 | CHAPTER VIII.
THE STRANGER IN BELVIDERE. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward |  |
8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE STRANGER IN BELVIDERE.
DURING the eleven years since her disappointment,
Mrs. Walter Scott had never once been to Millbank.
She had seen the house several times from the car
window as she was whirled by on her way to Boston, and she
managed to keep a kind of oversight of all that was transpiring
there, but she never crossed the threshold, and had said she
never would. Frank, on the contrary, was a frequent visitor
there. He bore no malice to its inmates on account of the
missing will. Roger had been very generous with him, allowing
him more than the four hundred a year, and assisting him out of
many a “deuced scrape,” as Frank termed the debts he was
constantly incurring, with no ostensible way of liquidating them
except through his Uncle Roger. He called him uncle frequently
for fun, and Roger always laughed good-humoredly
upon his fair-haired nephew, whom he liked in spite of his
many faults.
Frank was now at Yale; but he was no student, and would
have left college the very first year but for Roger, who had
more influence over him than any other living person. Frank
believed in Roger, and listened to him as he would listen to no
one else, and when at last, with his college diploma and his
profession as a lawyer, won, Roger went for two or three years'
travel in the old world, Frank felt as if his anchorage was
swept away and he was left to float wherever the tide and his
vacations were spent at Millbank, where he hunted in the
grand old woods, with Magdalen trudging obediently at his side
in the capacity of game carrier, or fished in the creek or river,
with Magdalen to carry the worms and put them on his hook.
Frank was lazy, — terribly, fearfully lazy, — and whatever service
another would render him, he was ready to receive. So
Magdalen, whose hands and feet never seemed to tire, ministered
willingly to the city-bred young man, who teased her
about her dark face and pulled her wavy hair, and laughed at
her clothes with the Hester stamp upon them, and called her
a little Gypsy, petting her one moment, and then in a moody
fit sending her away “to wait somewhere within call,” until he
wanted her. And Magdalen, who never dreamed of rebelling
from the slavery in which he held her when at Millbank, looked
forward with eager delight to his coming, and cried when he
went away.
Roger she held in the utmost veneration and esteem, regarding
him as something more than mortal. She had never carried
the game-bag for him, or put worms upon his hook, for he
neither fished nor hunted; but she used to ride with him on
horseback, biting her lips and winking hard to keep down her
tears and conquer her fear of the spirited animal he bade her
ride. She would have walked straight into the crater of
Vesuvius if Roger had told her to, and at his command she
tried to overcome her mortal terror of horses, — to sit and ride,
and carry her reins and whip as he taught her, until at last she
grew accustomed to the big black horse, and Roger's commendations
of her skill in managing it were a sufficient recompense
for weary hours of riding through the lanes, and meadows,
and woods of Millbank.
So, too, when Roger gave her a Latin grammar and bade
her learn its pages, she set herself at once to the task, studying
day and night, and growing feverish and thin, and nervous,
until Hester interfered, and said “a child of ten was no more
must let her alone till she was older if he did not want to kill
her.”
Then Roger, who in his love for books had forgotten that
children did not all possess his tastes or powers of endurance,
put the grammar away and took Magdalen with him to New
York to a scientific lecture, of which she did not understand a
word, and during which she went fast asleep with her head on
his shoulder, and her queer little straw bonnet dreadfully
jammed and hanging down her back. Roger tied on her
bonnet when the lecture was over, and tried to straighten the
pinch in front, and never suspected that it was at all different
from the other bonnets around him. The next night he took
her to Niblo's, where she nearly went crazy with delight; and
for weeks after, her little room at Millbank was the scene of
many a pantomime, as she tried to reproduce for Bessie's
benefit the wonderful things she had seen.
That was nearly two years before the summer day of which
we write. She had fished and hunted with Frank since then,
and told him of Niblo's as of a place he had never seen, and
said good-by to Roger, who was going off to Europe, and who
had enjoined upon her sundry things she was to do during his
absence, one of which was always to carry the Saturday's
bouquet to his father's grave. This practice Roger had kept
up ever since his father died, taking the flowers himself when
he was at home, and leaving orders for Hester to see that they
were sent when he was away. Magdalen, who had frequently
been with him to the grave-yard, knew that the Jessie whose
name was on the marble was buried in the sea, for Roger had
told her of the burning ship, and the beautiful woman who
went down with it. And with her shrewd perceptions, Magdalen
had guessed that the flowers offered weekly to the dead
were more for the mother, who was not there, than for the
father, who was. And after Roger went away she adopted the
plan of taking with her two bouquets, one large and beautiful
on the library-wall she did not altogether fancy.
A visit to the cemetery was always one of the duties of Saturday,
and toward the middle of the afternoon, on a bright
day in July, Magdalen started as usual with her basket of
flowers on her arm. She liked going to that little yard where
the shadows from the evergreens fell so softly upon the grass,
and the white rose-bush which Roger had planted was climbing
up the tall monument and shedding its sweet perfume on
the air. There was an iron chair in the yard, where Magdalen
sat down, and divesting herself of her shoes and stockings,
cooled her bare feet on the grass and hummed snatches of
songs learned from Frank, who affected to play the guitar and
accompany it with his voice. And while she is sitting there
we will give a pen-and-ink photograph of her as she was at
twelve years of age. A straight, lithe little figure, with head
set so erect upon her shoulders that it leaned back rather than
forward. A full, round face, with features very regular, except
the nose, which had a slight inclination upward, and which
Frank teasingly called “a turn-up.” Masses of dark hair,
which neither curled nor lay straight upon the well-shaped head,
but rippled in soft waves all over it, and was kept short in the
neck by Hester, who “didn't believe much in hair,” and who
often deplored Magdalen's “heavy mop,” until the child was
old enough to attend to it herself. A clear, brown complexion,
with a rich, healthful tint on cheek and lip, and a fairer, lighter
coloring upon the low, wide forehead; dark, hazel eyes, which,
under strong excitement, would grow black as night and flash
forth fiery gleams, but which ordinarily were soft and mild
and bright, as the stars to which Frank likened them. The
eyes were the strongest point in Magdalen's face, and made
her very handsome in spite of the outlandish dress in which
Hester always arrayed her, and the rather awkward manner in
which she carried her hands and elbows. Hester ignored
fashions. If Magdalen was only clean and neat, that was all
she thought necessary, and she put the child in clothes old
dresses buttoned up before, and far too long for a girl of
Magdalen's age.
Except for Frank's teasing remarks, Magdalen would have
cared very little for her personal appearance, and as he was in
New Haven now she was having a nice time alone in the
cemetery, with her shoes and stockings off to cool her feet, and
her bonnet off to cool her head, round which her short, damp
hair was curling more than usual. She was thinking of Jessie,
and wondering how she happened to be on the ocean, and
where she was going, and she did not at first see the stranger
coming down the walk in the direction of the yard where
she was sitting. He was apparently between fifty and sixty,
for his hair was very gray, and there were deep-cut lines about
his eyes and mouth; but he was very fine-looking still, and a
man to be noticed and commented upon among a thousand.
He was coming directly to Squire Irving's lot, where he
stood a moment with his hand upon the iron fence before
Magdalen saw him. With a blush and a start she sprang up,
and tried, by bending her knees, to make her dress cover her
bare feet, which, nevertheless, were plainly visible, as she
modestly answered the stranger's questions.
“Good afternoon, Miss,” he said, touching his hat to her
as politely as if she had been a princess, instead of a barefoot
girl. “You have chosen a novel, but very pleasant place for
an afternoon reverie. Whose yard is this, and whose little
girl are you?”
“I am Mr. Roger's little girl, and this is Squire Irving's lot.
That's his monument,” Magdalen replied; and at the sound of
her voice and the lifting up of her eyes the stranger looked
curiously at her.
“What is your name, and what are you doing here?” he
asked her next; and she replied, “I came with flowers for the
grave. I bring them every Saturday, and my name is Magdalen.”
This time the stranger started, and without waiting to go
round to the gate, sprang over the iron fence and came to
Magdalen's side.
“Magdalen whom?” he asked. “Magdalen Rogers?”
“No, sir. Magdalen Lennox. I haven't any father nor
mother, and I live up at Millbank. You can just see it
through the trees. Squire Irving used to live there, but since
he died it belongs to Mr. Roger, and he has gone to Europe,
and told me to bring flowers every Saturday to the graves.
That's his father,” she continued, pointing to the squire's
name, “and that,” pointing to Jessie's name, “is his mother;
only she is not here, you know. She died on the sea.”
If the stranger had not been interested before, he was now,
and he went close to the stone where Jessie's name was cut,
and stood there for a moment without saying a word to the
little girl at his side. His back was toward her, and she could
not see his face until he turned to her again, and said, —
“And you live there at Millbank, where — where Mrs. Irving
did. You certainly could not have been there when she
died.”
Magdalen colored scarlet, and stood staring at him with
those bright, restless, eager eyes, which so puzzled and perplexed
him. She had heard from Hester some of the particulars
of her early life, while from her young girl friends she had
heard a great deal more which distressed and worried her, and
sent her at last to Roger for an explanation. And Roger,
thinking it was best to do so, had told her the whole truth, and
given into her keeping the locket which she had worn
about her neck, and the dress in which she came to Millbank.
She was old enough to understand in part her true position,
and she was very sensitive with regard to her early history.
That there was something wrong about both her parents, she
knew; but still there was a warm, tender spot in her heart
for her mother, who, Roger had said, bent over her with
a kiss and a few whispered words of affection, ere abandoning
her in the cars. Magdalen could sometimes feel that kiss
described so minutely. There was a look like them in her own
eyes, and she was glad of it, and glad her hair was dark and
glossy, as Roger said her mother's was. She was proud to look
like her mother; though she was not proud of her mother, and
she never mentioned her to any one save Roger, or alluded to
the time when she had been deserted. So when the stranger's
words seemed to ask how long she had been at Millbank, she
hesitated, and at last replied:
“Of course I was not born when Mrs. Irving died. I'm
only twelve years old. I was a poor little girl, with nobody to
care for me, and Mr. Roger took me to live with him. He is
not very old, though. He is only twenty-six; and his nephew
Frank is twenty-one in August.”
The stranger smiled upon the quaint, old-fashioned little girl,
whose eyes, fastened so curiously upon him, made him slightly
uneasy.
“Magdalen,” he said at last, but more as if speaking to himself
and repeating a name which had once been familiar to him.
“What, sir?” was Magdalen's reply, which recalled him back
to the present.
He must say something to her, and so he asked:
“Who gave you the name of Magdalen? It is a very pretty
name.”
There was a suavity and winning graciousness in his manner,
which, young as she was, Magdalen felt, and it inclined her to
be more familiar and communicative than she would otherwise
have been to a stranger.
“It was her second name,” she said, touching the word
Jessie on the marble. “And Mr. Roger gave it to me when I
went to live with him.”
“Then you were named for Mrs. Irving?” and the stranger
involuntarily drew a step nearer to the little girl, on whose hair
his hand rested for a moment. “Do they talk much of her at
Millbank?”
“No; nobody but Mr. Roger, when he is at home. Her
pearls on her neck and arms, and the flowers in her hair. She
must have been beautiful.”
“Yes, very beautiful,” fell mechanically from the stranger's
lips; and Magdalen asked, in some surprise: “Did you know
her, sir?”
“I judge from your description,” was the reply; and then he
asked “if the flowers were for Mrs. Irving.”
“The large bouquet is. I always make a difference, because
I think Mr. Roger loved her best,” Magdalen said.
Just then there came across the fields the sound of the village
clock striking the hour of five, and Magdalen started, exclaiming,
“I must go now; Hester will be looking for me.”
The stranger saw her anxious glance at her stockings and
shoes, and thoughtfully turned his back while she gathered them
up and thrust them into her basket.
“You'd better put them on,” he said, when he saw the
disposition she had made of them. “The gravel stones will
hurt your feet, and there may be thistles, too.”
He seemed very kind indeed, and walked to another enclosure,
while Magdalen put on her stockings and shoes and
then arose to go. She thought he would accompany her as far
as the highway, sure, and began to feel a little elated at the
prospect of being seen in company with so fine a gentleman by
old Bettie, the gate-keeper, and her granddaughter Lottie.
But he was in no hurry to leave the spot.
“This is a very pretty cemetery; I believe I will walk about
a little,” he said, as he saw that the girl seemed to be waiting
for him.
Magdalen knew this was intended as a dismissal, and walked
rapidly away. Pausing at the stile over which she passed into
the street, she looked back and saw the stranger, — not walking
about the grounds, but standing by the monument and apparently
leaning his head upon it. Had she passed that place an
hour later, she would have missed from its cup of water the
largest bouquet, the one she had brought for Mrs. Irving, and
near Jessie's name. But she would have charged the theft to
the children by the gate, who sometimes did rob the grave of
flowers, and not to the splendid-looking man with the big gold
chain, who had spoken so kindly to her, and of whom her head
was full as she went back to Millbank, where she was met by
Hester with an open letter in her hand, bearing a foreign post-mark.
| CHAPTER VIII.
THE STRANGER IN BELVIDERE. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward | |