RONALD BRUCE
Handsome as Hercules, ere his first labor.
ANON.
Ronald Bruce! Yes, it was he. There he stood, taller, browner, and
stouter, and, withal, handsomer than he had ever been before.
They recognized each other in one mutual, instantaneous, astonished
gaze.
“Miss Palmer! You here! What a surprise! I did not know it was you until
you turned your face. I am _very_ glad to see you!” exclaimed the young
man heartily, offering his hand.
But he looked full of curiosity and interest, as if he would have liked
to ask her how on earth she ever came there, if the question had been
admissible.
Em.’s expressive face flushed and paled as she received his hand.
“I hope I did not frighten you,” continued the young lieutenant, seeing
that she did not speak.
“Oh, no, not much—that is, not at all,” faltered the girl in blushing
confusion.
“You did not in the least expect to meet me here, however,” said Ronald
Bruce, fixing his honest, dark eyes smilingly upon her roseate face.
“Oh, no; but I am very much pleased to meet you here,” said Em.,
beginning to recover her self-possession and speaking with all the more
formal politeness because of her conscious embarrassment.
“Are you really? Then this is a mutual pleasure as well as a mutual
surprise. Being in the neighborhood, and hearing of this beautiful
place, I came this morning to see it. I met the housekeeper, who told me
that the doors were open, as there was another person inside viewing the
rooms. I came in and found you.”
“I have been here once before. I like to come.”
“It is a very attractive place—but do not stand!” suddenly exclaimed the
young man as he went off and wheeled up a short sofa before the picture.
“Now sit down, Miss Palmer, and I will explain how I happen to be in
this neighborhood.”
She seated herself with a bow of thanks, and he, leaning over the arm of
the sofa, continued:
“I am on a three months’ leave, and I have come to spend it with my
uncle, Commodore Bruce, who has been placed on the retired list, and is
living at a fine old place called The Breezes, on the west bank of the
river, about half way between this and a queer old manor called the
Wilderness. Perhaps you may know both, if you have been here long.”
“Yes, I have seen The Breezes from the river. It is a long, gray stone
house on a plateau half way up the mountain side, half hidden, also, by
trees, and with a fountain gushing from the rocks at the right and
tumbling all the way down from ledge to ledge until it falls into the
river.”
“That is the place. The house, as you say, stands upon a natural plateau
about half way up the mountain. The commodore calls the plateau a shelf,
and says that it is all right that a worn-out old veteran like himself
should be laid upon the shelf. But I am sorry that he is retired from
the navy. He needed that active life more than any man I ever knew.”
“Why?” inquired Em.
“To occupy his mind and make him forget his troubles. He has had so much
trouble. He lost all his children in their childhood, with the exception
of one, who lived to be about eighteen years old, and was then lost on
the _Eagle_, when that fine ship was wrecked on the coast of Morocco.”
“Oh, what a terrible misfortune!” sighed Em.
“That catastrophe broke his wife’s heart. She died within a few weeks
after the news of the wreck came. And now for years past the brave old
man has been a childless widower. Still I think he bore up much better
when in active service than he does now, for since his retirement he has
been subject to fits of deepest melancholy. I spend all the time I can
with him; but I am only his nephew. I cannot take the place of his son.”
“I know you must be a great comfort to him, for all that,” said Em., in
earnest sympathy.
“I don’t know. He wants me to resign my commission in the navy and live
with him altogether.”
“Oh, I wish you would! I wish you would!” impulsively exclaimed the
girl. And then she suddenly recollected herself and blushed deeply at
her own impetuous words.
“Most certainly I will do so, since you wish it!” replied the young man
with so much comic solemnity that Em. broke into a peal of silvery
laughter. Then growing grave in her turn she said:
“I do not think you ought to make fun of what I said, Mr. Bruce.”
“‘Fun!’ You think I am jesting?”
“Of course I do. You certainly do not mean to say that you are in
earnest.”
“Indeed I do—that is, if—do you know that I have never ceased to think
of you since that day I first met you?” he whispered earnestly.
Em. flushed and paled and began to tremble.
“Never ceased to think of you, and longed to see you again. And now I do
see you, I wish never to lose sight of you more. Do you understand me,
little Em.?” he breathed, trying to take her hand; but she withdrew it
gently and folded her arms.
“There, I will not touch your hand if you do not wish me to do so. But
do you understand me, dear little Em.?”
“I—think—I—Oh! but——” muttered the girl, incoherently, and every moment
growing more and more confused and—distressed or delighted, she could
hardly know which, so mixed were her emotions.
“This is what I mean, dear girl—that your presence in the neighborhood
makes the place so much more attractive to me that, if you are to be a
permanent resident of the county, I shall indeed be strongly tempted to
forego all my cherished hopes of a career in the navy and be delighted
to settle down with my uncle at his retreat.”
“Just to see me once in a while?” inquired Em. in low, tremulous,
incredulous tones.
“Just to see you as often as I may be permitted to do so. You are to
live here, then, I am to understand?”
“Yes; at the Wilderness. My father is the new overseer.”
“In-deed!” slowly responded Ronald Bruce.
“Yes,” replied Em., recovering some self-possession now that the
conversation was turned from her personally. “We are all there—father,
mother, all my brothers and sisters, the little Italian girl, Valencia,
and Mrs. Whitlock and Aunt Monica.”
“Heaven and earth! Your father is a practical communist, with the
unprecedented peculiarity of keeping up the commune at his own expense.
So the little orphan is still with you?”
“Oh, yes; but she does not feel that she is an orphan. She is one of
ourselves. We all love her dearly, and do all we can to make her forget
she was ever anything else. Why, do you know, she has a high little
spirit of her own, and the first time she showed it by slapping Molly in
the face for combin her hair roughly we were all delighted, for we said
to ourselves:
“‘Now we _know_ she feels quite at home.’”
“Hum,” gravely commented Ronald Bruce. “Was Molly delighted, too?”
Em. laughed.
“No,” she answered. “It took all the house to mollify Molly; and for a
long time it was in vain that we explained what a good sign that was!
oh, of course, we know that it was naughty, and that very night, at
prayer-time, father gave out the children’s hymn, ‘Let dogs delight to
bark and bite,’ for them all to learn by heart against the next
Sabbath.”
“How do you like living at the Wilderness?”
“Oh, so much! So very much! We have such a good time! Plenty of clean
space and fresh, sweet air. Plenty of well water and cool shade.
Abundance of fruit and milk and everything we need. And the forest all
around the house and the mountains behind and the river before. We
children have learned to ride and drive, for the many horses standing in
the stables have to be exercised. And I have learned to row and to
manage a sail-boat. Oh, it is so delightful! After Laundry Lane, to be
here is like having died to the earth and come to heaven!” exclaimed
Em., with such enthusiasm that the young man smiled ruefully and said:
“And, in fact, you are so perfectly happy that you do not need even the
presence of an old friend like me to add to your happiness—no, not even
though he is willing to resign a glorious career and stay here for your
sake. You do not want him.”
“Oh, yes, indeed, indeed I do!” exclaimed Em. impulsively, and then she
clapped her hands over her own lips that no more hasty words might escape
them, as she turned pale at the thought of their earnestness.
“That settles my destiny,” said the young lieutenant.
“Oh, I must go now,” murmured the girl, rising to her feet and throwing
over her head a light gossamer shawl that had been knit by her own
hands.
“Ah, not yet! Stay a little longer,” pleaded the young man.
“Oh, _indeed_ I must go now. I have duties to do at home,” persisted Em.
as she shook the white gossamer shawl down over her shoulders until it
flowed around her form like a mist.
“Stop! One moment! Good Heaven, what a resemblance!” exclaimed Ronald
Bruce, gazing at Em. and then at the picture of the veiled lady.
“What? Oh! between me and the portrait? Yes, it has been remarked
before,” said Em.
“I did not notice it until that flowing mantle of yours called my
attention to it; but the resemblance is perfect in every feature of the
face; Is it accidental, or are you perhaps a distant relation of the
original?”
“It is accidental. I never even saw the original of that portrait, who I
understand to be the lady of this island manor.”
“A strange coincidence of form and feature. You are not going?” he
inquired, seeing Em. moving toward the door.
“Oh, yes, I must. Good-by.”
“No, I will see you to your boat.”
“But you have not been through the house you came to look at.”
“I can go through the house another time. I will see you to your boat,
unless you forbid me to do so.”
She did not forbid him, and so he followed her out, and when he had
returned the key to the keeper he attended her down through the
beautiful groves of the isle to the landing where she had moored her
boat.
“Do you mean to say that you sailed from the Wilderness alone in that
boat?”
“Yes, why should I not?”
“Suppose an accident had happened?”
“They tell me that no accident ever was known to have happened on the
Placid. Even if there had been an accident, at the very worst I could
only have been drowned. And is it worth while to refrain from any
harmless and healthful enjoyment for the fear of a possible accident?”
“Well, no, you are right. But it is rare to find a young girl so
skillful and fearless in managing a sail-boat. Who taught you?”
“An old philosopher who is called ’Sias, and keeps the gates at the
Wilderness,” said Em. as she began to unmoor her boat.
“No, no, let me do that. I should have done it before, but that I did
not wish to hasten the time of your departure—like dropping the
handkerchief for my own execution, you know,” said the young man as he
took the task out of her hands and performed it himself.
Then he handed her into the boat, hoisted the sail and took the tiller
and said:
“I hope you will let me go with you as far as our course separates—that
is, to the landing below our place—though, if you feel the very least
objection to my doing so, say it frankly and I will leave,” he added.
“I have no objection at all. I thank you very much; but what will become
of your own boat that brought you here?” inquired Em., half pleased,
half frightened at his proposal.
“Oh, I came in a little row-boat. I can send a servant down here in
another boat to tow this back. Come, be charitable, and take me in. I am
tired of rowing, and to row up stream will be much harder work than it
was to row down.”
Em. hesitated for a moment and communed with herself to this effect.
“I would not refuse _any other_ person a seat in my boat, and why, now,
should I refuse this gentleman, who has been kinder to me than most
people? I will _not_ refuse him. It would be unkind, ungrateful and
impolite.”
“Shall I go?” inquired Ronald Bruce.
“Oh, no, pray do not. Keep your seat, sir,” said Em., all the more
graciously because she had hesitated.
“Ay, ay, sir,” said the young officer, laughingly touching his hat.
He took the tiller again and steered for the Wilderness, while Em. sat
opposite to him with her idle hands before her.
“Now you know that you are captain of this boat, and I am only the man
at the helm, under your command. I will steer where you order me and
stop when you tell me,” said Ronald Bruce.
“No,” replied Em., “when I resigned the helm I resigned the command. I
decline the responsibility you would force upon me. I am only a
passenger.”
“Very well,” said the man at the helm, “then here we go!” and, unknown
to Em., he shot past the landing below The Breezes and steered for the
Wilderness.
“Why, where are you going?” inquired Em. when at last she perceived his
course.
“To take you home to your landing at the foot of the Wilderness and then
walk with you up to the house to see your father and mother.”
“I declare you are like the fox in the fable of the fox and the hare,”
said Em. to herself, but to him she only put a question:
“How will you get back?”
“Oh, walk it—The Breezes being on the same side of the river with the
Wilderness, you know.”
“Oh, yes, to be sure!” replied the girl, and upon every account she was
very glad that Ronald Bruce was going straight home with her, for thus
she would have his company for an hour or two longer, and then he would
see the family, and they would all know how he came home with her, and
all would be frank, open, and straightforward.
“You are very kind to me, Mr. Bruce, and you always were. I know my
mother and father will be very glad to welcome you,” she said.
They soon reached the island landing, where Ronald Bruce lowered the
sail, moored the boat, and would have given his hand to help his
companion out, but she, unaccustomed to any such assistance, without
waiting for it, sprang lightly to the shore.
He joined her immediately, and they entered the forest road and walked
toward the house. It was now so near sunset that the sun had sunk out of
sight behind the mountain range, casting the wooded valley into a
premature twilight.
The young pair did not hurry themselves, but walked in a leisurely way
through the deepening shades of the forest until they reached the
manor-house.
Em. then led her companion around to the rear, where they found John and
all the family sitting before the door of the Red Wing enjoying the
coolness of the August evening.
“Well, little truant, where have you been all the afternoon, and who is
that you have got with you?” inquired John Palmer as Em. and her escort
approached.
“I have been all this time on the river, and at the island, father, and
I have brought an old friend home whom you and mother will be glad to
see—Lieutenant Ronald Bruce,” said Em.
Young Bruce lifted his cap and advanced.
But almost before he could take a step the little Italian girl,
Valencia, with a great cry of joy rushed forward and clasped him with
both little arms, calling him, in her enthusiastic language, her
illustrious, her beneficent, her beloved, her caressed, and so forth,
and so forth.
Ronald Bruce responded heartily, lifted her in his arms and kissed and
blessed her, and then put her gently down and went forward to greet John
and Susan Palmer, who both received him very cordially and pressed him
to be seated and to stay to tea.
Ronald Bruce in look and manner showed his willingness to do so at the
same time that he explained his inability by saying that he was obliged
to start immediately, as he had to walk back through the forest and half
way up the mountain to The Breezes, where he was then staying with his
uncle, Commodore Bruce.
“Well, there,” said John Palmer; “we did hear that a retired naval
officer had taken that old place, but we never heard his name. So it was
the commodore. Well, sir, his place, I should say, was a good ten miles
from here by the road; it is a great deal nearer by the river. Now, sir,
there’s no need for you to walk it at all. If so be you must go back,
why, there’s a dozen horses in the stable needing exercise, the best of
’em heartily at your service. But—would the old gentleman be anxious if
you was to stay out all night?”
“Oh, no!” laughed the young man. “He retires to his study so early that
he would not know it.”
“Well, then, sir, here’s my offer to you—the best horse in the stable if
you _must_ go; or a hearty welcome to the best room in the house if you
can stay,” said John cordially.
“Do stay, Mr. Bruce. We should all be happy to have you,” added Susan
Palmer, glad of the chance to offer hospitality.
The little Italian girl caught his hand and held it tightly while she
lifted her dark, bright, eager eyes pleadingly to his.
But Ronald Bruce sought the eyes of Em., which said nothing, their
glance being fixed upon the ground.
Nevertheless, the young man thanked the hospitable couple and accepted
their invitation as frankly as it was given.