"Josephine, you _must_."
"I _cannot_. You can"t tell how it is. He don"t care for me, and I don"t like him; and I don"t think, for my part, it is religious for people to live together that don"t like each other."
"This is a tragedy, not a farce," Hazel said, knitting her brows.
"Leave fashions of speech a one side. John Charteris, with all his faults, would never grow tired of you, Josephine?if you gave him half a chance to help it; but Stuart Nightingale _will_."
"I am jolly tired of _him_," cried Josephine with a burst. "Charteris and I can"t live happy together. I know better. And it will be worse now he has lost his money. I would rather die, Hazel. And I tell you, he is tired of me?and I should think he would. If you knew the life I"ve led him, you would think so too. You needn"t talk to me. I would rather die right off, than go on living with him; and it would kill me anyhow, and I"m not going to die that way."
"There is honour in dying at one"s post," said Wych Hazel thoughtfully,?"even if it came to that. But to sail away on a pleasure trip, with all one"s dearest friends praying that the ship might go down in mid-seas!?"
Josephine sat still, looking with odd impa.s.siveness into the fire; then she remarked in the same way,
"My dearest friends don"t do much praying. I guess they won"t drown me."
"You may kill them," said Hazel. "Imagine people watching Annabella and saying "Poor thing!"?"What has become of the other sister?"?"O you mustn"t ask about her. You know"?and then heads will draw together. And your mother will see the shrugs and catch the hints."
"What makes you care?" said Josephine, without moving a muscle.
"I believe you must have liked him a little yourself."
"I liked him such a very little," said Wych Hazel, "that a year ago I cut up his heart into bits. He has patched them together again,?
but the st.i.tches shew."
"Stuart was poor," said Josephine. "I knew it all the time."
Wych Hazel"s brows drew together, but the words got no further notice.
"Josephine, you married for diamonds. I will give you diamonds every week for a year, if you will go back to your place and stay there."
"I don"t care for diamonds," said Josephine very coldly.
"What _do_ you care for?"?the grave young eyes looked up eagerly.
"Not much"?said Josephine drearily, and the words were inexpressibly sad from such young lips. "But I am not going to live in that prison in 40th street and with that jailer Charteris any more!"
"Josephine, you could change all that. There is no prison?and no jailer?for any woman of whom it is true: "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her." "
"It wouldn"t be very safe for Charteris to trust me," said Josephine, with a hard, metallic laugh. "I never was to be trusted. I know what you have come for, Hazel, and I know who has brought you; it"s Annabella; but it"s no use. You may give up the job. I know all you want to say, and I"m not going to have you say it; and you have said it, besides. Look here. A marriage isn"t a real marriage when people don"t care for each other. Do you think a woman is bound by a few words said over her by a man in a black silk gown? by an incantation, like the savages? It would make me downright wicked to go on living with John Charteris; you ought to want to save me from that. I am always a great deal better?more _religious_?when I am happy, than when I am miserable. It always rouses up all there is bad in me, to try to make me do something I don"t want to do. I can"t imagine how you get along with Dane Rollo; but that is you affair; this is mine. Where is Annabella?"
Before Hazel could stop her, she had flown across the hall to the room on the other side, whence she fetched back her sister. The conversation was not renewed. In ignorance of what fruit the interview might have borne, or what its results might be, Annabella dared not touch the matter; and Josephine gave her no chance. She kept up a rattling fire of nonsense, until the two ladies were forced to leave her.
The day was darkening fast now towards the early evening. Fine snow was falling thick, and the wind came in gusts. There was no time to be lost in getting home. Yet Annabella paused at the very coach door and looked at Hazel. "Have you done anything?" she asked anxiously.
At the instant a gentleman ran against them with an umbrella, and lifting the same suddenly to make his excuses, a very familiar figure was revealed to them. Stuart Nightingale himself. A flash of disagreeable expression crossed his face for that one second of surprise, then he had regained his usual manner.
"Quel plaisir!" he cried, bowing low. "Two such ladies, in the snow, here! at Fort Washington! The charms of the surprise is manifold.
What has procured it? mercy, or vanity? One or the other it must be. A sick friend??or a French mantua-maker? But you are never going to drive back to New York in this awful storm?"
Annabella drew herself up and made no answer. Wych Hazel looked at the snow.
"Good evening," she said. "The storm is not much."
They were to have more of it, however, than she had bargained for.
Stuart"s remonstrances were not listened to; the ladies entered their carriage and drove off. But their driver, who was not Mrs.
Powder"s servant, had improved his leisure time during their stay in the house by making visits to a neighbouring drinking saloon; and now, confused by the mingled efforts of wind and brandy, took the road north instead of south from the village. To spare her sister, and indeed herself, Annabella had taken a hackney coach, and this was what came of it. The ladies were thinking of something else and did not see what their charioteer was doing.
Annabella broke at last a silence which had prevailed for some time.
"What did she say?"
"Said she didn"t care."
"She would not listen to you!"
"Not this time."
"Then there is no chance," cried Annabella in despair. "They will make all their arrangements now. Stuart is going to sail the week after next, I know."
"I wish I could get speech of him!" said Wych Hazel, knitting her brows in the darkness.
This too was to fall to her lot in an unexpected manner and measure. It might have been three quarters of an hour, or more, from the time of their meeting that gentleman in front of Mrs.
Rhodes"s cottage, when Stuart happened to be in the street again and crossing the main road at the corner where the carriage had turned the wrong way. The storm had now grown to be furious; wind and snow driving so across the street that to hold his umbrella was no longer possible. As with difficulty he closed it, a carriage stopped immediately before him, the door opened, and two ladies sprang out into the storm. He had nearly run against them again, before he saw that they were the same ladies. And they saw him.
"O Mr. Nightingale!" cried the foremost, forgetting everything in distress,?"do help us. We"ve got a drunken coachman."
"Miss Powder!?But how are you here yet?"
"O he took us ever so far on the way to Albany before we found it out. He"s quite stupid. What shall we do?"
A few steps in the snow, taken with extreme difficulty, brought them to the shelter of a village hotel. Here the matter was debated.
Stuart advised their spending the night quietly where they were.
But Annabella would not listen to this. "Her mother," "her mother"?she urged; "her mother would be frightened to death."
Write, Stuart suggested. Miss Powder did not believe any messenger would go. Stuart offered to be the messenger himself.
Annabella refused, obstinately. I think she did not put enough faith in him even for that. She would have a carriage and proceed on her journey forthwith. Annabella shewed herself determined, and Hazel did not oppose her decisions, nor have much to say in the matter generally.
So a carriage was got ready; it was necessary to offer a huge fee to tempt any man out that night, but however that was arranged; and in half an hour the ladies were able to set forth again on their interrupted journey. But one circ.u.mstance neither of them had counted upon. Mr. Nightingale, after putting them into the carriage and giving directions to the driver, coolly stepped in himself and took the opposite seat.
"Mr. Nightingale!" said Miss Powder?"_you_ are not going?"
"Certainly I am. You two ladies cannot be allowed to take such a journey alone. I should expect Gov. Powder never to speak to me again, and coffee and pistols with Rollo would be too good for me.
To say nothing of the punishment of my own conscience."
The drive from that point was extremely silent, and never to be forgotten by at least two of the party. The violence of the storm was quite enough to justify the third in intruding himself upon their company, though I am afraid n.o.body thanked him for it.
Wind and snow and darkness made any progress difficult, and any but very slow progress out of the question. The horses crept along the road, which they were not infrequently left to find by themselves; the snow whirled and beat now against one window and now upon the other with a fury and a rush which were somewhat appalling. Still the horses struggled on, though all the light there was abroad came from the glimmer of the snow itself, unless when a gleam shot out into the night from the window of some house. They did keep on their way, but it was doubtful at times if they could. Within the carriage conversation was limited to remarks about the weather and the cold, and did not flourish at that, though the cold did. To keep warm became impossible.
It was a great relief at last to feel pavement under the wheels, which they could do in the broad places where wind had swept the street bare; and gaslights looked very kindly, flaring along the line of way. They could see the storm then! How it raged and drove through the streets, driving everybody to the shelter of a house that had a house to go to; and those who had none were slunk away into other hiding places. The wind and the snow had cleared the deserted streets; an occasional carriage was rarely met.
"Set me down first, please," said Annabella, pressing Wych Hazel"s hand to mark her meaning. "My mother must be in distress?and it is just as near going that way."
Stuart laughed a little, but he did not speak his thoughts which went to the possible anxiety of some other people. With some difficulty he hailed the coachman and gave the order, and presently Miss Powder was deposited at her own door. Stuart gave the next order and jumped in again.