Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 70

CHAPTER XX.

MR. FOUNTAIN remained in the town waiting for his niece's return. Six o'clock came--no boat. Eight o'clock--no boat, and a heavy gale blowing. He went down to the beach in great anxiety; and when he got there he soon found it was shared to the full by many human beings.

There were little knots of fishermen and sailors discussing it, and one poor woman, mother and wife, stealing from group to group and listening anxiously to the men's conjectures. But the most striking feature of the scene was an old white-haired man, who walked wildly, throwing his arms about. The others rather avoided him, but Mr.

Fountain felt he had a right to speak to him; so he came to him, and told him "his niece was on board; and you, too, I fear, have some one dear to you in danger."

The old man replied sorrowfully that "his lovely new boat was in danger--in such danger that he should never see her again;" then added, going suddenly into a fury, that "as to the two rascally bluejackets that were on board of her, and had borrowed her of his wife while he was out, all he wished was that they had been swamped to all eternity long ago, then they would not have been able to come and swamp his dear boat."

Peppery old Fountain cursed him for a heartless old vagabond, and joined the group whose grief and anxiety were less ostentatious, being for the other boat that carried their own flesh and blood. But all night long that white-haired old man paced the sh.o.r.e, flinging his arms, weeping and cursing alternately for his dear schooner.

Oh holy love--of property! how venerable you looked in the moonlight, with your white hairs streaming! How well you imitated, how close you rivaled, the holiest effusions of the heart, and not for the first time nor the last.

"My daughter! my ducats! my ducats! my daughter!" etc.

The morning broke; no sign of either boat. The wind had shifted to the east, and greatly abated. The fishermen began to have hopes for their comrades; these communicated themselves to Mr. Fountain.

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when this latter observed people streaming along the sh.o.r.e to a distant point. He asked a coastguard man, whom he observed scanning the place with a gla.s.s, "What it was?"

The man lowered his voice and said, "Well, sir, it will be something coming ash.o.r.e, by the way the folk are running."

Mr. Fountain got a carriage, and, urging the driver to use speed, was hastily conveyed by the road to a part whence a few steps brought him down to the sea. He thrust wildly in among the crowd.

"Make way," said the rough fellows: they saw he was one of those who had the best right to be there.

He looked, and there, scarce fifty yards from the sh.o.r.e, was the lugger, keel uppermost, drifting in with the tide. The old man staggered, and was supported by a beach man.

When the wreck came within fifteen yards of the sh.o.r.e, she hung, owing to the under suction, and could get neither way. The cries of the women broke out afresh at this. Then half a dozen stout fellows swam in with ropes, and with some difficulty righted her, and in another minute she was hauled ash.o.r.e.

The crowd rushed upon her. She was empty! Not an oar, not a boat-hook--nothing. But jammed in between the tiller and the boat they found a purple veil. The discovery was announced loudly by one of the females, but the consequent outcry was instantly hushed by the men, and the oldest fisherman there took it, and, in a sudden dead and solemn silence, gave it with a world of subdued meaning to Mr.

Fountain.

CHAPTER XXI.

MR. FOUNTAIN'S grief was violent; the more so, perhaps, that it was not pure sorrow, but heated with anger and despair. He had not only lost the creature he loved better than anyone else except himself, but all his plans and all his ambition were upset forever. I am sorry to say there were moments when he felt indignant with Heaven, and accused its justice. At other times the virtues of her he had lost came to his recollection, and he wept genuine tears. Now she was dead he asked himself a question that is sometimes reserved for that occasion, and then asked with bitter regret and idle remorse at its postponement, "What can I do to show my love and respect for her?" The poor old fellow could think of nothing now but to try and recover her body from the sea, and to record her virtues on her tomb. He employed six men to watch the coast for her along a s.p.a.ce of twelve miles, and he went to a marble-cutter and ordered a block of beautiful white marble. He drew up the record of her virtues himself, and spelled her "Fontaine," and so settled that question by brute force.

Oh, you may giggle, but men are not most sincere when they are most reasonable, nor most reasonable when most sincere. When a man's heart is in a thing, it is in it--wise or nonsensical, it is all one; so it is no use talking.

I lack words to describe the gloom that fell on Mr. Bazalgette's home when the sad tidings reached it. And, indeed, it would be trifling with my reader to hang many more pages with black when he and I both know Lucy Fontaine is alive all the time.

Meantime the French sloop lay at her anchor, and Lucy fretted with impatience. At noon the next day she sailed, and, being a slow vessel, did not anchor off the port of ---- till daybreak the day after. Then she had to wait for the tide, and it was nearly eleven o'clock when Lucy landed. She went immediately to the princ.i.p.al inn to get a conveyance. On the road, whom should she meet but Mr. Hardie. He gave a joyful start at sight of her, and with more heart than she could have expected welcomed her to life again. From him she learned all the proofs of her death. This made her more anxious to fly to her aunt's house at once and undeceive her.

Mr. Hardie would not let her hire a carriage; he would drive her over in half the time. He beckoned his servant, who was standing at the inn door, and ordered it immediately. "Meantime, Miss Fountain, if you will take my arm, I will show you something that I think will amuse you, though _we_ have found it anything but amusing, as you may well suppose." Lucy took his arm somewhat timidly, and he walked her to the marble-cutter's shop. "Look there," said he. Lucy looked and there was an unfinished slab on which she read these words:

Sacred to the Memory OF LUCY FONTAINE, WHO WAS DROWNED AT SEA ON THE 10TH SEPT., 18--.

As her beauty endeared her to all eyes, So her modesty, piety, docilit

At this point in her moral virtues the chisel had stopped. Eleven o'clock struck, and the chisel went for its beer; for your English workman would leave the d in "G.o.d" half finished when strikes the hour of beer.

The fact is that the shopkeeper had newly set up, was proud of the commission, and, whenever the chisel left off, he whipped into the workshop and brought the slab out, _pro tem.,_ into his window for an advertis.e.m.e.nt.

Hardie pointed it out to Lucy with a chuckle. Lucy turned pale, and put her hand to her heart. Hardie saw his mistake too late, and muttered excuses.

Lucy gave a little gasp and stopped him. "Pray say no more; it is my fault; if people will feign death, they must expect these little tributes. My uncle has lost no time." And two unreasonable tears swelled to her eyes and trickled one after another down her cheeks; then she turned her back quickly on the thing, and Mr. Hardie felt her arm tremble. "I think, Mr. Hardie," said she presently, with marked courtesy, "I should, under the circ.u.mstances, prefer to go home alone.

My aunt's nerves are sensitive, and I must think of the best way of breaking to her the news that I am alive."

"It would be best, Miss Fountain; and, to tell the truth, I feel myself unworthy to accompany you after being so maladroit as to give you pain in thinking to amuse you."

"Oh, Mr. Hardie," said Lucy, growing more and more courteous, "you are not to be called to account for my weakness; that _would_ be unjust. I shall have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner?"

"Certainly, since you permit me."

He put Lucy into the carriage and off she drove. "Come," thought Mr.

Hardie, "I have had an escape; what a stupid blunder for me to make!

She is not angry, though, so it does not matter. She asked me to dinner."

Said Lucy to herself: "The man is a fool! Poor Mr. Dodd! _he_ would not have shown me my tombstone--to amuse me." And she dismissed the subject from her mind.

She sent away the carriage and entered Mr. Bazalgette's house on foot.

After some consideration she determined to employ Jane, a girl of some tact, to break her existence to her aunt. She glided into the drawing-room un.o.bserved, fully expecting to find Jane at work there for Mrs. Bazalgette. But the room was empty. While she hesitated what to do next, the handle of the door was turned, and she had only just time to dart behind a heavy window-curtain, when it opened, and Mrs.

Bazalgette walked slowly and silently in, followed by a woman. Mrs.

Bazalgette seated herself and sighed deeply. Her companion kept a respectful silence. After a considerable pause, Mrs. Bazalgette said a few words in a voice so thoroughly subdued and solemn, and every now and then so stifled, that Lucy's heart yearned for her, and nothing but the fear of frightening her aunt into a hysterical fit kept her from flying into her arms.

"I need not tell you," said Mrs. Bazalgette, "why I sent for you. You know the sad bereavement that has fallen on me, but you cannot know all I have lost in her. n.o.body can tell what she was to all of us, but most of all to me. I was her darling, and she was mine." Here tears choked Mrs. Bazalgette's words, for a while. Recovering herself, she paid a tribute to the character of the deceased. "It was a soul without one grain of selfishness; all her thoughts were for others, not one for herself. She loved us all--indeed, she loved some that were hardly worthy of so pure a creature's love; but the reason was, she had no eye for the faults of her friends; she pictured them like herself, and loved her own sweet image in them. _And_ such a temper! and so free from guile. I may truly say her mind was as lovely as her person."

"She was, indeed, a sweet young lady," sighed the woman.

"She was an angel, Baldwin--an angel sent to bear us company a little while, and now she is a saint in Heaven."

"Ah! ma'am, the best goes first, that is an old saying."

"So I have heard; but my niece was as healthy as she was lovely and good. Everything promised long life. I hoped she would have closed my eyes. In the bloom of health one day, and the next lying cold, stark, and drenched!! Oh, how terrible! Oh, my poor Lucy! oh! oh! oh!"

"In the midst of life we are in death, ma'am. I am sure it is a warning to me, ma'am, as well as to my betters."

"It, is, indeed, Baldwin, a warning to all of us who have lived too much for vanities, to think of this sweet flower, s.n.a.t.c.hed in a moment from our bosoms and from the world; we ought to think of it on our knees, and remember our own latter end. That last skirt you sent me was rather scrimped, my poor Baldwin."

"Was it, ma'am?"

"Oh, it does not matter; I shall never wear it now; and, under such a blow as this, I am in no humor to find fault. Indeed, with my grief I neglect my household and my very children. I forget everything; what did I send for you for?" and she looked with lack-l.u.s.ter eyes full in Mrs. Baldwin's face.

"Jane did not say, ma'am, but I am at your orders."

"Oh, of course; I am distracted. It was to pay the last tribute of respect to her dear memory. Ah! Baldwin, often and often the black dress is all; but here the heart mourns beyond the power of grief to express by any outward trappings. No matter; the world, the shallow world, respects these signs of woe, and let mine be the deepest mourning ever worn, and the richest. And out of that mourning I shall never go while I live."