Lady of the Ice (12 page)

“Yes.”

“Why, I couldn't.”

“Couldn't?”

“No.”

“Nonsense! A fellow that could baffle the widow, wouldn't have any trouble in baffling Louie.”

“Oh, that's all very well; but you don't know the peculiar way she goes to work. She's such an awful tease. And she keeps at it too, like a good fellow.”

“Still you were safe from her by reason of the very fact that your daily adventures were things that you could not tell her.”

“Couldn't I, though?”

“Of course not.”

“I don't see why not.”

“Impossible.”

“But I did.”

“You did?”

“I did.”

“To Louie?”

“Yes, to Louie.”

Again my thoughts and feelings found expression in a whistle.

“You see,” resumed Jack, “she badgered and questioned, and teased and teased, till at last she got it all out of me, And the way she took it! Laughing all the time, the provoking little witch, her eyes dancing with fun, and her soul in a perfect ecstasy over my sorrows. I was quiet at first, but at length got huffy. You see if she cared for a fellow she ought to pity him instead of laughing at him.”

“But she doesn't pretend to care for you — and lucky for her too.”

“That's true,” said Jack, dolefully.

“But what did she say about it?”

“Say? Oh, she teased and teased, and then when she had pumped me dry she burst out into one of her fits — and then I got huffy — and she at once pretended to be very demure, the little sinner, though I saw her eyes twinkling with fun all the time. And at last she burst out:

“‘Oh, Captain Randolph! You're so awfully absurd. I can't help it, I must laugh. Now ain't you awfully funny? Confess. Please confess, Captain Randolph. Ple-e-e-ease do, like a good Captain Randolph. Ple-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ease!'

“So my grim features relaxed, and I looked benignly at her, whereupon she burst out laughing again in my face.

“‘Well, I can't help it, I'm sure,' she said. ‘You do look so droll. You try to make me laugh, and I laugh, and can't help it, and then you blame me for doing the very thing you make me do, and I think it's a shame — there, now.'

“Whereupon she began to pout, and look hurt, and so, you know, I had to go to work and explain to her.”

“What! not another explanation, I hope. A ‘full, frank, free, fresh, ample,' and all that sort of thing, I suppose.”

“Oh, bother, chaff! I'm in earnest. I merely explained that I didn't take any offence from her laughter, but that I thought that if she cared for a fellow she wouldn't laugh at him.

“‘But, I never said I cared for you,' said she.

“‘Oh, well — you know what I mean — you're my friend, you know, and my only comfort,' said I.

“At this she went off again.

“‘Well, then,' said I, ‘ what are you?'

“She sat and thought.

“‘Well,' said she, ‘I won't be your friend, for that's too cold; I won't be your sister, for that's too familiar. Let me see — what ought I to be? I can't be your guardian, for I'm too volatile — what, then, can I be? Oh, I see! I'll tell you, Captain Randolph, what I'll be. I'll pretend that I'm your aunt. There, sir.'

“‘Well, then,' said I, ‘my own dear aunt.'

“‘No. That won't do — you are always absurd when you grow affectionate or sentimental. You may call me aunt — but no sentiment.'

“‘Well, Aunt Louie.'

“She demurred a little, but finally, I gained my point. After this she gave me some good advice, and I left and came straight to you, to find your room empty.”

“Advice? You said she gave you advice? What was it?”

“Well, she advised me to get immediate leave of absence, and go home for a time. I could then have a breathing-space to decide on my future.”

“Capital! Why, what a perfect little trump Louie is! Jack, my boy, that's the very thing you'll have to do.”

Jack shook his head.

“Why not?”

He shook his head again.

“Well, what did you say to Louie?”

“Why, I told her that it was impossible. She insisted that it was the very thing I ought to do, and wanted to know why I wouldn't. I refused to tell, whereupon she began to coax and tease, and tease and coax, and so the end of it was, I told her.''

“What was it?”

“Why, I told her I couldn't think of going away where I couldn't see her; that I would have blown my brains out by this time if it weren't for her; and that I'd blow my brains out when I went home, if it weren't for the hope of seeing her to-morrow.”

“The devil you did!” said I, dryly. “What! after being mittened?”

“Yes,” said Jack, “It was on my mind to say it, and I said it.”

“And how did Louie take it?”

“Not well. She looked coolly at me, and said:

“‘Captain Randolph, I happened to be speaking sensibly. You seemed to be in earnest when you asked for my opinion, and I gave it.'

“‘And I was in earnest,' I said.

“‘How very absurd !' said she. ‘The fable of the shepherd-boy who cried wolf, is nothing to you. It seems to be a fixed habit of yours to go about to all the young ladies of your acquaintance threatening to blow your brains out. Now, in getting up a sentiment for my benefit, you ought at least to have been original, and not give to me the same second-hand one which you had already sent to Number Three.'

“She looked so cold, that I felt frightened.

“‘You're — you're — not offended?' said I. ‘I'm sure —'

“‘Oh, no,' said she, interrupting me, ‘I'm not offended. I'm only disappointed in you. Don't apologize, for you'll only make it worse.'

“‘Well,' said I, ‘I'm very much obliged to you for your advice — but circumstances over which I have no control prevent me from taking it. There — is that satisfactory?'

“‘Quite,' said Louie, and her old smile returned.

“‘Do you wish me to tell you what the circumstances are?'

“‘Oh, no — oh, don't — ' she cried, with an absurd affectation of consternation. ‘Oh, Captain Randolph — please. Ple-e-e-aase, Captain Randolph — don't.'

“So I didn't.”

“Well, Jack,” said I, “how in the world did you manage to carry on such conversations when the rest of the family were there? Wouldn't they overhear you?”

“Oh, no. You see they were in one room at their whist, and we were in the other. Besides, we didn't speak loud enough for them to hear — except occasionally.”

“So Louie didn't take offence.”

“Oh, no, we made it up again at once. She gave me a beaming smile as I left. I'll see her again this evening.”

“And the others through the day?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jack, with a sigh.

“Miss Phillips?”

“Of course — and then I get a note from Number Three, requiring an immediate answer — and then off I go to the widow, who will have a new grievance; and then, after being used up by all these, I fly to Louie for comfort and consolation.”

I shook my head.

“You're in for it, old chap,” I said, solemnly, “and all that I can say is this: Take Louie's advice, and flit.”

“Not just yet, at any rate,” said Jack, rising; and with these words he took his departure.

After
waiting impatiently all day, and beguiling the time in various ways, the hour at length came when I could go to O'Halloran's. I confess, my feelings were of rather a tumultuous description. I would see the ladies again. I would renew my endeavors to find out the great mystery of the ice. Such were my intentions, and I had firmly resolved to make direct questions to Nora and Marion, and see if I couldn't force them, or coax them, or argue them, into an explanation of their strange agitation. Such an explanation, I felt, would be a discovery of the object of my search.

Full of these thoughts, intentions, and determinations, I knocked at O'Halloran's door, and was ushered by the servant into the comfortable parlor. O'Halloran stood there in the middle of the room. Nora was standing not far from him. Marion was not there; but O'Halloran and Nora were both looking at me, as I entered, with strange expressions.

O'Halloran advanced quickly, and caught me by the hand.

“D'ye know what ye've done?” said he, abruptly, without greeting or salutation of any kind. “D'ye know what ye've done? Ye seeved moy loife at the concert. But are you aweer what you've done besoides?”

He looked at me earnestly, and with so strange an expression that for a moment I thought he must be mad.

“Well, really,” said I, somewhat confusedly, “Mr. O'Halloran, I must confess I'm not aware of any thing in particular.”

“He doesn't know!” cried O'Halloran. “He doesn't know. 'Tisn't the sloightest conception that he has! Will, thin, me boy,” said he — and all this time he held my hand, and kept wringing it hard — “will, thin — I've another dibt of gratichood, and, what's more, one that I nivir can raypay. D'ye know what ye've done? D'ye know what ye are? No? Will, thin, I'll tell ye. Ye're the seevior of me Nora, me darlin', me proide, me own. She was the one that ye seeved on the oice, and riscued from desthruction. There she stands. Look at her. But for you, she'd be now lost forivir to the poor owld man whose light an' loife an' trisure she always was. Nora, jewel, there he is, as sure as a gun, though whoy he didn't recognoize ye last noight passes moy faible comprayhinsion, so it does.”

Saying this, he let go my hand and looked toward Nora.

At this astounding announcement I stood simply paralyzed. I stared at each in succession. To give an idea of my feelings is simply impossible. I must refer every thing to the imagination of the reader; and, by way of comparison to assist his imagination, I beg leave to call his attention to our old friend, the thunder-bolt. “Had a thunder-bolt burst,” and all that sort of thing. Fact, sir. Dumbfounded. By Jove! that word even does not begin to express the idea.

Now for about twenty hours, in dreams as well as in waking moments, I had been brooding over the identity of the lady of the ice, and had become convinced that the O'Halloran ladies knew some thing about it; yet so obtuse was I that I had not suspected that the lady herself might be found in this house. In fact, such an event was at once so romantic and so improbable that it did not even suggest itself. But now here was the lady herself. Here she stood. Now I could understand the emotion, the agitation, and all that, of the previous evening. This would at once account for it all. And here she stood — the lady herself — and that lady was no other than Miss O'Halloran.

By Jove!

Miss O'Halloran looked very much confused, and very much embarrassed. Her eyes lowered and sought the floor, and in this way she advanced and took my proffered hand. ‘Pon my life, I don't think I ever saw any thing more beautiful than she was as this confusion covered her lovely face; and the eyes which thus avoided mine seemed to my imagination still more lovely than they had been before.

And this was the one — I thought, as I took her hand — this was the one — the companion of my perilous trip — the life that I had saved. Yet this discovery filled me with wonder. This one, so gay, so genial, so laughter-loving — this one, so glowing with the bloom of health, and the light of life, and the sparkle of wit: — this one! It seemed impossible. There swept before me on that instant the vision of the ice, that quivering form clinging to me, that pallid face, those despairing eyes, that expression of piteous and agonizing entreaty, those wild words of horror and of anguish. There came before me the phantom of that form which I had upraised from the ice when it had sunk down in lifelessness, whose white face rested on my shoulder as I bore it away from the grasp of death; and that vision, with all its solemn, tragic awfulness seemed out of keeping with this. Miss O'Halloran? Impossible! But yet it must be so, since she thus confessed it. My own memory had been at fault. The face on the ice which haunted me was not the face that I saw before me; but, then, Miss O'Halloran in despair must have a different face from Miss O'Halloran in her happy and peaceful home. All these thoughts passed through me as I took her hand; but they left me with the impression that my vision was a mistake, and that this lady was in very deed the companion of that fearful journey.

I pressed her hand in silence. I could not speak. Under the pressure of thoughts and recollections that came sweeping in upon me, I was dumb; and so I wandered away, and fell into a seat. Yet, in my stupefaction, I could see that Miss O'Halloran showed an emotion equal to mine. She had not spoken a word. She sat down, with her eyes on the floor, and much agitation in her manner.

“Nora, me pet,” said O'Halloran, “haven't ye any exprission of gratichood?”

Miss O'Halloran raised her face, and looked at me with earnest eyes.

“Indeed — indeed,” she said — “it is not from want of gratitude that I am silent. My gratitude is too strong for words. Lieutenant Macrorie needs no assurance of mine, I know, to convince him how I admire his noble conduct — ”

The sound of her voice roused me from my own abstraction.

“Oh, of course,” said I, “a fellow knows all that sort of thing, you know; and I feel so glad about the service I was able to render you, that I'm positively grateful to you for being there. Odd, though — wasn't it? — that I didn't recognize you. But then, you see, the fact is, you looked so different then from what you do now. Really, you seem like another person — you do, by Jove!”

At this Miss O'Halloran looked down, and seemed embarrassed.

“But what made you clear out so soon from the Frenchman's?” said I, suddenly. “You've no idea how it bothered me. By Jove! it didn't seem altogether fair to me, you know. And then you didn't even leave your address.”

Miss O'Halloran's confusion seemed to increase. She murmured some thing about having to hurry home — pressed for time — fear of her friends being anxious — and all that.

Then I asked her anxiously if she had been any the worse for it.

“Oh, no,” she said, “no ill consequences had resulted.”

By this time I had sense enough to perceive that the subject was an extremely unpleasant one. A moment's further thought showed me that it couldn't be any thing else. Unpleasant! I should think so. Was it not suggestive of sorrow and of despair? Had she not witnessed things which were never to be forgotten? Had she not seen her hapless driver go down beneath the icy waters? Had she not herself stood face to face with an awful doom? Had she not twice — yes, and thrice — tasted of the bitterness of death?

“I beg pardon,” said I, as these thoughts came to me — “it's a painful subject. I spoke thoughtlessly; but I won't allude to it again. It was bad enough for me; but it must have been infinitely worse for you. The fact is, my curiosity got the better of my consideration for your feelings.”

“That's thrue,” said O'Halloran, “it's a peenful subjict.”

At this Miss O'Halloran looked immensely relieved. She raised her head, and involuntarily cast upon me a touching look of gratitude. Yes; it must, indeed, have been a painful subject. The consciousness of this made me eager to make amends for my fault, and so I began to rattle on in a lively strain about a thousand things; and Miss O'Halloran, seizing the opportunity thus held out of casting dull care away, at once rose superior to her embarrassment and confusion, and responded to my advances with the utmost liveliness and gayety. The change was instantaneous and marked. A moment ago she had been constrained and stiff and shy; now she was gay and lively and spirited. This change, which thus took place before my eyes, served in some measure to explain that difference which I saw between the Lady of the Ice and Miss O'Halloran in her own home.

O'Halloran himself joined in. He was gay, and genial, and jocose. At about nine o'clock Marion came in. She seemed dull and distrait. She gave me a cold hand, and then sat down in silence. She did not say any thing whatever. She did not seem even to listen, but sat, with her head leaning on her hand, like one whose thoughts are far away. Yet there was a glory about her sad and melancholy beauty which could not but arrest my gaze, and often and often I found my eyes wandering to that face of loveliness. Twice — yes, three times — as my gaze thus wandered, I found her eyes fixed upon me with a kind of eager scrutiny — a fixed intensity which actually was startling to encounter. And strange, vague, wild, unformed memories arose, and odd ideas, and fantastic suspicions. Her face became thus like one of those which one sees in a crowd hastily, and then loses, only to rack his brain in vain endeavors to discover who the owner of the face might be. So it was with me as I saw the dark face and the lustrous eyes of Marion.

And now, 'pon my life, I cannot say which one of these two excited the most of my admiration. There was Nora, with her good-nature, her wit, her friendliness, her witchery, her grace, the sparkle of her eye, the music of her laugh. But there, too was Marion, whose eyes seemed to pierce to my soul, as twice or thrice I caught their gaze, and whose face seemed to have some weird influence over me, puzzling and bewildering me by suggestions of another face, which I had seen before. I was fascinated by Nora; I was in love with her; but by Marion I was thrown under a spell.

On the whole, Nora seemed to me more sympathetic. With all her brightness and joyousness, there was also a strange timidity, at times, and shyness, and furtive glances. An occasional flush, also, gave her a sweet confusion of manner, which heightened her charms. All these were signs which I very naturally interpreted in my own favor. What else should I do?

I have been calling her indiscriminately Miss O'Halloran and Nora. But to her face I did not call her by any name. Nora, of course, was not to be thought of. On the other hand, Miss O'Halloran seemed too distant. For the memory of our past experience made me feel very near to her, and intimate. Had we not been together on a journey where hours create the familiarities of years? Was not her life mine? In fact, I felt to her as a man feels when he meets the old flame of his boyhood. She is married, and has passed beyond him. But her new name is too cold, and her old name may not be used. So he calls her nothing. He meets her as a friend, but does not know now to name her.

As we talked, O'Halloran sat there, and sometimes listened, and sometimes chimed in. An uncommonly fine-looking old fellow he was, too. Although about sixty, his form was as erect as that of a young man, and his sinewy limbs gave signs of great strength. He sat in an easy-chair — his iron-gray hair clustering over his broad brow; his eyes keen, penetrating, but full of fun; his nose slightly curved, and his lips quivering into smiles; small whiskers of a vanished fashion on either cheek; and small hands — a right royal, good fellow — witty, intellectual, and awfully eccentric — at once learned and boyish, but for all that perhaps all the better adapted for social enjoyment, and perhaps I may add conviviality. There was a glorious flow of animal spirits in the man, which could not be repressed, but came rolling forth, expressed in his rich Leinster brogue. He was evidently proud of his unparalleled girls; but of these all his tenderness seemed to go forth toward Nora. To her, and apparently to her alone, he listened, with a proud affection in his face and in his eyes; while any little sally of hers was always sure to be received with an outburst of rollicking laughter, which was itself contagious, and served to increase the general hilarity.

But the general hilarity did not extend to Marion. She was like a star, and sat apart, listening to every thing, but saying nothing. I caught sometimes, as I have said, the lustrous gleam of her eyes, as they pierced me with their earnest gaze; and when I was looking at Nora, and talking with her, I was conscious, at times, of Marion's eyes. O'Halloran did not look at her, or speak to her. Was she under a cloud? Was this her usual character? Or was she sad and serious with the pressure of some secret purpose? Such were my thoughts; but then I suddenly decided that by such thoughts I was only making an ass of myself, and concluded that it was nothing more than her way. If so, it was an uncommonly impressive way.