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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
In "When Shadows Die," Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth masterfully weaves a poignant narrative that continues the emotional journey from her previous work, "Love's Bitterest Cup." This novel is characterized by its rich, sentimental prose and exploration of themes such as love, sacrifice, and redemption, set against the backdrop of a post-Civil War America. Southworth's literary style combines vivid imagery with deeply drawn characters, facilitating a powerful exploration of social norms and the resilience of the human spirit amidst adversity, reflecting the turbulent societal changes of her time. Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth was a prominent 19th-century American author, whose extensive writing often highlighted the lives and struggles of women in a patriarchal society. Her personal experiences, including the challenges of widowhood and the loss of loved ones, undoubtedly informed her particularly empathetic portrayals of female protagonists. These experiences motivated her to delve into themes of emotional resilience and personal agency, making her works both relatable and culturally significant. Readers seeking a compelling continuation of Southworth's exploration of love and its trials will find "When Shadows Die" a profound reflection on the complexities of the human condition. The novel is a must-read for those interested in feminist literature and the historical context of 19th-century America, offering insights that resonate with contemporary audiences.
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When Shadows Die. A Sequel to "Love's Bitterest Cup"
Table of Contents
WHEN SHADOWS DIE
CHAPTER I
MEETING AND PARTING
The Earl of Enderby and his sister, Mrs. Force, acting under the directions of the earl's doctor, now set out for Germany, and in due time reached Baden-Baden. Their apartments, which had been secured by telegram, were ready for them.
They had one night's rest from the journey, and were waiting for their breakfast to be served in their private parlor, when they were surprised by the entrance of Mr. Force and all his party.
The family had been separated scarcely three months, yet to see them meet a spectator might think they had been parted for three years.
They soon paired off.
Mr. Force and his wife sat down together on a corner sofa and began to exchange confidences.
Leonidas and Odalite stood together at the window of the room, looking out upon the busy scene on the street, or rather seeming to do so, for they were really talking earnestly together on the subject of their troubled present and uncertain future.
They had not been separated for one day during their travels; but they were to say good-by to each other very soon.
"It might be for years, and it might be forever."
And so they seized every opportunity for a tête-à-tête.
Wynnette and Elva hovered around their mother, in their delight at seeing her again.
The invalid earl sat for a while alone and forgotten, until little Rosemary Hedge, who was also overlooked in the family reunion, drew a hassock to the side of his easy chair, sat down and laid her little, curly black head on his knee. The action was full of pathos and confiding tenderness. The earl laid his hand on the little head and ran his thin, white fingers through the black curls. But neither spoke, or needed to speak—so well the man and the child understood each other.
"Leonidas, my boy!" called Abel Force from his corner, "I wish you would go and see if we can get rooms for us all here. This should have been seen to sooner."
"You need not stir, young sir," said the earl; and turning to his brother-in-law, he added: "Your apartments are secured, Force. As soon as I received your telegram saying that you would join me here, I sent off a dispatch to secure them for you. I hardly need to remind you that you are all my guests while we are together. But you traveled by the night express. You must have done so to reach this place so early in the day; so you will want to go to your rooms. After you have refreshed yourselves, join me here at breakfast."
Le arose at the earl's request, and pulled at the bell knob with a vigor lent by his impatience at being called from the side of his beloved, and which soon brought a servant to the room.
"Show these ladies and gentlemen to the apartments prepared for them," said the earl.
The man, with many bows, preceded the party from the room and conducted them to a large family suit of rooms on the third floor, overlooking the New Promenade.
The travelers remained some weeks at Baden-Baden. The baths were doing the earl much good. Mr. Force also needed their healing powers. Somewhere on his travels with the young people, not having his wife to look after him, he had contracted rheumatism; he could not exactly tell when or where or how, whether from exposure or rain and mist on the mountains, or from fishing on the lakes, or from sleeping in damp sheets, and drinking the sour wine of the country, or from all these causes put together, he could not say, so gradually and insidiously had the malady crept upon him, taking its chronic and least curable form. He had not mentioned one word of this in any of his letters, nor had he spoken of it on his arrival.
"Indeed," as he afterward explained, "never having had any experience to guide me, I did not recognize the malady at first, but merely took the feeling of heaviness in all my frame for over-fatigue, and even when that heaviness, being increased, became a general aching, I still thought it to be the effect of excessive fatigue. I was slow to learn and slower to confess that I had the special malady of age—rheumatism. However, I thank Heaven it is not acute. It has never laid me up for a day," he added, laughing at his misfortune.
Indeed, his troubles seldom kept him from making up parties for excursions to the various objects of interest in the town and its environs.
Only when the days were both cold and wet, as is sometimes, not often, the case in early autumn there, did Abel Force allow his young folks to go forth alone under the care of their mother and the escort of Leonidas, while he stayed within doors and played chess with the invalid earl.
In this way the brothers-in-law became better acquainted and more attached.
"I wish you were an Englishman, Force," said the earl one day, when he had just checkmated Abel and was resting on his laurels.
"Why?"
"Not because I do not admire and respect your nationality, but simply for one reason."
"What is that?"
"I will tell you. You know, of course, that your wife is my heiress, and if she survive me, will be my successor. Now, if you were an Englishman you might get the reversion of your wife's title."
"I do not want it. I would not ask for it, nor even accept it."
"That is your republican pride. Perhaps you are right. The old earldom has fallen to the distaff at length, and it will be likely to stay there for some generations to come; for Elfrida, who will be a countess in her own right, has only daughters, which is a pity. And yet I don't know—I don't know. If those fellows at Exeter Hall, and elsewhere, get their way, in another century from this there will not be an emperor or a king, to say nothing of a little earl, to be found above ground on the surface of this fourth planet of the solar system commonly called the earth, and their bones will be as great a curiosity as those of the behemoth or the megatherium. Shall we have another game?"
And they played another, and yet another, game, in perfect silence, interrupted only by the monosyllable ejaculations of technicalities connected with their play.
The earl arose the winner; he often—not always—did. And so he was in high spirits to welcome the return of the excursionists to dinner.
Another sad day of separation was drawing near. Le was to leave them on the eleventh of October, giving himself twenty days in which to travel from Baden-Baden, in Germany, to Washington, in the United States.
This was according to his uncle's advice.
"You might stay here until the fifteenth, or even until the seventeenth, and then reach Washington by the thirty-first; but it would, under the most favorable circumstances, be so close a shave as to be perilous to risk. An officer, nay, a man, may risk anything else in the world, Le, but he must not risk his honor. You must report for duty at headquarters punctually on the first of November, at any cost of pain to yourself or to others."
"I know it, uncle—I know it, and I will do my duty. Never doubt me."
"I never do, my boy. And listen, Le. If you are prompt, as you are sure to be, you may be able to obtain orders for the Mediterranean, and then, Le, we shall see you again on this side. We will go to any port where your ship may be."
"Thank you, uncle. I shall try for orders to the Mediterranean. And I think I shall get them. You see, I have been to the west coast of Africa, and I have been to the Pacific Coast, and I really think I may be favored now with orders to the Mediterranean. However, an officer must do his duty and obey, wherever he may be sent—if it were to Behring's Straits!" concluded Le, with a dreary attempt at laughter.
When the day of parting drew very near, and the depressed spirits of the lovers were evident to all who observed them, Mr. Force suddenly proposed that he and his Odalite should accompany Le to the steamer and see him off.
This proposition was received by the two young people with grateful joy, as a short but most welcome reprieve from speedy death, or—what seemed the same thing to them—speedy separation. It gave them two or three more days of precious life, or its equivalent—each other's society.
They cheered up under it and looked more hopefully to the future. And in a few weeks more, they decided, they should be sure to see Le again at some of the ports of the Mediterranean.
When the day of parting came, Mr. Force, Leonidas and Odalite took leave of the earl and the ladies of their party and left Baden-Baden for Ostend.
There were not so many steamship lines or such facilities for rapid transit as in these days.
Our three travelers went by rail to Ostend, thence by steamer to London, where they rested for one night, and thence by rail to Liverpool, which they reached just twelve hours before the sailing of the Africa for New York.
Mr. Force and Odalite took leave of Le on the deck of the steamer, and left it only among the very last that crossed the gang plank to the steam tender a moment before the farewell gun was fired and the Africa steamed out to sea.
A crowd of people stood on the deck of the steamer, waving last farewells to another crowd on the deck of the tender, who waved back in response, and gazed until all distinct forms faded away in the distance.
Among those on the tender who stood and gazed and waved the longest were Mr. Force and Odalite, who saw, or thought they saw, Le's figure long after everybody else had given up the attempt to distinguish their own departing friends in a mingled and fading view.
CHAPTER II
STARTLING NEWS
When the tender reached the dock Mr. Force touched his daughter's arm, and whispered:
"We can get a train back to London, and catch the night steamer to Ostend, and be with your mother by to-morrow evening. Shall we do so, or shall we go down to Chester and take a little tour through the Welsh mountains?"
"Oh, no; papa, dear. We will go home to mamma, if you please," said Odalite, who, amid all her grief, noticed the pale and worn look on the patient face that told of his silent suffering.
"Very well, my dear. I only thought it would divert you," he replied.
They drove from the docks to the Adelphi, where Mr. Force paid their hotel bill, took up the little luggage, and, with his daughter, drove on to the railway station, and caught the express train to London, a tidal train that connected with the Ostend night boat.
They reached Ostend the next day, and before night arrived at Baden-Baden, where they were received with gladness by their family, who did all that was possible to cheer the spirits of Odalite and raise her hopes for the future.
They all remained in Germany until the first of November, and then set out to spend the winter on the banks of the Mediterranean.
Their first halting place was Genoa, where they waited letters from Le.
The letters arrived at length, bringing good news. Le was assigned to the man-of-war Eagle, bound for the Mediterranean! Bound direct for Genoa!
Then, in perfect content, they settled down for the winter.
The earl's health was certainly improving in the mild air of sunny Italy, and his spirits were rallying in the society of his relatives, so he also decided to remain in Genoa.
Before the end of November the Eagle was in port, and Midshipman Force hastened to see his friends at their house on the Strada Balbi.
He had been absent only seven weeks, yet they received him with as much joy as though they had not seen him for seven years.
As long as his ship lay at anchor in the harbor his friends remained in the Strada Balbi. And whenever he could get a day or a half day off he came to them.
When the Eagle sailed for Nice the family left Genoa for the same city, and took up their quarters at the Hotel de la Paix, and the same pleasant intercourse was resumed.
And so the winter passed. And Mr. Force was beginning to contemplate the possibility of having his daughter freed from a merely nominal and most unfortunate marriage. To do this it would be necessary, according to his ideas of honor, that they should return to the state and the parish where the marriage ceremony had been nearly performed, but was finally interrupted.
But there was no hurry, he thought. Le was on the Mediterranean, and his duty would keep him there for two or three years longer.
There was another source of occasional uneasiness—the political condition of the United States. Ever since the presidential election, in November, dissatisfaction had spread in certain sections of the country, and trouble seemed to be brewing.
All this, coming through the newspapers to the knowledge of the absentees, gave them disturbance, but really not much, so thoroughly confident were they all in the safety of the Union, and the grand destiny of the republic.
The clouds on the political horizon would vanish, and all would be well. No harm could come to the country, which was the Lord's City of Refuge for the oppressed of all the world.
They had heard not a word from or of Angus Anglesea since the Washington detective had traced him to Canada, and there lost him.
Le privately and most earnestly hoped that the villain had got himself sent to some State prison for life, or, well, hanged—which the midshipman thought would have been even better. At least, however, the family he had wronged so deeply seemed now to be well rid of him. But Le expressed a strong wish that his uncle would return to Maryland in the spring and have Odalite entirely freed by the law from the bond, or rather, the shadow of the bond, that lay so heavily on her life, and on his.
"No doubt I could easily have Odalite set free from her nominal marriage with a villain, who was forced to leave her at the altar before the benediction had been given. But to do this, Le, I should have to take her home to Maryland, where you could not follow her for two or three years. So, what good could come of hurry? Besides, we are no longer molested by the villain Anglesea. Be thankful for that blessing, Le, and for the rest be patient."
"'Patient!'" exclaimed the youth. "You have so often told me to be patient, and I have so long been patient, that I am unutterably impatient of the very word 'patient'!"
"I beg your pardon, Le. I will not persecute you with the word any longer," gravely replied the elder man.
"Uncle, I beg your pardon! I do, indeed. I feel myself to be an ungrateful and most unreasonable wretch! Here you have made my burden as light as you can by showing me all sorts of favors and giving me all sorts of privileges, moving about from place to place to give me opportunity of being with you all, and here am I like a beast losing my temper with you. Uncle! I don't deserve that you should pardon me!"
"Say no more, Le! Dear boy, I can understand your trials; but look on the brighter side, my lad. The best of the business now is that Anglesea does not trouble us. He seems to have died out of our lives."
"Yes, but has he, uncle? He did that once before for three years, and even advertised himself as dead and buried. But he suddenly came to life again, and sprang into our midst like a very demon, to do us all the harm that he possibly could. How do we know when he will reappear to disturb us? Uncle! I do not mean to threaten, because I do not wish to sin; but I foresee that, if Anglesea ever comes in my way again, the sight of the man will goad me to crime."
"Oh, no, Le! No, my dear boy! Do not talk so! If ever you should be tempted, pray to the Lord. And think of Odalite. To bring yourself to evil would break her heart, Le!"
"I will pray that I may never set eyes on that man again, uncle!"
Soon after this conversation, near the last of February, the family went to Rome to witness the grand grotesque pageantry of the carnival. Le could not leave his ship to go with them, and so they only remained during the week of orgies, and as soon as it was over returned to Naples, where the Eagle was then at anchor. Here they settled themselves in furnished lodgings, on the Strada di Toledo, for the spring months.
It was early in May.
They were all—with the exception of Le, who was on duty on his ship—assembled in a handsome front room overlooking the Strada.
The earl, whose health was so much improved that his friends hoped for its full restoration, sat in his easy chair beside a little stand, playing a game of chess with Wynnette, who had developed into a champion chess player, and was much harder to beat than ever her father had been.
Mr. Force, who, suffering from a return of his malady, lay on a sofa, pale and patient, but in too much pain to read or to talk. Odalite sat near him, silently working on the silk flower embroidery she had learned to like from her mother's example.
Elva and Rosemary, at a round table, were turning over a set of "views" left by Le on his previous visit.
Mrs. Force was opening a newspaper received that morning, and smoothing it out, preparatory to reading it aloud to her family.
Suddenly she dropped the paper, covered her face with her hands, and fell back in her chair, wailing forth the words:
"Oh, my Lord! my Lord! This is the very hardest thing to bear of all that went before!"
CHAPTER III
THE NEWS
The first gun of our Civil War was fired, and its report was heard throughout the civilized world!
"Oh, Abel! Oh, Abel!" moaned Mrs. Force, still pale with emotion.
"What is it, my dear? Calm yourself! All that you hold nearest and dearest are in this room with you. What trouble can come upon you?" inquired her husband, rising from his couch of pain and limping toward her.
She lifted the newspaper from the floor and handed it to him.
Lord Enderby looked from one to the other in perplexity. He did not like to ask a question—he waited to hear.
Odalite, Wynnette and Elva also waited in anxious suspense for their father to explain.
Not so Rosemary. Her agony of anxiety burst forth at length in a cry:
"Oh, Mr. Force! is my mother dead, or what?"
"No one is dead, my child. And no special evil has come to you," said Abel Force. Then speaking to his expectant friends, he said: "There is a civil war at home."
His explanation was like a bombshell dropped in their midst. All shrank away aghast and in silence.
Before any one recovered speech the door was thrown open, and Le burst in the room in great excitement.
"You have heard the news!" he cried; and that was his only greeting.
"Yes, we have heard the news," gravely replied Mr. Force.
"I have come to bid you good-by. The mail that brought the news brought dispatches from the navy department ordering our ship home. We sail with the next tide; that will be in an hour. Good-by! good-by!" he said, beside himself with mingled emotions, as he hurried from one to another, taking each in his arms for a last embrace.
"But, Le—this is awfully sudden!" exclaimed Mr. Force, as he wrung the young midshipman's hand.
"Yes! yes! awfully sudden! Odalite! Oh, Odalite!" he cried, turning to his eldest cousin and once betrothed last of all, as if he had reserved his very last embrace and kiss for his best beloved—"oh, my Odalite! May God love, and bless, and guard you. Good-by! Good-by! my dearest dear!"
And Le pressed her to his heart, and turned and dashed out of the room.
"But, Le! But, Le! Wait! Can we not go to the ship and see you off?" cried Wynnette, hurrying after him, and overtaking him at the street door.
"No! no! Impossible, my dear! A boat is waiting to take me to the ship! I have barely time to reach her deck before she sails! There would be no time for last adieus there! God bless you! Take care of Odalite!"
The street door banged behind Le, and he was gone.
Wynnette had flown downstairs, but she crawled up again, dragging weary steps, "woe befreighted," behind her.
She entered the room, and sat down in silent sympathy beside Odalite, who lay back in her chair, too stunned by the shock of all that had happened to weep or to moan, or even to realize the situation.
Mrs. Force went and sat on the other side of her stricken daughter, took her hand, and said:
"My dear, nothing but prayer can help you now. You must pray, Odalite."
The girl pressed her mother's hand, but made no reply.
Mr. Force and Lord Enderby were in close conversation on the political conflict out of which the war had arisen.
Elva and Rosemary were standing together in the oriel window overlooking the street, too much startled by the suddenness of events to feel like talking.
"Let us hope that this trouble will soon be over," said the earl.
"What! be put down like one of your corn riots, by the simple reading of the 'act'?" inquired Abel Force, grimly. "No, Enderby! I know my countrymen, North and South. And the civilized world will see a war that has never been paralleled in the history of nations."
And his words proved prophetic.
After this day every mail from America was looked for in the keenest anxiety; and every mail brought the most startling and exciting news. Every schoolboy and schoolgirl is now familiar with the leading events of the war, and they need not be rehearsed here.
Among news of more general interest came some of a private nature to the Forces.
Among the rest, letters from Mrs. Anglesea, who wrote:
"You had better pack right up and come right home. 'The devil is to pay, and no pitch hot!' The people have riz up ag'in' one another like mad. Ned Grandiere has gone into the Confederate Army. Sam sticks at home. He says war is bad for the crops, and somebody must plow and sow.
"William Elk has gone into the Union Army.
"Thanks be to goodness, Old Beever and Old Barnes and Old Copp are all past sixty, and too old to fight, or they'd turn fools with the rest; but, as it is, they're 'bliged to stay home and 'tend to their business, and take care of Mondreer and Greenbushes.
"But they do say, hereabouts, as old Capt. Grandiere—and he over seventy years old—has turned pirate, or privateer, or something of the sort, and is making war on all Uncle Sam's ships; but I can't believe it for one. And young Roland Bayard is with him—first mate—and is as deep in the mud as the captain is in the mire, and is tarred with the same brush—which I mean to say as they are both a pirating on the high seas, or a privateering, or whatever their deviltry is, together. So they say hereabouts.
"Anyway, the ship is overdue for months, and neither ship, officers nor crew has been heard of with any sort of certain sureness.
"And what I said in the beginning, old 'oman, I say in the end—as you and the ole man had better pack right up and come right home.
"But still, if it would ill convenience you at the present time to do so, you needn't come, nor likewise fret about your home. To be sure, the devil is let loose all over the country, but he hasn't entered into Mondreer or Greenbushes yet. Me and the three old men, Copp, and Beever, and Barnes, and the old niggers, take the very best of care of everything. You bet your pile on that. So do just as you think proper."
This letter filled the Forces with dismay, as it told them that their old friends and neighbors had risen, so to speak, in arms against each other.
But the most disturbing part of the news was that which referred to old Capt. Grandiere and his mate, young Roland Bayard.
Mr. Force, from his boyhood up to middle age, and Mrs. Force, from her first arrival in Maryland to the present time, had known the old mariner intimately and respected him highly. They knew him, even in his seventieth year, to be strong, vigorous, fiery and energetic. But with all their knowledge of him they could not know, in his absence, how he would regard the Civil War, or which side he would take, if any, in the struggle.
They had known young Roland Bayard from his infancy, and known him to be pure, true, brave and heroic as his namesake, but they could not judge, without him, which side he would take in the conflict. Nor could they reconcile it with their knowledge of these men that they should run up the black flag, and wage a war after a manner little better, if any better, than piracy.
But of one course they were clear; namely, that they must keep this baleful report as to Capt. Grandiere and Mate Bayard from the hearing of little Rosemary Hedge. The child must not be made miserable by a mere rumor which might have no foundation in fact.
Mrs. Force was even more affected than her husband by the doubt that hung over the fate of the Kitty.
She answered her housekeeper's letter, disclaiming all belief in the story that Capt. Grandiere and Mate Bayard had turned the Kitty and her crew into pirates.
And for the rest, told her that they—the Force family—should not return home for some months to come, even if then.
Later on there came a letter from Miss Susanna Grandiere respecting her niece.
Miss Grandiere wrote in rather a stilted style, after the manner of her old-fashioned romances. She wrote:
"All through the beautiful summer, all through the glorious autumn, all through the desolate winter of the past twelve months we have been anticipating the exquisite happiness of beholding you again in the blooming spring, when nature rises from the grave, and arrays herself in fresh and radiant apparel.
"But, alas! evil days have fallen upon us. War stalks abroad over our beloved country, spreading ruin, misery and desolation. Brother rises up against brother, and father against son. Friends and neighbors whose hearts and minds were once united in the closest and holiest bonds of friendship and affection, are now severed and estranged in mutual hatred and malignity.
"In this spread of affliction and calamity a rumor reaches us to the effect that the condition of your husband's constitution will detain you in foreign countries for a considerable time to come.
"If this report be truthful, and you should contemplate a further sojourn in the Eastern hemisphere, I must implore you still to retain my beloved niece under your protection until you can procure some responsible escort to convey her across the ocean to the home of her childhood.
"I should not venture to take the liberty of preferring this request did I not accord the most perfect credence to your protestations of attachment to our beloved child, and of enjoyment in her society, and of the invaluable benefit she herself derives from foreign travel."
This, and much more to the same purpose and in the same style, wrote Miss Grandiere.
Mrs. Force showed this letter to Rosemary, and then had a talk with her, and found that the child was quite willing to do whatever her friends should think best.
Then Mrs. Force answered the letter, condoling with Miss Grandiere on the state of the country, but also expressing the pleasure she and all her family would feel in keeping little Rosemary with them as long as the child might be permitted to stay.
Still later on letters were received from Le. His ship was at Charleston, forming one of the blockading fleet.
Late in the summer of that year the Forces went again to the hot baths of Baden-Baden for the benefit of the husband and father's health, which was giving the whole family much concern.
CHAPTER IV
ROSEMARY IS STARTLED
Strange to say, that while Abel Force seemed in danger of becoming a confirmed invalid, the condition of his delicate brother-in-law improved every day.
He no longer required the arm of his valet to lean on, or even the help of a cane to walk with.
One day his sister said to him:
"Francis, I do believe that you have been more of a hypochondriac than of a real invalid, after all."
"Elf," he answered, "I am inclined to suspect that you are right. Certainly most of my ailments, real or imaginary, have vanished under the influence of change, motion and society."
As the earl continued to improve in health and strength, his sister watched him with a new interest.
On another day she said to him:
"Francis, why don't you marry?"
Lord Enderby started, and then he laughed.
"What has put that into your head?" he inquired.
"My anxious interest in your future—now that you have a future, brother."
"Would you, who are my heir presumptive, wish me to marry?"
"Indeed, I would! You would be so much better and happier! Think of it, Francis!"
"My dearest, I am both too old and too young to fall in love!" laughed the earl.
"What rubbish! 'Too old and too young!' What do you mean by such absurdity?"
"I have passed my first youth of sentiment, and I have not yet reached my second childhood of senility! Therefore, I am both too old and too young to fall in love."
"Nonsense! That is not true; and, even if it were, you are neither too young nor too old to marry. It is not necessary that you should 'fall in love.' You might meet some lady, however, whom you could love, and esteem, and marry."
"Where should I be likely to find such a lady? My dear, I have never gone into society at all. Since my return from India I have led a secluded life, on account of my health."
"On account of your hypochondria, you mean! Now, Francis, you must change all that. In the beginning of the next London season you must open your house on Westbourne Terrace, and entertain company."
"Will you do the honors, Elfrida?"
"Of course I will," replied the lady.
"And you can bring out your two daughters, and present them at court."
"Yes, I might do that."
"Very well."
Had the earl felt disposed to look about him for a wife, he might have found a suitable one in Baden-Baden.
There were many of the English nobility and gentry staying there for the benefit of the baths. Many very attractive young ladies of rank were in the matrimonial market. But, to tell the truth, the invalid earl, either from real ill health or from hypochondria, was very shy of strangers, and better liked to stroll, or ride, or drive with "the children," as he called his nieces and their young friend, than to linger in the parlors of the hotel or the pavilions of the place.
In their rambles Odalite seldom joined them. She preferred to stay with her suffering father, and share the labors of her mother in the sick room. The earl and the three younger girls usually set out together.
Wynnette and Elva walking on before; the earl, with little Rosemary's hand clasped in his own, followed behind.
Ever since that day, now more than a year ago, when the reunited members of the Force family met at Baden-Baden, and paired off—Mr. and Mrs. Force on one sofa, Odalite and Le on another, and Wynnette and Elva on the window seat, leaving the earl, as it were, "out in the cold," and quite forgotten, and little Rosemary, also temporarily forgotten, had drawn a hassock to the side of his easy chair and sat down and laid her little curly black head on his knee, in silent sympathy—ever since that day the earl and the child had been fast friends. In her tender little heart she pitied him for his weakness and illness, just as she might have pitied any poor man in any rank of life, and she had fallen into a habit of silent sympathy with him, and of drawing her hassock to the side of his chair, when they were all indoors, and of taking his hand when they were out walking. Even now, when the invalid had recovered health, strength and spirits, these habits of the child, once formed, were not easily to be broken. She no longer pitied him, because she saw that he was no longer an object of pity; but she drew her hassock to his side indoors, and took his hand and walked with him outside. She seemed to think that he belonged to her, or she to him, or they to each other.
One day they were sauntering slowly through the grounds of the Conversation-Haus. Wynnette and Elva were flitting on before them.
Rosemary's hand was—not on the earl's arm—but in his hand. He was so very much taller than the girl that he led her like a child.
There had been a pause in their talk, when the earl gently closed his fingers over hers, and said:
"My little one, I love you very much."
"Oh, I hope you do, and it is so kind of you!" warmly answered the child, returning the pressure of his hand and acting toward him as she would have acted toward her uncle.
"Then, you do care for me a little?" he said.
"Oh, yes, indeed, I care for you a great deal. I am very fond of you," said Rosemary, warmly, squeezing his fingers.
"How old are you, Rosemary?" he gravely inquired.
"I shall soon be seventeen."
"Indeed!" he exclaimed, turning and looking down on her.
"Yes, indeed!" she answered, positively.
"Well, you are such a quaint, little old lady, that I am not surprised, after all. You might have been fifteen, or you might have been twenty. But seventeen! That is a sweet age—the age at which the Princess Royal of England was married!"
"Indeed!" exclaimed Rosemary, in her turn.
"Yes, indeed!" he replied, with a smile.
And then there was silence between the two for a few minutes.
The earl was meditating. The child was uneasy, and wondering why she was so.
"Little friend," he said, at last, "you and I seem very good friends."
"Oh, we are! And it is so very good of you to be friends with me!" she answered, warmly, squeezing his fingers in her small hand.
"And we are really fond of each other."
"Oh, very, very fond of one another, and it is so kind of you!"
"But why should you say it is kind of me, little sweet herb?"
"Oh, why, because you are so old and so grand; and I am so little every way!" she said, with another squeeze of his fingers.
The earl winced; but whether at her words or her action, who could say?
"Am I so old, so very old, then, Rosemary?" he gravely inquired.
"Oh, no, no; I did not mean that! Of course, I didn't mean that you are as old as Mr. Force, who is forty-five; but I meant—I meant—I meant—you are so very much grown up, to be so kind as to walk and talk with a girl like me as much as you do."
"Well, my dear, do you not like to have me walk and talk with you?"
"Oh, yes! indeed, indeed I do! Oh, you know I do!" she answered, fervently.
Again the earl was silent for a few moments, and then, drawing her small hand into the bend of his arm, he asked:
"Rosemary, would you like that you and I should walk and talk together every day for the rest of our lives?"
She turned and looked up into his face, as if she wished to read his meaning.
He smiled into her upraised eyes.
"Are you in earnest?" she inquired.
"Perfectly, Rosemary. Do you think I would jest with you on such a subject?"
"No! but I thought you knew me so well that you would know without asking that I would love dearly to walk and talk with you every day all our lives long, if we could! But how could we? Some of these days I shall go back to Maryland, and then we shall part and never meet again! Oh! I hate to think that we shall never meet again. You do seem so near to me! So very near to me! As if you were my own, my very own! Oh, sir! I beg your pardon! that was very presumptuous! I ought to have said—I ought to have said——" She stopped and reddened.
"What, my child? You have said nothing wrong or untrue. What do you think you ought to have said?" the earl inquired, in a caressing tone.
"I think I should have said, that I feel so near to you—that I feel as if I were your own, your very own! It was too, too arrogant in me to say that I feel as you belonged to me. I should have said, as if I belonged to you," she explained. And then she laughed a little, as in ridicule of her own little ridiculous self.
His hand tightened on hers as he replied:
"Suppose we compromise the question and say that we belong to each other?"
"Yes, that is it! And you are so good."
"And you really wish that we two should walk and talk together every day for the rest of our lives?"
"Oh, yes; if it could be so!"
"Rosemary," he said, very gravely, as he still held and pressed her hand, "there is but one way in which it could be so."
He paused, and she looked up.
How long he paused before he could venture to startle the child by his next words:
"By marriage. Rosemary, dear, will you marry me?"
She turned pale, but did not withdraw her astonished eyes from his face.
"What do you say, little friend?" inquired the suitor.
"Oh, oh, oh!" was what she said.
"Does that mean yes or no, Rosemary?"
She did not answer.
"You do not like me well enough to marry me, then, Rosemary?"
"Oh, yes, I do! Indeed, indeed I do; I would marry you in a minute, but—but—but——"
"But—what?"
"I am engaged!"
CHAPTER V
THE EARL IS STARTLED
He held her off to get a better view of her face. Then he stared at her.
"You! Engaged?" he cried.
She nodded two or three times in reply.
"Such a mite as you! Why, how long have you been engaged, pray?"
"I—don't quite know. Ever since I can remember."
"Oh! a family arrangement between your parents and your betrothed husband's, I suppose?"
"Oh, no; not at all! Only between him and me."
"At that early age! Do babies betroth themselves in America?"
"I don't quite know; but we did! And we were not both babies. He was a schoolboy, but I think I was a baby at first."
"At first, very likely! Well, when are you to be married?"
"I don't quite know. But not until Roland gets his rights and comes into his estates."
"Ah! there is litigation? But who is this happy man Roland?"
"He is a mate on a merchantman at present. But when he gets his rights, I am sure he will be a nobleman of high rank, and maybe a prince of royal race."
