Faithful Margaret: A Novel
"_Vive l'Anglais!_" he cried, "they can make a good bull's-eye can the
John Bulls. You see this _bourse_? Bah! how wrinkled are its sides, how
flattened under hard pressure of poverty! _Mon Dieu!_ did not the jade,
Madame Hesslein, take the bread out of my mouth in the amplitude of her
revenge? Very well. You who offer me the hand of friendship in return
for that leetle favor, and also for the other not leetle favor of
sending your Marguerite to save your life, shall take her fingers in
yours, kiss them, and say: "Have you forgotten the small souvenir which
you promised to my friend, the chevalier?" _Ma Mignonette_, now is the
time to remember it. And she will remember it--my word upon it, she
will, and will also urge upon you to let her souvenir me with a leetle
more of her pin-money. And with the proceeds of your joint munificence I
shall float again on the ascending tide of fortune, in my tight little
bark, in spite of the _grande_ she devil who has ruined me."
"Ah, your funds have run low, and you are here to replenish them?"
"By gar! that is so, _mon ami_."
The two men eyed each other; St Udo with raised eyebrows and slightly
scornful amusement; the ex-tailor of Szegedin with an ingratiating
impudence which showed that monsieur knew his man very well.
"I have told you often that you are a greedy dog," said the colonel;
"but I have no wish to see you under the feet of your favourite goddess,
though I had much rather you had left your services to speak for
themselves to our pockets. How much did Miss Walsingham agree to give
you? Davenport, it seems to me, mentioned something of this to me."
"Only one thousand of your pounds, _cher ami_, only one thousand; she
was going to insist upon doubling it, but I implored her: 'Admirable
lady, press no more upon me. At that time I little dreamed the days were
coming when necessity should compel me to accept."
"You shall have fifteen hundred to give you a start. I think you will
manage upon that, you are such a man of resource." Said the colonel,
admiringly, who had heard Davenport's grumbling account of the money
arrangement with the chevalier, and remembered it very well.
Whereupon monsieur got up, flung his arms around St. Udo, gave him a
French embrace, vowed he was a lord, and then coolly announced himself
the _attache_ of the little party, he rushed off to hunt up his quondam
antagonist, Davenport, and discuss the management of affairs, with much
impudent triumph, over that worthy gentleman for his former suspicions
of the honor of a French chevalier.
* * * * *
The white moonbeams poured brilliant as diamond lights into the porch of
the old church of Key West.
The spicy odor of the citron trees and of the orange groves filled each
passing breath; the boom of the far-off surf against the reefs made
endless sounding, like the dull roar of a conch-shell at the ear.
The robed figure of a clergyman stood in the low-browed church doorway,
and his hands gently chafed each other as he gazed down the white road
after a quiet cortege, which was gliding slowly toward the town.
Into the flickering shades of a branching palm-tree out to the vivid
moonbeams, bright as day, quietly moving farther and farther from the
man who had bound them together, for a peaceful or a turbulent life.
And the good pastor, softly chafing his hands, and thinking of the
bride's soft, holy face, and of the bridegroom's beauty, which had
reminded him of Antinous, grave, yet not severe, breathes a blessing
upon these strangers, who this night will leave forever behind them his
fairy isle.
"May their wedded life be as serene and smooth as these shades are
light, and these bursts of moonlight translucent. May the sky ever be
clear for them--the sea of life ever be unruffled, as yonder crystal
channel, to which they are hastening."
Then he, also, leaves the glistening temple behind him, and goes his way
among the down-dropping shrubs and spicy blossoms to his home among the
bananas.
Standing on the deck of the steamer, which was to convey him to his
long-forsaken home, with his arm around the Venus-like figure of his
wife, and his eyes upon the swiftly vanishing roof of the isle, St. Udo
Brand, who had spoken but little since repeating the vows which had made
his darling by his side his own, now found speech, and half playfully
apostrophized the dreamlike scene before him thus:
"Farewell ye coral isles, wherein I found my Pearl and happiness.
Blessed be your coraline foundations, your lazy inhabitants, and your
fever-breeding climate. You have been to me a world of passion, of hope,
of purity. Oh, my Lost Good, who has been sent to me in mercy"--his
playful accents changed to the gravity of deep emotion, as he drew yet
closer to him his "Perdita"--"I turn to you henceforth to be what you
would wish me, and to study your secret of how to live. I have been
wandering on the burning sands, and pressing forever onward to reach a
glittering lake of the desert, which, ever rippling and vanishing,
beckoned me farther from the cool, calm shades of rest. Now I come, a
wearied pilgrim to your pure heart, my wife, for you have opened it to
let a weary, dusty wanderer in. Your purity, my simple Margaret, reminds
me of the immaculate heights of snow-capped Gaurisankar--serene,
majestic, while I, a lava-crusted, thunderous, calcined volcano, lashed
by the fires of many passions, come to cool my fevered blood by your
chill radiance."
"Hush, St. Udo! If you knew how intensely happy I am with my
destiny----"
She paused, for her glad eyes were filling fast, her fond tones
faltering.
"Oh, my soft-souled Perdita! my simple darling!"
And then sweetly swooped the rush of joy to them, and they were dumb,
for some one who has read the human heart says, "The most exquisite of
all emotions is utter silence, with a being in whom we feel entire
sympathy."
"Ah, _par ma foi!_ but I am the good fairy, after all!" muttered the
chevalier, hugging his fancy little self, and pacing about near them,
with a protecting air, as if they were his especial _proteges_. "I feel
like Guardian Angel of their fortunes. Saint Ludovic--_par la messe_, it
sounds well!"
"Thank Heaven! Ethel Brand's incomprehensible will has explained itself
at last!" mused Davenport, laying down his crumpled _Times_, "and it has
proved itself to be the wisest will ever the Brands made. Married in
spite of themselves, and as happy as love can make them in spite of a
plain face, on the one side, and a reputation that the dogs wouldn't
pick up once, on the other. He's a saved man, and she's a happy
woman--dear, faithful Margaret. What glorious news for old Gay."
* * * * *
When Mrs. St. Udo Brand came home to Seven-Oak Waaste, she found a
letter awaiting her, and in its many pages she found at last the true
history of the man who had been the Sleuth-Hound of Castle Brand:
CONVICT SHIP FEARLESS, March --, '63.
"MISS WALSINGHAM:--As you are a remarkably clever woman, and I
have always been an admirer of fair play, I will give you your
dues, and own that in our little game you had the best of it,
and deserved to have.
"I don't bear you malice for this cursed mess which you've
pushed me into, although I have you only to blame for it, for
perhaps I didn't go the right way to work with you and I was a
confounded fool for my pains.
"Yes I've been a lover of fair play all through my dodging
life, ever since I was big enough to run at my father with a
knife for making my mother cry; and since in our desperate
little game together you won, I think it but fair play to own
it, and to show you the few trumps with which I fought against
your full hand.
"I'm sent back to banishment for life, and you are, I hear, a
happy bride, coming home with St. Udo Brand; but if I know the
practical good sense you possess, you won't toss this into the
fire till you've read it all, and wasted a few good-hearted
regrets on the wretch whose luck was so infernally poor.
"Forty years ago, Colonel Cathcart Brand, only son of Ethel
Brand, Dowager of Seven-Oak Waaste, went to Cuba, which was a
military station then as now, and fell in with a
splendid-looking Cuban girl called Zerlini Barelli.
"Of course, the man took her in, and ruined all her worldly
prospects through her love of him. In five years he was ordered
back to England again, and coolly proceeded to take leave of
the girl who had been more to him than many a wife is to her
husband, and had nursed him through more than one, almost fatal
attack, of fever. In vain she pleaded that he would take her
with him, and own her boy as his legal heir. The colonel swore
he couldn't, and offered her any money if she would not follow
him.
"She agreed to this, and when I was four years old, they
parted, never to meet again.
"I inherited all my mother's deep, patient ferocity, added to
my father's outward appearance; and was called Brand Bareilli,
at St. Kitts, where I was sent to school, I not having the
remotest idea of my parentage.
"When I was ten years of age I was sent to England, probably at
the colonel's instigation, and I was put into a training
academy to fit me for the army.
"At twenty-one I received my commission as lieutenant in the
artillery, through the influence of Colonel Brand, who from
time to time took a certain care of my fortunes.
"About this time, noticing a great resemblance between the
colonel and myself, a suspicion seized me that I had found my
father.
"I once hinted as much to him, and was furiously ordered to
hold my tongue, and to beware how I insulted my benefactor.
"From that day I lost favor with him; he treated me when we met
with such cold contempt that my blood boiled; and all the while
he was raising a fiend of hatred in my heart against him, he
continued to pay over to me an annuity, which kept my
suspicions on the alert.
"At last I wrote to my mother, who sent me the whole story,
asking me whether I had ever seen the colonel's son, St. Udo
Brand, who was five years younger than I.
"Colonel Brand, upon returning from Cuba to England, had
married a lady of birth, whose one son had absorbed all the
affection which was truly mine by priority or birth, and from
the moment in which I heard of his existence, I hated him with
furious hatred, and longed to visit my wrongs upon him.
"Three years after this I first saw St. Udo Brand, then just
twenty. He was an ensign in the Guards, and mightily admired
for his good humor and wit. He, too, was extremely like his
father, which made me chary of his acquaintance for fear he
would make me out what I was, and taunt me with it before my
companions; so we never knew each other in the slightest.
"But a devil of envy possessed me, for I knew that this chap
had no more business to be happy, rich, and respected than I
had--nor so much, for I was his elder brother; and I was
neither happy, nor rich, nor respected--everybody giving me the
name of a sullen dog, etc., which was scarce fair play.
"So I watched my man till I saw an opening for spoiling his
smiling fortunes, and then I cut in cleverly.
"I found out that St. Udo was madly in love with a young lady
of fashion, and that some had it they were to be married
whenever he attained his majority. I knew the girl myself, as
luck would have it, and was rather fond of her, too; so,