A Changed Heart: A Novel

Captain Cavendish, who had been listening to her tattle-tittle for the last half-hour, answering yes and no at random, started into consciousness that she was talking again.

"I beg your pardon, Miss McGregor. What was it you said? I am afraid I was not attending."

"I am afraid you were not," said Miss McGregor, forcing a laugh, while biting her lips. "They are going back to the drawing-room —Dieu merci! It is like Babel being here."

"Let us wait," said Captain Cavendish, eying the crowd, and beginning to be gallant. "I am not going to have you jostled to death. One would think it was for life or death they were pushing."

It was fully ten minutes before the coast was clear, and then the captain drew Miss Jeannette's arm within his, and led her to the drawing-room. Mrs. McGregor, sitting there among her satellites, saw them, and the maternal bosom glowed with pride. It was the future Marquis and Marchioness of Carrabas!

Some one was singing. A splendid soprano voice was ringing through the room, singing, "Hear me, Norma." It finished as they drew near, and the singer, Miss Natty Marsh, glancing over her shoulder, flashed one of her bright bewitching glances at them.

She rose up from the piano, flirting out her gauze skirts, and laughing at the shower of entreaties to sing again.

"I am going to see some engravings Alick has promised to show me," she said; "so spare your eloquence, Mesdames et Messieurs. I am inexorable."

"I think I will go over and have a look at the engravings, too," said Captain Cavendish.

She was sitting at a little stand, all her bright hair loose around her, and shading the pictures. Young McGregor was bending devoutly near her, but not talking, only too happy to be just there, and talking was not the young gentleman's forte.

"Captain Cavendish," said the clear voice, as, without turning round, she held the engraving over her shoulder, "look at this – is it not pretty?"

How had she seen him? Had she eyes in the back of her head? He took the engraving, wondering inwardly, and sat down beside her.

It was a strange picture she had given him. A black and wrathful sky, a black and heaving sea, and a long strip of black and desolate coast. A full moon flickered ghastly through the scudding clouds, and wan in its light you saw a girl standing on a high rock, straining her eyes out to sea. Her hair and dress fluttered in the wind; her face was wild, spectral, and agonized. Captain Cavendish gazed on it as if fascinated.

"What a story it tells!" Nathalie cried. "It makes one think of Charles Kingsley's weird song of the 'Three Fishers.' Well, Charley, what is it?"

"It is the carryall from Redmon come for you," said Charley, who had sauntered up. "If you are done looking at the pictures you had better go home."

Natty pushed the portfolio away pettishly, and rose, half-poutingly.

"What a nuisance, to go so soon!"

Then, catching Captain Cavendish's eye, she laughed good-naturedly.

"What can't be cured – you know the proverb, Captain Cavendish. Charley, wait for me in the hall, I will be there directly."

She crossed the room with the airy elegance peculiar to her light swinging tread, made her adieux quietly to the hostess, and sought her wrappings and the dressing-room.

As she ran down into the hall in a large shawl, gracefully worn, and a white cloud round her pretty face, she found Captain Cavendish waiting with Charley. It was he who offered her his arm, and Charley ran down the steps before them. Through the wet fog they saw an old-fashioned two-seated buggy waiting, and the driver looking impatiently down.

"I wish you would drive up with me, Charley," said Natty, settling herself in her seat.

"Can't," said Charley. "I am going to see somebody else's sister home. I'll take a run up to-morrow evening."

"Miss Marsh," Captain Cavendish lazily began, "if you will permit me to – " but Natty cut him short with a gay laugh.

"And make all the young ladies in there miserable for the rest of the evening! No, thank you! I am not quite so heartless. Good night!"

She leaned forward to say it, the next moment she was lost in the fog. He caught one glimpse of a white hand waved, of the half-saucy, half-wicked, wholly-bewitching smile, of the dancing blue eyes and golden hair, and then there was nothing but a pale blank of mist and wet, and Charley was speaking:

"Hang the fog! it goes through one like a knife! Come along in, captain, they are going to dance."

Captain Cavendish went in, but not to dance. He had come from curiosity to see what the Speckportonians were like, not intending to remain over an hour or so. Now that Natty was gone, there was no inducement to stay. He sought out Mrs. McGregor, to say good-night.

"What's your hurry?" said Val, following him out.

"It is growing late, and I am ashamed to say I am sleepy. Will you be in the office to-morrow morning?"

"From eight till two," said Val.

"Then I'll drop in. Good night!"

The cathedral clock struck three as he came out into the drizzly morning, and all the other clocks in the town took it up. The streets were empty, as he walked rapidly to his lodgings, with buttoned-up overcoat, and hat drawn over his eyes. But a "dancing shape, an image gay" were with him, flashing on him through the fog; hunting him all the way home, through the smur and mist of the dismal day-dawn.

CHAPTER III.

MISS ROSE

Eight was striking by every clock in the town, as down Queen Street – the Broadway of Speckport – a tall female streamed, with a step that rang and resounded on the wooden pavement. The tall female, nodding to her acquaintances right and left, and holding up her bombazine skirts out of the slop, was Miss Jo Blake, as bright as a new penny, though she had not had a wink of sleep the night before. Early as the hour was, Miss Jo was going to make a morning call, and strode on through the fog with her head up, and a nod for nearly every one she passed.

Down Queen Street Miss Jo turned to the left, and kept straight on, facing the bay, all blurred and misty, so that you could hardly tell where the fog ended and the sun began. The business part of the town, with its noise and rattle and bustle, was left half a mile behind, and Miss Jo turned into a pretty and quiet street, right down on the sea-shore. It was called Cottage Street, very appropriately, too; for all the houses in it were cozy little cottages, a story and a half high, all as much alike as if turned out of a mold. They were all painted white, had a red door in the center, and two windows on either side of the door, decorated with green shutters. They had little grass-plots and flower-beds in front, with white palings, and white gate, and a little graveled path, and behind they had vegetable-yards sloping right down to the very water. If you leaned over the fences at the lower end of these gardens, on a stormy day, and at high tide, you could feel the salt spray dashing up in your face, from the waves below. At low water, there was a long, smooth, sandy beach, delightful to walk over on hot summer days.

Before one of the cottages Miss Jo drew rein, and rapped. While waiting for the door to open, the flutter of a skirt in the back garden caught her eye; and, peering round the corner of the house, she had a full view of it and its wearer.

And Miss Jo set herself to contemplate the view with keenest interest. To see the wearer of that fluttering skirt it was that had brought Miss Jo all the way from her own home so early in the morning, though she had never set eyes on her before.

Uncommonly friendly, perhaps you are thinking. Not at all: Miss Jo was a woman, consequently curious; and curiosity, not kindness, had brought her out.

The sight was very well worth looking at. You might have gazed for a week, steadily, and not grown tired of the prospect. A figure, slender and small, wearing a black dress, white linen cuffs at the wrists, a white linen collar, fastened with a knot of crape, a profusion of pretty brown hair, worn in braids, and low in the neck, hands like a child's, small and white. She was leaning against a tree, a gnarled old rowan tree, with her face turned sea-ward, watching the fishing-boats gliding in and out through the fog; but presently, at some noise in the street, she glanced around, and Miss Jo saw her face. A small, pale face, very pale, with pretty features, and lit with large, soft eyes. A face that was a history, could Miss Jo have read it; pale and patient, gentle and sweet, and in the brown eye a look of settled melancholy. This young lady in black had been learning the great lesson of life, that most of us poor mortals must learn, sooner or later, endurance – the lesson One too sublime to name came on earth to teach.

Miss Jo dodged back, the door swung open, and a fat girl, bursting out of her hooks and eyes, and with a head like a tow mop, opened the door. Miss Jo strode in without ceremony.

"Good morning, Betsy Ann! Is Mrs. Marsh at home this morning?"

"Yes, Miss Jo," said Betsy Ann, opening a door to the left, for there was a door on either hand; that to the right, leading to the drawing-room of the cottage, and a staircase at the end leading to the sleeping-room above; the door to the left admitted you to the sitting-room and dining-room, for it was both in one – a pleasant little room enough, with a red and green ingrain carpet, cane-seated chairs, red moreen window-curtains on the two windows, one looking on the bay, the other on the street. There was a little upright piano in one corner, a lounge in another; pictures on the papered walls; a Dutch clock and some china cats and dogs and shepherdesses on the mantel-piece; a coal-fire in the Franklin, and a table laid for breakfast.

The room had but one occupant, a faded and feeble-looking woman, who sat in a low rocking-chair, her feet crossed on the fender, a shawl around her, and a book in her hand. She looked up in her surprise at her early visitor.

"Law! Miss Blake, is it you? Who'd have thought it? Betsy Ann, give Miss Blake a chair."

"It's quite a piece from our house here, and I feel kind of tired," said Miss Jo, seating herself. "Your fire feels comfortable, Mrs. Marsh; these foggy days are chilly. Ain't you had breakfast yet?"

"It's all Charley's fault; he hasn't come down stairs yet. How did you enjoy yourself at the party last night?"

"First-rate. Never went home till six this morning, and then I had to turn to and make Val his breakfast. Charley left early."

"Early!" retorted Mrs. Marsh; "I don't know what you call early. It was after six when he came here, Betsy Ann says."