_ CHAPTER XII. HARRY DANTON
A spring-like afternoon. The March sun bright in the Canadian sky, the wind soft and genial, and a silvery mist hanging over the river and marshes. Little floods from the fast-melting snow poured through the grounds; the ice-frozen fish-pond was thawing out under the melting influence of the sunshine, and rubber shoes and tucked-up skirts were indispensable outdoor necessaries.
Rose Danton, rubber-shoes, tucked-up skirts, and all, was trying to kill time this pleasant afternoon, sauntering aimlessly through the wet grounds. Very pretty and coquettish she looked, with that crimson petticoat showing under her dark silk dress; that jockey-hat and feather set jauntily on her sunshiny curls; but her prettiness was only vanity and vexation of spirit to Rose. Where was the good of pink-tinted cheeks, soft hazel eyes, auburn curls, and a trim little foot and ankle, when there was no living thing near to see and admire? What was the use of dressing beautifully and looking charming for a pack of insensible mortals, to whom it was an old story and not worth thinking about? The sunny March day had no reflection in Rose's face; "sulky" is the only word that will tell you how she looked. Poor Rose! It was rather hard to be hopelessly in love, to be getting worse every day, and find it all of no use. It was a little too bad to have everything she wanted for eighteen years, and then be denied the fascinating young officer she had set her whole heart on. For Mr. Stanford was lost again. Just as she thought she had her bird snared for certain--lo! it spread its dazzling wings and soared up to the clouds, and farther out of reach than ever. In plain English, he had gone back to the old love and was off with the new, just when she felt most sure of him.
A whole week had passed since that night in the tamarack walk, that night when he had seemed so tender and lover-like, the matchless deceiver! And he had hardly spoken half a dozen words to her. He was back at the footstool of his first sovereign, he was the most devoted of engaged men; Kate was queen of the hour, Rose was nowhere. It was trying, it was cruel, it was shameful. Rose cried and scolded in the seclusion of her maiden bower, and hated Mr. Stanford, or said she did; and could have seen her beautiful elder sister in her winding-sheet with all the pleasure in life.
So, this sunny afternoon, Rose was wandering listlessly hither and thither, thinking the ice would soon break upon the fish-pond if this weather lasted, and suicide would be the easiest thing in the world. She walked dismally round and round it, and wondered what Mr. Stanford would say, and how he would feel when some day, in the cold, sad twilight, they would carry her, white, and lifeless, and dripping before him, one more unfortunate gone to her death! She could see herself--robed in white, her face whiter than her dress, her pretty auburn curls all wet and streaming around her--carried into the desolate house. She could see Reginald Stanford recoil, turn deadly pale, his whole future happiness blasted at the sight. She pictured him in his horrible remorse giving up Kate, and becoming a wanderer and a broken-hearted man all the rest of his life. There was a dismal delight in these musings; and Rose went round and round the fish-pond, revelling, so to speak, in them.
As her watch pointed to three, one of the stable-helpers came round from the stables leading two horses. She knew them--one was Mr. Stanford's, the other Kate's. A moment later, and Mr. Stanford and Kate appeared on the front steps, "booted and spurred," and ready for their ride. The Englishman helped his lady into the saddle, adjusted her long skirt, and sprang lightly across his own steed. Rose would have given a good deal to be miles away; but the fish-pond must be passed, and she, the "maiden forlorn," must be seen. Kate gayly touched her plumed-hat; Kate's cavalier bent to his saddle-bow, and then they were gone out of sight among the budding trees.
"Heartless, cold-blooded flirt!" thought the second Miss Danton, apostrophizing the handsomest of his sex. "I hope his horse may run away with him and break his neck!"
But Rose did not mean this, and the ready tears were in her eyes the next instant with pity for herself.
"It's too bad of him--it's too bad to treat me so! He knows I love him, he made me think he loved me; and now to go and act like this. I'll never stay here and see him marry Kate! I'd rather die first! I will die or do something! I'll run away and become an actress or a nun--I don't care much which. They're both romantic, and they are what people always do in such cases--at least I have read a great many novels where they did!" mused Miss Danton, still making her circle round the fish-pond.
Grace, calling from one of the windows to a servant passing below, caused her to look towards the house, just in time to see something white flutter from an open bedroom window on the breeze. The bedroom regions ran all around the third story of Danton Hall--six in each range. Mr. Stanford's chamber was in the front of the house, and it was from Mr. Stanford's room the white object had fluttered. Rose watched it as it alighted on a little unmelted snowbank, and, hurrying over, picked it up. It was part of a letter--a sheet of note-paper torn in half, and both sides closely written. It was in Reginald Stanford's hand and without more ado (you will be shocked to hear it, though) Miss Rose deliberately commenced reading it. It began abruptly with part of an unfinished sentence.
--"That you call me a villain! Perhaps I shall not be a villain, after all. The angel with the auburn ringlets is as much an angel as ever; but, Lauderdale, upon my soul, I don't want to do anything wrong, if I can help it. If it is kismit, as the Turks say, my fate, what can I do? What will be, will be; if auburn ringlets and yellow-brown eyes are my destiny, what am I--the descendant of many Stanfords--that I should resist? Nevertheless, if destiny minds its own business and lets me alone, I'll come up to the mark like a man. Kate is glorious; I always knew it, but never so much as now. Something has happened recently--no matter what--that has elevated her higher than ever in my estimation. There is something grand about the girl--something too great and noble in that high-strung nature of hers, for such a reprobate as I! This is entre nous, though; if I tell you I am a reprobate, it is in confidence. I am a lucky fellow, am I not, to have two of earth's angels to choose from? And yet sometimes I wish I were not so lucky; I don't want to misbehave--I don't want to break anybody's heart; but still--"
It came to an end as abruptly as it had begun. Rose's cheeks were scarlet flame before she concluded. She understood it all. He was bound to her sister; he was trying to be true, but he loved her! Had he not owned it--might she not still hope? She clasped her hands in sudden, ecstatic rapture.
"He loves me best," she thought; "and the one he loves best will be the one he will choose."
She folded up the precious document, and hid it in her pocket. She looked up at the window, but no more sheets of the unfinished letter fluttered out.
"Careless fellow!" she thought, "to leave such tell-tale letters loose. If Kate had found it, or Grace, or Eeny! They could not help understanding it. I wish I dared tell him; but I can't."
She turned and went into the house. No more dreary rambles round the fish-pond. Rose was happy again.
Suicide was indefinitely postponed, and Kate might become the nun, not she. Kate was his promised wife; but there is many a slip; and the second Miss Danton ran up to her room, singing, "New hope may bloom."
If Rose's heart had been broken, she would have dressed herself carefully all the same. There was to be a dinner-party at the house that evening, and among the guests a viscount recently come over to shoot moose. The viscount was forty, but unmarried, with a long rent-roll, and longer pedigree; and who knew what effect sparkling hazel eyes and gold-bronzed hair, and honeyed smiles, might have upon him? So Eunice was called in, and the auburn tresses freshly curled, and a sweeping robe of silvery silk, trimmed with rich lace, donned. The lovely bare neck and arms were adorned with pale pearls, and the falling curls were jauntily looped back with clusters of pearl beads.
"You do look lovely, Miss!" cried Eunice, in irrepressible admiration. "I never saw you look so 'andsome before. The dress is the becomingest dress you've got, and you look splendid, you do!"
Rose flashed a triumphant glance at her own face in the mirror.
"Do I, Eunice? Do I look almost as handsome as Kate?"
"You are 'andsomer sometimes, Miss Rose, to my taste. If Miss Kate 'ad red cheeks, now; but she's as w'ite sometimes as marble."
"So she is; but some people admire that style. I suppose Mr. Stanford does--eh, Eunice?"
"I dare say he does, Miss."
"Do you think Mr. Stanford handsome, Eunice?" carelessly.
"Very 'andsome, Miss, and so pleasant. Not 'igh and 'aughty, like some young gentlemen I've seen. Heverybody likes 'im."
"What is Kate going to wear this evening?" said Rose, her heart fluttering at the praise.
"The black lace, miss, and her pearls. She looks best in blue, but she will wear black."
"How is Agnes Darling getting on?" asked Rose, jumping to another topic. "I haven't seen her for two days."
"Getting better, Miss; she is hable to be up halmost hall the time; but she's failed away to a shadow. Is there hanythink more, Miss?"
"Nothing more, thank you. You may go."
Eunice departed; and Rose, sinking into a rocker, beguiled the time until dinner with a book. She heard Mr. Stanford and Kate coming upstairs together, laughing at something, and go to their rooms to dress.
"I wonder if he will miss part of his letter," she thought, nervously. "What would he say if I gave it to him, and told him I had read it? No! I dare not do that. I will say nothing about it, and let him fidget as much as he likes over the loss."
Rose descended to the drawing-room as the last bell rang, and found herself bowing to half a dozen strangers--Colonel Lord Ellerton among the rest. Lord Ellerton, who was very like Lord Dundreary every way you took him, gave his arm to Kate, and Stanford, with a smile and an indescribable glance, took possession of Rose.
"Has your fairy godmother been dressing you, Rose? I never saw you look so bewildering. What is it?"
Rose shook back her curls saucily, though tingling to her finger-ends at the praise.
"My fairy godmother's goddaughter would not bewilder you much, if Cleopatra yonder were not taken possession of by that ill-looking peer of the realm. I am well enough as a dernier resort."
"How much of that speech do you mean? Are you looking beautiful to captivate the viscount?"
"I am looking beautiful because I can't help it, and I never stoop to captivate any one, Mr. Stanford--not even a viscount. By-the-by, you haven't quarrelled with Kate, have you?"
"Certainly not. Why should I?"
"Of course--why should you! She has a perfect right to walk in the grounds at midnight with any gentleman she chooses."
She said it rather bitterly. Stanford smiled provokingly.
"
Chacun à son gout, you know. If Kate likes midnight rambles, she must have a cavalier, of course. When she is Mrs. Stanford I shall endeavour to break her of that habit."
"Did you tell her I was with you?" demanded Rose, her eyes flashing.
"My dear Rose, I never tell tales. By-the-way, when shall we have another moonlight stroll? It seems to me I see very little of you lately."
"We will have no more midnight strolls, Mr. Stanford," said Rose, sharply; "and you see quite as much of me as I wish you to see. My lord--I beg your pardon--were you addressing me?"
She turned from Stanford, sitting beside her and talking under the cover of the clatter of spoons and knives, and flashed the light of her most dazzling smile upon Lord Ellerton, sitting opposite. Yes, the peer was addressing her--some question he wanted to know concerning the native Canadians, and which Kate was incapable of answering.
Rose knew all about it, and took his lordship in tow immediately. All the witcheries known to pretty little flirts were brought to bear on the viscount, as once before they had been brought to bear on Sir Ronald Keith.
Kate smiled across at Reginald, and surrendered the peer at once. King or Kaiser were less than nothing to her in comparison with that handsome idol on the other side of the table.
Dinner was over, and the ladies gone. In the drawing-room Kate seated herself at the piano, to sing a bewildering duet with Rose. Before it was ended the gentlemen appeared, and once more Lord Ellerton found himself taken captive and seated beside Rose--how, he hardly knew. How that tongue of hers ran! And all the time Lord Ellerton's eyes were wandering to Kate. Like Sir Ronald, pretty Rose's witcheries fell short of the mark; the stately loveliness of Kate eclipsed her, as the sun eclipses stars. When at last he could, without discourtesy, get away, he arose, bowed to the young lady, and, crossing the long, drawing-room, took his stand by the piano, where Kate still sat and sung. Stanford was leaning against the instrument, but he resigned his place to the viscount, and an instant later was beside Rose.
"Exchange is no robbery," he said. "Is it any harm to ask how you have succeeded?"
Rose looked up angrily into the laughing dark eyes.
"I don't know what you mean."
"My dear little artless Rose! Shall I put it plainer? When are you to be Lady Ellerton?"
"Mr. Stanford--"
"My dear Rose, don't be cross. He is too old and too ugly--low be it spoken--for the prettiest girl in Canada!"
"Meaning me?"
"Meaning you."
"Why don't you except Kate?"
"Because I think you are prettier than Kate?"
"You don't! I know better! I don't believe you!"
"Disbelieve me, then."
"You think there is no one in the world like Kate."
"Do I? Who told you?"
"I don't need to be told; actions speak louder than words."
"And what have my actions said?"
"That you adore the ground she walks on, and hold her a little lower than the angels."
"So I do. That is, I don't precisely adore the ground she walks on--I am not quite so far gone as that yet--but I hold her a little lower than the angels, certainly."
"That's enough then. Why don't you stay with her, and not come here annoying me?"
"Oh, I annoy you, do I? You don't mean it, Rose?"
"Yes, I do," said Rose, compressing her lips. "What do you come for?"
"Because--you won't be offended, will you?"
"No."
"Because I am very fond of you, then."
"Fond of me!" said Rose, her heart thrilling--"and you engaged to Kate! How dare you tell me so, Mr. Stanford?"
Rose's words were all they should have been, but Rose's tone was anything but severe. Stanford took an easier position on the sofa.
"Because I like to tell the truth. Never mind the viscount, Rose; you don't care about him, and if you only wait, and are a good girl, somebody you do care about may propose to you one of these days. Here, Doctor, there is room for another on our sofa."
"Will I be
de trop?" asked Doctor Frank, halting.
"Not at all. Rose and I are discussing politics. She thinks Canada should be annexed to the United States, and I don't. What are your views on the matter?"
Doctor Danton took the vacant seat and Stanford's conversational cue, and began discussing politics, until Rose got up in disgust, and left.
"I thought that would be the end of it," said Stanford. "Poor little girl! the subject is too heavy for her."
"Only I knew you were done for, Mr. Stanford," said Doctor Danton, "I should have fancied I was interrupting a flirtation."
"Not at all. Rose and I did not get on very well at first. I am afraid she took a dislike to me, and I am merely trying to bring her to a more Christian frame of mind. A fellow likes to be on good terms with his sister."
"So he does. I noticed you and our charming Miss Rose were at daggers-drawn even before you got properly introduced; and I couldn't account for it in any other way than by supposing you had made love to her and deserted her--in some other planet, perhaps."
Stanford looked with eyes of laughing wonder in the face of the imperturbable Doctor, who never moved a muscle.
"Upon my life, Danton," he exclaimed letting his hand fall lightly on the Doctor's shoulder, "you ought to be burned for a wizard! What other planet do you suppose it was?"
"Has that sprained ankle of yours got quite strong again?" somewhat irrelevantly inquired the physician.
Reginald Stanford laughed.
"Most astute of men! Who has been telling you tales?"
"My own natural sagacity. How many weeks were you laid up?"
"Three," still laughing.
"I was here at the time, and I recollect the sudden passion Rose was seized with for long rides every day. I couldn't imagine what was the cause. I think I can, now."
"Doctor Danton, your penetration does you credit. She's a dear little girl, and the best of nurses."
"And do you know--But perhaps you will be offended."
"Not I. Out with it."
"Well, then, I think it is a pity you were engaged before you sprained that ankle."
"Do you, really? Might I ask why?"
"I think Rose would make such a charming Mrs. Stanford."
"So do I," said Mr. Stanford, with perfect composure. "But won't Kate?"
"Miss Danton is superb; she ought to marry an emperor; but no, destiny has put her foot in it. Captain Danton's second daughter should be the one."
"You really think so?"
"I really do."
"How unfortunate!" said Stanford, stroking his mustache. "Do you think it can be remedied?"
"I think so."
"By jilting--it's an ugly word, too--by jilting Kate?"
"Precisely."
"But she will break her heart."
"No, she won't. I am a physician, and I know. Hearts never break, except in women's novels. They're the toughest part of the human anatomy."
"What a consolating thought! And you really advise me to throw over Kate, and take to my bosom the fair, the fascinating Rose?"
"You couldn't do better."
"Wouldn't there be the deuce to pay if I did, though, with that fire-eating father of hers? I should have my brains blown out before the honey-moon was ended."
"I don't see why, so that you marry one of his daughters, how can it matter to him which? With a viscount and a baronet at the feet of the peerless Kate, he ought to be glad to be rid of you."
"It seems to me, Doctor Danton, you talk uncommonly plain English."
"Is it too plain? I'll stop if you say so."
"Oh, no. Pray continue. It does me good. And, besides, I don't know but that I agree with you."
"I thought you did. I have thought so for some time."
"Were you jealous, Doctor? You used to be rather attentive to Rose, if I remember rightly."
"Fearfully jealous; but where is the use? She gave me my
coup de congé long ago. That I am still alive, and talking to you is the most convincing proof I can give that hearts do not break."
"After all," said Stanford, "I don't believe you ever were very far gone with Rose. My stately fiancée suits you better. If I take you at your word, and she rejects the baronet and the viscount, you might try your luck."
"It would be worse than useless. I might as well love some bright, particular star, and hope to win it, as Miss Danton. Ah! here she comes!"
Leaning on the arm of Lord Ellerton, Miss Danton came up smilingly.
"Are you two plotting treason, that you sit there with such solemn faces all the evening?" she asked.
"You have guessed it," replied her lover; "it is treason. Doctor, I'll think of what you have been saying."
He arose. Lord Ellerton resigned his fair companion to her rightful owner, and returned to Rose, who was looking over a book of beauty; and Doctor Danton went over to Eeny, who was singing to herself at the piano, and listened, with an odd little smile, to her song:
"Smile again, my dearest love,
Weep not that I leave you;
I have chosen now to rove--
Bear it, though it grieve you.
See! the sun, and moon, and stars,
Gleam the wide world over,
Whether near, or whether far,
On your loving rover.
"And the sea has ebb and flow,
Wind and cloud deceive us;
Summer heat and winter snow
Seek us but to leave us.
Thus the world grows old and new--
Why should you be stronger?
Long have I been true to you,
Now I'm true no longer.
"As no longer yearns my heart,
Or your smiles enslave me,
Let me thank you ere we part,
For the love you gave me.
See the May flowers wet with dew
Ere their bloom is over--
Should I not return to you,
Seek another lover."
Doctor Danton laughed.
"'Long have I been true to you,
Now I'm true no longer!'"
"Those are most atrocious sentiments you are singing--do you not know it, Miss Eeny?"
Mr. Stanford beside Kate, Lord Ellerton listening politely to Rose, and Doctor Frank with Eeny, never found time flying, and were surprised to discover it was almost midnight. The guests departed, "the lights were fled, the garlands dead, and the banquet-hall deserted" by everybody but Reginald Stanford and Captain Danton. They were alone in the long, dimly-lighted drawing-room.
"You will take Kate's place to night," the Captain was saying, "and be Harry's companion in his constitutional. I told him that another knew his secret. I related all the circumstances."
"How did he take it? Was he annoyed?"
"No; he was a little startled at first, but he allowed I could not do otherwise. Poor fellow! He is anxious to see you now. If you will get your overcoat, you will find him here when you return."
Mr. Stanford ran upstairs in a hurry, and returned in fur cap and overcoat in ten minutes. A young man, tall and slender, but pale to ghastliness, with haggard cheeks and hollow eyes, stood, wrapped in a long cloak, beside the Captain. He had been handsome, you could see, even through that bloodless pallor, and there was a look in his great blue eyes that startlingly reminded you of Kate.
"You two know each other already," said the Captain. "I claim you both as sons."
Reginald grasped Harry Danton's extended hand, and shook it heartily.
"Being brothers, I trust we shall soon be better acquainted," he said. "I am to supply Kate's place to-night in the tamarack walk. I trust no loiterers will see us."
"I trust not," said Harry, with an apprehensive shiver. "I have been seen by so many, and have frightened so many that I begin to dread leaving my room night or day."
"There is nothing to dread, I fancy," said Stanford, cheerfully, as they passed out, and down the steps. "They take you for a ghost, you know. Let them keep on thinking so, and you are all right. You have given Danton Hall all it wanted to make it perfect--it is a haunted house."
"It is haunted," said his companion, gloomily. "What am I better than any other evil spirit? Oh, Heaven!" he cried, passionately, "the horror of the life I lead! Shut up in the prison I dare not leave, haunted night and day by the vision of that murdered man, every hope and blessing that life holds gone forever! I feel sometimes as though I were going mad!"
He lifted his cap and let the chill night wind cool his burning forehead. There was a long, blank pause. When Reginald Stanford spoke, his voice was low and subdued.
"Are you quite certain the man you shot was shot dead? You hardly waited to see, of course; and how are you to tell positively the wound was fatal?"
"I wish to Heaven there could be any doubt of it!" groaned the young man. "My aim is unerring; I saw him fall, shot through the heart."
His voice died away in a hoarse whisper. Again there was a pause.
"Your provocation was great," said Reginald. "If anything can extenuate killing a fellow-creature, it is that. Are you quite positive--But perhaps I have no right to speak on this matter."
"Speak, speak!" broke out Harry Danton. "I am shut up in these horrible rooms from week's end to week's end, until it is the only thing that keeps me from going mad--talking of what I have done. What were you going to say?"
"I wanted to ask you if you were quite certain--beyond the shadow of doubt--of your wife's guilt? We sometimes make terrible mistakes in these matters."
"There was no mistake," replied his companion, with a sudden look of anguish, "there could be none. I saw and heard as plainly as I see and hear you now. There could be no mistake."
"Do you know where your--where she is now?"
"No!" with that look of anguish still. "No, I have never heard of her since that dreadful night. She may be dead, or worse than dead, long ere this."
"You loved her very much," said Reginald, impelled to say it by the expression of that ghastly face.
"Loved her?" he repeated. "I have no words to tell you how I loved her. I thought her all that was pure, and innocent, and beautiful, and womanly, and she--oh, fool, that I was to believe her as I did!--to think, as she made me think, that I had her whole heart!"
"Would you like to have some one try and trace her out for you? Her fate may be ascertained yet. I will go to New York, if you wish, and do my best."
"No, no," was the reply. "What use would it be? If you discovered her to-morrow, what would it avail? Better let her fate remain forever unknown than find my worst fears realized. False, wicked, degraded, as I know her, I cannot forget how madly I loved her--I cannot forget that I love her yet."
They walked up and down the tamarack-walk in the frosty starlight, all still and peaceful around them--the sky, sown with silver stars, so serene--the earth, white with its snowy garb, all hushed and tranquil--nothing disturbed but the heart of man, all things at peace but his storm-tossed soul.
"I am keeping you here," said Harry, "and it is growing late, and cold. I am selfish and exacting in my misery, as, I fear, poor Kate knows. Let us go in."
They walked to the house. When they entered, Reginald secured the door, and the two young men went upstairs together. Ogden sat sleepily on a chair, and started up at sight of them. Harry Danton held out his hand, with a faint sad smile.
"Good night," he said; "I am glad to have added another to the list of my friends. I hope we shall meet soon again. Good night, and pleasant dreams."
"We shall meet as often as you wish," answered Reginald. "You have my deepest sympathy. Good night."
The white, despairing face haunted Reginald Stanford's dreams all night, as if he had indeed been a ghost. He was glad when morning came, and he could escape the spectres of dream-land in the business of everyday life. He stopped in the hall on his way down stairs, to look out at the morning, wet, and cold, and dark, and miserable. As he stood, some one passed him, going up to the upper bedroom regions of the servants--a small, pallid little creature, looking like a stray spirit in its black dress--Agnes Darling.
"Another ghost?" thought Mr. Stanford, running down stairs. "They are not far wrong who call Danton Hall a haunted house." _