_ CHAPTER XVIII. "IT'S AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NOBODY GOOD"
They journeyed northward very slowly, stopping for a few days at all the great cities, so that October was gone and part of November when they reached Montreal. There they lingered a week, and then began the last stage of their journey home.
It was a desolate afternoon, near the middle of that most desolate month, November, when Captain Danton and his daughter stepped into the railway-fly at St. Croix, and were driven, as fast as the spavined old nag would go, to Danton Hall. A desolate afternoon, with a low leaden sky threatening snow, and earth like iron with hard black frost. A wretched complaining wind that made your nerves ache, worried the half-stripped trees, and now and then a great snowflake whirled in the dull grey air. The village looked silent and deserted as they drove through it, and a melancholy bell was slowly tolling, tolling, tolling all the way. Kate shivered audibly, and wrapped her fur-lined mantle closer around her.
"What is that wretched bell for?" she asked.
"It is the passing bell," replied the father, with a gloomy brow. "You know the fever is in the village."
"And someone is dead."
She looked out with a dreary, shivering sigh over the bleak prospect. Gaunt black trees, grim black marshes, dull black river, and low black sky. Oh, how desolate! How desolate it all was--as desolate as her own dead heart. What was the use of going away, what was the use of forgetting for a few poor moments, and then coming back to the old desolation and the old pain? What a weary, weary piece of business life was at best, not worth the trouble and suffering it took to live!
The drive to the Hall was such a short one, it hardly seemed to her they were seated before they were driving up the leafless avenue, where the trees loomed unnaturally large and black in the frosty air, and the dead leaves whirled in great wild drifts under the horse's feet. The gloom and desolation were here before them too. When they had gone away, nearly six months before, those bleak avenues had been leafy arcades, where the birds sang all the bright day long, flowers had bloomed wherever her eye rested, and red roses and sweetbrier had twined themselves around the low windows and stone pillars of the portico. Now the trees were writhing skeletons, the flowers dead with the summer, nothing left of the roses but rattling brown stalks, and the fish-pond lying under the frowning wintry sky like a sheet of steel.
She went up the stone steps and into the hall, still shivering miserably under her wraps, and saw Grace, and Eeny, and the servants assembled to welcome them, and listened like one in a dream. It all seemed so flat, and dead, and unsatisfying, and the old time and the old memories were back at her heart, until she almost went wild. She could see how Eeny and Grace looked a little afraid of her, and how differently they greeted her father; and how heartily and unaffectedly glad he was to be with them once more. And then she was toiling wearily up the long, wide stairway, followed by faithful Eunice, and had the four walls of her own little sitting room around her at last.
How pretty the room was! A fire burned brightly in the glittering steel grate, the curtains were drawn, for it was already dusk, that short November afternoon; and the ruddy, cheery light sparkled on the pictures, and the book-case, and the inlaid table, and the two little vases of scarlet geraniums Grace had planted there.
Outside, in contrast to all this warmth, and brightness, and comfort, she could hear the lamentable sighing of the wild November wind, and the groaning of the tortured trees. But it brought no sense of comfort to her, and she sat drearily back while Eunice dressed her for dinner, and stared blankly into the fire, wondering if her whole life was to go on like this. Only twenty-one, and life such a hopeless blank already! She could look forward to her future life--a long, long vista of days, and every day like this.
By-and-by the dinner-bell rang, arousing her from her dismal reverie, and she went down stairs, never taking the trouble to look at herself in the glass, or to see how her maid had dressed her. Yet she looked beautiful--coldly, palely beautiful--in that floating dress of deep blue; and jewelled forget-me-nots in her rich amber hair. Her face and figure had recovered all their lost roundness and symmetry, but the former, except when she spoke or smiled, was as cold and still as marble.
Father Francis and Doctor Danton were in the dining-room when she entered, but their welcome home was very apathetically met. She was silent all through dinner, talking was such a tiresome exertion; nothing interested her. She hardly looked up--she could feel, somehow, the young priest's deep, clear eyes bent upon her in grave disapproval, against which her proud spirit mutinied.
"Why should I take the trouble to talk?" she thought; "What do I care for Doctor Danton or his sister, or what interest have the things they talk of for me?"
So she listened as if they had been talking Greek. Only once was she aroused to anything like interest. Their two guests were relating the progress of that virulent fever in the village, and how many had already been carried off.
"I should think the cold weather would give it a check," said her father.
"It seems rather on the increase," replied the priest; "there are ten cases in St. Croix now."
"We heard the bell as we drove up this afternoon," said the Captain; "for whom was it tolling?"
"For poor old Pierre, the sexton. He took the fever only a week ago, and was delirious nearly all the time."
Kate lifted her eyes, hitherto listening, but otherwise meaningless.
"Pierre, who used to light the fires and sweep the church?"
"Yes; you knew him," said Father Francis looking at her; "he talked of you more than once during his delirium. It seems you sang for him once, and he never forgot it. It dwelt in his mind more than anything else, during that last illness."
A pang pierced Kate's heart. She remembered the day when she had strayed into the church with Reginald, and found old Pierre sweeping. He had made his request so humbly and earnestly, that she had sat down at the little harmonium and played and sung a hymn. And he had never forgotten it; he had talked of it in his dying hours. The sharpest remorse she had ever felt in her life, for the good she might have done, she felt then.
"My poor people have missed their Lady Bountiful," continued Father Francis, with that grave smile of his--"missed her more than ever, in this trying time. Do you remember Hermine Lacheur, Miss Danton?"
"That pretty, gentle girl, with the great dark eyes, and black ringlets? Oh, yes, very well."
"The same. She was rather a pet of yours, I think. You taught her to sing some little hymns in the choir. You will be sorry to hear she has gone."
"Dead!" Kate cried, struck and thrilled.
"Dead," Father Francis said, a little tremor in his voice. "A most estimable girl, beloved by every one. Like Pierre, she talked a great deal of you in her last illness, and sang the hymns you taught her. 'Give my dear love to Miss Danton,' were almost her last words to me; 'she has been very kind to me. Tell her I will pray for her in Heaven.'"
There was silence.
"Oh," Kate thought, with unutterable bitterness of sorrow; "how happy I might have been--how happy I might have made others, if I had given my heart to God, instead of to His creatures. The bountiful blessings I have wasted--youth, health, opulence--how many poor souls I might have gladdened and helped!"
She rose from the table, and walked over to the window. The blackness of darkness had settled down over the earth, but she never saw it. Was it too late yet? Had she found her mission on earth? Had she still something to live for? Was she worthy of so great a charge? A few hours before, and life was all a blank, without an object. Had Father Francis been sent to point out the object for which she must henceforth live? The poor and suffering were around her. It was in her power to alleviate their poverty and soothe their suffering. The great Master of Earth and Heaven had spent His life ministering to the afflicted and humble--surely it was a great and glorious thing to be able to follow afar off in His footsteps. The thoughts of that hour changed the whole tenor of her mind--perhaps the whole course of her life. She had found her place in the world, and her work to do. She might never be happy herself, but she might make others happy. She might never have a home of her own, but she might brighten and cheer other homes. As an unprofessed Sister of Charity, she might go among those poor ones doing good; and dimly in the future she could see the cloistered, grateful walls shutting her from the troubles of this feverish life. Standing there by the curtained window, her eyes fixed on the pitchy darkness, a new era in her existence seemed to dawn.
Miss Danton said nothing to any one about this new resolution of hers. She felt how it would be opposed, how she would have to argue and combat for permission; so she held her tongue. But next morning, an hour after breakfast, she came to Grace, and in that tone of quiet authority she always used to her father's housekeeper, requested the keys to the sideboard.
Grace looked surprised, but yielded them at once; and Kate, going to the large, carved, old-fashioned, walnut wood buffet, abstracted two or three bottles of old port, a glass jar of jelly, and another of tamarinds; stowed away these spoils in a large morocco reticule, returned the keys to Grace, and, going upstairs, dressed herself in her plainest dress, mantle, and hat, took her reticule, and set off. She smiled at herself as she walked down the avenue--she, the elegant, fastidious Kate Danton, attired in those sombre garments, carrying that well-filled bag, and turning, all in a moment, a Sister of Mercy.
It was nearly noon when she returned, pale, and very tired, from her long walk. Grace wondered more than ever, as she saw her dragging herself slowly upstairs.
"Where can she have been?" she mused, "in that dress and with that bag, and what on earth can she have wanted the keys of the sideboard for?"
Grace was enlightened some hours later, when Father Francis came up, and informed the household that he had found Kate ministering to one of the worst cases of fever in the village--a dying old woman.
"She was sitting by the bedside reading to her," said the priest; "and she had given poor old Madame Lange what she has been longing for weeks past, wine. I assure you I was confounded at the sight."
"But, good gracious!" cried the Captain, aghast, "she will take the fever."
"I told her so--I expostulated with her on her rashness, but all in vain. I told her to send them as much wine and jellies as she pleased, but to keep out of these pestiferous cottages. She only looked at me with those big solemn eyes, and said:
"'Father, if I were a professed Sister of Charity, you would call my mission Heaven-sent and glorious; because I am not, you tell me I am foolish and rash. I don't think I am either; I have no fear of the fever; I am young, and strong, and healthy, and do not think I will take it. Even if I do, and if I die, I shall die doing God's work. Better such a death as that than a long, miserable, worthless life.'"
"She is resolved, then?"
"You would say so if you saw her face. Better not oppose her too much, I think; her mind is set upon it, and it seems to make her happy. It is, indeed, as she says, a noble work. God will protect her."
Captain Danton sighed. It seemed to him a very dreary and dismal labour for his bright Kate. But he had not the heart to oppose her in anything, let it be never so mad and dangerous. He had never opposed her in the days of her happiness, and it was late to begin now.
So Kate's new life began. While the weeks of November were ending in short, dark, dull days, and cold and windy nights, with the dying year, many in the fever-stricken village were dying too. Into all these humble dwellings the beautiful girl was welcomed as an angel of light. The delicacies and rich wines that nourished and strengthened them they owed to her bounty; the words of holy hope and consolation that soothed their dying hours, her sweet voice read; the hymns that seemed a foretaste of Heaven, her clear voice sang. Her white hands closed their dying eyes and folded the rigid arms, and decked the room of death with flowers that took away half its ghastliness. Her deft fingers arranged the folds of the shroud, and the winding-sheet, and her gentle tones whispered comfort and resignation to the sorrowing ones behind. How they blessed her, how they loved her, those poor people, was known only to Heaven and themselves.
There were two others in all these stricken houses, at these beds of death--Father Francis and Dr. Danton. They were her indefatigable fellow-labourers in the good work, as unwearied in their zeal and patience and as deeply beloved as she was. Perhaps it was that by constantly preaching patience, she had learned patience herself. Perhaps it was through seeing all his goodness and untiring devotion, she began to realize after a while she had been unjust to Doctor Danton. She could not help liking and respecting him. She heard his praises in every mouth in the village, and she could not help owning they were well deserved. Almost without knowing it, she was beginning to like and admire this devoted young Doctor, who never wearied in his zeal, who was so gentle, and womanly, and tender to the poor and suffering. Doing the brother tardy justice, it began dimly to dawn on her mind that she might have done the sister injustice too. She had never known anything of Grace but what was good. Could it be that she had been prejudiced, and proud, and unjust from first to last?
She asked herself the question going home one evening from her mission of mercy. The long-deferred wedding was to take place on Christmas eve, and it was now the 7th of December. She was walking home alone, in the yellow lustre of the wintry sunset, the snow lying white and high all around her. Her new life had changed her somewhat; the hard look was gone, her face was far more peaceful and gentle than when she had come. Its luminous brightness was not there, perhaps; but the light that remained was far more tender and sweet. She looked very lovely, this cold, clear December, afternoon, in her dark, fur-trimmed mantle, her pretty hat, fur-trimmed too, and the long black plume contrasting with her amber-tinted hair. The frosty wind had lit a glow in her pale cheeks, and deepened the light of her starry violet eyes. She looked lovely, and so the gentleman thought, striding after her over the snowy ground. She did not look around to see who it was, and it was only when he stepped up by her side that she glanced at him, uttering a cry of surprise.
"Sir Ronald Keith! Is it really you? Oh, what a surprise!"
She held out her gloved hand. He took it, held it, looking piercingly into her eyes.
"Not an unpleasant one, I hope? Are you glad to see me?"
"Of course! How can you ask such a question? But I thought you were hundreds of miles away, shooting moose, and bears, and wolves in New Brunswick."
"And so I was, and so I might have remained, had I not heard some news that sent me to Canada like a bolt from a bow."
"What news?"
"Can you ask?"
She lifted her clear eyes to his face, and read it there. The news that she was free. The red blood flushed up in her face for a moment, and then receded, leaving her as white as the snow.
"I learned in the wilds of New Brunswick, where I fled to forget you, Kate, that that man was, what I knew he would be, a traitor and a villain. I only heard it two weeks ago, and I have never rested on my way to you since. I am a fool and a madman, perhaps, but I can't help hoping against hope. I love you so much, Kate, I have loved you so long, that I cannot give you up. He is false, but I will be true. I love you with all my heart and soul, better than I love my own life. Kate, don't send me away again. Reginald Stanford does not stand between us now. Think how I love you, and be my wife."
She had tried to stop him, but he ran on impetuously. He was so haggard and so agitated speaking to her, that she could not be angry, that she could not help pitying him.
"Don't," she said, gently; "don't, Sir Ronald. You are only paining yourself and paining me. What I told you before, you force me to tell you again. I don't love you, and I can't be your wife."
"I don't expect you to love me yet," he said, eagerly; "how should you? I will wait, I will do everything under Heaven you wish, only give me hope. Give me a chance, Kate! I love you so truly and entirely, that it will win a return sooner or later."
"Ah! don't talk to me," she said, with an impatient sigh; "don't talk to me of love. I have done with that, my heart feels like dust and ashes. I am not worthy of you--I am not worthy of such devotion. I thank you, Sir Ronald, for the honour you do me; but I cannot--I cannot marry you!"
"And you will let that poltroon Stanford boast, as he does boast, that you will live and die single for his sake!" he cried, bitterly. "He has made it the subject of a bet in a London club-room with Major Lauderdale of the Guards."
"No!" said she, her face flushing, her eyes kindling; "he never did that!"
"He did do it. I have proof of it. You loved him so well--he boasted--that you would never marry. He and Lauderdale made the bet."
She drew a long, hard breath, her eyes flashing, her white teeth clenched.
"The dastard," she cried; "the mean, lying, cowardly dastard! Oh, if I were a man!"
"Take your revenge without being a man. Prove him a liar and a boaster. Marry me!"
She did not answer; but he read hope in her flushed and excited face.
"Besides," he artfully went on, "what will you do here? You have no longer a home when your father marries; unless you can consent to be subject to the woman who was once his housekeeper. You will have no place in the world; you will only be an incumbrance; your step-mother will wish you out of the way, and your father will learn to wish as his new wife does. Oh, Kate, come with me! Come to Glen Keith, and reign there; we will travel over the world; you shall have every luxury that wealth can procure; your every wish shall be gratified; you shall queen it, my beautiful one, over the necks of those who have slighted and humiliated you. Leave this hateful Canada, and come with me as my wife--as Lady Keith!"
"Don't! don't!" she cried, lifting her hand to stop his passionate pleading. "You bewilder me; you take my breath away! Give me time; let me think; my head is whirling now."
"As long as you like, my dearest. I don't ask you for love now; that will come by-and-by. Only give me hope, and I can wait--wait as long as Jacob for Rachel, if necessary."
He lifted her hand to his lips, but let it fall quickly again, for it felt like ice. She was looking straight before her, at the pale, yellow sunset, her dark eyes filled with a dusky fire, but her face as colourless as the snowy ground.
"Are you ill, Kate?" he said, in alarm; "have I distressed you? have I agitated you by my sudden coming?"
"You have agitated me," she replied. "My head is reeling. Don't talk to me any more. I want to be alone and to think."
They walked side by side the rest of the way in total silence. When they reached the house, Kate ran up to her own room at once, while Captain Danton came out into the hall to greet his old friend. The two men lounged out in the grounds, smoking before-dinner cigars, and Sir Ronald briefly stated the object of his return, and his late proposal to his daughter. Captain Danton listened silently and a little anxiously. He had known the Scottish baronet a long time; knew how wealthy he was, and how passionately he loved his daughter; but for all that he had an instinctive feeling that Kate would not be happy with him.
"She has given you no reply, then?" he said, when Sir Ronald had finished.
"None, as yet; but she will shortly. Should that reply be favourable, Captain Danton, yours, I trust, will be favourable also?"
He spoke rather haughtily, and a flush deepened the florid hue of the Captain's face.
"My daughter shall please herself. If she thinks she can be happy as your wife, I have nothing to say. You spoke of Reginald Stanford a moment ago; do you know anything of his doings since he left Canada?"
"Very little. He has sold his commission, and quitted the army--some say, quitted England. His family, you know, have cast him off for his dishonourable conduct."
"I know--I received a letter from Stanford Royals some months ago, in which his father expressed his strong regret, and his disapproval of his son's conduct."
"That is all you know about him?"
"That is all. I made no inquiry--I thought the false hound beneath notice."
Captain Danton sighed. He had loved his pretty, bright-eyed, auburn-haired Rose very dearly, and he could not quite forget her, in spite of her misdoing. They sauntered up and down in the grey, cold, wintry twilight, until the ringing of the dinner-bell summoned them indoors. Kate was there, very beautiful, Sir Ronald thought, in that dark, rich silk, and flashing ornaments in her golden hair.
Long that night, after the rest of the household were sleeping, Kate sat musing over the past, the present, and the future. She had dismissed Eunice, and sat before the fire in a loose, white dressing-gown, her lovely hair falling around her, her deep, earnest eyes fixed on the red blaze. What should she do? Accept Sir Ronald Keith's offer, and achieve a brilliant place in the world, or sink into insignificance in this remote corner of the earth? It was all true what he had said: in a few days her father would be married. Another would be mistress where she had reigned--another, who might look upon her as an incumbrance and a burden. She had been content to remain here while she held the first place in her father's heart; but another held that place now, and would hold it forever. What should she do in the long days, and months, and years, that were to come? How should she drag through a useless and monotonous existence in this dull place? Even now, earnestly as she sought to do good in her mission of mercy, there were hours and hours of wretched, unspeakable dreariness and desolation. When her work was ended, when the fever was over, what would become of her then? That dim vision of the cloister and veil was dim as ever in the far distance. No ardent glow, no holy longing filled her heart at the thought, to tell her she had found a vocation. Her life was unspeakable empty and desolate, and must remain so forever, if she stayed here. Other thoughts were at work, too, tempting her on. The recollection of Sir Ronald's words about her recreant lover--the thought of his insolent and cowardly boast stung her to the soul. Here was the way to revenge--the way to give him the lie direct. As Sir Ronald Keith's wife, a life of splendour and power awaited her. She thought of Glen Keith as she had seen it once, old and storied, and gray and grand, with ivy and roses clustering round its gray walls, and its waving trees casting inviting shadows. Then, too, did he not deserve some return for this long, faithful, devoted love? Other girls made marriages
de raison every day, and were well content with their lot--why should she not? She could not forever remain indifferent to his fidelity and devotion. She might learn to love him by-and-by.
The fire waned and burned low, the hours of the bleak winter night wore on, and three o'clock of a new day struck before the solitary watcher went to bed.
The Scotch baronet was not kept long in suspense. Next morning, as Miss Danton came down the stone steps, with something in a paper parcel for her poor, sick pensioners, Sir Ronald Keith joined her.
"I have passed a sleepless night," he said. "I shall never rest until I have your answer. When am I to have it, Kate?"
Her face turned a shade paler, otherwise there was no change, and her voice was quite firm.
"Now, if you wish."
"And it is yes," he cried, eagerly. "For Heaven's sake, Kate, say it is yes!"
"It is yes; if you can take me for what I am. I don't love you; I don't know that I shall ever love you, but I will try. If I marry you, I will be your true and faithful wife, and your honour will be as sacred as my salvation. If you can take me, knowing this, I am yours."
He caught her in his arms, and broke out into a torrent of passionate delight and thankfulness. She disengaged herself, cold and very pale.
"Leave me now," she said. "I must go to the village alone. Don't ask too much from me, Sir Ronald, or you may be disappointed."
"Only one thing more, my darling. Your father is to be married on the twenty-fourth. I am sure you will have no wish to linger in this house after that. Will you not dispense with the usual formalities and preparations, and be married on the same day?"
"Yes, yes," she said, impatiently; "let it be as you wish! What does it matter? Good-morning."
She walked away rapidly over the frozen snow, leaving the successful wooer to return to the house and relate his good luck. _