MRS. ARNOT'S KNIGHT
It will not be supposed that Haldane was either blind or indifferent
during the long months in which Beaumont, like a skilful engineer, was
making his regular approaches to the fair lady whom he would win. He
early foresaw what appeared to him would be the inevitable result, and
yet, in spite of all his fortitude, and the frequency with which he
assured himself that it was natural, that it was best, that it was
right, that this peerless woman should wed a man of Beaumont's position
and culture, still that gentleman's assured deliberate advance was like
the slow and torturing contraction of the walls of that terrible chamber
in the Inquisition which, by an imperceptible movement, closed in upon
and crushed the prisoner. For a time he felt that he could not endure
the pain, and he grew haggard under it.
"What's the matter, my boy?" said Mr. Growther abruptly to him one
evening. "You look as if something was a-gnawin' and a-eatin' your very
heart out."
He satisfied his old friend by saying that he did not feel well, and
surely one sick at heart as he was might justly say this.
Mr. Growther immediately suggested as remedies all the drugs he had ever
heard of, and even volunteered to go after them; but Haldane said with a
smile,
"I would not survive if I took a tenth part of the medicines you have
named, and not one of them would do me any good. I think I'll take a
walk instead."
Mr. Growther thought a few moments, and muttered to himself, "What a
cussed old fool I've been to think that rhubob and jallup could touch
his case! He's got something on his mind," and with a commendable
delicacy he forbore to question and pry.
Gradually, however, Haldane obtained patience and then strength to meet
what seemed inevitable, and to go forward with the strong, measured
tread of a resolute soldier.
While passing through his lonely and bitter conflict he learned the
value and significance of that ancient prophecy, "He is despised and
rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid,
as it were, our faces from him." How long, long ago God planned and
purposed to win the sympathy and confidence of the suffering by coming
so close to them in like experience that they could feel sure--yes,
know--that he felt with them and for them.
Never before had the young man so fully realized how vital a privilege
it was to be a disciple of Christ--to be near to him--and enjoy what
resembled a companionship akin to that possessed by those who followed
him up and down the rugged paths of Judea and Galilee.
When, at last, Laura's engagement became a recognized fact, he received
the intelligence as quietly as the soldier who is ordered to take and
hold a position that will long try his fortitude and courage to the
utmost.
As for Laura, the weeks that followed her engagement were like a
beautiful dream, but one that was created largely by the springing hopes
and buoyancy of youth, and the witchery of her own vivid imagination.
The springtime had come again, and the beauty and promise of her own
future seemed reflected in nature. Every day she took long drives into
the country with her lover, or made expeditions to picture galleries in
New York; again, they would visit public parks or beautiful private
grounds in which the landscape gardener had lavished his art. She lived
and fairly revelled in a world of beauty, and for the time it
intoxicated her with delight.
There was also such a chorus of congratulation that she could not help
feeling complacent. Society indorsed her choice so emphatically and
universally that she was sure she had made no mistake. She was caused to
feel that she had carried off the richest prize ever known in Hillaton,
and she was sufficiently human to be elated over the fact.
Nor was the congratulation all on one side. Society was quite as
positive that Beaumont had been equally fortunate, and there were some
that insisted that he had gained the richer prize. It was known that
Laura had considerable property in her own name, and it was the general
belief that she would eventually become heiress of a large part of the
colossal fortune supposed to be in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Arnot.
In respect to character, beauty, accomplishments-in brief, the minor
considerations in the world's estimation-it was admitted by all that
Laura had few superiors. Mr. Beaumont's parents were lavish in the
manifestations of their pleasure and approval. And thus it would seem
that these two lives were fitly joined by the affinity of kindred
tastes, by the congenial habits of equal rank, and by universal
acclamation.
Gradually, however, the glamour thrown around her new relationship by
its very novelty, by unnumbered congratulations, and the excitement
attendant on so momentous a step in a young lady's life, began to pass
away. Every fine drive in the country surrounding the city had been
taken again and again; all the fine galleries had been visited, and the
finer pictures admired and dwelt upon in Mr. Beaumont's refined and
quiet tones, until there was little more to be said. Laura had come to
know exactly why her favorite paintings were beautiful, and precisely
the marks which gave them value. The pictures remained just as
beautiful, but she became rather tired of hearing Mr. Beaumont analyze
them. Not that she could find any fault with what he said, but it was
the same thing over and over again. She became, slowly and unpleasantly,
impressed with the thought that, while Mr. Beaumont would probably take
the most correct view of every object that met his eye, he would always
take the same view, and, having once heard him give an opinion, she
could anticipate on all future occasions just what he would say. We all
know, by disagreeable experience, that no man is so wearisome as he who
repeats himself over and over again without variation, no matter how
approved his first utterance may have been. Beaumont was remarkably
gifted with the power of forming a correct judgment of the technical
work of others in all departments of art and literature, and to the
perfecting of this accurate aesthetic taste he had given the energies of
his maturer years. He had carefully scrutinized in every land all that
the best judges considered pre-eminently great and beautiful, but his
critical powers were those of an expert, a connoisseur, only. His mind
had no freshness or originality. He had very little imagination. Laura's
spirit would kindle before a beautiful painting until her eyes suffused
with tears. He would observe coolly, with an eye that measured and
compared everything with the received canons of art, and if the drawing
and coloring were correct he was simply--satisfied.
Again, he had a habit of forgetting that he had given his artistic views
upon a subject but a brief time before, and would repeat them almost
word for word, and often his polished sentences and quiet monotone were
as wearisome as a thrice-told tale.
As time wore on the disagreeable thought began to suggest itself to
Laura that the man himself had culminated; that he was perfected to the
limit of his nature, and finished off. She foresaw with dread that she
might reach a point before very long when she would know all that he
knew, or, at least, all that he kept in his mind, and that thereafter
everything would be endless repetition to the end of life. He dressed
very much the same every day; his habits were very uniform and
methodical. In the world's estimation he was, indeed, a bright luminary,
and he certainly resembled the heavenly bodies in the following
respects. Laura was learning that she could calculate his orbit to a
nicety, and know beforehand what he would do and say in given
conditions. When she came to know him better she might be able to trace
the unwelcome resemblance still further, in the fact that he did not
seem to be progressing toward anything, but was going round and round a
habitual circle of thought and action, with himself as the centre of his
universe.
Laura resisted the first and infrequent coming of these thoughts, as if
they were suggestions of the evil one; but, in spite of all effort, all
self-reproach, they would return. Sometimes as little a thing as an
elegant pose--so perfect, indeed, as to suggest that it had been studied
and learned by heart years ago--would occasion them, and the happy girl
began to sigh over a faint foreboding of trouble.
By no word or thought did she ever show him what was passing in her
mind, and she would have to show such thoughts plainly before he would
even dream of their existence, for no man ever more thoroughly believed
in himself than did Auguste Beaumont. He was satisfied he had learned
the best and most approved way of doing everything, and as his action
was always the same, it was, therefore, always right. Moreover, Laura
eventually divined, while calling with him on his parents, that the
greatest heresy and most aggravated offence that any one could be guilty
of in the Beaumont mansion would be to find fault with Auguste. It would
be a crime for which neither reason nor palliation could be found.
Thus the prismatic hues which had surrounded this man began to fade, and
Laura, who had hoped to escape the prose of life, was reluctantly
compelled to admit to herself at times that she found her lover
tiresomely prosy and "splendidly null."
In the meantime Haldane had finished the studies of his second year at
the medical college, and had won the respect of his instructors by his
careful attention to the lectures, and by a certain conscientious,
painstaking manner, rather than by the display of any striking or
brilliant qualities.
One July evening, before taking his summer vacation, he called on Mrs.
Arnot. The sky in the west was so threatening, and the storm came on so
rapidly, that Mr. Beaumont did not venture down to the city, and Laura,
partly to fill a vacant hour, and partly to discover wherein the man of
to-day, of whom her aunt could speak in such high terms, differed from
the youth that she, even as an immature girl, despised, determined to
give Haldane a little close observation. When he entered she was at the
piano, practicing a very difficult and intricate piece of music that
Beaumont had recently brought to her, and he said:
"Please do not cease playing. Music, which is a part of your daily fare,
is to me a rarely tasted luxury, for you know that in Hillaton there are
but few public concerts even in winter."
She gave him a glance of genuine sympathy, as she remembered that only
at a public concert where he could pay his way to an unobtrusive seat
could he find opportunity to enjoy that which was a part of her daily
life. In no parlor save her aunt's could he enjoy such refining
pleasures, and for a reason that she knew well he had rarely availed
himself of the privilege. Then another thought followed swiftly: "Surely
a man so isolated and cut off from these aesthetic influences which Mr.
Beaumont regards as absolutely essential, must have become uncouth and
angular in his development." The wish to discover how far this was true
gave to her observation an increasing zest. She generously resolved,
however, to give him as rich a musical banquet as it was in her power to
furnish, if his eye and manner asked for it.
"Please continue what you were playing," he added, "it piques my
curiosity."
As the musical intricacy which gave the rich but tangled fancies of a
master-mind proceeded, his brow knit in perplexity, and at its close he
shook his head and remarked:
"That is beyond me. Now and then I seemed to catch glimpses of meaning,
and then all was obscure again."
"It is beyond me, too," said Mrs. Arnot with a laugh. "Come, Laura, give
us something simple. I have heard severely classical and intricate music
so long that I am ready to welcome even 'Auld lang syne.'"
"I also will enjoy a change to something old and simple," said Laura,
and her fingers glided into a selection which Haldane instantly
recognized as Steibelt's Storm Rondo.
As Laura glanced at him she saw his deepening color, and then it
suddenly flashed upon her when she had first played that music for him,
and her own face flushed with annoyance at her forgetfulness. After
playing it partly through she turned to her music-stand in search of
something else, but Haldane said:
"Please finish the rondo, Miss Romeyn;" adding, with a frank laugh, "You
have, no doubt, forgotten it; but you once, by means of this music, gave
me one of the most deserved and wholesome lessons I ever received."
"Your generous acknowledgment of a fancied mistake at that time should
have kept me from blunders this evening," she replied in a pained tone.
With a steady glance that held her eyes he said very quietly, and almost
gently:
"You have made no blunder, Miss Romeyn. I do not ignore the past, nor do
I wish it to be ignored with painstaking care. I am simply trying to
face it and overcome it as I might an enemy. I may be wrong, for you
know I have had little chance to become versed in the ways of good
society; but it appears to me that it would be better even for those who
are to spend but a social hour together that they should be free from
the constraint which must exist when there is a constant effort to shun
delicate or dangerous ground. Please finish the rondo; and also please
remember that the ice is not thin here and there," he added with a
smile.
Laura caught her aunt's glance, and the significant lighting up of her
face, and, with an answering smile, she said:
"If you will permit me to change the figure, I will suggest that you
have broken the ice so completely that I shall take you at your word,
and play and sing just what you wish;" and, bent upon giving the young
man all the pleasure she could, she exerted her powers to the utmost in
widely varied selections; and while she saw that his technical knowledge
was limited, it was clearly evident that he possessed a nature
singularly responsive to musical thoughts and effects; indeed, she found
a peculiar pleasure and incentive in glancing at his face from time to
time, for she saw reflected there the varied characteristics of the
melody. But once, as she looked up to see how he liked an old English
ballad, she caught that which instantly brought the hot blood into her
face.
Haldane had forgotten himself, forgotten that she belonged to another,
and, under the spell of the old love song, had dropped his mask. She saw
his heart in his gaze of deep, intense affection more plainly than
spoken words could have revealed it.
He started slightly as he saw her conscious blush, turned pale instead
of becoming red and embarrassed, and, save a slight compression of his
lips, made no other movement. She sang the concluding verse of the
ballad in a rather unsympathetic manner, and, after a light instrumental
piece devoid of sentiment, rose from the piano.
Haldane thanked her with frank heartiness, and then added in a playful
manner that, although the concert was over, he was weather-bound on
account of the shower, and would therefore try to compensate them for
giving him shelter by relating a curious story which was not only
founded on fact, but all fact; and he soon had both of his auditors
deeply interested in one of those strange and varied experiences which
occasionally occur in real life, and which he had learned through his
mission class. The tale was so full of lights and shadows that now it
provoked to laughter, and again almost moved the listeners to tears.
While the narrator made as little reference to himself as possible, he
unconsciously and of necessity revealed how practically and vitally
useful he was to the class among whom he was working. Partly to draw him
out, and partly to learn more about certain characters in whom she had
become interested, Mrs. Arnot asked after one and another of Haldane's
"difficult cases." As his replies suggested inevitably something of
their dark and revolting history, Laura again forgot herself so far as
to exclaim:
"How can you work among such people?"
After the words were spoken she was already to wish that she had bitten
her tongue out.
"Christ worked among them," replied he gravely, and then he added, with
a look of grateful affection toward Mrs. Arnot, "Besides, your aunt has
taught me by a happy experience that there are some possibilities of a
change for the better in 'such people.'"
"Mr. Haldane," said Laura impetuously, and with a burning flush, "I
sincerely beg your pardon. As you were speaking you seemed so like my
aunt in refinement and character that you banished every other
association from my mind."
His face lighted up with a strong expression of pleasure, and he said:
"I am glad that those words are so heartily uttered, and that there is
no premeditation in them; for if in the faintest and furthest degree I
can even resemble Mrs. Arnot, I shall feel that I am indeed making
progress."
"I shall say what is in my mind without any constraint whatever," said
Mrs. Arnot. "Years ago, Egbert, when once visiting you in prison, to
which you had been sent very justly, I said in effect, that in rising
above yourself and your circumstances, you would realize my ideal of
knighthood. You cannot know with what deep pleasure I tell you to-night
that you are realizing this ideal even beyond my hopes."
"Mrs. Arnot," replied Haldane, in a tone that trembled slightly, "I was
justly sent to that prison, and to-night, no doubt, I should have been
in some other prison-house of human justice--quite possibly," he added,
in a low, shuddering tone, "in the prison-house of God's justice--if you
had not come like an angel of mercy--if you had not borne with me,
taught me, restrained me, helped me with a patience closely akin to
Heaven's own. It is the hope and prayer of my life that I may some day
prove how I appreciate all that you have done for me. But, see; the
storm is over, as all storms will be in time. Good-night, and good-by,"
and he lifted her hand to his lips in a manner that was at once so full
of homage and gratitude, and also the grace of natural and unstudied
action, that there came a rush of tears into the lady's eyes.
Laura held out her hand and said: "Mr. Haldane, you cannot respect me
more than you have taught me to respect you."
He shook his head at these words, involuntarily intimating that she did
not know, and never could, but departed without trusting himself to
reply.
The ladies sat quite a long time in silence. At length Laura remarked
with a sigh:
"Mr. Haldane is mistaken. The ice is thin here and there, but I had no
idea that there were such depths beneath it."
Mrs. Arnot did not reply at once, and when she did perhaps she had in
mind other experiences than those of her young friend, for she only said
in a low musing tone:
"Yes, he is right. All storms will be over in time."