The boat went cutting through the tide-waves and dashing the spray over
her bows, the wide sea was opening all around them,--the salt wind stung
his brain to keener life. To what horrid fate were they hurrying, she
alone with this maniacal man? Out there beyond, away and away, the
mighty billows tossed in their cruel glee, silvered their crests and
horns in the moonlight, and grew and disappeared like phantoms. Her
heart sank down abysses with every beat,--she covered her face with her
hands in some vain call for miraculous aid.
Just then another boat came by and took the wind from their sails.
Eloise felt the slackened speed, and looked up. First the figure of a
horseman standing against the sky on the cliff above, as if a portion of
the stone itself, caught her eye; next, the sail sheering by them; then
she was on her feet beside Marlboro'. She reached out her hand to the
tiller; she looked in his face and laughed in her old way. It was hardly
an effort, for all at once her heart had grown light as a bubble.
"Mr. Marlboro'," she said, in the sweet natural ring of her every-day
tones and without a quiver, "these are the Blue Bluffs close above us."
The voice, the air, the meaning, made him irresolute. At the same moment
the tiller obeyed her hand, that threw out all its strength, the sails
flapped loosely across their bending brows, they went about, heading for
the little cove of still water.
"You are right," said he. "That is our home. What fiercely glad wild
dream have I had? Our home!"
The keel grated on the pebbles,--some one came dashing down the narrow
path, shoved them off, and leaped on board.
"Now, Marlboro'," said Mr. St. George, "the rudder is mine. A pretty
dance with Death have you been leading Miss Changarnier! How long do you
suppose this cockle-shell could buffet such a sea as is playing outside?
Do you fancy I can countenance such treatment of my ward? Ease that rope
a little, Miss Eloise. Here we go! What will Murray say, Marlboro', when
he sees me come sailing by with you?
"'A-sailing and a-sailing,
My love he left me sad;
A-sailing and a-sailing,
Let him come and make me glad!'"
sang Mr. St. George, and they went flying up the river.
"The south winds blow, the waters flow,
His sail is in the sun;
Though twenty storms between us go,
His heart and mine are one,"
sang Eloise, in jubilant response at her safety,--and Marlboro', fain to
follow, echoed the air they trolled.
Up the stream, this way and that, tacking and veering, past the boats
that hung on their oars and cheered them this time lustily themselves,
touching shore,--and the hunters had their boat again. Then all trooping
back across the turf, her hand in his, to the place where Marlboro's
horse waited with pawing hoofs. What a mad evening it had been! And in
the whirl of it Eloise had uttered no word to break her bonds. But
broken they must be;--in what insanity had she riveted them,--set free
this slave of his passion? His bottle-imp--had not her master once said
it?--must grow into a demon that with his wide wings would blacken the
sky. One experience of it was too much. Oh, why had nobody warned her?
Every one must have a cup of coffee to counteract the damp. Mrs. Arles
had it ready. The horse at the door gave a loud, impatient neigh. The
rider would not wait.
"You were right, Marlboro'," said, in his significant undertone, Mr. St.
George to him from the other side, as he mounted, while Eloise stood on
the step above. "Success perched on your banners. I should have lost, if
I had tossed."
"You know it, then? Why, then, of course, it's true. I am half afraid
lest it prove one of my cloud-capped dreams. I shall need no more opium
to-night, I have other magic," said Marlboro',--bent down and would have
kissed the forehead of Eloise, when the horse curvetted, reared, and
galloped off.
Was she really pledged? then thought Eloise, as the bead of all her
defiant effervescence fell. Was there no loop of escape? Had she so
rashly given all at once? Should she inevitably become the wife of
Marlboro'? Were the chains upon her? Was she doomed? Nobody guessed her
misery, as she reentered with a _fanfare_ of jests, unless it were the
gay St. George himself.
"Are you to be congratulated?" asked the low-voiced Mrs. Arles, having
smilingly approached.
"No, no, indeed!" exclaimed Eloise, in a smothered agony; and Mrs.
Arles, misunderstanding her, supposed it was not finally arranged.
"What a reckless rider!" cried Miss Murray, looking down the moonlit way
after Marlboro'.
"It is not the only reckless thing he does," said her brother.
"No," interpolated Mr. Dean. "The way in which Marlboro' manages his
affairs is too Plutonic. But what a gloss those shining sovereign
manners of his do put upon it all!"
"Sovereign manners! Don't talk of sovereign manners, unless you mention
Mr. St. George's," said Lottie Humphreys under her breath, and glancing
to see if he could possibly hear with the length of the room between
them. "Mr. St. George puts my heart in a flutter, when he asks will I
have ice or cream."
"I've no doubt of it," whispered Emma Houghton, with meaning.
"Sure you're right, Dean?" asked Mr. Humphreys. "I should not like to
have at home the dangerous cattle Marlboro' can put finger on."
"Perhaps they would be less dangerous, if the fingers were less
weighty."
"Here's Marlboro's theory, and in the long run it's about the true one,
you must confess.--Shut that door, Kate, my dear.--A cramped stature
does not feel a cramped roof; but raise the stature, and the slave
outgrows his institution, and there's revolt. Eh? There's such a thing
as equally bad extremes. Our old friend Mr. Erne's of late, and St.
George's now,--beg your pardon, St. George,--are both of them just as
bad the other way."
"You are severe," said St. George, as he set the chessmen.
"Our host yonder," continued Mr. Humphreys, in the best of humors,
sipping his coffee, "among his other crotchets, endows his people with
what Nature saw fit to deny to them,--souls. But he's one of those men
autocratic enough to reverse Nature. Indeed,--I am out of all
patience,--the whole place is managed other than I think at all wise."
"That is to be regretted," said St. George, challenging his adversary.
"Well, here is an instance, a single instance, trivial enough, but
dragging after it a train as enormous as the Genius drew from the
fisherman's jar. These people are reared to a degree of independence
that will stop no one knows where. They supply the house with poultry,
eggs, and vegetables from their own yards, which the house purchases
with money, or with commodities beyond the usual allowance,--actually
pays for,--do you mark? Any labor of extra hours is always compensated;
there is a system of holidays; the quarters are, so to say, palatial;
and, in fact, a very detrimental policy is pursued,--one that occasions
discontent on all the neighboring plantations. Marlboro' 'd have less
trouble, if St. George had different discipline. It will not do,--I've
told you so, St. George,--I'm older than you,--it will not do. There are
hands on the place who, as their master says, have found their manhood
and felt their slavery: there's one of them now, that coachman Ned. I'd
sell him to-morrow."
"Will Mr. St. George?"
"He? Oh, no! There's this Quixotic chivalry again! You listen, my dear
fellow? He will let the man purchase his freedom,--if he don't lend him
the money to do it himself! Ha! ha! ha!"
"But," said Mr. Dean, "I've tried St. George's plan, on his
recommendation, these three or four months, Humphreys,--not wishing to
be illiberal, or have the world outstrip me,--and, so far, I find that
it will do very well,--that it will do admirably."
"Well, we won't speak of new brooms."
"Yet there's a great deal of disturbance everywhere about, I hear. You
don't know, perhaps," said Mr. Houghton, in an under-voice, and
nervously drawing up his chair, "that Marlboro' has had his place under
guard these three weeks?"
"Crowded on all his steam, and now he's sitting on the valve. What a
blessed life it is!" said Mr. Dean.
"Come, come, Dean, we shall have to look up your record!"
"Dear me!" said Miss Murray, "why will you talk about it? It's worse
than ghost-stories just before bed. I've heard you gentlemen insinuating
so much together that I fancy every night I hear the great alarm-bell
booming in my dreams."
"There's no danger of that here."
"But it would be so terrible anywhere!"
"Here is Will," said her mother, as the young brother of Laura entered.
"If, my dear friends, we should change the subject for bed-candles"--
"Check!" said Mr. St. George, rising.
It was a balmy meridional night, and Eloise, at length alone in her
misery, leaned from her window to breathe the wind that floated in over
the fields, fragrant and gentle. Leaning there, and great resplendent
stars seeming to hang out of heaven close above her, the minutes went
slipping into the hours, and the house-clock struck one, startling her
with its peal, as doubtless it did Miss Murray. Bending her head that
she might not strike the sash, a dark cobweb caught Eloise's eye;--it
was a lace shawl, which the draught had borne through the window, and
caught outside upon the thorny vine. It was too firmly fixed to
disentangle at a touch; she put out her hand, and, taking the stem,
shook the whole blossoming mass, scattering a rain of dew and perfume,
and the filmy thing detached and fluttered to the ground. Without
waiting to think, Eloise hastened down and found an exit. Coming round
beneath the gable, the great dog following with his nose in her hand,
she found herself insphered in a soft light that stole from the open
cabinet-casement, but, hoping to escape notice, flitted on after the
lace, with which the breeze was already frolicking. Suddenly the dog
perceived her object and bounded after it. Fear possessed her soul; it
was Laura Murray's; he would rend and mouth the costly thing, which her
whole year's salary, she thought, could not buy, as he would her
handkerchief. She softly called him away; but the dog refused to hear.
"Rounce!" cried another voice, and Rounce came tumbling and gambolling
back, while Mr. St. George obtained the shawl, and was beside her.
"So, Miss Changarnier, it was this little thing that brought you out
here after midnight? Never do it again. It is forbidden. Nothing could
be more unsafe."
"Thank you, Mr. St. George; I did not perceive danger."
As she spoke, and while they paused, there stole upon them the far and
faint pulsation of a bell. It was the tide-bell placed on a distant reef
to swing and ring with the ebb and flow.
"Era gia l' ora che volge 'l desio
A' naviganti, e intenerisce 'l cuore
Lo di ch' an detto a' dolci amici a Dio;
"E che lo nuovo peregrin d' amore
Punge, se ode squilla di lontano
Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore,"
murmured Mr. St. George, half lifting the book in which his bitter mood
had sought stinging solace, and where his finger yet kept the place.
"It is many hours too late for that sweet vesper-bell," said Eloise.
"Any slow bell at night is like it. The tones of a bell are always
homesick tones to me,--who have no home!"
"You, Sir!" said Eloise, forgetfully,--half losing sight of her own
burden.
Mr. St. George, for all response, gazed at her a moment. Was she
entirely plighted to Marlboro'? Could she care for him? How far did that
tacit promise go?
"Eloise!" he said.
But suddenly she turned away her head, outstretching a forbidding hand.
Abruptly he bowed and stepped aside, and followed her only at a
distance.
* * * * *
When Mr. Marlboro' appeared just at breakfast the next morning, with a
color fanned into his cheek by the half-score miles of gallop, Vane came
trotting along behind him.
"Vane," said Mr. Marlboro', after he had saluted Eloise as warmly as he
dared, "this is your mistress."
And Eloise felt her fetters close miserably upon her. This had been his
device to know if he had dreamed or not on the night before, to detect
whether his joy were solid truth or mounting laudanum-fumes. But as for
Vane, so soon as his bow was made and homage paid, he fled away round
the corner and lost himself in Hazel's happy arms.
At dinner that day the ladies rose early, as they were to dress for a
wedding-party that awaited them some miles away. Just as Eloise, who was
the last, passed out of the door which Mr. St. George held open, he
produced from somewhere and placed in her hand a braided trencher of
broad vine and fig-leaves that bore a mass of strange and beautiful
growth. Scarcely had she plunged taper fingers between the scented
layers, when a box with Mr. Marlboro's compliments was delivered, which,
on being laughingly opened, proved to hold rare wreaths of pinky buds
and bells.
"Four gray walls and four gray towers
Overlook a space of flowers,"
hummed Lottie; but Mr. St. George was consummately oblivious, and
returned to his friends. Why it fell out, that, when Miss Changarnier
came floating down the staircase again, robed in something thin, white,
and glittering as the hoar-frost itself, the darkness of her hair was
twined neither with the roseate Marlboro' bells, nor yet with the long
acacia-sprays whose golden balls should have expanded and bloomed in the
light and heat till they seemed like fragrant drops of lustre, Miss
Changarnier could best tell for herself.
But the wedding passed as weddings do,--to-day cake, to-morrow
crumbs,--and at length the carriages were ordered for The Rim. The
evening had not been without its triumphs to Eloise, however many masks
she wore over her inner depression. St. George had forgotten her till a
late hour, and, conspicuous as Marlboro's _devoir_ had been, her own
acceptance of it had been scarcely less so. Perhaps there was nothing in
the world, of its kind, more beautiful than Eloise Changarnier's
dancing. Fragrances, if they were visible, would float with just such a
dreamy grace from flower to flower. Simple and sensuous, yet airy and
fine, was the spirit of every motion; and with every wave, with every
look, she appealed to the beholder's heart. Swimming down the room on
the slow circles of the indolent languor of the waltz, perfumes fanning
all about her, the wind lifting the curtains and letting in gleams of
amethyst heavens and low-hanging stars, the music pulsing in passionate
throbs,--once only she raised her eyes, and the great beryl jewels
rested on Earl St. George Erne's, as he leaned against the wall with his
supreme indifference of lordly manner; and if he revenged himself with
the swift gleam of that involuntary smile that must never kindle for
her, though it shot its light over brow and lip forever, he never knew
it. An instant afterwards he was beside her, yet he dared not with the
next strain suffer it to be his arm that upheld her, and Eloise sat
where he placed her and danced no more. And then Mrs. Murray came, and
they all took their seats in the carriages: Laura jubilant, but stately;
Lottie eminently dishevelled, and still clutching the crumpled list of
her partners; Master Will with his fists in his eyes, and heavy beneath
a drowsiness from which he soon had enough to waken him; while in Mr.
St. George's deportment to every one there was a shade of the old
sardonic displeasure with which he was occasionally wont to favor his
friends. But Lottie, after a few furlongs, was asleep in somebody's
arms; the rest were, perhaps, living the evening over again in reverie;
the other carriages were far, far ahead, and theirs, which, having been
detained, was the last, trundled on slowly over a bad road. At length
Laura stirred, and exclaimed,--
"Did you ever hear such divine music, Eloise? Why didn't Mrs. Arles
come, do you know, Mr. Marlboro'?"
"Does Mrs. Arles go into such general society?" replied Mr. Marlboro'.
"Can't say. How long she wore black! so long that it has really become
quite gray! Has she been husbanding her charms, or is she husbanding
them now? Don't you shake your fan at me, Eloise Changarnier, or I shall
tell how you said it yourself this very noon!"
The carriage-top had been thrown open, and at the moment of these words
Miss Changarnier saw Mr. St. George, from his seat on the box beside the
coachman, hastily start and turn, but whether on account of Mrs. Arles,
or at something in the road, she could not discern; for Marlboro's horse
having very singularly fallen lame in the stables that night, she had
heard Mr. St. George muttering something about foul play, as he offered
the other a seat, and she felt that he entertained apprehensions. Had
she seen Marlboro's arm raised quiveringly, while the lash of the
riding-whip fell across the groom's face in a welt, as he dismissed him,
she might have felt also a womanly fear that the apprehensions were not
groundless. For Marlboro', unable to get speech with Eloise one moment
apart from others that day, had fled home in a fury, and had thus, when
his anger cooled, been obliged to ride alone to the place of merry
rendezvous.
Gradually, now, as they jogged along, Mrs. Murray began nodding here and
there about the carriage, dropping her head very much as if she meant to
drop it for good and all; one by one the others forgot themselves; but
Eloise could see Marlboro' in the opposite corner sitting alert and pale
and sparkling-eyed, and felt that Mr. St. George was watching every
brier on the road-side, beneath his slouching brim. At length the
carriage stopped with a jerk just as they reached the little log-bridge
that crossed the creek, and Mr. St. George appeared at the door.
"You must all alight a moment," he said. "Here is a break-down;--and,
moreover, a log of the bridge has been displaced,"--the last in an aside
to Marlboro'.
It took but a few moments to repair the road, and to tie up the broken
springs of the coach as they could; but, after a trial, it was found
impossible for all to ride.
"I will walk," said Eloise, stepping down before any one could arrest
her. "We were all too much crowded. Come with me, Will,--if only, Mr.
St. George, you will take the reins yourself and spare Ned to us?"
"No," said Mr. St. George, perhaps knowing from old experience that it
would be useless to oppose Eloise, and having no time to lose. "Keep
your place, Will; do you hear? The horses are best used to the customary
driver. That makes it all right."
"Certainly, St. George, this should be my duty!" exclaimed Marlboro'.
But, as he sprang up, Mr. St. George's arm barred the way.
"You have quite enough to do to take care of yourself, Marlboro'!" said
he, thrusting his revolver into the other's hand. "Drive on, Ned. Only
keep us in sight."
"Mas'r Sin George, Sah," said the stolid Ned, "you are safe enough.
Expect, 'f you want _him_ safe," with supreme contempt, "I'd better get
de go out o' dese yer critters wile dey feel der oats!"
"Wretched insolence!" murmured Marlboro', still incensed. And in a few
minutes the coach had disappeared round the winding way.
"So much for Marlboro's theories!" burst forth St. George, in a moment.
"A man's works follow him. Sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind is
too much of a good thing. He has been away so long and so often, there
has been such mismanagement under a long minority, such changes and such
misrule, such a hard hand and such a high hand, that the whole place is
a fester. How dares he prowl round the country so after nightfall? I
wouldn't give a pin for his life this moment, if it weren't for that
white defiance of his that would back him against a whole Ashantee
tribe! If he were the coward that I am, he'd be a better master; but
he's what the poor trash call a damned aristocrat,--which means an
aristocrat past salvation, I take it."
Eloise laughed to hear the words from Mr. St. George's autocratic lips.
"It is very odd," said she, "that so formidable an aristocracy must
needs underlie so powerful a democracy!"
The night was clear and deep; great shadows floated down from the
heavens, as if of beings travelling on the winds: one of those perfect
seasons when the powers of the dark seem to be surprised at their work,
although low in the horizon behind lay a glimmer, as if the hour were
soon to bring forth its marvel,--a glimmer which made the whole more
weird, and hung the very spirit of summer nights about them as they
walked.
"What should you have thought of yourself, Miss Eloise," said Mr. St.
George, "if a year ago, you had seen your image prospected on the canvas
of a dark and lonely highway, extremely late at night, or early in the
morning,--as you choose,--with, for sole companion, a creature who
indulges himself in pipes, porter, and parties, a usurper, a
demagogue,--in fact, one who can be represented only as disreputable? A
very improper young woman?"
One year ago! The tears sprang to Eloise's eyes. She dared not look up,
but let them fall from the downcast lashes. Yet Mr. St. George saw them.
"And what is there, so painful in the picture, may I ask?" said he.
"A year ago my father was alive, Mr. St. George."
A change came over his face,--pallor like a soft cloud.
"Yet you are better off than I," he said, with singular unreserve for
him. "It is twelve times as long since _my_ father was with _me_. And
you could hardly have worshipped the one more than I worship the memory
of the other."
Yet, as if this at least were a sympathy between them, his manner became
for the moment tenderer, and he forgot himself in order to arouse her.
For Eloise was already full of reproach at having made one at so gay a
reunion,--not remembering that all the rest had seriously vowed they
would stay at home, unless she joined them, and that the wedding had
been also that of a dear friend. So Mr. St. George was no longer lofty;
he told her strange legends of the region that somehow she had never
heard, repeated tiny droplets of song that would have lost their
volatile essence in any alembic of translation, pointed out to her all
the signs of the night, for the nonce forgot politics, and gathered
spray after spray of the gorgeous creepers from the way-side, whose
names and natures he knew.
"How is it," she asked, "that you, whose mind is certainly filled with
things of an apparently vaster scale,--with legislation and war and
finance,--can care for these bubbles, these songs and flowers?"
"Do you know Homer, Miss Eloise,--Chapman's Homer? Although I'm not sure
but that the old English poet breathes a bloom upon the Greek. Well, I
do not forget, that, when the envoys went to appease the enraged
AEacides, that thunderer in arms,--
"The quarter of the Myrmidons they reached, and found him set
Delighted with his solemn harp, which curiously was fret
With works conceited through the verge; the bawdrick that embraced
His lofty neck was silver twist; this, when his hand laid waste
Aetion's city, he did choose as his especial prize,
And, loving sacred music well, made it his exercise."
"That is superb! You must find me the place to-morrow. But Achilles
playing on the harp? I am afraid he will suffer in Will Murray's
estimation."
"Hush! don't breathe it! Will doesn't know it yet,--perhaps may never
find it out. Do you know, Miss Eloise, as you go flitting along in that
misty dress, with the little scarf dropping from your hair, that you are
like the very soul of a white cloud fallen from above and trailing along
beside me?"
"I? with my dark skin?" said Eloise, before she thought.
"Yes, you, Egypt! White, because there combine all colors that are; and
in you--pardon me--there is a universal wealth of tint, be it carnation,
sea-green, black, or cream, so harmonized that one looks a hundred times
before finding it all. You recollect how a great painter produces his
effect of white,--of white sunlight on a stem? He lays the solar
spectrum there, the seven colors of light,--and their union in the
beholder's eye makes the dash of sunshine, the white lustre. Do you
know, in fact, what you remind me of?"
"No,--how should I?--Hark! what was that?"
It was the pealing of a bell, the far and faint pulsation of that bell
she had once before heard, as it rang out the changes of the sea, now
above and now below the flashing, falling foam-crests.
"It is the tide-bell," said Mr. St. George, stiffly; and, with the word,
the previous midnight rose as if by incantation, and she kept her eyes
on the ground. Yet, as they walked, it seemed to Eloise that her
quickened senses detected a hidden rustle and murmur, as if the distant
morasses, the neighboring thickets, were alive. She seemed to be aware
of soft and stealthy soundless foot-falls; shadowy forms, she would have
said, were gliding around them in the night. Cold terror made her heart
stand still. Suddenly all these fears condensed into shape,--two flaming
eyeballs glared in the copse,--a shock, a flash, a smell of powder, just
as she had seized Mr. St. George's arm and snatched him back. Then the
boughs crashed, and the dark shade went leaping away. Terror died in
Eloise's heart. Intrepid rage possessed her. She sprang forward, still
holding him back with the continued gesture of the light hand on his
arm, and gazed over the bushes, the very incarnation of splendid
fearlessness and defiance. Mr. St. George laughed.
"Is there nothing that excites your indignation?" she cried. "Could you
not have throttled him?"
"A flash in the pan," said he, coolly. "However, it might have been
worse. It has blown a breeze through my _sombrero_,"--taking off the
hat, which the ball had partly twisted around. "It was meant for
Marlboro', Miss Changarnier. I am in his place to-night, you see. You
have misled the rascals. Listen!" he murmured, in a lower tone, beside
her. "There is a freemasonry among these black devils,--doubtless the
tide-bell signals some secret meeting. They are all about us. Here! you
are the last person to be seen. Take this, and hurry on while I wait;
you can walk fast. Go!"
And the handle of a knife, a great broad blade, produced from some
hidden sheath, was between her fingers.
But Eloise did not stir.
"Go!" he repeated, in the same smothered murmur.
"Place you in such danger? Leave you so?" said Eloise. "Never!"
"Do as I bid you!" he replied, in a tone as full of cold, unsuppressed
bitterness as a north wind, motioning her away, and moving back.
The moon behind him, as he stepped, was floating up from the horizon, a
great bubble of glory, whitening the tops of the whole dark landscape,
throwing out in glittering points, like frosted silver-work, the rimy,
dewy tracery of budding boughs, studding each twig with gems, and
pouring light into the high hollow heaven, like vast draughts shed
crystal-clear from some shining drinking-horn. When, then, Mr. St.
George mounted the stump by the way-side and stood there erect,
weaponless and with folded arms, the moonlight upslanted full on face
and form, and made him as distinctly and rigidly visible to all the low
land on either side the road as if he had been some statue set up for a
mile-stone. A little time he remained so. A night-hawk slowly wheeled
from a distant grove, and came dreamily sailing high above his head.
There was an instant's flare that revealed a group of dusky faces in the
swamp below, a report, and the night-hawk plunged downwards and fell at
his feet.
"Mas'r Sin George," cried a voice, grim with murder ten minutes since,
"we lebe you our card. Good night!"
Mr. St. George stood there a moment and watched the group till it faded
off from sight in the shadows of that distant cypress-grove, and then
stepped down and found Eloise with clasped hands exactly where he had
left her.
"Why didn't you obey?" he said,--but this time with what a different
voice! "You could not feel your danger! You did not know your risk!
Great God, Eloise"----
Mr. St. George silenced himself abruptly.
"Well," he continued, after a few paces, "I convinced the wretches of my
identity. It is quite like life in the Romagna, an hour with the
brigands of the Marches, is it not? It is pleasant to play the hero for
five minutes. But you! They know Marlboro' can be hurt through you.
Truth runs in subtle channels here. Come, hasten! By God! if I had such
people as Marlboro's, I _would_ sell them, and that with a
tan-toasting!--or I'd send them all to the North, that's so fond of
them! Come, hasten!"--and, half dragging her on his arm, he strode
forward, wordless and fierce, till they reached the house.
I do not know what thoughts whirled through Eloise's dreamless brain
during the rest of that night, nor with what half-trembling resolutions
she arose, nor how much pride she had drowned in a vaster flood. But
when she descended, she found the house ablaze with fearful rumors that
had risen like marsh-lights everywhere out of the ground. All was not
right at Blue Bluffs, they said; some escaping slave--perhaps the
compunctious Vane himself, who knew?--had dared to breathe of great
disturbance and of retaliatory examples during the week before, which,
seen in the light of last night's broken bridge and gunshots, struck up
fresh terror. At noon Marlboro' came, but only for a brief stay. There
had been trouble with the creatures on his place, he said,
contemptuously, owing to some conspiracy among them, suspicions and
punishments. He could not account for such a state of affairs, unless
through incendiary emissaries. If further punishments were found
necessary, they should be just within the letter of the law, he vowed in
an angry aside to Mr. Humphreys,--the thing must now be settled once for
all. He would be here again on the next day, no new occurrence detaining
him at home, he said, as calmly as if that covered nothing; and with his
fair hair shining in the sun, and the handsome Vandyck-face laughing
over the shoulder, he rode off in gay heart and knightly guise,
accompanied by Evan Murray and Earl St. George Erne.
They were all standing on the piazza that night, looking for Mr. St.
George's return ere going to bed. A sudden toll, and then a sharp, quick
ringing, broken by other tolls, burst the air close above them.
It was the alarm-bell, and Ned the saturnine, rebellious in reason and
loyal in love, stood at the wheel. Mr. Murray, the father, leaped away.
Mr. Humphreys drew his brood within-doors. There was mustering of
weapons, shrieking of children; Miss Houghton fell in hysterics; Mrs.
Arles brought her the camphor, as quietly as she would have done at any
other time; Miss Changarnier stood like the expiatory victim for the
white race. Then came runners, overseers galloped up the avenue,
gentlemen, crackers, and leashed blood-hounds. There followed hurried
words and counter-commands; then part remained, part dashed away on the
road to Blue Bluffs. Nobody thought of sleeping; in the dead of night
the dull tramp of infantry resounded from the distant turnpike, and
later they heard the clang of grounding arms, and by the faint morning
light they saw the forms of the silent sentries stalking stalwart about
them, while, all around, the Erne slaves pursued, some their usual
routine, some the steps of the moment's master or mistress, and others
watched, huddled into frightened groups. Eloise stood leaning against
one side of the long drawing-room window; without knowing it, her
fingers constantly closed around the knife that lay in her belt, and
which she had failed to restore to its owner. All night she kept her
motionless position, looking far out and away to the eastward, till the
dark mass of Blue Bluffs should resolve itself into the azure mist of
castellated height that by daylight ever loomed upon the sea-horizon.
Hours of suspense and of silence. At length, hurriedly resounding hoofs,
and St. George once more stood among them.
"A revolt at Blue Bluffs," said he.
"As I have expected every night this month," said Mr. Dean.
"They have captured the ringleaders?" demanded Mrs. Arles.
"What have they done with them?" cried Emma Houghton.
Every one paused.
"Never mind," said Mr. St. George, with a terrible hiatus.
"And where is Mr. Marlboro'?"
"Where should you expect a man to be who crowds down the steam and sits
on the valve,--who walks on crater-crust? Marlboro',--poor
Marlboro'!--Marlboro' is dead."
Eloise dropped in a heap upon the floor.
The women gathered over her and got her away, laid at last upon her
bed,--and then she ordered them all to leave her, which glad enough were
they to do.
Mr. St. George walked the room in silence then, and finally sitting down
and resting his elbows on the table, remained so a long time,--his
knotted brow hidden by the tightly clasped hands. Nobody got any further
information from him. They must wait till Evan Murray returned with the
officers from the forts. Then he rose.
"You are in no danger here," he said to Mr. Murray. "There is a guard
detailed for every adjacent plantation. The affair is altogether
crushed.--I must go just the same," he muttered, and entered his cabinet
alone.
It was about two hours afterward, that Eloise--with whom, after having
roused herself from the horror of the shock, a feeling of unspeakable
pity, awe, and quaking terror had merged in another of equally
indescribable and cruel relief and freedom--was wakened from the dull
dream that sogged upon her brain in answering the place of two nights'
lost rest, by a servant at the door who brought to her a note. All
confused at the instant of starting, suddenly memory struck out the late
events in letters of fire. Half awake, with her pulse beating in great
shocks all about her wherever a pulse could play, she tore the note open
and read its but half-interpretable hieroglyphs twice before she
comprehended it.
"Distasteful as the thought of me may be at such a time, you
must endure it for a moment.
"I return to you to-day the property of which many months
ago I despoiled you. I leave it in better condition than I
found it, and so well has it met my demands, that, in spite
of all expenditure, you will find the customary income for
the length of time in the cabinet-escritoire untouched.
"I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to retain
it. I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to live
longer in the house with you, to breathe the air you
breathe, to feel myself growing desperate beneath the sound
of your voice. Because I cannot see you in sorrow for
another. Because self-control can go no farther. I leave it,
Eloise, because I love you!
"If I cherished one hope, it would not be at this time that
I should tell you my deadly secret. I have none, and
therefore I go.
"EARL ST. GEORGE ERNE."
A sickly thrill of something like disgust swept over Eloise as she read,
that one could think of anything but the great horrid fact of the hour.
Then she trembled from head to foot, and hid her face with shame and
sobs. "What does it mean?" she cried. "'At such a time'? What time? Oh!
he thinks--can he think?--I love Marlboro'! Will no one keep him? Is he
gone? He leaves because he loves me? Why, if he loves me, I should think
he would stay! Oh, is it true? is it true? St. George, St. George, do
you love me?" Hurriedly she smoothed her hair while she exclaimed, threw
over her shoulders the scarf of blue and silver hanging across the
mirror, and ran down.
Mr. St. George had that moment left, saying he was absolutely obliged to
depart, but that he hoped his guests would remain the guests of Miss
Changarnier. His luggage was to be sent after him.
"Which way had he gone? towards Blue Bluffs?"
"No, the other way."
Eloise summoned Vane and Hazel to follow her, and, flashing out of the
house, went rapidly down the mazes of the woody avenue, over the fields,
to the nearest place where the road crossed the creek. If Mr. St. George
was on the winding highway, by taking this straight cut she would reach
the creek even before his galloping horse could do so. At length she
paused, stationed Hazel and Vane behind her,--busy enough in themselves,
for Hazel, become happy again, had again become coquette,--and went on
alone. There had been a heavy shower that morning; Eloise stooped and
examined the clayey path that led up from the creek, to see if
footprints had lately been set there, and found nothing. The minutes
dragged away like hours, and when thirty elapsed, she wondered why it
was not growing dark. "He has not come this way!" she exclaimed. "He is
gone! I never shall know where he is!"--and she threw herself down among
the wild, rich growth that half rose and buried her. Gradually, when her
fever of sobs had died away, a sound broke on her ear, the sound of a
slow, steady tramp. Was it the beating of her heart?--or was it Earl St.
George? It drew nearer; she dared not rise and see. She heard the splash
of the feet in the water, in the intense light within her brain could
seem to see the dark water strike up and break in showers of prisms.
Then the feet left it, and came up the bank. Should she dare? If she
delayed--Suddenly that apparition tangled in the blue and silver scarf
rose and confronted Mr. St. George.
The horse knew her, as he swerved, then bent to rub his cheek on her
shoulder; Rounce, who, from stopping to plant his nose deep in every
rose upon his way, had just rushed up breathless, knew her too, and fell
to frolicking about her feet. She stood with both her arms about the
horse's bending neck, with her face half drooping there, and the black,
falling tress curving forward on the cheek.
"I never loved him!" was what she murmured. "I never meant to marry
him!"
"Miss Changarnier!" exclaimed Mr. St. George, dismounting, thinking,
perhaps, that trouble made her wild. "Here? To-day? Alone? You must
return at once!"
"I never, never will return, unless you take me back!" she said, raising
her head, but not daring to raise her quivering glance.
"Eloise! Eloise! Do you know what you say?"
She ventured just a glimpse at the dark eyes above her, glowing and
glooming, smiles breaking out of their pain, and then with a little
blind motion the tender face was hidden in his breast.
Just there a cloud peeled off the sun and went all radiant upon its way,
the silent birds fell into one deep chorus, the locust shot out its
great whirring lance of jubilant sound, the whole forest grew astir and
alive over the glad secret it had learned.
The sun was setting, when Mr. St. George, leading his horse, on whose
back Eloise was throned, and followed by Hazel and Vane, came into view
of the wondering, waiting, indignant party on the piazza. The party,
fickle as any mob, be it patrician or plebeian, was easily appeased with
such quarry as it found, and changed itself straightway with acclaim
into a bridal party. That night St. George brought in and tried upon the
third finger of the white left-hand a narrow glittering band.
"Nothing but a wedding-fetter?" he asked. "Yet capable of great things,
that fetter! It holds the famous elixir which sinks two identities in
one; it is the visible sign of a sacrament; it is to be the type of our
souls' union, pure, perfect, and without end"----
But here, perhaps, the eyes of Eloise silenced him, perhaps the mouth.
And when life settled in its new channel at The Rim, Eloise, wearing at
last her father's name, sat at the head of her husband's table, and Mrs.
Earl St. George Erne herself entertained her guests. They lingered a
little while, with the disinclination that any group finds to separate,
and circumstances had knitted a bond among them all. And then, when
deepening summer ended the renewed cheer, Mrs. Arles put on her
widow's-cap once more, her little foot went into obscurity, and the gold
and ebony riding-whip hung reclaimed above her mantel.