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The Maroon

Herbert was standing alone in the crowd. Two young planters were near him, engaged in conversation. They had mixed their liquor, and therefore talked loud.

Herbert could not help hearing what they talked of; and, having heard, could not help heeding it. He was interested in the subject, though not from its singularity; for it was the common topic of the ball-room, and had been throughout the night. The theme was Smythje; and coupled with his name was that of Kate Vaughan.

On hearing these names, Herbert was no longer an involuntary listener. He strained his ears to catch every word. He had not heard the beginning of the dialogue, but the introduction was easily inferred.

“When is it to come off?” inquired the least knowing of the planters, from him who was imparting the information.

“No time fixed yet,” was the reply; “at least, none has been mentioned. Soon, I suppose.”

“There’ll be a grand spread upon the occasion – breakfast, dinner, supper, and ball, no doubt?”

“Sure to be all that. The Custos is not the man to let the ceremony pass without all the éclat.”

“Honeymoon tour afterwards?”

“Of course. He takes her to London. I believe they are to reside there. Mr Smythje don’t much relish our colonial life: he misses the opera. A pity: since it’ll make one beautiful woman less in the Island!”

“Well, all I’ve got to say is, that Loff Vaughan has sold his nigger well.”

“Oh, for shame! to use such a word in speaking of the beautiful – the accomplished Miss Vaughan. Come, Thorndyke! I’m shocked at you.”

Thorndyke, by the expression, had hazarded the punching of his head – not by his companion, but by a stranger who stood near.

Herbert curbed his indignation. Kate cared not for him! Perhaps she would not have accepted him even as her champion!

Almost at that same moment Kate, too, was listening to a dialogue painfully analogous. Smythje could not dance all the night with her. Too many claimed the honour of his partnership; and for a set or two she had been forsaken by him – left under the guardianship of the watchful Custos.

“Who can he be?” inquired one of two gentle gossips within earshot of Kate.

“A young Englishman, I have heard: a relative of Vaughans of Mount Welcome; though, for some reason, not acknowledged by the Custos.”

“That bold girl appears willing enough to acknowledge him. Who is she?”

“A Miss Jessuron. She is the daughter of the old Jew penn-keeper, who used to deal largely in blacks.”

“Faugh! she is behaving as if she belonged to a – ”

The last word was whispered, and Kate did not hear it.

“True enough!” asserted the other; “but, as they are engaged, that, I take it, is nobody’s business but their own. He’s a stranger in the Island; and don’t know much about certain people’s position, I suppose. A pity! He seems a nice sort of a young fellow; but as he makes his bed, so let him lie. Ha! ha! If report speaks true of Miss Judith Jessuron, he’ll find no bed of roses there. Ha! ha! ha!”

What causes merriment to one may make another miserable. This was true of the words last spoken. From the speaker and her companion they elicited a laugh – from Kate Vaughan they drew a sigh, deep and sad.

She left the ball with a bleeding heart.

“Lost! lost for ever!” murmured she, as she laid her cheek upon a sleepless pillow.

“Won!” triumphantly exclaimed Judith Jessuron, flinging her majestic form on a couch. “Herbert Vaughan is mine!”

“Lost! lost for ever!” soliloquised Herbert, as he closed the door of his solitary sleeping-room.

“Won!” cried the victorious Smythje, entering his elegant bed-chamber, and, in the fervour of his enthusiasm, dropping his metropolitan patois. “Kate Vaughan is mine!”

Volume Two – Chapter Seventeen
After the Ball

The time was rapidly drawing nigh when the ambitious scheme of the Custos Vaughan was either to be crowned with success, or end in failure.

Of the latter he had little apprehension. Though Smythje, having lost the opportunity of the eclipse, had not yet declared himself, Mr Vaughan knew it was his intention to do so on an early occasion. Indeed, the declaration was only postponed by the advice of the Custos himself, whose counsel had been sought by his intended son-in-law.

Not that Mr Vaughan had any fear of Kate’s giving a negative answer. The stern father knew that he had his daughter too well in hand for that. His wish would be her will – on that point was he determined; and it was less the fear of a refusal than some other circumstances that had hindered him from bringing the matter earlier to a crisis.

As for Smythje, he never dreamt of a rejection. Kate’s behaviour at the ball had confirmed him in the belief that she was entirely his own; and that without him her future existence would be one of misery. Her pale cheek, and sad, thoughtful air, as she appeared next morning at the breakfast-table, told him too plainly that she would never be happy under any other name than that of Mrs Smythje.

Again, upon that morning, it occurred to him that the proposal should be made. It would be an appropriate finale to the fête of the preceding night.

His brow still glowing with the laurels that had bedecked it, like a second Antony he would approach his Cleopatra, triumphantly irresistible.

After breakfast, Mr Smythje drew the Custos into a corner, and once more expressed his solicitude to become his son-in-law.

Whether, because Kate’s behaviour at the ball had also impressed Mr Vaughan with the appropriateness of the time, or for some other reason, Smythje found him agreeable. Only first, the father desired to have a few words with his daughter, in order to prepare her for the distinguished honour of which she was so soon to be the recipient.

Kate had gone out into the kiosk. There Mr Vaughan sought her, to bring about the proposed preliminary interview. Smythje also stepped into the garden; but, instead of going near the summer-house, he sauntered along the walks at a distance, occasionally plucking a flower, or chasing the butterflies, bright and gay as his own thoughts.

Kate’s countenance still preserved the air of melancholy that had clouded it all the morning; and the approach of the Custos did nothing to dissipate it. On the contrary, its shadows became deeper, as if the ponderous presence of her father, coming between her and the sun, was about to shut out the little light left shining in her heart.

From what she had heard that morning, she presumed that the time had arrived when she must either submit to the wishes of her father, and resign herself to an unhappy fate; or, by disobedience, brave his anger, and perhaps – she knew not what.

She only knew that she did not like Mr Smythje, and never could. She did not hate the man – she did not detest him. Her feeling towards him was that of indifference, slightly tinctured with contempt. Harmless she deemed him; and, no doubt, a harmless husband he would make; but that was not the sort to suit the taste of the young Creole. Far different was the hero of her heart.

Neither the lover nor his prospective father-in-law could have chosen a time more opportune for making their approaches. Although at that time Kate Vaughan felt towards Smythje more indifference – perhaps more contempt – than she had ever done, at that very hour was she wavering in the intention, hitherto cherished, of refusing him.

Though both lover and father had erroneously interpreted her air of dejection, it was nevertheless in their favour. It was not love for Smythje under which she was suffering; but despair of this passion for another; and in that despair lay the hope – the only hope – of the lord of Montagu Castle.

It was a despair not unmingled with pique – with anger; that proud rage, which painfully wringing the heart, prompts it to desperate resolves: even to the utter annihilation of all future hope – as if happiness could be obtained by destroying the happiness of the one only being who could give it!

Yes, the heart of Kate Vaughan had reached, or almost reached, that fearful phase of our moral nature, when love, convinced of its unrequital, seeks solace in revenge!

The Smythje ball, which had crowned the hopes of him to whom the compliment was given, had been fatal to those of Kate Vaughan.

Certain it was that she had conceived hopes that pointed to Herbert Vaughan. Love could scarce have been kindled without them. They were founded upon those fond words spoken at their first parting. Slight as was the foundation, up to that night had they endured: for she had treasured and cherished them in spite of absence, and calumny, and false report.

True, as time passed they had waxed fainter, with longer intervals of doubt, until the day in which had occurred the unexpected incident of their meeting upon the Jumbé Rock.

Then they had become revived, and since then they had lived with more or less intermission until that fatal night – the night of the Smythje ball – when they were doomed to utter extinction.

All night long he had come but once near her – only that once by the mere chance of changing positions. And that bow – that single salutation, friendly as it might have been deemed, she could only remember as being cold – almost cynical!

She did not think how cold and distant had been her own – at least, how much so it must have appeared to him. Though her eyes had often sought him in the crowd, and often found him, she did not know that his were equally following her, and equally as often fixed upon her. Both were ignorant of this mutual espionage: for each had studiously declined responding to the glance of the other.

Never more that night had he come near – never again had he shown a desire or made an attempt to address her; though opportunities there were – many – when no paternal eye was upon her to prevent an interview.

All night long had his attentions been occupied by another – apparently engrossed – and that other, a bold, beautiful woman – just such an one as Herbert might love.

“He loves her! I am sure he loves her!” was the reflection that passed often and painfully through the thoughts of Kate Vaughan, as she swept her eye across that crowded ball-room.

And then came the climax – that half-whispered gossip that reached her ear, falling upon it like a knell of death. They were to be married: they were already betrothed!

It needed no more. In that moment the hopes of the young creole were crushed – so cruelly, so completely, that, in the dark future before her, no gleam of light arose to resuscitate them.

No wonder the morning sun shone upon a pale cheek – no wonder that an air of deep dejection sate upon the countenance of Kate Vaughan.

In this melancholy mood did the father find his daughter on entering the kiosk.

She made no attempt to conceal it – not even with a counterfeit of a smile. Rather with a frown did she receive him; and in her eyes might have been detected the slightest scintillation of anger, whether or not he was its object.

It is possible that just then the thought was passing through her mind that but for him her destiny might have been different; but for him, Herbert Vaughan, not Montagu Smythje, might have been on the eve of offering for her hand, which would then have gone with her heart. Now, in the contingency of her consenting to the proposal she expected, would she and Herbert be separated, and for ever!

Never more was she to experience that supreme happiness – the supremest known upon earth, and perhaps, equalling the joys of heaven itself – never more could she indulge in that sweet delicious dream – a virgin’s love – with the hope of its being returned. Her love might remain like a flower that had lost its perfume, only to shed it on the solitary air; no more a sweet passion, but a barren, bitter thought, without hope to cheer it till the end of time.

Ah, Custos Vaughan! proud, foolish parent! Could you have known how you were aiding to destroy the happiness of your child – how you were contributing to crush that young heart – you would have approached less cheerfully to complete the ceremony of its sacrifice!

Volume Two – Chapter Eighteen
Paving the Way

“Katherine!” gravely began the father, on stepping inside the kiosk.

“Father!”

The parental appellative was pronounced in a low murmur, the speaker not uplifting her eyes from the object upon which she had been gazing.

That object was a small silken purse that lay upon the table. Stringless it was, though the broken strands of a blue ribbon attached to it showed that it had not always been so.

Loftus Vaughan knew not the history of that purse, neither why it lay there, what had stripped it of its string, or why his daughter was so sadly gazing upon it. This last circumstance he noticed on entering the kiosk.

“Ah, your pretty purse!” said he, taking it up, and examining it more minutely.

“Some one has torn the string from it – a pity! who can have done it?”

Little did he care for an answer. As little did he suspect that the rape of that bit of ribbon had aught to do with his daughter’s dejection, which he had observed throughout the morning. The surprise he had expressed, and the question put, were only intended to initiate the more serious conversation he was about to introduce.

“Oh, papa! it don’t signify,” said Kate, avoiding a direct answer; “’tis but a bit of ribbon. I can easily replace it by another.”

Ah, Kate! you may easily replace the ribbon upon the purse, but not so easily that peace of mind which parted from your bosom at the same time. When that string was torn, torn, too, were the strings of your heart!

Some such reflection must have passed through her mind as she made the reply; for the shadow visibly deepened over her countenance.

Mr Vaughan pursued the subject of the purse no further, but looking through the lattice-work and perceiving Smythje in chase of the butterflies, endeavoured to draw his daughter’s attention to that sportive gentleman.

This was the more easily done as Mr Smythje was at the moment humming a tune, and could be heard as well as seen.

 
“‘I’d be a butterfly,’ – ”
 

sang Smythje —

 
“‘born in a bower,
Where lilies, and roses, and violets meet;
Sporting for ever, from flower to flower;
And – ’”
 

And then, as if to contradict this pleasant routine of insect life, he was at that instant seen seizing a splendid vanessa, and crushing the frail creature between his kid-gloved fingers!

“Isn’t he a superb fellow?” said Mr Vaughan, first gazing enthusiastically on Smythje, and then fixing his eyes upon his daughter, to note the character of the reply.

“I suppose he must be, papa – since everybody says so.”

There was no enthusiasm in Kate’s answer – nothing to encourage the Custos.

“Don’t you think so, Kate?”

This was coming more directly to the point; but the response proved equally evasive.

“You think so, papa – and that should do for both of us.”

The melodious voice of Smythje again interrupted the dialogue, and turned it into a new channel.

Smythje, singing, —

 
“I’d never languish for wealth nor for power,
I’d never sigh to see slaves at my feet!”
 

“Ah, Mr Smythje!” exclaimed the Custos, in a kind of soliloquy, though meant for the ear of Kate; “you have no need to sigh for them – you have them; five hundred of them. And beauties, too! Wealth and power, indeed! You needn’t languish for either one or the other. The estate of Montagu Castle provides you with both, my boy!”

Smythje, still chantant: —

 
“Those who have wealth may be watchful and wary,
Power, alas! nought but misery brings.”
 

“Do you hear that, Kate? What fine sentiments he utters!”

“Very fine, and apropos to the occasion,” replied Kate, sarcastically. “They are not his, however; but, no doubt, he feels them; and that’s just as good.”

“A splendid property!” continued Mr Vaughan, returning to what interested him more than the sentiments of the song, and not heeding the sarcasm conveyed in the speech of his daughter, – “a splendid property, I tell you; and, with mine joined to it, will make the grandest establishment in the Island. The Island, did I say? In the West Indies – ay, in the Western World! Do you hear that, my daughter?”

“I do, papa,” replied the young Creole. “But you speak as if the two estates were to be joined together? Does Mr Smythje intend to purchase Mount Welcome? or you Montagu Castle?”

These questions were asked with an air of simplicity evidently assumed. In truth, the interrogator knew well enough to what the conversation was tending; and, impatient with the ambiguity, every moment growing more painful to her, desired to bring it to its crisis.

Mr Vaughan was equally desirous of arriving at the same result, as testified by his reply.

“Ah, Kate! you little rogue!” said he, looking gratified at the opening thus made for him. “Egad! you’ve just hit the nail on the head. You’ve guessed right – only that we are both to be buyers. Mr Smythje is to purchase Mount Welcome; and what do you suppose he is to pay for it? Guess that!”

“Indeed, father, I cannot! How should I know? I am sure I do not. Only this I know, that I am sorry you should think of parting with Mount Welcome. I, for one, shall be loth to leave it. Though I do not expect now ever to be happy here, I think I should not be happier anywhere else.”

Mr Vaughan was too much wound-up in the thread of his own thoughts to notice the emphasis on the word “now,” or the double meaning of his daughter’s words.

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed he; “Mr Smythje’s purchase won’t dispossess us of Mount Welcome. Don’t be afraid of that, little Kate. But, come, try and guess the price he is to pay?”

“Father, I need not try. I am sure I could not guess it – not within thousands of pounds.”

“Not a thousand pounds! no, not one pound, unless his great big heart weighs that much, and his generous hand thrown into the scale – for that, Catherine, that is the price he is to pay.”

Mr Vaughan wound up this speech with a significant glance, and a triumphant gesture, expressive of astonishment at his own eloquence.

He looked for a response – one that would reciprocate his smiles and the joyful intelligence he fancied himself to have communicated.

He looked in vain. Notwithstanding the perspicuity of his explanation, Kate obstinately refused to comprehend it.

Her reply was provokingly a “shirking of the question.”

“His heart and his hand, you say? Neither seem very heavy. But is it not very little for an estate where there are many hands and many hearts, too? To whom does he intend to give his? You have not let me know that, papa!”

“I shall let you know now,” replied the father, his voice changing to a more serious tone, as if a little nettled by Kate’s evident design to misunderstand him. “I shall let you know, by telling you what I intend to give him for Montagu Castle. I told you we were both to be buyers in this transaction. It is a fair exchange, Kate, hand for hand, and heart for heart. Mr Smythje freely gives his, and I give yours.”

“Mine!”

“Ay, yours. Surely, Kate, I have not made a mistake? Surely you are agreeable to the exchange?”

“Father,” said the young girl, speaking in a tone of womanly gravity, “there can be no exchange of hearts between Mr Smythje and myself. He may have given his to me. I know not, nor do I care. But I will not deceive you, father. My heart he can never have. It is not in my power to give it to him.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mr Vaughan, startled by this unexpected declaration; “you are deceiving yourself, my child, when you talk thus. I do not see how you can fail to like Mr Smythje – so generous, so accomplished, so handsome as he is! Come, you are only jesting, Kate? You do like him? You do not hate him?”

“No, no! I do not hate him! Why should I? Mr Smythje has done nothing to offend me. I believe he is very honourable.”

“Why, that is almost saying that you like him!” rejoined the father, in a tone of returning gratification.

“Liking is not love,” murmured Kate, as if speaking to herself.

“It may turn to it,” said the Custos, encouragingly. “It often does – especially when two people become man and wife. Besides, it’s not always best for young married folks to be too fond of each other at first. As my old spelling book used to say, ‘Hot love soon grows cold.’ Never fear, Kate! you’ll get to like Mr Smythje well enough, when you come to be the mistress of Montagu Castle, and take rank as the grandest lady of the Island. Won’t that be happiness, little Kate?”

“Ah!” thought the young Creole, “a cabin shared with him would be greater happiness – far, far greater!”

It is needless to say that the “him” to whom the thought pointed was not Smythje.

“As Mrs Montagu Smythje,” proceeded the Custos, with a design of painting the future prospects of his daughter in still more glowing tints, “you will have troops of friends – the highest in the land. And remember, my child, it is not so note. You know it, Catherine?”

These last words were pronounced in a tone suggestive of some secret understanding between father and daughter.

Whether the speech produced the desired effect, he who made it did not stay to perceive; but continued on in the same breath to finish the rose-coloured picture he had essayed to paint.

“Yes, my little Kate! you will be the observed of all observers – the cynosure of every eye, as the poets say. Horses, slaves, dresses, carriages at will. You will make a grand tour to London – egad! I feel like going myself! In the great metropolis you will hob-nob with lords and ladies; visit the operas and balls, where you will be a belle, my girl – a belle, do you hear? Every one will be talking of Mrs Montagu Smythje! How do you like it now?”

“Ah, papa!” replied the young Creole, evidently unmoved by these promises of pomp and grandeur, “I should not like it at all. I am sure I should not. I never cared for such things – you know I do not. They cannot give happiness – at least, not to me. I should never be happy away from our own home. What pleasure should I have in a great city? None, I am sure; but quite the contrary. I should miss our grand mountains and woods – our beautiful trees with their gay, perfumed blossoms – our bright-winged birds with their sweet songs! Operas and balls! I dislike balls; and to be the belle of one – papa, I detest the word!”

Kate, at that moment, was thinking of the Smythje ball, and its disagreeable souvenirs – perhaps the more disagreeable that, oftener than once, during the night she had heard the phrase “belle of the ball” applied to one who had aided in the desolation of her heart.

“Oh! you will get over that dislike,” returned Mr Vaughan, “once you go into fashionable society. Most young ladies do. There is no harm in balls – after a girl gets married, and her husband goes with her, to take care of her – no harm whatever. But now, Kate,” continued the Custos, betraying a certain degree of nervous impatience, “we must come to an understanding. Mr Smythje is waiting.”

“For what is he waiting, papa?”

“Tut! tut! child,” said Mr Vaughan, slightly irritated by his daughter’s apparent incapacity to comprehend him. “Surely you know! Have I not as good as told you? Mr Smythje is going to – to offer you his heart and hand; and – and to ask yours in return. That is what he is waiting to do. You will not refuse him? – you cannot: you must not!”

Loftus Vaughan would have spoken more gracefully had he omitted the last phrase. It had the sound of a command, with an implied threat; and, jarring upon the ear of her to whom it was addressed, might have roused a spirit of rebellion. It is just possible that such would have been its effect, had it been spoken on the evening before the Smythje ball, instead of the morning after.

The incidents occurring there had extinguished all hope in the breast of the young Creole that she should ever share happiness with Herbert Vaughan – had, at the same time, destroyed any thought of resistance to the will of her father; and, with a sort of apathetic despair, she submitted herself to the sacrifice which her father had determined she should make.

“I have told you the truth,” said she, gazing fixedly in his face, as if to impress him with the idleness of the arguments he had been using. “I cannot give Mr Smythje my heart; I shall tell him the same.”

“No – no!” hastily rejoined the importunate parent; “you must do nothing of the kind. Give him your hand; and say nothing about your heart. That you can bestow afterwards – when you are safe married.”

“Never, never!” said the young girl, sighing sadly as she spoke. “I cannot practise that deception. No, father, not even for you. Mr Smythje shall know all; and, if he choose to accept my hand without my heart – ”

“Then you promise to give him your hand?” interrupted the Custos, overjoyed at this hypothetical consent.

“It is you who give it; not I, father.”

“Enough!” cried Mr Vaughan, hastily turning his eyes to the garden, as if to search for the insect-hunter. “I shall give it,” continued he, “and this very minute. Mr Smythje!”

Smythje, standing close by the kiosk, on the qui vive of expectation, promptly responded to the summons; and in two seconds of time appeared in the open doorway.

“Mr Smythje – sir!” said the Custos, putting on an air of pompous solemnity befitting the occasion; “you have asked for my daughter’s hand in marriage; and, sir, I am happy to inform you that she has consented to your becoming my son-in-law. I am proud of the honour, sir.”

Here Mr Vaughan paused to get breath.

“Aw, aw!” stammered Smythje. “This is a gweat happiness – veway gweat, indeed! Quite unexpected! – aw, aw! – I am shure, Miss Vawn, I never dweamt such happiness was in store faw me.”

“Now, my children,” playfully interrupted the Custos – covering Smythje’s embarrassment by the interruption – “I have bestowed you upon one another; and, with my blessing, I leave you to yourselves.”

So saying, the gratified father stepped forth from the kiosk; and, wending his way along the walk, disappeared around an angle of the house.

We shall not intrude upon the lovers thus left alone, nor repeat a single word of what passed between them.

Suffice it to say, that when Smythje came out of that same kiosk, his air was rather tranquil than triumphant. A portion of the shadow that had been observed upon Kate’s countenance seemed to have been transmitted to his.

“Well?” anxiously inquired the intended father-in-law.

“Aw! all wight; betwothed. Yewy stwange, thaw – inexpwicably stwange!”

“How, strange?” demanded Mr Vaughan.

“Aw, vewy mild. I expected haw to go into hystewics. Ba Jawve! naw: she weceived ma declawation as cool as a cucumbaw!”

She had done more than that; she had given him a hand without a heart.

And Smythje knew it: for Kate Vaughan had kept her promise.