Originally published: 1879
Genres: Fiction
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5033651
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70473
Chapters: 55
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
TWO LETTERS
The first, a small half-sheet, inclosed in a large thick envelope, and addressed in a childish, unformed hand to Mr. James Everard Forrest, Junior, Ellicottville, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with a request in the lower left-hand corner for the postmaster to forward immediately; the second, a dainty little perfumed missive, with a fanciful monogram, directed in a plain round hand to J. Everard Forrest, Esq., Ellicottville, Mass., with the words “in haste” written in the corner. Both letters were in a hurry, and both found their way together to a brown-haired, brown-eyed, brown-faced young man, who sat under the shadow of the big maple tree on the Common in Ellicottville, lazily puffing his cigar and fanning himself with his Panama hat, for the thermometer was ninety in the shade, and the hour 10 A. M. of a sultry July day. At first, it was almost too much exertion to break the seals, and for a moment J. Everard Forres Jr. toyed with the smaller envelope of the two and studied the handwriting.
“I may as well see what Josey wants of me in haste,” he said at last, and breaking the seal, he read:
“Holburton, July 15. “Dear Ned: You must come tomorrow on the four o’clock train. Everything has gone at sixes and sevens, for just at the very last Mrs. Murdock, who has been dying for twenty years or more, must really die, and the Murdock boys can’t act, so you must take the character of the bridegroom in the play where I am to be the bride. You will have very little to say. You can learn it all in fifteen minutes, but you must come tomorrow so as to rehearse with us once at least. Now, don’t you dare fail? I shall meet you at the station. “Yours lovingly, “Josephine Fleming. “P. S.—Do you remember I wrote you in my last of a Dr. Matthewson, who has been in town a few days stopping at the hotel? He has consented to be the priest on condition that you are the bridegroom, so do not fail me. Again, with love, Joe.”
“And so this is my lady’s great haste,” the young man said, as he finished reading the letter. “She wants me for her bridegroom, and I don’t know but I’m willing, so I guess I’ll have to go; and now for Rossie’s interesting document, which must be ‘forwarded immediately.’ I only wish it may prove to have money in it from the governor, for I am getting rather low.”
So he took the other letter and examined it carefully, while a smile broke over his face as he continued:
“Upon my word, Rossie did not mean this to go astray and has written everything out in full, even to Massachusetts and Junior. Good for her. But how crooked; why, that junior stands at an angle of several degrees above Mr. Rossie ought to do better. She must be nearly thirteen, but she’s a nice little girl, and I’ll see what she says.”
What she said was as follows:
“Forrest House, July 14th. “Mr. Everard Forrest: “Dear Sir:—Nobody knows I am writing to you, but your mother has been worse for a few days and keeps talking about you even in her sleep. She did not say send for you, but I thought if you knew how bad she was, you would perhaps come home for a part of your vacation. It will do her so much good to see you. I am very well and your father too. So no more at present. “Yours respectfully, “Rosamond Hastings. “P. S.—Miss Beatrice Belknap has come home from New York, and had the typhoid fever, and lost every speck of her beautiful hair. You don’t know how funny she looks! She offered me fifty dollars for mine to make her a wig, because it curls naturally, and is just her color, but I would not sell it for the world: would you? Inclosed find ten dollars of my very own money, which I send you to come home with, thinking you might need it. Do not fail to come, will you? “Rosamond.”
Everard read this letter twice and smoothed out the crisp ten-dollar bill, which was carefully wrapped in a separate bit of paper. It was not the first time he had received the money in his sore need from the girl, for in a blank book, which he always carried in his pocket, were several entries, as follows: “Jan. 2, from Rosamond Hastings, five dollars: March 4th, two dollars: June 8th, one dollar,” and so on until the whole amount was more than twenty dollars, but never before had she sent him so large a sum as now, and there was a moisture in his eyes and his breath came heavily as he put it away in his purse, and said:
“There never was so unselfish a creature as Rossie Hastings. She is always thinking of somebody else. And I am a mean, contemptible dog to take her money as I do; but then, I honestly intend to pay her back tenfold when I have something of my own.”
Thus reassuring himself, he put his purse in his pocket, and glancing again at Rossie’s letter his eye fell upon Miss Belknap’s name, and he laughed aloud as he said: “Poor bald Bee Belknap. She must look comical. I can imagine how it hurts her pride. Buy Rossie’s hair, indeed! I should think not, when that is her only beauty, if I except her eyes, which are too large for her thin face; but that will round out in time, and Rossie may be a beauty yet, though not like Josey; no, never like Josey.”
And that brought the young man back to Miss Fleming’s letter, and its imperative request. Could he comply with it now? Ought he not to go at once to the sick mother, who was missing him so sadly, and who had made all the happiness he had ever known at home? Duty said yes, but inclination drew him to Holburton and the fair Josephine, with whom he believed himself to be and with whom he was, perhaps, as much in love as any young man of twenty well can be. Perhaps Rossie had been unduly alarmed; at all events, if his mother were so very sick, his father would write, of course, and on the whole he believed he should go to Holburton by the afternoon train, and then, perhaps, go home.
And so the die was cast, and the young man walked to the telegraph office and sent across the wires to Miss Josephine Fleming the three words: “I will come.”
Comments