The time is late summer on the bleak coast of Cornwall, a year and
three months since the day when Charley Bonair walked out of the
courtroom in San Francisco, cleared of the charge of insanity brought
by his nearest and dearest relatives, and freed by the efforts of the
man who had loved Berry so loyally that his friendship became her stay
in the time of her sore need.
Grateful to those who had befriended him, embittered by persecution,
Charley Bonair and his lovely bride had exiled themselves within a week
after his acquittal on the charge of insanity. The young man still
had some means left, and gathering everything together, he sailed for
foreign shores with Berry, having first instructed a lawyer to attend
to the rights of his inheritance from his mother when the property was
divided, on his sister’s coming of age.
That was long ago, and many things had transpired in that time.
To begin with, the disinherited son, never used to economy before,
had recklessly spent the funds he had in hand, traveling expensively,
showing Berry the wonders of the Old World, and answering to her
timid remonstrances on his extravagance that he had plenty to last
six months, and by then Marie would come of age and he would get his
portion of five hundred thousand dollars from his mother.
And, oh, the days, the weeks, the months, how happily they had gone to
the young pair of married lovers!
They had done the Continent leisurely at their own sweet will, they had
wandered hither and thither with not a care save the silent grief of
the young husband over the estrangement from his own people, and as to
Berry, she had found out long ago, by a cablegram, that her mother was
still living, not dead, as the vile fortune teller had falsely declared.
On getting this news the young husband had promptly sent his
mother-in-law a sum of money sufficient to keep her in ease and comfort
a year, so that Berry’s heart was at ease, and she gave herself up
wholly to her happiness. They adored each other with a true devotion
that never grew less. They were all in all to each other:
A book of verses underneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness,
And wilderness were paradise enow!
Whatever the carping world might say of the millionaire senator’s only
son’s mésalliance, to him it had been a salvation, turning him from
evil courses to a purer, better life, making out of him the noble man
nature had intended him to be.
His lovely bride grew more charming every day, to his enraptured eyes,
and he bitterly regretted the pride that had prevented his family from
seeing and knowing the girl whose flawless beauty and simple goodness
must, if permitted the opportunity, have won its way to every heart.
He grew hot and angry when he remembered how bitterly they had railed
against his darling, saying to himself that it was not like them to be
so harsh and unforgiving, and it was surely Rosalind who had set them
onto such cruelty, for she had threatened him with dire vengeance, and
this was how she had kept her word. Once he had pitied Rosalind, but
now he hated her for her malice that had cost him so dear.
He got another taste of it when the time rolled around for the division
of his mother’s fortune, for his lawyer wrote him that Senator Bonair,
as sole trustee, refused to surrender his son’s portion, still claiming
he was insane and unfit to have the use of the money.
Then it was Bonair’s wrath waved high.
“Berry, darling, will you excuse me if I go out and swear a little
outdoors? Oh, yes, I know I promised you never to swear again, but a
reformed man must relapse at times, you know, and really this seems to
me an occasion for profuse profanity!” he said grimly, to the beautiful
creature who smiled tenderly at him and answered:
“But do not stay out long, dearest, or I will not forgive you breaking
your promise to me.”
He was not absent very long, and when he returned, he said:
“On second thought I didn’t swear at all; I wrote my lawyer to bring
suit against my father at once for the payment of my money.”
“Do not worry over it, dear. We have each other, and are happy as we
are,” Berry answered, with a coaxing smile.
“Oh, yes, we are happy as we are, but our money will not last much
longer, little one, and you have not been well lately, and we will need
a lot of money for that sweet secret you whispered to me yesterday,”
the young man answered, with a new, dignified gravity very becoming.
Berry’s lovely color deepened, and the glance of her brown eyes was
simply adorable.
“But you know we must not travel about, now,” she murmured. “We must
settle down and live quietly until June, you know, as the doctor said,
so it will not take so much money to live as when we are always on the
wing. We can take a tiny little house or a little suite of rooms, and
keep house with one maid, don’t you see; or if we cannot afford the
maid, why, I can do the cooking myself, you see. Do you know I can make
tea and toast, and broil steak, and serve eggs in most any fashion,
sir?” she added smilingly.
“I am very glad to hear it, but we need not come to that. I think we
can have the little suite of rooms and the maid of all work. My lawyer
will be glad enough to furnish me the means of subsistence while he is
prosecuting my suit,” the young husband answered confidently.
The plan was carried out, and by Berry’s wish they made their little
home in London, for she was tired, she said, of the foreign lingo she
couldn’t understand, and wanted to stay among people who spoke her
mother tongue.
So they came from France and Italy, where they had passed the winter
months, to London, where, in a comfortable but not luxurious suite of
rooms, with a buxom maid of all work, they lived quietly and happily
until May. Berenice devoted her time of seclusion in studying the
languages under the tutorship of Charley, who was quite proficient in
that line.
Thus quietly and happily they waited an event that was to crown their
wedded lives with happiness.
Alas! fortune frowned on their springing hopes. Their little baby died,
soon after birth, and was laid tenderly away in a wee green grave. But
for over six weeks, a battle of physicians went on, with grim death in
the foreground, trying to snatch Berry from their fostering care.
Never till now did Charley Bonair realize the depth and strength of
his love for his precious wife. Sharing the vigils of the doctors
and nurses with ceaseless care, he grew to feel to his heart’s core
all that she was to him, and knew that if she died, life would be
unendurable to him forever after.
Oh, what joy when the wavering balance of life and death dropped her
into her husband’s arms again, with the chances in her favor for
recovery!
While she lay so ill, he had learned to pray, this man who had almost
forgotten his God, and now he sent up a prayer of thanksgiving for her
restoration.
While she was slowly convalescing, the head physician ordered that Mrs.
Bonair should be taken, as soon as she was able to be moved, down to
the sea, naming an obscure and rude little fishing village on the coast
of Cornwall as the preferred situation.
“She will have absolute calm and quiet there, and it is very essential
to her shattered nerves and frail condition of health,” he said.
“We shall be buried alive,” Charley said grimly to his wife when he
took her there, but she answered, with her usual sunny good nature:
“At least we shall be buried in the same grave, so I am content.”
“And I,” he answered as happily.
Thus we find them, in late August, by the sea, where Berry recovered
her health and spirits again, and so in love with the free, wild life
of the unconventional village of hardy fisher folk that both were
loath to leave. So they lingered on, from day to day, saying “it is so
pleasant staying, and so cheap living, we will not go away until we
get news from California of the success of the suit for his mother’s
fortune.”
Since she grew well and strong again, Berry had taken up her studies
with zest, by Charley’s wish, trying to make herself equal in education
to any position she might be called on to fill in the future.
For she knew now that, dearly as he loved her, there was a silent ache
in his warm heart for those who cast him off in anger, and that he
hoped against hope for a reconciliation at some future day when his
bride’s true worth and beauty shall be known and acknowledged.