Veni! Vidi! --?

Front matter

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Chapter I

There was nothing distinctive about Kingston, beyond its name. Every one knows the sort of railroad station, which possesses a long, narrow platform, a tiny box of a waiting room, and a lame station master. Usually, as was the case here, a half dozen houses and a blacksmith shop are scattered near, and, save from the smoke from the blacksmith’s chimney, you would fancy the populace were sleeping or dead.

To day is a red-letter day for the little station master. There are two arrivals — one a slender girl in gray, the other, apparently, her mother. They are not strangers to the little old man, still he had seen nothing like them for a year, and what are his eyes good for, if not to see that which is directly before them ?

“ Have none of the Bernards been here to-day ?” the girl was asking.

“ No, ma’am, I can’t say as they have, an’ 2

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I’m sure I must ha’ seed ’em if they had ’a’ come.”

The girl smiled slightly as she looked down the quiet road, knowing that a vehicle of any sort brought the inhabitants of the few houses to the windows, burning with curiosity to know who was passing.

“ When will the stage go over to St. Benedict?” she continued.

“ Indeed, ma’am, I can’t say. You see Tim he’s gone to a picnic, an’ besides him, there ain’t much o’ any one to drive. There’s no tellin’ when he’ll get back when he goes to a picnic onc’t.”

The girl glanced around at the dilapidated railway maps, fly-adorned calendars, and last year’s circus posters, which served to decorate the walls of the stuffy little waiting room, then asked again :

“ Isn’t it possible to find some one to take us out there ?”

The old man always looked back on that day with pride, for, after prolonged scratching of the head and clearing of the throat, he originated an idea.

“Why John, that’s my boy, he kin hitch up

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and take you over, if you don’t mind ridin’ in a spring wagon,” he announced eagerly.

“ What do you say, mamma?” the girl asked, turning to the handsome old lady, who was beginning to look annoyed.

“I am sure, Rachel, you can do as you please. For my part, I don’t see how we can ride six miles over those rough hills in an open wagon,” she answered impatiently.

The old man hastily assured her it was only “ four miles, and it wouldn’t be that fur if it wa’n’t fur the hills,” ending with the assurance that John was a “ good driver, and could beat lots of the men ’round there, if he did say it himself, as oughtn’t.”

It was finally decided to accept the proffered “ spring wagon,” and in a short time a freckled lad drove to the platform in a vehicle, whose appearance was more substantial than they had expected. After depositing satchels and packages, and climbing in, they moved slowly down the hill which led from the station. Immediately after their departure, the train coming from the opposite direction from the one on which these travelers had arrived, swept past the little platform, stopping long enough to deposit a single passenger. The boy promptly halted at the foot of the hill, stretching his neck to catch a glimpse of this last’arrival.

“ I thought I heerd pap a-callin’,” he said, in answer to their natural inquiry as to the cause of the delay.

In another moment the author of the befreckled youth’s existence was seen at the top of the hill, frantically waiving his arms, and shouting “John” with a pair of lungs which nature seemed to have created exceptionally strong, to atone for the discrepancy in his legs.

John calmly turned around.in his seat, and patiently waited until his sire came up with them.

“ You see, ma’am,” gasped John senior, a trifle used up by the unusual speed with which he had limped down hill, “ ther’s another man wants to go over to Bernard’s too, an’ I thought, ef you didn’t mind much, he could jest go right along here with you. He can set in the front seat with John.”

“ The very idea ! Of course we mind,” the mother began, when she was interrupted by a whisper, “ Oh, mamma, hush !” and, turning quickly in the direction of her daughter’s eyes, she saw approaching the vehicle a young man who bore unmistakable indications of a gentleman.

“ By Jove,” thought the new arrival, as they turned toward him, “ this is a windfall ! Why didn’t that old fool tell me they were somebody ?”

Coming nearer, he began, “ I beg your pardon, madam, for being the cause of stopping you. I fear this man’s proposition will be unpleasant to you. After telling him I was bound for Bernard’s, he rushed wildly after you, saying this would be my last chance until night,” and he appeared about to turn away, as if it were quite out of the question.

“ You are quite welcome to the vacant seat, if you like,” the elder lady returned graciously, visibly thawing before the young man’s easy manner. “ The wait at the station would be very tiresome.”

“ That’s a charming old lady,” he thought as he thanked her and deposited himself and his satchel in the front seat.

“ May I tell you my name is Philip King?” he said, after the old horse had once more jogged along, leaving the man standing in the road, in a state of benign satisfaction, at the result of his arrangement. “ Our mutual friend at the station, who seems to have a genius for ordering the minor details of life, told me you are Mrs. Dare,” and he smiled as he addressed himself to the older lady with a decidedly questioning glance in the direction of the younger.

“ Yes,” she replies, smiling pleasantly in return. “ My daughter and myself spend sometime every summer at Bernard’s, and the station master does us the honor to remember us.”

There was a little pause after this, each one apparently intent on the beautiful landscape before them. On either side of the white road, gleaming with mica, lay waving fields of grain, faintly tinged with yellow, as the late June sun shone warmly down upon it. Beyond the fields on one side rose a low range of hills, wild, rocky, barren, forming strange contrast to the rich fertility resting at their feet. Farther on, there was a break in the grizzly barricade, where wound a river, looking in the distance like scarcely more than a silver thread gleaming in the sunlight.

Mrs. Dare was the first to turn from the peaceful scene before them, and remarked :

“ We shall not find those hills so delightful by and by, when we pass over them. Do you see there -where the road winds almost over the top of the last one? I declare, Rachel, every time I come over this road I make a new resolution that this shall be the last time. Not that it isn’t pleasant enough, after we are once there, but such a journey ! It positively requires a whole summer to rest.”

All this was said with a little flutter of the delicately-gloved hands, and a sort of birdlike movement of the head from one side to the other, as the bright blue eyes flashed alternately from the young man to her daughter.

Rachel had all this time kept her face turned resolutely toward the hills, leaving only a very fine profile for Philip’s admiring gaze. She only smiled in answer to her mother’s remark, giving the young man a glimpse of a remarkably fine pair of eyes, as she redirected her gaze to the landscape 1 .

“ I’ll be hanged if she isn’t pretty !” he thought. “ I w T ish she’d speak.”

“ My husband once had an intimate friend whose name was the same as yours,” remarked Mrs. Dare, who evidently had a decided re-

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pugnance for silence. “ He was a charming man. I wonder if it could be possible that you are any way related to him ?”

“ That was my father’s name,” and the young mail turned toward her with an eager boyish manner. “If John Dare is your husband, he was undoubtedly the Philip King you speak of. I am always glad to meet an old friend of my father’s; won’t you shake hands with me, now that we know each other?” as he stretched out his hand with a pleased smile, which won the gentle little lady’s friendship on the spot.

“ Dear me, how fortunate !” and she shook hands with him delightedly. “Rachel, did you ever know anything so lucky? I do love to know who people are, and to think it was the merest accident that we found out, too ! Its exactly like an incident which occurred once on our way to the White Mountains. Don’t you remember, Rachel, that young man who was so attentive to us after the accident? What was his name? was it Richards? No, it couldn’t have been, for that was the other man’s name.”

“ I don’t remember his name, mamma,” Rachel answered, rather absently. “ It don’t

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seem to me there is much similarity between the two cases.”

“Now does’nt it? I must say I think its remarkable; not that Mr. King looks at all like this Mr. — what was his name? — for Mr. Kingis tall and slender, and the other man was short and stout. Besides I am very certain he had red hair.”

Philip was rejoicing in the fact that Miss Dare had finally spoken, and wondering what he could do that she would be obliged to speak again, for her silence unaccountably irritated him. Her mother talked a great deal, discovering numerous mutual acquaintances as they proceeded, while the daughter took apparently no interest in the rather one-sided conversation, save when appealed to.

The road grew rough and stony as the old horse moved slowly up the hill, and Mrs. Dare was in a state of constant agitation as she tried to think what they should do if the horse would suddenly stop and the wagon roll to the foot again.

“ This yer horse ain’t the rollin’ kind,” the boy insisted, finding Philip’s efforts to allay her fears were vain. u He don’t do nothin’ like that, ’cept to kick the bottom out of the

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wagon sometimes, when yon hit him with the whip, kind o’ suddent like.”

The young man smiled at this Job’s comforter, and moving his head slightly in Miss Dare’s direction, caught a bright gleam of merriment as she glanced toward him, leaving him with the pleasant sensation that they knew something the others did not.

At the top of the hill, while the boy rested his horse for a moment, Philip saw a bunch of early laurel, shining white among the brown trunks of the trees, and bringing it to Rachel, presented it with an almost diffident air, which surprised himself. She looked steadily at him as she thanked him with a gracious smile, but that was all.

“ That girl can talk if she wants to ; I hope she will want to some time soon,” was his mental comment as he reseated himself.

Just when he was beginning to think a wagon like this wasn’t such a bad thing after all, they turned a sharp curve, onto a level road, and Mrs. Dare exclaimed :

“ Thank goodness ! there is Bernard’s at last!”

“ I am in luck !” declared Philip, as their youthful coachman steered them safely up the long lane.

A large old-fashioned red-brick house stood before them, the hall door dividing the front, and opening onto a wide porch which ex tended along two sides of the house. The pillars of the porch, and a large portion of the house itself were covered with a profusion of American ivy and trumpet vine, heavy with crimson blossoms.

From the porch there extended a green slope, dotted here and there with forest trees, down to the river, which, by a convenient turn, formed two of the boundaries of the place. On the opposite bank the hills arose again, covered with a mass of ever-varying green. Now and then the solid gray rock was bare, protruding itself among the wild verdure.

Away down the river a spire could be seen on one of the hilltops, and rings of smoke were ascending in the clear air. Back of these a higher range was visible, dimly outlining their huge forms against the perfect blue of the June sky.

They had only driven half way up the lane when the bark of a large Newfoundland announced their arrival.

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A stout, motherly old lady appeared at the doorway, and, seeing them approach, bustled toward them, shining with good nature from the top of the smooth head to the hem of the blue calico gown.

“ Bless my heart, Ellen,” she called back to a pretty girl who had followed her rather timidly to the door, “if here ain’t Mrs. Dare and Miss Rachel ; and Mr. Armstrong did come, after all ! Why no, it ain’t Mr. Armstrong neither.”

By this time the old horse had reached the wooden steps which served as carriage stone, and its occupants alighted, Mrs. Dare performing the ceremony of introduction, perceiving Mrs. Bernard’s surprise oil seeing a stranger with them. Philip was too busy taking in the minor details of the landscape, where he saw material for a dozen pictures, to explain himself.

“ I’m powerful glad to see you,” announced the old lady heartily, “ but I didn’t look for any of you till to-morrow.”

“ When no one met us. at the station I supposed you had not received my last letter,” Rachel said. “ We are here, at any rate, and you will have to make the best of us,” she added, with a little laugh.

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With this, Philip remembered his manners, and explained that he, too, had found it more convenient to come to-day, murmuring something about a friend coming part of the journey with him.

u That don’t make one bit of difference, only we’d a sent for you ef we’d know’d it. But come in the house ! Look at me a keepin’ you standin’ out here as ef I didn’t want you to come in,” and she led the way as she spoke.

“ You can’t make me believe that is Ellen standing in the doorway,” Mrs. Dare said as they stepped onto the porch, “for the child has grown so tall.”

“Yes it is,” answered Ellen’s mother, delighted ; “ I said you’d think that, didn’t I, Ellen ? She’s been over to Putnam to school this year. Why don’t you come and speak to the folks, Ellen ?”

By this time Ellen had overcome her timidity sufficiently to bow to Philip and offer her hand to the Dares.

The travelers were ushered from the wide hall, which divided the house in halves, into a large room, bright and airy, which Mrs. Bernard called the parlor. Old-fashioned haircloth furniture stood stiffly about on the huge flowered Brussels carpet. In the corner by the window was a handsome new piano, which Mrs. Bernard exhibited with much pride, explaining that “ Ellen had learned to play over to Putnam.”

They were assembled here only a few moments, for Mrs. Dare declared herself “ tired out of her life,” and Ellen accompanied them to their rooms, her mother explaining “she’d go herself, but she was gittin’ so stout she didn’t climb more ’an she had to.”

Rachel’s and her mother’s rooms were adjoining, and Philip’s was opposite, their pretty little guide telling them that “ mother had given him the room back of Mr. Armstrong’s, for she was hoping Mr. Armstrong would change his mind and come after all.”

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Chapter II

Philip entered the chamber assigned to him, to find the same neatness and precision prevailing which reigned below. The bare, white walls, the clean rag carpet here made the gorgeous Brussels carpet down stairs wander before his eyes as a positive luxury. The bed, piled high with feathers, stood in one corner of the large room, covered with a gay quilt, fancifully pieced with red and green. Philip found himself mechanically wondering if the initials M. B. in the center of it were meant for Mary Bernard, or possibly Martha. “ She looks like a Martha,” he mused, and then laughed at his own curiosity.

In another corner of the chamber stood a high chest of drawers, a small oval mirror adorning the top. Besides these important but scarcely ornamental articles, a wash-stand and several chairs constituted the furniture of the room.

Philip groaned as he stood grimly surveying this interior, then crossing quickly to the open window opposite, drew back the muslin curtain and looked down on the quiet scene below. As he stood, the shade of dissatisfac-

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tion, which had arisen to his face during his inspection of the room, quickly disappeared, leaving in its place enthusiastic admiration.

“ I’ll be hanged if this isn’t worth living for a month or two in such a room,” he niut- .tered. “ The place won’t look bad after my traps come. It’s clean and airy, and we couldn’t say that much for that place in Vermont last summer, and we thought we were in clover then. That was a pretty little girl who brought us up stairs.”

While justifying the room to himself, he had opened his satchel and began the task of ridding himself of the dust accumulated during his day’s travel, wondering how long it would take that old man at the station to send over the baggage.

Philip King’s father had made a fortune in coal and iron, and it had been his fondest hope that his only offspring should walk in the path he had marked out. Fortunately for both, he had died while Philip was still a lad, for his son had neither taste nor inclination for business pursuits.

From his mother, who had lived but a few months after his birth, he inherited a fondness for art, and finding himself possessed of the

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means to indulge this taste, and no longer any one to dictate to him, he cultivated his artistic talent industriously. To his credit, be it said, he really worked, and in consequence whereof was successful. His pictures were accepted at the academy, and found ready sale. He often declared they sold simply because he did not need the money, “ while lots of poor devils, who painted better pictures, were dying of starvation.” He was accustomed to going and coming exactly when he pleased and as he pleased, and perhaps the fact that no human being expected anything of him had served to develop a rather decided line of selfishness, which, under different circumstances, might have been avoided. Handsome, clever, goodnatured, and, above all, rich, small wonder he was a favorite. To be sure, he was a little uncertain, and hard to secure, but that only served to make people doubly glad when he was very safe in their clutches. There is nothing that makes a man quite so popular as a little glamour spread over his movements. For the rest he was impulsive, and usually acted upon the first impulse, which happily, as yet, had never carried him far out of the road. Possibly he had received a trifle more adulation 3

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than was quite healthful, but then who knows exactly where to draw the line.

The Bernard’s advertisement for summer boarders had accidentally met his eye in glancing idly over the Times , and sitting down answered it immediately. Then fearing he would change his mind, came a day before the one appointed.

“ I can surely stand it a week,” he told himelf as he brushed his hair that evening, “with two such pretty girls in the house.”

Across the hall, Mrs. Dare was endeavoring to persuade Rachel to express intense delight that Mr. King was to be one of the household. “For you know,” she insisted, “it would have been frightfully stupid without Dick. Though why he couldn’t have come here as well as he could go to the White Mountains, I don’t see,” and she sent a keen little glance after Rachel as she left the room.

The apartments on this side of the house were much more luxurious than that which had clouded Philip’s brow a moment ago. The Dares had added various articles from time to time until the rooms had begun to wear quite a furnished appearance. Very

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pretty paper covered the wall, and a quite presentable ingrain carpet was on the floor. “ When our pictures and ornaments come,” Rachel was thinking, “ the rooms will really be quite pretty. I didn’t know it was so pretty here,” moving to the window and standing for a time gazing down on the river, where the afternoon sun was throwing long shadows.

How peaceful it seemed here ! She felt that one had little to wish for when the trouble and noise of city life were left behind them. How long it had been since that first year! She was a frail little thing then, and only nurse and Dick were with her ; she smiled as she remembered how her father refused to believe it was she when she came home so strong and happy. „

After that she had always come here for a part of the summer, spending the remaining part at some fashionable watering place, Mrs. Dare was able to see the wisdom of this, although not her own arrangement. Rachel looked young and pretty after her sojourn in the country, and enjoyed society with a zest that took well. Other girls were tired then, and besides, Rachel’s best clothes were still

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fresh. So after the first year the mother made no objection to the girl’s project.

They would miss Dick this year, for he had always been with them before. Dick was aunt Anna’s stepson, and Rachel’s lifelong slave. But a week ago things had come to a final termination; she told him her refusal was conclusive, and when he declined to believe her, lost her temper and quarreled with Dick the peaceful, who, it must be told, had a great many disagreeable remarks to make in return. Before she had quite recovered her surprise that the worm had turned, he left for the White Mountains with Aunt Anna.

Rachel drummed a little on the window sill as she remembered how useful Dick had always been when they were here, “but then here’s Mr. King, and I daresay he will make himself quite as agreeable, and as mamma says, it is a comfort.”

At this moment Tim, who had evidently returned from the picnic, drove up the lane with the luggage, and the next half hour was spent in changing their traveling gowns and rendering themselves generally presentable for supper; for primitive hours were main-

VENI! VID1 ! r tained in the old-fashioned farm house, and every one supped promptly at six.

Rachel took more pains with her toilette that evening than she would have cared to acknowledge.

“Yes, I think I can stand it two weeks,” thought Philip as she swept into the dining-room, the black lace gown displaying to the best advantage her pale, cameo face. “ Jove, what eyes!” as she flashed her gray orbs full upon him, smiling good evening.

Then the father of this quiet household entered, shaking hands with them all, and telling them he was happy to have them here, w T ith a courteous hospitality which surprised Philip. He expressed himself peculiarly, his French accent giving the decidedly American idioms an unfamiliar sound. He kissed Ellen as hepassed her, and looked as though he would have kissed his busy wife, but she was hurrying into the kitchen, on culinary thoughts intent, and did not see him approach her.

Henry Bernard felt a great admiration for his wife’s capabilities. He proudly boasted that it was a difficult problem, indeed, which her practical brain could not solve. His lands grew broad, and he was not only willing, but glad, to tell that it was her active thrift and prudence which had materially added to his possessions.

Still there was a foreign element which never became quite familiar. He would watch her with a curious, amused expression as she moved from cellar to attic, and from attic to cellar again, never tiring while there was still a task before her. His little French mother had been so different, and he smiled, when his eye rested on Ellen, whom he fancied was like her. He could remember her moving quietly through these same rooms, for his father had lived here and tilled these lands before him.

They were all gone now. Gaston had been last, and Henry Bernard drew a little sigh of content when he reflected that Gaston’s son had never felt the lack of a parent’s care in this his uncle’s kindly household. A tall, broad-shouldered fellow he had grown to be, grave and simple-hearted, grateful for the tender affection they had always shown him. For with all her duties, Martha Bernard could find time “to dawdle the children a little,” as she expressed it.

Her summer boarders were a source of actual delight to her. It was a gratification to have her culinary skill duly appreciated, and it certainly paid well. Besides the Dares, she usually had an artist or two, for the beauty of the country was well known, and now and then a clergyman would come for a fortnight or so.

“ Are the daisies blooming so early, Ellen ?” Rachel asked when she saw a large bunch of them adorned the table. “ Last year they were much later.”

“ They are in bloom on the cliff ; don’t you remember they are always early there ?” Ellen answered.

“ Sure enough ! I had forgotten. We must go after supper and gather some,” and she smiled at Ellen, who was sitting next her.

“ My dear,” her mother said, turning from Mrs. Bernard, whom she had been regaling with a minute account of their journey, “ I am certain you are too tired to row across the river this evening. You always fancy yourself actually muscular when you come here.”

“ May I not row you, Miss Dare?” Philip asked eagerly from across the table. “ I will take very good care of them, Mrs. Dare, I promise you.”

u No, I think you had all better wait until

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to-morrow ; there is so much danger of malaria on the river, when one is tired, and I am certain Rachel doesn’t need those daisies this evening.”

“ Very well then, to-morrow,” and Rachel looked at Ellen as if she were the only other person to be considered.

“ I hope that arrangement is not made with the intention of leaving me out. If it is, I object on the spot ; may I not go to-morrow?” and he leaned forward almost anxiously, as he smiled across at her.

Rachel looked at him a second gravely, almost critically, he fancied*, before she replied.

“ Certainly you may go if you like. We will start quite early, and it’s something of a climb to the top of the cliff.”

“ Climbing doesn’t frighten me. That is one thing I can do well, and you certainly will not go before breakfast, will you?” his determination rising as he saw a faint shadow of objection in her face.

“ No, not before breakfast ; mamma objects to that,” she answered rather indifferently, and turning to Mr. Bernard spoke in praise of the strawberries he handed her.

They sat on the porch that evening, when

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supper was finished, and by and by when Henry Bernard rose, remarking “ he beliefed he’d get his pipe,” Philip followed him to the west side of the long porch, and smoked with him. The old man’s quaint simplicity was charming, and Philip listened with an interest which surprised himself, to the account of his fields and his grain, his wife and his daughter. u That’s all that’s left now,” he said softly. “ Father, mother, all the brothers and sisters are gone long ago.”

There was a little silence after this, and the old man sat with one arm across his knees, supporting the elbow of the other with the palm of his hand. The moon had risen as they sat here, and the young man was thinking that. nothing more could be desired in the landscape, now that it was covered with this soft light.

There was a little stir on the front porch, and soon after some one softly struck a few chords on the piano. “ It seemed as if the heavens had laid on earth a kiss,” Rachel sang, and for a little while it seemed to Philip it was the voice of the moonlight itself, so gently, so sweetly did it blend with the radiance without.

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