Part 16 (1/2)

They were not as happy in the new home as she had expected to be, but the fault did not lie with Katy. She performed well her part, and more, taking upon her young shoulders the whole of the burden which her husband should have helped her bear. Housekeeping far more than boarding brings out a husband's nature, for whereas in the latter case one rightfully demands the services for which he pays, in the former he is sometimes expected to do and think, and even wait upon himself. But this was not Wilford's nature. The easy, indolent life he had led so long as a petted son of a partial mother unfitted him for care, and he was as much a boarder in his own home as he had ever been in the hotels in Paris, thoughtlessly requiring of Katy more than he should have required, so that Bell was not far from right when in her journal she described her sister-in-law as ”a little servant whose feet were never supposed to be tired, and whose wishes were never consulted.” It is true Bell had put it rather strongly, but the spirit of what she said was right, Wilford seldom considering Katy, or allowing her wishes to interfere with his own plans, while accustomed to every possible attention from his mother, he exacted the same from his wife, whose life was not one of unmixed happiness, notwithstanding that every letter home bore a.s.surance to the contrary.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MARIAN HAZELTON.

The last days of June had come, and Wilford was beginning to make arrangements for removing Katy from the city before the warmer weather.

To this he had been urged by Mark Ray's remarking that Katy was not looking as well as when he first saw her, one year ago, ”She had grown thin and pale,” he said. ”Had Wilford remarked it?”

Wilford had not. She complained much of headache; but that was only natural. Still he wrote to the Mountain House that afternoon to secure rooms for himself and wife, and then at an earlier hour than usual went home to tell her of the arrangement. Katy was out shopping, Esther said, and had not yet returned, adding: ”There is a note for her upstairs, left by a woman who insisted on seeing the house, until I took her over it, showing her every room.”

”A strange woman went over my house in Mrs. Cameron's absence! Who was it?” Wilford asked, hastily, visions of Helen, or possibly Aunt Betsy, rising before his mind.

”She said she was a friend of Mrs. Cameron, and that she knew she would allow the liberty,” Esther replied, thus confirming Wilford in his suspicions that some country acquaintance had thrust herself upon them, and hastening up to Katy's room, where the note was lying, he took it up and examined the superscription, examined it closely, holding it up to the light full a minute, and forgetting to open it in his perplexity and the train of thought it awakened.

”They are singularly alike,” he said, and still holding the note in his hand he went downstairs to the library, and opening a drawer of his writing desk, which was always kept locked, he took from it a picture and a bit of soiled paper, on which was written: ”I am not guilty, Wilford, and G.o.d will never forgive the wrong you have done to me.”

There was no name or date, but Wilford needed neither, for he knew well whose hand had penned those lines, and he sat looking at them, comparing them at last with the ”Mrs. Wilford Cameron” which the strange woman had written. Then opening the note, he read that, having returned to New York, and wis.h.i.+ng employment either as seamstress or dressmaker, Marian Hazelton had ventured to call upon Mrs. Cameron, remembering her promise to give her work if she should desire it. The note concluded by saying:

”I am sure you will pardon me for the liberty I took of going over the house. It was a temptation I could not resist. You have a delightful home. G.o.d grant you may be happy in it. You see I have also made bold to write this in your library, for which I beg pardon,

”Yours truly, MARIAN HAZELTON,

”No. ---- Fourth St., 4th floor, N.Y.”

”Who is Marian Hazelton?” Wilford asked himself as he threw down the missive. ”Some of Katy's country friends, I dare say. Seems to me I have heard that name. She certainly writes as Genevra did, except that this Hazelton's is more decided and firm. Poor Genevra!”

There was a pallor about Wilford's lips as he said this, and taking up the picture he gazed for a long time upon the handsome, girlish face, whose dark eyes seemed to look reproachfully upon him, just as they must have looked when the words were penned: ”G.o.d will never forgive the wrong you have done to me.”

”Genevra was mistaken,” he said. ”At least, if G.o.d has not forgiven, he has prospered me, which amounts to the same thing;” and without a single throb of grat.i.tude to Him who had thus prospered him, Wilford laid Genevra's picture and Genevra's note back with the withered gra.s.s and flowers plucked from Genevra's grave, and then went again upstairs, just as Katy's ring was heard and Katy herself came in.

As thoughts of Genevra always made Wilford kinder toward his wife, so now he kissed her white cheek, noticing that, as Mark had said, it was whiter than last year in June. But mountain air would bring back the roses, he thought, as he handed her the note.

”Oh, yes, from Marian Hazelton,” Katy said, glancing first at the name and then hastily reading it through.

”Who is Marian Hazelton? Some intimate friend, I judge, from the liberty she took.”

”Not very intimate, though I liked her so much, and thought her above her position,” Katy replied, repeating all she knew of Marian, and how she chanced to know her at all. ”Don't you remember Helen wrote that she fainted at our wedding, and I was so sorry, fearing I might have overworked her.”

Wilford did remember something about it, and satisfied that Marian Hazelton had no idea of intruding herself upon them, except as she might ask for work, he dismissed her from his mind and told Katy of his plan for taking her to the Mountain House a few weeks before going to Saratoga.

”Would you not like it?” he asked, as she continued silent, with her eyes fixed upon the window opposite.

”Yes,” and Katy drew a long and weary breath. ”I shall like any place where there are birds, and rocks, and trees, and real gra.s.s, such as grows of itself in the country; but Wilford,” and Katy crept close to him now, ”if I might go to Silverton, I should get strong so fast. You don't know how I long to see home once more. I dream about it nights and think about it days, knowing just how pleasant it is there, with the roses in bloom and the meadows so fresh and green. May I go, Wilford?

May I go home to mother?”

Had Katy asked for half his fortune, just as she asked to go home, Wilford would have given it to her, but Silverton had a power to lock all the softer avenues of his heart, and so he answered that the Mountain House was preferable, that the rooms were engaged, and that as he should enjoy it so much better he thought they would make no change.

Katy did not cry, nor utter a word of remonstrance; she was fast learning that quiet submission was better than useless opposition, and so Silverton was again given up. But there was one consolation. Seeing Marian Hazelton would be almost as good as going home, for had she not recently come from that neighborhood, bringing with her the odor from the hills and freshness from the woods. Perhaps, too, she had lately seen Helen or Morris at church, and had heard the music of the organ which Helen played, and the singing of the children just as it sometimes came to Katy in her dreams, making her start in her sleep and murmur s.n.a.t.c.hes of the sacred songs which Dr. Morris taught. Yes, Marian could tell her of all this, and very impatiently Katy waited for the morning when she would drive around to Fourth Street with the piles of sewing she was going to take to Marian.