CHAPTER XXVIII.
HER DUTY TO THE DEAD.
Doctor Ludington was obliged to speak to Mrs. Hamilton coldly, and hurry away, for the sight of Eva in her pallor and unconsciousness, with the touch of her thrilling every nerve, unmanned him so that he could scarcely refrain from taking the young girl in his arms and kissing her pale, cold lips and shut eye-lids with the passion that surged in his heart.
The old love was not dead. Vainly had he tried to cheat his heart with the fancy.
She was more beautiful than in her early girlhood, more alluring than ever to the man who had watched her from childhood, noting every budding charm as it expanded into the matchless, full-blown rose.
To think of her pledged to another in all her sweetness was madness to the hopeless lover who had come so near to bliss only to be thrust back into despair. His heart cried out fiercely, imperiously:
“She is mine, mine, mine! How dare she give herself to another?”
He could not come back to see her to-morrow as her aunt wished. No, no, no! He felt he could scarcely control himself in her presence, or keep back burning words of love from his lips.
His first impulse was to rush away from the city,as we all long to rush away from our pain. His self-confidence had been too great in fancying he could remain there in sight and sound of his old love—the one love of his life.
Bitterly he regretted now the promise to his absent friend to remain at the hospital during all of the winter months. He knew that he could not recall it now, because no one could be found to take his place in this special branch.
His duty to his patients, as well as to his friend, made flight impossible. He must stay, even though his heart was wrenched with pain, even though he saw her made the bride of another.
With these thronging painful thoughts he returned to his duties, endeavoring to give all his mind to them to the exclusion of jealous agonies and haunting regrets.
Meanwhile he had scarcely left the house before Eva sighed deeply and recovered consciousness, flashing her dark, wistful eyes searchingly about the room. But she encountered only the anxious gaze of her aunt and maid.
“Are you looking for the doctor, my dear? He has gone, and you will soon be all right again,” Mrs. Hamilton said, kissing her tenderly.
It seemed to her as if the red lips quivered, and the dark eyes dimmed with a mist of tears, and, believing that she must still be very nervous and alarmed, Mrs. Hamilton sat down by her side, caressing the cold, little hands in her own, as she continued:
“You will soon be quite well again. The handsome young doctor said so, and assured me that it would not ever be necessary for him to call again.”
At that she was quite sure that the little white hands trembled like frightened birds in her clasp. Clearly Eva was very nervous indeed. She must soothe her, she decided, by gentle conversation. So she added:
“I was almost sorry that he could not come again. He was so handsome and distinguished-looking I became quite interested in him. It is very fortunate he happened to be in the park at the time of the accident. He was as tender as a woman bringing you home with him, and then carrying you into the house and up here like a baby in his arms. Though to be sure, no young man would object to such a lovely burden. I am sure this Doctor Ludington liked it; he held you so close to his heart and put you down so reluctantly. It is rather strange that I have never heard of him before in New York. He told me he was of the —— Hospital, and that alone is a guarantee of his ability and high standing, so I shall send him a card to our next reception.”
The pale, trembling girl lay silent, yet swallowing every word with avidity.
When she heard how he had brought her home and carried her upstairs in his arms, so tenderly that he seemed reluctant to put her down, her heart throbbed with delight and a faint blush colored her cheek, so that she dared not lift her eyes lest heraunt should read in them the story of her passionate love.
She dared not confess he belonged to her shadowed past, the story of which her proud father had bidden her never to betray even to her aunt.
She must remain silent and try to repress the love flaming anew in her tortured heart. It was an accident that had brought them together again, but the meeting was not likely to be repeated. Doctor Ludington would avoid her in his wounded pride, he would never accept the invitation Mrs. Hamilton meant to send him.
Yet how strange that he should be in New York and without her knowledge. She wondered how long he had been there, and if he had seen her before.
When Mrs. Hamilton observed that Eva was still trembling very much, she exclaimed:
“But perhaps I am making you worse, my dear, chatting to you at this rate.”
“Oh, no, auntie, I could listen to you forever,” declared Eva, with enthusiasm.
“That is very flattering,” smiled the lady, without suspecting that it was the subject of her talk that made it of such thrilling interest to her pretty niece.
The maid here suggested that her young lady might feel more comfortable if she exchanged her tight cloth gown for a loose robe, and on Eva’s assenting, Mrs. Hamilton left the room to send a messenger to find out something about her stepson, whether he had escaped uninjured or not.
She met Mr. Somerville coming up the stairs in a rush with a pale, alarmed face to see his daughter. He had just learned of the accident, and told his sister that Reginald Hamilton had been thrown from his sleigh in the park, and sustained some painful though not serious injuries, so that he would very likely be confined to his room for a week.
“We have cause to be grateful to Heaven that both were not killed,” he said very seriously, as he passed on to Eva’s apartments.
She was lying down in a loose robe with a bandaged head, but she did not look so ill after all, for there was a delicate flickering color on her cheek and a tender light in her languid eyes.
Mr. Somerville dismissed the attentive maid and bent down to embrace his daughter, with fondest affection.
“Thank Heaven you are spared to me, my darling!” he cried. “Ah, how frightened I was when I heard about the accident, until I knew you and Reggie were safe, and only slightly hurt. I cannot think what made the horses bolt. He always assured me they were so safe.”
Eva hid her face on his breast and burst into tears, remembering the cause of it all.
“Why, what is it, my pet? What troubles you? Or is it only nervous excitement?” queried the anxious father, soothing and petting her as if she had been a little child.
Eva, with difficulty, suppressed her sobs, and faltered:
“Papa, I must confess everything to you like a little child, for I cannot bear the burden of a secret. It always seems to me lighter when shared with a sympathetic heart.”
“That is very true, my precious Eva, and I have always loved your sweet confiding nature; so like the one who bore you, my angel Nellie. Go on, tell me all you wish, and be sure of my sympathy.”
“I am not so sure of that, dear papa, for I fancy you will be displeased when you hear what I must tell you, that I have refused Reginald Hamilton.”
“Impossible, Eva.”
“Ah, I knew you would be angry with me,” she sobbed.
“Not angry, my sweet daughter, only sorely disappointed. The match was a fine one even for my daughter, and it was the desire of my heart.”
“I know, I know—and of auntie’s too. I have seen it all along, and I tried so hard. I wished so much to love poor Reggie.”
“It seems strange that you could not—so handsome, so winning, so rich—half the girls in society are setting their caps at him, my dear.”
“They are welcome to him.”
“Don’t say that, Eva, for you may love him yet, as we all wish.”
“Oh, papa, if it could be! But my poor, poor heart,it is too faithful to another,” she dropped her crimson face and wet eyes upon his breast in tender shame.
Softly stroking the golden head, he exclaimed:
“Then you have not forgotten him yet, Eva? the man who deceived you, whom you refused to forgive! If you cared for him so much why send him from you? And can you wish to recall him now?”
In his heart of hearts he had thought Eva wrong to break with her promised husband for the reason she had given, fairly acquitting Doctor Ludington of blood guiltiness in Terry Groves’ death, in his own mind.
But he had not told her so, and he would not now; he could not help a little selfish gladness in getting back the daughter he had been cheated of so long unincumbered by a husband. She thus seemed more entirely his own.
But since he could not keep her always he had smiled on Hamilton’s suit, believing it would be for Eva’s good to wed him, and thus break forever with her painful past.
Never till this moment had a cry of regret escaped her lips; never before had she shown him her aching heart.
The tender, loving nature yearning for sympathy in her sorrow could not bear her burden alone.
As she only sobbed in answer to his last words, he added sadly:
“You have seen him again, Eva. I heard that he had brought you home, and I knew some time agothat he was filling Doctor Noel’s place at the —— Hospital while he went abroad.”
“You knew—and never told me, papa.”
“You had said long ago, my daughter, that you wished never to hear his name spoken again.”
“Yes, I remember it now,” faintly.
“Have you changed your mind on the matter now?”
“No, papa,” she faltered sorrowfully. “I can never forget how it would have grieved grandfather if I had married a Ludington.”
Touched by her sorrow, he said generously:
“Are you going to let that old man’s prejudice stand between you and your life’s happiness? Throw his memory to the winds and take Ludington back if you cannot be happy without him.”
“Do not tempt me to do wrong, dear papa,” Eva answered, pleadingly in her despair.
“I do not call it wrong, Eva. It was a foolish, senseless vendetta, unworthy of a civilized age like this, and it would have been wise for you and Doctor Ludington to end it by intermarriage of the families,” replied Mr. Somerville frankly, speaking straight from his heart in his tenderness over his child.
“Oh, you don’t understand it, dear papa,” she sighed. “Granfather was unjustly accused by the Ludingtons, and really persecuted by them. So how dreadful for his granddaughter to love and marry one of his enemy’s race.”
“Eva, you are still halfway a little savage in these hidebound prejudices inherited from your stern oldgrandfather,” her father said, in gentle rebuke, but she sighed.
“He was fond of me and kind to me, and I must take his part.”
“He was neither fond nor kind when he turned you out of doors to perish on a wintry night, believing you had dishonored the family name,” he retorted quickly and indignantly.
Eva’s bosom heaved, and tears sparkled into her big dark eyes.
“They goaded him to it, those vipers who hated me,” she said bitterly. “He soon repented; he would have atoned if he had not died. I forgave him everything because we had loved each other so.”
“Dear heart,” he murmured, wondering at her sweetness, and she answered sorrowfully:
“I could not grieve grandfather in heaven by marrying the one who caused his nephew’s death. No, no! So, though I cannot help loving him, through the deceit by which he won my heart, I must never see Doctor Ludington any more if I can avoid it. It is impossible that I should ever be his wife.”
“Then I will help you to avoid him,” he replied. “The best way to drive him from your heart, my dear, will be to think tenderly of some one else, and I predict that you will marry Reggie yet. Once an adored wife you would soon forget the past and be happy in the present.”
“It does not seem possible,” she murmured, but he answered:
“It is the best remedy.”
The words haunted her when he had gone out, telling her to sleep and rest while he went to call on Hamilton in his bachelor quarters.
“I would do anything that would bring me forgetfulness,” she murmured bitterly, wondering if the time could ever come when she would find repose in another’s love.
She covered her face when the maid tripped back presently, and pretended to be asleep, but she was silently weeping her heart out, poor little Eva, and the silken cushion was soaked with her tears.
Meanwhile Mrs. Hamilton, downstairs, after expatiating volubly on the handsome doctor to her brother, was astonished when he forbade her to carry out her intention of inviting him to her next large entertainment.
“I prefer that you will not do so,” he replied.
“But, my dear brother, we owe him some attention.”
“I will settle that with a large fee,” he replied.
“But still, brother——”
“I prefer not to discuss the matter further,” and lest she should persevere, he went hastily out, after the manner of men.
Mrs. Hamilton’s courteous soul stood aghast. She mused:
“As if a large fee could pay for his friendliness and sympathy. Why, he carried Eva as tenderly as if she had been his own sister, or sweetheart. I shallnever forget how tenderly he touched her and looked at her, but then perhaps that was only natural with such a pretty young girl. Ah, I have it. My brother did not want him to see too much of Eva; he is anxious, as I am, for the match between her and Reggie, and that Doctor Ludington might be a dangerous rival, I am sure, so I had better not take him up, I suppose, though I shall always like and admire him for Eva’s sake.
“Poor, dear child; what a strange confession she made to me to-day. What chance can there be for Reggie if she loves some one else, to be sure? It must be that her father parted her from some rustic lover when he brought her away from West Virginia. I wish I knew more of her girlish life before she came here, but when I ask her any leading questions she answers so pitifully: ‘Oh, I can never talk about those old times. It makes me cry.’”
The next day Eva was better, and the third day the bandage was removed and a little golden lock trained down over the red scar on her temple to hide it till it got well.
That day she went down to the drawing-room to receive her sympathetic girl friends, and when they were gone she turned to a batch of letters awaiting her pleasure.
“It must be a love letter,” her aunt cried, watching her radiant face over the first one.
“Better than that. Ada Winton is coming to visit me at last, as I have so often invited her to do. Herdear Aunt Susan is dead, her home broken up, and there is nothing to keep her from coming to me now while she is so lonely,” Eva cried gladly.
“We will give her a cordial welcome and a happy home”, exclaimed Mrs. Hamilton quickly, adding to herself:
“And perhaps I can find out from Eva’s old friend something about this mysterious lover over whom the poor child is breaking her heart.”
Hearing a carriage stop in front of the house, she glanced out of the window, and exclaimed:
“There are two strange ladies getting out of a carriage and coming in here, Eva. One is young and rather stylish, the other is old and a regular old frump in appearance. She is tall and scraggly-looking, with old maid written all over her face. I wonder where on earth she got that funny bonnet, brown velvet with green plumes nodding all over it. My, what a horrid, rusty-looking brown silk, and that seal plush cape beaded all over. Good Lord, deliver us! And, Eva, as I live, she has two gray corkscrew curls bobbing on either side her cheeks! She must have come out of the ark, or escaped from a lunatic asylum. Oh,” with a little shriek as the doorbell rang, and there was heard a slight altercation in the hall between the manservant and the visitors.
“I tell you we ain’t no strangers, an’ we ain’t gwine ter send in no cards! Me an’ Pat Groves air Eva’s cousins from West Virginia, an’ we air gwine right in the parlor where she is ’ithout no ceremony. Comealong, Patty, don’t look so skeered, gal. I’ll stand by ye, an’ nothin’ can’t hurt ye. You air as rich an’ grand as she is sence Grandfather Groves struck ile an’ made you a nairess!” proclaimed a shrill, confident voice, and pushing back the heavy portières Miss Tabitha Ruttencutter stood revealed in all her glory, clutching the more timorous Patty, fairly dragging the handsome, over-dressed girl into the drawing-room.
They had been in New York several weeks trying to get into “sassiety,” as Miss Tabby called it, and they believed their best chance lay in conciliating Eva, hence the present call, both agreeing that even if the outraged girl turned them out of doors they should at least know what her house looked like inside, and could brag about its splendors to admiring friends when they returned home.
“How do, little Eva,” exclaimed Miss Tabby, with hoarse cordiality in her high, rasping voice. “Ain’t forgot me an’ your cousin Patty Groves, I hope, sence you moved away. We seen it in the papers about your dretful accident, an’ come to make a sympathizing visit with you, lettin’ bygones be bygones, an’ no more hard feelings ’twixt us!”