AN INVITATION TO A PICNIC.
During the fine summer weather Miss Gastonguay spent a great part of
her time on horseback.
Her straight figure was becoming bent, her short grizzled hair was more
thickly mixed with white, her hand was less steady than it used to be,
yet she persisted in her long rides, and for miles around Rossignol
the farmers' wives would run to the window as they saw her pass, and
exclaim, "There goes the rich old lady from the Bay, with her niece and
her pony dog."
The latter was the name by which the Fairy Prince was known, and he did
indeed look like a lazy dog as he trotted far in the rear of the tall
black steeds on which his mistress and her niece were mounted.
If the weather were too warm for his liking, he often pulled up at some
of the farms where he was known, and where he was sure of a welcome
from admiring children. There he would await Miss Gastonguay, and in
the cool of the evening joyfully rejoin her, and return to his stable
and his epicurean diet.
One day, when far from home, Miss Gastonguay, who happened to be alone,
met Justin Mercer, who was also on horseback, his face, however, being
set toward Rossignol, while hers was away from it.
She reined in her beautiful black animal with an imperative "Where have
you been?"
"To Cloverdale on business. A farmer who is ill sent for me."
"What is your wife doing?"
"She is yachting to-day."
"What with her shore dinners, and her clambakes, and drives, and
sailing parties, and golf, and tennis, and visits to the poor, I never
see her now," grumbled Miss Gastonguay. "I want her to myself for one
afternoon. Will you all come up next Thursday and have a picnic in my
woods?"
Justin assured her that they would be glad to do so.
"And have your mother come, and that extraordinary man, her husband."
Justin's big white teeth gleamed approvingly, then a silence fell
between them. They were on the summit of a bluff one hundred feet above
a flat, white beach. As from the height of some battlement they looked
out on a wide blue stretch of water. The view was one of exquisite
peace and beauty, yet Miss Gastonguay's eyes came drearily back to her
companion's quietly happy face.
"You don't let that child spend any of the wanderer's money?"
"Not a cent."
"That's good, but how do you explain your economies when she knows he
has money?"
"I don't explain them fully."
"And she submits?"
"Yes."
"You must have been very much in love to have married the daughter of
such a man," she said, with a curious wonder in her voice.
He had been, but he said nothing, and quietly restrained his horse,
which was impatiently pawing the ground in the direction of Rossignol.
"You are not willing for me to give her presents," Miss Gastonguay went
on.
"I had rather you would not do so."
She left him with as little ceremony as she had greeted him; and, with
all the gladness taken from the bright summer afternoon, he went sadly
on his way.
Miss Gastonguay was not an old woman, yet she was breaking up. The
discovery that her long-lost brother, whom she had hoped was dead, was
living as a prey upon society had humbled her pride and broken her
spirit. The black shadow of disgrace hung continually over her, and
Justin uneasily wondered whether he had done right to give her the
shock that had eaten the heart and comfort out of her life.
He thought he had. He had fulfilled his duty; he had kept his promise
to the unhappy man who wished his daughter to come under the protection
of the sister so long separated from him. This had afforded Miss
Gastonguay the consolation of Derrice, and a day might come, a day
would come, he feared, when her ministrations and forgiveness might
be needed for the wanderer himself. It was better for a woman of
her temperament to have time to brood over a matter than to have it
suddenly announced to her.
Then, too, in spite of her trouble, she had become softened,--more
womanly, less hard,--and she had gained either an additional devotion,
or a wonderful simulation of it, from her elder niece, the one upon
whom she had lavished her wealth and affection for so many years.
Derrice's sudden establishment of empire over Miss Gastonguay had
struck a spark of jealousy from Chelda's cold heart. To counterbalance
this influence she had partly abandoned her selfish and solitary mode
of life, and had given herself up to her aunt. To please her she
cultivated Derrice; to please her she shunned the summer visitors
among whom she usually found congenial associates. True, she was
possibly becoming more deceitful; but if she were, Justin could not
help it. He had done what he thought was right, and he must patiently
await results. It was an involved affair. Only one thing was clear;
and, as he went quickly on his way, his horse's hoofs seemed to beat
from the hard and stony ground the inexorable words: "Retribution,
retribution,--for one man's sin many must suffer."
Upon reaching home, he made haste to deliver Miss Gastonguay's
invitation, lest any member of the family should make other
arrangements for the day mentioned.
His mother was tranquilly pleased, Derrice was delighted; for Miss
Gastonguay had, since the summer began, shown a perverse inclination to
keep to herself, and, although glad to see her at French Cross, had not
favoured her with many special invitations.
Captain White was non-committal until urged by his wife to make some
response. "Of course I'll go," he then said. "Haven't I been longing
for a small picnic all summer? I hate those caravans of things where
food and people are all jumbled up together."
Accordingly, after an early dinner on Thursday, the Mercer-White
household set out in an electric car for French Cross.
They found Miss Gastonguay waiting for them on the steps of the
château. "Chelda isn't going," she said. "Some tiresome person is
coming to see her."
At that moment the young lady herself made her appearance, and politely
expressed her regret that she was unable to accompany them.
"Such a stupid thing," said Miss Gastonguay, impatiently. "One would
think Chelda was an advertising agency,--but come, we might as well be
going."
Chelda stood watching them filing through a gate in the wall that
led to a garden across which was a short cut to the wood. No one was
sorry that she was not going, and all had been too honest to profess
a disappointment that they did not feel. Only Derrice had uttered a
surprised and regretful "Oh, we shall miss you, Miss Chelda."
Chelda did not resent their lack of interest. She was utterly
indifferent to the good or the bad opinion of any one in Rossignol,
and she calmly continued to watch them until a sudden impulse made her
saunter after them.
Captain White had placed himself beside her aunt, and as they went
through the gate she heard him say, "I know you're often on the lookout
for a situation for some man, and if you've got an able-bodied fellow
in mind I might get him in as a sealer,--wages three dollars a day."
"This is some city-bred man that is coming to see Chelda," said Miss
Gastonguay. "What is his name?" and she looked over her shoulder at her
niece.
"Smith or Jones, or something of the sort."
"Robinson--that's it," said Miss Gastonguay. "Some friend of Chelda
wrote her about him. Miss Rose, wasn't it?" and she turned again.
"Yes," replied Chelda, pleasantly; "she wrote me some long story about
this man. I think she said he had been a butler in their family.
I really forget what it was, for I lost the letter. If she wishes
employment for him, I wonder she did not apply to you, aunt."
"And his name is Robinson?" asked Captain White, carelessly.
"Yes."
"And he telegraphs to Chelda as big as a lord," continued Miss
Gastonguay. "Will call on you Thursday, at 3 P. M.,'--a peremptory
butler that."
"Perhaps he is hard up," suggested Captain White.
To his regret the conversation was here broken off, for Derrice
exclaimed, suddenly, "Can't we go through the graveyard?"
The old French cemetery, with its graves clustering around the hill
on which gleamed the marble cross, was a little to their left, but
Miss Gastonguay willingly made the détour. Justin did not go in. He
stood silently by the gate, his gaze wandering after his wife. Dear
little feet slipping so reverently between the grassy mounds. How far
was their owner from suspecting her relationship to the weary sleepers
below!
Lingeringly she went from one marble slab to another, touching with
gentle fingers the flowers laid upon them, or pausing to read the
inscriptions carved to the memory of Gastonguays, De Lisles or De Saint
Castins.
The small cemetery was exquisitely kept. Miss Gastonguay possessed an
almost Chinese reverence for the last resting-places of her ancestors,
and one of her favourite occupations was to pace slowly to and fro in
the green enclosure that had almost fallen into oblivion when she began
her reign at French Cross.
Justin saw that her piercing glance was bent approvingly on his
wife, and that her eyes filled with tears when Derrice knelt beside
the tiniest grave of all,--that of a little child Gastonguay,--and
tenderly laid on it a rose that she took from her breast. There was
a lamb on the grave, a sculptured lamb of white Maine granite, and
above towered a colossal figure in flesh-red stone of the founder of
the house,--stout-hearted Louis Gastonguay, who stood as in life, his
back to the sea, his trusty musket in his right hand, his left pointing
urgently toward the interior of the vast country whose exploration was
the chief topic of conversation in his day.
Derrice and the lamb, and old Louis and his musket, stood in fine
contrast. Chelda, looking on and suppressing her disdain, could
not, however, conceal from Justin her conviction that his wife's
attitude was one chosen for subtle effect rather than one of unstudied
simplicity. He smiled slightly, called Derrice, and the picnic party
took up its way to the wood, while Chelda returned to the house.
She was not lonely, although she had never in her life been as much cut
off from society as she was this summer. She despised Rossignol, she
disliked the people in it. Only one person had made the place endurable
to her, and that person had been driven from her. She had now but one
desire,--to accomplish her vengeance, to see Derrice unhappy, one-tenth
as unhappy as she was,--and then to take her aunt to some place nearer
the man without whom her life was unendurable.
He would never return to Rossignol, she felt persuaded of that. She
had been patient and stealthy in waiting for the time to come when she
might go in search of him, and something told her that this time was
now approaching.
Her interview to-day would probably close her dealings with H.
Robinson, and calmly making her way to the library, she took up a book
and sat down to await his coming.