Rose A Charlitte Part 26

"Why is the descendant of the Fiery Frenchman a devil?" asked Vesper.

"Because she has no heart. They have taken from her her race, her religion. Her mother, who had some Indian blood, was also wild. She would not sweep her kitchen floor. She went to sea with her husband, and when she was drowned with him, her sister, who is also gay, took the child."

"What do you mean by gay?"

"I mean like hawks. They go here and there,--they love the woods. They do not keep neat houses, and yet they are full of strange ambitions.

They change their names. They are not so much like the English as we are, yet they pretend to have no French blood. Sometimes I visit them, for the uncle of the child--Claude a Sucre--is worthy, but his wife I detestate. She has no bones of purpose; she is like a flabby sunfish."

"Where do they live?"

"Up the Bay,--near Bleury."

"And do you think there is nothing I can do for this little renegade?"

"Nothing?" cried Agapit. "You can do everything. It is the opportunity of your life. You so wise, so generous, so understanding the Acadiens.

You have in your power to make born again the whole family through the child. They are superst.i.tious. They will respect the claim of the dead.

Come to the garden to talk, for there are strangers approaching."

Vesper shivered. He was not altogether happy over the discovery of the lost link connecting him with the far-back tragedy in which his great-grandfather had been involved. However, he suppressed all signs of emotion, and, following Agapit to the lawn, he walked to and fro, listening attentively to the explanations and information showered upon him. When Rose came to the door to ring the supper-bell, both young men paused. She thought they had been speaking of her, and blushed divinely.

Agapit, with an alarmed expression, turned to his companion, who smiled quietly, and was just about to address him, when a lad came running up to them.

"Agapit, come quickly,--old miser Lefroy is dying, and would make his will. He calls for thee."

"Return,--say that I will come," exclaimed Agapit, waving his hand; then he looked at Vesper. "One word only, why does Rose look so strangely?"

"Rose has promised to be my wife."

Agapit groaned, flung himself away a few steps, then came back. "Say no more to her till you see me. How could you--and yet you do her honor. I cannot blame you," and with a farewell glance, in which there was a curious blending of despair and gratified pride, he ran after the boy.

Vesper went up-stairs to his mother, who announced herself no better, and begged only that she might not be disturbed. He accordingly descended to the dining-room and took his place at the table.

Rose was quietly moving to and fro with a heightened color. She was glad that Agapit was away,--it was more agreeable to her to have only one lord and master present; yet, sensitively alive to the idiosyncrasies of this new one, she feared that he was disapproving of her unusual number of guests.

He, however, n.o.bly suppressed his disapproval, and even talked pleasantly of recent political happenings in his own country with some travelling agents who happened to be some of his own fellow citizens.

"Ah, it is a wonderful thing, this love," she said to herself, as she went to the kitchen for a fresh supply of coffee; "it makes one more anxious to please, and to think less of oneself. Mr. Nimmo wishes to aid me,--and yet, though he is so kind, he slightly wrinkles his beautiful eyebrows when I place dishes on the table. He does not like me to serve.

He would have me sit by him; some day I shall do so;" and, overcome by the confused bliss of the thought, she retired behind the pantry door, where the curious Celina found her with her face buried in her hands, and in quick, feminine intuition at once guessed her secret.

There were many dishes to wash after supper, and Vesper, who was keeping an eye on the kitchen, inwardly applauded Celina, who, instead of running to the door as she usually did to exchange pleasantries with waiting friends and admirers, accomplished her tasks with surprising celerity. In the brief s.p.a.ce of three-quarters of an hour she was ready to go out, and after donning a fresh blouse and a clean ap.r.o.n, and coquettishly tying a handkerchief on her head, she went to the lawn, where she would play croquet and gossip with her friends until the stars came out.

Vesper left the smokers on the veranda and the chattering women in the parlor, and sauntered through the quiet dining-room and kitchen. Rose was nowhere in sight, but her pet kitten, that followed her from morning till night, was mewing at the door of a small room used as a laundry.

Vesper cautiously looked in. The supple young back of his sweetheart was bent over a wash-tub. "Rose," he exclaimed, "what are you doing?"

She turned a blushing face over her shoulder. "Only a little washing--a very little. The washerwoman forgot."

Vesper walked around the tub.

"It was such a pleasure," she stammered. "I did not know that you would wish to talk to me till perhaps later on."

Her slender hands gripped a white garment affectionately, and partly lifted it from the soap-suds. Vesper, peering in the tub, discovered that it was one of the white jerseys that he wore bicycling, and, gently taking it from her, he dropped it out of sight in the foam.

"But it is of wool,--it will shrink," she said, anxiously.

He laughed, dried her white arms on his handkerchief, and begged her to sit down on a bench beside him.

She shyly drew back and, pulling down her sleeves, seated herself on a stool opposite.

"Rose," he said, seriously, "do you know how to flirt?"

Her beautiful lips parted, and she laughed in a gleeful, wholehearted way that reminded him of Narcisse. "I think that it would be possible to learn," she said, demurely.

Vesper did not offer to teach her. He fell into an intoxicated silence, and sat musing on this, the purest and sweetest pa.s.sion of his life.

What had she done--this simple Acadien woman--to fill his heart with such profound happiness? A light from the window behind her shone around her flaxen head, and reminded him of the luminous halos surrounding the heads of her favorite saints. Since the ecstatic dreams of boyhood he had experienced nothing like this,--and yet this dream was more extended, more spiritual and less earthly than those, for infinite worlds of happiness now unfolded themselves to his vision, and endless possibilities and responsibilities stretched out before him. This woman's life would be given fearlessly into his hands, and also the life of her child. He, Vesper Nimmo, almost a broken link in humanity's chain, would become once more a part in the glorious whole.

Rose, enraptured with this intellectual love-making, sat watching every varying emotion playing over her lover's face. How different he was from Charlitte,--ah, poor Charlitte!--and she shuddered. He was so rough, so careless. He had been like a good-natured bear that wished a plaything.

He had not loved her as gently, as tenderly as this man did.

"Rose," asked Vesper, suddenly, "what is the matter with Agapit?"

"I do not know," she said, and her face grew troubled. "Perhaps he is angry that I have told a story, for I said I would not marry."

"Why should he not wish you to marry?"

Again she said that she did not know.

"Will you marry me in six weeks?"

"I will marry when you wish," she replied, with dignity, "yet I beg you to think well of it. My little boy is in his bed, and when I no longer see him, I doubt. There are so few things that I know. If I go to your dear country, that you love so much, you may drop your head in shame,--notwithstanding what you have said, I give you up if you wish."

"Womanlike, you must inject a drop of bitterness into the only full cup of happiness ever lifted to your lips. Let us suppose, however, that you are right. My people are certainly not as your people. Shall we part now,--shall I go away to-morrow, and never see you again?"

Rose stared blindly at him.

"Are you willing for me to go?" he asked, quietly.

His motive in suggesting the parting was the not unworthy one of a lover who longs for an open expression of affection from one dear to him, yet he was shocked at the signs of Rose's suppressed pa.s.sion and inarticulate terror. She did not start from her seat, she did not throw herself in his inviting arms, and beg him to stay with her. No; the terrified blue eyes were lowered meekly to the floor, and, in scarcely audible accents, she murmured, "What seems right to you must be done."

"Rose,--I shall never leave you."

"I feel that I have reached up to heaven, and plucked out a very bright star," she stammered, with white lips, "and yet here it is," and trying to conceal her agony, she opened her clenched and quivering hand, as if to restore something to him.

He went down on his knees before her. "You are a princess among your people, Rose. Keep the star,--it is but a poor ornament for you," and seizing her suffering hands, he clasped them to his breast. "Listen, till I tell you my reasons for not leaving the woman who has given me my life and inspired me with hope for the future."

Rose listened, and grew pale at his eloquent words, and still more eloquent pauses.

After some time, a gentle, melancholy smile came creeping to her face; a smile that seemed to reflect past suffering rather than present joy. "It is like pain," she said, and she timidly laid a finger on his dark head, "this great joy. I have had so many terrors,--I have loved you so long, I find, and I thought you would die."