“I depended upon her to vouch for my respectability. She knows me so well,” she said, explaining that Beatrice had been for some time an inmate of her mother’s house in Holburton, and that she had liked her so much, and then, more bewildered than ever, Mrs. Markham went over half-way to the enemy, and longed for the mystery to be explained.
The next day, which was Saturday, it rained with a steady pour, and Josephine kept her room, after having expressed a wish to see Miss Hastings, if possible; but when this request was made known to Rossie by Mrs. Markham, she exclaimed:
“No, no,—not her; not Joe Fleming! I could not bear it till Mr. Everard comes.”
She was thinking of her hair and the letter, and the persistence with which Joe Fleming had demanded money from Everard, and it made no difference with her that Mrs. Markham represented the woman as pretty, and lady-like, and sweet. She could not see her, and a message to the effect that she was too weak and sick to talk with strangers was taken to Josephine, who hoped Miss Hastings was not going to be seriously ill, and offered the services of her sister, who had the faculty of quieting the most nervous persons and putting them to sleep. But Rossie declined Agnes too, and lay with her face to the wall, scarcely moving, and never speaking unless she was spoken to. And Josephine lounged in her own room, and had her lunch brought up by Axie, to whom she tried to be gracious. But Axie was not easily won. She did not believe in Mrs. J. E. Forrest, and looked upon her presence there as an affront to herself and an insult to Rossie, and when about two o’clock the Rothsay Star was brought into the house by her husband, John, who was in a state of great excitement over the marriage notice, which had been pointed out to him, she wrung from Lois the fact that she had carried a note to the editor, and had been paid a quarter for it by the lady up stairs. She put the paper away where it could not be found if Rossie chanced to ask for it.
But she could not keep it from the world as represented by Rothsay, for it was already the theme of every tongue. The editor had read the note which Josephine sent him before Lois left the office, and had questioned her as to who sent her with it. Lois had answered him:
“De young lady what comed from de train wid four big trunks and bandbox.”
“And where is she now?” he asked, and Lois replied: “Up sta’rs in Mas’r Everard’s room.”
This last was proof conclusive of the validity of the marriage, which the editor naturally concluded was a hasty affair of Everard’s college days, when he had the reputation of being rather wild and fast, and so he published the notice and in another column called attention to it, as the last great excitement.
Of course there was much wondering, and surmising, and guessing, and in spite of the rain the ladies who lived near each other got together and talked it up, and believed or discredited it according to their several natures. Mrs. Dr. Rider, a chubby, good-natured, inquisitive woman, declared her intention of knowing the facts before she slept. Her husband attended Rosamond, and she had a sirup which was just the medicine for a sore throat and influenza, such as Rossie was suffering from, and she would take it to her, and perhaps learn the truth of the story of Everard’s marriage.
Accordingly, about four o’clock that afternoon, Mrs. Dr. Rider’s little covered phaeton turned into the Forrest avenue, and was seen from the window by Josephine, who, tired and ennuyeed, was looking out into the rain.