Norine's Revenge, and, Sir Noel's Heir
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Title: Norine's Revenge, and, Sir Noel's Heir
Author: May Agnes Fleming
Release date: September 7, 2010 [eBook #33664]
Language: English
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NORINE'S REVENGE,
and
SIR NOEL'S HEIR.
by
MAY AGNES FLEMING
* * * * *
POPULAR NOVELS.
BY MAY AGNES FLEMING.
1.--GUY EARLSCOURT'S WIFE.
2.--A WONDERFUL WOMAN.
3.--A TERRIBLE SECRET.
4.--NORINE'S REVENGE.
5.--A MAD MARRIAGE.
6.--ONE NIGHT'S MYSTERY.
7.--KATE DANTON.
8.--SILENT AND TRUE.
9.--HEIR OF CHARLTON.
10.--CARRIED BY STORM.
11.--LOST FOR A WOMAN.
12.--A WIFE'S TRAGEDY.
13.--A CHANGED HEART.
14.--PRIDE AND PASSION.
15.--SHARING HER CRIME.
16.--A WRONGED WIFE.
17.--MAUDE PERCY'S SECRET.
18.--THE ACTRESS' DAUGHTER (_New_).
"Mrs. Fleming's stories are growing more and more popular every
day. Their delineations of character, life-like conversations,
flashes of wit, constantly varying scenes, and deeply interesting
plots, combine to place their author in the very first rank of
Modern Novelists."
All published uniform with this volume. Price, $1.50 each, and sent
_free_ by mail on receipt of price.
BY G. W. CARLETON & CO., Publishers, New York.
* * * * *
NORINE'S REVENGE,
and
SIR NOEL'S HEIR.
by
MAY AGNES FLEMING,
Author of
"Guy Earlscourt's Wife," "A Wonderful Woman,"
"A Terrible Secret," "A Mad Marriage," Etc.
New York:
G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers,
London: S. Low, Son & Co.,
MDCCCLXXXVI.
Copyright,
C. W. Carleton & Co.
1875.
Trow's
Printing and Bookbinding Company,
205-213 East 12th St.,
New York.
CONTENTS.
NORINE'S REVENGE.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
I.--Two Black Eyes and their Work 7
II.--A Wise Man's Folly 18
III.--Mr. Laurence Thorndyke 35
IV.--The Lawyer's Warning 42
V.--"I will be your Wife" 55
VI.--Before the Wedding 69
VII.--The Gathering Storm 78
VIII.--Fled 94
IX.--"Mrs. Laurence" 102
X.--"A Fool's Paradise" 109
XI.--Gone 122
XII.--The Truth 131
XIII.--Mr. Liston's Story 142
XIV.--A Dark Compact 150
XV.--"A Fashionable Wedding" 159
XVI.--"His name is Laurence Thorndyke" 167
XVII.--A Letter from Paris 178
XVIII.--After Four Years 185
XIX.--"Whom the gods wish to
destroy they first make mad" 196
XX.--Norine's Revenge 211
XXI.--"The mills of the gods grind slowly, but
they grind exceedingly small" 215
XXII.--"The way of the Transgressor is hard." 225
XXIII.--"Jenny Kissed me." 231
SIR NOEL'S HEIR.
I.--Sir Noel's Deathbed 243
II.--Captain Everard 252
III.--"Little May" 262
IV.--Mrs. Weymore 272
V.--A Journey to London 283
VI.--Guy 288
VII.--Col. Jocyln 298
VIII.--Lady Thetford's Ball 307
IX.--Guy Legard 317
X.--Asking in Marriage 325
XI.--On the Wedding eve 334
XII.--Mrs. Weymore's Story 346
XIII.--"There is many a slip" 354
XIV.--Parted 363
XV.--After Five Years 369
XVI.--At Sorrento 373
XVII.--At Home 376
A DARK CONSPIRACY 379
FOR BETTER FOR WORSE 393
NORINE'S REVENGE.
CHAPTER I.
TWO BLACK EYES AND THEIR WORK.
The early express train from Montreal to Portland, Maine, was crowded.
Mr. Richard Gilbert, lawyer, of New York, entering five minutes before
starting time, found just one seat unoccupied near the door. A crusty
old farmer held the upper half, and moved grumpily toward the window,
under protest, as Mr. Gilbert took the place.
The month was March, the morning snowy and blowy, slushy and sleety, as
it is in the nature of Canadian March mornings to be. The sharp sleet
lashed the glass, people shivered in multitudinous wraps, lifted purple
noses, over-twisted woolen clouds and looked forlorn and miserable. And
Mr. Gilbert, congratulating himself inwardly on having secured a seat by
the stove, opened the damp _Montreal True Witness_, and settled himself
comfortably to read. He turned to the leading article, read three lines,
and never finished it from that day to this. For the door opened, a howl
of March wind, a rush of March rain whirled in, and lifting his eyes,
Mr. Richard Gilbert saw in the doorway a new passenger.
The new passenger was a young lady, and the young lady was the prettiest
young lady, Mr. Gilbert thought, in that first moment, he had ever seen.
She was tall, she was slim, she was dark, she had long loose, curly
black hair, falling to her waist, and two big, bright, black, Canadian
eyes, as lovely eyes as the wide earth holds. She stood there in the
doorway, faltering, frightened, irresolute, a very picture--the color
coming and going in the youthful, sensitive face, the luminous brown
eyes glancing like the eyes of a startled bird. She stood there, laden
with bundles, bandboxes, and reticules, and holding a little blinking
spaniel by a string.
Every seat was filled, no one seemed disposed to dispossess themselves,
even for the accommodation of youth and beauty. Only for six seconds,
though; then Richard Gilbert, rose up, and quietly, and, as a matter of
course, offered his seat to the young lady. She smiled--what a smile it
was, what a bright little row of teeth it showed, dimpled, blushed--the
loveliest rose-pink blush in the world, hesitated, and spoke:
"But, monsieur!" in excellent English, set to a delicious French accent.
"But, monsieur will have no place."
"Monsieur will do very well. Oblige me, mademoiselle, by taking this
seat."
"Monsieur is very good. Thanks."
She fluttered down into the seat, and Mr. Gilbert disposed of the many
bundles and boxes and bags on the rack overhead. He was smiling a little
to himself as he did so; the _role_ of lady's man was quite a new one in
this gentleman's cast in the great play of Life. The grumpy old farmer,
with a grunt of disapprobation, edged still further up to the window.
"Monsieur can sit on the arm of the seat," suggests the young lady,
glancing up with a pretty girl's glance--half shy, half coquettish; "it
is so very fatiguing to stand."
Monsieur avails himself of the offer immediately, and finds he is in an
excellent position to examine that very charming face. But he does not
examine it: he is not one of your light-minded, mustache-growing,
frivolous-headed youths of three-or-four-and-twenty, to whom the smiling
face of a pretty girl is the most fascinating object under heaven.
Mr. Gilbert casts one look, only one, then draws forth the _True
Witness_ and buries himself in the leading article. The last bell rings,
the whistle shrieks, a plunge, a snort, and they are rushing madly off
into the wild March morning. The young lady looks about her, the grumpy
farmer is between her and the window, the window is all blurred and
blotted; Mr. Gilbert is fathoms deep in his paper. She gives a little
sigh, then lifts her small dog up in her lap, and begins an animated
conversation with him in French. Frollo understands Canadian French,
certainly not a word of English, and he blinks his watery eyes, and
listens sagaciously to it all. The farmer looks askance, and grunts like
one of his own pigs; the lawyer, from behind his printed sheet, finds
the words dancing fantastically before his eyes, and his brain taking in
nothing but the sweet-spoken, foolish little prattle of mademoiselle to
Frollo.
He is thirty-five years of age, he is a hard-headed, hard-working
lawyer, he has a species of contempt for all women, as bundles of nerves
and nonsense, fashions and foolery. He is thirty-five; he has never
asked any woman to marry him in his life; he looks upon that foolish
boy-and-girl idiocy, called love, as your worldly-wise cynics do look
upon it, with a sneer and a scoff. Pretty girls he has met and known by
the score--handsome women and clever women, but not the prettiest, the
handsomest, the cleverest of them all has ever made his well-regulated
legal pulses beat one throb the quicker in all his five-and-thirty years
of life. Why is it then that he looks at this little French Canadienne
with an interest he has never felt in looking at any of the bright New
York beauties he has known so long? Simple curiosity, no doubt--nothing
more.
"She looks like a picture I once saw of Joanna of Naples," he thought,
"only Joanna had golden hair. I hope the similarity to that very
improper person ends with the outward resemblance."
He returned to his newspaper, but somehow politics and cable dispatches,
and Our Foreign Relations, had lost their interest. Again and again,
under cover of the friendly sheet, his eyes wandered back to that fair
drooping face, that piquant profile, those long eyelashes, and the
rippling black tresses falling from beneath the little hat. The hat was
trimmed with crape, and the graceful figure wore dingy black.
"Who is she?" Mr. Gilbert found himself wondering "where is she going?
and for whom is she in mourning?" And then, conscious of his own folly
and levity, he pulled himself up, and went back for the dozenth time to
the _True Witness_.
But--his hour had come, and it would not do. The low French babble to
the dog rang in his ears, the dark mignonne face came between him and
the printed page, and blotted it out.
"She is much too young, and--yes, too pretty to be travelling alone. I
wonder where is she going; and if her friends will meet her? Very
imprudent to allow a child like this to travel alone. She hardly looks
sixteen."
His interest--fatherly, brotherly of course, in this handsome child
was increasing every moment. It was something not to be explained or
comprehended. He had heard of such imbecility as "love at first
sight," but was it likely that he, a man of five-and-thirty, a lawyer,
without an ounce of sentimentality in his composition should make an
idiot of himself over a French Canadienne, a total stranger, a
bread-and-butter-eating school-girl at his time of life. Not likely.
She interested him as a pretty picture or marble Venus, or other work
of art might--just that.
He did not address her. Lawyers are not bashful as a body. Mr. Gilbert
was not bashful individually, but something, for which he knew no name,
held him silent now. If that grumpy, overgrown farmer were only out of
the way, he thought, instead of sitting sulkily there staring at the
falling rain, he could no doubt find something to say.
Fate favored him, his evil angel "cursed him with the curse of an
accomplished prayer." At the very next station the surly husbandman got
up and left; and the mistress of Frollo, moving close to the window,
lifted those two orbs of wondrous brown light to the lawyer's grave,
thoughtful face, and the sweet voice spoke:
"Will monsieur resume his place now?"
Monsieur needed no second bidding. He resumed it, threw aside his paper,
and opened conversation in the usual brilliant and original way:
"The storm seems to increase--don't you think so? Abominable weather it
has been since March came in, and no hope of its holding up to day."
"Oh, yes, monsieur," mademoiselle answered, with animation; "and it is
such a pity, isn't it? It makes one low-spirited, one can see nothing,
and one does like so to see the country as one goes along."
"Was she going far?" the lawyer inquired.
"Oh, very far!" Mademoiselle makes a little Gallic gesture, with
shoulders and eyebrows and hands all together to express the immensity
of the distance.
"A great way. To Portland," with a strong accent on the name of that
city. "Monsieur knows where Portland is?"
"Yes, very well--he was going there himself _en route_ to New York. You,
mademoiselle," he adds, inquiringly, "are going on a visit, probably?"
Mademoiselle shakes her pretty head, and purses her pretty lips.
"Monsieur, no--I am going home."
"Home? But you are French."
"But yes, monsieur, certainly French, still my home is there. Papa and
mamma have become dead," the brown eyes fill, "and Uncle Louis and Aunt
Mathilde have seven of their own, and are poor. I am going to mamma's
relatives, mamma was not French."
"No?" Mr. Gilbert says in sympathetic inquiry.
"No, monsieur. Mamma was Yan-_kee_, a New England lady, papa French
Canadian. Mamma's friends did not wish her to marry papa, and she ran
away. It is five years ago since she died, and papa--papa could not live
without her, and two years after the good God took him too."
The tearful brown eyes look down at her shabby black dress. "Monsieur
beholds I wear mourning still. Then Uncle Louis took me, and sent me to
school, but Uncle Louis has so many, so I wrote to mamma's brothers in
Portland, and they sent a letter back and money, and told me to come.
And I am going--Frollo and me."
She bends over the little dog, her lips quivering like the lips of a
grieved child, and the lawyer's middle-aged heart goes out to her in a
great compassion.
"Poor little lonely child!" he thinks, watching the sweet overcast face:
"I hope they will be good to her, those Yankee friends." Then aloud.
"But you are very young, are you not, to travel this distance alone?"
"I am seventeen, and I had to travel alone, there was no one to come
with me. My Uncle Kent will meet me at Portland."
"You are Mademoiselle Kent?" he says with a smile.
"No, monsieur, my name is Bourdon--Norine Kent Bourdon."
"Have you ever seen those relatives to whom you are going?"
"Once. They came to see mamma when she was dead. There are three--two
uncles and an aunt. They were very kind. I liked them very much."
"I trust you will be happy in your new home, Miss Bourdon," the lawyer
says gravely. "Permit me to offer you my card. If you ever visit New
York I may meet you again--who knows?"
The young lady smiles as she reads the name.
"Ah--who knows? I am going out as governess by-and-by. Perhaps I shall
write to you to help get me a situation."
"What a frank, innocent child it is!" thought Mr. Gilbert, looking down
at the smiling, trustful face: "other girls of her age would be bashful,
coquettish, or afraid of a masculine stranger. But this pretty child
smiles up in my face, and tells me her little history as though I were
her brother. I wish I were her brother, and had power to shield her from
the hardships of life." "Any service in my power I shall always be happy
to render you, my dear young lady," he said; "if at any time you apply
to me, believe me I shall do my utmost to serve you."
Mademoiselle Norine Kent Bourdon looked up into the grave, genial face,
with soft, trustful eyes that thanked him. She could not have defined
it, but she felt he was a man to be trusted--a good man, a faithful
friend and an honorable gentleman.
The train flew on.
As the afternoon wore away the storm increased. The trees rocked in the
high wind, and the ceaseless sleet beat against the windows. Miss
Bourdon had a novel in her satchel, an English novel, and she perused a
few pages of this work at intervals, and watched the storm-blotted
landscape flitting by. She made small French remarks to Frollo, and she
refreshed herself with apples, ginger-bread and dyspeptic confectionery.
But, all these recreations palling after a time, and as the darkness of
the stormy March day closed, drowsiness came, and leaning her head
against the window, the young lady fell asleep.
Mr. Gilbert could watch her now to his heart's content, and he did watch
her with an interest all-absorbing, and utterly beyond his
comprehension. He laid his railway rug lightly over her, and shielded
her from all other male eyes, with jealous care. What was it that
charmed him about this French girl?
He could no more have told you then than he could ever have told you
afterward. It was written, it was Kismet; his fate had come to him as it
comes to all, in unlooked-for form. She looked, the poetic simile came
to the unpoetical mind of the lawyer--like a folded rose, the sweetness
and bloom yet unbrushed from the leaves.
Mademoiselle did not awake until the train stopped; then she opened her
eyes bewildered. But Mr. Gilbert gathered up the boxes and bundles, drew
her hand under his arm, and led her out of the cars, and up to the big
noisy hotel, where they were to stop for the night. Miss Bourdon took
her supper seated beside her friend, at the long crowded table, and was
dazzled, and delighted. It was all so new to her; and at seventeen,
novelty is delight. After supper her protector gave her into the hands
of a chambermaid, told her at what hour they started next morning, bade
her good-night, and dismissed her.
Were Richard Gilbert's dreams that night haunted by the vision of a
dark, soft face, two dark tender eyes, and the smile of an angel?
Richard Gilbert only knows. But this is certain: when Mademoiselle
Bourdon descended the stairs next morning he was standing at the
dining-room door awaiting her, and his calm eyes lit up, as few had ever
seen them light in his life. He led her into breakfast, and watched her
hearty, school-girl morning appetite with pleasure. Then, there being
half-an-hour to spare before the train started, he proposed a little
stroll in the crisp, cool sunshine that had followed yesterday's storm.
It was very fair, there in that lovely valley in Vermont, with the tall
mountains piercing the heavens, and the silvery lakes flashing like
mirrors below.
It was past noon when they reached Portland. The usual rush followed,
but Norine, safe under the protecting wing of Mr. Gilbert, made her way
unscathed. She looked eagerly among the crowd in the long depot, and
cried out at last at sight of a familiar face.
"There, monsieur--there! Uncle Reuben is standing yonder with the blue
coat and fur cap. He is looking for me. Oh! take me to him at once,
please."
Mr. Gilbert led Miss Bourdon up to where a bluff-looking, middle-aged
countryman stood--"Down East" from top to toe.
"Uncle," cried Norine, holding out both hands, eagerly, "I have come."
And then, heedless of the crowd, of Mr. Gilbert, mademoiselle flung both
arms around Uncle Reuben's neck with very French effusion, and kissed
him, smick--smack, on both cheeks.
"Hey! bless my soul! it is you, is it?" Uncle Reuben exclaimed,
extricating himself. "It is, I swow, and growed out of all knowin'.
You're welcome, my dear, and I'm right glad to have you with us, for
your poor mother's sake. You ain't a look of her, though--no, not
one--Gustave Bourdon all over. And how did you manage on your journey? I
tell you, we was all considerable uneasy about you."
He looked at her tall companion as he ceased, half suspiciously, half
inquiringly, and Miss Bourdon hastened to introduce them.
"This gentleman is Mr. Gilbert, uncle. He has been very kind to me all
the way. I don't know what I should have done but for him. He has taken
care of me ever since we left Montreal."
"Thanky, sir--much obliged to you for looking after this little girl.
Come along and spend the day with us at my place, Kent Farm."
"Thanks, very much," the lawyer answered; "I regret more than I can say
that circumstances render that pleasure impossible. I must be in New
York to-morrow, but the very next time I am in Portland I shall
certainly avail myself of your kind invitation. Miss Bourdon, until that
time comes, good-by."
He shook hands with her, and saw her led away by her uncle, with a
feeling of strange, yearning regret. A two-seated country sleigh stood
near. Uncle Reuben helped her in, took his seat beside her, tucked her
up, said "Ga'lang," and they were off. Once she looked back, to smile,
to wave her hand to him in adieu. One more glimpse of that brunette
face, of that rare smile, of those black Canadian eyes, and the clumsy
sleigh turned an acute angle, and she was gone.
Gone. A blank seemed to fall, the whole place turned desolate and empty.
With a wistful look in his face he turned slowly away.
"Poor little girl!" the lawyer thought. "I hope she will be happy. She
is so pretty--so pretty!"
CHAPTER II.
A WISE MAN'S FOLLY.
Mr. Richard Gilbert went to New York, and the girl with the black
Canadian eyes and floating hair went with him--in spirit, that is to
say. That dark, piquant face; that uplifted, gentle glance; that
dimpling smile haunted him all through the upward journey; haunted and
lit up his dingy office, and came between him and Blackstone, and Coke
upon Littleton, and other legal lights.
Her bright, seventeen-year old face formed itself into a picture upon
every page of those mouldering, dry-as-dust tomes, looked at him in the
purple twilight, in the sunny mornings, in the dead waste and middle of
the night. He had become "A Haunted Man," in short, Mr. Gilbert was in
love.
And so, "how it came let doctors tell," all of a sudden Mr. Gilbert
found that business required his presence Down East early in July. It
was trifling business, too, understrappers in the office thought, that
could very well have done without his personal supervision; but Mr.
Gilbert reasoned otherwise; and, with a very unwonted glow about the
region of the heart, packed his portmanteau, and started for Portland,
Me.
The hot July sun was blazing in the afternoon sky and the streets of
Portland were blistering in the heat, as the New York lawyer walked from
the cars to his hotel. That important business which had brought him so
many miles was transacted in a couple of hours, and then he returned to
his hotel to dress and dine. Dress!--when had Richard Gilbert in his
plain business pepper-and-salt suit and round-topped straw hat, ever
taken so much pains with his toilet before, ever sported such faultless
broadcloth in July, ever wore a diamond pin in his snowy linen, ever
stood so long before the glass, ever felt so little satisfied with the
result? When had the crow's feet around mouth and eyes ever shown so
plainly, when had his tall, bald forehead ever appeared so patriarchal,
when had he ever looked so dreadfully middle-aged, and plodding and
priggish in his own legal eyes? Ah, when indeed?
He hired a light wagon and a bony horse at the nearest livery stable,
and inquired the way to Kent Farm. Kent Farm was three miles distant, he
found, and the white, dusty road lay like a strip of silver between the
golden, green fields. The haymakers were at work, the summer air was
sweet with perfume, the fields of buckwheat waved, the birds sang in the
branches of the elms, the grasshoppers chirped until the drowsy air was
alive, and far beyond all, more beautiful than all, the silver sea lay
asleep under the sparkling sun. Pretty houses, all white and green, were
everywhere; and more than one Maud Mueller leaned on her rake, and looked
up under her broad-brimmed hat as this thoughtful Judge rode by. He rode
very slowly, so slowly that it was nearly an hour before he reached his
destination and drew up at the gate of Kent Farm.
Had he been wise to come? What was this young girl, this child of
seventeen, to him? What could she ever be? Youth turns to youth, as
flowers to the sun. What if he found her the plighted wife of some
stalwart young farmer, some elegant dry-goods clerk of the town? What?
His heart contracted with a sharp, sudden spasm, and told him what?
Kent Farm at last. Half a mile from any other house, on the summit of a
green, sloping eminence, an old red, weather-beaten farm-house its once
glaring color toned and mellowed down by the sober hand of Time. A
charming old place, its garden sloping down to the roadside, its lilac
trees in full bloom. A wide-spreading old-fashioned garden, with rose
bushes, and gooseberry bushes, currant bushes, sunflowers, and
hollyhocks, and big gnarled old apple trees, mixed up in picturesque
confusion.
Seated in a chair of twisted branches, under one of these crooked,
blossoming apple trees, the sunlight tangled in her shining hair, and
the mignonne face, sat Norine Kent Bourdon, reading a novel.
He opened the gate. Her book was interesting--she did not hear. He
walked up the gravelled path, and drew near. Then she looked up, then
half rose, in doubt for a moment, and then--to the day of his death,
until all things earthly, will Richard Gilbert remember the flush of
joy, the flash of recognition, the glad cry of welcome, with which she
flung aside her book and sprang towards him, both hands outstretched.
"Monsieur! monsieur!" the sweet voice cried. "Ah, monsieur! how glad I
am to see you."
She gave him her hands. The lovely, laughing face the eyes of fathomless
light, looked up into his. Yes, she was glad to see him, glad with the
impulsive gladness of a little younger sister to see an indulgent
brother, old and grave, yet beloved. But Mr. Gilbert, holding those
hands, looking into that eager, sparkling face, drew no such nice
distinctions.
"Thank you, mademoiselle. You have not quite forgotten me, then, after
all?"
"Forgotten you, monsieur? Oh, my memory is better than that. You have
come to pay us that promised visit, have you not? Uncle Reuben has been
looking for you ever since the first of June, and Aunt Hester is never
so happy as when she has company. You have come to stay, I know."
"Well, I'm not sure about that, Miss Bourdon. I may remain a week or
two, certainly. New York is not habitable after the first week of July,
but I am stopping at the Preble House. I am too much of a stranger to
trespass on your good uncle's hospitality."
"You have been kind to me, monsieur, and you are a stranger no more.
Besides, it is dull here--pleasant but dull, and it will be a second
kindness to enliven us with a little New York society."
She laughed and drew away her hands. The golden light of the July
afternoon gilded the girlish face, upon which the New York gentleman
gazed with an admiration he did not try to hide.
"Dull," he repeated; "you don't find it dull, I should think. Your face
tells a very different story."
Mademoiselle shook back her rippling satin hair, and made a little
French _moue mutine_.
"Ah, but it is. Only the fields and the flowers, the trees and the
birds, the eating and sleeping, and reading. Now, flowers and fields and
birds are very nice and pleasant things, but I like people, new faces,
new friends, pleasure, excitement, change. I ride the horse, I milk the
cows, I pick the strawberries, I darn the stockings, I play the piano, I
make the beds, I read the novels. But I see nobody--nobody--nobody, and
it is dull."
"Then you prefer the old life and Montreal?"
"Montreal!" Miss Bourdon's black eyes flashed out, as your black eyes
can. "Monsieur," solemnly, "I adore Montreal. It was always new and
always nice there; bright and gay and French. French! it is all Yankee
here, not but that I like Yankees too. Aunt Hester thinks," a merry
laugh, "there never was anybody born like me, and Uncle Reuben thinks I
would be an angel if I didn't read so many novels and eat so many
custard pies. And, monsieur," with the saucy uplifted coquettish glance
he remembered so well, "if _you_ find out I'm not an angel don't tell
him, please. I wouldn't have him undeceived for the world."
"I don't think I shall find it out, mademoiselle. I quite agree with
your uncle. Here he comes now."
Reuben Kent came out of the open front door, smoking a pipe. He paused
at sight of his niece in friendly colloquy with a strange gentleman. The
next moment he recognized him, and came forward at once in hearty
welcome.
"Wal, squire," Mr. Kent said, "you _hev_ come, when I had e'enamost gi'n
you up. How dye deow? 'Tarnal hot, ain't it? Must be a powerful sight
hotter, though, up to York. How air you. You're lookin' pretty
considerably spry. Norry's glad to see you, _I_ know. That gal's bin a
talkin' o' ye continual. Come in, squire--come in. My sister Hester will
be right glad to see ye."
What a cordial welcome it was; what a charming agricultural person Mr.
Reuben Kent, one of nature's Down East noblemen, indeed. In a glow of
pleasure, feeling ten years younger and ten times better looking than
when he had started, the New York lawyer walked up to the house, into
the wide, cool hall, into the "keepin' room," and took a seat. A
pleasant room; but was not everything about Kent Farm pleasant, with two
large western windows, through which the rose and golden light of the
low dropping sun streamed over the store carpet, the cane-seated chairs,
the flowers in the cracked tumblers, and white, delf pitchers. Traces of
Norine were everywhere; the piano in a corner, the centre-table littered
with books, papers, magazines and scraps of needle-work, the two
canaries singing in the sunny windows, all spoke of taste, and girlhood.
There were white muslin curtains, crocheted tidies on every chair in the
room, a lounge, covered with _cretonne_ in a high state of glaze and
gaudy coloring, and the scent of the hay fields and the lilacs over all.
No fifth-avenue drawing-room, no satin-hung silver-gilt reception-room,
had ever looked one half so exquisite in this metropolitan gentleman's
professional eyes. For there, amid the singing birds and the scented
roses, stood a tall, slim girl, in a pink muslin dress--and where were
the ormolu or brocatelle could embellish any room as she did?
Uncle Reuben went in search of Aunt Hester, and returned with that lady
presently; and Mr. Gilbert saw a bony little woman with bright eyes and
a saffron complexion. Miss Kent welcomed him as an old friend, and
pressed him to "stay to tea."
"It's jest ready," she remarked,--a maiden lady was Aunt Hester,--"we've
ben waitin' for brother Joe, and he's jest come. There ain't nothing
more refreshing, I think myself, than a nice cup o' hot tea on a warm
day."
Uncle Reuben seconded the motion at once.
"We can't offer you anything very grand--silver spoons and sech--as you
get at them air hotels, but sech as it is, and Hester's a master hand
at crawlers and hot biscuit, you're most mightly welcome. Norry, you
fetch him along, while I go and wash up."
Miss Bourdon obeyed. Mr. Gilbert did not require all that pressing, if
they had but known it. There was no need to apologize for that "high
tea." No silver teaspoons, it is true, but the plated-ware glistened as
the real Simon Pure never could have done; and no hotel in Maine, or out
of it, could have shown a snowier table-cloth, hotter, whiter, more
dyspeptic biscuits, blacker tea, redder strawberries, richer cream,
yellower ginger-bread, or pinker cold-sliced ham. Mr. Gilbert ate ham
and jelly, strawberries and tea, hot biscuit and cold ginger-bread--in a
way that fairly warmed Aunt Hester's heart.
"And we calk'late on keeping you while you're down here, Mr. Gilbert,"
Uncle Reuben's hearty voice said. "It's a pleasant place, though I say
it as hadn't ought to--a heap pleasanter than the city. Our house ain't
none too fine, and our ways may be homespun and old-fashioned, but I
reckon Norry and Hester kin make you pretty tol'bel comfortable ef you
stay."
"Comfortable!"
He looked across at that face opposite; comfortable in the same house
with her! But still he murmured some faint objection.
"Don't mention trouble, sir," said Uncle Joe, who was the counterpart of
Uncle Reuben; "you've ben kind to our little Norry, and that's enough
for us. Norry, hain't you got nothin' to say?"
"I say stay!" and the bewildering black eyes flashed their laughing
light across at the victimized lawyer. "Stay, and I'll teach you to milk
and make butter, and feed poultry, and pick strawberries, and improve
your mind in a thousand rural ways. You shall swing me when Uncle Joe is
too busy, and help me make short-cake, and escort me to 'quiltin' bees,'
and learn to rake hay. And I--I'll sing for you wet days, and drive you
all over the neighborhood, and let you tell me all about New York and
the fashions, and the stores, and the theatres, and the belles of
Broadway. Of course you stay."
Of course he stayed. It is so easy to let rosy lips persuade us into
doing what we are dying to do. He stayed, and his fate was fixed--for
good or for evil--fixed. That very night his portmanteau came from
Portland, and the "spare room" was his.
Supper over, Uncles Reuben and Joe lit their pipes, and went away to
their fields and their cattle--Aunt Hester "cleared up," and Miss
Bourdon took possession of Mr. Gilbert. She wasn't the least in awe of
him, she was only a bright, frank, fearless, grown-up child. He was
grave, staid, old--is not thirty-five a fossil age in the eyes of
seventeen?--but venerable though he was, she was not the least afraid of
him.
She led her captive--oh, too willing, forth in triumph to see her
treasures--sleek, well-fed cows, skittish ponies, big horses, hissing
geese, gobling turkeys, hens and chicks innumerable. He took a pleased
interest in them all--calves and colts, chickens and ducklings, ganders
and gobblers, listened to the history of each, as though he had never
listened to such absorbing biographies in all his life before.
How rosy were the lips that spoke, how eager the sunny face uplifted to
his, and when was there a time that Wisdom did not fall down and worship
Beauty? He liked to think of her pure and sweet, absorbed in these
innocent things, to find neither coquetry nor sentimentalism in this
healthy young mind, to know her ignorant as the goslings themselves of
all the badness and hardness and cruelty of the big, cruel world.
They went into the garden, and lingered under the lilacs, until the last
pink flush of the July day died, and the stars came out, and the moon
sailed up serene. They found plenty to say; and, as a rule, Richard
Gilbert rarely found much to say to girls. But Miss Bourdon could talk,
and the lawyer listened to the silvery, silly prattle with a grave smile
on his face.
It was easy to answer all her eager questions, to tell her of life in
New York, of the opera and the theatres, and the men and women who wrote
the books and the poems she loved. And as she drank it in, her face
glowed and her great eyes shone.
"Oh, how beautiful it all must be!" she cried, "to hear such music, to
see such plays, to know such people! If one's life could only be like
the lives of the heroines of books--romantic, and beautiful, and full of
change. If one could only be rich and a lady, Mr. Gilbert!"
She clasped her hands with the hopelessness of that thought. He smiled
as he listened.
"A lady, Miss Bourdon? Are you not that now?" Miss Bourdon shook her
head mournfully.
"Of course not, only a little stupid country girl, a farmer's niece. Oh!
to be a lady--beautiful and haughty and admired, to go to balls in
diamonds and laces, to go to the opera like a queen, to lead the
fashion, and to be worshipped by every one one met! But what is the use
of wishing, it never, never, never, can be."
"Can it not? I don't quite see that, although the ladies you are
thinking of exist in novels only, never in this prosy, work-a-day world.
Wealth is not happiness--a worn-out aphorism, but true now as the first
day it was uttered. Great wealth, perhaps, may never come to you but
what may seem wealth in your eyes may be nearer than you think--who
knows?"
He looked at her, a sudden flush rising over his face, but Norine shook
her black ringlets soberly.
"No, I will never be rich. Uncle Reuben won't hear of my going out as
governess, so there is nothing left but to go on with the
chicken-feeding and butter-making and novel-reading forever. Perhaps it
is ungrateful, though, to desire any change, for I am happy too."
He drew a little nearer her; a light in his grave eyes, a glow on his
sober face, warm words on his lips. What was Richard Gilbert about to
say? The young, sweet, wistful face was fair enough in that tender
light, to turn the head of even a thirty-five year-old-lawyer. But those
impulsive words were not spoken, for "Norry, Norry!" piped Aunt Hester's
shrill treble. "Where's that child gone? Doesn't she know she'll get her
death out there in the evening air."
Norine laughed.
"From romance to reality! Aunt Hester doesn't believe in moonlight and
star-gazing and foolish longings for the impossible. Perhaps she is
right; but I wonder if she didn't stop to look at the moon sometimes,
too, when she was seventeen?"
It was a very fair opening, given in all innocence. But Mr. Gilbert did
not avail himself of it. He was not a "lady's man" in any sense of the
word. Up to the present he had never given the fairest, the cleverest
among them a second glance, a second thought. The language of compliment
and flirtation was as Chaldaic and Sanscrit to him, and he walked by her
side up to the house and into the keeping-room in ignoble silence.
The little old maid and the big old bachelors were assembled here, the
lamp was lit, the curtains down and the silvery shimmer of that lovely
moon-rise jealously shut out. Norine went to the piano, and entertained
her audience with music. She played very well, indeed. She had had
plenty of piano-forte-drudgery at the Convent school of the Grey Nuns in
her beloved Montreal. She sung for them in the voice that suited her
mignonne face, a full, rich contralto.
She sang gayly, with eyes that sparkled, the national song of Lower
Canada: "_Vive la Canadienne_," and the New York lawyer went up to bed
that first night with its ringing refrain in his ears:
"Vive la Canadienne et ses beaux yeux,
Et ses beaux yeux tous doux,
Et ses beaux yeux."
"Ah!" Richard Gilbert thought, "well may the _habitans_ sing and extol
the _beaux yeux_ of their fair countrywomen, if those bright eyes are
one-half as lovely as Norine Bourdon's."
He stayed his fortnight out at the old red farm-house; and he who ran
might read the foolish record. He, a sober, practical man of
thirty-five, who up to the present had escaped unscarred, had fallen a
victim at last to a juvenile disease in its most malignant form. And
juvenile disorders are very apt to be fatal when caught in mature years.
He was in love with a tall child of seventeen, a foolish little French
girl, who looked upon him with precisely the same affection she felt for
Uncle Reuben.
"What a fool I am," the lawyer thought, moodily, "to dream a child like
that can ever be my wife? A sensible, practical young woman of
seven-and-twenty is nearer your mark, Richard Gilbert. What do I know of
this girl, except that she has silken ringlets and shining black eyes,
and all sorts of charming, childish, bewitching ways. I will not make an
idiot of myself at my age. I will go away and forget her and my folly. I
was a simpleton ever to come."
He kept his word. He went away with his story untold. He bade them all
good-bye, with a pang of regret more keen than any he had ever felt
before in his life. Perhaps the little brown hand of mademoiselle
lingered a thought longer than the others in his; perhaps his parting
look into those _beaux yeux_ was a shade more wistful. He was going for
good now--to become a wise man once more, and he might never look into
those wonderful, dark eyes more.
Norine was sorry, very sorry, and said so with a frank regret her
middle-aged lover did not half like. He might be unskilled in the
mysteries of the tender passion, but he had an inward conviction that
love would never speak such candid words, never look back at him with
such crystal clear eyes. She walked with him to the gate; her ebon curls
a stream in the July breeze.
"Will you not write to me sometimes?" Mr. Gilbert could not help asking.
"You don't know how glad I shall be to hear of--of you all."
Mademoiselle Bourdon promised readily.
"Though I don't write very good letters," she remarked deprecatingly.
"I get the spelling wrong, and the grammar dreadfully mixed when I write
in English, but I want to improve. If you'll promise to tell me of all
my mistakes, I'll write with pleasure."
So what were to be the most precious love letters on earth to the
gentleman, were to be regarded as "English composition," by the lady.
Truly, the French proverb saith: "There is always one who loves, and one
who is loved."
Mr. Gilbert returned to New York, and found that populous city a blank
and howling wilderness. The exercises in English composition began, and
though both grammar and spelling might get themselves into hopeless
snarls, to him they were the most eloquent and precious epistles ever
woman penned. He had read the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, but
what were those vapid epistles to Miss Bourdon's? He watched for the
coming of the Eastern mail; he tore open the little white envelope; he
read and re-read, and smiled over the contents.
And time went on. August, September, October passed. The letters from
Miss Norine Bourdon came like clock work, and were the bright spots in
Richard Gilbert's hard-working, drab-colored life. He wrote her back; he
sent her books and music, and pictures and albums, and pretty things
without end, and was happy. And then the Ides of dark November came, and
all this pastoral bliss was ended and over.
The letters with the Down-east post mark ceased abruptly, and without
any reason; his last two remained unanswered. He wrote a third, and fell
into a fever while he waited. Was she sick, was she dead, was she----.
No, not faithless, surely, he turned cold at the bare thought. But what
was it? The last week of November brought him his answer. Very short,
very unsatisfactory.
"KENT FARM, Nov. 28, 1860.
"DEAR MR. GILBERT--You must pardon me for not replying to your last
letters. I have been so busy. A gentleman met with an accident
nearly three weeks ago, close by our house, broke his left arm, and
sprained his right ankle. I have had to take care of him. Aunt
Hetty has so much to do all the time that she could not. We are all
very well, and send you our best wishes. I am very much obliged for
the pretty work-box, and the magazines, etc. And I am, dear Mr.
Gilbert, with the most affectionate sentiments,
"NORINE K. BOURDON.
"P. S.--The gentleman is greatly better. He is with us still. He is
very nice. He is from your city.
"N."
In the solitude of his legal sanctum, Richard Gilbert, with frowning
brow and gloomy eyes, read this blighting epistle. His worst fears were
realized, more than realized.
There was a gentleman in the case. A gentleman who absorbed so much of
Miss Norine Bourdon's time that she could not answer his letters. And he
was "greatly better" and he was from your city. Confound the puppy! He
was young and good-looking, no doubt; and he must meet with his
accident, at her very door; precisely as though he were enacting a
chapter out of a novel. Of course, too, it was his arm and his ankle
that were smashed, not his villainous face. And Norine sat by his
bedside, and bathed his forehead, and held cooling draughts to his
parched lips, and listened to his romantic, imbecile delirium, etc.,
etc., etc. She sat up with him nights; she read to him; she talked to
him; she sang for him. He could see it all.
Mr. Gilbert was a Christian gentleman, so he did not swear. But I am
bound to say he felt like swearing. He jumped up; he crushed that poor
little letter into a ball; he strode up and down his office like a caged
(legal) tiger. The green-eyed monster put forth its obnoxious claws,
and never left him for many a dreary year. It was that atrocious
postscript, so innocently written, so diabolical to read. "He is greatly
better. He is with us still. He is very nice." Oh, confound him! what a
pity it had not been his neck.
Suddenly he paused in his walk, his brows knit, his eyes flashing, his
mouth set. Yes, that was it, he would do it, his resolution was taken.
He would go straight to Kent Farm, and see for himself. And next morning
at 8 o'clock the express train for Boston bore among its passengers Mr.
R. Gilbert, of New York.
The train whirled him away, and as the chill, murky December landscape
flew by, he awoke all at once to a sense of what he was about. Why was
he going? what did he mean? to ask Norine Bourdon to be his wife?
certainly not. To play dog in the manger, and keep some more fortunate
man from loving and marrying her? most certainly not. Then why had he
come? At this juncture he set his teeth, took up the _Herald_ and
scowled moodily at its printed pages all day long.
He slept that night in Boston, and next morning resumed his journey. He
reached Portland before noon, dined at his usual hotel, and then, as the
afternoon sun began to drop low in the wintry sky, set out on foot for
Kent Farm.
How familiar it all was; how often, when the fields were green, the
trees waving, and the birds singing, he had walked this road beside
Norine. But the fields were white with snow to-day, the trees black,
gaunt skeletons, and the July birds dead or gone. All things had changed
in four months--why not Norine as well?
It was four by the lawyer's watch as he raised the latch of the garden
gate, and walked up the snow-shrouded path. There stood the gnarled old
apple tree, with its rustic chair, but the tree was leafless, and the
chair empty. Doors and windows had stood wide when he saw them last,
with sunshine and summer floating in; now all were closed, and the
December blasts howled around the gables. There was no one to be seen,
but the red light of a fire streamed brightly out through the curtains
of the keeping-room.
He went slowly up the steps, opened the front door, and entered the
hall. The door of that best apartment stood half open, light and warmth,
voices and laughter came through. Mr. Gilbert paused on the threshold an
instant, and looked at the picture within.
A very pretty picture.
The room was lit by the leaping fire alone. Seated on a low stool,
before the fire and beside the sofa, he saw Norine. She was reading
aloud the lovely story of _Lalla Rookh_. He had sent her the green and
gilt volume himself. She wore a crimson merino dress, over which her
black hair fell, and in the fantastic firelight how fair the dark,
piquant face looked, the dark eyes were bent upon her book, and the soft
voice was the only sound in the room.
On the sofa, perilously near, lay the "gentleman" of her letter--the
hero of the broken arm and sprained ankle, who was "very nice." And
Richard Gilbert looking, gave a great start.
He knew him.
His worst fears were realized. He saw a man both young and
good-looking--something more, indeed, than good-looking. The face was
thin and pale, but when was that a fault in the eyes of a girl!--a tall
figure in a dark suit, brown hair, and silken blonde mustache
artistically curled. Surely a charming picture of youth and beauty on
both sides, and yet if Mr. Gilbert had seen a cobra di capella coiled up
beside the girl he loved, he could hardly have turned sicker with
jealous fear.
"Laurence Thorndyke," he thought blankly "of all the men in the wide
world, what evil fortune has sent Laurence Thorndyke here!"
CHAPTER III.
MR. LAURENCE THORNDYKE.
The little dog Frollo, curled up beside his mistress, was the first to
see and greet the newcomer. He rushed forward, barking a friendly
greeting, and the young lady looked up from the book she was reading,
the young gentleman from the face he was reading at the same moment, and
beheld the dark figure in the doorway.
Norine Bourdon sprang to her feet, blushing violently, and came forward
with outstretched hand. It was the first time he had ever seen her
blush--like that--the first time her eyes had fallen, the first time her
voice had faltered. She might be glad to see him, as she said, but all
the old, frank, childish gladness was gone.
"I have taken you by surprise," he said, gazing into her flushed face
and shrinking eyes, "as I did once before. I get tired of New York and
business very suddenly sometimes, and you know I have a standing
invitation here."
"We are very glad--_I_ am very glad to see you, Mr. Gilbert," Norine
answered, but with an embarrassment, a restraint altogether new in his
experience of her. "We missed you very much after you went away."
The young man on the sofa, who all this time had been calmly looking and
listening, now took an easier position, and spoke:
"Six-and-twenty-years experience of this wicked world has taught me the
folly of being surprised at anything under the sun. But if I had not
outlived the power of wondering, centuries ago, I should wonder at
seeing Mr. Richard Gilbert out of the classic precincts of Wall street
the first week of December. I suppose now you wouldn't have looked to
see _me_ here?"
He held out a shapely, languid hand, with a diamond ablaze on it. The
lawyer touched it about as cordially as though it had been an extended
toad.
"I certainly would not, Mr. Thorndyke. I imagined, and so did Mr. Darcy,
when I saw him last, that you were in Boston, practicing your
profession."
"Ah! no doubt! So I was until a month ago. I suppose it never entered
your--I mean his venerable noddle, to conceive the possibility of my
growing tired practicing my profession. Such is the fact, however. Even
the hub of the universe may pall on the frivolous mind of youth, and
I've 'thrown physic to the dogs, I'll none of it,' for the present at
least. My patients--few and far between, I'm happy to say, will get on
much more comfortably, and stand a much better chance of recovery
without me."
"Indeed! I don't doubt it at all. But your uncle?"
"My uncle can't hope to escape the crosses of life any more than poorer
and better men. All work and no play makes, what's his name, a dull boy.
There will be a row very likely, the sooner my venerated relative is
convinced that my talents don't lie in the bleeding and blistering, the
senna and salts line, the better. They don't."
"Don't they? It would be difficult to say, from what I know of Mr.
Laurence Thorndyke, in what line they _do_ lie. May I ask what you mean
to do?"
"I shall go in for sculpture," responded Mr. Laurence Thorndyke, with
the calm consciousness of superior genius. "Other men have made fame and
fortune by art, and why not I? If my hypocondriacal adopted uncle would
only shell out, send me to Rome, and enable me to study the old masters,
I have the strongest internal conviction that--"
"That you would set the world on fire with your genius. That you would
eclipse the Greek Slave. No doubt--I have known others to think so
before, and I know the sort of 'fame and fortune' they made. How do you
come to be here?" Very curtly and abruptly, this.
"Ah!--thereby hangs a tale," with a long tender glance at Norine. "I am
the debtor of a most happy accident. My horse threw me, and Miss
Bourdon, happening along at the moment, turned Good Samaritan and took
me in."
"I don't mean that," Mr. Gilbert said, stiffly; "how do you come to be
in Maine at all?"
"I beg your pardon. Tom Lydyard--the Portland Lydyards, you know--no I
suppose you don't know, by the by. Tom Lydyard was to be married, and
invited me over on the auspicious occasion. Tom's a Harvard man like
myself, sworn chums, brothers-in-arms, Damon and Pythias, and all that
bosh; and when he asked me down to his wedding, could I--I put it to
yourself, now, Gilbert, could I refuse? I cut the shop. I turned my back
on blue pills and chloral, I came I saw, I--mademoiselle, may I trouble
you for a glass of lemonade? You have no idea, Mr. Gilbert, what a
nuisance I am, not being able to do anything for myself yet."
"Perhaps I have" was Mr. Gilbert's frigid response. The sight of Norine
bending over that recumbent figure gave him a sensation of actual
physical pain. He knew what this languid, graceful, slow speaking young
Sybarite's life had been, if she did not.
Just at that moment--and it was a relief, Aunt Hester entered, followed
by Uncles Reuben and Joe. No restraint here, no doubt about his welcome
from them, no change in the place he held in their esteem and affection.
Tea was ready, would everybody please to come.
Mr. Thorndyke's fractured limb was by no means equal to locomotion, so
Uncle Reuben wheeled him, sofa and all, into the next room, and Aunt
Hester and Norine vied with each other in waiting on him. It comes
natural to all women to pet sick men--if the man be young and handsome,
why it comes all the more naturally.
Mr. Thorndyke wasn't sick by any means--that was all over and done with.
He took his tea from Aunt Hester's hand and drank it, his toast and
chicken from Norine and ate them. He talked to them both in that lazy,
pleasant voice of his, or lay silent and stroked his mustache with his
diamond-ringed hand, and looked handsome, and whether the talk or the
silence were most dangerous, it would have puzzled a cleverer man than
Richard Gilbert to tell. To sit there listening to Aunt Hester chirping
and Uncle Reuben prosing, and see the blue eyes making love, in eloquent
silence, to the black ones, was almost too much for human nature to
endure. She sat there silent, shy, all unlike the bright, chattering
Norine of the summer gone, but with, oh! such an infinitely happy face!
She sat beside Laurence Thorndyke--she ministered to that convalescent
appetite of his, and that was enough. What need of speech when silence
is so sweet?
Supper ended, Mr. Thorndyke was wheeled back to his post in the front
room beside the fire. Norine never came near him all the rest of the
evening, she sat at the little piano, and poured out her whole heart in
song. Richard Gilbert, full of miserable, knawing jealousy, understood
those songs; perhaps Laurence Thorndyke, lying with half-closed eyes,
half-smiling lips, did too. They were old-fashioned songs that the
lawyer had sent her, favorites of his own: "Twere vain to tell thee all
I feel," and "Drink to me only with thine eyes." Yes, the meaning of
those tender old ballads was not for him. It was maddening to see
Laurence Thorndyke lying there, with that conscious smile on his lips;
he could endure no more--he arose with the last note, abruptly enough,
and bade them good-night.
"What! so early, Gilbert?" Thorndyke said, looking at his watch. "What a
dickens of a hurry you're in. You've got no clients in Portland, have
you? and Miss Bourdon, is going to sing us half-a-dozen more songs yet."
Mr. Gilbert paid no attention whatever to this flippant young man. He
turned his back upon him indeed, and explained elaborately to Uncle
Reuben that it was impossible for him to remain longer to-night, but
that he would call early on the morrow.
"He is very much changed," remarked Aunt Hester, thoughtfully; "don't
you think so, Norry? He's nothing like so pleasant and free, as he used
to be."
"Particularly grumpy, I should say," interposed Mr. Thorndyke.
"'Pleasant and free' are the last terms I should think of applying to
Richard Gilbert. Not half a bad fellow either, old Gilbert, but an awful
prig--don't you think so, Miss Bourdon?"
"I like Mr. Gilbert very much," Miss Bourdon answered, strumming idly on
the keys; "and I think him pleasant. He seemed out of spirits to-night,
though, I fancy."
It was bright, frosty starlight as the lawyer walked back to town. He
walked rapidly, his head well up, a dark frown clouding his face.
"Any one but Thorndyke--any one but Thorndyke!" he was thinking
bitterly. Alas! Mr. Gilbert, would you not have been jealous of the
Archbishop of Canterbury had that dignitary been "keeping company" with
Miss Bourdon? "And she loves him already--already. A very old story to
Laurence Thorndyke. Six-and-twenty years, a well-shaped nose, two blue
eyes, a mustache, and the easy insolence of the 'golden youth' of New
York. What else has he but that? What else is needed to win _any_
woman's heart? And hers is his, for good or for evil, for ever and ever.
He is the Prince Charming of her fairy tale, and she has caught his
wandering, artist fancy, as scores have caught it before. And when I
tell her the truth, that his plighted wife awaits him, what then? Little
Norine! to think that you should fall into the power of Laurence
Thorndyke."
Yes, she was in his power--for she loved him. Had it all not been so
delightfully romantic, so like a chapter out of one of her pet novels,
that first meeting, when Fate itself had flung him wounded and bleeding
at her feet? Was it not all photographed forever on her mind, a picture
whose vividness time never could dim! It had befallen in this way:
On the afternoon of the third of November Miss Bourdon had driven over
in the light wagon from the farm to the city, to receive her usual,
eagerly-looked-for package from Mr. Gilbert. It had been dark and windy
from early morning. As the afternoon wore on, the sky grew darker, the
wind higher. She got her bundle of books, visited one or two stores, one
or two friends, and night had fallen before she turned old Kitty's head
towards Kent Farm. A faint and watery moon made its way up through the
drifts of jagged cloud, and the gale howled through the street as though
it had gone mad. It was a lonely and unpleasant ride; but old Kitty
could have made her way asleep, and Norine sang to herself as she drove
slowly along. They were within a quarter of a mile of the house, when
Kitty pricked up her red ears, gave a neigh of alarm, and shied from
some long, dark object lying motionless across her path. Norine bent
over and looked down. There, she saw, lying on his face, the prostrate
form of a man.
Was he drunk, or was he dead? She was out in a twinkling, and bending
above him. There was blood on his clothes, and on the dusty road. She
turned his face over until the pallid moon shone upon it. Dead, to all
seeming, the eyes closed, life and consciousness gone.
Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Laurence Thorndyke was lying in the best
bedroom of Kent Farm, with Aunt Hester and Norine bending over him, and
Uncle Joe scudding along on horseback for a doctor. All their efforts to
bring him out of that fainting fit were vain. White and cold he lay; and
so Norine Bourdon, with a great pity in her heart, looked first upon the
face of Laurence Thorndyke.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LAWYER'S WARNING.
Mr. Gilbert appeared in no hurry to revisit his friends at Kent Farm. It
was late in the afternoon of the next day before he came slowly along
the quiet country road. He had passed the morning idly enough, staring
from the hotel window, down at the peaceful street and the few
straggling passers by. After his three o'clock dinner he had put on hat
and overcoat, and leisurely taken his way over the familiar ground.
It was a gray December afternoon, with a threatening of coming storm in
the overcast sky. A few feathery flakes whirled already through the
leaden air, an icy blast blew up from the sea, the road was deserted,
the dreary fields snow-shrouded and forsaken. And only yesterday it
seemed he had walked here by her side, the golden grain breast high, and
the scarlet poppies aflame in the gardens. His youth had come back to
him with that sunlit holiday. If he had spoken then, who knew what her
answer might have been. But he had let the hour and the day go by, and
now it was too late.
The snow flakes were whirling faster and faster as Mr. Gilbert opened
the gate and approached the house. He could see the rose light of the
fire through the curtained windows, and a slight, graceful figure
seated at one, sewing. The brown rattling stems of hop vines twining
around it, like sere serpents, made a framework for the girlish head and
fair young face. All the floss silk curls were bound back with scarlet
ribbon, and the luminous black eyes were fixed on her work. They saw the
tardy visitor, however, and with a bright, welcoming smile she sprang
up, and ran to open the door.
"How late you are. We thought you were not coming at all. I have been
looking for you all day." She held out her hand, far more like Norine of
old than last night, and led the way back into the parlor. There on his
comfortable sofa, by his comfortable fire, reposed of course the five
feet, eleven inches of Mr. Laurence Thorndyke. Mr. Gilbert gave that
invalid a nod several degrees icier than the elements out doors.
"Ah, you have come! I told Norine you would."--Norine! it had come to
that then--"I know you to be one of those uncompromising sort of
characters, Gilbert, who never break their word. Have you your cigar
case about you? I should like a smoke."
"Miss Bourdon is present, Mr. Thorndyke."
"So she is--for which Allah be praised. But Miss Bourdon is the most
sensible, as she is most charming of young ladies. She gave me _carte
blanche_ ages ago to smoke as much as I please. Didn't you Norry? She
fills my pipe, she even lights it when this confounded shoulder twitches
more than usual."
Richard Gilbert set his teeth with inward fury. To sit here, and listen
to Laurence Thorndyke's insolent familiarity, his lover like--"Norry,"
drove him half wild.
"I have not my cigar case," he answered, more and more frigidly; "and
if I had, I don't know that I should countenance such a trespass on
common decency as to let you smoke one here. How long before your doctor
thinks you fit to be removed?"
"Oh, not for weeks yet; it was a deuce of a fracture, I can tell you.
Why, pray? My insignificant movements, as a rule, are all unworthy Mr.
Gilbert's attention."
"Your uncle is my friend, sir," the lawyer replied, "and I prefer not to
see him hoodwinked. I recommend you strongly to write and explain your
position, or I shall take an early opportunity of doing so myself."
"Will you? How very kind you are. But isn't it a pity to give yourself
so much unnecessary trouble? I believe Mr. Hugh Darcy did invest you
with a species of authority over my actions, but at six-and-twenty,
don't you think a fellow ought to be let loose from the leading strings?
And what would you have? I couldn't help accepting Tom Lydyard's
invitation. I couldn't help my horse taking fright and throwing me. I
couldn't help breaking my arm, and spraining my ankle, and I can't help
being in the seventh heaven of happiness and comfort with two such
nurses as Miss Kent and Miss Bourdon. Don't be unreasonable, Gilbert.
Norine--_ma belle_, I am utterly exhausted with all this talking. What
are you laughing at? Do pray favor me with my meerschaum and a light."
The pleasant lazy voice stopped, the pleasant smile turned upon Norine.
Miss Bourdon laughing at this passage of arms arose with alacrity to
obey, and the lawyer, looking unspeakably grim got up, too.
"Permit me to say good-by, Miss Bourdon. I start for New York to-night.
Can I see your uncle a moment before I go?" The door opened as he asked
the question and Aunt Hester came into the room.
"I heard your voice as I passed through the hall," she said. "Surely you
ain't going so soon?"
"I regret I must, my business requires my immediate return. I have only
time to say good-by and speak a word to your brother. Where shall I find
him?"
"In the stable, most likely. I'll go with you."
"Thanks. Farewell, Miss Bourdon."
Again their hands met, she looked perplexed and wistful, but she did not
urge him to stay. With a second stiff nod to Mr. Thorndyke, the lawyer
strode out of the room after Aunt Hetty.
"A word to her brother," muttered Mr. Thorndyke to himself looking after
them. "I think I know what that means. 'That fellow, Thorndyke, is a
spendthrift, a gambler, a flirt, an engaged man. Don't let him have
anything to say to Norine.' That will be about the sum and substance of
it. To think of his falling in love at his time of life, when he's old
enough and big enough to know better. But then middle-aged fools are the
worst of all fools. And you come a day after the fair, Mr. Richard
Gilbert. Your word of warning is just two weeks too late. I owe you two
or three little grudges for your _espionage_ of the past, and for two or
three little games blocked, and I think I see my way clearly to wiping
them out at last. A thousand thanks my charming little nurse." Aloud to
Norine, entering with pipe and pipe-light:
"What should I ever do without you?"
Mr. Gilbert, escorted by Aunt Hester, reached the stable, where Uncle
Reuben stood busily curry-combing Kitty.
"I want to speak half-a-dozen words in private to you, Kent," the
lawyer began, abruptly enough. "You will tell your good sister here at
your convenience, if you see fit. You must excuse my seeming rudeness,
Miss Kent, and say good-by, now."
He shook hands with her cordially, and watched her out of sight. Then he
turned to her brother.
"We are quite alone?" he asked.
"Quite, squire. Take a seat."
He brought forward a stool, but Mr. Gilbert waved it away.
"No, no, what I have to say will take but a minute, and then I shall be
going. I want to speak to you of that young man who is your
guest--Laurence Thorndyke."
"Wal, squire."
"You have not known me very long, Mr. Kent, but I think, I hope, you
have known me long enough to trust me, to believe what I say, to
understand I have no selfish motive. It is for"--he paused a moment--"it
is for your niece's sake I speak, you can hardly take a deeper interest
in her welfare than I do."
Was there ever so slight a tremor in the grave, steady voice, or did
Reuben Kent only fancy it? He paused in Kitty's toilet and looked at him
keenly.
"Wal, squire?" he said again.
"Laurence Thorndyke is no fit, no safe companion for your niece. He is
not a good man, he is as false as he is fascinating. She is only
seventeen, she knows nothing of the world, nothing of such men as he,
and believe me, Kent, it won't do."
Reuben Kent looked up, a sudden flash in his eye, a sudden redness in
his face.
"Go on," he said, curtly.
"I am afraid Miss Bourdon cares more for him already than--" He paused
again and averted his face. "You know what I mean. He is handsome, and
she is only a girl. She will grow to love him, and he could not marry
her if he would, he is already engaged, and unless I mistake him
greatly, would not if he could. Mr. Kent, this young man will go away,
and Norine will be neither the better nor the happier for his coming."
His voice was husky. Something of the pain he felt was in his face. The
farmer stretched forth and caught the lawyer's hand in a hard grip.
"Thanky, squire," he said; "I ain't a man to jaw much, but I believe
_you_, and am obliged to you for this. If that young jacknapes from York
tries to come any of his city games down here, by the Lord Jehosaphat!
I'll lay him up with something worse than a broken arm!"
"Can you not avert the danger?" suggested Mr. Gilbert. "It may not be
too late. Send the fellow away."
"Wal, squire, you see that mightn't be doing the square thing by him. It
would look unpleasantly like turning him out. No, I can't send him away
until the doctor says he's fit to go, but, by ginger, I'll send her!"
"Will she go?"
Uncle Reuben chuckled.
"We won't ask her. I'll fix it off. We've some cousins thirty miles up
country, and they've invited her time and again, but, somehow, we've
never felt--Joe and me--as though we could spare her afore. It's
powerful lonesome, I tell ye, squire, when Norry ain't around. But
now--I'll take her to-morrow morning."
"The best thing you can do. And now, before it gets any later and
stormier, I will be off. Good-by, Mr. Kent, for the present."
"Good-by, and thanky, squire, thanky. You'll be along again soon, hey?"
"Well, perhaps so," replied the lawyer, coloring slightly. "Take care of
your niece, Kent, and good-by to you."
They parted at the gate. Reuben Kent watched the stalwart form of the
lawyer out of sight, then walked slowly and thoughtfully back to the
house and the sitting-room. Mr. Thorndyke, in a deep, melodious tenor,
was reading aloud "Lucille," and Miss Bourdon, with flushed cheeks and
glistening eyes of light, was listening.
The reading ceased at the farmer's entrance; the spell was broken, and
Norine looked up.
"Has Mr. Gilbert gone, Uncle Reuben?"
"Yes."
He said it with unusual gravity, regarding young Thorndyke. The girl saw
the change in his usually good humored, red-and-tan face, and went over
and threw an arm around his neck.
"What is it, uncle? Something gone wrong?"
"No--yes. Nothing that can't be set right, I hope. Where's your aunt?"
"In the kitchen baking cake. Shall I run and call her?"
"No, I'll go myself."
He left the room. Mr. Thorndyke watched him.
"It is as I thought," he said to himself. "My label is up, 'dangerous.'
What has Gilbert been saying? Has he given Uncle Reuben my whole
interesting biography? Has he told him I drink, I gamble, I make love to
pretty girls wherever I meet them? All right, my legal duffer; you have
set your forty-years-old heart on pretty, black-eyed, belle Norine, and
so have I. Now, let's see who'll win."
Mr. Kent found his sister in the kitchen, baking, as Norine had said,
cakes for tea, their fragrant sweetness perfuming the hot air. In very
few words he repeated to her the lawyer's warning.
"We might a seen it ourselves, Hetty, if we hadn't been blinder than
bats. I'll take her up to Abel Merryweather's to-morrow, and just leave
her thar till this ere chap goes."
"Will you tell her, Reuben?" Aunt Hetty asked.
"No; I kinder don't like to, somehow. She'll guess without any telling,
I reckon. If I told her, she might tell him, there ain't never no
countin' on gals, and then he'd be after her hot foot. Least said's
soonest mended. Jest call her down to help you, Hetty, and keep her here
as long as you can. What with his poetry reading, his singing, his fine
talk, and good-lookin' face, he's enough to turn any gal's head."
"It was very good of Mr. Gilbert to tell you, Reuben."
"Very."
They looked at each other, and smiled. Poor Richard Gilbert! Your
cherished secret was very large print after all.
"Mr. Gilbert's her best friend, and sets heaps by her," said Uncle
Reuben rising. "Call the girl at once, Hetty."
He left the kitchen and Aunt Hester obeyed. Norine was summoned from
"Lucille," and Mr. Thorndyke--to look after the cakes, to make tea, to
roll out the short-cake, to butter the biscuits, to set the table. For
once Aunt Hester turned lazy and left everything to Norine. She had not
breathing space until supper was on the table.
After supper it was as bad. Contrary to all precedent, instead of going
to the piano, Norine got a basket of socks to darn. She looked at the
heap and the rents with laughing dismay.
"All these for me, Aunty! I'll never get through in the world, and I
want to practice my new songs with Mr. Thorndyke."
"Mr. Thorndyke will excuse you, I am sure," Aunt Hetty answered quietly.
"You sing a great deal more for him than you darn for me. You darn very
badly--it is time that you learned something useful. Here is your needle
and ball, my dear, go to work at once."
Miss Bourdon made a little wry face; Mr. Thorndyke's laughing blue eyes
looked knowing. Love and music were to be exchanged for cooking and
darning, all thanks to Mr. Gilbert.
Aunt Hester placed herself between her guest and her niece, and kept her
post like a very duenna all the evening. No poetry, no music, no
compliments, no love-making, only silence and sock-darning. Laurence
Thorndyke reclining on his lounge, even his efforts at conversation
falling flat, saw and understood it all perfectly. By Gilbert's order
the ewe lamb was to be guarded from the wolf. And his spirit rose with
the resistance.
"Guard her as you like," he said inwardly,--"watch her as you will, I'll
baffle the whole of you yet. If I cared nothing for the girl, and I
don't care much, I would still conquer you here, if only for the
pleasure of paying off Richard Gilbert. Meddling old prig! There was
that affair of Lucy West, he had to bring that to light, and old Darcy
was within an ace of disinheriting me. He wants to marry this little
black-eyed, sentimental French girl himself--more fool he--and it shall
be my pleasant and profitable occupation to nip that middle-aged romance
in the bud. I flatter myself I am rather more than a match for Aunt
Hetty."
But Mr. Thorndyke was yet to learn whether he was or no. At no time,
well or ill, was this elegant young doctor addicted to the vice of
early-rising. It was mostly noon when, half-carried in the strong arms
of Uncle Reuben and Joe, he reached the parlor.
Norine, however, was up with the lark--that is to say there were no
larks in December, but with the striking six of the kitchen clock. On
the morning following the stocking darning, as the family assembled
together for their seven o'clock breakfast, Uncle Reuben said:
"Norry, I'm a going to give you a treat to-day--something you've been
wanting this long time."
Norine opened her black eyes, and held the portion of buckwheat cake on
her fork, suspended in space.
"A treat! Something I've been wanting this long time! You darling old
dear, what is it?"
"Don't ask me, it's a secret, it's to be a surprise. Have you finished
breakfast? Wal, run and put on the best duds you've got, while I go
round and gear up Kitty."
"Kitty! Then we're going somewhere. Now Uncle Reuben----"
"It ain't a mite o' use, Norry, I ain't agoin' to tell. Be off and clap
on your Sunday fixins, while I get around the cutter."
"You're going to take me to the city and buy me some thing--a silk
dress, perhaps. Oh, uncle! what a dear old love you are! I'll be ready
in ten minutes."
Uncle Reuben's heart smote him a little as he received Norine's
rapturous kiss, but there was no drawing back. He left the house, while
Miss Bourdon flew off singing like a skylark, to make her toilet. A new
silk--yes, that was it--a new wine-colored silk with black lace
trimming. If Mr. Thorndyke admired her in last winter's dingy red
merino, how would he be dazzled by the wine-colored silk? In fifteen
minutes her rapid toilet was made, and looking charming in her holiday
attire she came running back to Uncle Reuben. The sleigh was drawn up
before the door; she sprang into her seat beside him. Aunt Hetty, in the
doorway, was smiling good-by, the bells jingled, the whip cracked, Kitty
tossed her head and darted away into the frosty morning sunshine.
"_Not_ going to the city, uncle!" cried Norine "now, where on earth can
you be taking me?"
"To Merryweather's my dear," calmly responded Uncle Reuben, "where you
have been teasing me to take you these three months. There! ain't that a
pleasant surprise?"
There was a blank silence for a moment--the silence of great amaze. He
looked at her askance. A surprise beyond a doubt, but a pleasant one.
Well, that was another question. Her face had changed ominously all in a
moment.
"To Merryweather's?" she repeated. "Thirty miles!"
"Exactly, my dear--to stay two or three weeks, as they've been wanting
you to do. I didn't tell you, because I wanted to surprise you. I knew
you would be pleased to death."
"But uncle I can't!" exclaimed the girl, vehemently. "I can't go. I have
nothing to wear. My trunk and all my things are at home."
"Jest so; the cutter wouldn't hold your trunk; but Joe, he's going out
'bout the end of the week, and he'll fetch it. Make your mind easy, my
dear; Aunt Hetty will forget nothin'."
Norine made no reply. The sunny face wore the darkest expression Uncle
Reuben had ever seen it wear yet. Was Mr. Gilbert right--was the
mischief done--was it too late, after all?
He drove on. The blank silence lasted. He had never dreamed the laughing
face of his little Norine could wear the look it wore now. She spoke
after a long pause, in a tone of sullen inquiry:
"I wish you had told me last night, Uncle Reuben. It seems very odd
going off in this way. What will Mr. Thorndyke say?"
"What business is it of his?" placidly inquired Uncle Reuben.
An angry flush rose up over Norine's face.
"He will think it very strange--_very_ strange; I did not even say
good-by."
"I'll explain all that."
"And Aunt Hetty--how will she ever get along without me, with the house
work to do, and Mr. Thorndyke to wait on, and everything."
"He won't be to wait on long, he'll be able to return to his friends in
Portland in a week, and to tell the truth, I shan't be sorry to be rid
of him. As for you, Norry, by the way you object, one would think you
didn't want to go, after all."
Again Norine flushed angrily.
"I don't object to going," she said, in a tone that contradicted her
words. "It is the manner of going I don't like. I do think you might
have told me last night, Uncle Reuben."
Uncle Reuben stopped the cutter abruptly, and looked at her.
"Shall I turn and drive back?" he asked.
What could she say? The black eyes emitted an angry flash, the voice
that answered was sharp and petulant.
"No--go on."
He drove on, without another word. Norine lay back in the sleigh,
wrapped her cloak about her, pulled a little veil she wore, over her
face, and was silent. A great fear, a great dismay, a great foreboding
filled Uncle Reuben's heart. Had this girl lived with them so long, made
herself so dear, and hidden the nature that was within her, after all?
What lay under that sparkling surface that had seemed as clear as limpid
water? Dark depths he could never fathom, depths undreamed of as yet by
herself. Was she--he wondered this vaguely, with a keen sense of
pain--the gentle, affectionate, yielding child they had thought her, or
a self-willed, passionate, headstrong woman, ready, woman-like, to throw
over her oldest and truest friends if they stood between her and the man
she loved?
CHAPTER V.
"I WILL BE YOUR WIFE."
Miss Bourdon's visit to the family of Mr. Abel Merryweather lasted just
three weeks and two days, and unspeakably dull and empty the old red
farm-house seemed without her. Uncle Joe had gone out with her trunk on
Saturday, and with the news that everybody was well, and Mr. Thorndyke
was to go for good the following Monday.
"To New York?" Norine asked, turning very pale.
"I reckon so," Uncle Joe responded, coolly; "that's to say, he's to stop
a few days in Portland with his friends there; he's going to spend the
rest of the winter South--so he told Hetty--down to Maryland somewhere."
Norine set her lips, and turned away without a word. She would have
given half her life to be able to return with Uncle Joe, but she was far
too proud to ask. Some dim inkling of the truth was beginning to dawn
upon her. For some cruel reason they did not wish her to be with Mr.
Thorndyke, and they had sent her here to be out of his way.
They were the dullest three weeks of the young lady's life. It was a
pleasant place, too--Mr. Abel Merryweather's, with a jolly, noisy
houseful of sons and daughters, and country frolics without end. Two
months ago, Norine had looked forward to this visit with delight. But
in two months the whole world had changed; and now, there was no
sunshine in heaven, no gladness on earth, since a well-looking,
well-dressed young man from the city would light her life with his smile
no more.
Mr. Thorndyke did depart the following Monday. He had been considerably
surprised on first missing Norine, and inquired of Aunt Hetty where she
was. The reply was very brief and reserved.
"Uncle Reuben has taken her away to visit some friends."
Mr. Thorndyke fixed his large, blue eyes full upon the speaker's face.
Aunt Hester, never looking at him, went on arranging the furniture.
"How long will she be gone?" he asked, at length.
"That depends upon circumstances," replied Miss Kent; "probably some
weeks."
Mr. Thorndyke said no more. Aunt Hetty poured out his tea, arranged his
buttered toast and boiled eggs, and left the room. It had been Norine's
labor of love hitherto, Norine's bright face that smiled across the
little round table, instead of the withered, sallow one of Aunt Hetty.
He sat alone now over his noon-day breakfast, an inexplicable look on
his handsome face.
"So," he thought, "they have gone even farther than I anticipated, they
have spirited her away altogether. Poor little girl! pretty little
Norry! I believe I am really fond of you, after all. I wonder if she
went willingly?" he smiled to himself, his vanity answered that question
pretty accurately. "It's rather hard on her, a modern case of Elizabeth
and the exiles. It's all my friend Gilbert's doing, of course. Very
well. It is his day now, it may be mine, to-morrow."
The intervening days were hopelessly long and dreary to Mr. Laurence
Thorndyke. How fond he had grown of that sparkling brunette face, those
limpid eyes of "liquid light," he never knew until he lost her. That
pleasant, homely room was so full of her--the closed piano, the little
rocker and work-stand by the window, her beloved books and birds. Life
became, all in an hour, a horrible bore in that dull red farm-house.
Come what might to ankle and arm, ailing still, he would go at once. He
dispatched a note to his friends in Portland, and early on Monday
morning drove away with Mr. Thomas Lydyard, his friend.
"Good-by Miss Kent," he said, as he shook hands with her on the
doorstep. "I can never repay all your kindness, I know, but I will do my
best if the opportunity ever offers. Give my very best regards to Miss
Bourdon, and tell her how much I regretted her running away."
And so he was gone. Uncle Reuben watched him out of sight with a great
breath of relief.
"Thank the Lord _he's_ gone, and that danger's over."
Ah, was it? Had you known Mr. Laurence Thorndyke better, Reuben Kent,
you would have known, also, that the danger was but beginning.
Mr. Thorndyke remained four days with his friends in the city, and then
started for New York. Reuben Kent heard it with immense relief and
satisfaction.
"He's gone, Hetty," he said to his sister, "and the good Lord send he
may never cross our little girl's path again. I can see her now, with
the color fading out of her face, and that white look of disappointment
coming over it. I hope she's forgot him before this."
"Will you go for her to-day?" Aunt Hetty asked. "It's dreadful lonesome
without her."
"Not to-day. Next week will do. She'll forget him faster there than
here, Hetty."
It wanted but three days of Christmas when Uncle Reuben went for his
niece, and it was late on Christmas eve when they returned. The snow was
piled high and white everywhere. The trees stood up, black, rattling
skeletons around the old house. All things seemed to have changed in the
weeks of her absence, and nothing more than Norine Bourdon.
She sank down in a chair, in a tired, spiritless sort of way, and let
Aunt Hetty remove her wraps. She had grown thin, in the past fortnight,
and pale and worn-looking.
"You precious little Norry," aunt Hetty said, giving her a welcoming
hug. "You can't tell how glad we are to have you back again; how
dreadfully we missed you. I expect you enjoyed your visit awfully now?"
"No," the young girl answered, with an impatient sigh; "it was dull."
"Dull, Norry! with four girls and three young men in the house?"
"Well, it was dull to me. I didn't care for their frolics and sleighing
parties and quilting bees. It was horridly stupid, the whole of it."
"Then you are glad to be home again?"
"Yes."
She did not look particularly glad, however. She leaned her head against
the back of the chair, and closed her eyes with weary listlessness. Aunt
Hetty watched her with a thrill of apprehension. Was her fancy for their
departed guest something more than mere fancy?--had she not begun even
to forget yet, after all?
She opened her eyes suddenly while Aunt Hetty was thinking this, and
spoke abruptly.
"What did Mr. Thorndyke say when he found I was gone?"
"Nothing. Oh--he asked how long you were going to stay."
"Was that all?"
"That was all."
"Did he not inquire where I had gone?"
"No, my dear."
Norine said no more. The firelight shone full on her face, and she
lifted a book and held it as a screen. So long she sat mute and
motionless that Aunt Hetty fancied she had fallen asleep. She laid her
hand on her shoulder. Norine's black, sombre eyes looked up.
"I thought you were asleep, my dear, you sat so still. Is anything the
matter?"
"I am tired, and my head aches. I believe I will go to bed."
"But, Norry, it is Christmas eve. Supper is ready, and--"
"I can't eat supper--I don't wish any. Give me a cup of tea, aunty, and
let me go."
With a sigh, aunty obeyed, and slowly and wearily Norine toiled up to
her room. It was very cosy, very pleasant, very home-like and warm, that
snug upper chamber, with its striped, home-made carpet of scarlet and
green, its blazing fire and shaded lamp. Outside, the keen, Christmas
stars shone coldly, and the world lay white in its chill winding sheet
of snow.
But Norine thought neither of the comfort within nor the desolation
without. She sank down into a low chair before the fire and looked
blankly into the red coals.
"Gone!" something in her head seemed beating that one word, like the
ticking of a clock; "gone--gone--gone forever. And it was only thirty
miles, and the cars would have taken him, and he never came. And I
thought, I thought, he liked me a little."
It was a dismal Christmas eve at Kent Farm; how were they to eat, drink
and be merry with Norine absent. No she had not begun to forget; the
mischief was wrought, every room in the house was haunted by the image
of the "youth who had loved, and who rode away."
The New Year dawned, passed, and the ides of February came. And
Norine--she was only seventeen, remember, began to pluck up heart of
grace once more, and her laugh rang out, and her songs began to be as
merry, almost, as before the coming and going of Prince Charming.
Almost; the woman's heart had awakened in the girl's breast, and the old
childish joyousness could never be quite the same. He never wrote, she
never heard his name, even Mr. Gilbert had ceased to write. March came.
"Time, that blunts the edge of things, dries our tears and spoils our
bliss," had dried all hers long ago, and the splendor of Laurence
Thorndyke's image was wofully dimmed by this time. Life had flown back
into the old, dull channels, comfortable, but dull. No letters to look
for now from Mr. Gilbert, no books, no music, everybody forgot her,
Richard Gilbert, Laurence Thorndyke--all.
She sighed a little over the quilt she was making--a wonderful quilt of
white and "Turkey red," a bewildering Chinese puzzle to the uninitiated.
It was a dull March afternoon, cheerless and slushy, the house still as
a tomb, and no living thing to be seen in the outer world, as she sat
alone at her work.
"What a stupid, dismal humdrum sort of life it is." Miss Bourdon
thought, drearily, "and I suppose it will go on for thirty or forty
years exactly like this, and I'll dry up, and wrinkle and grow yellow
and ugly, and be an old maid like Aunt Hetty. I think it would be a
great deal better if some people never were born at all."
She paused suddenly, with this wise generality in her mind. A man was
approaching--a tall man, a familiar and rather distinguished-looking
man. One glance was enough. With a cry of delight she dropped the
Chinese-puzzle quilt, sprang up, rushed out, and plumped full into the
arms of the gentleman.
"Oh, Mr. Gilbert!" she cried, her black eyes, her whole face radiant
with the delight of seeing some one, "how glad I am to see you! It has
been so dull, and I thought you had forgotten us altogether. Come
in--come in."
She held both his hands, and pulled him in. Unhappy Richard Gilbert! Who
is to blame you for construing that enthusiastic welcome to suit
yourself? In fear and foreboding, you had approached that house--you had
looked for coldness, aversion, reproaches, perhaps. You had nerved
yourself to bear them, and defend yourself, and instead--_this_.
His sallow face flushed all over with a delight more vivid than her own.
For one delicious moment his breath stopped.
"And so you have thought of me, Norine!"
"Oh, so often! And hoped, and longed, and looked for your coming. But
you never came, and you never wrote, and I was sure you had forgotten me
altogether."
Here was an opening, and--he let it fall dead! He might be a clever
lawyer, but certainly he was not a clever lover. He was smiling, and
yes, actually blushing, and tingling with delight to his finger ends.
Her radiant, blooming face was upturned to him, the black eyes lifted
and dancing, and he looked down upon those sparkling charms, and in a
flat voice--said this:
"We have had a great deal of snow lately. How are your uncles and
aunts?"
But the young lady's enthusiasm was not in the least dampened. He was
her friend, not her lover, he was a kindly gleam of sunshine across the
dead level of her sad-colored life.
"They are all very well, thank you, Mr. Gilbert, and will be very glad
to see you. Sit down and take off your overcoat. You'll stay for tea,
won't you, and all night? Oh, how pleasant it is to see you back here
again!"
Happy Mr. Gilbert! And yet, if he had stopped to analyze that frank,
glad, sisterly welcome, he would have known it the most ominous thing on
earth for his hopes. Had he been Laurence Thorndyke she would never have
welcomed him like this. But just now he took the goods the gods
provided, and never stopped to analyze.
"Perhaps I was mistaken after all about Thorndyke," he thought, "he has
gone for good, and I never saw her look more brightly blooming. After
all a girl's fancy for a handsome face, and a flirting manner, need not
be very deep or lasting. It was only a fancy, and died a natural death
in a week. How fortunate I spoke in time, and how clear and true she
rings! I will ask her to be my wife before I leave Kent Farm."
He had come to stake his fate--"to win or lose it all," to lay his life
at her feet, but he had hoped for nothing like this. He loved her--he
knew it now as your staid middle-aged men do once in a lifetime. He had
waited until he could wait no longer--she might refuse, he had little
hope of anything else, but then at least, any certainty was better than
suspense.
Mr. Gilbert's greeting from the Kent family was all that mortal man
could look for. They had guessed his secret; perhaps they also guessed
his object in coming now. He was very rich, and above them no doubt, but
was there king or kaiser in all the world too good for their beautiful
Norine.
He stayed to tea. After that meal, while Aunt Hetty was busy in the
kitchen, and the men about the farm-yard, he found himself alone in the
front room with Miss Bourdon. She stood looking out through the undrawn
curtains at the still, white, melancholy winter night.
The first surprise and delight of the meeting past, she had grown very
still. His coming had brought other memories rushing upon her as she
stood here in that pretty attitude looking out at the frosty stars.
She was nerving herself to ask a question. Without turning round, and
speaking very carelessly, she asked it.
"I suppose Mr. Thorndyke is in New York. Have you seen him lately?"
A jealous pang shot through the lawyer's heart. She remembered yet.
"I see him very often," he answered, promptly, and a little coldly; "I
saw him the day I left. He is about to be married."
She was standing with her back to him, fluttering in a restless sort of
way. As he said this she suddenly grew still.
"The match is a very old affair," Mr. Gilbert went on, resolutely; "he
has been engaged nearly two years. His uncle, Mr. Darcy, wishes it very
much. The young lady is an heiress, and extremely handsome. They are
very much attached to one another, it is said and are to be married
early in the spring."
She did not move--she did not speak. A blank uncomfortable silence
followed, and once more poor Mr. Gilbert's heart contracted with a
painful jealous spasm. If she would only turn round and let him see her
face. Who was to understand these girls!
"What! all in the dark, Norry?" cried Uncle Reuben's cheery voice, as he
came bustling in redolent of stable odors. "Come, light up, and give Mr.
Gilbert a song."
She obeyed at once. The glare of the lamp fell full upon her, what
change was it that he saw in her face? She was hardly paler than usual,
she rarely had much color, but there was an expression about the
soft-cut childish mouth, an unpleasant tightness about the lips that
quite altered the whole expression of the face.
She opened the piano and sung--sung and played better than he had ever
heard her before. She sang for hours, everything she knew--Mr.
Thorndyke's favorites and all. She never rose until the striking of ten
told her that bedtime had come.
The lawyer stayed all night; but in that pleasant guest-chamber that had
lodged his rival last, he slept little. Was she in love with Thorndyke,
or was she not? Impossible to judge these women--any girl in her teens
can baffle the shrewdest lawyer of them all. He lay tossing about full
of hope, of love, of jealousy, of doubt, his fever at its very climax.
"I'll endure this torture no longer," he resolved, sullenly. "I'll ask
her to marry me to-morrow."
With Richard Gilbert to resolve was to act. Five seconds after they had
met, shaken hands, and said good-morning, he proposed a sleigh ride. The
day was mild and sunny, the sleighing splendid, and a sleigh ride to a
New Yorker a rare and delightful luxury. Would she go? Yes, she would
go, but Miss Bourdon said it spiritlessly enough. And so the sleigh was
brought round, and at ten o'clock in the crisp, yellow sunshine, the
pair started.
But it must have been a much duller spirit than that of Norine that
could have remained dull in that dazzling sunshine, that swift rush
through the still frozen air. A lovely rose-pink came into her pale
cheeks, a bright light into her brown eyes, her laugh rang out, she was
herself as he had first known her once more.
"How splendid winter is, after all!" she exclaimed; "look at those
crystallized hemlocks--did you ever see anything so beautiful? I
sometimes wonder how I can find it so dreary."
"You do find it dreary, then?"
"Oh, so dreary--so long--so humdrum--so dull!" She checked herself with
one of her pretty French gestures. "It seems ungrateful to say so, but I
can't help it. Life seems hardly worth the living sometimes here."
"Here! Would it be better elsewhere?"
"Yes--I think so. Change is always pleasant. One grows dull and stupid
living in one dull stupid place forever. Change is what I want, novelty
is delight."
"Let me offer it to you then, Norine. Come to New York with me."
"Mr. Gilbert! With you!"
"With me--as my wife, I love you, Norine."
It was said. The old formula, the commonplace words that are to tell
all that is in a heart full to overflowing. He sat very pale, beyond
that and a certain nervous twitching of his face there was nothing to
tell that all the happiness of his life hung on her reply. For her--she
just looked at him blankly, incredulous--with wide open eyes of wonder.
"Your wife! Marry _you_! Mr. Gilbert!"
"I love you, Norine. It seems strange you have not known it until I tell
it. I am double your age, but I will do my best to make you happy. Ah,
Norine, if you knew how long I have thought of this--how dearly I love
you, you would surely not refuse. I am a rich man, and all I have is
yours. The world you have longed to see, you shall see. Be my wife
Norine, and come with me to New York."
The first shock of surprise was over. She sat very still, looking
straight out before her at the dazzling expanse of sun and snow. His
words awoke no answering thrill in her heart, and yet she was conscious
of a sense of pleasure. Be his wife--well, why not? The prospect of a
new life broke upon her--the bright, exciting, ever-new life of a great
city. She thought of that, not of Richard Gilbert.
"Speak to me, Norine," he said, "for Heaven's sake don't sit silent like
this--only to answer no. For good or evil, let me have my answer at
once."
But still she sat mute. She had lost Laurence Thorndyke--lost--nay he
had never been hers for one poor second. He belonged to that beautiful,
high-bred heiress whom he was to marry in the spring. She would read it
in the papers some day, and then--her own blank, empty, aimless life
spread before her. She turned suddenly to the man beside her, with
something of the look her face had worn last night when she had first
heard of Thorndyke's marriage.
"You are very good," she answered, quite steadily. "I will be your wife
if you like."
"Thank Heaven!"--he said under his breath. "Thank Heaven!"
Her heart smote her. She was giving him so little--he was giving her so
much. He had always been her good, kind, faithful friend, and she had
liked him so much. Yes, that was just it, she liked him so well she
could never love him. But at least she would be honest.
"I--I don't care for--I mean I don't love----" she broke down, her eyes
fixed on her muff. "Oh, Mr. Gilbert, I do like you, but not like that.
I--I know I'm not half good enough ever to marry you."
He smiled, a smile of great content.
"You will let me be the judge of that, Norry. You are quite sure you
like me?"
"Oh, yes. I always did, you know, but I never--no never thought you
cared for-- Oh, dear me! how odd it seems. What will Uncle Reuben say?"
Mr Gilbert smiled again.
"Uncle Reuben won't lose his senses with surprise, I fancy. Ah, Norry,
Uncle Reuben's eyes are not half a quarter so bright nor so black as
yours, but he has seen more than you after all."
And then all the way home he poured into her pleased listening ear the
story of her future life. It sounded like a fairy tale to the country
girl. A dazzling vista spread before her, a long life in "marble halls,"
Brussels carpets, satin upholstery, a grand piano, pictures, books, and
new music without end. Silk dresses, diamond ear-rings, the theatres,
the opera, a carriage, a waiting-maid--French, if possible--her favorite
heroines all had French maids, Long Branch, Newport, balls,
dinners--her head swam with the dazzle and delight of it all. Be his
wife--of course she would be his wife--to-morrow, if it were
practicable.
But she did not say this, you understand. Her face was all rosy and
dimpling and smiling as they drove home; and alas for Richard Gilbert,
how little he personally had to do with all that girlish rapture. He saw
that well-pleased face, and, like a wise man, asked no useless
questions. She was going to be his wife, everything was said in that.
CHAPTER VI.
BEFORE THE WEDDING.
The sober March twilight lay low on the snowy earth when the sleigh
whirled up to the door. The red firelight shone through the windows, and
they could see Aunt Hetty bustling about the kitchen. Neither had spoken
for a time, but now Norine turned to him, as she lightly sprang out.
"Say nothing of this to-night," she said, hurriedly; "wait until
to-morrow."
She was gone before he could answer, and he drove round to the stable.
Uncle Reuben was there, and Mr. Gilbert remained with him until Aunt
Hetty's voice was heard calling them to supper. The lawyer was standing
in the doorway, watching the solemn stars come out, a great silent
gravity on his face. But oh, so happy, too--so deeply, unutterably
happy.
The supper table was spread, lamp-light beamed, firelight glowed, and
Aunt Hetty awaited them impatient, lest her warm milk biscuits and
sugared "flap-jacks" should grow cold.
Norine stood leaning against the mantel, looking dreamily into the red
fire. How pale she was, how strangely grave and thoughtful. Yet not
unhappy, surely, for she glanced up in her lover's face with a quick
blush and smile, and talked to him shyly throughout supper. Later still
she played and sang for him the songs and pieces he liked best, played a
game of euchre with him, and if she thought of Laurence Thorndyke, who
had taught her the game, Richard Gilbert did not know it.
"She will learn to love me," he thought. "My pretty, dark-eyed darling!
I will love her so much. I will so gratify her in everything. I will be
so devoted, in all ways, that she cannot help it. Please Heaven, her
life shall be a happy one with me."
Norine retired early. Her long drive had made her tired and sleepy she
said; but she did not go to sleep.
Moon and stars shone crystal clear, pearly bright. She blew out her
lamp, wrapped a shawl about her, and sat down by the window. Weirdly
still lay everything, ivory light, ebony shadows, no sound but the
rattling of the skeleton trees in the wintry night wind. No living thing
was visible far or near. There was only the star-gemmed sky above, the
chill, white world below. She could read her heart in the holy hush of
the night, and look into the life that was dawning for her, by its
solemn light. Richard Gilbert's wife! How strange and unreal that
seemed. She liked him very much as she might have liked an indulgent
elder brother, but love him--no! She might have deluded herself into
thinking so, had Laurence Thorndyke's splendid image never dazzled her.
She knew better now--the knowledge had come upon her all at once,
transforming her from a child to a woman.
"If I had never met him," she thought, "I might have been a happy wife,
but now! Now can I ever learn to forget him, and to give Mr. Gilbert his
place?"
She covered her face with her hands, alone as she was. Alas for Richard
Gilbert! congratulating himself at that very moment on having won for
his very own the fairest, the sweetest, the truest of her sex.
Miss Bourdon sat mournfully musing there until long past bedtime, long
past midnight. Moonlight and starlight paled presently, the prospect
grew gloomy, the air bitter cold, and shivering and miserable, the girl
crept away to bed. Even then she could not sleep--her nerves were all
unstrung and on edge. She lay broad awake trying to imagine what her
life would be like as Mr. Gilbert's wife. The fairy world of her dreams
and her books would open to her. Costly dresses and jewels, a fine house
in New York, her carriage and servants, summer travel and winter
balls--all this he had promised her. And there in the midst of it all,
once again she would meet Laurence Thorndyke. It would be part of the
romance, she as the wife, he as the husband of another, and the weak
silly heart fluttering under the bedclothes, gave a great bound. Then
she remembered that it would be wicked to wish to see him--a sin to be
happy in his presence; but do what she would, the hope of meeting him
again, was at the bottom of her willingness to become the lawyer's wife.
When Norine descended to breakfast next morning, she found Mr. Gilbert
standing in the open doorway, looking out at the frosty sunshine. He
came forward to meet her, his face suddenly radiant.
"I have been waiting to waylay you," he said, smiling, "I want you to
let me tell your uncle to-day."
"You are in a hurry," Norine answered, rather impatiently.
"Yes, my darling. Why should I not be? And I return to New York early
next week. You say yes--do you not, Norine?"
She smiled, and gave him her hand. She had said "yes" to a more
important proposition, he had been very good to her, why should she not
please him?
"Do as you like, Mr. Gilbert. Tell my uncle if you choose."
"And if he consents, Norine--as I think he will--when shall I tell him
our marriage is to take place? I want it to be soon, my dearest girl,
very soon, for I don't feel as though I could live much longer without
you. Come, my little wife! name an early day."
"Oh, I cannot! I don't know when. Next summer some time."
"That is indefinite," he laughed. "Allow me to be definite. Say early
next May."
"No, no, no! that is too soon--greatly too soon! I couldn't be ready."
"Then, when? I won't be selfish, but you must be merciful, mademoiselle,
and not keep me in suspense too long."
She laughed her old gay laugh.
"Patience, monsieur; patience stands chief among the virtues. Will June
do--the last?"
"The first, Norine."
Aunt Hetty was coming through the hall. Norine darted away.
"Have it as you will! Don't you want me to help you with breakfast,
auntie?"
Mr. Gilbert smilingly looked after his bright little prize, so soon to
be his bright little wife, then turned to Aunt Hetty.
"Where is your brother this morning, Miss Kent? I wish to speak to
him."
"In the stable, I think. Shall I go and see?"
"Not at all. I will go myself."
He walked away, humming a tune, in the happiness of his heart. Ah! shone
ever winter sun so brightly before, looked ever the work-a-day world so
paradisiacal as now! The earth and all thereon was transformed as with
an enchanter's wand to this middle-aged legal gentleman in love.
Uncle Reuben, busy among his cattle, looked up in some surprise at sight
of his early visitor.
"Don't let me interfere with your work, Kent," the lawyer said. "You can
attend to your horses and listen, too. I must leave the day after
to-morrow; my business has been too long neglected, and I have something
of importance to tell you before I go. Something I hope--I believe, you
will not be sorry to hear."
The eyes of the two men met. There was a peculiar smile on the lawyer's
face, a happy light in his eyes, and Reuben Kent's countenance grew
suddenly bright with intelligence.
"Is it about Norry?"
A smile and a nod answered him.
"Then I reckon I can guess. You have asked her to marry you?"
"Exactly. But how, in the name of everything wonderful have you found it
out?"
Uncle Reuben's eyes twinkled shrewdly.
"I ain't a lawyer, Mr. Gilbert, but I can see as far into a milestone as
any other man. Do you think I s'posed it was to see me and Joe and Hetty
you came to Kent Hill so often? No, sir! I see you had a hankering after
our little girl from the first."
Mr. Gilbert actually blushed. And he had guarded his precious secret so
carefully, he had thought.
"Well, Mr. Kent, I trust I have your approval?"
Reuben Kent stretched out his big brown paw, and grasped the lawyer's
white hand.
"I give her to you with all my heart, sir. I'd rather see her your wife
than the wife of the President. I've been hoping this long time it would
come to this. She's a good girl, as good as she's pretty, and I know
she'll make you a good wife."
Not one word of the honor done them or her by the wealthy lawyer's
offer--not one thought of it. In Reuben Kent's eyes no king or kaiser on
the wide earth would have been too good for his beautiful Norine.
"And when is it to be, sir?" he asked.
"The wedding?" smiled Mr. Gilbert. "The first week of June. If I
possibly can, I will run down here once or twice between this and then,
but I am doubtful of its being possible. I have neglected business
somewhat of late, and it has accumulated. You will tell your brother and
sister, Kent?"
They walked back to the house together to breakfast. Norine saw in her
uncle's face that he had been told, and blushed beautifully. How very,
very near and real, it seemed to bring it, this telling Uncle Reuben.
Mr. Gilbert took her out for a walk after breakfast, and Uncle Reuben
availed himself of the opportunity to inform his sister and brother.
They were no more surprised than he had been, and equally pleased, but
Aunt Hetty cried quietly, woman-fashion, for all that.
"We will miss her so much," she said; "the old house will seem like a
tomb without her. He is a good man, a rich man, and a gentleman--I
ought to rejoice for her sake, but it does seem hard at first to give
her up for good."
"These things will happen, Hetty," said Uncle Reuben, philosophically,
but sighing, too; "it's nater. We ought to think of nothing but the
Lord's goodness in giving her such a man as Mr. Gilbert for a husband."
So it was settled. When Norine came back from her walk, Aunt Hetty
kissed her, shook hands with the lawyer, and the betrothal was quietly
over. There was no scene, and no tears, but the good wishes for both,
were none the less heartfelt for that.
The day after to-morrow came. Mr. Gilbert went, and the preparations for
the wedding began. Norine's "setting out" was to be on a scale of
unprecedented magnificence. Uncle Reuben had money, and did not grudge
spending it. Aunt Hetty took her into town, and a whole day was spent
shopping--the big family carryall went home in the evening filled to
repletion with dry goods. A seamstress and a dressmaker were engaged,
both to come out on the following day, and Norine, in the pleasant
bustle and hurry, actually forgot Laurence Thorndyke for eight
consecutive hours.
The two seamstresses came to Kent Hill the following morning, and great
and mighty were the measuring and cutting that ensued. The "keeping
room," was given up to them and the bride elect, and all day long, and
for many days after, their busy needles flew. Before the end of the week
it was known far and wide that pretty Norry Kent, as she was called
there, had made a great conquest, and was about to be married to one of
the richest lawyers in New York.
Mr. Gilbert's letters came like clock-work every week, and Norine's
replies went dutifully the day after. They were not much like
love-letters on either side, particularly on hers, but Mr. Gilbert's
were deeply and tenderly affectionate, better than all the rhapsodies
ever written. His presents, too--and such presents, poured in, in a
ceaseless stream. Jewelry that half turned the pretty bride's head with
its dazzling splendor, laces that fairy fingers alone could have woven,
pretty, costly _bijouterie_ of all kinds.
"How good he is--how good he is!" Norine thought, in a burst of
gratitude. "I ought to love him--I _will_ love him--who could help it in
time, and I will make him as happy as ever I can."
She might have kept her word; it would surely have been no impossible
task to learn to love Richard Gilbert. She meant it in all
sincerity--his generosity had already kindled a deeper feeling than mere
gratitude in her heart. The dazzle of Laurence Thorndyke's image was
slowly but surely dimming, and she could sing blithely once more as she
bent over her work, or tripped about the rooms. Who could be unhappy in
white silk and lustrous pearls, orange blossoms and Mechlin lace, with
rich rings a-sparkle on every finger, and glittering bracelets clasping
the lovely arms? The color came back to Miss Bourdon's cheek, the
girlish brightness to her lovely Canadian eyes--once more her gay girl's
laugh rang out--once more the tripping French ballads made melody
through the old gray rooms. You see she was not quite eighteen, poor
child, and so much is possible for young persons of eighteen.
The weeks flew by--busy dreams; March passed, April passed. The wedding
day was drawing very near. May came, mellow with sweet spring blossoms
and sunshine, and the first half was over. The first Thursday in June
was to be the day of days, not quite a fortnight off now. The world had
woke up for her wedding, Norine thought, snow and dreariness were gone,
spring, in Eden-like freshness and bloom was with them. All day long the
birds sang in the sunlight; the garden was gay with odorous grasses and
blossoms. In three days more the bridegroom would be here to claim his
bride, to leave no more until he bore her away by his side. Yes, it was
a new Eden. Kent Hill in its spring-tide resurrection, but, as once
before, the serpent was close at hand.
CHAPTER VII.
THE GATHERING STORM.
The last week came--the last night of the last week.
A radiant moonlight night. Over the blue misty hill-tops the silver
half-moon sailed, and at the garden gate stood the pretty bride elect,
alone, gazing with eyes of dreamy darkness at the mystic light. No sound
but the "sounds of the silence" broke her reverie, the twitter of a bird
in its nest, the light flutter of the cool wind, the slipping of a snake
in the underbrush. Green and silvery spread the wide fields of Kent
Hill; dark, cool and perfumy the pine woods, long and white the dusty,
high road--over all the sparkling stars and crystal moon.
Leaning on the gate, stood Norine. A trifle thinner and paler than of
old, very pale in the cold, white moon-rays, but very fair and sweet the
_mignonne_ face. Something almost pathetic in the pallid beauty of the
night touched her, the great dark eyes looked with wistful sadness up to
the starry sky. She stood there thinking of the new life to begin in a
few days now--the life that seemed to recede and grow more and more
unreal the nearer it came. Its novelty and brightness blinded her no
more--distance had lent enchantment to the view--to-night she only knew
she was about to marry a man she did not love.
The past arose before her. Laurence Thorndyke's smiling, cynical,
handsome face floated in the haze like a vision, her girl's fancy
returned with tenfold sweetness and power. If he were only to be the
bridegroom on Thursday next! A passionate longing to see him once more,
to hear his voice, filled her whole soul with unutterable desire. In the
moonlight she stretched out her arms involuntarily--in the silence she
spoke, a heart-sob in every word:
"Laurence!" she cried, "come back!"
The restless leaves fluttered around her, the wind touched her face and
swept by. She leaned wearily against the gate.
"Laurence!" she whispered, "Laurence! Laurence! If I could only see you
once more--only once--if I knew you had not quite forgotten me--if I
could only bid you good-by before we part forever, I think everything
would be easy after that."
Had the thought evoked his phantom?
Who was that coming along the silent road? A tall, slender figure,
wearing a loose, light overcoat, strangely, bewilderingly familiar. That
negligent, graceful walk, that uplifted carriage of the head--surely,
surely she knew both. She leaned forward in breathless expectation--her
lips apart, her eyes alight. Nearer and nearer he came, and the face she
had longed to see, had prayed to see, looked down upon her once more
with the old familiar smile.
Laurence Thorndyke!
She leaned against the gate still in breathless hush, pale, terrified.
She could not speak, so intense was her surprise, and the voice for
whose sound she had hungered and thirsted with her whole foolish,
romantic heart sounded in the silence:
"Norine!"
She made no answer; in her utter astonishment and swift joy she could
only stand and gaze, speechless.
"Norine, I have come back again. Have you no word of welcome for your
old friend?"
Still she did not speak--still she stood looking as though she never
could look enough--only trembling a little now.
"I have startled you," he said very gently, "coming so unexpectedly upon
you like a ghost in the moonlight. But I am no spirit, Norine--shake
hands."
He leaned across the closed gate, and took both her hands in his warm,
cordial clasp. They were like ice. Her eyes were fixed almost wildly
upon his face, her lips were trembling like the lips of a child about to
cry.
"Won't you speak then, Norine? Have I startled you so much as that? I
did not expect to see you or any one at this hour, but I had to come. Do
you hear, Norry? I had to come. And now that we have met, Norine, won't
you say you are glad to see me again?"
She drew away her hands suddenly--covered her face and broke into a
passion of tears. Perhaps she had grown hysterical, her heart had been
full before he came, and it needed only this shock to brim over. He
opened the gate abruptly and came to her side.
"Speak to me, Norine! My own--my dearest, don't cry so. Look up, and say
you are not sorry I have come!"
She looked up at him, forgetful of Richard Gilbert and her wedding day,
forgetful of loyalty and truth.
"I thought you had forgotten me," she said. "I thought I would never see
you again. And oh, I have been so miserable--so miserable!"
"And yet you are about to be married, Norine!" At that reproachful cry
she suddenly remembered the New York lawyer, and all the duties of her
life. She drew her hands away resolutely in spite of his resistance and
stood free--trembling and white.
"You are going to be married to Richard Gilbert, Norine?"
"Yes," she said, falteringly; "and you--you are going to be married,
too?"
"I?" in astonishment; "I married! Who can have told you that?"
"Mr. Gilbert."
"Then it is the first time I have ever known him--lawyer though he
be--to tell a falsehood. No, Norine, I am not going to be married."
She caught her breath in the shock, the joy of the words.
"_Not_ going to be married! Not going--Oh, Mr. Thorndyke, don't deceive
me--don't!"
"I am not deceiving you Norine--why should I? There is but one whom I
love; if she will be my wife I will marry--not unless. Can you not guess
who it is, Norine? Can you not guess what I have come from New York to
say before it is too late? I only heard of your projected marriage last
week--heard it then by merest accident. Ah, Norine! if you knew what a
shock that announcement was. Ever since I left here I have been trying
to school myself to forget you, but in vain. I never knew how utterly in
vain until I heard you were the promised wife of Richard Gilbert. I
could stay away no longer--I felt I must tell you or die. It may seem
like presumption, like madness, my coming at the eleventh hour, and you
the promised bride of another man, but I had to come. Even if you
refused me with scorn, I felt I must come and hear my doom from your
lips. They have urged me to marry another, an heiress she is, and a ward
of my uncle's--he even threatens to disinherit me if I do not. But I
will be disinherited, I will brave poverty and face the future boldly so
that the girl I love is by my side. Helen is beautiful, and will not say
no, they tell me, if I ask, but what is that to me since I love only
you. Norine, tell me I have not come too late. You don't, you can't care
for this elderly lawyer, old enough to be your father. Norine, speak and
tell me you care only for me."
"Only for you--only for you!" she cried, "O, Laurence, I love you with
all my heart!"
There was a sound as she said it, the house door opening. In the
moonlight Aunt Hetty's spare, small figure appeared in the doorway, in
the silence her pleasant voice called:
"Norine! Norine! come in out of the dew dear child."
Some giant hemlocks grew near the gate--Laurence Thorndyke drew her with
him into their black shadow, and stood perfectly still. Brilliant as the
moonlight was, Aunt Hetty might brush against them and not see them in
the leafy gloom.
"I must go," whispered Norine; "she will be here in a moment in search
of me. Laurence, let me go."
"But first--I must see you again. No one knows I am here, no one must
know. When does Gilbert arrive?"
"To-morrow," she answered, with a sudden shiver.
"My darling, don't fear--you are mine now, mine only. Mine you shall
remain." His eyes glittered strangely in the gloom as he said it. "We
cannot meet to-morrow; but we must meet to-morrow night."
"No," she faltered, "no--no. It would be wrong, dishonorable. And I dare
not, we would be discovered."
"Not if you do as I direct. What time do you all retire? Half-past ten?"
"Mostly."
"Then at eleven, or half-past, the coast is sure to be clear. At eleven
to-morrow night I will be here just without the gate, and you must steal
out and meet me."
"Laurence!"
"You must--you will, if you love me. Are you not my wife, or going to be
in a few days, which amounts to the same thing. Will Gilbert stop here?"
"I don't know. Yes, I suppose so."
"Well, even if he does it will not matter. You can steal out unheard and
unobserved, can you not?"
"Yes--no. I don't know. Laurence! Laurence! I am afraid."
"Of what? Of whom? not of me, Norine?"
She shivered a little, and shrank from his side.
"It seems so strange, so bold, so wrong. I ought not, it is wicked--I
don't know what to do."
"Then you don't care for me at all, Norine?"
He knew how to move her. The reproachful words went to her heart. _Care_
for him! He doubted that.
"You will come," he said, that exultant gleam in his eyes again, "my
loyal little girl! I have a thousand things to say to you, and we can
talk uninterruptedly then. When was your wedding to be?"
"Next Thursday."
"And this is Sunday night. To-morrow afternoon Gilbert will be here. You
see how little time we have to spare, Norine. You must meet me, for on
Thursday you shall be my wife--not his!"
"Norry! Norry!" more loudly this time, called the voice of Aunt Hetty,
still in the doorway, "where on earth is the child?"
"Let me go--let me go!" Norine cried in terror, "she will be here
directly."
"You will meet me to-morrow night, promise first?"
"Yes--yes--yes! Only let me go."
He obeyed. Retreating into the shadow of the trees, he watched her glide
out in the moonlit path, and up to the gate. He heard her ascend the
steps, and then Aunt Hetty's voice came to him again.
"Goodness gracious, child! where have you been? Do you want to get your
death, out in your bare head and the dew falling like rain?"
He could not catch Norine's faint reply. A second more, and again Miss
Hester Kent was shrilly to be heard.
"Land of hope! whatever ails you. Norry? You are whiter than the dead.
Oh, I know how it will be after to-night--you'll be laid up for a week."
He heard the house door close. Then he was alone with the rustling
trees, and the bright, countless stars. As he stepped out into the
crystal radiance, his face shone with exultant delight--alas! for
Norine! _not_ with happy love.
"I knew it!" he thought to himself in his triumph; "I knew I could take
her from him at the very church door. Now, Richard Gilbert! whose turn
is it at last--who holds the winning trump in the game? You have
baffled, and foiled, and watched me many a time, notably in the case of
Lucy West--when it came to old Darcy's ears through you, and he was
within a hair's breadth of disinheriting me. Every dog has his day.
Yours is over--mine has come. The wheel has revolved, and Laurence
Thorndyke, gambler, trickster, libertine, as you paint him, is at the
top. You have not spared me in the past, my good Gilbert, look to
yourself now, for by all the gods I'll not spare you!"
While Mr. Thorndyke, with his hat pulled low over his brows, walked home
to the obscure hotel at which he chose to stop, Norine was up in her
room alone with her tumultuous heart. She had complained of a headache
and gone at once. The plea was not altogether false--her brain was
whirling, her heart throbbing in a wild tumult, half terror, half
delight. He had come back to her, he loved her, she was going to be his
wife! For over an hour she sat, hiding even in the dusk her happy face
in her hands, with only this one thought pulsing through all her
being--she was to be his wife!
By and by she grew calm and able to think. No thought of going to bed,
or doing anything so commonplace as sleeping occurred to her. She
wrapped herself in a shawl, seated herself by the window, and so for
hours and hours sat motionless.
After all was love worth what she was about to give up for it--home,
friends, a good man's trust, her soul's truth and honor? Was Laurence
Thorndyke worth more to her than all the world beside, more than the
peace of her own conscience. Richard Gilbert loved her, honored her,
trusted her, she had taken his gifts, she had pledged herself to be his
wife. This very day, dawning yonder over the hills of Maine, would see
him here to claim her as his own forever. Was one sight of Laurence
Thorndyke's face, one touch of his hand, one seductive tone of his voice
sufficient to make her fling honor and truth to the winds, desert her
best, her only friends, break her plighted husband's heart, and make her
memory a shame and pain to them all forever? Oh, what a wretch she was,
what cruel, selfish passion this love she felt must be!
The sun rose up between the fleecy clouds, filling the world with
jubilant brightness, the sweet scents of sunrise in the country perfumed
the warm air. Norine threw up her window and leaned out, worn and
fevered with her night's vigil. That meeting under the trees seemed a
long way off now, it was as if she had lived years in a few brief hours.
Presently there was a rap at the door, and Aunt Hetty's voice outside
spoke.
"Are you up, Norry? is your headache better, dear?"
"Much better, aunty--I'll be down directly."
"Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes," said aunty, and Norine got
wearily up, and bathed her face, brushed out her tangled curls,
shrinking guiltily from her own pallid face in the glass.
"How wretchedly haggard I look," she thought, drearily; "surely every
one who looks at me will read my guilt in my face."
She went down stairs. Aunt Hetty nearly dropped the sweet, smelling
plate of hot muffins at sight of her.
"You're whiter than a ghost, child!" she cried. "You told me you were
better."
"I am better, aunty. Oh, pray don't mind my looks. Last night's
headache has made me pale--I will be as well as ever after breakfast."
But breakfast was only a pretence as far she was concerned, and the day
wore on and the fair, young face kept its pallid, startled look. She
could do nothing, neither read or sew, she wandered about the house like
a restless spirit, only shrinking from that Bluebeard's chamber, where
all the wedding finery was spread. How was she to meet Mr. Gilbert, and
the fleeting hours were hurrying after one another, as hours never had
hurried before.
The afternoon sun dropped low, the noises in the fields grew more and
more subdued, the cool evening wind swept up from the distant sea.
Norine sat in the wicker chair in the garden under the old apple-tree
and waited--waited as a doomed prisoner might the coming of the
executioner. A book lay idle an her lap, she could not read, she sat
there waiting--waiting--waiting, and schooling herself for the ordeal.
Presently, far off on the white road, rose up a cloud of dust, there
came the rolling of wheels, she caught a glimpse of a carriage. She
clasped her hands together and strove to steady herself. At last he was
here. Out of the dusty cloud came a buggy, whirling rapidly up to the
gate--out of the buggy came Richard Gilbert, his eager face turned
towards her. His quick eye had espied her; she rose up to meet him, calm
in the very depth of desperation. Mr. Gilbert sprang out and caught both
her hands in his.
"My dear, dear girl! My own Norine! how glad I am to be with you once
more! But how pale you look. Have you been ill?"
"Oh, no--that is--only my old friend, headache. Here comes Aunty Hetty
and Uncle Reuben to welcome you."
She drew back, thankful for the diversion, feeling hot and cold by
turns, and not daring to meet his eye. Their laughter, their gay
greetings were only a confused hum in her ears, she was looking at the
clump of hemlocks, and feeling--oh, such a false, treacherous guilty
creature.
"How dazed you look, little girl!" her happy lover said laughing; "am I
such an ogre, then, in your sight?"
He drew her hand beneath his arm, with the air of one who assumes a
right, and led her to the house. They were alone together in the parlor,
and she was trying to call her wandering mind to order, and listen to
him and answer his questions. She could see with terror that he was
watching her already with grave, troubled eyes. What was it, this pale,
still change in her? Dread of her approaching marriage, maiden timidity,
or worst of all--was the thought of another man haunting her still?
Tea time came and was a relief; after tea, Mr. Gilbert proposed a walk.
Norine took her hat passively, and went out with him into the hushed and
placid twilight. The pale primrose light was fading out of the western
sky, and a rising wind was tossing the arms of the hemlocks where she
stood with another lover last night.
It was a very silent walk. They strolled along the lonesome road, with
the primrose light growing grayer and grayer through the velvety
meadows, where the quiet cows grazed. Something of the dark shadows
deepening around them seemed to steal into the man's heart, and dull it
with nameless dread, but there was no voice in the rising wind, in the
whispering trees, in the creeping gloom, to tell him of what was so
near.
A very silent walk--the last they would ever take. The little talking
done, Mr. Gilbert did himself. He told her that all his preparations for
his bride, all his arrangements for her comfort were made. Their home in
New York's stateliest avenue was ready and waiting--their wedding tour
would be to Montreal and Niagara, unless Norine had some other choice.
But she would be glad to see once more the quaint, gray, dear old
Canadian town--would she not?
"Yes, she would ever be glad to see Montreal. No, she had no other
choice." She shivered as she said it, looking far off with blank eyes
that dare not meet his. "Niagara would do very well, all places were
alike to her. It was growing cold and dark,"--abruptly this--"suppose
they went home."
Something in her tone and manner, in her want of interest and
enthusiasm, hurt him. More silently than they had come they recrossed
the darkening fields. The moon was rising as they drew near the house,
forcing its way up through dark and jagged clouds. She paused suddenly
for a moment, with her pale face turned towards it. Mr. Gilbert paused,
too, looking at the lowering sky.
"Listen to the wind," he said. "We will have a change to-morrow."
"A change!" she said, in a hushed sort of voice. "Yes, the storm is very
near."
"And you are shivering in this raw night wind. You are white and cold as
a spirit, my darling. Come let us go in."
His baggage had arrived--a trunk and valise stood in the hall as they
entered. The sister and brothers sat in holiday attire in the keeping
room, but very grave and quiet. The shadow that had fallen on Richard
Gilbert in the twilight fields seemed to have fallen here, too.
Norine sat at the piano, her face turned away from the light, and played
the melodies he asked for. From these she drifted gradually into music
more in accordance with her mood, playing in a mournful, minor key,
until Mr. Gilbert could endure the saddening sweetness no longer.
"Your music is very melancholy, my dear," he said quietly. "Will you not
sing us something instead."
"Not to-night, I think. I find my headache has not altogether departed.
If you will kindly excuse me, I will retire."
She got up as she spoke, lit a lamp, and with a brief good-night, was
gone.
It was not yet ten o'clock, but there was little inducement to linger
now. Mr. Gilbert owned to being rather fatigued, took his light, and
departed. Before half-past ten all were in their rooms, the doors and
windows secured for the night. By eleven all were asleep--all save one.
Norine sat at her window, her light shaded, her watch (one of Richard
Gilbert's presents to his bride elect) open before her, gazing out into
the gusty darkness, and waiting. Her hands were tightly clasped
together, silent, tearless sobs shook her at times as remorse swept
through her soul, and yet not for one minute did she think of
withdrawing from her tryst. But she would not fly with Laurence
Thorndyke--no, no! Every best impulse within her cried out she would
not, she could not. She was a wretch for even thinking of it--a wretch
for going to this meeting, but she would only go to say farewell
forever. She loved him, but she belonged to another man; it would be
better to die than to betray him. She would bid Laurence Thorndyke go
to-night, and never see him more.
The threatening storm seemed drawing very near. The moon was half
obscured in dense clouds; the wind tore around the gables; the trees
tossed their long, green arms wildly aloft. Within the house profoundest
silence reigned.
Half-past eleven! the hour of tryst; she seemed to count the moments by
the dull beating of her heart. She rose up, extinguished her lamp, put
on a waterproof, drawing the hood over her head, took her slippers in
her hand, and opened the door. She paused and listened, half choked by
the loud throbbing of her heart, by guilty, nameless dread. All was
still--no sound but the surging of the trees without; no glimmer of
light from any room. She stole on tiptoe along the passage, down the
stairs, and into the lower hall. Noiselessly she unlocked the door,
opened it, and was out in the windy dark, under the gloom of the trees.
One second's pause, her breath coming in frightened gasps, then she was
flitting away in the chill night wind to meet her lover. She reached the
gate, leaned over it eagerly, straining her eyes through the gloom.
"Laurence!" she said, in a tremulous whisper. "Laurence, I have come."
"My own brave little girl!"
A tall figure stepped forward from beneath a tree, too warm hands
clasped hers.
"Norry, you're a trump, by Jove! Come out at once. All is ready. You
must fly with me to-night."
But she shrank back--shocked, terrified, yet longing with all her soul
to obey.
"No, no!" she cried. "I can never go--never! never! never! O Lawrence!
I have come here to bid you good-by forever!"
His answer was to laugh aloud. His face was flushed his blue eyes
gleaming--Mr. Laurence Thorndyke, bold enough at all times, had primed
himself with brandy for to-night's work, until he was ready to face and
defy devils and men.
"Good-by forever!" he repeated. "Yes, that's so likely, my darling. Come
out here, Norry--come out. I've no notion of talking with a five-barred
gate between us. So old Gilbert came down to his wedding this afternoon
didn't he? By Jupiter! what a row there will be to-morrow, when the cage
is opened, and the bird found flown."
He laughed recklessly aloud, as he opened the gate and drew her out.
"Not if I know it, Norry. No dry-as-dust, grim, solemn owl of a lawyer
for my little Canadian rosebud, old as the everlasting hills, and
priggish as the devil. No, no! we'll change all that. Before morning
dawns you and I will be safely in Boston, and before another night falls
you'll be my blessed little wife--the loveliest bride from Maine to
Florida, and I the most blissful of bridegrooms. All is ready--here are
my horse and buggy--the sloop sails in an hour, and then--let them catch
us who can!"
Either the excitement of his triumph, or the French brandy, had set Mr.
Laurence Thorndyke half wild. He drew her with him, heedless of her
struggles, her passionate protest.
"Can't go? Oh, that's all bosh, my darling! you've got to come. I love
you, and you love me--(sounds like a child's valentine, don't it?)--and
you don't care that for old Dick Gilbert. You won't go? If you don't
I'll shoot myself before morning--I swear I will! You don't want me to
shoot myself, do you? I can't live without you, Norry, and I don't mean
to try. After we're married, and the honeymoon's over, I'll fetch you
back to the old folks if you like, upon my sacred honor I will. Not a
word now, my little angel, I won't listen. Of course you've scruples,
and all that. I think the more of you for them, but you'll thank me for
not listening one day. Here's the carriage--get in, get in, get in!"
He fairly lifted her in as he spoke.
Stunned, terrified, bewildered, she struggled in vain. He only laughed
aloud, caught up the reins, and struck the horse with the whip. The
horse, a spirited one, darted forward like a flash; there was a girl's
faint, frightened scream.
"O Laurence! let me go!"
A wild laugh drowned it--they flew over the ground like the wind. Norine
was gone! His exultant singing mingled with the crash of the wheels as
they disappeared.
"She is won! they are gone over bush, brake and scar;
They'll have fleet steeds that follow, quoth young Lochinvar."
CHAPTER VIII.
FLED!
Mr. Gilbert went to his room, went to his bed, but he did not go to
sleep. He lay awake so long, tossing restlessly, that, at last, in
disgust, he got up dressed himself partly, and sat down in the darkness
by his open chamber window; to have it out.
What was the matter with Norine? Headache; she had said--but to eyes
sharpened by deep, true love, it looked much more like heartache. The
averted eyes, the faltering voice, the pallid cheeks, the shrinking
form, betokened something deeper than headache. Was she at the eleventh
hour repenting her marriage? Was she still in love with Laurence
Thorndyke? Was she pining for the freedom she had resigned? Was there no
spark of affection for him in her girl's heart after all?
"I was mad and presumptuous to dream of it," he thought. "I am
thirty-six--she is seventeen. I am not handsome, nor brilliant, nor
attractive to a girl's fancy in any way--she is all. Yes, she is pining
for him, and repenting of her hastily-plighted troth. Well, then, she
shall have it back. If I loved her tenfold more than I do, and Heaven
knows to love her any better than I do mortal man cannot, still I would
resign her. No woman shall ever come to me as wife with her heart in
the keeping of another man. Better a thousand times to part now than to
part after marriage. I have seen quite too much, in my professional
capacity of marrying in haste and repenting at leisure, to try it
myself. I will speak to her to-morrow; she shall tell me the truth
fearlessly and frankly while it is not yet too late, and if it be as I
dread, why, then, I can do as better men have done--bear my pain and go
my way. Poor, pretty little Norry! with her drooping face and pathetic,
wistful eyes--she longs to tell me, I know, and is afraid. It is a very
tender heart, a very romantic little heart, and who is to blame her if
it turns to him, young and handsome as she is herself, instead of to the
grave, dull, middle-aged lawyer. And yet, it will be very hard to say
good-by."
He broke down for a moment, alone as he was. A great flood of
recollection came over him--the thought of parting--now--was bitter
indeed. A vision rose before him--Norine as he had seen her first,
standing shyly downcast in the train, her dark, childlike eyes glancing
imploringly around, the sensitive color coming and going in her innocent
face. She arose before him again as he had seen her later, flushed and
downcast, sweet and smiling, bending over Laurence Thorndyke, with
"Love's young dream" written in every line of her happy face. Again as
he had seen her that day when he spoke, pale, startled, troubled, afraid
to accept, afraid to refuse, and faltering out the words that made him
so idiotically happy, with her little, white, handsome face, keeping its
startled pallor.
"Yes," he said, "yes, yes, I see it all. She said 'yes,' because it is
not in her yielding, gentle, child's heart to say no. And now she is
repenting when she thinks it too late. But it is not too late; to-morrow
I will speak and she will answer, and if there be one lingering doubt in
her mind, we will shake hands and part. My little love! I wish for your
sake Laurence Thorndyke were worthy of you, and might return; but to
meet him again is the worst fate that can befall you, and in three
months poor Helen Holmes will be his bride."
Hark! was that a sound? He broke off his reverie to listen. No, all was
still again--only the surging of the wind in the maples.
"It certainly sounded like the opening of a door below," he thought; "a
rat perhaps--all are in bed."
He was looking blankly out into the windy darkness. This time to-morrow
night his fate would be decided. Would he still be in this room, waiting
for Thursday morning to dawn and give him Norine, or--
He broke off abruptly again. Was that a figure moving down in the gloom
to the gate? Surely not, and yet something moved. A second more, and it
had vanished. Was this fancy, too? He waited, he listened. Clearly
through the dusk, borne on the wind, there came to him the faint,
far-off sound of a laugh.
"Who can it be?" he thought, puzzled. "No fancy this time. I certainly
heard a laugh. Rather an odd hour and lonely spot for mirth."
He listened once more, and once more, fainter and farther off, came on
the wind that laugh. Did he dream, or did a cry mingle with it? The next
instant he started to his feet as the loud, rapid rush of carriage
wheels sounded through the deep silence of the night. What did it mean?
Had some one stealthily left the house and driven away? He rose, drew
on his coat, and without his boots, quitted his room, and descended the
stairs.
The house door stood ajar--some one had left them and driven away.
He walked to the gate. Nothing was to be seen, nothing to be heard. The
gloomy night sky, the tossing trees, the soughing wind, nothing else far
or near.
"It may have been Reuben or Joe Kent," he thought, "and yet at this time
of night and in secret! And there was a cry for help, or what certainly
sounded like one. No need to puzzle over it, however--to-morrow will
tell. A New England farm-house is about the last place on earth to look
for mysteries."
Mr. Gilbert went to bed again, and, somewhere in the small hours, to
sleep. It was rather late when he awoke, and an hour past the usual
breakfast time when, his toilet completed, he descended the stairs. The
storm had come in pouring rain, in driving wind, in sodden earth, and
frowning sky.
Aunt Hetty was alone, the table was laid for two, a delightful odor of
coffee and waffles perfumed the air. She looked up from her sewing with
a smile as he bade her good-morning.
"I was just wondering if you and Norry meant to keep your rooms all day.
Oh, you needn't make any apology; it is as easy to wait breakfast for
two as for one. The boys and me"--(they were the "boys" still to Miss
Hester Kent)--"had ours at seven o'clock. Now sit right down Mr.
Gilbert, and I'll go and rout out Norry, and you and her can have your
breakfast sociably together. You'll have a good many sociable breakfasts
alone together, I dare say, before long. Gloomy sort of day now, ain't
it?"
"Norine is not down then?" the lawyer said, startled a little, yet
hardly knowing why.
"Not yet. She ain't often lazy o' mornings, ain't Norry, neither. You
wait, though. I'll have her down in ten minutes."
He looked at her as though to say something, changed his mind suddenly,
and took seat. Miss Kent left the room. Five minutes passed. Then she
came rushing down the stairs, and back to his side, all white and
frightened.
"Mr. Gilbert, Norine's not in her room! Her bed was not slept in at all
last night!" She sat down all at once, pressing her hand hard over her
heart. "I'm," she said, panting, "I'm very foolish, I know, but it has
given me a turn."
He rose to his feet. He knew it then! As well as he ever knew it in the
after time, Richard Gilbert knew it all at that moment, Norine had fled.
"It was she, then, who left the house last night," he said, in a hushed
voice; "and it was a man's laugh! Was it-- My God! Was it--"
He stopped, turning white with the horror of that thought.
"Call your brothers," he said, his voice ringing, his face setting white
and stern as stone. "We must search for her at once. At all costs we
must find her--must bring her back. Quick, Miss Kent! Your brothers! I
am afraid Norine has fled."
"Fled!"
"Fled--run away from home, for fear of marrying me. Don't you
understand, Miss Kent? Call your brothers, I say every minute may be
worth a life--or more! Quick!"
She obeyed--stunned, stupefied by the shock, the horror of her amaze.
The two men rushed wildly in, frightened by their sister's incoherent
words. Rapidly, clearly, Richard Gilbert told them what he had heard
last night, told them even what he feared most.
"Thorndyke has come back, and either persuaded her to run away with him
or forcibly abducted her. I feel sure of it. I heard him laugh, and her
cry last night as plainly as I hear my own voice now. There is not a
moment to be lost. On with your coats! out with the horses, and let us
be off. Better she were dead than with him."
They are gone, and the woman sits alone, stunned, speechless, unable to
realize it, only dumbly conscious that something awful has happened.
Norine has gone! Fled on the very eve of her bridal with another man.
Norine--little Norrie, who but yesterday seemed to her as a young
innocent child.
The woman sits and weeps alone by her desolate hearth. The men go forth
into the world, and forget their grief for the time in the excitement of
the search--the men, who have the best of it always.
All his life long that miserable day remained in Richard Gilbert's
memory more as a sickening dream than as a reality. He suffered
afterward--horribly--to-day he was too dazed to suffer or feel. Whether
found or not, Norine Bourdon was lost to him forever; dumbly he felt
that, but she must be found. At all costs, she must be brought back from
Laurence Thorndyke.
The two men acted passively under his orders--awed into silence by the
look on his set, white face. Even to them that day remained as a dizzy
dream. Now they were at the station, listening to Gilbert's rapid, lucid
inquiries and description, and the clerk shook his head.
"No," he said; "so far as he could recollect, no two parties answering
the description, had left by the earliest train that morning."
Then Mr. Gilbert went backward, and tried the registers of the various
hotels for the name of Thorndyke. It did not appear, but in one of the
lesser hotels the question was solved.
"Thar hain't ben nobody here answerin' to that air," said the Down-East
innkeeper; "but thar hes ben a chap callin' himself Smith--John Smith.
That may be the cove you want. Likely's not, ye know, if he's ben up to
any of his larks, he would give a false name, ye know. He come Saturday
night--staid Sunday and Monday, paid his bill last evenin', and made
himself scarce. Shouldn't be a mite surprised, now, if he's the rooster
you're after."
"Describe him," the lawyer said, briefly.
"Wal, he was a good-lookin' young fellow as ye'd wish to see. Tall and
slim and genteel, city clothes, a moustache, blueish eyes, and sorter
light hair--a swell young chap, sech as we ain't used to in our house."
"Thorndyke!" the lawyer muttered, between his teeth.
"He never stirred out all Sunday," pursued mine host, "until after
nightfall. Then he started off afoot, and it was past eleven when he got
back. All day Monday he loafed about his room the same way, and on
Monday evennin', as I said, he paid his bill, got a buggy somewhere, and
drove off. And I calk'late, square, he'd been a drinkin', he kinder
looked and talked that way. That's all I know about Mr. John Smith."
They telegraphed along the line, but without success. Nothing
satisfactory could be discovered. It was noon now--there was a train
for Boston at two. Mr. Gilbert looked at his watch.
"I will not return with you," he said, decisively. "I will go on to
Boston. I am positive he will take her there. Meantime, you will leave
no stone unturned to track the fugitives here."
"I'll go with you to Boston," said Uncle Reuben, quietly; "if he's taken
her there, my place is on the ground. Joe will do all he can here. And
by the Lord! when I _do_ see him, I'll make it the dearest night's work
he ever did in his life."
So it was arranged. In the dismal loneliness of the pouring afternoon,
Joe Kent drove back alone to Kent Hill and to the tortured woman waiting
there. Who knew? thought quiet Joe. Perhaps Mr. Gilbert and Reuben had
been too hasty, after all. Perhaps Norine was back.
But Norine was not back. The house was empty and desolate--Aunt Hetty
sat crying alone. She had gone and left no trace behind, not one word,
no note, no letter. Her clothes were all untouched, except those she had
worn, and her waterproof cloak. Surely she had never meant to run away,
or she would have gone differently from that, and left some line of
farewell, some prayer for pardon behind. It must be as Mr. Gilbert had
said--the villain had taken her by force.
And while the rainy afternoon deepened into night, the two sad, silent
men sat side by side, flying along to Boston. At every station inquiries
were made, but no one had seen anything of a young girl and a young man
answering the description given. So many came and went always it was
impossible to remember. So when night fell in lashing rain and raw east
wind the lawyer and the farmer were in Boston, and no trace of runaway
Norine had been found.
CHAPTER IX.
"MRS. LAURENCE."
It was eleven o'clock on the Wednesday morning following that eventful
Monday night. In an upper room, a private parlor of a Boston hotel,
seated in an easy chair, was Miss Norine Bourdon. They had arrived this
morning, and in the hotel book their names were registered "Mr. and Mrs.
John Laurence."
At the present moment Miss Bourdon is alone. Her dark face is very pale,
her eyelids are red from much weeping; at intervals, as she sits and
thinks, the lovely dark eyes fill, the childlike lips quiver, and a sob
catches her breath. And yet she is not really very unhappy. Is she not
with Laurence? Before another hour passes will she not be his wife? and
what is the love of aunt or uncle, what the friendship of a thousand Mr.
Gilberts compared to the bliss of that? Truth to tell, the first shock
of consternation at her enforced flight over, Norine had found
forgiveness easy. She was only seventeen, remember; she was intensely
romantic; she loved him with her whole, passionate heart--a heart
capable, even at seventeen, of loving, and--who was to tell?--perhaps of
hating very strongly. And most girls like bold lovers. It was a very
daring _coup de main_, this carrying her off, quite like something in a
last century novel, and with his tender, persuasive voice in her ear,
his protecting arm about her waist, with her own heart pleading for him,
Norine was driven away a not unwilling captive.
"I have arranged everything, my pet," said Mr. Thorndyke; "rooms are
engaged at the W---- House, Boston, and a clerical friend of mine is to
perform the ceremony very much on the quiet. You don't object to being
married in a hotel parlor, and by a Congregationalist minister, do you?
By-and-by we'll take a run over the border and have the thing done over
again in the sacred precincts of Notre Dame de Montreal, if you like.
Just at present everything must be _sub rosa_, my darling. The old
boy--I mean my respected uncle Darcy--will cut up deuced rough, you
know, when he first comes to hear it. He expects me to marry his pet,
Nellie Holmes; so does Miss Nellie, if the truth must be told. So I
would have done, too, if fate and a broken limb had not thrown me upon
_your_ protection. And from that hour, my darling, my fate was sealed.
Of all the eyes, blue, black, brown, green, or gray, for killing,
wholesale slaughter, commend me to those of a fair Canadian. So you see,
Norry, we will be married Wednesday morning nicely on the quiet, and
we'll go to a place I've engaged, over Chelsea way, down by the 'sad sea
waves,' to spend the honeymoon. And there for one blessed month we'll
forget all the uncles and aunts, all the lawyers and heiresses in
Christendom, and 'do' love among the roses. You forgive me for carrying
you off in this right knightly fashion--you do, don't you, Norry? Ah! I
know you do; but look up, my own love, and tell me so, and so make my
happiness complete."
With a little fluttering sigh Norine obeyed, clinging close to her
hero's side in the darkness.
"But you'll let me write home when we are married, and tell them,
Laurence, won't you? They have been so good to me, always--always, and
they will think, oh yes, they will think such dreadful things of me
now."
"They will forget and forgive, never fear, Norry. People always come
round when they can't do anything else. Of course you shall write to
them--of course you shall do for the future precisely as you wish, and I
will only exist to fulfil your commands. But not just yet, you know; not
until uncle Darcy relents and forgives. Because, my pet, I haven't a
dollar in the world of my own, except my allowance from him, and I can't
afford to offend him. But I'll soon bring him round. Let him see you
once, and all will be forgiven. The man doesn't exist, old or young, who
could resist _you_."
All this was very delightful, of course; and in such rose-colored,
romance-flavored talk, the time sped on. Norine's spirits rose with the
brisk drive in the teeth of the night gale. She was with Laurence; she
was never to part from him more. All life held of rapture was said for
her in that. It was rather a drawback, certainly, that she might not
tell them at home of her felicity at once, but she would just drop them
a line from Boston to say she was safe and well and happy, that they
were not to worry about her, and to beg Mr. Gilbert's--poor Mr.
Gilbert's--pardon. That much Laurence would consent to, of course. To be
married in a hotel parlor, by a Congregationalist Minister was also ever
so little of a drawback, to a little French Canadienne, but one must not
expect unalloyed earthly happiness. And had not Laurence said they would
go one day to Montreal--dear old Montreal, and be remarried in Notre
Dame? Then she would visit Aunt Hetty and Uncle Reuben; then she would
go to New York and plead with Mr. Darcy for her beloved husband, and Mr.
Darcy would grant that pardon, and then--what then? Well, nothing then,
of course, only live and be happy forever after! The sloop, in which Mr.
Thorndyke had engaged passage, was ready to sail. Norine was consigned
to the care of the captain's wife for the trip, and was soon so utterly
prostrate with _mal de mer_, that love and Laurence were forgotten.
To tell the truth, Mr. Thorndyke was miserably sea-sick himself; but
this mode of travel had been forced upon him by the exigencies of the
case. The pursuers must be thrown off the track. Gilbert would surely
suspect and follow; if they went by rail, he would inevitably hunt them
down. So, of necessity, he chose the sloop, and with a head wind and
driving rain, spent Monday night, Tuesday, and Tuesday night sea-sick
and prostrate. Wednesday morning came and they were in Boston. It came
in pouring rain and leaden sky, and the bleak easterly wind your
Bostonian dreads. They drove to the hotel, Miss Bourdon dreadfully
ashamed of her old waterproof, and ascended to their private parlor. Mr.
Thorndyke ordered breakfast to be served here at once, and both partook
of that repast when it came, with very excellent appetites. Mr.
Thorndyke had had some more brandy, which tonic, doubtless, stimulated
his appetite, his resolution and his love together. Then he put on his
hat, looked at his watch, and departed on matrimonial business intent.
"I'll be off for the Reverend Jonas Maggs (his name's the Reverend Jonas
Maggs) at once, and make you Mrs. Thorndyke before you eat your dinner.
And I'll order a few things here--a hat, for instance, a sacque, and a
few dresses and gloves. I'll be back in an hour or two at the longest.
You won't be lonely, my darling, while I'm gone?"
She had answered him "no," and with a very affectionate embrace, he had
left her. But in his absence she did grow lonely, did grow saddened and
remorseful. What must they think of her at home? They had discovered her
flight by this time--all was consternation and terror. They would wonder
what had happened--why she had gone, whither, and if alone. Aunt Hetty
she could see weeping and refusing to be comforted; her uncles shocked,
speechless, terrified; Mr. Gilbert pale, stern, and perhaps guessing the
truth. He had loved her, very truly and dearly, and Thursday next was to
have been his wedding day. Oh! what a cruel, wicked, heartless,
ungrateful wretch she must be now in his sight! How he would scorn and
despise her--how they all would! Would they ever forgive her for this
shameful flight--this cold-blooded treachery? One day she might,
perhaps, come face to face with Mr. Gilbert, in the busy whirl of New
York life, and how would she ever dare to meet his angry, scornful eye?
As Laurence's wife, the deepest bliss life could give would be hers, but
through all her life long, even in the midst of this bliss, the trail of
the serpent would be over all still, in her undying shame and remorse.
The ready tears of seventeen fell, until all at once Miss Bourdon
recollected that Laurence would be here presently with the clergyman,
and that it would never do to be married with red eyes and a swollen
nose. She sprang up, bathed her face, brushed out her long silky black
hair, and by the time she had made herself pretty and bright, Mr.
Thorndyke's light step came flying up the stairs, three at a bound, and
Mr. Thorndyke's impetuous tap was at the door.
"Come in," she said, her heart beginning to flutter, and the bridegroom
came in, handsome, smiling, eager, followed by a seedy-looking personage
in rusty black, and the professional "choker" of dingy white.
"Out of patience, Norine? But I could not come an instant sooner, and it
is only half-past eleven. My friend, the Reverend Jonas Maggs, Miss
Bourdon, soon to be transformed into Mrs. Laurence Thorndyke; and the
sooner the better. Here's the ring, Norry, bought haphazard--let's see
if it fits the dear little finger. So! as if you were born in it. Now
then, Mr. Maggs, pity the impatience of ardent love, and get on with the
ceremony."
High spirits these for a runaway match. The handsome face was flushed,
the blue eyes feverishly bright, a strong odor of cigars and cognac
pervaded Mr. Thorndyke's broadcloth. The Rev. Mr. Maggs coughed, a meek,
clerical cough, looked furtively and admiringly at the bride, drew forth
a book, and "stood at ease." Mr. Thorndyke drew Miss Bourdon up before
him, the ring between his fingers, an odd sort of smile on his lips. For
Norine, she had grown ashen white; now that the supreme moment had come,
she was trembling from head to foot. Even to her inexperience there was
something bizarre, something wrong and abnormal, in this _outre_ sort of
marriage. A bride without bridal dress, veil or blossoms; without
bridesmaid, or friend; a bridegroom splashed with mud and rain drops,
without groomsman or witness. And the Rev. Mr. Maggs, for a holy man,
was as dirty and disreputable a specimen of the class as one might wish
to see. She stood by his side, pale to the lips, afraid of--she knew not
what. As in a dream she heard Mr. Maggs gabbling over some sort of
ceremony. As in a dream she saw the ring slipped over her finger. As in
a dream she saw him shut up his book with a slap, and heard him
pronounce them man and wife. Then for the first time she lifted her
eyes, full, clear, questioning to the face of Laurence Thorndyke. For
the first time, perhaps, in his own experience of himself he shrank
before their crystal clear, childishly innocent gaze. His were still
full of that intolerable light of triumph--that exultant smile yet
lingered on his lips.
He drew Maggs aside and slipped a crisp greenback, into his hand. Then
the reverend gentleman resumed his hat, bowed to the bride, wished her
joy with an unctuous smile, and slowly took himself out of the room.
"My dear little wife!" Laurence Thorndyke said. "You have made me the
happiest man in America to-day. For the next four weeks, in our pretty
Chelsea cottage, it shall be our business to forget that the world holds
another human creature than our two selves."
"And I've paid _you_ off, I think, my friend Gilbert, with compound
interest." Mr. Thorndyke added, mentally, as a rider to that pretty
little speech. "I'm not over and above rich this morning, but I'd give a
cool hundred to see your face."
And so, while not half a mile off, Richard Gilbert and Reuben Kent were
searching, with the aid of a detective officer, every hotel in Boston, a
hack was rattling over the stones to Chelsea Ferry, bearing to their
bridal home Laurence Thorndyke and Norine.
CHAPTER X.
"A FOOL'S PARADISE."
The little house was like a picture--like a doll's house, the whitest,
the brightest, the trimmest, the tiniest of all tiny houses. It nestled
down in a sheltered nook, with its back set comfortably against a hill.
Its pretty little garden full of pretty little flowers, climbing roses
and scarlet-runners all over its inviting porch, and away beyond,
Chelsea beach, like a strip of silver ribbon, and the dimpling sea,
smiling back the sunshine. No other house within a quarter of a mile,
the dim, dark woodland rising up in the back-ground, the big, bustling,
work-a-day world shut out on every hand. Could Laurence Thorndyke, if he
had searched for half a lifetime, have found a more charming, more
secluded spot in which to dream out Love's Young Dream?
And the dream was pretty nearly dreamed out now.
For the fourth week had come, and the days of the honey month were
drawing to a close. If the truth must be told, the honey had cloyed upon
Mr. Thorndyke's fastidious palate before the end of the second week, had
grown distasteful ere the end of the third--had palled entirely at the
beginning of the fourth. In other words, the honeymoon business and
doing "love in a cottage," buried alive here, was fast becoming a most
horrible bore.
"If I had been very much in love with the girl," thought Mr. Thorndyke,
communing with his own heart "it might have been different--even then,
though, let it have been ever so severe a case of spoons, I don't think
I could have stood another week of this deadly lively sort of thing. But
I wasn't very much in love. If you know yourself, Laurence Thorndyke,
and you flatter yourself you do, it isn't in you to get up a _grande
passion_ for any body. There was Lucy West, there is Helen Holmes, here
is Norine Bourdon. I don't believe you ever had more than a passing
fancy for any of them, and your motto ever has been 'lightly won lightly
lost.'"
He was lying upon a sofa, stretched at full length, his hands clasped
behind his head, a cloud of cigar smoke half-veiling his handsome, lazy,
bored face, his eyes fixed dreamily upon the sparkling sea. Down on the
strip of tawny sand he could see Norine, looking like a Dresden china
shepherdess in her white looped-up dress, some blue drapery caught about
her, a jaunty sailor hat on her crushed dark curls, and a cluster of
pink roses in her belt.
"She's very pretty, and all that," pursued this youthful philosopher and
cynic, looking at her with dispassionate eyes, "but is the game worth
the candle? Three weeks and two days, and I'm sick and tired to death of
this place, and--alas! my pretty Norry--of you! 'Men were deceivers
ever.' I suppose it was much the same in old Shakspeare's time as it is
now. It is all very well to pay off Gilbert, and wipe out the old
scores, but it is not at all very well to be disinherited by old Darcy.
If it comes to his ears it's all up with my chance of the inheritance,
and my marriage with Helen. And, upon my word, I shouldn't like to lose
Helen. She's good-looking, she's good style, she can talk on any
subject under Heaven, and she's twenty thousand dollars down on her
wedding-day. Yes, it will never do to throw up my chances there, but how
to drop quietly out of this--that's the rub. There'll be the dickens to
pay with Norine, and sometimes I've thought of late, gentle as she is,
much as she loves me--and she does love me, poor little soul--that she's
not one of the milk-and-water sort to sit down in a corner and break her
heart quietly. I wish--I wish--I wish I had left her in peace at Kent
Farm!"
She was beckoning to him gaily at that moment. He shook off his
disagreeable meditation, put his long limbs down off the sofa, took his
straw hat, and sauntered forth to join her.
The little house--Sea View Cottage, its romantic mistress had named it,
was owned by the two Miss Waddles. The two Miss Waddles were two old
maids. Miss Waddle the elder, taught school in Chelsea. Miss Waddle, the
younger, was literary, and wrote sensation stories for the weekly
papers, poor thing. In addition, they eked out their income by taking a
couple of summer boarders, for people as a rule don't become
millionaires teaching school or writing for the papers. Miss Waddle, the
younger, immersed in ink and romance, looked after the young man with
eyes of keen professional interest.
"How grumpy he looks," thought Miss Waddle; "how radiant _she_ looks.
He's tired to death of it all already; she's more and more in love with
him every day. The first week he was all devotion, the second week the
thermometer fell ten degrees, the third week he took to going to Boston
and coming home in the small hours, smelling of smoke and liquor, this
fourth he yawns in her face from morning until night. And this is what
fools call the honeymoon. Moonshine enough, so far as I can see, but
precious little honey."
Miss Waddle stabbed her pen down in the inkstand, took a deep and
vicious dip, and plunged wildly into literature once more. Mr.
Thorndyke, listlessly, wearily and unutterably bored, joined the idol of
his existence.
In the Chelsea cottage they were known as "Mr. and Mrs. Laurence." For
Norine, she was radiantly happy--no weariness, no boredom for her. The
honey grew sweeter to her taste every day; but then women as a rule have
a depraved taste for unwholesome sweetmeats; the days Mr. Thorndyke
found so long, so vapid, so dreary, were bright, brief dreams of bliss
to her. She had written her short explanatory note home during the first
week, and had given it to Laurence to post. Laurence took it, glad of an
excuse over to Boston, and on the ferry-boat tore it into fifty minute
fragments and cast them to the four winds of Heaven. Norine had written
a second time, and a third. Her piteous little letters met the same
fate. That was one drawback to her perfect Paradise--there was a second,
Laurence's growing weariness of it all.
"If he should become tired of me; if he should repent his hasty
marriage; if he should cease to love me, what would become of me?" she
thought, clasping her hands in an agony. "Oh, mon Dieu! let me die
sooner than that. I know I am far beneath him--such lovely, accomplished
ladies as my darling might have married--but ah, not one of them all
could ever love him better than poor Norine!"
She hid her fears; the tears she shed over their silence and
unforgiveness at home were tears shed in solitude and darkness, where
they might not offend or reproach him. She tried every simple little
art to be beautiful and attractive in his sight. Her smiling face was
the last thing he saw, let him quit her ever so often--her smiling face
looked brightly and sweetly up at him let those absences be ever so
prolonged. And they were growing more frequent and more prolonged every
day. He took her nowhere--his own evenings, without exception now, were
spent in Boston, the smallest of the small hours his universal hours for
coming home. And not always too steady of foot or too fluent of speech
at these comings, for this captivating young man was fonder of the
rattle of the dice-box, the shuffling of the pack, and the "passing of
the rosy" than was at all good for him.
"Laurence," Norine's bright voice called, "you know everything. Come and
tell me what is this botanical specimen I have found growing here in the
cleft of the rocks."
She held up a spray of blue blossom. Laurence looked at it languidly.
"I know everything, I admit, but I don't know that. If you had married
old Gilbert now, my darling, your thirst for information might have been
quenched. There isn't anything, from the laws of the nations down to the
name of every weed that grows, he hasn't at his learned legal finger
ends. Oh, Lord, Norry, what a long day this has been--fifty-eight hours
if one."
He casts himself on the sands at her feet, pulls his hat over his eyes,
and yawns long and loudly. Her happy face clouds, the dark, lovely eyes
look at him wistfully.
"It is dull for you, dear," she says, tenderly, a little tremor in the
soft, sweet tones; "for me the days seem all too short--I am so happy,
I suppose." He glances up at her, struggling feebly with a whole
mouthful of gapes.
"You _are_ happy, then, Norry, are you? Almost as happy as when at home;
almost as happy as if you had married that ornament of society, Richard
Gilbert, instead of the scapegrace and outlaw, Laurence Thorndyke?"
She clasped her hands, always her habit when moved.
"So happy!" she said, under her breath; "so perfectly, utterly happy.
How could I ever have thought of marrying any one but you, Laurence--you
whom I loved from the very very first?"
"And"--he has the grace to hesitate a little--"it would make you very
unhappy if we were forced to part, I suppose, Norry?"
"Part?" She starts, grows very white, and two dilated eyes turn to him.
"Laurence, why do you ask me that? Unhappy? Mon Dieu! it would kill
me--just that!"
He laughs a little, but uneasily, and shifts away from the gaze of the
large, terrified eyes.
"Kill you? No, you're not the sort that die so easily. Don't look so
white and frightened, child; I didn't mean anything, at least, not
anything serious; only we have been almost a month here and it is about
time I went to pay my respected Uncle Darcy a visit. He has taken to
asking unpleasant questions of late--where I am, what I am doing, why I
don't report myself at headquarters--meaning his house in New York.
Norry, there's no help for it; I'll have to take a run up to New York."
She sits down suddenly, her hand over her heart, white as the dress she
wears.
"Of course I need not stay long," Mr. Thorndyke pursues, his hat still
over his eyes; "but go I must, there's no alternative. And then,
perhaps, if I get a chance, I can break it to him gently--about you, you
know. I hate the thought of leaving you, and all that--nobody more; but
still, as I've told you, I'm absolutely depending upon him; the
exchequer is running low and must be replenished. Conjugal love is a
capital thing, but a fellow can't live on it. Love may come and love may
go, but board goes on forever. You'll stay here with the two Waddles, do
fancy work, read novels, and take walks, and you'll ever find the time
slipping by until I am back. You don't mind, do you, Norine?"
"How long will you be gone?" she asks, in an odd, constrained sort of
voice.
"Well, two or three weeks, perhaps. I shall have business to attend to,
and--and all that. But I'll be back at the earliest possible moment, be
sure of that."
She does not speak. She stands looking, with that white change in her
face, over the sunny sea.
"Come, Norine!" he exclaims, impatiently, "you're not going to be a
baby, I hope. If you love me, as you say you do--" She turns and looks
at him, and he alters the phrase suddenly, with an uneasy laugh. "Well,
_since_ you love me so well, Norry, you must try and have a little
common sense. Common sense and pretty girls are incompatible, I know;
but really, my dear child, you can't expect that our whole lives are to
be spent billing and cooing here. It would be very delicious, no
doubt"--a great yawn stifles his words for an instant--"but--by Jove!
who's this?"
He raises himself on his elbow, pushes back his hat, and stares hard at
an advancing figure. Norine follows his glance, and sees, stepping
rapidly over the sand, the small slim figure of a man.
"The--devil!" says Laurence Thorndyke.
He springs to his feet, and stands waiting. The man advances, comes
near, lifts his hat to the lady, and looks with a calm glance of
recognition at the gentleman. He is a pale, thin, sombre little man, not
too well dressed, with keen, small, light blue eyes, and thin, decisive,
beardless lips.
"Good-day, Mr. Thorndyke," he says, quietly.
"Liston--it _is_ Liston!" exclaims Mr. Thorndyke, a red, angry flush
mounting to his face. "At your usual insolent tricks, I see--dogging me!
May I ask--"
"How I have found you out?" Mr. Liston interrupts, in the same calm,
quiet voice. "I knew you were here three weeks ago, Mr. Thorndyke. I saw
Maggs--the Reverend Jonas Maggs--in Boston."
He lifts his light, keen eyes for one second to Laurence Thorndyke's,
then drops them to the sands. The red flush deepens on the young man's
blonde face, his blue eyes flash steely fire.
"By Heaven, you have!" he exclaims, in a suppressed voice. "Has the
drunken fool--"
Liston interrupts again:
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Laurence, but if you will step aside with me, I
would like to say a few words to you. Meantime, here are two
letters--one from your uncle, the other--"
"H'm! All right Liston!" Thorndyke says, hastily, and with a warning
glance. "My uncle has sent you to hunt me up as usual, I suppose."
"As usual, Mr. Laurence. He commands your immediate presence in New
York."
Again the color mounts to the young man's face, again his eyes flash
angry fire.
"Do you mean to say, Liston, that you or that d---- snivelling hypocrite,
Maggs--"
"Mr. Thorndyke," says Mr. Liston, interrupting for the third time, and
raising his voice slightly, "I have a word to say to you in private--if
the young lady will excuse you."
He bows in a sidelong sort of way to Norine, and watches her furtively
beneath his drooping eyelids. She is standing very still, her eyes on
one of the letters--a square, perfumed, rose-colored letter superscribed
in a lady's delicate tracery, and bearing the monogram "H. H." Thorndyke
thrusts both abruptly into his pocket, and draws her aside.
"Go back to the house, Norine," he says hastily. "I must hear what this
fellow has to say. He's secretary--confidential clerk, valet, factotum
generally, to my uncle. And I wish the devil had him before he ever
found me out here!"
She obeys passively, very pale, still.
"That------snivelling hypocrite, Maggs!" she is repeating inwardly.
"What a dreadful way to speak of a clergyman!"
Mr. Thorndyke rejoins Mr. Liston, a scowl on his face, his brows
lowering and angry.
"Well?" he demands, savagely.
"Well," the new-comer's quiet voice repeats, "don't lose your temper,
Mr. Laurence--I haven't done anything. Your uncle told me to hunt you
up, and I have hunted you up--that is all."
"When did he tell you, confound him?"
"One week ago, Mr. Laurence."
"A week ago? I thought you said--"
"That I met Maggs three weeks ago? So I did. That he was beastly drunk?
So he was. That he told me all? So he did. That I have kept my eyes upon
you, off and on, ever since? So I have. Mr. Laurence, Mr. Laurence, I
wonder you're not afraid."
A suppressed oath--no other reply from Mr. Laurence. He gnaws his
mustache, and digs vicious holes with his boots in the soft sand.
"You're a bold card, Mr. Laurence," pursues Mr. Liston's monotonous
voice. "You've played a good many daring games in your life, but this
last daring game I think, has put the topper on the lot. I fancied mock
parsons, sham marriages, and carrying off young ladies by night, went
out of fashion with Gretna Green and Mrs. Radcliffe's romances. If ever
Mr. Darcy hears of it, the sooner you take a rope and hang yourself, the
better."
Another smothered imprecation of rage and impatience from Mr. Thorndyke.
"If I only had Maggs here," he says, clenching his fist.
"You would punch his head for him--very likely. But I don't know that
even that would do much good. He's got the jim-jams to-day, poor brute,
the worst kind. For you, Mr. Laurence--how long before this play of
yours is played out?"
"I'm going to New York to-morrow," growls Mr. Laurence Thorndyke. "I was
just telling her so as you hove in sight."
"Ah! you were just telling her so--the play _is_ played out, then. May I
ask, Mr. Laurence, though it is none of my business, how the poor thing
takes it?"
"No, you mayn't ask," replies Mr. Laurence, with ferocity, "as you say
it's none of your business. Liston! look here, you're not going to turn
State's evidence, are you--honor bright? You are not going to tell the
old man."
His angry voice drops to a pleading cadence. Mr. Liston's shifty light
eyes look up at him for a moment.
"Do I ever tell Mr. Laurence? It is late in the day to ask such a
question as that.
"So it is. You're not half a bad fellow, old boy, and have got me out of
no end of scrapes. Get me out of this and I'll never forget it--that I
swear. One of these days you shall have your reward in hard cash--that I
promise you."
"When you marry Miss Holmes? It's a bargain, Mr. Laurence--I'll try and
earn my reward. What is it you want me to do?"
"I'm going to New York to-morrow," Thorndyke says, hurriedly. "I must
invent some excuse for the governor, and what I say you are to swear to.
And when peace is proclaimed you must come back and tell _her_. I can't
do it myself--by George, I can't."
"Is that all?" asked Mr. Liston.
"You'll look after her--poor little soul! and, if she wishes it, take
her to her friends. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry--for her sake and for my
own. But it's rather late for all that. Liston, is Richard Gilbert in
town?"
"He is in town. He has been to see your uncle. He has been speaking of
this girl. My word Mr. Laurence, you'll have to do some hard swearing to
prove an _alibi_ this time."
"Curse the luck! Tell me what Darcy said to you Liston, word for word."
"Mr. Darcy, said this: 'Liston, go and find young Thorndyke (he never
calls you young Thorndyke except when he's very far gone in anger,
indeed), and fetch him to me. And hark'ee, fellow! no lying from you or
him. If what I hear of him be true, I'll never look upon his false,
cowardly face again, living or dead.' He was in one of his white rages,
when the less said the better. That was a week ago, I had known all
about you for two weeks before. I bowed, kept my own counsel, and--here
I am."
"You're a trump, Liston! And he gave you this letter?"
"He gave me that letter. You'll find it considerably shorter than sweet.
The other came from Miss Holmes, a few days ago--he sent that too."
"She doesn't know--"
"Not likely. She will though, if the old man finds out, and then you're
cake's dough with a vengeance. How do you suppose the little one (she's
very pretty, Mr. Laurence--you always had good taste), how do you
suppose she will take it?"
Mr. Thorndyke's reply was a groan.
"For Heaven's sake don't ask me, Liston! It's a horrible business. I
must have been mad."
"Of course--madly in love."
"Nothing of the sort--not in love at all. It was pure spite--I give you
my word--not a spark of real love in the matter, except what was on her
side. Gilbert was going to marry her, you know."
"I know."
"And I hate him as I hate the----"
"Prince of evil! I know _that_, too."
"You know everything that's my opinion. What a detective was lost in
you, old boy. Perhaps you know why I hate him?"
"He has blocked one or two little games of yours. And he 'peached' in
that affair of Lucy West."
"Liston! what an infernal scoundrel you must think me! When you recall
Lucy West, I wonder you don't hate me tenfold more than I hate Gilbert."
"I do think you an infernal scoundrel," replies Mr. Liston, coolly. "As
for hating--well I'm one of the forgiving sort, you know. Besides,
there's nothing made by turning informer, and there is something to be
made, you say, by keeping mum. Now suppose you go back to the house, and
her, she's pining for you, no doubt, and tell her you're off to-morrow.
I'll call for you with a light wagon about noon. Until then good-day to
you."
Thorndyke seized his hand and shook it.
"I don't know how to thank you, Liston! You're the prince of good
fellows. And I haven't deserved it--I know that."
He strode away. If he could only have seen the look "the prince of good
fellows" cast after him!
"'You don't know how to thank me,'" he thought, with sneering scorn.
"You fool! You blind, conceited, besotted fool! 'When I recall Lucy West
you wonder I don't hate you!' Was there ever a time, my perfumed
coxcomb, when I did not hate you? And you'll reward me, will you? Yes, I
swear you shall, but not in that way. Poor little girl! how young she
is, how pretty, and how innocent. She has had her fool's paradise for
three weeks--it ends to-day."
CHAPTER XI.
GONE.
Laurence Thorndyke strode rapidly back over the sands to where Norine
stood. She had not gone into the house, she was leaning against a green
mound, her hands hanging listlessly before her, the white, startled
change on her face still. Laurence was going away--in an aimless sort of
manner she kept repeating these words over and over, Laurence was going
away!
"I've made a devil of a mess of it," thought Mr. Thorndyke, gnawing his
mustache with gloomy ferocity. "What an unmitigated ass I have been in
this business! Liston's right--a mock marriage is no joke. I can make my
escape from her now, but the truth's got to be told, and that soon. And
what is to hinder her taking her revenge and blowing me sky-high, as I
deserve? One whisper of this affair, and Darcy disinherits me, Helen
jilts me, and then--good Heaven above! what a fool I have been."
Yes, Mr. Thorndyke had been a fool, and was repenting in sackcloth and
ashes. To gratify a passing fancy for a pretty face may be a very
pleasing thing--to take revenge upon a man who has interfered with one's
little plans, may also be a pleasing thing, but to cut off one's own
nose to spite one's own face, is something one is apt to regret
afterwards. It was Mr. Thorndyke's case. He had taken Richard Gilbert's
bride from him at the very altar, as one may say, and he had gloated
over his vengeance, but what was to hinder Norine Bourdon from rising,
strong in her wrongs and betrayal, and ruining him for life? She was the
gentlest, the most yielding of human beings now, and she loved him; but
is it not those whom we have once loved best, we learn afterwards to
hate most bitterly? He had cruelly, shamefully wronged and deceived
her--what right had he to look for mercy in return? As he had sown, so
must he reap.
She scarcely turned at his approach. How pale she was, and the large
dark eyes she lifted were full of a child's startled terror.
"Norine," he abruptly began, "there is no help for it--I must go to New
York to-morrow."
Her lips trembled a little.
"To-morrow," she repeated, under her breath---"so soon!"
"Rather short notice, I admit, but then you see it--it isn't for a
lifetime. All husbands and wives part once in a while and survive it.
Come, Norine," with irritated impatience, "don't wear that woe-begone
face! I'm not to blame, I can't help it. You don't suppose I want to
leave you. But here's Liston--my uncle's man. You heard him yourself.
You saw the letter commanding my return."
"The letter," she repeated, looking at him; "there were two!"
"Ah--yes--two, so there were. But the other was merely a note from a
friend. I leave at noon to-morrow, so see that my valise is packed, and
everything all right, that's a good child. And do try to get rid of that
white, reproachful face, unless you want it to haunt me like the face of
a ghost."
He spoke with irritated petulance--at war with her, with himself, and
his smouldering ill-temper breaking forth. It was the first time he had
ever spoken sharply to her. A faint flush rose to her cheeks. She
clasped both hands around his arm and looked up in his moody,
discontented face with piteous imploring eyes.
"Don't be vexed, Laurence; I don't mean to reproach you, indeed, and I
know you cannot help it. Only, dear, I love you so much, and--and it is
our first parting, and I have been so happy here--so happy here--"
For a minute her voice broke, and she laid her face against his
shoulder.
Mr. Thorndyke smothered a suppressed groan.
"O Jupiter! here it is! Tears, and scenes and hysterics. I knew how it
would be, they all will do it, every chance. Norine!"--aloud and still
impatient--"for pity's sake, don't cry--it's something I can't stand.
Here! I'll throw my uncle, his fortune and favor, and all the hopes and
ambitions of my life to the winds, and stay here, and bill and coo, all
the rest of my life. If I can't go in peace I won't go at all."
She lifted her head as if he had struck her. Something in his tone, in
his words, in his face, dried her tears effectually, at once and
forever.
"I beg your pardon, Laurence," she said, suddenly, in an altered voice.
"I won't cry any more. Shall I go and pack your valise now or leave it
until to-morrow morning?"
He glanced at her uneasily. The dark, soft eyes looked far away seaward,
the delicate lips had ceased to tremble, the small handsome face had
grown resolutely still. What manner of woman he wondered, was this girl
going to make?
"Norine! You are not offended?"
"Offended--with you, Laurence? No, that is not possible."
"You love me so much, Norine?"
"I have given you proof whether I love you or no. I am your wife."
"Yes, of course, of course!" hastily; "but Norine--see here--suppose in
the future I did some great wrong--deserted you for instance--no, no!
don't look at me like that--this is only a suppositious case, you know!"
The large dark eyes were fixed full upon him. He laughed in rather a
flurried way, and his own shifted and fell.
"Go on," she said.
"Suppose I deserted you, and it was in your power to take revenge, you
would hate me and take it--would you not?"
Into the dark, tender eyes there leaped a light--into the youthful,
gentle face there came a glow--around the soft-cut, childlike mouth
there settled an expression entirely new to Laurence Thorndyke. One
little hand clenched unconsciously--she caught her breath for a second,
hard.
"Yes," she said, "I would!"
The answer staggered him--literally and truly staggered him. He had not
expected it--he had looked for some outbreak of love, some tender,
passionate protest.
"Norine!" he cried, "you would! Do you know what you are saying? You
would hate me, and ruin me for life if you could?"
She looked at him full.
"If you deserted me, would you not hate me? Would I not be ruined for
life? And does not the Book of books say: 'An eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth, a life for a life.' Yes, Laurence--if I did not go mad and
die, I would hate you more then I love you now, and be revenged if I
could!"
Then there was a silence. He had grown pale as herself, and stood quite
motionless looking at the sea. He knew what he had to expect at last.
Norine was still clinging to his arm. He disengaged it abruptly, and
without a word or look, walked away from her. A moment she stood--then
two little hands clasped the arm once more, a pleading voice spoke, and
the sweet, tender face of Norine looked imploringly up at him.
"Laurence--dearest Laurence! I have angered you again. But you asked me
a question and I had to answer it. Forgive me."
He turned away from her resolutely.
"There is no forgiveness needed, Norine. I admire your truthful and
plain-spoken spirit. Only you see I thought Norine Bourdon a loving,
gentle, forgiving little soul, who cared for me so much that she was
ready to forgive me seventy-times-seven, and I find, according to her
own showing, she is a strong-minded woman, ready to wreak vengeance for
the first wrong done her--ready for love or hatred at a moment's notice.
It is well you told me--it is always best to understand one another. No,
we won't have any tender scenes, if you please, Mrs. Laurence--I have
found out exactly what they are worth." He pulled out his watch. "I have
business over in Boston, and as it is growing late I will be off at
once. If I am very late--as is likely--I must beg you will not sit up
for me. Good-afternoon."
He lifted his hat ceremoniously, as to an indifferent acquaintance, and
walked deliberately away.
She stood stock still where he had left her, and watched the tall,
active figure out of sight. Then she sat down, feeling suddenly weak and
faint, and lay back against the green mound. For a moment sea, and sky,
and sands swam before her in a hot mist, and then the faintness passed
away, leaving her tearless and trembling.
What did he mean?
He had talked of deserting her? Did he mean it? A hand of ice seemed to
clutch her heart at the thought. No no, no! he had only been trying
her--proving what her love was worth. And she had answered him like that
she would hate him and be revenged. He had called her a "strong-minded
woman,"--a term of bitter reproach--and no wonder. No wonder he was
angry, hurt, outraged. Why had she said such a horrible thing? She
hardly knew herself--the words seemed to have come to her instinctively.
Were they true? She did know that either--just now she knew nothing but
that Laurence had left her in anger for the first time, that he would
probably not return until to-morrow morning, the fateful to-morrow that
was to take him from her for--how long?
She broke down then, and laying her face against the soft, cool grass,
gave way to a storm of impassioned weeping, that shook her like a reed.
"The strong-minded woman" was gone, and only a child that had done wrong
and is sorry--a weak girl weeping for her lost lover, remained.
The afternoon waned, the twilight fell, the wind arose chilly from the
sea. And pallid as a spirit, shivering in the damp air, silent and
spiritless, the younger Miss Waddle found her when she came to call her
in to supper.
She drank her tea thirstily, but she could eat nothing. Immediately
after the lonely meal, she hastened to her room, and throwing a shawl
around her, sat down in the easy chair by the window to watch and wait.
He had told her not to sit up for him--it would annoy him probably to be
disobeyed, but she could not go to bed, for in the darkness and the
quiet, lying down, she knew how she would toss wakefully about until she
had thought herself into a fever.
Night fell. Outside the sea spread black, away until it melted into the
blacker sky. The wind sighed fitfully, the stars shone frostily bright.
Inside, the little piano in the parlor, played upon by the elder Miss
Waddle, after her day's teaching, made merry music. In the intervals,
when it was silent, the younger Miss Waddle read chapters aloud from her
latest novel. Ten, eleven struck, then the parlor lights went out, doors
were locked, and the Misses Waddle went up stairs to their maiden
slumbers.
The pale little watcher by the window sat on, hoping against hope. He
might come, and be it late or early she must be awake and waiting, to
throw herself into his manly arms and implore his lordly pardon. She
could never sleep more until she had sobbed out her penitence and been
forgiven. But the long, dark, dragging, lonely hours wore on. One, two,
three, four, and the little, white, sad face lay against the cold glass,
the dark, mournful eyes strained themselves through the murky gloom to
catch the first glimpse of their idol. Five! the cold gray dawn of
another day crept over sea and woodland, and worn out with watching,
chilled to the bone, the child's head fell back, the heavy eyelids
swayed and drooped, and she lay still.
So, when two hours later Mr. Laurence Thorndyke, smelling stronger than
ever of cigars and brandy, as the younger Miss Waddle's disgusted nose
testified, came into the silent chamber, he found her. The pretty head,
with all its dark, rippling ringlets, lay against the back of the chair,
the small face looked deathly in its spent sleep. She had watched and
waited for him here all night. And remembering how, over the card table
and the wine bottle, his night had been passed, utterly forgetful of
her, the first pang of real unselfish remorse this young gentleman had
ever felt, came to him then.
"Poor little heart!" he thought; "poor little, pretty Norine. I wish to
Heaven I had never heard of Gilbert's projected marriage--I wish I had
never gone back to Kent Farm."
Five hours later, and white and tearless, Norine is clinging to him in
the speechless pain of parting. Is there some presentiment, that she
herself cannot understand, even now in her heart, that it is forever?
"Don't--_don't_ look so white and wild, Norry," he is saying hurriedly.
"I wish, I wish I need not leave you. Little one--little Norry, whatever
happens, you--you'll try and forgive me, won't you? Don't hate me if you
can help it."
She does not understand him--she just clings to him, as though death
were easier than to let him go.
"Time's up, Mr. Laurence!" calls out the sharp voice of little Mr.
Liston, sitting in the light wagon at the door; "if you linger five
minutes more we'll lose our train."
"Good-by, Norine--good-by!"
He is glad to be called, glad to break away from the gentle arms that
would hold him there forever. He kisses her hurriedly, frees himself
from her clasp, and leaves her standing stricken and speechless in the
middle of the floor.
"Thank Heaven that's over!" he says, almost savagely, "drive like the
devil, Liston! I won't breath freely until I am out of sight of the
house."
Mr. Liston obeys.
She stands where he has left her, rigid, tearless, white, listening to
the rapid roll of the wheels over the gravel, over the road, growing
faint and fainter, and dying out far off. Then she sinks down, and she
and her lover have parted forever.
CHAPTER XII.
THE TRUTH.
A bleak autumnal afternoon, a gray, fast-drifting sky overhead, a raw
wind sweeping up from the shore, the sea itself all blurred and blotted
out in the chilly, creeping fog. At the parlor-window of Sea View
Cottage, Norine stands looking wistfully, wearily out. Three weeks have
passed since her husband left her--it is seven weeks altogether since
the memorable night of her elopement. These last three, lonely weeks
have wrought their sad, inevitable change. The small face has grown
smaller the large dark eyes seem unnaturally large for the wan face. A
sad, patient light fills them. The slight form has grown fragile, the
hands that hang loosely clasped before her are almost transparent. As
she stands here watching, waiting, she slips, unconsciously, her wedding
ring up and down her finger. So thin that finger has grown that every
now and then the ring drops loosely off altogether. Within, it is
pleasant enough. A fire burns brightly in the grate, Miss Waddle's
canaries bask in the heat, singing blithely, and the younger Miss Waddle
sits at her desk immersed as usual, fathoms deep in ink, and romance.
The inspiration of genius is evidently strong upon the younger Miss
Waddle this afternoon, for her pen rushes madly along the paper, her
hair is uncombed and twisted in a tight knot at the back of her head.
Profound stillness reigns, the ticking of the clock the purring of puss
on the rug, the chirping of the canaries, the light fall of the cinders,
the sighing of the fitful wind, and the monotonous scrape, scrape,
scrape, of the literary lady's pen--that is all.
At last--
"There!" cries the younger Miss Waddle, drawing a deep, intense breath
of relief, "I've done with you for one day! Let the printer's devil come
when he likes, I'm ready for him."
She nods at the blotted and scratched pile of MSS., wipes her pen in her
hair, falls back in her chair, and looks at the clock.
"Half-past five, as I'm a sinner, and the kitchen fire not lit yet.
'Lizabeth will be home to her tea at six, as hungry as a bear. A minute
ago I was writing up the sayings and doings of dukes and duchesses, now
I must go and kindle the kitchen stove. Such is life--with authoresses,
but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. Mrs. Laurence, my dear
child, it's of no use your straining the eyes out of your head. Whether
there's a letter for you or not, my sister won't be here with it for the
next half hour."
Norine clasped her hands.
"Oh!" she said, "surely, there will be a letter for me to-day."
"I hope so, I'm sure. It's uncommonly odd Mr. Laurence doesn't write,
but then, as a rule, I believe men hate letter writing. Maybe he's on
his way here and doesn't think it worth while--it will come out all
right, depend upon it. So cheer up, Mrs. Laurence, my dear, and don't
wear that woful face. You've grown as thin as a shadow during the last
two weeks. You must take care or your handsome husband will be
disenchanted when he sees that pallid countenance. Tell you what, Mrs.
Laurence, you ought to have something to do."
"Something to do?" Norine said faintly.
"Something to do, my dear--sewing, drawing, playing, reading,
writing--anything but moping about this way--waiting, waiting, waiting,
and getting the horrors. It doesn't fetch him any the sooner, nor a
letter from him either, and it is just killing you by inches. What a
pity now," said the younger Miss Waddle, gathering up her manuscript in
a heap, "that you couldn't write a story. You couldn't, I suppose?"
"I am afraid not," Norine replied, smiling. "I am not at all clever in
any way. I only wish I could write stories and earn money as you do."
"Yes, it's very nice and handy," said the younger Miss Waddle, "when
you're not 'respectfully declined.' _I_ have been 'respectfully
declined' oftener than I like to think of. But I am going to make a hit
this time, if I die for it."
"Yes," said Norine, gazing in respectful awe at the smeary looking pile
of writing; "what do you call it?"
"This," said the authoress, slapping her hand on the heap, "is my first
novel, to run in serial form in the _Flag of the Free_. Its name is the
'Demon Dentist; or the Mystery of the Double Tooth!' What do you think
of that?"
"The Demon--_what_?" asked Mrs. Laurence, rather aghast.
"'The Demon Dentist.' The title is rather a striking one, I think, and
Sir Walter Scott says a good name is half the battle. And, I flatter
myself, the plot is as original as the title. Lord Racer, only son of
the Earl of Greenturf, the hero of the story, steals the Lemon stone,
the magnificent family diamond, and hides it--where do you think? Why he
g
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