CHAPTER XXXII.
"YOU MAY TRUST ME TO HOLD MY TONGUE!"
The dance at Blue Fish Creek was a success of its kind--the kind which might be expected. It was held in the "town hall," a sort of loft above the station of the village fire-engine, the one large room of the place; used on Sundays as a church by some sect which had not attained to a meeting-house of its own, as a singing-school on winter nights when the younger villagers grew tired of remaining at home, and as general place of gathering where the people met to discuss politics or to be entertained by itinerant players.
The hall was crowded and very hot. Three fiddles supplied the squeaking music of catgut in agony, while the young and active disported themselves amid clouds of dust of their own raising. The dances were complicated and strange, being of the kind in which an earlier generation loved to take exercise; but the motley crowd was happy--poussetted, chassied, and performed feats which I can neither name nor spell, with a will.
Margaret Naylor had had a great deal of young Petty's company, and was rather weary of him. From the moment when her uncle had bidden her farewell, her attention to the young man's conversation had begun to wander. Exert himself as he might, he failed to interest her, and he grew depressed himself in consequence. In the hall he persuaded her to dance once, but she refused point-blank when he ventured to ask her again. He felt dispirited, and soon withdrew from the festive throng, going out into the night, which had fallen dark and starless, and wandering round within hearing of the fiddles and the stamping feet, like a Peri shut out of Paradise--detesting the sounds of mirth in which he had no share, but unable to drag himself away. Even tobacco, that silent comforter of the miserable, failed to soothe him, and he hung around the entrance of the hall, to which he had no desire to return.
It was growing late. The stablemen had put the horses to the vehicles for the home-going, and ranged them in double row to await the breaking up of the gathering; but still the fiddlers plied the cruel bow upon the screeching catgut, and still the steady tramp of the dancers went on as briskly as ever. Petty lighted a fresh cigar, and told himself that his time of waiting had nearly expired. As the thought formed itself, a figure passed him coming down from the hall. It was muffled, so far as the lightness of summer attire would admit. Something was drawn over the head which made it unrecognisable as it passed quickly from under the dim lamp on the stairs into the darkness without. It stood for an instant accustoming itself to the gloom. He could see it turn about as if looking for an expected object. There was an omnibus provided with a lantern in the line of vehicles, which weakly illumined a little circle around it, and lent a few feeble indications as to more distant objects. The figure looked around again, and then, in a tremulous voice raised little above a whisper, it uttered the one word "Walter!"
Walter Petty's heart bounded into his throat, and beat tumultuously, like a startled bird, against his ribs. This was an altogether unexpected turn. She--there was no question as to who she was, when once that dear voice sounded--she called him by his name! It was her first time to do it, and he had not dared to hope she ever would. The cigar was tossed into the gutter in a twinkling, and he was at her side, too deeply moved to trust himself to speak.
That was unnecessary. Her own excitement compelled her to take the word.
"Oh quick, Walter! If mamma should miss me, and come out in search! What a commotion! Hurry! quick!... The buggy in front?--is it not?... You have everything ready of course? Oh hurry!"
Petty was puzzled What was she up to? Yet it did not matter what. It was right, or she would not do it. And if there was danger, he would be at her side. She flew to the front of the line, he striding, almost running, beside her. She was in the buggy in an instant. He followed. The reins were in his hands. The stable-boy let go the horse's head. They were away.
Away, but whither? Home, of course. Where else could she desire to go? Yet why so much mystery? such anxiety to escape, and steal away? It must be that detestable Wilkie, who had been so intrusive at Fessenden's Island. She had been staving him off for a week back, he thought he had observed. Now her mother was forcing him on her, and she had run away. What a fine spirited girl! Yet why did all the mothers run after that cad Wilkie? He was not a gentleman even, and yet Walter's own mother had been encouraging his attentions to his sister Ann. A pretty brother-in-law to bring into a family! And to think the fellow should presume to have two strings to his bow! And such strings! It made this jolly clatter of hoofs and wheels, this careering headlong through the night, even more delightful, if that were possible, to think of the other man left behind and biting his nails in disappointment.
"Quicker, Walter! quicker! Are we safely away, do you think? Can they overtake us?" How close she nestled to his side! How strong and protecting he felt! How heroic, as he peered out in the darkness, between the ears of his horse, to see if all were clear! The horse could see the way and take the turns, Walter could not. His driving was an act of faith; he could but sit and peer, and feel the horse's mouth, and be alert against a stumble or anything which might befall. Not seeing, he could not guide. It was late, fortunately, and there were no other travellers on the road. The night air blew past them fresh and exhilarating, and the soft pressure of his companion nestling to his side was an unspeakable delight. She seemed agitated--unduly, as it appeared to him; but then a woman is a tender thing, he thought, and how tender and solicitous he would be of this one, if she gave him the right! He could feel her tremble, and she spoke short ejaculatory sentences from time to time; not as if she wanted him to answer--and what was there he could say?--but merely to relieve her high-wrought feelings.
"I did not think I could have done it, Walter. Only for you I could have broke away. I feel quite wicked. But surely even mamma has no right to come in between you and me; and now she certainly must not."
Walter Petty agreed with the conclusion, but was at a loss to divine the premisses through which it was arrived at. However, they were going down a steep hill, his faculties were on the stretch as they jolted down in the darkness, and he had to support the horse, momentarily in danger of a stumble or upset upon the loose stones which encumbered the way. He did not answer, and Margaret was growing accustomed to the situation and recovering her composure.
They passed a wayside tavern whose windows still showed light, standing at a crossing where four ways met. Margaret recognised it, and the next moment observing that they turned to the right, she exclaimed--
"Walter! That is Mollekin's; you should have turned to the left for Narwhal Junction. If you keep on as we are going, we shall be at Clam Beach in fifteen minutes."
"Or ten, dear Margaret," Walter answered.
Margaret bounded up in her seat and drew away. Had Walter not clutched at her gown in time, she must have fallen out.
"Mr Petty! How come you to be here? What trap--what trick is this?"
"You brought me yourself, Miss Naylor. I have complied with your wishes as far as I have known how. You called me. You seemed to want my service. I was proud to be of use."
"You? I was to have met---- I did not call you, Mr Petty. How could you suppose it? I am not intimate with you. We are common acquaintances. That is all. What right had you to intrude? You have done me an irreparable injury. I should not have expected this of you."
"You came out of the hall in haste, Miss Naylor. You spoke to me. You said 'Walter.' I obeyed. I supposed you wanted to get home."
"You----" Margaret did not finish the sentence. Why should she betray herself? she thought. He seemed to have no suspicion as to her intentions. Why should she enlighten him? As he had frustrated her design, her best course was to leave him in his delusion. It would prevent gossip in the hotel. She would acquiesce in his supposition, seeing that her scheme to get away was balked for the present. "I did not know you in the dark, Mr Petty; I thought you were some one else. But it is all right. I have been driven nearly crazy by those jarring fiddles, and the dust and heat. Thanks for your kind readiness to oblige. I am dizzy with headache. I shall go to my room at once, and be asleep before the rest get home."
There was a clatter of hoofs behind them. Margaret drew her wraps over her head, and cowered low in her seat. Was she pursued? Was she overtaken? A little in front shone the lights of the hotel. How welcome they were now! A horseman dashed past at full gallop. He leapt down at the hotel door, and when the buggy drew up, Walter Blount was there to receive Margaret on alighting.
"You took away my buggy, Mr Petty," he observed, when that gentleman's countenance came within the circle of light streaming from the hotel door. "However, you have brought it safely here. Accept my thanks. I will relieve you now." Then turning to Margaret, "Now, dearest! in again!" He followed her, and to Petty's astonishment, the pair were gone.
Joseph Naylor, lounging on the gallery hard by, had seen the passage. He came forward and laid his hand on Petty's arm, as, standing stock-still in his bewilderment, he peered into the darkness after the vanished buggy.
"A strange part you seem to have played in those young folk's comedy--a tantalising part, and laughable, if people knew about it. But we will not tell them, will we? They have been long engaged. Mamma was adverse, perhaps unreasonable. But she will come round. We won't interfere, to spoil sport. Will we, Petty?"
Walter looked round rather ruefully. "You may trust to my holding my tongue, Mr Naylor. My own part in it has not been so distinguished that I need wish it known."
The runaways were on the road to Lippenstock. Walter Blount had spent the evening in the hall ready to follow Margaret as she went out. He had missed her, and waited on, till the party broke up not long after. Then he had found that his buggy was gone, and not seeing the lady, surmised she might be in it--might have got in to await him, and allowed the horse to bolt. He had difficulty in procuring a horse to follow, but in the end succeeded in bribing the man to take a leader out of one of the omnibuses, under a storm of reproaches from the outraged passengers, and had galloped to the Beach in hopes of overtaking and reclaiming his missing "rig"; and he had succeeded, recovering both outfit and passenger.
"Oh, Walter! what luck!" cried Margaret. "I thought that ridiculous Mr Petty had spoiled everything. His name is Walter, it seems; and when I called you, he answered. He should have known I would not call him by his name. We must hurry, though. Everybody will know, now, as soon as they get home. I see we are on the road to Lippenstock."
"Yes. Why should we risk meeting them, even in the dark? But I do not think young Petty will say anything. He seems a decent fellow who would not do a shabby thing; and he is not likely to tell an adventure in which he plays so ridiculous a part. To carry away a lady for another man!"
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SUSAN IS EQUAL TO THE EMERGENCY.
Mrs Naylor was late of coming down-stairs next morning, but she took no special notice of Margaret's not having come to inquire for her, further than to prepare herself with a taunt at undutiful children against the moment when they should meet. Her empty chair at dinner, however, told that something was amiss; and Lucy could give no information, further than that Margaret had not slept at Clam Beach the previous night.
"Not slept? What do you mean? Have you been keeping this from me all these hours? Why did you not tell me at once?"
"Because you make such a fuss, mamma. It was as much as my peace for all day was worth to disturb you."
"You take it coolly. You must know where she is?"
"No indeed, mamma. She was under your own wing when I saw her last. You sat on one side of her, and Mr Petty on the other. If she has broken away at last from such close surveillance, it is not very surprising."
"Has your sister run away, my dear?" asked Mrs Wilkie across the table of Lucy. Then, turning her eyes defiantly on the mother, with whom, since their last set-to, she could scarcely be said to be on speaking terms, she added, "I gave you warning, ma'am, about certain on-goings; and ye were scarcely ceevil to me on the head of it. Who's right now? I'd like to know."
"Whist, mother!" said her son, pulling at her gown under the table. "Let people settle their own hash."
"They would have mixed my son up in their hash, and done for him, if they could. I'll show them I see through them and their pretensions, now when they're fand out, and know what a little-worth crew they are."
Joseph Naylor overheard, and could not restrain a smile, which excited the indignation of his sister-in-law almost beyond control.
"I remember your polite expressions, ma'am," she said; "but there are distinctions which make a difference. The gentleman you then chose to speak of disrespectfully, coupling his name with Miss Naylor's in a most unwarrantable manner, is fifth son of a deputy-lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum in Memicombshire, England. You have not been used to meet gentlemen of his station, and had better not refer to them. Ignorance becomes ridiculous when it forces itself into notice."
"The fifth son of a tirlie-wirlie, is he, ma'am? I think little of that. I'd have ye know that my son has a tirlie-wirlie of his own, if it's a cairidge ye mean. The fifth son of people with a cairidge isn't much. He'd have to ride outside on the dickie beside the driver, I'm thinking."
Mrs Naylor was dumb. It is useless to retort on people who do not, or who will not, understand.
At that moment a telegram was brought to Joseph. He tore it open, read it, and handed it to his sister-in-law.
"This is from Margaret," he whispered. "Control yourself, and do not give the people room to snigger at your expense."
The telegram was dated Gorham, New Hampshire. It ran: "Married at eleven this morning. Margaret Blount."
Mrs Naylor read, and but for the sudden flushing of her features, controlled herself from any outward betrayal of displeasure. It is the one unmixed good which comes of living in public, that people are compelled to suppress their manifestations of feeling; and, driven by stress of circumstances to seem calm, the more speedily become so really. Reason, unimpeded by emotion, which is nourished on its own manifestations, comes sooner to the rescue, and shows how few miscarriages are worth the distress we are apt to give ourselves over them. In pretending before observers to make light of a disappointment, we involuntarily give heed to our own words, and come to think less of it than otherwise we should have done. Mrs Naylor's mind, instead of dwelling on her provocation, was forced to conceal the wound from the impertinently curious, and thereby dividing itself upon two views of the subject--the grievance and its concealment--was less disturbed by either.
The first idea which came distinct to the surface, through her mental perturbation, was an appreciation of her own good sense; and her good fortune, in having boasted, immediately before having received this news, of her son-in-law's high connections. Now that the young man was indissolubly knotted to her family, and she must make the most of him, the Custos Rotulorum, with his ancestral hall in Memicombshire, was the sheet-anchor of his claim to consequence. If it was an ideal claim, instead of the grossly real one she had desired for her daughter's husband, it was infinitely finer in kind; and she prepared to take it up, and brandish it vigorously, to cow and overpower impressible minds, and suppress colonial pretension.
She began to feel quite imperial, after a little trying, and when dinner was over, had come to feel that a Custos Rotulorum made an infinitely finer father-in-law for her girl than all the judges in the Dominion rolled into one could have done. When the ladies gathered up-stairs, therefore, she played her best card, under the circumstances, with quite a good heart; she showed them her telegram, and claimed their congratulations. She talked effusively of "an old attachment"--"two romantic children, who could not bring themselves to profane the interchange of their holy vows, with the garish vulgarities of orange-blossoms and Brussels lace, bride's-maids, breakfast, and speechifying, but had resolved to go away by themselves and be married in peace." "She had been persuaded to keep their secret and say nothing." "They were away on their wedding tour, now; but she was still under promise to reveal no more." "They might have gone to California or to visit the Custos Rotulorum," she would not say which, but she let it be inferred that it was England and the ancestral hall, to which their happy steps were bent.
The ladies thus unexpectedly called on for congratulations paid them at once--they could not help themselves; but they paid them perhaps a little grudgingly, feeling injured at having been balked of the preliminary tattle. Had it been sympathy and condolence which Mrs Naylor claimed, they could have opened their hearts much more freely. They could have mingled a tear or two quite comfortably with hers, and felt deeply interested in the new sensation; but that two young people should go away and get married, without telling anybody, and then that it should turn out a right, proper, and desirable union, was treating them very badly, in the dearth just then of pleasurable excitement.
Joseph Naylor was the only person who fully enjoyed the scene, as he walked upon the gallery with Rose, and looked in through the open windows. What a remarkable woman was this sister-in-law of his, to be sure! and how little he had been aware of those reserves of strength and quickness which she was now displaying to such good purpose! Accustomed in the family circle to have her way, and to overbear opposition with petulance, peevishness, indignation, or convenient ill health, as best suited, it had not occurred to him that for once she could act like a sensible woman and bravely accept the inevitable. He had dreaded an explosion, a scene, perhaps a fainting-fit and general commotion, when in helpless trepidation he had handed her that telegram; and here she was, with a smiling face, claiming felicitation on the overthrow of her plans and wishes, and actually taking credit for a result which had worked itself out in defiance of her opposition.
"There is not an acrobat in Barnum's circus," he said, "who could have turned a somersault as neatly. I could not have believed our Susan capable of so sudden a change of front. A woman of her talent and resource is hid away and completely lost in a small place like Jones's Landing."
Rose agreed with him, and was vastly interested in the whole affair. She dwelt on it, recurred to the different points and stages, discussed, analysed, and combed out every detail separately to its greatest length. It gratified Joseph that she should concern herself so warmly in his family affairs, but he would have been glad if her interest had been sooner satisfied. She contrived that the conversation should not progress, as it naturally would have done, from Margaret's love-passages to their own. Even the night on Fessenden's Island was not able, as Joseph had felt confident that it would be, to withdraw her thoughts from the runaways to their own tender affairs. When he endeavoured to transfer the interest, she returned with renewed curiosity to ask where Margaret and Blount first met, and from that digressed still further, to demand full particulars of his circumstances, birth, and parentage. She was as charmingly companionable as she always had been; Joseph loved and adored as he always did; but he could not draw her on to the closer and more personal topic on which he yearned to hold converse.
That topic--their engagement--was one to which this afternoon she had an insuperable, and, as she told herself, an unreasonable repugnance to reopen at the present moment. Come it must, eventually, and she would welcome it; but not to-day. A shadow was upon her, the shadow of Bertie Roe, an influence to which she was resolved that she would not yield, but which yet had power to cast an unattractiveness and dimness over all beside. She had broken with that man for ever, had she not? but she had spoken with him, in dismissing him, and the converse of all the world beside had lost its relish. She felt, but would not own it. Had she not announced openly her new engagement? and was she, like some poor-spirited slave, to break it off and go back, because her old tyrant had chosen to lift his finger? What would her friends, the world, the free-thinking and strong-minded who had applauded her spirit, say to see her go back to bondage and resume her chains? She chafed to think of it, and tried to lash herself into new anger against her husband. And she had felt so strong in her resolve, all through the bygone week! To think that a few words, and a little pleading, should have weakened her like this! She was growing unworthy of her former self. How dim and indistinct her wrongs had grown since yesterday, when that sweet insidious voice had taken on itself to explain them away! Why had she listened?... And until yesterday, the sight of the woman he was always walking with had made her strong; but that crouching figure under the tree, seen yesterday, who could fear that? How feel jealous of aught so forlorn? There was a little triumph in it, that Bertie should have been brought so low; but she missed the tonic and strengthening influence which had been thus dispelled. She was resolved to resist, to have done with Bertie Roe; but there was a strange diffidence of the strength within her, which she would not acknowledge to herself, but still was aware of, foreboding general collapse.
Trying to keep up this waning strength, she worked hard at being interested in Joseph and his family, especially in the family; that was the easier subject of the two, and it avoided comparisons, dangerous at this moment--comparison of years, of stature and physical endowment, which told against him.
And so Joseph and Rose worked out this day in ostensible amity and intimacy, but with an inward doubt burrowing and working like hidden currents in spring beneath the ice, eating it away, and honeycombing the solid mass, which still looks huge and immovable as ever; and will continue so to seem, till comes the end, and with a crash the massive structure crumbles and melts and disappears.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MISS ROLPH IS SEVERE.
It was growing late at night. The proprietor and his clerk had concluded the labours of the day, and were arranging with the house-steward the bill of fare for the morrow. The male guests were up-stairs in the parlours with the ladies, or else had secluded themselves to play poker in private rooms, in accordance with the rigorous house-rule against gambling. Gilbert Roe alone paced the lower corridor, smoking cigar after cigar, which failed to soothe him--restless and woebegone, waiting on for he knew not what, unable to tear himself from the dreariest quarters in which he had ever sojourned.
He was not popular with the men. He took no interest in their amusements, having other cares at this time, and they voted him unsociable and of no account. Since Maida's disappearance, the few lady guests with whom he was acquainted had asked him where she was; and on his declaring that he did not know, they had turned away with a frightened and suspicious glance, as though they suspected him of having made away with her. He wandered about the house like another Cain, suspected, dreaded, and shunned, as though there were a mark of warning and of evil on his brow; but he would not go away while Rose remained an inmate of the house. He had an impression that there was an influence within her doing battle on his behalf--he had detected her furtive glances more than once wandering towards him, and averted again ere he could meet them, and he would not go away; but the waiting was inexpressibly dreary in the meantime.
The rumble of wheels was heard outside; a vehicle stopped before the door. The porter, drowsing in his corner, started to his feet and ran down to carry in baggage, and the landlord followed to inspect the untimely arrival. It was a tall spare lady, dressed in black, who walked straight to the desk and registered herself, "Principal Rolph, Female College, Montpelier;" then asked to have Miss Springer's bill made out, that she might settle it, and desired that lady's effects to be packed up and forwarded.
Having finished her business with the clerk, she turned to follow the bell-boy to her appointed chamber, and met Roe straight in the eye, as he wearily paced the tiles, counting the minutes in their lagging flight, till his hour should arrive for turning in.
"Bertie Roe! Ha! you may well look guilty and ashamed to face me. You did not expect to see me here, I reckon."
He held out his hand to her, though his look on meeting was scarcely one of welcome.
"We will dispense with hand-shaking, all things considered. We can neither of us be very pleased to see the other; but you need not pass on. I mean to speak my mind to you before I let you go."
"Speak on, Miss Rolph. It is natural you should feel strongly against me. I will not even tell you that it was not my fault. That would seem like casting reflections where I promised and still wish to defend."
"That sounds proper enough; but I have more against you than you think--another instance of your misconduct. What possesses you, Bertie Roe, to go prowling and ravening about the world like this?--blighting the lives and devastating the affections of trusting women? Why do you do it? What pleasure can you feel in crushing a girl's self-respect, and making her feel shameless and a fool?"
"She does not feel one bit like a fool, Miss Rolph; and her self-respect is not crushed at all. Far from wishing to crush her, I am ready to humble myself, and take the blame of what I did not bring about, and, heaven knows, had no wish should happen."
"Then you did not wish Maida Springer to run away as she did? If she had stayed, would you have proposed to marry her? You took a curious way to show your intentions."
"Maida Springer! What have I to do with her? And what have you to do with Maida Springer?"
"She is a particular friend of mine. I have a high opinion of Maida Springer, and I think you have behaved to her like a ruffian."
"We are old friends. I have always wished her well, and she wishes me well, I am sure. An unkind word has never passed between us, and we have been constantly together for--let me see--all the time I have been staying here."
"I know that; and when a single man devotes himself in that open way to an unmarried woman, what does it mean, if not marriage? Was it honourable of you, Bertie Roe, to behave like that?"
"I do not consider myself a single man, Miss Rolph. I never shall--unless--unless--which God forbid!"
"Did you tell her you did not consider yourself single?"
"How could I, Miss Rolph? Do you think a man is made of wood and leather?"
"Then you left her to believe that you were single, Bertie Roe; and you should be ashamed of yourself. You told her--I have it from herself--that you were not married."
"Neither am I, Miss Rolph. The Divorce Court has annulled my marriage."
"You have behaved dishonourably, Bertie; and with callous cruelty besides, from what she told me, in betraying her weakness as you did, to the other. It was not a manly act, let me tell you. I expected better things of you."
"How could I know, or even suspect? Do you take me for so conceited an ass that I must needs suppose every woman I converse with is in love with me?"
"That will not do, Bertie. You are not such a stripling as not to know that girls expect to marry, that society forbids them to make the advance, and that if a man pays them undivided and conspicuous attention, they are entitled to believe that he means something."
"I never thought of that, Miss Rolph. If you will believe me, there is but one woman in the world I can ever feel towards in that way."
"And a pretty way you took to show your love!--deserted her--judgment by default--'cruelty and desertion'!"
"What could I do? She would not listen to reason. I could not let her name be dragged through the law reports in company with those of all the worst people in the State. No; you must acknowledge, Miss Rolph, that I showed forbearance and consideration there, at least. What would the charming little tempers we both remember have looked like, after being carded out and hackled by a pair of foul-mouthed lawyers? They would have made her a laughing-stock to the whole country. I know I was right in letting judgment go by default, though it went sorely against my grain to do it."
"And now you see the consequence. She is engaged to marry another man."
"But you will not let her, Miss Rolph? You will insist on her giving me another chance. I am confident she will never be fond of any one else as she was fond of me, and still is in her heart, if she would listen to its promptings."
"That you may bicker together incessantly, and quarrel anew?--like a pair of spoilt children, to be a scandal to decent people?"
"Ah! that is over, you may rely, Miss Rolph. I venture to assert that we have both suffered too deeply in our separation ever to let the bond, if it should be renewed, fret us again. Such patience as we shall have with one another, will be a sight to see. You will help us to make it up, Miss Rolph? Your advice goes a long way with her."
"I fear not. I have tried ere now, and had my interference declined with thanks. I cannot attempt to make it up between you and her. In fact I had resolved to wash my hands of her altogether; but for other reasons, this new engagement of hers must be broken off, though I shall not approach her on the subject--in the first instance, at least. I shall go to the gentleman."
"Only break it off, dear Miss Rolph, and you have my lifelong gratitude--and hers too, though it seems a bold assertion; but I have seen signs of relenting, and I believe it is pride, and the fear of being laughed at, which chiefly keep up the estrangement."
"We shall see, Bertie; but you do not deserve it," said Miss Rolph, attempting to keep up the rigour of her first words, though the friendliness of her nod and smile at parting belied the pretence.
CHAPTER XXXV.
MILLICENT.
Next morning, Joseph Naylor was disturbed in the act of shaving by the intelligence that a lady desired to see him, and that she was waiting his coming down-stairs in one of the parlours.
"A lady? Who is it? What does she want?" he inquired of the black boy who brought the message.
"Principal of the Female College at Montpelier, sah."
"Never heard of the institution. Some one drumming up for pupils, I suppose. My nieces are rather old to put to school. They would not go if I tried to put them. Why does she not apply to their mother? Susan never did allow me to interfere about the schools--or anything else, for that matter, when she could manage without me."
He finished his dressing quickly, however, and hastened down-stairs.
In the parlour stood a tall, grey woman, clad in black, awaiting him. He advanced with a low bow and a look of inquiry. The lady looked earnestly in his face, coming forward to meet him with extended hand.
"You do not know me, Joseph?"
Joseph stared in surprise at so intimate a form of address; yet there was a tone in the voice which seemed not unfamiliar, though he could not connect it in his memory with any particular time, place, or person.
"I am changed, of course,"--it was still the lady who spoke,--"but so are you. Try if you cannot recall. It is five-and-twenty years since we last met."
"You have the advantage, ma'am."
"My name is Millicent Rolph. You know me now?"
"You? Do you mean that you are Lina's sister?"
"I am, Joseph--your sister-in-law. You cannot have forgotten our last meeting at the old home in New Orleans?"
"I can never forget the last time I met Millicent Rolph; but I trace no resemblance between you and her. She was a woman of thirty, dark-haired, large, handsome; you--do not resemble her."
"She was thirty twenty-five years ago, and you were twenty-two. The years have left their mark upon us both. I cannot but be changed. I have come through the troubles of a lifetime. There was the war, and mother's death, and the ruin of our affairs in New Orleans; and there have been trials and much hard work since then, to change me into the spare, elderly, white-haired woman you see now. You are changed too, though life has dealt less harshly, I should judge. Yet I recognised you at once, though I had prayed that I might not--that you might prove to be another man, bearing by accident the name of my brother-in-law.... We were such friends once, Joseph, in the long ago. Sitting under the shade of the magnolias in the dear old garden, with Lina between us----"
"Have done, Millicent! I confess now that it is you. I recognise your voice. But do not stir up old memories. They haunted me like ghosts for more than twenty years. It is only recently that I have been able to lay them.... Let them lie. You weighed me down with misery enough when last we met. Do not refer to it. I had rather we had not met now. It is like reopening a grave, even to hear you speak. It brings back all I would forget--all I have been cheating myself into believing that I had buried and got rid of at last."
"I can understand the feeling."
"What can I do to serve you? Tell me; but let us part at once. I will do anything, but I cannot stand here listening. Your voice is heavy with memories like forebodings; my heart sinks at the very sound. Speak, and let me leave you. What do you want?"
"I want nothing, Joseph--nothing for myself. It is for your own sake I am come, and it tears my heart to say the things I have to tell you."
"You said something like that when you acted so cruelly before, you and your mother; but you did not spare me."
"I am come to warn you, Joseph, against this marriage you propose to make."
"You are? Have you not injured me enough in my affections already? Are five-and-twenty years of widowhood not enough to have inflicted on one who never knowingly offended you? What wrong have I done you, that you should persecute me like this?"
"Joseph, I always loved you like a sister. It crushes me to be made the herald of your disappointments; but I have no choice."
"I will not listen to you. You shall not put me from Rose as you did from Lina. Let me pass."
"You cannot marry Rose. You must stop and hear me;" and she planted herself between him and the door.
"Then I must escape by the window; and there she is, standing at the farther end of the gallery. How spirited and sweet she looks--how like our Lina!... Millicent, you will pity, and not come in between? Look, she sees us! She starts. She is coming to us with that pretty shyness which seems half defiance. One would think she knew you well, Millicent?"
"She does, Joseph. Listen to her when we meet; it will save a world of painful explanation."
Rose came forward, not very quickly, though pride forbade her faltering. She held her head erect, and her colour was heightened; but her eyes were far from steady, and for all her endeavours to outface the situation, betrayed an inclination to seek the ground.
"You here, Aunt Millicent? I did not know that you and Mr Naylor were acquainted."
"Aunt Millicent? Are you two related, then?" gasped Joseph, his nether jaw falling.
"She is your own daughter, Joseph Naylor! It was to tell you so that I sought you out--to preserve you from the hideous mistake you were about to make. But oh! it breaks my heart that I should be your messenger of evil tidings again."
Joseph leant against the window-jamb, looking very pale, and uttering a sigh so deep that it sounded like a moan.
"Do you mean that she is Lina's child?" he said, after a pause.
"Yes; and yours."
"I never was told that I had a child. You might have told me that, when you told the rest."
"Would it have been easier, think you, to bear the loss of Lina, if you had been told that we were keeping you from your child? If we had told you of her birth, perhaps you might have claimed her. Lina must have learnt everything. She would have died of shame and remorse."
"When was the child born?"
"The day the news reached us of her father's loss at sea; her birth was hastened by the news. The mother nearly died. She fell out of one fainting-fit into another, till exhausted nature could endure no more. For days her life hung trembling in the balance, and then the sight of the baby turned the scale. There was something to live for--something that seemed part of you. We took them North. The baby throve, and for her sake poor Lina took heart and tried to live."
"And you deprived the child even of its father's name?"
"Hillyard adopted her. Lina had no other family. She lived five years only after that marriage."
"Why did you not restore her to me when her mother died?"
"We could not, Joseph: the world is so big. Where were we to look for you? You came no more to New Orleans. By-and-by the war drove us North, and reduced us to poverty. Mother died. I went to live with Hillyard and bring up the child. He was devoted to her. They were everything to one another. It would have been cruelty to interfere."
"You seem to have had pity for every one but me, Millicent. Could this Hillyard's rights in the child compare with mine?"
"You had gone out of our lives, Joseph. We knew--that is, I knew--little about your family, except that they lived somewhere up in Canada. That was too far away for us, living in New Orleans, to take much interest in. Afterwards, when I lived with Hillyard in Canada, near Sarnia, I did not remember, or know how to set about inquiring."
"You might have been more considerate, Millicent. You have had a care for every one but me. I do not deny that you do your duty in interfering to prevent me from marrying my own daughter; but you should have begun sooner. To find an intended wife changed into a daughter is--is--is a shock!"
"You will bear it, Joseph, like the man you are. In any case, you could not have married this headstrong girl: she is another man's wife."
Rose flushed, but said nothing. She and her Aunt Millicent had been accustomed to each other's contradictious speeches all through life. It was Joseph who came to the rescue of his new-found daughter.
"You should not speak so, Millicent, of your sister's child. You may not hold with divorces in general, but you should keep quiet in this case. If the law of her country declares her single, there is no gainsaying it."
"That is just where the impediment stands, Joseph; for I have taken a lawyer's advice. She is a single woman in the United States, and a married one in British territory. She was married at Sarnia in Canada. She is Bertie Roe's wife wherever British law prevails, seeing that she was granted her divorce on grounds which a British court will not allow. See the scrape your daughter is in! and use a father's authority to send her back to her husband."
Rose tried to grow angry. She turned upon her aunt with a frown, to repudiate the proposal and declare she would never go back. But the words failed her; a strange, sweet weakness stole through every limb. She felt conquered without knowing how, or desiring to know why. She covered her face and burst into tears.
Millicent saw her opportunity. While father and daughter were still struggling with themselves to regain composure, she sent for Roe, presented him to his father-in-law, and explained the legal position of his relation to his wife.
The wife kept her face concealed in her handkerchief, but she relented so far as to let Bertie take her hand. To all expostulation she declared that she could not do more. "Was she to make herself the laughing-stock of the house? She was on American ground, where Millicent herself acknowledged she was free; and she would remain so, or go right away from everybody, if they teased her any more."
It was concluded at length that they should return to Canada that very day. Roe, Mrs Naylor, Lucy, and Millicent, accompanied Rose and her father; and Blount and Margaret were telegraphed to meet them at Jones's Landing. There, away from the curious eyes of fellow-guests who had been witnesses, if unconscious ones, of their little comedy, the party at once fell into their readjusted relations with one another. Joseph, with a grown-up and married daughter, naturally took the position of benevolent patriarch and head of the family. He associated Blount in his business, thereby securing that his niece should not be carried away into the wilds, and contenting his sister-in-law Susan, who thereafter maintained in private to Lucy that she had carried her point after all, notwithstanding the seeming defeat; as, but for the stand which she had made against Margaret's living in the woods, it never would have occurred to Joseph to provide for Blount, and settle the pair beside her at Jones's Landing.
From the moment Rose got into the railway at Narwhal Junction, she slid contentedly back into Mrs Roe. No one ever again alluded to an estrangement between the married pair, and Jones's Landing was left in total ignorance that their married life had ever been other than the even, trustful, and happy existence which it had now become. The two seemed never apart, never weary of each other's society, yet never in each other's way in fulfilling the duties of social life. The only separation which took place between them was when Gilbert returned to Chicago to wind up his affairs there, preparatory to settling in Canada beside his father-in-law. Rose shrank from meeting again the aiders and abettors who had encouraged her matrimonial escapades, of which she was now thoroughly ashamed, as well as the friends who had disapproved of her conduct. Having sealed a peace with her husband, she was fain to forget that they had ever been divided. Scenes and persons associated with the estrangement had become alike detestable to her; she wished never to see or hear of them again. The only occasion on which she has ever recurred to that miserable year of her life was when, about twelve months after their establishment at Jones's Landing, she came unexpectedly upon Bertie writing a letter, with a case containing jewellery lying open on the desk beside him.
"What a lovely bracelet, Bertie!"
He looked up, colouring and confused, and drew the blotting-paper across his letter.
"And you are writing! To whom, pray? Sending valuable presents to ladies, and not a word to your wife. There was a time--when,--but never mind. Who is it you are writing to?"
"It is--but you never heard the name--Mrs Langenwoert."
"No. Where did you know her?"
"Do you remember the little schoolma'am at Clam Beach?--the last lady you did me the honour to be jealous of? She is to be married to-morrow."