They spent the next day, Sunday, in attending church, as they had planned, and in pleasant conversation and rest preparatory to their departure for Boston on the following morning. They expressed gratitude that they had not been prevented by sickness or by one rainy day from carrying out all the plans which had been laid for the ten days. Mrs. Gordon very much regretted that they had not seen the famous Folger clock which was to be seen at the house of a descendant of Walter Folger, the maker of it. She should certainly see it the first thing, if she ever were in Nantucket again; for she considered the man, who, unaided, could make such a clock, the greatest mechanical genius that ever lived. She felt this still more when she was told that the clock could not be mended until there could be found a mechanic who was also an astronomer.
At seven o'clock the next morning they were all on board the steamer, as she left the old town of Nantucket in the distance. Mrs. Gordon looked longingly back at Brant Point, which she still felt was the best spot on the island; while Bessie eagerly watched for the little flag which a certain young gentleman was yet waving from the wharf.
At half-past one they were in Boston, and an hour later at their suburban home, all delighted with their short stay in Nantucket. They felt that they had seen about all that there was to be seen there, and they were glad to have visited the island before it should be clothed with more modern garments.
A BIRTHDAY SONNET
By George W. Bungay
Our days are like swift shuttles in the loom,
In which time weaves the warp and woof of fate;
Its varied threads that interpenetrate
The pattern woven, picture bride and groom,
A life-like scene in their own happy home.
There are some frayed and shaded strands, fair Kate,
But lines of purest gold illuminate
Our wedded lot, as stars the heavenly dome,
And come what may, sunshine or chilling rain,
Prosperity and peace or woe instead,
Untruth and selfishness shall never stain
The web of love and hope illustrated.
Not even death unravels when we die,
The woven work approved of God on high.
ELIZABETH.3
A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS
By Frances C. Sparhawk, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."
CHAPTER XX
GREEK MEETS GREEK
It was two weeks after the scene at Colonel Archdale's dinner-party. There was quite a knot of people in Madam Pepperell's drawing-room. All the household at Seascape had come on the way home from a drive to pay a morning visit here, and found the in-door coolness refreshing. Colonel Archdale, who had joined his son, was there also. Mr. Royal, as it happened, was in Portsmouth that morning.
Edmonson had been exemplary enough in avoiding the cant of pretended regret for what must have given him pleasure. Archdale had no complaints to make on that score, but he distrusted Edmonson more and more, and perceived more clearly that he was attracted by Elizabeth. He wondered if she encouraged him: that was not like the person she seemed to be; yet why not? She had assured Archdale more than once that she was free, and her certainty had given him comfort. But he was here this morning for another purpose than to weigh the question of Miss Royal's fancy. If she did encourage Edmonson she was all the more inexplicable.
Stephen bent over Lady Dacre's chair, talking gayly to her; yet his eyes wandered every now and then, and, gradually, after he had stopped several times beside one and another, he came up to Elizabeth, as she was sitting listening to a young lady who, with her brother, had come back from town with Madam Pepperell, the night before, to spend a few days at the house.
As Stephen stood behind her chair he looked across the room, and saw Edmonson leaning with folded arms against a window. The light fell over his face; he had been looking at Elizabeth, but his eyes met Archdale's at once with an expression meant for cool scrutiny and a dash of insolent triumph at the victory he had scored. Edmonson's fierceness was not easily fettered; the dark shadow in his heart darted over his face, and, withdrawing as hastily, left to view a light that blazed in his eyes and only slowly died down into the cordial warmth necessary between guest and host, even under peculiar circumstances. Stephen's face darkened also, but his feeling was less, and his control greater. Elizabeth was listening quietly to some account of a merry-making at which Katie must have been present, for her name occurred frequently in the narrative. As she perceived that Archdale was behind her she looked round at him a moment, and by a few words included him in the conversation. She was as entertaining as usual and rather more talkative after he came. Yet he thought that under her ease of manner he detected a current of nervousness that made him the more anxious to carry out the purpose with which he had come to her.
But it was not easy to find any excuse for withdrawing her from the circle in which she had made herself so welcome. At last, however, under cover of a general movement, which he had secretly instigated, he succeeded in getting her into the library, on the plea of a message to her father. When there, he closed the door behind him, and said:—
"I have a message to your father, it is true, Mistress Royal, but it is only to beg him to interfere."
"Interfere?" she echoed with a nervousness that this time was unmistakable.
"Pray be seated," he said, drawing a chair toward her as she stood by the mantel.
"Thank you, but—I don't mind standing. What you—the business will not take long, you said."
"As you please." And he stood facing her on the opposite side of the great fireplace.
She heard his tones, glanced at him, and sat down. He took a chair also, still placing himself so that he could watch her. She grew plainly more nervous.
"Who is Mr. Hartly?" he asked, abruptly.
She looked at him in a frightened way, and the hand that she lifted to her throat was trembling.
"He is"—she began, then she stopped; without any warning her expression and her manner changed, for with the coming of what she had dreaded came the strength to meet it. There was no more tremulousness of voice or hand, and the face that looked at Stephen Archdale was the face of a woman who met him upon equal terms; yet, as he looked at her steadily, he was not quite sure even of that; it seemed to him that it would require an effort on his part to keep at her level; that at least he must stand at his full height. She sat silent, meeting his steady gaze. There was a dignity about her that would have been haughtiness but for her simplicity. Even her dress carried out the effect of this simplicity; it was a white muslin, very plain, and the single pink hollyhock that the new guest had slipped into her hair, and Elizabeth had forgotten, gave to her attire the touch of warmth that something in her face showed, too. It was to Stephen the calmness of flesh and blood, not of marble, that he was looking at; a possibility of life and motion was there, but a possibility beyond his reach. Some one might arouse her; to him she was impassive.
"You've not finished your sentence," he said, coldly.
"Why should I? You know the rest of it."
"Nevertheless, I wish you would say it."
"Very well. Mr. Hartly is an agent of Mr. Peterborough."
"And Mr. Peterborough?"
"My solicitor."
"You mean your father's?"
"Yes, and mine, too."
"Then you have property of your own?"
"Yes. You did not know it?"
"I heard of it yesterday. Your property is no concern of mine, you understand." She was silent. Under the circumstances the statement was significant. "Mr. Hartly came to my father the other day," he went on. Still no answer. "Possibly you knew it?" he persisted. She lifted her eyes which had been fixed on the cover of a book that her fingers were toying with, and said:—
"Yes."
Stephen waited to choose words which should not express too forcibly the impetuous feeling that shone in his eyes and rang in his voice when he spoke.
"Let me put a case to you," he said, "or, rather, not an indifferent case, but our own, and hear how it sounds in plain English. How we were married, if married we are, it is useless to speak of; how absolutely nothing we are to one another it is unnecessary also to say. I appreciate your efforts and your courtesy when I see so plainly that it is with difficulty you can bring yourself even to speak a word to me." Elizabeth glanced up a moment, and down again, and her fingers went on idly turning the leaves of the book. "When I see what social powers you have," he pursued, "I assure you that I shall regret it for you if fate have denied you a better choice. But at all events" (constrainedly), "I must thank you for the gracious and successful manner in which you have kept suspicion from becoming certainty before time proves it so."
She looked fully at him this time, and smiled.
"Gratitude comes hard to you," she said. "There is no cause for it in anything I have ever done. You may be sure it was not to please you at all, but to gratify something in myself that demanded satisfaction. Now, please explain to me what you mean by your extraordinary summary of things we know too well, and how I have offended you when I am really your friend—yours, and "—She stopped, a smile flitted over her face and was gone; it revealed for the unnamed person a gentleness and an affection that perhaps she did not care to have her tones betray.
"Yes, you have offended me," he said. "I have no right to comment on your actions in general."
"None whatever."
"But what I do have a right to demand is an explanation from you of conduct so strange as to be unaccountable."
She flushed a little.
"It's not pleasant," she answered, "when one has done the best that opened up to be told that it's unaccountable conduct."
"Then it was you? I was sure of it." She looked at him earnestly.
"Why should there be any beating about the bush?" she answered. "I should like it better if you need never have known; but, since you were sure to find it out sooner or later, it might as well come now. What I have done is wise and right, the most satisfactory thing to me, and to others wiser than I. But I wish you would never speak of it."
"Never speak of your coming forward with your whole fortune to make up the loss that this fellow's claim will be to us? Never speak of it!" cried Archdale. "And accept it? From you? You certainly have a flattering opinion of me."
"If it were like any business losses," she said, "it would be different. But this is something nobody could have been prepared for; it needs something outside of the routine to meet it." She waited a moment. "Will you put your case, as you said you were going to do?" she asked. "It will make it clearer, and you will see that there is nothing extraordinary. I think you need not say anything more about—about us, that is all understood. Go on from there."
"A father and a son, then, are nominally in business together," he answered; "the father does the work; the son has a generous share of the profits. Matters are going on swimmingly. Suddenly a claimant turns up who wants a grand slice of the property. He is the only son of the father's elder brother,—a being who was not known to have existed, that is, who was supposed to have died when an infant. The father, my father, was named for him, and my grandfather's will gave the largest share of his fortune to his oldest son, Walter, whom he supposed to be my father, but who was really Gerald Edmonson's father—if the fellow's proofs turn out valid; they are having a thorough overhauling. My uncle does not suffer; it is only we. I am sorry," he added, "that you are liable to be in any way connected with loss, but at the worst it is so remotely that it will never affect you. As for the other matter, the story,"—he stopped with a movement of irritation, perhaps of some deeper feeling,—"that must be borne as best it can, nothing of that falls upon you, certainly. How the matter concerns a young lady at all I can't imagine; so I fail to see what interest you can have in it, or what right to move in it."
"You fail to see?" she said and gave him a smile full of sweetness. It was not a coaxing smile, as if she begged him to reconsider his opinions; it indorsed her own while placidly acquiescing in mutual indifference. "Besides, do you know it was through me that the portrait was found?" And she gave him an account of the discovery. He did not think it necessary to interrupt her by saying that he had heard Edmonson give it with great relish; it seemed a good opportunity to learn whether he had been telling the truth. The story was substantially the same, but the enjoyment of the narrator was absent. "And, then," she added, finishing, "this is not a bad investment."
"It may be now; I can't tell. We were under full sail; we have large ventures, and to give out so much ready money may mean ruin. In a few months, perhaps sooner, you may have the happiness of bearing a bankrupt name."
Elizabeth's eyes were full of pity at the bitter tones in which she heard suffering; she looked away and answered:—
"It is merely justice to me to let me prevent that, if I can."
"Good heavens!" he cried; and, struck with the readiness of her answer, he studied her face. He would have liked to be sure from what motive she was acting. Was it pride, or really pity? The thought of the last made him furious; the other was at least endurable. "And you might not prevent it," he added, watching to catch her eyes as she should turn them back to answer. He was reasonably sure that it was pride.
"Then let me do this for my own sake," she said. "Listen to me calmly for a moment. There is one thing you ought not to forget. Either I am your wife, which God forbid, and I believe he has forbidden it, or I am simply Katie's friend. In case of the first,—if I have destroyed your happiness and Katie's, and my own,—what can money do for me? Life offers me nothing; there are no possibilities before me so far as joy is concerned; there is nothing left for me but to do the best I know how; we must pick up the little things that lie along the way in life, you and I; there will be nothing else for us; I have made you suffer so much, and you deny me this little thing that can never balance any pain, but is all I can dot? Why are you so unwise? Why should we make ourselves more miserable than we need be?"
He sprang up. These very words—that he had often said to himself in regard to his own life, that in effect he had said to her that morning—how harsh they were, how they cut him! He was tender with his wounded vanity. What man would like to hear that a woman has nothing before her but misery if she be bound to himself?
"There is one condition," he cried, harshly, "under which I will accept your money,—when you love me; when it is the gift of love." He laughed bitterly. "I am safe," he said.
"Yes, Mr. Archdale, you are safe," she answered, rising to meet him as he stood before her. "I can use no such weapons. It is beneath you to do it. To say such a thing to me when you know that in any event my great blessing is that I don't care a pin's worth for you, that I am not a sighing woman wasting her affection on you, while you—But I don't suppose you meant your words as an insult."
"Have I ever been rude to you?" he asked, eagerly. "Such a thing would be an infinite disgrace to me."
"Yes," she said, answering his assertion.
"'While you,'" he repeated, "you said 'while you'—What were you going to say about me?"
"While you love Katie with all your heart," she answered, "as it is right you should do." He looked at her, and remembered that for all her courage it might be that he owed her at least the courtesy of all observances of respect and regard before others. He had committed an unpardonable error that day of the dinner at his father's, and he felt a confusion, as if the color were coming to his face now as he thought of it.
"You—mistake," he stammered. "I assure you you do. I think I understand—I"—
She looked up at him. Her face was pale, and there was in it the kind of compassion that one might imagine a spirit to feel for a wayworn mortal.
"You owe me no explanation," she said. "Let us believe in the victory of the right, and put this nightmare away from us. Remember you are speaking only to Katie's friend."
He looked at her, and he could not be sure.
"But you must let me speak," he said, "because I see you mistake. I don't want you to think because—I confess it—her beauty has a great fascination for me that I can forget myself, that I—it was like admiring a beautiful living picture."
She moved nearer, involuntarily.
"Poor fellow!" she said under her breath, "you have been brave; you are brave, very brave. I've seen it." Then, after a pause in which she retreated a little and stood considering deeply, she said, "I will tell you something; it would be too much to be spoken of, only that you don't understand why I did this thing about the business. Think how I am placed. I may be standing between my dear friend and the man who was to have been her husband, and separating them forever. That night when I came home from your father's I realized it more than ever before; it filled me so that I could not bear the thought of life. I happened to have something by me, and I—almost took it. I should have slipped away from between you two, I was so bent upon doing it,—only, the warning saved me from such a sin. It will never be again," she added as she saw his eyes dilate with questioning horror. "That temptation has gone. I have accepted my lot, for it was permitted to come, or even that wicked man could not have brought it. But now, think, think how I must long to do some little thing, not to atone, that's impossible, but to make life not quite so hard to you, and to her. Now, this has come for you. Take it, I entreat you. Some day I may be able to help her in some way; I think it will be so."
He looked into her eyes as she raised them to his.
"But you didn't mean to—do all this, if it is done," he said. "There's no need of talking about atoning, as if you were guilty of anything."
"But, then, I ought to have refused; it was my place. It would have saved everything."
"You wanted to," he said, "and you yielded to oblige Katie."
She looked relieved at his answer. It surprised him; he wondered that he had remembered her hesitation.
"You will do this thing?" she persisted. "You see it is your duty."
"Do you know the reason you are so anxious to have me do it?" he asked, the momentary softening of his face gone. "It's out of no love for Katie, or friendliness to me."
"No," she said to his last statement, and added, "Yes, I know; I've seen it."
"What is it?"
"I suppose," she said, humbly, "that it's my pride.
"Yes," he cried, "that's what it is—your pride. Well, I have my pride, too. I'll take your money, when you love me—when it's the gift of your love, as I said—no sooner; I shall have to do without it this year, I'm afraid."
Her eyes swept him from head to foot in an indignant glance. Then she turned and walked away as if disdaining further speech. He bowed in silence as he opened the door for her, looking at her with a mocking smile, and even as he did so taking in every line of her graceful figure, the pose of her head, and the flush upon her face. In answer to the taunt she did speak one sentence under her breath, but he caught it:—
"You are not the only one," she said.
When he had closed the door after her he walked slowly the length of the room, and, standing by the window, in another moment saw her pass by on her way to the shore where she had learned that the party had gone. If they were already sailing it was no matter; she could wait for them there, or come back; but they might not have started, and to put any part of sea and land between herself and Archdale would be a joy to her.
Archdale watched her until she disappeared.
"And I called myself proud," he muttered. He stood lost in revery, living the scene over again. "What eyes!" he thought; "they're as unconscious as a child's, but such power as they have; they call out a man's best, and I met her with my worst. I never even told her she was generous. She meant to be kind when she humiliated me so." And then he thought that she deserved a better fate than to be bound to him whose heart was with Katie, and realized that Elizabeth was not at all the kind of woman whom he should choose to set his love upon. Yet he smiled scornfully at himself for the eager start with which he had cried out that if she were roused she could be magnificent. A magnificent woman was not in his line, and if it proved that she was his wife, she would go through the world a sleeping princess, he said to himself, unless he should go off to the wars and get shot. Perhaps that would be the best way out of the difficulty, he thought, and would leave her free. At the moment Edmonson's face rose before him, and he frowned as he wondered what feeling there was in that quarter. "No, no," he said to himself. "Not Edmonson. I know he's a villain; I feel it." He interrupted his thoughts by asking, sarcastically, what it could all matter to himself, well out of harm's way, what happened, what Elizabeth or anybody else did? He was very angry with her, and she did not realize the Archdale unforgiveness. If she had, would she have cared? She had not yielded her purpose.