doctor gave it time to dissipate while he packed his medicine case, and
chatted pleasantly about its convenient arrangements. "And now," said
he, rising, "what else can I do for you?"
"Nothing, that I know of," replied the Major, "except it be to present
your bill. What else _can_ a doctor do?"
"Several things," answered Doctor Remy, lightly. "Make your will, for
instance."
The Major laughed outright. "I should say that was a lawyer's
business," said he.
"So it is. But do you not know that I once belonged to the bar?"
"I do remember hearing something of the sort, now that you remind me of
it," rejoined the Major dryly. "I don't think any the better of you
for it."
"Nor any the worse, I hope," returned Doctor Remy, placidly. "At all
events, I always advise my patients to make their wills. There is
nothing like a mind at rest about the future, to prolong life." He
seemed to speak carelessly, yet he fastened a keen look on the Major's
face, nevertheless.
The latter only smiled. "When I want my will made," said he, coolly,
"I will employ you to do the job."
"He has made it already, as he said he would," thought Doctor Remy to
himself. "And the chances are that he won't live to alter it.
"I shall be very much at your service," he answered, aloud. "And now,
I must be getting townward; I have to see another patient this evening."
The Major followed him out, and stood for some moments watching the
retreating buggy. Doctor Remy, looking back, saw him there in the
moonlight, and a strange, furtive look came into his eyes.
"I have given 'Providence' a chance," said he to himself. "Let us see
what it does with it."
Major Bergan, meanwhile, was muttering,--"What did he mean, I wonder,
by talking to me about my will? It is certainly no concern of his.
Does he really think me near death?" And the Major shivered, as if
there had been an uncomfortable chill in the thought.
"Uncle Harry," said a clear, sweet voice, close at his elbow. He
started, and turned quickly round.
A slender, girlish shape,--a graceful head, drooping like a lily on its
stem,--a fair, pure, bright face,--this was the vision that confronted
him, and carried him back to his youth, and to the love of his youth;
the untoward course of which had doubtless helped to make him the man
that he was.
"Clarissa!" he exclaimed, trembling, and feeling as if he were in a
dream.
The vision smiled. "Do you not know me, uncle?" it asked, in its sweet
tones; "I am Carice."
"Ah!" said the Major, slowly, and as if but half awake. He took his
niece's hands, and gazed earnestly in her face. "You are like your
mother, child, or like what she was at your age, much more than you are
like the child that used to play around my knees,--let me
see,--six--eight--nine years ago. I missed her, Carice, when she
stopped coming, I missed her."
"She missed you, too, uncle," replied Carice. "She was very fond of
you.'
"Then why did she stop coming? asked the Major, gloomily.
"Because, uncle," answered Carice, simply, "she grew old enough to know
that it is a child's duty to obey, and not to question."
The Major's brow darkened; but he looked sad, too. "I never laid it up
against _you_, Carice," he said, with significant emphasis.
"Nor against any one, I hope," replied Carice, coaxingly. "Oh, uncle,
ought not this long feud to cease?"
Major Bergan shook his head. "There is no feud between you and me,
child," said he. "But, as for your father," he went on, with a
kindling eye and a roughening voice, "when _he_--"
Carice laid her hand upon his arm. "As you were just saying," said
she, gently, "he is my father. And, dear uncle, a daughter's ear is
easily hurt."
The Major stopped, and nearly choked himself with the sentence so
suddenly arrested on his lips. "Then, what are you here for?" he
finally blurted out, half-wonderingly, half-sternly.
"Ah!" exclaimed Carice, in a tone of sudden recollection, "I had nearly
forgotten my errand, in the pleasure of seeing you."
The Major's face grew soft again. He put his hands on Carice's
shoulders, turned her toward the full moonlight, and looked long and
earnestly in her face. "How beautiful you have grown!" said he, with
even more of wonder than admiration in his voice; "I am not sure but
that you are still more beautiful than _she_ was. But you don't look
as if you belonged to this earth, child; and there's not a bit of the
family look left in you. Are you certain that you are Carice Bergan,
and not a changeling?"
"Quite sure, uncle," she answered, smiling, "Ask Rosa, there, if I am
not." She pointed to her maid, who had accompanied her, and stood
waiting near.
"Then, Miss Bergan," said the Major, making her a courtly bow, "what
can your old uncle do for you?"
"Nothing, at present," she replied, "except to let me keep my own, old
corner in his heart. I only came to see Maumer Rue, if I may. We
heard she was dying. So I begged hard to be allowed to come and tell
her that I had not forgotten how kind she used to be to me, and to see
if I could do anything for her. I fancied it would please her to see
me, if she is still able to recognize me. Is she?"
"Perfectly able," replied Major Bergan, "and will be, I hope, for years
to come. She has been very ill, but she is much better. She is now
asleep."
"Then I will not disturb her," returned Carice. "And yet, I am loath
to go back without a glimpse of her. Could I not look in upon her for
one moment? I will be sure not to make a sound."
Major Bergan led her to Rue's cabin, and waited on the threshold,
while, with her finger on her lips, to guard against any outburst of
astonishment from the negro woman in attendance, she stole softly to
the bedside, and bent over the sleeping Rue. A wondrously lovely
picture she made there,--a picture of such unearthly grace, delicacy,
and purity, that the Major's eyes filled with unconscious moisture as
he gazed.
Suddenly Rue's lips parted, in a dream, "The Bergan star!" said she.
"See! it rises!" And, after a moment, she added, decidedly, "He
_shall_ have Bergan Hall!"
Carice quickly stole out to her uncle. His face looked very gloomy, as
he led her back toward the cottage.
"Carice," said he, suddenly, "have you seen your Western cousin?"
"Bergan Arling? Yes, certainly," she answered.
"How do you like him?"
"He seems very pleasant," she replied, evasively.
"Seems!" repeated her uncle, gruffly. "What is the matter with him?"
"I do not know, uncle. It is said that he is very dissipated."
The Major laughed ironically. "Nonsense! The most incorrigible
milksop that ever I saw," said he. "That is why we quarrelled."
Carice looked at him doubtfully. "The very first thing that we heard
of him," said she, "was that he had been mixed up in a low brawl at
Gregg's tavern."
"All my fault, Carice," returned Major Bergan, shortly. "I took him
there, and cheated him into swallowing a glass of raw brandy."
Carice's blue eyes looked a sorrowful astonishment.
"I did not mean to do him any harm," pursued the Major, answering their
mute eloquence; "I only wanted to teach him to drink like a man and a
Bergan. I loved the boy, Carice, like my own son, and would have kept
him with me, if I could. But he forsook me for the law, the ungrateful
dog!"
"Perhaps he had no choice," suggested Carice.
"No choice! Didn't he have the choice of Bergan Hall, and all that
belongs to it? That was what was running in Maumer Rue's head, just
now. But he preferred independence--and a tin sign in his window! He
is a degenerate scion of the race, like your--" The Major suddenly
recollected himself, and broke off with a dry cough.
Carice was looking down thoughtfully. An unexpected clue to Bergan's
character, motives, and aims, had been put into her hands; and she was
slowly trying to follow it out.
"Thank you, uncle, for telling me this," said she, at length. "I am
afraid we have been doing Bergan an injustice."
"You certainly have, if you have thought him a drunkard," replied the
Major. "But, nevertheless, he's no true Bergan, Carice; don't have
anything to do with him."
"No more than is just and right," said Carice, quietly. "And now I
must go; mamma will be getting anxious. Come a little way with me,
uncle, as you used to do."
The Major walked by her side down to the creek, and watched her
anxiously across the dilapidated bridge.
"Don't come that way again," he called to her, as she reached the other
end. "It's unsafe."
"Mend it then, uncle," she called back to him. "For I like old
paths--and old friends--best."
The Major turned away with a smile. And all the way to the cottage he
was saying to himself,--
"Perhaps I _had_ better make my will."
XI.
SLEEPLESS NIGHTS APPOINTED.
Doctor Remy possessed in perfection the power of rapid concentration of
thought. Otherwise, he would have taken a divided mind to the bedside
of his second patient, that night, after leaving Bergan Hall. As it
was, he was glad when the stroke of midnight set him free, body and
mind; the one to find its way mechanically to the hotel, through the
silent moonlighted streets of Berganton, the other to occupy itself in
arranging and perfecting the details of a certain plan for his future
advantage, which had suddenly shaped itself out before him, so
distinctly, if roughly, that he had already taken an important step
toward its accomplishment. It now remained to provide for the rest of
the way.
The midnight heaven was without a cloud, and the moon filled it with
white radiance. Every object down the long line of the town's
principal street was shown with the clearness of noonday, but also with
the ghostlike awfulness that moonlight is wont to impart to objects the
most familiar. The large, wooden houses, with their broad, shadowy
piazzas and dim doorways; the wide, empty sidewalks; the great,
shining-leaved oaks, dotting the silvered highway with black islands of
shadow; the narrow wheel-track, with its broad margin of grass and
weeds, through which an isolated footpath took its solitary way to
every gate;--all were distinctly visible, but with a singularity of
aspect that seemed to change their whole character and meaning.
And perhaps something of the same effect extended to the countenance of
Doctor Remy, as he came down the street, followed by the dreary echo of
his own lonely footsteps, as if dogged by immitigable fate. To his
features, as to all other objects, the moonlight seemed to impart a new
expression. Those who were best acquainted with him, had any such been
abroad, would have needed to look twice at his dark moody countenance,
and the ominous gleam of his deepset eyes, to feel themselves quite
sure of his identity. Continuing to brood over the casual encounter,
as they pursued their way, they might have tried to divine what sombre
energy of purpose it was that had lit his eyes with such deep, dusky
light, and marked his brow and eyes with lines so sternly rigid;
shuddering, too, to think how remorselessly he would sweep from his
terribly direct, if underground, path, whatever object should intervene
between himself and his goal. Then, seeing how the moonbeams had
subtilized some mean hovel into a phantom palace or tomb, wrought of
alternate silver and ebony, they would be fain to set down both the
origin and substance of their reflections to the same magical agency,
and breathe more freely in making haste to forget the whole matter.
Secure in the absence of all observation, the dark face kept on its way
through the silent street, giving its features the fullest liberty of
evil expression. Opposite the principal dry goods store of the street,
it paused for a moment; its restless glance had caught sight of a faint
gleam from one of the rear shutters, which was plainly not moonlight.
"They are up late," muttered the doctor, "or there is mischief afoot.
Well! what is it to me? Have I not enough else to think of?" And he
kept on his rapid way.
But the incident seemed to have set free the faculty of speech. Words
began to drop from his set lips; short, disconnected sentences, through
which, nevertheless, there ran a distinct thread of suggestion.
"I have waited long enough,"--so ran one of these half-involuntary
utterances,--"I have waited long enough for Fortune's willing favors;
it is time to grapple with the exasperating jade, and wring them from
her reluctant hands, by fair means or foul. For what else was I
endowed with talent, daring, energy, and will, beyond most men? Not,
certainly, to waste them all in earning a bare subsistence, or little
more, as I am now doing."
"Is it my fault," he went on, in broken, detached sentences,--"is it my
fault that Fortune never shows herself to me, save at the farther end
of some dark vista which the world calls crime?--Pshaw! what is a life,
one worthless, drunken, half-worn-out life, in comparison with the ends
that I have in view,--increase of knowledge, expansion and perfection
of science, and through them--as a casual end, I do not pretend that it
is a direct one, for me--the advancement of the human race.--The plan
seems feasible, as much so, at least, as anything can be, in this
miserable, mocking world, where Fate seems to delight in balking the
best talent and deranging the artfulest contrivance.--Fate, Chance, or
Providence, which? Three different terms for the same thing;--language
would be more accurate, if there were less of it.--At any rate, I have
given Providence a chance. Let it take the responsibility of the
result.--If that will be not made! But to whom else should he give the
place? He cannot abide either his brother or his nephew. And Miss
Lyte comes next. Besides, there are ways of finding a will, at need.
The essential point is, that no other be made."
He was now nearing Mrs. Lyte's house, and the sight of it prompted his
next sentence.
"Astra!--there, at least, the way is easy. Only, it must be secret;--I
doubt if the old Major would altogether relish me for his heir, despite
to-night's increase of cordiality.--As for Arling, it is said that
history--"
Dr. Remy broke off suddenly. The subject of his soliloquy was calmly
looking at him across Mrs. Lyte's gate.
"Pardon me for interrupting jour conversation," said Bergan, with a
smile which satisfied the doctor that he had not heard what he was
saying. "One's talks with one's self are sometimes very interesting."
"Why are you not in bed?" asked the doctor, with a sharpness that
Bergan set down to professional anxiety.
"A man who goes to bed at six may well get up at twelve," he replied,
lightly, "especially if sleep forsakes him. Have you been out until
this time?"
"Yes," answered the doctor, debating within himself whether he would
speak of his visit to Bergan Hall, and quickly deciding in the
negative, since there was little probability that Bergan would hear it
from anybody else; inasmuch as the Hall led an independent, isolated
life of its own, the events of which rarely made their way into the
talk of the town. "It is nothing new for me to be late," he added, by
way of finish to his monosyllable.
"I will walk down with you as far as the hotel," said Bergan, coming
out, and closing the gate behind him. "Perhaps I may be able to pick
up a few seeds of sleep on the way, which will sprout into another nap,
when I return. What a night it is!"
"For lunatics--yes," said the doctor dryly.
"Among which you would doubtless class your humble servant," returned
Bergan, "if you could look into his mind, at this moment."
"Very likely," rejoined Doctor Remy, indifferently; but he gave his
companion a quick, keen glance, nevertheless.
Bergan was looking straight before him. "Doctor," said he, suddenly,
"I believe you know the world well; what does it do to the man who goes
counter to its traditions and prejudices,--whom, in short, it is
pleased to look upon as a kind of modern Don Quixote?"
"Laughs at him first, hammers him next, flings him aside last,"
returned the doctor, sententiously.
"But if he does not mind being laughed at, bears the hammering without
flinching when he must, hammers back again when he may, and will not be
flung aside, what then?" pursued Bergan.
The doctor stopped short in his walk, and looked long and searchingly
in the young man's face. "Then," said he, slowly, as if the words were
drawn out of him almost against his will,--"then it gives way to him,
and honors its conqueror. But," he added, "it is a long, exhausting
contest. I do not advise you to try it."
"Thank you," answered Bergan, quietly. "I am inclined to try it,
nevertheless. But here we are at the hotel. Good night."
Doctor Remy stood on the steps of the hotel, looking moodily after him.
"What has he taken into his head now?" he asked himself.
He had not long to wait for an answer. In the morning, the light which
he had noticed in the rear of the drygoods store, found its sufficient
explanation in an empty safe and rifled shelves. A week afterward, a
tall, ill-favored man was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in
the robbery. Two days later, it was known that Bergan Arling had
positively refused to undertake his defence. In due course of time, it
leaked out, through the amazed prisoner himself, that he had done so
because he believed it to be no part of his professional duty to try to
shield a criminal from just punishment.
XII.
A CONSULTATION.
Plainly, Mrs. Bergan had something on her mind, that bright spring
morning. Though she poured her husband's second cup of coffee with a
deliberation that seemed to promise much for its flavor, he was fain to
send it back, after tasting it, with the explanatory remark:--
"You have forgotten to smile into it, my dear; it is not sweet enough."
"Eh!" exclaimed Mrs. Bergan, absently, extending her hand toward the
cream pitcher.
"I doubt if cream will mend the matter much," observed Mr. Bergan,
gravely. "A lump of sugar might do, if the smile be absolutely _non
est_."
Mrs. Bergan's mind having by this time returned to the business in
hand, both sugar and smile were immediately forthcoming, in sufficient
measure to threaten the coffee with excess of sweets. Nevertheless,
she continued to have fits of abstraction, at short intervals, until
the breakfast things had been removed, and Carice had quitted the room.
Then, she turned to her husband with a serious face.
"I really think, Godfrey," she began, "that we owe your nephew some
attention."
"Of what kind, pray?" inquired Mr. Bergan, in considerable surprise.
"Well, it seems to me that we ought,--once, at least,--to invite him
formally to dinner."
"Pray, what has he been doing, to place us under such an obligation?"
asked Mr. Bergan, somewhat dryly.
Mrs. Bergan colored slightly. "I am afraid that we made a mistake at
the outset," said she. "Of course, the attention was due to him then
as much as now."
"I thought we agreed that the less Carice saw of him, the better,"
replied Mr. Bergan.
"Yes, I know. But that was because we believed him to be of
intemperate habits."
Men of Godfrey Bergan's thoughtful and deliberate character, when they
adopt a mistaken opinion, are wont to wedge it in so firmly among
things undeniably true and just, that to dislodge it is like tearing up
an oak which has rooted itself in a rock cleft. "I wish I were certain
that he is not," he answered, with a slow, grave shake of the head.
Mrs. Bergan gave him a surprised look. "I don't see why you should
doubt him," said she. "Everybody agrees that a more correct young man
does not exist. He is always to be found in his office during office
hours, attends Church regularly on Sundays, as well as at most of the
occasional services, goes into but little society, and that of the very
best,--what more would you have?"
"Nothing," replied her husband, "except the certainty that it will
last. A drunkard's reform is so rarely a permanent thing, that one is
justified in distrusting it. Though he may keep as sober as a
Carthusian monk for a few months, or even for a year or two, his
unhappy appetite is only a caged lion: in the first unguarded moment,
it is certain to break out, and to sweep everything before
it--resolution, hope, energy, and promise. Unfortunately for my
nephew, perhaps, but very fortunately for ourselves, I fancy, I happen
to retain a distinct recollection of my first meeting with him."
"But," urged Mrs. Bergan, "I thought Carice told you what your brother
Harry said about that matter."
"With all due respect for my brother Harry," returned her husband,
coolly, "I don't consider his testimony, in this matter, to be worth
much. Intemperance is, in his estimation, so very venial a sin,--not
to say, so very Berganly a virtue,--that he would be sure to extenuate
it, if he could."
"He would never say what was not true," affirmed Mrs. Bergan, decidedly.
"No, but he would look at the affair from his own point of view, and
speak accordingly."
"But your nephew left him on account of that very affair," persisted
Mrs. Bergan, "and has refused to have anything to do with him since,
even with Bergan Hall held out to him as a bait."
"In which," rejoined Mr. Bergan, composedly, "he shows that he has more
of the hereditary temper than is good for him, or any one connected
with him. It is the same trait that has made Harry so bitter against
us, all these years. And one feud in the family was enough--and too
much."
Mrs. Bergan began to look annoyed. While she admitted the general
truth of her husband's observations, she had an intuitive conviction of
their present misapplication. Her womanly instincts were all in
Bergan's favor. But that, she knew, was no ground of effective
argument.
Her husband looked at her clouded face, for a moment, and then went to
her side. "Confess now, Clarissa," said he, pleasantly, laying his
hand on her shoulder, "that our nephew's claims upon our attention
would never have presented themselves so strongly to your mind, were it
not for his late brilliant hit in the court room, and the sudden
admiration and popularity which it has won him."
A slight flush showed on Mrs. Bergan's cheek; nevertheless, she met her
husband's eyes frankly. "I acknowledge that those things had their
effect in making me ashamed of myself," she answered. "But, all the
time, I have had an uneasy feeling that we were not doing our duty by
your sister's son. Surely, we ought to have been the very last persons
to have listened to, and acted upon, a rumor unfavorable to him; or, if
it were certain that he had made a false step, we should have been
ready with our influence and countenance, to help him to retrieve
himself."
"You forget, my dear," said Mr. Bergan, gently, "that it was for
Carice's sake. We were thinking only of her."
"And so we did evil that good might come," returned his wife, somewhat
ruefully. "But evil follows the universal law, and brings forth after
its kind."
"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Bergan, looking both surprised and
puzzled.
Mrs. Bergan smiled at him half-pityingly, half-sarcastically. "Oh, ye
men!" she exclaimed, "if ye are wise as serpents, in matters of the
intellect, ye are blind as bats, in matters of the heart."
"I am ready to admit the truth of the abstract proposition," said Mr.
Bergan, quizzically, "as soon as I am made to understand in what way I
furnish a proof of it."
"Don't you see," returned Mrs. Bergan, seriously, "that if ever Carice
is to become over-interested in Bergan, now is the time,--now that he
is presented to her imagination in the attractive light of a long
neglected and misunderstood, but patient, persevering, and, finally,
all-conquering hero?"
Mr. Bergan looked as if he did see--several things. "Is that the
reason why you propose to throw them together?" he asked, dryly.
"Certainly," replied Mrs. Bergan, with perfect composure. "The first
thing is to destroy the halo with which he is now surrounded, by
bringing him into the disenchanting daylight of commonplace, everyday
association. Next, we must rob him of the crown of martyrdom, so far
as we are concerned, by frankly confessing that we were a little too
severe upon him at first, and by doing full justice to his talents in a
matter-of-fact way. Finally, we must make the most of the
relationship."
"You may be right," said Mr. Bergan, after some moments of deep
thought. "Though, at first sight, it looks very much like jumping into
the river, to avoid the rain."