All this was sad--very sad. There were good and n.o.ble qualities in the hearts of both. They were not narrow-minded and selfish, like so many of your placid, accommodating, calculating people, but generous in their feelings and broad in their sympathies. They had ideals of life that went reaching out far beyond themselves. Yes, it was sad to see two such hearts beating against and bruising each other, instead of taking the same pulsation. But there seemed to be no help for them. Irene"s jealous guardianship of her freedom, her quick temper, pride and self-will made the position of her husband so difficult that it was almost impossible for him to avoid giving offence.
The summer and fall pa.s.sed away without any serious rupture between the sensitive couple, although there had been seasons of great unhappiness to both. Irene had been up to Ivy Cliff many times to visit her father, and now she was, beginning to urge his removal to the city for the winter; but Mr. Delancy, who had never given his full promise to this arrangement, felt less and less inclined to leave his old home as the season advanced. Almost from boyhood he had lived there, and his habits were formed for rural instead of city life.
He pictured the close streets, with their rows of houses, that left for the eye only narrow patches of ethereal blue, and contrasted this with the broad winter landscape, which for him had always spread itself out with a beauty rivaled by no other season, and his heart failed him.
The brief December days were on them, and Irene grew more urgent.
"Come, dear father," she wrote. "I think of you, sitting all alone at Ivy Cliff, during these long evenings, and grow sad at heart in sympathy with your loneliness. Come at once. Why linger a week or even a day longer? We have been all in all to each other these many years, and ought not to be separated now."
But Mr. Delancy was not ready to exchange the pure air and widespreading scenery of the Highlands for a city residence, even in the desolate winter, and so wrote back doubtingly. Irene and her husband then came up to add the persuasion of their presence at Ivy Cliff. It did not avail, however. The old man was too deeply wedded to his home.
"I should be miserable in New York," he replied to their earnest entreaties; "and it would not add to your happiness to see me going about with a sober, discontented face, or to be reminded every little while that if you had left me to my winter"s hibernation I would have been a contented instead of a dissatisfied old man. No, no, my children; Ivy Cliff is the best place for me. You shall come up and spend Christmas here, and we will have a gay season."
There was no further use in argument. Mr. Delancy would have his way; and he was right.
Irene and her husband went back to the city, with a promise to spend Christmas at the old homestead.
Two weeks pa.s.sed. It was the twentieth of December. Without previous intimation, Irene came up alone to Ivy Cliff, startling her father by coming in suddenly upon him one dreary afternoon, just as the leaden sky began to scatter down the winter"s first offering of snow.
"My daughter!" he exclaimed, so surprised that he could not move from where he was sitting.
"Dear father!" she answered with a loving smile, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him.
"Where is Hartley?" asked the old man, looking past Irene toward the door through which she had just entered.
"Oh, I left him in New York," she replied.
"In New York! Have you come alone?"
"Yes. Christmas is only five days off, you know, and I am here to help you prepare for it. Of course, Hartley cannot leave his business."
She spoke in an excited, almost gay tone of voice. Mr. Delancy looked at her earnestly. Unpleasant doubts flitted through his mind.
"When will your husband come up?" he inquired.
"At Christmas," she answered, without hesitation.
"Why didn"t you write, love?" asked Mr. Delancy. "You have taken me by surprise, and set my nerves in a flutter."
"I only thought about it last evening. One of my sudden resolutions."
And she laughed a low, fluttering laugh. It might have been an error, but her father had a fancy that it did not come from her heart.
"I will run up stairs and put off my things," she said, moving away.
"Did you bring a trunk?"
"Oh yes; it is at the landing. Will you send for it?"
And Irene went, with quick steps, from the apartment, and ran up to the chamber she still called her own. On the way she met Margaret.
"Miss Irene!" exclaimed the latter, pausing and lifting her hands in astonishment. "Why, where did you come from?"
"Just arrived in the boat. Have come to help you get ready for Christmas."
"Please goodness, how you frightened me!" said the warm-hearted domestic, who had been in the family ever since Irene was a child, and was strongly attached to her. "How"s Mr. Emerson?"
"Oh, he"s well, thank you, Margaret."
"Well now, child, you did set me all into a fl.u.s.ter. I thought maybe you"d got into one of your tantrums, and come off and left your husband."
"Why, Margaret!" A crimson flush mantled the face of Irene.
"You must excuse me, child, but just that came into my head,"
replied Margaret. "You"re very downright and determined sometimes; and there isn"t anything hardly that you wouldn"t do if the spirit was on you. I"m glad it"s all right. Dear me! dear me!"
"Oh, I"m not quite so bad as you all make me out," said Irene, laughing.
"I don"t think you are bad," answered Margaret, in kind deprecation, yet with a freedom of speech warranted by her years and attachment to Irene. "But you go off in such strange ways--get so wrong-headed sometimes--that there"s no counting on you."
Then, growing more serious, she added--
"The fact is, Miss Irene, you keep me feeling kind of uneasy all the time. I dreamed about you last night, and maybe that has helped to put me into a fl.u.s.ter now."
"Dreamed about me!" said Irene, with a degree of interest in her manner.
"Yes. But don"t stand here, Miss Irene; come over to your room."
"What kind of a dream had you, Margaret?" asked the young wife, as she sat down on the side of the bed where, pillowed in sleep, she had dreamed so many of girlhood"s pleasant dreams.
"I was dreaming all night about you," replied Margaret, looking sober-faced.
"And you saw me in trouble?"
"Oh dear, yes; in nothing but trouble. I thought once that I saw you in a great room full of wild beasts. They were chained or in cages; but you would keep going close up to the bars of the cages, or near enough for the chained animals to spring upon you. And that wasn"t all. You put the end of your little parasol in between the bars, and a fierce tiger struck at you with his great cat-like paw, tearing the flesh from your arm. Then I saw you in a little boat, down on the river. You had put up a sail, and was going out all alone. I saw the boat move off from the sh.o.r.e just as plainly as I see you now. I stood and watched until you were in the middle of the river. Then I thought Mr. Emerson was standing by me, and that we both saw a great monster--a whale, or something else--chasing after your boat. Mr.
Emerson was in great distress, and said, "I told her not to go, but she is so self-willed." And then he jumped into a boat and, taking the oars, went gliding out after you as swiftly as the wind. I never saw mortal arm make a boat fly as he did that little skiff. And I saw him strike the monster with his oar just as his huge jaws were opened to devour you. Dear! dear; but I was frightened, and woke up all in a tremble."
"Before he had saved me?" said Irene, taking a deep breath.
"Yes; but I don"t think there was any chance of saving there, and I was glad that I waked up when I did."
"What else did you dream?" asked Irene.
"Oh, I can"t tell you all I dreamed. Once I saw you fall from the high rock just above West Point and go dashing down into the river.
Then I saw you chased by a mad bull."
"And no one came to my rescue?"
"Oh yes, there was more than one who tried to save you. First, your father ran in between you and the bull; but he dashed over him. Then I saw Mr. Emerson rushing up with a pitchfork, and he got before the mad animal and pointed the sharp p.r.o.ngs at his eyes; but the bull tore down on him and tossed him away up into the air. I awoke as I saw him falling on the sharp-pointed horns that were held up to catch him."