 | CHAPTER XII.
HOW THE ENGAGEMENTS PROSPERED. Cousin Maude ; and, Rosamond |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
HOW THE ENGAGEMENTS PROSPERED.
The October sun had painted the forest trees with the
gorgeous tints of autumn, and the November winds had
changed them to a more sober hue, ere J. C. De Vere
came again to Laurel Hill. Very regularly he wrote to
Maude—kind, loving letters, which helped to cheer her
solitary life. Nellie still remained with Mrs. Kelsey, and
though she had so far forgiven her step-sister as to write
to her occasionally, she still cherished toward her a feeling
of animosity for having stolen away her lover.
On his return to Rochester, J. C. De Vere had fully expected
that his engagement would be the theme of every
tongue, and he had prepared himself for the attack. How,
then, was he surprised to find that no one had the least
suspicion of it, though many joked him for having quarreled
with Nellie, as they were sure he had done, by his
not returning when she did.
Mrs. Kelsey had changed her mind, and resolved to say
nothing of an affair which she was sure would never prove
to be serious, and the result showed the wisdom of her
proceeding. No one spoke of Maude to J. C., for no one
knew of her existence, and both Mrs. Kelsey and Nellie,
whom he frequently met, scrupulously refrained from
mentioning her name. At first he felt annoyed, and more
than once was tempted to tell of his engagement, but as
time wore on, and he became more and more interested
Maude, who, with fewer sources of amusement, was
each day thinking more and more of him. Still, he was
sure he loved her, and one morning near the middle of
November, when he received a letter from her saying, “I
am sometimes very lonely, and wish that you were here,”
he started up with his usual impetuosity, and ere he was
fully aware of his own intentions, he found himself ticketed
for Canandaigua, and the next morning Louis Kennedy,
looking from his window, and watching the daily stage as
it came slowly up the hill, screamed out, “He's come—
he's come.”
A few moments more, and Maude was clasped in J. C.'s
arms. Kissing her forehead, her cheek, and her lips, he
held her off and looked to see if she had changed. She
had, and he knew it. Happiness and contentment are
more certain beautifiers than the most powerful cosmetics,
and under the combined effects of both, Maude was
greatly improved. She was happy in her engagement,
happy in the increased respect it brought her from her
friends, and happy, too, in the unusual kindness of her
step-father. All this was manifest in her face, and for the
first time in his life, J. C. told her she was beautiful.
“If you only had more manner, and your clothes were
fashionably made, you would far excel the city-girls,” he
said, a compliment which to Maude seemed rather equivocal.
When he was there before, he had not presumed to
criticize her style of dress, but he did so now, quoting the
city belles, until, half in earnest, half in jest, Maude said
to him, “If you think so much of fashion, you ought not
to marry a country girl.”
“Pshaw!” returned J. C. “I like you all the better
for dressing as you please, and still I wish you could acquire
a little city polish, for I don't care to have my wife
the subject of remark. If Maude Glendower comes in
the spring, you can learn a great deal of her before the
twentieth of June.”
Maude colored deeply, thinking for the first time in her
life that possibly J. C. might be ashamed of her, but his
affectionate caresses soon drove all unpleasant impressions
from her mind, and the three days that he staid with her
passed rapidly away. He did not mention the will, but
he questioned her of the five thousand which was to be
hers on her eighteenth birthday, and vaguely hinted that
he might need it to set himself up in business. He had
made no arrangements for the future, he said, there was
time enough in the spring, and promising to be with her
again during the holidays, he left her quite uncertain as
to whether she were glad he had visited her or not.
The next day she was greatly comforted by a long letter
from James, who wrote occasionally, evincing so much
interest in “Cousin Maude,” that he always succeeded in
making her cry, though why she could not tell, for his
letters gave her more real satisfaction than did those of J.
C., fraught as the latter were with protestations of constancy
and love. Slowly dragged the weeks, and the
holidays were at hand, when she received a message from
J. C., saying he could not possibly come as he had promised.
No reason was given for this change in his plan,
and with a sigh of disappointment, Maude turned to a
letter from Nellie, received by the same mail. After dwelling
at length upon the delightful time she was having in
the city, Nellie spoke of a fancy ball, to be given by her
Ivanhoe, she said, and she to be Rowena.
“You don't know,” she wrote, “how interested J. C. is
in the party. He really begins to appear more as he used
to do. He has not forgotten you, though, for he said the
other day you would make a splendid Rebecca. It takes
a dark person for that, I believe!”
Maude knew the reason now why J. C. could not possibly
come, and the week she had anticipated so much,
seemed dreary enough, notwithstanding it was enlivened
by a box of oranges and figs from her betrothed, and a
long, affectionate letter from James De Vere, who spoke
of the next Christmas, saying he meant she should spend
it at Hampton.
“You will really be my cousin then,” he wrote, “and
I intend inviting yourself and husband to pass the holidays
with us. I want my mother to know you, Maude.
She will like you, I am sure, for she always thinks as I
do.”
This letter was far more pleasing to Maude's taste than
were the oranges and figs, and Louis was suffered to monopolize
the latter—a privilege which he appreciated as
children usually do.
After the holidays, J. C. paid a flying visit to Laurel
Hill, where his presence caused quite as much pain as
pleasure, so anxious he seemed to return. Rochester
could not well exist without him, one would suppose, from
hearing him talk of the rides he planned, the surprise
parties he managed, and the private theatricals of which
he was the leader.
“Do they pay you well for your services?” Louis asked
him once, when wearying of the same old story.
J. C. understood the hit, and during the remainder of
his stay was far less egotistical than he would otherwise
have been. After his departure, there ensued an interval
of quiet, which, as spring approached, was broken by the
doctor's resuming the work of repairs, which had been
suspended during the coldest weather. The partition between
the parlor and the large square bed-room was removed;
folding-doors were made between; the windows
were cut down; a carpet was bought to match the one
which Maude had purchased the summer before; and then,
when all was done, the doctor was seized with a fit of the
blues, because it had cost so much. But he could afford
to be extravagant for a wife like Maude Glendower, and
trusting much to the wheat-crop and the wool, he started
for Troy, about the middle of March, fully expecting to
receive from the lady a decisive answer as to when she
would make them both perfectly happy!
With a most winning smile upon her lip and a bewitching
glance in her black eyes, Maude Glendower took his
hand in hers, and begged for a little longer freedom.
“Wait till next fall,” she said; “I must go to Saratoga
one more summer. I shall never be happy if I don't, and
you, I dare say, wouldn't enjoy it a bit.”
The doctor was not so sure of that. Her eyes, her
voice, and the soft touch of her hand, made him feel very
queer, and he was almost willing to go to Saratoga himself,
if by these means he could secure her.
“How much do they charge?” he asked; and, with a
flash of her bright eyes, the lady answered, “I presume
both of us can get along with thirty or forty dollars a
week, including every thing; but that isn't much, as I
don't care to stay more than two months!”
This decided the doctor. He had not three hundred
dollars to throw away, and so he tried to persuade his
companion to give up Saratoga and go with him to Laurel
Hill, telling her, as an inducement, of the improvements
he had made.
“There were two parlors now,” he said, “and with her
handsome furniture they would look remarkably well.”
She did not tell him that her handsome furniture was
mortgaged for board and borrowed money—neither did
she say that her object in going to Saratoga was, to try
her powers upon a rich old Southern bachelor, who had
returned from Europe, and who she knew was to pass
the coming summer at the Springs. If she could secure
him, Dr. Kennedy might console himself as best he could,
and she begged so hard to defer their marriage until the
autumn, that the doctor gave up the contest, and, with a
heavy heart, prepared to turn his face homeward.
You need not make any more repairs until I come, I'd
rather see to them myself, Miss Glendower said at parting;
and wondering what further improvements she could
possibly suggest, now that the parlor windows were all
right, the doctor bade her adieu, and started for home.
Hitherto, Maude had been his confidant, keeping her
trust so well that no one at Laurel Hill knew exactly
what his intentions were, and, as was very natural, immediately
after his return, he went to her for sympathy in
his disappointment. He found her weeping bitterly, and
ere he could lay before her his own grievances, she appealed
to him for sympathy and aid. The man to whom
her money was intrusted, had speculated largely, loaning
some of it out West, at twenty per cent.—investing some
in doubtful railroad stocks, and experimenting with the
worse than all, had nothing of his own with which to
make amends. In short, Maude was penniless, and J. C.
De Vere in despair. She had written to him immediately,
and he had come, suggesting nothing, offering no advice,
and saying nothing at first, except that “the man
was mighty mean, and he had never liked his looks.”
After a little, however, he rallied somewhat, and offered
the consolatory remark, that “they were in a mighty bad
fix. I'll be honest,” said he, “and confess that I depended
upon that money to set me up in business. I was going
to shave notes, and in order to do so, I must have
some ready capital. It cramps me,” he continued, “for,
as a married man, my expenses will necessarily be more
than they now are.”
“We can defer our marriage,” sobbed Maude, whose
heart throbbed painfully with every word he uttered.
“We can defer our marriage awhile, and possibly a part
of my fortune may be regained—or, if you wish it, I will
release you at once. You need not wed a penniless bride,”
and Maude hid her face in her hands, while she awaited
the answer to her suggestion. J. C. De Vere did love
Maude Remington better than any one he had ever seen,
and though he caught eagerly at the marriage deferred,
he was not then willing to give her up, and, with one of
his impetuous bursts; he exclaimed, “I will not be released,
though it may be wise to postpone our bridal day
for a time, say until Christmas next, when I hope to be
established in business,” and, touched by the suffering expression
of her white face, he kissed her tears away, and
told her how gladly he would work for her, painting “love
in a cottage,” with nothing else there, until he really made
Maude, provided she gave him the lion's share!
J. C.'s great faults were selfishness, indolence, and love
of money, and Maude's loss affected him deeply; still,
there was no redress, and playfully bidding her “not to
cry for the milkman's spilled milk,” he left her on the very
day when Dr. Kennedy returned. Maude knew J. C.
was keenly disappointed; that he was hardly aware what
he was saying, and she wept for him rather than for the
money.
Dr. Kennedy could offer no advice—no comfort. It
had always been a maxim of his not to make that man her
guardian; but women would do every thing wrong, and
then, as if his own trials were paramount to hers, he
bored her with the story of his troubles, to which she
simply answered, “I am sorry;” and this was all the sympathy
either gained from the other!
In the course of a few days, Maude received a long letter
from James De Vere. He had heard from J. C. of
his misfortune, and very tenderly he strove to comfort
her, touching at once upon the subject which he naturally
supposed lay heaviest upon her heart. The marriage need
not be postponed, he said: “There was room in his house
and a place in his own and his mother's affections for their
“Cousin Maude.” She could live there as well as not.
Hampton was only half an hour's ride from Rochester
and J. C., who had been admitted at the bar, could open
an office in the city, until something better presented.
“Perhaps I may set him up in business myself,” he
wrote. “At all events, dear Maude, you need not dim
the brightness of your eyes by tears, for all will yet be
well. Next June shall see you a bride, unless your intended
something better.”
“Noble man,” was Maude's exclamation, as she finished
reading the letter, and if at that moment the two cousins
rose up in contrast before her mind, who can blame her
for awarding the preference to him who had penned those
lines, and who thus kindly strove to remove from her
pathway every obstacle to her happiness.
James De Vere was indeed a noble-hearted man. Generous,
kind and self-denying, he found his chief pleasure
in doing others good, and he had written both to Maude
and J. C. just as the great kindness of his heart had
prompted him to write. He did not then know that he
loved Maude Remington, for he had never fully analyzed
the nature of his feelings toward her. He knew he admired
her very much, and when he wrote the note J. C.
withheld, he said to himself, “If she answers this, I shall
write again—and again, and maybe”—he did not exactly
know what lay beyond the maybe, so he added, “we
shall be very good friends.”
But the note was not answered, and when his cousin's
letter came, telling him of the engagement, a sharp, quick
pang shot through his heart, eliciting from him a faint
outcry, which caused his mother, who was present, to ask
what was the matter.
“Only a sudden pain,” he answered, laying his hand
upon his side.
“Pleurisy, perhaps,” the practical mother rejoined, and
supposing she was right, he placed the letter in his pocket,
and went out into the open air. It had grown uncomfortably
warm, he thought, while the noise of the falling
fountain in the garden made his head ache as it had never
pleasant library. But not a volume in all those crowded
shelves had power to interest him then, and with a strange
disquiet, he wandered from room to room, until at last as
the sun went down, he laid his throbbing temples upon his
pillow, and in his feverish dreams, saw again the dark-eyed
Maude sitting on her mother's grave, her face upturned to
him, and on her lip the smile that formed her greatest
beauty.
The next morning the headache was gone, and with a
steady hand he wrote to his cousin and Maude, congratulations
which he believed sincere. That J. C. was not
worthy of the maiden he greatly feared, and he resolved
to have a care of the young man, and try to make him
what Maude's husband ought to be, and when he heard
of her misfortune, he stepped forward with his generous
offer, which J. C. instantly refused.
“He never would take his wife to live upon his relatives,
he had too much pride for that, and the marriage
must be deferred. A few months would make no difference.
Christmas was not far from June, and by that time
he could do something for himself.”
Thus he wrote to James, who mused long upon the
words, “A few months will make no difference,” thinking
within himself, “If I were like other men, and was about
to marry Maude, a few months would make a good deal
of difference, but every one to their mind.”
Four weeks after this he went one day to Canandaigua
on business, and having an hour's leisure ere the arrival
of the train which would take him home, he sauntered into
the public parlor of the hotel. Near the window, at the
farther extremity of the room, a young girl was looking
dress attracted his attention, and he was approaching the
spot where she stood, when the sound of his footsteps
caught her ear, and turning round she disclosed to view
the features of Maude Remington.
“Maude!” he exclaimed, “this is indeed a surprise. I
must even claim a cousin's right to kiss you,” and taking
both her hands in his, he kissed her blushing cheek—coyly
—timidly—for James DeVere was unused to such things,
and not quite certain, whether under the circumstances it
were perfectly proper for him to do so or not.
Leading her to the sofa, he soon learned that she had
come to the village to trade, and having finished her
shopping was waiting for her stepfather, who had accompanied
her.
“And what of J. C.?” he asked after a moment's silence.
“Has he been to visit you more than once since the crisis,
as he calls it?”
Maude's eyes filled with tears, for J. C.'s conduct was
not wholly satisfactory to her. She remembered his loud
protestations of utter disregard for her money, and she
could not help thinking how little his theory and practice
accorded. He had not been to see her since his flying
visit in March, and though he had written several times,
his letters had contained little else save complaints against
their “confounded luck.” She could not tell this to James
DeVere, and she replied, “He is very busy now, I believe,
in trying to make some business arrangement with the
lawyer in whose office he formerly studied.”
“I am glad he has roused himself at last,” answered
James, “he would not accept my offer, for which I am
sorry, as I was anticipating much happiness in having my
remain at home, I suppose.”
“No,” said Maude, hesitatingly, “or that is I have
serious thoughts of teaching school, as I do not like to be
dependent on Dr. Kennedy.
James De Vere had once taught school for a few weeks,
by way of experiment, and now as he recalled the heated
room, the stiffling atmosphere, the constant care, and more
than all, the noisy shout of triumph which greeted his ear
on that memorable morning, when he found himself fastened
out, and knew his rule was at an end, he shuddered
at the thought of Maude's being exposed to similar indignities,
and used all his powers of eloquence to dissuade
her from her plan. Maude was frank, open-hearted and
impulsive, and emboldened by James' kind, brotherly
manner, she gave in a most childlike way, her reason for
wishing to teach.
“If I am married next winter,” she said, “my wardrobe
will need replenishing, for J. C., would surely be
ashamed to take me as I am, and I have now no means of
my own for purchasing any thing.”
In an instant James De Vere's hand was on his purse,
but ere he drew it forth, he reflected that to offer money
then might possibly be out of place, so he said, “I have
no sister, no ggirl-cousin, no wife, and more money than I
can use, and when the right time comes nothing can please
me more than to give you your bridal outfit. May I,
Maude? And if you do not like to stay with Dr. Kennedy,
come to Hampton this summer and live with us,
will you, Maude? I want you there so much,” and in
the musical tones of his voice there was a deep pathos
which brought the tears in torrents from Maude's eyes,
accept.
Just then Dr. Kennedy appeared, he was ready to go,
he said, and bidding Mr. De Vere good bye, Maude was
soon on her way home, her spirits lighter and her heart
happier for that chance meeting at the Hotel. One week
later Mr. De Vere wrote to her, saying that if she still
wished to teach, she could have the school at Hampton.
He had seen the trustees, had agreed upon the price, and
had even selected her a boarding place near by.
“I regret,” said he, “that we live so far from the school
house as to render it impossible for you to board with us.
You might ride, I suppose, and I would cheerfully carry
you every day; but, on the whole, I think you had better
stop with Mrs. Johnson.”
This letter Maude took at once to her brother, from
whom she had hitherto withheld her intention to teach, as
she did not wish to pain him unnecessarily with the dread
of a separation, which might never be. Deeply had he
sympathized with her in her misfortune, whispering to her
that two-thirds of his own inheritance should be hers.
“I can coax almost any thing from father,” he said,
“and when I am twenty-one, I'll ask him to give me my
portion, and then I'll take you to Europe. You won't be
old, Maude, only twenty-seven, and I shall be proud when
the people say that beautiful woman with eyes like stars is
the crippled artist's sister!”
In all his plans he made no mention of J. C., whose
conduct he despised, and whose character he began to read
aright.
“Maude will never marry him, I hope,” he thought,
and when she brought to him the letter from James De
and with a hopeful heart as to the result of that summer's
teaching, he bade her go. So it was all arranged, and the
next letter which went from Maude to J. C. carried the
intelligence that his betrothed was going “to turn country
school-ma'am, and teach the Hampton brats their A B
C's,” so at last he said to Mrs. Kelsey and her niece, between
whom and himself there was a perfectly good understanding,
and to whom he talked of his future prospects
without reserve. Mrs. Kelsey was secretly delighted, for
matters were shaping themselves much as she would wish.
Her brother evinced no particular desire to have his
daughter at home, and she determined to keep her as long
as there was the slightest chance of winning J. C. De
Vere. He was now a regular visitor at her house, and,
lest he should suspect her design, she spoke often and respectfully
of Maude, whose cause she seemed to have
espoused, and when he came to her with the news of her
teaching, she sympathized with him at once.
“It would be very mortifying,” she said, “to marry a
district school-mistress, though there was some comfort in
knowing that his friends were as yet ignorant of the engagement.”
“Let them remain so a while longer,” was the hasty
answer of J. C., who, as time passed on, became more
and more unwilling that the gay world should know of his
engagement with one who was not an heiress after all.
| CHAPTER XII.
HOW THE ENGAGEMENTS PROSPERED. Cousin Maude ; and, Rosamond | |