Family Pride Or Purified by Suffering Part 22

If Helen had been on the watch for equivocations she would not have placed as much stress as she did on Mrs. Cameron's words, for that lady did not say positively "They are engaged." She could not quite bring herself to a deliberate falsehood, which, if detected, would reflect upon her character as a lady, but she could mislead Helen, and she did so effectually, as was evinced by the red spot which burned on her cheeks, and by her uncertain way of replying to a gentleman who stood by her for a moment, addressing to her some casual remark and departing with the impression that Miss Lennox was very timid and shy. After he was gone, Mrs. Cameron continued, "It is not like us to bruit our affairs abroad, and were my daughter ten times engaged, the world would be none the wiser. I doubt if even Katy suspects what I have admitted; but knowing how fascinating Mark can be, and that just at present he seems to be pleased with you, I have acted as I should wish a friend to act toward my own child. Were it not that you are one of our family, I might not have interfered, and I trust you not to repeat even to Katy what I have said."

Helen nodded a.s.sent, while in her heart was a wild tumult of feelings--flattered pride, disappointment, indignation and mortification all struggling for the mastery---mortification to feel that she who had quietly ignored such a pa.s.sion as love when connected with herself, had, nevertheless, been pleased with the attentions of one who was only amusing himself with her, as a child amuses itself with some new toy soon to be thrown aside--indignation at him for vexing Juno at her expense--disappointment that he should care for such as Juno, and flattered pride that Mrs. Cameron should include her in "our family."

Helen had as few weak points as most young ladies, but she was not free from them all, and the fact that Mrs. Cameron had taken her into a confidence which even Katy did not share, was soothing to her ruffled spirits, particularly as after that confidence Mrs. Cameron was excessively gracious to her, introducing her to many whom she did not know before, and paying her numberless little attentions, which made Juno stare, while the clearer-seeing Bell arched her eyebrows, and wondered for what Helen was to be made a catspaw by her clever mother.

Whatever it was, it did not appear, save as it showed itself in Helen's slightly changed demeanor when Mark again sought her society, and tried to bring back to her face the look he had left there. But something evidently had come between them, and the young man racked his brain to find the cause of this sudden indifference in one who had been pleased with him only a short half hour before.

"It's that confounded waltzing which disgusted her," he said, "and no wonder, for if ever a man looks like an idiot, it is when he is kicking up his heels to the sound of a viol, and wheeling around some woman whose skirts sweep everything within the circle of a rod, and whose face wears that die-away expression I have so often noticed. I've half a mind to swear I'll never dance again."

But Mark was too fond of dancing to quit it at once, and finding Helen still indifferent, he yielded to circ.u.mstances, and the last she saw of him, as at a comparatively early hour she left the gay scene, he was dancing again with Juno, whose face beamed with a triumphant look, as if she in some way guessed the aching heart her rival carried home. It was a heavy blow to Helen, for she had become greatly interested in Mark Ray, whose attentions had made her stay in New York so pleasant. But these were over now--at least the excitement they brought was over, and Helen, as she sat in her dressing-room at home, and thought of the future as well as the past, felt stealing over her a sense of desolation and loneliness such as she had experienced but once before, and that on the night when leaning from her window at the farmhouse where Mark Ray was stopping she had shuddered and shrank from living all her days among the rugged hills of Silverton. New York had opened an entirely new world to her, showing her much that was vain and frivolous, with much too, that was desirable and good; and if there had crept into her heart the vague thought that a life with such people as Mrs. Banker and those who frequented her house would be preferable to a life in Silverton, where only Morris understood her, it was but the natural result of daily intercourse with one who had studied to please and interest as Mark Ray had done. But Helen had too much good sense and strength of will long to indulge in what she would have called "love-sick regrets" in others, and she began to devise the best course for her to adopt hereafter, concluding finally to treat him much as she had done, lest he should suspect how deeply she had been wounded. Now that she knew of his engagement, it would be an easy matter, she thought, so to demean herself as neither to annoy Juno nor really to vex him. Thoroughly now she understood why Juno Cameron had seemed to dislike her so much.

"It is natural," she said, "and yet I honestly believe I like her better for knowing what I do. There must be some good beneath that proud exterior, or Mark would never seek her."

Still, look at it from any point she chose, it seemed a strange, unsuitable match, and Helen's heart ached sadly as she finally retired to rest, thinking what might have been had Juno Cameron found some other lover more like her than Mark could ever be.

CHAPTER XXIII.

GENEVRA.

Far more elated with her sister's success than Helen herself, Katy could talk of little else next morning, telling Helen how many complimentary things Wilford had said of her, and how much he had heard others say, while Mark Ray had seemed perfectly fascinated.

"I never thought till last night how nice it would be for you to marry Mark and settle in New York," Katy said, never dreaming how she was wounding Helen, who, but for Mrs. Cameron's charge, would have proclaimed Mark's engagement with Juno.

As it was, she felt the words struggling against her lips; but she forced them back, and tried to laugh at Katy's castles in the air, as she called them.

"You looked beautiful, Wilford said," Katy continued, "and I am so glad, only," and Katy's voice fell, while her eyes rested upon the crib where the baby was sleeping, "only I think Wilford is more anxious than ever for me to go again into society. He will not hear of my staying home for the entire season, as I wish to do, for baby is better to me than all the parties in the world. I am so tired of it all, and have been ever since I was at Newport. I was so vain and silly there, and I have been so sorry since. But that summer cured me entirely, and you don't know how I loathe the very thought of entering society again. For your sake I should be willing to go sometimes, if there were no one else. But Mrs.

Banker has kindly offered to take you under her charge, and so there is no necessity for me to matronize you."

Helen laughed merrily at the idea of being matronized by the little girlish creature not yet twenty years of age, kissing fondly the white, thin cheek so much whiter and thinner than it used to be.

"You are confining yourself too much," she said. "You are losing all your color. Fresh air will do you good, even if parties will not.

Suppose we drive this afternoon to Marian Hazelton's and show her the baby."

Nothing could please Katy better. Several times since baby's birth she sent a message to Fourth Street, begging of Marian to come and see her treasure, and once, urged by her entreaties, Wilford himself had written a brief note asking that Miss Hazleton would call if perfectly convenient. But there had always been some excuse, some plea of work, some putting off the coming, until Katy feared that something might he wrong, and entered heartily into Helen's propositions. It was a pleasant winter's day, and toward the middle of the afternoon the Cameron carriage stopped before the humble dwelling where Marian Hazleton was living.

"You needn't go up," Katy said to the nurse, feeling that she would rather meet Marian without the presence of a stranger. "Miss Lennox will carry baby and you can wait here. It is not cold," she added, as the nurse showed signs of remonstrance, "and if it is, John can drive you around a square or two."

After this there was no further demur, and Katy soon stood with Helen at the door of Marian's room. She was at home, uttering an exclamation of astonishment when she saw who her visitors were, and turning white as ashes, when Katy, taking her baby from Helen's arms, placed it in her lap, saying,

"You would not come to see it and so I brought it to you. Isn't she a beauty?"

There was a blur before Marian's eyes, a pressure about her heart which seemed congealing into stone, but she tried to stammer out something, bending over the tiny thing. Wilford Cameron's child, which she could not see for the thick blackness around her. Tears and bitter pangs of grief had the news of that child's birth wrung from Marian, bringing back all the dreadful past, and making her hear again as if it were but yesterday, the cold, decisive words:

"If there were a child it would of course be different."

There was a child now, and it lay in Marian's lap, clad in the garments she had made, the cambric and the lace, the flannel and the merino, which nevertheless could not take from it that look of sickly infancy, or make it beautiful to others beside the mother. But it was Wilford's child, and so when for a moment both Helen and Katy turned to examine a rosebush just in bloom, Marian Hazleton hugged the little creature to her bosom, whispering over it a blessing which, coming from one so wronged, was doubly valuable. There was a tear, one of Marian's, on its face, when Katy came back to it, and there were more in Marian's eyes, falling like rain, as Katy asked, "What makes you cry?"

"I was thinking of what might have been," came struggling from Marian's pale lips, and Helen felt a throb of pain as she remembered Dr. Grant, and then thought of herself in connection with this sad "Might have been."

Marian, too, knew the full meaning of those words, as was attested by the gush of tears which dropped so fast on baby's face that Katy, alarmed for the safety of the crimson cloak wrapped around it for effect, took the child in her own arms, commencing that cooing conversation which shows how much young mothers love their first born.

Marian's tears ceased at last, and after questioning Helen of Silverton and its people, she turned abruptly to Katy, still rocking and talking to her child, and asked:

"What do you intend to call her?"

"Genevra," Katy said, and simultaneously with that word Marian Hazleton dropped without sound or motion to the floor.

Had Helen and Katy been put upon their oath, both would have testified that even before the answer came, Marian had fainted, just as she did when Helen first went to secure her services for Katy's bridal wardrobe.

This time, however, there was no Dr. Grant at hand, and so the frightened ladies did what they could, bathing her face and chafing her cold hands until the life came slowly back, and with a frightened expression Marian looked around her, asking what had happened?

"Yes, I know now," she said, as baby's cry fell on her ear, but restoring her wholly to herself. "Fainting is one of my weaknesses,"

she continued, turning to Helen. "You have seen me so before. It is my heart," and with this explanation she satisfied her visitors, though Katy expressed much solicitude and proposed to send her medical aid.

But Marian declined, and when it was time for Katy to go, she took the child in her own arms again, and as if there was now a new link which bound her to it, she kissed it many times, while in the eyes fastened so lovingly, so wistfully upon its face, there was a strange, yearning look which neither Helen nor Katy could fathom. Certain it is they had no suspicion of the truth, and on their way home they spoke with much concern of these fainting attacks, wondering if nothing could be done to ward them off.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE NAME.

Wilford had wished for a son, and in the first moment of disappointment he had almost been conscious of a half-resentful feeling toward Katy, who had given him only a daughter. A boy, a Cameron heir, was something of which to be proud, especially as Jamie would always remain a helpless cripple; but a little girl, scarcely larger than the last doll with which Katy had played, was a different thing, and it required all Wilford's philosophy and common sense to keep him from showing his chagrin to the girlish creature, whose love had fastened with an idolatrous grasp upon her child, clinging to it with a devotion which made Helen tremble as she thought what if G.o.d should take it from her.

"He won't, oh, He won't," Katy had said, when once she suggested the possibility, and in the eyes usually so soft and gentle there was a fierce gleam, as Katy hugged her baby closer to her, and said:

"G.o.d does not willfully torment us. He will not take my baby, when my whole life would die with it. I had almost forgotten to pray, there was so much else to do, till baby came, but now I never go to sleep at night or waken in the morning, that there does not come a prayer of thanks for baby given to me. I could hardly love G.o.d if He took her away."

There was a chill feeling at Helen's heart as she listened to her sister and then glanced at the baby so pa.s.sionately loved. In time it would be pretty, for it had Katy's perfect features, and the hair just beginning to grow was a soft, golden brown; but it was too small now, too puny to be handsome, while in its eyes there was a scared, hunted kind of look, which chafed Wilford more than aught else could have done, for that was the look which had crept into Katy's eyes at Newport when she found she was not going home. Still it was a Cameron, of royal lineage, loved at least by four, its mother, its grandfather, Helen and Jamie, while the others looked forward to a time when they should be proud of it, even if they were not so now.

Many discussions had been held at the elder Cameron's concerning its name, Mrs. Cameron deciding finally that it should bear her own, Margaret Augusta, while Juno advocated that of Rose Marie, inasmuch as their new clergyman would Frenchify the p.r.o.nunciation so perfectly, rolling the "_r_," and placing so much accent on the last syllable. At this the Father Cameron swore as cussed nonsense--"better call it Jemima, a grand sight, than saddle it with such a silly name as Rose Mah-ree, with a roll to the 'r,'" and with another oath the disgusted old man departed, while Bell suggested that Katy might wish to have a voice in naming her own child.

This was a possibility that had formed no part of Mrs. Cameron's thoughts, or Juno's. Of course Katy would acquiesce in whatever Wilford said was best, and he always thought as they did. Consequently there would be no trouble whatever. It was time the child had a name--time it wore the elegant christening robe, Mrs. Cameron's gift, which cost more money than would have fed a hungry family for weeks. The matter must be decided, and so with a view of deciding it a family dinner party was held at No. ---- Fifth Avenue, the day succeeding the call on Marian Hazleton.

Very pure and beautiful Katy looked as she once more took her old place in the chair they called hers at Father Cameron's, because it was the one she had always preferred to any other--a large, motherly easy-chair, which took in nearly the whole of her pet.i.te figure, and against whose soft cus.h.i.+oned back she leaned her curly head with a pretty air of importance, as after dinner was over, she came back to the parlor with the other ladies, waiting for the gentlemen to join them, when they were to talk up baby's name.

Katy knew exactly what it would be called, but as Wilford had never asked her, she was keeping it a secret, not doubting that the others would be quite as much delighted as herself with the novel name, "Genevra." Not long before her illness she had read an English story, which had in it a Genevra, and she had at once seized upon it as the most delightful cognomen a person could well possess. "Genevra Cameron!"

She had repeated it to herself many a time as she sat with her baby on her lap. She had written it on sundry slips of paper, which had afterward found their way into the grate; and once she had scratched with her diamond ring upon the window pane in her dressing-room, where it now stood in legible characters, "Genevra Cameron!" There should be no middle name to take from the sweetness of the first--only Genevra--that was sufficient; and the little lady tapped her foot impatiently upon the carpet, wis.h.i.+ng Wilford and father would hurry and come in.

Never for an instant had it entered her mind that she, as the mother, would not be permitted to call her baby what she chose; so when she heard Mrs. Cameron speaking to Helen of Margaret Augusta, she smiled complacently, tossing her curls of golden brown, and thinking to herself, "Maggie Cameron--pretty enough, but not like Genevra. Indeed I shall not have any Margarets now; next time perhaps I may."

Since the party at Mrs. Grandon's, Mrs. Cameron had been very kind and gracious to Helen, while Juno, who understood that Helen believed her engaged to Mark, treated her with far more attention than before, and now both kept near to her, chatting familiarly, Mrs. Cameron about the opera, and Juno the matinee, to which they were to take her, without waiting for Katy. Helen's success at the party, together with Mrs.

Banker's and Sybil's evident determination to bring her forward, had taught them that she could not well be longer ignored, and as Juno did not greatly dread her as a rival now, she could afford to be gracious; and she was, making herself so agreeable that Helen observed the change, imputing it to the fact that Mark had probably returned to his allegiance, and blaming herself for having unwittingly wounded Juno by receiving his attentions. The belief that she was adding to another's happiness made it easier to bear the pang, which would make itself felt whenever she recalled the kindly manner, the handsome face, and more than all the expressive eyes, which had looked whole volumes into hers; and Helen quite enjoyed her first dinner party at the Camerons, though she began to wish, with Katy, that the gentlemen would join them.

They came at last, and Father Cameron drew his chair close to Katy's side, laying his hand on her little soft, warm one, giving it a squeeze as the bright face glanced lovingly into his. Father Cameron was a milder, gentler man than he was before Katy came, going much oftener into society, and not so frequently shocking his wife with expressions and opinions which she held as heterodox. Katy had a softening influence over him, and he loved her as well perhaps as he had ever loved his own children.

"Better," Juno said, and now she touched Bell's arm, to have her see "how father was petting Katy."