FOR THE HONOR OF THEIR RACE.
"Love is the perfect sum
Of all delight!
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice
To sing or write."
"Why is the descendant of the Fiery Frenchman a devil?" asked Vesper.
"Because she has no heart. They have taken from her her race, her
religion. Her mother, who had some Indian blood, was also wild. She
would not sweep her kitchen floor. She went to sea with her husband, and
when she was drowned with him, her sister, who is also gay, took the
child."
"What do you mean by gay?"
"I mean like hawks. They go here and there,--they love the woods. They
do not keep neat houses, and yet they are full of strange ambitions.
They change their names. They are not so much like the English as we
are, yet they pretend to have no French blood. Sometimes I visit them,
for the uncle of the child--Claude à Sucre--is worthy, but his wife I
detestate. She has no bones of purpose; she is like a flabby sunfish."
"Where do they live?"
"Up the Bay,--near Bleury."
"And do you think there is nothing I can do for this little renegade?"
"Nothing?" cried Agapit. "You can do everything. It is the opportunity
of your life. You so wise, so generous, so understanding the Acadiens.
You have in your power to make born again the whole family through the
child. They are superstitious. They will respect the claim of the dead.
Come to the garden to talk, for there are strangers approaching."
Vesper shivered. He was not altogether happy over the discovery of the
lost link connecting him with the far-back tragedy in which his
great-grandfather had been involved. However, he suppressed all signs of
emotion, and, following Agapit to the lawn, he walked to and fro,
listening attentively to the explanations and information showered upon
him. When Rose came to the door to ring the supper-bell, both young men
paused. She thought they had been speaking of her, and blushed divinely.
Agapit, with an alarmed expression, turned to his companion, who smiled
quietly, and was just about to address him, when a lad came running up
to them.
"Agapit, come quickly,--old miser Lefroy is dying, and would make his
will. He calls for thee."
"Return,--say that I will come," exclaimed Agapit, waving his hand; then
he looked at Vesper. "One word only, why does Rose look so strangely?"
"Rose has promised to be my wife."
Agapit groaned, flung himself away a few steps, then came back. "Say no
more to her till you see me. How could you--and yet you do her honor. I
cannot blame you," and with a farewell glance, in which there was a
curious blending of despair and gratified pride, he ran after the boy.
Vesper went up-stairs to his mother, who announced herself no better,
and begged only that she might not be disturbed. He accordingly
descended to the dining-room and took his place at the table.
Rose was quietly moving to and fro with a heightened color. She was glad
that Agapit was away,--it was more agreeable to her to have only one
lord and master present; yet, sensitively alive to the idiosyncrasies of
this new one, she feared that he was disapproving of her unusual number
of guests.
He, however, nobly suppressed his disapproval, and even talked
pleasantly of recent political happenings in his own country with some
travelling agents who happened to be some of his own fellow citizens.
"Ah, it is a wonderful thing, this love," she said to herself, as she
went to the kitchen for a fresh supply of coffee; "it makes one more
anxious to please, and to think less of oneself. Mr. Nimmo wishes to aid
me,--and yet, though he is so kind, he slightly wrinkles his beautiful
eyebrows when I place dishes on the table. He does not like me to serve.
He would have me sit by him; some day I shall do so;" and, overcome by
the confused bliss of the thought, she retired behind the pantry door,
where the curious Célina found her with her face buried in her hands,
and in quick, feminine intuition at once guessed her secret.
There were many dishes to wash after supper, and Vesper, who was keeping
an eye on the kitchen, inwardly applauded Célina, who, instead of
running to the door as she usually did to exchange pleasantries with
waiting friends and admirers, accomplished her tasks with surprising
celerity. In the brief space of three-quarters of an hour she was ready
to go out, and after donning a fresh blouse and a clean apron, and
coquettishly tying a handkerchief on her head, she went to the lawn,
where she would play croquet and gossip with her friends until the stars
came out.
Vesper left the smokers on the veranda and the chattering women in the
parlor, and sauntered through the quiet dining-room and kitchen. Rose
was nowhere in sight, but her pet kitten, that followed her from morning
till night, was mewing at the door of a small room used as a laundry.
Vesper cautiously looked in. The supple young back of his sweetheart was
bent over a wash-tub. "Rose," he exclaimed, "what are you doing?"
She turned a blushing face over her shoulder. "Only a little washing--a
very little. The washerwoman forgot."
Vesper walked around the tub.
"It was such a pleasure," she stammered. "I did not know that you would
wish to talk to me till perhaps later on."
Her slender hands gripped a white garment affectionately, and partly
lifted it from the soap-suds. Vesper, peering in the tub, discovered
that it was one of the white jerseys that he wore bicycling, and, gently
taking it from her, he dropped it out of sight in the foam.
"But it is of wool,--it will shrink," she said, anxiously.
He laughed, dried her white arms on his handkerchief, and begged her to
sit down on a bench beside him.
She shyly drew back and, pulling down her sleeves, seated herself on a
stool opposite.
"Rose," he said, seriously, "do you know how to flirt?"
Her beautiful lips parted, and she laughed in a gleeful, wholehearted
way that reminded him of Narcisse. "I think that it would be possible to
learn," she said, demurely.
Vesper did not offer to teach her. He fell into an intoxicated silence,
and sat musing on this, the purest and sweetest passion of his life.
What had she done--this simple Acadien woman--to fill his heart with
such profound happiness? A light from the window behind her shone around
her flaxen head, and reminded him of the luminous halos surrounding the
heads of her favorite saints. Since the ecstatic dreams of boyhood he
had experienced nothing like this,--and yet this dream was more
extended, more spiritual and less earthly than those, for infinite
worlds of happiness now unfolded themselves to his vision, and endless
possibilities and responsibilities stretched out before him. This
woman's life would be given fearlessly into his hands, and also the life
of her child. He, Vesper Nimmo, almost a broken link in humanity's
chain, would become once more a part in the glorious whole.
Rose, enraptured with this intellectual love-making, sat watching every
varying emotion playing over her lover's face. How different he was from
Charlitte,--ah, poor Charlitte!--and she shuddered. He was so rough, so
careless. He had been like a good-natured bear that wished a plaything.
He had not loved her as gently, as tenderly as this man did.
"Rose," asked Vesper, suddenly, "what is the matter with Agapit?"
"I do not know," she said, and her face grew troubled. "Perhaps he is
angry that I have told a story, for I said I would not marry."
"Why should he not wish you to marry?"
Again she said that she did not know.
"Will you marry me in six weeks?"
"I will marry when you wish," she replied, with dignity, "yet I beg you
to think well of it. My little boy is in his bed, and when I no longer
see him, I doubt. There are so few things that I know. If I go to your
dear country, that you love so much, you may drop your head in
shame,--notwithstanding what you have said, I give you up if you wish."
"Womanlike, you must inject a drop of bitterness into the only full cup
of happiness ever lifted to your lips. Let us suppose, however, that you
are right. My people are certainly not as your people. Shall we part
now,--shall I go away to-morrow, and never see you again?"
Rose stared blindly at him.
"Are you willing for me to go?" he asked, quietly.
His motive in suggesting the parting was the not unworthy one of a lover
who longs for an open expression of affection from one dear to him, yet
he was shocked at the signs of Rose's suppressed passion and
inarticulate terror. She did not start from her seat, she did not throw
herself in his inviting arms, and beg him to stay with her. No; the
terrified blue eyes were lowered meekly to the floor, and, in scarcely
audible accents, she murmured, "What seems right to you must be done."
"Rose,--I shall never leave you."
"I feel that I have reached up to heaven, and plucked out a very bright
star," she stammered, with white lips, "and yet here it is," and trying
to conceal her agony, she opened her clenched and quivering hand, as if
to restore something to him.
He went down on his knees before her. "You are a princess among your
people, Rose. Keep the star,--it is but a poor ornament for you," and
seizing her suffering hands, he clasped them to his breast. "Listen,
till I tell you my reasons for not leaving the woman who has given me my
life and inspired me with hope for the future."
Rose listened, and grew pale at his eloquent words, and still more
eloquent pauses.
After some time, a gentle, melancholy smile came creeping to her face; a
smile that seemed to reflect past suffering rather than present joy. "It
is like pain," she said, and she timidly laid a finger on his dark head,
"this great joy. I have had so many terrors,--I have loved you so long,
I find, and I thought you would die."
Vesper felt that his veins had been filled with some glowing elixir of
earthly and heavenly delight. How adorable she was,--how unique, with
her modesty, her shyness, her restrained eagerness. Surely he had found
the one peerless woman in the world.
"Talk to me more about yourself and your feelings," he entreated.
"I have longed to tell you," she murmured, "that you have taught me what
it is,--this love; and also that one does not make it, for it is life or
death, and therefore can only come from the Lord. When you speak, your
words are so agreeable that they are like rain on dusty ground. I feel
that you are quite admirable," and, interrupting herself, she bent over
to gently kiss his cheek as he still knelt before her.
"Continue, Rose," he said, shutting his eyes in an ecstasy.
"I speak freely," she said, "because I feel that I can trust you without
fear, and always, always love and serve you till you are quite, quite
old. I also understand you. Formerly I did not. You say that I am like a
princess. Ah, not so much as you. You are altogether like a prince. You
had the air of being contented; I did not know your thoughts. Now I can
look into your beautiful white soul. You hide nothing from me. No, do
not put your face down. You are a very, very good man. I do not think
that there can be any one so good."
Vesper looked up, and laid a finger across the sweet, praising mouth.
"Let us talk of your mother," said Rose. "Since I love you, I love her
more; but she does not like me equally."
"But she will, my ingenuous darling. I have talked to her twice. She is
quite reconciled, but it will take time for her to act a mother's part.
You will have patience?"
Rose wrinkled her delicate brows. "I put myself in her place,--ah, how
hard for her! Let me fancy you my son. How could I give you up? And yet
it would be wrong for her to take you from one who can make you more
happy; is it not so?"
Vesper sprang to his feet. "Yes, Rose; it is you and I against the
world,--one heart, one soul; it is wonderful, and a great mystery," and
clasping his hands behind him, he walked to and fro along the narrow
room.
Rose, with a transfigured face, watched him, and hung on every word
falling from his lips, as he spoke of his plans for the future, his
disappointed hopes and broken aspirations of the past. It did not occur
to either of them, so absorbed were they with each other, to glance at
the small window overlooking the dooryard, where an eager face came and
went at intervals.
Sometimes the face was angry; sometimes sorrowful. Sometimes a clenched
fist was raised between it and the glass as if at an imaginary enemy.
The unfortunate watcher, in great perplexity of mind, was going through
every gesture in the pantomime of distress.
The lovers, unmindful of him, continued their conversation, and the
suffering Agapit continued to suffer.
Vesper talked and walked on, occasionally stopping to listen to a remark
from Rose, or to bend over her in an adoring, respectful attitude while
he bestowed a caress or received a shy and affectionate one from her.
"It is sinful,--I should interrupt," groaned Agapit, "yet it would be
cruel. They are in paradise. Ah, dear blessed Virgin,--mother of
suffering hearts,--have pity on them, for they are both noble, both
good;" and he dashed his hand across his eyes to hide the sight of the
beautiful head held as tenderly between the hands of the handsome
stranger as if it were indeed a fragile, full-blown rose.
"They take leave," he muttered; "I will look no more,--it is a
sacrilege," and he rushed into the house by another door.
The croquet players called to him from the lawn. He could hear the click
of the balls and the merry voices as he passed, but he paid no heed to
them. Only in the dining-room did he stay his hasty steps. There, in
front of the picture of Rose's husband, he paused with uplifted arm.
"Scoundrel!" he muttered, furiously; then striking his fist through the
glass, he shattered the portrait, from the small twinkling eyes to its
good-natured, sensuous mouth.