And the next day she was herself again, and dismissed the evil spell of Dr. Clough with a contemptuous shrug. Nor would she send for Thorpe.
“I may cut it down to eight months,” she said. “But I must wait that long.”
A week later Miss Shropshire returned to San Francisco. Nina was not sorry to be alone again. She drifted back into her communion with the inanimate things about her, into the exaltation of spirit, impossible in human companionship, and lived for Thorpe’s letters.
One day she received a letter from Dr. Clough.
“Dear Cousin Nina,” it ran. “I am to have the practice in Napa, but not for two or three months, unfortunately, for I look forward to meeting you again. Those few days with you and Miss Molly were delightful to the lonely wanderer, who has never known a home.” (“Not since he wore clogs,” thought Nina.) “Perhaps some day I shall make substantial acknowledgment of my gratitude. This is a world of vicissitudes, as we all know. Remember this—will you, Nina?—when you need meI am there.There are crises in life when a true friend, a relative whose interests merge with one’s own, is not to be despised. Don’t destroy this letter. Put it by. It is sincere.“Your faithful and obd’t servant,“Richard Clough.”
“Dear Cousin Nina,” it ran. “I am to have the practice in Napa, but not for two or three months, unfortunately, for I look forward to meeting you again. Those few days with you and Miss Molly were delightful to the lonely wanderer, who has never known a home.” (“Not since he wore clogs,” thought Nina.) “Perhaps some day I shall make substantial acknowledgment of my gratitude. This is a world of vicissitudes, as we all know. Remember this—will you, Nina?—when you need meI am there.There are crises in life when a true friend, a relative whose interests merge with one’s own, is not to be despised. Don’t destroy this letter. Put it by. It is sincere.
“Your faithful and obd’t servant,“Richard Clough.”
Nina tossed the letter impatiently on the table, then caught it up again and re-read the last pages.
“That sounds as if it were writtenavec intention,” she thought. “Can papa be embarrassed? But what good could this scrubby little man do me, if he were? Most likely it is the first gun of the siege. Thank Heaven the guns must be fired through the post for a while.”
December was come, but it was still very warm. The lake was hard and still and blue. The glare was merciless.
Nina, followed by a servant bearing cushions, climbed wearily up the hill to the forest. Once or twice she paused and caught at a tree for support.
“If I ever get into the forest, I believe I’ll stay there until this weather is over,” she thought. “It has completely demoralised me.”
The servant arranged the cushions in a hammock between two pines whose arms locked high above,—a green fragrant roof the sun could not penetrate. Nina made herself comfortable, and re-read Thorpe’s last letter,received the day before. It was a very impatient letter. He wanted her, and life in the South was a bore after the novelty had worn off.
She lay thinking of him, and listening to the drowsy murmur of forest life about her. Squirrels were chattering softly, somewhere in the arbours above those slender grey pillars. A confused hum rose from the ground; from far came the roar of a torrent. She could see the blue lake with its ring of white sand, the bluer sky above, and turned her back: the sight brought heat into those cool depths. Above her rose the dim green aisles, the countless columns of the forest. She was very tired and languid. She placed Thorpe’s letter under her cheek and slept; and in her sleep she dreamed.
She was still in the forest: every lineament of it was familiar. For a time there were none of the changes of dreams. Then from the base of every pine something lifted slowly and coiled about the tree,—something long and green and horridly beautiful. It lifted itself to the very branches, then detached itself a little and waved a foot of its upper length toand fro, its glittering eyes regarding her with sleepy malice. The squirrels had hidden in their caves; not a sound came from the earth; the waters had hushed their voice. Nothing moved in that awful silence but the languid heads of the snakes.
Then came a sudden brisk step; her cousin entered. He did not notice the sleeper, but went to each constrictor in turn and stroked it lovingly. Once he caught a coil close to his breast and laughed. The small malignant eyes above moved to his, their expression changing to friendliness, albeit shot with contempt. To Nina’s agonised sense the scene lasted for hours, during which Clough fondled the reptiles with increasing ardour.
But at last the scene changed, and abruptly. She was on the mountain above the fog-ocean, close to the stars. Thorpe’s arms were strong about her. It had seemed to her in the past five months that she had never really ceased to feel the strength of his embrace, to hear the loud beating of his heart on her own. This time he withdrew one arm and, thrusting his fingers among her heartstrings, pulledthem gently. Something vibrated throughout her. She had been happy before, but that soft vibration filled her with a new and inexplicable gladness. She asked him what it meant. He murmured something she could not understand, and smote the chords again. Her being seemed filled with music.
She awoke. The woods were dark. She tried to recall the ugly prelude to her dream, but it had passed. She put her hands against her shoulders, fancying she must encounter the arms that had held her, for their pressure lingered. Then she drew her brows together, and craned her neck with an expression of wonder. But several moments passed before she understood. She was very ignorant of many things, and her experience up to the present had been exceptional.
But she was a woman, and in time she understood.
Her first mental response was a wild unreasoning terror, that of the woman who is in sore straits, far from the man who should protect her and evoke the hasty sanction of the law. But the mood passed. She was sure of Thorpe, and she had all the arroganceof wealth. He would hasten at her summons, and they would live in this solitude for a year or more; no one beyond the necessary confidants need ever know.
The maternal instinct had awakened in her dream. She folded herself suddenly in her own arms. Her imagination flew to the future. Every imaginative woman who loves the man that becomes her husband must have one enduring regret: that in a third or more of his life she had no part; he grew to manhood knowing nothing of her little share in the scheme of things, met her when two at least of his personalities were coffined in the yesterday that is the most vivid of all the memories. And if his child be a boy, she may fancy it the incarnation of her husband’s lost boyhood and youth, and thus complete the circle of her manifold desire.
And then Nina knew what had scotched the monster of heredity; she could see the tiny hands at its throat. She lay and marvelled until the servants, alarmed, came to look for her. The world took on a new and wonderful aspect; she was the most wonderful thing in it.
After supper she went into the sitting-room and wrote to Thorpe. As she finished and left the desk, her eye fell on Richard Clough’s letter, which lay, open, on the table. The same chill horror caught her as when she had encountered his searching eyes on the last day of his visit, and she understood its meaning. He knew; there was the key to his verbiage.
She dropped upon a chair, feeling faint and ill. Like many women, she had firm trust in her intuitions. If they had seemed baseless before, they rested on a firm enough foundation now. She was in this man’s power; and the man was an adventurer and a Clough. Would he tell her father? Or worse—her mother! She pictured her father’s grief; his rage against Thorpe. It would be more than she could endure. When Thorpe came, it would not matter so much. And if her father were not told, it was doubtful if he would ever suspect: he was very busy, and hated the tripfrom San Francisco to Lake County. After Thorpe’s arrival, it was hardly likely that he would visit her.
A few moments’ reflection convinced her that Clough would keep her secret. His was the mind of subtle methods. He would make use of his power over her in ways beyond her imagining.
Terror possessed her, and she called loudly upon Thorpe. With the sound of his name, her confidence returned. He would be with her in something under three months. Meanwhile, she could defy Clough. Later, he would meet more than his match.
The next day she wrote to Molly Shropshire, telling her the truth and giving her many commissions. Miss Shropshire’s reply was characteristic:
“I have bought everything, and start for the cottage on Tuesday. It is fortunate that I have two married sisters; I can be of much assistance to you. I have helped on several wardrobes of this sort, and acquired much lore of which you appear to be painfully ignorant. I am coming with my large trunk; for I shall not leave you again.”
“I have bought everything, and start for the cottage on Tuesday. It is fortunate that I have two married sisters; I can be of much assistance to you. I have helped on several wardrobes of this sort, and acquired much lore of which you appear to be painfully ignorant. I am coming with my large trunk; for I shall not leave you again.”
The momentous subject was not broached for some hours after her arrival. Then—they were seated before the fire in the sitting-room, and the first rain of winter was pelting the roof—Miss Shropshire opened her mouth and spoke with vicious emphasis.
“I hate men. There is not one I’d lift my finger to do a service for. My sisters are supposed to have good husbands. One—Fred Lester—is a grown-up baby, full of whims and petty vanities and blatant selfishness, who has to be ‘managed.’ Tom Manning is as surly as a bear with a sore head when his dinner disappoints him; and when things go wrong in the office there is no living in the house with him. My brother’s life is notorious, and his wife, what with patience and tears, looks like a pan of skim-milk. Catch me ever marrying! Not if Adonis came down and staked a claim about a mountain of gold quartz. As for Dudley Thorpe!” her voice rose to the pitch of fury. “What is a man’s love good for, if it can’t think of the woman first? Aren’t they our natural protectors? Aren’t they supposed to think for us,—take all the responsibilities of life offour shoulders? This sort of thing is in keeping with the character, isn’t it? Why don’t you hate him? You ought to.I’dmurder him—”
Nina plunged across the rug, and pressed both hands against Miss Shropshire’s mouth, her eyes blazing with passion.
“Don’t you dare speak of him like that again! If you do, it will be the last time you will ever speak to me. I understand him—as well as if he were literally a part of myself. I’ll never explain to you nor to any one, butI know. And there is nothing in me that does not respond to him. Now, do you understand? Will you say another word?”
“Oh, very well. Don’t stifle me!” Miss Shropshire released herself. “Have it that way, if it suits you best. I didn’t come here to quarrel with you.”
Nina resumed her seat. After a few moments she said: “There is another thing: Richard Clough knows.” And she told Miss Shropshire of his letter.
“Um, well, I don’t know but that that will be as good an arrangement as any. Some one must attend you, and a relative—”
“What! Do you think I’d have that reptile near me?”
“Now, Nina, look at the matter like a sensible woman. We shall have to get a doctor from Napa. If it storms, he may be days getting here. If he has a wife, she’ll want to know where he has been, and will worm it out of him. If he hasn’t, he’ll let it out some night when he has his feet on the table in his favourite saloon, and is outside his eighth glass of punch. It will be to Richard’s interest to keep the matter quiet—you can make it his interest: I don’t fancy he’s above pocketing a couple of thousands. And he’ll not dare annoy you after Dudley Thorpe is here. I’ll do Dudley Thorpe this much justice: he could whip most men, and he wouldn’t stop to think about it, either. Don’t let us discuss the matter any further now. Just turn it over in your mind. I am sure you will come to the conclusion that I am right. If you ignore Richard, there’s no knowing what he may do.”
The next day Miss Shropshire cut out many small garments, Nina watching her with ecstatic eyes. Both were expert needlewomen,—most Californian girls were in those days of the infrequent and inferior dressmaker,—and in the weeks that came they fashioned many dainty and elegant garments. Nina no longer went to the forest, rarely on the lake. Miss Shropshire could hardly persuade her to go out once a day for a walk, so enthralled was she by that bewildering mass of fine linen and lace. She was prouder of her tucks than she had ever been of a semi-circle of admirers, four deep; and when she had finished her first yoke she wept with delight.
Miss Shropshire often watched her curiously, half-comprehending. She abominated babies. Her home was with one of her married sisters, and a new baby meant the splitting of ear-drums, the foolish prattle and attenuated vocabulary of the female parent,and the systematic irritations of the inefficient nurse-maid. Why a woman should look as if heaven had opened its gates because she was going to have a baby, passed her comprehension, particularly in the embarrassing circumstances.
Nina was alone when Thorpe’s next letter arrived.
“I am starting for Cuba,” it began. “My brother Harold has joined me; and as his chest is in a bad way, he thinks of settling in a hot country. I have suggested California; but he is infatuated with the idea of Cuba. You will forgive me for leaving the United States for a short period, will you not, dearest? I can do you no particular good by remaining here, and I am bored to extinction. If you would but give me the word, I should start for California on the next steamer; but as you hold me to the original compact, perhaps you will give me a little latitude. The talk here is war, war, war,—never a variation by any possible chance. My sympathies are with the South, and if they fight I hope they’ll win; but as I have no personal interest in the matter I feel like a man condemned toa long course of one highly seasoned dish, with no prospect of variety. Address as usual; your letters will be forwarded, unless I return in a few weeks, as I think I shall.”
“I am starting for Cuba,” it began. “My brother Harold has joined me; and as his chest is in a bad way, he thinks of settling in a hot country. I have suggested California; but he is infatuated with the idea of Cuba. You will forgive me for leaving the United States for a short period, will you not, dearest? I can do you no particular good by remaining here, and I am bored to extinction. If you would but give me the word, I should start for California on the next steamer; but as you hold me to the original compact, perhaps you will give me a little latitude. The talk here is war, war, war,—never a variation by any possible chance. My sympathies are with the South, and if they fight I hope they’ll win; but as I have no personal interest in the matter I feel like a man condemned toa long course of one highly seasoned dish, with no prospect of variety. Address as usual; your letters will be forwarded, unless I return in a few weeks, as I think I shall.”
Then followed several closely written pages which advised her of the unalterable state of his affections.
Nina put the letter down, and stared before her with a wide introspective gaze. When Miss Shropshire entered, she handed her the first two pages. The older girl shut her lips.
“I don’t like it,” she said. “It means delay, and every week is precious. It looks—” She paused.
“Unlucky; I have been wondering. I have a queer helpless feeling, as if I were tangled in a net, and even Dudley, with all his love and will, could not get me out. I suppose there is something in fate. I feel very insignificant.”
“Come, come, you are not to get morbid. Nobody’s life is a straight line. You must expect hard knots, and rough by-ways, and malaria, and all the rest of it. Don’t borrow trouble. You are sure of him, anyhow.”
“Sometimes I hate California. One might as well be on Mars. It’s thousands of miles from New Orleans, and New Orleans is hundreds of miles from Cuba. And now that everything is getting so upset, who knows if he’ll ever get my letters? I wish I’d started straight for New Orleans the moment I knew. I am utterly at the mercy of circumstances.”
“Well, thank Heaven you’re rich,” said Miss Shropshire, bluntly. “Just fancy if you were some poor little wretch deserted by the man, and with no prospect but the county hospital; then you might be blue.”
“Oh, I suppose it might be worse!” replied Nina.
The next day her buoyant spirits were risen again, and she resolved to accept the immediate arrangement of her destiny with philosophy; peace and happiness would be hers eventually. She could not violate the most jealous of social laws and expect all the good fairies to attend the birth of her child. But she longed by day for the luxury of the night, when she could cry,and beg Thorpe under her breath to come to her.
When the next steamer arrived it brought her no letter from Thorpe. But this was to be expected. Another steamer arrived; it brought nothing. She turned very grey.
“Make a close calculation,” she said to Miss Shropshire. “You know how long it takes to go to Cuba and back. Has there been time?”
“Yes, there has been time.”
It was the middle of February, the end of a mild and beautiful winter. Little rain had fallen. Nature seemed to Nina more caressing than ever. The sun rarely veiled his face with a passing cloud. She worked with feverish persistence, keeping up her spirits as best she could. There was a bare chance that the next steamer would bring Thorpe.
Her father had paid her another visit, and gone away unsuspicious. He had, in fact, talked of nothing but the approaching rebellion of the Southern States, and the possible effect on the progress of the country. It was not likely that he would come again, for hehad embarked on two new business enterprises, and he allowed himself to believe that Nina had passed the danger point.
The third steamer arrived. It brought neither Thorpe nor a letter. Then Nina gave way. For twenty-four hours she wept and sobbed, paying no attention to expostulations and threats. Miss Shropshire was seriously alarmed; for the first time she fully realised the proportions of the responsibility she had assumed. She longed for advice. She even contemplated sending for Mr. Randolph; for with all her dogged strength of character she was but a woman, and an unmarried one. Finally she wrote to Clough, who had arrived in Napa a fortnight before. She could not bring herself to betray Nina’s confidence; but Clough already knew. Then she went to her room, and cursed Thorpe roundly and aloud. After that she felt calmer, and returned to Nina.
“I can’t think he is dead,” said Nina, abruptly, speaking coherently for the first time. “If he were, I should know it. I shouldseehim.” Miss Shropshire shivered, and cast an apprehensive glance into thedark corners of the room. “But he is ill; that is the only explanation. You don’t doubt him?” turning fiercely to her friend.
“No; I can’t say that I do. No—” with some reluctance, “decidedly not. He’s not that sort. Like most men, he will probably cool off in time; but he’s no weathercock, and one could hardly help believing in his honesty.”
Nina kissed her with passionate gratitude. “I couldn’t stand having you doubt him,” she said. “I never have, not for a moment; but—oh—what does it matter what is the reason? He hasn’t come, and I haven’t heard from him. That is enough!”
“There will be one more steamer. There is just time.”
“He won’t come. Ifeelthat everything is going wrong. One way and another, my life is going to ruin—”
“Nonsense, you are merely overwrought and despondent—”
“That is not all. And I know myself. Listen—if my baby dies, and he does not come, I shall go down lower than I have everbeen, and I shall stay there. I’d never rise again, nor want to—”
“Then, for Heaven’s sake, don’t do your best to kill it! Brace up. I believe that a good deal of what you say is true. Some people are strong for the pleasure of giving other people a chance to add to the platitudes of the world; but you are not that sort. So take care of yourself.”
“Very well; put me to bed. I will do what I can.”
She did not rise the next day, and, when Clough came, consented, listlessly, to see him. In this interview he made no impression on her whatever; he might have been an automaton. Her brain realised no man but the one for whom her weary heart ached.
She made an effort on the following day, and embroidered, and listened while Miss Shropshire read aloud to her. The effort was renewed daily; and every hour she fought with her instinct to succumb to despair. Physically, she was very tired. She longed for the care and tenderness which would have been hers in happier circumstances.
Miss Shropshire took the precaution to ask Clough to come to the cottage a day or two before the next steamer was due, and to be prepared to remain. The steamer arrived, and with it nothing of interest to Nina Randolph.
She was very ill. Even Clough, who was inimitable in a sick room, looked grey and anxious. But it passed; and the time came when the housekeeper, who had had many babies in her time, placed a little girl in Nina’s arms.
Nina, who had been lying with closed eyes, exhausted and wretched, turned her face toward the unfamiliar weight, and looked wonderingly into the face of the child. For a moment she hardly realised its significance, vivid as had been her imaginings. The baby’s colour was fair and agreeable, and its large blue eyes moved slowly about with an expression of sober inquiry.
Nina glanced hastily outward. She was alone for the moment. Miss Shropshire had goneto her well-earned rest, and Dr. Clough was in the dining-room, attended by Mrs. Atkins. Nina drew the baby closer, and kissed it. For the moment she held Dudley Thorpe in her arms,—for she could not grasp their separateness,—and peace returned. Thorpe was ill, of course; but he was hardy and young, and would recover. The rapture of young motherhood possessed her. She kissed the baby many times, softly, fearing that it might break, then drew back and gazed at it with rapt adoration. Once she met its wise solemn eyes, and the first soul of Dudley Thorpe looked from their depths. She moved it with trembling care, and laid its head on her breast.
She gave no thought to the time when the world must know; the world no longer existed for her. Dudley Thorpe was her husband, and his child was in her arms,—an actual tangible beautiful certainty; all the rest that went to make up life was nebulæ.
It was a very good baby, and gave little trouble; consequently Nina was permitted to hold it most of the time. She felt no desireto rise from the bed, to take an active part in life again. She would have liked to remain there until Thorpe came and sat beside her. She spoke little, excepting to the child, and perhaps those hours, despite the great want, were the happiest of her life.
“What are some women made of?” demanded Miss Shropshire of Dr. Clough. “What is she going to do with that baby? That’s what I want to know. It may be months before Dudley Thorpe gets here, and it certainly won’t be long before Mr. Randolph comes up again. I don’t believe she has given a thought to the consequences—and I have always thought her an unusually bright and level-headed woman.”
“I see nothing to do but let matters take their course.” He hesitated a moment, then gave Miss Shropshire a swift tentative glance, shifting his eyes hastily. “Would you—you believe in my disinterestedness, do you not, Miss Molly?”
“I do, indeed. You have been a real friend. I’m sure I don’t know what I should have done without you.”
“Then—if Mr. Thorpe does not return,when she has become convinced that he does not mean to return, will you help me to make her understand that I am only too willing to marry her and adopt her child?”
Miss Shropshire stared, then shook her head. “You don’t know Nina. It would be years before she got over her infatuation for Dudley Thorpe, if ever; and by that time everybody would know. Besides, I don’t share your distrust of Thorpe. He is selfish, and is probably travelling beyond the reach of mails; but he is the soul of honour: no one could doubt that.”
“He may be dead.”
“We should have heard by this time; and it would not help you if he were. Most likely it would kill her.”
“We don’t die so easily.”
“The thing to consider now is that baby. It’s a dear little thing, and looks less like putty than most babies; I can actually see a resemblance to Thorpe. But, all the same, its presence is decidedly embarrassing.”
The baby solved the problem. It died when it was ten days old. Even Miss Shropshire, who scorned the emotions, shudderedand burst into tears at the awful agony in Nina’s eyes. Nina did not cry, nor did she speak. When the child was dressed for its coffin, the housekeeper brought it to the bedside. Nina raised herself on her elbow, and gave it a long devouring glance. It looked like marble rather than wax, and its likeness to Dudley Thorpe was startling. The contours of infancy had disappeared in its brief severe illness, and the strong bold outlines of the man who had called it into being were reproduced in little. The dark hair fell over its forehead in the same way, the mouth had the same arch.
Miss Shropshire entered the room, and Nina spoke for the first time since the baby had given its sharp cry of warning.
“Take it up into the forest, and bury it between the two pines where my hammock was.” And then she turned her back and stared at the wall.
Shortly after, Mr. Randolph was informed that Nina had had a brief but severe attack of rheumatic fever, and he paid her a hurried visit. He wondered at the change in her, but did not suspect the truth.
“She is pining for Thorpe, I suppose,” he said to Miss Shropshire. “I cannot understand his silence; and now God knows when we’ll hear from him, unless he managed to get North before April 19th. Something has happened, I am afraid. Poor child, she was not born under a lucky star! Is she all right otherwise?”
“Yes, it looks as if she were cured. But when she goes to San Francisco, she had better stay with me for a time. I don’t think her mother’s society would be the best thing for her while she is so despondent.”
“By all means. And that detestable Clough?”
“He is really a first-rate doctor, and has been devotion itself.”
“Very well: I shall send him a handsome cheque. But if he has any matrimonial designs, let him look out. Don’t imagine I am blind. A man does not neglect a fresh practice for cousinly affection. I cannot suppose for a moment that she would tolerate him, but when a woman is listless and despondent, and thinks that all her prospects of happiness are over, there’s no telling what shewill do; particularly if the besieger has the tenacity of a bull dog. I’d rather see her in her coffin than married to Richard Clough.”
Miss Shropshire was very anxious to return to San Francisco. She loved Nina Randolph; but she had immured herself in the cause of friendship long enough, and thought that her afflicted friend would be quite as well off where distractions were more abundant. When she suggested return, Nina acquiesced indifferently, and Mrs. Atkins packed the trunks with a hearty good-will. Dr. Clough brought a hack, at great expense, from Napa, and packed her into it as if she were a baby. As it drove off, she looked through the window up to the forest where her baby lay. She had not been strong enough to climb to the grave. She knew that she should never see it.
When Thorpe left New Orleans his plan was to return on the next steamer but one, then to go North to New York or Boston,—he had friends in both cities,—and amuse himself in new fields until he was permitted to return to California. He sought distraction, for although he was reasonably sure of Nina’s power to conquer herself, and intended to marry her whether she did or not, separation and time deepened his passion for her, and he only found peace of mind in filling his hours to the brim. It is doubtful if he would have consented to remain the year out were it not that he wished to admire her as much as she longed to have him. Her pride and confidence in herself would invigorate the happiness of both.
He left orders in New Orleans to have his mail held over until his return. Harold wasvery ill on the voyage. Almost immediately upon landing in Havana his health began to mend, and he declared himself ready to kiss the soil, as he could not bestow a similar mark of favour on the climate. He announced his intention of sending for his affianced and spending the rest of his life in the West Indies. Thorpe did not take him too seriously, but seeing that there was no prospect of getting away for some time, and believing that Cuba would offer himself entertainment for several months, he sent to New Orleans for his mail, and wrote to Nina announcing his present plans. Whether the letters never left the Havana post-office, or whether the mail sack was lost overboard later, or ignored in the excitement at New Orleans, no one will ever know. Nor does it matter; they were never received, and that is all that concerns this tale. Thorpe and Harold started inland immediately, and finally determined to go to Jamaica and San Domingo before returning to Havana. He knew it was worse than folly to trust letters to the wretched inland post-offices, and he had told Nina in his letter of explanation not to expectanother for some time. He should be in New Orleans on the first of May, and, meanwhile, he kept a diary for her future entertainment.
While exploring the mountain forests in the central part of Hayti, their guide was murdered, and they were two months finding their way to San Domingo. They were months of excitement, adventure, and more than one hair-breadth escape. Thorpe would have been in his element had it been possible to communicate with Nina, and could he have been sure of getting out of the West Indies before the rainy season began. They came unexpectedly upon San Domingo; and he learned that war had broken out in the United States during April. They made what haste they could to Havana, Harold as eager to return to civilisation as his brother; for vermin and land-crabs had tempered his enthusiasm, and he had acquired a violent dislike for the negro. At Havana, Thorpe found no letters awaiting him. He also learned from an American resident that postal communication had ceased between the North and South on May 31st. He wondered blankly at his stupidityin not going North while there was yet time, but like many others, he had heard so much talk of war that he had ceased to believe in its certainty. He could only hope that his letter had reached Nina, but knew that it was more than doubtful. The Southern ports were in a state of blockade. He and his brother ran it in a little boat rowed by themselves. In New Orleans he read the packet of letters from Nina, that awaited him.
The great change in Nina Randolph’s appearance and manner induced no small amount of gossip in San Francisco. Women are quick to scent the sin that society loves best to discuss, and there were many that suspected the truth: her long retirement had prepared them for an interesting sequel. Nina guessed that she was dividing with the war the honours of attention in a small but law-making circle, but was quite indifferent. She rarely went down to the parlour when people called, but sat in her bedroom staring out atthe bay; the Lester house was on the summit of Clay Street hill.
Her father was deeply anxious, full of gloomy forebodings. He believed Thorpe to be dead, and shook with horror when he thought of what the consequences might be.
“Wouldn’t you like a change?” he asked her one day. “How would you like go to New York? Molly and Mrs. Lester could go with you.”
Nina shook her head, colouring faintly.
“I see. You are afraid of missing Thorpe. I wish there were some way of finding out—”
She turned to him with eager eyes. “Would you go, papa,—to New Orleans? I haven’t dared to ask it. Go and see what is the matter.”
“My child, I could not get there. The ports are blockaded; if I attempted the folly of getting to New Orleans by land, I should probably be shot as a spy. It is for those reasons that he will have great difficulty in getting here, as he did not have the forethought to leave the South in time.”
To this Nina made no reply, and as she would not talk to him, he left her.
That evening Miss Shropshire came into Nina’s room, and spoke twice before she was answered. The room was dark.
“Look here, Nina!” she said peremptorily. “You’ve got to brace up. People are talking. I know it!”
“Are they? What does it matter? I have no more use for them. I may as well tell you I have come to the conclusion that Dudley Thorpe ceased to care for me, and that is the reason of his silence. He has gone back to England.”
“I don’t believe it. You’re growing morbid. Women frequently do after that sort of experience. I remember Beatrix sat in one position for nearly a month, staring at the floor: wouldn’t even brush her teeth. You have too much brains for that sort of thing.”
“I believe it. I have made up my mind. He is in England. He wrote me once that if it were not that I had asked him not to leave the country, he would run over, he was so tired of America. He went, and stayed.”
“Well, then, go out in the world and flirt as you used to. Don’t let any man bowl you over like this; and, for Heaven’s sake, don’t mope any more!”
“I hate the thought of every man in San Francisco. When I knew them, I was an entirely different woman. I couldn’t adapt myself to them if I wanted to—which I don’t.”
“But there are always new ones—”
“Oh, don’t! Haven’t you imagination enough to guess what this last year has made of me? If I got as far as a ball-room I’d stand up in the middle of the floor and shriek out that since I was there last my heart had lived and been broken, that I had lost a husband and buried a baby—”
“Then, for Heaven’s sake, stay at home! But I think,” with deep meaning, “that you had better try a change of some sort, Nina. If you don’t want to risk going East, why not visit some of the Spanish people in Southern California?”
“I shall stay here.”
It was during the next night that Nina left her bed suddenly, flung herself into a chair,and pressed her elbows hard upon her knees. She had barely slept for three nights. Her nerves were in a highly irritable state. If any one had entered she would not have been able to control her temper. Black depression possessed her; the irritability of her nerves alternated with the sensation of dropping through space; and her relaxed body cried for stimulant.
She twisted her hands together, her face convulsed. “Why should I fight?” she argued aloud. “In that, at least, I should find temporary oblivion. And what else have I left? Down deep, ever since I got his last letter, I have known that I should never see him again. It is my destiny: that is the beginning and the end of it. This is the second time I have wanted it since the baby died. Ibeatit out of me the first time. I hoped—hoped—and if he were here I should win. If I could be happy, and go away with him, it would not come again: I know—I know. He could have got me some word by this. He is not dead. There is only one other explanation. Men are all alike, they say. Why should I struggle? For what? Whathave I to live for? I am the most wretched woman on earth.”
But she did struggle. The dawn found her sitting there still, her muscles almost rigid. Her love for Thorpe had undergone no change; it took the fight into its own hands. And it seemed to her that she could hear her soul beg for its rights; its voice rose above the persistent clamour of her body.
She went to bed and slept for a few hours; but when she awoke the desire in her nerves was madder than ever. Every part of her cried out for stimulant. She had no love for the taste of liquor; the demand came from her nerve-centres. But still she fought on, materialising the monster, fancying that she held it by the throat, that she cut its limbs off, its heart out; but it shook itself together with magnificent vitality, and laughed in her face.
Days passed. The clamour in her body strove to raise itself above the despairing cry in her soul. But still, mechanically, without hope, she lifted her ear to the higher cry, knowing that if she fell now she shouldnever rise again in her earthly life, nor speak with Dudley Thorpe, should he, perhaps, return.
She invoked the image of her baby, the glory of the few days she had known it. But a bitter tide of resentment overwhelmed the memory of that brief exaltation. If she was to be saved, why had not the baby been spared? Those who shared her secret had attempted to console her by assuring her that its death was a mercy for all concerned. She had not answered them; but her grief was cut with contempt for their lack of vision. The baby might have cost her her social position, but it would have stood between her soul and perdition. It had been taken—by One who was supposed to know the needs of all His creatures. Therefore it was only reasonable to assume that He wished her to be destroyed.
She thought of nothing else, but cunningly pretended to be absorbed in her books.
There came a night when her nerves shrieked until her brain surged with the din of them, and her hands clutched at the air, her eyes hardened and expanded with greed,her lips were forced apart by her panting breath. She jerked the stopper out of a bottle of cologne and swallowed a quarter of the contents, then flung her wraps about her, stole downstairs and out of the house, found a carriage, and was driven to South Park.
Two weeks later she sat huddled over the fire in the library. Her face was yellow; her eyes were sunken and dull; her hands trembled. She looked thirty-five.
In her lap lay a letter from Dudley Thorpe. He and his brother, at the risk of their lives, had got through the lines and reached New York. The excitement, fatigue, and exposure had nearly killed Harold, who was in a hospital in a precarious condition. Thorpe could not leave him. He implored her to come on to New York at once; and he had never written a more tender and passionate letter.
Cochrane opened the door, and announced that Dr. Clough had called.
“Tell him to come here,” she said.
Dr. Clough wore his usual jaunty air, and he made no comment on her appearance; he had come straight from Miss Shropshire.
“Sit down,” said Nina, curtly, interrupting his demonstrations. “You come at the right moment. I was about to send for you.”
“My dear cousin Nina! I hope there is no—”
“Let me talk, please. Do you wish to marry me?”
Clough caught his breath. He flushed, despite his nerve. “Of course I do,” he stammered. “What a question! Certainly there never was a woman so original. It is like you to settle matters in your own way.”
“Don’t delude yourself for a moment that I even like you. Of all the men I have ever known, the sort of person I take you to be has my most unmitigated contempt. It is for that reason I marry you. I must marry some one at once to keep myself from ruining the life of Dudley Thorpe. I choose you, because, in the first place, I am so vile a thingthat no punishment is severe enough for me; and, in the second, Fate has acquitted herself so brilliantly in regard to my humble self that I feel a certain satisfaction in giving her all she wants.”
“My dear Nina, you are morbid.” He spoke pleasantly, but he turned away his eyes.
“Possibly; it would be somewhat remarkable if I were not. Do you still wish to marry me?”
“Certainly. I do not take your rather uncomplimentary utterances seriously. In your present frame ofmind—”
“It is the only frame of mind I shall ever be in. You will have an unpleasant domestic life; but you will have all the money you want. Don’t flatter yourself for a moment that you will either control or cure me. You will be no more in my house than a well-paid butler—after my father has been induced to accept you, which will not be in a hurry. Meanwhile, you will probably beat me: you are quite capable of it; but you may save yourself the exertion.”
“I shall not beat you, Nina, dear.” Hespoke softly, with an assumption of masculine indulgence; but his small pointed teeth moved suddenly apart.
“You will understand, of course, that this engagement must not get to my father’s ears. He would lock me up before he would permit me to marry you. He has all the contempt of the gentleman for the cad, of the real man for the bundle of petty imitations: and you are his pet aversion. On the tenth, he is obliged to go to San José to attend an important law-suit. He will be detained not less than three days. We shall marry on the eleventh—at Mrs. Lester’s. I shall not tell my mother, for I will not give her the pleasure of conspiring against my father. I suppose that I shall break my father’s heart; but I don’t know that I care. He might have saved me, if he had been stronger, and I am no longer capable of loving any one—”
“Suppose Mr. Thorpe should come out here after you, anyhow, married or not.”
“He will do nothing of the sort. One reason you would be incapable of understanding, should I attempt to explain; the other is, that he will no longer want me afterI have been the wife of a person of your sort.”
“My word, Nina, you are rather rough on a fellow; but give me a kiss, and I’ll overlook it.”
She lifted her face, and let him kiss her, then struck him so violent a blow that the little man staggered.
“Now go,” she said, “and don’t let me see you again until the eleventh. If you have anything to say, you can write it to Molly Shropshire.”
When he had gone, she drew her hand across her lips, then looked closely at it as if expecting to see a stain. Then she shuddered, and huddled closer to the fire, and in a few moments threw Dudley Thorpe’s letter on the coals.
“Well, some womenareremarkable!” exclaimed Miss Shropshire to her sister, Mrs. Lester. “The idea of her having a wedding dress,—white satin, train, and all.She even fussed over at least twenty pairs of slippers, and I was almost afraid to bring home that bridal veil for fear it wouldn’t suit her.”
“I suppose she thinks that weddings, white satin ones, at least, only come once in a lifetime.” Mrs. Lester was a tired little woman, quite subservient to her strong-minded sister. The wedding was to take place in her back parlour at an hour when Mr. Lester, occupied and unsuspecting, would be away from home. She did not approve of the plot; but her opinion, much less her consent, had not been asked.
“I’d like to thoroughly understand Nina Randolph, just for once,” said Miss Shropshire, meditatively. “It would be interesting, to say the least.”
The night before the wedding she went into Nina’s room, and found her standing before the mirror arrayed in her bridal finery,—veil, gloves, slippers, all. She had regained her natural hues; but her eyes were still sunken, her face pinched and hard. She was almost plain.
“Nina! Why on earth have you put onthose things? Don’t you know it’s bad luck?”
Nina laughed.
Miss Shropshire exclaimed, “Umburufen!” and rapped loudly three times on the top of a chair. “There! I hope that will do some good. I know what you are thinking—you are so unlucky, anyhow. But why tempt fate?” She hesitated a moment. “It is not too late. Put it off for six months, and then see how you feel about it. You are morbid now. You don’t know what changes time might—”
“No earthly power can prevent me from marrying Richard Clough to-morrow.”
“Very well, I shall stand by you, of course. That goes without saying. But I believe you are making a terrible mistake. I would rather you married almost any one else. There are several gentlemen that would be ready and willing.”
“I don’t wish to marry a gentleman.”
The next afternoon Nina, Mrs. Lester, and Miss Shropshire were in the back parlour awaiting the arrival of Clough, his best man,and the clergyman, when there was a sudden furious pull at the bell of the front door. Nina sprang to her feet. For the first time in many weeks animation sprang to her eyes.
“It is my father!” she said. “Close the folding-doors. Molly, I rely on you! Do you understand? Send him away, and as quickly as possible. Tell a servant to watch outside, and take the others round the back way.”
Before she had finished speaking, Mr. Randolph’s voice was heard in the hall, demanding his daughter. The servants had been given orders to deny the fact of Miss Randolph’s presence in the house to any one but Dr. Clough. Nevertheless, Mr. Randolph brushed past the woman that opened the door, and entered the front parlour. Miss Shropshire joined him at once. Every word of the duologue that followed could be heard on the other side of the folding-doors.
“Why, Mr. Randolph!” exclaimed Miss Shropshire, easily. “Why this unexpected honour? I thought you were in San José.”
“Is my daughter here?” He was evidently much excited, and endeavouring to control himself.
“Nina? No. Why? Is she not at Redwoods? She was to go down yesterday.”
“She is not at Redwoods. I have received private and reliable information that she is to marry Richard Clough this afternoon, and I have reason to think that she is in this house.”
“What? Nina going to marry that horrid little man? I don’t believe it!” Miss Shropshire was a woman of thorough and uncompromising methods.
“Is Nina in this house or not?”
“Mr. Randolph! Of course she is not. I would have nothing to do with such an affair.”
Mr. Randolph swallowed a curse, and strode up and down the room several times. Then he paused and confronted her once more.
“Molly,” he said, “I appeal to you as a woman. If you have any friendship for Nina, give her up to me and save her from ruin, ortell me where she is. It is not yet too late. I will risk everything and take her abroad. She is ruining her own life and Thorpe’s and mine by a mistaken sense of duty to him, and contempt for herself: I know her so well that I feel sure that is the reason for this act she contemplates to-day. I will take her to Thorpe. He could reclaim her. Clough—you can perhaps imagine how Clough will treat her! Picture the life she must lead with that man, and give her up to me. And, if you have any heart, keep my own from breaking. She is all that I have. You know what my home is; I have lived in hell for twenty-four years for this girl’s sake. I have kept a monster in my house that Nina should have no family scandal to reproach me with. And all to what purpose if she marries a cad and a brute? I would have endured the torments of the past twenty-five years, multiplied tenfold, to have secured her happiness. If she marries Richard Clough, it will kill me.”
“She is not here,” replied Miss Shropshire.
Mr. Randolph trembled from head to foot. “My God!” he cried, “have you womenno heart? Are all women, I wonder, like those I have known? My wife, a demon who nursed her baby on brandy! My daughter, repaying the devotion of years with blackest ingratitude! And you—” He fell, rather than dropped to his knees, and caught her dress in his hands.
“Molly,” he prayed, “give her to me. Save her from becoming one of the outcast of the earth. For that is what this marriage will mean to her.”
Miss Shropshire set her teeth. “Nina is not here,” she said.
Mr. Randolph stumbled to his feet, and rushed from the house. He walked rapidly down the hill toward Old Trinity in Pine Street, the church Nina attended, his dislocated mind endeavouring to suggest that he wait for her there. His agitation was so marked that several people turned and looked after him in surprise. He reached the church. A carriage approached, passed. Its occupants were Richard Clough, a well-known gambler named Bell, and a man who carried the unmistakable cut of a parson.
Mr. Randolph rushed to the middle of the street, ordering the driver to stop. The window of the carriage was open. He caught Clough by the shoulder.
“Are you on your way to marry my daughter?” he demanded.
“My dear Uncle James,” replied the young man, airily, “you are all wrong. I am on my way to marry—it is true; but the unfortunate lady is Miss McCullum.”
Mr. Randolph turned to the gambler, and implored him, as a man of honour, to tell him the truth.
Bell replied: “As a man of honour, I dare not.”
Mr. Randolph appealed to the clergyman, but met only a solemn scowl, and mechanically dropped back, with the sensation of having lost the good-will of all men. A moment later the carriage was rattling up the street at double speed, and he cursed his stupidity in not forcing an entrance, or hanging on behind. There was no other carriage in sight.
The days were very long to Dudley Thorpe. The invalid recovered slowly, and demanded much of his time. Before an answer to his letter could be expected, Harold was sufficiently mended to be removed to the house of a friend on Long Island. He declared his intention of sailing for California as soon as he could obtain the doctor’s permission to travel. The lady to whom he was betrothed came over from England and married him; and Thorpe had little to do but to think.
He bitterly reproached himself that he had asked Nina to come to New York, instead of trusting to his brother’s recuperative powers, and starting at once for California. He dared not go now, lest he pass her. But he was beset by doubts, and some of them were nightmares. She would come if her child had lived, and she had weathered her year. If she had not! He knew what she had suffered during that year, would have guessedwithout the aid of the few letters she had written after letters from him had ceased to reach California. Exposure and shame might have come to her since. If he could have been sure that she believed in him, he would have feared little; but it was not to be expected that she had received a letter he had sent her from the West Indies. The telegraph has averted many a tragedy, but there was none across the United States. With all his will and health and wealth and love, he had been as powerless to help her in the time of her great trouble, was as powerless to help her now, as if he were in the bottom of a Haytian swamp. All that was fine in him, and there was much, was thoroughly roused. He not only longed for her and for his child, but he vowed to devote the rest of his life to her happiness. It seemed to him incredible that he could have committed such a series of mistakes; that no man who loved a woman with the passion of his life had ever so consistently done the wrong thing. But mistakes are not isolated acts, to be plucked out of life and viewed as an art student views his first model, in which he finds only a fewbald lines; even when the pressure of many details is not overwhelming it often clouds the mental vision. Years after, Thorpe accepted the fact that the great links in that year’s chain of events were connected by hundreds of tiny links as true of form; but not then.
One day a budget of mail got through the lines, and in it was a letter for him. It was from Nina, and was dated shortly after the last he had found awaiting him when he arrived from Cuba.