CHAPTER III.
"WHEN SUMMER DAYS WERE FAIR."
Afterwards--for close upon the coming of every grief, however great,fall the slow, dull footsteps of Afterwards--, the bereaved Macleodfamily took up again the occupations and interests of life in thebenumbed fashion of those whose nerves are slow in recovering theeffect of a great shock. Edward alone bore a brave front, though hisheart at times failed him. He was something of a puzzle to the friendof his sister, who could not reconcile the tears which she saw in hiseyes one moment to the jest she heard from his lips the next, and whomarvelled in secret that the utter abandon of his grief at the bedsideof his dying mother had not been followed by a state of settledmelancholy after her death. To the cool, steadfast nature ofMademoiselle DeBerczy this alternate light and shade, gaiety andgrief, in the heart of Rose, as well as of her brother, was difficultto understand; but now she began faintly to perceive that to theirardent temperament sunshine came as naturally as it did to the firstday of spring, which, while it ached with the remembrance of winter,could not wholly repress on that account its natural brightness.Certainly Edward Macleod, though his unusually pale face gave evidenceof the suffering which he had lately experienced--nay, which he waseven now experiencing--could not say that life for him was utterlywithout consolation. For the sake of the stricken household, for thesake of her who had left them desolate, he would be a man; and, beingthat complex creature, a man, involves not only the lofty virtues ofcourage and self-forgetfulness, but also a tender susceptibility tothe charms of these perfect spring days, and to the no less alluringcharms of a maiden in the spring-time of youth.
Nearly a week had elapsed since the funeral of Mrs. Macleod, and now asecond message from home had been received by Helene DeBerczy,reminding her that her invalid mother had claims which could no longerbe set aside. If Madame DeBerczy's language was seldom imperative, herintention abundantly made up for the deficiency. Consequently, herdaughter was now reluctantly turning her face homeward--a dulloutlook, brightened only by the prospect of a boat-ride down the baywith Edward and Rose.
"And to think," said Edward to Helene, as the trio paced the longavenue together, "that I scarcely recognized you on the evening of myreturn!"
"That is not surprising. I am an entirely different person from theone you left three years ago."
"Let me see," mused the young man, "three years ago you were a littleinclined to be haughty and cold, occasionally difficult to please, andsometimes exacting. On the whole, 'tis pleasant to reflect that youare an entirely different person now."
He turned towards her with a merry glance, but her face was invisible.She wore one of those long straw bonnets, no doubt esteemed verypretty and stylish in that day, but marred by what a disciple ofFowler might call a remarkable phrenological development of theanterior portion. This severely intellectual quality in the bonnets ofthat time naturally stood in the way of the merely sensuous delightsof observation. Edward had barely time to be reminded of an unusedwell, in whose dark, shallow depths his boyish eyes had oncediscovered a cluster of white water-lilies, languidly opening to thelight, when the liquid eyes and lily-like face in the inner vista ofthis well-like bonnet again confronted him.
"Is that the sort of person I used to be?" she queried, with theincredulity one naturally feels on being presented with a slightlyexaggerated outline of one's own failings. "What pleasant memories youmust have carried away with you!"
"I did, indeed--myriads of them. Some of the pleasantest wereconnected with our last dance together. Do you remember it?"
A slight warmth crept up, not into her cheeks, but into her eyes. "Ihave never forgiven you for that," she said.
"And you don't deserve forgiveness," declared Rose, championing thecause of her friend.
"Ah, well," said the culprit, "perhaps I had better wait till Ideserve it before I plead for it."
How strange and far away, almost like part of their childhood, seemedthe time of which he spoke. Like a painted picture, suddenly thrustbefore their view, the scene came back to them. A windy night in lateAutumn, illumined without only by the broad shafts of light from theCommodore's mansion, and within by the leaping flames in the big hallfire-place. The young people had improvised a dance in the great hall,and Helene had tantalizingly bestowed most of her favours upon FredJarvis, a handsome youngster of twenty, who frequently improved hisopportunities of becoming the special object of Edward's boyishenmity. To fall a willing victim to the pangs of jealousy formed,however, no part of this young gentleman's intention. Returning latein the evening, he caught a glimpse of Fred and Helene dancing astately minuet together, and, lightly securing his horse at the door,he entered the hall, just as Helene was protesting that she was tootired to dance any longer. "Just once with me," he pleaded; and theirwinged footsteps kept time to the tumultuous throbbing of the music.The young girl suddenly grew faint. "Give me air," she cried, and atthe words Edward's strong arm swept her across the broad veranda, andup on the waiting steed. Mounting behind her, like another youngLochinvar, they dashed wildly off, but just in what direction couldnot be told, for Helene, in mingled consternation, exhaustion, andalarm, had fainted in earnest, and Edward, in the endeavour to holdher limp, unconscious figure before him, had dropped the reins. Thesteed, however, with a prudent indisposition for pastures new at thathour of the night, turned into a stubble-field, and brought up at ahaystack. How, in the utter darkness, and with the wind blowing agale, the young man managed to restore his companion to consciousnessand bring her back to the house, were mysteries which Rose could neverattempt to penetrate with any degree of satisfaction. Helene, ofcourse, was superbly angry, and even this bare mention of the escapadebrought fire to her eyes and a loftier poise to the well-set head.Strongly set about the heart of this young Huguenot were barriers ofpride, that could not be overleaped in a day--scarcely in a life-time.
"It is a bargain, then," said Edward, with a mischievous light in hissmile, "you will never forgive, and I shall never forget."
"I wish, if it isn't asking too much, that you would allow me toforget. I particularly want to forget everything unpleasant on amorning as beautiful as this," rejoined Helene.
It was indeed an ideal morning. The sky was as soft and warm, as blueand white, as only the skies of early summer can be. Treading themingled shadow and light, thrown from the interlacing boughs above,they came at last to the blue curves of Kempenfeldt Bay, whose waveslapped lightly on the beach. Here they found the two younger Macleodchildren, who had come to see the party off. Just as the latterarrived, the youth, Herbert, who had been amusing himself rocking apunt in a creek by the shore, managed to upset the craft andprecipitate himself into deep water. The mishap had no more seriousresult--for the lad was a good swimmer--than to frighten Rose, anddeprive her of the anticipated pleasure of a visit to "Bellevue" withHelene and her brother Edward. Bidding the former a hurried goodbye,with injunctions to her brother to take care of her friend, Rosedisappeared with the children into the woods.
The young man now released a row-boat from its bondage to the shore,helped his companion into it, and pushed it far out upon its nativeelement. A new day in the New World, and a long boat-ride beforethem--what could they wish for more? Edward, at least, enjoyed theprospect extremely, especially when he could get the bonnet rightlyfocused. This was a matter somewhat difficult of achievement, as itsowner had to his mind a heedless habit of dodging, and his remarks,instead of being didactic and improving in their nature, werenecessarily exclamatory and interrogative, in order to gain theattention of his fair _vis-a-vis_. Being a young gentleman of literarytastes he thought of Addison's dissertation upon the fan, and itsgreat adaptability to the purposes of the coquette. To the mind ofthis impartial critic, a fan was not half so effective and terrible aweapon as the present style of bonnet.
"Bother Addison!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud.
"I beg your pardon," said a voice from the depths of the obnoxioushead-gear before him.
"I was thinking of the aut
hor of _The Spectator_. You know Johnsonsays we ought to give our days and nights to the study of Addison.Don't you think it would be more profitable for us to devote our daysand nights to the study of Nature?"
"Undoubtedly; and especially in this short-summered region, wherethere are only a few months of the year in which one can pursue one'sstudies out of doors. My days are spent on the shore, and as for mynights--well, even at night I often go to sleep to the fancy that I amdrifting over the water with just such a gentle movement as this."
"I hope," said Edward gravely, "that you have an efficient oarsman.You couldn't row and sleep at the same time, you know."
He looked up to see if his companion was struck with the force of thisobservation, but although they were moving towards the east, thebonnet pointed due north. There was also a slight suspicion of thewintry north in the tone with which she replied:
"Oh, there is no labour connected with it; I am merely drifting--driftingto the Isle of Sleep."
"That is a pretty idea, but it is too lonely and listless to suit me.I should prefer to have a young lady in the boat--and a pair of oars."
"In that case you would have to row," and, with a slightly mockingaccent, "you couldn't row and sleep at the same time, you know."
"In that case I should never want to sleep. No, please, Miss DeBerczy,don't look to the north again. Every time your gaze is riveted uponthat frozen region my heart sinks within me. I feel as if I were notentertaining you as well as I should."
"Oh, don't let that illusion disturb you. I have never doubted thatyou were entertaining me as well as you--could."
A brief silence fell upon them, broken only by the regular plash ofthe oars. In the young man's conversational attacks there had beennothing but a light play of sunny humour, but in this last retort ofhers there was something like the glimmer of cold steel. It woundedhim, yet he was unwilling either to conceal or reveal the hurt. ButHelene DeBerczy had this weakness, common to generous souls, that shecould not utter an ungenerous remark without suffering more than hervictim. So, scarcely more than a minute elapsed before she saidappealingly,
"You are not going to leave me with the last word, are you?"
"Is not that what your sex specially like to have?"
"Perhaps so. I should prefer to have the _best_ word, and--"
"And let a certain well-known gentleman take the hindmost?" suppliedthe young man smilingly.
"If he only would! What a shocking thing to say, but with me it isalways conscience who has the very hindmost word; and my conscience isperfect mistress of the art of saying disagreeable things. At thepresent moment she is trying to make me believe that I have beenunpardonably rude to you."
"She is mistaken then, for even if it were possible for you to berude, I could not fail to pardon you immediately."
"There! now you have had the best word. It is useless for me to try tosay anything better than that. Perhaps the most becoming thing I coulddo would be to relapse into ignominious silence."
"Silence! Desolation! And with a two-mile pull yet before us! If Ihave had the best word you have uttered the worst one. What soterrible as silence?"
"It is said to be golden."
"And, like the gold that Robinson Crusoe discovered on his island, itis of no particular use to anyone."
"It is one of the charms of Nature."
"A charm that I have never discovered. What about the ever-present humof multitudinous insects, the song of birds, the moan of winds, thelaughter of leaping water? It seems to me that Nature is all voice."
"Then, suppose," said the undaunted young lady, lifting her languorouslids, "that we listen to her voice."
There was no answering this; but, as the bonnet now veered towards thesunny south, and the boat rounding the sharp corner of the bayabruptly turned in the same direction, the young man was surprised tofind himself looking his companion fully in the face, caught in thesudden sunshine of her smile.
"I was about to remark," he said, emboldened by this token of favour,"that there is nothing I delight in so much as listening to the voiceof nature--that is human nature."
The smile deepened into a rippling laugh. "I am in one of my inhumanmoods this morning," she said, "but I believe my forte is actionrather than speech. Let me take your place, and those oars, please."
He resigned them both, and at once; not because the unusual exertionhad made any appreciable inroad upon his strength, but because heforesaw new phases of picturesqueness in the young girl's daintyhandling of the oars. Nor was he disappointed. The skirt of her dresswas narrow and long, beginning, like an infant's robe, a few inchesbelow the arms, and thence descending in softly curving lines to herfeet, with as little hint of rigidity or compression about thetenderly rounded waist as about the full fair throat above it. Shestretched out a pair of shoes, incredibly small and unmistakablyFrench, and bent her slender gauntleted hands blithely to their task.The newborn sweetness of the spring morning was about them. On theheavily wooded shore the great evergreens towered darkly against thesun, but its beams fell with dazzling brightness upon the meadowyundulations of the lake. Above them they heard at times the wild cryof the soaring gull, or the apparently disembodied voice of someunseen bird. Behind them they left the beautiful stretch of KempenfeldtBay, gleaming in the sunshine, and now they slowly ascended the watersof Cook's Bay, called after the great circumnavigator, under whom manyof the naval officers who had settled in the region had served,Governor Simcoe's father, after whom the old Lac des Clies--as theFrench called it--had received its modern name, being a shipmate.
But, now, Helene, whose slender strength had succumbed to thedifficulties of propelling their little craft, resumed her old seat,and her bonnet, like a dark lantern, sometimes allowed a charminglight to be reflected upon surrounding objects, and then as suddenlywithdrew it. In the blue distance, near the mouth of the HollandRiver, they caught the first glimpse of "Bellevue"--the home of theDeBerczy's. The long sunlit run had after all been too brief. Edwardbegan to realize that some days might elapse before this pleasurecould be repeated. He drew in his oars, and let the boat rock idly onthe tide. His companion gave him an inquiring glance. "I wish," saidhe, "that you would do me a favour."
"Isn't that rather an extraordinary request?"
"Not at all. It is a very natural remark. It has not yet advanced sofar as to be a request."
"Oh! well, of course, I can't grant what isn't a request."
"Does that mean that you can grant what is one?"
"Sometimes."
"How good of you! But, as I said before, I had only expressed a wish.Aren't you in the least interested in my wishes?"
"If you were interested in mine you would take up those oars again."
"And thereby shorten the term of your imprisonment by me! Yourkindness emboldens me to make known my desire. I wish you would let meexamine something that appears to be hanging to your bonnet."
"Is it a grub--a caterpillar--a spider?" These horrors were mentionedin the order of their detestability, and with a rising accent.
"Really, I wouldn't like to say, unless you remove the bonnet." Shegave a convulsive twitch to the strings, and pulled them into a hardknot. "Can't you brush it off?" she asked Edward breathlessly.
"Pray do not be so alarmed. No, indeed, I couldn't brush it off. Itsticks too fast for that. I wish," he said, as she made a franticlurch towards him, "that you could be mild but firm--I mean not quiteso agitated." Her breath came in quick perfumed wafts into his face,as his steady fingers strove to undo the knot in her ribbons. But evenafter this lengthy business was concluded his trouble (if it couldrightly be called a trouble) was only half over, for the careful Rose,with a prudent foreknowledge of the power of lake breezes todisarrange, if not carry away altogether, the headgear of helplesswoman, had by some ingenious arrangement of hair-pins fastened thebonnet to the raven locks of her friend in such a manner that it couldnot be removed without endangering the structure of her elaboratehair-architecture. So it was among the da
rk waves of rapidlydown-flowing tresses that Helene's voice was again heard beseechinghim to tell her what it was.
"Your scientific curiosity seems to be almost as great as your fear ofthe insect creation. But, really, it is quite a harmless littlefellow. See!" and he pointed to a steel beetle set with a view toornamental effect in the centre of a little rosette of ribbons.
"Oh, shameless!" exclaimed the young girl, sinking her lily-white faceagain among the abundant waves of her hair.
"Yes, I daresay he is ashamed enough to think that he isn't alive whenhe sees that you regret it so much."
It is very annoying to be obliged to laugh when one has just made upone's mind to be very angry; but Mademoiselle DeBerczy, with all herhaughtiness, was endowed with a sense of humour; so it was with only aweak show of reproachful indignation that she at last threw back herhead and exclaimed:
"How could you--when I have such a horror of every sort of creepingthing--and you knew what it was all the time!"
"Oh, excuse me, I did not know--that is, I wasn't positive. At adistance I thought it was some sort of a big fly--a blue-bottle. Now Isee it is a blue beetle."
The young lady deigned no reply.
"I am sorry that you were frightened, but you don't seem to be a bitsorry on account of my sufferings."
"Your sufferings?"
"Yes, see how surprised you are even to know that they existed! Butthey are over now. At frequent intervals, all through this longvoyage, I have been forced to look at a heavenly body through atelescope--that is, when I could get the telescope properly adjustedto my vision. The difficulties of adjustment have cost me a world oftrouble."
She gazed at him a moment in wide-eyed amazement, and then withoutattempting to solve the riddle of his remarks, proceeded to reduce herwind-blown locks to something like their usual law and order. The darkheavy waves, rioting in the breeze, seemed to offer a problem to thedeft white fingers that fluttered among them, but they were speedilysubjugated, and the despised bonnet was added as the crowning touch.Not a moment too soon, for the boat grated on the sandy beach, and theaustere windows of her home were looking coldly down upon her. A pairof austere eyes were also fixedly regarding her; but of this Helenewas happily unconscious. Perhaps it was the instinct of hospitalityalone that made her smile so brightly upon the brother of her friend,as they walked up to the house together. The grounds about "Bellevue,"not so ample as those surrounding the home of the old Commodore, gaveequal evidence of wealth and taste, and reminded one of a little parkset in the midst of the wilderness. The garden borders were brightwith crocuses and snowdrops and rich in promises of future bloom,while from the orchard slopes on the left came a fair vision ofwall-like masses of foliage, frescoed with blossoms and the perfumedtouch of the blithe breezes at play among them. Entering the quaint,dimly-lighted hall, they passed under long plumes of peacock feathers,o'erhanging the arched doorway leading into the drawing-room. Thefloors were waxed and polished, the apartments spacious and lofty withelaborate cornices and panels. Leaving her guest in mute contemplationof a tiny wood fire in a great fire-place, the young girl ran lightlyup the broad, low stairway, pausing at the half-way landing to gazedreamily from a casemated window out upon the sparkling waters of thelake. Some of its brightness was reflected in her eyes, as, with astep less discreet and deferential than that which usuallycharacterized her approaches to her mother's bedchamber, she passed onto a half-closed door, tapped lightly upon it, and then pushed it wideopen.
"Ah, my daughter, what tidings do you bring?"
"He has come!" declared the girl, proclaiming with unaffected gladnesswhat was at that moment a great event in her life.
"He!"
The chilly palm which the elder lady had extended, without rising, forthe customary greeting, was not so chilly as the tone with which sheuttered this offending pronoun. Helene, suddenly remembering with deepself-reproach the grief that her mother must feel in the loss of herold friend, took the cold fingers in both her warm white hands, andwhispered tenderly:
"She has gone!"
Madame DeBerczy was not overcome by this intelligence. She had indeedlearned the sad truth from Tredway, who had been despatched to"Bellevue" by the Commodore immediately upon the death of his wife.Consequently, at this moment, her heart did not suffer so much as hersense of propriety--which her enemies asserted was a more vital organ.
"I trust," she said, not unkindly, but with a sort of majesticdispleasure, "that you do not mention these facts to me in what youconsider the order of their importance."
The young girl was chilled. She moved away to one of the spindle-leggedchairs near a window, and played absently with the knotted fringes ofthe old-fashioned dimity curtain. "I mention them in the order oftheir occurrence," she said gently. "Dear Mrs. Macleod could scarcelyclose her eyes on earth until they rested upon her son. He brought meover in his boat this morning, and is waiting below to see you. Do youfeel able to go down?"
"I hope I shall always be able to respond to social requirements, andthe son of my old friend must not be slighted. Were you about tosuggest that I receive him in my bedchamber?"
Helene, who had risen with charming alertness at the first intimationof her mother's intentions, now confronted that frigid dame with thesubdued radiance of her glance. "Ah, dear mother!" she murmureddeprecatingly. Daughterly submissiveness, tender consideration for aninvalid's querulous moods, gentle insistence upon her own right to behappy in spite of them, were all radiated from the softly spokenwords. Rigid propriety may have slain its thousands, perhaps its tensof thousands, but the elder lady foresaw with terrible clearness thatit would never find a victim in this blithe girl, who refrained fromdancing down the stairs before her simply because her happiness wasaccustomed to find expression in her looks, not in her actions.However, motherly allegiance to duty might curb if it could notaltogether control. "Is it possible that I heard you humming a tune asyou came through the hall?" she inquired.
"No, no; it is impossible! I hummed it so low that you certainly couldnot have heard it!"
Dignified rebuke was out of the question, as they had reached the footof the stairway. In another moment Edward Macleod was bendingprofoundly over the hand of his hostess. The aristocratic, little oldlady, with her delicate faded face, always seemed to him like somerare piece of porcelain or other fragile, highly-finished object. Heled her to the easiest chair, and drew his own close beside her, onlyinterrupting the absorbed attention which he gave to her remarks bysoft inquiries regarding her health, or compliments upon the way inwhich her not very vigorous constitution had withstood the severity ofthe Canadian winter.
This noble dame, though she had been accustomed to a Northern climate,had never reconciled herself to it. She still longed for _la belleFrance_. Those who accompanied her husband to this portion of UpperCanada, on the outbreak of the French Revolution, had either returnedto France or had gone to settle in French Canada, at the capital ofwhich Helene was born shortly after the death of her father. The oldfriendship of General DeBerczy for Commodore Macleod, and the factthat the latter was the executor of her husband's estate and theguardian of her daughter, had led her to return to the Huguenot colonyon the Oak Ridges, and summer always found Madame and her household ather northern villa, near the Macleod residence, on Lake Simcoe. HereEdward passed the day gossiping with the old lady, and saunteringabout the trim grounds with the stately Helene until the afternoon wasfar advanced.
After taking his leave of Madame DeBerczy, Edward cast a fugitiveglance about him in search of her daughter, but that young lady, forreasons of her own, was absent. He suffered a vague disappointment, ashe took his way to the shore, but at the water's edge a girlish formovertook him, and a superb bouquet of hot-house flowers was placed inhis hand.
"I brought them for you to place upon--upon--"
She hesitated. It sounded like wanton cruelty to say "your mother'sgrave" to him, whose idea of everything lovely on earth must besignified in the word "mother," everything terrible in the
word"grave." But he understood her, and thanked her, while his heart andeyes filled fast. On that lonely homeward row the burden of hisbereavement lay heavily upon him, and the remembrance of his happymorning with his childhood's friend, though sweet, was almost as faintas the fragrance exhaled from the rare exotics at his feet. The puretender curves of the white camellias reminded him of Helene. Sheherself was the rare product of choicest care and cultivation--theflower of an old and complex civilization. The fancy pleased him atfirst, and then woke in his mind a certain vague disdain. What placehad hot-house plants, either human or otherwise, in this wild newland, whose illimitable forests as yet were almost strangers to axeand fire?
In a remote and solitary corner of his own domain, the Commodore hadmade for his dead wife a last abiding-place. Thitherward, and alone,the motherless youth bent his steps in the soft glow of sunset. Thestillness of the place was broken only by the whisper of the treesoverhead, the faint hum of insects, and the low murmur of the lappingwaters of the lake. Walking with downbent head and step so light thathis footfall made no slightest sound upon the young grass in his path,he did not see the form of a half wild, wholly beautiful girl, emergefrom the deep gloom of the woods before him. Nor did she observe him,for her attention was wholly bent upon the armful of forest-flowers,which she let fall upon the grave with a passionate gesture of grief.The young man, looking up in startled amaze, recognized the strange,fantastic figure that had fled before his approach on the evening ofhis return home. He scarcely noticed her odd costume of mingled blueand yellow, so drawn was he to the dusky splendour of her face. Thewarm vitality of the mantling cheek, and the charm of the lustrouslips, were matched in hue by a blood-coloured 'kerchief, carelesslyknotted about the supple, tawny throat, behind which streamed aprofuse abundance of deep-black hair. Giving him one frightenedglance, she turned and sped like some strange tropic bird upon thewind. Moved by wonder, curiosity, and admiration, the young man gavestealthy chase; but, after following in the wake of her flying feet bybush and brier, and through the tangled thickets of the forest, he hadthe poor satisfaction of losing sight of her altogether, and thengaining one last glimpse of her, as, from the dense shadowy pointwhere she became invisible, shot out a birch-bark canoe, and the dyingsunset illumined with all the hues of victory the superb form of anAlgonquin maiden rapidly rowing away. Hot, irritated, and tired,Edward returned home, nor did he observe that, in this fruitlesschase, one of the pure buds that Helene had given him had fallen fromhis breast, on which he had pinned it, and had been rudely crushedbeneath his heel.
An Algonquin Maiden: A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada Page 3
