Chapter V: Miss Raynor

About a mile from Laurel Hill, a little village in Richland, was an eminence, or plateau, from the top of which one could see for miles the rich, well-cultivated farms in which the town abounded, the wooded hills and the deep gorges all slanting down to a common centre, the pretty little lake, lying as in the bottom of a basin, with its clear waters sparkling in the sunshine. And here, just on the top of the plateau, where the view was the finest, an eccentric old bachelor, Paul Raynor, had a few years before our story opens, built himself a home after his own peculiar ideas of architecture, but which, when finished and furnished, was a most delightful place, especially in the summer when the flowers and shrubs, of which there was a great profusion, were in blossom, and the wide lawn in front of the house was like a piece of velvet. Here for two years Paul Raynor had lived quite _en prince_, and then, sickening with what he knew to be a fatal disease, he had sent for his invalid sister Grace, who came and stayed with him to the last, finding after he was dead that all his property had been left to her, with a request that she would make the Cedars, as the place was called, her home for a portion of the time at least. And so, though city bred and city born, Grace had stayed on for nearly a year, leading a lonely life, for she knew but few of her neighbors, while her crippled condition prevented her from mingling at all in the society she was so well fitted to adorn. As the reader will have guessed, Grace Raynor was the girl, or rather woman, for she was over thirty now, to whom Max Gordon had devoted the years of his early manhood, in the vain hope that some time she would be cured and become his wife. A few days before the one appointed for her bridal she had been thrown from her horse and had injured her spine so badly that for months she suffered such agony that her beautiful hair turned white; then the pain ceased suddenly, but left her no power to move her lower limbs, and she had never walked since and never would. But through all the long years Max had clung to her with a devotion born first of his intense love for her and later of his sense of honor which would make him loyal to her even to the grave. Knowing how domestic he was in his tastes and how happy he would be with wife and children, Grace had insisted that he should leave her and seek some other love. But his answer was always the same. “No, Grace, I am bound to you just as strongly as if the clergyman had made us one, and will marry you any day you will say the word. Your lameness is nothing so long as your soul is left untouched, and your face, too,” he would sometimes add, kissing fondly the lovely face which, with each year, seemed to grow lovelier, and from which the snowy hair did not in the least detract.

But Grace knew better than to inflict herself upon him, and held fast to her resolve, even while her whole being went out to him with an intense longing for his constant love and companionship. Especially was this the case at the Cedars, where she found herself very lonely, notwithstanding the beauty of the place and its situation.

“If he asks me again, shall I refuse?” she said to herself on the September morning when Maude Graham was alighting from the dusty stage at Oak Corners, two miles away, and the carriage sent for Max was only an hour behind.

How pretty she was in the dainty white dress, with a shawl of scarlet wool wrapped around her, as she sat in her wheel chair on the broad piazza, which commanded a view of the lake and the green hills beyond. Not fresh and bright and glowing as Maude, who was like an opening rose with the early dew upon it, but more like a pale water lily just beginning to droop, though very sweet and lovely still. There was a faint tinge of color in her cheek as she leaned her head against the cushions of her chair and wondered if she should find Max the same ardent lover as ever, ready to take her to his arms at any cost, or had he, during the past year, seen some other face fairer and younger than her own.

“I shall know in a moment if he is changed ever so little,” she thought, and although she did not mean to be selfish, and would at any moment have given him up and made no sign, there was a throb of pain in her heart as she tried to think what life would be without Max to love her. “I should die,” she whispered, “and please God, I shall die before many years and leave my boy free.”

He was her boy still, just as young and handsome as he had been thirteen years ago, when he lifted her so tenderly from the ground and she felt his tears upon her forehead as she writhed in her fearful pain. And now when at last he came and put his arms around her and took her face between his hands and looked fondly into it as he questioned her of her health, she felt that he was unchanged, and thanked her Father for it. He was delighted with everything, and sat by her until after lunch, which was served on the piazza, and asked her of her life there and the people in the neighborhood, and finally if she knew of a Capt. Alling.

“Capt. Alling,” she replied; “why, yes. He lives on a farm about two miles from here and we buy our honey from him. A very respectable man, I think, although I have no acquaintance with the family. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing; only there was a girl on the train with me who told me she was his niece,” Max answered indifferently, with a vigorous puff at his cigar, which Grace always insisted he should smoke in her presence. “She was very pretty and very young. I should like to see her again,” he added, more to himself than to Grace, who, without knowing why, felt suddenly as if a cloud had crept across her sky.

Jealousy had no part in Grace’s nature, nor was she jealous of this young, pretty girl whom Max would like to see again, and to prove that she was not she asked many questions about her and said she would try and find out who she was, and that she presumed she had come to attend the wadding of Capt. Alling’s daughter, who was soon to be married. This seemed very probable, and no more was said of Maude until the afternoon of the day following, which was Sunday. Then, after Max returned from church and they were seated at dinner he said abruptly, “I saw her again.”

“Saw whom?” Grace asked, and he replied, “My little girl of the train. She was at church with her uncle’s family. A rather ordinary lot I thought them, but she looked as sweet as a June pink. You know they are my favorite flowers.”

“Yes,” Grace answered slowly, while again a breath of cold air seemed to blow over her and make her draw her shawl more closely around her.

But Max did not suspect it, and pared a peach for her and helped her to grapes, and after dinner wheeled her for an hour on the broad plateau, stooping over her once and caressing her white hair, which he told her was very becoming, and saying no more of the girl seen in church that morning. The Allings had been late and the rector was reading the first lesson when they came in, father and mother and two healthy, buxom girls, followed by Maude, who, in her black dress looked taller and slimmer than he had thought her in the car, and prettier, too, with the brilliant color on her cheeks and the sparkle in the eyes which met his with such glad surprise in them that he felt something stir in his heart different from anything he had felt since he and Grace were young. The Allings occupied a pew in front of him and on the side, so that he could look at and study Maude’s face, which he did far more than he listened to the sermon. And she knew he was looking at her, too, and always blushed when she met his earnest gaze. As they were leaving the church he managed to get near her, and said, “I hope you are quite well after your long journey, Miss——.”

“Graham,” she answered, involuntarily, but so low that he only caught the first syllable and thought that she said _Grey_.

She was Miss Grey, then, and with this bit of information he was obliged to be content. Twice during the week he rode past the Alling house, hoping to see the eyes which had flashed so brightly upon him on the porch of the church, and never dreaming of the hot tears of homesickness they were weeping in the log school-house of the Bush district, where poor Maude was so desolate and lonely. If he had, he might, perhaps, have gone there and tried to comfort her, so greatly was he interested in her, and so much was she in his mind.

He stayed at the Cedars several days, and then finding it a little tiresome said good-bye to Grace and went his way again, leaving her with a vague consciousness that something had come between them; a shadow no larger than a man’s hand, it is true, but still a shadow, and as she watched him going down the walk she whispered sadly, “Max is slipping from me.”