CHAPTER XXVIII.
TURN OF THE TIDE.
The lawsuit had dragged on interminably for six months, and it seemed as if a decision would never be reached, so that Charley was getting very poor, indeed, and very impatient, although, to tell the truth, he was finding that love in a cottage was very charming, after all, as there were funds enough coming from his lawyer still to keep the young pair in bread and cheese and a little more.
In the meantime Charley’s two beautiful sisters had both married in June, and the newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic had duly chronicled the grand double wedding at Bonair, when Marie and Lucile had wedded the rich New Yorkers to whom they had been betrothed before Charley’s mad marriage. They had crossed the Atlantic on their wedding tour and were now in Switzerland. Along with reports of the wedding was an item that made Charley throw down the paper he was reading, with a sigh from the bottom of his heart.
“Hello, Berry, we are in hard luck now, to be sure! Dad will never be reconciled to us now, never! He is going to give me Rosalind for a stepmother!”
Berry was lounging on the sands in an old blue boating suit, her hat lying at her feet and her curly hair blowing about her tanned face and rosy cheeks that suddenly grew pale, as she turned a solemn pair of eyes on his face.
“Oh, no, no, no, he must not!” she exclaimed vehemently.
Charley Bonair gave a curt, angry laugh, replying:
“Easy enough to say, but how are we going to prevent it, pray?”
“Yes, how, indeed?” Berry answered, turning a troubled gaze back to the sea, with the white caps rolling in, the seagulls flitting about with their strange cries. She had no more to say, and Charley picked up the paper again and said:
“The engagement has been authoritatively announced, and my silly old dad has commenced the erection of a palace in Washington where she will reign a queen at the next session of Congress. Isn’t it a burning shame?”
“Yes—she is not worthy of your father, if he is as good and kind as you say he is in spite of his injustice to you,” Berry replied, with palpable chagrin, her brooding brown eyes still upon the sea as it gleamed in the morning sunshine, fairly dazzling her sight.
The young man frowned and sighed, then burst out frankly:
“It’s true all I said of him, Berry, darling. He used to be just the dearest dad in the world, kind, loving, and indulgent to a fault, and so were my pretty sisters, too; and I never dreamed they could turn against me in the way they did, and hold out spiteful all this time. But I see how it is now! It’s that scheming Rosalind setting them on, determined to get the Bonair millions for herself, either through the father or the son. Her mercenary spirit and her thirst for revenge have led her on to this, and poor dad has been like wax in her clever hands, so she has molded him to her will. Berry, I always heard that a handsome woman could make a fool of the smartest old man, and now I see it’s true. It’s flattered vanity, that’s what it is, or an old man might always see that no pretty young woman loves him for himself alone. It’s always for some cash he has in hand! Oh, Berry, why did you make me swear off on profanity? Surely this is an occasion for it!” he groaned.
“Oh, don’t Charley, dear! It would not help things any,” she answered gently.
“At least it would relieve my feelings,” he answered ruefully, adding whimsically:
“Say, Berry, see that old fisherman tacking in to shore, below there? Black Dobbins they call him, and he is the most picturesque swearer you ever heard of on the Cornwall coast. Say, I’ll go down there and give him a crown to swear a blue streak of lightning for me. Don’t you listen, darling, unless you want to have that creepy feeling running down your spine.”
He strolled away, but before he got to Black Dobbins, Berry called after him hastily:
“Oh, Charley, come back! You didn’t notice the letters with your mail; you were so angry over the news. Here’s a letter from your lawyer in California, and another from those dear, good Clines.”
“Read them while I attend to business,” he returned, keeping on, and saying to the fisherman:
“What luck, Dobbins?”
The net was nearly empty, and Dobbins replied with a string of appalling oaths to which Charley listened with perfect complaisance, after which he threw the angry fisherman a silver crown, exclaiming:
“Those are precisely my sentiments, Dobbins. Accept this token of my appreciation!”
While the man gaped in amazement, he laughed again and turned on his heel, going back to his wife.
“I feel better! That fellow comforted me. He swore at his ill luck and I applied all the ‘swear words’ to Rosalind, and paid him a crown,” he said drolly. “Ah, my dear, you look brighter! Any luck?”
“Oh, Charley, Charley!”
“Oh, Berry, Berry!”
“Don’t laugh at me, you dear old silly! I can hardly find words to tell you, but—but”—radiantly—“our luck has turned at last, Charley. You have won!”
She flung herself, tumultuously, into his arms, regardless of Black Dobbins, gazing curiously from a distance, and joyfully fingering the generous crown, and Charley hugged her tight, crying:
“Hurrah! hurrah! Five hundred thousand dollars for you and me, little lovey-dovey, and now you shall be a little queen! I shall deck you out in silks and laces and diamonds, and buy you an automobile, sure; and we shall be as happy as the day is long!”
“We are happy as that now, and we could not be any happier if we had all your father’s millions. All we wish is his good will,” Berry answered seriously; then drawing back from his embrace, she added:
“That old man is staring at us; perhaps thinking we have gone suddenly mad! Sit down and read your letter like a dignified, married man, now.”
He obeyed, and found that all she had said was true.
The suit was won. His father’s lawyers had given up and the case was definitely closed. Senator Bonair indeed had sailed for Europe some time previous, and perhaps his son had seen him somewhere before this. He hoped, fervently, that they might meet and make up their quarrel before the consummation of the senator’s reported engagement to the beautiful belle, Miss Montague. Otherwise it was certain, in the event of the marriage, that Charley would never get a dollar of his father’s money.
“Dear old dad, it is not his money as much as his good will that I covet!” cried the young man, adding:
“Ah, Berry, how glorious it would be to have you in Washington next winter, queening it over my father’s new house instead of hateful Rosalind. You are so lovely, so winning, I predict you would carry society by storm.”
“There’s no danger of my ever having an opportunity to do so, but so long as I can queen it over your heart I do not care,” she answered lightly, though her heart beat high at his words of praise.
She was only a woman, after all, and she longed to show Charley’s proud relations that she was worthy of his love, and that she had made a better man of him by her tenderness; but it could never be. They would never forget she was born in a lowly cot, wreathed in morning glories, instead of a lordly castle. She would not have cared so much only she would like to win their favor for Charley’s sake, because it would make him so happy.
She turned to the letter from the Clines, who were doing well in another place in California, and who related the news of the double marriage and reported engagement, as they had just read in the newspaper, and closed with their dear love and respect to Mr. Charley and his bonnie wife.
And now the young husband began eagerly, with shining eyes:
“It is more than likely father will be in London, now. Oh, Berry, what if we go up there and try for a reconciliation? Perhaps his heart may have melted by now.”
“Dearest, do you remember what the doctor said? I must not go away from the sea till the last of September. But although I cannot go with you, there is nothing to hinder your going alone. I can stay here with the maid till you come back to me. See, I will not be selfish. Although I came between you and your father’s heart, my dearest wish is to see you friends again, even though he should never speak to me. Oh, go, go, my dearest love, and try to make your peace with him!”
“Darling little angel, I will take you at your word, for my heart yearns to my silly old dad, that’s a fact,” he cried eagerly, and before night he was en route for London, leaving Berry at the cottage alone with the buxom maid, who, to dry her mistress’ tears, immediately proceeded to retail all the news of the village.
Had she heard about the grand, rich gentleman up at the inn, in the hollow, who had sickened with smallpox the very day he arrived, and was lying at death’s door up there without a nurse or a doctor, for everybody had fled the pestilence in alarm, and there was no one to care for him but the valet, who cursed the cowards, and was waiting on his master all by himself, doing the best he could, promising loads of money for help, but no one would believe his tale of riches, or that his master was an American lord, standing up close to the very president himself. His name? It was Bonny Hair or Bonny Air, or something very like it.