Part II.
"Shall we go to Niagara for our wedding-trip?" Mr. Norval asked when the doctor had taken his last fee, pronouncing his patient cured.
"Unless you care particularly about it, I would rather go straight to New York. I have canceled all my school-engagements by letter, having taken a new service"--and she bowed to him--"and Mrs. Keller promised to see to my little rooms and their belongings; but I should like to see Harry before he sails."
"Want to make him promise to be a good boy while he's away?" said he with a smile.
"Something like it," she answered, laughingly. "But Harry's not a bad fellow, at all."
"Well, then, let's start for home to-morrow;" and they made their arrangements to that effect, though he was disappointed, for in an unwonted moment of confidence she had told him of the pictures of travel to be taken, the glories to be first seen together, never apart, both in Europe and America, that had been among the happiest dreams and made up a large part of the talks between herself and her lost friend, Esther Hooper. He felt that her indifference to seeing the glories of Niagara and the sublimities of the White Mountains was caused by his companionship not being her heart's choice (which was all he knew about it!), and the idea gave him angry pain and a passionate desire to win her in spite of all.
As they stood the next morning ready equipped for their journey, he put his arm around her, saying, "I've been very happy, little wife, here with you. Are you glad you happened to be here that August day, and that I saw you?"
"I have had no cause to regret it," she said quietly.
"But you are not glad," he said, taking his arm away.
"As glad, Ross, as I can be for anything--more glad than I am for most things."
He looked at her with a sigh. "My father--and I am like him--loved only once." Her words came constantly into his mind. "I came too late," he thought; and it seemed to him this little plain woman, looking wan and pale in the early morning light, was better worth winning than any other earthly thing he had ever known. He had left her side, and was standing looking with a frown out of the window as they awaited the summons to breakfast. After a while she came and stood beside him, leaning her head against his arm. He turned slightly toward her, but took no further notice of the action. She stayed so for a while, then said, softly stealing her hand in his as it lay upon the window-ledge, "Dear Ross, I am glad: I am happier than I ever dreamed it possible for me to be. I would not undo the deed we have done so long as you are content. I like being with you dearly, and I like to think that so long as I live I shall be your wife--your little girl to whom you are so very tender and good."
"My Preciosa"--and he drew her into his arms--"so long as we both shall live, you mean. I want no life without you now." Then turning her, face up, he scanned it hastily: "You are so white, my pet, so deathly pale! Are you ill, my Percy?"
"No, no," she said quickly. "I think I need my breakfast: I have been up a couple of hours, and I did not sleep very much all night."
"My poor little girl; when I get you safely home in those famous rooms of ours, perhaps you'll get some rest. But you talk in this strange way of dying: just now you did, and once before in your letter. What makes you do it? Is there anything the matter of which you have not told me?"
"Nothing--only my life seemed ended, Ross, as if all my places were filled and I was no more needed, so that I had got in the way of hoping for death as a boon which God would send me soon."
"But you do not now?--you don't want to die and leave me desolate?"
"No, dear! indeed, no! though I don't think you'd care really." He clasped her in a closer embrace and kissed her reproachfully. "Well, yes, just at first, perhaps. Yet so long as you want me, I want to stay and be your willing, working wife. I've got a new reason and aim now: I have you, dear old Ross."
"Oh, Percy, I do care. God knows even the thought of it gives me a bitter agony, I know you cannot trust me yet, because I married you so carelessly, and because you think I can't be true to one woman with my battered old heart. But that's because you judge me by what my long, unloved life has made me. No good woman ever made me love her before. I never knew how beautiful a pure life was, my darling, until I knew it through watching yours. When I think of all you have saved me from, which would have caused my undying gratitude had I learned to hate you--as if I ever could!" and he paused to kiss her--"when I think of all the new and better hopes you have awakened in my heart, I feel--God knows I do--as if He had sent my angel, and let her drag me out of a hell into which I was plunged, and year after year sinking deeper. Stay with me, dear: I will be true. I never cared for any woman in the way--in the deep, absorbing way--I do for you. I wish you would believe me."
"I do, Ross--you are so good to me, so good! Oh, Ross, Ross!" and she held up her face to his, "you are so good to me!" She clung to him one moment, then suddenly, as soon as she could trust her voice, said gayly, "But it's breakfast-time, and your wife is so unromantically hungry;" and with a sigh that nothing more ever came of their talks he took her down.
When they reached New York the next afternoon, they drove at once to the rooms they had engaged. Percy's cousin, Harry Barton, was there to welcome them, having come round from his hotel for the purpose.
"Why, Norval," said he--they were old acquaintances--"you've won our bone of contention, after all. I wonder what we shall do, now that Percy's safely landed out of our reach? You're a brave man to dare our rage."
"Don't, Harry!" said Percy, putting her hand on his arm.
"I won't, dear, if you say not;" and he covered her hand with his own. "I always did do your lightest bidding, little girl, didn't I?"
"Yes, you're a dear old cousin. Ross knows how much I appreciate your kindness to me always. Why, I gave up what he calls my 'bridal tour,' partly because I wanted to come back and say 'good-bye' to you."
His face flushed crimson at her words, and, all his careless, fashionable manner gone, he said, "Did you, Percy? You always were good."
"That, and because--because I shall be so sorry if you join this African expedition."
"Don't ask me not to, Percy--don't ask me to stay now you have broken my hope for ever. I shall go to the dogs, dear, if I stay here now."
"I don't want you to, Harry. Only your mother is so delicate and getting old, and she loves you beyond all the rest of the world, though you think she don't because she has been cruel to me. It will break her heart if you join this dangerous enterprise. Stay in Europe, go to Heidelberg and finish the course you so foolishly broke up. They'll blame me, Harry, for all the evil that comes to you."
"Well, I'll think about it, dear." Then to Ross; "Does she kiss you, Norval?"
"Well, I can't say she does," said that gentleman, who had been a surprised listener to their talk, and it annoyed him to have to confess she did not.
"Nor let you kiss her, either?"
"Well, yes," with a laugh. "She can't very well help that, you know."
"Don't you believe it: if she didn't want you to, you'd never kiss her, I know. Why, we three cousins, Sheldon, Mac and I, have tried every way to get her to kiss us for years, and never succeeded. You're a lucky dog!"
"He's my husband, Harry;" and she laid her head down on Ross's arm.
"Don't, Percy!" said her cousin with a quick motion of his hand: "I'll be gone soon;" then hurriedly and gayly: "Let me do the honors of your new domains. And, Norval, I have a great favor to ask of you. My little cousin's amour propre won't be touched, or herself involved now she's a married woman, by taking an honest gift from me, and all brides take bridal gifts, you know. I want you to let me give her all the traps I've left in the rooms. It isn't much grace to ask, old fellow, seeing you're to have her always and I not at all."
"Why, certainly, Barton, I have no objections if she has none."
"Percy, you've never let me give you anything all these years, you proud little soul, nor any of the rest of us: you've come scot-free from all our endeavors to snare you through all your hard-working life. You won't go quite empty-handed to your husband's arms, just to plague me, will you?"
"No, indeed! I'm delighted to have all your pretty things. I saw them once, you know, when you gave your mother her birth-night party;" and they began their round of inspection. "But, Harry, you've refurnished the whole suite!"
"You didn't think I was going to make you and Norval (I can't call you Cousin Ross yet, old fellow--I hate you too bad, you know) cast your lines among my smoke-and-wine-scented traps, did you?"
As she saw how exquisitely he had chosen everything, how delicately he had regarded every one of her tastes in his selection, and thought how little reason he had to be good to her, she turned quickly and put her arms about him. With a shuddering sob he held his own out as if to clasp her, saying, "May I, Ross?" The answering nod was scarcely given ere he had gathered her to his breast, murmuring, "Percy! Percy! my lost darling!"
As he held her thus, she said softly, "Promise me, Harry--dear old Hal--promise me this!"
"Anything, everything, Percy," he said.
"That you will give up Africa and go to Heidelberg."
"I will, I will, since you wish it."
She drew his face down and kissed him on his mouth, two long, sweet kisses, saying, "Good-bye, and God bless you, cousin!"
He stood like a blind man as she gently drew herself from his embrace, then wringing Ross's hand in a grasp that made him wince, he strode out of the house without a word.
Percy, going to where her husband sat, said humbly, "I was so sorry for him, I could not help it. You do not care--very much?"
"Harry Barton loved you and wanted to marry you?"
"Yes, Ross. I've been very unhappy about it for years, he's wasted his life so, and angered his family. Indeed, it was not my fault: I never gave him reason."
"Yet you married me without a pretence of love, and he's richer and handsomer and a better man than I, every way? I don't understand it, child."
"Yes, I married you, knowing you did not love me." His arms almost crushed her at that truth. "He may be richer: he is no better, I think, and"--holding his face between her hands with a quizzical survey for an instant--"it's barefaced scandal to assert that he is as handsome, by one half. Poor, handsome Ross, to think that all your manifold charms should have purchased you only ugly little me!" and she laughed a merry, mocking laugh at his protesting hug. "It's true, though--it's the very climax of opposites, a perfection of contrasts." Then, her light manner gone, she added: "You are very, very good to me, Ross. He would never have been so patient of my old griefs and lost loves. I told you my masculine cousins were always crying for the grapes that hung out of their reach, you know." Then suddenly growing grave: "Oh, Ross, it was not my fault: I could not help it. I think the boys got to pitying me because they thought my life was hard, and because their sisters treated me very cruelly sometimes. Then my uncles very foolishly ordained that I should teach their sons their Latin and help them with their studies. So out of school-hours my time was mostly spent with one or the other, or all of them. Sheldon Wilber and I are of the same age, and having been my father's constant companion, I was better up in all his studies than he was himself; so I used to do his college lessons with him, until he got to thinking, as he used to say, I was his very breath. Then afterward I gave the other two the benefit of what we had studied, got them out of scrapes, and indeed, being with them so much, kept them out. Don't let's talk about them any more, Ross: I have 'fessed' all now."
"Not all, my sweet: you have not told me who it is that has shut your heart from us all."
"Don't, Ross!" and she shrank away from him as if he had struck her a blow.
"Ah, well, my wife, keep your secret: I'll not touch your sacred past. I'll try to learn to be content with my little sister, thankful I have so much."
"Oh, Ross, my good, kind Ross!" and she clasped her arms around his neck in passionate, longing regret, "if I might tell you all--if I might!"
"Tell me nothing, dear, you would rather keep. I am infinitely content to even have you thus, and know you love me somewhat. Yes, I know, sweet," he said with a sad smile as she kissed his hand in passionate regret--"the very best you can, with all the heart you have. I know, I know!"
Quite late in the evening, Sheldon Wilber came. After sitting an hour or so, talking gayly, he rose to go. When they were standing he said, "Percy, I had just left the Flemmings before I came in here."
"Had you? I hope they are all well, especially Miss Lizzie, who is so pretty."
"They're all well enough. She--Miss Lizzie the pretty--is going to be married."
"To be married!--to whom?" she asked.
"To my honorable self: don't you congratulate her?"--with a bitter laugh. "I asked her to-night if she'd have me, and she said 'Yes.'"
"I am so glad, Sheldon--so very glad!" and she held out her hand.
"Are you? It's more than anyone else is but my mother. Well, no--I suppose the Flemmings are, to get another daughter off their hands, and she to have a safe man to pay her bills. And of course all our cousins and sisters will be glad to have another house to dance the German in; so it is rather a jubilee occasion, taking it all in all."
"Oh, Sheldon, how hard and bitter you are! She loves you, I know, and the rest think you will be happier with a good wife to care for."
"Yes, the wife I cared for would have made me supremely happy, but vive la bagatelle! I want to know when I am to tie this knot?"
"Whenever she wishes, of course," she answered.
"By the Lord, no! If she gets me, she's got to take me when I choose."
Percy went up to him and put her hands in his: "She'll be a good wife, and, dear Sheldon, you'll be a good husband to her."
He looked at her curiously, then answered, "I'll try: I'll begin by letting her set the hanging--no, I mean the wedding--day. Norval, I know you'll be good to our little girl--better, likely as not, than the rest of us would have been had we got possession of her. Only remember, old fellow, the shadows must never come to her through you, or some of us will make a shadow of you. Would you mind my coming around sometimes to see the little woman? If you'll let me come and spend an evening now and then with you both, it will keep me from getting utterly down-hearted, and maybe will make me a better husband to the future Mrs. Sheldon Wilber. I'll never come without sending word to know if I may." And the poor fellow took himself away.
"How they love you, dear! It's strange you took me, and I thought I was conferring a favor on you! I'm ashamed to remember it now, but it was so."
"Yes, I know"--and she laughed--"but it's not strange, Ross. Any woman would have chosen you: I have always heard of your successes with women. And you know it was take or lose when you gave me my chance. I had but one choice; it was not likely you would drop your handkerchief before me a second time; so I took you quick, before some other woman caught you."
She kept a light, gay tone thus far, standing the other side of the grate from him, but when he came near as if to draw her toward him, she said hurriedly, "These boys have been too much for me, and tried me terribly. If you will not care, Ross, I think I'll say 'Good-night,' though it's early. Don't stay in, if you would like to go to your club or anywhere, because it is our first evening. You see, I am going to desert you first. It's part of the compact, you know, that I am never to be in your way."
"Oh, Percy," he said, in a very boyishly aggrieved tone, "I don't want to go anywhere where you are not."
"You will soon get tired of that, Ross. But I'm glad you don't want to go to-night: I doubt your being quite able to walk much in the evening. Yet I feel as if I must say 'Good-night' and get myself in the dark. Why? I'm unstrung. The newness of my life with you, the traveling, this coming home with you to a place where I am to know either joy or woe, and all this talk with Harry and Sheldon, have been almost more than I could bear;" and her lip quivered. "It's all I have been able to do this last hour to keep from crying, and I do hate to cry before people." The long-suppressed emotion of all these weeks had broken bounds and she shook with sobs, while every nerve seemed quivering, and all she said was, "Ross, Ross! please forgive me! I am so sorry to be so foolish!" And though he strove by every tender method to comfort and soothe her, it was in vain; and at length, really frightened, he carried her to the little room she had appropriated for herself, and as tenderly as a mother, though as shyly as a girl, put his poor little done-out wife in her bed, too weak to resist his kind services, indeed, scarcely noticing them.
The next day, when he returned from what he and his friends, by an agreeable fiction, called an "office," where he generally spent as many hours as served to give him a flavor of business and a figurative title as a businessman--where were to be found the best cigars and choicest wines, and generally a pleasant circle of good fellows congregated--he found Percy with the most charming little dinner awaiting him; the table exquisite in the finest, whitest napery, gleaming with silver, sparkling in glass, and every dish cooked and served in quite Parisian style, and the little lady herself in the brightest toilette, with such a matronly air that he could hardly realize the scene of the last night's misery.
"Tears all gone, Ross, tragedy played out, and the little woman who keeps house for you is herself again, and has been as busy as a nailer. Are nailers busier than other men, I wonder? All your boxes came. Such bliss as it was to us poor women to feast our eyes upon all that heritage of linen and silver, and china and glass! Your mother must have been a famous manager, Ross, to leave you such a store. I'm so glad we've got that old place on the Harlem stored with all this beautiful array. Do you know, Ross, I think I've discovered my especial calling to-day? It's housekeeping, and I elect myself to go some time to that lovely old mansion and expend myself in hospitality. I'll invite you to come and visit me."
Flying about the room, then making him seat himself in the cozy chair which was placed for him at the table--"the side that's next the fire," she said--rattling gayly on of all her day's employment, she caught the look upon his face and came to his side. "What were you thinking of, Ross?" she asked, anxiously.
"What a little tornado you were, for the first thing, and how I liked seeing you busy among our household gods; also and moreover, that you had not given me a chance to say a word; and worst of all, that you had never given me my kiss of welcome, my rightful perquisite." Instantly she held up her face. "Ah, pet, you are always submissive; but never aggressive: still, this is sweet. And I was wondering what had become of the weeping willow I left."
"Wasn't I a silly goose, Ross?" she said, a little breathlessly.
"Well, no, dear: you were very nervous and worn-out."
"I hate nervous, fidgety women so: they're detestable with their whims."
"I did not find you so, but I'm glad you're over it, all the same."
"And so am I. You could not make me cry like that again, Ross, if you were to pinch me."
"But I did not make you cry."
"Yes you did, though. In truth, I was unstrung, and you were so kind and unlike what any one had ever been to me before, so different from what I had expected when we were married "--and her lips quivered--"that it touched me to the quick."
"Why, darling, did you think I was going to be a brute to you?"
"I thought you would be nothing to me, one way or the other--simply forget me, and be utterly indifferent so long as I kept your clothes made and mended, and did not bother you about my wants or tastes or opinions."
A flush came over his face at the truth of her words. It would have been just so had he found her what he expected her to be; but he said, "I don't think any one could treat you like that, little girl." Then, while they ate their dinner, he told her of his day's doings and of his determination for the future: "I have a good opening--no man better. I mean to attend to my practice hereafter, make a name and fortune for my sweetheart, and in a few years we'll go to Europe and see the sights. Ah, Percy, such a vista, such a new life, such a bright future, as I see opening before me! But, first of all, I am going shopping with you, young lady, to-morrow. I have ordered a carriage at eleven, and we'll buy all those pretty fixings you women doat on. Do you know, little bride, I think all my vanity is going to take the form of having you more prettily dressed than your cousins, mine ancient flames when I was a bad boy?"
"Oh, Ross," with a little laugh, "you can't do it: you can't make a rival specimen out of your bad bargain. Nothing will make me a beauty."
"Don't, Percy! I do like beauty. I have run after and made a fool of myself for years over pretty women, but I like your face, just as it is, better than any other woman's face I ever knew. If I could change you any way, I would not do it. Your face is beautiful to me, though I know it is not a pretty one: you are like sunlight to me." His voice shook, and he strained her slight form to him with a clasp that was positive pain. "I said I would not change you, but I would if I might put that old love out of your heart for ever. Why, in those far-off years when we were childish friends, did I not know my truest life lay in winning you? It is strange! I have never failed to gain the love I wanted until now, when I want the only one that would complete my life. Dear Percy, love me all you can. If there are things in me--and I know there are many--which turn you from me, tell me of them and I will change them if I can."
"Oh, Ross, don't, don't! I am not worthy of such words."
"Oh, little Preciosa, I am glad to have even a little of your heart: the half of your love has come to be more to me than the love of all the world besides."
Do you think it was not agony for her to hear such words as these and make no response to them, fearing lest with assurance should come satiety? And yet the knowledge of his growing love was very sweet to her, and worth the agony.
They settled down in their new home, and were purposely "out" to all callers during the next month--then returned the cards that had been left for them. As they grew accustomed to their new life, she thought to see his pleasure and interest in it wane as the novelty wore away, but it was not so. That love of home which is, after all, the truest test of a really manly nature, seemed to grow upon him. It was always so bright and cheery by their cozy fire, the glare of public rooms, the noise and glitter of theatres and concert-rooms, struck him with a feeling akin to disgust, after the soft, subdued light of his home, and his wife's merry, breezy voice. He sang and played for her, never giving a thought to her having any musical ability, since she never touched the instrument. He read to her hour after hour, having at last discovered her taste and ability to understand the kind of books he relished, perfectly content if she would favor him by sitting near enough to him to let him pull down that wealth of "tresses brown," a glossy cloud about her.
Of course this Arcadian life could not continue in the very heart of Sodom. Society was not going to lose Ross Norval if he had made a fool of himself and married a little nobody. So callers flowed in upon them, and Ross, having in boyish glee arrayed himself in purple and fine linen, took her in state to see his friends.
Of course her cousins and their friends hated her: she had won their bonne louche, and the crimson of her plainness and poverty, of the having to "have Percy always around to please Uncle Rufus," was pink to the enormity of her being Ross Norval's wife. And "why he married her," and "of course he's dead tired of her by this time," were their politest surmises.
One morning they paid a cousinly visit--a triple call. "And, by Jove!" thought Ross as he watched her haughty little face and nonchalant manner, "she's no milk-and-water nature, though she's always so sweet-tempered with me. She's got all the temper a true nature ought to have."
"To think of your ever getting married, Percy, and to Mr. Norval, of all men!" said Miss Leta Wilber. "Why, we thought him engaged to the beauty and belle of last winter, Miss Agnes Lorton."
"Well, yes, Leta, old girls like you and I are rather off the cards: we don't expect to catch the prizes generally--we leave that for these younger ones, like Jennie and Lucille," said Percy, coolly.
"A Roland for your Oliver, Leta!" laughed Jennie Wayne. "I never venture to break a lance with Percy: she always has an arrow in reserve to pierce you with. I suppose you've found that out, Mr. Norval?"
"Found what out? I fear I don't follow you, Miss Jennie," said he.
"That she's very able to take her own part, this little cousin of ours," said she, her beautiful face scarlet at his manner.
"Is she, though? Well, I like that amazingly, do you know?"
"Like ill-tempered people?" said Miss Leta, snappishly. "Is it possible?"
"Ill-tempered people?" with a wellbred stare. (Is there such a thing?) "No, indeed! Why, birdie"--and he leaned over, and, taking her hand, raised it to his lips--"to think of any one calling you ill-tempered!"
"You silly boy!" laughed she. "I'll take my hand if you please, and don't you believe but what you've married a termagant."
The girls said afterward, in recounting the scene, it was simply disgusting. Leta vowed, "The little baggage must be a witch and throw spells over people. Look what fools she's made of our boys for years, and Ross Norval, with all his splendid endowments, is just as bad."
"And he did use to admire your form, Leta," said Jennie, maliciously. "I've seen him waltz you until it was hard to tell which face that long blonde moustache belonged to."
"Ditto, cousin, and worse, if gossips speak the truth. But don't let's say ugly things to each other. We both hoped to win him once, and we have both lost him. The little wretch will watch him like a hawk, and never let him come near a body."
"Oh dear!" said her sister Laura, "if I only knew I was to do a German with him to-night, I'd be happy: he holds one better than any man I know; and if Percy will let him dance with a body occasionally, I'd as leave she should have him as the rest of you."
"Unless he'd chosen yourself, Laura, I suppose?"
"Well, yes, that would have made a difference, even to my laziness, especially if she'd have made dear old Harry stay at home by marrying him."
That's the way they talked, yet in a couple of weeks after each house had sent her an invitation to a large party--"for you and Mr. Norval, dear Percy"--and the invitation-cards stated the fact.
"It's my Viking they want," laughed she: "they take his mouse in for the sake of securing him. He's such a credit to the family!"
"Well, it's your Viking they won't get," said he.
"Now, Ross, don't be a bother, dear, and complicate matters. They will say--and be glad of the chance--that it's my fault. You've such a passion for dancing, they will say I prevented your coming. And besides, as I dance so little, you'll ask them as much as ever?"
"How do you know I am so fond of it, Percy?"
"I've watched you too many years not to know that. You forget that, though a flower unnoticed and unseen--a very wall-flower in fact--I have been a looker-on in Vienna. I might have made a point of that, Ross, if I'd thought in time, and 'hung i' the walls of Venice, a sightly flower.' You were the bright particular star, or sun, in whose light all the fairest flowers disported themselves. Why, I could tell you every woman--that is, of your own set--you've been what Jennie calls 'bad about,' for years." He held up his hand deprecatingly: she laughed gayly. "Never fear. I don't intend to name them: I have not time to go over such a thing of shreds and patches. Ah! the hopes I've watched you raise to heaven and then dash to earth!"
"Oh, Percy, I don't wonder that you are afraid to trust me now: I am paying the penalty of my years of folly."
"That's nonsense, Ross. I don't believe in fashionable women's hearts. You were too good for them, and they led you on always," she said, almost passionately.
"That's my good darling trying to excuse her sinner. But how was it you never danced at any of those parties? Harry and Mac are both good dancers, and Sheldon's the best waltzer I ever saw. How is it you never danced with them?"
"With them, indeed! Why, that would have been an aggravation past enduring to my rich relations. Sheldon had actually the insolence to tell his sister Leta that I was the best waltzer in society. Think of the prize you've got, young man!"
"I do always, sweetheart," he said, answering her gay tone with a grave one. "Did you waltz much with Sheldon and the others?"
"I never waltzed with any of them in my life. Why, Ross, I never let them speak to me at parties, except by turns to take me out to supper and home."
"But how have you managed to keep up your waltzing then?"
"Oh, Mr. Vanity, men are not all. Esther and I waltzed constantly: then I used to help Lucille, who is my favorite cousin, 'along in her paces;' and the children at our school-parties doat on me as a partner. Would you like to know who was the last man, and indeed almost the only one, I ever went round a room with?" and her face turned crimson, though she laughed.
"Indeed I should--curse him!" he said under his breath.
"Your honorable self, at Madame's school-party;" and she sprang away from his outstretched hands with a mocking laugh.
The day of the party she wrote a few little violet-perfumed notes, and sent them off. This is a specimen:
"DEAR DOCTOR: You have so often wanted to know your 'nebulous child,' and been indignant that she hid her face from you behind her veil of clouds, you will be pleased to know that the sunshine has dispelled the clouds, and made her at last able to meet the starry train of which you are the sun. Will you greet Ross Norval's bride at the Wilber party to-night as the child you have trained and been so good to in the past, and who, ever honoring you, is still your loving child for the future? If you'll ask me prettily to-night, I'll sing the foolish words I made for the sweet, tripping Languedoc air you sent me last year. I am, now and ever,
"MIRA CANAM."
In consequence of these notes, when Ross led his wife into the room, arrayed in a crimson cloud of his choosing, which made even her brown face a picture, all her bronze hair, her husband's glory, floating round her far below her waist, confined lightly here and there by diamond clusters, which sparkled like stars amidst its creped luxuriance--"Daring to dress in the very height of the fashion," said Leta, "and all those diamonds on her--his mother's, of course;" and of course they were--the consequence, I say, was, that first one distinguished man and then another met her with a warm greeting--"deucedly warm," thought the jealous fellow, who was so uncertain of her yet, and wanted all of her--and were introduced to "my husband." Taking for granted that "my husband" was glad to get her off his hands, they took possession of her, to his infinite disgust.
These were the men with whom she could talk, whose minds struck diamond flashes from her own, whose thoughts she had followed for years, and who looked upon her as their peer, and deferred to her opinion on many things. And she, knowing Ross was her amazed listener, was stirred to do her best before him--glad her triumph over her relatives should be in his presence and brought to her through his means. It may not have been a lovely thing in her to desire or enjoy a victory, but ah! it is so natural, and my little heroine had had hard lines meted out to her for years. Besides, no woman is free, you know, from vanity: only men are that.
She stood near the door of the dancing-room. Ross came to her after every dance, but it was always, "Not me yet, Ross--Leta, or Jennie," or whoever stood nearest her. Even the girl to whom report had given him (with reason) the year before was, at her open entreaty, which he could not evade, his partner; but half the time he stood beside her, forgetful of the dance in listening to the conversation in which she bore so large a part.
A lull in the music after supper announced the suspension of dancing hostilities for a time, that due strength might be gathered for the last waltz, and then the German. The time was occupied by a very weak tenor, who came to an ignominious end in the middle of "Spirito Gentil." Miss Jennie Barton and her cousin Laura gave a sweet duo, in rather a tearing style, Jennie being a fast young lady everyhow; another lady sang a Scottish ballad as if it had been manipulated by Verdi; then one of the gentlemen said, "Mr. Norval, I hope you will lay your commands on your wife to sing for us."
"I hope that will not be needed," he said, bowing (thinking with a pang, "They all know her better than I do"). "I am sure she will do equally well if we all beg the favor of her."
"She has promised me to sing," said Dr. B----, "my pretty Languedoc air, which she has--"
"Now that's enough, you foolish old doctor!" and she went to the piano. "Foolish old doctor!" He was the great gun of the scientific world: the people about looked aghast at such impertinence, but the "great gun" only laughed and said, "I am mute if you command."
How her hands trembled as she began! This was her last and greatest card: by it she had always felt she must hold him to her for ever, or lose her husband's love in time. She had never touched the piano before him or sung a note, but much of her leisure since their return to New York had been taken up, when he was out, in keeping herself in practice against the time when she should have a chance to play for him and sing to him. She played the sweet air, with its Mozart-like, mournful cadences, entirely through ere she felt nerved enough to begin. Then she sang in such a voice as made the most indifferent pause--a voice that was like purple velvet for richness, as sweet as the breath of an heliotrope to which the sun had just said adieu, as clear as the notes of an English skylark--this little song:
"See, love! the rosy radiance gleams
Athwart the sunset sky:
List, love! and hear the bird's sweet notes
In lingering cadence die.
Clasp, love, thy clinging hands in mine,
And, holding fast by me,
Trust, love! I will be true, my dove,
Be ever true to thee--
So true, sweetheart, I'll be,
Sweetheart, to thee!"Come, love! I waiting pine so long,
And weary watch for thee:
Dear love! amidst my darkest night
Thy star-like face I see.
Heart's love! ah, come thou close to me:
I'll shelter thee from harms,
From every foe or secret woe,
Close clasped within my arms:
Lie safe from all alarms,
Sweetheart, with me."
While they listened to her, those careless men and women, they thought they began to understand why this little, plain girl had won Ross Norval. While everybody praised her, he stood utterly silent, too moved for words she saw, and refusing to sing again, she went up to him as the band began to play. "My waltz, Ross," she said. He put his arm around her with a loving gesture that made those about them smile, and whirled her off.
"He's the hardest hit man I've seen for years," said one.
"And that such a thing should come to pass, as Ross Norval in love with his own wife, is beyond belief--after making love to everybody else's!"
"That's it! He was always the darling of fortune: the choicest fruit always dropped his side the wall."
But Ross, as he held her in that "tight hold" which was so much admired by his partners, said only, "Percy! Percy! I do not know you at all. How cruel you are to me! Everybody knows you and your gifts but me."
When the German had commenced he came to her and whispered, "Do you care for it?"
"The German, Ross? Indeed no: I am tired too, and was just coming to ask you if I might let old Mr. L---- take me home: he says it will be no trouble."
"And you would not have asked me to take you?" he said, reproachfully.
"Take you away from the German, Ross! Such an unheard-of thing as that! You must think me very selfish. Indeed; I am not where your pleasure is concerned: I only want you to enjoy yourself."
"Then, for Charity's sake, let's go home," he said.
"With all my heart if you really wish it!" and she started; then pausing: "Are you going because you think I want to go? I do not indeed: I will stay gladly."
"I am going because I want to--because I am dead tired, and long, with a perfect passion, for our cozy room, the dim firelight, and my darling toasting her pretty slippers."
"You dear, foolish Ross!" and she was gone like the wind. On their way out, Sheldon Wilber met them in the hall, and, handing her something, said, "To-night, little girl: if you have ever doubted, doubt no more. And remember, a trusting heart is a priceless one;" and he was gone.
When they were home and comfortable, Ross said, "My wife, it was cruel to let me learn your wonderful gifts through strangers: it has hurt me cruelly."
"Oh, Ross, don't say so! Hurt you! I hurt you, my love, my love! I had hoped no pang of the lightest sort would ever reach you through me, and now I've grieved you sorely! It's all due to my morbid fancies, dear. I could not ask to sing to you lest you should not like my singing: I think I should have gone mad if you had not liked my voice, Ross I have so hoped it would be pleasant to your ear! Do you like it, Ross? Is my voice sweet to you?" and she held his face between her hands and looked eagerly and steadfastly into his eyes.
"The sweetest thing I ever heard. It thrills my blood yet, that love-song you sang."
She gave a little cooing laugh: "That is your love-song, dear--your very own." Then she said, gravely, "I must tell you all about myself now, Ross, so you shall never be able to reproach me with having given you pain. No matter, dear: it was, true," she said in answer to his caressing protest, "and I feel the hurt through you. I am your wife. The reason those gentlemen are so fond of me is because--Wait;" and she slid from his embrace and brought a pile of books: "this and this are mine; these two I translated from the German, others from the old Provençal tongue, with which my father made me familiar." Then she told him how lovingly she did this work, how kind scholarly men had been to her, and how eagerly they had sought to know her otherwise than by letter--"Until, to-night, I bade them find Ross Norval's wife, and know the little girl who, shielded by his name, feared nothing any more."
"Percy," he said, quite humbly, "you must bear with me, dear. I lose all hope of winning you when I learn these things of you."
"But you are not sorry, Ross? I will not write any more if you dislike literary women."
But he stopped her: "Dislike it! I am proud as a king of all your endowments. But, sweetheart, you said a word just now that is worth all else that you have told me--a word, I know, you said only half meaning it. Oh, my little girl, will there ever come a time when, meaning it and out of a full heart, you will say, My love! my love!"
She held him tight a long, long moment, then with one lingering love-kiss on his lips--her very first--she said faintly, putting him away from her, "Ross, not now--wait, my dearest. Sheldon gave me this to give to you to-night;" and she held out a little worn letter, then buried her face upon his breast and tremblingly waited while he read it. It ran thus:
"Sheldon, my cousin, it can never be: give up all hope for ever. I kill it now, because it is best you should know the truth. I almost give up my life, my cousin, when I make my heritage of woe known to you. You will pity me, Sheldon, when you realize what agony the confession you thus wring from me gives my heart. But if it cures your passion it is not borne in vain. I love with an undying love, a faith that knows no change, an endurance that years of neglect have not weakened, that years of cruelty could never change, a man who would laugh to scorn my very name. I love--and have loved since I was sixteen years old, until now--Ross Norval. Keep my secret.
"PERCY HASTINGS."
It was dated four years back.
"Ross, Ross! you know it now! Oh, my love! my love!"
I will attempt no painting of the effect that confession had upon him. But after a long, long time she whispered, "I will sing the last verse of your song, dear, which only you shall ever hear." And lying on his breast, she sang--
"Dear love I thy face above me gleaming
A sunset radiance gives:
Ah, love! thy tones' sweet cadence dying
Sings in my heart and lives.
Clasped, love, close to thy heart, thy birdling
Foldeth her wings in peace--
Trusts, love! feeling nor cold nor shadow,
Finding at last her ease,
From fear a safe release,
Heart's love, with thee."
Margret Field.