"Mr. Graham is very liberal," returned William, with a supercilious bow, which brought the hot blood to Walter"s cheek. "Do you go home immediately?" he continued, and Walter replied:
"My grandfather has a desire to visit Medway, in Ma.s.sachusetts, where he married his wife, and as I promised to go with him in case he came to New Haven, I shall not return to Deerwood for a week."
Instantly the face of William Bellenger brightened, and Walter felt a strong desire to knock him down when he said:
"Allow me, then, to be the bearer of any message you may choose to send, for I am resolved upon seeing Miss Graham, and shall, accordingly, go to Deerwood. She will need a gallant in your absence, and trust me, I will do my best, though I cannot hope to fill the place of a _lion_."
Involuntarily Walter clenched his fist, while in the angry look of defiance he cast upon his cousin, the impudent William read all the withering scorn he felt for him. Ay, more, for he read, too, or thought he did, that the beautiful Jessie Graham, whose father was worth a million, had a warm place in the young plebeian"s heart, and this it was which brought the wrathful scowl to his own face as he compelled himself to offer his hand at parting.
"What message did you bid me carry?" he asked, and taking his extended hand, Walter looked fiercely into his eyes as he replied:
"None; I can tell her myself all I have to say."
"Very well," said William, with another bow, and stroking the little forest about his mouth, he walked away.
"I don"t put much faith in presentiments," said the deacon, when he was gone, "but all the time that chap was here I felt as if a snake were crawling at my feet. Believe me, he"s got to cross my path or yourn, mebby both," and the deacon resumed his post by the window, watching the pa.s.sers-by, while Walter hurriedly paced the floor with a vague, uneasy sensation, for though he knew of no way in which the unprincipled Bellenger could possibly cross his grandfather"s path, he did know how he could seriously disturb himself.
Not that he had any confessed hope of winning Jessie Graham. She was far above him, he said. Yet she was the one particular star he worshiped, feeling that no other had a right to share the brightness with him, and when he remembered the shady, winding paths in the pleasant old woods at Deerwood, and the long afternoons when Ellen would be too languid to go out, and William and Jessie free to go alone, he longed for his grandfather to give up his favorite project and go back with him to Deerwood. But when he saw how the old man was set upon the visit, wondering if he should know the place, and if the thorn-apple tree were growing still where he sat with Eunice and asked her to be his wife, he put aside all thoughts of self, and went cheerfully to Medway, while his cousin, with an eye also to the shadowy woods and the quiet mountain walks, was hurrying on to Deerwood.
CHAPTER IV.-JESSIE AND ELLEN.
It was a glorious afternoon, and not a single feathery cloud flecked the clear blue of the sky. The refreshing rain of the previous night had cooled the sultry August air, and all about the farm-house the gra.s.s had taken a brighter green and the flowers a brighter hue. Away to the westward, at the distance of nearly one-fourth of a mile, the woods were streaked with an avenue of pines, which grew so closely together that the scorching rays of the noontide sun seldom found entrance to the velvety plat where Walter had built a rustic bench, with Jessie looking on, and where Jessie and Ellen now were sitting, the one upon the seat and the other on the gra.s.s filling her straw hat with cones, and talking to her companion of the young graduate, wondering where he was, and if he didn"t wish he were there with them beneath the sheltering pines.
Eight years had changed the little girls of nine and eight into grown-up, graceful maidens, and though of an entirely different style, each was beautiful in her own way, Jessie as a brunette, and Ellen as a blonde. Full of frolic, life and fun, Jessie carried it all upon her sparkling face, and in her laughing eyes of black. Now, as of old, her raven hair cl.u.s.tered in short, thick curls around her forehead and neck, giving her the look of a gypsy, her father said, as he fondly stroked the elfin locks, and thought how beautiful she was. Five years she had lived in Deerwood, and then, at her father"s request, had gone to a fashionable boarding-school, for the only child of the millionaire must have accomplishments such as could not be obtained among the New England mountains. No process of polishing, however, or course of discipline had succeeded as yet in making her forget her country home, and when Mr.
Graham, whose business called him West, offered her the choice between Newport and Deerwood, she unhesitatingly chose the latter, greatly to the vexation of her grandmother, who delighted in society now even more than she did when young. If Jessie went to Deerwood she must remain at home, for she could not go to Newport alone, and what was worse, she must live secluded in the rear of the house for Mrs. Bartow would not for the world let her fashionable acquaintances know that she pa.s.sed the entire summer in the city. She should lose _caste_ at once, she thought, and she used every possible argument to persuade Jessie to give up her visit to Deerwood, and go with her instead. But Jessie would not listen.
"Grandma could accompany old Mrs. Reeves," she said, "they"d have a splendid time quarreling over their respective granddaughters, herself and Charlotte, but as for her, she should go to Deerwood;" and she accordingly went there, and took with her a few city airs and numerous city fashions.
The former, however, were always laid aside when talking to Ellen, who was by some accounted the more beautiful of the two, with her wealth of golden hair, her soft eyes of violet blue, and her pale, transparent complexion. As gentle and quiet as she was lovely, she formed a striking contrast to the merry, frolicsome Jessie, with her darker, richer style of beauty, and neither ever appeared so well as when they were together.
In all the world there was no one, except her father, whom Jessie loved as she did Ellen Howland, and though, amid the gay scenes of her city home, she frequently forgot her, and neglected to send the letters which were so precious to the simple country girl, her love returned the moment the city was left behind, and she breathed the exhilarating air of the Deerwood hills.
She called Walter her brother, and had watched him through his college course with all a sister"s pride, looking eagerly forward to the time when he would be in her father"s employ, for it was settled that he was to enter Mr. Graham"s bank as soon as he was graduated. And as on that summer afternoon she sat upon the gra.s.sy ridge and talked with Ellen of him, she spoke of the coming winter when he would be with her in the city.
"It will be so nice," she said, "to have such a splendid beau, for I mean to get him introduced right away. I shall be seventeen in a month, and I"m coming out next season. I wish you could spend the winter with me, and see something of the world. I mean to ask your mother. Father will buy your dresses to wear to parties, and concerts, and the opera.
Only think of having a box all to ourselves,-you and I and Walter, and maybe Charlotte Reeves once in a great while, or cousin Jennie. Wouldn"t you love to go?"
"No, not for anything," answered Ellen, who liked early hours and quiet rooms, and always experienced a kind of suffocation in the presence of fashionable people, and who continued: "I don"t believe Walter will like it either, unless he changes greatly. He used to have a horror of city folks, and I do believe almost hated _you_ before you came to Deerwood, just because you were born in New York."
"Hated _me_, Ellen!" repeated Jessie. "He shook me, I know, and I"ve been a little afraid of him ever since, but it did me good, for I deserved it, I was such a high-tempered piece; but I did not know he hated me. Do you suppose he hates me now?" and Jessie"s manner evinced a deeper interest in Walter than she herself believed existed.
Ellen saw it at once, and so did the man who for the last ten minutes had been watching the young girls through the pine tree boughs. William Bellenger had reached Deerwood on the afternoon train, and gone at once to the farm-house, whose gable roof, small window panes, and low walls had provoked a smile of derision, while he wondered what Jessie Graham could find to attract her there. Particularly was he amused with the quaint expressions of Aunt Debby, who, in her high-crowned cap, with black handkerchief smoothly crossed in front, and her wide check ap.r.o.n on, sat knitting by the door, stopping occasionally to take a pinch of snuff, or "shoo" the hens when they came too near.
"The gals was in the woods," she said, when he asked for Miss Graham, and she bade him "make Ellen get up if he should find her setting on the damp ground, as she presumed she was. Ellen was weakly," she said, "and wasn"t an atom like Walter, who was as trim a chap as one could wish to see. Did the young man know Walter?"
"Oh, yes," returned William. "He is my cousin."
"Your cousin!" and the needles dropped from the old lady"s hands. "Bless me!" and adjusting her gla.s.ses a little more firmly upon her nose she peered curiously at him. "I want to know if you are one of them Bellengers? Wall, I guess you do favor Walter, if a body could see your face. It"s the fashion, I s"pose, to wear all that baird."
"Yes, all the fashion," returned William, who was certainly good-natured, even if he possessed no other virtue, and having asked again the road to the woods, he set off in that direction.
Following the path Aunt Debby pointed out, he soon came near enough to catch a view of the white dress Jessie wore, and wishing to see her first, himself un.o.bserved, he crept cautiously to an opening among the pines, where he could see and hear all that was pa.s.sing. Jessie"s sparkling, animated face was turned toward him, but he scarcely heeded it in his surprise at another view which greeted his vision. A slender, willowy form was more in accordance with Will"s taste than a fat chubby one, and in Ellen Howland his idea of a beautiful woman was, if possible, more than realized. She was leaning against a tree, her blue gingham morning gown,-for she was an invalid,-wrapped gracefully about her her golden hair, slightly tinged with red, combed back from her forehead, her long eyelashes veiling her eyes of blue, and shading her colorless cheek, while her lily-white hands were folded together, and rested upon her lap.
"Jupiter!" thought William, "I did not suppose Deerwood capable of producing anything like that. Why, she"s the realization of what I"ve often fancied my wife should be. Now, if she were only rich I"d yield the black-eyed witch of a Jessie to my milksop cousin. But, pshaw! it shan"t be said of me that I fell in love at first sight with a vulgar country girl. What the deuce, they talk of Walter, do they! I"ll try eavesdropping a little longer," and bending his head, he listened while their conversation proceeded.
He heard what Ellen said of Walter; he saw the startled look upon the face of Jessie as she exclaimed, "Does he hate me now?" and in that look he read what Jessie did not know herself.
"The wretch!" he muttered, between his teeth; "why couldn"t he take the other one? I would, if the million were on her side," and in the glance he cast on Ellen there was more than a mere pa.s.sing fancy.
She must have felt its influence, for as that look fell upon her she said:
"It"s cold,-I shiver as with a chill. Let"s go back to the house," and she arose to her feet, just as the pine boughs parted asunder, and William appeared before them.
"Mr. Bellenger!" Jessie exclaimed. "When did you come?"
"Half an hour since," he returned, "and not finding you in the house I came this way, little thinking I should stumble upon two wood nymphs instead of one," and again the peculiar glance rested upon Ellen, who had sunk back upon her seat, and whose soft eyes fell beneath his gaze.
The brief introduction was over, and then Ellen rose to go, complaining that she was cold and tired.
"We will go, too," said Jessie, putting on her hat, when Mr. Bellenger touched her arm, and said in a low voice of entreaty:
"Stay here with me."
"Yes, stay," rejoined Ellen, who caught the words. "It is pleasant here, and I can go alone."
So Jessie stayed, and when the slow footsteps had died away in the distance William sat down beside her, and after expressing his delight at meeting her again, said, indifferently as it were:
"By the way, I have just come from New Haven, where I had the pleasure of hearing the charity boy"s valedictory. It is strange what a.s.surance some people have."
"Charity boy!" repeated Jessie; "I thought Walter Marshall was to deliver the valedictory."
"And isn"t he a charity scholar? Don"t your father pay his bills?" asked William, in a tone which Jessie did not like.
"Well, yes," she answered, "but somehow I don"t like to hear you call him that, because--" she hesitated, and William"s face grew dark while waiting for her answer, which, when it came, was, "because he saved my life;" and then Jessie told her companion how, but for Walter Marshall, she would not have been sitting there that summer afternoon.
"Was Walter"s speech a good one?" she asked, her manner indicating that she knew it was.
Not a change in her speaking face escaped the watchful eye of William, and knowing well that insinuations are often stronger and harder to refute than any open a.s.sertion, he replied, with seeming reluctance:
"Yes, very good; though some of it sounded strangely familiar, and I heard others hinting pretty strongly at plagiarism."
This last was in a measure true, for one of Walter"s cla.s.s, chagrined that the honor was not conferred upon himself, had taken pains to say that the valedictory was not all of it Walter"s,-that an older and wiser head had helped him in its composition. William did not believe this, but it suited his purpose to repeat it, and he watched narrowly for the effect. Jessie Graham was the soul of truth, and no accusation could have been brought against Walter which would have pained her so much as the belief that he had been dishonorable in the least degree.
"Walter would never pa.s.s off what was not his own!" she exclaimed. "It isn"t like him, or like any of the Marshall family."
"You forget his father," said the man beside her, carelessly thrusting aside a cone with his polished boot.