LE'S MYSTERIOUS MOVEMENTS
Le remained at Mondreer, only riding over to Greenbushes every day to
superintend the repairs and refurnishing of his house.
He never met Odalite except at meal times, and then their chairs were so
placed that neither need look in the face of the other. Odalite's seat was
near the head of the table. Le's near the foot, on the same side. They
merely greeted each other on entering the dining room, and that was all.
Mr. and Mrs. Force treated their young relative with the most delicate
consideration.
Col. Anglesea treated his defeated rival with offensive condescension.
Le tried to ignore the colonel's existence, and found his greatest comfort
in the company of his little cousins. Their warm, sincere love and
sympathy was as balm to his bruised heart.
The children had successfully passed their home examination by the father,
and their holidays had already commenced, though it was a full week before
Christmas. And thus they were able to give their sailor cousin a great
deal of their society.
The mother and father did not interfere. They were glad enough of any
comfort or solace they could afford Le, to occupy or amuse his mind, and
keep his fingers and his scalping knife off Anglesea's hair.
The children used often to walk over with Le to Greenbushes in the
morning, spend the whole day there with their cousin, and return with him
in the evening.
But, in consideration for him, they never alluded to the approaching
wedding. They only kept their eyes and ears open, like the sharp little
foxes that they were.
One day, however, when all three were walking through the wintry woods on
their way to Greenbushes, Le himself, for the first time, alluded to the
subject.
"How do you like your intended brother-in-law?" he inquired.
"What! that British beer barrel? I mean that English gentleman? I hate
him! I detest him! I loathe him! I abhor him! And if there is any stronger
word in the English or any other language, I _that_ him!" exclaimed
Wynnette, clenching her fist and grinding her teeth.
"I say my prayers three times a day not to hate him; but, oh, dear!"
sighed little Elva.
"And I'll tell you what it is, Le. She hates him worse than I do," added
Wynnette.
"My child! 'She?' Who?" exclaimed Le, starting, and coming to a dead
halt.
"Why, Odalite."
"Wynnette, do you know what you are saying, dear?" demanded Le, in great
agitation.
They had now reached Chincapin Creek bridge, and all had come to a stop.
"Do you know what you are saying, Wynnette?" anxiously repeated Le.
"Yes, indeed I do. And I know it is true. Odalite hates and scorns and
loathes Col. Anglesea!" said the child, speaking in her intense way, with
doubled fist, set teeth and gleaming eyes.
"Did she tell you so?"
"Why should she tell me? No; she never did. But all the same I would
pledge my immortal soul upon it that she does."
"Why do you think so, then?"
"Why? Now, Le, where are your eyes and your common sense? I tell you
disgust and abhorrence take possession of Odalite the minute he approaches
her, and stick out all over her like the spikes on a hedgehog. Bah! bah!
Tchut! Tchis!" hissed the intense little creature.
"My Lord, if I thought so!"
"You had better think so. I tell you I believe if she is made to marry
that beat--I mean that person--something awful will happen."
"'Made' to marry, my dear Wynnette! Why, she wants to do so."
"She don't! she don't! she don't!"
"But she told me so herself."
"I don't care what she told you. She don't."
"My dear, please to remember that Odalite never tells what is not true.
And she told me that she wanted to marry Anglesea."
"Yes, I know. She told me so, too, not ten minutes before you came home.
But how can I believe she does when I see that it is breaking her poor
heart, and crazing her brain, and killing her? Tell me that."
"Oh, child! I can tell you nothing!" groaned Le. "I am even more mystified
than you are! That this girl, who is truth itself, should insist that she
wants to marry a man whose very presence fills her with loathing, is a
mystery I cannot fathom!"
The children were by this time seated on a log at the end of the
bridge--the same log on which, two weeks before, Odalite had been seated
when she was surprised by Col. Anglesea.
Le stood near them, leaning with his back against the railings and his
head bowed in deep thought.
Suddenly he started, and threw his hand to his head.
"What's the matter, Le?" inquired little Elva, while Wynnette stared.
"A remembered dream, or vision, that came to me three times on my homeward
voyage," replied the young man, gravely.
"Oh, tell us!" exclaimed both the children in duet, with all their
childish interest in the marvelous excited to the highest pitch.
"It is a vision of midnight on midocean--the blackness of darkness above,
below, around, beneath. Suddenly into this opaque darkness glows a spark
of red light. It increases, spreads, and shoots upward, revealing--a ship
on fire! Showing the deck crowded with dark figures! Only one fearfully
distinct form--the form of Odalite. She stands on the top of the bulwarks,
clothed in white raiment, with her arms raised on high, her face turned
upward, her hair streaming!--flames around and above her, the ocean
beneath. I heard her call to me, speak to me:
"'Le, I do not want to leave you, but see! I must take the water to escape
the fire!'
"And suddenly, as if the burning ship were swallowed up in the midnight
sea, the vision vanished. Three times I had this vision, children. And it
troubled me, but in the excitement of my home-coming I forgot it until
now. Now I remember it, and receive it as a warning."
"I can read it! I can read it!" said Wynnette, with her weird, eldritch
look and tone. "I can read it, and it is just what I believed before I
heard of it! Odalite is driven somehow, by some one or something, not only
to marry, but want to marry, Anglesea to save herself from some evil! Oh!
I feel it even in my bones! And if she is driven quite into the marriage,
I tell you there will be some awful tragedy like that of the Bride of
Lammermoor! Anglesea will be found in the morning with his wizen slit--I
mean with his throat cut--and Odalite will be sitting in the ashes
gibbering and mopping and mowing like an idiot!"
"Oh! oh! oh!" cried little Elva, covering her face with her hands and
shivering through all her small frame.
"See, you have frightened the child, Wynnette! You should not say such
wild, extravagant things, my dear!" said Le, rebukingly.
"I said it to fetch you! I mean I said it to make an impression on you!"
retorted Wynnette.
"Oh, Le! can't you be Young Lochinvar and carry her off from the wedding?"
pleaded little Elva.
"Hardly, my darling!
"'The fair Ellen of Young Lochinvar'
was willing to be carried off, and Odalite is not, which makes all the
difference, you know!"
"Oh, but she would be glad afterward!" persisted Elva.
"Oh, hush, Elf! He won't try it! The age of chivalry is past!" indignantly
replied Wynnette.
"We will walk on," said Le.
And they resumed their tramp toward Greenbushes, where they arrived in
about another hour, and where they spent the day, returning home in the
evening.
"Oh, Le! Sweet, dear, darling Le! won't you please carry off Odalite, just
like Young Lochinvar did fair Ellen? Oh, please, Le! It would be so easy!
You could have George saddled and brought round to the front door. George
is the fastest and the strongest horse in the stables, and you could
snatch her up and run out with her and be in the saddle and away before
folks could get over their surprise. And she would be glad afterward! I
know she would! Weren't the Sabine women glad afterward that the Roman
youth had carried them away?" argued Elva, fresh from her school history.
"And, Le, you could do it very easily!"
"Yes, I could, very easily," grimly assented the youth.
"And you will, won't you?"
"No, my precious! It would not do! Not in these days, darling! With all
the examples of romance, poetry and history to inspire me, I must not do
it! If I were to attempt such a feat, I would be a felon, not a hero, my
pet."
"Then I wish you were a felon!" was the astounding conclusion of Elva, as
she passed him by and entered the house.
From this day Le watched Odalite more closely, and he discovered that, on
all occasions when she was in company with Anglesea, she treated him with
open contempt, except when her father was present; then indeed she seemed
to put constraint upon herself and to treat her betrothed with decent
respect. Was this done to avert any suspicions of the real state of her
feelings from her father's mind?
From this day, also, Le was often absent on errands that took him from the
neighborhood and sometimes kept him over night. And when interrogated by
his uncle, or any member of the family, as to the business that called him
away, he would give evasive answers.
But all noticed that Le's spirits were much improved, so that he was more
like the ruddy, jubilant Le that he had been in the past, than at any
other time since his return home. He walked with a light step, spoke in a
brisk tone, sang snatches of sea songs and winked knowingly at the
wondering children.
Meantime the wedding came on apace.