Originally Published: July 4, 1881
Genres: Fiction
Dime Novel Bibliography: https://dimenovels.org/Item/39/Show
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54134
Chapters: 31
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
THE FALL OF A METEOR
"Once those eyes, full sweet, full shy,
Told a certain thing to mine;
What they told me I put by,
Oh, so careless of the sign.
Such an easy thing to take,
And I did not want it then;
Fool! I wish my heart would break—
Scorn is hard on hearts of men."
—Jean Ingelow.
It was 1866, on the evening of a lovely spring day, and my heroine was gathering flowers in one of the loveliest of the lovely gardens of that seaport city, Norfolk, Virginia.
A lovely garden indeed, with its spacious area, its graveled walks and fountains, its graceful pavilions, its beautiful flowers, and the tasteful villa that rose in the midst of this terrestrial paradise looked very attractive outlined whitely against the dark green of the lofty grove of trees stretching far into its rear. Built on the suburbs of the city, in the portion of it known as Ocean View, you could scarcely have imagined a fairer prospect than that which met the eyes of the two gentlemen who idly smoked and talked on the wide piazza fronting the sea.
The sun was setting in a blue May sky, sinking slowly and sadly beneath the level of the sea, while far away, just faintly outlined by its fading beams, glimmered the white sails and tapering spars of an outward-bound ship. How lonely it looked on that vast ocean in the fading light,
"Like the last beam that reddens over one—
That sinks with those we love below the verge."
To a poetic mind, the sight suggested many exquisite similitudes, and Bruce Conway took the cigar from between his lips and mused sadly as befitted the occasion, till the voice of his companion jarred suddenly on his dreamy mood.
"Bruce, my boy, will you favor me with the earthly name of the white-robed divinity whom I have observed for the last half-hour flitting about this paradisiacal garden? Since my advent here at noon today, I have not had the pleasure of meeting my amiable hostess, yet I am persuaded that this youthful creature cannot be your aunt."
"Smitten at sight—eh, Clendenon?" answered Mr. Conway, with an attempt at archness. "That, my dear fellow, is my aunt's companion, Miss Grey. She is coming this way, and I'll introduce you."
He puffed away indolently at his fragrant cigar, while the young girl of whom he had spoken came up the broad avenue that led to the piazza steps, bearing on her arm a dainty basket heaped high with flowers and trailing vines that overflowed the edges of her basket and clung lovingly about her white robe. She was, perhaps, seventeen years of age, and endowed with a rare and peerless loveliness. A Mary of Scots, a Cleopatra might have walked with that stately, uplifted grace, that rare, unstudied poetry of motion. Slender, and tall, and lithe, with her pale gold ringlets and marvelous fairness was combined so much innocent sweetness that it brought the guest to his feet in involuntary homage and admiration, while Mr. Conway himself tossed away his cigar, and, hastening to meet her, took the flowery burden from her arm, and assisted her up the steps.
"Miss Grey, allow me to present to you my friend, Captain Clendenon," he said, in his graceful, off-hand way.
"Perfectly beautiful, faultily faultless!" murmured the captain to himself, as he bowed over the delicate hand she shyly offered.
With quiet grace she accepted the chair he placed for her, and, taking up a great lapful of flowers, answered a question Mr. Conway asked:
"Yes, your aunt's headache is better, and she will be down this evening. These flowers are for the drawing room. You know how she loves to see a profusion of flowers about the house through the whole season."
"'Ah! one rose—
One rose, but one, by those fair fingers culled,
Were worth a hundred kisses pressed on lips
Less exquisite than thine.'"
It was like Bruce Conway's graceful impudence to quote those lines, smiling up into the Hebe-like face of the girl. He was the spoiled darling of fortune, the handsome idol of the fair sex, as perfect in his dark, manly beauty as she in her opposite angelic type. Yet she hesitated, trifling saucily with her flowers, and half denying the rose he craved.
"I am chary of giving away roses obtained at the price of so many thorns," said she, holding up a tapered finger with a dark-red scratch marking a zigzag course over its whiteness. "Gather your roses yourself, sir."
"If I might gather those that blossom on your cheeks, I might take the risk of the thorns," he answered, daringly.
The roses referred to deepened to vivid crimson, the golden lights in the pansy-colored eyes sent a fiery gleam along the black-fringed lashes, as she answered, indignantly:
"You forget yourself, and presume, sir."
"I did, indeed, but you know my idle habit of jesting. Pardon me."
"Willingly, so that the offense is not repeated," she answered, more gently, as she continued at her task, grouping the flowers into tasteful bouquets, and ending by a fragrant gift to each gentleman of a tiny posy for his button-hole, that restored sociability and brought back the ease that had marked the first of the interview.
"And tomorrow, Bruce," said the captain, presently, "I shall see the last of you for years, if not forever. What possesses you to go wandering off to Europe in this mad fashion?"
A smothered cry of astonishment caused him to look at Grace Grey. She was looking straight at Bruce Conway, the rose bloom dying away from her cheeks, and the beautiful eyes, eager, questioning, startled, with a woman's love looking out of them, and a woman's love revealed, alas! too plainly, in that mute gaze.
Conway's dark eyes met hers for a moment with answering love in their dark depths. Only a moment, though, and then they wavered and fell, and he indifferently answered her mute question:
"You look surprised, ma petite. Well, it is true that I leave here tomorrow for an extended tour over Europe. I have long thought of it, and the time has come at last."
No answer. She could not have spoken if life or death had hung on a single sentence from those sweet lips, from whence the rose tint had faded, leaving them cold and white, and drawn as if in pain. She gathered up her fragrant burdens and carried them into the house, leaving a momentary shocked silence behind her.
Presently the captain spoke, in the calm, assured tone in which we chide a dear and intimate friend:
"Bruce, have you been flirting with that pretty, innocent child?"
Conway fidgeted a little, but he answered nonchalantly enough:
"Why do you ask? Have you fallen in love with her?"
"I was not speaking of myself; we will keep to the subject if you please. She loves you." His voice grew tender, reverential.
"Well?"
That simple monosyllable might have expressed many things. In Bruce Conway's non-committal tone, it meant nothing.
"You will marry her?"
"Why, no."
The words came out with a jerk as if they must be said, and the sooner the better. The purple twilight hid his face and expression, yet the captain persevered:
"Yet you love her?"
"Taking your assertion for granted," said Conway, coolly, "is that any reason why I should marry Miss Grey?"
"It seems one to me."
"Very probably; but, mon ami, your view on this, as on many other things, are old-fashioned and absurd, or, at least, behind the times we live in. Do you happen to know, old fellow, that I have completely run through my handsome fortune, and that my 'great expectations' as my aunt's solo heir and favorite are all I have to depend on?"
"I know it. What then?"
"'What then?'" boyishly mimicking the sober tone of the older man. "If I must tell you, Clen, my aunt has positively interdicted me from making love to her fair companion. I might be courteously polite, soberly kind—nothing more, on pain of disinheritance and eternal banishment from my relative's imperious presence."
"You have disobeyed her."
"Not I. I have debarred myself from that exquisite pleasure and kept strictly to the letter of my aunt's command. I have never told her I loved her, never addressed her a single word of love, save in the ideal, poetical quotations to which she can attach no real meaning. I am not to blame," talking a little savagely; "and I suffer, too. I must go away. It is madness for me to stay here longer, and cruel to her. My heart aches for her—she is so fair, so pure, so trusting. I dare not stay here another day, or I should break through Aunt Conway's prohibition and tell her all that is in my heart. But once away from the sight of her maddening beauty, I can forget her, and returning home sometime, take possession of my handsome inheritance, and thank my lucky stars for the decision I made today."
"Think a moment, dear friend. Is it not just as possible that a day may come when you shall bitterly regret that decision? When for the sake of the loving, trusting, friendless child you desert today, you would peril not only your hopes of present fortune and earthly prosperity but your aspirations for a brighter world?"
"Why pursue a useless subject? I have let you have your say out and heard you in patience. Now hear me. I do love Grace Grey so passionately that, having had everything I wanted heretofore in life, it is a hard struggle to be compelled to resign her. But though I feel that I am acting almost a villainous part, I cannot incur my aunt's penalty. Love of ease and luxury is inherent in my nature, and I would not resign the power of gratifying these propensities for the sake of any woman's love. Even if I risked all to do the love-in-cottage romance, what have I left to offer Miss Grey along with my name and love?"
"Your broad breast to shield her; your clear brain and strong arms to toil for her."
"Mere visionary fancies! I am too indolent to work with head or hands. My vocation is that of an idler. I shall go to Europe, see all that is to be seen, shiver foggy London, plunge head and soul into the gay and giddy circles of dear delightful Paris, return, inherit Aunt Conway's fortune, marry some heiress of her choosing, and live happy ever after."
"I doubt it. Good night."
"Come back—you are not going? I shall drive you into town after tea—my aunt expects to see you—Clendenon, I say!"
He hurried down the walk after the tall, proud form stalking coldly away, and stopped him with a hand upon his shoulder.
"Clen, are you angry with me? Don't think of it! You know there are some subjects on which we never agree. I am sorry I did not hear your expostulations with more patience. That is saying more than I would say to any other man living, but I don't forgot that it is for me you wear that empty sleeve across your breast—that you gave freely to save my worthless life the strong arm that was worth more than a dozen such men as I. And are we to separate at last for a woman's sake?"
It was true. They had shared the same campfire, slept under the same scanty blanket, battled side by side in the far-famed gray uniform, and when death threatened the one the strong arm of the other had been raised to shield him. Had it been necessary he would have given his life as freely as he gave his strong left arm.
He could not forget in a moment the friendship of years, but he yielded half-reluctantly to the detaining hand that drew him back to the house.
"I confess that I go back with you unwillingly," he said, in his grave, frank way. "You have shown me a new phase of your character, Bruce, and I do not in the least admire it. I trust yet to hear you repudiate your decision as unworthy of yourself as well as unjust to the girl whose sacred love you have trifled with."
"Perhaps I may yet," was the hurried reply. "I am so divided between conflicting emotions that I scarcely know my own mind yet. I may yet decide as you wish me to do."
Part of this was said to conciliate his friend, and part of it was true, for Bruce Conway did not err when he said that he scarcely know his own mind. The most of his failings and follies, as of a great many other people, arose from this amiable trait in his character.
He had not decided when the pleasant social ceremony of the nine o'clock tea was over, and leaving Captain Clendenon deep in converse with his stately hostess, he beguiled the younger lady into a walk down to the seashore. There standing, arm in arm, on the pebbly beach, he almost made up his mind. For she was so beautiful, and he loved beauty. A love of beauty was inherent in his luxurious nature, and Grace Grey was the fairest creature he had ever beheld as she lifted her shy glance to his in the brilliant moonlight, while as yet neither had spoken a word.
Why need they have spoken? It needed but that his hand should seek and hold hers in that lingering clasp that tells the all and all of love. But the soft breeze went sighing past like a spirit, the eternal sea surged strangely on, the stars burned, and the moon went under a transient cloud, while far away in the southern heavens, a great red meteor flamed out and shone brilliantly among the silver stars. Both saw it at once, and both uttered an affected cry of surprise—affected, I say, because I do not think anything would have surprised them then, they were so absorbed in each other, so happy and yet so unhappy, as they stood together there, their young hearts throbbing "so near and yet so far."
She did not dream as she watched that fiery orb of light that her future hung on its transient beaming. She knew, with a woman's keen intuition, that he had brought her there to learn her fate. What it was to be she could not guess. Certainly, she did not think that the man beside her had staked their two futures on the hazard of a meteor and that when it paled and faded from the stormy sky he whispered to himself: "As was my love for her! Burning and comet-like as was that meteor, it shall fade as soon and leave me free."
Was it? Did the future prove so? Tenderly—more tenderly than he had ever done—he lifted the thin white drapery, half falling from her shoulders, and folded it closely about her.
"How heavily the dew falls," he said, kindly. "We had better return to the house."
Mrs. Conway looked curiously up as the pair came slowly into the drawing room and was content with what her keen glance read in the faces that wore the light mask of indifferent smiles.
"Gracie, child," in her most affable way, "don't let our guest leave us without the rare treat of hearing you sing. Captain Clendenon, will you turn the music for her?"
"The attraction of Grace's music, its greatest charm, lies in its wonderful pathos and expressiveness," condescended the haughty hostess, as the guest's firm lip softened while listening to the spirit-like melodies that sobbed and wailed along the piano keys, answering to the touch of the skillful fingers and the sweet voice.
At length, she selected an old song, and with a single glance at Conway, sang the first stanza through:
"Sweetheart, goodbye! the fluttering sail
Is set to bear me far from thee;
And soon before the favoring gale
My ship shall bound upon the sea.
Perchance, all desolate and forlorn,
These eyes shall miss thee many a year;
But unforgotten every charm,
Though lost to sight to mem'ry dear!"
The wounded young heart could sustain itself no longer. She rose and passed hastily from the room. It was her farewell to her unworthy lover. When he left home in the early dawn, amid the tearful lamentations of his adoring aunt, Miss Grey had not arisen from her feverish slumbers.
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