University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.
EXPECTING ROGER.

EVERY window and shutter at Millbank was closed.
Knots of crape were streaming from the bell-knobs,
and all around the house there was that deep hush which
only the presence of death can inspire. Indoors there was a
kind of twilight gloom pervading the rooms, and the servants
spoke in whispers whenever they came near the chamber where
the old squire lay in his handsome coffin, waiting the arrival of
Roger, who had been in St. Louis when his father died, and
who was expected home on the night when our story opens.
Squire Irving had died suddenly in the act of writing to his
boy Roger, and when found by old Aleck, his hand was grasping
the pen, and his head was resting on the letter he would
never finish. “Heart disease” was the verdict of the inquest,
and then the electric wires carried the news of his decease to
Roger, and to the widow of the squire's eldest son, who lived
on Lexington avenue, New York, and who always called herself
Mrs. Walter Scott Irving, fancying that in some way the
united names of two so illustrious authors as Irving and Scott
shed a kind of literary halo upon one who bore them.

Mrs. Walter Scott Irving had been breakfasting in her back
parlor when the news came to her of her father-in-law's sudden
death, and to say that she was both astonished and shocked, is
only to do her justice, but to insinuate that she was sorry, is quite
another thing. She was not sorry, though her smooth white
brow contracted into wrinkles, and she tried to speak very sadly
and sorrowfully as she said to her son Frank, a boy of nine
or more, —

“Frank, your grandfather is dead; poor man, you'll never
see him again.”

Frank was sorry. The happiest days of his life had been
spent at Millbank. He liked the house, and the handsome
grounds, with the grand old woods in the rear, and the river beyond,
where in a little sheltered nook lay moored the boat he
called his own. He liked the spotted pony which he always
rode. He liked the freedom from restraint which he found in
the country, and he liked the old man who was so kind to
him, and who petted him sometimes when Roger was not by.
Roger had been absent on the occasion of Frank's last visit to
Millbank, and his grandfather had taken more than usual notice
of him, — had asked him many questions as to what he meant
to be when he grew to manhood, and what he would do, supposing
he should some day be worth a great deal of money.
Would he keep it, or would he spend it as fast and as foolishly
as his father had spent the portion allotted to him?

“You'd keep it, wouldn't you, and put it at interest?” his
mother had said, laying her hand upon his hair with a motion
which she meant should convey some suggestion or idea to his
mind.

But Frank had few ideas of his own. He never took hints
or suggestions, and boy-like he answered:

“I'd buy a lot of horses, and Roger and me would set up a
circus out in the park.”

It was an unlucky answer, for the love of fast horses had
been the ruin of Frank's father, but the mention of Roger went
far toward softening the old man. Frank had thought of

Roger at once; he would be generous with him, let what would
happen, and the frown which the mention of horses had brought
to the squire's face cleared away as he said:

“Hang your horses, boy; keep clear of them as you would
shun the small-pox, but be fair and just with Roger; poor
Roger, I doubt if I did right.”

This speech had been followed by the squire's going hastily
out upon the terrace, where, with his hands behind him and his
head bent forward, he had walked for more than an hour, while
Mrs. Walter Scott peered anxiously at him from time to time,
and seemed a good deal disturbed. They had returned to the
city the next day, and Frank had noticed some changes in their
style of living. Another servant was added to their establishment;
they had more dishes at dinner, while his mother went
oftener to the opera and Stewart's. Now, his grandfather was
dead, and she sat there looking at him across the table as the
tears gathered in his eyes, and when he stammered out, “We
shall never go to Millbank any more,” she said soothingly to
him, “We may live there altogether. Would you like it?”

He did not comprehend her clearly, but the thought that his
grandfather's death did not necessarily mean banishment from
Millbank helped to dry his eyes, and he began to whistle merrily
at the prospect of going there at once, for they were to
start that very day on the three-o'clock train. “It was better
to be on the ground as soon as possible,” Mrs. Walter Scott reflected,
and after a visit to her dressmaker, who promised that
the deepest of mourning suits should follow her, she started with
Frank for Millbank.

Mrs. Walter Scott Irving had never been a favorite at Millbank
since her husband had taken her there as a bride, and
she had given mortal offence to the two real heads of the household,
Aleck and Hester Floyd, by putting on all sorts of airs,
snubbing little Roger, and speaking of his mother as “that low
creature, whose disgraceful conduct could never be excused.”
Hester Floyd, to whom this was said, could have forgiven the
airs; indeed, she rather looked upon them as belonging by

right to one who was so fortunate as to marry into the Irving
family. But when it came to slighting little Roger for his
mother's error, and to speaking of that mother as a “low creature,”
Hester's hot blood was roused, and there commenced at
once a quiet, unspoken warfare, which had never ceased, between
herself and the offending Mrs. Walter Scott. Hester
was as much a part of Millbank as the stately old trees in
the park, a few of which she had helped Aleck to plant
when she was a girl of eighteen and he a boy of twenty. She
had lived at Millbank more than thirty years. She had come
there when the first Mrs. Irving was a bride. She had carried
Walter Scott to be christened. She had been his nurse, and
slapped him with her shoe a dozen times. She had been married
to Aleck in her mistress's dining-room. She had seen the
old house torn down, and a much larger, handsomer one built
in its place; and then, just after it was completed, she had followed
her mistress to the grave, and shut up the many beautiful
rooms which were no longer of any use. Two years passed,
and then her master electrified her one day with the news that
he was about bringing a second bride to Millbank, a girl younger
than his son Walter, and against whom Hester set herself fiercely
as against an usurper of her rights. But when the sweet,
pale-faced Jessie Morton came, with her great, sad blue eyes,
and her curls of golden hair, Hester's resentment began to give
way, for she could not harbor malice toward a creature so lovely,
so gentle, and so sad withal: and after an interview in the
bed-chamber, when poor Jessie threw herself with a passionate
cry into Hester's arms, and sobbed piteously, “Be kind to me,
won't you? Be my friend. I have none in all the world, or I
should not be here. I did not want to come,” — she became
her strongest ally, and proved that Jessie's confidence had not
been misplaced. There had come a dark, dark day for Millbank
since then, and Jessie's picture, painted in full dress, with
pearls on her beautiful neck and arms, and in her golden hair,
had been taken from the parlor-wall and banished to the garret;
and Jessie's name was never spoken by the master, either
to his servants or his little boy Roger, who had a dash of gold
in his brown hair, and a look in his dark-blue eyes, like that
which Jessie's used to wear, when, in the long evenings before
his birth, she sat with folded hands gazing into the blazing fire,
as if trying to solve the dark mystery of her life, and know
why her lot had been cast there at Millbank with the old man,
whom she did not hate, but whom she could not love. There
was a night, too, which Hester never forgot, — a night when,
with nervous agony depicted in every lineament, Jessie made
her swear that, come what might, she would never desert or
cease to love the boy Roger, sleeping so quietly in his little
crib. She was to care for him as if he were her own; to consider
his interest before that of any other, and bring him up
a good and noble man. That was what Jessie asked, and what
Hester swore to do; and then followed swiftly terror and
darkness and disgrace, and close upon their footsteps came
retribution, and Jessie's golden head was lying far beneath the
sea off Hatteras's storm-beaten shore, and Jessie's name was
rarely heard. But Hester kept her vow, and since the dreadful
morning when Jessie did not answer to the breakfast call, and
Jessie's room was vacant, Roger had never wanted for a
mother's care. Hester had no children of her own, and she
took him instead, petting and caring for, and scolding him as
he deserved, and through all, loving him with a brooding, clinging,
unselfish love, which would stop at nothing which she
could make herself believe was right for her to do in his behalf.
And so, when the young bride looked coldly upon him and
spoke slightingly of his mother, Hester declared battle at once;
and the hatchet had never been buried, for Mrs. Walter Scott,
in her frequent visits to Millbank, had only deepend Hester's
first impressions of her.

“A proud, stuck-up person, with no kind of reason for bein'
so except that she married one of the Irvingses,” was what
Hester said of her, and this opinion was warmly seconded by
Aleck, who always thought just as Hester did.

Had she been Eve, and he her Adam, he would have eaten

the forbidden fruit without a question as to his right to do so,
just because she gave it to him, but, unlike Adam, he would
not have charged the fault to her; he would have taken it upon
himself, as if the idea and the act had been his alone.

For Frank there was more toleration at Millbank. “He was
not very bright,” Hester said; “but how could he be with such
a mother? Little pimpin,' spindlin', white-haired critter, there
wasn't half so much snap to him as there was to Roger.”

In this condition of things it was hardly to be supposed that
Mrs. Walter Scott's reception at Millbank was very cordial,
when, on the evening after the squire's death, the village hack
deposited her at the door. Mrs. Walter Scott did not like a
depot hack, it brought her so much on a level with common
people; and her first words to Hester were:

“Why wasn't the carriage sent for us? Weren't we expected?”

There was an added air of importance in her manner, and
she spoke like one whose right it was to command there; and
Hester detected it at once. But in her manner there was, if
possible, less of deference than she had usually paid to the
great lady.

“Aleck had the neurology, and we didn't know jestly when
you'd come,” was her reply, as she led the way to the chamber
which Mrs. Walter Scott had been accustomed to occupy during
her visits to Millbank.

“I think I'll have a fire, the night is so chilly,” the lady said,
with a shiver, as she glanced at the empty grate. “And, Hester,
you may send my tea after the fire is made. I have a headache,
and am too tired to go down.”

There was in all she said a tone and air which seemed to imply
that she was now the mistress; and, in truth, Mrs. Walter
Scott did so consider herself, or rather, as a kind of queen-regent
who, for as many years as must elapse ere Frank became of
age, would reign supreme at Millbank. And after the fire was
lighted in her room, and her cup of tea was brought to her,
with toast, and jelly, and cold chicken, she was thinking more

of the changes she would make in the old place, than of the
white, motionless figure which lay, just across the hall, in a
room much like her own. She had not seen this figure yet.
She did not wish to carry the image of death to her pillow, and
so she waited till morning, when, after breakfast was over, she
went with Hester to the darkened room, and with her handkerchief
ostensibly pressed to her eyes, but really held to her nose,
she stood a moment by the dead, and sighed:

“Poor, dear old man! How sudden it was; and what a
lesson it should teach us all of the mutability of life, for in an
hour when we think not, death cometh upon us!”

Mrs. Walter Scott felt that some such speech was due from
her, — something which savored of piety, and which might possibly
do good to the angular, square-shouldered, flat-waisted
woman at her side, who understood what mutability meant
quite as well as she would have understood so much Hebrew.
But she knew the lady was “putting on;” that, in her heart, she
was glad the “poor old man” was dead; and with a jerk she
drew the covering over the pinched white face, dropped the
curtain which had been raised to admit the light, and then
opened the door and stood waiting for the lady to pass out.

“I shall dismiss that woman the very first good opportunity.
She has been here too long to come quietly under a new administration,”
Mrs. Walter Scott thought, as she went slowly
down the stairs, and through the lower rooms, deciding, at a
glance, that this piece of furniture should be banished to the
garret, and that piece transferred to some more suitable place.
“The old man has lived here alone so long, that everything
bears the unmistakable stamp of a bachelor's hall; but I shall
soon remedy that. I'll have a man from the city whose taste
I can trust,” she said; by which it will be seen that Mrs. Walter
Scott fully expected to reign triumphant at Millbank, without a
thought or consideration for Roger, the dead man's idol, who,
according to all natural laws, had a far better right there than
herself.

She had never fancied Roger, because she felt that through

him her husband would lose a part of his father's fortune, and
as he grew older and she saw how superior he was to Frank,
she disliked him more and more, though she tried to conceal
her dislike from her husband, who, during his lifetime, evinced
almost as much affection for his young half-brother as for his
own son. Walter Scott Irving had been a spendthrift, and the
fifty thousand dollars which his father gave him at his marriage
had melted away like dew in the morning sun, until he had
barely enough to subsist upon. Then ten thousand more had
been given him, with the understanding that this was all he
was ever to receive. The rest was for Roger, the father said;
and Walter acquiesced, and admitted that it was right. He
had had his education with sixty thousand beside, and he could
not ask for more. A few weeks after this he died suddenly of
a prevailing fever, and then, softened by his son's death, the
old man added to the ten thousand and bought the house on
Lexington avenue, and deeded it to Mrs. Walter Scott herself.
Since that time fortunate speculations had made Squire Irving
a richer man than he was before the first gift to his son, and
Mrs. Walter Scott had naturally thought it very hard that
Frank was not to share in this increase of wealth. But no
such thoughts were troubling her now, and her face wore a very
satisfied look of resignation and submission as she moved languidly
around the house and grounds in the morning, and then
in the afternoon dressed herself in her heavy, trailing silk, and
throwing around her graceful shoulders a scarlet shawl, went
down to receive the calls and condolences of the rector's wife
and Mrs. Colonel Johnson, who came in to see her. She did
not tell them she expected to be their neighbor a portion of the
year, and when they spoke of Roger, she looked very sorry, and
sighed: “Poor boy, it will be a great shock to him.”

Then, when the ladies suggested that he would undoubtedly
have a great deal of property left to him, and wondered who
his guardian would be, she said “she did not know. Lawyer
Schofield, perhaps, as he had done the most of Squire Irving's
business.”

“But Lawyer Schofield is dead. He died three weeks ago,”
the ladies said; and Mrs. Walter Scott's cheek for a moment
turned pale as she expressed her surprise at the news, and wondered
she had not heard of it.

Then the conversation drifted back to Roger, who was expected
the next night, and for whom the funeral was delayed.

“I always liked Roger,” Mrs. Johnson said; “and I must say
I loved his mother, in spite of her faults. She was a lovely
creature, and it seems a thousand pities that she should have
married so old a man as Squire Irving when she loved another
so much.”

Mrs. Walter Scott said it was a pity, — said she always disapproved
of unequal matches, — said she had not the honor of
the lady's acquaintance, and then bowed her visitors out with
her loftiest air, and went back to the parlor, and wondered what
people would say when they knew what she did. She would
be very kind to Roger, she thought. Her standing in Belvidere
depended upon that, and he should have a home at Millbank
until he was of age, when, with the legacy left to him, he could
do very well for himself. She wished the servants did not
think quite so much of him as they did, especially Aleck and
Hester Floyd, who talked of nothing except that “Master
Roger was coming to-morrow.” Her mourning was coming,
too; and when the next day it came, she arrayed herself in the
heavy bombazine, with the white crape band at the throat and
wrists, which relieved the sombreness of her attire. She was
dressing for Roger, she said, thinking it better to evince some
interest in an event which was occupying so much of the servants'
thoughts.

The day was a damp, chilly one in mid-April, and so a fire
was kindled in Roger's room, and flowers were put there, and
the easy-chair from the hall library; and Hester went in and
out and arranged and re-arranged the furniture, and then flitted
to the kitchen, where the pies and puddings which Roger loved
were baking, and where Jeruah, or “Ruey,” as she was called,
was beating the eggs for Roger's favorite cake. He would be

there about nine o'clock, she knew, for she had received a telegram
from Albany, saying, “Shall be home at nine. Meet me
at the depot without fail.”

In a great flurry Hester read the dispatch, wondering why
she was to meet him without fail, and finally deciding that the
affectionate boy could not wait till he reached home before
pouring out his tears and grief on her motherly bosom.

“Poor child! I presume he'll cry fit to bust when he sees
me,” she said to Mrs. Walter Scott, who looked with a kind of
scorn upon the preparations for the supposed heir of Millbank.

The night set in with a driving rain, and the wind moaned
dismally as it swept past the house where the dead rested so
quietly, and where the living were so busy and excited. At
half-past eight the carriage came round, and Aleck in his waterproof
coat held the umbrella over Hester's head as she walked
to the carriage, with one shawl wrapped around her and another
on her arm. Why she took that second shawl she did
not then know, but afterward, in recounting the particulars of
that night's adventures, she said it was just a special Providence
and nothing else which put it into her head to take an extra
shawl, and that a big warm one. Half an hour passed, and
then above the storm Mrs. Walter Scott heard the whistle which
announced the arrival of the train. Then twenty minutes went
by, and Frank, who was watching by the window, screamed
out:

“They are coming, mother. I see the lights of the carriage.”

If it had not been raining, Mrs. Walter Scott would have
gone to the door, but the damp air was sure to take the curl
from her hair, and Mrs. Walter Scott thought a great deal of
the heavy ringlets which fell about her face by day and were
tightly rolled in papers at night. So she only went as far as
the parlor door, where she stood holding together the scarf she
had thrown around her shoulders. There seemed to be some
delay at the carriage, and the voices speaking together there
were low and excited.

“No, Hester; she is mine. She shall go in the front way,”
Roger was heard to say; and a moment after Hester Floyd
came hurriedly into the hall, holding something under her shawl
which looked to Mrs. Walter Scott like a package or roll of
cloth.

Following Hester was Frank, who, having no curls to spoil,
had rushed out in the rain to meet his little uncle, of whom he
had always been so fond.

“Oh, mother, mother!” he exclaimed. “What do you think
Roger has brought home? Something which he found in the
cars where a wicked woman left it. Oh, ain't it so funny, — Roger
bringing a baby?” and having thus thrown the bomb-shell
at his mother's feet, Frank darted after Hester, and poor Roger
was left alone to make his explanations to his dreaded sister-in-law.