CHAPTER XI.MARGERY.
Everet Mapleson availed himself of Mrs. Loring’s invitation, and called the second morning after Mrs. Brevort’s reception, to pay his respects to the young ladies.
He was fortunate enough to find them both at home, and both were charmingly entertaining.
Addie Loring was a merry little body, and no one could ever be dull when in her society.
Gladys was more reserved and dignified in her bearing, but she possessed a peculiar fascination which instantly attracted everybody, and, taking the two together, it would have been difficult, go the world over, to have found a more entertaining couple than they.
Everet Mapleson was beguiled into a call of a full hour—a delightful hour it was, too, to them all—and looked his dismay when finally, glancing at his watch, he found how the time had slipped away.
Addie Loring laughed merrily, when she saw the expression on his face, and caught his well-bred, “I had no idea it was so late.”
“Pray, Mr. Mapleson, do not look so disturbed,” she cried; “there is no fine for such an offense, and you are absolved even before confession, for this time.”
“But I have overstepped all bounds. I have been here a whole hour, and this my first call, too.”
“How dreadful!” laughed the little lady, roguishly. “Pray, tell me, what is the Southern rule for first calls?”
“Twenty minutes, or half an hour, at most.”
“I am glad I do not live at the South then. Why, one would hardly get through talking about the weather in that time.”
“Miss Loring, I protest; there has not been one word said about the weather this morning,” retorted the young man, thinking that she was very nearly as pretty as Gladys, as she stood before him in that graceful attitude, her head perched saucily on one side, a mocking smile on her red lips.
“True; but this wasn’t a formal call, you know, for which we both feel very much obliged to you, I am sure.People usually begin upon the weather when they make ceremonious visits, and that is about all there is to say. It is really refreshing to have had such a breezy hour as this. Pray come again, Mr. Mapleson, and don’t bring your watch next time; at least, don’t look at it if it is going to make you uncomfortable,” replied Miss Loring, with charming cordiality.
“Thank you; you are so indulgent and your invitation is so alluring that I am sure I shall not be able to resist it,” he answered, as he shook hands with her. Then he turned to Gladys, and added: “May I assume that you indorse all that your friend has said, Miss Huntress?”
“It has, indeed, been a very pleasant hour, Mr. Mapleson—if an hour has really slipped by since you came in—and I shall be happy to meet you again, although I remain only a very few days longer with Miss Loring,” she replied.
Mr. Mapleson’s face clouded at this.
“Surely your vacation is not nearly over yet?” he said.
“Oh, no; but I only promised Addie a week; there are but two, and papa and mamma will want me at home the other.”
“Allow me to ask where is your home, Miss Huntress?”
“In Brooklyn.”
“True; I had forgotten. I remember that Huntress told me he resided in Brooklyn,” Everet said, aware that the “City of Churches” was quite convenient to New York, and that he could run over there as easily as to come way up town to the Lorings.
“We are not going to give Gladys up until Saturday, Mr. Mapleson,” Miss Loring here interposed, “for Thursday evening we give a reception in her honor; the cards were issued several days ago. It is rather late to offer you one, but if you will accept it, we shall be glad to see you with our other guests.”
Everet Mapleson was only too glad to get it, even at that late date, and, with thanks, he took the envelope which Miss Loring proffered him, and expressed the pleasure it would afford him to accept her invitation.
He then bowed himself out, more than ever in love with beautiful Gladys Huntress, and more than ever determined to win her love in return.
He took a car down town, leaving it near Grace Church, on Broadway, to go to a certain club-house, where he was to meet his friend Vanderwater.
On his way thither he passed a flower-stand behind which there sat a woman who appeared to be about fifty years of age.
She was an unusually tidy and respectable looking person to be a street vender of flowers, and she had a rare and choice collection for that season of the year, and they were arranged in a really artistic manner.
It was this arrangement which attracted Everet Mapleson’s attention, for he was a great admirer of flowers, and was rarely seen anywhere without some bud or spray in his button-hole.
He had worn heliotrope to-day during his call, but it was wilted and discolored, and he paused now before the stand to replace it with something else.
He selected one exquisite rosebud nestling between its dark green leaves, and taking out a piece of silver, he tossed it over the vases into the woman’s lap, and then would have passed on without waiting for his change, but that she had put out her hand to detain him.
She had given a start of surprise and uttered a low cry the moment he had stopped before her, but he had not noticed it, and she had not taken her eyes from his face during all the time that he was making his selection.
As she looked she began to tremble, her lips quivered, her eyes filled with tears, and she breathed with difficulty, as if overcome with some powerful emotion.
Her face was wrinkled and sad, showing that she must have passed through some terrible grief. Her hair was very gray, and there was a white seam or scar above her right temple, the mark of an injury received years before.
“Oh,” she cried, putting out her hand to detain him as he was turning away. “Oh, Geoffrey, have you forgotten Margery?”
Everet stopped short, looked back, and attentively scanned the woman’s face.
“‘Margery!’” he repeated. “I never knew anybody of that name, and mine isn’t Geoffrey, either, my woman,” he said, somewhat brusquely, for it nettled him whenever he heard that name, which he had grown to dislike so much.
“Surely my eyes can’t deceive me,” returned the flower vender, earnestly. “I could never forget the dear boy that I nursed and tended during the first five years of his life.Can’tyou remember me, dearie? Have you forgotten the chickens and the rabbits—old Chuck, the dog, and the two little white kittens. Ah!tryto think, MasterGeoffrey, and tell me what became of Jack after he gave you that dreadful blow and then ran away with you when he left me for dead, so many years ago.”
“What under the sun is the old creature talking about?” murmured Everet, with a perplexed look.
“I’d readily forgive him for the hurt that he gave me,” the woman went on, unheeding him, “and overlook the past, if I could only set eyes on him once more and feel that I wasn’t all alone in the world in my old age; it’s hard not to have a single soul to care for you. Sure, Ican’tsee howyoucould forget Margery, when you were so fond of her in those old days.”
“I tell you my name is not Geoffrey,” repeated Mapleson. “You are thinking of some one else. I do not know anything about Jack, or his striking anybody, and then running away, and I never saw you until this moment.”
The poor woman was weeping now, and moaning in a low, heart-broken way that made the young man pity her, in spite of his irritability.
“Youmusthave forgotten,” she responded, wiping her fast falling tears. “Perhaps the cruel blow Jack gave you hurt your memory—and whatever could he have done with you after he took you away from the old home that night? It breaks my heart that you don’t know me, dearie, for I served your poor mother so faithfully when you were a wee baby. She was the sweetest little body that the sun ever shone on—so gentle, and kind, too, with a face like a lily and eyes as blue as heaven. Poor boy! You never realized your loss when she died, for Margery promised to care for you as if you were her very own, and she did. You were the pride of my heart during all those five blessed years.”
“You have made a mistake, my good woman,” Everet said, more gently, for her grief and pathetic rambling touched him.
He believed that he had run across an old nurse of Geoffrey Huntress, for he remembered now that he had said he lost his parents when very young, and he did not wonder that she had mistaken him for her former nursling.
But it angered him so to talk of his enemy that he would not take the trouble to tell her anything about him, and he never dreamed how near he was to discovering what had been a sealed mystery for many long years.
“Myname is Everet,” he went on, “and my mother isnot dead, neither has she a face like a lily—she is dark, with a rich color and brilliant black eyes.”
The woman appeared still more perplexed and troubled by this statement.
She wagged her head slowly from side to side, as if she could not reconcile his assertions with her belief.
“Your mother’s name was Annie——” she began.
“No, my mother’s name is Estelle.”
“Estelle,” she repeated, searching his face keenly; “that might have been her other name. Didn’t she have bright, beautiful brown hair, and a sweet, gentle way with her?”
“No; her hair is as black as a raven’s wing, and no one would ever think of describing her as ‘sweet and gentle,’” the young Southerner replied, with a smile, as a vision of the magnificent woman who reigned in his home arose before him, “but proud and imperious. She is like some beautiful queen.”
“And is she your own mother?” questioned the flower vender, eagerly.
“Yes, my own mother, and I am her only child.”
“Well, well, it isverystrange,” sighed the poor woman, tears of disappointment again filling her eyes. “I was so sure that I had found my boy at last. I’ve been hunting for him these eighteen years. It isn’t much wonder that I mistook you, though, for you couldn’t be more like him if you were his twin; and yet he mayn’t look like you at all, now that he’s grown up. Ah, Jack, peace to your soul if you’ve gone the way of all the earth, but where under heaven did you leave the child?”
She dropped her head upon her breast and kept on with her muttering, apparently convinced at last that she had made a mistake.
Everet Mapleson stood irresolute a moment, half tempted to tell her where she could find Geoffrey, and yet obstinately averse to doing anything for one whom he so disliked.
He was in a hurry, too, for it was already past the time that he had appointed to meet young Vandewater, and he was unwilling to be detained any longer to answer the questions of a garrulous old woman, so he went unheeded on his way.
All the way to the club-house she was in his thoughts. Without doubt, he reasoned, she had been a servant in the Huntress family, and probably after Geoffrey’s adoption by his uncle she had lost track of her charge,perhaps by a change of residence on her part or his.
He could not seem to understand her reference to the dreadful blow that Jack had given the boy, nor to his running away with him afterward and leaving his wife, as he evidently believed, dead.
The more he thought it over the more strange it appeared, and the more interested he became regarding the matter. Possibly there might be something connected with Geoffrey Huntress’ history which he might be able to use against him in his future scheming.
“I will go back by and by and question her some more,” he muttered, as he reached the club-house, ran up the steps, and entered the elegant vestibule.
He did not return that day, however, but the next he made it in his way to pass the spot where Margery had had her flower-stand the previous morning.
But she was no longer there. Flowers, stand, and vender had all disappeared, and although Everet sought her several times after that he did not see her again during his stay in the city.
He was greatly disappointed, for the more he considered the affair the more he became convinced that there was something which he might have learned of Geoffrey Huntress’ life and parentage that would have been to his own advantage, and he blamed himself severely for having neglected his opportunity.