CHAPTER XXVII.
FORGETTING THE WORLD.
The time is late summer on the bleak coast of Cornwall, a year and three months since the day when Charley Bonair walked out of the courtroom in San Francisco, cleared of the charge of insanity brought by his nearest and dearest relatives, and freed by the efforts of the man who had loved Berry so loyally that his friendship became her stay in the time of her sore need.
Grateful to those who had befriended him, embittered by persecution, Charley Bonair and his lovely bride had exiled themselves within a week after his acquittal on the charge of insanity. The young man still had some means left, and gathering everything together, he sailed for foreign shores with Berry, having first instructed a lawyer to attend to the rights of his inheritance from his mother when the property was divided, on his sister’s coming of age.
That was long ago, and many things had transpired in that time.
To begin with, the disinherited son, never used to economy before, had recklessly spent the funds he had in hand, traveling expensively, showing Berry the wonders of the Old World, and answering to her timid remonstrances on his extravagance that he had plenty to last six months, and by then Marie would come of age and he would get his portion of five hundred thousand dollars from his mother.
And, oh, the days, the weeks, the months, how happily they had gone to the young pair of married lovers!
They had done the Continent leisurely at their own sweet will, they had wandered hither and thither with not a care save the silent grief of the young husband over the estrangement from his own people, and as to Berry, she had found out long ago, by a cablegram, that her mother was still living, not dead, as the vile fortune teller had falsely declared.
On getting this news the young husband had promptly sent his mother-in-law a sum of money sufficient to keep her in ease and comfort a year, so that Berry’s heart was at ease, and she gave herself up wholly to her happiness. They adored each other with a true devotion that never grew less. They were all in all to each other:
A book of verses underneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness,
And wilderness were paradise enow!
Whatever the carping world might say of the millionaire senator’s only son’s mésalliance, to him it had been a salvation, turning him from evil courses to a purer, better life, making out of him the noble man nature had intended him to be.
His lovely bride grew more charming every day, to his enraptured eyes, and he bitterly regretted the pride that had prevented his family from seeing and knowing the girl whose flawless beauty and simple goodness must, if permitted the opportunity, have won its way to every heart.
He grew hot and angry when he remembered how bitterly they had railed against his darling, saying to himself that it was not like them to be so harsh and unforgiving, and it was surely Rosalind who had set them onto such cruelty, for she had threatened him with dire vengeance, and this was how she had kept her word. Once he had pitied Rosalind, but now he hated her for her malice that had cost him so dear.
He got another taste of it when the time rolled around for the division of his mother’s fortune, for his lawyer wrote him that Senator Bonair, as sole trustee, refused to surrender his son’s portion, still claiming he was insane and unfit to have the use of the money.
Then it was Bonair’s wrath waved high.
“Berry, darling, will you excuse me if I go out and swear a little outdoors? Oh, yes, I know I promised you never to swear again, but a reformed man must relapse at times, you know, and really this seems to me an occasion for profuse profanity!” he said grimly, to the beautiful creature who smiled tenderly at him and answered:
“But do not stay out long, dearest, or I will not forgive you breaking your promise to me.”
He was not absent very long, and when he returned, he said:
“On second thought I didn’t swear at all; I wrote my lawyer to bring suit against my father at once for the payment of my money.”
“Do not worry over it, dear. We have each other, and are happy as we are,” Berry answered, with a coaxing smile.
“Oh, yes, we are happy as we are, but our money will not last much longer, little one, and you have not been well lately, and we will need a lot of money for that sweet secret you whispered to me yesterday,” the young man answered, with a new, dignified gravity very becoming.
Berry’s lovely color deepened, and the glance of her brown eyes was simply adorable.
“But you know we must not travel about, now,” she murmured. “We must settle down and live quietly until June, you know, as the doctor said, so it will not take so much money to live as when we are always on the wing. We can take a tiny little house or a little suite of rooms, and keep house with one maid, don’t you see; or if we cannot afford the maid, why, I can do the cooking myself, you see. Do you know I can make tea and toast, and broil steak, and serve eggs in most any fashion, sir?” she added smilingly.
“I am very glad to hear it, but we need not come to that. I think we can have the little suite of rooms and the maid of all work. My lawyer will be glad enough to furnish me the means of subsistence while he is prosecuting my suit,” the young husband answered confidently.
The plan was carried out, and by Berry’s wish they made their little home in London, for she was tired, she said, of the foreign lingo she couldn’t understand, and wanted to stay among people who spoke her mother tongue.
So they came from France and Italy, where they had passed the winter months, to London, where, in a comfortable but not luxurious suite of rooms, with a buxom maid of all work, they lived quietly and happily until May. Berenice devoted her time of seclusion in studying the languages under the tutorship of Charley, who was quite proficient in that line.
Thus quietly and happily they waited an event that was to crown their wedded lives with happiness.
Alas! fortune frowned on their springing hopes. Their little baby died, soon after birth, and was laid tenderly away in a wee green grave. But for over six weeks, a battle of physicians went on, with grim death in the foreground, trying to snatch Berry from their fostering care.
Never till now did Charley Bonair realize the depth and strength of his love for his precious wife. Sharing the vigils of the doctors and nurses with ceaseless care, he grew to feel to his heart’s core all that she was to him, and knew that if she died, life would be unendurable to him forever after.
Oh, what joy when the wavering balance of life and death dropped her into her husband’s arms again, with the chances in her favor for recovery!
While she lay so ill, he had learned to pray, this man who had almost forgotten his God, and now he sent up a prayer of thanksgiving for her restoration.
While she was slowly convalescing, the head physician ordered that Mrs. Bonair should be taken, as soon as she was able to be moved, down to the sea, naming an obscure and rude little fishing village on the coast of Cornwall as the preferred situation.
“She will have absolute calm and quiet there, and it is very essential to her shattered nerves and frail condition of health,” he said.
“We shall be buried alive,” Charley said grimly to his wife when he took her there, but she answered, with her usual sunny good nature:
“At least we shall be buried in the same grave, so I am content.”
“And I,” he answered as happily.
Thus we find them, in late August, by the sea, where Berry recovered her health and spirits again, and so in love with the free, wild life of the unconventional village of hardy fisher folk that both were loath to leave. So they lingered on, from day to day, saying “it is so pleasant staying, and so cheap living, we will not go away until we get news from California of the success of the suit for his mother’s fortune.”
Since she grew well and strong again, Berry had taken up her studies with zest, by Charley’s wish, trying to make herself equal in education to any position she might be called on to fill in the future.
For she knew now that, dearly as he loved her, there was a silent ache in his warm heart for those who cast him off in anger, and that he hoped against hope for a reconciliation at some future day when his bride’s true worth and beauty shall be known and acknowledged.