Overland Tales Part 18

Could the words but have penetrated to the room below, they might have been echoed there by another. Mr. Farnsworth was again making an announcement to Mrs. Wardor--though in a manner not quite so pompous--indeed, almost hesitating.

"Yes," he was saying, "my daughter cannot blame me, since I have made her happy, that I too should look for a suitable companion. When I say suitable, I mean one better fitted than the first Mrs. Farnsworth to my--ahem!--to my--more advanced mental attainments. I have for some time past observed the--ahem!--sweet disposition and--ahem!--amiable character of your friend and _protege_--Clara. Good gracious, madam, are you sick? Can I do anything for you?"

"No, thanks; only a sudden dizziness that sometimes seizes me in warm weather;" and, thanks to Mrs. Wardor's self-possession, it was over directly. As Mr. Farnsworth took it for granted that it was quite essential for a fine lady to have nerves, and even fainting-fits, he saw nothing remarkable in Mrs. Wardor's sudden dizziness and pallor. Then she said Clara was one of the sweetest-tempered women she had ever met with, but she knew nothing of the state of her heart or affections; he must lay the case before the lady herself. And here she suddenly remembered not to have given full directions for supper to the Chinaman in the kitchen, and left Mr. Farnsworth to his own meditations in the parlor. Then the sun went down, and Christine, paying no heed to the sound of carriage-wheels approaching--thinking the happy lovers had returned--was startled by the sharp ring of the door-bell. She sprang to her feet; she felt that the bell called to her, and she was at the door before the servant could reach it. A tall, bearded man stood before her, who, taking advantage of the girl's being utterly disconcerted, drew her quickly to his breast. She rested there only a moment.

"Oh, Rudolph! your father," she said, with a tone of reproach in her voice.

"Take me to him, Christine," and Mrs. Wardor, who had drawn her head back discreetly a moment before, now came fully out of her sitting-room to welcome Rudolph to his home.

"All the afternoon you left me by myself," said Mr. Muldweber, querulously, as Christine softly entered his room. "Ah! if my boy would only come, he would never let his old father lie here alone," and he turned his head to the wall so as not to look at Christine.

"Forgive me," she said; "but poor Clara so needed me. And I have brought news from your son--from Rudolph. He is coming soon--he will be here--"

"He is here now!" cried the old man, opening his arms, but turning his eyes to the ceiling, as though he expected his Rudolph to flutter down from there in the shape of a seraph or an angel.

A few hours later Mr. Muldweber's room, which had seemed so lonesome in the afternoon, was filled to its full capacity. The old man sat in his easy-chair, holding one hand each of Rudolph and Christine in his own, and near them were Mrs. Wardor and Clara. Her friend's happiness was a consolation to her, so much so that she could think, without breaking into tears, of the trio in the parlor of the other house, talking over their plans for the future, just as our friends were doing here.

Mr. Farnsworth intended going back to the city on the morrow, heavily laden with "The Basket" (the German term for the mitten or the sack), which Clara had given him.

In Mr. Muldweber's shanty reigned a soft, subdued happiness, like the half-sad light of the moon flooding in through the window.

"It will be Lone Linden no longer," the old man said, "since I have so large a family. See, I will not crowd you in the big house; I will stop in my dear little hut. There will be only room enough in the other house for Rudolph and his wife and her two sisters" (the old man was naturally gallant), "whose knight I will be till some one worthier and better shall fill my place. And the red-headed one will go next month?" he asked, turning to Mrs. Wardor. With a sigh of relief he continued, "And the black Kobold will go with her I hope, and the four-footed one too.

How they used to break my beautiful white lilies and throw them to that animal. Ah! you cannot make me believe anything--if that horse were not possessed by the evil one he never could have eaten those flowers--stem and all." They could not help laughing, and parted almost merrily.

But out in the garden, in the tender white moonlight, Rudolph drew Christine close to his heart and looked searchingly into her eyes.

"Are you at peace with yourself now, Christine, and satisfied to be mine--satisfied and happy? Then why are those tears in your eyes?"

She struggled out of his arms, and pa.s.sing her hand over her eyes, she fell irresistibly into her old habit, and sang, soft and low,

"Mag auch im Aug' die Thrane stehn-- Das macht das frohe Wiedersehn."

_MANUELA._

"Poor Mrs. Kennerly" was more lachrymose than usual to-day; her eyes paler, her hair more faded. Paul Kennerly, the keen-eyed, robust counterpart and husband of the lady, was measuring the room with impatient steps. When her pale-blue eyes shed tears and grew paler, his flashed fire and grew deeper blue; when her light-yellow hair hung limp and loose about her eyes, his darker, heavier locks rose obstinately from his forehead, and were shaken back, now and again, as a lion shakes his mane. While the profuse tears coursing over his wife's cheeks seemed to bleach their original pink into vapid whiteness, his own flushed hot and red with the quick blood mounting into them.

Yet, Mrs. Kennerly, of whom her friends spoke only with the adjective "poor" prefixed, was not a martyr; on the contrary, to the unprejudiced observer, the great tall man, in spite of flashing eye and reddened cheek, appeared much more in that light and character.

"Laura, _will_ you stop crying just for two seconds, and listen to what I have to say?"

"Oh, my poor sister! my poor sister! Coming home, and unwelcome in her own dead father's house! unwelcome to her own brother-in-law, at the house of her poor dead father--oh!"

Before she had finished her lamentation, Mr. Kennerly had left the room, shutting the door behind him with a crash, and crossing the corridor with long, heavy strides. Then his steps resounded on the veranda, where the June sun threw deepening shadows of the old locusts that stood sentinel in a half circle on the lawn. Pacing back and forth, with knit brows and downcast eyes, the wooing beauties of the summer day were lost on him, as they were without charm or joy to the weak-minded woman fretting and complaining in her darkened room up-stairs.

Unnoticed by him was the short sweet gra.s.s on the lawn, and the rows of blossoming lilacs and budding roses that hedged it in on either side, down to the road; unheeded on his ear fell the gentle murmuring of the wind in the cl.u.s.ter of poplar, beech, and elm that stood bowing and swaying by the large old gate. Was it possible that he had ever pushed through its portals (a wanderer returned to his early home), an expectant bridegroom, to meet the meek-eyed bride whose phantom only seemed now to haunt the old-fashioned, hospitable house? Again Paul Kennerly threw back the hair from his forehead with the lion-like motion that had grown more abrupt and hasty year after year. Then the footsteps on the veranda ceased, and soon soft, full chords, such as a master-hand only could strike on the piano, sounded through the wide corridor, and floated up to the ears of the self-willed invalid. Louder and stronger grew the strains; and the woman, in her feebleness, cowered on her lounge up-stairs, and complained fretfully, "Now he storms again!" while the man below seemed to have forgotten everything; his own existence, perhaps--the existence of the woman, surely.

Yet she was present to the waking dreams he dreamed of his early youth--they could not be dreamed without her. She had been his playmate, his _protege_; as her younger, stronger sister had been his natural antagonist and aversion. The father had been his guardian. And when Paul went as sutler and trader to New Mexico, just as Laura was budding into girlhood, it was tacitly understood that on his return he would claim her as his betrothed. Years pa.s.sed, and when old Mr. Taylor felt his end approaching, he begged Paul to return, and be to his two daughters the protector that he had been to Paul's helpless childhood. Soon after Laura's marriage, Mr. Taylor died, firm in the belief that he had made a happy man of his favorite, Paul.

Before the mourning year was over, a schoolmate of Paul's, an army officer, some years his senior, came to spend a month's furlough at the old Taylor mansion. When he left, he was the willing slave and avowed suitor of Regina, the queenly younger sister of Laura. If there were no hearty congratulations from Paul's side, I doubt that either Colonel Dougla.s.s, in his happiness, or Laura, in her self-absorption, felt the withholding of his kind wishes; and Regina cared very little either for his favor or his disapproval.

Even before they were married, Regina knew that after a few short weeks spent in the home-like, elegant quarters at the a.r.s.enal, they must leave the ease and luxuries of civilization for the wilds of some frontier country. But Regina was content to reign over the limited number of hearts to be found in a frontier's camp, as she had reigned over her train of admirers in the ball-room and at the watering-places; and, to the delight of her husband, she uttered no word of complaint when an order from the War Department sent them to an adobe-built fort on the Rio Pecos, in the most desolate part of all New Mexico.

"Now, I should like to go with you, Hal," had said his brother-in-law, when he read him the order; and he raised his head and flung back his hair, as though he felt the wild, free wind of the Plains tossing it.

Paul rode back from the a.r.s.enal slowly that evening; and the nearer home he came, the lower drooped his head, the darker grew his brow. At home he paced the floor uneasily, paying little heed to the feeble whimpering of his wife, who had been frittering her life away between camphor-bottles and sentimental novels since Regina had left the house.

The drawing-room, where the piano stood, and where the windows opened out on the veranda and the lawn, was his harbor this night, as often when either his own thoughts or the selfish complainings of his wife drove him distractedly about the house. But this night there sounded a single soft strain through his "storming,"--as his wife called it,--and the strain grew wilder and sweeter, till suddenly lost, as the note of some clear-voiced, frightened bird is lost in the howling of the midnight storm.

Then had come days of calm, during which the piano remained closed, and he sat meekly under the drivelling talk of his wife, and in the close, dark atmosphere which alone, she insisted, suited the delicate complexion of her face and of her mind.

After that, an occasional letter from his brother-in-law, now at his station on the Rio Pecos, or an extra twist of the cord matrimonial, which, since the day of his marriage, seemed literally to encircle his neck, would set the lion to fuming in his cage; and, with the toss of his hair from the forehead, would commence the wandering through the house which always ended with "storming" the piano.

But the days are pa.s.sing while we travel back into the past; and one, not far distant, brings Regina, the unwelcome. Before she had been in the house many days, she knew from her sister's rambling talk what Paul had said of her coming before she came--knew that he did not believe what the colonel had written about the disastrous effects of the New Mexican climate on his wife's health; but believed, rather, the rumors that had come to him from all sides, each varying a little from the rest in detail, but all agreeing in the main. Regina's marble face, and nervous, transparent fingers, might have confirmed the theory of failing health; but there was something in the momentary flash of her dark eyes, as she listened to her sister's quavering voice, that told of energy or despair, such as woman gains and gathers only from a sudden calling forth of all her pa.s.sions and powers for the defence of her life, her honor, or position, as the case may be. It may have been only once, in the long past, that this power was called out; but, like the heat-lightning at the close of a hot, murky day, it throws baleful gleams on the cloud-darkened horizon of her life forever after.

"My sternly-virtuous moral brother-in-law," Regina said softly to herself, seated on a low stool in the room where her cradle had stood, "would fain drive me from my own father's house, for a fancied injury to the fair name of the Kennerly-Taylor family. Ah, well! the end of all days has not come yet."

Her head sank on her bosom, as she sat watching the shadows of the tree-clump by the gate, growing longer and deeper in the fading light of the western sun; and a tear stole into her eye and trickled slowly down her pure white cheek. Her sister, creeping up to her, and looking into her face with what affection she was capable of, shed more of her easy-coming tears.

"I told him they were slandering you. Papa always said you were too proud to do a wrong and not acknowledge it. And Paul was always hard on you, I know; and it's all a lie and slander; for even if you were not my sister, I could tell, as any one could, from your face, that you are good and without sin. I know from the stories I have read--they all have just such pale, faultless faces when they're persecuted; and afterwards the misunderstanding is cleared up, and they get married. But then, you _are_ married." She had gotten into deep water now; and thinking, probably, that her younger, cleverer sister would solve this problem as she had so many others, Laura picked up her camphor-bottle and returned to her own room. Regina remained, her "pale, faultless face" turned to the dying light, a pensive, half-pained, half-sad expression on her lips and in her eye, looking almost like a saint striving to forgive and bless her traducers.

Yet the woman was not without sin; though how much was to be laid at her door none could tell.

Out in New Mexico, the rumor ran, at the lonely adobe-built post on the Rio Pecos, where her husband, the colonel, was stationed, there was also a post surgeon, a young, handsome man, of fascinating manners, of unquestioned skill and bravery, and born of an Italian mother, from whom he had inherited pa.s.sion, temper, and disposition, together with Southern eyes and curly, silken hair. His courage had probably come from his American father; none but such could have a son who, in his dare-devil bravery, would go so far as to capture and tame a young panther, and chain him outside his door, to act as watch-dog and protector. And so great was the love of this animal for his master, that he was known to leap and roar for joy when seeing him approach after an absence from home.

Of course, Regina was expected to visit and admire the panther as a "natural curiosity;" and her hand, too, it was said, the beast would lick with every sign of affection and submission. Rumor said, that in the dead of night, when no one else could approach the doctor's quarters within a hundred yards, she could pa.s.s by and into the doctor's rooms without hindrance or opposition from Royal, the panther. And, moreover, rumor went on to say, that whenever the colonel was away on duty, looking after those troublesome Navajoes and uncertain Apaches, Regina's white robe was frequently seen flitting past the uncanny keeper of the doctor's door.

But there came a day--a night, rather--when Royal, after a short but terrible conflict with a midnight invader, lay dead on his master's doorsteps, and over the body strode the invader into the presence of the young doctor, who, with an almost superhuman effort, tried to shield the queenly, white-robed form that fell p.r.o.ne to the floor. To be sure, he received a bullet in his temple; and the dark, silken curls were dank and stiff with gore when the sun lighted up the low adobe room next morning. However, he had saved _her_ life; for the colonel became cool when he saw the destroyer of his peace and honor lying dead at his feet.

There was no public trial--not even a court-martial. The colonel had killed the doctor in a duel; but n.o.body demanded a record of the event, and the reprimand he received was not by sentence. But he was ordered to Fort Marcy, near Santa Fe. The colonel had borne off a cut across the forehead, extending upward till under the hair, in one of the pitched battles with the Indians; and he was known to suffer from headache and irritation of the wound to such a degree, at times, that over-excitement, from anger or other cause, made him almost crazy. He was an old, valiant, and valued officer; and the War Department, not supposed to know any uninvestigated matter, would excuse many things in such a one, even though it could not approve them.

Then it was that the colonel's wife had returned to the States "for her health,"--as her husband was particular to write to his brother officers stationed at the barracks and a.r.s.enal near to the western city where his wife's home was.

Who can tell how rumor travels? When Regina made her appearance at the a.r.s.enal, the very women who had once been proud of her notice seemed hardly to remember a pa.s.sing acquaintance with her; and, stung to the quick, she had barely strength to control her face and hold high her head till the door of her carriage had closed on her. She laid back her head, throbbing and aching, yet filled with a thousand plans for regaining her position and punishing those who had so humbled her.

It was one of Paul's restless days; and she heard him "storming" on the piano as her carriage entered the gateway. With sudden interest she raised her head, while her face grew animated with some struggling thought.

When night had set in, and the broad hall-door was thrown open to admit the soft breeze and the tender moonlight, Regina, for the first time since her return to the home of her childhood, approached the piano in the drawing-room and ran her fingers over the keys. The door stood open, and from her seat she could see into the hall, and catch a glimpse of Paul's shadow every time he pa.s.sed the hall-door in his walk on the moonlit veranda. Not a muscle of her face moved as she continued in her play, striking chords and running _roulades_, without any apparent purpose save that of touching once more the old familiar key-board.

Paul's shadow flitted by, regularly and restlessly, never varying an inch in his distance from the door as he pa.s.sed it. Suddenly the chords melted into a melody low and sweet, yet swelling almost into wildness in its yearning, longing tenderness.

Regina listened intently, and--surely Paul could not have paused suddenly in his walk on the veranda! Directly his footsteps came again, halting and uncertain, and Regina repeated the air, throwing into it more intensity, even, than at first. She seemed absorbed in her playing, though she knew full well when Paul's hesitating footsteps crossed the threshold, and moved nearer the drawing-room entrance. When he stood in the door, she looked up, as though unwilling to be disturbed in her musical meditations. One look at the deathly-pale face, above which the dark blonde hair rose like a lion's mane, a.s.sured her that she would gain--_had_ gained--her end; and she played on, as though forgetting his presence in an instant. Presently, a hoa.r.s.e, unsteady voice reached her ear:

"Where did you learn that air? Who taught you the song?"

She looked up unconcernedly.