 | CHAPTER X.
FRANK AT MILLBANK. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward |  |
10. CHAPTER X.
FRANK AT MILLBANK.
FOUR days later Magdalen received a letter from Frank,
who was inconsolable. Alice Grey had left school
suddenly, without giving him a chance to say good-by.
Why she had gone or where, he did not know. He only
knew she was gone, and that he thought college a bore, and
New Haven a stupid place, and was mighty glad that vacation
was so close at hand, as he wanted to come up to Millbank and
fish again in the river.
“I think he might just as well spend a part of his time at
home, as to be lazin' 'round here for me to wait on,” Hester
said, when Magdalen communicated the news of Frank's projected
visit to her.
Hester did not favor Frank's frequent visits to Millbank.
They made her too much work, for what with opening the dining-room
and bringing out the silver, and getting extra meals,
and seeing to his sleeping room, and ironing his seven fine shirts
nothing of linen coats and pants, and white vests, she had her
own and Bessie's hands quite full.
“Then, too, Magdalen was jest good for nothin' when he was
there,” she said, “and made a deal more work; for, of course,
she must eat with the young gentleman instead of out in the
kitchen, as was her custom when they were alone; and it took
more time to cook for two than one.”
Of Hester's opinion Frank knew nothing, and he came to
Millbank one delightful morning after a heavy shower of the
previous night, when the air was pure and sweet with the scent
of the grass just cut on the lawn, and the perfume of the flowers
blooming in such profusion in the garden. Millbank was beautiful
to the tired, lazy young college student, who hated books
and tutors, and rules and early recitations, and was glad to get
away from them all and revel awhile at Millbank. He felt perfectly
at home there, and always called for what he wanted, and
ordered the servants with as much assurance as if he had been
the master. He had not forgotten about the will. He understood
it far better now than he had done when, a little white-haired
boy, he fidgeted at his mother's side and longed to go
back to the baby in the candle-box. He had heard every particular
many a time from his mother, who still adhered to her
olden belief that there was another will which, if not destroyed,
would one day be found.
“I wish it would hurry up, then,” Frank had sometimes said,
for with his expensive habits, four hundred dollars a year seemed
a very paltry sum.
In his wish that “it would hurry up,” he intended no harm
to Roger. Frank was not often guilty of reasoning or thinking
very deeply about anything, and it did not occur to him how
disastrously the finding of the will which gave him Millbank
would result for Roger. He only knew that he wanted money,
and unconsciously to himself had formed a habit of occasionally
wondering if the missing will ever would be found. This
was always in New York or New Haven, when he wanted something
Millbank, where he was free from care, with his debts in the
distance and plenty of servants and horses at his command, he
did not often think of the will, though the possibility that there
was one might have added a little to his assured manner, which
was far more like one who had a right to command than Roger's
had ever been.
Magdalen was waiting for him by the gate at the end of the
avenue, on the afternoon, when, with his carpet-bag in hand,
he came leisurely up the street from the depot, thinking as he
came how beautiful the Millbank grounds were looking, and
what a “lucky dog” Roger was to have stepped into so fair an
inheritance without any exertion of his own. And with these
thoughts came a remembrance of the will, and Frank began to
plan what he would do if it should ever be found. He would
share equally with Roger, he said. He would not stint him to
four hundred a year. He would let him live at Millbank just
the same, and Magdalen, too, provided his mother did not raise
too many objections; and that reminded him of what his mother
had said to him that morning as he sat, breakfasting with her,
in the same little room where we first saw her.
Mrs. Walter Scott had not been in a very amiable mood when
she came down to breakfast that morning. Eleven years of the
wear and tear of fashionable life had changed her from the fair,
smooth-faced woman of twenty-eight into a rather faded woman
of thirty-nine, who still had some pretensions to beauty, but
who found that she did not attract quite so much attention as
she used to do a few years ago, when she was younger, and
Frank was not so tall, and so fearful a proof that her youthful
days were in the past. Her hair still fell in long limp curls about
her face, but part of its brightness and luxuriance was gone, and
this morning, as she arranged it in a stronger light than usual,
she discovered to her horror more than one white hair showing
here and there among the brown, and warning her that middle
age was creeping on, while the same strong light showed her how
effects more of dissipation and late hours than of Father Time
Mrs. Walter Scott did not like to grow old and gray and ugly,
and poor with all the rest, as she felt that she was doing. Her
house in Lexington Avenue could only afford her a shelter. It
would not feed or clothe her, or pay her bills at Saratoga or
Long Branch or Newport. Neither would the interest of the ten
thousand dollars given her by Squire Irving, and she had long
ago begun to use the principal, and had nothing to rely on when
that was gone except Roger's generosity, and the possibility of
the lost will turning up at last. She was wanting to go to Long
Branch this summer; her dear friends were all going, and had
urged her to join them, but her account at the bank was too
low to admit of that, and yesterday she had given her final answer,
and seen the last of her set depart without her. She had
not hinted to them the reason for her refusal to join them. She
had said she did not care for Long Branch, and when they exclaimed
against her remaining in the dusty city, she had mentioned
Millbank and the possibility of her going there for the
month of August. She did not really mean it; but when Frank,
who had only been home from college three days, told her at
the breakfast table that he was going to Millbank after pure air,
and rich sweet cream, which was a weakness of his, she felt a
longing to go, too, — a desire for the cool house and pleasan
grounds, to say nothing of the luxuries which were to be had
there in so great abundance. But since the morning of her departure
from Millbank she had received no invitation to cross
its threshold, and had not seen Roger over half a dozen times.
He felt that she disliked him, and kept out of her way, stopping
always at a hotel when in New York, instead of going to
her house on Lexington Avenue. He had called there, however,
and taken tea the day before he sailed for Europe, and
Mrs. Walter Scott remembered with pleasure that she had been
very affable on that occasion, and pressed him to spend the
night. Surely, after that, she might venture to Millbank, and
she hinted as much to Frank, who would rather she should
say so. He only suggested that an invitation from the proper
authorities might be desirable before she took so bold a step.
“You used to snub Roger awfully,” he said; “and if he was
like anybody else, he wouldn't forget it in a hurry; but, then, he
isn't like anybody else. He's the best-hearted and most generous
chap I ever knew.”
“Generous!” Mrs. Walter Scott repeated, with a tinge of
sarcasm in her voice.
“Yes, generous,” said Frank. “He has always allowed me
more than the will said he must, and he's helped me out of
more than forty scrapes. I say, again, he is the most generous
chap I ever knew.”
“I hope he will prove it in a few weeks, when you are of
age, by giving you more than that five thousand named in the
will,” was Mrs. Walter Scott's next remark. “Frank,” — and
she lowered her voice lest the walls should hear and report, —
“we are poor. This house and three thousand dollars are
all we have in the world; and unless Roger does something
handsome for you, there is no alternative for us but to mortgage
the house, or sell it, and acknowledge our poverty to the
world. I have sold your father's watch and his diamond cross.”
“Mother!” Frank exclaimed, his tone indicative of his surprise
and indignation.
“I had to pay Bridget's wages, and defray the expense of that
little party I gave last winter,” was the lady's apology, to which
Frank responded:
“Confound your party! People as poor as we are have no
business with parties. Sell father's watch! and I was intending
to claim it myself when I came of age. It's too bad! You'll
be selling me next! I'll be hanged if it isn't deuced inconvenient
to be so poor! I mean to go to Millbank and stay. I'm
seldom troubled with the blues when there.”
“I wish you could get me an invitation to go there, too,”
Mrs. Walter Scott said. “It will look so queer to stay in the
city all summer, as I am likely to do. I should suppose
Magdalen. She must be a large girl now.”
It was the first sign of interest Mrs. Walter Scott had shown
in Magdalen, and Frank, who liked the girl, followed it up by
expatiating upon her good qualities, telling how bright and
smart she was, and how handsome she would be if only she
could be dressed decently. Then he told her of Roger's intention
to send her to school, and after a few more remarks
arose from the table and began his preparations for Millbank.
Frank was usually very light-hearted and hopeful, but there was
a weight on his spirits, and his face wore a gloomy look all the
way from New York to Hartford. But it began to clear as
Millbank drew near. There was his Eldorado, and by the time
the station was reached, he had forgotten the impending mortgage,
and his father's watch, and his own poverty. It all came
back, however, with a thought of the will, and he found himself
wishing most devoutly that the missing document could be
found, or else that Roger would do the handsome thing, and
come down with a few thousands on his twenty-first birthday,
now only three weeks in the distance. The sight of Magdalen,
however, in her new white ruffled apron, with her hair curling
in rings about her head, and her great round eyes dancing with
joy, diverted his mind from Roger and the will, and scattered
the blues at once.
“Oh, Mag, is that you?” he exclaimed, coming quickly to
her side. “How bright and pretty you look!”
And the tall young man bent down to kiss the little girl, who
was very glad to see him, and who told him how dull it had
been at Millbank, and how Aleck said there was good fishing
now in the creek, and a great many squirrels in the woods, though
she did not want him to kill them, and that he was going to
have the blue room instead of his old one, which was damp
from a leak around the chimney; that she had put lots of
flowers in it, and a photograph of herself, in a little frame made
of twigs. This last she had meant to keep a secret, and surprise
the young man, who was sure to be so delighted. But
reached, and Frank stood in the blue room, where the wonderful
picture was.
“Here, Frank, this is it. This is me;” and she directed his
attention at once to the picture of herself, sitting up very stiff
and prim, with mitts on her hands, and Hester's best collar
pinned around her high-necked dress, and Bessie's handkerchief,
trimmed with cotton lace, fastened conspicuously at her
belt.
Frank laughed a loud, hearty laugh, which had more of ridicule
in it than approval; and Magdalen, who knew him so well,
detected the ridicule, and knew he was making fun of what she
thought so nice.
“You don't like it, and I got it on purpose for you and Mr.
Roger, and sold strawberries to pay for it, because Hester said
a present we earned ourselves was always worth more than if
we took somebody else's money to buy it,” Magdalen said, her
lip beginning to quiver and her eyes to fill with tears.
“The man was a bungler who took you in that stiff position,”
Frank replied, “and your dress is too old. I'll show you one I
have of Alice Grey, and maybe take you to Springfield, where
you can sit just as she does.”
This did not mend the matter much, and Magdalen felt as if
something had been lost from the brightness of the day, and
wondered if Roger too would laugh at her photograph, which
had gone to him in Hester's letter. Frank knew he had
wounded her, and was very kind and gracious to her by way of
making amends, and gave her the book with colored plates
which he had bought for Alice Grey just before she left New
Haven so suddenly. It happened to be in his trunk, which
was brought from the station that night, and he blessed his good
stars that it was there, and gave it as a peace-offering to Magdalen,
whose face cleared entirely; and who next day went
with him down to the old haunt by the river, and fastened to
his hook the worms she dug before he was up; and told him all
school. And then she asked him about Alice Grey, and the
picture which he had of her.
“Did she give it to you?” Magdalen asked; but Frank
affected not to hear her, and pretended to be busy with
something which hurt his foot. He did not care to tell her
that he had bought the picture at the gallery where it was
taken. He would rather she should think Alice gave it to
him, and after a moment he took it from his pocket and handed
it to Magdalen, who stood for a long time gazing at it without
saying a word. It was the picture of a sweet-faced young girl,
whose short, chestnut hair rippled in waves all over her head
just as Magdalen's did. Her dress was a white muslin, with
clusters of tucks nearly to the waist, and her little rosetted
slipper showed below the hem. Her head was leaning upon
one hand, and the other held a spray of flowers, while around
her were pictures, and vases, and statuettes, with her straw hat
lying at her feet, where she had evidently thrown it when she
sat down to rest. It was a beautiful picture, and nothing could
be more graceful than Alice's attitude, or afford a more striking
contrast to the stiff position of poor Mag in that picture on
Frank's table, in the blue room. Magdalen saw the difference
at once, and ceased to wonder at Frank's non-appreciation of
her photograph. It was a botch, compared with Alice's, and
she herself was a botch, an awkward, unsightly thing in her
long dress and coarse shoes, two sizes too big for her, such as
she always insisted upon wearing for fear of pinching her toes.
She had them on now, and a pair of stockings which wrinkled
on the top of her foot, and she glanced first at them and then
at the delicate slipper in the picture, and the small round
waist, and pretty tucked skirt, and then, greatly to Frank's
amazement, burst into a flood of tears.
“I don't wonder you like her best,” she said, when Frank
asked what was the matter. “I don't look like that. I can't,
I haven't any slippers, nor any muslin dress; and if I had, Hester
Alice has a mother, I know, — a good, kind mother, to take
care of her and make her look like other little girls. Oh, I
wish her mother was mine, or I had one just like her.”
Alas, poor Magdalen. She little guessed the truth, or
dreamed how dark a shadow lay across the pathway of pretty
Alice Grey. She only thought of her as handsome and graceful
and happy in mother and friends, and she wept on for a
moment, while Frank tried to comfort her.
There was no more fishing that day, for Maggie's head began
to ache, and they went back to Millbank, across the pleasant
fields, in the quiet of the summer afternoon. Frank missed
Magdalen's photograph from his table the next day, and had he
been out by the little brook which ran through the grounds,
he would have seen the fragments of it floating down the stream,
with Magdalen standing by and watching them silently. They
fished again after a day or two, and hunted in the woods and
sat together beneath an old gnarled oak where Frank grew
confidential, and told Magdalen of his moneyed troubles, and
wondered if Roger would allow him more than five thousand
when he came of age. And then he inadvertently alluded to
the missing will, and told Magdalen about it, and said it might
be well enough for her to hunt for it occasionally, as she had
access to all parts of the house. And Magdalen promised that
she would, without a thought of how the finding of it might
affect Roger. She would not for the world have harmed one
whom she esteemed and venerated as she did Roger, but he
was across the sea, and Frank had her ear and her sympathy.
It would be a fine thing to find the will, particularly as Frank
had promised her a dress like Alice Grey's and a piano, if she
succeeded.
Frank was not a scoundrel, as some reader may be ready to
suppose. He had no idea that the finding of the will would
ruin Roger. He had received no such impression from his
mother. She had not thought best to tell him all she believed,
and had only insinuated that the missing will was more in
a great deal of money, and his want was growing constantly,
and so he casually recommended Magdalen to hunt for the
will, and then for a time gave the subject no more thought.
But not so with Magdalen. She dreamed of the will by night,
and hunted for it by day, when Frank did not claim her attention,
until at last Hester stumbled upon her turning over the
identical barrel of papers which Mrs. Walter Scott had once
looked through.
“In the name of the people, what are you doing?” she
asked; and Magdalen, who never thought of keeping her
intentions a secret, replied, “I'm looking for that will which
Mrs. Walter Scott says Squire Irving made before he died.”
For an instant Hester was white as a ghost, and her voice
was thick with passion or fright, as she exclaimed, “A nice
business, after all Roger has done for you, and a pretty pickle
you'd be in, too, if such a will could be found. Don't you know
you'd be hustled out of this house in less than no time? You'd
be a beggar in the streets. Put up them papers quick, and
don't let me catch you rummagin' again. If Frank is goin' to
put such notions into your head, he'd better stay away from
Millbank. Come with me, I say!”
Hester was terribly excited, and Magdalen looked at her
curiously, while there flashed across her mind a thought, which
yet was hardly a thought, that, if there was a will, Hester knew
something of it. Let a woman once imagine there is a secret
or a mystery in the house, and she seldom rests until she has
ferreted it out. So Magdalen, though not a woman, had the
instincts of one, and her interest in the lost document was
doubled by Hester's excitement, but she did not look any more
that day, nor for many succeeding ones.
On Frank's birthday there came letters from Roger, and the
same train which brought them brought also Mrs. Walter Scott.
She had found the city unendurable with all her acquaintance
away, and had ventured to come unasked to Millbank. Hester
was not glad to see her. Since finding Magdalen in the garret,
now his mother had come to help him carry them out. She
had no fears of their succeeding. She knew they would not;
but she did not want them there, and she spoke very short
and crisp to Mrs. Walter Scott, and was barely civil to her.
Mrs. Walter Scott, on the contrary, was extremely urbane and
sweet. She did not feel as assured as she had done when
last at Millbank. There was nothing of the mistress about
her now. She was all smiles and softness, and gentleness, and
called Hester “My dear Mrs. Floyd,” and squeezed her hand,
and told her how well and young she was looking, and petted
Magdalen, and ran her white fingers through her rings of hair,
and said it was partly on her account she had come to Millbank.
“I heard from Frank that she was to go to school in the
autumn, and knowing what a bore it would be for you, Mrs.
Floyd, to see to her wardrobe, with all the rest you have to do,
I ventured to come, especially as I have been longing to see
the old place once more. How beautiful it is looking, and
how nicely you and your good husband have kept everything!
How is Mr. Floyd?”
Hester knew there was a good deal of what she called “soft-soap”
in all the lady said; but kind words go a great ways
with everybody, and Hester insensibly relaxed her stiffness and
went herself with Mrs. Walter Scott to her room and opened
the shutters, and brought clean towels for the rack, and asked
if her guest would have a lunch or wait till dinner was ready.
“Oh, I'll wait, of course. I do not mean to give you one
bit of trouble,” was the suave reply, and Hester departed, wondering
to herself at the change, and if “Mrs. Walter Scott
hadn't j'ined the church or something.”
| CHAPTER X.
FRANK AT MILLBANK. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward | |