40 Ere I Cease To Love Her, My Queen
IT is a May day, cloudless, flawlesss, sunny, breezy. Isle Perdrix lies like an emerald in its sapphire setting, in the dancing waves of Bay Chalette.
It is yet early morning—not quite nine o’clock, but, even at this matutinal hour, the shrill-pitched French Canadian voice of old Ma’am Weesy rises on the sunny air in accents of keen reproach. The yellow-painted kitchen is one flood of eastern sunshine; the rows of burnished tin and copper make the beholder wink again; two huge family cats bask in front of the polished cooking-stove; pots of geraniums and pink roses on the window-sills scent the air; a fragrance as of tea and toast is in the atmosphere.
Unsoftened by all these mellowing influences, Ma’am Weesy stands, with hands on hips, and pours forth a torrent of reproach in mingled French and English. Jemima Ann stands near, and listens and laughs. The culprit, out in the hop-wreathed porch, tries—also in foreign accents—to make himself heard.
“Sure, thin, ’twasn’t my fault—that I may nivir av it was, ould Wasy! It was all the doin’ an’ the divilment av Masther Johnny. Ax himself, av ye don’t b’lave me. There he is now, foreninst ye, an’ divil another word av ye’re abuse I’ll take this blissid day, av ye wor twice the ould catamoran ye are!”
With which Tim stamps away indignantly, and another manly form takes his place.
“What’s the row?” demands this new-comer; “what the duse, Ma’am Weesy, are you and old Tim kicking up such a clatter about at this time of morning?”
“Ah! bon jour, M’sieur Jean!”
Instantly all trace of wrath vanishes as if by magic from the face of Ma’am Weesy; her coffee—colored visage beams with pride and joy. Tim has only forgotten madam’s bouquet after all, but M. Jean has it, she fails not to perceive.
“Madam nearly ready, Miss Hopkins?” he says.
“Nearly ready, Captain John; dressing. I will tell her you have come, and give her her bouquet.”
“And I will give you some breakfast, M. Jean,” suggests radiant Ma’am Weesy.
No, M. Jean says, he doesn’t want anything. His appetite has deserted him this morning, it appears; he looks and feels nervous and fidgety, and keeps pulling out his watch every few minutes and glancing at it with impatient eyes.
“I wish it was this time to-morrow,” he growls inwardly, “all the to-do over, and Inno and I—dear little soul! fairly out on blue water, with all the staring eyes and gaping tongues left behind. It’s a capital thing to marry the girl of one’s heart, no doubt, but it’s a very considerable bore getting the preliminaries safely over. I’ll go down to the beach and smoke a cigar, Weesy,” he says aloud. “When madam is ready call me, will you?”
For Dolores—once Lady Valentine—is “madam” here, and for the last fourteen months has hidden herself and her sorrows and her widowhood in the sea-girt seclusion, so often sighed for, of Isle Perdrix. George Valentine brought and left her here when he departed to assert his rights, and proclaim his identity as the next in succession to Valentine.
And now, standing before the dressing-glass in her little room, she is robing for a bridal, and feeling as if the past years had dropped away from her life like a bad dream, and that it is the jubilant girl, Snowball, who sings softly to herself and smiles back at her own fair image in the mirror. It is John Macdonald’s wedding day and Innocente Desereaux—is the bride. It is a very fair and girlish Snowball who comes down stairs, pink roses in her cheeks and starry brilliance in her eyes a rose and a star herself, as so it seems to Captain John Macdonald, who catches a glimpse of this sunny vision and comes in.
“By Jove!” he says, and stands and looks at her, “if lnno had not done for me before you came—well, it’s of no use talking now of the might-have-been’s. You look like a rosebud yourself, Snowball—queen lily and rose in one—and will outshine my Inno herself, it you don’t take care. Nothing else in St. Gildas, of course, will have a ghost of a chance near you.”
“What a charming courtier you are, Johnny,” retorts “madam” derisively. “Such delicate flattery, such subtle compliment! If you cannot acquit yourself more creditably than this, sir, you had better leave it to those who understand the business. Outshine your lnno, indeed! You know very well if the Venus Aphrodite rose from the surf there this moment, you would consider the goddess rather a plain-looking young woman compared to your Inno. Stand off a little and let me look at you.”
John Macdonald does as he is bid, and laughingly “stands at ease,” and folds his arms and holds himself erect for inspection.
“I really do not think Inno need be ashamed of you much this morning,” she says, “only I hope you won’t flounder about and be awkward, Johnny, and drop the ring and turn a bright crimson at the wrong time, and make a guy of yourself generally when we get to church. Père Louis will be sure to laugh at you if you do—you know his dreadfully keen sense of the ridiculous always; and with the sisterly-motherly regard I have for you, my dear boy, it would pain me to see the finger of risibility pointed at you on your wedding-day. You will try and, conduct yourself rationally?” implores Dolores.
“Yes, I’ll try,” says Captain Macdonald, and laughs: “with your maternal eye upon me, how can I fail? Ten o’clock, Snowball,” pulling out the perpetual watch; “look sharp, will you, like a dear girl? Have you had anything in the way of breakfast, or will you wait for the breakfast? It takes place, you know, at eleven.”
“I know. I will not be late. I will take a cup of tea, please, Ma’am Weesy—nothing more. Did you”—she asks this carelessly, her face averted while sipping her tea—”did you receive the letters you looked for last night after I left—from M. Paul, I mean?”
“One from M. Paul—Sir George Valentine rather—none from Rene. Sir George’s letter is all right—what might be expected from such a thorough good fellow. He will come—will be here by the afternoon train (D. V.) to wish us felicity and all that. But it will be no end of a bore if Rene fails to put in an appearance.”
“You still hope then, that he may come?”
“Well, you see, while there’s life there’s hope, as they say, and the very fact of his not having written encourages me in the belief that he may be on his way. I haven’t seen the dear old boy for years; it will spoil even my wedding-day if he fails me now. Ready? Come on then.”
They go. As they enter the boat, Captain Macdonald takes from his pocket a letter, and hands it to her.
“Valentine’s,” he says, “read it as we cross. It is a capital letter, from the prince of good fellows, and there is a message for you.”
For M. Paul Farrar is Sir George Valentine at last, in sight of all the world, and reigning Seigneur of Manor Valentine. The great fortune, the old name, lost once for a woman, have been regained. His claim was sufficiently easy to prove; many still remained in Toronto who remembered George Valentine perfectly. And so it comes to pass that among the prim old Queen Anne gardens, up and down the leafy, lofty avenues, through the empty echoing galleries of Manor Valentine, Sir George walks and smokes and muses, alone. He is far more of a favorite with the resident gentry than the late baronet ever was; people—women particularly—think it a pity, a man still in the prime of life, still unusually handsome and attractive, should appear to think so little of marrying and giving the Manor a mistress. But George Valentine, smoking his solitary pipe, and dreaming his own dreams of future and past, knows he will never marry—his one brief, disastrous experience has put an end for ever to all thought of that.
And yet through these dreams he dreams—through these visions he sees arising in the clouds of Cavendish —there are the faces of little children brightening the dusky Manor rooms; he hears their gleeful shouts up and down these deserted garden walks, where no childish footsteps have trodden for more than half a century. Sometimes these babies of his fancy look at him with the dark, solemn, handsome eyes of Rene Macdonald, sometimes the long tresses that wave in the wind have the pale gold sheen of little Snowball Trillon. But of these idle pictures he says nothing, “patient waiters are no losers.” He bides his time and hopes.
* * * * * * *
And now it is eleven, and the bells—wedding—bells are ringing out their jubilant peal. Père Louis, in surplice and stole, stands within the altar rails, and Captain John Macdonald, and pretty Innocente Desereaux, in her glistening bride’s robe and vail, kneel to receive their nuptial benediction. It is all over, a bride has been given away, and even under the severe matrimonial inspection of “madame”—whose blue eyes are a trifle dim, to be sure—the bridegroom has not distinguished himself by any notable gaucherie. It is all well over, to Captain John’s unutterable relief, for even to a “tar who plows the water” to be the center and focus of some fifty pairs of feminine eyes must be rather a trying ordeal. The breakfast is over, too, healths have been drunk, and toasts responded to, and speeches made, and blushes blushed, and tears wiped away, with smiles to chase them, and it is afternoon, and nearly train time, and one heart there is beating, beating—ah! as hearts have beaten for all time—will beat still in that day when all time shall end. Others discuss the coming arrival, or arrivals it may be, only “madame” says nothing. A deep permanent flush burns on her cheeks, a brilliant feverish light is in her eyes, her pulses are throbbing with sickening rapidity at times, and then again seeming to stand still. Will he come—will he come? Every feverish beat of her heart seems beating out that question. She has not seen him since that day, so long ago—oh! so long, long ago—under the trees of Valentine. By which it will be seen, by all whom it may concern, that it is not Sir George whose coming, or non-coming, is setting her nerves and pulses in this quiver.
She breaks away from it all, presently—the guests, the laughter, the music—and goes out. It is a little out of the ordinary routine, this wedding—the day—the last day for so long, is spent by the happy pair here among their relatives and friends. This evening they go on board the big ship waiting out there in the stream, ready to spread her white wings for South America, the first thing to-morrow morning. The shriek of the incoming train reaches Dolores as she steps out into the garden. That shriek, listened for all day, comes to her like a shock at last. She turns white in the May sunshine, and cold—what if it has not brought him after all! If it is so she feels she must bear it, just at first, alone, not under all those eyes in there, and so she hurries on, and down, aimlessly, to the water’s edge. As she stands she can see Isle Perdrix, its tall light-house piercing the hazy blue, its long white strip of hard beach, the smoke curling up from the little peaceful cottage. And as she stands, some one comes up the path, and it is Sir George Valentine, and alone!
She sinks down on the low garden wall, and covers her face with her hands. He has not come! At last she is alone with her pain. But, oh! she has so hoped, so longed for his coming, so hungered for the sight of his face, the sound of his voice. All her life she has loved him and known it not—it seems to her she has never known how she has loved him until this bitter hour. “Rene—my love—Rene!” she says, and stretches out her arms passionately; “why have you not come?”
Have her words evoked him? A hurried step, a voice, a call, “Snowball!” a voice that would call her back from the dead almost it seems to her, in the wild, incredulous joy of that moment. “Dolores—my darling!” the voice says. And it is Rene who stands before her. “Dolores! my own, my dearest! Carissima mia! we meet at last!” he cries.
She slips from him, and sits down again on the garden wall, dizzily. Joy, rapture, amaze fill her. What she says is in a weak voice :
“I thought you were not going to come.”
He laughs, and seats himself beside her, possessing himself of the two small, fluttering hands in a strong, close clasp.
“Because Valentine came in first alone? I met old Tim at the gate, and of course had to stop a minute and shake hands with the dear old fellow. I just glanced in the parlor, kissed the bride, congratulated the bridegroom, inquired for you, and was directed here. I came—I saw—I—have I conquered? Snowball, my little love, my life’s darling, how good it seems to sit here beside you, to look at you, to listen to you once more!”
“I really thought you were not coming!” In this supreme hour it is all Dolores, ever fluent and ready, can find to say. But, oh! the rapture, the unspeakable gladness that fills her heart as she sits.
“Thought I was not coming,” laughs Rene again, “anima mia, it has been all I could do to keep from coming any time the past year. I held myself by force sheer force of will—away. It was too soon, out of consideration for you, but you do not know, you never can know, what the effort cost me. And those letters, few and far between, formal and friendly, I used to tear up a dozen drafts of each, in which my heart would creep out at the point of my pen. Thought I was not coming! Oh! you might have known me better than that. And now I have come, and for you, my long lost love, never to leave you again—to take you with me, my own forever, when I go.”
What is Dolores, is any one, to say to such impetuous wooing as his? It sweeps away all before it.
Rene, silent habitually, can talk, it seems, when he likes.
“I have the programme all arranged. Our wedding takes place—well, you shall name the day, of course—but in June sometime, and there is to be no talk of elaborate trousseau or delay, because I have neither the time nor inclination to listen. We will be married in the little church over there, and Père Louis shall perform the ceremony. Then we go to Valentine for July and August, to Paris for September and the autumn, and back to Rome, our home, Carina, in the early winter. I have it all arranged, you understand, and if you know any just or lawful reason why it may not be carried out, you will be kind enough to state it now, or forever after hold your peace.”
” Some one is singing. Listen——” is Dolores’ still inconsequent reply; “it is Inno—has she not a charming voice?”
Through the open windows the tender refrain of the much sung love-song. “My Queen,” comes to the happy lovers sitting here.
“When and how shall I earliest meet her?
What are the Words that she first will say?
By what name shall I learn to greet her?
I know not now: it will come some day.
With this self-same sunlight shining upon her,
Shining down on her ringlets sheen,
She is standing somewhere—she I will honor,
She that I wait for—my queen, my queen!“She must be courteous, she must be holy,
Pure, sweet, and tender, the girl I love;
Whether her birth be humble or lowly,
I care no more than the angels above.
And I’ll give my heart to my lady’s keeping,
And ever her strength on mine shall lean,
And the stars shall fall and the saints be weeping,
Ere I cease to love her—my queen, my queen!”
“And all this time,” says Rene, “I have not asked you once, if you love me, my queen?”
Who is it talks of brilliant flashes of silence? Dolores does not answer—in words—and Rene does not repeat his question. They rise as the sweet song ends, and turn to go back to the house; and who needs words when hearts are filled with bliss? For love is strong, and youth is sweet, and both are theirs, and they are together to part no more.
THE END.
