Chapter V.
“In short,” says Voltaire, winding up his story, “Madame Brothertoft is going to marry off Miss Lucy to Major Kerr, day after to-morrow evening.”
“To marry off! Then it is nilly the lady!” Skerrett said.
“Nilly, sir! Yes, the nilliest kind!”
There, Sir Peter, is a tough nut for your Indignation to bite on!
Peter was an undeveloped True Lover. The “vital spark of heavenly flame” was in him; but it lay latent under his uniform, as fire lurks in a quartz pebble, until the destined little boy strikes another quartz pebble against it. Now there is a little boy of Destiny whose trade it is to go about knocking hearts together and striking Love, — that pretty pink flash, that rosy flash, which makes cheeks blush sweeter and eyes gleam brighter than they knew how to blush and gleam before, — that potent flash which takes hold of proper hearts and carbonizes them into diamonds of gleam unquenchable, with myriad facets and a smile on every one, — that keen flash which commands bad hearts to burn away into ugly little heaps of gray ashes. There is such an urchin, and Cupid, alias Eros, is his name. He had tapped Peter Skerrett’s heart several times with hearts labelled, “Anna’s heart,” “Belinda’s heart,” “Clara’s heart,” “Delia’s heart,” and so on down the alphabet. No perceptible love had answered these taps. Perhaps the urchin made the female heart impinge upon the male, instead of clashing them together in mutual impact. Or perhaps he did not do his tapping in a dark place, — for shadow is needful to show light, — love wants sorrow for a background.
However this might be, Peter Skerrett was still an undeveloped true lover. He had made no mistakes in love, he had had no disappointments. His illusions were not gone. He still believed love was the one condition of marriage. Marriage without it this innocent youth deemed an outrage.
The latent love in his heart cried, “Shame!” when he heard Voltaire’s story. Indignant blood rushed to his cheeks, to his eyes indignant fire, and curl indignant to his moustache. He discharged a drop of ire by skimming a flat stone at a chattering chipmunk, enthroned on a pumpkin hard by. Then he began to put in trenchant queries.
“You are sure, Mr. Brothertoft, that your daughter does not love Kerr.”
“Sure. I have her word for it.”
“Does he love her?”
“He wants her.”
“Why?”
“She is a beauty and an heiress, — those are the patent charms.”
“Ah! But does she know that Kerr is a fanfaron and a rake, — selfish, certainly, probably base, and very likely cruel?”
“She knows only what her mother tells her. Friends are taboo in that house.”
“But does she divine nothing? Nothing to base a refusal on? Pardon me if my tone seems to express a doubt of this young lady, but——”
“But you have seen so many captivated by rank and a red coat. My friend, I have done her greater injustice than any you can imagine. I believed my own child spoiled by bad influences. We could not understand each other. An evil-omened figure held a black curtain between us. I was too sick at heart to see the truth. I had lost my faith. I thought that my daughter had taken in poison with her mother’s milk. I fancied that she was a willing pupil when her mother taught her to hate and despise me. I abandoned her. Miserable error, — miserable! And punished now! punished most cruelly! My spleen, my haste, my intemperate despair, are bitterly punished by my daughter’s danger. How fatally I misjudged her in my sore-wounded heart! I know her better at last. Better now, when I fear it is too late to save her. I know her at last through this faithful servant and friend. He stood by her when I forsook her. God forgive me! God forgive me!”
He poured out this confession with passion growing as he spoke. Then he turned and grasped Major Skerrett by the shoulder.
“What is to be done?” he cried.
“Much!” said Skerrett, quietly, commanding his own eagerness roused by the other’s agony. “Remember that this wedding is not to be before day after to-morrow. I have volunteered to present the intended bridegroom to General Putnam here, by that time. Do you suppose I intend to break my engagement, whether it forbids his banns or not?”
He assumed more confidence than he felt. The enterprise was growing complicated. While there was merely question of taking or not taking a prisoner, Skerrett could look at the matter coolly. Success was only another laurel in his corona triumphalis! Failure was but a bay the less. If he bagged his man, another canto of doggerel. No bag, no poem. The attempt even would keep Put and his paladins amused until their general decadence of tail was corrected, and their bosoms swelled with valor again, and that was enough.
But here was a new character behind the scenes. The hero’s pulse began to gallop and his heart to prance. A woman’s happiness at stake!
“Ah!” reflected the Major, “I was cool enough so long as I thought I was merely entertaining a circle of downcast braves, bushwhacking to steal an exchangeable Adjutant, and giving the enemy an unexpected dig in the ribs. But the new portion of the adventure makes me shaky. If I fail, I lose my laurel, all the same, and a lady has to be bonneted with a wreath of orange-flowers against her will. If I don’t bag, Beauty goes to the Kerrs; I miss my canto and the poem of her life becomes a dirge. I must not think of it, or I shall lose my spirits.”
“Prying into a maiden’s heart is new business to me,” he resumed to the father, who stood watching him anxiously. “I cannot quite comprehend this matter. She does not love this man. Her dislike has brought about a reconciliation between you. Where is her NO? I have heard that women carry such a weapon, — brandish it, too, and strike on much less provocation than she has.”
“She is not a free agent,” replied Brothertoft. “Her mother dominates her. She forced her to disown me. She will force her to this marriage. Lucy has been quelled all her life. I hope and believe that if she were released, or even supported for one moment in rebellion, her character might find it had vigor. But she is still willow in her mother’s hands. If the mother, for whatever reasons, has made up her mind to this marriage, she will crowd her daughter into it.”
“What reasons are sufficient for such tyranny?”
“I divine metaphysical reasons, that I cannot speak of. It pains me greatly, my dear young friend, to talk harshly of my daughter’s mother. Perhaps after all she may mean kindly now. She may be mistaken in Kerr.”
“No,” said Peter. “No woman of the world can mistake such a fellow.”
“Still, he is a strong friend to have on the other side.”
“Yes; and this is a moment when the other side is up and we are down. I can see how, with these great estates, a Patrooness may be willing to save herself a confiscation. She can pretend to be neutral, with a leaning to Liberty, and leave her son-in-law to rescue the acres if Liberty goes to the gallows.”
“Such considerations have brought matters to a crisis. Kerr is there on the spot. Clinton is victor. So the poor child is hurried off without giving her time to consider.”
“We must make time for her. I will go at my plans presently. But I should like to hear a little more of Voltaire’s story.”
“You are very kind to take this interest in the welfare of a desolate and disheartened man, and those who are dear to him.”
Peter’s cheeks were too brown to show blushes, and his cocked hat covered his white forehead; but he noticed that his heart was brewing a crimson blush, whether it burst through the valves and came to the surface or not. In fact he began to feel a lively sympathy for this weak girl, into whose orbit he was presently to fling himself, like a yellow-haired comet, with spoil-sport intent. The more he tried to cork in his blush, the more it wouldn’t be corked. And presently bang it came to the surface. His white forehead tingled at every pore, as the surface of a glass of Clicquot may tingle with its own bursting bubbles. No such rosy flash had ever showed on his countenance, when Anna’s or Belinda’s or Clara’s or Delia’s cheeks challenged him to kindle up. But the mere thought of a name much lower down in the alphabet now made his heart eager to do its share in striking fire and lighting this sorrowful scene about the Lucy in question.
The sad father was not in the way to observe blushes; nor was Voltaire, who now proceeded to finish his story.
For fear the worthy fellow might lapse into brogue, — whereupon the ghost of John C. Calhoun would hurroo with triumph, and ventriloquize derisive niggerisms through the larynx of his type negro, the stuffed Gorilla, — Voltaire’s tale shall be transposed into the third person. Then the hiatuses can be filled up, and we shall be able to peer a little into Lucy Brothertoft’s heart, and see whether the Heavenly Powers have guarded her, as Sappho the cook long ago prophesied they would.