CHAPTER II.DR. MATTHEWSON.
The train from Ellicottville was late that afternoon. In fact, its habit was to be late, but on this particular day it was more than usually behind time, and the one stage which Holburton boasted had waited more than half an hour at the little station of the out-of-the-way town which lies nestled among the Berkshire hills, just on the boundary line between the Empire State and Massachusetts. The day was hot even for midsummer, and the two fat, motherly matrons who sat in the depot alternately inveighed against the heat and wiped their glowing faces, while they watched and discussed the young lady who, on the platform outside, was walking up and down, seeming wholly unconscious of their espionage. But it was only seeming, for she knew perfectly well that she was an object of curiosity and criticism, and more than once she paused in her walk and turning squarely round faced the two old ladies in order to give them a better view, and let them see just how many tucks, and ruffles and puffs there were in her new dress, worn that day for the first time. And a very pretty picture Josephine Flemingmade standing there in the sunshine, looking so artless and innocent, as if no thought of herself had ever entered her mind. She was a pink-and-white blonde, with masses of golden hair rippling back from her forehead, and those dreamy blue eyes of which poets sing, and which have in them a marvelous power to sway the sterner sex by that pleading, confiding expression, which makes a man very tender towards the helpless creature appealing so innocently to him for protection.
The two old ladies did not like Josephine, though they admitted that she was very beautiful and stylish, in her blue muslin and white chip hat with the long feather drooping low behind, too pretty by far and too much of the fine lady, they said, for a daughter of the widow Roxie Fleming, who lived in the brown house on the Common, and sewed for a living when she had no boarders from the city. And then, as the best of women will sometimes do, they picked the girl to pieces, and talked of the scandalous way she had of flirting with every man in town, of her airs and indolence, which they called laziness, and wondered if it were true that poor old Agnes, her half-sister, made the young lady’s bed, and mended her clothes, and waited upon her generally as if she were a princess, and toiled, and worked, and went without herself, that Josey might be clothed in dainty apparel, unbecoming to one in her rank of life. And then they wondered next if it were true, as had been rumored, that she was engaged to that young Forrest from Amherst College, who had boarded at the brown house for a few weeks the previous summer, and been there so often since.
“A well-mannered chap as you would wish to see,” one of them said, “with a civil word for high and low, and a face of which any mother might be proud; only——” and here the speaker lowered her voice, as she continued: “Only he does look a little fast, for no decent-behaved boy of twenty ought to have such a tired, fagged look as he has, and they do say there were some great carousin’s at Widder Fleming’s last summer, which lasted up to midnight, and wine was carried in by Agnes, and hot coffee made as late as eleven, and if you’ll b’leve it”—here the voice was a whisper—“they had apack of cards, for Miss Murdock saw them withher own eyes, and young Forrest handled them as if used to the business.”
“Cards! That settles it!” was repeated by the second woman, with a shake of the head, which indicated that she knew all she cared to know of Everard Forrest, but her friend, who was evidently better posted in the gossip of the town, went on to add that “people said young Forrest was an only son, and that his father was very rich, and lived in a fine old place somewhere west or south, and had owned negroes in Kentucky before the war, and was a copperhead, and very close and proud, and kept colored help, and would not like it at all if he knew how his son was flirting with Josephine Fleming.”
Then they talked of the expected entertainment at the Village Hall the following night, the proceeds of which were to go toward buying a fire-engine, which the people greatly needed. And Josephine was to figure in most everything, and they presumed she was now waiting for some chap to come on the train.
For once they were right in their conjecture. She was waiting for Everard Forrest, and when the train came in he stepped upon the platform looking so fresh, and cool, and handsome in his white linen suit that the ladies almost forgave Josephine for the gushing manner with which she greeted him, and carried him off toward home. She was so glad to see him, and her eyes looked at him so softly and tenderly, and she had so much to tell him, and was so excited with it all, and the brown house overgrown with hop-vines was so cool and pleasant, and Agnes had such a tempting little supper prepared for him on the back piazza, that Everard felt supremely happy and content, and once, when nobody was looking on, kissed the blue-eyed fairy flitting so joyously around him.
“I say, Josey,” he said, when the tea-things had been removed, and he was lounging in his usual lazy attitude upon the door-step and smoking his cigar, “it’s a heap nicer here than down in that hot, close hall. Let’s not go to the rehearsal. I’d rather stay home.”
“But you can’t do it. You must go,” Josephine replied. “You must rehearse and learn your part, though for to-night it doesn’t matter. You can go through the marriage ceremony well enough, can’t you?”
“Of course I can, and can say, ‘I, Everard, take thee, Josie, to be my lawful wife,’ and, by Jove, I wouldn’t care if it was genuine. Suppose we get a priest, and make a real thing of it. I’m willing, if you are.”
There was a pretty blush on Josey’s cheek as she replied, “What nonsense you are talking, and you not yet through college!” and then hurried him off to the hall, where the rehearsal was to take place.
Here an unforeseen difficulty presented itself. Dr. Matthewson was not forthcoming in his character as priest. He had gone out of town, and had not yet returned; so another took his place in the marriage scene, where Everard was the bridegroom and Josephine the bride. The play was called “The Mock Marriage,” and would be very effective with the full glamour of lights, and dress, and people on the ensuing night; and Josephine declared herself satisfied with the rehearsal, and sanguine of success, especially as Dr. Matthewson appeared at the last moment apologizing for his tardiness, and assuring her of his intention to be present the next evening.
He was a tall, powerfully-built man of thirty or more, whom many would call handsome, though there was a cruel, crafty look in his eyes, and in the smile which habitually played about his mouth. Still, he was very gentlemanly in his manner, and fascinating in his conversation, for he had traveled much, and seen everything, and spoke both German and French as readily as his mother tongue. With Miss Fleming he seemed to be on the most intimate terms, though this intimacy only dated from the time when she pleaded with him so prettily and successfully to take the place of the priest in “The Mock Marriage,” where John Murdock was to have officiated. At first the doctor had objected, saying gallantly that he preferred to be the bridegroom, and asking who that favored individual was to be.
“Mr. Everard Forrest, from Rothsay, Southern Ohio,” Josephine replied, with a conscious blush which told much to the experienced man of the world.
“Forrest! Everard Forrest!” the doctor repeated thoughtfully, and the smile about his mouth was more perceptible. “Seems to me I have heard that name before. Where did you say he lived, and where is he now?”
Josephine replied again that Mr. Forrest’s home was in Rothsay, Ohio, at a grand old place called Forrest House; that he was a student at Amherst, and was spending his summer vacation with a friend in Ellicottville.
“Yes, I understand,” the doctor rejoined, adding, after a moment’s pause: “I’ll be the priest; but suppose I had the power to marry you in earnest; what then?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t. You must not. Everard is not through college, and it would be so very dreadful—and romantic, too,” the girl said, as she looked searchingly into the dark eyes meeting hers so steadily.
Up to that time Dr. Matthewson had taken but little notice of Josephine, except to remark her exceeding beauty as a golden-haired blonde. With his knowledge of the world and ready discernment he had discovered that whatever position she held in Holburton was due to her beauty and piquancy, and firm resolve to be noticed, rather than to any blood, or money, or culture. She was not a lady, he knew, the first time he saw her in the little church, and, attracted by her face, watched her through the service, while she whispered, and laughed, and passed notes to the young men in front of her. Without any respect himself for religion or the church, he despised irreverence in others, and formed a tolerably accurate estimate of Josephine and her companions. After her interview with him, however, he became greatly interested in everything pertaining to her, and by a little adroit questioning learned all there was to be known of her, and, as is usual in such cases, more too. Her mother was poor, and crafty and designing, and very ambitious for her daughter’s future. That she took in sewing and kept boarders was nothing to her detriment in a village, where the people believed in honest labor, but that she traded on her daughter’s charms, and brought her up in utter idleness, while Agnes, the child of her husband’s first marriage, was made a very drudge and slave to the young beauty, was urged against her as a serious wrong, and, except as the keeper of a boarding-house, in which capacity she excelled, the Widow Fleming was not very highly esteemed in Holburton. All this Dr. Matthewson learned, and then he was told of young Forrest, a mere boy, two years youngerthan Josey, who had stopped with Mrs. Fleming a few weeks the previous summer, and for whom both Josey and the mother had, to use the landlady’s words, “made a dead set,” and succeeded, too, it would seem, for if they were not engaged they ought to be, though it was too bad for the boy, and somebody ought to tell his father.
Such was in substance the story told by the hostess of the Eagle to Dr. Matthewson, who smiled serenely as he heard it, and stroked his silken mustache thoughtfully, and then went down to call upon Miss Fleming, and judge for himself how well she was fitted to be the mistress of Forrest House.
When Everard came and was introduced to him after the rehearsal, there was a singular expression in the eyes which scanned the young man so curiously; but the doctor’s manners were perfect, and never had Everard been treated with more deference and respect than by this handsome stranger, who called upon him at Mrs. Fleming’s early in the morning, and in the course of an hour established himself on such terms of intimacy with the young man that he learned more of his family history than Josephine herself knew after an acquaintance of more than a year. Everard never could explain to himself how he was led on naturally and easily to speak of his home in Rothsay, the grand old place of which he would be heir, as he was the only child. He did not know how much his father was worth, he said, as his fortune was estimated at various sums, but it didn’t do him much good, for the governor was close, and insisted upon knowing how every penny was spent. Consequently Everard, who was fast and expensive in his habits, was, as he expressed it, always hard up, and if his mother did not occasionally send him something unknown to his father he would be in desperate straits, for a fellow in college with the reputation of being rich must have money.
Here Everard thought of Rosamond and what she had sent him, but he could not speak of that to this stranger, who sat smiling so sweetly upon him, and leading him on step by step until at last Rossie’s namediddrop from his lips, and was quickly caught up by Dr. Matthewson.
“Rossie!” he repeated, in his low, purring tone, “Rossie! Who is she? Have you a sister?”
“Oh, no. I told you I was an only child. Rossie is Rosamond Hastings, a little girl whose mother was my mother’s most intimate friend. They were school-girls together, and pledged themselves to stand by each other should either ever come to grief, as Mrs. Hastings did.”
“Married unhappily, perhaps?” the doctor suggested, and Everard replied:
“Yes; married a man much older than herself, who abused her so shamefully that she left him at last, and sought refuge with my mother. Fortunately this Hastings died soon after, so she was freed from him; but she had another terror in the shape of his son, the child of a former marriage, who annoyed her dreadfully.”
“How could he?” the doctor asked, and Everard replied:
“I hardly know. I believe, though, it was about some house or piece of land, of which Mrs. Hastings held the deed for Rossie, and this John thought he ought to share it, at least, and seemed to think it a fortune, when in fact it proved to be worth only two thousand dollars, which is all Rosamond has of her own.”
“Perhaps he did not know how little there was, and thought it unjust for his half-sister to have all his father left, and he nothing,” the doctor said, and it never once occurred to Everard to wonder how he knew that Mr. Hastings leftallto his daughter, and nothing to his son.
He was wholly unsuspicious, and went on:
“Possibly; at all events he worried his stepmother into hysterics by coming there one day in winter, and demanding first the deed or will, and second his sister, whom he said his father gave to his charge. But I settled him!”
“Yes?” the doctor said, interrogatively, and Everard continued:
“Father was gone, and this wretch, who must have been in liquor, was bullying my mother, and declaring he would go to the room where Mrs. Hastings was fainting for fear of him, when I came in from riding, and just bade him begone; and when he said to me sneeringly, ‘Oh, little David, what do you think you can dowith the giant, you have no sling?’ I hit him a cut with my riding-whip which made him wince with pain, and I followed up the blows till he left the house vowing vengeance on me for the insult offered him.”
“And since then?” the doctor asked.
“Since then I have never seen him. After Mrs. Hastings died he wrote an impertinent letter to father asking the guardianship of his sister, but we had promised her mother solemnly never to let her fall into his hands or under his influence, and father wrote him such a letter as settled him; at least, we have never heard from him since, and that is eight years ago. Nor should I know him either, for it was dark, and he all muffled up.”
“And have you no fear of him, that he may yet be revenged? People like him do not usually take cowhidings quietly,” the doctor asked.
“No, I’ve no fear of him, for what can he do to me? Besides, I should not wonder if he were dead. We have never heard of him since that letter to father,” was Everard’s reply, and after a moment his companion continued:
“And this girl,—is she pretty and bright, and how old is she now?”
“Rossie must be thirteen,” Everard said, “and the very nicest girl in the world, but as to being pretty, she is too thin for that, though she has splendid eyes, large and brilliant, and black as midnight, and what is peculiar for such eyes, her hair, which ripples all over her head, is a rich chestnut brown, with a tinge of gold upon it when seen in the sunlight. Her hair is her great beauty, and I should not be surprised if she grew to be quite a handsome woman.”
“Very likely;—excuse me, Mr. Forrest,” and the doctor spoke respectfully, nay, deferentially, “excuse me if I appear too familiar. We have talked together so freely that you do not seem a stranger, and friendships, you know, are not always measured by time.”
Everard bowed, and, foolish boy that he was, felt flattered by this giant of a man, who went on:
“Possibly this little Rossie may some day be the daughter of the house in earnest.”
“What do you mean? that my father will adopt herregularly?” Everard asked, as he lifted his clear, honest eyes inquiringly to the face of his companion, who, finding that in dealing with a frank, open nature like Everard’s he must speak out plain, replied:
“I mean, perhaps you will marry her.”
“I marry Rossie! Absurd! Why, I would as soon think of marrying my sister,” and Everard laughed merrily at the idea.
“Such a thing is possible,” returned the doctor, “though your father might object on the score of family, if that brother is such a scamp. I imagine he is rather proud; your father, I mean,—not that brother.”
“Rossie’s family is well enough for anything I know to the contrary,” said Everard. “Father would not object to that, though he is infernally proud. He is a South Carolinian, born in Charleston, and boasts of Southern blood and Southern aristocracy, while mother is a Bostonian, of the bluest dye, and both would think the Queen of England honored to have a daughter marry their son. Nothing would put father in such a passion as for me to make what he thought amesalliance.”
“Yes, I see, and yet——”
The doctor did not finish the sentence, but looked instead down into the garden where Josephine was flitting among the flowers.
“Miss Fleming is a very beautiful girl,” the doctor said, at last, and Everard responded heartily:
“Yes, the handsomest I ever saw.”
“And rumor says you two are very fond of each other,” was the doctor’s next remark, which brought a blush like that of a young girl to Everard’s cheek, but elicited no reply, for there was beginning to dawn upon his mind a suspicion that his inmost secrets were being wrung from him by this smooth-tongued stranger, who, quick to detect every fluctuation of thought and feeling in another, saw he had gone far enough, and having learned all he cared to know, he arose to go, and after a good morning to Everard and a few soft speeches to Josephine, walked away and left the pair alone.