Had it not been for the presence of Dr. Holbrook, who, accepting Guy's
invitation to tea, rode back with him to Aikenside, Mrs. Agnes would
have gone off into a passion when told that Jessie had been "exposed
to fever and mercy knows what."
"There's no telling what one will catch among the very poor," she said
to Dr. Holbrook, as she clasped and unclasped the heavy gold bracelets
flashing on her white, round arm.
"I'll be answerable for any disease Jessie caught at Mr. Markham's,"
the doctor replied.
"At Mr. Who's? What did you call him?" Agnes asked, the bright color
on her cheek fading as the doctor replied: "Markham--an old man who lives in Honedale. You never knew him, of
course."
Involuntarily Agnes glanced at Guy, in whose eye there was, as she
fancied, a peculiar expression. Could it be he knew the secret she
guarded so carefully? Impossible, she said to herself; but still the
white fingers trembled as she handled the china and silver, and for
once she was glad when the doctor took his leave, and she was alone
with Jessie.
"What was that girl's name?" she asked, "the one you went to see?"
"Maddy, mother--Madeline Clyde. She's so pretty. I'm going to see her
again. May I?"
Agnes did not reply directly, but continued to question the child with
regard to the cottage which Jessie thought so funny, slanting away
back, she said, so that the roof on one side almost touched the
ground. The window panes, too, were so very tiny, and the room where
Maddy lay sick was small and low.
"Yes, yes, I know," Agnes said at last, impatiently, weary of hearing
of the cottage whose humble exterior and interior she knew so much
better than Jessie herself.
But this was not to be divulged; for surely the haughty Agnes
Remington, who, in Boston, aspired to lead in society into which, as
the wife of Dr. Remington, she had been admitted, and who, in
Aikenside, was looked upon with envy, could have nothing in common
with the red cottage or its inmates. So when Jessie asked again if she
could not visit Maddy on the morrow, she answered decidedly: "No,
daughter, no. I do not wish you to associate with such people," and
when Jessie insisted on knowing why she must not associate with such
people as Maddy Clyde, the answer was: "Because you are a Remington,"
and as if this of itself were of an unanswerable objection, Agnes sent
her child from her, refusing to talk longer on a subject so
disagreeable to her and so suggestive of the past. It was all in vain
that Jessie, and even Guy himself, tried to revoke the decision.
Jessie should not be permitted to come in contact with that kind of
people, she said, or incur the risk of catching that dreadful fever.