DISAPPEARED.
All the next day Wilford was very busy arranging his affairs, and a casual looker-on would have seen nothing unusual in the face always so grave and cold. But to Tom Tubbs, casting furtive glances over his book and wondering at his employer's sudden activity, it was terrible in its dark, hard, unrelenting expression, while even his mother, upon whom he called that evening, looked at him anxiously, asking what was the matter, but not mentioning the conversation held with her the previous day respecting Katy.
She was still at Yonkers, Wilford said, and his voice was very natural as he added: "I am expected to go out there to-morrow night with Beverley and Lincoln, whose wives are also at Mrs. Mills'; quite a gay party we shall make," and he tried to smile, but it was a sickly effort and made his face look still more ghastly and strange.
"What ails you, Wilford?" his mother asked, but he answered pettishly: "Nothing, so pray don't look at me so curiously as if I was hiding some terrible secret."
He was hiding a secret, and it almost betrayed itself, when at last he said good-by to his mother, who followed him to the door and stood looking after him in the darkness until the sound of his footsteps died away upon the pavement. There was a fire in his room and Wilford sat down to write the brief note he would leave, for when the night shut down again he would not be there. He could not feel that the parting from Katy would be final, because he did not believe she had sinned as he counted sin, but she certainly preferred another to himself; she had deceived him and played the successful hypocrite. This was Wilford's accusation against his wife; this for what she must be punished, until such time as his royal clemency saw fit to forgive and take her back as he meant to. He had no fear of her going to Morris, or to the farmhouse either, for much as she was attached to her family, he believed she would shrink from a return to poverty, choosing rather the luxuries of her city home. And he would put no impediment in the way of her staying there as long as she liked; he would arrange that for her, feeling himself very magnanimous as he thought of giving her permission to invite her mother to New York as a kind of protection against scandalous remarks. Mrs. Lennox and Helen too should come. That certainly was generous, and lest his goodness should abate he seized his pen and wrote:
DEAR KATY: Your own conscience will tell you whether you are worthy of being addressed as 'Dear,' but I have called you thus so often that I cannot bring myself to any other form. Do my words startle you, and will you be sorry when you read this and find that I am gone, that you are free from the husband you do not love, the husband whom perhaps you never loved, though I thought you did? I trusted you once, and now I do not blame you as much as I ought, for you are young. You are easily influenced. You are very susceptible to flattery, as was proven by your career at Saratoga and Newport. I had no suspicion of you then, but now that I know you better, I see that it was not all childish simplicity which made you smile so graciously upon those who sought your favor. You are a coquette, Katy, and the greater one because of that semblance of artlessness which is the perfection of art. This, however, I might forgive, were it not for one flagrant act, which, if it is not a proof of faithlessness, certainly borders upon it. You know to what I refer, or if you do not, ask your smooth-tongued saint, your companion in the New Haven train; he will enlighten you; he will not wonder at my going, and perhaps he will offer you comfort, both religious and otherwise; but if you ever wish me to return, avoid him as you would shun a deadly poison. Until I countermand the order I wish you to remain here in this house, which I bought for you. Helen and your mother both may live with you, while father will have a general oversight of your affairs; I shall send him a line to that effect. And now, good-by. I am very calm as I write this, because I know you have deceived me. Not as I did you with regard to Genevra, but in a deeper sense, which touches a tenderer point and makes me willing to brave the talk my sudden departure will create. No one knows I am going, no one will know until you have waited and looked in vain for me with the gay young men who to-morrow night-will join their wives as I hoped yesterday morning to join mine. But that is over now. I cannot come to you. I am going away, where—it matters not to you. So farewell.
Your deceived and disappointed husband.
Had Wilford read this letter over, he might not have left it, but he did not read it, and in recalling its contents he gave himself great credit for his forbearance when speaking of Morris, whom he hated so cordially. Sealing the letter, and laying it in Katy's drawer just above where she had left his, he tried to sleep; but the morning found him haggard and tired, and Esther, as she poured his coffee, asked if he was sick.
"No," he answered, and then as he pushed back his chair, he said: "I shall not be home again to-day, as Mrs. Cameron expects me to spend Sunday at Yonkers."
And so all that day and the next, the doors were locked, the shutters closed, the curtains dropped, while an ominous silence reigned throughout the house; but when Monday came, and was halfway gone there were inquiries made for Mr. Cameron by young Beverley and Lincoln, whose faces looked anxious and disturbed at Esther's answer:
"He went to Yonkers, Saturday. I have not seen him since."
Out at Yonkers on Saturday night, three young wives had waited for their husbands, and none more eagerly than Katy, who, fair as a lily, in her dark dress, with her soft hair curling about her face, sat by the window watching for the carriage from the station, hers the first ear to catch the sound of wheels, and here the first form upon the piazza.
"Where's Wilford?" she asked, as only two alighted, and neither of them her husband.
But no one could answer that question. The gentlemen had looked for him at Chambers Street, expecting him every moment to join them. Perhaps he was detained, he might come yet at twelve, they said, trying to comfort Katy, who, with a sad foreboding, went back into the parlor, and tried to join in the laugh and jest which seemed almost like mockery. Something had happened to Wilford she was sure when the night train did not bring him; and all the next day, while the Sunday bells pealed their music in her ears, and the sounds of thoughtless mirth came up from the room below, where the elaborate dinner was in progress, she lay upon her pillow, her head almost bursting with pain, and her heart aching so sadly as she tried to pray that no harm had befallen her husband. She never dreamed of his desertion, even when about noon of the next day a telegram came from Father Cameron, bidding her hasten to the city. Wilford was sick or dead, probably the latter, was the feeling uppermost in her mind, as she was borne rapidly to New York, where Mr. Cameron met her, his face confirming her fears, but not preparing her for the great shock awaiting her.
"Wilford is not dead," he said, when at last she was in the carriage. "It is worse than that, I fear. We have traced him to the Philadelphia train, which he took on Saturday. His manner all that day and the previous one was very strange, while from some words he dropped my wife is led to suppose there was trouble between you two. Was there?" and Father Cameron's gray eyes rested earnestly on the white, frightened face which looked up so quickly as Katy gasped:
"No, oh, no; he never was kinder to me than when we parted last Friday morning at Mrs. Mills'. There is some mistake. He would not leave me, though he has not been quite the same since—"
Katy was interrupted by the carriage stopping before her home; but when they had been admitted to the parlor where a fire was lighted, Father Cameron said:
"Go on now. Wilford has not been the same since when?"
Thus importuned Katy continued:
"Since baby died. I think he blamed me as the cause of its death."
"Don't babies die every day?" Father Cameron growled, kicking at the hearth rug, while Katy, without considering that he had never heard of Genevra, continued:
"And then it was worse after I found out about Genevra, his first wife."
"Genevra! Genevra, Wilford's first wife! Thunder and lightning! what are you talking about?" and Father Cameron bent down to look in Katy's face, thinking she was going mad.
But Katy was not mad, and knowing it was now too late to retract, she told the story of Genevra Lambert to the old man, who, utterly confounded, stalked up and down the room, kicking away chairs and footstools, and whatever came in his way, and swearing promiscuously at his wife and Wilford, whom he pronounced a precious pair of fools, with a dreadful adjective appended to the fools, and an emphasis in his voice which showed he meant what he said.
"It's all accounted for now," he said, "the piles of money that boy had abroad, his privacy with his mother, and all the other tomfoolery I could not understand. Katy," and pausing in his walk, Mr. Cameron came close to his daughter-in-law, who was lying with her face upon the sofa. "Katy, be glad your baby died. Had it lived it might have proved a curse just as mine have done—not all, for Bell, though fiery as a pepper-pod, has some heart, some sense—and there was Jack, my oldest boy, a little fast, it's true; but when he died over the sea, I forgave all that, forgetting the chair he broke over a tutor's head, and the scrapes for which I paid as high as a thousand at one time. He sowed his wild oats, and died before he could reap them, died a good man, I believe, and went to heaven. Juno you know, and you can judge whether she is such as would delight a parent's heart; while Wilford, my only boy, to deceive me so; though I knew he was a fool in some things, I did trust Wilford."
The old man's voice shook now, and Katy felt his tears dropping on her hair as he stooped down over her. Checking them, however, he said:
"And he was cross because you found him out. Was there no other reason?"
Katy thought of Dr. Morris, but she could not tell of that, and so she answered:
"There was—but please don't ask me now. I can't tell, only I was not to blame. Believe me, father, I was not to blame."
"I'll swear to that," was the reply, as Father Cameron commenced his walking again. "He may have left some word, some line," he said. "Suppose you look. It would probably be upstairs."
Katy had not thought of this, but it seemed reasonable that it should be so, and going to her room, followed by Father Cameron, she went, as by some instinct, to the very drawer where the letter lay.
There was perfect silence while she read it through, Mr. Cameron never taking his eyes from the face which turned first white, then red, then spotted, and finally took a leaden hue as Katy ran over the lines, comprehending the truth as she read, and when the letter was finished, lifting her dry, tearless eyes to Father Cameron, and whispering to herself:
"Deserted!"
She let him read the letter, and when he had finished explained the parts he did not understand, telling him now what Morris had confessed, telling him too that in her first sorrow, when life and sense seemed reeling, she had gone to Dr. Grant, who had brought her back, as a brother might have done, and this was the result.
"Why did you say you went to him—that is, what was the special reason?" Mr. Cameron asked, and after a moment's hesitancy, Katy told him her belief that Genevra was living—that it was she who made the bridal trousseau for Wilford's second wife, who nursed his child until it died, giving to it her own name, arraying it for the grave, and then leaving, as she always did, before the father came.
"I never told Wilford," Katy said. "I felt as if I would rather he should not know it yet. Perhaps I was wrong, but if so, I have been terribly punished."
Mr. Cameron could not look upon the woman who stood before him, so helpless and stricken in her desolation, and believe her wrong in anything. The guilt lay in another direction, and when as the terrible reality that she was indeed a deserted wife came rushing over Katy, she tottered toward him for help, he stretched his arms out for her, and taking the sinking figure in them, laid it upon the sofa as gently, as kindly as Wilford had ever touched it in his most loving days.
Katy did not faint nor weep. She was past all that, but her face was like a piece of marble, and her eyes were like those of the hunted fawn when the chase is at its height and escape impossible.
"Wilford would come back if he knew just how it was," the father said, "but the trouble is where to find him. He speaks of writing to me, as I presume he will in a day or so, and perhaps it will be as well to wait till then. What the plague—who is ringing that bell enough to break the wire?" he added, as a sharp, rapid ring echoed through the house and was answered by Esther. "It's my wife," he continued, as he caught the sound of her voice asking if Mrs. Cameron had returned. "You stay here while I meet her first alone. I'll give it to her for cheating me so long and raising thunder generally!"
Katy tried to protest, but he was halfway down the stairs, and in a moment more was with his wife, who had come around armed and equipped to censure Katy as the cause of Wilford's disappearance, and to demand of her where she was the night she pretended to spend at No. —— Fifth Avenue. But the lady who came in so haughty and indignant was a very different personage from the lady who, after listening for fifteen minutes to a fearful storm of oaths and reproaches, mingled with startling truths and bitter denunciations against herself and her boy, sank into a chair, pale and trembling, and overwhelmed with the harvest she was reaping.
But her husband was not through with her yet. He had reserved the bitterest drop for the last, and coming close to her he said:
"And who think you the woman is—this Genevra, Wilford's and your divorced wife? You were too proud to acknowledge an apothecary's daughter! See if you like better a dressmaker, a nurse to Katy's baby, Marian Hazelton!"
He whispered the last name, and with a shriek the lady fainted. Mr. Cameron would not summon a servant, and as there was no water in the room, he walked to the window, and lifting the sash scraped from the sill a handful of the light spring snow which had been falling since noon. With this he brought his wife back to consciousness, and then marked out her future course.
"I know what is in your mind," he said. "You would like to have all the blame rest on Katy; but, madam, hear me—just so sure as through your means one breath of suspicion falls on her. I'll _bla at_ out the whole story of Genevra. Then see who is censured. On the other hand, if you hold your tongue, and make Juno hold hers, and stick to Katy through thick and thin, acting as if you would like to swallow her whole, I'll say nothing of this Genevra. Is it a bargain?"
"Yes," came faintly from the sofa cushions, where Mrs. Cameron had buried her face, sobbing in a confused, frightened way, and after a moment finding voice to say: "What will you do with Phillips and Esther? He must have questioned them."
"The deuce he did! I'll see to that I'll throttle them if they venture to speak!" and summoning both the females to his presence, Mr. Cameron demanded if either had reported what Wilford had said to them.
Except to each other they had not, though Phillips confessed to a great desire to do so when a cousin was in the previous night.
"Hang the cousin, and you, too, if you do!" Mr. Cameron replied, and giving them some very strong advice, couched in very strong language, he dismissed the servants to the kitchen, satisfied that so far Katy was safe. "But who is the villain who first informed? If I had him by the neck!" the enraged man continued, just as there came a second ring—a timid, hesitating ring, as if the new arrival were half afraid to present himself and his errand.
"Speak of angels and you hear the rustle of their wings," is a proverb as true and much pleasanter of thought than its opposite, and whether Tom Tubbs were an angel or not, it was he who stood twirling his cap in the hall, asking for Mrs. Cameron.
"She can't see you, but I'll take the message. Is it about my son?" Father Cameron said, striding up to the boy, who began to wish himself away.
Ever since inquiries had been made at the office for Wilford's whereabouts, Tom had been uneasy, for he could not forget the savage look in Wilford's face when he first told him of Katy and Dr. Grant; and when he heard that instead of going to Yonkers Wilford had taken the cars for Philadelphia, he was certain something was wrong, and longed to confess to Katy what he knew of the matter. He had no idea of meddling, but came with the kindest intentions, thinking he should feel better when the load was off his mind. He was then poorly prepared for his fierce reception from Mr. Cameron, who asked so energetically what he had to say.
"It wasn't much," Tom began. "I only wanted to tell her maybe I was to blame for repeating what I saw."
"What did you see?" and Mr. Cameron laid his hand on Tom's coat collar as if to shake the information out of him.
But there was no need of this, for the frightened youth told quickly what he had come to tell, seeming so sorry and appearing so hurt withal that the elder Cameron grew very gracious, and dismissed him with the conviction that Katy had nothing to fear from Tom Tubbs. Mrs. Cameron was with her now, giving her kisses and words of sympathy, telling her Wilford would come back, and adding that in any event no one could or should blame her.
"I have heard the whole from husband; it was a misunderstanding, that is all. Wilford was wrong to deceive you about Genevra. I was wrong to let him; but we will have no more concealments. You think she is living still—that she is Marian Hazelton?" and Mrs. Cameron smoothed Katy's hair as she talked, trying to be motherly and kind, while her heart beat more painfully at thoughts of a Genevra living than it ever had on thoughts of a Genevra dead.
She did not doubt the story, although it seemed so strange, and it made her faint as she wondered if the world would ever know and what it would say if it did. That her husband would tell if she failed in a single point she was sure, but she should not fail; she would swear Katy was innocent of everything, if necessary, while Juno and Bell should swear too. Of course they must know and she should tell them that very night, she said to herself, and hence it was that in the gossip which followed Wilford's disappearance not a word was breathed against Katy, whose cause the family espoused so warmly. Bell and the father because they really loved and pitied her, and Mrs. Cameron and Juno because it saved them from the disgrace which would have fallen on Wilford had the fashionable world known then of Genevra.
The sudden disappearance of a man like Wilford Cameron could not fail even in New York to cause some excitement, especially in his own immediate circle of acquaintances, and for several days the matter was discussed in all its phases, and every possible opinion and conjecture offered as to the cause of his strange conduct. Insanity! how many sins it is made to cover, and how often is it pleaded for an excuse when no other can be found. This is especially true in the higher walks of life, and so in Wilford's case it was put forward, cautiously at first by Mrs. Cameron herself, who wondered at the avidity with which the suggestion was seized and handed from one to another, some remembering little things which tended to confirm the belief, others slyly shrugging their shoulders as they responded: "Very probable," but all tacitly allowing the understanding to prevail that insanity had made Wilford Cameron a voluntary wanderer from home. They could not believe in domestic troubles when they saw how his family clung to and defended Katy from the least approach of censure, Juno taking up her abode with her "afflicted sister" until such time as Wilford could be heard from or more definite arrangements be made; Mrs. Cameron driving around each day to see her; Bell always speaking of her with genuine affection, while the father clung to her like a hero, the quartet forming a barrier across which the shafts of scandal could not reach.