University of Virginia Library

8. VIII.

There was only a day or two of this sort of life, —
life that in its close domestic contact must not
last; and then — nobody knew who first proposed
it — the house filled with guests; and all the
autumn days the gentlemen shot upon the meadows
and between the hills, and the ladies beamed
and brightened at nightfall when they returned.
Gaston, for the present superintending the erection
of some great water-works in the vicinity,
came and went at his pleasure, now here, now
there. If, when the shooting was over, Beaudesfords
had ever enhanced his own value, ever
made a gap in the circle, by any such brief
absence!

If the house was full of guests, it appeared to
be full of happiness too. Mrs. Stanhope was
happy in receiving guests; Rose was happy as a
firefly might be supposed to be; Caroline — since
there was always some one to listen while she

expatiated on her complaints; Beaudesfords was
happy in giving happiness to all the rest; and
Gaston, even Gaston, looked as one looks who is
happy, — yesterday he touched her hand, to-day he
wrapped a shawl about her, to-morrow he would
lift her into the saddle. And Catherine too, the
general tide bathed her, the tide was rising round
her that soon should touch her lips.

It was not, after all, an easy course that Catherine
had to follow: indignation in remembering
how lightly she had once been thrown over; the
ashes of an old fire rekindling day by day; the
quiet affection and respect for Beaudesfords pulling
her heart toward him with pity, honor, and
the duty that a woman owes her husband, — each
a strong current of feeling; and when all were to
be blended into one stream of right action and
pure emotion, it required a self-knowledge and
self-control that do not often enter into the elements
of any single character. Gaston, who
sometimes read one's thoughts, you would almost
say, watched her across all the phases of his own
experience, — watched her too as a curious study,
nearly sure she would succeed, and then half
trembling with his certainty, if it could be said
that Gaston ever trembled.

There had been a great snowfall at Christmas
time. All the guests were imprisoned at Beaudesfords
whether they would or no. When day
dawned, the world was a white, pure thing, as
fair and dazzling as it might be on the resurrection
morning.

But on the previous night the storm had
whirled round the great house and rumbled the
length of the chimney-stacks, snapped off the
boughs of the old Beaudesfords oaks, and roared
abroad in a way to make a stout heart quake;
had there been any bells to ring in the Christmas
eve at Beaudesfords, they would have been
silenced in all the voices of the winds that swept
at large in fury. But within doors it had been
one glow of brightness and warmth; fires had
blazed, lights had beamed, mistletoe and holly
lent their cheer, the windows shed out their lustre
on the driving whiteness of the tempest till all
the snow-flakes round them seemed but sparks
of fire; gay games had been given to the younger
company; music and dancing, and verses dramatized
on the moment, beguiled the elder. Catherine,
too, moved round among the guests in a
warm, womanly way that was new to her: there
was a bloom upon her cheeks, a softer light in her

eyes, — so gentle, so smiling, so dreamy, she was
like those we read of in the mediæval lays, whose
lives some sweet yet poisonous enchantment holds
in thrall.

“Where is Gaston?” suddenly asked Beaudesfords
of Rose, as he met her in a doorway with
her arms full of fantastic finery for the charaders.

“Oh! we shan't see Gaston till to-morrow
night,” she lightly answered. “He told me yesterday
he feared he should be detained at the
water-works, and would not return till Christmas
night.”

“Christmas eve, you mean. You misunderstood
him, Rose of Cashmere: he told me
Christmas eve. He should have been here two
hours ago. I wonder if he has been so foolish as
to undertake coming on foot from the station.”

“He is a perfect tramp,” said Rose.

“Perhaps — Have you heard the engine
whistle?”

“No whistle but the winds to-night,” gathering
up the trailing ends of a bit of silver damask.

“It can't be that he has — He always chooses
the short cut, and that leads over the little bridge
that it takes all one's head to cross in clear
weather.”

“The old willow that lies from bank to bank
you mean?” asked Rose, looking back. “He
would never think of it! It makes me so giddy
in summer, when the brook is half dry; and
now it is a roaring little icy cataract, and the
snow gathered on either side would mislead
every step. No, indeed! Gaston won't come till
the great banquet on to-morrow night is spread:
he likes to keep people waiting too. So summon
all your fortitude, and live without him until then,
if you can!” And she flitted away.

They had spoken at the entrance of the conservatory,
as they passed each other there, Rose
laden with a pile of brocades rummaged from
forgotten wardrobes of the old Beaudesfords
ladies. Catherine was just within, directing
McRoy as he bound the wreaths and baskets
for those who were to interpret that fragment of
the old ballad —

She turned her head unthinkingly, and only to
hear their voices; then her hands grew cold as

she listened, so cold and numb that the flowers
dropped from them unheeded, violets, purple,
white, deepest black and goldenest yellow, in a
rain of fragrance on the floor.

“He will get bewildered in all the dizzy tumult!”
she heard Beaudesfords exclaim in a
smothered voice. “He could not breathe an hour
in it! I urging his return to-night! Quick
there, Frye! Have out every man on the place —
ropes and lanterns!” —

He was hurrying, swift-footed, ere he finished,
to reach the hall, down whose length he hastened
and threw open the great door. A wild
white gust out of the fearful storm blew in, and
tore onward, devouring the lights before it; but
not till Beaudesfords had seen as wild and white
a face across his shoulder, looking out with him
into the raging night.

The music, the laughter, the voices of the
clusters within the parlors, came on snatches,
from far away. “Gaston!” he cried. “For
God's sake — Gaston!” At the same moment a
shadow took shape in that awful whiteness before
him, — the awful whiteness of a midnight snow-storm
which has neither darkness nor light, —
and Gaston staggered up, fell again across the

doorstone, like an avalanche of snow; rose
half on the arm of Beaudesfords, half on the
relief of finding an end to his fierce and toilsome
endeavor, while Beaudesfords dragged him across,
and with all his force threw the door back upon
the windy drifts, shutting themselves in once
more with light and rest; then drawing him
down the hall to his own den like a whirlwind of
force and fury himself, while Catherine moved
back into the parlors, — but not till Gaston too,
half dead with weariness as he was, had seen the
wild white face that searched the storm for him.

“I thought I had lost you this time, Gaston!”
exclaimed Beaudesfords, as soon as he had made
the other swallow some champagne. “My God!
I suffocated with you! How black the world
grew to me of a sudden! Life would not be
worth a rush without you, I found, in that second
before you rose. You and Catherine are my life!”

Pale as Major Gaston's face was with fatigue,
it grew livid with Beaudesfords' words. He had
not one murmur to reply. He closed his eyes
till the black lashes lay on the cheek below like
that of a corpse. His heart stood still, his head
fell forward and drooped upon his breast, as if he
were ashamed that even the universal air should

see his face. He put away Beaudesfords' arm,
and rose from his seat himself.

“So, you don't give me the slip after all?”
cried Beaudesfords. “A moment since I
wouldn't have given that for your chances!”
snapping his fingers gayly. “By Jove! you 've
not nine lives, but ninety.”

“I 've not crossed a hundred cañons to founder
between here and the mill. Train snowed up,”
he added, in a different tone.

“And you walked the five miles? I will call
Frye, and you shall go to bed at once, and be
rubbed down like a racer!” said Beaudesfords.
“Some more champagne! How could you do
such a silly thing! To-morrow a fever may
finish you! Have you the strength of a Titan to
heave yourself through these hills of snow?”

“Do nothing of the sort,” said Gaston. “I
shall be well enough when I get my breath.”

“And drenched, of course.”

“That is soon remedied. Then a breath, I
say, and I 'll not” —

“Call the king your uncle?” Beaudesfords
stood before him, putting a hand on either shoulder,
and looking him in the face with those glad
and honest eyes of his. “But I thank God I

have you safe!” he said. Then sounded a truce
to all emotion of that nature by ringing lustily
for Frye; and in an hour Gaston was sitting at
one side of the drawing-room fire, renovated as
to his apparel, but pallid with his fatigue.

“Will you give Gaston some hot tea, Catherine?”
asked Beaudesfords.

“Cyril shall,” beckoning the passing servant
with the tray.

“No; but take it to him yourself. It is only
a slight condescension. When a man is ill and
tired, and has no real home of his own, such
things touch.”

“Perhaps, then, Mamma had best: she is
dispensing it.”

“Nonsense, bonnibel! we are making a great
affair out of nothing! Show my friend another
spark of interest yourself.”

Catherine took a cup that had just been filled,
and carried it across the room.

“You must drink this,” she said softly, looking
not at Gaston, but at the cup.

“Thank you, no.” He remembered Beaudesfords,
and his love, like that of a woman's. He
had been thinking he would leave the place.
He would have nothing at her hands.

“But you must, he says. It will perhaps hinder
a fever: you were so cold and wet. Or else,
indeed, you may die.”

With her voice, that shook ever so slightly,
addressing him, her hand extended toward him,
her face drooping above him, so gentle, so lovely,
so near, — her sweet breath touching his forehead,
— with the mad quickening of his pulse,
shame, remorse, Beaudesfords, honor, were flung
off, he held his hand half-way for the cup as
he rose and stood before her, the fire behind
throwing out all his profile in a black relief.

“And if I do?” said he. “Is there any thing
better than dying? If the cup holds life, —
shall I drink it?”

She trembled an instant as he spoke, with his
eyes bent upon her: then she had left the cup in
his hands, and was gone; and Gaston drained it at
a breath. A simple thing; but Beaudesfords, following
her with his glance to observe the graceful
action, saw into what earnest pantomime it
turned, and wondered as he saw.

Old Dr. Ruthven strolled down that end of the
room where Gaston sat alone. “My friend,”
said he, “you must have some hell-fire in you
since all that snow and ice outside has not chilled

it!” And Gaston, replying as curtly, strode
away to his western wing.

That night, when Catherine dismissed her
maid, she pulled away her curtains and looked
out with her brow bent upon the cold glass.
She seemed herself to be resting in a state of
well-being: within it was all so warm and rosy;
but without a white frenzy of storm was rushing
by the pane, scourging it with sleet, mounting in
mighty gyres, and driving up a black immensity
of the midnight vault. War of wind and cloud,
darkness of desolation, the great cry of the elements
sweeping overhead through the gaping
gulfs of space. Of a sudden Catherine cowered,
— a mere atom she; then her sense of insignificance,
under all these prodigious forces of sky
and storm, opened out into a sense of sin and
tumult as vast as they, — bloom and warmth
dropped from her, she shivered away to her pillow,
and wept there half the night long.