At Last Part 26

A haughty and uncontrollable gesture from the husband succeeded in diverting the offender's notice to himself for one instant--not more.

But in that flash he detected a shade of difference in the expression that irked him; a ray, that was inquiry, sharp and eager, tempered by compa.s.sion, yet still contemptuous.

All this pa.s.sed in less time than it has taken me to write a line descriptive of the pantomime. The mound was shaped, and the decorously mournful train turned from it to retrace their course to the house, Frederic Chilton imitating the example of those about him, but moving like a sleep-walker, his brows corrugated and eyes sightless to all surrounding objects. He had awakened when the Ridgeley carriage drove to the door. Mrs. Sutton detained Mabel in one of the upper chambers to concert plans for a visit to the homestead while the Dorrances should be there. Aunt and niece had not met since the arrival of the latter in Virginia, a fortnight before, the elder lady being in constant attendance upon Mrs. Tazewell.

"This is very stupid! And I am getting hungry!" said Mrs. Aylett, aside to her lord, as she stood near a front window, tapping the floor with her feet, while vehicle after vehicle received its load and rolled off.

"We shall be the last on the ground. Herbert! can't you intimate to Mabel that we are impatient to be gone?"

"I don't know where she is!" growled the brother, for once non-complaisant to her behest, and not stirring from the chair in the corner into which he had dropped at his entrance.

His head hung upon his breast, and he appeared to study the lining of his hat-crown, balancing the brim by his forefingers between his knees.

Mrs. Aylett had lowered her veil in the burying-ground or on her way thither, but it was a flimsy ma.s.s of black lace--richly wrought, yet insufficient to hide the paleness of the upper part of her visage. Mr.

Aylett watched and wondered, with but one definite idea in his brain beyond the resolve to ferret out the entire mystery in his stealthy, taciturn fas.h.i.+on. Herbert Dorrance had been, in some manner, compromised by his a.s.sociation with this Chilton, had reason to dread exposure from him, and his sister was the confidante of his guilty secret.

"I shall know all about it in due season," thought the master of himself and his dependents.

Not that he meant to extort or wheedle it from his consort's keeping, but he had implicit faith in his own detective talents.

"Here she is at last!" he said, when Mabel came down the staircase, holding Aunt Rachel's hand, and talking low and earnestly, her n.o.ble face and even gliding step a refres.h.i.+ng contrast to Mrs. Aylett's nervousness and Herbert's dogged sullenness.

"I am sorry I have kept you so long, but there will be less dust than if we had gone sooner. The other carriages will have had time to get out of our way," she said, pleasantly. "Winston," coming up to her brother, and speaking in an undertone, "will it be quite convenient for you to send for Aunt Rachel on next Friday?"

"Entirely! The carriage shall be at your service at any hour or day you wish," with more cordiality than was common with him.

However treacherous others might be in their reserve and half-confessions, here was one who had never deceived him or knowingly misled him to believe her better, or otherwise, than she was. Honesty and truth were stamped upon her face by a life-long practice of these homely virtues--not by meretricious arts. It was tardy justice, but he rendered it without grudging, if not heartily.

A few words pa.s.sed as to the hour at which the carriage was to call for Mrs. Sutton, and Mabel kissed her "Good-by," the others shaking hands with her, and with three or four of the Tazewell kinsmen who officiated as masters of ceremonies, and Mrs. Aylett made an impatient movement toward the front steps. Directly in her route, leaning against a pillar of the old-fas.h.i.+oned porch, was Frederic Chilton, no longer dreamy and perplexed, but on the alert with eye and ear--not losing one sound of her voice, or trick of feature. She inclined her head slightly and courteously, the notice due a friend of the house she, as guest, was about to leave. He did not bow, nor relax the rigor of his watch. Only, when she was seated in the carriage, he bent respectfully and mutely before Mabel, who followed her hostess, and paying as little attention to the two gentlemen as they did to him walked up to Mrs. Sutton, and said something inaudible to the bystanders. As they drove out of the yard, the Ridgeley quartette saw the pair saunter, side by side, to the extreme end of the portico, apparently to be out of hearing of the rest, but no one remarked aloud upon the renewed intimacy and then confidential att.i.tude.

"If it is anything very startling, the old gossip will never keep it to herself," Mr. Aylett congratulated himself, while his wife's complexion paled gradually to bloodlessness, and Herbert sat back in his corner, sulky and dumb. "And she is coming to us on Friday!"

CHAPTER XVIII. -- THUNDER IN THE AIR.

THE only malady that put Herbert Dorrance in frequent and unpleasant remembrance of his mortality was a fierce headache, which had of late years supervened upon any imprudence in diet, and upon excessive agitation of mind or physical exertion. His invariable custom, when he awoke at morning with one of these, was to trace it to its supposed source, and after determining that it was nothing more than might have been expected from the circ.u.mstance, to commit himself to his wife's nursing for the day.

She ought, therefore, to have been surprised when, while admitting that the pain in his head was intense, he yet, on the morrow succeeding Mrs.

Tazewell's funeral, persisted in rising and dressing for breakfast.

"It must have been the roast duck at dinner yesterday," he calmly and languidly explained the attack. "It was fat, and the stuffing reeked with b.u.t.ter, sage, and onion. An ostrich could not have digested it. I was tired, too, and should not have eaten heartily of even the plainest food."

Mabel neither opposed nor sustained the theory. She had slept so ill herself as to know how restless he had been; had heard his hardly suppressed sighs and tossings to and fro, infallible indications with him of serious perturbation. Had his discomfort been bodily only, he would have felt no compunction in calling her to his aid, as he had done scores of times. Her sleepless hours had also been fraught with melancholy disquiet. Putting away from her--with firmness begotten by virtue born of will--and so much of this thoughtfulness as pertained to the bygone days with which Frederic Chilton was inseparable a.s.sociated, she yet deliberated seriously upon the expediency of speaking out courageously to Herbert of the relation this man had once borne to her, the incidents of their recent meeting, and the effect she saw was produced upon her husband's mind by the sight of him.

"If we would have this negative happiness continue, this matter ought to be settled at once and forever," she said, inwardly. "He must not suspect me of weak and wicked clinging to the phantoms of my youth; must believe that I do not harbor a regret or wish incompatible with my duty as his wife. I will avail myself of the first favorable moment to a.s.sure him of the folly of his fears and of his discomfort."

Another consideration--the natural sequence of her conviction of his unhappiness--was a touching appeal to her woman's heart. If he had not loved her more fervently than his phlegmatic temperament and undemonstrative bearing would induce one to suppose, he would not dread the rekindling of her olden fancy for another. The image of him who, she had confessed, had taught her the depth and weight of her own affections, whom she had loved as she had never professed to care for him, would not have haunted his pillow to chase sleep, and torture him with forebodings.

"I must make him comprehend that Mabel Aylett at twenty, wilful, romantic, and undisciplined, was a different being from the woman who has called him 'husband,' without a blush, for fourteen years!"

It was these recollections that softened her kindly tones to tenderness; made the pressure of her hand upon his temples a caress, rather than a manual appliance for deadening pain; while she combated his intention of appearing at the breakfast-table.

"Lie down upon the sofa!" she entreated. "Let me bring up a cup of strong coffee for you; then darken the room, and chafe your head until you fall asleep, since you turn a deaf ear to all proposals of mustard foot-baths and Dr. Van Orden's panacea pills."

"No!" stubbornly. "Aylett and Clara would think it strange. They do not understand how a slight irregularity of diet or habit can produce such a result. They would attribute it to other causes. I may feel better when I have taken something nouris.h.i.+ng."

The dreaded critics received the tidings of his indisposition without cavil at its imputed origin, treated the whole subject with comparative indifference, which would have mortified him a week ago, but seemed now to a.s.suage his unrest. The breakfast hour was a quiet one. Herbert could not attempt the form of eating, despite his expressed hope of the curative effects of nourishment, and sipped his black coffee at tedious intervals of pain, looking more ill after each. Mabel was silent, and regardful of his suffering, while Mrs. Aylett toyed with the tea-cup, broke her biscuit into small heaps of crumbs upon her plate, and under her visor of ennui and indolent musing, kept her eye upon her vis-a-vis, whose face was opaque ice; and his intonations, when he deigned to speak, meant nothing save that he was controller of his own meditations, and would not be meddled with.

"You are not well enough to ride over to the Courthouse with me, Dorrance?" he said, interrogatively, his meal despatched. "It is court-day, you know?"

"What do you say, Mabel?" was Herbert's clumsy reference to his nurse.

"Don't you think I might venture?"

"I would not, if I were in your place," she replied, cautiously dissuasive. "The day is raw, and there will be rain before evening.

Dampness always aggravates neuralgia."

"It is neuralgia, then, is it?" queried Winston, shortly, drawing on his boots.

His sister looked up surprised.

"What else should it be?"

"Nothing--unless the symptoms indicate softening of the brain!" he rejoined, with his slight, dissonant laugh. "In either case, your decision is wise. He is better off in your custody than he would be abroad. I hope I shall find you convalescent when I return. Good morning!"

His wife accompanied him to the outer door.

"It is chilly!" she s.h.i.+vered, as this was opened. "Are you warmly clad, love?" feeling his overcoat. "And don't forget your umbrella."

Her hand had not left his shoulder, and, in offering a parting kiss, she leaned her head there also.

"I wish you would not go!" she said impulsively and sincerely.

"Why?"

"I cannot say--except that I dread to be left alone all day. You may laugh at me, but I feel as if something terrible were hanging over me--or you. The spiritual oppression is like the physical presentiment sensitive temperaments suffer when a thunder-storm is brooding, but not ready to break. Yet I can refer my fears to no known cause."

"That is folly." Mr. Aylett bit off the end of a cigar, and felt in his vest pocket for a match-safe. "You should be able always to a.s.sign a reason for the fear as well as the hope that is in you. You have no idea, you say, from what recent event your prognostication takes its hue?"

She laughed, and straightened her fine neck.

"From the same imprudence that has consigned poor Herbert to the house for the day, I suspect--a late and heavy dinner. I had the nightmare twice before morning. You will be home to supper?"

"Yes."

Hesitating upon the monosyllable, he took hold of her elbows, so as to bring her directly before him, and searched her countenance until it was dyed with blushes.

"Why do you color so furiously?" he asked in raillery that had a sad or sardonic accent. "I was about to ask if you would be inconsolable if I never came back. Perhaps your presentiment points to some such fatality.

These little accidents have happened in better-regulated families than ours."