East Angels: A Novel

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

This news had occasioned much relief. Also some conjecture. But Reginald Kirby did not conjecture when they told him the tale, he maintained an ominous silence. Too ominous, Mr. Moore thought: let ominousness be kept for one's attitude towards crime. The truth was that Mr. Moore, much as he admired Dr. Reginald (and he admired him sincerely), thought that he had just one little fault: he was disposed at times to be somewhat theatrical. So he spoke in his most amiable way of Garda's adventure being "idyllic," and turning to the Doctor, added, pleasantly, "Why so saturnine?" And then again (as it seemed to him a good phrase), "Why so saturnine?" And then a third time, and more playfully, as though it were a poetical quotation, "Why?—tell me why?"—which was indeed imitated from one of Penelope's songs, "Where, tell me where,"—referring to a Highland laddie.

The Doctor glared at him. Then he took him by the button and led him apart from the others. "Sir," he said, frowning, "you can take what stand you like in this matter, you are a clergyman, and a certain oatmealish view of things becomes your cloth; but I, sir, am a man of the world, and must act accordingly!" And leaving the parson to digest that, he returned to his post at the door.

When Betty came back from her interview with Aunt Dinah she brought with her a piece of hot corn-bread; "I thought you might like a taste of it," she said. Mrs. Kirby was very glad to get it; she sat breaking off small fragments and eating them carefully—Mrs. Rutherford would have said that she nibbled. "Yes, the sweetest thing!" continued Betty, seating herself broadly in an arm-chair, and searching again for her handkerchief. "Let me see—you and the Doctor started down here about midnight, didn't you? Well, of course we didn't feel like going to bed, of course, not knowing where our poor dear child might be, and so I went over and sat with Penelope Moore; and Mr. Moore very often went down to the gate, and indeed a good deal of the time he stayed out on the plaza; Telano's coming up from here had let everybody know what had happened, and many others sat up besides ourselves, and some of the servants got together with torches and went out on the barren to look, only Mr. Moore wouldn't organize a regular search, because he supposed that was being done here under the Doctor's directions, he never dreamed you hadn't got here at all! At length, when it was nearly three, Mr. Moore came in and said that he thought we had better go to bed and get what sleep we could; that we should only be perfectly useless and exhausted the next day if we sat up all night" (here little Mrs. Kirby heaved a noiseless sigh); "and so I went home, and did go to bed, but more to occupy the time than anything else, for of course it was simply impossible to sleep, anxious as I was. But I must have dropped off, after all, I reckon, because it was just dawn when Cynthy came up to tell me that Mr. Moore was down-stairs; I rushed down, and he said that Marcos Finish, the livery-stable man, had been to the rectory to say that Bartolo Johnson had come to his house a short time before, knocked him up, and told him that the northern gentleman and Garda were ten miles out on the barren, and that he had been sent in to bring out a carriage for them. He confessed—Bartolo—that he ought to have been there hours before, as the gentleman had sent him in on his own horse not much past eight in the evening. But, on the way, he had to pass the cabin of one of his friends, he said—a nice friend, that wild, drinking Joe Tasteen!—and Joe stopped him, and he intended to stay only a moment, of course, which soon became many minutes as the foolish boy lay on the floor in a drunken sleep, while two of Joe's hangers-on, though not actually Joe himself, I believe, made off with the horse. Of course it was a regular plot, and I'm afraid Mr. Winthrop will never see that horse again! When Bartolo did at last wake up, he came in to Gracias as fast as he could scamper, and went straight to Marcos's place and told all about it—the only redeeming feature in his part of the affair—and Marcos got out his carriage, and sent one of his best men as driver, with Bartolo as guide, and then he went over to your house to tell the Doctor, and not finding him, came on to the rectory, and Mr. Moore told him that he did wrong not to come to him before sending the carriage (but Marcos said Bartolo wouldn't wait), because he himself would have gone out in it after Garda, of course. This was the first we knew, in Gracias, of Mr. Winthrop's being with the dear child, and it did seem so fortunate that if they were to be lost at all, they should happen to be lost together. Mr. Moore thought, and so did Marcos Finish, that they would drive directly here, without stopping in Gracias, and so he rode down at once; and I was coming down myself, later, only they did that sweet thing, they stopped after all, and came to me. There they were in the drawing-room when I hurried down, Garda laughing, oh, so pretty, the dear! As soon as I knew, I took her in my arms and gave her a true mother's blessing. Oh, Mistress Kirby, how such days as this take us back to our own spring-time, to the first buddings and blossomings of our own dear days of love! I am sure—I am sure," continued Betty, overcome again, and lifting the handkerchief, "that we cannot but remember!"

Mrs. Kirby remembered; but not with her lachrymal glands; it was not everybody who was endowed with such copious wells there, suitable for every occasion, as Betty had been endowed with. She nodded her head slowly, and looked at the floor; she had finished the corn-bread, and now sat holding the remaining crumbs carefully in the palm of her hand, while, in a secondary current of thought (the first was occupied with Garda and her story), she wished that Betty had brought a plate. "Do what I can," she said to herself, "some of them will get on the carpet."

Garda, escaping from the Doctor, had gone to Margaret's room; she had not much hope of finding her; her not having been present to greet them seemed to indicate that she was with Mrs. Rutherford, and "with Mrs. Rutherford" was a hopeless bar for Garda. But Margaret was there.

Garda ran up to her and kissed her. "The only thing I cared about, Margaret, was you—whether you were anxious."

"How could I help being anxious?" Margaret answered. "It was the greatest relief when we heard that you had reached Gracias." She was seated, and did not rise; but she took the girl's hand and looked at her.

Garda sat down on a footstool, and rested her elbows on Margaret's knee. "You are so pale," she said.

"I am afraid we are all rather pale, we haven't been to bed; we were very anxious about you, and then Aunt Katrina has had one of her bad nights."

But Garda never had much to say about Aunt Katrina. She looked at Margaret with an unusually serious expression in her dark eyes; "I have something to tell you, Margaret. You know how wrong you have thought me in liking Lucian as I did; what do you say, then, to my liking somebody who is very different—Mr. Winthrop? What do you say to my marrying him? Not now; when I am two or three years older. He has always been so kind to me, and I like people who are kind. Of course you are ever so much surprised; but perhaps not more so than I am myself. I hope you won't dislike it; one of the pleasantest things about it to me is that it will keep me near you."