Chapter 8
How like chiseled marble she looked, lying there in her absolute helplessness beneath his stranger gaze! How pure the white brow, with its clustering rings of glossy hair! How exquisitely fine the white hand to which the dimples of babyhood yet clung! How classic the contour of her face, into which already the warm hue of health was creeping! A heavy sigh escaped him as he noted each perfection of outline. Who was this lovely stranger? And what could she be to him?
"Why was I ever such a dupe?" he said in his heart. "Fettered--fettered for life!"
But suddenly realizing that except in his professional capacity he had no right thus to intrude upon her slumbers, the young physician turned from the enchanting picture.
"How is she now, sir?" respectfully inquired the housekeeper.
"Fairly well," he replied cheerfully; "I do not think she is hurt, except a few bruises, which we must look after. She was thrown pretty hard against that tree. To-morrow she will be able to give an account of herself. We can do nothing toward finding her friends before that time. Call, if she should become restless," and the young man retired to his own apartment, there to ponder deeply, as he had never before pondered in his life.
Some days later the following letter was posted by Weldon Gardner:
NEW YORK, September 20, 1879.
"My Dear Aunt:--
"Your kind letter reminds me that never, in all these years of boyhood grown ripe, has duty come to me in as repulsive a form as now, I tell you, shocked as you may feel when you read the words, that I would rather put a bullet through my head than meet Evelyn Howard at this time! Why couldn't she stay in England? And what cursed folly induced my parents to thus bind me for life to one I had never seen? True, I submitted. But you know with what an appeal my dying mother besought my compliance, and what could I do? I cared for no one else. How was I to foresee that the tie would ever be so intensely galling?
"I know all that you would say about honor, manhood, and all the category of virtues. I know them all. Nor am I willing to act the scoundrel just yet. But I must have time; I can _not_ marry that girl now. Nor will I consent to meet her yet. Let her think I am out of town, sick, busy, _dead_; anything, till I can screw my courage to the sticking point.
"About the balloon tragedy--yes, you heard correctly of my figuring in the matter. The girl is Miss Lina Dent, of Brooklyn, and I am happy to report that she is entirely recovered, though deeply afflicted at the fearful death of her friends. It seems that they had, in a spirit of fun, gone up in the balloon, feeling confident that their adventure was, to say the least, of somewhat doubtful propriety. They did not think of danger. The cowardly desertion of the æronaut, as soon as he could leap to a roof in safety, precipitated their fall.
"The young victims, Lucien and Maggie Taylor, were too much frightened to hold to their frail support. Their tragic fate has plunged an excellent household into mourning. Bitterly my new acquaintance lamented her folly in consenting to the excursion; but how can a man in his senses add to her condemnation when she looks through such eyes, and speaks with such lips? Not I, I assure you.
"Miss Dent is visiting a relative in Brooklyn, and in my character of physician, I have been kindly received. The strangest part of it all is the odd way that girl looked at me when she knew enough to look rationally at anybody; and her obstinate persistence in leaving my house before she was fit to go. And it was all I could do to induce her to see me again. But her cousin was quite cordial, and now I may claim to have established an easy footing at the house. But about Evelyn Howard--don't, my dear aunt, if you have a spark of mercy, require me to see her now."
* * * * *
A month passed by, and October, in glorious tints of autumnal beauty, shed its light over the city. In a handsome drawing-room on Brooklyn Heights sat Weldon Gardner and Lina Dent. The young girl wore a soft white dress, and her figure was replete with roseate health and beauty.
The young physician was pleading strongly and earnestly, gazing into the eloquent eyes before him as if his very life hung upon their favor.
"But I know so little of you, Dr. Gardner," was her remonstrance in answer to his ardent suit, "true you have earned my life-long gratitude--"
"Don't mention that, if you have any regard for me," he interrupted, in a sort of disdain.
"Yes," she urged, "I must mention it. To you I owe my life, and perhaps, my reason. Of course I know you in all points of family, position, and professional success; but your own true self--how can I know that you will secure my happiness? Is there nothing you can tell me of yourself which will reassure me?"
And the bright, honest look of her eyes robbed her plain words all possible sting.
"First, tell me that you love me," he argued, "let me know that it would be sweet to you to place your happiness in my keeping. At least you can do this. You know if you love me."
She listened with averted look.
"And if I confess that I love you," she said at length, in a low voice; "if I do this, would it not be mockery to learn, when too late, that I had made a mistake?"
"But, in heaven's name, Lina, what can you mean? Why do you doubt me? What is there to tell? I could have no secrets--"
Then there rushed to his memory with a force that sent the blood to his brow and almost took his breath, the conviction that he _had_ a secret from her--that he _was_ deceiving her--that it was unmanly to seek her love with a lie on his lips. For a brief season his engagement had been forgotten, or ignored. He had hugged to his breast with unreasoning apathy the theory that the present was enough to consider--that the future must care for itself--that once his promised wife, Lina Dent should be his if all the world conspired against it. But now came the hated thought that Evelyn Howard stood between him and the precious one who had been his day-star since the night when he had nursed her back to life.
Starting up, he strode back and forth, not noting the pale cheeks and startled eyes of the girl who watched him in ill-repressed anxiety.
At length, sitting down beside her, he seized her soft fingers with a grasp of which he was hardly aware. Then instantly relaxing the rigor of his clasp, he pleaded:
"Let me hold this pure little hand while I confess to you, my only love, that your clear eyes have read my soul--that I have deceived you--that I love you beyond all else this world contains; but that the most cruel fate man ever before suffered, keeps me from you, unless, indeed, your love will help me to remove the barrier."
And while the young girl listened, with drooping head, he told her of his hated engagement--of the painful circumstances that had betrayed him into compliance.
"But I never dreamed of this sort of Nemesis! I could not have been in my senses to thus barter my freedom forever."
Slowly withdrawing her hand, the girl said, still in the same low tones:
"And you do not love your betrothed?"
"Love her?" he echoed. "I tell you, Lina, I have never even seen her. Her people have been abroad for an age. She was in New York a few weeks ago and, I understand, took offense at my continued absence from her side, and went back to England. This is what she left for me;" and plunging his hand into his breast pocket he selected from his note-case a fragrant little billet-doux, formally desiring Dr. Gardner to explain his strange conduct at his leisure--that the next opportunity granted him of seeing Evelyn Howard must be of his own seeking.
There was a pause after the reading of this aggrieved, dignified little message.
"And can you, as a gentleman of honor, reconcile your neglect of the writer?" asked Lina Dent, in a voice in which a cadence of scorn involuntarily sounded.
"Honor! Can't you see that honor was what kept me from her? Such honor as a man feels when he knows that he is poised between a Scylla and a Charybdis of desperate fatality?"
"There can be but one answer to all this, Dr. Gardner," the girl replied with proud dignity. "It would ill become me to sit in judgment on you after what I have received at your hands; but you will acknowledge that it was cruelly inconsiderate to seek my love while a barrier such as this existed. How do I know that you will not love your betrothed after you have seen her?"
"Love her--love any other than you, my beautiful, peerless one? Do not torture me with such a supposition. I care nothing for Evelyn Howard; I do not know her; I do not care to know her; nor is she in the least dependent upon me for happiness. She has vast wealth, and can command whatever fate she chooses."
"But wealth cannot buy happiness," she sadly replied, "and our course is clear. I can see you no more till you have met your betrothed and received your dismissal--or,"--and her clear cheek paled again--"made up your mind to fulfill your promise to her. Farewell! I thank you for your unwise devotion to me, but I can see you no more."
"Oh, Lina, do not doom me to this total separation. Why it seems an eternity. Where and when can I see you again? Why didn't I go to that girl when she was here? Fool, coward that I was! And now I cannot leave New York. Grant me some respite, my love--I cannot live without you!"
But much as she sympathized with him she was firm; and when Weldon Gardner left the house, with despair tugging at his heart, the only ray of sunshine that pierced the gloom was the conviction that she did love him--that should anything occur to separate them forever, her heart would plead strongly for him, and her love would strive with his to overcome the barrier.
* * * * *
Months went by, and still Evelyn Howard eluded Weldon Gardner's pursuit. Bitterly was he punished for his culpable neglect of her. In vain he wrote letters urging her to come to New York. She was traveling with friends and declined to change her course. He followed her to London, to Paris. In vain! She was ever just before him on his journey: always missing, never meeting him. Then he wrote to Lina Dent, beseeching her to relent, since he had done all in his power to carry out her wishes. She did not reply. Then in sullen despair he gave up the pursuit. He carefully avoided going out except to see patients, declined all invitations, and took solitary refuge in the stern exactions of duty.
As the year drew to a close he noticed in the list of arrivals from Europe, Miss Evelyn Howard and her party; and among the personals he saw that the beautiful Miss Howard would appear at Governor B's reception on the next evening. He had received cards to this party, and now, with the fierce desire to end his torture reawakened, he prepared to accept the invitation. As he entered the brilliant rooms his eye fell upon the form and face of Lina Dent, attired in an exquisite costume, and looking far more radiant than in his wildest dreams he had ever pictured her.
Feasting upon her loveliness, with eyes hungry in their wistfulness, he was about to approach her when she suddenly looked toward him and their eyes met. He caught the quick flash of feeling; he knew that he was still beloved! But even as he drank in the delicious confirmation of his hopes, she passed him without recognition, and he knew that she would not break her vow--that she would not meet him till he had fulfilled her conditions. Too miserable to seek Miss Howard in the throng, the young physician pleaded an urgent call to a patient, and left his host almost before he had fairly entered upon the festivities.
One evening, soon after the last fearful disappointment, Dr. Gardner received a note asking him to come to a certain number on Fifth Avenue, and there he should meet Evelyn Howard. She inferred that he had had ample time to learn if he really desired to form her acquaintance, and she was ready now to see him.
Tearing the paper to atoms in sudden irritation and setting his teeth, the young physician was soon at the appointed place, an elegant brown-stone mansion, quite familiar to his eyes in his drives about the city.
He was not left long in suspense. There was a sound of rapid steps descending the stairs, with a frou-frou of silken skirts, and in a moment Lina Dent stood before him, her face aglow with a proud light he had never seen there, and her hands extended in glad welcome.
"You, Lina! You here? You have relented? This is too much happiness!"
Catching both soft white hands in his, he bent his lips to them, full of the rapture he could not speak. He forgot to wonder why she was there. He forgot everything but the love in her eyes and the joyous ring of her voice.
Ere they could be seated the door again opened and admitted an elderly lady, who approached smiling.
"My dear aunt!" exclaimed the young lover. "You, too? This _is_ a surprise! What does it all mean? How did you get here, and when?"
The ladies stood smiling at each other and gazing upon him with a significance that indeed clamored for explanation.
"Weldon, is it possible you do not guess?" asked his aunt.
"What? Why, what do you mean? I am all bewildered!" he exclaimed, looking from one to the other till a faint glimmer of the truth began to appear through the mists.
"Stupid boy!" again emphasized the lady, "whom did you come here to see?"
Quickly glancing at the beautiful, radiant, still-smiling face of the young girl, and then at the impressive features of the elder lady, Weldon Gardner, with bated breath and a dazed expression in his startled eyes, exclaimed:
"You--are--Evelyn Howard--you?"
"Exactly so. Doctor Gardner--Evelina Dent Howard--at your service!"
As she spoke, she placed her hand in his, and asked, in the liquid tones whose cadences he so well remembered, "Have you been punished enough for your unknightly scorn of the girl you condemned without trial?"
"Oh, forgive!" he pleaded, drawing her to a seat beside him. "I see it all now. What a dolt you must have thought me! How could you ever have tolerated me?"
"There is the conspirator," archly said Evelyn, pointing to Mrs. Duke. "She it was who enabled me to deceive you. I wrote to her immediately upon leaving your house for my cousin's, in Brooklyn, and she at once devised the scheme that I have found so hard to carry out. Meanwhile, she never lost sight of you."
It was long before the necessary explanations were exhausted, and when the new day dawned no happier man proudly entered upon his duties than did Weldon Gardner.
* * * * *
It is upon a soft September afternoon that we last see Dr. Gardner and his lovely wife. Within a snug little arbor beside the lake in Central Park the two sit side by side, watching the idly-floating pleasure crafts, and noting the lazy ripples of the green wavelets. Their hearts grow tender with a mighty love that finds no language in which to clothe itself.
Every blessing of life is theirs; every cadence that affection knows makes harmony in their words. Gayly-dressed children pass by, some with toy balloons, bounding into air. Evelyn shuddered at even this tiny reminder of her reckless adventure, and clinging to her husband's arm, blesses him and the day that confided her to his keeping. Accident had tested his noble nature as the ordinary course of events never could have done; and now was fulfilled the last wish of his parents, that in Evelyn Howard should Weldon Gardner find the glory of heaven's last, best gift to man.
Hezekiah's Wooing
A FIRESIDE SKETCH
"Walk right in, Mr. Lightus, do," said the cheery voice of the Widow Partridge, as the portly figure of Mr. Hezekiah Lighthouse appeared in her hospitable doorway.
"Thankee, thankee, I don't care if I do, Mis' Patridge," responded the visitor, heavily bringing himself within the family circle.
"How's all?" he asked, comfortably establishing himself in the arm-chair.
"Middlin', thankee," said the widow. "I've been enjoyin' very poor health till lately. Now I seem to be pickin' up a little," as brushing the seat of a rocker with her gingham apron, she sat down at the opposite end of the hearth.
"An' Cicely Ann--how's she?"
"Oh, she--why she's allers the picture o' health. Here she comes now."
As she spoke, a fair, rosy-cheeked girl entered the cheerful room, with her arms full of painting materials. These she deposited upon the table, then dutifully greeted the visitor.
"An' how do you like them new fol-de-rols, Cicely Ann?" inquired Hezekiah, eyeing askance the collection.
The fol-de-rols consisted of some wooden plaques of different sizes, which the new art craze had brought to the widow's cottage.
"She's gettin' along right nice, I think," replied the widow, looking proudly at her one chick. "You see, she's a lot o' darnin' an' one thing another to do, but she finds time for her landskips and things."
"Well, mebbe so," assented Hezekiah grudgingly. "For my part there's nothing set's a gal off like spinnin' an' weavin', an' it puts more money in her pocket, besides."
"La, Mr. Lightus," said the widow deprecatingly, "spinnin' an' weavin's gone out o' fashion. Gals will be gals, and they mostly go in for fashion, you know."
Cicely's red lip curled in scorn as she applied herself vigorously to her plaque, where the inevitable girl with muff and umbrella was stumbling into a snowdrift.
Hezekiah picked up the widow's daily paper which, by the way, he largely depended on for the news. Silence reigned for a while, save for the rustle of the sheet. The click-clack of the widow's knitting needles, and the rapid plying of Cicely's brush, were varied at last by the girl surreptitiously pulling a note out of her jaunty apron pocket.
As she read it a smile broke over the dimpled features, and in a moment more she pushed the table from her and left the room. Swiftly she sped to the big apple tree where her trystings were held with Rufus, her playmate and lover.
Hezekiah slowly raised his head, and laying down the paper, said thoughtfully: "'Pears like the gal gits skittisher every day. Do you reckon she'll ever come to like me?"
"Why, I dunno why she wouldn't," ventured the widow with an encouraging smirk.
"Well, she don't seem to, no way." Then looking suspiciously through the window. "Where's she gone to?"
"Oh, nowheres I reckon," said the mother soothingly, "nowheres in partic'ler. She's allers around."
Another silence, during which the visitor carefully noted the land, stock and crop items in the paper, then took his leave. But not till he had cast a lingering look behind and said: "This is about the comfortablest place a feller could drop into, in my opinion."
It was some minutes after when the truant Cicely re-entered the little keeping-room, her cheeks and eyes bright with happiness.
"Oh, mother, wish me joy! Rufus has asked me to be his wife."
"Mercy on us, Cicely!" exclaimed the widow in a sort of terror, "and you want to marry him?"
"Of course I do," proudly said the girl; "and I mean to marry him."
"Oh, Cicely, my child! and what will Mr. Lightus do--him that's been comin' here so patient, off an' on?"
"Mr. Lighthouse!" disdainfully echoed the girl. "Do you suppose I would have that old goose--old enough to be my grandfather!"
"Old goose! Fie, Cicely, to talk so disrespectful of your pa's best friend. He's well-to-do an' has got the finest place in the county. Think how nice we'd be fixed, child. We'd never have to work no more," and the widow sighed as the girl looked into her face for the congratulations she expected in vain.
"Well, mother, I can't help it. I am willing to work and so is Rufus. He is as industrious and steady as the day is long. I shouldn't mind having Mr. Lighthouse for an uncle, but husband--pshaw!" and the pretty features screwed themselves into a comical grimace.
"Child, child, I'm disappointed and no mistake. Here's that man's been a comin' here all these weeks, an' while he ain't asked for you, it's clear he wants you. An' now I've got to tell him you won't have him. There's that moggidge on the house, too. But that's allers the way--troubles don't never come single," and the sigh became a whimper.
"Now, don't you worry, mother," said Cicely, clasping her arms about the still fair neck, "don't worry; we will come out all right, mortgage and all."
Taking fresh courage, the widow again pressed the claims of the portly wooer, but what chance had she against the combined powers of young love and the daughter's stronger nature.
Time passed. Almost every evening found Hezekiah at the cottage, but though persistent, things did not apparently make much progress. At last the stiffness of the customary interviews seemed to break.
"Mis' Patridge," he said, getting very red in the face and awkward as to hands and feet, "Cicely Ann gits worse every day. Ain't there no chance of her puttin' up with me at all?"
"Why, yes, I reckon so," bashfully said the widow. "She's young and foolish, you know. You can't expect gals to be sensible and sober down like they will when they get holt of some wise person tha'll train 'em."
"Well," sighed the wooer, "I guess I might as well stop comin'. 'Taint no use to be forever worritin' after anything. I did think, howsomever, it 'ud be sorter nice to have us four live together. Young folks makes a house kinder lively. But I don't git on, somehow; so I guess I might as well hang up my fiddle an' quit." And the ancient wooer slowly rose to his full height.
"Us four!" repeated the petrified widow, mouth and eyes open to their widest extent.
"Yes--us four," continued Hezekiah. "I was thinkin', you know, that bein' as this young feller Rufus what's-his-name 'peared to be sweet on the gal, mebbe you'd take to me an' we'd all git spliced together. But she don't like me and wouldn't treat me right. I couldn't stand fusses an' the like."
"La, Mr. Lightus, how you do astonish me," faintly ejaculated the flushed widow, her comely face crimson to the roots of her soft brown hair.
"You don't say!" exclaimed the rapidly enlightened Hezekiah, rousing to something like animation. "Did you think--didn't you know--well, I declare, I don't actually believe you did. Now ain't it a puzzle, begad!"
While he jerked out his amazed sentences, his companion, fairly overcome with the revelation that dawned upon her for the first time, buried her face in her hands.
"Mis' Patridge," timidly said the agitated wooer, approaching nearer, "you don't say--that is, do you mean to say that if Cicely Ann could like me well enough to not be sassy around the house, an' keepin' you oncomfortable about it, you an' me could hitch on an' be pardners? You don't mean it now, do you?"
"Mean it!" murmured the widow, her fair cheeks aglow with suddenly-stirred enthusiasm. "I'm only too happy, Mr. Lightus, I never thought--"
But at this juncture the rejuvenated wooer ventured to clasp his rough but honest arms about the blushing prize he had won.
At this juncture, also, Cicely and Rufus happened in, but beat a hasty and giggling retreat, as they rapidly took in the situation.
All's well that ends well. Hezekiah Lighthouse married the Widow Partridge, and set young Rufus up in business. As a father the spirited Cicely yielded him the respect and affection he deserved.
She made but one stipulation. On the marriage morn she whispered the earnest entreaty: "Mother, _don't_ let him call me Cicely _Ann_!"
A Summer Daisy
A PASTORAL
"Heighho!" yawned Carroll Hamilton, picking up his long legs from the grass, "this is not making hay while the sun shines," and he proceeded leisurely to place a camp stool in position, erect an easel, and spread out sketching materials.