Buch lesen: «The Child Wife»

Chapter One.
The Isle of Peace

Aquidnec – “Isle of Peace!”

Oh, Coddington, and ye Assistants of the General Court! what craze possessed you to change this fair title of the red aboriginal for the petty appellation of “Rhodes?”

Out upon your taste – your classic affectation! Out upon your ignorance – to mistake the “Roodt” of the old Dutch navigator for that name appertaining to the country of the Colossus!

In the title bestowed by Block there was at least appropriateness – even something of poetry. Sailing around Sachuest Point, he beheld the grand woods, red in the golden sun-glow of autumn. Flashed upon his delighted eyes the crimson masses of tree foliage, and the festoonery of scarlet creepers. Before his face were bright ochreous rocks cropping out from the cliff. Down in his log-book went the “Red Island!”

Oh, worthy Coddington, why did you reject the appellation of the Indian? Or why decree such clumsy transformation to that of the daring Dutchman?

I shall cling to the old title – “Isle of Peace”; though in later times less apt than when the Warapanoag bathed his bronzed limbs in the tranquil waters of the Narraganset, and paddled his light canoe around its rock-girt shores.

Since then, Aquidnec! too often hast thou felt the sore scathing of war. Where now thy virgin woods that rejoiced the eyes of Verrazano, fresh from Tuscan scenes? Where thy grand oaks elms, and maples? Thy green pines and red cedars? Thy birches that gave bark, thy chestnuts affording food; thy sassafras laurel, restorer of health and life?

Gone – all gone! Swept away by the torch and axe of the ruthless soldier-destroyer.

Despite thy despoliation, Aquidnec, thou art still a fair spot. Once more the Isle of Peace, the abode of Love – its very Agapemone; every inch of thy turf trodden by lovers’ feet – every ledge of thy cliffs listening to the old, old story.

Newport, in the year of our Lord 18 – , in the “height of the season.”

An apartment in that most hospitable of American hostelries, the Ocean House, with a window looking westward.

On the troisième étage, commanding a continuous balcony, with a view of the Atlantic, spreading broad and blue, beyond the range of the telescope. Sachuest Point on the left, with the spray, like snowflakes, breaking over the Cormorant Rock; on the right, Beaver Tail, with its beacon; between them a fleet of fishing-craft, dipping for striped-bass and tautog; in the far offing the spread sails of a full-rigged ship, and the plume-like smoke soaring up from a steamer – both broadside to the beholder, on their way between the two great seaports of Shawmut and Manhattan.

A noble view is this opening of the great estuary of Narraganset – one upon which beautiful eyes have often rested.

Never more beautiful than those of Julia Girdwood, the occupant of the apartment above mentioned.

She is not its sole occupant. There is another young lady beside her, her cousin, Cornelia Inskip. She has also pretty eyes, of a bluish tint; but they are scarce observed after looking into those orbs of dark bistre, that seem to burn with an everlasting love-light.

In the language of the romance writer, Julia would be termed a brunette, Cornelia a blonde. Their figures are as different as their complexion: the former tall and of full womanly development, the latter of low stature, slighter, and to all appearance more youthful.

Equally unlike their dispositions. She of the dark complexion appears darker in thought, with greater solemnity of movement; while, judging by her speech, the gay, sprightly Cornelia thinks but little of the past, and still less about the future.

Robed in loose morning-wrappers, with tiny slippers poised upon their toes, they are seated in rocking-chairs, just inside the window. The eyes of both, sweeping the blue sea, have just descried the steamer coming from beyond the distant Point Judith, and heading in a north-easterly direction.

It was a fine sight, this huge black monster beating its way through the blue water, and leaving a white seething track behind it.

Cornelia sprang out into the balcony to get a better view of it.

“I wonder what boat it is?” she said. “One of the great ocean steamers, I suppose – a Cunarder!”

“I think not, Neel. I wish it was one, and I aboard of it. Thank Heaven! I shall be, before many weeks.”

“What! tired of Newport already? We’ll find no pleasanter place in Europe. I’m sure we shan’t.”

“We’ll find pleasanter people, at all events.”

“Why, what have you got against them?”

“What have they got against us? I don’t mean the natives here. They’re well enough, in their way. I speak of their summer visitors, like ourselves. You ask what they’ve got against us. A strange question!”

“I haven’t noticed anything.”

“But I have. Because our fathers were retail storekeepers, these J.’s and L.’s and B.’s affect to look down upon us! You know they do.”

Miss Inskip could not deny that something of this had been observed by her. But she was one of those contented spirits who set but little store upon aristocratic acquaintances, and are therefore insensible to its slights.

With the proud Julia it was different. If not absolutely slighting, the “society” encountered in this fashionable watering-place had in some way spited her – that section of it described as the J.’s and the L.’s and the B.’s.

“And for what reason?” she continued, with increasing indignation. “If our fathers were retail storekeepers, their grandfathers were the same. Where’s the difference, I should like to know?”

Miss Inskip could see none, and said so.

But this did not tranquillise the chafed spirit of her cousin, and perceiving it, she tried to soothe her on another tack.

“Well, Julia, if the Miss J.’s, and Miss L.’s, and Miss B.’s, look down on us, their brothers don’t. On you, I’m sure they don’t.”

“Bother their brothers! A fig for their condescension. Do you take me for a stupid, Neel? A million dollars left by my father’s will, and which must come to me at mother’s death, will account for it. Besides, unless the quicksilver in my looking-glass tells a terrible lie, I’m not such a fright.”

She might well talk thus. Than Julia Girdwood, anything less like a fright never stood in front of a mirror. Full-grown, and of perfect form, this storekeeper’s daughter had all the grand air of a duchess. The face was perfect as the figure. You could not look upon it without thoughts of love; though strangely, and somewhat unpleasantly, commingled with an idea of danger. It was an aspect that suggested Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia, or the beautiful murderess of Darnley.

In her air there was no awkwardness – not the slightest sign of humble origin, or the gaucherie that usually springs from it. Something of this might have been detected in the country cousin, Cornelia. But Julia Girdwood had been stepping too long on the flags of the Fifth Avenue, to be externally distinguished from the proudest damsels of that aristocratic street. Her mother’s house was in it.

“It is true, Julia,” assented her cousin; “you are both rich and beautiful. I wish I could say the same.”

“Come, little flatterer! if not the first, you are certainly the last; though neither counts for much here.”

“Why did we come here?”

“I had nothing to do with it. Mamma is answerable for that. For my part I prefer Saratoga, where there’s less pretensions about pedigree, and where a shopkeeper’s daughter is as good as his granddaughter. I wanted to go there this season. Mother objected. Nothing would satisfy her but Newport, Newport, Newport! And here we are. Thank Heaven! it won’t be for long.”

“Well, since we are here, let us at least enjoy what everybody comes for – the bathing.”

“Pretends to come for, you mean! Dipping their skins in salt water, the Miss J.’s, and L.’s, and B.’s – much has that to do with their presence at Newport! A good thing for them if it had! It might improve their complexions a little. Heaven knows they need it; and Heaven be thanked I don’t.”

“But you’ll bathe to-day?”

“I shan’t!”

“Consider, cousin! It’s such a delightful sensation.”

“I hate it!”

“You’re jesting, Julia?”

“Well, I don’t mean that I dislike bathing – only in that crowd.”

“But there’s no exclusiveness on the beach.”

“I don’t care. I won’t go among them any more – on the beach, or elsewhere. If I could only bathe out yonder, in the deep blue water, or amid those white breakers we see! Ah! that would be a delightful sensation! I wonder if there’s any place where we could take a dip by ourselves?”

“There is; I know the very spot I discovered it the other day, when I was out with Keziah gathering shells. It’s down under the cliffs. There’s a sweet little cave, a perfect grotto, with a deepish pool in front, and smooth sandy bottom, white as silver. The cliff quite overhangs it. I’m sure no one could see us from above; especially if we go when the people are bathing. Then everybody would be at the beach, and we’d have the cliff shore to ourselves. For that matter, we can undress in the cave, without the chance of a creature seeing us. Keziah could keep watch outside. Say you’ll go, Julia?”

“Well, I don’t mind. But what about mamma? She’s such a terrible stickler for the proprieties. She may object.”

“We needn’t let her know anything about it. She don’t intend bathing to-day; she’s just told me so. We two can start in the usual style, as if going to the beach. Once outside, we can go our own way. I know of a path across the fields that’ll take us almost direct to the place. You’ll go?”

“Oh, I’m agreed.”

“It’s time for us to set out, then. You hear that tramping along the corridor? It’s the bathers about to start. Let us call Keziah, and be off.”

As Julia made no objection, her sprightly cousin tripped out into the corridor; and, stopping before the door of an adjoining apartment, called “Keziah!”

The room was Mrs Girdwood’s; Keziah, her servant – a sable-skinned damsel, who played lady’s maid for all three.

“What is it, child?” asked a voice evidently not Keziah’s.

“We’re going to bathe, aunt,” said the young lady, half-opening the door, and looking in. “We want Keziah to get ready the dresses.”

“Yes, yes,” rejoined the same voice, which was that of Mrs Girdwood herself. “You hear, Keziah? And hark ye, girls!” she added, addressing herself to the two young ladies, now both standing in the doorway, “see that you take a swimming lesson. Remember we are going over the great seas, where there’s many a chance of getting drowned.”

“Oh, ma! you make one shiver.”

“Well, well, I hope swimming may never be needed by you. For all that, there’s no harm in being able to keep your head above water, and that in more senses than one. Be quick, girl, with the dresses! The people are all gone; you’ll be late. Now, then, off with you!”

Keziah soon made her appearance in the corridor, carrying a bundle.

A stout, healthy-looking negress – her woolly head “toqued” in New Orleans style, with a checkered bandanna – she was an appanage of the defunct storekeeper’s family; specially designed to give to it an air Southern, and of course aristocratic. At this time Mrs Girdwood was not the only Northern lady who selected her servants with an eye to such effect.

Slippers were soon kicked off, and kid boots pulled on in their places. Hats were set coquettishly on the head, and shawls – for the day was rather cool – were thrown loosely over shoulders.

“Come on!” and at the word the cousins glided along the gallery, descended the great stair, tripped across the piazza outside, and then turned off in the direction of the Bath Road.

Once out of sight of the hotel, they changed their course, striking into a path that led more directly toward the cliff.

In less than twenty minutes after, they might have been seen descending it, through one of those sloping ravines that here and there interrupt the continuity of the precipice – Cornelia going first, Julia close after, the turbaned negress, bearing her bundle, in the rear.

Chapter Two.
A Brace of Naiads

They were seen.

A solitary gentleman sauntering along the cliff, saw the girls go down.

He was coming from the direction of Ochre Point, but too far off to tell more than that they were two young ladies, followed by a black servant.

He thought it a little strange at that hour. It was bathing-time upon the beach. He could see the boxes discharging their gay groups in costumes of green and blue, crimson and scarlet – in the distance looking like parti-coloured Lilliputians.

“Why are these two ladies not along with them?” was his reflection. “Shell-gatherers, I suppose,” was the conjecture that followed. “Searchers after strange seaweeds. From Boston, no doubt. And I’d bet high that the nose of each is bridged with a pair of blue spectacles.”

The gentleman smiled at the conceit, but suddenly changed it. The sable complexion of the servant suggested a different conclusion.

“More like they are Southerners?” was the muttered remark.

After making it he ceased to think of them. He had a gun in his hand, and was endeavouring to get a shot at some of the large seabirds now and then sweeping along the escarpment of the cliff.

As the tide was still only commencing to return from its ebb, these flew low, picking up their food from the stranded algae that, like a fringe, followed the outlines of the shore.

The sportsman, observing this, became convinced he would have a better chance below; and down went he through one of the gaps – the first that presented itself!

Keeping on towards the Forty Steps, he progressed only slowly. Here and there rough ledges required scaling; the yielding sand also delayed him.

But he was in no hurry. The chances of a shot were as good at one place as another. Hours must elapse ere the Ocean House gong would summon its scattered guests to their grand dinner. He was one of them. Until that time he had no reason for returning to the hotel.

The gentleman thus leisurely strolling, is worthy a word or two by way of description.

That he was only an amateur sportsman, his style of dress plainly proclaimed. More plainly did it bespeak the soldier. A forage cap, that had evidently seen service, half shadowed a face whose deep sun-tan told of that service being done in a tropical clime; while the tint, still fresh and warm, was evidence of recent return. A plain frock-coat, of civilian cut, close buttoned; a pair of dark-blue pantaloons, with well-made boots below them, completed his semi-military costume. Added: that these garments were fitted upon a figure calculated to display them to the utmost advantage.

The face was in keeping with the figure. Not oval, but of that rotund shape, ten times more indicative of daring, as of determination. Handsome, too, surmounted as it was by a profusion of dark hair, and adorned by a well-defined moustache. These advantages had the young man in question, who, despite the appearance of much travel, and some military service, was still under thirty.

Slowly sauntering onward, his boots scranching among the pebbles, he heard but the sound of his own footsteps.

It was only on stopping to await the passage of a gull, and while calculating the carry of his gun, that other sounds arrested his attention.

These were so sweet, that the gull was at once forgotten. It flew past without his attempting to pull trigger – although so close to the muzzle of his gun he might have “murdered” it!

“Nymphs! Naiads! Mermaids! Which of the three? Proserpine upon a rock superintending their aquatic sports! Ye gods and goddesses! what an attractive tableau?”

These words escaped him, as he stood crouching behind a point of rock that abutted far out from the line of the cliff. Beyond it was the cove in which the young ladies were bathing – the negress keeping but careless watch as she sat upon one of the ledges.

“Chaste Dian!” exclaimed the sportsman; “pardon me for this intrusion. Quite inadvertent, I assure you. I must track back,” he continued, “to save myself from being transformed into a stag. Provoking, too! I wanted to go that way to explore a cave I’ve heard spoken of. I came out with this intention. How awkward to be thus interrupted!”

There was something like a lie outlined upon his features as he muttered the last reflection. In his actions too; for he still loitered behind the rock – still kept looking over it.

Plunging in pellucid water not waist-deep – their lower extremities only concealed by the saturated skirts that clung like cerements around them – their feet showing clear as coral – the two young creatures continued to disport themselves. Only Joseph himself could have retreated from the sight!

And then their long hair in full dishevelment – of two colour, black and gold – sprinkled by the pearly spray, as the girls, with tiny rose-tipped fingers, dashed the water in each other’s faces – all the time making the rocks ring with the music of their merry voices – ah! from such a picture who could comfortably withdraw his eyes?

It cost the sportsman an effort; of which he was capable – only by thinking of his sister.

And thinking of her, he loitered no longer, but drew back behind the rock.

“Deuced awkward!” he again muttered to himself – perhaps this time with more sincerity. “I wished particularly to go that way. The cave cannot be much farther on, and now to trudge all the way back! I must either do that, or wait till they’ve got through their game of aquatics.”

For a moment he stood reflecting. It was a considerable distance to the place where he had descended the cliff. Moreover, the track was toilsome, as he had proved by experience.

He decided to stay where he was till the “coast should be clear.”

He sat down upon a stone, took out a cigar, and commenced smoking.

He was scarce twenty paces from the pool in which the pretty dears were enjoying themselves. He could hear the plashing of their palms, like young cygnets beating the water with their wings. He could hear them exchange speeches, mingled with peals of clear-ringing laughter. There could be no harm in listening to these sounds, since the sough of the sea hindered him from making out what was said. Only now and then did he distinguish an interjection, proclaiming the delight in which the two Naiads were indulging, or one, the sharper voice of the negress, to warn then against straying too far out, as the tide had commenced rising.

From these signs he knew he had not been observed while standing exposed by the projection of rock.

A full half-hour elapsed, and still continued the plunging and the peals of laughter.

“Very mermaids they must be – to stay so long in the water! Surely they’ve had enough of it!”

As shown by this reflection, the sportsman was becoming impatient.

Shortly after, the plashing ceased, and along with it the laughter. He could still hear the voices of the two girls engaged in conversation – at intervals intermingled with that of the negress.

“They are out now, and dressing,” he joyfully conjectured. “I wonder how long they’ll be about that. Not another hour, I hope.”

He took out a fresh cigar. It was his third.

“By the time I’ve finished this,” reflected he, “they’ll be gone. At all events, they ought to be dressed; and, without rudeness, I may take the liberty of slipping past them.”

He lit the cigar, smoked, and listened.

The conversation was now carried on in an uninterrupted strain, but in quieter tones, and no longer interspersed with laughter.

The cigar became shortened to a stump, and still those silvery voices were heard mingling with the hoarse symphony of the sea – the latter, each moment growing louder as the tide continued to rise. A fresh breeze had sprung up, which, brought shoreward by the tidal billow, increased the noise; until the voices of the girls appeared like some distant metallic murmur, and the listener at length doubted whether he heard them or not.

“Their time’s up,” he said, springing to his feet, and flinging away the stump of the cigar. “They’ve had enough to make their toilet twice over, at all events. I can give no more grace; so here goes to continue my exploration!”

He turned towards the projection of the cliff. A single step forward, and he came to a stand – his countenance suddenly becoming clouded with an unpleasant expression! The tide had stolen up to the rocks, and the point of the promontory was now full three feet under water; while the swelling waves, at intervals, surged still higher!

There was neither beach below, nor ledge above; no way but by taking to the water.

The explorer saw that it would be impossible to proceed in the direction intended, without wading up to his waist. The object he had in view was not worth such a saturation; and with an exclamation of disappointment – chagrin, too, for the lost time – he turned upon his heel, and commenced retracing his steps along the base of the bluffs.

He no longer went strolling or sauntering. An apprehension had arisen in his mind that stimulated him to the quickest pace in his power. What if his retreat should be cut off by the same obstacle that had interrupted his advance?

The thought was sufficiently alarming; and hastily scrambling over the ledges, and skimming across the stretches of quicksand – now transformed into pools – he only breathed freely when once more in the gorge by which he had descended.