CHAPTER XVIII.MARIAN HAZELTON.
The last days of June had come, and Wilford was beginning to make arrangements for removing Katy from the city before the warmer weather. To this he had been urged by Mark Ray’s remarking that Katy was not looking as well as when he first saw her, one year ago. “She has grown thin and pale,” he said. “Had Wilford remarked it?”
Wilford had not. She complained much of headache, but that was only natural. Still he wrote to the Mountain House that afternoon to secure rooms for himself and wife, and then at an earlier hour than usual went home to tell her of the arrangement. Katy was out shopping, Esther said, and had not yet returned, adding,
“There is a note for her up stairs, left by a woman who I guess came for work.”
That a woman should come for work was not strange, but that she should leave a note seemed rather too familiar; and when on going to the library he saw it upon the table, he took it in his hand and examined the superscription closely, holding it up to the light and forgetting to open it in his perplexity and the train of thought it awakened.
“They are singularly alike,” he said, and still holding the note in his hand he opened a drawer of his writing desk, which was always kept locked, and took from it apictureand a bit of soiled paper, on which was written, “I amnotguilty, Wilford, and God will never forgive the wrong you have done to me.”
There was no name or date, but Wilford knew whose hand had penned those lines, and he sat comparing them with the “Mrs. Wilford Cameron” which the strange woman had written. Then opening the note, he read that, having returned to New York, and wishing employment either as seamstress or dressmaker, Marian Hazelton had ventured to call upon Mrs. Cameron, remembering her promise to give her work if she should desire it.
“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked himself as he threw down the missive. “Some of Katy’s country friends, I dare say. Seems to me I have heard that name. She certainly writes as Genevra did, except that this Hazelton’s is more decided and firm. Poor Genevra!”
There was a pallor about Wilford’s lips as he said this, and taking up the picture he gazed for a long time upon the handsome, girlish face, whose dark eyes seemed to look reproachfully upon him, just as they must have looked when the words were penned, “God will never forgive the wrong you have done to me.”
“Genevra was mistaken,” he said. “At least if God has not forgiven, he has prospered me, which amounts to the same thing;” and without a single throb of gratitude to Him who had thus prospered him, Wilford laid Genevra’s picture and Genevra’s note back with the withered grass and flowers plucked from Genevra’s grave, just as Katy’s ring was heard and Katy herself came in.
As thoughts of Genevra always made Wilford kinder towards his wife, so now he kissed her white cheek, noticing that, as Mark had said, it was whiter than last year in June. But mountain air would bring back the roses, he thought, as he handed her the note.
“Oh, yes, from Marian Hazelton,” Katy said, glancing first at the name and then hastily reading it through.
“Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked, and Katy replied by repeating all she knew of Marian, and how she chanced to know her at all. “Don’t you remember Helen wrote that she fainted at our wedding, and I was so sorry, fearing I might have overworked her?”
Wilford did remember something about it, and then dismissing Marian from his mind, he told Katy of his plan for taking her to the Mountain House a few weeks before going to Saratoga.
“Would you not like it?” he asked, as she continued silent, with her eyes fixed upon the window opposite.
“Yes,” and Katy drew a long and weary breath. “I shall like any place where there are birds, and rocks, and trees, and real grass, such as grows of itself in the country; but Wilford,” and Katy crept close to him now, “if Imight go to Silverton, I should get strong so fast! You don’t know how I long to see home once more. I dream about it nights and think about it days, knowing just how pleasant it is there, with the roses in bloom and the meadows so fresh and green. May I go, Wilford? May I go home to mother?”
Had Katy asked for half his fortune, just as she asked to go home, Wilford would have given it to her; but Silverton had a power to lock all the softer avenues of his heart, and so he answered that the Mountain House was preferable, that the rooms were engaged, and that as he should enjoy it so much better he thought they would make no change.
Katy did not cry, nor utter a word of remonstrance; she was learning that quiet submission was better than useless opposition, and so Silverton was again given up. But there was one consolation. Seeing Marian Hazelton would be almost as good as going home, for had she not recently come from that neighborhood, bringing with her the odor from the hills and freshness from the woods? Perhaps, too, she had lately seen Helen or Morris at church, and had heard the music of the organ which Helen played, and the singing of the children just as it sometimes came to Katy in her dreams, making her start in her sleep and murmur snatches of the sacred songs which Dr. Morris had taught. Yes, Marian could tell her of all this, and very impatiently Katy waited for the morning when she started for No.—— Fourth Street, with the piles of sewing intended for Marian.
It was a fault of Marian’s not to remain long contented in any place. Tiring of the country, she had returned to the city, and thinking she might succeed better alone, had hired a room far up the narrow stairway of a high, sombre-looking building, and then from her old acquaintances, of whom she had several in the city, she had solicited work. More than once she had passed the handsome house on Madison Square where Katy lived, walking slowly, and contrasting it with heroneroom, which was not wholly uninviting, for where Marian went there was always an air of comfort; and Katy, as she crossed the threshold, uttered an exclamation of delight at the cheerful, airyaspect of the apartment, with its bright ingrain carpet, its simple shades of white, its chintz-covered lounge, its one rocking-chair, its small parlor stove, and its pots of flowers upon the broad window sill.
“Oh Marian,” she exclaimed, tripping across the floor, and impulsively throwing her arms around Miss Hazelton’s neck, “I am so glad to meet some one from home. It seems almost like Helen I am kissing,” and her lips again met those of Marian Hazelton, amid her joy at finding Katy unchanged, wondered what the Camerons would say to see their Mrs. Wilford kissing a poor seamstress whom they would have spurned.
But Katy did not care forCameronsthen, or even think of them, as in her rich basquine and pretty hat, with emeralds and diamonds sparkling on her fingers, she sat down by Marian.
“Tell me of Silverton; you don’t know how I want to go there; but Wilford does not think it best, at present. Next fall I am surely going, and I picture to myself just how it will look: Morris’s garden, full of the autumnal flowers—the ripe peaches in our orchard, the grapes ripening on the wall, and the long shadows on the grass, just as I used to watch them, wondering what made them move so fast, and where they could be going. Will it be unchanged, Marian? Do places seem the same when once we have left them?” and Katy’s eager eyes looked wistfully at Marian, who replied, “Not always—not often, in fact; but in your case they may. You have not been long away.”
“Only a year,” Katy said. “I was as long as that in Canandaigua; but this past year is different. I have seen so much, and lived so much, that I feel ten years older than I did last spring, when you and Helen made my wedding dress. Darling Helen! When did you see her last?”
“I was there five weeks ago,” Marian replied; “I saw them all, and told them I was coming to New York.”
“Do they miss me any? Do they talk of me? Do they wish me back again?” Katy asked, and Marian replied, “They talked of little else, that is your own family. Dr. Morris, I think, did not mention your name. He hasgrown very silent and reserved,” and Marian’s eyes were fixed inquiringly upon Katy, as if to ascertain how much she knew of the cause for Morris’s reserve.
But Katy had no suspicion, and only replied, “Perhaps he is vexed that I do not write to him oftener, but I can’t. I think of him a great deal, and respect him more than any living man, except, of course, Wilford; but when I try to write, something comes in between me and what I wish to say, for I want to convince him that I amnotas frivolous as he thinks I am. I havenotforgotten the Sunday-school, nor the church service; but in the city it is so hard to be good, and the service and music seem all for show, and I feel so hateful when I see Juno and Wilford’s mother putting their heads down on velvet cushions, knowing as I do that they both are thinking either of their own bonnets or those just in front.”
“Are you not a little uncharitable?” Marian asked, laughing in spite of herself at the picture Katy drew of fashion trying to imitate religion in its humility.
“Perhaps so,” Katy answered. “I grow bad from looking behind the scenes, and the worst is that I do not care,” and then Katy went back again to the farm-house asking numberless questions and reaching finally thebusinesswhich had brought her to Marian’s room.
There were spots on Marian’s neck, and her lips were white, as she grasped the bundles tossed into her lap—the yards and yards of lace and embroidery, linen, and cambric, which she was expected to make for the wife of Wilford Cameron; and her voice was husky as she asked directions or made suggestions of her own.
“It’s because she has no such joy in expectation. I should feel so, too, if I were thirty and unmarried,” Katy thought, as she noticed Marian’s agitation, and tried to divert her mind by talking of Europe and the places she had visited.
“By the way, you were born in England? Were you ever at Alnwick?” Katy asked, and Marian replied, “Once, yes. I’ve seen the castle and the church. Did you go there—to St. Mary’s, I mean?”
“Oh, yes, and I was never tired of that old churchyard.Wilford liked it, too, and we wandered by the hour among the sunken graves and quaint headstones.”
“Do you remember any of the names upon the stones? Perhaps I may know them?” Marian asked; but Katy did not remember any, or if she did, it was not “Genevra Lambert, aged 22.” And so Marian asked her no more questions concerning Alnwick, but talked instead of London and other places, until three hours went by, and down in the street the coachman chafed and fretted at the long delay, wondering what kept his mistress in that neighborhood so long. Had she friends, or had she come on some errand of mercy? The latter most likely, he concluded, and so his face was not quite so cross when Katy at last appeared, looking at her watch and exclaiming at the lateness of the hour.
Katy was very happy that morning, for seeing Marian had brought Silverton near to her, and airy as a bird she ran up the steps of her own dwelling, where the door opened as by magic, and Wilford himself confronted her, asking, with the tone which always made her heart beat, where she had been, and he waiting for her two whole hours. “Surely it was not necessary to stop so long with a seamstress,” he continued when she tried to explain. “Ten minutes would suffice for directions,” and he could not imagine what attraction there was in Miss Hazelton to keep her there three hours, and then the real cause of his vexation came out. He had come expressly for the carriage to take her and Sybil Grandon to a picnic up the river, whither his mother, Juno and Bell, had already gone. Mrs. Grandon must wonder why he stayed so long, and perhaps give up going. Could Katy be ready soon? and Wilford walked rapidly up and down the parlor with a restless motion of his hands which always betokened impatience. Poor Katy! how the brightness of the morning faded, and how averse she felt to joining that picnic, which she knew had been in prospect for some time, and had fancied she should enjoy! But not to-day, with that look on Wilford’s face, and the feeling that he was vexed. Still she could think of no reasonable excuse, and so an hour later found her driving into the country with Sybil Grandon, who received her apologies with as much good-naturedgrace as if she too had not worked herself into a passion at the delay, for Sybil had been very cross and impatient; but all this vanished when she met Wilford and saw that he was disturbed and irritated. Soft, and sweet, and smooth was she both in word and manner, so that by the time the grove was reached Wilford’s ruffled spirits had been soothed, and he was himself again, ready to enjoy the pleasures of the day as keenly as if no harsh word had been said to Katy, who, silent and unhappy, listened to the graceful badinage between Sybil and her husband, thinking how differently his voice had sounded when addressing her only a little while before.
“Pray put some animation into your face, or Mrs. Grandon will think we have been quarreling,” Wilford whispered, as he lifted his wife from the carriage, and with a great effort Katy tried to be gay and natural.
But all the while she was fighting back her tears and wishing she were away. Even Marian’s room, looking into the dingy court, was preferable to that place, and she was glad when the long day came to an end, and with a fearful headache she was riding back to the city.
The next morning was dark and rainy; but in spite of the weather Katy found her way to Marian’s room, this time taking the —— avenue cars, which left her independent as regarded the length of her stay. About Marian there was something more congenial than about her city friends, and day after day found her there, watching while Marian fashioned into shape the beautiful little garments, the sight of which had a strangely quieting influence upon Katy, sobering her down and maturing her more than all the years of her life had done. Those were happy hours spent with Marian Hazelton, and Katy felt it keenly when Wilford at last interfered, telling her she was growing quite too familiar with that sewing woman, and her calls must be discontinued, except, indeed, such as were necessary to the work in progress.
With one great gush of tears, when there was no one to see her, Katy gave Marian up, writing her a note, in which were sundry directions for the work, which would go on even after she had left for the Mountain House, as she intended doing the last of June. And Marianguessed at more than Katy meant she should, and with a bitter sigh laid it in her basket, and then resumed the work, which seemed doubly monotonous now that there was no more listening for the little feet tripping up the stairs, or for the bird-like voice which had brought so much of music and sunshine to her lonely room.