CHAPTER XXVI.
That week was a bad one for Harold Willett. The general, taking Brightwith him as usual, had whirled away in his stout spring wagon tosupervise the re-establishment of the Indians lately in rebellion. Theagent at the Verde reservation had developed symptoms of stampede thatwere later diagnosed and treated as insanity. It must be owned that hehad lived through troublous times and had had experiences to try thenerve of a man of iron, which he was not. The general, after settlingmatters to his satisfaction at the reservation, purposed a descent onColonel Pelham and Camp Sandy, for consultation with him and aconference with the troop and company commanders returned to theirsoldier honors, after their strenuous scout through the mountains. Heleft Wickham to represent him at headquarters and continue hisinvestigation, and he left Willett to--recuperate, for already he hadrepented him of the impulse that led to the brilliant officer'sappointment on his personal staff. Willett had been a valuable anddistinguished soldier in that northern field, and only by these thingshad the general known him. That Willett was a many-sided man, that hecould be an eager and ambitious officer when once afield, and a merebutterfly about the garrison, had not occurred to this simple-mindedchief. The combination of terrier and lapdog is rare in the army.However, Willett was not yet fit for field service, and the Gray Foxmeant that he should have fair play and a chance to redeem himself.
"We couldn't send him away just now even if he were fit to ride," saidWickham confidentially to his brother aide-de-camp. "Dooley's trialbegins presently, and he wants Willett as to character. But Archer andhis household should be here by Friday. Then he'll have to behave."
Willett, of course, knew that Archer had been sent for, was coming upand would probably bring Mrs. Archer and Lilian. According to hisestimate, too, the family should be here some time Friday. Meantime hehad a fortress to reduce whose garrison had already flung out signalsof distress. "Evelyn Darrah may have been a flirt at 'Frisco," saidMrs. Crook, "and she's had more experience than most girls of heryears, but she's not heartless, and that good-looking scamp knows it."
"Have you talked with Mrs. Darrah?" asked a fair friend at a venture.
"Talked with Kate Darrah! Of course I've talked with her! and told herjust what people are saying and thinking, but Kate Darrah was just sucha flirt when she was a girl. Kate Darrah many a time pulled the woolover her mother's eyes, and now hers is being pulled the same way. Evvyleads her mother by the nose."
"Colonel Darrah, then," was the suggestion.
"Dicky Darrah!" laughed Mrs. Crook, in merry disdain. "Dicky Darrahnever dares oppose Evvy--let alone his wife. Kate Darrah says it justserves Hal Willett right. It's no fault of hers that he's daft aboutEvvy, who's simply bent on giving him a lesson he richly deserves. Whenthe Archers come she'll drop it--and him."
But the Archers came sooner than any one about Prescott deemed likelyat all. Somebody said, and more than one somebody thought, that Mrs.Archer had had more than a hint as to what was going on. But never didMrs. Archer look or admit it. The mail riders had resumed their trips.The paymaster had made his visit to McDowell and had safely traversedthe Mazatzal and distributed his shekels at Almy. Almost every daythere had been comings and goings, and though no letters bearingWillett's superscription went to Almy except by regular mail, eventhese, it seems, the pressure of his duties made brief and unlike whatLilian had looked for, so that the radiance had gone from her sweetface almost as quickly as it came. Even the girl who bravely insiststhat the beloved one is beyond doubt, and above suspicion, and all thatis perfect, as Lilian strove to insist--even she will feel in her heartof hearts that there has been neglect, and neglect crushes.
Archer saw and said nothing but "Get ready as quick as we can." Theywere looked for Friday noon. They were ushered into the general'shospitable quarters late Thursday evening, relayed on from the AguaFria, after a good noonday rest in camp, and even in bidding themwelcome, welcome over again, Mrs. Crook pointed to the brightly lightedassembly room down the winding roadway. "They're having a holiday danceto-night," said she to Lilian. "We'll toddle down after tea and takethem all by surprise."
For three days Willett had hardly been seen at the office, where indeedthere was little for him to do, except perhaps read the letters thathad begun to come again from various quarters. He had merely slept athome; he had simply lived at the Darrahs. He was hardly seen by anyassociates except dancing attendance upon this tall, imperious beauty,who, for her part, seemed now to accept his devotions as a matter ofcourse, and to be regardless of public opinion. Begun in pique, orvanity, or devilment, whatever it may have been at the start, herindifference at first, her coquetry, her wiles, her defiance of hispowers had spurred, fascinated and finally maddened him. Then, when shewould have drawn back, his apparent, his acted or his actualdesperation terrified her, and, all too late, her own battered heartcried out for relief. In spite of herself she found her resolutiongone, her indifference rebuked, her strength wasted, sapped. She wasyielding to him when she meant to scorn. She was clinging to him whenshe meant to spurn. And now the last night, the last oftheir--flirtation had come, and as she fluttered away on his arm totake their place in the dance, the cynosure of all eyes, Evelyn Darrah_knew_ that she was facing her fate, that before the midnight hour shemust answer. He would so have it. Recklessly enough she had begun. Whatmeant such affairs to her but a laugh? Yet, only the night before, asthey stood murmuring in the shade at her father's doorway, and he wasbegging for some little word, touch, token--something to bid him hopein the hell of his despair, imploring her to see his engagement as hesaw it--a something entered into in his enfeebled condition because hesaw, everybody saw, that fair young girl's self-betrayal, and he hadmistaken gratitude, pity, tenderness for love, until he, HaroldWillett, had met _her_, Evelyn Darrah, and at last learned what it wasto love, passionately, overwhelmingly--to love, to worship, to need, tocrave, and then on a sudden she had felt herself seized in his clasp,and before she could, if she would, tear herself adrift, his lips,burning with eagerness, had sought and found hers--upraised. Then shehad broken from his embrace, but not till then. _This_ morning she hadpleaded headache and kept to her room. _This_ afternoon she had had tomeet him, and could not repel, reproach, rebuke as she had at lastmeant to do. Others were ever about them then. There must be no scene,and he was quite capable of making one. And now this night he had comefor her, yes, and for her answer. He was ready, he said, to resign fromthe staff at once, return to his regiment, break with the Archers,explaining that it was all--all a mistake, and then with her promise tobe his wife, what spur would there not be to his ambition? He--but itall made her feverish--frantic! There was but one refuge--to dance,dance until her whirling brain and throbbing heart were exhausted inthe wild exhilaration, to dance incessantly, with man after man whosought her, though few had opportunity owing to his persistence. Andshe had been dancing incessantly, as we danced in those days--galop,deux temps, redowa, waltz, the long, undulating, luxurious, sensuoussweep of the "glide," and men and women stood and watched them, timeand again, when Willett claimed her--and he hardly had look or word forothers--so wondrous was that harmony of motion, that grace and beautyof feature and of form. Then at last came exhaustion.
There were some little clumps of cedars on the slope just south of theassembly hall, as it stood there on the low ground midway between thehead-quarters houses on the ridge to the south, and the even lesscommodious cottages of the puny garrison. There was a boardwalk ofcreaking pine, leading across the shallow ravine, for it sometimesrained up here in the mountains, though it never seemed to in the deep,arid valleys to the east. Then there was a gravel path stretching awaytoward the garrison houses north and north-east, and one, stillnarrower and crookeder, winding up among the pines and cedars anddisappearing over the top of the knoll, where the broad veranda of thegeneral's mansion overlooked the entire scene. Sometimes when theevenings were warm and the dancers flushed, and sometimes even whenthere was no such excuse, young couples were wont to saunter out in
thestarlight for air and sentiment and "spooning." Already Willett knewthe labyrinth, and welcomed the excuse to lead her forth, his armalmost supporting her. It was about eleven. The elders were absorbingmild refreshments at the moment. The musicians were glad of a rest, asandwich and a cup of coffee, and a puff at a pipe before againresuming their melodious, if monotonous, labor. The windows of theassembly room were so near the ground that it was easy for these whodid not attend the dances to supervise from without, and it oftenhappened that a fringe of respectfully admiring spectators wouldsurround the building until the late roll-call summoned the soldiercircle away.
And yet this Thursday night there were two or three little partiespeering in at the southward windows, some of whom came down from thegeneral's quarters very late. To Mrs. Crook's laughing suggestion thatthey should "toddle down after tea" Mrs. Archer had entered gentleprotest. It was too late. They were not dressed. She feared Lilian wastoo tired. What mother would not oppose her precious daughter's makingher appearance at a dance in travelling garb, after a day of driving?To her mother's protest Lilian had at first made no rejoinder. Theflush of the first few minutes of welcomed arrival soon left herwinsome face, and the resultant pallor emphasized her mother'sedict--that she was too tired. But it was not long before they noted,all of them--father, mother and hostess--that her thoughts were onlythere at the dance, that her ears were attentive only to the strains ofmusic that, once in a while, came wafting upward from the hall, andwhen a little later, refreshed by tea and a bountiful supper, theyagain returned to the parlor and the sound of the dance, Mrs. Crookcaught the longing in Lilian's eyes.
"Oh, come," she said, "let's just run down a few minutes and peep in;Lilian wants to see, and I'll send word in, sidewise, that will bringsomebody out with a jump."
They seized their wraps and started, Archer gallantly tendering his armto the commander's wife, but she would none of it. "Nonsense! I've gotto pilot _you_! That walk is steep and crooked and pitch dark when youget among the cedars. I want to chat with Mrs. Archer," and the oldsoldier thanked her in his heart. More than ever before he wished tohave that arm about his own little girl this night. Was it possible shetoo felt the premonition that had come to him? Had her mother, afterall, told her of the little hints they had received? Something hadcome. He could swear it. Something to make her strangely silent, buteager, fluttering, nervous--something that prompted her as they nearedthe building, and the little hand clinging to her father's arm shookwith strange excitement, to bend forward close to their friend andhostess, and just as the latter was about to hail some young officer onthe steps, Lilian interposed. "Oh--please," was all she said, but herfingers had caught the fluttering fold of the mantle, and Mrs. Crookturned at once. "You'd rather not?" she asked, with quick, sympatheticunderstanding. "I won't then. Plenty of time. Let's watch the dancefirst."
And so saying she had marshalled them close to the southward windows,Lilian and her father at the near-most, she and Mrs. Archer going on tothe next.
It was Keler Beler's "Am Schoenen Rhein" they were playing at themoment, with its sweet, weird, luring, mournful, warning Lorelei_motif_ dominating in the waltz measure, and, with parted lips andclinging to her father's side, Lilian stood close to the window andlooked and listened, saying not one word. There were but three couplesdancing at the moment. There might as well have been but one for,within the hall and without, the eyes of all seemed fastened on that.Some strange caprice had prompted Evelyn Darrah to wear black thatnight--a grenadine, with cobweb lace and glinting spangles and sweepingtrain, the bodice cut low and displaying her shapely arms and neck andshoulders, enhancing the grace of her tall and slender form. Her darkhair was coiled in masses, yet here and there a curl or tendril fellupon the soft, polished skin, or floated about cheek and temple. Hereyelids, heavily lashed, veiled her downcast eyes. Her coral lips wereslightly parted. Her almost queenly head was bowed as though to inclinethat little ear to catch the words he was eagerly pouring into it. Nota vestige of a smile was on either face, each was dark, sombre,beautiful, absorbed. His handsome head was bowed until the curlingmustache swept her rounded, flushing cheek. In exquisite rhythm andharmony the two tall, graceful forms swayed in unison with theexquisite love music, every step, every motion perfectly attuned. Itseemed as though no guiding were necessary. Slowly gliding, turning,reversing, he in his faultless uniform, she in her sweeping, diaphanoussable, seemed, without effort or the faintest exertion, fairly floatingupon air. No wonder they sat or stood and gazed--these elders along thebordering benches--these others among the dancers--these few, wordless,at the windows. Then, with the Lorelei melody lingering to the last,the sweet, sad music died away and the waltz was ended. People began tomove toward the doorway. "They're going for their bite and sup," saidMrs. Crook. "See, there go the bandsmen. Shall--_we_?"
"I think not, if you don't mind," said Mrs. Archer with anxious glanceat the other window, where Lilian still stood, looking straight at thedoorway through which that couple had led and so many now werefollowing. She had neither spoken nor moved, nor had he, her father.His back was toward them, but from the very pose of his head the wifewell knew his eyes were fixed upon the face of his beloved child, withwho can say what depth of sorrow, sympathy, yearning for her--with whatpassion of wrath and resentment for him. "Come," said Mrs. Crookbriefly, for she, too, saw. Then Archer gently laid his hand upon theslender fingers that seemed clinching his arm, and with sudden littlegasp or sob, and shiver, Lilian whirled upon him, her eyes big and dryand glittering. "Oh! wasn't it--didn't they dance--beautifully?" shecried, as he ground his teeth and turned to lead her away.
And just at that instant--just as such things _will_ happen, who shouldcome chirruping round the corner but the chaplain and his wife, withMrs. Chief Quartermaster and a guest from Camp Sandy, just in time tostumble upon Mrs. Crook and Mrs. Archer vainly striving to dodge andget home. It was too late. They were captured, surrounded, pouncedupon. "Oh, _when_ did you come?" "Oh, _how_ did you get here?" "Oh,_where_ is Lilian?" etc., etc., and Archer, never hesitating, quick washe in action ever, instantly turned about. "This way, sweetheart," hemurmured, in the fond father love that welled from his great heart. Afew strides carried them back into the darkness, around by the westwardend, where the clamor of voices and clatter of cups and plates at thesupper room drowned other sounds, and then in the darkness he led hisdarling, voiceless still, across the little wooden bridge and up thegentle slope among the cedars, hoping by a wide detour to dodge theseimportunates and lead his child to her own room, and there mount guardover her until the mother came. There is a sorrow that passethunderstanding, and is known not of all men--the mute, helpless,impotent sorrow of the father who feels the heartache, and sees thesuffering of a beloved child, and cannot even trust himself to speak ofit.
And Fate was still against them. The God that meant to cure wasmerciful and merciless as is the knife. Sinless as was this gentleflower, even she must suffer and endure, for here were obstacles again,even here across their path! They were upon them almost before theyknew it, yet upon them unseen, unheard, for, absorbed in each other,this opposing couple knew nothing but their own affair, and well theymight, for a sob was the first sound to catch the soldier's ear, astifled cry, and then a deep, manly voice imploring, protesting, atorrent of murmured words, fond, assuring, caressing, passionate, adeluge of thrilling endearments, a mingling of sobs and kisses, for thewoman's overcharged nature had broken under the strain, and in therefuge of his clasping arms was sobbing her heart out on this newlover's breast. Archer, raging, would have brushed them by, but Lilianheld him. "Not that way; oh, not that way!" she whispered hoarsely. Andthen he understood, and together they fled back the way they came.