"Would you mind it if I should ask you not to discuss it—my self-control?" Her hands were beginning to tremble.
"Put your hands in your pocket if you don't want me to see them," said Lanse, laughing; "they always betray you—even when your voice is steady. What a temper you've got—though you do curb it so tightly! At least you're infinitely better off than you would have been if you had happened to care for me. That's been the enormous blessing of your life—your not caring; just supposing youhadcared! You ought to be very thankful; and you ought to reckon up your blessings every now and then, for fear of forgetting some of them; we ought all to do that, I think."
He said this with great gravity. Not that he felt in the least grave; but it was a way Lanse had of amusing himself, once in a while,—to make remarks of this sort with a very solemn face.
He looked at her for a moment or two longer as she sat with her eyes bent upon her knitting. "You're in the rightchair," he said at length, "but you're sitting too straight. Won't you please take that footstool, put your feet on it, and then lean back more? You long lithe women look better that way."
She did not move.
"Come," he said, "you're furious; but you know you ought to humor me. It's only that I want my picture more complete—that's all."
And then, with nervous quickness, she did what he asked.
It was upon the morning following this little conversation that Dr. Kirby made his appearance at the house on the river and declared that he could not "explain."
"Tell me without explaining," Margaret suggested.
But this at first seemed to the Doctor even more difficult than the other alternative; it would have been so much more in accordance with his sense of the fitness of things to ascend this stumbling-block which had fallen in their path by means of a proper staircase, carpeted steps of probabilities, things he had foreseen—intuitions. But in fact he had foreseen nothing; he felt that he could not make a staircase. So he gave one great hard bound.
"Garda is engaged," he announced. "To Lucian Spenser."
Margaret was greatly astonished. "I didn't know he was back," she said.
"He has only just come. She went up to Norfolk with my cousin, Sally Lowndes"—here the Doctor stopped, gazing at Margaret inquiringly.
"Yes, I left it to you to decide about her going—don't you remember?"
"I decided wrongly. Sally was obliged to go, and anxious to take Garda—I was in Charleston, and I allowed it. I had no business to!" said the Doctor, slapping his knee suddenly and fiercely. "I distinctly disapprove of much travelling for young girls—mere aimless gadding about. But I have been corrupted, to a certain degree, by the new nor—the new modern ideas that are making their way everywhere at present; I could bury my head in a hay-stack! When did you hear from her last?"
"I had a letter from Norfolk immediately after her arrival."
"Before she had met him. And nothing since?"
"Nothing."
"Yes, she said she should rather have me tell you than write herself."
"She thought you would be on her side."
"No, madam, no; she couldn't have thought that—that would be impossible. But she was good enough to say that I should, in the telling, be certain to make you laugh. And that was what she wanted."
Moisture glittered suddenly in his eyes as he brought this out. He pretended it was not there, and searching for his handkerchief, he coughed gruffly, complaining of "a cold."
"I certainly don't laugh," said Margaret. "But perhaps we need not be so—so troubled about it, Doctor. The first thing now is to have her come home."
"She's back in Charleston."
"Oh!"
"Yes. As soon as I received Sally's letter—she wrote at once—I started immediately for Norfolk. I saw Mr. Spenser—in my quality of guardian it was proper that I should see him. And I brought the two ladies home."
"And not Mr. Spenser too?"
"I don't know anything about Mr. Spenser!" Then, after a moment, "I reckon he will follow," the Doctor murmured, dejectedly.
"And I—who thought he was in Venice!"
"He was in Venice until a few weeks ago. I don't know in the least what brought him home. And I don't know in the least what brought him to Norfolk, unless it was, as I was told, some insane fancy for sketching the Dismal Swamp;—of all places in the world the miry old Dismal! And to think that I should have let Garda go there, at just that moment! It's a combination of fortuitous chances which seems to me absolutely infernal!—I beg your pardon, madam"—here the Doctor rose, bowing ceremoniously, with his hand on the broad expanse of beautifully starched linen, which kept its place unmoved over his disturbed breast. "It is not often that I am betrayed into language unsuited to a lady's presence. I ask you to excuse me."
"You do not like Mr. Spenser," said Margaret.
The Doctor stared. "Do you?"
"I suppose it is not so much whether we like him, as whether we approve of him for Garda. But I am afraid she would not listen to us even if we should disapprove."
"I think you are in error there," said the Doctor, beginning to walk to and fro with quick short steps. Much as he liked Margaret, it was with anger that he answered her now.
"I must tell you what I think, mustn't I?" said the other guardian, gently. "And I think she has cared for him a long time."
"It is impossible for me to agree with you. Long time? Permit me to ask how long you mean? In the mean while she has been engaged to another man—Evert Winthrop. Do you forget that?"
"I don't think she realized fully—she was very young; she is extremely impulsive always," answered his colleague, wandering rather helplessly for a moment among her phrases. Then she spoke more decidedly. "But now she knows, now she is sure; she is sure it is Lucian she cares for."
"She is fanciful, and this is only another fancy. Sally, too, has been much to blame."
"I do not think Garda is fanciful," said Margaret. "And—it is not a childish feeling, her liking for Lucian Spenser."
The Doctor stopped on the other side of the room. Then he came back and stood gazing at Margaret in silence. "You are a woman, and you are good," he said at last. "She is very fond of you, she tells you everything, and youmustknow. If therefore you say that she—"
"Yes," answered Margaret, "I do know. I am sure she cares for him very, very much." Here some of Garda's extraordinarily frank expressions about Lucian, and the delight it gave her to even look at him, coming suddenly into her memory, over all her fair face there rose a sweet deep blush.
The Doctor turned away and dropped into a chair.
"There is nothing against Mr. Spenser, I believe," Margaret began again, after a short pause.
"It isn't that. No, I believe there is nothing." He sat there, his figure looking unusually small, his eyes turned away.
Margaret asked some questions. By degrees the Doctoranswered them. He said that Lucian was possessed of "a genteel income." He had not accepted his wife's large fortune; she had left everything to him, but he had immediately given the whole back to her relatives, retaining only the profits of some investments which she had made, since their marriage, under his advice; this sum the Doctor described as "a competence."
"When is Garda coming home?" Margaret asked.
"She says she isn't coming; she says she knows you have no place for her here—no time; and she doesn't wish to stay with any one but you."
"She does not mean that. I think she should come, she has been in Charleston a long time; Mrs. Lowndes has been wonderfully kind."
"Oh, as to that, Sally likes to have her there. She says it has made her 'young again' to see Garda. And to admire (I don't know what she meant by that) Adolfo Torres."
"Is he there still?"
"He is there still. He doesn't believe in the least in Garda's engagement."
"He didn't believe in the other one," said Margaret. And then she was sorry she had said it, for the Doctor jumped up and seized his hat; it was still insupportable to him, the thought of those two engagements.
"He's a hallucinated idiot!" he said, violently. Then, controlling himself, he took leave of Margaret, bowing over her hand with his old stately ceremony. Mr. Harold was in the garden? He would go out and see him there. It was most satisfactory, certainly, the improvement in Mr. Harold.
On the present occasion the Doctor found Lanse on a couch which he had had carried out to the garden; here he lay contentedly smoking, and looking at the river. Lanse liked the Doctor; it was an ever-fresh amusement to him to realize that his large, long, muscular self was committed to the care of that "pottering little man." The Doctor was not in the least "pottering." But Lanse really thought that all short men with small hands, who were without an active taste for guns, were of that description. The sad Doctor made but a brief visit this time; then he started homeward.He had still the news about Garda to tell in Gracias. At present it was known only to ma.
Garda did not comply with the wish of her friends, and return to them. She wrote a dozen letters about it, but in actual presence she remained away. Most of these epistles were to Margaret. As time went on she wrote to Margaret every day.
But her letters were not letters at all, in the usual sense of the word; they were brief diaries, rapidly jotted down, of the feelings of the moment; they were pæans, rhapsodies, bubbling exclamations of delight; none of them ever exceeded in length a page.
They seemed to Margaret very expressive. She did not know what Garda might be writing to the Kirbys, the Moores, and Mrs. Carew; but what Garda wrote to her she kept to herself.
This was the girl's first letter after Margaret's note urging her to return:
"Margaret, Ican'tcome—don't ask me; for none of them there would sympathize with me—not even you. It isn't that I want sympathy—I never even think of it. But I don't want the least disagreeable thing now when I am soblissful—bliss is the only word. Lucian comes in every morning on the train. The Doctor said that of course he would not stay all the time in Charleston. So to satisfy him Lucian stays four miles out."Oh, Margaret, everything is so enchanting!"Garda."
"Margaret, Ican'tcome—don't ask me; for none of them there would sympathize with me—not even you. It isn't that I want sympathy—I never even think of it. But I don't want the least disagreeable thing now when I am soblissful—bliss is the only word. Lucian comes in every morning on the train. The Doctor said that of course he would not stay all the time in Charleston. So to satisfy him Lucian stays four miles out.
"Oh, Margaret, everything is so enchanting!
"Garda."
"Dear Margaret,—Every morning I watch until he opens the gate" (she wrote a day later), "and then I run down to meet him in the hall. We don't stay in the house, we go into the garden. Mrs. Lowndes says she loves to have him come, because he reminds her so much of Mr. Lowndes—'Roger,' she calls him. And she says it makes her young again in her heart to see us. And perhaps it does in her heart, but the change hasn't reached the outside yet. I am expecting him every minute, there he comes now."Garda."
"Dear Margaret,—Every morning I watch until he opens the gate" (she wrote a day later), "and then I run down to meet him in the hall. We don't stay in the house, we go into the garden. Mrs. Lowndes says she loves to have him come, because he reminds her so much of Mr. Lowndes—'Roger,' she calls him. And she says it makes her young again in her heart to see us. And perhaps it does in her heart, but the change hasn't reached the outside yet. I am expecting him every minute, there he comes now.
"Garda."
"Dear Margaret,—If I could stay with you, I would come back to-morrow," she wrote in answer to a second letter from Margaret, which urged her strongly to return. "But I know you don't want me now—that is, you can't have me—and where else could I stay? The DoctorhatesLucian—he may pretend, but hedoes. If I should stay at the rectory, Mrs. Moore would be sure to say, howpleasantfor Lucian and I to read poetry on the veranda, because that is what she and Middleton used to do when they were engaged. But Lucian and I don't want to read any poetry on verandas.Garda."
"Dear Margaret,—If I could stay with you, I would come back to-morrow," she wrote in answer to a second letter from Margaret, which urged her strongly to return. "But I know you don't want me now—that is, you can't have me—and where else could I stay? The DoctorhatesLucian—he may pretend, but hedoes. If I should stay at the rectory, Mrs. Moore would be sure to say, howpleasantfor Lucian and I to read poetry on the veranda, because that is what she and Middleton used to do when they were engaged. But Lucian and I don't want to read any poetry on verandas.
Garda."
"Dear Margaret,—Lucian has gone for the night, and there's nothing else to do, so I thought I would write to you. Mrs. Lowndes has just been in. She brought a daguerreotype of Mr. Lowndes, taken when he was young, and she says she knows exactly how I feel, because she used to feel just the same; when she was at the window, and saw 'Roger' coming down the street, the very calves of her legs used to quiver, she says. Roger must have been stout—at least he is in the daguerreotype, and he wore glasses."Lucian is painting me; but I only wish I could painthim. Oh, Margaret, heisso beautiful!Garda."
"Dear Margaret,—Lucian has gone for the night, and there's nothing else to do, so I thought I would write to you. Mrs. Lowndes has just been in. She brought a daguerreotype of Mr. Lowndes, taken when he was young, and she says she knows exactly how I feel, because she used to feel just the same; when she was at the window, and saw 'Roger' coming down the street, the very calves of her legs used to quiver, she says. Roger must have been stout—at least he is in the daguerreotype, and he wore glasses.
"Lucian is painting me; but I only wish I could painthim. Oh, Margaret, heisso beautiful!
Garda."
"Dearest Margaret,—I'm so glad I am alive, it's so nice to be alive. People say life's dreadful, but to me it's perfectly delicious every single minute. I thought I would tell you how happy I was before going to bed,—I love towrite it down.Garda."
"Dearest Margaret,—I'm so glad I am alive, it's so nice to be alive. People say life's dreadful, but to me it's perfectly delicious every single minute. I thought I would tell you how happy I was before going to bed,—I love towrite it down.
Garda."
The Doctor went up to Charleston again. He was much displeased with the course things were taking, he spoke with a good deal of severity to Sally Lowndes.
Sally, who was soft-bodied as well as soft-hearted (her figure was a good deal relaxed), shed tears. Then, recovering some spirit, she wished to know what the Doctor had expectedherto do? It was true that that sweet Garda had left off her lessons (up to this time she had "had instruction," that is, teachers had arrived at fixed hours); but Sallywas decidedly of the opinion that a girl who was so soon to be married should be relieved at least of "school-roomdrudgery."
"Nothing of the sort," said the Doctor; "she should be kept even more closely to her books. Your ideas are provincial and ridiculous, Sally; I don't know where you obtained them."
"From my mother," answered Sally, with a pink flush of excitement in her faded cheeks. "From my grandmother too—who was yours also. It isyouwho are changed, Reginald; it has never been the custom in our family to keep the girls down at their books after sixteen."
This was true. But the very truth of it made the Doctor more angry. "I shall take her back with me," he said.
"She doesn't wish to go."
"That makes no difference."
And then Sally "supposed" that it was not his intention to drag her back "in chains?" Mrs. Lowndes was evidently much displeased with Cousin Reginald.
The Doctor took Garda to a remote part of the garden. Here he placed before her in serious words the strong wish he had that she should return with him to Gracias.
Garda laughed out merrily. Then she came and kissed him. "Don't ask me to do anything so horribly disagreeable," she said, coaxingly.
"Would it be disagreeable?" asked the Doctor, his voice changing to pathos.
"Of course. For you're not nice to Lucian, you know you're not; how can I like that?"
"I will be—nice," said the Doctor, borrowing her word, though the use of it in that sense was to him like turning a somersault.
"Would you really try?" said Garda. She came behind him, putting her arms round his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. "You never could," she said, fondly. And then, as though he were some big good-natured animal, a magnanimous elephant or bear, she let him feel the weight of her little dimpled chin.
"I am weak because I have loved you so long, my child. I might insist; you are my ward. But it seems to me thatyou ought to care more about doing a little as we wish, Mrs. Harold agrees with me in thinking this."
"Margaret issweet; I love her dearly. But, do you know"—here she disengaged herself, and began with a sudden inconsequent industry to gather flowers—"it's so funny to me that you should think, either of you, for one moment, that I would leave Lucian now."
"He could come too. A little later." The Doctor was driven to this concession.
"But I shouldn't see him as I do here, you know I shouldn't. Here we do quite as we please; no one ever comes to this part of the garden but ourselves; we might be on a desert island—only it would have to be an island of flowers."
"And you care more for this than for our wishes?" began the Doctor. Then he took a lighter tone. "Of course you don't; you will come home with me, my child; we will start this afternoon." Watching her move about among the bushes as she gathered her roses, he had fallen back into his old belief; this young face where to him were still so plainly visible the childish outlines of the little girl he had been used to lead about by the hand—even of the dimpled baby he remembered so well—he could not bring himself to realize that it had gained older expressions, expressions he did not know.
"I'm very sorry, dear," Garda answered, generally. And then she knelt down to peer through a bush which might perhaps be holding its best buds hidden.
The Doctor, completely routed by the word which she had without the least effort used—the maturity of that "dear," addressed her at last, though unconscious that he was doing so, in the tone of equality. "It isn't as though you had anything to bear, like the prospect of a long engagement, as though there were any difficulties in the way; your marriage is to come so soon," he pleaded.
"Soon?" said Garda. "Six long months! Do you call that 'soon?'" She stopped gathering roses, and sat down on a garden bench. "Six months! I must see him every day, and for a long while every day; that will be theonlyway to bear it." Then her words ceased; but her splendid eyes,meeting the Doctor's (she had forgotten that he was there), grew fuller and fuller of the loveliest dreaming expression, until the poor guardian—he realized that she would not perceive his departure—could not stand there and watch it any longer. He turned abruptly and went away.
"Dear Margaret,—The Doctor has gone" (Garda wrote the next day). "And I am afraid he is displeased. Apparently we please no one but ourselves and Sally Lowndes! Margaret, when my wedding-day really comes at last, nobody must touch me but you; you must dress me, and you must put on my veil, and the orange-blossoms (from the old East Angels grove—I won't have any others). And then, just before we go down-stairs, you must say you arepleased. And you must forgive me all I have done—and been too—because Icouldn'thelp it. I shall come over from Gracias, and go down on my knees to Mr. Harold to beg him to let me be with you, or rather to letyou; he must, he shall say yes."
"Dear Margaret,—The Doctor has gone" (Garda wrote the next day). "And I am afraid he is displeased. Apparently we please no one but ourselves and Sally Lowndes! Margaret, when my wedding-day really comes at last, nobody must touch me but you; you must dress me, and you must put on my veil, and the orange-blossoms (from the old East Angels grove—I won't have any others). And then, just before we go down-stairs, you must say you arepleased. And you must forgive me all I have done—and been too—because Icouldn'thelp it. I shall come over from Gracias, and go down on my knees to Mr. Harold to beg him to let me be with you, or rather to letyou; he must, he shall say yes."
But Lanse was not called upon to go through this ordeal.
He had already said, "Yougo!" in rather a high-noted tone of surprised remonstrance when Margaret suggested, some time before, that she should go herself to Charleston and bring Garda back. "And leave me shut up alone here!" he added, as if to bring home to her the barbarity of her proposal.
"The servants do very well at present."
"They don't look as you do," Lanse answered, gallantly. "I must have something to look at."
"But I think I ought to go."
"You can dismiss that 'ought' from your mind, there are other 'oughts' that come nearer. In fact, viewing the matter impartially, you should never have consented in the beginning, Madge, to take charge of that girl, without first consulting me." Lanse brought out this last touch with much judicial gravity. "Fortunately your guardianship, such as it is, will soon be over," he went on; "she will have a husband to see to her. Apparently she needs one."
"That won't be for six months yet."
"Call it two; as I understand it, there's nothing but dogmaticcustom between them, and as Florida isn't the land of custom—"
"Yes, it is."
"Well, even grant that; the girl is, from all accounts, a rich specimen of wilfulness—"
"Of naturalness."
"Oh, if they're guided by naturalness," said Lanse, "they won't even wait two."
And it was not two, when early one morning, in old St. Michael's Church in Charleston, with Sally Lowndes, excited and tearful, as witness—their only one save an ancient little uncle of hers, who had come in from his rice plantation to do them the favor of giving the bride (whom he had never seen before) away, Edgarda Thorne and Lucian Spenser were married.
The Rev. Batton Habersham, as he came robed in his surplice from the vestry-room, could not help being conscious, even then and there, that he had never seen so beautiful a girl as the one who now stood waiting at the chancel-rail—not in the veil she had written about, or the orange-blossoms from East Angels, but in an every-day white frock, and garden hat covered with roses. The bridegroom was very handsome also. But naturally the clergyman was not so much impressed by Lucian's good points as by Garda's lovely ones. Sally Lowndes was impressed by Lucian, she gazed at him as one gazes at a portrait; Lucian looked very handsome, very manly, and very much in love—a happy combination, Sally thought. And then, with fresh sweet tears welling in her eyes, she knelt down for the benediction (though it was not given to her), and thought of "Roger," and the day when she should see him again in paradise.
The Rev. Batton Habersham, who was officiating in St. Michael's for a week only, during the absence of the rector, was a man unknown to fame even in his own diocese. But it is possible to do a great deal of good in the world without fame, and Batton Habersham did it; his little mission chapel was on one of the sea islands. Always thereafter he remembered the early morning marriage of that beautiful girl in the dim, empty old Charleston church as the most romantic episode of his life. Fervently he hoped that she would behappy; for even so good a man is more earnest (unconsciously) in his hopes for the happiness of a bride with eyes and hair like Garda's than he is for that of one with tints less striking. Though the relation, all the same, between the amount of coloring matter in the visual orbs or capillary glands, and the degree of sweetness and womanly goodness in the heart beneath, has never yet been satisfactorily determined.
An hour later the northward-bound train was carrying two supremely happy persons across the Carolinas towards New York—the Narrows—Italy.
"Well, we have all been young once, Sally," the little old rice planter had said to his weeping niece, as the carriage drove away from the hospitable old mansion of the Lowndes'. Garda had almost forgotten that they were there, Sally and himself, as they had stood for a moment at the carriage door; but she had looked so lovely in her absorbed felicity that he forgave her on the spot, though of course he wondered over her choice, and "couldn't imagine" what she could see in that "ordinary young fellow." He went back to his plantation. But he was restless all the evening. At last, about midnight, he got out an old miniature and some letters; and any one who could have looked into the silent room later in the night would have seen the little old man still in his arm-chair, his face hidden in his hand, the faded pages beside him.
"It is perhaps as well," said Margaret Harold. She was trying to administer some comfort to Dr. Kirby, when, two days later, he sat, a flaccid parcel of clothes, on the edge of a chair in her parlor, staring at the floor.
Mrs. Rutherford was triumphant. "A runaway match! Andthatis the girl you would have married, Evert. What an escape!"
"Shehas escaped," Winthrop answered, smiling.
"What do you mean? Escaped?—escaped from what?"
"From all of us here."
"Not from me," answered Aunt Katrina, with dignity. "Inever tried to keep her,Ialways saw through her perfectly from the very first. Do you mean to say that you understand that girl even now?" she added, with some contradiction.
"Yes, I think I do—now," Winthrop answered.
"I don't envy you your knowledge!PoorLucian Spenser—what could have possessed him?"
"He? He's madly in love with her, of course."
"I'm glad at least you think he's a fool," said Aunt Katrina, applying her vinaigrette disdainfully to her well-shaped nose.
"Fool? Not at all; he's only tremendously happy."
"The same thing—in such a case."
"I don't know about that. The question is, is it better to be tremendously happy for a little while, and unreasonable; or to be reasonable all the time, and never tremendously happy?"
"Oh, if you're going to talkrationalism—" said Aunt Katrina.
Immediately after her return from Norfolk, in the interval before Lucian came, Garda sent for Adolfo Torres. When he appeared she begged him to do her a favor, namely, to leave Charleston for the present.
"Is it that you wish me to return to Gracias?" asked Adolfo. "The place is a desperation without you."
"You need not go to Gracias if you don't want to; but please go away from here. Go to the Indian River," she suggested, with a sudden inspiration.
"I will go to the Indian River certainly—if that is your wish," replied the Cuban; "though I do not know"—this he added rather longingly—"what harm I do here."
"No harm at all. But I want you to go." She smiled brightly, though there was also a good deal of sympathy in her eyes as she surveyed his lack-lustre countenance.
"That is enough—your wish. I go—I go at once." He took leave of her.
She called him back, and looked at him a moment. Then she said, "Yes, go. And I will write to you."
This was a great concession, Adolfo felt it to be such.
The letter was long in coming; and when it did come at last, it dealt him, like an actual hand, a prostrating blow. It was dated several days after that morning which had seen the early marriage in St. Michael's, and the signature, when his dazed eyes reached it, was one he did not know—Edgarda Spenser.
The Cuban had received this note at dusk. He went out and wandered about all night. At daylight he came in, dressed himself afresh and carefully, and had his boots polished—a process not so much a matter of course on the Indian River at that day as in some other localities. Next he said a prayer, on his knees, in his rough room in the house where he was lodged. Then he went out and asked the old hunter, his host, for the favor of the loan of one of his guns for the morning.
With this gun he departed into the woods. He was no sportsman; but this did not matter, since the game he had in view was extremely docile, it was so docile that it would even arrange itself in the best possible position for the ball.
But the desperate young man—his manner was calm as he made his way through the beautiful southern forest—was not permitted to end his earthly existence then. A hand seized his shoulder. "Are you mad, Adolfo?" said Manuel Ruiz, tears gleaming in his eyes as he almost threw his friend to the ground in the quick, violent effort he made to get possession of the gun. Then, seeing that Adolfo was looking at him very strangely, "If you come another step nearer, I'll shoot you down!" he shouted.
The Cuban did not say, "That is what I want;" he did not move or speak.
Manuel immediately began to talk. "They sent me down here, Adolfo; they had heard, and they were afraid for you. I had just got home, and they asked me to come—your aunt asked me."
"My aunt asked you," repeated Torres, mechanically.
"Yes, Adolfo, your aunt. You must care something forher," said Manuel. He looked uneasily about him.
And then hurrying through the wood, came Madam Giron.
The loving-hearted, sweet-tempered woman was much moved. She took her dead sister's unhappy boy in her arms, and wept over him as though he had been her own child; she soothed him with motherly caresses; she said, tenderly, that she had not been kind enough to him, that she had been too much taken up with her own children; "But now—now, my dearest—" This all in Spanish, the sweetest sound in the world to poor Torres' ears.
A slight convulsion passed over his features, though no tears came. He was young enough to have felt acutely the loneliness of his suffering, the solitude of the death he was on his way to seek. He stood perfectly still; his aunt was now leaning against him as she wept, he put one arm protectingly round her; he felt a slow, slow return towards, not a less torturing pain, but towards greater courage in bearing it, in this sympathy which had come to him. Even Manuel had shown sympathy. "I feel—I feel that I have been—rather cowardly," he said at last in a dull tone.
"No, no, dear," said his aunt, putting up her soft hand to stroke his dark hair. "It was very natural, we all understand."
And then a mist did show itself for an instant in the poor boy's eyes.
That same evening, Garda, far at sea, sitting with her head on Lucian's shoulder under the brilliant stars, answered a question he asked. She did not answer it at first, she was too contented to talk. Then, as he asked it again, "What ever became of that mediæval young Cuban of mine?"
"Oh, Adolfo?" she said. "I sent him down to the Indian River."
"To the Indian River? What in the world did you do that for?"
"He was in Charleston, and you were coming; I didn't want him there."
"Were you afraid he would attack me?" asked Lucian, laughing.
"I was afraid he would suffer,—in fact, I knew he would; and I didn't want to see it. He can suffer because he is like me—hecan love."
"Poor fellow!"
"Yes. But I never cared for him; and hewouldn'tsee it."
"And ''way down there in the land of the cotton,' I don't suppose he knows yet what has happened, does he?" said Lucian.
"Oh yes; I wrote to him from New York."
"You waited till then? Wasn't that rather hard?"
"Are you finding fault with me?" she murmured, turningher head so that her lips could reach and rest against his bending face.
"Fault!" said Lucian, taking her in his arms.
Adolfo passed out of their memory.
"I cannot let you go alone," said Evert Winthrop, decidedly.
He was speaking to Margaret. They were in the East Angels drawing-room, Betty Carew hovering near, and agreeing with perfect sincerity now with one, now with the other, in the remarkable way which was part of the breadth of her sympathy.
"But it's not in the least necessary for you to go," Margaret repeated. "Even if the storm should break before I reach the river, the carriage can be made perfectly tight."
"From the look of the sky, I am almost sure that we shall have a blow before the rain," Winthrop responded; "in the face of such a probability, I couldn't allow you to start across the barrens alone—it's absurd to suppose I should."
Margaret stood hesitating. "You want me to give it up—postpone it. But I cannot get rid of the idea that something has happened—I have had no letter for so long; even if Lanse had not cared to write himself, one of the men, Elliot or Dodd, would have done so, it seems to me, under any ordinary circumstances."
"Lanse probably keeps them too busy."
"They always have their evenings."
But Winthrop showed scanty interest in the evenings of Elliot and Dodd. "For myself, I can't pretend to be anxious," he said—"I mean about Lanse; I am only anxious about you."
"But if I don't go now, I can't go until to-morrow noon; before that time I shouldn't meet a boat that stops at our landing. That would make a delay of twenty-four hours." She looked at him as she said this, with a sort of unconscious appeal.
"I doubt whether anything very exciting could happen over there in twice twenty-four; it isn't an exciting place."
"Of course you think me obstinate. But I cannot help feeling that I ought to go."
"Perfectlynatural," said Betty. "I should feel just the same in your place—I know I should—not hearing forsolong."
"It's that—the silence," said Margaret. "I have been disturbed about it for several days."
"Go, by all means, if you feel in that way," said Winthrop. "I haven't the least desire to prevent it—as you seem to think; I only say that I shall go too."
"Yes; and that is what I don't want." She turned away and stepped out on the balcony to scan the sky.
A dark haze edged the eastern horizon. It was far away at present, lying low down on the sea, but it would come, it was already coming, westward; a clear, empty-looking space of cold pearl-hued light preceded it. Here on the lagoon the atmosphere was breathlessly still, not a sound of any kind stirred the warm silence. "Perhaps it will be only a rain," said Margaret, rather helplessly. She looked very uncomfortable.
"Yes, I reckon that's all itwillbe," said Betty, who had followed her to the balcony door. "And then, too, if itshouldbe anything more, Mr. Winthrop will be with you, of course; that is, in case you decide to go; and if you don't go, why then he won't, you know; so either way, it's all for the best."
Margaret turned and came back into the drawing-room. Winthrop was standing by the table where she had left him; his eyes met hers, she saw that he would not yield. "I don't dare give it up, I don't dare wait," she broke out with sudden agitation. "Something has happened, nothing less could have kept both of the men from writing, when I gave them my express orders. I don't understand why you don't agree with me."
"You see probabilities, and Lanse isn't a devotee of probabilities, as a general thing. Didn't the last letter say that he had begun to walk a little?—with the aid of two canes? By this time it is one cane, and he is camping out. Andhe has carried off the whole force of the house to cook for him."
Betty thought this an excellent joke, and laughed delightedly over it.
"If he is camping out, it is quite time I was back," answered Margaret, trying to speak lightly. She took up her gloves. "Good-by, Aunt Betty; you will write to me?"
"Yes, indeed, I will," said Betty, kissing her. "Poor dear, you're like Mahomet's coffin, aren't you? suspended between heaven and—and the other place. And I'msoglad you've decided as you have, because you will bemucheasier in your mind, though of course, too, Mr. Winthrop wasquiteright of course, about being afraid for you in case you were alone, for sometimes wedohave the most dreadful gusts, and the pine-trees are blown down alloverthe barrens and right across the roads; but then, all the same, if youhadn'tdecided, you would besouncomfortable, like the old man and his son and the donkey, who never got anywhere, you know, because they tried to please too many people, or was it that they had to carry the donkey at last? at any rate, certainly, there's no donkeyhere. Well, good-by, dear; I shall be sodreadfullyanxious about you."
"I am quite sure"—this was called down the stairs after Margaret had descended—"I'm quite sure, dear, that it will benothingbut a rain."
A carriage was waiting at the lower door; Winthrop's man was to drive; but the horses were not his; they were a pair Margaret had sent for. Margaret took her place, and Winthrop followed her; Betty, who had now hurried out to the balcony, waved her handkerchief in farewell as long as she could see them.
Margaret had been at East Angels for nearly a month, called there by a sudden illness which had attacked Mrs. Rutherford. It was not a dangerous illness; but it was one that entailed a good deal of suffering, and Margaret had been immediately summoned.
By this time everybody in Gracias knew how dependent "dear Katrina" was in reality upon her niece, in spite of her own majestic statements to the contrary. No one was surprised therefore, when, after the new illness had declareditself, and Mrs. Rutherford had said, plaintively, that she should think Margaret would feel that sheoughtto be there, Betty immediately sat down and wrote a note.
After two weeks of suffering, Mrs. Rutherford had begun to improve. She had now almost attained her former comparatively comfortable condition, and Margaret was returning to the house on the river.
The light carriage crossed the barren rapidly; the same hushed silence continued, the pine-trees which Betty had seen in a vision, prostrate, did not stir so much as one of their green needles. Margaret and Winthrop spoke occasionally, but they did not talk; anything they should say would necessarily be shared by the man who was driving. But conversation between them was not much more free when the steamer was taking them up the river. They sat on the deck together at some distance from the other passengers, but their words were few; what they said had even a perfunctory sound. They exchanged some remarks about Garda which contained rather more of animation.
Garda's last letter to Margaret had borne at the head of the page the magic word "Venice." Garda had appeared to think life there magical indeed. "She admires everything; she is delightfully happy," was Margaret's comment.
"How does she say it?"
"You have heard her talk."
"Not as Mrs. Lucian Spenser. And from Venice!"
"I shall tell her to write her next letter to you."
"I have no doubt she would. I see you are afraid to quote."
"Afraid?" said Margaret, in a tone of cold inquiry. And then, with the same cold intonation, she repeated two or three of Garda's joyous phrases.
"Yes, she is happy! Of course it's magnanimous in me to say so, but I owe her no grudge; on the contrary, it has been refreshing to see, in this nineteenth century, a girl so frankly in love. She would have married Lucian Spenser just the same if they neither of them had had a cent; she would have made any sacrifice for him—don't you think so?"
"Yes; but it wouldn't have been a sacrifice to her."
"Bravo! I gave you such a chance to say insidious things."
Margaret smiled a little at this suggestion. Then, in the silence that followed, the old look came back to her face—a look of guarded reserve, which, however, evidently covered apprehension.
She had, indeed, been in great dread. The dread was lest the agitation which had overpowered her during that last conversation she had had with Winthrop before she went back to her husband, should reappear. This brief journey of theirs together was the first perfect opportunity he had had since then to call it forth again; up to to-day there had been no opportunity, she had prevented opportunity. But now she was at his mercy; any one of a hundred sentences which he could so easily say, would suffice to bring back that emotion which suffocated her, and made her (as she knew, though he did not) powerless. But, so far, he had said none of these things. She was grateful to him for every moment of the respite.
Thus they sat there, appearing no doubt to the other passengers a sufficiently happy and noticeably fortunate pair.
For Winthrop had about him a certain look which, in America, confers distinction—that intangible air that belongs to the man who, well educated to begin with, has gone forth into the crowded course, and directed and carried along his fortunes by his own genius and energy to the goal of success. It is a look of power restrained, of comprehension; of personal experience, personal knowledge; not theory. The unsuccessful men who met Winthrop—this very steamer carried several of them—were never angry with him for his good-fortune; they could see that he had not always been one of the idle, though he might be idle now; they could see that he knew that life was difficult, that he had, as they would have expressed it, "been through it himself," and was not disposed to underrate its perplexities, its oppressions. They could see, too, not a few of them, poor fellows! that here was the man who had not allowed himself to dally with the inertia, the dilatoriness, the self-indulgent weakness, folly, or worse, which had rendered their own lives so ineffectual. They envied him, very possibly; but they did nothate him; for he was not removed from them, set apart from them, by any bar; he was only what they might themselves have been, perhaps; at least what they would have liked to be.
And the women on board all envied Margaret. They thought her very fair as she sat there, her eyes resting vaguely on the water, her cheeks showing a faint, fixed flush, the curling waves of her hair rippling back in a thick mass above the little ear. Everything she wore was so beautiful, too—from the hat, with its waving plume, and the long soft gloves, to the rich shawl, which lay where it had fallen over the back of her chair. They were sure that she was happy, because she looked so fortunate; any one of them would have changed places with her blindly, without asking a question.
The steamer stopped at the long pier which was adorned with the little post-office. The postmaster had made a dim illumination within his official shanty by means of a lantern, and here Margaret waited while the boat was made ready by the negroes who were to row them down the five additional miles of coast which Lanse had considered the proper space between himself and the hotel, to keep him from feeling "hived in." The night was very dark, the water motionless, the men rowed at a good speed; the two passengers landed at the little home-pier in safety, and the negroes turned back.
As soon as Margaret had ascended the winding path far enough to come within sight of the house, "No lights!" she said.
"That's nothing," Winthrop answered; "Lanse is probably outside somewhere, smoking." Then, as the path made another turn, "If there are no lights in front, there are enough at the back," he said.
From the rear of the house light shone out in a broad glare from an open door. Margaret hurried thither. But the kitchen was empty; Dinah, the old cook, her equally ancient cousin Rose, and Primus, the black boy, all three were absent. Rapidly Winthrop went through the house, he found no one; Lanse's room, as well as the parlor and dining-room, appeared not to have been used that day, while the smaller rooms occupied by the two men who were in attendance upon him had an even more deserted air.
"Their trunks are gone," said Margaret, who met Winthrophere. "It is all so strange!" she murmured, looking at him as if for some solution, her eyes dark in the yellow light of the lamp she held.
Winthrop agreed with her in thinking it strange; but he did not tell her so. They went back to the kitchen, none of the servants had returned.
"They are probably somewhere about the grounds; but you must sit down and rest while I go and look for them; you are tired."
"No, I'm not tired," answered Margaret, contradicting this statement.
"Come," he said, authoritatively. Taking the lamp from her, he led the way towards the parlor which she had made so pretty.
She followed him, and sank into the easy-chair he drew forward. "Don't wait," she said.
"But if you feel ill—"
"It's nothing, I'm only nervous."
"I shall probably bring them back in five minutes."
But twenty minutes passed before he returned with Dinah and Rose, whom he had found some distance down the shore. The two old women were much excited, and voluble. Their story was that "Marse Horrel" must be "lorse;" he had started early that morning in his canoe to go up the Juana, and had not returned; when it grew towards evening, as he had never before been out so long, they had become alarmed, and had sent Primus over to East Angels; the steamer that had carried him, and the one that had brought "Mis' Horrel" back, must have passed each other on the way. They did not send Primus to the hotel, because "Marse Horrel," he "'spizes monstons fer ter hev de hotel fokes roun';" they evidently stood in awe of anything "Marse Horrel" should "'spize." And they did not send Primus up the Juana, because "Prime, he sech a borned fool," they "dassent" trust only to that. So not knowing what else to do, they had sent him to East Angels for orders; of course they had no idea that "Mis' Horrel" was on her way back.
Where were the two men? Dodd had been gone a week, "Marse Horrel" had dismissed him; he said he was so well now that he did not need the two. And Elliot? "MarseHorrel" had sent him "day befo' yesserday" up the river on an "arr'nd," they did not know what; he was to return, they did not know when.
"Something has happened to Lanse," said Margaret, drawing Winthrop away a few paces when at last she had extracted these facts from the mass of confusing repetitions, ejaculations, and long, unintelligible phrases in which Dinah and Rose had enveloped them. The little old creatures, who were of exactly the same height, wore scarlet handkerchiefs bound round their heads in the shape of high cones; as they told their story, standing close together, their skinny hands clasped upon their breasts, their great eyes rolling, they might have been two African witches, just arrived on broomsticks from the Cameroons.
"The nearest house is the hotel," said Winthrop; "of course that boat is beyond call." But there was a chance that it might not be, and he hurried down to the landing; Margaret followed.
There was no sound of oars. He hailed loudly, once, twice; no one answered. "I shall have to go to the hotel myself," he said.
"That would take too long, it's five miles; it would be at least two hours before a boat and men from there could get here, and in that two hours you could find Lanse yourself, and bring him in."
"You speak as though you knew where he was."
"So I do, he is in the Monnlungs swamp. For a long while he has been in the habit of going up there every day; I have been with him a number of times, that is, I have followed in the larger boat with one of the men to row. Lanse is there now, and something has happened to him; either the canoe has been wrecked, or else he has hurt himself in some way so that he can't paddle; the great thing is to get him in before the storm breaks; we can't possibly wait to send to the hotel."
The two negresses who had left them, now returned, each carrying a light; apparently they supposed that great illumination would be required, for they had brought out the two largest parlor-lamps, and now stood holding them carefully.
"Bring your lamps this way, since you've got them," said Winthrop. He went towards the boats.
"That is the best," said Margaret, touching the edge of one of them with the tip of her slender boot.
The negresses stood on the low bank above, by the light of the great globes they held, Winthrop examined the canoe. It was in good order, the paddle was lying within.
"Now tell me how to get there," he said.
"Oh, I forgot, you don't know the way!" Margaret exclaimed, a sudden realization that was almost panic showing itself in her voice.
"No, I don't know it. But probably you can tell me."
She stood thinking. "No, it's impossible. Dark as it is, you might not even find the mouth of the Juana, there are so many creeks. And all the false channels in the swamp—No, I shall have to go with you; I will take Rose, possibly she can be of use."
But quickly old Rose handed her great lamp to Dinah, and jerked herself down on her thin knees. "Please, missy,no. Not inter de Munloons in denight, no!Ghossessesdar!" She brought this out in a high shrill voice, her broad flat features working in a sort of spasm, her great eyes fixed beseechingly on her mistress's face.
"You, then, Dinah," said Margaret, impatiently. But in spite of her rheumatic joints, Rose was on her feet in an instant, and had taken the lamps, while Dinah, in her turn, prostrated herself.
"You're perfectly absurd, both of you!" Margaret exclaimed.
"Poor old creatures, you're rather hard on them, aren't you?" said Winthrop from the boat.
"Yes, I'm hard!" She said this with a little motion of her clinched hand backward—a motion which, though slight, was yet almost violent.
"We must lose no more time," she went on. "Go to the house, Rose—I suppose you can do that—and bring me the wraps I usually take when I go out in the canoe, the lantern and some candles——"
"No," said Winthrop, interposing; "let her bring pitch-pine knots, or, better still, torches, if they happen to have them."
It appeared that "Prime" always kept a supply of torches ready, and old Rose hurried off.
Margaret stepped into the boat; she stood a moment before taking her seat "IwishI could go by myself," she said.
"You know how to paddle, then?" Winthrop asked, shortly.
"No, that's it, I don't; at least I cannot paddle well. I should only delay everything, it would be ridiculous." She seated herself, and a moment later Rose appeared with the wraps and a great armful of torches.
Both of the old women were quivering with wild excitement; agitated by gratitude at being spared the ordeal of the haunted swamp by night, they were equally agitated by the thought of what their mistress would have to encounter there; they shuffled their great shoes against each other, they mumbled fragments of words; they seemed to have lost all control of their mouths, for they grinned constantly, though their breath came almost in sobs. As Winthrop pushed off, suddenly they broke out into a loud hymn: