COL. SCHUYLER INTERVIEWS GERTIE.
Col. Schuyler was not quite satisfied with his interview with Godfrey,
or his promise to keep his word and marry Alice Creighton. No doubt he
meant to do it, but Godfrey was impulsive and hot-headed, and loved
another with a depth and fervency which astonished the coldblooded man.
All day he had been haunted with the flushed, excited face, and the
thrilling voice which had said so passionately, “I love Gertie
Westbrooke so much that I would rather live with her on a crust a day
than share with another the splendors of the world.”
Perhaps during the long summer days, when they would be thrown together,
he would forget his word of honor, and tell her of his love, and what
then? She would listen, of course, unless some powerful obstacle were
interposed to keep her from it, and that obstacle the colonel would
interpose in the shape of Gertie’s own promise and sense of honor. He
could trust her better than his son, and he meant to put her to the
test, even if by doing it he wrung her heart cruelly, and awoke within
her a sleeping passion, of whose existence she possibly did not know.
And yet the colonel had no antipathy to Gertie; on the contrary, he
liked her very much, and thought hers the most beautiful face he had
ever seen, if he excepted Edith’s, which it in some respects resembled,
and had Gertie’s forty pounds a year been forty thousand, or even half
that amount, he would have given the preference to her, notwithstanding
she had no family, or friends, or name. But the colonel held money high,
and prized the luxuries which money brings, and did not wish to live
without them. And money was not quite as plentiful with Col. Schuyler as
it once had been. He had met with some heavy losses recently, and now
that little Arthur had come, and other children might yet call him
father, Godfrey’s fortune would be much less than he had hoped to make
it, and so Godfrey must marry rich, and his love be put aside, and
Gertie must help to do it, and be the means, if need be, of breaking her
own and Godfrey’s heart.
“Gertie,” he said to her, very pleasantly and affably, when just before
dark he found her watering a bed of geraniums near the south wing
windows; “Gertie, can I see you alone a few moments? I have something to
say to you.”
“Certainly,” she answered, and putting down her watering-pot, and taking
off her garden gloves and hat, she followed him to the same room where,
earlier in the day, Godfrey had declared his love for her, and where now
she was to promise to reject that love should it ever be offered to her,
for that was the colonel’s intention. He knew Gertie well enough to know
that her word once passed she would keep it, though her heart broke in
the keeping. But how should he commence? What should he say to the young
girl whose blue eyes were confronting him so steadily?
“Gertie,” he began at last, “I brought you here to ask a favor of you; a
great favor, which I hope you will grant.”
“Yes, Col. Schuyler, anything I can do for you, I will,” she said, and
he went on:
“I have been kind to you, Gertie, have I not, ever since you first came
to live with us?”
“Yes, very, very kind,” Gertie answered, wondering at the question, and
his reason for reminding her of the kindness.
“I have tried to do you good,” he said, speaking with a little hesitancy
now; “first for Mrs. Schuyler’s sake, and lastly because I liked you
myself, and was greatly interested in you, and felt that you were no
ordinary girl. I tell you this to let you know that the favor I have to
ask has nothing to do with you personally. I am your friend, and will be
so as long as I live, and provide for you at my death, or sooner if you
marry, as you probably will,—girls like you always do, and I,—yes I——”
What was he going to say to her, Gertie wondered, a thought of Tom
Barton crossing her mind? Was Col. Schuyler about to advocate his cause?
Impossible, she said to herself, and waited impatiently for him to
proceed. But she was not at all prepared for the abrupt question with
which he finally plunged into the business.
“Gertie, has my son ever made love to you? That is, has he ever said or
done anything which under some circumstances might give you reason to
think him more interested in you than in another?”
There was a violent start, and Gertie’s face was crimson as she looked
across the table at the man questioning her thus, while her thoughts
leaped backward to the previous night and the eyes which had looked so
tenderly upon her, the hands which had held hers so fast, and the voice
so full of passion telling her of the lost letters and saying to her so
sadly:
“If you had received them, Gertie,—if you had, I might, oh, who knows
what might have been?”
All day long the remembrance of that interview had been in her mind,
filling her with a delicious feeling of happiness that Godfrey did care
for her, and bringing occasionally a pang of regret as she wondered what
would have been had she received his letters. She had never dreamed of
marriage in connection with Godfrey. She had always supposed that he
belonged to Alice, and so she did not know the real nature of the
emotions Godfrey’s language the previous night had called into being
until Col. Schuyler tore the veil away and laid her heart before her,
bare and palpitating with love for Godfrey, his son. What right had he
to question her thus, and how could she answer him, she asked herself,
as, with her hands locked together, and the love whose existence she had
just discovered swelling and surging in her heart, now with throbs of
anguish as she remembered Alice, and now with beats of joy as she
thought of Godfrey, she sat motionless and silent, until the colonel
spoke again:
“You do not answer me, and from that I infer he has made love to you.
Was it last night? He told me he talked with you. Gertie, this must not
be. Godfrey is bound to Alice. It was settled years ago in our families.
It was his mother’s dying wish. It is the one thing I desire above all
others. I have nothing against you, Gertie,—nothing; but Godfrey must
marry Alice, and you must not let him break his word to her.”
He spoke rapidly, glancing only once at the face opposite, which was
white as ashes, and he could see the slight figure sway a little from
side to side, while a sound like a smothered sob broke on his ear, and
then Gertie spoke, very low and very decidedly, but with no anger in her
voice.
“Col. Schuyler, you need not fear for Godfrey. He never made love to me,
though I think,—I believe it would be easy for me to tempt him to do so,
but I shall not try. I will not be the serpent in your Eden, or sting
the hand which has fed me. You have been too kind to me for that. I
shall not prove ungrateful.”
“God bless you, Gertie. I was sure you would do right. It is more
necessary to me than you know that Godfrey should marry Alice, and you
have lifted a great burden from my heart. Godfrey is impulsive and
hot-headed, and easily influenced, and seeing you every day might be won
from his allegiance, especially as I do not think his whole heart is in
this marriage; but it must be, and, Gertie, if he should come to you
with words of love, promise me you will refuse to listen. I shall feel
secure then. I can trust you, I know. Will you promise, Gertie?”
He held his hand toward the little, cold, white fingers resting on the
table, and which crept slowly on till they lay in his grasp, while
Gertie said:
“I promise, Colonel Schuyler; but,—but,—Godfrey,—I did not know before
that I loved him so much until now that I am giving him up forever.”
Oh, what a piteous voice it was, and how the slight frame shook with
suppressed sobs and tears while the colonel sat watching and wishing so
much to comfort her. But he could not, and he let her cry on for a few
moments, when he said:
“Gertie, your distress pains me greatly, but you are young and will
outlive this fancy; and, Gertie, it has occurred to me that you may wish
to go away for the summer while the young people are here, but I would
rather you should stay. Mrs. Schuyler would be very unhappy without you,
while Godfrey, I think, would be discontented and follow you, perhaps.
It is better, on the whole, to stay: and Gertie, I need not ask that
this interview shall be a secret between us. Not even my wife must know
of it.”
Gertie hesitated a moment, and then replied:
“Colonel Schuyler, if a time ever comes when Godfrey speaks to me of
love I shall refuse him, as I promised, but I shall tell him why. I must
do that, you know!”
And with this Colonel Schuyler was obliged to be content. He had gained
his point, and looked upon his son’s marriage with Alice as a sure
thing, and he felt very kind and tender toward the young girl whose
heart he had wrung so cruelly, and whose sad face smote him as he bade
her good-night and blessed her for what she had promised.
The next morning Gertie was suffering from a severe headache and did not
appear at breakfast or lunch, but she was better in the afternoon and
was able to walk to Edith’s boudoir, where she lay upon the couch and
had her dinner brought to her. As she was about to eat it a voice said
at the door: “May I come in?” and, without waiting for an answer,
Godfrey entered the room. He had heard from Edith that she was there,
and declining the dessert, had excused himself from the table and gone
directly to her.
“See, I have brought you a pond lily and a bunch of blue violets,
because I remembered how much you used to like them. The violets are
just the color of your eyes,” he said, as he held them so close to her
that his hand touched her white cheek and sent the hot blood to it
suddenly.
Then, drawing his chair close to her couch, he began to talk as easily
and naturally as if the sight of her, so pale and languid and sweet,
were not stirring within him a wild tornado of feeling which, had he
known of the answering throb in her heart, might have burst its bonds
and trampled down every right of the little lady coming down the hall
ostensibly to call on Gertie, but really to know for herself if Godfrey
was there with her!
“And so you are taking your dessert here? Really, Miss Westbrooke, I
shall object to this,” Alice said, as she entered the room, trying to
speak playfully, though there was that in her eyes which warned Godfrey
not to provoke her too far if he would avoid a scene. Spying the lily
she snatched it up, exclaiming: “The very thing I was wanting for my
hair! Where did it come from?”
Gertie glanced at Godfrey, who explained:
“It was the only one the boy had, or I would have bought more.”
“Oh, you brought it to her, then?” Alice said, dropping it as suddenly
as if it had been plague-smitten, while Gertie said, entreatingly:
“Please keep it, Miss Creighton, I really do not care for it.”
“Neither do I, thank you;” and with a very low bow Alice left the room,
waiting at the end of the hall till Godfrey saw fit to join her.
There was something of a quarrel between the two lovers, who walked down
the garden to a retired summer-house, where, Godfrey said, they could
have it out, bidding Alice “scratch and bite like a little cat, if she
wanted to.”
“I don’t want to scratch nor bite, and I ain’t a little cat, but I do
not think it fair in you to admire that girl so much, and take her
lilies and violets and things, and you engaged to me,” Alice sobbed,
while Godfrey, who knew that she really had just cause for complaint,
tried to appease her, and promised not to offend again so far as Gertie
was concerned.
“Though I do like her,” he said, “and always shall; but I intend to be
loyal to you, Allie, and mean to make you happy, and I want you to
remember that, and not flare up every time I happen to look at a girl.”
And Alice promised that she would not, and took his proffered kiss of
reconciliation very graciously, and when, in the early dusk of the warm
summer night, I walked up to the Hill to call on the young ladies, I
found the engaged pair sitting by themselves at the far end of the
piazza, Alice with her hand clasping Godfrey’s arm, while she told him
something to which he seemed to listen in a preoccupied kind of way, as
if he hardly knew what she was saying to him.