East Angels Part 42

And, ringing for Telano, she gave her orders about the wine, and sent for Mr. Moore--in case he had completed his inspection of the roses.

CHAPTER XVIII.

One beautiful morning towards the last of November three skiffs were making their way up a tide-water creek which led into Patricio towards its southern end. The little boats were each propelled by one person, who stood erect facing the prow, and using, now on one side, now on the other, a single light paddle; the stream, though deep, was not wide enough to allow the use of two oars, and it wound and doubled so tortuously upon itself that the easiest way to guide it was to stand up and paddle in the Indian fashion. At the stern of each boat, seated on the bottom on cushions, leaning back in the shade of a white parasol, was a lady; Margaret Harold, Garda Thorne, Mrs. Lucian Spenser.

Mr. Moore was propelling the boat in which Mrs. Spenser was reclining; Lucian's skiff held Garda; Torres had the honor of piloting Mrs. Harold.

The skiffs were advancing together, though in single file, and the voyagers talked.

"How delightful it is that one never has to speak loud here!" said Margaret; "the air is so still that the voice carries--all out-doors is like a room. I believe it's our high skies at the North, as much as the clatter of our towns, that make us all public speakers from our cradles."

"I don't agree with you; that is, I don't if you mean that you prefer the southern articulation," said Mrs. Spenser.

"Yet I'm sure you prefer mine, Rosalie," said her husband, laughing.

"You're not a real southerner, Lucian."

"Oh yes, I am. But even if I'm not, here's Miss Thorne; she certainly is."

"Miss Thorne is Spanish," answered Mrs. Spenser, briefly; "she doesn't come under the term southerner, as I use it, at all; she is Spanish--and she speaks, too, like a New-Englander." Then feeling, perhaps, that this statement had been rather dry, she turned her head and gave Garda a little bow and smile.

"You have described it exactly," said Garda, who was letting the tips of her fingers trail in the water over the skiff's low side. "Try this, Margaret; it makes you feel as if you were swimming."

"The southern p.r.o.nunciation," went on Mrs. Spenser, in a general way, "_I_ do not admire." (She spoke as though combating somebody.) "And they have, too, such a curious habit, especially the women, of talking about their State. 'We Carolinians,' 'We Virginians,' they keep saying; and when they are excited, they will call themselves all sorts of names--'daughters of Georgia,' for instance. Imagine northern women speaking of themselves seriously (and the southern women are as serious as possible about it) as 'We daughters of Connecticut,' 'We daughters of Nebraska.' We care about as much, and think about as much of the especial State we happen to live in, as the county."

"The more's the pity, then," said Lucian. "That State-feeling you criticise, Rosalie, is patriotism."

"The northern women are quite as patriotic, I think," said Margaret.

"But it's for their country as a whole, not for the State. And for their country as a whole, Mrs. Spenser, haven't you heard them use fine language, occasionally? I have; 'Columbia,' and the 'Starry Mother,' the 'Home of the Free,' and so forth."

Margaret had made remarks of this sort a good many times since the arrival of Lucian and his wife, three weeks before; she compared them in her own mind to the cushions in bags of netting which sailors are accustomed to let down by ropes over a ship's side as she enters port, to prevent too close a grazing against other ships. Not that Lucian and his wife quarrelled, a quarrel requires two persons, and Lucian quarrelled with no one; he had possessed a charming disposition when he first visited Gracias, he possessed a charming disposition still. Nor did it appear that his wife thought otherwise, or that she wished to quarrel with him; on the contrary, any woman could have detected immediately that she adored him, that she had but the one desire, namely, to please him; her very irritations--and they were many--came from the depth of this desire.

She was a tall woman, rather heavy in figure, though not ill made; she had a dark complexion, a good deal of color, thick low-growing dark hair, heavy eyebrows that almost met, very white teeth, and fairly good, though rather thick, features. With more animation and a happier expression--an occasional smile, for instance, which would have revealed the white teeth--she might have pa.s.sed as handsome in a certain way. As it was, she was a woman who walked with an inelastic tread, her eyes had a watchful expression, her brow was often lowering; her rather long upper lip came down moodily, projecting slightly over the under one, which was not quite so full. She had stout white hand, with square fingers. Her large shoulders stooped forward a little. She was always too richly dressed.

When Rosalie Bogardus had insisted upon marrying Lucian Spenser the winter before, all her relatives had shaken their heads; they were shaking them still. The sign of negation had signified that, to their minds, Lucian was a fortune-hunter. Not that they had meant to insinuate that Miss Bogardus had not sufficient personal charm to attract for herself; on the contrary, they all thought Rosalie a "handsome woman;"

but the fact still remained that she had a good deal of money, while the young engineer had not one cent--a condition of things which they could have pardoned, perhaps, if he had shown any activity of mind in relation to obtaining the lacking coin. But here was where Lucian, so active (unnecessarily) in many other matters, seemed to them singularly inert.

The truth of the case was not what the relatives supposed; money had had nothing to do with this marriage, and love had had everything.

Rosalie had been a silent, rather dull-looking girl, with a brooding dark eye which had a spark slumbering at the back of it; she had a deep-seated pride which never found its outlet in speech, and she had led always a completely repressed life among her relatives, who were kind enough in their way, but who did not in the least understand her.

The girl had the misfortune to be an orphan. Her disposition was reserved, jealous in the extreme; but, as is often the case with reserved women, there was an ocean of pent-up tenderness surging below, which made her sombre and unhappy; for indiscriminate friendship she had no taste, while as to the more intimate ones, she had always found herself forced, sooner or later, to share them with some one else, and the pain her jealousies had given her upon these occasions had been so keen that she had learned to abstain from them entirely; it was easier to live quite alone. When, therefore, at last she believed that she was loved, loved for herself, these long-repressed feelings burst forth; like the released spirit of the magician's vial, they expanded and filled her whole life, they could never be put back in their prison again.

Five years before, Miss Bogardus had met Lucian Spenser at the White Mountains. For a number of weeks they had been thrown together almost daily in excursions and mountain walks, and the young engineer, with his easy, happy temper, his wit and his kindness, had seemed to her the most agreeable person she had ever met. There happened to be no one else there at the moment whom Lucian cared to talk to; still, it was really his good qualities rather than this mere accident of there being no one else that led him on. For he had divined the unhappiness under the pride, he could not resist the charity (as well as the small entertainment to himself, perhaps, in the absence of other diversions) of drawing a smile from that dark reserved face, a look of interest from those moody eyes; yes, it even gave him pleasure to put some animation into that inert figure, so that the step grew almost light beside his.

For Lucian had endless theories about the possible good points of the people he met; he was constantly saying of plain women that if they would only be a little more this or a little less that, they would be positively handsome. And he fully believed in these possibilities; perhaps that was one of the reasons why he was so agreeable; it is such a charming talent--the divining the best there is in everybody. At any rate, he was so genuinely kind-hearted, so proselytingly so, if the phrase may be used, that it gave him real pleasure to make people happy, even if it were only for the moment. Of possible reactions he never thought, because he never had reactions himself; if one thing had come to an end, was it not always easy to find another? Easy for him.

He cared nothing about Miss Bogardus's money, as in reality he cared nothing for Miss Bogardus herself. But when the weeks of their mountain life were over, Miss Bogardus found that she was caring for him, though (as he would have honestly and earnestly maintained if he had known it) he had never in the least tried to make her. He had only tried to make her happier; but with Rosalie Bogardus that was the same thing, she had pa.s.sed, owing to him, the one interesting summer of her dull rich life.

She did not know that she could be so light-hearted, she did not know that any one could be; she had had the vague idea that all persons must go more or less unsatisfied, and that this was the reason why so many women (if they had not children to bring up) took to good works and charitable societies, and so many men to horses and wine. Her life had been extremely dull because the people she lived with and those she saw frequently (as has been said, she had never been a woman who made many acquaintances) were all dull; and she had not had among them even the secondary importance which money often bestows, because they were all rich themselves. In addition, there were in the same circle younger cousins much handsomer than she had ever been. The summer she had first met Lucian she was twenty-seven years old; her relatives had become accustomed to the unexciting round of her life--at home in the winter, at the mountains in the summer; a few concerts, some good works; they looked for nothing new from her; she was "only Rosalie" to them. She had every comfort, of course, every luxury; it never occurred to their minds that she might like also a taste of the leading _role_ for a time, a taste of life at first hand; families are very apt to make this mistake regarding the left-over sisters and daughters whom they shelter so carefully, perhaps, but also so monotonously, under their protecting wing.

That summer Lucian was twenty-three; but, tall, handsome, and in one way very mature, he had looked quite as old as he did now, five years later.

He was always sunny, always amusing; he had not been in the least afraid of her, of her age, her moodiness, or her money, but had joked with her and complimented her with an ease which had at first disconcerted her almost painfully. He had noticed and criticised her reserve; he had discovered and praised her one little talent, a contralto voice of smallest possible compa.s.s, but some sweetness in a limited range of old English songs; he had teased her to make him a pocket pin-cushion, and then when her unaccustomed hands had painfully fashioned one (on her own behalf she never touched a needle), he had made all manner of sport of it and of her. He had helped her dry-shod over brooks (unexpectedly she had a pretty foot), standing ankle-deep in water himself; he had gone miles for some dark red roses, because one of them would "look so well"

(as it did) in her hair; he had laughed at her books, and made her feel, though without the least approach to saying so, that she was ignorant; made her realize, simply through her own quickened sense of comparison, that she, Rosalie Bogardus, who belonged among the "best people," and who had enjoyed what is vaguely but opulently summed up as "every advantage," was yet an uncultivated and even a stupid sort of person, by the side of a certain young idler, one who had no background whatever (so her relatives would have said), no connections, no ambitions or industry of the tangible sort, and no money; no appreciable baggage, in short, with which to go through life, save a graceful little talent for painting in water-colors, and the most delightful disposition in the world. Her relatives would have added--an immense a.s.surance. But Rosalie did not call it that; to her it seemed courage--courage indomitable, was the term in her mind.

She over-estimated this trait in Lucian, as she did one or two other traits; he himself would never have dreamed of being so brave as she supposed him to be. He was brave enough, physically he had never known a fear; but that it was indomitable courage which made him smile so light-heartedly in the face of fortunes so modest--that it was a splendid defiance--this was where the slow, silent, pa.s.sionate-hearted Rosalie was entirely mistaken. It was temperament more than anything else. But it was natural that she should fall into this error, brought up as she had been among people who were immovably set in all their ideas, proud of their mediocrity (they called it conservatism), who had inherited their wealth through several generations, and who, while close and careful in all their ways, enemies to everything in the least like extravagance, were yet fully of the opinion that respectability as well as happiness depended upon an una.s.sailable foundation of fixed income; having always lived in this atmosphere, and possessing small talent for remarking anything outside of her own narrow little world, it was impossible for Rosalie Bogardus to grasp at once a plan of life which differed so widely from the only one she knew. She could not conceive the idea at first of a person like Lucian living on with contented enjoyment, day after day, without any fortune, any hope of inheriting one, or any effort towards obtaining one. She knew people, of course, who had no fortunes; but if young, as he was, they were all engaged in either planning for them, waiting for them, or working for them, with more or less eagerness and energy. Lucian appeared to be neither waiting nor working, and the only plan he had with regard to such matters was to go back to the office of the company that employed him (because he must), when his summer should be ended; so long as he was earning his mere living from year to year (not a difficult task, as he had no very extravagant tastes, and only himself to provide for), he seemed to think that he was doing sufficiently well as regarded material things--always to him subordinate: a state of mind which Rosalie's relatives, if they had known it, would have deemed either a negligence that was almost criminal, or downright idiocy, one or the other. Rosalie herself, not conceiving such an unambitious creed in a nature so rich, idealized what she did not understand. She dressed up this lack of energetic acquisitiveness, and made of it fort.i.tude; in her long reveries she grew at last to think of it in unspoken words which, if written down, would have been almost poetry.

But though she thus idealized his bravery, she did not have to idealize his kindness; that had been real. He had not cared about her money, she had divined that; what he did had been done for herself alone. When, therefore, they met again, as they did in the winter, the acquaintance continued to grow because she fostered it; she had had time to think everything over, to realize what it would be to live without it, during the four months that had pa.s.sed since they parted. Lucian, responsive and delightful as ever, and never so conceited (this is what he would have called it) as to bring that pretentious thing, conscience, into such a simple matter as this, lent himself, as it were, to her liking for the time being, whenever he happened to see her. With him it was a temporary and even a local interest, and he supposed it to be the same on her side; when he thought of the part of the city in which she lived, he thought of her: "Second Avenue--oh yes, Miss Bogardus;" but he did not think of it or of her for days together, he was a man who had a thousand interests, who roamed in many and widely differing fields.

Meanwhile Miss Bogardus thought of him without ceasing; she lived upon his visits, going over in her own mind the last one, and all that he had said, or failed to say, upon that occasion, until he had come again; she dwelt upon every look and gesture, and made the woman's usual mistake of giving a significance to little acts and phrases which they were very far from having. Lucian did not in the least realize that he was the subject of so much reverie; nor did he in the least realize the absorbed, concentrated nature with which he had to do. His life moved on with its usual evenness; for three-quarters of the day he occupied himself in a third-story office, then he sallied forth to see what the remaining hours held for him in the way of entertainment. It is but just to say that generally they held an abundance; other people liked him besides Rosalie Bogardus, he was a man who, from first to last, was dear to very many. About once in so often he went to see his friend of the summer; he no longer thought of her as a person who needed his help especially; but he knew that a visit pleased her, and, when other things were not over-amusing, he would go for a while and give her that trifling pleasure. He never dreamed that it was a great one.

Long afterwards the character of Lucian Spenser was summed up as follows by a man of his own age who had a taste for collecting and cla.s.sifying characteristics; he even ventured to think such collections almost as interesting as old china. "He was the most delightful and lovable fellow I have ever known; and a great many persons thought so besides myself.

But he never was hampered with, he never took, a grain of responsibility in his whole life. This not from selfishness, or any particular plan for evading it; he simply never thought about _that_ at all."

This was true. Even in the case of so serious a thing as his marriage, the responsibility was all a.s.sumed by Rosalie.

How she came to have the idea that he loved her, she herself alone could have told. Probably she was deceived by his manner, which was often intangibly lover-like simply through the genius for kindness that possessed him; or by the tones which his voice fell into now and then when he was with any woman he liked, even in a small degree. All this was general, for women in general; but poor concentrated Rosalie, who seldom saw him with other women, thought that it was for one. However her belief had been obtained, it was a sincere one; and she accounted for his silence by saying to herself that he would not speak on account of her fortune. Here again she completely misjudged him; southerner as he was, Lucian's thoughts did not dwell upon money; southerner as he was, too, twenty fortunes would not have kept him from the woman he loved. But, once convinced in her own heart, Rosalie no longer fought against her love for him--why should she? It was the one bright spot of her life. It was possible, after all, then, for life to be happy!

She worshipped every glance of his eye, every word that he spoke; it was pathetic to see the adoration which that repressed nature was lavishing upon a nature so different from its own. But no one saw the adoration save Lucian, she concealed it from all the world besides. For a long time even he did not see it--he was so accustomed to being liked. When suddenly he did become aware of it (long after the evil was done), he left her and left New York. There had never been a word of explanation between them.

Rosalie did not yield; she knew her own heart, she knew that she loved him, she believed that he loved her; she trusted to time. And meanwhile she kept up the acquaintance.

Here, again, Lucian's invincible habit of kindness kept him from telling her the truth, his invincible habit of not taking responsibility made him avoid the responsibility of telling her. He, too, trusted to time.

And there was time enough, certainly; that is, it would have been enough for any one but Rosalie Bogardus. Five years pa.s.sed, five years of all the torture intermixed with delight which a woman who loves goes through. Now and then they met, and she always wrote to him; she tried to write lightly, as she knew he liked that; she anathematized herself for taking everything in such a ponderous way. She composed long letters about books, about Spanish and Italian, both of which she was studying, about music, and about pictures; she went to see every picture she could hear of, because he painted, not realizing, poor soul, that those who paint themselves, especially those who paint "a little," do not as a general rule care much for pictures, or at least care only for those of a few of their immediate contemporaries, that interest being princ.i.p.ally curiosity. Who fill the great galleries of Europe day after day? Who are the people that go again and again? Almost without exception the people who do not paint; for the people who do, it is noticed that one or two visits amply suffice.

But nature will out--at least some natures will. At the end of these five years of a fict.i.tious existence Rosalie Bogardus fell seriously ill; her life was threatened. Then she wrote three trembling lines to Lucian, at Gracias-a-Dios. Her one wish now was to marry him, in order to be able to leave him her fortune; she did not allude to this, but she said that she was probably dying, and hoped to see him soon. Lucian, kind as always, hurried north to Washington, where she was staying with some friends--much more independent now, as regarded her relatives, than she had been before the growth of her love. He married her; it was as well that he had been perfectly sincere, when he did so, in not thinking about her money, because her money did not come to him; she did not die, but improved rapidly; in two months she was well.

Mrs. Lucian Spenser, as has been said, was not a quick or a clever woman, but she had the clairvoyance of love. A year had not pa.s.sed since her marriage; but it does not take a year for a wife to discover that her husband is not, and never has been, in love with her, and this wife had no longer any illusions on that subject. Lucian's manner towards her was invariably gentle, his temper was always sweet; she could say to herself, miserably enough, but truthfully too, that he did not in the least dislike her. If she had known it, this was something, as things stood. But she did not know it; how should she, without a grain of experience, and with her pa.s.sionate nature, comprehend and endure the necessity, as well as the great wisdom, of holding on simply to the fact that she was his wife, and that no one on earth could rout her from that position, and that in time his heart might come round to her? She did know, however, she had learned, that such love as their marriage was to have at present must be supplied princ.i.p.ally by herself, and she had accustomed her mind to accept this idea; if she was ever discontented, she had only to recall the dreary void of her life before she knew him, and she was reconciled. But while she was still arranging her existence upon these foundations, a new element rose; her jealousy was excited, and it was the strongest pa.s.sion she had. She discovered that Lucian was very apt to be more or less in love with every attractive woman, every lovely young girl, he happened to meet. True, it was only a temporary absorption; but it was real enough while it lasted. To this the jealous wife could not accustom herself, this she found herself unable to take "lightly." All the moodiness came back to her eyes, she grew suspicious and sharp; such good looks as she had were obscured, in her unhappiness she seemed larger and more round-shouldered than ever.

She was too proud to appeal to her husband, to tell him that he was torturing her. So they lived on. He was wholly unconscious of the extent of her sufferings, though he knew that she had a jealous nature; he felt that he was a good husband, he had really married her more to please her than to please himself; she had not so much as one unkind word, one unkind look, with which to reproach him. He never neglected her, she could not say that he did. She did not say it; her only wish was that he would neglect some other persons. She preferred this condition of things, however, racked though she often was, to any open discussions between them, any explanations; her instinct warned her that explanations might be worse than the reality. A woman who loves is capable of any cowardice; or is it--any courage?

Margaret's little conversational cushion had brought to Mrs. Spenser's mind the thought that she had perhaps been speaking acrimoniously. She did not mean to be acrimonious; but she was not a southerner, as Lucian was, by birth at least, and he was making a great deal of this southern origin of his whenever he was with Garda Thorne. He was with her every day; true, his wife was present, and other persons; and Garda herself was engaged to Mrs. Rutherford's nephew, Evert Winthrop, who had gone north for three weeks or so on business just before they came. But there might be fifty wives and five hundred other persons present, poor Rosalie thought, Lucian would look at that beautiful girl and talk to that beautiful girl, engaged or not engaged, whenever he pleased. She accused him in her heart of not having told her that there was any such person in Gracias. But the truth was (and she knew it) that, as she had never been able to respond with sympathy to allusions on his part to such acquaintances, much less to any recitals concerning them, he had learned (as he had not a grain of malice) not to make them. As for Gracias, she herself had proposed their coming there; she had not cared to spend the winter in New York or Washington, and see her husband cajoled by society; she had never loved society, and now she hated it; Lucian's content was not in the least dependent upon it, fortunately. He had described this little Florida town to her with a good deal of amusing decoration, she had thought that she should like to see it for herself; in her painstaking, devoted way she had studied the sketches he had made while there until she was much better acquainted with them than he was himself. There had been no sketch of Garda Thorne, no sketch in words or water-colors; but perhaps if her jealousies had been less evident, there might have been. She knew that her jealousies were a weakness. That did not make them any the less hard to bear; it was, each separate time, as if Lucian and the person he was for the moment admiring were engaged in stabbing her to the heart; only, in some miraculous way, she lived on.

On the present occasion she said no more about southern patriotism, but gazed in silence at the near sh.o.r.es as the skiffs glided round the next bend. They were in a wide salt-marsh, a flat reedy sea; the horizon line, unbroken by so much as a bush, formed an even circle round them.

It was high tide, the myriad little channels were full, the whole marsh was afloat; the breeze fanning their faces had a strong salty odor, the sedges along sh.o.r.e were stiff with brine. Tall herons waded about, or, poised on one leg among the reeds, gazed at them, as they pa.s.sed, with high-shouldered indifference; now and then a gray bird rose from the green as they approached, and with a whir of wings sped away before them, sounding his peculiar wild cry. The blue seemed to come down and rest on the edge of the marsh all round them, like the top of a tent; it was like sailing through a picture of which they could always see (though they never reached it) the frame.

The stream they were following was not one of the marsh channels; it was a tide-water creek which penetrated several miles into Patricio, and after a while they came to the solid land.

"The odor of Florida--I perceive it," said Lucian; "the odor of a pitch-pine fire! And I don't know any odor I like better." The stream wound on, the banks grew higher, palmettoes began to appear; they all leaned forward a little in the golden air, they formed the most graceful groups of curiosity. At length as the skiffs turned the last bend, a house came into sight. It was a ruin.

But the pitch-pine fire was there, all the same; it had been made on the ground behind a small out-building. This out-building had preserved three of its sides and the framework of its roof; the roof had been completed by a thatch of palmetto, the vanished facade had been gayly replaced by a couple of red calico counterpanes suspended from the thatch. Here lived a family of "poor whites"--father, mother, and six children; their drawing-room was the green s.p.a.ce before the kitchen; their bedchambers were behind the calico facade; their kitchen was an iron pot, at this moment suspended over the fragrant fire. The father had just come home in his roughly made cart, drawn by the most wizened of ponies, with a bear which he had killed in a neighboring swamp; the elder boys were bringing up fish from their dug-out in the creek; the mother, her baby on her arm, lifted her bed-quilt wall to smile hospitably upon the visitors. They did not own the land, these people; they were not even tenants; they were squatters, and mere temporary squatters at that. They had nothing in the world beyond the few poor possessions their cart could hold; they were all brown and well, and apparently perfectly happy.

"They look contented," said Margaret, as, after accepting the hospitalities of the place, which the family hastened to offer--the best in their power--a clean gourd with water from the mansion's old well, a look at the bear, the baby, and the pet alligator of tender years confined in a pen near by, they took their way along an old road leading down the island towards the south.

"They _are_ contented," said Lucian. "For one thing, they are never cold; poor people can stand a great deal when winter is taken out of their lives. Here, too, they can almost get their food for the asking--certainly for the hunting and fishing. Yes, yes: if I had to be very poor--if _we_ had to be very poor, Rosalie--I should say, with all my heart, let it be in Florida!"

These sallies of Lucian's fancy were always rather hard for his wife; she admired them, of course--she admired everything Lucian said; but she could not see any reasonable connection between their life, under any emergencies that could come to it, and the life of people who lived behind a facade of counterpane, who caught bears, and ate them from an iron pot. However, there must be one, since Lucian saw it; she smiled a.s.sent, therefore, and did her best to answer warmly, "Oh _yes_, in Florida!"

"But I suppose they have very little chance to improve here--to rise,"