SWEET RECOMPENSE.
The next morning St. Udo Brand lay impatiently waiting for his dear
young nurse, and scowling at the stupid negress, who was putting his
room to rights, when a visitor entered, and made his way up to the sick
man.
A haggard-looking old gentleman, with pale, yellow cheeks, pendulous and
flaccid--eyebrows which bristled like furze on the brow of a beetling
crag, and lack-luster eyes, which glistened like the dull waters at the
foot of it.
"My service to you, sir," said he, with an old-fashioned bow; "I am
Andrew Davenport, if you remember."
"I do remember Andrew Davenport, if you are he; you are so changed that
I need scarcely beg pardon for not recollecting you sooner."
"Same to you, sir. Gad, sir, yellow fever is no joke, and you took it
worse than me by a long chalk."
"How comes it that you have had yellow fever? When did you come here?"
"About a month ago. Came here with a face as red as a lobster, and as
broad as that. Look at it now. I don't begrudge it though, when I see
you looking so much better than ever I thought to see you when first I
looked at you in this bed. We have much to be thankful for, Colonel
Brand."
"I fail to understand. What brought you to Key West, and what have you
to do with me?"
"A good deal, my young sir. I have to escort you home to your castle,
for one thing."
"I am astonished that you should come all this way to waste words upon
such a subject. I thought that by this time Miss Walsingham would be
married, and that I could go on my way rejoicing."
"Married to that impostor, who hoped to fill your shoes? Pho! what do
you take us all for? Well, after all, I needn't take any share of the
glory. It was Miss Margaret herself, who found out the whole conspiracy,
and set off like a brave young woman as she is, taking me for company,
to find you, sir."
"Heavens! What did she want of me?"
"Gad! sir, if you really don't know, all I can say is that she's the
first woman I ever saw who could hold her tongue! It was to find you out
and give you the property of Seven-Oak Waaste, the lands, houses, etc.,
attached, that she came while the plague was literally raging, to this
confounded rat-trap, where, if one gets in they can't get out."
"Is Margaret Walsingham in Key West?"
"She is."
"Then it is she who has been troubling my poor darling with this
wretched story."
"In Key West, and I leave you to judge whether she makes a good sick
nurse or no."
"Has she been my nurse?"
"To be sure? Nice place you've got here, sir! Everything as dainty as a
lady's boudoir; and what a magnificent bunch of flowers! Think of that
in March!"
"Miss Walsingham--my Perdita! The girl who risked her life for me!"
"Even so. Precious short were her visits to my bedside, for watching at
yours; and between us she's had a wearing time of it, the dear, kindly
girl!"
"Good Heaven--is my own darling, that Miss Walsingham?"
"Yes, and I thank Heaven to hear that from you. You love her, so it's
all right."
The lawyer here dropped his jocund air, pressed the hand which had
nervously clutched his, and retired to the window for a while.
A silence fell upon the pair; the rescued man was turned face downward
to his pillow, with his hands clasped tightly.
Her bravery, her generosity, her devotion came up to gild her gentle
worth; and he could well judge now how great had been that bravery, that
generosity, that devotion.
Taking in by slow degrees, the greatness of this woman's soul, whom
falsely and bitterly he had maligned; comprehending the grandeur of
humility in one whose garments he in his high-handed pride felt unworthy
to touch, the time had come when St. Udo Brand could pray; when he could
plead that Heaven would bless him with Margaret Walsingham's love, and
bestow on him her hand, as the richest gift of earth.
Presently Davenport resumed the conference by recounting all the
particulars of the Castle Brand plot, and you may be sure he lost no
opportunity of adding luster to his admired Miss Margaret's laurels, by
unstinted praise, which brought tears, one by one, into the eyes of
young Brand.
"And here's the formal relinquishing of every rood of Seven-Oak Waaste,
drawn up and signed," said the lawyer, unfolding a parchment and
spreading it out triumphantly on his knee; "and she has even made
provision against your refusing to accept it. In that case, it is all to
go, on the 28th of March (one year from the date of the will), toward
building a Charitable Institution for sick seamen, (I suppose from her
father having been a sea-captain), and she is going as governess into
Mr. Stanhope's family here. What do you think of all this, eh?" chuckled
the old gentleman, with the air of being vastly amused.
"She will do it," said St. Udo, gazing with consternation at the
parchment.
"But will you allow her to do it?"
A keen pang struck to the heart of St. Udo; his merciless scorn of her
came back to him as expressed only the day before; her mournful words;
"She will never marry you," recurred like a death-knell to his memory.
Now he understood the cause of her gentle tears--of her clinging
wistfulness, of her sweet and humble timidity; he comprehended all, and
covered his eyes with a remorseful moan.
"I have ruined all, and lost her!" he thought. "Where is the noble
girl?"
"Gad! I thought you'd soon be asking that! It's likely she's taking a
rest, poor dear; but I'll send her to you."
"No--let her have her rest; I would never be so selfish as to disturb
her, while I can wait. But, Davenport, I will be candid with you, and
say that I have no hope of winning her. I have insulted her too deeply."
"Did she think of your former insults when she came here at the risk of
her life to find you, and to nurse you out of the fever?"
"No, bless her--all that was forgiven!"
"And will she think of your former insults when you say, 'Margaret, I
won't accept one penny piece of the Brand property unless you be my
wife?'"
"Her own words--that, in that contingency, Margaret Walsingham would
never marry me--her own words."
"You believe in your Perdita's love?" cried the lawyer, throwing his
last ball with triumph straight at the bull's eye.
"If noble tenderness, and devotion such as hers, is love, I do, most
solemnly."
"Then she'll do as your Perdita, what she wouldn't do as your enemy,
Margaret Walsingham. She'll even lower her pride to marry you, if she
thinks it necessary to your happiness."
But Mr. Davenport was forced to modify his satisfaction, when, on
seeking an audience with his ward, the old negress who had that morning
taken Margaret's place in the colonel's sick room, brought from her
chamber a note from the young lady.
"She's been and gone," said the woman; "and this is for Massa
Davenport." It said to the staring lawyer:
"DEAR MR. DAVENPORT:--I have thought it best at once to proceed
to the Stanhopes', as the situation might become filled up, and
all danger of infection has passed from me by this time.
"You will see that the colonel is taken excellent care of until
the English steamer arrives, when I am sure he will be able to
travel; and you will accompany him to Seven-Oak Waaste, and be
as useful to him and as faithful as you have been to me.
"I am going without bidding you good-by. Perhaps you will be a
little angry; but, dear Mr. Davenport, it was far better than
if I had. I have been a great bother to you from first to last,
haven't I? But you will forgive me, now that our ways lie so
widely apart.
"Tell Colonel Brand that I wish him to forgive the deception I
have practiced upon him; but that I shall never regret the four
weeks in which I watched him from the brink of the grave, and
that if he can accept a message from Margaret Walsingham, it is
that he may always think kindly of his Perdita, and try to keep
her apart from his remembrance of a presumed adventuress.
"Your affectionate ward, M. W."
"Here's a pretty to do!" cried Davenport, bustling into the invalid's
room with the little double sheet of note paper fluttering in his hand.
"Of all queer dodges, this is the last. She's gone, sir, this morning to
her situation at the Stanhopes', and here's the note that she's obliging
enough to write by way of good-by to you."
St. Udo took the note and scanned each pretty character, while his
cheeks became bloodless as snow. It was blistered with tears, and it
seemed to breathe in every line its quiet and patient sorrow, and to
have become resigned to it, as if there was no remedy.
What the colonel's emotions were, to read this little note of his
Perdita's, no one may know. He sat up in bed, and looked wildly round
him, while the lawyer glared, and dumbly bit his nails.
"Let us drive instantly to the Stanhopes'."
"You? Humph! You look like a man going driving!"
"I tell you I shall drive there if I should faint every mile of the
way."
He sprang from the bed, and signified the sincerity of his intention by
fainting on the spot.
* * * * *
Three days afterwards, Colonel Brand was lying quite alone on his
sofa--his first day up--reading, or rather telling himself that he was
reading. Every sound startled him, causing him to relinquish his book
and listen with deepening eyes; and sometimes a fancied voice in the
street below would send flames of excitement shooting across his pallid
face.
Three days since the lawyer had left him; three days of doubt, and hope,
and despair.
Had she loved him? Was that calm good-by to him from a heart
indifferent? or did it hide beneath its cold exterior the smoldering
passion which sometimes her eyes had seemed to express?
Dear Margaret! Generous girl!
And memory took up her virtues one by one, and fondly turned them over,
while fancy told him what his life might be with such a wife as she.
And even while he mourned with fading hopes over the memory of her whom
he had passionately loved as his Perdita, his chamber-door was briskly
opened, and in walked Lawyer Davenport.
"Good-morning, sir! Glad to see you up! In honor of the day, eh?"
"Have you seen her?"
"Ha! first question. Nothing about how I enjoyed my trip, or stood it
after my illness; only 'Have you seen her?' No thanks to you for your
polite inquiries after me--I _have_ seen her."
"And--what have you to tell me?"
"Come, now--what do you expect? You, who have such a poor opinion of the
fair sex, shouldn't look for much from 'em."
"Little enough would I expect from any other woman under the sun, but
from Margaret Walsingham, all that makes a woman pure, right in heart,
grand in spirit."
"I found her at Mr. Stanhope's, ill and sorrowful----"
"My poor child!"
"Quite prostrated, and unfit for her duties--Mrs. Stanhope full of
concern, the children out on the beach with their black nurse. You
should have seen her, when they sent her down from her room to me."
"I wish I had."
"Her eyes couldn't have been fuller of love and pleasure if it had been
you, instead of me; I never received such a beauty-glance in all my
days! And her first words were twice as polite as yours, sir--they
expressed her delight in seeing _me_, not inquiries about a third party.
'Oh, Mr. Davenport, I never thought of this kindness. Have you come to
bid me good-by?' Not a word you see, about you, colonel; nor a thought
either, I'll be bound. Ten to one if she would have brought you in at
all to the conversation, if I hadn't asked her plump and plain, if she
didn't mean to give the colonel his property, after all?
"'Why,' says she, flashing a glance at me, to see if I meant it, and
then turning her face away, 'have I not intrusted you with it, to give
over to him? What obstacle can there be?'
"'You don't do his fine character much justice in this transaction,
though you always vaunted it up to Gay and me,' I said. 'If he had been
a paltry money-hunter, you couldn't have served him much worse.'
"'He is satisfied, is he not?' cried she.
"Then I drew a horrible picture of your despair upon finding that she
had gone, and how you fainted in trying to prepare to follow her,
and--trust, me for making up a case! The last of it was her hanging on
my shoulder, and crying over my broadcloth, and sobbing:
"'Take me back to him, Mr. Davenport; how could I have been so cruel as
to leave him in his weakness, uncared for! Take me back again.'"
"And so----"
"Well, now, I rather enjoy the mighty interest with which you survey me!
And so Mrs. Stanhope granted me an interview, in which I told her to
look out for another governess, as Miss Walsingham had been sent for on
very particular business, to go home to England, and Miss Margaret and I
had a very nice little trip back. I have, you may be sure, spared no
eloquence in keeping Miss Margaret's alarms up about you, and she is
waiting below, doubtless with her heart in her mouth, to know whether
you're dead or alive."
"What! Is she here? Let me go for my fair girl this----"
"Fair and softly, my young sir. I have a proposition to make, before I
let you out of my power. What day of the month is this?"
"Twenty-fifth."
"And what must be done before the twenty-eighth? Eh? Don't you know?
Miss Margaret must be wooed and won before the twenty-eighth. And why?
Because Madam Brand's will was written on the twenty-eighth of last
March, and the year in which you were to marry your co-heir passes in
three days, and after that, according to the will, you can't have one
inch of Seven-Oak Waaste. What does that necessitate, then? (Oh, young
people, what would you do without me!) Why, you must marry her,
colonel--by Heaven! you must--before the twenty-eighth! What do you
think of that for a little romance?"
"Too much of Heaven's brightness--too little of earth's shadows. You see
I don't deserve that she should love me."
"Humph! no. I can't say that you do. But that's nobody's business if the
lady's pleased. Now, having given your memory a jog about the flight of
time, I'll send her up to you."
"Let me go to her."
"Stay where you are, sir; don't stir, I beg. I don't profess to know
much about woman's curious little idiosyncrasies, but I'll bet a dozen
of claret, that this humdrum chamber of yours where she nursed you day
after day for four weeks, is the dearest place to her of all the world,
and I'll go farther and say that so long as she lives the memory of this
same room, sir, will have power to send the rush of fond tears up to her
eyes, be she happy or miserable. You see she found you here, and got
your life from Heaven, as it were, by dint of unwearied prayer, and its
hallowed to her like a little sanctuary. Women are strange creatures,
sir and I advise you, if you want to sway her heart to your wishes, to
see her here."
Lying face downward and alone, with his hands clasped in grateful
thanksgiving, all the wicked recklessness and the unbelief and the
cynical fatalism slipped forever from St. Udo's soul, and he turned
after long years to the idol of his youth--hope crowned with Heavenly
faith; and in that sweet hour of supreme humility the sheath dropped
from the fruit, and the noble works of Heaven's hand turned to adore its
Creator.
So it came to pass that when Margaret Walsingham, standing at the
doorway, too timid to approach--too womanly soft to go away, now that
the man was dying for her--heard the low entreaty,
"Bless me with her love--ennoble me with her love, O Heaven!"
Her whole face became transfigured with joy, and she stood there a
breathless and a lovely vision, listening to what she dared not believe
before.
"Is that my darling, standing on the threshold? Come."
Folded heart to heart, her head upon its place for the first time, his
arms about her in a band of love--her hour of sweet recompense has come
at last, and with unutterable thrills shooting through her tremulous
frame, she whispers, smiling:
"I have won my own dear lord of Castle Brand."