Norine's Revenge, and, Sir Noel's Heir

"They will forget and forgive, never fear, Norry. People always come round when they can't do anything else. Of course you shall write to them – of course you shall do for the future precisely as you wish, and I will only exist to fulfil your commands. But not just yet, you know; not until uncle Darcy relents and forgives. Because, my pet, I haven't a dollar in the world of my own, except my allowance from him, and I can't afford to offend him. But I'll soon bring him round. Let him see you once, and all will be forgiven. The man doesn't exist, old or young, who could resist you."

All this was very delightful, of course; and in such rose-colored, romance-flavored talk, the time sped on. Norine's spirits rose with the brisk drive in the teeth of the night gale. She was with Laurence; she was never to part from him more. All life held of rapture was said for her in that. It was rather a drawback, certainly, that she might not tell them at home of her felicity at once, but she would just drop them a line from Boston to say she was safe and well and happy, that they were not to worry about her, and to beg Mr. Gilbert's – poor Mr. Gilbert's – pardon. That much Laurence would consent to, of course. To be married in a hotel parlor, by a Congregationalist Minister was also ever so little of a drawback, to a little French Canadienne, but one must not expect unalloyed earthly happiness. And had not Laurence said they would go one day to Montreal – dear old Montreal, and be remarried in Notre Dame? Then she would visit Aunt Hetty and Uncle Reuben; then she would go to New York and plead with Mr. Darcy for her beloved husband, and Mr. Darcy would grant that pardon, and then – what then? Well, nothing then, of course, only live and be happy forever after! The sloop, in which Mr. Thorndyke had engaged passage, was ready to sail. Norine was consigned to the care of the captain's wife for the trip, and was soon so utterly prostrate with mal de mer, that love and Laurence were forgotten.

To tell the truth, Mr. Thorndyke was miserably sea-sick himself; but this mode of travel had been forced upon him by the exigencies of the case. The pursuers must be thrown off the track. Gilbert would surely suspect and follow; if they went by rail, he would inevitably hunt them down. So, of necessity, he chose the sloop, and with a head wind and driving rain, spent Monday night, Tuesday, and Tuesday night sea-sick and prostrate. Wednesday morning came and they were in Boston. It came in pouring rain and leaden sky, and the bleak easterly wind your Bostonian dreads. They drove to the hotel, Miss Bourdon dreadfully ashamed of her old waterproof, and ascended to their private parlor. Mr. Thorndyke ordered breakfast to be served here at once, and both partook of that repast when it came, with very excellent appetites. Mr. Thorndyke had had some more brandy, which tonic, doubtless, stimulated his appetite, his resolution and his love together. Then he put on his hat, looked at his watch, and departed on matrimonial business intent.

"I'll be off for the Reverend Jonas Maggs (his name's the Reverend Jonas Maggs) at once, and make you Mrs. Thorndyke before you eat your dinner. And I'll order a few things here – a hat, for instance, a sacque, and a few dresses and gloves. I'll be back in an hour or two at the longest. You won't be lonely, my darling, while I'm gone?"

She had answered him "no," and with a very affectionate embrace, he had left her. But in his absence she did grow lonely, did grow saddened and remorseful. What must they think of her at home? They had discovered her flight by this time – all was consternation and terror. They would wonder what had happened – why she had gone, whither, and if alone. Aunt Hetty she could see weeping and refusing to be comforted; her uncles shocked, speechless, terrified; Mr. Gilbert pale, stern, and perhaps guessing the truth. He had loved her, very truly and dearly, and Thursday next was to have been his wedding day. Oh! what a cruel, wicked, heartless, ungrateful wretch she must be now in his sight! How he would scorn and despise her – how they all would! Would they ever forgive her for this shameful flight – this cold-blooded treachery? One day she might, perhaps, come face to face with Mr. Gilbert, in the busy whirl of New York life, and how would she ever dare to meet his angry, scornful eye? As Laurence's wife, the deepest bliss life could give would be hers, but through all her life long, even in the midst of this bliss, the trail of the serpent would be over all still, in her undying shame and remorse. The ready tears of seventeen fell, until all at once Miss Bourdon recollected that Laurence would be here presently with the clergyman, and that it would never do to be married with red eyes and a swollen nose. She sprang up, bathed her face, brushed out her long silky black hair, and by the time she had made herself pretty and bright, Mr. Thorndyke's light step came flying up the stairs, three at a bound, and Mr. Thorndyke's impetuous tap was at the door.

"Come in," she said, her heart beginning to flutter, and the bridegroom came in, handsome, smiling, eager, followed by a seedy-looking personage in rusty black, and the professional "choker" of dingy white.

"Out of patience, Norine? But I could not come an instant sooner, and it is only half-past eleven. My friend, the Reverend Jonas Maggs, Miss Bourdon, soon to be transformed into Mrs. Laurence Thorndyke; and the sooner the better. Here's the ring, Norry, bought haphazard – let's see if it fits the dear little finger. So! as if you were born in it. Now then, Mr. Maggs, pity the impatience of ardent love, and get on with the ceremony."

High spirits these for a runaway match. The handsome face was flushed, the blue eyes feverishly bright, a strong odor of cigars and cognac pervaded Mr. Thorndyke's broadcloth. The Rev. Mr. Maggs coughed, a meek, clerical cough, looked furtively and admiringly at the bride, drew forth a book, and "stood at ease." Mr. Thorndyke drew Miss Bourdon up before him, the ring between his fingers, an odd sort of smile on his lips. For Norine, she had grown ashen white; now that the supreme moment had come, she was trembling from head to foot. Even to her inexperience there was something bizarre, something wrong and abnormal, in this outre sort of marriage. A bride without bridal dress, veil or blossoms; without bridesmaid, or friend; a bridegroom splashed with mud and rain drops, without groomsman or witness. And the Rev. Mr. Maggs, for a holy man, was as dirty and disreputable a specimen of the class as one might wish to see. She stood by his side, pale to the lips, afraid of – she knew not what. As in a dream she heard Mr. Maggs gabbling over some sort of ceremony. As in a dream she saw the ring slipped over her finger. As in a dream she saw him shut up his book with a slap, and heard him pronounce them man and wife. Then for the first time she lifted her eyes, full, clear, questioning to the face of Laurence Thorndyke. For the first time, perhaps, in his own experience of himself he shrank before their crystal clear, childishly innocent gaze. His were still full of that intolerable light of triumph – that exultant smile yet lingered on his lips.

He drew Maggs aside and slipped a crisp greenback, into his hand. Then the reverend gentleman resumed his hat, bowed to the bride, wished her joy with an unctuous smile, and slowly took himself out of the room.

"My dear little wife!" Laurence Thorndyke said. "You have made me the happiest man in America to-day. For the next four weeks, in our pretty Chelsea cottage, it shall be our business to forget that the world holds another human creature than our two selves."

"And I've paid you off, I think, my friend Gilbert, with compound interest." Mr. Thorndyke added, mentally, as a rider to that pretty little speech. "I'm not over and above rich this morning, but I'd give a cool hundred to see your face."

And so, while not half a mile off, Richard Gilbert and Reuben Kent were searching, with the aid of a detective officer, every hotel in Boston, a hack was rattling over the stones to Chelsea Ferry, bearing to their bridal home Laurence Thorndyke and Norine.

CHAPTER X.

"A FOOL'S PARADISE."

The little house was like a picture – like a doll's house, the whitest, the brightest, the trimmest, the tiniest of all tiny houses. It nestled down in a sheltered nook, with its back set comfortably against a hill. Its pretty little garden full of pretty little flowers, climbing roses and scarlet-runners all over its inviting porch, and away beyond, Chelsea beach, like a strip of silver ribbon, and the dimpling sea, smiling back the sunshine. No other house within a quarter of a mile, the dim, dark woodland rising up in the back-ground, the big, bustling, work-a-day world shut out on every hand. Could Laurence Thorndyke, if he had searched for half a lifetime, have found a more charming, more secluded spot in which to dream out Love's Young Dream?

And the dream was pretty nearly dreamed out now.

For the fourth week had come, and the days of the honey month were drawing to a close. If the truth must be told, the honey had cloyed upon Mr. Thorndyke's fastidious palate before the end of the second week, had grown distasteful ere the end of the third – had palled entirely at the beginning of the fourth. In other words, the honeymoon business and doing "love in a cottage," buried alive here, was fast becoming a most horrible bore.

"If I had been very much in love with the girl," thought Mr. Thorndyke, communing with his own heart "it might have been different – even then, though, let it have been ever so severe a case of spoons, I don't think I could have stood another week of this deadly lively sort of thing. But I wasn't very much in love. If you know yourself, Laurence Thorndyke, and you flatter yourself you do, it isn't in you to get up a grande passion for any body. There was Lucy West, there is Helen Holmes, here is Norine Bourdon. I don't believe you ever had more than a passing fancy for any of them, and your motto ever has been 'lightly won lightly lost.'"

He was lying upon a sofa, stretched at full length, his hands clasped behind his head, a cloud of cigar smoke half-veiling his handsome, lazy, bored face, his eyes fixed dreamily upon the sparkling sea. Down on the strip of tawny sand he could see Norine, looking like a Dresden china shepherdess in her white looped-up dress, some blue drapery caught about her, a jaunty sailor hat on her crushed dark curls, and a cluster of pink roses in her belt.

"She's very pretty, and all that," pursued this youthful philosopher and cynic, looking at her with dispassionate eyes, "but is the game worth the candle? Three weeks and two days, and I'm sick and tired to death of this place, and – alas! my pretty Norry – of you! 'Men were deceivers ever.' I suppose it was much the same in old Shakspeare's time as it is now. It is all very well to pay off Gilbert, and wipe out the old scores, but it is not at all very well to be disinherited by old Darcy. If it comes to his ears it's all up with my chance of the inheritance, and my marriage with Helen. And, upon my word, I shouldn't like to lose Helen. She's good-looking, she's good style, she can talk on any subject under Heaven, and she's twenty thousand dollars down on her wedding-day. Yes, it will never do to throw up my chances there, but how to drop quietly out of this – that's the rub. There'll be the dickens to pay with Norine, and sometimes I've thought of late, gentle as she is, much as she loves me – and she does love me, poor little soul – that she's not one of the milk-and-water sort to sit down in a corner and break her heart quietly. I wish – I wish – I wish I had left her in peace at Kent Farm!"

She was beckoning to him gaily at that moment. He shook off his disagreeable meditation, put his long limbs down off the sofa, took his straw hat, and sauntered forth to join her.

The little house – Sea View Cottage, its romantic mistress had named it, was owned by the two Miss Waddles. The two Miss Waddles were two old maids. Miss Waddle the elder, taught school in Chelsea. Miss Waddle, the younger, was literary, and wrote sensation stories for the weekly papers, poor thing. In addition, they eked out their income by taking a couple of summer boarders, for people as a rule don't become millionaires teaching school or writing for the papers. Miss Waddle, the younger, immersed in ink and romance, looked after the young man with eyes of keen professional interest.

"How grumpy he looks," thought Miss Waddle; "how radiant she looks. He's tired to death of it all already; she's more and more in love with him every day. The first week he was all devotion, the second week the thermometer fell ten degrees, the third week he took to going to Boston and coming home in the small hours, smelling of smoke and liquor, this fourth he yawns in her face from morning until night. And this is what fools call the honeymoon. Moonshine enough, so far as I can see, but precious little honey."

Miss Waddle stabbed her pen down in the inkstand, took a deep and vicious dip, and plunged wildly into literature once more. Mr. Thorndyke, listlessly, wearily and unutterably bored, joined the idol of his existence.

In the Chelsea cottage they were known as "Mr. and Mrs. Laurence." For Norine, she was radiantly happy – no weariness, no boredom for her. The honey grew sweeter to her taste every day; but then women as a rule have a depraved taste for unwholesome sweetmeats; the days Mr. Thorndyke found so long, so vapid, so dreary, were bright, brief dreams of bliss to her. She had written her short explanatory note home during the first week, and had given it to Laurence to post. Laurence took it, glad of an excuse over to Boston, and on the ferry-boat tore it into fifty minute fragments and cast them to the four winds of Heaven. Norine had written a second time, and a third. Her piteous little letters met the same fate. That was one drawback to her perfect Paradise – there was a second, Laurence's growing weariness of it all.

"If he should become tired of me; if he should repent his hasty marriage; if he should cease to love me, what would become of me?" she thought, clasping her hands in an agony. "Oh, mon Dieu! let me die sooner than that. I know I am far beneath him – such lovely, accomplished ladies as my darling might have married – but ah, not one of them all could ever love him better than poor Norine!"

She hid her fears; the tears she shed over their silence and unforgiveness at home were tears shed in solitude and darkness, where they might not offend or reproach him. She tried every simple little art to be beautiful and attractive in his sight. Her smiling face was the last thing he saw, let him quit her ever so often – her smiling face looked brightly and sweetly up at him let those absences be ever so prolonged. And they were growing more frequent and more prolonged every day. He took her nowhere – his own evenings, without exception now, were spent in Boston, the smallest of the small hours his universal hours for coming home. And not always too steady of foot or too fluent of speech at these comings, for this captivating young man was fonder of the rattle of the dice-box, the shuffling of the pack, and the "passing of the rosy" than was at all good for him.

"Laurence," Norine's bright voice called, "you know everything. Come and tell me what is this botanical specimen I have found growing here in the cleft of the rocks."

She held up a spray of blue blossom. Laurence looked at it languidly.

"I know everything, I admit, but I don't know that. If you had married old Gilbert now, my darling, your thirst for information might have been quenched. There isn't anything, from the laws of the nations down to the name of every weed that grows, he hasn't at his learned legal finger ends. Oh, Lord, Norry, what a long day this has been – fifty-eight hours if one."

He casts himself on the sands at her feet, pulls his hat over his eyes, and yawns long and loudly. Her happy face clouds, the dark, lovely eyes look at him wistfully.

"It is dull for you, dear," she says, tenderly, a little tremor in the soft, sweet tones; "for me the days seem all too short – I am so happy, I suppose." He glances up at her, struggling feebly with a whole mouthful of gapes.

"You are happy, then, Norry, are you? Almost as happy as when at home; almost as happy as if you had married that ornament of society, Richard Gilbert, instead of the scapegrace and outlaw, Laurence Thorndyke?"

She clasped her hands, always her habit when moved.

"So happy!" she said, under her breath; "so perfectly, utterly happy. How could I ever have thought of marrying any one but you, Laurence – you whom I loved from the very very first?"

"And" – he has the grace to hesitate a little – "it would make you very unhappy if we were forced to part, I suppose, Norry?"

"Part?" She starts, grows very white, and two dilated eyes turn to him. "Laurence, why do you ask me that? Unhappy? Mon Dieu! it would kill me – just that!"

He laughs a little, but uneasily, and shifts away from the gaze of the large, terrified eyes.

"Kill you? No, you're not the sort that die so easily. Don't look so white and frightened, child; I didn't mean anything, at least, not anything serious; only we have been almost a month here and it is about time I went to pay my respected Uncle Darcy a visit. He has taken to asking unpleasant questions of late – where I am, what I am doing, why I don't report myself at headquarters – meaning his house in New York. Norry, there's no help for it; I'll have to take a run up to New York."

She sits down suddenly, her hand over her heart, white as the dress she wears.

"Of course I need not stay long," Mr. Thorndyke pursues, his hat still over his eyes; "but go I must, there's no alternative. And then, perhaps, if I get a chance, I can break it to him gently – about you, you know. I hate the thought of leaving you, and all that – nobody more; but still, as I've told you, I'm absolutely depending upon him; the exchequer is running low and must be replenished. Conjugal love is a capital thing, but a fellow can't live on it. Love may come and love may go, but board goes on forever. You'll stay here with the two Waddles, do fancy work, read novels, and take walks, and you'll ever find the time slipping by until I am back. You don't mind, do you, Norine?"

"How long will you be gone?" she asks, in an odd, constrained sort of voice.

"Well, two or three weeks, perhaps. I shall have business to attend to, and – and all that. But I'll be back at the earliest possible moment, be sure of that."

She does not speak. She stands looking, with that white change in her face, over the sunny sea.

"Come, Norine!" he exclaims, impatiently, "you're not going to be a baby, I hope. If you love me, as you say you do – " She turns and looks at him, and he alters the phrase suddenly, with an uneasy laugh. "Well, since you love me so well, Norry, you must try and have a little common sense. Common sense and pretty girls are incompatible, I know; but really, my dear child, you can't expect that our whole lives are to be spent billing and cooing here. It would be very delicious, no doubt" – a great yawn stifles his words for an instant – "but – by Jove! who's this?"

He raises himself on his elbow, pushes back his hat, and stares hard at an advancing figure. Norine follows his glance, and sees, stepping rapidly over the sand, the small slim figure of a man.

"The – devil!" says Laurence Thorndyke.

He springs to his feet, and stands waiting. The man advances, comes near, lifts his hat to the lady, and looks with a calm glance of recognition at the gentleman. He is a pale, thin, sombre little man, not too well dressed, with keen, small, light blue eyes, and thin, decisive, beardless lips.

"Good-day, Mr. Thorndyke," he says, quietly.

"Liston – it is Liston!" exclaims Mr. Thorndyke, a red, angry flush mounting to his face. "At your usual insolent tricks, I see – dogging me! May I ask – "

"How I have found you out?" Mr. Liston interrupts, in the same calm, quiet voice. "I knew you were here three weeks ago, Mr. Thorndyke. I saw Maggs – the Reverend Jonas Maggs – in Boston."

He lifts his light, keen eyes for one second to Laurence Thorndyke's, then drops them to the sands. The red flush deepens on the young man's blonde face, his blue eyes flash steely fire.

"By Heaven, you have!" he exclaims, in a suppressed voice. "Has the drunken fool – "

Liston interrupts again:

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Laurence, but if you will step aside with me, I would like to say a few words to you. Meantime, here are two letters – one from your uncle, the other – "

"H'm! All right Liston!" Thorndyke says, hastily, and with a warning glance. "My uncle has sent you to hunt me up as usual, I suppose."

"As usual, Mr. Laurence. He commands your immediate presence in New York."

Again the color mounts to the young man's face, again his eyes flash angry fire.

"Do you mean to say, Liston, that you or that d – snivelling hypocrite, Maggs – "

"Mr. Thorndyke," says Mr. Liston, interrupting for the third time, and raising his voice slightly, "I have a word to say to you in private – if the young lady will excuse you."

He bows in a sidelong sort of way to Norine, and watches her furtively beneath his drooping eyelids. She is standing very still, her eyes on one of the letters – a square, perfumed, rose-colored letter superscribed in a lady's delicate tracery, and bearing the monogram "H. H." Thorndyke thrusts both abruptly into his pocket, and draws her aside.

"Go back to the house, Norine," he says hastily. "I must hear what this fellow has to say. He's secretary – confidential clerk, valet, factotum generally, to my uncle. And I wish the devil had him before he ever found me out here!"

She obeys passively, very pale, still.

"That – snivelling hypocrite, Maggs!" she is repeating inwardly. "What a dreadful way to speak of a clergyman!"

Mr. Thorndyke rejoins Mr. Liston, a scowl on his face, his brows lowering and angry.

"Well?" he demands, savagely.

"Well," the new-comer's quiet voice repeats, "don't lose your temper, Mr. Laurence – I haven't done anything. Your uncle told me to hunt you up, and I have hunted you up – that is all."

"When did he tell you, confound him?"

"One week ago, Mr. Laurence."

"A week ago? I thought you said – "

"That I met Maggs three weeks ago? So I did. That he was beastly drunk? So he was. That he told me all? So he did. That I have kept my eyes upon you, off and on, ever since? So I have. Mr. Laurence, Mr. Laurence, I wonder you're not afraid."

A suppressed oath – no other reply from Mr. Laurence. He gnaws his mustache, and digs vicious holes with his boots in the soft sand.

"You're a bold card, Mr. Laurence," pursues Mr. Liston's monotonous voice. "You've played a good many daring games in your life, but this last daring game I think, has put the topper on the lot. I fancied mock parsons, sham marriages, and carrying off young ladies by night, went out of fashion with Gretna Green and Mrs. Radcliffe's romances. If ever Mr. Darcy hears of it, the sooner you take a rope and hang yourself, the better."

Another smothered imprecation of rage and impatience from Mr. Thorndyke. "If I only had Maggs here," he says, clenching his fist.

"You would punch his head for him – very likely. But I don't know that even that would do much good. He's got the jim-jams to-day, poor brute, the worst kind. For you, Mr. Laurence – how long before this play of yours is played out?"

"I'm going to New York to-morrow," growls Mr. Laurence Thorndyke. "I was just telling her so as you hove in sight."

"Ah! you were just telling her so – the play is played out, then. May I ask, Mr. Laurence, though it is none of my business, how the poor thing takes it?"

"No, you mayn't ask," replies Mr. Laurence, with ferocity, "as you say it's none of your business. Liston! look here, you're not going to turn State's evidence, are you – honor bright? You are not going to tell the old man."

His angry voice drops to a pleading cadence. Mr. Liston's shifty light eyes look up at him for a moment.

"Do I ever tell Mr. Laurence? It is late in the day to ask such a question as that.

"So it is. You're not half a bad fellow, old boy, and have got me out of no end of scrapes. Get me out of this and I'll never forget it – that I swear. One of these days you shall have your reward in hard cash – that I promise you."