Vesty of the Basins Part 16

"I would rather be false than ruin Notely."

"You thought that it would ruin him? You had some a.s.sistance in that belief; his lady mother came to see you; the property is hers. If he transgresses, no property, no wealthy Grace Langham, no easy glory at the bar or in the state. What were those to your love, Vesty?"

She looked up, dim, and shook her head. "You have done a wilful, blind, impetuous thing. You were piqued, proud, angry, and so you gave yourself, body and soul, to this mad leap."

"I don't care for my body (sob) or soul (sob) if Notely isn't sick."

"There is One who is above Notely, to punish as well as to pity, Vesty."

"G.o.d"--very softly--"oh, yes!" The bewildered, grief-tormented eyes looked faith into mine. "I didn't mean that. I asked Him. I could only find one way. He won't let Notely come to harm, but help him to make the best of himself."

"Your lover is a brave man. He would not have been selfish toward you as this great hulk, Gurdon. He knew you intelligently. He would have lifted, considered, cared for you."

Vesty held herself aloft, pale. "Gurdon is good. If any one ever asked Gurd for anything he always gave it to them."

I leaned my head on my hand, my heart leaping. Vesty came near me.

"Tell me that you do not think it is a great mistake--such a great--a lost--mistake; for Notely's sake, tell me! I looked so for you to come. I wanted you."

To have touched one thread of her dark hair, bowed there before me! I did not touch her.

"Ah, the mistake!" I said; "ah, the pity of it! You do not tell me how _you_ have suffered, Vesty; how your own heart has been torn."

She took my hand, and, turning her head, pushed it gently away from her, as some blind instrument of torture.

"The last time I heard you sing, Vesty, you put your hands on Uncle Benny's poor, confused head and soothed and guided him. Who was there to help or guide you, motherless child, confused and lost?"

"Could you have seen the way?" How she entreated me!

"No one sees the way. But a broken heart and a life--misguided and lost though it be--_given_."

She looked up, dim, again.

"You will make them happy here," I added. Ah, that she understood!

She looked about the room with a sad, brave pride, and rose and stood again, a striking picture there.

"They did need _me_," she said; "_he_ needed me more than Notely. And I shall get time, besides, to go over to father's and help with the children."

I nodded. "Oh, it is bravely done," I said. "We shall get on." For she was worn from her long mental struggle, and nearly wild in those dark-circled eyes. "There will be no more feathers in Captain Rafe's cake. Did I tell you? He and the boys invited me here to tea. They had been dressing birds and baking in the same morning. The plum cake was full of feathers, Vesty."

She laughed, and looked at me with shocked grat.i.tude because I had made her laugh.

"Not chopped or sugared feathers, Vesty, but whole winged feathers of the natural flavor."

"Oh!" she said, "shouldn't you think they needed me?"

"Infinitely."

"Wait. Won't you come--come and see me often? Come evenings and hear the boys play--they _can_ play!--and tell me"--her hands trembled--"tell me about Notely!" Her soul bare in her uplifted eyes.

Only to one as a wraith, a shadow, out of the ordinary pale of humanity, could she have looked like that!

"Always, whatever I hear or know," I answered her. "Gurdon will not be jealous of me." I smiled at her.

She smiled back in her dim way. "Jealous?" she said. "What! after we are married?"

"Ay, surely! The Basins are true to each other then always."

"That is the way," she said.

"That is the way," I said, and left her.

When Notely Garrison received the letter that Vesty had written him he read at the end: "When you get this I shall be married;" and the "for love of you, Notely, G.o.d knows that! You must make the most of all He gives you." Notely seemed to see her eyes.

Then he lost them and went down into a mental gulf. He locked himself in his room, to be ever alone; thoughts came to him that he could not bear: he rose and filled a gla.s.s twice with brandy and drained it. He ran his hand through the tumbled light hair that Vesty had so loved, and reeled out of the room with a laugh on his lips and a flush on his face.

"Mother, I have lost my girl!"

"O Notely! however mistaken I have been, what have I loved, whom have I loved in all this world but you, my child? Do not break my heart!"

"No, no, mother!" said Notely, going and standing beside her; "I am your natural--natural--protector."

As he stood thus, looking out with his drunken yet bright and tender eyes, the child of her breast whom she had robbed, she laid her head on his shoulder and began to cry. "Why, mother!" he said, almost sobered for the instant. Never had this son seen this mother weep. He led her to a lounge.

"I think," he said, struggling for thought very seriously; he racked his stormy, fuddled brain for what would most please her. "Now, when shall we have a wedding, mother? Grace--Grace Langham."

"O Notely!" She tried to detain him with her hand.

"I'll go--go ask her," he said. He pa.s.sed out with an easy exaggeration of his usual lordly air, debonair and high, and at the same time genial.

Grace was alone in the arbor, in her favorite hammock, with a book, when Notely came up.

The look she gave him was full of amus.e.m.e.nt and anger and disgust.

These qualities somehow attracted him now. He was a gentleman; he tried to hold himself very erect against the trellis, and put the question delicately.

"Light--light--light of my soul!" he said.

Grace threw down her book and screamed. Then she put her hands over her face and fell to crying.

Notely took out his handkerchief and wiped his own eyes with the choicest deliberation of sympathy.

"All--all seem to be weeping to-day," he said.

"Oh, you wretch! you brute! you brute!" cried Grace.

Notely, though much flattered, continued diplomatically mopping his eyes.

At length he desisted; and Grace, looking out and seeing his keen, handsome profile staring out so desolately, came down from the hammock.