GODFREY AND GERTIE.
Gertie’s plunge in the river was not followed by any serious
consequences, and on the morning succeeding the accident, although she
was very pale and languid, she complained of nothing but weakness and
soreness from the rubbings we had given her, and she came to breakfast
looking, like a little Quakeress in one of my sober wrappers, with only
a plain linen collar around her neck, and her hair gathered into a net.
But nothing could make Gertie other than pretty, and when, just after
breakfast, a step was heard on the walk, and I saw by the flush on her
cheek that she knew whose step it was, I had never seen her more
beautiful. Godfrey had come early, and was in the best of spirits, and
so tender and loving toward Gertie that I watched him wonderingly, for I
did not know what had passed between him and Alice, and could not guess
how his heart was beating with joy at his freedom, and with hope for the
future. He had brought her a bouquet of flowers and some grapes from the
hot-house, and he hovered about her restlessly, and called her a little
nun in that queer garb and mob cap, as he styled the net which he
playfully pulled from her head, letting her hair fall over her
shoulders, and about her face.
“There, isn’t she just like some picture set in a golden frame?” he
said, pushing back a stray tress from her forehead, and then stepping
aside to let me see and admire, too.
How Gertie’s blue eyes drooped beneath his gaze, and how the hot blood
colored her cheeks, until she looked like some guilty thing cowering
from shame. And Gertie did feel guilty, and as if she were usurping
another’s rights. She knew who it was that saved her from drowning, and
she knew now that what she had thought might be a dream, must in part at
least have been a reality; that amid the horrid blackness which was so
much like death, Godfrey’s lips had kissed hers passionately, and
Godfrey’s voice had called her his darling, and bade her come back to
life again for the sake of the love he bore her. Yes, Godfrey had done
all that, and he was doing it over again, so far as he dared, with me
there in the way; and Gertie’s heart beat with joy, and then was heavy
as lead when she remembered Alice Creighton, and her promise to Colonel
Schuyler, which she must keep, if the heavens fell.
“I am coming to see you again after lunch, but meantime, I will send you
some of your things, and I want you dressed in white, with these in your
hair,” Godfrey said, taking from the bouquet a few forget-me-nots, which
he laid in her lap. “I am going to tell you something which may astonish
you, but will nevertheless make you glad, I hope, so _au revoir, ma
chère_.”
He kissed her, and when she drew back in surprise, he wound his arm
around _my_ neck, and kissed me, saying:
“You see, I serve you both alike, the old maid and the young one.
Adieu.”
He was off like the wind, and we could hear him going rapidly down the
walk, his very step indicative of buoyant life, and vigor, and
elasticity. I did not say anything to Gertie, but left her alone, while
I attended to some household duties. When I returned to her after the
lapse of an hour, I found her asleep on the lounge, with a troubled
expression on her face and a tear on her eyelashes. The carriage from
the hill was at the gate, Robert Macpherson and Emma were coming up to
the door, and so I woke her and made her ready for them. Emma was paler
than usual, but there was something in the expression of her face which
made her prettier than I had ever seen her before. She was quite
recovered, and she was in almost as good spirits as Godfrey had been,
while Robert’s eyes followed her with an expression which set me to
wondering if everything had been turned topsy-turvy by that accident in
the river. I had a lily I wished to show Robert, who was something of a
florist, and asked him into the garden.
“Yes, that’s a good old Ettie,—keep him as long as you can. I want to
see Gertie alone,” Emma whispered to me, and as soon as we were gone she
went up to Gertie and said:
“Guess now what has happened! Robert wants _me_ to be his wife,—and I
thought all the while it was Julia! He said so last night, and would
have told me before but for the misfortune of his birth, which he
thought I might not like. He says you know about it, and so I come to
you first of all. Of course I’d rather his mother had been a lady born,
and I do not quite like the thought of those Lyles and Nesbits. That’s
the Schuyler and Rossiter of me, while the woman in me says: ‘I do not
care; a man is a man for a’ that.’”
Gertie was surprised, for she too had supposed it was Julia whom Robert
preferred, but she was very glad to find herself mistaken, and heartily
echoed Emma’s sentiment, “A man’s a man for a’ that.”
“But what will your father say?” she asked, and Emma replied;
“I don’t know. I hope Glenthorpe will outweigh the Lyles. Robert will
tell him to-night. There, he is coming, and I must go. Good-by, and come
home as quick as you can. Tell Ettie, if you like.”
She kissed us both, as Godfrey had done, while Robert shook hands with
Gertie, who said:
“I am so glad. I supposed all the while it was Julia, or I should not
have thought it could make any difference. God bless you both.”
We did not expect Godfrey till after lunch, but he surprised us by
coming in just as we were taking our seats at the dinner table. He was
in town, he said, and thought it a waste of labor to go home and then
back again, and so he came directly to our house, and helping himself to
a chair, he drew up to the table beside Gertie, to whom he devoted
himself with all the assiduity of an ardent and accepted lover. I think
he looked upon himself in that light, and was not in the least prepared
for the disappointment awaiting him.
At the foot of our garden, overlooking the river, is an old-fashioned
summer-house, covered with a luxuriant grapevine, and Godfrey asked
Gertie to go there with him as soon as dinner was over. His love was of
the impetuous kind, which cannot wait to know the best or worst, and
once alone with Gertie and free from observation, save as the
bright-eyed robin, whose nest was among the vines, looked curiously down
upon him, he burst out passionately and told her of the love which had
been growing in his heart since the day he found her on the deck and
stole the kiss from her lips.
“I have been so hungry for another,” he said, “and I had it, too,
yesterday, when you lay by the water’s edge, and I feared you were dead.
Forgive me, darling, if I took unfair advantage of your position. I
could not help it, and had you died I would have claimed you as mine and
told my love to all the world.”
“Oh, Godfrey, hush; you must not speak to me like this. Remember Alice,”
Gertie said gaspingly, and Godfrey replied:
“I do remember her, and it is of her I must first tell you. When in my
agony lest you were dead, I called you my darling and kissed your pallid
lips, Alice stood beside me a witness to the love which never was hers.
She was angry, as she naturally would be, and in her anger made me free
from my engagement, and said she hated me and gave me back the ring of
betrothal. After that she surely has no claim on me, and if she had I
could not respect it now.”
Then very rapidly he went over with the entire story of his _affaire du
cœur_ with Alice from the time they both were children and the marriage
was arranged by their parents.
“I like Alice as a friend,” he said; “but I never could have loved her
as a wife, and shall not try. I have tasted a little the sweets of
loving you, and nothing will satisfy me now but the full fruition of
that love. Gertie, you do love me; tell me that you do, and not shrink
away from me as you are trying to do.”
He wound his arm around her, and drew her closely to him, while with a
shudder she cried:
“Oh, Godfrey, don’t ask me; take the words back, please, and do not
torture me so cruelly. I cannot be your wife. I cannot. It must never
be,—never. I have given my solemn promise, and I must keep it.”
Then he released her, and springing to his feet, exclaimed:
“Your promise, Gertie! Your promise! What do you mean? Has any other man
dared talk to you of love? Has Tom Barton——”
She saw that he misunderstood her, and said to him:
“No, Godfrey, it is not that. I am not promised in that way, but for
gratitude, for honor. Your father asked it of me.”
“My father? What do you mean?” Godfrey said, resuming his seat beside
her, and growing very indignant and very white about the lips when
Gertie told him what she meant, and that she would not break her vow.
Nothing he could say to her moved her in the least. She had promised and
she should keep her word, and he must go back to Alice, who would
forgive him.
“I shall never go back to her. We settled that last night,” he said, and
then added, quickly: “Gertie, I am not one who gives up easily, and I
shall not give you up. My father himself shall remove the bar; only tell
me, Gertie, truly, do you love me, and if it were not for the promise,
would you be my wife?”
Oh, what a depth of love and tenderness there was in the streaming eyes
lifted to Godfrey’s face, as Gertie answered him so sadly:
“I am afraid I would.”
“Then you shall be,” Godfrey said. “I will see my father, this very
night and tell him the whole story, and get him to remove the interdict,
and when I have his consent I shall come straight here to you. Don’t go
home to-day, Gertie. Stay with Ettie another night, and wait here for me
till the moon is up, and then if I do not come you may know father has
goaded me to such lengths that in my desperation I have thrown myself
into the river!”
He spoke lightly, and tried to laugh, but there was a load on his heart,
a feeling that the interview with his father might be a stormy one, but
he was ready to encounter any difficulty for Gertie’s sake, and esteemed
no trial too great if in the end it brought her to his arms. It was
useless, he knew, to think of winning her so long as that promise to his
father stood in the way, and so that was the barrier to be broken down;
but in his passion and blindness he had little fear that he should fail.
Gertie was the same as his, and he told her so, and stooped to kiss her
lips at parting. But she drew back from him, and said:
“No, Godfrey, I am not your promised wife, and never shall be. Your
father will not consent.”
She knew Colonel Schuyler better than Godfrey did, and her heart was
very heavy, as she watched him going from her, his face beaming with
hope as he looked back to say:
“Wait for me here, Gertie, when the moon comes over the hills.”
I saw that something had agitated her when she returned to the house,
and laying her head on my shoulder, said, “Tell me about it if you
like;” and then she told me all, and how hopeless it was for Godfrey to
think his father would consent to his marriage with a poor girl like
her. And though I felt that she spoke truly, I tried to encourage her,
telling her that Godfrey was not one to stop at any obstacle which could
be surmounted.
Later in the day Edith drove round in her phaeton to take Gertie home,
but I begged to keep her another night, while Gertie, too, expressed a
desire to stay, and so Edith went back without her, never suspecting the
reason which Gertie had for staying with me that night.