CHAPTER XIII.A RETROSPECT.
Six years have passed away and we lift the curtain of our story in Charlestown, and, after pausing there a moment, go back across the bridge which spans the interval between the present and the past. It was the day but one before the close of the term, and those who had learned to love each other with a schoolgirl’s warm, impetuous love, would soon part, some forever and some to meet again, but when, or where, none could tell.
“It may be for years, and it may be forever!”
“It may be for years, and it may be forever!”
“It may be for years, and it may be forever!”
“It may be for years, and it may be forever!”
sang a clear, bird-like voice in the music-room, where Magdalen Lennox was practising the song she was to sing the following night.
“Yes, it may be for years, and it maybe forever! I wish there were no such thing as parting from those we love,” the young girl sighed, as, with her sheet of music in her hand, she passed through the hall, and up the stairs, to the room which had been hers so long.
Magdalen had been very happy at Charlestown, where every one loved her, from the teacher, whom she never annoyed, to the smallest child, whom she so often helped and encouraged; and she had enjoyed her vacations at Millbank, and more than once had taken two or three of her young friends there for the winter or summer holidays. And Hester had petted, and admired, and waited upon her, and scolded her for soiling so many white skirts, and then had sat up nights to iron these skirts, and had remarked, with a feeling of pride and complacency, that Hattie Johnson’s dresses were not as full or as long as Magdalen’s. Hester was very proud of Magdalen; they were all proud of her at Millbank, and vied with each other in their attentions to her; and Magdalen appreciated their kindness,and loved her pleasant home, and thought there was no place like it in the world; but for all that she rather dreaded returning to it for good, with nothing to look forward to in the future. She understood her position now far better than when she was a child, and as she thought over the strange circumstances which had resulted in bringing her to Millbank, her cheeks had burned crimson for the mother who had so wantonly deserted her. Still she could not hate that mother, and her nightly prayers always ended with a blessing upon her, and a petition that she might sometime find her, or know, at least, who she was. She knew she had no claim on Roger Irving, and, as she grew older, she shrank from a life of dependence at Millbank, especially asFrankwas likely to be there a good share of his time.
With all the ardor of her impulsive nature she had clung to and believed in him, until the day when he, too, said good-by, and left her for Europe. He had been graduated with tolerable credit to himself, and because of his fine oratorical ability had appeared upon the stage, and made what Magdalen had thought a “splendid speech;” for Magdalen was there in the old Centre Church, listening with rapt attention, and a face radiant with the admiration she felt for her hero, whose graceful gestures and clear, musical voice covered a multitude of defects in his rather milk-and-watery declamation. It was Magdalen’s bouquet which had fallen directly at his feet when his speech was ended, and nothing could have been prettier than his manner as he stooped to pick it up, and then bowed his thanks to the young girl, whose face flushed all over with pride, both then and afterward, when, in the evening, she leaned upon his arm at the reception given to the students and their friends. Magdalen was a little girl of thirteen-and-a-half, while Frank was twenty-two; was a graduate; was Mr. Irving, of New York; and could afford to patronize her, and at the same time be very polite and attentive to scores of young ladies whose acquaintance he had made during his college career.
After that July day in New Haven, the happiest and proudestof Magdalen’s life, he went with her to Millbank, and fished again in the Connecticut, and hunted in the woods, and smoked his cigars beneath the maple-trees, and teazed and tyrannized over, and petted, and made a slave of Magdalen, just as the fancy took him. Then there came a letter from Roger, written after the receipt of one from Magdalen, who, because she fancied it might please her hero, had said how much Frank would enjoy a year’s travel in Europe, and how much good it would do him, especially as he was looking worn and thin from his recent close application to study.
Roger bit his lip when he read that letter and wondered if the hint was Frank’s suggestion, and wondered, too, if it were best to act upon it; and then, with a genuine desire to see his young kinsman, he wrote to Frank, inviting him to Paris, and offering to defray his expenses for a year in Europe. Frank was almost beside himself with joy, for, except at Millbank, he felt that he had no home, proper, in the world. His mother had been compelled to rent her handsome house, and board with the people who rented it. This just supported her, and nothing more. He would be in the way in Lexington Avenue, and he accepted Roger’s invitation eagerly; and one bright day, in September, sailed out of the harbor at New York, while Magdalen stood on the shore and waved her handkerchief to him until the vessel passed from sight.
The one year abroad had grown into five; Roger was fond of travel; he had plenty of money at his command; it was as cheap living in Europe as at Millbank, where under efficient superintendence everything seemed to go on as well without as with him. He never encroached upon his principal, even after Frank came to be his companion, and so he had lingered year after year, sometimes in glorious Italy, sometimes climbing the sides of Switzerland’s snow-capped mountains, sometimes wandering through the Holy Land or exploring the river Nile, and again resting for months on the vine-clad hills which overshadow the legendary Rhine. Frank was not always with him. He did not care for pictures, or scenery, or works of art; andwhen Roger stopped for months to improve himself in these, Frank went his own way to voluptuous Paris, where the gay society suited him better, or on to the beautiful island of Ischia, where all was “so still, so green, and so dreamy,” and where at the little mountain inn, called the “Piccola Sentinella,” and which overlooked the sea, he met again with Alice Grey.
But any hopes he might have entertained with regard to the girl whom he had admired so much in New Haven were effectually cut off by the studied coolness of Mr. Grey’s manner towards him, and the obstacles constantly thrown in the way of his seeing her alone. Mr. Grey did not like Frank Irving, and soon after the arrival of the latter at the “Piccola Sentinella,” he gave up his rooms at the inn, and started with his daughter for Switzerland. There was a break then in Frank’s letters to Magdalen, and when at last he wrote again it was to say that he was coming home, and that Roger was coming with him.
This letter, which reached Magdalen the night preceding the examination, awoke within her a feeling of uneasiness and disquiet. She had been always more or less afraid of Roger, and she was especially so now that she had not seen him for more than eight years, and he would undoubtedly expect so much from her as a graduate and a young lady of eighteen. She almost wished he would stay in Europe, or that she had some other home than Millbank. It would not be half so pleasant with the master there, as it used to be in other days when she was a little girl fishing with Frank in the river, or hunting with him in the woods. Frank would be at Millbank, too, it was true; but the travelled Frank, who spoke French like a native, was very different from the Frank of five years ago, and Magdalen dreaded him almost as much as she dreaded Roger himself, wondering if he would tease her as he used to do, and if he would think her improved and at all like Alice Grey, whom she knew he had met again at the “Piccola Sentinella.” “I wish they would stay abroad five years more,” she thought, as she finished reading Frank’s letter; and her cheeks grew so hot and red, and her pulse beat so rapidly, thatit was long after midnight ere she could quiet herself for the rest she would need on the morrow, when she was to act so conspicuous a part.