Mary Jane Holmes

“ Neither did Annie wait for any explanation, but went on talking in her old-fashioned way, which greatly surprised Edna, who was not much accustomed to children. Annie was an odd mixture of childish simplicity and womanly maturity. From having lived all her life with no other companions than grown-up people, she was in some respects much older than her years, and astonished Edna with her shrewd remarks and her mature ways of thinking. Georgie was the theme of which she never tired, and Edna found herself feeling more lenient toward the haughty woman whom she had instinctively disliked. ”

“ She looked up suddenly at Edna, who was curiously studying this girl, who mixed things so indiscriminately, poverty, orphanage, friendlessness, and the last style of dressing the hair.
“I don’t try. I curl my hair, and that is all. I don’t know a thing about fashion,” she said, while Maude, who had succeeded in winding her satin braids, coil after coil, about her head, until the last one came almost to her forehead, replied, “Your curls are lovely. I would not meddle with them. Fashion is an exacting dame, but Aunt Burton and Georgie make such a fuss if I do not try to be decent.” ”

“ The flowers Edna had gathered were upon the table; and Roy thought how bright they made everything look, and enjoyed his breakfast as he had not done for many a day. It was pleasant to have a young face opposite to him; pleasant to have a young life break up the monotony of his own; and Leighton Place seemed to him just now as it never had before; and, during the morning, while Miss Overton was engaged with his mother, he found himself thinking far more of her than of the croquet party which Georgie had planned, and which was to come off that afternoon. ”

“ Once on the other side I fear no one. I know your room; its windows look out on the river; watch for the boat, and when it is fairly across, do what to you seems best! only screen me, as I will screen you, now and forever.”
“You swear it,” Georgie asked, and he replied, “Yes, I swear by the love I bear Janet, and the little ones, and the hope I have of seeing them again, never to breathe a word to any living being, that I ever heard of you save as the belle and heiress.” ”

“ Every word was a moan as the frightened child clutched Georgie’s hand and demanded of her whether her mother was lost forever. She did not seem to remember that she must have had a father, too; it was all “my mother, my mother,” until Georgie could bear it no longer, and said to her in a whisper:
“Your mother is not dead. She is living somewhere.”
“Then why don’t she come to see me? Mothers always take care of their sick little girls, don’t they?” Annie asked, and Jack, who could see the anguish written on his sister’s face, pitied her as he had never done but once before in his life. ”

“ She should go over in the morning herself, she said: and accordingly, as early as nine o’clock, she started for Jersey City, with a box of clothing for Georgie, who, with her water-proof wrapped around her uncovered shoulders, sat by the couch of the dead child, with a strange stony look upon her face, and in her red, swollen eyes.
She had not shed a tear since Annie died, and her own hands had made the little form ready for the grave.
“Don’t touch her; she is mine; I will do all myself,” she had said, almost fiercely, to Aunt Luna, when she first came in to care for the body. ”

“ I hinted so much to her, as a weapon of defence for Edna. Whether she or any one else ever knows more from me, depends upon yourself, and your treatment of Edna.”
“I knew you would not betray me, Jack,” Georgie rejoined, a heavy weight lifted from her mind. “I shall not harm Mrs. Charlie Churchill,—I shall try to like her, for your sake and Maude’s. And, now, why need I tell Roy, when he never can, by any possibility, find it out, and to tell him would only distress him, and ruin me?”
“Perhaps not. If he loves you truly, as I love Maude, he can forgive a great deal. ”

“ All the circumstances of her life at Rocky Point had been tending to this result, but it was Roy’s letter which produced the culminating effect, and took Edna back to her old self, the gay, light-hearted girl, who had known no greater care than Aunt Jerry’s rasping manner. From this she was free now, and life began to look as bright and beautiful to her as did the hill-sides and the mountain-tops when decked in their fresh spring robes. ”

“ Style was a kind of mania with Ruth, who, being rather plain, said frankly, that “as she could not be handsome, she would be stylish, which was next best to beauty;” and so she studied fashion and went to the extreme of everything, and astonished the Rocky Pointers with something new every month, and carried matters with a high hand, and queened it over all the young people, whom she alternately noticed and snubbed, and did more to help Edna by being a pupil herself than any six other young ladies could have done. ”

“ Dana, her mother’s cousin, and looked upon the proposition to accompany her sick friend home as something providential. There was no looking back after that, and Edna hardly stopped to think what she was doing, or to consider the consequences, until she found herself a bride, and stepped with Charlie on board the train at Buffalo. She was very happy, and her happiness showed itself in the sparkle of her eye, and the bright flush on her cheeks, and the restlessness of her little head, which tossed and turned itself airily, and kept the golden brown curls in constant motion. ”

“ And while she was thus employed, Jack, who had come back from the window, was leaning upon the mantel and intently looking at the beautiful woman with marks of culture and high breeding in every turn of her graceful head, and motion of her body,—the woman whose charms were enhanced by all the appliances of wealth, and who looked a very queen born to adorn some home as elegant and beautiful as herself. ”

“ All the city guests had arrived, and there was a grand dinner at Oakwood, where the three long tables were set upon the lawn beneath the maples, the bright silver, and the gay flowers showing well through the surrounding shrubbery, and seeming to curious passers-by, who stopped a moment to look on, more like a fairy scene than a reality. And Georgie, in her elegant white dress, was queen of the banquet, and quite overshadowed Maude in her simple muslin, with a few flowers in her hair. ”

“ She was thinking of Roy Leighton, and how her staying in Chicago might prevent what she so ardently desired. The living together beneath one roof was a thought of the instant, and nothing she had ever considered for a moment, or ever would. But it answered her purpose just as well; and she smoothed Jack’s hair so lovingly, and looked at him with so 82soft, beseeching eyes, in which there was a semblance of tears, that Jack began to forgive her, and feel that she was right after all, and it was not of any use to make her unhappy by insisting upon her staying where she did not wish to stay. ”

“ But he watched her when she went out, and when she came in, and listened to her voice when reading or singing to his mother, until there would, at times, come over him such a feeling of restlessness,—a yearning for something he could not define,—that he would rush out into the open air, or, mounting his swift-footed steed, ride for miles down 296the river road, until the fever in his veins was abated, when he would return to Leighton, and, if Georgie was there, sit dutifully by her, and try to behave as an engaged man ought to do, and get up a little enthusiasm for his bride-elect. ”

“ She had lost her first love in more ways than one, and as, with her head bent down, she sat thinking of him and all she had heard, she felt a fresh pang of remorse cut through her heart at her own callousness in feeling that perhaps for herself it was better that Charlie died. But only for herself. When she thought of him, and what he might have been, had space for repentance been granted him, her tears flowed like rain, and, prone upon her face, she prayed that if the prayers of the living for the dead could avail, hers might be heard and answered for her lost, wayward Charlie. ”

“ It surely was not well for a young man like Jack to look at her often, he decided, especially when arrayed in that short gown, which made her look so like a little girl, and showed her feet so plainly.
They had a merry game, and Jack was interested in spite of himself, and accepted Uncle Phil’s invitation to stay to dinner, and felt a queer little throb in his veins when Maude, acknowledging Edna and himself victors, insisted upon crowning them as such, and wove a wreath of myrtle for Edna’s hair, while for him she gathered a bouquet, and fastened it in his button-hole. ”

“ Pretty, is she?” Jack answered as indifferently as if he really had no idea of meeting any young lady at the farm-house, except Maude herself, and that his sole object that morning, was to call upon the girl chatting so gayly at his side, and telling him how pretty and charming and sweet Miss Overton was, and how he was certain to lose his heart at once. ”

“ Yes, you are a second Louise. I’m an old man of sixty, and never was married, and never shall be, and when Susan was here years ago, I thought of adopting her, but I’ll be hanged if there was snap enough to her, and then she took the first chap that offered, and married Dana, and that ended her. There wasn’t a great many of us, and for what I know you are all the kin I have, and I fancy you more than any young girl I’ve seen, unless its Maude, and she’s no kin, which makes a difference. I’ve a mind to adopt you, to give you my name, Overton, and if you do well I’ll remember you in my will. ”

“ She could not love an own daughter better than she loves you, and I long so to see her joy when she learns the truth, and that you are ours for ever.”
Then they talked of that adventure in the cars, and laughed over the Miss Bettie Edna had so hurriedly dashed off, and spoke sadly and softly of poor Charlie in his far-off grave; and then, bending his head so low that his face touched hers, Roy said, “Georgie foretold this thing, and bade me not to wait because she was dead. Shall it not be as she said, my darling? Shall we be married at once?” ”

“ It did not occur to her that probably Aunt Jerry was at church, until the stage left her at the gate, and she tried the door, which was locked. Fortunately, she knew just where to look for the key, and as she stooped to get it, Tabby, who had been sitting demurely on the windowsill, with one eye on the warm room from which she was shut out, and one on the church whence she expected her mistress to come, jumped down, and with a meow of welcome came purring and rubbing against Edna’s dress, and showing,—as much as a dumb creature can show,—her joy at seeing her young playmate again. ”

“ I have had Annie, my adopted sister, you know, here for a week or more, and, as she is a great invalid, it has kept me closer in my room than was altogether for my health. How is your mother? And are you comfortable at the Worth House? Though of course you are. I went through the rooms the other day, and almost envied you. Such elegance, with so much of home-comfort, is not to be found elsewhere in New York, or, one may almost say, in the world,—such a gentlemanly host as the man in charge, and then the proprietor himself. ”

“ Georgie had him all to herself, and if ever man tried to get up enthusiasm for another, Roy tried to do so for Georgie, and tried to make himself believe that he loved her and could be happy with her. It was easier to believe this in her present softened mood, and by being constantly with her, and shutting from his heart that other, fairer picture of a brown-eyed, sweet-faced maiden, he succeeded pretty well, and was tolerably happy and content until Edna went for the week to Rocky Point. ”

“ Churchill, who had gone, no one knew where, and about herself and her little joys, and griefs, and faults. Everything bad which she had done was confessed, her impatience and fretfulness, and the falsehoods she had told, and then with a faltering voice Annie said:
“I have asked Jesus to forgive, and I most know He has, for I don’t feel afraid of the dark any more, and I love to think He is here with me when my back aches, and I lies awake nights and can’t sleep a bit. And will you forgive me too, sister Georgie; and did you ever tells a lie, though in course you never. You’s always so good. ”

“ And Edna tried hard to be happy, and sometimes made herself believe that she was, though a sense of loneliness and pain would steal over her whenever she saw Roy riding down the avenue, and knew where he was going, and that soon it would be a sin for her to watch him thus. Charlie’s grave was visited oftener now, and the girlish widow tried to get up a sentimental kind of sorrow for the dead, and to think that her heart was buried with him, knowing all the while that a hundred living Charlies could not make up for that something she craved so terribly. ”

“ Burton, and Henry is in his grave. You have nothing to dread from him. You are free to marry Roy, if ever—”
He did not finish the sentence, for Georgie put up her hand, and said quickly: “Never, Jack; don’t, please, speak of that; never now, even if I should live, which I shall not; I could not marry Roy without telling him everything, and death is preferable to that. If I die, he need not know who or what she was whom he thought to make his wife. Nobody need know but you and Maude, for I want you to tell her. Don’t let there be a secret between you. ”