Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters Part 16

December wore out in wild snow-storms and wintry winds. Christmas came, solemn and shrouded in white; and Kate Danton's fair hands decorated the little village church with evergreens and white roses for Father Francis; and Kate Danton's sweet voice sang the dear old "Adeste Fideles" on Christmas morning. Kate Danton, too, with the princely spirit that nature and habit had given her, made glad the cottages of the poor with gifts of big turkeys, and woolly blankets, and barrels of flour. They half adored, these poor people, the stately young lady, with the n.o.ble and lovely face, so unlike anything St. Croix had ever seen before. Proud as she was, she was never proud with them--G.o.d's poor ones; she was never proud when she knelt in their midst, in that lowly little church, and cried "Mea culpa" as humbly as the lowliest sinner there.

New-Year came with its festivities, bringing many callers from Montreal, and pa.s.sed; and Danton Hall fell into its customary tranquillity once more. Sir Ronald Keith was still their guest; Doctor Frank was still an inmate of the St. Croix Hotel, and a regular visitor at the Hall. More letters had come for Kate from England; Lieutenant Stanford's regiment had gone to Ireland, and he said nothing of leave of absence or a visit to Canada. Rose got weekly epistles from Ottawa; her darling Jules poured out floods of undying love in the very best French, and Rose smiled over them complacently, and went down and made eyes at Doctor Frank all the evening. And old Margery was not recovered yet from the ghost-seeing fright, and would not remain an instant alone by night or day for untold gold.

The sunset of a bright January day was turning the western windows of Danton Hall to sheets of beaten gold. The long, red lances of light pierced through the black trees, tinged the piled up snow-drifts, and made the low evening sky one blaze of crimson splendour. Eeny stood looking thoughtfully out at the gorgeous hues of the wintry sunset and the still landscape, where no living thing moved. She was in a cozy little room called the housekeeper's room, but which Grace never used, except when she made up her accounts, or when her favourite apartment, the dining-room, was occupied. A bright fire burned in the grate, and the curtained windows and carpeted floor were the picture of comfort. It had been used latterly as a sewing-room, and Agnes Darling sat at the other window embroidering a handkerchief for Rose. There had been a long silence--the seamstress never talked much; and Eeny was off in a daydream. Presently, a big dog came bounding tumultuously up the avenue, and a tall man in an overcoat followed leisurely.

"There!" exclaimed Eeny, "there's Tiger and Tiger's master. You haven't seen Grace's brother yet, have you Agnes?"

"No," said the seamstress, looking out, "is that he?"

He was too far off to be seen distinctly; but a moment or two later he was near. A sudden exclamation from the seamstress made Eeny look at her in surprise. She had sprang up and sat down again, white, and startled, and trembling.

"What's the matter?" said Eeny. "Do you know Doctor Danton?"

"Doctor Danton?" repeated Agnes. "Yes. Oh, what am I saying! No, I don't know him."

She sat down again, all pale and trembling, and scared. Doctor Frank was ringing the bell, and was out of sight. Eeny gazed at her exceedingly astonished.

"What is the matter with you?" she reiterated. "What are you afraid of?

Do you know Doctor Danton?"

"Don't ask me; please don't ask me!" cried the little seamstress, piteously. "I have seen him before; but, oh, please don't say anything about it!"

She was in such a violent tremor--her voice was so agitated, that Eeny good-naturedly said no more. She turned away, and looked again at the paling glory of the sunset, not seeing it this time, but thinking of Agnes Darling's unaccountable agitation at sight of Grace's brother.

"Perhaps he has been a lover of hers," thought romantic Eeny, "and false! She is very pretty, or would be, if she wasn't as pale as a corpse. And yet I don't think Doctor Frank would be false to any one either. I don't want to think so--I like him too well."

Eeny left the sewing-room and went upstairs. She found Doctor Danton in the dining-room with his sister and Rose, and Rose was singing a French song for him. Eeny took her station by the window; she knew the seamstress was in the daily habit of taking a little twilight walk in her favourite circle, round and round the fish-pond, and she could see from where she stood when she went out.

"I'll show her to him," thought Eeny, "and see if it flurries him as it did her. There is something between them, if one could get to the bottom of it."

Rose's song ended. The sunset faded out in a pale blank of dull gray--twilight fell over the frozen ground. A little black figure, wearing a shawl over its head, fluttered out into the mysterious half-light, and began pacing slowly round the frozen fish-pond.

"Doctor Frank," said Eeny, "come here and see the moon rise."

"How romantic!" laughed Rose. But the Doctor went and stood by her side.

The wintry crescent-moon was sailing slowly up, with the luminous evening star resplendent beside her, glittering on the whitened earth.

"Pretty," said the Doctor; "very. Solemn, and still, and white! What dark fairy is that gliding round the fish-pond?"

"That," said Eeny, "is Agnes Darling."

"Who?" questioned Doctor Danton, suddenly and sharply.

"Agnes Darling, our seamstress. Dear me, Doctor Danton, one would think you knew her!"

There had been a momentary change in his face, and Eeny's suspicious eyes were full upon him--only momentary, though; it was gone directly, and his unreadable countenance was as calm as a summer's sky. Doctor Frank might have been born a duke, so radically and unaffectedly nonchalant was he.

"The name has a familiar sound; but I don't think I know your seamstress. Go and play me a waltz, Eeny."

There was no getting anything out of Doctor Danton which he did not choose to tell. Eeny knew that, and went over to the piano, a little provoked at the mystery they made of it.

But destiny that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will, had made up its mind for further revelations, and against destiny even Doctor Frank was powerless. Destiny lost no time either--the revelation came the very next evening. Kate and Eeny had been to St. Croix, visiting some of Kate's poor pensioners, and evening was closing in when they reached the Hall. A lovely evening--calm, windless, still; the moon's silver disk brilliant in an unclouded sky, and the holy hush of eventide over all. The solemn beauty of the falling night tempted Kate to linger, while Eeny went on to the house. There was a group of tall pines, with a rustic bench, near the entrance-gates. Kate sat down under the evergreens, leaning against the trees, her dark form scarcely distinguishable in their shadow. While she sat, a man and a woman pa.s.sed. Full in the moonlight she saw that it was Doctor Danton and Agnes Darling. Distinct in the still keen air she heard his low, earnest words.

"Don't betray yourself--don't let them see you know me. Be on your guard, especially with Eeny, who suspects. It will avoid disagreeable explanations. It is best to let them think we have never met."

They were gone. Kate sat petrified. What understanding was this between Doctor Danton and their pale little seamstress? They knew each other, and there were reasons why that acquaintance should be a secret. "It would involve disagreeable explanations!" What could Doctor Frank mean?

The solution of the riddle that had puzzled Eeny came to her. Had they been lovers at some past time?--was Doctor Frank a villain after all?

The moon sailed up in the zenith, the blue sky was all sown with stars, and the loud ringing of the dinner-bell reached her even where she sat.

She got up hastily, and hurried to the house, ran to her room, threw off her bonnet and shawl, smoothed her hair, and descended to the dining-room in her plain black silk dress. She was late; they were all there--her father, Grace, Rose, Eeny, Sir Ronald, the Reverend Augustus Clare, and Doctor Danton.

"Runaway," said her father, "we had given you up. Where have you been?"

"Star-gazing, papa. Down under the pines, near the gates, until five minutes ago."

Doctor Frank looked up quickly, and met the violet eyes fixed full upon him.

"I heard you, sir," that bright glance said. "Your secret is a secret no longer."

Doctor Danton looked down at his plate with just a tinge of colour in his brown face. He understood her as well as if she had spoken; but, except that faint and transient flush, it never moved him. He told them stories throughout dinner of his adventures as a medical student in Germany, and every one laughed except Kate. She could not laugh; the laughter of the others irritated her. His words going up the avenue rang in her ears; the pale, troubled face of the seamstress was before her eyes. Something in the girl's sad, joyless face had interested her from the first. Had Doctor Danton anything to do with that look of hopeless trouble?

With this new interest in her mind, Kate sent for the seamstress to her room next morning. Some lace was to be sewn on a new dress. Eunice generally did such little tasks for her mistress, but on this occasion it was to be Agnes. The girl sat down with the rich robe by the window, and bent a.s.siduously over her work. Miss Danton, in a loose negligee, lying half buried in the depths of a great carved and cushioned chair, watched her askance while pretending to read. What a slender, diminutive creature she was--how fixedly pale, paler still in contrast with her black hair and great, melancholy dark eyes. She never looked up--she went on, st.i.tch, st.i.tch, like any machine, until Kate spoke, suddenly:

"Agnes!"

The dark eyes lifted inquiringly.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

"You don't look it. Are your parents living?"

"No; dead these many years."

"Have you brothers or sisters?"

"No, I never had."

"But you have other relatives--uncles, aunts, cousins?"

"No, Miss Danton--none that I have ever seen."

"What an isolated little thing you are! Have you lived in Montreal all your life?"

"Oh, no! I have only been in Montreal a few months. I was born and brought up in New York."