CHAPTER XXXVII.LIFE AT BEECHWOOD.
The next morning was bright and beautiful, as mornings in early October often are, when the summer seems to linger amid flower and shrub, as if loth to quit the glories its own sunshine and showers had created.
The mist still lay in soft clouds upon the river and on the mountain sides, when Magdalen arose, and, leaning from her window, drank in the bracing morning air, and acknowledged to herself that Beechwood was almost as beautiful as Millbank. She had slept quietly, and felt her old life and vigor coming back to her again as she hastened to dress herself.
She had heard no sound as yet, except the tread of a servant in the yard, and the baying of the Newfoundland dog up the mountain path.
Alice was not in her own room. She must have dressed and gone out before Magdalen awoke, and the latter was hesitating whether to go down to the parlor, or to remain where she was, when Alice appeared, her blue eyes shining brightly, and a faint flush upon her cheek.
“I sleptsowell because you were here near me,” she said as she linked her arm in Magdalen’s, and started for the dining-room.
As they passed through the hall, Magdalen noticed at the farther extremity a green baize door, which seemed to divide that part of the hall from the other, and which she knew by the location was the door which she had heard shut so many times. Where did it lead to? What was there behind it? What embodiment of sorrow and pain was hidden away in that portion of the building? That there wassomebodythere, Magdalen was sure; for, just as she reached the head of the stairs she saw a servant girl coming up a side staircase, bearingin her arms a silver tray, on which was arranged a tempting breakfast for an invalid.
“I shall know all in good time,” she thought, and she pretended not to see the girl, and kept on talking to Alice until the dining-room was reached, where Mr. Grey and his sister were waiting for them. Both seemed in unusually good spirits, and Mr. Grey kissed his daughter fondly as she nestled close to him and smiled up into his face with all the love of a trusting, affectionate daughter. The sight for a moment smote Magdalen with a keen sense of desolation and loneliness. Never had she known,—never could know the happiness of a father’s watchful love and care, and never had she felt its loss as keenly as she felt it now, when she saw the caressing tenderness which Mr. Grey bestowed upon his daughter and the eagerness with which it was returned. They were both very kind to her, and treated her more like a guest than one who had come to them as a hired companion.
It was a delightful day for driving; and after breakfast was over, Alice asked for the carriage and took Magdalen to all her favorite resorts, down by the river and up among the hills, where she said she often went and sat for hours alone. They were firmer friends than ever before that drive was over, and Alice had dropped “Miss Lennox” for the more familiar “Magdalen,” and had asked that she should be simply “Alice,” and not that formal “Miss Grey.”
That afternoon Magdalen wrote a short letter to Hester Floyd, telling her where she was, explaining how she chanced to be there, and going into ecstasies over the loveliness and beauty of Alice Grey, but never hinting at Mr. Grey’s identity with the man who had tempted Jessie to sin. It was as well to keep that to herself, she thought, inasmuch as the telling it would only awaken bitter memories in Rogers heart. Once she determined not to speak of Roger at all, but that would be too marked a neglect, and so she asked to be remembered to him, and said she should never forget his kindness to her, or cease to regret the meddlesome curiosity which had resulted sodisastrously for him. She made no mention of either Mrs. Walter Scott or Frank. She merely said she left Millbank at such a time, and expressed herself as glad to get away, it seemed so changed from the happy home it used to be in other days.
“Mrs. Hester Floyd. Care of Roger Irving, Esq., Schodick, N. H.,” was the direction of the letter which Magdalen gave to Mr. Grey, who was going to the post-office and offered to take it for her. Very narrowly she watched him as he glanced at the superscription, and she half pitied him when she saw his lips quiver and turn pale for a moment as he read the name of a place which he remembered so well. Once in his lifehehad sent letters to that very town, and the Schodick post-mark was not an unfamiliar one to him. Now she to whom he had written was dead, and he held a letter directed to the care of her son. How he longed to ask something concerning him, and finally he did so, saying in a half indifferent tone, “Schodick?—I once spent a summer there, and I have heard of Mr. Irving. Does he live in the village?”
“No, sir, he lives at his mother’s old home. They call it the Morton farm. Did you know his mother, Jessie Morton?”
Magdalen put the question purposely, but regretted it when she saw the look of intense pain which flitted across Mr. Grey’s face.
“I knew her, yes. She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw,” he replied, and then he turned away and walked slowly from the room with his head bent down, as if his thoughts were busy with the past.
The days succeeding that first one at Beechwood went rapidly by, and each one found Magdalen happier and more contented with her situation as companion of Alice, who strove in so many ways to make her feel that she was in all respects her equal, instead of a person hired to minister to her. Indeed, the hired part seemed only nominal, for nothing was ever required of Magdalen which would not have been required of her had she been a daughter of the house and Alice her invalidsister. They rode together, and walked together, and read together, and slept together at last, for Alice would have it so, and every morning of her life Magdalen was awakened by the soft touch of Alice’s hand upon her cheek, and the kiss upon her brow.
To Magdalen this was a new and blissful experience. At Millbank she had always been alone, so far as girls of her own age were concerned, and Alice Grey seemed to her the embodiment of all that was pure and beautiful, and she loved her with a devotion that sometimes startled herself with its intenseness. The mystery, if there was one, was very quiet now, and though Alice went often down the hall and through the green baize door, she never looked as sad and tired when she came back as she had done on that first day at Beechwood. Mr. Grey, too, frequently passed the entire evening with the young girls in the parlor, where Magdalen, who was a very fine reader, read to them aloud from Alice’s favorite authors. But after the first night she was never asked tosing. Alice often requested her to play, and they had learned a few duets which they practised together, but songs were never mentioned, and Magdalen would have fancied that there was something disagreeable in her voice were it not that when alone with Alice among the hills and down by the river, whither they often went, her companion always insisted upon her singing, and would sit listening to her as if spellbound by the clear, liquid tones.
At last there came a letter from Hester Floyd, who, in her characteristic way, expressed herself as pleased that Magdalen “had grit enough to cut loose from the whole coboodle at Millbank, and go to do for herself. I was some taken aback,” she wrote, “for I s’posed by the tell that you was to marry that pimpin, white-faced Frank, and I must say you showed your good sense by quittin’ him, and doin’ for yourself. Me and Roger would have been glad for you to come here; that is, Ib’leeveRoger would, though he never sed nothin’ particklar. He’s some altered, and don’t talk so much, nor ’pear so chipper as he used to do, and I mistrust he missesyoumore’nhe does his money. He’s a good deal looked up to, both in the town and in the church, where they’ve made him a vestryman in place of a man who died, and ’twould seem as if he’d met with a change, though he allus was a good man, with no bad habits; but he’s different like now, and don’t read newspapers Sunday, nor let me get up an extra dinner, and he has family prayers, which is all well enuff, only bakin’ mornins it does hender some.”
Then followed a description of the house and Schodick generally, and then a break of two days or more, after which the old lady resumed her pen, and added: “Roger’s got a letter from Frank, askin’ if he knew where you was. He said you left while he was away unbeknownst to him, and had never writ a word, by which I take it you and he ain’t on the fust ratest terms. Roger talked the most that day that he has in a month, and actually whistled, but then he’d just gained a suit, and so mabby it was that, though I b’leeve it wouldn’t do no harm if you were to drop him a line in a friendly way. It’s leap year, you know.”
This was Hester’s letter, over which Magdalen pondered long, wondering if the old lady could have suspected her love for Roger, and how far she was right in thinking he missed her more than his money. Magdalen read that sentence many times, and her heart thrilled with delight at the thought of being missed by Roger; but from Hester’s suggestion that she should write him a friendly line, she turned resolutely away. The time was gone by when she could write to Roger without his having first written to her. After that interview in the library, when his kisses had burned into her heart, and his passionate words, “Magda, my darling,” had burned into her memory, she would be less than a woman to make the first advances. Concessions, if there were any, must come from him now. He knew how sorry she was about the will; he had exonerated her from all blame in that matter, and now, if he had any stronger feelings for her than that of a friend, he must make it manifest. This was Magdalen’s reasoning over theRoger portion of Hester’s letter, and then she thought of Frank, and felt a nervous dread lest he might follow her, though that seemed hardly possible, even if he knew where she was. Still he would undoubtedly write as soon as he could get her address from Roger, and she was not at all disappointed when, a week or two after the receipt of Hester’s letter, Mr. Grey brought her one from Belvidere, directed in Frank’s well known handwriting. After obtaining her address he had written at once, chiding her for having left so suddenly without a word for him, and begging of her to return, or at least allow him to come for her, and take her back to her rightful place at Millbank.
“I can’t imagine what freak of fortune led you to the Greys,” he wrote. “It is the last place where I could wish you to be. Not that I do not respect and esteem Miss Grey as the sweetest, loveliest of women, but I distrust both her father and her aunt. For some reason they have never seemed to like me, and may say things derogatory of me; but if they do, I trust it will make no difference with you, for rememberyouhave known me all your lifetime.”
Magdalen wrote next day to Frank, who, as he read her letter, began for the first time to feel absolutely that she was lost to him forever. He was sure of that, and for a moment he wept like a child, thinking how gladly he would give up all his money if that would bring him Magdalen’s love. But it was not in his nature to be unhappy long, and he soon dried his eyes and consoled himself with a drive after his fast bays, and in the evening when his mother mentioned to him the names of two or three young ladies from New York who were coming to Millbank for the holidays, and asked if there was any one in particular whom he wished to invite, he mentioned Miss Burleigh, whom he had met in Springfield. And so Bell was invited, and hastened to reply that she should be delighted to come, but feared she could not, as “pa never liked to be separated from his family at that time, and sister Grace would be home from school, and could not, of course, be left behind.”She was so sorry, for she had heard such glowing accounts of Millbank, and its graceful mistress, that she ardently desired to see and know both, but as it was she must decline.
As might be supposed, the invitation to Miss Bell Burleigh was repeated, including this time the Judge and Grace, both of whom accepted, Grace for the entire holidays, and the Judge for a day or two, as he did not wish to crowd. And so Christmas bade fair to be kept at Millbank with more hilarity than ever it had been before. Every room was to be occupied, Bell and Grace Burleigh taking Magdalen’s, for which Frank ordered a new and expensive carpet and chamber set, just as he had ordered new furniture for many of the other rooms. He was living on a grand scale, and had his income been what his principal was he could scarcely have been more munificent or lavish of his money. He was at the head of every charitable object in Belvidere and Springfield, and gave so largely that his name was frequently in the papers which he sent to Magdalen, with his pencil mark about the flattering notices; and Magdalen smiled quietly as she read them and then showed them to Alice, who once laughingly remarked, “Suppose you refer him to Matthew vi. 2. It might be of some benefit to him.” And that was all the good Frank’s ostentatious charity did him in that direction.
Meantime the tide of life moved on, and Christmas came, and the invited guests arrived at Millbank, where there were such revellings and dissipations as the people of Belvidere had never seen, and where Bell Burleigh’s bold, black eyes flashed and sparkled and took in everything, and saw so many places where a change would be desirable should Millbank ever have another mistress than Mrs. Walter Scott.
Guy Seymour, too, had his holidays at Beechwood, which seemed a different place with his great, kind heart, his quick appreciation of another’s wants, his unfailing wit and humor, his merry whistle and exhilarating laugh, his good-natured teasing of Auntie Pen, and his entire devotion to Alice, who was rather reserved toward him, but who talked a great deal of himto Magdalen when they were alone, andcriedwhen at last he went away.