Chapter XLVIII: Going Away

There was considerable excitement in high fashionable circles when it became generally known that Waldon, their pet and idol, was engaged to Bertha Canfield. Popular and beautiful as she was, people would not quite reconcile themselves to the idea that she had made a conquest of the most brilliant man of their various sets, for Waldon was received in all with open arms.

Two or three things threw a little eddy of scandal into the news. Mrs. Forbes, who had formerly been on the most intimate terms with Waldon, scarcely spoke to him now—indeed, swept by him, when he had Bertha on his arm, with calm and imperial disdain, which created comment not altogether favorable to the lady. If this disaffection happened to be mentioned before Waldon, he said nothing, but that mobile face took an expression which was too eagerly read, and without a word this strangely gifted man set the idea afloat that, on the announcement of his approaching marriage to another woman, he had found it imperative on his honor to break off all acquaintance with Mrs. Wilson Forbes.

Brilliant as this match was considered for Bertha, it certainly gave no feelings of exaltation to the mother, who almost worshipped her. From the hour when she became convinced, beyond all hope, that her daughter loved the man, Mrs. Canfield had drooped visibly. The fainting fits, to which she was so liable, became more frequent. She was often found on her knees, praying or weeping bitterly. Her delicate nerves were all unstrung. A door hastily closed would set them to quivering; a strange footstep on the stairs filled her eyes with affright. Even in her own room she sometimes seemed like a wounded deer hunted to its covert.

Happiness is often both selfish and blind. Bertha, in the whirl and glory of her new life, saw this change in her mother without understanding its significance.

“She is timid, poor, dear mamma! and Waldon’s wonderful greatness overpowers her. She does not feel at home with him yet; but when we are married—when she is with him all the day long, and learns to worship his genius as I do—all this will be different.”

But something was preying on this little woman, and her health broke down utterly. She needed change of air, the doctor said. That might set her up. At any rate, it must be tried.

This opinion terrified Bertha. She forgot everything—even Waldon—in her mother’s danger, and began to reproach herself bitterly for the blind neglect which had sprung out of her happiness.

“Where shall we go, mamma, dear? Back to the New England home, where grandmother and I can pet you into health again?” she said, with tears in her eyes, after the doctor had left them.

“There? No! no! no!”

It was strange, Bertha thought, but Mrs. Canfield seldom spoke of her old home in those days that a shudder did not creep over her. Now a gleam of terror broke into her great eyes, and she shrank from her daughter as if trying to escape a blow.

Bertha was disheartened. Where could they go?

“Anywhere,” said Mrs. Canfield, desperately, “so that we are away from here and left alone.”

A sudden ring at the door made the poor woman start and listen.

Lydia came in with a letter, which she was examining closely with a cross fire of her two eyes.

“Can’t make it out—letters all slurred together,” she said, discontentedly, giving up her examination of the post-mark. “But here it is, Miss B.”

“From Mary Noel!” exclaimed Bertha, joyfully. “Dear, dear girl! it is so long since I have heard from her!”

She tore open the envelope, and read the letter—a pleasant one, doubtless, for her face brightened all over.

“Oh, mamma, this seems providential. Mary wants us so much. Her home is beautiful, she says, and her father anxious that we should start at once and watch the spring which is budding hyacinths and crocuses out already. Shall we go, mother? Isn’t this a chance?”

“Yes, yes,” answered Mrs. Canfield. “It is a good way off; I shall have time to breathe there. Of course, Bertha, we will go.”

The little lady started to her feet, snatched up her handkerchief, and looked around eagerly, as if she expected to start that moment; but the bell rung a second time, and she dropped back upon her couch as if a bullet had gone through her.

“It is Waldon!” said Bertha. “How he will hate to part with us!”

The girl flew down-stairs, and found her lover in the little drawing-room, walking up and down.

“Well, my bird of Paradise,” he said, drawing her toward him, as she held out both hands, “you have been crying. What is the matter?”

“Oh, Waldon, the doctor has been here. He says mamma is very ill, and that she must go away somewhere.”

“And you are going?”

That heavy frown, which Waldon did not guard against so much now, darkened his face. In his supreme egotism he could hardly forgive the feeble little woman up-stairs for claiming anything that he desired.

“Oh, yes, we must, you know. But you will miss me—I hope you will miss me.”

“Miss you? Does a man miss his health when taken from him? But is this settled, that you look so earnest? Surely the old lady will not go so for that I cannot come to you?”

“And will you? Oh, will you?”

“Tell me where I am to go, before I answer.”

“On the James river, below Richmond. I can scarcely tell more; only it is a lovely place, and my friend, Miss Noel, lives there.”

“On the James river!—the Noels! Why, they are in the neighborhood of John Hyde!”

“Indeed! oh, that is splendid! Can you come?”

“Can I? Of course I can. An author has only to put his favorite paper in a trunk, a gold pen in his pocket, and business travels with him. So it is decided that you are going?”

“Yes, yes. I never saw mother so eager about anything.”

“And you are just as eager.”

“Oh, yes, now that all I care for on earth will be near us—before, I would not let her see it, but my heart was very heavy.”

“It will be a pleasant trip for us all. You will not have been on the James a week before my friend Hyde will have a guest. I will write to him at once. But tell me about your friend. Who is she—a native of Virginia?”

“Yes; but she has spent half her life north. At school we were like sisters.”

“Tell me something about her, as we are doomed to meet. What kind of a girl is she? Languid and lazy, I dare say?”

“No, no; she is bright as a bird—full of life, generous—”

“There, there, no more praise, or you will make me hate her—school girls are always more enthusiastic than discriminating. I dare say your pet classmate is a plain, commonplace little thing—two beautiful women seldom cleave to each other.”

“There—mistaken again! I—I don’t mean about myself, but Mary Noel is perfectly—that is, very handsome; and as for being commonplace, no one can say that of her. Everybody admires Mary.”

“Indeed! then she must be an heiress. Nothing like great expectations for making a girl popular—but I hate heiresses.”

“She is an only child, if that is being an heiress, and mistress of her father’s house.”

“Then her father is a widower. Be careful, lady-bird, that he does not cast somebody we know of into the shadows.”

Bertha’s voice rung out in a mellow laugh, as if it had been rioting among flowers.

“The idea!” she said, dragging the phrase out of her school-girl days, with a fling of the head which Waldon might have criticised in another, and rather disliked now.

“Not a very extraordinary idea. The gentleman is fine-looking, and not so very much older than I am. I saw him when he took leave of you on the steamer, and caught a glimpse of his daughter.”

“Did you? Then say if she was not beautiful?”

“I did not think so, for you were standing by.”

“Flatterer! But I must go up-stairs—that is mamma’s voice.”

Bertha ran up-stairs the moment her lover disappeared, and struck all the returning life out of Mrs. Canfield by telling her that Waldon would follow them to the James river.