A Changed Heart: A Novel

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Captain Cavendish."

The black brow contracted suddenly, and Catty saw it. She, as well as all Speckport, knew there was a breach between the two, and she and all Speckport set Mr. Wyndham down as the cause.

Olive Henderson rose up, with her brows still contracted, and walked into the drawing-room. She shut the door behind her; and oh! what would not Catty Clowrie have given had the painted panels of that door been clear glass, that she might see what was going on. She could hear, not their words, but the voice of the captain, passionate and then reproachful, then pleading, then passionately angry again. Once she crept to the door; it was after an unusually vehement outburst on his part; and when her curiosity was excited beyond all bounds, she affixed her ear to the keyhole.

"It hardly becomes you, Captain Cavendish," she heard the voice say, in a tone of cold disdain; "it does not become you to talk like this of infidelity. If all tales be true, you have been rather faithless yourself in your time. People who live in glass houses are always the readiest to throw stones, I think!"

Catty dared not stay, lest they should suddenly open the door, and went back to her work.

"She has refused him!" she thought. "What new mystery is this?"

Had Miss Clowrie been able to look into the room, she would have seen Captain Cavendish pacing it like a caged tiger, and Miss Henderson standing up and leaning against the mantel, and looking icily at him out of her great black eyes. He stopped abruptly before her, controlling his passion, and steadfastly returned her gaze.

"And is it for Mr. Paul Wyndham," he asked, with sneering emphasis, "the little pitiful quill-driver, that I am rejected?"

The black eyes of Olive Henderson flashed flame at the gibing tone.

"Yes!" she flashed, impetuously, "it is for Mr. Paul Wyndham, whose name is a household word in lands where he has never been – who will be remembered by thousands when you are dead and forgotten!"

If Captain Cavendish could, with any propriety, have knocked the defiant young lady down at that moment, I think he would have done it. He set his strong white teeth, and clenched his hands, in the impotence of his fury.

"And this insult, am I to understand, is your final answer?"

"The answer is final," Olive said, frigidly. "The insult, if such it be, you provoked yourself, by first insulting me. I wished to part friends with you; if you prefer we should part enemies, it is immaterial to me. I do not know why you have come to make this scene this morning, when you received your answer last night."

The morning sunshine was streaming brightly into the room; but, as she spoke, it was suddenly darkened, and Paul Wyndham, riding past, strung his horse at the door. An instant after, Catty Clowrie saw Captain Cavendish leave the house, his hat slouched over his eyes, and stride away as if shod with seven-league boots. Mr. Wyndham had come to escort Miss Henderson on her customary morning-ride to Redmon, and Olive ran up-stairs to put on her riding-habit. But not until Catty had seen how haughtily cold her reception of Mr. Wyndham was, and how ghostly pale she looked as she ran up-stairs.

Catty Clowrie was not the only young lady in Speckport puzzled by Miss Henderson's remarkable conduct. Laura Blair was bothering her poor little brain with the enigma, and could not solve it, though she tried ever so.

"Olly, dear," she said, in a perplexed tone, when she came to the cottage next day, and up in Olive's room seated herself for a confidential chat, "have you quarreled with Captain Cavendish?"

Olive was reclining in a vast Sleepy Hollow of an armchair, looking pale and fagged; for she had been at a ball the previous night, and lay with her hands folded listlessly in her lap, and the lazy lids hiding the splendor of her eyes. She hardly took the trouble to lift these heavy eyelids, as she replied:

"No – yes. Why?"

"Because, he's gone away, dear! I thought you knew it. He has gone off on leave of absence to Canada, I believe."

"Indeed!" Miss Henderson said, indifferently. "When did he go?"

"He left in the steamer for Portland, Maine, this morning. Olly, dearest, will you not tell me what it is all about?"

"All what is about?" asked Olive, impatiently.

Laura looked frightened; she always got scared when Miss Henderson's big black eyes flashed.

"You won't be angry, my darling Olly? but I thought – every one thought – you were going to marry Captain Cavendish."

"Did they? Then it's a pity 'every one' must be disappointed, for I am not going to marry Captain Cavendish."

Laura sat silent after this quencher. She was seated on a low stool at her friend's feet, with her brown head lying on her lap. The heiress bent down and kissed the pretty face.

"My poor, silly, inquisitive little Laura!" she said, "you would like a wedding, I know. You have a feminine love of bridal-vails and orange-wreaths, and you would like to look pretty in white silk and Honiton lace, as my bridemaid – wouldn't you, now?"

"Yes," said Miss Blair.

"Well, then, Laura, you shall!"

Laura started up, and stared.

"What?"

"I say," repeated Olive, quietly, "you shall be gratified. You shall wear the white silk and the Honiton lace, my dear, and be first bridemaid, for I am going to be married!"

Laura Blair clasped her hands.

"Oh, Olly! and to Mr. Wyndham?"

"Yes; to Mr. Wyndham."

Laura sat like one transfixed, digesting the news. Somehow, she was not so much surprised, but the suddenness of the intelligence stunned her.

Olive Henderson laughed outright as she looked at her.

"Well, Miss Blair," she said, "if I had told you I had committed a murder, and was going to be hanged for it, you could hardly look more aghast! Pray, is there anything so very terrible in my marrying Mr. Wyndham?"

"It's not that," said Laura, recovering herself slowly, "but the news came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that – "

"Unexpectedly! Is it possible, Laura, Speckport has not decided before now I should marry Mr. Wyndham?"

"Speckport doesn't know what to think," said Laura; "it decided upon your marriage with Captain Cavendish; it said that you were engaged, and that all was settled, when, lo! this Mr. Wyndham appears, and presto! all is changed. Captain Cavendish flies out of the country, and Mr. Wyndham becomes the hero of the story. Speckport never was so pleased before; you are as erratic as a comet, Miss Henderson, and it is as useless trying to account for your vagaries."

"I am glad Speckport has found that out. Well, Laura, you will be bridemaid?"

"Of course. Oh how strange it all seems! When is it to come off?"

"What, the wedding? Oh, near the end of next month, I believe. Mr. Wyndham, like any other ardent lover, objects to long engagements."

She laughed, as she spoke, a little disdainful laugh, that made Laura fix her brown eyes thoughtfully on her face.

"Olly – don't be angry, please – do you love Mr. Wyndham?"

"Of course, you silly child," the heiress laughed, carelessly, "if not, should I marry him? You have read a great many novels, my Laura, of the high-pressure school, and have formed your own ideas of lovers from the rapturous proceedings therein recorded. But Mr. Wyndham and I are not romantic; it is not in my nature to be, and all the romance in his he reserves as his stock-in-trade for his books, and has none left for this prosy every-day life. He is sufficiently well-looking, he is gentlemanly and attentive, and he is famous, and he has asked me to marry him, and I have said yes; and I will do it, too, if I don't change my mind before the day comes."

"Does Mr. Wyndham love you, Olly?" she asked, after a long, grave pause, during which Olive had been humming an opera air.

"Of course, my love! How can he help it?"

"And you are really going to be married so soon, and to this stranger? Oh, Olly! take care!"

"You absurd Laura! Take care of what? Are you afraid Mr. Wyndham will beat me after the magic words are spoken?"

"I suppose it is the suddenness of it all that makes me feel so strange about it. I like Mr. Wyndham very much, and I think his books are lovely! I dare say you will be very happy with him, after all. How many bridemaids are you going to have, and what are we to wear?"

After this truly feminine turn to the conversation, love and happiness were forgotten in the discussion of silks and moire antiques, and the rival merits of pink or white for the bridemaids' bonnets. They were a very long time deciding; for somehow Olive Henderson, with all her inborn love of dress, did not seem to take much interest in the matter.

"We'll settle it all again, Laura," she said, impatiently, "there's no hurry – six weeks is a long time. Come, and let us have a drive."

As the young ladies entered the little pony-carriage, Mr. Wyndham rode up on his bay, looking his best, as good riders always do on horseback. Laura, who was on very friendly, not to say familiar, terms with the young author, held out her hand.

"Accept my congratulations," she said, "I am to be bridemaid-in-chief on the happy occasion; and, next to being married myself, there is nothing we girls like better than that!"

Mr. Wyndham smiled, lifted her hand to his lips gallantly, and made some complimentary reply; but there was no rapture in his face, Laura noticed, even although his bride-elect, in the dark splendor of her beauty, sat before him among the rich cushions, like an Egyptian queen.

"He does not love her," thought Laura; "he is like all the rest; he wants to marry her because she is handsome, and the fashion, and the heiress of Redmon. I wonder, if I were in her place, if that stupid Val would ever come to the point. I know he likes me, but the tiresome creature won't say so."

Mr. Wyndham had but just left Mr. Blake's office, after having bewildered that gentleman with the same news Olive had imparted to her friend.

Mr. Blake's hands were very deep in his pockets, and he was whistling a dismally perplexed whistle, as the young author left his sanctum.

"It's very odd!" Mr. Blake was thinking, "it's very odd, indeed! He said he would do it, and I didn't believe him, and now it's done. It's very odd! I know she doesn't care about him, rather the reverse; and then, she was promised to Cavendish. What can she be marrying him for? Wyndham, too, he isn't in love with her; it's not in him to be in love with any one. What can he want marrying her? It can't be her money – at least, it's not like Paul Wyndham, if it is. And then he's a sort of novel-writing hermit, who would live on bread and water as fast as turtle-soup, and doesn't care a button for society. It's odd – it's uncommonly odd!"

Speckport found it odd, too, and said so, which Mr. Blake did not, except to himself. But then the heiress with the imperious beauty and flashing eyes was a singular being, anyhow, and they put it down as the last coquetry of my Lady Caprice. And while they talked of it, and conjectured about it, and wondered if she would not jilt him for somebody else before the day came round – while Speckport gossiped ravenously, Mr. Wyndham was a daily visitor at the cottage, and Speckport beheld the betrothed pair galloping together out along the lovely country-roads and over the distant tree-clad hills, and saw the new villa at Redmon going up with magical rapidity, and the once bleak and dreary grounds being transformed into a fairy-land of beauty. All the head dressmakers and milliners of the town were up to their eyes in the wedding-splendors, and such a lot of Miss Henderson's dear five hundred had been invited to the wedding that the miracle was how the cottage was going to hold them all. Speckport knew all about the arrangements beforehand; how they were to be married in Trinity Church, being both High-Church people; how they were going on a bridal-tour through the Canadas, and would return toward the close of August, when the villa would be ready to receive them.

Speckport talked of all this incessantly, and of the five bridemaids; of whom Laura Blair, Jeannette McGregor and Miss Tod, were the chief; and while they talked, the day came round. A dull and depressing day, with a clammy yellow fog that stuck to everything, and a bleak wind that reddened the pretty noses of the bridemaids, and made them shiver in their white satin shoes. The old church was crowded. Young and old, gentle and simple, all flocked to see the beautiful black-eyed heiress who had set so many unhappy young men crazy, married at last to the man of her choice. The dismal weather had no effect on her, it seemed; for she swept up the aisle, leaning on the arm of Mr. Darcy, who was to play papa, in a dress whose splendor electrified Speckport, and which had been imported direct from Paris; all in white, an immense vail floating all around her like a silvery mist, she didn't, as scandalized Speckport said, for all, look a bit like a bride. Where was the drooping of the long eye-lashes; where the paling and flushing cheek; where the shy and timid graces of virginhood? Was it not the height of impropriety to walk up the aisle with her head erect, her black eyes bright and defiant, her lips compressed, and her color never varying? It was the vulgarity and brazenness of the New York grisette breaking out, or the spangles and sawdust of the circus-rider. But Speckport said all this under their breath; and when it was all over, and the names down in the register, kissed the bride, at least female Speckport did, the beings in broadcloth and white vests only looking as if they would like to. And then they drove back to the cottage; and Miss Henderson – no, it was Mrs. Wyndham now – went to her room at once to put on her traveling-dress, for the steamer started in half an hour. There was a great crowd on the wharf to see them off; and the bride and bridegroom stood to be looked at – he, pale, quiet, and calm; she, haughty and handsome, and uplifted to the end.

So it was all over, and the heiress of Redmon was safely married at last! The news came out in next day's "Spouter," with a string of good wishes from the editorial chair for the happy pair. Two young men – Captain George P. Cavendish, in the reading-room of a Montreal hotel, and Mr. Tom Oaks, in an Indian's tent up the country, where he shot and fished – read it, and digested the bitter pill as best they might. Some one else read it, too; Mr. Wyndham, with his own hands, posted the first copy of that particular "Spouter" he received to a young lady, who read it with strange eagerness in her own room in a quaint New York hotel. A lady who read it over and over and over again, as often and as eagerly as Miss Wade had read that advertisement long before in the Canadian paper shown her in Mrs. Butterby's lodgings, by the pale actress.