Doubly false

Cora went up to the house on the river, heavy-hearted, but with a certain sense of relief which she could not quite understand. The parting scene with her husband had exhausted the sensibility of her nature. She really thirsted for change. This working out of a secret romance was getting a little wearisome. Unless she could exhibit this handsome husband and glory in him, as her own property, with all the rest of her possessions in full and imperious ownership, marriage seemed to her almost a failure. In fact it would be the same to any other woman if she attempted to shut herself out from the world and live to the music of sweet lutes and all that sort of thing. One might as well expect to feed on Hymettus honey and May dew gathered from opening violets and not be ravenous with keen, wholesome hunger in the process.

Now if Cora’s love for that man had been anything but a willful, selfish passion from the very first, she would have come out from this paradisiacal experiment weary of that, certainly, but not of him; she had not reached this state exactly, but was open to any temptation or circumstance that might end in utter distaste for the life she had so rashly entered upon. With all his faults, Seymour possessed the better nature. He at least loved her honestly, madly—it might prove fatally.

Once at home and in her own dominions, the heiress assumed her old position with all the insolence of a woman whose authority had slept for a season, only to assert itself with increased vigor on the awakening. She was a woman who forgot nothing which affected her own interest or pleasure, and who never forgave the person who once offended her.

Cora’s first object, on going home, was to dismiss Eunice Hurd from her household. That woman had tacitly repudiated and defied her; she had become a partisan of the cousin whose very existence was hateful to herself—for on this earth there is no antipathy equal to that inspired by a person whom the hater has wronged.

On the very day she reached home, Cora sent for Eunice, and, in a few cold, quiet words, gave the woman her discharge.

Eunice stood stiff and upright, with her nose high in the air, and her greenish eyes regarding the young lady with a sidelong, sneering expression, which made Cora’s nerves creep in spite of herself.

“Here are your wages for the full year, exactly what my aunt has always paid you. As I give no warning, and expect you to quit the house at once, it is but fair that you receive full pay for the year. My aunt will write you a recommendation.”

“Your aunt!” sneered Eunice, with a long-drawn breath. “Your aunt!”

Cora turned cold, but kept her eyes unflinchingly on the woman, knowing well that a contest almost of life and death was before her.

“Yes, I said my aunt. Always having been known as the head of this house, her recommendation would be better recognized than mine.”

Cora spoke calmly and without a quiver in her voice to betray the dread that had seized upon her like a vulture with the first look of those eyes. She never took her gaze from the woman’s face either. Yet Eunice saw her advantage and took it, for no self-control could conquer that shrinking of the person which is the result of sudden fear.

“I shall take no recommendation from her or you,” said Eunice, slanting her head from the right shoulder to the left.

“And why?”

Never was a question asked with an appearance of more innocent surprise, and never did forced composure effect less.

“Because I don’t intend to leave this house, Miss Cora Virginia Lander, till its owner tells me to go, which she isn’t likely to do in a hurry.”

It took strong nerves to suppress the trembling which seized on Cora, or force a natural voice through that contracted throat, but the young impostor accomplished it, and answered, with a laugh:

“I have already told you to go—foolish woman, are you waiting for a second dismissal?”

“No, I’m not waiting for anything from you, or the like of you; but I can’t but just keep my hands off you. Who was it sent that poor cretur home, crying like a baby? Who was it that refused to give her money, to buy dress with and threatened her with an asylum?”

“And my aunt told you that?”

“Your mother told me that.”

Cora arose fiercely—her forehead, her lips, her very hands were whiter than whiteness, but she confronted her enemy bravely.

“Woman, who put you up to this?”

“Who put me up to it? The great God, who will, sooner or later, punish you for your cruelty to the weak, foolish woman who is crying her life out up stairs. Don’t speak to me—take your eyes off from my face, they have got rattlesnakes in ’em!”

“Woman, are you mad?”

“Yes, I am mad as blazes—don’t provoke me! don’t I say, or I’ll tear the nest you have feathered so cunningly all to flinders!”

“Indeed!—How?”

Cora was cool and resolute now. In this struggle she was careful not to lose a point from weakness. She was pale yet, and her eyes glittered like steel; but she had full control of her voice. Eunice had prepared her for the worst, and knowing the danger she had to meet, the girl grew brave and cautious as a tiger.

“You want to know, do you? Well, I’ll tell you, up and down is my fashion. You’re a cheat—a humbug—a mean, cruel cheat, and I can prove it—yes I can! you needn’t widen your eyes at me, I can prove it, and if it wasn’t for the poor creature up stairs, I’d do it too once. Attempt to abuse her again, only just look sideways at her, and I’ll pull the pillars out from under your temple, as Job did in the Bible. You had her for awhile, but I’ve got her now. When she haint got no one else to go to she comes to me—I’ll stand by her, never fear.”

“What has my aunt told you, pray?”

Cora was cautiously drawing out all the power Eunice possessed, but the woman was not deficient in her own craft.

“I didn’t need her to tell anything; I have got my own eyes and ears; I can ask questions, if I ain’t over quick to answer ’em. The man who came up on the same cars with you that night is on hand when I want him—oh yes, that makes you hop, does it—kinder stirs up the rattlesnake in them eyes. But that isn’t all. That man was used to climbing ladders, and he did it.”

“Woman, you lie!”

The words broke from Cora’s lips sharp and venomous; she shook from head to foot with mingled rage and desperation.

“You wore a blue merino dress and left a piece on it behind you. That dress you was kind enough to pitch at me one day. It was torn and you was too much of a lady to mend it. That accounts for my having the dress, but it don’t account for the piece that you left sticking to the rose-bush under Mrs. Lander’s bed-room winder, which piece I took oft that morning, and which piece I matched with the dress after you pitched it at me over them bannisters; it was an awful scragly tear, and it fitted to a T. I’ve got the dress and the piece safe and sure.”

“Fool! I have not worn that dress for ages—I am in: mourning.”

“Of course, and for that reason didn’t wear black that night, but put on the only other dress you had, the one you had jumped overboard in. It smells of salt water yet. That’s another clincher! Besides there’s a place in the front breadth which that little humpbacked girl up stairs darned for you after you got a shipboard again. I know all about it. Old moles are as cute as young ones any day.”

“This dress is nothing to me; I have not worn it since we went on shore from the wreck—no creature on earth has ever seen me wear it.”

“Oh, wasn’t there? What was the conductor a doing when you opened that gray cloak to take out your ticket? What was the man a doing who knows how to climb ladders when he sees ’em at a lady’s winder? What was the other conductor a doing who took up a passenger who wore a blue dress and gray cloak after midnight at the station down here? Wimmen in these parts don’t start on journeys often after midnight, and when they do the conductors are apt to eye ’em sharp. That one did eye his passenger with the blue dress very sharp, for he saw her get into what they call a hotel coach and that went to the very place you was all putting up at. Oh! I am nigh upon as wide awake as you are, Miss!”

A gleam of sharp intelligence shot over Cora’s pale face; while the woman was talking, a smile of assured triumph came to her lips.

“What is all this to me, woman? I know nothing of the matter. If any one came here that night, it was my cousin. From the first she was resolved to claim my inheritance. What more probable than that she should have stolen away and attempted to gain her mother over to the plot. Now that you tell me these things, I have no doubt of it.”

Eunice stood aghast; her mouth fell, her eyes fairly quivered with astonishment.

“For her sake we had better say nothing about it,” resumed Cora, blandly; “it would throw discredit on the family were it known that a person so young, and always respectable till now, had contemplated so base a fraud. Of course her mother will keep the secret, and, in pity for my cousin, you must be silent, Eunice. There is no sacrifice that I would not make to protect her reputation. The knowledge of this unhappy attempt to defraud me of my birthright gives you a hold upon the family, Eunice. Remain with us, if it pleases you, and keep that dress in your possession; it may be wanted as proof yet. I remember now, it was in my cousin’s trunk when we came ashore. There does seem to be something providential in your having found the piece. Take especial care of it, Eunice.”

Eunice Hurd was not altogether subdued, but she stood her ground like an Indian woman from whom the enemy has stolen a quiver of arrows. She was defeated but not convinced. This permission to remain was, after all, a kind of triumph, and she was preparing to withdraw her forces in tolerable order, when Cora spoke again.

“You are right, Eunice, I should have been more liberal with my aunt; the knowledge that her daughter entertained this nefarious design—”

“Ne—ne—what?” interrupted Eunice.

“Nefarious—it means wicked, Eunice.”

“Oh,” ejaculated the old maid, “that’s it, is it?”

“As I was saying, Eunice, you have been a trusty servant in the family for years, and are no doubt almost indispensable.”

“Inde what?” questioned Eunice again, growing snappish as Cora became blander and sweeter.

“A person that she cannot do without; that is the spirit of my word, Eunice, and I dare say you and I will get along very nicely together after we know each other thoroughly. Now that I have learned the secret cause of my aunt’s irritability, I would not deprive her of your services for the world. Are we friends now, Eunice?”

Cora held out her white hand with the most winning grace imaginable, but Eunice clenched her bony fingers and put the hand behind her, angry at herself for being so tempted by that smiling manner.

“We are friends, Miss, just so long as you treat that poor lady, for she is a lady, well and with kindness. She has always been mistress here, and I won’t obey nobody else. She’s always been used to having plenty of money, and that she’s a going to have.”

“Why, Eunice, what do you think of me? Am I a tyrant or a miser, that you insist on these things? Was not my father always generous to her and my cousin? Was not that ungrateful girl educated at my father’s cost exactly as I was educated? I know he loved these two helpless women, and, notwithstanding my cousin’s attempt to wrong me, I am anxious, in all things, to carry out my father’s wishes. When the estate is settled, my aunt and cousin shall each have a fixed income. I promise it on the honor of a Lander.”

“You mustn’t stint her now. She’s got to have all she wants.”

“Of course.”

“Nor the young creature up stairs. It’ll be dangerous, now I tell you—”

“Do you think her so insane as that, Eunice?”

“Insane! stuff! She is no more crazy than you are!”

“I am sorry to hear that, Eunice. It would have been some excuse for her conduct.”

“Her conduct?”

“Yes. That midnight visit to the house seems very like the freak of a crazy person. I hope it was! In charity, I hope it was!”

Cora had controlled herself wonderfully through this scene; she carried everything before her so adroitly that her spirits rose almost to elation at its close. For this once she had escaped and forced down the peril that threatened her, but she felt the necessity not only of conciliating this shrewd woman, but of obtaining in herself a reputation for great liberality and kindness. The generous nature of Amos Lander’s child was too well known for an abrupt change of character to be accepted readily. This sudden fright, brought on by her first effort to play the despot, had warned her of the peril in time.

Mrs. Lander had returned to her home almost broken-hearted. It was with great difficulty that she kept back her secret from Eunice, who might have won it from her had she not already gathered it up by her own ingenuity. But this interview with Cora had so completely demoralized her facts that Eunice resolved to win more positive knowledge from the lady herself. But even here the young woman had been too quick for her. Scarcely had Eunice made what she considered a victorious retreat, when Cora went to Mrs. Lander’s room, for the first time since her return home. She found that lady seated by the bed in her room, looking over a quantity of mourning dresses, rich in themselves, but from which the first freshness was gone. The sight of those crape folds, crumpled and taking a brownish tinge from use, filled her heart more than a thousand harsh words could have done, with a sense of her daughter’s cruelty.

“Oh! it is dreadful,” she exclaimed, looking at the dresses through her tears. “They are absolutely growing foxy, and she won’t permit me to get all the new ones I want nor to freshen them up with jet. I proposed that, and she said no, as if I had been a child or a servant. He never did that by me—oh, my good, kind brother! I thought it hard not to control everything when he was alive, but what was that compared to the life I lead with I her?—and she my own child, to whom I gave everything—cursing myself to do it. These old things, she said were quite good enough to last the year out. She had heaps of new dresses, to my knowledge, at the dressmaker’s at the very time. An English crape, worth all these together, covered with such a lovely pattern in bugles—silks that would stand alone—grenadines, and I don’t know what. She must brighten up her mourning, indeed, but as for me, old bombazines and alpacas are good enough!”

Mrs. Lander was giving way to thoughts like these when Cora entered the room. Mrs. Lander uttered a little scream, and started from her chair, feeling strangely guilty, as if the thoughts she had just indulged in had been made known to her daughter.

“Oh! Cora, is it you at last?” she exclaimed, turning away her face to hide the tears that stained it.

A white arm stole caressingly around her neck; two warm lips were pressed to her cheek. She turned and threw both arms around her daughter.

“Oh! Cora, Cora, how could you be so cruel to me?”

“Dear mother, I am so sorry.”

Mrs. Lander burst into tears and fell to raining kisses on that upturned face, which looked to her so beautiful with that expression of penitence upon it.

“Darling mamma; so you have been fretting over my crossness—thinking me stingy, and that hatefullest of all things, a miser—have you? Stingy to you, above all creatures on earth! How could you believe it? Something had gone wrong with me; I was vexed, and you, mamma, were just a little unreasonable. I had been spending so much money—and so had you.”

“Why, not so very much for me. Cora, those crapes and things were very expensive, I know, richer by half than mine—but the cost was nothing to you, with so much money in the bank.”

“Oh yes, I know all about that. It wasn’t so much the money, but other things. Besides, you went off on a tangent and hurt my feelings so. I waited and waited, thinking that you would come back, but love for the dear cross mamma was too strong. I had to follow her at last. Now kiss me and let us be friends.”

The heart of that poor woman rose and swelled with such tenderness as only a mother can feel. She kissed the fair face lifted to hers over and over again. She took it between her hands and gazed fondly upon it through the happy tears that would come rushing to her eyes.

“Oh! Cora, you do love me a little,” she said, in her pathetic longing for the affection so long withdrawn from her. “We might be so happy if you only loved me.”

“We are—we will be happy—I have come here determined on it. Come, come, forget and forgive! How long it seems since I have seen you!”

“Miserably long, my child!”

“Still, it is only a week—such a week! One sometimes crowds so much happiness into a week that it answers for a lifetime. Don’t you think so, mamma?”

“Happiness! You mean misery, child. Neither of us can have been very happy the last week, I am sure.”

“Happiness—did I say that, and you with tears in these dear eyes all the time? Of course I meant unhappiness, but one does drop syllables so when the heart is full.”

Mrs. Lander laughed, and smoothed Cora’s hair back from her forehead.

“What are you about here?” inquired the daughter. “What a pile of dresses!”

“They are my old mourning. I was just ready to send for Eunice and see if they couldn’t be freshened and pressed out.”

Cora gave the pile of dresses a push with her hand.

“Give them away. Eunice will look lovely in black—give her your whole wardrobe. To-morrow we will go to the city and get an entire outfit. The dressmaker is working for you now.”

“Second mourning—shall it be second mourning, Cora?”

“Just as you please. Yes, for my part, I should much prefer that. By the time the estate is settled entirely, we can come out in white and silver gray.”

“Lavender for you—it will be lovely with your hair.”

“Do you think so?—Oh, Eunice, is that you? Come in and carry this pile of dresses away. My aunt will not wear them any more. She has had enough of bombazines, and is coming out with something brighter. My cousin, too, we must order new dresses for her—she will never do it for herself.”

There was a gleam in Cora’s eye and a mocking smile on her lip, which informed Eunice that she had just came too late if she expected to take advantage of the quarrel which had sent Mrs. Lander home half distracted. So, with answering self-composure and craft, she gathered up the dresses in her arms and carried them away. On her progress down stairs, she met Ellen Nolan and stopped to speak with her.

“Tell Miss Virginia to come down to her meals as usual—I don’t want no change,” she said. “Miss Cora promises to behave herself, and I guess she will.”

“My lady has decided how to act; she will come down. She, at any rate, has nothing to be ashamed of.”

Thus a sort of hollow truce was arranged, and, by mutual consent, all subjects calculated to create discord were avoided.