WOOED AND WON.
"And if ever I find her going prancing round with him any more," said
Lady Leroy, clawing the air viciously with her skinny fingers, "or
letting him come home with her again, I'll turn her out of doors, I
will, as sure as your name's Midge."
"Which it isn't," said Midge; "for I was christened Prisciller. And as
for turning her out, you know right well, ma'am, you can never get along
without her, so where's the good of your gabbing."
The dialogue between mistress and maid took place, of course, in the
former's room, which she rarely left. Midge was preparing her ladyship's
dinner, all the cooking being done in the chamber, and all the edibles
being kept under lock and key, and doled out in ounces. Midge and Lady
Leroy fought regular pitched battles every day over the stinted
allowance awarded her; and Natty had to come to the rescue by
purchasing, from her own private purse, the wherewithal to satisfy
Midge. No other servant would have lived at Redmon on the penurious
wages the old lady grumblingly gave, probably on no wages at all,
considering the loneliness of the place, its crabbed and miserly
mistress, and hard work; but Midge stayed through her love of Nathalie,
and contradicted and bickered with Lady Leroy from morning till night.
In the days when the Marshes were rich and prosperous, Midge had been a
hanger on of the household, doing pretty much as she pleased, and coming
and going, and working or loafing as she liked. She had saved Charley's
life once, nearly at the risk of her own, and loved him and Nathalie
with a depth of self-sacrificing and jealous tenderness few would have
given her credit for. Nathalie was good to her always, considerate and
kind, putting up with her humor and querulousness, and ready to shield
her from slights at any time. Midge scolded the young lady roundly on
many an occasion, and Natty took it good-humoredly always. She was out
now, and Lady Leroy's wrath had been kindled by something that had
happened the preceding night, and which she had found out through
Cherrie Nettleby, for Midge told no tales. Captain Cavendish, contrary
to her express orders, had seen Nathalie home from a little sociable at
her mother's. Val, Miss Jo, Laura Blair, Catty Clowrie, Jeannette and
Alick McGregor, Charley, and Captain Cavendish only had been there; for
some sick pauper had sent for Miss Rose, and she had gone, glad to
escape. Cherrie had seen the captain and Miss Marsh pass the cottage,
and, spiteful and jealous, had tattled next morning. Lady Leroy disliked
Captain Cavendish--she did most people for that matter, but she honored
him with especial aversion. Nathalie had gone off after breakfast to
Speckport, to attend to her music-pupils and visit the school. Cherrie
had come in afterward to retail the town-gossip, and had but just
departed; and now the old lady was raging to Midge.
"I tell you, Midge, I don't like him!" she shrilly cried, "I don't like
him, and I don't want him coming here."
"No more don't I," retorted Midge, "I'd go to his hanging with the
greatest pleasure; but where's the odds? He don't care whether we like
him or not; he only laughs and jeers at both of us, so long as she
does."
"It ain't her he likes," said Lady Leroy, "it's my money, my money, that
I've pinched and spared to save, and that he thinks to squander. But
I'll be a match for him, and for her too, the ungrateful minx, if she
thinks to play upon me."
"She ain't an ungrateful minx, ma'am!" sharply contradicted Midge;
"she's better nor ever you were or ever will be! She lives shut up here
from one week's end to t'other, slavin' herself for you, and much she
gets for it! She can do what she likes with the money when you're dead!"
Lady Leroy's face turned so horribly ghastly at this speech that it was
quite dreadful to look at. The thought of death was her nightmare, her
daily horror. She never thought of it at all if she could, and thus
forcibly reminded, her features worked for a moment as if she had a fit.
Even Midge grew a little scared at what she had done.
"There, ma'am!" she cried, "you needn't go into fits about it. My
speaking of it won't make you die any sooner. I dessay you're good for
twenty years yet, if your appetite holds out!"
The old woman's livid face grew a shade less deathlike.
"Do you think so, Midge? Do you think so?"
"Oh, I think so fast enough! Folks like you always is sure to spin out
till everybody's tired to death of 'em. Here's your dinner ready now;
so swallow it, and save your breath for that!"
The sight of her meals always had an inspiring effect on the mistress of
Redmon, and Natty was for the moment forgotten. Perhaps it might have
spoiled her appetite a little had she seen the way that young lady was
returning home, and in what company. Not walking discreetly along Redmon
road, and not alone. In the pretty boat, all white and gold, with the
name "Nathalie" in golden letters--the boat that had been poor Alick
McGregor's gift--a merry little party were skimming over the sunlit
waves, reaching Redmon by sea instead of land. The snow-white sail was
set, and Nathalie Marsh was steering; the sea-wind blowing about her
tangled yellow curls, fluttering the azure ribbons of her pretty hat,
deepening the roses in her cheeks, and brightening the starry eyes. She
sang as she steered, "Over the Sea in my Fairy Bark," and the melodious
voice rang sweetly out over the wide sea. Near her Captain Cavendish
lounged over the side, watching the ripples as they flew along in the
teeth of the breeze, and looking perfectly content to stay there
forever. Beside him sat Laura Blair, and, near her, Miss Jo Blake. Laura
was often with Miss Jo, whom she liked, partly for her own sake--for she
was the best-natured old maid that ever petted a cat--and partly for her
brother's, whom Miss Blair considered but one remove from an angel.
The quartet had "met by chance, the usual way," and Nathalie had invited
him to have a sail. She had rowed herself to town in her batteau, but
the sail back was inconceivably pleasanter. As the batteau ran up on the
beach below Redmon, Natty did not ask them to the house, but no one was
surprised at that. They accompanied her to the gate, Captain Cavendish
slinging the light oars over his shoulder.
"And you will be at the picnic day after to-morrow, without fail," Laura
was saying to Nathalie.
"Can't promise," replied Natty. "Mrs. Leroy may take it into her head to
refuse permission, and I have been out a great deal lately."
"I don't care," said Laura, "you must come! If Mrs. Leroy turns
inexorable, I will go up with a basket of oranges and let them plead in
your behalf. You see, captain, we have to 'stay that old lady with
flagons and comfort her with apples' when we want Natty very badly, and
she turns refractory."
"All the oranges in Seville would not be thrown away in such a cause. By
all means, Miss Marsh, come to the picnic."
Speckport was famous for its picnics, and excursions by land and water.
This one was the first of the season, and was to be held on Lady Leroy's
grounds--a pretty high price having to be paid for the privilege.
"There won't be any fun without you, Natty," said Miss Jo; "I won't hear
of your absenting yourself at all. Is Miss Rose to have a holiday on the
occasion?"
"I offered her one, but she declined; she did not care for going, she
said."
"What a singular girl she is!" said Laura, thoughtfully; "she seems to
care very little for pleasure of any kind for herself; but the poor of
Speckport look upon her as an angel sent down expressly to write their
letters, look after them in sickness, make them beef-tea, and teach
their children for nothing. I wish you would make her go to the picnic,
Natty, and not let her mope herself to death, drudging in that horrid
school-room."
Captain George Cavendish, leaning on the oars he had been carrying,
seemed not to be listening. He was looking dreamily before him, seeing
neither the broad green fields with the summer sunlight sleeping in
sheets of gold upon them, nor the white, winding, dusty highroad, nor
the ceaseless sea, spreading away and away until it kissed the
horizon-sky, nor tall Miss Blake, nor even the two pretty girls who
talked. It had all faded from before him; and he was many a mile away in
a strange, foreign-looking city, with narrow, crooked streets, filled
with foreign-looking men and women, and priests in long black soutanes,
and queer hats, and black nuns and gray nuns, and Notre Dame nuns and
Sisters of Charity and Mercy, all talking in French, and looking at each
other with dark Canadian eyes. He was back in Montreal, he saw the
Champ-de-Mars, the Place d'Arme, the great convents, the innumerable
churches with their tall crosses pointing to the heaven we are all
trying to reach, and he saw himself beside one--fairer in his eyes than
all the dusky Canadian beauties in the world, with their purple-black
hair and great flashing black eyes. "Winnie! Winnie! Winnie!" his false
heart was passionately crying, as that old time came back, and
golden-haired, violet-eyed Nathalie Marsh was no more to him than if she
had been but the fantasy of a dream. He had flirted and played the lover
to scores; played it so long and so often that it had become second
nature, as necessary as the air he breathed; but he had only loved one,
and he seemed in a fair way of going on to the end. He had been a
traitor, but he could not forget. The girl he had jilted was avenged if
she wished for vengeance: no pang he had ever given could be keener than
what he felt himself.
A laugh aroused him, a merry, girlish laugh. He awoke from his dream
with a start, and found them all looking at him.
"So you have awoke at last," laughed Laura. "Three times have I told you
we were going, and there you stood, staring at empty space, and paying
no more attention than if you were stone-deaf. Pray, Captain Cavendish,
where were you just now?"
Before he could answer, the gate against which Nathalie leaned was
pushed violently open, and the thick dwarfish figure and unlovely face
of Midge was thrust out--not made more prepossessing by an ugly scowl.
"Miss Natty," she shrilly cried, "I want to know if you mean to stand
here all day long? It's past two now, and when you go up to the house,
perhaps the old woman won't give it you--and serve you right, too!"
added Miss Midge, sotto voce.
"So late!" Nathalie cried, in alarm. "I had no idea of it! Good-bye,
Miss Jo; good-bye, Laura. I must go!"
She had smiled and nodded her farewell to the captain, and was off like
a dart. Midge slammed the gate in their faces, and went sulkily after.
In considerable consternation, Nathalie ran up-stairs and into the awful
presence of the mistress of the house. She knew well she was in for a
scolding, and was bracing herself to meet it.
Lady Leroy had never been so furiously angry since the first day the
young lady had entered beneath her roof, and the storm burst before Miss
Marsh was fairly in the room. Such a tempest of angry words, such a
tornado of scolding, such a wrathful outbreak of old woman's fury, it
has been the ill-fortune of but few to hear. Nathalie bore it like a
heroine, without flinching and without retreat, though her cheeks were
scarlet, and her blue eyes flashing fire. She had clinched one little
hand involuntarily, and set her teeth, and compressed her lips, as if to
force herself not to fling back the old woman's rage in her face; but
the struggle was hard. Passionate and proud Nathalie's nature was, but
the fiery steeds of pride and passion she had been taught, long ago, at
her father's knee, to rein with the curb of patience. But I am afraid it
was not this Christian motive that held her silent always under Lady
Leroy's unreasonable abuse. Ambition was the girl's ruling passion. With
her whole heart and soul she longed for wealth and power, and the first
of these priceless blessings, in whose train the second followed, could
only be obtained through this vituperative old bel-dame. If Nathalie let
nature and passion have their way, and flung back fury for fury, she
would find herself incontinently turned out of doors, and back again,
probably, the day after, in that odious school-room, wearing out her
heart, and going mad slowly with the dull drudgery of a poor teacher's
life. This motive in itself was strong enough, but of late days another
and a stronger had been added. If she were Miss Marsh, the
school-mistress, Captain Cavendish, the heir of a baronet, would
doubtless admire, and--have nothing whatever to say to her; but Miss
Marsh, the heiress of Redmon and of Lady Leroy's thousands, was quite
another thing. He was poor now, comparatively speaking; she knew
that--how sweet it would be to lay a fortune at the feet of the man she
loved! Some day in the bright future he would lay a title at her fair
feet in return, and all her dreams of love, and power, and greatness,
would be more than realized. Not that Nathalie for one instant fancied
George Cavendish sought her for her fortune--she would have flung back
such a suspicion furiously in the face of the profferer--but she knew
enough of the fitness of things to be aware that, however much he might
secretly adore her rose-hued cheeks, golden hair, and violet eyes, he
could never marry a portionless bride. On this tiger-cat old Tartar,
then, all these sweet dreams depended for their fruition; and she must
pocket her pride, and eat humble pie, and make no wry faces over that
unpalatable pastry. She must be patient and long-suffering now, that she
might reign like a princess royal hereafter; so while Lady Leroy stormed
and poured no end of vials of wrath on her ward's unfortunate head, that
young person only shut her rosy lips the harder, and bated her breath
not to reply. We are so strong to conquer ourselves, you see, when
pounds, shillings, and pence are concerned, and so weak and cowardly to
obey the commands of One who was led "as a lamb to the slaughter, and
who opened not his mouth." So Nathalie stood, breathing quick, and only
holding herself from flying at her tormentress by main force, and Lady
Leroy stormed on until forced to stop from want of breath.
"And now, Miss," she wound up, her little eyes glaring on the young
lady, "I should like to know what you've got to say for yourself."
"I have nothing to say," replied Nathalie, speaking for the first time.
"Oh, I dare say not! All I say goes in one ear and out t'other, doesn't
it, now? Ain't you ashamed of yourself, you minx?"
"No!" quietly said Nathalie.
Mrs. Leroy glared upon her with a look of fury, horribly revolting in
that old and wrinkled face.
"Do you mean to say you'll ever do it again? Do you mean to say you'll
go with that man any more? Do you mean to say you defy and disobey me?
Tell me!" cried Lady Leroy, clawing the air as if she were clawing the
eyes out of Captain Cavendish's handsome head, "tell me if you mean to
do this!"
"Yes!" was the fiery answer flaming in the girl's crimson cheeks and
flashing eyes, "I defy you to the death!" But prudence sidled up to her
and whispered, "Heiress of Redmon, remember what you risk!" and so--oh,
that I should have to tell it!--Nathalie Marsh smoothed her contracted
brows, vailed the angry brightness of her blue eyes under their sweeping
lashes, and steadily said:
"Mrs. Leroy, you know I have no wish to willfully defy or disobey you. I
should be sorry to be anything but true and dutiful to you, and I am not
conscious of being anything else now."
"You are--you know you are!" the old woman passionately cried. "You know
I hate this man--this spendthrift, this fortune-seeker, this
smooth-spoken, false-hearted hypocrite! Give up this man--promise me
never to speak to him again, and then I will believe you!"
Nathalie stood silent.
"Promise," shrilly screamed Lady Leroy, "promise or else----"
She stopped short, but the white rage in her distorted face finished the
sentence with emphasis.
"I will promise you one thing," said Nathalie, turning pale and cold,
"that he shall not come to Redmon any more. You accuse him unjustly,
Mrs. Leroy--he is none of the things you say. Do not ask me to promise
anything else--I cannot do it!"
What Lady Leroy would have said to this Nathalie never knew; for at that
moment there came a loud knock at the front door, and Miss Marsh, only
too glad to escape, flew down to answer it.
The alarm at the outer door proved to come from Charley Marsh; and
Nathalie stared, as she saw how pale and haggard he looked--so unlike
her bright-faced brother.
"What ails you, Charley?" she anxiously asked. "Are you sick?"
"Sick? No! Why should I be sick?"
"You are as pale and worn-looking as if you had been ill for a month.
Something has gone wrong."
"I have been up all night," said Charley, omitting, however, to add,
playing billiards. "That's why. Nathalie," hurriedly and nervously,
"have you any money? I can't ask before that old virago up-stairs."
"Money! Yes, I have some. Do you want it?"
"I want you to lend me as much as you can, for a short time. There!" he
said, impatiently, "don't begin asking questions, Natty. I want it
particularly, and I will pay you back as soon as I can. How much have
you got?"
"I have nearly twenty pounds, more or less. Will that do?"
"It will help. Don't say anything about it, Natty, like a good girl.
Who's in?"
"No one but Mrs. Leroy. Won't you come up?"
"I must, I suppose. Get the money while I am talking to her, and give it
to me as I go out. What a solemn face you have got, Natty!"
He laughed as he spoke--Charley's careless, boyish laugh, but Nathalie
only sighed as they ascended the stairs together.
"Mrs. Leroy has been scolding ever since I came from town. If ever a
fortune was dearly bought, Charley, mine will be."
"Paying too dear for your whistle--eh? Never mind, Natty! it can't last
forever, and neither can Lady Leroy."
All the shadow had gone from Charley's brow, and the change was magical.
Whether it was the promise of the money, or his natural elasticity of
spirit rebounding, he knew best; but certainly when he shook hands with
the mistress of the domain, the sunshine outside was not brighter than
his handsome face. Mrs. Leroy rather liked Charley, which is saying
folios in the young man's favor, considering how few that cantankerous
old cat admitted to her favor--but every one liked Charley Marsh.
While Nathalie went to her own room for the money, Nathalie's brother
was holding Mrs. Leroy spell-bound with his brilliant flow of
conversation. All the gossip and scandal of Speckport was
retailed--business, pleasure, fashion, and fights, related with
appetizing gusto; and where the reality fell short, Mr. Marsh called
upon his lively imagination for a few extra facts. The forthcoming
picnic and its delights were discussed, and Charley advised her to
strain a point and be present.
"Midge can wheel you about the field, you know, in your chair," said
Charley. "You won't take cold--the day's sure to be delightful, and I
know every one will enjoy themselves ten times better for having you
there. You had better come. Val Blake and I will carry you down stairs!"
To the astonishment of Nathalie, Mrs. Leroy assented readily to the odd
proposition; and Charley departed, having charmed the old lady into
utter forgetfulness, for the time being, of her antipathy to Captain
Cavendish. Speckport could talk of nothing for a week beforehand but the
picnic--the first of the season. All Speckport was going, young and old,
rich and poor. Admission, twenty-five cents; children, half price.
The Redmon grounds, where the picnic was to be held, were extensive and
beautiful. Broad velvety fields, green lanes, among miniature forests of
fragrant cedar and spruce, and all sloping down to the smooth, white
sands of the beach, with the gray sea tramping dully in, and the salt
spray dashing up in your face. And "I hope it won't be foggy! I do hope
it won't be foggy!" was the burden of every one's cry; the fog generally
choosing to step in and stay a week or two, whenever Speckport proposed
a picnic. How many blinds were drawn aside in the gray and dismal dawn
of that eventful morning, and how many eager pairs of eyes, shaded by
night-cap borders, turned anxiously heavenward; and how delightedly they
were drawn in again! for, wonderful to tell, the sky was blue and
without a cloud, and the sun, rising in a canopy of rose and amber,
promised all beholders a day of unremitting sunshine.
Before nine o'clock the Redmon road was alive with people--all in
gorgeous array. Before ten, the droves of men, women, and children
increased fourfold, and the dust was something awful. The sun fairly
blazed in the sky; had it ever shone so dazzlingly before, or was there
ever so brilliantly blue a sky, or such heaps and heaps of billows of
snowy white, floating through it? Before eleven, that boiling seaside
sun would have grilled you alive only for the strong sea-breeze,
heaven-sent, sweeping up from the bay. Through fiery heat, and choking
dust, the cry was "still they come," and Redmon grounds swarmed with
people, as the fields of Egypt once swarmed with locust. A great arch of
evergreens surmounted the entrance-gate, and the Union Jack floated
loyally over it in the morning sunshine. The clanging of the band and
the roll of the drum greeted your delighted ears the moment you entered
the fairy arch, and you found yourself lost and bewildered in a sea of
people you never saw before. The swings were flying with dizzying
velocity, young belles went up until the toes of their gaiters nearly
touched the firmament, and your head reeled to look at them. Some two or
three hundred ladies and gentlemen were tripping the light fantastic toe
to the inspiring music of a set of Irish quadrilles; and some eight
hundred spectators were gathered in tremendous circles about them,
looking on, gazing as if never in all their lives had so glorious and
wonderful a vision as their fellow-sinners jigging up and down, dazzled
their enchanted eyes. The refreshment tents were in such a crowded and
jammed and suffocating state, that you could see the steam ascending
from them as from an escape-valve; and the fair ones behind the tables,
bewildered by two dozen clamorous voices, demanding the attention of
each one at once, passed pies and tarts, and sandwiches and soda water,
and coffee and cakes frantically and at random, and let little boys feed
in corners unnoticed, and were altogether reduced to a state of utter
imbecility by the necessity of doing half a dozen things at one and the
same time. Pink and blue, and yellow and green ribbons fluttered, and
silks and muslins and bareges trailed the grass and got torn off the
waist by masculine bootheels; and the picnic was too delightful for
description, and, over all, the fiery noonday July sun blazed like a
wheel of fire, and the sea wind swept up fresh and delicious, and the
waves sang their old song down on the shore, and no one listened to
their mystic music or wondered, like poor little Paul Dombey, what they
were saying.
No one! Yes, there was one sitting on a green bank, all alone, who had
been very busy all morning until now, arranging tables and waiting on
hungry pleasure-seekers, making little boys and girls behave themselves,
and swinging little people who could get no one else to attend them. The
breeze that set the tall reeds and fern at fandangoing waved her black
barege dress, and flung back the little black lace vail falling from her
hat. Tired and hot, she had wandered here to listen to the waves and to
the tumult behind her.
What were the thoughts of the man who leaned against a tall tamarack
tree and watched the reclining figure as a cat does a mouse? There are
some souls so dark that all the beauty of earth and heaven are as blank
pages to them. They see without comprehending, without one feeling of
thoughtfulness for all the glory around them. Surely it were better for
such to have been born blind. This man saw no wide sea spreading before
him, glittering as if sown with stars. There was more to him worth
watching in one flutter of that thin black dress on the bank than in all
the world beside, and he stood and watched with his eyes half closed,
waiting until she should see him.
He had not to wait long. Some prescience that something out of harmony
with the scene was near, made her restless. She rose up on her elbow,
and looked round--a second after, her face flushed, she was up off the
grass and on her feet. The man lifted his hat and advanced.
"Pardon my intrusion, Winnie--Miss Rose, and--no, no--I beg you will not
go!"
She had made to turn away, but he himself interposed--something of
agitation in his manner, and it was but rarely, indeed. Captain George
Cavendish allowed himself to be agitated. She stopped gently enough, the
surprised flush faded out from her face--that pretty, pale face,
tranquil as face could be, was only very grave.
"If you have anything to say to me, Captain Cavendish, please to say it
quickly. I do not wish to be seen here."
"Is it such a disgrace, then, to be seen for one poor instant with me?"
he said, bitterly.
She did not reply, save by an impatient tapping of one foot on the
grass, and a backward glance at the crowded grounds.
"Winnie!" he broke out, passionately, as if stung by her manner, "have
you turned into a flirt? Have you entirely forgotten what is past? You
cannot--you cannot have ceased altogether to care for me, since I
cannot, do what I will, forget you!"
Miss Rose looked at him--steadily, quietly, gravely, out of her brown
eyes. If he had hoped for anything, that one look would have shivered
his air-castles as a stone shivers brittle glass.
"I told you once before, Captain Cavendish, that such words from you to
me were insults. The past, where you are concerned, is no more to me
than if you had never existed. I have not forgotten it, but it has no
more power to move me than the waves there can move those piles of rock.
No! I have not forgotten it. I look back often enough now with wonder
and pity at myself, that I ever should have been the idiot that I was."
His face turned crimson at the unmistakable earnestness of her words.
"Then I need scruple or hesitate no longer," he said, launching his last
pitiful shaft. "I need hesitate no longer, on your score, to speak the
words that will make one who is rich and beautiful, and who loves me,
happy. I came here willingly to make what atonement I could for the
past, by telling you beforehand, lest the shock of my marriage----"
He stopped in actual confusion, but raging inwardly at the humiliation
she was making him feel--this poor little pale schoolmistress, whom he
could have lifted with one hand and flung easily over the bank. She was
smiling as she listened to him, a smile not of mockery or disdain, only
so gallingly full of utter indifference to him.
"There is no atonement necessary," she said, with that conscious smile
still hovering on her lips; "none, I assure you. I have no hard feelings
toward you, Captain Cavendish, nothing to resent or forgive. If I was an
idiot, it was my own fault, I dare say, and I would not blot out one day
that is gone if I could. Marry when you will, marry as soon as you
please, and no one will wish you joy more sincerely on your wedding day
than I."
It half-maddened him, that supreme indifference, that serene face. He
knew that he loved her, herself, and her alone; and while he fancied her
pining and love-lorn, he was very well satisfied and quite complacent
over her case. But this turn of the story was a little too mortifying to
any man's pride to stand, and the man a lady-killer by profession at
that.
"I don't believe it," he said, savagely, "you have not forgotten--you
cared for me too much for that. I did not think you could stoop to
falsehood while playing the rôle of a saint."
Miss Rose gave him a look--a look before which, with all his fury, he
shrank. She had turned to walk away, but she stopped for a moment.
"I am telling no falsehood, Captain Cavendish: before I stoop to that, I
pray I may die. You know in your heart I mean what I say, and you know
that you believe me. I have many things to be thankful for, but chief
among them, when I kneel down to thank God for his mercies, I thank him
that I am not your wife!"
She walked slowly away, and he did not follow her; he only stood there,
swallowing the bitter pill, and digesting it as best he might. It was
provoking, no doubt, not to be able to forget this wretched little
school-ma'am, while she so coolly banished him from her memory--so
utterly and entirely banished him; for Captain Cavendish knew better
than to disbelieve her. He had jilted her, it is true, as he had many
another; but where was his triumph now? If he could only have forgotten
her himself; but when the grapes were within his reach, he had despised
them, and now that they grew above his head, and he did want them, it
was exasperating that he could not get them.
"Pah!" he thought bitterly, "what a fool I am! I could not marry her
were she ever so willing now, any more than I could then. This cursed
debt is dragging me to--perdition--I was going to say, and I must marry
a fortune, and that soon. Nathalie Marsh is the richest girl in
Speckport, therefore I shall marry Nathalie Marsh. She is ten times more
beautiful than that little quakeress who is just gone; but I can't love
her, and I can't forget the other."
Captain Cavendish leaned against the tamarack a long time, thinking. The
uproar behind him and the roar of the surf on the shore blended together
in a dull, meaningless tumult in his ears. He was thinking of this
marriage de convenance he must make, of this bride he must one day take
home to England. He was a gambler and a spendthrift, this man, over head
and ears in debt, and with no way but this one of ever getting out of
it. From his friends in England? He had no friends in England on whom he
could rely. His only rich relative, his uncle, the baronet, had taken it
into his head, at the age of fifty-five, to get married; and what was
more, there was an heir, a young gentleman of five months old, between
him and the baronetcy. His commission had been purchased by his uncle,
and it seemed all he need ever expect from him. He had never seen
service, and had no particular desire to see any. He must marry a rich
wife--there was no alternative--and he knew the power of his handsome
face extremely well. He had no fear of a refusal; there was no use in
delaying; he would make the heiress of Redmon happy that very day.
The sun was going down behind the waves, in an oriflamme of gold and
crimson and purple and rose, flushing the whole sky with its tropical
beauty, when the young officer turned away to seek for his future wife.
As if his thoughts had evoked her she was coming toward him, and all
alone; her white dress floating mistily about her, all her golden curls
hanging damp and loose over her shoulders, and her cheeks flushed with
the heat. She had taken off her hat, and was swinging it by its azure
ribbons, as she came up; and she looked so beautiful that the young
Englishman thought that it would not be so very dreadful a thing to
sell himself to this violet-eyed sultana after all.
"Truant!" said Nathalie, "where have you been all the afternoon? I
thought you had gone away."
"And all the time I have been standing here, like Patience on a
monument, wishing you would come up."
"Did you want me, then?"
"When do I not want you?"
Nathalie laughed, but she also blushed. "Then you should have gone in
search of me, sir. Mrs. Leroy wants to go home now, and I must go with
her."
"But not just yet. I have something to say to you, Nathalie."
And so here, in the hot warmth of the red sunset, the old, old story was
told--the story that has been told over and over again since the world
began, and will be told until its end, and yet is ever new. The story to
which two little words, yes or no, ends so ecstatically, or gives the
deathblow. It was yes this time; and when Nathalie Marsh, half an hour
after, went home with Mrs. Leroy, she was wondering if there was one
among all those thousands--one in all the wide world--as happy as she!
The last red glimmer of the sunset had faded out of the sky, and the
summer moon was up, round and white and full, before the last of the
picnickers went home. And in its pale rays, with his hands in his
pockets, and a cigar between his lips, Captain Cavendish went home with
Cherrie Nettleby.