Family Pride Or Purified by Suffering Part 40

From the bathroom, which adjoined Katy's sickroom, Wilford had heard all that pa.s.sed between the sisters, and his face grew dark as he thought of having his "ruffled feathers smoothed" even by the little thin white hand, which, the first time it had a chance laid itself upon his face with a caressing motion, from which he involuntarily drew back, thinking the affection thus timidly expressed was all put on with a view to being good, as he termed it.

Wilford was in a most unhappy frame of mind. He was not pleased that Katy had heard of Genevra, and imparted his secret to others. He did not like being humbled as he had been, even Mrs. Lennox taking it upon herself to lecture him for his misdemeanors, sobbing as she lectured, and asking "how he could treat Katy so?" He did not like, either, to lose Helen's good opinion, as he was sure he had, while, worse than all the rest, was the galling fact that Morris Grant loved his wife, and was undoubtedly more worthy of her than himself. He had said that he forgave Morris, and at the time he said it he fancied he did, but as the days went by, and thought was all the busier from the moody silence he maintained, there gradually came to life a feeling of dislike, if not of hatred, for the man, whose name he could not hear without a frown, telling Katy very sharply once that he wished she would not talk so much of Cousin Morris, as if there were no other physician in the world! Dr.

Craig would have done quite as well, and for his part he wished they had employed him.

Wilford knew he did not mean what he said, but he was in a very unamiable frame of mind, and watched Katy close, to detect, if possible, some sign by which he should know that Morris' love was reciprocated.

But Katy was innocence itself, and as the weeks of convalescence went by she tried so hard to do her duty as a wife, going often to the Friend of whom Helen had told her, and finding there the grace which helped her bear what otherwise she could not have borne and lived. The entire history of her life during that wretched winter was never told save as it was written on her face, which was a volume in itself of meek and patient suffering.

Wilford had never mentioned Genevra to her since the day of his return, and Katy sometimes felt that it would be well to talk that matter over.

It might lead to a more perfect understanding than existed between them now, and dissipate the cloud which hung so darkly on their domestic horizon. But Wilford repulsed all her advances upon that subject, and Genevra was a dead name in their household, save as it was on Katy's lips when she prayed, asking that she might feel only perfect kindness toward the Genevra who had so darkened her life.

Wilford's home was not pleasant to him now, but the fault was with himself. Katy did well her part, meeting him always with a smile, and trying to win him from the dark mood she could not fathom. Times there were when for an entire day he would appear like his former self, caressing her with unwonted tenderness, calling her his "poor crushed dove," but never asking her forgiveness for all he had made her endure.

He was too proud to do that now, and his tenderness always pa.s.sed away when he remembered Morris Grant and Katy's remark to Helen: "I am afraid it can never be with us as it was once. I have not the same trust in him."

"She had no right to complain of me to Helen," he thought, forgetting the time when he had been guilty of a similar offense in a more aggravated form.

He could not reason upon anything naturally, and matters grew daily worse, while Katy's face grew whiter and her voice sadder in its tone.

Sometimes Wilford would spend the entire evening away from home, tarrying till the clock struck twelve before he came, and Katy would afterward hear that he had been at the house of some friend, or with Sybil Grandon, whose influence over him increased in proportion as her own was lessened.

When the Lenten days came on, oh, how Katy longed to be in Silverton, to kneel again in its quiet church, and offer up her penitential prayers with the loved ones at home. At last she ventured to ask Wilford if she might go, her spirits rising when he did not refuse her request at once, but asked:

"Whom do you wish to see the most?"

His black eyes seemed reading her through, and something in their expression brought to her face the blush which he construed according to his jealousy, and when she answered:

"I wish to see them all," he retorted:

"Say, rather, you wish to see that doctor, who has loved you so long, and who but for me would have asked you to be his wife!"

"What doctor, Wilford? Whom do you mean?" and Wilford replied:

"Dr. Grant, of course. Did you never suspect it?"

"Never," and Katy's face grew very white, as she asked how Wilford knew what he had a.s.serted.

"I had it from his own lips; he sitting on one side of you and I upon the other. I so far forgot myself as to charge him with loving you, and he did not deny it, but confessed as pretty a piece of romance as I ever read, except that, according to his story, it was a one-sided affair, confined wholly to himself. You never dreamed of it, he said."

"Never, no, never," Katy said, panting for her breath, and remembering suddenly many things which confirmed what she had heard.

"Poor Morris, how my thoughtlessness must have wounded him," she murmured, and then all the pent up pa.s.sion in Wilford's heart burst out in an impetuous storm.

He did not charge his wife directly with returning Morris' love, but he said he was sorry she had not known it earlier; asking her pointedly if it were not so, and pressing her for an answer until the bewildered creature cried out:

"Oh, I don't know. I never thought of it before."

"But you can think of it now," Wilford continued, his cold, icy tone making Katy s.h.i.+ver, as more to herself than him she said:

"A life at Linwood would be perfect rest, compared to this."

Wilford had wrung from her all he cared to know, and believing himself the most injured man in existence, he left the house, and Katy heard his step as it went furiously down the walk. For a time she seemed stunned with what she had heard, and then there came stealing into her heart a glad feeling that Morris deemed her worthy of his love when she had so often feared the contrary. It was not a wicked emotion, nor one faithless to Wilford. She could pray with just as pure a heart as before, and she did pray, thanking G.o.d for the love of this good man, and asking that long ere this he might have learned to be content without her. Never once did the thought "It might have been," intrude itself upon her, nor did she picture to herself the life which she had missed. She seemed to rise above all that, and Wilford, had he read her heart, would have found no evil there.

"Poor Morris," she kept repeating, while little throbs of pleasure went dancing through her veins, and the world was not one-half so dreary for knowing he had loved her. Toward Wilford, too, her heart went out in a fresh gush of tenderness, for she knew how one of his jealous nature must have suffered.

"I'll drive down to the office for him this afternoon," she said. "That will surely please him; and to prove still further that I never dreamed of Morris' love, I'll tell him coming home how in the great sorrow about Genevra I went to him for counsel, and how he sent, or rather, brought me back."

But this confession would necessitate her telling that Genevra was not dead, and it was better for them both, she thought, that he should not know this until the relations between herself and him were more as they used to be; so she decided finally to withhold the fact for a time at least. But she would go for him, as she had at first intended, and she counted the hours impatiently, thinking once her watch had stopped, and seeming brighter and happier than she had been since her illness, when at last she stepped into her carriage, and was driven down Broadway.

Business had gone wrong with Wilford that day, and Tom Tubbs had mentally p.r.o.nounced his master "crosser than a bear," and sighing secretly for the always cheerful Mark, he had taken up his book, and was quietly reading by the office window when Katy came in, her white face seeming whiter from contrast with her black dress, and her eyes looking unnaturally large and bright as she darted across the room to Wilford, who, surprised to see her there, and a good deal displeased withal, inasmuch as he had often said that the office was no place for his wife, never smiled or spoke, but with pent up brows waited for her to open the conversation. Katy saw she was not welcome, and with a tremulous voice she began:

"The day is so fine I thought I would come in the carriage for you. It is early yet, and if you like, we can have a little drive. It might do you good. You look tired," she continued, and unmindful of Tom, trying to smooth his hair.

With an impatient gesture, Wilford drew his hand away from the pale fingers which sought their fellows in a nervous clasp as Katy tried not to think Wilford cross, even after he replied:

"You need not have come for me, as I always prefer a stage; besides that, I can't go home just yet, I am not ready."

Katy stood a moment in silence, a flush on her cheek and a pallor about her lips, which Tom Tubbs saw, secretly shaking his fist and thinking how he would like to knock down the man who could speak so to a wife as beautiful and sweet as Katy seemed.

"I have not been here before since my illness, and I wanted to come once more," she said at last, apologetically, while Wilford, still looking over papers, replied: "A sweet place to come to. I sometimes hate it myself. By the way, I have something to tell you," and his face began to brighten. "Mrs. Mills, from Yonkers, was in town to-day, and as she had not time to see you, she found me and insisted upon your keeping the promise you made last summer of spending some days with her. The Beverleys are there and the Lincolns--quite a nice party--so I ventured to say that you should go out to-morrow and I would come out Sat.u.r.day afternoon to spend Sunday."

"Oh, Wilford, I can't," and Katy's lip began to quiver at the very thought of meeting people like the Beverleys and Lincolns in her present state of mind.

"You can't! Why not?" Wilford asked, and Katy replied: "I've never been in so much company as I shall meet there since baby died, and then--did you forget that it was Lent?"

"You are getting very good to think a few days' visit in the country will harm you," Wilford replied; "besides that, neither Mrs. Mills, nor the Beverleys, nor Lincolns, are church people, and cannot, of course, sympathize in this superst.i.tious fancy."

Katy looked up in astonishment, for never before had she heard Wilford speak thus of the Fast which his whole family honored. But Wilford was growing hard, and with a sigh Katy turned away, knowing how useless it was to reason with him then. Driving home alone, she gave vent to a pa.s.sionate flood of tears as she wondered how it all would end. For some reason Wilford had set his heart upon the visit to Mrs. Mills, a pleasant, fascinating woman, who liked Katy very much and had antic.i.p.ated the promised visit with a great deal of pleasure, making all her plans with a direct reference to Mrs. Cameron, whose absence would have been a great disappointment. Wilford knew this and resolved that Katy should go, and as opposition to his will was always useless, the close of the next day found Katy at Mrs. Mills' handsome dwelling overlooking the broad river and the blue mountains beyond. Wilford was with her; he had come out to spend the night, returning to the city in the morning. Now that he had accomplished his purpose he was in the best of spirits, treating Katy with unwonted kindness and wondering why he hated so to leave her, while she, too, clung to him, wis.h.i.+ng he could stay. Their parting was only for two days, for this was Thursday, and he was to return on Sat.u.r.day, but in the hearts of both there was that dark foreboding which is so often a sure precursor of evil. Twice Wilford turned back to kiss his wife, feeling tempted once to tell her he was sorry for his jealousy and distrust, but such confession was hard for him and so he left it unsaid, looking back to the window against which Katy's face was pressed as she watched him going from her, but little guessing what would be ere she looked on him again.

Tom Tubbs sat reading Chitty as usual when Mr. Cameron came in from his trip up the river. Since Katy's last call at the office Tom had been haunted with her face as it looked when Wilford's cold greeting fell on her ear, and after a private conference with Mattie, who listened eagerly to every item of information with regard to Katy, he had come to the conclusion that his employer was a brute, and that his wife was not as happy as it was his duty to make her.

"It's mean in him to speak so hateful to her," he was thinking just as Wilford came in, appearing so very amiable and good-humored that the boy ventured to inquire for Mrs. Cameron. "She looked so pale and sick, the other day," he said, "almost as bad in fact as she did that night in the cars with Dr. Grant, just before she was so dangerously ill."

"What's that? What did you say?" Wilford asked quickly, and Tom, thinking he had not been understood, repeated his words, while in a voice which Tom scarcely knew, it was so low and husky, Wilford asked: "What night was Mrs. Cameron in the cars with Dr. Grant? When was it, and where?"

As suspicion is an intense magnifier, so the absence of it will blind one completely, and Tom was thus blindfolded as he stated in detail how two months or more ago, while Mr. Cameron was absent, he had been sent by Mr. Ray to Hartford, returning in the early train, that just before him, in the car, a gentleman sat with a lady who seemed to be sick, at all events her head lay on his shoulder and he occasionally bent over her to see if she wanted anything.

"I did not mind much about them," Tom said, "till it got to broad daylight, when I saw the man was Dr. Grant, and when we reached New York the lady threw back her veil and I saw it was Mrs. Cameron."

"Are you sure?" and Wilford grasped Tom's arm with an energy which made the boy wince, while there came over him a suspicion that he had talked too much.

But it could not now be helped, and to Wilford's question he answered:

"Yes, for she bowed to me and smiled."

"Where did they go?" was the next question, put in thunder tones, for Wilford was remembering things Katy said in her delirium, and which were now explained, if Tom's statement was true.

"They went off in a carriage toward your house, and that night I heard she was sick," Tom said, going back to his book, while Wilford seized his hat and started up Broadway. It was not his intention when he left the office to question the servants with regard to his wife, for every feeling and principle of his nature shrank from such an act, but by the time his home could be reached it could scarcely be said that he was in his right mind, and meeting Phillips in the hall, he demanded of her "if she remembered the day when Mrs. Cameron was first taken ill."