Chapter XXXII: Under the Willow

Mrs. Farnsworth lived sufficiently out of New York to call her home a “villa,” and the acre or two that surrounded it “grounds.” Both the house and all its surroundings were this night brilliantly illuminated. A huge weeping-willow, near the front entrance, was so strung and laden with tiny and many-tinted lamps, that it seemed a mighty fountain of leaves, dropping jewels over a marble basin filled by a jet of sparkling water which was garlanded with Ethiopian lilies, noble ferns, and entangling passion-flowers. Two or three forest maples, rich in crimson and golden foliage, were sufficiently illuminated to throw out all their gorgeous colors, and the velvet grass beneath gave forth its richest noonday green.

Along the open verandas blossoming vines flung their gorgeous draperies, and wound up the slender columns in garlands, thickly starred with lights. Crimson carpets lined the walks; all the French windows were thrown open; musicians, hidden among the trees, made the foliage tremble with their sweet notes; and indoors a band sent its ringing melodies through all the rooms.

To Bertha this was enchantment. She could scarcely restrain the exclamations of wonder and delight that sprang to her lips at every turn. She could hardly realize that the groups of people moving to and fro in the grounds and through the verandas were human beings.

As she stood with her chaperon, looking at the great drooping willow, a man came out from under its branches. She gave a little cry of surprise, and gathered up the folds of her opera cloak, that he might not see that cluster of moss-roses in her bosom. To her they seemed magical like everything else. The appearance of this man was more marvellous to her than all the rest.

“Why, Waldon, you are really here!” said young Lane, who had led Bertha and his sister to the fountain, knowing well the surprise that was in wait for them. “Prompt as other people for once.”

“On some occasions Waldon can be punctual enough; but I really did not expect to find him here before midnight, when stars are—or always ought to be—brightest,” said Mrs. Forbes, holding out her hand. “At any rate, we shall be well attended now.”

“It is time that we present ourselves,” said Lane, giving his arm to Mrs. Forbes in the magnanimity of his friendship, which she accepted with some hesitation, and evident surprise.

“Will you take charge of Miss Canfield, Waldon, while we find our way to Mrs. Farnsworth? She must be in the east drawing-room, I fancy,” said Lane.

The next instant Bertha felt her arm drawn within that of Waldon, and his voice was in her ear, low and alluring.

“At last—at last we meet again!”

She made an effort to answer him, but could not.

“You will not speak to me?”

His head was bent toward her. She almost felt his breath on her cheek.

“You will not say that this meeting gives you pleasure?”

“Yes, I can say that. But the surprise is so great.”

The white cloak fell back as she said this, and Waldon saw his moss-roses in her bosom. The smile that flashed athwart his face was bright as a meteor.

“I hoped that you would wear it,” he said.

“I did not know—I was not sure—” she whispered, coloring painfully.

“Was not sure who sent it? Would you have given it a place closer to your heart if you had been certain?”

“Perhaps I should not have ventured to wear it at all,” she said, recovering herself.

Waldon was annoyed. Always eager in his wooing, he was satisfied with nothing less than a response more prompt than any modest woman would have given.

They were entering the house now, and Bertha saw that her companion was known to every one—that the gay throng gave place, and showered both greetings and compliments upon him, as he led her toward the hostess.

A glance of quick intelligence shot from the fine black eyes of the hostess, and met an answering smile from Waldon. The two certainly understood each other. Perhaps Mrs. Forbes comprehended this, for a smile crossed her lips as she came up to give her greeting.

“You were kind,” the hostess said, extending her delicately gloved hand, “to suggest that I should send an invitation to this lovely girl, who is sure to be a belle to-night. But I begin to fancy that it was not altogether your idea.”

“No,” answered Mrs. Forbes, blandly; “my brother suggested it. I have never seen him so much impressed.”

“Ah! I begin to understand. Her brother is the bosom friend of Waldon,” muttered the lady, turning to receive new guests as they crowded up. “This poor girl is doomed, like the rest!”

A pleasant doom it certainly was, so far, to Bertha Canfield, who moved through the crowd in her superb beauty, leaning on the arm of a man whose popularity seemed universal—a man of magnificent presence, whose manner and speech inspired the man or woman he addressed with a feeling of personal exaltation. To her inexperience all this was paradise.

There was dancing in the large drawing-room, from which the music sent out a ringing challenge. A group stood near the door, indulging in such low laughter, and half-whispered words, as well-bred people sometimes prefer to the waltz or quadrille.

Waldon joined them, and began to talk. When he deigned to converse, it was the fashion to listen. That night he was unusually brilliant, and the crowd increased around him, some to listen, and others to gaze on the lovely young creature who rested on his arm, and whom he was fast making the idol of the hour.

Waldon saw all this with a glow of triumph, and frequently addressed Bertha in his brilliant talk, when a flash of poetry was sure to enrich it. But, spite of all this, Bertha’s heart leaped to the music, and her foot beat time upon the marble of the vestibule. It was her first ball, remember, and she loved dancing better than poetry—for which we, who have partaken of the bewitching sin, need not blame her.

Waldon saw this, and acted upon it.

“Would you like to dance?” he said, in a low, tender voice, as if he were asking her to love him.

“Would I like it?” she answered, as if doubt on that subject were impossible. “Oh, yes!”

His arm stole gently around her waist. Her hand rested on his shoulder. The next instant they were treading time to the music, his eyes looking into hers, his breath floating across her face.

More than one couple retired from the floor, and stood gazing on these two. The crowd at the entrance gathered closer.

When Waldon danced it always created a sensation, for his partner was sure to be selected from the most brilliant or beautiful women of the occasion.

For a minute or so they had the floor entirely. Then Waldon drew his partner to a window, where she stood flushed and smiling; the flowers that lay glowing in the lace on her bosom scarcely trembled to her rising breath. The health and strength of that young creature were so perfect that no exercise disturbed her.

“I never enter round dances with any woman I do not desire to love me,” said Waldon, in a low voice.

Bertha looked up suddenly. Then her thick eyelashes drooped, and her face brightened.

“And those who love me,” continued this man, in his subtle audacity, “never care to dance them with any other person.”

The glow upon Bertha’s face deepened. This assumption of authority offended her. Did he hope to make her his slave without the trouble of winning consent like other men?

Waldon saw that rebellious spirit lift the lashes from her eyes, and gloried in it. The conquest of a tame nature had no excitement in it for him.

“You think me precipitate,” he said, with an air of apology; “but feelings are not measured by time, and it is weeks since we met. I have seen you daily since you came to the city.”

Bertha looked at him in astonishment.

“Your light has not been extinguished once since then that I have not seen it go out.”

“You!”

“Every morning I have laid flowers upon your threshold with my own hands.”

“It was you then. I could not tell.”

Bertha blushed guiltily, for she had known in her heart who the flowers came from all the time.

“So that our acquaintance dates from the hour I first saw you on the wharf at New Haven—and that is more than the lifetime of ordinary people.”

“But I scarcely know more than your name, and that only through Mr. Lane.”

“My name?” answered Waldon, reddening. “Have you heard it for the first time from him?”

“No,” she said. “I have seen it. I have read—”

The dusky cloud cleared away from his face; the smile that most women found irresistible was bent upon her.

“When we have read a man’s thoughts, and partaken of all that is best in his nature, can it be said that he is a stranger?”

“But my name had no significance.”

“You forget that I saw you first with tears in those eyes—a child in your grief; in all things else a perfect woman.”

The expression of his face, so intense, so searching, filled her with shrinking embarrassment. She would not lift her eyes; the guiltiness of concealed emotion burned on her cheeks.

Waldon pushed the French window open, and led her on to a balcony which had steps descending to the grounds. They walked toward the willow, under which that fountain sent its silver arrows up through the leaves, which rained them back again in diamond drops. All around, this tree threw out rays of light; directly under it slept deep shadows. They stood by the fountain, in which the lamps were reflected like shattered stars.

All at once the man dropped Bertha’s hand, which rested on his arm.

“This is torture!” he said, with sudden passion. “You chill me with talk of the time in which we have known each other. This is not the return generous women give to great admiration!”

Bertha drew back. Did this man intend to wrest the heart from her bosom before she understood it herself? His reproaches startled her womanhood into self-protection.

“Let us go to the house,” she said, with dignity. “People will think it strange to see us here alone.”

“As you please. I cannot plead with a dumb heart!”

Waldon’s voice was cold and haughty. He offered his arm, and led Bertha forth to the light, when he saw that her eyes were full of tears, but did not seem to regard it.

On the veranda they met Mrs. Forbes, with her brother, coming in search of them. The lady was pale, the young gentleman restive at being kept so long from the dance.

“The drawing-room was so close,” she said, “and I longed to breathe the fresh air.”

“And I longed to dance,” said Lane, almost rudely.

“That is Miss Canfield’s passion,” answered Waldon. “Perhaps she will honor you while I take a turn in the grounds with Mrs. Forbes.”

Bertha took Lane’s arm. Waldon watched keenly to see if she would dance. In a moment she was whirling past one of the windows, her beautiful head lifted with the air of a queen. For once, Waldon felt that he had carried his audacity too far.

Waldon took a turn through the grounds with Mrs. Forbes, who seemed restless and ill at ease, while he was burning with wounded vanity.

“So this poor girl is to be another of your victims,” she said, with dull bitterness, “and I have been made an instrument to draw her across your path. I might have been spared this!”

Waldon laughed, and was ready at once to meet bitterness with gall.

“As this is the only way left by which you can give me pleasure, it seems hard that I am to be reproached for it; especially after setting your brother on his feet again.”

“At any rate,” answered the lady, with a hysterical laugh, “this young lady has not fallen at your feet with the first summons.”

“Like some others we could mention,” retorted the man, with a cruel smile.

Mrs. Forbes made no answer, but bit her lips in silence till the blood came and tinged the edges of her white teeth.

“There! there! I have no wish to carry this scene too far. Forbes is coming yonder, and he might think it strange, for he is a man of most sensitive delicacy.”

“He is a noble, good man!” cried the lady, stung by words that seemed to have a double meaning.

“Have I not just said he was a man of supreme delicacy? And such taste! I have letters which I am sure he would take pleasure in reading—literary treasures that I can never part with.”

The delicate fingers resting on this man’s arm clutched it like the talons of a bird. He winced a little, for even this light thrill of pain amazed him. He could inflict agony without a pang, but shrunk from it with the cowardice of a child.

“Fiend!” muttered the lady, under her breath; then she spoke aloud, with more composure: “Take me to my husband. He will ride home with us and leave Miss Canfield in safety with her mother.”

Bertha Canfield had just paused in the dance, which Waldon had indirectly forbidden to her, and was now the centre of attraction in that brilliant throng.

He saw this with angry amazement. Had this young creature, whose very presence in society had been brought about by his management, the talent and the courage to stand alone? To be thus ignored by the woman he chose to distinguish was a new experience. Thus stung in his vanity, he watched her closely, while he made himself the life of a brilliant circle.

Her face grew sad; now and then she turned it wistfully toward that portion of the room in which he was standing, and this half appeased his resentment.

Had Bertha Canfield been the most practised coquette on earth, she could not have inspired a man like Waldon to keener pursuit than her prompt independence, which proved that his wishes were not omnipotent, had done. But he did not address her again that evening, and she went home miserable.