A Changed Heart: A Novel

"Your freight looks lively, my men. You have got a fine boatload there."

The two young men looked at him. They were tall, strapping, sunburnt, black-eyed, good-looking fellows both, and the one hauling up the boat answered; the other, pulling the fish out of the nets, went on with his work in silence.

"Yes, sir, we had a good haul last night. The freshet's been strong this spring, and has made the fishing good."

"Were you out all night?"

"Yes; we have to go when the tide suits."

"You had a foggy night for it, then. Can you tell me which is the road to Redmon?"

The young fisherman turned and pointed to a path going up the hillside from the shore.

"Do you see that path? Well, follow it; cut across the field, and let down the bars t'other side. There's a road there; keep straight on and it will fetch you to Redmon. You can't miss the house when you get to it; it's a big brick building on a sort of hill, with lots of trees around it."

"Thank you. I'll find it, I think."

He sauntered lazily up the hillside-path, cut across the fields, and let down the bars as he had been directed, putting them conscientiously up again.

The road was a very quiet one; green meadows on either hand, and clumps of cedar and spruce wood sparsely dotting it here and there. The breeze swept up cool and fresh from the sea; the town with its bustle and noise was out of sight and hearing.

He was walking so slowly that it was nearly half an hour before Redmon came in sight – a large weather-beaten brick house on the summit of a hill, with bleak corners and reedy marshes, and dark trees all around it, the whole inclosed by a high wooden fence. The place took its name from these marshes or moors about it, sown in some time with crimson cranberries and pigeonberries, like fields of red stars. But Captain Cavendish only glanced once at Redmon; for the instant it had come in sight something else had come in sight, too, a thousand times better worth looking at. Just outside the extremity of the fence nearest him there stood a cottage – a little whitewashed affair, standing out in dazzling contrast to the black cedar woods beside it, hop-vines clustering round its door and windows, and a tall gate at one side opening into a well-cultivated vegetable garden.

Swinging back and forward on this gate was a young girl, whom Captain Cavendish recognized in a moment. It was a face that few young men forgot easily, for its owner was a beauty born; the figure was petite and plump, delightfully rounded and ripe indeed, with no nasty sharp curves or harsh angles; the complexion dark and clear, the forehead low, with black, arching brows; the eyes like black beads; the cheeks like June roses; the lips as red, and ripe, and sweet as summer strawberries, the teeth they parted to disclose, literally like pearls, and they parted very often, indeed, to disclose them. The hair was black as hair can be, and all clustering in little short, shining rings and kinks about the forehead and neck. Captain Cavendish had seen that face for the first time last night, in the window with Charley Marsh, but he was a sufficiently good judge of physiognomy to know it was not necessary to be very ceremonious with Miss Cherrie Nettleby. He therefore advanced at once, with a neat little fiction at the top of his tongue.

"I beg your pardon," he said politely, "but I am very thirsty. Will you be kind enough to give me a drink?"

Miss Cherrie, though but nineteen in years, was forty at least in penetration where handsome men were concerned, and saw through the ruse at once. She sprang down from the gate and held it open, with the prettiest affectation of timidity in the world.

"Yes, sir. Will you please to walk in."

"Thank you," said the captain, languidly, "I believe I will. My walk has completely used me up."

Miss Cherrie led the way into the cottage. The front door opened directly into the parlor of the dwelling, a neat little room, the floor covered with mats; a table, with books and knicknacks in the center; a lounge and a rocking-chair, and some common colored prints on the walls. It had an occupant as they came in, a sallow, dark-eyed girl of sixteen, whose hands fairly flew as she sat at the window, netting on a fisherman's net, already some twenty fathoms long.

"Ann," said Cherrie, placing a chair for their distinguished visitor, "go and fetch the gentleman a drink."

The girl turned her sallow but somewhat sullen face, without rising.

"There ain't no water in," she said, curtly.

"Go for some now," said Cherrie. "I'll knit till you come back."

"No, no!" hastily interposed Captain Cavendish. "I beg you will give yourself no such trouble. I am not so thirsty as I thought I was."

"Oh, we'll want the water anyhow to get the boys' dinner," said Cherrie, throwing off her scarlet shawl. "Go, Ann, and make haste."

Ann got up crossly, and strolled out of the room at a snail's pace, and Miss Cherrie took her place, and went to work industriously.

"Is that your sister?" he asked, watching Cherrie's hand flying as swiftly in and out as Ann's had done.

"Yes, that's our Ann," replied the young lady, as if every one should know Ann, as a matter of course.

"And do you and Ann live here alone together?"

Cherrie giggled at the idea.

"Oh dear, no. There's father and the boys."

"The boys, and are they – "

"My brothers," said Cherrie. "Two of 'em, Rob and Eddie. They fish, you know, and Ann, she knits the nets."

"Are those you are now making for them?"

"Yes, these are shad-nets. I hate to knit, but the boys pay Ann for doing it, and she does them all. I guess you'll be pretty thirsty," said Cherrie, laughing as easily as if she had known him for the past ten years, "before Ann gets back with the water. She's horrid slow."

"Never mind. The longer she is away, the better I shall like it, Miss Cherrie."

Miss Cherrie dropped her needle and mesh-block, and opened her black eyes.

"Why, how did you find out my name? You don't know me, do you?"

"A little. I trust we shall be very well acquainted before long."

Cherrie smiled graciously.

"Everybody knows me, I think. How did you find out who I was?"

"I saw you last night."

"No! did you, though? What time? where was I?"

"Sitting in a window, breaking a young gentleman's heart."

Cherrie giggled again.

"I'm sure I wasn't doing any such thing. That was only Charley Marsh."

"Only Charley Marsh. Had you and he a pleasant walk home this morning?"

"Now, I never. How did you know he saw me home?"

"A little bird told me. I only wish it had been my good fortune."

"Oh, what a story!" cried Cherrie, her wicked black eyes dancing in her head; "I wonder you ain't ashamed! Didn't I hear you wanting to ride home with Miss Natty. I was peeking out through the dining-room door, and I heard you as plain as could be."

"Well, I wanted to be polite, you know. Not having the honor of your acquaintance, Cherrie, I knew there was no hope of escorting you; so I made the offer to Miss Marsh in sheer despair. Now, Cherrie, I don't want you to get too fond of that brother of hers."

Cherrie tittered once more.

"Now, how can you! I'm sure I don't care nothing about him; but I can't help his talking to me, and seeing me home, can I?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't talk too much to him, if I were you; and as for seeing you home, I'd rather do it myself. There is no telling what nonsense he may get talking! Does he come here often?"

"Pretty often; but all the young fellows come! Sandy McGregor, Jake Clowrie, Mr. Blake, Charley Marsh, and the whole lot of 'em!"

"What time do they come?"

"Evenings, mostly. Then, there's a whole lot of Bob and Eddie's friends come, too, and the house is full most every night!"

"And what do you all do?"

"Oh, ever so many things! Play cards, sing songs, and carry on, and dance, sometimes."

"May I come, too, Cherrie?"

"You may, if you like," said Cherrie, with coquettish indifference. "But the young ladies in Speckport won't like that!"

"What do I care for the young ladies in Speckport! Oh, here's the water!"

Ann came in with a glass, and the captain drank it without being the least thirsty.

"Bob and Eddie's coming up the road," said Ann to her sister; "you knit while I peel the potatoes for dinner."

"I am afraid I must go," said Captain Cavendish, rising, having no desire to make the acquaintance of the Messrs. Nettleby. "I have been here nearly half an hour."

"That ain't long, I'm sure," said Cherrie; "what's your hurry?"

"I have a call to make. May I come again, Miss Cherrie?"

"Oh, of course!" said Miss Cherrie, with perfect coolness; "we always like to see our friends. Are you going to Redmon?"

Captain Cavendish nodded, and took his hat. Pretty Cherrie got up to escort him to the gate.

"Good-bye, Miss Cherrie," he said, making her a flourishing bow. "I will have the pleasure of calling on you to-morrow."

Cherrie smiled most gracious consent.

As he turned out of the gate he encountered the two young fishermen who had directed him to Redmon. They were Cherrie's brothers, then; and, laughing inwardly at the memory of the late interview with that young lady, he entered the grounds of Redmon.

"She's a deuced pretty girl!" he said, slapping his boot with a rattan he carried; "and, faith, she's free and easy! No nonsensical prudery about Miss Cherrie. I only hope I may get on as well with the golden-haired heiress as I seem to have done with the black-eyed grisette!"

He opened the wooden gate, and sauntered along a bleak avenue, the grounds on either hand overrun with rank weeds, and spruce, and tamarack, and fir trees, casting somber gloom around.

The house, a great red barn, as Val had said, looked like a black, grimy jail; the shutters were closed on every window, the hall-door seemed hermetically sealed, and swallows flew about it, and built their nests in security on the eaves and down the chimneys. There was a great, grim iron knocker on the door, and the young man's knock reverberated with a hollow and ghostly echo through the weird house.

"What a place for such a girl to live in!" he thought, looking up at it. "Her desire for wealth must be strong to tempt her to bury herself alive in such an old tomb. The riches of the Rothschilds would not induce me."

A rusty key grated in a lock, the door swung open with a creaking sound, and the bright face of Nathalie Marsh looked out.

She smiled when she saw who it was, and frankly held out her hand.

"You have lost no time, Monsieur. Walk in, and please to excuse me a few moments. I must go back to Mrs. Leroy."

They were in a long and dismal hall, flanked with doors, and with a great, wide, old-fashioned staircase sweeping up and losing itself somehow in the upper gloom. Natty opened one of the doors, ushered him into the reception parlor of the establishment, and then flew swiftly up the stairs and was gone.

Captain Cavendish looked about him, that is, as well as he could for the gloom. The parlor of Redmon was furnished after the style of the cabin of a certain "fine ould Irish gintleman," immortalized in song, "with nothing at all for show." No carpet on the dreary Sahara of floor; no curtains on the gloomy windows; no pictures on the dead, blank waste of whitewashed walls; a few chairs, a black, old mahogany table, a dreary horsehair sofa, about as soft as if cushioned with bricks; and that was all. The silence of the place was something blood-chilling; not the squeak of a mouse relieved its deathlike quiet.

Five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed, and the captain, getting desperate, was seriously thinking of making his escape, when a light step came tripping down the stairs, and Natty, all breathless and laughing, came breezily in.

"Are you tired to death waiting?" she laughed gayly. "Mrs. Leroy is dreadfully tiresome over her toilet, and I am femme de chambre, if you please! It is over now, and she desires me to escort you to her presence, and be introduced. I hope you may make a favorable impression!"

"But what am I to do?" said Captain Cavendish, with an appalled face. "How am I to insinuate myself into her good graces? Where is the key to her heart?"

"The key was lost years ago, and her heart is now closed. Don't contradict her, whatever you do. Hush! here we are!"

They had ascended to a hall like the one below; flanked, like it, by doors. Natty, with a glance of wicked delight at his dolorous face, opened the first door to the right, and ushered him at once into the presence of the awful Lady Leroy.

Something – it certainly looked more like an Egyptian mummy than anything else – swathed in shawls and swaddling-clothes, was stuck up in a vast Sleepy Hollow open arm-chair, and had its face turned to the door. That face, and a very yellow, and seared, and wrinkled, and unlovely face it was, buried in the flapping obscurity of a deeply-frilled white cap, was lit by a pair of little, twinkling eyes, bright and keen as two stilettos.

"Mrs. Leroy," said Natty, her tone demure, but her mischievous eyes dancing under their lashes, "this is Captain Cavendish."

"How d'ye do, Captain Cavendish?" said Mrs. Leroy, in a shrill, squeaking voice, like a penny whistle out of tune; "sit down – do! Natty, can't you give the young man a cheer?"

Natty did not cheer, but she placed a chair for him, whispering, as she did so, "Speak loud, or she won't hear you."

"What's the weather like out o' doors?" inquired the old lady, scanning him from head to foot with her little piercing eyes; "be the sun a-shining, hey?"

"No, Madam," said Captain Cavendish, in a loud key, "it is foggy."

She had paid no attention to his reply; she had been staring at him all the time, until even he, cool as any man of the world could be, got a trifle disconcerted. Natty, sitting demurely near, was enjoying it all with silent but intense delight.

"So you're the young English captain Natty was telling me about. You're not so handsome as she said you were; leastways, you ain't to my taste!"

It was Natty's turn now to look disconcerted, which she did with a vengeance, as the dark, laughing eyes of the young officer turned upon her.

"Miss Marsh does me too much honor to mention me at all," he said, speaking more at the young lady than to the old one.

"Hey?" inquired Lady Leroy, shrilly. "What's that? What did you say?"

"I was saying how remarkably well you were looking, ma'am," said the captain, raising his voice, "and that this Redmon is a very fine old place."

"It's not!" screamed Lady Leroy, viciously; "it's the hatefulest, daftest, uncomfortablest hole ever anybody set foot in! Natty!"

"Yes, ma'am!" said Natty. "What is it?"

"Is old Nettleby planting them potatoes to-day?"

"Yes, of course he is."

"He'll plant Carters where he ought to plant Early Blues! I know he will!" cried the old lady in an ecstasy of alarm; "run out as fast as you can, Natty, and tell him not to plant any Carters in the three-cornered field. Run, run, run!"

Natty knew Lady Leroy a great deal too well to expostulate. "I will be back directly," she said, in a low voice, the laughing light in her eyes still, as she passed her visitor; "do not get into trouble if you can help it, in my absence."

She was gone, and Lady Leroy, with her eyes fixed on the opposite wall, seemed to have gone off into a fit of musing. Captain Cavendish tried to look about him, which he had not ventured to do before, under those basilisk eyes. It was a large square room, like all the rest in the house, and stiflingly close and warm. No wonder, for a small cooking-stove was burning away, and every window was closed and shuttered. A bed stood in one corner, an old-fashioned clock ticked in a loud hoarse voice on the mantel-piece, a small round table stood at the old lady's elbow, and the floor was covered with a carpet that had been Brussels once, but which was dirty, and colorless, and ragged now. There was an open cupboard with dishes, and a sort of pantry with a half glass door, through which he could see boxes and barrels, hams and dried beef, and other commissary stores. The chair matched the flinty sofa down stairs, and the only thing to attract attention in the room was a green cabinet of covered wood that stood beside the bed. While he was looking at it, the old-fashioned clock began striking twelve in a gruff and surly way, as if it did it against its better judgment. The sound woke the old lady up from her brown study – woke her up with a sharp jerk.

"It's twelve o'clock!" she exclaimed shrilly, "and I want my dinner! Call Midge!"

This was addressed to Captain Cavendish, and in so peremptory a tone that that gallant young officer looked alarmed and disconcerted.

"Call Midge, I tell you! Call her quick!" yelped Lady Leroy in an excited way. "Call Midge, will you!"

"Where is she? Where will I call her?" said the young man, in considerable consternation.

"Open that door, stupid, and call Midge!" cried the old woman, violently excited; "call her quick, I tell you!"

Thus ordered, Captain Cavendish opened the door and began calling loudly on the unknown lady bearing the name of Midge.

Out of the gloom and dismalness below a hoarse voice shouted in reply, "I'm a coming;" and Captain Cavendish went back to his seat. The voice was that of a man, and of a man with a shocking bad cold, too; and the step lumbering up stairs was a man's step; but for all that, Midge wasn't a man, but a woman. Such a woman! the Egyptian mummy in the arm-chair was a Parisian belle compared to her. Between three and four feet high, and between four and five feet broad, Midge was just able to waddle under the weight of her own fair person, and no more. A shock of hair, very like a tar-mop, stood, bristling defiance at combs and brushes, up on end, like "quills upon the fretful porcupine." To say she had no forehead, and only two pinholes for eyes, and a little round lump of flesh in lieu of a decent nose, would be doing no sort of justice to the subject; for the face, with its fat, puffy cheeks, was altogether indescribable. The costume of the lady was scant, her dress displaying to the best advantage a pair of ankles some fifteen inches in circumference, and a pair of powerful arms, bare to the shoulders, were rolled up in a cotton apron. With the airy tread of an elephant inclined to embonpoint, this sylph-like being crossed the hall and stood in the doorway awaiting orders, while Captain Cavendish stared aghast, and backed a few paces with a feeble "By Jove!"

"What do you want, ma'am?" inquired the damsel in the doorway, who might have been anywhere in the vale of years between twenty and fifty.

"Get my dinner! It's after twelve! Don't I always tell you to come and get my dinner when you hear the clock strike twelve?"

"And how do you suppose I can hear that there clock half a mile off, down in that kitchen!" retorted Midge, sharply. "I ain't jest got ears as sharp as lancets, I'd have you know. I'll take the key!"

Mrs. Leroy produced a key from a pocket somewhere about her; and Midge, rather jerking it out of her hands than otherwise, unlocked the pantry, and began busying herself among the forage there. Mrs. Leroy's keen eyes followed every motion as a cat follows its prey, and Captain Cavendish gazed too, as if fascinated, on the fairy form of Miss Midge. In passing to and fro, Midge had more than once caught his eye, and at last her feelings got the better of her, and, pausing abruptly before him, with her arms akimbo, burst out, "Look here, sir! I don't know who you are, but if you're a doggertype-man, come to take my picter, I'd jest thank you to be quick about it, and not sit there gaping like – "

"Midge!" called a ringing voice in the doorway. It was Nathalie, her face stern, her voice imperative. "Midge, how dare you speak so?"

"Oh, never mind!" said Captain Cavendish, who, in the main, was a good-natured young officer. "I deserve it, I dare say. I have made an unpardonably long call, I believe. Mrs. Leroy, I wish you good morning."

"Good morning!" said Mrs. Leroy, without looking at him, all her eyes being absorbed in the doings of Midge in the culinary department. "Natty, you let him out."

Natty did so, and they both laughed when at a safe distance.

"What did you do to Midge?" she inquired, "to tempt her to pour the vials of her wrath on your head, as she was doing when I came in."

"Staring very hard, I am afraid! Where is Barnum, that he does not get hold of that domestic monstrosity?"

"Oh, hush!" said Natty. But the warning came too late. Midge, descending the stairs, had heard the speech, and gave the speaker a look so baleful and vindictive, that, had he been troubled with those feminine miseries, nerves, might have haunted him many a day. He smiled at it then, but he remembered that look long after.

"She is acutely sensitive, dull as she seems," said Natty, with a pained look. "I am sorry she heard you."

"I am sincerely sorry for my thoughtless words, then, Miss Marsh, if they pain you."

"She saved Charley's life once," said Natty, "when he was a little fellow. I have always liked Midge since, and I believe she loves me with the faithful and blind fidelity of – but no irreverence – a dog. A slighting word rankles in her memory long."

"I shall fetch her a peace-offering the next time I come, which, by the way," he said, coolly, "is to be this evening, with your permission. Blake is to be my chaperon on the occasion."

"I regret I shall not see either of you then; but," said Natty, with a funny look, "no doubt Mrs. Leroy will be delighted to entertain you till her bedtime comes, which is precisely nine o'clock."

"Not see us? Are you – "

"I have promised to spend the evening out. When I was with the gardener a few moments ago, Miss Blake came in and asked me to spend the evening with her. Mamma and Miss Rose, the new teacher, are to be there, and I could not refuse."

"Then I shall postpone my call. Oh, there is a summons for you! How impatient your old lady is!"

They shook hands, and parted. Captain Cavendish lit a cigar, and went smoking, meditatingly, down the dreary avenue, and out into the highroad. Standing near the gate was pretty Cherrie, and a refulgent smile greeted him from the rosy lips. He lifted his hat, and passed on; for standing in the doorway was the stalwart young fishermen of the beach.

"Two very pretty girls!" he mused, over his Havana; "belle blonde, et jolie brunette. It's extremely convenient their living so near together; one journey does for both. I think I understand now what is meant by the old adage of killing two birds with one stone."