 | CHAPTER XVII.
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. Seacliff, or, The mystery of the Westervelts |  |
17. CHAPTER XVII.
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT.
SEVERAL days had elapsed since I beheld in the
hands of Genevieve that abominable plaid which
haunted Seacliff in such phantom fashion, disturbing
me whenever it met me as much as a ghost might have done.
I had reflected a great deal and very sadly on the probabilities
that she was the “guilty woman” of the mystery, and
had at last resolved that her error, no matter what it might
be, should not destroy nor even diminish my esteem for
her sister. I was saying just this to myself, one morning, as
I walked soberly up to Seacliff. Entering the veranda, I
met Mary Westervelt dressed in that very silk, that hateful
commixture of dead-leaf colors, which had become to my mind
the emblem of some unspeakable sin or calamity. The first
shock of that revelation, or what I took to be a revelation,
was woful. It seemed as if all that my heart loved and all
its powers of loving had suddenly become corruption; as if
the object of my passionate respect and the respect itself, the
idol and the idolater, fell dead corpses together. The only
words which I uttered were, “It is you, then!”
It was not to her presence there before me that I referred;
not to that every-day circumstance, now become suddenly
insignificant; but to that other, which just then opened like a
universe upon me; to the thought that now she must be the
object of my anxieties and my suspicions. Earnest and even
me, I spoke it with far more calmness than I have sometimes
been able to speak when my heart was full of hope and anxious
to utter itself in the kindliest, lovingest words that the
human soul conceives. I was petrified by the death-like
power and completeness of the calamity, and resigned myself
to it with that nerveless, abject submission which a culprit
yields to his executioner. I know that I did not start, and I
believe that there was no violent nor very unusual expression
on my countenance. Men receive such things differently,
according to their natures, rather than according to the nature
of the case.
“Yes, it is I,” she replied; “that is, I feel as sure as usual
of my identity.”
She gave a glance at my abstracted, settled face, and
colored a little. Perhaps she thought that I was about to
resume that sentimental conversation, which Master Willie's
nightmare had interrupted a week before, and push it to its
natural conclusion. She uttered presently some other remark,
which struck on my hearing, but made no impression on my
mind, so that, if I understood it, I forgot it in the same
second. At that moment a person called to her from the
library. I did not then notice at all whose voice it was,
although a while afterwards, perhaps an hour, it suddenly
occurred to me with perfect distinctness that it was her
father's. She asked me to walk into the parlor, and when
I replied, very tranquilly, that I thanked her but preferred
to stay in the veranda, she begged to be excused and
left me.
I sat down and sank into such a revery as a man has when
he is recovering from a fever; when his mind is faint and it
is occupation enough to watch the flies or count the spots on
the wall. Such a misfortune as I could not have conceived
the day before, without shuddering at myself for the thought,
had fallen upon me; and yet I could not be astonished at it,
could not call up resolution to deny it, could not even rage at
was the “guilty woman,” I had raved by myself; but
not so now, because a far deeper and more poisoned hurt
than that had pierced me. A man whose teeth have been
shattered, or whose hand is lacerated, may suffer anguish; but
he whose every limb is broken and whose entire body is
mangled, lies in an almost painless calm; and as it is with
this last, so is it with him whose soul is suddenly bruised by
some gigantic affliction. Furthermore, it is certain that every
serious wound, physical or spiritual, inflicts less pain at the
moment of reception than during countless moments of equal
duration for long afterward. I was now in this first stage of
suffering, when the lifeblood flows away, but when there are
no writhings of anguish. Not yet could fever set in, and inflammation,
and that slowly-torturing struggle, between the
powers of vitality on one side and the strength of the evil on
the other, which must be fought through before health can be
won again. To the mind, as well as to the body, it is the
cure which is the most painful, and not the blow. I do not
wish to convey the impression that I made all these reflections,
or any of them, at that time. I did not philosophize;
but I felt deeply and memorably.
After a while I thought that I heard the quick, quiet feet
of Miss Westervelt returning. I started up, hurried down
the steps, turned the corner of the house, and slunk away
among the closest thickets and arbors of the garden. Strange
as it may seem to the uninitiated in such mysteries, I dreaded
to look her in the face as much as if I were the culprit and
she the accuser.
What romantic boy has not imagined himself the hero of
some such position as mine was then? How often in my
teens had I pictured myself as loving some girl who would
not accept of me, and whom the finger of a retributive justice
had suddenly unveiled to me, and perhaps to the world, as
totally unworthy of love or respect! Oh! I had fairly revelled
in the contempt with which I would treat such a dishonored
eye of scorn, rejecting her worthless heart now that she
humbly sought to lay it at my feet, and retaining her in my
memory only as the Philistines brought Samson into their
temple, for an object of hate and derision. Well, the reality
or something like the reality of that delightful dream had
come at last, and how had it found me? Shrinking behind
a clump of lilacs, weak, abject, purposeless, and looking the
image of shame-faced guilt.
I was still pacing up and down across the shadow of a
bush, which, as I remember, gave me just three steps either
way, when Mr. Westervelt came hastily down the walk and
saluted me. He quite puzzled me with his ceremonious
greeting and his inquiries after my health; for at first I did
not remember that he had been absent from Seacliff, and that
he must have returned to it that very morning. He took my
arm and drew me on into a more extended promenade. I
noticed presently that he was talking, and I wished to myself
that he would stop his noise; but I retain no more recollection
of his words than of what tune the garden birds then
whistled. After a while he suddenly awakened my attention
by pronouncing the name of his eldest daughter. Then, all
at once, I listened eagerly, stepping as it were into the midst
of his conversation, so that it necessarily seemed to me that
he had entered on his subject with singular abruptness. He
spoke in his usual hesitating, uncertain, almost stammering
manner, drawing close to me all the while, but rarely looking
me in the eye. “I naturally want to see her—and, in fact,
both of them—settled,” were the first words fully comprehensible
to me. “My constitution is not vigorous, and the—the
course of nature generally carries off the parent first, so that
my feeling on the subject is—is natural. Ha? don't you
think so?”
“Of course; quite so,” said I, wondering what he was at and
why he talked to me about getting Miss Westervelt settled.
“I suppose,” he continued, “that you can see how she has
is, in a certain way—excellently in
most respects. Poor girls, brought up rich,—that is the
misery of our times, sir, particularly here in America. Poor
girls, brought up rich,—yes, sir. Well, what's the result?
ha ha” (feeble laughter). “The result is a rich husband, or
domestic unhappiness. Ha? quite right, am I not? Exactly
so. A poor girl brought up rich must have a rich
husband or be wretched.”
“Quite right; exactly so,” I repeated after him, as stolidly
as Johnny Treat recited his catechism. He was dreadfully
embarrassed with his subject, and got along very slowly and
lumberingly, unaided as he was by questions or pertinent
replies from his stupefied companion.
“I suppose you think it rather singular,” he resumed, after
hemming and hawing for half a minute;—“I suppose it must
appear quite strange to you, sir, that you should be admitted
—or rather that I should force you to become a confidant in
the affairs and prospects of my family. But the truth is that
we are under such—hem—obligations to you for the life,
perhaps, of our eldest daughter, that we feel bound not to
conceal from you anything of—hem—of particular importance.
It is not important, I am aware, to you, ha ha” (same
feeble attempt at laughter). “Of course not; but quite so to
us, you see; quite so.”
“O yes,” said I, staring vacantly at the irregular bridge
of his thin Roman nose; “quite so; of course.”
Why was he making these disclosures to me? Did he
suspect that I stood in the way of his plan for a marriage
between Miss Westervelt and the ready-moneyed Robert, and
was he warning me off from ground that for financial reasons
he wished another to occupy? I began to comprehend that
some such purpose was driving him onward through this
painful wilderness of stammering.
“Just so,” he prosecuted. “My daughter has—hem—I
should rather say that Robert has—but doubtless you have
have reason to suppose, has offered himself to her.” (He
spoke rapidly now, as if anxious to hurry over a debatable
point.) “And Mary, I understand, may be considered as having
shown herself agreeable to the—the young man.” (Perhaps
he did not dare to say, to the engagement.) “You will
excuse me, Mr. Fitz Hugh, for babbling to you in this childish
style. I beg your pardon sincerely for troubling you with an
affair so—so entirely unimportant to you. But, really, your
past kindness gives me a sort of excuse for taking up your
time—for boring you, in short, with our trivial secrets. You
have risked life and limb—in a measure—to save the life of
my daughter; and that must be my apology for dragging you
as it were into the sympathies of my family. Apropos of
this subject, allow me to thank you again, most heartily, for
the good service you did us. But for you, sir,—hem—I
might not have had a daughter Mary at this moment. You
will always have a place in our memories, and a place at our
table sir.”
“It is of no consequence, Sir,” said I, as vaguely and helplessly
as Mr. Toots himself.
“You, I hope, think well of Robert,—ha?” he continued,
without noticing the drift of my observation.
“Quite so; oh, certainly,” I mumbled. “A very good
match; very good, indeed.”
“I am glad you think so,” he replied cheerfully. “Your
favorable opinion gives me a great deal of satisfaction. You
are a keen observer of character, I am aware;—I noticed
that in your book, sir, with many other marks of talent;—
and, in short, I am delighted that you estimate Robert so
highly. I confess, frankly, that it would have been difficult
for me to suit myself more thoroughly in choosing a guardian
for my daughter. As I was just observing to you, a poor
girl brought up rich needs a rich husband; and Robert has
abundance—two hundred thousand at least—not to speak of
windfalls in the future. All safe too; not a dollar at risk;
being a father, sir—what a gratification it is to me to look
forward to putting my child's happiness on such a stable
basis, especially in these times, when business is in such a
terrible state, and I, for one, hardly know which way to turn
to face my liabilities. Even if I did not admire Robert so
much for his truly worthy character, I think I should consent
to the match for the sake of his eminently solid prospects.”
“You are very right, sir,” said I; “you have shown excellent
judgment.” I spoke up vigorously at last, for his
conversation had got to be annoying, and I was determined
to have done with it. Of what consequence to me now was
it whom she married and why she married him? “You
have made an admirable choice for Miss Westervelt; or
rather, she has made an admirable choice for herself.” I was
a little bitter in tone here, for after all, I felt indignant at
the match. “I congratulate her, and Mr. Van Leer also.”
“Very good! very kind of you!” he exclaimed with a
look of real pleasure and gratitude. “I thank you sincerely,
sir. I hoped you would be—be pleased; and I am glad,
very glad, to hear you say so.”
“And now, if you will excuse me,” said I, withdrawing my
arm from his,—“I have some business to attend to which
will busy me during the entire day. I must bid you good
morning.”
“Not for the entire day!” he replied. “Oh no! You
promised, I understand, to go out fishing with us this afternoon.
You must dine with us. Come, I insist upon it—I
do indeed, my dear sir! my dear Mr. Fitz Hugh!!”
Perhaps he suspected or believed that his disclosure had
pained me deeply, and felt that he ought to heal my wounded
heart by pouring the balm of hospitality into my stomach.
I resisted his invitations vigorously, but I could only escape
the dinner by swallowing the excursion. Getting away from
him at last, I hurried down a walk and came plump upon
Mrs. Van Leer, who was sitting in ambush on a bench in
while her black eyes lighted up with gay malice.
“Ah! and has papa given his consent?” she asked. “Of
course he has, if dear Mary is willing. “Oh! you are quite
right to look serious over it. Matrimony is a solemn affair.”
“Nonsense!” I replied, bluntly, and almost ferociously.
“I have asked nobody's consent, and I am not serious. Matrimony
may be a solemn affair, but that concerns you and
not me.”
“Oh! You relieve me immensely. I was beginning to be
horribly jealous.”
“I should think your husband would be,” I retorted with
awkward viciousness, as I cleared the garden fence and ran
down the hill.
I heard her laugh in reply; but out of sight, she was out
of mind. I reached home, stole unnoticed to my room, locked
the door, and paced up and down for I do not know how long
between the wall and the window. The wound in my heart
had done with its first bleeding, and already the inflammation
born from it was kindling mind and body into fever. I
fretted and fumed in whispers, buried my hot head in my
hands, buried it in my pillow, flung myself at full length on
the floor, started up to recommence my wearisome march,
and then fell again to grovel like an idiot. I never suspected
before, and I would not have believed, that I could be transported
to such excesses of angry unreason. There was, however,
something characteristic in the paroxysm, for although
I have the name of being gay and good-natured in ordinary
social intercourse, yet am I disposed to become obstinate,
reckless, and, I am afraid, almost brutal, under provocation.
After a long while, exhausted with this mute raving, I sat
down and tried to think; but at first every reflective power
seemed to have been drowned in that sea of wild blood which
had surged through my being. The only idea which I could
realize distinctly was that Miss Westervelt was now lost to
me utterly, and that it mattered little whether it were through
with Robert Van Leer. Meantime, what folly, what
wrong, did I accuse her of? Of no one thing distinctly, but
rather of a chaos of errors, which wearied me with their contradictions
and absurdities. It is the greatest shame of my
life, I think, that during that first hour of darkness, I suffered
myself to believe, though faintly and sorrowfully, that I had
proofs enough to affirm her guilty of some transgression, ambiguous
in nature, but certainly unworthy. It is not thus
hastily that we ought to judge the life result of one who
has borne unchallenged a spotless name. Robert Van Leer,
with his slow brain and steadfast heart, would not have been
that wavering, doubtful friend to Miss Westervelt that I
showed myself to be when the shadow of the Seacliff mystery
seemed to fall upon her.
But after that I drifted into a gentler current of feeling,
and caught sight of a shore to the horror, which bloomed
with some promise of innocence. Miss Westervelt was the
lady of the mystery; and therefore the mystery could not be
a guilty one. Through the mist of suspicion, across the rush
and surge of passion, I stretched out my hands to this therefore,
and held fast by it with such a struggle of faith as that
which saves a soul. I acknowledged that she was intimate
with a bad man; that she was under his influence, and perhaps
partly in his power; but what the secret of that influence
was, I would not even try to guess. It cannot be! it
cannot be! it cannot be! I kept repeating to the hateful
suggestions which climbed to my ear in spite of me, whispering
as the unbodied voices of fiends whispered to Christian
when he walked through the shadowy valley. Nevertheless,
I instantly added, it is better that she should be married to
Robert, and married soon, because it will tend to save her
from any net of devilish entanglement which may have been
laid for her ruin.
Presently I had a summons to dinner. Like all the plain
country people of New England, Ma and Pa Treat dined
always more or less of a ceremony; and every social ceremony
has, if not a calming, at least a repressive influence
upon emotion; so that, although I did not eat much and
talked in monosyllables, I rose from the table a more rational
creature than I sat down to it. Thankful for this wiser
frame of spirit, I made the most of it by devising a style of
conduct and conversation which should govern my future
intercourse with Miss Westervelt. Perhaps one might learn
something good from even Lucifer; and certainly I profited
on this occasion by the manners of Somerville. No sullenness,
no hard looks, no innuendoes! I said; but rather, a
calmer brow, a gentler eye, a more polished speech than
usual; a mask of impenetrable courtesy for all my suspicions
and grief and anger. Such would I be while I continued
near her; and the trial would not be hard, because it would
not be long. But I could not take flight instantly, I added:
no, that would look too capricious and unaccountable, or it
might be interpreted to my disadvantage and to that of
others; it might lead to whispers that I had been rejected,
that I had taken offence at trifles, &c. Oh, yes, I found
plenty of good reasons for not quitting the neighborhood of
Seacliff immediately.
Notwithstanding my sage reflections and resolutions, I felt
when I set out for the Westervelt house that my composure
tottered. Usually I ran up the little hill with ease; but now
it took away my breath, although I walked as slowly as to
a funeral; and at the summit I actually muttered a few
meaningless words to myself, merely to see if my voice remained
to me. It was a relief as I entered the veranda to
hear loud conversation within, for I felt that I could confront
half a dozen easier than one. And yet I was not a criminal;
the secret that shook me was another's. I suffered because I
was a human being; a dog in my place would have been
happy enough.
They were all ready, and waiting for me. Henry Van
with his broad-brimmed hat as he harangued concerning
the necessity of strict discipline, quiet and silence while
on the fishing-grounds. “I tell you I can't have so much
chattering and trotting about, and fussing at the lines as we
had before, and I won't have it, and so all you women take
notice and keep quiet, and let the lines alone.”
“Oh, stop your noise, Hen—ry!” retorted his wife. “I
can't hear myself talk. You needn't hector us, if you do
speak bass. You don't suppose we are going to lose our fun
mere—ly to catch a few ugly sharks, do you?”
“Why, that's the fun,” shouted Henry. “Why, good
Lord! you don't know what you're talking about!”
“Dear me, what a roar, Henry! I think you had better
take the first shark's skin and polish down your voice. They
say it's better than sand-paper.”
“Keep a stiff upper lip, Jule,” he replied, nodding with
a good-humored grin, his usual demeanor under her repartees.
Meanwhile I stood on one side, glad that no one addressed
me. I tried to control my eyes, but the traitors wandered to
and fro until they encountered the eyes of Miss Westervelt.
She too, it seemed to me, was endeavoring to withhold or
withdraw a look of timid inquiry, and to suppress an expression
of kind yet pained surprise, which made her face almost
reproachful. Her gaze dropped instantly before mine, then
rose with a start to the heavy visage of Robert Van Leer,
and then turned in assumed vacancy to an open window.
Her father has told her all, and perhaps more than all, I said
to myself; he has told her that I am willing to see her married
to another. In my turn I looked at Robert, wondering
whether he had finally triumphed in his suit, and dreading
to see the happy pride of an accepted lover emblazoned on
his oaken countenance. Considering how completely I had
given up Miss Westervelt, my relief at discovering no such
expression in him was somewhat absurd and uncharitable.
In a few minutes we were on board the little yacht Falcon.
She was a centre-board sloop of thirty tons burden, broad
in the beam, with a long and sharp run forward, a short one
aft, a wide stern, a very flat floor, and a draught of about
three feet at the rudder. Her hull was perfectly white, with
the exception of a narrow black streak just below the bulwarks.
Her spread of canvas was prodigious for her tonnage,
and with a light breeze she made twelve knots an
hour. Rough water knocked her about like an egg-shell;
but she was just the thing for skimming Long Island Sound.
In those days I had a fancy for a yacht, just proportioned
to my inability to keep one. The elastic stride of a fine horse
is not more exhilarating to me than the breezy bound and
foaming dip of a fast little vessel, flying, now seaward, now
landward, under a wind fragrant with freshness from the cool
meadows of ocean. I often spent an idle day (one of those
days when the brain declines to go into harness) in modelling
a miniature clipper for some of my youthful acquaintance,
and in watching its nautical triumphs over rival toys on some
rippling ocean, which, in my commonplace moments, I called
a pond or puddle. Those hours of play were as full of
pleasure and poetry as those other hours when I was building
a fairy tale or launching a ballad.
This afternoon not even the reality of yachting could
divert me. The excursion was the more painful because I
had expected to find a few moments of rich and strange happiness
in it, and felt now that those moments might never be.
I had meant to be near Miss Westervelt, to support her steps
across the wavering deck, to feel her weight resting on me,
no burden, and to whisper, perhaps, in her ear some of those
words that men rarely utter for the first time but in whispers.
Now I could only murmur to myself that saddest of sad
lines, “It might have been.”
Spreading her canvas, the light bark skated like a water
insect over the ripples of the cove, and dashed out among
the wavelets of the Sound. The helm was in the hand
Miss Westervelt sat behind him alone, leaning over
the low taffrail, and apparently lost in watching the foam
whirls which spun out rapidly astern, unwinding themselves
to naught across the hazy green water. The two Van Leer
men lounged amidships, overhauling the lines occasionally,
and speculating on our fishing prospects with a solemn earnestness
which seemed to me, of course, contemptibly misplaced
and ridiculous. Somerville lounged against the starboard
bulwark, talking to Mrs. Westervelt and Mrs. Van
Leer. Mr. Westervelt took short turns up and down the
tiny quarter-deck with Genevieve, and seemed to be remonstrating
timidly against some outbreak of her characteristic
pettishness, while the girl continued to make quick replies,
shake her head strenuously, and fling angry glances in the
direction of the group at the starboard bulwark. All at once
it struck me, not perhaps for the first time, but now first with
distinctness and vividness, that this ill-humor, this feminine
savageness, which I had long seen and disliked in her, had
for its object, not Mrs. Westervelt, but Somerville. The hiss
and ripple of waters prevented me from catching what she
said; but several times I saw her lips formed as if to syllable
his name. Had I at last hit upon the true secret of her
petulance? Was it that she hated Somerville, and hated him
for good cause? I watched her with great interest now, as
she fumed away after her defiant fashion, while her father
tried in vain to hush her, patting her hand with his, and looking
over his cringing shoulders at every turn.
“Come, Mr. Fitz Hugh, you must be my pirate,—my particular
buccaneer,” said Cousin Jule, leaving her party, and
coming to take my arm. Obeying her impulsion, I led her
forward to the forecastle, where we leaned over the bulwark
and watched the sharp prow drive through the faintly creaming
waters. She commenced her usual coquetries; asking me
how I would like to be a corsair, and carry off women; whether
I would pick out rich victims, or consult taste merely, and select
and a voyage to the Isle of Pines; declaring that she should
perfectly delight in such an adventure, and so on. But
something presently occurred which made romance shrink
away and hide itself. As we passed the point, and the breeze
freshened, her chatter suddenly ceased, and she became so
significantly white about the mouth, that I offered my arm
and took her aft, without waiting for explanations. She
did not speak to me as she tottered along, but called out in a
most deplorable whimper, “Hen—ry! Hen—ry!” It was
just like her; whenever she was in trouble she ran to her
husband; when the trouble vanished, she was ready to trifle
with the first male coquette that happened along.
“Why, what's the matter, Jule?” returned Henry. “Sick?
Good Lord, no! Don't give it up so. Keep a stiff upper
lip, Jule.”
“Oh, Hen—ry! Hen—ry!” moaned Jule. “Oh! I'm
going to be so sick. Do lay me down somewhere. Do throw
me overboard. Oh! I wish the yacht was sunk.”
He carried her to the quarter-deck, spread a plaid for her,
covered her feet with his own coat, and then hurried off to
mix a glass of brandy and water, which he asserted would
help her to keep a stiff upper lip. Recumbent, quiescent, but
not patient, Mrs. Van Leer endured the remainder of the
excursion.
As for me, I enjoyed it as much perhaps as did the sharks
that we took ashore. I had indeed this pleasure which they
had not, that I could torment something, and thus feel that I
was imperfectly revenging on nature, after a roundabout,
senseless fashion, the pain which I myself suffered. In general
I despise fishing; but this afternoon I fished perseveringly,
strenuously; partly for the blind zest of destruction,
and partly to escape reflection. Two or three times I had to
bait Miss Westervelt's hook, and to heave or to haul in her line
for her. She always thanked me for these little services, and
I always bowed smilingly in reply; but there was a feeling
would not permit of conversation. Her usual frank cordiality
of manner was gone, and her voice, though still sweet, was
repressed and monotoned. I have sometimes had a dream
which was like the suffering of that afternoon. I have
seemed to be standing on one side of a narrow but bottomless
cleft, holding the hand of a dear friend who stood on the opposite
brink, each of us trying to draw closer to the other,
while the chasm steadily widened between us, overcoming our
struggles, tearing us apart, and then sweeping us away and
away on either hand until we could see each other no more,
hear each other's cries no more forever.
Then too, while this woful disjunction increased momently
until even love and hope could not span it, it was an additional
pain to behold Somerville smiling and talking by her
side, in the place which I had lost. He never appeared to me
more graceful, more fascinating, than he did this day whenever
he approached Miss Westervelt. Out of the depths of
my own turmoil and discord, I felt that his manner was all
delicacy and his words all music; and yet I believed that
he was wicked, that he was pitiless, that he was without honor,
that his pulse was even then beating with villainous
passions. He seemed to me like some beautiful wild beast
which had taught itself to repress for a time all expression of
its native savageness, in order that it might do the greater
harm. They say that a leopard will steal into an encampment
by night with such a noiseless tread, that not a sleeper
is disturbed, and even waking men do not hear the murderous
footstep as it creeps behind them through the shadows.
In the morning the prints of the claws are found, or some
one lies stark and dead, his throat torn open and his lifeblood
sucked away. This is all; no one overheard the
agony; no one knows when it happened. And all the while
that the animal was accomplishing his deed of carnage, his
motions were exquisitely graceful, his spotted hide glossy
with health, and his whole being an incarnation of physical
beauty. Such is Somerville, I thought, in our little circle:
alarming; and yet he is draining the life from a soul.
Coming back from the fishing-grounds, the conversation
was general and lively, as is usually the case among people
excited by exercise and adventure. Even Mrs. Westervelt
lost that languor and seeming of melancholy which often
marked her, and chattered gayly, or rather hoydenishly, as
was her wont when she did chatter.
“Well, this is fun,” said she. “Who would think that
these ugly, dirty fish could amuse one so! Why, it's like
catching beaux; it's almost as good as flirting, isn't it, Jule?
Oh, Jule! Jule! you and I have done a great deal of that, I
am afraid. If our husbands knew the whole, Jule, what
would they say to us?”
“Say? why, just what they did say, that they are our devoted
admirers and slaves,” replies Mrs. Van Leer, who was
in smooth water again.
“Only hear how saucy she is, my dear!” continues Mrs.
Westervelt. “Do you agree to what she says? But I did
catch you, my dear, didn't I? Ha ha ha. It's a pity that a
woman can't marry all her adorers. How many weddings
should we have had between us, Jule, in that case? I will
count up my list, if you will count up yours. No, no, on
second thoughts I won't do it; it might make Mr. Westervelt
unhappy. Would it, dear? Ha ha ha. No, I am not going
to think of those gay days any more. I am a married
woman now, and live in the country, and don't go to a party
above once a year. But why can't we have a little dance to-night?
What do you say, you bachelors? Come, Robert
and Mr. Fitz Hugh, wouldn't you like a dance, now, really?”
“First rate!” roars Bob. “I havn't danced, it seems to
me, for this seven hundred years. I say, Fitz Hugh, can't
you shake a foot?”
“Happy to be present, but rarely dance,” I muttered,
totally disgusted with the proposition. All gayety and mirth
in this family, now, seemed to me like laughter by the side
of an open grave.
| CHAPTER XVII.
THE MYSTERY A TORMENT. Seacliff, or, The mystery of the Westervelts | |