Overland Tales Part 17

"Poor old man," said Christine, evasively, and she repeated,

"No one hastens home at twilight, Waiting for my hand to wave."

"Stop, or I shall get the blues, too." Clara raised her hands to her ears in comical despair, and Christine laughed good-naturedly at the effect of her singing.

So the pleasant, sunshiny days pa.s.sed on, with no event more stirring than an occasional letter from Miss Barbara's father to break the monotony of life.

It was Mr. Farnsworth's desire that Miss Barbara should be treated and looked upon as a child, and it would have gladdened his heart could he have seen her, in the cool of the morning or late in the afternoon, with s...o...b..ll and Kickup in the enclosed lot called the Meadow, behind the house. Whether it had ever been the intention of Mr. Farnsworth to have Miss Barbara use the four-footed thing called Kickup as a saddle-horse is not known; it is a matter of doubt, however, whether any one had ever been on its back long enough to discover what was its best gait. To be sure, Miss Barbara made it a point to require her "maid" to "ride around the ring;" and she would urge the pony close up to the fence for this purpose, a.s.sist Daisy to mount, and then give a jump to get out of reach of Kickup's heels, for he had never been known to have more than two feet on the ground when any one was on his back; indeed, as a general thing, he never touched the ground again till his burden lay there too.

There was no more danger of injuring s...o...b..ll's limbs than the pony's, and as they were taken both from the same tribe, back in Arizona somewhere, it is to be presumed that they knew each other. But Miss Barbara was neither cruel nor a coward. She never failed to reach Kickup's back, and from there the ground again, sometime during the day's performance, to s...o...b..ll's unbounded delight; and at night she always complained to Mrs. Wardor that "her pony wasn't fairly broken yet," "Which is not so surprising as that your bones are unbroken yet,"

Christine would say sometimes; for which Miss Barbara would give her a supercilious look out of her wide-open eyes, as though to say: "What do you know about it? Your father was never an army contractor."

About this time Mr. Farnsworth, in his letter to Mrs. Wardor, commenced to promise a visit he intended making them before the summer was over; and Mrs. Wardor commenced saying to Barbara, when she proved particularly unmanageable, "Do try to behave like a lady, so that your father may see you are no longer a child." And the suggestion always had the desired effect for the time being; but the sight of s...o...b..ll driving Kickup into the meadow would as regularly upset all her good intentions.

One day Christine came into Clara's room, with a troubled look on her face. "What is it?" asked Clara; "is your aged _protege_ more depressed than usual this morning? Has he refused to enjoy his long pipe, or has he regaled you with a longer account than usual of his son--Hans, I think, you said his name was?"

Christine laughed in spite of herself. Clara had heard something of Mr.

Muldweber's trouble with his son, and took it for granted that Christine knew all about it, though she had not the remotest idea of how deeply she was interested; and one of Clara's fancies was that Mr. Muldweber's son was a tow-headed youth, and his name was Hans.

"Mrs. Wardor has had another letter from Mr. Farnsworth," said Christine.

"Again threatening a visit? But why should that make you look so serious? Are you thinking of his displeasure at not finding his Barbara an Arabella G.o.ddard?"

"Thank G.o.d, I never held out that prospect to him. No--" she continued, absently; "I don't like his letters, and I fear Mrs. Wardor misunderstands him--misunderstands him entirely. He inquires very particularly for Lady Clare in his letters, too."

"And not for you? Ah! then the cat's out of the bag," she laughed; "you are jealous of me again."

"The vanity of some people--" Christine joined in the laugh; but the troubled look returned to her face as she went on. "That poor old man troubles me too; he is failing fast, and his son must come soon, or I fear he will never see him again."

"Then why not send for him?" asked Clara, innocently; "or does he not know where to find him?"

"No," answered Christine, savagely, after a moment's hesitation.

"Poor old man," sighed Clara; and she was careful after this to meet the forlorn figure wandering restlessly through the grounds with all the sweet consideration it was her nature to show those who were in pain or trouble.

Still the old man never spoke to her of his Rudolph as he did to Christine; it was to the brave-hearted German girl he poured out his long pent-up complaints and lamentations; it was only to her he revealed how the yearning for his first-born was eating his heart away. Often she was on the point of telling him all; he would say then, she thought, that she had acted quite correctly; would commend her for not having fastened herself with her accursed name upon a blameless man, with fame and fortune before him. But he would still demand at her hands his son--his son whom she, more than himself, had made an exile and a wanderer.

So the day pa.s.sed on, and the cloud on the horizon of Lone Linden grew darker and heavier; but no one saw it gathering save Christine.

Instinctively she felt that their fair Paradise would be destroyed when the storm should burst, but she knew not how to divert the threatened deluge.

When Clara rushed into her arms one day, flushed and breathless, crying, "Oh, I knew he loved me--I felt that he had never forgotten me," her heart misgave her--the first harbinger of threatened desolation had come. With difficulty she prevailed on Clara to tell her calmly what had occurred, and, triumphant and happy, she explained that Mrs. Wardor had received a letter from Mr. Farnsworth, to say that at the end of the week he should visit Lone Linden, bringing with him young Mr. Herac.l.i.t Gupton, nephew of General Gupton, commanding the Department of the Pacific.

"Poor, blind Mrs. Wardor," Clara went on to say, "saw nothing in this but Mr. Farnsworth's desire to entertain a young gentleman whose uncle had it in his power to award heavy army contracts; indeed, how could she know that Herac.l.i.t Gupton was--was--"

"I have lived and loved--but that was to-day; Go bring me my grave clothes to-morrow."

Christine filled up the pause, her voice more dreary and inclined to "drop into the cellar" than ever.

Clara looked sobered and disappointed at this unexpected comment, but attributed it to a sudden recollection of Christine's own "what might have been."

"What makes you so sad, Christine? Is Mr. Muldweber really sinking as fast as Mrs. Wardor thinks?"

"Sinking fast, child; only the promise that his son shall be brought here, if among the living, before the moon fades, has kept the old man alive."

"Oh! Christine, stay and be glad with me now," pleaded Clara, "the time for mourning will come soon enough."

But Christine could not be made to rejoice, and all the comment she made on the other's enthusiasm was,

"Oh! Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head."

And Clara flew up-stairs to dream over this broadening flood of sunshine as she had dreamed over the first faint glinting.

Had not Miss Barbara been strangely absent-minded about this time, she must have observed how the color in Clara's cheek grew brighter, and her eyes held a deeper, richer light. And if any expression so soft as a "dreamy look" could ever have stolen into this positive young lady's face, one would certainly have said it was there now, though it vanished like a dream, too, whenever the Indian girl's impish laugh fell on her ears. The Indian girl herself seemed to be the only member of the family that was not more or less _distrait_ after the arrival of Mr.

Farnsworth's last letter, for even Kickup showed resentment at Miss Barbara's sudden neglect of her "saddle horse." It was only natural that Mrs. Wardor's mind should be on hospitable cares intent, which accounted for her being oblivious to a good many things going on around her.

Sat.u.r.day had been named by Mr. Farnsworth as the day on which he was to be expected, and as the members of the family arose from the breakfast-table that morning, Miss Barbara astonished Mrs. Wardor by a demand for her mother's diamonds, to wear in honor of her father's coming.

"Nonsense, child," said Mrs. Wardor; "what would the young gentleman coming with your father think, to see a school-girl loaded down with diamonds? Leave them in my trunk; they are better there. You might take a notion to have a romp with Kickup before taking them off, and they would be scattered in the meadow."

But Miss Barbara was determined to carry her point, and broke out at last, the rebellious blood rising to her head, "I think I should be allowed to have them, at any rate; they are _my_ diamonds, and father promised mother that they should never go to the second wife if he did marry again."

Mrs. Wardor's face flushed as red as Barbara's, but Christine's remained unmoved, calmly marking the notes on a sheet of music, while Clara gave one startled look, as though she had just made a discovery.

Early in the afternoon Miss Barbara appeared in the garden, where the hot sun blazed down on the fiery hair, the burning cheeks, and the flashing jewels. Her eyes were hardly less sparkling than her diamonds, and as she threw a searching look down the road and across the plain, toward the town, they seemed to glitter and glint in all the colors of the rainbow, just like the stones in her ears and at her throat. Later, Clara came to the hall-door, but drew back when Barbara came to join her; the girl's appearance gave her a "scorched" sensation, she said to Christine, who seemed blind to the shadows that coming events were casting before them. At least there was neither glad antic.i.p.ation nor nervous haste noticeable in her as in the rest, but her heart was very heavy within her. Nevertheless she chided Clara for having dressed in black after all, when she had firmly decided to wear white; and she urged her back into the garden, for she knew her soul was flying across the road to the city, to meet the form she had dreamed of day and night since Mr. Farnsworth's announcement.

The afternoon breeze was gently stirring the fragrant flower heads when she entered the garden again and approached Miss Barbara, who had taken up her station by the low picket fence where the ground rose above the level of the road. Clara, too, sent out a wistful look across the plain.

Perhaps she had sighed, for she felt the girl's eyes on her, and as she looked up, it came back to her painfully what Barbara had once said about her lack of color. Could her heart be growing envious of the girl?

She did not ask herself the question, but she felt the impulse to turn and leave her, and would have done so had not a start and flutter on the girl's part told her that a vehicle was in sight.

She did not look down the road; she would not betray her feelings to the merciless eyes of this red-headed girl; but her own heart beat so that Barbara's agitation entirely escaped her. She turned toward the house.

She _must_ press her hand to her heart to still the tumultuous beating.

On the balcony stood Christine, an affectionate smile lighting up the dark features as she threw kisses to her and pointed to the light carriage now quite near the gate. Then the color came back into Clara's face, and, with a sudden joyous impulse, she fluttered her handkerchief in the breeze, and laughed like a glad child reaching out its hand for a long-coveted toy. Mrs. Wardor came to the door; the carriage stopped at the gate that minute, and two gentlemen sprang to the ground.

Just how it all took place, perhaps none of them ever knew--not even Christine, who had remained on the balcony, a deeply-interested, though not indelicate, spectator. They lingered in the garden a little while, and before they entered the house Mr. Farnsworth had pompously announced to Mrs. Wardor that this was the young gentleman who had so faithfully and persistently paid court and attention to his daughter Barbara; that he had at last been touched by his unwavering devotion, and had decided to make his only child happy--as happy as he himself hoped to be some day in the not distant future.

"Bless your soul," he added, in an undertone, to Mrs. Wardor, who had just had an unaccountable attack of heart-beating, "if I had known that Barbara's 'young man' was General Gupton's nephew, she should have had him six months ago, and welcome." He was interrupted by Barbara's asking permission to go driving with her "young man," and, the father consenting, they were soon speeding over the road in the light carriage that had brought the gentlemen.

At her window up-stairs sat Christine, her hands folded idly in her lap, her eyes absently following the couple in the carriage. But on the bed, in her own room, lay Clara, her head buried deep in the pillows, her slender hands covering the white face, sobbing as if her heart would break. And through the half-open door came the saddening chant of Christine:

"I have just been learning the lesson of life, The sad, sad lesson of loving."