The Story of Duciehurst: A Tale of the Mississippi

by Charles Egbert Craddock

“True—true; you might care to retain them if you should marry. But as they are so far beyond the pretensions of present-day ornaments, something more suitable—and—and your being extensively interested in cotton planting where money can be used to advantage——”

“And lost to disadvantage, too,” said Ducie, grimly.

“True—true—but the diamonds being wholly unproductive—they are cut in the old style, too, which tends to reduce their value——”

“You wouldn’t have an antique necklace with diamonds cut in the present style?”

“No—no; I was considering them as disassociated from their setting, which is very rare of workmanship—that is—I thought—the idea was suggested to me”—Mr. Dazzle did not intend to imperil his soul by lying in anybody’s interest—“the idea was suggested to me that perhaps you might care to sell.”

“Not at all. The necklace is reserved as a bridal gift,” said Ducie, precipitately.

“And a most magnificent one,” declared Mr. Dazzle, his face beaming with the enthusiasm befitting his vocation. “I hope you will give us the commission to clean and put the necklace in order, see to the clasp, which should be renewed, possibly, as a precaution against loss,—all those details. It will appear to twice the advantage that it did when I saw it at the time you and your brother had it appraised with a view to dividing the valuables found at Duciehurst.”

Ducie got rid of the man without further committing himself. Then in surprise he demanded of himself why he had said this thing, when nothing was further from his thoughts. In fact it had been thrown off on the spur of the moment, to be quit of Mrs. Floyd-Rosney’s suspected interference in his affairs. She wear the revered Ducie heirlooms! He would work his fingers to the bone before the jewels should go on the market. And the offensive suggestion that something simpler, cheaper, in the manner of the present day, might suffice for his bridal gifts when he should be called upon to make them, in order that the difference might go to forwarding his business, and ease the struggle for meat and bread, was so characteristic of the Floyd-Rosney methods of considering the affairs of other people that Randal could but ascribe it to her. But why had his ungoverned impulse broached the idea of a bridal present? he wondered. Her interest, her espionage in his most intimate personal concerns seemed sinister, and he would fain be rid of the very thought of her.

The reaction had been great when Paula had received back her crafty letter of condolence with the characteristic endorsement on the final page. Her pride was humiliated to the ground, and her heart pierced. She could not realize, she would not believe that he no longer loved her. She could but think that were not other considerations held paramount he would have flown to her arms. She became ingenious in constructing a mental status to justify his course on some other theory—any other theory—than a burned-out flame. He was in the thrall of public opinion, she argued. He fancied it would not sustain him in his devotion to the widow of the man who had murdered his brother. He was ready to sacrifice himself and her also that he might stand unchallenged by the world—the careless unnoting world, rolling on its own way, that would not know to-morrow a phase of the whole episode. What was a gossip’s tongue clacking here and there in comparison with their long deferred happiness. How should a censorious frown or a raised eyebrow outweigh all that they were, all that they had been to each other—their human, pulsing hearts! If she could only have speech of him—yet no! She could not say of her own initiative what had been most difficult to intimate in writing. She must wait, and plan, and watch, and be as patient as she might.

Her spirits had worn low in the process. She had begun to feel the keen griefs of a martyr. Through her love for this man, what had she not suffered? From the moment on the Cherokee Rose that she had seen his brother’s face, so nearly a facsimile of his own, her old love for him reasserted itself and would not be denied. Had not Adrian been of the passengers of the packet, had not so keen and intense a reminder of the old days risen before her, life would have gone on as heretofore. She would have continued to adjust her moods to the exactions of her arbitrary husband, as she had been well content to do. No jealousy would have inflamed his causeless suspicions. He would have been still in his lordly enjoyment of his rich opportunities and Adrian Ducie alive and well. She had been pilloried before the public gaze; her child had been torn from her bosom; her husband had made his name, the name she bore, infamous with a revolting crime, and was dead in his sins; and the man for whose sake—nay for the sake of a mere sweet memory of a boyish worship, a tender reciprocation of a pure and ardent attachment—this coil of events was set in motion, writes that he has read the story to the end of the page, and the book is closed. Ah, no—Randal Ducie, there is somewhat more, reading between the lines, for your perusal, and the book may be reopened. Her heart was full of reproach for him, and yet she believed that he loved her and secretly upbraided him that he did not love her more than the frown of the world,—that world to which she had in her fresh youth been glad to do homage on her bended knees, sacrificing him to it, and her plighted troth.