MISS CENTER’S BIRTHDAY PARTY AND WHAT OCCURRED THEREAT
The fateful day dawned. Fair were the omens of the morning; full their
accomplishment as day culminated. Oh, what a parade there was! Chiefly
and Chieftainly the Millard sent forth its fleet full of younkers and
prodigals and “skarfed barks,” flaggy with dizzy floating of ribbons.
Commodore Mrs. Wilkes headed this centre of the squadron. Commodore?
I will rather say Admiral of all the grades, red, white, and blue;
_liberté_, _égalité_, _fraternité_--these, under her admiral conduct,
were to be the watchwords of the day. And now from many a cottage of
gentility, from many a sham château, if possible more genteel, they
were pouring and thronging in full-sailed bravery toward the rendezvous.
They were landed in a lovely cove near the Dumplings. Mr. Dulger was
ardent in his endeavours to aid the Queen of the Day, Miss Millicent,
in disembarking; so ardent that Nemesis thought he needed quenching,
and so quenched him a little. He slipped knee-deep into the water with
a ducking splash. Dunstan handed the lady out, while Peter Skerrett
picked Billy up with a mild reproof.
The party was one of many elements; these soon grouped or paired in
elemental concord, and all the slopes were gay with the sight of
lolly circles, and jocund with the sound of their lively laughter.
The band piped unto them and somewhat they essayed to dance upon the
undulating sward. It was remarked by the Millarders that Mr. Belden and
Mrs. Budlong were absent a long time, and that afterwards he was very
devoted to Diana. It was also remarked that Miss Arabella was getting
tired of the Frenchman. Dear me! how people do remark things.
Mr. Waddy did not feel out of place at the picnic, because, as a man of
the universal world, he was always in place; but he was out of spirits.
Tootler wrote no more. Ira was wretched with suspenses and suspicions.
Poor old Budlong--here was this wife of his hardly concealing her
intrigue with Belden--her second intrigue, and this time not with a
blackleg, but with one whom, he feared, was a villain. Belden, too, was
intimate with Diana, favoured by Clara; and Ira could not warn them.
He had nothing except suspicion. His judgment, sharpened by this, saw
Belden as he was--plausible, flattering, laborious to please, cautious
of offence, clever, experienced, a man of that very dangerous class
who see the better and follow the worse. Mr. Waddy, therefore, seeing
Belden’s success, was filled with wrath. The old man Ira began to take
control of his lately stoical nature.
“I’m getting dangerous,” he felt; and not all the petting of Mrs.
Aquiline, nor all the attentions of the daughtery mothers and nubile
daughters, could distract him or make him distracted from this ugly
presence of hateful thoughts. He observed that Belden was uneasy when
he was by, and concealed his unease by a seeming cordiality. Mr. Waddy
began to tingle with a nervous sensation of presentiment that there was
to be a crisis, an explanation, a punishment, a vengeance--what and for
what he could not yet foresee.
By-and-by, the happy moment arrived for which all other deeds at
a picnic are only preparatory. The edible and potable picnic was
announced as ready to be eaten and drunk, and a truly Apician banquet
it was--thanks to Mrs. Wilkes, experienced giver of dinners and liberal
feeder of mankind. Some of the banqueting was very pretty to behold.
Fair ladies are not ignoble in the act of taking ladylike provender.
But it must also be allowed that some of the banqueting was not so
pretty.
“Look at Rev. Theo. Logge,” said Peter Skerrett to Ambient; “he
pretends to wish that
“‘All the world
Should in a pet of temperance feed on pulse,
Drink the clear stream----’
“But observe, that is not pulse he eats, but pâté of Strasburg, and what
he is pouring down is a stream, to be sure, a large one and clear, but
it comes from a very poptious bottle. I cannot think it water.”
“I say, Peter,” says Guy, “let’s fuddle the Rev.”
“Guyas Cutus,” reproved Peter gravely, “you are a pagan. I have
frequently remarked that difference between Cloanthus and you. You are
a pagan and swear ‘I Gaads.’ He is a monotheist and swears ‘I Gaad’.
In this case you can spare yourself a sacrilege. Mr. Logge is fuddling
himself. Hillo,” he added, looking up suddenly as a cork struck him
hard on the ear.
De Châteaunéant had opened a champagne bottle carelessly and had not
only bombarded Peter, but had deluged Sir Comeguys. Sir Com looked
quietly at the Frenchman, waiting for an apology; none came, but the
bottle-holder gave a blackguard laugh. He must have been a little
elated by drinking, and reckless. Miss Arabella had been particularly
cool to him all day, and it had taken much wine to counterbalance his
chagrin. No one saw the little scene except Blinders and Mrs. Budlong,
and the banquet went on and off brilliantly.
While the gentlemen were lighting cigars and separating for a few
moments from the ladies, Blinders tapped De Châteaunéant on the
shoulder.
“Sir Com Ambient would like to say a word to you behind the hill
yonder,” he said with a meaning look. “I’ll see fair play for you.”
Auguste Henri, who had continued his draughts intemperately, first
turned pale and then blustered and vinously vapoured that he would not
go at any man’s dictation--he didn’t owe any apology to “_ce niais_.”
“You’ve got to go,” said Blinders calmly, but with conviction. “You
needn’t make any apology for insulting him as you did. But you must
stand up to the rack, or you can’t stay here.”
So Blinders quietly led off his man, cursing in French like the
rattling of a locomotive. They found Peter Skerrett and Sir Com waiting
behind the hill. The latter had his coat off, and was tramping this way
and that, like a polar bear in a cage.
“Your name is Pierre Le Valet,” said Ambient. “You needn’t lie about
it. Skewwett, show Blinders the handkerchief. I’ve been sure for some
time you were one of those damn thieves that gouged me in Pawis.
Now I know it by your looks and by that name. You’ve behaved like a
blackguard to-day, and I’m going to lick you, if I can, on the spot.
You know, Blinders, what the fellow has been doing here--cheating
evewybody.”
“Take off your coat, Mr. Le Valet,” said Blinders, “and thank your
stars you’ve one gentleman to thrash you and another to stand by and
see you’re not killed.”
The detected blackleg made a treacherous rush at Ambient, furious and
intending to try some shabby trick of a _savate_, but a solid one, two
smote his countenance and floored, or rather, turfed him. As he did not
come up to time, Ambient took from Blinders a light Malacca joint and
wallopped the skulking wretch until he began to scream for mercy. By
this time, the facial one, two had developed into two ugly black eyes.
“Hot nubbless” was unpresentable, and Peter and Blinders led him off to
a boat and sent him away, swearing vengeance spitefully.
“What can he do, Peter?” asked Blinders.
“Harm, I’m afraid, to someone,” replied Peter, thinking how he had
come into possession of the handkerchief and doubting much whether he
had done right to show it. “What shall we say of his absence--that
perfidious Albion and proud Gallia had a contest as to who was victor
at Waterloo?”
“What have you done with Monsieur De Châteaunéant?” asked Mrs. Budlong,
looking sharply at the two, as they walked back.
“He had a bad head,” replied Peter innocently, “and thought he would be
better at home. We have charged ourselves with his excuses.”
* * * * *
After the banquet, Clara and Diana, with the two other members of
their quartette, had retired apart from the crowd. It was almost
sunset. They had chosen a vantage point of vision just at the summit
of a soft slope, commanding the old fort and the bay. The boats lay
picturesquely grouped in front. The wash of waves sent up a pleasant,
calming music. They were alone, except when some promenading couple
passed at the distance. Paulding was lying half-hid by the short
sweet-fern bushes, smoking lazily. Clara was near him. Diana and
Dunstan were at a little distance, so that a slight modulation of the
voice made conversation joint or separate. Diana had been the gay one
thus far; but now the pensiveness of evening seemed to quiet her.
“The sky and water and those mossy rocks remind me of Mr. Kensett’s
pictures,” Clara said. “He seems to have been created to paint Newport
delightfully.”
“Rather Newport for him to paint,” corrected Diana, “as the world was
made for man, the immortal. Besides, Mr. Kensett is not narrowed to
Newport for his subjects. I notice that so many of you who know him
speak of him by his prenom. Only very genial men are so fortunate as to
be treated with this familiarity, even by their friends.”
“He is indeed genial--one of the men whose personal, apart from
his artistic life, is for the sunny happiness of those who know
him. Apropos of prenoms, Miss Clara,” continued Dunstan, “pray what
melodious, terminal syllables belong to your father’s initial, W.? G.
W.--his G. is George, I know. His W. is what?”
“It is an old family name,” replied Clara; “Whitegift. My father
is fond of genealogy and traces the name to a relative, a Bishop
Whitegift.”
“An odd name,” said Dunstan. “I seem to have heard it before. Ah, now I
recollect having read in some old family manuscript that my ancestor,
Miles Standish, had some feud with a Pilgrim of that name.”
Clara laughed. “You must talk with Mr. Ira Waddy. He has a legend that
the first Waddy, Whitegift by name, was cook of the _Mayflower_, and
that there grew a feud between him and Miles Standish. The cook put too
little pepper in the hero’s porridge. Hence an abiding curse, which
Mr. Waddy says depressed his branch of the family until his time. He
represents the democratic side of our history. My father rather scoffs
at the legend. I must tell him the odd confirmation of it from you. It
will shock his aristocratic feelings terribly.”
“Bah! for the legend,” said Dunstan. “Your ancestors, fair lady, were
gods and goddesses of other realms than those dusky and too savoury
ones where cooks do reign supreme. But I cannot permit my ancestor’s
curse to rest longer upon you. In my capacity as his representative, in
eldest line, I wave my hand. The curse is revoked, nay, changed to a
blessing. The old feud is at an end. It will never be revived between
us. We shall never quarrel.”
“I hope not,” said Clara, and turning away abruptly, she renewed her
conversation with Paulding apart.
“You accent the ‘we,’” said Diana, “as if you could imagine yourself
quarrelling with other women.”
“Yes,” said he; “why not? But women have always the advantage of us in
a quarrel. We can compel a man traitor or wrong-doer to pistol or rifle
practice. If he shirks, he becomes a colonist of Coventry. But a woman
shelters herself behind her sex and dodges the duello. There ought to
be a code of honour for them also.”
“There is--in the hearts of the honourable,” said she.
“Ah, yes! but who are they? How are we to know them, except by those
very tests that we cannot apply until falseness and dishonour on the
woman’s part will be to us the cause of bitter wrong, such as a man
should pay us with his life?”
“So you would challenge the gay deceiver to mortal combat? Weapons,
a fan against a pocket-comb, across a skein of sewing-silk. Hail! O
Attila! scourge of Flirtationdom! Newport will be depopulated when your
plan prevails.”
“Depopulated of gay deceivers and their victims. You and I, Miss Clara
and Paulding, would be left to weep over the slain and strew their
graves with old bouquet leaves. But pity the sorrows of the young
heroes, murdered now and unavenged, while their murderesses sing their
siren song to annual freshmen.”
“But why do your freshmen listen to siren songs?”
“Freshmen love music and are unfamiliar with sirens. And even men no
longer so fresh, who have been forced to hear sorrowful songs, may
mistake siren song for angel song. Harmony is so rare and so heavenly.
We hear it one day, and land. We meet no chilling reception; the siren
sings on sweetly. The dewy violet and the thornless rose are still
worn and the young heart or the weary heart has but one word more of
passion to say. The third and last degree of lovers’ lessons waits
to be taken, lip to lip. But--_Halte là!_ ‘Will you walk out of my
parlour?’ says the spider to the fly. ‘Certainly, fair tarantula,
since you insist upon it.’ Another freshman is on the threshold, or
another not-so-very-fresh may be wooed into the web. Continue, pretty
dear, your wanton wiles. Sing away, Siren, seeming angel. We are out.
_Adieu!_” and Dunstan, whose cigar was smoked to the thick, drew an
immense puff and breathing out a perfect ring, deposited it upon his
engagement finger. He held up his hand, while the smoke slowly drifted
away in the still, warm air.
Diana laughed. “Very well done, the ring and the description. But
the termination was rather too contemptuous for the poetry of the
beginning.”
“Was it?” said he. “Contempt is not a pleasant feeling. I supposed
myself too old to express, if not to have it.”
“Did you mean your history,” asked Diana, “for the epitaph of a dead
love?”
“A dead love? No! Diana, no! It was the _hic jacet_ on the cenotaph of
a hundred buried flirtations--my own and other men’s. Not all of them
can chisel the inscription as coolly as I do, nor be as indulgent as I
am to the memory of the names inscribed. But love! Love is undying!”
As he said this, they heard a little rustle and a sigh near them. They
turned. It was Miss Milly Center. She had heard, perhaps, all the
conversation. She rose and seemed about to speak, but her effort ended
in something like a sob, and two rather well-made tears started and
overran her cheeks.
Just then a cheerful voice came over the hill: “‘Oh, Susannah! don’t
you cry for me----’” and a very shiny glazed hat with a black ribbon,
such as is some men’s ideal of “the thing” for a head-piece at a
water-party, appeared. This hat was on the top of Billy Dulger.
“I was looking for you, Miss Milly,” he cried, “and wondering where you
had wandered to.”
“I’m very glad you have found me,” said she. “I don’t care to be third
in either of these duos.”
She had whisked away her tears before she turned to answer Billy
Dulger’s hail, and now with a smile she took his arm and walked away.
But it was not a very happy smile.
Clara and Paulding had not perceived her presence until Dulger
appeared; they were too distant to hear the conversation just
interrupted, or to observe her confusion.
“Perhaps Miss Center recognised herself in the heroine of your tale,”
said Diana. “Do you know the hero? It must have happened long ago. I
think you have made Mr. Dulger’s fortune. He has been a faithful swain,
I hear. So you think that, though flirtations may, love cannot die?”
“Diana,” he began, and it was the second time he had addressed her
thus. He paused; the sun had just set. A flash and burst of white smoke
shot from the ramparts of Fort Adams, across the strait. It was the
sunset gun. A great, massive, booming crash came over the water, and
then, eagerly, tumultuously chasing it, a throng of echoes followed.
“O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.”
“Diana,” continued Dunstan, “let us walk a little.”
They went on for a few steps in silence, her arm in his. They had not
noticed the direction they took, and these few steps brought them
over the crest above the banqueting spot. Several of the party were
gathered about Mrs. Wilkes and aiding her in arranging for return.
“Come, Mr. Dunstan,” cried Mrs. Wilkes, catching sight of him as he
was turning back. “You are just the person I wanted to select Mrs.
Wellabout’s forks and Mrs. Skibbereen’s spoons. No! no! I can’t excuse
you. Young men must make themselves useful at my picnics. You’ve
had the belle long enough. She must be tired of you by this time. I
understand what it means when ladies bring their cavaliers back to the
chaperon’s neighbourhood.”
Dunstan half uttered an ugly Spanish oath. Diana, half-hearing, gave
him a reproving look. Belden and another gentleman approached and
Dunstan was dragged off to identify spoons and forks. He recognised
all his obligations to Mrs. Wilkes, and did his best to help that busy
lady through her embarrassments with clumsy servants. He did not even
break plates and dishes. Men who have had their California or frontier
experience, understand themselves in crockery and cookery. Still, at
this moment, he would have preferred not to be so useful.
And now Mrs. Wilkes, like a wise mother of an errant brood, began to
sound her homeward notes of recall. The roll of the party began to
complete itself. Someone asked, “Where is Diana?” Where, indeed?
“I saw her walking off alone towards the Dumplings some time ago,” Gyas
Cutus said. “I asked if she wanted a companion and she said no--so I
thought I wouldn’t go.”
“You may go and look for her, Mr. Dunstan,” said the chaperon, “as
payment for your industry.”
Dunstan sprang up and _non scese, no, precipitò_ down the hillside.
Clara looked anxiously after him. These were the saddening moments
of twilight, when sunset glories are gloom and we are not yet quite
reconciled to night. Some one of the festal party said that the evening
was ominously beautiful--it seemed there could never be another to
compare with it. Splendours were exhausted.
The Dumplings stands upon a low, craggy hillock at the water’s edge. In
front is a bit of precipice; then a scarped slope, covered with débris,
such as bricks, stones, broken bottles, sardine boxes, and chicken
bones; then rocks again and water. On the landward side the rough
hillock is still steep, but overcome by a path circling the crumbling
round of the fort. This path is rather up and down, enough so to blow
most dowagers and duennas; the ascent has therefore its great uses in
the world, and many a tender word has been gasped from panting hearts
of those who panted up together, eluding, for precious moments, the
stern duenna below.
Dunstan climbed rapidly up. It was but a few steps, yet in the moment
all that had ever passed between him and Diana came powerfully back,
as all the sounds of a lingering storm are suddenly embodied in one
neighbour thunder-clap, and all its playfully terrible lightnings,
illuminating scenes far away, concentre in the keen presence and
absence of the flash that strikes near by. The evening, whose ominous
beauty had impressed him also, was so still that he could hear gushes
of gay laughter from the party. He could see nothing of Diana. She
must be within the fort. As he stepped along the narrow ledge of the
pathway, he checked himself an instant before entering the ruined
gateway, and called “Diana!” No answer! Could she have gone elsewhere?
He sprang within the inclosure.
Diana was there. She sat leaning against an angle of the crumbling
wall. As he entered, she turned towards him a ghastly and agonised
face. She did not stir. She was pressing her handkerchief to her arm.
He was at her side in an instant.
“Blood! blood again!” he said, with a dreadful shudder. “It shall not
part us now--Diana, my love! my love!”
He took her very tenderly in his arms. Blood was flowing freely from a
wound in her arm. He tore off his cravat and checked the flow and was
binding the place with his handkerchief. The agonised look on her face
changed to a smile of gentleness.
“Harry,” she said, “this is nothing--a scratch--I fainted and fell.
That was the old wound. I am dying with the old wound. Dying to-day,
when I was happy again--to-day, when I know you love me still.”
“Love you--oh, Diana! I have been waiting through all this long despair
for this one moment. I knew the terror must pass away that separated
us, and now a new terror comes--the old wound--dying--no! no! Oh, my
God!”
He drew back and looked at her. There was no dreary ghastliness in her
pallor. He took her in his arms again for one long, lover kiss--one
long kiss of life to life and soul to soul. In that kiss all their old
hopes were fulfilled; all their old confidence came back again; all
doubt and hesitation were gone forever. Fate, that was so cruel to
them, forgave them again. The old terror between them had slowly sunk
away, like a vanishing, ghostly dream,--vanishing as light of heaven
grows strong and clear over the soul. The blood that they knew of on
each other’s hands was washed and worn away, flowing no longer between,
a dark line, narrow but deep as the river of death.
They had riven their last embrace long ago, because a death, bloody and
terrible, beheld them with dead, chilling eyes. Even that last embrace,
with all its passionate despair, seemed a sacrilege, a repeated
parricide. What if the murder was no murder? Then there was the dead.
There, studying them with staring eyes, staring beyond them into an
eternity of vengeance. Was that a place for love’s endearments? For
tenderness dear and delicate? No! no! depart! Fly, lover! Seek thy
saddest exile! Crush thy dear, dear longings! Forget! ah, yes, forget!
That guiltless crime they knew of severed them. Go! Let this impossible
love be crushed or forgotten.
Crushed! Forgotten! These despot words are uttered easily; but all
the while they know their futileness. Stronger grows mightiness until
it has prevailed. And love is the strongest strength. This is the
permanent and uncontrollable victor, stronger than death.
But slowly for these lovers the sense of their guiltlessness overcame
the awe of crime. Heaven pardons ah! things more guilty far, than
their unhappy and bewildered innocence. They saw pardon rising over
them, pale but hopeful as the twilight of dawn. And when this pardon
overspread their hearts, like the throbbing violet of daybreak, and the
pardoned lovers met, how could they know that parting had not done its
common work? All common loves are slain by separation. So these two
lovers stood apart; each ignorant whether Heaven had been generous to
the other of its gift of pardon, and each unwilling, as proud souls may
be, to hold the other to old pledges and perhaps detested bonds. Apart,
but approaching surely; until the pleasant, meaning playfulness of
picnic talk, and the fateful apparition of the flirt, and the chance
confession of an old, half-forgotten folly, had revealed to them,
clear as their hopes had been, the certainty of their love, unchanged,
unchangeable, eternal, infinite.
He had taken Diana in his arms again. Her hurt was surely not grave, a
cut upon her arm as she fainted and fell. But again another spasm of
paling agony passed over her face.
“The old wound,” she said despairingly. “I am fainting again. Take me
to Clara.”
He lifted her--she, so dying as it seemed--he so strong in his heart’s
agonies of death.
He did not note it then, but he remembered long afterward, that as he
passed from the fort, the moon was rising pale and solemn, through the
dull, leaden blush, reflected from sunset upon the misty east.
The gay picnic party had hardly observed Dunstan’s brief absence. Clara
was watching the fort, and as Dunstan issued with his burden, she ran
wildly down the slope. She met them at the foot of the escarpment.
Dunstan had found himself staggering at the last few steps and was
resting, kneeling by Diana. Clara knelt by his side.
“Dear sister,” said Diana, unclosing her eyes, and seeming to revive at
her presence. She made a feeble movement with her wounded arm. “It is
nothing, dear Clara. But I am suffering from the old pain. Forgive me
that I concealed something. I could not tell you all. Now I can, for I
have found my old unchanged love. We will rest here a moment. I grow
stronger. Perhaps I can walk to the boats. Harry, tell her all our sad
story. Dear Clara!”
Dunstan, in a few quick full words, gave Clara the history of their
love and their parting. Clara listened, divining much with eager
interpretation.
“Dear Diana! Who could have been strong to bear this?” said she. “Why
could you not let me comfort you?”
“I thought,” said Diana, “that there was to be comfort for me
nevermore, until Miss Sullivan was my angel of pardon. Oh, how wise and
good she is! My mother--our mother, dear sister.”
The unwilling, almost unconscious coldness that had withdrawn Clara
from her friend, had utterly passed away. It shamed her now like a
crime, that uncontrollable passion had made her an unacknowledged,
unperceived rival. But the harm was done, and she must know it
bitterly in her heart and endure silently. She kissed Diana tenderly,
desolately, and gave her hand to Dunstan. They felt the tenderness:
they could not see the desolation.
Paulding, who had been at the boats, bestowing paraphernalia, now
appeared, and learning from the party that something was wrong, he came
swinging down the slope with giant strides.
“I can walk now,” said Diana. “To-day speak to Mr. Paulding and the
others only of my fall and the cut; that explains itself. The rest
by-and-by,” and she smiled hopefully with that beautiful smile, sadder
than tears to those who behold it and know the hopelessness of its
deceiving consolation.
Paulding came up, followed by Sir Comeguys. Both showed great concern
at the accident. Diana thanked them and said that she hoped it was only
trifling, though a shock at first. She then walked slowly to the boats,
clinging to Dunstan’s arm.
Everyone was in such consternation at Diana’s accident that she made
efforts to recover her usual spirits and partly succeeded. Good Mrs.
Wilkes must not be mortified by a calamity at her picnic. All the men
who did not venture to be in love with Diana, or who loved elsewhere,
liked her, and the ladies were not jealous of so unconscious a belle.
She had breadths of sympathy. Miss Milly Center, Queen of the Birthday
Festival, came and took Diana’s hand softly and was very sorry. And
when Diana thanked her gently, poor Milly, on her gay birthday, burst
into tears.
In Miss Milly’s walk with Mr. Dulger, she had been very exasperating.
There was no object she carried that she did not drop, and few that
she did not break or tear. Poor Billy was put terribly in fault by
her conduct. He could not endure it another day, and when Milly
finally crashed her parasol into a bag of silk filled with comminuted
whale-bone, and said, “You must have it mended to-morrow before
eleven, Mr. Dulger, and bring it to me,” he resolved to make the
morrow’s morn the crisis. It should end for better or for worse,
for richer or for poorer, his dumb thraldom. He would kick away the
platform and be a dangler no more, even if he broke his neck. Courage,
Billy Dulger!
Mr. Belden was especially distressed at the accident. In fact, he
seemed, in speaking to Clara, to assume a right to more than friendly
sympathy. Clara observed, now for the first time, that singular
resemblance between him and Dunstan. She saw why Diana had allowed an
intimacy.
Clara, studying Belden’s face, quickly and keenly, discovered that
the resemblance was not a pleasant one. All her old distrust of him
returned.
“Please do not speak of it to-day, Mr. Belden,” she thought proper to
say to him, “but you will be glad to know that Diana and your friend,
Mr. Dunstan, are engaged. It is an old affair revived. It began in
Texas a long time ago.”
Belden, with his usual self-possession, said what was friendly and
commonplace on such occasions. Clara was almost deceived. She could not
hear the monosyllable he sent out with a blast, as he turned toward
Mrs. De Flournoy.
Admiral Mrs. Wilkes re-embarked her party for the moonlight sail.
Except Diana’s accident, which that lady made light of to the happy
chaperon, everything had gone on and off most prosperously. It
was whispered that Titania had accepted Mr. Nicholas Bottom, the
millionaire; and poor Cinderella, whom the hostess feared might be
neglected, had been walking all day and picking buttercups with Mr.
Oberon, the genius.
So with the faint breeze of a silent night of summer, they drifted
across the bay, away along the path of moonlight. Song and gay hail and
answer passed from boat to boat of the flotilla. Delicious night! Happy
world! Fortunate Miss Milly Center, with such a joyous birthday! Kind
Mrs. Wilkes! Universal success! Huzza!
At the Millard, Mr. Waddy and Peter Skerrett found Mr. Budlong just
arrived. He came up to them with his now anxious manner.
“That beggar of a Frenchman has come home pretty well bunged up,” he
said. “He has sent word that he wants to see me. I wish you would go,
Peter, my boy, and talk to him. I can’t guess what it means. If he
wants to borrow money, lend him.”
Mrs. Budlong came in with Belden. She gave her husband a couple of
fingers of welcome. Millard’s band was playing and she, with several
other untiring females, organised a hop.
Peter Skerrett went off to see De Châteaunéant. It was late when he
came down. He found Mr. Waddy waiting on the piazza, his cigar oddly
lurid in the mosquitoless moonlight.
“He makes conditions,” said Peter, “the infernal shabby wretch! He says
if they don’t give him Miss Arabella, he’ll expose Mrs. Budlong. He
pretends to have proofs; and I’m sorry to say that I fear he has them.
I could have beaten him to death, the contemptible cuss! if he hadn’t
been lying there in bed, sick and swelled like a pumpkin. He can’t show
to-morrow and we shall have all day to work.”
“He’ll sell out, won’t he, Peter?” asked Mr. Waddy. “I haven’t
contributed to foreign missions yet, and here’s an opportunity. We’ll
try and arrange it to-morrow.”
Dunstan called late at Mr. Waddie’s. Clara saw him.
“Diana is doing well,” she said. “We will have good hope,” and in her
fair beauty by the moonlight she seemed to him an angel of hope. He
could not see her tears as she turned away and fled from him, and from
herself, to Diana’s bedside.
All night he walked and wandered on the cliffs, watching the light in
Diana’s window. Sometimes he thought he saw another figure wandering
like himself; but always when he approached, he found some uncertain
deceptive object, shrub or rock. He was alone in the moonlight, with
his memories, his hopes, his despairs. Alone in the wide world with his
love. Dying? No! He would not interpret thus the melancholy fall of
waves.
Mr. Belden was rather late that night. He had been walking somewhere
with Mrs. Budlong--very late somewhere with Mrs. Budlong; he sat in his
room reflecting.
“Hell!” said he again. “I’ve lost the Diana chance, whether she meant
to cheat me or not. Well, I’m sure of my bet on the race; and if the
worst comes to the worst, I’m glad to know that Betty Bud has some
money of her own. I’m sure of her. That job is done.”
I am afraid Belden was becoming a very vulgar ruffian. He had very
soon, in coarser amours, drowned his first disappointment for the loss
of Diana.