Volume 2 Chapter 13 - The Maroon by Mayne Reid
A Proposal Postponed
Slowly, silently, and still unseen, stole the soft luminary of night towards her burning god—till a slight shadow on his lower limb betokened the contact.
“The ekwipse is commencing,” said Smythje, holding the glass to his eye. “The sun and moon are just kissing, like two lovers. How pwetty it is! Dawn’t yaw think so, fayaw Kate?”
“Rather a distant kiss for lovers, I should say—some ninety odd millions of miles between them!”
“Haw, haw! veway good, veway good indeed! And in that sawt of thing, distance dawn’t lend enchantment to the view. Much bettaw to be near, just as yaw and I are at this moment. Dawn’t yaw think so, fayaw Kate?”
“That depends upon circumstances—whether the love be reciprocal.”
“Wecipwocal!—yas, twoo enough—thaw is something in that.”
“A great deal, I should think, Mr Smythje. For instance, were I a man, and my sweetheart was frowning on me—as yonder moon seems to be upon his majesty the sun—I should keep my distance, though it were ninety millions of miles.”
Had Mr Smythje at that moment only removed the glass from his eye, and turned towards his sweetheart, he might have read in her looks that the speech just made possessed a significance, altogether different from the interpretation which it pleased him to put upon it.
“Haw, haw! veway pwetty of yaw, ’pon honaw! But yaw must wemember that yondaw moon has two faces. In that she wesembles the queetyaw called woman. Her bwight face is turned towards the sun, and no doubt she is at this moment smiling upawn the fellaw. Her frowns, yaw see, are faw us, and all the west of mankind; thawfo’ she wesembles a devoted queetyaw. Dawn’t yaw think so, fayaw Kate?”
Kate was compelled to smile, and for a short moment regarded Smythje with a glance which might have been mistaken for admiration. In the analogy which the exquisite had drawn there was a scintillation of intellect—the more striking that it was not expected from such a source. Withal, the glance was rather indicative of surprise than admiration, though Smythje evidently interpreted it for the latter—his self-esteem assisting him to the interpretation.
Before she could make reply, he repeated the interrogatory.
“Oh, yes!” answered she, the smile disappearing from her countenance; “I can well imagine, Mr Smythje, that your simile is just. I should think that a woman who loves devotedly, would not bestow her smiles on any other than him she loves; and though he were distant as yonder sun, in her heart she would smile on him all the same.”
The young Creole as she spoke lowered her eyes, no longer regarding the eclipse, but as if involuntarily directing her glance downward.
“Ah, yes!” continued she in thought, “and even if alike impossible for them ever to meet, still would her smiles be his! Ah, yes!”
For some seconds she remained silent and abstracted. Smythje, attracted by the altered tone of her voice, had taken the telescope from his eye, and turned towards her.
Observing this abstracted air, which he had often before remarked, he did not think of attributing it to any other cause than that which his vanity had already divined. Kate Vaughan was in love; and with whom but himself?
His sympathetic soul was ready to give way; and he was almost on the point of departing from the programme which he had so ingeniously traced out. But the remembrance of the pretty speeches he had rehearsed with Thoms—and the thought that any deviation from the original design would deprive him of the pleasure of witnessing the effects which they must undoubtedly produce—restrained him from a premature declaration, and he remained silent.
It did not hinder him from some unspoken reflections.
“Poor queetyaw! evidently suffwing! Neithaw distance nor absence can make the slightest impwession upon her love—not the slightest. Ba Jawve! I feel more than half-inclined to bweak the spell, and reweive her fwom her miseway. But no—it would nevaw do. I must wesist the temptation. A little more suffwing can do no harm, since the situation of the queetyaw wesembles the pwoverb: ‘The darkest hour is that which is neawest the day.’ Haw! haw!”
And with this fanciful similitude before his mind, the sympathetic and self-denying lover concluded his string of complacent reflections; and returning the glass to his eye, once more occupied himself in ogling the eclipse.
The young Creole, seeing him thus engaged, withdrew to one side; and placing herself on the very edge of the cliff, stood gazing outward and downward. It was evident that the grand celestial phenomenon had no attraction for her. She cared neither to look upon the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars that would soon be visible in the fast-darkening sky. Her eyes, like her thoughts, were turned upon the earth; and as the penumbra began to cast its purple shadow over the fair face of Nature, so could a cloud be seen overspreading her beautiful countenance.
There was now deep silence below and around. In a few seconds of time a complete change had taken place. The uttering of the forest was no longer heard. The birds had suddenly ceased their songs, and if their voices came up at intervals, it was in screams and cries that denoted fear. Insects and reptiles had become silent, under the influence of a like alarm. The more melancholy sounds alone continued—the sighing of the trees, and the sough of the distant waterfall. This transformation reminded Kate Vaughan of the change which had taken place in her own heart. Almost equally rapid had it been—the result of only a few days, or perhaps only hours: for the once gay girl had become, of late, habitually grave and taciturn. Well might she compare her thoughts to the forest sounds! The cheerful and musical were gone—those that were melancholy alone remained!
For this change there was a cause, not very different from that which Smythje had divined. He was right in assigning it to that passion—the most powerful that can dwell in a woman’s heart.
Only as to its object did Mr Smythje labour under a misconception. His self-conceit had guided him to a very erroneous conjecture. Could he have divined the thoughts at that moment passing in the mind of his companion, it would have completely cured him of the conceit that he was the maker of that melancholy.
The mansion of Mount Welcome was in sight, gaily glittering amidst gorgeous groves. It was not upon it that the eyes of Kate Vaughan were bent; but upon a sombre pile, shadowed by great cotton-trees, that lay in the adjoining valley. Her heart was with her eyes.
“Happy Valley!” soliloquised she, her thoughts occasionally escaping in low murmur from her lips. “Happy for him, no doubt! There has he found a welcome and a home denied him by those whose duty it was to have offered both. There has he found hospitality among strangers; and there, too—”
The young girl paused, as if unwilling to give words to the thought that had shaped itself in her mind.
“No,” continued she, unable to avoid the painful reflection; “I need not shut my eyes upon the truth. It is true what I have been told—very true, I am sure. There has he found one to whom he has given his heart!”
A sigh of deep anguish succeeded the thought.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, resuming the sad soliloquy; “he promised me a strong arm and a stout heart, if I should ever need them. Ah, me! promise now bitter to be remembered—no longer possible to be kept! And the ribbon he was to prize so highly—which gave me such joy as he said it. Only another promise broken! Poor little souvenir! no doubt, long ere this, cast aside and forgotten! ah, me!”
Again the sigh interrupted the soliloquy. After a time it proceeded:—
“‘We may never meet more!’ These were almost his last words. Alas! too prophetic! Better, now, we never should. Better this than to meet him—with her by his side—Judith Jessuron—his wife—his wife—oh!”
The last exclamation was uttered aloud, and with an undisguised accent of anguish.
Smythje heard it, and started as he did so—letting the sun-glass fall from his fingers.
Looking around, he perceived his companion standing apart—unheeding as she was unheeded—with head slightly drooping, and eyes turned downward upon the rock—her face still bearing the expression of a profound anguish which her thoughts had called forth.
The heart of Smythje melted within him. He knew her complaint—he knew its cure. The remedy was in his hands. Was it right any longer to withhold it? A word from him, and that sad face would be instantly suffused with smiles! Should that word be spoken or postponed?
Spoken! prompted humanity. Spoken! echoed Smythje’s sympathetic heart. Yes! perish the cue and the climax! Perish the fine speech and the rehearsal with Thoms—perish everything to “relieve the deaw queetyaw fwom the agony she is suffwing!”
With this noble resolve, the confident lover stepped up to the side of his beloved, leaving a distance of some three feet between them. His movements were those of a man about entering upon the performance of some ceremonial of the grandest importance; and to Mr Smythje, in reality, it was so.
The look of surprise with which the young Creole regarded him, neither deterred him from proceeding, nor in anywise interfered with the air of solemn gravity which his countenance had all at once assumed.
Bending one knee down upon the rock—where he had dropped the glass—and placing his left hand over the region of his heart, while with the right he had raised his hat some six inches above his perfumed curls, there and then he was about to unburden himself of that speech, studied for the occasion—committed to Smythje’s memory, and more than a dozen times delivered in the hearing of Thoms—there and then was he on the eve of offering to Kate Vaughan his hand—his heart—his whole love and estate—when just at this formidable crisis, the head and shoulders of a man appeared above the edge of the rock, and behind, a black-plumed beaver hat, shadowing the face of a beautiful woman!
Herbert Vaughan!—Judith Jessuron!