TOLD BY THE WINTRY SEA
The young man said no more, but simply stood before her and waited in
wonder for her words.
"I am not hysterical, Le! I am not hysterical; but I am false--faithless!
Despise and forget me, Le! for I am not worthy of your remembrance. I am
false and faithless!"
"No, no! Odalite, it cannot be true!" cried the young man, in a sharp tone
of anguish.
"Yes, yes! it is true! it is true! it is shameful, but it is true!"
exclaimed the desperate girl.
"Oh, my Lord, my Lord! Can this be possible? You false to me, Odalite!
You--you!" cried the youth, growing deathly pale, while great drops of
cold sweat started from his forehead.
The girl strove to speak, but failed, and nodded with a choking sob.
"Who is the man?" demanded the youth, throwing himself again on the bench,
since indeed he was scarcely able to stand.
"I--I--I--am engaged to Col. Anglesea," gasped and faltered Odalite.
"'Col. Anglesea!' And who, in the foul fiend's name, is Col. Anglesea?
Satan fly away with him!"
"He is--is an--an officer in the--the East India Service."
"How did you come to know him? May the----"
"Oh, don't, don't, Le! He was an old--old friend of my mother, and--we met
him at Niagara."
"I wish to Heaven he was at the foot of the falls!"
"So do I with all my heart!--oh, no, I don't either!--I--I don't know what
I am talking about! My head is wild!" said Odalite, putting her hand to
her forehead.
Le looked at her wistfully.
"An old friend of your mother, eh?"
"Yes."
"Rich? Of high rank?"
"I--I believe so."
"Where is the man?"
"He is here at Mondreer, where he has been staying ever since he came down
with us at my father's invitation from Niagara."
"And you are going to marry him?"
"Oh, yes," replied Odalite, with a heartrending sigh. "It cannot be
helped. It is all settled."
"I see how it is! A friend of your mother, rich, and of high position; and
so they have yielded to the temptation of wealth and rank, and they have
forced or coaxed you into compliance with their wishes in consenting to
this dishonorable marriage! I did not think so of my uncle and aunt. But
this cannot, shall not go on! I shall insist upon my prior rights. Take
heart, my precious. I shall not let them destroy our happiness by parting
us. No, not for all the wealth and rank in the world!"
"Oh, Le! Le! you mistake! you mistake! Nobody forced me! Nobody persuaded
me! I am going to marry Col. Anglesea of my own free will! Indeed I am!
Oh, Le! Le!" wailed the unhappy girl.
The youth stared at her in speechless astonishment and bitter misery.
"Oh! don't look so, Le!--don't look so! I am not worth it, Le! Indeed I am
not!"
"Do I understand you to say that you break your engagement to me, and
marry this foreigner, of your own free, unbiased will?" he asked, at last,
in cold, hard, restrained tones.
"Yes, yes, yes! that is what I am going to do!" replied Odalite, with the
firmness of despair.
"Then you are false to me--to me, your lover, who had never a thought that
was false to you!--to me, your mate of many years!--to me, your almost
husband!" cried the youth, losing all self-command in the sharpness of his
pain, and bursting into a tempest of grief and rage, and launching fierce
reproaches upon her.
She raised her hands in piteous deprecation, and then held them up before
her head as if to shield it from the storm.
But as he flashed the lightnings of scorn and hurled the thunder of
condemnation upon her, she cowered lower and lower, holding by the bench
on which she sat, until at length, utterly overwhelmed, she sank to the
ground, rolled over, and lay with her face downward on the sand at his
feet.
But she uttered no word in self-defense; she only wept and sobbed as if
her heart were bursting.
By this time the frenzy of passion had spent itself, and there came a
reaction that brought him to his senses. He looked down at Odalite in her
misery. He saw in her now, not the faithless sweetheart, but the child of
his boyish love and care.
He stooped and raised her up, and set her on the bench again, laying her
head upon his shoulder, and supporting her form with his arm around her
waist.
She made no resistance, but continued to weep convulsively.
As soon as he was able to command himself he spoke to her in a quiet
tone.
"Odalite, why do you cry so hard? If you are going to marry this man to
please yourself you should be happy, in spite of anything that I should
say about it. Now, why do you grieve so much?"
"Oh! I have been so faithless to you, Le! I have been--so base to you! Oh!
I wish I were dead! I wish I had died before I betrayed your trust in me,
Le!"
These words came in spasmodic gasps and sighs from the white and quivering
lips.
He looked at her searchingly, incisively; he could not understand her.
"Odalite," he said, suddenly, "I am full of doubt. I ask you again, and I
charge you in the name of all that is pure and holy, to answer me truly:
Was it of your own free will that you engaged yourself to Col. Anglesea?"
"Yes, yes! I repeat it: No one forced me, no one persuaded me. My father
and my mother let me do just as I pleased," she sobbed.
"And yet, though you say this, you seem so miserable over it all! I cannot
comprehend it!" muttered Leonidas Force, carrying his hand to his forehead
and trying to reflect on the situation. "But--yes--I think I do now," he
said, suddenly, as a light seemed to break on his mind.
Odalite raised her pale and tearful face from his shoulder and looked at
him.
"I think I understand now, my dear; and it shall all come right yet."
She sorrowfully shook her head.
"Oh, yes; it shall come right. Confess now, Odalite. When your boy lover
had been gone away so long that you had almost forgotten him, this foreign
officer comes along and fascinates you with his splendor, as the
rattlesnake fascinates the humming bird, and you were drawn in. Now,
however, that I have come back, the old-time love has revived, and you are
sorry that you mistook your heart and engaged yourself to this brilliant
stranger. Is it not so? Tell me, Odalite. If it is so--as I feel sure it
must be--then I will put in my prior claim and stop the marriage, send the
interloping foreigner back to his own country, and you and I will marry
and go to housekeeping at Greenbushes, according to our lifelong
engagement. That is, if the old love has revived, as of course it has," he
concluded, looking eagerly in her face.
She did not answer him. She could not.
Was the old, true love revived, indeed?
No! for the sweet, sacred love of childhood had never died, never failed,
but burned now a pure fire that wasted her life.
Was she sorry that she had engaged herself to that man?
So sorry, at least, stern necessity had compelled her to do so, that now
death would have been a welcome release.
But she could not tell Leonidas this.
He waited for her answer for a few moments, and then continued:
"Does that grave silence give consent, my Odalite? You are sorry? While
your sailor sweetheart was so far off and so long away that you had almost
forgotten what he looked like, you let your fancy be taken by this fine
foreigner, with his fine social position and his wealth. But now your
sailor lad has come home again, and you see him, and you know whom it is
you really love, you are sorry for what you were misled into doing. But
don't cry any more. You shall not be compelled to marry that man, since
you do not wish to, even though you did accept him of your own free will!
for you had no right to accept him, you know; you were engaged to me. But
to think that he has kissed you!" exclaimed the youth, with a jealous
pang, as he remembered the usual manner of sealing such an acceptance.
"Oh, no, no, Le! He has never kissed me--never, never kissed me--and he
never shall until I cease to be myself and become his property, a body
without a soul, which cannot help itself," said Odalite, with a woeful,
wintry smile of triumph and defiance breaking through the cold rain of her
tears.
"You--you--you have never let him kiss you--not even when you accepted
him!" exclaimed Le, in pleased surprise.
"No; not then; nor ever! No; nor ever shall, until I become his slave in
marriage!" exclaimed the girl, with a dangerous sparkle in her eyes.
"But that shall never be! Why, Odalite, you speak not only as if you do
not like the man, but as if you really hate him; and that being so, you
shall not marry him! I will put a stop to that at once! I have the first
right to you by a long distance--the only right to you, indeed--and--and
I'll throttle him--confound him!--before he shall have a hair of your
head!"
"Oh, Le, hush! hush! You don't know! You mistake! Le, I must marry him! Do
you understand? I must, I say!" wailed Odalite, wringing her hands.
"And you shall not, I say, because you do not want to. Your promise to him
goes for nothing beside my claims," said the youth, in a tone of gay
defiance.
"But, Le! Le! I--I--I want to marry him! I do indeed!" she cried, again
bursting into tears and weeping violently.
He drew back from her in amazement, staring at her, while she repeated and
reiterated her words, that she really wished to marry Col. Anglesea.
"I cannot comprehend you at all, Odalite. My heart aches for your evident
suffering; but I cannot comprehend it. I almost fear that you are not
quite sane! If you really please yourself in marrying Anglesea--as you
insist that you do--why should you be so miserable over it all?"
"Oh, Le! as I told you before, it is because--because I feel that I am
acting so basely by you!--oh, my dear! the thought almost maddens me!" she
sobbed.
"And is it indeed for me that the gentle heart suffers so much?"
questioned Le, utterly subdued by her sorrow and humility. "Do not cry,
Odalite. I was cruel, and brutal, and most unmanly to blame you so much a
while ago. I am sorry and ashamed of having done so, Odalite. I have no
excuse to offer, unless it is that the suddenness and the bitterness of my
disappointment threw me off my balance. Forgive me, Odalite. And do not
spend another thought or shed another tear over me. Poor, little, tender
Odalite! Do not mind me, little one! I--I--I shall get over this when I
feel sure that you are happy. Do not grieve so! I shall never blame you
any more, dear! I mourn that I ever could have been such a wretch as to
blame you, for you could not help what has happened. I was away at the
antipodes--had been there for years. He was in the house with you for
three months. And--and--I have noticed--even I--what a fascination some of
these handsome, brilliant soldiers exercise over young girls! You were
fascinated, and your affections were won before you knew it. You did not
mean to be drawn away from me any more than the boat means to be sucked
into the whirlpool! You could not avert your fate any more than the boat
could. I do not condemn you, Odalite. And I shall always--always love--no!
I must not love another man's bride, even though he has stolen her from
me; but I will always care for you as for a dear and only sister. There!
there! do not cry any more. It is all for the best! All for the best!" he
concluded, in a broken voice, that all his effort failed to steady.
"Le! oh, Le! I am so miserable--so miserable! Oh, Le!" she cried, looking
wildly up into his eyes and then staring fixedly down upon the sea at
their feet--"oh, Le! I wonder would the merciful Lord forgive me
if--if----" She paused and pointed downward.
Leonidas shuddered, but controlled himself. He now believed the girl to be
laboring under a temporary fit of insanity. He took her hand, raised her
up, and drawing her arm within his own, said, gently:
"Come, dear, let me take you home to your mother."
She silently assented, and he led her up the hill, through the wood to the
lawn gate, and across the lawn to the house.
They had not spoken a word since leaving the shore.
Le took her into the house, and into the sitting room usually occupied by
Mrs. Force.
That lady sat, as was her custom, in her low sewing chair beside her
worktable in the angle of the fireplace and the side window.
She arose as they entered and looked anxiously from one to the other.
Le led his companion up to her and said, in a broken voice:
"She has told me all about it. And yet I do not understand it in the
least. See! she wants attention."
Mrs. Force received the half-fainting girl in her arms, and guided her to
a large, cushioned chair, which Le hastened to push forward.
When Odalite was seated and reclining against the high, cushioned back, Le
lifted her hand, pressed it to his lips, and turned to leave the room.
Mrs. Force followed him into the hall.
"Where are you going, Le?" she inquired.
"I don't know--I don't know! I feel lost! Like Adam turned out of Eden!
And without my Eve--without my Eve!" he groaned.
"Bear it like a man, Le! You are very young, and--there are many lovely
girls in the world in your reach."
"Oh, don't. Aunt Elfrida! don't! Never mind me! Go in to Odalite--she
needs you."
"Le, do not leave the house--at least, till you see your uncle," pleaded
the lady.
"Oh, no, I shall not go away at once. I shall do nothing hastily, to hurt
her. I hurt her enough this morning, the Lord knows!" said the youth, with
a heavy sigh.
Mrs. Force looked up inquiringly.
"Oh, yes," continued Le, "I behaved like a brute! I went out of my head, I
think--when she first told me--and I raged at her! raged at the tender,
defenseless, little creature--like the wild beast that I was!"
"Oh, Le, it was natural, my poor lad!"
"I was a savage! brutal! beastly! devilish!--but I was out of my mind! And
she never defended herself, only cried--cried for me! I wish I had dropped
dead before I spoke a word to hurt her! But the devil took me unawares,
and drove me out of my senses."
"I do not wonder, Le."
"But there, Aunt Elfrida. Go to her! I will walk on the porch for a
while."
Le's appearance on the porch was the signal for such a reception, or,
rather, such an ovation, as could only be seen on a Southern plantation,
and upon some such occasion as the present.
The news of the young midshipman's return--or "the young master's," as
they chose to call him, in view of his relations, present and prospective,
to the family of Mondreer--had spread far and wide among the negroes, and
they came flocking up, men, women and children, to shake hands with him
and welcome him home.
Some of the elder negroes, with "itching palms," belabored him with
begging questions of--
"Wot yer got fur yer ole Aunt Mole, honey?"
"Wot yer done home f'om furrin' parts fur yer ole Uncle Bob?"
And so forth and so forth.
Le promised one and all a present as soon as ever his sea chest should
arrive.
And yet they might have stayed there all day but for the opportune
appearance of Aunt Lucy on the scene.
She had watched from an upper window the gathering of the crowd, and now
she swooped down upon them.
"Shame o' yerselbes!" she said. "Come yere bodderin' the young marse fust
minute as eber he get in de house! Whar's yer manners?"
"Don't scold them, Aunt Lucy," pleaded Le. "They came to welcome me
home."
"Dey come to beg, dat's wot dey come for--to beg. It's a habit dey gibs
deirselves," said the unrelenting Lucy.
"It is a habit they cannot indulge in more than once in three years, where
I am concerned. I do not come home every day."
"An' a werry good fing, too, for it's a werry bad habit."
"What, coming home?"
"No, sah. Dem niggahs is a werry bad habit as oughtn't to be 'dulged in
once--no, not once. Now cl'ar out wid yer all, an' go 'bout yer work."
This order was addressed to the negroes, who, overawed by the authority of
the chief house servant, began to steal away from the house.