CHAPTER IXDUMB LOVE
His heartHad far outgrown his years, and to his eyeThere was but one beloved face on earth,That ever shone upon him. He had lookedUpon it till it would not pass away,But she in these fond feelings had no share;To her he was a brother; ’twas a nameHer infant friendship had bestowed on him—No more.Byron.
His heartHad far outgrown his years, and to his eyeThere was but one beloved face on earth,That ever shone upon him. He had lookedUpon it till it would not pass away,But she in these fond feelings had no share;To her he was a brother; ’twas a nameHer infant friendship had bestowed on him—No more.Byron.
His heartHad far outgrown his years, and to his eyeThere was but one beloved face on earth,That ever shone upon him. He had lookedUpon it till it would not pass away,But she in these fond feelings had no share;To her he was a brother; ’twas a nameHer infant friendship had bestowed on him—No more.Byron.
His heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
That ever shone upon him. He had looked
Upon it till it would not pass away,
But she in these fond feelings had no share;
To her he was a brother; ’twas a name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him—
No more.
Byron.
The years that had been spent by Gloria in study during the school terms, or in travel during her vacations, had been passed by David Lindsay on the little sandy island near the promontory.
This was his post of duty. Here his aged grandmother still lived without any companion or protector but himself.
He had steadily worked on the fishing landing, and he had employed his limited leisure in studying the elementary school books left him by his little playmate. He had thoroughly mastered them all, and now he longed for more liberty and better means of culture. But, true sentinel of Providence, he would not leave his sterile post of duty to attain them.
He had long ceased to ask after Gloria, chilled by the coldness with which his modest inquiries had been met by Colonel de Crespigney.
But he had never forgotten his childhood friend. He cherished the memory of the summers passedin the society of his little playmate as the happiest portions of his poor life; and he worshiped her image, that in the light of that memory shone like the vision of an angel.
It was she who had found him on the beach toiling at his daily task, and had awakened his strong but dormant intelligence, and inspired him with the love and longing for knowledge.
He owed her this good, and was glad and grateful to owe it.
One morning in June, he arose early, as usual, and looking out from the little loft window of his bedroom in the island cot, he saw an unusual thing—a large schooner at the old promontory wharf, and men landing many boxes, barrels and kegs.
He had a job of work to do on the landing that day, so he dressed himself quickly, ate his breakfast in a hurry, got into his little old boat, and in a few moments rowed himself to the wharf.
“What is all this to-do?” he inquired of old Laban, who was busy receiving the goods.
“Come ashore and lend a hand here! Our young lady is coming home for good dis fall, and de house an’ groun’ is to be done up splendidly for her—an’ outen her money, too, for I know Marse Colonel hasn’t got none to spare!” answered the negro, as he let down a heavy box he had been helping to land.
David Lindsay secured his boat, sprang on the wharf, and gave his assistance to the men.
“So Miss de la Vera is really coming home?” he ventured to ask of Laban.
“Yes, on de first October! Ole Marse Colonel, he done gone to Baltimo’ to take her out’n school when de holidays come, an’ dey’s gwine for a trip to Lunnunor Europ’, or some o’ dem dere outlandish savidge parts o’ de worl’, an’ dey’s gwine to be gone all de summer; but dey’s comin’ back in de fall; dat is, ef so be de cannibals out in dem dere parts don’t kill an’ eat ’em fust! I fink it’s downright dange’ous an’ a temptin’ o’ Providence to leave one’s ’spectable home an’ go traipsin’ off to dem dare igno’nt places—Lunnun an’ Europ’, and de like!” exclaimed Laban, in a tone of disgust and abhorrence.
“Miss de la Vera going to Europe!” said David Lindsay, to himself rather than to Laban.
“Hi! what I tell you, boy? Yes, gwine to Europ’ long o’ Marse Colonel Discrepancy! Gwine to see de savidges what lib across de big sea. Dare now, yer got it. I calls it a downright fiyin’ inter de face ob Providence. I does! What he fink, de Lord A’mighty put de big sea a rollin’ ’tween we an’ de cannibals for he to go an’ sail across it on a big ship out’n contrariness?” said Laban.
“Is Miss Agrippina to be one of the party?” inquired the young man.
“No. Miss Aggravater is gwine to stay here to watch the workmen. Miss Aggravater gwine indeed! Catch her at it! Wish she was, dough! She might go, ’dout any danger. Cannibals wouldn’t eat her, leastways not if dey wa’n’t uncommon hungry.”
David Lindsay said no more, but mused, as he helped to land the goods.
“Dere’s an’ arckman an’ a decorum an’ a skippin’ gardener comin’ down by de stage-coach to-morrow,” explained Laban, meaning the architect, decorator and landscape gardener engaged by Colonel de Crespigney to transfigure the drearypromontory and its prison-like buildings into a habitable home for the young heiress.
“And a precious deal ob money it is a gwine to cost, too, wherever it comes from, which I do ’spects it’ll be out’n Miss Glo’s own fortin’, for Marse Colonel Discrepancy hasn’t got too much to tro’ away, dat I knows.”
Laban was mistaken. He had been misled by appearances.
Marcel de Crespigney, leading his hermit life at the promontory, never receiving company and never going from home except when he went to take his ward from school, spent little money, had few wants, and lived like a very much poorer gentleman than he really was.
Hence, in the years he had spent at the promontory, the revenues from the fisheries, though not large, had been left to accumulate until they had reached a round sum, which he determined to invest in the restoration and improvement of Promontory Hall, to make his home as attractive as possible to his beautiful and beloved ward.
The goods brought to the wharf were all landed and stored away in the old dilapidated store-house, and then the schooner sailed away, and David Lindsay crossed the point to the fishing landing and set about his own especial work.
The next day the architect, decorator and landscape gardener came, and work began. The three principals went back and forth between the promontory and the city once or twice a month, but the workmen remained, and were quartered in the house, to the great discontent of Miss Agrippina, who vowed that she had never spent such a disagreeable summer in all the days of her life.
The works were all completed, however, by the middle of October; the gray stone walls of the old house were completely covered by a veneering of thin white slabs, that gave the building the appearance of a marble palace. French plate-glass windows opened upon piazzas with mosaic floors and Corinthian pillars. A mansard roof crowned the mansion. A fine garden, with a parterre of flowers, bloomed around it. Beyond that, the once barren fields were verdant with grass. The fishing landing on the point had been abolished as an ugly nuisance, and a pretty pier, with an equally pretty boat-house, had been erected on the place. The old sea-wall was repaired and a hedge of Osage orange trees was planted on its inner side.
Within the house every part was refurnished freshly and handsomely, if not very expensively.
When the finishing touch was put to the hanging of the mirrors and the drooping of the curtains, the decorator and the upholsterer, who were the last of the artisans to depart, came to take leave of Miss Agrippina de Crespigney.
“And I suppose you are very glad to see the last of us, ma’am,” said Mr. Bracket, the great artist in “effects.”
“I should rather see you here than your successors,” replied Miss Agrippina, with even unusual grimness.
“Beg pardon?” said Bracket, interrogatively.
“I say I would rather see you here than your certain successors, the sheriff’s officers, for I expect they will be the next strangers I shall be called upon to entertain! Such extravagance I never did see in all the days of my life! Well, I thank Providencemy little portion is safe enough. Marcel can’t make ducks and drakes out of that.”
The two men bowed themselves out of Mrs. “Aggravater’s” presence and went their way.
Colonel de Crespigney and Gloria were expected home in a few days. They had returned from their European tour in a steamer bound for Quebec, and were making a short tour through Canada, before completing their travels.
The first of October was a glorious autumn day. The sun was shining with dazzling splendor from a deep blue, cloudless sky; a soft, bright golden haze hung over the gorgeously colored woods and fields.
The new carriage and horses had been sent to St. Inigoes to meet the stage that was to bring the travelers that far on their journey home. It was from this circumstance that David Lindsay knew that Colonel de Crespigney and Gloria were expected to arrive that afternoon. He knew, besides, that they could only come at low tide, when the waves would have ebbed from the “neck” and left the road free. There would be low tide at half-past three o’clock.
Now the poor young fisherman was seized with an irresistible longing to look once more upon the face of her whom he had loved with the purest and most devoted affection, from the hour of their childhood when she found him on the beach and claimed him as her playmate until this hour, when, after a seven years’ absence, she was returning home. If he should not succeed in getting a glimpse of her now, he feared that he might never see her again, for his occupation on the promontory was gone,since the fishing landing had been replaced by a pier and a boat-house.
He took his fishing-rod and went down on the neck at low tide, to wait for her carriage to pass.
He sat on a high rock, and baited his hook for “sheep’s-head,” which most did congregate about that spot. But before he could cast his line into the sea, the sound of wheels was heard approaching. He looked up and saw the promontory carriage coming slowly down the gradual descent leading on to the neck. He drew his broad-brimmed straw hat low over his eyes, and his heart almost stood still as he muttered within himself:
“Will she recognize ‘David Lindsay?’ I should know her anywhere, or after any length of time.”
The carriage was coming. It was wide open, the top had been thrown quite down, both back and front, that the travelers might enjoy the fresh air and fine scenery of land and water on that delicious October afternoon.
On the coachman’s box sat Laban, lazily holding the reins. On the front seat, with his back to the negro, sat Colonel de Crespigney, with his traveling cap on his knees before him, leaving his fine head, with his waving black hair and beard and his Roman features, bare.
Opposite him, on the back seat, sat a very restless young lady, with the face of an eager, vivacious child—a face with a delicate Grecian profile, a dainty, rosebud complexion, sparkling, glad blue eyes, and rippling, golden-hued hair.
She was constantly springing from side to side, gazing now on the right, now on the left, to catch glimpses of distant objects, once familiar, but long unseen.
“Oh, uncle!” she gladly exclaimed. “I can see the tall trees on this side of the dee-ar old house!”
“Wait until you see the house, my darling!” he replied, conscious of the surprise he should give her when he should show her the gray old “penitentiary” transfigured to a white palace.
A few more turns of the wheel and he exclaimed:
“Look!”
But the effect was not what he desired and expected. She turned on him a surprised and distressed face, exclaiming:
“Oh, Marcel, what is that? Where is the dee-ar old home?”
“There it is, my precious child! That is the old home, renovated and adorned, and made worthy to receive its fair young mistress,” replied the colonel, with evident self-complacency.
“Oh, Marcel, how could you? How could you do such a thing?” she cried, reproachfully—“how could you treat the dee-ar old home that way? It is not familiar; it is not the same at all! I do not know it at all! Oh, I am so disappointed and so sorry!”
“My dear, I thought to have given you a pleasant surprise. I thought only of your happiness,” replied the poor colonel.
“And I expected to find the dee-ar old place just as I left it! Just as I left it! And, oh! look there!”
“What now, my dear?”
“Oh, Marcel! what have you done to the old sea-wall and the dee-ar old fishing landing, where I and David Lindsay used to play when we were children?”
“My dear, that fishing landing was a nuisance to sight and smell. See what a pretty pier and boat-houseare built on its site,” said Colonel de Crespigney.
“Oh, Marcel! how could you? How could you? You have spoiled everything! You have spoiled everything! You have killed the dee-ar old place! Instead of a living being in poor old clothes, it is a dead corpse in fine dress and flowers. Oh, I shall never see the dee-ar old house and the dee-ar old landing again! If I had known this I would never have come back! I might as well have stayed in Europe. Oh, I am so disappointed and so sorry I could break my heart!” cried the girl, with a piteous look of distress into the face of her guardian; but there she met an expression of so much misery that her tone changed instantly from reproaches to self-condemnation.
“Oh, what a selfish, ungrateful wretch I am, dee-ar Marcel! And such an idiotic little fool besides. You did it all to please me, and I ought to be glad and grateful, and so I shall be when I have sense enough to appreciate it all; dee-ar Marcel, forgive me,” she pleaded, bending forward to lay her cheek against his whiskered face, as she had been used to do in her childhood.
“I am only so grieved, my child, to have given you pain instead of pleasure; but no doubt I am but a blundering brute!” sighed the colonel.
“Oh, no, no; you are the very best and dearest and most unselfish one in the world. I cannot remember the time when I did not love and honor you above all other ones on earth!”
“My little Glo’, it was all the more reason I should have studied your nature and planned for your happiness more intelligently,” sadly replied the colonel.
“Oh, Marcel! Don’t say that, or I shall think you have not forgiven me. You have studied my happiness more than I deserved. You have done the very best for me always. In regard to these changes, they certainly do make a great improvement, which I shall be sure to appreciate and enjoy. It was only just at first, when I was looking to see the dee-ar old place in its old familiar face, that the change struck me as a disappointment, and I am such a fool for blurting out my very first thoughts and feelings!” said Gloria, caressing her uncle.
She was disappointed, poor girl; for to return some time to the old home and the old life had been the fond dream of the young, faithful heart in the long years of her exile and homesickness; and now to return and find all changed, even for the better, was a painful shock.
Colonel de Crespigney knew it now, and could not forgive himself for not anticipating such an effect.
“Do not look so grave, Marcel, or I shall think you never will forget my folly,” she pleaded. “Listen, now, and let me tell you something, Marcel! Seeing the dee-ar old place all freshened up, and decorated and changed into something else, was just as if, when I was looking for you, and expecting to see you as you used to look—why—instead of my dee-ar, old, black-bearded darkey of an uncle, I had found a golden-haired, rosy-cheeked young fairy prince! There! That expresses my feelings in regard to seeing the dee-ar old home changed into something else!”
De Crespigney smiled; he felt pleased and flattered; he also understood her better and loved her more, as he remembered that she had always cherished a sweet, loyal love for old familiar friends andplaces. He suddenly recalled the days when he had first known her as an infant of three years old, when some one had broken the head of her doll, and he himself had bought her a splendid young lady of waxen mould with rosy cheeks and flaxen hair, and dressed in silk attire, how she had hugged her poor old headless dolly to her faithful little heart and refused to part with it in favor of the radiant new one.
And later when she first arrived at the Promontory, bringing a little mongrel dog, who died soon after, and to comfort her he brought home a little white poodle, how sadly she turned away from the new claimant of her notice, murmuring, “Oh, uncle, I can’t love another little dog so soon,” though a few days afterwards she picked up the little poodle and petted him, muttering, “Poor Carlo, it wasn’t your fault that poor little Flora died, was it?” and loved him ever afterwards.
About the same time, reading the story of “Beauty and the Beast,” she had sighed, and said, “If I had been Beauty I would have loved the dee-ar old Beast; I would not have wanted to have his head cut off to change him into anything else, not even a fairy prince!”
All these traits of her childhood recurred to the mind of De Crespigney, as he listened to the little penitent’s frank confession.
“I understand, dear heart! I understand perfectly,” he said, as he raised her hand and pressed it to his lips.
She smiled radiantly on him, and then turned and looked about her, as if in search of other changes.
Then her eyes fell upon the form of a young man seated on a rock, and apparently engaged in fishing.
She bent forward and suddenly exclaimed:
“Oh, Marcel, there is David Lindsay! I know it is David Lindsay! He has grown tall; of course, I expected to find him grown up, but he has the same face and eyes that I should know if I should meet him in Africa. Oh! I thank the Lord he is not changed into anything else! Oh, Marcel! I must speak to David Lindsay. Here, Laban, stop the horses! Stop them right here!”
The negro coachman touched his hat and drew up opposite the rock on which the young man sat, and within a few feet of it.
She leaned out, and called:
“David Lindsay! David Lindsay! Oh, David Lindsay, please come here!”
He looked up at the sound of her voice, and paled and shook with emotion as he drew in his fishing-line, laid it down beside him, arose, and approached the carriage.
“Oh, David Lindsay, how do you do? I am so overjoyed to see you once more! Why! don’t you remember me—your old playmate of the fishing landing?” she inquired, seeing that he hesitated to take the hand she had offered him.
He took the delicately gloved fingers then, however, and bowed over them.
“Why—don’t you remember the old sea-wall, and the old broken boat, and the good times we used to have there, and the little dinners we used to cook on the beach, and the little schools we used to keep? Don’t you remember, David Lindsay?” she gladly inquired, with a childlike eagerness, as she smiled upon him.
“Oh, yes, Miss, I remember well,” he answered, in a low, subdued voice.
“Oh, I think that was the happiest time in my whole life, David Lindsay! Don’t you?”
“It was the happiest time in mine, Miss,” he replied, in the same subdued tone, as he kept his eyes fixed upon the ground, not trusting them to look at her again.
“And how is dear Granny Lindsay? Is she still at the cot on the isle? Is she as busy and active as ever?” inquired Gloria, with new interest in her tone.
“She is as well as she can be at seventy years of age, but more infirm than when you knew her last. She lives at the cot on the isle, and she is as busy, but not as active, as ever,” he answered, slowly and gravely.
“Oh, what happy, happy days we used to have at her house, David Lindsay! Such happy, happy days! Do you remember them?”
Did he not remember them?
Ah, yes! but, with her bright face beaming down upon him, bringing the light of those days so vividly before him, with the memory of their frank, childish affection then, and the consciousness of the gulf that opened between them now, it had grown more and more difficult for him to answer her. Now he seemed tongue-tied.
“Do you think she will let me come and spend a day with her, just as I used to do? Oh, how I should like to do so! It would be so like old times! Would she let me, David Lindsay?”
“Indeed, she would be very happy to do so,” replied the young man, partly recovering his voice.
“Well, then, will you ask her if I may come to-morrow?And will you row me over, as you used to do, David Lindsay?”
“I shall be too happy to do so, Miss de la Vera.”
“Ah, how glad I shall be to see dee-ar Granny Lindsay, and revive one of those old-time, happy, happy days!” exclaimed Gloria.
“My dear,” said Colonel de Crespigney, gravely, “the tide is coming in, and we are not more than half-way across. It is not safe to remain here a moment longer. We can scarcely cross before the road will be six feet under water!”
“And David Lindsay has to walk! He will never be able to cross in safety! And it is I who have kept him loitering here! Oh, I am so sorry! But you must not walk, indeed, David Lindsay! Get in here and sit beside me, if you please. Yes, but I insist upon it now!” she added, seeing that he did not comply with her request.
“You had better do so, Lindsay,” coldly added Colonel de Crespigney, as he left his own seat and sat down beside Gloria, leaving the front cushion free for the young man.
“I thank you very much, Miss de la Vera, and you also, sir; but I can easily walk the way before the road will be covered,” replied young Lindsay, as he bowed and retreated from the carriage.
“‘A willful man must have his way,’” said the colonel.
“Oh, Marcel, you did not invite him half cordially enough!” cried Gloria. “And suppose he was to be overtaken by the tide and swept away!”
“No danger. Look there,” said the colonel, pointing to the road before the carriage, down which David Lindsay, with his fishing tackle in his hand, was striding at a good rate.
The horses were now started and driven off at a speed. They passed the young man, who raised his hat as they whirled out of sight.
“Marcel, I will never forgive you if David Lindsay is drowned!” exclaimed Gloria.
“No danger, Miss!” volunteered old Laban from the box. “There is a plenty o’ time, an’ he’s a famous hand at walking.”
“Foot at walking, you mean, old man, don’t you?” inquired Colonel de Crespigney.
“I don’t see how you can jest, Marcel, when any fellow-creature, not to say David Lindsay, is in peril,” exclaimed Gloria, reproachfully.
“Do you, then, suppose, my dear, that I am capable of jesting with the peril of any fellow-creature? Is not my jesting proof enough that there is no peril?” inquired the colonel, deprecatingly.
She did not answer him. She had twisted her head quite around to look back on the figure of the young man, who was striding fast behind the carriage.
And during the remainder of their rapid drive she continued from time to time to look back at the striding figure, until at length they had crossed the long stretch of road and reached the higher and broader portion of the promontory that was so soon to be turned by the high tide into an island.
Then for the last time she looked and saw that though the lowest part of the isthmus was covered with the waves, yet as David Lindsay was already ascending the rise towards the promontory, he was out of danger.
It was nearly dark when they reached the house, which was already lighted up for the reception of the travelers.
Miss Agrippina de Crespigney, attended by Sophia and Lamia, stood in the hall to welcome them home.
She took Gloria by the waist, kissed her on both cheeks and said:
“You are looking very well, my dear. How much you have grown!”
And then Gloria returned her caresses and her compliments, saying:
“You are looking finely, aunt. You are not changed at all. I think no one is changed except David Lindsay and myself. I think people must grow up and stay so until they become very old.”
But quick Miss Grip had already turned to her nephew to shake hands with him, and left Gloria free to receive the welcome of her colored friends.
“How you has growed! My patience alibe, how you has growed, honey!” was the greeting of ’Phia.
“’Deed I is mighty proud to see you, Miss Glo’, ’deed is I!” was the cordial exclamation of Lamia.
“You had better prove your feelings in a more practical manner by showing your mistress up to her room,” said prompt Miss Grip.
“Come on, Miss Glo’!” said the unceremonious girl.
“Yes, indeed, Lamia, I do wish to lay off my wraps. I have been wearing them so long,” responded the young lady, as she followed her maid up the broad staircase to the large southeast room overlooking the sea, which had been hers in her childhood.
“Ain’t it just lovely, Miss Glo’?” triumphantly exclaimed the girl, as she threw open the door and displayed the renovated and decorated chamber, blooming like a rose in its pink silk and white lacecurtains, its pink velvet and white satin chairs, and its pink and white walls and carpet.
“Isn’t it just lovely, now, Miss Glo’?” repeated the pleased maid.
“Oh, dear, yes, I suppose it is; but it isn’t like my dee-ar old room at all! Not even the fireplace!” she sighed, as she turned to the glowing coals on a polished steel grate that had replaced the blazing hickory logs of the old open chimney that was so familiar to her childhood.
“Why, you don’t like it, Miss Glo’!” exclaimed the girl in surprise and disappointment.
“Oh, yes, I do; but—it is not like home at all! Nothing is like home, and I feel as if I had come into a strange house, and should never reach home again!” sighed the homesick child, as she laid her hat on the pretty counterpane of white crochet over pink silk.
“And we took such pains to please you!” said the maid, sorrowfully.
“Poor Lamia! Well, I am pleased, only I would like to have seen my old room once more just as it was. Come now and help me to dress. My boxes have arrived, I suppose. They were sent by express to Leonardtown last week.”
“Oh, yes, Miss, soon as ebber de letter an’ de keys come by mail, us sent daddy wid de wagon to Lennuntowm to fetch de boxes home, which dey rove safe an’ soun’, an’ I unpacked dem an’ put all de fings ’way in de boorers an’ ward’obes.”
“That was right. Just give me the blue cashmere suit and the lace that is with it.”
The girl obeyed, and the young lady soon completed her toilet and went down stairs to join her aunt and uncle in the drawing-room.
Dinner was soon afterward served.
When that was over, the small party returned to the drawing-room, where Colonel de Crespigney wished to show his niece the new grand piano that he had selected for her. Here was also a music-stand supplied with the works of the great masters.
He opened the piano and led her to it.
She seated herself and touched the keys, and found the instrument to be one of very superior tone.
She spent the remainder of the evening in playing and singing the favorite airs and songs of her uncle. Her voice was a pure, clear soprano, and her soul was always in her song. Hence, though she might never have achieved a grand success as a public singer, she was very effective as a parlor performer.
At the close of this musical entertainment the small party separated and retired to bed.
And so ended the day of Gloria’s return home.