CHAPTER XIX.
SUNSHINE AND CLOUD.
"George," said Mrs. Marvel to her husband one night, when they were alone in their room, "what has come over Mr. Kindred? He is quite changed."
"I've noticed it too, mother," said Mr. Marvel, "but I haven't thought of it much, because, to tell you the truth, I don't believe he is quite right here"--touching his forehead.
Mrs. Marvel had not mentioned to any one--not even to her husband--how Minnie had distressed her during Joshua's illness. The girl had not asked her to keep silence upon the subject; indeed, no word had passed between them about it; but Mrs. Marvel judged that it would be best for Minnie's sake, and for Joshua's also, to let the matter rest. Since the night when Mrs. Marvel had discovered Minnie lying asleep at Joshua's door, the girl had given her no further cause for displeasure. Mrs. Marvel's fears were dispelled; for Minnie showed nothing more than a friendly interest in Joshua's recovery. But if the good mother had been less openly observant of Minnie's every look and action, her fears would have grown stronger. For after the interview between Joshua and Minnie, when Joshua had thanked her and kissed her her, Mrs. Marvel set herself the task of closely observing Minnie's conduct towards Joshua. And Minnie discovered it, and so behaved herself that Mrs. Marvel was thrown completely off her guard. Minnie displayed a carelessness and an indifference concerning Joshua's health, at which Mrs. Marvel at any other time would have been hurt; but now she was silently grateful, in the belief that her fears were groundless.
Joshua was better. With the exception of a scar upon his neck, where the Lascar had stabbed him, he was as well and strong as ever he had been. He had grown into a fine handsome man; and the affectionate disposition which had characterized him as a boy seemed to have become stronger with his strength. The affection that existed between him and Dan was unchanged and unchangeable. He took as much delight in the birds as ever he had done; and, notwithstanding that he and Dan were men now, with deepened passions and stronger aspirations, their hearts were as tender to each other as in the younger days of their friendship, when they mingled their tears together over the death of Golden Cloud.
Every thing was bright before them. Dan had not spoken to Minnie of his love for her; but he was made happy by a gradual change in her behavior towards him. She grew more and more affectionate, spoke softly to him, looked kindly at him, and did not repulse the little tender advances he dared to make to her now and then.
"When you are gone to sea, Jo," he said to Joshua in the course of a conversation in which, in the fulness of his joy at Minnie's kindness, he had unbosomed himself to his friend, "I shall speak to her, and tell her I love her." He spoke very slowly, and his eyes were toward the ground; it was so sacred a subject with him, that his voice trembled when he spoke of it. "Once on a time, before I knew her, Jo, you, and you alone, filled my heart; but I had no idea then of a man's passions and a man's fears. I think I should have disbelieved any person then who told me that you would have a rival in my heart. But you have, Jo; although you are not less loved for all that."
"I understand you, Dan, and am content. I am proud of your love. If I were to lose it, the sweetness would go out of life."
"So it would be with me, Jo; but you can never lose it--never, never. I think you and I know what love is. In the midst of all our trouble when you first went away--trouble that came upon us so suddenly that I began to be frightened of it--I found consolation in thinking of our love for each other. Misfortunes came. Never mind, I thought; Joshua loves me. Mother died, father died; we were left penniless; and I thought of you and was comforted. You had grown so in my heart--like the roots of a tree, Jo--that if I had ceased to love you, my heart would have ceased to beat. It is the same now; but Minnie is in my heart side by side with you. I shall tell her, you know, by and by. By and by," he repeated softly. "The thought of it is like heaven to me; for I have begun to hope."
It was on that same afternoon that Ellen was sitting in her bedroom looking at her face in the looking-glass. She was fair; and she knew it, and was proud of it. But it was not vanity that caused her to sit, with her chin upon her hands, looking into the glass. Of a very modest type a womanhood was Ellen; not a heroine of the Joan-of-Arc order, who, with all her false glitter about her, would have been a woman after very few men's hearts. Ellen was of the quiet order of women, of whom there are thousands growing up in happy English homes, thank Heaven! and who are blessed and contented and happy, notwithstanding their sisters' unwomanly cries about woman's rights. May English women like Ellen, modest and constant and loving, increase and multiply with every succeeding year! Ellen was thinking of herself a little, as she looked into the glass, and of Joshua a great deal. He had not spoken to her yet; but he would soon, she knew. And as she sat and saw her pretty face looking at her, whose step but Joshua's should she hear coming, up the stairs? He went into the adjoining room--Dan's room; and she heard him moving about, and--yes; singing! Singing what? Why, "Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses." The heroine's name in the song is Kate; but Joshua sang,--
"I said to Nell, my darling wife,
In whom my whole life's bliss is,
'What have you got for dinner, Nell?'
'Why, bread-and-cheese and kisses!'"
He said to Nell, his darling wife! The happy tears ran down Ellen's face; but they were soon dried; and Ellen kept very quiet, fearing that Joshua might hear her move. But Joshua went down stairs singing; and then Ellen smiled at herself in the glass, and peeped at herself through her fingers; and it wasn't an ugly picture to look at, if any one had been there to see.
It was all settled without a word passing between them. I don't believe there ever was such another courtship. They were sitting in Mrs. Marvel's kitchen only four of them--father, mother, Ellen, and Joshua. It really looked like a conspiracy that no other person came into the kitchen that night; but there they were, conspiracy or no conspiracy. There was Mrs. Marvel, knitting a pair of stockings for Joshua; not getting along very fast with them, it must be confessed: for her spectacles required a great deal of rubbing. And there was Mr. Marvel, smoking his pipe, throwing many a furtive look in the direction of Joshua and Ellen, who were sitting next to each other, happy and silent. There is no record of how long they sat thus without speaking; but suddenly, although not abruptly, Joshua put his arm round Ellen's waist, and drew her closer to him. It was only a look that passed between them; and then Joshua kissed Ellen's lips, and she laid her head upon his breast.
"Mother! father! look here!"
Mrs. Marvel rose, all of a tremble, and laid her hand upon Ellen's head, and kissed the young lovers. But Mr. Marvel behaved quite differently. He cast one quick satisfied look at the two youngsters; and then turned from them, and continued smoking as if nothing unusual had occurred.
"Well, father?" exclaimed Joshua, rather surprised at his father's silence.
"Well, Josh!" replied Mr. Marvel.
"Do you see this?" asked Joshua, with his arm round Ellen's waist.
Ellen, blushing rosy red, looked shyly at Mr. Marvel; but he looked stolidly at her in return.
"Yes; I see it, Josh," said Mr. Marvel, without any show of emotion.
"And what do you say to it?"
"What do I say to it, Josh?" replied Mr. Marvel with dignity. "Well, I believe I'm your father; and, as such, I think you should ask me if I was agreeable. I thought it proper to ask my father, Josh. It isn't because I'm a wood-turner"--
"No, no, father," interrupted Joshua; "I made a mistake. Ellen and I thought"--
"Ellen and you thought," repeated Mr. Marvel.
"That if you were agreeable"--continued Joshua.
"That if I was agreeable," repeated Mr. Marvel.
"And if you would please to give your consent"--said Joshua, purposely prolonging his preamble.
"And if I would be pleased to give my consent," repeated Mr. Marvel with a slight chuckle of satisfaction.
"That as we love each other very much, we would like to get married."
"That's dutiful," said Mr. Marvel, laying down his pipe, oracularly. "I'm only agreeable, Josh, because I am old, and because I am married. As I said to mother the other night, when we was talking the matter over--ah! you may stare; but we knew all about it long ago. Didn't we, mother? Well, as I was saying to mother the other night, if I was a young man, and mother wasn't in the way, I'd marry her myself and you might go a-whistling. Shiver my timbers, my lass!" he cried, breaking through the trammels of wood-turning, and becoming suddenly nautical, "come and give me a kiss."
Which Ellen did; and so the little comedy ended happily. Joshua, having a right now to sit with his arm round Ellen's waist, availed himself of it, you may be sure. If Ellen went out of the room, he had also a right to go and inquire where she was going; and this, curiously enough, happened four or five times during the night. If any thing could have added to the happiness of Mr. Marvel--except being any thing but a wood-turner, which, at his age, was out of the question--it was this proceeding of Joshua's. Every time Joshua followed Ellen out of the room; Mr. Marvel looked at his wife with pleasure beaming from his eyes.
"It puts me in mind of the time when I came a-courting you, mother," he said. "How the world spins round! It might have been last night when you and me were saying good-by at the street-door."
Mrs. Marvel had not spoken to her husband without cause of the change that had taken place in Basil Kindred. A very remarkable change had indeed taken place in him. A mistrustful expression had settled itself upon his face, accompanied by a keen hungry watchfulness of all that occurred around him. He gave short answers, and was snappish and morose. Yet not a look, not a word, not a gesture escape his notice. He did not avoid his friends; he rather courted their society. He repelled their advances, but he sat among them, watching. Every sense was employed in that all-absorbing task. What was it that he was trying to discover?
The change was so sudden. A few days ago he was as he had ever been hitherto, frank and cheerful,--even gay sometimes. Now, all that was gone. In place of frankness, mistrust; in place of cheerfulness, gloom. Susan was the only one, with the exception of his daughter, to whom he did not speak with a certain bitterness. His manner to all the others was as though some sensitive chord in his nature had been sorely wounded--as though all men were his foes--as though his faith in what was good and noble in human nature had been violently disturbed.
See him now. He and Minnie have been sitting together for hours. He has been strangely stern and strangely tender to her in turns, but she is used to his wayward moods. He has detained her by his side all the morning, upon one and another idle pretext; and she, as if wishful to please him, has humored him, and been wonderfully submissive and obedient. But once she had fallen into a reverie--not a happy one--and he had broken it by asking her in a harsh voice what she was dreaming about. She replied only by a startled look, and resumed her work, which had been lying idly in her lap. Repentant of his harshness, he turned his head from her to hide the sudden spasm which passed into his face.
"Are you ill?" she asked.
"No, dear child."
"In pain?"
"No, dear child."
Presently she put aside her work, and rose to leave the room.
"Where are you going?" he asked in a strangely anxious voice.
"To see Mrs. Marvel," was her answer.
"Sit you down," he cried sternly.
She hesitated and lingered by the door, beating the ground with her foot irresolutely. Seeing that, he grasped her wrist firmly, and hurt her without intending to do so. The muscles of her face quivered, but not from the pain.
"O Minnie, my child!" he cried; then, releasing her, "have I hurt you?"
"No," she answered in a hard voice. "Why do you not wish me to go to Mrs. Marvel's house? You have forbidden me before."
"You trouble them too much."
"That is not your reason, father," she said in the same hard voice. "You are hiding something from me."
"Are you not hiding something from me, Minnie?" he asked, looking anxiously into her face.
"What should I hide from you?" she asked, in reply, coldly and evasively. "I am not well, father. I can't stop in this room. I will not go where you do not wish me."
He did not detain her, and she glided swiftly out of the room. He was about to follow her, when a dizziness came upon him, and he sank into a chair. It was only by a strong effort of will that he kept himself from fainting.
"My strength is deserting me," he muttered, his breath coming thick and fast; "scarcely a day passes but this weakness comes upon me." He held up his hand; it trembled like a leaf. "Have I failed in my duty to her? Is it my fault that she does not confide in me? Or is this a wicked lie?" He took a letter from his pocket and read it, not once, but many times. "No," he groaned; "it is true. I feel that it is true." He rose to his feet and felt like one just risen from a sick bed. He was as weak as a child; so weak, indeed, that the consciousness of his weakness brought tears into his eyes; and he said in a voice of anguish, "Now, when my child's happiness--her honor, perhaps--depends upon my watchful care, I am helpless. If I had some one that I could trust some one to help me!" He heard a step upon the stairs. It was like an answer to his wish. "It is Susan," he muttered; "the one being that I know in the world who would serve me faithfully, Susan, Susan!"
She heard him, although his voice was faint and low, and entered the room. Alarmed by the traces of illness in his face, she hastened to his side.
"You are ill," she said, assisting him to a seat. "Can I do any thing for you?"
"Yes," he answered. "You can do much. You can be my friend."
"Your friend!" she exclaimed. Had she not always been his friend? But there was a deeper meaning in his voice than she had ever heard before, and his appeal sent thrills of pleasure to her heart.
"I am ill," he continued; "but it is more from weakness than any thing else. I am not in pain. A dizziness seizes me, as it seized me just now, and I feel as if my senses were leaving me. I can scarcely stand; and I have no one to trust to."
"Not Minnie?" she said softly and wonderingly.
"Hush! Minnie, of all others, must not be told of this. Can I trust you?"
"I would work till I dropped to serve you."
A flush came into his face.
"To serve me and Minnie?" he said.
"Yes; to serve you and Minnie."
"Give me your sacred promise that what passes between us now will never be divulged, will never be spoken of, by you, unless my tongue is sealed, and the time comes when it may be necessary to speak."
"Does it concern you?" she asked with a natural hesitation; for there was a feverishness in his manner that alarmed her.
"It concerns me and Minnie."
"I promise."
"Faithfully and sacredly?"
"Faithfully and sacredly."
He took her hand and pressed it, and then gave her the letter, and asked her to read it. It contained but a few words, but they were sufficient to cause a look of horror to start into her eyes.
"Can it be true?" she asked, more of herself than of him and her trembling lips turned white and parched in an instant.
"Susan," said Basil Kindred, "I have lived long enough in the world to know its falseness. In years gone by, men have smiled in my face and shaken me by the hand, and I have learned afterwards, that while their manner spoke me fair, there was treachery in their hearts. My life has been a hard one, what with false friends and bitter poverty; but I bore it all patiently, and lived--lived, when a hundred times voices have whispered in my ear, 'Die, and be at peace!' I had an object to live for--Minnie, my darling child! So I lived and suffered, rather than die and leave her unprotected. It was a bitter, bitter life. You can guess how hard a thing it was for me to find food for her, and how often she had to go without it, before the day when you and that boy--I cannot utter his name--came to our rescue. From that time until this dark cloud"--he placed his hand on the letter--"fell upon me, I have been happy. And now, when I need all my strength to fulfil my duty as a father--when it seems to me a crime that I should allow her to go from my side--this weakness strikes me down."
"Does she know?"
"She knows and must know, nothing. But she must be watched. If there be no truth in this letter--and there may not be"--
"I pray not! Oh, I pray not!" cried Susan. "For others' sakes as well as yours."
"I understand you; if there be no truth in it, no one need know of it but you and I."
"What shall I do?"
"Watch her and him, without seeming to do so," said Basil Kindred. "If she goes out, follow her if you can without letting her see you and let me know all you see and hear. Mind, I say all; keep nothing from me. You have promised sacredly."
"I will do what you bid me."
He raised her hand to his lips, and in the midst of her great sorrow his action brought a happy feeling to her heart. When she was gone, Basil Kindred unlocked a desk and took out a clasped book, in which he wrote a few lines. "It is necessary," he sighed, "for my memory is lost to me sometimes, and I cannot recall events; and it may save me from doing an injustice." Then he replaced the book and locked the desk.
That night, in her room, Susan sat upon her bed and bowed her head to her knees, sobbing, "O my poor Dan! O my poor, poor Ellen! if; after all these years, you should find him false!"