CHAPTER XXVI

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JOSEPHINE’S CONFIDENCE.

The next day Josephine wrote Everard the first real letter she had sent him for many weeks. Heretofore she had merely acknowledged his drafts made payable to her mother, but now she filled an entire sheet, and called him her _dear husband_, and told him of Miss Belknap’s presence in the house, and what she had said of his habits and strict economy.

“I know it is all for me,” she wrote, “and I felt like crying when she was talking about you. I am so glad she told me, for it has made me resolve to be worthy of you and the position I am one day to fill as your wife. When will that be, Everard? Must we wait forever? Sometimes I get desperate, and am tempted to start at once for Rothsay, and, facing your father, tell him the truth, and brave the storm which I suppose would follow. But then I know you would be angry at such a proceeding, and so I give it up, and go on waiting patiently, for I do wish to please you, and am glad this Miss Belknap is here, as I am sure of her friendship when the time of trial comes. She is very sweet and lovely, and I wonder you did not prefer her to your unworthy but loving Josey.”

Beatrice also wrote to Everard that day, and told him where she was, and why, and said of Josephine, “there must be good in her, or she could not seem so sweet, and amiable, and affectionate. A little vain she may be, and fond of attention, and why not? She cannot look in the glass and not know how beautiful she is. And her voice is so soft, and low, and musical, and her manners so lady-like. You see I am more than half in love with her, and I am quite disposed to advise a recognition on your part of her claim upon you. Of course I shall not betray you. That is not my business here. I came to see what this girl is, whose life is joined with yours. I find her quite up to the average of women, and think it your safer course to acknowledge her, and not leave her subject to the temptations which must necessarily beset a pretty woman like her, in the shape of admiration and attention from every marriageable man in town. It is your safer way, Everard, for remember there is a bar between you and any other face which may look to you inexpressibly fair and sweet, and all the sweeter and fairer because possession is impossible.”

These letters reached Everard the same evening, and he found them in his office on his return from the Forrest House, where he had sat with Rossie an hour on the piazza, with the moonlight falling on her face and softening the brilliancy of her great black eyes. How beautiful those eyes were to him now, and how modestly and confidingly they looked up occasionally in his face, and drooped beneath the long lashes which rested on the fair cheeks. She was so sweet and loving, this pure, fresh young girl; and her face and eyes haunted Everard all the way down the avenue and the long street to his office, where he found his letters,—one from Beatrice, one from Josephine, and this last he saw first, recoiling from it as from a serpent’s touch, and remembering with a bitter pain the face seen in the moonlight, and the pressure of the hand he had held in his at parting. Then he took Bee’s letter, and turned it over, and saw it was postmarked at Holburton, and with a start of fear and apprehension tore it open and read it eagerly.

“But I shall never do it,” he said, as he read Bee’s advice with regard to recognizing Josephine. “The goodness is not there; and so Bee will discover if she stops there long enough.”

Then, as he finished her letter, he felt as if all the blood in his body were rushing to his head, for he guessed what she meant by “that other face, so inexpressibly fair and sweet.” It was Rossie’s, and he ground his teeth together as he thought of the bar which made it sinful for him to look too often upon that face, fast budding into rare beauty, lest he should find it _too sweet_ and _fair_ for his own peace of mind. And then he told himself that Rosamond was only his sister; his ward, in whom he must necessarily have an unusual interest. Beatrice was too fastidious, and did not trust enough to his good sense. He was not in love with Rosamond, nor in danger of becoming so.

Thus the young man reasoned, while he tore Josey’s letter into shreds, which he tossed into the waste-basket. He did not believe in her or intend to answer it, for whenever he thought of her now it was as he saw her last, at midnight in the car, sleeping on Dr. Matthewson’s arm. He wrote to Beatrice, however, within a few days, expressing his surprise at what she had done,—and telling her that any interference between Josephine and himself was useless, and that if she staid long in Holburton she would probably change her mind with regard to the young lady.

And in this he was right, for before his letter reached Holburton, Beatrice and Mrs. Morton both had learned that the voice, so soft and flute-like and well-bred when it addressed themselves, had another ring when alone in the kitchen with Agnes, who drudged from morning till night, that the unusually large household might be kept up. There were more boarders now in the house, for Mrs. Julia Hayden and husband had come to Holburton, hoping a change would benefit Mr. Hayden, who liked the quiet, pleasant town, and the pure air from the hills, which was not quite so bracing as that which blew down from the mountains around Bronson. The Haydens occupied the parlor below, greatly to the annoyance of Miss Josey, who was thus compelled to receive her numerous calls either in the dining-room or on the back piazza, or on the horse-block near the gate.

It was not unusual for Josey to receive three admirers at a time, and she managed so admirably that she kept them all amiable and civil, though each hated the other cordially, and wondered why he would persist in coming where he was not wanted. Night after night Mrs. Morton and Mr. Hayden were kept awake till after midnight by the low hum of voices and occasional bursts of suppressed laughter which came from the vicinity of the horse-block, and when Mrs. Morton complained of it in the presence of Josephine, that young lady was very sorry, and presumed it was some of the hired girls in town, who had a great way of hanging over gates with their lovers, and sitting upon horse-blocks into all hours of the night.

But Mrs. Julia was not deceived. Her great black eyes read the girl aright, and when she saw a female figure steal cautiously up the walk into the house, and heard the footsteps of two or three individuals going down the road, she guessed _who_ the “hired girls” were, and Josephine suspected that she did, and removed her trysting-place from the horse-block to the rear of the garden, where she was out of ear-shot of the “old muffs,” as she styled Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Hayden. And here she received her _friends_, as she called them,—and laughed, and flirted, and played with them, but was very careful not to overstep certain bounds of propriety, and thus give Everard an excuse on which to base an action for divorce, should he ever bring himself to consider such an act, which she doubted. He was too proud for that, and would rather live with and dislike her, than repudiate her openly, and bring a stain upon the Forrest name. It was impossible for her to understand his real feelings toward her. Indifferent he was, of course, and sorry, no doubt, for the tie which bound them; but she was so thoroughly convinced of her own charms and power to fascinate, that she had little fear of winning him back to something like allegiance when she once had him under her influence again. He could not resist her; no man could, except the old judge; and secure in this belief she went on her way, while Beatrice watched her narrowly, and began at last to believe there was no real good in her.

“The most shameless flirt I ever saw, with claws like a cat,” Mrs. Hayden said of her,—“why, she has actually tried her power on Harry, and asked him so insinuatingly and pityingly if he really thought oatmeal agreed with him as well as a juicy steak or mutton-chop.”

Bee laughed merrily at the idea of Josey’s casting her eyes upon poor, shriveled, dyspeptic Harry Hayden, whom, to do her justice, she did pity, for the cold baths he was compelled to take every morning, and the rigid diet on which he was kept. That he lacked brain force, as his wife asserted, she did not doubt, or he would never have submitted as meekly as he did, with the stereotyped phrase, “Julie knows best,” but she pitied him just the same, and occasionally conveyed to him on the sly hot cups of beef-tea or mutton-broth, and once coaxed him to drink lager-beer, but Mrs. Julia found it out by the culprit’s breath, and disliked Josey worse than ever.

It was now five weeks since Beatrice first came to Holburton, and as Mrs. Morton did not seem to improve, she was thinking of finding another place for her, when Josephine came to her one morning as she was sitting alone with her work, and, taking a seat beside her, began to talk of herself and the life she was leading.

“I am of no use to any one,” she said, “for both mother and Agnes are afraid I shall soil my hands or burn my face. I am tired of this kind of life. I want to see the world and have larger experiences; and fortunately I have an opportunity to do so. When I was at the sea-side I met a widow-lady, a Mrs. Arnold, who is rich and an invalid. She was kind enough to pretend to like me, and I think she did, for I have received a letter from her, asking me to go as a companion with her to Europe, she defraying all the expenses, of course, and leaving me nothing to do but to make myself agreeable to her, and enjoy what I see. Now, would you go or not?”

“I think I would,” Beatrice replied, for it seemed to her as if this going to Europe would somehow be the severing link between Everard and Josephine. Something would happen to bring on the crisis which must come sooner or later.

“I would go, most certainly,” she said again, and then she asked some questions concerning Mrs. Arnold, whose letter Josey showed to her. Evidently she was not a woman of great discernment or culture, but she was sincere in her wish to take Josephine abroad, and disposed to be very generous with her.

“She will be gone a year at least, and possibly two, and I can see so much in that time, I am quite dizzy with anticipation,” Josephine said, while Beatrice entered heart and soul into the project, which was soon known to the entire household. That night young Gerard from Albany called on Josephine as usual, and hearing of the proposed trip to Europe offered himself to her, and cried like a baby when she gave him her final “no,” and made him understand that she meant it. But she held his hand in hers, and there was one of her tears on his boyish face when at last he said good-night and walked away, somewhat soothed and comforted with the thought that he was to be her friend of friends, the one held as the dearest and best in her memory when she was far over the sea.

The news of the intended journey made Everard wild with delight, for, with the ocean between them, he felt that he should almost be free again; and he sent her a hundred dollars, and told her he hoped she would enjoy herself, and then, intoxicated with what seemed to him like his freedom, went up to see Rosamond, and staid with her until the clock was striking ten, and Mrs. Markham came into the room to break up the _tete-a-tete_.

It was the last day of August that the _Nova Zembla_ sailed out of the harbor of Boston with Josephine on board, her fair hands waving kisses and adieux to the two men on the shore, watching her so intently,—young Gerard and old Captain Sparks, who had followed her to the very last, each vieing with the other in the size and cost of the bouquets, which filled one entire half of a table in the dining saloon, and stamped as somebody the beautiful girl who paraded them rather ostentatiously before her fellow-passengers.

For two days they adorned the table at which she sat, and filled the saloon with perfume, and were examined and talked about, and she was pointed out as that young lady who had so many large and elegant bouquets; and then, the third day out, when their beauty and perfume were gone, they were thrown overboard by the cabin-boy, and a great wave came and carried them far out to sea, while Josey lay in her berth limp, wretched and helpless, with no thought of flowers, or Gerard, or Captain Sparks, but with a feeling of genuine longing for the mother and Agnes, whose care and ministrations she missed so much in her miserable condition.

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