WAR CLOUDS.
"I hate November," cried Mrs. Eveleigh, coming into Elizabeth's room and bringing a whiff of cold air with her. "It's a mean month," she continued. "There's nothing but disagreeable things about it. The leaves are all gone, and the snow hasn't come. You can't even go out riding with any comfort, the ground is so frozen you are jolted to pieces." And with step emphasizing the petulance of her voice, the speaker turned from her companion and went to her own room, to put away her bonnet and the heavy cloak that, if it had not been able to protect her from the roughness of the roads, had kept the cold air from doing more than biting revengefully at her nose and the tips of her fingers, in place of all the mischief it would have been glad to inflict if it had had the chance. The steps grown fainter, went about the next room, and Elizabeth went on with her reading only half attentively, watching for the inevitable coming back. "But then," resumed Mrs. Eveleigh, returning to her subject as soon as she had opened the door wide enough to admit her voice, "one must see a little of the world sometimes. I'm coming in to warm my feet by your fire, shan't I? mine is low. I declare, it's hard that Nancy should be so partial to you. I can get scarcely any attention, though, to be sure, poor thing, it's well to have it from somebody, even if it is from dependents. And you don't get any too much from the quarter where you've a right to it."
Elizabeth, knowing it would be useless to attempt going on with her reading, had laid aside her book on Mrs. Eveleigh's entrance, and now she looked up from the sewing toward which she had reached out her hand, and said:—
"You know as well as I do that it is exactly as I want it. Mr. Archdale considers my wishes, and as to having a right, you know, Cousin Patience, that that is what is being disproved now. Haven't I declared that the ceremony was nothing at all?"
"Oh, certainly you have, but you'll find out how little good that will do. I have not an idea that you'll ever have a chance to say 'Yes' to that splendid Edmonson. You'll find it out soon enough, poor child."
Elizabeth flushed, then turned pale.
"Have you heard anything?" she asked.
"Not yet; not since that Mr. Harwin turned out a minister, just as I thought he would, and your case went to the court to be decided. You'll have the first news, I suppose, but I don't doubt what it will be."
"Neither do I," returned the girl, resolutely.
"We shall see," said Mrs. Eveleigh. "Do you know," she added, "that Mr. Edmonson came yesterday when you were out?"
"Yes."
Then there fell between the pair as long an interval of silence as Mrs. Eveleigh ever permitted where she was concerned. She broke it by asking, energetically:—
"Elizabeth, if you really believed that you were not Mr. Archdale's wife, why, in the name of wonder, did you go and put your whole fortune into his business? And why did your father let you?"
"My father had no legal right to interfere," said the girl, ignoring the first question, "and he did not choose to strain his authority. When was he ever unkind to me?"
"I think he was then, decidedly." And the speaker nodded her head with emphasis. "But you have not told me why you did it," she continued.
Elizabeth was silent a moment. "I had been the means of the whole thing being discovered," she said, "and I had hurt him enough already."
"And he let you risk your whole fortune just because you had happened to put your finger through a hole in the hall tapestry."
"No," cried Elizabeth, "he did no such thing. He is very angry with me now because I invested it; he is not willing, even though he knows that it's for Katie's sake."
"I thought you said just now that it was for Mr. Archdale's." Elizabeth looked at her, and smiled triumphantly.
"I did," she answered. "It's the same thing; I have always told you so."
"Um!" said Mrs. Eveleigh, and returned to the attack. "If he wouldn't take the money, how could you give it?" The girl was silent. "It was the father, I know; they say a penny never comes amiss to him."
"How did you find this out, Cousin Patience?" But Mrs. Eveleigh laughed instead of answering. "You have not spoken of it?" cried Elizabeth.
"Not a word. Why, I don't want to proclaim any one of my own family a goose." The only answer was a smile of satisfaction. "You don't mind being called a goose, I see," pursued the speaker.
"Not at all. I know it's often true. Only it doesn't happen to be true here."
Though Mrs. Eveleigh had so openly criticised Elizabeth, it would have gone ill with any one who had dared to follow her example. She was often annoyed by things in Elizabeth; but she believed in the girl's truth more than she did in her own. And there she was quite right. Now she began to talk about the portrait scene, and declared that Mr. Edmonson looked very handsome standing beside the old picture that he so much resembled.
"That portrait was Colonel Archdale's grandfather, his mother's father, Mr. Edmonson," explained Elizabeth, perceiving that her companion's ideas were somewhat mixed. And then Mrs. Eveleigh confessed that she had been trying to explain about the portrait and the relationship, and that though she had talked learnedly about the matter, she had been a little confused in her own mind.
"This portrait was in the colonel's father's house, lent him to be copied, and when he fled he took the original with him, and left the copy. It was a duel that he fought, and there was something irregular that he did about it. He went to Virginia, you remember, and while there he changed his name. Then he came here, and the search for him died out. The matter was hushed up some way, I suppose."
"And pretended that he belonged to a different race of Archdales in another part of England," asserted Mrs. Eveleigh, contemptuously.
"Perhaps we should, too, if we had been in his place."
"What! in his place, Elizabeth? Can you even imagine how you would feel if you had murdered anybody, or about the same as that?"
"Yes."
"Nonsense, my dear. You must have a powerful imagination; I shouldn't think it was healthy. There's no use, any way, in being so odd."
"No."
"First 'yes,' and then 'no,' and neither of them means anything. But if you haven't anything to say, I wish you would tell me how those people, the colonel's father and mother, happened to have a son living that they didn't know anything about."
Elizabeth, full of remembrance of the time when a human life, even if her own, had seemed light to her, could not help smiling at Mrs. Eveleigh's literal interpretation of things. "They had to escape at once," she said, "and the doctor said the child would die if he undertook a sea-voyage in that state. So she sent him to her father's home with a nurse who was very fond of him; he was a baby then. And she went away with her husband with the understanding that when the child recovered, as the doctor expected him to do, the nurse should bring him to her in America. And she left open some way of communication. But, instead of the baby, there came news that he was dead."
"And he wasn't dead?"
"No; his grandfather adopted him, and gave him his name. He hated Mr. Archdale; he had lost his daughter through him, and he determined to keep the child. So he bribed the nurse to report his death, and persuaded her that it was better for the little fellow to stay with him as his sole heir than follow the fortunes of a haunted man in a wilderness, as America must have been then."
"And do you really believe they never knew of this son of theirs being alive?"
"Mr. Archdale's will, if nothing else, proves that. He had three sons here, you remember; and the colonel, the eldest of these, was named Walter, after the one supposed to have died in England. And, now, you see how this trouble all happened. The will left the greater part of the property to Mr. Archdale's oldest son, Walter, whom he supposed the colonel. But the real oldest son, Walter, was this Mr. Edmonson's father. So that the colonel was really left penniless."
"Yes, yes, now I see," cried Mrs. Eveleigh. "You are like your father when you come to explanations, Elizabeth; a person can always get at what you mean. Now tell me about the portrait, how it came there, and how in the world Mr. Edmonson found it."
"I don't know how it came there," she answered, leading away from the rest of the question by adding, "I have never asked a word about it."
"Elizabeth! you are odd, that's certain. And if Mr. Archdale is never coming here any more, you will never have a chance now to ask him. It's a pity to be so diffident."
Elizabeth smiled a little. "What else did you hear this morning?" she asked.
"Nothing that will interest you, though of course I thought it would when I heard it. Stephen Archdale has come back from his expedition up to the Penobscots with Colonel Pepperell. I wonder how they succeeded?"
"I can tell you that. The Indians have sent word that they will not fight against their brothers of St. John's and New Brunswick. That means that they'll fight for them. We shall have an Indian war with the French one. Think of the horrors of it." She shuddered as she spoke.
"Yes," returned Mrs. Eveleigh, with calm acquiescence. "It will be dreadful for the people that live in the little villages and in the open country."
This calmness, as if one were gazing from an impregnable fortress upon the tortures and deaths of others, silenced Elizabeth. She looked the speaker over slowly and turned away.
"Any more news?" asked Mrs. Eveleigh in a cheerful tone.
"I can tell you nothing more," returned Elizabeth.
This was literally true. It would not have been true if she had said that she had heard nothing else, for she had been sitting with her father for an hour, and had learned of a secret scheme,—a scheme so daring that the very idea of it made her eyes kindle and her breath come quickly,—a scheme that if it should fail would be hooted at as the dream of vain-glorious madmen, and if it should succeed, would be called a stroke of genius—magnificent. It interested her to know that among the most eager to carry out the scheme was Major Vaughn, the man whose valor she had asserted to Sir Temple Dacre a few months before. A small band of men had pledged themselves to put reality into this dream of grand achievement. "Its failure means," thought Elizabeth, "that America is to be French and Jesuit; its success that Englishmen, and liberty of mind and conscience, rule here." She prayed and hoped for success, and took an eager interest in all the details of the scheme that had reached her; but these were meagre enough, for, as yet, it was only outlined; the main thing was that it was resolved upon. The prisoners captured at Canso had been at last exchanged. They had been brought to Boston, and had given valuable information about the place of their captivity, the stronghold of France in America. Governor Shirley had declared that Louisburg was to be captured, and that Colonel Pepperell was the man to do it. Elizabeth, as she looked across at Mrs. Eveleigh, wondered what she would say to the project. But she wondered in silence, not only because silence had been enjoined, but because this was not a woman to trust with the making of great events. She had heard of an Indian war, and her chief thought had been that she would be safe.
The war had been talked about all the autumn. It was a terrible necessity, but this new direction that it was to take was something worth pondering over.
Elizabeth naturally, took large views of things, and, as her father's companion, she had not learned to restrict them. But, also, for the last months she had perceived dimly that there was a power within her which might never be called into action. And this power rose, sometimes, with vehemence against the monotony of her surroundings, in the midst of her wealth of comforts and of affection.
It was the last of November, only two days after this conversation, that Stephen Archdale was announced.
"He has come to tell me the decision," said Elizabeth to Mrs. Eveleigh; "he promised he would come immediately. It's good news."
"Then what makes you so pale? And you're actually trembling."
Elizabeth looked at her companion in surprise, for all her years of acquaintance with her.
"Don't you understand?" she said. "The strain is to be taken off. The certainty must be good; and yet there is the possibility that it is not. This and the thought that the moment has come make me tremble."
As she was speaking she moved away and in another moment was in the drawing-room with Archdale.
"You have brought me word," she said, as soon as her greeting was over. "You have good news; I see it in your eyes."
"Yes," he answered. "I suppose you will call it good news. You are free; you are still Mistress Royal."
She clasped her hands impulsively, and retreated a few steps. It seemed to him as he watched her that her first emotion was a thankfulness as deep as a prayer. He saw that she could not speak. Then she came up to him holding out both her hands.
"Never was any one so welcome to me as you with your words this morning," she said. "I have not spoiled your life and Katie's."
"And you are free," he said again.
"Yes," she repeated, "I am free." And as she drew away her hands she made a movement almost imperceptible and instantly checked, as if she had thrown off some heavy weight. He read it, however, as he stood there with his eyes upon her face, which was bright with a thankfulness and a beauty that, although he had seen something of her possibilities of expression, he had never dreamed of. How glad she was! A pang went through him. He understood it afterward. It had meant that he was asking himself if Katie's face, when he told her the news, would look so happy at having gained him as this girl did at having lost him; and he had not been sure of it. All the autumn there had been strange fancies in his head about Katie. He had had no right, under the circumstances, to send Lord Bulchester away; but it had seemed strange to him that any girl's love of power should be carried so far if it were mere love of power that moved her. But no shadow on Elizabeth's face showed him that she dreamed of change in Katie, and Stephen felt rebuked that friendship could find its object more perfect than love did.
"Will the wedding be on the anniversary of the other one?" asked Elizabeth. "I suppose it will," she added; "Katie ought to have it so. That will come in three weeks. It will be a little time before you sail, if you go." And she smiled rather sadly, then glanced about her to make sure that the last remark had not been overheard.
"Ah!" he said, "I see you know all about the scheme on foot. But it is safe to trust you. You are very much interested," he added, watching her.
"Very much. My father does trust me a good deal. But I hope I shall not make him sorry for it."
Archdale kept on looking at her, and smiling.
"You prefer making people glad," he answered.
"But perhaps you will not go—now?" she said.
"Oh, yes. I promised my services to Colonel Pepperell last summer; that holds me, you see. Besides, I want to do my part."
"I could not imagine you standing idle by while others were striking the blows for our country," said Elizabeth. "Katie has told me a good deal about you at one time and another. Dear Katie!" she added in an undertone, with an exquisite gentleness in her face. Then, looking back from the window where her eyes had wandered, she turned off her emotion by some gay speech.
Very soon afterward the young man left her. For he was on his way to carry the news to Katie who was then in Boston visiting her aunt. But to go to her he passed Mr. Royal's door, and his wishes, as well as his promise, made him delay his own happiness for a moment to see Elizabeth rejoice. He saw her rejoice to his heart's content; and then he took leave of her for his happy meeting with his betrothed.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
3 ([return])
Copyright, 1884, by Frances C. Sparhawk.