University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
LIFE AT MILLBANK.

MAGDALEN was very fresh and bright next morning
when she went down to breakfast, in her white cambric
wrapper, just short enough in front to show her small,
trim foot and well-shaped ankle, which Frank saw at once.
There were no wrinkles in her stockings, and the little high-heeled
slippers were as unlike as possible to the big shoes
which he remembered so well, wondering at the change, and
never guessing that Magdalen's persisting in wearing shoes too
large for her while growing, had helped to form the little feet
which he admired so much as they tripped up and down the
stairs or through the halls, with him always hovering near.
Her bright, sprightly manner, which had in it a certain spice
of recklessness and daring, just suited him, and as the days
went by, and he became more and more fascinated with her,
he followed her like her shadow, feeling glad that so much of
Roger's attention was necessarily given to his agents and
overseers, who came so often to Millbank, that he at last
opened an office in the village, where he spent most of his
time, thus leaving Frank free to walk and talk with Magdalen
as much as he pleased. And he improved his opportunity,
and was seldom absent from her side more than a few
moments at a time. At first this devotion was very gratifying
to Magdalen, who still regarded Frank as the hero of
her childhood, but after a few weeks of constant intercourse
with him, the spell which had bound her was broken, and she
began to tire a little of his attentions, and wish sometimes to
be alone.

One afternoon they were sitting together by the river, on the
mossy bank, beneath the large buttonwood tree, where they
had spent so many pleasant hours in the years gone by, and
Frank was talking of his future, and deploring his poverty as a

hindrance to his ever becoming popular or even successful in
anything.

“Now, if I were Roger,” said he, “with his twenty-five thousand
a year, it would make a great difference. But here I am,
most twenty-seven years old, with no profession, no means of
earning an honest livelihood, and only the yearly interest of six
thousand dollars, which, if I were to indulge my tastes, would
barely keep me in cigars and gloves and neckties. I tell you
what, Magdalen, it's mighty inconvenient to be so poor.”

As he delivered himself of this speech, Frank stretched himself
upon the grass and gave a lazy puff at his cigar, while his
face wore a kind of martyred look as if the world had dealt
very harshly with him. Magdalen was thoroughly angry, and
her eye flashed indignantly, as she turned towards him. He
had been at Millbank nearly four weeks, and showed no intention
of leaving it. “Just sponging his board out of Roger,”
Hester said; and the old lady's remarks had their effect on Magdalen,
who herself began to wonder if it was Frank's intention
to leave the care of his support entirely to his uncle. It was
her nature to say out what she thought, and turning to Frank,
she said abruptly, “If you are so poor, why don't you go to work
and do something for yourself? If I were a man, with as many
avenues open to me as there are to men, I would not sit idly
down and bemoan the fate which had given me only six thousand
dollars. I'd make the most of that, and do something for
myself. I do not advise you to go away from Millbank, if there
is anything you can do here; but, honestly, Frank, I think it
would look better if you were trying to help yourself instead
of depending upon Mr. Irving, who has been so kind to you.
And what I say to you I mean also for myself. There is no
reason why I should be any longer a dependent here, and as
soon as I can find a situation as teacher or governess I shall
accept it, and you will see I can practise what I preach. I
did not mean to wound you, Frank, but it seems to me that
both of us have received enough at Mr. Irving's hands, and

should now try to help ourselves. You are not angry with me,
I hope?”

She was looking at him with her great bright eyes so kindly
and trustingly that he could not be angry with her, though he
winced a little and wished that she had not been quite so plain
and outspoken with him. It was the first time any one had
put it before him in plain words that he was living on Roger,
and it hurt him cruelly that Magdalen should be the one to
rebuke him. Still he would not let her see his annoyance, and
he tried to appear natural as he answered, “I could not be
angry with you, especially when you tell me only the truth. I
ought not to live on Roger, and I don't mean to, any longer.
I'll go into his office to-morrow. I heard him say he wanted a
clerk to do some of his writing. I'll be that clerk, and work
like a dog. Will that suit you, Maggie?”

Ere Magdalen could reply, a footstep was heard, and Roger
came round a bend in the river, fanning himself with his straw
hat, and looking very much heated with his rapid walk.

“I thought I should find you here,” he said. “It's a splendid
place for a hot day. I wish I'd nothing to do but enjoy
this delicious shade as you two seem to be doing; but I must
disturb you, Frank. Your mother has just arrived, and is quite
anxious to see you.”

Frank would far rather have stayed down by the river, and
mentally wishing his mother in Guinea, he rather languidly
arose and walked away, leaving Magdalen alone with Roger.
Taking the seat Frank had vacated, he laid his hat upon the
grass, and leaning his head upon his elbow began to talk very
freely and familiarly, asking Magdalen if she missed her schoolmates
any, and if she did not think Millbank a much pleasanter
place than Charlestown.

Here was the very opening Magdalen desired; — here a
chance to prove that she was sincere in wishing to do something
for herself, and in a few words she made her intentions
known to Roger, who quickly lifted himself from his reclining
position, and turned toward her a troubled, surprised face as

he asked why she wished to leave Millbank. “Are you not
happy here, Magda?”

He had written that name once to her, but had not called
her thus before in her hearing; and now as he did so his voice
was so low and kind and winning, that the tears sprang to Magdalen's
eyes, and she felt for a moment a pang of homesickness
at the thought of leaving Millbank.

“Yes, very happy,” she said; “but that is no reason why I
should remain a dependent upon you, and before I left the
Seminary I determined to earn my own living as soon as an
opportunity presented itself. I cannot forget that I have no
right to be here, no claim upon you.”

“No claim up me, Magdalen! No right to be here!” Roger
exclaimed. “As well might a daughter say she had no right in
her father's house.”

“I am not your daughter, Mr. Irving. I am nobody's daughter,
so far as I know: or if I am, I ought perhaps to blush for the
parents who deserted me. I have no name, no home, except
what you so kindly gave me, and you have been kind, Mr. Irving,
very, very kind, but that is no reason why I should burden
you now that I am able to take care of myself. O, mother,
mother! if I could only find her, or know why she treated me
so cruelly.”

Magdalen was sobbing now, with her face buried in her hands,
and Roger could see the great tears dropping from between
her fingers. He knew she was crying for the mother she had
never known, and that shame, quite as much as filial affection,
was the cause of her distress, and he pitied her so much, knowing
just how she felt; for there had been a time when he, too,
was tormented with doubts concerning his own mother, the
golden-haired Jessie, who was now cherished in his memory as
the purest of women. He was very sorry for Magdalen, and
very uncertain as to what, under the circumstances, it was
proper for him to do. The world said she was a young lady,
and if Roger had seen as much of her during the last four weeks
as Frank had seen, he might have thought so too. But so

absorbed had he been in his business, and so much of his time
had been taken up with looking over accounts and receipts,
and listening to what his agents had done, that he had given no
very special attention to Magdalen, further than that perfect
courtesy and politeness which he would award to any lady.
He knew that she was very bright and pretty and sprightly, and
that the tripping of her footsteps and the rustle of her white
dress, and the sound of her clear, rich voice, breaking out in
merry peals of laughter, or singing in the twilight, made Millbank
very pleasant; but he thought of her still as a child, his
little child, whom he had held in his lap in the dusty car and
hushed to sleep in his arms. She was only eighteen, he was
thirty-two; and with that difference between them, he might
surely soothe and comfort her as if she really were his daughter.
Moving so near to her that her muslin dress swept across
his feet, he laid his hand very gently upon her hair, and Magdalen,
when she felt the pitying, caressing touch of that great
broad, warm hand, which seemed in some way to encircle and
shield her from all care or sorrow, bowed her head upon her
lap, and cried more bitterly than before, — cried now with a feeling
of utter desolation, as she began dimly to realize what it
would be to go away from Millbank and its master.

“Poor Magda,” he said, and his voice had in it all a father's
tenderness, “I am sorry to see you so much distressed. I can
guess in part at the cause of your tears. You are crying for
your mother, just as I have cried for mine many and many a
time.”

“No, not as you have cried for yours,” Magdalen said, lifting
up her head and flashing her brilliant eyes upon him.
“Hester has told me about your mother. You believe her
pure and good, while mine — oh, Mr. Irving, I don't know
what I believe of mine.”

“Try to believe the best, then, until you know the worst;”
and Roger laid his arm across Magdalen's shoulders and drew
her nearer to him, as he continued: “I have thought a great
deal about that woman who left you in my care. I believe she

was crazy, made so by some great sorrow, — your father's death,
perhaps, — for she was dressed in black; and, if so, she was
not responsible for what she did, and you need not question
her motives. She had a young, innocent face, and bright,
handsome eyes like yours, Magda.”

Every time he spoke that name, Magdalen felt a strange
thrill creep through her veins, and she grew very quiet while
Roger talked to her of her mother, and the time when he
found himself with a helpless child upon his hands.

“I adopted you then as my own, — my little baby,” he said.
“You had nothing to do with it; the bargain was of my making,
and you cannot break it. I have never given up my guardianship,
never mean to give it up until some one claims you who
has a better right than I to my little girl. And this I am saying
in answer to your proposition of going away from Millbank,
because you have no right here, — no claim on me. I am sorry
that you should feel so, — you have a claim on me, — I cannot
let you go, — Millbank would be very lonely without you,
Magda.”

He paused a moment, and, looking off upon the hills across
the river, seemed to be thinking intently. But it was not of
the interpretation which many young girls of eighteen might
put upon his words and manner. Nothing could be further
from his mind than making love to Magdalen. He really
felt as if he stood to her in the relation of a father, and that she
had the same claim upon him which a child has upon a parent.
Her proposition to leave Millbank disturbed him, and led
him to think that perhaps he was in some way at fault. He
had not been very attentive to her; — he had been so much absorbed
in his business as to forget that any attentions were due
from him as master of the house. He had left all these things
to Frank, who knew so much better how to entertain young
ladies than he did; but he meant to do better; and his eyes
came back at last from the hills across the river, and rested very
kindly on her, as he said:

“I am thinking, Magda, that possibly I may have been
remiss in my attentions to you since my return. I am not a
lady's man, in the common acceptation of the term; but I
have never meant to neglect you; and when I have seemed
the most forgetful, you have been, perhaps, the most in my
mind; and the coming home at night from the business which
nearly drives me crazy, has been very pleasant to me, because
you were there at our home I will call it, for it is as much yours
as mine, and I want you to consider it so. It is hardly probable
that I shall ever marry. I have lived to be thirty-two
without finding a woman whom I would care to make my wife;
and, after thirty, one's chances of matrimony lessen. But,
whether I marry or not, I shall provide for you, as well as
Frank, who should perhaps have had more of my father's property.
His mother once believed there was another will, — a
later one, — which gave him Millbank, and disinherited me;
but that is all passed now.”

This was the first time Magdalen had ever heard the will
matter put in so strong a light, and, springing to her feet, she
exclaimed:

“Give Millbank to Frank, and disinherit you! I never
heard that hinted before. I understood that the later will
merely gave more to Frank than the five thousand dollars. I
never dreamed, I did not know — when I — oh, Mr. Irving, I
have been such a monster!”

She was ringing her hands, in her distress at having believed
in and even hunted for a will which would take Millbank from
Roger, who looked at her in astonishment, and asked what she
meant.

“Have you, too, heard of the will trouble; who told you?”
he asked. And with her eyes full of tears, which with a quick
nervous motion of her fingers she dashed away, Magdalen
replied:

“Frank told me first years ago, and his mother told me
again, but not of the disinheritance. She said the will was
better for Frank, and I — oh, Mr. Irving, forgive me, — I hunted

for it ever so much, in all of the rooms, and in the garret,
where Hester found me, and seemed so angry, that I remember
thinking she knew something about it if there was one, and like
a silly, curious girl I said to myself, I'll keep hunting till I find
it; but I didn't. Oh, Mr. Irving, believe me, I didn't!”
“Don't look at me so, please,” Magdalen exclaimed in a tremor
of distress at the troubled, sorry look in Roger's face, — a look
as if he had been wounded in his own home by his own friends.
“I might have hunted more, perhaps,” Magdalen went on, too
truthful to keep back anything which concerned herself; “but
so much happened, and I went away to school and forgot all
about it. Will you forgive me for trying to turn you out of
doors.” She was kneeling by him now as he sat upon the
bank, and her hands were clasped upon his arm, while her tearful
face was turned imploringly to his.

Unclasping her hands from his arm, and keeping them between
his own, Roger said to her:

“You distress yourself unnecessarily about a thing which
was done with no intention to injure me. I know, of course,
that you would not wish me to give up the home I love so
well; but, Magdalen, if there was a later will it ought to be
found, and restitution made.”

“You do not believe there was such a will, — you surely
do not,” Magdalen asked, excitedly; and Roger replied:

“No, I do not. If I did I would move heaven and earth to
find it, for in that case I should have been living all these
years on what belonged to others. Don't look so frightened,
Magdalen,” Roger continued, playfully touching her cheek,
which had grown pale at the mere idea of his being obliged to
give up Millbank. “No harm should come to you. I should
take care of my little girl. I would work with my hands if
necessary, and you could help me. How would you like that?”

It was rather a dangerous situation for a girl like Magdalen.
Her hands were imprisoned by Roger, whose eyes rested so
kindly upon her as he spoke of their working for each other,
and asked how she would like it.

How would she like it? She was a woman, with all a
woman's impulses. And Roger Irving was a splendid-looking
man, with something very winning in his voice and manner,
and it is not strange if at that moment a life of toil with Roger
looked more desirable to Magdalen than a life of ease at Millbank
without him.

“If it ever chances that you leave Millbank, I will gladly
work like a slave for you, to atone, if possible, for my meddlesome
curiosity in trying to find that will,” Magdalen replied;
and Roger responded:

“I wish you to find it if there is one, and I give you full
permission to search as much and as often as you like. You
spoke of Hester's having come upon you once when you were
looking; where were you then?”

“Up in the garret,” Magdalen said. “There are piles of
rubbish there, and an old barrel of papers. I was tumbling
them over, and I remember now that Hester said something
about its being worse for me if the will was found; and she
was very cross for several days, and very rude to Mrs. Irving,
who, she said, `put me up.' She never liked Mrs. Irving much,
although latterly she has treated her very civilly.”

“And do you like my sister Helen?” Roger asked, a doubt
beginning to cross his mind as to the propriety of carrying out
a plan which had recently suggested itself to him. Mrs. Walter
Scott, who never did anything without a motive, had petted
and caressed and flattered Magdalen ever since she had fitted
her out for school, and served herself so well by the means.
She had called upon her twice at the seminary, had written her
several affectionate letters, and it was natural that Magdalen,
who was wholly unsuspicious, should like her; and she expressed
her liking in such strong terms, that Roger's olden feeling of
distrust, — if it could be called by so harsh a name, — gave way,
and he spoke of what his sister had said to him in New York
with regard to Magdalen having a companion or chaperone at
Millbank.

“You know, perhaps,” he said, “that the world has established

certain codes of propriety, one of which says that a
young lady like you should not live alone with an old bachelor
like me. I don't see the harm myself, but sister Helen does,
and she knows what is proper, of course. She has made propriety
the business of her life, and it has occurred to me that
it might be well for her to stay at Millbank altogether, — that
is, if it would please you to have her here.”

Magdalen felt that she was competent to take care of herself,
but if she must have a companion she preferred Mrs.
Irving, and assented readily to a plan which had originated
wholly in Mrs. Walter Scott's fertile brain, and to the accomplishment
of which all her energies had been directed for the
last few years.

“It is fortunate that she is here,” Roger said, “as we can
talk it over together better than we could write about it. I
shall be glad to assist Helen in that way, and it may prove a
pleasant arrangement for all parties.”

They were walking back to the house now, across the pleasant
fields which were a part of Roger's inheritance, and if in
the young man's heart there was a feeling that it would be hard
to give up all this, it was but the natural result of his recent
conversation concerning the imaginary will. That such a document
existed, he did not believe, however; and his momentary
disquiet had passed before he reached the house, which looked
so cool and inviting amid the dense shade of the maples and elms.

“Come this way, Magdalen,” Roger said, as they entered
the hall; and Magdalen went with him into the music-room,
starting with surprise, and uttering an exclamation of delight as
she saw a beautiful new piano in place of the old rattling instrument
which had occupied that corner in the morning.

“Oh, I am so glad! I can now play with some satisfaction
to myself and pleasure to others,” she said, running her fingers
rapidly over the keys, then as her eye fell upon the silver plate,
with her name, “Magdalen Lennox,” engraved upon it, she
stopped suddenly, and her eyes filled with tears at once as she
said:

“Oh, Mr. Irving, how good you are to me! what can I do
to show that I appreciate your kindness?”

Roger had managed to have the piano brought to the house
while she was away, intending it as a surprise, and he enjoyed
it thoroughly, and thought how beautiful she was, with those
tear-drops glittering in her great dark eyes. She was one of
whom any parent might be proud, and he was proud of her, and
called himself her father, and tried to believe that he felt toward
her as a father would feel toward his daughter; but
somehow that little episode down by the river, when she had
knelt before him, with her hands upon his arm, and her flushed,
eager face so near to his, had stirred a new set of feelings in
his heart and made him, for the first time in his life, averse to
being addressed by her as “Mr. Irving.” And when she asked
him what she could do to show how glad she was, he said,

“I know you are glad, — I can see it in your eyes, and I
want nothing in return, unless, indeed, you drop the formal
title of Mr. Irving, and give me the more familiar one of
Roger. Couldn't you do that, Magda?”

Magdalen would as soon have thought of calling the clergyman
of the parish by his first name, as to have addressed her
guardian as Roger, — and she shook her head laughingly.

“No, Mr. Irving, you can never be Roger to me, — it would
bring you too much on a level with Frank, and that I should
not like.”

Perhaps Roger was not altogether displeased with her answer,
for he smiled kindly upon her, and asked if he would have to
fall very far to reach his nephew's level. “In some respects,
yes,” was Magdalen's reply, as she commenced a brilliant polka
which brought Frank himself into the parlor, followed by his
mother, who kissed Magdalen lovingly, and then stood with
both her hands folded on the young girl's shoulder as she went
on playing one piece after another, and making such melody as
had not been heard since the days when Jessie was queen of
Millbank and played in the twilight for her gray-haired husband.

Mrs. Walter Scott was very sociable and kind and conciliatory,
and lavish of her praises of Millbank, which she admired so
much, saying she was half sorry she came, as it would be so
hard to go back to her close, hot rooms in New York. Then
she said she expected to have her house on her hands altogether,
as her tenants were intending to go South in November, and
how she should live without the rent she did not know.

“Perhaps I can suggest something which will meet your
approval,” Roger said; and then he proceeded to speak of his
plan that his sister should stay at Millbank with Magdalen.
Mrs. Walter Scott had never thought of such a thing, —
she did not know that she could live out of New York, —
and nothing but her love for Magdalen and her desire to
serve Roger, who had done so much for Frank, could induce
her to consider the proposition for a moment. This
was what she said; but when five hundred dollars a year
was added to her fondness for Magdalen and her desire
to serve Roger, she consented to martyr herself, and accepted
the situation with as much amiability and resignation as if
it had not been the very object for which she had been striving
ever since her first visit to Charlestown, when she foresaw
what Magdalen would be, and what Roger would do for her.
It was decided that Frank, too, should remain at Millbank as
a clerk in Roger's office, where he pretended to study law, and
where, after his writing was done, he spent his whole time in
smoking cigars and following Magdalen, who sometimes teased
him unmercifully, and then drove him nearly wild with her
lively sallies and bewitching ways. They were very gay at
Millbank that autumn; and in the sad years which followed,
Magdalen often looked back upon that time as the happiest
period of her life.

Roger was naturally domestic in his tastes, and would at any
time have preferred a quiet evening at home with his family to
the gayest assemblage; but his sister-in-law made him believe
that, as the master of Millbank, he owed a great deal to society,
and so he threw open his doors to his friends, who gladly

availed themselves of anything which would vary the monotony
of their lives. Always bright and sparkling and brilliant, Magdalen
reigned triumphant as the belle on all occasions. She
was a general favorite, and as the autumn advanced, the young
maidens of Belvidere, — who had dreamed that to be mistress
of Millbank might be an honor in store for one of them, — began
to notice the soft, tender look in Roger's eyes as they followed
Magdalen's movements, whether in the merry dance, of
which she never tired, or at the piano, where she excelled all
others in the freshness of her voice and the brilliancy of her
execution. Frank, too, with his gentlemanly manners and
foreign air, and Mrs. Walter Scott, with her city style and elegance,
added to the attractions at Millbank, where everything
wore so bright a hue, with no shadow to foretell the dark storm
which was coming. The will seemed to be entirely forgotten,
though Roger dreamed once that it had been found, — and by
Magdalen, too, — and that, with an aching heart, he read that
he was a beggar, made so by his father, and that he had gone
out from his beautiful home penniless, but not alone, or utterly
hopeless, for Magdalen was with him, — her dark eyes beamed
upon him, and her hands ministered to him just as she had
said they would, should he ever come to what he had.

Roger was glad this was only a dream, — glad to awake
in his own pleasant chamber and hear the robins sing in the
maple-tree outside, and see from his window the scarlet tints
with which the autumnal frosts were beginning to touch the
maples. He was strongly attached to his beautiful home, and
to lose it now would be a bitter trial.

But he had no expectation of losing it. It belonged to him
without a question, and all through the autumn months he went
on beautifying and improving it, and studying constantly some
new surprise which would add to the happiness of those he had
gathered around him, and whose comfort he held far above his
own. Wholly unselfish, and liberal almost to a fault, he spent
his money freely, not only for those of his own household, but
for the poor, who had known and loved him when a boy, and

who now idolized and honored him as a man, and blessed the
day which had brought him back to their midst, — the kind and
considerate employer of many of them, — the friend of the destitute
and needy, — the cultivated gentleman in society, and the
courteous master of Millbank.