CHAPTER XII.
[TO NAHANT?]
It was about three in the morning. The lights had been extinguished in the ball-room, and the house was still. The casements of sleeping-rooms were darkening one by one as their inmates composed themselves to rest. A footfall on the gallery outside mingled with the tick of the clock on the staircase, which, in the stillness of the hour, sent monotonous vibrations through the timbers of the wooden house.
Backward and forward the walker paced, diffusing the thin smoke of his cigar upon the salt-smelling air. It was cool and even chilly as morning drew near. Already the sky had grown pale low down beyond the sea. The waters by contrast had grown more black and forbidding; and with the regular steady growl of the rollers breaking on the beach, it seemed like a monster watching at the portals of the day.
Backward and forth paced Joseph Naylor, too wakeful to sleep, and without even a wish to turn in. There was nothing painful in his ruminations, nothing to agitate; and no point of difficulty had arisen on which it was necessary for him to decide. Looking at himself in that state of divided consciousness in which one half the mind notes and surveys the workings of the other, he appeared scarcely to think at all. There was little of sequence or progress in the images among which he drifted, and the faculties of judging, choosing, desiring, intending, were not in use. There was rather a feeling of contented fruition overhanging his spirit like a golden mist, in which he seemed to bathe and be at rest.
Far back, before he had learned sorrow, he had known this sense of peace, a glimpse of Paradise from which he had been snatched away, and the gates closed after him with a clang. Looking seaward, the black expanse spread out, with low reverberating sound, seemed a symbol of his long-drawn years of desolation, a barrier between him and the faintly brightening east. To-night he seemed to overpass that gulf, and feel again the blessedness of a young bridegroom--without a wish, because he touched the goal of his desires, swimming in contentment, and breathing the scent of orange-flowers and garlands. He seemed to be inhaling it even now.
There had been a time when to recall these feelings would have driven him mad--when he had set his teeth, and turned his mind away from the memory of what had grown to be an agony, and which dogged him night and day like the remorse of some great crime. As time wore on, his life had grown more tolerable, in grey and joyless wise, with the aftermath of sober peace which sedulous virtue can rear even on the stubble of youth's luxuriant crop cut down and borne away. Yet even then, to finger the old wounds was to make them bleed anew--to remember the past was to recall his sorrow.
To-night, what change had come over him? He seemed living again in the happiness of the bygone time. He felt young as he had not felt in twenty years. He could dwell on the old joys and feel no sting; recall the image of his lost without a pang--so young and tender, with her soft brown eyes and clinging touch lingering still so kindly on his retentive sense. There was no feeling of loss to-night, no raging pang of impotent hungry jealousy.
He seemed dwelling in the fragrance of her presence; and the image of his new friend, his deliverer, was with him too, so like and yet so different from the other. The sunny warmth in those full brown eyes had beamed on him with a reviving and invigorating glow, which had thawed and quickened his poor frost-bound nature like the coming of another spring. How different the two images were! And yet, when he strove to separate and compare them in his mind, how strangely they ran together, and blended like fluid shapes into something vaguely sweet and dear, which would not be resolved into either definite form!
A hand was laid lightly on his shoulder, and he turned his head, preoccupied still with the images of his waking dream.
"I have found you at last, and at leisure," said a voice at his elbow. "You have been so busy all the evening, and I could not turn in till I had had a word with you."
"Walter! You? What is it?"
"What is this about going to Boston to-morrow? Margaret is as much taken by surprise as I am."
"Going to Boston? I know nothing of it. What do you mean?"
"Mrs Naylor told Margaret in my hearing they were going to Boston to-morrow."
"We came here intending to remain a month at least. Our rooms are only taken for a fortnight, to be sure, in case we should not like it; but if we do--and I thought we were getting on nicely--we were to stay. At least that was my idea. But--ah! I see--Walter, you scamp! This comes of your unexpected appearance. You should be ashamed of yourself--disturbing a quiet family in this fashion. What a dangerous character you must be, when the sight of you frightens a middle-aged lady so much that she is going to pack up and run away, before--before----Bless my soul! how many days have we been here? It seems a long time, but it is not a week, not four---- We have been here only two days!
"Yes; now I think of it, my sister has been hovering round me a good deal this evening. I daresay she has been trying to get speech of me. And I was conceited enough to think it was unwarrantable curiosity on the part of Mrs Caleb, watching what I was about."
"You were a little different from your usual to-night, Mr Naylor. I never saw you mind young ladies much before. Tonight it has been impossible to get hold of you."
"That may have been the young ladies' fault, my boy. It is not every one of them who knows how to be good company. Naturally, a man at my time of day is less susceptible to the pink and white in a schoolgirl's face than you young fellows are. There is a time for bread and butter, and a time for other things. Solomon says so."
"I don't think any one should call Margaret a bread-and-butter miss," Walter answered, hotly.
"Margaret is a good girl, and smart--though perhaps I should not say so, who remember her a squealing baby--but she would not care to waste her evening in amusing an old uncle, when the fiddlers were around, and so many young fellows to mind her."
"And what about Boston, then? Do you mean to go? Or will you allow Mrs Naylor to take her daughters there, and break up the very pleasant party here?"
"I do not see that Mrs Caleb's going to Boston would break up the party here;" and there was a tone in Joseph's voice, as he said it, which betokened a smile, though there was not light enough to see it. "It is natural that she should want to get her girls away from a too fascinating detrimental.
"You are a sad fellow, Walter--running about the world to frighten fond mothers, and compromise the prospects of young ladies."
"I can afford to marry, Mr Naylor. You know it. You know all about my circumstances and my connections. You have admitted to me that I might fairly enough go in and win if I could."
"I am not the girl's mother, my good fellow. If I recollect aright, I said 'Wait.' That is what I would say to you again, after the lapse of hardly three months. Your patience seems to me of the shortest. You must wait, my boy--wait."
"Wait till another fellow comes forward and unsettles her mind! Stand aside, and let him step in and win her! Would you do that yourself?"
"I don't know. You speak from the gentleman's point of view, you see. It is from the lady's side, and with a view to her interests, that I must consider things. Her mother's feeling is perfectly natural. It is from no objection to yourself that she wishes to stave you off. Margaret has seen nothing of the world. It is fair that she should know what she is giving up if she marries a backwoodsman."
"She does not object to the backwoods."
"She has seen too little of life in the front to realise what she would be giving up. You have influenced her fancy, and she sees with your eyes for the moment. By-and-by she might think differently, and if it were too late it would be bad for you both. You must really have patience, and give her time."
"But----"
"Oh yes; there is plenty to say on the other side, Walter. You and I might talk a long time, but I fear neither would convince the other. Meanwhile, it is time we were both in bed. The lights are going out all over the house. Good night."
Joseph took his candle and went up-stairs. The light from a door ajar fell on him as he threaded the dim corridor, bordered with boots of sleeping guests.
"Joseph!" in a vehement whisper reached his ears. He turned, and his sister-in-law, in dressing-gown and shawl, stood before him.
"How late you are of retiring! I have watched and waited for your passing till I am completely knocked up. Ah! my poor back! and my head aches dreadfully."
"Get to bed. Late hours are always hurtful."
"I could not lie down till I had seen you. I must speak to you. And you have lingered so long."
"We cannot talk here--disturbing people, and being overheard. You are scarcely in trim for the parlour. Besides, the lights are out. It is very late, and I am awfully sleepy."
"Come in here. Improper?--Dear me!" and Mrs Naylor smiled sarcastically. "Our age will save our characters, Joseph, I should think. However, I will leave the door open."
"Well?" asked Joseph, following in reluctantly, "what is it--which will not keep till morning? Let's cut it as short as possible."
"Do you know that young Blount is here?"
"Yes."
"What are we to do?"
"I see no occasion to do anything."
"He may have Margaret engaged and committed any half-hour they are alone together."
"If she is willing, I do not see why he should not."
"Joseph Naylor! Is that the interest you take in poor Caleb's fatherless daughter? And you call yourself her guardian!"
"Well? What would you have me do?"
"Remove us at once. Then she is not compromised by any exhibition of intimacy there may have been this evening. I have been thinking of Nahant. It is an extravagant place, I know; but we can stop and have a couple of days' shopping in Boston on the way. Will you arrange for our starting by the forenoon train?"
"To-morrow morning! Do you forget that your rooms here are engaged for a fortnight?--could not have got them for a shorter time--and there are still eleven days to run?"
"I know. We must pay for the fortnight, of course. Another obligation to add to the many we owe your favourite."
"But you will find Nahant dull, I fear. It is not a place many Canadians go to, and you have no New England friends. Will it not be lonesome for you and the girls to look on at the gaieties, without even a man to stand beside you in the crowd?"
His sister-in-law turned and looked at him questioningly. Joseph, as she knew, was not aggressively self-asserting, but this was self-effacement beyond any modesty she could have believed.
"You will do very nicely, Joseph," she said, encouragingly. "You are presentable anywhere, and--well--almost distinguished-looking, let me tell you; and you give our party far more weight than if you were younger. And then you are so clever about making friends with the nicest people within reach. We shall do capitally."
Joseph opened his eyes and smiled, to hear his sister-in-law sum him up to his face so patronisingly. "You are too appreciative of my small merits, Susan. Pray spare me. But I had no idea of joining in your escapade. Clam Beach is perfectly good enough for me. I shall not dream of leaving it before my fortnight is up; and quite likely, if I continue to like it, I shall stay on for three or four weeks longer."
"Do you mean that you will let us roam away over the United States--your poor dead brother's helpless widow and orphans--without a protector? I could not have believed it, Joseph. But--ah! I can see it all!--designing girl--this evening----"
Mrs Naylor grew disjointed and confused, and finally stuck fast in the middle of a sentence which she could not properly be said to have begun; having merely betrayed, in her irritation, a wish "to carry the war into Africa"--or at least, since Joseph was so unsympathetic in her concerns, to discuss his own in a similar spirit. But there came the look into his face of a man who will not be trifled with, and who chooses to introduce the subject himself, when his affairs are to be mentioned; and between surprise, and having nothing exactly to say--though in another mood there would have been an opening for banter and insinuation--the thread of her ideas gave way, and she stopped short.
Joseph's brow cleared as quickly as it had darkened, so soon as Susan had checked herself; but he said nothing, and after waiting in silence for a minute and a half, he turned on his heel, saying--
"That is all you have to tell me, I suppose? Good night."
"Stop, Joseph! You have told me nothing. What am I to do? Do you really mean that you will not come with us?"
"That is what I mean."
"You propose to keep us here against our will, and to hand that poor misguided child Margaret over to such a fate? I would not have believed it of you, Joseph."
"I have no power to keep you here against your will, Susan, any more than you have the right to drag me away against mine. If I can do anything short of that to pleasure you, name it. My cheque-book is freely at your service, if you insist on going to Nahant, where you will find your expenses ten times as heavy as here."
"I don't want your cheque-book. Poor Caleb took care we should be provided for. And very fortunate it is, too,"--which was an ungracious and uncalled-for observation; but all things, as Joseph thought, are pardonable in an angry woman.
"And what am I to do," she continued, "with this young man? He will drive me distracted. I know he will."
"Accept what you cannot prevent, Susan; and save yourself the worry of struggling against the inevitable. Let them have their way. Do it soon, and make a favour of it; and you will be in a position to stipulate for long delay. When Walter is a year or two older, he will have had enough of the wilds, and be willing to settle down in a civilised neighbourhood."
"But Margaret ought to do so much better. I cannot resign myself to the idea of her sinking into a farmer's wife. I have a right to expect position for her--the best the Province can afford. Why should she not live in Toronto and lead society?"--which, perhaps, you may deem a small ambition, my British reader; yet it is precisely what all mankind are born to feel. Ambition is the same everywhere, but its object varies with the latitude and longitude. There are actually people as eager to be first in Timbuctoo and Bokhara, as any one you may know to be of the best in London.
"As Blount's wife," answered Joseph, "she will be all right socially; and between what she has from her father, and what she may look for from her uncle, she does not need to consider whether her husband is a rich man or not."
"I intended her to be in the middle of everything. For what else did I take so much trouble with her education?"
"She does not seem to mind about that herself."
"And there were chances for her here, if Blount would have stayed away. There is that clever Mr Wilkie, and young Walter Petty, both evidently well inclined to her."
"I think Margaret's preference shows good taste and good sense. Blount is a gentleman, and his people have a property in Wales. If you want connection, he is the best of the three."
"He is a younger son. His prospects don't amount to much, or he would have stayed at home; while Mr Wilkie----"
"A worthy person. A rising man, if you like----"
"Mrs Petty would give her eyes to get him for Ann."
"Very likely. But he is not to compare with Blount; though I do not blame him for that. There is a kind of person which must be born and bred, though it is not the kind which makes its way in the world the best. For myself, I sympathise with Margaret's taste."
"I declare, I think that young fellow has turned your head! But he shan't be your nephew, for all his scheming, if I can prevent it.... If you will not take us to Nahant, I suppose we must stay here. We would have to invent so many excuses if we went straight back home; though it would be serving Margaret just right if we did. But she shall stay at my side and under my eye while we remain here; Mr Blount shall gain nothing by it. The worry and botheration will injure me, I know, and may even have the worst consequences; but it will be your fault, Joseph Naylor, and some day, when it is too late, you will regret it. I would not have believed that it was in you to be so unkind."
"Good night," said Joseph, getting away at last; and before many minutes more, he too was one of the army of sleepers.