CHAPTER XI.
HOW CAPTAIN CAVENDISH MEANT TO MARRY CHERRIE
The clerk of the weather in Speckport might have been a woman, so fickle and changeable in his mind was he. You never could put any trust in him; if you did, you were sure to be taken in. A bleak, raw, cheerless, gloomy morning, making parlor fires pleasant in spite of its being July, and hot coffee as delicious a beverage as cool soda-water had been the day before; a morning not at all suited for constitutionals; yet on this cold, wet, raw, foggy morning Charley Marsh had arisen at five o'clock, and gone off for a walk, and was only opening the front-door of the little cottage as the clock on the sitting-room mantel was chiming nine. Breakfast was over, and there was no one in the room but Mrs. Marsh, in her shawl and rocker, beside the fire which was burning in the Franklin, immersed ten fathoms deep in the adventures of a gentleman, inclosed between two yellow covers, and bearing the euphonious name of "Rinaldo Rinaldi." Miss Rose had gone to school, Betsy Ann was clattering among the pots in the kitchen; the breakfast-table looked sloppy and littered; the room, altogether dreary. Perhaps it was his walk in that cheerless fog, but Charley looked as dreary as the room; his bright face haggard and pale, his eyes heavy, and with dark circles under them, bespeaking a sleepless night. Mrs. Marsh dropped "Rinaldo Rinaldi," and looked up with a fretful air.
"Dear me, Charley, how late you are! What will Doctor Leach say? Where have you been?"
"Out for a walk."
"Such a hateful morning – it's enough to give you your death! Betsy Ann, bring in the coffee-pot!"
Betsy Ann appeared with that household god, and a face shining with smiles and yellow soap, and her mistress relapsed into "Rinaldo Rinaldi" again. Charley seemed to have lost his appetite as well as his spirits. He drank a cup of coffee, pushed the bread and butter impatiently away, donned his hat and overcoat, the former pulled very much over his eyes, and set out for the office.
Charley had enough to trouble him. It was not only Cherrie's desertion, though that was enough, for he really loved the girl with the whole fervor and strength of a fresh young heart, and meant to make her his honored wife. He was infatuated, no doubt; he knew her to be illiterate, silly, unprincipled, false and foolish, a little dressy piece of ignorance, vanity, selfishness and conceit, or might have known it if he chose; but he knew, too, she was a beautiful, brilliant, bewitching little fairy, with good-natured and generous impulses now and then, and the dearest little thing generally that ever was born. In short, he was in love with her, and love knows nothing about common sense; so when he had seen her walk off the previous evening with Captain Cavendish, and desert him, he had leaned against a tree, feeling – heaven only knows how deeply and how bitterly. Once he had started up to follow them, but had stopped – the memory of a heavy debt contracted in Prince Street, owing to this man, and hanging like an incubus about his neck, night and day, thrust him back as with a hand of iron. He was in the power of the English officer, beyond redemption; he could not afford to make him his enemy.
How that long morning dragged on, Charley never knew; certainly his medical studies did not progress much. Poor and in debt, in love and deserted, those were the changes on which his thoughts rang. A sulky-faced clock, striking one, made him start. It was time to go home to dinner, and he arose and went out. As he opened the shop-door, he stopped short. Tripping gayly along the foggy and sloppy streets came Cherrie herself, her dress pinned artistically up, to display a brilliant Balmoral skirt, of all the colors of a dying dolphin; her high-heeled boots clinking briskly over the pavement. Charley's foolish heart gave a great bound, and he stepped impulsively forward, with her name on his lips.
"Cherrie?"
Cherrie had not seen him until he spoke, and she recoiled with a scream.
"Sir! Charley Marsh! how you scare me! I wish you wouldn't shout out so sudden and frighten me out of my wits!"
"You may spare your hysterics, Cherrie," said Charley, rather coldly; "you could stand more than that if Captain Cavendish was in question."
Cherrie laughed, and tripped along beside him with dancing eyes. She liked Charley, though in a far less degree than the dashing and elegant young officer, and was in a particularly good-natured state of mind that morning. There was more than her liking for Charley to induce her to keep good friends with him – the warning of the captain and her own prudence. Cherrie, faithless herself, had no very profound trust in her fellow-creatures. Until she was actually the captain's wife, she was not sure of him; there is many a slip, she knew; and if he failed her, Charley was the next best in Speckport. Therefore, at his insinuation, she only tossed her turbaned head after her coquettish fashion, until all her black curls danced a fandango, and showed her brilliant white teeth in a gay little laugh.
"Oh, you're jealous, are you?" she said. "I thought you would be!"
"Cherrie!"
"There, now, Charley, don't be cross! I just did it to make you jealous, and nothing else! I was mad at you for going off the way you did!"
"You know I could not help it!"
"Oh, I dare say not. I'm nobody beside Miss Natty! So, when Captain Cavendish came up and asked leave to see me home, I just let him! I thought it wouldn't do you any harm to be a little jealous, you know, Charley."
Charley's hopes were high again; but his heart had been too deeply pained for him to forget its soreness at one encouraging word. Something wanting in Cherrie, he could not quite define what, had often struck him before, but never so palpably as now. That want was principle, of which the black-eyed young lady was totally devoid; and he was vaguely realizing that trusting to her was much like leaning on a broken reed.
Cherrie, a good deal piqued, and a little alarmed by his silence, looked at him askance.
"Oh, you're sulky, are you? Very well, sir, you can just please yourself. If you've a mind to get mad for nothing, you may."
"Cherrie," Charley said, quite gravely for him, "do you think you did right last night? After promising to be my wife, to go off and leave me as you did?"
"I didn't, either!" retorted Cherrie; "it was you went off and left me."
"That was no fault of mine, and I didn't go with another young lady. Cherrie, I want you to promise me you will let Captain Cavendish see you home no more."
"I shall promise nothing of the sort!" cried Cherrie, with shrill indignation. "Because I promised to marry you, I suppose you would like me to live like a nun for the rest of my life, and not even look at any other man. I'll just do as I did before, Mr. Charley Marsh; and if you ain't satisfied with that, you may go and marry somebody else – Miss Rose, or Miss Clowrie – she'd have you, fast enough!"
"I don't want Miss Clowrie; I only want you, Cherrie; and if you cared for me, you wouldn't act and talk as you do."
Some of poor Charley's pain was in his voice and it touched the coquette's frivolous heart. She stopped, at a dry-goods store, for an encouraging word before entering.
"You know very well, Charley, I like you ever so much – a great deal better than I do any one else; but I can't help being pretty, and having the young men after me, and I hate to be cross to them, too. Come up to Redmon this evening, I haven't time to stop to talk now."
With which the little hypocrite made a smiling obeisance, and darted into the shop, leaving her lover to pursue his homeward way, a little lighter in the region of the heart, but still dissatisfied and mistrustful.
The afternoon was as long and dreary as the morning. Charley sat in the dismal little back-office, listening listlessly to the customers coming in and out of the surgery, to buy Epsom-salts and senna, or hair-oil and bilious pills; and the shopboy droning over a song-book, which he read half aloud, in a monotonous sing-song way, when alone, staring vacantly at the rotten leaves, and bits of chips and straw and paper fluttering about the wet yard in the chill afternoon wind. And still the fog settled down thicker, and wetter, and colder than ever; and when the shopboy came in a little after six, to light the flaring gas-jet – it was already growing dark – Charley arose, drearily, to go.
"What a long day it has been!" he said, gaping in the boy's face; "it seems like a week since I got up this morning. Where's the doctor?"
"Up to Squire Tod's, sir. The old gentleman's took bad again with the gout."
The lamps were flaring through the foggy streets as he walked along, and the few people abroad flitted in and out of the wet gloom, like shadowy phantoms. Queen Street was bright enough with the illumination from shop-windows, but the less busy thoroughfares looked dismal and deserted, and the spectral passers-by more shadowy than ever. As he was turning the corner of Cottage Street, one of these phantoms, buttoned up in an overcoat, and bearing an umbrella, accosted him in a very unphantomlike voice, and with a very unphantomlike slap on the shoulder.
"How are you, Marsh? I thought I should come upon you here!"
Charley turned round, and, with no particular expression of rapture, recognized Captain Cavendish.
"Good evening," he said, coldly; "were you looking for me?"
The captain turned and linked his arm within his own.
"I was. What became of you last night? We expected you at Prince Street."
"I made another engagement."
"You will be there to-night, of course? I owe you your revenge, you know."
"Which means," said Charley, with a laugh, that sounded strange and bitter from him, "you will get me some thirty or forty dollars more in your debt!"
"Talking of debt," said Captain Cavendish, in an indifferent matter-of-fact tone, "could you oblige me with a trifle on account – say twenty pounds?"
Charley silently produced his pocketbook, and handed over the twenty he had received from Nathalie a few days before. The nonchalant young officer pocketed it as coolly as if it had been twenty pence.
"Thanks! One often needs a trifle of this sort on an occasion. Is this your house? Who is that playing? Not your sister?"
They had halted in front of the cottage, and could hear the sound of the piano from within.
"It is Miss Rose, I presume," said Charley, in the same cold voice; "will you come in?"
"Not now. You will be up at Prince Street for certain then to-night?"
Charley nodded, and entered the house.
At her own door stood Miss Catty Clowrie. She was often standing there; and though she returned the captain's bow, it was after Charley she looked until he disappeared. There was no one in the sitting-room when he entered; his mother's rocking-chair was vacant, and Miss Rose was playing and singing in the parlor – touching the keys so lightly and singing so sweetly that it seemed more an echo of the wind and waves than anything else. The table was set for tea, and Betsy Ann was scouring knives in the kitchen, humming some doleful ditty at her work. There was a lounge under the window overlooking the bay, sullen and stormy to-night. Charley flung himself upon it, his arm across the pillow, his face lying in it, and listened in a vague and dismal way to the music. The song was weird and mournful, truly an echo of the wailing wind and sea.
"Come to supper, ma'am!" at this juncture shrilly pealed the voice of Betsy Ann at the foot of the stairs, to some invisible person above; "Mr. Charley's here, and the biscuit is getting cold."
The song died away, as if it had drifted out on the gale surging up from the black bay, and Mrs. Marsh crept shivering down stairs.
"Come in, Miss Rose," she said, looking in at the parlor door before entering the room; "tea is ready, and Charley is here."
Charley started up; and, as he did so, the front door unceremoniously opened, and Nathalie, wrapped in a large shawl, and wearing a white cloud about her head, stepped in, to the surprise of all.
"Gracious me! Natty! is it you?" cried her mamma, in feeble consternation, "whatever has taken you out such an evening?"
"What's the matter with the evening?" said Nathalie, kissing her and Miss Rose. "A little cold sea-fog is nothing new, that it should keep me in-doors. Good evening, Charley."
"It's not a good evening," said Charley; "it's a very bad one, and you deserve to get your death of cold for venturing out in it. Did the old lady send you?"
"No, indeed! I had hard work to get off. Is tea ready, mamma? I have had no dinner, and am almost famished."
Mrs. Marsh was profuse in her sympathy. Another cup and plate were laid, and the quartet sat down to tea. It was wonderful how Nathalie's bright presence radiated the before gloomy room; the laughing light of her violet eyes made sunshine of their own, and all her luxuriant golden hair, falling loose and damp, in curls short and long around her face and shoulders, never looked so much like silky sunbeams before.
"How did you get on in school to-day?" she was asking Miss Rose; "I could not get down. The picnic must have disagreed with Mrs. Leroy; for I never saw her so cross."
"I should say all the cake, and pastry, and nastiness of that sort she devoured, would have disagreed with a horse," said Charley; "it was a sight only to see Laura Blair cramming her."
"I got on very well," answered Miss Rose, smiling at Charley's remark, which was perfectly true; "but the day seems long, Miss Marsh, when you do not visit us, and the children seem to think so too. I have got a new music-pupil – little Vattie Gates."
"You will make your fortune, Miss Rose, if you are not careful," said Charley; "eight dollars per quarter from each of those music-pupils, beside your school-salary. What do you mean to do with it all?"
"I should say rather she will work herself to death," said Nathalie. "Do you want to kill yourself, Miss Rose, that you take so many pupils?"
"Dear me! I think it agrees with her," remarked Mrs. Marsh, languidly, stirring her tea; "she is getting fat."
Everybody laughed. Miss Rose was not getting very fat; but she certainly had gained flesh and color since her advent in Speckport, though the small face was still rather pale, and the small brow sometimes too thoughtful and anxious. As they arose from table, Miss Clowrie came in with her crotcheting to spend the evening, Natty went to the piano, Miss Rose, with some very unfanciful-looking work in a dropsical work-basket, sat down at the window to sew while the last gray ray of daylight lingered in the sky, and Charley lounged on the sofa, beside Catty.
"What are you making, Miss Rose?" inquired Miss Clowrie, looking curiously at the small black figure, drooping over the work, at the window. Miss Rose laughed, and threaded her needle.
"You needn't ask," said Nathalie; "clothes for all the poor in Speckport, of course. Why don't you become a Sister of Charity at once, Miss Winnie?"
"I came very near it one time," smiled Miss Rose; "perhaps I may yet. I wish I could."
There was no mistaking the sincerity of her tone. Nathalie shrugged her shoulders – to her it looked like wishing for something very dreary and dismal indeed. The world seemed a very bright and beautiful place to the heiress of Redmon that foggy summer night.
"Why don't you become one, then?" asked Catty, who would have been very glad of it; "I should think they would be pleased to get you."
"I am not so sure of that; I would be no great acquisition. But just at present there is a reason that renders it impossible."
Of course, no one could ask the reason, though all would have liked to know. When it grew too dark to sew or play, the lamp was lit, and they had cards, and it was nine when Nathalie arose to go.
"Couldn't you stay all night, Natty?" asked her mother; "it's dreadfully foggy to go up to Redmon to-night."
"If it were ten times as foggy, I should have to go. I don't mind it, though, in company with Charley and an umbrella."
She kissed them all good night, even Catty, in the happiness of her heart; and, wrapped in her shawl and cloud, she took her brother's arm and started. The fog was thicker, and wetter, and colder than ever; the night as wretched a one for a walk as could well be imagined, and the bleak sea wind blew raw in their faces all the way.
"How confoundedly cold it is!" exclaimed Charley, "more like January than July. You will perish, Natty, before we get to Redmon! You should not have come out this evening."
"I wanted to talk to you, Charley, on a very important matter indeed!"
Charley stared at her grave tone, but it all flashed upon him directly. Nathalie was used to talk to him more as a mother than a sister, in her superior woman's wisdom, and Charley was accustomed to take her lectures cheerfully enough; but in the damp darkness his face flushed rebelliously now.
He would not speak again, and his sister, after waiting a moment, broke the silence herself.
"It is about that girl, Charley?"
"What girl?" inquired Mr. Marsh, rather sulkily.
"You know well enough – Cherrie Nettleby."
"Well, what of Cherrie Nettleby?" this time defiantly.
"Charley, what do you mean by going with her as you do?"
"Nathalie," said Charley, mimicking her tone, "what do you mean by going with Captain Cavendish as you do?"
"My going with Captain Cavendish has nothing whatever to do with it; but if you want to know what I mean – I mean to marry him!"
"Nathalie, I don't want you to have anything to do with that man," Charley burst out passionately. "He is a villain!"
"Charley!"
"He is, I tell you! You know nothing about him – I do! I tell you he is a villain!"
"This is ungenerous of you, Charley," she calmly said; "it is cowardly. Is not Captain Cavendish your friend?"
"A friend I could throttle with the greatest pleasure in life!" exclaimed Charley, savagely.
"What has he done?"
"More than I would like to tell you – more than you would care to hear! All I have to say is, I would rather shoot you than see you his wife!"
"You are slandering him!" said Nathalie, her passion rising in spite of herself. "You are trying to baffle me; to keep me from talking of Cherrie, but I'll not be put off. You cannot – you cannot mean to marry that girl."
"Natty look here," he said, more gently, "I don't want to be disagreeable, but I cannot be dictated to in this! I am a man, and must choose for myself. I have obeyed you all my life; but in this you must let me be my own master."
"You know what a name she has! She is the talk of all Speckport!"
"Is Speckport ever done talking? Wouldn't it slander an archangel, if it got the chance?"
"But it is true in this instance – she is all that Speckport says – an idle, silly, senseless, flirty, foolish, dressy, extravagant thing! She has nothing in the wide world to recommend her but her good looks."
"Neither has Captain Cavendish, if it comes to that!"
"Charley, it is false! He is a gentleman by birth, rank, and education!"
"Yes," said Charley, bitterly. "Nature did her best to make a gentleman of him, but I know street-sweepers in Speckport ten times more of a gentleman than he! I tell you he is corrupt to the core of his heart – a spendthrift and a fortune-hunter! If you were Miss Marsh, the school-teacher, as you were two or three years ago, he would as soon ask Miss Jo Blake to be his wife as you!"
"I don't doubt it," said Nathalie, quite calmly; "he may not be able to afford the luxury of a penniless bride, and for all that be no fortune-hunter. You can't shake my faith in him, Charley!"
"You are blind!" Charley cried, vehemently. "I am telling you Heaven's truth, Natty, with no other motive than your good!"
"We will drop the subject," said Nathalie, loftily, "and talk of you and Cherrie Nettleby!"
"We'll do nothing of the sort," replied Charley, "resolutely go your own way, Natty, if you will, and I will go mine! The one marriage can be no madder than the other!"
"And you will really marry this girl?"
"I really will, if she will have me!"
Nathalie laughed a low and bitter laugh.
"Have you? Oh, there is little doubt of that, I fancy. Every one knows how she has been running after you this many a day!"
"But there is doubt of it. Your fine Captain Cavendish pursues her like her shadow."
"Charley, I will not listen to another word," cried Nathalie, imperiously. "Your infatuation seems to have changed your very nature. Why, oh why, has this girl crossed your path? If you wanted to marry, why could you not have chosen some one else? Why could you not have chosen Miss Rose?"
Charley smiled under cover of the darkness. The question was absurd. Why could she not have chosen any of her other suitors, all good and honorable men? Why could she not have chosen Captain Locksley, young, handsome, rich, and the soul of integrity. He did not say so, however, and neither spoke again till the gate of Redmon was reached.
"Good night," Nathalie briefly said, her voice full of inward pain.
"Good night, Natty," Charley replied, "and God bless you and," lowering his voice as he turned away "keep you from ever becoming the wife of Captain Cavendish!"
He walked on and entered the Nettleby cottage, where he found Cherrie in the parlor alone, bending over a novel. Cherrie's welcome to her lover was uncommonly cordial, for she was ennuied nearly to death. She had expected Captain Cavendish all the afternoon, and had been disappointed. Had she known that officer was making arrangements for their speedy nuptials, she might perhaps have forgiven him; and at that very moment, whilst talking to Charley of the time when she should be Mrs. Marsh, everything was arranged for her becoming, the very next week, Mrs. Captain George Cavendish.
About five o'clock of that foggy July afternoon, Mr. Val Blake sat in his private room, in the office of the Speckport Spouter, his shirt-collar limp and wilted with the heat, his hair wildly disheveled, and his expression altogether bewildered and distracted. The table at which he sat was, as usual, heaped with MS., letters, books, buff envelopes, and newspapers; and Mr. Blake was poring over some sheets of white ruled foolscap, closely written in a very cramp and spidery hand. It was a story from "the fascinating pen of our gifted and talented contributor 'Incognita,' whose previous charming productions have held spellbound hosts of readers," as the Spouter said, in announcing it the following week, and the title of the fascinating production was the "Ten Daughters of Dives." Miss Laura Blair had just finished reading the "Seven Loves of Mammon," by Mr. George Augustus Sala; hence the title and the quaint style in which the thing was written. So extremely quaint and original indeed was the style, that it soared totally beyond the comprehension of all ordinary intellects, beginning in the most disconcertingly abrupt manner, and ending with a jerk, while you were endeavoring to make out what it was all about.
"It's of no use trying," he murmured, pensively, "the thing is beyond me altogether. I'll put it in, hit or miss, or Laura will never forgive me; and I dare say the women will make out what it means, though I can't make top or tail of it."
There was a tap at the door as he arrived at this conclusion, and Master Bill Blair, in a state of ink, and with a paper cap on his head, labeled with the startling word "Devil" made his appearance, and announced that Captain Cavendish was in the office and wanted to see him.
"Tell him to come in," said Val, rather glad than otherwise of a chat by way of relaxation after his late severe mental labor.
The captain accordingly came in, smoking a cigar, and presented his cigar-case the first thing to Val. That gentleman helped himself, and the twain puffed in concert, and discussed the foggy state of the weather and the prospects of the "Spouter." As this desultory conversation began to flag, and the weed smoked out, Mr. Blake remembered he was in a hurry.
"I say, captain, you'll excuse me, won't you, if I tell you I haven't much time to spare this evening. We go to press to-morrow, and I shall have to get to work."
Captain Cavendish came out of a brown study he had fallen into, and lit another cigar.
"I won't detain you long, Val. I know you're a good fellow, and would do me a favor if you could."
Val nodded and lit a cigar also.
"I want you to do me the greatest service, and I shall be forever your debtor."
"Right," said Val; "let us hear what it is."
"You won't faint, will you? I am going to be married."
"Are you?" said Mr. Blake, no way discomposed. "To whom?"
"To Cherrie Nettleby."
Val did start this time, and stared with all his eyes.
"To what? You're joking, ain't you? To Cherrie Nettleby!"
"Yes, to Cherrie Nettleby, but on the cross you know, not on the square. Do you comprehend?"
"Not a bit of it. I thought you were after Natty Marsh all the time."
Captain Cavendish laughed.
"You dear old daisy, you're as innocent as a new-born babe. I'm not going to marry Cherrie in earnest, only sham a marriage, and I cannot do it without your help. The girl is ready to run away with me any day; but to make matters smooth for her, I want her to think, for a while at least, she is my wife. You understand now?"
"I understand," said Val, betraying, I regret to say, not the slightest particle of emotion at this exposé of villainy; "but it's an ugly-looking job, Cavendish."
"Not as bad as if she ran away with me in cold blood – for her I mean – and she is sure to do it. You know the kind of girl pretty little Cherrie is, Blake; so you will be doing her rather a service than otherwise in helping me on. If you won't help, you know I can easily get some one who will, and I trust to your honor to keep silent. But come, like a good fellow, help me out."
"What do you want me to do? Not to play clergyman?"
"No; but to get some one – a stranger to Cherrie and I – consequently a stranger in Speckport, who will tie the knot, and on whose discretion you may depend. You shall play witness."
Val put his hands in his pockets and mused.
"Well," he said, after a pause, "it's a horrid shame, but rather than that she should run off with you, without any excuse at all, I'll do it. How soon do you want the thing to come off?"
"As early as possible next week – say Tuesday night. It will be better after night, she won't be so apt to notice deficiencies."
Val mused again.
"Cherrie's a Methodist herself; at least, she sits under the teaching of the Reverend Mr. Drone, who used to be rather an admirer of hers before he got married. The chapel is in an out-of-the-way street, and I can feign an excuse for getting the key from Drone. Suppose it takes place there?"
Captain Cavendish grasped his hand, and gave it a friendly vise-like grasp.
"Val, you're a trump! You shall have my everlasting gratitude for this."
"Next Tuesday night, then," responded Val, taking the officer's rapture stoically enough. "And now I must beg you to leave me, for I have bushels of work on hand."
Captain Cavendish, expressing his gratitude once more, lounged into the drear and foggy night. How lucky for the peace of the community at large, we cannot read each other's thoughts. The young captain's ran something after this fashion:
"I always knew Blake was a spoon, but I never thought he was such an infernal scoundrel as this. Why, he is worse than I am; for I really am in love with the girl, and he does his rascality without a single earthly motive. Well, it's all the better for me. I'll have Cherrie as sure as a gun."
Mr. Blake, in the seclusion of his room, leaned back in his chair, and indulged himself in a low and quiet laugh, before commencing work.
"I said I owed you one," he soliloquized, throwing away the stump of his second cigar, "for leading Charley Marsh astray, and now's the time to pay you. If I don't serve you out this go, Captain Cavendish, my name's not Valentine Blake!"