Read Ebook: The Lady of the Ice: A Novel by De Mille James

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1991 lines and 84008 words, and 40 pages

"Why?"

"If you should, let me ask you to do a particular favor for me. Will you?"

"Why, of course. What is it?"

"Well--it's only to order a tombstone for me--plain, neat--four feet by sixteen inches--with nothing on it but my name and date. The sale of my effects will bring enough to pay for it. Don't you fellows go and put up a tablet about me. I tell you plainly, I don't want it, and, what's more, I won't stand it."

"No, old chap. I'm going to do something worse."

"Something worse than suicide! What's that? A clean breast, my boy."

"A species of moral suicide."

"What's that? Your style of expression to-day is a kind of secret cipher. I haven't the key. Please explain."

Jack resumed his pipe, and bent down his head; then he rubbed his broad brow with his unoccupied hand; then he raised himself up, and looked at me for a few moments in solemn silence; then he said, in a low voice, speaking each, word separately and with thrilling emphasis:

"MACRORIE--OLD CHAP--I'M--GOING--TO--BE--MARRIED!!!"

At that astounding piece of intelligence, I sat dumb and stared fixedly at Jack for the space of half an hour, he regarded me with a mournful smile. At last my feelings found expression in a long, solemn, thoughtful, anxious, troubled, and perplexed whistle.

I could think of only one thing. It was a circumstance which Jack had confided to me as his bosom-friend. Although he had confided the same thing to at least a hundred other bosom-friends, and I knew it, yet, at the same time, the knowledge of this did not make the secret any the less a confidential one; and I had accordingly guarded it like my heart's blood, and all that sort of thing, you know. Nor would I even now divulge that secret, were it not for the fact that the cause for secrecy is removed. The circumstance was this: About a year before, we had been stationed at Fredericton, in the Province of New Brunswick. Jack had met there a young lady from St. Andrews, named Miss Phillips, to whom he had devoted himself with his usual ardor. During a sentimental sleigh-ride he had confessed his love, and had engaged himself to her; and, since his arrival at Quebec, he had corresponded with her very faithfully. He considered himself as destined by Fate to become the husband of Miss Phillips at some time in the dim future, and the only marriage before him that I could think of was this. Still I could not understand why it had come upon him so suddenly, or why, if it did come, he should so collapse under the pressure of his doom.

"Well," said I, after I had rallied somewhat, "I didn't think it was to come off so soon. Some luck has turned up, I suppose."

"Luck!" repeated Jack, with an indescribable accent.

"I assure you, though I've never had the pleasure of seeing Miss Phillips, yet, from your description, I admire her quite fervently, and congratulate you from the bottom of my heart."

"Miss Phillips!" repeated Jack, with a groan.

"What's the matter, old chap?"

"What!"

"She'll have to wear the willow."

"You haven't broken with her--have you?" I asked.

"She'll have to forgive and forget, and all that sort of thing. If it was Miss Phillips, I wouldn't be so confoundedly cut up about it."

"Why--what is it? who is it? and what do you mean?"

Jack looked at me. Then he looked down, and frowned. Then he looked at me again; and then he said, slowly, and with powerful effort:

"IT'S--THE--THE WIDOW! IT'S MRS.--FINNIMORE!!!"

Had a bombshell burst--but I forbear. That comparison is, I believe, somewhat hackneyed. The reader will therefore be good enough to appropriate the point of it, and understand that the shock of this intelligence was so overpowering, that I was again rendered speechless.

"You see," said Jack, after a long and painful silence, "it all originated out of an infernal mistake. Not that I ought to be sorry for it, though. Mrs. Finnimore, of course, is a deuced fine woman. I've been round there ever so long, and seen ever so much of her; and all that sort of thing, you know. Oh, yes," he added, dismally; "I ought to be glad, and, of course, I'm a deuced lucky fellow, and all that; but--"

He paused, and an expressive silence followed that "but."

"Well, how about the mistake?" I asked.

"Why, I'll tell you. It was that confounded party at Doane's. You know what a favorite of mine little Louie Berton is--the best little thing that ever breathed, the prettiest, the--full of fun, too. Well, we're awfully thick, you know; and she chaffed me all the evening about my engagement with Miss Phillips. She had heard all about it, and is crazy to find out whether it's going on yet or not. We had great fun--she chaffing and questioning, and I trying to fight her off. Well; the dancing was going on, and I'd been separated from her for some time, and was trying to find her again, and I saw some one standing in a recess of one of the windows, with a dress that was exactly like Louie's. Her back was turned to me, and the curtains half concealed her. I felt sure that it was Louie. So I sauntered up, and stood for a moment or two behind her. She was looking out of the window; one hand was on the ledge, and the other was by her side, half behind her. I don't know what got into me; but I seized her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Well, you know, I expected that it would be snatched away at once. I felt immediately an awful horror at my indiscretion, and would have given the world not to have done it. I expected to see Louie's flashing eyes hurling indignant fire at me, and all that. But the hand didn't move from mine at all!"

Jack uttered this last sentence with the doleful accents of a deeply-injured man--such an accent as one would employ in telling of a shameful trick practised upon his innocence. "It lay in mine," he continued. "There it was; I had seized it; I had it; I held it; I had squeezed it; and--good Lord!--Macrorie, what was I to do? I'll tell you what I did--I squeezed it again. I thought that now it would go; but it wouldn't. Well, I tried it again. No go. Once more--and once again. On my soul, Macrorie, it still lay in mine. I cannot tell you what thoughts I had. It seemed like indelicacy. It was a bitter thing to associate indelicacy with one like little Louie; but--hang it!--there was the awful fact. Suddenly, the thought struck me that the hand was larger than Louie's. At that thought, a ghastly sensation came over me; and, just at that moment, the lady herself turned her face, blushing, arch, with a mischievous smile. To my consternation, and to my--well, yes--to my horror, I saw Mrs. Finnimore!"

"Good Lord!" I exclaimed.

"A stronger expression would fail to do justice to the occasion," said Jack, helping himself to a glass of beer. "For my part, the thrill of unspeakable horror that was imparted by that shock is still strong within me. There, my boy, you have my story. I leave the rest to your imagination."

"The rest? Why, do you mean to say that this is all?"

"All!" cried Jack, with a wild laugh. "All? My dear boy, it is only the faint beginning; but it implies all the rest."

"What did she say?" I asked, meekly.

"Say--say? What! After--well, never mind. Hang it! Don't drive me into particulars. Don't you see? Why, there I was. I had made an assault, broken through the enemy's lines, thought I was carrying every thing before me, when suddenly I found myself confronted, not by an inferior force, but by an overwhelming superiority of numbers--horse, foot, and artillery, marines, and masked batteries--yes, and baggage-wagons--all assaulting me in front, in flank, and in the rear. Pooh!"

"Don't talk shop, Jack."

"Shop? Will you be kind enough to suggest some ordinary figure of speech that will give an idea of my situation? Plain language is quite useless. At least, I find it so."

"But, at any rate, what did she say?"

"Why," answered Jack, in a more dismal voice than ever, "she said, 'Ah, Jack!'--she called me Jack!--'Ah, Jack! I saw you looking for me. I knew you would come after me.'"

"Good Heavens!" I cried; "and what did you say?"

"Say? Heavens and earth, man! what could I say? Wasn't I a gentleman? Wasn't she a lady? Hadn't I forced her to commit herself? Didn't I have to assume the responsibility and pocket the consequences? Say! Oh, Macrorie! what is the use of imagination, if a man will not exercise it?"

"And so you're in for it?" said I, after a pause.

"To the depth of several miles," said Jack, relighting his pipe, which in the energy of his narrative had gone out.

"And you don't think of trying to back out?"

"I don't see my way. Then, again, you must know that I've been trying to see if it wouldn't be the wisest thing for me to make the best of my situation."

"Certainly it would, if you cannot possibly get out of it."

"But, you see, for a fellow like me it may be best not to get out of it. You see, after all, I like her very well. She's an awfully fine woman--splendid action. I've been round there ever so much; we've always been deuced thick; and she's got a kind of way with her that a fellow like me can't resist. And, then, it's time for me to begin to think of settling down. I'm getting awfully old. I'll be twenty-three next August. And then, you know, I'm so deuced hard up. I've got to the end of my rope, and you are aware that the sheriff is beginning to be familiar with my name. Yes, I think for the credit of the regiment I'd better take the widow. She's got thirty thousand pounds, at least."

"And a very nice face and figure along with it," said I, encouragingly.

"That's a fact, or else I could never have mistaken her for poor little Louie, and this wouldn't have happened. But, if it had only been little Louie--well, well; I suppose it must be, and perhaps it's the best thing."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet