THE SUMMONS.
The sun was just rising over the million roofs and spires of the great
city, as Charley's hansom dashed up to the door of Langham's hotel. He
ran up to his father's room, and on the threshold encountered Trix,
pale and worn with her night's watching, but wearing a peculiarly
happy and contented little look despite it all. Charley did not stop
to notice the look, he asked after his father.
"Pa's asleep," Trix replied, "so's ma. It's of no use your disturbing
either of them. Pa's pretty well; stupid as you left him; doesn't care
to talk, but able to eat, and sleep. The doctor says there is nothing
at all to hinder his travelling to Liverpool to-day. And now, Charley,"
Trix concluded, looking compassionately at her brother's pale, tired
face, "as you look used up after your day and night's travelling,
suppose you go to bed; I'll wake you in time for breakfast, and you
needn't worry about anything. Captain Hammond has been here," says
Trix, blushing in the wan, morning light, "and he will attend to
everything."
Charley nodded and turned to go, but his sister detained him.
"You--you saw her, I suppose?" she said hesitatingly.
"Edith do you mean?" Charley looks at her full. "Yes, I saw her. As I
went down for the purpose, I was hardly likely to fail."
"And what has she to say for herself?" Trix asks bitterly.
"Very little; we were not together ten minutes in all. She was dressed
for a party of some kind, and I did not detain her."
"A party?" Trix repeats; "and we like this! Did she send no message at
all?"
"She sent you her dearest love."
"She may keep it--let her give it to Sir Victor Catheron. I don't want
her love, or anything else belonging to her!" Trix cries, explosively.
"Of all the heartless, ungrateful girls--"
Her brother stops her with a look. Those handsome gray eyes of
Charley's can be very stern eyes when he likes.
"As I said before, that will do, Trix. Edith is one of the wise
virgins we read of--she has chosen by long odds the better part. What
could we do with her now? take her back and return her to her father
and step-mother, and the dull life she hated? As for gratitude, I
confess I don't see where the gratitude is to come in. We engaged her
at a fixed salary: so much cleverness, French, German, and general
usefulness on her part; on ours, so many hundred dollars per annum.
Let me say this, Trix, once and for good: as you don't seem able to
say anything pleasant of Edith, suppose you don't speak of her at all?"
And then Charley, with that resolute light in his eyes, that resolute
compression of his lips, turned and walked up-stairs. It was an
unusually lengthy, and unusually grave speech for him, and his
volatile sister was duly impressed. She shrugged her shoulders, and
went back to her pa's room.
"The amount of it is," she thought, "he is as fond of her as ever, and
can't bear, as he has lost her, to hear her spoken of. The idea of his
scampering down into Chester to see her once more! Ridiculous! She
_is_ heartless, and I hate her!"
And then Trixy took out her lace pocket-handkerchief, and suddenly
burst out crying. O dear, it was bad enough to lose one's fortune, to
have one's European tour nipped in the bud, without losing Edith, just
as Edith had wound her way most closely round Trixy's warm little
heart. There was but one drop of honey in all the bitter cup--a drop
six feet high and stout in proportion--Captain Angus Hammond.
For Captain Angus Hammond, as though to prove that _all_ the world,
was not base and mercenary, had come nobly to the front, and proposed
to Trixy. And Trixy, surprised and grateful, and liking him very much,
had hesitated, and smiled, and dimpled, and blushed, and objected, and
finally begun to cry, and sobbed out "yes" through her tears.
Charley slept until twelve--they were to depart for Liverpool by the
two o'clock express. Then his sister, attired for travelling, awoke
him, and they all breakfasted together; Mr. Stuart, too, looking very
limp and miserable, and Captain Hammond, whose state would have been
one of idiotic happiness, had not the thought that the ocean to-morrow
would roll between him and the object of his young affections, thrown
a damper upon him. He was going to Liverpool with them, however; it
would be a mournful consolation to see them off. They travelled
second-class. As Charley said, "they must let themselves down
easily--the sooner they began the better--and third-class to start
with might be coming it a little too strong. Let them have a few
cushions and comforts still."
Mr. Stuart kept close to his wife. He seemed to cling to her, and
depend upon her, like a child. It was wonderful, it was pitiful how
utterly shattered he had become. His son looked after him with a
solicitous tenderness quite new in all their experience of Charley.
Captain Hammond and Trixy kept in a corner together, and talked in
saccharine undertones, looking foolish, and guilty, and happy.
They reached Liverpool late in the evening, and drove to the Adelphi.
At twelve next day they were to get on board the tender, and be
conveyed down the Mersey to their ship.
Late that evening, after dinner, and over their cigars, Captain
Hammond opened his masculine heart, and, with vast hesitation and much
embarrassment, poured into Charley's ear the tale of his love.
"I ought to tell the governor, you know," the young officer said, "but
he's so deucedly cut up as it is, you know, that I couldn't think of
it. And it's no use fidgeting your mother--Trixy will tell her. I love
your sister, Charley, and I believe I've been in love with her ever
since that day in Ireland. I ain't a lady's man, and I never cared a
fig for a girl before in my life; but, by George! I'm awfully fond of
Trixy. I ain't an elder son, and I ain't clever, I know," cried the
poor, young gentleman sadly; "but if Trix will consent, by George!
I'll go with her to church to-morrow. There's my pay--my habits ain't
expensive, like some fellows--we could got along on that for a while,
and then I have expectations from my grandmother. I've had expectations
from my grandmother for the last twelve years, sir, and every day of
those twelve years she's been dying; and, by George! she ain't dead
yet, you know. It's wonderful--I give you my word--it's wonderful, the
way grandmothers and maiden aunts with money do hold out. As Dundreary
says, 'It's something no fellow can understand.' But that ain't what I
wanted to say--it's this: if you're willing, and Trix is willing, I'll
get leave of absence and come over by the next ship, and we'll be
married. I--I'll be the happiest fellow alive, Stuart, the day your
sister becomes my wife."
You are not to suppose that Captain Hammond made this speech fluently
and eloquently, as I have reported it. The words are his, but the long
pauses, the stammerings, the repetitions, the hesitations I have
mercifully withheld. His cigar was quite smoked out by the time he had
finished, and with nervous haste he set about lighting another. For Mr.
Stuart, tilted back in his chair, his shining boots on the window-sill
of the drawing-room, gazing out at the gas-lit highways of Liverpool,
he listened in abstracted silence. There was a long pause after the
captain concluded--then Charley opened his lips and spoke:
"This is all nonsense, you know, Hammond," he said gravely,
"folly--madness, on your part. A week ago, when we thought Trixy an
heiress, the case looked very different, you see; then I would have
shaken hands with you, and bestowed my blessing upon your virtuous
endeavors. But all that is changed now. As far as I can see, we are
beggars--literally beggars--without a dollar; and when we get to New
York nothing will remain for Trixy and me but to roll up our sleeves
and go to work. What we are to work at, Heaven knows; we have come up
like the lilies of the field, who toil not, neither do they spin. It
is rather late in the day to take lessons in spinning now, but you see
there is no help for it. I don't say much, Hammond, but I feel this. I
hold a man to be something less than a man who will go through life
howling over a loss of this kind. There are worse losses than that of
fortune in the world." He paused a moment, and his dreamy eyes looked
far out over the crowded city street. "I always thought my father was
as rich as Crow--Crae--the rich fellow, you know, they always quote in
print. It seemed an impossibility that we could ever be poor. But we
are, and there is an end of it. Your family are wealthy, your father
has a title; do you think _he_ would listen to this for a moment?"
"My family may go--hang!" burst forth the captain. "What the deuce
have they got to do with it. If Trixy is willing--"
"Trixy will not be willing to enter any family on those terms,"
Trixy's brother said, in that quiet way of his, which could yet be
such an obstinate way; "and what I mean to say is this: A marriage for
the present is totally and absolutely out of the question. You and she
may make love to your heart's content--write letters across the ocean
by the bushel, be engaged as fast as you please, and remain constant
at long as you like. But marriage--no, no, no!"
That was the end of it. Charley was not to be moved--neither, indeed,
on the marriage question, was Trix. "Did Angus think her a wretch--a
monster--to desert her poor pa and ma just now, when they wanted her
most, and go off with him? Not likely. He might take back his ring if
he liked--she would not hold him to his engagement--she was ready and
willing to set him free--"
"So Jamie, an' ye dinna wait
Ye canna marry me,"
sang Charley, as Trix broke down here and sobbed. Then with a half
smile on his face he went out of the room, and Trixy's tears were
dried on Angus Hammond's faithful breast.
Next day, a gray overcast, gloomy day, the ship sailed. Captain
Hammond went with them on board, returning in the tender. Trix,
leaning on her father's arm, crying behind her veil; Charley, by his
mother's side, stood on deck while the tender steamed back to the dock.
And there under the gray sky, with the bleak wind blowing, and the
ship tossing on the ugly short chop of the river, they took their
parting look at the English shore, with but one friendly face to watch
them away, and that the ginger-whiskered face of Captain Hammond.
* * * * *
Edith Darrell left Charley Stuart, and returned to the brilliantly-lit
drawing room, where her lover and Lady Helena and their friends sat
waiting the announcement of dinner. Sir Victor's watchful eyes saw her
enter. Sir Victor's loving glance saw the pallor, like the pallor of
death, upon her face. She walked steadily over to a chair in the
curtained recess of a window. He was held captive by Lady Portia
Hampton, and could not join her. A second after there was a sort of
sobbing gasp--a heavy fall. Everybody started, and arose in
consternation. Miss Darrell had fallen from her chair, and lay on the
floor in a dead faint.
Her lover, as pale almost as herself, lifted her in his arms, the cold,
beautiful face lying, like death on his shoulder. But it was not death.
They carried her up to her room--restoratives were applied, and
presently the great dark eyes opened, and looked up into her lover's
face.
She covered her own with her hands, and turned away from him, as
though the sight was distasteful to her. He bent above her, almost
agonized that anything should ail his idol.
"My darling," he said tremulously. "What was it? What can I do for you?
Tell me."
"Go away," was the dull answer; "only that--go away everybody, and
leave me alone."
They strove to reason with her--some one sought to stay with her. Lady
Helena, Sir Victor--either would give up their place at dinner and
remain at the bedside.
"No, no, no!" was her answering cry, "they must not. She was better
again--she needed no one, she wanted nothing, _only_ to be left
alone."
They left her alone--she was trembling with nervous excitement, a
little more and hysterics would set in--they dared not disobey. They
left her alone, with a watchful attendant on the alert in the
dressing-room.
She lay upon the dainty French bed, her dark hair, from which the
flowers had been taken, tossed over the white pillows, her hands
clasped above her head, her dark, large eyes fixed on the opposite
wall. So she lay motionless, neither, speaking nor stirring for hours,
with a sort of dull, numb aching at her heart. They stole in softly to
her bedside many times through the night, always to find her like that,
lying with blank, wide-open eyes, never noticing nor speaking to them.
When morning broke she awoke from a dull sort of sleep, her head
burning, her lips parched, her eyes glittering with fever.
They sent for the doctor. He felt her pulse, looked at her tongue,
asked questions, and shook his head. Overwrought nerves the whole of
it. Her mind must have been over-excited for some time, and this was
the result. No danger was to be apprehended; careful nursing would
restore her in a week or two, combined with perfect quiet. Then a
change of air and scene would be beneficial--say a trip to Scarborough
or Torquay now. They would give her this saline draught just at
present and not worry about her. The young lady would be all right, on
his word and honor, my dear Sir Victor, in a week or two.
Sir Victor listened very gloomily. He had heard from the hall porter
of Mr. Stuart's flying visit, and of his brief interview with Miss
Darrell. It was very strange--his hasty coming, his hasty going,
without seeing any of them, his interview with Edith, and her
fainting-fit immediately after. Why had he come? What had transpired
at that interview? The green-eyed monster took the baronet's heart
between his finger and thumb, and gave it a most terrible twinge.
He watched over her when they let him into that darkened chamber, as a
mother may over an only and darling child. If he lost her!
"O Heaven!" he cried passionately, rebelliously, "rather let me die
than that!"
He asked her no questions--he was afraid. His heart sank within him,
she lay so cold, so white, so utterly indifferent whether he came or
went. He was nothing to her--nothing. Would he ever be?
Lady Helena, less in love, and consequently less a coward, asked the
question her nephew dared not ask: "What had brought Mr. Charles
Stuart to Powyss Place? What had made her, Edith, faint?"
The dark sombre eyes turned from the twilight prospect, seen through
the open window, and met her ladyship's suspicious eyes steadily. "Mr.
Stuart had come down to tell her some very bad news. His father had
failed--they were ruined. They had to leave England in two days for
home--he had only come to bid her a last farewell."
Then the sombre brown eyes went back to the blue-gray sky, the crystal
July moon, the velvet, green grass, the dark murmuring trees, the
birds twittering in the leafy branches, and she was still again.
Lady Helena was shocked, surprised, grieved. But--why had Edith
fainted?
"I don't know," Edith answered. "I never fainted before in my life. I
think I have not been very strong lately. I felt well enough when I
returned to the drawing-room--a minute after I grew giddy and fell. I
remember no more."
"We will take you away, my dear," her ladyship said cheerfully. "We
will take you to Torquay. Changes of air and scene, as the doctor says,
are the tonics you need to brace your nerves. Ah! old or young, all we
poor women are martyrs to nerves."
They took her to Torquay in the second week of July. A pretty little
villa near Hesketh Crescent had been hired; four servants from Powyss
Place preceded them; Sir Victor escorted them, and saw them duly
installed. He returned again--partly because the work going on at
Catheron Royals needed his presence, partly because Lady Helena
gravely and earnestly urged it.
"My dear Victor," she said, "don't force too much of your society upon
Edith. I know girls. Even if she were in love with you"--the young man
winced--"she would grow tired of a lover who never left her sight. All
women do. If you want her to grow fond of you, go away, write to her
every day--not _too_ lover-like love-letters; one may have a surfeit
of sweets; just cheerful, pleasant, sensible letters--as a young man
in love _can_ write. Come down this day three weeks, and, if we are
ready, take us home."
The young man made a wry face--much as he used to do when his good
aunt urged him to swallow a dose of nauseous medicine.
"In three weeks! My dear Lady Helena, what are you thinking of? We are
to be married the first week of September."
"October, Victor--October--not a day sooner. You must wait until Edith
is completely restored. There is no such desperate haste. You are not
likely to lose her."
"I am not so sure of that," he said, half sullenly under his breath;
"and a postponed marriage is the most unlucky thing in the world."
"I don't believe in luck; I do in common-sense," his aunt retorted,
rather sharply. "You are like a spoiled child, Victor, crying for the
moon. It is Edith's own request, if you will have it--this
postponement. And Edith is right. You don't want a limp, pallid,
half-dying bride, I suppose. Give her time to get strong--give her
time to learn to like you--your patient waiting will go far towards
it. Take my word, it will be the wiser course."
There was nothing for it but obedience. He took his leave and went
back to Cheshire. It was his first parting from Edith. How he felt it,
no words can tell. But the fact remained--he went.
She drew a long, deep breath as she said good-by, and watched him away.
Ah! what a different farewell to that other only two short weeks ago.
She tried not to think of that--honestly and earnestly; she tried to
forget the face that haunted her, the voice that rang in her ears, the
warm hand-clasp, the kisses that sealed their parting. Her love, her
duty, her allegiance, her thoughts--all were due to Sir Victor now. In
the quiet days that were to be there, she would try to forget the love
of her life--try to remember that of all men on earth Sir Victor
Catheron was the only man she had any right to think of.
And she succeeded partly. Wandering along the tawny sands, with the
blue bright sea spreading away before her, drinking in the soft salt
air, Edith grew strong in body and mind once more. Charley Stuart had
passed forever out of her life--driven hence by her own acts; she
would be the most drivelling of idiots, the basest of traitors, to
pine for him now. Her step grew elastic, her eye grew bright, her
beauty and bloom returned. She met hosts of pleasant people, and her
laugh came sweetly to Lady Helena's ears. Since her nephew _must_
marry--since his heart was set on this girl--Lady Helena wished to
see her a healthy and happy wife.
Sir Victor's letters came daily; the girl smiled as she glanced
carelessly over them, tore them up, and answered--about half. Love him
she did not; but she was learning to think very kindly of him. It is
quite in the scope of a woman's complex nature to love one man
passionately, and like another very much. It was Edith's case--she
liked Sir Victor; and when, at the end of three weeks, he came to join
them, she could approach and give him her hand with a frank, glad
smile of welcome. The three weeks had been as three centuries to this
ardent young lover. His delight to see his darling blooming, and well,
and wholly restored, almost repaid him. And three days after the triad
returned together to Powyss Place, to part, as he whispered, no more.
It was the middle of August now. In spite of Edith's protest, grand
preparations were being made for the wedding--a magnificent trousseau
having been ordered.
"Simplicity is all very well," Lady Helena answered Miss Darrell, "but
Sir Victor Catheron's bride must dress as becomes Sir Victor Catheron's
station. In three years from now, if you prefer white muslin and
simplicity, prefer it by all means. About the wedding-dress, you will
kindly let me have my own way."
Edith desisted; she appealed no more; passive to all changes, she let
herself drift along. The third of October was to be the wedding-day;
my ladies Gwendoline and Laura Drexel, the two chief bridesmaids--then
three others, all daughters of old friends of Lady Helena. The pretty,
picturesque town of Carnarvon, in North Wales, was to be the nest of
the turtledoves during the honeymoon--then away to the Continent, then
back for the Christmas festivities at Catheron Royals.
Catheron Royals was fast becoming a palace for a princess--its grounds
a sort of enchanted fairy-land. Edith walked through its lofty,
echoing halls, its long suites of sumptuous drawing-rooms, libraries,
billiard and ball rooms. The suite fitted up for herself was gorgeous
in purple and gold-velvet and bullion fringe--in pictures that were
wonders of loveliness--in mirror-lined walls, in all that boundless
wealth and love could lavish on its idol. Leaning on her proud and
happy bridegroom's arm, she walked through them all, half dazed with
all the wealth of color and splendor, and wondering if "I be I." Was
it a fairy tale, or was all this for Edith Darrell?--Edith Darrell,
who such a brief while gone, used to sweep and dust, sew and darn, in
dull, unlovely Sandypoint, and get a new merino dress twice a year? No,
it could not be--such transformation scenes never look place out of a
Christmas pantomime or a burlesque Arabian Night--it was all a dream--a
fairy fortune that, like fairy gold, would change to dull slate stones
at light of day. She would never be Lady Catheron, never be mistress
of this glittering Aladdin's Palace. It grew upon her day after day,
this feeling of vagueness, of unreality. She was just adrift upon a
shining river, and one of these days she would go stranded ashore on
hidden quicksands and foul ground. Something would happen. The days
went by like dreams--it was the middle of September. In little more
than a fortnight would come the third of October and the wedding-day.
But something would happen. As surely as she lived and saw it all, she
felt that something would happen.
Something did. On the eighteenth of September there came from London,
late in the evening, a telegram for Lady Helena. Sir Victor was with
Edith at the piano in the drawing-room. In hot haste his aunt sent for
him; he went at once. He found her pale, terrified, excited; she held
out the telegram to him without a word. He read it slowly: "Come at
once. Fetch Victor. _He_ is dying.--INEZ."