University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.

The weather became oppressively hot, and Mr. Chilton, forsaking his usual
summer orbit, came quietly down to Carrick and took lodgings at the Mermaid's
Cave, Colonel Vaughn's absence preventing his receiving an invitation to stay
at Bonniemeer.

Neria watched the effect of this movement upon Francia with much interest,
for it had been too obvious during the last few weeks that some great anxiety
or doubt had taken possession of the child's mind, and was exerting a morbid
influence on her character. Neria, fastidiously delicate in her fear of intrusion
upon the personality of others, asked no questions—refrained, even, from that
mute sympathy which sometimes is more intrusive than a direct appeal; and

Francia, for the first time in her life, seemed inclined for meditation rather than
speech, so that, whatever lay beneath the surface, life at Bonniemeer went on as
usual. Mr. Chilton was there much of his time, of course, and seemed quite
sufficiently devoted to his beautiful fiancée—all the more so, perhaps, that she
no longer beamed full moon upon him, but had her hours of depression, abstraction,
even of pettishness. Also, she occasionally appeared with red eyes and
feverish lips—new symptoms in her sunny life. The lover was not slow to perceive
these changes, but, question he never so tenderly, could get no satisfactory
explanation of them, and occasionally departed for Carrick in an undignified
state of mind, characterized among children as “the sulks.”

Two or three weeks had passed after this fashion, when, one morning, as
Neria was about sending to Cragness to inquire for Mrs. Luttrell, Francia offered
to ride over herself.

“Mr. Chilton will be here soon, I suppose,” suggested Neria, glancing at
her watch. “You might wait and have his escort.”

“It's not worth while to delay,” returned Francia, hastily. “He may not
come before dinner, and it will soon be too hot to ride. I will just go over
alone.”

“Very well, dear,” said Neria, a little puzzled, for she knew that Francia
had once minded neither heat nor cold, and would have thought it little to wait
hours for her lover's company.

The black pony was brought round, and as Francia, settling herself in the
saddle, glanced toward the window with a nod and smile, Neria was struck with
the change a few weeks had wrought in her face. From very pretty she had
become lovely. The eyes that had been but roadside violets, smiling frankly up
at every passer, were of a sudden violets shyly blooming in the deep recesses
of a forest, where never penetrates the sun to drink the dew that trembles on
their lips—never comes ruder step or harsher voice than the fawn's and the
nightingale's.

The night of a year ago, when—she crowning him with water-lilies—Fergus
had called Francia Undine, floated into Neria's memory, and while she thought,
“It is the soul slowly crystallizing in the midst of her life that I see in her eyes
to-day,” she sighed.

Francia did her errand, and heard from Mrs. Brume that the invalid was no
better—in fact, grew daily worse; and, to the inquiry if Mrs. Vaughn could
send her anything, or offer any service, Nancy replied, with some hesitation,

“Well, if you or Miss Vaughn could come and set up a night with her, I
should be dreadful glad, for there's no one but the doctor and me, and we're
pretty near tuckered out. She's so notional she won't have a nuss, though I've
heerd him offer to send to the city for the best that's to be got.”

“Certainly we will come,” replied Francia, readily. “That is, I will; and I
have no doubt Mrs. Vaughn will, although she is not so strong as I. One of
us will come to-night.”

“That's real clever of you, now, I do say. I didn't expect both on you,
though the more the merrier; and you've got sickness to home, too.”

“Yes, poor Chloe does not grow any better; but Aunt Sally takes good care
of her, and Mrs. Vaughn sees about it. Good morning.”

“Good day, Miss Franc,” said the housekeeper, and stood in the door, one

skinny hand shading her eyes, while the other gathered together an apron not
absolutely clean, watching the graceful figure of the young girl as she rode
slowly down the beach.

“'Pears like there's something on her mind,” soliloquized she, at length.
“Wonder if she's heerd—”

Nancy went back to her work, and Francia rode pensively along the sands,
where now the noonday heat began to quiver in a shimmering cloud, while the
dunes heading the beach seemed parching and bleaching to a ghastlier white,
and the scattered tufts of beach-grass lay prostrate and wilting. The round
spot of shade at the foot of each ragged mound crawled slowly nearer to its
base, and following, inch by inch, the fierce sunlight drank up the dew that the
night had pityingly let fall upon the scorching traces of yesterday's heat.

A mile from Cragness the road to Bonniemeer wound in between two of
these dunes, and Francia had already drawn her pony's rein toward it, when eye
and hand were arrested by the sight of two figures, at some distance up the
beach, seated under the shadow of a great rock, against which the female figure
leaned, while her companion, stretched upon the sand, rested upon an elbow,
with his head so near her shoulder that, in that drowsy atmosphere, a speedy
contact seemed inevitable.

Francia's eyes were good, and her perceptions keen. Also she was Colonel
Vaughn's daughter, and with a sharp turn of the bit she guided her pony back
to the sands, put him to a canter, reduced, as she approached the rock, to a
walk, at which pace she passed, glancing across the two figures as she glanced
across the sands, across the gulls, as Lady Clara Vere de Vere glances across
the face of young Lawrence, when she no longer cares to remember him.

As she approached, Chilton sprang to his feet and advanced a step toward
her; then, catching the expression of her face, paused, and stood in all the awkward
embarrassment inevitable to the most polished dissembler at some points
of his career. His companion turned her face seaward and giggled nervously.
Leaving them thus, Francia paced slowly on, sitting her horse with the nonchalant
grace of an accomplished horsewoman, who feels herself free from the
restraint of spectators.

Surely, a throne is not such vantage ground as a horse's back. Mounted,
the rider who understands his horse, duplicates all the highest attributes of
humanity. He is braver, he is nobler, he is more decisive, apter to attempt redress
of the wrongs about him. Had Arthur's knights been foot-soldiers would
there ever have been a Round Table? Had the horse refused co-operation would
chivalry ever have glorified the earth, would the noble madness of the Crusades
have done its mighty work upon the civilization of the middle ages? “When I
am the king and you are the queen” we will apportion to every new-born child
a steady horse, upon whose back he shall be cradled, shall learn to sit upright,
shall find his home by day, his rest by night.

That evening, when Mr. Chilton appeared at Bonniemeer, very ill at ease, and
as doubtful of his reception as he had a right to be, he found Francia seated
with Neria in the drawing-room.

She bade him a courteous good-evening, but made no movement to meet
him, asked no questions as to his occupations through the day, showed neither
displeasure nor pique toward him, or indeed evinced any emotion whatever; and
the slight shade of reserve pervading her demeanor was so delicately drawn as
to give no ground for comment, or warrant any appeal for explanation.

Chilton made his adieu at an early hour, and walked slowly back to Carrick,

wondering whether he was most pleased or annoyed at the course his fiancée had
chosen. When he was gone, Francia rose, and, flitting restlessly about the room
for a few moments, came and threw herself upon the floor at Neria's feet, laying
her head upon her lap. It had been a favorite attitude of hers till lately, and
Neria fondly smoothed the bright brown hair that rippled beneath her fingers
like the tiny waves of a sunlit sea.

“Neria, darling, what shall I do?” whispered Francia.

“Ask your own heart, dear, not me,” said Neria, sadly.

“But, if my heart has misled me once?”

“Was it your heart or your fancy, your vanity, that misled you, Franc?”

“But, if I have done something and think I should not have done it, is it
worse to try to undo it, or to go on, hoping time will mend it?” asked the girl,
earnestly, while she raised a pale face to the mournful one bent over her, and
Neria said:

“O, Franc, how dare I advise you? I, who have guided my own life so ill.
I am afraid, dear, I cannot help you, and yet I will not refuse. Think of it to-night,
question your own heart, question the Father who, sooner or later, heals
all wounds, soothes all sorrows. Take council with the night, and if, to-morrow,
you still wish for such help as I can give, come and you shall have it.”

They kissed and bade good-night, each taking for her companion through
the sleepless hours, the Gordian knot which life presents to every one of us, and
which most of us spend our years in the effort to unravel, finally perhaps borrowing
of despair a sword to sever, not the knot, but the life entangled in it.

With the morning came Fergus, an unexpected envoy from his father to
Neria, upon some matter of business. The ladies were together when he
arrived, and from Neria he turned to Francia, who found beneath the courteousness
of his greeting, a formality and constraint that she, sighing, told herself
had been unknown to the old time. She sat while he talked with Neria, and
listened, not to his words but to his tones, firm, deep, and resolute. She looked
through her long lashes at his face; it was perhaps a little thinned, but full of
energy and determination.

“Very little effect could such a girl as I have on a nature like that,” thought
Francia sadly, and sighed.

At sound of the sigh Fergus glanced toward her, but directly averted his
eyes, and continued his conversation with Neria. So Francia took her sick
heart to the solitude of her chamber, and there listening to its moanings, determined
upon an experiment for its relief, in the heroic style of treatment.

When Mr. Chilton called, he was told that Miss Vaughn was not well and
could not see him. He came in, and encountered Fergus, and although Neria
exerted herself to fulfil every hospitable obligation to even an unwelcome guest,
Mr. Chilton found the atmosphere of Bonniemeer so oppressive that he declined
an invitation to dinner, and departed, to return in the evening.

Francia did not show herself until tea-time, when she came down stairs, pale,
but with such an expression on her face that Neria looking at her, thought “she
has resolved.” Fergus glanced once, and then away. Perhaps his own eyes
were for the next few moments more thoughtful than their wont, and certainly
he did not speak, but what Fergus thought on this, as on many points, it was
only Fergus who knew.

Tea over, Neria was called from the room a moment, and Francia, trembling
very much but still, with the heroic mood uppermost, said, quietly:

“Fergus, I should like to speak to you. Will you walk toward the lake
with me?” Her cousin looked at her with ill-concealed suspense, but replied:

“Certainly, I shall be very happy to do so. Will you go now?”

“Yes, if you please.”

“If Mr. Chilton calls, please say I am out,” added Francia, to the servant,
as she and her cousin passed through the hall.

Down the garden path, and through the dim oak wood to the pine grove
where the brown needles spread carpet-like under foot, and the heavy odor in
the air told where the sun had lain hottest, and still Francia had not spoken,
save in brief replies to the commonplace remarks of Fergus. They reached
the mere, whose placid waters lay sleeping in the twilight, with fairy palaces all
of gold and mother-of-pearl, showing fairly in their depths as the evening sky
bent down to kiss them. The boat lay there, the very boat where, twelve months
before, they all had sat—the memory brought so sharp a pang to the poor wounded
heart that from its very suffering it gained courage, and Francia desperately
began, “Fergus, you are my cousin, and I have no brother. I need a brother's
help and council to-night—will you give them to me?”

It was quite a moment before the answer came, and then it was,

“If you ask them in a matter where I may properly give them.”

“O, Fergus, do not be cold, do not be cautious; what concerns me, concerns
you; what I may properly confide to you, you may as properly discuss.”

“Go on, if you please, Francia.”

“You don't call me Franc now.”

Fergus glanced at her in surprise. The inconsequence of the reproach in
the midst of so much earnest feeling was so purely feminine a trait that his
virile nature failed to comprehend its consistency.

Francia as little comprehended his glance of surprise.

“Did you not mean to change?” asked she; “I am glad of that, but indeed
everything seems changed about us both. Last year, Fergus—do you remember?”

“What was it you wished to consult me upon, Francia?” asked Fergus,
gravely. Francia paused, collected herself, and said at last,

“It is this. If you have done a thing—made a promise, perhaps, and find
you were wrong—feel sure indeed that you should never have done it—what
then? Is it worse to break your promise, or to keep it, knowing it to be a bad
one?”

“You are too indefinite. I cannot answer so general a question,” said Fergus,
turning a little away from her, and looking far across the shining water to
where, over the eastern hill, hung a crescent moon with a great white star beneath.

Francia tried to speak, but the throbbing of her heart choked her voice.
She glanced at her cousin. Pale and stern, his eyes still bent upon the wan
moon, he gave no answer to the look. She tried again.

“It is about myself and Mr. Chilton,” said she, desperately. “I am afraid
I never ought to have been engaged to him. I am afraid I never really cared
for him. I think it was only my fancy, my vanity, that he appealed to. I
never have been quite happy, and lately, since I know what sort of a man he
is—” She waited, but Fergus remained silent and immovable.

“Ought I to break the engagement, Fergus, or to keep it? Which is more
dishonorable?”

At last he turned toward her, and in his brooding eyes she read the answer
before he slowly spoke it.

“Four months ago, Francia, when I, with every reason to suppose my love

returned, asked you to be my wife, you told me of this engagement. I gave
you then my opinion of it; I mentally foresaw that this very moment must arrive;
this, the beginning of a train of disgust, mortification, disgrace, should
you become Rafe Chilton's wife; of unceasing regret for a solemn promise
broken, a degrading experience undergone, if you do not. Choose between these
alternatives for yourself; I am the last adviser you should have sought. It is
a cardinal principle of my life to interfere in no affairs not connected with my
own. This certainly is not, and I must decline to express any opinion upon it.'

All the spirit of the Vaughns flashed in Francia's eyes, mantled in her
cheeks, and curved her lips.

“You will excuse me,” said she, coldly, “for intruding upon you affairs,
which, as you say, are certainly none of yours. I had been so foolish as to
imagine that being mine they might have an interest for you. The mistake will
never be repeated, and I hope, in the improbable event of your requiring sympathy
in some trouble of your own, you may meet a friend as nearly like yourself
as possible.”

She walked quickly up the path with feet that scarcely seemed to touch the
earth, and head haughtily uplifted to the evening sky. Fergus followed, saying
quietly,

“You are angry, and unjust, as angry people always are. When you think
calmly of what I have said, you will see that I am right.”

Francia did not reply, but hastened on toward the house, nor did her cousin
make any further attempt to conciliate her. In the hall they parted coldly, and
the next morning Fergus returned to the city.