CHAPTER XVII.LOVE-MAKING AT MILLBANK.
The holidays were over. They had been spent in New York, where, with Mrs. Walter Scott as herchaperone, Magdalen had passed a few weeks, and seen what was meant by fashionable society. But she did not like it, and was glad to return to Millbank.
Roger had spent only a few days with her in New York, but Frank had been her constant attendant, and not a little proud of the beautiful girl who attracted so much attention. While there Magdalen had more than once heard mention made of Alice Grey, who had returned to America and was spending a few weeks in New York, where she would have been a belle but for her poor health, which prevented her from mingling much in fashionable society. Frank had called on her several times, and occasionally she heard him rallied upon his penchant for Miss Grey by some one of his friends, who knew them both. Frank would have denied the charge openly had Magdalen’s manner towards him been different from what it was. She called him her brother, and by always treating him as such, made anything like love-making on his part almost impossible; and so Frank thought to rouse her jealousy by allowing her to believe that there was something serious between himself and Alice Grey. But in this he was mistaken. The charm he had once possessed for Magdalen, when, as a child,she enshrined him her hero and lived upon his smiles, was broken, and though she liked him greatly and showed that she did so, she knew that any stronger feeling towards him was utterly impossible, and was delighted at the prospect of his transferring to another some of the attentions which were becoming distasteful to her, from the fact of their being so very marked and lover-like.
Once she spoke to him herself of Alice, who was stopping at the St. Denis, and asked, “Why do you not bring her to see me or let me go to her?” and Frank had answered her, “Miss Grey is too much of an invalid to make or receive calls from strangers. She asks after you with a great deal of interest, and hopes—”
Frank hesitated a moment, and Magdalen playfully caught him up, saying,—“Hopes to know me well through you. Is that it, and is what I have heard about you true? I am so glad, for I know I shall like her, though I used to be jealous of her years ago when you talked so much of her.”
Magdalen was very sincere in what she said, but foolish Frank, who set a far greater value upon himself than others set upon him, and who could not understand how any girl could be indifferent to him, was conceited enough to fancy that he detected something like pique in Magdalen’s manner, and that she wasnotas much delighted with Alice Grey as she would like him to think. This suited him, and so he made no reply, except, “I am glad you are pleased with her. She is worthy of your love.”
And thus was the conviction strengthened in Magdalen’s mind that she might some day know Alice Grey intimately as the wife of Frank, towards whom she showed at once a greater decree of familiarity than she had done hitherto, making him think his ruse a successful one, which would in due time bear the desired fruit. Meanwhile his mother had her own darling scheme, which she was adroitly managing to carry out. Once she would have spurned the thought of accepting Magdalen as her daughter-in-law, but she had changed her mind after a conversationwith Roger, who, wholly deceived by the crafty, fascinating woman, had grown very confidential, and been led on to admit that in case he never married, or even if he did, Magdalen would stand to him in the relation of a child, and share in his property. Indeed, from his conversation it would seem that, feeling impressed with the uncertainty of life, and having no foolish prejudices against making his will, he had already done so, and provided for both Magdalen and Frank.
He did not state what provision he had made for them, and his sister did not ask him. She preferred to find out in some other way, if possible, and not betray the interest she felt in the matter. So she merely thanked him for remembering Frank, for whom he had done so much, and then at once changed the conversation. She did not seem at all curious, and Roger, who liked her now much better than when he was a boy, never dreamed how the next day, while he was in his office and Magdalen was away on some errand for old Hester, the writing-desk, which still stood in the library, was visited by Mrs. Walter Scott, who knew that some of his papers were kept there, and whose curiosity was rewarded by a sight of the desired document. It was not sealed, and with a timid glance at the door she opened it nervously, but dared not stop to read the whole lest some one should surprise her. Rapidly her eye ran over the paper till it caught the name of Magdalen, coupled with one hundred thousand dollars. That was to be her marriage portion, paid on her bridal day, and Mrs. Walter Scott was about to read further when the sound of a footstep warned her that some one was coming. To put the paper back in its place was the work of a moment, and then, with a most innocent look on her face the lady turned to meet old Hester Floyd, whose gray eyes looked sharply at her, and who merely nodded in reply to her words of explanation,—
“I am looking at this silver plate over the doors of the writing-desk. How it is tarnished! One can scarcely make out the squire’s name. I wish you’d set Ruth to polishing it.”
The plate was polished within fifteen minutes by Hesterherself, who had caught the rustle of papers and the quick shutting of the drawer. She knew the tarnished plate was a pretence, and stood guard till Roger came. He merely laughed at her suspicions, but when a few days after Mrs. Walter Scott found an opportunity to try the drawer again, she found it locked, and all her hopes of ascertaining how Frank fared in the will were effectually cut off. But she knew about Magdalen. One hundred thousand dollars as a marriage portion was worth considering, and Mrs. Walter Scott did consider it, and it outweighed any scruples she might otherwise have had concerning Magdalen’s birth, and made her doubly gracious to the young girl whom she sought as her future daughter-in-law.
That was just before they went to New York, where the favor with which Magdalen was received confirmed her in her intentions to win the hundred thousand dollars. Every opportunity for throwing the young people together was seized upon, and if by chance she heard the name of Alice Grey coupled with her son’s, she smiled incredulously, and said it was a most absurd idea that Frank should wish to marry into a family where there was hereditary insanity, as she knew was the case in Miss Grey’s.
After their return to Millbank she resolved to push matters a little, and so one afternoon, when she chanced to be walking with Frank from the office to the house, she broached the subject by asking how long he intended to let matters go on as they were going, and why he did not at once propose to Magdalen, and not keep her in suspense!
“Suspense!mother;” and Frank looked up joyfully. “Do you think,—do you believe Magdalen really cares for me? I have been afraid it was only a sisterly regard, such as she would feel for me were I really her brother.”
“She must be a strange girl to conduct herself towards you as she does and not seriously care for you,” Mrs. Walter Scott replied; and Frank continued, “She has been different since we came from New York, I know, and has not kept me quite so much at arm’s-length. Mother,” and Frank spoke moreenergetically than before, “I am so glad you have broken the ice; so glad you like her and are willing. I did not know but you might object, you are so straight-laced about blood and birth and all that.”
“I am a little particular about such things, I’ll admit,” Mrs. Irving replied; “but in Magdalen’s case I am ready to make an exception. She is a splendid girl and created a great sensation in New York; while better than all, she is, or will be, an heiress. Roger has made his will, and on her bridal day she is to have one hundred thousand dollars dowry.”
“How do you know that?” Frank asked quickly, and his mother replied: “No matter how. It is sufficient that I do know it, and with poverty staring us in the face the sooner you appropriate that hundred thousand the better for both of us.”
“Mother,” and Frank spoke sternly, “I wonder what you take me for! A mere mercenary wretch? Understand plainly that I am not so base as that, and I love Magdalen well enough to marry her if she was never to have a penny in the world. Much as I hate work I could work forher, and a life of poverty shared with her has more attractions for me than all the kingdoms in the world shared with another.”
They had reached Millbank by this time, and Magdalen met them at the door. She had been out for a drive, and the exercise and clear wintry air had brought a deeper glow than usual to her cheeks and made her eyes like diamonds. She had never been more beautiful to Frank than she was that evening in her soft crimson dress, with her hair arranged in long curls, which fell about her face and neck in such profusion. Magdalen did not often curl her hair; it was too much trouble, she said, and she had only done so to-day because of something which Roger had said to her. He had been standing with her before the picture of his mother, whose golden hair covered her like a veil, and to Magdalen, who admired the flowing tresses, he had said, “Why don’t you wear curls, Magda? I like so much to see them when I know they are as natural as yours would be.”
That afternoon Magdalen had taken more than usual pains with her toilet, and Celine, the French maid, whom Mrs. Walter Scott had introduced into the house, had gone into ecstasies over the long, beautiful curls which fell almost to Magdalen’s waist and somewhat softened her dashing style of beauty. Roger, too, had complimented her, when about four o’clock he came in, saying he was going to drive out a mile or two from Millbank, and asking her to accompany him. The day was very cold, and with careful forethought he had seen that she was warmly clad,—had himself put the hot soap-stone to her feet, and wrapping the fur robes around her, had looked into her bright face and starry eyes, and asked if she was comfortable. On their return to Millbank, he had carefully lifted her from the sleigh and carried her up the steps into the hall, where he set her down, calling her Mother Bunch, with all her wraps around her, and trying to help her remove them. Roger was a little awkward in anything pertaining to a woman’s gear, but he managed to unpin the shawl and untie the ribbons of the pretty, coquettish rigolette, which were in a knot and troubled him somewhat, bringing his face so close to Magdalen’s that her curls fell across his shoulder and he felt her breath upon his cheek.
“Your ride has done you good, Magda. You are looking charmingly,” he said, when at last she was undone and stood before the fire. He was obliged to go out again, and as it was not likely he should return till late, they were not to wait dinner for him,—he said.
Something in his manner toward her more than his words had affected Magdalen with a sweet sense of happiness, and her face was radiant as she met Frank in the hall, and went with him to the dining-room, where dinner was waiting for them. She explained that Roger would not be there, and then, as Frank took the head of the table, rallied him upon his awkwardness in carving and his absent-mindedness in general. He had a bad headache, he said, and after dinner was over and they had adjourned to the library, where their evenings wereusually passed, he lay down upon the couch and looked so pale and tired, that Magdalen’s sympathy was awakened at once, and she insisted upon doing something for him. Since their return from New York shehadbeen far more familiar in her intercourse with him than she would have been had she not believed there was something between him and Alice Grey which might ripen into love. With no fears for herself, she could afford to beverygracious, and being naturally something of a coquette, she had tormented and teased poor Frank until he had some reason for believing that his affection for her was returned, and that his suit would not be disregarded should he ever urge it upon her. With the remembrance of Roger’s words and manner thrilling every nerve, she was in an unusually soft, amiable mood to-night, and knelt at last by Frank’s side and offered to bathe his aching head.
“The girls at school used to tell me there was some mesmerism in my fingers,” she said, “some power to drive away pain or exorcise evil spirits. Let me try their effect on you.”
Mrs. Walter Scott, who had been watching the progress of matters, found it convenient just then to leave the room, and Frank was alone with Magdalen. For a few moments her white fingers threaded his hair, brushing it back from his forehead and passing lightly over his throbbing temples until it was not in human nature to endure any longer, and rising suddenly from his reclining position, Frank clasped his arms around her, and straining her to his bosom, pressed kiss after kiss upon her lips, while he poured into her astonished ear the story of his love, telling her how long ago it began,—telling her how dear she was to him,—how for her sake he had lingered at Millbank trying to do something for himself, because she had once suggested that such a thing would be gratifying to her,—how thoughts of her were constantly in his mind, whether awake or asleep, and lastly, that his mother approved his choice and would gladly welcome her as a daughter.
As he talked, Magdalen had struggled to her feet, her cheeks burning with surprise and mortification, and sorrow too, thatFrank should have misjudged her so. She knew he was in earnest, and she pitied him so much, knowing as she did how hopeless was his suit.
“Speak to me,” he said at last, “if it is only to tell me no. Anything is better than your silence.”
“Oh, Frank,” Magdalen began, “I am so sorry, because—”
“Don’t tell me no. I will not listen to that answer,” Frank burst out impetuously, forgetting what he had just said when he begged her to speak. “You do like me, or you have seemed to, and have given me some encouragement, or I should not have told you what I have. Don’t you like me, Magdalen?”
“Yes, very much, but not the way you mean. I do not like you well enough to take you for my husband. And, Frank, what of Alice Grey? You say I have encouraged you, and perhaps I have. I’ll admit that since I thought you loved Miss Grey, I have been less guarded in my manner towards you; but I never meant to mislead you,—never. I felt towards you as a sister might feel towards a brother,—nothing more. But you do not tell me about Miss Grey. Areyou, then, so fickle?”
“Magdalen,” Frank said, “I may as well be truthful with you now; that was all a ruse,—done for the sake of piquing you and rousing your jealousy. I did care for Alice when she was a young girl and I in college at New Haven, and when I met her again abroad, and found her the same sweet, lovely creature, I don’t know what I might have done but for her father, who seemed to dislike me, and always imposed some obstacle to my seeing her alone, until at last he took her away and I saw her no more, until I met her in New York; and had learned to love you far more than I ever loved Alice Grey.”
“And so to win me you stooped to play with the affections of another. A very manly thing to do,” Magdalen rejoined, in a tone of bitter scorn, which made poor Frank’s blood tingle as he tried to stammer out his excuses.
“It was not a manly act, I know; but, Magdalen, so far as Alice was concerned, it did no harm. Iknowshe does not carefor me now, if she ever did. Our intercourse was merely friendly,—nothing more; and I cannot flatter myself that she would feel one heart-throb were she to hear to-day of my marriage with another. Forgive me, Magdalen, if in my love for you I resorted to duplicity, and tell me that you can love me in time,—that you will try to do so. Will you, Magdalen?”
“No. Frank. I can never be your wife; never. Don’t mention it again; don’t think of it again, for it cannot be.”
This was Magdalen’s reply, which Frank felt was final. She was leaving the room, and he let her go without another word. He had lost her, and throwing himself upon the couch, he pressed his hands together upon his aching head, and groaned aloud with pain and bitter disappointment.