She was at his side in an instant, bending over him while he whispered:
"Is it safe? Can he see nothing, sure?"
"Nothing, father, nothing," was the reply, and thus rea.s.sured the old man took the Alpenstock, which had done such good service, and looked at the queer names burned upon it, lingering longest upon the first one,
"Grey Jerrold, Boston, Ma.s.s., 18--."
Very rapidly Grey talked of his travels, and the wonders beyond the sea.
"But, after all, America is best," he said, "and I am glad I am an American. Boston is the place to be born in. Don"t you think so, grandpa?"
"Yes, yes. Did you go to Wales? To Carnarvon?" the old man said, so abruptly that Grey stopped short and stared at him blankly.
His Aunt Hannah had asked the same question. Could it be they were more interested in Carnarvon than in Mont Blanc and Vesuvius? If so, he would confine himself to Carnarvon, and he began again to describe the old castle, and the birth-room of the first Prince of Wales. Then his grandfather interrupted him by asking:
"Did you hear of any family there by the name of Rogers?"
"Rogers? No. Why? Did you ever know any one by that name who lived in Carnarvon?" Grey asked, and his grandfather replied:
"Yes, a great many years ago, longer than you can remember. Joel Rogers, that was the name, and he had a sister, Elizabeth. You did not hear of her?"
"Father, father; you are talking too much; you are getting excited and tired," Hannah interposed in some alarm, but her father replied:
"No. I"m not afraid of Grey, now that I see his face again; it"s a face to be trusted. Grey would not harm his old grandfather. Would you, boy?"
and the childish old man began to cry piteously, while Grey looked inquiringly at his aunt, and touched his forehead meaningly, as much as to say:
"I know, I understand; a little out of his head."
She let him think so, and laying his hand on his grandfather"s hair, Grey said:
"Don"t cry; of course I would not harm you, the best grandpa in all the world."
"No, no, Grey; the worst, the worst; and yet it does me good to know you love and respect me, and you always will when I am dead and gone, won"t you, even if you should ever know how bad I was, and you may sometime, for it is impressed on me this morning that in some way you will help Hannah out of it. You two, and no more. Poor Hannah. She has suffered so much for my sake. Be good to her, Grey, when I am gone; be good to Hannah. Poor Hannah."
"Yes, grandpa, I will," Grey said, in a tearful voice, as he involuntarily wound his arms around the woman he was to be good to. "I will always care for Aunt Hannah, and love her above all women. Don"t you worry about that. She shall live with me when I am a man, and we will go to Europe together."
"Yes, to Carnarvon, perhaps," Mr. Jerrold interposed, and then said, suddenly: "Do you remember the day you caught and kissed my old hands, and did me so much good? Would you mind kissing them again?--this one; it burns so and aches!" and he raised his thin, right hand, winch Grey took in his own, and kissed reverently and lovingly, saying as he did so:
"Poor, tired hand, which has done so much hard work, but never a bad act."
"Oh, oh! My boy, my boy, you hurt me!" grandpa cried, as he s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand from Grey, who looked at him wonderingly and said:
"I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you. Is your hand sore?"
"Sore? Yes, sorer than you know or guess; so sore that it aches down to my very heart."
"Come, Grey, I think it is time we were off. Father is getting tired and excited. You will see him again to-morrow," Hannah said, and her father rejoined:
"To-morrow! Who knows? To-day is all we can call our own, and I will bless my boy to-day. Kneel down, Grey, and let me put both hands on your head."
With a feeling of awe Grey knelt beside the bed, while his grandfather laid his hands on his head and said:
"May G.o.d bless my boy Grey, and make him a good man--not like me, the chief of sinners, but Christlike and pure, so that he may one day reach the eternal home where I hope to meet him, through the merits of the blood of Jesus, which cleanseth from all sin--all sin, even mine. G.o.d bless my boy!"
It seemed like a funeral, and Grey"s eyes were full of tears as he rose from his knees and said:
"Good-by, grandpa. We must go now, but I will come again to-morrow, and stay all day and all the next, for I do not go back to Andover till Monday, and next summer I will spend all my vacation with you. Good-by;"
and stooping, he kissed the white forehead and quivering lips, around which a smile of peace was setting.
Then, he left the room, never dreaming that it was good-by forever.
Once in the open air, with his Aunt Hannah by his side, the cloud which in the sick-room had settled upon him lifted, and he talked and laughed merrily as they drove swiftly toward Grey"s Park where dinner was waiting for them.
CHAPTER VI.
MISS BETSEY McPHERSON
The table was laid in the large dining-room, which faced the south, and whose long French windows looked into the terraced flower-garden and upon the evergreens fashioned after those in the park at Versailles.
When alone, Lucy took all her meals in the pleasant little breakfast room, where only two pictures hung upon the wall, and both of Robin--one taken in all his infantile beauty, when he was two years old, and the other at the age of fourteen, after the lovely blue eyes which smiled so brightly upon you from the first canvas were darkened forever, and the eyelids were closed over them. This was Lucy"s favorite room, for there Robin seemed nearer to her. But Geraldine did not like it. It was like attending a funeral all the time, she said; and so, though it was quite large enough to accommodate her Thanksgiving guests, Lucy had ordered the dinner to be served in the larger room, which looked very warm and cheerful with the crimson hangings at the windows and the bright fire on the hearth.
After having regaled herself with a gla.s.s of sherry, a biscuit, a piece of sponge cake, and some fruit, Mrs. Geraldine had descended to the dining-room to see a new rug, of which Lucy told her. Glancing at the table, which was glittering with china, and gla.s.s, and silver, she began counting:
"One, two, three, four, five, six places. You surely did not expect Burton"s father?"
Lucy flushed a little, as she replied:
"Oh, no; the sixth place is for Miss McPherson."
"Miss McPherson! What possessed you to invite her? I detest her, with her sharp tongue and prying ways. Why, she is positively rude at times, and exasperates me so," Geraldine said, angrily; and her sister rejoined:
"I know she is peculiar and outspoken, but at heart she is true as steel, and I thought she would be very lonely taking her Thanksgiving dinner alone. And then she will be glad to see you and inquire after her brother"s family, whom she knows you met abroad."
"Yes, we spent a week with her brother, the Hon. John McPherson, and his wife Lady Jane, at the house of Captain Smithers in Middles.e.x. Miss McPherson is, at least, well connected," Geraldine said, mollified at once as she recalled her intimacy with Lady Jane McPherson.
To be acquainted with a t.i.tled lady was, in her opinion, something to be proud of, and since her return from Europe she had wearied and disgusted her friends with her frequent allusions to Lady Jane and her visit to Penrhyn Park where she had met her. And Miss McPherson was her sister-in-law, and on that account she must be tolerated and treated, at least, with a show of friendship. So when she heard that she had arrived she went to meet her with a good deal of gush and demonstration, which, however, did not in the least mislead the lady with regard to her real sentiments, for she and Geraldine had always been at odds, and from the very nature of things there could be no real sympathy between the fashionable lady of society, whose life was all a deception, and the blunt, outspoken woman, who called a spade a spade, and whose rule of action was, as she expressed it, the naked truth and nothing but the naked truth. Had she worn false teeth and supposed any one thought them natural, she would at once have taken them out to show that they were not; and as to false hair, and frizzes, and powder, and all the many devices used, as she said, "to build a woman," she abominated them, and preferred to be just what the Lord had made her, without any attempt to improve upon his work. Once Lucy Grey had asked her why she did not call herself Elizabeth, or Lizzie, instead of Betsey, which was so old-fashioned, and she had retorted, sharply, that though of all names upon earth she thought Betsey the worst, it was given to her by her sponsors in baptism, and Betsey she would remain to the day of her death.
She was tall and angular, with large features, sharp nose, and little bright, black, bead-like eyes, which seemed to look you through, and read your most secret thoughts. As her name indicated, she was of Scotch descent; indeed, her grandfather was Scotch by birth, but he had moved into England, where her father and mother, and herself were born, so that she called herself English, though she gloried in her Scotch blood and her Scotch face, which was unmistakable.
After her birth, her father had bought a place in Bangor, Wales, which he called Stoneleigh, and there her two brothers, Hugh and John, were born, and her parents had died.
She had come alone to Allington, when comparatively young, and, settling down quietly, had for a time watched closely the habits of the people around her, and posted herself thoroughly with regard to the workings and inst.i.tutions of a Republic, and then she adopted them heartily, and became an out-and-out American, and only lamented that she could not vote and take part in the politics of the country. Of her past life she never spoke, and of her family seldom. Her father and mother were dead; she had two brothers, both well enough in their way, but wholly unlike each other, she had once told Lucy Grey, whom she had always liked, and with whom she was more intimate than with any one else in Allington, unless it were Hannah Jerrold. Although very proud of her family name and family blood, she was no boaster, and no one in Allington would ever have known that one of her brothers had been in Parliament, and that his wife was a Lady Jane Trevellian, if chance had not thrown them in the way of Mrs. Geraldine.
Once, and once only, had she returned to her native land, and that two or three years before our story opens. Then she had been absent three or four months, and when she returned to Allington, she seemed grimmer and sterner than ever, and more intolerant of everything which did not savor of the "naked truth." And yet, as Lucy Grey had said of her to her sister, she was true as steel to her friends, and at heart was one of the kindest and best of women, and, with the exception of Miss Lucy Grey, no one in Allington was found so often in the houses of the poor as she, and though she rebuked sharply when it was necessary, and told them they were dirty and shiftless when they were, she made her kindness felt in so many ways that she was, if possible, more popular than Lucy herself, for, while Lucy only gave them money and sympathy, she helped them with her hands, and, if necessary, swept their floors, and washed their faces, and made their beds, and sometimes took their children home and kept them with her for days.
Such was Miss Betsey McPherson, who, as she is to figure conspicuously in this story, merits this introduction to the reader, and who, in her black silk of a dozen years old, with a long, heavy gold chain around her neck and a cap fashioned after the English style upon her head, stood up very tall and stiff to receive Mrs. Geraldine, but did not bend her head when she saw it was that lady"s intention to kiss her.