The man she hated

Was it all a dream? Fair stood like one dazed on the pavement, watching the car roll around the corner out of sight, and, but for the throbbing wound on her temple, she would have thought it but a dream, so swiftly had everything passed.

But as the vehicle disappeared, a strange aching sense of loss and loneliness filled her heart, and, with a half sob, she turned and entered the dreary, shabby lodging house, where, away up in the fourth story, was a little back room that she called home.

It was a poorly furnished, shabby little room, yet with traces of refinement in its perfect cleanliness, its small stand of books, and the neat white cloth spread upon a small table, which held the evening meal, several slices of brown toast and a tiny pat of butter.

A little brown teapot was singing merrily on a small vapor stove, and Fair’s mother, a faded, melancholy-looking woman, who must once have been very handsome, was waiting every moment for the return of her daughter from work.

She did not have long to wait, for at last a slow, lagging step, very unlike Fair’s usual merry bound, paused at the door, and Fair entered.

Mrs. Fielding glanced up, saw her daughter’s lovely face ghastly pale and grave, with a long, disfiguring strip of court-plaster across one temple, over which her curls drooped, wet and matted, and uttered a shriek of alarm and dismay.

“Mother!” cried Fair, with a loud, hysterical sob, and, springing to her mother’s arm, she hid her face on her neck and wept aloud in passionate excitement.

It was long before the anxious, frightened mother could elicit from Fair the story of what had happened to her, and then she sobbed for a while almost as wildly as her daughter over the peril she had escaped.

“Oh, my precious child, to think that at this moment you might be lying dead! It is horrible—horrible!” she cried. “Oh, I can never cease to thank the noble young man who saved your life at the imminent risk of his own. But, my dear, it seems strange that you did not think of asking him to come in the house, that I, too, might have thanked him for his bravery,” she added, rather reproachfully.

“Oh, I did not like to ask, for—somehow—I fancied he was in a great hurry.”

“Too modest to wait and be praised and thanked for his bravery—that was natural,” said Mrs. Fielding. “But no matter; of course I shall go to him and express my gratitude. I declare, Fair, you haven’t told me his name!”

“I don’t know it, mamma.”

“Fair!”

Mrs. Fielding’s glance and tone were full of reproachful amazement. She drew a long, long breath, and added:

“You have forgotten your preserver’s name, you ungrateful child!”

Fair’s pale and tear-wet face suddenly grew rosy red, and she said quickly:

“Oh, no, for I never knew his name. He did not tell me, and, of course, I did not like to ask him.”

Mrs. Fielding cried out in dismay:

“You did not find out his name, nor where he lives?”

“No, mamma,” despondently.

“But, of course, you told him your name?” pursued the mother.

“Of course I did not. As he did not show interest enough in me to ask it,” Fair retorted hotly, for she resented bitterly, in secret, her preserver’s proud indifference as shown in the fact that he did not even care to know the name of her he had saved from a horrible death.

Mrs. Fielding was perplexed and disappointed beyond expression.

“Why, I really do not know what to think,” she exclaimed. “He must be the strangest young man that ever was born, not to take any more interest than that in such a lovely girl, and one whose life he had saved at the peril of his own. And I really hoped something would come of it. It was so much like novels I had read that I hoped it would end like a novel; but I fear it will always remain a mystery.”

To Fair Fielding, as well as to her mother, the events of that day seemed most romantic; but she did not, like the ambitious woman, cherish any fancy that anything would “come of it.” The kindly carelessness of her preserver’s manner had been too decided to foster anything like a hope that he had taken any interest in her beyond the humane one of saving her life.

Her young heart, fascinated by his heroism and his manly beauty, had gone out to him in a rush of tenderness. Pity, too, had helped to strengthen the flowery chain, for she felt that he had suffered severely from the hurt received in her behalf. It was according to the dictates of her woman’s nature to yearn over and to compassionate him for the pain he had endured without a sign, except the marble pallor of his handsome face.

But, alas! by his proud reserve and lack of curiosity over the girl he had rescued, the young man had excited, together with gratitude and tenderness, a bitter pique that swelled the young heart almost to bursting. She tossed and turned restlessly all night on the pillow by her mother’s side, thinking of the dark-blue eyes that had looked at her so gravely, and wondering if her confession that she was only a working girl had indeed been the cause of his coldness. More than once she sighed to herself, with earnestness:

“Oh, if only I were his equal in birth and wealth, and he was my lover, I should have nothing left to ask for on earth!”

She was so troubled and restless all night that her mother became very anxious over her wound, and in the morning forbade her going to work. Fair did not insist upon it, for she felt weak and nervous, and dreaded meeting the girls who had rallied her so much yesterday.

“I do not like to lose the money for my day’s work, yet I am glad to stay at home to-day and rest,” she owned frankly; and when Mrs. Fielding looked at the pale face and heavy eyes with dark circles under them from her sleepless night, she felt that she had done wisely in keeping her at home.

“I feel almost certain that that young gentleman will call to-day to inquire how you are,” she said presently, and at the words Fair started and colored.

“Oh, you do not think so!” she exclaimed, with a ring of hopefulness in her voice.

“I should not be the least surprised,” declared Mrs. Fielding.

She had puzzled over the matter until she had come to the conclusion that the young man was romantic. He had purposely withheld his name in order to excite Fair’s curiosity, and to-day he would certainly call and clear up the mystery that now surrounded him.

So the summer day dawned and waned, and all day long the mother and daughter, while busy over their domestic tasks, listened with almost equal eagerness for a step upon the stairs and a hand upon the door, but no one came until almost sunset, and then it was Sadie Allen’s homely yet cheerful face that beamed upon them as she entered and exclaimed:

“I couldn’t rest easy until I found out the reason you didn’t come to work to-day, Fair, so I came as soon as I had my tea. You are sick, aren’t you?” Then, catching sight of the disfiguring plaster on her temple: “Oh, then, you were the heroine of the accident yesterday? I said so. I told the girls, when you didn’t come this morning, that it was Fairfax Fielding, and nobody else. Oh, are you much hurt? Tell me all about it.”

And in a little while, by her curious questions, she had elicited the whole story.

“Oh, how romantic!” she cried, with sparkling eyes. “It’s just like a novel, isn’t it, Mrs. Fielding?”

The lady assented with a smile, and the talkative Sadie continued, with genuine regret:

“For my part, I’d like to see it end like a novel. Own up now, Fair, weren’t you sorry he was just going off to Europe to marry another girl? You must have fallen in love with him at sight. I know I should.”

Fair’s brown eyes flashed proudly.

“In love—nonsense!” she retorted, with pretended gayety. Then her lashes drooped to hide the anxious look she wore as she continued: “But I don’t understand what you mean about his going to Europe.”

“Didn’t he tell you he was going?” demanded Sadie, in surprise.

“N-no; you see, he was suffering so much with his arm,” stammered Fair, trying to seem indifferent.

“We are expecting him to call soon, when, of course, he will explain,” Mrs. Fielding said, with a grand air.

Sadie stared.

“To call? Why, how can he, when he’s on the ocean?” she inquired brusquely.

Mrs. Fielding began to look anxious.

“Please explain yourself, Miss Allen,” she said, in a haughty tone, and the girl asked quickly:

“Have you seen the morning papers?”

“No.”

“Oh, that accounts for everything, then,” replied Sadie, and she went on to say that an account of the accident had appeared in the morning papers.

“We do not take the papers. We cannot afford it,” Mrs. Fielding said bitterly. “But go on with your story, Sadie.”

“The papers stated that Bayard Lorraine, one of the wealthiest young men in New York, was on his way to the steamer to embark for Europe, when he stopped to enter a cigar store for the purchase of some trifle, and, on stepping from his car, beheld a pretty little working girl in imminent danger from a falling scaffolding, loaded with bricks. He rushed to her assistance at the risk of his own life, and, in dragging her from the dangerous spot, had his shoulder dislocated, but was fortunate enough to find a physician, who attended to the hurt immediately. The young working girl, whose name was not ascertained, escaped with a slight cut on the temple, but the brave young man nobly placed her in his car and drove her to her humble home, although the delay caused by taking her so long a distance to her residence in a humble quarter of the city almost caused him to lose his steamer, which was on the point of leaving the wharf when he reached it. His bravery and nobility in the whole affair were the more striking as it was known that he was most anxious to get off, as his affianced bride was across the water, and the gossips said the wedding would take place in Paris at an early date.”

Sadie paused and took breath, and the mother and daughter looked at each other with heavy eyes—the older woman’s dim with disappointed ambition, the younger’s dark with unspoken pain.

The timid, trembling, unacknowledged hope in the young heart had fallen dead in a moment, and it was impossible for her to move or speak, so cruel was the pang that tore her breast.

To herself she was saying sadly:

“Bayard Lorraine! So that was his name? It has a proud sound. And he is going away to bring back a bride, alas!”

For in that moment pretty Fair realized that the events of yesterday had changed her life forever, and that her heart had gone out beyond recall to the man she had met but once and could never hope to meet again.

Sadie Allen’s quick eyes read the disappointment in both faces, and she thought shrewdly:

“That foolish woman has been deluding her daughter with the thought that Bayard Lorraine would fall in love with her pretty face, and she was silly enough to believe it. Poor little Fair! I like her very much, but I wish she did not have such a weak-minded mother.”

But, of course, she could not speak out her thoughts, and as neither Fair nor her mother made any remark, she rose to take leave, expressing the hope that Fair would be well enough to come to work to-morrow.

“Of course she will,” Mrs. Fielding answered, with returning self-possession. “She wanted to go this morning, but she was looking so ill and feeling so badly I kept her at home to rest.”

“I shall be all right in the morning,” said Fair, with a poor attempt at a smile.

Poor child! She felt crushed and miserable. A bright, beautiful hope had flashed across the horizon of her dull, toilsome life, only to fade in rayless darkness, whose gloom pierced her soul. She sat down when Sadie was gone, and leaned her head on her hands, with a sigh that made Mrs. Fielding look around quickly.

“You are disappointed, aren’t you, dear?” she asked.

Fair struggled a moment with her feelings, then, with a brave resolve that no one should ever know of her unsought love, she answered quietly:

“No, mother, only tired.”

But the elder woman, who knew how much is sometimes hidden by those simple words “only tired,” comprehended more than Fair wished she should, and nodded her head in silent sorrow, for her own disappointment was very keen.

But the name of Bayard Lorraine was tacitly dropped between them. He went out of their lives suddenly, as he had come into them, although not out of Fair’s thoughts, for, try to thrust his image from her heart as she would, it intruded into her thoughts, and with it came many a silent wonder over the bride that he had chosen. Was she young? Was she rich? Was she beautiful?