A WISE MAN'S FOLLY.
Mr. Richard Gilbert went to New York, and the girl with the black
Canadian eyes and floating hair went with him--in spirit, that is to
say. That dark, piquant face; that uplifted, gentle glance; that
dimpling smile haunted him all through the upward journey; haunted and
lit up his dingy office, and came between him and Blackstone, and Coke
upon Littleton, and other legal lights.
Her bright, seventeen-year old face formed itself into a picture upon
every page of those mouldering, dry-as-dust tomes, looked at him in the
purple twilight, in the sunny mornings, in the dead waste and middle of
the night. He had become "A Haunted Man," in short, Mr. Gilbert was in
love.
And so, "how it came let doctors tell," all of a sudden Mr. Gilbert
found that business required his presence Down East early in July. It
was trifling business, too, understrappers in the office thought, that
could very well have done without his personal supervision; but Mr.
Gilbert reasoned otherwise; and, with a very unwonted glow about the
region of the heart, packed his portmanteau, and started for Portland,
Me.
The hot July sun was blazing in the afternoon sky and the streets of
Portland were blistering in the heat, as the New York lawyer walked from
the cars to his hotel. That important business which had brought him so
many miles was transacted in a couple of hours, and then he returned to
his hotel to dress and dine. Dress!--when had Richard Gilbert in his
plain business pepper-and-salt suit and round-topped straw hat, ever
taken so much pains with his toilet before, ever sported such faultless
broadcloth in July, ever wore a diamond pin in his snowy linen, ever
stood so long before the glass, ever felt so little satisfied with the
result? When had the crow's feet around mouth and eyes ever shown so
plainly, when had his tall, bald forehead ever appeared so patriarchal,
when had he ever looked so dreadfully middle-aged, and plodding and
priggish in his own legal eyes? Ah, when indeed?
He hired a light wagon and a bony horse at the nearest livery stable,
and inquired the way to Kent Farm. Kent Farm was three miles distant, he
found, and the white, dusty road lay like a strip of silver between the
golden, green fields. The haymakers were at work, the summer air was
sweet with perfume, the fields of buckwheat waved, the birds sang in the
branches of the elms, the grasshoppers chirped until the drowsy air was
alive, and far beyond all, more beautiful than all, the silver sea lay
asleep under the sparkling sun. Pretty houses, all white and green, were
everywhere; and more than one Maud Mueller leaned on her rake, and looked
up under her broad-brimmed hat as this thoughtful Judge rode by. He rode
very slowly, so slowly that it was nearly an hour before he reached his
destination and drew up at the gate of Kent Farm.
Had he been wise to come? What was this young girl, this child of
seventeen, to him? What could she ever be? Youth turns to youth, as
flowers to the sun. What if he found her the plighted wife of some
stalwart young farmer, some elegant dry-goods clerk of the town? What?
His heart contracted with a sharp, sudden spasm, and told him what?
Kent Farm at last. Half a mile from any other house, on the summit of a
green, sloping eminence, an old red, weather-beaten farm-house its once
glaring color toned and mellowed down by the sober hand of Time. A
charming old place, its garden sloping down to the roadside, its lilac
trees in full bloom. A wide-spreading old-fashioned garden, with rose
bushes, and gooseberry bushes, currant bushes, sunflowers, and
hollyhocks, and big gnarled old apple trees, mixed up in picturesque
confusion.
Seated in a chair of twisted branches, under one of these crooked,
blossoming apple trees, the sunlight tangled in her shining hair, and
the mignonne face, sat Norine Kent Bourdon, reading a novel.
He opened the gate. Her book was interesting--she did not hear. He
walked up the gravelled path, and drew near. Then she looked up, then
half rose, in doubt for a moment, and then--to the day of his death,
until all things earthly, will Richard Gilbert remember the flush of
joy, the flash of recognition, the glad cry of welcome, with which she
flung aside her book and sprang towards him, both hands outstretched.
"Monsieur! monsieur!" the sweet voice cried. "Ah, monsieur! how glad I
am to see you."
She gave him her hands. The lovely, laughing face the eyes of fathomless
light, looked up into his. Yes, she was glad to see him, glad with the
impulsive gladness of a little younger sister to see an indulgent
brother, old and grave, yet beloved. But Mr. Gilbert, holding those
hands, looking into that eager, sparkling face, drew no such nice
distinctions.
"Thank you, mademoiselle. You have not quite forgotten me, then, after
all?"
"Forgotten you, monsieur? Oh, my memory is better than that. You have
come to pay us that promised visit, have you not? Uncle Reuben has been
looking for you ever since the first of June, and Aunt Hester is never
so happy as when she has company. You have come to stay, I know."
"Well, I'm not sure about that, Miss Bourdon. I may remain a week or
two, certainly. New York is not habitable after the first week of July,
but I am stopping at the Preble House. I am too much of a stranger to
trespass on your good uncle's hospitality."
"You have been kind to me, monsieur, and you are a stranger no more.
Besides, it is dull here--pleasant but dull, and it will be a second
kindness to enliven us with a little New York society."
She laughed and drew away her hands. The golden light of the July
afternoon gilded the girlish face, upon which the New York gentleman
gazed with an admiration he did not try to hide.
"Dull," he repeated; "you don't find it dull, I should think. Your face
tells a very different story."
Mademoiselle shook back her rippling satin hair, and made a little
French _moue mutine_.
"Ah, but it is. Only the fields and the flowers, the trees and the
birds, the eating and sleeping, and reading. Now, flowers and fields and
birds are very nice and pleasant things, but I like people, new faces,
new friends, pleasure, excitement, change. I ride the horse, I milk the
cows, I pick the strawberries, I darn the stockings, I play the piano, I
make the beds, I read the novels. But I see nobody--nobody--nobody, and
it is dull."
"Then you prefer the old life and Montreal?"
"Montreal!" Miss Bourdon's black eyes flashed out, as your black eyes
can. "Monsieur," solemnly, "I adore Montreal. It was always new and
always nice there; bright and gay and French. French! it is all Yankee
here, not but that I like Yankees too. Aunt Hester thinks," a merry
laugh, "there never was anybody born like me, and Uncle Reuben thinks I
would be an angel if I didn't read so many novels and eat so many
custard pies. And, monsieur," with the saucy uplifted coquettish glance
he remembered so well, "if _you_ find out I'm not an angel don't tell
him, please. I wouldn't have him undeceived for the world."
"I don't think I shall find it out, mademoiselle. I quite agree with
your uncle. Here he comes now."
Reuben Kent came out of the open front door, smoking a pipe. He paused
at sight of his niece in friendly colloquy with a strange gentleman. The
next moment he recognized him, and came forward at once in hearty
welcome.
"Wal, squire," Mr. Kent said, "you _hev_ come, when I had e'enamost gi'n
you up. How dye deow? 'Tarnal hot, ain't it? Must be a powerful sight
hotter, though, up to York. How air you. You're lookin' pretty
considerably spry. Norry's glad to see you, _I_ know. That gal's bin a
talkin' o' ye continual. Come in, squire--come in. My sister Hester will
be right glad to see ye."
What a cordial welcome it was; what a charming agricultural person Mr.
Reuben Kent, one of nature's Down East noblemen, indeed. In a glow of
pleasure, feeling ten years younger and ten times better looking than
when he had started, the New York lawyer walked up to the house, into
the wide, cool hall, into the "keepin' room," and took a seat. A
pleasant room; but was not everything about Kent Farm pleasant, with two
large western windows, through which the rose and golden light of the
low dropping sun streamed over the store carpet, the cane-seated chairs,
the flowers in the cracked tumblers, and white, delf pitchers. Traces of
Norine were everywhere; the piano in a corner, the centre-table littered
with books, papers, magazines and scraps of needle-work, the two
canaries singing in the sunny windows, all spoke of taste, and girlhood.
There were white muslin curtains, crocheted tidies on every chair in the
room, a lounge, covered with _cretonne_ in a high state of glaze and
gaudy coloring, and the scent of the hay fields and the lilacs over all.
No fifth-avenue drawing-room, no satin-hung silver-gilt reception-room,
had ever looked one half so exquisite in this metropolitan gentleman's
professional eyes. For there, amid the singing birds and the scented
roses, stood a tall, slim girl, in a pink muslin dress--and where were
the ormolu or brocatelle could embellish any room as she did?
Uncle Reuben went in search of Aunt Hester, and returned with that lady
presently; and Mr. Gilbert saw a bony little woman with bright eyes and
a saffron complexion. Miss Kent welcomed him as an old friend, and
pressed him to "stay to tea."
"It's jest ready," she remarked,--a maiden lady was Aunt Hester,--"we've
ben waitin' for brother Joe, and he's jest come. There ain't nothing
more refreshing, I think myself, than a nice cup o' hot tea on a warm
day."
Uncle Reuben seconded the motion at once.
"We can't offer you anything very grand--silver spoons and sech--as you
get at them air hotels, but sech as it is, and Hester's a master hand
at crawlers and hot biscuit, you're most mightly welcome. Norry, you
fetch him along, while I go and wash up."
Miss Bourdon obeyed. Mr. Gilbert did not require all that pressing, if
they had but known it. There was no need to apologize for that "high
tea." No silver teaspoons, it is true, but the plated-ware glistened as
the real Simon Pure never could have done; and no hotel in Maine, or out
of it, could have shown a snowier table-cloth, hotter, whiter, more
dyspeptic biscuits, blacker tea, redder strawberries, richer cream,
yellower ginger-bread, or pinker cold-sliced ham. Mr. Gilbert ate ham
and jelly, strawberries and tea, hot biscuit and cold ginger-bread--in a
way that fairly warmed Aunt Hester's heart.
"And we calk'late on keeping you while you're down here, Mr. Gilbert,"
Uncle Reuben's hearty voice said. "It's a pleasant place, though I say
it as hadn't ought to--a heap pleasanter than the city. Our house ain't
none too fine, and our ways may be homespun and old-fashioned, but I
reckon Norry and Hester kin make you pretty tol'bel comfortable ef you
stay."
"Comfortable!"
He looked across at that face opposite; comfortable in the same house
with her! But still he murmured some faint objection.
"Don't mention trouble, sir," said Uncle Joe, who was the counterpart of
Uncle Reuben; "you've ben kind to our little Norry, and that's enough
for us. Norry, hain't you got nothin' to say?"
"I say stay!" and the bewildering black eyes flashed their laughing
light across at the victimized lawyer. "Stay, and I'll teach you to milk
and make butter, and feed poultry, and pick strawberries, and improve
your mind in a thousand rural ways. You shall swing me when Uncle Joe is
too busy, and help me make short-cake, and escort me to 'quiltin' bees,'
and learn to rake hay. And I--I'll sing for you wet days, and drive you
all over the neighborhood, and let you tell me all about New York and
the fashions, and the stores, and the theatres, and the belles of
Broadway. Of course you stay."
Of course he stayed. It is so easy to let rosy lips persuade us into
doing what we are dying to do. He stayed, and his fate was fixed--for
good or for evil--fixed. That very night his portmanteau came from
Portland, and the "spare room" was his.
Supper over, Uncles Reuben and Joe lit their pipes, and went away to
their fields and their cattle--Aunt Hester "cleared up," and Miss
Bourdon took possession of Mr. Gilbert. She wasn't the least in awe of
him, she was only a bright, frank, fearless, grown-up child. He was
grave, staid, old--is not thirty-five a fossil age in the eyes of
seventeen?--but venerable though he was, she was not the least afraid of
him.
She led her captive--oh, too willing, forth in triumph to see her
treasures--sleek, well-fed cows, skittish ponies, big horses, hissing
geese, gobling turkeys, hens and chicks innumerable. He took a pleased
interest in them all--calves and colts, chickens and ducklings, ganders
and gobblers, listened to the history of each, as though he had never
listened to such absorbing biographies in all his life before.
How rosy were the lips that spoke, how eager the sunny face uplifted to
his, and when was there a time that Wisdom did not fall down and worship
Beauty? He liked to think of her pure and sweet, absorbed in these
innocent things, to find neither coquetry nor sentimentalism in this
healthy young mind, to know her ignorant as the goslings themselves of
all the badness and hardness and cruelty of the big, cruel world.
They went into the garden, and lingered under the lilacs, until the last
pink flush of the July day died, and the stars came out, and the moon
sailed up serene. They found plenty to say; and, as a rule, Richard
Gilbert rarely found much to say to girls. But Miss Bourdon could talk,
and the lawyer listened to the silvery, silly prattle with a grave smile
on his face.
It was easy to answer all her eager questions, to tell her of life in
New York, of the opera and the theatres, and the men and women who wrote
the books and the poems she loved. And as she drank it in, her face
glowed and her great eyes shone.
"Oh, how beautiful it all must be!" she cried, "to hear such music, to
see such plays, to know such people! If one's life could only be like
the lives of the heroines of books--romantic, and beautiful, and full of
change. If one could only be rich and a lady, Mr. Gilbert!"
She clasped her hands with the hopelessness of that thought. He smiled
as he listened.
"A lady, Miss Bourdon? Are you not that now?" Miss Bourdon shook her
head mournfully.
"Of course not, only a little stupid country girl, a farmer's niece. Oh!
to be a lady--beautiful and haughty and admired, to go to balls in
diamonds and laces, to go to the opera like a queen, to lead the
fashion, and to be worshipped by every one one met! But what is the use
of wishing, it never, never, never, can be."
"Can it not? I don't quite see that, although the ladies you are
thinking of exist in novels only, never in this prosy, work-a-day world.
Wealth is not happiness--a worn-out aphorism, but true now as the first
day it was uttered. Great wealth, perhaps, may never come to you but
what may seem wealth in your eyes may be nearer than you think--who
knows?"
He looked at her, a sudden flush rising over his face, but Norine shook
her black ringlets soberly.
"No, I will never be rich. Uncle Reuben won't hear of my going out as
governess, so there is nothing left but to go on with the
chicken-feeding and butter-making and novel-reading forever. Perhaps it
is ungrateful, though, to desire any change, for I am happy too."
He drew a little nearer her; a light in his grave eyes, a glow on his
sober face, warm words on his lips. What was Richard Gilbert about to
say? The young, sweet, wistful face was fair enough in that tender
light, to turn the head of even a thirty-five year-old-lawyer. But those
impulsive words were not spoken, for "Norry, Norry!" piped Aunt Hester's
shrill treble. "Where's that child gone? Doesn't she know she'll get her
death out there in the evening air."
Norine laughed.
"From romance to reality! Aunt Hester doesn't believe in moonlight and
star-gazing and foolish longings for the impossible. Perhaps she is
right; but I wonder if she didn't stop to look at the moon sometimes,
too, when she was seventeen?"
It was a very fair opening, given in all innocence. But Mr. Gilbert did
not avail himself of it. He was not a "lady's man" in any sense of the
word. Up to the present he had never given the fairest, the cleverest
among them a second glance, a second thought. The language of compliment
and flirtation was as Chaldaic and Sanscrit to him, and he walked by her
side up to the house and into the keeping-room in ignoble silence.
The little old maid and the big old bachelors were assembled here, the
lamp was lit, the curtains down and the silvery shimmer of that lovely
moon-rise jealously shut out. Norine went to the piano, and entertained
her audience with music. She played very well, indeed. She had had
plenty of piano-forte-drudgery at the Convent school of the Grey Nuns in
her beloved Montreal. She sung for them in the voice that suited her
mignonne face, a full, rich contralto.
She sang gayly, with eyes that sparkled, the national song of Lower
Canada: "_Vive la Canadienne_," and the New York lawyer went up to bed
that first night with its ringing refrain in his ears:
"Vive la Canadienne et ses beaux yeux,
Et ses beaux yeux tous doux,
Et ses beaux yeux."
"Ah!" Richard Gilbert thought, "well may the _habitans_ sing and extol
the _beaux yeux_ of their fair countrywomen, if those bright eyes are
one-half as lovely as Norine Bourdon's."
He stayed his fortnight out at the old red farm-house; and he who ran
might read the foolish record. He, a sober, practical man of
thirty-five, who up to the present had escaped unscarred, had fallen a
victim at last to a juvenile disease in its most malignant form. And
juvenile disorders are very apt to be fatal when caught in mature years.
He was in love with a tall child of seventeen, a foolish little French
girl, who looked upon him with precisely the same affection she felt for
Uncle Reuben.
"What a fool I am," the lawyer thought, moodily, "to dream a child like
that can ever be my wife? A sensible, practical young woman of
seven-and-twenty is nearer your mark, Richard Gilbert. What do I know of
this girl, except that she has silken ringlets and shining black eyes,
and all sorts of charming, childish, bewitching ways. I will not make an
idiot of myself at my age. I will go away and forget her and my folly. I
was a simpleton ever to come."
He kept his word. He went away with his story untold. He bade them all
good-bye, with a pang of regret more keen than any he had ever felt
before in his life. Perhaps the little brown hand of mademoiselle
lingered a thought longer than the others in his; perhaps his parting
look into those _beaux yeux_ was a shade more wistful. He was going for
good now--to become a wise man once more, and he might never look into
those wonderful, dark eyes more.
Norine was sorry, very sorry, and said so with a frank regret her
middle-aged lover did not half like. He might be unskilled in the
mysteries of the tender passion, but he had an inward conviction that
love would never speak such candid words, never look back at him with
such crystal clear eyes. She walked with him to the gate; her ebon curls
a stream in the July breeze.
"Will you not write to me sometimes?" Mr. Gilbert could not help asking.
"You don't know how glad I shall be to hear of--of you all."
Mademoiselle Bourdon promised readily.
"Though I don't write very good letters," she remarked deprecatingly.
"I get the spelling wrong, and the grammar dreadfully mixed when I write
in English, but I want to improve. If you'll promise to tell me of all
my mistakes, I'll write with pleasure."
So what were to be the most precious love letters on earth to the
gentleman, were to be regarded as "English composition," by the lady.
Truly, the French proverb saith: "There is always one who loves, and one
who is loved."
Mr. Gilbert returned to New York, and found that populous city a blank
and howling wilderness. The exercises in English composition began, and
though both grammar and spelling might get themselves into hopeless
snarls, to him they were the most eloquent and precious epistles ever
woman penned. He had read the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, but
what were those vapid epistles to Miss Bourdon's? He watched for the
coming of the Eastern mail; he tore open the little white envelope; he
read and re-read, and smiled over the contents.
And time went on. August, September, October passed. The letters from
Miss Norine Bourdon came like clock work, and were the bright spots in
Richard Gilbert's hard-working, drab-colored life. He wrote her back; he
sent her books and music, and pictures and albums, and pretty things
without end, and was happy. And then the Ides of dark November came, and
all this pastoral bliss was ended and over.
The letters with the Down-east post mark ceased abruptly, and without
any reason; his last two remained unanswered. He wrote a third, and fell
into a fever while he waited. Was she sick, was she dead, was she----.
No, not faithless, surely, he turned cold at the bare thought. But what
was it? The last week of November brought him his answer. Very short,
very unsatisfactory.
"KENT FARM, Nov. 28, 1860.
"DEAR MR. GILBERT--You must pardon me for not replying to your last
letters. I have been so busy. A gentleman met with an accident
nearly three weeks ago, close by our house, broke his left arm, and
sprained his right ankle. I have had to take care of him. Aunt
Hetty has so much to do all the time that she could not. We are all
very well, and send you our best wishes. I am very much obliged for
the pretty work-box, and the magazines, etc. And I am, dear Mr.
Gilbert, with the most affectionate sentiments,
"NORINE K. BOURDON.
"P. S.--The gentleman is greatly better. He is with us still. He is
very nice. He is from your city.
"N."
In the solitude of his legal sanctum, Richard Gilbert, with frowning
brow and gloomy eyes, read this blighting epistle. His worst fears were
realized, more than realized.
There was a gentleman in the case. A gentleman who absorbed so much of
Miss Norine Bourdon's time that she could not answer his letters. And he
was "greatly better" and he was from your city. Confound the puppy! He
was young and good-looking, no doubt; and he must meet with his
accident, at her very door; precisely as though he were enacting a
chapter out of a novel. Of course, too, it was his arm and his ankle
that were smashed, not his villainous face. And Norine sat by his
bedside, and bathed his forehead, and held cooling draughts to his
parched lips, and listened to his romantic, imbecile delirium, etc.,
etc., etc. She sat up with him nights; she read to him; she talked to
him; she sang for him. He could see it all.
Mr. Gilbert was a Christian gentleman, so he did not swear. But I am
bound to say he felt like swearing. He jumped up; he crushed that poor
little letter into a ball; he strode up and down his office like a caged
(legal) tiger. The green-eyed monster put forth its obnoxious claws,
and never left him for many a dreary year. It was that atrocious
postscript, so innocently written, so diabolical to read. "He is greatly
better. He is with us still. He is very nice." Oh, confound him! what a
pity it had not been his neck.
Suddenly he paused in his walk, his brows knit, his eyes flashing, his
mouth set. Yes, that was it, he would do it, his resolution was taken.
He would go straight to Kent Farm, and see for himself. And next morning
at 8 o'clock the express train for Boston bore among its passengers Mr.
R. Gilbert, of New York.
The train whirled him away, and as the chill, murky December landscape
flew by, he awoke all at once to a sense of what he was about. Why was
he going? what did he mean? to ask Norine Bourdon to be his wife?
certainly not. To play dog in the manger, and keep some more fortunate
man from loving and marrying her? most certainly not. Then why had he
come? At this juncture he set his teeth, took up the _Herald_ and
scowled moodily at its printed pages all day long.
He slept that night in Boston, and next morning resumed his journey. He
reached Portland before noon, dined at his usual hotel, and then, as the
afternoon sun began to drop low in the wintry sky, set out on foot for
Kent Farm.
How familiar it all was; how often, when the fields were green, the
trees waving, and the birds singing, he had walked this road beside
Norine. But the fields were white with snow to-day, the trees black,
gaunt skeletons, and the July birds dead or gone. All things had changed
in four months--why not Norine as well?
It was four by the lawyer's watch as he raised the latch of the garden
gate, and walked up the snow-shrouded path. There stood the gnarled old
apple tree, with its rustic chair, but the tree was leafless, and the
chair empty. Doors and windows had stood wide when he saw them last,
with sunshine and summer floating in; now all were closed, and the
December blasts howled around the gables. There was no one to be seen,
but the red light of a fire streamed brightly out through the curtains
of the keeping-room.
He went slowly up the steps, opened the front door, and entered the
hall. The door of that best apartment stood half open, light and warmth,
voices and laughter came through. Mr. Gilbert paused on the threshold an
instant, and looked at the picture within.
A very pretty picture.
The room was lit by the leaping fire alone. Seated on a low stool,
before the fire and beside the sofa, he saw Norine. She was reading
aloud the lovely story of _Lalla Rookh_. He had sent her the green and
gilt volume himself. She wore a crimson merino dress, over which her
black hair fell, and in the fantastic firelight how fair the dark,
piquant face looked, the dark eyes were bent upon her book, and the soft
voice was the only sound in the room.
On the sofa, perilously near, lay the "gentleman" of her letter--the
hero of the broken arm and sprained ankle, who was "very nice." And
Richard Gilbert looking, gave a great start.
He knew him.
His worst fears were realized. He saw a man both young and
good-looking--something more, indeed, than good-looking. The face was
thin and pale, but when was that a fault in the eyes of a girl!--a tall
figure in a dark suit, brown hair, and silken blonde mustache
artistically curled. Surely a charming picture of youth and beauty on
both sides, and yet if Mr. Gilbert had seen a cobra di capella coiled up
beside the girl he loved, he could hardly have turned sicker with
jealous fear.
"Laurence Thorndyke," he thought blankly "of all the men in the wide
world, what evil fortune has sent Laurence Thorndyke here!"