Mrs. Coulson Kernahan

“ There are women who are like angels, and to ask such to marry is a sacrilege. She—Miss Le Breton—is the kind of woman who becomes a nun, and I was too blind to see it, though I, of all people, ought to have known it, for I painted her very soul in my Madonna. But I do not regret having met her, though it has well-nigh broken my heart. I shall be a better man for having known such a beautiful, pure nature. For her sake I shall live purely, and strive for ideals. That she has done for me. So, sister mine, don’t shed tears.”
Isabel was crying.
But in the sitting-room Miss Linkin was triumphant. ”

“ I have written to your father to say I don’t think you are well, and he—”
“What does dad say?” demanded Phyllis, drawing her head back from the friendly bosom, to gaze into the elder woman’s eyes.
“He thinks you have again fallen in love.”
Mrs. Barrimore felt a tremor run through the girl’s frame before she freed herself, and stood defiant, with parted lips through which the breath came quickly.
“And if I have!” the girl cried, “is it a crime? Can anyone help loving? But father need not trouble himself. I can never marry the man I love. I cannot even let him know I love him. ”

“ I will tell Philip Barrimore. He will come back to you!” he exclaimed.
The girl’s face took on a look of pain.
“No, uncle, no,” she said very gently. “I would not again be Eweretta. I would not spoil the happiness of those two. Philip believes me dead. Let him go on believing it. Let him live his life. Don’t you see that if Philip knew that I was myself, and not Aimée, he would feel obliged to——Oh, I can’t bear to think of it! He has taught himself to forget. We could never be what we were to each other. And how could I make that other girl suffer what I have suffered? ”

“ Minnie, who brought in the teapot just then, looked hot enough. But the weather had not much to do with it. Mrs. Hannington always irritated the girl, and, besides, her father had reproved her. But evening would come, and she would hear a whistle round by the rickyard, and would slip out into the moonlight to meet someone. The thought came as sweet balm to her spirits.
There was little balm, however, for the spirits of poor Eweretta.
Eweretta at that very time was watching from her chamber window, watching her old lover and Phyllis Lane taking tea together on the verandah.
How soon men forget! ”

“ Philip had gone out to smoke on the croquet lawn—a lawn raised above the rest of the garden and having great veteran oaks at one end, and banks of flowers on either side that smelt deliciously. A hammock was slung under one of the oaks, and Philip was about to get into it and enjoy his cigar, while Colonel Lane and Uncle Robert finished their wine, when a white-clad figure ran down the rustic steps that led from the terrace under the drawing-room windows to the lawn. ”

“ Alvin did not mean for Eweretta to follow her example. The kind look in the girl’s eyes as she had spoken those memorable words which showed him what Divine forgiveness could mean had worked a miracle in Alvin. He was reclaimed to human feeling by being taught that he was a man still, recognized and treated as a man. For the first time he had felt that he was not despised, and his heart had opened in a tide of affection and generosity.
If Alvin failed to understand Eweretta, she was even more of a riddle to Mrs. Le Breton. ”

“ Le Breton, “do you still love Philip?”
“The Philip I loved is dead,” she answered a little mournfully. “This Philip I can meet without pain from to-day.”
Mrs. Le Breton thought silently for a few moments, during which time she held one of Eweretta’s soft hands between her own, which were hardened and knotted from the rough work she had done in Canada, mending shoes.
At last she said: “You ought to have friends of your own age, dear. It is not right that you should be shut up with two middle-aged people. We ought to move away somewhere where nothing is known about us, to give you a chance.” ”

“ Eweretta turned her beautiful face towards her companion. Her dark blue eyes had no tears in them.
“Mother,” she said (she always called Mrs. Le Breton “mother” now) , “you must not pity me. I am fortunate. I saw to-day how completely I had gone out of Philip Barrimore’s life. If we had married, and this had happened, then, indeed, you might have pitied me! No, we are each destined to some good life-work. I have found mine. I can be a comfort to you and to Uncle Thomas. I have thought much of you both lately. Your life has been a tragedy, dear mother, and that of Uncle Thomas scarcely less so. ”

“ Well, Dan, I am an egotistical aggravating fellow, and I daresay you have more insight than I have. I am really a good deal puzzled about Aimée Le Breton. She talked like a woman who had both education and intellect to-day. I wonder if her mother’s melancholy preyed upon her, and reflected itself in a curious way, so as to mislead people in her earlier days? You know—or perhaps you don’t know—that in the prairie doctors’ opinions are but rarely asked or obtained. It may be that in new and better surroundings the girl has awakened to her real self. ”

“ Miss Linkin sniffed.
Mrs. Webster sighed.
“Such eyes!” went on Dan; “such hair!—and above all, such a divine expression!”
“Don’t you be taken in by all that, Dan!” broke out Miss Linkin. “I dare say she is a designing young minx!”
“And such a figure!” went on Dan teasingly.
“Squeezed in, I suppose,” said Miss Linkin. “Men always admire thin waists; why, I can’t think!”
“Her waist isn’t thin,” said Dan.
“What is her name?” demanded Miss Linkin.
“Aimée Le Breton,” replied Dan.
“Oh! a Frenchwoman!” cried Miss Linkin. “They are the worst of all.” ”

“ Dan said. “It had never come into my mind. You see, I had resolved, if my eyes got well, to give a ‘Madonna’ to a church I am fond of. I painted my best, because I would only offer my best. But I owe all to Miss [Pg 213] Le Breton—for being what she is, and for being so sweet as to sit to me.”
Colonel Lane’s severe face softened as he looked at the frank, boyish face.
“My dear Webster, you are as free from vanity as Philip is full of it. Don’t get ‘swelled head’ when you get famous—as you will!”
“I will try not to,” laughed Dan; “but I am not famous yet!” ”

“ Philip put the girl from him and dabbed his waistcoat with his handkerchief.
“Look here, Phyllis,” he said firmly, “you did a very silly thing in inducing Captain Arbuthnot to marry you; but it was only silly. It was not a crime. It will be a crime if you are false to the man you compelled to act in a way against which I am sure his sense of honor revolted. The one thing you have to do now, is to stand firmly by the vows you made and never let that unfortunate man find out what a shallow creature he married. What has changed you all at once? ”

“ Had he not been cheerfully giving up days of his precious time chiefly to please his mother? Had he not gone with her to her precious garden-parties, and on excursions to Rye and Winchelsea? Had he not controlled his impatience with Uncle Robert’s quotations—for nearly a week? Uncle Robert! did he know about this unseemly affair? If he did know, did he approve?
But he, Philip, was the head of the family, not Uncle Robert. ”

“ But Philip is a safe friend for her. Poor Philip! he will never get over the loss of Eweretta!”
“I don’t know so much about that,” the Colonel affirmed. “In these days young folks don’t love as faithfully as when I was young. I question if real love ever comes to the very young nowadays—lasting love.”
Mrs. Barrimore’s cheeks flushed with that delicate pink at these words.
Colonel Lane saw the color come and go, and loved her the more for the pure heart which made those pretty blushes possible at her age. It was this purity of nature which more than anything else kept Mrs. Barrimore so young. ”

“ At last he said: “If I did not know Dan Webster so well, I should imagine he had been drinking! Look at the unsteady, wavering writing, mother!”
“Yes, it is unsteady,” she answered. “Open it, Philip. Perhaps he is ill.”
“Oh!” ejaculated the young man, as he read the opening passage. “Poor Dan!”
“What is it?” came from Mrs. Barrimore and uncle in a duet.
“His eyes have gone wrong. He is to do no painting for a long time. He is down in the depths,” said Philip. “Poor Dan! and his people, who have never approved of his taking up art as a profession, say it is a judgment on him! ”

“ The owner of the miserable face came downstairs after watching Philip Barrimore’s departure and joined Thomas Alvin in the dining-room.
“Well, Mrs. Le Breton, we have walked into a lion’s jaws,” remarked the man, pouring out a wine-glass of brandy and gulping it down. “That man who called is Philip Barrimore, and he is come to live near us.”
“We must go away,” said the woman. “We must go at once.”
“What a fool you are!” thundered Alvin. “That would excite suspicion. We must just stand our ground. No one can disprove our statements—and the girl looks mad enough to convince anyone.” ”

“ Barrimore, fresh and smiling, but with trouble in the dear grey eyes for those who could read them, entered the dining-room. Dan was already there with Uncle Robert, and presently Phyllis and Philip came in.
Philip was so occupied about the puzzling remarks he had just been hearing in the smoking-room that he forgot to resent his mother’s very charming appearance. Love can take ten years off any woman’s looks, and Mrs. Barrimore had a dear secret hidden under the dainty bodice. ”

“ Philip told her with a fine assumption of sternness.
“But everyone does, you know,” Phyllis answered, as if stating an everyday fact of no particular importance.
“You don’t know Dan as I do,” Philip hammered away. “He is apt to become very much in earnest. He thinks you are free. It is not fair to him, Phyllis.”
“You always lecture me,” Phyllis said; “yet I like you, and it is to you I bring my worries.”
Philip laughed. Worries? What did this small person—this captivating little bride of weeks—know of worries? It struck him that she did not worry a great deal about her absent husband. ”

“ The rough Colonial’s face had upon it a light indescribable, as he said: “I unlucky! I, who have [Pg 311] found love! No, I am rich. I am fortunate! The prairie will be no more lonely. I shall live in this hour. But I must go—yes, I must go! the prairie calls, and calls.”
A wistful look came into Alvin’s eyes, as if he were gazing on a far, far horizon.
“Ah, I am homesick! homesick!” he said in deep, lingering tones. “Homesick, for the old rough, wild life. How homesick you can neither of you know, even Eweretta, for she never roughed it. ”

“ Mary, Star of the Sea,” had only to let Miss Le Breton know of a sad case of poverty to find it relieved. She never appeared herself in such matters. She helped the poor through the old priest. Father Donelli thought Miss Le Breton a saint. She did not do her good works before men to get praise of them. She lived a simple, pious life. She accused herself in the Confessional of want of gratitude for a sorrow which had come to her—of course, for her good.
Eweretta had, indeed, struggled to thank God for the loss of her lover; she had at one time bitterly rebelled. She had so loved Philip! ”

“ Clement’s Caves is situated, and looked down at the old town, with its quaint red-roofed houses, and then across to the little churchyard of All Saints on the slope of the East Hill.
As his eyes rested on this churchyard they suddenly dimmed.
Under a white cross, like one he now saw, rested the woman he had loved. Woman? Eweretta Alvin had been but a girl when she had suddenly ceased to be, and his heart lay buried with her away in Canada.
At five-and-twenty Barrimore had vowed himself to bachelorhood, which was his only point of resemblance to his Uncle Robert Burns. ”

“ One of the pedestrians, a young and athletic man, had climbed the bank nearer to him in a second, and was peering through a gap in the hedge, where nothing met his gaze but miles of smiling country, dotted by farms at long intervals, a bungalow covered with rambler roses, and a white house on the border of a wood.
“Can you see anybody, sir?” asked the man in the lane, who was dressed as a farmer. ”

“ She had told him that Colonel Lane [Pg 271] had gone back to Dulwich, as his friend Colonel Henderson had had a relapse.
When quite satisfied with his appearance, Philip went down to the dining-room, where the tender mother was of course the first to welcome her boy. Her loving arms were about him the moment he entered the room. Her heart harbored no resentment for his cold and even cruel behavior when he had parted with her. He did not forget, however, and a flush of genuine shame came to his face as he remembered his words to her, “Women never know when a man wants to be left alone.” ”

“ You could not even persuade Barrimore that you are other than Aimée Le Breton. He saw you to-day. He has gone away believing you to be Aimée. He will not return.”
Eweretta turned her face away to hide the agony of despair that convulsed it.
“From now you will not walk in the garden,” went on Alvin, “you will walk only in the wood. If I liberate you now, from this room, will you promise to behave reasonably? You will always be well treated so long as you behave reasonably, and make no attempt to cross my purposes. You know the consequences of your wild outbursts. They drive me to drink.” ”