University of Virginia Library

55. CHAPTER LV.
MILLBANK IS CLEAR OF ITS OLD TENANTS.

THAT afternoon Magdalen went with Guy over the
house, where she was met by Frank, and welcomed as
the new mistress. Appropriating her at once to himself,
Frank led her from room to room, seeming pleased at
her commendations of the taste which had been displayed in
the selection of furniture and the care which had evidently
been given to everything.

“It was Bell,” Frank said. “She is a good housekeeper,
and after the split with mother she attended to things. They
had separate apartments, you know, at the last; — didn't
speak a word, which I liked better than a confounded quarrel.
I tell you, Magdalen, I've seen sights of trouble since you
found that will, and I am happier to-day, knowing I've got
out of the scrape, than I've been before in years.”

He seemed disposed to be very communicative, and was going
on to speak of his domestic troubles; but Magdalen quietly
checked him, and then asked where his mother was intending
to go.

“The mills of the gods grind slowly, but fine, exceedingly
fine,” Frank said; and then he told of his mother's fears for
her money deposited in the bank of —. There was a rumor
that the bank had failed, but as it was only a rumor he still
hoped for the best.

“At the first alarm, mother went to bed,” he said, “and she
is there still; so you must excuse her not seeing you.”

Magdalen had no desire to see her, and when on her way to
Beechwood she read in the paper of the total failure of the
bank where Frank had told her his mother's money was deposited,
she did not greatly sympathize with the artful, designing
woman, who almost gnashed her teeth when she, too, heard

of her loss. She was all ready for removal to “Rose Cottage,”
for which a friend was negotiating, and her trunks and boxes
were packed with every conceivable valuable which could by
any means be crowded into them; oil paintings, chromos, steel
engravings, costly vases, exquisite shells, knives, forks, spoons,
china, cut glass, table linen, bed linen, and even carpets formed
a part of her spoil, intended for that cottage, which now was
not within her reach. There was still her oil stock left, and
with that she might manage to live respectably, she thought,
and resolving that no one should exult over her disappointment
from any change they saw in her, she tried to appear
natural, and when an attempt was made at sympathy, answered
indifferently “that she was sorry, of course, as she could have
done so much good with the money; but the Lord knew what
was best, and she must bear patiently what was sent upon her.”
This was what she said to her clergyman, who came to sympathize
with her; but when he was gone, she looked the house
over again, to see if there was anything more which she could
take, and in case of necessity turn into money. Some one in
Belvidere wrote to Roger that the house at Millbank was being
robbed, and advised strongly that means be taken to prevent
further depredations; and a few days after Mrs. Walter Scott
was met in the hall by a stern-looking man, who said he came,
at Mr. Irving's request, to take an inventory of all the articles
of furniture in the house, and also to remain there and see that
nothing was harmed or removed.

He laid great stress on the last word, and the lady grew hot
and red, and felt that she was suspected and looked upon as a
thief, and resented it accordingly; but after that there was no
more hiding of articles under lock and key, for the stranger
always seemed to be present, and she knew that she was
watched; and when he inquired for a small and expensive oil
painting which Roger had bought in Rome, and an exquisite
French chromo, and certain pieces of silver and cut glass
which he had on his list as forming a part of the household
goods he was appointed to care for, she found them and gave

them, one by one, into his hands. And so her stock of goods
diminished and she hastened to get away before everything was
taken from her; and one morning in August finally departed
for a boarding-house in New York, where she intended staying
until something better offered.

As soon as she was gone, a bevy of servants came out from
Beechwood, and Roger came from Schodick to superintend
them, and old Hester came to oversee him, and the renovating
process went rapidly on, while crowds of the villagers flocked
to the house, curious to see the costly articles of furniture
which, during the last few years, had been constantly arriving,
and of which the house was full to overflowing.

The mill was Roger's now, as well as the site of the old shoe-shop.
He had bought them both on the day of their sale, and
the operatives of the mill had hurrahed with might and main
for their new master, never heeding the old one, who still remained
in town, and who, whatever he might have felt, put a
good face on the matter, and seemed as glad and as interested
as the foremost of them. Only once did he manifest the slightest
feeling, and that was when with Roger he entered Bell's
sleeping-room, where the silken curtains were hanging and the
many expensive articles of the toilet were still lying as Bell had
left them. Then sitting down by the window, he cried; and,
when Roger looked at him questioningly, he told of his little boy
born in that room, and dead before it was born.

“Bell was glad, he said, — she does not like children; but I
was so sorry, for if that boy had lived I should have been a
better man; but it died, and Bell has left me, and mother's
gone, and my money's gone, and I am a used-up dog generally,”
he added bitterly; and then with a sudden dashing away
of his tears he brightened into his former self, and said, laughingly,
“But what's the use of fretting? I shall get along some
way. I always have, you know.”

In his heart he knew Roger would not let him suffer, and
when Roger said as much by way of comforting him, he took

it as a matter of course, and secretly hoped “the governor
would give him something handsome, and let him keep a
horse!”