CHAPTER XII
LOVE IN THE TOILS
You may as well go stand upon the beach And bid the main flood bate his usual height; You may as well use question with the wolf Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb; You may as well go bid the mountain pines Still their high tops and make no further noise, When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven; You may as well do anything most hard, As seek to alter that (than which, what’s firmer?)— His stubborn heart. SHAKESPEARE.
The speaker was Commodore Bruce, who stood in the doorway, with one hand leaning on his ivory-headed cane and the other against the frame of the door.
“Oh, it is you, uncle! You quite startled me. Please come in,” said Mrs. Bruce, recovering from her momentary panic.
“Thank you. I intended to,” said the old man, advancing and sinking into the great cushioned arm-chair which Em., rallying from her shock, had wheeled for his accommodation.
“Sit down, child; it is not good for young spines to stand up too much,” he added as he settled himself comfortably.
Em. took a chair at a little distance and picked up the needlework on which she had been engaged the day before.
“You say you will not require the services of this young lady after next Saturday?” inquired the commodore.
“Yes, I have told her so; the work we have on hand will be finished by that time, and I shall have no more for her,” answered Mrs. Bruce, considerably modifying the tones of haughtiness and contempt with which she had spoken to the poor girl.
“I am very glad to hear you say so, for I would like to have her services all to myself, to read or write for me.”
“But, my dear uncle, Ronald would be most happy to do all this for you.”
“Yes, and look confoundedly bored all the time. No; I want this girl.”
“If you must have a young girl, I am sure our niece, Hermia, would be delighted to——”
“Well, I shouldn’t, then; there!”
“Or I, myself, if you would accept my services, would be——”
“Thanks, very much, my dear, I will not trouble you.”
“Well, then, there is Mrs. Warde, who really is a very fine elocutionist——”
“But I don’t want to be elocutionized; particularly by Mrs. Warde. Malvina is a fine woman for her age, but she has a voice between a trumpet and a hand-saw. I want Miss Palmer and no one else,” persisted the veteran.
“One would really think the poor fool was in love with the girl and meant to marry her! But, still, that is not very likely,” said Mrs. Bruce to herself with a shrug of her handsome shoulders.
She did not, however, proffer the services of the only remaining lady of the household—Miss Belinda Warde; for she could not tell what other matrimonial whim might enter into the old man’s mind or be put into it by the constant presence of the handsome brunette.
“I am sure, uncle, if you will permit me, I could find a much more suitable companion than this young girl,” rather sulkily persisted Mrs. Bruce.
“Thanks, very much, my dear; but _I_ think the companion that _suits_ me best is the most _suitable_. I say I will have Miss Palmer. Let the question rest. Come here, my child.” (This was to Em.)
The young girl laid down her work and came to the side of the old man, who took her hand and looked benignly in her face.
Em. smiled, though her tears were ready to start.
“Where did you get my Lonny’s smiling eyes, my dear? You are like a boy I lost long years ago, Miss Palmer—a brave boy, and a handsome one, or you could not be like him. You are very like him, my dear—with one of those accidental likenesses that are sometimes found to exist between those of no kin. It is not in your complexion or features, for you are fair and fragile, while my poor lost Lonny was dark and strong—but it is so in your smile—so in your whole expression of countenance, that I could almost fancy my Lonny’s purified soul looked from out of your blue eyes. It is very strange; but I cannot endure the sight of his portrait, though I love to see his likeness in you. I think I partly understand the reason, however,” continued the veteran, dropping his head in meditation, while his white beard flowed to his waist. “Yes, I think I see it, ‘as in a glass, darkly’—that portrait was the perfect image of his material body, as I used to see it—the material body which has perished; and which, because it has perished, I cannot bear to see in its ‘counterfeit.’ But that which looks at me from your fair face is the likeness of my son’s living soul; therefore I love to contemplate it.”
“How the old dotard drivels!” thought Mrs. Bruce. “He’ll soon be a subject for the lunatic asylum.”
“But that is not the point now, my dear,” continued the old man, still holding the hand of Em. “The question at issue is whether, when you have completed your term of service with my sister-in-law, you will enter mine, as my reader and writer?”
Em. paused for a moment and then, raising her blue eyes full of the reverential, filial tenderness she felt for the childless old man, answered earnestly:
“Indeed, I should be so very happy to do so, if only Mrs. Bruce and my mother will consent.”
“Ha! ha! ha! _Mrs. Bruce_ will consent! I’ll swear to that! And if you have half the influence with your mother that I have with Mrs. Bruce, _she’ll_ consent. If she does not I’ll try my ‘’prentice hand’ at persuasion, and it will go hard but she shall give you up to me,” chuckled the old man.
“As for _myself_, uncle, you know that your will has always been my law,” said the lady.
“Oh, I know it; I know it, my dear,” said the commodore. “And now, little one,” he continued, turning to Em., “go and take a run in the grounds. Too much house is not good for little girls. I want to talk with my sister-in-law.”
Em. turned to her employer for direction.
“Come! Run away! run away!” exclaimed the veteran.
“Do as you are bidden,” loftily commanded Mrs. Bruce.
“SCAT!” stamped the commodore.
Em. laughed and ran out.
“Now, then, madam, what the demon does all this mean?” demanded the commodore.
“All what mean? I don’t understand,” replied Mrs. Bruce.
“Oh, yes, you do. Yesterday you could not, any of you, be too kind to that poor girl. To-day you, all of you, so overwhelmed the child with your studied coldness and contempt that she looked as if she were going to expire at the lunch-table. I could scarcely stand it myself, and so, to counteract the effect of your combined rudeness, I was obliged to be obtrusively attentive to Miss Palmer. I knew perfectly well when I saw you leave the lunch-table and order that girl to follow you to your room you were sharpening your claws and whetting your teeth and licking your chops in anticipation of a meal off her!”
“Commodore Bruce! What MONSTROUS ideas you have!” exclaimed the horrified lady. “Am I a vampire, or a cannibal?”
“Well, yes; in some sense you are. I do not mean to say that, having lunched on chicken-pie, cold ham and custard, you are going to dine on Em. immediately. No, but you were going to glut your pride and surfeit your anger and satisfy your selfishness on her, all the same, which is a wickeder sort of cannibalism than the other, since it devours the spirit. That child has most innocently offended you all. Now I want to know in what manner. And I _will_ know; for while I am captain of this ship—master of this house, I mean—no woman shall be treated with coldness and cruelty while under my roof, and especially when at my table. Come.”
“Well, uncle, since you _will_ have it, I acknowledge that Miss Palmer _has_ offended me—has offended us all; therefore I really do not think that you should keep her here as you propose to do, or that you will keep her when you have heard all about her.”
“I’ll be shot to death if I don’t,” said the commodore. “But how has that harmless girl offended you? By her beauty, grace and sweetness? I know of no other cause. In what way has she offended you, I ask?”
“In a way that would have offended any woman with a proper sense of modesty and decorum.”
“But by what _means_? By what _means_?” impatiently demanded the veteran.
“By the general indiscretion of her conduct,” coldly replied the lady.
“By Jove! I will not take such an answer!” roared the old commodore, bringing his fist down upon the table like a hammer upon an anvil, and making every article on it dance. “You would ruin an innocent girl’s reputation with a few generalities like that! I—will—know,” he continued slowly and emphatically, telling off every word with a thump of his stick. “I—will—know—every detail of—time, place, and company—word, act, and look of the indiscretion with which you charge this child! Yes, and I will have them established by more than one competent witness! None of your unsupported generalities for me! I have made myself the advocate of this innocent girl, and will see that she suffers no wrong. No, by Jove! While I’m commander of this ship—captain of this house, I mean—no woman in it shall suffer injury unavenged! No, in a few words tell me distinctly what the girl has said or done!”
“Well, I do not think that you will be any better satisfied when you have heard,” said Mrs. Bruce maliciously. “This is her offense, then: She has been here but two days, and has been detected several times in private conversation with my son, your nephew, Ronald Bruce, who follows her about wherever she goes! There! now you have it!”
“He—he—he! Ha—ha—ha! Ho—ho—ho!” laughed the commodore. “That’s a great offence, now, isn’t it? As if it wasn’t perfectly natural and right for a young man to follow a young girl around when they are both shut up in a lonely country house with a lot of old ladies!”
“Hermia Templeton is not old, at least, and I think she is more interested in this matter than any one else,” gravely replied Mrs. Bruce.
“That is true,” mused the commodore—“I beg Hermia’s pardon. She is not old. She is young and pretty and attractive enough for any man, and a great deal too good for my young rascal of a nephew: but as she is to marry him, whether or no, of course she has more at stake in this running than any one else! But now tell me the particulars—the particulars! Time, place, and circumstance! You know I told you that I would have the details and have them proved!”
Mrs. Bruce told the whole story of Ronald’s and Em.’s meetings and talks, in the drawing-room, in the dining-room, in the library, and in the grounds. She told it, not as it is known to you and me, reader, but with many an exaggeration and much false coloring, as she had heard it from Mrs. Warde and Miss Belinda—for, ill as Malvina was, or affected to be, she was not too ill to play the part of an eavesdropper and a detractor. And since Em. had been in the house there was no harmless interview she had had with her honest suitor to which either the designing mother or daughter had not been an unseen listener.
“This must be looked into,” said Commodore Bruce, very much more gravely than he had yet spoken. “Yes, this must be seen to. I must give that young scamp a sound lecture! for, mind you, it is _he_ who is in fault, though, woman-like, you put the whole blame upon her! It is he who is to blame, and very much to blame, for he is pursuing her and trifling with her when he knows very well, the rascal! that he must marry my niece, Hermia Templeton, or go to the deuce! While I am commander of this ship—I mean master of this house—I won’t have it! Still, let me tell you, madam, that I despise the means by which these women have detected these interviews. They could have done so only by eavesdropping! And, oh, Lord! how I do loathe and detest eavesdroppers!” exclaimed the veteran with every expression of disgust and abhorrence disfiguring his fine old face as he arose from his seat and, leaning on his stick, turned to depart.
Before leaving the room he paused and said:
“I shall say nothing to Ronald to-day. I have had quite enough of excitement for one day—more of it would spoil my dinner and my night’s rest—perhaps ruin my digestion and my nervous system! So no more of this subject for the present. I want to relish my turkey and enjoy a good night’s sleep. To-morrow morning after breakfast I will take my young gentleman in hand, and we will go over the chart of his life voyage together, and I will show him his course. To make things surer, I will also speak to my young lady. But, in the meantime, I desire you and your friends in the house to treat this young girl with consideration and kindness. Let them know, if you please, that such is my will. I shall see in a moment, by the look of that child’s face, whether she has been treated with contempt while out of my sight.”
With these words the veteran left the room.
Mrs. Bruce cared very little for the _brusquerie_ of the old sailor, so that he had given his promise to break up the intimacy between her son and her seamstress.
Indeed, her reason for the severe course she took towards Em. was rather the desire to put a prompt and final stop to the acquaintance between the young people than any dislike to the girl herself.
Meantime Em. had gone out to the grounds for a walk, but seeing Ronald Bruce approaching from the house she quickly passed around to a side door, entered it, and ran up to her room, where she arranged her simple toilet for dinner.
Em. dreaded meeting the family again at the table; but when the bell rang and she went down and found them all assembled in the dining-room, and Commodore Bruce advanced, took her hand and led her to her seat, and all looked kindly or with perfect indifference on her, she felt more at her ease.
“Mrs. Warde, permit me to name to you my young friend, Miss Palmer here, who has not had the privilege of being presented to you before,” said the commodore with somewhat stilted politeness to a tall, dark, haggard-looking woman, with great black eyes, who sat opposite to Em., and who was richly dressed in black velvet, lace and bugles, and whom Em. immediately recognized as the lady who had fainted at the sight of herself in the upper hall.
Em. arose from her chair and bent her head.
Mrs. Warde stared and returned the salutation with a slight and haughty nod.
That was all. They were as much strangers as before the introduction. The dinner went on; other people spoke to Em. from time to time, but Mrs. Warde scarcely noticed her at all, or only by a furtive, nervous glance.
As soon as the dinner was over the family party adjourned to the drawing-room—with one exception, that of Ronald Bruce—who sulkily absented himself from the domestic circle that night.
The old commodore, seated in his soft-cushioned, big arm-chair, made a point of talking to Em. until he fell fast asleep.
The ladies of the house gathered around a large center-table that stood under a lighted chandelier, and before the ruddy open fire of hickory logs, where, having few intellectual resources, they busied themselves with crochet and gossip.
Em., having no taste for either of these pursuits, sat apart, near the sleeping old man, and wondered what they were all doing at home, and whether Ronald Bruce would make his appearance at all in the drawing-room that evening.
He did not; and, therefore, upon the whole, Em. spent another one of the dullest evenings she had ever passed in her life.
When the hour of ten, their sober bedtime, struck, and the circle broke, Em. was glad.
But as she was about to leave the room the old commodore, awakened by the general movement, aroused himself, got up from his chair and took her hand, saying kindly:
“Good-night, and may the Lord bless you, my dear child!”
“And you, too, sir,” replied Em. in a low, timid, but earnest tone as she bowed over his wrinkled hand and then left the room.
She glanced up and down the hall in the hope of seeing Ronald Bruce, to give him good-night. She could scarcely help doing this; indeed, she was scarcely conscious of doing it; for if she had met him, waylaying her, to speak a word, she would certainly and very properly have rebuked him for doing so.
Yet she heaved a deep sigh of disappointment when she had passed all the way upstairs without seeing him.
When Em. entered her cheerful room in the attic she found the candles on the dressing-table lighted, the fire burning brightly, and the little maid, Liza, waiting.
“Cold night, Miss Em., ain’t it? ’Spect dere’ll be a mighty heavy frost, if not snow, ’fore mornin’. We had snow airlier’n dis last year,” said Liza as she pushed up a chair nearer the fire.
“Then I suppose you must have winter much earlier on these mountains than we ever have on the plains where I was brought up,” answered Em.
“Well, you see, miss, I dunno nuffin’ ’tall ’bout de wedder ’way down dere. I nebber libbed on de plains, _my_se’f. Dunno how anybody can lib so far, far down below de sky! You was right to come up here, Miss Em. Well, I only just waited till you come, Miss Em., to see if you has everything you ’quire. _Has_ you?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, Liza; thank you.”
“Well, den, I must go. I got to go to Miss Melwiny Warde’s room and rub her feet till she goes to sleep, the Lord help her; She’s an awful bad sleeper, she is, and sometimes I has to set at de foot of her bed and rub her feet half de night ’fore she gets quiet. Wonder to me is how she can’t read her chapter in de Bible, and say her prayers, and go to sleep like a Christian. Well, good-night, Miss Em., I reckon _you_ can go to sleep ’dout having of your feet rubbed, can’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” smiled Em. as the girl left the room.
The bright fire shone on the portrait of Lonny Bruce, so that the merry, mischievous young face beamed out in full light.
“Ah, you beautiful and happy boy, what a dreadful fate was yours!” murmured Em., standing before the picture. “And your poor, bereaved old father fancies that I look like you; and so he loves me for your sake! I wonder if I do look like you—I, who am so fair, while you are so dark—I, who am so steady, while you look so wild! But, perhaps, you had your grave seasons as I sometimes have my gay spells! Oh, dear me, I wonder why Ronald Bruce did not come in the drawing-room all the evening! And did not even try to bid me good-night! I know it is on his account that Mrs. Bruce gave me warning to leave her service so suddenly. But the dear old commodore, whom I love so much, likes me, and is kind to me. I wonder, oh, I wonder, if he will ever consent that his nephew may marry me! What is the use of thinking about that? I will say my prayers and go to sleep.”
And so she did.