The beat-laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft agley.
Burns.
After a few days Charlton verified what Constance had said about his not
being very _fast_ at Fort Hamilton, by coming again to see them one
morning. Fleda asked him if he could not get another furlough to go with
her home, but he declared he was just spending one which was near out; and
he could not hope for a third in some time; he must be back at his post by
the day after to-morrow.
"When do you want to go, coz?"
"I would to-morrow, if I had anybody to go with me," said Fleda sighing.
"No you wouldn't," said Constance,--"you are well enough to go out now,
and you forget we are all to make Mrs. Thorn happy to-morrow night."
"I am not," said Fleda.
"Not? you can't help yourself; you must; you said you would."
"I did not indeed."
"Well then I said it for you, and that will do just as well. Why my dear,
if you don't--just think!--the Thorns will be in a state--I should prefer
to go through a hedge of any description rather than meet the trying
demonstrations which will encounter me on every side."
"I am going to Mrs. Decatur's," said Fleda;--"she invited me first, and I
owe it to her, she has asked me so often and so kindly."
"I shouldn't think you'd enjoy yourself there," said Florence; "they don't
talk a bit of English these nights. If I was going, my dear, I would act
as your interpreter, but my destiny lies in another direction."
"If I cannot make anybody understand my French I will get somebody to
condescend to my English," said Fleda.
"Why do you talk French?" was the instant question from both mouths.
"Unless she has forgotten herself strangely," said Charlton. "Talk! she
will talk to anybody's satisfaction--that happens to differ from her; and
I think her tongue cares very little which language it wags in. There is
no danger about Fleda's enjoying herself, where people are talking."
Fleda laughed at him, and the Evelyns rather stared at them both.
"But we are all going to Mrs. Thorn's? you can't go alone?"
"I will make Charlton take me," said Fleda,--"or rather I will take him,
if he will let me. Will you, Charlton? will you take care of me to Mrs.
Decatur's to-morrow night?"
"With the greatest pleasure, my dear coz, but I have another engagement in
the course of the evening."
"Oh that is nothing," said Fleda;--"if you will only go with me, that
is all I care for. You needn't stay but ten minutes. And you can call
for me," she added, turning to the Evelyns,--"as you come back from
Mrs. Thorn's."
To this no objection could be made, and the ensuing raillery Fleda bore
with steadiness at least if not with coolness; for Charlton heard it, and
she was distressed.
She went to Mrs. Decatur's the next evening in greater elation of spirits
than she had known since she left her uncle's; delighted to be missing
from the party at Mrs. Thorn's, and hoping that Mr. Lewis would be
satisfied with this very plain hint of her mind. A little pleased too to
feel quite free, alone from too friendly eyes, and ears that had too
lively a concern in her sayings and doings. She did not in the least care
about going to Mrs. Decatur's; her joy was that she was not at the other
place. But there never was elation so outwardly quiet. Nobody would have
suspected its existence.
The evening was near half over when Mr. Carleton came in. Fleda had half
hoped he would be there, and now immediately hoped she might have a
chance to see him alone and to thank him for his flowers; she had not
been able to do that yet. He presently came up to speak to her just as
Charlton, who had found attraction enough to keep him so long, came to
tell he was going.
"You are looking better," said the former, as gravely as ever, but with an
eye of serious interest that made the word something.
"I am better," said Fleda gratefully.
"So much better that she is in a hurry to make herself worse," said her
cousin. "Mr. Carleton, you are a professor of medicine, I believe,--I have
an indistinct impression of your having once prescribed a ride on
horseback for somebody;--wouldn't you recommend some measure of prudence
to her consideration?"
"In general," Mr. Carleton answered gravely; "but in the present case I
could not venture upon any special prescription, Capt. Rossitur."
"As for instance, that she should remain in New York till she is fit to
leave it?--By the way, what brought you here again in such a hurry, Fleda?
I haven't heard that yet."
The question was rather sudden. Fleda was a little taken by surprise; her
face shewed some pain and confusion both. Mr. Carleton prevented her
answer, she could not tell whether with design.
"What imprudence do you charge your cousin with, Capt. Rossitur?"
"Why she is in a great hurry to get back to Queechy, before she is able
to go anywhere--begging me to find an escort for her. It is lucky I
can't. I didn't know I ever should be glad to be 'posted up' in this
fashion, but I am."
"You have not sought very far, Capt. Rossitur," said the voice of Thorn
behind him. "Here is one that will be very happy to attend Miss Fleda,
whenever she pleases."
Fleda's shocked start and change of countenance was seen by more eyes
than one pair. Thorn's fell, and a shade crossed his countenance too, for
an instant, that Fleda's vision was too dazzled to see. Mr. Carleton
moved away.
"Why are _you_ going to Queechy?" said Charlton astonished.
His friend was silent a moment, perhaps for want of power to speak. Fleda
dared not look at him.
"It is not impossible,--unless this lady forbid me. I am not a fixture."
"But what brought you here, man, to offer your services?" said
Charlton;--"most ungallantly leaving so many pairs of bright eyes to shine
upon your absence."
"Mr. Thorn will not find himself in darkness here, Capt. Rossitur," said
Mrs. Decatur.
"It's my opinion he ought, ma'am," said Charlton.
"It is my opinion every man ought, who makes his dependance on gleams of
sunshine," said Mr. Thorn rather cynically. "I cannot say I was thinking
of brightness before or behind me."
"I should think not," said Charlton;--"you don't look as if you had seen
any in a good while."
"A light goes out every now and then," said Thorn, "and it takes one's
eyes some time to get accustomed to it. What a singular world we live in,
Mrs. Decatur!"
"That is so new an idea," said the lady laughing, "that I must request an
explanation."
"What new experience of its singularity has your wisdom made?" sid his
friend. "I thought you and the world knew each other's faces pretty
well before."
"Then you have not heard the news?"
"What news?"
"Hum--I suppose it is not about yet," said Thorn composedly. "No--you
haven't heard it."
"But what, man?" said Charlton,--"let's hear your news, for I must be
off."
"Why--but it is no more than rumour yet--but it is said that strange
things are coming to light about a name that used to be held in very
high respect."
"In this city?"
"In this city?--yes--it is said proceedings are afoot against one of our
oldest citizens, on charge of a very grave offence."
"Who?--and what offence? what do you mean?"
"Is it a secret, Mr. Thorn?" said Mrs. Decatur.
"If you have not heard, perhaps it is as well not to mention names too
soon;--if it comes out it will be all over directly; possibly the family
may hush it up, and in that case the less said the better; but those have
it in hand that will not let it slip through their fingers."
Mrs. Decatur turned away, saying "how shocking such things were;" and
Thorn, with a smile which did not however light up his face, said,
"You may be off, Charlton, with no concern for the bright eyes you leave
behind you--I will endeavour to atone for my negligence elsewhere, by my
mindfulness of them."
"Don't excuse you," said Charlton;--but his eye catching at the moment
another attraction opposite in the form of man or woman, instead of
quitting the room he leisurely crossed it to speak to the new-comer; and
Thorn with an entire change of look and manner pressed forward and offered
his arm to Fleda, who was looking perfectly white. If his words had needed
any commentary it was given by his eye as it met hers in speaking the last
sentence to Mrs. Decatur. No one was near whom she knew and Mr. Thorn led
her out to a little back room where the gentlemen had thrown off their
cloaks, where the air was fresher, and placing her on a seat stood waiting
before her till she could speak to him.
"What do you mean, Mr. Thorn?" Fleda looked as much as said, when she
could meet his face.
"I may rather ask you what _you_ mean, Miss Fleda," he answered gravely.
Fleda drew breath painfully.
"I mean nothing," she said lowering her head again,--"I have done
nothing--"
"Did you think I meant nothing when I agreed to do all you wished?"
"I thought you said you would do it freely," she said, with a tone of
voice that might have touched anybody, there was such a sinking of
heart in it.
"Didn't you understand me?"
"And is it all over now?" said Fleda after a pause.
"Not yet--but it soon may be. A weak hand may stop it now,--it will soon
be beyond the power of the strongest."
"And what becomes of your promise that it should no more be heard of?"
said Fleda, looking up at him with a colourless face but eyes that put the
question forcibly nevertheless.
"Is any promise bound to stand without its conditions?"
"I made no conditions," said Fleda quickly.
"Forgive me,--but did you not permit me to understand them?"
"No!--or if I did I could not help it."
"Did you say that you wished to help it?" said he gently.
"I must say so now, then, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda withdrawing the hand he
had taken;--"I did not mean or wish you to think so, but I was too ill to
speak--almost to know what I did--It was not my fault--"
"You do not make it mine, that I chose such a time, selfishly, I grant, to
draw from your lips the words that are more to me than life?"
"Cannot you be generous?"--_for once_, she was very near saying.
"Where you are concerned, I do not know how."
Fleda was silent a moment, and then bowed her face in her hands.
"May I not ask that question of you?" said he, bending down and
endeavouring to remove them;--"will you not say--or look--that word that
will make others happy beside me?"
"I cannot, sir."
"Not for their sakes?" he said calmly.
"Can you ask me to do for theirs what I would not for my own?"
"Yes--for mine," he said, with a meaning deliberateness.
Fleda was silent, with a face of white determination.
"It will be beyond _eluding_, as beyond recall, the second time. I may
seem selfish--I am selfish--but dear Miss Ringgan you do not see all,--you
who make me so can make me anything else with a touch of your hand--it is
selfishness that would be bound to your happiness, if you did but entrust
it to me."
Fleda neither spoke nor looked at him and rose up from her chair.
"Is this _your_ generosity?" he said, pointedly though gently.
"That is not the question now, sir," said Fleda, who was trembling
painfully. "I cannot do evil that good may come."
"But _evil_?" said he detaining her,--"what evil do I ask of you?--to
_remove_ evil, I do."
Fleda clasped her hands, but answered calmly,
"I cannot make any pretences, sir;--I cannot promise to give what is not
in my power."
"In whose power then?" said he quickly.
A feeling of indignation came to Fleda's aid, and she turned away. But he
stopped her still.
"Do you think I do not understand?" he said with a covert sneer that had
the keenness and hardness, and the brightness, of steel.
"_I_ do not, sir," said Fleda.
"Do you think I do not know whom you came here to meet?"
Fleda's glance of reproach was a most innocent one, but it did not
check him.
"Has that fellow renewed his old admiration of you?" he went on in the
same tone.
"Do not make me desire his old protection," said Fleda, her gentle face
roused to a flush of displeasure.
"Protection!" said Charlton coming in,--"who wants protection? here it
is--protection from what? my old friend Lewis? what the deuce does this
lady want of protection, Mr. Thorn?"
It was plain enough that Fleda wanted it, from the way she was drooping
upon his arm.
"You may ask the lady herself," said Thorn, in the same tone he had before
used,--"I have not the honour to be her spokesman."
"She don't need one," said Charlton,--"I addressed myself to you--speak
for yourself, man."
"I am not sure that it would be her pleasure I should," said Thorn.
"Shall I tell this gentleman, Miss Ringgan, who needs protection, and
from what?--"
Fleda raised her head, and putting her hand on his arm looked a
concentration of entreaty--lips were sealed.
"Will you give me," said he gently taking the hand in his own, "your
sign manual for Capt. Rossitur's security? It is not too late.--Ask it
of her, sir!"
"What does this mean?" said Charlton looking from his cousin to his
friend.
"You shall have the pleasure of knowing, sir, just so soon as I find it
convenient."
"I will have a few words with you on this subject, my fine fellow," said
Capt. Rossitur, as the other was preparing to leave the room.
"You had better speak to somebody else," said Thorn. "But I am ready."
Charlton muttered an imprecation upon his absurdity, and turned his
attention to Fleda, who needed it. And yet desired anything else. For a
moment she had an excuse for not answering his questions in her inability;
and then opportunely Mrs. Decatur came in to look after her; and she was
followed by her daughter. Fleda roused all her powers to conceal and
command her feelings; rallied herself; said she had been a little weak and
faint; drank water, and declared herself able to go back into the
drawing-room. To go home would have been her utmost desire, but at the
instant her energies were all bent to the one point of putting back
thought and keeping off suspicion. And in the first hurry and bewilderment
of distress the dread of finding herself alone with Charlton till she had
had time to collect her thoughts would of itself have been enough to
prevent her accepting the proposal.
She entered the drawing-room again on Mrs. Decatur's arm, and had stood a
few minutes talking or listening, with that same concentration of all her
faculties upon the effort to bear up outwardly, when Charlton came up to
ask if he should leave her. Fleda made no objection, and he was out of her
sight, far enough to be beyond reach or recall, when it suddenly struck
her that she ought not to have let him go without speaking to
him,--without entreating him to see her in the morning before he saw
Thorn. The sickness of this new apprehension was too much for poor Fleda's
power of keeping up. She quietly drew her arm from Mrs. Decatur's, saying
that she would sit down; and sought out a place for herself apart from the
rest by an engraving stand; where for a little while, not to seem
unoccupied, she turned over print after print that she did not see. Even
that effort failed at last; and she sat gazing at one of Sir Thomas
Lawrence's bright-faced children, and feeling as if in herself the tides
of life were setting back upon their fountain preparatory to being still
forever. She became sensible that some one was standing beside the
engravings, and looked up at Mr. Carleton.
"Are you ill?" he said, very gently and tenderly.
The answer was a quick motion of Fleda's hand to her head, speaking sudden
pain, and perhaps sudden difficulty of self-command. She did not speak.
"Will you have anything?"
A whispered "no."
"Would you like to return to Mrs. Evelyn's?--I have a carriage here."
With a look of relief that seemed to welcome him as her good angel, Pleda
instantly rose up, and took the arm he offered her. She would have
hastened from the room then, but he gently checked her pace; and Fleda was
immediately grateful for the quiet and perfect shielding from observation
that his manner secured her. He went with her up the stairs, and to the
very door of the dressing-room. There Fleda hurried on her shoes and
mufflers in trembling fear that some one might come and find her, gained
Mr. Carleton's arm again, and was placed in the carriage.
The drive was in perfect silence, and Fleda's agony deepened and
strengthened with every minute. She had freedom to think, and thought did
but carry a torch into chamber after chamber of misery. There seemed
nothing to be done. She could not get hold of Charlton; and if she
could?--Nothing could be less amenable than his passions to her gentle
restraints. Mr. Thorn was still less approachable or manageable, except in
one way, that she did not even think of. His insinuations about Mr.
Carleton did not leave even a tinge of embarrassment upon her mind; they
were cast from her as insulting absurdities, which she could not think of
a second time without shame.
The carriage rolled on with them a long time without a word being said.
Mr. Carleton knew that she was not weeping nor faint. But as the light of
the lamps was now and then cast within the carriage he saw that her face
looked ghastly; and he saw too that its expression was not of a quiet
sinking under sorrow, nor of an endeavour to bear up against it, but a
wild searching gaze into the darkness of _possibilities_. They had near
reached Mrs. Evelyn's.
"I cannot see you so," he said, gently touching the hand which lay
listlessly beside him. "You are ill!"
Again the same motion of the other hand to her face, the quick token of
great pain suddenly stirred.
"For the sake of old times, let me ask," said he, "can nothing be done?"
Those very gentle and delicate tones of sympathy and kindness Were too
much to bear. The hand was snatched away to be pressed to her face. Oh
that those old times were back again, and she a child that could ask his
protection!--No one to give it now.
He was silent a moment. Fleda's head bowed beneath the mental pressure.
"Has Dr. Gregory returned?"
The negative answer was followed by a half-uttered exclamation of
longing,--checked midway, but sufficiently expressive of her want.
"Do you trust me?" he said after another second of pausing.
"Perfectly!" said Fleda amidst her tears, too much excited to know what
she was saying, and in her simplicity half forgetting that she was not a
child still;--"more than any one in the world!"
The few words he had spoken, and the manner of them, had curiously borne
her back years in a minute; she seemed to be under his care more than for
the drive home. He did not speak again for a minute; when he did his tone
was very quiet and lower than before.
"Give me what a friend _can_ have in charge to do for you, and it
shall be done."
Fleda raised her head and looked out of the window in a silence of doubt.
The carriage stopped at Mrs. Evelyn's.
"Not now," said Mr. Carleton, as the servant was about to open the
door;--"drive round the square--till I speak to you."
Fleda was motionless and almost breathless with uncertainty. If Charlton
could be hindered from meeting Mr. Thorn--But how, could Mr. Carleton
effect it?--But there was that in him or in his manner which invariably
created confidence in his ability, or fear of it, even in strangers; and
how much more in her who had a childish but very clear recollection of
several points in his character which confirmed the feeling. And might not
something be done, through his means, to facilitate her uncle's escape? of
whom she seemed to herself now the betrayer.--But to tell him the story
I--a person of his high nice notions of character--what a distance it
would put even between his friendship and her,--but that thought was
banished instantly, with one glance at Mr. Thorn's imputation of
ungenerousness. To sacrifice herself to _him_ would not have been
generosity,--to lower herself in the esteem of a different character, she
felt, called for it. There was time even then too for one swift thought of
the needlessness and bitter fruits of wrong-doing. But here they
were;--should she make them known?--and trouble Mr. Carleton, friend
though he were, with these miserable matters in which he had no
concern?--She sat with a beating heart and a very troubled brow, but a
brow as easy to read as a child's. It was the trouble of anxious
questioning. Mr. Carleton watched it for a little while,--undecided as
ever, and more pained.
"You said you trusted me," he said quietly, taking her hand again.
"But--I don't know what you could do, Mr. Carleton," Fleda said with a
trembling voice.
"Will you let me be the judge of that?"
"I cannot bear to trouble you with these miserable things--"
"You cannot," said he with that same quiet tone, "but by thinking and
saying so. I can have no greater pleasure than to take pains for you."
Fleda heard these words precisely and with the same simplicity as a child
would have heard them, and answered with a very frank burst of
tears,--soon, as soon as possible, according to her custom, driven back;
though even in the act of quieting herself they broke forth again as
uncontrollably as at first. But Mr. Carleton had not long to wait. She
raised her head again after a short struggle, with the wonted look of
patience sitting upon her brow, and wiping away her tears paused merely
for breath and voice. He was perfectly silent.
"Mr. Carleton, I will tell you," she began;--"I hardly know whether I
ought or ought not,--" and her hand went to her forehead for a
moment,--"but I cannot think to-night--and I have not a friend to
apply to--"
She hesitated; and then went on, with a voice that trembled and
quavered sadly.
"Mr. Thorn has a secret--of my uncle's--in his power--which he
promised--without conditions--to keep faithfully; and now insists that he
will not--but upon conditions--"
"And cannot the conditions be met?"
"No--and--O I may as well tell you at once?" said Fleda in bitter
sorrow,--"it is a crime that he committed--"
"Mr. Thorn?"
"No--oh no!" said Fleda weeping bitterly,--"not he--"
Her agitation was excessive for a moment; then she threw it off, and spoke
more collectedly, though with exceeding depression of manner.
"It was long ago--when he was in trouble--he put Mr. Thorn's name to a
note, and never was able to take it up;--and nothing was ever heard about
it till lately; and last week he was going to leave the country, and Mr.
Thorn promised that the proceedings should be entirely given up; and that
was why I came to town, to find uncle Rolf and bring him home; and I did,
and he is gone; and now Mr. Thorn says it is all going on again and that
he will not escape this time;--and I have done it!--"
Fleda writhed again in distress.
"Thorn promised without conditions?"
"Certainly--he promised freely--and now he insists upon them; and you
see uncle Rolf would have been safe out of the country now, if it hadn't
been for me--"
"I think I can undo this snarl," said Mr. Carleton calmly.
"But that is not all," said Fleda, a little quieted;--"Charlton came in
this evening when we were talking, and he was surprised to find me so, and
Mr. Thorn was in a very ill humour, and some words passed between them;
and Charlton threatened to see him again; and Oh if he does!" said poor
Fleda,--"that will finish our difficulties!--for Charlton is very hot, and
I know how it will end--how it must end--"
"Where is your cousin to be found?"
"I don't know where he lodges when he is in town."
"You did not leave him at Mrs. Decatur's. Do you know where he is
this evening?"
"Yes!" said Fleda, wondering that she should have heard and
remembered,--"he said he was going to meet a party of his brother
officers at Mme. Fouché's--a sister-in-law of his Colonel, I believe."
"I know her. This note--was it the name of the young Mr. Thorn, or of his
father that was used?"
"Of his father!--"
"Has _he_ appeared at all in this business?"
"No," said Fleda, feeling for the first time that there was something
notable about it.
"What sort of person do you take him to be?"
"Very kind--very pleasant, always, he has been to me, and I should think
to everybody,--very unlike the son"
Mr. Carleton had ordered the coachman back to Mrs. Evelyn's.
"Do you know the amount of the note? It may be desirable that I should not
appear uninformed."
"It was for four thousand dollars" Fleda said in the low voice of shame.
"And when given?"
"I don't know exactly--but six years ago--some time in the winter of '43,
it must have been."
He said no more till the carriage stopped; and then before handing her out
of it, lifted her hand to his lips. That carried all the promise Fleda
wanted from him. How oddly, how curiously, her hand kept the feeling of
that kiss upon it all night.