"I suppose I can promise that, if you care about it. But you mustn't hate me, Margaret."
"What makes you think I hate you?" asked Margaret, forcing a smile.
"A look 'way back in your eyes," Garda answered, the tears shining in her own.
"Never mind about looks 'way back; take those that are nearer the front," responded Margaret. She drew herselfaway, opened the door, and went down the hall towards her own room.
Garda followed her. But at her door Margaret stopped; "Good-night," she said.
"Are you going to shut yourself up? Mayn't I go through your room to mine? Mayn't I have the door open between?" said Garda. "I'm so afraid of the storm!" The rain was still beating against the windows, the wind was now a gale. "I shall keep thinking of the sea."
"The sound of the storm is as loud in my room as in yours."
"Well, I won't tease," said Garda; "I see you want to be alone." She kissed her friend, and went mournfully down the hall towards her own door. Then her mood seemed to change, for she called back, "I shall keep my lamp burning all night, then."
This was a small hanging lamp of copper, of which Garda was very fond. It had once been thinly coated over with silver, and it had every appearance of having been made to hang before a shrine; there was a tradition, indeed, that though it had been at East Angels longer than even the Old Madam could remember, it had come originally from that East Mission of Our Lady of the Angels which had given the Duero house its name; the lamp remained, though the little coquina shrine, built for the red-skins, had vanished.
Raquel knew how to make a particular kind of oil, highly perfumed with fragrant gums; she made this, in small quantities at a time, for Garda, who burned it in this lamp in her own room, and greatly enjoyed the aromatic odor it gave out. Margaret had remonstrated with her for the fancy. "I cannot think it is wholesome," she said, "to sleep in such a heavily perfumed atmosphere."
"I sleep a great deal better in it than I ever do in your plain, thin,whitewashedsort of air," Garda had responded, laughing.
To-night, after lighting her candle, she lighted this lamp also.
"It's burning!" she said, calling through the closed door between their two rooms with childlike defiance. But she got no answer.
That same evening Evert Winthrop was watching the storm on the St. John's River. It had begun to darken the north-western sky before sunset; rising higher and higher, at length it had come sweeping down the broad stream. First the broken lurid edge (like little puffs of white smoke) of the blackness that followed behind; and that was the wind. Then the blackness itself, pierced here and there by lightning. Then, last, in perpendicular columns extending from the sky to the smooth water below (water that had been pressed flat by wind that had gone on before), the rain falling straight downward densely and softly; the line across the river made by the advancing drops on one side and the smooth water which they had not yet reached on the other, was as distinct as one made across a piece of velvet when one half of its nap has been turned sharply back, while the other remains undisturbed.
The old white house, once a private residence, where Winthrop was spending the night, was now a reluctant hotel; that is, inmates were received there, and allowed to find their way about, to sit round a brilliant light-wood fire on the broad hearth of the pleasant old parlor on cold evenings, to bask in the sunshine on the piazzas during the day, or wander under the magnificent trees, which, draped in silver moss, formed long avenues on the river-bank north and south. They were also allowed to partake of food in the dining-room, where the mistress of the house, a dignified old lady, poured out her coffee herself at the head of her table, the cups being carried about by half-grown negro boys, whose appearance was not in the least an indication of the quality of the beverage, that quality being excellent. This old house, when it had thus changed itself, rather half-heartedly, into a hotel after the war, had been obliged to put out a dock; a sign it could dispense with; it could dispense with many things; but an inn of any sort it could not be on theSt. John's without a dock, since the river was the highway, and its wide shallows near shore made it necessary for the steamers to land their passengers far out in the stream. All these "docks" on the St. John's were in reality long narrow piers, formed by spiles driven into the bed of the stream, over whose tops planks had been nailed down; and if a plank was missing here and there, was it not always easy to jump over.
Near the end of the pier belonging to Winthrop's present abode there was a little building about six feet square. This was the United States post-office; any one who should doubt its official character, had only to look at the legal notices written in ink and tightly tacked up on the outside. Generally these notices had been so blurred by the rain that all the "men" who were required to "know" the various matters written underneath by this proclamation thereof, could have made out a good defence for themselves in case of prosecution for failure to comply, since how could they "know" what they could not decipher? But even if the notices had been printed in fairest type, it is hardly probable that the inhabitants would have "known" them any better; they had always hunted and fished wherever and whenever they pleased; it was not likely that a piece of paper tacked up on a shanty a quarter of a mile out in the St. John's was going to change these rights now. The only proclamation they felt any interest in was that which offered bounties for the scalps of wild-cats, a time-honored and sensible ordinance, by which a little money could always be secured.
Winthrop had come down the river that afternoon; his steamer had left him here, as she did not touch at the Gracias landing, which was farther down-stream on the opposite shore; the next morning a boat would pass which did touch there, he must wait for that. The steamer that brought him had also brought the United States mails from the up-river country; the postmaster, a silent man in a 'coon-skin cap, received the bag with dignity; Winthrop watched the distribution of its contents; one limp yellow-enveloped letter and a coffee-pot. When he came down to the pier's end again at sunset the 'coon-skin-crowned official had gone home; but, in a friendly spirit, he had left the post-officeunlocked—there was a chair there which some one might like to borrow. Winthrop borrowed it now—of the United States; he brought it outside and sat there alone, watching the approach of the storm. The beautiful river with its clear brown water lay before him, wide as a lake; on the opposite shore the soft foliage of palmettoes, like great ostrich plumes, rose against the sky. But he was not thinking of the river, he was not even thinking of the black cloud, though his eyes were apparently fixed upon it; he did not stir until the wind was fairly upon him, then he retreated to the post-office, placed his chair inside, and sat there under cover at the open door. For a moment he did think of the storm, for it seemed as if the little house over him would be carried off the pier, and sent floating up the stream like a miniature ark; but after the wind had passed on, his mind returned to the old subject, the subject which had engrossed him ever since he left East Angels fourteen days before.
His brief letters had stated that he was hunting, fishing, and sailing, that he had been through the Dummit orange grove. It was true that he had been engaged in all the ways he described, and it was probable also that his various guides and chance companions had not perceived any lack of interest, or at least of energy, in the northerner who had accompanied them; an active life was necessary to Winthrop, and never more necessary than when he was perplexed or troubled; not once during those two weeks had he sat down to brood, as he was apparently brooding now.
But though he had thus occupied himself from daylight to bedtime, though he had talked and listened to the talk of others, there had been always this under-consciousness, which had not left him. At times the consciousness had taken form, if not in actual words, then at least in thoughts and arguments that followed each other connectedly. Generally, however, it had been but a dull realization, like an ache, vivified at intervals by sudden heats of anger, which, he was sure—though he might be talking on other subjects at the moment—must bring the color to his face. Man-like, he preferred the anger, it was better than the ache; he should have liked to be angry all the time.
The ache and the anger had been caused by what he hadwith his own eyes beheld, namely, the secret visit of Margaret to Lucian Spenser. For it was secret. Lucian had said good-by to her before them all, it had been left clearly to be supposed that they were not to see each other again; this, then, had been a clandestine meeting. Margaret was no school-girl, she was not ignorant of the rules of the world. And she was not an exception, like Garda Thorne, full of sudden impulses, with an extraordinary openness in following them; he had never thought Margaret impulsive in the least. Yet there she was; she had slipped away without the knowledge of any one, to go over to that solitary house for a farewell interview with its occupant. Of course her being there at that last moment, woman of deliberate intentions as she was, proved that an acquaintance which she had not acknowledged existed between them; for she had never shown any especial interest in Lucian in the presence of others; on the contrary, she had appeared indifferent to him, she had acted a part; they had both acted a part, and they had acted it so well that he (Winthrop) had never once suspected them. A wrath rose within him as he thought of this.
He had always disapproved of Margaret in one way; but at least—so he kept telling himself—at least he had thought her entirely without traits of this kind. He had thought her cold; but he had thought, too, that she had principles, and strong ones. It was probably her principles, more than anything else, that had made her leave Lanse in the beginning; she might even be said to have been something of a martyr to them, because, with her regard for appearances, she would have infinitely preferred, of course, to have remained under the same roof with Lanse, had it been possible, to have avoided the comment which is roused by any long separation between a husband and wife, even though but that comparatively mild degree of it which follows a separation as carefully guarded and as undefined in duration as hers had been. For nothing was ever said about its being a permanent one; people might conclude, and they easily did conclude, that before long they should see Lansing Harold back again, and established somewhere with his wife as docilely as though he had never been away; this had happenedin a number of cases when the separation had been even longer. Europe was full of American wives spending winters here and summers there, wives whose husbands had remained at home; it might almost be called an American method for infusing freshness into the matrimonial atmosphere, for of course they would be doubly glad to see each other, all these parted ones, when the travels should at last be over, and the hearth-fire re-established again. In this instance it was the husband who had gone. And in the mean while how well-ordered was the life led by Mrs. Harold! there was not, there never could be, a breath of reproach or comment concerning her.
Thus the world. And the world's opinion had been Winthrop's in so far that he had fully shared its belief in the irreproachableness of Margaret's life as regards what is sometimes defined as "a taste for society," or, arranged in another form, as "a love of gayety," or, with more frankness, "a love of admiration." Of course he had approved of this. But he had not realized how deeply he had approved of it (underneath disapprovals of another sort) until now, when, like a thunder-clap, the revelation had come upon him: he and the world had been mistaken! This Margaret, with her fair calm face, with her studiedly quiet life, had a capacity for the profoundest deceptions; she had deceived them all without the slightest difficulty, she was deceiving them now. The very completeness with which she had disguised her liking for Lucian showed what an actress she must be; if she had allowed her liking to come out in a natural way, if she had even let it be known that she intended to see him again, instead of going through that form of bidding him good-by before them all, it would have had another aspect; the present one, given the manner she had always maintained with him in public, and given the fact that she was the most unimpulsive of women, was ominous. In the moment of discovery it had given him a sick feeling,—he had been so sure of her!
The sick feeling had come back often during the two weeks that followed. Each time he had taken himself sharply to task for caring so much. But it was because he had cared that he had left East Angels.
As he sat there in the wood, staring at Madam Giron's house after she had entered it—as it seemed to him drawn in by Lucian—his first feeling, after the shock of surprise, had been one of indignation, he had started up with the intention of following her. Then he remembered that he had no possible authority over her, even though she was his cousin's wife; if he should go over there and confront her, could she not very well turn and ask him what any of it was tohim? It would make a scene which could now benefit no one; for it was too late to prevent imprudences on her part; and with Lucian he should prefer to deal alone. Then, in another minute, he felt that he could not in any case endure seeing her openly discomfited; for of course if he and Lucian should exchange words in her presence, no matter how few, it would amount to publicity of a certain sort, publicity which it had not yet attained. At present Lucian had no idea that he, Winthrop, had discovered their meeting; of her own accord Margaret would never tell him, and it would be easier for her through all the future if Lucian should never know; it was this thought that made him go homeward instead of crossing the field to Madam Giron's, it drove him away. It was not until he was safe in his own room that his vision grew clearer, that he remembered that he need not have been so considerate of Margaret's feelings, since (what he had not thought of with any distinctness in the first shock of surprise) had she not deliberately braved him? For she had seen him sitting there when she passed the first time, he had clearly perceived that she had seen him. Yet, knowing that he was there, she had passed him that second time in full view; she had crossed the field knowing that he could see her plainly, had met Lucian on the piazza and entered the house with him, without the least attempt at concealment or disguise. It was true that no one else had seen her. But he had seen her; and she had known it, and had not cared.
This last reflection gave his mood a sharp turn in the other direction; he thought—he thought a thousand things. Chief among them came now the remembrance that he should see her at table, she would be obliged to appear there, she would be obliged to speak to him. But when in answer to Telano's summons he went to the dining-room, hardly knowinghow he should bear himself towards her, she was not present; Garda brought word that she was suffering from headache, and could not appear.
That night Winthrop was awake until a late hour, he found himself unable to sleep. He was conscious of the depth of the disturbance that swayed him, but though he did his best to conquer it, he made no progress; dawn found him still under its influence. He decided to go away for a few days; he had been shut up at East Angels too long, the narrow little round of Gracias life was making him narrow as well. The evening before, he had felt a strong wish to see Margaret, to note how she would appear; but now his one desire was to get away without seeing her, if possible. Curiosity—if curiosity it had been—had died down; in its place was something that ached and throbbed, which he did not care to analyze further.
Lucian had really gone—he had ascertained that; East Angels was therefore safe for the present, as far as he was concerned. Winthrop remained very indifferent to Lucian personally, even now; he consigned his good looks to the place where the good looks of a strikingly handsome man are generally consigned by those of his less conspicuously endowed brethren who come in contact with him, and he felt that immense disgust which men of his nature are apt to feel in such cases, with no corresponding realization, perhaps, of the effect which has been observed to be produced sometimes by—item, a pair of long-lashed eyes; item, a pink young cheek; item, a soft dimpled arm—upon even the most inflexible of mankind. No, he did not care about Lucian. He said to himself that if it had not been Lucian, it would have been somebody else; he made himself say that.
Now, as he sat there at the end of the long pier, with the dense rain falling all round him, he went over again in his own mind all these things. Two states of feeling had gradually become more absorbing than the rest; one of these was a deep dumb anger against Margaret for the indifference with which she had treated him, was still treating him. What rank must he hold in her mind, then?—one which could leave her so untroubled as to his opinion of her. What estimation must she have of him that made her willing to brave him inthis way? She had not written during his absence, expressing—or disguising—apprehension; making excuses; she had not even written (a woman's usual trick) to say that she knew it was not necessary to write, that she was safe with him, and that she only wrote now to assure him that she felt this. Was he such a nonentity in every way that she could remain unconcerned as to any fear of danger from him? Did she suppose him incapable of action?—too unimportant to reckon with, too unimportant to trouble, even if he should try, the well-arranged surface of her unperturbed life? Very possibly she might not like him, but he was at least a man; it seemed to him that she ought to have some regard for any man's opinion; even some fear of it, in a case of this kind.
Yes, he was very angry. And he knew that he was.
Then, adding itself to this anger, there came always a second, came against his will; this was a burning resentment against her personally, for falling so far below the idea he had had of her. He had thought her narrow, self-righteous,—yes; but he had also thought her life in other respects as pellucid (and cold) as a mountain brook; one of those brooks, if one wanted a comparison, that flow through the high valleys of the Alps, clear, cold, and dreary; he had had time to make comparisons in abundance, if that were any entertainment!
But it was not. And he found it impossible, too, to think of Margaret in any other than this his first way; the second, in spite of what he had with his own eyes beheld, remained unreal, phantasmagoric. This seemed to him folly, and he was now going back to East Angels to break it up; it would break it up to find her defiant. And it would amount to defiance—her looking at him and talking to him without giving any sign, no matter how calmly or even timidly she might do it; in his actual presence perhaps she would be timid. In all cases, in any case, he now wished to see her; the desire to find himself face to face with her had taken possession of him again.
He reached East Angels the next day at two o'clock. Betty Carew was the first to greet him, she had herself arrived from Gracias only an hour before. She was full of theintelligence she brought, and immediately repeated it to the new-comer: Mr. Moore had that morning received a letter, or rather a note of six lines; Rosalie Spenser was dead. Her illness had been brief, and she had not suffered; they thought it was the heart. Fortunately Lucian had been able to get to her; he had found the despatch at New Orleans, and had started immediately; they had had the last three days together, and she was conscious to the end. And then followed the good Betty's regrets, which were sincere; she had always liked Lucian, and, when he married, her affectionate, easily expanding heart had made room for Rosalie as well; "Lucian's wife" would have had to be a very disagreeable person indeed to have made Betty dislike her. For Betty's liking included the relatives of all her friends, simply because they were relatives. The relationship made them a whole, she accepted them in a body as one accepts "the French," "the Portuguese;" they did not present themselves to her as objects for criticism.
Winthrop had lunch alone, the others had had theirs. While he was still at the table, Garda came in. He had already seen her, as well as Betty, and he had been in to say a word of greeting to his aunt; but Margaret he had not yet seen.
"I should like to speak to you," Garda said. "Could you come out after lunch to the orange walk for a few moments?" There was nothing unusual in her tone.
When he entered that leafy aisle, later, she came to meet him.
"I am sorry to have made you take this trouble," she said, "when you are only just back from your journey. But I wanted to tell you at once, it seems unfair to wait; I wonder if you will be surprised? I don't care for you any more; don't you think it would be as well, then, to break our engagement?"
Winthrop had literally made no answer to Garda's speech; he only looked at her.
After a moment the girl went on, gently enough: "If I don't care about you, I think I ought to tell you; you will feel more free. Don't you think it is better that I should tell you?"
"Certainly; if it is true."
After her first greeting, Garda had moved away a step or two; she now stood leaning back against the firm little trunk of one of the orange-trees, playing with a small spray of the bright leaves as she talked. At this answer of his, her gentleness turned to exasperation. "If it is true! And why shouldn't it be true?—do you think it impossible for anybody to stop caring for you?Ihave stopped, and very completely. I care no more for you now than I do for that twig." And she tossed it away with a little gesture of disdain.
Winthrop's eyes followed the motion. But he did not speak.
"Stilldon't you believe it?" she asked, in surprise; "you look as though you didn't. I think that rude."
"On the contrary, it seems to me that my being slow to believe it, Garda, is the best honor I can pay you."
"Oh, how could I ever have liked you!—how disagreeable you can be when you try!" Tears shone in her eyes. "Everybody in the world seems to tell lies but me," she went on, hotly. "And everybody else seems to prefer it. You yourself would like it a great deal better, and think it nicer in me, if I should tell lies now, pretend that this was the beginning of a change instead of the end, make it more gradual. Whereas I tell you simply the truth; and then you are angry."
"I am not angry."
"You are ever so much surprised, then, and that's worse. I call it almost insulting for you to be so much surprised by what seems to me perfectly natural. Have you never heard of people's changing? That is what has happened to me—I have changed. And I tell you the truth about it, just as I told you the truth when it was different—when I cared for you. For I did care for you once, ever so much; didn't you believe it? Didn't youknowthat I cared for you that night on the barren?"
A red rose in Winthrop's cheeks. After a moment he answered, humbly enough, "Yes, I thought you did."
"Of course you thought I did. And why? Because Idid; that night, and for some time afterwards, I adored you, Evert. But I don't see why you should color up about it; wasn't it natural that I should be delighted to be engaged to you when I adored you? and isn't it just as natural that I should wish to break it off when I don't? You can't want me topretendto care for you when it's all over?"
"No, no," said Winthrop, his eyes turning from her.
"I do believe you are embarrassed," said Garda, reverting to her usual good temper again. Then she broke into smiles. "You ought to thank me, for, really, you never cared for me at all." She leaned back against her tree again, and folded her arms. "I dare you to tell me that you ever really cared for me, even when I cared so much for you," she continued, in smiling challenge. "What you would answer if you spoke the truth (as I do), would be—'I did my duty, Garda.' As though I wanted duty! You ought to fall down on your knees in the sand this moment and thank me for releasing you; for you are much too honorable ever to have released yourself, you are the soul of honor. Just supposing we had been married—that we were married now—where should we be? I should have got over caring for you, probably (you see I have got over it without being married), and you never did really care for me at all; I think we've had a lucky escape."
"Perhaps we have," Winthrop answered.
"No 'perhaps,' it's a certainty. And yet," she went on, slowly, looking at him with musing eyes, "it might have had a different termination. For I adored you, and you could perhaps have kept it along if you had tried. But you neverdid try, the only thing you tried to do was to 'mould' me; you made me read things, or, if you didn't, you wanted to; you have treated me always as if I were a child. You have had an idea of me from the first (I don't know where you got it) that wasn't like me, what I really am, in the very least. And you never found out your mistake because you never took the trouble to study me, myself; you only studied your Idea. Your Idea was lovely, of course," pursued the girl, laughing; "so much the worse for me, I suppose, that I am not like her. Your Idea would have been willing to be moulded; and she would have read everything you suggested; and then in due course of time—when she should be at least eighteen"—interpolated the girl, with another burst of laughter, "she would have gratefully thanked you for admitting her to the privileges of being 'grown up.' Why—you didn't even want me to care for you as much as I did, because your Idea wouldn't have cared so much for anybody, of course, 'when she was only sixteen.'"
Winthrop flushed fiercely, as her mocking eyes met his, full of mirth. Then he controlled himself, and stopped where he was; he did not answer her.
"You are the best man in the world," said Garda, coming towards him and abandoning her raillery. "With your views (though I think them all wrong, you know), you could say the most dreadful things to me; yet you won't, because—because I'm a woman. You engaged yourself to me in the first place because you thought I cared for you (I did, then); and now, when I tease you because you have made the mistake of not understanding me—of having, that is, a higher idea of me than I deserve—you don't answer back and tell me that, or anything else that would be true and horrid. That's very good of you. IwishI could have gone on caring for you! But I don't, I can't; isn't it a pity?" She spoke with perfect sincerity.
Winthrop burst into a laugh.
"Don't laugh in that way," Garda went on; "I assure you I know perfectly that—that the person I care for now isn't what you are in many ways. But if I do care for him (as I cared for you once—you know what that was) shouldn't I be true to it and say so?"
"The—the person?" said Winthrop, looking at her inquiringly, a new expression coming into his face.
"Yes, Lucian, of course."
"Lucian!"
"Oh, very well, if you takethattone! And after I have said, too, that I knew he wasn't as—that he wasn't like you. It seems to me that I have been very honest."
"Very," replied Winthrop. Then his voice changed, it grew at once more serious and more gentle. "I hardly know, Garda, how to take what you say, I don't think you know what you are saying. You stand there and tell me that you care so much for Lucian Spenser—a married man—"
"He isn't married now," said Garda.
Winthrop gave her a look which made her rush towards him. "I didn't mean it—that is, I didn't mean that I was thinking about Rosalie's death; I wasn't thinking about that at all, I have never thought about Rosalie. Very likely I shall not see Lucian for ever and ever so long, and very likely he won't care for me when I do. He has never given the least sign that he cared—don't think that." And, clasping her hands round his wrist, she looked up in his face in earnest appeal. "Nothing has ever been said between us—not one word; it is only howIhave felt."
"Whom are you defending now?" asked Winthrop, as coldly as a man may when a girl so beautiful is clinging to him pleadingly.
"Lucian," responded Garda, promptly.
The mention of his name seemed to give her thoughts a new direction; disengaging herself, she came round to stand in front of her companion in order to have a good position while she told her story. "Don't you remember that I began caring for Lucian first of all? you must remember that? Then I got over it. Next I cared for you. Then, when he came back, I began to care for him again—you have no idea how delightful he is!" she said, breaking off for a moment, and giving him a frank smile. "Well, I should have told you all about it long ago, only Margaret wouldn't let me; she has made me promise her twice, and faithfully, not to tell you. You see, Margaret thinks you care for me; therefore it would hurt you to know it. I have told her over andover again that you don't care at all, and that I don't care any longer for you. But it doesn't make any difference, she can't understand it; she thinks that if I cared once, it must last still; because that is the kind that Margaret is herself; ifshecared, itwouldlast. So she can't believe that I have really changed, she thinks (isn't it funny?) that I am mistaken about myself, that I don't know my own mind. And then, too, to change from you to Lucian—thatshe could never understand in a thousand years."
Winthrop had had his hands deep in the pockets of his morning-coat during this history. He stood looking steadily down, perhaps to keep her from seeing his expression.
But she divined it. "You needn't have such a stern face, I am sure everybody's very good toyou. Here I've released you from an engagement you didn't desire, and Margaret, the sweetest woman in the world, cares so much for your feelings—what she supposes them to be—that she has done her best to hold me to you just because she thinksyouwould mind. Of course, too, on my own account a little—because she thinks it would be well for me to marry you, that it would be safe. Well, you know youaresafe, Evert." And the rippling laugh broke forth again, meeting this time decided anger in Winthrop's gray eyes as he raised them to meet hers.
"There, you needn't crush me," Garda resumed. "And you needn't mind me, either me, or my laughing. For, of course, I know that if I could have cared for you, that is, gone on caring, and if in the end you could have cared for me, it would have been better for me than anything that could possibly happen; you ought not to be angry with a girl who tells you that?" And taking his arm, she looked up in his face very sweetly. "But the trouble was that you didn't care for me, you don't now. Yet you kept to your engagement, you took me and made the best of me; and I think that was very good. Well, it's over now." She had kept his arm, and now she began to stroll down the aisle towards the rose-garden. "There's something else I want to speak to you about, now that we've got through with our own affairs; and that's Margaret. Why have you such a wrong idea of her?—she is so noble as well as so sweet.She promised my mother to be like a sister to me; but, Heaven knows, few real sisters would have been as patient as she has been. I have never seen any one that could approach her. I didn't know a woman could be like that—so unchangeable and true. For we are not true to each other—women, I mean; that is, not when we care for somebody. Then we pretend, we pretend awfully; we tell things, or keep them back, or tell only half, just as we choose; and we always think that we have a perfect right to do it. But Margaret's different, Margaret'swonderful. Yet none of you, her nearest relatives, do her the least justice; it is left tometo appreciate her. Leaving Mrs. Rutherford out, this is more stupidity than I can account for inyou."
"Men are all stupid, of course," Winthrop answered.
"What makes all she has done for me the more remarkable," Garda went on, not heeding his tone, "is the fact that she doesn't really like me, she cannot, I am so different. Yet she goes on being good to me just the same."
Winthrop made an impatient movement. "Suppose we don't talk any more about Mrs. Harold," he said.
"I must talk about her, when I love her and trust her more than anything."
"Don't trust her too much."
She drew her arm from his, indignantly. "One night she came way down the live-oak avenue after me, with only slippers on her poor little feet, to keep me from going out in the fog with Lucian—sailing, I mean. What do you think of that?"
"I don't think anything."
"Yes, you do; your face shows that you do."
"My face shows, perhaps, what I think of the extraordinary duplicity of women," said Winthrop.
"Duplicity? Do you call it duplicity for me to be telling you every single thing I think and feel, as I have done to-day?"
"I was speaking of Mrs. Harold."
"Duplicity and Margaret!" exclaimed Garda.
They had reached the end of the orange aisle, and she no longer had his arm. "I can't discuss her with you, Garda," he said. And he went out into the sunshine beyond.
But Garda followed him. She came round, placed her hands on his shoulders, and pushed him with soft violence back into the shade. "Why do you speak so of her? youshalltell me. Why shouldn't I trust her? But I do and I will in spite of you!"
"Do you mean to marry that man, Garda?" asked Winthrop, at last, as she stood there holding him, her eyes on his, thinking of her no longer as the young girl of his fancy, but as the woman.
"I don't know," answered Garda, her tone altering; "perhaps he won't care for me."
"But if he should care?"
"Oh!" murmured the girl, the most lovely, rapturous smile lighting up her face.
Winthrop contemplated her for a moment. "Very well, then, I think I ought to tell you: she cares for Lucian herself."
Garda's hands dropped. "It isn't possible that you believe that—that youhavebelieved it! Margaret care for Lucian! She doesn't care a straw for him, and sinceIhave begun to care for him again, I verily believe that she has detested him; he knows it too. Margaret care for him! What are you thinking of?Icare, not Margaret; I've done nothing but try to be with him, and meet him, and I've seen him more times than she knows. Why—it gave her that fever just because she had to do something for him; that last afternoon before he went away (I promised her I wouldn't tell you; but I don't care, I shall), I had asked Lucian to meet me at the pool in the south-eastern woods, and then I thought that I should rather see him at the house after all, and so I started a little earlier, and was on my way to Madam Giron's, when I came upon Margaret. I had to tell her, because she wanted me to go home with her and of course I couldn't. And then, suddenly, we saw Dr. Kirby coming, and I knew it must be for me—he had found out in some way my plan—and I knew, too, that it would be dreadful if he should meet Lucian; I was sure he would shoot him! And I was going to run over and warn Lucian—there was just time—when Margaret said she would do it, and thatIhad better go back up the path and stop the Doctor, keephim away from there entirely, if possible, which was, of course, much the best plan. So I did. And she went to Madam Giron's. And I am convinced that it was the cause of her illness—it was so disagreeable to her to be mixed up inanythingconnected with Lucian."
Garda had poured out this narrative with all the eloquence of the warm affection she had for her friend. Now she stopped. "She doesn't like Lucian because she doesn't understand him," she said. Then she repented. "No, it isn't that, he isn't the person forher. Lucian will do for me; but not for Margaret." And she looked at Winthrop with one of her sudden comprehending glances, clear as a beam of light.
But he did not respond to this. "When you met her that afternoon, Garda, where was she?" he asked; he seemed to be thrusting Garda and her affairs aside now.
"I told you; in the south-eastern woods."
"Yes. But where?"
"In the eastern path, at the end of that long straight stretch beyond the pool—just before you get to the bend."
"And then?"
"Then I went back up the path to meet the Doctor. And Margaret went down the path and across the field to Madam Giron's."
At this instant appeared Celestine. She had gone to the entrance of the aisle which was nearest the house, and looked in; then, seeing that they were at the far end, she had left it and come round on the outside.
For something forbade Celestine to walk down that long vista alone. They would probably hear her and turn; and then there would be the necessity of approaching them for fully five minutes step by step, with the consciousness that they were looking; she could not stare back at them, and yet neither could she look all the time at the sand at her feet—which would be dizzying. Celestine always took care of her dignity in this way; she had a fixed regard for herself as a decent Vermont woman; you could see that in the self-respecting way in which her large neat shoes lifted themselves and came down again when she walked.
"Mrs. Rutherford would like to see you, Mr. Evert, if you please; she isn't so well, she says."
"Nothing serious, Minerva, I hope?"
"I guess there's no occasion to be scairt, Mr. Evert. But she wants you."
"I will come immediately."
Celestine disappeared.
Garda and Winthrop turned back towards the house through the orange aisle.
"Mrs. Rutherford has never known, has she, that we have been engaged?" asked Garda.
"No."
"There is no need that she should ever know, then; she isn't fond of me as it is, and she would detest me forever if she knew there had been a chance of my becoming in reality her niece. I don't want to trouble her any longer with even my unseen presence; I want to go away."
"Where?"
"It doesn't make much difference where. It is only that I am restless, and as I have never been restless before, I thought that perhaps if I should go away for a while, it would stop."
"Yes, you wish to see the world," said Winthrop, vaguely. His mind was not upon Garda now.
"I don't care for 'the world,'" the girl responded. "Ionly care for the people in it."
Then, in answer to a glance of his as his attention came back to her, "No, I am not going after Lucian," she said; "don't think that. I am almost sure that Lucian will go abroad now; he was always talking about it,—saying that he longed to spend a summer in Venice, and paint everything there. No—but I think I might go to Charleston—the Doctor could take me; he has a cousin there, Mrs. Lowndes; I could stay with her. Margaret will oppose it. But the Doctor is my guardian too, you know; and I hopeyouwill take my part. Of course I should rather go with Margaret anywhere, if she could only go; but she cannot, you know Mrs. Rutherford would never let her. So she will feel called upon—Margaret—to oppose it."
They had now come to the end of the aisle. "Promise me to take my part," said Garda. Then, perceiving that his attention had left her again, "See what I am reduced to!" she confided to the last orange-tree.
Winthrop brought himself back. "I don't see any reason why you shouldn't go to Charleston if the Doctor will take you," he said; "you must speak to him about it."
"Well, I won't keep you; I see you want to go.—All the same, you know, I liked you," she called after him as he went out in the sunshine.
He glanced back, smiling.
But Garda looked perfectly serious. She stood there framed in the light green shade; "I should likeeverso much to go back to the time when I first cared for you!" she said, regretfully.
Winthrop found Mrs. Rutherford much excited. Betty, tearful and distressed, met him outside the door, and in whispered words confessed that she had inadvertently betrayed the fact of his engagement, to dear Katrina; "I can't imagine, though, why she should feel about it as she does—as though it was something terrible," concluded the friend, plucking up a little spirit at the end of her confession, and wiping her eyes.
"She won't feel so long," said Winthrop,—"you can take comfort from that; my engagement is broken."
"BROKEN?"
"Yes; by Garda herself, ten minutes ago." And leaving Betty to digest this new intelligence, he went in to see his aunt.
His aunt had had herself put into an arm-chair: an arm-chair was more impressive than a bed. "I feel very ill, Evert," she began, in a faint voice; "I never could have believed that you would deceive me in this way."
"Let me undeceive you, then. My engagement—for I presume it is that you are thinking of—is broken."
"Didyoubreak it, Evert?" pursued Aunt Katrina, still in affliction.
"No, Miss Thorne broke it. Ten minutes ago."
"A forward minx!" said the lady, veering suddenly to heat.
"It is done, at any rate. I suppose you are glad."
"Of course I am glad. But I should be gladder still if I thought I should never see her face again!"
"That is apropos—she is anxious to go to Charleston."
"Let her go," said Aunt Katrina, with majesty.
"She is afraid Margaret will object."
"Ishall object if she stays! But oh, Evert, how could you have been caught in such a trap as that, by a perfectly unknown, shallow, mercenary girl?"
"Unknown—for the present, yes; shallow—I am not prepared to say; but mercenary? If she were mercenary, would she have let me off? Would she have broken the engagement herself, as she did ten minutes ago?"
"I wish you wouldn't keep repeating that 'ten minutes,'" said Aunt Katrina, irritably. "Who cares for ten minutes? I wish it were ten years." Then her mind reverted to Garda. "She has some plan," she said.
"I don't think she plans. And now that this trouble is off your mind, my dear aunt, will you excuse me if I leave you? I have still only just arrived, and I was up at dawn. Shall I send Celestine to you?"
"Celestine is busy; she is refolding some lace—Flemish church."
"Your Betty, then."
"My Betty has behaved in the mosttraitorousway."
"When she was the one to tell you?"
"She should have told me long before."
"Why she, more than any of the rest of us?" asked Winthrop, rising.
"Becauseshemust have made a superhuman effort not to; becauseshemust have fairly kept herself in a strait-jacket to prevent it—in a strait-jacket night and day; for eight long months has Elizabeth Gwinnet done that!"
"Don't you think, then, that you ought to have some pity for her?" suggested Winthrop.
He went out. And then Betty, who was sitting, dazed and dejected, on the edge of a chair outside the door, hurried in, handkerchief in hand, to make her peace with dearest Kate, her long limp black skirt (all Betty's skirts were long) trailing in an eager, humble way behind her.
Winthrop had said that he wished to go to his room. The way to it was not through the drawing-room; yet he found himself in the latter apartment.
Margaret sat there near one of the windows sewing, sewingwith that even motion of hand, and absorbed gaze bent on the long seam, which he had told himself more than once that he detested. The heavy wooden shutter was slightly open, so that a beam of light entered and shone across her hair; the rest of the room was in shadow.
Winthrop came towards her; he had closed the door upon entering. She gave him her hand, and they exchanged a few words of formal greeting—inquiry and reply about his journey and kindred matters.
"Garda has broken her engagement to me; I presume you know it," he said.
"I knew she intended to do it."
"She tells me that you have tried to dissuade her?"
"Yes; I thought she did not, perhaps, fully know her own mind."
"We must give up the idea that she is a child," he said. "We have been mistaken, probably, about that all along."
Margaret sewed on without answering.
"You are very loyal to her; you don't let me see that you agree with me."
"I didn't suppose that you meant any disparagement, when you said it."
"She tells me that she doesn't care for me any more." He took a book from the table beside him, and looked absently at its title. "We must allow that she has a great facility as regards change."
"She has a great honesty."
Winthrop sat down—until now he had been standing; he threw aside the book. "You certainly can't approve of it," he said,—"such a disposition?"
He did not pay much heed to what he was saying, he was absorbed in the problem before him; face to face with Margaret, he was asking himself, and with more inward tumult than ever, why she had been so willing to have him think of her, as, after what he had seen, he must think? During his two weeks of absence—the evening before on that long pier in the rain—he had felt a hot anger against her for the unconcern with which she was treating him. But now that he knew the real history of that last afternoon, now that he knew that it was Garda who had planned the meeting withLucian, Garda, not Margaret, who had been on her way to that solitary house, the problem was more strangely haunting even than before. She had saved Garda from compromising herself in the eyes of the man to whom she was engaged—yes; but she had done it at the expense of compromising herself, Garda, meanwhile, remaining ignorant of the greatness of the sacrifice, since she did not know, as Margaret did, that he, Winthrop, was sitting there in the wood beyond the bend.
Certainly it was an immense thing for one woman to have done for another; you might say, indeed, that there was nothing greater that a woman could do.
Then came again the galling thought that Margaret had not found the task so difficult, simply because she was indifferent as to what his opinion of her might be;sheknew that she had not been in any sense of the word to blame—that was enough for her; what he knew, or thought he knew, troubled her little.
But no, that could not be. Margaret Harold was a proud woman—you could see that, quiet as she was, in every delicate line of her face; it was not natural, therefore, that she should willingly rest in the eyes of any one under such an imputation as that. Surely, now that Garda had, of her own accord, broken off her engagement, and confessed (only Garda never "confessed," she merely told) that her old liking for Lucian had risen again, surelynowMargaret would throw off the false character that rested upon her, would hasten to do so, would be glad to do so; there was no necessity to shield Garda further. She had made the girl promise not to tell him the real version of the events of that last afternoon; didn't this mean that, if the circumstances should ever change so that it was possible to give the real version, she wished to give it to him herself? The circumstances had changed; and now, wouldn't she take advantage of it? Wouldn't she be glad to explain, at last, the reasons that took her to Madam Giron's that day? Of course she supposed that still he did not know; it would not occur to her that Garda might break her promise.
But still her hand came and went above the white seam. And still she said nothing.
He waited a long time—as long as it was possible to sit there without speaking. Then he went back to his last remark—which she had not answered; annoyed by her silence, he went from bad to worse. "I shall be surprised if you approve of it;—you have such a regard for appearances."
She colored. "I am not very successful in preserving them then, even if I have a regard."
"Oh, you don't mindme," answered Winthrop, in a tone which in spite of himself was openly bitter.
She looked up, he could see that she was much moved. "We must do everything we can for Garda now," she said, rather incoherently, her eyes returning to her work.
"You have done altogether too much for her as it is; I don't think you need trouble yourself so constantly about Garda, you might think for a moment of your other friends."
He was absolutely pleading—he could scarcely believe it of himself. But he wanted so to have her set him right! He wanted her to do it of her own accord—show that she was glad to be able to do it at last. There was no longer any question of saving Garda; Garda had, in her own eyes at least, saved herself. He waited for his answer.
She had given him a frightened glance as he spoke, the expression of his face seemed to take her by surprise, and break down her self-possession. She rose, murmuring something about being obliged to go.
"You are sure you have nothing to say to me, Margaret?" he asked, as she went towards the door.
"Say? What do you mean?"
"I am giving you a chance to explain, I long to have you explain. I find myself unable to believe—" He stopped. Then he began again. "I am sure there is some solution—If I have not always liked your course in other matters, at least I have never thoughtthisof you. You know what I witnessed that afternoon, as I sat there in the woods; one word will be enough—tell me what I must think of it—and of you." He was trying her to the utmost now.
A painful red flush had darkened her face, but, except for that, she did not flinch. "You must think what you please," she answered.
Then she escaped; she had opened the door, and now she went rapidly down the hall towards her own room.
He stood gazing. If he had not known she was innocent, he should have set down her tone to defiance; it was exactly the sort of low-voiced defiance which he had expected from her when he had supposed—what hehadsupposed.
But his suppositions had been entirely false. Did she still wish him to believe that they were true!
It appeared so.
Garda Thorne went to Charleston. Margaret gave her consent only after much hesitation; but Dr. Kirby was from the first firmly in favor of the plan. He himself would take his ward to the South Carolina city (for Garda, the Doctor would draw upon his thin purse whether he were able to afford it or not), she should stay with his accomplished cousin Sally Lowndes; thus she would have the best opportunity to see the cultivated society of that dear little town.
This last sentence was partly the Doctor's and partly Winthrop's; the Doctor had spoken thus reverentially of Charleston society, and Winthrop thus admiringly of Charleston itself, which had seemed to him, the first time he beheld it, the prettiest place on the Atlantic coast, a place of marked characteristics of its own, many of them highly picturesque; his use of the word "little" had been affectionate, not descriptive. He had found a charm in the old houses, gable end to the street; in the jealous walls and great gardens; in St. Michael's spire; in the dusky library, full of grand-mannered old English authors in expensive old bindings; in the little Huguenot church; in the old manor-houses on the two rivers that come down, one on each side, to form the beautiful harbor; in the rice fields; in the great lilies. The Battery at sunset, with Fort Moultrie on one hand, the silver beaches round Wagner and the green marsh where the great guns had been on the other, and Sumter on its islet inmid-stream—this was an unsurpassed lounging-place; there was nothing fairer.
The Doctor had been much roused by the breaking of Garda's engagement. Garda had told him that Evert had not been to blame. But the Doctor was not so sure of that. He felt, indeed, that he himself had been to blame, they had all been to blame; ma, Betty Carew, the Moores, Madam Ruiz and the Señor Ruiz, Madam Giron—they had all been asleep, and had let this worst of modern innovations creep upon them unawares. For surely the foundations of society were shaken when the engagement of a young lady of Garda's position could be "broken." "And broken, ma," as he repeated solemnly to his little mother a dozen times, "without cause."
"Well, my son, would you rather have had it brokenwith?" asked ma at last.
The Doctor had had an interview with Winthrop. And he had been obliged to confess (still to ma) that the northerner had borne himself with courtesy and dignity, had given him nothing to take hold of; he had simply said, in a few words, that Garda had asked to be released, and that of course he had released her.
The Doctor himself had fervently desired that she should be freed. But this made no difference in his astonishment that the thing could really be done, had already been brought about. Garda had wished it; he himself had wished it; and Winthrop had obeyed their wish. Nevertheless, Reginald Kirby was a prey to rage, he was sure that somebody ought to be severely handled. In the mean while it seemed a wise course to take Garda to other scenes.
Adolfo Torres returned from Cuba before Garda's departure. He bade her good-by with his usual gravity; then, exactly three hours later, he started for Charleston himself. He kept punctiliously just that amount of time behind her, it was part of his method; on this occasion the method caused some discomfort, since, owing to the small number of trains in that leisurely land, it obliged him to travel with the freight all the way.
A week later a letter came to Evert Winthrop. It was a letter which gave him a sharp surprise.
It bore the postmark of the little post-office out in the St. John's where he had sat in the rain, and the contents were as follows: