“I have the honor of presenting to you your son, who, I believe, acknowledges your claim upon him.”
There was a gleam of triumph in Mrs. Fleming’s eyes, but she affected to be astonished and indignant that her daughter should have lent herself to an act which Mr. Forrest was perhaps already sorry for.
“You are mistaken,” Everard said, and his young manhood asserted itself in Josephine’s defense. “Your daughter was not more to blame than myself. We both knew what we were doing, and I am not sorry, except for the trouble in which it would involve me if it were known at once that I was married.”
“It need not be known, except to ourselves,” Mrs. Fleming answered, quickly. “What is done cannot be undone, but we can make the best of it, and I promise that the secret shall be kept as long as you like. Josey will remain with me as she is, and you will return to college and graduate as if last night had never been. Then, when you are in a position to claim your wife you can do so, and acknowledge it to your father.”
She settled it rapidly and easily, and Everard felt his spirits rise thus to have some one think and decide for him. It was not distasteful to know that Josey was his, and he smoothed caressingly the bowed head, still resting on his arm, where Josey had laid it. It would be just like living a romance all the time, and the interviews they might occasionally have would be all the sweeter because of the secrecy. After all, it was a pretty nice lark, and he felt a great deal better, and watched Mrs. Fleming and Agnes as they signed their names to the certificate, and noticed how the latter trembled and how pale she was as, with what seemed to him a look of pity for him, she left the room and went back to her dish-washing in the kitchen.
Everard had spent some weeks in Mrs. Fleming’s family as a boarder, and had visited there occasionally, but he had never noticed or thought particularly of Agnes, except, indeed, as the household drudge, who was always busy from morning till night, washing, ironing, baking, dusting, with her sleeves rolled up and her broad check apron tied around her waist. She had a limp in her left foot, and a weakness in her left arm which gave her a helpless, peculiar appearance; and the impression he had of her, if any, was that she was unfortunate in mind as well as body, fit only to minister to others as she always seemed to be doing. She had never addressed a word to him without being first spoken to, and he was greatly surprised when, after Dr. Matthewson was gone, and Mrs. Fleming and Josephine had for a moment left him alone in the room, she came to him and putting her hand on his, said in a whisper, “Did you really mean it, or was it an accident? a joke? and do you want to get out of it? because, if you do, now is the time. Say you didn’t mean it! Say you won’t stand it, and there surely will be some way out. I can help,—weak as I am. It is a pity, and you so young.”
She was looking fixedly at him, and he saw that her eyes were soft, and dark, and sad in their expression, as if for them there was no brightness or sunshine in all the wide world,—nothing but the never-ending dish-washing in the kitchen, or serving in the parlor. But there was another expression in those sad eyes, a look of truth and honesty, which made him feel intuitively that she was a person to be trusted even to the death, and had he felt any misgivings then, he would have told her so unhesitatingly; but he had none, and he answered her:
“I do not wish to get out of it, Agnes, I am satisfied; only it must be a secret for a long, long time. Remember that, and your promise not to tell.”
“Yes, I’ll remember, and may God help you!” she answered, as she turned away, leaving him to wonder at her manner, which puzzled and troubled him a little. But it surely had nothing to do with Josephine, who came to him just before he left for the train, and said so charmingly and tearfully:
“I am so mortified and ashamed when I remember how eagerly I seemed to respond to Dr. Matthewson’s proposition that we be married in earnest. You must have thought me so forward and bold; but, believe me, I did not mean it, or consider what I was saying; so when you are gone don’t think of me as a brazen-faced creature who asked you to marry her, will you?”