Roscoria's forehead, smoothing it, and smiled to herself to see how his
countenance cleared under the comfort.
"Dear one, to me you are an Immortal," he said, reflectively; "but--if
you _have_ an age, what might it be?"
"That will not do," said Lyndis; "a minor I am, and a minor I fear I
shall remain for a year or two more. But if you will wait----"
Louis threw out his arms with a gesture of impatience. "I had rather
run away with you at once," he said. "Let us elope."
"Mr. Roscoria, what a very rash idea!"
"Should you refuse, if I asked you?"
"I hope so," said Lyndis, thereby giving her lover much hope. "And now,
as I am really angry with you, you may go."
"Yes, goddess; but I will hear thee again on this matter. May I----"
Lyndis did not expressly say he might not, so he did--that is to say,
he kissed the golden head that was resting on his rough coat, from
whence it was raised with tumbled bright hair spread abroad like the
rays of the sun.
Tregurtha and Rosetta meantime had been looking over a hedge,
commenting on scenery, the weather, and the crops. Rosetta was a born
farmer. The sailor asked her tentatively:
"Did you agree to this plan of marrying my friend Roscoria?"
"I did," said the maiden, brightly.
"But surely you scarcely knew him well enough to love him? There must
have been a strong elective affinity--or, bless me! I can't account for
it."
"Love him! I never had spoken to him," laughed Rosetta.
"You would not have given him your hand without your heart?" persisted
Tregurtha, with a strange, pained look, which, alas! she did not
understand.
"Why, yes. If I had added my heart, think how great the sacrifice would
have been. As it was, it was _very_ amusing." Rosetta laughed again, at
Roscoria this time, who came up to apologize for the awkward position
in which he had stupidly placed her.
"Never mind, Mr. Roscoria," answered she. "I love adventures, and I owe
this one to you. Only next time you ask for Miss _Lyndis_ Villiers, let
me advise you--'_see that you get her_.'"
VIII.
THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME.
For a fortnight after this failed attempt Roscoria beat his brains
in vain to hit on a method of squaring the admiral. He was debarred
from any sight of Lyndis herself, for Sir John, cleverly enough, had
spirited the goddess off to her mother in London, so that her lover
might chafe in the chains of his exacting profession until perhaps,
being unable to follow, he might cease to love her.
Having executed this little piece of justice on his sworn foe Roscoria,
the admiral turned mighty good-humored, and found that he lacked a
companion over pipe and bowl. As he had quarreled for life with almost
all the residents in Devonshire, it was natural that the choleric but
cheery old fellow should turn his eye on Dick Tregurtha--a stranger,
a sailor, a pleasant companion, and a man who could oppose a front of
imperturbable and respectful good-humor to any high-handed impertinence
which the admiral's temper might offer him.
This distinction suited Tregurtha uncommonly well. He liked the
admiral, and he liked the admiral's niece. He did not see much of Miss
Rosetta Villiers, for that damsel was always either attending to the
farm or preparing for an examination. But she occasionally looked in
upon the men, and had bright smiles for Richard, and a plate of fruit
sometimes. She teased the admiral (who was completely under her rule).
Sir John evidently liked and understood Rosetta. Lyndis was a complete
puzzle to him. He could appreciate a fine woman; but Lyndis was more;
she was a fine lady, and far too calm-spirited for the admiral's taste.
She was afraid of him and his imperious way, and he knew it, and took a
malicious pleasure in avenging himself on her indifference by startling
projects of matrimony for her, accompanied by violent reprimands, which
Lyndis took with a calm disdain coupled with fear.
Now, when he presumed to scold Rosetta, she first would melt into
a regular child's fit of tears (which used to cause the admiral to
clear his throat and blink his eyes, and retract certain over-fierce
expressions); then she would flash into a little Spanish passion, pay
the admiral back in some of his own coin, with the genuine stamp upon
it, and quickly send him to the right-about. And this the admiral
understood too, for he was a man who knocked under with a good grace
when fairly worsted. Tregurtha was never weary of hearing the two
joke together, and noting occasionally how, when the admiral wickedly
strove to turn the joke against Rosetta herself or her sex, the young
lady would throw her uncle a glance of her black eyes that shone with
such masterful warning that the old commander would cough and change
the subject, whilst Rosetta broke into a young, irrepressible laugh of
victory.
Tregurtha commended himself to the lady by offering his help in the
mathematics she required for her examinations. The logic which she also
studied was at first beyond his ken, but he got over that difficulty by
causing Roscoria to give him a fearful jorum of Jevons every evening,
which he then passed on to the pretty student. Rosetta was much
impressed; she marveled at the wide and varied talents of a mind that
had remembered all the details of logic during a rough seafaring life
like Tregurtha's. But if she admired his qualities, how was he affected
by hers? Ah! that's the worst of it, always.
For, said Dick to Roscoria one afternoon, as that distinguished
preceptor was on the point of joining his adoring disciples:
"Wish me good luck, old comrade: I am off on a forlorn hope."
"That child?" cried Roscoria, dropping an armful of the Clarendon Press
series with resounding bang upon the floor.
"That child!" intoned Tregurtha, mechanically, with the voice of a
captive spirit from a tomb. "I feel it is utterly hopeless madness; but
I shan't be ashore much longer, and I must go to sea with a certainty
behind me. I was never a man to go doubting when knowledge could be
had for the asking. So I'll go and have my mind set at rest. I shall
be satisfied this evening, I trust, and then I'll come back to you,
Roscoria."
"Yes, you are sure of me, at any rate. I'm afraid you are making a
mistake, old fellow; but I dare say you can't help it."
Pythias whistled sympathetically as Damon went out by the window with
his hat over his brows and his teeth set.
Rosetta Villiers was playing about in the admiral's garden. At least,
she thought she was working, but the sun was hot and there was a
pleasant shade under that chestnut-tree. So she left off weeding and
tying up roses, and sat dreamily down on a wooden seat to divide her
attention between a book and a flitting dragon-fly. Tregurtha came
walking informally through the garden, for was he not hand-in-glove
with the admiral? Rosetta looked up brightly, extended her hand to
Jevons in smiling appeal, and pointed to the other end of her rustic
sofa.
"I'm not up to logic to-day, dear Miss Villiers," said Tregurtha, with
quiet despondency; "I have brought you a problem harder to solve than
any in that class-book of yours. Do throw it over the hedge for half an
hour, for indeed it is not opportune!"
Rosetta's astonishment was instructive to see. She clasped the book
tighter and said, breathlessly: "You are strange, Mr. Tregurtha. Sit
down here, and please don't look at me like the reproachful manes of my
grandfather! There, at any rate, it is only a despairing profile that I
see--the full face was unendurable."
"Just allow me," said Tregurtha, and he put Stanley Jevons into his
pocket. "There! now I have no rival save the landscape. I say, listen,
Miss Villiers. I--oh! but you will never understand--you will not
understand!"
"I will do my best," said Rosetta, with a childish touch of pride. "Am
I so stupid?"
"My little Rosetta, no!" cried Tregurtha, with an excess of tenderness
which overwhelmed him; "but this is something which mere cleverness
will never teach you, and which I cannot explain to you. Roscoria could
have done it," he sighed, "but I am an inferior creature; besides, I
shall only be speaking out my own disappointment. Well, best have it
over; after all it won't take long. Rosetta, how do you think of me?"
"As my friend," answered Rosetta, promptly.
"Ah! and all the time I am only your lover!"
"My lover!"
"Say what you like now, I am ready," groaned Tregurtha, with hopeless
resolution.
There was a long, dreary pause. Rosetta sat still, gazing away over
the sunny lawn, and Tregurtha cared not even to see her answer in her
face--he knew it; he looked before him also, and listlessly their
thoughts dwelt on the daisies, the butterflies playing above them, the
shifts of light and shadow, and the birds' half dreamlike song.
"Oh, this is dreadful!" Rosetta at last broke out. Richard drew her
nearer, and kept his arm round her, saying quietly:
"I am sorry I distress you."
"Oh, I wish I could suffer anything! I wish anything evil could have
happened to me, if only I might not have hurt you so! I did not know
it, Richard, I did not know it!"
"No, of course I saw that. You are no flirt, sweetheart, or you would
never have been troubled with me. Oh, well, it is over now--the worst
part at least--and you must not be too soft-hearted, darling; you will
have to break some hearts soon, so steel your own!"
Rosetta gave a long, long sigh, like a child roused from deepest
sleep. All this was so new to her, such a revelation of pathos, and
herself so helplessly ignorant and unprepared, that she had never a
word to say, and all her sixteen bright years of life seemed unreality
before this woeful fact--her lover. Involuntarily she laid her head
upon Tregurtha's shoulder as if he could help her; then, with a start,
as she felt the tremor that went through him at her touch, she raised
it up, and bent her startled eyes upon him while she said, so low, with
such an effort:
"I ought to try and tell you why I cannot--marry you. But what am I
to say? I can find nothing reasonable. You would in your turn fail to
understand the fancies of a child like me."
"I should like to hear," said Tregurtha. "Talk to me as long as you
will; say what you please to me; I should like to take back some little
knowledge of you, instead of the shadowy hope which has now gone to
range itself with the endless mass which space is not great enough to
hold--men's illusions."
His bitterness seemed to make his distress so real for Rosetta that she
gave a deprecating cry and struggled with herself for several moments
before she found the heart to continue speaking. Then tremulously she
asked:
"Should you care to marry me before I could love you?"
"I don't know," said Tregurtha. "Now I am bewildered by my own love for
you."
"Listen, Mr. Tregurtha. I am only sixteen, as you know, and childish
for that age. I have lived so much alone and so wrapped up in my
examinations and out-of-door pursuits that I simply have never yet
had occasion to think of marriage. You see, I have no lady relatives,
except Lyndis--and she is so serious! I imagined love would find its
own way to me, without my playing with it beforehand. _Now_ I see it
needs practice."
"Did the admiral never warn you of your future lovers?" here put in
Tregurtha, with some incredulity.
"Oh, the admiral! Who cares what the admiral says? He's an old sailor,
what can you expect? They think of nothing else in connection with us
women."
Tregurtha gave vent to a dismal chuckle at Rosetta's not altogether
far-fetched aphorism on the navy. He was scarcely in a position to
controvert it.
"And so you paid no attention?"
"Not much," said Rosetta, blushing. "At least I never dreamt that
a man would love me yet, and that I should not be able to return
his sentiment. I relied for the contrary on my southern nature, and
troubled my head no more about it. Indeed, I used to think that I
should like to have a lover, and now--now he is come!" And Rosetta
covered her face and broke into low, sad sobbing.
"Oh, you poor little child! And I have done you harm, blundering into
your charmed circle of heart-freedom! What a shame it is!"
Tregurtha rose up from his seat, and stood stretching his arms out with
a laugh of self-directed irony; before this good and innocent girl,
with all her sorrow for him, he felt utterly baffled, hopeless, and
cast back.
"Let me try to explain myself further," pleaded Rosetta, with as much
eagerness as if it were her fault that she could not love Tregurtha.
"See, I am happy here. To some people it is not given to know when they
are happy, but I do know. I rejoice in my existence. I want nothing
save that love which is beautiful in poetry and tragical in life. Here
I am useful; you know the admiral--his dear, quarrelsome ways--who can
keep him in order except me? Why, if I did not act as his interpreter
there would never be a farm laborer on the place: every plowboy and
cowman on it would give the admiral notice to-morrow--if I did! Here
is my home, too; I love it. I love every corner of this old-fashioned
garden--the corner where the winter violets grow, the nooks to find
snowdrops in, and the borders with the scented pinks and heart's-ease
in irregular places. I look for each flower as it comes out, and I
scarcely care to stray outside our sweetbrier hedge."
"Well, dear child, all I can possibly say is, that it all sounds very
pretty. If I were not your lover, I should exclaim, 'How simple are
her tastes! what innocence and what content!' I should look on, were
another in my place, and say complacently, 'Here is at last a woman
who does not court men's admiration. Here is a fair maid who prefers
Jevons' "Elements of Logic" to Debrett's "Peerage," and a bunch of
mignonette to a tiara of diamonds.' How new, how picturesque, and how
refreshing!"
Rosetta gazed in blank wonderment at the imbittered Richard, who, with
arms folded and a caustic frown, was haranguing away as if to conjure
from him a whole army of demons.
She was not of a mold to stand by and see another really suffer.
"I will do something for you, Richard!" she cried at length. "My lover
shall not think me hard. I will go with you, Richard, and let the
admiral and the cowman console each other. Between you and your friend
it seems as if I were never to be left alone. Well, I am ready; I have
plenty of spirit, and I say I will learn the meaning of this love which
has made a hypochondriac of my sailor friend. I will be your wife and
try to make the best of it--if it will make Richard himself again."
She stopped, excited but steadfast. Tregurtha, with a last laugh of
amused wretchedness, said:
"Senorita! no one could deny that you are brave and ready; but beware
of your adventurous spirit. You are forgetting what kind of a man it is
to whose rescue you would hasten. Why, I would sooner a shark should
devour me on my next voyage than that I should have to think of you as
a patient martyr--you, my--my---- Oh, good gracious, what a fool I am!
My dear Rosetta, go back to your happiness. When the Fates mean you to
love, you will--and then--I envy the man! But till then, recollect that
there is nothing so hopeless as mistaken heroism. Shun it, pretty one,
as you would all evil; for it is a peculiar danger to you women. My
darling, shall we shake hands? for I am going."
"And you will not come again? I shall miss you so!"
"I'll write and let you know about that," said Tregurtha.
She stood opposite him, murmuring pathetic words in Spanish. Then she
caught her breath, and was silent. A man who knew her less would have
thought she really loved him.
"Richard, you should have waited, I believe!" she exclaimed, as by
sudden inspiration.
"What do you say?"
"While there is life there is hope; but in sailors, they tell me, there
is not always constancy," meditated Rosetta, aloud.
"Not always, dear; only sometimes. Once would be enough for us. But do
you know where you are leading me? For Heaven's sake, Rosetta, don't
say anything you do not mean!"
"I take back my words, Richard. Perhaps I lost my way in this darkness.
I am not well informed in these matters."
"No, dear, so I see," answered Tregurtha, gently, as the high hope of
an instant died in his breast forgotten.
"And you have my 'Logic' still in your pocket," suggested Rosetta,
melting again into tears.
"So I have! There--don't cry any more to-day. To-morrow I give you
leave to cry, because you will then have forgotten all about it. Shall
I tell you, senorita, who should have been your lover instead of me?"
"Please," whispered Rosetta, ashamed but curious.
"Job," said Tregurtha solemnly; and, the sailor nature being too strong
for him, he kissed her lips, then left her under her chestnut-tree and
went away, nor ever looked behind him.
IX.
THE WAY WE BEHAVE WHEN WE ARE YOUNG.
It was past midnight, and the summer moonlight sparkled on the waves
as a little boat, with its sail puffed out by a brisk breeze, came
gliding, conspirator-like, toward that part of the Braceton domain that
runs along by the sea.
It was the night after Roscoria's school broke up, and the first use
the master made of his holiday was this--to arrange to run off with
Miss Lyndis. There seemed nothing else to be done; the admiral would
not yield, the lady would not change her mind, and the lover would not
be content to wait. So the young people exchanged letters, and the
result was this boat. Tregurtha was in the affair as well, though he
strongly disapproved of it. His love of adventure had conquered his
conscience; and he was, besides, confident that Roscoria would end all
by a blunder if not backed by a cool-headed friend.
So here was Tregurtha, steering the boat into a certain safe and sandy
cove well in the shadow, where he knew that the eye even of an admiral
could not penetrate, whilst Roscoria fetched his lady. Roscoria's heart
was on land before his legs, and again and again had he mounted in
spirit up that steep pathway, up the cliffs from the beach to the side
of the house, where there would be one light in a window, one wakeful
inmate to steal out to him through the unbolted shutters and the gate
she would have left ajar.
"Are we late?" he asked his friend.
"No, early," said Tregurtha.
"Will she be ready?"
"I have no means of knowing, my dear fellow."
"What are we to do if she is not?"
"Wait."
The boat ground on the pebbly beach, and Dick admonished the lover
_sotto voce_----
"Don't--now _don't_ sentimentalize on the way; every minute is
valuable; the admiral is not deaf, and the lady's box is sure to be
heavy."
Roscoria was off like a chamois-hunter. Tregurtha sat on the beach and
smoked a pipe, stretching his legs in great tranquillity. Not that he
was ignorant that Rosetta's window also had a light in it, but he knew
it did not shine for him, and, considering all things, he thought it
wiser to look in the opposite direction.
It was soon, in reality, that two figures began to descend the
cliff-path. Roscoria first, bearing a modest trunk on his shoulder, and
looking back each moment to see if Lyndis knew her way in the moonlight.
Lyndis herself was muffled up in a large cloak. She did not seem at
all nervous. All that Tregurtha noticed, as she stepped into the boat
and bade him "good-evening" with a sort of pathetic courtesy, was that
her figure stood straight and firm, and that she trod the rocks in the
uncertain light with Devonshire decision.
The lieutenant was secretly a trifle shocked by the coolness of
the young couple. Feeling himself the incarnation of duplicity and
insubordination, he would have liked a more remorseful attitude in the
fugitives themselves.
"How do you do, Miss Villiers?" said Tregurtha, doffing his sou'-wester
politely, and at that moment he chanced to look up at the house and saw
the little solitary light go out.
Rosetta also had found a fearful joy in the adventure. She would dearly
have liked the moon-lit row for herself, or, failing that, would fain
have waved her hand to Richard--but here conscience stepped in. She
therefore watched the party from behind her curtain until she saw them
safely into the boat, and took a last critical glance at her own lover,
preferred him to Roscoria, blew out the light, and--probably went to
sleep; for indeed she had quite cheered up, and Dick had been right
in saying that she would only weep one day for his sorrow. Tregurtha
smiled mournfully to himself as he reflected that the fiery southern
natures may excel us in warmth of feeling, but we of the colder north
can beat them in constancy.
They pulled off from shore, after a few instants of great anxiety,
because of the pebbles' traitorous noise; and then they made an
energetic start. The thoughts of the trio were concentrated on putting
distance between themselves and the possibility of pursuit. Lyndis
steered until the men lost their first vigor, when she took the place
of one of them and rowed with the enterprise of an ancient Phoenician.
At first she felt a delicacy taking thus active a part in the escape,
but this finally vanished when she looked at Roscoria spreading out his
cramped fists in smiling relief whenever she stood up to take his oar.
They had passed the sharp cliff "Gallantry Bower," and began to feel
the creeping shiver that heralds the dawn. By the mixed and twinkling
light from the fading moon and the glimmering east they were thinking
they could discern a suspicion of white houses in the bay for which
they were making, when Roscoria, who happened just then to be resting
with his hands on the rudder-lines, exclaimed:
"By Heaven, I see a boat!"
"No supernatural phenomenon upon the sea," said Richard, looking out,
however, with some uneasiness. Lyndis heaved a deep sigh, and failed
for the first time to draw her oar through the water.
"Well, we have the start, if it should be the admiral. It is a case of
speed, and the devil take the hindmost. Oh, good gracious, Lyndis! I
forgot he was your relation! Change places with me again, and guide us
well in the small bay there. Pull for our happiness, Tregurtha!"
On land! The three voyagers broke into varying expressions of relief.
"By Jove, I feel as if I had been reading the 'Agamemnon!'" cried
Roscoria, stretching out his arms, exhausted.
"Thank Heaven!" said Lyndis.
"Good," said Dick.
The cold morning light was growing brighter and more encouraging as,
after drawing the boat high on to the shingle, the trio proceeded
quickly toward a certain white and towered edifice. As might be
expected, this was their goal--a church. Lyndis looked rather blankly
as they approached this termination, and lagged behind with Roscoria.
"Would you two mind walking in front?" sang out Tregurtha without
looking round, but with a sternness caused by his sense of complicity.
They did so, and the wedding procession moved on much quicker.
At the church gate they were greeted by Eric Rodda, the curate here. He
was so ingeniously unselfish (_i.e._ self-tormenting) a man that he had
insisted on being the one to give his loved Lyndis to the man she loved.
"Well, every man has his particular fancy; but it puts _me_ in a
precious unpopular position," Roscoria had thought, whilst accepting
the magnanimity.
"All right?" asked Rodda then of his patients, victims, clients, or
whatever those wights are called on whom the parson pronounces the
matrimonial benediction.
"For the present," replied Roscoria.