From Jest to Earnest Part 60

Mrs. Marchmont regretted Hemstead's action very much, but it was too firm and decided to be prevented. She had planned that after his "eyes had been opened to his folly," and Lottie's frivolity, to say the least, her nephew would, with quiet dignity, cease his attentions, and perhaps shorten his visit. She had a horror of scenes, but feared that one was coming now.

Hemstead admitted Lottie with a silent bow and gave her a chair.

When she saw his grave, pale face, her heart misgave her strangely, and she trembled so that even he noticed it, and also another fact,--she did not meet his eyes. He fastened his upon her, as if he would read her soul, for he now felt that more than life was at stake.

"Miss Marsden," he said, in a low, deep tone, "my aunt has made a strange charge against you, but I said to her, and I now say to you, that I will take your word against all the world. She a.s.serts, and she gives the names of her witnesses, that your action--your kindness towards me from the first--has been but the carrying out of a deliberate and heartless jest. Is it true?"

Lottie's wonted quickness failed her. She had been so happy, she had seemed to have got so far beyond her old, false self, and so established in his affection, that such a reverse did not appear possible. But the evil that at one time she had feared had now come in a form so unexpected and serious that, for a moment, she was stunned and bewildered, and fell into helpless confusion. The nature of the case aggravated her distress. How could she explain?

What could she say? In response to his question she only trembled more violently and buried her burning face in her hands.

He saw in this action confirmation of fears that he at first would scarcely entertain, and regarded her a moment with a strange expression upon his face,--anger and pity blended,--and then silently left the room.

The sleigh stood at the door, and the coachman was just starting on an errand to Newburgh.

Mr. Dimmerly looked with surprise at his nephew's pale face,--a surprise that was greatly increased as the young man seized his hat and coat, and said in a husky tone, "I am going to New York for some days," and sprang into the sleigh and was driven away.

"Well," said the old man, testily, "if she 'stopped' him as easily as that, he deserves to lose her."

And Mrs. Marchmont, seeing Hemstead depart so silently, congratulated herself that she had escaped a scene after all, and complacently thought, "These things can be 'stopped' if taken in time, notwithstanding brother's sentimental nonsense."

As poor Lottie's mind emerged from its chaos into connected thought, she speedily came to the conclusion to tell Hemstead the whole truth, to condemn herself more severely than even he could in his anger, and to ask his forgiveness.

But when she raised her tearful face to speak, he was gone.

She heard the sound of bells. A sudden fear chilled her, and she sprang to the window and saw a vanis.h.i.+ng form that she dreaded might be his. Without a word to Mrs. Marchmont, she rushed down to the lower hall, where she found Mr. Dimmerly fuming about.

"Where is Mr. Hemstead?" she asked, eagerly.

"What the deuce is the matter? What have you sister been saying that Frank should come down here white as a sheet?"

"But where is he?" she asked again, in a tone that her uncle had never heard her use before.

"Gone to New York for several days," he said.

Lottie tottered a moment as if she had received a blow. With one hand she steadied herself on the bal.u.s.trade of the stairs, while she pa.s.sed the other across her brow, then turned and wearily climbed to her room.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

LOYAL.

Bel was startled at the pallor of Lottie's face as she entered the room, and rose hastily to offer a.s.sistance, but Lottie motioned her away. Without a word she threw herself upon the bed and signified her grief and despair by an act as old as the oldest records of humanity,--she "turned her face to the wall."

Bel knew that Mrs. Marchmont had "spoken plainly," and she had seen Hemstead drive away. She expected Lottie to come to her room in a towering pa.s.sion, and was prepared to weather the storm in cynical endurance, a.s.sured that her friend would eventually thank her for having had a hand in breaking up the "whole absurd thing."

But when Lottie entered, with the expression of one who had received a mortal wound,--when in silence and despair she had turned her face from all the world as if there were nothing left in it for which she cared,--the nervous young lady began to fear that this affair might not pa.s.s away like an ordinary "mood."

She reasoned and remonstrated, but Lottie did not heed, and scarcely heard her. Then she went to Mrs. Marchmont, and disturbed even that lady's complacency by her account of Lottie's appearance and manner. But with approving consciences they both said, "It was time something was done."

The dinner hour came, but Lottie silently shook her head to all urging to come down. It was the same at supper. Entreaty, remonstrance, the a.s.sumption of hurt and injured tones, were alike unavailing.

She lay motionless, like one stunned and under partial paralysis.

Mrs. Marchmont lost her complacency utterly, and Mr. Dimmerly proved but a Job's comforter, as he snarled, "You have stopped it with a vengeance. It's always the way when people meddle."

Nervous Bel was in a perfect tremor of anxiety, perplexity, and weak remorse; and she kept flitting in and out of the room as pale and restless as a disquieted ghost.

De Forrest thought he ought to be "chief mourner," but no one seemed to pay much attention to him.

As for Lottie, one ever-present thought seemed scorching her brain and withering heart and hope.

"He thinks me false,--false in everything,--false in every glance and word to him,--false even when I spoke of sacred things; and he will despise me forever."

Little wonder that she was so drearily apathetic to all that could be said or done to rouse her. The fall from the pinnacle of her religious hope and earthly happiness was too far and great to permit speedy recovery.

At last she rose, and mechanically disrobed for the night: but no sleep blessed her eyes, for, on every side, she saw, in flaming letters, the word false. With increasing vividness her fancy portrayed a pale, stern, averted face.

The next morning she was really ill, and her aunt, in alarm, was about sending for the physician, but Lottie prevented her by saying, somewhat coldly, "What drug has the doctor for my trouble? If you really wish me to get better, give Bel another room, and leave me to myself. I must fight this battle out alone."

"Now, Lottie, how can you take a little thing so greatly to heart?"

"Is it a little thing that the one whom I most honor and respect in all the world regards me as a false coquette?"

"You surely cannot apply such language to my nephew?"

"I do; and on the best grounds. If I am young, I am somewhat capable of judging. He is not the first man I have seen. You do not know, and have never appreciated Mr. Hemstead."

"But, Lottie, compare your station and prospects with his."

"There is scarcely any one with whom I would not exchange prospects.

I am sick of society's artificial distinctions, in which true worth and manhood--all that Heaven cares for--count for nothing. What does Mr. Hemstead care about my wealth, name, and position in New York? He looks at me; and you, or, rather, my own senseless folly, have made me appear a weak, false thing, that, from the very laws of his being, he cannot help despising. But it was cruelly hard in you and Bel, when you saw that I was trying to be a different--a better girl, to show him only what I was, and give me no chance to explain. He will never trust,--never even look at me again."

And, for the first time, the unhappy girl burst into a pa.s.sion of tears, and sobbed so long and violently that Mrs. Marchmont had a distressing consciousness that her worldly wisdom was not equal to this case at all. She would have telegraphed Hemstead to return, if she had known where to address him. She was often tempted to write to Lottie's mother, but dreaded the reproaches of Mrs. Marsden for permitting matters to reach such a crisis before "stopping"

them. And so, in anxiety and perplexity, the day dragged slowly on, until, at last, Lottie, wearied out, fell into the heavy sleep of utter exhaustion, from which she did not wake till the following morning.

But the respite from that most depressing of all suffering; mental trouble, had given her a chance, and her healthful nature began to recover.

She was a girl of too much force and character to succ.u.mb long to any misfortune; and, as she said to her aunt, she meant to fight this battle out to some kind of solution.

To the surprise of every one, she appeared at the breakfast table, very pale, but quiet, and perfectly self-possessed. Her bearing, however, had a dignity and a decision which would make even Mrs.

Marchmont hesitate before she "meddled" again. De Forrest was half afraid of her, and began to realize that she was not the girl he had brought to the country but a few weeks since.

After breakfast, she dismissed Bel by saying plainly that she wished to be alone, and then sat down, and, for the first time, tried to clearly understand the situation. It grew more and more evident how desperately against her were appearances. She had been false at first, and, in a certain sense, must appear false to the last, in that she had not told him the truth. Besides, just when and how she had become in earnest she could not remember. The poor girl was greatly discouraged, and again gave way to tears, as if her heart would break.