CONTENTMENT.
"And on her lover's arm she leaned,
And 'round her waist she felt it fold."
Some two or three months of Julian's leave remained to expire at the
time when the foregoing explanation had taken place, and perhaps
nothing which had occurred since the day when he first set foot in
British Honduras had caused him more perplexity than his present
deliberations as to how to make the best of that period.
For now he knew that he had done with the colony for ever; he had
achieved that for which he had come to it; he had proved the truth of
George Ritherdon's statement up to the hilt, and--in so far as
obtaining the possession of that which was undoubtedly his--well! the
law would soon take steps to enable him to do so.
Only, when he told himself that he had done with the colony, when he
reflected that henceforth his foot would never tread on its earth
more, he had also to tell himself that he could alone consent to sever
his connection with it by also taking away with him the most precious
thing it contained in his eyes--Beatrix Spranger.
"For," he said to that young lady, as once more they sat in the garden
at "Floresta," with about and around them all the surroundings that he
had learned to know so well and to recall during many of the gloomy
nights and days he had spent at Desolada--the great shade palms, the
gorgeous flamboyants and delicate oleander blossoms, as well as the
despairing looking and lugubrious monkey--"for, darling, I cannot go
without you. If I were to do so, Heaven alone knows when I could
return to claim you; and, also, I cannot wait. Sweetheart, you too
must sail for England with me, and it must be as Mrs. Ritherdon."
He said the same thing often. Indeed at night, which is--as those
acquainted with such matters tell us--the period when young ladies
pass in review the principal events that have happened to them during
the day, Beatrix used to consider, or rather to calculate, that he
made the same remark about twenty times daily. While, since, loving
and gentle as she was, she was also possessed of a considerable amount
of feminine perspicacity, she supposed that he reiterated the phrase
upon the principle that the constant drop of water which falls upon a
stone will at last wear it away.
"Though," the girl would say to herself in those soft hours of maiden
meditation, "he need not fear. He cannot but think that his longing is
also shared by me."
Aloud, however, when once more he repeated what had become almost a
set phrase, she said:
"You know that you have taken an unfair advantage of me. Indeed,
though it was only by chance, you have put me to terrible
mortification. You overheard my avowal to that unhappy girl, my avowal
that--that--I loved you." And Beatrix blushed most beautifully as she
softly uttered the words. "Think what an avowal it was. To be made by
a woman for a man who had never asked for her love."
"Had he not," Julian said, "had he not, Beatrix? Never asked for that
love on one happy day spent alone by that woman's side, when he
confided everything to her that bore upon his presence here; and she,
full of soft and gentle sympathy, told him all her fears and anxiety
for the risks he might run. And, did he not ask for that love on the
night which followed that day, as they rode back to Belize beneath the
stars?"
And now his eyes were gazing into hers with a look of love which no
woman could doubt, even though no other man had ever looked at her so
before; while since loverlike, they were sitting close together, his
arm stole round her waist.
To the inexperienced--the present narrator included--it may be
permitted to wonder how lovers learn to do these things as well as how
they discover, too, the efficacy of such subtle tenderness; yet one is
told that they are done, and that the success thereof is indisputable.
Nor, with Beatrix, did either the look of love or the soft environment
of his arm fail in their effort, as may be judged from her answer to
his whispered question, "It shall be, shall it not, darling?"
"Yes," she murmured, blushing again and more deeply. "Yes. If father
permits."
And so Julian's love grew toward a triumphant termination; yet still
there were other matters to be seen to and arranged ere he, with his
wife by his side, should quit the colony forever. One thing, however,
it transpired, would require little trouble in arranging; namely, the
property of Desolada, when the law should put him in possession of it,
since, on investigation being made after the disappearance of
Sebastian, it was found to be so heavily mortgaged that to pay off the
loans upon it would leave Julian without any capital whatever; while,
at the same time, he would be saddled with a possession in a country
with which he had nothing in common. Of what had become of the money
left by Charles Ritherdon at his death (and it had been a substantial
sum) or of what had become of the other sums borrowed on Desolada,
there was no one to inform them.
Sebastian had disappeared, was undoubtedly gone forever--and of his
fate there could be little doubt. Certainly there could be no doubt in
the minds of either Beatrix or Julian or of Mr. Spranger, who had of
course been made acquainted with the substitution of Sebastian for
Julian. Zara also had disappeared, and Madame Carmaux had--escaped.
How she had done it no one ever knew, but in the morning which
followed that eventful night when she made her confession, she was
missing from her room, at the door of which one of the constabulary
had been set as a guard. That she should be able so to evade those who
were passing the night at Desolada was easily to be comprehended when,
the next day, her room was examined; they understood how she might
have passed on to the balcony outside that room, have traversed it for
some distance, and then have made her way into some other apartment,
and so from that have descended the great stairs in the darkness, and
stolen away into the plantations. At any rate, whether these surmises
were correct or not, she was gone, and she has never since been seen
in British Honduras.
Yet one planter, who makes frequent journeys to New Orleans in
connection with his imports and exports, declares that only a few
months ago he saw her in Lafayette Square in that city. It was at the
time when the terrible scourge of Louisiana, the yellow fever, is most
dreaded, and even as the planter entered the Square he saw a man lying
prostrate on the ground, while afar off from him, because of fear of
the infection, yet regarding him with a gaping curiosity, was a crowd
of negroes and whites. Then, still watching the scene, this gentleman
saw a woman clad in the garb of a Nun of Calvary, who approached the
prostrate man, and, while calling on those near to assist him,
ministered to his wants in so far as she could. And, her veil falling
aside, the planter declared that he saw plainly the face of the woman
who, in British Honduras, had been known for a quarter of a century as
Miriam Carmaux. He also recognized her voice.
If such were the case, if, at last, that tempestuous soul--the soul of
a woman who, in her earlier days, had had meted out to her a more
cruel fate than falls to the lot of most women--if at last the erring
woman who had been driven to fraud and crime by the love she bore her
child--had found calm, if not peace, beneath that holy garb, perhaps
those who have heard her story may be disposed to think of her without
harshness. Such was the case with Julian Ritherdon, who, as she made
her confession, forgave her for all that she had attempted against
him--since she was scarcely a greater sinner than his own father, who
had countenanced the fraud she perpetrated, or his uncle, whose early
vindictiveness led to that fraud. Such, also, was the case with
Beatrix, from whose gentle eyes fell tears as she listened to the
narrative told by the unhappy woman while she was yet uncertain of the
doom of the son for whom she had so long schemed and plotted. And so
let it be with others. If she had erred, so also she had suffered.
And, by suffering, is atonement made.
You could not have witnessed, perhaps, a brighter scene than that
which took place on a clear October morning in the handsome Gothic
church of Belize, when Julian Ritherdon and Beatrix Spranger became
man and wife.
Space has not permitted for the introduction of the reader to several
other sweet young English maidens whose parents' affairs have led to
their residences in the colony; yet such maidens there are in
Honduras--as the inquiring traveller may see for himself, if he
chooses--and of these fair exiles some were, this morning,
bridesmaids. They, you may be sure, lent brightness and brilliancy to
the scene, and so did the uniforms of several young officers of her
Majesty's navy, these gentlemen having been impressed into the
ceremony For, as luck would have it, not a week before, H.M.S.
Cerberus (twin-screw cruiser, first-class, armoured) had anchored, off
Belize, and, as those acquainted with the Royal navy are aware, no
officer of that noble service can come into contact with any ship
belonging to it (as Julian Ritherdon soon did) without finding therein
old friends and comrades. Be very sure also, therefore, that George
Hope, George Potter, John Hamilton, that most illustrious of naval
doctors, "Jock" Lyons, and many others dear to friends both in and
out of the service, all came ashore in the bravery of their full
dress--epaulettes, cocked hats, and so forth--while the _Padré_ "stood
by" to lend a hand to the local clergyman in performing the ceremony.
While, too, the path from the churchyard gates to the church door was
lined by bluejackets who, of course, were here clad in their "whites"
and straw hats.
But, because rumour ever runneth swift of foot, even in so small a
colony as this--where, naturally, its feet have not so much ground to
cover--and in so small a capital as Belize, with its six thousand
inhabitants, the church was also filled with many others drawn from
the various races, mixed and pure, who dwell therein. For, by now,
there was scarcely a person in either the colony or capital to whose
ears there had not come the news that the handsome young officer who
was in a few moments to become the husband of Miss Spranger, was, in
truth, the rightful owner of Desolada. Likewise, all knew that
Sebastian had never been that owner, but that he was the son of
Carmaux, who had perished by the fangs of the tommy-goff, and of the
dark, mysterious beauty who had come among them as Miriam Gardelle and
had married him. And they knew, too, that this marriage was to be the
reward and crown of dangers run by Julian, of more than one attempt
upon his life, as well as that it was the outcome of a deep fraud
perpetrated and kept dark for many years.
Paz was there, too, his eyes glistening with rapture at the sound of
the Wedding March, his weird soul being ever stirred by music; so,
also, was Monsieur Lemaire, grave, dignified, and calm as became a
French gentleman in exile, and with, about him as ever, that flavour
of one who ought by right to have walked in the gardens of Versailles
two hundred years ago, and have basked in the smiles of the Great
Monarch.
And so they were married, nor can it be doubted that they will live
happy ever afterward--to use the sweet, old-time expression of the
storybooks of our infancy. Married--she given away by her father; he
supported by his oldest friend in the Cerberus--and both passing
happy! Married, and going forth along the path of life, he most
probably to distinction in his calling, she to the duties of an honest
English wife. Married and happy. What more was needed?
"I come," he said to her that afternoon, when already the steamer was
leaving Honduras far astern, and they were travelling by the new route
toward Kingstown on their road to England--"I came to Honduras to find
perhaps a father, perhaps an inheritance. Neither was to be granted to
me, but, instead, something five thousand times more precious--a wife
five thousand times more dear than any parent or any possession."
"And," she asked, her pure, earnest eyes gazing into his, "you are
contented? You are sure that that will make you happy?"
To which he replied--as--well! as, perhaps--if a man--you would have
replied yourself.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Bitter Heritage, by John Bloundelle-Burton