CHAPTER VII--"A COLD HAND SEEMED TO CLUTCH HER HEART"
Many months passed away pleasantly and happily enough on the oldplantation. The children--Roland, by the way, would hardly have likedto be called a child now--were, of course, under the able tuition of Mr.Simons, but in addition Peggy had a governess, imported directly fromPara.
This was a dark-eyed Spanish girl, very piquant and pretty, who talkedFrench well, and played on both the guitar and piano.
Tom St. Clair had not only his boy's welfare, but his niece's, oradopted daughter's, also at heart.
It would be some years yet before she arrived at the age of sweetseventeen, but when she did, her uncle determined to sell off or realizeon his plantation, his goods and chattels, and sail across the seas oncemore to dear old Cornwall and the real Burnley Hall.
He looked forward to that time as the weary worker in stuffy towns orcities does to a summer holiday.
There is excitement enough in money-making, it is like an exhilaratinggame of billiards or whist, but it is apt to become tiresome.
And Tom St. Clair was often overtired and weary. He was always glad whenhe reached home at night to his rocking-chair and a good dinner, aftertoiling all day in the recently-started india-rubber-forest works.
But Mr. Peter took a vast deal of labour off his hands.
Mr. Peter, or Don Pedro, ingratiated himself with nearly everyone fromthe first, and seemed to take to the work as if to the manner born.
There were three individuals, however, who could not like him, strangeto say; these were Peggy herself, Benee the Indian who had guided themthrough the forest when lost, and who had remained on the estate eversince, while the third was Brawn, the Irish wolf-hound.
The dog showed his teeth if Peter tried even to caress him.
Both Roland and Dick--the latter was a very frequent visitor--got onvery well with Peter--trusted him thoroughly.
"How is it, Benee," said Roland one day to the Indian, "that you do notlove Don Pedro?"
Benee spat on the ground and stamped his foot.
"I watch he eye," the semi-savage replied. "He one very bad man. Someday you know plenty moochee foh true."
"Well," said Tom one evening as he and his wife sat alone in theverandah together, "I do long to get back to England. I am tired, dearwife--my heart is weak why should we remain here over two years more?We are wealthy enough, and I promise myself and you, dear, many longyears of health and happiness yet in the old country."
He paused and smoked a little; then, after watching for a few momentsthe fireflies that flitted from bush to bush, he stretched his left armout and rested his hand on his wife's lap.
Some impulse seized her. She took it and pressed it to her lips. But atear trickled down her cheek as she did so.
Lovers still this couple were, though nearly twenty years had elapsedsince he led her, a bonnie, buxom, blushing lassie, to the altar.
But now in a sweet, low, but somewhat sad voice he sang a verse of thatdear old song--"We have lived and loved together":--
"We have lived and loved together Through many changing years, We have shared each other's gladness And dried each other's tears. I have never known a sorrow That was long unsoothed by thee, For thy smile can make a summer Where darkness else would be.
Mrs. St. Clair would never forget that evening on the star-lit lawn, northe flitting, little fire-insects, nor her husband's voice.
----
Is it not just when we expect it least that sorrow sometimes fallssuddenly upon us, hiding or eclipsing all our promised happiness andjoy?
I have now to write a pitiful part of my too true story, but it must bedone.
Next evening St. Clair rode home an hour earlier.
He complained of feeling more tired than usual, and said he would liedown on the drawing-room sofa until dinner was ready.
Peggy went singing along the hall to call him at the appointed time.
She went singing into the room.
"Pa, dear," she cried merrily; "Uncle-pa, dinner is all beautifullyready!"
"Come, Unky-pa. How sound you sleep!"
Then a terror crept up from the earth, as it were, and a cold handseemed to clutch her heart.
She ran out of the room.
"Oh, Auntie-ma!" she cried, "come, come quickly, pa won't wake, norspeak!"
Heigho! the summons had come, and dear "Uncle-pa" would never, neverwake again.
This is a short chapter, but it is too sad to continue.
So falls the curtain on the first act of this life-drama.