CHAPTER XI.AFTER TWO YEARS.
It is not my intention to linger over the incidents of the next two years, or more than glance at the Forrest House, where Rosamond Hastings laughed, and played, and romped, gaining each day health, and strength, and girlish beauty, but retaining always the same straightforward, generous, self-denying, truthful character which made her a favorite with every one. To Everard she was literally a good angel, and never was a son watched more carefully by an anxious mother than she watched and guarded him. She wrote him letters of advice and sage counsel such as a grandmother of seventy might have written, and which frequently had in them some word of warning against bad associates in general, and Joe Fleming in particular. She knew he had not broken with Joe altogether,for he told her so, and more than once in his sore need he had taken the money she never failed to send him when her quarterly allowance was paid. But for the rest, he was manfully keeping to the pledge which she had drawn for him to sign. Only once in all the two years had he ventured to ask his father for more money than that close-dealing man chose to give him, and the storm of anger which that request had evoked determined him never to repeat the act. He sent his father’s letter to Josephine, that she, too, might understand how difficult it was for him to supply her constantly increasing wants, and for a time the effect was good; but an inordinate fondness for dress was one of Josey’s weaknesses, and having once indulged it to a certain extent she could not readily deny herself, especially as she felt she had a right to a part, at least, of the Forrest money. So she wrote to Everard again and again, sometimes for five dollars, sometimes for ten, or twenty, and when she found that sooner or later it came she ventured to ask for more, and at last demanded fifty dollars, which she needed for furs, as her old ones were worn-out. Then Everard sold the little diamond pin his mother had given him, and parted with it almost without a pang, he was getting so accustomed to these things. He had long before parted with his best suit of clothes, and from the most exquisitely dressed young man in college he was fast becoming the plainest, and was getting the reputation of penuriousness in everything. His first-class boarding-house was exchanged for a third-rate club, where the poorest young men lived; he wrote articles for the magazines and sold them for whatever he could get, and once, when the janitor was sick for a week, he took his place, and earned a few dollars with which to swell the amount he found it necessary to keep on hand for the woman who sported a handsomer wardrobe than the greatest lady in Holburton.
Of course the world must have some explanation for this, or the girl’s reputation be ruined forever. And Josey made the explanation, and said a distant relative of her father’s had died in Ireland, and left her a few pounds to do with as she liked. And in this story there was a semblance of truth, for a maiden aunt, who for years had lived in Portrush, on the northern coast ofIreland, and taken lodgers during the summer season, did die and leave to her grand-nieces in America the sum of fifty pounds, which was ostensibly divided between Agnes and Josephine, though the latter had the greater share, and immediately appeared on the street in an expensive velvet sack, which attracted much attention and elicited a great many remarks from those who were watching the career of the young girl. She was not popular, for with her fine dress she had also put on all sorts of airs, and her manner was haughty and offensive in the extreme, while her flirtations with gentlemen were so marked as to make her notorious as a heartless and unprincipled coquette. Captain Sparks had laid himself and his immense fortune at her feet, only, of course, to be refused; but she had told him no so sweetly, with tears in her liquid blue eyes, that he was not more than half convinced that she meant it, and dangled still in her train of hangers-on. Dr. Matthewson, too, was there frequently, and people had good reasons for thinking him the favored one, judging from the familiar relations in which they seemed to stand to each other. Once in a great while Everard himself went over to Holburton, but he never stopped more than a few hours at the most, and was seldom seen in the street with Josephine, who was supposed to have lost her hold on him,—and so in fact she had; all his fancied love for her was dead, and her beauty never moved him now, or made his pulses quicken one whit faster than their wont. She was his wife, and he accepted the fact, and resolved to make the best of it, but the future held nothing bright in store for him. On the contrary, he shrank from it with a kind of nervous terror, and felt no throb of joy when his college days drew near their close, and he knew that he stood first in his class, and should graduate with every possible honor. He had worked hard for that, but it was more to please Beatrice and Rosamond than for any good to himself that he had studied early and late, and made himself what he was. They were coming on from Rothsay with his father, to see him graduated, and hear his valedictory, for that honor was awarded him, and he had engaged rooms for them at a private house where he knew they would be more comfortable than at the hotel. Rossie was all eagerness and excitement, and wrote frequentlyto Everard, telling him once that ifJoe Flemingwas there not to let him know whoshewas, but to be sure to pointhimout to her, as she had a great desire to see a real gambler and blackleg. She had recently applied this last term to Joe Fleming, and Everard smiled when he read the letter, but felt a great pang of fear lest Josephine should thrust herself upon the notice of his father and Beatrice. He had given her no hint that her presence would be agreeable to him, but he knew she did not need it, and was not at all disappointed when he received a note from her saying that she was coming down to see him graduate, but should not trouble him more than she could help, as a friend who lived about a mile from town had asked her to spend a few days with her, and be present at the exercises. She should, of course, expect him to call and pay her any little attention which he consistently could.
It was long since Josephine had attempted anything like love-making with Everard, for she felt that he understood her perfectly now, and had no respect whatever for her. He had found her a sham, just as Rossie had said she was, and had accepted his fate with a bitterness and remorse such as few men of his age had ever experienced. He did not believe in her at all, and whenever he was with her, and met the soft, pleading glance of the eyes which had once so fascinated and bewitched him, he only felt indignant and disgusted, for he knew how false it all was, and that the eyes which looked so beseechingly up to him would the next hour rest as lovingly upon Dr. Matthewson, or Captain Sparks, or any other man whom she deemed worthy of her notice. Once, when he was in Holburton, he accidentally discovered that the washing and ironing, with which Agnes seemed always busy, were done to pay the music bills and sundry other expenses, for which he had sent the money, and in his surprise he asked a few leading questions and learned more than he had dreamed of. As the worm will turn when trodden upon, so Agnes, who chanced to be smarting under some fresh indignity imposed upon her, turned upon her tyrant and told many things which, for Everard’s peace of mind, would have been better unsaid, for she dwelt mostly upon Josey’s free-and-easymanner with the gentlemen who came to the house to call, or chanced to be boarding there.
“I don’t mean she does anything bad,” she said, “anything you couldsue forif you wanted to, but she justmakes eyesat them, and leads them on, and gets them all dangling on her string, and wants to be theirsister, and all that sort of stuff, and when the fools offer themselves, as some of them do, she rises up on her tiptoes and wonders how they could presume to do such a thing, as she had never meant to encourage them,—she was simply their friend; and, if you’ll believe it, they mostly stick to her just the same, and thesisterbusiness goes on, and she a married woman! I’m sorry for you, Mr. Forrest!”
And oh, how sorry he was for himself, and how after this revelation he shrank from the gay butterfly which flitted around him so gracefully, and treated him to theeyesof which Agnes had spoken so significantly. And still there was no open rupture between the two, no words of recrimination or reproach on either side. He was always courteous and polite, though cold as the polar sea; while she was sweetness itself, and only the expression of her face told occasionally that she fully realized the situation, and knew just how she stood with him. But he was her husband, and as such would one day be known to the world, and she was far prouder of him now in his character as a man than she had been when she took him, a boy; and she meant to see him on the stage in Amherst, and compel him to pay her some attention which should mark her as an object of preference. She knew he did not wish to have her there, but she did not care for that, and wrote to him her intention to be present at the Commencement, and her wish that he should pay her some attention.
The old, weary, hopeless look, which had become habitual to his face, deepened in intensity as Everard read the note, and then began to calculate the chances of a meeting between his friends and Josey. He was very morbid about this secret, which he had kept so long that it seemed to him now that he never could divulge it, even if sure that his father’s bitter anger would not follow. And he did not wish Beatrice and Rossie to see his wife, if he could help it, and perhaps he could. Therewould be a great crowd in the church; they could not see her there; and, as Mrs. Everts lived more than a mile from town, they might not meet her at all, unless at the reception given by the president, and to this Josey would hardly be invited. So he breathed a little more freely, and completed his arrangements for his family, and wrote a line to Josey, saying he would call upon her at Mrs. Everts’ when she came, but should be so very busy that he could not be with her a great deal.
To Rosamond he wrote quite differently, and told her how glad he was that she was coming, and how much he hoped she would enjoy the trip, and that there was the coziest, prettiest room imaginable waiting for her in one of the pleasantest houses in town. And Rossie was crazy with delight and anticipation, and scarcely slept a wink the night before they started. And still she was very bright, and fresh, and pretty, in her suit of Holland linen, and never was journey more enjoyed than she enjoyed hers, seeing everything, and appreciating everything, and declaring that she was not a whit tired when at last they reached Amherst, and found Everard waiting for them.