A Changed Heart Part 25

"I shall promise nothing of the sort!" cried Cherrie, with shrill indignation. "Because I promised to marry you, I suppose you would like me to live like a nun for the rest of my life, and not even look at any other man. I'll just do as I did before, Mr. Charley Marsh; and if you ain't satisfied with that, you may go and marry somebody else--Miss Rose, or Miss Clowrie--she'd have you, fast enough!"

"I don't want Miss Clowrie; I only want you, Cherrie; and if you cared for me, you wouldn't act and talk as you do."

Some of poor Charley's pain was in his voice and it touched the coquette's frivolous heart. She stopped, at a dry-goods store, for an encouraging word before entering.

"You know very well, Charley, I like you ever so much--a great deal better than I do any one else; but I can't help being pretty, and having the young men after me, and I hate to be cross to them, too. Come up to Redmon this evening, I haven't time to stop to talk now."

With which the little hypocrite made a smiling obeisance, and darted into the shop, leaving her lover to pursue his homeward way, a little lighter in the region of the heart, but still dissatisfied and mistrustful.

The afternoon was as long and dreary as the morning. Charley sat in the dismal little back-office, listening listlessly to the customers coming in and out of the surgery, to buy Epsom-salts and senna, or hair-oil and bilious pills; and the s...o...b..y droning over a song-book, which he read half aloud, in a monotonous sing-song way, when alone, staring vacantly at the rotten leaves, and bits of chips and straw and paper fluttering about the wet yard in the chill afternoon wind. And still the fog settled down thicker, and wetter, and colder than ever; and when the s...o...b..y came in a little after six, to light the flaring gas-jet--it was already growing dark--Charley arose, drearily, to go.

"What a long day it has been!" he said, gaping in the boy's face; "it seems like a week since I got up this morning. Where's the doctor?"

"Up to Squire Tod's, sir. The old gentleman's took bad again with the gout."

The lamps were flaring through the foggy streets as he walked along, and the few people abroad flitted in and out of the wet gloom, like shadowy phantoms. Queen Street was bright enough with the illumination from shop-windows, but the less busy thoroughfares looked dismal and deserted, and the spectral pa.s.sers-by more shadowy than ever. As he was turning the corner of Cottage Street, one of these phantoms, b.u.t.toned up in an overcoat, and bearing an umbrella, accosted him in a very unphantomlike voice, and with a very unphantomlike slap on the shoulder.

"How are you, Marsh? I thought I should come upon you here!"

Charley turned round, and, with no particular expression of rapture, recognized Captain Cavendish.

"Good evening," he said, coldly; "were you looking for me?"

The captain turned and linked his arm within his own.

"I was. What became of you last night? We expected you at Prince Street."

"I made another engagement."

"You will be there to-night, of course? I owe you your revenge, you know."

"Which means," said Charley, with a laugh, that sounded strange and bitter from him, "you will get me some thirty or forty dollars more in your debt!"

"Talking of debt," said Captain Cavendish, in an indifferent matter-of-fact tone, "could you oblige me with a trifle on account--say twenty pounds?"

Charley silently produced his pocketbook, and handed over the twenty he had received from Nathalie a few days before. The nonchalant young officer pocketed it as coolly as if it had been twenty pence.

"Thanks! One often needs a trifle of this sort on an occasion. Is this your house? Who is that playing? Not your sister?"

They had halted in front of the cottage, and could hear the sound of the piano from within.

"It is Miss Rose, I presume," said Charley, in the same cold voice; "will you come in?"

"Not now. You will be up at Prince Street for certain then to-night?"

Charley nodded, and entered the house.

At her own door stood Miss Catty Clowrie. She was often standing there; and though she returned the captain's bow, it was after Charley she looked until he disappeared. There was no one in the sitting-room when he entered; his mother's rocking-chair was vacant, and Miss Rose was playing and singing in the parlor--touching the keys so lightly and singing so sweetly that it seemed more an echo of the wind and waves than anything else. The table was set for tea, and Betsy Ann was scouring knives in the kitchen, humming some doleful ditty at her work.

There was a lounge under the window overlooking the bay, sullen and stormy to-night. Charley flung himself upon it, his arm across the pillow, his face lying in it, and listened in a vague and dismal way to the music. The song was weird and mournful, truly an echo of the wailing wind and sea.

"Come to supper, ma'am!" at this juncture shrilly pealed the voice of Betsy Ann at the foot of the stairs, to some invisible person above; "Mr. Charley's here, and the biscuit is getting cold."

The song died away, as if it had drifted out on the gale surging up from the black bay, and Mrs. Marsh crept shivering down stairs.

"Come in, Miss Rose," she said, looking in at the parlor door before entering the room; "tea is ready, and Charley is here."

Charley started up; and, as he did so, the front door unceremoniously opened, and Nathalie, wrapped in a large shawl, and wearing a white cloud about her head, stepped in, to the surprise of all.

"Gracious me! Natty! is it you?" cried her mamma, in feeble consternation, "whatever has taken you out such an evening?"

"What's the matter with the evening?" said Nathalie, kissing her and Miss Rose. "A little cold sea-fog is nothing new, that it should keep me in-doors. Good evening, Charley."

"It's not a good evening," said Charley; "it's a very bad one, and you deserve to get your death of cold for venturing out in it. Did the old lady send you?"

"No, indeed! I had hard work to get off. Is tea ready, mamma? I have had no dinner, and am almost famished."

Mrs. Marsh was profuse in her sympathy. Another cup and plate were laid, and the quartet sat down to tea. It was wonderful how Nathalie's bright presence radiated the before gloomy room; the laughing light of her violet eyes made sunshine of their own, and all her luxuriant golden hair, falling loose and damp, in curls short and long around her face and shoulders, never looked so much like silky sunbeams before.

"How did you get on in school to-day?" she was asking Miss Rose; "I could not get down. The picnic must have disagreed with Mrs. Leroy; for I never saw her so cross."

"I should say all the cake, and pastry, and nastiness of that sort she devoured, would have disagreed with a horse," said Charley; "it was a sight only to see Laura Blair cramming her."

"I got on very well," answered Miss Rose, smiling at Charley's remark, which was perfectly true; "but the day seems long, Miss Marsh, when you do not visit us, and the children seem to think so too. I have got a new music-pupil--little Vattie Gates."

"You will make your fortune, Miss Rose, if you are not careful," said Charley; "eight dollars per quarter from each of those music-pupils, beside your school-salary. What do you mean to do with it all?"

"I should say rather she will work herself to death," said Nathalie. "Do you want to kill yourself, Miss Rose, that you take so many pupils?"

"Dear me! I think it agrees with her," remarked Mrs. Marsh, languidly, stirring her tea; "she is getting fat."

Everybody laughed. Miss Rose was not getting very fat; but she certainly had gained flesh and color since her advent in Speckport, though the small face was still rather pale, and the small brow sometimes too thoughtful and anxious. As they arose from table, Miss Clowrie came in with her crotcheting to spend the evening, Natty went to the piano, Miss Rose, with some very unfanciful-looking work in a dropsical work-basket, sat down at the window to sew while the last gray ray of daylight lingered in the sky, and Charley lounged on the sofa, beside Catty.

"What are you making, Miss Rose?" inquired Miss Clowrie, looking curiously at the small black figure, drooping over the work, at the window. Miss Rose laughed, and threaded her needle.

"You needn't ask," said Nathalie; "clothes for all the poor in Speckport, of course. Why don't you become a Sister of Charity at once, Miss Winnie?"

"I came very near it one time," smiled Miss Rose; "perhaps I may yet. I wish I could."

There was no mistaking the sincerity of her tone. Nathalie shrugged her shoulders--to her it looked like wishing for something very dreary and dismal indeed. The world seemed a very bright and beautiful place to the heiress of Redmon that foggy summer night.

"Why don't you become one, then?" asked Catty, who would have been very glad of it; "I should think they would be pleased to get you."

"I am not so sure of that; I would be no great acquisition. But just at present there is a reason that renders it impossible."

Of course, no one could ask the reason, though all would have liked to know. When it grew too dark to sew or play, the lamp was lit, and they had cards, and it was nine when Nathalie arose to go.

"Couldn't you stay all night, Natty?" asked her mother; "it's dreadfully foggy to go up to Redmon to-night."

"If it were ten times as foggy, I should have to go. I don't mind it, though, in company with Charley and an umbrella."