Jupiter Lights Part 55

"You don't know what you are talking about," said Paul, sternly. "You will live, and as my wife; we will be married here at Romney to-morrow."

"Would you really marry me _here_?" said Eve, the light of joy coming into her wan face.

"It's a tumble-down old place, I know. But won't it do to be married in?"

"Oh, it is so much harder when you seem to forget,--when for the moment you really do forget! But of course I know that it could not last."

"What could not last?"

She moved away a step or two. "If I should marry you, you would hate me.

Not in the beginning. But it would come. For Ferdie was your brother, and I _did_ kill him; nothing can alter these facts--not even love. At first you wouldn't remember; then, gradually, he would come back to you; you would think of the time when you were boys together, and you would be sorry. Then, gradually, you would realize that _I_ killed him; whenever I came near you, you would see--" Her voice broke, but she hurried on. "You said I was brave to do it, and I was. You said it was heroic, and it was. Yet all the same, he _was_ your brother; and _I_ killed him. In defence of Cicely and the baby? Nothing makes any difference. I killed him, and you would end by hating me. Yet I shouldn't be able to leave you; once your wife, I know that I should stay on, even if it were only to fold your clothes,--to touch them; to pick up the burnt match-ends you had dropped, and your newspapers; to arrange the chairs as you like to have them. I should be weak, weak--I should follow you about. How you would loathe me! It would become to you a h.e.l.l."

"I'll take care of that," said Paul; "I'll see to my own h.e.l.ls; at present I'm thinking of something very different. We will be married to-day, and not wait for to-morrow; I will take you away to-night."

Eve looked at him.--"Haven't you heard what I've been saying?"

"Yes, I heard it; it was rubbish." But something in her face impressed him. "Eve, you are not really going to throw me over for a fancy like that?"

"No; for the horrible truth."

"My poor girl, you are all wrong, you are out of your mind. Let us look at only one side of it: what can you do in the world without me and my love as your shield? Your very position (which you talk too much about) makes _me_ your refuge. Where else could you go? To whom? You speak of staying with Cicely. But Cicely--about Ferdie--is a little devil. The boy will never be yours, she will not give him to you; and, all alone in the world, how desolate you will be! You think yourself strong, but to me you are like a child; I long to take care of you, I should guard you from everything. And there wouldn't be the least goodness in this on my part; don't think that; I'm pa.s.sionately in love with you--I might as well confess it outright."

Eve quivered as she met his eyes. "I shall stay with Cicely."

"You don't care whether you make _me_ suffer?"

"I want to save you from the far greater suffering that would come."

"As I told you before, I'll take care of that," said Paul. "You needn't be so much concerned about what my feelings will be after you are my wife--I know what they will be. Women are fools about that sort of thing--what the future husband may or may not feel, may or may not think; when he has got the woman he loves, he doesn't _think_ about her at all; he thinks about his business, his affairs, his occupations, whatever he has to do in the world. As to what he _feels_, he knows. And she too. There comes an end to all her fancies, and generally they're poor stuff." Drawing her to him, he kissed her. "That's better than a fancy! Now we will walk back to the house; there is a good deal to do if we are to be married this afternoon--as we certainly shall be; by this time to-morrow it will be an old story to you--the being my wife. And now listen, Eve, let me make an end of it; Ferdie was everything to me, I don't deny it; he was the dearest fellow the world could show, and I had always had the charge of him. But he had that fault from boyhood.

The time came when it endangered Cicely's life and that of her child; then you stepped forward and saved them, though it was sure to cost you a lifetime of pain. I honor you for this, Eve, and always shall. Poor Ferdie has gone, his death was n.o.body's fault but his own; and it wasn't wholly his own, either, for he had inherited tendencies which kept him down. He has gone back to the Power that made him, and that Power understands his own work, I fancy; at any rate, I am willing to leave Ferdie to Him. But, in the meantime, we are on the earth, Eve, we two,--and we love each other; let us have all there is of it, while we are about it; in fact, I give you warning, that I shall take it all!"

Two hours later, Paul came back from the mainland, where he had been making the necessary arrangements for the marriage, which was to take place at five o'clock; so far, he had told no one of his intention.

A note was handed to him. He opened it.

"It is of no use. In spite of all you have said, I feel sure that in time you could not help remembering. And it would make you miserable beyond bearing.

"Once your wife, I should not have the strength to leave you--as I can now.

EVE."

x.x.xIII.

The judge was waiting for the steamer at Warwick Landing. Attired in white duck, with his boy Pomp (Pomp was sixty) waiting respectfully in the background, he was once more himself. As the steamer drew near, he bowed with all his old courtliness, and he was immediately answered by the agitated smile of a lady on the deck, who, with her shawl blowing off and her veil blowing out, was standing at the railing, timid in spite of her fifty-three years. It could be no one but Miss Leontine, who had come over from Gary Hundred, with her maid, to pay a visit to her dear Sabrina at Romney. The maid was a negro girl of thirteen, attired in a calico dress and sun-bonnet; she did nothing save strive to see how far she could straddle on the deck, whose flat surface seemed to attract her irresistibly. Miss Leontine carried her own travelling-bag.

Occasionally she would say: "Clementine, shush! draw yourself together immediately." But Clementine never drew herself.

The judge a.s.sisted his guest to disembark--she ambled across the plank, holding his hand; they drove to Romney in the one-seated wagon, the judge acting as charioteer. Pomp and the maid were supposed to walk.

"Clementine, whatever you do, don't cling on behind," said Miss Leontine, turning her head once or twice unseemingly, to blink at the offender. But Clementine clung all the way; and brayed at intervals.

The judge, in his present state of joy, almost admired Miss Leontine,--she was so unlike Parthenia Drone! "Ah, my dear Miss Wingfield, how changed is society in these modern days!" he said, flicking the flank of the mule. "In my time who ever heard a lady's voice three feet away? Who ever knew her opinions--if she had any? Who ever divined, at least in the open air, the texture of her cheek, modestly hidden under her bonnet, or saw more than the tip of her slipper under the hem of her robe? Now women think nothing of speaking in public--at least at the North; they attend conventions, pa.s.s resolutions, appear in fancy-dress at Fourth of July parades; their bonnets for the most part" (not so Miss Leontine's) "are of a brazen smallness; and their feet, if I may so express it, are the centre of every room! When I was young, the most ardent suitor could obtain as a sign of preference, only a sigh;--at most some startled look, some smile, some reppurtee. All was timidity--timidity and retirement."

Miss Leontine, in her gratification at this description of her own ideal, clasped her hands so tightly together under her shawl that her corset-board made a long red mark against her ribs in consequence.

As they came within sight of the house, a figure was walking rapidly across the lawn. "Is that Mr. Singleton?" inquired Miss Leontine. "Dear Nannie wrote that they would come over to-day."

"No, that's not Singleton; Singleton's lame," said the judge.

"And yet it looks _so_ much like him," murmured Miss Leontine, with conviction, still peering, with the insistence of a near-sighted person.

"It's a man named Watson," said the judge, decidedly.

Watson was a generic t.i.tle, it did for any one whom the judge could not quite see. He considered that a name stopped unnecessary chatter,--made an end of it; if you once knew that it was Watson or Dunlap, you let it alone.

In reality the figure was that of Paul Tennant. After reading Eve's note he crushed the sheet in his hand, and turned towards the house with rapid stride. There was no one in the hall; he rang the parlor bell.

"Do you know where Miss Bruce is?" he asked, when Powlyne appeared.

"In her room, ma.r.s.e, I spex."

"Go and see. Don't knock; listen." He paced to and fro until Powlyne came back.

"Ain't dere, ma.r.s.e. Nor yet, periently, she ain't in de house anywhuz; spex she's gone fer a walk."

"Go and find out if any one knows which way she went."

But no one had seen Eve.

"Where is Mrs. Morrison?"

"_She's_ yere, safe enough. I know whur _she_ is," answered Powlyne.

"Mis' Morrison she's down at de barf-house, taken a barf."

"Is any one with her?"

"Dilsey; she's dere."

"Go and ask Dilsey how soon Mrs. Morrison can see me."

Powlyne started. As she did not come back immediately, he grew impatient, and went himself to the bath-house. It was a queer little place, a small wooden building, near the sound. It seemed an odd idea to bathe there, in a tank filled by a pump, when, twenty feet distant, stretched the lagoon, and on the other side of the island the magnificent sea-beach, smooth as a floor.

Paul knocked. "How soon can Mrs. Morrison see me?"

"She's troo her barf," answered Dilsey's voice at the crack. "Now she's dess a-lounjun."