 | XXXII.
GUY IS LEFT ALONE. Lucy Arlyn |  |
32. XXXII.
GUY IS LEFT ALONE.
IT is with eventful epochs that history has most to
do. But there are others, equally momentous,
concerning which not much can ever be told. These
are the seasons of silence and ripening which precede the fall
of the fruit; when noiseless Nature, and the mysterious providence
of God, perfect, by interior process, the slow, subtle,
certain change, which is the real event, whereof the final catastrophe
that astonishes the insect on the apple — the human
insect on the world-apple — is but the sounding sequel.
It is so with nations reddening on the boughs of the ages.
So with the nameless unwritten tragedies of our friends and
neighbors which drop daily from the tree of life into oblivion.
Even so with this humble story, which also has its final days
of calm ripening, — the prelude to the end.
Days concerning which little can be said. The work of
the miners goes uniformly forward, inch by inch, with no
result amazing to the world as yet. The men continue to
smile at human credulity, and pocket their pay, or rather
accept, albeit unwillingly, trusting to the honor of the chief.
All have relied upon Guy from the first; and now Guy,
learning from grievous experience, relies upon himself. There
is a certain greatness about the fellow since the directors left
him to bear alone the burden which all were pledged to bear.
In faith and in action, he never once falters; carrying out
his logic to a stern conclusion.
Mr. Murk, the philanthropist, is phlegmatic as ever: a dull,
imperturbable, determined man, who thinks much at all times
that he does not speak, and especially at this time. Mad's fiery
temper continues repressed, — a volcano, so to speak, with
Christina's thumb over the vent. Christina herself is strangely
quiet, strangely abstracted; sometimes sitting half the day
gazing at Guy with those wonderful eyes of hers; all action
seeming withdrawn into her burning soul. And Biddikin
builds castles in the dim air of the future. And Lucy loves
her babe, and forgets to be lonely. And Archy goes on with
his corn-sheller, under impression. And Pelt is pretty well:
he thanks you with glimmering suavity. And Colonel Bannington
finds himself better this spring than he has been for
a year; hopes, indeed, that he is going to recover his legs. And
the end is near.
It is Saturday, late in May; and the tree begins to rustle.
The first leaf is blown to Abner's hand; the first breath of
the commotion touches his cheek, and blanches it.
The said leaf comes whirling down the avenue of Fate called
letter, addressed to Elphaz, bearing a startling postmark, and
a most startling postscript roughly scrawled on the envelope.
A crash is coming, and it behooves red-head to stand from
under. Indeed, what fealty does he owe to Pelt? The promised
partnership does not come to any thing, and he has reason
to suspect that Elphaz is fooling him. In that case, his business
is to take care of himself. Accordingly, he locks the
letter in a drawer, and, still pale with his agitation, hastens to
call on Lucy.
Guy is on the mountain. Late in the afternoon, he may be
seen issuing from the shaft with a troubled countenance. No
treasure yet, and no signs of any. In an hour, the miners
will finish their week's work. Upon the events of that hour
much depends. Murk is confident, that, at the last moment,
the hoards of the Spaniards will be laid open. But Guy is
in doubt. Only one thing is certain, — the workmen will demand
their wages. He has promised to pay up all arrears to-night.
This he hoped to do with Spanish coin; but, that there
might be no mistake in the matter, he instructed Lawyer Pelt
to use all diligence in raising money on the land placed at his
disposal. Pelt engaged that this business should be satisfactorily
accomplished early in the week, — certainly before Saturday;
yet Saturday is now drawing to a close, and he has
nothing for Guy but excuses, and a promise, that, on Monday
or Tuesday next, the farm shall positively be sold, and the
price paid. And Guy, unsuspicious of Pelt, is now considering
be put off, and induced to continue the work another week.
It must be so. His will decides it. The work SHALL go
on. He cannot doubt but another week will surely see the
silver-mine opened; and now it seems to him that the invisibles
should have some definite prophecy to make for his comfort
and guidance.
Anxiously wishing this, he approached a ledge where
Christina sat, and questioned her.
“I can only speak what is given me to speak,” she said,
with manifest aversion to the subject. “There's no use in
trying to force any thing of the kind,” — with a quick sigh,
her brows knitting.
Guy was disappointed, even pained. At the beginning
of the work, inspiration had been poured through her lips
whenever he desired it; but now it seemed as if even his
spiritual guides were forsaking him. “Why will they not
encourage me with one word? Hasn't my faith been sufficiently
tried? Don't I need the wisdom?”
“It is my fault!” exclaimed Christina despairingly. “I
haven't dared to tell you; but I fear I am loosing my mediumship.
When have I given any evidence that I still possess
it?”
“Every day,” said Guy. “There is that laughing
hyena,” — with a glance over the rocks at Mad: “you have
made a lamb of him, and you keep him so.”
“That's a woman's gift. I never yet saw the man I
swift searching look, then her eyes fell,— “except one.”
“Who was that?”
“Guy Bannington.”
“What! are you ambitious of any power over me which
you haven't already?”
Her foot tapped the ledge restlessly, and her fingers tore
the lichens. He watched her curiously.
“Go away!” she said impatiently. “I want to be alone.
What right have you to intrude upon my private thoughts?”
“None,” answered Guy, surprised and hurt. “I beg
your pardon,” — going.
“You are angry now because you can't control me as you
do everybody else,” she said. “I'm not one of your weak,
passive, negative women,—creatures called women. I am an
individual, — as much an individual as you are.”
“No doubt,” said Guy; “and — God knows — I have
no wish to control you or any one. To be an individual is —
to control one's self.”
“Which you do, and which I do not,” muttered Christina,
following him with intense eyes; more than ever his worshipper
at that moment; more than ever dissatisfied with her own restless,
perverse heart.
He was moving away, lonely and sorrowful, when Biddikin
popped up like a monkey in his path. Guy, tall and austere,
looked down inquiringly at the grimacing little doctor.
“Don't let me disturb your meditations,” squeaked the
weeks in arrears; and I suppose I must look to you for it.”
“Yes: everybody looks to me for what I haven't got.
But couldn't you forbear a little longer?”
Biddikin flirted his head, shaking off the question as a duck
does water, and obstinately compressing his lean, dogmatic
lips.
“I can only say my pension is due, and must be paid. In
case you refuse, the terms of my agreement with the association
are cancelled, and the treasure reverts to me.”
Guy smiled. “Take it, my friend, and welcome! Pay
off these men, and I will gladly leave it in your hands. But
seriously, doctor, you are just as much required to furnish
funds as I am. I never engaged to contribute a dollar. But
I have given many dollars; while all the expenses of your
house have been paid by the association. I have been hard
at work; while you have been walking about in your fine
clothes, fancying yourself a gentleman. Now, if your pension
must be paid,” —
“Well, sir! well, sir!” spluttered Biddikin.
“Why, man, you are just as much responsible for the
payment of it as I am.”
“I don't see it so, I don't see it so,” smirked the doctor.
“Well, no matter,” said Guy. “You shall be paid next
week.”
“Ah! if you say so, I am satisfied. Next week. Thank
you. Fine evening; beautiful sunset;” and, with his genteel
flourish, Biddikin passed on.
“Are you sure of the money?” asked Jehiel, who was
near.
“I have Pelt's word for it. He has found a purchaser for
the farm, — a Dutchman, whose gold we shall have the pleasure
of handling by Tuesday at the latest.”
Jehiel's face brightened. “That's good news. To tell
the honest truth, I'm in want of money.”
“It is too bad, Jehiel! You have come up here to work
out of pure friendship for me, and I've never paid you a dollar.
And there is Lucy's board since January.”
“Don't speak of it. You know there's nothing I wouldn't
do for you.”
Guy pressed his hand. “You sha'n't suffer for it. The
first of the Dutchman's gold shall go to you. If I live, you
shall be paid.”
Jehiel thanked him with emotion. And now the miners,
breaking off work, put on their coats, and got their tools together.
Guy knew what was coming. To be obliged to
withhold the wages of these honest laborers humilitated and
distressed him.
“I know what you expect of me, my men,” he said;
“and, if others had kept their promises to me, I should be able
now to keep mine to you. But we must learn patience.”
“All these difficulties are necessary for us, or they would
not be,” observed Mr. Murk with a dull complacent smile.
The countenances of the men looked gloomy. The reformer's
philosophy did not enliven them. Guy motioned him to
be silent.
“I have sold a piece of land, for which I should have received
upwards of two thousand dollars this day. Now, there
is no doubt whatever but I shall have this money on Tuesday;
and Wednesday, my men, shall see every one of you paid.
In the mean time, you must not go home quite penniless.
You will know how anxious I am to deal justly, when I tell
you this money” — giving one of them a sum to divide
— “is, as I may say, the blood of my best friends; in other
words, the price of my poor dogs.”
The frank and feeling manner in which he addressed them
was fast winning their entire confidence and sympathy. The
man to whom he gave the money looked at it as if he really
did not like to take it.
“I'm sorry you had to part with your dogs, sir. You
seem to be very fond of dogs.”
“I like them so well,” said Guy, “that, if I was able, I
would keep as many as Actæon had.”
“Who is he? I guess I don't know the gentleman,” said
the miner. “Had he many animals?”
“Fifty noble fellows! There was Lightfoot, and Quickscent,
and Whirlwind, and Racer, and Kill-deer, and Bouncer,
and more names which I can't translate; for Actæon lived
ever so long ago, and his dogs' titles are all Greek.”
Then Guy, seeing the men interested, proceeded to relate
how Actæon, chancing to discover Diana at her bath, was
transformed by her into a stag, and hunted down by his own
hounds. His humorous and familiar version of the classic
myth charmed his rude hearers. “And remember,” he added,
man whom the sight of female beauty plunges into sensuality,
— changes into a beast; and the dogs are his own passions
that devour him.”
With this pleasing moral he dismissed them; and all were
so captivated by his affability, that they forgot to grumble
about their wages, and readily agreed to return, and resume
their work on Monday.
And now all were gone but Christina and Guy. She
remained seated on the ledge; and he, unwilling to disturb
her or to leave her quite alone, walked to the verge of the
cliff, where he waited.
The sun was setting behind the sea of mountains. The
peaks all around were illumined with soft glorious light.
The wide green valley darkened with shadow, — solemn,
calm, and cool; the hemlocks gloomed black and melancholy;
and the last faintly gilding rays were fading from the crags.
“So ends another week!” thought Guy. Inexpressible
sadness came over him as he pondered and questioned the
future, and thought of his false friends, and bitterly asked
himself whether they were less faithful, or only less foolish,
than himself.
“Look!” said a voice at his side. “How richly old
Mount Solomon takes the sunset in the folds and creases of
his velvet mantle!”
Instead of regarding the mountain, Guy looked at her;
for it was Christina.
“Is my privacy any less sacred than yours?” he asked
with a smile.
She made no answer, but laid her head upon his shoulder
with the nestling fondness of a tired and penitent child. He
paid no attention to her. She waited a long time; then suddenly
pressed her lips to his arm, and bit it.
“I hate you!” she exclaimed; and, flinging herself from
him, sat down apart, behind the parapet of the ledge.
He went to her, and took her hand. She was shivering.
“You are ill,” he said gently.
“I am cold. I am chilled to the heart!”
“But you don't hate me, Christina? You will let me
warm you?”
He sat down by her side. He put his arms about her.
A strange spasm, half pleasure and half pain, swept over her.
He took her head upon his bosom, and smoothed her temples.
Then she looked up in his face.
“You treat me as if I was a child.”
“Why shouldn't I, when you act like a child?” But his
voice was tremulous; for he felt that not a child, but a woman
who loved him, was palpitating on his heart.
“You are so undemonstrative, so tantalizingly dignified,
you exasperate me! But you can thaw, can't you?” she
said, pouring all her fascinations into the smile with which
she looked up from his breast. “Say, do you really love
Lucy?”
“We have nothing to do with Lucy now,” he vaguely answered,
and he folded her closer.
“No!” she responded: “we have nothing to do with anybody
now. We belong to each other: don't you feel we
do? Oh, you warm me now! You love me! — don't deny
it. You will kill me if you are not good to me! I am wearing
my life out loving you, and you know it; and, O
Heaven! what happiness it might be!”
To stay the fiery flood which was sweeping him away, Guy
answered, —
“You have loved just so before, haven't you?”
“I thought I loved” —
“Tell me about it.”
“You will hate me if I do!”
“Then haste and tell me!” for he felt that to hate her
might save them both. Yet he spoke with tenderest playfulness,
and with passion in his eyes.
“I had a friend,” she said after a pause, — “Matilda.
She had a lover, — Charles. They were bethrothed. Matilda
was absent, and — I saw Charles. As he was the
only man who did not show a disgusting tendency to fling
himself at my feet, why, he was the only man I cared for.
I determined to win him; and I did. I pitied Matilda; but
— I believed he belonged to me, and not to her. I was a
woman: I triumphed. We were married. Then Matilda,
broken-hearted, came home to die. Charles grew restless.
I saw that he was unhappy. I knew then that he did not
him away from Matilda. Oh!” said Christian with
a shudder, “it has been the phantom of my life. They saw
each other, — passed some terrible hours together: he never
came back to me. He went to a hotel, locked himself in a
room, wrote me a letter, and shot himself. Then she died;
and I had murdered them both! Isn't that a pretty story?”
She raised her eyes to Guy. His countenance was rigid.
“What is the matter?” she asked. “Don't look so! for
Heaven's sake, don't! Have I horrified you?”
“You never spoke truer words!”
“Which? — when?”
“There is a magnetism of the senses which men fatally
mistake for love! God forgive me!”
“What have you done? What have I done?” she cried,
shrinking from him, alarmed at his strange aspect.
“Would you act your tragedy over again?” he said.
“You are a woman of great power; but do you know what has
attracted me to you? what has won, and will always retain,
my love and admiration? Your spiritual gifts, Christina.
Only these, my sister. And, if I have had for you a feeling
which a brother might not have, so far I have sinned. There
is one I love, as a true man loves but one. Spite of all our
differences, I love Lucy with my whole heart, — with my entire
manhood; and, before Heaven, she is my wife.”
Oh, could Lucy have heard him then! and could Christina
not have heard him!
She was paralyzed. She slid from his side like one dead.
She lay upon the cold crag, — an instant only; then she
slowly arose, pushed back her hair, smiled a glassy smile,
and said “Good-by!” with that frightful lightness of tone
which is more tragical than the wildest lamentation.
“Christina!” called Guy, extending his hand to her.
But she was gone.
| XXXII.
GUY IS LEFT ALONE. Lucy Arlyn | |