A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 48

"I will remember what you say, and do my very best," said Laura earnestly, "for I do sincerely respect Mr. Haldane for his efforts to retrieve the past, and I should despise myself did I not appreciate the delicate consideration he has shown for me if he has such feelings as you suppose. Auntie!" she exclaimed after a moment, a sudden light breaking in upon her, "Mr. Haldane is your knight."

"And a very plain, prosaic knight, no doubt, he seems to you."

"I confess that he does, and yet when I think of it I admit that he has fought his way up against tremendous odds. Indeed, his present position in contrast with what he was involves so much hard fighting that I can only think of him as one of those plain, rugged men who have risen from the ranks."

"Look for the plain and rugged characteristics when he next calls," said Mrs. Arnot quietly. "One would have supposed that such a rugged nature would have interposed some of his angles in your way."

"Forgive me, auntie; I am inclined to think that I know very little about your knight; but it is natural that I should much prefer my own.

Your knight is like one of those remorseful men of the olden time who, partly from faith and partly in penance for past misdeeds, dons a suit of plain heavy iron armor, and goes away to parts unknown to fight the infidel. My knight is clad in s.h.i.+ning steel; nor is the steel less true because overlaid with a filagree of gold; and he will make the world better not by striking rude and ponderous blows, but by teaching it something of his own fair courtesy and his own rich culture."

"Your description of Haldane is very fanciful and a little far-fetched,"

said Mrs. Arnot, laughing; "should I reply in like vein I would only add that I believe that he will henceforth keep the 'white cross' on his knightly mantle unstained. Already he seems to have won a place in that ancient and honorable order established so many centuries ago, the members of which were ent.i.tled to inscribe upon their s.h.i.+elds the legend, 'He that ruleth his own spirit is better than he that taketh a city.' But we are carrying this fanciful imagery too far, and had better drop it altogether. I know that you will do for Haldane all that womanly delicacy permits, and that is all I wish. Mr. Beaumont's course toward you commands my entire respect. He long since asked both your uncle's consent and mine to pay you his addresses, and while we, of course, gave our approval, we have left you wholly free to follow the promptings of your own heart. In the world's estimation, Laura, it will be a brilliant alliance for each party; but my prayer shall be that it may be a happy and sympathetic union, and that you may find an unfailing and increasing content in each other's society. Nothing can compensate for the absence of a warm, kind heart, and the nature that is without it is like a home without a hearth-stone and a fire; the larger and more stately it is, the colder and more cheerless it seems."

Laura understood her aunt's allusion to her own bitter disappointment, and she almost s.h.i.+vered at the possibility of meeting a like experience.

CHAPTER XLVIII

MRS. ARNOT'S KNIGHT

It will not be supposed that Haldane was either blind or indifferent during the long months in which Beaumont, like a skilful engineer, was making his regular approaches to the fair lady whom he would win. He early foresaw what appeared to him would be the inevitable result, and yet, in spite of all his fort.i.tude, and the frequency with which he a.s.sured himself that it was natural, that it was best, that it was right, that this peerless woman should wed a man of Beaumont's position and culture, still that gentleman's a.s.sured deliberate advance was like the slow and torturing contraction of the walls of that terrible chamber in the Inquisition which, by an imperceptible movement, closed in upon and crushed the prisoner. For a time he felt that he could not endure the pain, and he grew haggard under it.

"What's the matter, my boy?" said Mr. Growther abruptly to him one evening. "You look as if something was a-gnawin' and a-eatin' your very heart out."

He satisfied his old friend by saying that he did not feel well, and surely one sick at heart as he was might justly say this.

Mr. Growther immediately suggested as remedies all the drugs he had ever heard of, and even volunteered to go after them; but Haldane said with a smile,

"I would not survive if I took a tenth part of the medicines you have named, and not one of them would do me any good. I think I'll take a walk instead."

Mr. Growther thought a few moments, and muttered to himself, "What a cussed old fool I've been to think that rhubob and jallup could touch his case! He's got something on his mind," and with a commendable delicacy he forbore to question and pry.

Gradually, however, Haldane obtained patience and then strength to meet what seemed inevitable, and to go forward with the strong, measured tread of a resolute soldier.

While pa.s.sing through his lonely and bitter conflict he learned the value and significance of that ancient prophecy, "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and we hid, as it were, our faces from him." How long, long ago G.o.d planned and purposed to win the sympathy and confidence of the suffering by coming so close to them in like experience that they could feel sure--yes, know--that he felt with them and for them.

Never before had the young man so fully realized how vital a privilege it was to be a disciple of Christ--to be near to him--and enjoy what resembled a companions.h.i.+p akin to that possessed by those who followed him up and down the rugged paths of Judea and Galilee.

When, at last, Laura's engagement became a recognized fact, he received the intelligence as quietly as the soldier who is ordered to take and hold a position that will long try his fort.i.tude and courage to the utmost.

As for Laura, the weeks that followed her engagement were like a beautiful dream, but one that was created largely by the springing hopes and buoyancy of youth, and the witchery of her own vivid imagination.

The springtime had come again, and the beauty and promise of her own future seemed reflected in nature. Every day she took long drives into the country with her lover, or made expeditions to picture galleries in New York; again, they would visit public parks or beautiful private grounds in which the landscape gardener had lavished his art. She lived and fairly revelled in a world of beauty, and for the time it intoxicated her with delight.

There was also such a chorus of congratulation that she could not help feeling complacent. Society indorsed her choice so emphatically and universally that she was sure she had made no mistake. She was caused to feel that she had carried off the richest prize ever known in Hillaton, and she was sufficiently human to be elated over the fact.

Nor was the congratulation all on one side. Society was quite as positive that Beaumont had been equally fortunate, and there were some that insisted that he had gained the richer prize. It was known that Laura had considerable property in her own name, and it was the general belief that she would eventually become heiress of a large part of the colossal fortune supposed to be in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Arnot.

In respect to character, beauty, accomplishments-in brief, the minor considerations in the world's estimation-it was admitted by all that Laura had few superiors. Mr. Beaumont's parents were lavish in the manifestations of their pleasure and approval. And thus it would seem that these two lives were fitly joined by the affinity of kindred tastes, by the congenial habits of equal rank, and by universal acclamation.

Gradually, however, the glamour thrown around her new relations.h.i.+p by its very novelty, by unnumbered congratulations, and the excitement attendant on so momentous a step in a young lady's life, began to pa.s.s away. Every fine drive in the country surrounding the city had been taken again and again; all the fine galleries had been visited, and the finer pictures admired and dwelt upon in Mr. Beaumont's refined and quiet tones, until there was little more to be said. Laura had come to know exactly why her favorite paintings were beautiful, and precisely the marks which gave them value. The pictures remained just as beautiful, but she became rather tired of hearing Mr. Beaumont a.n.a.lyze them. Not that she could find any fault with what he said, but it was the same thing over and over again. She became, slowly and unpleasantly, impressed with the thought that, while Mr. Beaumont would probably take the most correct view of every object that met his eye, he would always take the same view, and, having once heard him give an opinion, she could antic.i.p.ate on all future occasions just what he would say. We all know, by disagreeable experience, that no man is so wearisome as he who repeats himself over and over again without variation, no matter how approved his first utterance may have been. Beaumont was remarkably gifted with the power of forming a correct judgment of the technical work of others in all departments of art and literature, and to the perfecting of this accurate aesthetic taste he had given the energies of his maturer years. He had carefully scrutinized in every land all that the best judges considered pre-eminently great and beautiful, but his critical powers were those of an expert, a connoisseur, only. His mind had no freshness or originality. He had very little imagination. Laura's spirit would kindle before a beautiful painting until her eyes suffused with tears. He would observe coolly, with an eye that measured and compared everything with the received canons of art, and if the drawing and coloring were correct he was simply--satisfied.

Again, he had a habit of forgetting that he had given his artistic views upon a subject but a brief time before, and would repeat them almost word for word, and often his polished sentences and quiet monotone were as wearisome as a thrice-told tale.

As time wore on the disagreeable thought began to suggest itself to Laura that the man himself had culminated; that he was perfected to the limit of his nature, and finished off. She foresaw with dread that she might reach a point before very long when she would know all that he knew, or, at least, all that he kept in his mind, and that thereafter everything would be endless repet.i.tion to the end of life. He dressed very much the same every day; his habits were very uniform and methodical. In the world's estimation he was, indeed, a bright luminary, and he certainly resembled the heavenly bodies in the following respects. Laura was learning that she could calculate his...o...b..t to a nicety, and know beforehand what he would do and say in given conditions. When she came to know him better she might be able to trace the unwelcome resemblance still further, in the fact that he did not seem to be progressing toward anything, but was going round and round a habitual circle of thought and action, with himself as the centre of his universe.

Laura resisted the first and infrequent coming of these thoughts, as if they were suggestions of the evil one; but, in spite of all effort, all self-reproach, they would return. Sometimes as little a thing as an elegant pose--so perfect, indeed, as to suggest that it had been studied and learned by heart years ago--would occasion them, and the happy girl began to sigh over a faint foreboding of trouble.

By no word or thought did she ever show him what was pa.s.sing in her mind, and she would have to show such thoughts plainly before he would even dream of their existence, for no man ever more thoroughly believed in himself than did Auguste Beaumont. He was satisfied he had learned the best and most approved way of doing everything, and as his action was always the same, it was, therefore, always right. Moreover, Laura eventually divined, while calling with him on his parents, that the greatest heresy and most aggravated offence that any one could be guilty of in the Beaumont mansion would be to find fault with Auguste. It would be a crime for which neither reason nor palliation could be found.

Thus the prismatic hues which had surrounded this man began to fade, and Laura, who had hoped to escape the prose of life, was reluctantly compelled to admit to herself at times that she found her lover tiresomely prosy and "splendidly null."

In the meantime Haldane had finished the studies of his second year at the medical college, and had won the respect of his instructors by his careful attention to the lectures, and by a certain conscientious, painstaking manner, rather than by the display of any striking or brilliant qualities.

One July evening, before taking his summer vacation, he called on Mrs.

Arnot. The sky in the west was so threatening, and the storm came on so rapidly, that Mr. Beaumont did not venture down to the city, and Laura, partly to fill a vacant hour, and partly to discover wherein the man of to-day, of whom her aunt could speak in such high terms, differed from the youth that she, even as an immature girl, despised, determined to give Haldane a little close observation. When he entered she was at the piano, practicing a very difficult and intricate piece of music that Beaumont had recently brought to her, and he said:

"Please do not cease playing. Music, which is a part of your daily fare, is to me a rarely tasted luxury, for you know that in Hillaton there are but few public concerts even in winter."

She gave him a glance of genuine sympathy, as she remembered that only at a public concert where he could pay his way to an un.o.btrusive seat could he find opportunity to enjoy that which was a part of her daily life. In no parlor save her aunt's could he enjoy such refining pleasures, and for a reason that she knew well he had rarely availed himself of the privilege. Then another thought followed swiftly: "Surely a man so isolated and cut off from these aesthetic influences which Mr.

Beaumont regards as absolutely essential, must have become uncouth and angular in his development." The wish to discover how far this was true gave to her observation an increasing zest. She generously resolved, however, to give him as rich a musical banquet as it was in her power to furnish, if his eye and manner asked for it.

"Please continue what you were playing," he added, "it piques my curiosity."

As the musical intricacy which gave the rich but tangled fancies of a master-mind proceeded, his brow knit in perplexity, and at its close he shook his head and remarked:

"That is beyond me. Now and then I seemed to catch glimpses of meaning, and then all was obscure again."

"It is beyond me, too," said Mrs. Arnot with a laugh. "Come, Laura, give us something simple. I have heard severely cla.s.sical and intricate music so long that I am ready to welcome even 'Auld lang syne.'"

"I also will enjoy a change to something old and simple," said Laura, and her fingers glided into a selection which Haldane instantly recognized as Steibelt's Storm Rondo.

As Laura glanced at him she saw his deepening color, and then it suddenly flashed upon her when she had first played that music for him, and her own face flushed with annoyance at her forgetfulness. After playing it partly through she turned to her music-stand in search of something else, but Haldane said:

"Please finish the rondo, Miss Romeyn;" adding, with a frank laugh, "You have, no doubt, forgotten it; but you once, by means of this music, gave me one of the most deserved and wholesome lessons I ever received."

"Your generous acknowledgment of a fancied mistake at that time should have kept me from blunders this evening," she replied in a pained tone.

With a steady glance that held her eyes he said very quietly, and almost gently:

"You have made no blunder, Miss Romeyn. I do not ignore the past, nor do I wish it to be ignored with painstaking care. I am simply trying to face it and overcome it as I might an enemy. I may be wrong, for you know I have had little chance to become versed in the ways of good society; but it appears to me that it would be better even for those who are to spend but a social hour together that they should be free from the constraint which must exist when there is a constant effort to shun delicate or dangerous ground. Please finish the rondo; and also please remember that the ice is not thin here and there," he added with a smile.

Laura caught her aunt's glance, and the significant lighting up of her face, and, with an answering smile, she said:

"If you will permit me to change the figure, I will suggest that you have broken the ice so completely that I shall take you at your word, and play and sing just what you wish;" and, bent upon giving the young man all the pleasure she could, she exerted her powers to the utmost in widely varied selections; and while she saw that his technical knowledge was limited, it was clearly evident that he possessed a nature singularly responsive to musical thoughts and effects; indeed, she found a peculiar pleasure and incentive in glancing at his face from time to time, for she saw reflected there the varied characteristics of the melody. But once, as she looked up to see how he liked an old English ballad, she caught that which instantly brought the hot blood into her face.

Haldane had forgotten himself, forgotten that she belonged to another, and, under the spell of the old love song, had dropped his mask. She saw his heart in his gaze of deep, intense affection more plainly than spoken words could have revealed it.