don't know what to say. I must have seemed to you like a madman a moment
ago, and now I've come to play the fool." Bartlett and Cummings look
their surprise, and General Wyatt hurries on: "I asked your friend to
beg you to go away, and now I am here to beg you to remain. It's
perfectly ridiculous, sir, I know, and I can say nothing in defence of
the monstrous liberties I have taken. Sir, the matter is simply this: my
daughter's health is so frail that her life seems to hang by a thread,
and I am powerless to do anything against her wish. It may be a culpable
weakness, but I cannot help it. When I went back to her from seeing your
friend, she immediately divined what my mission had been, and it had the
contrary effect from what I had expected. Well, sir! Nothing would
content her but that I should return and ask you to stay. She looks upon
it as the sole reparation we can make you."
_Bartlett_, gently.--"I understand that perfectly; and may I beg you to
say that in going away I thanked her with all my heart, and ventured to
leave her my best wishes?" He bows as if to go.
_General Wyatt_, detaining him.--"Excuse me--thanks--but--but I am
afraid she will not be satisfied with that. She will be satisfied with
nothing less than your remaining. It is the whim of a sick child--which
I must ask you to indulge. In a few days, sir, I hope we may be able to
continue on our way. It would be simply unbearable pain to her to know
that we had driven you away, and you must stay to show that you have
forgiven the wrong we have done you."
_Bartlett._--"That's nothing, less than nothing. But I was thinking--I
don't care for myself in the matter--that Miss Wyatt is proposing a very
unnecessary annoyance for you all. My friend can remain and assure her
that I have no feeling whatever about the matter, and in the meantime I
can remove--the embarrassment--of my presence."
_General Wyatt._--"Sir, you are very considerate, very kind. My own
judgment is in favour of your course, and yet"--
_Cummings._--"I think my friend is right, and that when he is gone"--
_General Wyatt._--"Well, sir! well, sir! It may be the best way. I think
it _is_ the best. We will venture upon it. Sir,"--to Bartlett,--"may I
have the honour of taking your hand?" Bartlett lays down his burden on
the piano, and gives his hand. "Thank you, thank you! You will not
regret this goodness. God bless you! May you always prosper!"
_Bartlett._--"Good-bye; and say to Miss Wyatt"--At these words he
pauses, arrested by an incomprehensible dismay in General Wyatt's face,
and turning about he sees Cummings transfixed at the apparition of Miss
Wyatt advancing directly toward himself, while her mother coming behind
her exchanges signals of helplessness and despair with the General. The
young girl's hair, thick and bronze, has been heaped in hasty but
beautiful masses on her delicate head; as she stands with fallen eyes
before Bartlett, the heavy lashes lie dark on her pale cheeks, and the
blue of her eyes shows through their transparent lids. She has a fan
with which she makes a weak pretence of playing, and which she puts to
her lips as if to hide the low murmur that escapes from them as she
raises her eyes to Bartlett's face.
VIII.
CONSTANCE, MRS. WYATT, _and the others_.
_Constance_, with a phantom-like effort at hauteur.--"I hope you have
been able to forgive the annoyance we caused you, and that you won't let
it drive you away." She lifts her eyes with a slow effort, and starts
with a little gasp as they fall upon his face, and then remains
trembling before him while he speaks.
_Bartlett_, reverently.--"I am to do whatever you wish. I have no
annoyance--but the fear that--that"--
_Constance_, in a husky whisper.--"Thanks!" As she turns from him to go
back to her mother, she moves so frailly that he involuntarily puts out
his hand.
_Mrs. Wyatt_, starting forward.--"No!" But Constance clutches his
extended arm with one of her pale hands, and staying herself for a
moment lifts her eyes again to his, looks steadily at him with her face
half turned upon him, and then, making a slight, sidelong inclination of
the head, releases his arm and goes to her mother, who supports her to
one of the easy-chairs and kneels beside her when she sinks into it.
Bartlett, after an instant of hesitation, bows silently and withdraws,
Cummings having already vanished. Constance watches him going, and then
hides her face on her mother's neck.
II.
DISTINCTIONS AND DIFFERENCES.
I.
CONSTANCE _and_ MRS. WYATT.
_Constance._--"And he is still here? He is going to stay on, mother?"
She reclines in a low folding chair, and languidly rests her head
against one of the pillows with which her mother has propped her; on the
bright coloured shawl which has been thrown over her lie her pale hands
loosely holding her shut fan. Her mother stands half across the parlour
from her, and wistfully surveys her work, to see if some touch may not
yet be added for the girl's comfort.
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Yes, my child. He will stay. He told your father he
would stay."
_Constance._--"That's very kind of him. He's very good."
_Mrs. Wyatt_, seating herself before her daughter.--"Do you really wish
him to stay? Remember how weak you are, Constance. If you are taking
anything upon yourself out of a mistaken sense of duty, of compunction,
you are not kind to your poor father or to me. Not that I mean to
reproach you."
_Constance._--"Oh, no. And I am not unkind to you in the way you think.
I'm selfish enough in wishing him to stay. I can't help wanting to see
him again and again,--it's so strange, so strange. All this past week,
whenever I've caught a glimpse of him, it's been like an apparition; and
whenever he has spoken, it has been like a ghost speaking. But I haven't
been afraid since the first time. No, there's been a dreary comfort in
it; you won't understand it; I can't understand it myself; but I know
now why people are glad to see their dead in dreams. If the ghost went,
there would be nothing."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Constance, you break my heart!"
_Constance._--"Yes, I know it; it's because I've none." She remains a
little space without speaking, while she softly fingers the edges of the
fan lying in her lap. "I suppose we shall become more acquainted, if he
stays?"
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Why, not necessarily, dear. You need know nothing more
of him than you do now. He seems very busy, and not in the least
inclined to intrude upon us. Your father thinks him a little odd, but
very gentlemanly."
_Constance_, dreamily.--"I wonder what he would think if he knew that
the man whom I would have given my life did not find my love worth
having? I suppose it _was_ worthless; but it seemed so much in the
giving; it was that deceived me. He was wiser. Oh, me!" After a silence:
"Mother, why was I so different from other girls?"
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"So different, Constance? You were only different in
being lovelier and better than others."
_Constance._--"Ah, that's the mistake! If that were true, it could
never have happened. Other girls, the poorest and plainest, are kept
faith with; but I was left. There must have been something about me that
made him despise me. Was I silly, mother? Was I too bold, too glad to
have him care for me? I was so happy that I couldn't help showing it.
May be that displeased him. I must have been dull and tiresome. And I
suppose I was somehow repulsive, and at last he couldn't bear it any
longer and had to break with me. Did I dress queerly? I know I looked
ridiculous at times; and people laughed at me before him."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Oh, Constance, Constance! Can't you understand that it
was his unworthiness alone, his wicked heartlessness?"
_Constance_, with gentle slowness.--"No, I can't understand that. It
happened after we had learned to know each other so well. If he had been
fickle, it would have happened long before that. It was something odious
in me that he didn't see at first. I have thought it out. It seems
strange now that people could ever have tolerated me." Desolately:
"Well, they have their revenge."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Their revenge on _you_, Constance? What harm did you
ever do them, my poor child? Oh, you mustn't let these morbid fancies
overcome you. Where is our Constance that used to be,--our brave, bright
girl, that nothing could daunt, and nothing could sadden?"
_Constance_, sobbing.--"Dead, dead!"
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"I can't understand! You are so young still, and with
the world all before you. Why will you let one man's baseness blacken it
all, and blight your young life so? Where is your pride, Constance?"
_Constance._--"Pride? What have I to do with pride? A thing like me!"
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Oh, child, you're pitiless! It seems as if you took a
dreadful pleasure in torturing those who love you."
_Constance._--"You've said it, mother. I do. I know now that I am a
vampire, and that it's my hideous fate to prey upon those who are
dearest to me. He must have known, he must have felt the vampire in me."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Constance!"
_Constance._--"But at least I can be kind to those who care nothing for
me. Who is this stranger? He must be an odd kind of man to forgive us.
What is he, mother?--if he is anything in himself; he seems to me only a
likeness, not a reality."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"He is a painter, your father says." Mrs. Wyatt gives a
quick sigh of relief, and makes haste to confirm the direction of the
talk away from Constance: "He is painting some landscapes here. That
friend of his who went to-day is a cousin of your father's old friend,
Major Cummings. He is a minister."
_Constance._--"What is the painter's name? Not that it matters. But I
must call him something if I meet him again."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Mr. Bartlett."
_Constance._--"Oh yes, I forgot." She falls into a brooding silence. "I
wonder if _he_ will despise me--if he will be like in that too?" Mrs.
Wyatt sighs patiently. "Why do you mind what I say, mother? I'm not
worth it. I must talk on, or else go mad with the mystery of what has
been. We were so happy; he was so good to me, so kind; there was nothing
but papa's not seeming to like him; and then suddenly, in an instant, he
turns and strikes me down! Yes, it was like a deadly blow. If you don't
let me believe that it was because he saw all at once that I was utterly
unworthy, I can't believe in anything."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Hush, Constance; you don't know what you're saying."
_Constance._--"Oh, I know too well! And now this stranger, who is so
like him--who has all his looks, who has his walk, who has his
voice,--won't he have his insight too? I had better show myself for what
I am, at once--weak, stupid, selfish, false; it'll save me the pain of
being found out. Pain? Oh, I'm past hurting! Why do you cry, mother? I'm
not worth your tears."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"You're all the world to us, Constance; you know it,
child. Your poor father"--
_Constance._--"Does papa really like me?"
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Constance!"
_Constance._--"No; but why should he? He never liked _him_; and
sometimes I've wondered, if it wasn't papa's not liking him that first
set him against me. Of course, it was best he should find me out, but
still I can't keep from thinking that if he had never _begun_ to dislike
me! I noticed from the first that after papa had been with us he was
cold and constrained. Mother, I had better say it: I don't believe I
love papa as I ought. There's something in my heart--some
hardness--against him when he's kindest to me. If he had only been
kinder to _him_"--
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Kinder to _him_? Constance, you drive me wild! Kind to
a wolf, kind to a snake! Kind to the thief who has robbed us of all that
made our lives dear; who stole your love, and then your hope, your
health, your joy, your pride, your peace! And you think your father
might have been kinder to _him_! Constance, you were our little girl
when the war began,--the last of brothers and sisters that had died. You
seemed given to our later years to console and comfort us for those that
had been taken; and you were _so_ bright and gay! All through those
dreadful days and months and years you were our stay and hope,--mine at
home, his in the field. Our letters were full of you,--like young
people's with their first child; all that you did and said I had to tell
him, and then he had to talk it over in his answers back. When he came
home at last after the peace--can you remember it, Constance?"
_Constance._--"I can remember a little girl that ran down the street,
and met an officer on horseback. He was all tanned and weather-beaten;
he sat his horse at the head of his troop like a statue of bronze. When
he saw her come running, dancing down the street, he leaped from his
horse and caught her in his arms, and hugged her close and kissed her,
and set her all crying and laughing in his saddle, and walked on beside
her; and the men burst out with a wild yell, and the ragged flags
flapped over her, and the music flashed out"-- She rises in her chair
with the thrill of her recollection; her voice comes free and full, and
her pale cheeks flush; suddenly she sinks back upon the pillows: "Was it
really I, mother?"
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Yes, it was you, Constance. And do you remember all
through your school-days, how proud and fond he was of you? what
presents and feasts and pleasures he was always making you? I thought he
would spoil you; he took you everywhere with him, and wanted to give you
everything. When I saw you growing up with his pride and quick temper, I
trembled, but I felt safe when I saw that you had his true and tender
heart too. You can never know what a pang it cost him to part with you
when we went abroad, but you can't forget how he met you in Paris?"
_Constance._--"Oh, no, no! Poor papa!"
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"Oh, child! And I could tell you something of his bitter
despair when he saw the man"--
_Constance_, wearily.--"You needn't tell me. I knew it as soon as they
met, without looking at either of them."
_Mrs. Wyatt._--"And when the worst that he feared came true, he was
almost glad, I believe. He thought, and I thought, that your
self-respect would come to your aid against such treachery."
_Constance._--"My self-respect? Now I know you've not been talking of
me."
_Mrs. Wyatt_, desperately.--"Oh, what shall I do?"
_Mary_, the serving-woman, at the door.--"If you please, Mrs. Wyatt, I
can't open Miss Constance's hat-box."
_Mrs. Wyatt_, rising.--"Oh, yes. There's something the matter with the
lock. I'll come, Mary." She looks at Constance.
_Constance._--"Yes, go, mother. I'm perfectly well here. I like being
alone well enough." As Mrs. Wyatt, after a moment's reluctance, goes
out, the girl's heavy eyelids fall, and she lies motionless against her
pillows, while the fan, released from her careless hold, slides slowly
over the shawl, and drops with a light clash upon the floor. She starts
at the sound, and utters a little involuntary cry at sight of Bartlett,
who stands irresolute in the doorway on her right. He makes as if to
retreat, but at a glance from her he remains.
II.
BARTLETT _and_ CONSTANCE.
_Bartlett_, with a sort of subdued gruffness.--"I'm afraid I disturbed
you."
_Constance_, passively.--"No, I think it was my fan. It fell."
_Bartlett._--"I'm glad I can lay the blame on the fan." He comes
abruptly forward and picks it up for her. She makes no motion to receive
it, and he lays it on her lap.
_Constance_, starting from the abstraction in which she has been gazing
at him.--"Oh! thanks."
_Bartlett_, with constraint.--"I hope you're better this morning?"
_Constance._--"Yes." She has again fallen into a dreamy study of him,
as unconscious, apparently, as if he were a picture before her, the
effect of which is to reduce him to a state of immovable awkwardness. At
last he tears himself loose from the spot on which he has been
petrifying, and takes refuge in the business which has brought him into
the room.
_Bartlett._--"I came to look for one of my brushes. It must have dropped
out of my traps here the other day." He goes up to the piano and looks
about the floor, while Constance's gaze follows him in every attitude
and movement. "Ah, here it is! I knew it would escape the broom under
the landlady's relaxed régime. If you happen to drop anything in this
room, Miss Wyatt, you needn't be troubled; you can always find it just
where it fell." Miss Wyatt's fan again slips to the floor, and Bartlett
again picks it up and restores it to her: "A case in point."
_Constance_, blushing faintly.--"Don't do it for me. It isn't worth
while."
_Bartlett_, gravely.--"It doesn't take a great deal of time, and the
exercise does me good." Constance faintly smiles, but does not relax her
vigilance. "Isn't that light rather strong for you?" He goes to the
glass doors opening on the balcony, and offers to draw down one of their
shades.
_Constance._--"It doesn't make any difference."
_Bartlett_, bluffly.--"If it's disagreeable it makes some difference. Is
it disagreeable?"
_Constance._--"The light's strong"--Bartlett dashes the curtain
down--"but I could see the mountain." He pulls the curtain up.
_Bartlett._--"I beg your pardon." He again falls into statue-like
discomposure under Miss Wyatt's gaze, which does not seek the distant
slopes of Ponkwasset, in spite of the lifted curtain.
_Constance._--"What is the name? Do you know?"
_Bartlett._--"Whose? Oh! Ponkwasset. It's not a pretty name, but it's
aboriginal. And it doesn't hurt the mountain." Recovering a partial
volition, he shows signs of a purpose to escape, when Miss Wyatt's next
question arrests him.
_Constance._--"Are you painting it, Mr.--Bartlett?"
_Bartlett_, with a laugh.--"Oh no, I don't soar so high as mountains; I
only lift my eyes to a tree here and there, and a bit of pasture and a
few of the lowlier and friendlier sort of rocks." He now so far effects
his purpose as to transfer his unwieldy presence to a lateral position
as regards Miss Wyatt. The girl mechanically turns her head upon the
pillow and again fixes her sad eyes upon him.
_Constance._--"Have you ever been up it?"
_Bartlett._--"Yes, half a dozen times."
_Constance._--"Is it hard to climb--like the Swiss mountains?"
_Bartlett._--"_You_ must speak for the Swiss mountains after you've
tried Ponkwasset, Miss Wyatt. I've never been abroad."
_Constance_, her large eyes dilating with surprise.--"Never been
abroad?"
_Bartlett._--"I enjoy that distinction."
_Constance._--"Oh! I thought you had been abroad." She speaks with a
slow, absent, earnest accent, regarding him, as always, with a look of
wistful bewilderment.
_Bartlett_, struggling uneasily for his habitual lightness.--"I'm sorry
to disappoint you, Miss Wyatt. I will go abroad as soon as possible. I'm
going out in a boat this morning to work at a bit on the point of the
island yonder, and I'll take lessons in sea-faring." Bartlett, managing
at last to get fairly behind Miss Wyatt's chair, indulges himself in a
long, low sigh of relief, and taking out his handkerchief rubs his face
with it.
_Constance_, with sudden, meek compunction.--"I've been detaining you."
_Bartlett_, politely coming forward again.--"Oh no, not at all! I'm
afraid I've tired _you_."
_Constance._--"No, I'm glad to have you stay." In the unconscious
movement necessary to follow Bartlett in his changes of position, the
young girl has loosened one of the pillows that prop her head. It slowly
disengages itself and drops to the floor. Bartlett, who has been
crushing his brush against the ball of his thumb, gives a start of
terror, and looks from Constance to the pillow, and back again to
Constance in despair.
_Constance._--"Never mind." She tries to adjust her head to the
remaining pillows, and then desists in evident discomfort.
_Bartlett_, in great agony of spirit.--"I--I'm afraid you miss it."
_Constance._--"Oh no."
_Bartlett._--"Shall I call your mother, Miss Wyatt?"
_Constance._--"No. Oh no. She will be here presently. Thank you so
much."
Bartlett eyes the pillow in renewed desperation.
_Bartlett._--"Do you think--do you suppose I could"-- Recklessly: "Miss
Wyatt, let _me_ put back that pillow for you!"
_Constance_, promptly, with a little flush:--"Why, you're very good! I'm
ashamed to trouble you." As she speaks, she raises her head, and lifts
herself forward slightly by help of the chair-arms; two more pillows
topple out, one on either side, unknown to her.
_Bartlett_, maddened by the fresh disaster:--"Good Lord!" He flings
himself wildly upon the first pillow, and crams it into the chair behind
Miss Wyatt; then without giving his courage time to flag, he seizes the
others, and packs them in on top of it: "Will that do?" He stands hot
and flushed, looking down upon her, as she makes a gentle attempt to
adjust herself to the mass.
_Constance._--"Oh, perfectly." She puts her hand behind her and feebly
endeavours to modify Bartlett's arrangement.
_Bartlett._--"What is it?"
_Constance._--"Oh--nothing. Ah--would--would you draw this one a
little--toward you? So! Thanks. And that one--out a little on the--other
side? You're very kind; that's right. And this one under my neck--lift
it up a little? Ah, thank you ever so much." Bartlett, in a fine frenzy,
obeying these instructions, Miss Wyatt at last reposes herself against
the pillows, looks up into his embarrassed face, and deeply blushes;
then she turns suddenly white, and weakly catching up her fan she passes
it once or twice before her face, and lets it fall: "I'm a
little--faint." Bartlett seizes the fan, and after a moment of silent
self-dedication kneels down beside her chair, and fans her.
_Constance_, after a moment:--"Thanks, thanks. You are very good. I'm
better now. I'm ashamed to have troubled you. But I seem to live only to
give trouble."
_Bartlett_, with sudden deep tenderness:--"Oh, Miss Wyatt, you mustn't
say that. I'm sure I--we all--that is--shall I call your mother _now_,
Miss Wyatt?"
_Constance_, after a deep breath, firmly:--"No. I'm quite well, now.
She is busy. But I know I'm keeping _you_ from your work,"--with ever so
slight a wan little smile. "I mustn't do that."
_Bartlett._--"Oh, you're not _keeping_ me! There's no hurry. I can work
later just as well."
_Constance._--"Then,"--with a glance at his devout posture, of which
Bartlett has himself become quite unconscious,--"won't you sit down, Mr.
Bartlett?"
_Bartlett_, restored to consciousness and confusion:--"Thanks; I think
it will be better." He rises, and in his embarrassment draws a chair to
the spot on which he has been kneeling, and sits down very close to her.
He keeps the fan in his hand, as he talks: "It's rather nice out there,
Miss Wyatt,--there on the island. You must be rowed out as soon as you
can stand it. The General would like it."
_Constance._--"Is it a large place, the island?"
_Bartlett._--"About two acres, devoted exclusively to golden-rod and
granite. The fact is, I was going to make a little study of golden-rod
and granite, there. You shall visit the Fortunate Isle in my sketch,
this afternoon, and see whether you'd like to go, really. People camp
out there in the summer. Who knows, but if you keep on--gaining--this
way, you may yet feel like camping out there yourself before you go
away? You do begin to feel better, don't you? Everybody cries up this
air."
_Constance._--"It's very pleasant; it seems fine and pure. Is the island
a pretty place?"
_Bartlett_, glancing out at it over his shoulder:--"Well, you get the
best of it from the parlour window, here. Not that it's so bad when
you're on it; there's a surly, frugal, hard-headed kind of beauty about
it,--like the local human nature--and it has its advantages. If you were
camping out there, you could almost provision yourself from the fish and
wild fowl of the surrounding waters,--supposing any of your party liked
to fish or shoot. Does your father like shooting?"
_Constance._--"No, I don't believe he cares for it."
_Bartlett._--"I'm glad of that. I shall be spared the painful
hospitality of pointing out the best places for ducks." At an inquiring
look from Constance: "I'm glad for their sakes, not mine; _I_ don't want
to kill them."
_Constance_, with grave mistrust:--"Not like shooting?"
_Bartlett._--"No, I think it's the sneakingest sort of assassination;
it's the pleasure of murder without the guilt. If you must kill, you
ought to be man enough to kill something that you'll suffer remorse for.
Do you consider those atrocious sentiments, Miss Wyatt? I assure you
that they're entirely my own."
_Constance_, blankly.--"I wasn't thinking--I was thinking--I supposed
you liked shooting."
_Bartlett_, laughing uneasily.--"How did you get that impression?"
_Constance_, evasively.--"I thought all gentlemen did."