes which boded ill to the success of Jack’s plan, and her voice, when she spoke, had in it a cold, metallic ring, which made Jack shiver, and involuntarily draw nearer to the fire.
“Ibury myself in Jersey City! You must be crazy to propose such a thing. Why, I’d rather emigrate to Lapland, out and out. I can’t endure the place, and I don’t see why you want to go there. You are doing well here, and these rooms are very comfortable.”
The fact was Georgie did not care to have Jack and Annie quite so near to herself as they would be in Jersey City, and she quietly opposed the plan, without however changing Jack’s opinion in the least.
“Are you not afraid that your return to New York will bring up old times? There are those there still who have not forgotten,” she said, and in her eyes there was a kind of scared look, as if they were gazing on some horrid picture of the past.
“And suppose they do remember,” Jack said, a littlehotly. “There’s nothing in the past for which I need to blush; and surely no one could possibly recognize in the heiress Georgie Burton, the——”
“Hush, Jack, I won’t hear what I was, even from your lips,” Georgie said, fiercely. “Perhaps thereisno danger for myself; but I never walk the streets even now, as the daughter of Ralph Burton, without a fear of meeting some one who remembers. Still I know that as Miss Burton, of Madison Square, I am safe, but as your sister, in Jersey City, I should not be; and I will run no risks.”
“Not for Annie’s sake?” Jack asked; and Georgie answered:
“No, not for Annie’s sake,” though her chin quivered a little as she glanced at the sleeping child.
Then they talked on and on, Jack trying to persuade his sister to stay with him a little longer, and she as persistently refusing, saying she must be home, that she had already lost too much time there in Chicago.
“Georgie,” and Jack began to get in earnest, “by losing time, I suppose you mean losing your chance with Roy Leighton. I’ve never said much to you upon that subject, but now I may as well free my mind. If Roy Leighton really cares for you he has had chances enough to make it known; and that he has not done so is pretty good proof that he doesnotcare. But supposing he does, and asks you to be his wife, will you marry him without telling him all?”
“Most certainly I will;” and Georgie’s eyes flashed defiantly. “I need have no concealments from you, who know me so well, and I tell you plainly there’s scarcely anything I would not do to secure Roy Leighton; and do you imagine I would tell him a story which would so surely thrust him from me? A story, too, which only you know; and you remember your oath, do you not?”
She said the last words slowly, and her eyes fastened themselves upon Jack, as a snake’s might rest upon a bird.
“Yes, I remember my oath;” and Jack returned her gaze unflinchingly.
Something in his manner made Georgie wince a little, and resolve to change her tactics. Sweetness and gentleness had always prevailed with Jack, when nothing else could move him, and so she tried them now, and her voice grew very soft, and reverent, and beseeching, as, laying her hand on his shoulder, she said:
“Don’t let us quarrel, brother. I do want to do right, even if I cannot tell that dreadful thing to Roy. I am not going home either so much to see him as for another reason, of which I ought perhaps to have told you before. Jack, I am trying to be a better woman, and have made up my mind to be confirmed when our bishop comes to the little church near Oakwood, which will possibly be week after next. Aunt Burton is anxious for it, and is going to arrange to be there; and so you see I must go. You do not blame me now, I am sure. You respect religion, even if you do not profess it.”
Her hand pressed more lovingly on Jack’s arm, but he shook it off, and, starting to his feet, confronted her with a look which made her shiver, and turn pale.
“Blame you?” he began. “Respect religion? Yes, I do; and respect it so much that sooner than see you take those solemn vows upon you, knowing what I do, I would break my oath a hundred times, and feel I was doing right.”
Georgie’s breath came pantingly, and the great drops of sweat stood around her lips, as she asked:
“What do you propose to do?”
He did not answer her question directly, but went on to say:
“I do not profess to be good myself, or to have the firstprinciples of goodness, but my mother, who died there in that bed”—and he pointed to where Annie lay—“knew what religion was, and lived it every day; and when she died, there was a peace and a glory around her death-bed, which would not be around yours or mine, were we to die to-night. I am not judging harshly. By their fruits ye shall know them. He said so,—the man Jesus, whom mother loved and leaned upon, just as really as she ever leaned on me, and whom she taught Annie to love and pray to, until He is as much her companion when she is alone, as you are when you are with her. Georgie, there is something needed before one kneels at that altar, as you propose doing,—something whichyoudo not possess. You donotcare for the thing in and of itself. You have some selfish object in view, and I will not be a party to the deception.”
“Will you drag me from the altar, or tear the bishop’s hands from my head?” Georgie asked, beginning to grow both alarmed and angry at her brother, who replied:
“No; but this I will do: If you go to confirmation, and if before or after it Roy Leighton asks you to be his wife, and you do not tell him the whole truth, I will do it for you. He shall not be deceived.”
“And your oath?” Georgie asked, in a choking voice.
“I break my oath, and do God service in breaking it,” Jack answered.
And then there was silence between them for ten minutes or more, and no sound was heard except the occasional dropping of a dead coal into the pan, and the low, regular breathing of the little child, so terribly in the way of the woman who had so unexpectedly been brought to bay.
She gave up the confirmation then and there, and after a few moments arose and went to Jack, and putting her arms around his neck, cried aloud upon his shoulder, and called him the best brother in the world, and wished she was halfas good as he, and a great deal more, which Jack took at its fair valuation. He was used to her moods, and knew about how to prize them. Still, in this instance, he had been a little hard on her, he thought, and he kissed her back at last, and said he was not angry with her, and bade her go to bed lest she should be sick on the morrow.
She staid a week after that, and when at last she went away, her diamond pin, ear-rings, bracelets, and two finger-rings, lay in the show window of a jeweller’s shop where they bought such articles; and Annie held in her hand a paper, which contained the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars, and on which was written, “To help make the first payment on the new house.”
Annie thought her an angel of goodness and generosity, while Jack, who understood now why he had seen his sister coming from Jachery’s shop, said to himself: “There are noble traits in Georgie, after all;” and felt that the house in Jersey was a sure thing.
The bishop came to the little church near Oakwood at the appointed time, but Georgie Burton’s proud head was not one on which his hands were laid. Aunt Burton, who had gone for a week or so up to her country house and taken Georgie with her, had urged her to it, and so too had the rector; and when Georgie gave as a reason for holding back, that she was “not good enough,” the rector said she had set her standard far too high, while Aunt Burton wondered where the good were to be found if Georgie was not of the number, and cried softly during the ceremony, because of her darling’s humility. What Georgie felt no one knew. She sat very quietly through the service, with her veil dropped over her face, and only turned her head a little when Maude, who was among the candidates, went up to the altar. But when Roy Leighton too arose, and with a calm, peaceful expression upon his manly face, joined the group gathering inthe aisle, she gave a start, and the long lashes which dropped upon her burning cheeks were moist with tears. She had not expected this of Roy. He was not one to talk much of his deeper feelings, and so only his God, and his mother, and the rector, knew of the determination to lead a new and better life, which had been growing within him ever since Charlie’s sudden death. “Be ye also prepared, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh,” had sounded in his ears until he could no longer resist the Spirit’s gentle wooings, but gave himself to God without reserve of any kind. There was a slight stir perceptible all through the congregation as Roy went up and stood by Maude. “He was a member worth getting; he, at least, was sincere,” even the cavillers at the holy rite thought within themselves; and when it was over, and he came down the aisle, all noted the expression of his face as of one who was in earnest, and honest in what he had done. Georgie saw it, too, and for a moment the justice of what Jack had said asserted itself in her mind, and in her heart she cried out: “Roy ought not to be deceived, and yet how could I tell him, even supposing—”
She did not finish the sentence, but she meant, “Supposing he does ask me to be his wife.”
And Georgie had again strong hopes that he would. He had seemed very glad to see her when she came to Oakwood; had called on her every day, and shown in various ways how much he was interested in her. There was about her now a certain air of softness and humility very attractive to Roy, and he had half hoped that when he knelt at the altar, Georgie might be with him, and he felt a little disappointed that she was not, and he told her so that night after the confirmation, when, as usual, he called at Oakwood, and they were alone in the parlor. Georgie had borne a great deal that day, and lived a great deal in the dreadful past which shewould so much like to have blotted out. Her nerves were unstrung, and when Roy said to her so gently, and still in a sorry kind of way, “Why were you not confirmed, Georgie?” she broke down entirely, and laying her head upon the table, cried for a moment like a child.
“Oh, Roy,” she said, at last, looking up at him with her eyes full of tears, “I did want to; but I am not good enough, and I dared not. But I’m so glad you did, so glad”,—and she clasped her pretty hands in a kind of tragic way,—“for now you will teach me, won’t you?”
Roy was a man, and knew nothing of that scene in Chicago, and Georgie was very beautiful to look upon, and seemed so softened and subdued, that he felt a strange feeling throbbing in his heart, and would without doubt have proposed taking the fair penitent as his pupil for life, if Maude had not just then come suddenly upon them and spoiled theirtête-à-tête.
Georgie’s eyes were a little stormy now, but Maude pretended not to notice it, and seated herself very unconcernedly before the fire, with her crocheting, thus putting to an end any plan Roy might have had in his mind with reference to Miss Georgie Burton.
Maude had scarcely seen Roy since her visit to Rocky Point, and she told him all about Uncle Phil, who was his agent there, and of his niece, Miss Overton, the prettiest little creature, to whom she had given the pet name of “Dot,” she was such a wee bit of a thing. And then the conversation turned upon Charlie and Charlie’s wife; and Maude asked if anything had yet been heard from her, or if Roy knew where she was. Roy did not, except that she was teaching, and would not let him know of her whereabouts.
“How do you know she is teaching then?” Georgie asked; and Roy replied:
“I know through an aunt of hers, to whom I wrote last Christmas, asking her to forward a box of jet to Edna.”
“Oh-h!” and Maude jumped as if she had been shot; then quickly recovering herself, she exclaimed: “That dreadful pin,” and put her hand to her collar as if the cause of her agitation were there.
Maude had received an impression, which made her quiver all over with excitement, and sent her at last to her own room, where she bounded about like a rubber ball.
“I knew there was something queer about her all the time, but I never suspected that. Poor little Dot; how I must have hurt her feelings with my foolish talk of Charlie, if she really is his widow, and I know she is, for I remember now how interested she was in the Leightons, and how many questions she asked me about Roy and his mother; and then that box of jet. I’m sure of it,—perfectly sure; but, Dotty, if I can ferret out a secret, I can keep one too: and if you don’t want Roy to know where you are, he never shall from me.”
Maude wrote to Edna that night, and told her everything about the Leightons which she thought would interest her, and then with feverish impatience waited for her summer’s vacation, when she meant to go again to Rocky Point, and satisfy herself.
Roy did not renew the conversation Maude had interrupted, but when in the spring he decided upon his trip to Europe, he half made up his mind to take Georgie Burton with him. He knew it would please his mother, and from all that had passed between himself and the lady he felt that he was in some sort bound to make her his wife; and why wait any longer? She was at Oakwood now. City air did not agree with her as formerly; she felt tired all the time, she told her aunt, who was ever ready to gratify her darling’s slightest whim, consented to leave New York at least a month earlier than usual, but never dreamed that the real cause of Georgie’s pretended weariness was to be found in the pleasantlittle house in Jersey City, where Jack Heyford was settling himself. Although constantly assuring herself that her fears were groundless, Georgie could not shake off the nervous dread that, by Jack’s presence in New York, the black page of her life might somehow come to light. She went over to Jersey several times, for she could not keep away; but she took the Hoboken Ferry, and then came in the street car to the corner near which Jack lived, thinking thus to avoid meeting any one who knew her, and would wonder what she was doing in Jersey City. Still it was not so much through herself as through Jack that she dreaded recognition; and until he was fairly settled and at work, and swallowed up in the great Babel, it was better for her to be away; and so she went to Oakwood, and saw Roy every day, and was so soft, and sweet, and pious, and interesting in her newrôleof half-invalid, that Roy made up his mind, and started one morning to settle the important question.
His route lay past the post-office, and there he found the letter Edna had written in answer to his own, acknowledging the receipt of the money. He read it in the shadow of an old elm-tree, which grew by the roadside, and under which he dismounted for a moment. There was nothing remarkable in it, but it turned Roy’s thoughts from Georgie for a time, and sent them after the frolicsome little girl whom he had once seen in the car, and who was now his sister. She wrote a very pretty hand, and seemed so grateful for the few crumbs of interest he had given her, that he wished so much he knew where she was. If he did, he believed he would takeherto Europe, instead of Georgie; but not as his wife,—he never thought of such a thing in connection with Edna,—but as his sister, for such she was. And so, with her letter in his hand, he sat thinking of her, while his pony fed upon the fresh grass by the fence, and feeling no check from bit or bridle, kept going farther and farther away, until,when Roy’s reverie was ended, and he looked about for his horse, he saw him far down the road, in the direction of Leighton Place, instead of Oakwood. Roy started after him at once; but the pony did not care to be caught, and seeing his master coming, he pricked up his ears and started for home, where Roy found him at last, standing quietly by the stable door, as if nothing had happened. That circumstance kept Roy from Georgie’s side that day, and when on the morrow he saw her at his own house, he was guilty of a feeling of relief that he had not committed himself, and would have no one’s luggage but his mother’s and his own to look after in Europe.
He sailed early in June, and Georgie stood upon the wharf, and watched the vessel as it went down the bay, and felt such bitter pain in her heart as paled the roses on her cheek, and quenched some of the brightness of her eyes.
“Roy is lost to me forever,” she said to herself, as she re-entered her aunt’s carriage, and was driven back to Madison Square.
Still, as long as he remained unmarried, there was hope; and though her youth was rapidly slipping away, she would rather wait on the slightest chance of winning Roy Leighton, than give herself to another. And so, that summer,—at Saratoga, where she reigned a belle,—she refused two very eligible offers; one from the young heir of a proud Boston family; the other from a widower of sixty, with a million and a half of gold, and seven grown-up daughters.