The Cameron pride; or, purified by suffering

by Mary Jane Holmes

Katy was very white, and her voice trembled as she replied,

“You have been kind to me here, and it is very pleasant; but I guess—I think—I’m sure—I should like the housekeeping best. I am not so young either. Nineteen in July, and when I go home next month I can learn so much of Aunt Betsy and Aunt Hannah.”

Mother looked at Wilford then; but he was looking into the fire with an expression anything but favorable to that visit home, fixed now for April instead of May. But Katy has no discernment, and believes she is actually going to learn how to make apple dumplings and pumpkin pies. In spite of mother the house is bought, and now she is gone all day deciding how it shall be furnished, always leaving Katy out of the question, as if she were a cipher, and only consulting Wilford’s choice. They will be happier alone, I know. Mrs. Gen. Reynolds says that it is the way for young people to live; that her son’s wife shall never come home to her, for of course their habits could not be alike; and then she looked queerly at me, as if she knew I was thinking of Lieutenant Bob and who his wife might be.

Sybil Grandon is coming in April or May, and Mrs. Reynolds wonders will she flirt as she used to do. Just as if Bob would care for a widow! There is more danger from Will, who thinks Mrs. Grandon a perfect paragon, and who is very anxious that Katy may appear well before her, saying nothing and doing nothing which shall in any way approximate to Silverton and the shoes which Katy told Esther she used to bind when a girl. Will need not be disturbed, for Sybil Grandon was never half as pretty as Katy, or half as much admired. Neither need Mrs. Gen. Reynolds fret about Bob, as if he would care for her. Sybil Grandon indeed!

CHAPTER XVI.
KATY.

Much which Bell had written of Katy was true. She had been in New York nearly four months, drinking deep draughts from the cup of folly and fashion held so constantly to her lips; but she cloyed of it at last, and what at first had been so eagerly grasped, began, from daily repetition, to grow insipid and dull. To be the belle of every place, to know that her dress, her style, and even the fashion of her hair was copied and admired, was gratifying to her, because she knew it pleased her husband, who was never happier or prouder than when, with Katy on his arm, he entered some crowded parlor and heard the buzz of admiration as it circled round, while Katy smiled and blushed like a little child, wondering at the attentions lavished upon her, and attributing them mostly to her husband, whose position she understood, marveling more and more that he should have chosen her to be his wife. That he had so honored her made her love him with a strange kind of grateful, clinging love, which as yet would acknowledge no fault in him, no wrong, no error; and if ever a shadow did cloud her heart she was the one to blame, not Wilford; he was right—he had idol she worshiped—he the one for whose sake she tried to drop her country ways and conform to the rules his mother and sister taught, submitting with the utmost good nature to what Bell called the drill, but never losing that natural, playful, airy manner which so charmed the city people and made her the reigning belle. As Marian Hazelton had predicted, others than her husband had spoken words of praise in Katy’s ear; but such was her nature that the shafts of flattery glanced aside, leaving her unharmed, so that her husband, though sometimes disquieted, had no cause for jealousy, enjoying Katy’s success far more than she did herself, urging her out when she would rather have stayed at home, and evincing so much annoyance if she ventured to remonstrate, that she gave it up at last and floated on with the tide.

Mrs. Cameron had at first been greatly shocked at Katy’s want of propriety, looking on aghast when she wound her arms around Wilford’s neck, or sat upon his knee; but to the elder Cameron the sight was a pleasant one, bringing back sunny memories of a summer-time years ago, when he was young, and a fair bride had for a few brief weeks made this earth a paradise to him. But fashion had entered his Eden—that summer time was gone, and only the dun leaves of autumn lay where the buds which promised so much had been. The girlish bride was a stately matron now, doing nothing amiss, but making all her acts conform to a prescribed rule of etiquette, and frowning majestically upon the frolicsome, impulsive Katy, who had crept so far into the heart of the eccentric man that he always found the hours of her absence long, listening intently for the sound of her bounding footsteps, and feeling that her coming to his household had infused into his veins a better, healthier life than he had known for years. Katy was very dear to him, and he felt a thrill of pain when first the toning down process commenced. He had heard them talk about it, and in his wrath he had hurled a cut-glass goblet upon the marble hearth, breaking it in atoms, while he called them a pair of precious fools, and Wilford a bigger one because he suffered it. So long as his convalescence lasted, he was some restraint upon his wife, but when he was well enough to resume his duties in his Wall Street office, there was nothing in the way, and Katy’s education progressed accordingly. For Wilford’s sake Katy would do anything, and she submitted to much which would otherwise have been excessively annoying. But she was growing tired now, and it told upon her face, which was whiter than when she came to New York, while her figure was, if possible, slighter and more airy; but this only enhanced her loveliness, Wilford thought, and so he paid no heed to her complaints of weariness, but kept her in the circle which welcomed her so warmly, and would have missed her so much.

Little by little it had come to Katy that she was not quite as comfortable in her husband’s family as she would be in a house of her own. The constant watch kept over her by Mrs. Cameron and Juno irritated and fretted her, making her wonder what was the matter, and why she should so often feel lonely and desolate when surrounded by every luxury which wealth could purchase. “It is his folks,” she always said to herself when cogitating upon the subject. “Alone with Wilford I shall feel as light and happy as I did in Silverton.”

And so Katy caught eagerly at the prospect of a release from the restraint of No.——, seeming so anxious that Wilford, almost before he was aware of it himself, became the owner of one of the most desirable situations on Madison Square. Of all the household after Katy, Juno was perhaps the only one glad of the new house. It would be a change for herself, for she meant to spend much of her time on Madison Square, where everything was to be on the most magnificent style. Fortunately for Katy, she knew nothing of Juno’s intentions and built castles of her new home, where mother could come with Helen and Dr. Grant. Somehow she never saw Uncle Ephraim, nor his wife, nor Aunt Betsy there. She knew how out of place they would appear, and how they would annoy Wilford; but surely to her mother and Helen there could be no objection, and when she first went over the house she designated this room as mother’s, and another one as Helen’s, thinking how each should be fitted up with direct reference to their tastes, Helen’s containing a great many books, while her mother’s should have easy-chairs and lounges, with a host of drawers for holding things. And Wilford heard it all, making no reply, but considering how he could manage best so as to have no scene, for he had not the slightest intention of inviting either Mrs. Lennox or Helen to visit him, much less to become a part of his household. That he did not marry Katy’s relatives was a fact as fixed as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and Katy’s anticipations were answering no other purpose than to divert her mind for the time being, keeping her bright and cheerful.

Very pleasant indeed were the pictures Katy drew of the new house where Helen was to come, but pleasanter far were her pictures of that visit to Silverton, to occur in April. Poor Katy! how much she thought about that visit when she should see them all and go with Uncle Ephraim down into the meadows, making believe she was Katy Lennox still—when she could climb the ladder in the barn after new-laid eggs, or steal across the fields to Linwood, talking with Morris as she used to talk in the days which seemed so long ago. Morris she feared was not liking her as well as of old, thinking her very frivolous and silly, for he had only written her one short note in reply to the letter she had sent, telling him of the parties she had attended, and the gay, happy life she led, for to him she would not then confess that in her cup of joy there was a single bitter dreg. All was bright and fair, she said, and Morris had replied that he was glad, “But do not forget that death can find you even amid your splendor, or that after death the judgment comes, and then what shall it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul.”