University of Virginia Library

4. IV.

Gaston did not come on the next morning, nor
in the afternoon. Instead of him, at night,
Beaudesfords came. Catherine heard his voice
trolling some catch as he approached: the color
sprang again to her cheeks, with the thought that
his silent companion was beside him.

“It is insupportable!” said he. “I never can
stay down there alone; and I cannot go away,
you know! I shall come up here, Mamma Stanhope,
bag and baggage. Gaston has gone, — gone
when I had him safe for a month! He would
not delay another day; said he had stayed too
long already; and, having letters to write, he
could not make his farewell call, but charged me
to present apologies, and say every thing that
was necessary. So please consider it said.”

“Major Gaston gone!” exclaimed Rose.

“Isn't that a sudden thing?” asked Mamma
Stanhope.

“And like all sudden things. I detest surprises:
there never was a pleasant one. He goes
to Europe first, and then post-haste to the isthmus.
Oh! that 's an immense nature of his, Mamma
Stanhope!” said Beaudesfords, enthusiastically.
“Spurning indulgences, comforts, friends; not
wishing for money, not caring for fame; not even
hoping to associate his name with his achievements,
— just rapt in his work for his work's
sake.”

“I daresay,” said Mrs. Stanhope.

“How you do idealize people!” said Caroline.
“For my part, I pronounce him a spleeny man,
who wants the doctor!”

“Too long already,” repeated Catherine. But
she did not say it aloud. She stepped through
the window and down the garden, and stood in
the shadow where she had stood last night, — too
much bewildered to think or feel till the pain rose
and stung away the numbness; then heart and
brain had it out between them on that battle-field.
Around her were the same low-hanging branches,
the same flower-shaken odors, the same dusky
alleys; below her the dewy bank, the dark-gleaming
river, the wide, low landscape stretching on
in reach after reach of deeper shade; but from it

all the meaning had been robbed. She went back
to the house at length, pale and tired; hope and
joy had fallen slowly from her like a borrowed
investiture; she was a desolate woman.

The summer passed. Beaudesfords had long
since followed Gaston's example, but Mrs. Stanhope's
table was heavy with the fruit and flowers
that every day arrived from him. If the truth
were told, there was not a great deal else on the
table; for Mrs. Stanhope's property had suffered
a serious diminution by the opening to the public
of a bridge, which caused a toll-gate and turnpike
that had always rendered her good revenue to
become almost worthless. She was not the
sweetest counsellor and adviser to Catherine under
such circumstances, and only a dozen times a day
held up to her, in a mute and well-bred way, the
trouble, if not suffering, that her ridiculous tempers
had inflicted on her family. For Caroline
had become now a confirmed invalid, scarcely
leaving her sofa, and requiring doctors and dainties
and appliances far beyond her mother's
means of supply. Catherine walked through the
alleys of the chill November garden, with the falling
leaves rustling round her feet, and the wind
sighing in the branches. She sighed as well: no

longer with sorrow of sore heart or rankle of
wounded pride, but with a heavy indifference,
since she found nothing in life worth the living.
Gaston's expedition had departed at last, and
Beaudesfords had dropped in upon them again on
his way home. He was talking to her mother
when she came in from the river-bank, with her
hands full of scarlet alder-berries and the satin
milk-weed, whose bursting down all starred with
the brown seeds, looked like a branchful of sparrows,
as he said, rising to take them from her.
A flare of the fitful firelight showed him her face,
grown white and thin. It pleased him, for an
instant, with the selfish fancy that she had missed
him; and then it came over him that soon they
might all be missing her. The sound of the
autumn wind round the gables made his flesh
creep: he piled up the blazing brush in the chimney
himself, and wheeled a screen between her
chair and the window; but he saw, while he did
so, a dislike to have attention drawn to her in
that way. He began then some recital or other
to Mamma Stanhope, moving about the room in
his usual nervous manner when telling any incident
whose occurrence had excited him at all;
knocked the screen aside as he finished, told Rose
she looked like a little actress whose photograph
half the world was going crazy over, romped with
the Blenheim and the macaw, then paused on the
rug in front of Catherine to take breath, and to
compliment her casually on the improvement in
her appearance, till the color rose upon her cheek
indeed.

As he stood there, all at once a curious sound
above them of crumbling plaster and falling sand,
a puff of dust, and the great mirror over the
mantel had loosened, and was plunging down.
Catherine darted with upstretched arms, and
snatched a corner of the frame with all the force
she had. Beaudesfords had turned in a breath
and caught it with stronger hands: a second
later, and it would have splintered in his flesh
and crushed him to the floor. They managed to
hold it up between them till assistance came;
then Catherine ran to her room for repairs,
and Beaudesfords to his inn for a change of
linen.

He came back undaunted though, directly, for
it was not much more than a dozen rods away;
and, entering again, sat down on the cushion at
Catherine's feet, taking her white worsted skeins
on his own hands. They were alone; for Mrs.

Stanhope was attending to her tea-table, and
Rose had gone upstairs to see if Caroline would
come down.

Beaudesfords held his skein to the end without
a word. As he surrendered the thread, he looking
up, she down, their glances met, and he
laughed. There are some people who always
laugh with any happy agitation. “I am going to
ask you a question,” said he then, with just a trace
of hesitation in the voice, in spite of his audacious
eye. “Were you ever sorry for your evil behavior
on one morning of last summer?”

She wondered what he meant for just a second,
when, being no coquette, with a full heart she
answered, “Never.”

“Then, may I ask, why under the sun, or the
ceiling, you sprung to my rescue in that way, at
the risk of broken arms, just now?”

She surveyed him with surprise. “I would
have done it,” she cried, “for any clod that had
stood there.”

“So! But, Catherine, tell me one thing. Am
I positively distasteful to you?”

“No, no, no,” she answered him impatiently.
“I like you well enough.”

“And you can look on my perpetual companionship

with nothing like pleasure?” he
asked.

“With nothing like pleasure,” she replied.

He was standing now, but still looking at her
downcast face and heightened tint, — the perfect
picture, — eyes that were not to sparkle for him,
smiles that were not to brighten, lips that should
never be his. Before he knew what he was
doing, he had stooped and kissed them; had
fulfilled his old, daring dream, and made the
mouth his own, — the fragrant and delicious
mouth; lips that another kiss, unknown to
any, had left sacred, whose touch was sacrilege.

“I will never forgive you!” she cried.

“I will never ask you!” he replied, striding
off; but in a trice he was back again.

“At your feet,” he said, throwing himself on
the low seat once more. “You would not despise
so much a lover less humble. Gaston, perhaps.
A man that takes your heart, and never
sues for it!” He did not see her wince, nor
hang her head with a kind of shame, as he went
on. “But it was unpardonable. You cannot
overlook it. I should love you less, Catherine,
if you failed to resent such a liberty.”

All in a moment her head had fallen on her
knees, and she was sobbing as if she would break
her heart. Once before, indeed, she had failed
to resent such a liberty!

Beaudesfords started to his feet, pacing quickly
up and down the room, returned, and took both
her hands in his.

“Catherine,” he said, “I will not worry you
again with any wishes of mine. I had thought
that, possibly, if you went away with me, among
strangers, learning to lean upon me, to need me,
you might also learn to love me.” After all, the
intonation came like a question.

She did not look up, nor say a word. What
she thought, who knows? Comfort for Caroline,
peace with her mother, a future for Rose, — the
wealth and splendor that she loved, sumptuous
ease, the certainty of honoring, the possibility of
more, — since life was so arid, since he was so
kind. Still she never stirred.

Her silence made a hope spring up in his heart,
sweeter than any words, a charm, luring him on
to his ruin, he once said to himself when remembering
it. Still silent, his arm was about her.
He had gathered her unresisting, unresenting, to
himself.

“But you know I do not love you,” she whispered,
lifting her face at last with the tears yet
undried.

“I know, too, that if I do not make you, I
shall not deserve to have you,” he said. “My
life is yours. You must! You shall!”

When the bell rung, and Mrs. Stanhope's voice
itself was heard in further summons, they crossed
together into the little tea-room. Beaudesfords
went behind Mrs. Stanhope, and, bending back
her head, gave her forehead a filial salute.
“Mamma Stanhope,” he said, “there is going to
be a wedding here next month. You are all
going to live with me at Beaudesfords.”

It was even as he said. There was a wedding
there. Catherine had no reason for delay, and
they all went to live at Beaudesfords. But when
his wife grew more white and thin with every
day, more listless and languid, failing to find
pleasure in her splendor, in the envy of her
friends, to like the lustre of her silks or the
glory of her gems, Beaudesfords took her away
alone with him into strange scenes and foreign
countries. Tender care, serene skies, enjoyment
of all the novel pleasure that the Old
World has to give, beguiled her from herself at

length. She came home, when two years were
over, a woman full of health, with a gracious yet
commanding presence, more beautiful than the
vision of a dream, satisfied enough with life;
and when she crossed the threshold, the first
person that she saw was Gaston.