Fifteen minutes later and Mrs. Walter Scott came in, habited in white, with puffs and tucks and rich embroidery wherever there was a place for it, and on her head a jaunty little morning cap of the softest Valenciennes, with a bit of lavender ribbon to relieve it. She was not all smiles and tenderness now, and there was about her a studied politeness wholly different from her old caressing manner toward Magdalen.
“Sarah tells me you are better this morning, and you do look greatly improved,” she said, standing back a little from the bed and feigning not to see the hand which Magdalen held toward her.
Magdalen felt the change in a moment and understood the cause. Mrs. Irving was now the undisputed mistress of Millbank, and she the poor dependant, left there on the lady’s hands, a burden and a drag whom nobody wanted. That was the way Magdalen put it, and her tears fell like rain as she replied, “Yes, I am better, but I,—I—don’t understand it at all, or why I should be left here alone; why didn’t they take me with them?”
“I suppose because you were too sick to be moved, though I knew but little about their movements. Mrs. Floyd was so very rude and ill-bred that I kept out of her way as much as possible, and as Roger avoided me, I saw but little of them. It is not worth while to distress yourself unnecessarily,” the cruel woman went on as she saw how Magdalen cried. “We have taken every possible care of you and shall continue to do so until you are well, when, if you, wish to join your friends in Schodick, we will provide the means for you to do so.”
Nothing could be cooler than her tone and manner and words, and but for her face, which there was no mistaking, Magdalen would have doubted her identity with the oily-tongued woman who used to caress and pet her so much, and to whom at one time she had paid a kind of child-worship. But it was the same woman, and she stood a moment longer, looking coldly at Magdalen, and picking a dried leaf or two from the vase of flowers on the stand; then consulting her watch she said, “You must excuse me now, as I have an engagement at ten. Sarah will see that you have everything you want. You will find her an excellent nurse. I chose her myself from a dozen applicants for the place. I’ll see you again by and by. I wish you good-morning.”
For a few moments Magdalen lay like one stunned; then, as she began to reason upon the matter and to understand it more clearly, her pride came to her aid; and when at last Sarah went back to her, she found her with flushed cheeks and a resolute, determined look in her eyes, which flashed and sparkled with much of their former fire.
Frank did not return till the next night. There was a horserace in Springfield and he had Firefly there and put him on the course and won a bet and made for himself quite a reputation as a horse-jockey; and he paid Holt’s bills at the Massasoit House, and sent bottles of champagne to sundry other “good fellows” who had praised his skill in driving and praised his horse and flattered him generally. Then he promised to look at another horse which somebody recommended as unsurpassed in the saddle, and took several shares in a new speculation which was sure to go if “the rich Mr. Irving patronized it,” and which if it went was sure to pay double. Judge Burleigh, of Boston, who was stopping at the Massasoit, had sought him out and introduced his daughter Bell, a handsome, haughty girl, who had made fun of his light mustache and boyish face before she knew who he was, and then been very gracious to him after. Bell Burleigh was poor and fashionable and extravagant, and on the lookout for a husband. Frank Irving was rich, and master of the finest residence in the county, and worth cultivating, and so she expended upon him every art known to a thorough woman of the world, and walked with him through the halls and sat with him in the parlor in the evening, and went out in the morning to see him drive Firefly round the course, and had her father ask him to their table at dinner time, and flattered and courted him until he began to wonder why other people beside Bell Burleigh had not discovered what an entertaining and agreeable man he was! But through it all he never for a moment wavered in his allegiance to Magdalen. Bell’s influence could not make him do that; but it inflated his pride and made him less able to bear the humiliation to which Magdalen was about to subject him.
After her first interview with Magdalen, Mrs. Walter Scott did not see her again until her son returned, though she sent twice to know how she was feeling and if she would have anything. To these inquiries Magdalen had answered that she was doing very well and did not want anything more than she already had, and this was all that had passed between the two ladies when Frank came home from Springfield. He heard from Sarah of the change in Magdalen; but heard, too, that she could not see him that night, as she had been sitting up some little time and was very tired. The next day it was the same, and the next. She was too weak to talk, and would rather Mr. Irving should wait before she saw him. And so Frank waited and chafed and fretted and lost his temper with his mother, who maintained through all the utmost reserve with regard to Magdalen, feeling intuitively that matters were adjusting themselves to her satisfaction. She guessed what the delay portended, and on the strength of it went once or twice to the sick-room, and was a little more gracious than at first. But Magdalen was very reserved toward her now, barely answering her questions, and seeming relieved when she went away.
Frank saw her at last. She was sitting up in her easy chair, and her face was very pale at first, but flushed and grew crimson as Frank bent over her and kissed her forehead and called her his darling, and told her how glad he was to find her better, and how miserable he had been during the last few days because he could not see her.
“It was naughty in you to banish me so long. Don’t you think so, darling?” he said playfully, as he stooped again to kiss her.