Meanwhile, as days and weeks rolled by, and no tidings reached Hubert Varrick of the bride who, he supposed, had deserted him at the very altar, his heart grew bitter against Gerelda.
He plunged into his practice of law, with the wild hope that he might forget her.
The only diversity that entered his life was the letters which he received from little Jessie Bain.
Girl-like, she wrote to him every day.
"I do wish you would adopt me, guardy," she wrote one day, "and bring me home; I am so tired of this place. The princ.i.p.al always calls upon me to look after all the little young fry in his school. Morning and night I have to hear their prayers and hunt the shoes and stockings that they throw at one another across the dormitory. Each one denies the throwing, and I slap every one of them right and left, to be sure to get the right one. I"m sick and tired of books. I wish I could come to you."
Suddenly the letters ceased, and, to Varrick"s consternation, a week pa.s.sed without his hearing one word from little Jessie Bain, and he never knew until then, how deep a hold the girl had on the threads that were woven into his daily life.
In his loneliness he turned to the letters, and read and reread them. It was like balm to his sore heart to find in them such outpourings of love and devotion.
Was she ill? Perhaps some lover had crossed her path.
The thought worried him. He was just on the point of telegraphing, when suddenly there was a rustling sound at the open French window, a swish of skirts behind him, and the next instant a pair of arms were thrown about his neck.
"Now don"t scold me, guardy--please don"t! I am going to own up to the truth right here and now. I ran away. I couldn"t help it, I got so tired of hooking young ones" dresses and hearing their prayers."
With an a.s.sumption of dignity, Hubert Varrick unwound the girl"s arms from about his neck. But somehow they had sent a strange thrill through his whole being, just such a thrill as he had experienced during the hour in which he had asked Gerelda to be his wife, and she had answered in the affirmative.
He tried to hold her off at arm"s-length, but she only clung to him the more, giving him a rapturous kiss of greeting.
The story of little Jessie Bain had been the only one which Hubert Varrick had kept from his mother.
It seemed amusing, he had told himself repeatedly, for a young man of five-and-twenty to be guardian, as it were, to a young girl of sixteen--that sweet, subtle, dangerous age "where childhood and womanhood meet."
"Aren"t you glad to see me, Mr. Varrick?" cried Jessie.
"Glad?" Hubert Varrick"s face lighted up, and before he was aware of the action, he had drawn her into his encircling arms, bent his dark, handsome head, and kissed the rosy mouth so dangerously near his own.
There was a sound as of a groan, from the door-way, followed by a m.u.f.fled shriek, and raising his eyes in startled horror, Hubert Varrick saw his lady-mother standing on the threshold, her jeweled hands parting the satin _portieres_.
"Who is this girl, and what does this amazing scene mean, Hubert?" cried Mrs. Varrick.
Jessie Bain looked at the angry lady in puzzled wonder. She nestled up closer to the handsome, broad-shouldered fellow, murmuring audibly:
"Why don"t you tell her that I am Jessie Bain, and that you are my best friend on earth?"
The lady had heard enough to condemn the girl in her eyes.
She advanced toward her, livid with rage, and flung the girl"s little white hands back from her son"s arm.
"Go!" she cried, quivering with rage; "leave this house instantly, or I will call the servants to put you into the street? It"s such girls as you that ruin young men!"
"Mother," interrupted Hubert, "Jessie Bain must not be sent from this house. If she leaves, I shall go with her!"
CHAPTER VII.
EVERY YOUNG GIRL WOULD LIKE A LOVER. AND WHY NOT? FOR LOVE IS THE GRANDEST GIFT THE G.o.dS CAN GIVE.
A thunder-bolt falling from a clear sky could not have startled the proud Mrs. Varrick more than those crushing words that fell from the lips of her handsome son--"Mother, if you turn Jessie Bain from your door, I go with her!"
Mrs. Varrick drew herself up to her full height and advanced into the room like an angry queen.
"Hubert," she cried, in a tone that he had never heard from his mother"s lips before, "I can make all due allowance for the follies of a young man, but I say this to you: you should never have permitted this girl to cross your mother"s threshold."
"Give me a chance to speak a few words, mother," he interrupted. "Let me set matters straight. The whole fault is mine, because I have not explained this affair to you before. I put it off from day to day."
In a few brief words he explained.
In her own mind, quick as a flash, a sudden thought came to her that there was more behind this than had been told to her.
She had wondered why Gerelda Northrup, the beauty and the heiress, fled from her handsome son at the very altar. Now she began to think that she might have had a reason for it other than that which the world knew.
She was diplomatic; she was too worldly wise to seek to separate them then and there. She said to herself it must be done by strategy.
"This puts the matter in quite a different light, Hubert," she said; "and while I am slightly incensed at your not telling me about this affair, I can readily understand the kindly impulse which prompted you to protect this young girl. But I can not allow _you_ to outdo me; Jessie must consider _me_ quite as much her friend as you. She shall find a home here with us, and it will be pleasant, after all, to see a bright, girlish face in these dull old rooms, and hear the sound of merry laughter."
This remark threw Hubert off his guard.
"That is spoken like my n.o.ble-hearted mother!" he cried, enthusiastically. "I knew you could not be angry with me when you understood it."
The girl stepped hesitatingly forward. From the first instant that she beheld her standing on the threshold, she had conceived a great dislike and fear of Hubert"s haughty lady-mother. Even the conversation and explanation which she had just listened to did not change her first impression.
Thus it happened that Jessie Bain took up her abode in the magnificent home of the Varricks.
But Hubert"s mother made it the one object of her life to see that her son and this attractive girl were never left alone together for a moment.
He had seemed heart-broken over the loss of Gerelda Northrup up to the time that Jessie had entered the house; now there was a perceptible change in him.
He no longer brooded for hours over his cigars, pacing up and down under the trees; now he would enter the library of an evening, or linger in the drawing-room, especially if Jessie was there.
Had it not been for her son, and the terror from day to day in her heart that Hubert was learning to care for the girl, proud Mrs. Varrick would have liked Jessie Bain, she was so bright, so merry, so artless.
She lost no opportunity in impressing upon Jessie"s mind, when she was alone with the girl, that Hubert would never marry, eagerly noticing what effect these words would have upon the girl.
"Wouldn"t that be a pity, Mrs. Varrick?" she had answered once. "It would be so cruel for him to stay single always."
"Not at all," returned Mrs. Varrick, sharply. "If a man does not get the one that is intended for him, he should never marry any one else."
"And you think that he was intended for Miss Northrup?" questioned Jessie.
"Decidedly; and for no one else."
"Then I wonder Heaven did not give her to him," said Jessie.