East Angels: A Novel

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

"Hark!" said Penelope, lifting a forefinger. "Yes—there they are!"

Seizing a little head-covering of green wools, the product of her own crochet-needle, she put it hastily on, and giving Middleton his hat and stick, went with him down the path towards the gate. A carriage had stopped, Dr. Kirby was helping some one to descend from the high, old-fashioned vehicle; the young figure in black, the bright hair under the veil, the overwhelming burst of sobs when she saw their familiar faces—yes, this was Garda who had come back to them, come back home, as they fondly called it; she had been widowed for more than a year, Lucian had died in Venice nineteen months before.

They brought her in, tenderly Mrs. Moore took off the crape bonnet; the girl cried bitterly, her head on Penelope's shoulder. There were tears in the eyes of the two men also; it seemed so strange that this bowed black figure should be their Garda, the beautiful, idle, young girl who had had such a genius for happiness that she had been able to extract full measure of it from even an old hammock and a crane.

Lucian had died suddenly of fever. Garda herself, prostrated by her grief, for months afterwards had scarcely raised her head. Dr. Kirby had started immediately, he had been with her through the worst of her illness. But she had not been alone; her devoted friends in Venice were two sisters and a brother, who, singularly enough, were cousins of Rosalie, Lucian's first wife, and of the same name, Bogardus. These staid, stout people had been fascinated with the Spensers from the first.

And when came the overwhelming blow of Lucian's death, the two ladies, Alicia and Gertrude, immediately took charge of the stricken young wife, and did it with a tenderness which even Dr. Kirby pronounced touching, when he himself arrived in Venice—as soon as was possible, but some weeks later. When Garda at last began to improve a little, her lassitude continued; it was evident that she would not be able to travel for some time to come. Meanwhile the poor Doctor's money was running out. Garda did not think of this; at present she thought only of her sorrow, and then, as had always been said of Garda, she never remembered money at all. Of course the Doctor would not confide to these strangers the embarrassments of his position. And no Bogardus, left to himself, would have been able to conceive the idea that a man, in his senses, could have started to come to Venice from the United States with so small a sum in his pocket as the Doctor had been able to provide. But the facts remained the same; Garda could not travel, the Doctor was obliged to say at last that he must go. In this emergency, Trude and Lish-er, as their brother called them, offered to remain with Mrs. Spenser for the present, to bring her by slow stages across Europe to England, and thence to New York, when she should be able to travel; while Dick Bogardus growled, "Much the best plan! much the best plan!" behind them.

The Doctor had never been able in the least to comprehend Dick, he considered him an extraordinary person; Dick was sixty, short in stature, gruff, and worth five millions. Dick, on his side, was sure that the Doctor was a little out of his mind. But Lish-er and Trude would be very kind to Garda, there could be no doubt of that; they showed an almost tyrannical fondness for her even now—the "thwarted maternal instinct" the Doctor in his own mind called it. And so at last it was arranged, and the anxious guardian started on his long journey homeward, with just enough money to carry him to Charleston (where he could borrow of Sally), and barely a cent to spare.

Lish-er and Trude took their time, they had not been so much interested in anything for years; they said to everybody that Garda was like their "own child." This, of course, was a great novelty. But in reality she was more like their doll—a very beautiful and precious one. Garda herself remained listless and passive. But her mere presence was enough for the two old maids; it was a sight to see them purchasing new mourning attire for her in Paris; to such friends as they met they announced that they were "so extremely occupied" that they hardly knew how they should "get through." But it could not last forever, even the buying of clothes in Paris, and at length they were forced to bring their charge over the ocean to New York—where all the other Bogarduses came to look at her, to see for themselves, if possible, what it could be which had roused such abnormal enthusiasm in "Dick and the girls."

"It's amazing how that Garda Thorne always contrives to make everybody serve her turn," was Aunt Katrina's comment, meanwhile, down in Gracias. "Here's a whole New York family—of our best people, too—waiting upon her slavishly, and bringing her across Europe like, like I don't know what;—like Cleopatra down the Nile!"

"I suppose you mean, then, that Dick Bogardus is Antony?" said Lanse, working away at his fish-net. He had learned to make his nets rapidly now, and was extremely proud of his handiwork; he gave away the results of his labors to "fishermen of good moral character;"—it was necessary that they should be moral.

At the moment when Garda was entering the rectory, Margaret, at East Angels, was coming down the stone stairway on her way to the lower door, where the phaeton and Telano were waiting; she was about to drive to Gracias. As she paused a moment on the bottom step to button her gloves, a long shadow darkened the flags at her feet; she looked up; Adolfo Torres was standing at the open portal. After making one of his formal bows he came towards her; a motion of his hand begged her to remain where she was. "I thought you would be going there," he said. "I have therefore brought these—will you take them for me?" Flowers were abundant in Gracias, but the roses he held towards her were extraordinarily beautiful; all crimson or pink, they glowed with color, and filled the hall with a rich cinnamon scent.