 | CHAPTER XX.
MARK RAY AT SILVERTON. The Cameron pride, or, Purified by suffering |  |
20. CHAPTER XX.
MARK RAY AT SILVERTON.
THE last day of summer was dying out in a fierce
storm of rain which swept in sheets across the Silverton
hills, hiding the pond from view, and beating
against the windows of the farm-house, whose
inmates were nevertheless unmindful of the storm save
as they hoped the morrow would prove bright and fair,
such as the day should be which brought them back
was her letter, the mother catching it up from time to
time, to read the part referring to herself, where Katy had
told how blessed it would be “to rest again on mother's
bed,” just as she had so often wished to do, “and hear
mother's voice;” the deacon spelling out by his spluttering
tallow candle, with its long, smoky wick, what she
had said of “darling old Uncle Eph” and the rides into
the fields; Aunt Betsy, too, reading mostly from memory
the words, “Good old Aunt Betsy, with her skirts so
limp and short, tell her she will look handsomer to me
than the fairest belle at Newport;” and as often as Aunt
Betsy read it she would ejaculate, “The land! what kind
of company must the child have kept?” wondering next
if Helen had never written of the hoop, for which she
paid a dollar, and which was carefully hung in her
closet, waiting for the event of to-morrow, while the hem
of her pongee had been let down and one breadth
gored to accommodate the hoop. On the whole, Aunt
Betsy expected to make a stylish appearance before the
little lady of whom she stood in awe, always speaking
of her to the neighbors as “My niece, Miss Cammen
from New York,” and taking good care to report what
she had heard of “Miss Cammen's” costly dress and the
grandeur of her house, where the furniture of the best
chamber cost over fifteen hundred dollars.
“What could it be?” Aunt Betsy had asked in her
simplicity, feeling an increased respect for Katy, and
consenting the more readily to the change in her pongee,
as suggested to her by Helen.
But that was for to-morrow when Katy came; to-night
she only wore a dotted brown, whose hem just reached
the top of her “bootees,” as she went to strain the milk
brought in by Uncle Ephraim, while Helen took her
position near the window, looking drearily out upon the
leaden clouds, and hoping it would brighten before the
morrow. Like the others, Helen had read Katy's letter
many times, dwelling longest upon the part which said,
“I have been so bad, so frivolous and wicked here at
Newport, that it will be a relief to make you my confessor,
depending, as I do, upon your love to grant me absolution.”
From a family in Silverton, who had spent a few days
at a private house in Newport, Helen had heard something
of her sister's life; the lady had seen her once
driving a tandem team down the avenue, with Wilford at
her side giving her instructions. Since then there had
been some anxiety felt for her at the farm-house, and
more than Dr. Grant had prayed that she might be kept
unspotted from the world; but when her letter came, so
full of love and self-reproaches, the burden was lifted,
and there was nothing to mar the anticipations of the
event for which they had made so many preparations,
Uncle Ephraim going to the expense of buying at auction
a half-worn covered buggy, which he fancied would
suit Katy better than the corn-colored wagon in which
she used to ride. To pay for this the deacon had parted
with the money set aside for the “great coat” he so
much needed for the coming winter, his old gray having
done him service for fifteen years. But his comfort was
nothing compared with Katy's happiness, and so, with
his wrinkled face beaming with delight, he had brought
home his buggy, putting it carefully in the barn, and
saying no one should ride in it till Katy came. With
untiring patience the old man mended up his harness,
for what he had heard of Katy's driving had impressed
him strongly with her powers of horsemanship, and
raised her somewhat in his respect. Could he have afforded
it Uncle Ephraim in his younger days would have
been a horse jockey, and even now he liked nothing better
than to make Old Whitey run when alone in the strip
of woods between his house and the head of the pond.
“Katy inherits her love of horses from me,” he said
complacently; and with a view of improving Whitey's
style and mettle, he took to feeding him on oats, talking
to him at times, and telling him who was coming.
Dear, simple-hearted Uncle Ephraim! the days which
he must wait seemed long to him as they did to the other
members of his family. But they were all gone now,—
Katy would be home on the morrow, and with the shutting
in of night the candles were lighted in the sitting-room,
and Helen sat down to her work, wishing it was to-night
that Katy was coming. As if in answer to her wish
there was the sound of wheels, which stopped before the
door, just as from under the dripping umbrella held by a
driver boy, a tall young man sprang upon the step, nearly
upsetting her, but passing an arm around her shoulders
in time to keep her from falling.
“I beg pardon for this assault upon you,” the stranger
said; and then turning to the boy he continued, “It's all
right, you need not wait.”
With a chirrup and a blow the horse started forward,
and the mud-bespattered vehicle was moving down the
road ere Helen had recovered her surprise at recognizing
Mark Ray, who shook the rain-drops from his hair, and
offering her his hand said in reply to her involuntary exclamation,
“I thought it was Katy,” “Shall I infer then
that I am the less welcome?” and his bright, saucy eyes
looked laughingly into hers. Business had brought
him to Southbridge, he said, and it was his intention
to take the cars that afternoon for New York, but having
been detained longer than he expected, and not liking
the looks of the hotel arrangements, he had decided to
presume upon his acquaintance with Dr. Grant, and spend
the night at Linwood. “But,” and again his eyes looked
straight at Helen, “it rained so hard and the light from
your window was so inviting that I ventured to stop, so
here I am, claiming your hospitality until morning, if
convenient; if not, I will find my way to Linwood.”
There was something in this pleasant familiarity which
won Uncle Ephraim at once, and he bade the young man
stay, as did Aunt Hannah and mrs. Lennox, who now
for the first time were presented to Mark Ray. Always
capable of adapting himself to the circumstances around
him, Mark did so now with so much case and courteousness
as to astonish Helen, and partly thaw the reserve
she had assumed when she found the visitor was from
the hated city.
“Are you expecting Mrs. Cameron?” he asked, adding,
as Helen explained that she was coming to-morrow,
“That is strange. Wilford wrote decidedly that he
should be in New York to-morrow. Possibly, though,
he does not intend himself to stop.”
“I presume not,” Helen replied, a weight suddenly lifting
from her heart at the prospect of not having to entertain
long, would spoil all her pleasure.
Thus at her ease on this point, she grew more talkative,
half wishing that her dress was not a shilling calico,
or her hair combed back quite so straight, giving her
that severe look which Morris had said was unbecoming.
It was very smooth and glossy, and Sybil Grandon would
have given her best diamond to have had in her own
natural right the heavy coil of hair bound so many times
around the back of Helen's head, and ornamented with neither
ribbon, comb, nor bow. Only a single geranium leaf,
with a white and scarlet blossom, was fastened just below
the ear, and on the side where Mark could see it best,
admiring its effect and forgetting the arrangement of the
hair in his admiration of the well-shaped head, bending
so industriously over the work which Helen had resumed
—not crocheting, nor yet embroidery, but the very
homely work of darning Uncle Ephraim's socks, a task
which Helen always did, and on that particular night.
Helen knew it was not delicate employment, and there
was a moment's hesitancy as she wondered what Mark
would think—then, with a grim delight in letting him
see that she did not care, she resumed her darning-needle,
and as a kind of penance for the flash of pride in which
she had indulged, selected from the basket the very
coarsest, ugliest sock she could find, stretching out the
huge fracture at the heel to its utmost extent, and attacking
it with a right good will, while Mark, with a comical
look on his face, sat watching her. She knew he was
looking at her, and her cheeks were growing very red,
while her hatred of him was increasing, when he said
abruptly, “You follow my mother's custom, I see. She
used to mend my socks on Tuesday nights.”
“Your mother mend socks!” and Helen started so
suddenly as to run the point of her darning-needle a
long way into her thumb, the wound bringing a stream
of blood which she tried to wipe away with her handkerchief.
“Bind it tightly round. Let me show you, please,”
Mark said, and ere she was aware of what she was doing
Helen was quietly permitting the young man to wind her
handkerchief around her thumb which he held in his
sharp pain had abated.
Perhaps Mark Ray liked holding that small, warm
hand, even though it were not as white and soft as Juno's;
at all events he did hold it until Helen drew it from
him with a quick, sudden motion, telling him it would do
very well, and she would not trouble him. Mark did not
look as if he had been troubled, but went back to his
seat and took up the conversation just where the needle
had stopped it.
“My mother did not always mend herself, but she
caused it to be done, and sometimes helped. I remember
she used to say a woman should know how to do everything
pertaining to a household, and she carried out
her theory in the education of my sister.”
“Have you a sister?” Helen asked, now really interested,
and listening intently while Mark told her of his
only sister Julia, now Mrs. Ernst, whose home was in
New Orleans, though she at present was in Paris, and
his mother was there with her. “After Julia's marriage,
nine years ago, mother went to live with her,” he said,
“but latterly, as the little Ernsts increase so fast, she
wishes for a more quiet home, and this winter she is
coming to New York to keep house for me.”
Helen thought she might like Mark's mother, who, he
told her, had been twice married, and was now Mrs.
Banker, and a widow. She must be different from Mrs.
Cameron; and Helen let herself down to another degree
of toleration for the man whose mother taught her
daughter to mend the family socks. Still there was
about her a reserve, which Mark wondered at, for it was
not thus that ladies were accustomed to receive his advances.
He did not guess that Wilford Cameron stood
between him and Helen's good opinion; but when, after
the family came in, the conversation turned upon Katy
and her life in New York, the secret came out in the
sharp, caustic manner with which she spoke of New
York and its people.
“It's Will and the Camerons,” Mark thought, blaming
Helen less than he would have done, if he, too, had not
known something of the Cameron pride.
It was a novel position in which Mark found himself
could almost touch the ceiling with his hand, and where
his surroundings were so different from what he had
been accustomed to; but, unlike Wilford Cameron, he
did not wish himself away, nor feel indignant at Aunt
Betsy's old-fashioned ways, or Uncle Ephraim's grammar.
He noticed Aunt Betsy's oddities, it is true, and
noticed Uncle Ephraim's grammar; but the sight of Helen
sitting there, with so much dignity and self-respect,
made him look beyond all else, straight into her open
face and clear brown eyes, where there was nothing obnoxious
or distasteful. Her language was correct, her
manner, saving a little stiffness, lady-like and refined;
and Mark enjoyed his situation as self-invited guest,
making himself so agreeable that Uncle Ephraim forgot
his hour of retiring, nor discovered his mistake until,
with a loud yawn, Aunt Betsy told him that it was half-past
nine, and she was “desput sleepy.”
Owing to Helen's influence there had been a change of
the olden custom, and instead of the long chapter,
through which Uncle Ephraim used to plod so wearily,
there were now read the Evening Psalms. Aunt Betsy
herself joined in the reading, which she mentally classed
with the “quirks,” but confessed to herself that it “was
most as good as the Bible.”
As there were only Prayer Books enough for the family,
Helen, in distributing them, purposely passed Mark
by, thinking he might not care to join them. But when
the verse came round to Helen he quickly drew his chair
near to hers, and taking one side of her book, performed
his part, while Helen's face grew red as the blossoms
in her hair, and her hand, so near to Mark's, trembled
visibly.
“A right nice chap, and not an atom stuck up,” was
Aunt Betsy's mental comment, and then, as he often will
do, Satan followed the saintly woman even to her knees,
making her wonder if “Mr. Ray hadn't some notion after
Helen.” She hoped not, for she meant that Morris
should have Helen, “though if 'twas to be it was, and
she should not go agin it;” and while Aunt Betsy thus
settled the case, Uncle Ephraim's prayer ended, and the
conscience-smitten woman arose from her knees with the
once,” mentally asking pardon for her wandering thoughts
and promising to do better.
Mark was in no haste to retire, and when Uncle Ephraim
offered to conduct him to his room, he frankly answered
that he was not sleepy, adding, as he turned to
Helen, “Please let me stay until Miss Lennox finishes
her socks. There are several pairs yet undarned. I will
not detain you, though,” he continued, bowing to Uncle
Ephraim, who, a little uncertain what to do, finally departed,
as did Aunt Hannah and his sister, leaving Helen
and her mother to entertain Mark Ray. It had been
Mrs. Lennox's first intention to retire also, but a look
from Helen kept her, and she sat down by that basket of
socks, while Mark wished her away. Awhile they talked
of Katy and New York, Mark laboring to convince Helen
that its people were not all heartless and fickle, and at
last citing his mother as an instance.
“You would like mother, Miss Lennox. I hope you
will know her sometime,” he said, and then they talked
of books, Helen forgetting that Mark was city-bred in
the interest with which she listened to him, while Mark
forgot that the girl who appreciated and understood
his views almost before they were expressed, was
country born, and clad in homely garb, with no ornaments
save those of her fine mind and the sparkling face
turned so fully towards him.
“Mark Ray is not like Wilford Cameron,” Helen said to
to herself, when as the clock was striking eleven she bade
him good-night and went up to her room, and opening her
window she leaned her hot cheek against the wet casement,
and looked out upon the night, now so beautiful and
clear, for the rain was over, and up in the heavens the
bright stars were shining, each one bearing some resemblance
to Mark's eyes as they kindled and grew bright
with his excitement, resting always kindly on her—on
Helen, who leaning thus from the window, felt stealing
over her that feeling which, once born, can never be quite
forgotten.
Helen did not recognize the feeling, for it was a strange
one to her. She was only conscious of a sensation half
pleasurable, half sad, of which Mark Ray had been the
then there swept over her a feeling of desolation such as
she had never experienced before, a shrinking from living
all her life in Silverton, as she fully expected to do,
and laying her head upon the little stand, she cried passionately.
“This is weak, this is folly,” she suddenly exclaimed,
as she became conscious of acting as Helen Lennox was
not wont to act, and with a strong effort she dried her
tears and crept quietly to bed just as Mark was falling
into his first sleep and dreaming of smothering.
Helen would not have acknowledged it, and yet it was
a truth not to be denied, that she staid next morning a
much longer time than usual before her glass, arranging
her hair, which was worn more becomingly than on the
previous night, and which softened the somewhat too intellectual
expression of her face, and made her seem more womanly
and modest. Once she thought to wear the light
buff gown in which she looked so well, but the thought
was repudiated as soon as formed, and donning the same
dark calico she would have worn if Mark had not been
there, she finished her simple toilet and went down
stairs, just as Mark came in at the side door, his hands
full of water lilies, and his boots bearing marks of what
he had been through to get them.
“Early country air is healthful,” he said, “and as I do
not often have a chance to try it, I thought I would improve
the present opportunity. So I have been down
by the pond, and spying these lilies I persevered until I
reached them, in spite of mud and mire. There is no
blossom I like so well. Were I a young girl I would always
wear one in my hair, as your sister did one night
at Newport, and I never saw her look better. Just let
me try the effect on you;” and selecting a half-opened
bud, Mark placed it among Helen's braids as skillfully as
if hair-dressing were one of his accomplishments. “The
effect is good,” he continued, turning her blushing face to
the glass and asking if it were not.
“Yes,” Helen stammered, seeing more the saucy eyes
looking over her head than the lily in her hair. “Yes,
good enough, but hardly in keeping with this old dress,”
been worn.
“Your dress is suitable for morning, I am sure,” Mark
replied, turning a little more to the right the lily, and
noticing as he did so how very white and pretty was the
neck and throat seen above the collar.
Mark liked a pretty neck, and he was glad to know
that Helen had one, though why he should care was a
puzzle. He could hardly have analyzed his feelings then,
or told what he did think of Helen. He only knew that
by her efforts to repel him she attracted him the more,
she was so different from any young ladies he had known
—so different from Juno, into whose hair he had never
twined a water lily. It would not become her as it did
Helen, he thought, as he sat opposite her at the table,
admiring his handiwork, which even Aunt Betsy observed,
remarking that “Helen was mightily spruced up for
morning,” a compliment which Helen acknowledged with
a painful blush, while Mark began a disquisition upon
the nature of lilies generally, which lasted until breakfast
was ended.
It was arranged that Mark should ride to the cars with
Uncle Ephraim when he went for Katy, and as this gave
him a good two hours of leisure, he spoke of Dr. Grant,
asking Helen if she did not suppose he would call round.
Helen thought it possible, and then remembering how
many things were to be done that morning, she excused
herself from the parlor, and repairing to the platform
out by the back door, where it was shady and cool, she
tied on a broad check apron, and rolling her sleeves
above her elbows, was just bringing the churn-dasher to
bear vigorously upon the thick cream she was turning
into butter, when, having finished his cigar, Mark went
out into the yard, and following the winding path came
suddenly upon her. Helen's first impulse was to stop,
but with a strong nerving of herself she kept on while
Mark, coming as near as he dared, said to her, “Why do
you do that? Is there no one else?”
“No,” Helen answered; “that is, we keep no servant,
and my young arms are stronger than the others.”
“And mine are stronger still,” Mark laughingly rejoined,
as he put Helen aside and plied the dasher himself,
ruin his clothes.
“Tie that apron round me, then,” he said, with the
utmost nonchalance, and Helen obeyed, tying her check
apron around the young man's neck, who felt her hands
as they touched his hair, and knew that they were brushing
queer fancies into his brain—fancies which made him
wonder what his mother would think of Helen, or what
she would say if she knew just how he was occupied that
morning, absolutely churning cream until it turned to
butter, for Mark persisted until the task was done, standing
by while Helen gathered up the golden lumps, and
admiring her plump, round arms quite as much as he
had her neck.
She would be a belle like her sister, though of a different
stamp, he thought, as he again bent down his head
while she removed the apron and disclosed more than
one big spot upon his broadcloth. Mark assured her
that it did not matter; his coat was nearly worn out, and
anyway he never should regret that he had churned once
in his life, or forget it either; and then he asked if Helen
would be in New York the coming winter, talking of the
pleasure it would be to meet her there, until Helen began
to feel what she never before had felt, a desire to visit
Katy in her own home.
“Remember if you come that I am your debtor for
numerous hospitalities,” he said, when he at last bade
her good-bye and sprang into the covered buggy, which
Uncle Ephraim had brought out in honor of Katy's
arrival.
Old Whitey was hitched at a safe distance from all
possible harm. Uncle Ephraim had returned from the
store near by, laden with the six pounds of crush sugar
and the two pounds of real old Java he had been commissioned
to purchase with a view to Katy's taste, and
now upon the platform at West Silverton he stood, with
Mark Ray, waiting for the arrival of the train just appearing
in view across the level plain.
“It's fifteen months since she went away,” he said, and
Mark saw that the old man's form trembled with the excitement
of meeting her again, while his eyes scanned
stopping before him. “There, there!” and he laid his
hand nervously on Mark's shoulder, as a white, jaunty
feather appeared in view; but that was not Katy, and
the dim eyes ran again along the whole line of the cars,
from which so many were alighting.
But Katy did not come, and with a long breath of
wonder and disappointment the deacon said, “Can it be
she is asleep? Young man, you are spryer than I. Go
through the cars and find her.”
Mark knew there was plenty of time, and so he made
the tour of the cars, but found, alas, no Katy.
“She's not there,” was the report carried to the poor
old man, who tremblingly repeated the words, “Not
there, not come!” while over his aged face there broke a
look of touching sadness, which Mark never forgot, remembering
it always just as he remembered the big tear
drops which from his seat by the window he saw the old
man wipe away with his coat-sleeve, as whispering softly
to Whitey of his disappointment he unhitched the horse
and drove away alone.
“May be she's writ. I'll go and see,” he said, and
driving to their regular office he found a letter directed
by Wilford Cameron, but written by Katy; but he could
not read it then, and thrusting it into his pocket he went
slowly back to the home where the tempting dinner was
prepared and the family waiting so eagerly for him.
Even before he reached them they knew of the disappointment,
for from the garret window Helen had
watched the road by which he would come, and when
the buggy appeared in sight she saw he was alone.
There was a mistake; Katy had missed the train, she
said to her mother and aunts, who hoped she might be
right. But Katy had not missed the train, as was indicated
by the letter which Uncle Ephraim without a word
put into Helen's hand, leaning on old Whitey's neck
while she read aloud the attempt at an explanation which
Katy had hurriedly written, a stain on the paper where
a tear had fallen, attesting her distress at the bitter disappointment.
“Wilford did not know of the other letter,” she said,
“and had made arrangements for her to go back with
opened and the servants there wanting a head; besides
that, Wilford had been absent so long that he could not
possibly stop at Silverton himself, and as he would not
think of living without her, even for a few days, there
was no alternative but for her to go with him on the
boat directly to New York. I am sorry, oh, so sorry,
but indeed I am not to blame,” she added in conclusion,
and this was the nearest approach there was to an admission
that anybody was to blame for this disappointment
which cut so cruelly, making Uncle Ephraim cry
as out in the barn he hung away the mended harness and
covered the new buggy, which had been bought for
naught.
“I might have had the overcoat, for Katy will never
come home again, never. God grant that it's the Cameron
pride, not hers that kept her from us,” the old man
said, as on the hay he knelt down and prayed that Katy
had not learned to despise the home where she was so
beloved.
“Katy will never come to us again,” seemed the prevailing
opinion at Silverton, where more than Uncle
Ephraim felt a chilling doubt at times as to whether she
really wished to come or not. If she did, it seemed easy
of accomplishment to those who knew not how perfect
and complete were the fetters thrown around her, and
how unbending the will which governed hers. Could
they have seen the look in Katy's face when she first understood
that she was not going to Silverton, their
hearts would have bled for the thwarted creature who
fled up the stairs to her own room, where Esther found
her twenty minutes later, cold and fainting upon the
bed, her face as white as ashes, and her hands clenched
so tightly that the nails left marks upon the palms.
“It was not strange that the poor child should faint—
indeed, it was only natural that nature should give way
after so many weeks of gaiety, and she very far from being
strong,” Mrs. Cameron said to Wilford, who was beginning
to repent of his decision, and who but for that
remark perhaps might have revoked it.
Indeed, he made an attempt to do so when, as consciousness
came back, Katy lay so pale and still before
wished her to meet him more than half the way, and so
the verdict was unchanged, and in a kind of bewilderment,
Katy wrote the hurried letter, feeling less actual
pain than did its readers, for the disappointment had
stunned her for a time, and all she could remember of the
passage home on that same night when Mark Ray sat with
Helen in the sitting room at Silverton, was that there was
a fearful storm of rain mingled with lightning flashes and
thunder peals, which terrified the other ladies, but
brought to her no other sensation save that it would not
be so very hard to perish in the dark waters dashing so
madly about the vessel's side.
| CHAPTER XX.
MARK RAY AT SILVERTON. The Cameron pride, or, Purified by suffering | |