"Such ideas are very well for you, Lillian," retorted Beatrice. "I see nothing in them. Look at the stories we read; how different those girls are from us! They have fathers, brothers, and friends; they have jewels and dresses; they have handsome admirers, who pay them homage; they dance, ride, and enjoy themselves. Now look at us, shut up here with old and serious people."
"Hush, Beatrice," said Lillian; "mamma is not old."
"Not in years, perhaps," replied Beatrice; "but she seems to me old in sorrow. She is never gay nor light-hearted. Mrs. Vyvian is very kind, but she never laughs. Is every one sad and unhappy, I wonder? Oh, Lillian, I long to see the world--the bright, gay world--over the sea there. I long for it as an imprisoned bird longs for fresh air and green woods."
"You would not find it all happiness," said Lillian, sagely.
"Spare me all truism," cried Beatrice. "Ah, sister, I am tired of all this; for eleven years the sea has been singing the same songs; those waves rise and fall as they did a hundred years since; the birds sing the same story; the sun shines the same; even the shadow of the great elms fall over the meadow just as it did when we first played there. I long to away from the sound of the sea and the rustling of the elm trees. I want to be where there are girls of my own age, and do as they do. It seems to me we shall go on reading and writing, sewing and drawing, and taking what mamma calls instructive rambles until our heads grow gray."
"It is not so bad as that, Beatrice," laughed Lillian. "Lady Earle says papa must return some day; then we shall all go to him."
"I never believe one word of it," said Beatrice, undauntedly. "At times I could almost declare papa himself was a myth. Why do we not live with him? Why does he never write? We never hear of or from him, save through Lady Earle; besides, Lillian, what do you think I heard Mrs.
Vyvian say once to grandmamma? It was that we might not go to Earlescourt at all--that if papa did not return, or died young, all would go to a Mr. Lionel Dacre, and we should remain here. Imagine that fate--living a long life and dying at the Elms!"
"It is all conjecture," said her sister. "Try to be more contented, Beatrice. We do not make our own lives, we have not the control of our own destiny."
"I should like to control mine," sighed Beatrice.
"Try to be contented, darling," continued the sweet, pleading voice.
"We all love and admire you. No one was ever loved more dearly or better than you are. The days are rather long at times, but there are all the wonders and beauties of Nature and art."
"Nature and Art are all very well," cried Beatrice; "but give me life."
She turned her beautiful, restless face from the smiling sea; the south wind dancing over the yellow gorse caught up the words uttered in that clear, musical voice and carried them over the cliff to one who was lying with half-closed eyes under the shade of a large tree--a young man with a dark, half-Spanish face handsome with a coa.r.s.e kind of beauty. He was lying there, resting upon the turf, enjoying the beauty of the morning. As the musical voice reached him, and the strange words fell upon his ear, he smiled and raised his head to see who uttered them. He saw the young girls, but their faces were turned from him; those words range in his ears--"Nature and Art are all very well, but give me life."
Who was it longed for life? He understood the longing; he resolved to wait there until the girls went away. Again he heard the same voice.
"I shall leave you to your sails, Lillian. I wish those same boats would come to carry us away--I wish I had wings and could fly over the sea and see the bright, grand world that lies beyond it. Goodbye; I am tired of the never-ending wash of those long, low waves."
He saw a young girl rise from the fragrant heather and turn to descend the cliff. Quick as thought he rushed down by another path, and, turning back, contrived to meet her half-way. Beatrice came singing down the cliff. Her humor, never the same ten minutes together, had suddenly changed. She remembered a new and beautiful song that Lady Earle had sent, and determined to go home and try it. There came no warning to her that bright summer morning. The south wind lifted the hair from her brow and wafted the fragrance of hawthorn buds and spring flowers to greet her, but it brought no warning message; the birds singing gayly, the sun shining so brightly could not tell her that the first link in a terrible chain was to be forged that morning.
Half-way down the cliff, where the path was steep and narrow, Beatrice suddenly met the stranger. A stranger was a rarity at the Elms. Only at rare intervals did an artist or a tourist seek shelter and hospitality at the old farm house. The stranger seemed to be a gentleman. For one moment both stood still; then, with a low bow, the gentleman stepped aside to let the young girl pa.s.s. As he did so, he noted the rare beauty of that brilliant face--he remembered the longing words.
"No wonder," he thought; "it is a sin for such a face as that to be hidden here."
The beauty of those magnificent eyes startled him. Who was she? What could she be doing here? Beatrice turning again, saw the stranger looking eagerly after her, with profound admiration expressed in every feature of his face; and that admiring gaze, the first she had ever received in her life, sank deep into the vain, girlish heart.
He watched the graceful, slender figure until the turn of the road hid Beatrice from his view. He followed her at a safe distance, and saw her cross the long meadows that led to the Elms. Then Hugh Fernely waited with patience until one of the farm laborers came by. By judicious questioning he discovered much of the history of the beautiful young girl who longed for life. Her face haunted him--its brilliant, queenly beauty, the dark, radiant eyes. Come what might, Hugh Fernely said to himself, he must see her again.
On the following morning he saw the girls return to the cliff. Lillian finished her picture. Ever and anon he heard Beatrice singing, in a low, rich voice, a song that had charmed her with its weird beauty:
"For men must work, and women must weep; And the sooner it"s over, the sooner to sleep And goodbye to the bar and its moaning."
"I like those words, Lillian," he heard her say. "I wonder how soon it will be "over" for me. Shall I ever weep, as the song says? I have never wept yet."
This morning the golden-haired sister left the cliff first, and Beatrice sat reading until the noonday sun shone upon the sea. Her book charmed her; it was a story telling of the life she loved and longed for--of the gay, glad world. Unfortunately all the people in the book were n.o.ble, heroic, and ideal. The young girl, in her simplicity, believed that they who lived in the world she longed for were all like the people in her book.
When she left the path that led to the meadows, she saw by her side the stranger who had met her the day before. Again he bowed profoundly, and, with many well-expressed apologies, asked some trifling question about the road.
Beatrice replied briefly, but she could not help seeing the wonder of admiration in his face. Her own grew crimson under his gaze--he saw it, and his heart beat high with triumph. As Beatrice went through the meadows he walked by her side. She never quite remembered how it happened, but in a few minutes he was telling her how many years had pa.s.sed since he had seen the spring in England. She forgot all restraint, all prudence, and raised her beautiful eyes to his.
"Ah, then," she cried, "you have seen the great world that lies over the wide sea."
"Yes," he replied, "I have seen it. I have been in strange, bright lands, so different from England that they seemed to belong to another world. I have seen many climes, bright skies, and glittering seas, where the spice islands lie."
As he spoke, in words that were full of wild, untutored eloquence, he saw the young girl"s eyes riveted upon him. Sure of having roused her attention, he bowed, apologized for his intrusion, and left her.
Had Dora been like other mothers, Beatrice would have related this little adventure and told of the handsome young traveler who had been in strange climes. As it was, knowing her mother"s utter dread of all men--her fear lest her children should ever love and marry--Beatrice never named the subject. She thought much of Hugh Fernely--not of him himself, but of the world he had spoken about--and she hoped it might happen to her to meet him again.
"If we had some one here who could talk in that way," she said to herself, "the Elms would not be quite so insupportable."
Two days afterward, Beatrice, wandering on the sands, met Hugh Fernely.
She saw the startled look of delight on his face, and smiled at his pleasure.
"Pray forgive me," he said. "I--I can not pa.s.s you without one word.
Time has seemed to me like one long night since I saw you last."
He held in his hand some beautiful lilies of the valley--every little white warm bell was perfect. He offered them to her with a low bow.
"This is the most beautiful flower I have seen for many years," he said. "May I be forgiven for begging permission to offer it to the most beautiful lady I have ever seen?"
Beatrice took it from him, blushing at his words. He walked by her side along the yellow sands, the waves rolling in and breaking at their feet. Again his eloquence charmed her. He told her his name, and how he was captain of a trading vessel. Instinctively he seemed to understand her character--her romantic, ideal way of looking at everything. He talked to her of the deep seas and their many wonders; of the ocean said to be fathomless; of the coral islands and of waters in whose depths the oyster containing the pale, gleaming pearl is found; of the quiet nights spent at sea, where the stars shine as they never seem to shine on land; of the strange hush that falls upon the heaving waters before a storm. He told of long days when they were becalmed upon the green deep, when the vessel seemed
"A painted ship upon a painted ocean."
With her marvelous fancy and quick imagination she followed him to the wondrous depth of silent waters where strange shapes, never seen by human eye, abound. She hung upon his words; he saw it, and rejoiced in his success. He did not startle her by any further compliment, but when their walk was ended he told her that morning would live in his memory as the happiest time of his life.
After a few days it seemed to become a settled thing that Beatrice should meet Hugh Fernely. Lillian wondered that her sister so often preferred lonely rambles, but she saw the beautiful face she loved so dearly grow brighter and happier, never dreaming the cause.
For many long days little thought of Hugh Fernely came to Beatrice.
Her mind ran always upon what he had told her--upon his description of what he had seen and heard. He noted this, and waited with a patience born of love for the time when she should take an interest in him.
Words were weak in which to express the pa.s.sionate love he felt for this beautiful and stately young girl. It seemed to him like a fairy tale. On the morning he first saw Beatrice he had been walking a long distance, and had lain down to rest on the cliffs. There the beautiful vision had dawned upon him. The first moment he gazed into that peerless face he loved Beatrice with a pa.s.sion that frightened himself.
He determined to win her at any cost.
At last and by slow degrees he began to speak of her and himself, slowly and carefully, his keen eyes noting every change upon her face; he began to offer her delicate compliments and flattery so well disguised that it did not seem to her flattery at all. He made her understand that he believed her to be the most beautiful girl he had ever beheld. He treated her always as though she were a queen, and he her humblest slave.
Slowly but surely the sweet poison worked its way; the day came when that graceful, subtle flattery was necessary to the very existence of Beatrice Earle. There was much to excuse her; the clever, artful man into whose hands she had fallen was her first admirer--the first who seemed to remember she was no longer a child, and to treat her with deferential attention. Had she been, as other girls are, surrounded by friends, accustomed to society, properly trained, prepared by the tender wisdom of a loving mother, she would never have cast her proud eyes upon Hugh Fernely; she would never have courted the danger or run the risk.
As it was, while Dora preferred solitude, and nourished a keen dislike to her husband in her heart--while Ronald yielded to obstinate pride, and neglected every duty--while both preferred the indulgence of their own tempers, and neglected the children the Almighty intrusted to them, Beatrice went on to her fate.
It was so sad a story, the details so simple yet so pitiful. Every element of that impulsive, idealistic nature helped on the tragedy.
Hugh Fernely understood Beatrice as perhaps no one else ever did. He idealized himself. To her at length he became a hero who had met with numberless adventures--a hero who had traveled and fought, brave and generous. After a time he spoke to her of love, at first never appearing to suppose that she could care for him, but telling her of his own pa.s.sionate worship how her face haunted him, filled his dreams at night, and shone before him all day--how the very ground she stood upon was sacred to him--how he envied the flowers she touched--how he would give up everything to be the rose that died in her hands. It was all very pretty and poetical, and he knew how to find pretty, picturesque spots in the woods where the birds and the flowers helped him to tell his story.
Beatrice found it very pleasant to be worshiped like a queen; there was no more monotony for her. Every morning she looked forward to seeing Hugh--to learning more of those words that seemed to her like sweetest music. She knew that at some time or other during the day she would see him; he never tired of admiring her beauty. Blameworthy was the sad mother with her stern doctrines, blameworthy the proud, neglectful father, that she knew not how wrong all this was. He loved her; in a thousand eloquent ways he told her so. She was his loadstar, beautiful and peerless. It was far more pleasant to sit on the sea sh.o.r.e, or under the greenwood trees, listening to such words than to pa.s.s long, dreary hours indoors. And none of those intrusted with the care of the young girl ever dreamed of her danger.
So this was the love her mother dreaded so much. This was the love poets sung of and novelists wrote about. It was pleasant; but in after days, when Beatrice herself came to love, she knew that this had been but child"s play.
It was the romance of the stolen meeting that charmed Beatrice. If Hugh had been admitted to the Elms she would have wearied of him in a week; but the concealment gave her something to think of. There was something to occupy her mind; every day she must arrange for a long ramble, so that she might meet Hugh. So, while the corn grew ripe in the fields, and the blossoms died away--while warm, luxurious summer ruled with his golden wand Ronald Earle"s daughter went on to her fate.