University of Virginia Library

40. CHAPTER XL.
A NO-SAY AND A YES-SAY.

The moon that lighted Neria on her true-love quest had waned and faded,
and a tender crescent hung in the west when Francia Vaughn, creeping from her
father's house like a guilty creature, stole through the shadowy garden and on
to the wood beyond, where lay the mere. But once within its friendly covert,
and shielded from all eyes, even those of the stars just trembling into view, she
paused, and throwing herself upon the ground, gave way to a burst of passionate
grief; grief of which only an ardent temperament, an untried nature, and the
first vigor of youth is capable. Later in life one's tears come more reluctantly,
and from a deeper source, until at last it is its very life that the stricken heart
distils in tears.

A firm, slow step came through the wood, and Francia, starting to her feet,
resolutely composed her face and turned to meet Fergus. He extended his
hand.

“I was looking for you, Francia, to say good-bye. I am going to Australia
on business, and shall sail in a week. I am, of course, much occupied, and could
only run down for to-night.” The awkward sentence ended in a pause as awkward.
Francia's cold fingers dropped lifelessly from Fergus's grasp, and she
stood silent with averted face.

“Shall we walk as far as the lake?” asked he again. “I have not seen it
in a long time.” Francia mutely turned her steps in that direction, and walked
beside him with eyes that, looking straight before her, saw nothing. They stood
upon the border of the little lake watching the shadow of the hills, the duplicate
crescent, the stars that momently showed more closely sown in the heaven below
as in that above. Fergus, the iron Fergus, felt the influence of the hour,
of his approaching departure, of the memories thronging the place and time,
and turning to his cousin took her hand and softly asked, “Not one word of regret
for me, Franc?”

She snatched her hand away, asking in turn, “Do you remember when we
last stood here, Fergus?”

“Yes. You asked me if you should keep or break your engagement with
Rafe Chilton.”

“Yes, and do you remember that, when I, with full heart, brought my sorrow
and my perplexity to you, you threw me off and told me that my affairs were not
yours, and that you would not interfere. Do you suppose that one such rebuff
is not enough?” The grief, so thinly cloaked by indignation, struggled up as
she spoke, and turning to meet his eyes, her own suddenly overflowed.

“That was long ago, Francia. I have changed since then,” said Fergus,
moodily; and turning slightly from her, he bitterly reviewed the months of the
last year.

“Yes, you have found what it was to love unwisely yourself since then,” exclaimed
Francia, hastily.

Fergus faced her, and, with his imperious eyes on hers, asked quietly, “What
do you mean, Francia?”

“Nothing. I did not mean to say that,” replied she, in confusion.

“Yes, but it is said, and now I must know what it means,” said Fergus, with
patient persistence.

“Well, then, I mean that when you thought my father was dead you loved

Neria,” said Francia, softly, and turning from him to pluck the leaves from the
rustling alder at her side.

Fergus was silent for some moments. At last he slowly said, “Some years
ago, while I was gunning among the Berkshire hills, I climbed a crag to reach a
gay tuft of flowers blooming there. As I drew myself up, a rattlesnake, basking
on the rock, gave an alarm, and, before I could retreat, struck his fangs into my
arm. I left the flowers where I had found them, and seating myself at the foot
of the rock, took out my hunting knife, cut away the wounded flesh, and then,
heating the knife at the fire I had just kindled, cauterized the wound. A scar
remains that no time will efface, and it was long before I could forget the pain,
but I was cured.”

He was silent, and Francia, still plucking at the alder leaves, said, bitterly,
“Yes, such a scar must remain through life.”

“Better a life-long scar than a coward's lingering death,” replied Fergus.

“Yes, your will decreed, then, that through torture you should retain your
life; it decrees, now, that through other and finer torture you shall retain your
peace of mind; but the body is forever maimed, the heart forever crushed,” said
Francia, gloomily.

Her cousin turned her face to his. “France,” said he, “why did you escape
through the window just now, when from behind the curtain you heard me tell
my uncle that I was going abroad?”

Francia blushed in spite of herself. “You saw me then?”

“Yes, saw and followed you. I wanted to know why you escaped.”

“To avoid the necessity of saying that I regretted your going,” retorted
Francia, desperate as any timid creature at bay.

“That answer deceives neither you nor me,” said Fergus, coolly. “Francia,
two years ago when I showed you that I loved you, or could love you, if you
had met me frankly and generously, as my love demanded, how much would
have been spared to both. You, too, wear your scars, poor child.”

“Mine is not the scar of an unrequited love,” interposed Francia, sharply.

“No, but of a desperate attempt to love an unworthy object. Tell me, now,
Francia, why did you engage yourself to Chilton?”

“He loved me, and you—you had never said—I thought you cared for Neria.”

“Impatient and jealous,” pronounced Fergus, remorselessly. “Do you know
now that you were wrong? Do you see now that by this course you so wounded
my love—”

“No, your pride,” interrupted Francia.

“Self-respect, I prefer to call it, and in my nature no love can be love that is
at war with this quality. This self-respect, Francia, forbid me then to love you
who had so doubted me, as it now forbids me to love the wife of another man.
This is the knife which has cauterized my moral hurt, and well is it for me that
I had it at hand.”

Francia turned earnestly toward him. “But you have a terrible enemy, Fergus,
in this darling self-reliance of yours. It is this that stands in the way of
pity and generosity, and all the gracious virtues that you lack.”

“After the cautery should come some blessed balm, and as it soothes the
burning pain, the heart finds rest and room for these gracious virtues. They do
not spring in the crisis of suffering and effort. Some such soothing balm as the
love of an affectionate heart, Francia.”

“And you would ask such love with nothing to offer in return but the pleasure
of soothing the scar of an unforgotten passion?” said Francia, with spirit.

“Am I selfish? Remember, I am a man, and it is for you, a woman, to soften
and refine my nature, nor look too curiously at the balance of benefit between
us,” said Fergus, somewhat sadly. “Come, little Francia, let us take what good
is left to us, and be thankful for it. Perhaps we never can go back to the glow
and glory of a first love; perhaps you never will be the woman, or I the man
we once were to each other, but there may be better things in the future for
us than we can now imagine. I need the influence of your warm and loving nature,
your grace and gayety; and you, my wilful cousin, will be none the worse
for a little training in law and order. Will you go with me to Australia, Francia,
as my wife?”

Francia hesitated for a moment, and then facing him, frankly said: “No,
Fergus. I do not like the way you have asked me to marry you, and although
you seem so confident of my consent I will not give it on such terms. You say
I love you, or you imply it. Well, I do not deny that I do, that I have always
loved you, and that my engagement to Rafe Chilton was, as you called it but
now, a movement of impatient jealousy. And yet with all this I value myself
too highly to take the position you would assign me. My love shall never be
used as a balm to heal the wound of another woman's indifference; I will not
accept permission to give you my whole life, taking in return such scraps and
fragments as are left when another has taken all that is best. If you cannot give
me the `glow and glory' of a full and honest love, be it first or be it second, I
will have none. I will never follow you forlornly through the world on the
chance that some indefinite future may reward me.”

“And yet you own that you love me,” said Fergus, somewhat bitterly.

“I love you so well that I would not have you marry a woman whom you
could not respect, and I respect you so much I know you could not really love a
woman who would accept the position you offer me. No, Fergus, I love you,
and I refuse you.”

Looking steadily into her face the young man read there a determination
equal to his own; a dignity and self-respect as firmly based as those forming
the foundation of his own character. Looking deep into the soul standing in
that moment unveiled before him, Fergus saw there, qualities he had never before
acknowledged, and the conviction flashed into his mind that should he lose
the prize a moment before so undervalued and now so tantalizingly withdrawn
from his grasp, the loss would be one that every day passing over his head
should magnify until it became the lasting regret of his life.

“Francia, I am sorry to have hurt you—” began he; and Francia, turning to
retrace her path, said quietly,

“I am sorry you did, but I forgive you Fergus. I am sure you will regret
it.”

She moved away with unaffected decision of manner, and Fergus, standing
discomfited and humiliated, where she left him, watched the lithe figure pass out
of his sight beneath the dewy arches of the wood, and felt, too late, the terrible
mistake which he had made. And Francia, too, despite her proud and resolute
bearing, did she not feel that this victory was almost more cruel than defeat?
Reaching the first flight of steps leading to the terrace, she sank down upon
them, faint and trembling, and, hiding her face in her hands, wished bitterly
that she might never stir again.

Half an hour later somebody descended the steps and stood before her. It
was Fergus, who, returning to the house by the more direct route, had seen her
from the terrace and, after one sharp short struggle between love and pride, had
come to say:

“Francia, I was very wrong, very much mistaken in what I said to you just
now. I do not ask your love without return; I ask it as a great and precious
gift, and I offer in return all the good of which my nature is capable. I love
you more than I myself know; more than I ever have or ever can, as I now believe,
love any other woman. If you will accept this love, and will return it, you
need never fear that I shall forget how much it is for me to ask or you to grant.
Do not judge me by my words, Francia; they are cold and hesitating; but you
are able, as you showed yourself but now, to read the thoughts and feeling below
the words. Read my heart, dear cousin, read it thoroughly, and you will be
content.”

He sat beside her, and the hands clasping hers were cold and tremulous as
her own. In the dim light Francia saw how pale his face had grown, how earnest
his eyes, how tender his mouth, and a great joy stirred at her heart. But
the next instant, with a cry of sudden terror, she snatched away her hands.

“O, Fergus, you do not know!”

“Not know what, Francia? What is it, dear?”

“My story—my mother—”

“Good heaven, what is this! Francia, you alarm me inexpressibly. Speak
out, I pray you.”

Francia wrung her hands despairingly. “You do not know, and I had forgotten
for one moment. I was so proud and glad that you should really love me at
last; and now, good-bye, dear, dear Fergus, it can never, never be—never while
we live.” She would have sprung away like a wounded fawn to hide her mortal
hurt in solitude; but Fergus seized her arm.

“No, Francia, you shall not go until you have explained these strange words.
When you refused me just now, you gave your reason, and a good one. That
reason is removed by what I said just now. You are satisfied on that point, are
you not?”

“Yes, fully satisfied; but this other is a more terrible obstacle, for it can
never be removed. Say good-bye, dear Fergus, and let me go. It must be so.”

“Never, Francia. I demand an explanation; I demand it of your justice
and your honor, and if you are what I think you I shall not appeal to them in
vain,” said Fergus, resolutely.

“Well, then,” cried Francia, desperately, “have it, and be satisfied. Mrs.
Rhee, my father's housekeeper, was an octoroon slave whom he bought at public
auction in Savannah. My mother was her daughter by the master who sold her.
My father married this free daughter of his slave, and I am her child. Now are
you content?”

She struggled in his grasp, and when he would not let her go fell moaning at
his feet in a passion of shame and grief too deep for tears. Fergus, grasping
her wrists with unconscious violence, stood looking down at her in mute astonishment
and dismay. Presently he raised her to her feet, and seating her again
upon the step, asked, quietly:

“Will you promise to remain here until I return?”

“Yes,” whispered the girl, her head falling helplessly upon her breast, her
arms and nerveless fingers hanging straight beside her.

Fergus looked at her a moment; and then, with slow and measured steps,
disappeared in the shadows of the grove. An hour had nearly gone when he
returned, and seating himself beside Francia, who had never moved, put his
arms around her and laid her head upon his breast.

“So let me shelter you so long as we both live,” said he. “I would not

yield to the impulse that bid me say so at first, for I dared not trust an impulse.
I would not risk wronging you by saying what I might repent. But that impulse
came from the inmost chamber of my heart; it is as vital as my conscience.
Francia, darling wife that you shall be if you will, never fancy that I remember
this in the future. You could not but tell me, and yet I would have you forget
that you have told me as soon as may be, lest at some time you may fancy me
so base as to point at it should I treat you less tenderly than I ought.”

“I never should suspect you of a meanness, Fergus. I know you too well.”

“But this secret, Francia, calls for such added consideration and delicacy on
my part, such thoughtful care and honor, that I fear my own harsh, hard nature;
and yet if I understand myself at all, I do not think I can fail to make you feel
how all my life and hopes and chance of becoming other and better than I am
are bound up in you. Francia, will you trust me?”

“With my life, and my soul,” whispered Francia.