A Changed Heart Part 79

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

OUT OF THE CROOKED WAYS.

And so all was over; and Speckport found out that the poor, miserable creature, Mr. Wyndham's mother, was dead. It must have been a merciful release for her, poor soul! they said; but the fever was infectious, and they sympathized at a respectful distance. But Mr. Wyndham's wife left Redmon and went to the cottage as soon as she heard it, and staid there through all the weary time that intervened between the death and the burial. There had been a consultation about the funeral and the grave, and it was decided that that other grave, marked with the white cross, and bearing the name of Nathalie Marsh, should not be disturbed.

By-and-by, Val said, the name can be erased; to disturb it now would involve the telling of the whole story. Let Mr. Wyndham erect what sort of monument he pleases. So the grave was dug in a sunny inclosure, under a tamarack tree, and the funeral-service was held in the cathedral, and a long file of carriages followed the hea.r.s.e to the cemetery. Paul Wyndham, in his deep mourning, stood bareheaded in the cold November sunlight while the coffin was being lowered and the sods rattled heavily on the lid; and Speckport, as represented by the funeral cortege, whispered that Mr. Wyndham looked ten years older since his mother's death.

So Rosebush Cottage was left once more to the sole care of Midge, and Mr. Wyndham returned to his late quarters at the "Farmer's Hotel." Mrs.

Marsh was driven to Cottage Street, and Mr. Blake, having fumigated himself thoroughly, delighted the home of Miss Laura Blair once more with the light of his presence. Poor Laura had led rather a lonely life of late; for her darling Olly, wrapped up in her own troubles, had no time to attend to her, and Val had deserted them altogether. She was sitting, pale and listless, turning over the leaves of a new and popular novel, with an indifference not very flattering to the author, when the opening of the door made her start up, with a flush on her pretty face and a light in her bright eyes, to whose flattering interest even Mr.

Blake could not be insensible.

"Yes, I've come back to poor Laura," Mr. Blake said, shaking hands with more warmth than perhaps there was any real necessity for. "I find I can't stay away from you somehow. How's everybody?"

"Pa and ma are well, if you mean them by 'everybody.' So poor Mr.

Wyndham's mother has gone?"

Mr. Blake nodded.

"And what is Mr. Wyndham going to do with that love of a cottage now, I wonder?"

"I," said Mr. Blake, imperiously, "am going to purchase that love of a cottage myself!"

"You! Why, Val! What will you ever do with a house?"

"Live in it, Miss Blair, like any other Christian!"

"Oh, yes; of course; I suppose you will send for Miss Jo to keep house for you again?"

"Why, no," said Mr. Blake, thoughtfully. "I think not. Do you know, Laura, what I have been thinking of lately?"

"No; how should I?"

"Well, then," said Val, in a confidential tone, "I have been thinking of getting married! You need not mention it just yet, until I see more about it. In fact, I have not asked the lady yet, and don't know what she may say."

"And who is the happy lady, pray?"

"A particular friend of mine," nodded Val, sagely, "and of yours, too, Laura. The nicest girl in Speckport."

"It is Miss Rose," thought Laura, with a sudden sinking of the heart.

"He always admired her, and they have been so much together lately!"

"I'll buy the cottage from Wyndham as it stands," pursued Val, serenely unconscious of the turn Miss Blair's thoughts had taken, "and fetch my wife there, and live in clover all the rest of my life. So hold yourself in readiness, Miss Laura, to dance at the wedding."

Miss Laura might have replied but for a sudden choking sensation in the throat, and the entrance of her portly mamma. Under cover of that lady's entrance, she made her exit, and going up to her room, flung herself, face downward, on the bed, and cried until her eyes were as red as a ferret's. And all the time Mr. Blake was in a state of serene complacency at the artful way in which he had prepared her for what was to come.

"I couldn't speak much plainer," he thought, blandly. "How pretty she looked, blus.h.i.+ng and looking down. Of course I'll get married. I wonder I never thought of it before. Dear little Laura! I'll never forget the first time I heard her sing, 'We won't go home till morning!' I thought her the jolliest girl then I ever met."

Mr. Blake was a gentleman in the habit of striking while the iron was hot. He called round at the office, rapped Master Bill Blair over the head with the tongs for standing on his hands instead of his feet, and then started off for the Farmer's Hotel, without more ado, and was ushered by a waiter into Mr. Wyndham's room.

"Blake, I owe you more than I can ever repay," he said; "you have been my true friend through all this miserable time; and believe me, I feel your goodness as much as a man can feel, even though I cannot express it! Please G.o.d, this trouble of my life shall make me a better man, if I can never be a happy one."

"Oh, you'll be happy," said Mr. Blake. "Get into the straight path again, Wyndham, and keep there. I don't set up for a preacher, goodness knows! but you may depend there is nothing like it."

"The straight path!" Paul Wyndham repeated, with a weary, regretful sigh; "yes, I have been straying sadly out of the straight path of truth and honor and rect.i.tude into the crooked ways of falsehood and treachery and deceit. Heaven help me, it never was with a contented heart! No one on this earth could ever despise me half so much as I despised myself all the time!"

"All right," cried Val, cheerily, "it's never too late to mend. Keep straight now, and we can all forgive and forget the past. I suppose you will be for leaving us shortly now?"

"Immediately. This is Tuesday--I shall depart in Thursday's boat."

"Will you," said Val, lighting a cigar; "that soon? What are you going to do with Rosebush Cottage?"

"The cottage! Oh, I shall leave it as it is--that is, shut it up. In time--a year or two, perhaps--I may return and sell it, if any one will purchase."

"Don't wait a year or two. Sell it now."

"Who wants it?"

"I do," said Val, with one of his nods.

"You! What do you want of the place, may I ask."

"Well, now, I don't see any just cause or impediment to my possessing a house any more than the rest of mankind, that everybody should be so surprised. I want the house to live in, of course--what else?"

Paul Wyndham looked at him and smiled. The great trouble of his life had changed him to a grave, sad man; but being only human, he could still smile.

"I wish you joy with all my heart! Laura has said yes, then?"

"Why, no, not exactly--that is to say, I haven't asked her out-and-out yet. I wanted to settle about the house first. But I gave her a pretty broad hint, and I guess it's all right. I think I should like to live there particularly, and now what will you take for it as it stands?"

Mr. Wyndham arose, opened a desk, and took out a bundle of papers, which he laid before Val.

"Here is the deed and all the doc.u.ments connected with the place. You can see what it cost me yourself. Here is the upholsterer's bill, but you must deduct from that, for it is only second-hand furniture now. I leave the matter entirely to yourself."

With such premises, bargaining was no very difficult matter; and half an hour after, Val had the deed in his pocket, and was the happy owner of Rosebush Cottage.

"You stay here, I suppose, until Thursday," he said, rising to go.

"Yes."

"And how about that poor girl at Redmon? What is to become of her?"

Mr. Wyndham laid his hand on Val's shoulder, and looked very gravely up in his face.

"Val, before she died, in that last brief interview, she spoke of Harriet, and I gave her a promise then which I shall faithfully keep.

The devotion of a whole life can scarcely atone to her for the wrong I have done her; but if she will accept that atonement, Heaven knows it will make me happier now than anything else on earth. If she does not utterly loathe and hate me--if she will be my wife in reality, as she has. .h.i.therto been in name--we will leave this place together; and whether my life be long or short, it shall be entirely devoted to her alone."

Val's face turned radiant. He seized Mr. Wyndham's other hand, and shook it with crus.h.i.+ng heartiness.