ROSCORIA'S BETROTHED.
Rosetta Villiers was looking very uncomfortable. She had taken a seat opposite to her uncle, the admiral, and was cross-questioning him with a certain sternness, before which the old sinner was quailing considerably.
"Mr. Roscoria made you this offer, you say? It is most extraordinary: I scarcely have seen him."
"Why, Rosetta, he gave me to understand—at least, he hinted at something like anaffaire de cœurbetween you."
"Affaire de fiddlestick!" cried Miss Villiers, rising in real indignation; "the manmusthave been exceeding! Why, upon my word, the conceit of these young men! I suppose, passing me in the lanes once or twice, he was slightly taken with my looks, and supposes me to have been equally entranced by his. I should really like to see him, uncle, to give him a piece of my mind."
"Well, that is the most sensible thing you have said, Rosetta," agreed the admiral, "for you must anyway see this fellow, and make it up with him somehow, to save my credit as a man of my word. I admit it's a deuced awkward business, but since I consented to it—in cold blood mind, Rosetta, I repeat that I hadnothad too much—I am bound to stick by the contract, and I suppose you, being included in it, are at least called upon to bear me out."'
"I never knew such a fearful scrape!" cried Rosetta, with a rush of despairing tears to her eyes. And then, being very brave of nature, she shook herself together and pondered. She was a real child still, only sixteen, and had never been much in the company of older ladies. She was, therefore, quite unprepared to enter upon any matrimonial plans of her own, and—clever as she was—dwelt in surprising ignorance of the world. No course then could her inexperience suggest, except that of saving her uncle's reputation by adhering to the contract. And as she thought and accustomed herself to the strange idea, her young face lighted up with humorous smiles, and she threw up her head with a delightful sense of enterprise.
"Sir," she began, turning solemnly upon the shamefaced admiral, "I feel that you have treated me with scant consideration, and plunged me early into the difficulties of a matronly career. Nevertheless, such is my care for the family reputation that—I'll marry Louis Roscoria!" she concluded, with a sudden gust of laughter.
"Yes; he is learned, is he not? And I remember him as very good-looking," she added, with a blush; "large, soft eyes, if I am not mistaken. Isupposeone can fall in love, given a man so handsome.Allons—essayons!But if I don't give it him for this abominable deception, then I don't feel the blood of my Spanish ancestors on the mother's side coursing vigorously through my veins! Sir, I consent."
The admiral (who was honestly afraid of his spoilt niece) confounded himself in thanks and praise, and privately thanked also his stars that his ward had grown up so unsophisticated. With that tricksy Spanish spirit of hers, had she taken this affair in a different light she might have got me into fearful trouble, he thought, softly whistling directly the descendant of the hidalgos had turned the corner.
Next day was fixed for Roscoria's introduction. On hearing the complete success of his stratagem, Louis arrayed himself regardless of expense and hastened to Braceton Park. He gave Tregurtha leave to follow him in an hour—"to be introduced to the lady, who, I suppose, will then be my betrothed," he said.
Admitted into the drawing-room, Roscoria was left alone for what seemed to him an awful while. He grew nervous, and fluttered at every sound in the room. The clock annoyed him inexpressibly, and he started every time he faced a mirror. At last, in despair, he clutched his hat and stick, and sat down in orderly stiffness with his back to the door, and tried to abstract his thoughts. But they would dwell on his Lyndis, and it was no use to try and "sit like his grandsire carved in alabaster."
Suddenly there was a light sound of approach, and a tremulous, sweet voice close to his ear said simply:
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Roscoria."
Louis bounded on his chair as by galvanism, dropped his incumbrances, and spread forth a pair of eager arms, into whichRosetta, thinking this was all in the day's work, was actually preparing submissively to walk, when he saw that something was wrong.
"Tenthousandpardons!" he cried.
"Not at all," said Rosetta, smiling. "It is quite natural that you should feel deeply upon an occasion like this." And then she rubbed her small hands together bashfully, and waited with a beating heart for the beginning of his courtship.
"But I hope you see my mistake," urged Louis, still in smiling embarrassment. "I took you, in fact, for another lady."
"But; Iamthe other lady," said Rosetta.
"Ah!—Miss Villiers I was expecting."
"Precisely, I am Miss Villiers," said Rosetta, with firmness.
Roscoria looked the lady in the face. She was a very young looking creature, small, but rather strongly made, with a striking white face and great blue-black eye with a latent, passionate fire in the very depths of them. She had a resolute small chin and a decided mouth. Louis thought her, spite of her prettiness, the most tremendous interlocutor he had ever met. He turned absolutely faint with sudden horror, and grasped a chair, saying feebly:
"But Miss Villiers was tall and fair."
"Oh, my cousin do you mean? Yes; she will be in directly. But—but"—(Rosetta's face grew whiter and her eyes larger with the shock of discovery)—"you did not meanher, surely?"
"Excuse me—I did—and do."
"Then allow me to assure you, Mr. Roscoria, that the admiral didnot. My cousin, Lyndis Villiers, is his niece and guest merely; it is I who am his ward since my father died in a naval engagement. He has made a very natural mistake. Lyndis is supposed to be out of the question, being engaged to marry a former pupil of yours—Mr. Eric Rodda. The admiral of course assumed that you meant me when you made your extraordinary request. I may mention that I thought it odd at the time."
"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! I am punished this time!" groaned Roscoria, and, without even keeping up a pretense of ceremony, he sank on the table and sat there, rocking himself backward and forward. Rosetta laughed as one who had lost a load of care. She was now free to rejoice at the misfortunes of another, and for the first moment could not resist doing so. She stood opposite Roscoria and laughed at him and his discomfiture, like the child she really was.
"Not that I mean the least disrespect to you, my dear MissVilliers," apologized Roscoria, out of the depths of his lamentations; "if only, like my predecessor Jacob when in a similar predicament, I could takeboth, how glad, how thankful I should be! But as it is, dear Miss Villiers, your cousin is so much to me—and—I thought I had got her!—in short, I know you will excuse me."
"Excuse you? Why, I am so thankful myself!" breathed out Rosetta.
"Thanks: it is very kind of you to say so. It makes it much easier for me," sighed Roscoria, gratefully.
At that moment enter the admiral, walking sideways and fumbling with the door-handle as one who fears to interrupt atete-a-tete.
Roscoria came forward in penitent guise, and began to explain the unlucky mistake that had arisen, and how it was MissLyndisVilliers toward whom his heart had yearned.
The admiral snorted. His temper arose. Both the young people knew they were in for it. Sir John Villiers withered them both with his sea-faring eye.
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Roscoria, also a little irritably. "If I tear up that paper, and leave you in possession of that bit of land, and say no more of my marriage in connection with it, but try to gain MissLyndisVilliers as a separate undertaking, I suppose it will be all right?"
"Rosetta Villiers is an heiress, so if she pleases to throw herself away on a poor school master—he's no worse than the good-for-nothing military men who generally get the heiress—but Lyndis Villiers has not a penny, and I owe it to my second brother's memory to see that his orphaned child does not marry any impecunious young gentleman. Besides, she is suitably affianced to Mr. Rodda's eldest son. She is, therefore, out of the question."
"For the moment let us assume it," said Roscoria (who, we remember, was better informed); "but in that case, naturally, Miss Rosetta Villiers is free."
A very gentlemanly young man! thought Rosetta approvingly.
"I do not see it, sir," said the admiral, unfurling a handkerchief like a challenge flag. "I will neither give up the field nor permit you to go without your share in the bargain."
"Then give me a trifling consideration in money," suggested Roscoria—"if Miss Villiers will kindly pardon my entering upon such matters in her presence."
"That piece of land and my niece are, in my estimation, priceless. Only the one, sir, is a sufficient substitute for the other. Besides, I decline to have any shilly-shallying in this affair. It will be all over the place to-morrow that Rosetta accepted you and you threw her over."
"Let it be; I accepted the position," said Rosetta.
"I willnotlet it be," stormed the admiral. "If a young man thinks he can play fast and loose with a niece of mine, let him try—let him try!"
Here Rosetta, growing really frightened, hastily went out and returned with sherry and biscuits, which she pressed upon Roscoria's acceptance in the midst of his indignant rejoinder to her uncle. Mechanically the young man received the refreshments, and, holding his glass in one hand and taking a fierce bite of his biscuit, he said loudly, and turning toward the lady, "I protest again, Sir John Villiers, that I have not the slightest intention of playing fast and loose with Miss Rosetta, and she knows it as well as I do——"
And the door opened, and Lyndis Villiers was in the midst of them.
Now this time, of course, Roscoria was unnerved, and did nothing but turn very white and set down his glass and look away. Therefore Lyndis, hearing his last speech, seeing him in excited converse with her uncle and her pretty cousin, and eating and drinking as if he were there for the day, harbored a deep suspicion of her lover. There was a painful silence.
Then the admiral began again:
"Lyndis, come here! Do you know Mr. Roscoria?" and Lyndis lifted her clear gray eyes upon Louis and said, "Yes, certainly."
Then Roscoria recovered himself and shook his beloved by the hand, and murmured, "Good-morning, dearest; I am in an awful scrape."
And Rosetta confided to Lyndis that the admiral was past human guidance, and it was to be hoped that Providence would interfere. Of course Lyndis knew nothing of what was toward, and a laborious explanation had to take place, at the end of which the tall, fair Englishwoman looked rather shocked, and murmured something about "unjustifiable liberty," which was directed at Roscoria. He took up the attack by a counter-charge:
"Is it true that you, as the admiral says, are still engaged to Eric Rodda?"
Lyndis raised her eyes again to Roscoria's, this time with a furtive memory of love-making in them, and responded decidedly, "No, it is not."
"Sir," she continued, turning to the admiral, "Mr. Rodda is coming this afternoon to break this to you."
"Break it to me!" irascibly exclaimed the admiral. "How many more things am I to have broken to me this day? I should like to break a thick stick to these fellows! Why can't they stick to their engagements as I do? Precious attractive they seem to find you two young women. I wonder you are not ashamed, Lyndis, to come and tell me that your fellow has given you the slip too."
"Oh, I say!" expostulated Roscoria, and he dared—before the admiral—to put his arm round Lyndis' waist.
"Look at them, sir!" said Rosetta, in a motherly aside. "I'd go to the rack with Spanish fortitude before I would cross young love."
"Lieutenant Tregurtha!" announced the footman, and in came Dick with an air of "Bless you, my children!" about him. He was stopped on the very threshold, though, by recognizing in Miss Rosetta Villiers a dear, if new, attraction.
"Hallo!" he exclaimed. "Why, thisisdelightful, you know!" and shook her warmly and long by the hand.
Rosetta ordered a fresh glass for the sherry, and Lyndis inhaled the odor of the hyacinths in the flower-stand, whilst Roscoria bent over her, earnestly engaged in making his peace. The admiral, who had been quelled for the moment,burst out afresh. In trembling accents he said, waving his hand:
"Ladies, leave us, if you please!" and Lyndis and Rosetta, knowing what impended, hastily made for the door, Roscoria finding time to bow out his adored just before Sir John broke into a torrent, a storm, hurricane, gust, squall, half-gale, great-guns-blowing (or any other nautical simile) of language.
The young men listened with respectful disapprobation (for to attempt to stem the course of the admiral's diction was at all times dangerous). When the sea-faring gentleman's invention was somewhat ebbing, Tregurtha was in an undertone acquainted with its source. The moment when it seemed of any use, Roscoria began again on his suit. He pleaded, urged, lost his temper, found it again, represented, reasoned, chaffed the admiral, appealed to his friend—and all in vain. Lyndis was steadily denied to him.
"And Miss Rosetta?" asked the lieutenant; but this question, which to him was most important, got lost, as totally irrelevant to the matter in hand. In despair the tired and heated Roscoria was gently led away by his friend, and the moment they appeared out of doors they were cheered by the sight of the ladies, who were waiting in the garden.
"It has not gone well with you, has it, Louis?" asked Lyndis anxiously.
"Gone well! It has gone vilely, Lyndis. Why do you encourage such a curmudgeon of a peppery old Cambyses as an uncle?"
"Myrelative, if you please, sir," said the loyal Lyndis. "Why do you get us all into such scrapes, you inconsiderate, duped Hotspur?"
"Because I am in love, most beautiful; they say it affects the intellect. So tell me what we are to do now."
"Well—would you like to give me up?"
"Don't," prayed the lover, with an imploring gaze at his goddess. "Say something cheering, for—eh! itwaswarm in there."
Lyndis nodded her beautiful head sagaciously, passed her hand over Roscoria's forehead, smoothing it, and smiled to herself to see how his countenance cleared under the comfort.
"Dear one, to me you are an Immortal," he said, reflectively; "but—if youhavean age, what might it be?"
"That will not do," said Lyndis; "a minor I am, and a minor I fear I shall remain for a year or two more. But if you will wait——"
Louis threw out his arms with a gesture of impatience. "I had rather run away with you at once," he said. "Let us elope."
"Mr. Roscoria, what a very rash idea!"
"Should you refuse, if I asked you?"
"I hope so," said Lyndis, thereby giving her lover much hope. "And now, as I am really angry with you, you may go."
"Yes, goddess; but I will hear thee again on this matter. May I——"
Lyndis did not expressly say he might not, so he did—that is to say, he kissed the golden head that was resting on his rough coat, from whence it was raised with tumbled bright hair spread abroad like the rays of the sun.
Tregurtha and Rosetta meantime had been looking over a hedge, commenting on scenery, the weather, and the crops. Rosetta was a born farmer. The sailor asked her tentatively:
"Did you agree to this plan of marrying my friend Roscoria?"
"I did," said the maiden, brightly.
"But surely you scarcely knew him well enough to love him? There must have been a strong elective affinity—or, bless me! I can't account for it."
"Love him! I never had spoken to him," laughed Rosetta.
"You would not have given him your hand without your heart?" persisted Tregurtha, with a strange, pained look, which, alas! she did not understand.
"Why, yes. If I had added my heart, think how great the sacrifice would have been. As it was, it wasveryamusing." Rosetta laughed again, at Roscoria this time, who came up to apologize for the awkward position in which he had stupidly placed her.
"Never mind, Mr. Roscoria," answered she. "I love adventures, and I owe this one to you. Only next time you ask for MissLyndisVilliers, let me advise you—'see that you get her.'"
THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME.
For a fortnight after this failed attempt Roscoria beat his brains in vain to hit on a method of squaring the admiral. He was debarred from any sight of Lyndis herself, for Sir John, cleverly enough, had spirited the goddess off to her mother in London, so that her lover might chafe in the chains of his exacting profession until perhaps, being unable to follow, he might cease to love her.
Having executed this little piece of justice on his sworn foe Roscoria, the admiral turned mighty good-humored, and found that he lacked a companion over pipe and bowl. As he had quarreled for life with almost all the residents in Devonshire, it was natural that the choleric but cheery old fellow should turn his eye on Dick Tregurtha—a stranger, a sailor, a pleasant companion, and a man who could oppose a front of imperturbable and respectful good-humor to any high-handed impertinence which the admiral's temper might offer him.
This distinction suited Tregurtha uncommonly well. He liked the admiral, and he liked the admiral's niece. He did not see much of Miss Rosetta Villiers, for that damsel was always either attending to the farm or preparing for an examination. But she occasionally looked in upon the men, and had bright smiles for Richard, and a plate of fruit sometimes. She teased the admiral (who was completely under her rule). Sir Johnevidently liked and understood Rosetta. Lyndis was a complete puzzle to him. He could appreciate a fine woman; but Lyndis was more; she was a fine lady, and far too calm-spirited for the admiral's taste. She was afraid of him and his imperious way, and he knew it, and took a malicious pleasure in avenging himself on her indifference by startling projects of matrimony for her, accompanied by violent reprimands, which Lyndis took with a calm disdain coupled with fear.
Now, when he presumed to scold Rosetta, she first would melt into a regular child's fit of tears (which used to cause the admiral to clear his throat and blink his eyes, and retract certain over-fierce expressions); then she would flash into a little Spanish passion, pay the admiral back in some of his own coin, with the genuine stamp upon it, and quickly send him to the right-about. And this the admiral understood too, for he was a man who knocked under with a good grace when fairly worsted. Tregurtha was never weary of hearing the two joke together, and noting occasionally how, when the admiral wickedly strove to turn the joke against Rosetta herself or her sex, the young lady would throw her uncle a glance of her black eyes that shone with such masterful warning that the old commander would cough and change the subject, whilst Rosetta broke into a young, irrepressible laugh of victory.
Tregurtha commended himself to the lady by offering his help in the mathematics she required for her examinations. The logic which she also studied was at first beyond his ken, but he got over that difficulty by causing Roscoria to give him a fearful jorum of Jevons every evening, which he then passed on to the pretty student. Rosetta was much impressed; she marveled at the wide and varied talents of a mind that had remembered all the details of logic during a rough seafaring life like Tregurtha's. But if she admired his qualities, how was he affected by hers? Ah! that's the worst of it, always.
For, said Dick to Roscoria one afternoon, as that distinguished preceptor was on the point of joining his adoring disciples:
"Wish me good luck, old comrade: I am off on a forlorn hope."
"That child?" cried Roscoria, dropping an armful of the Clarendon Press series with resounding bang upon the floor.
"That child!" intoned Tregurtha, mechanically, with the voice of a captive spirit from a tomb. "I feel it is utterly hopeless madness; but I shan't be ashore much longer, and I must go to sea with a certainty behind me. I was never a man to go doubting when knowledge could be had for the asking. So I'll go and have my mind set at rest. I shall be satisfied this evening, I trust, and then I'll come back to you, Roscoria."
"Yes, you are sure of me, at any rate. I'm afraid you are making a mistake, old fellow; but I dare say you can't help it."
Pythias whistled sympathetically as Damon went out by the window with his hat over his brows and his teeth set.
Rosetta Villiers was playing about in the admiral's garden. At least, she thought she was working, but the sun was hot and there was a pleasant shade under that chestnut-tree. So she leftoff weeding and tying up roses, and sat dreamily down on a wooden seat to divide her attention between a book and a flitting dragon-fly. Tregurtha came walking informally through the garden, for was he not hand-in-glove with the admiral? Rosetta looked up brightly, extended her hand to Jevons in smiling appeal, and pointed to the other end of her rustic sofa.
"I'm not up to logic to-day, dear Miss Villiers," said Tregurtha, with quiet despondency; "I have brought you a problem harder to solve than any in that class-book of yours. Do throw it over the hedge for half an hour, for indeed it is not opportune!"
Rosetta's astonishment was instructive to see. She clasped the book tighter and said, breathlessly: "You are strange, Mr. Tregurtha. Sit down here, and please don't look at me like the reproachful manes of my grandfather! There, at any rate, it is only a despairing profile that I see—the full face was unendurable."
"Just allow me," said Tregurtha, and he put Stanley Jevons into his pocket. "There! now I have no rival save the landscape. I say, listen, Miss Villiers. I—oh! but you will never understand—you will not understand!"
"I will do my best," said Rosetta, with a childish touch of pride. "Am I so stupid?"
"My little Rosetta, no!" cried Tregurtha, with an excess of tenderness which overwhelmed him; "but this is something which mere cleverness will never teach you, and which I cannot explain to you. Roscoria could have done it," he sighed, "but I am an inferior creature; besides, I shall only be speaking out my own disappointment. Well, best have it over; after all it won't take long. Rosetta, how do you think of me?"
"As my friend," answered Rosetta, promptly.
"Ah! and all the time I am only your lover!"
"My lover!"
"Say what you like now, I am ready," groaned Tregurtha, with hopeless resolution.
There was a long, dreary pause. Rosetta sat still, gazing away over the sunny lawn, and Tregurtha cared not even to see her answer in her face—he knew it; he looked before him also, and listlessly their thoughts dwelt on the daisies, the butterflies playing above them, the shifts of light and shadow, and the birds' half dreamlike song.
"Oh, this is dreadful!" Rosetta at last broke out. Richard drew her nearer, and kept his arm round her, saying quietly:
"I am sorry I distress you."
"Oh, I wish I could suffer anything! I wish anything evil could have happened to me, if only I might not have hurt you so! I did not know it, Richard, I did not know it!"
"No, of course I saw that. You are no flirt, sweetheart, or you would never have been troubled with me. Oh, well, it is over now—the worst part at least—and you must not be too soft-hearted, darling; you will have to break some hearts soon, so steel your own!"
Rosetta gave a long, long sigh, like a child roused from deepestsleep. All this was so new to her, such a revelation of pathos, and herself so helplessly ignorant and unprepared, that she had never a word to say, and all her sixteen bright years of life seemed unreality before this woeful fact—her lover. Involuntarily she laid her head upon Tregurtha's shoulder as if he could help her; then, with a start, as she felt the tremor that went through him at her touch, she raised it up, and bent her startled eyes upon him while she said, so low, with such an effort:
"I ought to try and tell you why I cannot—marry you. But what am I to say? I can find nothing reasonable. You would in your turn fail to understand the fancies of a child like me."
"I should like to hear," said Tregurtha. "Talk to me as long as you will; say what you please to me; I should like to take back some little knowledge of you, instead of the shadowy hope which has now gone to range itself with the endless mass which space is not great enough to hold—men's illusions."
His bitterness seemed to make his distress so real for Rosetta that she gave a deprecating cry and struggled with herself for several moments before she found the heart to continue speaking. Then tremulously she asked:
"Should you care to marry me before I could love you?"
"I don't know," said Tregurtha. "Now I am bewildered by my own love for you."
"Listen, Mr. Tregurtha. I am only sixteen, as you know, and childish for that age. I have lived so much alone and so wrapped up in my examinations and out-of-door pursuits that I simply have never yet had occasion to think of marriage. You see, I have no lady relatives, except Lyndis—and she is so serious! I imagined love would find its own way to me, without my playing with it beforehand.NowI see it needs practice."
"Did the admiral never warn you of your future lovers?" here put in Tregurtha, with some incredulity.
"Oh, the admiral! Who cares what the admiral says? He's an old sailor, what can you expect? They think of nothing else in connection with us women."
Tregurtha gave vent to a dismal chuckle at Rosetta's not altogether far-fetched aphorism on the navy. He was scarcely in a position to controvert it.
"And so you paid no attention?"
"Not much," said Rosetta, blushing. "At least I never dreamt that a man would love me yet, and that I should not be able to return his sentiment. I relied for the contrary on my southern nature, and troubled my head no more about it. Indeed, I used to think that I should like to have a lover, and now—now he is come!" And Rosetta covered her face and broke into low, sad sobbing.
"Oh, you poor little child! And I have done you harm, blundering into your charmed circle of heart-freedom! What a shame it is!"
Tregurtha rose up from his seat, and stood stretching his arms out with a laugh of self-directed irony; before this good and innocentgirl, with all her sorrow for him, he felt utterly baffled, hopeless, and cast back.
"Let me try to explain myself further," pleaded Rosetta, with as much eagerness as if it were her fault that she could not love Tregurtha.
"See, I am happy here. To some people it is not given to know when they are happy, but I do know. I rejoice in my existence. I want nothing save that love which is beautiful in poetry and tragical in life. Here I am useful; you know the admiral—his dear, quarrelsome ways—who can keep him in order except me? Why, if I did not act as his interpreter there would never be a farm laborer on the place: every plowboy and cowman on it would give the admiral notice to-morrow—if I did! Here is my home, too; I love it. I love every corner of this old-fashioned garden—the corner where the winter violets grow, the nooks to find snowdrops in, and the borders with the scented pinks and heart's-ease in irregular places. I look for each flower as it comes out, and I scarcely care to stray outside our sweetbrier hedge."
"Well, dear child, all I can possibly say is, that it all sounds very pretty. If I were not your lover, I should exclaim, 'How simple are her tastes! what innocence and what content!' I should look on, were another in my place, and say complacently, 'Here is at last a woman who does not court men's admiration. Here is a fair maid who prefers Jevons' "Elements of Logic" to Debrett's "Peerage," and a bunch of mignonette to a tiara of diamonds.' How new, how picturesque, and how refreshing!"
Rosetta gazed in blank wonderment at the imbittered Richard, who, with arms folded and a caustic frown, was haranguing away as if to conjure from him a whole army of demons.
She was not of a mold to stand by and see another really suffer.
"I will do something for you, Richard!" she cried at length. "My lover shall not think me hard. I will go with you, Richard, and let the admiral and the cowman console each other. Between you and your friend it seems as if I were never to be left alone. Well, I am ready; I have plenty of spirit, and I say I will learn the meaning of this love which has made a hypochondriac of my sailor friend. I will be your wife and try to make the best of it—if it will make Richard himself again."
She stopped, excited but steadfast. Tregurtha, with a last laugh of amused wretchedness, said:
"Senorita! no one could deny that you are brave and ready; but beware of your adventurous spirit. You are forgetting what kind of a man it is to whose rescue you would hasten. Why, I would sooner a shark should devour me on my next voyage than that I should have to think of you as a patient martyr—you, my—my—— Oh, good gracious, what a fool I am! My dear Rosetta, go back to your happiness. When the Fates mean you to love, you will—and then—I envy the man! But till then, recollect that there is nothing so hopeless as mistakenheroism. Shun it, pretty one, as you would all evil; for it is a peculiar danger to you women. My darling, shall we shake hands? for I am going."
"And you will not come again? I shall miss you so!"
"I'll write and let you know about that," said Tregurtha.
She stood opposite him, murmuring pathetic words in Spanish. Then she caught her breath, and was silent. A man who knew her less would have thought she really loved him.
"Richard, you should have waited, I believe!" she exclaimed, as by sudden inspiration.
"What do you say?"
"While there is life there is hope; but in sailors, they tell me, there is not always constancy," meditated Rosetta, aloud.
"Not always, dear; only sometimes. Once would be enough for us. But do you know where you are leading me? For Heaven's sake, Rosetta, don't say anything you do not mean!"
"I take back my words, Richard. Perhaps I lost my way in this darkness. I am not well informed in these matters."
"No, dear, so I see," answered Tregurtha, gently, as the high hope of an instant died in his breast forgotten.
"And you have my 'Logic' still in your pocket," suggested Rosetta, melting again into tears.
"So I have! There—don't cry any more to-day. To-morrow I give you leave to cry, because you will then have forgotten all about it. Shall I tell you, senorita, who should have been your lover instead of me?"
"Please," whispered Rosetta, ashamed but curious.
"Job," said Tregurtha solemnly; and, the sailor nature being too strong for him, he kissed her lips, then left her under her chestnut-tree and went away, nor ever looked behind him.
THE WAY WE BEHAVE WHEN WE ARE YOUNG.
It was past midnight, and the summer moonlight sparkled on the waves as a little boat, with its sail puffed out by a brisk breeze, came gliding, conspirator-like, toward that part of the Braceton domain that runs along by the sea.
It was the night after Roscoria's school broke up, and the first use the master made of his holiday was this—to arrange to run off with Miss Lyndis. There seemed nothing else to be done; the admiral would not yield, the lady would not change her mind, and the lover would not be content to wait. So the young people exchanged letters, and the result was this boat. Tregurtha was in the affair as well, though he strongly disapproved of it. His love of adventure had conquered his conscience; and he was, besides, confident that Roscoria would end all by a blunder if not backed by a cool-headed friend.
So here was Tregurtha, steering the boat into a certain safe and sandy cove well in the shadow, where he knew that the eye even of an admiral could not penetrate, whilst Roscoria fetched his lady. Roscoria's heart was on land before his legs, and againand again had he mounted in spirit up that steep pathway, up the cliffs from the beach to the side of the house, where there would be one light in a window, one wakeful inmate to steal out to him through the unbolted shutters and the gate she would have left ajar.
"Are we late?" he asked his friend.
"No, early," said Tregurtha.
"Will she be ready?"
"I have no means of knowing, my dear fellow."
"What are we to do if she is not?"
"Wait."
The boat ground on the pebbly beach, and Dick admonished the loversotto voce——
"Don't—nowdon'tsentimentalize on the way; every minute is valuable; the admiral is not deaf, and the lady's box is sure to be heavy."
Roscoria was off like a chamois-hunter. Tregurtha sat on the beach and smoked a pipe, stretching his legs in great tranquillity. Not that he was ignorant that Rosetta's window also had a light in it, but he knew it did not shine for him, and, considering all things, he thought it wiser to look in the opposite direction.
It was soon, in reality, that two figures began to descend the cliff-path. Roscoria first, bearing a modest trunk on his shoulder, and looking back each moment to see if Lyndis knew her way in the moonlight.
Lyndis herself was muffled up in a large cloak. She did not seem at all nervous. All that Tregurtha noticed, as she stepped into the boat and bade him "good-evening" with a sort of pathetic courtesy, was that her figure stood straight and firm, and that she trod the rocks in the uncertain light with Devonshire decision.
The lieutenant was secretly a trifle shocked by the coolness of the young couple. Feeling himself the incarnation of duplicity and insubordination, he would have liked a more remorseful attitude in the fugitives themselves.
"How do you do, Miss Villiers?" said Tregurtha, doffing his sou'-wester politely, and at that moment he chanced to look up at the house and saw the little solitary light go out.
Rosetta also had found a fearful joy in the adventure. She would dearly have liked the moon-lit row for herself, or, failing that, would fain have waved her hand to Richard—but here conscience stepped in. She therefore watched the party from behind her curtain until she saw them safely into the boat, and took a last critical glance at her own lover, preferred him to Roscoria, blew out the light, and—probably went to sleep; for indeed she had quite cheered up, and Dick had been right in saying that she would only weep one day for his sorrow. Tregurtha smiled mournfully to himself as he reflected that the fiery southern natures may excel us in warmth of feeling, but we of the colder north can beat them in constancy.
They pulled off from shore, after a few instants of great anxiety, because of the pebbles' traitorous noise; and then they made an energetic start. The thoughts of the trio were concentratedon putting distance between themselves and the possibility of pursuit. Lyndis steered until the men lost their first vigor, when she took the place of one of them and rowed with the enterprise of an ancient Phœnician. At first she felt a delicacy taking thus active a part in the escape, but this finally vanished when she looked at Roscoria spreading out his cramped fists in smiling relief whenever she stood up to take his oar.
They had passed the sharp cliff "Gallantry Bower," and began to feel the creeping shiver that heralds the dawn. By the mixed and twinkling light from the fading moon and the glimmering east they were thinking they could discern a suspicion of white houses in the bay for which they were making, when Roscoria, who happened just then to be resting with his hands on the rudder-lines, exclaimed:
"By Heaven, I see a boat!"
"No supernatural phenomenon upon the sea," said Richard, looking out, however, with some uneasiness. Lyndis heaved a deep sigh, and failed for the first time to draw her oar through the water.
"Well, we have the start, if it should be the admiral. It is a case of speed, and the devil take the hindmost. Oh, good gracious, Lyndis! I forgot he was your relation! Change places with me again, and guide us well in the small bay there. Pull for our happiness, Tregurtha!"
On land! The three voyagers broke into varying expressions of relief.
"By Jove, I feel as if I had been reading the 'Agamemnon!'" cried Roscoria, stretching out his arms, exhausted.
"Thank Heaven!" said Lyndis.
"Good," said Dick.
The cold morning light was growing brighter and more encouraging as, after drawing the boat high on to the shingle, the trio proceeded quickly toward a certain white and towered edifice. As might be expected, this was their goal—a church. Lyndis looked rather blankly as they approached this termination, and lagged behind with Roscoria.
"Would you two mind walking in front?" sang out Tregurtha without looking round, but with a sternness caused by his sense of complicity. They did so, and the wedding procession moved on much quicker.
At the church gate they were greeted by Eric Rodda, the curate here. He was so ingeniously unselfish (i.e.self-tormenting) a man that he had insisted on being the one to give his loved Lyndis to the man she loved.
"Well, every man has his particular fancy; but it putsmein a precious unpopular position," Roscoria had thought, whilst accepting the magnanimity.
"All right?" asked Rodda then of his patients, victims, clients, or whatever those wights are called on whom the parson pronounces the matrimonial benediction.
"For the present," replied Roscoria.
"Then come along," said Eric, and he led the way into thelittle rustic church. It was a picturesque old-fashioned place, evidently the resort of the ritualistic, for there were lighted candles on the altar and great bunches of scented flowers. The flowers lent a charm to the church and gave a memory of the fresh outer air, from which one is apt to feel so desolately shut out when encased within consecrated walls. The candles, also, were much needed, for the windows were stained in such deep red and purple tints that an early morning sun could hardly pierce the painting. The people present at this unconventional wedding were, besides the chief couple and their "best man," Tregurtha, Eric, the parson, who now surged gorgeously in from the vestry with flowing gown and ponderous prayer-book; the elderly and orthodox clerk or verger, who followed with a mien of severe desire to see a tiresome ceremony properly performed; then, lastly, an aged crone, of the sweeping and dusting persuasion, on whose neck Lyndis would fain have wept, in default of another woman. But our brides shed no tears nowadays. The times are undemonstrative, and thus the drooping veil, whose original use was to conceal unbecoming traces of tears, now only serves to soften the marble rigidity of resignation. Who that has once seen it can ever forget the Iphigenia-like air of beauty at the hymeneal! And then the wretched bridegroom! Whether he stands trembling before the statuesque bride, or kneeling, with the shiny soles of his patent-leather boots in view, what an advertisement to his bachelor friends against matrimony!
The present wedding was more cheery than most, however. Roscoria was fairly cool, but that was partly because he had not been able to afford a new coat for the auspicious occasion. Lyndis, to be sure, thought she was marrying (unlike the generality of brides) a man she loved, and this, moreover, in defiance of her guardian's wishes—a circumstance which must have lent an additional charm to the deed—Lyndis stood looking white, white and terrified; all her own rashness and the inevitable uncertainty of her future filling her thoughts. Her head was bent and her fingers clasped, and nervously bent back; she was retaining every atom of her self-control, but saying what she had to say mechanically, with a low voice, like the echo of her own sighing through cloister aisles.
"Cheer up, my darling!" said Louis in an audible whisper, just as the clergyman opened his mouth.
"Dearly beloved—hush!" began Eric Rodda; and even Lyndis, with all her chastened "amazement," could not resist a smile.
Tregurtha had given the bride away; Roscoria had at last found the ring, wrapped carefully up in his fly-book; names had been duly signed with atrocious pens in the vestry; and the bridegroom saluted the bride. But to do this last it was not essential to call in the verger as a witness, so the young people left Tregurtha and Rodda behind and took a merry run in the sunshine, down-hill toward the village. And as they danced along on the dewy grass, with their arms interlaced and their laughing improvident young faces upturned one to the other,they turned a sharp corner and Lyndis gave a little scream of horror, for she had nearly fallen into the arms of the admiral!
As long as he lives Roscoria swears, he shall never forget how he was feeling whilst Lyndis shrank back with outstretched averting hands, exclaiming tremulously:
"My dearest uncle! this—this is an unexpected pleasure!"
"Lyndis Villiers—you wretched woman."
"You are twenty minutes behind the times, Sir John," interrupted Roscoria, stepping in front of the lady. "Lyndis is Mrs. Roscoria."
"Have you married her?" gasped the admiral, still too much done for even to swear.
"I—I—did—I have. Oh, Rodda!" appealed the bridegroom, as the curate came up with Tregurtha, "fetch the admiral the certificate, and beg him to be calm for the sake of Lyndis!"
It was evident that the admiral was in great perplexity. He saw he was too late.
"Andyoupermitted this, you scoundrel!" he roared, turning upon Tregurtha with fury. Richard flushed up; he had been afraid of this. He simply saluted and said, humbly:
"I can only ask your pardon, sir; we have all behaved very badly."
"Ha! yes, my niece Rosetta knows a scamp when she sees one. Confound you, sir!" and the admiral turned his back upon his shamefaced subordinate. He confronted Roscoria, and this time with a peculiar expression of malicious gratification under his rage. After all, when your next-door neighbor has run away with your niece, there is a unique joy in the thought of how he shall reap the whirlwind. Sir John put up his eye-glass and surveyed the husband of his niece from head to foot with a smile.
"Well," said Roscoria, with an air of buoyant courtesy, which passed but poorly with his stammering, "I'm awfully sorry we have brought you so far after us—but—since you are here—would you?—may we request the honor?—we have ordered breakfast at the Red Lion."
That was going too far. The admiral gave one of his snorts, grasped his cane, and absolutely shook it in the face of the speaker. In another instant there would have been a row royal, and the preliminary electric thrill went through the whole party. Lyndis stepped in. She softly removed Roscoria's protective hand from off her shoulder, and said with decision:
"Let me speak to him, Louis."
The men withdrew a little as she went across to the infuriated admiral, and said to him:
"Sir John, dear, we do not want to defy you, and we never did. But indeed there was nothing to be said against the owner of Torres, except that he was poor. Was I also poor? Well, then, I was accustomed to a simple mode of life, and, bless my soul! that is all I have to fear; there is no starvation in the case. Perhaps I should have behaved differently; but, dear Sir John, am I not young? I loved him. And in any case, here I am, Roscoria's wife. My marriage cannot be overlooked; would itbe seemly? Why not go home without any scandal, and be thankful that you are rid of a charge that I fear has been very troublesome to you. And you will go to the Red Lion first, will you not? and have some breakfast apart from us. Dear sir, think of Rosetta's feelings—and of my inextinguishable remorse—if you were to take a chill! Come, let me walk a piece of the way with you; the men will follow. That you should have come out on this rough sea so early in the morning! That is the only thing which shadows my happiness. I do not ask your forgiveness, but Ishouldlike your portrait—the one in uniform, of course—you will send it me, will you not? Yes?"
Lyndis bent her ruffled golden head and looked into his face with her sweet starry eyes. Now, the admiral had never been inaccessible to the wiles of lovely woman, and Lyndis had never before cared or dared to coax him. He began for the first time to see that there was something else in the girl beyond a fine figure. And thus it came that he put his hand furtively into his pocket and said, grumbling and awesome, but relenting:
"You're my own brother's child, unluckily, so here's ten pounds for your honeymoon. You will remember that I have made an effort—and a very considerable one it was, too, for an old gentleman of sixty—to bring you back to your duty; if I am too late, you may blame your own cunning for that, when in future days you may wish this morning's work undone. Begad, I will make it warm for your husband! He wasn't set down on the next estate to mine for nothing. There—there—a pleasant trip to you, girl; I cannot congratulate you on your choice, but we must hope for the best; good-morning!"
Then Tregurtha discovered that there was only just time for the newly wedded to breakfast at the inn before the coach should be arriving which was to convey them to Barnstaple, where they were to take the train for Penzance. So up the main street of Clovelly went the wedding party.
The informal little wedding breakfast had a far cheerier air than the funereal orthodox one. Instead of being presided over by awful footmen and hired waiters, the quartet was served by one sympathetic maid, who brought them an honest rustic repast of eggs and bacon, buttered cakes, and Devonshire cream, tea, and cider. It was all wonderfully Arcadian, and the little room was very pretty, with its walls covered with old china, and the creepers forcing their way in through the open window. Lyndis shone on the occasion.
Nor was there any time for sentiment, nor any ghastly speeches. Tregurtha did indeed raise his teacup, with a bow to Lyndis and a wink to Roscoria, and endeavor to drink its contents off at a draught, but, burning his mouth, he was forced to desist.
Then Roscoria was bound to pour out a glass of cider, and say:
"My dear fellows, I am heartily obliged to you, and now let me proposemytoast. (By the way, Tregurtha, have you considered the pungency of the fact that the Greeks use the same word 'trouble' and 'wife's relations?') Where was I? Oh, yes; allow me to propose the health and good-humor and indemnityfrom chill, of my revered and feared uncle-in-law. Admiral Sir John Villiers, K. C. B."
"Poor old fellow," said Tregurtha, reflectively; "I hear him stamping about overhead. I hope he has got all he wants; I shall go and take him a stiff glass of grog."
He did so, and returned with a smiling but battered expression.
"Is he any cooler?" anxiously inquired the bridegroom.
"Cooler? Molten lead—the torrid zone—a powder-magazine in full explosion—the furnaces of Nebuchadnezzar—are about as cool as is the admiral at this moment. I should like to see you two clear out of this, lest he change his mind, and bring the whole population of Clovelly down upon you."
Lyndis paled visibly and rose.
"How ever did he know we were off?" she asked.
"Yes, how indeed?" demanded Tregurtha of his friend. Roscoria looked up and Roscoria looked down, and Roscoria finally admitted in a whispered aside:
"Lyndis was rather fluttered, Dick, and so I kissed her—by mistake—just under the admiral's window."
"Good luck to you and your ship, captain!" said Roscoria, with that air of ill-sustained buoyancy which we all adopt during themauvais quart d'heureof parting.
"Good-bye, Corydon," said Dick, and wrung his friend's hand. "Be off, or you'll miss the coach."
Lyndis and Roscoria walked away together up the steep path to the high road; Rodda had made himself scarce, and Tregurtha stood alone.
There is an advantage here and there, when your friend marries and you don't. He keeps a more luxurious table as a rule, and you are sure of a match-box and hot-water in your bedroom when you visit him. On the other hand, there is something eternally gone; the old frank confidencea deuxgrows yearly more difficult, and, you can never more be "boys together."
On that day a week later Captain Tregurtha was off again to sea, in command, in a measure through the admiral's interest, of a fine ship, the Damietta.
Rosetta, who did not see the captain again before he went, has taken first-class honors in the Junior Cambridge Exam. of the year (logic being specially commended), and she has now entered upon an engrossing project in conjunction with the admiral for the importation of some "Hereford" white-face cattle on to the Braceton farm.
Admiral Sir John Villiers bides his time. When Roscoria comes home to cane his boys he will live to find a rod in pickle for himself. But little recks the lover of the future thunders, for he is living under a cloudless sky. Unlike most folk of the present day, Lyndis and Roscoria have rushed headlong into matrimony; and if consequenceswillfall heavy—why, let them! they say, as they blissfully, economically, and appropriately roam amongst the myrtles in the Scilly Isles.
A table of contents has been added.
Some inconsistent punctuation was retained (e.g. eyeglass vs. eye-glass).
Page 145, changed ? to . after "opposite bank."
Page 166, restored several missing commas to "a torrent, a storm, hurricane, gust, squall, half-gale." These were present in the original but lost in the reprint.
Page 173, changed "into the boot" to "into the boat."