Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters Part 35

"Three years ago, this young man, whose name is not Richards," began Captain Danton, "ran away from home, and began life on his own account.

He had been a wilful, headstrong, pa.s.sionate boy always, but yet loving and generous. He fled from his friends, in a miserable hour of pa.s.sion, and never returned to them any more; for the sick, sinful, broken-down, wretched man who returned was as different from the hot-headed, impetuous, happy boy, as day differs from night.

"He fled from home, and went to New York. He was, as I am, a sailor; he had command of a vessel at the age of nineteen; but he gave up the sea, and earned a livelihood in that city for some months by painting and selling water-colour sketches, at which he was remarkably clever.

Gradually his downward course began. The wine-bottle, the gaming-table, were the first milestones on the road to ruin. The gambling-halls became, at length, his continual haunt. One day he was worth thousands; the next, he did not possess a stiver. The excitement grew on him. He became, before the end of the year, a confirmed and notorious gambler.

"One night the crisis in his life came. He was at a Bowery theatre, to see a Christmas pantomime. It was a fairy spectacle, and the stage was crowded with ballet-girls. There was one among them, the loveliest creature, it seemed to him, he had ever seen, with whom, in one mad moment, he fell pa.s.sionately in love. A friend of his, by name Furniss, laughed at his raptures. 'Don't you know her, Harry?' said he; 'she boards in the same house with you. She is a little grisette, a little shop-girl, only hired to look pretty, standing there, while this fairy pantomime lasts. You have seen her fifty times.'

"Yes, he had seen her repeatedly. He remembered it when his friend spoke, and he had never thought of her until now. The new infatuation took possession of him, body and soul. He made her acquaintance next morning, and found out she was, as his friend had said, a shop-girl.

What did he care; if she had been a rag-picker, it would have been all one to this young madman. In a fortnight he proposed; in a month they were married, and the third step on the road to ruin was taken.

"Had she been a good woman--an earnest and faithful wife--she might have made a new man of him, for he loved her with a pa.s.sionate devotion that was part of his hot-headed nature. But she was bad--as depraved as she was fair--and brought his downward course to a tragical climax frightfully soon.

"Before her marriage, this wretched girl had had a lover--discarded for a more handsome and impetuous wooer. But she had known him longest, and, perhaps, loved him best. At all events, he resumed his visits after marriage, as if nothing had happened. The young husband, full of love and confidence, suspected no wrong. He sanctioned the visits and was on most friendly terms with the discarded suitor. For some months it went on, this underhand and infamous intimacy, and the wronged husband saw nothing. It was Furniss who first opened his eyes to the truth, and a terrible scene ensued. The husband refused pa.s.sionately to believe a word against the truth and purity of the wife he loved, and called his friend a liar and a slanderer.

"'Very well,' said Furniss, coolly, 'bl.u.s.ter as much as you please, dear boy, and, when you are tired, go home. It is an hour earlier than you generally return. He will hardly have left. If you find your pretty little idol alone, and at her prayers, disbelieve me. If you find Mr.

Crosby enjoying a _tete-a-tete_ with her, then come back and apologize for these hard names.'"

"He went off whistling, and the half-maddened husband sprang into a pa.s.sing stage and rode home. It was past ten, but he was generally at the gambling-table each night until after one, and his wife had usually retired ere his return. He went upstairs softly, taking off his boots, and noiselessly opened the door. There sat his wife, and by her side, talking earnestly, the discarded lover. He caught his last words as he entered:

"'You know how I have loved--you know how I do love, a thousand times better than he! Why should we not fly at once. It is only torture to both to remain longer.'

"They were the last words the unfortunate man ever uttered. The gambler had been drinking--let us hope the liquor and the jealous fury made him for the time mad. There was the flash, the report of a pistol; Crosby, his guilty wife's lover, uttered a wild yell, sprang up in the air, and fell back shot through the heart."

There was another dead pause. Captain Danton's steady voice momentarily failed, and Reginald Stanford sat in horrified silence.

"What came next," continued the Captain, his voice tremulous, "the madman never knew. He has a vague remembrance of his wife's screams filling the room with people; of his finding himself out somewhere under the stars, and his brain and heart on fire. He has a dim remembrance of buying a wig and whiskers and a suit of sailor's clothes next day, and of wandering down among the docks in search of a s.h.i.+p. By one of those mysterious dispensations of Providence that happen every day, the first person he encountered on the dock was myself. I did not know him--how could I in that disguise--but he knew me instantly, and spoke. I recognized his voice, and took him on board my s.h.i.+p, and listened to the story I have just told you. With me he was safe. Detectives were scouring the city for the murderer; but I sailed for England next day, and he was beyond their reach. On the pa.s.sage he broke down; all the weeks we were crossing the Atlantic he lay wandering and delirious in a raging brain-fever. We all thought, Doctor and all, that he never would reach the other side; but life won the hard victory, and he slowly grew better. Kate returned, as you know, with me. She, too, heard the tragical story, and had nothing but pity and prayer for the tempest-tossed soul.

"When we reached Canada, he was still weak and ill. I brought him here under an a.s.sumed name, and he remains shut up in his rooms all day, and only ventures out at night to breathe the fresh air. His mind has never recovered its tone since that brain fever. He has become a monomaniac on one subject, the dread of being discovered, and hanged for murder.

Nothing will tempt him from his solitude--nothing can induce him to venture out, except at midnight, when all are asleep. He is the ghost who frightened Margery and Agnes Darling; he is the man you saw with Kate last in the grounds. He clings to her as he clings to no one else.

The only comfort left him in this lower world are these nightly walks with her. She is the bravest, the best, the n.o.blest of girls; she leaves her warm room, her bed, for those cold midnight walks with that unhappy and suffering man."

Once again a pause. Reginald Stanford looked at Captain Danton's pale, agitated face.

"You have told me a terrible story," he said. "I can hardly blame this man for what he has done; but what claim has he on you that you should feel for him and screen him as you do? What claim has he on my future wife that she should take these nightly walks with him unknown to me?"

"The strongest claim that man can have," was the answer; "he is my son--he is Kate's only brother!"

"My G.o.d! Captain Danton, what are you saying?"

"The truth," Captain Danton answered, in a broken voice. "Heaven help me--Heaven pity him! The wretched man whose story you have heard--who dwells a captive under this roof--is my only son, Henry Danton."

He covered his face with his hands. Reginald Stanford sat confounded.

"I never dreamed of this," he said aghast. "I thought your son was dead!"

"They all think so," said the Captain, without looking up; "but you know the truth. Some day, before long, you shall visit him, when I have prepared him for your coming. You understand all you heard and saw now?"

"My dear sir!" exclaimed Stanford, grasping the elder man's hand; "forgive me! No matter what I saw, I must have been mad to doubt Kate.

Your secret is as safe with me as with yourself. I shall leave you now; I must see Kate."

"Yes, poor child! Love her and trust her with your whole heart, Reginald, for she is worthy."

Reginald Stanford went out, still bewildered by all he had heard, and returned to the drawing-room. Kate sat as he had left her, looking dreamily out at the bright sky.

"My dearest," he said bending over her, and touching the white brow: "can you ever forgive me for doubting you? You are the truest, the best, the bravest of women."

She lifted her loving eyes, filled with tears, to the handsome face of her betrothed.

"To those I love I hope I am--and more. Before I grow false or treacherous, I pray Heaven that I may die."

CHAPTER XII.

HARRY DANTON.

A spring-like afternoon. The March sun bright in the Canadian sky, the wind soft and genial, and a silvery mist hanging over the river and marshes. Little floods from the fast-melting snow poured through the grounds; the ice-frozen fish-pond was thawing out under the melting influence of the suns.h.i.+ne, and rubber shoes and tucked-up skirts were indispensable outdoor necessaries.

Rose Danton, rubber-shoes, tucked-up skirts, and all, was trying to kill time this pleasant afternoon, sauntering aimlessly through the wet grounds. Very pretty and coquettish she looked, with that crimson petticoat showing under her dark silk dress; that jockey-hat and feather set jauntily on her suns.h.i.+ny curls; but her prettiness was only vanity and vexation of spirit to Rose. Where was the good of pink-tinted cheeks, soft hazel eyes, auburn curls, and a trim little foot and ankle, when there was no living thing near to see and admire? What was the use of dressing beautifully and looking charming for a pack of insensible mortals, to whom it was an old story and not worth thinking about? The sunny March day had no reflection in Rose's face; "sulky" is the only word that will tell you how she looked. Poor Rose! It was rather hard to be hopelessly in love, to be getting worse every day, and find it all of no use. It was a little too bad to have everything she wanted for eighteen years, and then be denied the fascinating young officer she had set her whole heart on. For Mr. Stanford was lost again. Just as she thought she had her bird snared for certain--lo! it spread its dazzling wings and soared up to the clouds, and farther out of reach than ever.

In plain English, he had gone back to the old love and was off with the new, just when she felt most sure of him.

A whole week had pa.s.sed since that night in the tamarack walk, that night when he had seemed so tender and lover-like, the matchless deceiver! And he had hardly spoken half a dozen words to her. He was back at the footstool of his first sovereign, he was the most devoted of engaged men; Kate was queen of the hour, Rose was nowhere. It was trying, it was cruel, it was shameful. Rose cried and scolded in the seclusion of her maiden bower, and hated Mr. Stanford, or said she did; and could have seen her beautiful elder sister in her winding-sheet with all the pleasure in life.

So, this sunny afternoon, Rose was wandering listlessly hither and thither, thinking the ice would soon break upon the fish-pond if this weather lasted, and suicide would be the easiest thing in the world. She walked dismally round and round it, and wondered what Mr. Stanford would say, and how he would feel when some day, in the cold, sad twilight, they would carry her, white, and lifeless, and dripping before him, one more unfortunate gone to her death! She could see herself--robed in white, her face whiter than her dress, her pretty auburn curls all wet and streaming around her--carried into the desolate house. She could see Reginald Stanford recoil, turn deadly pale, his whole future happiness blasted at the sight. She pictured him in his horrible remorse giving up Kate, and becoming a wanderer and a broken-hearted man all the rest of his life. There was a dismal delight in these musings; and Rose went round and round the fish-pond, revelling, so to speak, in them.

As her watch pointed to three, one of the stable-helpers came round from the stables leading two horses. She knew them--one was Mr. Stanford's, the other Kate's. A moment later, and Mr. Stanford and Kate appeared on the front steps, "booted and spurred," and ready for their ride. The Englishman helped his lady into the saddle, adjusted her long skirt, and sprang lightly across his own steed. Rose would have given a good deal to be miles away; but the fish-pond must be pa.s.sed, and she, the "maiden forlorn," must be seen. Kate gayly touched her plumed-hat; Kate's cavalier bent to his saddle-bow, and then they were gone out of sight among the budding trees.

"Heartless, cold-blooded flirt!" thought the second Miss Danton, apostrophizing the handsomest of his s.e.x. "I hope his horse may run away with him and break his neck!"

But Rose did not mean this, and the ready tears were in her eyes the next instant with pity for herself.

"It's too bad of him--it's too bad to treat me so! He knows I love him, he made me think he loved me; and now to go and act like this. I'll never stay here and see him marry Kate! I'd rather die first! I will die or do something! I'll run away and become an actress or a nun--I don't care much which. They're both romantic, and they are what people always do in such cases--at least I have read a great many novels where they did!" mused Miss Danton, still making her circle round the fish-pond.

Grace, calling from one of the windows to a servant pa.s.sing below, caused her to look towards the house, just in time to see something white flutter from an open bedroom window on the breeze. The bedroom regions ran all around the third story of Danton Hall--six in each range. Mr. Stanford's chamber was in the front of the house, and it was from Mr. Stanford's room the white object had fluttered. Rose watched it as it alighted on a little unmelted s...o...b..nk, and, hurrying over, picked it up. It was part of a letter--a sheet of note-paper torn in half, and both sides closely written. It was in Reginald Stanford's hand and without more ado (you will be shocked to hear it, though) Miss Rose deliberately commenced reading it. It began abruptly with part of an unfinished sentence.

--"That you call me a villain! Perhaps I shall not be a villain, after all. The angel with the auburn ringlets is as much an angel as ever; but, Lauderdale, upon my soul, I don't want to do anything wrong, if I can help it. If it is _kismit_, as the Turks say, my fate, what can I do? What will be, will be; if auburn ringlets and yellow-brown eyes are my destiny, what am I--the descendant of many Stanfords--that I should resist? Nevertheless, if destiny minds its own business and lets me alone, I'll come up to the mark like a man. Kate is glorious; I always knew it, but never so much as now.

Something has happened recently--no matter what--that has elevated her higher than ever in my estimation. There is something grand about the girl--something too great and n.o.ble in that high-strung nature of hers, for such a reprobate as I! This is _entre nous_, though; if I tell you I am a reprobate, it is in confidence. I am a lucky fellow, am I not, to have two of earth's angels to choose from? And yet sometimes I wish I were not so lucky; I don't want to misbehave--I don't want to break anybody's heart; but still--"

It came to an end as abruptly as it had begun. Rose's cheeks were scarlet flame before she concluded. She understood it all. He was bound to her sister; he was trying to be true, but he loved her! Had he not owned it--might she not still hope? She clasped her hands in sudden, ecstatic rapture.

"He loves me best," she thought; "and the one he loves best will be the one he will choose."

She folded up the precious doc.u.ment, and hid it in her pocket. She looked up at the window, but no more sheets of the unfinished letter fluttered out.

"Careless fellow!" she thought, "to leave such tell-tale letters loose.

If Kate had found it, or Grace, or Eeny! They could not help understanding it. I wish I dared tell him; but I can't."