Jupiter Lights Part 43

On the second day after the alarm, Paul took the Indians back to Port aux Pins, and dismissed them, after handing the ringleader to the proper authorities; the others slunk away with their long black hair hanging down below their white man's hats, their eagle profiles, in spite of fierceness of outline, entirely unalarming. Paul then selected half a dozen Irishmen, the least dilapidated he could find (the choice lay between Indians and Irishmen), and brought them to Jupiter Light to take the place of the crestfallen aborigines. He remained there a few days to see that all went well; then he returned to Port aux Pins for a week's stay. "Come a little way up the lake to meet me," he said to Eve, as he bade her good-by; "I shall be along about four o'clock next Wednesday afternoon."

His manner still remained a little despotic. But to women of strong will despotism is attractive; when a despotism of love, it is enchanting.

Eve's feeling was, "Oh, to have at last found some one who is stronger than I!"

Even now not for a moment did she bend her opinions, her decisions, to his, of her own accord; each time it was simply that she was conquered; after contesting the point as strongly as she could, how she gloried in feeling herself overridden at last! She would look at Paul with delighted eyes, and laugh in triumph. To have yielded because she loved him, would have had a certain sweetness; but to be conquered unyielding, that was a satisfaction whose intensity could go no further.

Since that walk in the darkness from the Indian quarters to Cicely's lodge, when, suddenly, she had let her love have its way, she had allowed herself to be carried along by chance events whithersoever they pleased; she had defied conscience, she had accepted the bliss that hung temptingly before her; she did not think, she only enjoyed. Once or twice she had sent forth mentally this defiance,--"If you feel as I do, _then_ you may judge me!" To whom was this said? To Fate? To the world at large? In reality it was said to all women who in that summer of 1869 were young enough to love: "If you _can_ feel as I do, then you may judge me." But it was only once or twice that this mood had come to her, only once or twice that she thought of anything but Paul; his offered hand taken, her acceptance of it was at least superb in its completeness; there was no looking back, no fear, no regret; nothing but the fulness of joy.

Still sweeter was it to feel that, deeply as she loved, she was loved as deeply. Paul might be imperious, he might be negligent in explaining things, and in other small ways; but there was nothing negligent in his pa.s.sion. His genius for directness, which puzzled Hollis in other matters, showed itself also here; he had little to say--that was possible--but no woman could have misunderstood the language of his eyes or of the touch of his hand; or fail to be thrilled by it. The feeling that possessed him went straight to its end, namely, Eve Bruce for his wife; the same Eve whom he had not liked at all at first; to whom he had found it difficult only a few weeks before to write a short letter. This inconsistency did not trouble him; love had arrived, had descended upon him in some way, he knew not how, had taken possession of him by force and forever--he recognized that, and did not contest it. Women are only women: this had been one of the settled convictions in the depths of his mind, and it was a conviction not much changed even now; yet this same Paul, with his mediaeval creed, made a lover much more invincible than a hundred, a thousand other men, who would have said, perhaps, that they revered women more. "Revered?" Paul would have answered, "I don't revere Eve, I _love_ her!"

Whatever name he gave it, she knew that she held the joy of his life in her hands, that he would come to her for this--had already come; and that it always would be so. This was happiness enough for her.

This happiness had existed but ten days. But these days had seemed like months of joy, she had lived each moment so fully. "Sejed, Prince of Ethiopia, vowed to have three days of uninterrupted happiness--" she might have remembered the old fable and its ending. But she remembered nothing, she scorned to remember; let the unhappy, the unloved, think of the past; she would drink in all the sunshine of the present, she would live, live!

"Row a little way up the lake to meet me," Paul had said. At half-past three of the afternoon he had indicated, she went to the beach; one of the Irishmen, under her direction, began to push down a canoe. The open way in which she did this--in which she had done everything since that night--was in itself an effectual disguise; no one thought it remarkable that she should be going to meet Paul. As she was about to take her place in the canoe, Hollis appeared.

"Going far? We don't know much about that Paddy," he said, in an undertone.

"Only to meet Paul."

"If he's late, you may have to go a good way."

"He won't be late."

"Well, he may be," answered Hollis, patiently. "I guess I'll take you, if you'll let me; and then, when we meet, I'll come back with his man in the other canoe."

"Very well," Eve responded. She did not comment upon the terms of his offer, she did not care what he thought. She took her place, and he paddled westward.

It was a beautiful afternoon; a slight coolness, which made itself felt through the sunshine, showed that the short Northern summer was approaching its end. As she sat with her back to the prow, she was obliged to turn her head to look for the other canoe; and this she did many times. After one of these quests, she saw that Hollis's eyes were upon her.

"Is there any change in me?" she asked, laughing.

"Rather!"

"What is it?"

But poor Hollis did not know how to say, "You are so much more beautiful."

"It's my white dress," Eve suggested, in a somewhat troubled voice. "I had it made in Port aux Pins. It's only pique." She smoothed the folds of the skirt for a moment, doubtfully.

"I guess white favors you," answered Hollis, with what he would have called a festive wave of his hand.

Her mood had now changed. "It's no matter, I'm not afraid!" She was speaking her thoughts aloud, sure that he would not understand. But he did understand.

The other canoe came into sight after a while, shooting round a point; Eve waved her handkerchief in answer to Paul's hail; the two boats met.

"Mr. Hollis knows that you are to take me back," said Eve, as eagerly as a child.

Paul glanced at Hollis. But the other man bore the look bravely. "Proud to be of service," he answered, waving his hand again, with two fingers extended lightly. He changed places with Paul; Paul and Eve, in their canoe, glided away.

It was at this moment that Cicely, who had been asleep, opened her eyes.

Her lodge was quiet; Mrs. Mile was reading near the window, her seat carefully placed so that the light should fall over her left shoulder upon the page.

Cicely gazed at her for some time; then she jumped from the couch with a quick bound. "It's impossible to lie here another instant and see that History of Windham! The next thing, you'll be proposing to read it aloud to me; you look exactly like a woman who loves to read aloud." She began to put on her shoes.

"You are going for a walk? I shall be glad to go too," answered Mrs.

Mile promptly, putting a marker in her book, and rising.

"No," responded Cicely; "I can't have those boots of yours pounding along beside me to-day, Priscilla Jane. Impossible."

"Well, I do declare!" said Mrs. Mile, reduced in her surprise to the language of her youth. "They can't pound much, Mrs. Morrison, in the sand; and there's nothing but sand here."

"They grind it down!" answered Cicely. "You can call grandpa, if you don't want me to go alone; but come with me to-day you shall not, you clean, broad-faced, turn-out-your-toes, do-your-duty old relict of Abner Whittredge Mile." She looked at Mrs. Mile consideringly as she said this, bringing out each word in a soft, clear tone.

The judge was listlessly roving about the beach. Mrs. Mile gave him Cicely's request. "She is saying very odd things to-day, sir," she added, impersonally.

The judge, alarmed, hurried to the lodge; Mrs. Mile could not keep up with him.

"Priscilla Jane is short-winded, isn't she?" remarked Cicely, at the lodge door, as he joined her. "Whenever she comes uphill, she always stops, and pretends to admire the view, while she pants, 'What a beautiful scene! What a _privilege_ to see it!'"

The judge grinned; he too had heard Mrs. Mile speak of "privileges."

"Come for a walk, grandpa," Cicely went on. She took his arm and they went away together, followed by the careful eyes of the nurse, who had paused at the top of the ascent.

"This is a ruse, grandpa," Cicely said, after a while. "I wanted to take a walk alone, and she wouldn't let me; but you will."

"Why alone, my child?"

"Because I'm always being watched; I'm just like a person in a cell, don't you know, with one of those little windows cut in the door, through which the sentinel outside can always look in; I am _never_ alone."

"It must be dreadful," the judge answered, with conviction.

"Wait till you have seen Priscilla Jane in her night-gown," said Cicely, with equal conclusiveness.

"Heaven forbid!" said the judge, with a shrill little chuckle. Then he turned and looked at her; she seemed so much like her old self.

"You will let me go, grandpa?" She put up her face and kissed him.

"If you will promise to come back soon."

"Of course I will."

He let her go on alone. She looked back and smiled once or twice; then he lost sight of her; he returned to the beach by a roundabout way, in order to deceive Priscilla Jane; he was almost as much pleased as Cicely to outwit her.

Cicely went on through the forest; she walked slowly, not stopping to gather flowers as usual. After a while her vague glance rested upon two figures in the distance. She stopped, and as, by chance, she was standing close beside the trunk of a large tree, her own person was concealed. The two figures were coming in her direction, they drew nearer, they paused; and then there followed a picture as old as Paris and Helen, as old as Tristram and Isolde: a lover taking in his arms the woman he adores. And it was Paul Tennant who was the lover; it was Eve who looked up at him with all her heart in her eyes.

A shock pa.s.sed over Cicely, the expression of her face changed rapidly as her gaze remained fixed upon Eve: first, surprise; then a strange quick anger; then perplexity. She left her place, and went rapidly forward.