Chapter XXXIX: “only You, My Darling!”

Patty could scarcely conceal her joy that Reginald Hamilton should invite her to accompany him to her cousin’s home and corroborate the truth of her scandalous story.

She thought it was a grand triumph to ride by his side in his fine carriage, secretly hoping to win him yet, since Eva had lost him forever.

“What’s up now, Pat?” Miss Tabby had inquired meekly, for only that morning she had been coolly told that Patty was going to ship her home to-morrow, and have done with her forever.

“The matter is that I’m invited to Eva’s at last!”

“Oh, Patty, how kin you face the poor gal arter what you done last night?” whimpered the spinster, who had read it in the papers with silent disapprobation.

“I can face anybody!” Patty cried serenely, in her exuberant joy.

“Mayn’t I go along, Patty, to chapyrone you one more time?”

“No, you may not. I’m going with the grand Mr. Hamilton, that jilted Eva, and I want a good chance alone with him to cut her out in his heart. So go along to your room and stay there, you old idiot!”

Miss Tabby obeyed the rude command, going at once to her room, but only staying long enough to don her false frizette and best clothes. Arrayed in this splendor, she set forth at a rapid walk, all her green plumes nodding wildly in the nipping wind, while she said to herself mutinously:

“If I can’t ride in the carriage with her, I reckon I kin walk behind it. I ain’t lost the use o’ my laigs yit. But if she’s a-going to Eva’s house, I’m a-going, too, for I ain’t mistreated the chile as bad as she done, anyway, an’ I got as good a right visitin’ with her as she has!”

Puffing like a steam engine, her feathers flying like an Indian’s in a war dance, the old maid at last reached Mr. Somerville’s stately residence, and sank exhausted on the white marble steps.

“Whew! I’m about blowed!” she panted, adding curiously:

“Two carriages waitin’ before the door, like a fun’ral, or a wedding! There ain’t nobody dead, I reckon, and Pat has clar broke up the wedding, the spiteful thing! ’Clar to goodness, I’m sorry now ’at I ever went agin’ poor little Eva! Wonder if they is entertainin’ company to-day? Maybe I’m sort o’ pushing myself, but I has as good right to an invite as Patty, an’ I mean to stan’ my groun’ if the gent at the door will let me go in!”

Apparently the “gent” was just a little flustrated, for he did not oppose her entrance when she said to him humbly:

“Please, sir, do let me go in a while to see my Cousin Eva. I was coming with Patty, but the carriage was too full, and I had to walk; that’s why I am later than the rest of the company.”

This artful dodge sufficed to make the man admit her, respectfully saying:

“The guests are assembled in the library madam,” indicating a door some distance down the corridor.

Miss Tabby bridled, and answered mincingly.

“Oh, thank you, kind sir, but I’m not a madam yet, although I may take a notion to change my name any time!”

And she sailed grandly down the splendid corridor between the potted palms and gleaming white statues, pausing once to adjust her false front with a view to the enslavement of Mr. Somerville’s heart.

“If I could only ketch him, I needn’t go back to the poky country to scratch for a living!” she was thinking as she softly drew aside a fold of the rich portière and peeped in at the assembled company.

What she saw after a brief scrutiny made her drop the curtain and start back in amazement, muttering:

“Land sakes, if there ain’t Doctor Ludington an’ that there Dan Ellis that runned away arter that Hallowe’en trag’dy! Where did he fall from, and what on yearth is he doing of here? Is Mr. Somerville gwine to hire him for a chore boy? I didn’t know they had any cows to milk an’ pigs to feed up in New York. I s’pose Doc Ludington’s giving him a ricommend to the fambly! My, how uppish Pat looks, setting by Hamilton’s side! An’ sakes alive, there’s a West Virginny gal on the sofy by Eva, that Miss Winton, up to Weston. What’s she doing here, too? How solemn they all look, from Mr. Somerville an’ his grand sister, even down to Dan! Guess it’s a mighty dry company; no laffin’ and jokin’ yet. I better slip in an’ not say nothin’ to no one at first, for fear they run me out before I find out what they all come together for!”

As every one seemed to be paying great attention to a remark of Doctor Ludington’s, she sidled in and sank down unperceived on the nearest chair, half hidden by a large jardiniere of flowers.

“You all know the story of the tragedy in which Miss Somerville and myself figured so prominently,” he said. “Miss Groves has chosen to revive it in all its horror, but she has not been very accurate. She has left out one link in the chain.”

Patty, who had been eyeing Dan all along with fear and trembling, now attempted to speak and utter a defiant denial, but the man by her side said to her sternly:

“Hush! Wait till he tells his story!”

Doctor Ludington continued:

“Through a hideous practical joke that Miss Groves and her sister were too cowardly or too malicious to confess, the whole horrible complication came about, causing one man’s death, and wrecking the lives of others. Get up, Dan Ellis, and tell the company your part in that hideous Hallowe’en tragedy!”

Dan shambled to his feet, looking almost manly in his eagerness to undo his mistake. He saw beautiful Eva looking at him with eager, hopeful eyes, and her glance encouraged him to speak out before the grand company.

“’Twarn’t my fault; I never would a-done anythin’ to hurt you, little Eva,” he said, looking straight into her wondering eyes. “But Patty and Lydia, they said as how you was setting supper by your bed to try your fortin’, that your intended husbin’ would come an’ sup with you at midnight in a dream. Do you remember it, little Eva?”

They were all too much interested to smile even when he kept on addressing her as if she were still a child and his social equal, but looking at her as she murmured: “Yes, Dan,” they saw her glance quickly and blushingly at Doctor Ludington, then her lashes drooped again.

Dan nodded and continued:

“Pat and Lyd said what a fine joke ’twould be for some horrid, ugly old man to ’pear at the bedside, and they give me some money to go to old Doctor Binks’ offis arter ’leven o’clock an’ tell him to come right straight off to little Eva; she was a-chokin’ with a nawful bad cold. I went and told him all right, but he was drunk as a biled owl, and so he sent his assistant, Doc Ludington, in his place. And that’s how the hull trouble come about. I could swar to it on a thousand Bibles! Then, when thet trouble come in through Terry Groves’ makin’ a mistake and shootin’ too soon, his sisters was ’shamed to own their part in bringing the hull thing on. They kep’ mute as mice, and told me if I confessed what I had done at their biddin’ I would be hung ackcessary to the murder, and ’vised me to run away, which I done!”

“The fellow is lying!” Patty muttered, turning pale as the dead.

“Naw, he hain’t, nuther!” cried a loud, shrill voice, as Miss Tabby started up like a Jack-in-a-box from her seat, wagging her head, her frizette awry, her feathers flying, as she added:

“He has told the gospel truth, has Dan Ellis, for Lydia told me all about it last year when she was so ill an’ feared she was a-goin’ to die. She said it laid heavy on her conscience, the way she’d helped to treat Eva, an’ if she died I was to tell the truth about it to everybuddy, but if she got well she’d be ’shamed to have it known! But I don’t feel as I had any call not to tell it now. I done parsecuted poor little Eva long enough, an’ to no good, for that ongrateful Patty has turned me off to go home an’ shift for myself, an’ I’m bound to git my revenge on her before I go!”

She might have maundered on still further, but there came an unexpected, startling interruption.

Reginald Hamilton, starting from his seat, his brilliant eyes dimmed with tears, knelt like a supplicant at Eva’s feet, crying:

“My injured angel, how much you have endured from the malice of those fiendish women! It breaks my heart to think of it, and to recall the cruel part I took in it, without stopping for a moment to think that your angel face was a testimony to your angelic purity! Oh, my wronged, adored one, will you forgive me?”

Patty sneered contemptuously, but no one noticed her; they were watching so eagerly for the reconciliation of the lovers.

Very sweetly and kindly Eva looked at him, and answered:

“I forgive you, Reggie!”

“God bless you, dear. I do not deserve it, but my devotion shall atone for all. Will you try to love me again? May our wedding go on to-night?”

“Get up Reggie. You must not kneel to me; we are only friends hereafter. I can never be your wife now!”

He staggered to his feet, staring at her blankly.

“But you said that you forgave me, dear Eva!”

Eva stood up, facing him, with pity and sympathy in her eyes.

“I do forgive you freely, Reggie, dear, and I want you always for my friend. But I am going to free my mind and make a confession. I never really loved you as a girl should love the man she is to marry. My heart was desolated by a hopeless love for one I could never wed, and I turned to you for solace. My family wished it, society expected it, you urged it, and I yielded--and repented the moment after! I am grateful for my freedom. I thank Heaven that it came in time. Forgive my frankness, but it is best!”

She dropped back into her seat and hid her face on Ada’s shoulder.

Doctor Ludington started forward impetuously, but restrained himself. Where was the use?

He realized with rapture that she loved him still, but he knew she would never yield her prejudice, her blind following of what seemed her duty to the dead.

But the unbidden guest, emboldened by feeling that she had done something to redeem herself just now, came quickly forward to Eva’s side, saying curiously:

“Maybe tain’t none o’ my business, Eva, chile, but I want to know what’s your reasons for not marrying Doctor Ludington, who seems to be a pretty likely man! Seems to me it’s time for the two famblies to stop hating each other for nonsense past an’ gone!”

Eva lifted her white, tearful face wistfully, answering with a strong shudder:

“It--it is not simply the old prejudice, Cousin Tabby, but my Cousin Terry’s blood, flowing like a crimson river between our hearts!”

“Oh, it’s that way?” and a strange gleam came into the old woman’s eyes as she added:

“Well, little Eva, s’posen the man he accidentally killed hadn’t a-been your cousin a-tall, what then? Could you marry him then?”

Eva, with a furtive glance at the young doctor, faltered “Yes.”

Miss Tabby’s eyes beamed with triumphant joy. She beckoned the doctor to her side, exclaiming:

“Good news for you, doctor! She’s yours! Terry Groves warn’t never no kin to Eva!”

Every one cried out in wonder, and Patty fumed in impotent rage, but the spinster went on joyfully:

“After gran’ther’s death, when the twins an’ me went over his papers and the ones o’ their father’s, that they brung with ’em from Kansas, we found out something they never dreamed, nor I don’t think gran’ther ever suspected, either, by not reading over the papers in the little black trunk. Well, Terry Groves was John Groves’ adopted son. His mother and father both died of the fever, and the Groveses took the leettle baby to raise for their own. Terry O’Kelly was his real name. He had Irish blood--’twas that made him so quick an’ fiery. Now, Eva!”

She had put the girl’s hand into Doctor Ludington’s. She looked up at him, whispering:

“Is it too late? Do you love Ada?”

“Only you, my darling,” he replied, and with a great sob of joy she flung herself into the arms that closed round her and held her tight.

“Bless you, my children! The wedding shall go on to-night!” cried Mr. Somerville between laughter and tears, touched to the heart by this triumph of true love.

And seeing that all were crowding forward to congratulate the happy pair, he added:

“One moment, my friends, before you begin to rejoice with Eva, for I have a word for Miss Groves!”

Patty met his gaze with sullen fury as he said:

“In the early days of my marriage I took a mortgage on your grandfather’s farm that was never paid, and it stands recorded in the County Court of Harrison County. I intended never to foreclose it, but to leave to you and your sister the inheritance of which, by your persecutions, you defrauded my daughter. But I have changed my mind. I shall send my lawyer to foreclose this mortgage next week, to punish you for your malice as displayed in your last unsuccessful attempt to break my daughter’s heart.”

She cried out in rage that she did not believe him; he was only trying to frighten her; she would engage a lawyer to defend her case.

“It will not do you any good. I have the law on my side!” he returned, and after events proved this to be true.

But looking at Miss Tabby, he added kindly:

“But this poor old woman who repented her cruelty, and made atonement at last by securing Eva’s happiness, shall be rewarded by an ample annuity for life!”

Patty could not bear the look of triumph Cousin Tabby turned on her face. She rushed from the house, and returned thenceforth to the poverty and obscurity from which she had temporarily emerged.

Dan Ellis was rewarded according to his service, and had the way paved for him to return in safety to his beloved native State.

Eva’s marriage, that same night, was celebrated with as much éclat as if she had married Reginald Hamilton, and she went forth next day on her wedding journey with her adored and adoring husband, on a bridal tour that was but the beginning of a lifetime of unalloyed happiness.

Her honor was vindicated, justice had triumphed, life was all sunshine.

It was a bitter blow to Reginald Hamilton, but time brought healing on its wings. As Ada continued for some time his stepmother’s guest, his sincere admiration for her beauty and charm merged into the deeper feeling of love, and when Eva returned with her husband, six months later, she had hastened her coming to be a guest at Reggie’s and Ada’s wedding!

THE END.

No. 1079 of the NEW EAGLE SERIES, entitled “No Time for Penitence,” by Wenona Gilman, is a story of true love and constancy, of intrigue and treachery. This is a romance that will appeal to all who enjoy a real love story.

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