SURPRISE
The spell,
The mightiest upon earth—the spell of love,
Familiar, mutual, requited love—
Shall be upon thee; and its charmed power
Shall at each moment, at a wish, call up
More wealth than ever crossed the desert sands,
Gems, purer, costlier far than Araby’s;
Unsunned treasures from that richest mine,
The human heart. POCAHONTAS.
“OH!” echoed the old man, while the young people looked at him aghast.
“Eh? What? It seems I’ve been nodding and you’ve caught me! Very rude of
me to fall asleep while you were reading, my dear! You might have won a
pair of gloves, eh?”
It was evident from the commodore’s words that he had not heard a word
of Donald Bruce’s reckless talk, but had indeed but just at that instant
waked up.
“I hope you had a refreshing nap, sir,” said Em., who was the first to
recover her self-possession.
“Yes—yes—yes—yes! I had a very refreshing nap! Brief, but very
refreshing. ‘Forty winks,’ as the saying is, you know, my dear; just
lost myself, that is all!” said the old man, apparently unconscious that
he had been sound asleep for two hours.
“I hope you feel revived, sir,” said Ronald, now plucking up heart.
“Yes—yes, quite so! But how the deuce did you come here, Ronald? What do
you want?” demanded the commodore, bethinking himself now of the
unexpected presence of his nephew.
“I want to go to Greyrock this afternoon. Will you let me have Warlock?”
inquired the young man with quick invention.
“Now, Ronald!” testily exclaimed the elder, “why will you reiterate a
request that you know, for your own sake, I must deny? No! You cannot
have that four-legged fiend! No! I will not have your neck broken during
_my_ lifetime by any concession of mine. No! Once for all, you can not,
and you never _can_ have Warlock! You may ride any other horse in the
stable—in fact, you may ride any other four-footed creature on the
estate, and you know it. But you sha’n’t risk your life on Warlock,”
emphatically declared the commodore, bringing down his doubled fist with
force upon the table as a finality.
“Very well, sir; of course you must be obeyed,” said Ronald with a
slight shrug of his handsome shoulders. “I shall not, however, take any
of the other horses. If I cannot have Warlock I do not care to take a
ride to-day.”
“No! I thought you only wished to go to Greyrock for the sake of risking
your precious neck on Warlock’s vicious back. But you shall not do it. I
shall sell that horse the first chance I get. Now, then, go about your
business, Ronald, and send my man here. It is time to dress for dinner.
You may go, also, my dear; but don’t go back to my sister-in-law and sit
down to sewing, I command you. And, mind, my commands are paramount on
this ship! You have been sitting enough to-day for a young one. Go now
and take a turn in the fresh air of the grounds. There! Be off with you
both. ’SCAT!!”
The conscience-stricken young pair hurried from the library by different
doors—Ronald going out into the hall, and Em. descending the steps
through a French window that opened upon the front yard.
That yard so widely different from all the other houseyards she had ever
seen in her life; that yard so savage in rocky desolation, so sublime in
magnificent prospect.
The house, as I said, stood upon a natural plateau about half way up the
front of the precipice, directly overhanging the river. The yard
extended some thirty feet to the extreme edge of the precipice, which
was defended by a stone wall about breast high. There was no gate or
outlet from this front wall. The approach to the house, as I told you,
was from behind, and the entrance to the yard was at the side.
Em. walked to the wall, leaned over it, and looked down the sheer
descent of a wooded steep a thousand feet to the river that flowed at
its foot. What abysms of darkness and mystery were in the depths of the
shadowy foliage so far below! There, in those deep caverns, doubtless,
the wildcat made her lair and reared her young; there, among those gray
crags, the eagle built her nest and brooded over her eggs. No gentler
creatures of the earth or air could surely find their homes among such
savage desolation, though Em. as she stood there leaning over the wall
and gazing down the dreadful descent.
At length she raised her eyes and looked around, and beheld a prospect
magnificent beyond all words to portray. Spread out before her was the
beautiful valley, with the river flowing in the midst, and the
undulating, wooded hills rising beyond, all now royally arrayed in the
gorgeous hues of autumn, and refulgently lighted up by the glorious rays
of the setting sun.
Ah! how brief are the moments of such splendid effects!
Even as Em. gazed the sun sank down behind the mountains at her back,
and all the valley faded into twilight.
Em. turned away and walked around the side of the house and passed to
the rear.
There the precipice presented a different aspect. Instead of descending
to the river it ascended to the clouds, and from a fissure in the rock,
to the left of the stables, sprang a fountain that grew in volume as it
fell from rock to rock, and rushed roaring into the river below.
Em. knew—because she had heard, in the conversation between Ronald Bruce
and her father on that evening when the former had stayed all night in
the old manor-house—that the cultivated farms belonging to The Breezes
estate were all in the valley below, and that these mountain ranges were
only valuable for their quarries of blue limestone; but she wondered
exceedingly at the eccentricity of the first proprietor, who had built
his dwelling-house on this mere shelf of rock half way up the mountain
side, with an ascending precipice behind it, and a descending precipice
before it.
She remained out until the twilight faded into darkness, and then she
went into the house and ran up to her attic chamber, where the care of
the little colored girl Liza had already lighted two wax candles and set
them on the toilet-table, and had mended the wood fire which burned
brightly on the hearth.
Em. brushed her hair and ran a narrow blue ribbon through its brown
ringlets, then put a blue bow to the meeting of her linen collar; and
so, having made the best toilet she could for dinner with well-dressed
ladies she put out her candles and left the room to go downstairs.
The upper halls were dimly lighted, each by a little lamp at the back
end.
Em. had just reached the landing on the second story and was hurrying
down the hall when a door on the left opened and a tall, dark, handsome
woman, richly dressed, but looking older than either Mrs. Bruce or Mrs.
Templeton, came out and carelessly approached Em.
They stood face to face. The lady lifted her eyes haughtily to those of
the girl that for the moment stood in her way. But when their gaze met
the lady’s great black eyes dilated wide with terror, with horror! Her
face blanched to the pallor of death, her frame shook as with an ague.
“BEGONE!” she shrieked. “Why do you come to haunt me?”
And with these words she fell to the floor.
Em., paralyzed by amazement, stood speechless and motionless over the
woman whom she had so involuntarily appalled and overwhelmed.
But the shriek and the fall had startled others. Four opposite doors
flew open and four women rushed out of their rooms to see what was the
matter and to behold Em. standing like a statue of Fear over the
prostrate form of Malvina Warde.
“In the name of Heaven, what does all this mean, Miss Palmer!” demanded
Mrs. Bruce, stooping to examine the condition of her guest, while Mrs.
Templeton, Hermia, and Belinda gathered around them.
“She has fainted,” said Mrs. Templeton.
The four women raised the unconscious form and laid it on the hall
lounge.
“How did this happen, Miss Palmer?” inquired Mrs. Bruce while they all
began to use the common methods of reviving a swooning woman—bathing her
head, beating her hands, and applying sal volatile to her nose.
“Why don’t you answer, Miss Palmer?” demanded Mrs. Bruce without pausing
in her efforts.
“I—I don’t know,” stammered the frightened girl. “I had just run
downstairs and turned around when I met this lady coming out of that
door. We came on each other suddenly, and she stared and screamed and
fell. I think she took me for a ghost.”
“It is very strange,” said Mrs. Templeton; “but, then, Malvina has had
heart disease for some years, and a little thing startles her.”
“Do not be alarmed. Mamma is subject to these fainting fits,” said
Belinda Warde; “lay her head quite low and she will soon recover.”
They followed the daughter’s advice, and the mother gave signs of
returning consciousness.
“You had better go down, my dear. Since it was the sight of you that
first startled her you had better not be one of the first objects that
her eyes meet on opening,” said Mrs. Templeton.
Gladly enough Em. left the circle and went downstairs. A feeling of
repulsion had come over her at the sight of that woman for which she
could in no way account.
“It is strange, and unjust, and sinful,” said the girl to herself as she
tripped downstairs. “That woman never did me any harm in all the days of
my life! She never even knew me any more than I did her, and yet it is
true that I feel such a loathing of her as I never felt for any living
creature before. I must pray it away! It will not do! I will not have
hatred in my heart—particularly such a wicked, unnatural, and
unreasonable hatred as this. I will do that lady every kind service I
possibly can, and I will try to overcome this sudden hatred of an
inoffensive stranger.”
In the lower hall she found Ronald Bruce, standing and staring upward.
“What is the row upstairs? Was it a mouse, or a spider, or a candle moth
that caused all that screaming and running?” he inquired.
“Oh! Ronald, it was I,” said Em. compunctiously.
“You! What did you do?”
“Oh! I suppose I came running down the attic stairs too swiftly and too
silently——”
“Were you expected to creep down noisily, like an old cripple on
crutches?” laughingly demanded the young man.
“Nonsense, Ronald! You must know I glided down and met Mrs. Warde in the
gloom, and she screamed and fainted.”
“Was that it? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Don’t laugh, Ronald. She took me for a ghost.”
“Then she must have a bad conscience, that is all I can say about it!
Em., I hate that woman!”
“Don’t, Ronald. That is wicked, even supposing she ever injured you,
which perhaps she never did.”
“No, she never did. Nor did ever snakes or scorpions injure me, yet I
hate them; and I hate that woman as I hate them, with an instinctive
hatred.”
“We should not hate anything; we should not permit the feeling of hate
to take any root in our hearts,” began Em., but before she could preach
her bit of a sermon she was interrupted by the appearance of Commodore
Bruce, who came out of his study to cross the hall on his way to the
drawing-room.
“What was the matter just now? Which of the women was in hysterics?” he
carelessly inquired.
“Mrs. Warde met Miss Palmer in the twilight, and taking her for a ghost,
screamed and fainted,” replied Ronald.
“Humph! I don’t wonder, seeing that she persecuted to death one who was
as much like Miss Palmer as though they had been twin sisters. Ah,
well!” said the old man to himself as he passed on his way, “I am only a
little less culpable than herself, seeing that I should have looked
after the orphan girl whom my poor lad loved and committed to my charge
with his parting words. I have often wondered what he meant when he said
that he would have something to tell me which would surprise and please
me, but that his lips were sealed by honor until he should return from
his three years’ voyage—that voyage, ah, Heaven! from which he never
came back! I often suspected that that unfortunate child was——But what
is the use of speculating? The poor boy is gone, the girl is lost, and
the child is dead. The past is beyond recall, and therefore beyond
regret,” concluded the commodore as he passed to his arm-chair in the
drawing-room.
Em. had followed him, and naturally Ronald had followed Em., and while
she busied her nimble fingers by arranging the books and bijouterie on
the center-table Ronald stood by her side.
The dinner-bell rang.
“Now, where are all these women? Unpunctual as usual. I wish I had them
all on board a man-o’-war in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! I’d train
’em into punctuality! Where are they, I wonder?”
“They are attending to Mrs. Warde, I think, sir,” said Em. soothingly.
“Attending to Mrs. Warde? Does it take four able-bodied women to attend
to a single hysterical one? Let ’em throw a pitcher of cold water over
her head—that will fetch her to,” growled the old man as he arose from
his seat and took his cane and crept towards the dining-room, followed
by Em., who was pursued by Ronald.
“You always run after uncle! You never stay behind a moment to let me
have a word alone with you,” complained the young man.
“No, because it is not right far me to do so,” replied Em.
“What! Not when we are engaged to be married?” he whispered.
“We are not engaged. We cannot be engaged without the consent of parents
and friends,” said Em.
“Eh! Why, did I not swear to marry you, whether or no?” he hurriedly
whispered, for the ladies of the household were hastening downstairs,
and before Em. could reply they were close behind the lovers.
They all entered the lighted dining-room together and seated themselves
at the table.
“Well! How is Malvina? Got over her fainting fit?” inquired the
commodore as he seated himself at the foot of the table.
“No, not entirely; but she is lying down in her room carefully watched
over by Liza. She will not be able to join us this evening,” replied
Mrs. Bruce.
“Humph!” exclaimed the commodore, neither very sympathetically nor
credulously.
When dinner was over the family adjourned to the drawing-room. The old
man settled himself in his arm-chair and went to sleep. Belinda Warde
placed herself beside Ronald Bruce, and with something like her mother’s
powers of fascination held him bound for hours. The three other ladies
drew around the center-table with their fancy work of embroidery or
crochet. And Em. spent the very dullest evening she had ever passed in
all her life.
At ten o’clock precisely Commodore Bruce rang up all the servants, sent
for the old family Bible and conducted the evening prayers.
Then he peremptorily sent every one off to bed.
Em. was glad to reach her attic, which had already begun to seem like
home in its privacy.
It remained just as she had left it four hours before, except that the
fire was burning so low that it scarcely half lighted the large room
with its lurid glow.
There was a box of wood in one corner near the fireplace, and Em. took a
few sticks and laid them on the smoldering logs, and soon had a cheerful
blaze.
Then she took down one of the candles from the mantelpiece, and was
about to light it when she started to hear a voice behind her
exclaiming:
“Dere now! I jes’ dis minute got ’lieved offen duty to Miss Melwiny
Warde, which I had to set by her and watch her until Miss Belindy came
up to bed and let me go, and den I ran right up here fas’ ever I could
to fix your fire and light your candles, and you gone and done it all
yourself ’dout de slightest ’sideration for my feelings.”
“I didn’t know that you were coming, Liza,” said Em. in a gentle tone.
“Now, see dere, now! Didn’t know I was coming; didn’t have no conf’ence
in me. Course I was coming, on’y I was ’tained so long dere tending to
Miss Malwiny Warde. Takes all de house to ’tend to she?” grumbled Liza
as she went about her duties, mending the fire, lighting the candles on
the dressing-table, turning down the bed and so on.
When she had completed her work she stopped and said:
“Now, Miss Em., ef you’s afeard to sleep by yourself I’ll fetch a little
mattriss from t’other room and sleep down here ’fore the fire to keep
you company.”
“Oh, no, thank you. You are very kind to think of it, Liza, but I am not
at all afraid.”
“You know dere ain’t nobody sleeps up here in dis garret ’sides you.”
“Is there not? But it is of no consequence.”
“Now, you better let me stay up here long o’ you, Miss Em. ’Deed you
had.”
“Oh, thank you, but it is not necessary that you should. Besides, what
would Mrs. Bruce say to your changing your sleeping place?”
“Oh, she! Lor’ bless you, Miss Em., ole Marse Commodo’ _he’s_ marster
and mist’ess, too, in dis house, and he ax me to-day, he say, ‘Lizer,
where dey put dat young girl to sleep?’ I say, ‘Up in the garret.’ He
say, ‘I thought so. Now you sleep on a pallet in her room if she is
afraid to stay by herself, you hear?’ I say, ‘Yas, marster.’ And so,
Miss Em., I come up faithful to offer my services.”
“You are very kind. And so is your dear old master. He shows very great
consideration for me. But, as I said before, I do not need you, Liza. By
the way, where do you generally sleep?”
“Oh! out’n de house in a room ober de stables, which dere are six rooms
dere, where de servants sleep, ’cept de cook and de two kitchen-maids.
Dey sleep in a room ober de kitchen.”
“Very well, then, Liza, perhaps as it is late, you had better go now.
Shall I come downstairs and lock the door after you?”
“Oh, lor’, no, Miss! I locks de door and takes de key ebery night
myself, so as to let myself in in de morning to wait on de ladies! But
it ain’t so awful late, after all, Miss Em. It ain’t no more an’ a
quarter arter ten o’clock, so wouldn’t you like to go through de other
rooms in this garret and look at ’em? ’Sides which, it would be good to
’xamine, and be sure as dere ain’t no robbers nor nuffin’ hid away in
dese rooms, and you up here by yourself,” persisted Liza.
“Why, what a wise little woman you are! I’m not afraid of ‘robbers nor
nuffin’,’” said Em., smiling; “but I have ‘a cat-like love of garrets,’
and so we will look at these other rooms, Liza. You take one candle ond
I will take another, so we will have light enough.”