A Beautiful Possibility - Edith Ferguson Black
[Illustration: LOUIS DASHED THE GLOWING END OF HIS CIGAR IN THE NEGRO'S
FACE.]
A BEAUTIFUL POSSIBILITY
BY
EDITH FERGUSON BLACK
A BEAUTIFUL POSSIBILITY.
CHAPTER I.
In one of the fairest of the West Indian islands a simple but elegant
villa lifted its gabled roofs amidst a bewildering wealth of tropical
beauty. Brilliant birds flitted among the foliage, gold and silver
fishes darted to and fro in a large stone basin of a fountain which
threw its glittering spray over the lawn in front of the house, and on
the vine-shaded veranda hammocks hung temptingly, and low wicker chairs
invited to repose.
Behind the jalousies of the library the owner of the villa sat at a
desk, busily writing. He was a slight, delicate looking man, with an
expression of careless good humor upon his face and an easy air of
assurance according with the interior of the room which bespoke a
cultured taste and the ability to gratify it. Books were everywhere,
rare bits of china, curios and exquisitely tinted shells lay in
picturesque confusion upon tables and wall brackets of native woods;
soft silken draperies fell from the windows and partially screened from
view a large alcove where microscopes of different sizes stood upon
cabinets whose shelves were filled with a miscellaneous collection of
rare plants and beautiful insects, specimens from the agate forest of
Arizona, petrified remains from the 'Bad Lands' of Dakota, feathery
fronded seaweed, skeletons of birds and strange wild creatures, and all
the countless curiosities in which naturalists delight.
Lenox Hildreth when a young man, forced to flee from the rigors of the
New England climate by reason of an inherited tendency to pulmonary
disease, had chosen Barbadoes as his adopted country, and had never
since revisited the land of his birth. From the first, fortune had
smiled upon him, and when, some time after his marriage with the
daughter of a wealthy planter, she had come into possession of all her
father's estates, he had built the house which for fifteen years he had
called home. When Evadne, their only daughter, was a little maiden of
six, his wife had died, and for nine years father and child had been all
the world to each other.
He finished writing at last with a sigh of relief, and folding the
letter, together with one addressed to Evadne, he enclosed both in a
large envelope which he sealed and addressed to Judge Hildreth,
Marlborough, Mass. Then he leaned back in his chair, and, clasping his
hands behind his head, looked fixedly at the picture of his fair young
wife which hung above his desk.
"A bad job well done, Louise--or a good one. Our little lass isn't very
well adapted to making her way among strangers, and the Bohemianism of
this life is a poor preparation for the heavy respectability of a New
England existence. Lawrence is a good fellow, but that wife of his
always put me in mind of iced champagne, sparkling and cold." He sighed
heavily, "Poor little Vad! It is a dreary outlook, but it seems my one
resource. Lawrence is the only relative I have in the world.
"After all, I may be fighting windmills, and years hence may laugh at
this morning's work as an example of the folly of yielding to
unnecessary alarm. Danvers is getting childish. All physicians get to be
old fogies, I fancy, a natural sequence to a life spent in hunting down
germs I suppose. They grow to imagine them where none exist."
He rose, and strolled out on the veranda. As he did so, a negro, whose
snow-white hair had earned for him from his master the sobriquet of
Methusaleh, came towards the broad front steps. He was a grotesque image
as he stood doffing a large palm-leaf hat, and Lenox Hildreth felt an
irresistible inclination to laugh, and laughed accordingly. His
morning's occupation had been one of the rare instances in which he had
run counter to his inclinations. Sky blue cotton trousers showed two
brown ankles before his feet hid themselves in a pair of clumsy shoes; a
scarlet shirt, ornamented with large brass buttons and fastened at the
throat with a cotton handkerchief of vivid corn color, was surmounted by
an old nankeen coat, upon whose gaping elbows a careful wife had sewn
patches of green cloth; his hands were encased in white cotton gloves
three sizes too large, whose finger tips waved in the wind as their
wearer flourished his palm-leaf headgear in deprecating obeisance.
"Well, Methusaleh, where are you off to now?" and Lenox Hildreth leaned
against a flower wreathed pillar in lazy amusement.
"To camp-meetin', Mass Hildreff. I hez your permission, sah?" and the
negro rolled his eyes with a ludicrous expression of humility.
His master laughed with the easy indulgence which made his servants
impose upon him.
"You seem to have taken it, you rascal. It is rather late in the day to
ask for permission when you and your store clothes are all ready for a
start."
"'Scuse me, Mass Hildreff," with another deprecating wave of the
palm-leaf hat, "but yer see I knowed yer wouldn't dissapint me of de
priv'lege uv goin' ter camp-meetin' nohow."
Lenox Hildreth held his cigar between his slender fingers and watched
the tiny wreaths of smoke as they circled about his head.
"So camp-meeting is a privilege, is it?" he said carelessly. "How much
more good will it do you to go there than to stay at home and hoe my
corn?"
The eyes were rolled up until only the whites were visible.
"Powerful sight more good, Mass Hildreff. De preacher's 'n uncommon
relijus man, an' de 'speriences uv de bredren is mighty upliftin'. Yes,
sah!"
"Well, see that they don't lift you up so high that you'll forget to
come down again. I suppose you have an experience in common with the
rest?"
"Yes, Mass Hildreff," and the palm-leaf made another gyration through
the air. "I'se got a powerful 'sperience, sah."
"Well, off you go. It would be a pity to deprive the assembly of such
an edifying specimen of sanctimoniousness."
"Yes, sah, I'se bery sanktimonyus. I'se 'bliged to you, sah."
With a last obsequious flourish the palm-leaf was restored to its
resting-place upon the snowy wool, and the negro shambled away. When he
had gone a few yards a sudden thought struck his master and he called,--
"Methusaleh, I say, Methusaleh!"
"Yes, sah," and the servant retraced his steps.
"What about that turkey of mine that you stole last week? You can't go
to camp-meeting with that on your conscience. Come, now, better take off
your finery and repent in sackcloth and ashes."
For an instant the negro was nonplused, then the palm-leaf was
flourished grandiloquently, while its owner said in a voice of withering
scorn,--
"Laws! Mass Hildreff, do yer spose I'se goin' ter neglec' de Lawd fer
one lil' turkey?"
His master turned on his heel with a low laugh. "Of a piece with the
whole of them!" he said bitterly. "Hypocrites and shams!"
"Evadne!" he exclaimed impetuously, as a slight girlish figure came
towards him, "never say a single word that you do not mean nor express
a sensation that you have not felt. It is the people who neglect this
rule who play havoc with themselves and the world."
"Why, dearest, you frighten me!" and the girl slipped her hand through
his arm with a low, sweet laugh. "I never saw you look so solemn
before."
"Hypocrisy, Vad, is the meanest thing on earth! The pious people at the
church yonder call me an unbeliever, but they've got themselves to thank
for it. I may be a good-for-nothing but at least I will not preach what
I do not practise."
"You are as good as gold, dearest. I won't have you say such horrid
things! And you don't need to preach anything. I am sure no one in all
the world could be happier than we."
Her father put his hand under her chin, and, lifting her face towards
his, looked long and earnestly at the pure brow, about which the brown
hair clustered in natural curls, the clear-cut nose, the laughing lips
parted over a row of pearls, and the wonderful deep gray eyes.
"_Are_ you happy, little one?" he asked wistfully. "Are you quite sure
about that?"
"Happy!" the girl echoed the word with an incredulous smile. "Why,
dearest, what has come to you? You never needed to ask me such a
question before! Don't you know there isn't a girl in Barbadoes who has
been so thoroughly spoiled, and has found the spoiling so sweet? Do I
look more than usually mournful to-day that you should think I am pining
away with grief?" She looked up at him with a roguish laugh.
He smiled and laid his finger caressingly on the dimpled chin. "Dear
little bird!" he said tenderly; "but when this dimple captivates the
heart of some one, Vad, you will fly away and leave the poor father in
the empty nest."
Her color glowed softly through the olive skin. She threw her arms
around his neck and laid her face against his breast. "You know better!"
she exclaimed passionately. "You know I wouldn't leave you for all the
'some ones' in the world!"
Her father caught her close. "Poor little lass!" he said with a sigh.
The girl lifted her head and looked at him anxiously. "Dearest, what
_is_ the matter? I am sure you are not well! You have been sitting too
long at that tiresome writing."
"Yes, that is it, darling," he said with a sudden change of tone.
"Writing always does give me the blues. I think the man who invented the
art should have been put in a pillory for the rest of his natural life.
Blow your whistle for Sam to bring the horses and we will go for a ride
along the beach."
Evadne lifted the golden whistle which hung at her girdle and blew the
call which the well-trained servant understood. "Fi, dearest!" she said,
"if there were no writing there would be no books, and what would become
of our beautiful evenings then? But I am glad you do not have to write
much, since it tires you so. What has it all been about, dear? Am I
never to know?"
"Some day, perhaps, little Vad. But do not indulge in the besetting sin
of your sex, or, like the mother of the race, you may find your apple
choke you in the chewing."
Evadne shook her finger at him. "Naughty one! As if you were not three
times as curious as I! And when it comes to waiting,--you should have
named me Patience, sir!"
Her father laughed as he kissed her, then he tied on her hat, threw on
his own, and hand-in-hand like two children they ran down the veranda
steps to where the groom stood waiting with the horses.
CHAPTER II.
A month full of happy days had flown by when Evadne and her father
returned one morning from a long tramp in search of specimens. A
delightful afternoon had followed, he in a hammock, she on a low seat
beside him, arranging, classifying and preparing their morning's spoil
for the microscope. Suddenly she turned towards him with a troubled
face.
"Dearest, how pale you look! Are you very tired?"
"It is only the heat," he answered lightly. "We had a pretty stiff walk
this morning, you know."
"And I carried you on and on!" she cried reproachfully. "I was so
anxious to find this particular crab. Isn't he a pretty fellow?" and she
lifted the box that her father might watch the tiny creature's play. "I
shall go at once and make you an orange sherbet."
"Let Dinah do it and you stay here with me."
"No indeed! You know you think no one can make them as well as I do. I
promise you this one shall be superfine."
"As you will, little one,--only don't stay away too long."
He lay very still after she had left him, looking dreamily through the
vines at the silver spray of the fountain. The air had grown
oppressively sultry; no breath of wind stirred the heavily drooping
leaves, no sound except the rhythmic splash of the fountain and the soft
lapping of the waves upon the beach. He closed his eyes while their
ceaseless monotone seemed to beat upon his brain.
"Forever! Forever! Forever!"
A spasm of pain crossed his face as Evadne's voice woke the echoes with
a merry song. "Poor little lass!" he murmured. Then he smiled as she
came towards him, quaffed off the beverage she had prepared with loving
skill, and called her the best cook in all the Indies.
"Has it refreshed you, dearest?" she asked anxiously.
"Immensely! Now you shall read me some of Lalla Rookh, and after dinner
I will set about making a Mecca for your crab."
Evadne stroked the dainty claws,--
"Poor little chap! So you are a pilgrim like the rest of us. I wish we
did not have to go on and on, dearest!" she exclaimed passionately,
"why cannot we stand still and enjoy?"
"It would grow monotonous, little Vad. Progress is the law of all being,
and seventy years of life is generally enough for the majority. You
would not like to live to be an old lady of two hundred and fifty? Think
how tired you would be!"
She laid her cheek against his upon the pillow. "I should _never_ grow
tired,--with you!"
The evening drew on, hot and breathless. Low growls of distant thunder
were heard at intervals, and in the eastern sky the lightning played.
Evadne watched it, sitting on the top step of the veranda, her white
muslin dress in happy contrast with the deep green of the vines which
clustered thickly about the pillar against which she leaned. On the step
below her a young man sat. He too was clad in white and the rich crimson
of the silken scarf which he wore about his waist enhanced his Spanish
beauty. A zither lay across his knees over which his hands wandered
skilfully as he made the air tremble with dreamy music. Mr. Hildreth
paced slowly up and down the veranda behind them.
"What is the news from the great world, Geoff? I saw a troop ship
signaled this morning. Have you been on board yet?"
"No, sir, I have been looking over the plantation with my father all
day, and only got home in time for dinner."
"You chose a cool time for it!" and Mr. Hildreth laughed.
Geoffrey Chittenden shrugged his shoulders. "When Geoffrey Chittenden,
Senior, makes up his mind to do anything, he has the most sublime
indifference for the thermometer of any one I ever had the honor of
knowing. But the ship only brought a small detachment, I believe; she
will carry away a larger one. The garrison here is to be reduced, you
know."
"Yes, it is a mistake I think. Will Drewson have to go? He has been on
this Station longer than any of the others."
"Yes, his company has marching orders for Malta. He told me last night
he was coming to take leave of you next week."
"Our nice Captain Drewson going away!" Evadne exclaimed, aghast. "Why,
dearest, he is one of our oldest friends!"
"The law of progression, Vad darling."
"How I hate it!" she cried, while her lips trembled. "Why can't we just
live on in the old happy way? You will be going next, Geoff, and the
Hamiltons and the Vandervoorts. Does nothing last?"
Her voice hushed itself into silence and again Lenox Hildreth heard the
soft waves singing,--
"Forever! Forever! Forever!"
"Oh yes, Evadne," Geoffrey said with a laugh: "we are very lasting. It
is only the unfortunate people under military rule who prove unreliable.
Let me sing you my latest song to cheer your spirits. I only learned it
last week."
He struck a few chords and was beginning his song when a low groan made
him spring to his feet. Evadne passed him like a flash of light and flew
to her father's side. He was leaning heavily against a pillar with his
handkerchief, already showing crimson stains, pressed tightly against his
lips.
They laid him gently down and summoned help. After that all was like a
horrible dream to Evadne. She was dimly conscious that friends came with
ready offers of assistance, and that Barbadoes' best physicians were
unremitting in their efforts to stop the hemorrhage; while she stood
like a statue beside her father's bed. She was absolutely still. When at
last the hemorrhage was checked the exhaustion was terrible. Evadne
longed to throw herself beside him and pillow the dear head upon her
bosom, but Dr. Danvers had whispered,--
"A sudden sound may start the hemorrhage again,--the slightest shock is
sure to." After that, not for worlds would she have moved a finger.
The day passed and another night drew on. One of the physicians was
constantly in attendance, for the hemorrhage returned at intervals. Just
as the rose-tinted dawn looked shyly through the windows, her father
spoke, and Evadne bent her head to catch the faint tone of the voice
which sounded so far away.
"Vad, darling, I have made an awful mistake! I thought everything a
sham. I know better now. Make it the business of your life, little Vad,
to find Jesus Christ."
Again the red stream stained his lips, and Dr. Danvers came swiftly
forward, but Lenox Hildreth was forever beyond all need of human care.
* * * * *
A week passed, and day after day Evadne sat by her window, speaking no
word. Outdoors the fountain still sparkled in the sunshine and the birds
sang, but for her the foundations of life had been shaken to their
center. Her friends tried in vain to break up her unnatural calm.
"If you would only have a good cry, Evadne," Geoffrey Chittenden said
at last, "you would feel better, dear. That is what all girls do, you
know."
She turned upon him a pair of solemn eyes, out of which the merry
sparkle had faded. "Will crying give me back my father?"
"Why, no, dear. Of course I didn't mean that. But these things are bound
to happen to us all, sooner or later, you know. It is the rule of life."
"'The law of progression,'" she said with a dreary laugh. "I wish the
world would stop for good!"
When the clergyman came she met him quietly, and he found himself not a
little disconcerted by the steady gaze of the mournful grey eyes. He was
not accustomed to dealing with such wordless grief, and he found his
favorite phrases sadly inadequate to the occasion. There was an awkward
pause.
"Dr. Danvers says your father told him some time ago that, in the event
of his death, he wished you to make your home with your uncle in
America?" he said at length.
Evadne bowed.
"Well, my dear young lady, you will find it in all respects a most
desirable home, I feel confident. Judge Hildreth holds a position of
great trust in the church, and is universally esteemed as a Christian
gentleman of sterling character."
The grey eyes were lifted to his face.
"Shall I find Jesus Christ there?"
"Jesus Christ?" The clergyman echoed her words with a start. "I beg your
pardon, my dear. The Lord sitteth upon his throne in the heavens. We
must approach him reverently, with humble fear."
"That seems a long way off," said Evadne in a disappointed tone. "There
must be some mistake. My father told me to make it the business of my
life to find him."
"Your father, my dear! Oh, ah, ahem!"
An indignant flash leaped into the grey eyes. Evadne rose and faced him.
"You must excuse me, sir," she said quietly. Then she left the room.
And the tears, which all the kindly sympathy had failed to bring her, at
the first breath of censure fell about her like a flood.
CHAPTER III.
Judge Hildreth sat with his family at dinner in the spacious dining-room
of one of the finest houses in Marlborough. He was a handsome man, with
a stateliness of manner attributable in part to the deferential homage
which Marlborough paid to his opinion in all matters of importance. His
wife, tall and queenly, sat opposite him. Two daughters and a son
completed the family group. Louis Hildreth had his father's dark blue
eyes and regular features, but there were weak lines about the mouth
which betokened a lack of purpose, and the expression of his face was
marred by a cynical smile which was fast becoming habitual with him.
Isabelle, the eldest, was tall and fair, except for a chill hauteur
which set strangely upon one so young, while her firmly set lips
betokened the existence of a strong will which completely dominated her
less self-reliant sister. Marion Hildreth was just Evadne's age, with a
pink and white beauty and soft eyes which turned deprecatingly at
intervals towards Isabelle, as though to ask pardon for imaginary
solecisms against Miss Hildreth's code of etiquette.
The covers were being changed for the second course when a servant
entered and approached the Judge, bearing a cablegram upon a silver
salver. He ran his eyes hastily over its contents, then he leaned back
heavily against his chair, while an expression of genuine sorrow settled
down upon his face.
"Your Uncle Lenox is dead," he said briefly, as the girls plied him with
questions.
"Dead!" Mrs. Hildreth's voice broke the hush which had fallen in the
room. "Why, Lawrence, this is very sudden! We have looked upon Lenox as
being perfectly well."
"It is not safe to count anyone well, Kate, who carries such a lurking
serpent in his bosom. Only forty-three! Just in his prime. Poor Len!"
The Judge leaned his head upon his hand, while his thoughts were busy
with memories of the gay young brother who had filled the old homestead
with his merry nonsense.
"And what will become of Evadne?" Again Mrs. Hildreth's voice broke the
silence.
"Evadne?" the Judge looked full in his wife's face. "Why, my dear, there
is only one thing to be done. I shall cable immediately to have her come
to us." He rose from the table, his dinner all untasted, and left the
room.
Louis was the first to speak. "A Barbadoes cousin. How will you like
having such a novelty as that, Sis, to introduce among your
acquaintance?" He bowed lazily to Mrs. Hildreth. "Let me congratulate
you, lady mother. You will have the pleasure of floating another bud
into blossom upon the bosom of society."
"I do not see any room for congratulation, Louis," Mrs. Hildreth said
discontentedly. "It is a dreadful responsibility. One does not know what
the child may be like."
"Hardly a child, mamma," pouted Marion. "Evadne must be as old as I."
"If that is so, Sis, she must have the wisdom of Methusaleh!" and Louis
looked at his sister with one of his mocking smiles. "At any rate she
will afford scope for your powers of training, Isabelle. It must be
depressing to have to waste your eloquence upon an audience of one."
Isabelle tossed her head. "I am not anxious for the opportunity," she
said coldly. "Likely the child will be a perfect heathen after running
wild among savages all her life."
Louis whistled. "A little less Grundy and a little more geography would
be to your advantage, Isabelle! Barbadoes happens to be the creme de la
creme of the British Indies. I would not advise you to display your
ignorance before Evadne, or your future lecturettes on the
conventionalities may prove lacking in vital force."
"Why, Isabelle, my dear, you must be dreaming!" and her mother looked
annoyed. "Don't let your father hear you say such a thing, I beg of you!
When he visited Barbadoes he was delighted, and he thought Evadne's
mother one of the most charming women he had ever met. If she had lived
of course Evadne would be all right, but she has been left entirely to
her father's guidance, and he had such peculiar ideas."
"When, did she die, mamma?" asked Marion.
"I am sure I cannot remember. Six or seven years ago it must have been.
But we rarely heard from them. Your Uncle Lenox was always a wretched
correspondent, and since his wife's death he has hardly written at all."
"The house of Hildreth cannot claim to be well posted in the matter of
blood relations," said Louis carelessly, as he helped himself to olives.
* * * * *
Upon the deck of one of the Ocean Greyhounds a promiscuous crowd was
gathered. Returning tourists in all the glory of field glasses and tweed
suits; British officers going home on furlough from the different
outposts where they were stationed; merchants from the rich markets of
the far East; picturesque foreigners in national costume; and a bishop
who paced the deck with a dignity becoming his ecclesiastical rank.
There was a continuous hum of conversation, mingled with intermittent
ripples of laughter from the different groups which were scattered about
the deck. Among the exceptions to the general sociability were the
bishop, still pacing up and down with his hands clasped behind him, and
a young girl who sat looking far out over the waves, utterly heedless of
the noise and confusion around her.
She was absolutely alone. The gentleman under whose care she was
traveling made a point of escorting her to meals, after which he
invariably secured her a comfortable deck chair, supplied her liberally
with rugs and books, and then retired to the smoking-room, with the
serene consciousness of duty well performed; and Evadne Hildreth was
thankful to be left in peace. She was no longer the buoyant, merry girl.
Her vitality seemed crushed. Hour after hour she sat motionless, her
hands folded listlessly in her lap, looking out over the dancing waves.
She had caught the last glimpse of her beloved island in a grey stupor.
Everything was gone,--father and home and friends,--nothing that
happened could matter now,--but, oh, the dreary, dreary years! Did the
sun shine in far-away New England, and could the water be as blue as her
dear Atlantic, with the gay ripple on its bosom and the music of its
waves? She looked at the tender sky, as on the far horizon it bent low
to kiss the face of the mysterious mighty ocean which stretched "a sea
without a shore." That was like her life now. All the beauty ended, yet
stretching on and on and on. And she must keep pace with it, against her
will. And there was no one to care. She was all alone! No, there was
Jesus Christ!