CHAPTER XVII.
LOVE-MAKING AT MILLBANK.
The holidays were over. They had been spent in New York, where, with Mrs. Walter Scott as her chaperone, Magdalen had passed a few weeks, and seen what was meant by fashionable society. But she did not like it, and was glad to return to Millbank.
Roger had spent only a few days with her in New York, but Frank had been her constant attendant, and not a little proud of the beautiful girl who attracted so much attention. While there Magdalen had more than once heard mention made of Alice Grey, who had returned to America and was spending a few weeks in New York, where she would have been a belle but for her poor health, which prevented her from mingling much in fashionable society. Frank had called on her several times, and occasionally she heard him rallied upon his penchant for Miss Grey by some one of his friends, who knew them both. Frank would have denied the charge openly had Magdalen’s manner towards him been different from what it was. She called him her brother, and by always treating him as such, made anything like love-making on his part almost impossible; and so Frank thought to rouse her jealousy by allowing her to believe that there was something serious between himself and Alice Grey. But in this he was mistaken. The charm he had once possessed for Magdalen, when, as a child, she enshrined him her hero and lived upon his smiles, was broken, and though she liked him greatly and showed that she did so, she knew that any stronger feeling towards him was utterly impossible, and was delighted at the prospect of his transferring to another some of the attentions which were becoming distasteful to her, from the fact of their being so very marked and lover-like.
Once she spoke to him herself of Alice, who was stopping at the St. Denis, and asked, “Why do you not bring her to see me or let me go to her?” and Frank had answered her, “Miss Grey is too much of an invalid to make or receive calls from strangers. She asks after you with a great deal of interest, and hopes—”
Frank hesitated a moment, and Magdalen playfully caught him up, saying,—“Hopes to know me well through you. Is that it, and is what I have heard about you true? I am so glad, for I know I shall like her, though I used to be jealous of her years ago when you talked so much of her.”
Magdalen was very sincere in what she said, but foolish Frank, who set a far greater value upon himself than others set upon him, and who could not understand how any girl could be indifferent to him, was conceited enough to fancy that he detected something like pique in Magdalen’s manner, and that she was not as much delighted with Alice Grey as she would like him to think. This suited him, and so he made no reply, except, “I am glad you are pleased with her. She is worthy of your love.”
And thus was the conviction strengthened in Magdalen’s mind that she might some day know Alice Grey intimately as the wife of Frank, towards whom she showed at once a greater decree of familiarity than she had done hitherto, making him think his ruse a successful one, which would in due time bear the desired fruit. Meanwhile his mother had her own darling scheme, which she was adroitly managing to carry out. Once she would have spurned the thought of accepting Magdalen as her daughter-in-law, but she had changed her mind after a conversation with Roger, who, wholly deceived by the crafty, fascinating woman, had grown very confidential, and been led on to admit that in case he never married, or even if he did, Magdalen would stand to him in the relation of a child, and share in his property. Indeed, from his conversation it would seem that, feeling impressed with the uncertainty of life, and having no foolish prejudices against making his will, he had already done so, and provided for both Magdalen and Frank.
He did not state what provision he had made for them, and his sister did not ask him. She preferred to find out in some other way, if possible, and not betray the interest she felt in the matter. So she merely thanked him for remembering Frank, for whom he had done so much, and then at once changed the conversation. She did not seem at all curious, and Roger, who liked her now much better than when he was a boy, never dreamed how the next day, while he was in his office and Magdalen was away on some errand for old Hester, the writing-desk, which still stood in the library, was visited by Mrs. Walter Scott, who knew that some of his papers were kept there, and whose curiosity was rewarded by a sight of the desired document. It was not sealed, and with a timid glance at the door she opened it nervously, but dared not stop to read the whole lest some one should surprise her. Rapidly her eye ran over the paper till it caught the name of Magdalen, coupled with one hundred thousand dollars. That was to be her marriage portion, paid on her bridal day, and Mrs. Walter Scott was about to read further when the sound of a footstep warned her that some one was coming. To put the paper back in its place was the work of a moment, and then, with a most innocent look on her face the lady turned to meet old Hester Floyd, whose gray eyes looked sharply at her, and who merely nodded in reply to her words of explanation,—
“I am looking at this silver plate over the doors of the writing-desk. How it is tarnished! One can scarcely make out the squire’s name. I wish you’d set Ruth to polishing it.”