May Agnes Fleming
Norine's Revenge, and, Sir Noel's Heir
CHAPTER X.
"A FOOL'S PARADISE."
The little house was like a picture – like a doll's house, the whitest, the brightest, the trimmest, the tiniest of all tiny houses. It nestled down in a sheltered nook, with its back set comfortably against a hill. Its pretty little garden full of pretty little flowers, climbing roses and scarlet-runners all over its inviting porch, and away beyond, Chelsea beach, like a strip of silver ribbon, and the dimpling sea, smiling back the sunshine. No other house within a quarter of a mile, the dim, dark woodland rising up in the back-ground, the big, bustling, work-a-day world shut out on every hand. Could Laurence Thorndyke, if he had searched for half a lifetime, have found a more charming, more secluded spot in which to dream out Love's Young Dream?
And the dream was pretty nearly dreamed out now.
For the fourth week had come, and the days of the honey month were drawing to a close. If the truth must be told, the honey had cloyed upon Mr. Thorndyke's fastidious palate before the end of the second week, had grown distasteful ere the end of the third – had palled entirely at the beginning of the fourth. In other words, the honeymoon business and doing "love in a cottage," buried alive here, was fast becoming a most horrible bore.
"If I had been very much in love with the girl," thought Mr. Thorndyke, communing with his own heart "it might have been different – even then, though, let it have been ever so severe a case of spoons, I don't think I could have stood another week of this deadly lively sort of thing. But I wasn't very much in love. If you know yourself, Laurence Thorndyke, and you flatter yourself you do, it isn't in you to get up a grande passion for any body. There was Lucy West, there is Helen Holmes, here is Norine Bourdon. I don't believe you ever had more than a passing fancy for any of them, and your motto ever has been 'lightly won lightly lost.'"
He was lying upon a sofa, stretched at full length, his hands clasped behind his head, a cloud of cigar smoke half-veiling his handsome, lazy, bored face, his eyes fixed dreamily upon the sparkling sea. Down on the strip of tawny sand he could see Norine, looking like a Dresden china shepherdess in her white looped-up dress, some blue drapery caught about her, a jaunty sailor hat on her crushed dark curls, and a cluster of pink roses in her belt.
"She's very pretty, and all that," pursued this youthful philosopher and cynic, looking at her with dispassionate eyes, "but is the game worth the candle? Three weeks and two days, and I'm sick and tired to death of this place, and – alas! my pretty Norry – of you! 'Men were deceivers ever.' I suppose it was much the same in old Shakspeare's time as it is now. It is all very well to pay off Gilbert, and wipe out the old scores, but it is not at all very well to be disinherited by old Darcy. If it comes to his ears it's all up with my chance of the inheritance, and my marriage with Helen. And, upon my word, I shouldn't like to lose Helen. She's good-looking, she's good style, she can talk on any subject under Heaven, and she's twenty thousand dollars down on her wedding-day. Yes, it will never do to throw up my chances there, but how to drop quietly out of this – that's the rub. There'll be the dickens to pay with Norine, and sometimes I've thought of late, gentle as she is, much as she loves me – and she does love me, poor little soul – that she's not one of the milk-and-water sort to sit down in a corner and break her heart quietly. I wish – I wish – I wish I had left her in peace at Kent Farm!"
She was beckoning to him gaily at that moment. He shook off his disagreeable meditation, put his long limbs down off the sofa, took his straw hat, and sauntered forth to join her.
The little house – Sea View Cottage, its romantic mistress had named it, was owned by the two Miss Waddles. The two Miss Waddles were two old maids. Miss Waddle the elder, taught school in Chelsea. Miss Waddle, the younger, was literary, and wrote sensation stories for the weekly papers, poor thing. In addition, they eked out their income by taking a couple of summer boarders, for people as a rule don't become millionaires teaching school or writing for the papers. Miss Waddle, the younger, immersed in ink and romance, looked after the young man with eyes of keen professional interest.
"How grumpy he looks," thought Miss Waddle; "how radiant she looks. He's tired to death of it all already; she's more and more in love with him every day. The first week he was all devotion, the second week the thermometer fell ten degrees, the third week he took to going to Boston and coming home in the small hours, smelling of smoke and liquor, this fourth he yawns in her face from morning until night. And this is what fools call the honeymoon. Moonshine enough, so far as I can see, but precious little honey."
Miss Waddle stabbed her pen down in the inkstand, took a deep and vicious dip, and plunged wildly into literature once more. Mr. Thorndyke, listlessly, wearily and unutterably bored, joined the idol of his existence.
In the Chelsea cottage they were known as "Mr. and Mrs. Laurence." For Norine, she was radiantly happy – no weariness, no boredom for her. The honey grew sweeter to her taste every day; but then women as a rule have a depraved taste for unwholesome sweetmeats; the days Mr. Thorndyke found so long, so vapid, so dreary, were bright, brief dreams of bliss to her. She had written her short explanatory note home during the first week, and had given it to Laurence to post. Laurence took it, glad of an excuse over to Boston, and on the ferry-boat tore it into fifty minute fragments and cast them to the four winds of Heaven. Norine had written a second time, and a third. Her piteous little letters met the same fate. That was one drawback to her perfect Paradise – there was a second, Laurence's growing weariness of it all.
"If he should become tired of me; if he should repent his hasty marriage; if he should cease to love me, what would become of me?" she thought, clasping her hands in an agony. "Oh, mon Dieu! let me die sooner than that. I know I am far beneath him – such lovely, accomplished ladies as my darling might have married – but ah, not one of them all could ever love him better than poor Norine!"
She hid her fears; the tears she shed over their silence and unforgiveness at home were tears shed in solitude and darkness, where they might not offend or reproach him. She tried every simple little art to be beautiful and attractive in his sight. Her smiling face was the last thing he saw, let him quit her ever so often – her smiling face looked brightly and sweetly up at him let those absences be ever so prolonged. And they were growing more frequent and more prolonged every day. He took her nowhere – his own evenings, without exception now, were spent in Boston, the smallest of the small hours his universal hours for coming home. And not always too steady of foot or too fluent of speech at these comings, for this captivating young man was fonder of the rattle of the dice-box, the shuffling of the pack, and the "passing of the rosy" than was at all good for him.
"Laurence," Norine's bright voice called, "you know everything. Come and tell me what is this botanical specimen I have found growing here in the cleft of the rocks."
She held up a spray of blue blossom. Laurence looked at it languidly.
"I know everything, I admit, but I don't know that. If you had married old Gilbert now, my darling, your thirst for information might have been quenched. There isn't anything, from the laws of the nations down to the name of every weed that grows, he hasn't at his learned legal finger ends. Oh, Lord, Norry, what a long day this has been – fifty-eight hours if one."
He casts himself on the sands at her feet, pulls his hat over his eyes, and yawns long and loudly. Her happy face clouds, the dark, lovely eyes look at him wistfully.
"It is dull for you, dear," she says, tenderly, a little tremor in the soft, sweet tones; "for me the days seem all too short – I am so happy, I suppose." He glances up at her, struggling feebly with a whole mouthful of gapes.
"You are happy, then, Norry, are you? Almost as happy as when at home; almost as happy as if you had married that ornament of society, Richard Gilbert, instead of the scapegrace and outlaw, Laurence Thorndyke?"
She clasped her hands, always her habit when moved.
"So happy!" she said, under her breath; "so perfectly, utterly happy. How could I ever have thought of marrying any one but you, Laurence – you whom I loved from the very very first?"
"And" – he has the grace to hesitate a little – "it would make you very unhappy if we were forced to part, I suppose, Norry?"
"Part?" She starts, grows very white, and two dilated eyes turn to him. "Laurence, why do you ask me that? Unhappy? Mon Dieu! it would kill me – just that!"
He laughs a little, but uneasily, and shifts away from the gaze of the large, terrified eyes.
"Kill you? No, you're not the sort that die so easily. Don't look so white and frightened, child; I didn't mean anything, at least, not anything serious; only we have been almost a month here and it is about time I went to pay my respected Uncle Darcy a visit. He has taken to asking unpleasant questions of late – where I am, what I am doing, why I don't report myself at headquarters – meaning his house in New York. Norry, there's no help for it; I'll have to take a run up to New York."
She sits down suddenly, her hand over her heart, white as the dress she wears.
"Of course I need not stay long," Mr. Thorndyke pursues, his hat still over his eyes; "but go I must, there's no alternative. And then, perhaps, if I get a chance, I can break it to him gently – about you, you know. I hate the thought of leaving you, and all that – nobody more; but still, as I've told you, I'm absolutely depending upon him; the exchequer is running low and must be replenished. Conjugal love is a capital thing, but a fellow can't live on it. Love may come and love may go, but board goes on forever. You'll stay here with the two Waddles, do fancy work, read novels, and take walks, and you'll ever find the time slipping by until I am back. You don't mind, do you, Norine?"
"How long will you be gone?" she asks, in an odd, constrained sort of voice.
"Well, two or three weeks, perhaps. I shall have business to attend to, and – and all that. But I'll be back at the earliest possible moment, be sure of that."
She does not speak. She stands looking, with that white change in her face, over the sunny sea.
"Come, Norine!" he exclaims, impatiently, "you're not going to be a baby, I hope. If you love me, as you say you do – " She turns and looks at him, and he alters the phrase suddenly, with an uneasy laugh. "Well, since you love me so well, Norry, you must try and have a little common sense. Common sense and pretty girls are incompatible, I know; but really, my dear child, you can't expect that our whole lives are to be spent billing and cooing here. It would be very delicious, no doubt" – a great yawn stifles his words for an instant – "but – by Jove! who's this?"
He raises himself on his elbow, pushes back his hat, and stares hard at an advancing figure. Norine follows his glance, and sees, stepping rapidly over the sand, the small slim figure of a man.
"The – devil!" says Laurence Thorndyke.
He springs to his feet, and stands waiting. The man advances, comes near, lifts his hat to the lady, and looks with a calm glance of recognition at the gentleman. He is a pale, thin, sombre little man, not too well dressed, with keen, small, light blue eyes, and thin, decisive, beardless lips.
"Good-day, Mr. Thorndyke," he says, quietly.
"Liston – it is Liston!" exclaims Mr. Thorndyke, a red, angry flush mounting to his face. "At your usual insolent tricks, I see – dogging me! May I ask – "
"How I have found you out?" Mr. Liston interrupts, in the same calm, quiet voice. "I knew you were here three weeks ago, Mr. Thorndyke. I saw Maggs – the Reverend Jonas Maggs – in Boston."
He lifts his light, keen eyes for one second to Laurence Thorndyke's, then drops them to the sands. The red flush deepens on the young man's blonde face, his blue eyes flash steely fire.
"By Heaven, you have!" he exclaims, in a suppressed voice. "Has the drunken fool – "
Liston interrupts again:
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Laurence, but if you will step aside with me, I would like to say a few words to you. Meantime, here are two letters – one from your uncle, the other – "
"H'm! All right Liston!" Thorndyke says, hastily, and with a warning glance. "My uncle has sent you to hunt me up as usual, I suppose."
"As usual, Mr. Laurence. He commands your immediate presence in New York."
Again the color mounts to the young man's face, again his eyes flash angry fire.
"Do you mean to say, Liston, that you or that d – snivelling hypocrite, Maggs – "
"Mr. Thorndyke," says Mr. Liston, interrupting for the third time, and raising his voice slightly, "I have a word to say to you in private – if the young lady will excuse you."
He bows in a sidelong sort of way to Norine, and watches her furtively beneath his drooping eyelids. She is standing very still, her eyes on one of the letters – a square, perfumed, rose-colored letter superscribed in a lady's delicate tracery, and bearing the monogram "H. H." Thorndyke thrusts both abruptly into his pocket, and draws her aside.
"Go back to the house, Norine," he says hastily. "I must hear what this fellow has to say. He's secretary – confidential clerk, valet, factotum generally, to my uncle. And I wish the devil had him before he ever found me out here!"
She obeys passively, very pale, still.
"That – snivelling hypocrite, Maggs!" she is repeating inwardly. "What a dreadful way to speak of a clergyman!"
Mr. Thorndyke rejoins Mr. Liston, a scowl on his face, his brows lowering and angry.
"Well?" he demands, savagely.
"Well," the new-comer's quiet voice repeats, "don't lose your temper, Mr. Laurence – I haven't done anything. Your uncle told me to hunt you up, and I have hunted you up – that is all."
"When did he tell you, confound him?"
"One week ago, Mr. Laurence."
"A week ago? I thought you said – "
"That I met Maggs three weeks ago? So I did. That he was beastly drunk? So he was. That he told me all? So he did. That I have kept my eyes upon you, off and on, ever since? So I have. Mr. Laurence, Mr. Laurence, I wonder you're not afraid."
A suppressed oath – no other reply from Mr. Laurence. He gnaws his mustache, and digs vicious holes with his boots in the soft sand.
"You're a bold card, Mr. Laurence," pursues Mr. Liston's monotonous voice. "You've played a good many daring games in your life, but this last daring game I think, has put the topper on the lot. I fancied mock parsons, sham marriages, and carrying off young ladies by night, went out of fashion with Gretna Green and Mrs. Radcliffe's romances. If ever Mr. Darcy hears of it, the sooner you take a rope and hang yourself, the better."
Another smothered imprecation of rage and impatience from Mr. Thorndyke. "If I only had Maggs here," he says, clenching his fist.
"You would punch his head for him – very likely. But I don't know that even that would do much good. He's got the jim-jams to-day, poor brute, the worst kind. For you, Mr. Laurence – how long before this play of yours is played out?"
"I'm going to New York to-morrow," growls Mr. Laurence Thorndyke. "I was just telling her so as you hove in sight."
"Ah! you were just telling her so – the play is played out, then. May I ask, Mr. Laurence, though it is none of my business, how the poor thing takes it?"
"No, you mayn't ask," replies Mr. Laurence, with ferocity, "as you say it's none of your business. Liston! look here, you're not going to turn State's evidence, are you – honor bright? You are not going to tell the old man."
His angry voice drops to a pleading cadence. Mr. Liston's shifty light eyes look up at him for a moment.
"Do I ever tell Mr. Laurence? It is late in the day to ask such a question as that.
"So it is. You're not half a bad fellow, old boy, and have got me out of no end of scrapes. Get me out of this and I'll never forget it – that I swear. One of these days you shall have your reward in hard cash – that I promise you."
"When you marry Miss Holmes? It's a bargain, Mr. Laurence – I'll try and earn my reward. What is it you want me to do?"
"I'm going to New York to-morrow," Thorndyke says, hurriedly. "I must invent some excuse for the governor, and what I say you are to swear to. And when peace is proclaimed you must come back and tell her. I can't do it myself – by George, I can't."
"Is that all?" asked Mr. Liston.
"You'll look after her – poor little soul! and, if she wishes it, take her to her friends. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry – for her sake and for my own. But it's rather late for all that. Liston, is Richard Gilbert in town?"
"He is in town. He has been to see your uncle. He has been speaking of this girl. My word Mr. Laurence, you'll have to do some hard swearing to prove an alibi this time."
"Curse the luck! Tell me what Darcy said to you Liston, word for word."
"Mr. Darcy, said this: 'Liston, go and find young Thorndyke (he never calls you young Thorndyke except when he's very far gone in anger, indeed), and fetch him to me. And hark'ee, fellow! no lying from you or him. If what I hear of him be true, I'll never look upon his false, cowardly face again, living or dead.' He was in one of his white rages, when the less said the better. That was a week ago, I had known all about you for two weeks before. I bowed, kept my own counsel, and – here I am."
"You're a trump, Liston! And he gave you this letter?"
"He gave me that letter. You'll find it considerably shorter than sweet. The other came from Miss Holmes, a few days ago – he sent that too."
"She doesn't know – "
"Not likely. She will though, if the old man finds out, and then you're cake's dough with a vengeance. How do you suppose the little one (she's very pretty, Mr. Laurence – you always had good taste), how do you suppose she will take it?"
Mr. Thorndyke's reply was a groan.
"For Heaven's sake don't ask me, Liston! It's a horrible business. I must have been mad."
"Of course – madly in love."
"Nothing of the sort – not in love at all. It was pure spite – I give you my word – not a spark of real love in the matter, except what was on her side. Gilbert was going to marry her, you know."
"I know."
"And I hate him as I hate the – "
"Prince of evil! I know that, too."
"You know everything that's my opinion. What a detective was lost in you, old boy. Perhaps you know why I hate him?"
"He has blocked one or two little games of yours. And he 'peached' in that affair of Lucy West."
"Liston! what an infernal scoundrel you must think me! When you recall Lucy West, I wonder you don't hate me tenfold more than I hate Gilbert."
"I do think you an infernal scoundrel," replies Mr. Liston, coolly. "As for hating – well I'm one of the forgiving sort, you know. Besides, there's nothing made by turning informer, and there is something to be made, you say, by keeping mum. Now suppose you go back to the house, and her, she's pining for you, no doubt, and tell her you're off to-morrow. I'll call for you with a light wagon about noon. Until then good-day to you."
Thorndyke seized his hand and shook it.
"I don't know how to thank you, Liston! You're the prince of good fellows. And I haven't deserved it – I know that."
He strode away. If he could only have seen the look "the prince of good fellows" cast after him!
"'You don't know how to thank me,'" he thought, with sneering scorn. "You fool! You blind, conceited, besotted fool! 'When I recall Lucy West you wonder I don't hate you!' Was there ever a time, my perfumed coxcomb, when I did not hate you? And you'll reward me, will you? Yes, I swear you shall, but not in that way. Poor little girl! how young she is, how pretty, and how innocent. She has had her fool's paradise for three weeks – it ends to-day."
