“Goodness, I’m too lazy, too contented, too happy, to worry over such sad matters as love!”
“Well, then, I had better write to Hamilton asking a flag — —”
“I tell you not to hasten!” she retorted pettishly. “Moonlight changes one’s ideas. My noonday sentiments never correspond to my evening state of mind.”
“But,” I persisted, “if we only cherish certain sentiments when the moon shines — —”
“Starlight, too, silly! Besides, whenever I take time to think of your late peril, I straightway experience a tender sentiment for you. I tell you be not too hasty to ask a flag for me. Come, let us now consider and be wise. Once in Canada all is ended, for Sir Frederick Haldimand would sooner see me fall from Cape Eternity to the Saguenay than hear of me in love with you. Therefore I say, let us remember, consider, and await wisdom.”
“But,” I argued, “something must be settled before fresh orders from headquarters send me north and you to West Point.”
“Oh, I shall go north, too,” she observed calmly.
“Into battle, for example?” I asked, amused.
“I shall certainly not let you go into battle all alone! You are a mere child when it comes to taking precaution in danger.”
“You mean you would actually gallop into battle to see I came to no mischief?” I demanded, laughing.
“Aye, clip my hair and dress the trooper, jack-boots and all, if you drive me to it!” she exclaimed, irritated. “You may as well know it, Carus; you shall not go floundering about alone, and that’s flat! See what a mess of it you were like to make in New York!”
“Then,” said I, still laughing, yet touched to the heart, “I shall instruct you in the duties and amenities of wedded life, and we may as well marry and be done with it. Once married, I, of course, shall do as I please in the matter of battles — —”
“No, you shall not! You shall consider me! Do you think to go roaming about, nose in the air, and leaving me to sit quaking at home, crying my eyes out over your foolishness? Do I not already know the terror of it with you in New York there, and only ten minutes to save your neck from Cunningham? Thank you, I am already instructed in the amenities of wedded life — if they be like the pleasures of betrothal — though I cared not a whit what happened to Walter Butler, it is true, yet fell sick o’ worry when you and Rosamund Barry went a-sailing — not that I feared you’d drown, either. O Carus, Carus, you distract me, you worry me; you tell me nothing, nothing, and I never knew what you were about there in New York when you were not with me! — doubtless a-courting every petticoat on Hanover Square, for all I know!”
“Well,” said I, amazed and perplexed, “if you think, under the circumstances, there is any prospect of our falling in love after marriage, and so continuing, I will wed you — now — —”
“No!” she interrupted angrily; “I shall not marry you, nor even betroth myself. It may be that I can see you leave me and bid you a fair journey, unmoved. I would to God I could! I feel that way now, and may continue, if I do not fall a-pondering, and live over certain hours with you that plague me at times into a very passion. But at moments like this I weary of you, so that all you say and do displeases, and I’m sick of the world and I know not what! O Carus, I am sick of life — and I dare not tell you why!”
She rested her head on her hands, staring down at her blurred image, reflected in the polished table-top.
“I have sometimes thought,” she mused, “that the fault lay with you — somewhat.”
“With me!”
“That you could force me to love you, if you dared. The rest would not matter, then. Misery me! I wish that we had never met! And yet I can not let you go, because you do not know how to care for yourself. If you will sail to France on the next packet, and remain with your mother, I’ll say nothing. I’ll go with a flag I care not where — only to know you are safe. Will you? O Carus, I would my life were done and all ended!”
She was silent for a while, leaning on the table, tracing with her finger the outline of her dull reflection in the shining surface. Presently she looked up gaily, a smile breaking in her eyes.
“All that I said is false. I desire to live, Carus. I am not unhappy. Pray you, begin your writing!”
I drew the paper to me, dipped a quill full of ink from the musty horn, rested my elbow, pen lifted, and began, dating the letter from the Blue Fox, and addressing it most respectfully to Sir Peter and Lady Coleville.
First I spoke of the horses we had taken, and would have promised payment by draft enclosed, but that Elsin, looking over my shoulder, stayed my pen.
“Did you not see me leave a pile of guineas?” she demanded. “That was to pay for our stable theft!”
“But not for the horse I took?”
“Certainly, for your horse, too.”
“But you could not know that I was to ride saddle to the Coq d’Or!” I insisted.
“No, but I saddled two horses,” she replied, delighted at my wonder, “two horses, monsieur, one of which stood ready in the stalls of the Coq d’Or! So when you came a-horseback, it was not necessary to use the spare mount I had led there at a gallop. Now do you see, Mr. Renault? All this I did for you, inspired by — foresight, which you lack!”
“I see that you are as wise and witty as you are beautiful!” I exclaimed warmly, and caught her fingers to kiss them, but she would have none of my caress, urging me to write further, and make suitable excuse for what had happened.
“It is not best to confess that we are still unwedded,” I said, perplexed.
“No. They suppose we are; let be as it is,” she answered. “And you shall not say that you were a spy, either, for that must only pain Sir Peter and his lady. They will never believe Walter Butler, for they think I fled with you because I could not endure him. And — perhaps I did,” she added; and that strange smile colored her eyes to deepest azure.
“Then what remains to say?” I asked, regarding her thoughtfully.
“Say we are happy, Carus.”
“Are you?”
“Truly I am, spite of all I complain of. Write it!”
I wrote that we were happy; and, as I traced the words, a curious thrill set my pen shaking.
“And that we love — them.”
I wrote it slowly, half-minded to write “one another” instead of “them.” Never had I been so near to love.
“And — and — let me see,” she mused, finger on lip— “I think it not too impudent to ask their blessing. It may happen, you know, though Destiny fight against it; and if it does, why there we have their blessing all ready!”
I thought for a long while, then wrote, asking their blessing upon our wedded union.
“That word ‘wedded,’” observed Elsin, “commits us. Scratch it out. I have changed my mind. Destiny may accept the challenge, and smite me where I sit.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean — nothing. Yet that word ‘wedded’ must not stand. It is an affront to — to Destiny!”
“I fear nothing from Destiny — with you, Elsin.”
“If you write that word, then, I tell you we must betroth ourselves this instant! — and fight Fate to its knees. Dare you?”
“I am ready,” said I coolly.
She looked at me sidewise in quick surprise, chin resting in her clasped hands. Then she turned, facing me, dropping her elbows on the polished table.
“You would wed me, Carus?” she said slowly.
“Yes.”
“Because — because — you — love me?”
“Yes.”
A curious tremor possessed my body; it was not as though I spoke; something within me had stirred and awakened and was twitching at my lips. I stared at her through eyes not my own — eyes that seemed to open on her for the first time. And, as I stared, her face whitened, her eyes closed, and she bowed her head to her hands.
“Keep pity for others,” she said wearily; “keep your charity for some happier maid
who may accept it, Carus. I would if I dared. I have no pride left. But I dare not. This is the end of all, I think. I shall never ask alms of Love again.”
Then a strange thing happened, quick as a thrust; and my very soul leaped, quivering, smitten through and through with love of her. In the overwhelming shock I stretched out my hand like a man dazed, touching her fingers, and the thrill of it seemed to stun me.
Never, never could I endure to have her look at another as she looked at me when our hands touched, but I could not utter a word; and I saw her lip quiver, and the hopeless look deaden her eyes again.
I rose blindly to my feet, speechless, heart hammering at my throat, and made to speak, but could not.
She, too, had risen, gazing steadily at me; and still I could not utter a word, the blood surging through me and my senses swimming. Love! It blinded me with its clamor; it frightened me with its rushing tide; it dinned in my ears, it ran riot, sweeping every vein, choking speech, while it surged on, wave on wave mounting in flame.
She stood there, pallidly uncertain, looking on the conflagration love had wrought. Then something of its purport seemed to frighten her, and she shrank away step by step, passing the portal of her chamber, retreating, yet facing me still, fascinated eyes on mine.
I heard a voice unlike my own, saying: “I love you, Elsin. Why do you repulse me?”
And as she answered nothing, I went to her and took her hand. But the dismayed eyes only widened, the color faded from her parted lips.
“Can you not see,” I whispered, “can you not see I love you?”
“You — love — me!”
I caught her in my arms. A bright blush stained neck and face, and she threw back her head, avoiding my lips.
She threw back her head, avoiding my lips.
“Elsin, I beg you — I beg you to love me! Can you not see what you have done to me? — how I am awakened?”
“Wait,” she pleaded, resisting me, “wait, Carus. I — I am afraid — —”
“Of love, sweetheart?”
“Wait,” she panted— “give me time — till morning — then if I change not — if my heart stirs again so loudly when you hold me — thus — and — and crush me so close to you — so close — and promise to love me — —”
“Elsin, Elsin, I love you!”
“Wait — wait, Carus! — my darling. Oh, you must not — kiss me — until you know — what I am — —”
Her face burned against mine; her eyes closed. Through the throbbing silence her head drooped, lower, lower, yielding her mouth to mine; then, with a cry she turned in my arms, twisting to her knees, and dropped her head forward on the bed. And, as I bent beside her, she gasped: “No — no — wait, Carus! I know myself! I know myself! Take your lips from my hands — do not touch me! My brain has gone blind, I tell you! Leave me to think — if I can — —”
“I will not leave you here in tears. Elsin, Elsin, look at me!”
“The tears help me — help us both,” she sobbed. “I know what I know. Leave me — lest the very sky fall to crush us in our madness — —”
I bent beside her, a new, fierce tenderness choking me; and at my touch she straightened up, tear-stained face lifted, and flung both arms around my neck.
“I love you, Carus! I love you!” she stammered. “I care for that, only — only for that! If it be for a week, if it be for a day, an hour, an instant, it is what I was made for, it is what I was fashioned for — to love you, Carus! There is nothing else — nothing else in all the world! Love me, take me, do with me what you will! I yield all you ask, all you beg, all you desire — all save wedlock!”
She swayed in my arms. A deadly pallor whitened her; then her knees trembled and she gave way, sinking to the floor, her head buried in the flowering curtains of the bed; and I to drop on my knees beside her, seeking to lift her face while the sobs shook her slender body, and she wept convulsively, head prostrate in her arms.
“I — I am wicked!” she wailed. “Oh, I have done that which has damned me forever, Carus! — forever and ever. I can not wed you — I love you so! — yet I can not wed you! What wild folly drove me to go with you? What devil has dragged me here to tempt you — whom I love so truly? Oh, God pity us both — God pity us!”
“Elsin,” I said hoarsely, “you are mad to say it! Is there anything on earth to bar us from wedlock?”
“Yes, Carus, yes!” she cried. “It is — it is too late!”
“Too late!” I repeated, stunned.
“Aye — for I am a wedded wife! Now you know! Oh, this is the end of all!”
A while she lay there sobbing her heart out, I upright on my knees beside her, staring at blank space, which reeled and reeled, so that the room swam all awry, and I strove to steady it with fixed gaze, lest the whole world come crashing upon us.
At last she spoke, lifting her tear-marred face from the floor to the bed, forehead resting heavily in her hands:
“I ask your pardon — for the sin I have committed. Hear me out — that is my penance; spurn me — that is my punishment!”
She pressed her wet eyes, shuddering. “Are you listening, Carus? The night before I sailed from Canada — he sought me — —”
“Who?” My lips found the question, but no sound came.
“Walter Butler! O God! that I have done this thing!”
In the dreadful silence I heard her choking back the cry that strangled her. And after a while she found her voice again: “I was a child — a vain, silly thing of moods and romance, ignorant of men, innocent of the world, flattered by the mystery with which he cloaked his passion, awed, fascinated by this first melancholy lover who had wrung from me through pity, through vanity, through a vague fear of him, perhaps, a promise of secret betrothal.”
She lifted her head and set her chin on one clinched hand, yet never looked at me:
“Sir Frederick was abed; I all alone in the great arms-gallery, nose to the diamond window-panes, and looking out at the moon — and waiting for him. Suddenly I saw him there below.... Heaven is witness I meant no harm nor dreamed of any. He was not alone. My heart and my affections were stirred to warmth — I sailing from Canada and friends next day at dawn — and I went down to the terrace and out among the trees where he stood, his companion moving off among the trees. I had come only to bid him the farewell I had promised, Carus — I never dreamed of what he meant to do.”
She cleared her hair from her brow.
“I — I swear to you, Carus, that never has Walter Butler so much as laid the weight of his little finger on my person! Yet he swayed me there — using that spell of melancholy, clothed in romance — and — I know not how it was — or how I listened, or how consented — it is scarce more than a dreadful dream — the trees in the moonlight, his voice so gentle, so pitiful, trembling, beseeching — and he had brought a clergyman” — again her hands covered her eyes— “and, ere I was aware of it, frightened, stunned in the storm of his passion, he had his way with me. The clergyman stood between us, saying words that bound me. I heard them, I was mute, I shrank from the ring, yet suffered it — for even as he ringed me he touched me not with his hand. Oh, if he had, I think the spell had broken!”
Again her tears welled up, falling silently; and presently the strength returned to her voice, and she went on:
“From the first moment that I saw you, Carus, I understood what love might be. From the very first I closed my ears to the quick cry of caution. I saw you meet coquetry unmoved, I knew the poison of my first passion was in me, stealing through every vein; and every moment with you was the more hopeless for me. I played a hundred rôles — you smiled indifference on all. A mad desire to please you grew with your amused impatience of me. Curiosity turned to jealousy. I longed for your affection as I never longed for anything on earth — or heaven. I had never had a lover to love before. O Carus, I had never loved, and love crazed me! Day after day I wondered if I had been fashioned to inspire love in such a man as you. I was bewildered by my pass
ion and your coldness; yet had I not been utterly mad I must have known the awful end of such a flame once kindled. But could I inspire love? Could you love me? That was all in the world I cared about — thinking nothing of the end, knowing all hope was dead for me, and nothing in life unless you loved me. O Carus, if I have inspired one brief moment of tenderness in you, deal mercifully with the sin! Guilty as I am, false as I am, I can not add a lie and say that I am sorry that you love me, that for one blessed moment you said you loved me. Now it is ended. I can not be your wife. I am too mean, too poor a thing for hate. Deal with me gently, Carus, lest your wrath strike me dead here at the altar of outraged Love!”
I rose to my feet, feeling blindly for support, and rested against the great carved columns of the bed. A cold rage froze me, searching every vein with icy numbness that left me like a senseless thing. That passed; I roused, breathing quietly and deeply, and looked about, furtive, lest the familiar world around had changed to ashes, too.
Presently my dull senses were aware of what was at my feet, kneeling there, face buried in clasped hands, too soft, too small, too frail to hold a man’s whole destiny. And, as I bent to kiss them, I scarce dared clasp them, scarce dared lift her to my arms, scarce dared meet the frightened wonder in her eyes, and the full sweetness of them, and the love breaking through their azure, as I think day must dawn in paradise!
“Now, in the name of God,” I breathed, “we two, always forever one, through life, through death, here upon earth, and afterward! I wed you now with heart and soul, and ring your body with my arms! I stand your champion, I kneel your lover, Elsin, till that day breaks on a red reckoning with him who did this sin! Then I shall wed you. Will you take me?”
She placed her hands on my shoulders, gazing at me from her very soul.
“You need not wed me — so that you love me, Carus.”
Arms enlacing one another, we walked the floor in silence, slowly passing from her chamber into mine, and back again, heads erect, challenging that Destiny whose shadowy visage we could now gaze on unafraid.
The dusk of day was dissolving to a silvery night, through which the white-throat’s song floated in distant, long-drawn sweetness. The little stream’s whisper grew louder, too; and I heard the trees stirring in slumber, and the breeze in the river-reeds.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 239
