CHAPTER XXIII.
NEVA’S DECISION ABOUT RUFUS.
Could her guardian angel have whispered to Neva that her father did indeed still live, and that at the very moment of her vivid dream he stood upon the veranda of Major Archer’s Indian bungalow, weak, wasted and weary, but with the principle of life strong within him, what agony she might have been spared in the near future! what terrors and perils she might perhaps have escaped!
But she did not know it—she could not guess that life held for her a joy so rare, so pure, so sweet, as that of welcoming back to his home her father so long and bitterly mourned as dead.
As we have said, she remained awake during the remainder of the night, walking her floor in her white gown and slippered feet, now and then wringing her hands, or sobbing softly, or crying silently; and thus the weary hours dragged by.
Before the clear sunlight of the soft September morning, which stole at last into her pleasant rooms, Neva’s dream lost its vividness and semblance of reality, and the conviction settled down upon her soul that it was indeed “only a dream.”
She dressed herself for breakfast in a morning robe of white, with cherry-colored ribbons, but her face was very pale, and there was a look of unrest in her red-brown eyes when she descended slowly and wearily to the breakfast-room at a later hour than usual.
This room faced the morning sun, and was octagon shaped, one half of the octagon projecting from the house wall, and being set with sashes of French plate-glass, like a gigantic bay-window. One of the glazed sections opened like a door upon the eastern marble terrace, with its broad surface, its carved balustrade, and its rows of rare trees and shrubs in portable tubs.
There was no one in the room when Neva entered it. The large table was laid with covers for five persons. The glazed door was ajar, and the windows were all open, giving ingress to the fresh morning air. The room was all brightness and cheerfulness, the soft gray carpet having a border of scarlet and gold, the massive antique chairs being upholstered in scarlet leather, and the sombreness of the dainty buffet of ebony wood being relieved by delicate tracery of gold, drawn by a sparing hand.
Neva crossed the floor and passed out upon the terrace, where a gaudy peacock strutted, spreading his fan in the sunlight, and giving utterance to his harsh notes of self-satisfaction. Neva paced slowly up and down the terrace, shading her face with her hand. A little later she heard some one emerge from the breakfast room upon the terrace, and come behind her with an irregular and unsteady tread.
“Good-morning, Miss Neva,” said Rufus Black, as he gained her side. “A lovely morning, is it not?”
Neva returned his salutation gravely. She knew that Rufus Black had slept under the same roof with herself the preceding night, after the ball, and that a room at Hawkhurst had been specially assigned him by Lady Wynde, now Mrs. Craven Black.
“You ought to have sacrificed your scruples, and come down to the drawing-rooms last night,” said Rufus Black. “I assure you we had a delightful time, but you would have been the star of the ball. I watched the door for your appearance until the people began to go home, and I never danced, although there was no end of pretty girls, but they were not pretty for me,” added Rufus, sighing. “There is for me now only one beautiful girl in the whole world, and you are she, sweet Neva.”
“Did you ever love any one before you loved me?” asked Neva, with a quiet frankness and straightforwardness, looking up at him with her clear eyes full of dusky glow.
“Ye—no!” stammered Rufus, turning suddenly pale, and his honest eyes blenching. “Almost every man has had his boyish fancies, Miss Neva. Whatever mine may have been, my life has been pure, and my heart is all your own. You believe me?”
“Yes, I believe you. Mr. and Mrs. Black have come down to breakfast, Mr. Rufus. Let us go in.”
She led the way back to the breakfast room, Rufus following. They found the bride and bridegroom and Mrs. Artress waiting for them. Neva greeted Lady Wynde by her new name, and bowed quietly to Craven Black and Mrs. Artress. The little party took seats at the table, and the portly butler, with a mute protest in his heart against the new master of Hawkhurst, waited upon them, assisted by skillful subordinates.
Mrs. Craven Black, dressed in white, looked the incarnation of satisfaction. She had so far succeeded in the daring game she had been playing, and her jet-black eyes glittered, and her dark cheeks were flushed to crimson, and her manner was full of feverish gayety, as she did the honors of the Hawkhurst breakfast table to her new husband.
Three years before she had been a poor adventuress, unable to marry the man she loved. Now, through the success of a daring and terrible conspiracy, she was wealthy, the real and nominal mistress of one of the grandest seats in England; the personal guardian of one of the richest heiresses in the kingdom; and the wife of her fellow-conspirator, to obey whose behests, and to marry whom, she had been willing to peril her soul’s salvation.
Only one thing remained to render her triumph perfect, her fortune magnificent, and her success assured. Only one move remained to be played, and her game would be fully played.
That move comprehended the marriage of Neva Wynde to Rufus Black, and Mrs. Craven Black, from the moment of her third marriage, resolved to devote all her energies to the task of bringing about the union upon which she was determined.
The breakfast was eaten by Neva almost in silence. When the meal was over Mr. and Mrs. Craven Black strolled out into the gardens, arm in arm. Mrs. Artress, who had fully emerged from her gray chrysalis, and who was now dressed in pale blue, hideously unbecoming to her ashen-hued complexion, retired to her own room to enjoy her triumph in solitude, and to count the first installment of the yearly allowance that had been promised her, and which had already been paid her, with remarkable promptness, by Lady Wynde.
Neva went to the music-room, and began to play a weird, strange melody, in which her very soul seemed to find utterance. In the midst of her abstraction, the door opened, and Rufus Black came in softly.
He was standing at her side when her wild music ceased abruptly, and she looked up from the ivory keys.
“Your music sounds like a lament, or a dirge,” said Rufus, leaning upon the piano and regarding with admiration the pale, rapt face and glowing eyes.
“I meant it so,” said Neva. “I was thinking of my father.”
“Ah,” said Rufus, rather vacantly.
“I dreamed of papa last night,” said Neva softly, resting her elbow on the crashing keys and laying one rounded cheek upon her pink palm. “I dreamed he was alive, Rufus, and that I saw him standing before the door of an Indian hut, or bungalow, or curious dwelling; and my dream was like a vision.”
“A rather uncomfortable one,” suggested Rufus. “You were greatly excited yesterday, Neva, I could see that; and, as your mind was all stirred up concerning your father, you naturally dreamed of him. It would make a horrid row if your dream could only turn out true, and you ought to rejoice that it cannot. You have mourned for him, and the edge of your grief has worn off—”
“No, no, it has not,” interrupted the girl’s passionate young voice. “If I had seen him die, I could have been reconciled to the will of God. But to lose him in that awful manner—never to know how much he suffered during the moments when he was struggling in the claws of that deadly tiger—oh, it seems at times more than I can bear. And to think how soon he has been forgotten!” and Neva’s voice trembled. “His wife whom he idolized has married another, and his friends and tenantry have danced and made merry at her wedding. Of all who knew and loved him, only his daughter still mourns at his awful fate!”
“It is hard,” assented Rufus, “but it’s the way of the world, you know. If it will comfort you any, Neva, I will tell you that half the county families came to the wedding breakfast to support and cheer you by their presence, and the other half came out of sheer curiosity. But few of the best families remained to the ball.”
“Papa thought much of you, did he not, Rufus?” asked Neva, thinking of that skilfully forged letter which was hidden in her bosom, and which purported to be her father’s last letter to her from India.
Rufus Black had been warned by his father that Neva might some day thus question him, and Craven Black had told his son that he must answer the heiress in the affirmative. Rufus was weak of will, cowardly, and timid, but it was not in him to be deliberately dishonest. He could not lie to the young girl, whose truthful eyes sought his own.
“I had no personal acquaintance with Sir Harold Wynde, Neva,” the young man said, inwardly quaking, yet daring to tell the truth.
“But—but—papa said—I don’t really comprehend, Rufus. I thought that papa loved you.”
“If Sir Harold ever saw me, I do not know it,” said Rufus, cruelly embarrassed, and wondering if his honesty would not prove his ruin. “I was at the University—Sir Harold may have seen me, and taken a liking to me—”
Neva looked strangely perplexed and troubled. Certainly the awkward statement of Rufus did not agree with the supposed last declaration of her father.
“There seems some mystery here which I cannot fathom,” she said. “I have a letter written by papa in India, under the terrible foreboding that he would die there, and in this letter papa speaks of you with affection, and says—and says—”
She paused, her blushes amply completing the sentence.
A cold shiver passed over the form of Rufus. He comprehended the cause of Neva’s blushes, and a portion of his father’s villainy. He understood that the letter of which Neva spoke had been forged by Craven Black, and that it commanded Neva’s marriage with Craven Black’s son. What could he say? What should he do? His innate cowardice prevented him from confessing the truth, and his awe of his father prevented him from betraying him, and he could only tremble and blush and pale alternately.
“Papa might have taken an interest in you, without making himself known to you,” suggested Neva, after a brief pause. “Some act of yours might have made your name known to him, and he might secretly have watched your course without betraying to you his interest in you, might he not?”
“He might,” said Rufus huskily.
“I can explain the matter in no other way. It is singular. Perhaps poor papa might not have well known what he was writing, but the letter is so clearly written that that idea is not tenable. After all, so long as he wrote the letter, what does it matter?” said Neva wearily. “He must have known you, Rufus—or else the letter was forged!”
Rufus averted his face, upon which a cold sweat was starting.
“Who would have forged it?” he asked hoarsely.
“That I do not know. I know no one base enough for such a deed. It could not have been forged, of course, Rufus, but the discrepancy between your statement and that in the letter makes me naturally doubt. Papa was the most truthful of men. He hated a lie, and was so punctilious in regard to the truth that he was always painfully exact in his statements. He trained me to scorn a lie, and was even particular about the slightest error in repeating a story. How then could he speak of knowing you? Perhaps, though, I am mistaken. I may find, on referring to the letter, that he speaks of liking you and taking an interest in you, without alluding to a personal acquaintance.”
“If I had known Sir Harold, I should have tried to deserve his good opinion,” said Rufus, his voice trembling. “I have the greatest reverence for his character, and I wish I might be like him.”
“There are few like papa,” said Neva, a sudden glow transfiguring her face.
“How you loved him, Neva. If I had had such a father!” and Rufus sighed. “I would rather have an honorable, affectionate father whom I could revere and trust than to have a million of money!”
Neva reached out her hand in sympathy, and the young man seized it eagerly, clinging to it.
“Neva,” he exclaimed, with a sudden energy of passion, “it is more than a month since I asked you to be my wife, and you have not yet given me my answer. Will you give it to me now?”
The girl withdrew her hand gently, and rested her cheek again on her hand.
“I know I am not worthy of you,” said Rufus, beseechingly. “I am poor in fortune, weak of character, a piece of drift-wood blown hither and thither by adverse winds, and likely to be tossed on a rocky shore at last, if you do not have pity upon me. Neva, such as I am, I beseech you to save me!”
“I am powerless to save any one,” said Neva gently. “Your help must come from above, Rufus.”
“I want an earthly arm to cling to,” pleaded Rufus, his tones growing shrill with the sudden fear that she would reject him. “I have in me all noble impulses, Neva; I have in me the ability to become such a man as was your father. I would foster all noble enterprises; I would become great for your sake. I would study my art and make a name of which you should be proud. Will you stoop from your high estate, Neva, and have pity upon a weak, cowardly soul that longs to be strong and brave? Will you smile upon my great love for you, and let me devote my life to your happiness and comfort?”
His wild eyes looked into hers with a prayerfulness that went to her soul. He seemed to regard her as his earthly saviour—and such indeed, if she accepted him, she would be, for she would bring him fortune, and, what he valued more, her affection, her pure life, her brave soul, on which his own weak nature might be stayed.
“Poor Rufus!” said Neva, with a tenderness that a sister might have shown him. “My poor boy!” and her small face beamed with sisterly kindness upon the tall, awkward fellow, the words coming strangely from her lips. “I am sorry for you.”
“And you will marry me?” he cried eagerly.
The young face became grave almost to sternness. The lovely eyes gloomed over with a great shadow.
“I want to obey papa’s wishes as if they were commands,” she said. “I have thought and prayed, day after day and night after night. I like you, Rufus, and I cannot hear your appeals unmoved. I believe I am not selfish, if I am true to my higher nature, and obey the instincts God has implanted in my soul. I must be untrue to God, to myself, and to my own instincts, or I must pay no heed to that last letter and to the last wishes of poor papa. Which shall I do? I have decided first one way, and then the other. The possibility that that letter was—was not written by papa—and there is such a possibility—I cannot now help but consider. Forgive me, Rufus, but I have decided, and I think papa, who has looked down from heaven upon my perplexity and my anguish, must approve my course. I feel that I am doing right, when I say,” and here her hand took his, “that—that I cannot marry you.”
“Not marry me! Oh, Neva!”
“It costs me much to say it, Rufus, but I must be true to myself, to my principles of honor. I do not love you as a wife should love her husband. I could not stand up before God’s altar and God’s minister, and perjure myself by saying that I thus loved you. No, Rufus, no; it may not be!”
Rufus bowed his head upon the piano, and sobbed aloud.
His weakness appealed to the girl’s strength. She had seldom seen a man in tears, and her own tears began to flow in sympathy.
“I am so sorry, Rufus!” she whispered.
“But you will not save me? You will not lift a hand to save me from perdition?”
“I will be your sister, Rufus.”
“Until you become some other man’s wife!” cried Rufus, full of jealous anguish. “You will marry some other man—Lord Towyn, perhaps?”
The girl retreated a few steps, a red glory on her features. A strange sweet shyness shone in her eyes.
“I see!” exclaimed Rufus, in a passion of grief and jealousy. “You will marry Lord Towyn? Oh, Neva! Neva!”
“Rufus, it cannot matter to you whom I marry since I cannot marry you. Let us be friends—brother and sister—”
“I will be all to you or nothing!” ejaculated Rufus violently. “I will marry you or die!”
He broke from the grasp she laid upon him, and with a wild cry upon his lips, dashed from the room.
In the hall he encountered Craven Black and his bride, just come in from the garden. He would have brushed past them unseeing, unheeding, but his father, seeing his excitement and agitation, grasped his arm forcibly, arresting his progress.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Craven Black fiercely. “What’s up?”
“I’m going to kill myself!” returned Rufus shrilly, trying to break loose from that strong, unyielding clasp. “It’s all over. Neva has refused me, and turned me adrift. She is going to marry Lord Towyn!”
“Oh, is she?” said Craven Black mockingly. “We’ll see about that.”
“We will see!” said Neva’s step-mother, with a cruel and fierce compression of her lips. “I am Miss Wynde’s guardian. We will see if she dares disobey her father’s often repeated injunctions to obey me! If she does refuse, she shall feel my power!”
“Defer your suicide until you see how the thing turns out, my son,” said Craven Black, with a little sneer. “Go to your room and dry your tears, before the servants laugh at you.”
Rufus Black slunk away, miserable, yet with reviving hope. Perhaps the matter was not ended yet? Perhaps Neva would reconsider her decision?
As he disappeared up the staircase, Mrs. Craven Black laid her hand on her bridegroom’s arm, and whispered:
“The girl will prove restive. We shall have trouble with her. If we mean to force her into this marriage, we must first of all get her away from her friends. Where shall we take her? How shall we deal with her?”