Chapter 41. In Which Is Much Romance, And Some Treasure, Also Very Much Happiness

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_ CHAPTER XLI. IN WHICH IS MUCH ROMANCE, AND SOME TREASURE, ALSO VERY MUCH HAPPINESS

We walked on slowly up the hill together, my friend Calvin Davidson and myself, following the parti-colored group now passing out of sight behind the shrubbery. At last we paused and sat down on one of the many seats that invited us. Around us, on the great lawn, were many tropic or half-tropic plants, and the native roses, still abloom. Yonder stood the old bronze sun-dial that I knew so well--I could have read the inscription, I Mark Only Pleasant Hours; and I knew its penciled shadow pointed to a high and glorious noon.... It seemed to me that Heaven had never made a more perfect place or a more perfect day; nor, that I am sure, was ever in the universe a world more beautiful than this, more fit to swing in union with all the harmony of the spheres.... I had fought so long, I had been so unhappy, had doubted so much, had grown so sad, so misanthropic, that I trust I shall be forgiven at this sudden joy I felt at hearing burst on my ears--albeit a chorus of Edouard's mocking-birds hid in the oaks--all the music of the spheres, soul-shaking, a thing of joy and reverence.... So I spoke but little.

"But I say, old man," began Davidson presently, "it's all right for a joke, but my word! it was an awfully big one, and an awfully risky one, too,--your stealing your own yacht from me! I didn't think it of you. You not only broke up my boat party--you see, Sally was going on down with us from Natchez--Miss Emory said she'd be glad to have her come, and of course she and Mrs. Daniver made it proper, all right--I say, you not only busted that all up, but by not sending a fellow the least word of what you were going to do, you got those silly newspapers crazy, from New Orleans to New York--why, you're famous, that is, notorious! But so is Miss Emory, that's the worst of it. I don't just fancy she'll just fancy some of those pictures, or some of those stories. Least you can do now is to marry Helena and the old girl, too, right off!"

"In part, that is good advice," said I. "I wish I could wear your clothes, Cal--but I remember now that Edouard and I can wear the same clothes, and have, many a time."

"But I say, don't be so hoggish. There's other people in the world beside you--you'd never have thought of making that river cruise, now would you?"

"No."

"Nor you couldn't have got Helena aboard the boat if you had, now could you?"

"No."

"Let alone the old girl, her revered aunt!" He dug another thumb into his own pink striped waistcoat. "She loves you a lot, I am not of the impression!"

"No, I think she rather favored you!" I replied gravely.

"No chance! And I say, isn't Sally a humdinger? Just the sort for me--something doing every minute. And a fellow can always tell just what she's thinkin'----"

"I'm not right sure, Cal, whether that's safe to say of any woman," said I. "A ship on the sea, or a serpent on a rock has--to use your own quaint manner of speech, my friend--so to speak, nothing on the way of a maid with a man. But go on. I do congratulate you. Do you know, old man, I almost thought, once--a good while ago--that you were just a little--that is--epris of Helena your own self?"

"Come again? 'Apree'--what's that?"

"--Gone on her."

"Oh, not at all, not at all--not in the least! Why, I can't see what in the world--oh, well of course, you know, she's fine; but what I mean is, why--there was Sally, you know. Say, do you know why I wanted to get Sally away on that boat?--I was afraid you'd cut in somewhere, run across her down at Mardi Gras, or something. And I just figured, once you got a girl on a boat that way, away from all the other fellows, you know, why even a plain chap like me would have a chance, do you see? And I say now, I'll own it up--I was right down jealous of you, too! Wasn't it silly? And I ask your pardon. You're an awfully good sort, Harry, though you're so d----d serious--you get too much in earnest, take things too hard, you know. Will you shake hands with me, knowing what a fool I've been? I say, you're the best chap in the world, old man--if only you were a little more human once in a while."

He put out his hand and I met it. "Will you shake hands with me, Cal?" said I, "on precisely those same terms about having been an awful fool? It's you who are the best chap in the world. And I'll admit it--I was jealous of you!"

He roared at this. "Well," said he, "as George Cohan says, 'All's well that ends well', and I guess we couldn't beat this for a championship year, now could we? Now say, about Dingleheimer----"

"Oh, hang Dingleheimer, Cal!" I exclaimed. "What I want to know is, did you ever talk any to Miss Emory about--well, about me, you know?--say anything about my affairs, or anything, you know? I mean while you were there on the boat together."

"No. She wouldn't let me. Besides, the truth is, I was so full of Sally all the time, I mostly talked about her. By Jove! that was a measly trick you played us, running off with the boat from under my nose! But I proposed to Sally in Natchez that night, and she came on down to the city the next day by rail--while I ran down in that dirty little scow you left behind. And I never tumbled for days that it was you had run off with the boat--though I found a photo of Helena and your cigarette case in the boat you left. Never tumbled till that story of the taxi driver came out. Then I said, 'Well, of all things! Wonder if that old stick has really come to life after all!' And you sure had! What's in your letter? Say, ain't a boat the place----"

"But how did you happen to be here?"

"Oh, I've known Ed Manning years, in New York, Paris, all around. He asked me to visit him some time. I wired and asked him if I could come out for our honeymoon--you know, Harry, I'm such a d----d romantic son of a gun, and once before I was out here at Ed's, and those d----d nightingales, catbirds, what d'ye call 'ems----"

"--Mockers."

"Yes, mockers, they sung so sweet, especial in the evenings, you know--and I'm so d----d romantic--always was thataway--and you know, why, a fellow can be romantic on his honeymoon, can't he?--he can just cut loose then an' be as big a d--n fool as he likes then--an' get away with it, what? Say, can't he?"

--"Yes."

--"So that's why I came."

--"But--honeymoon? Are you going to be married?"

--"Naw! I ain't goin' to be married--I am married! Day before yesterday, in New Orleans. And I don't believe in dandlin' an' foolin' around about a little thing like that. Ain't you married yet?"

"No. Impossible. No preacher on Cote Blanche Bay or on our boat. I've got Aunt Lucinda Daniver along, to take care of the proprieties. If I should leave it to her, I never would be married."

"Why?"

"She thinks I'm broke."

"Yes, too bad about that! I wish I could swap bank rolls with you. Why didn't you tell her the truth--and Helena, too? Why didn't you tell 'em it was your own yacht? Why didn't you tell 'em you're worth a few millions and don't have to work?"

"I don't know--maybe I'm like you, Cal, foolish about nightingales and things. But tell me--you never did tell them anything about that Sally M. mine business, did you?"

"No, I should say not! Didn't you tell me you didn't want it to get out? It was bad enough, the way old Dan and your--sainted father handed it to each other over that mine, wasn't it? I know about it, for I promoted that mine myself, and the name'll prove that--Sally M. Byington, with the Byington left off! There wasn't a blasted thing in it then. But when you--like a blame quixotic fool--after she was good for six thousand a month velvet, and ore blocked out to last a thousand years--why, then you fool around in Papa's records, and think Papa wasn't on the square with old Dan. So on the quiet you get it all made over, back to old Dan's daughter; and take a sneak into the hazelbrush when she turns you down! Say, you know what I'd a-done?"

"No."

--"I'd a-held on to the mine and told the girl how much it was bringin' in--that's my system. Then I'd a-got the mine and the girl both, maybe!"

--"Maybe."

"Well, that's the system I'd a-played. I wouldn't a-took to the tall grass, me."

"On the other hand, I played a system invented by myself and Henri L'Olonnois."

"I never heard of him. Well, anyhow, you were rich enough to afford to do what you liked. But as to keeping it secret, you can't do that any longer. Those newspaper fellows are the devil to get hold of things. Since all this stuff came out about you running away with your own boat--I can see now why you did it, and I'm glad you did--why, your whole life history has been printed, including all that restitution business about the Sally M. Fellows came to me and asked me about you, asked if I knew you. Said, yes, I knew you--said you were a romantic chap, and a good business man, too--and the best old scout in the world--what?"

I had arisen, and stood in some doubt. "What's the matter--let's go on up to the house. I want to see Sally," he concluded.

"And I want very much to see Helena," said I. "Only, it's going to be rather harder now to meet her--and Mrs. Daniver."

"Well, I don't know," said Cal Davidson; "every fellow plays his own system. There's something in what you say about women having a good poker face so far as tellin' what they think about a man is concerned--yes. Frinstance, how much did Helena know I knew, or know you knew or thought you knew--well, you get me? But the trouble with you is, you ain't romantic in your temperament like me.... But if I was you, I wouldn't be scared to tell Mrs. Daniver I had a dollar and a quarter or so left! It'll soften the blow some to her, maybe. And as for Helena----"

"And as for Helena, I can look her in the face, and she can me, now. And--will you telephone to New Iberia for a minister--at once--for this evening train? And will you tell Edouard to have his man lay out his best evening clothes for me--tell him I'll trade him these of my cook's for them--and a suit of traveling clothes? Because, oh! fellow varlet----" (I paused here; we both did; for a mocker just now broke into an extraordinary burst of song, so sweet, so throbbingly sweet, that we could not help but listen, both of us being lovers)....

"What were you saying, old man?" Cal Davidson asked after a while, musingly, as one awakening.... "Some bird, what?"

... "Because, to-night," I answered, "I am going to marry my fair captive, yon heartless jade, Helena. I've loved her always, rich or poor, and she loves me, rich or poor. And we shall live happy ever after. And may God bless us, and all true lovers!"

"Amen!" I heard some one say; and have often wondered whether it was yon varlet, the mocking-bird, or Cal Davidson himself, who spoke.... I looked around for Partial. He had followed Helena.

FOOTNOTE:

[B] (The words in Helena's note, addressed to Henry Francis Drake, Esquire, were, as I have said, but two: "Yes--Now". That was why I was married that evening. It was curious about the wedding ring, for that I would not borrow; so an old negro blacksmith took a gold ring Edouard gave me, one found years ago by a Cajun treasure hunter in some one of the few successful hunts for the treasure of Jean Lafitte; and into this, in place of the gem long since missing, he clasped my pearl, the one we got on the river far in the north; the great pearl later known as the largest and most brilliant ever found in fresh water. It was I who named it the "Belle Helene". So that our ring pleased all but L'Olonnois and Jean Lafitte. These two pirates had set at work that very afternoon, with 'Polyte (by Edouard's consent) and dug behind the smoke-house. Wonderful enough, they did find old bricks, enclosing a sort of hollow cavity, bricks of an ancient day; and though they got nothing else ('Polyte said he knew who had beaten them to this treasure--it was Achilles Dufrayne of Calcasieu, curse him!) they both explained how easy it would be to deceive the fair captive into thinking we really had found the ring's setting as well as the ring itself, in a pirate treasure-box. I would not do that, on the ground that already I had deceived the fair captive quite enough.... But, though yon varlet, my friend dear old Cal Davidson, spoke rather freely about his honeymoon, and all that, I can not do so of mine with Helena.... I did not know that I could again be so happy. Often I have wished I were a romantic man, like dear old Cal.... I fear my book on the mosquitoes of North America never will be written now.--H. F. D.)

[THE END]
Emerson Hough's Novel: Lady and the Pirate

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