Chapter IV: Coming Home

That was all five years ago now, but as Talbot Strangemore walked slowly over the sand toward Selwyn Heights, memory recalled the past time freshly to his thoughts--memory mixed with pain and mad regret. He recalled his mother’s dying prayer that he would marry Nina Selwyn now in her innocent childhood, that she, his mother, might die in peace, knowing that her dearest wish was fulfilled, and that the happiness of the two she loved was secured.

“She is only a child,” he had said, in horror and amazement.

“Yes, I know,” his mother answered, “and that is why I cannot bear to leave her alone in the world to be the future prey of designing people. It was her father’s wish and mine that she should be yours some day, but how can I tell what may happen if I die and leave her unprotected and uncared for, save by careless hirelings? Oh, Talbot, you have been a good son to me always. Do not fail me now!”

And so, because the young fellow was momentarily reckless and desperate, and because he was half distracted with grief over his dying mother, and could not say no to her earnest prayer, he yielded to her will.

“But Nina--what will she say?” he asked, thinking of the pale, large-eyed child who was so changed and subdued by her father’s death that she crept about the house a pallid, wistful little ghost, “Will she be willing?”

“Nina will do any thing I ask,” she replied, and the event proved that she was right, for after the child had been summoned to a private interview with her step-mother she came out with wet eyes and grieving red lips and sought Talbot Strangemore in the library.

“Mamma has been telling me that you want to marry me,” she said, laying her small brown hand upon his arm, and looking at him with those sad, wet eyes like dusky pansies drowned in dew.

He laid his strong white hand softly over the little fingers that trembled on his arm.

“Yes,” he answered, “but are you willing, little girl?”

“Oh, yes, for when mamma dies I shall have no one left to love me but you, and she says that if I do not marry you I may lose you too some day, so I will be your wife, and then you can take care of me always,” Nina replied, with childish directness, going over the specious arguments that Mrs. Selwyn had used to gain her compliance with her wish.

And so in this straightforward manner their strange troth was plighted and a few hours later they stood hand in hand by Mrs. Selwyn’s death-bed, and a wondering half disapproving man of God made the innocent child a bride. In another day she was motherless. Heiress of all the Selwyn wealth, and with all her life before her, she was yet one to be pitied, for she had no one on earth but her husband, and he did not love her, and believed that he had made a great sacrifice when he had bound himself with all his future ambitions to that wan, uninteresting child.

“And what about my tour abroad, mother?” he said, when they were alone after the ceremony. “I do not believe I could bear to stay here when you--are gone away from me! But what shall I do with Nina? She is too young to be really my wife yet, shall I send her to school?”

“No,” she answered, “I will tell you what to do, Talbot, send for your maiden aunt in Baltimore to come and live with Nina, secure governesses for her and let her be educated thoroughly. By the time she is sixteen she will be old enough and cultivated enough for you to come home and claim your bride.”

He drew a sigh of relief at the respite her plans afforded him.

“I will do exactly as you advise,” he said, and he did.

The next day he and his child-bride stood to watch the last breath flutter over her gasping lips.

She drew Nina close to her side. “Talbot is your husband now, my darling,” she said, anxiously, “you will belong to him always, and he to you. Promise me now that you will give him all your love and all your life, that you will always try to secure his happiness.”

“I promise, mamma,” answered the weeping child, and the vow was registered in heaven.

She did not ask Talbot for the same promise she had exacted from the simple child, so innocent and ignorant of the world. She did not think it was necessary; she believed implicitly in her son’s faith and honor. And so having ordered their futures so far as lay in her finite power, she passed “to where beyond these voices there is rest.”

Talbot carried out her wishes and advice to the letter. He installed his maiden aunt and an accomplished teacher at Selwyn Heights, and when he had done that he went abroad, although Nina clung to him weeping, and besought him not to go.

“It is only for a little while,” he said, evasively, “And I shall write to you often, dear. You must be a good girl, Nina, and as soon as I get to New York I will send you back a nice present to remember me by. Will you tell me what you would like to have, dear?”

He felt momentarily tender and sorry for the little girl who was grieving so much over his going, but in the next moment he was chagrined and half disgusted for she lifted her wet eyes from his breast and said, with transient brightness:

“Oh, if you please, I would like a great big, black Newfoundland puppy, Talbot.”

He promised and kept his word, but after that he forgot all about it, almost forgot his child-bride, too, or remembered her only as an incumbrance, for he stayed away five years instead of the three he had at first arranged for, and when at last he came back it was with bitter regret and reluctance.

“I have flung my life away, for what is life without happiness?” he was saying to himself, with impatient wrath when he passed Nina upon the sands that gray March afternoon, and he started with sudden admiration and delight at sight of her and forgot his bitter thoughts for a moment, for the girl was wonderfully lovely in her scarlet dress and cap with the loose gold curls of her hair falling around her like a veil of sunshine. He thought too, that the magnificent Newfoundland added a picturesque touch to the lovely picture, but he had forgotten the episode of the “great big black Newfoundland puppy” that had so disgusted him at the time. In his thoughts he had forgotten to make allowance for the lapse of time too, just as Nina had forgotten that five years had improved her so much that it was a compliment to her beauty when her husband failed to know her.

“What a charming girl! A new edition of Una and the Lion,” he thought as he bowed and passed on his way.