Early on a moonlit evening in January, 1875, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Chase
were approaching St. Augustine. They had come by steamer up the broad
St. Johns, the beautiful river of Florida, to the lonely little landing
called Tocoi; here they had intrusted themselves to the Atlantic Ocean
Railroad. This railroad undertook to convey travellers across the
peninsula to the sea-coast, fifteen miles distant; and the promise was
kept. But it was kept in a manner so leisurely that more than once
Horace Chase had risen and walked to and fro, as though, somehow, that
would serve to increase the speed. The rolling-stock possessed by the
Atlantic Ocean Railroad at that date consisted of two small street-cars,
one for passengers, one for luggage; Chase's promenade, therefore,
confined as it was to the first car, had a range of about four steps.
"I'm ridiculously fidgety, and that's a fact," he said to his wife,
laughing at himself. "I can be lazy enough in a Pullman, for then I can
either read the papers or go to sleep. But down here there are no papers
to read. And who can sleep in this jolting? I believe I'll ask that
darky to let me drive the mules!"
"Do," said Ruth. "Then I can be out there with you on the front
platform."
As there were no other passengers (save Petie Trone, Esq., asleep in his
travelling basket), Abram, the negro driver, gave up the reins with a
grin. Taking his station on the step, he then admonished the volunteer
from time to time as follows: "Dish yere's a bad bit; take keer, boss."
"Jess ahead de rail am splayed out on de lef'. Yank 'em hard to de
right, or we'll sut'ny run off de track. We ginerally _do_ run off de
track 'bout yere." On each side was a dense forest veiled in the gray
long moss. Could that be snow between the two black lines of track
ahead? No snow, however, was possible in this warm atmosphere; it was
but the spectral effect of the moonlight, blanching to an even paler
whiteness the silvery sand which formed the road-bed between the rails.
This sand covered the sleepers to such a depth that the mules could not
step quickly; there was always a pailful of it on each foot to lift and
throw off. They moved on, therefore, in a sluggish trot, the cow-bells
attached to their collars keeping up a regular tink-tank, tink-tank.
The tableau of her husband driving these spirited steeds struck Ruth as
comical. She was seated on a camp-stool by his side, and presently she
broke into a laugh. "Oh, you do look _so_ funny, Horace! If you could
only see yourself! You, so particular about horses that you won't drive
anything that is not absolutely perfect, there you stand taking the
greatest pains, and watching solemnly every quiver of the ear of those
old mules!"
They were alone, Abram having gone to the baggage-car to get his tin
horn. "Come, now, are you never going to stop making fun of me?"
inquired Chase. "How do you expect to hit St. Augustine to-night if this
fast express runs off the track?" But in spite of his protest, it was
easy to see that he liked to hear her laugh.
Abram, coming back, put the horn to his lips and blew a resounding
blast; and presently, round a curve, the half-way station came into
view--namely, a hut of palmetto boughs on the barren, with a bonfire
before it. The negro station-men, beguiling their evening leisure by
dancing on the track to their own singing and the music of a banjo, did
not think it necessary to stop their gyrations until the heads of the
mules actually touched their shoulders. Even then they made no haste in
bringing out the fresh team which was to serve as motive power to St.
Augustine, and Mr. and Mrs. Chase, leaving the car, strolled up and down
near by. The veiled forest had been left behind; the rest of the way lay
over the open pine-barrens. The leaping bonfire, the singing negroes,
and the little train on its elevated snow-like track contrasted with the
wild, lonely, silent, tree-dotted plain, stretching away limitlessly in
the moonlight on all sides.
"Perhaps Petie Trone, Esq., would like to take a run," said Ruth.
Hastening into the car with her usual heedlessness, she tripped and
nearly fell, Chase, who had followed, catching her arm just in time to
save her.
"Some of these days, Ruthie, you will break your neck. Why are you
always in such a desperate hurry?"
"Talk about hurry!" answered Ruth, as she unstrapped the basket and woke
the lazy Mr. Trone. "Who saw the whole of Switzerland in five days? and
found it slow at that?" And then they both laughed.
After a stretch, Petie Trone decided to make a foray over the barren;
his little black figure was soon out of sight. "Horace, now that we are
here, I wish you would promise to stay. Can't we stay at least until the
middle of March? It's lovely in Florida in the winter," Ruth declared,
as they resumed their walk.
"Well, I'll stay as long as I can. But I must go to California on
business between this and spring," Chase answered.
"Why don't you make one of the Willoughbys do that? They never do
anything!"
"That's all right; I'm the working partner of the firm; it was so
understood from the beginning. The Willoughbys only put in capital; all
but Walter, of course, who hasn't got much. But Walter's a knowing young
chap, who will put in brains. My California business, however, has
nothing to do with the Willoughbys, Ruthie; it's my own private affair,
_that_ is. If I succeed, and I think I shall, it'll about double my
pile. Come, you know you like money." He drew her hand through his arm
and held it. "How many more rings do you want? How many more houses?
How many more French maids and flounces? How many more carriages?"
"Oh, leave out the carriages, do," interrupted Ruth. "When it comes to
anything connected with a horse, who spends money--you or I?"
"My one small spree compared to your fifty!"
"Small!" she repeated. "Wherever we go, whole troops of horses appear by
magic!" Then, after a moment, she let her head rest against his shoulder
as they strolled slowly on. "You are only too good to me," she added, in
another tone.
"Well, I guess that's about what I want to be," Chase answered,
covering, as he often did, the deep tenderness in his heart with a vein
of jocularity.
The Atlantic Ocean Railroad's terminal station at St. Augustine
consisted of a platform in the sand and another flaring bonfire. At
half-past six Mrs. Franklin, Dolly, and Anthony Etheridge were waiting
on this platform for the evening train. With them was a fourth
person--Mrs. Lilian Kip. "Oh, I can scarcely wait to see her!" exclaimed
this lady, excitedly. "Will she be the same? But no. Impossible!"
"She is exactly the same," answered Dolly, who, seated on an empty
dry-goods box, was watching the bonfire.
"But you must remember that Ruth did not come to Florida last winter
after her marriage. And this summer, when I was in Asheville, she was
abroad. And as none of you came south winter before last--don't you see
that it makes nearly _two_ years since I have seen her?" Mrs. Kip went
on. "In addition, marriage changes a woman's face so--deepens its
expression and makes it so _much_ more beautiful. I am sure, commodore,
that _you_ agree with me there?" And she turned to the only man present.
"Yes, yes," answered Etheridge, gallantly. In his heart he added: "And
therefore the more marriage the better? Is that what you are thinking
of, you idiot?"
The presence of Mrs. Kip always tore Etheridge to pieces. He had never
had any intention of marrying, and he certainly had no such intention
now. Yet he could not help admiring this doubly widowed Lilian very
deeply, after a fashion. And he knew, too--jealously and angrily he knew
it--that before long she would inevitably be led to the altar a third
time; so extremely marriageable a woman would never lack for leaders.
"Ruth is handsomer," remarked Mrs. Franklin; "otherwise she is
unchanged. You will see it for yourself, Lilian, when she comes."
The mother's tone was placid. All her forebodings had faded away, and
she had watched them disappear with thankful eyes. For Ruth was happy;
there could be no doubt about that. In the year that had passed since
her marriage, she had returned twice to Asheville, and Mrs. Franklin
also had spent a month at her son-in-law's home in New York. On all
these occasions it had been evident that the girl was enjoying greatly
her new life; that she was delightedly, exultantly, and gleefully
contented, and all in a natural way, without analyzing it. She delighted
in the boundless gratification of her taste for personal ease and
luxury; she exulted in all that she was able to do for her own family;
she was full of glee over the amusements, the entertainments, and
especially the change, that surrounded her like a boundless horizon. For
her husband denied her nothing; she had only to choose. He was not what
is known as set in his ways; he had no fixed habits (save the habit of
making money); in everything, therefore, except his business affairs, he
allowed his young wife to arrange their life according to her fancy.
This freedom, this power, and the wealth, had not yet become an old
story to Ruth, and, with the enjoyment which she found in all three, it
seemed as if they never would become that. It had been an immense
delight to her, for instance, to put L'Hommedieu in order for her
mother. A month after her marriage, on returning to Asheville for a
short visit, she had described her plan to Dolly. "And think what fun it
will be, Dolly, to have the whole house done over, not counting each
cent in Genevieve's deadly way, but just _recklessly_! And then to see
her squirm, and say 'surely!' And you and mother must pretend not to
care much about it; you must hardly know what is going on, while they
are actually putting in steam-heaters, and hard-wood floors, and
bath-rooms with porcelain tubs--hurrah!" And, with Petie Trone barking
in her arms, she whirled round in a dance of glee.
Chase happening to come in at this moment, she immediately repeated to
him all that she had been saying.
He agreed; then added, with his humorous deliberation, "But you don't
seem to think quite so much of my old school-mate as I supposed you
did?"
"Sisters-in-law, Mr. Chase, are seldom _very_ devoted friends,"
explained Dolly, going on with her embroidery. Dolly always did
something that required her close attention whenever Horace Chase was
present. "How, indeed, can they be? A sister sees one side of her
brother's nature, and sees it correctly; a wife sees another side, and
with equal accuracy. Each honestly believes that the other is entirely
wrong. Their point of view, you see, is so different!"
The waiting group at the St. Augustine station on this January evening
heard at last the blast of Abram's horn, and presently the train came
in, the mules for the last few yards galloping madly, their tin bells
giving out a clattering peal, and Chase still acting as driver, with
Ruth beside him. Affectionate greetings followed, for all the Franklins
were warmly attached to each other. Mrs. Kip was not a Franklin, but she
was by nature largely affectionate; she was probably the most
affectionate person in Florida. To the present occasion she contributed
several tears of joy. Then she signalled to Juniper, her colored
waiter; for, being not only affectionate, but romantic as well, she had
brought in her phaeton a bridal ornament, a heart three feet high, made
of roses reposing upon myrtle, and this symbol, amid the admiration of
all the bystanders, black and white, was now borne forward in the arms
of Juniper (who, being a slender lad, staggered under its weight). Ruth
laughed and laughed as this edifice was presented to her. But as, amid
her mirth, she had kissed the donor and thanked her very prettily, Mrs.
Kip was satisfied. For Ruth might laugh--Ruth, in fact, always
laughed--but marriage was marriage none the less; the most beautiful
human relation; and it was certainly fit that the first visit of a
happily wedded pair to the land of flowers should be commemorated
florally. Mrs. Kip volunteered to carry her heart to Mrs. Franklin's
residence; she drove away, therefore, Etheridge accompanying her, and
Juniper behind, balancing the structure as well as he could on his
knees, with his arms stretched upward to their fullest extent in order
to grasp its top.
In a rickety barouche drawn by two lean horses the others followed,
laughing and talking gayly. Chase got on very well with his
mother-in-law; and he supposed, also, that he got on fairly well with
Dolly: he had not divined Dolly's mental attitude towards him, which was
that simply of an armed neutrality. Dolly would have been wildly happy
if, for herself and her mother at least, she could have refused every
cent of his money. This had not been possible. Chase had settled upon
his wife a sum which gave her a large income for her personal use,
independent of all their common expenses; it was upon this income that
Ruth had drawn for the restoration of L'Hommedieu, and also for the
refurnishing of her mother's house at St. Augustine. "I can't be happy,
His Grand, I can't enjoy New York, or our trip to Europe, or anything,
unless I feel certain that you are perfectly comfortable in every way,"
she had said during that first visit at home. "All this money is mine; I
am not asked what I do with it, and I never shall be asked; you don't
know Horace if you think he will ever even allude to the subject. He
intends it for my ownest own, and of course he knows what I care the
most for, and that is you and Jared and Dolly. I have always suspected
that something troubled you every now and then, though I didn't know
what. And if it was money, His Grand, you _must_ take some from me, now
that I have it; you must take it, and make your little girl really
happy. For she can't be happy until you do."
This youngest child really was still, in the mother's eyes, her "baby."
And when the baby, sitting down in her lap, put her arms round her neck
and pleaded so lovingly, the mother yielded. Her debts were now all
paid; it was a secret between herself and Ruth. The disappearance of the
burden was a great relief to the mother, though not so much so as it
would have been to some women; for it was characteristic of Mrs.
Franklin that she had never thought there was anything wrong in being
in debt; she had only thought that it was unfortunate. It would not have
occurred to her, even in her worst anxieties, to reduce sternly her
expenses until they accorded with her means, no matter how low that
might lead her; there was a point, so she believed, beyond which a Mrs.
Franklin could not descend with justice to her children. And justice to
her children was certainly a mother's first duty; justice to creditors
must take a second place.
To Dolly, unaware of the payment of the debts, the acceptance even of
the restoration of the two houses had been bitter enough; for though the
money came through Ruth's hands, it was nevertheless provided by this
stranger. "If I had only been well, I could have worked and saved mother
from this," she thought. "But I am helpless. Not only that, but a care!
Nobody stops to think how dreary a lot it is to be always a care. And
how hard, hard, never to be able to give, but always to have to accept,
accept, and be thankful!" But Dolly, at heart, had a generous nature;
she would not cloud even by a look her mother's contentment or the
happiness of Ruth. So when Chase said, as the barouche swayed crazily
through the deep mud-hole which for years formed the junction between
the station lane and the main road, "This old rattletrap isn't safe,
ma'am. Is it the best St. Augustine can do? You ought to have something
better!"--when Chase said this to her mother, Dolly even brought forward
a smile.
The rattletrap followed the long causeway which crossed the salt-marsh
and the San Sebastian River. Entering the town beneath an archway of
foliage, this causeway broadened into a sandy street under huge
pride-of-India trees, whose branches met overhead. Old Miss
L'Hommedieu's winter residence was not far from St. Francis Barracks, at
the south end of the town. It was an old coquina house which rose
directly from a little-travelled roadway. An open space on the other
side of this roadway, and the absence of houses, gave it the air of
being "on the bay," as it was called. Chase had taken, for a term of
years, another house not far distant, which really was on the bay. He
had done this to please Ruth. It was not probable that they should spend
many winters in Florida; but in case they should wish to come
occasionally, it would be convenient to have a house ready. "And when we
don't want it, Jared could stay here now and then," Ruth had suggested.
"Your brother? I guess he isn't going to be a very easy chap to arrange
for, here or anywhere," Chase had answered, laughing. "We've already
slipped up once pretty well--Charleston, you know." Then, seeing her
face grow troubled, "But he'll take another view of something else I
have in mind," he went on. "If my California project turns out as I
hope, it will be absolutely necessary for me to have a confidential man
to see to the New York part of it--some one whom I can trust. And I
shall be able to convince Franklin that this time, at any rate, instead
of its being a favor to him, it'll be a favor to me. He won't kick at
_that_, I reckon."
For Jared was now again at Raleigh, working as a clerk for the man who
had bought his former business; he had resigned his Charleston place in
spite of Ruth, in spite even of Genevieve. He had waited until the
wedding was over, in order that Ruth might not be made unhappy at the
moment; and then he had done it.
Notwithstanding this, his wife had never had so much money in her life
as she had now. For she and Ruth, with the perfectly good conscience
which women have in such matters, had combined together, as it were, to
circumvent secretly the obstinate naval officer. Ruth was warmly
attached to her brother; he was the one person who had been able to
control her when she was a child; his good opinion had been a hundred
times more important to her than that of her mother and Dolly. Now that
she was rich, she was bent upon helping him; and having found that she
could not do it directly, she had turned all her intelligence towards
doing it indirectly, through the capable, the willing Genevieve. Mrs.
Jared Franklin, Junior, had quietly and skilfully bought land in
Asheville (in readiness for the coming railroad); she had an account at
the bank; she had come into the possession of bonds and stock; she had
enlarged her house, and she had also given herself the pleasure (she
called it the benediction) of laying the foundations of an addition to
the Colored Home. As she kept up a private correspondence with Ruth,
she had heard of the proposed place in New York for Jared, the place
where his services would be of value. She was not surprised; it was what
she had been counting upon. Jared's obstinacy would give way, _must_
give way, before this new opportunity; and in the meanwhile, here at
Asheville, all was going splendidly well.
Amid these various transactions Jared Franklin's mother had been obliged
to make up her mind as to what her own attitude should be. It had been
to her a relief unspeakable, an overmastering joy, to know that her son
would not, after all, sink to harassing poverty. Soothed by this, lulled
also by the hope that before very long he would of his own accord
consent to give up what was so distasteful to him, she had virtually
condoned the underhand partnership between Ruth and Genevieve, arranging
the matter with her conscience after her own fashion, by simply turning
her head away from the subject entirely. As she had plenty of
imagination, she had ended by really convincing herself that she was not
aware of what was going on, because she had not heard any of the
details. (She had, in fact, refused to hear them.) This left her free to
say to Jared (if necessary) that she had known nothing. But she hoped
that no actual words of this sort would be required. Her temperament,
indeed, had always been largely made up of hope.
It was true that Jared for the present was still at Raleigh, drudging
away at a very small salary. That, however, would not last forever. And
in the meantime (and this was also extraordinarily agreeable to the
mother) Madame Genevieve was learning that she could not lead her
husband quite so easily as she had supposed she could. In her enjoyment
of this fact, Mrs. Franklin, in certain moods, almost hoped that (as his
affairs were in reality going on so well) her son would continue to hold
out for some time longer.
The house which Horace Chase had taken at St. Augustine was much larger
than old Miss L'Hommedieu's abode; it was built of coquina, like hers,
but it faced the sea-wall directly, commanding the inlet; from its upper
windows one could see over Anastasia Island opposite, and follow miles
of the blue southern sea. Ruth's French maid, Felicite, had arrived at
this brown mansion the day before, with the heavy luggage; to-night,
however, new-comers were to remain with the mother in the smaller house.
When the barouche reached Mrs. Franklin's door, Etheridge, Mrs. Kip, and
the heart were already there. "I won't stay now," said Mrs. Kip. "But
may I look in later? Evangeline Taylor is perfectly _wild_ to come."
When she returned, a little after eight, Chase was still in the
dining-room with Anthony Etheridge, who had dined there. The heart had
been suspended from a stout hook on the parlor wall, and Ruth happened a
moment before to have placed herself under it, when, having discovered
her old guitar in a closet, she had seated herself to tune it. "It's
_so_ sweet, Ruth, your sitting there under my flowers," said the
visitor, tearfully. "And yet, for _me_, such an--such an _association_!"
"I thought your daughter was coming?" said Mrs. Franklin, peering
towards the door over her glasses.
"Evangeline Taylor will be here in a moment," answered her mother; "her
governess is bringing her." And presently there entered a tall, a
gigantically tall girl, with a long, solemn, pale face. As she was
barely twelve, she was dressed youthfully in a short school-girl frock
with a blue sash. Advancing, she kissed Ruth; then, retiring to a
corner, she seated herself, arranged her feet in an appropriate pose,
and crossed her hands in her lap. A little later, when no one was
looking, she furtively altered the position of her feet. Then she
changed once or twice the arrangement of her hands. This being settled
at last to her satisfaction, she turned her attention to her features,
trying several different contortions, and finally settling upon a
drawing in of the lips and a slight dilatation of the nostrils. And all
this not in the least from vanity, but simply from an intense personal
conscientiousness.
"The dear child longed to see you, Ruth. She danced for joy when she
heard you had come," explained the mother.
"Yes, Evangeline and I have always been great chums," answered Ruth,
good-naturedly.
The room was brightly lighted, and the light showed that the young
wife's face was more beautiful than ever; the grace of her figure also
was now heightened by all the aids that dress can bestow. Ruth had said
to Jared, jokingly, "Wait till you see how pretty I shall be in fine
clothes!" The fine clothes had been purchased in profusion, and, what
was better, Felicite knew how to adapt them perfectly to her slender
young mistress.
Mrs. Kip, having paid her tribute to "the association" (she did not say
whether the feeling was connected with Andrew Taylor, her first husband,
or with the equally departed John Kip, her second), now seated herself
beside Ruth, and, with the freedom of old friendship, examined her
costume. "I know you had that made in Paris!" she said. "Simple as it
is, it has a sort of something or other! And, oh, what a beautiful
bracelet! What splendid rings!"
Ruth wore no ornaments save that on her right wrist was a band of
sapphires, and on her right hand three of the same gems, all the stones
being of great beauty. On her left hand she wore the wedding circlet,
with her engagement-ring and the philopena guard over it. In answer to
the exclamation, she had taken off the jewels and tossed them all into
Mrs. Kip's lap. Mrs. Kip looked at them, her red lips open.
To some persons, Lilian Kip seemed beautiful, in spite of the fact that
the outline of her features, from certain points of view, was almost
grotesque; she had a short nose, a wide mouth, a broad face, and a
receding chin. Her dark-brown eyes were neither large nor bright, but
they had a soft, dove-like expression; her curling hair was of a
mahogany-red tint, and she had the exquisitely beautiful skin which
sometimes accompanies hair of this hue; her cheeks really had the
coloring of peaches and cream; her lips were like strawberries; her
neck, arms, and hands were as fair as the inner petals of a tea-rose.
With the exception of her imperfect facial outlines, she was as
faultlessly modelled as a Venus. A short Venus, it is true, and a
well-fed one; still a Venus. No one would ever have imagined her to be
the mother of that light-house of a daughter; it was necessary to recall
the fact that the height of the late Andrew Taylor had been six feet
four inches. Andrew Taylor having married Lilian Howard when she was but
seventeen, Lilian Kip, in spite of two husbands and her embarrassingly
overtopping child, found herself even now but thirty.
She had put Ruth's rings on her hands and the bracelet on her wrist; now
she surveyed the effect with her head on one side, consideringly. While
she was thus engaged, Mrs. Franklin's little negro boy, Samp, ushered in
another visitor--Walter Willoughby.
"Welcome to Florida, Mrs. Chase," he said, as he shook hands with Ruth.
"As you are an old resident, however, it's really your husband whom I
have come to greet; he is here, isn't he?"
"Yes; he is in the dining-room with Commodore Etheridge," Ruth
answered. "Will you go out?" For it was literally out; the old house was
built in the Spanish fashion round an interior court, and to reach the
dining-room one traversed a long veranda.
"Thanks; I'll wait here," Walter answered. In reality he would have
preferred to go and have a cigar with Chase. But as he had not seen his
partner's wife since she returned from Europe, it was only courtesy as
well as good policy to remain where he was. For Mrs. Chase was a power.
She was a power because her husband would always wish to please her;
this desire would come next to his money-making, and would even, in
Walter's opinion (in case there should ever be a contest between the two
influences), "run in close!"
Mrs. Kip had hastily divested herself of the jewels, and replaced them
on Ruth's wrist and hands, with many caressing touches. "Aren't they
_lovely_?" she said to Walter.
"That little one, the guard, was _my_ selection," he replied, indicating
the philopena circlet.
"And not this also?" said Ruth, touching her engagement ring.
"No; that was my uncle Richard's choice; Chase wrote to _him_ the second
time, not to me," Walter answered. "I'm afraid he didn't like my taste."
He laughed; then turned to another subject. "You were playing the guitar
when I came in, Mrs. Chase; won't you sing something?"
"I neither play nor sing in a civilized way," Ruth answered. "None of
us do. In music we are all awful barbarians."
"How can you say so," protested Mrs. Kip, "when, as a family, you are
_so_ musical?" Then, summoning to her eyes an expression of great
intelligence, she added: "And I should know that you were, all of you,
from your thick eyebrows and very thick hair. You have heard of that
theory, haven't you, Mr. Willoughby? That all true musicians have very
thick hair?"
"Also murderers; I mean the women--the murderesses," remarked Dolly.
"Oh, Dolly, what ideas you do have! Who would ever think of associating
murderesses with music? Music is _so_ uplifting," protested the rosy
widow.
"We should take care that it is not too much so," Dolly answered. "Lots
of us are ridiculously uplifted. We know one thing perhaps, and like it.
But we remain flatly ignorant about almost everything else. In a busy
world this would do no harm, if we could only be conscious of it. But
no; on we go, deeply conceited about the one thing we know and like, and
loftily severe as to the ignorance of other persons concerning it. It
doesn't occur to us that upon other subjects save our own, we ourselves
are presenting precisely the same spectacle. A Beethoven, when it comes
to pictures, may find something very taking in a daub representing a
plump child with a skipping-rope, and the legend: 'See me jump!' A
painter of the highest power may think 'The Sweet By-and-By' on the
cornet the acme of musical expression. A distinguished sculptor may
appreciate on the stage only negro minstrels or a tenth-rate farce. A
great historian may see nothing to choose, in the way of beauty, between
a fine etching and a chromo. It is well known that the most celebrated,
and deservedly celebrated, scientific man of our day devours regularly
the weakest fiction that we have. And people who love the best classical
music and can endure nothing else, have no idea, very often, whether
they belong to the mammalia or the crustacea, or whether the Cologne
cathedral is Doric or late Tudor."
"Carry it a little further, Miss Franklin," said Walter Willoughby; "it
has often been noted that criminals delight in the most sentimental
tales."
"That isn't the same thing," Dolly answered. "However, to take up your
idea, Mr. Willoughby, it is certainly true that it is often the good
women who read with the most breathless interest the newspaper reports
of crimes."
"Oh no!" exclaimed Mrs. Kip.
"Yes, they do, Lilian," Dolly responded. "And when it comes to tales,
they like dreadful events, with plenty of moral reflections thrown in;
the moral reflections make it all right. A plain narrative of an even
much less degree of evil, given impartially, and without a word of
comment by the author--_that_ seems to them the unpardonable thing."
"Well, and isn't it?" said Mrs. Kip. "Shouldn't people be
_taught_--_counselled_?"
"And it's for the sake of the counsel that they read such stories?"
inquired Dolly.
During this conversation, Chase, in the dining-room, had risen and given
a stretch, with his long arms out horizontally. He was beginning to feel
bored by the talk of Anthony Etheridge, "the ancient swell," as he
called him. In addition, he had a vision of finishing this second cigar
in a comfortable chair in the parlor (for Mrs. Franklin had no objection
to cigar smoke), with Ruth near by; for it always amused him to hear his
wife laugh and talk. The commodore, meanwhile, having assigned to
himself from the day of the wedding the task of "helping to civilize the
Bubble," never lost an opportunity to tell him stories from his own more
cultivated experience--"stories that will give him ideas, and, by Jove!
phrases, too. He needs 'em!" He had risen also. But he now detained his
companion until he had finished what he was saying. "So there you have
the reason, Mr. Chase, why _I_ didn't marry. I simply couldn't endure
the idea of an old woman's face opposite mine at table year after year;
for our women grow old so soon! Now you, sir, have shown the highest
wisdom in this respect. I congratulate you."
"I don't know about that," answered Chase, as he turned towards the
door. "Ruth will have an old man's face opposite _her_ before very long,
won't she?"
"Not at all, my good friend; not at all. Men have no age. At least,
they _need_ not have it," answered Etheridge, bringing forward with
joviality his favorite axiom.
Cordial greetings took place between Chase and Walter Willoughby. "Your
uncles weren't sure you would still be here," Chase remarked. "They
thought perhaps you wouldn't stay."
"I shall stay awhile--outstay you, probably," answered Walter, smiling.
"I can't imagine that you'll stand it long."
"Doing nothing, you mean? Well, it's true I have never loafed _much_,"
Chase admitted.
"You loafed all summer in Europe," the younger man replied, and his
voice had almost an intonation of complaint. He perceived this himself,
and smiled a little over it.
"So that was loafing, was it," commented Ruth, in a musing
tone--"catching trains and coaches on a full run, seeing three or four
cantons, half a dozen towns, two passes, and several ranges of mountains
every day?"
All laughed, and Mrs. Kip said: "Did you rush along at that rate? That
was baddish. There's no hurry _here_; that's one good thing. The laziest
place! We must get up a boat-ride soon, Ruth. Boat-drive, I mean."
Mrs. Franklin meanwhile, rising to get something, knocked over
accidentally the lamplighters which she had just completed, and Chase,
who saw it, jumped up to help her collect them.
"Why, how many you have made!" he said, gallantly.
She was not pleased by this innocent speech; she had no desire to be
patted on the back, as it were, about her curled strips of paper; she
curled them to please herself. She made no reply, save that her nose
looked unusually aquiline.
"Yes, mother is tremendously industrious in lamplighters," remarked
Dolly. "Her only grief is that she cannot send them to the Indian
missions. You can send _almost_ everything to the Indian missions; but
somehow lamplighters fill no void."
"Do you mean the new mission we are to have here--the Indians at the
fort?" asked Walter Willoughby. "They are having a big dance to-night."
Ruth looked up.
"Should you like to see it?" he went on, instantly taking advantage of
an opportunity to please her. "Nothing easier. We could watch it quite
comfortably, you know, from the ramparts."
"I should like it ever so much! Let us go at once, before it is over!"
exclaimed Ruth, eagerly.
"Ruth! Ruth!" said her mother. "After travelling all day, Mr. Chase may
be tired."
"Not at all, ma'am," said Chase. "I don't take much stock in Indians
myself," he went on, to his wife. "Do you really want to go?"
"Oh yes, Horace. Please."
"And the commodore will go with _me_," said Mrs. Kip, turning her soft
eyes towards Etheridge, who went down before the glance like a house of
cards.
"But we must take Evangeline Taylor home first," said Mrs. Kip. "We'll
go round by way of Andalusia, commodore. It would never do to let her
see an Indian dance at _her_ age," she added, affectionately, lifting
her hand high to pat her daughter's aerial cheek. "It would make her
tremble like a babe."
"Oh, _did_ you hear her 'baddish'!" said Dolly, as, a few minutes later,
they went up the steps that led to the sea-wall, Chase and Walter
Willoughby, Ruth and herself. "And did you hear her 'boat-drive'? She
has become so densely confused by hearing Achilles Larue inveigh against
the use of 'ride' for 'drive' that now she thinks everything must be
drive."
Chase and Walter Willoughby smiled; but not unkindly. There are some
things which the Dolly Franklins of the world are incapable, with all
their cleverness, of comprehending; one of them is the attraction of a
sweet fool.
The sea-wall of St. Augustine stretches, with its smooth granite coping,
along the entire front of the old town, nearly a mile in length. On the
land side its top is but four or five feet above the roadway; towards
the water it presents a high, dark, wet surface, against which comes the
wash of the ocean, or rather of the inlet; for the harbor is protected
by a long, low island lying outside. It is this island, called
Anastasia, that has the ocean beach. The walk on top of the wall is
just wide enough for two. Walter Willoughby led the way with Dolly, and
Chase and his wife followed, a short distance behind.
Walter thought Miss Franklin tiresome. With the impatience of a young
fellow, he did not care for her clever talk. He was interested in clever
men; in woman he admired other qualities. He had spent ten days in
Asheville during the preceding summer in connection with Chase's plans
for investment there, and he had been often at L'Hommedieu during his
stay; but he had found Genevieve more attractive than Dolly--Genevieve
and Mrs. Kip. For Mrs. Kip, since her second widowhood, had spent her
summers at Asheville, for the sake of "the mountain atmosphere;" ("which
means Achilles atmosphere," Mrs. Franklin declared). This evening Walter
had felt a distinct sense of annoyance when Dolly had announced her
intention of going with them to see the Indian dance, for this would
arrange their party in twos. He had no desire for a tete-a-tete with
Dolly, and neither did he care for a tete-a-tete with Ruth; his idea had
been to accompany Mr. and Mrs. Chase as a third. However, he made the
best of it; Walter always did that. He had the happy faculty of getting
all the enjoyment possible out of the present, whatever it might be.
Postponing, therefore, to the next day his plan for making himself
agreeable to the Chases, he led the way gayly enough to the fort.
Fort San Marco is the most imposing ancient structure which the United
States can show. Begun in the seventeenth century, when Florida was a
province of Spain, it has turrets, ramparts, and bastions, a portcullis
and barbacan, a moat and drawbridge. Its water-battery, where once stood
the Spanish cannon, looks out to sea. Having outlived its use as a
fortification, it was now sheltering temporarily a band of Indians from
the far West, most of whom had been sentenced to imprisonment for crime.
With the captives had come their families, for this imprisonment was to
serve also as an experiment; the red men were to be instructed,
influenced, helped. At present the education had not had time to
progress far.
The large square interior court, open to the sky, was to-night lighted
by torches of pine, which were thrust into the iron rings that had
served the Spaniards for the same purpose long before. The Indians,
adorned with paint and feathers, were going through their wild
evolutions, now moving round a large circle in a strange squatting
attitude, now bounding aloft. Their dark faces, either from their actual
feelings or from the simulated ferocity appropriate to a war-dance, were
very savage, and with their half-naked bodies, their whoops and yells,
they made a picture that was terribly realistic to the whites who looked
on from the ramparts above, for it needed but little imagination to
fancy a _bona fide_ attack--the surprise of the lonely frontier
farm-house, with the following massacre and dreadful shrieks.
Ruth, half frightened, clung to her husband's arm. Mrs. Kip, after a
while, began to sob a little.
"I'm _thinking_--of the _wo-women_ they have probably _scalped_ on the
_pla-ains_" she said to Etheridge.
"What?" he asked, unable to hear.
"Never mind; we'll _convert_ them," she went on, drying her eyes
hopefully. For a Sunday-school was to be established at the fort, and
she had already promised to take a class.
But Dolly was on the side of the Indians. "The crimes for which these
poor creatures are imprisoned here are nothing but virtues upside down,"
she shouted. "They killed white men? Of course they did. Haven't the
white men stolen all their land?"
"But we're going to _Christianize_ them," yelled Mrs. Kip, in reply.
They were obliged to yell, amid the deafening noise of the dance and the
whoopings below.
Ruth had a humorous remark ready, when suddenly her husband, to Walter's
amusement, put his hand over her lips. She looked up at him, laughing.
She understood.
"Funniest thing in the world," he had once said to her, "but the more
noise there is, the more incessantly women _will_ talk. Ever noticed?
They are capable of carrying on a shrieking conversation in the cars all
day long."
The atmosphere grew dense with the smoke from the pitch-pine torches,
and suddenly, ten minutes later, Dolly fainted. This in itself was not
alarming; with Dolly it happened not infrequently. But under the present
circumstances it was awkward.
"Why did you let her come? I was amazed when I saw her here," said
Etheridge, testily.
For Etheridge was dead tired. He hated the Indians; he detested the
choking smoke; he loathed open ramparts at this time of night. Ruth and
Mrs. Franklin had themselves been surprised by Dolly's desire to see the
dance. But they always encouraged any wish of hers to go anywhere; such
inclinations were so few.
Walter Willoughby, meanwhile, prompt as ever, had already found a
vehicle--namely, the phaeton of Captain March, the army officer in
charge of the Indians; it was waiting outside to take Mrs. March back to
the Magnolia Hotel. "The captain lends it with pleasure; as soon,
therefore, as Miss Franklin is able, I can drive her home," suggested
Walter.
But Chase, who knew through his wife some of the secrets of Dolly's
suffering, feared lest she might now be attacked by pain; he would not
trust her to a careless young fellow like Walter. "I'll take her
myself," he said. "And Ruth, you can come back with the others, along
the sea-wall."
Dolly, who had recovered consciousness, protested against this
arrangement. But her voice was only a whisper; Chase, paying no
attention to it, lifted her and helped her down to the phaeton. He was
certainly the one to do it, so he thought; his wife's sister was his
sister as well. It was a pity that she was not rather more amiable. But
that made no difference regarding one's duty towards her.
The others also left the ramparts, and started homeward, following the
sea-wall.
This granite pathway is not straight; it curves a little here and there,
adapting itself to the line of the shore. To-night it glittered in the
moonlight. It was high tide, and the water also glittered as it came
lapping against the stones waveringly, so that the granite somehow
seemed to waver, too. Etheridge was last, behind Mrs. Kip. He did not
wish to make her dizzy by walking beside her, he said. Suddenly he
descended. On the land side.
Mrs. Kip, hearing the thud of his jump, turned her head, surprised. And
then the commodore (though he was still staggering) held out his hand,
saying, "We get off here, of course; it is much our nearest way. That's
the reason I stepped down," he carelessly added.
Mrs. Kip had intended to follow the wall as far as the Basin. But she
always instinctively obeyed directions given in a masculine voice. If
there were two masculine voices, she obeyed the younger. In this case
the younger man did not speak. She acquiesced, therefore, in the elder's
sharp "Come!" For poor Etheridge had been so jarred by his fall that his
voice had become for the moment falsetto.
Mrs. Chase and Walter Willoughby, thus deserted, continued on their way
alone.
It was a beautiful night. The moon lighted the water so brilliantly that
the flash of the light-house on Anastasia seemed superfluous; the dark
fort loomed up in massive outlines; a narrow black boat was coming
across from the island, and, as there was a breeze, the two Minorcans it
carried had put up a rag of a sail, which shone like silver. "How fast
they go!" said Ruth.
"Would you like to sail home?" asked Walter. He did not wait for her
answer, for, quick at divination, he had caught the wish in her voice.
He hailed the Minorcans; they brought their boat up to the next flight
of water-steps; in two minutes from the time she had first spoken, Ruth,
much amused by this unexpected adventure, was sailing down the inlet.
"Oh, how wet! I didn't think of that," Walter had exclaimed as he saw
the water in the bottom of the boat; and with a quick movement he had
divested himself of his coat, and made a seat of it for her in the
driest place. She had had no time to object, they were already off; she
must sit down, and sit still, for their tottlish craft was only a
dugout. Walter, squatting opposite, made jocular remarks about his
appearance as he sat there in his shirt-sleeves.
It was never difficult for Ruth to laugh, and presently, as the water
gained on her companion in spite of all his efforts, she gave way to
mirth. She laughed so long that Walter began to feel that he knew her
better, that he even knew her well. He laughed himself. But he also took
the greatest pains at the same time to guard her pretty dress from
injury.
The breeze and the tide were both in their favor; they glided rapidly
past the bathing-house, the Plaza, the Basin, and the old mansion which
Chase had taken. Then Walter directed the Minorcans towards another
flight of water-steps. "Here we are," he said. "And in half the time it
would have taken us if we had walked. We have come like a shot."
He took her to her mother's door. Then, pretty wet, with his ruined coat
over his arm, he walked back along the sea-wall to the St. Augustine
Hotel.