University of Virginia Library

46. CHAPTER XLVI.
ASLEEP OR DEAD?

The next day, in the golden glory of such
another sunset, Marston Brent, with uncovered
head and grave, courteous face, stood beside
a carriage which had just toiled up the
mountain-road to the plateau where stood his
house.

“Mrs. Chappelleford! I am very glad to
see you,” said he, extending his hand to the
elegant woman, who threw back her veil and
looked scrutinizingly into his face as she replied:

“And I you, Mr. Brent. You are scarcely
changed in all these years. Let me present
my husband, Mr. Chappelleford.”

The host made courteous recognition of the
introduction, and the guest replied:

“Thank you, Mr. Brent: and before entering
your house I should apologize for taking
it by storm in this manner. Nothing but my
anxiety to see the curious remains of which I
wrote, and Mrs. Chappelleford's desire to meet
an old friend, can excuse us.”

“No excuse is needed, sir. In this new
country, hospitality is more an indulgence
than a duty. It is I who am obliged to you
and Mrs. Chappelleford for the honor you do
me.”

“And what a glorious situation you have
found here, Mr. Brent,” said the lady, lingering
upon the little porch, and glancing admiringly
over the wide view glittering and
smiling in the sunset light. “Such scenery
makes ours at home seem very tame.”

“Yes, Ironstone Mountain is somewhat
brighter than Moloch,” said Brent simply.

“And somewhat more valuable,” said Mr.
Chappelleford smiling.

“To one's pocket—yes,” replied Brent.

“What, have you the mal-du-pays, and do
you regret New-England and Milvor?” asked
Beatrice a little incredulously.

“I regret nothing that I have left behind
me, Mrs. Chappelleford. The life of a pioneer
must not be retrospective, if he is to retain
energy and interest.”

“Well spoken, Mr. Brent,” said the philosopher
heartily. “I like to see a man not
only possess the qualifications for his place,
but understand them, and cling to them voluntarily.”

“And all regrets, all hopes are so idle,”
said the lady softly, as she turned to enter the
house.

In the parlor, beside the prettily-laid tea-table,
stood a slender, fair-faced girl, whom
Brent simply introduced as Ruth, and whom
the guests consequently could greet only as
Miss Ruth, quietly wondering the while what
her position in the house could be, and if she
possessed no name, or relationship to Brent,
by which he could have designated her.

“It cannot be his wife,” thought Beatrice,
as the object of her wonder took the head of
the table. “And yet—”

“Will you have tea or chocolate, Mrs. Chappelleford?”
asked the hostess.

And Beatrice, quick at distinguishing semitones
of expression, felt that through this
sweet, low voice sharply vibrated something

of pain, something of enmity to herself. She
wondered and waited, sipping her tea meantime,
and listening to the clear, forcible language
in which Brent replied to Mr. Chappelleford's
scientific inquiries, and the keen
apothegms which the cynical philosopher
never long restrained.

The next morning, Brent took Mr. Chappelleford
about his property, and into the
great smelting-house in the valley where the
iron mined by him was prepared for market.

Beatrice, weary with her journey, preferred
remaining in the house, and drawing a deep-cushioned
chair to the window, sat looking
admiringly over the landscape, and trying to
calculate its influences upon a man like
Brent.

The door softly opened and closed, admitting
Ruth, who, with her little work-basket in
her hand, came to entertain, as a duty, the
guest of the house left in her charge.

Mrs. Chappelleford looked at her smilingly.

“I am admiring this view, Miss Ruth; I
suppose it is very familiar to you.”

“Yes, ma'am. We have lived here now
more than three years.”

“You came then with Mr. Brent? I thought
perhaps you had grown up among these mountains.”

“No, ma'am. I came with Mr. Brent,”
said Ruth, coloring slightly, and bending over
her work.

“Probably you can tell me, then, whether
there was any truth in the report of Mr.
Brent's marriage some years since. I did not
like to ask him, thinking perhaps Mrs. Brent
might have died, or —”

“She never lived; he was never married,”
exclaimed Ruth almost indignantly, and then,
with a great throb of pity, wonder, terror, she
hastily asked: “O Mrs. Chappelleford! did
you believe that?”

“Believe Mr. Brent to be married? Yes, I
hoped that he was,” said Beatrice, sweeping
one keen, bright glance over the girl's glowing
face.

“Hoped? Why, how could —”

And Ruth suddenly paused, and bent her
head lower and lower, until the calm, proud
eyes so fixedly watching her saw only the
soft brown hair coiled in rich masses at the
top of the head.

“And he was never married at all then?
But he was engaged?” asked Mrs. Chappelleford
at length.

“No, ma'am, never,” replied the girl without
looking up.

“That is strange. We all heard so at Milvor,”
said Beatrice meditatively, but with so
little emotion that Ruth forgot her own imprudence
and looked wonderingly up. Beatrice
read the look and smiled.

“My dear,” said she, “you know something
of my early history, I perceive, and per aps
some day I will explain what puzzles you so
sorely. Tell me now, what do you think of
Mr. Brent, yourself?”

“I think, ma'am, that he is—that I should
—that—that—I think, ma'am, he is a very,
a very nice gentleman.”

“Yes, and so do I,” replied Mrs. Chappelleford
without a smile. “And how long have
you known him?”

“About six years, ma'am.”

It is about six years since he left Milvor,”
said Beatrice quietly.

“Yes, ma'am. I came with him and Paul
Freeman from a town near Milvor, and have
been with him ever since.”

“And cannot you at all understand the report
that Mr. Brent was about to be married?”
asked Beatrice, smiling a little sarcastically.

“No, ma'am. There never has been any
woman in the family but old Zilpah and Matilda
Jennings, since we came here, and me.”

“And you, did you say?” pursued Mrs.
Chappelleford, presuming a little, as she felt
with shame, upon her position and self-command,
to draw this child's secret from her
lips. But she had her reward, for Ruth, raising
a quivering glowing face to hers, cried in
a tone of genuine alarm and surprise:

“Me, madam! Oh! no, he never thought
of me; how could he? Don't say such a
thing to him.”

“Certainly not, my dear. But why should
he not think of it? I wish he would.”

“You wish he would! Why, Mrs. Chappelleford,
he never has forgotten you, and how
could he love any one like me afterward?”

“Forgotten me! Why do you say that,
Ruth? Are you Mr. Brent's confidante then?”
asked Mrs. Chappelleford very coldly.

“No, indeed, ma'am, he is not the man to
tell such things to any one,” replied Ruth indignantly.
“He has never spoken your name
to me more than half a dozen times in his
life, and then only when he was so desperate
at the news of your marriage that he had to
speak or go crazy, or kill himself, and then

when he got crushed with the tree, and one
night thought that he was dying, he gave
me a message for you, but afterward he told
me to forget it.”

“And you forgot it?”

“No, ma'am, I could not forget it, but I
will never repeat it.”

“I do not ask you to do so, Ruth. But what
are those events of which you speak? When
did Mr. Brent hear of my marriage, and when
was he crushed by a tree, and so near to death,
as you say?”

“Why, did you never hear of that, ma'am?”
And then Ruth, her hands clasped upon her
knee, her eyes downcast, as if she read the
story from a visible page, repeated the events
we know already—describing even better than
she, in her innocence, could understand Brent's
terrible anguish in learning of the unfaithfulness
of the woman to whom his whole life
clung, in spite of their estrangement—his reckless
behavior upon that day, the accident which
had so nearly cost him his life, and the lingering
illness which ensued, through which only
the devotion of his nurse and constant attendant
had brought him alive.

Mrs. Chappelleford, leaning back in the
cushioned chair, her eyes riveted upon the far
horizon line, one white hand supporting her
chin, the other toying idly with her watch-chain,
listened to all this recital in the profoundest
silence. When it was finished, she
said in her soft, sonorous tones:

“Thank you very much. Your story interests
me extremely, and it is something to be
interested for half an hour.”

Ruth turned and stared into the face of her
auditor with undisguised amazement. A feeling
of delicacy had hitherto restrained her
from even a glance.

“O Mrs. Chappelleford! Don't you care
at all, then?” exclaimed she with quite involuntary
horror.

Beatrice smiled sadly.

“You think me very heartless, do you not?
But, Ruth, it is so long since I left all this behind
me, all this heart-break and repining
and emotion of every sort, that your story cannot
even rouse their echoes. Love is the occupation
of very young, or very thoughtless,
or very unintellectual persons. Mr. Brent
himself, I dare say, would smile to-day at
these sorrows which to you seem still so real.
I am interested in the story, as I said, for Mr.
Brent was once a very dear friend of mine,
and I like to know what agencies have helped
to build up his character. It was all necessary,
I dare say, to develop his best qualities.
He would not regret it, nor should we.”

“And you don't care a bit for him, nor think
that he cares for you?” asked Ruth, all amazement.

Mrs. Chappelleford answered only by a superb
smile of self-reliance, of compassion for
the inexperience of her companion, of dismissal,
and Ruth, murmuring some excuse, rose
and left the room, half indignant, half bewildered.

Beatrice sat still, her eyes fixed upon the
distant mountains, glittering now with noon
day sunshine.

“So it was all a mistake,” said she at last.
“Well, what matter now? Fate so willed it,
Mr. Chappelleford would tell me, and we poor
puppets could not resist. I wonder what
view Marston would take of it?”