"Yes, dear, but then you were only a sister on probation."
"And you wanted me to marry him?"
The other smiled and nodded, and in the next moment Sylvia"s arms were about her neck, and Sylvia"s lips were on her cheek.
I was very much affected, and there is no knowing how my feelings and grat.i.tude might have been evinced, had not the clumping of a trunk upon the stairs and the voices of sisters at the door called me to order.
XLIX.
MY OWN WAY.
When I went home to my grandmother, she was greatly surprised to see me, and I lost no time in explaining my unexpected appearance.
"Really, really," she exclaimed, "I was just writing you a letter, which I intended to send after you, so that you would get it when you arrived in London; and in it I was going to tell you all about the breaking up of the House of Martha, of which I first heard half an hour after you left me. I was glad you had not known of it before you started, for I thought it would be so much better for all the changes to be made while you were away, and for Sylvia to be in her mother"s house, where she could get rid of her nunnish habits, and have some proper clothes made up. Of course I knew you would come back soon, but I thought your own mind would be in much better order for a little absence."
"My dear grandmother," I cried, "in mind and body I am in perfect order, and it is presence, not absence, which made me so."
"Somehow or other," said she, smiling, "the fates seem to help you to have your own way, and I am sure I am delighted that you will stay at home. And what has become of Mr. Walkirk?"
"Upon my word!" I exclaimed--"I do not know."
Towards evening Walkirk returned, looking tired and out of spirits. I truly regretted the carelessness and neglect with which I had treated him, and explained and apologized to the best of my ability. He was a good-natured fellow, and behaved magnanimously.
"Things have turned out wonderfully well," he said, as he took a seat, "but I shall be more delighted with the state of affairs when I am a little less fatigued. Minor annoyances ought not to be considered, but I a.s.sure you I have had a pretty rough time of it. As the hour for sailing drew near, and you did not make your appearance, I became more and more nervous and anxious. I would not allow our baggage to be put on board, for I knew a conference with a lady was likely to be of indefinite duration, and when at last the steamer sailed, I went immediately to Miss Laniston"s house to inform you of the fact, and to find out what you proposed to do; but Miss Laniston was not at home, and the servant told me that a gentleman--undoubtedly you--had left the house nearly an hour before, and his great haste made her think that he was trying to catch a steamer.
""People would not hurry like that," she said, "to catch a train, for there"s always another one in an hour or two."
"Then I began to fear that in your haste you had gone on board the wrong steamer--two others sailed to-day, a little later than ours, and I went to their piers and made all sorts of inquiries, but I could find out nothing. Then I went to your club, to your lawyer"s office, and several other places where I supposed you might go, but no one had seen or heard of you. Then a fear began to creep over me that you had had some greatly depressing news from Miss Laniston, and that you had made away with yourself."
"Walkirk!" I exclaimed, "how dared you think that?"
"Men in the nervous condition I was," he answered, "think all sorts of things, and that is one of the things I thought. Finally I went to Miss Laniston"s house again, and this time I found her, and learned what had happened. Then I went to the pier, ordered the trunk sent back here, for I knew there was no question now of the trip to Europe, and here I am."
It was easy to see that whatever pleasure the turn in my affairs may have given Walkirk, he was disappointed at losing his trip to Europe; but I thought it well not to reopen his wounds by any allusion to this fact, and contented myself by saying the most earnest and cordial things about what he had done and suffered for me that day, and inwardly determining that I would make full amends to him for his lost journey.
In about ten days I received a message by cable from Liverpool, which was sent by my stenographer, informing me that he had gone aboard the steamer, as per agreement, and being busy writing letters to send back by the pilot, had not discovered that Walkirk and I were not on board until it was too late. The message was a long one, and its cost, as well as that of the one by which I informed the stenographer that he might come home, and the price of the man"s pa.s.sage to Liverpool and back, besides the sum I was obliged to pay him for his lost time, might all have been saved to me, had the fellow been thoughtful enough to make himself sure that we were on board before he allowed himself to be carried off. But little rubs of this kind were of slight moment to me at that time.
On the day after things had been taken for granted between Sylvia and myself, I saw her at her mother"s house, and I must admit that although it had given me such exquisite pleasure to feel that she was mine in the coa.r.s.e gray gown of a "sister," it delighted me more to feel she was mine in the ordinary costume of society. She was as gay as a b.u.t.terfly ought to be which had just cast off its gray wrappings and spread its wings to the coloring light.
I found Mrs. Raynor in a somewhat perturbed state of mind.
"I cannot accommodate myself," she said, "to these sudden and violent mutations. I like to sit on the sands and stay there as long as I please, and to feel that I know how high each breaker will be, and how far the tide will come in, but these tidal waves which make beach of sea and sea of beach sweep me away utterly; I cannot comprehend where I am.
A week ago I considered you as an enemy with active designs on the peace of my daughter. I was about to write you a letter to demand that you should cease from troubling her. But I heard you were going to Europe, and then I felt that henceforth our paths would be smoother, for I believed that absence would cure you of your absurd and objectless infatuation; but suddenly, down goes the House of Martha, and up comes the enemy, transformed into a suitor, who is loved by Sylvia, and against whom I can have no possible objection. Now can not you see for yourself how this sort of thing must affect a mind accustomed to a certain uniformity of emotion?"
"Madam," said I, "it will be the object of my life to make you so happy in our happiness that you shall remember this recent tumult of events as something more gratifying to look back upon than your most cherished memories of tranquil delight."
"You seem to have a high opinion of your abilities," she said, smiling, "and of the value of what you offer me. I am perfectly willing that you try what you can do; nevertheless I wish you had gone to Europe.
Everything would have turned out just the same, and the affair would have been more seemly."
"Oh, we can easily make that all right," said I. "Sylvia and I will go to Europe on our bridal trip."
As I finished these words Sylvia came into the room, accompanied by Miss Laniston.
"Here is a gentleman," said my dear girl to her companion, "who has declared his desire to thank you for something you have done for him, and he has spoken so strongly about the way in which he intended to pour out his grat.i.tude, that I want to see how he does it."
"Mr. Vanderley," said Miss Laniston, "I forbid you to utter one word of that outpouring, which you would have poured out yesterday morning, had it not been so urgently necessary to catch a train. When I am ready for the effusion referred to, I will fix a time for it and let you know the day before, and I will take care that no one shall be present at it but ourselves."
"Any way," said Sylvia, "he will tell me all about it."
"If he does," said Miss Laniston, "you will re-enter a convent."
L.
MY BOOK OF TRAVEL.
When the House of Martha had been formally abolished, the members of the sisterhood made various dispositions of themselves. Some determined to enter inst.i.tutions of a similar character, while others who had homes planned to retire to them, with the intention of endeavoring to do what good they could without separating themselves from the world in which they were to do it. Sister Sarah was greatly incensed at the dissolution of the House, and much more so because, had it continued, she expected to be at the head of it. She declared her intention of throwing herself into the arms of the Mother Church, where a sisterhood meant something, and where such nonsense and treachery as this would be impossible.
I did not enjoy the autumn of that year to the extent that I should have enjoyed it had I been able to arrange matters according to my own ideas of what was appropriate to the case.
Sylvia lived in the city, and I lived in the country, and although I went to her whenever I could, and she and her mother dined several times with my grandmother, there were often long stretches, sometimes extending over the greater part of the day, when I did not see her at all.
Thus it was that I had sometimes to think of other things, and one morning I said to my under-study, "Walkirk, there is something I regret very much, and that is the non-completion of my book. I shall never finish it, I am sure, because every thing that has ever happened to me is going to be made uninteresting and tedious by what is to happen.
Travel and life itself will be quite another thing to me, and I am sure that I will be satisfied with enjoying it, and shall not want to write about it. And so, good-by to the book."
"In regard to your book," said Walkirk, "I feel it my duty to say to you that there is no occasion for you to bid good-by to it."
"You are wrong there!" I exclaimed. "I shall never write it. I do not want to write it."
"Nevertheless," said Walkirk, "the book will be written. I shall write it. In fact I have written a great part of it already."
"What in the name of common sense do you mean?" I cried, staring at him in astonishment.
"What I am going to say to you," replied Walkirk, "may displease you, but I earnestly hope that you may eventually agree with me, that what I have done is for the general good. You may remember that when you first talked to me of your travels, you also handed me some of the ma.n.u.script you had prepared for the opening chapters of your book and gave me an outline of the projected plan of the work. Now as I have often told you, I considered the material for a book of travels contained in your experiences, as recited to me, as extremely fresh, novel and entertaining, and would be bound to make what publishers call a "hit" if properly presented, but at the same time I am compelled to say that I soon became convinced that there was no probability that you would properly present your admirable subject matter to the reading world."
"Upon my word," said I, "this is cool."
"It is hard to speak to you in this way," he answered, "and the only way in which I can do it is to be perfectly straightforward and honest about it. I am at heart a literary man, and have, so far as I have the power, cultivated the art of putting things effectively; and I a.s.sure you, sir, that it gave me actual pain when I found how you were going to present some of the incidents of your journey, such as, for instance, your diving experiences in the maelstrom, or at least in the place where it was supposed to be, and where, judging from your discoveries, it may under certain conditions and to a certain extent really exist.
"There were a good many other points which I believe could be made of startling interest and value, not only to ordinary readers, but to scientific people, if they were properly brought out. I saw no reason that you would so bring them out, and I felt not only that I could do it, but that it would delight me to do it.
"My feeling on the subject was so strong that, as you may remember, I declined to act as your secretary. I am perhaps over-sensitive, but I could not have written your book as you would have dictated it to me, and as you did indeed dictate it to your various secretaries."