THE RAINBOWS.
Next day the party sailed down the Chesapeake to the Goldsworths’
seaside home, a beautiful spot on the eastern shore called the
“Rainbows.” Here they were received by Albert Goldsworth, who bade them
a hearty welcome.
Erminie was surprised and delighted to learn that Elfrida Fielding and
Britomarte Conyers had promised to join the party by the end of the
week.
The meeting between Britomarte and Erminie was a very affecting one.
Miss Conyers was clothed in deep mourning, but gave no reply to the
inquiries made by the others respecting her black dress.
When pressed by Erminie she simply said:
“Darling, I have lost some one; I have suffered; but my heart is not
broken, else I should not be here. That is all that I can tell you, for
there is good reason why I cannot tell you more. I hate mystery, my pet;
but this mystery—and I acknowledge that it is one—is none of mine. Ask
me no more.”
Miss Conyers was certainly the most brilliant woman in the circle of
beauties gathered together at the Rainbows. Nothing but her poverty,
obscurity, and the mystery underlying her life, prevented her from being
the belle of the seaside villa. But poor, obscure and even questionable
as was her social position, she excited the admiration of the men, the
jealousy of the women, and the interest of all.
Justin Rosenthal loved Britomarte Conyers with a depth and earnestness
of affection and a singleness and persistence of purpose very rarely
experienced in this world of many distracting attractions and
conflicting interests.
To win her as his wife was just now the first object of his existence,
an object which he determined to accomplish before he should undertake
any other enterprise— so as to get the affair off his mind, he said, and
also that they two might commence the work of the world together as man
and woman should.
And Britomarte? Well, it would have been almost impossible for any other
woman, and it was difficult even for her, to conceal from the
deeply-interested, keenly-searching eyes of her lover the true state of
her affections. Britomarte loved Justin; but she combated that love with
all the strength of her strong will.
The summer was fading into autumn; the season was waning to its close;
the guests at the Rainbows were preparing to leave—many being anxious to
get back to town to be present at the milliners’ great openings and
examine the new styles in fall bonnets.
In truth, Mr. and Mrs. Goldsborough were not very sorry to see their
party breaking up. It had not, indeed, afforded them that full measure
of satisfaction which their princely hospitality deserved. Two
circumstances especially annoyed them—the growing friendship between
their sole heiress, the fair Alberta, and the Signior Vittorio, a
penniless young Italian professor, who was also a guest at the house, on
the one hand, and the manifest attachment between their nephew Albert
and Farmer Fielding’s pretty daughter.
And very much relieved they were when the sensitive young Italian—who
was neither adventurer nor fortune-hunter, nor willing to be considered
such—feeling the social atmosphere near the presence of his entertainers
rather chilly, took the hint that his welcome was worn out and bowed his
adieus; and also when Farmer Fielding placed his little girl on her pony
and carried her off to Sunnyslopes.
Elfrida had entreated Britomarte to go with her to her mountain home,
urging that the country was ever most beautiful in the autumn, when all
the woods were clothed in colors more gorgeous than the robes of Solomon
in all his glory.
Miss Conyers had declined the invitation with thanks and with the
explanation that her plans for the autumn were fixed.
So Elfrida, with a sigh, left her friend.
But what of Britomarte? Where would she go from this temporary home? Not
certainly to Witch Elms, since there the doors were fast closed against
her entrance. Where, then, could she go? What means had she to go
anywhere? What, then, were the plans of which she spoke? And how would
she carry them out? Who could tell? Not even her lover!
Justin knew well enough what his own plans were, and how he should carry
them out.
Three days before the day appointed for his own party to leave the
Rainbows, Justin sought a private interview with Britomarte. He knew
where to find her; for by this time he was well acquainted with all her
favorite haunts. It was late in the afternoon, and he was sure she would
be found on “Lond’s Rock,” a point of land between Crystal Creek and
Bennett’s Bay, extending out into the Chesapeake—a solitary desert,
though so near the peopled villa, and only frequented by the lonely
girl.
So down a narrow path leading through the thick woods that lay below the
house, he wandered till he came out upon the bluff overhanging the
beach. Along the bushy bluff, now burnished bright in the late sunshine
of the waning summer and the fading day, he went toward the tip of that
long point, extending like a giant’s arm out to the sea.
As he approached, he saw that she was sitting on the rock, with her
hands clasped upon her knees, her face turned seaward, and her black
dress was very conspicuous upon the glistening white stone at the
extremity of the point.
So absorbed was she in thought that she remained totally unconscious of
Justin’s proximity until he picked up her bonnet, which had fallen to
the ground, and handed it to her, saying:
“Excuse me, Miss Conyers, but the tide is creeping in, and, if left
there, it will get wet; and even you, if you remain here much longer,
may be cut off from return, for you must be aware that at high water
this point of land is covered by the sea, with the exception of this
rock which, for the time, becomes an island.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rosenthal. I know that; but there is an hour of grace
left. Pray, did you come here to remind me that twice a day Lond’s Rock
becomes an isolated fastness?” said Miss Conyers, raising her large,
brilliant, dark-gray orbs to his face.
“No, Miss Conyers; it was for something more serious—more important—more
imminent, indeed, than that,” said Justin, gravely, seating himself
beside her. “It would be bad,” he continued, “if the rising tide, before
you should become aware of it, should cover the point and cut you off
from the land, and leave you alone upon this rock for twelve hours of
darkness; but the evil would be temporary. You are brave enough to
overlive it, and the night would end in morning, and your road lie open
for your return. Britomarte! dear Britomarte!—there is an isolation more
to be dreaded for you, because more fraught with fatal consequences,
than that I have named could be!” said Justin, trying to regulate the
deep emotions of that passion which was thrilling in every inflection of
his earnest voice. “Oh! Britomarte——”
“Hush! do hush, and go away!” she exclaimed, hastily interrupting him.
“No, no—I must speak! I have been silent long enough! Dear Britomarte,
you must hear me now! You cannot have mistaken the meaning of my
devotion to you in all the months we have passed together here. You——”
“Nor could you have failed to perceive that such devotion was very
unacceptable to me! I thank you, of course. It was very complimentary to
me, no doubt, and I—was very much honored, indeed. But, as I said
before, it was unacceptable, and you must have perceived that it was
so.”
“Britomarte, I love you. Oh! that I could make you feel the real meaning
of the phrase when uttered by truthful lips. All of life, or death—all
of heaven or hell—seem to hang upon the words, I love you! Britomarte,
from the first moment that I saw you, something in your face powerfully
attracted me. It was not your beauty, dearest, though you are beautiful;
it was something deeper than that. It was the soul looking from the
face! I love you with my whole heart and soul, once and forever! And if
it were possible that I should lose you, Britomarte, I should never love
again! And now, lady, I have unveiled my heart before you. I love you as
men loved in those old heroic days when for woman’s smile solemn vows
were made and deadly perils braved. Now tell me, dearest, dearest—what I
can do to deserve——” His voice faltered for a single instant, and she
took swift advantage of the pause to answer hastily, and even harshly:
“You can do nothing! I never can accept your suit! Pray, to begin with,
are you aware that I am a girl of very obscure birth?”
“That is nothing to me, beloved——”
“That I have not a penny——”
“I have more than enough for both, Britomarte!”
“And, worse than all, that the shadow of a great shame is thought to
rest upon my life!”
“How should that affect your personal merit, or my appreciation of it?
Come, darling, come! I never can be less than your lover! let me be
more! accept me for your husband!”
“For my master, you mean! that is what ‘husband’ signifies in your
laws!” said the man-hater, coldly turning away, as once more Woman’s
Rights throttled and threw down woman’s love.
“No! Heaven forbid! I could no more be a tyrant than I could be a slave!
My soul abhors both! And if in your own soul there is one quality that
attracts me more than all the others, it is your impassioned love of
liberty. I sympathize with it, my beloved! I have no wish to rule over
you as a master! I could not, indeed, endure the love of a slave! Or if
one must serve, let it be the stronger. I wish only to cherish you as my
beloved wife, to honor you as my liege lady! Come, darling!”
But Woman’s Rights had her heel upon the neck of woman’s love, and
Britomarte coldly answered, as she walked away:
“I do not know, for my part, how, in this age and country, with the old
barbarous laws of marriage still in force, any sane, honest man can look
a woman in the face, and seriously ask her to be his wife! For their own
honor, I wonder men do not set about and remodel their disgraceful laws
before they do anything else! As for me, if these days were like the
‘old heroic days’ of which you just now spoke, when men braved deadly
perils and wrought great works for woman’s smile, I would have every
woman lay upon her suitor the holy task of reforming the laws as the
only possible condition of her favor!”
“I will take up the gauntlet you have thrown down,” he said. “I will
look into these offensive statutes that were made, by the by, some
centuries before I was born, and for which, therefore, I do not see that
I can be held individually responsible——”
“But you are responsible for them,” warmly interrupted Britomarte.
“Every man who lives under them, marries under them, sees women robbed
and oppressed under them, without rising up to oppose them, is as much
responsible for them as if he, and he only, had originally enacted
them!”
“Granted that this is in a measure true! It shall be so with me no
longer,” smiled Justin. “I will examine these, and wherever I
conscientiously believe they need reform, I will labor zealously with
pen and tongue to reform them. But, in the meantime, as I cannot give my
whole mind to any subject—not even to that—until my heart is set at
rest, Britomarte, dear Britomarte! be my wife! and we will labor
together lovingly, zealously, in all good works!”
“I cannot!—I will not! Do not ask me again! In the ‘old heroic days’ you
are so fond of quoting, a true knight performed his task before he
ventured to sue for his reward.”
“And then?—and then, Britomarte?”
“He did not always get it,” answered the man-hater.
Justin bowed gravely to her and smiled quietly to himself.
They were walking away from Lond’s Rock, where, indeed, they had already
lingered too long; for the tide was now rising rapidly, threatening to
cut off their retreat from the main.