 | CHAPTER XXI.
THE SISTERS. Dora Deane, or, The East India uncle; and
Maggie Miller, or, Old Hagar's secret |  |
21. CHAPTER XXI.
THE SISTERS.
On a cool piazza overlooking a handsome flower garden,
the breakfast table was tastefully arranged. It was Rose's
idea to have it there, and in her cambric wrapper, her
golden curls combed smoothly back, and her blue eyes shining
with the light of a new joy, she occupies her accustomed
seat beside one who for several happy weeks has called her
his, loving her more and more each day, and wondering
how thoughts of any other could ever have filled his heart.
There was much to be done about his home, so long deserted,
and as Rose was determined upon a trip to the sea side,
he had made arrangements to be absent from his business
for two months or more, and was now enjoying all the happiness
of a quiet, domestic life, free from care of any kind.
He had heard of Maggie's illness, but she was better now,
he supposed, and when Theo hinted vaguely that a marriage
between her and Arthur Carrollton was not at all improbable,
he hoped it would be so, for the Englishman, he knew,
was far better adapted to Margaret than he had ever been.
Of Theo's hints he was speaking to Rose, as they sat together
at breakfast, and she had answered, “It will be a
splendid match,” when the door-bell rang, and the servant
announced, “a lady in the parlor, who asked for Mr. Warner.”
“I told you some one would come,” said Rose; “do pray
see who it is. How does she look, Janet?”
“Tall, white as a ghost, with big, black eyes,” was
Warner started for the parlor, Rose following on tiptoe, and
listening through the half closed door to what their visitor
might say.
Margaret had experienced no difficulty in finding the
house of Mrs. Warner, which seemed to her a second Paradise,
so beautiful and cool it looked, nestled amid the tall,
green forest trees. Everything around it betokened the fine
taste of its occupants, and Maggie, as she reflected that
she, too, was nearly connected with this family, felt her
wounded pride in a measure soothed, for it was surely no disgrace
to claim such people as her friends. With a beating
heart, she rang the bell, asking for Mr. Warner, and now,
trembling in every limb, she awaited his coming. He was
not prepared to meet her, and at first he did not know her,
she was so changed; but when, throwing aside her bonnet,
she turned her face so the light from the window opposite
shone fully upon her, he recognized her in a moment, and
exclaimed, “Margaret, Margaret Miller! why are you here?”
The words reached Rose's ear, and darting forward, she
stood within the door, just as Margaret, staggering a step
or two towards Henry, answered passionately, “I have come
to tell you what I myself but recently have learned;” and
wringing her hands despairingly, she continued, “I am not
Maggie Miller, I am not anybody, I am Hagar Warren's
grandchild, the offspring of her daughter and your own father!
Oh, Henry, don't you see it? I am your sister. Take me as
such, will you? Love me as such, or I shall surely die. I
have nobody now in the wide world but you. They are all
gone, all—Madam Conway, Theo too, and—and”—She
could not speak that name. It died upon her lips, and tottering
to a chair she would have fallen had not Henry
caught her in his arms.
Leading her to the sofa, while Rose, perfectly confounded,
still stood within the door, he said to the half crazed girl,
“Margaret, I do not understand you. I never had a sister,
and my father died when I was six months old. There
must be some mistake. Will you tell me what you mean?”
Bewildered and perplexed, Margaret began a hasty repetition
of Hagar's story, but ere it was three-fourths told, there
came from the open door a wild cry of delight, and quick
as lightning, a fairy form flew across the floor, white arms
were twined round Maggie's neck, kiss after kiss was
pressed upon her lips, and Rose's voice was in her ear,
never before half so sweet as now, when it murmured
soft and low to the weary girl, My sister Maggie—mine
you are—the child of my own father, for I was Rose
Hamilton, called Warner, first to please my aunt, and next
to please my Henry. Oh, Maggie darling, I am so happy
now;” and the little snowy hands smoothed caressingly the
bands of hair, so unlike her own fair waving tresses.
It was, indeed, a time of almost perfect bliss to them all,
and for a moment Margaret forgot her pain, which, had
Hagar known the truth, need not have come to her. But
she scarcely regretted it now, when she felt Rose Warner's
heart throbbing against her own, and knew their father was
the same.
“You are tired,” Rose said, at length, when much had
been said by both. “You must have rest, and then I will
bring to you my aunt, our aunt, Maggie—our father's sister.
She has been a mother to me. She will be one to you.
But stay,” she continued, “you have had no breakfast. I
will bring you some,” and she tripped lightly from the
room.
Maggie followed her with swimming eyes, then turning to
Henry, she said. “You are very happy, I am sure.”
“Yes, very,” he answered, coming to her side. “Happy
in my wife, happy in my newly found sister,” and he
laid his hand on hers, with something of his former familiarity.
But the olden feeling was gone, and Maggie could now
meet his glance without a blush, while he could talk with her
as calmly as if she had never been aught to him save the
sister of his wife. Thus often changeth the human heart's
first love.
After a time, Rose returned, bearing a silver tray heaped
with the most tempting viands; but Maggie's heart was too
full to eat, and after drinking a cup of the fragrant black
tea, which Rose herself had made, she laid her head upon
the pillow, which Henry brought, and with Rose sitting by,
holding lovingly her hand, she fell into a quiet slumber.
For several hours she slept, and when she awoke at last, the
sun was shining in at the western window, casting over the
floor a glimmering light, and reminding her so forcibly of
the dancing shadows on the grass which grew around the old
stone house, that her eyes filled with tears, and thinking
herself alone, she murmured, “Will it never be my home
again?”
A sudden movement, the rustling of a dress startled her,
and lifting up her head, she saw standing near, a pleasant-looking,
middle aged woman, who, she rightly guessed, was
Mrs. Warner, her own aunt.
“Maggie,” the lady said, laying her hand on the fevered
brow, “I have heard a strange tale to-day. Heretofore I
had supposed Rose to be my only child, but though you take
me by surprise, you are not the less welcome. There is
room in my heart for you, Maggie Miller, room for the
youngest born of my only brother. You are somewhat like
him, too,” she continued, “though more like your mother;”
lady's face, for she, too, was very proud, and her brother's
marriage with a servant girl had never been quite forgiven.
Mrs. Warner had seen much of the world, and Maggie
knew her to be a woman of refinement, a woman of whom
even Madam Conway would not be ashamed; and winding
her arms around her neck, she said impulsively, “I am glad
you are my aunt, and you will love me, I am sure, even if I
am poor Hagar's grandchild.”
Mrs. Warner knew nothing of Hagar, save from Henry's
amusing description, the entire truth of which she somewhat
doubted; but she knew that whatever Hagar Warren
might be, the beautiful girl before her was not answerable
for it, and very kindly she tried to soothe her, telling her
how happy they would be together. “Rose will leave me
in the autumn,” she said, “and without you I should be all
alone.” Of Hagar, too, she spoke kindly, considerately,
and Maggie, listening to her, felt somewhat reconciled to
the fate which had made her what she was. Still, there
was much of pride to overcome ere she could calmly think
of herself as other than Madam Conway's grandchild; and
when that afternoon, as Henry and Rose were sitting with
her, the latter spoke of her mother, saying she had a faint
remembrance of a tall, handsome girl, who sang her to sleep
on the night when her own mother died, there came a visible
shadow over Maggie's face, and instantly changing the
conversation, she asked why Henry had never told her anything
definite concerning himself and family.
For a moment Henry seemed embarrassed. Both the
Hamiltons and the Warners were very aristocratic in their
feelings, and by mutual consent, the name of Hester Warren
was by them seldom spoken. Consequently, if there
and Rose's history, it was that he disliked bringing up a
subject he had been taught to avoid, both by his aunt and
the mother of Mr. Hamilton, who for several years after her
son's death, had lived with her daughter in Leominster,
where she finally died. This, however, he could not say to
Margaret, and after a little hesitancy, he answered laughingly,
“You never asked me for any particulars; and then,
you know, I was more agreeably occupied than I should
have been had I spent my time in enlightening you with
regard to our genealogy;” and the saucy mouth smiled
archly first on Rose, and then on Margaret, both of whom
blushed slightly, the one suspecting he had not told her the
whole truth, and the other knowing he had not.
Very considerate was Rose of Maggie's feelings, and not
again that afternoon did she speak of Hester, though she
talked much of their father; and Margaret, listening to his
praises, felt herself insensibly drawn towards this new
claimant for her filial love. “I wish I could have seen
him,” she said, and starting to her feet Rose answered,
“Strange I did not think of it before. We have his portrait.
Come this way,” and she led the half unwilling Mag
into an adjoining room, where from the wall, a portly, good-humored
looking man, gazed down upon the sisters, his eyes
seeming to rest with mournful tenderness on the face of her
whom in life they had not looked upon. He seemed older
than Mag had supposed, and the hair upon his head was
white, reminding her of Hagar. But she did not, for this,
turn from him away. There was something pleasing in the
mild expression of his face, and she whispered faintly, “'Tis
my father.”
On the right of this portrait was another, the picture of
a woman, in whose curling lip and soft brown eyes, Mag
still, and she gazed upon the angel face, with eyes of violet
blue, and hair of golden brown, on which the fading sunlight
now was falling, encircling it as it were with a halo of
glory.
“You are much like her,” she said to Rose, who made no
answer, for she was thinking of another picture, which years
before had been banished to the garret, by her haughty
grandmother, as unworthy a place beside him who had
petted and caressed the young girl of plebeian birth and
kindred.
“I can make amends for it, though,” thought Rose,
returning with Mag to the parlor: then, seeking out her
husband, she held with him a whispered consultation, the
result of which was that on the morrow, there was a rummaging
in the garret, an absence from home for an hour or
two, and when about noon she returned, there was a pleased
expression on her face, as if she had accomplished her purpose,
whatever it might have been.
All the morning Mag had been restless and uneasy, wandering
listlessly from room to room, looking anxiously down
the street, starting nervously at the sound of every footstep,
while her cheeks alternately flushed and then grew pale as
the day passed on. Dinner being over, she sat alone in the
parlor, her eyes fixed upon the carpet, and her thoughts
away with one who she vaguely hoped would have followed
her ere this. True, she had added no postscript to tell him
of her new discovery; but Hagar knew, and he would go to
her for a confirmation of the letter. She would tell him
where Mag was gone, and he, if his love could survive that
shock, would follow her thither; nay, would be there that
very day, and Maggie's heart grew wearier, fainter, as time
wore on and he did not come. “I might have known it,”
more think of me,” and she wept silently over her ruined
love.
“Maggie, sister,” came to her ear, and Rose was at her
side. “I have a surprise for you, darling. Can you bear
it now?”
Oh, how eagerly poor Maggie Miller looked up in Rose's
face. The car whistle had sounded half an hour before.
Could it be that he had come? Was he there? Did he love
her still? No, Maggie, no, the surprise awaiting you is of
a far different nature, and the tears flow afresh when Rose,
in reply to the question, “what is it, darling?” answers “it
is this,” at the same time placing in Maggie's hand an ambrotype
which she bade her examine. With a feeling of
keen disappointment, Maggie opened the casing, involuntarily
shutting her eyes as if to gather strength for what she
was to see.
It was a young face—a handsome face—a face much like
her own, while in the curve of the upper lip, and the expression
of the large black eyes, there was a look like Hagar
Warren. They had met together thus, the one a living
reality, the other a semblance of the dead, and she who held
that picture trembled violently. There was a fierce struggle
within, the wildly beating heart throbbing for one
moment with a new-born love, and then rebelling against
taking that shadow, beautiful though it was, in place of her
whose memory she had so long revered.
“Who is it, Maggie?” Rose asked, leaning over her
shoulder.
Maggie knew full well whose face it was she looked upon,
but not yet could she speak that name so interwoven with
memories of another, and she answered mournfully, “it is
Hester Hamilton.”
“Yes, Margaret, your mother,” said Rose. “I never called
her by that name, but I respect her for your sake. She
was my father's pet, they say, for he was comparatively old
and she his young girl-wife.”
“Where did you get this?” Maggie asked; and, coloring
crimson, Rose replied, “We have always had her portrait,
but grandmother, who was very old and foolishly proud
about some things, was offended at our father's last marriage,
and when after his death the portraits were brought
here, she—forgive her, Maggie—she did not know you, or
she would not have done it”—
“I know,” interrupted Maggie. “She despised this Hester
Warren, and consigned her portrait to some spot from
which you have brought it and had this taken from it.”
“Not despised her,” cried Rose, in great distress, as she
saw a dark expression stealing over the face of Maggie, in
whose heart a chord of sympathy had been struck, when she
thought of her mother banished from her father's side.
“Grandma could not despise her,” continued Rose, “she
was so good, so beautiful.”
“Yes, she was beautiful,” murmured Maggie, gazing
earnestly upon the fair, round face, the soft, black eyes and
raven hair of her who for years had slept beneath the shadow
of the Hillsdale woods. “Oh, I wish I was dead like
her,” she exclaimed at last, closing the ambrotype, and laying
it upon the table. “I wish I was lying in that little
grave in the place of her who should have borne my name,
and been what I once was;” and bowing her face upon her
hands she wept bitterly, while Rose tried in vain to comfort
her. “I am not sorry you are my sister,” sobbed Margaret.
through her tears. “That's the only comfort I have left
me now; but Rose, I love Arthur Carrollton so much—oh
so much, and how can I give him up?”
“If he is the noble, true-hearted man he looks to be, he
will not give you up,” answered Rose, and then for the first
time since this meeting she questioned Margaret concerning
Mr. Carrollton, and the relations existing between them.
“He will not cast you off,” she said, when Margaret had
told her all she had to tell, “He may be proud, but he will
cling to you still. He will follow you, too—not to-day,
perhaps, nor to-morrow, but ere long he will surely come;”
and listening to her sister's cheering words, Maggie herself
grew hopeful, and that evening talked animatedly with Henry
and Rose of a trip to the sea-side they were intending
to make. “You will go, too, Maggie,” said Rose, caressing
her sister's pale cheek, and whispering in her ear, “Aunt
Susan will be here to tell Mr. Carrollton where you are, if
he does not come before we go, which I am sure he will.”
Maggie tried to think so, too, and her sleep that night
was sweeter than it had been before for many weeks—but
the next day came, and the next, and Maggie's eyes grew
dim with watching and with tears, for up and down the
road, as far as she could see, there came no trace of him for
whom she waited.”
“I might have known it; it was foolish for me to think
otherwise,” she sighed, and turning sadly from the window
where all the afternoon she had been sitting, she laid her
head wearily upon the lap of Rose.
“Maggie,” said Henry, “I am going to Worcester to-morrow,
and perhaps George can tell me something of Mr.
Carrollton.”
For a moment Maggie's heart throbbed with delight at the
thought of hearing from him, even though she heard that he
would leave her. But anon her pride rose strong within her.
She had told Hagar twice of her destination, Hagar had told
him, and if he chose he would have followed her ere this; so
Don't tell him I am here. Promise me, will you?”
The promise was given, and the next morning, which was
Saturday, Henry started for Worcester on the early train.
The day seemed long to Maggie, and when at nightfall he
came to them again, it was difficult to tell which was the
more pleased at his return, Margaret or Rose.
“Did you see Theo?” asked the former; and Henry replied,
“George told me she had gone to Hillsdale. Madam
Conway is very sick.”
“For me! for me! She's sick with mourning for me,”
cried Maggie. “Darling grandma! she does love me still,
and I will go home to her at once.”
Then the painful thought rushed over her, “If she wished
for me, she would send. It's the humiliation, not the love,
that makes her sick. They have cast me off—grandma,
Theo, all, all,” and sinking upon the lounge, she wept aloud.
“Margaret,” said Henry, coming to her side, “but for
my promise I should have talked to George of you, for
there was a troubled expression on his face when he asked
me if I had heard from Hillsdale.”
“What did you say?” asked Maggie, holding her breath
to catch the answer, which was, “I told him you had not
written to me since my return from Cuba, and then he
looked as if he would say more, but a customer called him
away, and our conversation was not resumed.”
For a moment Maggie was silent. Then she said, “I am
glad you did not intrude me upon him. If Theo has gone
to Hillsdale, she knows that I am here, and does not care to
follow me. It is the disgrace which troubles them, not the
losing me!” and again burying her head in the cushions of
the lounge, she wept bitterly. It was useless for Henry and
Rose to try to comfort her, telling her it was possible that
well know that I am the last one to whom you would be
expected to flee for protection.” Margaret would not listen.
She was resolved upon being unhappy, and during the long
hours of that night she tossed wakefully upon her pillow,
and when the morning came she was too weak to rise; so
she kept her room, listening to the music of the Sabbath
bells, which to her seemed sadly saying, “Home, home.”
“Alas, I have no home,” she said, turning away to weep, for
in the tolling of those bells there came to her no voice,
whispering of the darkness, the desolation, and the sorrow
there was in the home for which she so much mourned.
Thus the day wore on, and ere another week was gone,
Rose insisted upon a speedy removal to the sea-shore, notwithstanding
it was so early in the season, for by this means
she hoped that Maggie's health would be improved. Accordingly,
Henry went once more to Worcester, ostensibly
for money, but really to see if George Douglas now would
speak to him of Margaret. But George was in New York,
they said; and somewhat disappointed, Henry went back to
Leominster, where everything was in readiness for their
journey. Monday was fixed upon for their departure, and
at an early hour, Margaret looked back on what had
been to her a second home, smiling faintly as Rose whispered
to her cheerily, “I have a strong presentiment that
somewhere in our travels we shall meet with Arthur Carrollton.”
| CHAPTER XXI.
THE SISTERS. Dora Deane, or, The East India uncle; and
Maggie Miller, or, Old Hagar's secret | |