THE ELOPEMENT
For Law immutable hath one decree,
"No deed of good, no deed of ill can die;
All must ascend unto my loom and be
Woven for man in lasting tapestry."
--ISABELLA VALANCY CRAWFORD.
In the middle of May Miss Arabella's wedding gown was completed, and
presented a blue cascade of frills and flounces that delighted the
owner's beauty-loving soul. Just once had she tried it on, and then
only in sections, for Mrs. Munn said it was dreadful bad luck to wear
your wedding gown before the day. So at one time Miss Arabella had put
on the billowy skirt with her lilac waist; and at another the blue silk
blouse with her old gingham skirt, and even then she had been seized
with such a fit of trembling that Elsie Cameron had to hold her up.
The dressmaking had been carried on in a large empty room above the
doctor's surgery, and when it was finished Miss Arabella left the gown
there. She dared not take it home, for fear Susan would discover it.
So Mrs. Munn wrapped it carefully in a sheet and hung it behind the
door. There were bunches of dried sage and mint and lavender hanging
along the low rafters above it, and just to move the wedding dress gave
one a whiff as sweet as a breath from all the spices of Araby.
Often, when Dr. Allen drove away, Miss Arabella would run over to Mrs.
Munn's, and up the back stairs, for a look at the gown, just to
convince herself that it had not been merely a beautiful dream. It was
something tangible, the outward and visible sign that her happiness was
real. For hours afterward she would go about her work in a kind of
blissful daze, until Susan declared it was a caution how Arabella
forgot things, and she wondered what on earth was the matter with her.
She looked well enough, but sometimes her appetite was bad, and she,
Susan, had a good mind to take her over to Dr. Allen, and see if he
couldn't cure her up in a day, the way he did last fall.
Arabella had another mysterious source of forgetfulness. When Susan's
watchfulness kept her from visiting Mrs. Munn's lumber room, she would
slip away into her spare bedroom, shut the door, and taking out two
letters from her top drawer, would sit down and read them again and
again. The last letter was always convincing; it breathed Martin's
strong, joyous spirit from every line, and drove away all fears. It
had come promptly in answer to hers, and had been sent under cover to
Mrs. Munn, for fear Ella Anne's curiosity might again be aroused.
Martin evidently retained his old rollicking spirits, for he fell in
most cordially with the plan for eloping. It suited him down to the
ground, he declared. He would come to Lakeview on the last night of
May, and early in the morning of the first of June he would drive out
in the finest livery rig the place possessed, and away they would fly,
without a howd'ye-do to any one. But they must come back for a little
visit after their honeymoon, for there was a certain old friend of his
in Elmbrook he must see. He was not going to tell even her about him,
because it was to be a big surprise. He felt like going out and
shooting up the town when he thought about it all.
Miss Arabella had taken the letter to Elsie soon after its arrival, and
had read parts of it aloud. Whom did Elsie suppose he meant by an old
friend in the village? She couldn't remember that he had known any one
here very well, except William. Martin and William had taken to each
other from the first. Yes, likely he meant William.
Elsie was fashioning a white lace ruffle for the collar of the blue
silk gown, and bent her shining head lower over her work. Here was
another proof of Martin's whole-souled generosity. There was not a
hint of blame for his ungrateful friend.
"D'ye know, Elsie," said Miss Arabella hesitatingly, "it jist makes me
feel bad to see you sewing anything for that dress,
because--because--it was to have been yours, you know."
"But, indeed, Arabella, you know I'd far rather see you wear it. When
should I ever put on such a grand dress as that, with all the work I
have to do?"
"Oh, but I Intended it for your wedding dress! You mind, I told you?"
"Wedding dress!" Elsie laughed. "Why, Arabella, it might have been
worn into rag-carpet strips before I'd need it!"
"But I thought--it seemed to me, he--he always acts as if he liked you
so awful, Elsie."
"He? Who? Do you mean Lauchie McKitterick or Sawed-Off Wilmott, or
Sandy McQuarry, or whom do you mean, Arabella Winters?"
"Oh, dear me, Elsie!" Miss Arabella gave a half-distressed little
laugh. "You know they wouldn't, one o' them, dast look at you. You
know right well I mean the doctor."
The girl bent lower over her work, and a flush crept over her face.
She shook her head decidedly. "Oh, no! no! Arabella. You are all
wrong. Dr. Allen has no more idea of caring for me in that way than I
of caring for him. Come, let me see if these wrist-bands are large
enough."
Miss Arabella felt the gentle rebuke, and sighed. It was really too
bad, because they were both so good-looking, and so well suited, and so
young. And the faded little lilac lady thought regretfully of her lost
youth.
The second letter allayed any lingering fears Elsie had felt regarding
the elopement. According to Dr. Allen, she might safely trust Arabella
to Martin Heaslip, and his own words went to prove the same. So if
they wanted to run away, let them; they would run back in a few days,
anyway, and then what would happen? Would the young man have the grace
to be ashamed of himself? Martin, she was sure, would never blame him;
his letter had breathed nothing but heartiest good-will. But Martin's
generosity only made the other's ingratitude the blacker.
Meanwhile, the first of June was fast approaching, and as yet no one
had a suspicion of the treasure hidden away in Mrs. Munn's lumber room.
Even that lady's talent for keeping a secret might have been rather
severely taxed had it not been that those around her were absorbed in
other interests. There were Davy and his bosom comrade, the eldest
orphan. They certainly would have divined that something unusual was
transpiring in the old storeroom; but just now they had no time for
such trivial things. For the race between Sawed-Off Wilmott and young
Lochinvar, begun on the last show day, and continued hotly all winter,
was fast reaching a culminating point. The boys were vastly interested
in it, and since the long evenings had passed Tim had discarded books
and fallen back into his old evil ways. So between them and Ella Anne,
life was made a thorny path for the rival lovers.
Then the shrewd Mrs. Munn had noticed that lately the doctor seemed to
be absent-minded. Indeed, he was very much worried over a problem of
his own that had nothing to do with his patients. The question was,
what had he done to offend Miss Cameron? Why she should have suddenly
changed from warm friendship to cold avoidance of him he could not
understand. Whenever he called, she was out, or overwhelmingly busy,
or just about to fulfil another engagement, until he understood, and
ceased calling. Her conduct hurt him more than he could have thought
possible. He had long known and admired her profoundly. He cared much
for her good opinion; but that her disapproval could wound him was
something he had not suspected. He had supposed that Rosalie had made
anything like that quite impossible for him forever.
So, in the midst of these abstractions, Miss Arabella's wedding gown
hung, all unnoticed, in the fragrance of lavender and mint, until at
last the end of May arrived, the eve of the day set for the elopement.
Dr. Allen had been driving Speed all day, and his other horse was out
in the pasture-field; so, early in the evening, he walked down toward
the Drowned Lands to see a patient, taking the pathway through the
ravine. He had not been down there since the winter road had broken
up, and he found Treasure Valley all a wonder of purple and gold--where
the violets carpeted the banks and the marigolds choked the stream.
Down in the fragrant stillness the sounds of the village grew faint and
far away. Here was only the murmur of the water over the white stones,
or the even-song of the vesper sparrows in the sumachs along the banks.
As Gilbert came down to the water's edge he spied another figure
approaching from the opposite bank, a slim figure in a white gown, with
a crown of hair that rivaled the golden blossoms in the stream. He
hesitated a moment, then crossed over to her.
"May I help you across?" he asked with a stiff formality he would not
have used a few weeks previous.
The minds of both recurred to their first meeting in this very spot, a
little more than a year before.
"I hope you will not object to my company for that length of time," he
added, finding it impossible to keep something of his grievance out of
his voice.
"Oh, no, certainly not," she stammered, not knowing how to truthfully
refute his implied charge.
There was that look of distress in her eyes that filled him with
compunction. When they reached the other side he stood and looked down
at her with the old feeling that, somehow, he was all in the wrong, and
she entirely right.
"Won't you tell me what I have done to offend you?" he asked abruptly.
A deeper rose color came to her cheeks. This was just the question she
was dreading. "I--I--nothing," she stammered incoherently.
"Then won't you tell me why you treat me so?" His indignation had
vanished; his tone was very humble. "I cannot help seeing that you
have changed, and I have done nothing, I _could_ do nothing, wittingly,
to hurt you."
"You have not done anything to offend _me_," she said in a low tone,
with a slight accent on the pronoun.
"Then what has changed you? We are not good friends any more?" His
voice was inquiring.
She would have given much to contradict him, but her nature was
essentially honest, and she breathed the low answer, "No."
"I feared it, I knew it; but don't you think you might, at least, tell
me the reason?" He was surprised at his own meekness.
The girl looked down into the murmuring, brown Water. Something arose
in her throat and threatened to choke her. If he would only not be so
humble. If he were haughty and indignant, her task would be much
easier. And then, might she not be wrong? Oh, if he would only tell
her she was mistaken! She struggled for some words by which she might
avoid telling him the truth, but she was a country-bred girl, all
unused to the small equivocations of social usage, and the
uncompromising integrity of her nature forbade trifling.
"Dr. Allen," she faltered at last, "I--perhaps I have judged you
harshly. Please do not ask me the reason. I would rather not talk
about it."
"But I do ask you," said Gilbert determinedly. "Is it quite fair to
condemn a man unheard?"
"I may have accused you wrongly," she said, the necessity of the case
driving her again to speech, "but I--we all"--she plucked a feathery
spray of the long-stemmed water-grass and examined it
minutely--"everybody thought you so good and kind--and I learned
something--accidentally--that disappointed me."
She glanced up with a mute appeal; but his looks were uncompromising.
"Well?" he asked quietly.
She looked up and down the shadowy ravine as if seeking help. Why not
tell him? There could be no harm to Arabella. He would know soon,
anyway, and she need not mention the wedding, and perhaps he might
vindicate himself. So, with her eyes on the golden-brown pool at her
feet, she told him the story, simply and sorrowfully, and as gently as
possible, of Miss Arabella's years of patient waiting, of the blue silk
gown laid away so long, of all Martin had suffered from poverty and
sickness, unhelped when he needed help so badly; and then of the sequel
of the story which he himself had told.
She looked at him when she had ended, and Gilbert could not help seeing
that the telling of it had hurt her almost as much as it had hurt him.
And how it had stung him! Martin starving in a mining camp while he
spent his money on roses and theater tickets for Rosalie Lane! Martin,
sick, poor, and struggling to make a home for the woman he loved, while
he--the man he had made--spent all upon his own pleasures and
ambitions! He was aghast at the far-reaching power of his fault. He
had selfishly neglected a man away off in the Klondyke, and had hurt a
frail little woman at his door, whom every instinct of his manhood
called upon him to protect.
His sorrowful-eyed accuser was looking at him, in the eager hope that
he might deny the charge. But he did not attempt the smallest
palliation. He scorned to make the paltry plea that, at the eleventh
hour, he had paid the debt of so many years' standing. As if he could
ever pay Martin!
"I must, at least, thank you for your candor," he said at last, a
little unsteadily.
Her eyes grew dark with disappointment. Her suspicions had been only
too well founded, then! She spoke no word of blame, there was no
righteous indignation in her face, only a cutting disappointment; and
there Gilbert felt the greater sting. He had not offended her
personally, it seemed; he had merely fallen wofully short of her
standard. There was no more to be said. He bade her a courteous
good-evening, and she turned slowly and passed up the hill, while he
followed the path down the stream. One of old Hughie Cameron's
philosophic remarks, which he had heard one evening on the milk-stand,
was sounding in his ears: "The Almighty would be laying his bounds
about every one of us--the bounds of His righteous laws. We may be
dodging them on one side, oh, yes; but they will be catching us up on
the other."
The girl climbed slowly up the bank. Her head was bent, and could
Gilbert have seen her face he would not have been quite so sure that
his shortcoming was to her such an entirely impersonal affair. With
her usual self-effacement, she made a brave attempt to put aside her
grief. She had promised to spend this last evening with Arabella, and
she must be cheerful and comforting. As she neared Mrs. Munn's house,
Davy and Tim were sitting on the sidewalk before the gate, talking so
volubly that they did not notice her approach.
"Yessir," Mr. Munn was saying, in a voice muffled by a mouthful of
chewing-gum, "they're goin' to do that thing--what d'ye call it when
two folks that's sparkin' run away?"
"Elope," said the orphan, from the depths of a profound experience of
the world.
"Yes, elope. Don't you ever tell, Tim; but I bet that's what Jeannie
an' me'll do some day; only I wish she wasn't such an awful girl to
laugh!" He sighed deeply, and the orphan grunted disgustedly.
"Aw, g'wan, ye silly duck! Say! le's set up all night an' watch.
They'll be goin' 'fore daylight, I bet----"
Elsie Cameron's light footfall sounded on the sidewalk, and the two
suddenly fell silent. Their shoulders sagged, and they sat gazing
vacantly across the street, as though life were a deadly bore.
The girl regarded the two curved, inscrutable backs in dismay. How on
earth had those two scamps penetrated Arabella's secret?
"Oh, boys!" she cried, coming up to them in hurried distress. "Hush!
How did you find out? Promise me you won't tell."
The two stood up and looked at her sheepishly. "We ain't tattlers,"
said the eldest orphan haughtily. "How'd _you_ find out?" he added
indignantly.
"Are you sure you've neither of you told anybody?" she asked, fixing
her searching eyes upon each in turn.
"Sure! Cross my heart!" declared Tim; and Davy nodded agreement.
The wire door of the doctor's house swung open creakingly, and Mrs.
Munn came slowly down the garden path. "Listen," whispered the girl
hurriedly, "I'll give you each a quarter to-morrow night if you'll
promise faithfully you won't tell, and that you'll do everything you
can--everything, mind--to help. Now, you will, won't you, boys?"
It was impossible to resist such an appeal to their chivalry. Tim
became a man on the spot. "Don't you worry," he declared with a grand
air. "We'll look after things. Me an' Dave here'll not squeak, you
bet."
Mrs. Munn opened the gate. "I'm goin' along with you to Arabella's for
a minit," she said. "Davy, don't you go away from the house while I'm
out, mind ye."
"How long'll ye be?" Inquired her son, in a tone that showed he was
prepared to argue the question.
"Jist a minit. If anybody comes for the doctor, jist say he's gone
away."
"I know he walked down the holler to see John Cross's kids."
"Hish!" she cried, looking about in alarm, as though the doctor had
gone off on a murderous expedition. "You can jist say he won't be home
till it's late. I guess there'll be no harm in them knowin' that. Now
mind."
Elsie gave a parting glance full of warning, and Tim answered with a
solemn wink.
The two boys watched the retreating figures until they disappeared into
Miss Arabella's gateway. Instantly Tim's languid air changed to keen
alertness.
"Say!" he exclaimed, "Ella Anne must 'a' told her! Lookee here! We've
gotter help them to 'lope now, or there's no quarter. What'll we do?"
Davy humped his shoulders rebelliously. "I ain't stuck on helpin' that
MacDonald coon to 'lope with nobody," he grumbled. "Don't you mind the
time he took after us?"
The orphan chuckled. "Cracky! he did lambaste you, though, didn't he?
Sawed-Off told the doc on us, though, the time we took the wheel off
his buggy. We've promised, anyhow," he continued righteously.
"Yes, an' I'd have to help Elsie anyhow," added Davy, with an air of
crushing responsibility. "Ye see, she's a sort o' a sister, ye know,
Tim, 'count o' Jean."
Tim made a horrible grimace. "Well, come on! Let's think o' somethin'
good an' awful to do to Sawed-Off!" he cried, anxious to change the
subject.
All winter the double wooing of Miss Long had caused great excitement
in the village. Folks declared it was scandalous the way Ella Anne
carried on with those two fellows of hers, never giving either one more
chance than the other, and it would be a caution if she wasn't left
again, the way she was when young McQuarry married the squaw.
Ella Anne's conduct caused consternation in the Long family, too. The
young lady was suspected of favoring young MacDonald, while her parents
strongly encouraged Mr. Wilmott. Sawed-Off was decidedly "well fixed,"
with his cattle and his cheese factory, while the young fellow from the
Highlands was a gay lad, with never an acre to his name, and no match
for a girl who had had a year's music lessons, not to speak of all the
other attainments of Miss Long.
So far, Davy and Tim had been quite impartial, and had strewn both
suitors' paths with such difficulties that the younger man had finally
laid violent hands upon them; and Sawed-Off had complained to the
respective authorities set over each. The latter treatment had not
troubled the mischief-makers much. Mrs. Munn declared that talking
always did harm, and talking to boys was worse than useless. Jake and
Hannah bewailed their eldest's sudden fall from grace, and wondered if
his growing intimacy with John McIntyre was having an evil effect upon
the child. And there it ended. The boys still continued their
attentions to the rival lovers, and so closely had they watched the
proceedings that on the last night of May they were in possession of a
secret plot for the morrow, which the lovers fondly believed to be
their own.
Hidden behind the Longs' cedar hedge one night, the eldest orphan had
overheard some whispers between Ella Anne and the young Lochinvar.
They were going to run away, Tim had gathered--have a regular
elopement, like Evelina and Daring Dick, in the book he and Davy had
just read. "The night before the mill starts," young MacDonald had
whispered, "everybody'll be too busy to notice." Well, the mill
started to-morrow! And besides that, Davy, who had been on the lookout
while his fellow conspirator lay beneath the hedge, had spied Sawed-Off
Wilmott come crawling from behind the lilac bushes at the Longs' gate,
and go sneaking down the road. So the boys were anticipating high
times. Sawed-Off would certainly be along to prevent the elopement,
and they had determined to be on the watch, and miss none of the sport.
And here, like two chivalrous knights, at the request of a distressed
damsel, they had pledged themselves to help the lovers! Elsie was
evidently in the plot with Ella Anne, and evidently neither girl
guessed at Sawed-Off's perfidy. Tim jumped up in excitement and began
to swagger up and down, his hands in his pockets. It was as good as
Daring Dick's dilemmas, this situation. Elsie would certainly admire
him, and consider him the cleverest young man in the village. They
must perform some glorious deed that very night.
"What'll we do?" asked Davy. He was a ready helper when Tim was on the
warpath, but the orphan's more fertile brain always supplied the
material for their misdeeds.
Tim's eyes grew luminous. "Say! he's scared stiff about the banshee
that yells down in the Drowned Lands. He'll be comin' up that way
soon's it gets dark. If he seen a ghost there, he'd cut an' run, an'
never come back."
Davy's languor dropped from him like a garment. "Come on!" he
whispered, his eyes shining. "You scoot home an' git that last year's
punkin skin, an' I'll sneak some white duds out o' maw's bureau.
Golly! Ella Anne an' her feller'll be back from their weddin' tower
'fore Sawed-Off quits runnin'!"
Meanwhile, in a little house farther up the street, the three people
concerned in another runaway match were sitting in the twilight. No
one would have guessed that the forlorn, drooping little figure by the
window was the bride of the morrow, and the idea of an elopement was as
far removed from her as from a Jenny Wren. For, as the crucial moment
approached, poor Miss Arabella's small courage had dwindled away. To
get married would have been a tremendous undertaking in itself, but to
elope! For the first time, she realized the magnitude of the
enterprise. To get away from Susan's rule back into the joy of
girlhood dreams, had seemed, at first sight, like escaping from prison;
but now Susan and her laws seemed her only support, and Martin seemed
strange and far away.
"I don't know what makes me feel so queer," she faltered, "but ever
since that dress was finished I feel jist as if I'd been finished, too."
"Oh, you're jist nervous, Arabella," said Mrs. Munn, while Elsie patted
her hand soothingly. "It ain't no use talkin' about it now, anyhow.
It jist makes you feel worse. I tell you," she said, suddenly rising,
"let's go over to my place, an' I'll get you a drink o' my last year's
alderberry wine. The doctor's away, an' nobody'll see."
Elsie acquiesced, glad to second anything that would distract
Arabella's mind from her fears. She would go in with them for a few
minutes, and then slip away before Dr. Allen came back.
"No sign o' Davy," sighed Mrs. Munn, as they entered the dark and
deserted house. "Well, I s'pose it's no use talkin' to boys, talkin'
only makes things worse. Come in, an' I'll get a light."
She groped her way through the parlor, and lit the lamp that stood on a
yellow crocheted mat in the middle of the table. "Now, we'll go an'
have a drink o' that alderberry," she said cheerfully.
Miss Arabella touched Elsie's arm timidly, "Couldn't we have jist one
more look at the dress, first?" she whispered. "I feel as if the sight
of it would do me more good than a dose o' medicine. I know I'm an
awful goose, Harriet," she faltered.
Mrs. Munn smiled indulgently. "Come along," she said, "we'll go right
up now, an' you can slip it home in the dark, an' it'll be ready for
to-morrow."
She led the way upstairs, and along the creaking floor to the back
hall. As she opened the door of the lumber room a little breeze,
bearing the scent of lavender and mint, met them, and made the lamp
flare.
"Goodness me!" said Mrs. Munn in surprise, "how on earth did that
window come to be opened?"
Miss Arabella uttered a cry. She clutched Elsie's arm and pointed to
the wall. Mrs. Munn set the lamp down upon the bare pine table and
stared. There was the hook where the dress had so lately hung, in its
winding-sheet; there on the floor were great muddy tracks across to it
from the doorway, and where--oh, where---- The three women turned and
looked at each other in speechless dismay. The room was empty; the
wedding gown had eloped!