Books: Cousin Maude
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Mary J. Holmes >> Cousin Maude
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"Five thousand dollars the 20th of next June, and five thousand more
when that old Janet dies; ten thousand in all. Quite a handsome
property, if Maude could have it at once. I wonder if she's healthy,
this Mrs. Hopkins," soliloquized J.C., until at last a new idea
entered his mind, and striking his fist upon the table he exclaimed,
"Of course she will. Such people always do, and that knocks the will
in head!" and J.C. De Vere frowned wrathfully upon the little
imaginary Hopkinses who were to share the milkman's fortune with
Maude.
Just then a girlish figure was seen beneath the trees in Dr.
Kennedy's yard, and glancing at the white cape bonnet J.C. knew that
it was Maude, the sight of whom drove young Hopkins and the will
effectually from his mind. "He would marry her, anyway," he said,
"five thousand dollars was enough;" and donning his hat he started
at once for the doctor's. Maude had returned to the house, and was
sitting with her brother when the young man was announced. Wholly
unmindful of Louis' presence, he began at once by asking" if she
esteemed him so lightly as to believe that money could make any
difference whatever with him."
"It influences some men," answered Maude, "and though you may like
me--"
"Like you, Maude Remington!" he exclaimed; "like is a feeble word. I
worship you, I love the very air you breathe, and you must be mine.
Will you, Maude?"
J.C. had never before been so much in earnest, for never before had
he met with the least indecision, and he continued pleading his
cause so vehemently that Louis, who was wholly unprepared for so
stormy a wooing, stopped his ears and whispered to his sister, "Tell
him Yes, before he drives me crazy!"
But Maude felt that she must have time for sober, serious
reflection; J.C. was not indifferent to her, and the thought was
very soothing that she who had never aspired to the honor had been
chosen from all others to be his wife. He was handsome, agreeable,
kind-hearted, and, as she believed, sincere in his love for her. And
still there was something lacking. She could not well tell what,
unless, indeed, she would have him more like James De Vere.
"Will you answer me?" J.C. said, after there had been a moment's
silence, and in his deep black eyes there was a truthful, earnest
look wholly unlike the wicked, treacherous expression usually hidden
there.
"Wait a while," answered Maude, coming to his side and laying her
hand upon his shoulder. "Wait a few days, and I most know I shall
tell you Yes. I like you, Mr. De Vere, and if I hesitate it is
because--because--I really don't know what, but something keeps
telling me that our engagement may be broken, and if so, it had
better not be made."
There was another storm of words, and then, as Maude still seemed
firm in her resolution to do nothing hastily, J.C. took his leave.
As the door closed after him, Louis heaved a deep sigh of relief,
and, turning to his sister, said: "I never heard anything like it; I
wonder if James would act like that!"
"Louis," said Maude, but ere Louis could reply she had changed her
mind, and determined not to tell him that James De Vere alone stood
between her and the decision J.C. pleaded for so earnestly. So she
said: "Shall I marry J.C. De Vere?"
"Certainly, if you love him," answered Louis. "He will take you to
Rochester away from this lonesome house. I shall live with you more
than half the time, and--"
Here Louis was interrupted by the sound of wheels. Mrs. Kelsey and
Nellie had returned from the Lake, and bidding her brother say
nothing of what he had heard, Maude went down to meet them. Nellie
was in the worst of humors. "Her head was aching horridly--she had
spent an awful day--and J.C. was wise in staying at home."
"How is he?" she asked, "though of course you have not seen him."
Maude was about to speak when Hannah, delighted with a chance to
disturb Nellie, answered for her. "It's my opinion that headache was
all a sham, for you hadn't been gone an hour, afore he was over here
in the garden with Maude, where he stayed ever so long. Then he came
agen this afternoon, and hasn't but jest gone."
Nellie had not sufficient discernment to read the truth of this
assertion in Maude's crimson cheeks, but Mrs. Kelsey had, and very
sarcastically she said: "Miss Remington, I think, might be better
employed than in trying to supplant her sister."
"I have not tried to supplant her, madam," answered Maude, her look
of embarrassment giving way to one of indignation at the unjust
accusation.
"May I ask, then, if Mr. De Vere has visited you twice to-day, and
if so, what was the object of those visits?" continued Mrs. Kelsey,
who suddenly remembered several little incidents which had
heretofore passed unheeded, and which, now that she recalled them to
mind, proved that J.C. De Vere was interested in Maude.
"Mr. De Vere can answer for himself, and I refer you to him," was
Maude's reply, as she walked away.
Nellie began to cry. "Maude had done something," she knew, "and it
wouldn't be a bit improper for a woman as old as Aunt Kelsey to go
over and see how Mr. De Vere was, particularly as by this means she
might find out why he had been there so long with Maude."
Mrs. Kelsey was favorably impressed with this idea, and after
changing her dusty dress and drinking a cup of tea she started for
the hotel. J.C. was sitting near the window, watching anxiously for
a glimpse of Maude when his visitor was announced. Seating herself
directly opposite him, Mrs. Kelsey inquired after his headache, and
then asked how he had passed the day.
"Oh, in lounging, generally," he answered, while she continued,
"Hannah says you spent the morning there, and also a part of the
afternoon. Was my brother at home?"
"He was not. I went to see Maude," J.C. replied somewhat stiffly,
for he began to see the drift of her remarks.
Mrs. Kelsey hesitated a moment, and then proceeded to say that "J.C.
ought not to pay Miss Remington much attention, as she was very
susceptible and might fancy him in earnest."
"And suppose she does?" said J.C., determining to brave the worst.
"Suppose she does?"
Mrs. Kelsey was very uncomfortable, and coughing a little she
replied, "It is wrong to raise hopes which cannot be realized, for
of course you have never entertained a serious thought of a low
country girl like Maude Remington."
There had been a time when a remark like this from the fashionable
Mrs. Kelsey would have banished any girl from J.C.'s mind, for he
was rather dependent on the opinion of others, but it made no
difference now, and, warming up in Maude's defense, he replied, "I
assure you, madam, I have entertained serious thoughts toward Miss
Remington, and have this day asked her to be my wife."
"Your wife!" almost screamed the high-bred Mrs. Kelsey. "What will
your city friends--What will Nellie say?"
"Confound them all, I don't care what they, say," and J.C. drove his
knife-blade into the pine table, while he gave his reasons for
having chosen Maude in preference to Nellie, or anyone else he had
ever seen. "There's something to her," said he, "and with her for my
wife I shall make a decent man. What would Nellie and I do together-
-when neither of us know anything--about business, I mean," he
added, while Mrs. Kelsey rejoined, "I always intended that you would
live with me, and I had that handsome suite of rooms arranged
expressly for Nellie and her future husband. I have no children, and
my niece will inherit my property."
This, under some circumstances, would have strongly tempted the
young man; nay, it might perchance have tempted him then, had not
the deep tones of the organ at that moment have reached his ear. It
was the night when Maude usually rehearsed for the coming Sabbath,
and soon after her interview with her sister she had gone to the
church where she sought to soothe her ruffled spirits by playing a
most plaintive air. The music was singularly soft and sweet, and the
heart of J.C. De Vere trembled to the sound, for he knew it was
Maude who played--Maude, who out-weighed the tempting bait which
Mrs. Kelsey offered, and with a magnanimity quite astonishing to
himself he answered, "Poverty with Maude, rather than riches with
another!"
"Be it so, then," was Mrs. Kelsey's curt reply, "but when in the
city you blush at your bride's awkwardness don't expect me to lend a
helping hand, for Maude Remington cannot by me be recognized as an
equal," and the proud lady swept from the room, wearing a deeply
injured look, as if she herself had been refused instead of her
niece.
"Let me off easier than I supposed," muttered J.C., as he watched
her cross the street and enter Dr. Kennedy's gate. "It will be
mighty mean, though, if she does array herself against my wife, for
Madam Kelsey is quoted everywhere, and even Mrs. Lane, who lives
just opposite, dare not open her parlor blinds until assured by
ocular demonstration that Mrs. Kelsey's are open too. Oh, fashion,
fashion, what fools you make of your votaries! I am glad that I for
one dare break your chain and marry whom I please," and feeling more
amiably disposed toward J.C. De Vere than he had felt for many a
day, the young man started for the church, where to his great joy he
found Maude alone.
She was not surprised to see him, nay, she was half expecting him,
and the flush which deepened on her cheek as he came to her side
showed that his presence was not unwelcome. Human nature is the same
everywhere, and though Maude was perhaps as free from its weaknesses
as almost anyone, the fact that her lover was so greatly coveted by
others increased rather than diminished her regard for him, and when
he told her what had passed between himself and Mrs. Kelsey, and
urged her to give him a right to defend her against that haughty
woman's attacks by engaging herself to him at once, she was more
willing to tell him Yes than she had been in the morning. Thoughts
of James De Vere did not trouble her now--he had ceased to remember
her ere this--had never been more interested in her than in any
ordinary acquaintance, and so, though she knew she could be happier
with him than with the one who with his arm around her waist was
pleading for her love, she yielded at last, and in that dim old
church, with the summer moonlight stealing up the dusky aisles, she
promised to be the wife of J.C. De Vere on her eighteenth birthday.
Very pleasant now it seemed sitting there alone with him in the
silent church. Very pleasant walking with him down the quiet street,
and when her chamber was reached, and Louis, to whom she told her
story, whispered in her ear, "I am glad that is so," she thought it
very nice to be engaged, and was conscious of a happier, more
independent feeling than she had ever known before. It seemed so
strange that she, an unpretending country girl, had won the heart
that many a city maiden had tried in vain to win, and then with a
pang she thought of Nellie, wondering what excuse she could render
her for having stolen J.C. away.
"But he will stand between us," she said; "he will shield me from
her anger," and grateful for so potent a protector, she fell asleep,
dreaming alas, not of J.C., but of him who called her Cousin Maude,
and whose cousin she really was to be.
J.C. De Vere, too, had dreams of a dark-eyed girl, who, in the
shadowy church, with the music she had made still vibrating on the
ear, had promised to be his. Dreams, too, he had of a giddy throng
who scoffed at the dark-eyed girl, calling her by the name which he
himself had given her. It was not meet, they said, that he should
wed the "Milkman's Heiress," but with a nobleness of soul unusual in
him, he paid no heed to their remarks, and folded the closer to his
heart the bride which he had chosen.
Alas! that dreams so often prove untrue.
CHAPTER X.
THE ENGAGEMENT, REAL AND PROSPECTIVE.
To her niece Mrs. Kelsey had communicated the result of her
interview with J.C., and that young lady had fallen into a violent
passion, which merged itself at last into a flood of tears, and
ended finally in strong hysterics. While in this latter condition
Mrs. Kelsey deemed it necessary to summon her brother, to whom she
narrated the circumstances of Nellie's illness. To say that the
doctor was angry would but feebly express the nature of his
feelings. He had fully expected that Nellie would be taken off his
hands, and he had latterly a very good reason for wishing that it
might be so.
Grown-up daughters, he knew, were apt to look askance at
stepmothers, and if he should wish to bring another there he would
rather that Nellie should be out of the way. So he railed at the
innocent Maude, and after exhausting all the maxims which would at
all apply to that occasion, he suggested sending for Mr. De Vere and
demanding an explanation. But this Mrs. Kelsey would not suffer.
"It will do no good," she said, "and may make the matter worse by
hastening the marriage. I shall return home to-morrow, and if you do
not object shall take your daughter with me, to stay at least six
months, as she needs a change of scene. I can, if necessary,
intimate to my friends that she has refused J.C., who, in a fit of
pique, has offered himself to Maude, and that will save Nellie from
all embarrassment. He will soon tire of his new choice, and then--"
"I won't have him if he does," gasped Nellie, interrupting her aunt-
-"I won't have anybody who has first proposed to Maude. I wish she'd
never come here, and if pa hadn't brought that woman--"
"Helen!" and the doctor's voice was very stern, for time had not
erased from his heart all love for the blue-eyed Matty, the gentle
mother of the offending Maude, and more than all, the mother of his
boy--"Helen, that woman was my wife, and you must not speak
disrespectfully of her."
Nellie answered by a fresh burst of tears, for her own conscience
smote her for having spoken thus lightly of one who had ever been
kind to her.
After a moment Mrs. Kelsey resumed the conversation by suggesting
that, as the matter could not now be helped, they had better say
nothing, but go off on the morrow as quietly as possible, leaving
J.C. to awake from his hallucination, which she was sure he would do
soon, and follow them to the city. This arrangement seemed wholly
satisfactory to all parties, and though Nellie declared she'd never
again speak to Jed De Vere, she dried her tears, and retiring to
rest, slept quite as soundly as she had ever done in her life.
The next morning when Maude as usual went down to superintend the
breakfast, she was surprised to hear from Hannah that Mrs. Kelsey
was going that day to Rochester, and that Nellie was to accompany
her.
"Nobody can 'cuse me," said Hannah, "of not 'fillin' Scriptur'
oncet, whar it says `them as has ears to hear, let 'em hear,' for I
did hear 'em a-talkin' last night of you and Mr. De Vere, and I tell
you they're ravin' mad to think you'd cotched him; but I'm glad
on't. You desarves him, if anybody. I suppose that t'other chap aint
none of your marryin' sort," and unconscious of the twinge her last
words had inflicted Hannah carried the coffee-urn to the dining
room, followed by Maude, who was greeted with dark faces and
frowning looks.
Scarcely a word was spoken during breakfast, and when after it was
over Maude offered to assist Nellie in packing her trunks, the
latter answered decisively, "You've done enough, I think."
A few moments afterward J.C.'s voice was heard upon the stairs. He
had come over to see the "lioness and her cub," as he styled Mrs.
Kelsey and her niece, whose coolness was amply atoned for by the
bright, joyous glance of Maude, to whom he whispered softly, "Won't
we have glorious times when they are gone!"
Their projected departure pleased him greatly, and he was so very
polite and attentive that Nellie relented a little, and asked how
long he intended remaining at Laurel Hill, while even Mrs. Kelsey
gave him her hand at parting, and said, "Whenever you recover from
your unaccountable fancy I shall be glad to see you."
"You'll wait some time, if you wait for that," muttered J.C., as he
returned to the house in quest of Maude, with whom he had a long and
most delightful interview, for old Hannah, in unusually, good
spirits, expressed her willingness to see to everything, saying to
her young mistress, "You go along now and court a spell. I reckon I
haint done forgot how I and Crockett sot on the fence in old
Virginny and heard the bobolinks a-singin'."
Old Hannah was waxing sentimental, and with a heightened bloom upon
her cheeks Maude left her to her memories of Crockett and the
bobolinks, while she went back to her lover. J.C. was well skilled
in the little, delicate acts which tend to win and keep a woman's
heart, and in listening to his protestations of love Maude forgot
all else, and abandoned herself to the belief that she was perfectly
happy. Only once did her pulses quicken as they would not have done
had her chosen husband been all that she could wish, and that was
when he said to her, "I wrote to James last night, telling him of my
engagement. He will congratulate me, I know, for he was greatly
pleased with you."
Much did Maude wonder what James would say, and it was not long ere
her curiosity was gratified; for scarcely four days were passed when
J.C. brought to her an unsealed note, directed to "Cousin Maude."
"I have heard from Jim," he said, "and he is the best fellow in the
world. Hear what he says of you," and from his own letter he read,
"I do congratulate you upon your choice. Maude Remington is a noble
creature--so beautiful, so refined, and withal so pure and good.
Cherish her, my cousin, as she ought to be cherished, and bring her
some time to my home, which will never boast so fair a mistress."
"I'm so glad he's pleased," said J.C. "I would rather have his
approval than that of the whole world. But what! Crying, I do
believe!" and turning Maude's face to the light he continued, "Yes,
there are tears on your eyelashes. What is the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing," answered Maude, "only I am so glad your
relatives like me."
J.C. was easily deceived, so was Maude--and mutually believing that
nothing was the matter, J.C. drummed on the piano, while Maude tore
open the note which James had written to her. It seemed so strange
to think he wrote it, and Maude trembled violently, while the little
red spots came out all over her neck and face as she glanced at the
words, "My dear Cousin Maude."
It was a kind, affectionate note, and told how the writer would
welcome and love her as his cousin, while at the same time it chided
her for not having answered the letter sent some weeks before.
"Perhaps you did not deem it worthy of an answer," he wrote, "but I
was sadly disappointed in receiving none, and now that you are
really to be my cousin I shall expect you to do better, and treat me
as if I had an existence. J.C. must not monopolize you wholly, for I
shall claim a share of you for myself."
Poor, poor Maude! She did not feel the summer air upon her brow--did
not hear the discordant notes which J.C. made upon the piano, for
her whole soul was centered on the words, "sadly disappointed,"
"love you as my cousin," and "claim a share of you for myself."
Only for a moment, though, and then recovering her composure she
said aloud, "What does he mean? I never received a note."
"I know it, I know it," hastily spoke J.C., and coming to her side
he handed her the soiled missive, saying, "It came a long time ago,
and was mislaid among my papers, until this letter recalled it to my
mind. There is nothing in it of any consequence, I dare say, and had
it not been sealed I might, perhaps, have read it, for as the doctor
says, `It's a maxim of mine that a wife should have no secrets from
her husband,' hey, Maude?" and he caressed her burning cheek, as she
read the note which, had it been earlier received, might have
changed her whole after life.
And still it was not one-half as affectionate in its tone as was the
last, for it began with, "Cousin Maude" and ended with "Yours
respectfully," but she knew he had been true to his promise, and
without a suspicion that J.C. had deceived her she placed the
letters in her pocket, to be read again when she was alone, and
could measure every word and sentiment.
That afternoon when she went to her chamber to make some changes in
her dress she found herself standing before the mirror much longer
than usual, examining minutely the face which James De Vere had
called beautiful.
"He thought so, or he would not have said it; but it is false," she
whispered; "even J.C. never called me handsome;" and taking out the
note that day received, she read it again, wondering why the name
"Cousin Maude" did not sound as pleasantly as when she first heard
it.
That night as she sat with Louis in her room she showed the letters
to him, at the same time explaining the reason why one of them was
not received before.
"Oh, I am so glad," said Louis, as he finished reading them, "for
now I know that James De Vere don't like you."
"Don't like me, Louis!" and in Maude's voice there was a world of
sadness.
"I mean," returned Louis, "that he don't love you for anything but a
cousin. I like J.C. very, very much, and I am glad you are to be his
wife; but I've sometimes thought that if you had waited the other
one would have spoken, for I was almost sure he loved you, but he
don't, I know; he couldn't be so pleased with your engagement, nor
write you so affectionately if he really cared."
Maude hardly knew whether she were pleased or not with Louis'
reasoning. It was true, though, she said, and inasmuch as James did
not care for her, and she did not care for James, she was very glad
she was engaged to J.C.! And with reassured confidence in herself
she sat down and wrote an answer to that note, a frank, impulsive,
Maude-like answer, which, nevertheless, would convey to James De
Vere no idea how large a share of that young girl's thoughts were
given to himself.
The next day there came to Maude a letter bearing the Canada
postmark, together with the unmistakable handwriting of Janet
Hopkins. Maude had not heard of her for some time, and very eagerly
she read the letter, laughing immoderately, and giving vent to
sudden exclamations of astonishment at its surprising intelligence.
Janet was a mother!--"a livin' mother to a child born out of due
season," so the delighted creature wrote, "and what was better than
all, it was a girl, and the Sunday before was baptized as Maude
Matilda Remington Blodgett Hopkins, there being no reason," she
said, "why she shouldn't give her child as many names as the Queen
of England hitched on to hers, beside that it was not at all likely
that she would ever have another, and so she had improved this
opportunity, and named her daughter in honor of Maude, Matty, Harry,
and her first husband Joel. But," she wrote, "I don't know what
you'll say when I tell you that my old man and some others have made
me believe that seein' I've an heir of my own flesh and blood, I
ought to change that will of mine, so I've made another, and if
Maude Matilda dies you'll have it yet. T'other five thousand is
yours, anyway, and if I didn't love the little wudget as I do, I
wouldn't have changed my will; but natur' is natur'."
Scarcely had Maude finished reading this letter when J.C. came in,
and she handed it to him. He did not seem surprised, for he had
always regarded the will as a doubtful matter; but in reality he was
a little chagrined, for five thousand was only half as much as ten.
Still his love for Maude was, as yet, stronger than his love for
money, and he only laughed heartily at the string of names which
Janet had given to her offspring, saying, "It was a pity it hadn't
been a boy, so she could have called him Jedediah Cleishbotham."
"He does not care for my money," Maude thought, and her heart went
out toward him more lovingly than it had ever done before, and her
dark eyes filled with tears when he told her, as he ere long did,
that he must leave the next day, and return to Rochester.
"The little property left me by my mother needs attention, so my
agent writes me," he said, "and now the will has gone up, and we are
poorer than we were before by five thousand dollars, it is necessary
that I should bestir myself, you know." Maude could not tell why it
was that his words affected her unpleasantly, for she knew he was
not rich, and she felt that she should respect him more if he really
did bestir himself, but still she did not like his manner when
speaking of the will, and her heart was heavy all the day. He, on
the contrary, was in unusually good spirits. He was not tired of
Maude, but he was tired of the monotonous life at Laurel Hill, and
when his agent's summons came it found him ready to go. That for
which he had visited Laurel Hill had in reality been accomplished.
He had secured a wife, not Nellie, but Maude, and determining to do
everything honorable, he on the morning of his departure went to the
doctor, to whom he talked of Maude, expressing his wish to marry
her. Very coldly the doctor answered that "Maude could marry whom
she pleased. It was a maxim of his never to interfere with matches,"
and then, as if the subject were suggestive, he questioned the young
man to know if in his travels he had ever met the lady Maude
Glendower. J.C. had met her frequently at Saratoga.
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