Chapter XI: Connie’s Arrival

March that year came in like a roaring lion, and continued to roar at intervals for two weeks, when it gathered its forces together for a farewell which should outdo all that had gone before. For three days the storm continued, until the tops of the fences were covered and roads were cut through the fields in some places, as the highways were blocked with drifts. And still the snow fell in great billowy clouds, which the wind drove before it through the valleys and over the hills of Millville. Nearly all day Kenneth had been gone, as he had been called in consultation with Dr. Catherin at Rocky Point, and it was not until five o’clock that he reached home, where he found Connie’s telegram.

“Coming to-night on the six o’clock train, which is sure to be late,” he exclaimed, with a thrill of delight, and no thought of the trouble it would be to meet her.

“Father will go to the train, you are so tired,” his mother said, but had he been ten times as fatigued as he was, Kenneth would not have foregone the pleasure of meeting Connie.

“The house is as warm as it can be,” he said, felicitating himself upon the fact that there was now a furnace in the cellar, with sundry other modern improvements since Connie was there.

Some of the fireplaces had been stopped up, but one was left open in the sitting-room to please his father, and one in the guest-chamber to please him. It was here Connie had slept and sat on the hearth and held her little hands to the blaze, which she had liked. His mother, on receipt of the telegram, had opened the register in the room, and made it ready for her.

“Warm as toast,” she said to Kenneth, when he inquired about it. But he insisted upon a fire in the fireplace, which he made himself, charging his mother to keep it bright until he returned with Connie.

The storm was awful at half-past five, when Kenneth went to harness his horses, Pro and Con, to the covered sleigh. Con, who had been to Rocky Point and back, did not like going out a second time, and showed her dislike by pulling back when Kenneth tried to lead her out.

“Easy, Con, easy! It’s hard, I know, but Connie is coming, and I would sacrifice both you and Pro for her sake,” he said, soothing the refractory animal, who, after a few protesting snorts, and throwing up of her head, squared herself to meet the storm, and went plunging through the drifts, dragging Pro after her, until the shelter was reached, where Kenneth left them until the train came in.

It was very late before it came puffing up to the station, looking like a huge snow bank, with the light from the frosty windows showing dimly through the darkness. All along the line of coaches Kenneth looked anxiously, with a fear that she had not come, when the conductor appeared, and clinging to him was a slight form, which seemed to sway like a reed in the wind.

“Is Dr. Stannard here?” was shouted through the darkness, and “Aye, aye,” came in response from Kenneth, as he sprang up the steps and passed his arms around the figure of the young girl.

“Connie?” he asked, as he could not see her face.

“Yes,” she answered, clinging to him like a child.

“She’s been bad all the way. I guess she’s sick, or going to be,” the conductor said, giving her up to Kenneth, who took her in his arms just as he had taken little Connie sixteen years before, when she came in her blue cloak and hood and crept into his heart.

As he had done then, so now he carried her to the sleigh and put her in and tucked the robes around her and took his seat beside her, and was out upon the road before a word was spoken. Then he said, “Connie, are you ill?”

She had sat in a drooping posture till now, when she straightened up, and moving a little nearer to him, she replied: “I don’t know. I was sick on the ship, and I am so tired, and my head feels queer; but I am glad to be here. Are you glad? Is your mother glad?”

“Glad?” Kenneth repeated, and there was a world of tenderness in his voice as he drew Connie close to him and put her head upon his shoulder, where it lay through the drive home, which did not take long, for Pro and Con, and especially the latter, defying the snow and the wind and the drifts, went swiftly up the hill, nearly upsetting the sleigh as they turned into a field, but finally reaching the house in safety.

Once during the drive Connie said, by way of explanation for her unexpected appearance: “I had to come. I couldn’t stay in that dreary old palace in Genoa after Count Costello said words to me he never should have said. You know my aunt married him?”

Kenneth did know, but forebore to ask any questions, they were so near home.

“Oh, I am so glad, so glad!” Connie kept saying, when carried into the warmth and light, where Mrs. Stannard’s motherly arms received her.

As his father took care of the horses, Kenneth removed Connie’s hat and sack and gloves and chafed her cold hands, and thought how thin and pale she was, and how she sometimes rambled in her talk. She was not hungry, she said. She was only tired and sleepy. She did not sleep at all upon the ship. She did not think she had slept since she left Genoa, or for some time before. She would not eat, and Kenneth, who was watching her closely, advised his mother to take her to her room.

“Oh, this is so nice; this takes me back to long ago,” Connie said, kneeling on the hearth when there, and holding her hands to the blaze just as Kenneth had seen her do when a child. “There are pictures in the fire,” she continued; “pictures of me as I was a happy little girl and as I am now an unhappy woman,” and she clasped her white hands together.

“Why are you unhappy? Has anything happened?” Mrs. Stannard asked, smoothing the soft golden hair on the small head, which was lying back against the cushions of a chair.

Connie looked at her a moment, and then told very briefly of Count Costello’s offer to herself, of her refusal, of his marriage with her aunt, to whom she said he was kind; of the dreary house he called a palace, and of his saying to her: “Your young face is daily a painful contrast to that of the countess, handsome as she is.”

“After that I could not stay, a foil to my aunt, who cares for him, while I hate him,” she said, “and so I came here. Are you glad?”

She had asked the same question of Kenneth, who had answered by drawing her close to him, while his mother stooped and kissed her, as she replied: “Very glad; and now go to bed. You will be better to-morrow.”

Connie had said nothing of the real pain eating into her heart, and Mrs. Stannard, while indignant at Count Costello, wondered why he should have had the power to change this once bright, rosy girl into the wan, pale woman who had scarcely strength to get into bed, and who, when there, looked almost as white as the pillow on which she was resting.