University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
COUSIN MAUDE.

Three days had passed since the bridal, and James
still lingered at Laurel Hill, while not very many miles
away his mother waited and wondered why he did not
come. J. C. and Nellie were gone, but ere they had left,
the former sought an interview with Maude, whose placid
brow he kissed tenderly, as he whispered in her ear:
“Fate decreed that you should not be my wife, but I
have made you my sister, and, if I mistake not, another
wishes to make you my cousin.”

To James he had given back the ornaments intended
for another bride than Nellie, saying, as he did so, “Maude
De Vere may wear them yet.”

“What do you mean?” asked James, and J. C. replied:
“I mean that I and not you will have a Cousin
Maude.

“Who might have been your wife?” queried James.

“No,” J. C. answered mournfully, “not my wife, even
if she were not blind. I never satisfied her, and she did
not love me as I know she can love you, who are far
more worthy of her. God bless you both,” and with a
sigh to the memory of what he once hoped would be, J.
C. went from his cousin to his bride, who petulantly
chided him for having staid so long away.

Two days had elapsed since then, and it was night
again—but to the blind girl, drinking in the words of

love, which fell like music on her ear, it was nigh noonday,
and the sky undimmed by a single cloud.

“I once called you my cousin, Maude,” the deep-toned
voice said, “and I thought it the sweetest name I had
ever heard, but there is a nearer, dearer name which I
would give to you, even my wife—Maude—shall it be?”
and he looked into her sightless eyes to read her answer.

She had listened eagerly to the story of his love born
so long ago—had held her breath lest she should lose a
single word when he told her how he had battled with
that love, and how his heart had thrilled with joy when
he heard that she was free—but when he asked her to be
his wife, the bright vision faded, and she answered mournfully,
“You know not what you say. You would not
take a blind girl in her helplessness.”

“A thousand-fold dearer to me for that very helplessness,”
he said, and then he told her of the land beyond
the sea, where the physicians were well skilled in everything
pertaining to the eye. “Hither they would go,”
he said, “when the April winds were blowing, and should
the experiment not succeed, he would love and cherish her
all the more.”

Maude knew he was in earnest, and was about to answer
him, when along the hall there came the sound of
little crutches, and over her face there flitted a shadow of
pain. It was the sister-love warring with the love of self,
but James De Vere understood it all, and he hastened to
say, “Louis will go, too, my darling. I have never had
a thought of separating you. In Europe he will have a
rare opportunity for developing his taste. Shall it not
be so?”

“Let him decide,” was Maude's answer, as the crutches
struck the soft carpet of the room.

“Louis,” said Mr. De Vere, “shall Maude go with me
to Europe as my wife?”

“Yes, yes—yes, yes,” was Louis' hasty answer, his
brown eyes filling with tears of joy, when he heard that
he, too, was to accompany them.

Maude could no longer refuse, and she half fancied she
saw the flashing of the diamonds, when James placed upon
her finger the ring, which bore the inscription of “Cousin
Maude.” Before coming there that night, Mr. De Vere
had consulted a New York paper, and found that a steamship
would sail for Liverpool on the 20th of April, about
six weeks from that day.

“We will go in it,” he said, “my blind bird, Louis and
I,” and he parted lovingly the silken tresses of her to
whom this new appellation was given.

There was much in the future to anticipate, and much
in the past which he wished to talk over; so he stayed
with her late that night, and on passing through the lower
hall was greatly surprised to see Mrs. Kennedy still sitting
in the parlor. She had divined the object and result of
his visit, and the moment he was gone, she glided up the
stairs to the room where Maude was quietly weeping for
very joy. The story of the engagement was soon told,
and winding her arm around Maude's neck, Mrs. Kennedy
said, “I rejoice with you, daughter, in your happiness,
but I shall be left so desolate when you and Louis are both
gone.”

Just then her eye caught the ring upon Maude's finger,
and taking it in her hand, she admired its chaste beauty,
and was calculating its probable cost, when glancing at

the inside, she started suddenly, exclaiming, “Cousin
Maude”—that is my name—the one by which he always
called me. Has it been given to you, too?” and as the
throng of memories that name awakened came rushing
over her, the impulsive woman folded the blind girl to her
bosom, saying to her, “My child, my child, you should
have been!”

“I do not understand you,” said Maude, and Mrs. Kennedy
replied, “It is not meet that we should part ere I
tell you who and what I am. Is the name of Maude
Glendower strange to you? Did you never hear it in
your Vernon home?”

“It seemed familiar to me when J. C. De Vere first
told me of you,” answered Maude, but I cannot recall any
particular time when I heard it spoken. Did you know
my mother?”

“Yes, father and mother both, and loved them, too.
Listen to me, Maude, while I tell you of the past. Though
it seems so long ago, I was a school-girl once, and nightly
in my arms there slept a fair-haired, blue-eyed maiden,
four years my junior, over whom I exercised an elder sister's
care. She loved me—this little blue-eyed girl—and
when your brother first spoke to me, I seemed again to
hear her voice whispering in my ear, `I love you, beautiful
Maude.”'

“It was mother—it was mother!” and Maude Remington
drew nearer to the excited woman, who answered,

“Yes, it was your mother, then little Mattie Reed; we
were at school together in New Haven, and she was my
roommate. We were not at all alike, for I was wholly
selfish, while she found her greatest pleasure in ministering

to other's happiness; but she crossed my path at last,
and then I thought I hated her.”

“Not my mother, lady. You could not hate my mother;”
and the blind eyes flashed as if they would tear away
the veil of darkness in which they were enshrouded, and
gaze upon a woman who could hate sweet Mattie Remington.

“Hush, child, don't look so fiercely at me,” said Maude
Glendower. “Upon your mother's grave I have wept
that sin away, and I know I am forgiven as well as if her
own soft voice had told me so. I loved your father, Maude,
and this was my great error. He was a distant relative
of your mother, whom he always called his cousin. He
visited her often, for he was a college student, and ere I
was aware of it, I loved him, oh, so madly, vainly fancying
my affection was returned. He was bashful, I thought,
for he was not then twenty-one, and by way of rousing
him to action, I trifled with another—with Dr. Kennedy,'
and she uttered the name spitefully, as if it were even now
hateful to her.

“I know it—I know it,” returned Maude, “he told me
that when he first talked with me of you, but I did not suppose
the dark-eyed student was my father.”

“It was none other,” said Mrs. Kennedy, “and you can
form some conception of my love for him, when I tell you
that it has never died away, but is as fresh within my
heart this night, as when I walked with him upon the College
Green, and he called me `Cousin Maude,' for he gave
me that name because of my fondness for Mattie, and he
sealed it with a kiss. Mattie was present at that time,
and had I not been blind, I should have seen how his whole
soul was bound up in her, even while kissing me. I regarded

her as a child, and so she was, but men sometimes
love children, you know. When she was fifteen, she left
New Haven. I, too, had ceased to be a school-girl, but I
still remained in the city and wrote to her regularly, until
at last, your father came to me, and with the light of a
great joy shining all over his face, told me she was to be
his bride on her sixteenth birthday. She would have
written it herself, he said, only she was a bashful little
creature, and would rather he should tell me. I know not
what I did for the blow was sudden, and took my senses
away. He had been so kind to me of late—had visited
me so often that my heart was full of hope. But it was
all gone now. Mattie Reed was preferred to me, and while
my Spanish blood boiled at the fancied indignity, I said
many a harsh thing of her—I called her designing, deceitful,
and false; and then in my frenzy quitted the room. I
never saw Harry again, for he left the city next morning;
but to my dying hour, I shall not forget the expression of
his face, when I talked to him of Mattie. Turn away,
Maude, turn away! for there is the same look now upon
your face. But I have repented of that act, though not
till years after. I tore up Mattie's letters. I said I would
burn the soft brown tress—”

“Oh, woman, woman! you did not burn my mother's
hair!” and with a shudder Maude unwound the arm
which so closely encircled her.

“No, Maude, no. I couldn't. It wonld not leave my
fingers, but coiled around them with a loving grasp. I
have it now, and esteem it my choicest treasure. When
I heard that you were born, my heart softened toward the
young girl. Mother and I wrote, asking that Harry's
child might be called for me. I did not disguise my love

for him, and I said it would be some consolation to know
that his daughter bore my name. My letter did not reach
them until you had been baptized Matilda, which was the
name of your mother and grandmother, but, to prove their
goodness, they ever after called you Maude.”

“Then I was named for you;” and Maude Remington
came back to the embrace of Maude Glendower, who,
kissing her white brow, continued: “Two years afterward
I found myself in Vernon, stopping for a night at the hotel.
“I will see them in the morning,” I said—“Harry,
Mattie, and the little child;” and I asked the landlord
where you lived. I was standing upon the stairs, and in
the partial darkness he could not see my anguish, when
he replied, “Bless you, miss. Harry Remington died a
fortnight ago.”

“How I reached my room I never knew, but reach it I
did, and half an hour later I knelt by his grave, where I
wept away every womanly feeling of my heart, and then
went back to the giddy world, the gayest of the gay. I
did not seek an interview with your mother, though I
have often regretted it since. Did she never speak of me?
Think. Did you never hear my name?”

“In Vernon, I am sure I did,” answered Maude, “but
I was then too young to receive a very vivid impression,
and after we came here, mother, I fear, was too unhappy
to talk much of the past.”

“I understand it,” answered Maude Glendower, and
over her fine features there stole a hard, dark look, as she
continued, “I can see how one of her gentle nature would
wither and die in this atmosphere, and forgive me, Maude,
she never loved your father as I loved him, for had he
called me wife, I should never have been here.

“What made you come?” asked Maude; and the lady
answered, “For Louis's sake and yours I came. I never
lost sight of your mother. I knew she married the man
I rejected, and from my inmost soul I pitied her. But I
am redressing her wrongs and those of that other woman,
who wore her life away within these gloomy walls. Money
is his idol, and when you touch his purse you touch his
tenderest point. But I have opened it, and, struggle as
he may, it shall not be closed again.”

She spoke bitterly, and Maude knew that Dr. Kennedy
had more than met his equal in that woman of iron will.

“I should have made a splendid carpenter,” the lady
continued, “for nothing pleases me more than the sound
of the hammer and saw, and when you are gone, I shall
solace myself with fixing the entire house. I must have
excitement, or die as the others did.”

“Maude—Mrs. Kennedy, do you know what time it
is?” came from the foot of the stairs, and Mrs. Kennedy
answered, “It is one o'clock, I believe.”

“Then why are you sitting up so late, and why is that
lamp left burning in the parlor, with four tubes going off
at once? It's a maxim of mine”—

“Spare your maxims, do. I'm coming directly,” and
kissing the blind girl affectionately, Mrs. Kennedy went
down to her liege lord, whom she found extinguishing
the light, and gently shaking the lamp to see how much
fluid had been uselessly wasted.

He might have made some conjugal remark, but the
expression of her face forbade anything like reproof, and
he soon found use for his powers of speech in the invectives
he heaped upon the long rocker of the chair over
which he stumbled as he groped his way back to the bedroom,

where his wife rather enjoyed, than otherwise, the
lamentations which he made over his “bruised shin.”
The story she had been telling, had awakened many bitter
memories in Maude Glendower's bosom, and for hours
she turned uneasily from side to side, trying in vain to
sleep. Maude Remington, too, was wakeful, thinking
over the strange tale she had heard, and marveling that
her life should be so closely interwoven with that of the
woman whom she called her mother.

“I love her all the more,” she said, “I shall pity her
so, staying here alone, when I am gone.”

Then her thoughts turned upon the future, when she
would be the wife of James De Vere, and while wondering
if she should really ever see again, she fell asleep just
as the morning was dimly breaking in the east.