CHAPTER XIV.
A DISASTER TO MASTER BROOKS BROOKS CUNNINGHAME--EXIT INTO THE BOTTOM OF THE POOL--NOBODY THAT COULD SWIM, AND MARGARET HAYLEY IN EXCITEMENT--"H. T." IN HIS ELEMENT, IN TWO SENSES--ANOTHER INTRODUCTION AND A NEW HERO--SCENES IN THE PROFILE PARLOR--ROWAN AND CLARA VANDERLYN--THE INSULT.
"But what has _become_ of the crazy old philosopher?" asked the sameelderly gentleman who had first introduced the subject,--only a momentafter Halstead Rowan had delivered himself of his speculations concerningthe centre of the earth, China and suicide, given at the close of the lastchapter.
"Oh," answered Rowan, "I was asking Jennings about him this morning, beforewe came away from the Profile. Did you ever hear of the mode in which thetwo Irishmen conducted their little debate, which ended in a couple ofbroken heads?"
"I do not know!" laughed the old gentleman.
"Well, they debated physically--they held what they called a little'dishcussion wid sticks'! Poor old Merrill got into a debate with theSheriff of Coos County, last spring a year, Jennings tells me, and hecarried it on with an _axe_, nearly killing the official. The result of allwhich was that he was lugged off to jail at Wells River and the Pool isbereaved."
"Sorry that his boat is not here, at least," said the old gentleman. "Wehave just a nice party for circumnavigating the Pool; and I do not knowthat even the letter from Queen Victoria and the lecture would be so muchof a bore, now that there is no danger of them."
"Couldn't manage to get up a boat, unless we improvised one out of a log,"said the Illinoisan, "and that would be a little unstable, I fancy. And bythe way, I think I never saw a place more dangerous-looking for a suddentumble than that deep black pool, or one more difficult to get out of thanit would prove without something afloat to depend upon. So we must give itup--the glory of the Pool has departed! _Sic transit gloria_ big hole inthe woods!"
At that moment, and when the attention of the whole company had been drawnto the peculiar depth and quality of the Pool by the last observations--anevent took place which may or may not have been paralleled in the earlierhistory of that peculiar wonder of nature. Sambo, of those days when thenegro only half ruled the great Western republic instead of ruling italtogether,--related a story about a 'coon hunt of his, in which an episodeoccurred at about the time when he had climbed out upon an extending limbthat was supposed to have the 'coon at the end. "Just then," said Sambo,graphically--"just then I heard sumfin drap, and come to look, 'twas disyer nigger!" The party of visitors at the Pool heard "sumfin drap" about assuddenly and unexpectedly; and when they had time to look around them, theydiscovered that one of their number was missing--not a very valuable memberof the combination, but still one that was supposed to have the usualimmortal soul and antipathy to sudden death.
There never was a troublesome boy of an age corresponding to that of MasterBrooks Brooks Cunninghame, who did not have the propensity for climbingdeveloped in exact proportion to the incapacity for climbing at all; andMaster Brooks Brooks had not done half mischief enough that morning to becontent without making another effort. As the party climbed down to thePool, some of the members had spoken of the clearness of the water and thecoolness which it was said to possess even in the heat of midsummer; andone of the ladies had extracted from her reticule one of those telescopicring drinking-cups of Britannia which are found so convenient in touring orcamping-out. Captain Hector Coles had volunteered to play Ganymede to therest of the company, and stepping down to the edge of the Pool, balancedhimself with one foot on a projecting stone, stooped down and dipped upsome of the sparkling coolness, which was thereupon passed around from handto hand and from lip to lip. That done, Master Brooks Brooks had beenallowed to possess himself of the cup, very much to the disgust of theowner, but inevitably--and to make various demonstrations with it, aroundthe verge of the water. For a moment every one had lost sight of him--hiscareful mother included; and during that moment he had climbed round to thewestern side of the Pool, on the high rocks, where he stood brandishing thecup in a series of motions which varied between mischief and idiocy. Thenand there an accident, not uncommon to persons who climb to high places andare not careful of their footing there, had happened to the young scion ofthe baronial house of Cunninghame, who, losing balance in one of hisgyrations, tumbled down some twenty or thirty feet of rock and went splash!into the Pool, just where the waters seemed deepest, darkest and mostunfathomable!
Exit from view Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame, with a fair prospect, toall appearance, that he would carry out the laughable theory of HalsteadRowan, and if he ever again came to light at all, do so in a drownedcondition at the antipodes. Droll enough, in a certain sense, but by nomeans droll in another, for that he would be drowned, even in thatinsignificant little puddle of water, was almost beyond doubt, and therewere supposed to be maternal feelings even beneath the ridiculous finery ofMrs. Brooks Cunninghame! All heard the cry of fright that he gave infalling, and the splash as he struck the water; and at least a part of thecompany not only saw him disappear beneath the surface, but caught glimpsesof him as he went on down--down--down towards the bottom with the unerringsteadiness of a stone.
They saw him sink, but they did not see him rise again--not even in thetime which should have secured that result. Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame uttereda scream when she saw the boy strike the water, then yelled out: "Patsey!oh, my poor Patsey!" an exclamation entirely enigmatical as referring to aperson bearing no such name,--then finally fell back into the arms of oneof the old gentlemen in such a way as seriously to threaten his tumbling inafter the boy, and without the least necessity for shamming nervousness toape the "quality." She had indubitably fainted.
The situation was a peculiar one. Scarcely twenty seconds had elapsed sincethe boy's fall, but an hour seemed to have passed. He did not rise. It waslikely that he must have been killed in the fall or struck a rock below andcrushed his poor little head. Still other seconds, growing to more than aminute, and he did not rise. It was beyond doubt that he would never riseagain, alive. And what could be done to save him? Nothing--literallynothing, as it appeared. All the party were ladies, except fivemen--Captain Hector Coles, Halstead Rowan and three others, all the latterwhite-haired and past the day for heroic exposure. Halstead Rowan had hiswounded hand wrapped in a heavy bandage which would have disabled him inthe water as thoroughly as if he had lost the limb at the elbow. For eitherof the old men to plunge into the Pool would have been suicide. MargaretHayley stood beside Captain Hector Coles, the only young and unwounded man,when the accident occurred; and after one moment her eyes turned upon himwith a glance that he too well understood.
"I am ashamed to say it, but I cannot swim one stroke!" he replied to thatglance of half appeal and half command. The glance--unreasonably enough, ofcourse--expressed something else the instant after.
"Oh, shame!--can nothing be done to save him?" she cried with clasped handsand in a tone that manifested quite as much of the feeling of mortificationas of anxiety. At that period nearly all the women present broke out intocries of terror, as if help could be brought to the helpless by theappealing voice.
"Good heavens, ladies, what is the matter?"
It was the voice of "H. T." that spoke, and the man of the initials stoodon the other side of the Pool, where he had emerged from his laborious walkover fallen trees and broken rocks from the Flume. He had his hat in hishand and was wiping the perspiration from his hot brow.
Margaret Hayley, more moved beyond herself than any of the others present(the poor mother had not yet recovered consciousness) was the first toanswer; though she little thought that perhaps the destiny of a whole lifewas involved in the few words then to be spoken.
"Oh, sir, if you can swim, for heaven's sake try to save that boy! He hasfallen into the Pool, there--there--" and she pointed with her hand to thevery depth of the dark water--"and he must be at the bottom!"
"He _is_ at the bottom, without doubt, if he has fallen in!" was theanswer. "I saw him fill
ing his pockets with bright stones, up at the Flume,and he has probably enough of them about him to keep him at the bottom tilldoomsday." Then, for the first time, the anxious watchers knew the reasonwhy even in the death-struggle the body had not risen--the poor littlefellow had been loading himself down with those tempting, fatal stones, tomake more certain the doom that was coming!
"Can you swim, sir? I asked you if you could swim!" Margaret Hayley's voicerung across the Pool, with no little impatient petulance blended with theevident anxiety; and she seemed totally to forget, as people will forget onsome occasions, that she had never been introduced to the man whom sheinterrogated so sharply.
"I _can_ swim!" was the answer and the only answer. With the word he threwoff his coat and kicked off the convenient Congress gaiters that envelopedhis feet; and in ten seconds more he had leaped high into the air andheadlong into the dark waters at the spot indicated by the hand ofMargaret. So sudden had been all this, that scarcely one realized, untilhe had disappeared, the whole peril he encountered.
"He will strike the stony bottom and kill himself!" said one of the elderlygentlemen.
"Hot as he was, he will die with the chill, if he ever comes out!" said thesecond, who had medical warrant for knowing the probable consequences ofsuch an act. Whereupon all began to realize that two deaths instead of onemight be the probable event; and Margaret Hayley set her teeth hard andclasped her hands in the agonized thought that perhaps her words had drivenhim to the rash leap, and that he must be either that thing for which shehad been so long looking, a man incarnately brave,--or willing to go out ofhis own nature at her command, after less than a single day'sacquaintance--the latter feeling one not slow to awaken other and warmercompanions in the bosom of a true woman!
After those words had been spoken, dead silence reigned except as broken bya sob of deadly anxiety from one of the ladies who could not control thefear that oppressed her. And how long that silence of oppressive anxietylasted! It might have been a moment--it might have been five years, for anycapacity of measurement given to a single member of that waiting groupscattered over the rocks. Only the whilome watcher by a sick bed whichmight be one of death, at the instant when the crisis of disease wasreached and the next minute was to decide between a life of love andusefulness and the drear silence of the grave--only the man who has liftedhis faint signal of distress on a drifting wreck at sea, when a sail was insight, the last crust eaten, and night and storm coming to end all,--onlyone or the other of these can realize the long agony of such moments andthe eternity which can be compressed into the merest fraction of time!
They had perhaps waited sixty seconds after the disappearance of thewould-be rescuer beneath the dark waters of the Pool, and already every onehad given him up for lost,--when a ripple agitated its surface, awhite-sleeved arm came up, then a figure bearing another. It battledwearily towards the shoaler part of the Pool, touched bottom and struggledshoreward, dropped its burthen with one glance upon it, and then toppledover--both out of danger from the water, but both apparently dead alike!
In an instant all those above had rushed down to the margin, and while somecaught the drowned boy and attempted to restore the life that seemed sohopelessly fled, others, and the medical man among them, devoted more thanequal anxiety to the man who appeared to have paid so dearly for hisheroism. He was senseless, but his pulse still beat--the doctor discoveredso much; and a fairer hand than that of the doctor sought the heart andfound that the motion of that mysterious red current which bears the wholeof life upon its bosom was not yet stilled forever. The hand was that ofMargaret Hayley, who had drawn the head of the half-drowned man upon oneknee while she kneeled on the bare stone with the other, and who seemed tofeel that if that man died his blood would be upon her head and upon hersoul! A dangerous position, Margaret Hayley, whether he lives or dies, forthe woman who but yesterday dreamed that she kept her early love stillundimmed in her heart, however the object of it might be clouded in shameand banished from her presence forever! Is that new ideal found already,and found in a man so wrapped in mystery that his very name has never yetbeen spoken in your presence? Fie! fie! if this is the eternity of love,about which lovers themselves have raved and poets worse raved in theirbehalf, any time these past five hundred years!
There is no intention of mystifying this scene, or even of prolonging it.Whatever might have been the danger, that danger was past, and the shadowof death did not loom ghastly out of it. The vigorous shaking, rolling andrubbing to which the inanimate Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame wasexposed, under hands which proved themselves expert in that operation if inno other, soon restored the breath to his nostrils, though it left him alimp rag to be taken up in arms and carried away by his now recovered andhalf-addled mother. There was a sharp cut upon his head, and the bloodflowed freely, but the wound had no depth or danger. The insensibilitywhich had fallen upon his preserver, induced much more as was believed bythe sudden chill of that ice-cold water acting upon a heated system, thaneven by his long exertion in recovering the little fellow's body from thebottom of the pool--this soon gave way beneath the continued rubbingbestowed upon wrists and temples, and the warmth induced by the wrapping ofall the shawls and mantles in the company about his shoulders and feet. Hemoaned once, only a few minutes after the efforts for his resuscitation hadbeen commenced, and a moment or two later opened his eyes and saw what facebent over him most closely. Something else than the chafing and theunaccustomed robes then sent blood to cheek and brow; and with a strengthwhich no one had believed him to possess he sprang to his feet, to sinkdown again the moment after into a sitting posture but unsupported.
In that position he for the first time appeared to glance round upon thecompany and to recognize the whole situation. Especially his eye fell uponCaptain Hector Coles, who stood at a little distance, his arms folded andnothing in his appearance indicating that he had taken any part in thelabors of resuscitation, while his face looked undeniably saturnine andill-humored. Had the mere fact that the head of a half-drowned man lay fora few moments on the knees of a lady supposed to be under his peculiarprotection, so much moved the gallant warrior of the Union army, or wassomething more decided lying at the bottom of his observance? Perhaps wordsalready spoken during the late progress of this narration may haveindicated the state of feeling in the breast of the captain: if not, futuredevelopments will have the duty of making plain all that may be yetdoubtful in that regard. At all events, something in that man's face gaveto the brown cheeks of "H. T." a warmer color than they had beforeattained, and to his frame a strength which sent him once more to his feet,throwing off the shawls and mantles which enveloped him, and standingbarefoot and in his shirt-sleeves, his hair yet plastered and dripping, hisgarments yet clinging to his person, the most unpicturesque of figures, andyet one of the noblest possible to employ the artist's pencil--a man freshfrom one of the great perils of disinterested benevolence.
Certainly Margaret Hayley saw nothing antagonistic to romance in that tall,erect figure, half-draped though it was and shivering yet with cold andweakness. It is not impossible that the dusky brown of the face glowed withsomething of a sacred light, to her eyes--a subject for her waitinghero-worship, after that sad feeling of an opposite character which it hadso lately been her duty to manifest. Nothing else than such an estimationcould well explain, in a woman of her overweening pride, movements whichtook place immediately after, and which bore their fruit, at no distantday, in placing her in a position of such terrible conflict with herselfthat no calamity occurring beneath the waters of the Pool but might havebeen reckoned a mercy in comparison.
Halstead Rowan, too sure of his admiration of the conduct of his new friendto be in a hurry about expressing it, had done what his wounded hand didnot prevent his doing, by springing across the stream below and bringingthe discarded shoes and coat from the rock where they lay. All the rest,except poor Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, yet busy with her partiallyresuscitated boy, crowded round the new hero of the hour to offer theirth
anks and congratulations; but it was Margaret Hayley who took him by thehand as he stood, unmindful of the scowl of Captain Hector Coles thatgloomed upon her, and said:
"I do not know, sir, by what name to thank you--"
"I believe I am right in calling you Miss Hayley," was the answer, in avoice as yet somewhat weak and tremulous. "My own name is Horace Townsend,and my business is that of a lawyer at--at Cincinnati." So we, like thoseof the company who had noticed the initials without taking the trouble topossess themselves of the whole name by the arrival-book at the office,have the blanks filled at last, and may discard the use of the twomysterious letters.
"I was only half intentionally the means, Mr. Townsend," the young girlwent on, "of plunging you into a situation of danger without the leastright to do so; and yet I do not know that I _can_ be sorry for the libertyI have taken, as it may have been the cause of saving a life that wouldotherwise have been lost, and of my witnessing an act of disinterestedgenerosity which I can never forget, or forget to honor, while I live."
"You do me altogether too much honor," was the reply, in a somewhatsteadier voice. "I have really done nothing, except to make an exhibitionof myself by my weakness. There was no danger to me in the water, for I ama good swimmer and ought to be able to dive well; but I suppose that Istayed too long under, for I could not find the little fellow at once, andthe chill of the water no doubt affected me, after getting warm in climbingover those logs. That is all, and I really hope you will all forget thatthe unpleasant affair has occurred, as I shall certainly do after I havefound a suit of dry clothes."
He spoke pleasantly, but with nothing of the rattling gayety which seemedto characterize his rival of the day--the hero of the bear-stakes; and onceagain while he was speaking, Margaret Hayley seemed strangely moved andpartially shuddered at something in the tones of the voice. As he finished,he bowed and turned away, as if quite enough had been said, and the ladyalso moved away a step or two and rejoined her escort. Halstead Rowan cameup with the coat and shoes, and as he dropped them on the rock at the feetof Townsend grasped his hand with his own unwounded one, with a pressure sowarm and manly that it told volumes of respect and regard.
"_I_ am nowhere!" he said. "I dared you over that log; but you have gonewhere I should not like to follow, and done it for something, while minewas merely a prank. And by the way--" they were at that moment a littleapart from the others, and Rowan spoke low--"do you know where your headlay when you came to?"
"Hush! for heaven's sake, hush!" said Townsend, quickly and with somethingin his face that made the other pause instantly. The conversation, at thatpoint, was not renewed there and then.
A portion of the company had by that time commenced ascending the steps,carrying the abated boy-nuisance and accompanying his mother. Townsendmanaged to draw on the discarded shoes over his wet stockings, put on hiscoat and accompanied the rear-guard with very slight assistance, enjoying acontinued walking-bath, but no doubt consoled for any discomfort by thereflection that he had been where few men had ever plunged and come outalive,--and perhaps yet more moved by some other reflections of a much moremixed character.
An hour later, the whole party had reached the Profile House once more, andHorace Townsend, as he named himself and as we must continue to name him indeference to his own statement, was the happy possessor of a dry suit, aslight headache and an eventual nap which left him fresh as if he hadbathed in the Pool as a hygienic measure. Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghameneeded longer renovating, but he came round during the afternoon, with thefatal facility of those who are of no use in the world, and was quite readyfor supper. And what a buzzing there was about the Profile all theafternoon, while those who had witnessed the affair at the Pool detailedit, with additions, to those who had remained at the house, and those whohad not caught the name or address of the stranger ran to the book tosatisfy themselves, and speculations as to his married or single state wereindulged in, and the Cincinnati lawyer underwent, without his beingthoroughly aware of the fact, all the mental manipulations and verbalremouldings incidental to any one who treads out of the common path,whether creditably or discreditably, among the half idle and more than halfennuyee habitues of a watering place.
One or two additional peeps at events of that afternoon must be taken,before passing on to those of the evening, which were to prove quite asmomentous in some regards.
_Peep the first._ Margaret Hayley kept her chamber all the afternoon,pleading headache and fatigue, while Mrs. Burton Hayley and Captain HectorColes "did" Echo Lake and talked very confidentially. A large part of thattime the young girl lay on her bed, her eyes closed but by no meanssleeping--thinking, thinking, thinking, until her brain seemed to be in awhirl and all the world unreal.
_Peep the second._ At a certain hour in the afternoon, unknown then to theother members of the Vanderlyn family but too well known to themafterwards, as the sequel proved, Halstead Rowan, rapidly improving if notindeed presuming upon his acquaintance of the morning, enticed ClaraVanderlyn away to the ten-pin alley and inducted her into the art andmystery of knocking down bilstead pins with a lignum vitae ball, apparentlyto the satisfaction of that young lady, who should certainly have heldherself above such an amusement of the athletic canaille. If the lady, withtwo hands, beat her instructor with one, he was no more than justlypunished.
_Peep the third._ Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, walking through one of thecorridors, heard two young ladies, accompanied by a gentleman, say:"Patsey! oh, my poor Patsey!" in such dolorous tones and with what seemedso meaning a look towards _her_, as tended to recall an unfortunateexclamation at the Pool very forcibly to her recollection, and to put herinto a frame of mind the exact reverse of felicitous. This was not improvedby the discovery that Mr. Brooks Cunninghame had fallen into the company ofcertain stage-drivers, at the bar, and had imbibed whiskey with them to anextent which rounded his brogue but did not assure the steadiness of hisperpendicular or add to the respectability of his general demeanor.
And now to the event of the evening, which seemed eminently fit to close aday so full of adventure that the movements of a dozen ordinary days mighthave been compressed into it. Most of this, from reasons which willeventually develop themselves, is to be seen through the eyes of one whohas been before called "the observer."
When Horace Townsend came out late from supper that evening, after a mealat which the succulent steaks, the flaky tea-biscuit and the sweet littlemountain strawberries had not been quite so fully enjoyed as they mighthave been with a little additional company at table,--harp, horn and violinwere again sounding in the long parlors, as they had been the eveningbefore, and much more attention was being paid to them than when the fullmoon was their momentary rival. Perhaps not less than half the beauty,grace and gallantry then assembled at the Profile, were gathered under theflashing lights, dancing, promenading, flirting, and generally floatingdown the pleasant stream of moderate watering-place dissipation. TheRussian "Redowa" was sounding from brass and string as he entered the longparlor from the hall; and among the figures sweeping proudly by to thatmost voluptuous of measures, he instantly recognized two whose identitycould not indeed have been very well mistaken under any circumstances. Thelarger and coarser figure wore on one of its hands a glove several sizestoo large--one, indeed, that might have been constructed by someglove-maker of the Titan period: Halstead Rowan was whirling ClaraVanderlyn lazily around in the dance.
The strange introduction of the morning, then, had already produced itseffect, and the possible romance to be built out of that rescue was comingon quite as rapidly as even a sensation novelist could have anticipated.Horace Townsend, whose eyes seemed to be wandering in search of some faceor figure which did not fall under their view, but who had been gazingwith undisguised admiration, for some hours the previous day, on those ofthis very Clara Vanderlyn--Horace Townsend thought, as he saw the manly armof Rowan spanning the pliant white-robed waist of his partner, that seldomcould the old illustration of the rugged oak and the clinging ivy b
e bettersupplied,--and that if fate and fortune had set, as they too evidentlyseemed to have done, an eternal bar between the two, they had predestinedto remain apart one couple whom the fitness of nature would certainly havejoined. His frank, hearty, manly energy, deficient in some of the finercultures and at times approaching to roughness, and her gentle, womanlytenderness, with almost too much of delicate refinement, seemed mentally toblend in the thought of the future and of the children likely to springfrom such a union, as physically stood in relief and pleasing contrast theclose-curled dark hair and the shower of waving gold.
Passing still further down the room, either in that quest which has beforebeen hinted at, or in the search for a vacant seat among the male andfemale wall-flowers, Townsend came upon the mother of the young lady. Mrs.Vanderlyn was standing beside a centre-table, under one of the chandeliers,an illustrated book in her hand, and apparently absorbed in thecontemplation of some of the engravings after Landseer and Corbould. Butbooks have been known, many times in the history of the world, to be usedfor the same purpose as fans or fire-screens, (or even spectacles, for thatmatter), and looked over; and the lawyer felt a sudden curiosity awakenedto examine the _eyes_, especially as the lady was standing in such aposition as to command the dancers.
He was not at all disappointed in the surmise which he seemed to haveformed. The haughty matron had no eyes for her book, but really had hergaze fixed, with a close pressure of the eye-balls against the brows, onher daughter and Halstead Rowan. And no one who had only seen it under morefavorable circumstances, would have believed it possible that a face ofsuch matronly comeliness could be brought to look so harshly--evenvindictively. The eyes were literally fierce; and the mouth was set with afirm, hard expression which brought the full lower lip perceptibly over theupper.
Suddenly the observer saw the features relax and the whole expressionchange. He turned instantly and half involuntarily, and saw that asubstitution had taken place in partners. Without quitting the floor, MissVanderlyn had accepted the proffered hand of a young Boston exquisite whowas already rumored around the Notch to be the heir of a paternal halfmillion,--and was whirling away in another polka. Rowan was gone. A secondglance showed that he had not left the room, but that he stood far back inone of the corners, alone and silent, and his eyes, heedless of the amountof observation which their glance might excite, fixed in profoundadmiration on the beautiful girl whom he had just quitted. Then theexpression of his face seemed for the moment to change, and the sameemotions might have been read there that had startled at least one of thespectators the evening before at the piazza--the same emotions ofcontending pride and abasement, hope and fear, but intensified now so thatthere could be no mistaking their import.
At that stage Horace Townsend left the room, perhaps to pursue the personalsearch which had so far proved unavailing. He, who had himself beenoriginally observing the young girl with such admiration, saw, or thoughtthat he saw, the materials for a very pretty if not a very painful romance,in which the two would form the chief dramatis personae. Two or threeconditions, he thought, were already evolved: an unmistakable mutualinterest--observation and dislike on the part of the aristocraticmother--to be followed by eventual discovery on the part of the weaker andyet more aristocratic brother--an unpleasant _eclaircissement_--coolnessborn of the very warmth underlying--a parting in pleasant dissatisfactionwith themselves and each other--and perhaps a shadow of blended sweet andpainful memory over the whole of two after lives!
Then the lawyer passed out to the piazza and paced with measured step upand down that promenade and the plateau in front, for perhaps more thanhalf an hour. He might have been entirely absorbed in the contemplation ofthe possible fortunes of Chicago and Baltimore; and he might have foundmatter for thought much more personal to himself. At all events thestarlight and the coming moon seemed to be company which he failed to findelsewhere; and even the dusky shadows of the bears, deserted by theirfriends of the sunshine and walking their weary rounds like sentinels,possibly supplied something denied him by humanity. His step was that of aman restless, absorbed and ill at ease; his head had fallen forward on hisbreast; and once, when he was so far away from the loiterers on the piazzathat no ear was likely to catch his words, he muttered something that couldscarcely have found an application to the persons of the drama in theparlor. That murmur ran:
"I suppose this is the most dishonorable action in my life--planning tobetray confidence and take an unfair advantage. Why did _he_ tell me somuch before he went to Europe? Pshaw!" and he put his hand to his brow andwalked on for a moment in silence. "I will _not_ go back--I _will_ try theexperiment--I _will_ win that woman, if I can, under this very name, nowthat I begin to understand her weakness so well. And if I do--heavens, inwhat a situation shall I have placed her and myself! And will she everforgive the deception? No matter!--let the future take care of itself."
Either the stars grew less companionable, then, at the thought that somestrange deceit was being wrought beneath them, or the soliloquist felt thatthere yet remained something worth looking after within the parlor, for helooked up at one of the windows of the second story, said: "Ah, no lightthere, at last!" stepped back to the piazza and once more entered the houseand the dancing-room.
The music was still sounding as merrily as ever, and as he re-entered theroom a new set was forming. In the very midst of those who were preparingto join it, full under the blaze of the central chandelier, stood ClaraVanderlyn. She was for the moment motionless, and he had better opportunitythan before of scanning her really radiant loveliness. She wore a simpleevening-dress of white, with a single wild-flower wreathed in her brightauburn hair and a single jewel of value set like a star at the apex of theforehead, confined by a delicate and almost unseen chain of gold whichencircled her head. Frank Vanderlyn, in full evening-dress, was standing afew feet off, in conversation with some young men with whom he had alreadyformed an acquaintance, and did not seem to be preparing to join the set. Ahurried glance around the room did not show that either Mrs. Vanderlyn orHalstead Rowan was present.
The band struck up a schottische, and all began to take partners. At thismoment Mrs. Vanderlyn came through the door-way from the hall, sweeping inwith more of that pronounced haughtiness which seemed indexed by her faceand carriage, than any of the visitors at the Profile had before seen herexhibit, and creating a kind of impression upon those near whom she passed,that they were suddenly taken under proprietorship. She swept very near thelawyer as he stood at the left of the door-way, and passing down the roomtouched her son on the arm. And the lawyer could not, if he would (whichseemed not over probable) have avoided hearing the single word that sheuttered, almost in Frank's ear, and in a low, concentrated tone:
"Remember!"
Frank Vanderlyn nodded, with a supercilious smile upon his face, as thoughhe understood the direction; and the stately mother swept down the room andpartially disappeared among the crowd of quiet people below.
Clara Vanderlyn stood for the moment alone, as the band struck up. Whethershe had received and declined invitations to dance, or whether no one hadfound the temerity to offer himself with the chance of refusal, seemeddoubtful, for she certainly appeared to have no partner. But as the firstcouple moved forward to take their places, a tall form darkened thedoor-way for an instant, and Halstead Rowan was again at the fair girl'sside, his face literally radiant with pride and triumph. There was no wordspoken at that moment, and it would seem that there must have been someprevious understanding between them, for her hand was instantly placedwithin his arm when he offered it, and her face reflected his own with alook of gratification that any close observer could not well avoidnoticing.
Both had taken a step forward to join the set, when an interruption tookplace of so painful a character as at once to call the attention of everyone within hearing; and Horace Townsend, standing very near, had a suddenopportunity to compare the reality with his unspoken foreboding of half anhour before. Frank Vanderlyn suddenly left the group with
whom he had beenconversing but a few feet away, stepped up to his sister, and before eithershe or Rowan could have been aware of his intention, drew her hand awayfrom the arm of her escort, and somewhat rudely placed it within his own,with a bold glance at Rowan and the words:
"Miss Clara Vanderlyn, if you wish to dance, your family would prefer thatyou should select a different partner from the first low-bred nobody whohappens to fall in your way--a good enough ten-pin-alley companion,perhaps, but not quite the thing in a ball-room!"
"Oh, brother!"
The face of the poor girl, so foully outraged, first flushed, thenwhitened, and she seemed on the point of sinking to the floor with theshame of such a public insult and exposure. She might indeed have done so,under the first shock, had not the arm of Frank supported her. The nextinstant it was evident that all the pride of the Vanderlyns had not beenexhausted before her birth, for she jerked away her arm from its compulsoryrefuge, and stood erect and angry--all the woman fully aroused. Her glanceof withering contempt and scorn, then directed at the ill-manneredstripling who called himself her brother, was such a terrible contrast tothe sweet and almost infantile smile which rested on her face in happiermoments, that it would have been no difficult matter to doubt her identity.
As for Halstead Rowan--at the moment when the cruel act was done and theinsulting words were spoken, he turned instantly upon the intruder,evidently failing to recognize him in the sudden blindness of his rage. Hisright hand, though the injured one, clenched as it might have done underthe shock of an electric battery, and Townsend saw him jerk it to the levelof his shoulder as if he would have struck a blow certain to cause regretfor a lifetime. But he had no occasion to interpose, for the outragedgirl's "Oh, brother!" came just in time to prevent the commission of theintended violence. Instantly his hand dropped; Clara Vanderlyn's expressionof angry contempt, easily read under the full glare of the chandelier,chased the fierce rage from his face if it did not root out the bitternessfrom his heart; he bowed low to the sister, cast a glance upon the brotherwhich he did not seem likely soon to forget; and in another moment, passingrapidly between the few who surrounded the door-way, he touched HoraceTownsend forcibly upon the arm, nodded to him with a gesture which thelatter readily understood as a request to follow, and the two passed outfrom the parlor, the hall and the house.
It is not easy to describe the scene in the parlor which followed the_denouement_ that has been so feebly pictured. The music sounded on, butthe set remained unformed and no one seemed to heed it. The room wasinstantly full of conversation in regard to the strange event, more or lessloud in its tone. Frank Vanderlyn, calculating upon the sympathies of acompany principally composed of wealthy and fashionable people, lookedaround him as if for approbation of what he had done, but did not appear toreceive it. It was not difficult for him to read in the faces near him thatthe sympathies of the whole company were with the insulted person, most ofthe members of it, if they had no other reason for the feeling, rememberingthe event of the bear-stakes in the morning and thinking that if theIllinoisan was to receive any thing from the Vanderlyn family that day, itshould have been gratitude instead of insult. Made painfully aware of thisstate of feeling, the young man paled, bit his lips, then passed rapidlyout of the room and disappeared, leaving his sister still in the attitudeof outraged sensibility and mortification, which she retained, uttering noword to any one and not even casting a glance around the room, until Mrs.Vanderlyn, who had apparently constituted herself the reserve force for theattack upon her daughter's dignity which Frank had so gallantly led, sweptup from below and led her unresistingly away up the stair-case to theirapartments.
The set was finally formed, and a few more figures were danced in theparlor of the Profile that evening; but the painful incident just recordedhad dulled the sense of enjoyment, and the company thinned out andeventually dispersed to earlier beds than they might have found under othercircumstances.