RUBICON MEADOWS ARE LEFT BEHIND.
With a face as pale as the handkerchief pressed against it, Nina stood
gazing into a corner of the waiting-room in the diminutive railway
station of Rubicon Meadows.
Mrs. Danvers had broken down. She was in a pitiable state of confusion,
and Mr. Danvers, with his round face in a snarl, was trying to comfort
her.
“What hash these women are made of!” grumbled Captain Fordyce to
himself. “She wanted Nina to go, she wants her to stay, she will break
her heart in earnest if I leave her, and break it in appearance if I
take her. Come, Nina, let us go out to the platform, the train will be
here in three minutes.”
“’Steban, I can’t leave her--I oughtn’t to,” murmured the girl,
miserably.
“All right--stay, then.”
“Mamma, mamma, I will stay with you,” and she ran and threw her arms
around the weeping figure.
Captain Fordyce stared at them from under his black brows. An
instantaneous and almost imperceptible change passed over the sorrowing
woman. He knew it from the movement of her shoulder-blades.
Nina felt it, was confused, and looked around at him.
“Good-bye,” he said, calmly; “wire me if you change your mind before
to-morrow noon. If not, I will run up and get you next trip.”
Mrs. Danvers’s sobs ceased. She had been crying at intervals all the
morning. This was the climax, “Nina,” she said, in a muffled voice.
The girl put her ear to her lips. Captain Fordyce could not hear what
was said, but he could make a shrewd guess. The duty of a wife was to
leave father and mother, and cleave to her husband.
Mr. Danvers whirled his ponderous form around, and, winking more
vigorously than ever, stepped to the doorway. This was final. Up to the
last he had hoped that his wife’s grief would continue, that Captain
Fordyce would relent and would leave them their child. They were to
lose her. He must go home and face that empty chair.
Mrs. Danvers had straightened herself up, and was pulling down her
veil. Captain Fordyce was whisking Nina out to the train bearing down
upon Rubicon Meadows with a rush and a roar befitting a monster that
would steal children from the very arms of their parents.
Mrs. Danvers had ceased crying now, but Nina had taken up the dismal
performance, and was blindly waving farewells from the window of a
parlour-car. Now they were gone; that chapter in life’s story was
finished,--a lively, eventful chapter,--and now began one unblessed by
youth, mischief, and beauty. Mr. Danvers was getting old, and, placing
himself by the side of his wife, he plodded wearily homeward. Perhaps
if he had married some other woman he might have had children of his
own,--but what diabolical thoughts were these crowding his head, and he
a deacon in the church; with an inward and horrified shudder he offered
his arm to his wife.
She accepted the unusual attention. Her livelier feminine imagination
pictured to her a new quiet and a new restfulness and happiness--yes,
happiness--that were about to settle on them. It was all for the
best,--she could say it through her tears,--although how they should
miss that little witch!
Captain Fordyce sat quietly beside the witch. Her parents had been
snatched from her. She was turning her bereaved gaze to the town. The
shops, the houses, the churches, sprang past. She had only the meadows
left, the beautiful Rubicon meadows, with their languidly flowing
river,--the place where her little feet had roamed since childhood,
and now it, too, was gone. She was out in the open country away from
the scenes of her childhood. She was fairly launched on the journey of
life. Was it to be a happy one? Where would it end? When would she come
back? Perhaps never.
She must be torn to pieces with nervous terror, such terror as probably
agitated trembling brides for the first few hours after leaving the
parental roof, and in deep and intense sympathy her husband gently
touched the tiny gloved hand lying on her lap.
He wished to see her whole face, not a section of pink cheek.
She moved her head abruptly, and presented to him not tears and
dejection, but a pouting mouth and a frowning brow. Her agitation was
gone. She was worrying over some other matter.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, wonderingly.
She favoured him with one of her indignant stares.
“That woman is not my mother, why don’t you tell me who she is?”
Captain Fordyce was aghast. Then he looked over his shoulder. He was
afraid the man behind had heard her low, wrathful tones. Where in the
name of all that was wonderful had she picked up this information? He
opened his mouth to speak, then closed it feebly; he must have time to
think over this statement, and make up his mind what to answer her; so
with an incoherent excuse he left her, and hurried in the direction of
the smoking-car.
Before they reached Boston he was again beside her; but he made no
effort at conversation, and as if she had forgotten her remark to him,
she occupied herself by an animated observation of everything about
her. She was intensely interested, intensely pleased, and watched his
every movement like a delighted little cat.
“Are we going to stop, already?” she exclaimed, when their carriage,
after lumbering through street after street, pulled up in front of a
hotel.
He drew out his watch. “I can give you two hours before the _Merrimac_
claims me, but you had better have something to eat first.”
“Can’t I have it here in this carriage?”
“No, you cannot,” he said, decidedly. “I am not going to drive through
the streets with a lunching young lady.”
“Then let us make haste,” she said, meekly descending to the pavement.
An hour later, while they were driving to and fro, and he was pointing
out objects of special historic interest in the prim old Puritan city,
he interposed a question, “How does it all impress you?”
She shook her fluffy head. “Oh, delicious confusion, and noise, plenty
of noise! Everything is mixed up to me. I can’t seem to separate
things. You show me one house, and I look at it, but it melts at once
into others. Everything is so close. How can city people think with all
these things to look at? Just see that funny cart! Why, there are real
reindeer, like those I once saw in a circus.”
In the utmost satisfaction he contemplated her gleeful, laughing face.
“Now,” he said, regretfully, “I must take you back to the hotel. You
will not be lonely without me?”
“I shall not be lonely without you,” she said, with determination; but
when they stood a little later in the middle of a huge mirror-lined
reception-room, she looked askance at the big plush chairs holding out
inviting arms to her, and faltered, “You will not be very long?”
He smiled in immense gratification, and to his further surprise
received a voluntary caress and a pat on the shoulder, while she
lisped, “’Steban, don’t let any of those things run over you.”
He stood waiting for an instant, a slight stealthy colour creeping
to his face. But there were no further endearments for him. She was
staring out the window with her round, childish eyes; and muttering,
“Half a loaf is better than no bread,” he swung himself down-stairs and
on to a street-car.
He did not see her again until the next morning. She was tired and had
gone to bed was the message he received when he returned to the hotel.
Something in her appearance amused him as she came gliding down the
long corridor, and he smiled a smile so broad that it threatened
to degenerate into a grin. However, he controlled himself when she
approached him, and said, politely, “Good morning, did you sleep well?
You didn’t sleep at all!” he exclaimed, bringing her to a standstill,
and putting an anxious finger on the dark semicircles under her eyes.
“You were frightened to death in that great room.”
“I was not frightened. I didn’t sleep because I wanted to think,” she
replied; “also I was very angry with a young boy.”
“What young boy?” he asked, cajolingly, as he drew her into a near
writing-room to avoid a bevy of ladies on their way to the dining-room.
“A boy that came when I rang the bell.”
“A bell-boy. What did he do?”
“He called me ‘ma’am,’ and when I asked him what he meant he said, ‘Beg
pardon, Mrs. Fordyce!’ How could you,--how dare you?”
Captain Fordyce suppressed his amusement. “Well, are you not Mrs.
Fordyce?”
“No; you must not write me down your wife. I want to be Miss Danvers.”
“Have you no regard for my reputation, pussy-cat?”
“You said young ladies could travel with captains.”
“Yes, they can,” he said, soothingly, “but I prefer you to take the
name that belongs to you. You are always crying honesty. What about
sailing under false colours?”
“I think we had better have some breakfast,” she said, haughtily.
“Yes, Nina, but first go take off that red toggery.”
“My morning jacket,” she said, with annoyance, “my new morning jacket
with the pinked edges. Mamma said it would be just the thing for
breakfast.”
“For Rubicon Meadows, not for a city hotel.”
“I refuse to take it off. Mamma spent hours in making it.”
“Then I refuse to take breakfast with you, little green, country apple.”
“Whose fault is it that I am green?” she said, irritably. “Who has kept
me mewed up in the country?”
“The best place for you, duckie. Go take off that jacket.”
“Oh, I am so disappointed in you. I am so sorry I left home. I thought
men were nice and amiable when they were married. I thought they would
let their wives do anything; and you said you lov--loved me!”
“So I do, sweetheart,” he said, soothingly; “but I don’t want to have
people goggling at you. You are sensitive and nervous from yesterday,
and your lack of sleep last night. You could not stand observation.
Come back and show me what you have in the way of clothes. Your
esteemed mother may know more about books than I do, but I bet you she
doesn’t know so much about the fashions.”
With a proud and dignified air the girl led the way to her room.
“There,” she said, throwing back her trunk lid, “you may see all I
have. They’re mostly things you sent me, anyway.”
He rapidly tossed over every article of clothing submitted to him. “All
very well for a maiden lady, not quite enough for a married one.”
“Will you stop?” she said, warningly. “I am not married.”
“Certainly, darling. Here--what’s the matter with this? This is what
I call a blue silk blouse with a dash of gold for trimming. Natty,
slightly nautical, and in good taste. Take off your red flannel jacket,
and I will help you on with it.”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” she said, opening the door. “Go out
into the hall.”
He stuffed his handkerchief in his mouth so that she would not hear him
laughing, and, having attained to sobriety when she issued from the
room a few minutes later, went soberly down the hall by the side of his
disturbed young princess.
She thawed when they reached the big dining-room. “Shy, with all her
bravado,” he muttered, watching her as she crept along in his wake.
“Treats me like a dog when we are alone, and like a lord before
strangers. It would pay to keep her in a crowd.”
She took but little breakfast, and once or twice volunteered remarks
to him in a gentle and touchingly confidential tone. Her lips quivered
several times, and his face darkened at the sight; for he knew she was
thinking of her home and her uncertain parentage.
“Confusion to the brute that forced me to snatch her from that quiet
place,” he reflected, with inward anger. “I wish I could see him
squirm;” and his gaze went to those windows of the dining-room nearest
the shores of distant England. Then he addressed Nina under his breath:
“Darling, will you do some shopping with me before we go on board the
_Merrimac_?”
“If you word that sentence properly, I will,” she returned, quietly.
“Miss Danvers, will you be kind enough to bestow the light of your
countenance on me while I make a tour of the principal Boston stores?”
“Yes,” she replied, tranquilly, “I will.”
For several hours they went from store to store. He was hard to suit;
and Nina was obliged to allow herself to be pinched, pulled, and
fitted by obsequious dressmakers and their attendants, until at last
her husband and guardian was satisfied. He put her in a hack; and the
bewildered, interested, and slightly homesick girl found herself being
rapidly driven through a noisy, dirty, and mysterious part of the city
that at last, however, opened on a stretch of narrow blue water.
She uttered an exclamation of delight, and hung out the carriage
window. They had rolled into an enormously long and vaulted shed in
which bales of merchandise were piled as high as the roof. Some of
these bales were flying wildly through the air, all, however, swinging
in the direction of several black, open mouths in the hull of a huge
steamer lying against the wharf outside. A number of light yellow boxes
were also tumbling to and fro, these propelled by shouting men. The mad
haste prevailing among animate and inanimate objects made Nina fall a
prey to complete bewilderment, and she frantically clung to the strong
arm that was to guide her through this sea of apparent confusion.
When they reached the gangway, a kind of paralysis seized her, and she
was conscious of being lifted bodily and set down on a floor as clean
as that of the scrubbed kitchens in Rubicon Meadows.
She was on the deck of ’Steban’s beloved _Merrimac_; and, gazing
hurriedly about her, she took in the noble lines of a staunch and
beautiful oceangoing steamer. But ’Steban had disappeared after a
brief, “Show this lady to ninety-three;” and some one was waiting to
conduct her down into the heart of this wonderful and mysterious thing.
She meekly followed her guide, who was a smart boy in buttons, and
presently she found herself alone and standing in front of a narrow red
couch. She dropped on it, passed her hand over her eyes, and sat for a
few minutes in blank contentment.
Then she began to reflect. She was quite alone in a tiny room not a
quarter as large as her bedroom in Rubicon Meadows. She was very, very
young. She had left her darling home and two people who adored her.
She was going to sea with a monster whom she hated and could never,
never live with. The passengers on the steamer would probably be fine
city people who would despise her as a green country girl; but she did
not care. She would wear her red jacket to breakfast every morning if
she wished. They would probably all be shipwrecked and go down to the
fishes. What did anything matter, anyway?
From blank despair she proceeded to a more active display of her
emotions, and was soon violently weeping. She would cry now until she
died. She was a poor, unfortunate lily, uprooted from her native soil.
She was withering cruelly in this atmosphere of neglect. ’Steban might
have spent at least five minutes with her on her arrival in this new
and strange place, and she redoubled her “tear falling pity.”
However, at eighteen one cannot weep for ever, and after an hour had
elapsed she sat up and began to review her situation. After all, it
was not so very heartrending. How many girls in Rubicon Meadows would
give their worldly all to be in her position,--Captain Fordyce and all
her other woes included? And if she were too desperately unhappy on
this dreaded voyage, and if she were to escape shipwreck, her home was
always open to her,--her beloved home; and flinging herself excitedly
from the couch she began to pace up and down the tiny room.
How well planned it was: two white berths, one red couch, a wash-stand
and rack for glasses and brushes, and a big open port-hole encased by a
shining brass rim. Oh, and a glass! and, hurrying to it, she examined
with interest her tear-stained face. White skin, pink cheeks, fluffy
auburn hair, hazel eyes, nose passable, and one row of white teeth.
Further than that the liliputian mirror refused to go, and, with a
smile at its absurdity in not taking in her chin and lower row of
teeth, she resolved to have it more conveniently hung, and turned to
her window.
There was a great rattling of ropes overhead and creaking of chains,
a running to and fro, and a succession of whistles; and, surely now
they were moving, actually moving. She would like to go on deck, but
she would not venture alone. Well, she could see a section of the long
wharf from here. It was gliding slowly from them. Surely it was moving,
and the _Merrimac_ was stationary. Some of the boxes and bales were
left behind; the rearing, plunging horses were being driven away; the
workmen were scattering; but here on the end of the wharf was a crowd
of men and women, the air about them alive with waving handkerchiefs,
hats describing eccentric circles in the air, and shouted parting
injunctions; among which the invariable “Write soon” gallantly held its
own against numerous odds.
There was no one to see her off, no one who cared for her. She did not
even belong to the Danvers. She was probably a lonely orphan, and she
again flung herself down on the red couch and buried her face in her
hands.