CHAPTER XX.—A Habit of Concealment.
Beela Undergoes a Transformation. The Uprising of the People. Contrition of Beela. I Declare Myself. An Amazing Disclosure by the King.
WHAT news, my friend?” I cheerily inquired.
“We’ll go to the king’s reception-room and talk,” she answered, looking at Christopher. “Dear old Christopher!” she said, deep and sweet.
“Yes,” I remarked; “I left the king in the anteroom.” Christopher and I followed her into the reception-room.
“He’s not there now,” she replied, seating herself, “but with the queen. Christopher, go and stand down the corridor, opposite the queen’s apartments, and wait for the king. Those lunatics may break loose again when they hear the mob outside the wall.”
He started.
“Christopher!” she called. He turned. “Do you love me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s all.”
I had never seen her so calm and steady, so rich in ultimate qualities, so little the volatile, meteoric, yet wise child-woman who had been my sunshine, my tease, my playfellow. She had become a composed and gracious woman. It came to me with something like pain that this was the truer and finer Beela. There was another feeling,—one of a great need in my life.
She wore a becoming dress that might have suited either a woman or a man; but everything about her spoke of the sweetness and grace that only a lovely woman can have. I was tired of the foolish Beelo sham. We had grown too near for me longer to tolerate that absurd barrier.
“Now for your news, dear Beela,” I asked.
There was the slightest start when she heard that pronunciation of the name, but she did not turn to me at once.
“When the earthquake began,” she said, “I ran to the queen, for such things frighten her dreadfully. After it was over there came the uproar by the servants. I locked the queen’s apartments and kept them out. But their noise frightened her even more than the earthquake, for they battered her doors. It wouldn’t do to admit them. Presently the king came by the private entrance, and although he was badly shaken, the necessity to comfort the queen brought him composure. They are together and quiet now. Then I came to this corridor, where the servants were massed against the door. I could do nothing with them. For a moment I was frightened when the door opened, but when I saw what Christopher’s plan was, I knew that all was safe. I went then and secured the gates opening to the palace grounds.”
“And what’s ahead, Beela?”
“The worst,” she quietly answered, but gave me a slow, mischievous look over that repetition of her feminine name. “We have a little time before the king comes,” she brightly added, “and we need it to rest.” There was a challenge in her glance.
“But the mob is coming!” I protested.
“The king told me that you and Christopher and I should be quiet till it assembles. Then he will come, for you.”
I drew up my stool facing her, took both her hands, and said:
“I have a confession to make, dear friend.”
“Really, Joseph?” she exclaimed in mock alarm, pronouncing the name perfectly.
“You know. And you’ve been only pretending that English wasn’t perfectly familiar to you.”
She gave a musical, purring little laugh. Any man would deserve great credit for self-restraint in resisting it—and the chin. Thenceforward she spoke in English of the purest accent.
“What’s the confession, Joseph?”
“I’ve known something for a long time, Beela, and I’ve been deceiving you with thinking that I didn’t know; but I did so because you evidently wished me to be deceived. Everything might have gone wrong if I had betrayed my knowledge to you. But it has served its time. You will forgive me for deceiving you,—dear?”
All that went to make her a miracle of precious womanhood was vibrant. There was the same sweet flutter that I had seen before in her velvety throat. Of course she enjoyed her little triumph of knowing that even for a time her deception had prospered, and she was a-thrill with the recollection of it. After that came contrition. A half-smile lingered on her lips, though her eyes were rueful.
“You are good and generous, Joseph, for not giving me a chiding word; and I don’t think there is the least of it in your big heart.”
“Chiding, sweet girl? I understood your feeling for the necessity of the deception. Your wish is my law, and to serve it is less a duty than a privilege.”
There was a slight puzzle in the glow that flooded her heavenly eyes.
“You found it out all by yourself, Joseph?”
“Yes, dear.”
“That is remarkable. Neither Christopher nor Annabel gave you the smallest hint? They knew.”
“Not the smallest.” The hurt of their keeping the secret from me must have shown in my face, for Beela laughed teasingly. It restored me. “You pledged Annabel not to tell me,” I said, “and Christopher is silent,—and a gentleman. Is that the explanation?”
“Yes.” A soft embarrassment crept over her, and she gently withdrew her hands and sat regarding me in sweet content. “I also have a confession to make, Joseph.” She tried hard to look just a trifle anxious. “What, dear?”
“Joseph!” she cried, frowning and stamping; “how can I think when that is in your eyes and your voice! I won’t look, and I won’t listen.” She turned her shoulder to me.
“What is in my eyes and my voice, dear?”
She sat still a moment, and then slowly turned her head a trifle and peered at me as if baffled.
“You mustn’t tease me, Joseph.”
She saw my smile and again turned away.
“What is the confession?” I asked.
“Let’s go back to the beginning. There were two real reasons why I posed as a boy. One was that it gave me more freedom of limb for going through the forest and for scaling the valley wall, and the other was that it made me less conspicuous to the guards,—I could have escaped if they had detected me. On my word, dear Joseph, I never intended to deceive you long about that.”
She cautiously looked round at me, for I was silent. A cheap resentment at learning that I had been unnecessarily tricked must have betrayed itself, for the dear girl took my hands.
“Joseph,———” she began.
“Then why did you keep it up, dear?” I asked.
“Joseph, the time was when your want of perception was mistaken by me for dulness, for obtuseness,—for such a lack of understanding as makes a man or a woman not worth while. But I discovered that it was not dulness at all. For a time I refused to believe that a human being could have what I saw in you.”
If I have ever seen wondering fondness it was in her eyes.
“What was it, dear?” I asked uneasily.
“Your trust which sees only the true, and, unwittingly taking into your heart the false with the true, makes the false true with your trust.”
I was silent with the deep thankfulness that God had sent such a woman into the world and into my meager life.
“So, Joseph, I prolonged that deception until all doubt of what you are was gone. I am glad that I did, and am sorry that I can think of no more tests.” There was a dash of her dear mischief in that speech. “And now that this is a time of confession and understanding,—you started it, remember,—I must say that one of the deceptions played on you———They were really harmless, weren’t they, dear Joseph?”
“Perfectly,” I smiled.
“——that one of them was unnecessary. It was such fun to play those pranks on you, Joseph! I couldn’t help it. I know it was wicked, but you were always gentle and kind, and I knew you would forgive me. Joseph, you would forgive me anything, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, dear heart.”
“It was delicious to see you walking so trustingly through the complications that beset you.”
“Dear!” I cried, my senses afloat and my arms aching for her; “I am only human. Your sweetness——”
She pushed back her chair before my advance.
“And you don’t know in the least,” she went flying on, “how often I had to leap from one of my selves to the other, and how exciting it was.”
I was getting little out of her chatter except the music of her voice and the picture of loveliness that she made.
“Don’t you care to know which of the deceptions was unnecessary?” she demanded, trying to look injured.
“Indeed I do.”
She came and stood beside me, gazing down into my face and clasping my hand warmly in both her own.
“Beela,” she answered.
“Beela?” after a mystified pause; then, thinking that she was teasing, I laughed.
She appeared much relieved, and brightly said: “I’m glad you understand and forgive me.... But you resented her at first.”
“Beelo had become very precious, dear, and so my readjustments where you are concerned are slow. But a new fondness grew with Beela’s coming.”
“Poor Joseph! And she wasn’t necessary. I am sorry now that I——”
“She? Who?”
“Beela.”
I was a little taken aback, but came to my feet with a dazzling consciousness that all the glories of earth were packed into this moment.
“Not at first, dear,” I said, “but in time she became more necessary than my life. My heart sits in gratitude at Lentala’s feet for sending me her sweet sister.”
She was stricken into a statue, and was staring at me as at some strange creature from another planet.
I stood in silent misery. How had I hurt her?
She took a turn of the room, and flung herself on her knees at the couch, buried her face in her arms, and went into laughter mingled with sobs. I seated myself on the couch and laid a caressing hand on her head.
“Beela,” I pleaded, “forgive me. Let me know what I have done that hurt you.”
“No,” she cried. “I wouldn’t for all the world! My heart is breaking with gladness!”
Surely no other mortal could have put such startling contradictions into so few words. My hand found hers; she caught it tight.
“You dear old Joseph!” she said. “Choseph, Choseph!”
It was plainly hysteria; the brave soul had been on a breaking strain too long. I drew her to me, bent her head to my shoulder, and pressed my cheek to hers.
“Dear heart!” I said.
She made no resistance, and gradually grew quiet.
“Sweet,” I went on, “we have been through many trials together, and there are more ahead. The days were dark till Beelo came. He stole into my heart with hope, courage, and love. A shock came when he passed. I don’t know, but perhaps I never should have loved you but for him. He was the sunny highway leading to you; and now I have the daring to lay my love and my life at your feet.”
The sigh that drifted through her parted lips had no threat for my anxiety, but she did not answer. Her hand gently drew mine down from her cheek, and she rose. She studied me a moment.
“Let’s talk, Joseph. Perhaps we have been hasty.” I noted the patient weariness in her voice. She sat beside me, and after a short silence resumed: “I have never loved a man till———It hasn’t been possible here. But you have known beautiful, lovely women.”
“Yes.”
“And liked them very much.”
“Very much.”
Her glance fell, and a little quiver crossed her lips.
“You have known Annabel a long time. You were close to her; you and she talked long and often.”
“Yes.”
“She is beautiful and sweet.”
“Exceptionally so.”
“And accomplished—and gracious—and has good manners and a velvet voice.”
“All of that.”
“And she’s kind—and gentle—and has high principles.”
“True.”
“She belongs to your people, your world.”
I only smiled.
“Joseph,” raising her sad eyes to mine, “you have loved her once, and now love me?”
“I have never loved Annabel, dear heart, but I do love you.”
“Why haven’t you loved her? How could you help it?”
“Because I was waiting for you.”
“You have never told her that you loved her?”
“No. But, dear Beela, I can’t discuss Annabel in this way.”
Her eyes blazed. “She loves you!”
“That is not true; and no one has the right to say such a thing of a woman without knowing that her love is returned.”
Beela bit her lip, and came stiffly to her feet.
“You are unkind!” she exclaimed. “I have a right—a woman’s right—to reasons for believing what is incredible without them.”
The picture of outraged dignity that she made was so ravishing that I feared my adoration would override the sternness which I had taken so much trouble to set in my face.
“What is incredible, dear?”
She impatiently turned away. I think she did it to hide a smile, but she was too wary to answer. Instead, she drew from her bosom the little toilet case I had given Lentala on the day of the feast, and gravely examined her reflection.
“If I were beautiful like Annabel,———” she began.
“Beela!”
“———or Lentala, and———”
“Beela!”
“———and were pink and white———”
“Beela!”
She made exactly such a face at herself in the mirror as Lentala had, and suddenly turned on me.
“Joseph, Lentala used to be beautiful and good and true, and an angel.”
“She is all of that yet.”
She returned the case to her bosom.
“I think you nearly loved her once.”
My tongue was silent. Beela laughed mischievously; little devils were dancing in her eyes.
“Joseph, I’m serious. Reflect because it wouldn’t be wise to act hastily now and suffer for the rest of life. Annabel would make a perfect wife. She would play no pranks and childish deceptions. You understand her and she knows you. I’m only a wild, uncouth savage.”
“Anything more, dear?” I wearily asked.
She gathered breath to resume: “And there’s Lentala. She is to be a queen some day, and very rich. With rank and wealth, she would be a shining woman in America, and her husband would be the happiest man in the world; for with all of that he would have the far richer treasure of her love.”
“A worthy man will come to her some day, Beela.”
“Didn’t you think she was—was fascinating?”
“I do think so.”
“Reflect again, Joseph: Would you prefer her poor, obscure, wild little sister?”
“Yes. But what right have we to make so free with Lentala’s name, especially as she is foreign to the matter?”
Again Beela was offended, but she controlled herself.
“You would be ashamed of me with people of your kind.”
“You alone are of my kind, dear Beela; and shame for you would be shame for myself, shame for all that is precious to me.”
“Suppose, Joseph, that I should refuse to leave this island.”
“The highest privilege of my life would be to stay here with you.”
She stood in a melting happiness.
Her rosy mouth was conveniently near. I should have been a fool to let the opportunity pass, and she was not on her guard. She drew back too late. The dignity with which she came to her feet had a new tenderness. I also rose. She gazed at me with a wistfulness that searched all the hidden places in my soul. Never had she been so lovely as in this moment.
“Dear Joseph, take more time. There is something... you don’t know, though I... thought you understood. Now I dare not———A great fear fills me.”
“Love knows no fear, sweetheart.”
“Not for itself, but for its loved ones. Joseph, will you forgive me? It was a foolish thing to do, and I am very, very sorry. Your trust has shamed me. Dear Joseph, I———But first let me tell you something else. The colony must now be marching out of the valley, for I told Captain Mason that a severe earthquake would be his signal for starting at once. Annabel is coming, and———”
The door opened to the king and Christopher. His Majesty, anxious and broken though he was, gave us an approving smile,—perhaps from what he read in our faces.
“My maddened people are gathering,” he said. “It was wise of you to lock the gates, my child. When the crowd grows larger it will begin an assault. That will be the time for me to appear. I will call out the soldiers from the crowd and put them under your command.”
That surprised me. “Pardon me, Sire. I understood your Majesty to say an hour ago that Lentala was to have command.”
“So I did.”
“But your Majesty has just said that Beela is to have it.”
“Beela? I couldn’t have said that, as I don’t know any such person.”
I was dismayed at the king’s apparent condition, and Beela in great perturbation was trying to speak. The man must be roused from his shaken state.
“This is Beela, Sire, Lentala’s sister.”
“She has no sister,” he answered clearly, and turned sharply on Beela. “Lentala, have you been playing one of your pranks?” He hurried her away as she was trying to speak.