BETROTHED
That Bernard Kingswell had accepted the baronet's own estimation of his
(the baronet's) character so frankly, in the heat of sentimental
disclosure, did not trouble Sir Ralph by more than a pang or two. What
else could he expect of even this true friend? He was a broken gamester
and a criminal exile by all the signs and by the verdict of the law; but
whether or not he was a blackleg was a matter of opinion and the exact
definition of that word. He knew that Kingswell was well disposed toward
him, and that he believed nothing vile or cowardly of him; but, best of
all, he was sure that, in Kingswell's love, his daughter was fortunate
beyond his hoping of the past two years. Should they get clear of the
besieging natives and out of the wilderness, her future happiness,
safety, and position would be assured. As Mistress Bernard Kingswell,
she would live close to the colour and finer things of life again,
gracing some fair house as a former Beatrix had done in other days--to
wit, the great houses of Beverly and Randon. The mist blurred his eyes
at that memory and dimmed his vision against the rough log walls around
him.
Another thought came to the broken baronet, as he sat alone by the
falling fire, after Kingswell's departure, and awaited his supper and
the reappearance of his daughter. The thought was like a black shadow
between his face and the comforting fir sticks--between his heart and
the knowledge of a good man's love and protection for Beatrix. Knowing
the girl as he did, he felt sure that she would never leave him, her
exiled father, even at the call of a more compelling love; and, as a
return to his own country meant prison or death to him, she would hold
to the wilderness, thereby leaving the new-found happiness untouched. On
the other hand, should death come to him soon, and in the
wilderness,--by the arrows of the enemy, for choice,--his daughter's
fetters would be filed for ever. He sank his face between his hands. The
desire to live out one's time clings about a man's vitals against all
reason. Even an exiled and broken gamester, stockaded in a nameless
wilderness and hemmed in by savages, finds a certain zest in day and
night and the winds of heaven. With nothing to live for--even with the
scales decidedly the other way--Death still presents an uninviting face.
It may be the inscrutable mask of him that fills with distrust the heart
of the man who contemplates the Long Journey. In that inevitable yet
mysterious figure, showing as no more than a shadow between the bed and
the window, it is hard for the sinful mortal, no matter how repentant,
to read clear the promise of eternal peace. What dark deed might not be
perpetrated by the shrouded messenger between the death-bed and
Paradise?
Sir Ralph bowed his head between his palms, and hid the commonplace,
beautiful radiance of the hearth-fire from his eyes; and so, while he
waited for his supper of stewed venison, he reasoned and planned for his
daughter's future to the bitter end, seeing clearly that, should the
chances of battle turn in favour of the little plantation, he must
readjust his sentiments toward death. A man of lower breeding and
commoner courage would have groaned in the travail of that thought, and
cursed the alternative; but the baronet sat in silence until he heard
his daughter at the door, and then stood up and hummed softly the
opening bars of a Somerset hunting-song.
Beatrix tripped close to her father and raised her face to him. He bent
and kissed her tenderly. For a little while they stood without speaking,
hand in hand, on the great caribou skin before the hearth. Suddenly the
girl pressed her cheek against his shoulder.
"What was it," she whispered, breathlessly,--"the matter that held you
and Bernard in such serious converse?"
"And has your heart given you no hint of it?" he laughed.
"And why, dear father? What has my heart to do with your talk of guards
and ammunition and supplies,--save that it is with you in everything?"
The baronet released her hand and, instead, placed his arm about her
slender and rounded waist. "It is a story that I cannot tell you,
sweet,--I, who am your father," he said. "But I think that you shall not
have to wait long for the telling of it, for both youth and love are
impatient. And here comes the good Maggie with the candles."
During the meal the baronet was more lively and entertaining than
Beatrix had seen him for years, and Beatrix, in her turn, was unusually
untalkative and preoccupied. The girl wanted to give her undivided
attention to the quiet voice of her heart. The man was equally anxious
to avoid introspection as she to court it. But he, for all his laughter
and gay stories of gay times spent, displayed a colourless face and
haunted eyes behind the candle-light; while she, sitting in silence,
glowed like a rare flower. Her dark, massed tresses, her eyes of
unnamable colour, her throat and lips and brow, were all radiant with
the magic fire at her heart.
Sir Ralph, after bringing a disjointed tale to a vague ending, sipped
his wine, put down the glass clumsily, and suddenly turned away from the
table. The bitterness of his lot had caught him by the throat. But she
noticed nothing of his change of manner; and presently they left the
table and moved to the fire. He busied himself with heaping faggots
across the dogs. Then she filled his tobacco-pipe for him, and lit it
with a coal from the hearth, puffing daintily. He had just got it in his
hand when a knocking sounded on the door, and Maggie Stone opened to
Kingswell.
Upon Kingswell's entrance, Sir Ralph, after greeting him cordially but
quietly, donned his cloak and hat, and begged to be excused for a few
minutes. "I have a word for Trigget," he said. Then he pulled on his
gloves, pushed open the door, and stepped out to the dark.
Two candles burned on the table. Maggie Stone snuffed them, surveyed
the room and its inmates with a comprehensive glance, and at last forced
her unwilling feet kitchenward again. Her heart was as sentimental as
heroic, was Maggie Stone's, and her nature was of an inquisitive turn.
She sighed plaintively as she left the presence of the young couple.
The door leading to the kitchen had no more than closed behind the
servant than Bernard, without preliminaries, dropped on one knee before
the lady of his adoration, and lifted both her hands to his lips. She
did not move, but stood between the candles and the firelight, all
a-gleam in her beauty and her fine raiment, and gazed down at the golden
head. Her lips smiled, but her eyes were grave.
"Dear heart," murmured the lad, without lifting his face or altering his
position,--"dear heart, can it be true?"
She bent her head a little lower. Her heart seemed as if it was about to
break away from its bonds in her side. She could not speak; but, almost
unconsciously, she closed her fingers upon his.
"Tell me," he cried. And again, with a note of fear in his voice: "Tell
me if I may win you! Tell me if your heart has any promise?"
Before she could control her agitation sufficiently to answer him, the
outer door of the cabin was swung open without ceremony, and Sir Ralph
stamped in. He caught Kingswell by the wrist and wrenched it sharply.
"We are attacked," he cried. "They have piled heaps of dry brush along
the palisades--and they have set the stuff on fire! It burns like mad.
Lord, but it looks more like hell than ever!"
Even as he spoke, the fragrant, biting odour of the smoke from the
burning evergreen-needles invaded the room. Kingswell got quickly to his
feet, still holding the girl's hands. He did not look at the baronet.
For a second he paused and peered, questioning, into her wonderful eyes.
"Oh, I love you, dear heart," she cried, faintly. "I love you, Bernard."
He stooped quickly (and how eagerly every lover knows), and even while
the first brief and tremulous kiss was sweet on their lips, the muskets
clapped deafeningly, savage shouts rang high, and the baronet thrust
sword and hat into Bernard's hands.
"Come! For God's grace, lad, come and rally the men!" he shouted.
Then the lover turned from his mistress and saw the shrewd work that
awaited him. He ran to it with a leaping heart.