Cliquot: A Racing Story of Ideal Beauty

A week went by. Clovis and her troupe were gone, and the theatre closed for the summer. She had not seen Neil before leaving, but no doubt they would meet again in New York, as they had often done before. It was not alone as the actress who thrilled the hearts of the little city of N—— that he knew her. They became acquainted elsewhere, and their meetings were many and varied. But it behooves us not to tarry to speak of them;—suffice it to know that somewhere in the world, outside of the hills of home, had he found her, and had given, perhaps, a little more than passing homage to this strange woman.

During that week he closed his apartments in town, and sent his servant and his belongings to his country place, fifteen miles away, and in a few days he himself took the daily train which landed him but a mile from his door. The winding drive and rich green lawn, studded here and there with shrubbery, formed a refreshing sight to his city-weary eyes. The great dog who bounded to meet him received the warmest caresses; and the soft stillness of the evening air fell like a veil of blessing upon him, as he sat alone on his piazza.

“Here, at least, I am happy—here, at least, I may rest.” And there came to him, this prayer:

And the picture of his mother rose before him, with her hand on his shoulder, repeating those words, in the twilight, long ago.

He was up in the early morning, and, mounting his gray, rode forth amid the fields of grain. The mellow air and leaping waters of the river beyond his door were, indeed, like unto a “healing balm” to his torn and wounded heart.

The sun was high in the heavens when he turned his weary steed homeward. On his place all was in order—for that, at least, he felt grateful. The bleating of the sheep, mingling with the soft low of the cattle, told of prosperity. He returned by way of the stable, and went in to look at his racer.

“You shall run no more, my boy,” he said, lightly touching his glossy side. “Take off his halter, and turn him loose upon the pasture, but look well to him, lad, for I go away for months; and, as it fares with him, so will it with you,” and, giving the reins of his horse into the boy’s hands, he entered the house. A day or two he lingered there, then was in the city once more.

Peleg sang at his work, and swung his hammer over his new anvil, as Emory greeted him one morn with:

“Ah! I see you’ve kept the anvil, though you refused the money.”

“Yes,” said the blacksmith, “this was a bargain, sir; I stick to that, for I meant it when I told you to book it;—and a pretty good thing it be! Thanks, Mr. Emory!”

The gentleman sat himself down on a wooden bench, just inside the door, watching the brawny, bare arms of the worker of iron go up and down in their physical beauty, while the red light from the sparkling forge shone brightly on his honest, ruddy face.

“So true to her!” he thought, “and must I be less so?” Aloud, he said: “Peleg, I am going away, perhaps, for years. Let me leave you a little income—something to make your life a bit easier, your toil lighter.”

“Bless you! Mr. Emory,” replied the man, “I’m as happy as a king! There’s nothing I want—no worry comes a-nigh us now. My good woman and me plod on together as comfortable as can be. No! no! keep your gold. I can always make a fair living, so long as these don’t fail me,” and he held out his splendid arms. “But I would ask a little favor of you—just this—to let me shoe the racer, now and then, and to ask Mr. Maury to send his bay boys here for me to tap their hoofs. You see, I knows ’em all, and what suits ’em.”

“That I will!” exclaimed Neil; “and, besides, I’ll leave orders for you to do all my work, except Cliquot—you cannot shoe him.”

“Why, sir? Him’s the one I thought on most.”

“Because,” smiled Emory, “he runs bare-hoofed upon the paddock, old boy!”

And, crossing over to the blacksmith’s side, and laying his hand on his shoulder, to keep him at his work, he said:

“Listen to me! I shall run him never again! That race—be it the last! Tell her I said this—and—and—no other shall ever mount him more!”

Then, with his hat over his face, he turned and went away.

And ever, as the glowing iron took shape beneath his blows, did the blacksmith think:

“I guess when a chain o’ gold has a broken link, that’s hard to mend. I don’t know about such as them, but it seems I welds my own tighter than they.”

Then the sparks flew upward to the clear blue sky and the unfinished song was taken up again.

Another week went by, and Neil had never seen Gwendoline since that night; nor would he do so again ere he left to wander for an indefinite space, to travel in the old world, as he had done once before, there to hide himself while his brain was filled with gloom and the “tiger passions” were on him.

The ship, with its white sails and blue smoke, that bore him away, was fading in the sunset of a summer’s eve, when a missive from him was placed in Gwendoline’s hand. It said:

Lying upon the floor of her chamber, with the letter crushed beneath her outstretched hands, Mrs. Gwinn found Gwendoline; and as she raised her stricken child she knew all hope had fled, and all her dreams of that bright future, which she had planned for her daughter, faded into nothing.

And so after awhile the courtly suitor, being convinced that his attentions were in vain, returned to his home, that stately mansion where he dwelt alone; henceforth, its spacious halls and frescoed rooms were untenanted, save by his lonely presence and the countless servants who did his bidding.

As he would listen in the mid-day to the sounds from his sugar house and the whistling of his returning laborers, he longed ever for one glimpse of a face never to be his—for a voice to be heard by him no more. Day by day he grew older and grayer, as he sat at eve in the shadows of the fluted columns of that broad piazza, looking towards those golden waters, the sound of whose waves ever reached his ears, in their ceaseless lap against the shore. But the undying pain which he carried in his bosom gave to his mien a gentler cast and to his voice a softer tone, rendering him a kinder friend, a more lenient master, a truer Southern gentleman!

Woe betide the day that deprived Gwendoline of the privilege of joining hands with such as he, and thus anchoring her storm-tossed bark in so secure a haven!