39. CHAPTER XXXIX.
Before going to the daughter, Frank
went to the father, whose consent it will be
remembered that he had once asked but
not received, matters between the Beaumonts
and McAlisters being then in a
highly explosive state, smoking with a
promise of lofty flame and red-hot lava.
He found the Honorable Peyton in his
veranda, walking up and down with the
short, careful steps of a gouty man, and
smoking a cigar with an air of grinding it.
“Good evening,” said the lord of the
manor in the strong and rather too trumpet-like
tone which was habitual with him,
but at the same time amicably producing a
spare cigar. “Will you join me?”
“I wish to join you for life, Mr. Beaumont,”
replied Frank, not even seeing the
proffered Havana.
It was evident that Kate's father comprehended,
and that he was not entirely
gratified. Over his hard and highly colored
but expressive face there came a cloud,
which, if not downright displeasure, was
anxiety. Nevertheless, he looked into his
visitor's eyes with an air of attentive and
respectful meditation.
“Once more, Mr. Beaumont,” continued
Frank, unfalteringly, “I come to ask you
to let me tell you daughter that I love her
with all my heart.”
The simple earnestness of the phrase,
and the tremulous sincerity of the tone in
which it was uttered, shook all the father
in Peyton.
“Look here,” he said, throwing away his
cigar, and seizing both of Frank's hands.
“I have but a single objection. To yourself
I have none. I believe in you, Mr.
McAlister, I believe in your head and
your heart. But, I sometimes ask myself,
how long will peace last between our families,
much as we now prize it? How do I
know that you will not some day separate
me from my child?”
“From my wife, sir, you shall never be
separated,” answered Frank, returning the
other's spasmodic grasp. The two men
were locked together by their emotions; it
seemed to Beaumont as if he could not
escape, as if a fate held him fast.”
“I know that this marriage will be a
bond of union for us all,” continued Frank,
speaking for the moment with the sublimity
of a prophet.
“Ah, well, — so let it be,” returned Beaumont,
unable to resist this enthusiasm. “Go
and find her.”
Frank raised the hand of Beaumont, and
suddenly pressed it to his heart. It was a
hand which had shed McAlister blood, but
he forgot that; it was also the hand of his
loved one's father, and that alone he remembered.
Next, descending into the garden, where
he had already seen Kate through the twilight,
he sought her amid a perfumed tangle
of shrubbery and flowers. The faint
golden radiance which lingered in the west
revealed her; she appeared to him to be
standing in a delicate, unearthly halo of
luminousness; she reminded him of Murillo's
Immaculate Virgin showing through
hazes of aureoles. Although the comparison
sprang from the hot imagination of
strong affection, it was not altogether extravagant.
The greatest fact possible to
young womanhood, the consciousness of
loving and of being loved, had given Kate
the sweet serenity of a seraph. Moreover,
unmarried though she was, there was about
her something of the Madonna. Her face
had that various richness of expression
which we see in the faces of wives and
mothers so much oftener than in the faces
of maidens. Under suffering her mind and
heart had both expanded, and this development
of thought and feeling had given every
feature a new light, rising at times to a fulness
of meaning which seemed to comprehend
all womanhood.
There was just one blemish to the picture,
if so tender a thing may be called a
blemish. There was a tear; it hung upon
her eyelash as he softly approached her;
and when she turned at the sound of his
footsteps, it fell upon a white rose which
she held to her lips. She had been kissing
the rose because it was her grandfather's
favorite flower.
“Will you let me spend the future in
trying to console you for the past?” he
said, gently taking her hand.
Yes, such had been her history and such
was his nature, that his first words of love
to her must be words of comfort.
It was just what she craved; she could
hardly, under any circumstances, have answered
nay to such a plea; and loving him,
trusting him as she did, she only answered
by leaning on his breast and weeping there.
It was one of those sublime moments in the
life of the soul when it is mightier than the
body; when its emotions are so overpowering
that the voice fails at their mere advent
and can give them no utterance.
“I will console you for all,” he whispered,
his arm supporting her. “Every breath
that I draw shall be drawn for your happiness.”
What further was said between them we
will not repeat. The few syllables which
they exchanged had to their souls a fulness
and richness of meaning which would not
appear to those who should read them.
Their lips, touched by fire from heaven,
ennobled language far beyond its wont, and
made it like the speech of some better
world. Words became emotions, pouring
heart into heart, and mingling them forever.
As they returned to the house, Nellie
Armitage met them, gave one glance at her
sister's face, read with a woman's sympathetic
insight all that was in it, passed a
tremulous arm quickly around her neck,
and kissed her. Then pressing Frank's
hand vehemently, she went and wandered
alone in the darkling garden, calling to
mind how this same cup of happiness had
once been put to her lips, and obstinately
struggling to forget how it had been dashed
from them.
Major Lawson, lounging on the gravel-walk
before the house, also saw the young
couple, comprehended what had happened
to them, and halting with a start, stared
after them in ecstasy, muttering, “Bless my
body! It is done at last. The Montagues
and Capulets reconciled! Romeo and Juliet
to be married! Bless my body! I
could caper like a nigger. Bless my body!”
“I have won her,” was Frank's simple
address, when, wearing Kate proudly on his
arm, he reached Beaumont.
“Take her,” replied the father. “Only
remember that I have put my happiness as
well as hers in your hand.”
He kissed his child repeatedly, and then
resumed his solitary walk and cigar, feeling
deserted and sorrowful.
Well, a year more saw many events; the
marriage of Frank McAlister to Kate Beaumont;
the young man's installation over
the Kershaw estate, he giving up science as
a thing not yet required by Carolinians;
the marriage of Vincent Beaumont to Mary
McAlister, who became lady of the house in
the mansion of her ancestors enemies; the
marriage of Jenny Devine to Dr. Mattieson,
— “Just to console him for losing you,
my dear,” she said to Kate; finally, the
death of poor worn-out Mrs. Chester by softening
of the brain.
It will be understood, of course, that there
was no renewal of the famous feud which
had so long kept Hartland in cheerful, tragical
gossip, and made it feel itself to be the
most illustrious village of South Carolina.
It must be stated also that Peyton Beaumont
always remained satisfied with the
son-in-law who had come to him through so
many difficulties and whom he had accepted
with so much hesitation.
“By heavens, sir, he is Kershaw over
again,” he used to say. “I don't wonder
Kate picked him out of twenty. It 's astonishing
what a perception of character that
girl has. He is Kershaw over again.”
THE END.
