 | CHAPTER XIX.
THE GOVERNESS. Marian Grey; or, The heiress of Redstone hall |  |
19. CHAPTER XIX.
THE GOVERNESS.
It was a bright September afternoon, and the dense
foliage of the trees looked as fresh and green as when
watered by the Summer showers, save here and there
a faded leaf came rustling to the ground, whispering
to those at whose feet it fell of the Winter which was
hastening on, and whose breath even now was on the
northern seas. Softly the Autumnal sunlight fell upon
the earth, and the birds sang as gayly in the trees as
if there were no hearts bereaved—no small, low rooms
where all was darkness and gloom—no humble procession
winding slowly through the crowded streets
and out into the country, where, in a new-made grave,
a mother's love was buried, while the mourners, two
in number, a young man and a girl, held each other's
hand in token that they were bound together by a
common sorrow. Not a word was said by either; and
when the solemn burial rite was over, they returned
as silently to the carriage, then were driven back to
their desolate home—the tenement where Frederic
Raymond had watched the curtained window and the
geranium growing there.
For many days that window had been darkened,
just as it was when Marian Grey lay there with the
fever in her veins; but it was open now, and the west
wind came stealing in, purifying the room from the
faint sickening smell of coffins and of death, for the
Destroyer had been there. And when the mourners
himself upon the lounge, and burying his face in the
cushions, sobbed aloud:
“Oh, Marian, it's terrible to be an orphan and have
no mother.”
“Yes, Ben, 'tis terrible,” and Marian's tears dropped
on the hair of the honest-hearted Ben.
Up to this hour he had restrained his grief, but now
that he was alone with Marian, he wept on until the
sun went down and the night shadows were creeping
into the room. Then lifting up his head, he said, “It
is so dark—so dismal now—and the hardest of all is
the givin' up our dear old home where mother lived
so long, and the thinkin' may be you'll forget me when
you live with that grand lady.”
“Forget you! Oh, Ben, I never can forget how
much you have done for me, denying yourself everything
for my sake,” said Marian, while Ben continued,
“Nor won't you be ashamed of me neither, if I should
come sometimes to see you? I should die if I could
not once in a while look into your eyes; and you'll let
me come, won't you, Marian?”
“Of course I will,” she replied, continuing after a
moment, “It is not certain yet that I go to Mrs. Sheldon's.
I have not answered her last letter because—
You know what we talked about before your mother
died!”
“Yes, yes, I know,” returned Ben, “but I had forgot
it—my heart was so full other things. I'll go out
there to-morrow. I'd rather you should teach at
Rverside, even if you'd never heard of Frederic, than
go to that grand lady, who might think, because you
was a governess, that you wan't fit to live in the same
house.”
“I have no fears of that,” said Marian. “Mrs.
Harcourt says she is an estimable woman; but still, I
too, would rather go to Riverside, if I were sure Frederic
would not know me. Do you think there is any
danger?”
“No,” was Ben's decided answer, and in this opinion
Marian herself concurred, for she knew that she
had changed so much that none who saw her when
first she came to Mrs. Burt's would recognize her now.
About three months before the night of which we
are writing, she had been graduated at Mrs. Harcourt's
school with every possible honor, both as a musician
and a scholar. There had never been her equal there
before, Mrs. Harcourt said, and when her friend, Mrs.
Sheldon, who lived in Springfield Mass, applied to her
for a family pupil, she warmly recommended her favorite
pupil, Marian Grey, frankly stating, however,
that she was of humble origin—that her adopted mother
or aunt was a poor sewing woman, and her
adopted brother a peddler. This, however, made no
difference with Mrs. Sheldon, and several letters had
passed between herself and Marian, who would have
accepted the liberal offer at once, but for a lingering
hope that Ben would carry out his favorite plan, and
procure her a situation as teacher at Riverside. She had
forgotten what she once said about learning to hate
Frederic, and the possibility of living again beneath
the some roof with him made her heart beat faster than
its wont. She had occasionally met him in the street,
and once she was sure his eye had rested upon her in
passing, but she knew by its expression that she was
not recognized, and when Ben suggested offering her
services as Alice's governess she readily consented.
During these years Ben had not lost sight of Frederic's
movements, though it so chanced that they had met but
twice, once just after the receipt of Alice's picture,
which had been greeted by Marian with a shower of
kisses and tears, and once the previous Autumn, when
Frederic was about returning to Kentucky, for, with his
changed feelings toward Marian, Mr. Raymond felt
less delicacy in using her money—less aversion to
Redstone Hall, where his presence was really needed,
for a portion of the year at least, and which he intended
making his Winter residence.
But he was at Riverside now, and Ben was about
going there to see what arrangements could be made,
when his mother's sudden death caused both himself
and Marian to forget the subject until the night after
the burial, when, without a moment forgetting the
dead or the dreary blank her absence made, they talked
together of the future, and decided that on the morrow
Ben should go to Riverside and see if there were room
in Frederic's house for Marian Grey. The morning
came, and at an early hour Ben started, bidding Marian
keep up her spirits as he was sure of bringing her
good tidings.
Frederic was sitting in his arm chair, which stood
near the window, just where Marian had placed it three
years and a half ago. Not that it had never been
moved since that April morning, for, freed from old
Dinah's surveillance, Mrs. Huntington, who was still
at Riverside, proved herself a pattern housekeeper, and
the chair had probably been moved a thousand times
to make room for the broom and brush, but it was in
its old place now, and Frederic was sitting in it, thinking
of Marian and his hitherto fruitless efforts at finding
her. He was beginning to get discouraged, and
still each time he went to the city he thought “perhaps
I may meet her to-day,” and each night, as the
hour for his return drew near, Alice waited upon the
piazza when the weather was fine, and by the window
when it was cold, listening intently for another step
than Frederic's—a step which never came, and then
Alice grew less hopeful, while Marian seemed farther
and farther away as month after month went by bringing
no tidings of her. Frederic knew that she must
necessarily have changed somewhat from the Marian
of old, for she was a woman now, but he should readily
recognise her, he said. He should know her by her
peculiar hair, if by no other token. So when his eye
once rested on a face of surpassing sweetness, shaded
by curls of soft chestnut hair, which in the sunlight
wore a rich red tinge, he felt a glow like that which
picture of rare lovelinness; then the picture faded, the
graceful figure glided by, and there was nothing left
to tell how, by stretching forth his hand, he might have
grasped his long lost Marian. Moments there were
when she seemed near to him, almost within his reach,
and such a moment was the one when Mrs. Huntington
announced Ben Butterworth, whom he had not
seen for a long time.
Involuntarily he started up, half expecting his visitor
had come to tell him something of her. But when
he saw the crape upon Ben's hat, and the sorrow on
his face, he forgot Marian in his anxiety to know what
had happened.
“My mother's dead,” said Ben, and the strong man,
six feet high, sobbed like a little child, bringing back
to Frederic's mind the noiseless room, the oddly shaped
box, the still, white face, and tolling bell, which were
all he could distinctly remember of the day when he,
too, said to a boy like himself, “My mother's dead.”
These three words. Alas, how full of anguish is
their utterance, and how their repetition will call up
an answering throb in the heart of every one who has
ever said in bitterness of grief, “My mother's dead.”
Frederic felt it instantly, and it prompted him to
take again the rough hand, which he pressed warmly
in token of his sympathy.
“He is a good man,” thought Ben, wiping his tears
away; and after a few choking coughs and brief explanations
as to how and when, he came at once to the
object of his visit.
“He should peddle now just as he used to do, of
course, but wimmen wan't so lucky, and all Marian
could do was to teach. He had given her a tip-top
larnin', though she had earnt some on't herself by
sewin'. She had got a paper thing, too, with a blue
ribin, from Miss Harcourt, who praised her up to the
skies. In short, if Mr. Raymond had not any teacher
for Alice, wouldn't he take Marian Grey?” and Ben
“I wish you had applied to me sooner,” said Frederic,
“for in that case I would have taken her, but a
Mrs. Jones, from Boston, came on only a week ago,
so you see I am supplied. I am very sorry, for I feel
an interest in Miss Grey, and will use my influence to
procure her a situation.”
“Thank you; there's a place she can have, but I
wanted her to come here,” returned Ben, who was
greatly disappointed and began to cry again.
Frederic was somewhat amused, besides being considerably
disturbed, and after looking at the child-man
for a moment, he continued:
“Mrs. Jones is engaged for one year only, and if at
the end of that time Miss Grey still wishes to come, I
pledge you my word that she shall do so.”
This brought comfort at once. One year was not
very long to wait, and by that time Marian would certainly
be past recognition, and as all Ben's wishes and
plans centered upon one thing, to wit: Mr. Raymond's
falling in love with his unknown wife, he was readily
consoled, and wiping his eyes, he said apologetically,
as it were, “I'm dreadful tender-hearted, and since
I've been an orphan it's ten times wus. So you must
excuse my actin' like a baby. Where's Alice?”
Frederic called the little girl, who, childlike, waited
to put on her bracelet, “so as to show the man that
she still wore it and liked it very much.” She seemed
greatly pleased at meeting Ben again, asking him why
he had not been there before, and if he had received
her picture.
“Yes, wee one,” said he, taking her round white
arm in his hand and touching the bracelet. “I should
have writ, only that ain't in my line much, and I don't
always spell jest right, but we got the picter, and Marian
was so pleased she cried.”
“What made her?” said Alice, wonderingly. “She
don't know me.”
“But she knows you're blind, for I told her,” was
Ben's quick reply, which was quite satisfactory to
Alice, who by this time had detected a note of sadness
in his voice, and she asked what was the matter.
To her also Ben replied, “My mother's dead,” and
the mature little girl understood at once the dreary
loneliness that a mother's death must bring even to the
heart of a big man like Ben. Immediately, too, she
thought of Marian Grey, and asked “What she would
do?”
“I come out to see if your pa—no, beg your pardon
—to see if the Square didn't want her to hear you say
your lessons,” was Ben's answer, and Alice exclaimed,
“Oh, Frederic. Let her come. I know I shall like
her better than Mrs. Jones, for she's young and pretty,
I am sure. May she come?”
“Alice,” said Frederic, “Mrs. Jones has an aged
mother and two little children dependent upon her
earnings, and, should I send her away, the disappointment
would be very great. Next year, if we all live,
Miss Grey shall come, and with this you must be satisfied.”
Alice saw at once that he was right, and she gave
up the point, merely remarking that “a year was a
heap of a while.”
“No, 'tain't,” said Ben, who each moment was becoming
more and more reconciled to the arrangement.
One year's daily intercourse with fashionable people,
he thought, would be of invaluable service to Marian,
and as he wished her to be perfect both in looks and
manners when he presented her to Frederic Raymond,
he was well satisfied to wait, and he returned to New
York with a light, hopeful heart. Marian, on the contrary,
was slightly disappointed, for like Alice, a year
seemed to her a long, long time. Still there was no
alternative, and she wrote to Mrs. Sheldon that she
would come as early as the first day of October. It
was hard to break up their old home, but it was necessary,
they knew, and with sad hearts they disposed
the appointed time came, Marian started for her new
home, accompanied by Ben, who went rather unwillingly.
“We ain't no more alike than ile and water,” he
said, when she first suggested his going, “and they
won't think as much of you for seein' me.”
But Marian insisted, and Ben went with her, mentally
resolving to say but little, as by this means he
fancied “he would be less likely to show how big a
dolt he was!”
| CHAPTER XIX.
THE GOVERNESS. Marian Grey; or, The heiress of Redstone hall | |