 | III.
COLONEL BANNINGTON. Lucy Arlyn |  |
3. III.
COLONEL BANNINGTON.
ARCHY entered upon his new duties the next
morning. He was at first dreadfully afraid of
the colonel, and the sight of Guy reminded him
sharply of his woe: nevertheless, his occupation was little else
than sport.
The next day it had ceased to be a novelty, and he did not
like it quite so well. On the third day it became a very
serious business; and, on the fourth, drudgery. Geniuses do
not like drudgery.
Up and down the gravelled avenue, and round and round
among the garden-walks, all that fourth day afternoon, Archy
wheeled the colonel.
“Fast!” and he gave speed to the little vehicle. “Slow
now!” and they moved round more leisurely. “Halt!”
and at the word Archy stayed his hand, always gladly.
The colonel was flying from a hungry phantom which pursued
him ever, and whether he travelled or delayed, rode
who pushed, and preyed upon his soul.
A restless, middle-aged man, with silvered hair; sharp, attenuated
features; cold, keen eyes as gray as steel; an active
walker and bold rider once, energetic in business or sport, but
now a cripple, with his stricken limbs laid out helplessly before
him on his chair, — the colonel hated worse than death that
phantom of Ennui.
“It's a good thing to have legs, Archy!”
“Yes, sir!” said the genius emphatically, wiping his features.
“Run with 'em, and bring my shot-gun!”
Archy ran, and returned puffing.
“Forward!” said the colonel, cocking the piece, with his
eye on a woodpecker in one of the fruit-trees. “Halt!”
It started to fly. Bang! and the bird dropped with scarce a
flutter, falling aslant into a bed of verbenas, where its brilliant
cap and blood-stained plumage vied with the tints of the
flowers.
“Pick it up, and call the cat,” said the colonel bitterly.
He had shot the woodpecker; but he had not killed the
phantom, which was, after all, the object to be destroyed.
The cat devoured the bird, and the phantom devoured
him.
“Come, come!” he cried impatiently, as Archy returned
from feeding puss and replacing the gun. “Stir your legs
while you can! Maybe you'll wake up some morning, and
did, — dang 'em!” And the colonel struck his useless members
with his cane.
“I was running fast as I could!” said Archy. “I'm
some tired, though!” And he recommenced pushing.
“A hard way to earn three dollars a week, ain't it?”
“Yes, sir!” emphasized Archy.
“Well, you do so much better than I expected, I am going
to give you four.”
Archy's face beamed, so happy that it was a pity the colonel
could not see it. “Four dollars! — won't ma be glad!”
What he felt was audible in his tones, however; and for a
minute the colonel lost sight of the phantom.
“The sun is almost down. We'll feed the fish, Archy:
then you may go.”
The invalid guided his chair by a handle commanding the
front wheels, and so approached a fountain in the midst of
the garden. It was a marble-rimmed basin, with a brazen
swan in the centre, holding its neck upstretched, and spurting
from its bill a perpendicular jet, which kept a golden ball
whirling and dancing in the sunshine.
“Now bring some worms.”
This was the best sport of the day to Archy, who ran to
dig the bait.
The jet being shut off, the surface of the water, lately
dashed into glittering ripples, had by this time become tranquil;
and the colonel could see in the clear gravelled depths
of the fountain his favorite fish.
Archy soon came running with both fists closed; but tripped,
and, tumbling headlong, ruined a fine dahlia by his awkward
downfall. The colonel's eye glittered, and he uttered an exclamation.
“I — I hung on to the worms!” stammered the genius,
glancing, with a ludicrous expression of mingled seriousness
and fright, from the dahlia to the colonel.
“You are a blundering fellow! How did you lose those
fingers?” asked Bannington.
“Oh! cut 'em off,” said Archy, not inclined to enter into
particulars.
The colonel held a worm near the surface of the water, till
a large trout below began to stir himself, then rose, and with a
quick splash took it from his fingers.
“Drop one, Archy.” A worm fell on the water; and instantly
up flashed a smaller trout, showing his bright sides clear
above the surface.
Archy now got permission to feed one from his hand as the
colonel had done. But by this time the agreeable titillation
of the previously swallowed worm under the speckled waistcoat
of the great trout had rendered him bold and voracious;
and, leaping from the water, he not only took the offered
bait, but also Archy's unlucky finger, which he raked severely
with his fine sharp teeth. This was unexpected sport to the
colonel; but it lasted but a moment.
“Who's that girl passing?”
Archy forgot his finger, and gazed.
“A sweetheart of yours? She can't help casting an eye at
my flowers. Run and tell her to come in: I've something
for her.”
Archy gasped, and rubbed his hands on his trousers, and
turned white and red in streaks, as he went to execute this
order. The girl was hurrying away, and appeared to stop
reluctantly.
“Ah, Archy! how do you do?” she said with a faint smile
under her hood.
“Mr. Bannington, he wants to see ye,” said the genius
through the fence.
“Guy does?” in a startled whisper, with a flashing look
out of her surprised hazel-eyes.
“No: the cunnel. There he is!”
The surprise changed to consternation.
“Archy, I can't see him! What does he want, what can
he want, of me?”
“Oh! come in. He said so. He'll be mad if you don't!”
Archy gave an anxious glance over his shoulder. “Say,
Lucy: you know him, don't ye?”
“Too well! Go back: he calls you. I will come in.”
More agitated now than Archy himself, she returned to the
gate, and entered.
“Forward!” The colonel took a pair of scissors from his
pocket, and commenced cutting a bouquet from the flower-beds.
“Walk this way,” — to Lucy, who had paused by a
brilliant plot of pansies, and was waiting tremblingly. “Are
you fond of flowers?”
Then she saw, and Archy, collecting his wits, also discovered,
that he had not yet recognized her; and even the genius
experienced a qualm of apprehension, confusedly remembering
what cause she had to dread an encounter with the crippled
colonel.
“Sir — yes — I am very fond of them,” she managed to
utter, looking how to escape.
“Do you live in the village?”
“Yes, sir.” She bent over a heliotrope, and her hood hid
her face.
“Forward!” The colonel guided his chair round a
curved path, and came up before her. Lucy, perceiving that
a recognition was inevitable, strove to be calm. “Halt!”
He clipped a rose. “Help yourself to any thing I can't reach.
Call, when you pass this way again, and Archy — forward! —
shall give you some.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy.
The colonel started. He now observed a grace in her attitudes,
and a sweetness and refinement in her accents, which
could not belong to the sort of person he had supposed her;
and it may be, that, at the sight of those brown curls peeping
from the hood, old recollections began to rush upon him.
“Where do you live?” he inquired.
“Colonel Bannington,” said Lucy, “I thought you knew
me when you sent to call me in, else I should not have come,”
— turning full upon him her gentle face, full of timidity, pity,
and pleading.
“Arlyn's daughter!” almost shrieked the invalid, his
countenance fading white. “What are you here for?”
“Don't forget; you sent Archibald,” began Lucy: but
he did not hear.
“You have come to look at me; to see me with these legs;
to write to him how I go wheeled in a chair!”
“God knows,” cried Lucy, — “God knows, I am very sorry
for you!” clasping her hands with earnestness and anguish.
“And my father — my father would be sorry too, if he should
see you so!”
“Sorry!” hissed back the sick man, scattering the flowers
in his rage. “It's a lie! He crippled me; he put me in
this chair; and, if he was here, I'd have none of his sorrow, but
his own legs, by Heaven! I've a loaded gun for 'em when
he comes: tell him so, — tell him so! — Forward!”
Archy, beside himself with horror, mechanically held his
hand to the chair, but did not push.
“Colonel Bannington!” said Lucy, rising above all fear,
“my good friend once!” — and, advancing close to his
chair, she stood before him, and looked upon him, all love and
tears. “I remember, and you remember too, how I used to
play in this garden, and you were good to me” —
“Forward, I say!” — and the invalid twisted his arms
violently.
But Lucy did not step aside, and Archy did not push.
“You knew me then, — that I never lied to you; and you
must believe me now!” she went on with strange energy,
flashing out. “Believe me, my father never intended you
any injury, and is not the cause of this!” — with a glance
at the paralyzed limbs. “How could he be?”
“You'd better not, — better not!” threatened the cripple.
“Go!”
“I will; for, hate me as you may, I can't in return wish
you so much pain as the sight of me gives you,” with a handkerchief
striking the drops quickly from her eyes. “You
shall never see me again! Good-by!”
And she was gone.
Archy began to push.
“Stop!”
There lay upon the walk a rose the colonel had plucked for
her; and he must needs thrust his cane into it, and pierce and
tear it, as he had already pierced and torn her heart.
“Forward!” Dumb with dismay, Archy obeyed. “And
next time I say go on, do you go on, no matter who stands in
the way, if it's the Almighty!”
“Yes, sir,” assented the horrified Archy.
Clatter of hoofs was heard; and galloping up the avenue
came Guy, gayly mounted, and accompanied by three powerful
dogs. Passing the house-corner, he sprang off lightly,
dropping the reins on the horse's neck, and sending him to
the stables; then advanced to meet the invalid.
“Well, colonel, how have you got through the day?”
“Curse those animals! They come snuffing around me as
— “as if they wanted to see how much of me has died since
morning!'
“Ranger! Blackfoot! Bruce!” Guy pointed the way
the horse had gone before; and the dogs dropped their tails,
and followed, wonderfully to the relief of Archy.
Angry with himself at having been angry, the colonel
gnawed his nervous lips.
“I'm just like those diseased poplars, — dying limb by
limb: only with me the life and fire all crowds into the upper
parts as the lower parts die; that's what makes me so devilish
irritable! You must bear with me, boys!” His voice began
to break. “Help me into the house now: I feel the dew.
Guy, don't you look so sober: I hate to see you! What's the
matter?” sharply.
“I don't like to have you whip my dogs.”
“But do you really care if I strike the whelps?”
“No, nor if you strike me,” said Guy.
Brief, cold words, apparently, yet tender. Guy, aware
how it annoyed the colonel to see any one seem sorrowful on
his account, had feigned concern for his dogs; but his father
understood him, and they exchanged silent looks.
Guy motioned to Archy; and, lifting the carriage at the
door, they carried it up the steps, and set it down in the hall.
“There, Archy, you may go.” And Guy wheeled the
chair into the library; while the genius ran away, rejoicing at
his freedom, but looking back excitedly to see if the dogs
were after him.
Having secured the animals in the kennels, Guy returned
to the library.
The colonel was sitting with his back towards the door.
A salver spread with tea-things was in his lap, untouched.
Before him on the wall hung a pair of paintings, aglow in the
soft red twilight: one, a picture of a lady and child; the other,
of a military personage on horseback. He seemed gazing at
the portrait of the lady as Guy entered; then his head sank
shaking on his breast; and Guy, advancing, had a side
glimpse of the sick man's face, writhing with inward torment.
“Waiting to have me at supper with you?” said the son
carelessly, as if he had observed nothing. “I've had my
tea.”
The colonel grasped his knife and fork, his hands trembling
impotently over his toast.
“Is it you, Guy? Dang it!” — dropping his knife, —
“how a little excitement tears me to pieces now-days!”
And, attempting to sip his tea, he spilled it.
Guy pretended to be interested in a cactus that hung in a
basket before the window.
“How like a great crawling crab that thing looks, with its
awkward, jointed, long-reaching claws!”
“Guy, can you guess what'll happen next time that cactus
flowers?” asked the colonel. “It has blossomed twice:
each time there has been a change in our family. The first
time, I was married; the second time, my father died, —
be then, — a wedding or a funeral?”
“I did not know you were a superstitious man, colonel.”
The colonel again tried to eat his toast, but looked up at
his son standing by the window.
“You are a tolerably good-looking fellow, Guy.”
“And I am tolerably well aware of it.”
“No doubt! Why don't you get married?”
“I, colonel?” Guy shrugged his shoulders.
“You have sowed enough wild oats; but you have been
behaving a good deal better lately, and I didn't know but
there might be a reason for it.” Guy turned away his face.
“I should like to see you bring a beautiful young woman
into the house, Guy. I could preach you a sermon on that
subject; but” —
The colonel stopped. Spiked and bristling as the exterior
of his life was, there were green spots within that iron paling,
sacred as the graves of loved ones.
Guy turned, and looked at the portrait of himself on his
mother's knee, till his tears rushed up and blurred all.
“The house has been a barn since she went; and it will
be, Guy, until your wife comes. When she comes, — let me
give you a word of warning, — never,” said the colonel solemnly,
— “never, if you love her, give her an unkind look
or word!”
“If I love her, I surely shall not!”
“Don't we kill the things we love?” retorted the colonel
that soon enough!” — a prophecy which Guy had afterwards
bitter cause to remember. “Isn't that a woman's picture
you carry in your breast-pocket?”
Guy started like one who has a fatal secret on the point
of exposure. He took a chair, but, instead of sitting down,
leaned on the back of it, and twirled it under his hand.
“Don't be alarmed. I've seen you looking at it when
you thought I was asleep. No man looks at any but a woman's
picture the way you have looked at that.”
Guy began to pace the room excitedly.
“What's the matter? Won't she have you? By Jove,
boy! if you think of her as I guess you do by your looks,
you are no son of mine if you don't get her. Dang the obstacles,
rivals or parents or” —
“Parents?” eagerly asked Guy.
“Of course, parents are secondary.”
“But if you were a parent in the case?”
“I?” said the colonel impatiently. “Don't I know how
much we both need a woman in the house? And I've that
faith in your good sense and taste, that the girl that would
suit you would please me: any way, I'd risk it. I don't
care if she's poor; you've money enough: and I know you
wouldn't fall in love with one that wasn't beautiful; though
I might object if she wasn't.” And he glanced at the lady's
picture on the wall.
Guy fingered the miniature in his pocket nervously.
“Beautiful!” he said to himself, as if half tempted to produce
it, and show his father how beautiful.
“Then what or who is in the way? Is she already married?”
“No!” Guy bent his strong brows and clear blue eyes
upon the colonel, facing him boldly. “You are in the way!”
“I?” The sick man flashed. “She objects to me, then?
She knows what a sharp-tempered old cripple I am!”
“No, no, no!” cried Guy, his features charged with
emotion. “You shouldn't have made me talk on this subject:
we'll drop it.”
“No!” cried the colonel, with a sharp suspicion of the
truth. “Show me that picture.”
Deliberately Guy removed the tea-tray, wheeled the chair
to the window, and placed the daguerrotype open in the
colonel's hand.
For a long time, Colonel Bannington regarded it without a
word; and Guy, watching his features, saw them settle and
harden, implacable as stone.
“Guy!” — he raised his steel-gray eyes to the flushed
face of his son, — “the day and the hour I hear of your marrying
that girl, I put every dollar of my property beyond
your reach forever. That's all. You know me well.”
“Alas, I do!” said Guy bitterly, with resolute, proud-curving
lips: “you are the most vindictive of men!”
“I am vindictive as Cain,” answered the colonel. “Here
is your daguerrotype. Do with it and do with me as you
please.”
“Thank you: I shall. Good-night!” And Guy walked
away quietly enough, but inwardly furious with himself for
having suffered other eyes to desecrate Lucy's picture.
| III.
COLONEL BANNINGTON. Lucy Arlyn | |