CHAPTER XXXV

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MR. AND MRS. J. E. FORREST.

It had been Josephine’s intention to try and make peace with her husband, if possible, in the hope of winning him back to at least an outward semblance of harmony. And to do this she relied much on her beauty, which she knew had not diminished in the least since those summer days in Holburton, when he had likened her to every beautiful thing in the universe. She knew she was more attractive now than then, for she had studied to acquire an air of refinement and high-breeding which greatly enhanced her charms, and when she saw herself in the long mirror, with her toilet complete, and the made-up expression of sweetness and graciousness on her face, she felt almost sure he could not withstand her.

She had heard from Lois that Everard was in the house, and as the moments went by and he did not come, the sweetness left her face, and there was a glitter in her blue eyes, as she walked impatiently up and down her chamber, listening for his footsteps.

At last, as she grew more and more impatient, she went down to the dining-room, thinking to find him there; but he was still with Axie in the kitchen, and so she waited until she heard his step as he went rapidly up the stairs.

Swiftly and noiselessly she glided into the hall and followed, but was only in time to see the shutting of the door of Rossie’s room and hear the sliding of the bolt, while her quick ear caught the sound of Rossie’s voice as she welcomed Everard. For a moment Josephine stood shaking with rage, and feeling an inclination to kick at the closed door, and demand an entrance. But she hardly dared do that, and so she waited, and strained her ear to catch the conversation carried on so rapidly, but in so low a tone and so far from her that she could not hear it all, or even half. But she knew Everard was telling the story of the marriage, and as he grew more earnest his voice naturally rose higher, until she could hear what he said, but not Rossie’s replies. Involuntarily clenching her fists, and biting her lips until the blood came through in one place, she listened still more intently and knew there was no hope for her, and felt sure that the only feeling she could now inspire in her husband’s heart was one of hatred and disgust.

At last, when she could endure the suspense no longer, she knocked upon the door and claimed “her own” and got it, for her husband, whom she had not seen for more than two years, stood face to face with her, a tall, well-developed man, with a will and a purpose in his brown eyes, and a firm-set expression about his mouth which made him a very different person from the boy-lover whom she had swayed at her pleasure.

Everard was a thorough gentleman, and it was not in his nature to be otherwise than courteous to any woman, and he bowed to Josephine with as much politeness and deference as if it had been Bee Belknap standing there so dignified and self-possessed, and with an air of assurance and worldly wisdom such as he had never seen in Josephine Fleming. For a moment he looked at her in surprise, but there was no sign of welcome in his face, no token of admiration for the visible improvement in her. He had an artist’s eye, and noticed that her dress was black, and that it became her admirably, and that the delicate white shawl was so knotted and arranged as to heighten the effect of the picture; but he knew the woman so well that nothing she could do or wear could move him now. When she saw that she must speak first, she laughed a little, spiteful laugh, and said:

“Have you nothing to say to me after two years’ separation, or have you exhausted yourself with _her_?” nodding toward Rossie’s door.

That roused him, and he answered her:

“Yes, much to say, and some things to explain and apologize for, but not here. I will go with you to your room. They tell me you are occupying my old quarters.”

He tried to speak naturally, and Josephine’s heart beat faster as she thought that possibly he might be won to an outward seeming of friendship after all, and it would be better for her every way. So, when the privacy of her chamber was reached, and there was no danger of interruption, she affected the loving wife, and laying her hands on Everard’s arm, said, coaxingly and prettily:

“Don’t be so cold and hard, Everard, as if you were sorry I came. I had nowhere else to go, and I’m no more to blame for being your wife than you are for being my husband, and I certainly have just cause to complain of you for having kept me so long in ignorance of your father’s death. Why did you do it? But I need not ask why,” she continued, as she saw the frown on his face, and guessed he was not to be coaxed; “the reason is in the apartment you have just quitted.”

Josephine got no further, for Everard interrupted her and sternly bade her stop.

“So long as you censure me for having kept my father’s death a secret from you I am bound to listen, for I deserve it; but when you assail Rosamond Hastings you have gone too far. I do not wish to quarrel with you, Josey, but we may as well understand each other first as last. You had a right to come here, thinking it was still my home, and I am justly punished for my deceit, for which no one can hate me as I hate myself. If I had been candid and frank from the first, it would have saved me a great deal of trouble and self-abasement. You heard of my father’s death——”

“Yes, but no thanks are due you for the information. Mr. Everts, whom I met in Dresden, told me of it. At first I did not believe him, for I had credited you with being a man of honor, but he convinced me of the fact, and in my anger I started home at once, and came here, to find that girl the mistress of the house, and, they tell me, your father’s heir. Is that true?”

“I’ve nothing but what I earn,” he said, “but I think I have proved conclusively that I can support you, whatever may come to me, and I expect to do so still, but it must be apart from myself. I wish that distinctly understood, as it will save further discussion. You could not be happy with me; I should be miserable with you after knowing what I do, and seeing what I have seen.”

Here she turned fiercely upon him, and with flashing eyes and dilated nostrils demanded what he meant.

“I will tell you when I reach it,” he replied; “but first, let me go over the ground from the beginning——”

“No need of that,” she replied, angrily. “You went over the ground with _her_,—that girl whom I hate with deadly hatred. I heard you. I was outside the door.”

“Listening!” Everard said, contemptuously. “A worthy employment, to which no lady would stoop.”

“Who said I was a lady?” she retorted, stung by his manner and the tone of his voice, and forgetting herself entirely in her wrath. “Don’t you suppose I know that it was because I was _not_ a lady according to your creed that your father objected to me and that _you_ have sickened of me. A poor, unknown butcher’s daughter is not a fit match for you; and I was just that. You thought you married the daughter of Roxie Fleming, who kept a boarding-house, and so you did, and something more. You married the daughter of the man who used to deliver meat at your grandfather’s door in Boston, and of the woman who for years cooked in your mother’s family. I knew this when you first came to us, and laughed in my sleeve, for I know how proud you are of family blood and birth, and I can boast of blood, too, but it is the blood of beasts, in which my father dealt, not the blue-veined kind, which shows itself in hypocrisy and the deliberate deception of years. I told your father, when I met him at Commencement, that my mother was present at his wedding, and she was. She made the jellies and ices, and stood with the other servants to see the ceremony. Wouldn’t your lady mother turn over in her coffin if she could know _just_ whom her boy married?”

Was she a woman, or a demon? Everard wondered, as he replied:

“If possible, I would rather not bring my mother into the conversation, but since you will have it so, I must tell you that she _did_ know who you were.”

“How! did you tell your mother of the marriage, and have you kept that from me, too?” Josephine asked, and he replied:

“I did not tell her of the marriage, although I tried to, and made a beginning by showing her your picture, and telling her your name and that of your mother, whom she at once identified as the Roxie who had lived in her father’s family so long.”

“And of course my fine lady objected to such stock,” Josephine said, with a sneer in her voice.

“Josephine,” and Everard spoke more sternly than he had ever spoken to her in his life, “say what you like to me, but don’t mention my mother in that tone or spirit again. She did not despise you for your birth. No true woman would do that. She said that innate refinement or delicacy of feeling would always assert itself, and raise one above the lowest and humblest of positions. Almost her last words to me were of you, in whom she knew I was interested, for I had confessed as much.

“‘If she is so good, and womanly, and true, her birth is of no consequence—none whatever,’ she said. So you see she laid less stress upon it than do you, who know better than she did whether you are good, and womanly and true.”

Here Josephine began to cry, but Everard did not heed her tears, and went on:

“There is in this country no degradation in honest labor; it is the character, the actions, which tell; and were you what I believed you to be when in my madness I consented to that foolish farce, I would not care though your origin were the lowest which can be conceived.”

Here Josephine stopped crying, and demanded, sharply:

“What am I, pray? What do you know of me?—you, who have scarcely seen me half a dozen times since I became your wife.”

“I know more than you suppose,—have seen more than you guess,” he replied; “but let me begin with the morning I left you in Holburton, four years ago last June, and come down to the present time.”

When he hinted that he knew more of her life than she supposed, there instantly flashed into Josephine’s mind the memory of all the love affairs she had been concerned in, and the improprieties of which she had been guilty, and she wondered if it were possible that Everard could know of them, too. But it was not, and, assuming a calmness she was far from feeling, she said:

“Go on, I am all attention.”

Very rapidly, Everard went over with the events of his life as connected with her up to the time of his father’s death and his own disinheritance, and here he paused a moment, while Josephine said:

“And so it was through me you lost your money. I am very sorry, and I must say I think it mean in that girl to keep it, knowing as she does how it came to her.”

“You misjudge her,” Everard said, quickly. “You know nothing of her, or how she rebelled against it and tried to give it back to me. But she cannot do it while she is under age, and I would not take it if she could. I made her believe it at last, and then counseled with Miss Belknap as to my future course——”

“Miss Belknap, indeed!” Josephine exclaimed, indignantly. “Don’t talk to me of Miss Belknap, the tricky, deceitful thing, to come into our house, knowing all the time who I was, and yet pretending such entire ignorance of everything. How I hate her, and you, too, for sending her there as a spy upon my actions.”

“You are mistaken,” Everard said. “Bee was no tale-bearer, and no spy upon your actions. Neither was she sent to you, for I did not know she was there till she wrote me to that effect. She had the best of motives in going to your mother’s house. She wished to see you for herself, and,—pardon me, Josey, if I speak very plainly,—she wished to find all the good there was in you, so as to know better how to befriend you, should you need it.”

“Which, thank Heaven, I don’t, so she had her trouble for her pains,” was Josephine’s rejoinder, of which Everard took no notice, but simply went on:

“Beatrice has been your best friend from the moment she first heard of you, and after father’s death she advised me to go straight to you and tell you the whole truth, and offer you a home such as I could make for you myself,—in short, offer you poverty and protection as my acknowledged wife.”

“Strange you did not follow her advice, with your high notions of morality,” Josephine said, with a sneer; and he replied:

“I started to do it in good faith, and went as far as Albany without a thought that I should not do it, but there I began to waver, for I saw you, myself unseen and my presence unsuspected, so that you acted and spoke your feelings without restraint.

“Perhaps you can recall a concert or opera which you attended with Doctor Matthewson as your escort, and perhaps, though that is not so likely, you may remember the man who seemed to be asleep in the seat behind the one you took when you entered the car, talking and laughing so loudly that you drew to yourself the attention of all the passengers, and especially the young man, who listened with feelings which can be better imagined than described, while his _wife_ made light of him, and allowed attentions and liberties such as no pure-minded woman would for a moment have suffered from any man, and much less from one of Dr. Matthewson’s character. I hardly know what restrained me from knocking him down and publicly denouncing you, but shame and disgust kept me silent, while words and glances which made my blood boil passed between you two until _you_ were tired out and laid you head on his arm as readily as you would have rested it on mine had I sat in his place. And there I left you asleep, and I have never looked upon your face since until to-night, when I found you at Miss Hastings’ door. After that

## scene in the car I could not think of offering to share my poverty with

you. We were better apart, and I made a vow that never for an hour would I live with you as my wife. The thing is impossible; but because I dreaded the notoriety of an open rupture, and the talk and scandal sure to follow an admission of the marriage, I kept quiet, trusting to chance to work it out for me as it has done at last. And now that the worst has come, I am ready to abide by it and am willing to bear the blame myself, if that will help you any. The people in Rothsay will undoubtedly believe you the injured party, and I shall let them do so. I shall say nothing to your detriment except that it is impossible for us to live together. I shall support you just as I have done, but I greatly prefer that it should be in Holburton, rather than in Rothsay. It is the only favor I ask, that you do not remain here.”

“And one I shall not grant,” was Josephine’s quick reply. “I like Rothsay, so far as I have seen it, and here I shall stay. Do you think that I will go back to Holburton, and bear all the malicious gossip of that gossipy hole? Never! I’ll die first! You accuse me of being fond of Dr. Matthewson, and so I am, and I like him far better than I ever liked you, for he is a _gentleman_, while you are a knave and a hypocrite, and that girl across the hall is as bad as you are;—I hate her,—I hate you both!”

She was standing close to him now, her face livid with rage, while the blue of her eyes seemed to have faded into a dull white, as she gave vent to her real feelings. But Everard did not answer her, and as the dinner-bell just then rang for the third time, she added sneeringly, “If you are through with your abuse I’ll end the interview by asking you to take me down to dinner. No? You do not wish for any dinner? Very well, I can go alone, so I wish you good evening, advising you not to fast too long. It is not good for you. Possibly you may find some cracker and tea in Miss Hastings’ room, with which to refresh the inner man.”

And sweeping him a mocking courtesy she started to leave the room, but at the door she met her sister, and stopped a moment while she said:

“Ah, Agnes, here is your brother, who, I hope, will be better pleased to see you than he was to see me. If I remember rightly you were always his favorite. _Au revoir_,” and kissing the tips of her fingers to Everard, she left the room, and he heard her warbling snatches of some old love song as she ran lightly down the stairs to the dining-room, where dinner had waited nearly an hour, and where Aunt Axie stood with her face blacker than its wont, giving off little angry snorts as she removed one after another the covers of the dishes, and pronounced the contents spoiled.

“Whar’s Mars’r Everard? Isn’t he comin’?” Aunt Axie asked, as Josephine showed signs of commencing her dinner alone, Mrs. Markham, who ate by rule and on time, having had tea and cold chicken, and gone.

“Mr. Forrest has lost his appetite and is not coming,” Josephine replied, with the utmost indifference, and as Agnes just then appeared, the sisters began their dinner alone.

But few words had passed between Agnes and Everard. She had taken his hand in hers and held it there while she looked searchingly in his face, and said:

“I didn’t want to come, but she would have it so, and I thought you knew and had sent for her. Maybe I can persuade her to go back.”

“No, Aggie, let her do as she likes,—I deserve it all. But don’t feel badly, Aggie. I am glad to see _you_, at any rate, and I feel better because you are here; and now go to the dinner, which has waited so long.”

Agnes was not deceived in the least, and her heart was very heavy as she went down to the dining-room and took her seat by her sister, who affected to be so gay and happy, and who tried to soften old Axie by praising everything immoderately.

But Axie was not deceived, either. She knew it was not all well between the young couple, and as soon as she had sent in the dessert, she started up stairs in quest of her boy, finding him in the chamber where his mother had died, and kneeling by the bed in such an abandonment of grief that, without waiting to consider whether she was wanted or not, she went softly to his side, and laying her hard old hands pityingly on his bowed head, spoke to him lovingly and soothingly, just as she used to speak to him when he was a little boy, and sat in her broad lap to be comforted.

“Thar, thar, honey; what is it that has happened you? Suffin dreffle, or you wouldn’t be kneelin’ here in de cold an’ dark, wid only yer mother’s sperrit for company. What is it, chile? Can’t you tell old Axie? Is it _her_ that’s a vexin’ you so? Oh, Mars’r Everard, how could you do it? Tell old Axie, won’t you?”

And he did tell her how the marriage occurred, and when, and that it was this which had caused the trouble between him and his father. He said nothing against Josephine, except that he had lived to see and regret his mistake, and that it was impossible for him to live with her as his wife. And Axie took his side at once, and replied:

“In course you can’t, honey, I seen that the fust thing. She hain’t like you, nor Miss Beatrice, nor Miss Rossie. She’s pretty, with them eyes and long winkers, an’ she’s kind of teterin’ an’ soft; but can’t cheat dis chile. ’Tain’t the real stuff like your mother was. Sposin’ I go and paint my face all over with whitenin’. I ain’t white for all dat. Thar’s nobody but ole black nigger under de whitewash, for bless your soul, de thick lips and de wool will show, an’ it’s just de same with no ’count white folks. But don’t you worry, I’ll stan’ by you. Course you can’t live with her. I’ll make a fire an’ fetch you some supper, an’ you’ll feel better in de mornin’,—see if you don’t.”

But Everard asked to be left alone, that he might think it out and decide what to do. He could not go to bed, and so he sat the entire night before the fire in the room where his mother had died, and where his father had denounced him so angrily, and where Rosamond had come to him and asked to be his wife. How vividly that last scene came up before him, and he could almost see the little girl standing there again, just as she stood that day, which seemed to him years and years ago. And but for that fatal misstep that little girl, grown to sweet womanhood, now might have been his. Turn which way he would, there was no help, no hope; and the future loomed up before him dark and cheerless, with always this burden upon him, this bar to the happiness which might have been his had he only waited for it. Surely, if his sin was great, his punishment was greater, and when at the last the gray morning looked in at the windows of his room, it found him white, and haggard, and worn, with no definite plan as to his future course, except the firm resolve that whatever his life might be, it would be passed apart from Josephine.

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