A Changed Heart Part 54

"I hope I am not an intruder," that young officer said, coming forward, "but being at Mr. Blair's when your message arrived, and hearing you were well again, I could not forbear the pleasure of congratulating you.

The Princess of Speckport can be ill dispensed with by her adoring subjects."

Some one of Miss Henderson's innumerable admirers had dubbed her "Princess of Speckport," and the t.i.tle was not out of place. She laughed at his gallant speech, and held out her hand with frank grace.

"My friends are always welcome," she said, and here she was interrupted by a postman's knock at the door.

"Dear me! who can this be?" said Mrs. Hill, looking up over her spectacles, as Rosie opened the door.

It proved to be Mr. Val Blake. That gentleman being very busy all day, had found no time to inquire for Miss Henderson, until after tea, when, strolling out, with his pipe in his mouth, for his evening const.i.tutional, he had stepped around to ask Mrs. Hill. Miss Henderson appeared in person to answer his friendly inquiries, and Mr. Blake came in, nothing loth, and joined the party.

Some one proposed cards, after a while; and Mr. Blake, and Miss Blair, and Mrs. Hill, and Miss Clowrie, gathered round a pretty little card-table, but Miss Henderson retained her seat at the piano, singing, and playing operatic overtures. Captain Cavendish stood beside her, turning over her music, and looking down into the sparkling, beautiful face, with pa.s.sionately loving eyes. For the spell of the sorceress burdened him more this night than ever before, and the man's heart was going in great plunges against his side. He almost fancied she must hear its tumultuous beating, as she sat there in her beauty and her pride, the red gold gleaming in her black braids and on her brown arms. It had always been so easy before for him to say what was choking him now, and he had said it often enough, goodness knows, for the lesson to be easy.

But there was this difference--he loved this black-eyed sultana; and the fever called love makes a coward of the bravest of men. He feared what he had never feared before--a rejection; and a rejection from her, even the thought of one, nearly sent him mad.

And all this while Miss Olive Henderson sat on her piano-stool, and sang "Hear me, Norma," serenely unconscious of the storm going on in the English officer's breast. He had heard that very song a thousand times better sung, by Nathalie Marsh. Ah! poor forgotten Nathalie!--but he was not listening to the singing. For him, the circling sphere seemed momentarily standing still, and the business of life suspended. He was perfectly white in his agitation, and the hand that turned the leaves shook. His time had come. The card-party were too much absorbed in scoring their points to heed them, and now, or never, he must know his fate. What he said he never afterward knew--but Miss Henderson looked strangely startled by his white face and half incoherent sentences. The magical words were spoken; but as the self-possessed George Cavendish had never spoken thus before, and the supreme question, on which his life's destiny hung, asked.

The piano stood in a sort of recess, with a lace-draped window to the right, looking out upon Golden Row. Miss Henderson sat, all the time he was speaking, looking straight before her, out into the coldly moonlit street. Not once did her color change--no tremor made the scarlet flowers on her breast rise and fall--no flutter made the misty lace about her tremble. She was only very grave, ominously grave, and the man's heart turned sick with fear, as he watched her unchanging face and the dark gravity of her eyes. She was a long time in replying--all the while sitting there so very still, and looking steadfastly out at the quiet street; not once at him. When she did reply, it was the strangest answer he had ever received to such a declaration. The reply was another question.

"Captain Cavendish," she said, "I am an heiress, and you--pardon me--have the name of a fortune-hunter. If I were penniless, as I was before this wealth became mine--if by some accident I were to lose it again--would you say to me what you have said now?"

Would he? The answer was so vehement, so pa.s.sionate, that the veriest skeptic must have believed. His desperate earnestness was written in every line of his agitated face.

"I believe you," she said; "I believe you, Captain Cavendish. I think you do love me; but I--I do not love you in return."

He gave a sort of cry of despair, but she put up one hand to check him.

"I do not love you," she steadily repeated, "and I have never loved any one in this way. Perhaps it is not in me, and I do not care that it should be: there is misery enough in the world, Heaven knows, without that! I do not love you, Captain Cavendish, but I do not love any one else. I esteem and respect you; more, I like you: and if you can be content with this, I will be your wife. If you cannot, why, we will be friends as before, and----"

But he would not let her finish. He had caught her hand in his, and broke out into a rhapsody of incoherent thanks and delight.

"There, there!" she smilingly interposed, "that will do! Our friends at the card-table will hear you. Of one thing you may be certain: I shall be true to you until death. Your honor will be safe in my hands; and this friendly liking may grow into a warmer feeling by-and-by. I am not very romantic, Captain Cavendish, and you must not ask me for more than I can give."

But Captain Cavendish wanted no more. He was supremely blessed in what he had received, and his handsome face was radiant.

"My darling," he said, "I ask for no more! I shall think the devotion of a whole life too little to repay you for this."

"Very well," said Miss Henderson, rising; "and now, after that pretty speech, I think we had better join our friends, or my duty as hostess will be sadly neglected."

She stood behind Miss Laura Blair for the rest of the evening, watching the fluctuations of the game, and with no shadow of change in her laughing face. She stood there until the little party broke up, which was some time after ten, when Mr. Blair called around for Laura himself.

Miss Laura was not to say over and above obliged to her pa for this act of paternal affection--since she would have infinitely preferred the escort of Mr. Blake. That gentleman hooked his arm within that of Captain Cavendish, and bade Miss Blair good-night, with seraphic indifference.

Miss Henderson's bedroom windows commanded an eastward view of the bay, and when she went up to her room that night, she sat for a long time gazing out over the s.h.i.+ning track the full moon made for herself on the tranquil sea. "Gaspereaux month" had come around again, and the whole bay was dotted over with busy boats. She could see the fishermen casting their nets, now in the shadow, now in the glittering moonlight, and the peaceful beauty of the April night filled her heart with a deep, sweet sense of happiness. Perhaps it was the first time since her arrival in Speckport she had been really happy--a vague dread and uncertainty had hung over her, like that fabled sword, suspended by a single hair, and ready to fall at any moment. But the fear was gone, she was safe now--her inheritance was secure, and she was the promised wife of an honorable gentleman. Some day, perhaps, he might be a baronet, and she "my lady," and her ambitious heart throbbed faster at the thought.

She sat there, dreaming and feeling very happy, thinking of the double compact ratified that most eventful day, but she never once thanked G.o.d--never gave one thought to him to whom she owed it all. She sat there far into the night, thinking, and when she laid her head on the pillow and fell asleep, it was to act it all over in dreamland again.

Some one else lay awake a long time that night, thinking, too. Miss Clowrie, in the opposite chamber, did not sit up by the window; Mrs.

Hill would, no doubt, not have permitted it, and Miss Clowrie was a great deal too sensible a person to run the risk of catching cold. But, though she lay with her eyes shut she was not asleep, and Olive Henderson might not have dreamed quite such happy dreams had she known how dark and ominous were the thoughts the attorney's pale daughter was thinking.

CHAPTER XXVI.

MR. PAUL WYNDHAM.

On the morning after the day fraught with so many events to the heiress of Redmon, the mother of the late heiress sat in the sitting-room of her pleasant seaside home, reading a novel. The firelight shone on her mourning-dress, but the inward mourning was not very profound. She had cried a good deal at first for the loss of her son and daughter; she cried sometimes still when people talked to her about them; but she cried quite as much over the woes of her pet heroes and heroines, bound in paper and cloth, and slept just as soundly, and took her meals with as good a relish as ever she had done in her life. Mrs. Marsh was not greatly given to borrowed trouble; she took the goods the G.o.ds provided, and let to-morrow take care of itself, so long as she had enough for to-day. Mr. Val Blake paid the butcher's, and baker's, and grocer's bills quarterly; settled with Betsy Ann, and Miss Jo saw that she was well dressed; and Mrs. Marsh took all as a matter of course, and I don't think even once thanked Mr. Blake for his kindness.

On this sunny spring morning Mrs. Marsh sat comfortably reading, so absorbed in her book as to be out of the reach of all mundane affairs.

The book had a bright yellow cover, with a striking engraving of one man grasping another by the throat, and presenting a pistol at his head, and was called the "Red Robber of the Rocky Mountains"--a sequel to the "Black Brigand,"--when, just in the middle of a most thrilling chapter, Mrs. Marsh was disturbed by a knock at the front door. Betsy Ann answered the summons, and stood transfixed at the s.h.i.+ning apparition she beheld. A beautiful young lady, with big black eyes, that shone on Betsy Ann like two black diamonds, arrayed in rustling silk, and a rich creamy c.r.a.pe shawl, with a bonnet fine enough for the queen of England, stood before her, asking, in a silvery voice, if Mrs. Marsh were at home. Standing before the door was a small open carriage, drawn by two milk-white ponies; and Miss Laura Blair sat within, nodding pleasantly to her, Betsy Ann, and holding the reins. The girl, quite dazzled by the splendor of this early visitor, ushered the radiant vision into the room where her mistress sat, and Mrs. Marsh arose with an exclamation of surprise she could not repress. They had met a few times before at the houses of mutual friends, but this was the young lady's first call.

"Miss Henderson," Mrs. Marsh stammered, utterly at a loss what to say--"I am sure I am very glad to see you; I have not had many visitors of late."

Tears rose to her eyes as she spoke, with the thoughts of the pleasant days gone by, when the friends of Nathalie and Charley, the friends of their prosperity, had made the cottage more gay with laughter and music.

Miss Henderson was not looking at her, but into the red coal-fire.

"I have come on a little matter of business, Mrs. Marsh," she said. "I have come to fulfill a duty I owe to you. I know the story of the past, and, I am afraid, you must feel in some degree as if I had taken from you what should have been yours. Your--your daughter had no doubt a prior claim to what I now possess, and common justice requires you should not be defrauded. I am aware of Mr. Blake's great generosity, but the duty--and, I a.s.sure you, it is a pleasure to me--lies with me, not with him. I have, therefore, settled upon you, for life, an annuity of one hundred pounds per annum, which will be paid to you at my banker's, monthly or quarterly, as you may prefer. It was to say this I came so early this morning, but, if you will permit me, this visit shall be but the forerunner of many others."

She was standing up as she finished, with a look of intense relief at having accomplished her task, and Mrs. Marsh altogether too dazed and bewildered to utter a word.

"And I shall be very, very happy, my dear Mrs. Marsh," the heiress said, bending over her, and taking her hand, "if you will sometimes come up and see me. I have no mother, and I will look upon you as such, if you will let me."

Mrs. Marsh saw her go, feeling as though she were in a dream, or acting a chapter out of one of her own romances.

Miss Henderson took her place beside Laura in the pony carriage, and they drove slowly along Cottage Street, looking at the broad blue bay, sparkling in the suns.h.i.+ne, as if sown with stars. The beach, with its warm, white sands, edged the sea like a silver streak; and the waves sang their old music, as they crept up on its breast.

"How beautiful it all is!" the heiress cried, her dark face lighting up as it always did at sight of the ocean. "Let us get out, Laura; I could stay here listening to those sailors singing forever."

There were some idle boys at play on an old wharf, overgrown with moss and slimy seaweed, its tarry planks rotting in the sun.

Miss Henderson dropped a bright silver s.h.i.+lling into the dirty palm of one, and asked him to hold the ponies for ten minutes; and the two girls walked along the decaying and deserted old wharf together.

"My solemn Laura!" the heiress said, looking at her friend's grave face; "what a doleful countenance you wear! Of what are you thinking?"

"I am thinking of poor Nathalie Marsh," Laura answered; "it was on this very wharf she met her death, that wild, windy night. I have never been near the place since."

It is a remarkable trait of these swarthy faces that emotion does not pale them as it does their blonde neighbors--they darken. Miss Henderson's face darkened now--it always seemed to do so when the name of the dead girl was mentioned. She turned away from her friend, and stood staring moodily out to sea, until an exclamation from that young lady caused her to turn round and perceive that either the sea-wind or some other cause had very perceptibly heightened Miss Blair's color.

"I declare if that's not Val," Laura cried, "and that strange gentleman with him that came from New York the other day. There! they see us, and are coming here."

Miss Henderson looked indifferently as Mr. Blake and his friend approached. Val introduced his companion to the ladies as Mr. Paul Wyndham, of New York, and that gentleman was received graciously by Miss Blair, and coldly, not to say haughtily, by Miss Henderson.

The heiress did not like people from New York. She never talked about that city, if she could help it, and rather avoided all persons coming from it. She stood, looking vacantly out at the wide sea, and listening to the sailors' song, taking very little part in the conversation. She turned round, when the singing ceased, in the direction of her carriage, with a listless yawn she was at little trouble to suppress, and a bored look she took no pains to conceal. The gentlemen saw them safely off, and then loitered back to the old wharf.

"Well, Wyndham," Val asked, "and what do you think of the Princess of Speckport?"

Mr. Paul Wyndham did not immediately reply. He was leaning lazily against a rotten beam, lighting a cigar, for he was an inveterate smoker.

Mr. Wyndham was not handsome, he was not das.h.i.+ng--he had neither mustache nor whisker, nor an aquiline nose; and he could not dance or sing, or do anything else like any other young Christian gentleman. He was very slight and boyish of figure, with a pale, student-like face, a high forehead, deep-set eyes, a characteristic nose, and a thin and somewhat cynical mouth. There was character in everything about him, even in the mathematical precision of his dress, faultlessly neat in the smallest particular, and scrupulously simple. He looked like a gentleman and a student, and he was both. More, he was an author, a Bohemian, with a well-earned literary fame, at the age of seven-and-twenty. When he was a lad of seventeen he had started with his "knapsack on his back,"

containing a clean s.h.i.+rt, and a quire of foolscap, and had traveled through Europe and Asia, and had written two charming books of travel, that filled his pockets with dollars, and established his fame as an author. Since then he had written some half-dozen delightful novels, over which Laura Blair herself had cried and laughed alternately, although she did not know now that Mr. Wyndham and ---- ---- were one and the same. He had written plays that had run fifty nights at a time, and his sketches were the chief charm of one or two of the best American magazines. He was a poet, an author, a dramatist, sometimes an actor, when he took the notion, and a successful man in all. He looked as those inspired men who chain us with their wonderful word-painting should look, albeit I reiterate he was not handsome. He stood now leaning against the rotten beam, smoking his cigar, and looking dreamily over the s.h.i.+ning sea, while Mr. Blake repeated his question.