Chapter 14

Still Olive reflected, and was not in her usual lively spirits. Mr. Fox said to Mrs. Fox that it was an abominable shame to allow a crowd of incongruous young men to swarm in upon a country house party, and interfere seriously with the pleasures of intelligent and self-respecting people.

That night, after Mrs. Easterfield had gone to bed, and before she slept, she heard something which instantly excited her attention; it was the sound of a guitar, and it came from the lawn in front of the house. Jumping up, and throwing a dressing-gown about her, she cautiously approached the open window. But the night was dark, and she could see nothing. Pushing an armchair to one side of the window, she seated herself, and listened. Words now began to mingle with the music, and these words were French. Now she understood everything perfectly. Mr. Du Brant was a musician, and had helped himself to the guitar in the library.

From the position in which she sat Mrs. Easterfield could look upon a second-story window in a projecting wing of the house, and upon this window, which belonged to Olive's room, and which was barely perceptible in the gloom, she now fixed her eyes. The song and the thrumming went on, but no signs of life could be seen in the black square of that open window.

Mrs. Easterfield was not a bad French scholar, and she caught enough of the meaning of the words to understand that they belonged to a very pretty love song in which the flowers looked up to the sky to see if it were blue, because they knew if it were the fair one smiled, and then their tender buds might ope; and, if she smiled, his heart implored that she might smile on him. There was a second verse, much resembling the first, except that the flowers feared that clouds might sweep the sky; and they lamented accordingly.

Now, Mrs. Easterfield imagined that she saw something white in the depths of the darkness of Olive's room, but it did not come to the front, and she was very uncertain about it. Suddenly, however, something happened about which she could not be in the least uncertain. Above Olive's room was a chamber appropriated to the use of bachelor visitors, and from the window of this room now burst upon the night a wild, unearthly chant. It was a song with words but without music, and the voice in which it was shot out into the darkness was harsh, was shrill, was insolently blatant. And thus the clamorous singer sang:

"My angel maid--ahoy! If aught should you annoy, By act or sound, From sky or ground, I then pray thee To call on me My angel maid--ahoy, My ange--my ange--l maid Ahoy! Ahoy! Ahoy!"

The music of the guitar now ceased, and no French words were heard. No ditty of Latin origin, be it ever so melodious and fervid, could stand against such a wild storm of Anglo-Saxon vociferation. Every ahoy rang out as if sea captains were hailing each other in a gale!

"What lungs he has" thought Mrs. Easterfield, as she put her hand over her mouth so that no one should hear her laugh. At the open window, at which she still steadily gazed, she now felt sure she saw something white which moved, but it did not come to the front.

A wave of half-smothered objurgation now rolled up from below; it was not to be readily caught, but its tone indicated rage and disappointment. But the guitar had ceased to sound, and the French love song was heard no more. A little irrepressible laugh came from somewhere, but who heard it beside herself Mrs. Easterfield could not know. Then all was still, and the insects of the night, and the tree frogs, had the stage to themselves.

Early in the morning Miss Raleigh presented herself before Mrs. Easterfield to make a report. "There was a serenade last night," she said, "not far from Miss Asher's window. In fact, there were two, but one of them came from Mr. Locker's room, and was simply awful. Mr. Du Brant was the gentleman who sang from the lawn, and I was very sorry when he felt himself obliged to stop. I do not think very much of him, but he certainly has a pleasant voice, and plays well on the guitar. I think he must have been a good deal cut up by being interrupted in that dreadful way, for he grumbled and growled, and did not go into the house for some time. I am sure he would have been very glad to fight if any one had come down."

"You mean," said Mrs. Easterfield, "if Mr. Locker had come."

"Well," said the secretary, "if Mr. Hemphill had appeared I have no doubt he would have answered. Mr. Du Brant seemed to me ready to fight anybody."

"How do you know so much about him?" asked Mrs. Easterfield. "And why did you think of Mr. Hemphill?"

"Oh, he was looking out of his window," said Miss Raleigh. "He could not see, but he could hear."

"I ask you again," said Mrs. Easterfield, "how do you know all this?"

"Oh, I had not gone to bed, and, at the first sound of the guitar, I slipped on a waterproof with a hood, and went out. Of course, I wanted to know everything that was happening."

"I had not the least idea you were such an energetic person," remarked Mrs. Easterfield, "and I think you were entirely too rash. But how about Mr. Lancaster? Do you know if he was listening?"

Miss Raleigh stood silent for a moment, then she exclaimed: "There now, it is too bad! I entirely forgot him! I have not the slightest idea whether he was asleep or awake, and it would have been just as easy--"

"Well, you need not regret it," said Mrs. Easterfield. "I think you did quite enough, and if anything of the kind occurs again I positively forbid you to go out of the house."

"There is one thing we've got to look after," said Miss Raleigh, without heeding the last remark, "this may result in bloodshed."

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Easterfield; "nothing of that kind is to be feared from the gentlemen who visit Broadstone."

"Still," said Miss Raleigh, "don't you think it would be well for me to keep an eye on them?"

"Oh, you may keep both eyes on them if you want to," said Mrs. Easterfield. Then she began to talk about something else, but, although she dismissed the matter so lightly, she was very glad at heart that she had sent for her husband. Things were getting themselves into unpleasant complications, and she needed Tom.

There was a certain constraint at the breakfast table. Mr. Fox had heard the serenades, although his consort had slept soundly through the turmoil; and, while carefully avoiding any reference to the incidents of the night, he was anxiously hoping that somebody would say something about them. Mrs. Easterfield saw that Mr. Du Brant was in a bad humor, and she hoped he was angry enough to announce his early departure. But he contented himself with being angry, and said nothing about going away.

Mr. Hemphill was serious, and looked often in the direction of Olive. As for Dick Lancaster, Miss Raleigh, whose eye was fixed upon him whenever it could be spared from the exigencies of her meal, decided that if there should be a fight he would be one of the fighters; his brow was dark and his glance was sharp; in fact, she was of the opinion that he glared. Claude Locker did not come to breakfast until nearly everybody had finished. His dreams had been so pleasant that he had overslept himself.

In the eyes of Mrs. Easterfield Olive's conduct was positively charming. No one could have supposed that during the night she had heard anything louder than the ripple of the river. She talked more to Mr. Du Brant than to any one else, although she managed to draw most of the others into the conversation; and, with the assistance of the hostess, who gave her most good-humored help, the talk never flagged, although it did not become of the slightest interest to any one who engaged in it. They were all thinking about the conflict of serenades, and what might happen next.

Shortly after breakfast Miss Raleigh came to Mrs. Easterfield. "Mr. Du Brant is with her," she said quickly, "and they are walking away. Shall I interpolate?"

"No," said the other with a smile, "you can let them alone. Nothing will happen this morning, unless, indeed, he should come to ask for a carriage to take him to the station."

Mrs. Easterfield was busy in her garden when Dick Lancaster came to her. "What a wonderfully determined expression you have!" said she. "You look as if you were going to jump on a street-car without stopping it!"

"You are right," said he, "I am determined, and I came to tell you so. I can't stand this sort of thing any longer. I feel like a child who is told he must eat at the second table, and who can not get his meals until every one else is finished."

"And I suppose," she said, "you feel there will be nothing left for you."

"That is it," he answered, "and I don't want to wait. My soul rebels! I can't stand it!"

"Therefore," she said, "you wish to appear before the meal is ready, and in that case you will get nothing." He looked at her inquiringly. "I mean," said she, "that if you propose to Miss Asher now you will be before your time, and she will decline your proposition without the slightest hesitation."

"I do not quite understand that," said Dick. "Would she decline all others?"

"I am afraid not."

"But why do you except me?" asked Dick. "Surely she is not engaged. I know you would tell me at once if that were so."

"It is not so," said Mrs. Easterfield.

"Then I shall take my chances. With all this serenading and love-making going on around me and around the woman I love with all my heart. I can not stand and wait until I am told my time has come. The intensity and the ardor of my feelings for her give me the right to speak to her. Unless I know that some one else has stepped in before me and taken the place I crave, I have decided to speak to her just as soon as I can. But I thought it was due to you to come first and tell you."

"Mr. Lancaster," said Mrs. Easterfield, speaking very quietly, "if you decide to go to Miss Asher and ask her to marry you, I know you will do it, for I believe you are a man who keeps his word to himself, but I assure you that if you do it you will never marry her. So you really need not bother yourself about going to her; you can simply decide to do it, and that will be quite sufficient; and you can stay here and hold these long-stemmed dahlias for me as I cut them."

A troubled wistfulness showed itself upon the young man's face. "You speak so confidently," he said, "that I almost feel I ought to believe you. Why do you tell me that I am the only one of her suitors who would certainly be rejected if he offered himself?"

Mrs. Easterfield dropped the long-stemmed dahlias she had been holding; and, turning her eyes full upon Lancaster, she said, "Because you are the only one of them toward whom she has no predilections whatever. More than that, you are the only one toward whom she has a positive objection. You are the only one who is an intimate friend of her uncle, and who would be likely, by means of that intimate friendship, to bring her into connection with the woman she hates, as well as with a relative she despises on account of his intended marriage with that woman."

"All that should not count at all," cried Dick. "In such a matter as this I have nothing to do with Captain Asher! I stand for myself and speak for myself. What is his intended wife to me? Or what should she be to her?"

"Of course," said Mrs. Easterfield, "all that would not count at all if Olive Asher loved you. But you see she doesn't. I have had it from her own lips that her uncle's intended marriage is, and must always be, an effectual barrier between you and her."

"What" cried Dick. "Have you spoken to her of me? And in that way?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Easterfield, "I have. I did not intend to tell you, but you have forced me to do it. You see, she is a young woman of extraordinary good sense. She believes she ought to marry, and she is going to try to make the very best marriage that she possibly can. She has suitors who have very strong claims upon her consideration--I am not going to tell you those claims, but I know them. Now, you have no claim--special claim, I mean--but for all this, I believe, as I have told you before, that you are the man she ought to marry, and I have been doing everything I can to make her cease considering them, and to consider you. And this is the way she came to give me her reasons for not considering you at all. Now the state of the case is plain before you."

Dick bowed his head and fixed his eyes upon the dahlias on the ground.

"Don't tread on the poor things," she said, "and don't despair. All you have to do is to let me put a curbed bit on you, and for you to consent to wear it for a little while. See," said she, moving her hands in the air, as if they were engaged upon the bridle of a horse, "I fasten this chain rather closely, and buckle the ends of the reins in the lowest curb. Now, you must have a steady hand and a resolute will until the time comes when the curb is no longer needed."

"And do you believe that time will come?" he asked.

"It will come," she said, "when two things happen; when she has reason to love you, and has no reason to object to you; and, in my opinion, that happy combination may arrive if you act sensibly."

"But--" said Dick.

At this moment a quick step was heard on the garden-path and they both turned. It was Olive.

"Mr. Lancaster," she cried, "I want you; that is, if Mrs. Easterfield can spare you. We are making up a game of tennis. Mr. Du Brant and Mr. Hemphill are there, but I can not find Mr. Locker."

Mrs. Easterfield could spare him, and Dick Lancaster, with the curbed chain pressing him very hard, walked away with Olive Asher.

_CHAPTER XXIII_

_The Captain and Maria._

When the captain drove into Glenford on the day when his mind had been so much disturbed by Dick Lancaster's questions regarding a marriage between him and Maria Port, he stopped at no place of business, he turned not to the right nor to the left, but went directly to the house of his old friend with whom he had spent the night before.

Mr. Simeon Port was sitting on his front porch, reading his newspaper. He looked up, surprised to see the captain again so soon.

"Simeon," said the captain, "I want to see Maria. I have something to say to her."

The old man laid down his newspaper. "Serious?" said he.

"Yes, serious," was the answer, "and I want to see her now."

Mr. Port reflected for a moment. "Captain," said he, "do you believe you have thought about this as much as you ought to?"

"Yes, I have," replied the captain; "I've thought just as much as I ought to. Is she in the house?"

Mr. Port did not answer. "Captain John," said he presently, "Maria isn't young, that's plain enough, considerin' my age; but she never does seem to me as if she'd growed up. When she was a girl she had ways of her own, and she could make water bile quick, and now she can make it bile just as quick as ever she did, and perhaps quicker. She's not much on mindin' the helm, Captain John, and there're other things about her that wouldn't be attractive to husbands when they come to find them out. And if I was you I'd take my time."

"That's just what I intend to do," said the captain. "This is my time, and I am going to take it."

Miss Port, who was busy in the back part of the house, heard voices, and now came forward. She was wiping her hands upon her apron, and one of them she extended to the captain.

"I am glad to see you--John," she said, speaking in a very gentle voice, and hesitating a little at the last word.

The captain looked at her steadfastly, and then, without taking her hand, he said: "I want to speak to you by yourself. I'll go into the parlor."

She politely stepped back to let him pass her, and then her father turned quickly to her.

"Did you expect to see him back so soon?" he asked.

She smiled and looked down. "Oh, yes," said she, "I was sure he'd come back very soon."

The old man heaved a sigh, and returned to his paper.

Maria followed the captain. "John," said she, speaking in a low voice, "wouldn't you rather come into the dinin'-room? He's a little bit hard of hearin', but if you don't want him to hear anything he'll take in every word of it."

"Maria Port," said the captain, speaking in a strong, upper-deck voice, "what I have to say I'll say here. I don't want the people in the street to hear me, but if your father chooses to listen I would rather he did it than not."

She looked at him inquiringly. "Well," she answered, "I suppose he will have to hear it some time or other, and he might as well hear it now as not. He's all I've got in the world, and you know as well as I do that I run to tell him everything that happens to me as soon as it happens. Will you sit down?"

"No," said the captain, "I can speak better standing. Maria Port, I have found out that you have been trying to make people believe that I am engaged to marry you."

The smile did not leave Maria's face. "Well, ain't you?" said she.

A look of blank amazement appeared on the face of the captain, but it was quickly succeeded by the blackness of rage. He was about to swear, but restrained himself.

"Engaged to you?" he shouted, forgetting entirely the people in the street; "I'd rather be engaged to a fin-back shark!"

The smile now left her face. "Oh, thank you very much," she said. "And this is what you meant by your years of devotion! I held out for a long time, knowing the difference in our ages and the habits of sailors, and now--just when I make up my mind to give in, to think of my father and not of myself, and to sacrifice my feelin's so that he might always have one of his old friends near him, now that he's got too feeble to go out by himself, and at his age you know as well as I do he ought to have somebody near him besides me, for who can tell what may happen, or how sudden--you come and tell me you'd rather marry a fish. I suppose you've got somebody else in your mind, but that don't make no difference to me. I've got no fish to offer you, but I have myself that you've wanted so long, and which now you've got."

The angry captain opened his mouth to speak; he was about to ejaculate Woman! but his sense of propriety prevented this. He would not apply such an epithet to any one in the house of a friend. Wretch rose to his lips, but he would not use even that word; and he contented himself with: "You! You know just as well as you know you are standing there that I never had the least idea of marrying you. You know, too, that you have tried to make people think I had, people here in town and people out at my house, where you came over and over again pretending to want to talk about your father's health, when it did not need any more talking about than yours does. You know you have made trouble in my family; that you so disgusted my niece that she would not stop at my house, which had been the same thing as her home; you sickened my friends; and made my very servants ashamed of me; and all this because you want to marry a man who now despises you. I would have despised you long ago if I had seen through your tricks, but I didn't."

There was a smile on Miss Port's face now, but it was not such a smile as that with which she had greeted the captain; it was a diabolical grin, brightened by malice. "You are perfectly right," she said; "everybody knows we are engaged to be married, and what they think about it doesn't matter to me the snap of my finger. The people in town all know it and talk about it, and what's more, they've talked to me about it. That niece of your'n knows it, and that's the reason she won't come near you, and I'm sure I'm not sorry for that. As for that old thing that helps you at the toll-gate, and as for the young man that's spongin' on you, I've no doubt they've got a mighty poor opinion of you. And I've no doubt they're right. But all that matters nothin' to me. You're engaged to be married to me; you know it yourself; and everybody knows it; and what you've got to do is to marry, or pay. You hear what I say, and you know what I'm goin' to stick to."

It may be well for Captain Asher's reputation that he had no opportunity to answer Miss Port's remarks. At that instant Mr. Simeon Port appeared at the door which opened from the parlor on the piazza. He stepped quickly, his actions showing nothing of that decrepitude which his dutiful daughter had feared would prevent him from seeking the society of his friends. He fixed his eyes on his daughter and spoke in a loud, strong voice.

"Maria," said he, "go to bed! I've heard what you've been saying, and I'm ashamed of you. I've been ashamed of you before, but now it's worse than ever. Go to bed, I tell you! And this time, go!"

There was nothing in the world that Maria Port was afraid of except her father, and of him personally she had not the slightest dread. But of his dying without leaving her the whole of his fortune she had an abiding terror, which often kept her awake at night, and which sent a sickening thrill through her whenever a difficulty arose between her and her parent. She was quite sure what he would do if she should offend him sufficiently; he would leave her a small annuity, enough to support her; and the rest of his money would go to several institutions which she had heard him mention in this connection. If she could have married Captain Asher she would have felt a good deal safer; it would have taken much provocation to make her father leave his money out of the family if his old friend had been one of that family.

Now, when she heard her father's voice, and saw his dark eyes glittering at her, she knew she was in great danger, and the well-known chill ran through her. She made no answer; she cared not who was present; she thought of nothing but that those eyes must cease to glitter, and that angry voice must not be heard again. She turned and walked to her room, which was on the same floor, across the hall.

"And mind you go to bed!" shouted her father. "And do it regular. You're not to make believe to go to bed, and then get up and walk about as soon as my back is turned. I'm comin' in presently to see if you've obeyed me."

She answered not, but entered her room, and closed the door after her.

Mr. Port now turned to the captain. "I never could find out," he said, "where Maria got that mind of her'n. It isn't from my side, for my father and mother was as good people as ever lived, and it wasn't from her mother, for you knew her, and there wasn't anything of the kind about her."

"No," said Captain Asher, "not the least bit of it."

"It must have been from her grandmother Ellis," said the old man. "I never knew her, for she died before I was acquainted with the family, but I expect she died of deviltry. That's the only insight I can get into the reasons for Maria's havin' the mind she's got. But I tell you, Captain John, you've had a blessed escape! I didn't know she was in the habit of goin' out to your house so often. She didn't tell me that."

"Simeon," said the captain, "I think I will go now. I have had enough of Maria. I don't suppose I'll hear from her very soon again."

The old man smiled. "No," said he, "I don't think she'll want to trouble you any more."

Miss Port, whose ear was at the keyhole of her door not twelve feet away, grinned malignantly.

Soon after Captain Asher had gone Mr. Port walked to the door of his daughter's room, gave a little knock, and then opened the door a little.

"You are in bed, are you?" said he. "Well, that's good for you. Turn down that coverlid and let me see if you've got your nightclothes on." She obeyed. "Very well," he continued; "now you stay there until I tell you to get up."