"I journey whither I cannot see.'Tis strange that I can merry be."
"I journey whither I cannot see.'Tis strange that I can merry be."
The old motto of Wharton Hall, in Surrey, England, was perfectly familiar to him, because he had visited the place with his father, on one of their journeys abroad, and having noted down the lines, which still remained engraven on the wall, he had committed them to memory. And here was the last half of that quatrain, obscurely inscribed—as if the embroiderer had hardly understood their full significance—on the handiwork of Adela Reefe. Could there be anything more astounding than this? Did Adela know the origin of those verses? And if she did, what momentous secret did the fact involve?
The next moment, naturally enough, a simple and matter-of-fact solution occurred to him. Adela might have learned the motto from the Floyds.
"Do you see how it reads?" he asked, holding up the bead-work so that Jessie could survey the whole pattern.
"No," said she.
He pointed out the letters with his finger, and gradually spelled the inscription through, until she caught its purport.
"How very odd!" she exclaimed, at the end. But the look with which she accompanied the remark showed that the verses touched no chord of memory or knowledge in her mind. "Where do you suppose the girl got the idea?" she concluded.
The quivering sensation which Lance had felt, at first, renewed itself. He laid the belt down, and, as he did so, his hands trembled.
"Doyouknow anything about this motto?" he said, appealing to the colonel.
But the colonel was also a blank on the subject.
Lance, therefore, was reduced to telling them where he had seen it. In doing this he was quite methodical, but he could not conceal the peculiar agitation which affected him.
Both the colonel and his daughter were much impressed by his strange disclosure, and were utterly at a loss to account for the reappearance of the traditional rhymes in a way so unlooked for; but they did not take the mystery so much to heart as Lance did.
"It's not only extraordinary, but incredible," he affirmed. "I must see that girl and ask her about it."
Jessie was not much inclined to give heed to her lover's curiosity about Adela, and his desire to consult her respecting the enigma which had so piqued him. But he continued so persistent, that she was obliged to humor him; and before a week passed he persuaded her to ride with him to Hunting Quarters and search out the mysterious maiden.
Both Adela and her father were at home, the latter being engaged, when the visitors entered, with some jugs and bottles, in which were stored his marvellous decoctions. Promptly desisting from his work, he invited the young pair to seat themselves; and Adela, who was just then stitching at some of her semi-savage contrivances, also rose to offer welcome.
The interior of the house at Hunting Quarters was rude enough. The room in which these four people met was badly lighted from two small windows facing toward Core Sound, one of which was open, so that the dull booming of the sea continually entered, supplying an uncouth refrain to their conversation. On one side was a large hearth; on the other, a door leading to the remaining part of the house—what there was of it. The furniture was scanty: a table, a bench, a couple of stools, some shelves holding bottles, boxes, a few books and various cooking utensils as well as dishes. The lack of sufficient seats for guests was supplied by several blocks of wood sawed off from the stumps of trees; and to these primitive perches old Reefe and his daughter resorted, in order to make room for their callers.
Jessie presented an excuse for coming, to the effect that Aunt Sally was desirous of having a bottle of Doctor Reefe's famous specific; but, when this business was over, she turned the conversation to Adela's work.
"Mr. Lance is ever so much pleased with those things you let us have," she said. "And I can assure you he takes the greatest interest in some of them. I think he wants to ask you how you sew the beads, and how you make those moss-boxes."
Adela laughed. "I don't know," she said. "I've done it so long—ever since I was a tiny girl. Ain't it so, dad?"
Old Reefe, thus referred to, gave a nod, without saying anything. But Lance took advantage of the cue Jessie had given him to go into particulars with Adela as to her mode of manufacture and the several beauties of the articles she produced. Finally he came around to the subject of the belt and the pattern woven upon it. "Have you got any more of those?" he asked.
"No," said Adela; "it was the last—the one you took. I can make another, if you want. I've got it all in my head."
"And the rhyme, too?" Lance inquired, eagerly.
"What? What's that?" Adela appeared a little dazed.
"I mean the words," he explained. "Didn't you know there were words in it?"
"Oh, that part along the middle," said the girl. Her gray eyes took on a far-off, dreamy expression. "Yes; they are words."
Lance controlled his excitement, which still seemed to him causeless and rather annoying. "I wonder if I read them right?" he hazarded. "Would you like to see how they looked to me?"
He drew out a bit of paper on which he had written them, and showed it to her. The action seemed to rouse her taciturn father slightly. But Adela gazed at the paper, and said, with an incredulous laugh: "Oh, no, they don't look like that!"
"Can you read?" Lance demanded.
"Yes, a little; but they don't look like that."
"Well, at any rate, they mean something," he retorted; "and this is what they mean."
He read the rhyme aloud, and their eyes met.
"Yes," she admitted; "I suppose that's how it goes;" and she crooned the distich over, as if singing to herself.
"But what I want to know," he continued, "is how you got it. How did you come to know it?"
Adela remained silent; but her father spoke, after a pause, in a serious, hollow voice. "It is very old," he said. "It is a great charm. We have always known it."
"How do you mean—'you'?"
"Our people," replied the old man, gravely.
"But not all the people around here," Lance interposed. "Miss Jessie doesn't know it."
Reefe made a gesture of dissent that approached the disdainful. "No," he exclaimed, with a sort of gutteral grunt after the word; "shedon't know—of course."
"ButIhave known it well," Lance said. "I saw it years ago in England."
"You?" cried Reefe, with the first indication of marked feeling that he had betrayed during the interview. "Who are you, then?"
"Oh, I'm a humble citizen named Lance!" said the young man, quietly. "But I know that motto; it has been in our family for a long time."
The old man seemed to withdraw suddenly into himself. "It is a great charm," he repeated, slowly. "Wonderful! It keeps off harm and trouble. My father gave it to me."
"Where did he find it?" Lance inquired.
"He found it far, far back," Reefe responded. But his tone was so vague, and his expression grew so introspective, that Lance half imagined that the old face was growing still older—immeasurably more ancient—as he gazed upon it, and that the speaker was removing himself, by some occult spell, into a distant past.
"You spoke of our people," he said, at length. "Did you mean your family?"
"Where we came from. Our people—over there," the herb doctor answered, pointing uncertainly to his right, in a direction, Lance noticed, which signified farther to the North, up the Sound.
"Yes, they always had that charm," Adela now said. "I don't know why. Who can tell? It all comes from the old story of the Indians and the white folks."
Her father appeared to have lapsed into a semi-trance, or to be dozing; but Adela looked aroused; her interest was kindled, and she was evidently prepared to be communicative.
"Oh, is there a story?" Jessie cried. "Why, I never heard it. Do tell us, Deely!"
Some judicious urging was required before the girl would speak; but, in the end, the inquisitive lovers succeeded in persuading her, and at last she narrated to them the legend of her "people," the substance of which shall here be given, though not precisely in her language.
A great many years ago—as many as there are buds on a tree—an old man dwelt in a wigwam beside the sweet waters, with his only child, a beautiful girl. They had come out of the sea together, no man could remember when; but, while the other people in the wigwams were dark and red, these were almost white. They had been so long in the sea that the foam of the waves, touching their faces, had made them so white. And the old man loved his daughter very much. They spoke a strange language together, but when others talked to them, they replied in the words that all understood.
The old man had no name; but his daughter was called Ewayeá, which meant Lullaby or Rest-Song. She, too, loved her father. They lived for each other; and the old man seemed always waiting for something, uneasy and troubled, but Ewayeá made him rest and sang him to sleep; and he slept much, and was happy. But when he was resting, Ewayeá would go to the top of a little hill near the wigwam and look far away, seeming also to expect that some one would come.
By and by he came. His name was Sharp Arrow; and he came suddenly, as if some hand had bent a bow and sent him there swiftly. He loved Ewayeá, but at first she did not love him, because she had not waited for him, and he was a red color; and she told him he must go and stay in the sea and let the foam dash over him, to wash his face and make him white. Then he went away, but when he came back his face was still red; and the Old-man-without-a-name told him that he could not have his daughter. But Sharp Arrow stayed there, and he flew in and out of the forest, always returning to the maiden with love and with some presents, or bringing food to her father. So at last he struck her heart. It bled for him, and she longed to go with him, to comfort him, and be happy herself. But she said: "Not yet, not yet! The Old-man-without-a-name would die if I left him now. I must sing him to sleep many times before we go."
Her father saw that she loved Sharp Arrow, and he was very jealous. He looked at the young man with enmity, while his face every day grew harder, more angry, and stern, like iron. Often, too, he spoke to Ewayeá in the strange language, and pointed to the East, as if he would have her go there. But she only shook her head and sighed; and sometimes she wept.
The summer flew away, and the birds flew away to find it. But those two lovers did not know it had gone, for their hearts were warm, and thoughts of love grew in them, like the leaves of June. The days parted, one from another, and the seasons separated; but for Ewayeá and her lover there was no separation. They were man and wife. Their two children played in the shade of the forest, and Ewayeá sang lullabies to them. She taught Sharp Arrow charms and spells. She gave him words out of a book. Her children learned the strange language; and she looked at the trees, the water and the sky, and made them talk as they had not talked till then. And Sharp Arrow promised that her spells should never be forgotten among his people if she should die.
But she never died.
The old man slept a long while; then at last he woke. And when he woke his face was wrinkled with anger—it was hard like ice in the sweet waters—and when he looked at Sharp Arrow the look seemed to freeze the young man's face, so that hatred stiffened it into a hardness like that of the old man's. Then, one night in winter, the old man came to the door of his wigwam and stood there like a spirit. He beckoned to Sharp Arrow, with one finger upraised; the moonlight gleamed white on his bitter white face, and behind him there was much white snow. "I am dead," he said to Sharp Arrow, "and you must come with me!"
The look of hate was still in all his features; and as Sharp Arrow rose to obey the command, his own face reflected that hatred. The moonlight fell on him, too—his face grew white in it—and no one could have told which face was most like the other, then. But he went forward, and followed the old man.
Just at that moment Ewayeá awoke from her sleep beside the children. She stretched out her arms, tried to catch her husband and hold him, and saw him pass away out of her reach; saw her father, also, standing beyond, and beckoning.
"Father! father!" she cried, "why do you leave me? Where are you going?" And to her husband she cried: "Oh my heart, my heart, come back to me!"
But they gave no heed to her. The old man moved away, noiseless, on feet of air—always turning backward that icy, malignant gaze—and the young man followed, staring fixedly, helplessly upon him, with the same dumb and frozen wrath upon his own countenance.
And so, as if they had been spirits, they passed noiselessly on and on, disappearing in the pale night and the snow, until all that Ewayeá could see in the quarter where they had vanished was the crescent of the sinking moon, like an uplifted, crooked finger, beckoning some one to follow.
Ewayeá hoped that they would come back. At first she wanted to go after them, but when she tried to move she could not: her limbs were as weak and cold as snow, and invisible arms were thrown around her, holding her back. There was nothing for her to do but to wait. When the spring came again she was always waiting and watching. She stayed every day in the same place, looking out and expecting her father and her lover to return; but still they came not. At last she ceased to speak: she sat there motionless and voiceless on the ground, ever longing for them, but afraid to stir, for fear that they would come back and not find her. The years passed, and her children grew up and departed, carrying with them the spells and charms they had learned. Yes; they went away and forgot their mother, who sat there so patiently. But she never once called to them, and only waited—waited—waited. They say she is still waiting in that spot. Summer after summer has blossomed above her, and the new leaves have started and rustled with surprise as they caught sight of her, and have whispered one another all day long about the strangeness of her silent presence. The slow autumns, one after another, have wreathed her brow with weird, unnatural flame; and the snows of many, many winters have crept around her feet and drifted higher until they almost buried her. But she cares nothing for all these changes; does not even turn her head one way or the other, but simply gazes straight forward, expectantly, just as she used to when she went to the top of the little hill looking eastward. In summer, again, come the butterflies and softly touch her cheek with sympathetic wings, as they hover around; the humming-birds flash and tremble near her lips, as if expecting to find honey there; and other birds look curiously with their bright eyes into hers that make no answer, while the squirrels that chatter on the boughs near by, and nibble nuts, seem to wonder that she does not ask to share their food. Still, she gives heed to nothing. She crouches low, and her weary head has drooped; and the leaves and dust have fallen thick upon her from the underbrush that has sprung up so rankly about her; so that sometimes you might think she was not a woman at all, but only a mound of earth. Yet she is not dead. No! The rains and winds, of course, have worn away the expression from her face, until it looks dull and sad and lifeless; but, for all that, she is not dead. Her arms and knees must have grown very tired in the long vigil she has been keeping, and one would suppose they would have crumbled into earth before now. But, you see, the wild vines have reached out from the surrounding trees to support her; and they have encircled her lovingly, lending their strength, that she may not fail of her purpose.
No; she is not dead. If you could only discover the exact place, you would find her still alive. But we do not know where it is.
All four remained silent for a few moments, after Adela had finished her legend. Lance had listened with profound attention; and the shadowy, fantastic outlines of the narrative were so extraordinary, that he was at first too much astonished and perplexed to know what to think or say about it. Clearly enough, that which the girl had told might be interpreted as a sequel to the history of Gertrude Wylde, after his ancestor, Guy Wharton, had lost trace of her. It was impossible to say just what the tradition, now so vague and impossible, had originally come from. But the blending of the white and Indian races at which it hinted, the looking eastward, and the idea of endless waiting and expectancy that ran all through it—did not these things point plainly toward the old romance with which his family was connected?
He did not believe that his imagination alone was responsible for these suggestions, because Adela could not possibly know what he knew—her story was an inheritance so carefully guarded, that even Jessie had not heard it until now—and yet here were these salient details that fitted on so naturally to his own tradition, and supplemented it. Then, too, there was the old, transmitted rhyme. Ah, that was the clew! It clinched all the parts of his guess-work together.
"Was Ewayeá one of your people, then?" he asked, at length.
Adela looked at him with surprise, as if he were asking about something which had already been explained.
"Why, I thought I said so," she answered. "Wecamefrom her."
Old Reefe, roused perhaps by Lance's voice, opened his eyes, and, hearing his daughter's statement, nodded a silent corroboration.
"And that charm," Lance continued—"the one that you put on the belt—came from her, too? Did she teach it to her children?"
"Yes; that came from her, too," said Adela.
Lance turned toward Jessie in a bewildered way, gazing at her as if he expected her to say or do something which would dispel the phantasm that was growing so like a reality. But Jessie only reflected his amazement in the glance which she gave him in return.
"Isn't this very remarkable?" he said.
"Very," said Jessie. "It's a perfect puzzle. I don't see what to make of it. But, Adela," she went on, addressing the girl, "why have you never told me this before?"
Adela responded only with a reticent smile, and her luminous gray eyes roved from Jessie to Lance and back again without betraying what she thought.
"We don't tell it," muttered her father. "It was our story—only for us."
"But youhavetold it now," Jessie argued. "You've told Mr. Lance, and he is a stranger." Here Jessie blushed, and corrected herself: "Any way, hewasa stranger to you."
The old man raised his hand to point at Lance; and—by an odd coincidence—his forefinger, separated from the others, was curved with a beckoning emphasis, as if he were himself the Old-man-without-a-name of the legend. "Heis one of us," he declared.
"I'm not so sure of that!" Lance exclaimed, feeling that the mystery was going almost too far. "I don't see it at all."
"You knew the charm," old Reefe retorted; and his eyes twinkled obscurely, as he fixed them upon his visitor.
"That doesn't prove that I'm one of you," said Lance, rising, for the situation vexed him; he was becoming indignant. "It only shows that my people in England knew the rhyme long before yours were heard of."
Jessie rose as well. "I don't see what your father is thinking of," she observed, frigidly, to Adela. "Mr. Lance belongs to a very old family."
Something like a sarcastic chuckle seemed to escape from Reefe's bearded lips; but he remained quite impassive. It was impossible to tell whether or not he had made any sound.
"Before I go," Lance began, desperately, "I wish you'd tell me what this legend means. Did you have Indian ancestors, as well as English?"
He fixed his gaze intently and strenuously upon Adela as he spoke.
"I told you all I could," Adela answered, evasively; and began to resume her work upon one of the moss-boxes.
Reefe looked at him, with a trace of defiance now. "We have as good blood as any," he averred. "But we ask you no questions, and I don't see that we've got a call to answer any more. If ye want any yarb medicine—" And there he paused, indicating that he was ready for business.
There could not have been a completer collapse of the climax which Lance had thought to force. He turned away in disgust. "Come, Jessie," he said, "let us go." And Jessie was more than ready to accede.
But before they went he thanked Adela for her story, and bade good-by to her and her father. As he faced them in doing this, he noticed once more the baffling resemblance between Adela and Jessie, which their unlikeness in stature and general bearing rendered all the more peculiar; and the gray eyes of the Reefes troubled him by their enigmatic expression. The conviction was strong in his mind, that the cause of their silence was that they really had nothing more definite to tell him about their ancestry than what they had imparted. Yet he wished that they had not stopped at this point. Why did they have gray eyes? And yet, why should they not have them? Save for a slight bronze or coppery hue in their complexions, they were of the same European race that Lance and Jessie belonged to.
Nevertheless, their eyes and their strange legend pursued and haunted him long after he and Jessie had cantered away from the herb-doctor's door.
So mingled and conflicting were the considerations in Lance's mind, on leaving the Reefes, that he was not sure he would want to see Adela again. But his mood soon changed; he was not able to evade the importance which she had assumed for him.
"I hope you are satisfied now," said Jessie, as they rode homeward together.
"No, I'm not," he answered. "I suspect myself of being very muchdissatisfied."
Somehow he did not dare to speak to her, as yet, of the theory he entertained, that Adela was a descendant of Gertrude Wylde. And how could he tell her that he thought they looked alike?
But within a few days, so incessantly did the notion pursue him, that he was forced to make a limited confession of it. Jessie observed that he was preoccupied and thinking of something which he would not tell her. "Do let me know what it is that troubles you, Ned," she whispered to him, laying her arm gently around his neck one evening on the veranda, when she found him brooding there alone.
Thereupon he made his disclosure, and was rewarded by a rather tumultuous dialogue, in which Jessie demonstrated clearly that she was not pleased with the idea which he presented.
"But how can it be any other way, Jessie?" he demanded, reproachfully. "Everything leads up to this conclusion; and, surely, if Adela Reefe represents to-day the line of that poor girl, Gertrude, who would have been your own cousin if you had been living then, how can we be indifferent to the fact that the same blood is in your veins and hers?"
"I won't have it so!" Jessie returned. "I don't care if it is. And, besides, she has Indian blood; that makes all the difference. It is no longer the same."
Lance bethought him of those reported cases in which the stock of negroes and whites had been blended, and he feared that it would be next to hopeless for him to overcome Jessie's aversion. Still he said: "But that is so far off, child. She is so like us now, that I can't help thinking of her as if she might be a kinswoman of yours—can't help taking an interest in her welfare."
"Never say that to me again!" cried Jessie. "No one in that class shall be considered as a kinswoman of mine. If you are going to give yourself up to such fancies as these, you may as well choose between them and me."
Her tone exasperated Lance, but he controlled himself. "Dearest," he said, "I have given myself up only to you. You know it; don't you?"
Then Jessie showed contrition, and humbly, while the tears rose to her eyes, acknowledged her hastiness; and the little quarrel proved to be only a convenient groundwork for new demonstrations of mutual tenderness. But there remained in Lance's mind a residuum of doubt, lest his betrothed should not fully sympathize with all his impulses, his desire to be true to every one who could justly make a claim upon him. He did not abandon the project, which had unconsciously been taking shape, of somehow including Adela in his schemes of improvement.
While this dubious colloquy was fresh in his thoughts, it chanced that Sylvester De Vine, responding to the invitation he had thrown out at the races, trudged up to the manor to see him. Lance's love affair, and the misty problem concerning Adela, had not prevented him from giving a good deal of meditation to his plans, which he had also talked over with Colonel Floyd, regarding investment in new enterprises. Consequently, he was primed for the interview with Sylv.
At that time the process of making paper from the refuse of Louisiana sugar-cane, commonly called "bagasse," had scarcely been thought of; Lance, at any rate, had never heard it suggested; but it had occurred to him that the glutinous reeds, which grew in such unmeasured abundance along this marshy North Carolina coast, might be utilized in paper-manufacture; and he had annexed the idea to his other pet desire of reclaiming Elbow Crook Swamp. He was anxious to enlist Sylv in both these enterprises, having already ascertained that the young fellow was far more receptive and progressive than Colonel Floyd. What he needed was an assistant who would give time and energy to the preliminary steps and experiments, animated by faith and assisted by due compensation in money.
"Would you undertake to explore the swamp for me, and give me a detailed report?" he asked Sylv.
"It would be very difficult," Sylv answered, "and would take time. I might do it for you, though, by and by."
"Oh, there's no immediate hurry. You can wait a while. I shall probably have to go North during the winter on business and to arrange about mobilizing capital to work with here. I want to find out what is practicable before I do anything serious. But, in the meanwhile, we might start in on a trial of the reed-pulp for paper."
Sylv pulled his tangled beard meditatively, and replied: "That won't help me much with my law studies."
"Yes, it will, indirectly," Lance declared. Then, after reflecting, he added: "I'll tell you what I'll do! I'll give you some assistance for the present, so that you can go on reading. It won't do you any harm. Afterward, you can undertake my job."
It was not to be wondered at that, from this beginning, they should go on to speak of Adela. "She astonishes me," said Lance. "I did not expect to find any one like her here. It's a pity that she can't have a chance to develop, too."
Sylv cast a sharp glance at the young philanthropist. It may have been that the remark threw a new light for him upon Lance, or upon Adela.
"Yes, it would be a good thing for her," he replied, with moderate enthusiasm. "She's engaged to marry my brother—Dennie."
This was news to Lance, and it took him by surprise. Somehow, his first sensation was one of disappointment, though he could not have explained to himself or anyone else why. In Sylv's accent, also, there was a vague hint of despondency, as he made his announcement. Possibly it was the first sign of a sentiment which he had not, up to that time, suspected. The two men dropped into silence for a moment.
"Well," said Lance, with abrupt energy, "that's all right, I suppose. AndI'mengaged to Miss Jessie. It will be all the pleasanter to have you and Dennie and Adela working with us for a common end."
It was taking a sanguine view, to suppose that such a harmony could be maintained; but it gave Sylv great pleasure, although he saw the difficulties in the way. His face lighted with surprise, which gradually changed to quiet satisfaction.
The two men talked long and earnestly, and by the time Sylv set out for home they had agreed that they would try to persuade Adela to go to school at Newbern, Lance undertaking the expenses.
"I'm not main certain Dennie'll let her," Sylv warned him, as they parted.
"But he ought to be very glad to have her go," Lance replied. He had no misgivings on that score.
Sylv was brimming with eagerness and anticipation for Adela's future as it expanded before his vision, in the light of his friend's generous offer; and it was a new experience to him to be treated as an equal, almost a companion, by one so much above him in position and fortune. Altogether, he felt very happy. His desire for intellectual improvement was so single and controlling, that he was able to extend to another the same congratulation he gave himself; and the prospect just opened for Adela filled him with keen, unselfish delight. As he had told Dennie, his regard for her was simply that of a brother; and it was only in the opportunity as presented to a sister that he rejoiced. Yet he found, when he came to mention the matter to Dennie, that it threatened to renew in some measure the trouble which had recently come between them.
"I'm glad foryourluck, Sylv," said Dennie, in a cordial tone, "But 'pears to me you uns might kinder be satisfied with polishin' and rubbin' on your own brains and makin' 'em all smooth and shiny, 'thout interferin' with Deely. 'Pears to me like she ar' good enough the way she ar' now. That's what."
"So she is," Sylv assented. "But it would make her happier, and she'd have a heap more real pleasure in life, if she could be educated. She was very glad to learn to read, you know. Now, this is one chance out of a thousand; she may never get another."
Dennie, however, was not open to argument. He looked with favor on the scheme of Sylv's receiving money and employment from Lance, partly because it would gratify his brother and partly because it would lighten his own cares and bring him nearer to marriage with Deely; but if Deely was to be included in the abstract movement for unnecessary culture, he would be as badly off as before.
In spite of Dennie's opposition, Sylv could not relinquish the plan; and he had the imprudence to broach it with Deely on his own account. She did not manifest any pronounced desire to enter into it, but they talked of it several times, and it was evident that she was considering it.
Dennie heard of these consultations, of course, and reproached his brother. He exerted great force of self-command, and avoided any outbreak of temper; he was resolved never to be jealous again. But Sylv saw that the subject was a dangerous one, and he promised not to urge it upon Deely any further. Sorrowfully and apologetically he conveyed to Lance the information of this obstacle to Deely's acceptance of his proposal, and said that he feared she could do nothing about it.
It was reserved for Dennie himself to bring about, unwillingly, the consummation of Lance's philanthropic design.
There was to be a wedding-party at a house in the woods, near Hunting Quarters, to which the young people were invited. Dennie came to Reefe's early, in order to escort Deely to the scene of the ceremony; and on their way to the wedding he spoke of the school idea.
"We ought to be goin' to the parson, 'stead of your goin' to that thar school," he said. He urged her again to fix the time for their marriage.
Deely still demurred. "I'm only nineteen," she answered. "I reckon I won't be too old if I do wait a while."
Dennie was very much put out by her obduracy. "I don't know what to make out'n the way you go on," he complained. "Mebbe you're goin' to that thar school, after all."
"'Twouldn't be strange if I did," said she, although she had in reality abandoned the thought.
He persisted in urging his wishes; she continued in a contrary mood; and Dennie at last refused to talk. They completed their walk to the house of the hymeneal merrymaking in a bitter silence, both very miserable. But Deely possessed the advantage of expressing her unhappiness by means of the greatest gayety, while Dennie had to fall back upon the more ordinary masculine resource of looking glum and morose.
There was an abundance of corn-whiskey and of "common doin's," as well as of "chicken fixin's" with other delicacies, at the supper and dance which followed the brief formality of the wedding-service. The simple-hearted and jolly guests proceeded to have a very good time; and while the bride and groom remained in one corner, happy at being ignored, the rest shuffled to and fro in a lively jig, stamping their heels, indulging in sundry gratuitous capers, and shouting with laughter. Dennie, meanwhile, devoted a much closer attention than was needful to the corn-whiskey, the forcible quality of which he could have ascertained by a single drink.
It may have been due to his diligence in reducing the supply of the beverage that, as the hilarity of the others increased, and as Deely grew more and more excited with the dance, his depression and gloom deepened portentously. He had taken no part in the dancing, and had begun by affecting to watch Deely's energetic share in it with indifference. But it was impossible for him to keep up this pretence, and the climax came when he saw his betrothed giving her hand for the third or fourth time to Dan Billings, a handsome young fisherman against whom she knew that Dennie cherished a special grudge.
Dennie stepped forth upon the floor that trembled with the heavy tread of the athletic revellers, and, shoving his way between the astonished pairs of youths and maidens, struck a commanding posture.
"This hyar's enough!" he screamed, confronting Deely. "It's time to go home; and I'm goin' to take ye with me right now. D'ye hear?"
Tho old fiddler, mounted on a box at one side of the room, stopped the frantic discord he had been sawing from the strings, and began mechanically to rosin his bow with a lump of the best virgin-pine rosin.
"I could ha' heard you if you'd stayed over t'other side," Deely retorted, her dark cheeks flaming angrily; "if you war goin' to shout out so, what do you want to come so close?"
"I say," repeated Dennie, in a more subdued voice, "I'm goin' along, and I mean for to take you with me. Dan Billings ain't goin' to dance with you no more this night."
Upon this Billings, who was a vigorous young fellow, asserted his rights, and gave Dennie to understand roundly that no one should dictate to him his choice of partners, "when the lady was willin'."
A serious result was imminent; for Billings, elated by his apparent success with Deely, became increasingly noisy and bumptious, and retorts flew hotly from one man to the other, until Billings raised his fist to strike a blow at Dennie. When it came to that, Deely stepped between the wranglers, and prevented their fighting.
"Nowyou'rewrong, Dan!" she exclaimed, "You both ought to be ashamed, making me so much trouble. But there sha'n't be a fight, whatever. I'm goin' home this minute, along with Dennie."
The other girls had drawn aside, dumb and frightened, and the men were disposed in a group around the chief actors, feeling that they ought to interfere, but restrained by a respect for the privilege of fighting, which they might some time wish to exercise on their own account. Billings relaxed his clinched fingers, quite abashed at being so abruptly robbed of his dignity as Deely's champion; but it took a few moments to cool Dennie's wrath. He insisted that the fisherman had "told him insults," and must be punished.
"I'm waiting," Deely reminded him. "You said you was going, and now I'm ready."
The bride and groom remained oblivious of all this stir, but the bride's mother came forward, urging Deely not to leave them. The girl, however, would not yield. Every one could see that she was greatly incensed at Dennie's conduct, but there was a decisive calm about her that made persuasion useless. She had, in fact, arrived at a conclusion much more far-reaching, which she lost no time in imparting to Dennie when they had left the house.
"My mind's made up," she said to him, without heat. "I've borne your tantrums as long as I can, and it's no use. By and by it'll get so that I can't have any will or way of my own, and I don't think you'll ever be any better, Dennie, until I'm far away where you can't tease me. Yes; I've made up my mind. I'm goin' to that school."
To Dennie the announcement was like a knell. His burst of temper had left him much quieter and, as usual, rather ashamed; and he felt that Deely's intention of punishing him was quite justifiable. Still, he could not as yet believe that she would carry it out.
"You won't treat me so hard as that," he protested. "Think it over another time, Deely. Everything'd be all right if you'd only marry me."
"I don't want to talk about it," was her answer. "I've decided, now, and I'm goin' away."
In the course of the next few days her lover was forced to recognize that she was in earnest, and her resolve irrevocable. An extra session at the small academy for young ladies which Lance had selected was about to begin; and, through Sylv, Adela obtained a conference with him on the subject of going thither. Old Reefe put in some objections; but as Adela was determined he gave way, and the final arrangements were soon made.
The conference just referred to took place near the manor. Lance met Sylv and Adela in the grounds, by appointment, and talked over the details with them. But just as they were bidding him good-by Colonel Floyd came strolling along; and Lance, in walking back to the house with him, told him, full of enthusiasm, what he had done. The colonel seemed to think it rather strange.
"My dear fellow, what has put this into your head?" he asked.
"Why, it seems to me the most natural thing in the world," Lance replied. "It grew out of my plans, when I was consulting young De Vine. Besides"—he hesitated an instant—"something leads me to feel a peculiar interest in this young woman."
"Evidently," said the colonel, "or you never would become her benefactor." But he volunteered no criticism further than to say: "I'm not altogether sure, Lance, that you are doing wisely."
"If you think," said his prospective son-in-law, "that there's any good reason why I shouldn't befriend her, I suppose I could abandon the thing, though I've committed myself now."
The colonel devoted a few moments to reflection, under cover of his spectacles. Then he said: "No, I am not clear that there is any sufficient reason. It struck me as odd, and may seem so to others. But then, in your character—You see, you are something of a professed philanthropist, and people will learn to understand it on that ground. Otherwise—" Once more he broke off, and resumed: "You are the next thing to a married man, now, which makes it proper enough for you to take the poor girl under your wing. Perhaps you had better talk with Jessie about it."
Somehow the phrase "poor girl" grated slightly upon Lance's ear. Nor did he relish the prospect of debating with Jessie the wisdom of his proceeding; but it was plain that he would have to do so. It was true there had been no trace of the clandestine in his undertaking, and he had asked Sylv to bring Adela to the garden only because he considered the whole transaction as a side-issue, in which he was separately concerned; hence he preferred not to thrust it upon the colonel or his daughter. But it was also true that Jessie's vigorous rejection of his theory about Adela had made him less sure of her approval than he would have liked to be.
By one of the surprises frequent in the moods of women, even though one supposes their views to be settled on a particular point, it turned out that Jessie, when consulted, did not oppose his design.
"I have been thinking over what you said, dear, about educating people," she announced to him, "and perhaps you are right. If you're wrong, you'll find it out by an experiment. So all I have to say is, 'Go ahead.' That's the way you'd like to have me put it, isn't it?"
Her whole manner was sweet and trustful; she wanted to make amends to him. But, unless I am mistaken, Lance's effort on behalf of Adela was not entirely to her taste.
Thus, while they endeavored to keep up a good understanding, an entering wedge of doubt and possible division had been put in place.
The day having come for Adela's departure, difficulty arose as to her escort, if she was to have any. Aunty Losh was not precisely the person to introduce her at a Young Ladies' Academy; and Dennis also felt himself to be inadequate for that duty. Sylv, as was natural, refrained from offering his services. Neither was it possible for Lance to accompany her. The end of it was that Aunty Losh and Dennis went with her by wagon as far as Beaufort, and there she took the train alone for Newbern. Lance had been to the city and prepared the way for her, so that she might be received by the principal of the school, at the station.
But the time which followed was a dreary period to poor Dennis. Knowing his own faults, and that his loss in Adela's exile had been brought on by himself, he made no remonstrance after he saw that her purpose could not be altered. But his wonted cheeriness and energy forsook him as soon as she had gone; he performed his daily tasks in a listless and perfunctory way; he talked little, and did not forget his misery long enough to smile. On the other hand, he abstained from complaint; but occasionally, when alone with Aunty Losh, he would confer with her briefly about Adela and the change that had occurred. The jealousy that took root with such ease in his uncultivated mind, and sprang up there like a weed at the slightest encouragement, soon began to flourish again on a suspicion that Lance must have some interested motive in helping Adela. Aunty Losh, it must be said, was not a good counsellor. Much as Dennis tried to conceal this new source of trouble, it was perfectly apparent to her; and, because Dennis was her favorite and she instinctively aided against all innovations, she fanned the flame instead of quenching it.
"I reckon Deely may be your wife one o' these hyar days," she said, when they had been discussing his affairs and Lance's connection with them over a cup of yaupon. "Who would ha' thout you wouldn't been her husband now? But there's an old sayin' what's in my head, that the man as has got his hand on the back o' the chair is mighty often the one as sits down in it."
Dennis saw the application, and was filled with alarm. Possibly it had its effect in prompting him to seek assistance from Sylv; but his loneliness, and the harassing thought that Adela might also be lonely, or that something might go amiss in her new surroundings, where he could not be present to help her, had a great deal to do with his impulse. Besides, in contrition both for his jealousy of Sylv and his general disagreeableness toward his betrothed, he fancied that it would be a fine thing to show that he cared for her at a distance, and that he trusted his brother.
"Sylv," said he, one evening, while they were finishing the bestowment of the day's catch in the shed at one side of the cabin, where they kept the fish cool by means of spring water—"Sylv, I'd like right well to have you do somethin' for me."
"Say the word, Dennie," Sylv returned.
"I—I want you to go up thar to the city and stay thar, whar ye can see Deely and make her feel like she had a real, true friend—some one to 'tend on her as I mout, if I was fit—and to help her if she want any help. Dog-gone it! Mebbe it's foolish, and I reckon she ar' happy enough and won't need nothin', but 'pears like I couldn't stand it, the way 'tis now. I want ye to go, Sylv—for me."
"You askmeto do this, Dennie?" said Sylv. "Why did you think ofmygoing? Why not go yourself?"
"'Cause I'm not fit for't. An' what's more, she don't want me. She said she war a-goin' away, so's she could be alone, and I could be alone. An' I couldn't do nothin' if I was thar, Sylv."
"I see. It would be some comfort to you if I were to go. If you're sure you want it, Dennie, I reckon I can manage."
"There ain't no more doubt on it," answered Dennie, "than when I put my helm down to starboard to get the east breeze, steerin' north'ard. There ain't no one else I can count on, Sylv, 'less it be you. An', Sylv, I—I trust you; I got faith in you!"
He held out his rough hand, and Sylv grasped it firmly. There were tears in Dennie's eyes, seeing which Sylv pressed his brother's weather-beaten palm the harder.
"All right, Dennie. I won't fail you."
And so the compact was made.
Sylv was absolutely honest in what he said. He knew but one ambition, and the gaining of any woman's love had never formed a part of it. Why was it, then, that his spirits rose so at the thought of being near Adela once more?
You remember how little Lance had seen of Adela Reefe, and that he knew her scarcely at all. But this makes it the stranger, and rendered it at the time all the more unaccountable to him, that, on her removal from his neighborhood, he should have been afflicted with a sense of vacancy, and should have suffered from the melancholy which one might expect to feel when suddenly separated from a dear friend. Was he not engaged to Jessie, and thoroughly contented in his love? Moreover, Adela had not entered into his life as an important factor. Yet, now that she was gone, he perceived how quickly and completely the web of surmises which he had thrown around her had taken him also into its tangles. Her identity and destiny had engaged his thoughts far more deeply than he had guessed.
Acting on his offer of assistance, and obeying Dennie's wish, Sylv presently came to him to suggest that he would like to go to Newbern to pursue his studies.
"But I have just made arrangements," Lance told him, "to put up a small building where we can experiment with reed-pulp; and I expected you to assist me."
Not without embarrassment, Sylv made known the special reason proposed by Dennie for his going. Lance thought the plan a rather curious one, and allowed himself a queer, vicarious jealousy on Dennie's account, at the notion of his being so far from Adela when his brother should be in the same town with her. But he had promised to help Sylv; so he consented to send him to Newbern and maintain him there for a while, the cost to be returned in future services.
"Perhaps Dennie will take a hand with me in the pulp experiments," he reflected.
Thus it came to pass that a shed was built in the woods not far from the manor, where a boiler and a small beater and washer were placed, convenient to the limited water supply from a "run" or creek. An experienced vatman was sent for from the North; Dennie was engaged to collect and haul reeds, and aid in other ways when he could. All this involved a good deal of expense, and the colonel watched the work with suppressed horror at the young man's extravagance. But the experiments went on, and Lance became enthusiastic over the details of drying the reeds, getting the mixture of caustic alkali just right for boiling, and trying rags in various proportions. Finally he was able to produce from the vat a few sheets of tolerably good hand-made paper, on which he fancied that he could see already inscribed a record of the profits that were to be his.
It took many weeks, however, to accomplish that much. At first Jessie entered into the new enterprise with great interest, and made it doubly charming to him; but after a while, finding that it consumed her lover's time and distracted his attention from her, she began to regard the fascinating shed, with its boiler and engine and rude apparatus, as a dangerous rival. Nothing daunted by such symptoms of her discontent as he observed, Lance continued his application with a fervor that seemed to her little less than fanatical. Meanwhile he saw Dennie very often, and was constantly in receipt of news about Adela from him.
Indeed, since neither Aunty Losh nor Dennie had ever become enslaved to the luxury of reading, it was necessary for Lance to interpret Adela's letters to them. These epistles, in the beginning, were somewhat slight and informal. They would begin thus: "I write to inform you that I am enjoying good health. I hope you are the same." But as she went on with her studies, and as the various particulars of her new life appealed more decidedly to her attention, her style became more familiar and cordial; she described what happened at the school, day by day, and often lit up her account of events with flashes of humor that, to Lance, were delightful. She hit off some of the absurdities of modern routine education with a surprising sharpness of perception, and was greatly amused at the old theologian who attended to the religious instruction of the girls. He had shown her some books of Hebrew, the characters in which reminded her of her own invented patterns in silk and beads. But withal it transpired from what she wrote, that she made astounding progress in her lessons. She quickly outstripped her classmates in their work, and was promoted to a higher grade. Lance wondered whether this were due to the stored-up energy of a nature that was in some respects primitive, or whether it came from inherited aptitude—an aptitude derived partly, through the dim centuries, from Gertrude Wylde. Several times she alluded to Lance, and sent to him reserved messages of friendly thanks for his kindness; but perhaps she would not have written so familiarly on other topics if she had known that he was to see her letters. The truth was, it had not occurred to her that her betrothed and his aunt would apply to Lance to decipher her letters. And Lance, embarrassed by these references to himself, refrained from disclosing them.
Inevitably, from the supervision which thus fell to his lot over everything Adela did or said or thought, so far as her letters formed a record, it ensued that his interest in her increased. I am afraid he watched those letters with an alertness not to be excused, for some trace of a thoughtfulness respecting him, equal to his own toward her; and when she addressed to him directly a short communication, to tell him how she was getting on, and how grateful she was for his assistance, it was in a mood closely akin to disappointment that he read it through without having detected a word that could be construed as indicating even a commencement of friendship.
Now and again he contemplated turning the letters over to Jessie, and felt a desire to talk with her about the progress of his pupil. But he fancied that she would receive the confidence coldly, and he forbore to say anything, except in the most general terms. Why, in the mean time, he should expect anything more from Adela than a formal recognition of indebtedness, was a riddle to him; but nevertheless he knew that he was unsatisfied.
It should be understood that his peculiar state of mind was not at any one time clearly apparent to him; he merely caught glimpses of it. His preoccupation with the paper manufacture all the while kept his attention busy, and it was but dimly that he perceived what was going on in other regards. But when his experiments had reached their culmination, and he had decided to build a mill and begin operations, it became necessary for him to go North. He resolved to run up to Newbern, first, and see Adela Reefe, before bidding good-by to Jessie. This intention he was about to confide to Jessie, when one morning she unexpectedly presented herself at the engine-shed, at the moment when he was perusing a recent letter from his charge.
"So I've found you at last!" cried Jessie, standing by the sill of the open shed-door, wrapped in a light shawl, with a broad hat bent archly over her head, and looking wonderfully pretty. She caught sight of the letter. "Aha!" she said. "I thought you came here to work. But it's only make-believe, I see. Well, I've a great mind to write you letters myself and send them down to you here to read."
"Oh, it's only a letter from Adela Reefe," Lance answered. "Dennie De Vine brought it; he's just gone away again. Would you like to see it?"
The vatman was occupied at the other end of the shed. Jessie took the letter and glanced at it; then returned it to her lover, indifferently. "Deely seems to be quite contented," she observed. "When are you going to finish, Ned?"
"Finish? You mean what I'm doing here? Why, I can go with you now, if you want."
"I wish you would, then. I feel just like having a little walk and talk. You're going away so soon, it's only fair I should see something of you."
"I know that, dearest," said Lance, "and I'm afraid I've spent too much time over this business. It's only fair to me, too, that we should be together."
They sauntered away in company, and strolled through the woods. "I have been thinking," he told her, "that I ought to start in two or three days. But I must see Adela and Sylv first. I don't want to go North without knowing just how they seem up there, in their new life."
A change came over Jessie's manner. "You mustn't go!" she said, with sudden vehemence. "It isn't right, Ned."
"Not right, my dear. Why?" Lance bent his earnest, clean-cut features to look down at her more searchingly.
But Jessie lowered her eyes, and would not meet his glance. "Oh, I have watched you," she said, "and you are often talking with Dennie; you talk about that girl, I am sure. And now she is writing to you. Don't you think you have done enough for her, without going to see her?"
"Perhaps so," said Lance, his energetic mind arrested by a sudden discontent, and by a wonder as to whether he had unconsciously fallen into error. "But surely you don't allow yourself to be troubled about it, do you?"
"Why, no," Jessie answered. "It would be foolish to do that. Why should I? Only, it may be that you don't think what you're doing, Ned. She is not ourfriend, and she never can be. I have agreed that you should be her benefactor if you want to. But think how it might seem for you to go up there and call on her. Isn't it too much?"
"I will do as you think best, my dear," Lance assented.
"Thank you," said Jessie, at once growing radiant.
They passed on through the sun-flecked gallery of the spicy woods, chatting on various topics, and were outwardly quite content. But Lance could not banish the idea that he had been deprived of something which was his right; and Jessie, for her part, was not nearly so serene as she appeared to be. A subtle intuition had warned her that Lance was wrapped up in his care for Adela to an extent which he himself was not able to measure. The circumstance weighed upon her with increasing force; and many times at night she had been awakened by her own tears, only to fret out the solitary hours with vain questionings and attempts at reassurance. Her trouble seemed needless and absurd; but somehow Adela Reefe came flitting across her dreams, and even darkened her waking moments, like a shadow revived from the past, that had the power to blot out the vivid and sunny present.
That evening the lovers looked over some old miniatures of former Floyds and of the Wyldes, from whom the colonel traced his inheritance. In every one of the female faces Lance instinctively hunted for traits that should account for Jessie's features; but he could not find any. Not only was he baffled in the search, but when he retired to rest the old puzzle as to the similarity between Jessie's face and Adela's grew upon him, as more complicated and less easy to shake off than ever.
A few nights afterward his hands clasped Jessie's cheeks as he bade her farewell, on his departure for Beaufort, where he was to take a coast-wise steamer for New York.
It was late October. There was a chill in the air. The leaves of the deciduous trees had turned, and were already falling. The pines were rusty in places, their needles showered to the ground in great numbers; the snow-goose had already been heard piping in the air, on its southward flight; and the waves of the Sound and the sea, as they broke upon the shore, seemed to shiver with a knowledge of approaching winter. But Jessie stood with her lover on the veranda, in the darkness; and her face rested so yieldingly in his palms that Lance half imagined he could carry it away with him. There in the night it was like a picture painted long ago and dimmed by time, yet shining out through the obscurity with its youth and loveliness and passion still intact. No; he could not carry it bodily away with him, but he could take it in his heart; and so he did, holding it there long after the farewell kiss had left his lips.
But after he reached New York, and during the long months of winter, the magic of fancy played strange tricks with the image he had brought in his heart. Strive as he would, he could not prevent it from wavering and flickering, as it were, and occasionally taking on a darker hue, so that he seemed at times to be contemplating Adela, instead of Jessie.
One of the first things he did was to hunt up some old memoranda in which the tradition concerning Guy Wharton was definitely set down. This cleared up his recollection of it; and his next act was to write to a lawyer of his acquaintance in England, who knew something about the Wharton history, asking him to use his best endeavors to get some authentic likeness of Gertrude Wylde.
Unfolding to Hedson, his father's old partner, the paper-mill project, and finding it received with favor, he next exerted himself to form a small syndicate for purchasing and reclaiming the swamp-lands, since that undertaking would require more capital than he cared to venture. But the swamp was not the Treasury of the United States, nor was it a fantasy of such vast dimensions as the Panama Canal; so the syndicate could not be formed. For capital, despite all the cant about its conservatism, is really moved by extremes: it is allured either by a dead certainty or by an equally defunct impossibility. Elbow Crook Swamp was a something between the two.
"Wait until spring," Hedson advised. "Then you will have time to explore; and, besides, I may get down there myself to take a look!"
Hedson enjoyed the harmless pride of believing that anything at which Hedson had "taken a look," and was able to speak well of, must necessarily glitter like gold to his brother bondholders.
This affair and others detained Lance a long time. His mind was fixed on settling in North Carolina, at least for the first years of his married life, and he was anxious to get all his investments in good order before making the change. At Christmas he took a flying trip to Fairleigh Park, and enjoyed a brief season of jollity and of companionship with Jessie; but he was soon back again among the snowy streets. He had seen Sylv, but would not permit himself an interview with Adela. On his return Hedson informed him that he was about to sail for England, being called thither by business, to be absent a couple of months. Lance had received no news from his legal friend in London, and did not indeed expect anything valuable from that source; the records of the Surrey Wyldes were doubtless too scattered to be traceable, and it was scarcely possible that any vestige of Gertrude's features would have been retained among the possessions of the Whartons. But, not wishing to forego any chance, he petitioned Hedson to see the solicitor and co-operate with him. The acute perception of the American man of business might perhaps aid the careful British lawyer in getting at something, even in so sentimental an inquiry. Lance would have gone himself, so active was his interest in the question, had it not been for his reluctance to place the ocean between himself and Jessie.
Toward the end of February Hedson sent him a half-page letter, which ended with the words: "Think I have got something for you." Exasperating silence followed this communication. But, in latter March, Hedson landed at New York, and brought Lance a drawing. "It's from an old picture," he said. "Had the devil's own time getting it; but I bored everybody concerned, until they couldn't stand it any longer, and had to help me ferret it out."
"And you're sure this was Gertrude Wylde?" asked Lance.
"Why, my boy, you don't think I'd say so if I wasn't sure, do you? Besides, look at this curious monogram on the back. It seems to be two Gs and two Ws intertwined. You see, G. W. alone would stand for either Gertrude Wylde or Guy Wharton—a singular coincidence. The fact that the letters are repeated seems to show that Wharton had noticed this and resolved that his initials should be linked with hers, which were the same, so that in that way at least they might be united. It's a mark of identity. But why do you ask?" he added. "Is there anything wrong about it?"
Lance was excited, evidently. The drawing shook in his hand. "No," he said; "nothing wrong. Quite the contrary. It's exactly like her in some ways."
"You don'tlookcrazy, Lance; but how can you possibly know whether it's like or not?"
"Oh, I mean—I forgot; you never saw Adela—Miss Jessie, I mean."
"No," said Hedson. "I take, now. Likeher, eh?"
Lance nodded silently. To him the picture resembled Adela more than Jessie.