University of Virginia Library

50. CHAPTER L.
ROGER.

FRANK had invited Roger to spend Christmas at Millbank,
but Roger had declined, and had passed the
holidays in his usual way at Schodick, where there
had come to him a letter from Arthur Grey, who, in referring
to the past, exonerated Jessie from all blame, and asked
Roger's forgiveness for the great wrong done to him. Then he
thanked him for his kindness to Magdalen, and closed by saying:

This letter had been delayed for some reason, and it did not
reach Roger until a week after it was written, and then there

came in the same mail a newspaper from New York, directed
by Magdalen herself. Around a short paragraph was the faint
tracing of her pencil, and Roger read that among the passengers
the “Persia” would take out were Mr. Arthur Grey and
daughter, Mrs. Penelope Seymour, and Mr. Guy Seymour and
lady. Magdalen had underscored the “Mr. Guy Seymour and
lady,” and upon the margin had written:

“Good-by, Roger, good-by.”

When Roger read Mr. Grey's letter he had felt sure that the
daughter to whose marriage reference was made was Magdalen
herself, and the newspaper paragraph and pencil-marks confirmed
him in this belief.

“Good-by, Roger, good-by.”

His white lips whispered the words, which seemed to run into
each other and grow dim and blurred as the great tears gathered
in his eyes and obscured his vision.

“Good-by, Roger, good-by.”

Yes, it was good-by forever now, and he felt it in its full
force, and bowed his head upon his hands and asked for
strength to bear this new pain, which yet was not new, for he
had long felt that Magdalen was not for him. But the pain,
though old, was keener, harder to bear, and hurt as it had never
hurt before, for now the barrier between them, as he believed,
was a husband, and that for a time seemed worse than death.

Again the rock under the evergreen on the hillside witnessed
the tears and the prayers and the anguish of the man whose
face began to look old and worn, and who, the people said,
was working too hard and had taken too much upon his hands.
He was the superintendent now of the cotton mill, which had
been enlarged, and of the shoe-shop erected since his residence
in Schodick. His profession, too, was not neglected, and the
little office on the green still bore his name, and all the farmers
for miles around asked for “Squire Irving,” as they called him,
when they came into town on business pertaining to the law.
His word was trusted before that of any other. What Squire
Irving said was true, and no one thought of doubting it. To

him the widows came on behalf of their fatherless children, and
he listened patiently and advised them always for the best, and
took charge of their slender means and made the most of them.
The interests of orphan children, too, were committed to his
care, so that he fortunately had little time to indulge in sentiment
or sorrow, except at night, when the day's labor was over,
and he was free to dwell upon the hopes of the past, the bitter
disappointment of the present, and the dreariness of the future.

After that paragraph in the newspaper he had heard no
more of the Greys, and had only mentioned them once. Then
he told Hester of Magdalen's marriage with the young man who
had come to see them, and whom Hester remembered perfectly.

Hester did not believe a word of it, she said; but Roger replied
that Magdalen herself had sent him the paper, while Mr.
Grey had written, so there could be no mistake. Then Hester
accepted it as a fact, and looking in her boy's face and seeing
there the pain he tried so hard to suppress, she felt her own
heart throbbing with a keener regret and sense of loss than she
would have felt if Roger had not cared so much.

“That settles the business for him,” she said. “He'll never
marry now, and I may as well send off to the heathen that
cribby quilt I've been piecin' at odd spells, thinkin' the time
might come when Roger's wife would find it handy.”

And as she thus soliloquized old Hester washed her tea-dishes
by the kitchen sink and two great tears rolled down her
nose and dropped into the dish water. After that she never
mentioned Magdalen, and as the quilt was not quite finished,
she laid it away in the candle-box cradle which stood in the
attic chamber, and over which she sometimes bent for five minutes
or more, while her thoughts were back in the past; and
she saw again the little girl who had sat so often in that cradle,
and whose dear little feet were wandering now amid the wonders
of the Old World.

And so the winter, and the spring, and the summer went by,
and in the autumn Frank came for a few days to Schodick,

looking almost as old as Roger, and a great deal stouter and
redder in the face than when we saw him last; while a certain
inflamed look in the eye told that Bell's arguments on the subject
of temperance had not prevailed with him as effectually as
they had with her brother Charlie. Frank's love of wine had
increased and grown into a fondness for brandy, but during his
stay in Schodick he abstained from both, and seemed much
like himself. Very freely he discussed his affairs with Roger,
who pitied him from his heart, for he saw that his life was not
a pleasant one.

With regard to his domestic troubles, Roger forbore to make
any remarks, but he advised to the best of his ability about
the business matters, which were not in a very good condition.
The shoe-shop had not been rebuilt; there was always trouble
with the factory hands; they were either quitting entirely, or
striking for higher wages; and the revenues were not what
Frank thought they ought to be. Ready money was hard to
get; and he was oftentimes troubled for means to pay the household
expenses, which were frightfully large. As well as he
could, Roger comforted the disheartened man, and promised to
go to Millbank soon and see what he could do toward smoothing
and lubricating the business machinery, and Frank while
listening to him began to feel very hopeful of the future, and
grew light-hearted and cheerful again, and ready to talk of
something besides himself. And so it came about, as he sat
with Roger one evening, he said to him:

“By the way, Roger, do you ever hear from the Greys?
Do you know where they are?”

Roger did not; he had never heard from them, or of them,
he said, since the letter from Mr. Grey, announcing Magdalen's
approaching marriage with Guy Seymour.

“Announcing what?” Frank asked. And Roger replied:

“Magdalen's marriage with Guy Seymour. You knew that,
of course.”

“Thunder!” Frank exclaimed, “have you been so deceived
all this time, and is that the cause of those white hairs in your

whiskers, and that crow-foot around your eyes? Roger, you
are a bigger fool than I am, and Bell has many a time proved
to me conclusively that I am a big one. It is Alice, not Magdalen,
who is Mrs. Guy Seymour. They were married very
quietly at home; no wedding, no cards, on account of the
mother's recent death. I know it is so, for I saw the happy
pair with my own eyes just before they sailed. So what more
proof will you have?”

Roger needed none, and Frank could almost see the wrinkles
fading out of his face, and the light coming back to his
eyes, as he tried to stammer out something about its being
strange that he was so deceived. Looking at his uncle, now,
and remembering all the past, there came again across Frank
the resolution to make a clean breast of what should have
been told long ago, and after a moment's hesitancy he began:

“Roger, old chap, there are things I could tell you if I
wasn't afraid you'd hate me all your life. I b'lieve I'll take
the risk any way, and out with the whole of it.”

“I promise not to hate you. What is it?” Roger asked,
and Frank continued, “Magdalen always loved you, and you
were blind not to have seen it. You thought too little of yourself,
and so fell into the snare laid for you. Mother knew she
loved you, and then got you to assent to my addressing her,
and I used you as an argument why she should listen to me,
and it almost killed her, as you would have known had you
seen her face.”

“What do you mean? I don't think you make it quite
clear,” Roger asked, in a trembling voice; and then as well as
he could Frank made it clear, and told of the ways and means
he had resorted to in order to win Magdalen, who, through
all, showed how her whole heart was given to Roger.

“If you had seen her in the garret, rocking back and forth,
and moaning your name, and seen how she started from me
when I said if she would marry me I would burn the will and
never speak of it, you would have no doubt of her love for
you.”

“Frank, you have wronged me! oh, you have wronged me
terribly!” Roger said, and his voice was hoarse with emotion.
“Millbank was nothing to this; but go on, tell the whole; keep
nothing from me.”

And Frank went on, and told the whole which the reader
already knows of his efforts to deceive both Roger and Magdalen,
whom he had succeeded in separating.

“And were you never engaged?” Roger asked.

And Frank answered him:

“No, never. She would not listen to me for a moment.
She admitted her love for you, and I — oh, Roger, I am a villain,
but I am getting my pay. I made her think that you only
cared for her as your ward or sister, when by a word I could
have brought you together, — and she was proud and thought
you slighted her, inasmuch as she never knew how much you
were with her when she was sick. You were gone when she
came to a consciousness of what was passing around her, and
I did not tell her of the message you sent from the West. I
wanted her so badly myself, but I failed. She left Millbank in
my absence, and fate, — I guess I believe in fate more than in
Providence, — led her to the Greys, and you know the rest,
and why she has been cold toward you, if she has. She
thought you wanted her to marry me, and I do believe she has
found that the hardest to forgive, and I don't blame her, neither
would Bell. The idea of anybody's marrying me!”

Frank spoke bitterly, and struck his first upon his knee as he
mentioned his wife.

But Roger did not heed that; he was thinking of Magdalen
and what might have been had Frank spoken earlier. Perhaps
it was not too late now, and his first impulse was to fly across
the ocean which divided them and find her; but neither he nor
Frank knew where she was, though the latter thought he could
ascertain Mr. Grey's address in New York, and would do so
the first time he was in the city. He was going to New York
soon, he said, and would do all he could to repair the wrong
and bring Roger and Magdalen together.

“You deserve her if ever a man did,” he continued, “and I
hope, — yes, I know it will one day come right.”

Frank brought his visit to a close next day, and left the old-fashioned
farm-house among the Schodick hills, which seemed
a paradise compared with Millbank, where he found his wife
cool and quiet and self-possessed as ever, and his mother angry,
defiant, and terribly outraged with some fresh slight put upon
her by her daughter-in-law. With all his little strength he
threw himself into the breach, and showed so much discretion
in steering clear of both Scylla and Charybdis, that Bell felt
a glow of something like respect for him, and thought that one
or two more visits to his uncle might make a man of him.
Poor Frank, with all his wealth and elegance, and his handsome
wife, was far more to be pitied than Roger, to whom had
been suddenly opened a new world of happiness, and whose
face ceased to wear the old tired look it had worn so long, and
who the people said was growing young every day. He felt
within himself new life and vigor, and thanked Heaven for the
hope sent at last to lighten the thick darkness in which he had
groped so long. Very anxiously he waited for Frank's letter,
which was to give him Mr. Grey's address, and when at last it
came he wrote at once to Magdalen, and told her of his love
and hopes, and asked if she would let him come for her when
she returned to America, and take her with him to his home
among the hills.

“It is not Millbank,” he wrote, “but, save that Millbank is
sacred to me for the reason that your dear presence has hallowed
every spot, I love this home as well as I did that, or
think I do. But you may not, and if you come to me I shall
build another house, more in accordance with my bright bird,
whose cage must be a handsomer one than this old New England
farm-house.”

This letter was sent to the care of Mr. Grey, and then, long
before he could reasonably hope for an answer, Roger began
to expect one, and the daily mail was waited for with an eagerness
and excitement painful to endure, especially as constant

disappointment was the only result of that watching and waiting
and terrible suspense.

Magdalen did not write, and days and weeks and months
went by, and Roger grew old again, and there were more white
hairs in his brown beard, and he ceased to talk about the new
house he was going to build, and seemed indifferent to everything
but the troubles at Millbank, which were upon the increase,
and which finally resulted in Mrs. Franklin Irving taking
her father and brother and sister, and going off to Europe
on a pleasure tour. Frank was glad to have them go, and
feeling free once more, plunged into all his former habits of
dissipation, and kept Holt with him constantly as his chief man
of business, and rarely examined his accounts, and knew less
how he stood than did his neighbors, who were watching his
headlong course and predicting that it would soon end in ruin.