Part 67 (1/2)
”Everything is of consequence which brings these marks of sorrow to my Perdita's face. Who has been vexing you, child?”
”No one--no one, sir.”
”Who has been grieving you, then?”
”I--it is no one's fault. I have only been a little foolish--that is all.”
She averts her pallid face, and will not be questioned more, but leads him utterly from personal subjects.
She has been dear and kind before, but never precisely with the yearning, smothered pa.s.sion of this last evening; she almost seems to cling to him, as if invisible hands were driving her away, and her pathetic face grows tremulous at every word of tenderness from him.
And St. Udo has an indistinct memory of burning tears flas.h.i.+ng somewhere while he sleeps, and of soft lips touching his in one meek kiss, and of tender words of blessing and of prayer; and then a shadow falls upon him gray and sad, for the door had shut him in, and the girl is gone.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.
SWEET RECOMPENSE.
The next morning St. Udo Brand lay impatiently waiting for his dear young nurse, and scowling at the stupid negress, who was putting his room to rights, when a visitor entered, and made his way up to the sick man.
A haggard-looking old gentleman, with pale, yellow cheeks, pendulous and flaccid--eyebrows which bristled like furze on the brow of a beetling crag, and lack-l.u.s.ter eyes, which glistened like the dull waters at the foot of it.
”My service to you, sir,” said he, with an old-fas.h.i.+oned bow; ”I am Andrew Davenport, if you remember.”
”I do remember Andrew Davenport, if you are he; you are so changed that I need scarcely beg pardon for not recollecting you sooner.”
”Same to you, sir. Gad, sir, yellow fever is no joke, and you took it worse than me by a long chalk.”
”How comes it that you have had yellow fever? When did you come here?”
”About a month ago. Came here with a face as red as a lobster, and as broad as that. Look at it now. I don't begrudge it though, when I see you looking so much better than ever I thought to see you when first I looked at you in this bed. We have much to be thankful for, Colonel Brand.”
”I fail to understand. What brought you to Key West, and what have you to do with me?”
”A good deal, my young sir. I have to escort you home to your castle, for one thing.”
”I am astonished that you should come all this way to waste words upon such a subject. I thought that by this time Miss Walsingham would be married, and that I could go on my way rejoicing.”
”Married to that impostor, who hoped to fill your shoes? Pho! what do you take us all for? Well, after all, I needn't take any share of the glory. It was Miss Margaret herself, who found out the whole conspiracy, and set off like a brave young woman as she is, taking me for company, to find you, sir.”
”Heavens! What did she want of me?”
”Gad! sir, if you really don't know, all I can say is that she's the first woman I ever saw who could hold her tongue! It was to find you out and give you the property of Seven-Oak Waaste, the lands, houses, etc., attached, that she came while the plague was literally raging, to this confounded rat-trap, where, if one gets in they can't get out.”
”Is Margaret Walsingham in Key West?”
”She is.”
”Then it is she who has been troubling my poor darling with this wretched story.”