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The scene was like one of Doré's most extravagant designs of abysses and shadows. The gorge through which swept this silent flight and screaming chase was not more than two hundred feet wide, while it was at least fifteen hundred feet deep, with walls that were mainly sheer precipices.
As the fugitives broke into a trot, the pursuers quickened their pace to a slow canter. No faster; they were too wise to rush within range of riflemen who could neither be headed off nor flanked; and their hardy mustangs were nearly at the last gasp with thirst and with the fatigue of this tremendous journey. Four hundred yards apart the two parties emerged from the sublime portal of the cañon and entered upon the little alluvial plain.
To the left glittered the river; but the trail did not turn in that direction; it led straight at the bluff in the elbow of the current. The mules and horses followed it in a pack, guided by their acute scent toward the nearest water, a still invisible brooklet which ran at the base of the butte. Presently, while yet a mile from the stream, they were seized by a mania. With a loud beastly cry they broke simultaneously into a run, nostrils distended and quivering, eyes bloodshot and protruding, heads thrust forward with fierce eagerness, ungovernably mad after water. There was no checking the frantic stampede which from this moment thundered with constantly increasing speed across the plain. No order; the stronger jostled the weaker; loads were flung to the ground and scattered; the riders could scarcely keep their seats. Spun out over a line of twenty rods, the cavalcade was the image of senseless rout.
Of course Thurstane was furious at this seemingly fatal dispersion; and he trumpeted forth angry shouts of "Steady there in front! Close up in the rear!"
But before long he guessed the truth--water! "They will rally at the drinking place," he thought. "Forward the mules!" he yelled. "Steady, you men here! Hold in your horses. Keep in rear of the women. I'll shoot the man who takes the lead."
But even Spanish bits could do no more than detain the horses a rod or two behind the beasts of burden, and the whole panting, snorting mob continued to rush over the loamy level with astonishing swiftness.
Meanwhile the leading Apaches, not now more than fifty in number, were swept along by the same whirlwind of brute instinct. They diverged a little from the trail; their object apparently was to overlap the train and either head it off or divide it; but their beasts were too frantic to be governed fully. Before long there were two lines of straggling flight, running parallel with each other at a distance of perhaps one hundred yards, and both storming toward the still unseen rivulet. A few arrows were thrown; four or five unavailing shots were fired in return; the hiss of shaft and _ping_ of ball crossed each other in air; but no serious and effective fight commenced or could commence. Both parties, guided and mastered by their lolling beasts, almost without conflict and almost without looking at each other, converged helplessly toward a verdant, shallow depression, through the centre of which loitered a clear streamlet scarcely less calm than the heaven above. Next they were all together, panting, plunging, splashing, drinking, mules and horses, white men and red men, all with no other thought than to quench their thirst.
The Apaches, who had probably made their cruel journey without flasks, seemed for the moment insatiable and utterly reckless. Many of them rolled off their tottering ponies into the rivulet, and plunging down their heads drank like beasts. There were a few minutes of the strangest peace that ever was seen. It was in vain that two or three of the hardier or fiercer Chiefs and braves shouted and gestured to their comrades, as if urging them to commence the attack. Manga Colorada, absorbed by a thirst which was more burning than revenge, did not at first see the slayer of his boy, and when he did could not move toward him because of fevered mustangs, who would not budge from their drinking, or who were staggering blind with hunger. Thurstane, keeping his horse beside Clara's, watched the lean figure and restless, irritable face of Delgadito, not ten yards distant. Mrs. Stanley had halted helplessly so near an Apache boy that he might have thrust her through with his lance had he not been solely intent upon water.
It was fortunate for the emigrants that they had reached the stream a few seconds the sooner. Their thirst was first satiated; and then men and animals began to draw away from their enemies; for even the mules of white men instinctively dread and detest the red warriors. This movement was accelerated by Thurstane, Coronado, Texas Smith, and Sergeant Meyer calling to one and another in English and Spanish, "This way! this way!" There seemed to be a chance of massing the party and getting it to some distance before the Indians could turn their thoughts to blood.
But the manoeuvre was only in part accomplished when battle commenced. Little Sweeny, finding that his mule was being crowded by an Apache's horse, uttered some indignant yelps. "Och, ye bloody naygur! Get away wid yerself. Get over there where ye b'long."
This request not being heeded, he made a clumsy punch with his bayonet and brought the blood. The warrior uttered a grunt of pain, cast a surprised angry stare at the shaveling of a Paddy, and thrust with his lance. But he was probably weak and faint; the weapon merely tore the uniform. Sweeny instantly fired, and brought down another Apache, quite accidentally. Then, banging his mule with his heels, he splashed up to Thurstane with the explanation, "Liftinant, they're the same bloody naygurs. Wan av um made a poke at me, Liftinant."
"Load your beece!" ordered Sergeant Meyer sternly, "und face the enemy."
By this time there was a fierce confusion of plungings and outcries. Then came a hiss of arrows, followed instantaneously by the scream of a wounded man, the report of several muskets, a pinging of balls, more yells of wounded, and the splash of an Apache in the water. The little streamlet, lately all crystal and sunshine, was now turbid and bloody. The giant portals of the cañon, although more than a mile distant, sent back echoes of the musketry. Another battle rendered more horrible the stark, eternal horror of the desert.
"This way!" Thurstane continued to shout. "Forward, you women; up the hill with you. Steady, men. Face the enemy. Don't throw away a shot. Steady with the firing. Steady!"
The hostile parties were already thirty or forty yards apart; and the emigrants, drawing loosely up the slope, were increasing the distance. Manga Colorada spurred to the front of his people, shaking his lance and yelling for a charge. Only half a dozen followed him; his horse fell almost immediately under a rifle ball; one of the braves picked up the chief and bore him away; the rest dispersed, prancing and curveting. The opportunity for mingling with the emigrants and destroying them in a series of single combats was lost.
Evidently the Apaches, and their mustangs still more, were unfit for fight. The forty-eight hours of hunger and thirst, and the prodigious burst of one hundred and twenty miles up and down rugged terraces, had nearly exhausted their spirits as well as their strength, and left them incapable of the furious activity necessary in a cavalry battle. The most remarkable proof of their physical and moral debilitation was that in all this mêlée not more than a dozen of them had discharged an arrow.
If they would not attack they must retreat, and that speedily. At fifty yards' range, armed only with bows and spears, they were at the mercy of riflemen and could stand only to be slaughtered. There was a hasty flight, scurrying zigzag, right and left, rearing and plunging, spurring the last caper out of their mustangs, the whole troop spreading widely, a hundred marks and no good one. Nevertheless Texas Smith's miraculous aim brought down first a warrior and then a horse.
By the time the Apaches were out of range the emigrants were well up the slope of the hill which occupied the extreme elbow of the bend in the river. It was a bluff or butte of limestone which innumerable years had converted into marl, and for the most part into earth. A thin turf covered it; here and there were thickets; more rarely trees. Presently some one remarked that the sides were terraced. It was true; there were the narrow flats of soil which had once been gardens; there too were the supporting walls, more or less ruinous. Curious eyes now turned toward the seeming mound on the summit, querying whether it might not be the remains of an antique pueblo.
At this instant Clara uttered a cry of anxiety, "Where is Pepita?"
The girl was gone; a hasty looking about showed that; but whither? Alas! the only solution to this enigma must be the horrible word, "Apaches." It seemed the strangest thing conceivable; one moment with the party, and the next vanished; one moment safe, and the next dead or doomed. Of course the kidnapping must have been accomplished during the frenzied riot in the stream, when the two bands were disentangling amid an uproar of plungings, yells, and musket shots. The girl had probably been stunned by a blow, and then either left to float down the brook or dragged off by some muscular warrior.
There was a halt, an eager and prolonged lookout over the plain, a scanning of the now distant Indians through field glasses. Then slowly and sadly the train resumed its march and mounted to the summit of the butte.
Here, in this land of marvels, there was a new marvel. Incredible as the thing seemed, so incredible that they had not at first believed their eyes, they were at the base of the walls of a fortress. A confused, general murmur broke forth of "Ruins! Pueblos! Casas Grandes! Casas de Montezuma!"
The architecture, unlike that of Tegua, but similar to that of the ruins of the Gila, was of adobes. Large cakes of mud, four or five feet long and two feet thick, had been moulded in cases, dried in the sun, and laid in regular courses to the height of twenty feet. Centuries (perhaps) of exposure to weather had so cracked, guttered, and gnawed this destructible material, that at a distance the pile looked not unlike the natural monuments which fire and water have builded in this enchanted land, and had therefore not been recognized by the travellers as human handiwork.
What they now saw was a rampart which ran along the brow of the bluff for several hundred yards. Originally twenty feet high, it had been so fissured by the rains and crumbled by the winds, that it resembled a series of peaks united here and there in a plane surface. Some of the gaps reached nearly to the ground, and through these it could be seen that the wall was five feet across, a single adobe forming the entire thickness. All along the base the dampness of the earth had eaten away the clay, so that in many places the structure was tottering to its fall.
Filing to the left a few yards, the emigrants found a deep fissure through which the animals stumbled one by one over mounds of crumbled adobes. Thurstane, entering last, looked around him in wonder. He was inside a quadrilateral enclosure, apparently four hundred yards in length by two hundred and fifty in breadth, the walls throughout being the same mass of adobe work, fissured, jagged, gray, solemn, and in their utter solitariness sublime.
But this was not the whole ruin; the fortress had a citadel. In one corner of the enclosure stood a tower-like structure, forty-five or fifty feet square and thirty in altitude, surmounted on its outer angle by a smaller tower, also four-sided, which rose some twelve or fourteen feet higher. It was not isolated, but built into an angle of the outer rampart, so as to form with it one solid mass of fortification. The material was adobe; but, unlike the other ruins, it was in good condition; some species of roofing had preserved the walls from guttering; not a crevice deformed their gray, blank, dreary faces.
Instinctively and without need of command the emigrants had pushed on toward this edifice. It was to be their fortress; in it and around it they must fight for life against the Apaches; here, where a nameless people had perished, they must conquer or perish also. Thurstane posted Kelly and one of the Mexicans on the exterior wall to watch the movements of the savage horde in the plain below. Then he followed the others to the deserted citadel.
Two doorways, one on each of the faces which looked into the enclosure, offered ingress. They were similar in size and shape, seven feet and a half in height by four in breadth, and tapering toward the summit like the portals of the temple-builders of Central America. Inside were solid mud floors, strewn with gray dust and showing here and there a gleam of broken pottery, the whole brooded over by obscurity. It was discoverable, however, that the room within was of considerable height and size.
There was a hesitation about entering. It seemed as if the ghosts of the nameless people forbade it. This had been the abode of men who perhaps inhabited America before the coming of Columbus. Here possibly the ancestors of Montezuma had stayed their migrations from the mounds of the Ohio to the pyramids of Cholula and Tenochtitlan. Or here had lived the Moquis, or the Zunians, or the Lagunas, before they sought refuge from the red tribes of the north upon the buttes south of the Sierra del Carrizo. Here at all events had once palpitated a civilization which was now a ghost.
"This is to be our home for a little while," said Thurstane to Clara. "Will you dismount? I will run in and turn out the snakes, if there are any. Sergeant, keep your men and a few others ready to repel an attack. Now, fellows, off with the packs."
Producing a couple of wax tapers, he lighted them, handed one to Coronado, and led the way into the silent Casa de Montezuma. They were in a hall about ten feet high, fifteen feet broad, and forty feet long, which evidently ran across the whole front of the building. The walls were hard-finished and adorned with etchings in vermilion of animals, geometrical figures, and nondescript grotesques, all of the rudest design and disposed without regard to order. A doorway led into a small central room, and from that doorways opened into three more rooms, one on each side.
The ceilings of all the rooms were supported by unhewn beams, five or six inches thick, deeply inserted into the adobe walls. In the ceiling of the rearmost hall (the one which had no direct outlet upon the enclosure) was a trapdoor which offered the only access to the stories above. A rude but solid ladder, consisting of two beams with steps chopped into them, was still standing here. With a vague sense of intrusion, half expecting that the old inhabitants would appear and order them away, Thurstane and Coronado ascended. The second story resembled the first, and above was another of the same pattern. Then came a nearly flat roof; and here they found something remarkable. It was a solid sheathing or tiling, made of slates of baked and glazed pottery, laid with great exactness, admirably cemented and projecting well over the eaves. This it was which had enabled the adobes beneath to endure for years, and perhaps for centuries, in spite of the lapping of rains and the gnawing of winds.
On the outermost corner of the structure, overlooking the eddying, foaming bend of the San Juan, rose the isolated tower. It contained a single room, walled with hard-finish and profusely etched with figures in vermilion. No furniture anywhere, nor utensils, nor relics, excepting bits of pottery, precisely such as is made now by the Moquis, various in color, red, white, grayish, and black, much of it painted inside as well as out, and all adorned with diamond patterns and other geometrical outlines.
"I have seen Casas Grandes in other places," said Coronado, "but nothing like this. This is the only one that I ever found entire. The others are in ruins, the roofs fallen in, the beams charred, etc." "This was not taken," decided the Lieutenant, after a tactical meditation. "This must have been abandoned by its inhabitants. Pestilence, or starvation, or migration."
"We can beat off all the Apaches in New Mexico," observed Coronado, with something like cheerfulness.
"We can whip everything but our own stomachs," replied Thurstane.
"We have as much food as those devils."
"But water?" suggested the forethoughted West Pointer.
It was a horrible doubt, for if there was no water in the enclosure, they were doomed to speedy and cruel death, unless they could beat the Indians in the field and drive them away from the rivulet.
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When Thurstane came out of the Casa Grande he would have given some years of his life to know that there was water in the enclosure.
Yet so well disciplined was the soul of this veteran of twenty-three, and so thoroughly had he acquired the wise soldierly habit of wearing a mask of cheer over trouble, that he met Clara and Mrs. Stanley with a smile and a bit of small talk.
"Ladies, can you keep house?" he said. "There are sixteen rooms ready for you. The people who moved out haven't left any trumpery. Nothing wanted but a little sweeping and dusting and a stair carpet."
"We will keep house," replied Clara with a laugh, the girlish gayety of which delighted him.
Assuming a woman's rightful empire over household matters, she began to direct concerning storage, lodgment, cooking, etc. Sharp as the climbing was, she went through all the stories and inspected every room, selecting the chamber in the tower for herself and Mrs. Stanley.
"I never can get up in this world," declared Aunt Maria, staring in dismay at the rude ladder. "So this is what Mr. Thurstane meant by talking about a stair carpet! It was just like him to joke on such a matter. I tell you I never can go up."
"Av coorse ye can get up," broke in little Sweeny impatiently. "All ye've got to do is to put wan fut above another an' howld on wid yer ten fingers."
"I should like to see _you_ do it," returned Aunt Maria, looking indignantly at the interfering Paddy.
Sweeny immediately shinned up the stepped beam, uttered a neigh of triumphant laughter from the top, and then skylarked down again.
"Well, _you_ are a man," observed the strong-minded lady, somewhat discomfited. "Av coorse I'm a man," yelped Sweeny. "Who said I wasn't? He's a lying informer. Ha ha, hoo hoo, ho ho!"
Thus incited, pulled at moreover from above and boosted from below, Aunt Maria mounted ladder after ladder until she stood on the roof of the Casa Grande.
"If I ever go down again, I shall have to drop," she gasped. "I never expected when I came on this journey to be a sailor and climb maintops."
"Lieutenant Thurstane is waving his hand to us," said Clara, with a smile like sunlight.
"Let him wave," returned Mrs. Stanley, weary, disconsolate, and out of patience with everything. "I must say it's a poor place to be waving hands."
Meantime Thurstane had beckoned a couple of muleteers to follow him, and set off to beat the enclosure for a spring, or for a spot where it would be possible to sink a well with good result. Although the search seemed absurd on such an isolated hill, he had some hopes; for in the first place, the old inhabitants must have had a large supply of water, and they could not have brought it up a steep slope of two hundred feet without great difficulty; in the second place, the butte was of limestone, and in a limestone region water makes for itself strange reservoirs and outlets.
His trust was well-grounded. In a sharply indented hollow, twenty feet below the general surface of the enclosure, and not more than thirty yards from the Casa Grande, he found a copious spring. About it were traces of stone work, forming a sort of ruinous semicircle, as though a well had been dug, the neighboring earth scooped out, and the sides of the opening fenced up with masonry. By the way, he was not the first to discover the treasure, for the acute senses of the mules had been beforehand with him, and a number of them were already there drinking.
Calling Meyer, he said, "Sergeant, get a fatigue party to work here. I want a transverse trench cut below the spring for the animals, and a guard at the spring itself to keep it clear for the people."
Next he hurried away to the spot where he had posted Kelly to watch the Apaches.
Climbing the wall, he looked about for the Apaches, and discovered them about half a mile distant, bivouacked on the bank of the rivulet.
"They have been reinforced, sir," said Kelly. "Stragglers are coming up every few minutes."
"So I perceive. Have you seen anything of the girl Pepita?"
"There's a figure there, sir, against that sapling, that hasn't moved for half an hour. I've an idea it's the girl, sir, tied to the sapling."
Thurstane adjusted his glass, took a long steady look, and said sombrely, "It's the girl. Keep an eye on her. If they start to do anything with her, let me know. Signal with your cap."
As he hurried back to the Casa Grande he tried to devise some method of saving this unfortunate. A rescue was impossible, for the savages were numerous, watchful, and merciless, and in case they were likely to lose her they would brain her. But she might be ransomed: blankets, clothing, and perhaps a beast or two could be spared for that purpose; the gold pieces that he had in his waist-belt should all go of course. The great fear was lest the brutes should find all bribes poor compared with the joys of a torture dance. Querying how he could hide this horrible affair from Clara, and shuddering at the thought that but for favoring chances she might have shared the fate of Pepita he ran on toward the Casa, waving his hand cheerfully to the two women on the roof Meantime Clara had been attending to her housekeeping and Mrs. Stanley had been attending to her feelings. The elder lady (we dare not yet call her an old lady) was in the lowest spirits. She tried to brace herself; she crossed her hands behind her back, man-fashion; she marched up and down the roof man-fashion. All useless; the transformation didn't work; or, if she was a man, she was a scared one.
She could not help feeling like one of the spirits in prison as she glanced at the awful solitude around her. Notwithstanding the river, there still was the desert. The little plain was but an oasis. Two miles to the east the San Juan burst out of a defile of sandstone, and a mile to the west it disappeared in a similar chasm. The walls of these gorges rose abruptly two thousand feet above the hurrying waters. All around were the monstrous, arid, herbless, savage, cruel ramparts of the plateau. No outlook anywhere; the longest reach of the eye was not five miles; then came towering precipices. The travellers were like ants gathered on an inch of earth at the bottom of a fissure in a quarry. The horizon was elevated and limited, resting everywhere on harsh lines of rock which were at once near the spectator and far above him. The overhanging plateaux strove to shut him out from the sight of heaven.
What variety there was in the grim monotony appeared in shapes that were horrible to the weary and sorrowful. On the other side of the San Juan towered an assemblage of pinnacles which looked like statues; but these statues were a thousand feet above the stream, and the smallest of them was at least four hundred feet high. To a lost wanderer, and especially to a dispirited woman, such magnitude was not sublime, but terrifying. It seemed as if these shapes were gods who had no mercy, or demons who were full of malevolence. Still higher, on a jutting crag which overhung the black river, was a castle a hundred fold huger than man ever built, with ramparts that were dizzy precipices and towers such as no daring could scale. It faced the horrible group of stony deities as if it were their pandemonium.
The whole landscape was a hideous Walhalla, a fit abode for the savage giant gods of the old Scandinavians. Thor and Woden would have been at home in it. The Cyclops and Titans would have been too little for it. The Olympian deities could not be conceived of as able or willing to exist in such a hideous chaos. No creature of the Greek imagination would have been a suitable inhabitant for it except Prometheus alone. Here his eternal agony and boundless despair might not have been out of place.
There was no comfort in the river. It came out of unknown and inhospitable mystery, and went into a mystery equally unknown and inhospitable. To what fate it might lead was as uncertain as whence it arrived. A sombre flood, reddish brown in certain lights, studded with rocks which raised ghosts of unmoving foam, flowing with a speed which perpetually boiled and eddied, promising nothing to the voyager but thousand-fold shipwreck, a breathless messenger from the mountains to the ocean, it wheeled incessantly from stony portal to stony portal, a brief gleam of power and cruelty. The impression which it produced was in unison with the sublime malignity and horror of the landscape.
Depressed by fatigue, the desperate situation of the party, and the menace of the frightful scene around her, Mrs. Stanley could not and would not speak to Thurstane when he mounted the roof, and turned away to hide the tears in her eyes.
"You see I am housekeeping," said Clara with a smile. "Look how clean the room in the tower has been swept. I had some brooms made of tufted grass. There are our beds in the corners. These hard-finished walls are really handsome."
She stopped, hesitated a moment, looked at him anxiously, and then added, "Have you seen Pepita?"
"Yes," he replied, deciding to be frank. "I think I have discovered her tied to a tree."
"Oh! to be tortured!" exclaimed Clara, wringing her hands and beginning to cry.
"We will ransom her," he hurried on. "I am going down to hold a parley with the Apaches." " _You_!" exclaimed the girl, catching his arm. "Oh no! Oh, why did we come here!"
Fearing lest he should be persuaded to evade what he considered his duty, he pressed her hand fervently and hurried away. Yes, he repeated, it was _his_ duty; to parley with the Apaches was a most dangerous enterprise; he did not feel at liberty to order any other to undertake it.
Finding Coronado, he said to him, "I am going down to ransom Pepita. You know the Indians better than I do. How many people shall I take?"
A gleam of satisfaction shot across the dark face of the Mexican as he replied, "Go alone."
"Certainly," he insisted, in response to the officer's stare of surprise. "If you take a party, they'll doubt you. If you go alone, they'll parley. But, my dear Lieutenant, you are magnificent. This is the finest moment of your life. Ah! only you Americans are capable of such impulses. We Spaniards haven't the nerve."
"I don't know their scoundrelly language."
"Manga Colorada speaks Spanish. I dare say you'll easily come to an understanding with him. As for ransom, anything that we have, of course, excepting food, arms, and ammunition. I can furnish a hundred dollars or so. Go, my dear Lieutenant; go on your noble mission. God be with you."
"You will see that I am covered, if I have to run for it."
"I'll see to everything. I'll line the wall with sharpshooters."
"Post your men. Good-by."
"Good-by, my dear Lieutenant."
Coronado did post his men, and among them was Texas Smith. Into the ear of this brute, whom he placed quite apart from the other watchers, he whispered a few significant words.
"I told ye, to begin with, I didn't want to shute at brass buttons," growled Texas. "The army's a big thing. I never wanted to draw a bead on that man, and I don't want to now more 'n ever. Them army fellers hunt together. You hit one, an' you've got the rest after ye; an' four to one's a mighty slim chance."
"Five hundred dollars down," was Coronado's only reply.
After a moment of sullen reflection the desperado said, "Five hundred dollars! Wal, stranger, I'll take yer bet."
Coronado turned away trembling and walked to another part of the wall. His emotions were disordered and disagreeable; his heart throbbed, his head was a little light, and he felt that he was pale; he could not well bear any more excitement, and he did not want to see the deed done. Rifle in hand, he was pretending to keep watch through a fissure, when he observed Clara following the line of the wall with the obvious purpose of finding a spot whence she could see the plain. It seemed to him that he ought to stop her, and then it seemed to him that he had better not. With such a horrible drumming in his ears how could he think clearly and decide wisely?
Clara disappeared; he did not notice where she went; did not think of looking. Once he thrust his head through his crevice to watch the course of Thurstane, but drew it back again on discovering that the brave lad had not yet reached the Apaches, and after that looked no more. His whole strength seemed to be absorbed in merely listening and waiting. We must remember that, although Coronado had almost no conscience, he had nerves.
Let us see what happened on the plain through the anxious eyes of Clara.
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In the time-eaten wall Clara had found a fissure through which she could watch the parley between Thurstane and the Apaches. She climbed into it from a mound of disintegrated adobes, and stood there, pale, tremulous, and breathless, her whole soul in her eyes.
Thurstane, walking his horse and making signs of amity with his cap, had by this time reached the low bank of the rivulet, and halted within four hundred yards of the savages. There had been a stir immediately on his appearance: first one warrior and then another had mounted his pony; a score of them were now prancing hither and thither. They had left their lances stuck in the earth, but they still carried their bows and quivers.
When Clara first caught sight of Thurstane he was beckoning for one of the Indians to approach. They responded by pointing to the summit of the hill, as if signifying that they feared to expose themselves to rifle shot from the ruins. He resumed his march, forded the shallow stream, and pushed on two hundred yards.
"O Madre de Dios!" groaned Clara, falling into the language of her childhood. "He is going clear up to them."
She was on the point of shrieking to him, but she saw that he was too far off to hear her, and she remained silent, just staring and trembling.
Thurstane was now about two hundred yards from the Apaches. Except the twenty who had first mounted, they were sitting on the ground or standing by their ponies, every face set towards the solitary white man and every figure as motionless as a statue. Those on horseback, moving slowly in circles, were spreading out gradually on either side of the main body, but not advancing. Presently a warrior in full Mexican costume, easily recognizable as Manga Colorada himself, rode straight towards Thurstane for a hundred yards, threw his bow and quiver ten feet from him, dismounted and lifted both hands. The officer likewise lifted his hands, to show that he too was without arms, moved forward to within thirty feet of the Indian, and thence advanced on foot, leading his horse by the bridle.
Clara perceived that the two men were conversing, and she began to hope that all might go well, although her heart still beat suffocatingly. The next moment she was almost paralyzed with horror. She saw Manga Colorada spring at Thurstane; she saw his dark arms around him, the two interlaced and reeling; she heard the triumphant yell of the Indian, and the response of his fellows; she saw the officer's startled horse break loose and prance away. In the same instant the mounted Apaches, sending forth their war-whoop and unslinging their bows, charged at full speed toward the combatants.
Thurstane had but five seconds in which to save his life. Had he been a man of slight or even moderate physical and moral force, there would not have been the slightest chance for him. But he was six feet high, broad in the shoulders, limbed like a gladiator, solidified by hardships and marches, accustomed to danger, never losing his head in it, and blessed with lots of pugnacity. He was pinioned; but with one gigantic effort he loosened the Indian's lean sinewy arms, and in the next breath he laid him out with a blow worthy of Heenan.
Thurstane was free; now for his horse. The animal was frightened and capering wildly; but he caught him and flung himself into the saddle without minding stirrups; then he was riding for life. Before he had got fairly under headway the foremost Apaches were within fifty paces of him, yelling like demons and letting fly their arrows. But every weapon is uncertain on horseback, and especially every missile weapon, the bow as well as the rifle. Thus, although a score of shafts hissed by the fugitive, he still kept his seat; and as his powerful beast soon began to draw ahead of the Indian ponies, escape seemed probable.
He had, however, to run the gauntlet of another and even a greater peril. In a crevice of the ruined wall which crested the hill crouched a pitiless assassin and an almost unerring shot, waiting the right moment to send a bullet through his head. Texas Smith did not like the job; but he had said "You bet," and had thus pledged his honor to do the murder; and moreover, he sadly wanted the five hundred dollars. If he could have managed it, he would have preferred to get the officer and some "Injun" in a line, so as to bring them down together. But that was hopeless; the fugitive was increasing his lead; now was the time to fire--now or never.
When Clara beheld Manga Colorada seize Thurstane, she had turned instinctively and leaped into the enclosure, with a feeling that, if she did not see the tragedy, it would not be. In the next breath she was wild to know what was passing, and to be as near to the officer and his perils as possible. A little further along the wall was a fissure which was lower and broader than the one she had just quitted. She had noticed it a minute before, but had not gone to it because a man was there. Towards this man she now rushed, calling out, "Oh, do save him!"
Her voice and the sound of her footsteps were alike drowned by a rattle of musketry from other parts of the ruin. She reached the man and stood behind him; it was Texas Smith, a being from whom she had hitherto shrunk with instinctive aversion; but now he seemed to her a friend in extremity. He was aiming; she glanced over his shoulder along the levelled rifle; in one breath she saw Thurstane and saw that the weapon was pointed at _him_. With a shriek she sprang forward against the kneeling assassin, and flung him clean through the crevice upon the earth outside the wall, the rifle exploding as he fell and sending its ball at random.
Texas Smith was stupefied and even profoundly disturbed. After rolling over twice, he picked himself up, picked up his gun also, and while hastily reloading it clambered back into his lair, more than ever confounded at seeing no one. Clara, her exploit accomplished, had instantly turned and fled along the course of the wall, not at all with the idea of escaping from the bushwhacker, but merely to meet Thurstane. She passed a dozen men, but not one of them saw her, they were all so busy in popping away at the Apaches. Just as she reached the large gap in the rampart, her hero cantered through it, erect, unhurt, rosy, handsome, magnificent. The impassioned gesture of joy with which she welcomed him was a something, a revelation perhaps, which the youngster saw and understood afterwards better than he did then. For the present he merely waved her towards the Casa, and then turned to take a hand in the fighting.
But the fighting was over. Indeed the Apaches had stopped their pursuit as soon as they found that the fugitive was beyond arrow shot, and were now prancing slowly back to their bivouac. After one angry look at them from the wall, Thurstane leaped down and ran after Clara.
"Oh!" she gasped, out of breath and almost faint. "Oh, how it has frightened me!"
"And it was all of no use," he answered, passing her arm into his and supporting her.
"No. Poor Pepita! Poor little Pepita! But oh, what an escape you had!"
"We can only hope that they will adopt her into the tribe," he said in answer to the first phrase, while he timidly pressed her arm to thank her for the second.
Coronado now came up, ignorant of Texas Smith's misadventure, and puzzled at the escape of Thurstane, but as fluent and complimentary as usual.
"My dear Lieutenant! Language is below my feelings. I want to kneel down and worship you. You ought to have a statue--yes, and an altar. If your humanity has not been successful, it has been all the same glorious."
"Nonsense," answered Thurstane. "Every one of us has done well in his turn! It was my tour of duty to-day. Don't praise me. I haven't accomplished anything."
"Ah, the scoundrels!" declaimed Coronado. "How could they violate a truce! It is unknown, unheard of. The miserable traitors! I wish you could have killed Manga Colorada."
From this dialogue he hurried away to find and catechise Texas Smith. The desperado told his story: "Jest got a bead on him--had him sure pop--never see a squarer mark--when somebody mounted me--pitched me clean out of my hole."
"Who?" demanded Coronado, a rim of white showing clear around his black pupils.
"Dunno. Didn't see nobody. 'Fore I could reload and git in it was gone."
"What the devil did you stop to reload for?"
"Stranger, I _allays_ reload."
Coronado flinched under the word _stranger_ and the stare which accompanied it.
"It was a woman's yell," continued Texas.
Coronado felt suddenly so weak that he sat down on a mouldering heap of adobes. He thought of Clara; was it Clara? Jealous and terrified, he for an instant, only for an instant, wished she were dead.
"See here," he said, when he had restrung his nerves a little. "We must separate. If there is any trouble, call on me. I'll stand by you."
"I reckon you'd better," muttered Smith, looking at Coronado as if he were already drawing a bead on him.
Without further talk they parted. The Texan went off to rub down his horse, mend his accoutrements, squat around the cooking fires, and gamble with the drivers. Perhaps he was just a bit more fastidious than usual about having his weapons in perfect order and constantly handy; and perhaps too he looked over his shoulder a little oftener than common while at his work or his games; but on the whole he was a masterpiece of strong, serene, ferocious self-possession. Coronado also, as unquiet at heart as the devil, was outwardly as calm as Greek art. They were certainly a couple of almost sublime scoundrels.
It was now nightfall; the day closed with extraordinary abruptness; the sun went down as though he had been struck dead; it was like the fall of an ox under the axe of the butcher. One minute he was shining with an intolerable, feverish fervor, and the next he had vanished behind the lofty ramparts of the plateau.
It was Sergeant Meyer's tour as officer of the day, and he had prepared for the night with the thoroughness of an old soldier. The animals were picketed in the innermost rooms of the Casa Grande, while the spare baggage was neatly piled along the walls of the central apartment. Thurstane's squad was quartered in one of the two outer rooms, and Coronado's squad in the other, each man having his musket loaded and lying beside him, with the butt at his feet and the muzzle pointing toward the wall. One sentry was posted on the roof of the building, and one on the ground twenty yards or so from its salient angle, while further away were two fires which partially lighted up the great enclosure. The sergeant and such of his men as were not on post slept or watched in the open air at the corner of the Casa.
The night passed without attack or alarm. Apache scouts undoubtedly prowled around the enclosure, and through its more distant shadows, noting avenues and chances for forlorn hopes. But they were not ready as yet to do any nocturnal spearing, and if ever Indians wanted a night's rest they wanted it. The garrison was equally quiet. Texas Smith, too familiar with ugly situations to lie awake when no good was to be got by it, chose his corner, curled up in his blanket and slept the sleep of the just. Overwhelming fatigue soon sent Coronado off in like manner. Clara, too; she was querying how much she should tell Thurstane; all of a sudden she was dreaming.
When broad daylight opened her eyes she was still lethargic and did not know where she was. A stretch; a long wondering stare about her; then she sprang up, ran to the edge of the roof, and looked over. There was Thurstane, alive, taking off his hat to her and waving her back from the brink. It was a second and more splendid sun-rising; and for a moment she was full of happiness.
At dawn Meyer had turned out his squad, patrolled the enclosure, made sure that no Indians were in or around it, and posted a single sentry on the southeastern angle of the ruins, which commanded the whole of the little plain. He discovered that the Apaches, fearful like all cavalry of a night attack, had withdrawn to a spot more than a mile distant, and had taken the precaution of securing their retreat by garrisoning the mouth of the cañon. Having made his dispositions and his reconnoissance, the sergeant reported to Thurstane.
"Turn out the animals and let them pasture," said the officer, waking up promptly to the situation, as a soldier learns to do. "How long will the grass in the enclosure last them?"
"Not three days, Leftenant."
"To-morrow we will begin to pasture them on the slope. How about fishing?"
"I cannot zay, Leftenant."
"Take a look at the Buchanan boat and see if it can be put together. We may find a chance to use it."
"Yes, Leftenant."
The Buchanan boat, invented by a United States officer whose name it bears, is a sack of canvas with a frame of light sticks; when put together it is about twelve feet long by five broad and three deep, and is capable of sustaining a weight of two tons. Thurstane, thinking that he might have rivers to cross in his explorations, had brought one of these coracles. At present it was a bundle, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, and forming the load of a single mule. Meyer got it out, bent it on to its frame, and found it in good condition.
"Very good," said Thurstane. "Roll it up again and store it safely. We may want it to-morrow."
Meantime Clara had thought out her problem. In her indignation at Texas Smith she had contemplated denouncing him before the whole party, and had found that she had not the courage. She had wanted to make a confidant of her relative, and had decided that nothing could be more unwise. Aunt Maria was good, but she lacked practical sense; even Clara, girl as she was, could see the one fact as well as the other. Her final and sagacious resolve was to tell the tale to Thurstane alone.
Mrs. Stanley, still jaded through with her forced march, fell asleep immediately after breakfast. Clara went to the brink of the roof, caught the officer's eye, and beckoned him to come to her.
"We must not be seen," she whispered when he was by her side. "Come inside the tower. There has been something dreadful. I must tell you."
Then she narrated how she had surprised and interrupted Texas Smith in his attempt at murder; for the time she was all Spanish in feeling, and told the story with fervor, with passion; and the moment she had ended it she began to cry. Thurstane was so overwhelmed by her emotion that he no more thought of the danger which he had escaped than if it had been the buzzing of a mosquito. He longed to comfort her; he dared to put his hand upon her waist; rather, we should say, he could not help it. If she noticed it she had no objection to it, for she did not move; but the strong and innocent probability is that she really did not notice it.
"Oh, what can it mean?" she sobbed. "Why did he do it? What will you do?"
"Never mind," he said, his voice tender, his blue-black eyes full of love, his whole face angelic with affection. "Don't be troubled. Don't be anxious. I will do what is right. I will put him under arrest and try him, if it seems best. But I don't want you to be troubled. It shall all come out right. I mean to live till you are safe."
After a time he succeeded in soothing her, and then there came a moment in which she seemed to perceive that his arm was around her waist, for she drew a little away from him, coloring splendidly. But he had held her too long to be able to let her go thus; he took her hands and looked in her face with the solemnity of a love which pleads for life.
"Will you forgive me?" he murmured. "I must say it. I cannot help it. I love you with all my soul. I dare not ask you to be my wife. I am not fit for you. But have pity on me. I couldn't help telling you."
He just saw that she was not angry; yes, he was so shy and humble that he could not see more; but that little glimpse of kindliness was enough to lure him forward. On he went, hastily and stammeringly, like a man who has but a moment in which to speak, only a moment before some everlasting farewell.
"Oh, Miss Van Diemen! Is there--can there ever be--any hope for me?"
It was one of the questions which arise out of great abysses from men who in their hopelessness still long for heaven. No prisoner at the bar, faintly trusting that in the eyes of his judge he might find mercy, could be more anxious than was Thurstane at that moment. The lover who does not yet know that he will be loved is a figure of tragedy.
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Although Thurstane did not perceive it, his question was answered the instant it was asked. The answer started like lightning from Clara's heart, trembled through all her veins, flamed in her cheeks, and sparkled in her eyes.
Such a moment of agitation and happiness she had never before known, and had never supposed that she could know. It was altogether beyond her control. She could have stopped her breathing ten times easier than she could have quelled her terror and her joy. She was no more master of the power and direction of her feelings, than the river below was master of its speed and course. One of the mightiest of the instincts which rule the human race had made her entirely its own. She was not herself; she was Thurstane; she was love. The love incarnate is itself, and not the person in whom it is embodied.
There was but one answer possible to Clara. Somehow, either by look or word, she must say to Thurstane, "Yes." Prudential considerations might come afterward--might come too late to be of use; no matter. The only thing now to be done, the only thing which first or last must be done, the only thing which fate insisted should be done, was to say "Yes."
It was said. Never mind how. Thurstane heard it and understood it. Clara also heard it, as if it were not she who uttered it, but some overruling power, or some inward possession, which spoke for her. She heard it and she acquiesced in it. The matter was settled. Her destiny had been pronounced. The man to whom her heart belonged had his due.
Clara passed through a minute which was in some respects like a lifetime, and in some respects like a single second. It was crowded and encumbered with emotions sufficient for years; it was the scholastic needle-point on which stood a multitude of angels. It lasted, she could not say how long; and then of a sudden she could hardly remember it. Hours afterwards she had not fully disentangled from this minute and yet monstrous labyrinth a clear recollection of what he had said and what she had answered. Only the splendid exit of it was clear to her, and that was that she was his affianced wife.
"But oh, my friend--one thing!" she whispered, when she had a little regained her self-possession. "I must ask Muñoz."
"Your grandfather? Yes."
"But what if he refuses?" she added, looking anxiously in his eyes. She was beginning to lay her troubles on his shoulders, as if he were already her husband.
"I will try to please him," replied the young fellow, gazing with almost equal anxiety at her. It was the beautiful union of the man-soul and woman-soul, asking courage and consolation the one of the other, and not only asking but receiving.
"Oh! I think you must please him," said Clara, forgetting how Muñoz had driven out his daughter for marrying an American. "He can't help but like you."
"God bless you, my darling!" whispered Thurstane, worshipping her for worshipping him.
After a while Clara thought of Texas Smith, and shuddered out, "But oh, how many dangers! Oh, my friend, how will you be safe?"
"Leave that to me," he replied, comprehending her at once. "I will take care of that man."
"Do be prudent."
"I will. For _your_ sake, my dear child, I promise it. Well, now we must part. I must rouse no suspicions."
"Yes. We must be prudent."
He was about to leave her when a new and terrible thought struck him, and made him look at her as though they were about to part forever.
"If Muñoz leaves you his fortune," he said firmly, "you shall be free."
She stared; after a moment she burst into a little laugh; then she shook her finger in his face and said, blushing, "Yes, free to be--your wife."
He caught the finger, bent his head over it and kissed it, ready to cry upon it. It was the only kiss that he had given her; and what a world-wide event it was to both! Ah, these lovers! They find a universe where others see only trifles; they are gifted with the second-sight and live amid miracles.
"Do be careful, oh my dear friend!" was the last whisper of Clara as Thurstane quitted the tower. Then she passed the day in ascending and descending between heights of happiness and abysses of anxiety. Her existence henceforward was a Jacob's ladder, which had its foot on a world of crime and sorrow, and its top in heavens passing description.
As for Thurstane, he had to think and act, for something must be done with Texas Smith. He queried whether the fellow might not have seen Clara when she pushed him out of the crevice, and would not seize the first opportunity to kill her. Angered by this supposition, he at first resolved to seize him, charge him with his crime, and turn him loose in the desert to take his chance among the Apaches. Then it occurred to him that it might be possible to change this enemy into a partisan. While he was pondering these matters his eye fell upon the man. His army habit of authority and of butting straight at the face of danger immediately got the better of his wish to manage the matter delicately, and made him forget his promises to be prudent. Beckoning Texas to follow him, he marched out of the plaza through the nearest gap, faced about upon his foe with an imperious stare, and said abruptly, "My man, do you want to be shot?"
Texas Smith had his revolver and long hunting-knife in his waist-belt. He thought of drawing both at once and going at Thurstane, who was certainly in no better state for battle, having only revolver and sabre. But the chance of combat was even; the certainty of being slaughtered after it by the soldiers was depressing; and, what was more immediately to the point, he was cowed by that stare of habitual authority.
"Capm--I don't," he said, watching the officer with the eye of a lynx, for, however unwilling to fight as things were, he meant to defend himself.
"Because I could have you set up by my sergeant and executed by my privates," continued Thurstane.
"Capm, I reckon you're sound there," admitted Texas, with a slight flinch in his manner.
"Now, then, do you want to fight a duel?" broke out the angry youngster, his pugnacity thoroughly getting the better of his wisdom. "We both have pistols."
"Capm," said the bravo, and then came to a pause--"Capm, I ain't a gentleman," he resumed, with the sulky humility of a bulldog who is beaten by his master. "I own up to it, Capm. I ain't a gentleman."
He was a "poor white" by birth; he remembered still the "high-toned gentlemen" who used to overawe his childhood; he recognized in Thurstane that unforgotten air of domination, and he was thoroughly daunted by it. Moreover, there was his acquired and very rational fear of the army--a fear which had considerably increased upon him since he had joined this expedition, for he had noted carefully the disciplined obedience of the little squad of regulars, and had been much struck with its obvious potency for offence and defence.
"You won't fight?" said the officer. "Well, then, will you stop hunting me?"
"Capm, I'll go that much."
"Will you pledge yourself not to harm any one in this party, man or woman?"
"I'll go that much, too."
"I don't want to get any tales out of you. You can keep your secrets. Damn your secrets!"
"Capm, you're jest the whitest man I ever see."
"Will you pledge yourself to keep dark about this talk that we've had?"
"You bet!" replied Texas Smith, with an indescribable air of humiliation. "I'm outbragged. I shan't tell of it."
"I shall give orders to my men. If anything queer happens, you won't live the day out."
"The keerds is stocked agin me, Capm. I pass. You kin play it alone."
"Now, then, walk back to the Casa, and keep quiet during the rest of this journey."
The most humbled bushwhacker and cutthroat between the two oceans, Texas Smith stepped out in front of Thurstane and returned to the cooking-fire, not quite certain as he marched that he would not get a pistol-ball in the back of his head, but showing no emotion in his swarthy, sallow, haggard countenance.
Although Thurstane trusted that danger from that quarter was over, he nevertheless called Meyer aside and muttered to him, "Sergeant, I have some confidential orders for you. If murder happens to me, or to any other person in this party, have that Texan shot immediately."
"I will addend to it, Leftenant," replied Meyer with perfect calmness and with his mechanical salute.
"You may give Kelly the same instructions, confidentially."
"Yes, Leftenant."
Texas Smith, fifteen or twenty yards away, watched this dialogue with an interest which even his Indian-like stoicism could hardly conceal. When the sergeant returned to the cooking-fire, he gave him a glance which was at once watchful and deprecatory, made place for him to sit down on a junk of adobe, and offered him a corn-shuck cigarito. Meyer took it, saying, "Thank you, Schmidt," and the two smoked in apparently amicable silence.
Nevertheless, Texas knew that his doom was sealed if murder should occur in the expedition; for, as to the protection of Coronado, he did not believe that that could avail against the uniform; and as to finding safety in flight, the cards there were evidently "stocked agin him." Indeed, what had quelled him more than anything else was the fear lest he should be driven out to take his luck among the Apaches. Suppose that Thurstane had taken a fancy to swap him for that girl Pepita? What a bright and cheerful fire there would have been for him before sundown! How thoroughly the skin would have been peeled off his muscles! What neat carving at his finger joints and toe joints! Coarse, unimaginative, hardened, and beastly as Texas Smith was, his flesh crawled a little at the thought of it. Presently it struck him that he had better do something to propitiate a man who could send him to encounter such a fate.
"Sergeant," he said in his harsh, hollow croak of a voice.
"Well, Schmidt?"
"Them creeturs oughter browse outside."
"So. You are right, Schmidt."
"If the Capm'll let me have three good men, I'll take 'em out."
Meyer's light-blue eyes, twinkling from under his sandy eyelashes, studied the face of the outlaw.
"I should zay it was a goot blan, Schmidt," he decided. "I'll mention it to the leftenant."
Thurstane, on being consulted, gave his consent. Meyer detailed Shubert and two of the Mexican cattle-drivers to report to Smith for duty. The Texan mounted his men on horses, separated one-third of the mules from the others, drove them out of the enclosure, and left them on the green hillside, while he pushed on a quarter of a mile into the plain and formed his line of four skirmishers. When a few of the Apaches approached to see what was going on, he levelled his rifle, knocked over one of the horses, and sent the rest off capering. After four or five hours he drove in his mules and took out another set. The Indians could only interrupt his pastoral labors by making a general charge; and that would expose them to a fire from the ruin, against which they could not retaliate. They thought it wise to make no trouble, and all day the foraging went on in peace.
Peace everywhere. Inside the fortress sleeping, cooking, mending of equipments, and cleaning of arms. Over the plain mustangs filling themselves with grass and warriors searching for roots. Not a movement worth heeding was made by the Apaches until the herders drove in their first relay of mules, when a dozen hungry braves lassoed the horse which Smith had shot, dragged him away to a safe distance, and proceeded to cut him up into steaks. On seeing this, the Texan cursed himself to all the hells that were known to him.
"It's the last time they'll catch me butcherin' for 'em," he growled. "If I can't hit a man, I won't shute."
One more night in the Casa de Montezuma, with Thurstane for officer of the guard. His arrangements were like Meyer's: the animals in the rear rooms of the Casa; Coronado's squad in one of the outer rooms, and Meyer's in the other; a sentry on the roof, and another in the plaza. The only change was that, owing to scarcity of fuel, no watch-fires were built. As Thurstane expected an attack, and as Indian assaults usually take place just before daybreak, he chose the first half of the night for his tour of sleep. At one he was awakened by Sweeny, who was sergeant of his squad, Kelly being with Meyer and Shubert with Coronado.
"Well, Sweeny, anything stirring?" he asked.
"Divil a stir, Liftinant."
"Did nothing happen during your guard?"
"Liftinant," replied Sweeny, searching his memory for an incident which should prove his watchfulness--"the moon went down."
"I hope you didn't interfere."
"Liftinant, I thought it was none o' my bizniss."
"Send a man to relieve the sentry on the roof, and let him come down here."
"I done it, Liftinant, before I throubled ye. Where shall we slape? Jist by the corner here?"
"No. I'll change that. Two just inside of one doorway and two inside the other. I'll stay at the angle myself."
Three hours passed as quietly as the wool-clad footsteps of the Grecian Fate. Then, stealing through the profound darkness, came the faintest rustle imaginable. It was not the noise of feet, but rather that of bodies slowly dragging through herbage, as if men were crawling or rolling toward the Casa. Thurstane, not quite sure of his hearing, and unwilling to disturb the garrison without cause, cocked his revolver and listened intently.
Suddenly the sentry in the plaza fired, and, rushing in upon him, fell motionless at his feet, while the air was filled in an instant with the whistling of arrows, the trampling of running men, and the horrible quavering of the war-whoop.
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At the noise of the Apache charge Thurstane sprang in two bounds to Coronado's entrance, and threw himself inside of it with a shout of "Indians!"
It must be remembered that, while a doorway of the Casa was five feet in depth, it was only four feet wide at the base and less than thirty inches at the top, so that it was something in the way of a defile and easily defensible. The moment Thurstane was inside, he placed himself behind one of the solid jambs of the opening, and presented both sabre and revolver.
Immediately after him a dozen running Indians reached the portal, some of them plunging into it and the others pushing and howling close around it. Three successive shots and as many quick thrusts, all delivered in the darkness, but telling at close quarters on naked chests and faces, cleared the passage in half a minute. By this time Texas Smith, Coronado, and Shubert had leaped up, got their senses about them, and commenced a fire of rifle shot, pistol shot, and buck-and-ball. In another half minute nothing remained in the doorway but two or three corpses, while outside there were howls as of wounded. The attack here was repulsed, at least for the present.
But at the other door matters had gone differently, and, as it seemed, fatally ill. There had been no one fully awakened to keep the assailants at bay until the other defenders could rouse themselves and use their weapons. Half a dozen Apaches, holding their lances before them like pikes, rushed over the sleeping Sweeny and burst clean into the room before Meyer and his men were fairly on their feet. In the profound darkness not a figure could be distinguished; and there was a brief trampling and yelling, during which no one was hurt. Lances and bows were useless in a room fifteen feet by ten, without a ray of light. The Indians threw down their long weapons, drew their knives, groped hither and thither, struck out at random, and cut each other. Nevertheless, they were masters of the ground. Meyer and his people, crouching in corners, could not see and dared not fire. Sweeny, awakened by a kneading of Apache boots, was so scared that he lay perfectly still, and either was not noticed or was neglected as dead. His Mexican comrade had rushed along with the assailants, got ahead of them, gained the inner rooms, and hastened up to the roof. In short, it was a completely paralyzed defence.
Had the mass of the Apaches promptly followed their daring leaders, the garrison would have been destroyed. But, as so often happens in night attacks, there was a pause of caution and investigation. Fifty warriors halted around the doorway, some whooping or calling, and others listening, while the five or six within, probably fearful of being hit if they spoke, made no answer. The sentinel on the roof fired down without seeing any one, and had arrows sent back at him by men who were as blinded as himself. The darkness and mystery crippled the attack almost as completely as the defence.
Sweeny was the first to break the charm. A warrior who attempted to enter the doorway struck his boot against a pair of legs, and stooped down to feel if they were alive. By a lucky intuition of scared self-defence, the little Paddy made a furious kick into the air with both his solid army shoes, and sent the invader reeling into the outer darkness. Then he fired his gun just as it lay, and brought down one of the braves inside with a broken ankle. The blaze of the discharge faintly lighted up the room, and Meyer let fly instantly, killing another of the intruders. But the Indians also had been able to see. Those who survived uttered their yell and plunged into the corners, stabbing with their knives. There was a wild, blind, eager scuffling, mixed with another shot or two, oaths, whooping, screams, tramplings, and aimless blows with musket-butts.
Reinforcements arrived for both parties, four or five more Apaches stealing into the room, while Thurstane and Shubert came through from Coronado's side. Hitherto, it did not seem that the garrison had lost any killed except the sentry who had fallen outside; but presently the lieutenant heard Shubert cry out in that tone of surprise, pain, and anger, which announces a severe wound.
The scream was followed by a fall, a short scuffle, repeated stabbings, and violent breathing mixed with low groans. Thurstane groped to the scene of combat, put out his left hand, felt a naked back, and drove his sabre strongly and cleanly into it. There was a hideous yell, another fall, and then silence.
After that he stood still, not knowing whither to move. The trampling of feet, the hasty breathing of struggling men, the dull sound of blows upon living bodies, the yells and exclamations and calls, had all ceased at once. It seemed to him as if everybody in the room had been killed except himself. He could not hear a sound in the darkness besides the beating of his own heart, and an occasional feeble moan rising from the floor. In all his soldierly life he had never known a moment that was anything like so horrible.
At last, after what seemed minutes, remembering that it was his duty as an officer to be a rallying point, he staked his life on his very next breath and called out firmly, "Meyer!"
"Here!" answered the sergeant, as if he were at roll-call.
"Where are you?"
"I am near the toorway, Leftenant. Sweeny is with me." " 'Yis I be," interjected Sweeny.
Thurstane, feeling his way cautiously, advanced to the entrance and found the two men standing on one side of it.
"Where are the Indians?" he whispered.
"I think they are all out, except the tead ones, Leftenant."
Thurstane gave an order: "All forward to the door."
Steps of men stealing from the inner room responded to this command.
"Call the roll, Sergeant," said Thurstane.
In a low voice Meyer recited the names of the six men who belonged to his squad, and of Shubert. All responded except the last.
"I am avraid Shupert is gone, Leftenant," muttered the sergeant; and the officer replied, "I am afraid so."
All this time there had been perfect silence outside, as if the Indians also were in a state of suspense and anxiety. But immediately after the roll-call had ceased, a few arrows whistled through the entrance and struck with short sharp spats into the hard-finished partition within.
"Yes, they are all out," said Thurstane. "But we must keep quiet till daybreak."
There followed a half hour which seemed like a month. Once Thurstane stole softly through the Casa to Coronado's room, found all safe there, and returned, stumbling over bodies both going and coming. At last the slow dawn came and sent a faint, faint radiance through the door, enabling the benighted eyes within to discover one dolorous object after another. In the centre of the room lay the boy Shubert, perfectly motionless and no doubt dead. Here and there, slowly revealing themselves through the diminishing darkness, like horrible waifs left uncovered by a falling river, appeared the bodies of four Apaches, naked to the breechcloth and painted black, all quiet except one which twitched convulsively. The clay floor was marked by black pools and stains which were undoubtedly blood. Other fearful blotches were scattered along the entrance, as if grievously wounded men had tottered through it, or slain warriors had been dragged out by their comrades.
While the battle is still in suspense a soldier looks with but faint emotion, and almost without pity, upon the dead and wounded. They are natural; they belong to the scene; what else should he see? Moreover, the essential sentiments of the time and place are, first, a hard egoism which thinks mainly of self-preservation, and second, a stern sense of duty which regulates it. In the fiercer moments of the conflict even these feelings are drowned in a wild excitement which may lie either exultation or terror. Thus it is that the ordinary sympathies of humanity for the suffering and for the dead are suspended.
Looking at Shubert, our lieutenant simply said to himself, "I have lost a man. My command is weakened by so much." Then his mind turned with promptness to the still living and urgent incidents of the situation. Could he peep out of the doorway without getting an arrow through the head? Was the roof of the Casa safe from escalade? Were any of his people wounded?
This last question he at once put in English and Spanish. Kelly replied, "Slightly, sir," and pointed to his left shoulder, pretty smartly laid open by the thrust of a knife. One of the Indian muleteers, who was sitting propped up in a corner, faintly raised his head and showed a horrible gash in his thigh. At a sign from Thurstane another muleteer bound up the wound with the sleeve of Shubert's shirt, which he slashed off for the purpose. Kelly said, "Never mind me, sir; it's no great affair, sir."
"Two killed and two wounded," thought the lieutenant. "We are losing more than our proportion."
As soon as it was light enough to distinguish objects clearly, a lively fire opened from the roof of the Casa. Judging that the attention of the assailants would be distracted by this, Thurstane cautiously edged his head forward and peeped through the doorway. The Apaches were still in the plaza; he discovered something like fifty of them; they were jumping about and firing arrows at the roof. He inferred that this could not last long; that they would soon be driven away by the musketry from above; that, in short, things were going well.
After a time, becoming anxious lest Clara should expose herself to the missiles, he went to Coronado's room, sent one of the Mexicans to reinforce Meyer, and then climbed rapidly to the tower, taking along sabre, rifle, and revolver. He was ascending the last of the stepped sticks, and had the trap-door of the isolated room just above him, when he heard a shout, "Come up here, somebody!"
It was the snuffling utterance of Phineas Glover, who slept on the roof as permanent guard of the ladies. Tumbling into the room, Thurstane found the skipper and two muleteers defending the doorway against five Apaches, who had reached the roof, three of them already on their feet and plying their arrows, while the two others were clambering over the ledge. Clara and Mrs. Stanley were crouched on their beds behind the shelter of the wall.
The young man's first desperate impulse was to rush out and fight hand to hand. But remembering the dexterity of Indians in single combat, he halted just in time to escape a flight of missiles, placed himself behind the jamb of the doorway, and fired his rifle. At that short distance Sweeny would hardly have missed; and the nearest Apache, leaning forward with outspread arms, fell dead. Then the revolver came into play, and another warrior dropped his bow, his shoulder shattered. Glover and the muleteers, steadied by this opportune reinforcement, reloaded and resumed their file-firing. Guns were too much for archery; three Indians were soon stretched on the roof; the others slung themselves over the eaves and vanished.
"Darned if they didn't reeve a tackle to git up," exclaimed Glover in amazement.
It appeared that the savages had twisted lariats into long cords, fastened rude grapples to the end of them, flung them from the wall below the Casa, and so made their daring escalade.
"Look out!" called Thurstane to the investigating Yankee. But the warning came too late; Glover uttered a yell of surprise, pain, and rage; this time it was not his nose, but his left ear.
"Reckon they'll jest chip off all my feeturs 'fore they git done with me," he grinned, feeling of the wounded part. "Git my figgerhead smooth all round."
To favor the escalade, the Apaches in the plaza had renewed their war-whoop, sent flights of arrows at the Casa, and made a spirited but useless charge on the doorways. Its repulse was the signal for a general and hasty flight. Just as the rising sun spread his haze of ruddy gold over the east, there was a despairing yell which marked the termination of the conflict, and then a rush for the gaps in the wall of the enclosure. In one minute from the signal for retreat the top of the hill did not contain a single painted combatant. No vigorous pursuit; the garrison had had enough of fighting; besides, ammunition was becoming precious. Texas Smith alone, insatiably bloodthirsty and an independent fighter, skulked hastily across the plaza, ambushed himself in a crevice of the ruin, and took a couple of shots at the savages as they mounted their ponies at the foot of the hill and skedaddled loosely across the plain.
When he returned he croaked out, with an unusual air of excitement, "Big thing!"
"What is a pig ding?" inquired Sergeant Meyer.
"Never see Injuns make such a fight afore."
"Nor I," assented Meyer.
"Stranger, they fowt first-rate," affirmed Smith, half admiring the Apaches. "How many did we save?"
"Here are vour in our room, und the leftenant says there are three on the roof, und berhabs we killed vour or vive outside."
"A dozen!" chuckled Texas, "besides the wounded. Let's hev a look at the dead uns."
Going into Meyer's room, he found one of the Apaches still twitching, and immediately cut his throat. Then he climbed to the roof, gloated over the three bodies there, dragged them one by one to the ledge, and pitched them into the plaza.
"That'll settle 'em," he remarked with a sigh of intense satisfaction, like that of a baby when it has broken its rattle. Coming down again, he looked all the corpses over again, and said with an air of disappointment which was almost sentimental, "On'y a dozen!"
"I kin keer for the Injuns," he volunteered when the question came up of burying the dead. "I'd rather keer for 'em than not."
Before Thurstane knew what was going on, Texas had finished his labor of love. A crevice in the northern wall of the enclosure looked out upon a steep slope of marl, almost a precipice, which slanted sheer into the boiling flood of the San Juan. To this crevice Texas dragged one naked carcass after another, bundled it through, launched it with a vigorous shove, and then watched it with a pantherish grin, licking his chops as it were, as it rolled down the steep, splashed into the river, and set out on its swift voyage toward the Pacific.
"I s'pose you'll want to dig a hole for _him_" he said, coming into the Casa and looking wistfully at the body of poor young Shubert.
Sergeant Meyer motioned him to go away. Thurstane was entering in his journal an inventory of the deceased soldier's effects having already made a minute of the date and cause of his death. These with other facts, such as name, age, physical description, birthplace, time of service, amount of pay due, balance of clothing-account and stoppages, must be more or less repeated on various records, such as the descriptive book of the company, the daily return, the monthly return, the quarterly return, the muster-roll from which the name would be dropped, and the final statements which were to go to the Adjutant-General and the Paymaster-General. Even in the desert the monstrous accountability system of the army lived and burgeoned.
Nothing of importance happened until about noon, when the sentinel on the outer wall announced that the Apaches were approaching in force, and Thurstane gave orders to barricade one of the doors of the Casa with some large blocks of adobe, saying to himself, "I ought to have done it before."
This work well under way, he hastened to the brow of the hill and reconnoitred the enemy.
"They are not going to attack," said Coronado. "They are going to torture the girl Pepita."
Thurstane turned away sick at heart, observing, "I must keep the women in the Casa."
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When Thurstane, turning his back on the torture scene, had ascended to the roof of the Casa, he found the ladies excited and anxious.
"What is the matter?" asked Clara at once, taking hold of his sleeve with the tips of her fingers, in a caressing, appealing way, which was common with her when talking to those she liked.
Ordinarily our officer was a truth-teller; indeed, there was nothing which came more awkwardly to him than deception; he hated and despised it as if it were a personage, a criminal, an Indian. But here was a case where he must stoop to falsification, or at least to concealment.
"The Apaches are just below," he mumbled. "Not one of you women must venture out. I will see to everything. Be good now."
She gave his sleeve a little twitch, smiled confidingly in his face, and sat down to do some much-needed mending.
Having posted Sweeny at the foot of the ladders, with instructions to let none of the women descend, Thurstane hastened back to the exterior wall, drawn by a horrible fascination. With his field-glass he could distinguish every action of the tragedy which was being enacted on the plain. Pepita, entirely stripped of her clothing, was already bound to the sapling which stood by the side of the rivulet, and twenty or thirty of the Apaches were dancing around her in a circle, each one approaching her in turn, howling in her ears and spitting in her face. The young man had read and heard much of the horrors of that torture-dance, which stamps the American Indian as the most ferocious of savages; but be had not understood at all how large a part insult plays in this ceremony of deliberate cruelty; and, insulting a woman! he had not once dream'ed it. Now, when he saw it done, his blood rushed into his head and he burst forth in choked incoherent curses.
"I can't stand this," he shouted, advancing upon Coronado with clenched fists. "We must charge."
The Mexican shook his head in a sickly, scared way, and pointed to the left. There was a covering party of fifty or sixty warriors; it was not more than a quarter of a mile from the eastern end of the enclosure; it was in position to charge either upon that, or upon the flank of any rescuing sally.
"We can do it," insisted the lieutenant, who felt as if he could fight twenty men.
"We can't," replied Coronado. "I won't go, and my men shan't go."
Thurstane thought of Clara, covered his face with his hands, and sobbed aloud. Texas Smith stared at him with a kind of contemptuous pity, and offered such consolation as it was in his nature to give.
"Capm, when they've got through this job they'll travel."
The hideous prelude continued for half an hour. The Apaches in the dance were relieved by their comrades in the covering party, who came one by one to take their turns in the round of prancing, hooting, and spitting. Then came a few minutes of rest; then insult was followed by outrage.
The girl was loosed from the sapling and lifted until her head was even with the lower branches, three warriors holding her while two others extended her arms and fixed them to two stout limbs. What the fastenings were Thurstane could guess from the fact that he saw blows given, and heard the long shrill scream of a woman in uttermost agony. Then there was more hammering around the sufferer's feet, and more shrill wailing. She was spiked through the palms and the ankles to the tree. It was a crucifixion.
"By ----!" groaned Thurstane, "I never will spare an Indian as long as I live."
"Capm, I'm with you," said Texas Smith. "I seen my mother fixed like that. I seen it from the bush whar I was a hidin'. I was a boy then. I've killed every Injun I could sence."
Now the dance was resumed. The Apaches pranced about their victim to the music of her screams. The movement quickened; at last they ran around the tree in a maddened crowd; at every shriek they stamped, gestured, and yelled demoniacally. Now and then one of them climbed the girl's body and appeared to stuff something into her mouth. Then the lamentable outcries sank to a gasping and sobbing which could only be imagined by the spectators on the hill.
"Can't you hit some of them?" Thurstane asked Texas Smith.
"Better let 'em finish," muttered the borderer. "The gal can't be helped. She's as good as dead, Capm."
After another rest came a fresh scene of horror. Several of the Apaches, no doubt chiefs or leading braves, caught up their bows and renewed the dance. Running in a circle at full speed about the tree, each one in turn let fly an arrow at the victim, the object being to send the missile clear through her.
"That's the wind-up," muttered Texas Smith. "It's my turn now."
He leaped from the wall to the ground, ran sixty or eighty yards down the hill, halted, aimed, and fired. One of the warriors, a fellow in a red shirt who had been conspicuous in the torture scene, rolled over and lay quiet. The Apaches, who had been completely absorbed by their frantic ceremony, and who had not looked for an attack at the moment, nor expected death at such a distance, uttered a cry of surprise and dismay. There was a scramble of ten or fifteen screaming horsemen after the audacious borderer. But immediately on firing he had commenced a rapid retreat, at the same time reloading. He turned and presented his rifle; just then, too, a protecting volley burst from the rampart; another Apache fell, and the rest retreated.
"Capm, it's all right," said Texas, as he reascended the ruin. "We're squar with 'em."
"We might have broken it up," returned Thurstane sullenly.
"No, Capm. You don't know 'em. They'd got thar noses p'inted to torture that gal. If they didn't do it thar, they'd a done it a little furder off. They was bound to do it. Now it's done, they'll travel."
Warned by their last misadventure, the Indians presently retired to their usual camping ground, leaving their victim attached to the sapling.
"I'll fotch her up," volunteered Texas, who had a hyena's hankering after dead bodies. "Reckon you'd like to bury her."
He mounted, rode slowly, and with prudent glances to right and left, down the hill, halted under the tree, stood up in his saddle and worked there for some minutes. The Apaches looked on from a distance, uttering yells of exultation and making opprobrious gestures. Presently Texas resumed his seat and cantered gently back to the ruins, bearing across his saddle-bow a fearful burden, the naked body of a girl of eighteen, pierced with more than fifty arrows, stained and streaked all over with blood, the limbs shockingly mangled, and the mouth stuffed with rags.
While nearly every other spectator turned away in horror, he glared steadily and calmly at the corpse, repeating, "That's Injin fun, that is. That's what they brag on, that is."
"Bury her outside the wall," ordered Thurstane with averted face. "And listen, all you people, not a word of this to the women."
"We shall be catechised," said Coronado.
"You must do the lying," replied the officer. He was so shaken by what he had witnessed that he did not dare to face Clara for an hour afterward, lest his discomposure should arouse her suspicions. When he did at last visit the tower, she was quiet and smiling, for Coronado had done his lying, and done it well.
"So there was no attack," she said. "I am so glad!"
"Only a little skirmish. You heard the firing, of course."
"Yes. Coronado told us about it. What a horrible howling the Indians made! There were some screams that were really frightful."
"It was their last demonstration. They will probably be gone in the morning."
"Poor Pepita! She will be carried off," said Clara, a tear or two stealing down her cheek.
"Yes, poor Pepita!" sighed Thurstane.
The muleteer who had been killed in the assault was already buried. At sundown came the funeral of the soldier Shubert. The body, wrapped in a blanket, was borne by four Mexicans to the grave which had been prepared for it, followed by his three comrades with loaded muskets, and then by all the other members of the party, except Mrs. Stanley, who looked down from her roof upon the spectacle. Thurstane acted as chaplain, and read the funeral service from Clara's prayer-book, amidst the weeping of women and the silence of men. The dead young hero was lowered into his last resting-place. Sergeant Meyer gave the order: "Shoulder arms--ready--present--aim--fire!" The ceremony was ended; the muleteers filled the grave; a stone was placed to mark it; so slept a good soldier.
Now came another night of anxiety, but also of quiet. In the morning, when eager eyes looked through the yellow haze of dawn over the plain, not an Apache was to be seen.
"They are gone," said Coronado to Thurstane, after the two had made the tour of the ruins and scrutinized every feature of the landscape. "What next?"
Thurstane swept his field-glass around once more, searching for some outlet besides the horrible cañon, and searching in vain.
"We must wait a day or so for our wounded," he said. "Then we must start back on our old trail. I don't see anything else before us."
"It is a gloomy prospect," muttered Coronado, thinking of the hundred miles of rocky desert, and of the possibility that Apaches might be ambushed at the end of it.
He had been so anxious about himself for a few days that he had cared for little else. He had been humble, submissive to Thurstane, and almost entirely indifferent about Clara.
"We ought at least to try something in the way of explorations," continued the lieutenant. "To begin with, I shall sound the river. I shall be thought a devil of a failure if I don't carry back some information about the topography of this region."
"Can you paddle your boat against the current?" asked Coronado.
"I doubt it. But we can make a towing cord of lariats and let it out from the shore; perhaps swing it clear across the river in that way--with some paddling, you know."
"It is an excellent plan," said Coronado.
The day passed without movement, excepting that Texas Smith and two Mexicans explored the cañon for several miles, returning with a couple of lame ponies and a report that the Apaches had undoubtedly gone southward. At night, however, the animals were housed and sentries posted as usual, for Thurstane feared lest the enemy might yet return and attempt a surprise.
The next morning, all being quiet, the Buchanan boat was launched. A couple of fairish paddles were chipped out of bits of driftwood, and a towline a hundred feet long was made of lariats. Thurstane further provisioned the cockle-shell with fishing tackle, a sounding line, his own rifle, Shubert's musket and accoutrements, a bag of hard bread, and a few pounds of jerked beef.
"You are not going to make a voyage!" stared Coronado.
"I am preparing for accidents. We may get carried down the river."
"I thought you proposed to keep fast to the shore."
"I do. But the lariats may break."
Coronado said no more. He lighted a cigarito and looked on with an air of dreamy indifference. He had hit upon a plan for getting rid of Thurstane.
The next question was, who could handle a boat? The lieutenant wanted two men to keep it out in the current while he used the sounding line and recorded results.
"Guess I'll do 's well 's the nex' hand," volunteered Captain Glover. "Got a sore ear, 'n' a hole in my nose, but reckon I'm 'n able-bodied seaman for all that. _Hev_ rowed some in my time. Rowed forty mile after a whale onct, 'n' caught the critter--fairly rowed him down. Current's putty lively. Sh'd say 't was tearin' off 'bout five knots an hour. But guess I'll try it. Sh'd kinder like to feel water under me agin."
"Captain, you shall handle the ship," smiled Thurstane. "I'll mention you by name in my report. Who next?"
"Me," yelped Sweeny.
"Can you row, Sweeny?"
"I can, Liftinant."
"You may try it."
"Can I take me gun, Liftinant?" demanded Sweeny, who was extravagantly fond and proud of his piece, all the more perhaps because he held it in awe.
"Yes, you can take it, and Glover can have Shubert's. Though, 'pon my honor, I don't know why we should carry firearms. It's old habit, I suppose. It's a way we have in the army."
The lieutenant had no sort of anxiety on the score of his enterprise. His plan was to swing out into the current, and, if the boat proved perfectly manageable, to cut loose from the towline and paddle across, sounding the whole breadth of the channel. It seemed easy enough and safe enough. When he left the Casa Grande after breakfast he contrived to kiss Clara's hand, but it did not once occur to him that it would be proper to bid her farewell. He was very far indeed from guessing that in the knot of the lariat which was fast to the bow of his coracle there was a fatal gash. It was not suspicion of evil, but merely a habit of precaution, a prudential tone of mind which he had acquired in service, that led him at the last moment to say (making Coronado tremble in his boots), "Mr. Glover, have you thoroughly overhauled the cord?"
"Give her a look jest before we went up to breakfast," replied the skipper. "She'll hold."
Coronado, who stood three feet distant, blew a quiet little whiff of smoke through his thin purple lips, meanwhile dreamily contemplating the speaker.
"Git in, you paddywhack," said Glover to Sweeny. "Grab yer paddle. T'other end; that's the talk. Now then. All aboard that's goin'. Shove off."
In a few seconds, impelled from the shore by the paddles, the boat was at the full length of the towline and in the middle of the boiling current.
"Will it never break?" thought Coronado, smoking a little faster than usual, but not moving a muscle.
Yes. It had already broken. At the first pause in the paddling the mangled lariat had given way.
In spite of the renewed efforts of the oarsmen, the boat was flying down the San Juan.
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When Thurstane perceived that the towline had parted and that the boat was gliding down the San Juan, he called sharply, "Paddle!"
He was in no alarm as yet. The line, although of rawhide, was switching on the surface of the rapid current; it seemed easy enough to recover it and make a new fastening. Passing from the stern to the bow, he knelt down and dipped one hand in the water, ready to clutch the end of the lariat.
But a boat five feet long and twelve feet broad, especially when made of canvas on a frame of light sticks, is not handily paddled against swift water; and the Buchanan (as the voyagers afterward named it) not only sagged awkwardly, but showed a strong tendency to whirl around like an egg-shell as it was. Moreover, the loose line almost instantly took the direction of the stream, and swept so rapidly shoreward that by the time Thurstane was in position to seize it, it was rods away.
"Row for the bank," he ordered. But just as he spoke there came a little noise which was to these three men the crack of doom. The paddle of that most unskilful navigator, Sweeny, snapped in two, and the broad blade of it was instantly out of reach. Next the cockle-shell of a boat was spinning on its keel-less bottom, and whirling broadside on, bow foremost, stern foremost, any way, down the San Juan.
"Paddle away!" shouted Thurstane to Glover. "Drive her in shore! Pitch her in!"
The old coaster sent a quick, anxious look down the river, and saw at once that there was no chance of reaching the bank. Below them, not three hundred yards distant, was an archipelago of rocks, the _débris_ of fallen precipices and pinnacles, through which, for half a mile or more, the water flew in whirlpools and foam. They were drifting at great speed toward this frightful rapid, and, if they entered it, destruction was sure and instant. Only the middle of the stream showed a smooth current; and there was less than half a minute in which to reach it. Without a word Glover commenced paddling as well as he could away from the bank.
"What are you about?" yelled Thurstane, who saw Clara on the roof of the Casa Grande, and was crazed at the thought of leaving her there. She would suspect that he had abandoned her; she would be massacred by the Apaches; she would starve in the desert, etc.
Glover made no reply. His whole being was engaged in the struggle of evading immediate death.
One more glance, one moment of manly, soldierly reflection, enabled Thurstane to comprehend the fate which was upon him, and to bow to it with resignation. Turning his back upon the foaming reefs which might the next instant be his executioners, he stood up in the boat, took off his cap, and waved a farewell to Clara. He was so unconscious of anything but her and his parting from her that for some time he did not notice that the slight craft had narrowly shaved the rocks, that it had barely crawled into the middle current, and that he was temporarily safe. He kept his eyes fixed upon the Casa and upon the girl's motionless figure until a monstrous, sullen precipice slid in between. He was like one who breathes his last with straining gaze settled on some loved face, parting from which is worse than death. When he could see her no longer, nor the ruin which sheltered her, and which suddenly seemed to him a paradise, he dropped his head between his hands, utterly unmanned. " 'Twon't dew to give it up while we float, Major," said Glover, breveting the lieutenant by way of cheering him.
"I don't give it up," replied Thurstane; "but I had a duty to do there, and now I can't do it."
"There's dooties to be 'tended to here, I reckon," suggested Glover.
"They will be done," said the officer, raising his head and settling his face. "How can we help you?"
"Don't seem to need much help. The river doos the paddlin'; wish it didn't. No 'casion to send anybody aloft. I'll take a seat in the stern 'n' mind the hellum. Guess that's all they is to be done."
"You dum paddywhack," he presently reopened, "what d'ye break yer paddle for?"
"I didn't break it," yapped Sweeny indignantly. "It broke itself."
"Well, what d'ye say y' could paddle for, when y' couldn't?"
"I can paddle. I paddled as long as I had anythin' but a sthick."
"Oh, you dum landlubber!" smirked Glover. "What if I should order ye to the masthead?"
"I wouldn't go," asseverated Sweeny. "I'll moind no man who isn't me suparior officer. I've moindin' enough to do in the arrmy. I wouldn't go, onless the liftinint towld me. Thin I'd go."
"Guess y' wouldn't now."
"Yis I wud."
"But they an't no mast."
"I mane if there was one."
This kind of babble Glover kept up for some minutes, with the sole object of amusing and cheering Thurstane, whose extreme depression surprised and alarmed him. He knew that the situation was bad, and that it would take lots of pluck to bring them through it.
"Capm, where d'ye think we're bound?" he presently inquired. "Whereabouts doos this river come out?"
"It runs into the Colorado of the West, and that runs into the head of the Gulf of California."
"Californy! Reckon I'll git to the diggins quicker 'n I expected. Goin' at this rate, we'll make about a hundred 'n' twenty knots a day. What's the distance to Californy?"
"By the bends of the river it can't be less than twelve hundred miles to the gulf."
"Whew!" went Glover. "Ten days' sailin'. Wal, smooth water all the way?"
"The San Juan has never been navigated. So far as I know, we are the first persons who ever launched a boat on it."
"Whew! Why, it's like discoverin' Ameriky. Wal, what d'ye guess about the water? Any chance 'f its bein' smooth clear through?"
"The descent to the gulf must be two or three thousand feet, perhaps more. We can hardly fail to find rapids. I shouldn't be astonished by a cataract."
Glover gave a long whistle and fell into grave meditation. His conclusion was: "Can't navigate nights, that's a fact. Have to come to anchor. That makes twenty days on't. Wal, Capm, fust thing is to fish up a bit 'f driftwood 'n' whittle out 'nother paddle. Want a boat-pole, too, like thunder. We're awful short 'f spars for a long voyage."
His lively mind had hardly dismissed this subject before he remarked: "Dum cur'ous that towline breaking. I overhauled every foot on't. I'd a bet my bottom fo'pence on its drawin' ten ton. Haul in the slack end 'n' let's hev a peek at it."
The tip of the lariat, which was still attached to the boat, being handed to him, he examined it minutely, closed his eyes, whistled, and ejaculated, "Sawed!"
"What?" asked Thurstane.
"Sawed," repeated Glover. "That leather was haggled in tew with a jagged knife or a sharp flint or suthin 'f that sort. Done a purpose, 's sure 's I'm a sinner."
Thurstane took the lariat, inspected the breakage carefully, and scowled with helpless rage.
"That infernal Texan!" he muttered.
"Sho!" said Glover. "That feller? Anythin' agin ye? Wal, Capm, then all I've got to say is, you come off easy. That feller 'd cut a sleepin' man's throat. I sh'd say thank God for the riddance. Tell ye I've watched that cuss. Been blastedly afeard 'f him. Hev so, by George! The further I git from him the safer I feel."
"Not a nice man to leave _there_" muttered Thurstane, whose anxiety was precisely not for himself, but for Clara. The young fellow could not be got to talk much; he was a good deal upset by his calamity. The parting from Clara was an awful blow; the thought of her dangers made him feel as if he could jump overboard; and, lurking deep in his soul, there was an ugly fear that Coronado might now win her. He was furious moreover at having been tricked, and meditated bedlamite plans of vengeance. For a time he stared more at the mangled lariat than at the amazing scenery through which he was gliding.
And yet that scenery, although only a prelude, only an overture to the transcendent oratorios of landscape which were to follow, was in itself a horribly sublime creation. Not twenty minutes after the snapping of the towline the boat had entered one of those stupendous cañons which form the distinguishing characteristic of the great American table-land, and make it a region unlike any other in the world.
Remember that the cañon is a groove chiselled out of rock by a river. Although a groove, it is never straight for long distances. The river at its birth was necessarily guided by the hollows of the primal plateau; moreover, it was tempted to labor along the softest surfaces. Thus the cañon is a sinuous gully, cut down from the hollows of rocky valleys, and following their courses of descent from mountain-chain toward ocean.
In these channels the waters have chafed, ground, abraded, eroded for centuries which man cannot number. Like the Afreets of the Arabian Nights, they have been mighty slaves, subject to a far mightier master. That potent magician whose lair is in the centre of the earth, and whom men have vaguely styled the attraction of gravitation, has summoned them incessantly toward himself. In their struggle to render him obedience, they have accomplished results which make all the works of man insignificant by comparison.
To begin with, vast lakes, which once swept westward from the bases of the Rocky Mountains, were emptied into the Pacific. Next the draining currents transformed into rivers, cut their way through the soil which formerly covered the table-lands and commenced their attrition upon the underlying continent of sandstone. It was a grinding which never ceased; every pebble and every bowlder which lay in the way was pressed into the endless labor; mountains were used up in channelling mountains.
The central magician was insatiable and pitiless; he demanded not only the waters, but whatever they could bring; he hungered after the earth and all that covered it. His obedient Afreets toiled on, denuding the plateaux of their soil, washing it away from every slope and peak, pouring it year by year into the cañons, and whirling it on to the ocean. The rivers, the brooklets, the springs, and the rains all joined in this eternal robbery. Little by little an eighth of a continent was stripped of its loam, its forests, its grasses, its flowers, its vegetation of every species. What had been a land of fertility became an arid and rocky desert.
Then the minor Afreets perished of the results of their own obedience. There being no soil, the fountains disappeared; there being no evaporation, the rains diminished. Deprived of sustenance, nearly all the shorter streams dried up, and the channels which they had hewn became arid gullies. Only those rivers continued to exist which drew their waters from the snowy slopes of the Rocky Mountains or from the spurs and ranges which intersect the plateaux. The ages may come when these also will cease to flow, and throughout all this portion of the continent the central magician will call for his Afreets in vain.
For some time we must attend much to the scenery of the desert thus created. It has become one of the individuals of our story, and interferes with the fate of the merely human personages. Thurstane could not long ignore its magnificent, oppressive, and potent presence. Forgetting somewhat his anxieties about the loved one whom he had left behind, he looked about him with some such amazement as if he had been translated from earth into regions of supernature.
The cañon through which he was flying was a groove cut in solid sandstone, less than two hundred feet wide, with precipitous walls of fifteen hundred feet, from the summit of which the rock sloped away into buttes and peaks a thousand feet higher. On every side the horizon was half a mile above his head. He was in a chasm, twenty-five hundred feet below the average surface of the earth, the floor of which was a swift river.
He seemed to himself to be traversing the abodes of the Genii. Although he had only heard of "Vathek," he thought of the Hall of Eblis. It was such an abyss as no artist has ever hinted, excepting Doré in his picturings of Dante's "Inferno." Could Dante himself have looked into it, he would have peopled it with the most hopeless of his lost spirits. The shadow, the aridity, the barrenness, the solemnity, the pitilessness, the horrid cruelty of the scene, were more than might be received into the soul. It was something which could not be imagined, and which when seen could not be fully remembered. To gaze on it was like beholding the mysterious, wicked countenance of the father of all evil. It was a landscape which was a fiend.
The precipices were not bare and plain faces of rock, destitute of minor finish and of color. They had their horrible decorations; they showed the ingenuity and the artistic force of the Afreets who had fashioned them; they were wrought and tinted with a demoniac splendor suited to their magnitude. It seemed as if some goblin Michel Angelo had here done his carving and frescoing at the command of the lords of hell. Layers of brown, gray, and orange sandstone, alternated from base to summit; and these tints were laid on with a breadth of effect which was prodigious: a hundred feet in height and miles in length at a stroke of the brush.
The architectural and sculptural results were equally monstrous. There were lateral shelves twenty feet in width, and thousands of yards in length. There were towers, pilasters, and formless caryatides, a quarter of a mile in height. Great bulks projected, capped by gigantic mitres or diadems, and flanked by cavernous indentations. In consequence of the varying solidity of the stone, the river had wrought the precipices into a series of innumerable monuments, more or less enormous, commemorative of combats. There had been interminable strife here between the demons of earth and the demons of water, and each side had set up its trophies. It was the Vatican and the Catacombs of the Genii; it was the museum and the mausoleum of the forces of nature.
At various points tributary gorges, the graves of fluvial gods who had perished long ago, opened into the main cañon. In passing these the voyagers had momentary glimpses of sublimities and horrors which seemed like the handiwork of that "anarch old," who wrought before the shaping of the universe. One of these sarcophagi was a narrow cleft, not more than eighty feet broad, cut from surface to base of a bed of sandstone one-third of a mile in depth. It was inhabited by an eternal gloom which was like the shadow of the blackness of darkness. The stillness, the absence of all life whether animal or vegetable, the dungeon-like closeness of the monstrous walls, were beyond language.
Another gorge was a ruin. The rock here being of various degrees of density, the waters had essayed a thousand channels. All the softer veins had been scooped out and washed away, leaving the harder blocks and masses piled in a colossal grotesque confusion. Along the sloping sides of the gap stood bowlders, pillars, needles, and strange shapes of stone, peering over each other's heads into the gulf below. It was as if an army of misshapen monsters and giants had been petrified with horror, while staring at some inconceivable desolation and ruin. There was no hope for this concrete despair; no imaginable voice could utter for it a word of consolation; the gazer, like Dante amid the tormented, could only "look and pass on."
At one point two lateral cañons opened side by side upon the San Juan. The partition was a stupendous pile of rock fifteen hundred feet in altitude, but so narrow that it seemed to the voyagers below like the single standing wall of some ruined edifice. Although the space on its summit was broad enough for a cathedral, it did not appear to them that it would afford footing to a man, while the enclosing fissures looked narrow enough to be crossed at a bound. On either side of this isolated bar of sandstone a plumb-line might have been dropped straight to the level of the river. The two chasms were tombs of shadow, where nothing ever stirred but winds.
The solitude of this continuous panorama of precipices was remarkable. It was a region without man, or beast, or bird, or insect. The endless rocks, not only denuded, but eroded and scraped by the action of bygone waters, could furnish no support for animal life. A beast of prey, or even a mountain goat, would have starved here. Could a condor of the Andes have visited it, he would have spread his wings at once to leave it.
Yet horrible as the scene was, it was so sublime that it fascinated. For hours, gazing at lofty masses, vast outlines, prodigious assemblages of rocky imagery, endless strokes of natural frescoing, the three adventurers either exchanged rare words of astonishment, or lay in reveries which transported them beyond earth. What Thurstane felt he could only express by recalling random lines of the "Paradise Lost." It seemed to him as if they might at any moment emerge upon the lake of burning marl, and float into the shadow of the walls of Pandemonium. He would not have felt himself carried much beyond his present circumstances, had he suddenly beheld Satan, High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind.
He was roused from his dreams by the quick, dry, grasshopper-like voice of Phineas Glover, asking, "What's that?"
A deep whisper came up the chasm. They could hardly distinguish it when they stretched their hearing to the utmost. It seemed to steal with difficulty against the rushing flood, and then to be swept down again. It sighed threateningly for a moment, and instantaneously became silence. One might liken it to a ghost trying to advance through some castle hall, only to be borne backward by the fitful night-breeze, or by some mysterious ban. Was the desert inhabited, and by disembodied demons?
After a further flight of half a mile, this variable sigh changed to a continuous murmur. There was now before the voyagers a straight course of nearly two miles, at the end of which lay hid the unseen power which gave forth this solemn menace. The river, perfectly clear of rocks, was a sheet of liquid porphyry, an arrow of dark-red water slightly flecked with foam. The walls of the cañon, scarcely fifty yards apart and more stupendous than ever, rose in precipices without a landing-place or a foothold. So far as eye could pierce into the twilight of the sublime chasm, there was not a spot where the boat could be arrested in its flight, or where a swimmer could find a shelf of safety.
"It is a rapid," said Thurstane. "You did well, Captain Glover, to get another paddle."
"Lord bless ye!" returned the skipper impatiently, "it's lucky I was whittlin' while you was thinkin'. If we on'y had a boat-hook!"
From moment to moment the murmur came nearer and grew louder. It was smothered and then redoubled by the reverberations of the cañon, so that sometimes it seemed the tigerish snarl of a rapid, and sometimes the leonine roar of a cataract. A bend of the chasm at last brought the voyagers in sight of the monster, which was frothing and howling to devour them. It was a terrific spectacle. It was like Apollyon "straddling quite across the way," to intercept Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. From one dizzy rampart to the other, and as far down the echoing cavern as eye could reach, the river was white with an arrowy rapid storming though a labyrinth of rocks.
Sweeny, evidently praying, moved his lips in silence. Glover's face had the keen, anxious, watchful look of the sailor affronting shipwreck; and Thurstane's the set, enduring rigidity of the soldier who is tried to his utmost by cannonade.
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The three adventurers were entering the gorge of an impassable rapid.
Here had once been the barrier of a cataract; the waters had ground through it, tumbled it down, and gnawed it to tatters; the scattered bowlders which showed through the foam were the remnants of the Cyclopean feast.
There appeared to be no escape from death. Any one of those stones would rend the canvas boat from end to end, or double it into a wet rug; and if a swimmer should perchance reach the bank, he would drown there, looking up at precipices; or, if he should find a footing, it would only be to starve.
"There is our chance," said Thurstane, pointing to a bowlder as large as a house which stood under the northern wall of the cañon, about a quarter of a mile above the first yeast of the rapid.
He and Glover each took a paddle. They had but one object: it was to get under the lee of the bowlder, and so stop their descent; after that they would see what more could be done. Danger and safety were alike swift here; it was a hurry as of battle or tempest Almost before they began to hope for success, they were circling in the narrow eddy, very nearly a whirlpool, which wheeled just below the isolated rock. Even here the utmost caution was necessary, for while the Buchanan was as light as a bubble, it was also as fragile.
Sounding the muddy water with their paddles, they slowly glided into the angle between the bowlder and the precipice, and jammed the fragment of the towline in a crevice. For the first time in six hours, and in a run of thirty miles, they were at rest. Wiping the sweat of labor and anxiety from their brows, they looked about them, at first in silence, querying what next?
"I wish I was on an iceberg," said Glover in his despair.
"An' I wish I was in Oirland," added Sweeny. "But if the divil himself was to want to desart here, he couldn't."
Thurstane believed that he had seen Clara for the last time, even should she escape her own perils. Through his field-glass he surveyed the whole gloomy scene with microscopic attention, searching for an exit out of this monstrous man-trap, and searching in vain. It was as impossible to descend the rapid as it was to scale the walls of the cañon. He had just heard Sweeny say, "I wish I was bein' murthered by thim naygurs," and had smiled at the utterance of desperation with a grim sympathy, when a faint hope dawned upon him.
Not more than a yard above the water was a ledge or shelf in the face of the precipice. The layer of sandstone immediately over this shelf was evidently softer than the general mass; and in other days (centuries ago), when it had formed one level with the bed of the river, it had been deeply eroded. This erosion had been carried along the cañon on an even line of altitude as far as the softer layer extended. Thurstane could trace it with his glass for what seemed to him a mile, and there was of course a possibility that it reached below the foot of the rapid. The groove was everywhere about twenty feet high, while its breadth varied from a yard or so to nearly a rod.
Here, then, was a road by which they might perhaps turn the obstacle. The only difficulty was that while the bed of the river descended rapidly, the shelf kept on at the same elevation, so that eventually the travellers would come to a jumping-off place. How high would it be? Could they get down it so as to regain the stream and resume their navigation? Well, they must try it; there was no other road. With one eloquent wave of his hand Thurstane pointed out this slender chance of escape to his comrades.
"Hurray!" shouted Glover, after a long stare, in which the emotions succeeded each other like colors in a dolphin.
"Can we make the jump at the other end?" asked the lieutenant.
"Reckon so," chirruped Glover. "Look a here."
He exhibited a pile of unpleasant-looking matter which proved to be a mass of strips of fresh hide.
"Hoss skin," he explained. "Peeled off a mustang. Borrowed it from that Texan cuss. Thought likely we might want to splice our towline. 'Bout ten fathom, I reckon; 'n' there's the lariat, two fathom more. All we've got to de is to pack up, stick our backs under, 'n' travel."
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when they commenced their preparations for making this extraordinary portage. Sunk as they were twenty-five hundred feet in the bowels of the earth, the sun had already set for them; but they were still favored with a sort of twilight radiance, and they could count upon it for a couple of hours longer. Carefully the guns, paddles, and stores were landed on the marvellous causeway; and then, with still greater caution, the boat was lifted to the same support and taken to pieces. The whole mass of material, some two hundred pounds in weight, was divided into three portions. Each shouldered his pack, and the strange journey commenced.
"Sweeny, don't you fall off," said Glover. "We can't spare them sticks."
"If I fall off, ye may shute me where I stand," returned Sweeny. "I know better'n to get drowned and starved to death in wan. I can take care av meself. I've sailed this a way many a time in th' ould counthry."
The road was a smooth and easy one, barring a few cumbering bowlders. To the left and below was the river, roaring, hissing, and foaming through its _chevaux-de-frise_ of rocks. In front the cañon stretched on and on until its walls grew dim with shadow and distance. Above were overhanging precipices and a blue streak of sunlit sky.
It was quite dusk with the wanderers before they reached a point where the San Juan once more flowed with an undisturbed current.
"We can't launch by this light," said Thurstane. "We will sleep here."
"It'll be a longish night," commented Glover. "But don't see's we can shorten it by growlin'. When fellahs travel in the bowels 'f th' earth, they've got to follow the customs 'f th' country. Puts me in mind of Jonah in the whale's belly. Putty short tacks, Capm. Nine hours a day won't git us along; any too fast. But can't help it. Night travellin' ain't suited to our boat. Suthin' like a bladder football: one pin-prick 'd cowallapse it. Wal, so we'll settle. Lucky we wanted our blankets to set on. 'Pears to me this rock's a leetle harder'n a common deck plank. Unroll the boat, Capm? Wal, guess we'd better. Needs dryin'a speck. Too much soakin' an't good for canvas. Better dry it out, 'n' fold it up, 'n' sleep on't. This passageway that we're in, sh'd say at might git up a smart draught. What d'ye say to this spot for campin'? Twenty foot breadth of beam here. Kind of a stateroom, or bridal chamber. No need of fallin' out. Ever walk in yer sleep, Sweeny? Better cut it right square off to-night. Five fathom down to the river, sh'd say. Splash ye awfully, Sweeny."
Thus did Captain Glover prattle in his cheerful way while the party made its preparations for the night.
They were like ants lodged in some transverse crack of a lofty wall. They were in a deep cut of the shelf, with fifteen hundred or two thousand feet of sandstone above, and the porphyry-colored river thirty feet below. The narrow strip of sky far above their heads was darkening rapidly with the approach of night, and with an accumulation of clouds. All of a sudden there was a descent of muddy water, charged with particles of red earth and powdered sandstone, pouring by them down the overhanging precipice.
"Liftinant!" exclaimed Sweeny, "thim naygurs up there is washin' their dirty hides an' pourin' the suds down on us."
"It's the rain, Sweeny. There's a shower on the plateau above."
"The rain, is it? Thin all nate people in that counthry must stand in great nade of ombrellys."
The scene was more marvellous than ever. Not a drop of rain fell in the river; the immense façade opposite them was as dry as a skull; yet here was this muddy cataract. It fell for half an hour, scarcely so much as spattering them in their recess, but plunging over them into the torrent beneath. By the time it ceased they had eaten their supper of hard bread and harder beef, and lighted their pipes to allay their thirst. There was a laying of plans to regain the river to-morrow, a grave calculation as to how long their provisions would last, and in general much talk about their chances.
"Not a shine of a lookout for gittin' back to the Casa?" queried Captain Glover. "Knowed it," he added, when the lieutenant sadly shook his head. "Fool for talkin' 'bout it. How 'bout reachin' the trail to the Moqui country?"
"I have been thinking of it all day," said Thurstane. "We must give it up. Every one of the branch cañons on the other bank trends wrong. We couldn't cross them; we should have to follow them; it's an impassable hell of a country. We might by bare chance reach the Moqui pueblos; but the probability is that we should die in the desert of thirst. We shall have to run the river. Perhaps we shall have to run the Colorado too. If so, we had better keep on to Diamond creek, and from there push by land to Cactus Pass. Cactus Pass is on the trail, and we may meet emigrants there. I don't know what better to suggest."
"Dessay it's a tiptop idee," assented Glover cheeringly. "Anyhow, if we take on down the river, it seems like follyin' the guidings of Providence."
In spite of their strange situation and doubtful prospects, the three adventurers slept early and soundly. When they awoke it was daybreak, and after chewing the hardest, dryest, and rawest of breakfasts, they began their preparations to reach the river. To effect this, it was necessary to find a cleft in the ledge where they could fasten a cord securely, and below it a footing at the water's edge where they could put their boat together and launch it. It would not do to go far down the cañon, for the bed of the stream descended while the shelf retained its level, and the distance between them was already sufficiently alarming. After an anxious search they discovered a bowlder lying in the river beneath the shelf, with a flat surface perfectly suited to their purpose. There, too, was a cleft, but a miserably small one.
"We can't jam a cord in that," said Glover; "nor the handle of a paddle nuther."
"It'll howld me bagonet," suggested Sweeny.
"It can be made to hold it," decided Thurstane. "We must drill away till it does hold it."
An hour's labor enabled them to insert the bayonet to the handle and wedge it with spikes split off from the precious wood of the paddles. When it seemed firm enough to support a strong lateral pressure, Glover knotted on to it, in his deft sailor fashion, a strip of the horse hide, and added others to that until he had a cord of some forty feet. After testing every inch and every knot, he said: "Who starts first?"
"I will try it," answered Thurstane.
"Lightest first, I reckon," observed Glover.
Sweeny looked at the precipice, skipped about the shelf uneasily, made a struggle with his fears, and asked, "Will ye let me down aisy?"
"Jest 's easy 's rollin' off a log."
"That's aisy enough. It's the lightin' that's har-rd. If it comes to rowlin' down, I'll let ye have the first rowl. I've no moind to git ahead of me betthers."
"Try it, my lad," said Thurstane. "The real danger comes with the last man. He will have to trust to the bayonet alone."
"An' what'll I do whirl I get down there?"
"Take the traps off the cord as we send them down, and pile them on the rock."
"I'm off," said Sweeny, after one more look into the chasm. While the others held the cord to keep the strain from coming on the bayonet, he gripped it with both hands, edged stern foremost over the precipice, and slipped rapidly to the bowlder, whence he sent up a hoot of exultation. The cord was drawn back; the boat was made up in two bundles, which were lowered in succession; then the provisions, paddles, arms, etc. Now came the question whether Thurstane or Glover should remain last on the ledge.
"Lightest last," said the lean skipper. "Stands to reason."
"It's my duty to take the hot end of the poker," replied the officer. "Loser goes first," said Glover, producing a copper. "Heads or tails?"
"Heads," guessed Thurstane.
"It's a tail. Catch hold, Capm. Slow 'n' easy till you get over."
The cord holding firm, Thurstane reached the bowlder, and was presently joined by Glover.
"Liftinant, I want me bagonet," cried Sweeny. "Will I go up afther it?"
"How the dickens 'd you git down again?" asked Glover. "Guess you'll have to leave your bayonet where it sticks. But, Capm, we want that line. Can't you shute it away, clost by th' edge?"
The third shot was a lucky one, and brought down the precious cord. Then came the work of putting the boat into shape, launching it, getting in the stores, and lastly the voyagers.
"Tight's a drum yit," observed Glover, surveying the coracle admiringly. "Fust time I ever sailed _on_ canvas. Great notion. Don't draw more'n three inches. Might sail acrost country with it. Capm, it's the only boat ever invented that could git down this blasted river."
Glover and Sweeny, two of the most talkative creatures on earth, chattered much to each other. Thurstane sometimes listened to them, sometimes lost himself in reveries about Clara, sometimes surveyed the scenery of the cañon.
The abyss was always the same, yet with colossal variety: here and there yawnings of veined precipices, followed by cavernous closings of the awful sides; breakings in of subsidiary cañons, some narrow clefts, and others gaping shattered mouths; the walls now presenting long lines of rampart, and now a succession of peaks. But still, although they had now traversed the chasm for seventy or eighty miles, they found no close and no declension to its solemn grandeur.
At last came another menace, a murmur deeper and hoarser than that of the rapid, steadily swelling as they advanced until it was a continuous thunder. This time there could be no doubt that they were entering upon a scene of yet undecided battle between the eternal assault of the river and the immemorial resistance of the mountains.
The quickening speed of the waters, and the ceaseless bellow of their charging trumpets as they tore into some yet unseen abyss, announced one of those struggles of nature in which man must be a spectator or a victim.
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As Thurstane approached the cataract of the San Juan he thought of the rapids above Niagara, and of the men who had been whirled down them, foreseeing their fate and struggling against it, but unable to escape it.
"We must keep near one wall or the other," he said. "The middle of the river is sure death."
Paddling toward the northern bank, simply because it had saved them in their former peril, they floated like a leaf in the shadows of the precipices, watching for some footway by which to turn the lair of the monster ahead.
The scenery here did not consist exclusively of two lofty ramparts fronting each other. Before the river had established its present channel it had tried the strength of the plateau in various directions, slashing the upper strata into a succession of cañons, which were now lofty and arid gullies, divided from each other by every conceivable form of rocky ruin. Rotundas, amphitheatres, castellated walls, cathedrals of unparalleled immensity, facades of palaces huge enough to be the abodes of the principalities and powers of the air, far-stretching semblances of cities tottering to destruction, all fashions of domes, towers, minarets, spires, and obelisks, with a population of misshapen demons and monsters, looked down from sublime heights upon the voyagers. At every turn in the river the panorama changed, and they beheld new marvels of this Titanic architecture. There was no end to the gigantic and grotesque variety of the commingling outlines. The vastness, the loneliness, the stillness, the twilight sombreness, were awful. And through all reverberated incessantly the defiant clarion of the cataract.
The day was drawing to that early death which it has always had and must always have in these abysses. Knowing how suddenly darkness would fall, and not daring to attempt the unknown without light, the travellers looked for a mooring spot. There was a grim abutment at least eighteen hundred feet high; at its base two rocks, which had tumbled ages ago from the summit, formed a rude breakwater; and on this barrier had collected a bed of coarse pebbles, strewn with driftwood. Here they stopped their flight, unloaded the boat and beached it. The drift-wood furnished them a softer bed than usual, and materials for a fire.
Night supervened with the suddenness of a death which has been looked for, but which is at last a surprise. Shadow after shadow crept down the walls of the chasm, blurred its projections, darkened its faces, and crowded its recesses. The line of sky, seen through the jagged and sinuous opening above, changed slowly to gloom and then to blackness. There was no light in this rocky intestine of the earth except the red flicker of the camp-fire. It fought feebly with the powers of darkness; it sent tremulous despairing flashes athwart the swift ebony river; it reached out with momentary gleams to the nearer facades of precipice; it reeled, drooped, and shuddered as if in hopeless horror. Probably, since the world began, no other fire lighted by man had struggled against the gloom of this tremendous amphitheatre. The darknesses were astonished at it, but they were also uncomprehending and hostile. They refused to be dissipated, and they were victorious.
After two hours a change came upon the scene. The moon rose, filled the upper air with its radiance, and bathed in silver the slopes of the mountains. The narrow belt of visible sky resembled a milky way. The light continued to descend and work miracles. Isolated turrets, domes, and pinnacles came out in gleaming relief against the dark-blue background of the heavens. The opposite crest of the cañon shone with a broad illumination. All the uncouth demons and monsters of the rocks awoke, glaring and blinking, to menace the voyagers in the depths below. The contrast between this supereminent brilliancy and the sullen obscurity of the subterranean river made the latter seem more than ever like Styx or Acheron.
The travellers were awakened in the morning by the trumpetings of the cataract. They embarked and dropped down the stream, hugging the northern rampart and watching anxiously. Presently there was a clear sweep of a mile; the clamor now came straight up to them with redoubled vehemence; a ghost of spray arose and waved threateningly, as if forbidding further passage. It was the roar and smoke of an artillery which had thundered for ages, and would thunder for ages to come. It was a voice and signal which summoned reinforcements of waters, and in obedience to which the waters charged eternally.
The boat had shudders. Every spasm jerked it onward a little faster. It flew with a tremulous speed which was terrible. Thurstane, a good soldier, able to obey as well as to direct, knowing that if Glover could not steer wisely no one could, sat, paddle in hand, awaiting orders. Sweeny fidgeted, looked from one to another, looked at the mist ahead, cringed, wanted to speak, and said nothing. Glover, working hard with his paddle, and just barely keeping the coracle bows on, peered and grinned as if he were facing a hurricane. There was no time to have a care for sunken bowlders, reaching up to rend the thin bottom. The one giant danger of the cataract was enough to fill the mind and bar out every minor terror. Its deafening threats demanded the whole of the imagination. Compared with the probability of plunging down an unknown depth into a boiling hell of waters, all other peril seemed too trifling to attract notice. Such a fate is an enhancement of the horrors of death.
"Liftinant, let's go over with a whoop," called Sweeny. "It's much aisier."
"Keep quiet, my lad," replied the officer. "We must hear orders."
"All right, Liftinant," said Sweeny, relieved by having spoken.
At this moment Glover shouted cheerfully, "We ain't dead yit There's a ledge."
"I see it," nodded Thurstane.
"Where there's a ledge there's an eddy," screamed Glover, raising his voice to pierce the hiss of the rapid and the roar of the cascade.
Below them, jutting out from the precipitous northern bank, was a low bar of rock over which the river did not sweep. It was the remnant of a once lofty barrier; the waters had, as it were, gnawed it to the bone, but they had not destroyed it. In two minutes the voyagers were beside it, paddling with all their strength against the eddy which whirled along its edge toward the cataract, and tossing over the short, spiteful ripples raised by the sudden turn of the current. With a "Hooroo!" Sweeny tumbled ashore, lariat in hand, and struck his army shoes into the crevices of the shattered sandstone. In five minutes more the boat was unloaded and lifted upon the ledge.
The travellers did not go to look at the cataract; their immediate and urgent need was to get by it. Making up their bundles as usual, they commenced a struggle with the intricacies and obstacles of the portage. The eroded, disintegrated plateau descended to the river in a huge confusion of ruin, and they had to pick their way for miles through a labyrinth of cliffs, needles, towers, and bowlders. Reaching the river once more, they found themselves upon a little plain of moderately fertile earth, the first plain and the first earth which they had seen since entering the cañon. The cataract was invisible; a rock cathedral several hundred feet high hid it; they could scarcely discern its lofty ghost of spray.
Two miles away, in the middle of the plain, appeared a ruin of adobe walls, guttered and fissured by the weather. It was undoubtedly a monument of that partially civilized race, Aztec, Toltec, or Moqui, which centuries ago dotted the American desert with cities, and passed away without leaving other record. With his field-glass Thurstane discovered what he judged to be another similar structure crowning a distant butte. They had no time to visit these remains, and they resumed their voyage.
After skirting the plain for several miles, they reëntered the cañon, drifted two hours or more between its solemn walls, and then came out upon a wide sweep of open country. The great cañon of the San Juan had been traversed nearly from end to end in safety. When the adventurers realized their triumph they rose to their feet and gave nine hurrahs.
"It's loike a rich man comin' through the oye av a needle," observed Sweeny.
"Only this haint much the air 'f the New Jerusalem," returned Glover, glancing at the arid waste of buttes and ranges in the distance.
"We oughter look up some huntin'," he continued. "Locker'll begin to show bottom b'fore long. Sweeny, wouldn't you like to kill suthin?"
"I'd like to kill a pig," said Sweeny.
"Wal, guess we'll probably come acrost one. They's a kind of pigs in these deestricks putty nigh's long 's this boat."
"There ain't," returned Sweeny.
"Call 'em grizzlies when they call 'em at all," pursued the sly Glover.
"They may call 'em what they plaze if they won't call 'em as long as this boat."
Fortune so managed things, by way of carrying out Glover's joke, that a huge grizzly just then snowed himself on the bank, some two hundred yards below the boat.
After easily slaughtering one bear, the travellers had a far more interesting season with another, who was allured to the scene by the smell of jerking meat, and who gave them a very lively half hour of it, it being hard to say which was the most hunted, the bruin or the humans.
"Look a' that now!" groaned Sweeny, when the victory had been secured. "The baste has chawed up me gun barrl loike it was a plug o' tobacky."
"Throw it away," ordered Thurstane, after inspecting the twisted and lacerated musket.
Tenderly and tearfully Sweeny laid aside the first gun that he had ever carried, went again and again to look at its mangled form as if it were a dead relative, and in the end raised a little mausoleum of cobble-stones over it.
"If there was any whiskey, I'd give um a wake," he sighed. "I'm a pratty soldier now, without a gun to me back."
"I'll let ye carry mine when we come to foot it," suggested Glover.
"Yis, an' ye may carry me part av the boat," retorted Sweeny.
The bear meat was tough and musky, but it could be eaten, must be eaten, ind was eaten. During the time required for jerking a quantity of it, Glover made a boat out of the two hides, scraping them with a hunting knife, sewing them with a sailor's needle and strands of the sounding-line, and stretching them on a frame of green saplings, the result being a craft six feet long by nearly four broad, and about the shape of a half walnut-shell. The long hair was left on, as a protection against the rocks of the river, and the seams were filled and plastered with bear's grease.
"It's a mighty bad-smellin' thing," remarked Sweeny. "An who's goin' to back it over the portages?"
"Robinson Crusoe!" exclaimed Glover. "I never thought of that. Wal, let's see. Oh, we kin tow her astarn in plain sailin', 'n' when we come to a cataract we can put Sweeny in an' let her slide."
"No ye can't," said Sweeny. "It's big enough, an' yet it won't howld um, no more'n a tayspoon'll howld a flay."
"Wal, we kin let her slide without a crew, 'n' pick her up arterwards," decided Glover.
We must hasten over the minor events of this remarkable journey. The travellers, towing the bearskin boat behind the Buchanan, passed the mouth of Cañon Bonito, and soon afterward beheld the San Juan swallowed up in the Grand River, a far larger stream which rises in the Rocky Mountains east of Utah. They swept by the horrible country of the Utes and Payoches, without holding intercourse with its squalid and savage inhabitants. Here and there, at the foot of some monstrous precipice, in a profound recess surrounded by a frenzy of rocks, they saw hamlets of a few miserable wigwams, with patches of starveling corn and beans. Sharp wild cries, like the calls of malicious brownies, or the shrieks of condemned spirits, were sent after them, without obtaining response.
"They bees only naygurs," observed Sweeny. "Niver moind their blaggard ways."
After the confluence with the Grand River came solitude. The land had been swept and garnished: swept by the waters and garnished with horrors; a land of cañons, plateaux, and ranges, all arid; a land of desolation and the shadow of death. There was nothing on which man or beast could support life; nature's power of renovation was for the time suspended, and seemed extinct. It was a desert which nothing could restore to fruitfulness except the slow mysterious forces of a geologic revolution.
Beyond the Sierra de Lanterna the Grand River was joined by the Green River, streaming down through gullied plateaux from the deserts of Utah and the mountains which tower between Oregon and Nebraska. Henceforward, still locked in Titanic defiles or flanked by Cyclopean _débris_, they were on the Colorado of the West.
Thurstane meditated as to what course he should follow. Should he strike southward by land for the Bernalillo trail, risking a march through a wide, rocky, lifeless, and perhaps waterless wilderness? Or should he attempt to descend a river even more terrible to navigate than the San Juan? It seemed to him that the hardships and dangers of either plan were about the same.
But the Colorado route would be the swiftest; the Colorado would take him quickest to Clara. For he trusted that she had long before this got back to the Moqui country and resumed her journey across the continent. He could not really fear that any deadly harm would befall her. He had the firmness of a soldier and the faith of a lover.
At last, silently and solemnly, through a portal thousands of feet in height, the voyagers glided into the perilous mystery of the Great Cañon of the Colorado, the most sublime and terrible waterway of this planet.
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Thurstane had strange emotions as he swept into the "caverns measureless to man" of the Great Cañon of the Colorado.
It seemed like a push of destiny rather than a step of volition. An angel or a demon impelled him into the unknown; a supernatural portal had opened to give him passage; then it had closed behind him forever.
The cañon, with all its two hundred and forty miles of marvels and perils, presented itself to his imagination as a unity. The first step within it placed him under an enchantment from which there was no escape until the whole circuit of the spell should be completed. He was like Orlando in the magic garden, when the gate vanished immediately upon his entrance, leaving him no choice but to press on from trial to trial. He was no more free to pause or turn back than Grecian ghosts sailing down Acheron toward the throne of Radamanthus.
Direct statement, and even the higher speech of simile, fail to describe the Great Cañon and the emotion which it produces. Were its fronting precipices organs, with their mountainous columns and pilasters for organ-pipes, they might produce a _de profundis_ worthy of the scene and of its sentiments, its inspiration. This is not bombast; so far from exaggerating it does not even attain to the subject; no words can so much as outline the effects of eighty leagues of mountain sculptured by a great river.
Let us venture one comparison. Imagine a groove a foot broad and twenty feet deep, with a runnel of water trickling at the bottom of it and a fleck of dust floating down the rivulet. Now increase the dimensions until the groove is two hundred and fifty feet in breadth by five thousand feet in depth, and the speck a boat with three voyagers. You have the Great Cañon of the Colorado and Thurstane and his comrades seeking its issue.
"Do you call this a counthry?" asked Sweeny, after an awe-stricken silence. "I'm thinkin' we're gittin' outside av the worrld like."
"An' I'm thinkin' we're gittin' too fur inside on't," muttered Glover. "Look's 's though we might slip clean under afore long. Most low-spirited hole I ever rolled into. 'Minds me 'f that last ditch people talk of dyin' in. Must say I'd rather be in the trough 'f the sea."
"An' what kind av a trough is that?" inquired Sweeny, inquisitive even in his dumps.
"It's the trough where they feed the niggers out to the sharks."
"Faix, an' I'd loike to see it at feedin' time," answered Sweeny with a feeble chuckle.
Nature as it is is one image; nature as it appears is a thousand; or rather it is infinite. Every soul is a mirror, reflecting what faces it; but the reflections differ as do the souls that give them. To the three men who now gazed on the Great Cañon it was far from being the same object.
Sweeny surveyed it as an old Greek or Roman might, with simple distaste and horror. Glover, ignorant and limited as he was, received far more of its inspiration. Even while "chirking up" his companions with trivial talk and jests he was in his secret soul thinking of Bunyan's Dark Valley and Milton's Hell, the two sublimest landscapes that had ever been presented to his imagination. Thurstane, gifted with much of the sympathy of the great Teutonic race for nature, was far more profoundly affected. The overshadowing altitudes and majesties of the chasm moved him as might oratorios or other solemn music. Frequently he forgot hardships, dangers, isolation, the hard luck of the past, the ugly prospects of the future in reveries which were a succession of such emotions as wonder, worship, and love.
No doubt the scenery had the more power over him because, by gazing at it day after day while his heart was full of Clara, he got into a way of animating it with her. Far away as she was, and divided from him perhaps forever, she haunted the cañon, transformed it and gave it grace. He could see her face everywhere; he could see it even without shutting his eyes; it made the arrogant and malignant cliffs seraphic. By the way, the vividness of his memory with regard to that fair, sweet, girlish countenance was wonderful, only that such a memory, the memory of the heart, is common. There was not one of her expressions which was not his property. Each and all, he could call them-up at will, making them pass before him in heavenly procession, surrounding himself with angels. It was the power of the ring which is given to the slaves of love.
He had some vagaries (the vagaries of those who are subjugated by a strong and permanent emotion) which approached insanity. For instance, he selected a gigantic column of sandstone as bearing some resemblance to Clara, and so identified it with her that presently he could see her face crowning it, though concealed by the similitude of a rocky veil. This image took such possession of him that he watched it with fascination, and when a monstrous cliff slid between it and him he felt as if here were a new parting; as if he were once more bidding her a speechless, hopeless farewell.
During the greater part of this voyage he was a very uninteresting companion. He sat quiet and silent; sometimes he slightly moved his lips; he was whispering a name. Glover and Sweeny, who had only known him for a month, and supposed that he had always been what they saw him, considered him an eccentric.
"Naterally not quite himself," judged the skipper. "Some folks is born knocked on the head."
"May be officers is always that a way," was one of Sweeny's suggestions. "It must be mighty dull bein' an officer."
We must not forget the Great Cañon. The voyagers were amid magnitudes and sublimities of nature which oppressed as if they were powers and principalities of supernature. They were borne through an architecture of aqueous and plutonic agencies whose smallest fantasies would be belittled by comparisons with coliseums, labyrinths, cathedrals, pyramids, and stonehenges.
For example, they circled a bend of which the extreme delicate angle was a jutting pilaster five hundred feet broad and a mile high, its head towering in a sharp tiara far above the brow of the plateau, and its sides curved into extravagances of dizzy horror. It seemed as if it might be a pillar of confinement and punishment for some Afreet who had defied Heaven. On either side of this monster fissures a thousand feet deep wrinkled the forehead of the precipice. Armies might have been buried in their abysses; yet they scarcely deformed the line of the summits. They ran back for many miles; they had once been the channels of streams which helped to drain the plateau; yet they were merely superficial cracks in the huge mass of sandstone and limestone; they were scarcely noticeable features of the Titanic landscape. From this bend forward the beauty of the cañon was sublime, horrible, satanic. Constantly varying, its transformations were like those of the chief among demons, in that they were always indescribably magnificent and always indescribably terrible. Now it was a straight, clean chasm between even hedges of cliff which left open only a narrow line of the beauty and mercy of the heavens. Again, where it was entered by minor cañons, it became a breach through crowded pandemoniums of ruined architectures and forsaken, frowning imageries. Then it led between enormous pilasters, columns, and caryatides, mitred with conical peaks which had once been ranges of mountains. Juttings and elevations, which would have been monstrous in other landscapes, were here but minor decorations.
Something like half of the strata with which earth is sheathed has been cut through by the Colorado, beginning at the top of the groove with hundreds of feet of limestone, and closing at the bottom with a thousand feet of granite. Here, too, as in many other wonder-spots of the American desert, nature's sculpture is rivalled by her painting. Bluish-gray limestone, containing corals; mottled limestone, charged with slates, flint, and chalcedony; red, brown, and blue limestone, mixed with red, green, and yellow shales; sandstone of all tints, white, brown, ochry, dark red, speckled and foliated; coarse silicious sandstone, and red quartzose sandstone beautifully veined with purple; layers of conglomerate, of many colored shales, argillaceous iron, and black oxide manganese; massive black and white granite, traversed by streaks of quartz and of red sienite; coarse red felspathic granite, mixed with large plates of silver mica; such is the masonry and such the frescoing.
Through this marvellous museum our three spectators wandered in hourly peril of death. The Afreets of the waters and the Afreets of the rocks, guarding the gateway which they had jointly builded, waged incessant warfare with the intruders. Although the current ran five miles an hour, it was a lucky day when the boat made forty miles. Every evening the travellers must find a beach or shelf where they could haul up for the night. Darkness covered destruction, and light exposed dangers. The bubble-like nature of the boat afforded at once a possibility of easy advance and of instantaneous foundering. Every hour that it floated was a miracle, and so they grimly and patiently understood it.
A few days in the cañon changed the countenances of these men. They looked like veterans of many battles. There was no bravado in their faces. The expression which lived there was a resigned, suffering, stubborn courage. It was the "silent berserker rage" which Carlyle praises. It was the speechless endurance which you see in portraits of the Great Frederick, Wellington, and Grant.
They relieved each other. The bow was guard duty; the steering was light duty; the midships off duty. It must be understood that, the great danger being sunken rocks, one man always crouched in the bow, with a paddle plunged below the surface, feeling for ambushes of the stony bushwhackers. Occasionally all three had to labor, jumping into shallows, lifting the boat over beds of pebbles, perhaps lightening it of arms and provisions, perhaps carrying all ashore to seek a portage.
"It's the best canew 'n' the wust canew I ever see for sech a voyage," observed Glover. "Navigatin' in it puts me in mind 'f angels settin' on a cloud. The cloud can go anywhere; but what if ye should slump through?"
"Och! ye're a heretic, 'n' don't belave angels can fly," put in Sweeny.
"Can't ye talk without takin' out yer paddle?" called Glover. "Mind yer soundings."
Glover was at the helm just then, while Sweeny was at the bow. Thurstane, sitting cross-legged on the light wooden flooring of the boat, was entering topographical observations in his journal. Hearing the skipper's warning, he looked up sharply; but both the call and the glance came too late to prevent a catastrophe. Just in that instant the boat caught against some obstacle, turned slowly around before the push of the current, swung loose with a jerk and floated on, the water bubbling through the flooring. A hole had been torn in the canvas, and the cockle-shell was foundering.
"Sound!" shouted Thurstane to Sweeny; then, turning to Glover, "Haul up the Grizzly!"
The tub-boat of bearskin was dragged alongside, and Thurstane instantly threw the provisions and arms into it.
"Three foot," squealed Sweeny.
"Jump overboard," ordered the lieutenant.
By the time they were on their feet in the water the Buchanan was half full, and the swift current was pulling at it like a giant, while the Grizzly, floating deep, was almost equally unmanageable. The situation had in one minute changed from tranquil voyaging to deadly peril. Sweeny, unable to swim, and staggering in the rapid, made a plunge at the bearskin boat, probably with an idea of getting into it. But Thurstane, all himself from the first, shouted in that brazen voice of military command which is so secure of obedience, "Steady, man! Don't climb in. Cut the lariat close up to the Buchanan, and then hold on to the Grizzly."
Restored to his self-possession, Sweeny laboriously wound the straining lariat around his left arm and sawed it in two with his jagged pocket-knife. Then came a doubtful fight between him and the Colorado for the possession of the heavy and clumsy tub.
Meantime Thurstane and Glover, the former at the bow and the latter at the stern of the Buchanan, were engaged in a similar tussle, just barely holding on and no more.
"We can't stand this," said the officer. "We must empty her."
"Jest so," panted Glover. "You're up stream. Can you raise your eend? We mustn't capsize her; we might lose the flooring."
Thurstane stooped slowly and cautiously until he had got his shoulder under the bow.
"Easy!" called Glover. "Awful easy! Don't break her back. Don't upset _me_."
Gently, deliberately, with the utmost care, Thurstane straightened himself until he had lifted the bow of the boat clear of the current.
"Now I'll hoist," said the skipper. "You turn her slowly--jest the least mite. Don't capsize her."
It was a Herculean struggle. There was still a ponderous weight of water in the boat. The slight frame sagged and the flexible siding bulged. Glover with difficulty kept his feet, and he could only lift the stern very slightly.
"You can't do it," decided Thurstane. "Don't wear yourself out trying it. Hold steady where you are, while I let down."
When the boat was restored to its level it floated higher than before, for some of the water had drained out.
"Now lift slowly," directed Thurstane. "Slow and sure. She'll clear little by little."
A quiet, steady lift, lasting perhaps two or three minutes, brought the floor of the boat to the surface of the current.
"It's wearing," said the lieutenant, cheering his worried fellow-laborer with a smile. "Stand steady for a minute and try to rest. You, Sweeny, move in toward the bank. Hold on to your boat like the devil. If the water deepens, sing out."
Sweeny, gripping his lariat desperately, commenced a staggering march over the cobble-stone bottom, his anxious nose pointed toward a beach of bowlders beneath the southern precipice.
"Now then," said Thurstane to Glover, "we must get her on our heads and follow Sweeny. Are you ready? Up with her!"
A long, reeling hoist set the Buchanan on the heads of the two men, one standing under the bow and one under the stern, their arms extended and their hands clutching the sides. The beach was forty yards away; the current was swift and as opaque as chocolate; they could not see what depths might gape before them; but they must do the distance without falling, or perish.
"Left foot first," shouted the officer. "Forward--march!"
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When the adventurers commenced their tottering march toward the shore of the Colorado, Sweeny, dragging the clumsy bearskin boat, was a few yards in advance of Thurstane and Glover, bearing the canvas boat.
Every one of the three had as much as he could handle. The Grizzly, pulled at by the furious current, bobbed up and down and hither and thither, nearly capsizing Sweeny at every other step. The Buchanan, weighing one hundred and fifty pounds when dry, and now somewhat heavier because of its thorough wetting, made a heavy load for two men who were hip deep in swift water.
"Slow and sure," repeated Thurstane. "It's a five minutes job. Keep your courage and your feet for five minutes. Then we'll live a hundred years."
"Liftinant, is this soldierin'?" squealed Sweeny.
"Yes, my man, this is soldiering."
"Thin I'll do me dooty if I pull me arrms off."
But there was not much talking. Pretty nearly all their breath was needed for the fight with the river. Glover, a slender and narrow-shouldered creature, was particularly distressed; and his only remark during the pilgrimage shoreward was, "I'd like to change hosses."
Sweeny, leading the way, got up to his waist once and yelled, "I'll drown."
Then he backed a little, took a new direction, found shallower water, and tottled onward to victory. The moment he reached the shore he gave a shrill hoot of exultation, went at his bearskin craft with both hands, dragged it clean out of the water, and gave it a couple of furious kicks.
"Take that!" he yelped. "Ye're wickeder nor both yer fathers. But I've bate ye. Oh, ye blathering jerkin', bogglin' baste, ye!"
Then he splashed into the river, joined his hard-pressed comrades, got his head under the centre of the Buchanan, and lifted sturdily. In another minute the precious burden was safe on a large flat rock, and the three men were stretched out panting beside it. Glover was used up; he was trembling from head to foot with fatigue; he had reached shore just in time to fall on it instead of into the river.
"Ye'd make a purty soldier," scoffed Sweeny, a habitual chaffer, like most Irishmen.
"It was the histin' that busted me," gasped the skipper. "I can't handle a ton o' water."
"Godamighty made ye already busted, I'm a thinkin'," retorted Sweeny.
As soon as Glover could rise he examined the Buchanan. There was a ragged rent in the bottom four inches long, and the canvas in other places had been badly rubbed. The voyagers looked at the hole, looked at the horrible chasm which locked them in, and thought with a sudden despair of the great environment of desert.
The situation could hardly be more gloomy. Having voyaged for five days in the Great Cañon, they were entangled in the very centre of the folds of that monstrous anaconda. Their footing was a lap of level not more than thirty yards in length by ten in breadth, strewn with pebbles and bowlders, and showing not one spire of vegetation. Above them rose a precipice, the summit of which they could not see, but which was undoubtedly a mile in height. Had there been armies or cities over their heads, they could not have discovered it by either eye or ear.
At their feet was the Colorado, a broad rush of liquid porphyry, swift and pitiless. By its color and its air of stoical cruelty it put one in mind of the red race of America, from whose desert mountains it came and through whose wildernesses it hurried. On the other side of this grim current rose precipices five thousand feet high, stretching to right and left as far as the eye could pierce. Certainly never before did shipwrecked men gaze upon such imprisoning immensity and inhospitable sterility.
Directly opposite them was horrible magnificence. The face of the fronting rampart was gashed a mile deep by the gorge of a subsidiary cañon. The fissure was not a clean one, with even sides. The strata had been torn, ground, and tattered by the river, which had first raged over them and then through them. It was a Petra of ruins, painted with all stony colors, and sculptured into a million outlines. On one of the boldest abutments of the ravine perched an enchanted castle with towers and spires hundreds of feet in height. Opposite, but further up the gap, rose a rounded mountain-head of solid sandstone and limestone. Still higher and more retired, towering as if to look into the distant cañon of the Colorado, ran the enormous terrace of one of the loftier plateaus, its broad, bald forehead wrinkled with furrows that had once held cataracts. But language has no charm which can master these sublimities and horrors. It stammers; it repeats the same words over and over; it can only _begin_ to tell the monstrous truth.
"Looks like we was in our grave," sighed Glover.
"Liftinant," jerked out Sweeny, "I'm thinkin' we're dead. We ain't livin', Liftinant. We've been buried. We've no business trying to _walk_."
Thurstane had the same sense of profound depression; but he called up his courage and sought to cheer his comrades.
"We must do our best to come to life," he said. "Mr. Glover, can nothing be done with the boat?"
"Can't fix it," replied the skipper, fingering the ragged hole. "Nothin' to patch it with."
"There are the bearskins," suggested Thurstane.
Glover slapped his thigh, got up, danced a double-shuffle, and sat down again to consider his job. After a full minute Sweeny caught the idea also and set up a haw-haw of exultant laughter, which brought back echoes from the other side of the cañon, as if a thousand Paddies were holding revel there.
"Oh! yees may laugh," retorted Sweeny, "but yees can't laugh us out av it."
"I'll sheath the whole bottom with bearskin," said Glover. "Then we can let her grind. It'll be an all day's chore, Capm--perhaps two days."
They passed thirty-six hours in this miserable bivouac. Glover worked during every moment of daylight. No one else could do anything. A green hand might break a needle, and a needle broken was a step toward death. From dawn to dusk he planned, cut, punctured, and sewed with the patience of an old sailor, until he had covered the rent with a patch of bearskin which fitted as if it had grown there. Finally the whole bottom was doubled with hide, the long, coarse fur still on it, and the grain running from stem to stern so as to aid in sliding over the sand and pebbles of the shallows.
While Glover worked the others slept, lounged, cooked, waited. There was no food, by the way, but the hard, leathery, tasteless jerked meat of the grizzly bears, which had begun to pall upon them so they could hardly swallow it. Eating was merely a duty, and a disagreeable one.
When Glover announced that the boat was ready for launching, Sweeny uttered a yelp of joy, like a dog who sees a prospect of hunting.
"Ah, you paddywhack!" growled the skipper. "All this work for you. Punch another hole, 'n' I'll take yer own hide to patch it."
"I'll give ye lave," returned Sweeny. "Wan bare skin 's good as another. Only I might want me own back agin for dress-parade."
Once more on the Colorado. Although the boat floated deeper than before, navigation in it was undoubtedly safer, so that they made bolder ventures and swifter progress. Such portages, however, as they were still obliged to traverse, were very severe, inasmuch as the Buchanan was now much above its original weight. Several times they had to carry one half of their materials for a mile or more, through a labyrinth of rocks, and then trudge back to get the other half.
Meantime their power of endurance was diminishing. The frequent wettings, the shivering nights, the great changes of temperature, the stale and wretched food, the constant anxiety, were sapping their health and strength. On the tenth day of their wanderings in the Great Cañon Glover began to complain of rheumatism.
"These cussed draughts!" he groaned. "It's jest like travellin' in a bellows nozzle."
"Wid the divil himself at the bellys," added Sweeny. "Faix, an' I wish he'd blow us clane out intirely. I'm gittin' tired o' this same, I am. I didn't lisht to sarve undher ground."
"Patience, Sweeny," smiled Thurstane. "We must be nearly through the cañon."
"An' where will we come out, Liftinant? Is it in Ameriky? Bedad, we ought to be close to the Chaynees by this time. Liftinant, what sort o' paple lives up atop of us, annyway?"
"I don't suppose anybody lives up there," replied the officer, raising his eyes to the dizzy precipices above. "This whole region is said to be a desert."
"Be gorry, an' it 'll stay a desert till the ind o' the worrld afore I'll poppylate it. It wasn't made for Sweenys. I haven't seen sile enough in tin days to raise wan pataty. As for livin' on dried grizzly, I'd like betther for the grizzlies to live on me. Liftinant, I niver see sich harrd atin'. It tires the top av me head off to chew it."
About noon of the twelfth day in the Great Cañon this perilous and sublime navigation came to a close. The walls of the chasm suddenly spread out into a considerable opening, which absolutely seemed level ground to the voyagers, although it was encumbered with mounds or buttes of granite and sandstone. This opening was produced by the entrance into the main channel of a subsidiary one, coming from the south. At first they did not observe further particulars, for they were in extreme danger of shipwreck, the river being studded with rocks and running like a mill-race. But on reaching the quieter water below the rapid, they saw that the branch cañon contained a rivulet, and that where the two streams united there was a triangular basin, offering a safe harbor.
"Paddle!" shouted Thurstane, pointing to the creek. "Don't let her go by. This is our place."
A desperate struggle dragged the boat out of the rushing Colorado into the tranquillity of the basin. Everything was landed; the boat itself was hoisted on to the rocks; the voyage was over.
"Think ye know yer way, Capm?" queried Glover, squinting doubtfully up the arid recesses of the smaller cañon.
"Of course I may be mistaken. But even if it is not Diamond Creek, it will take us in our direction. We have made westing enough to have the Cactus Pass very nearly south of us."
As there was still a chance of returning to the river, the boat was taken to pieces, rolled up, and hidden under a pile of stones and driftwood. The small remnant of jerked meat was divided into three portions. Glover, on account of his inferior muscle and his rheumatism, was relieved of his gun, which was given to Sweeny. Canteens were filled, blankets slung, ammunition belts buckled, and the march commenced.
Arrived at a rocky knoll which looked up both waterways, the three men halted to take a last glance at the Great Cañon, the scene of a pilgrimage that had been a poem, though a terrible one. The Colorado here was not more than fifty yards wide, and only a few hundred yards of its course were visible either way, for the confluence was at the apex of a bend. The dark, sullen, hopeless, cruel current rushed out of one mountain-built mystery into another. The walls of the abyss rose straight from the water into dizzy abutments, conical peaks, and rounded masses, beyond and above which gleamed the distant sunlit walls of a higher terrace of the plateau.
"Come along wid ye," said Sweeny to Glover, "It's enough to give ye the rheumatiz in the oyes to luk at the nasty black hole. I'm thinkin' it's the divil's own place, wid the fires out."
The Diamond Creek Cañon, although far inferior to its giant neighbor, was nevertheless a wonderful excavation, striking audaciously into sombre mountain recesses, sublime with precipices, peaks, and grotesque masses. The footing was of the ruggedest, a _débris_ of confused and eroded rocks, the pathway of an extinct river. One thing was beautiful: the creek was a perfect contrast to the turbid Colorado; its waters were as clear and bright as crystal. Sweeny halted over and over to look at it, his mouth open and eyes twinkling like a pleased dog.
"An' there's nothing nagurish about that, now," he chuckled. "A pataty ud laugh to be biled in it."
After slowly ascending for a quarter of a mile, they turned a bend and came upon a scene which seemed to them like a garden. They were in a broad opening, made by the confluence of two cañons. Into this gigantic rocky nest had been dropped an oasis of turf and of thickets of green willows. Through the centre of the verdure the Diamond Creek flowed dimpling over a pebbly bed, or shot in sparkles between barring bowlders, or plunged over shelves in toy cascades. The travellers had seen nothing so hospitable in nature since leaving the country of the Moquis weeks before.
Sweeny screamed like a delighted child. "Oh! an' that's just like ould Oirland. Oh, luk at the turrf! D'ye iver see the loikes o'that, now? The blessed turrf! Here ye be, right in the divil's own garden. Liftinant, if ye'll let me build a fort here, I'll garrison it. I'll stay here me whole term of sarvice."
"Halt," said Thurstane. "We'll eat, refill canteens, and inspect arms. If this is Diamond Cañon, and I think there is no doubt of it, we may expect to find Indians soon."
"I'll fight 'em," declared Sweeny. "An' if they've got anythin' betther nor dried grizzly, I'll have it."
"Wait for orders," cautioned Thurstane. "No firing without orders."
After cleaning their guns and chewing their tough and stale rations, they resumed their march, leaving the rivulet and following the cañon, which led toward the southwest. As they were now regaining the level of the plateau, their advance was a constant and difficult ascent, sometimes struggling through labyrinths of detached rocks, and sometimes climbing steep shelves which had once been the leaping-places of cataracts. The sides of the chasm were two thousand feet high, and it was entered by branch ravines of equal grandeur.
The sun had set for them, although he was still high above the horizon of upper earth, when Thurstane halted and whispered, "Wigwams!"
Perched among the rocks, some under projecting strata and others in shadowy niches between huge buttresses, they discovered at first three or four, then a dozen, and finally twenty wretched cabins. They scarcely saw before they were seen; a hideous old squaw dropped a bundle of fuel and ran off screeching; in a moment the whole den was in an uproar. Startling yells burst from lofty nooks in the mountain flanks, and scarecrow figures dodged from ambush to ambush of the sombre gully. It was as if they had invaded the haunts of the brownies.
The Hualpais, a species of Digger Indians, dwarfish, miserable, and degraded, living mostly on roots, lizards, and the like, were nevertheless conscious of scalps to save. In five minutes from the discovery of the strangers they had formed a straggling line of battle, squatting along a ledge which crossed the cañon. There were not twenty warriors, and they were no doubt wretchedly armed, but their position was formidable.
Sweeny, looking like an angry rat, his nose twitching and eyes sparkling with rage, offered to storm the rampart alone, shouting, "Oh, the nasty, lousy nagurs! Let 'em get out of our way."
"Guess we'd better talk to the cusses," observed Glover. "Tain't the handiest place I ever see for fightin'; an' I don't keer 'bout havin' my ears 'n' nose bored any more at present."
"Stay where you are," said Thurstane. "I'll go forward and parley with them."
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Thurstane had no great difficulty in making a sort of let-me-alone-and-I'll-let-you-alone treaty with the embattled Hualpais.
After some minutes of dumb show they came down from their stronghold and dispersed to their dwellings. They seemed to be utterly without curiosity; the warriors put aside their bows and lay down to sleep; the old squaw hurried off to pick up her bundle of fuel; even the papooses were silent and stupid. It was a race lower than the Hottentots or the Australians. Short, meagre, badly built, excessively ugly, they were nearly naked, and their slight clothing was rags of skins. Thurstane tried to buy food of them, but either they had none to spare or his buttons seemed to them of no value. Nor could he induce any one to accompany him as a guide.
"Do ye think Godamighty made thim paple?" inquired Sweeny.
"Reckon so," replied Glover.
"I don't belave it," said Sweeny. "He'd be in more rispactable bizniss. It's me opinyin the divil made um for a joke on the rest av us. An' it's me opinyin he made this whole counthry for the same rayson."
"The priest'll tell ye God made all men, Sweeny."
"They ain't min at all. Thim crachurs ain't min. They're nagurs, an' a mighty poor kind at that. I hate um. I wish they was all dead. I've kilt some av um, an' I'm goin' to kill slathers more, God willin'. I belave it's part av the bizniss av white min to finish off the nagurs."
Profound and potent sentiment of race antipathy! The contempt and hatred of white men for yellow, red, brown, and black men has worked all over earth, is working yet, and will work for ages. It is a motive of that tremendous tragedy which Spencer has entitled "the survival of the fittest," and Darwin, "natural selection."
The party continued to ascend the cañon. At short intervals branch cañons exhibited arid and precipitous gorges, more and more gloomy with twilight. It was impossible to choose between one and another. The travellers could never see three hundred yards in advance. To right and left they were hemmed in by walls fifteen hundred feet in height. Only one thing was certain: these altitudes were gradually diminishing; and hence they knew that they were mounting the plateau. At last, four hours after leaving Diamond Creek, wearied to the marrow with incessant toil, they halted by a little spring, stretched themselves on a scrap of starveling grass, and chewed their meagre, musty supper.
The scenery here was unearthly. Barring the bit of turf and a few willows which had got lost in the desert, there was not a tint of verdure. To right and left rose two huge and steep slopes of eroded and ragged rocks, tortured into every conceivable form of jag, spire, pinnacle, and imagery. In general the figures were grotesque; it seemed as if the misshapen gods of India and of China and of barbarous lands had gathered there; as if this were a place of banishment and punishment for the fallen idols of all idolatries. Above this coliseum of monstrosities rose a long line of sharp, jagged needles, like a vast _chevaux-de-frise_, forbidding escape. Still higher, lighted even yet by the setting sun, towered five cones of vast proportions. Then came cliffs capped by shatters of tableland, and then the long, even, gleaming ledge of the final plateau.
Locked in this bedlam of crazed strata, unable to see or guess a way out of it, the wanderers fell asleep. There was no setting of guards; they trusted to the desert as a sentinel.
At daylight the blind and wearisome climbing recommenced. Occasionally they found patches of thin turf and clumps of dwarf cedars struggling with the rocky waste. These bits of greenery were not the harbingers of a new empire of vegetation, but the remnants of one whose glory had vanished ages ago, swept away by a vandalism of waters. Gradually the cañon dwindled to a ravine, narrow, sinuous, walled in by stony steeps or slopes, and interlocking continually with other similar chasms. A creek, which followed the chasm, appeared and disappeared at intervals of a mile or so, as if horrified at the face of nature and anxious to hide from it in subterranean recesses.
The travellers stumbled on until the ravine became a gully and the gully a fissure. They stepped out of it; they were on the rolling surface of the tableland; they were half a mile above the Colorado.
Here they halted, gave three cheers, and then looked back upon the northern desert as men look who have escaped an enemy. A gigantic panorama of the country which they had traversed was unrolled to their vision. In the foreground stretched declining tablelands, intersected by numberless ravines, and beyond these a lofty line of bluffs marked the edge of the Great Cañon of the Colorado. Through one wide gap in these heights came a vision of endless plateaux, their terraces towering one above another until they were thousands of feet in the air, the horizontal azure bands extending hundreds of miles northward, until the deep blue faded into a lighter blue, and that into the sapphire of the heavens.
"It looks a darned sight finer than it is," observed Glover.
"Bedad, ye may say that," added Sweeny. "It's a big hippycrit av a counthry. Ye'd think, to luk at it, ye could ate it wid a spoon."
Now came a rolling region, covered with blue grass and dotted with groves of cedars, the earth generally hard and smooth and the marching easy. Striking southward, they reached a point where the plateau culminated in a low ridge, and saw before them a long gentle slope of ten miles, then a system of rounded hills, and then mountains.
"Halt here," said Thurstane. "We must study our topography and fix on our line of march."
"You'll hev to figger it," replied Glover. "I don't know nothin' in this part o' the world."
"Ye ain't called on to know," put in Sweeny. "The liftinant'll tell ye."
"I think," hesitated Thurstane, "that we are about fifty miles north of Cactus Pass, where we want to strike the trail."
"And I'm putty nigh played out," groaned Glover.
"Och! _you_ howld up yer crazy head," exhorted Sweeny. "It'll do ye iver so much good."
"It's easy talkin'," sighed the jaded and rheumatic skipper.
"It's as aisy talkin' right as talkin' wrong," retorted Sweeny. "Ye've no call to grunt the curritch out av yer betthers. Wait till the liftinant says die."
Thurstane was studying the landscape. Which of those ranges was the Cerbat, which the Aztec, and which the Pinaleva? He knew that, after leaving Cactus Pass, the overland trail turns southward and runs toward the mouth of the Gila, crossing the Colorado hundreds of miles away. To the west of the pass, therefore, he must not strike, under peril of starving amid untracked plains and ranges. On the whole, it seemed probable that the snow-capped line of summits directly ahead of him was the Cerbat range, and that he must follow it southward along the base of its eastern slope.
"We will move on," he said. "Mr. Glover, we must reach those broken hills before night in order to find water. Can you do it?"
"Reckon I kin jest about do it, 's the feller said when he walked to his own hangin'," returned the suffering skipper.
The failing man marched so slowly and needed so many halts that they were five hours in reaching the hills. It was now nightfall; they found a bright little spring in a grassy ravine; and after a meagre supper, they tried to stifle their hunger with sleep. Thurstane and Sweeny took turns in watching, for smoke of fires had been seen on the mountains, and, poor as they were, they could not afford to be robbed. In the morning Glover seemed refreshed, and started out with some vigor.
"Och! ye'll go round the worrld," said Sweeny, encouragingly. "Bones can march furder than fat anny day. Yer as tough as me rations. Dried grizzly is nothin' to ye."
After threading hills for hours they came out upon a wide, rolling basin prettily diversified by low spurs of the encircling mountains and bluish green with the long grasses known as _pin_ and _grama_. A few deer and antelopes, bounding across the rockier places, were an aggravation to starving men who could not follow them.
"Why don't we catch some o' thim flyin' crachurs?" demanded Sweeny.
"We hain't got no salt to put on their tails," explained Glover, grinning more with pain than with his joke.
"I'd ate 'em widout salt," said Sweeny. "If the tails was feathers, I'd ate 'em."
"We must camp early, and try our luck at hunting," observed Thurstane.
"I go for campin' airly," groaned the limping and tottering Glover.
"Och! yees ud like to shlape an shnore an' grunt and rowl over an' shnore agin the whole blissid time," snapped Sweeny, always angered by a word of discouragement. "Yees ought to have a dozen o' thim nagurs wid their long poles to make a fither bed for yees an' tuck up the blankets an' spat the pilly. Why didn't ye shlape all ye wanted to whin yees was in the boat?"
"Quietly, Sweeny," remonstrated Thurstane. "Mr. Glover marches with great pain."
"I've no objiction to his marchin' wid great pain or annyway Godamighty lets him, if he won't grunt about it."
"But you must be civil, my man."
"I ax yer pardon, Liftinant. I don't mane no harrum by blatherin'. It's a way we have in th' ould counthry. Mebbe it's no good in th' arrmy."
"Let him yawp, Capm," interposed Glover. "It's a way they hev, as he says. Never see two Paddies together but what they got to fightin' or pokin' fun at each other. Me an' Sweeny won't quarrel. I take his clickatyclack for what it's worth by the cart-load. 'Twon't hurt me. Dunno but what it's good for me."
"Bedad, it's betther for ye nor yer own gruntin'," added the irrepressible Irishman.
By two in the afternoon they had made perhaps fifteen miles, and reached the foot of the mountain which they proposed to skirt. As Glover was now fagged out, Thurstane decided to halt for the night and try deer-stalking. A muddy water-hole, surrounded by thickets of willows, indicated their camping ground. The sick man was _cached_ in the dense foliage; his canteen was filled for him and placed by his side; there could be no other nursing.
"If the nagurs kill ye, I'll revenge ye," was Sweeny's parting encouragement. "I'll git ye back yer scallup, if I have to cut it out of um."
Late in the evening the two hunters returned empty. Sweeny, in spite of his hunger and fatigue, boiled over with stories of the hairbreadth escapes of the "antyloops" that he had fired at. Thurstane also had seen game, but not near enough for a shot.
"I didn't look for such bad luck," said the weary and half-starved young fellow, soberly. "No supper for any of us. We must save our last ration to make to-morrow's march on."
"It's a poor way of atin' two males in wan," remarked Sweeny. "I niver thought I'd come to wish I had me haversack full o' dried bear."
The next day was a terrible one. Already half famished, their only food for the twenty-four hours was about four ounces apiece of bear meat, tough, ill-scented, and innutritious. Glover was so weak with hunger and his ailments that he had to be supported most of the way by his two comrades. His temper, and Sweeny's also, gave out, and they snarled at each other in good earnest, as men are apt to do under protracted hardships. Thurstane stalked on in silence, sustained by his youth and health, and not less by his sense of responsibility. These men were here through his doing; he must support them and save them if possible; if not, he must show them how to die bravely; for it had come to be a problem of life and death. They could not expect to travel two days longer without food. The time was approaching when they would fall down with faintness, not to rise again in this world.
In the morning their only provision was one small bit of meat which Thurstane had saved from his ration of the day before. This he handed to Glover, saying with a firm eye and a cheerful smile, "My dear fellow, here is your breakfast."
The starving invalid looked at it wistfully, and stammered, with a voice full of tears, "I can't eat when the rest of ye don't."
Sweeny, who had stared at the morsel with hungry eyes, now broke out, "I tell ye, ate it. The liftinant wants ye to."
"Divide it fair," answered Glover, who could hardly restrain himself from sobbing.
"I won't touch a bit av it," declared Sweeny. "It's the liftinant's own grub."
"We won't divide it," said Thurstane. "I'll put it in your pocket, Glover. When you can't take another step without it, you must go at it."
"Bedad, if ye don't, we'll lave yees," added Sweeny, digging his fists into his empty stomach to relieve its gnawing.
Very slowly, the well men sustaining the sick one, they marched over rolling hills until about noon, accomplishing perhaps ten miles. They were now on a slope looking southward; above them the wind sighed through a large grove of cedars; a little below was a copious spring of clear, sweet water. There they halted, drinking and filling their canteens, but not eating. The square inch of bear meat was still in Glover's pocket, but he could not be got to taste it unless the others would share.
"Capm, I feel's though Heaven'd strike me if I should eat your victuals," he whispered, his voice having failed him. "I feel a sort o' superstitious 'bout it. I want to die with a clear conscience."
But when they rose his strength gave out entirely, and he dropped down fainting.
"Now ate yer mate," said Sweeny, in a passion of pity and anxiety. "Ate yer mate an' stand up to yer marchin'."
Glover, however, could not eat, for the fever of hunger had at last produced nausea, and he pushed away the unsavory morsel when it was put to his lips.
"Go ahead," he whispered. "No use all dyin'. Go ahead." And then he fainted outright.
"I think the trail can't be more than fifteen miles off," said Thurstane, when he had found that his comrade still breathed. "One of us must push on to it and the other stay with Glover. Sweeny, I can track the country best. You must stay."
For the first time in this long and suffering and perilous journey Sweeny's courage failed him, and he looked as if he would like to shirk his duty.
"My lad, it is necessary," continued the officer. "We can't leave this man so. You have your gun. You can try to hunt. When he comes to, you must get him along, following the course you see me take. If I find help, I'll save you. If not, I'll come back and die with you."
Sitting down by the side of the insensible Glover, Sweeny covered his face with two grimy hands which trembled a little. It was not till his officer had got some thirty feet away that he raised his head and looked after him. Then he called, in his usual quick, sharp, chattering way, "Liftinant, is this soldierin'?"
"Yes, my lad," replied Thurstane with a sad, weary smile, thinking meantime of hardships past, "this is soldiering."
"Thin I'll do me dooty if I rot jest here," declared the simple hero.
Thurstane came back, grasped Sweeny's hand in silence, turned away to hide his shaken face, and commenced his anxious journey.
There were both terrible and beautiful thoughts in his soul as he pushed on into the desert. Would he find the trail? Would he encounter the rare chance of traders or emigrants? Would there be food and rest for him and rescue for his comrades? Would he meet Clara? This last idea gave him great courage; he struggled to keep it constantly in his mind; he needed to lean upon it.
By the time that he had marched ten miles he found that he was weaker than he had supposed. Weeks of wretched food and three days of almost complete starvation had taken the strength pretty much out of his stalwart frame. His breath was short; he stumbled over the slightest obstacles; occasionally he could not see clear. From time to time it struck him that he had been dreaming or else that his mind was beginning to wander. Things that he remembered and things that he hoped for seemed strangely present. He spoke to people who were hundreds of miles away; and, for the most part, he spoke to them pettishly or with downright anger; for in the main he felt more like a wretched, baited animal than a human being.
It was only when he called Clara to mind that this evil spirit was exorcised, and he ceased for a moment to resemble a hungry, jaded wolf. Then he would be for a while all sweetness, because he was for the while perfectly happy. In the next instant, by some hateful and irresistible magic, happiness and sweetness would be gone, and he could not even remember them nor remember _her_.
Meantime he struggled to command himself and pay attention to his route. He must do this, because his starving comrades lay behind him, and he must know how to lead men back to their rescue. Well, here he was; there were hills to the left; there was a mountain to the right; he would stop and fix it all in his memory.
He sat down beside a rock, leaned his back against it to steady his dizzy head, had a sensation of struggling with something invincible, and was gone.
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Leaving Thurstane in the desert, we return to Clara in the desert. It will be remembered that she stood on the roof of the Casa Grande when her lover was swept oarless down the San Juan.
She was watching him; of course she was watching him; at the moment of the catastrophe she saw him; she felt sure also that he was looking at her. The boat began to fly down the current; then the two oarsmen fell to paddling violently; what did it mean? Far from guessing that the towline had snapped, she was not aware that there was one.
On went the boat; presently it whirled around helplessly; it was nearing the rocks of the rapid; there was evidently danger. Running to the edge of the roof, Clara saw a Mexican cattle-driver standing on the wall of the enclosure, and called to him, "What is the matter?"
"The lariats have broken," he replied. "They are drifting."
Clara uttered a little gasp of a shriek, and then did not seem to breathe again for a minute. She saw Thurstane led away in captivity by the savage torrent; she saw him rise up in the boat and wave her a farewell; she could not lift her hand to respond; she could only stand and stare. She had a look, and there was within her a sensation, as if her soul were starting out of her eyes. The whole calamity revealed itself to her at once and without mercy. There was no saving him and no going after him; he was being taken out of her sight; he was disappearing; he was gone. She leaned forward, trying to look around the bend of the river, and was balked by a monstrous, cruel advance of precipices. Then, when she realized that he had vanished, there was a long scream ending in unconsciousness.
When she came to herself everybody was talking of the calamity. Coronado, Aunt Maria, and others overflowed with babblings of regret, astonishment, explanations, and consolation. The lariats had broken. How could it have happened! How dreadful! etc.
"But he will land," cried Clara, looking eagerly from face to face.
"Oh, certainly," said Coronado. "Landings can be made. There are none visible, but doubtless they exist."
"And then he will march back here?" she demanded.
"Not easily. I am afraid, my dear cousin, not very easily. There would be cañons to turn, and long ones. Probably he would strike for the Moqui country."
"Across the desert? No water!"
Coronado shrugged his shoulders as if to say that he could not help it.
"If we go back to-morrow," she began again, "do you think we shall overtake them?"
"I think it very probable," lied Coronado.
"And if we don't overtake them, will they join us at the Moqui pueblos?"
"Yes, yes. I have little doubt of it."
"When do you think we ought to start?"
"To-morrow morning."
"Won't that be too early?"
"Day after to-morrow then."
"Won't that be too late?"
Coronado nearly boiled over with rage. This girl was going to demand impossibilities of him, and impossibilities that he would not perform if he could. He must be here and he must be there; he must be quick enough and not a minute too quick; and all to save his rival from the pit which he had just dug for him. Turning his back on Clara, he paced the roof of the Casa in an excitement which he could not conceal, muttering, "I will do the best I can--the best I can."
Presently the remembrance that he had at least gained one great triumph enabled him to recover his self-possession and his foxy cunning.
"My dear cousin," he said gently, "you must not suppose that I am not greatly afflicted by this accident. I appreciate the high merit of Lieutenant Thurstane, and I grieve sincerely at his misfortune. What can I do? I will do the best I can for all. Trusting to your good sense, I will do whatever you say. But if you want my advice, here it is. We ought for our own sakes to leave here to-morrow; but for his sake we will wait a day. In that time he may rejoin us, or he may regain the Moqui trail. So we will set out, if you have no objection, on the morning of day after to-morrow, and push for the pueblos. When we do start, we must march, as you know, at our best speed."
"Thank you, Coronado," said Clara. "It is the best you can do."
There were not five minutes during that day and the next that the girl did not look across the plain to the gorge of the dry cañon, in the hope that she might see Thurstane approaching. At other times she gazed eagerly down the San Juan, although she knew that he could not stem the current. Her love and her sorrow were ready to believe in miracles. How is it possible, she often thought, that such a brief sweep of water should carry him so utterly away? In spite of her fear of vexing Coronado, she questioned him over and over as to the course of the stream and the nature of its banks, only to find that he knew next to nothing.
"It will be hard for him to return to us," the man finally suggested, with an air of being driven unwillingly to admit it. "He may have to go on a long way down the river."
The truth is that, not knowing whether the lost men could return easily or not, he was anxious to get away from their neighborhood.
Before the second day of this suspense was over, Aunt Maria had begun to make herself obnoxious. She hinted that Thurstane knew what he was about; that the river was his easiest road to his station; that, in short, he had deserted. Clara flamed up indignantly and replied, "I know him better."
"Why, what has he got to do with us?" reasoned Aunt Maria. "He doesn't belong to our party."
"He has his men here. He wouldn't leave his soldiers."
"His men! They can take care of themselves. If they can't, I should like to know what they are good for. I think it highly probable he went off of his own choice."
"I think it highly probable you know nothing about it," snapped Clara. "You are incapable of judging him."
The girl was not just now herself. Her whole soul was concentrated in justifying, loving, and saving Thurstane; and her manner, instead of being serenely and almost lazily gentle, was unpleasantly excited. It was as if some charming alluvial valley should suddenly give forth the steam and lava of a volcano.
Finding no sympathy in Aunt Maria, and having little confidence in the good-will of Coronado, she looked about her for help. There was Sergeant Meyer; he had been Thurstane's right-hand man; moreover, he looked trustworthy. She seized the first opportunity to beckon him up to her eerie on the roof of the Casa.
"Sergeant, I must speak with you privately," she said at once, with the frankness of necessity.
The sergeant, a well-bred soldier, respectful to ladies, and especially to ladies who were the friends of officers, raised his forefinger to his cap and stood at attention.
"How came Lieutenant Thurstane to go down the river?" she asked.
"It was the lariat proke," replied Meyer, in a whispering, flute-like voice which he had when addressing his superiors.
"Did it break, or was it cut?"
The sergeant raised his small, narrow, and rather piggish gray eyes to hers with a momentary expression of anxiety.
"I must pe gareful what I zay," he answered, sinking his voice still lower. "We must poth pe gareful. I examined the lariat. I fear it was sawed. But we must not zay this."
"Who sawed it?" demanded Clara with a gasp.
"It was no one in the poat," replied Meyer diplomatically.
"Was it that man--that hunter--Smith?"
Another furtive glance between the sandy eyelashes expressed an uneasy astonishment; the sergeant evidently had a secret on his mind which he must not run any risk of disclosing.
"I do not zee how it was Schmidt" he fluted almost inaudibly. "He was watching the peasts at their basture."
"Then who did saw it?"
"I do not know. I do not feel sure that it was sawed."
Perceiving that, either from ignorance or caution, he would not say more on this point, Clara changed the subject and asked, "Can Lieutenant Thurstane go down the river safely?"
"I would like noting petter than to make the exbedition myself," replied Meyer, once more diplomatic.
Now came a silence, the soldier waiting respectfully, the girl not knowing how much she might dare to say. Not that she doubted Meyer; on the contrary, she had a perfect confidence in him; how could she fail to trust one who had been trusted by Thurstane?
"Sergeant," she at last whispered, "we must find him."
"Yes, miss," touching his cap as if he were taking an oath by it.
"And you," she hesitated, "must protect _me_."
"Yes, miss," and the sergeant repeated his gesture of solemn affirmation.
"Perhaps I will say more some time."
He saluted again, and seeing that she had nothing to add, retired quietly.
For two nights there was little sleep for Clara. She passed them in pondering Thurstane's chances, or in listening for his returning footsteps. Yet when the train set out for the Moqui pueblos, she seemed as vigorous and more vivacious than usual. What supported her now and for days afterward was what is called the strength of fever.
The return across the desert was even more terrible than the advance, for the two scant water-holes had been nearly exhausted by the Apaches, so that both beasts and human beings suffered horribly with thirst. There was just this one good thing about the parched and famished wilderness, that it relieved the emigrants from all fear of ambushing enemies. Supernatural beings alone could have, bushwhacked here. The Apaches had gone.
Meanwhile Sergeant Meyer had a sore conscience. From the moment the boat went down the San Juan he had more or less lain awake with the idea that, according to the spirit of his instructions from Thurstane, he ought to have Texas Smith tied up and shot. Orders were orders; there was no question about that, as a general principle; the sergeant had never heard the statement disputed. But when he came to consider the case now before him, he was out-generalled by a doubt. This, drifting of a boat down a strange river, was it murder in the sense intended by Thurstane? And, supposing it to be murder, could it be charged in any way upon Smith? In the whole course of his military experience Sergeant Meyer had never been more perplexed. On the evening of the first day's march he could bear his sense of responsibility no longer, and decided to call a council of war. Beckoning his sole remaining comrade aside from the bivouac, he entered upon business.
"Kelly, we are unter insdructions," he began in his flute-like tone.
"I know it, sergeant," replied Kelly, decorously squirting his tobacco-juice out of the corner of his mouth furthest from his superior.
"The question is, Kelly, whether Schmidt should pe shot."
"The responsibility lies upon you, sergeant. I will shoot him if so be such is orders."
"Kelly, the insdructions were to shoot him if murder should habben in this barty. The instructions were loose."
"They were so, sergeant--not defining murder."
"The question is, Kelly, whether what has habbened to the leftenant is murder. If it is murder, then Schmidt must go."
The two men were sitting on a bowlder side by side, their hands on their knees and their muskets leaning against their shoulders. They did not look at each other at all, but kept their grave eyes on the ground. Kelly squirted his tobacco-juice sidelong two or three times before he replied.
"Sergeant," he finally said, "my opinion is we can't set this down for murder until we know somebody is dead."
"Shust so, Kelly. That is my obinion myself."
"Consequently it follows, sergeant, if you don't see to the contrary, that until we know that to be a fact, it would be uncalled for to shoot Smith."
"What you zay, Kelly, is shust what I zay."
"Furthermore, however, sergeant, it might be right and is the way of duty, to call up Smith and make him testify as to what he knows of this business, whether it be murder, or meant for murder."
"Cock your beece, Kelly."
Both men cocked their pieces.
"Now I will gall Schmidt out and question him," continued Meyer, "You will stand on one side and pe ready to opey my orders."
"Very good, sergeant," said Kelly, and dropped back a little into the nearly complete darkness.
Meyer sang out sharply, "Schmidt! Texas Schmidt!"
The desperado heard the summons, hesitated a moment, cocked the revolver in his belt, loosened his knife in its sheath, rose from his blanket, and walked slowly in the direction of the voice. Passing Kelly without seeing him, he confronted Meyer, his hand on his pistol. There was not the slightest tremor in the hoarse, low croak with which he asked, "What's the game, sergeant?"
"Schmidt, stand berfectly still," said Meyer in his softest fluting. "Kelly has his beece aimed at your head. If you stir hant or foot, you are a kawn koose."
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Texas Smith was too old a borderer to attempt to draw his weapons while such a man as Kelly was sighting him at ten feet distance.
"Play yer hand, sergeant," he said; "you've got the keerds."
"You know, Schmidt, that our leftenant has been garried down the river," continued Meyer.
The bushwhacker responded with a grunt which expressed neither pleasure nor sorrow, but merely assent.
"You know," went on the sergeant, "that such things cannot habben to officers without investigations."
"He war a squar man, an' a white man," said Texas. "I didn't have nothin' to do with cuttin' him loose, if he war cut loose."
"You didn't saw the lariat yourself, Schmidt, I know that. But do you know who did saw it?"
"I dunno the first thing about it."
"Bray to pe struck tead if you do."
"I dunno how to pray."
"Then holt up your hants and gurse yourself to hell if you do."
Lifting his hands over his head, the ignorant savage blasphemed copiously.
"Do you think you can guess how it was pusted?" persisted the soldier.
"Look a hyer!" remonstrated Smith, "ain't you pannin' me out a leetle too fine? It mought 'a' been this way, an' it mought 'a' been that. But I've no business to point if I can't find. When a man's got to the bottom of his pile, you can't fo'ce him to borrow. 'Sposin' I set you barkin' up the wrong tree; what good's that gwine to do?"
"Vell, Schmidt, I don't zay but what you zay right. You mustn't zay anyting you don't know someting apout."
After another silence, during which Texas continued to hold his hands above his head, Meyer added, "Kelly, you may come to an order. Schmidt, you may put down your hants. Will you haf a jew of topacco?"
The three men now approached each other, took alternate bites of the sergeant's last plug of pigtail, and masticated amicably.
"You army fellers run me pootty close," said Texas, after a while, in a tone of complaint and humiliation. "I don't want to fight brass buttons. They're too many for me. The Capm he lassoed me, an' choked me some; an' now you're on it."
"When things habben to officers, they must pe looked into," replied Meyer.
"I dunno how in thunder the lariat got busted," repeated Texas. "An' if I should go for to guess, I mought guess wrong."
"All right, Schmidt; I pelieve you. If there is no more drubble, you will not pe called up again."
"Ask him what he thinks of the leftenant's chances," suggested Kelly to his superior.
"Reckon he'll hev to run the river a spell," returned the borderer. "Reckon he'll hev to run it a hell of a ways befo' he'll be able to git across the dam country."
"Ask him what the chances be of running the river safely," added Kelly.
"Dam slim," answered Texas; and there the talk ended. There was some meditative chewing, after which the three returned to the bivouac, and either lay down to sleep or took their tours at guard duty.
At dawn the party recommenced its flight toward the Moqui country. There were sixty hours more of hard riding, insufficient sleep, short rations, thirst, and anxiety. Once the suffering animals stampeded after water, and ran for several miles over plateaux of rock, dashing off burdens and riders, and only halting when they were plunged knee-deep in the water-hole which they had scented. One of the wounded rancheros expired on the mule to which he was strapped, and was carried dead for several hours, his ashy-brown face swinging to and fro, until Coronado had him thrown into a crevice.
Amid these hardships and horrors Clara showed no sign of flagging or flinching. She was very thin; bad food, excessive fatigue, and anxiety had reduced her; her face was pinched, narrowed, and somewhat lined; her expression was painfully set and eager. But she never asked for repose, and never complained. Her mind was solely fixed upon finding Thurstane, and her feverish bright eyes continually searched the horizon for him. She seemed to have lost her power of sympathizing with any other creature. To Mrs. Stanley's groanings and murmurings she vouchsafed rare and brief condolences. The dead muleteer and the tortured, bellowing animals attracted little of her notice. She was not hard-hearted; she was simply almost insane. In this state of abnormal exaltation she continued until the party reached the quiet and safety of the Moqui pueblos.
Then there was a change; exhausted nature required either apathy or death; and for two days she lay in a sort of stupor, sleeping a great deal, and crying often when awake. The only person capable of rousing her was Sergeant Meyer, who made expeditions to the other pueblos for news of Thurstane, and brought her news of his hopes and his failures.
After a three days' rest Coronado decided to resume his journey by moving southward toward the Bernalillo trail. Freed from Thurstane, he no longer contemplated losing Clara in the desert, but meant to marry her, and trusted that he could do it. Two of his wagons he presented to the Moquis, who were, of course, delighted with the acquisition, although they had no more use for wheeled vehicles than for gunboats. With only four wagons, his animals were more than sufficient, and the train made tolerably rapid progress, in spite of the roughness of the country.
The land was still a wonder. The water wizards of old had done their grotesque utmost here. What with sculpturing and frescoing, they had made that most fantastic wilderness the Painted Desert. It looked like a mirage. The travellers had an impression that here was some atmospheric illusion. It seemed as if it could not last five minutes if the sun should shine upon it. There were crowding hills so variegated and gay as to put one in mind of masses of soap-bubbles. But the coloring was laid on fifteen hundred feet deep. It consisted of sandstone marls, red, blue, green, orange, purple, white, brown, lilac, and yellow, interstratified with magnesian limestone in bands of purple, bluish-white, and mottled, with here and there shining flecks or great glares of gypsum.
Among the more delicate wonders of the scene were the petrified trunks which had once been pines and cedars, but which were now flint or jasper. The washings of geologic aeons have exposed to view immense quantities of these enchanted forests. Fragments of silicified trees are not only strewn over the lowlands, but are piled by the hundred cords at the bases of slopes, seeming like so much drift-wood from wonder-lands far up the stream of time. Generally they are in short bits, broken square across the grain, as if sawed. Some are jasper, and look like masses of red sealing-wax; others are agate, or opalescent chalcedony, beautifully lined and variegated; many retain the graining, layers, knots, and other details of their woody structure.
In places where the marls had been washed away gently, the emigrants found trunks complete, from root to summit, fifty feet in length and three in diameter. All the branches, however, were gone; the tree had been uprooted, transported, whirled and worn by deluges; then to commemorate the victory of the water sprites, it had been changed into stone. The sight of these remnants of antediluvian woodlands made history seem the reminiscence of a child. They were already petrifactions when the human race was born.
The Painted Desert has other marvels. Throughout vast stretches you pass between tinted _mesas_, or tables, which face each other across flat valleys like painted palaces across the streets of Genova la Superba. They are giant splendors, hundreds of feet in height, built of blood-red sandstone capped with variegated marls. The torrents, which scooped out the intersecting levels, amused their monstrous leisure with carving the points and abutments of the _mesa_ into fantastic forms, so that the traveller sees towers, minarets, and spires loftier than the pinnacles of cathedrals.
The emigrants were often deceived by these freaks of nature. Beheld from a distance, it seemed impossible that they should not be ruins, the monuments of some Cyclopean race. Aunt Maria, in particular, discovered casas grandes and casas de Montezuma very frequently.
"There is another casa," she would say, staring through her spectacles (broken) at a butte three hundred feet high. "What a people it must have been which raised such edifices!"
And she would stick to it, too, until she was close up to the solid rock, and then would renew the transforming miracle five or ten miles further on.
During this long and marvellous journey Coronado renewed his courtship. He was cautious, however; he made a confidant of his friend Aunt Maria; begged her favorable intercession.
"Clara," said Mrs. Stanley, as the two women jolted along in one of the lumbering wagons, "there is one thing in your life which perhaps you don't suspect."
The girl, who wanted to hear about Thurstane all the time, and expected to hear about him, asked eagerly, "What is it?"
"You have made Mr. Coronado fall in love with you," said Aunt Maria, thinking it wise to be clear and straightforward, as men are reputed to be.
The young lady, instantly revolting from the subject, made no reply.
"I think, Clara, that if you take a husband--and most women do--he would be just the person for you."
Clara, once the gentlest of the gentle, was perfectly angelic no longer. She gave her relative a stare which was partly intense misery, but which had much the look of pure anger, as indeed it was in a measure.
The expressions of violent emotion are alarming to most people. Aunt Maria, beholding this tortured soul glaring at her out of its prison windows, recoiled in surprise and awe. There was not another word spoken at the time concerning the obnoxious match-making. A single stare of Marius had put to flight the executioner.
In one way and another Clara continued to baffle her suitor and her advocate. The days dragged on; the expedition steadily traversed the desert; the Santa Anna region was crossed, and the Bernalillo trail reached; one hundred, two hundred, three hundred miles and more were left behind; and still Coronado, though without a rival, was not accepted.
Then came an adventure which partly helped and partly hindered his plans. The train was overtaken by a detachment of the Fifth United States Cavalry, commanded by Major John Robinson, pushing for California. Of course Sergeant Meyer reported himself and Kelly to the Major, and of course the Major ordered them to join his party as far as Fort Yuma. This deprived Clara of her trusted protectors; but on the other hand, she threatened to take advantage of the escort of Robinson for the rest of her journey; and the mere mention of this at once brought Coronado on his soul's marrow-bones. He swore by the heaven above, by all the saints and angels, by the throne of the Virgin Mary, by every sacred object he could think of, that not another word of love should pass his lips during the journey, that he would live the life of a dead man, etc. Overcome by his pleadings, and by the remonstrances of Aunt Maria, who did not want to have her favorite driven to commit suicide, Clara agreed to continue with the train.
After this scene followed days of hot travelling over hard, gravelly plains, thinly coated with grass and dotted with cacti, mezquit trees, the leafless palo verde, and the greasewood bush. Here and there towered that giant cactus, the saguarra, a fluted shaft, thirty, forty, and even sixty feet high, with a coronet of richly-colored flowers, the whole fabric as splendid as a Corinthian column. Prickly pears, each one large enough to make a thicket, abounded. Through the scorching sunshine ran scorpions and lizards, pursued by enormous rattlesnakes. During the days the heat ranged from 100 to 115 deg. in the shade, while the nights were swept by winds as parching as the breath of an oven. The distant mountains glared at the eye like metals brought to a white heat. Not seldom they passed horses, mules, cattle, and sheep, which had perished in this terrible transit and been turned to mummies by the dry air and baking sun. Some of these carcasses, having been set on their legs by passing travellers, stood upright, staring with blind eyeballs, grinning through dried lips, mockeries of life, statues of death.
In spite of these hardships and horrors, Clara kept up her courage and was almost cheerful; for in the first place Coronado had ceased his terrifying attentions, and in the second place they were nearing Cactus Pass, where she hoped to meet Thurstane. When love has not a foot of certainty to stand upon, it can take wing and soar through the incredible. The idea that they two, divided hundreds of miles back, should come together at a given point by pure accident, was obviously absurd. Yet Clara could trust to the chance and live for it.
The scenery changed to mountains. There were barren, sublime, awful peaks to the right and left. To the girl's eyes they were beautiful, for she trusted that Thurstane beheld them. She was always on horseback now, scanning every feature of the landscape, searching of course for him. She did not pass a cactus, or a thicket of mezquit, or a bowlder without anxious examination. She imagined herself finding him helpless with hunger, or passing him unseen and leaving him to die. She was so pale and thin with constant anxiety that you might have thought her half starved, or recovering from some acute malady.
About five one afternoon, as the train was approaching its halting-place at a spring on the western side of the pass, Clara's feverish mind fixed on a group of rocks half a mile from the trail as the spot where she would find Thurstane. In obedience to similar impressions she had already made many expeditions of this nature. Constant failure, and a consciousness that all this searching was folly, could not shake her wild hopes. She set off at a canter alone; but after going some four hundred yards she heard a gallop behind her, and, looking over her shoulder, she saw Coronado. She did not want to be away from the train with him; but she must at all hazards reach that group of rocks; something within impelled her. Better mounted than she, he was soon by her side, and after a while struck out in advance, saying, "I will look out for an ambush."
When Coronado reached the rocks he was fifty yards ahead of Clara. He made the circuit of them at a slow canter; in so doing he discovered the starving and fainted Thurstane lying in the high grass beneath a low shelf of stone; he saw him, he recognized him, and in an instant he trembled from head to foot. But such was his power of self-control that he did not check his horse, nor cast a second look to see whether the man was alive or dead. He turned the last stone in the group, met Clara with a forced smile, and said gently, "There is nothing."
She reined up, drew a long sigh, thought that here was another foolish hope crushed, and turned her horse's head toward the train.
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The tread of Coronado's horse passing within fifteen feet of Thurstane roused him from the troubled sleep into which he had sunk after his long fainting fit.
Slowly he opened his eyes, to see nothing but long grasses close to his face, and through them a haze of mountains and sky. His first moments of wakening were so far from being a full consciousness that he did not comprehend where he was. He felt very, very weak, and he continued to lie still.
But presently he became aware of sounds; there was a trampling, and then there were words; the voices of life summoned him to live. Instantly he remembered two things: the starving comrades whom it was his duty to save, and the loved girl whom he longed to find. Slowly and with effort, grasping at the rock to aid his trembling knees, he rose to his feet just as Clara turned her horse's head toward the plain.
Coronado threw a last anxious glance in the direction of the wretch whom he meant to abandon to the desert. To his horror he saw a lean, smirched, ghostly face looking at him in a dazed way, as if out of the blinding shades of death. The quickness of this villain was so wonderful that one is almost tempted to call it praiseworthy. He perceived at once that Thurstane would be discovered, and that he, Coronado, must make the discovery, or he might be charged with attempting to leave him to die.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed loudly, "there he is!"
Clara turned: there was a scream of joy: she was on the ground, running: she was in Thurstane's arms. During that unearthly moment there was no thought in those two of Coronado, or of any being but each other. It is impossible fully to describe such a meeting; its exterior signs are beyond language; its emotion is a lifetime. If words are feeble in presence of the heights and depths of the Colorado, they are impotent in presence of the altitudes and abysses of great passion. Human speech has never yet completely expressed human intellect, and it certainly never will completely express human sentiments. These lovers, who had been wandering in chasms impenetrable to hope, were all of a sudden on mountain summits dizzy with joy. What could they say for themselves, or what can another say for them?
Clara only uttered inarticulate murmurs, while her hands crawled up Thurstane's arms, pressing and clutching him to make sure that he was alive. There was an indescribable pathos in this eagerness which could not trust to sight, but must touch also, as if she were blind. Thurstane held her firmly, kissing hair, forehead, and temples, and whispering, "Clara! Clara!" Her face, which had turned white at the first glimpse of him, was now roseate all over and damp with a sweet dew. It became smirched with the dust of his face; but she would only have rejoiced, had she known it; his very squalor was precious to her.
At last she fell back from him, held him at arm's length with ease, and stared at him. "Oh, how sick!" she gasped. "How thin! You are starving."
She ran to her horse, drew from her saddle-bags some remnants of food, and brought them to him. He had sunk down faint upon a stone, and he was too weak to speak aloud; but he gave her a smile of encouragement which was at once pathetic and sublime. It said, "I can bear all alone; you must not suffer for me." But it said this out of such visible exhaustion, that, instead of being comforted, she was terrified.
"Oh, you must not die," she whispered with quivering mouth. "If you die, I will die."
Then she checked her emotion and added, "There! Don't mind me. I am silly. Eat."
Meanwhile Coronado looked on with such a face as Iago might have worn had he felt the jealousy of Othello. For the first time he positively knew that the woman he loved was violently in love with another. He suffered so horribly that we should be bound to pity him, only that he suffered after the fashion of devils, his malignity equalling his agony. While he was in such pain that his heart ceased beating, his fingers curled like snakes around the handle of his revolver. Nothing kept him from shooting that man, yes, and that woman also, but the certainty that the deed would make him a fugitive for life, subject everywhere to the summons of the hangman.
Once, almost overcome by the temptation, he looked around for the train. It was within hearing; he thought he saw Mrs. Stanley watching him; two of his Mexicans were approaching at full speed. He dismounted, sat down upon a stone, partially covered his face with his hand, and tried to bring himself to look at the two lovers. At last, when he perceived that Thurstane was eating and Clara merely kneeling by, he walked tremulously toward them, scarcely conscious of his feet.
"Welcome to life, lieutenant," he said. "I did not wish to interrupt. Now I congratulate."
Thurstane looked at him steadily, seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then put out his hand.
"It was I who discovered you," went on Coronado, as he took the lean, grimy fingers in his buckskin gauntlet.
"I know it," mumbled the young fellow; then with a visible effort he added, "Thanks."
Presently the two Mexicans pulled up with loud exclamations of joy and wonder. One of them took out of his haversack a quantity of provisions and a flask of aguardiente; and Coronado handed them to Thurstane with a smile, hoping that he would surfeit himself and die.
"No," said Clara, seizing the food. "You have eaten enough. You may drink."
"Where are the others?" she presently asked.
"In the hills," he answered. "Starving. I must go and find them."
"No, no!" she cried. "You must go to the train. Some one else will look for them."
One of the rancheros now dismounted and helped Thurstane into his saddle. Then, the Mexican steadying him on one side and Clara riding near him on the other, he was conducted to the train, which was at that moment going into park near a thicket of willows.
In an amazingly short time he was very like himself. Healthy and plucky, he had scarcely swallowed his food and brandy before he began to draw strength from them; and he had scarcely begun to breathe freely before he began to talk of his duties.
"I must go back," he insisted. "Glover and Sweeny are starving. I must look them up."
"Certainly," answered Coronado.
"No!" protested Clara. "You are not strong enough."
"Of course not," chimed in Aunt Maria with real feeling, for she was shocked by the youth's haggard and ghastly face.
"Who else can find them?" he argued. "I shall want two spare animals. Glover can't march, and I doubt whether Sweeny can."
"You shall have all you need," declared Coronado.
"He mustn't go," cried Clara. Then, seeing in his face that he _would_ go, she added, "I will go with him."
"No, no," answered several voices. "You would only be in the way."
"Give me my horse," continued Thurstane. "Where are Meyer and Kelly?"
He was told how they had gone on to Fort Yuma with Major Robinson, taking his horse, the government mules, stores, etc.
"Ah! unfortunate," he said. "However, that was right. Well, give me a mule for myself, two mounted muleteers, and two spare animals; some provisions also, and a flask of brandy. Let me start as soon as the men and beasts have eaten. It is forty miles there and back."
"But you can't find your way in the night," persisted Clara.
"There is a moon," answered Thurstane, looking at her gratefully; while Coronado added encouragingly, "Twenty miles are easily done."
"Oh yes!" hoped Clara. "You can almost get there before dark. Do start at once."
But Coronado did not mean that Thurstane should set out immediately. He dropped various obstacles in the way: for instance, the animals and men must be thoroughly refreshed; in short, it was dusk before all was ready.
Meantime Clara had found an opportunity of whispering to Thurstane. " _Must_ you?" And he had answered, looking at her as the Huguenot looks at his wife in Millais's picture, "My dear love, you know that I must."
"You _will_ be careful of yourself?" she begged. "For your sake."
"But remember that man," she whispered, looking about for Texas Smith.
"He is not going. Come, my own darling, don't frighten yourself. Think of my poor comrades."
"I will pray for them and for you all the time you are gone. But oh, Ralph, there is one thing. I must tell you. I am so afraid. I did wrong to let Coronado see how much I care for you. I am afraid--" He seemed to understand her. "It isn't possible," he murmured. Then, after eyeing her gravely for a moment, he asked, "I may be always sure of you? Oh yes! I knew it. But Coronado? Well, it isn't possible that he would try to commit a treble murder. Nobody abandons starving men in a desert. Well, I must go. I must save these men. After that we will think of these other things. Good-by, my darling."
The sultry glow of sunset had died out of the west, and the radiance of a full moon was climbing up the heavens in the east when Thurstane set off on his pilgrimage of mercy. Clara watched him as long as the twilight would let her see him, and then sat down with drooped face, like a flower which has lost the sun. If any one spoke to her, she answered tardily and not always to the purpose. She was fulfilling her promise; she was praying for Thurstane and the men whom he had gone to save; that is, she was praying when her mind did not wander into reveries of terror. After a time she started up with the thought, "Where is Texas Smith?" He was not visible, and neither was Coronado. Suspicious of some evil intrigue, she set out in search of them, made the circuit of the fires, and then wandered into the willow thickets. Amid the underwood, hastening toward the wagons, she met Coronado.
"Ah!" he started. "Is that you, my little cousin? You are as terrible in the dark as an Apache."
"Coronado, where is your hunter?" she asked with a beating heart.
"I don't know. I have been looking for him. My dear cousin, what do you want?"
"Coronado, I will tell you the truth. That man is a murderer. I know it."
Coronado just took the time to draw one long breath, and then replied with sublime effrontery, "I fear so. I learn that he has told horrible stories about himself. Well, to tell the truth, I have discharged him."
"Oh, Coronado!" gasped Clara, not knowing whether to believe him or not.
"Shall I confess to you," he continued, "that I suspect him of having weakened that towline so as to send our friend down the San Juan?"
"He never went near the boat," heroically answered Clara, at the same time wishing she could see Coronado's face.
"Of course not. He probably hired some one. I fear our rancheros are none too good to be bribed. I will confess to you, my cousin, that ever since that day I have been watching Smith."
"Oh, Coronado!" repeated Clara. She was beginning to believe this prodigious liar, and to be all the more alarmed because she did believe him. "So you have sent him away? I am so glad. Oh, Coronado, I thank you. But help me look for him now. I want to know if he is in camp."
It is almost impossible to do Coronado justice. While he was pretending to aid Clara in searching for Texas Smith, he knew that the man had gone out to murder Thurstane. We must remember that the man was almost as wretched as he was wicked; if punishment makes amends for crime, his was in part absolved. As he walked about with the girl he thought over and over, Will it kill her? He tried to answer, No. Another voice persisted in saying, Yes. In his desperation he at last replied, Let it!
We must follow Texas Smith. He had not started on his errand until he had received five hundred dollars in gold, and five hundred in a draft on San Francisco. Then he had himself proposed, "I mought quit the train, an' take my own resk acrost the plains." This being agreed to, he had mounted his horse, slipped away through the willows, and ridden into the desert after Thurstane.
He knew the trail; he had been from Cactus Pass to Diamond River and back again; he knew it at least as well as the man whose life he was tracking. He thought he remembered the spring where Glover had broken down, and felt pretty sure that it could not be less than twenty miles from the camp. Mounted as he was, he could put himself ahead of Thurstane and ambush him in some ravine. Of a sudden he laughed. It was not a burst of merriment, but a grim wrinkling of his dark, haggard cheeks, followed by a hissing chuckle. Texas seldom laughed, and with good reason, for it was enough to scare people.
"Mought be done," he muttered. "Mought git the better of 'em all that way. Shute, 'an then yell. The greasers'ud think it was Injuns, an' they'd travel for camp. Then I'd stop the spare mules an' start for Californy."
For Texas this plan was a stroke of inspiration. He was not an intelligent scoundrel. All his acumen, though bent to the one point of roguery, had barely sufficed hitherto to commit murders and escape hanging. He had never prospered financially, because he lacked financial ability. He was a beast, with all a tiger's ferocity, but with hardly more than a tiger's intelligence. He was a savage numskull. An Apache Tonto would have been more than his match in the arts of murder, and very nearly his match in the arts of civilization.
Instead of following Thurstane directly, he made a circuit of several miles through a ravine, galloped across a wide grassy plain, and pulled up among some rounded hillocks. Here, as he calculated, he was fifteen miles from camp, and five from the spot where lay Glover and Sweeny. The moon had already gone down and left the desert to the starlight. Posting himself behind a thicket, he waited for half an hour or more, listening with indefatigable attention.
He had no scruples, but he had some fears. If he should miss, the lieutenant would fire back, and he was cool enough to fire with effect. Well, he wouldn't miss; what should he miss for? As for the greasers, they would run at the first shot. Nevertheless, he did occasionally muddle over the idea of going off to California with his gold, and without doing this particular job. What kept him to his agreement was the hope of stealing the spare mules, and the fear that the draft might not be paid if he shirked his work.
"I s'pose I must show his skelp," thought Texas, "or they won't hand over the dust."
At last there was a sound; he had set his ambush just right; there were voices in the distance; then hoofs in the grass. Next he saw something; it was a man on a mule; yes, and it was the right man.
He raised his cocked rifle and aimed, sighting the head, three rods away. Suddenly his horse whinnied, and then the mule of the other reared; but the bullet had already sped. Down went Thurstane in the darkness, while, with an Apache yell, Texas Smith burst from his ambush and charged upon the greasers.
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The chase after the spare mules carried Texas Smith several miles from the scene of the ambush, so that when he at last caught the frightened beasts, he decided not to go back and cut Thurstane's throat, but to set off at once westward and put himself by morning well on the road to California.
Meanwhile, the two muleteers continued their flight at full gallop, and eventually plunged into camp with a breathless story to the effect that Apaches had attacked them, captured the spare mules, and killed the lieutenant. Coronado, no more able to sleep than Satan, was the first to hear their tale.
"Apaches!" he said, surprised and incredulous. Then, guessing at what had happened, he immediately added, "Those devils again! We must push on, the moment we can see."
Apaches! It was a capital idea. He had an excuse now for hurrying away from a spot which he had stained with murder. If any one demanded that Thurstane's body should be sought for, or that those incumbrances Glover and Sweeny should be rescued, he could respond, Apaches! Apaches! He gave orders to commence preparations for moving at the first dawn.
He expected and feared that Clara would oppose the advance in some trying way. But one of the fugitives relieved him by blurting out the death of Thurstane, and sending her into spasms of alternate hysterics and fainting which lasted for hours. Lying in a wagon, her head in the lap of Mrs. Stanley, a sick, very sick, dangerously sick girl, she was jolted along as easily as a corpse.
Coronado rode almost constantly beside her wagon, inquiring about her every few minutes, his face changing with contradictory emotions, wishing she would die and hoping she would live, loving and hating her in the same breath. Whenever she came to herself and recognized him, she put out her hands and implored, "Oh, Coronado, take me back there!"
"Apaches!" growled Coronado, and spurred away repeating his lie to himself, "Apaches! Apaches!"
Then he checked his horse and rode anew to her side, hoping that he might be able to reason with her.
"Oh, take me back!" was all the response he could obtain. "Take me back and let me die there."
"Would you have us all die?" he shouted--"like Pepita!"
"Don't scold her," begged Aunt Maria, who was sobbing like a child. "She doesn't know what she is asking."
But Clara knew too much; at the word _Pepita_ she guessed the torture scene; and then it came into her mind that Thurstane might be even now at the stake. She immediately broke into screams, which ended in convulsions and a long fit of insensibility.
"It is killing her," wailed Aunt Maria. "Oh, my child! my child!"
Coronado spurred at full speed for a mile, muttering to the desert, "Let it kill her! let it!"
At last he halted for the train to overtake him, glanced anxiously at Clara's wagon, saw that Mrs. Stanley was still bending over her, guessed that she was still alive, drew a sigh of relief, and rode on alone.
"Oh, this love-making!" sighed Aunt Maria scores of times, for she had at last learned of the engagement. "When will my sex get over the weakness? It kills them, and they like it."
That night Clara could not sleep, and kept Coronado awake with her moanings. All the next day she lay in a semi-unconsciousness which was partly lethargy and partly fever. It was well; at all events he could bear it so--bear it better than when she was crying and praying for death. The next night she fell into such a long silence of slumber that he came repeatedly to her wagon to hearken if she still breathed. Youth and a strong constitution were waging a doubtful battle to rescue her from the despair which threatened to rob her of either life or reason.
So the journey continued. Henceforward the trail followed Bill Williams's river to the Colorado, tracked that stream northward to the Mohave valley, and, crossing there, took the line of the Mohave river toward California. It was a prodigious pilgrimage still, and far from being a safe one. The Mohaves, one of the tallest and bravest races known, from six feet to six and a half in height, fighting hand to hand with short clubs, were not perfectly sure to be friendly. Coronado felt that, if ever he got his wife and his fortune, he should have earned them. He was resolute, however; there was no flinching yet in this versatile, yet obstinate nature; he was as wicked and as enduring as a Pizarro.
We will not make the journey; we must suppose it. Weeks after the desert had for a second time engulfed Thurstane, a coasting schooner from Santa Barbara entered the Bay of San Francisco, having on board Clara, Mrs. Stanley, and Coronado.
The latter is on deck now, smoking his eternal cigarito without knowing it, and looking at the superb scenery without seeing it. A landscape mirrored in the eye of a horse has about as much effect on the brain within as a landscape mirrored in the eye of Coronado. He is a Latin; he has a fine ear for music, and he would delight in museums of painting and sculpture; but he has none of the passion of the sad, grave, imaginative Anglican race for nature. Mountains, deserts, seas, and storms are to him obstacles and hardships. He has no more taste for them than had Ulysses.
He has agonized with sea-sickness during the voyage, and this is the first day that he has found tolerable. Once more he is able to eat and stand up; able to think, devise, resolve, and execute; able, in short, to be Coronado. Look at the little, sunburnt, sinewy, earnest, enduring man; study his diplomatic countenance, serious and yet courteous, full of gravity and yet ready for gayety; notice his ready smile and gracious wave of the hand as he salutes the skipper. He has been through horrors; he has fought a tremendous fight of passion, crime, and peril; yet he scarcely shows a sign of it. There is some such lasting stuff in him as goes to make the Bolivars, Francias, and Lopez, the restless and indefatigable agitators of the Spanish-American communities. You cannot help sympathizing with him somewhat, because of his energy and bottom. You are tempted to say that he deserves to win.
He has made some progress in his conspiracy to entrap love and a fortune. It must be understood that the two muleteers persisted in their story concerning Apaches, and that consequently Clara has come to think of Thurstane as dead. Meantime Coronado, after the first two days of wild excitement, has conducted himself with rare intelligence, never alarming her with talk of love, always courteous, kind, and useful. Little by little he has worn away her suspicions that he planned murder, and her only remaining anger against him is because he did not attempt to search for Thurstane; but even for that she is obliged to see some excuse in the terrible word "Apaches."
"I have had no thought but for _her_ safety," Coronado often said to Mrs. Stanley, who as often repeated the words to Clara. "I have made mistakes," he would go on. "The San Juan journey was one. I will not even plead Garcia's instructions to excuse it. But our circumstances have been terrible. Who could always take the right step amid such trials? All I ask is charity. If humility deserves mercy, I deserve it."
Coronado even schooled himself into expressing sympathy with Clara for the loss of Thurstane. He spoke of him as her affianced, eulogized his character, admitted that he had not formerly done him justice, hinting that this blindness had sprung from jealousy, and so alluded to his own affection. These things he said at first to Aunt Maria, and she, his steady partisan, repeated them to Clara, until at last the girl could bear to hear them from Coronado. Sympathy! the bleeding heart must have it; it will accept this balm from almost any hand, and it will pay for it in gratitude and trust.
Thus in two months from the disappearance of Thurstane his rival had begun to hope that he was supplanting him. Of course he had given up all thought of carrying out the horrible plan with which he had started from Santa Fé. Indeed, he began to have a horror of Garcia, as a man who had set him on a wrong track and nearly brought him into folly and ruin. One might say that Satan was in a state of mind to rebuke sin.
Let us now glance at Clara. She is seated beside Aunt Maria on the quarter-deck of the schooner. Her troubles have changed her; only eighteen years old, she has the air of twenty-four; her once rounded face is thin, and her childlike sweetness has become tender gravity. When she entered on this journey she resembled the girl faces of Greuze; now she is sometimes a _mater amabilis_, and sometimes a _mater dolorosa_; for her grief has been to her as a maternity. The great change, so far from diminishing her beauty, has made her seem more fascinating and nobler. Her countenance has had a new birth, and exhibits a more perfect soul.
We have hitherto had little more than a superficial view of the characters of our people. Events, incidents, adventures, and even landscapes have been the leading personages of the story, and have been to its human individualities what the Olympian gods are to Greek and Trojan heroes in the Iliad. Just as Jove or Neptune rules or thwarts Agamemnon and Achilles, so the monstrous circumstances of the desert have overborne, dwarfed, and blurred these travellers. It is only now, when they have escaped from the _dii majores_, and have become for a brief period tranquil free agents, that we can see them as they are. Even yet they are not altogether untrammelled. Man is never quite himself; he is always under some external influence, past or present; he is always being governed, if not being created.
Clara, born anew of trouble, is admirable. There is a sweet, sedate, and almost solemn womanliness about her, which even overawes Mrs. Stanley, conscious of aunthood and strongmindedness, and insisting upon it that her niece is "a mere child." It is a great victory to gain over a lady who has that sort of self-confidence that if she had been a sunflower and obliged to turn toward the sun for life, she would yet have believed that it was she who made him shine. When Clara decides a matter Mrs. Stanley, while still mentally saying "Young thing," feels nevertheless that her own decision has been uttered. And in every successive resistance she is overcome the easier, for habit is a conqueror.
They have just had a discussion. Aunt Maria wants Clara to stand on her dignity in a hotel until old Muñoz goes down on his marrow-bones, makes her a handsome allowance, and agrees to leave her at least half his fortune. Clara's reply is substantially, "He is my grandfather and the proper head of my family. I think I ought to go straight to him and say, Grandfather, here I am."
Beaten by this gentle conscientiousness, Aunt Maria endeavored to appeal the matter to Coronado.
"I am so glad to see you enjoying your cigarito once more," she called to him with as sweet a smile as if she didn't hate tobacco.
He left his smoking retreat amidships, took off his hat with a sort of airy gravity, and approached them.
"Mr. Coronado, where do you propose to take us when we reach land?" asked Aunt Maria.
"We will, if you please, go direct to my excellent relative's," was the reply.
Aunt Maria held her head straight up, as if stiff-neckedly refusing to go there, but made no opposition.
Coronado had meditated everything and decided everything. It would not do to go to a hotel, because that might lead to a suspicion that he knew all the while about the death of Muñoz. His plan was to drive at once to the old man's place, demand him as if he expected to see him, express proper surprise and grief over the funereal response, put the estate as soon as possible into Clara's hands, become her man of affairs and trusted friend, and so climb to be her husband. He was anxious; during all his perils in the desert he had never been more so; but he bore the situation heroically, as he could bear; his face revealed nothing but its outside--a smile.
"My dear cousin," he presently said, "when I once fairly set you down in your home, you will owe me, in spite of all my blunders, a word of thanks."
"Coronado, I shall owe you more than I ever can repay," she replied frankly, without remembering that he wanted to marry her. The next instant she remembered it, and her face showed the first blush that had tinted it for two months. He saw the significant color, and turned away to conceal a joy which might have been perilous had she observed it.
Immediately on landing he proceeded to carry out his programme. He took a hack, drove the ladies direct to the house of Muñoz, and there went decorously through the form of learning that the old man was dead. Then, consoling the sorrowful and anxious Clara, he hurried to the best hotel in the city and made arrangements for what he meant should be an impressive scene, the announcement of her fortune. He secured fine rooms for the ladies, and ordered them a handsome lunch, with wine, etc., all without regard to expense. The girl must be perfectly comfortable and under a sense of all sorts of obligations to him when she received his _coup de théâtre_.
He was not so preoccupied but that he quarelled with his coachman about the hack hire and dismissed him with some disagreeable epithets in Spanish. Next he took a saddle-horse, as being the cheapest conveyance attainable, and cantered off to find the executors of Muñoz, enjoying heartily such stares of admiration as he got for his splendid riding. In an hour he returned, found the ladies in their freshest dresses, and complimented them suitably. At this very moment his anguish of anxiety and suspense was terrible. When Clara should learn that she was a millionaire, what would she do? Would she throw off the air of friendliness which she had lately worn, and scout him as one whom she had long known as a scoundrel? Would all his plots, his labors, his perils, and his love prove in one moment to have been in vain? As he stood there smiling and flattering, he was on the cross.
"But I am talking trifles," he said at last, fairly catching his breath. "Can you guess why I do it? I am prolonging a moment of intense pleasure."
Such was his control over himself that he looked really benign and noble as he drew from his pocket a copy of the will and held it out toward Clara.
"My dear cousin," he murmured, his dark eyes searching her face with intense anxiety, "you cannot imagine my joy in announcing to you that you are the sole heir of the good Pedro Muñoz."
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At the announcement that she was a millionaire Clara turned pale, took the proffered paper mechanically with trembling fingers, and then, without looking at it, said, "Oh, Coronado!"
It was a tone of astonishment, of perplexity, of regret, of protest; it seemed to declare, Here is a terrible injustice, and I will none of it. Coronado was delighted; in a breath he recovered all his presence of mind; he recovered his voice, too, and spoke out cheerfully: "Ah, you are surprised, my cousin. Well, it is your grandfather's will. You, as well as all others, must submit to it."
Aunt Maria jumped up and walked or rather pranced about the room, saying loudly, "He must have been the best man in the whole world." After repeating this two or three times, she halted and added with even more emphasis, "Except _you_, Mr. Coronado!"
The Mexican bowed in silence; it was almost too much to be praised in that way, feeling as he did; he bowed twice and waved his hand, deprecating the compliment. The interview was a very painful one to him, although he knew that he was gaining admiration with every breath that he drew, and admiration just where it was absolutely necessary to him. Turning to Clara now, he begged, "Read it, if you please, my cousin."
The girl, by this time flushed from chin to forehead, glanced over the paper, and immediately said, "This should not be so. It must not be."
Coronado was overjoyed; she evidently thought that she owed him and Garcia a part of this fortune; even if she kept it, she would feel bound to consider his interests, and the result of her conscientiousness might be marriage.
"Let us have no contest with the dead," he replied grandly. "Their wishes are sacred."
"But Garcia and you are wronged, and I cannot have it so," persisted Clara.
"How wronged?" demanded Aunt Maria. "I don't see it. Mr. Garcia was only a cousin, and he is rich enough already."
Coronado, remembering that he and Garcia were bankrupt, wished he could throw the old lady out of a window.
"Wait," said Clara in a tone of vehement resolution. "Give me time. You shall see that I am not unjust or ungrateful."
"I beg that you will not bestow a thought upon me," implored the sublime hypocrite. "Garcia, it is true, may have had claims. I have none."
Aunt Maria walked up to him, squeezed both his hands, and came near hugging him. Once out of this trial, Coronado could bear no more, but kissed his fingers to the ladies, hastened to his own room, locked the door, and swore all the oaths that there are in Spanish, which is no small multitude.
In a few days after this terrible interview things were going swimmingly well with him. To keep Clara out of the hands of fortune-hunters, but ostensibly to enable her to pass her first mourning in decent retirement, he had induced her to settle in one of Muñoz's haciendas, a few miles from the city, where he of course had her much to himself. He was her adviser; he was closeted frequently with the executors; he foresaw the time when he would be the sole manager of the estate; he began to trust that he would some day possess it. What woman could help leaning upon and confiding in a man who was so useful, so necessary as Coronado, and who had shown such unselfish, such magnanimous sentiments?
Meantime the girl was as admirable in reality as the man was in appearance. Unexpected inheritance of large wealth is almost sure to alter, at least for a time, and generally for the worse, the manner and morale of a young person, whether male or female. Conceit or haughtiness or extravagance or greediness, or some other vice, pretty surely enters into either deportment or conduct. If this girl was changed at all by her great good fortune, she was changed for the better. She had never been more modest, gentle, affable, and sensible than she was now. The fact shows a clearness of mind and a nobleness of heart which place her very high among the wise and good. Such behavior under such circumstances is equal to heroism. We are conscious that in saying these things of Clara we are drawing largely upon the reader's faith. But either her present trial of character was peculiarly fitted to her, or she was one of those select spirits who are purified by temptation.
She remembered Garcia's claims upon her grandfather, and her own supposed obligations to Coronado. She informed the executors that she wished to make over half her property to the old man, trusteeing it so that it should descend to his nephew. Their reply, translated from roundabout and complimentary Spanish into plain English, was this: "You can't do it. The estate is not settled, and will not be for a year. Moreover, you have no power to part with it until you are of age, which will not be for three years. Finally, your proposition defies your grandfather's wishes, and it is altogether too generous."
Clara's simple and firm reply was, "Well, I must wait. But it would seem better if I could do it now."
There was one reason why Clara should be so calm and unselfish in her elevation; her sorrows served her as ballast. Why should she let riches turn her head when she found that they could not lighten her heart? There was a certain night in her past which gold could not illuminate; there had once been a precious life near her, which was gone now beyond the power of ransom. Thurstane! How she would have lavished this wealth upon him. He would have refused it; but she would have prayed and forced him to accept it; she would have been the meeker to him because of it. How noble he had been! not now to be brought back! gone forever! And his going had been like the going away of the sun, leaving no beautiful color in all nature, no guiding light for wandering footsteps. She exaggerated him, as love will exaggerate the lost.
Of course she did not always believe that he could be dead, and in her hours of hope she wrote letters inquiring about his fate. In other days he had told her much of himself, stories of his childhood and his battles, the number of his old regiment and his new one, titles of his superiors, names of comrades, etc. To which among all these unknown ones should she address herself? She fixed on the commander of his present regiment, and that awfully mysterious personage the Adjutant-General of the army, a title which seemed to represent omniscience and omnipotence. To each of these gentlemen she sent an epistle recounting where, when, and how Lieutenant Ralph Thurstane had been ambushed by unknown Indians, supposed to be Apaches.
These letters she wrote and mailed without the knowledge of Coronado. This was not caution, but pity; she did not suspect that he would try to intercept them; only that it would pain him to learn how much she yet thought of his rival. Indeed, it would have been cruel to show them to him, for he would have seen that they were blurred with tears. You perceive that she had come to be tender of the feelings of this earnest and scoundrelly lover, believing in his sincerity and not in his villainy.
"Surely some of those people will know," thought Clara, with a trust in men and dignitaries which makes one say _sancta simplicitas_. "If they do not know," she added, with a prayer in her heart, "God will discover it to them."
But no answers came for months. The colonel was not with his regiment, but on detached service at New York, whither Clara's letter travelled to find him, being addressed to his name and not marked "Official business." What he did of course was to forward it to the Adjutant-General of the army at Washington. The Adjutant-General successively filed both communications, and sent a copy of each to headquarters at Santa Fé and San Francisco, with an endorsement advising inquiries and suitable search. The mails were slow and circuitous, and the official routine was also slow and circuitous, so that it was long before headquarters got the papers and went to work.
Does any one marvel that Clara did not go directly to the military authorities in the city? It must be remembered that man has his own world, as woman has hers, and that each sex is very ignorant of the spheres and missions of the other, the retired sex being especially limited in its information. The girl had never been told that there was such a thing as district headquarters, or that soldiers in San Francisco had anything to do with soldiers at Fort Yuma. Nor was she in the way of learning such facts, being miles away from a uniform, and even from an American.
One day, when she was fuller of hope than usual, she dared to write to that ghost, Thurstane. Where should the letter be addressed? It cost her much reflection to decide that it ought to go to the station of his company, Fort Yuma. This gave her an idea, and she at once penned two other letters, one directed "To the Captain of Company I," and one to Sergeant Meyer. But unfortunately those three epistles were not sent off before it occurred to Coronado that he ought to overlook the packages that were sent from the hacienda to the city. By the way, he had from the first assumed a secret censorship over the mails which arrived.
Meantime he also had his anxiety and his correspondence. He feared lest Garcia should learn how things had been managed, and should hasten to San Francisco to act henceforward as his own special providence. In that case there would be awkward explanations, there would be complicated and perilous plottings, there might be stabbings or poisonings. Already, as soon as he reached the Mohave valley, he had written one cajoling letter to his uncle. Scattered through six pages on various affairs were underscored phrases and words, which, taken in sequence, read as follows: "Things have gone well and ill. What was most desirable has not been fully accomplished. There have been perils and deaths, but not the one required. The wisest plans have been foiled by unforeseen circumstances. The future rests upon slow poison. A few weeks more will suffice. Do not come here. It would rouse suspicion. Trust all to me."
He now sent other letters, reporting the progress of the malady caused by the poison, urging Garcia to remain at a distance, assuring him that all would be well, etc.
"There will be no will," declared one of these lying messengers. "If there is a will, you will be the inheritor. In all events, you will be safe. Rely upon my judgment and fidelity."
It is curious, by the way, that such men as Coronado and Garcia, knowing themselves and each other to be liars, should nevertheless expect to be believed, and should frequently believe each other. One is inclined to admit the seeming paradox that rogues are more easily imposed upon than honest men.
No responses came from Garcia. But, by way of consolation, Coronado had Clara's correspondence to read. One day this hidalgo, securely locked in his room, held in his delicate dark fingers a letter addressed to Miss Clara Van Diemen, and postmarked in writing "Fort Yuma." Hot as the day was, there was a brazier by his side, and a kettle of water bubbling on the coals. He held the letter in the steam, softened the wafer to a pulp, opened the envelope carefully, threw himself on a sofa, scowled at the beating of his heart, and began to read.
Before he had glanced through the first line he uttered an exclamation, turned hastily to the signature, and then burst into a stream of whispered curses. After he had blasphemed himself into a certain degree of calmness, he read the letter twice through carefully, and learned it by heart. Then he thrust it deep into the coals of the brazier, watched it steadily until its slight flame had flickered away, lighted a cigarito, and meditated.
This epistle was not the only one that troubled him. He already knew that Clara was inquiring about this man of whom she never spoke, and conducting her inquiries with an intelligence and energy which showed that her heart was in the business. If things went on so, there might be trouble some day, and there might be punishment. For a time he was so disturbed that he felt somewhat as if he had a conscience, and might yet know what it is to be haunted by remorse.
As for Clara, he was furious with her, notwithstanding his love for her, and indeed because of it. It was outrageous that a woman whom he adored should seek to ferret out facts which might send him to State's Prison. It was abominable that she would not cease to care for that stupid officer after he had been so carefully put out of her way. Coronado felt that he was persecuted.
Well, what should be done? He must put a stop to Clara's inquiries, and he would do it by inquiring himself. Yes, he would write to people about Thurstane, show the letters to the girl (but never send them), and so gradually get this sort of correspondence into his own hands, when he would drop it. She would be led thereby to trust him the more, to be grateful to him, perhaps to love him. It was a hateful mode of carrying on a courtship, but it seemed to be the best that he had in his power. Having so decided, this master hypocrite, "full of all subtlety and wiles of the devil," turned his attention to his siesta.
For twenty minutes he slept the sleep of the just; then he was awakened by a timid knock at his door. Guessing from the shyness of the demand for entrance that it came from a servant, he called pettishly, "What do you want? Go away."
"I must see you," answered a voice which, feeble and indistinct as it was, took Coronado to the door in an instant, trembling in every nerve with rage and alarm.
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Opening the door softly and with tremulous fingers, Coronado looked out upon an old gray-headed man, short and paunchy in build, with small, tottering, uneasy legs, skin mottled like that of a toad, cheeks drooping and shaking, chin retiring, nose bulbous, one eye a black hollow, the other filmy and yet shining, expression both dull and cunning, both eager and cowardly.
The uncle seemed to be even more agitated at the sight of the nephew than the nephew at the sight of the uncle. For an instant each stared at the other with a strange expression of anxiety and mistrust. Then Coronado spoke. The words which he had in his heart were, What are you here for, you scoundrelly old marplot? The words which he actually uttered were, "My dear uncle, my benefactor, my more than parent! How delighted I am to see you! Welcome, welcome!"
The two men grasped each other's arms, and stuck their heads over each other's shoulders in a pretence of embracing. Perhaps there never was anything of the kind more curious than the contrast between their affectionate attitude and the suspicion and aversion painted on their faces.
"Have you been seen?" asked Coronado as soon as he had closed and locked the door. "I must contrive to get you away unperceived. Why have you come? My dear uncle, it was the height of imprudence. It will expose you to suspicion. Did you not get my letters?"
"Only one," answered Garcia, looking both frightened and obstinate, as if he were afraid to stay and yet determined not to go. "One from the Mohave valley."
"But I urged you in that to remain at a distance, until all had been arranged."
"I know, my son, I know. I thought like you at first. But presently I became anxious."
"Not suspicious of my good faith!" exclaimed Coronado in a horrified whisper. "Oh, _that_ is surely impossible."
"No, no--not suspicious--no, no, my son," chattered Garcia eagerly. "But I began to fear that you needed my help. Things seemed to move so slowly. Madre de Dios! All across the continent, and nothing done yet."
"Yes, much has been done. I had obstacles. I had people to get rid of. There was a person who undertook to be lover and protector."
"Is he gone?" inquired the old man anxiously.
"Ask no questions. The less told, the better. I wish to spare you all responsibility."
"Carlos, you are my son and heir. You deserve everything that I can give. All shall be yours, my son."
"That Texas Smith of yours is a humbug," broke out Coronado, his mind reverting to the letter which he had just burned. "I put work on him which he swore to do and did not do. He is a coward and a traitor."
"Oh, the pig! Did you pay him?"
"I had to pay him in advance--and then nothing done right," confessed Coronado.
"Oh, the pig, the dog, the toad, the villainous toad, the pig of hell!" chattered Garcia in a rage. "How much did you pay him? Five hundred dollars! Oh, the pig and the dog and the toad!"
"Well, I have been frank with you," said Coronado. (He had diminished by one half the sum paid to Texas Smith.) "I will continue to be frank. You must not stay here. The question is how to get you away unseen."
"It is useless; I have been recognized," lied Garcia, who was determined not to go.
"All is lost!" exclaimed Coronado. "The presence of us two--both possible heirs--will rouse suspicion. Nothing can be done."
But no intimidations could move the old man; he was resolved to stay and oversee matters personally; perhaps he suspected Coronado's plan of marrying Clara.
"No, my son," he declared. "I know better than you. I am older and know the world better. Let me stay and take care of this. What if I am suspected and denounced and hung? The property will be yours."
"My more than father!" cried Coronado. "You shall never sacrifice yourself for me. God forbid that I should permit such an infamy!"
"Let the old perish for the young!" returned Garcia, in a tone of meek obstinacy which settled the controversy.
It was a wonderful scene; it was prodigious acting. Each of these men, while endeavoring to circumvent the other, was making believe offer his life as a sacrifice for the other's prosperity. It was amazing that neither should lose patience; that neither should say, You are trying to deceive me, and I know it. We may question whether two men of northern race could have carried on such a dialogue without bursting out in open anger, or at least glaring with eyes full of suspicion and defiance.
"You will find her changed," continued Coronado, when he had submitted to the old man's persistence. "She has grown thinner and sadder. You must not notice it, however; you must compliment her on her health."
"What is she taking?" whispered Garcia.
"The less said, the better. My dear uncle, you must know nothing. Do not talk of it. The walls have ears."
"I know something that would be both safe and sure," persisted the old man in a still lower whisper.
"Leave all with me," answered Coronado, waving his hand authoritatively. "Too many cooks spoil the broth. What has begun well will end well."
After a time the two men went down to a shady veranda which half encircled the house, and found Mrs. Stanley taking an accidental siesta on a sort of lounge or sofa. Being a light sleeper, like many other active-minded people, she awoke at their approach and sat up to give reception.
"Mrs. Stanley, this is my uncle Garcia, my more than father," bowed Coronado.
"I have not forgotten him," replied Aunt Maria, who indeed was not likely to forget that mottled face, dyed blue with nitrate of silver.
Warmly shaking the puffy hand of the old toad, and doing her very best to smile upon him, she said, "How do you do, Mr. Garcia? I hope you are well. Mr. Coronado, do tell him that, and that I am rejoiced to see him."
Garcia's snaky glance just rose to the honest woman's face, and then crawled hurriedly all about the veranda, as if trying to hide in corners. Thanks to Coronado's fluency and invention, there was a mutually satisfactory conversation between the couple. He amplified the lady's compliments and then amplified the Mexican's compliments, until each looked upon the other as a person of unusual intelligence and a fast friend, Aunt Maria, however, being much the more thoroughly humbugged of the two.
"My uncle has come on urgent mercantile business, and he crowds in a few days with us," Coronado presently explained. "I have told him of my little cousin's good fortune, and he is delighted."
"I am so glad to hear it," said Mrs. Stanley. "What an excellent old man he is, to be sure! And you are just like him, Mr. Coronado--just as good and unselfish."
"You overestimate me," answered Coronado, with a smile which was almost ironical.
Before long Clara appeared. Garcia's eye darted a look at her which was like the spring of an adder, dwelling for just a second on the girl's face, and then scuttling off in an uncleanly, poisonous way for hiding corners. He saw that she was thin, and believed to a certain extent in Coronado's hints of poison, so that his glance was more cowardly than ordinary.
Liking the man not overmuch, but pleased to see a face which had been familiar to her childhood, and believing that she owed him large reparation for her grandfather's will, Clara advanced cordially to the old sinner.
"Welcome, Señor Garcia," she said, wondering that he did not kiss her cheek. "Welcome to your own house. It is all yours. Whatever you choose is yours."
"I rejoice in your good fortune," sighed Garcia.
"It is our common fortune," returned Clara, winding her arm in his and walking him up and down the veranda.
"May God give you long life to enjoy it," prayed Garcia.
"And you also," said Clara.
Coronado translated this conversation as fast as it was uttered to Mrs. Stanley.
"This is the golden age," cried that enthusiastic woman. "You Spaniards are the best people I ever saw. Your men absolutely emulate women in unselfishness."
"We would do it if it were possible," bowed Coronado.
"You do it," magnanimously insisted Aunt Maria, who felt that the baser sex ought to be encouraged.
"Señor Garcia, I ask a favor of you," continued Clara. "You must charge all the costs of the journey overland to me."
"It is unjust," replied the old man. "Madre de Dios! I can never permit it."
"If you need the money now, I will request my guardians, the executors, to advance it," persisted Clara, seeing that he refused with a faint heart.
"I might borrow it," conceded Garcia. "I shall have need of money presently. That journey was a great cost--a terribly bad speculation," he went on, shaking his mottled, bluish head wofully. "Not a piaster of profit."
"We will see to that," said Clara. "And then, when I am of age--but wait."
She shook her rosy forefinger gayly, radiant with the joy of generosity, and added, "You shall see. Wait!"
Coronado, in a rapid whisper, translated this conversation phrase by phrase to Mrs. Stanley, his object being to make Clara's promises public and thus engage her to their fulfilment.
"Of course!" exclaimed the impulsive Aunt Maria, who was amazingly generous with other people's money, and with her own when she had any to spare. "Of course Clara ought to pay. It is quite a different thing from giving up her rights. Certainly she must pay. That train did nothing but bring us two women. I really believe Mr. Garcia sent it for that purpose alone. Besides, the expense won't be much, I suppose."
"No," said Coronado, and he spoke the exact truth; that is, supposing an honest balance. The expedition proper had cost seven or eight thousand dollars, and about two thousand more had been sunk in assassination fees and other "extras." On the other hand, he had sold his wagons and beasts at the high prices of California, making a profit of two thousand dollars. In short, even deducting all that Coronado meant to appropriate to himself, Garcia would obtain a small profit from the affair.
Now ensued a strange underhanded drama. Garcia stayed week after week, riding often to the city on business or pretence of business, but passing most of his time at the hacienda, where he wandered about a great deal in a ghost-like manner, glancing slyly at Clara a hundred times a day without ever looking her in the eyes, and haunting her steps without overtaking or addressing her. Every time that she returned from a ride he shambled to the door to see if the saddle were empty. During the night he hearkened in the passages for outcries of sudden illness. And while he thus watched the girl, he was himself incessantly watched by his nephew.
"She gets no worse," the old man at last complained to the younger one. "I think she is growing fat."
"It is one of the symptoms," replied Coronado. "By the way, there is one thing which we ought to consider. If she gives you half of this estate--?"
"Madre de Dios! I would take it and go. But she cannot give until she is of age. And meantime she may marry."
He glanced suspiciously at his nephew, but Coronado kept his bland composure, merely saying, "No present danger of that. She sees no one but us."
He thought of adding, "Why not marry her yourself, my dear uncle?" But Garcia might retort, "And you?" which would be confusing.
"Suppose she should make a will in your favor?" the nephew preferred to suggest.
"I cannot wait. I must have money now. Make a will? Madre de Dios! She would outlive me. Besides, he who makes a will can break a will."
After a minute of anxious thought, he asked, "How much do you think she will give me?"
"I will ask her."
"Not _her_," returned Garcia petulantly. "Are you a pig, an ass, a fool? Ask the old one--the duenna. It ought to be a great deal; it ought to be half--and more."
To satisfy the old man as well as himself, Coronado sounded Mrs. Stanley as to the proposed division.
"Yes, indeed!" said the lady emphatically. "Clara must do something for Garcia, who has been such an excellent friend, and who ought to have been named in the will. But you know she has her duties toward herself as well as toward others. Now the property is not a million; it may be some day or other, but it isn't now. The executors say it might bring three hundred thousand dollars in ready money."
The executors, by the way, had been sedulously depreciating the value of the estate to Clara, in order to bring down her vast notions of generosity.
"Well," continued Aunt Maria, "my niece, who is a true woman and magnanimous, wanted to give up half. But that is too much, Mr. Coronado. You see money" (here she commenced on something which she had read)--"money is not the same thing in our hands that it is in yours. When a man has a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, he puts it into business and doubles it, trebles it, and so on. But a woman can't do that; she is trammelled and hampered by the prejudices of this male world; she has to leave her money at small interest. If it doubles once in her life, she is lucky. So, you see, one half given to Garcia would be, practically speaking, much more than half," concluded Aunt Maria, looking triumphantly through her argument at Coronado.
The Mexican assented; he always assented to whatever she advanced; he did so because he considered her a fool and incapable of reasoning. Moreover, he was not anxious to see half of this estate drop into the hands of Garcia, believing that whatever Clara kept for herself would shortly be his own by right of marriage.
"You are the greatest woman of our times," he said, stepping backward a pace or two and surveying her as if she were a cathedral. "I should never have thought of those ideas. You ought to be a legislator and reform our laws."
"I never had a doubt that you would agree with me, Mr. Coronado," returned the gratified Aunt Maria. "Well, so does Clara; at least I trust so," she hesitated. "Now as to the sum which our good Garcia should receive. I have settled upon thirty thousand dollars. In his hands, you know, it would soon be a hundred and fifty thousand; that is to say, practically speaking, it would be half the estate."
"Certainly," bowed Coronado, meanwhile thinking, "You old ass!" "And my little cousin is of your opinion, I trust?" he added.
"Well--not quite--as yet," candidly admitted Aunt Maria. "But she is coming to it. I have no sort of doubt that she will end there."
So Coronado had learned nothing as yet of Clara's opinions. As he sauntered away to find Garcia, he queried whether he had best torment him with this unauthorized babble of Mrs. Stanley. On the whole, yes; it might bring him down to reasonable terms; the rapacious old man was expecting too large a slice of the dead Muñoz. So he told his tale, giving it out as something which could be depended on, but increasing the thirty thousand dollars to fifty thousand, on his own responsibility. To his alarm Garcia broke out in a venomous rage, calling everybody pigs, dogs, toads, etc.; and crying and cursing alternately.
"Fifty thousand piasters!" he squeaked, tottering about the room on his short weak legs and wringing his hands, so that he looked like a fat dog walking on his hind feet. "Fifty thousand piasters! O Madre de Dios! It is nothing. It is nothing. It will not save me from ruin. It will not cover my debts. I shall be sold out. I am ruined. Fifty thousand piasters! O Madre de Dios!"
Fifty thousand dollars would have left him more than solvent; but ten times that sum would not have satisfied his grasping soul.
Coronado saw that he had made a blunder, and sought to rectify it by lying copiously. He averred that he had been merely trying his uncle; he begged his pardon for this absurd and ill-timed joke; he admitted that he was a pig and a dog and everything else ignoble; he should not have trifled with the feelings of his benefactor, his more than father; those feelings were to him sacred, and should be held so henceforward and forever.
But he was not believed. He could fool the old man sometimes, but not on this occasion. Garcia, greedy and anxious, apt by nature to see the dark side of things, judged that the fifty-thousand-dollar story was the true one. Although he pretended at last to accept Coronado's explanation for fact, he remained at bottom unconvinced, and showed it in his swollen and trembling visage.
Thenceforward the nephew watched the uncle incessantly; during his absence he stole into his room, opened his baggage, and examined his drawers. And if he saw him near Clara at table, or when refreshments were handed around, he never took his eyes off him.
But he could not be always at hand. One day the two men rode to the city in company. Garcia dodged Coronado, hastened back to the hacienda, asked to have some chocolate prepared, poured out a cup for Clara, looked at her eagerly while she drank it, and then fell down in a fit.
An hour later Coronado returned at a full run, to find the old man just recovering his senses and Clara alarmingly ill.
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Clara had been taken ill while waiting on the unconscious Garcia, and the attack had been so violent as to drive her at once to her room and bed.
The first person whom Coronado met when he reached the house was Aunt Maria, oscillating from one invalid to the other in such fright and confusion that she did not know whether she was strong-minded or not; but thus far chiefly troubled about Garcia, who seemed to her to be in a dying state.
"Your uncle!" she exclaimed, beckoning wildly to Coronado as he rushed in at the door.
"I know," he answered hastily. "A servant told me. How is Clara?"
He was as pale as a man of his dark complexion could be. Aunt Maria caught his alarm, and, forgetting at once all about Garcia, ran on with him to Clara's room. The girl was just then in one of her spasms, her features contracted and white, and her forehead covered with a cold sweat.
"What is it?" whispered Mrs. Stanley, clutching Coronado by the arm and staring eagerly at his anxious eyes.
"It is--fever," he returned, making a great effort to control his rage and terror. "Give her warm water to drink. My God! give her something."
He sent three servants in succession to search for three different physicians swearing at them violently while they made their preparations, telling them to ride like the devil, to kill their horses, etc. When he returned to Clara's room she had come out of her paroxysm, and was feebly trying to smile away Aunt Maria's terrors.
"My cousin!" he whispered in unmistakable anguish of spirit.
"I am better," she replied. "Thank you, Coronado. How is Garcia?"
Coronado looked as if he were devoting some one to the infernal furies; but he suppressed his emotion and replied in a smothered voice, "I will go and see."
Hurrying to his uncle's room, he motioned out the attendants, closed the door, locked it, and then, with a scowl of rage and alarm, advanced upon the invalid, who by this time was perfectly conscious.
"What have you given her?" demanded Coronado, in a hoarse mutter.
"I don't know what you mean," stammered the old man. He shut his one eye, not because he could not keep it open, but to evade the conflict which was coming upon him.
Taking quick advantage of the closed eye, Coronado turned to a dressing-table, pulled out a drawer, seized a key, and opened Garcia's trunk. Before the old man could interfere, the younger one held in his hand a paper containing two ounces or so of white powder.
"Did you give her this?" demanded Coronado.
Garcia stared at the paper with such a scared and guilty face, that it was equivalent to a confession.
Coronado turned away to hide his face. There was a strange smile upon it; at first it was a joy which made him half angelic; then it became amusement. He tottered to a chair, threw himself into it with the air of a thoroughly wearied man who finds rest delicious, put a grain of the powder on his tongue, and then drew a long sigh, a sigh of entire relief.
We must explain. The inner history of this scene is not a tragedy, but a farce. For two weeks or more Coronado had been watching his uncle day and night, and at last had found in his trunk a paper of powder which he suspected to be arsenic. A blunderer would have destroyed or hidden it, thereby warning Garcia that he was being looked after, and causing him to be more careful about his hiding places. Coronado emptied the paper, snapped off every grain of the powder with his finger, wiped it clean with his handkerchief, and refilled it with another powder. The selection of this second powder was another piece of cleverness. He had at hand both flour and finely pulverized sugar; but he wanted to learn whether Garcia would really dose the girl, and he wanted a chance to frighten him; so he chose a substance which would be harmless, and yet would cause illness.
"You will be hung," said Coronado, staring sternly at his uncle.
"I don't know what you mean," mumbled the old man, trembling all over.
"What a fool you were to use a poison so easily detected as arsenic! I have sent for doctors. They will recognize her symptoms. You prepared the chocolate. Here is the arsenic in your trunk. You will be hung."
"Give me that paper," whimpered Garcia, rising from his bed and staggering toward Coronado. "Give it to me. It is mine."
Coronado put the package behind him with one hand and held off his uncle with the other.
"You must go," he persisted. "She won't live two hours. Be off before you are arrested. Take horse for San Francisco. If there is a steamer, get aboard of it. Never mind where it sails to."
"Give me the paper," implored Garcia, going down on his knees. "O Madre de Dios! My head, my head! Oh, what extremities! Give me the paper. Carlos, it was all for your sake."
"Are you going?" demanded Coronado.
"Oh yes. Madre de Dios! I am going."
"Come along. By the back way. Do you want to pass _her_ room? Do you want to see your work? I will send your trunk to the bankers. Quit California at the first chance. Quit it at once, if you go to China."
As Coronado looked after the flying old man he heard himself called by Mrs. Stanley, who was by this time in great terror about Clara, trotting hither and thither after help and counsel.
"Oh, Mr. Coronado, do come!" she urged. Then, catching sight of the galloping Garcia, "But what does that mean? Has he gone mad?"
"Nearly," said Coronado. "I brought him news of pressing business. How is my cousin?"
"Oh dear! I am terribly alarmed. Do look at her. Will those doctors never come!"
Coronado, who had been a little in advance of Mrs. Stanley as they hurried toward Clara's room, suddenly stopped, wheeled about with a smile, seized her hands, and shook them heartily.
"I have it," he exclaimed with a fine imitation of joyful astonishment. "There is no danger. I can explain the whole trouble. My poor uncle has these attacks, and he is extravagantly fond of chocolate. To relieve the attacks he always carries a paper of medicine in one of his vest pockets. To sweeten his chocolate he carries a paper of sugar in the companion pocket. You may be sure that he has made a mistake between the two. He has dosed Clara with his physic. There is no danger."
He laughed in the most natural manner conceivable; then he checked himself and said: "My poor little cousin! It is no joke for her."
"Certainly not," snapped Aunt Maria, relieved and yet angry. "How excessively stupid! Here is Clara as sick as can be, and I frightened out of my senses. Men ought not to meddle with cookery. They are such botches, even in their own business!"
But presently, after she had given Coronado's explanation to Clara, and the girl had laughed heartily over it and declared herself much better, Aunt Maria recovered her good humor and began to pity that poor, sick, driven Garcia.
"The brave old creature!" she said. "Out of his fits and off on his business. I must say he is a wonder. Let us hope he will come out all right, and soon return to us. But really he ought to be seen to. He may fall off his horse in a fit, or he may dose somebody dreadfully with his chocolate and get taken up for poisoning. Mr. Coronado, you ought to ride into town to-morrow and look after him."
"Certainly," replied Coronado. He did so, and returned with the news that Garcia had sailed to San Diego, having been summoned back to Santa Fé by the state of his affairs. That day and the night following he slept fourteen hours, making up the arrears of rest which he had lost in watching his uncle. Henceforward he was easier; he had a pretty clear field before him; there was no one present to poison Clara; no one but himself to court her. And the courtship went forward with a better prospect of success than is quite agreeable to contemplate.
Coronado and Clara were Adam and Eve; they were the only man and woman in this paradise. People thus situated are claimed by a being whom most call a goddess, and some a demon. She is protean; she is at once an invariable formula and an individual caprice; she is a law governing the universal multitude, and a passion swaying the unit. She seems to be under an impression that, where a couple are left alone together, they are the last relics of the human race, and that if they do not marry the type will perish. Indifferent to all considerations but one, she pushes them toward each other.
There is comparative safety from her in a crowd. Bachelors and maidens who mingle by hundreds may remain bachelors and maidens. But pair them off in lonely places and see if the result is not amazingly hymeneal. A fellow who has run the gauntlet of seven years of parties in New York will marry the first agreeable girl whom he meets in Alaska. There is such a thing as leaving the haunts of men and repairing to waste places to find a husband. We are told that English girls have reduced this to a system, and that fair archers who have failed at Brighton go out to hunt successfully in India.
Well, Coronado had the favoring chances of solitude, propinquity, and daily opportunity. Seldom away from Clara for a day together, he was in condition to take advantage of any of those moods which lay woman open to courtship, such as gratitude for attentions, a disgust with loneliness, a desire for something to love. It was a great thing for him that there was work about the hacienda which no woman could easily do; that there were men servants to govern, horses to be herded, valued, and sold, and lands to be cultivated. All these male mysteries were soon handed over to Coronado, subject to the advice of Aunt Maria and the final judgment of Clara. The result was that _he_ and _she_ got into a way of frequently discussing many things which threatened to habituate her to the idea of being at one with him through life.
Have you ever watched two specks floating in a vessel of water? For a long time they approach each other so slowly that the movement is imperceptible but at last they are within range of each other's magnetism; there is a start, a swift rush, and they are together. Thus it was that Clara was gently, very gently, and unconsciously to herself, approaching Coronado. A mote on the wave of life, she was subject to attraction, as all of us motes are, and this man was the only tractor at hand. Aunt Maria did not count, for woman cannot absorb woman. As to Thurstane, he not only was not there, but he was not anywhere, as she at last believed.
Not a word from him or about him, except one letter from the Adjutant-General, which somehow evaded Coronado's brazier, gave her a moment of choking hope and fear, opened its white, official lips, acknowledged her "communication," and stopped there. The unseen tragedies in which souls suffer are numberless. Here was one. The girl had written with tears and heart-beats, and then with tears and heart-beats had waited. At last came the words, "I have the honor to acknowledge, etc., very respectfully, etc." It was one of the business-like facts of life unknowingly trampling upon a bleeding sentiment.
Imagine Clara's agitations during this long suspense; her plans and hopes and despairs would furnish matter for a library. There was not a day, if indeed there was an hour, during which her mind was not the theatre of a dozen dramas whereof Thurstane was the hero, either triumphant or perishing. They were horribly fragmentary; they broke off and pieced on to each other like nightmares; one moment he was rescued, and the next tomahawked. And this last fancy, despite all her struggles to hope, was for the most part victorious. Meantime Coronado, guessing her sufferings, and suffering horribly himself with jealousy, talked much and sympathetically to her of Thurstane. So much did this man bear, and with such outward sweetness did he bear it, that one half longs to consider him a martyr and saint. Pity that his goodness should not bear dissection; that it should have no more life in it than a stuffed mannikin; that it should be just fit to scare crows with.
But hypocrite as Coronado was, he was clever enough to win every day more of Clara's confidence; and perhaps she might have walked into this whited sepulchre in due time had it not been for an accident. Cantering into San Francisco to hold a consultation with her lawyer, she was saluted in the street by a United States officer, also on horseback. She instinctively drew rein, her pulse throbbing at sight of the uniform, and wild hopes beating at her heart.
"Miss Van Diemen, I believe," said the officer, a dark, stout, bold-looking trooper. "I am glad to see that you reached here in safety. You have forgotten me. I am Major Robinson."
"I remember," said Clara, who had not recollected him at first because she was looking solely for Thurstane. "You passed us in the desert."
"Yes, I took your soldiers away from you, and you declined my escort. I was anxious about you afterwards. Well, it has ended right in spite of me. Of course you have heard of Thurstane's escape."
"Escape!" exclaimed Clara, her face turning scarlet and then pale. "Oh! tell me!"
The major stared. He had guessed a love affair between these two; he had inferred it in the desert from the girl's anxiety about the young man. How came it that she knew nothing of the escape?
"So I have heard," he went on. "I think there can be no mistake about it. I learned it from a civilian who left Fort Yuma some weeks ago. I don't think he could have been mistaken. He told me that the lieutenant was there then. Not well, I am sorry to say; rather broken down by his hardships. Oh, nothing serious, you know. But he was a trifle under the weather, which may account for his not letting his friends hear from him."
At the story that Thurstane was alive, all Clara's love had arisen as if from a grave, and the mightier because of its resurrection. She was full of self-reproaches. It seemed to her that she had neglected him; that she had cruelly left him to die. Why had she not guessed that he was sick there, and flown to nurse him to health? What had he thought of her conduct? She must go to him at once.
"I am sorry to say that I can tell you no more," continued the major in response to her eager gaze.
"I am so obliged to you!" gasped Clara. "If you hear anything more, will you please let me know? Will you please come and see me?"
The major promised and took down her address, but added that he was just starting on an inspecting tour, and that for a fortnight to come he should be able to give her no further information.
They had scarcely parted ere Clara had resolved to go at once to Fort Yuma. The moment was favorable, for she had with her an intelligent and trustworthy servant, and Coronado had been summoned to a distance by business, so that he could make no opposition. She hastened to her lawyer's, finished her affairs there, drew what money she needed for her journey, learned that a brig was about to start for the Gulf, and sent her man to secure a passage. When he returned with news that the Lolotte would sail next day at noon, she decided not to go back to the hacienda, and took rooms at a hotel.
What would people say? She did not care; she was going. She had been womanish and timorous too long; this was the great crisis which would decide her future; she must be worthy of it and of _him_. But remembering Aunt Maria, she sent a letter by messenger to the hacienda, explaining that pressing business called her to be absent for some weeks, and confessing in a postscript that her business referred to Lieutenant Thurstane. This letter brought Coronado down upon her next morning. Returning home unexpectedly, he learned the news from his friend Mrs. Stanley, and was hammering at Clara's door not more than an hour later, all in a tremble with anxiety and rage.
"This must not be," he stormed. "Such a journey! Twenty-five hundred miles! And for a man who has not deigned to write to you! It is degrading. I will not have it. I forbid it."
"Coronado, stop!" ordered Clara; and it is to be feared that she stamped her little foot at him; at all events she quelled him instantly.
He sat down, glared like a mad dog, sprang up and rushed to the door, halted there to stare at her imploringly, and finally muttered in a hoarse voice, "Well--let it be so--since you are crazed. But I shall go with you."
"You can go," replied Clara haughtily, after meditating for some seconds, during which he looked the picture of despair. "You can go, if you wish it."
An hour later she said, in her usually gentle tone, "Coronado, pardon me for having spoken to you angrily. You are kinder than I deserve."
The reader can infer from this speech how humble, helpful, and courteous the man had been in the mean time. Coronado was no half-way character; if he did not like you, he was the fellow to murder you; if he decided to be sweet, he was all honey. Perhaps we ought to ask excuse for Clara's tartness by explaining that she was in a state of extreme anxiety, remembering that Robinson had hesitated when he said Thurstane was not so very ill, and fearing lest he knew worse things than he had told.
Meanwhile, let no one suppose that the Mexican meant to let his lady love go to Fort Yuma. He had his plan for stopping her, and we may put confidence enough in him to believe that it was a good one; only at the last moment circumstances turned up which decided him to drop it. Yes, at the last moment, just as he was about to pull his leading strings, he saw good reason for wishing her far away from San Francisco.
A face appeared to him; at the first glimpse of it Coronado slipped into the nearest doorway, and from that moment his chief anxiety was to cause the girl to vanish. Yes, he must get her started on her voyage, even at the risk of her continuing it.
"What the devil is he here for?" he muttered. "Has he found out that she is living?"
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At noon the Lolotte, a broad-beamed, flat-floored brig of light draught and good sailing qualities, hove up her anchor and began beating out of the Bay of San Francisco, with Coronado and Clara on her quarter-deck.
"You have no other passengers, I understood you to say, captain," observed Coronado, who was anxious on that point, preferring there should be none.
The master, a Dane by birth named Jansen, who had grown up in the American mercantile service, was a middle-sized, broad-shouldered man, with a red complexion, red whiskers, and a look which was at once grave and fiery. He paused in his heavy lurching to and fro, looked at the Mexican with an air which was civil but very stiff, and answered in that discouraging tone with which skippers are apt to smother conversation when they have business on hand, "Yes, sir, one other."
Coronado presently slipped down the companionway, found the colored steward, chinked five dollars into his horny palm, and said, "My good fellow, you must look out for me; I shall want a good deal of help during the passage."
"Yes, sah, very good, sah," was the answer, uttered in a greasy chuckle, as though it were the speech of a slab of bacon fat. "Make you up any little thing, sah. Have a sup now, sah? Little gruel? Little brof?"
"No, thank you," returned Coronado, turning half sick at the mention of those delicacies. "Nothing at present. By the way, one of the staterooms is occupied I see. Who is the other passenger?"
"Dunno, sah; keeps hisself shut up, an' says nothin' to nobody. 'Pears like he is sailin' under secret orders. Cur'ous' lookin' old gent; got only one eye."
One eye! Coronado thought of the face which had frightened him out of San Francisco, and wondered whether he were shut up in the Lolotte with it.
"One eye?" he asked. "Short, stout, dark old gentleman? Indeed! I think I know him."
Stepping to the door of a stateroom which he had already noticed as being kept closed, he tapped lightly. There was a muttering inside, a shuffling as of some one getting out of a berth, and then a low inquiry in Spanish, "Who is there?"
"Me, sah," returned Coronado, imitating, and imitating perfectly, the accent of the steward, who meantime had gone forward, talking and sniggering to himself, after an idiotic way that he had.
The door opened a trifle, and Coronado instantly slipped the toe of his little boot into the crack, at the same time saying in his natural tone, "My dear uncle!"
Seeing that he was discovered, Garcia gave his nephew entrance, closed the door after him, locked it, and sat down trembling on the edge of the lower berth, groaning and almost whimpering, "Ah, my son! Ah, my dear Carlos! Oh, what a life I have to lead! Madre de Dios, what a life! I thought you were one of my creditors. I did indeed, my dear Carlos, my son."
"I thought you went back to Santa Fé" was Coronado's reply.
"No, I did not go; I started, but I came back," mumbled Garcia. Then, plucking up a little spirit, he turned his one eye for a moment on his nephew's face, and added, "Why should I go to Santa Fé? I had no business there. My business is here."
"But after your attempt at the hacienda?"
"My attempt! I made no attempt. All that was a mistake. Because I was sick, I was frightened and did not know what to do. I ran away because you told me to run. I had given her nothing. Yes, I did put something in her chocolate, but it was my medicine. I meant to put in sugar, but I made a mistake and went to the wrong pocket, the pocket of my medicine. That was it, Carlos. I give you my word, word of a hidalgo, word of a Christian."
It was the same explanation which Coronado had invented to forestall suspicions at the hacienda. It was surely a wonderful coincidence of lying, and shows how great minds work alike. Vexed and angry as the nephew was, he could scarcely help smiling.
"My dear uncle!" he exclaimed, grasping Garcia's pudgy hand melodramatically. "The very thing that occurred to me! I told them so."
"Did you?" replied the old man, not much believing it. "Then all is well."
He wanted to ask how it was that Clara had survived her dose; but of course curiosity on that subject must not find vent; it would be equivalent to a confession.
"Where is she going?" were his next words.
"To Fort Yuma."
"To Fort Yuma! What for?"
"I may as well tell it," burst out Coronado angrily. "She is going there to nurse that officer. He escaped, but he has been sick, and she _will_ go."
"She must not go," whispered Garcia. "Oh, the ----." And here he called Clara a string of names which cannot be repeated. "She shall not go there," he continued. "She will marry him. Then the property is gone, and we are ruined. Oh, the ----." And then came another assortment of violent and vile epithets, such as are not found in dictionaries.
Coronado was anxious to divert and dissipate a rage which might make trouble; and as soon as he could get in a word, he asked, "But what have you been doing, my uncle?"
By dint of questioning and guessing he made out the story of the old man's adventures since leaving the hacienda. Garcia, in extreme terror of hanging, had gone straight to San Francisco and taken passage for San Diego, with the intention of not stopping until he should be at least as far away as Santa Fé. But after a few hours at sea, he had recovered his wits and his courage, and asked himself, why should he fly? If Clara died, the property would be his, and if she survived, he ought to be near her; while as for Carlos, he would surely never expose and hang a man who could cut him off with a shilling. So he landed at Monterey, took the first coaster back to San Francisco, lurked about the city until he learned that the girl was still living, and was just about to put a bold front on the matter by going to see her at the hacienda, when he learned accidentally that she was on the point of voyaging southward. Puzzled and alarmed by this, he resolved to accompany her in her wanderings, and succeeded in getting himself quietly on board the Lolotte.
"Well, let us go on deck," said Coronado, when the old man had regained his tranquillity. "But let us be gentle, my uncle. We know how to govern ourselves, I hope. You will of course behave like a mother to our little cousin. Congratulate her on her recovery; apologize for your awkward mistake. It was caused by the coming on of the fit, you remember. A man who is about to have an attack of epilepsy can't of course tell one pocket from another. But such a man is all the more bound to be unctuous."
Clara received the old man cordially, although she would have preferred not to see him there, fearing lest he should oppose her nursing project. But as nothing was said on this matter, and as Garcia put his least cloven foot foremost, the trio not only got on amicably together, but seemed to enjoy one another's society. This was no common feat by the way; each of the three had a great load of anxiety; it was wonderful that they should not show it. Coronado, for instance, while talking like a bird song, was planning how he could get rid of Garcia, and carry Clara back to San Francisco. The idea of pushing the old man overboard was inadmissible; but could he not scare him ashore at the next port by stories of a leak? As for Clara, he could not imagine how to manage her, she was so potent with her wealth and with her beauty. He was still thinking of these things, and prattling mellifluously of quite other things, when the Lolotte luffed up under the lee of the little island of Alcatraz.
"What does this mean?" he asked, looking suspiciously at the fortifications, with the American flag waving over them.
"Stop here to take in commissary stores for Fort Yuma," explained the thin, sallow, grave, meek-looking, and yet resolute Yankee mate.
The chain cable rattled through the hawse hole, and in no long while the loading commenced, lasting until nightfall. During this time Coronado chanced to learn that an officer was expected on board who would sail as far as San Diego; and, as all uniforms were bugbears to him, he watched for the new passenger with a certain amount of anxiety; taking care, by the way, to say nothing of him to Clara. About eight in the evening, as the girl was playing some trivial game of cards with Garcia in the cabin, a splashing of oars alongside called Coronado on deck. It was already dark; a sailor was standing by the manropes with a lantern; the captain was saying in a grumbling tone, "Very late, sir."
"Had to wait for orders, captain," returned a healthy, ringing young voice which struck Coronado like a shot.
"Orders!" muttered the skipper. "Why couldn't they have had them ready? Here we are going to have a southeaster."
There was anxiety as well as impatience in his voice; but Coronado just now could not think of tempests; his whole soul was in his eyes. The next instant he beheld in the ruddy light of the lantern the face of the man who was his evil genius, the man whose death he had so long plotted for and for a time believed in, the man who, as he feared, would yet punish him for his misdeeds. He was so thoroughly beaten and cowed by the sight that he made a step or two toward the companionway, with the purpose of hiding in the cabin. Then desperation gave him courage, and he walked straight up to Thurstane.
"My dear Lieutenant!" he cried, trying to seize the young fellow's hand. "Once more welcome to life! What a wonder! Another escape. You are a second Orlando--almost a Don Quixote. And where are your two Sancho Panzas?"
"You here!" was Thurstane's grim response, and he did not take the proffered hand.
"Come!" implored Coronado, stepping toward the waist of the vessel and away from the cabin. "This way, if you please," he urged, beckoning earnestly. "I have a word to say to you in private."
Not a tone of this conversation had been heard below. Before the boat had touched the side the crew were laboring at the noisy windlass with their shouts of "Yo heave ho! heave and pawl! heave hearty ho!" while the mate was screaming from the knight-heads, "Heave hearty, men--heave hearty. Heave and raise the dead. Heave and away."
Amid this uproar Coronado continued: "You won't shake hands with me, Lieutenant Thurstane. As a gentleman, speaking to another gentleman, I ask an explanation."
Thurstane hesitated; he had ugly suspicions enough, but no proofs; and if he could not prove guilt, he must not charge it.
"Is it because we abandoned you?" demanded Coronado. "We had reason. We heard that you were dead. The muleteers reported Apaches. I feared for the safety of the ladies. I pushed on. You, a gentleman and an officer--what else would you have advised?"
"Let it go," growled Thurstane. "Let that pass. I won't talk of it--nor of other things. But," and here he seemed to shake with emotion, "I want nothing more to do with you--you nor your family. I have had suffering enough."
"Ah, it is with _her_ that you quarrel rather than with me," inferred Coronado impudently, for he had recovered his self-possession. "Certainly, my poor Lieutenant! You have reason. But remember, so has she. She is enormously rich and can have any one. That is the way these women understand life."
"You will oblige me by saying not another word on that subject," broke in Thurstane savagely. "I got her letter dismissing me, and I accepted my fate without a word, and I mean never to see her again. I hope that satisfies you."
"My dear Lieutenant," protested Coronado, "you seem to intimate that I influenced her decision. I beg you to believe, on my word of honor as a gentleman, that I never urged her in any way to write that letter."
"Well--no matter--I don't care," replied the young fellow in a voice like one long sob. "I don't care whether you did or not. The moment she could write it, no matter how or why, that was enough. All I ask is to be left alone--to hear no more of her."
"I am obliged to speak to you of her," said Coronado. "She is aboard."
"Aboard!" exclaimed Thurstane, and he made a step as if to reach the shore or to plunge into the sea.
"I am sorry for you," said Coronado, with a simplicity which seemed like sincerity. "I thought it my duty to warn you."
"I cannot go back," groaned the young fellow. "I must go to San Diego. I am under orders."
"You must avoid her. Go to bed late. Get up early. Keep out of her way."
Turning his back, Thurstane walked away from this cruel and hated counsellor, not thinking at all of him however, but rather of the deep beneath, a refuge from trouble.
We must slip back to his last adventure with Texas Smith, and learn a little of what happened to him then and up to the present time.
It will be remembered how the bushwhacker sat in ambush; how, just as he was about to fire at his proposed victim, his horse whinnied; and how this whinny caused Thurstane's mule to rear suddenly and violently. The rearing saved the rider's life, for the bullet which was meant for the man buried itself in the forehead of the beast, and in the darkness the assassin did not discover his error. But so severe was the fall and so great Thurstane's weakness that he lost his senses and did not come to himself until daybreak.
There he was, once more abandoned to the desert, but rich in a full haversack and a dead mule. Having breakfasted, and thereby given head and hand a little strength, he set to work to provide for the future by cutting slices from the carcass and spreading them out to dry, well knowing that this land of desolation could furnish neither wolf nor bird of prey to rob his larder. This work done, he pushed on at his best speed, found and fed his companions, and led them back to the mule, their storehouse. After a day of rest and feasting came a march to the Cactus Pass, where the three were presently picked up by a caravan bound to Santa Fé, which carried them on for a number of days until they met a train of emigrants going west. Thus it was that Glover reached California, and Thurstane and Sweeny Fort Yuma.
Once in quiet, the young fellow broke down, and for weeks was too sick to write to Clara, or to any one. As soon as he could sit up he sent off letter after letter, but after two months of anxious suspense no answer had come, and he began to fear that she had never reached San Francisco. At last, when he was half sick again with worrying, arrived a horrible epistle in Clara's hand and signed by her name, informing him of her monstrous windfall of wealth and terminating the engagement. The crudest thing in this cruel forgery was the sentence, "Do you not think that in paying courtship to me in the desert you took unfair advantage of my loneliness?"
She had trampled on his heart and flouted his honor; and while he writhed with grief he writhed also with rage. He could not understand it; so different from what she had seemed; so unworthy of what he had believed her to be! Well, her head had been turned by riches; it was just like a woman; they were all thus. Thus said Thurstane, a fellow as ignorant of the female kind as any man in the army, and scarcely less ignorant than the average man of the navy. He declared to himself that he would never have anything more to do with her, nor with any of her false sex. At twenty-three he turned woman-hater, just as Mrs. Stanley at forty-five had turned man-hater, and perhaps for much the same sort of reason.
Shortly after Thurstane had received what he called his cashiering, his company was ordered from Fort Yuma to San Francisco. It had garrisoned the Alcatraz fort only two days, and he had not yet had a chance to visit the city, when he was sent on this expedition to San Diego to hunt down a deserting quartermaster-sergeant. The result was that he found himself shipped for a three days' voyage with the woman who had made him first the happiest man in the army and then the most miserable.
How should he endure it? He would not see her; the truth is that he could not endure the trial; but what he said to himself was that he _would_ not. In the darkness tears forced their way out of his eyes and mingled with the spray which the wind was already flinging over the bows. Crying! Three months ago, if any man had told him that he was capable of it, he would have considered himself insulted and would have felt like fighting. Now he was not even ashamed of it, and would hardly have been ashamed if it had been daylight. He was so thoroughly and hopelessly miserable that he did not care what figure he cut.
But, once more, what should he do? Oh, well, he would follow Coronado's advice; yes, damn him! follow the scoundrel's advice; he could think of nothing for himself. He would stay out until late; then he would steal below and go to bed; after that he would keep his stateroom. However, it was unpleasant to remain where he was, for the spray was beginning to drench the waist as well as the forecastle; and, the quarter-deck being clear of passengers, he staggered thither, dropped under the starboard bulwark, rolled himself in his cloak, and lay brooding.
Meanwhile Coronado had amused Clara below until he felt seasick and had to take to his berth. Escaping thus from his duennaship, she wanted to see a storm, as she called the half-gale which was blowing, and clambered bravely alone to the quarter-deck, where the skipper took her in charge, showed her the compass, walked her up and down a little, and finally gave her a post at the foot of the shrouds. Thurstane had recognized her by the light of the binnacle, and once more he thought, as weakly as a scared child, "What shall I do?" After hiding his face for a moment he uncovered it desperately, resolving to see whether she would speak. She did look at him; she even looked steadily and sharply, as if in recognition; but after a while she turned tranquilly away to gaze at the sea.
Forgetting that no lamp was shining upon him, and that she probably had no cause for expecting to find him here, Thurstane believed that she had discovered who he was and that her mute gesture confirmed his rejection. Under this throttling of his last hope he made no protest, but silently wished himself on the battle-field, falling with his face to the foe. For several minutes they remained thus side by side.
The Lolotte was now well at sea, the wind and waves rising rapidly, the motion already considerable. Presently there was an order of "Lay aloft and furl the skysails," and then short shouts resounded from the darkness, showing that the work was being done. But in spite of this easing the vessel labored a good deal, and heavy spurts of spray began to fly over the quarter-deck rail.
"I think, Miss, you had better go below unless you want to get wet," observed the skipper, coming up to Clara. "We shall have a splashing night of it."
Taking the nautical arm, Clara slid and tottered away, leaving Thurstane lying on the sloppy deck.
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{
"id": "12335"
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39
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Had Clara recognized Thurstane, she would have thrown herself into his arms, and he would hardly have slept that night for joy.
As it was, he could not sleep for misery; festering at heart because of that letter of rejection; almost maddened by his supposed discovery that she would not speak to him, yet declaring to himself that he never would have married her, because of her money; at the same time worshipping and desiring her with passion; longing to die, but longing to die for her; half enraged, and altogether wretched.
Meantime the southeaster, dead ahead and blowing harder every minute, was sending its seas further and further aft. He left his wet berth on the deck, reeled, or rather was flung, to the stern of the vessel, lodged himself between the little wheel-house and the taffrail, and watched a scene in consonance with his feelings. Innumerable twinklings of stars faintly illuminated a cloudless, serene heaven, and a foaming, plunging ocean. The slender, dark outlines of the sailless upper masts were leaning sharply over to leeward, and describing what seemed like mystic circles and figures against the lighter sky. The crests of seas showed with ghostly whiteness as they howled themselves to death near by, or dashed with a jar and a hoarse whistle over the bulwarks, slapping against the sails and pounding upon the decks. The waves which struck the bows every few seconds gave forth sounds like the strokes of Thor's hammer, and made everything tremble from cathead to stempost.
Every now and then there were hoarse orders from the captain on the quarter-deck, echoed instantly by sharp yells from the mate in the waist. Now it was, "Lay aloft and furl the fore royal;" and ten minutes later, "Lay aloft and furl the main royal." Scarcely was this work done before the shout came, "Lay aloft and reef the fore-t'gallant-s'l;" followed almost immediately by "Lay aloft and reef the main-t'gallant-s'l." Next came, "Lay out forrard and furl the flying jib." Each command was succeeded by a silent, dark darting of men into the rigging, and presently a trampling on deck and a short, sharp singing out at the ropes, with cries from aloft of "Haul out to leeward; taut hand; knot away."
Under the reduced sail the brig went easier for a while; but the half gale had made up its mind to be a hurricane. It was blowing more savagely every second. One after another the topgallant sails were double-reefed, close-reefed, and at last furled. The watch on deck had its hands full to accomplish this work, so powerfully did the wind drag on the canvas. Presently, far away forward--it seemed on board some other craft, so faint was the sound--there came a bang, bang, bang! on the scuttle of the forecastle, and a hollow shout of "All hands reef tops'ls ahoy!"
Up tumbled the "starbowlines," or starboard watch, and joined the "larbowlines" in the struggle with the elements. No more sleep that night for man, boy, mate, or master. Reef after reef was taken in the topsails, until they were two long, narrow shingles of canvas, and still the wind brought the vessel well down on her beam ends, as if it would squeeze her by main force under water. The men were scarcely on deck from their last reefing job, when boom! went the jib, bursting out as if shot from a cannon, and then whipping itself to tatters.
"Lay out forrard!" screamed the mate. "Lay out and furl it."
After a desperate struggle, half the time more or less under water, two men dragged in and fastened the fragments of the jib, while others set the foretop-mast staysail in its place. But the wind was full of mischief; it seemed to be playing with the ship's company; it furnished one piece of work after another with dizzying rapidity. Hardly was the jib secured before the great mainsail ripped open from top to bottom, and in the same puff the close-reefed foretopsail split in two with a bang, from earing to earing. Now came the orders fast and loud: "Down yards! Haul out reef tackle! Lay out and furl! Lay out and reef!"
It was a perfect mess; a score of ropes flying at once; the men rolling about and holding on; the sails slapping like mad, and ends of rigging streaming off to leeward. After an exhausting fight the mainsail was furled, the upper half of the topsail set close-reefed, and everything hauled taut again. Now came an hour or so without accident, but not without incessant and fatiguing labor, for the two royal yards were successively sent down to relieve the upper masts, and the foretopgallant sail, which had begun to blow loose, was frapped with long pieces of sinnet.
During this period of comparative quiet Thurstane ventured an attempt to reach his stateroom. The little gloomy cabin was going hither and thither in a style which reminded him of the tossings of Gulliver's cage after it had been dropped into the sea by the Brobdingnag eagle. The steward was seizing up mutinous trunks and chairs to the table legs with rope-yarns. The lamp was swinging and the captain's compass see-sawing like monkeys who had gone crazy in bedlams of tree-tops. From two of the staterooms came sounds which plainly confessed that the occupants were having a bad night of it.
"How is the lady passenger?" Thurstane could not help whispering.
"Guess she's asleep, sah," returned the negro. "Fus-rate sailor, sah. But them greasers is having tough times," he grinned. "Can't abide the sea, greasers can't, sah."
Smiling with a grim satisfaction at this last statement, Thurstane gave the man a five-dollar piece, muttered, "Call me if anything goes wrong," and slipped into his narrow dormitory. Without undressing, he lay down and tried to sleep; but, although it was past midnight, he stayed broad awake for an hour or more; he was too full of thoughts and emotions to find easy quiet in a pillow. Near him--yes, in the very next stateroom--lay the being who had made his life first a heaven and then a hell. The present and the past struggled in him, and tossed him with their tormenting contest. After a while, too, as the plunging of the brig increased, and he heard renewed sounds of disaster on deck, he began to fear for Clara's safety. It was a strange feeling, and yet a most natural one. He had not ceased to love; he seemed indeed to love her more than ever; to think of her struggling in the billows was horrible; he knew even then that he would willingly die to save her. But after a time the incessant motion affected him, and he dozed gradually into a sound slumber.
Hours later the jerking and pitching became so furious that it awakened him, and when he rose on his elbow he was thrown out of his berth by a tremendous lurch. Sitting up with his feet braced, he listened for a little to the roar of the tempest, the trampling feet on deck, and the screaming orders. Evidently things were going hardly above; the storm was little less than a tornado. Seriously anxious at last for Clara--or, as he tried to call her to himself, Miss Van Diemen--he stole out of his room, clambered or fell up the companionway, opened the door after a struggle with a sea which had just come inboard, got on to the quarter-deck, and, holding by the shrouds, quailed before a spectacle as sublime and more terrible than the Great Cañon of the Colorado.
It was daylight. The sun was just rising from behind a waste of waters; it revealed nothing but a waste of waters. All around the brig, as far as the eye could reach, the Pacific was one vast tumble of huge blue-gray, mottled masses, breaking incessantly in long, curling ridges, or lofty, tossing steeps of foam. Each wave was composed of scores of ordinary waves, just as the greater mountains are composed of ranges and peaks. They seemed moving volcanoes, changing form with every minute of their agony, and spouting lavas of froth. All over this immense riot of tormented deeps rolled beaten and terrified armies of clouds. The wind reigned supreme, driving with a relentless spite, a steady and obdurate pressure, as if it were a current of water. It pinned the sailors to the yards, and nearly blew Thurstane from the deck.
The Lolotte was down to close-reefed topsails, close-reefed spencer and spanker, and storm-jib. Even upon this small and stout spread of canvas the wind was working destruction, for just as Thurstane reached the deck the jib parted and went to leeward in ribbons. Sailors were seen now on the bowsprit fighting at once with sea and air, now buried in water, and now holding on against the storm, and slowly gathering in the flapping, snapping fragments. Next a new jib (a third one) was bent on, hoisted half-way, and blown out like a piece of wet paper. Almost at the same moment the captain saw threatening mouths grimace in the mainsail, and screamed "Never mind there forrard. Lay up on the maintawps'l yard. Lay up and furl."
After half an hour's fight, the sail bagging and slatting furiously, it was lashed anyway around the yard, and the men crawled slowly down again, jammed and bruised against the shrouds by the wind. Every jib and forestaysail on board having now been torn out, the brig remained under close-reefed foretopsail, spencer, and spanker, and did little but drift to leeward. The gale was at its height, blowing as if it were shot out of the mouths of cannon, and chasing the ocean before it in mountains of foam. One thing after another went; the topgallants shook loose and had to be sent down; the chain bobstays parted and the martingale slued out of place; one of the anchors broke its fastenings and hammered at the side; the galley gave way and went slopping into the lee scuppers. No food that morning except dry crackers and cold beef; all hands laboring exhaustingly to repair damages and make things taut. For more than half an hour three men were out on the guys and backropes endeavoring to reset the martingale, deluged over and over by seas, and at last driven in beaten. Others were relashing the galley, hauling the loose anchor and all the anchors up on the rail, and resetting the loose lee rigging, which threatened at every lurch to let the masts go by the board.
Thurstane presently learned that the wind had changed during the night, at first dropping away for a couple of hours, then reopening with fresh rage from the west, and finally hauling around into the northwest, whence it now came in a steady tempest. The vessel too had altered her course; she was no longer beating in long tacks toward the southeast; she was heading westward and struggling to get away from the land. Thurstane asked few questions; he was a soldier and had learned to meet fate in silence; he knew too that men weighted with responsibilities do not like to be catechised. But he guessed from the frequent anxious looks of the captain eastward that the California coast was perilously near, and that the brig was more likely to be drifting toward it than making headway from it. Surveying through his closed hands the stormy windward horizon, he gave up all thoughts of getting away from Clara by reaching San Diego, and turned toward the idea of saving her from shipwreck.
None of the other passengers came on deck this morning. Garcia, horribly seasick and frightened, held on desperately to his berth, and passed the time in screaming for the "stewrt," cursing his evil surroundings, calling everybody he could think of pigs, dogs, etc., and praying to saints and angels. Coronado, not less sick and blasphemous, had more command over his fears, and kept his prayers for the last pinch. Clara, a much better sailor, and indeed an uncommonly good one, was so far beaten by the motion that she did not get up, but lay as quiet as the brig would let her, patiently awaiting results, now and then smiling at Garcia's shouts, but more frequently thinking of Thurstane, and sometimes praying that she might find him alive at Fort Yuma.
The steward carried cold beef, hard bread, brandy, coffee, and gruel (made in his pantry) from stateroom to stateroom. The girl ate heartily, inquired about the storm, and asked, "When shall we get there?" Garcia and Coronado tried a little of the gruel and a good deal of the brandy and water, and found, as people usually do under such circumstances, that nothing did them any good. The old man wanted to ask the steward a hundred questions, and yelled for his nephew to come and translate for him. Coronado, lying on his back, made no answer to these cries of despair, except in muttered curses and sniffs of angry laughter. So passed the morning in the cabin.
Thurstane remained on deck, eating in soldierly fashion, his pockets full of cold beef and crackers, and his canteen (for every infantry officer learns to carry one) charged with hot coffee. He was pretty wet, inasmuch as the spray showered incessantly athwart ships, while every few minutes heavy seas came over the quarter bulwarks, slamming upon the deck like the tail of a shark in his agonies. During the morning several great combers had surmounted the port bow and rushed aft, carrying along everything loose or that could be loosened, and banging against the companion door with the force of a runaway horse. And these deluges grew more frequent, for the gale was steadily increasing in violence, howling and shrieking out of the gilded eastern horizon as if Lucifer and his angels had been hurled anew from heaven.
About noon the close-reefed foretopsail burst open from earing to earing, and then ripped up to the yard, the corners stretching out before the wind and cracking like musket shots. To set it again was impossible; the orders came, "Down yard--haul out reef tackle;" then half a dozen men laid out on the spar and began furling. Scarcely was this terrible job well under way when a whack of the slatting sail struck a Kanaka boy from his hold, and he was carried to leeward by the gale as if he had been a bag of old clothes, dropping forty feet from the side into the face of a monstrous billow. He swam for a moment, but the next wave combed over him and he disappeared. Then he was seen further astern, still swimming and with his face toward the brig; then another vast breaker rushed upon him with a lion-like roar, and he was gone. Nothing could be done; no boat might live in such a sea; it would have been perilous to change course. The captain glanced at the unfortunate, clenched his fists desperately, and turned to his rigging. Another man took the vacant place on the yard, and the hard, dizzy, frightful labor there went on unflaggingly, with the usual cries of "Haul out, knot away," etc. It was one of the forms of a sailor's funeral.
No time for comments or emotions; the gale filled every mind every minute. It was soon found that the spanker, a pretty large sail, well aft and not balanced by any canvas at the bow, drew too heavily on the stern and made steering almost impossible. A couple of Kanakas were ordered to reef it, but could do nothing with it; the skipper cursed them for "sojers" (our infantryman smiling at the epithet) and sent two first-class hands to replace them; but these also were completely beaten by the hurricane. It was not till a whole watch was put at the job that the big, bellying sheet could be hauled in and made fast in the reef knots. The brig now had not a rag out but her spencer and reduced spanker, both strong, small, and low sails, eased a good deal by their slant, shielded by the elevated port-rail, and thus likely to hold. But it was not sailing; it was simply lying to. The vessel rose and fell on the monstrous waves, but made scarcely more headway than would a tub, and drifted fast toward the still unseen California coast.
All might still have gone well had the northwester continued as it was. But about noon this tempest, which already seemed as furious as it could possibly be, suddenly increased to an absolute hurricane, the wind fairly shoving the brig sidelong over the water. Bang went the spanker, and then bang the spencer, both sails at once flying out to leeward in streamers, and flapping to tatters before the men could spring on the booms to secure them. The destruction was almost as instant and complete as if it had been effected by the broadside of a seventy-four fired at short range.
"Bend on the new spencer," shouted the captain. "Out with it and up with it before she rolls the sticks out of her."
But the rolling commenced instantly, giving the sailors no time for their work. No longer steadied by the wind, the vessel was entirely at the mercy of the sea, and went twice on her beam ends for every billow, first to lee and then to windward. Presently a great, white, hissing comber rose above her larboard bulwark, hung there for a moment as if gloating on its prey, and fell with the force of an avalanche, shaking every spar and timber into an ague, deluging the main deck breast high, and swashing knee-deep over the quarter-deck. The galley, with the cook in it, was torn from its lashings and slung overboard as if it had been a hencoop. The companion doors were stove in as if by a battering ram, and the cabin was flooded in an instant with two feet of water, slopping and lapping among the baggage, and stealing under the doors of the staterooms. The sailors in the waist only saved themselves by rushing into the rigging during the moment in which the breaker hung suspended.
Nothing could be done; the vessel must lift herself from this state of submergence; and so she did, slowly and tremulously, like a sick man rising from his bed. But while the ocean within was still running out of her scuppers, the ocean without assaulted her anew. Successive billows rolled under her, careening her dead weight this way and that, and keeping her constantly wallowing. No rigging could bear such jerking long, and presently the dreaded catastrophe came.
The larboard stays of the foremast snapped first; then the shrouds on the same side doubled in a great bight and parted; next the mast, with a loud, shrieking crash, splintered and went by the board. It fell slowly and with an air of dignified, solemn resignation, like Caesar under the daggers of the conspirators. The cross stays flew apart like cobwebs, but the lee shrouds unfortunately held good; and scarcely was the stick overboard before there was an ominous thumping at the sides, the drum-beat of death. It was like guns turned on their own columns; like Pyrrhus's elephants breaking the phalanx of Pyrrhus.
"Axes!" roared the captain at the first crack. "Axes!" yelled the mate as the spar reeled into the water. "Lay forward and clear the wreck," were the next orders; "cut away with your knives."
Two axes were got up from below; the sailors worked like beavers, waist-deep in water; one, who had lost his knife, tore at the ropes with his teeth. After some minutes of reeling, splashing, chopping, and cutting, the fallen mast, the friend who had become an enemy, the angel who had become a demon, was sent drifting through the creamy foam to leeward. Meantime the mate had sounded the pumps, and brought out of them a clear stream of water, the fresh invasion of ocean.
Directly on this cruel discovery, and as if to heighten its horror to the utmost, the captain, clinging high up the mainmast shrouds, shouted, "Landa-lee! Get ready the boats."
Without a word Thurstane hurried down into the cabin to save Clara from this twofold threatening of death.
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When Thurstane got into the cabin, he found it pretty nearly clear of water, the steward having opened doors and trap-doors and drawn off the deluge into the hold.
The first object that he saw, or could see, was Clara, curled up in a chair which was lashed to the mast, and secured in it by a lanyard. As he paused at the foot of the stairway to steady himself against a sickening lurch, she uttered a cry of joy and astonishment, and held out her hand. The cry was not speech; her gladness was far beyond words; it was simply the first utterance of nature; it was the primal inarticulate language.
He had expected to stand at a distance and ask her leave to save her life. Instead of that, he hurried toward her, caught her in his arms, kissed her hand over and over, called her pet names, uttered a pathetic moan of grief and affection, and shook with inward sobbing. He did not understand her; he still believed that she had rejected him--believed that she only reached out to him for help. But he never thought of charging her with being false or hard-hearted or selfish. At the mere sight of her asking rescue of him he devoted himself to her. He dared to kiss her and call her dearest, because it seemed to him that in this awful moment of perhaps mortal separation he might show his love. If they were to be torn apart by death, and sepulchred possibly in different caves of the ocean, surely his last farewell might be a kiss.
If she talked to him, he scarcely heard her words, and did not realize their meaning. If it was indeed true that she kissed his cheek, he thought it was because she wanted rescue and would thank any one for it. She was, as he understood her, like a pet animal, who licks the face of any friend in need, though a stranger. Never mind; he loved her just the same as if she were not selfish; he would serve her just the same as if she were still his. He unloosed her arms from his shoulders, wondering that they should be there, and crawling with difficulty to the cabin locker, groped in it for life-preservers. There was only one in the vessel; that one he buckled around Clara.
"Oh, my darling!" she exclaimed; "what do you mean?"
"My darling!" he echoed, "bear it bravely. There is great danger; but don't be afraid--I will save you."
He had no doubts in making this promise; it seemed to him that he could overcome the billows for her sake--that he could make himself stronger than the powers of nature.
"Where did you come from? from another vessel?" she asked, stretching out her arms to him again.
"I was here," he said, taking and kissing her hands; "I was here, watching over you. But there is no time to lose. Let me carry you."
"They must be saved," returned Clara, pointing to the staterooms. "Garcia and Coronado are there."
Should he try to deliver those enemies from death? He did not hesitate a moment about it, but bursting open the doors of the two rooms he shouted, "On deck with you! Into the boats! We are sinking!"
Next he set Clara down, passed his left arm around her waist, clung to things with his right hand, dragged her up the companionway to the quarter-deck, and lashed her to the weather shrouds, with her feet on the wooden leader. Not a word was spoken during the five minutes occupied by this short journey. Even while Clara was crossing the deck a frothing comber deluged her to her waist, and Thurstane had all he could do to keep her from being flung into the lee scuppers. But once he had her fast and temporarily safe, he made a great effort to smile cheerfully, and said, "Never fear; I won't leave you."
"Oh! to meet to die!" she sobbed, for the strength of the water and the rage of the surrounding sea had frightened her. "Oh, it is cruel!"
Presently she smothered her crying, and implored, "Come up here and tie yourself by my side; I want to hold your hand."
He wondered whether she loved him again, now that she saw him; and in spite of the chilling seas and the death at hand, he thrilled warm at the thought. He was about to obey her when Coronado and Garcia appeared, pale as two ghosts, clinging to each other, tottering and helpless. Thurstane went to them, got the old man lashed to one of the backstays, and helped Coronado to secure himself to another. Garcia was jabbering prayers and crying aloud like a scared child, his jaws shaking as if in a palsy. Coronado, although seeming resolved to bear himself like an hidalgo and maintain a grim silence, his face was wilted and seamed with anxiety, as if he had become an old man in the night. It was rather a fine sight to see him looking into the face of the storm with an air of defying death and all that it might bring; and perhaps he would have been helpful, and would have shown himself one of the bravest of the brave, had he not been prostrated by sickness. As it was, he took little interest in the fate of others, hardly noticing Thurstane as he resumed his post beside Clara, and only addressing the girl with one word: "Patience!"
Clara and Thurstane, side by side and hand in hand, were also for the most part silent, now looking around them upon their fate, and then at each other for strength to bear it.
Meantime part of the crew had tried the pumps, and been washed away from them twice by seas, floating helplessly about the main deck, and clutching at rigging to save themselves, but nevertheless discovering that the brig was filling but slowly, and would have full time to strike before she could founder. " 'Vast there!" called the captain; "'vast the pumps! All hands stand by to launch the boats!"
"Long boat's stove!" shouted the mate, putting his hands to his mouth so as to be heard through the gale.
"All hands aft!" was the next order. "Stand by to launch the quarter-boats!"
So the entire remaining crew--two mates and eight men, including the steward--splashed and clambered on to the quarter-deck and took station by the boat-falls, hanging on as they could.
"Can I do anything?" asked Thurstane.
"Not yet," answered the captain; "you are doing what's right; take care of the lady."
"What are the chances?" the lieutenant ventured now to inquire.
With fate upon him, and seemingly irresistible, the skipper had dropped his grim air of conflict and become gentle, almost resigned. His voice was friendly, sympathetic, and quite calm, as he stepped up by Thurstane's side and said, "We shall have a tough time of it. The land is only about ten miles away. At this rate we shall strike it inside of three hours. I don't see how it can be helped."
"Where shall we strike?"
"Smack into the Bay of Monterey, between the town and Point Pinos.'
"Can I do anything?"
"Do just what you've got in hand. Take care of the lady. See that she gets into the biggest boat--if we try the boats."
Clara overheard, gave the skipper a kind look, and said, "Thank you, captain."
"You're fit to be capm of a liner, miss," returned the sailor. "You're one of the best sort."
For some time longer, while waiting for the final catastrophe, nothing was done but to hold fast and gaze. The voyagers were like condemned men who are preceded, followed, accompanied, jostled, and hurried to the place of death by a vindictive people. The giants of the sea were coming in multitudes to this execution which they had ordained; all the windward ocean was full of rising and falling billows, which seemed to trample one another down in their savage haste. There was no mercy in the formless faces which grimaced around the doomed ones, nor in the tempestuous voices which deafened them with threatenings and insult. The breakers seemed to signal to each other; they were cruelly eloquent with menacing gestures. There was but one sentence among them, and that sentence was a thousand times repeated, and it was always DEATH.
To paint the shifting sublimity of the tempest is as difficult as it was to paint the steadfast sublimity of the Great Cañon. The waves were in furious movement, continual change, and almost incessant death. They destroyed themselves and each other by their violence. Scarcely did one become eminent before it was torn to pieces by its comrades, or perished of its own rage. They were like barbarous hordes, exterminating one another or falling into dissolution, while devastating everything in their course.
There was a frantic revelry, an indescribable pandemonium of transformations. Lofty plumes of foam fell into hoary, flattened sheets; curling and howling cataracts became suddenly deep hollows. The indigo slopes were marbled with white, but not one of these mottlings retained the same shape for an instant; it was broad, deep, and creamy when the eye first beheld it; in the next breath it was waving, shallow, and narrow; in the next it was gone. A thousand eddies, whirls, and ebullitions of all magnitudes appeared only to disappear. Great and little jets of froth struggled from the agitated centres toward the surface, and never reached it. Every one of the hundred waves which made up each billow rapidly tossed and wallowed itself to death.
Yet there was no diminution in the spectacle, no relaxation in the combat. In the place of what vanished there was immediately something else. Out of the quick grave of one surge rose the white plume of another. Marbling followed marbling, and cataract overstrode cataract. Even to their bases the oceanic ranges and peaks were full of power, activity, and, as it were, explosions. It seemed as if endless multitudes of transformations boiled up through them from their abodes in sea-deep caves. There was no exhausting this reproductiveness of form and power. At every glance a thousand worlds of waters had perished, and a thousand worlds of waters had been created. And all these worlds, the new even more than the old, were full of malignity toward the wreck, and bent on its destruction.
The wind, though invisible, was not less wonderful. It surpassed the ocean in strength, for it chased, gashed, and deformed the ocean. It inflicted upon it countless wounds, slashing fresh ones as fast as others healed. It not only tore off the hoary scalps of the billows and flung them through the air, but it wrenched out and hurled large masses of water, scattering them in rain and mist, the blood of the sea. Now and then it made all the air dense with spray, causing the Pacific to resemble the Sahara in a simoom. At other times it levelled the tops of scores of waves at once, crushing and kneading them by the immense force that lay in its swiftness.
It would not be looked in the face; it blinded the eyes that strove to search it; it seemed to flap and beat them with harsh, churlish wings; it was as full of insult as the billows. Its cry was not multitudinous like that of the sea, but one and incessant and invariable, a long scream that almost hissed. On reaching the wreck, however, this shriek became hoarse with rage, and howled as it shook the rigging. It used the shrouds and stays of the still upright mainmast as an aeolian harp from which to draw horrible music. It made the tense ropes tremble and thrill, and tortured the spars until they wailed a death-song. Its force as felt by the shipwrecked ones was astonishing; it beat them about as if it were a sea, and bruised them against the shrouds and bulwarks; it asserted its mastery over them with the long-drawn cruelty of a tiger.
Just around the wreck the tumult of both wind and sea was of course more horrible than anywhere else. These enemies were infuriated by the sluggishness of the disabled hulk; they treated it as Indians treat a captive who cannot keep up with their march; they belabored it with blows and insulted it with howls. The brig, constantly tossed and dropped and shoved, was never still for an instant. It rolled heavily and somewhat slowly, but with perpetual jerks and jars, shuddering at every concussion. Its only regularity of movement lay in this, that the force of the wind and direction of the waves kept it larboard side on, drifting steadily toward the land.
One moment it was on a lofty crest, seeming as if it would be hurled into air. The next it was rolling in the trough of the sea, between a wave which hoarsely threatened to engulf it, and another which rushed seething and hissing from beneath the keel. The deck stood mostly at a steep angle, the weather bulwarks being at a considerable elevation, and the lee ones dipping the surges. Against this helpless and partially water-logged mass the combers rushed incessantly, hiding it every few seconds with sheets of spray, and often sweeping it with deluges. Around the stern and bow the rush of bubbling, roaring whirls was uninterrupted.
The motion was sickly and dismaying, like the throes of one who is dying. It could not be trusted; it dropped away under the feet traitorously; then, by an insolent surprise, it violently stopped or lifted. It was made the more uncertain and distressing by the swaying of the water which had entered the hull. Sometimes, too, the under boiling of a crushed billow caused a great lurch to windward; and after each of these struggles came a reel to leeward which threatened to turn the wreck bottom up; the breakers meantime leaping aboard with loud stampings as if resolved to beat through the deck.
During hours of this tossing and plunging, this tearing of the wind and battering of the sea, no one was lost. The sailors were clustered around the boats, some clinging to the davits and others lashed to belaying pins, exhausted by long labor, want of sleep, and constant soakings, but ready to fight for life to the last. Coronado and Garcia were still fast to the backstays, the former a good deal wilted by his hardships, and the latter whimpering. Thurstane had literally seized up Clara to the outside of the weather shrouds, so that, although she was terribly jammed by the wind, she could not be carried away by it, while she was above the heaviest pounding of the seas. His own position was alongside of her, secured in like manner by ends of cordage.
Sometimes he held her hand, and sometimes her waist. She could lean her shoulder against his, and she did so nearly all the while. Her eyes were fixed as often on his face as on the breakers which threatened her life. The few words that she spoke were more likely to be confessions of love than of terror. Now and then, when a billow of unusual size had slipped harmlessly by, he gratefully and almost joyously drew her close to him, uttering a few syllables of cheer. She thanked him by sending all her affectionate heart through her eyes into his.
Although there had been no explanations as to the past, they understood each other's present feelings. It could not be, he was sure, that she clung to him thus and looked at him thus merely because she wanted him to save her life. She had been detached from him by others, he said; she had been drawn away from thinking of him during his absence; she had been brought to judge, perhaps wisely, that she ought not to marry a poor man; but now that she saw him again she loved him as of old, and, standing at death's door, she felt at liberty to confess it. Thus did he translate to himself a past that had no existence. He still believed that she had dismissed him, and that she had done it with cruel harshness. But he could not resent her conduct; he believed what he did and forgave her; he believed it, and loved her.
There were moments when it was delightful for them to be as they were. As they held fast to each other, though drenched and exhausted and in mortal peril, they had a sensation as if they were warm. The hearts were beating hotly clean through the wet frames and the dripping clothing.
"Oh, my love!" was a phrase which Clara repeated many times with an air of deep content.
Once she said, "My love, I never thought to die so easily. How horrible it would have been without you!"
Again she murmured, "I have prayed many, many times to have you. I did not know how the answer would come. But this is it."
"My darling, I have had visions about you," was another of these confessions. "When I had been praying for you nearly all one night, there was a great light came into the room. It was some promise for you. I knew it was then; something told me so. Oh, how happy I was!"
Presently she added, "My dear love, we shall be just as happy as that. We shall live in great light together. God will be pleased to see plainly how we love each other."
Her only complaints were a patient "Isn't it hard?" when a new billow had covered her from head to foot, crushed her pitilessly against the shrouds, and nearly smothered her.
The next words would perhaps be, "I am so sorry for you, my darling. I wish for your sake that you had not come. But oh, how you help me!"
"I am glad to be here," firmly and honestly and passionately responded the young man, raising her wet hand and covering it with kisses. "But you shall not die."
He was bearing like a man and she like a woman. He was resolved to fight his battle to the last; she was weak, resigned, gentle, and ready for heaven.
The land, even to its minor features, was now distinctly visible, not more than a mile to leeward. As they rose on the billows they could distinguish the long beach, the grassy slopes, and wooded knolls beyond it, the green lawn on which stood the village of Monterey, the whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs of the houses, and the groups of people who were watching the oncoming tragedy.
"Are you not going to launch the boats?" shouted Thurstane after a glance at the awful line of frothing breakers which careered back and forth athwart the beach.
"They are both stove," returned the captain calmly. "We must go ashore as we are."
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When Thurstane heard, or rather guessed from the captain's gestures, that the boats were stove, he called, "Are we to do nothing?"
The captain shouted something in reply, but although he put his hands to his mouth for a speaking trumpet, his words were inaudible, and he would not have been understood had he not pointed aloft.
Thurstane looked upward, and saw for the first time that the main topmast had broken off and been cut clear, probably hours ago when he was in the cabin searching for Clara. The top still remained, however, and twisted through its openings was one end of a hawser, the other end floating off to leeward two hundred yards in advance of the wreck. Fastened to the hawser by a large loop was a sling of cordage, from which a long halyard trailed shoreward, while another connected it with the top. All this had been done behind his back and without his knowledge, so deafening and absorbing was the tempest. He saw at once what was meant and what he would have to do. When the brig struck he must carry Clara into the top, secure her in the sling, and send her ashore. Doubtless the crowd on the beach would know enough to make the hawser fast and pull on the halyard.
The captain shouted again, and this time he could be understood: "When she strikes hold hard."
"Did you hear him?" Thurstane asked, turning to Clara.
"Yes," she nodded, and smiled in his face, though faintly like one dying. He passed one arm around the middle stay of the shrouds and around her waist, passed the other in front of her, covering her chest; and so, with every muscle set, he waited.
Surrounded, pursued, pushed, and hammered by the billows, the wreck drifted, rising and falling, starting and wallowing toward the awful line where the breakers plunged over the undertow and dashed themselves to death on the resounding shore. There was a wide debatable ground between land and water. One moment it belonged to earth, the next lofty curling surges foamed howling over it; then the undertow was flying back in savage torrents. Would the hawser reach across this flux and reflux of death? Would the mast hold against the grounding shock? Would the sling work?
They lurched nearer; the shock was close at hand; every one set teeth and tightened grip. Lifted on a monstrous billow, which was itself lifted by the undertow and the shelving of the beach, the hulk seemed as if it were held aloft by some demon in order that it might be dashed to pieces. But the wave lost its hold, swept under the keel, staggered wildly up the slope, broke in a huge white deafening roll, and rushed backward in torrents. The brig was between two forces; it struck once, but not heavily; then, raised by the incoming surge, it struck again; there was an awful consciousness and uproar of beating and grinding; the next instant it was on its beam ends and covered with cataracts.
Every one aboard was submerged. Thurstane and Clara were overwhelmed by such a mass of water that they thought themselves at the bottom of the sea. Two men who had not mounted the rigging, but tried to cling to the boat davits, were hurled adrift and sent to agonize in the undertow. The brig trembled as if it were on the point of breaking up and dissolving in the horrible, furious yeast of breakers. Even to the people on shore the moment and the spectacle were sublime and tremendous beyond description. The vessel and the people on board disappeared for a time from their sight under jets and cascades of surf. The spray rose in a dense sheet as high as the maintopmast would have been had it stood upright.
When Thurstane came out of his state of temporary drowning, he was conscious of two sailors clambering by him toward the top, and heard a shout in his ears of "Cast loose."
It was the captain. He had sprung alongside of Clara, and was already unwinding her lashings. Thrice before the job was done they were buried in surf, and during the third trial they had to hold on with their hands, the two men clasping the girl desperately and pressing her against the rigging. It was a wonder that she and all of them were not disabled, for the jamming of the water was enough to break bones.
They got her up a few ratlines; then came another surge, during which they gripped hard; then there was a second ascent, and so on. The climbing was the easier and the holding on the more difficult, because the mast was depressed to a low angle, its summit being hardly ten feet higher than its base. Even in the top there was a desperate struggle with the sea, and even after Clara was in the sling she was half drowned by the surf.
Meantime the people on shore had made fast the hawser to a tree and manned the halyard. Not a word was uttered by Clara or Thurstane when they parted, for she was speechless with exhaustion and he with anxiety and terror. The moment he let go of her he had to grip a loop of top-hamper and hold on with all his might to save himself from being pitched into the water by a fresh jerk of the mast and a fresh inundation of flying surge. When he could look at her again she was far out on the hawser, rising and falling in quick, violent, perilous swings, caught at by the toppling breakers and howled at by the undertow. Another deluge blinded him; as soon as he could he gazed shoreward again, and shrieked with joy; she was being carefully lifted from the sling; she was saved--if she was not dead.
When the apparatus was hauled back to the top the captain said to Thurstane, "Your turn now."
The young man hesitated, glanced around for Coronado and Garcia, and replied, "Those first."
It was not merely humanity, and not at all good-will toward these two men, which held him back from saving his life first; it was mainly that motto of nobility, that phrase which has such a mighty influence in the army, "_An officer and a gentleman_." He believed that he would disgrace his profession and himself if he should quit the wreck while any civilian remained upon it.
Coronado, leaving his uncle to the care of a sailor, had already climbed the shrouds, and was now crawling through the lubber hole into the top. For once his hardihood was beaten; he was pale, tremulous and obviously in extreme terror; he clutched at the sling the moment he was pointed to it. With the utmost care, and without even a look of reproach, Thurstane helped secure him in the loops and launched him on his journey. Next came the turn of Garcia. The old man seemed already dead. He was livid, his lips blue, his hands helpless, his voice gone, his eyes glazed and set. It was necessary to knot him into the sling as tightly as if he were a corpse; and when he reached shore it could be seen that he was borne off like a dead weight.
"Now then," said the captain to Thurstane. "We can't go till you do. Passengers first."
Exhausted by his drenchings, and by a kind of labor to which he was not accustomed, the lieutenant obeyed this order, took his place in the sling, nodded good-by to the brave sailors, and was hurled out of the top by a plunge of surf, as a criminal is pushed from the cart by the hangman.
No idea has been given, and no complete idea can be given, of the difficulties, sufferings, and perils of this transit shoreward. Owing to the rising and falling of the mast, the hawser now tautened with a jerk which flung the voyager up against it or even over it, and now drooped in a large bight which let him down into the seethe of water and foam that had just rushed over the vessel, forcing it down on its beam ends. Thurstane was four or five times tossed and as often submerged. The waves, the wind, and the wreck played with him successively or all together. It was an outrage and a torment which surpassed some of the tortures of the Inquisition. First came a quick and breathless plunge; then he was imbedded in the rushing, swirling waters, drumming in his ears and stifling his breath; then he was dragged swiftly upward, the sling turning him out of it. It seemed to him that the breath would depart from his body before the transit was over. When at last he landed and was detached from the cordage, he was so bruised, so nearly drowned, so every way exhausted, that he could not stand. He lay for quite a while motionless, his head swimming, his legs and arms twitching convulsively, every joint and muscle sore, catching his breath with painful gasps, almost fainting, and feeling much as if he were dying.
He had meant to help save the captain and sailors. But there was no more work in him, and he just had strength to walk up to the village, a citizen holding him by either arm. As soon as he could speak so as to be understood, he asked, first in English and then in Spanish, "How is the lady?"
"She is insensible," was the reply--a reply of unmeant cruelty.
Remembering how he had suffered, Thurstane feared lest Clara had received her death-stroke in the slings, and he tottered forward eagerly, saying, "Take me to her."
Arrived at the house where she lay, he insisted upon seeing her, and had his way. He was led into a room; he did not see and could never remember what sort of a room it was; but there she was in bed, her face pale and her eyes closed; he thought she was dead, and he nearly fell. But a pitying womanly voice murmured to him, "She lives," with other words that he did not understand, or could not afterward recall. Trusting that this unconsciousness was a sleep, he suffered himself to be drawn away by helping hands, and presently was himself in a bed, not knowing how he got there.
Meantime the tragedy of the wreck was being acted out. The sling broke once, the sailor who was in it falling into the undertow, and perishing there in spite of a rush of the townspeople. One of the two men who were washed overboard at the first shock was also drowned. The rest escaped, including the heroic captain, who was the last to come ashore.
When Thurstane was again permitted to see Clara, it was, to his great astonishment, the morning of the following day. He had slept like the dead; if any one had sought to awaken him, it would have been almost impossible; there was no strength left in body or spirt but for sleep. Clara's story had been much the same: insensibility, then swoons, then slumber; twelve hours of utter unconsciousness. On waking the first words of each were to ask for the other. Thurstane put on his scarcely dried uniform and hurried to the girl's room. She received him at the door, for she had heard his step although it was on tiptoe, and she knew his knock although as light as the beating of a bird's wing.
It was another of those interviews which cannot be described, and perhaps should not be. They were uninterrupted, for the ladies of the house had learned from Clara that this was her betrothed, and they had woman's sense of the sacredness of such meetings. Presents came, and were not sent in: Coronado called and was not admitted. The two were alone for two hours, and the two hours passed like two minutes. Of course all the ugly past was explained.
"A letter dismissing you!" exclaimed Clara with tears. "Oh! how could you think that I would write such a letter? Never--never! Oh, I never could. My hand should drop off first. I should die in trying to write such wickedness. What! don't you know me better? Don't you know that I am true to you? Oh, how could you believe it of me? My darling, how could you?"
"Forgive me," begged the humbled young fellow, trembling with joy in his humility. "It was weak and wicked in me. I deserved to be punished as I have been. And, oh, I did not deserve this happiness. But, my little girl, how could I help being deceived? There was your handwriting and your signature."
"Ah! I know who it was," broke out Clara. "It has been he all through. He shall pay for this, and for all," she added, her Spanish blood rising in her cheeks, and her soft eyes sparkling angrily for a minute.
"I have saved his life for the last time," returned Thurstane. "I have spared it for the last time. Hereafter--" "My darling, my darling!" begged Clara, alarmed by his blackening brow. "Oh, my darling, I don't love to see you angry. Just now, when we have just been spared to each other, don't let us be angry. I spoke angrily first. Forgive me."
"Let him keep out of my way," muttered Thurstane, only in part pacified.
"Yes," answered Clara, thinking that she would herself send Coronado off, so that there might be no duel between him and this dear one.
Presently the lover added one thing which he had felt all the time ought to have been said at first.
"The letter--it was right. Although _he_ wrote it, it was right. I have no claim to marry a rich woman, and you have no right to marry a poor man."
He uttered this in profound misery, and yet with a firm resolution. Clara turned pale and stared at him with anxious eyes, her lips parted as though to speak, but saying nothing. Knowing his fastidious sense of honor, she guessed the full force with which this scruple weighed upon him, and she did not know how to drag it off his soul.
"You are worth a million," he went on, in a broken-hearted sort of voice which to us may seem laughable, but which brought the tears into Clara's eyes.
The next instant she brightened; she knew, or thought she knew, that she was not worth a million; so she smiled like a sunburst and caught him gayly by the wrists.
"A million!" she scoffed, laughingly. "Do you believe all Coronado tells you?"
"What! isn't it true?" exclaimed Thurstane, reddening with joy. "Then you are not heir to your grandfather's fortune? It was one of _his_ lies? Oh, my little girl, I am forever happy."
She had not meant all this; but how could she undeceive him? The tempting thought came into her mind that she would marry him while he was in this ignorance, and so relieve him of his noble scruples about taking an heiress. It was one of those white lies which, it seems to us, must fade out of themselves from the record book, without even needing to be blotted by the tear of an angel.
"Are you glad?" she smiled, though anxious at heart, for deception alarmed her. "Really glad to find me poor?"
His only response was to cover her hands, and hair, and forehead with kisses.
At last came the question, When? Clara hesitated; her face and neck bloomed with blushes as dewy as flowers; she looked at him once piteously, and then her gaze fell in beautiful shame.
"When would you like?" she at last found breath to whisper.
"Now--here," was the answer, holding both her hands and begging with his blue-black eyes, as soft then as a woman's.
"Yes, at once," he continued to implore. "It is best everyway. It will save you from persecutions. My love, is it not best?"
Under the circumstances we cannot wonder that this should be just as she desired.
"Yes--it is--best," she murmured, hiding her face against his shoulder. "What you say is true. It will save me trouble."
After a short heaven of silence he added, "I will go and see what is needed. I must find a priest."
As he was departing she caught him; it seemed to her just then that she could not be a wife so soon; but the result was that after another silence and a faint sobbing, she let him go.
Meantime Coronado, that persevering and audacious but unlucky conspirator, was in treble trouble. He was afraid that he would lose Clara; afraid that his plottings had been brought to light, and that he would be punished; afraid that his uncle would die and thus deprive him of all chance of succeeding to any part of the estate of Muñoz. Garcia had been brought ashore apparently at his last gasp, and he had not yet come out of his insensibility. For a time Coronado hoped that he was in one of his fits; but after eighteen hours he gave up that feeble consolation; he became terribly anxious about the old man; he felt as though he loved him. The people of Monterey universally admitted that they had never before known such an affectionate nephew and tender-hearted Christian as Coronado.
He tried to see Clara, meaning to make the most with her of Garcia's condition, and hoping that thus he could divert her a little from Thurstane. But somehow all his messages failed; the little house which held her repelled him as if it had been a nunnery; nor could he get a word or even a note from her. The truth is that Clara, fearing lest Coronado should tell more stories about her million to Thurstane, had taken the women of the family into her confidence and easily got them to lay a sly embargo on callers and correspondents.
On the second day Garcia came to himself for a few minutes, and struggled hard to say something to his nephew, but could give forth only a feeble jabber, after which he turned blank again. Coronado, in the extreme of anxiety, now made another effort to get at Clara. Reaching her house, he learned from a bystander that she had gone out to walk with the Americano, and then he thought he discovered them entering the distant church.
He set off at once in pursuit, asking himself with an anxiety which almost made him faint, "Are they to be married?"
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{
"id": "12335"
}
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42
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None
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In those days the hymeneal laws of California were as easy as old shoes, and people could espouse each other about as rapidly as they might want to.
The consequence was that, although Ralph Thurstane and Clara Van Diemen had only been two days in Monterey and had gone through no forms of publication, they were actually being married when Coronado reached the village church.
Leaning against the wall, with eyes as fixed and face as livid as if he were a corpse from the neighboring cemetery, he silently witnessed a ceremony which it would have been useless for him to interrupt, and then, stepping softly out of a side door, lurked away.
He walked a quarter of a mile very fast, ran nearly another quarter of a mile, turned into a by-road, sought its thickest underbrush, threw himself on the ground, and growled. For once he had a heavier burden upon him than he could bear in human presence, or bear quietly anywhere. He must be alone; also he must weep and curse. He was in a state to tear his hair and to beat his head against the earth. Refined as Coronado usually was, admirably as he could imitate the tranquil gentleman of modern civilization, he still had in him enough of the natural man to rave. For a while he was as simple and as violent in his grief as ever was any Celtiberian cave-dweller of the stone age.
Jealousy, disappointed love, disappointed greed, plans balked, labor lost, perils incurred in vain! All the calamities that he could most dread seemed to have fallen upon him together; he was like a man sucked by the arms of a polypus, dying in one moment many deaths. We must, however, do him the justice to believe that the wound which tore the sharpest was that which lacerated his heart. At this time, when he realized that he had altogether and forever lost Clara, he found that he loved her as he had never yet believed himself capable of loving. Considering the nobility of this passion, we must grant some sympathy to Coronado.
Unfortunate as he was, another misfortune awaited him. When he returned to the house where Garcia lay, he found that the old man, his sole relative and sole friend, had expired. To Coronado this dead body was the carcass of all remaining hope. The exciting drama of struggle and expectation which had so violently occupied him for the last six months, and which had seemed to promise such great success, was over. Even if he could have resolved to kill Clara, there was no longer anything to be gained by it, for her money would not descend to Coronado. Even if he should kill Thurstane, that would be a harm rather than a benefit, for his widow would hate Coronado. If he did any evil deed now, it must be from jealousy or from vindictiveness. Was murder of any kind worth while? For the time, whether it were worth while or not, he was furious enough to do it.
If he did not act, he must go; for as everything had miscarried, so much had doubtless been discovered, and he might fairly expect chastisement. While he hesitated a glance into the street showed him something which decided him, and sent him far from Monterey before sundown. Half a dozen armed horsemen, three of them obviously Americans, rode by with a pinioned prisoner, in whom Coronado recognized Texas Smith. He did not stop to learn that his old bravo had committed a murder in the village, and that a vigilance committee had sent a deputation after him to wait upon him into the other world. The sight of that haggard, scarred, wicked face, and the thought of what confessions the brute might be led to if he should recognize his former employer, were enough to make Coronado buy a horse and ride to unknown regions.
Under the circumstances it would perhaps be unreasonable to blame him for leaving his uncle to be buried by Clara and Thurstane.
These two, we easily understand, were not much astonished and not at all grieved by his departure.
"He is gone," said Thurstane, when he learned the fact. "No wonder."
"I am so glad!" replied Clara.
"I suspect him now of being at the bottom of all our troubles."
"Don't let us talk of it, my love. It is too ugly. The present is so beautiful!"
"I must hurry back to San Francisco and try to get a leave of absence," said the husband, turning to pleasanter subjects. "I want full leisure to be happy."
"And you won't let them send you to San Diego?" begged the wife. "No more voyages now. If you do go, I shall go with you."
"Oh no, my child. I can't trust the sea with you again. Not after this," and he waved his hand toward the wreck of the brig. "Then I will beg myself for your leave of absence."
Thurstane laughed; that would never do; no such condescension in _his_ wife!
They went by land to San Francisco, and Clara kept the secret of her million during the whole journey, letting her husband pay for everything out of his shallow pocket, precisely as if she had no money. Arrived in the city, he left her in a hotel and hurried to headquarters. Two hours later he returned smiling, with the news that a brother officer had volunteered to take his detail, and that he had obtained a honeymoon leave of absence for thirty days.
"Barclay is a trump," he said. "It is all the prettier in him to go that he has a wife of his own. The commandant made no objection to the exchange. In fact the old fellow behaved like a father to me, shook hands, patted me on the shoulder, congratulated me, and all that sort of thing. Old boy, married himself, and very fond of his family. Upon my word, it seems to better a man's heart to marry him."
"Of course it does," chimed in Clara. "He is so much happier that of course he is better."
"Well, my little princess, where shall we go?"
"Go first to see Aunt Maria. There! don't make a face. She is very good in the long run. She will be sweet enough to you in three days."
"Of course I will go. Where is she?"
"Boarding at a hacienda a few miles from town. We can take horses, canter out there, and pass the night."
She was full of spirits; laughed and chattered all the way; laughed at everything that was said; chattered like a pleased child. Of course she was thinking of the surprise that she would give him, and how she had circumvented his sense of honor about marrying a rich girl, and how hard and fast she had him. Moreover the contrast between her joyous present and her anxious past was alone enough to make her run over with gayety. All her troubles had vanished in a pack; she had gone at one bound from purgatory to paradise.
At the hacienda Thurstane was a little struck by the respect with which the servants received Clara; but as she signed to them to be silent, not a word was uttered which could give him a suspicion of the situation. Mrs. Stanley, moreover, was taking a siesta, and so there was another tell-tale mouth shut.
"Nobody seems to be at home," said Clara, bursting into a merry laugh over her trick as they entered the house. "Where can the master and mistress be?"
They were now in a large and handsomely furnished room, which was the parlor of the hacienda.
"Don't sit down," cried Clara, her eyes sparkling with joy. "Stand just there as you are. Let me look at you a moment. Wait till I tell you something."
She fronted him for a few seconds, watching his wondering face, hesitating, blushing, and laughing. Suddenly she bounded forward, threw her arms around his shoulders and cried excitedly, hysterically, "My love! my husband! all this is yours. Oh, how happy I am!"
The next moment she burst into tears on the shoulder to which she was clinging.
"What is the matter?" demanded Thurstane in some alarm; for he did not know that women can tremble and weep with gladness, and he thought that surely his wife was sick if not deranged.
"What! don't you guess it?" she asked, drawing back with a little more calmness, and looking tenderly into his puzzled eyes.
"You don't mean--?"
"Yes, darling."
"It can't be that--?"
"Yes, darling."
He began to comprehend the trick that had been played upon him, although as yet he could not fully credit it. What mainly bewildered him was that Clara, whom he had always supposed to be as artless as a child--Clara, whom he had cared for as an elder and a father--should have been able to keep a secret and devise a plot and carry out a mystification.
"Great ---- Scott!" he gasped in his stupefaction, using the name of the then commander-in-chief for an oath, as officers sometimes did in those days.
"Yes, yes, yes," laughed and chattered Clara. "Great Scott and great Thurstane! All yours. Three hundred thousand. Half a million. A million. I don't know how much. All I know is that it is all yours. Oh, my darling! oh, my darling! How I have fooled you! Are you angry with me? Say, are you angry? What will you do to me?"
We must excuse Thurstane for finding no other chastisement than to squeeze her in his arms and choke her with kisses. Next he held her from him, set her down upon a sofa, fell back a pace and stared at her much as if she were a totally new discovery, something in the way of an arrival from the moon. He was in a state of profound amazement at the dexterity with which she had taken his destiny out of his own hands into hers, without his knowledge. He had not supposed that she was a tenth part so clever. For the first time he perceived that she was his match, if indeed she were not the superior nature; and it is a remarkable fact, though not a dark one if one looks well into it, that he respected her the more for being too much for him.
"It beats Hannibal," he said at last. "Who would have expected such generalship in you? I am as much astonished as if you had turned into a knight in armor. Well, how much it has saved me! I should have hesitated and been miserable; and I should have married you all the same; and then been ashamed of marrying money, and had it rankle in me for years. And now--oh, you wise little thing! --all I can say is, I worship you."
"Yes, darling," replied Clara, walking gravely up to him, putting her hands on his shoulders, and looking him thoughtfully in the eyes. "It was the wisest thing I ever did. Don't be afraid of me. I never shall be so clever again. I never shall be so tempted to be clever."
We must pass over a few months. Thurstane soon found that he had the Muñoz estate in his hands, and that, for the while at least, it demanded all his time and industry. Moreover, there being no war and no chance of martial distinction, it seemed absurd to let himself be ordered about from one hot and cramped station to another, when he had money enough to build a palace, and a wife who could make it a paradise. Finally, he had a taste for the natural sciences, and his observations in the Great Cañon and among the other marvels of the desert had quickened this inclination to a passion, so that he craved leisure for the study of geology, mineralogy, and chemistry. He resigned his commission, established himself in San Francisco, bought all the scientific books he could hear of, made expeditions to the California mountains, collected garrets full of specimens, and was as happy as a physicist always is.
Perhaps his happiness was just a little increased when Mrs. Stanley announced her intention of returning to New York. The lady had been amiable on the whole, as she meant always to be; but she could not help daily taking up her parable concerning the tyranny and stupidity of man and the superior virtue of woman; and sometimes she felt it her duty to put it to Thurstane that he owed everything to his wife; all of which was more or less wearing, even to her niece. At the same time she was such a disinterested, well-intentioned creature that it was impossible not to grant her a certain amount of admiration. For instance, when Clara proposed to make her comfortable for life by settling upon her fifty thousand dollars, she replied peremptorily that it was far too much for an old woman who had decided to turn her back on the frivolities of society, and she could with difficulty be brought to accept twenty thousand.
Furthermore, she was capable, that is, in certain favored moments, of confessing error. "My dear," she said to Clara, some weeks after the marriage, "I have made one great mistake since I came to these countries. I believed that Mr. Coronado was the right man and Mr. Thurstane the wrong one. Oh, that smooth-tongued, shiny-eyed, meeching, bowing, complimenting hypocrite! I see at last what a villain he was. _I_ see it," she emphasized, as if nobody else had discovered it. "To think that a person who was so right on the main question [female suffrage] could be so wrong on everything else! The contradiction adds to his guilt. Well, I have had my lesson. Every one must make her mistake. I shall never be so humbugged again."
Some little time after Thurstane had received the acceptance of his resignation and established himself in his handsome city house, Aunt Maria observed abruptly, "My dears, I must go back."
"Go back where? To the desert and turn hermit?" asked Clara, who was accustomed to joke her relative about "spheres and missions."
"To New York," replied Mrs. Stanley. "I can accomplish nothing here. This miserable Legislature will take no notice of my petitions for female suffrage."
"Oh, that is because you sign them alone," laughed the younger lady.
"I can't get anybody else to sign them," said Aunt Maria with some asperity. "And what if I do sign them alone? A house full of men ought to have gallantry enough to grant one lady's request. California is not ripe for any great and noble measure. I can't remain where I find so little sympathy and collaboration. I must go where I can be of use. It is my duty."
And go she did. But before she shook off her dust against the Pacific coast there was an interview with an old acquaintance.
It must be understood that the fatigues and sufferings of that terrible pilgrimage through the desert had bothered the constitution of little Sweeny, and that, after lying in garrison hospital at San Francisco for several months, he had been discharged from the service on "certificate of physical disability." Thurstane, who had kept track of him, immediately took him to his house, first as an invalid hanger-on, and then as a jack of all work.
As the family were sitting at breakfast Sweeny's voice was heard in the veranda outside, "colloguing" with another voice which seemed familiar.
"Listen," whispered Clara. "That is Captain Glover. Let us hear what they say. They are both so queer!"
"An' what" ("fwat" he pronounced it) "the divil have ye been up to?" demanded Sweeny. "Ye're a purty sailor, buttoned up in a long-tail coat, wid a white hankerchy round yer neck. Have ye been foolin' paple wid makin' 'em think ye're a Protestant praste?"
"I've been blowin' glass, Sweeny," replied the sniffling voice of Phineas Glover.
"Blowin' glass! Och, yees was always powerful at blowin'. But I niver heerd ye blow glass. It was big lies mostly whin I was a listing."
"Yes, blowin' glass," returned the Fair Havener in a tone of agreeable reminiscence, as if it had been a not unprofitable occupation. "Found there wasn't a glass-blower in all Californy. Bought 'n old machine, put up to the mines with it, blew all sorts 'f jigmarigs 'n' thingumbobs, 'n' sold 'em to the miners 'n' Injuns. Them critters is jest like sailors ashore; they'll buy anything they set eyes on. Besides, I sounded my horn; advertised big, so to speak; got up a sensation. Used to mount a stump 'n' make a speech; told 'em I'd blow Yankee Doodle in glass, any color they wanted; give 'em that sort 'f gospel, ye know."
"An' could ye do it?" inquired the Paddy, confounded by the idea of blowing a glass tune.
"Lord, Sweeny! you're greener 'n the miners. When ye swaller things that way, don't laugh 'r ye'll choke yerself to death, like the elephant did when he read the comic almanac at breakfast."
"I don't belave that nuther," asseverated Sweeny, anxious to clear himself from the charge of credulity.
"Don't believe that!" exclaimed Glover. "He did it twice."
"Och, go way wid ye. He couldn't choke himself afther he was dead. I wouldn't belave it, not if I see him turn black in the face. It's yerself'll get choked some day if yees don't quit blatherin'. But what did ye get for yer blowin'? Any more'n the clothes ye're got to yer back?"
For answer Glover dipped into his pockets, took out two handfuls of gold pieces and chinked them under the Irishman's nose.
"Blazes! ye're lousy wid money," commented Sweeny. "Ye want somebody to scratch yees."
"Twenty thousan' dollars in bank," added Glover. "All by blowin' 'n' tradin'. Goin' hum in the next steamer. Anythin' I can do for ye, old messmate? Say how much."
"It's the liftinant is takin' care av me. He's made a betther livin' nor yees, a thousand times over, by jist marryin' the right leddy. An' he's going to put me in charrge av a farrum that they call the hayshindy, where I'll sell the cattle for myself, wid half to him, an' make slathers o' money."
"Thunder, Sweeny! You'll end by ridin' in a coach. What'll ye take for yer chances? Wal, I'm glad to hear ye're doin' so well. I am so, for old times' sake."
"Come in, Captain Glover," at this moment called Clara through the blinds. "Come in, Sweeny. Let us all have a talk together about the old times and the new ones."
So there was a long talk, miscellaneous and delightful, full of reminiscences and congratulations and good wishes.
"Wal, we're a lucky lot," said Glover at last. "Sh'd like to hear 'f some good news for the sergeant and Mr. Kelly. Sh'd go back hum easier for it."
"Kelly is first sergeant," stated Thurstane, "and Meyer is quartermaster-sergeant, with a good chance of being quartermaster. He is capable of it and deserves it. He ought to have been promoted years ago for his gallantry and services during the war. I hope every day to hear that he has got his commission as lieutenant."
"Wal, God bless 'em, 'n' God bless the hull army!" said Glover, so gratified that he felt pious. "An' now, good-by. Got to be movin'."
"Stay over night with us," urged Thurstane. "Stay a week. Stay as long as you will."
"Do," begged Clara. "You can go geologizing with my husband. You can start Sweeny on his farm."
"Och, he's a thousin' times welkim," put in Sweeny, "though I'm afeard av him. He'd tache the cattle to trade their skins wid ache other, an slather me wid lies till I wouldn't know which was the baste an' which was Sweeny."
Glover grinned with an air of being flattered, but replied, "Like to stay first rate, but can't work it. Passage engaged for to-morrow mornin'."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Aunt Maria, agreeably surprised by an idea.
And the result was that she went to New York under the care of Captain Glover.
As for Clara and Thurstane, they are surely in a state which ought to satisfy their friends, and we will therefore say no more of them.
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{
"id": "12335"
}
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1
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I, Cornelio Grandi, who tell you these things, have a story of my own, of which some of you are not ignorant. You know, for one thing, that I was not always poor, nor always a professor of philosophy, nor a scribbler of pedantic articles for a living. Many of you can remember why I was driven to sell my patrimony, the dear castello in the Sabines, with the good corn-land and the vineyards in the valley, and the olives, too. For I am not old yet; at least, Mariuccia is older, as I often tell her. These are queer times. It was not any fault of mine. But now that Nino is growing to be a famous man in the world, and people are saying good things and bad about him, and many say that he did wrong in this matter, I think it best to tell you all the whole truth and what I think of it. For Nino is just like a son to me; I brought him up from a little child, and taught him Latin, and would have made a philosopher of him. What could I do? He had so much voice that he did not know what to do with it.
His mother used to sing. What a piece of a woman she was! She had a voice like a man's, and when De Pretis brought his singers to the festa once upon a time, when I was young, he heard her far down below, as we walked on the terrace of the palazzo, and asked me if I would not let him educate that young tenor. And when I told him it was one of the contadine, the wife of a tenant of mine, he would not believe it. But I never heard her sing after Serafino--that was her husband--was killed at the fair in Genazzano. And one day the fevers took her, and so she died, leaving Nino a little baby. Then you know what happened to me, about that time, and how I sold Castel Serveti and came to live here in Rome. Nino was brought to me here. One day in the autumn a carrettiere from Serveti, who would sometimes stop at my door and leave me a basket of grapes in the vintage, or a pitcher of fresh oil in winter, because he never used to pay his house-rent when I was his landlord--but he is a good fellow, Gigi--and so he tries to make amends now; well, as I was saying, he came one day and gave me a great basket of fine grapes, and he brought Nino with him, a little boy of scarce six years--just to show him to me, he said.
He was an ugly little boy, with a hat of no particular shape and a dirty face. He had great black eyes, with ink-saucers under them, _calamai_, as we say, just as he has now. Only the eyes are bigger now, and the circles deeper. But he is still sufficiently ugly. If it were not for his figure, which is pretty good, he could never have made a fortune with his voice. De Pretis says he could, but I do not believe it.
Well, I made Gigi come in with Nino, and Mariuccia made them each a great slice of toasted bread and spread it with oil, and gave Gigi a glass of the Serveti wine, and little Nino had some with water. And Mariuccia begged to have the child left with her till Gigi went back the next day; for she is fond of children and comes from Serveti herself. And that is how Nino came to live with us. That old woman has no principles of economy, and she likes children.
"What does a little creature like that eat?" said she. "A bit of bread, a little soup--macchè! You will never notice it, I tell you. And the poor thing has been living on charity. Just imagine whether you are not quite as able to feed him as Gigi is!" So she persuaded me. But at first I did it to please her, for I told her our proverb, which says there can be nothing so untidy about a house as children and chickens. He was such a dirty little boy, with only one shoe and a battered hat, and he was always singing at the top of his voice, and throwing things into the well in the cortile.
Mariuccia can read a little, though I never believed it until I found her one day teaching Nino his letters out of the _Vite dei Santi_. That was probably the first time that her reading was ever of any use to her, and the last, for I think she knows the _Lives of the Saints_ by heart, and she will certainly not venture to read a new book at her age. However, Nino very soon learned to know as much as she, and she will always be able to say that she laid the foundation of his education. He soon forgot to throw handfuls of mud into the well, and Mariuccia washed him, and I bought him a pair of shoes, and we made him look very decent. After a time he did not even remember to pull the cat's tail in the morning, so as to make her sing with him, as he said. When Mariuccia went to church she would take him with her, and he seemed very fond of going, so that I asked him one day if he would like to be a priest when he grew up, and wear beautiful robes, and have pretty little boys to wait on him with censers in their hands.
"No," said the little urchin, stoutly, "I won't be a priest." He found in his pocket a roast chestnut Mariuccia had given him, and began to shell it.
"Why are you always so fond of going to church then?" I asked.
"If I were a big man," quoth he, "but really big, I would sing in church, like Maestro De Pretis."
"What would you sing, Nino?" said I, laughing. He looked very grave, and got a piece of brown paper and folded it up. Then he began to beat time on my knees and sang out boldly, _Cornu ejus exaltabitur_.
It was enough to make one laugh, for he was only seven years old, and ugly too. But Mariuccia, who was knitting in the hall-way, called out that it was just what Maestro Ercole had sung the day before at vespers, every syllable.
I have an old piano in my sitting-room. It is a masterpiece of an instrument, I can tell you; for one of the legs is gone and I propped it up with two empty boxes, and the keys are all black except those that have lost the ivory--and those are green. It has also five pedals, disposed as a harp underneath; but none of them make any impression on the sound, except the middle one, which rings a bell. The sound-board has a crack in it somewhere, Nino says, and two of the notes are dumb since the great German maestro came home with my boy one night, and insisted on playing an accompaniment after supper. We had stewed chickens and a flask of Cesanese, I remember, and I knew something would happen to the piano. But Nino would never have any other, for De Pretis had a very good one; and Nino studies without anything--just a common tuning-fork that he carries in his pocket. But the old piano was the beginning of his fame. He got into the sitting-room one day, by himself, and found out that he could make a noise by striking the keys, and then he discovered that he could make tunes, and pick out the ones that were always ringing in his head. After that he could hardly be dragged away from it, so that I sent him to school to have some quiet in the house.
He was a clever boy, and I taught him Latin and gave him our poets to read; and as he grew up I would have made a scholar of him, but he would not. At least, he was willing to learn and to read; but he was always singing too. Once I caught him declaiming "Arma virumque cano" to an air from Trovatore, and I knew he could never be a scholar then, though he might know a great deal. Besides, he always preferred Dante to Virgil, and Leopardi to Horace.
One day, when he was sixteen or thereabouts, he was making a noise, as usual, shouting some motive or other to Mariuccia and the cat, while I was labouring to collect my senses over a lecture I had to prepare. Suddenly his voice cracked horribly and his singing ended in a sort of groan. It happened again once or twice, the next day, and then the house was quiet. I found him at night asleep over the old piano, his eyes all wet with tears.
"What is the matter, Nino?" I asked. "It is time for youngsters like you to be in bed."
"Ah, Messer Cornelio," he said, when he was awake, "I had better go to bed, as you say. I shall never sing again, for my voice is all broken to pieces"; and he sobbed bitterly.
"The saints be praised," thought I; "I shall make a philosopher of you yet!"
But he would not be comforted, and for several months he went about as if he were trying to find the moon, as we say; and though he read his books and made progress, he was always sad and wretched, and grew much thinner, so that Mariuccia said he was consuming himself, and I thought he must be in love. But the house was very quiet.
I thought as he did, that he would never sing again, but I never talked to him about it, lest he should try, now that he was as quiet as a nightingale with its tongue cut out. But nature meant differently, I suppose. One day De Pretis came to see me; it must have been near the new year, for he never came often at that time. It was only a friendly recollection of the days when I had a castello and a church of my own at Serveti, and used to have him come from Rome to sing at the festa, and he came every year to see me; and his head grew bald as mine grew grey, so that at last he wears a black skull-cap everywhere, like a priest, and only takes it off when he sings the Gloria Patri, or at the Elevation. However, he came to see me, and Nino sat mutely by, as we smoked a little and drank the syrup of violets with water that Mariuccia brought us. It was one of her eternal extravagances, but somehow, though she never understood the value of economy, my professorship brought in more than enough for us, and it was not long after this that I began to buy the bit of vineyard out of Porta Salara, by instalments from my savings. And since then we have our own wine.
De Pretis was talking to me about a new opera that he had heard. He never sang except in church, of course, but he used to go to the theatre of an evening; so it was quite natural that he should go to the piano and begin to sing a snatch of the tenor air to me, explaining the situation as he went along, between his singing.
Nino could not sit still, and went and leaned over Sor Ercole, as we call the maestro, hanging on the notes, not daring to try and sing, for he had lost his voice, but making the words with his lips.
"Dio mio!" he cried at last, "how I wish I could sing that!"
"Try it," said De Pretis, laughing and half interested by the boy's earnest look. "Try it--I will sing it again." But Nino's face fell.
"It is no use," he said. "My voice is all broken to pieces now, because I sang too much before."
"Perhaps it will come back," said the musician kindly, seeing the tears in the young fellow's eyes. "See, we will try a scale." He struck a chord. "Now, open your mouth--so--Do-o-o-o!" He sang a long note. Nino could not resist any longer, whether he had any voice or not. He blushed red and turned away, but he opened his mouth and made a sound.
"Do-o-o-o!" He sang like the master, but much weaker.
"Not so bad; now the next, Re-e-e!" Nino followed him. And so on, up the scale.
After a few more notes, De Pretis ceased to smile, and cried, "Go on, go on!" after every note, authoritatively, and in quite a different manner from his first kindly encouragement. Nino, who had not sung for months, took courage and a long breath, and went on as he was bid, his voice gaining volume and clearness as he sang higher. Then De Pretis stopped and looked at him earnestly.
"You are mad," he said. "You have not lost your voice at all."
"It was quite different when I used to sing before," said the boy.
"Per Bacco, I should think so," said the maestro. "Your voice has changed. Sing something, can't you?"
Nino sang a church air he had caught somewhere. I never heard such a voice, but it gave me a queer sensation that I liked--it was so true, and young, and clear. De Pretis sat open-mouthed with astonishment and admiration. When the boy had finished, he stood looking at the maestro, blushing very scarlet, and altogether ashamed of himself. The other did not speak.
"Excuse me," said Nino, "I cannot sing. I have not sung for a long time. I know it is not worth anything." De Pretis recovered himself.
"You do not sing," said he, "because you have not learned. But you can. If you will let me teach you, I will do it for nothing."
"Me!" screamed Nino, "you teach _me_! Ah, if it were any use--if you only would!"
"Any use?" repeated De Pretis half aloud, as he bit his long black cigar half through in his excitement. "Any use? My dear boy, do you know that you have a very good voice? A remarkable voice," he continued, carried away by his admiration, "such a voice as I have never heard. You can be the first tenor of your age, if you please--in three years you will sing anything you like, and go to London and Paris, and be a great man. Leave it to me."
I protested that it was all nonsense, that Nino was meant for a scholar and not for the stage, and I was quite angry with De Pretis for putting such ideas into the boy's head. But it was of no use. You cannot argue with women and singers, and they always get their own way in the end. And whether I liked it or not, Nino began to go to Sor Ercole's house once or twice a week, and sang scales and exercises very patiently, and copied music in the evening, because he said he would not be dependent on me, since he could not follow my wishes in choosing a profession. De Pretis did not praise him much to his face after they had begun to study, but he felt sure he would succeed.
"Caro Conte,"--he often calls me Count, though I am only plain Professore, now--"he has a voice like a trumpet and the patience of all the angels. He will be a great singer."
"Well, it is not my fault," I used to answer; for what could I do?
When you see Nino now, you cannot imagine that he was ever a dirty little boy from the mountains, with one shoe, and that infamous little hat. I think he is ugly still, though you do not think so when he is singing, and he has good strong limbs and broad shoulders, and carries himself like a soldier. Besides, he is always very well dressed, though he has no affectations. He does not wear his hair plastered into a love-lock on his forehead, like some of our dandies, nor is he eternally pulling a pair of monstrous white cuffs over his hands. Everything is very neat about him and very quiet, so that you would hardly think he was an artist after all; and he talks but little, though he can talk very well when he likes, for he has not forgotten his Dante nor his Leopardi. De Pretis says the reason he sings so well is because he has a mouth like the slit in an organ pipe, as wide as a letter-box at the post-office. But I think he has succeeded because he has great square jaws like Napoleon. People like that always succeed. My jaw is small, and my chin is pointed under my beard--but then, with the beard, no one can see it. But Mariuccia knows.
Nino is a thoroughly good boy, and until a year ago he never cared for anything but his art; and now he cares for something, I think, a great deal better than art, even than art like his. But he is a singer still, and always will be, for he has an iron throat, and never was hoarse in his life. All those years when he was growing up, he never had a love-scrape, or owed money, or wasted his time in the caffè.
"Take care," Mariuccia used to say to me, "if he ever takes a fancy to some girl with blue eyes and fair hair he will be perfectly crazy. Ah, Sor Conte, _she_ had blue eyes, and her hair was like the corn-silk. How many years is that, Sor Conte mio?" Mariuccia is an old witch.
I am writing this story to tell you why Mariuccia is a witch, and why my Nino, who never so much as looked at the beauties of the generone, as they came with their fathers and brothers and mothers to eat ice-cream in the Piazza Colonna, and listen to the music of a summer's evening,--Nino, who stared absently at the great ladies as they rolled over the Pincio, in their carriages, and was whistling airs to himself for practice when he strolled along the Corso, instead of looking out for pretty faces,--Nino, the cold in all things save in music, why he fulfilled Mariuccia's prophecy, little by little, and became perfectly crazy about blue eyes and fair hair. That is what I am going to tell you, if you have the leisure to listen. And you ought to know it, because evil tongues are more plentiful than good voices in Rome, as elsewhere, and people are saying many spiteful things about him--though they clap loudly enough at the theatre when he sings.
He is like a son to me, and perhaps I am reconciled, after all, to his not having become a philosopher. He would never have been so famous as he is now, and _he_ really knows so much more than Maestro De Pretis--in other ways than music--that he is very presentable indeed. What is blood, nowadays? What difference does it make to society whether Nino Cardegna, the tenor was the son of a vine-dresser? Or what does the University care for the fact that I, Cornelio Grandi, am the last of a race as old as the Colonnas, and quite as honourable? What does Mariuccia care? What does anybody care? Corpo di Bacco! if we begin talking of race we shall waste as much time as would make us all great celebrities! I am not a celebrity--I never shall be now, for a man must begin at that trade young. It is a profession--being celebrated--and it has its signal advantages. Nino will tell you so, and he has tried it. But one must begin young, very young! I cannot begin again.
And then, as you all know, I never began at all. I took up life in the middle, and am trying hard to twist a rope of which I never held the other end. I feel sometimes as though it must be the life of another that I have taken, leaving my own unfinished, for I was never meant to be a professor. That is the way of it; and if I am sad and inclined to melancholy humours, it is because I miss my old self, and he seems to have left me without even a kindly word at parting. I was fond of my old self, but I did not respect him much. And my present self I respect, without fondness. Is that metaphysics? Who knows? It is vanity in either case, and the vanity of self-respect is perhaps a more dangerous thing than the vanity of self-love, though you may call it pride if you like, or give it any other high-sounding title. But the heart of the vain man is lighter than the heart of the proud. Probably Nino has always had much self-respect, but I doubt if it has made him very happy--until lately. True, he has genius, and does what he must by nature do or die, whereas I have not even talent, and I make myself do for a living what I can never do well. What does it serve, to make comparisons? I could never have been like Nino, though I believe half my pleasure of late has been in fancying how I should feel in his place, and living through his triumphs by my imagination. Nino began at the very beginning, and when all his capital was one shoe and a ragged hat, and certainly not more than a third of a shirt, he said he would be a great singer; and he is, though he is scarcely of age yet. I wish it had been something else than a singer, but since he is the first already, it was worth while. He would have been great in anything, though, for he has such a square jaw, and he looks so fierce when anything needs to be overcome. Our forefathers must have looked like that, with their broad eagle noses and iron mouths. They began at the beginning, too, and they went to the very end. I wish Nino had been a general, or a statesman, or a cardinal, or all three like Richelieu.
But you want to hear of Nino, and you can pass on your ways, all of you, without hearing my reflections and small-talk about goodness, and success, and the like. Moreover, since I respect myself now, I must not find so much fault with my own doings, or you will say that I am in my dotage. And, truly, Nino Cardegna is a better man, for all his peasant blood, than I ever was; a better lover, and perhaps a better hater. There is his guitar, that he always leaves here, and it reminds me of him and his ways. Fourteen years he lived here with me, from child to boy and from boy to man, and now he is gone, never to live here any more. The end of it will be that I shall go and live with him, and Mariuccia will take her cat and her knitting, and her _Lives of the Saints_ back to Serveti, to end her life in peace, where there are no professors and no singers. For Mariuccia is older than I am, and she will die before me. At all events, she will take her tongue with her, and ruin herself at her convenience without ruining me. I wonder what life would be without Mariuccia? Would anybody darn my stockings, or save the peel of the mandarins to make cordial? I certainly would not have the mandarins if she were gone--it is a luxury. No, I would not have them. But then, there would be no cordial, and I should have to buy new stockings every year or two. No, the mandarins cost less than the stockings--and--well, I suppose I am fond of Mariuccia.
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"id": "12346"
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It was really not so long ago--only one year. The sirocco was blowing up and down the streets, and about the corners, with its sickening blast, making us all feel like dead people, and hiding away the sun from us. It is no use trying to do anything when it blows sirocco, at least for us who are born here. But I had been persuaded to go with Nino to the house of Sor Ercole to hear my boy sing the opera he had last studied, and so I put my cloak over my shoulders, and wrapped its folds over my breast, and covered my mouth, and we went out. For it was a cold sirocco, bringing showers of tepid rain from the south, and the drops seemed to chill themselves as they fell. One moment you are in danger of being too cold, and the next minute the perspiration stands on your forehead, and you are oppressed with a moist heat. Like the prophet, when it blows a real sirocco you feel as if you were poured out like water, and all your bones were out of joint. Foreigners do not feel it until they have lived with us a few years, but Romans are like dead men when the wind is in that quarter.
I went to the maestro's house and sat for two hours listening to the singing. Nino sang very creditably, I thought, but I allow that I was not as attentive as I might have been, for I was chilled and uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I tried to be very appreciative, and I complimented the boy on the great progress he had made. When I thought of it, it struck me that I had never heard anybody sing like that before; but still there was something lacking; I thought it sounded a little unreal, and I said to myself that he would get admiration, but never any sympathy. So clear, so true, so rich it was, but wanting a ring to it, the little thrill that goes to the heart. He sings very differently now.
Maestro Ercole De Pretis lives in the Via Paola, close to the Ponte Sant' Angelo, in a most decent little house--that is, of course, on a floor of a house, as we all do. But De Pretis is well-to-do, and he has a marble door plate, engraved in black with his name, and two sitting-rooms. They are not very large rooms, it is true, but in one of them he gives his lessons, and the grand piano fills it up entirely, so that you can only sit on the little black horsehair sofa at the end, and it is very hard to get past the piano on either side. Ercole is as broad as he is long, and takes snuff when he is not smoking. But it never hurts his voice.
It was Sunday, I remember, for he had to sing in St. Peter's in the afternoon; and it was so near, we walked over with him. Nino had never lost his love for church music, though he had made up his mind that it was a much finer thing to be a primo tenore assoluto at the Apollo Theatre than to sing in the Pope's choir for thirty scudi a month. We walked along over the bridge, and through the Borgo Nuovo, and across the Piazza Rusticucci, and then we skirted the colonnade on the left, and entered the church by the sacristy, leaving De Pretis there to put on his purple cassock and his white cotta. Then we went into the Capella del Coro to wait for the vespers.
All sorts of people go to St. Peter's on Sunday afternoon, but they are mostly foreigners, and bring strange little folding chairs, and arrange themselves to listen to the music as though it were a concert. Now and then one of the young gentlemen-in-waiting from the Vatican strolls in and says his prayers, and there is an old woman, very ragged and miserable, who has haunted the chapel of the choir for many years, and sits with perfect unconcern, telling her beads at the foot of the great reading-desk that stands out in the middle and is never used. Great ladies crowd in through the gate when Raimondi's hymn is to be sung, and disreputable artists make sketches surreptitiously during the benediction, without the slightest pretence at any devotion that I can see. The lights shine out more brightly as the day wanes, and the incense curls up as the little boys swing the censers, and the priests and canons chant, and the choir answers from the organ loft; and the crowd looks on, some saying their prayers, some pretending to, and some looking about for the friend or lover they have come to meet.
That evening when we went over together I found myself pushed against a tall man with an immense gray moustache standing out across his face like the horns of a beetle. He looked down on me from time to time, and when I apologised for crowding him his face flushed a little, and he tried to bow as well as he could in the press, and said something with a German accent which seemed to be courteous. But I was separated from Nino by him. Maestro Ercole sang, and all the others, turn and turn about, and so at last it came to the benediction. The tall old foreigner stood erect and unbending, but most of the people around him kneeled. As the crowd sank down I saw that on the other side of him sat a lady on a small folding stool, her feet crossed one over the other, and her hands folded on her knees. She was dressed entirely in black, and her fair face stood out wonderfully clear and bright against the darkness. Truly she looked more like an angel than a woman, though perhaps you will think she is not so beautiful after all, for she is so unlike our Roman ladies. She has a delicate nose, full of sentiment, and pointed a little downward for pride; she has deep blue eyes, wide apart and dreamy, and a little shaded by brows that are quite level and even, with a straight pencilling over them, that looks really as if it were painted. Her lips are very red and gentle, and her face is very white, so that the little ringlet that has escaped control looks like a gold tracery on a white marble ground.
And there she sat with the last light from the tall windows and the first from the great wax candles shining on her, while all around seemed dark by contrast. She looked like an angel; and quite as cold, perhaps most of you would say. Diamonds are cold things, too, but they shine in the dark; whereas a bit of glass just lets the light through it, even if it is coloured red and green and put in a church window, and looks ever so much warmer than the diamond.
But though I saw her beauty and the light of her face, all in a moment, as though it had been a dream, I saw Nino, too; for I had missed him, and had supposed he had gone to the organ loft with De Pretis. But now, as the people kneeled to the benediction, imagine a little what he did; he just dropped on his knees with his face to the white lady, and his back to the procession; it was really disgraceful, and if it had been lighter I am sure everyone would have noticed it. At all events, there he knelt, not three feet from the lady, looking at her as if his heart would break. But I do not believe she saw him, for she never looked his way. Afterwards everybody got up again, and we hurried to get out of the Chapel; but I noticed that the tall old foreigner gave his arm to the beautiful lady, and when they had pushed their way through the gate that leads into the body of the church, they did not go away but stood aside for the crowd to pass. Nino said he would wait for De Pretis, and immediately turned his whole attention to the foreign girl, hiding himself in the shadow and never taking his eyes from her.
I never saw Nino look at a woman before as though she interested him in the least, or I would not have been surprised now to see him lost in admiration of the fair girl. I was close to him and could see his face, and it had a new expression on it that I did not know. The people were almost gone and the lights were being extinguished when De Pretis came round the corner, looking for us. But I was astonished to see him bow low to the foreigner and the young lady, and then stop and enter into conversation with them. They spoke quite audibly, and it was about a lesson that the young lady had missed. She spoke like a Roman, but the old gentleman made himself understood in a series of stiff phrases, which he fired out of his mouth like discharges of musketry.
"Who are they?" whispered Nino to me, breathless with excitement and trembling from head to foot. "Who are they, and how does the maestro know them?"
"Eh, caro mio, what am I to know?" I answered indifferently. "They are some foreigners, some pupil of De Pretis, and her father. How should I know?"
"She is a Roman," said Nino between his teeth. "I have heard foreigners talk. The old man is a foreigner, but she--she is Roman," he repeated with certainty.
"Eh," said I, "for my part she may be Chinese. The stars will not fall on that account." You see, I thought he had seen her before, and I wanted to exasperate him by my indifference so that he should tell me; but he would not, and indeed I found out afterwards that he had really never seen her before.
Presently the lady and gentleman went away, and we called De Pretis, for he could not see us in the gloom. Nino became very confidential and linked an arm in his as we went away.
"Who are they, caro maestro, these enchanting people?" inquired the boy when they had gone a few steps, and I was walking by Nino's side, and we were all three nearing the door.
"Foreigners--my foreigners," returned the singer proudly, as he took a colossal pinch of snuff. He seemed to say that he in his profession was constantly thrown with people like that, whereas I--oh, I, of course, was always occupied with students and poor devils who had no voice, nothing but brains.
"But she," objected Nino,--"she is Roman, I am sure of it."
"Eh," said Ercole, "you know how it is. These foreigners marry and come here and live, and their children are born here; and they grow up and call themselves Romans, as proudly as you please. But they are not really Italians, any more than the Shah of Persia." The maestro smiled a pitying smile. He is a Roman of Rome, and his great nose scorns pretenders. In his view Piedmontese, Tuscans, and Neapolitans are as much foreigners as the Germans or the English. More so, for he likes the Germans and tolerates the English, but he can call an enemy by no worse name than "Napoletano" or "Piemontese."
"Then they live here?" cried Nino in delight.
"Surely."
"In fine, maestro mio, who are they?"
"What a diavolo of a boy! Dio mio!" and Ercole laughed under his big moustache, which is black still. But he is bald, all the same, and wears a skull-cap.
"Diavolo as much as you please, but I will know," said Nino sullenly.
"Oh bene! Now do not disquiet yourself, Nino--I will tell you all about them. She is a pupil of mine, and I go to their house in the Corso and give her lessons."
"And then?" asked Nino impatiently.
"Who goes slowly goes surely," said the maestro sententiously; and he stopped to light a cigar as black and twisted as his moustache. Then he continued, standing still in the middle of the piazza to talk at his ease, for it had stopped raining and the air was moist and sultry, "They are Prussians, you must know. The old man is a colonel, retired, pensioned, everything you like, wounded at Königgratz by the Austrians. His wife was delicate, and he brought her to live here long before he left the service, and the signorina was born here. He has told me about it, and he taught me to pronounce the name Königgratz, so--Conigherazzo," said the maestro proudly, "and that is how I know."
"Capperi! What a mouthful," said I. "You may well say that, Sor Conte, but singing teaches us all languages. You would have found it of great use in your studies." I pictured to myself a quarter of an hour of Schopenhauer, with a piano accompaniment and some one beating time.
"But their name, their name I want to know," objected Nino, as he stepped aside and flattened himself against the pillar to let a carriage pass. As luck would have it, the old officer and his daughter were in that very cab, and Nino could just make them out by the evening twilight. He took off his hat, of course, but I am quite sure they did not see him.
"Well, their name is prettier than Conigherazzo," said Ercole. "It is Lira--Erre Gheraffe fonne Lira." (Herr Graf von Lira, I suppose he meant. And he has the impudence to assert that singing has taught him to pronounce German.) "And that means," he continued, "Il Conte di Lira, as we should say."
"Ah! what a divine appellation!" exclaimed Nino enthusiastically, pulling his hat over his eyes to meditate upon the name at his leisure.
"And her name is Edvigia," volunteered the maestro. That is the Italian for Hedwig, or Hadwig, you know. But we should shorten it and call her Gigia just as though she were Luisa. Nino does not think it so pretty. Nino was silent. Perhaps he was always shy of repeating the familiar name of the first woman he had ever loved. Imagine! At twenty he had never been in love! It is incredible to me,--and one of our own people, too, born at Serveti.
Meanwhile the maestro's cigar had gone out, and he lit it with a blazing sulphur match before he continued; and we all walked on again. I remember it all very distinctly, because it was the beginning of Nino's madness. Especially I call to mind his expression of indifference when Ercole began to descant upon the worldly possessions of the Lira household. It seemed to me that if Nino so seriously cast his eyes on the Contessina Edvigia, he might at least have looked pleased to hear she was so rich; or he might have looked disappointed, if he thought that her position was an obstacle in his way. But he did not care about it at all, and walked straight on, humming a little tune through his nose with his mouth shut, for he does everything to a tune.
"They are certainly gran' signor," Ercole said. "They live on the first floor of the Palazzo Carmandola,--you know, in the Corso--and they have a carriage, and keep two men in livery, just like a Roman prince. Besides, the count once sent me a bottle of wine at Christmas. It was as weak as water, and tasted like the solfatara of Tivoli, but it came from his own vineyard in Germany, and was at least fifty years old. If he has a vineyard, he has a castello, of course. And if he has a castello, he is a gran' signor,--eh? what do you think, Sor Conte? You know about such things."
"I did once, maestro mio. It is very likely."
"And as for the wine being sour, it was because it was so old. I am sure the Germans cannot make wine well. They are not used to drinking it good, or they would not drink so much when they come here." We were crossing the bridge, and nearing Ercole's house.
"Maestro," said Nino, suddenly. He had not spoken for some time, and he had finished his tune.
"Well?"
"Is not to-morrow our day for studying?"
"Diavolo! I gave you two hours to-day. Have you forgotten?"
"Ah,--it is true. But give me a lesson to-morrow, like a good maestro as you are. I will sing like an angel if you will give me a lesson to-morrow."
"Well, if you like to come at seven in the morning, and if you promise to sing nothing but solfeggi of Bordogni for an hour, and not to strain your voice, or put too much vinegar in your salad at supper, I will think about it. Does that please you? Conte, don't let him eat too much vinegar."
"I will do all that if I may come," said Nino readily, though he would rather not sing at all, at most times, than sing Bordogni, De Pretis tells me.
"Meglio cosi,--so much the better. Good-night, Sor Conte. Good-night, Nino." And so he turned down the Via Paola, and Nino and I went our way. I stopped to buy a cigar at the little tobacco shop just opposite the Tordinona Theatre. They used to be only a baiocco apiece, and I could get one at a time. But now they are two for three baiocchi; and so I have to get two always, because there are no half baiocchi any more--nothing but centimes. That is one of the sources of my extravagance. Mariuccia says I am miserly; she was born poor, and never had to learn the principles of economy.
"Nino mio," I said, as we went along, "you really make me laugh."
"Which is to say--" He was humming a tune again, and was cross because I interrupted him.
"You are in love. Do not deny it. You are already planning how you can make the acquaintance of the foreign contessa. You are a fool. Go home, and get Mariuccia to give you some syrup of tamarind to cool your blood."
"Well? Now tell me, were you never in love with anyone yourself?" he asked, by way of answer; and I could see the fierce look come into his eyes in the dark as he said it.
"Altro,--that is why I laugh at you. When I was your age I had been in love twenty times. But I never fell in love at first sight--and with a doll; really a wax doll, you know, like the Madonna in the presepio that they set up at the Ara Coeli, at Epiphany."
"A doll!" he cried. "Who is a doll, if you please?" We stopped at the corner of the street to argue it out.
"Do you think she is really alive?" I asked, laughing. Nino disdained to answer me, but he looked savagely from under the brim of his hat. "Look here," I continued, "women like that are only made to be looked at. They never love, for they have no hearts. It is lucky if they have souls, like Christians."
"I will tell you what I think," said he stoutly; "she is an angel."
"Oh! is that all? Did you ever hear of an angel being married?"
"You shall hear of it, Sor Cornelio, and before long. I swear to you, here, that I will marry the Contessina di Lira--if that is her name--before two years are out. Ah, you do not believe me. Very well. I have nothing more to say."
"My dear son," said I,--for he is a son to me,--"you are talking nonsense. How can anybody in your position hope to marry a great lady, who is an heiress? Is it not true that it is all stuff and nonsense?"
"No, it is not true," cried Nino, setting his square jaw like a bit and speaking through his teeth. "I am ugly, you say; I am dark, and I have no position, or wealth, or anything of the kind. I am the son of a peasant and of a peasant's wife. I am anything you please, but I will marry her if I say I will. Do you think it is for nothing that you have taught me the language of Dante, of Petrarca, of Silvio Pellico? Do you think it is for nothing that Heaven has given me my voice? Do not the angels love music, and cannot I make as good songs as they? Or do you think that because I am bred a singer my hand is not as strong as a fine gentleman's--contadino as I am? I will--I will and I will, Basta!"
I never saw him look like that before. He had folded his arms, and he nodded his head a little at each repetition of the word, looking at me so hard, as we stood under the gas lamp in the street, that I was obliged to turn my eyes away. He stared me out of countenance--he, a peasant boy! Then we walked on.
"And as for her being a wax doll, as you call her," he continued after a little time, "that is nonsense, if you want the word to be used. Truly, a doll! And the next minute you compare her to the Madonna! I am sure she has a heart as big as this," and he stretched out his hands into the air. "I can see it in her eyes. Ah, what eyes!"
I saw it was no use arguing on that tack, and I felt quite sure that he would forget all about it, though he looked so determined, and talked so grandly about his will.
"Nino," I said, "I am older than you." I said this to impress him, of course, for I am not really so very old.
"Diamini!" he cried impertinently, "I believe it!"
"Well, well, do not be impatient. I have seen something in my time, and I tell you those foreign women are not like ours, a whit. I fell in love, once, with a northern fairy,--she was not German, but she came from Lombardy, you see,--and that is the reason why I lost Serveti and all the rest."
"But I have no Serveti to lose," objected Nino.
"You have a career as a musician to lose. It is not much of a career to be stamping about with a lot of figuranti and scene-shifters, and screaming yourself hoarse every night." I was angry because he laughed at my age. "But it is a career, after all, that you have chosen for yourself. If you get mixed up in an intrigue now, you may ruin yourself. I hope you will."
"Grazie! And then?"
"Eh, it might not be such a bad thing after all. For if you could be induced to give up the stage--" "I--_I_ give up singing?" he cried, indignantly.
"Oh, such things happen, you know. If you were to give it up, as I was saying, you might then possibly use your mind. A mind is a much better thing than a throat, after all."
"Ebbene! talk as much as you please, for, of course, you have the right, for you have brought me up, and you have certainly opposed my singing enough to quiet your conscience. But, dear professor, I will do all that I say, and if you will give me a little help in this matter, you will not repent it."
"Help? Dio mio! What do you take me for? As if I could help you, or would! I suppose you want money to make yourself a dandy, a piano, to go and stand at the corner of the Piazza Colonna and ogle her as she goes by! In truth! You have fine projects."
"No," said Nino quietly, "I do not want any money or anything else at present, thank you. And do not be angry, but come into the caffè and drink some lemonade; and I will invite you to it, for I have been paid for my last copying that I sent in yesterday." He put his arm in mine, and we went in. There is no resisting Nino when he is affectionate. But I would not let him pay for the lemonade. I paid for it myself. What extravagance!
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Now I ought to tell you that many things in this story were only told me quite lately, for at first I would not help Nino at all, thinking it was but a foolish fancy of his boy's heart and would soon pass. I have tried to gather and to order all the different incidents into one harmonious whole, so that you can follow the story; and you must not wonder that I can describe some things that I did not see, and that I know how some of the people felt; for Nino and I have talked over the whole matter very often, and the baroness came here and told me her share, though I wonder how she could talk so plainly of what must have given her so much pain. But it was very kind of her to come; and she sat over there in the old green arm-chair by the glass case that has the artificial flowers under it, and the sugar lamb that the padre curato gave Nino when he made his first communion at Easter. However, it is not time to speak of the baroness yet, but I cannot forget her.
Nino was very amusing when he began to love the young countess, and the very first morning--the day after we had been to St. Peter's--he went out at half-past six, though it was only just sunrise, for we were in October. I knew very well that he was going for his extra lesson with De Pretis, but I had nothing to say about it, and I only recommended him to cover himself well, for the sirocco had passed and it was a bright morning, with a clear tramontana wind blowing fresh from the north. I can always tell when it is a tramontana wind before I open my window, for Mariuccia makes such a clattering with the coffee-pot in the kitchen, and the goldfinch in the sitting-room sings very loud; which he never does if it is cloudy. Nino, then, went off to Maestro Ercole's house for his singing, and this is what happened there.
De Pretis knew perfectly well that Nino had only asked for the extra lesson in order to get a chance of talking about the Contessina di Lira, and so, to tease him, as soon as he appeared, the maestro made a great bustle about singing scales, and insisted on beginning at once. Moreover, he pretended to be in a bad humour; and that is always pretence with him.
"Ah, my little tenor," he began; "you want a lesson at seven in the morning, do you? That is the time when all the washerwomen sing at the fountain! Well, you shall have a lesson, and by the body of Bacchus it shall be a real lesson! Now, then! Andiamo--Do-o-o!" and he roared out a great note that made the room shake, and a man who was selling cabbage in the street stopped his hand-cart and mimicked him for five minutes.
"But I am out of breath, maestro," protested Nino, who wanted to talk.
"Out of breath? A singer is never out of breath. Absurd! What would you do if you got out of breath, say, in the last act of _Lucia_, so--Bell'alma ado--?? Then your breath ends, eh? Will you stay with the 'adored soul' between your teeth? A fine singer you will make! Andiamo! Do-o-o!"
Nino saw he must begin, and he set up a shout, much against his will, so that the cabbage-vendor chimed in, making so much noise that the old woman who lives opposite opened her window and emptied a great dustpan full of potato peelings and refuse leaves of lettuce right on his head. And then there was a great noise. But the maestro paid no attention, and went on with the scale, hardly giving Nino time to breathe. Nino, who stood behind De Pretis while he sang, saw the copy of Bordogni's solfeggi lying on a chair, and managed to slip it under a pile of music near by, singing so lustily all the while that the maestro never looked round.
When he got to the end of the scale Ercole began hunting for the music, and as he could not find it, Nino asked him questions.
"Can she sing,--this contessina of yours, maestro?" De Pretis was overturning everything in his search.
"An apoplexy on those solfeggi and on the man who made them!" he cried. "Sing, did you say? Yes, a great deal better than you ever will. Why can you not look for your music, instead of chattering?" Nino began to look where he knew it was not.
"By the by, do you give her lessons every day?" asked the boy.
"Every day? Am I crazy, to ruin people's voices like that?"
"Caro maestro, what is the matter with you this morning? You have forgotten to say your prayers!"
"You are a donkey, Nino; here he is, this blessed Bordogni,--now come."
"Sor Ercole mio," said Nino in despair, "I must really know something about this angel, before I sing at all." Ercole sat down on the piano stool, and puffed up his cheeks, and heaved a tremendous sigh, to show how utterly bored he was by his pupil. Then he took a large pinch of snuff, and sighed again.
"What demon have you got into your head?" he asked, at length.
"What angel, you mean," answered Nino, delighted at having forced the maestro to a parley. "I am in love with her--crazy about her," he cried, running his fingers through his curly hair, "and you must help me to see her. You can easily take me to her house to sing duets as part of her lesson. I tell you I have not slept a wink all night for thinking of her, and unless I see her I shall never sleep again as long as I live. Ah!" he cried, putting his hands on Ercole's shoulders, "you do not know what it is to be in love! How everything one touches is fire, and the sky is like lead, and one minute you are cold and one minute you are hot, and you may turn and turn on your pillow all night and never sleep, and you want to curse everybody you see, or to embrace them, it makes no difference--anything to express the--" "Devil! and may he carry you off!" interrupted Ercole, laughing. But his manner changed. "Poor fellow," he said presently, "it appears to me you are in love."
"It appears to you, does it? 'Appears'--a beautiful word, in faith. I can tell you it appears to me so, too. Ah! it 'appears' to you--very good indeed!" And Nino waxed wroth.
"I will give you some advice, Ninetto mio. Do not fall in love with anyone. It always ends badly."
"You come late with your counsel, Sor Ercole. In truth, a very good piece of advice when a man is fifty, and married, and wears a skull-cap. When I wear a skull-cap and take snuff I will follow your instructions." He walked up and down the room, grinding his teeth, and clapping his hands together. Ercole rose and stopped him.
"Let us talk seriously," he said.
"With all my heart; as seriously as you please."
"You have only seen this signorina once."
"Once!" cried Nino,--"as if once were not--" "Diavolo; let me speak. You have only seen her once. She is noble, an heiress, a great lady--worse than all, a foreigner; as beautiful as a statue, if you please, but twice as cold. She has a father who knows the proprieties, a piece of iron, I tell you, who would kill you just as he would drink a glass of wine, with the greatest indifference, if he suspected you lifted your eyes to his daughter."
"I do not believe your calumnies," said Nino still hotly, "She is not cold, and if I can see her she will listen to me. I am sure of it."
"We will speak of that by and by. You--what are you? Nothing but a singer, who has not even appeared before the public, without a baiocco in the world or anything else but your voice. You are not even handsome."
"What difference does that make to a woman of heart?" retorted Nino angrily. "Let me only speak to her--" "A thousand devils!" exclaimed De Pretis impatiently; "what good will you do by speaking to her? Are you Dante, or Petrarca, or a preacher--what are you? Do you think you can have a great lady's hand for the asking? Do you flatter yourself that you are so eloquent that nobody can withstand you?"
"Yes," said Nino, boldly. "If I could only speak to her--" "Then in heaven's name, go and speak to her. Get a new hat and a pair of lavender gloves, and walk about the Villa Borghese until you meet her, and then throw yourself on your knees and kiss her feet, and the dust from her shoes; and say you are dying for her, and will she be good enough to walk as far as Santa Maria del Popolo and be married to you! That is all; you see it is nothing you ask--a mere politeness on her part--oh, nothing, nothing." And De Pretis rubbed his hands and smiled, and seeing that Nino did not answer, he blew his nose with his great blue cotton handkerchief.
"You have no heart at all, maestro," said Nino at last. "Let us sing."
They worked hard at Bordogni for half an hour, and Nino did not open his mouth except to produce the notes. But as his blood was up from the preceding interview he took great pains, and Ercole, who makes him sing all the solfeggi he can from a sense of duty, himself wearied of the ridiculous old-fashioned runs and intervals.
"Bene," he said; "let us sing a piece now, and then you will have done enough." He put an opera on the piano, and Nino lifted up his voice and sang, only too glad to give his heart passage to his lips. Ercole screwed up his eyes with a queer smile he has when he is pleased.
"Capperi!" he ejaculated, when Nino had done.
"What has happened?" asked the latter.
"I cannot tell you what has happened," said Ercole, "but I will tell you that you had better always sing like that, and you will be applauded. Why have you never sung that piece in that way before?"
"I do not know. Perhaps it is because I am unhappy."
"Very well, never dare to be happy again, if you mean to succeed. You can make a statue shed tears if you please." Ercole took a pinch of snuff, and turned round to look out of the window. Nino leaned on the piano, drumming with his fingers and looking at the back of the maestro's head. The first rays of the sun just fell into the room and gilded the red brick floor.
"Then instead of buying lavender kid gloves," said Nino at last, his face relaxing a little, "and going to the Villa Borghese, you advise me to borrow a guitar and sing to my statue? Is that it?"
"Che Diana! I did not say that!" said Ercole, still facing the window and finishing his pinch of snuff with a certain satisfaction. "But if you want the guitar, take it--there it lies. I will not answer for what you do with it." His voice sounded kindly, for he was so much pleased. Then he made Nino sing again, a little love song of Tosti, who writes for the heart and sings so much better without a voice than all your stage tenors put together. And the maestro looked long at Nino when he had done, but he did not say anything. Nino put on his hat gloomily enough, and prepared to go.
"I will take the guitar, if you will lend it to me," he said.
"Yes, if you like, and I will give you a handkerchief to wrap it up with," said De Pretis, absently, but he did not get up from his seat. He was watching Nino, and he seemed to be thinking. Just as the boy was going with the instrument under his arm he called him back.
"Ebbene?" said Nino, with his hand on the lock of the door.
"I will make you a song to sing to your guitar," said Ercole.
"You?"
"Yes--but without music. Look here, Nino--sit down. What a hurry you are in. I was young myself, once upon time."
"Once upon a time! Fairy stories--once upon a time there was a king, and so on." Nino was not to be easily pacified.
"Well, perhaps it is a fairy tale, but it is in the future. I have an idea."
"Oh, is that all? But it is the first time. I understand."
Listen. Have you read Dante?"
"I know the _Vita Nuova_ by heart, and some of the _Commedia_. But how the diavolo does Dante enter into this question?"
"And Silvio Pellico, and a little literature?" continued Ercole, not heeding the comment.
"Yes, after a fashion. And you? Do you know them?"
"Che c'entro io?" cried Ercole, impatiently; "what do I want to know such things for? But I have heard of them."
"I congratulate you," replied Nino, ironically.
"Have patience. You are no longer an artist. You are a professor of literature."
"I--a professor of literature? What nonsense are you talking?"
"You are a great stupid donkey, Nino. Supposing I obtain for you an engagement to read literature with the Contessina di Lira, will you not be a professor? If you prefer singing--" But Nino comprehended in a flash the whole scope of the proposal, and threw his arm round Ercole's neck and embraced him.
"What a mind! Oh, maestro mio, I will die for you! Command me, and I will do anything for you; I will run errands for you, black your boots, anything--" he cried in the ecstasy of delight that overmastered him.
"Piano, piano," objected the maestro, disengaging himself from his pupil's embrace. "It is not done yet. There is much, much to think of first." Nino retreated, a little disconcerted at not finding his enthusiasm returned, but radiant still.
"Calm yourself," said Ercole, smiling. "If you do this thing you must act a part. You must manage to conceal your occupation entirely. You must look as solemn as an undertaker and be a real professor. They will ultimately find you out, and throw you out of the window, and dismiss me for recommending you. But that is nothing."
"No," said Nino, "that is of no importance." And he ran his fingers through his hair, and looked delighted.
"You shall know all about it this evening, or to-morrow--" "This evening, Sor Ercole, this evening, or I shall die. Stay, let me go to the house with you, when you give your lesson, and wait for you at the door."
"Pumpkin-head! I will have nothing to do with you," said De Pretis.
"Ah, I will be as quiet as you please. I will be like a lamb, and wait until this evening."
"If you will really be quiet, I will do what you wish. Come to me this evening about the Ave Maria--or a little earlier. Yes, come at twenty-three hours. In October that is about five o'clock, by French time.
"And I may take the guitar?" said Nino, as he rose to go.
"With all my heart. But do not spoil everything by singing to her, and betraying yourself."
So Nino thanked the maestro enthusiastically and went away, humming a tune, as he now and again struck the strings of the guitar that he carried under his arm, to be sure it was there.
Do not think that because De Pretis suddenly changed his mind, and even proposed to Nino a plan for making the acquaintance of the young countess, he is a man to veer about like a weather-cock, nor yet a bad man, willing to help a boy to do mischief. That is not at all like Ercole de Pretis. He has since told me he was much astonished at the way Nino sang the love song at his lesson; and he was instantly convinced that in order to be a great artist Nino must be in love always. Besides, the maestro is as liberal in his views of life as he is conservative in his ideas about government. Nino is everything the most straight-laced father could wish him to be, and as he was then within a few months of making his first appearance on the stage, De Pretis, who understands those things, could very well foresee the success he has had. Now De Pretis is essentially a man of the people, and I am not; therefore he saw no objection in the way of a match between a great singer and a noble damigelia. But had I known what was going on, I would have stopped the whole affair at that point, for I am not so weak as Mariuccia seems to think. I do not mean now that everything is settled I would wish it undone. Heaven forbid! But I would have stopped it then, for it is a most incongruous thing, a peasant boy making love to a countess.
Nino, however, has one great fault, and that is his reticence. It is true, he never does anything he would not like me, or all the world, to know. But I would like to know, all the same. It is a habit I have fallen into, from having to watch that old woman, for fear she should be too extravagant. All that time he never said anything, and I supposed he had forgotten all about the contessina, for I did not chance to see De Pretis; and when I did he talked of nothing but Nino's _début_ and the arrangements that were to be made. So that I knew nothing about it, though I was pleased to see him reading so much. He took a sudden fancy for literature, and read when he was not singing, and even made me borrow Ambrosoli, in several volumes, from a friend. He read every word of it, and talked very intelligently about it too. I never thought there was any reason.
But De Pretis thinks differently. He believes that a man may be the son of a ciociaro--a fellow who ties his legs up in rags and thongs, and lives on goats' milk in the mountains--and that if he has brains enough, or talent enough, he may marry any woman he likes without ever thinking whether she is noble or not. De Pretis must be old-fashioned, for I am sure I do not think in that way, and I know a hundred times as much as he--a hundred times.
I suppose it must have been the very day when Nino had been to De Pretis in the morning that he had instructions to go to the house of Count von Lira on the morrow; for I remember very well that Nino acted strangely in the evening, singing and making a noise for a few minutes, and then burying himself in a book. However that may be, it was very soon afterwards that he went to the Palazzo Carmandola, dressed in his best clothes, he tells me, in order to make a favourable impression on the count. The latter had spoken to De Pretis about the lessons in literature, to which he attached great importance, and the maestro had turned the idea to account for his pupil. But Nino did not expect to see the young contessa on this first day, or at least he did not hope he would be able to speak to her. And so it turned out.
The footman, who had a red waistcoat, and opened the door with authority, as if ready to close it again on the smallest provocation, did not frighten Nino at all, though he eyed him suspiciously enough, and after ascertaining his business departed to announce him to the count. Meanwhile, Nino, who was very much excited at the idea of being under the same roof with the object of his adoration, set himself down on one of the carved chests that surrounded the hall. The green baize door at the other end swung noiselessly on its hinges, closing itself behind the servant, and the boy was left alone. He might well be frightened, if not at the imposing appearance of the footman, at least at the task he had undertaken. But a boy like Nino is afraid of nothing when he is in love, and he simply looked about him, realising that he was without doubt in the house of a gran' signor, and from time to time brushing a particle of dust from his clothes, or trying to smooth his curly black hair, which he had caused to be clipped a little for the occasion; a very needless expense, for he looks better with his hair long.
Before many moments the servant returned, and with some condescension said that the count awaited him. Nino would rather have faced the mayor, or the king himself, than Graf von Lira, though he was not at all frightened--he was only very much excited, and he strove to calm himself, as he was ushered through the apartments to the small sitting-room where he was expected.
Graf von Lira, as I have already told you, is a foreigner of rank, who had been a Prussian colonel, and was wounded in the war of 1866. He is very tall, very thin, and very grey, with wooden features and a huge moustache that stands out like the beaks on the colonna rostrata. His eyes are small and very far apart, and fix themselves with terrible severity when he speaks, even if he is only saying "good-morning." His nails are very long and most carefully kept, and though he is so lame that he could not move a step without the help of his stick, he is still an upright and military figure. I remember well how he looked, for he came to see me under peculiar circumstances, many months after the time of which I am now speaking; and, besides, I had stood next to him for an hour in the chapel of the choir in St. Peter's.
He speaks Italian intelligibly, but with the strangest German constructions, and he rolls the letter _r_ curiously in his throat. But he is an intelligent man for a soldier, though he thinks talent is a matter of education, and education a matter of drill. He is the most ceremonious man I ever saw; and Nino says he rose from his chair to meet him, and would not sit down again until Nino was seated.
"The signore is the professor of Italian literature recommended to me by Signor De Pretis?" inquired the colonel in iron tones, as he scrutinised Nino.
"Yes, Signor Conte," was the answer.
"You are a singularly young man to be a professor." Nino trembled. "And how have you the education obtained in order the obligations and not-to-be-avoided responsibilities of this worthy-of-all-honour career to meet?"
"I went to school here, Signor Conte, and the Professor Grandi, in whose house I always have lived, has taught me everything else I know."
"What do you know?" inquired the count, so suddenly that Nino was taken off his guard. He did not know what to answer. The count looked very stern and pulled his moustaches. "You have not here come," he continued, seeing that Nino made no answer, "without knowing something. Evident is it, that, although a man young be, if he nothing knows, he cannot a professor be."
"You speak justly, Signor Conte," Nino answered at last, "and I do know some things. I know the _Commedia_ of Alighieri, and Petrarca, and I have read the _Gerusalemme Liberata_ with Professor Grandi, and I can repeat all of the _Vita Nuova_ by heart, and some of the--" "For the present that is enough," said the count. "If you nothing better to do have, will you so kind be as to begin?"
"Begin?" said Nino, not understanding.
"Yes, signore; it would unsuitable be if I my daughter to the hands of a man committed unacquainted with the matter he to teach her proposes. I desire to be satisfied that you all these things really know."
"Do I understand, Signor Conte, that you wish me to repeat to you some of the things I know by heart?"
"You have me understood," said the count severely, "I have all the books bought of which you speak. You will repeat, and I will in the book follow. Then shall we know each other much better."
Nino was not a little astonished at this mode of procedure, and wondered how far his memory would serve him in such an unexpected examination.
"It will take a long time to ascertain in this way--" he began.
"This," said the count coldly, as he opened a volume of Dante, "is the celestial play by Signor Alighieri. If you anything know, you will it repeat."
Nino resigned himself and began repeating the first canto of the "Inferno." When he had finished it he paused.
"Forwards," said the count, without any change of manner.
"More?" inquired Nino.
"March!" said the old gentleman in military tone, and the boy went on with the second canto.
"Apparently know you the beginning." The count opened the book at random in another place. "The thirtieth canto of 'Purgatory.' You will now it repeat."
"Ah!" cried Nino, "that is where Dante meets Beatrice."
"My hitherto not-by-any-means-extensive, but always from-the-conscience-undertaken reading, reaches not so far. You will it repeat. So shall we know." Nino passed his hand inside his collar as though to free his throat, and began again, losing all consciousness of his tormentor in his own enjoyment of the verse.
"When was the Signor Alighieri born?" inquired Graf von Lira, very suddenly, as though to catch him.
"May 1265, in Florence," answered the other, as quickly.
"I said when, not where. I know he was in Florence born. When _and_ where died he?" The question was asked fiercely.
"Fourteenth of September 1321, at Ravenna."
"I think really you something of Signor Alighieri know," said the count, and shut up the volume of the poet and the dictionary of dates he had been obliged to consult to verify Nino's answers. "We will proceed."
Nino is fortunately one of those people whose faculties serve them best at their utmost need, and during the three hours--three blessed hours--that Graf von Lira kept him under his eye, asking questions and forcing him to repeat all manner of things, he acquitted himself fairly well.
"I have now myself satisfied that you something know," said the count, in his snappish military fashion, and he shut the last book, and never from that day referred in any manner to Nino's extent of knowledge, taking it for granted that he had made an exhaustive investigation. "And now," he continued, "I desire you to engage for the reading of literature with my daughter, upon the usual terms." Nino was so much pleased that he almost lost his self-control, but a moment restored his reflection.
"I am honoured--" he began.
"You are not honoured at all," interrupted the count, coldly. "What are the usual terms?"
"Three or four francs a lesson," suggested Nino.
"Three or four francs are not the usual terms. I have inquiries made. Five francs are the usual terms. Three times in the week, at eleven. You will on the morrow begin. Allow me to offer you some cigars." And he ended the interview.
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In a sunny room overlooking the great courtyard of the Palazzo Carmandola, Nino sat down to give Hedwig von Lira her first lesson in Italian literature. He had not the remotest idea what the lesson would be like, for in spite of the tolerably wide acquaintance with the subject which he owed to my care and my efforts to make a scholar of him, he knew nothing about teaching. Nevertheless, as his pupil spoke the language fluently, though with the occasional use of words of low origin, like all foreigners who have grown up in Rome and have learned to speak from their servants, he anticipated little difficulty. He felt quite sure of being able to interpret the hard places, and he had learned from me to know the best and finest passages in a number of authors.
But imagine the feelings of a boy of twenty, perfectly in love, without having the smallest right to be, suddenly placed by the side of the object of his adoration, and told to teach her all he knows--with her father in the next room and the door open between! I have always thought it was a proof of Nino's determined character, that he should have got over this first lesson without accident.
Hedwig von Lira, the contessina, as we always call her, is just Nino's age, but she seemed much younger, as the children of the North always do. I have told you what she was like to look at, and you will not wonder that I called her a statue. She looked as cold as a statue, just as I said, and so I should hardly describe her as beautiful. But then I am not a sculptor, nor do I know anything about those arts, though I can tell a good work when I see it. I do not wish to appear prejudiced, and so I will not say anything more about it. I like life in living things, and sculptors may, if it please them, adore straight noses, and level brows, and mouths that no one could possibly eat with. I do not care in the least, and if you say that I once thought differently, I answer that I do not wish to change your opinion, but that I will change my own as often as I please. Moreover, if you say that the contessina did not act like a statue in the sequel, I will argue that if you put marble in the fire it will take longer to heat and longer to cool than clay; only clay is made to be put into the fire, and marble is not. Is not that a cunning answer?
The contessina is a foreigner in every way, although she was born under our sun. They have all sorts of talents, these people, but so little ingenuity in using them that they never accomplish anything. It seems to amuse them to learn to do a great many things, although they must know from the beginning that they can never excel in any one of them. I dare say the contessina plays on the piano very creditably, for even Nino says she plays well; but is it of any use to her?
Nino very soon found out that she meant to read literature very seriously, and, what is more, she meant to read it in her own way. She was as different from her father as possible in everything else, but in a despotic determination to do exactly as she liked, she resembled him. Nino was glad that he was not called upon to use his own judgment, and there he sat, content to look at her, twisting his hands together below the table to concentrate his attention and master himself; and he read just what she told him to read, expounding the words and phrases she could not understand. I dare say that with his hair well brushed, and his best coat, and his eyes on the book, he looked as proper as you please. But if the high-born young lady had returned the glances he could not refrain from bending upon her now and then, she would have seen a lover, if she could see at all.
She did not see. The haughty Prussian damsel hardly noticed the man, for she was absorbed by the professor. Her small ears were all attention, and her slender fingers made notes with a common pencil, so that Nino wondered at the contrast between the dazzling white hand and the smooth, black, varnished instrument of writing. He took no account of time that day, and was startled by the sound of the mid-day gun and the angry clashing of the bells. The contessina looked up suddenly and met his eyes, but it was the boy that blushed.
"Would you mind finishing the canto?" she asked. "There are only ten lines more--" Mind! Nino flushed with pleasure.
"Anzi--by all means," he cried. "My time is yours, signorina."
When they had done he rose, and his face was sad and pale again. He hated to go, but he was only a teacher, and at his first lesson, too. She also rose, and waited for him to leave the room. He could not hold his tongue.
"Signorina--" he stammered, and checked himself. She looked at him, to listen, but his heart smote him when he had thus arrested her attention. What could he say as he stood bowing? It was sufficiently stupid, what he said.
"I shall have the honour of returning to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, I would say."
"Yes," said she, "I believe that is the arrangement. Good-morning, Signor Professore." The title of professor rang strangely in his ear. Was there the slightest tinge of irony in her voice? Was she laughing at his boyish looks? Ugh! the thought tingled. He bowed himself out.
That was the first lesson, and the second was like it, I suppose, and a great many others about which I knew nothing, for I was always occupied in the middle of the day, and did not ask where he went. It seemed to me that he was becoming a great dandy, but as he never asked me for any money from the day he learnt to copy music I never put any questions. He certainly had a new coat before Christmas, and gloves, and very nice boots, that made me smile when I thought of the day when he arrived, with only one shoe--and it had a hole in it as big as half his foot. But now he grew to be so careful of his appearance that Mariuccia began to call him the "signorino." De Pretis said he was making great progress, and so I was contented, though I always thought it was a sacrifice for him to be a singer.
Of course, as he went three times a week to the Palazzo Carmandola, he began to be used to the society of the contessina. I never understood how he succeeded in keeping up the comedy of being a professor. A real Roman would have discovered him in a week. But foreigners are different. If they are satisfied they pay their money and ask no questions. Besides, he studied all the time, saying that if he ever lost his voice he would turn man of letters; which sounded so prudent that I had nothing to say. Once, we were walking in the Corso, and the contessina with her father passed in the carriage. Nino raised his hat, but they did not see him, for there is always a crowd in the Corso.
"Tell me," he cried, excitedly, as they went by, "is it not true that she is beautiful?"
"A piece of marble, my son," said I, suspecting nothing; and I turned into a tobacconist's to buy a cigar.
One day--Nino says it was in November--the contessina began asking him questions about the Pantheon, it was in the middle of the lesson, and he wondered at her stopping to talk. But you may imagine whether he was glad or not to have an opportunity of speaking about something besides Dante.
"Yes, signorina," he answered, "Professor Grandi says it was built for public baths; but, of course, we all think it was a temple."
"Were you ever there at night?" asked she, indifferently, and the sun through the window so played with her golden hair that Nino wondered how she could ever think of night at all.
"At night, signorina? No indeed! What should I go there at night to do, in the dark! I was never there at night."
"I will go there at night," she said briefly.
"Ah--you would have it lit up with torches, as they do the Coliseum?"
"No. Is there no moon in Italy, professore?"
"The moon, there is. But there is such a little hole in the top of the Rotonda"--that is our Roman name for the Pantheon--"that it would be very dark."
"Precisely," said she. "I will go there at night, and see the moon shining through the hole in the dome."
"Eh," cried Nino laughing, "you will see the moon better outside in the piazza. Why should you go inside, where you can see so little of it?"
"I will go," replied the contessina. "The Italians have no sense of the beautiful--the mysterious." Her eyes grew dreamy as she tried to call up the picture she had never seen.
"Perhaps," said Nino humbly. "But," he added, suddenly brightening at the thought, "it is very easy, if you would like to go. I will arrange it. Will you allow me?"
"Yes, arrange it. Let us go on with our lesson."
I would like to tell you all about it; how Nino saw the sacristan of the Pantheon that evening, and ascertained from his little almanac--which has all kinds of wonderful astrological predictions, as well as the calendar--when it would be full moon. And perhaps what Nino said to the sacristan, and what the sacristan said to Nino, might be amusing. I am very fond of these little things, and fond of talking too. For since it is talking that distinguishes us from other animals, I do not see why I should not make the most of it. But you who are listening to me have seen very little of the Contessina Hedwig as yet, and unless I quickly tell you more, you will wonder how all the curious things that happened to her could possibly have grown out of the attempt of a little singer like Nino to make her acquaintance. Well, Nino is a great singer now, of course, but he was little once; and when he palmed himself off on the old count for an Italian master without my knowledge, nobody had ever heard of him at all.
Therefore since I must satisfy your curiosity before anything else, and not dwell too long on the details--the dear, commonplace details--I will simply say that Nino succeeded without difficulty in arranging with the sacristan of the Pantheon to allow a party of foreigners to visit the building at the full moon, at midnight. I have no doubt he even expended a franc with the little man, who is very old and dirty, and keeps chickens in the vestibule--but no details!
Oh the appointed night Nino, wrapped in that old cloak of mine (which is very warm, though it is threadbare), accompanied the party to the temple, or church, or whatever you like to call it. The party were simply the count and his daughter, an Austrian gentleman of their acquaintance, and the dear baroness--that sympathetic woman who broke so many hearts and cared not at all for the chatter of the people. Everyone has seen her, with her slim, graceful ways, and her face that was like a mulatto peach for darkness and fineness, and her dark eyes and tiger-lily look. They say she lived entirely on sweetmeats and coffee, and it is no wonder she was so sweet and so dark. She called me "count"--which is very foolish now, but if I were going to fall in love, I would have loved her. I would not love a statue. As for the Austrian gentleman, it is not of any importance to describe him.
These four people Nino conducted to the little entrance at the back of the Pantheon, and the sacristan struck a light to show them the way to the door of the church. Then he put out his taper, and let them do as they pleased.
Conceive if you can the darkness of Egypt, the darkness that can be felt, impaled and stabbed through its whole thickness by one mighty moonbeam, clear and clean and cold, from the top to the bottom. All around, in the circle of the outer black, lie the great dead in their tombs, whispering to each other of deeds that shook the world; whispering in a language all their own as yet--the language of the life to come--the language of a stillness so dread and deep that the very silence clashes against it, and makes dull, muffled beatings in ears that strain to catch the dead men's talk: the shadow of immortality falling through the shadow of death, and bursting back upon its heavenward course from the depth of the abyss; climbing again upon its silver self to the sky above, leaving behind the horror of the deep.
So in that lonely place at midnight falls the moon upon the floor, and through the mystic shaft of rays ascend and descend the souls of the dead. Hedwig stood out alone upon the white circle on the pavement beneath the dome, and looked up as though she could see the angels coming and going. And, as she looked, the heavy lace veil that covered her head fell back softly, as though a spirit wooed her and would fain look on something fairer than he, and purer. The whiteness clung to her face, and each separate wave of hair was like spun silver. And she looked steadfastly up. For a moment she stood, and the hushed air trembled about her. Then the silence caught the tremor, and quivered, and a thrill of sound hovered and spread its wings, and sailed forth from the night.
"Spirto gentil dei sogni miei--" Ah, Signorina Edvigia, you know that voice now, but you did not know it then. How your heart stopped, and beat, and stopped again, when you first heard that man sing out his whole heartful--you in the light and he in the dark! And his soul shot out to you upon the sounds, and died fitfully, as the magic notes dashed their soft wings against the vaulted roof above you, and took new life again and throbbed heavenward in broad, passionate waves, till your breath came thick and your blood ran fiercely--ay, even your cold northern blood--in very triumph that a voice could so move you. A voice in the dark. For a full minute after it ceased you stood there, and the others, wherever they might be in the shadow, scarcely breathed.
That was how Hedwig first heard Nino sing. When at last she recovered herself enough to ask aloud the name of the singer, Nino had moved quite close to her.
"It is a relation of mine, signorina, a young fellow who is going to be an artist. I asked him as a favour to come here and sing to you to-night. I thought it might please you."
"A relation of yours!" exclaimed the contessina. And the others approached so that they all made a group in the disc of moonlight. "Just think, my dear baroness, this wonderful voice is a relation of Signor Cardegna, my excellent Italian master!" There was a little murmur of admiration; then the old count spoke.
"Signore," said he, rolling in his gutturals, "it is my duty to very much thank you. You will now, if you please, me the honour do, me to your all-the-talents-possible-possessing relation to present." Nino had foreseen the contingency and disappeared into the dark. Presently he returned.
"I am so sorry, Signor Conte," he said. "The sacristan tells me that when my cousin had finished he hurried away, saying he was afraid of taking some ill if he remained here where it is so damp. I will tell him how much you appreciated him."
"Curious is it," remarked the count. "I heard him not going off."
"He stood in the doorway of the sacristy, by the high altar, Signor Conte."
"In that case is it different."
"I am sorry," said Nino. "The signorina was so unkind as to say, lately, that we Italians have no sense of the beautiful, the mysterious--" "I take it back," said Hedwig, gravely, still standing in the moonlight. "Your cousin has a very great power over the beautiful."
"And the mysterious," added the baroness, who had not spoken, "for his departure without showing himself has left me the impression of a sweet dream. Give me your arm, Professore Cardegna. I will not stay here any longer, now that the dream is over." Nino sprang to her side politely, though, to tell the truth, she did not attract him at first sight. He freed one arm from the old cloak, and reflected that she could not tell in the dark how very shabby it was.
"You give lessons to the Signora von Lira?" she asked, leading him quickly away from the party.
"Yes--in Italian literature, signora."
"Ah--she tells me great things of you. Could you not spare me an hour or two in the week, professore?"
Here was a new complication. Nino had certainly not contemplated setting up for an Italian teacher to all the world when he undertook to give lessons to Hedwig.
"Signora--" he began, in a protesting voice.
"You will do it to oblige me, I am sure," she said, eagerly, and her slight hand just pressed upon his arm a little. Nino had found time to reflect that this lady was intimate with Hedwig, and that he might possibly gain an opportunity of seeing the girl he loved if he accepted the offer.
"Whenever it pleases you, signora," he said at length.
"Can you come to me to-morrow at eleven?" she asked.
"At twelve, if you please, signora, or half past. Eleven is the contessina's hour to-morrow."
"At half-past twelve, then, to-morrow," said she, and she gave him her address, as they went out into the street. "Stop," she added, "where do you live?"
"Number twenty-seven Santa Catarina dei Funari," he answered, wondering why she asked. The rest of the party came out, and Nino bowed to the ground, as he bid the contessina good-night.
He was glad to be free of that pressure on his arm, and he was glad to be alone, to wander through the streets under the moonlight, and to think over what he had done.
"There is no risk of my being discovered," he said to himself, confidently. "The story of the near relation was well imagined, and besides, it is true. Am I not my own nearest relation? I certainly have no others that I know of. And this baroness--what can she want of me? She speaks Italian like a Spanish cow, and indeed she needs a professor badly enough. But why should she take a fancy for me as a teacher. Ah! those eyes! Not the baroness'. Edvigia--Edvigia di Lira--Edvigia Ca--Cardegna! Why not?" He stopped to think, and looked long at the moonbeams playing on the waters of the fountain. "Why not? But the baroness--may the diavolo fly away with her! What should I do--I indeed! with a pack of baronesses? I will go to bed and dream--not of a baroness! Macchè, never a baroness in my dreams, with eyes like a snake, and who cannot speak three words properly in the only language under the sun worth speaking! Not I--I will dream of Edvigia di Lira--she is the spirit of my dreams. Spirto gentil--" and away he went, humming the air from the "Favorita" in the top of his head, as is his wont.
The next day the contessina could talk of nothing during her lesson but the unknown singer who had made the night so beautiful for her, and Nino flushed red under his dark skin and ran his fingers wildly through his curly hair, with pleasure. But he set his square jaw, that means so much, and explained to his pupil how hard it would be for her to hear him again. For his friend, he said, was soon to make his appearance on the stage, and of course he could not be heard singing before that. And as the young lady insisted, Nino grew silent, and remarked that the lesson was not progressing. Thereupon Hedwig blushed--the first time he had ever seen her blush--and did not approach the subject again.
After that he went to the house of the baroness, where he was evidently expected, for the servant asked his name and immediately ushered him into her presence. She was one of those lithe, dark women of good race, that are to be met with all over the world, and she has broken many a heart. But she was not like a snake at all, as Nino had thought at first. She was simply a very fine lady who did exactly what she pleased, and if she did not always act rightly, yet I think she rarely acted unkindly. After all, the buon Dio has not made us all paragons of domestic virtue. Men break their hearts for so very little, and, unless they are ruined, they melt the pieces at the next flame and join them together again like bits of sealing wax.
The baroness sat before a piano in a boudoir, where there was not very much light. Every part of the room was crowded with fans, ferns, palms, Oriental carpets and cushions, books, porcelain, majolica, and pictures. You could hardly move without touching some ornament, and the heavy curtains softened the sunshine, and a small open fire of wood helped the warmth. There was also an odour of Russian tobacco. The baroness smiled and turned on the piano seat.
"Ah, professore! You come just in time," said she. "I am trying to sing such a pretty song to myself, and I cannot pronounce the words. Come and teach me." Nino contrasted the whole air of this luxurious retreat with the prim, soldierly order that reigned in the count's establishment.
"Indeed, signora, I come to teach you whatever I can. Here I am. I cannot sing, but I will stand beside you and prompt the words."
Nino is not a shy boy at all, and he assumed the duties required of him immediately. He stood by her side, and she just nodded and began to sing a little song that stood on the desk of the piano. She did not sing out of tune, but she made wrong notes and pronounced horribly.
"Pronounce the words for me," she repeated every now and then.
"But pronouncing in singing is different from speaking," he objected at last, and, fairly forgetting himself and losing patience, he began softly to sing the words over. Little by little, as the song pleased him, he lost all memory of where he was, and stood beside her singing just as he would have done to De Pretis, from the sheet, with all the accuracy and skill that were in him. At the end, he suddenly remembered how foolish he was. But, after all, he had not sung to the power of his voice, and she might not recognise in him the singer of last night. The baroness looked up with a light laugh.
"I have found you out," she cried, clapping her hands. "I have found you out!"
"What, signora?"
"You are the tenor of the Pantheon--that is all. I knew it. Are you so sorry that I have found you out?" she asked, for Nino turned very white, and his eyes flashed at the thought of the folly he had committed.
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Nino was thoroughly frightened, for he knew that discovery portended the loss of everything most dear to him. No more lessons with Hedwig, no more parties to the Pantheon, no more peace, no more anything. He wrung his fingers together and breathed hard.
"Ah, signora!" he found voice to exclaim, "I am sure you cannot believe it possible--" "Why not, Signor Cardegna?" asked the baroness, looking up at him from under her half-closed lids with a mocking glance. "Why not? Did you not tell me where you lived? And does not the whole neighbourhood know that you are no other than Giovanni Cardegna, commonly called Nino, who is to make his _début_ in the Carnival season?"
"Dio mio!" ejaculated Nino in a hoarse voice, realising that he was entirely found out, and that nothing could save him. He paced the room in an agony of despair, and his square face was as white as a sheet. The baroness sat watching him with a smile on her lips, amused at the tempest she had created, and pretending to know much more than she did. She thought it not impossible that Nino, who was certainly poor, might be supporting himself by teaching Italian while studying for the stage, and she inwardly admired his sense and twofold talent if that were really the case. But she was willing to torment him a little, seeing that she had the power.
"Signor Cardegna"--she called him in her soft voice. He turned quickly, and stood facing her, his arms crossed.
"You look like Napoleon at Waterloo, when you stand like that," she laughed. He made no answer, waiting to see what she would do with her victory. "It seems that you are sorry I have discovered you," she added presently, looking down at her hands.
"Is that all?" he said, with a bitter sneer on his pale young face.
"Then, since you are sorry, you must have a reason for concealment," she went on, as though reflecting on the situation. It was deftly done, and Nino took heart.
"Signora," he said, in a trembling voice, "it is natural that a man should wish to live. I give lessons now, until I have appeared in public, to support myself."
"Ah, I begin to understand," said the baroness. In reality she began to doubt, reflecting that if this were the whole truth Nino would be too proud--or any other Italian--to say it so plainly. She was subtle, the baroness!
"And do you suppose," he continued, "that if once the Conte de Lira had an idea that I was to be a public singer he would employ me as a teacher for his daughter?"
"No, but others might," she objected.
"But not the count--" Nino bit his lip, fearing he had betrayed himself.
"Nor the contessina," laughed the baroness, completing the sentence. He saw at a glance what she suspected, and instead of keeping cool grew angry.
"I came here, Signora Baronessa, not to be cross-examined, but to teach you Italian. Since you do not desire to study, I will say good-morning." He took his hat and moved proudly to the door.
"Come here," she said, not raising her voice, but still commanding. He turned, hesitated, and came back. He thought her voice was changed. She rose and swept her silken morning-gown between the chairs and tables till she reached a deep divan on the other side of the room. There she sat down.
"Come and sit beside me," she said, kindly, and he obeyed in silence.
"Do you know what would have happened," she continued, when he was seated, "if you had left me just now? I would have gone to the Graf von Lira and told him that you were not a fit person to teach his daughter; that you are a singer, and not a professor at all; and that you have assumed this disguise for the sake of seeing his daughter." But I do not believe that she would have done it.
"That would have been a betrayal," said Nino fiercely, looking away from her. She laughed lightly.
"Is it not natural," she asked, "that I should make inquiries about my Italian teacher before I begin lessons with him? And if I find he is not what he pretends to be should I not warn my intimate friends?" She spoke so reasonably that he was fain to acknowledge that she was right.
"It is just," he said, sullenly. "But you have been very quick to make your inquiries, as you call them."
"The time was short, since you were to come this morning."
"That is true," he answered. He moved uneasily. "And now, signora, will you be kind enough to tell me what you intend to do with me!"
"Certainly, since you are more reasonable. You see I treat you altogether as an artist, and not at all as an Italian master. A great artist may idle away a morning in a woman's boudoir; a simple teacher of languages must be more industrious."
"But I am not a great artist," said Nino, whose vanity--we all have it--began to flutter a little.
"You will be one before long, and one of the greatest. You are a boy yet, my little tenor," said she, looking at him with her dark eyes, "and I might almost be your mother. How old are you, Signor Nino?"
"I was twenty on my last birthday," he answered, blushing.
"You see! I am thirty--at least," she added, with a short laugh.
"Well, signora, what of that?" said Nino, half amused. "I wish I were thirty myself."
"I am glad you are not," said she. "Now listen. You are completely in my power, do you understand? Yes. And you are apparently very much in love with my young friend, the Contessina di Lira"--Nino sprang to his feet, his face white again, but with rage this time.
"Signora," he cried, "this is too much! It is insufferable! Good-morning," and he made as though he would go.
"Very well," said the baroness; "then I will go to the Graf and explain who you are. Ah--you are calm again in a moment? Sit down. Now I have discovered you, and I have a right to you, do you see? It is fortunate for you that I like you."
"You! You like me? In truth, you act as though you did! Besides, you are a stranger, Signora Baronessa, and a great lady. I never saw you till yesterday." But he resumed his seat.
"Good," said she. "Is not the Signorina Edvigia a great lady, and was there never a day when she was a stranger too?"
"I do not understand your caprices, signora. In fine, what do you want of me?"
"It is not necessary that you should understand me," answered the dark-eyed baroness. "Do you think I would hurt you--or rather your voice?"
"I do not know."
"You know very well that I would not; and as for my caprices, as you call them, do you think it is a caprice to love music? No, of course not. And who loves music loves musicians; at least," she added, with a most enchanting smile, "enough to wish to have them near one. That is all. I want you to come here often and sing to me. Will you come and sing to me, my little tenor?"
Nino would not have been human had he not felt the flattery through the sting. And I always say that singers are the vainest kind of people.
"It is very like singing in a cage," he said, in protest. Nevertheless, he knew he must submit; for, however narrow his experience might be, this woman's smile and winning grace, even when she said the hardest things, told him that she would have her own way. He had the sense to understand, too, that whatever her plans might be, their object was to bring him near to herself, a reflection which was extremely soothing to his vanity.
"If you will come and sing to me--only to me, of course, for I would not ask you to compromise your _début_--but if you will come and sing to me, we shall be very good friends. Does it seem to you such a terrible penance to sing to me in my solitude?"
"It is never a penance to sing," said Nino simply. A shade of annoyance crossed the baroness' face.
"Provided," she said, "it entails nothing. Well, we will not talk about the terms."
They say women sometimes fall in love with a voice: _vox et proeterea nihil_, as the poet has it. I do not know whether that is what happened to the baroness at first, but it has always seemed strange to me that she should have given herself so much trouble to secure Nino, unless she had a very strong fancy for him. I, for my part, think that when a lady of her condition takes such a sudden caprice into her head, she thinks it necessary to maltreat the poor man a little at first, just to satisfy her conscience, and to be able to say later that she did not encourage him. I have had some experience, as everybody is aware, and so I may speak boldly. On the other hand, a man like Nino, when he is in love, is absolutely blind to other women. There is only one idea in his soul that has any life, and everyone outside that idea is only so much landscape; they are no better for him--the other women--than a museum of wax dolls.
The baroness, as you have seen, had Nino in her power, and there was nothing for it but submission; he came and went at her bidding, and often she would send for him when he least expected it. He would do as she commanded, somewhat sullenly and with a bad grace, but obediently, for all that; she had his destiny in her hands, and could in a moment frustrate all his hopes. But, of course, she knew that if she betrayed him to the count, Nino would be lost to her also, since he came to her only in order to maintain his relations with Hedwig.
Meanwhile the blue-eyed maiden of the North waxed fitful. Sometimes two or three lessons would pass in severe study. Nino, who always took care to know the passages they were reading, so that he might look at her instead of at his book, had instituted an arrangement by which they sat opposite each other at a small table. He would watch her every movement and look, and carry away a series of photographs of her,--a whole row, like the little books of Roman views they sell in the streets, strung together on a strip of paper,--and these views of her lasted with him for two whole days, until he saw her again. But sometimes he would catch a glimpse of her in the interval driving with her father.
There were other days when Hedwig could not be induced to study, but would overwhelm Nino with questions about his wonderful cousin who sang, so that he longed with his whole soul to tell her it was he himself who had sung. She saw his reluctance to speak about it, and she blushed when she mentioned the night at the Pantheon; but for her life she could not help talking of the pleasure she had had. Her blushes seemed like the promise of spring roses to her lover, who drank of the air of her presence till that subtle ether ran like fire through his veins. He was nothing to her, he could see; but the singer of the Pantheon engrossed her thoughts and brought the hot blood to her cheek. The beam of moonlight had pierced the soft virgin darkness of her sleeping soul, and found a heart so cold and spotless that even a moon ray was warm by comparison. And the voice that sang "Spirto gentil dei sogni miei" had itself become by memory the gentle spirit of her own dreams. She is so full of imagination, this statue of Nino's, that she heard the notes echoing after her by day and night, till she thought she must go mad unless she could hear the reality again. As the great solemn statue of Egyptian Memnon murmurs sweet, soft sounds to its mighty self at sunrise, a musical whisper in the desert, so the pure white marble of Nino's living statue vibrated with strange harmonies all the day long.
One night, as Nino walked homeward with De Pretis, who had come to supper with us, he induced the maestro to go out of his way at least half a mile, to pass the Palazzo Carmandola. It was a still night, not over-cold for December, and there were neither stars nor moon. As they passed the great house Nino saw a light in Hedwig's sitting-room--the room where he gave her the lessons. It was late, and she must be alone. On a sudden he stopped.
"What is the matter?" asked De Pretis.
For all answer, Nino, standing in the dark street below, lifted up his voice and sang the first notes of the air he always associated with his beautiful contessina. Before he had sung a dozen bars the window opened, and the girl's figure could be seen, black against the light within. He went on for a few notes, and then ceased suddenly.
"Let us go," he said in a low voice to Ercole; and they went away, leaving the contessina listening in the stillness to the echo of their feet. A Roman girl would not have done that; she would have sat quietly inside, and never have shown herself. But foreigners are so impulsive!
Nino never heard the last of those few notes, any more than the contessina, literally speaking, ever heard the end of the song.
"Your cousin, about whom you make so much mystery, passed under my window last night," said the young lady the next day, with the usual display of carnation in her cheeks at the mention of him.
"Indeed, signorina?" said Nino, calmly, for he expected the remark. "And since you have never seen him, pray how did you know it was he?"
"How should one know?" she asked, scornfully. "There are not two such voices as his in Italy. He sang."
"He sang?" cried Nino, with an affectation of alarm. "I must tell the maestro not to let him sing in the open air; he will lose his voice."
"Who is his master?" asked Hedwig, suddenly.
"I cannot remember the name just now," said Nino, looking away. "But I will find out, if you wish." He was afraid of putting De Pretis to any inconvenience by saying that the young singer was his pupil. "However," he continued, "you will hear him sing as often as you please, after he makes his _début_ next month." He sighed when he thought that it would all so soon be over. For how could he disguise himself any longer, when he should be singing in public every night? But Hedwig clapped her hands.
"So soon?" she cried. "Then there will be an end of the mystery."
"Yes," said Nino, gravely "there will be an end of the mystery."
"At least you can tell me his name, now that we shall all know it."
"Oh, his name--his name is Cardegna, like mine. He is my cousin, you know." And they went on with the lesson. But something of the kind occurred almost every time he came, so that he felt quite sure that, however indifferent he might be in her eyes, the singer, the Nino of whom she knew nothing, interested her deeply.
Meanwhile he was obliged to go very often to the baroness' scented boudoir, which smelled of incense and other Eastern perfumes, whenever it did not smell of cigarettes; and there he sang little songs, and submitted patiently to her demands for more and more music. She would sit by the piano and watch him as he sang, wondering whether he were handsome or ugly, with his square face and broad throat and the black circles round his eyes. He had a fascination for her, as being something utterly new to her.
One day she stood and looked over the music as he sang, almost touching him, and his hair was so curly and soft to look at that she was seized with a desire to stroke it, as Mariuccia strokes the old gray cat for hours together. The action was quite involuntary, and her fingers rested only a moment on his head.
"It is so curly," she said, half playfully, half apologetically. But Nino started as though he had been stung, and his dark face grew pale. A girl could not have seemed more hurt at a strange man's touch.
"Signora!" he cried, springing to his feet. The baroness, who is as dark as he, blushed almost red, partly because she was angry, and partly because she was ashamed.
"What a boy you are!" she said, carelessly enough, and turned away to the window, pushing back one heavy curtain with her delicate hand, as if she would look out.
"Pardon me, signora, I am not a boy," said Nino, speaking to the back of her head as he stood behind her. "It is time we understood each other better. I love like a man and I hate like a man. I love someone very, much."
"Fortunate contessina!" laughed the baroness, mockingly, without turning round.
"It does not concern you, signora, to know whom I love, nor, if you know, to speak of her. I ask you a simple question. If you loved a man with your whole soul and heart, would you allow another man to stand beside you and stroke your hair, and say it was curly?" The baroness burst out laughing. "Do not laugh," he continued. "Remember that I am in your power only so long as it pleases me to submit to you. Do not abuse your advantage, or I will be capable of creating for myself situations quite as satisfactory as that of Italian master to the Signorina di Lira."
"What do you mean?" she asked, turning suddenly upon him. "I suppose you would tell me that you will make advantages for yourself which you will abuse against me? What do you mean?"
"I do not mean that. I mean only that I may not wish to give lessons to the contessina much longer." By this time the baroness had recovered her equanimity; and as she would have been sorry to lose Nino, who was a source of infinite pleasure and amusement to her, she decided to pacify him instead of teasing him any more.
"Is it not very foolish for us to quarrel about your curly hair?" said she. "We have been such good friends always." It might have been three weeks, her "always."
"I think it is," answered Nino, gravely. "But do not stroke my hair again, Signora Baronessa, or I shall be angry." He was quite serious, if you believe it, though he was only twenty. He forthwith sat down to the piano again and sang on. The baroness sat very silent and scarcely looked at him; but she held her hands clasped on her knee, and seemed to be thinking. After a time Nino stopped singing and sat silent also, absently turning over the sheets of music. It was warm in the room, and the sounds from the street were muffled and far away.
"Signor Nino," said the lady at last, in a different voice, "I am married."
"Yes, signora," he replied, wondering what would come next.
"It would be very foolish of me to care for you."
"It would also be very wicked," he said, calmly; for he is well grounded in religion. The baroness stared at him in some surprise, but seeing he was perfectly serious, she went on.
"Precisely, as you say, very wicked. That being the case, I have decided not to care for you any more--I mean not to care for you at all. I have made up my mind to be your friend."
"I am much obliged to your ladyship," he answered, without moving a muscle. For you see, he did not believe her.
"Now tell me, then, Signor Nino, are you in earnest in what you are doing? Do you really set your heart on doing this thing?"
"What?" asked Nino, annoyed at the persistence of the woman.
"Why need you be afraid to understand me? Can you not forgive me? Can you not believe in me that I will be your friend? I have always dreamed of being the friend of a great artist. Let me be yours, and believe me, the thing you have in your heart shall be done."
"I would like to hope so," he said. But he smiled incredulously. "I can only say that if you can accomplish what it is in my heart to do, I will go through fire and water at your bidding; and if you are not mocking me, I am very grateful for the offer. But if you please, signora, we will not speak any more of this at present. I may be a great artist some day. Sometimes I feel sure that I shall. But now I am simply Giovanni Cardegna, teacher of literature; and the highest favour you can confer on me is not to deprive me of my means of support by revealing to the Conte di Lira my other occupation. I may fail hopelessly at the outset of my artistic career, and in that case I shall certainly remain a teacher of language."
"Very well," said the baroness, in a subdued voice; for, in spite of her will and wilfulness, this square-faced boy of mine was more than a match for her. "Very well, you will believe me another day, and now I will ask you to go, for I am tired."
I cannot be interrupted by your silly questions about the exact way in which things happened. I must tell this story in my own way or not at all; and I am sacrificing a great deal to your taste in cutting out all the little things that I really most enjoy telling. Whether you are astonished at the conduct of the baroness, after a three weeks' acquaintance, or not, I care not a fig. It is just the way it happened, and I daresay she was really madly in love with Nino. If I had been Nino I should have been in love with her. But I would like you to admire my boy's audacity, and to review the situation, before I go on to speak of that important event in his life, his first appearance on the boards of the opera. At the time of his _début_ he was still disguised as a teacher of Italian to the young contessina. She thought him interesting and intelligent, but that was all. Her thoughts were entirely, though secretly, engrossed by the mysterious singer whom she had heard twice but had not seen as far as she knew. Nino, on the other hand, loved her to desperation, and would have acted like a madman had he been deprived of his privilege of speaking to her three times a week. He loved her with the same earnest determination to win her that he had shown for years in the study of his art, and with all the rest of his nature besides, which is saying much--not to mention his soul, of which he thinks a great deal more than I do.
Besides this, the baroness had apparently fallen in love with him, had made him her intimate, and flattered him in a way to turn his head. Then she seemed to have thought better of her passion, and had promised him her friendship,--a promise which he himself considered of no importance whatever. As for the old Conte de Lira, he read the German newspapers, and cared for none of these things. De Pretis took an extra pinch of his good snuff, when he thought that his liberal ideas might yet be realised, and a man from the people marry a great lady by fairly winning her. Do not, after this, complain that I have left you in the dark, or that you do not know how it happened. It is as clear as water, and it was about four months from the time Nino saw Hedwig in St. Peter's to the time when he first sang in public.
Christmas passed by,--thank heaven the municipality has driven away those most detestable pifferari who played on their discordant bagpipes at every corner for a fortnight, and nearly drove me crazy,--and the Befana, as we call the Epiphany in Rome, was gone, with its gay racket, and the night fair in the Piazza Navona, and the days for Nino's first appearance drew near. I never knew anything about the business arrangements for the _début_, since De Pretis settled all that with Jacovacci, the impresario; but I know that there were many rehearsals, and that I was obliged to stand security to the theatrical tailor, together with De Pretis, in order that Nino might have his dress made. As for the cowl in the last act, De Pretis has a brother who is a monk, and between them they put together a very decent friar's costume; and Mariuccia had a good piece of rope which Nino used for a girdle.
"What does it matter?" he said, with much good sense. "For if I sing well, they will not look at my monk's hood; and if I sing badly, I may be dressed like the Holy Father and they will hiss me just the same. But in the beginning I must look like a courtier, and be dressed like one."
"I suppose so," said I; "but I wish you had taken to philosophy."
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I shall never forget the day of Nino's first appearance. You may imagine whether we were in a state of excitement or not, after all these years of studying and waiting. There was much more trouble and worry than if he had written a great book, and was just to publish it, and receive the homage of all the learning and talent in Europe; which is the kind of _début_ I had hoped he would make in life, instead of putting on a foolish dress and stamping about on a stage, and squalling love songs to a packed house, making pantomime with his hands, and altogether behaving like an idiot,--a crowd of people ready to hiss him at the slightest indication of weakness, or to carry him on their shoulders if they fancied his voice to their taste.
No wonder Nino was sad and depressed all day, and when he tried his voice in the afternoon thought it was less clear than usual, and stared at himself in the looking-glass, wondering whether he were not too ugly altogether, as I always told him. To tell the truth, he was not so ugly as he had been; for the months with the contessina had refined him singularly, and perhaps he had caught a certain grace of manner from the baroness. He had grown more silent too, and seemed always preoccupied, as well he might be: but he had concealed his affair with the Lira family from me until that day, and I supposed him anxious about his appearance.
Early in the morning came De Pretis, and suggested that it would be better for Nino to take a walk and breathe the fresh air a little; so I bade him go, and I did not see him again until the afternoon. De Pretis said that the only cause for anxiety was from stage fright, and went away taking snuff and flourishing his immense cotton handkerchief. I thought a man must be a fool to work for years in order to sing, and then, when he had learned to do it quite well, to be afraid of showing what he knew. I did not think Nino would be frightened.
Of course there was a final rehearsal at eleven, and Nino put off the hour of the lesson with the contessina to three in the afternoon, by some excuse or other. He must have felt very much pressed for time, having to give her a lesson on the very day of his coming out; and besides, he knew very well that it might be the last of his days with her, and that a great deal would depend on the way he bore himself at his trial. He sang badly, or thought he did, at the rehearsal, and grew more and more depressed and grave as the day advanced. He came out of the little stage door of the Apollo theatre at Tor di Nona, and his eyes fell upon the broad bills and posters announcing the first appearance of "Giovanni Cardegna, the most distinguished pupil of the Maestro Ercole de Pretis, in Donizetti's opera the 'Favorita.'" His heart sank at the sight of his own name, and he turned towards the Bridge of Sant' Angelo to get away from it. He was the last to leave the theatre, and De Pretis was with him.
At that moment he saw Hedwig von Lira sitting in an open carriage in front of the box office. De Pretis bowed low; she smiled; and Nino took off his hat, but would not go near her, escaping in the opposite direction. He thought she looked somewhat surprised, but his only idea was to get away, lest she should call him and put some awkward question.
An hour and a half later he entered her sitting-room. There she sat, as usual, with her books, awaiting him perhaps for the last time, a fair, girlish figure with gold hair, but oh, so cold! --it makes me shiver to think of how she used to look. Possibly there was a dreaminess about her blue eyes that made up for her manner; but how Nino could love her I cannot understand. It must have been like making love to a pillar of ice.
"I am much indebted to you for allowing me to come at this hour, signorina," he said, as he bowed.
"Ah, professore, it looks almost as though it were you yourself who were to make your _début_" said she, laughing and leaning back in her chair. "Your name is on every corner in Rome, and I saw you coming out of a side door of the theatre this morning." Nino trembled, but reflected that if she had suspected anything she would not have made so light of it.
"The fact is, signorina, my cousin is so nervous that he begged me earnestly to be present at the rehearsal this morning; and as it is the great event of his life, I could not easily refuse him. I presume you are going to hear him, since I saw your carriage at the theatre."
"Yes. At the last minute my father wanted to change our box for one nearer the stage, and so we went ourselves. The baroness--you know, the lady who went with us to the Pantheon--is going with us to-night." It was the first time Hedwig had mentioned her, and it was evident that Nino's intimacy with the baroness had been kept a secret. How long would it be so? Mechanically he proceeded with the lesson, thinking mournfully that he should never give her another. But Hedwig was more animated than he had ever seen her, and often stopped to ask questions about the coming performance. It was evident that she was entirely absorbed with the thought of at last hearing to its fullest extent the voice that had haunted her dreams; most of all, with the anticipation of what this wonderful singer would be like. Dwelling on the echo of his singing for months had roused her interest and curiosity to such a pitch that she could hardly be quiet a moment, or think calmly of what she was to enjoy; and yet she looked so very cold and indifferent at most times. But Nino had noticed all this, and rejoiced at it; young as he was, however, he understood that the discovery she was about to make would be a shock that would certainly produce some palpable result, when she should see him from her box in the theatre. He trembled for the consequences.
The lesson was over all too soon, and Nino lingered a moment to see whether the very last drops of his cup of happiness might not still be sweet. He did not know when he should see her again, to speak with her; and though he determined it should not be long, the future seemed very uncertain, and he would look on her loveliness while he might.
"I hope you will like my cousin's singing," he said, rather timidly.
"If he sings as he has sung before he is the greatest artist living," she said calmly, as though no one would dispute it. "But I am curious to see him as well as to hear him."
"He is not handsome," said Nino, smiling a little. "In fact, there is a family resemblance; he is said to look like me."
"Why did you not tell me that before?" she asked quickly, and fixed her blue eyes on Nino's face as though she wished to photograph the features in her mind.
"I did not suppose the signorina would think twice about a singer's appearance," said Nino quietly. Hedwig blushed and turned away, busying herself with her books. At that moment Graf von Lira entered from the next room. Nino bowed.
"Curious is it," said the count, "that you and the about-to-make-his- appearance tenor should the same name have."
"He is a near relation, Signor Conte,--the same whom you heard sing in the Pantheon. I hope you will like his voice."
"That is what we shall see, Signor Professore," answered the other severely. He had a curious way of bowing, as though he were made only in two pieces, from his waist to his heels, and from his waist to the crown of his head. Nino went his way sadly, and wondering how Hedwig would look when she should recognise him from her box in the theatre that very evening.
It is a terrible and a heart-tearing thing to part from the woman one loves. That is nothing new, you say. Everyone knows that, perhaps so, though I think not. Only those can know it who have experienced it, and for them no explanations are in any way at all necessary. The mere word "parting" calls up such an infinity of sorrow that it is better to draw a veil over the sad thing and bury it out of sight and put upon it the seal on which is graven "No Hope."
Moreover, when a man only supposes, as Nino did, that he is leaving the woman he loves, or is about to leave her, until he can devise some new plan for seeing her, the case is not so very serious. Nevertheless, Nino, who is of a very tender constitution of the affections, suffered certain pangs which are always hard to bear, and as he walked slowly down the street he hung his head low, and did not look like a man who could possibly be successful in anything he might undertake that day. Yet it was the most important day of his life, and had it not been that he had left Hedwig with little hope of ever giving her another lesson, he would have been so happy that the whole air would have seemed dancing with sunbeams and angels and flowers. I think that when a man loves he cares very little for what he does. The greatest success is indifferent to him, and he cares not at all for failure in the ordinary undertakings of life. These are my reflections, and they are worth something, because I once loved very much myself, and was parted from her I loved many times before the last parting.
It was on this day that Nino came to me and told me all the history of the past months, of which I knew nothing; but, as you know all about it, I need not tell you what the conversation was like, until he had finished. Then I told him he was the prince and chief of donkeys, which was no more than the truth, as everybody will allow. He only spread out his palms and shrugged his shoulders, putting his head on one side, as though to say he could not help it.
"Is it perhaps my fault that you are a little donkey?" I asked; for you may imagine whether I was angry or not.
"Certainly not, Sor Cornelio," he said. "It is entirely my own doing; but I do not see that I am a donkey."
"Blood of Bacchus!" I ejaculated, holding up my hands. "He does not believe he is a great stupid!" But Nino was not angry at all. He busied himself a little with his costume, which was laid out on the piano, with the sword and the tinsel collar and all the rest of it.
"I am in love," he said. "What would you have?"
"I would have you put a little giudizio, just a grain of judgment and common sense, into your love affairs. Why, you go about it as though it were the most innocent thing in the world to disguise yourself, and present yourself as a professor in a nobleman's house, in order to make love to his daughter! You, to make love to a noble damigella, a young countess, with a fortune! Go back to Serveti, and marry the first contadina girl you meet, it is much more fitting, if you must needs marry at all. I repeat it, you are an ignorant donkey!"
"Eh!" cried Nino, perfectly unmoved, "if I am ignorant, it is not for lack of your teaching; and as for being the beast of burden to which you refer, I have heard it said that you were once in love yourself. Meanwhile, I have told you this, because there will perhaps be trouble, and I did not intend you to be surprised."
"Surprised?" said I. "I would not be surprised at anything you might fancy doing now. No, I would not dream of being surprised!"
"So much the better," answered Nino, imperturbably. He looked sad and weary, though, and as I am a prudent man I put my anger away to cool for a little while, and indulged in a cigar until it should be time to go to the theatre; for of course I went with him, and Mariuccia too, to help him with his dress. Poor old Mariuccia! she had dressed him when he was a ragged little boy, and she was determined to put the finishing touches to his appearance now that he was about to be a great man, she said. His dressing-room was a narrow little place, sufficiently ill lighted, and there was barely space to turn round. Mariuccia, who had brought the cat and had her pocket full of roasted chestnuts, sat outside on a chair until he was ready for her; and I am sure that if she had spent her life in the profession of adorning players she could not have used her fingers more deftly in the arrangement of the collar and sword. Nino had a fancy to wear a moustache and a pointed beard through the first part of the opera; saying that a courtier always had hair on his face, but that he would naturally shave if he turned monk. I represented to him that it was needless expense, since he must deposit the value of the false beard with the theatre barber, who lives opposite; and it was twenty-three francs. Besides, he would look like a different man--two separate characters.
"I do not care a cabbage for that," said Nino. If they cannot recognise me with their ears, they need not trouble themselves to recognise me at all."
"It is a fact that their ears are quite long enough," said Mariuccia.
"Hush, Mariuccia!" I said. "The Roman public is the most intelligent public in the world." And at this she grumbled.
But I knew well enough why he wanted to wear the beard. He had a fancy to put off the evil moment as long as possible, so that Hedwig might not recognise him till the last act,--a foolish fancy, in truth, for a woman's eyes are not like a man's; and though Hedwig had never thought twice about Nino's personality, she had not sat opposite him three times a week for nearly four months without knowing all his looks and gestures. It is an absurd idea, too, to attempt to fence with time, when a thing must come in the course of an hour or two. What is it, after all, the small delay you can produce? The click of a few more seconds in the clock-work, before the hammer smites its angry warning on the bell, and leaves echoes of pain writhing through the poor bronze, that is Time. As for Eternity, it is a question of the calculus, and does not enter into a singer's first appearance, nor into the recognition of a lover. If it did, I would give you an eloquent dissertation upon it, so that you would yawn and take snuff, and wish me carried off by the diavolo to some place where I might lecture on the infinite without fear of being interrupted, or of keeping sinners like you unnecessarily long awake. There will be no hurry then. Poor old diavolo! he must have a dull time of it amongst all those heretics. Perhaps he has a little variety, for they say he has written up on his door, "Ici l'on parle français," since Monsieur de Voltaire died. But I must go on, or you will never be any wiser than you are now, which is not saying overmuch.
I am not going to give you a description of the "Favorita," which you may hear a dozen times a year at the theatre, for more or less money--but it is only a franc if you stand; quite enough, too. I went upon the stage before it began, and peeped through the curtain to see what kind of an audience there was. It is an old curtain, and there is a hole in it on the right-hand side, which De Pretis says was made by a foreign tenor some years ago between the acts; and Jacovacci, the impresario, tried to make him pay five francs to have it repaired, but did not get the money. It is a better hole than the one in the middle, which is so far from both sides of the house that you cannot see the people well. So I looked through, and there, sure enough, in a box very near to the stage, sat the Contessina di Lira and the baroness, whom I had never seen before, but recognised from Nino's description; and behind them sat the count himself, with his great gray moustaches and a white cravat. They made me think of the time when I used to go to the theatre myself and sit in a box, and applaud or hiss, just as I pleased. Dio mio! what changes in this world!
I recognised also a great many of our noble ladies, with jewels and other ornaments, and it seemed to me that some of them were much more beautiful than the German contessina whom Nino had elected to worship, though she was well enough, to be sure, in white silk and white fur, with her little gold cross at her throat. To think that a statue like that, brought up with all the proprieties, should have such a strange chapter of life! But my eye began to smart from peering through the little hole, and just then a rough-looking fellow connected with the stage reminded me that, whatever relation I might be to the primo tenore, I was not dressed to appear in the first act; then the audience began to stamp and groan because the performance did not begin, and I went away again to tell Nino that he had a packed house. I found De Pretis giving him blackberry syrup, which he had brought in a bottle, and entreating him to have courage. Indeed, it seemed to me that Nino had the more courage of the two; for De Pretis laughed and cried and blew his nose, and took snuff with his great fat fingers, and acted altogether like a poor fool; while Nino sat on a rush-bottomed chair and watched Mariuccia, who was stroking the old cat and nibbling roasted chestnuts, declaring all the while that Nino was the most beautiful object she had ever seen. Then the bass and the baritone came together and spoke cheering words to Nino, and invited him to supper afterwards; but he thanked them kindly, and told them that he was expected at home, and would go with them after the next performance--if there ever were a "next." He thought he might fail at the last minute.
Nino had judged more rightly than I when he supposed that his beard and moustaches would disguise him from Hedwig during the first two acts. She recognised the wondrous voice, and she saw the strong resemblance he had spoken of. Once or twice as he looked toward her, it seemed indeed that the eyes must be his, with their deep circles and serious gaze. But it was absurd to suppose it anything more than a resemblance. As the opera advanced, it became evident that Nino was making a success. Then in the second act it was clear that the success was growing to be an ovation, and the ovation a furore, in which the house became entirely demoralised, and vouchsafed to listen only so long as Nino was singing--screaming with delight before he had finished what he had to sing in each scene. People sent their servants away in hot haste to buy flowers wherever they could, and he came back to his dressing-room, from the second act, carrying bouquets by the dozen, small bunches and big, such as people had been able to get or had brought with them. His eyes shone like the coals in Mariuccia's scaldino, as he entered, and he was pale through his paint. He could hardly speak for joy; but, as old habits return unconsciously at great moments in a man's life, he took the cat on his knee and pulled its tail.
"Sing thou also, little beast," he said, gravely; and he pulled the tail till the cat squeaked a little, and he was satisfied.
"Bene!" he cried; "and now for the tonsure and the frock." So Mariuccia was turned out into the passage while he changed his dress. De Pretis came back a moment later and tried to help him, but he was so much overcome that he could only shed tears and give a last word of advice for the next act.
"You must not sing it too loud, Nino mio," he said.
"Diavolo!" said Nino. "I should think not!"
"But you must not squeak it out in a little wee false voice, as small as this"; the maestro held up his thumb and finger, with a pinch of snuff between them.
"Bah? Sor Ercole, do you take me for a soprano?" cried the boy, laughing, as he washed off the paint and the gum where the beard had stuck. Presently he got into his frock, which, as I told you, was a real one, provided by Ercole's brother, the Franciscan--quite quietly, of course, for it would seem a dreadful thing to use a real monk's frock in an opera. Then we fastened the rope round his waist, and smoothed his curly hair a little to give him a more pious aspect. He looked as white as a pillow when the paint was gone.
"Tell me a little, my father," said old Mariuccia, mocking him, "do you fast on Sundays, that you look so pale?" Whereat Nino struck an attitude, and began singing a love song to the ancient woman. Indeed, she was joking about the fast, for she had expended my substance of late in fattening Nino, as she called it, for his appearance, and there was to be broiled chickens for supper that very night. He was only pale because he was in love. As for me, I made up my mind to stand in the slides, so that I could see the contessina; for Nino had whispered to me that she had not yet recognised him, though she stared hard across the footlights. Therefore I took up a good position on the left of the stage, facing the Lira box, which was on the right.
The curtain went up, and Nino stood there, looking like a real monk, with a book in his hand and his eyes cast down, as he began to walk slowly along. I saw Hedwig von Lira's gaze rest on his square, pale face at least one whole minute. Then she gave a strange little cry, so that many people in the house looked towards her; and she leaned far back in the shadow of the deep box, while the reflected glare of the footlights just shone faintly on her features, making them look more like marble than ever. The baroness was smiling to herself, amused at her companion's surprise, and the old count stared stolidly for a moment or two, and then turned suddenly to his daughter.
"Very curious is it," he was probably saying, "that this tenor should so much your Italian professor resemble." I could almost see his gray eyes sparkle angrily across the theatre. But as I looked, a sound rose on the heated air, the like of which I have never known. To tell the truth, I had not heard the first two acts, for I did not suppose there was any great difference between Nino's singing on the stage and his singing at home, and I still wished he might have chosen some other profession. But when I heard this I yielded, at least for the time, and I am not sure that my eyes were as clear as usual.
"Spirto gentil dei sogni miei"--the long sweet notes sighed themselves to death on his lips, falling and rising magically like a mystic angel song, and swaying their melody out into the world of lights and listeners; so pathetic, so heart-breaking, so laden with death and with love, that it was as though all the sorrowing souls in our poor Rome breathed in one soft sigh together. Only a poor monk dying of love in a monastery, tenderly and truly loving to the bitter end. Dio mio! there are perhaps many such. But a monk like this, with a face like a conqueror, set square in its whiteness, and yet so wretched to see in his poor patched frock and his bare feet; a monk, too, not acting love, but really and truly ready to die for a beautiful woman not thirty feet from him in the house; above all, a monk with a voice that speaks like the clarion call of the day of judgment in its wrath, and murmurs more plaintively and sadly in sorrow than ever the poor Peri sighed at the gates of Paradise--such a monk, what could he not make people feel?
The great crowd of men and women sat utterly stilled and intent till he had sung the very last note. Not a sound was heard to offend the sorrow that spoke from the boy's lips. Then all those people seemed to draw three long breaths of wonder--a pause, a thrilling tremor in the air, and then there burst to the roof such a roar of cries, such a huge thunder of hands and voices, that the whole house seemed to rock with it, and even in the street outside they say the noise was deafening.
Alone on the stage stood Nino, his eyes fixed on Hedwig von Lira in her box. I think that she alone of all that multitude made no sound, but only gripped the edge of the balcony hard in her white hands, and leaned far forward with straining eyes and beating heart to satisfy her wonder. She knew well enough, now, that there was no mistake. The humble little Professor Cardegna, who had patiently explained Dante and Leopardi to her for months, bowing to the ground in her presence, and apologising when he corrected her mistakes, as though his whole life was to be devoted to teaching foreigners his language; the decently clad young man, who was always pale, and sometimes pathetic when he spoke of himself, was no other than Giovanni Cardegna the tenor, singing aloud to earth and heaven with his glorious great voice--a man on the threshold of a European fame, such as falls only to the lot of a singer or a conqueror. More, he was the singer of her dreams, who had for months filled her thoughts with music and her heart with a strange longing, being until now a voice Only. There he stood looking straight at her,--she was not mistaken,--as though to say, "I have done it for you, and for you only." A woman must be more than marble to feel no pride in the intimate knowledge that a great public triumph has been gained solely for her sake. She must be colder than ice if she cannot see her power when a conqueror loves her.
The marble had felt the fire, and the ice was in the flame at last. Nino, with his determination to be loved, had put his statue into a very fiery furnace, and in the young innocence of his heart had prepared such a surprise for his lady as might have turned the head of a hardened woman of the world, let alone an imaginative German girl, with a taste for romance--or without; it matters little. All Germans are full of imagination, and that is the reason they know so much. For they not only know all that is known by other people, but also all that they themselves imagine, which nobody else can possibly know. And if you do not believe this, you had better read the works of one Fichte, a philosopher.
I need not tell you any more about Nino's first appearance. It was one of those really phenomenal successes that seem to cling to certain people through life. He was very happy and very silent when it was over; and we were the last to leave the theatre, for we feared the enthusiasm of the crowd. So we waited till everyone had gone, and then marched home together, for it was a fine night. I walked on one side of Nino and De Pretis on the other, all of us carrying as many flowers as we could; Mariuccia came behind, with the cat under her shawl. I did not discover until we reached home why she had brought the beast. Then she explained that, as there was so much food in the kitchen in anticipation of our supper, she had been afraid to leave the cat alone in the house, lest we should find nothing left to eat when we returned. This was sufficiently prudent for a scatter-brained old spendthrift like Mariuccia.
That was a merry supper, and De Pretis became highly dramatic when we got to the second flask.
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On the day following Nino's _début_, Maestro Ercole de Pretis found himself in hot water, and the choristers at St. Peter's noticed that his skull-cap was awry, and that he sang out of tune; and once he tried to take a pinch of snuff when there was only three bars' rest in the music, so that instead of singing C sharp he sneezed very loud. Then all the other singers giggled, and said, "Salute!" --which we always say to a person who sneezes--quite audibly.
It was not that Ercole had heard anything from the Graf von Lira as yet; but he expected to hear, and did not relish the prospect. Indeed, how could the Prussian gentleman fail to resent what the maestro had done in introducing to him a singer disguised as a teacher? It chanced, also, that the contessina took a singing lesson that very day in the afternoon, and it was clear that the reaping of his evil deeds was not far off. His conscience did not trouble him at all, it is true, for I have told you that he has liberal ideas about the right of marriage; but his vanity was sorely afflicted at the idea of abandoning such a very noble and creditable pupil as the Contessina di Lira. He applauded himself for furthering Nino's wild schemes, and he blamed himself for being so reckless about his own interests. Every moment he expected a formal notice from the count to discontinue the lessons. But still it did not come, and at the appointed hour Ercole's wife helped him to put on his thick winter coat, and wrapped his comforter about his neck, and pulled his big hat over his eyes--for the weather was threatening, and sent him trudging off to the Palazzo Carmandola.
Though Ercole is stout of heart, and has broad shoulders to bear such burdens as fall to his lot, he lingered long on the way, for his presentiments were gloomy; and at the great door of the Palazzo he even stopped to inquire of the porter whether the contessina had been seen to go out yet, half hoping that she would thus save him the mortification of an interview. But it turned out otherwise: the contessina was at home, and De Pretis was expected, as usual, to give the lesson. Slowly he climbed the great staircase, and was admitted.
"Good-day, Sor Maestro," said the liveried footman, who knew him well. "The Signor Conte desires to speak with you to-day before you go to the signorina."
The maestro's heart sank, and he gripped hard the roll of music in his hand as he followed the servant to the count's cabinet. There was to be a scene of explanation after all.
The count was seated in his great arm-chair, in a cloud of tobacco smoke, reading a Prussian military journal. His stick leaned against the table by his side, in painful contrast with the glittering cavalry sabres crossed upon the dark red wall opposite. The tall windows looked out on the piazza, and it was raining, or just beginning to rain. The great inkstand on the table was made to represent a howitzer, and the count looked as though he were ready to fire it point blank at any intruder. There was an air of disciplined luxury in the room that spoke of a rich old soldier who fed his fancy with tit-bits from a stirring past. De Pretis felt very uncomfortable, but the nobleman rose to greet him, as he rose to greet everything above the rank of a servant, making himself steady with his stick. When De Pretis was seated he sat down also. The rain pattered against the window.
"Signor De Pretis," began the count, in tones as hard as chilled steel, "you are an honourable man." There was something interrogative in his voice.
"I hope so," answered the maestro modestly; "like other Christians, I have a soul--" "You will your soul take care of in your leisure moments," interrupted the count. "At present you have no leisure."
"As you command, Signor Conte."
"I was yesterday evening at the theatre. The professor you recommended for my daughter is with the new tenor one person." De Pretis spread out his hands and bowed, as if to deprecate any share in the transaction. The count continued, "You are of the profession, Signor De Pretis. Evidently, you of this were aware."
"It is true," assented Ercole, not knowing what to say.
"Of course it is true. I am therefore to hear your explanation disposed." His grey eyes fastened sternly on the maestro. But the latter was prepared, for he had long foreseen that the count would one day be disposed to hear an explanation, as he expressed it.
"It is quite true," repeated De Pretis. "The young man was very poor, and desired to support himself while he was studying music. He was well fitted to teach our literature, and I recommended him. I hope that, in consideration of his poverty, and because he turned out a very good teacher, you will forgive me, Signor Conte."
"This talented singer I greatly applaud," answered the count stiffly. "As a with-the-capacity-and-learning-requisite-for-teaching-endowed young man deserves he also some commendation. Also will I remember his laudable-and-not-lacking independence character. Nevertheless, unfitting would it be should I pay the first tenor of the opera five francs an hour to teach my daughter Italian literature." De Pretis breathed more freely.
"Then you will forgive me, Signor Conte, for endeavouring to promote the efforts of this worthy young man in supporting himself?"
"Signor De Pretis," said the count, with a certain quaint geniality, "I have my precautions observed. I examined Signor Cardegna in Italian literature in my own person, and him proficient found. Had I found him to be ignorant, and had I his talents as an operatic singer later discovered, I would you out of that window have projected." De Pretis was alarmed, for the old count looked as though he would have carried out the threat. "As it is," he concluded, "you are an honourable man, and I wish you good-morning. Lady Hedwig awaits you as usual." He rose courteously, leaning on his stick, and De Pretis bowed himself out.
He expected that the contessina would immediately begin talking of Nino, but he was mistaken; she never once referred to the opera or the singer, and except that she looked pale and transparent, and sang with a trifle less interest in her music than usual, there was nothing noticeable in her manner. Indeed, she had every reason to be silent.
Early that morning Nino received by messenger a pretty little note, written in execrable Italian, begging him to come and breakfast with the baroness at twelve, as she much desired to speak with him after his stupendous triumph of the previous night.
Nino is a very good boy, but he is mortal, and after the excitement of the evening he thought nothing could be pleasanter than to spend a few hours in that scented boudoir, among the palms and the beautiful objects and the perfumes, talking with a woman who professed herself ready to help him in his love affair. We have no perfumes or cushions or pretty things at number twenty-seven Santa Catarina dei Funari, though everything is very bright and neat and most proper, and the cat is kept in the kitchen, for the most part. So it is no wonder that he should have preferred to spend the morning with the baroness.
She was half lying, half sitting, in a deep arm-chair, when Nino entered; and she was reading a book. When she saw him she dropped the volume on her knee, and looked up at him from under her lids, without speaking. She must have been a bewitching figure. Nino advanced toward her, bowing low, so that his dark curling hair shaded his face.
"Good-day, signora," said he softly, as though fearing to hurt the quiet air. "I trust I do not interrupt you?"
"You never interrupt me, Nino," she said, "except--except when you go away."
"You are very good, signora."
"For heaven's sake, no pretty speeches," said she, with a little laugh.
"It seems to me," said Nino, seating himself, "that it was you who made the pretty speech, and I who thanked you for it." There was a pause.
"How do you feel!" asked the baroness at last, turning her head to him.
"Grazie--I am well," he answered, smiling.
"Oh, I do not mean that,--you are always well. But how do you enjoy your first triumph?"
"I think," said Nino, "that a real artist ought to have the capacity to enjoy a success at the moment, and the good sense to blame his vanity for enjoying it after it is passed."
"How old are you, Nino?"
"Did I never tell you?" he asked innocently. "I shall be twenty-one soon."
"You talk as though you were forty, at least."
"Heaven save us!" quoth Nino.
"But really, are you not immensely flattered at the reception you had?"
"Yes."
"You did not look at all interested in the public at the time," said she, "and that Roman nose of yours very nearly turned up in disdain of the applause, I thought. I wonder what you were thinking of all the while."
"Can you wonder, baronessa?" She knew what he meant, and there was a little look of annoyance in her face when she answered.
"Ah, well, of course not, since _she_ was there." Her ladyship rose, and taking a stick of Eastern pastil from a majolica dish in a corner made Nino light it from a wax taper.
"I want the smell of the sandal-wood this morning," said she; "I have a headache." She was enchanting to look at as she bent her softly-shaded face over the flame to watch the burning perfume. She looked like a beautiful lithe sorceress making a love spell,--perhaps for her own use. Nino turned from her. He did not like to allow the one image he loved to be even for a moment disturbed by the one he loved not, however beautiful. She moved away, leaving the pastil on the dish. Suddenly she paused, and turned back to look at him.
"Why did you come to-day?" she asked.
"Because you desired it," answered Nino, in some astonishment.
"You need not have come," she said, bending down to lean on the back of a silken chair. She folded her hands and looked at him as he stood not three paces away. "Do you not know what has happened?" she asked, with a smile that was a little sad.
"I do not understand," said Nino simply. He was facing the entrance to the room, and saw the curtains parted by the servant. The baroness had her back to the door, and did not hear.
"Do you not know," she continued, "that you are free now? Your appearance in public has put an end to it all. You are not tied to me any longer,--unless you wish it."
As she spoke these words Nino turned white, for under the heavy curtain, lifted to admit her, stood Hedwig von Lira, like a statue, transfixed and immovable from what she had heard. The baroness noticed Nino's look, and springing back to her height from the chair on which she had been leaning, faced the door.
"My dearest Hedwig!" she cried, with a magnificent readiness. "I am so very glad you have come. I did not expect you in the least. Do take off your hat, and stay to breakfast. Ah, forgive me; this is Professor Cardegna. But you know him? Yes; now that I think, we all went to the Pantheon together." Nino bowed low, and Hedwig bent her head.
"Yes," said the young girl coldly. "Professor Cardegna gives me lessons."
"Why, of course; how _bête_ I am! I was just telling him that, since he has been successful, and is enrolled among the great artists, it is a pity he is no longer tied to giving Italian lessons,--tied to coming here three times a week to teach me literature." Hedwig smiled a strange icy smile, and sat down by the window. Nino was still utterly astonished, but he would not allow the baroness's quibble to go entirely uncontradicted.
"In truth," he said, "the Signora Baronessa's lessons consisted chiefly--" "In teaching me pronunciation," interrupted the baroness, trying to remove Hedwig's veil and hat, somewhat against the girl's inclination. "Yes, you see how it is. I know a little of singing, but I cannot pronounce--not in the least. Ah, these Italian vowels will be the death of me! But if there is anyone who can teach a poor dilettante to pronounce them," she added, laying the hat away on a chair, and pushing a footstool to Hedwig's feet, "that someone is Signor Cardegna."
By this time Nino had recognised the propriety of temporising; that is to say, of letting the baroness's fib pass for what it was worth, lest the discussion of the subject should further offend Hedwig, whose eyes wandered irresolutely toward him, as though she would say something if he addressed her.
"I hope, signorina," he said, "that it is not quite as the baroness says. I trust our lessons are not at an end?" He knew very well that they were.
"I think, Signor Cardegna," said Hedwig, with more courage than would have been expected from such a mere child,--she is twenty, but Northern people are not grown up till they are thirty, at least,--"I think it would have been more obliging if, when I asked you so much about your cousin, you had acknowledged that you had no cousin, and that the singer was none other than yourself." She blushed, perhaps, but the curtain of the window hid it.
"Alas, signorina," answered Nino, still standing before her, "such a confession would have deprived me of the pleasure--of the honour of giving you lessons."
"And pray, Signor Cardegna," put in the baroness, "what are a few paltry lessons compared with the pleasure you ought to have experienced in satisfying the Contessina di Lira's curiosity. Really, you have little courtesy."
Nino shrank into himself, as though he were hurt, and he gave the baroness a look which said worlds. She smiled at him, in joy of her small triumph, for Hedwig was looking at the floor again and could not see. But the young girl had strength in her, for all her cold looks and white cheek.
"You can atone, Signor Cardegna," she said. Nino's face brightened.
"How, signorina?" he asked.
"By singing to us now," said Hedwig. The baroness looked grave, for she well knew what a power Nino wielded with his music.
"Do not ask him," she protested. "He must be tired,--tired to death, with all he went through last night."
"Tired?" ejaculated Nino, with some surprise. "I tired? I was never tired in my life of singing. I will sing as long as you will listen." He went to the piano. As he turned, the baroness laid her hand on Hedwig's affectionately, as though sympathising with something she supposed to be passing in the girl's mind. But Hedwig was passive, unless a little shudder at the first touch of the baroness's fingers might pass for a manifestation of feeling. Hedwig had hitherto liked the baroness, finding in her a woman of a certain artistic sense, combined with a certain originality. The girl was an absolute contrast to the woman, and admired in her the qualities she thought lacking in herself, though she possessed too much self-respect to attempt to acquire them by imitation. Hedwig sat like a Scandinavian fairy princess on the summit of a glass hill; her friend roamed through life like a beautiful soft-footed wild animal, rejoicing in the sense of being, and sometimes indulging in a little playful destruction by the way. The girl had heard a voice in the dark singing, and ever since then she had dreamed of the singer; but it never entered her mind to confide to the baroness her strange fancies. An undisciplined imagination, securely shielded from all outward disturbing causes, will do much with a voice in the dark,--a great deal more than such a woman as the baroness might imagine.
I do not know enough about these blue-eyed German girls to say whether or not Hedwig had ever before thought of her unknown singer as an unknown lover. But the emotions of the previous night had shaken her nerves a little, and had she been older than she was she would have known that she loved her singer, in a distant and maidenly fashion, as soon as she heard the baroness speak of him as having been her property. And now she was angry with herself, and ashamed of feeling any interest in a man who was evidently tied to another woman by some intrigue she could not comprehend. Her coming to visit the baroness had been as unpremeditated as it was unexpected that morning, and she bitterly repented it; but being of good blood and heart, she acted as boldly as she could, and showed no little tact in making Nino sing, and thus cutting short a painful conversation. Only when the baroness tried to caress her and stroke her hand she shrank away, and the blood mantled up to her cheeks. Add to all this the womanly indignation she felt at having been so long deceived by Nino, and you will see that she was in a very vacillating frame of mind.
The baroness was a subtle woman, reckless and diplomatic by turns, and she was not blind to the sudden repulse she met with from Hedwig, unspoken though it was. But she merely withdrew her hand, and sat thinking over the situation. What she thought, no one knows; or at least, we can only guess it from what she did afterwards. As for me, I have never blamed her at all, for she is the kind of woman I should have loved. In the meantime Nino carolled out one love song after another. He saw, however, that the situation was untenable, and after a while he rose to go. Strange to say, although the baroness had asked Nino to breakfast and the hour was now at hand, she made no effort to retain him. But she gave him her hand, and said many flattering and pleasing things, which, however, neither flattered nor pleased him. As for Hedwig, she bent her head a little, but said nothing, as he bowed before her. Nino therefore went home with a heavy heart, longing to explain to Hedwig why he had been tied to the baroness,--that it was the price of her silence and of the privilege he had enjoyed of giving lessons to the contessina; but knowing also that all explanation was out of the question for the present. When he was gone Hedwig and the baroness were left together.
"It must have been a great surprise to you, my dear," said the elder lady kindly.
"What?"
"That your little professor should turn out a great artist in disguise. It was a surprise to me, too,--ah, another illusion destroyed. Dear child! You have still so many illusions,--beautiful, pure illusions. Dieu! how I envy you!" They generally talked French together, though the baroness knows German. Hedwig laughed bravely.
"I was certainly astonished," she said. "Poor man! I suppose he did it to support himself. He never told me he gave you lessons too." The baroness smiled, but it was from genuine satisfaction this time.
"I wonder at that, since he knew we were intimate, or, at least, that we were acquainted. Of course I would not speak of it last night, because I saw your father was angry."
"Yes, he was angry. I suppose it was natural," said Hedwig.
"Perfectly natural. And you, my dear, were you not angry too,--just a little?"
"I? No. Why should I be angry? He was a very good teacher, for he knows whole volumes by heart; and he understands them too."
Soon they talked of other things, and the baroness was very affectionate. But though Hedwig saw that her friend was kind and most friendly, she could not forget the words that were in the air when she chanced to enter, nor could she quite accept the plausible explanation of them which the baroness had so readily invented. For jealousy is the forerunner of love, and sometimes its awakener. She felt a rival and an enemy, and all the hereditary combativeness of her Northern blood was roused.
Nino, who was in no small perplexity, reflected. He was not old enough or observant enough to have seen the breach that was about to be created between the baroness and Hedwig. His only thought was to clear himself in Hedwig's eyes from the imputation of having been tied to the dark woman in any way save for his love's sake. He at once began to hate the baroness with all the ferocity of which his heart was capable, and with all the calm his bold square face outwardly expressed. But he was forced to take some action at once, and he could think of nothing better to do than to consult De Pretis.
To the maestro he poured out his woes and his plans. He exhibited to him his position toward the baroness and toward Hedwig in the clearest light. He conjured him to go to Hedwig and explain that the baroness had threatened to unmask him, and thus deprive him of his means of support,--he dared not put it otherwise,--unless he consented to sing for her and come to her as often as she pleased. To explain, to propitiate, to smooth,--in a word, to reinstate Nino in her good opinion.
"Death of a dog!" exclaimed De Pretis; "you do not ask much! After you have allowed your lady-love, your inamorata, to catch you saying you are bound body and soul to another woman,--and such a woman! ye saints, what a beauty! --you ask me to go and set matters right! What the diavolo did you want to go and poke your nose into such a mousetrap for? Via! I am a fool to have helped you at all."
"Very likely," said Nino calmly. "But meanwhile there are two of us, and perhaps I am the greater. You will do what I ask, maestro; is it not true? And it was not I who said it; it was the baroness."
"The baroness--yes--and may the maledictions of the inferno overtake her," said De Pretis, casting up his eyes and feeling in his coat-tail pockets for his snuff-box. Once, when Nino was younger, he filled Ercole's snuff-box with soot and pepper, so that the maestro had a black nose and sneezed all day.
What could Ercole do? It was true that he had hitherto helped Nino. Was he not bound to continue that assistance? I suppose so; but if the whole affair had ended then, and this story with it, I would not have cared a button. Do you suppose it amuses me to tell you this tale? Or that if it were not for Nino's good name I would ever have turned myself into a common storyteller? Bah! you do not know me. A page of quaternions gives me more pleasure than all this rubbish put together, though I am not averse to a little gossip now and then of an evening, if people will listen to my details and fancies. But those are just the things people will not listen to. Everybody wants sensation nowadays. What is a sensation compared with a thought? What is the convulsive gesticulation of a dead frog's leg compared with the intellect of the man who invented the galvanic battery, and thus gave fictitious sensation to all the countless generations of dead frogs' legs that have since been the objects of experiment? Or if you come down to so poor a thing as mere feeling, what are your feelings in reading about Nino's deeds compared with what he felt in doing them? I am not taking all this trouble to please you, but only for Nino's sake, who is my dear boy. You are of no more interest or importance to me than if you were so many dead frogs; and if I galvanise your sensations, as you call them, into an activity sufficient to make you cry or laugh, that is my own affair. You need not say "thank you" to me. I do not want it. Ercole will thank you, and perhaps Nino will thank me, but that is different.
I will not tell you about the interview that Ercole had with Hedwig, nor how skilfully he rolled up his eyes and looked pathetic when he spoke of Nino's poverty and of the fine part he had played in the whole business. Hedwig is a woman, and the principal satisfaction she gathered from Ercole's explanation was the knowledge that her friend the baroness had lied to her in explaining those strange words she had overheard. She knew it, of course, by instinct; but it was a great relief to be told the fact by someone else, as it always is, even when one is not a woman.
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Several days passed after the _début_ without giving Nino an opportunity of speaking to Hedwig. He probably saw her, for he mingled in the crowd of dandies in the Piazza Colonna of an afternoon, hoping she would pass in her carriage and give him a look. Perhaps she did; he said nothing about it, but looked calm when he was silent and savage when he spoke, after the manner of passionate people. His face aged and grew stern in those few days, so that he seemed to change on a sudden from boy to man. But he went about his business, and sang at the theatre when he was obliged to; gathering courage to do his best and to display his powers from the constant success he had. The papers were full of his praises, saying that he was absolutely without rival from the very first night he sang, matchless and supreme from the moment he first opened his mouth, and all that kind of nonsense. I dare say he is now, but he could not have been really the greatest singer living, so soon. However, he used to bring me the newspapers that had notices of him, though he never appeared to care much for them, nor did he ever keep them himself. He said he hankered for an ideal which he would never attain, and I told him that if he was never to attain it he had better abandon the pursuit of it at once. But he represented to me that the ideal was confined to his imagination, whereas the reality had a great financial importance, since he daily received offers from foreign managers to sing for them, at large advantage to himself, and was hesitating only in order to choose the most convenient. This seemed sensible, and I was silent. Soon afterwards he presented me with a box of cigars and a very pretty amber mouthpiece. The cigars were real Havanas, such as I had not smoked for years, and must have cost a great deal.
"You may not be aware, Sor Cornelio," he said one evening, as he mixed the oil and vinegar with the salad, at supper, "that I am now a rich man, or soon shall be. An agent from the London opera has offered me twenty thousand francs for the season in London this spring."
"Twenty thousand francs!" I cried, in amazement. "You must be dreaming, Nino. That is just about seven times what I earn in a year with my professorship and my writing."
"No dreams, caro mio. I have the offer in my pocket." He apparently cared no more about it than if he had twenty thousand roasted chestnuts in his pocket.
"When do you leave us?" I asked, when I was somewhat recovered.
"I am not sure that I will go," he answered, sprinkling some pepper on the lettuce.
"Not sure! Body of Diana, what a fool you are!"
"Perhaps," said he, and he passed me the dish. Just then Mariuccia came in with a bottle of wine, and we said no more about it, for Mariuccia is indiscreet.
Nino thought nothing about his riches, because he was racking his brains for some good expedient whereby he might see the contessina and speak with her. He had ascertained from De Pretis that the count was not so angry as he had expected, and that Hedwig was quite satisfied with the explanations of the maestro. The day after the foregoing conversation he wrote a note to her, wherein he said that if the Contessina de Lira would deign to be awake at midnight that evening she would have a serenade from a voice she was said to admire. He had Mariuccia carry the letter to the Palazzo Cormandola.
At half-past eleven, at least two hours after supper, Nino wrapped himself in my old cloak and took the guitar under his arm. Rome is not a very safe place for midnight pranks, and so I made him take a good knife in his waistbelt; for he had confided to me where he was going. I tried to dissuade him from the plan, saying he might catch cold; but he laughed at me.
A serenade is an everyday affair, and in the street one voice sounds about as well as another. He reached the palace, and his heart sank when he saw Hedwig's window dark and gloomy. He did not know that she was seated behind it in a deep chair, wrapped in white things, and listening for him against the beatings of her heart. The large moon seemed to be spiked on the sharp spire of the church that is near her house, and the black shadows cut the white light as clean as with a knife. Nino had tuned his guitar in the other street, and stood ready, waiting for the clocks to strike. Presently they clanged out wildly, as though they had been waked from their midnight sleep, and were angry; one clock answering the other, and one convent bell following another in the call to prayers. For two full minutes the whole air was crazy with ringing, and then it was all still. Nino struck a single chord. Hedwig almost thought he might hear her heart beating all the way down the street.
"Ah, del mio dolce ardor bramato ogetto," he sang,--an old air in one of Gluck's operas that our Italian musicians say was composed by Alessandro Stradella, the poor murdered singer. It must be a very good air, for it pleases me; and I am not easily pleased with music of any kind. As for Hedwig, she pressed her ear to the glass of the window that she might not lose any note. But she would not open nor give any sign. Nino was not so easily discouraged, for he remembered that once before she had opened her window for a few bars he had begun to sing. He played a few chords, and breathed out the "Salve, dimora casta e pura," from _Faust_, high and soft and clear. There is a point in that song, near to the end, where the words say, "Reveal to me the maiden," and where the music goes away to the highest note that anyone can possibly sing. It always appears quite easy for Nino, and he does not squeak like a dying pig as all the other tenors do on that note. He was looking up as he sang it, wondering whether it would have any effect. Apparently Hedwig lost her head completely, for she gently opened the casement and looked out at the moonlight opposite, over the carved stone mullions of her window. The song ended, he hesitated whether to go or to sing again. She was evidently looking towards him; but he was in the light, for the moon had risen higher, and she, on the other side of the street, was in the dark.
"Signorina!" he called softly. No answer. "Signorina!" he said again, coming across the empty street and standing under the window, which might have been thirty feet from the ground.
"Hush!" came a whisper from above.
"I thank you with all my soul for listening to me," he said, in a low voice. "I am innocent of that of which you suspect me. I love you, ah, I love you!" But at this she left the window very quickly. She did not close it, however, and Nino stood long, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the white face that had been there. He sighed, and, striking a chord, sang out boldly the old air from the _Trovatore_, "Ah, che la morte ognora è tarda nel venir." Every blind fiddler in the streets plays it, though he would be sufficiently scared if death came any the quicker for his fiddling. But old and worn as it is it has a strain of passion in it, and Nino threw more fire and voice into the ring of it than ever did famous old Boccardè, when he sang it at the first performance of the opera, thirty and odd years ago. As he played the chords after the first strophe, the voice from above whispered again: "Hush! for Heaven's sake!" Just that, and something fell at his feet, with a soft little padded sound on the pavement. He stooped to pick it up, and found a single rose; and at that instant the window closed sharply. Therefore he kissed the rose and hid it, and presently he strode down the street, finishing his song as he went, but only humming it, for the joy had taken his voice away. I heard him let himself in and go to bed, and he told me about it in the morning. That is how I know.
Since the day after the _début_ Nino had not seen the baroness. He did not speak of her, and I am sure he wished she were at the very bottom of the Tiber. But on the morning after the serenade he received a note from her, which was so full of protestations of friendship and so delicately couched that he looked grave, and reflected that it was his duty to be courteous, and to answer such a call as that. She begged him earnestly to come at one o'clock; she was suffering from headache, she said, and was very weak. Had Nino loved Hedwig a whit the less he would not have gone. But he felt himself strong enough to face anything and everything, and therefore he determined to go.
He found her, indeed, with the manner of a person who is ill, but not with the appearance. She was lying on a huge couch, pushed to the fireside, and there were furs about her. A striped scarf of rich Eastern silk was round her throat, and she held in her hand a new novel, of which she carelessly cut the pages with a broad-hafted Persian knife. But there was colour in her dark cheek, and a sort of angry fire in her eyes. Nino thought the clean steel in her hand looked as though it might be used for something besides cutting leaves, if the fancy took her.
"So at last you have honoured me with a visit, signore," she said, not desisting from her occupation. Nino came to her, and she put out her hand. He touched it, but could not bear to hold it, for it burned him.
"You used to honour my hand differently from that," she half whispered. Nino sat himself down a little way from her, blushing slightly. It was not at what she had said, but at the thought that he should ever have kissed her fingers.
"Signora," he replied, "there are customs, chivalrous and gentle in themselves, and worthy for all men to practise. But from the moment a custom begins to mean what it should not, it ought to be abandoned. You will forgive me if I no longer kiss your hand."
"How cold you are! --how formal! What should it mean?"
"It is better to say too little than too much," he answered.
"Bah!" she cried, with a bitter little laugh. "Words are silver, but silence--is very often nothing but silver-plated brass. Put a little more wood on the fire; you make me cold." Nino obeyed.
"How literal you are!" said the baroness petulantly. "There is fire enough on the hearth."
"Apparently, signora, you are pleased to be enigmatical," said Nino.
"I will be pleased to be anything I please," she answered, and looked at him rather fiercely. "I wanted you to drive away my headache, and you only make it worse."
"I am sorry, signora. I will leave you at once. Permit me to wish you a very good-morning." He took his hat and went towards the door. Before he reached the heavy curtain, she was at his side with a rush like a falcon on the wing, her eyes burning darkly between anger and love.
"Nino!" She laid hold of his arm, and looked into his face.
"Signora," he protested coldly, and drew back.
"You will not leave me so?"
"As you wish, signora. I desire to oblige you."
"Oh, how cold you are!" she cried, leaving his arm, and sinking into a chair by the door, while he stood with his hand on the curtain. She hid her eyes. "Nino, Nino! You will break my heart!" she sobbed; and a tear, perhaps more of anger than of sorrow, burst through her fingers, and coursed down her cheek.
Few men can bear to see a woman shed tears. Nino's nature rose up in his throat, and bade him console her. But between him and her was a fair, bright image that forbade him to move hand or foot.
"Signora," he said, with all the calm he could command, "if I were conscious of having by word or deed of mine given you cause to speak thus, I would humbly implore your forgiveness. But my heart does not accuse me. I beg you to allow me to take leave of you. I will go away, and you shall have no further cause to think of me." He moved again, and lifted the curtain. But she was like a panther, so quick and beautiful. Ah, how I could have loved that woman! She held him, and would not let him go, her smooth fingers fastening round his wrists like springs.
"Please to let me go," he said, between his teeth, with rising anger.
"No! I will not let you!" she cried fiercely, tightening her grasp on him. Then the angry fire in her tearful eyes seemed suddenly to melt into a soft flame, and the colour came faster to her cheeks. "Ah, how can you let me so disgrace myself! how can you see me fallen so low as to use the strength of my hands, and yet have no pity? Nino, Nino, do not kill me!"
"Indeed, it would be the better for you if I should," he answered bitterly, but without attempting to free his wrists from the strong, soft grip.
"But you will," she murmured, passionately. "You are killing me by leaving me. Can you not see it?" Her voice melted away in the tearful cadence. But Nino stood gazing at her as stonily as though he were the Sphinx. How could he have the heart? I cannot tell. Long she looked into his eyes, silently; but she might as well have tried to animate a piece of iron, so stern and hard he was. Suddenly, with a strong convulsive movement, she flung his hands from her.
"Go!" she cried hoarsely. "Go to that wax doll you love, and see whether she will love you, or care whether you leave her or not! Go, go, go! Go to her!" She had sprung far back from him, and now pointed to the door, drawn to her full height and blazing in her wrath.
"I would advise you, madam, to speak with proper respect of any lady with whom you choose to couple my name." His lips opened and shut mechanically, and he trembled from head to foot.
"Respect!" She laughed wildly. "Respect for a mere child whom you happen to fancy! Respect, indeed, for anything you choose to do! I--I--respect Hedwig von Lira? Ha! ha!" and she rested her hand on the table behind her, as she laughed.
"Be silent, madam," said Nino, and he moved a step nearer, and stood with folded arms.
"Ah! You would silence me now, would you? You would rather not hear me speak of your midnight serenades, and your sweet letters dropped from the window of her room at your feet?" But her rage overturned itself, and with a strange cry she fell into a deep chair, and wept bitterly, burying her face in her two hands. "Miserable woman that I am!" she sobbed, and her whole lithe body was convulsed.
"You are indeed," said Nino, and he turned once more to go. But as he turned, the servant threw back the curtain.
"The Signor Conte di Lira," he announced, in distinct tones. For a moment there was a dead silence, during which, in spite of his astonishment at the sudden appearance of the count, Nino had time to reflect that the baroness had caused him to be watched during the previous night. It might well be, and the mistake she made in supposing the thing Hedwig had dropped to be a letter told him that her spy had not ventured very near.
The tall count came forward under the raised curtains, limping and helping himself with his stick. His face was as gray and wooden as ever, but his moustaches had an irritated, crimped look that Nino did not like. The count barely nodded to the young man as he stood aside to let the old gentleman pass; his eyes turned mechanically to where the baroness sat. She was a woman who had no need to simulate passion in any shape, and it must have cost her a terrible effort to control the paroxysm of anger and shame and grief that had overcome her. There was something unnatural and terrifying in her sudden calm, as she forced herself to rise and greet her visitor.
"I fear I come out of season," he said, apologetically, as he bent over her hand.
"On the contrary," she answered; "but forgive me if I speak one word to Professor Cardegna." She went to where Nino was standing.
"Go into that room," she said, in a very low voice, glancing towards a curtained door opposite the windows, "and wait till he goes. You may listen if you choose." She spoke authoritatively.
"I will not," answered Nino, in a determined whisper.
"You will not?" Her eyes flashed again. He shook his head.
"Count von Lira," she said aloud, turning to him, "do you know this young man?" She spoke in Italian, and Von Lira answered in the same language; but as what he said was not exactly humorous, I will spare you the strange construction of his sentences.
"Perfectly," he answered. "It is precisely concerning this young man that I desire to speak with you." The count remained standing because the baroness had not told him to be seated.
"That is fortunate," replied the baroness, "for I wish to inform you that he is a villain, a wretch, a miserable fellow!" Her anger was rising again, but she struggled to control it. When Nino realised what she said he came forward and stood near the count, facing the baroness, his arms folded on his breast, as though to challenge accusation. The count raised his eyebrows.
"I am aware that he concealed his real profession so long as he gave my daughter lessons. That, however, has been satisfactorily explained, though I regret it. Pray inform me why you designate him as a villain." Nino felt a thrill of sympathy for this man whom he had so long deceived.
"This man, sir," said she, in measured tones, "this low-born singer, who has palmed himself off on us as a respectable instructor in language, has the audacity to love your daughter. For the sake of pressing his odious suit he has wormed himself into your house as into mine; he has sung beneath your daughter's window, and she has dropped letters to him,--love-letters, do you understand? And now,"--her voice rose more shrill and uncontrollable at every word, as she saw Lira's face turn white, and her anger gave desperate utterance to the lie,--"and now he has the effrontery to come to me--to me--to me of all women--and to confess his abominable passion for that pure angel, imploring me to assist him in bringing destruction upon her and you. Oh, it is execrable, it is vile, it is hellish!" She pressed her hands to her temples as she stood, and glared at the two men. The count was a strong man, easily petulant, but hard to move to real anger. Though his face was white and his right hand clutched his crutch-stick, he still kept the mastery of himself.
"Is what you tell me true, madam?" he asked in a strange voice.
"Before God, it is true!" she cried, desperately.
The old man looked at her for one moment, and then, as though he had been twenty years younger, he made at Nino, brandishing his stick to strike. But Nino is strong and young, and he is almost a Roman. He foresaw the count's action, and his right hand stole to the table and grasped the clean, murderous knife; the baroness had used it so innocently to cut the leaves of her book half an hour before. With one wrench he had disarmed the elder man, forced him back upon a lounge, and set the razor edge of his weapon against the count's throat.
"If you speak one word, or try to strike me, I will cut off your head," he said quietly, bringing his cold, marble face close down to the old man's eyes. There was something so deathly in his voice, in spite of its quiet sound, that the count thought his hour was come, brave man as he was. The baroness tottered back against the opposite wall, and stood staring at the two, dishevelled and horrified.
"This woman," said Nino, still holding the cold thing against the flesh, "lies in part, and in part tells the truth I love your daughter, it is true." The poor old man quivered beneath Nino's weight, and his eyes rolled wildly, searching for some means of escape. But it was of no use. "I love her, and have sung beneath her window; but I never had a written word from her in my life, and I neither told this woman of my love nor asked her assistance. She guessed it at the first; she guessed the reason of my disguise, and she herself offered to help me. You may speak now. Ask her." Nino relaxed his hold, and stood off, still grasping the knife. The old count breathed, shook himself and passed his handkerchief over his face before he spoke. The baroness stood as though she were petrified.
"Thunder weather, you are a devilish young man!" said Von Lira, still panting. Then he suddenly recovered his dignity. "You have caused me to assault this young man by what you told me," he said, struggling to his feet. "He defended himself, and might have killed me, had he chosen. Be good enough to tell me whether he has spoken the truth or you."
"He has spoken--the truth," answered the baroness, staring vacantly about her. Her fright had taken from her even the faculty of lying. Her voice was low, but she articulated the words distinctly. Then, suddenly, she threw up her hands, with a short quick scream, and fell forward, senseless, on the floor. Nino looked at the count, and dropped his knife on a table. The count looked at Nino.
"Sir," said the old gentleman, "I forgive you for resisting my assault. I do not forgive you for presuming to love my daughter, and I will find means to remind you of the scandal you have brought on my house." He drew himself up to his full height. Nino handed him his crutch-stick civilly.
"Signor Conte," he said simply, but with all his natural courtesy, "I am sorry for this affair, to which you forced me,--or rather the Signora Baronessa forced us both. I have acted foolishly, perhaps, but I am in love. And permit me to assure you, sir, that I will yet marry the Signorina di Lira, if she consents to marry me."
"By the name of Heaven," swore the old count, "if she wants to marry a singer, she shall." He limped to the door in sullen anger, and went out. Nino turned to the prostrate figure of the poor baroness. The continued strain on her nerves had broken her down, and she lay on the floor in a dead faint. Nino put a cushion from the lounge under her head, and rang the bell. The servant appeared instantly.
"Bring water quickly!" he cried. "The signora has fainted." He stood looking at the senseless figure of the woman, as she lay across the rich Persian rugs that covered the floor.
"Why did you not bring salts, cologne, her maid--run, I tell you!" he said to the man, who brought the glass of water on a gilded tray. He had forgotten that the fellow could not be expected to have any sense. When her people came at last, he had sprinkled her face, and she had unconsciously swallowed enough of the water to have some effect in reviving her. She began to open her eyes, and her fingers moved nervously. Nino found his hat, and, casting one glance around the room that had just witnessed such strange doings, passed through the door and went out. The baroness was left with her servants. Poor woman! She did very wrong, perhaps, but anybody would have loved her--except Nino. She must have been terribly shaken, one would have thought, and she ought to have gone to lie down, and should have sent for the doctor to bleed her. But she did nothing of the kind.
She came to see me. I was alone in the house, late in the afternoon, when the sun was just gilding the tops of the houses. I heard the door-bell ring, and I went to answer it myself. There stood the beautiful baroness, alone, with all her dark soft things around her, as pale as death, and her eyes swollen sadly with weeping. Nino had come home and told me something about the scene in the morning, and I can tell you I gave him a piece of my mind about his follies.
"Does Professor Cornelio Grandi live here?" she asked, in a low, sad voice.
"I am he, signora," I answered. "Will you please to come in?" And so she came into our little sitting-room, and sat over there in the old green arm-chair. I shall never forget it as long as I live.
I cannot tell you all she said in that brief half-hour, for it pains me to think of it. She spoke as though I were her confessor, so humbly and quietly,--as though it had all happened ten years ago. There is no stubbornness in those tiger women when once they break down.
She said she was going away; that she had done my boy a great wrong, and wished to make such reparation as she could, by telling me, at least, the truth. She did not scruple to say that she had loved him, nor that she had done everything in her power to keep him; though he had never so much as looked at her, she added, pathetically. She wished to have me know exactly how it happened, no matter what I might think of her.
"You are a nobleman, count," she said to me at last, "and I can trust you as one of my own people, I am sure. Yes, I know: you have been unfortunate, and are now a professor. But that does not change the blood. I can trust you. You need not tell him I came, unless you wish it. I shall never see him again. I am glad to have been here, to see where he lives." She rose, and moved to go. I confess that the tears were in my eyes. There was a pile of music on the old piano. There was a loose leaf on the top, with his name written on it. She took it in her hand, and looked inquiringly at me out of her sad eyes. I knew she wanted to take it, and I nodded.
"I shall never see him again, you know." Her voice was gentle and weak, and she hastened to the door; so that almost before I knew it she was gone. The sun had left the red-tiled roofs opposite, and the goldfinch was silent in his cage. So I sat down in the chair where she had rested, and folded my hands, and thought, as I am always thinking ever since, how I could have loved such a woman as that; so passionate, so beautiful, so piteously sorry for what she had done that was wrong. Ah me! for the years that are gone away so cruelly, for the days so desperately dead! Give me but one of those golden days, and I would make the pomp of emperors ridiculous.
A greater man than I said that,--a man over the seas, with a great soul, who wrote in a foreign tongue, but spoke a language germane to all human speech. But even he cannot bring back one of those dear days. I would give much to have that one day back, when she came and told me all her woes. But that is impossible.
When they came to wake her in the morning--the very morning after that--she was dead in her bed; the colour gone for ever from those velvet cheeks, the fire quenched out of those passionate eyes, past power of love or hate to rekindle. _Requiescat in pace_, and may God give her eternal rest and forgiveness for all her sins. Poor, beautiful, erring woman!
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{
"id": "12346"
}
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At nine o'clock on the morning of the baroness' death, as Nino was busy singing scales, there was a ring at the door, and presently Mariuccia came running in as fast as her poor old legs could carry her, and whiter than a pillow-case, to say that there was a man at the door with two gendarmes, asking for Nino; and before I could question her the three men walked unbidden into the room, demanding which was Giovanni Cardegna, the singer. Nino started, and then said quietly that he was the man. I have had dealings with these people, and I know what is best to be done. They were inclined to be rough and very peremptory. I confess I was frightened; but I think I am more cunning when I am a little afraid.
"Mariuccia," I said, as she stood trembling in the door-way, waiting to see what would happen, "fetch a flask of that old wine, and serve these gentlemen,--and a few chestnuts, if you have some. Be seated, signori," I said to them, "and take one of these cigars. My boy is a singer, and you would not hurt his voice by taking him out so early on this raw morning. Sit down, Nino, and ask these gentlemen what they desire." They all sat down, somewhat sullenly, and the gendarmes' sabres clanked on the brick floor.
"What do you wish from me?" asked Nino, who was not much moved after the first surprise.
"We regret to say," answered the man in plain clothes, "that we are here to arrest you."
"May I inquire on what charge?" I asked. "But first let me fill your glasses. Dry throats make surly answers, as the proverb says." They drank. It chanced that the wine was good, being from my own vineyard,--my little vineyard that I bought outside of Porta Salara,--and the men were cold and wet, for it was raining.
"Well," said the man who had spoken before,--he was clean-shaved and fat, and he smacked his lips over the wine,--"It is not our way to answer questions. But since you are so civil, I will tell you that you are arrested on suspicion of having poisoned that Russian baroness, with the long name, at whose house you have been so intimate."
"Poisoned? The baroness poisoned? Is she very ill, then?" asked Nino, in great alarm.
"She is dead," said the fat mat, wiping his mouth and twisting the empty glass in his hand.
"Dead!" cried Nino and I together.
"Dead--yes; as dead as St. Peter," he answered, irreverently. "Your wine is good, Signor Professore. Yes, I will take another glass--and my men, too. Yes, she was found dead this morning, lying in her bed. You were there yesterday, Signor Cardegna, and her servant says he saw you giving her something in a glass of water." He drank a long draught from his glass. "You would have done better to give her some of this wine, my friend. She would certainly be alive to-day." But Nino was dark and thoughtful. He must have been pained and terribly shocked at the sudden news, of course, but he did not admire her as I did.
"Of course this thing will soon be over," he said at last. "I am very much grieved to hear of the lady's death, but it is absurd to suppose that I was concerned in it, however it happened. She fainted suddenly in the morning when I was there, and I gave her some water to drink, but there was nothing in it." He clasped his hands on his knee, and looked much distressed.
"It is quite possible that you poisoned her," remarked the fat man, with annoying indifference. "The servant says he overheard high words between you--" "He overheard?" cried Nino, springing to his feet. "Cursed beast, to listen at the door!" He began to walk about excitedly, "How long is this affair to keep me?" he asked, suddenly; "I have to sing to-night--and that poor lady lying there dead--oh, I cannot!"
"Perhaps you will not be detained more than a couple of hours," said the fat man. "And perhaps you will be detained until the Day of Judgment," he added, with a sly wink at the gendarmes, who laughed obsequiously. "By this afternoon, the doctors will know of what she died; and if there was no poison, and she died a natural death, you can go to the theatre and sing, if you have the stomach. I would, I am sure. You see, she is a great lady, and the people of her embassy are causing everything to be done very quickly. If you had poisoned that old lady who brought us this famous wine a minute ago, you might have had to wait till next year, innocent or guilty." It struck me that the wine was producing its effect.
"Very well," said Nino, resolutely; "let us go. You will see that I am perfectly ready, although the news has shaken me much; and so you will permit me to walk quietly with you, without attracting any attention?"
"Oh, we would not think of incommoding you," said the fat man. "The orders were expressly to give you every convenience, and we have a private carriage below. Signor Grandi, we thank you for your civility. Good-morning--a thousand excuses." He bowed, and the gendarmes rose to their feet, refreshed and ruddy with the good wine. Of course I knew I could not accompany them, and I was too much frightened to have been of any use. Poor Mariuccia was crying in the kitchen.
"Send word to Jacovacci, the manager, if you do not hear by twelve o'clock," Nino called back from the landing, and the door closed behind them all. I was left alone, sad and frightened, and I felt very old--much older than I am.
It was tragic. Mechanically I sank into the old green arm-chair, where she had sat but yesterday evening--she whom I had seen but twice, once in the theatre and once here, but of whom I had heard so much. And she was dead, so soon. If Nino could only have heard her last words and seen her last look he would have been more hurt when he heard of her sudden death. But he is of stone, that man, save for his love and his art. He seems to have no room left for sympathy with human ills, nor even for fear on his own account. Fear! --how I hate the word! Nino did not seem frightened at all when they took him away. But as for me--well, it was not for myself this time, at least. That is some comfort. I think one may be afraid for other people.
Mariuccia was so much disturbed that I was obliged to go myself to get De Pretis, who gave up all his lessons that day and came to give me his advice. He looked grave and spoke very little, but he is a broad-shouldered, genial man, and very comforting. He insisted on going himself at once to see Nino, to give him all the help he could. He would not hear of my going, for he said I ought to be bled and have some tea of mallows to calm me. And when I offered him a cigar from the box of good ones Nino had given me he took six or seven, and put them in his pocket without saying a word. But I did not grudge them to him; for though he is very ridiculous, with his skull-cap and his snuff-box, he is a leal man, as we say, who stands by his friends and snaps his fingers at the devil.
I cannot describe to you the anxiety I felt through all that day. I could not eat, nor drink, nor write. I could not smoke, and when I tried to go to sleep that cat--an apoplexy on her! --climbed up on my shoulder and clawed my hair, Mariuccia sat moaning in the kitchen and could not cook at all, so that I was half starved.
At three o'clock De Pretis came back.
"Courage, conte mio!" he cried; and I knew it was all right. "Courage! Nino is at liberty again, and says he will sing to-night to show them he is not a clay doll, to be broken by a little knocking about. Ah, what a glorious boy Nino is!"
"But where is he!" I asked, when I could find voice to speak, for I was all trembling.
"He is gone for a good walk, to freshen his nerves, poverino. I wonder he has any strength left. For Heaven's sake, give me a match that I may light my cigar, and then I will tell you all about it. Thank you. And I will sit down comfortably--so. Now you must know that the baroness--_requiescat_! --was not poisoned by Nino, or by anyone else."
"Of course not! Go on."
"Piano--slow and sure. They had a terrific scene yesterday. You know? Yes. Then she went out and tired herself, poor soul, so that when she got home she had an attack of the nerves. Now these foreigners, who are a pack of silly people, do not have themselves bled and drink malva water as we do when we get a fit of anger. But they take opium; that is, a thing they call chloral. God knows what it is made of, but it puts them to sleep, like opium. When the doctors came to look at the poor lady they saw at once what was the matter, and called the maid. The maid said her mistress certainly had some green stuff in a little bottle which she often used to take; and when they inquired further they heard that the baroness had poured out much more than usual the night before, while the maid was combing her hair, for she seemed terribly excited and restless. So they got the bottle and found it nearly empty. Then the doctors said, 'At what time was this young man who is now arrested seen to give her the glass of water?' The man-servant said it was about two in the afternoon. So the doctors knew that if Nino had given her the chloral she could not have gone out afterwards, and have been awake at eleven in the evening when her maid was with her, and yet have been hurt by what he gave her. And so, as Jacovacci was raising a thousand devils in every corner of Rome because they had arrested his principal singer on false pretences, and was threatening to bring suits against everybody, including the Russian embassy, the doctors, and the Government, if Nino did not appear in _Faust_ to-night, according to his agreement, the result was that, half an hour ago, Nino was conducted out of the police precincts with ten thousand apologies, and put into the arms of Jacovacci, who wept for joy, and carried him off to a late breakfast at Morteo's. And then I came here. But I made Nino promise to take a good walk for his digestion, since the weather has changed. For a breakfast at three in the afternoon may be called late, even in Rome. And that reminds me to ask you for a drop of wine; for I am still fasting, and this talking is worse for the throat than a dozen high masses."
Mariuccia had been listening at the door, as usual, and she immediately began crying for joy; for she is a weak-minded old thing, and dotes on Nino. I was very glad myself, I can tell you; but I could not understand how Nino could have the heart to sing, or should lack heart so much as to be fit for it. Before the evening he came home, silent and thoughtful. I asked him whether he were not glad to be free so easily.
"That is not a very intelligent question for a philosopher like you to ask," he answered. "Of course I am glad of my liberty; any man would be. But I feel that I am as much the cause of that poor lady's death as though I had killed her with my own hands. I shall never forgive myself."
"Diana!" I cried, "it is a horrible tragedy; but it seems to me that you could not help it if she chose to love you."
"Hush!" said he, so sternly that he frightened me. "She is dead. God give her soul rest. Let us not talk of what she did."
"But," I objected, "if you feel so strongly about it, how can you sing at the opera to-night?"
"There are plenty of reasons why I should sing. In the first place, I owe it to my engagement with Jacovacci. He has taken endless trouble to have me cleared at once, and I will not disappoint him. Besides, I have not lost my voice, and might be half ruined by breaking contract so early. Then, the afternoon papers are full of the whole affair, some right and some wrong, and I am bound to show the Contessina di Lira that this unfortunate accident does not touch my heart, however sorry I may be. If I did not appear all Rome would say it was because I was heart-broken. If she does not go to the theatre, she will at least hear of it. Therefore I will sing." It was very reasonable of him to think so.
"Have any of the papers got hold of the story of your giving lessons?"
"No, I think not; and there is no mention of the Lira family."
"So much the better."
Hedwig did not go to the opera. Of course she was quite right. However she might feel about the baroness, it would have been in the worst possible taste to go to the opera the very day after her death. That is the way society puts it. It is bad taste; they never say it is heartless, or unkind, or brutal. It is simply bad taste. Nino sang, on the whole, better than if she had been there, for he put his whole soul in his art and won fresh laurels. When it was over he was besieged by the agent of the London manager to come to some agreement.
"I cannot tell yet," he said. "I will tell you soon." He was not willing to leave Rome--that was the truth of the matter. He thought of nothing, day or night, but of how he might see Hedwig, and his heart writhed in his breast when it seemed more and more impossible. He dared not risk compromising her by another serenade, as he felt sure that it had been some servant of the count who had betrayed him to the baroness. At last he hit upon a plan. The funeral of the baroness was to take place on the afternoon of the next day. He felt sure that the Graf von Lira would go to it, and he was equally certain that Hedwig would not. It chanced to be the hour at which De Pretis went to the Palazzo to give her the singing lesson.
"I suppose it is a barbarous thing for me to do," he said to himself, "but I cannot help it. Love first, and tragedy afterwards."
In the afternoon, therefore, he sallied out, and went boldly to the Palazzo Carmandola. He inquired of the porter whether the Signor Conte had gone out, and just as he had expected, so he found it. Old Lira had left the house ten minutes earlier, to go to the funeral. Nino ran up the stairs and rang the bell. The footman opened the door, and Nino quickly slipped a five-franc note into his hand, which he had no difficulty in finding. On asking if the signorina were at home, the footman nodded, and added that Professor De Pretis was with her, but she would doubtless see Professor Cardegna as well. And so it turned out. He was ushered into the great drawing-room, where the piano was. Hedwig came forward a few steps from where she had been standing beside De Pretis, and Nino bowed low before her. She had on a long dark dress, and no ornament whatever, save her beautiful bright hair, so that her face was like a jewel set in gold and velvet. But, when I think of it, such a combination would seem absurdly vulgar by the side of Hedwig von Lira. She was so pale and exquisite and sad that Nino could hardly look at her. He remembered that there were violets, rarest of flowers in Rome in January, in her belt.
To tell the truth, Nino had expected to find her stern and cold, whereas she was only very quiet and sorrowful.
"Will you forgive me, signorina, for this rashness?" he asked, in a low voice.
"In that I receive you I forgive you, sir," she said. He glanced toward De Pretis, who seemed absorbed in some music at the piano and was playing over bits of an accompaniment. She understood, and moved slowly to a window at the other end of the great room, standing among the curtains. He placed himself in the embrasure. She looked at him long and earnestly, as if finally reconciling the singer with the man she had known so long. She found him changed, as I had, in a short time. His face was sterner and thinner and whiter than before, and there were traces of thought in the deep shadows beneath his eyes. Quietly observing him, she saw how perfectly simple and exquisitely careful was his dress, and how his hands bespoke that attention which only a gentleman gives to the details of his person. She saw that, if he were not handsome, he was in the last degree striking to the eye, in spite of all his simplicity, and that he would not lose by being contrasted with all the dandies and courtiers in Rome. As she looked, she saw his lip quiver slightly, the only sign of emotion he ever gives, unless he loses his head altogether, and storms, as he sometimes does.
"Signorina," he began, "I have come to tell you a story; will you listen to it?"
"Tell it me," said she, still looking in his face.
"There was once a solitary castle in the mountains, with battlement and moat both high and broad. Far up in a lonely turret dwelt a rare maiden, of such surpassing beauty and fairness that the peasants thought she was not mortal, but an angel from heaven, resting in that tower from the doing of good deeds. She had flowers up there in her chamber, and the seeds of flowers; and as the seasons passed by, she took from her store the dry germs, and planted them one after another in a little earth on the window-sill. And the sun shone on them and they grew, and she breathed upon them and they were sweet. But they withered and bore no offspring, and fell away, so that year by year her store became diminished. At last there was but one little paper bag of seed left, and upon the cover was written in a strange character, 'This is the Seed of the Thorn of the World.' But the beautiful maiden was sad when she saw this, for she said 'All my flowers have been sweet, and now I have but this thing left, which is a thorn!' And she opened the paper and looked inside, and saw one poor little seed all black and shrivelled. Through that day she pondered what to do with it, and was very unhappy. At night she said to herself, 'I will not plant this one; I will throw it away rather than plant it.' And she went to the window, and tore the paper, and threw out the little seed into the darkness."
"Poor little thing!" said Hedwig. She was listening intently.
"She threw it out, and as it fell, all the air was full of music, sad and sweet, so that she wondered greatly. The next day she looked out of the window, and saw, between the moat and the castle wall, a new plant growing. It looked black and uninviting, but it had come up so fast that it had already laid hold on the rough gray stones. At the falling of the night it reached far up towards the turret, a great sharp-pointed vine, with only here and there a miserable leaf on it. 'I am sorry I threw it out,' said the maiden. 'It is the Thorn of the World, and the people who pass will think it defaces my castle.' But when it was dark again the air was full of music. The maiden went to the window, for she could not sleep, and she called out, asking who it was that sang. Then a sweet, low voice came up to her from the moat. 'I am the Thorn,' it said, 'I sing in the dark, for I am growing.' --'Sing on, Thorn,' said she, 'and grow if you will.' But in the morning when she awoke, her window was darkened, for the Thorn had grown to be a mighty tree, and its topmost shoots were black against the sky. She wondered whether this uncouth plant would bear anything but music. So she spoke to it. " 'Thorn,' she said, 'why have you no flowers?' " 'I am the Thorn of the World,' it answered, 'and I can bear no flowers until the hand that planted me has tended me, and pruned me, and shaped me to be its own. If you had planted me like the rest, it would have been easy for you. But you planted me unwillingly, down below you by the moat, and I have had far to climb.' " 'But my hands are so delicate,' said the maiden. 'You will hurt me, I am sure.' " 'Yours is the only hand in the world that I will not hurt,' said the voice, so tenderly and softly and sadly that the gentle fingers went out to touch the plant and see if it were real. And touching it they clung there, for they had no harm of it. Would you know, my lady, what happened then?"
"Yes, yes--tell me!" cried Hedwig, whose imagination was fascinated by the tale.
"As her hands rested on the spiked branches, a gentle trembling went through the Thorn, and in a moment there burst out such a blooming and blossoming as the maiden had never seen. Every prick became a rose, and they were so many that the light of the day was tinged with them, and their sweetness was like the breath of paradise. But below her window the Thorn was as black and forbidding as ever, for only the maiden's presence could make its flowers bloom. But she smelled the flowers, and pressed many of them to her cheek. " 'I thought you were only a Thorn,' she said, softly. " 'Nay, fairest maiden,' answered the glorious voice of the bursting blossom, 'I am the Rose of the World for ever, since you have touched me.'
"That is my story, signorina. Have I wearied you?"
Hedwig had unconsciously moved nearer to him as he was speaking, for he never raised his voice, and she hung on his words. There was colour in her face, and her breath came quickly through her parted lips. She had never looked so beautiful.
"Wearied me, signore? Ah no; it is a gentle tale of yours."
"It is a true tale--in part," said he.
"In part? I do not understand--" But the colour was warmer in her cheek, and she turned her face half away, as though looking out.
"I will tell you," he replied, coming closer, on the side from which she turned. "Here is the window. You are the maiden. The thorn--it is my love for you"; he dropped his voice to a whisper "You planted it carelessly, far below you in the dark. In the dark it has grown and sung to you, and grown again, until now it stands in your own castle window. Will you not touch it and make its flowers bloom for you?" He spoke fervently. She had turned her face quite from him now, and was resting her forehead against one hand that leaned upon the heavy frame of the casement. The other hand hung down by her side toward him, fair as a lily against her dark gown. Nino touched it, then took it. He could see the blush spread to her white throat, and fade again. Between the half-falling curtain and the great window he bent his knee and pressed her fingers to his lips. She made as though she would withdraw her hand, and then left it in his. Her glance stole to him as he kneeled there, and he felt it on him, so that he looked up. She seemed to raise him with her fingers, and her eyes held his and drew them; he stood up, and, still holding her hand, his face was near to hers. Closer and closer yet, as by a spell, each gazing searchingly into the other's glance, till their eyes could see no more for closeness, and their lips met in life's first virgin kiss,--in the glory and strength of a two-fold purity, each to each.
Far off at the other end of the room De Pretis struck a chord on the piano. They started at the sound.
"When?" whispered Nino, hurriedly.
"At midnight, under my window," she answered, quickly, not thinking of anything better in her haste. "I will tell you then. You must go; my father will soon be here. No, not again," she protested. But he drew her to him, and said good-bye in his own manner. She lingered an instant, and tore herself away. De Pretis was playing loudly. Nino had to pass near him to go out, and the maestro nodded carelessly as he went by.
"Excuse me, maestro," said Hedwig, as Nino bowed himself out; "it was a question of arranging certain lessons."
"Do not mention it," said he, indifferently; "my time is yours, signorina. Shall we go through with this solfeggio once more?"
The good maestro did not seem greatly disturbed by the interruption. Hedwig wondered, dreamily, whether he had understood. It all seemed like a dream. The notes were upside down in her sight, and her voice sought strange minor keys unconsciously, as she vainly tried to concentrate her attention upon what she was doing.
"Signorina," said Ercole at last, "what you sing is very pretty, but it is not exactly what is written here. I fear you are tired."
"Perhaps so," said she. "Let us not sing any more to-day." Ercole shut up the music and rose. She gave him her hand, a thing she had never done before; and it was unconscious now, as everything she did seemed to be. There is a point when dreaming gets the mastery and appears infinitely more real than the things we touch.
Nino, meanwhile, had descended the steps, expecting every moment to meet the count. As he went down the street a closed carriage drove by with the Lira liveries. The old count was in it, but Nino stepped into the shadow of a doorway to let the equipage pass, and was not seen. The wooden face of the old nobleman almost betrayed something akin to emotion. He was returning from the funeral, and it had pained him; for he had liked the wild baroness in a fatherly, reproving way. But the sight of him sent a home thrust to Nino's heart.
"Her death is on my soul for ever," he muttered between his set teeth. Poor innocent boy, it was not his fault if she had loved him so much. Women have done things for great singers that they have not done for martyrs or heroes. It seems so certain that the voice that sings so tenderly is speaking to them individually. Music is such a fleeting, passionate thing that a woman takes it all to herself; how could he sing like that for anyone else? And yet there is always someone for whom he does really pour out his heart, and all the rest are the dolls of life, to be looked at and admired for their dress and complexion, and to laugh at when the fancy takes him to laugh; but not to love.
At midnight Nino was at his post, but he waited long and patiently for a sign. It was past two, and he was thinking it hopeless to wait longer, when his quick ear caught the sound of a window moving on its hinges, and a moment later something fell at his feet with a sharp, metallic click. The night was dark and cloudy, so that the waning moon gave little light. He picked up the thing and found a small pocket handkerchief wrapped about a minute pair of scissors, apparently to give it weight. He expected a letter, and groped on the damp pavement with his hands. Then he struck a match, shaded it from the breeze with his hand, and saw that the handkerchief was stained with ink, and that the stains were letters, roughly printed to make them distinct. He hurried away to the light of a street lamp to read the strange missive.
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{
"id": "12346"
}
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10
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None
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He went to the light and spread out the handkerchief. It was a small thing, of almost transparent stuff, with a plain "H.L." and a crown in the corner. The steel pen had torn the delicate fibres here and there.
"They know you have been here. I am watched. Keep away from the house till you hear."
That was all the message, but it told worlds. He knew from it that the count was informed of his visit, and he tortured himself by trying to imagine what the angry old man would do. His heart sank like a stone in his breast when he thought of Hedwig, so imprisoned, guarded, made a martyr of, for his folly. He groaned aloud when he understood that it was in the power of her father to take her away suddenly and leave no trace of their destination, and he cursed his haste and impetuosity in having shown himself inside the house. But with all this weight of trouble upon him, he felt the strength and indomitable determination within him which come only to a man who loves, when he knows he is loved again. He kissed the little handkerchief, and even the scissors she had used to weight it with, and he put them in his breast. But he stood irresolute, leaning against the lamppost, as a man will who is trying to force his thoughts to overtake events, trying to shape out of the present. Suddenly he was aware of a tall figure in a fur coat standing near him on the sidewalk. He would have turned to go, but something about the stranger's appearance struck him so oddly that he stayed where he was and watched him.
The tall man searched for something in his pockets, and finally produced a cigarette, which he leisurely lighted with a wax match. As he did so his eyes fell upon Nino. The stranger was tall and very thin. He wore a pointed beard and a heavy moustache, which seemed almost dazzlingly white, as were the few locks that appeared, neatly brushed over his temples, beneath his opera hat. His sanguine complexion, however, had all the freshness of youth, and his eyes sparkled merrily, as though amused at the spectacle of his nose, which was immense, curved, and polished, like an eagle's beak. He wore perfectly-fitting kid gloves, and the collar of his fur wrapper, falling a little open, showed that he was in evening dress.
It was so late--past two o'clock--that Nino had not expected anything more than a policeman or some homeless wanderer, when he raised his eyes to look on the stranger. He was fascinated by the strange presence of the aged dandy, for such he seemed to be, and returned his gaze boldly. He was still more astonished, however, when the old gentleman came close to him, and raised his hat, displaying, as he did so, a very high and narrow forehead, crowned with a mass of smooth white hair. There was both grace and authority in the courteous gesture, and Nino thought the old gentleman moved with an ease that matched his youthful complexion rather than his hoary locks.
"Signor Cardegna, the distinguished artist, if I mistake not?" said the stranger, with a peculiar foreign accent, the like of which Nino had never heard. He also raised his hat, extremely surprised that a chance passer-by should know him. He had not yet learned what it is to be famous. But he was far from pleased at being addressed in his present mood.
"The same, signore," he replied coldly. "How can I serve you?"
"You can serve the world you so well adorn better than by exposing your noble voice to the midnight damps and chills of this infernal--I would say, eternal--city," answered the other. "Forgive me. I am, not unnaturally, concerned at the prospect of loosing even a small portion of the pleasure you know how to give to me and to many others."
"I thank you for your flattery," said Nino, drawing his cloak about him, "but it appears to me that my throat is my own, and whatever voice there may be in it. Are you a physician, signore? And pray why do you tell me that Rome is an infernal city?"
"I have had some experience of Rome, Signor Cardegna," returned the foreigner, with a peculiar smile, "and I hate no place so bitterly in all this world--save one. And as for my being a physician, I am an old man, a very singularly old man in fact, and I know something of the art of healing."
"When I need healing, as you call it," said Nino, rather scornfully, "I will inquire for you. Do you desire to continue this interview amid the 'damps and chills of our 'infernal city'? If not, I will wish you good-evening."
"By no means," said the other, not in the least repulsed by Nino's coldness. "I will accommpany you a little way, if you will allow me." Nino stared hard at the stranger, wondering what could induce him to take so much interest in a singer. Then he nodded gravely and turned toward his home, inwardly hoping that his aggressive acquaintance lived in the opposite direction. But he was mistaken. The tall man blew a quantity of smoke through his nose and walked by his side. He strode over the pavement with a long, elastic step.
"I live not far from here," he said, when they had gone a few steps, "and if the Signor Cardegna will accept of a glass of old wine and a good cigar I shall feel highly honoured." Somehow an invitation of this kind was the last thing Nino had expected or desired, least of all from a talkative stranger who seemed determined to make his acquaintance.
"I thank you, signore," he answered, "but I have supped, and I do not smoke."
"Ah--I forgot. You are a singer, and must of course be careful. That is perhaps the reason why you wander about the streets when the nights are dark and damp. But I can offer you something more attractive than liquor and tobacco. A great violinist lives with me,--a queer, nocturnal bird,--and if you will come he will be enchanted to play for you. I assure you he is a very-good musician, the like of which you will hardly hear nowadays. He does not play in public any longer, from some odd fancy of his."
Nino hesitated. Of all instruments he loved the violin best, and in Rome he had had but little opportunity of hearing it well played. Concerts were the rarest of luxuries to him, and violinists in Rome are rarer still.
"What is his name, signore?" he asked, unbending a little.
"You must guess that when you hear him," said the old gentleman, with a short laugh. "But I give you my word of honour he is a great musician. Will you come, or must I offer you still further attractions?"
"What might they be?" asked Nino.
"Nay; will you come for what I offer you? If the music is not good, you may go away again." Still Nino hesitated. Sorrowful and fearful of the future as he was, his love gnawing cruelly at his heart, he would have given the whole world for a strain of rare music if only he were not forced to make it himself. Then it struck him that this might be some pitfall. I would not have gone.
"Sir," he said at last, "if you meditate any foul play, I would advise you to retract your invitation. I will come, and I am well armed." He had my long knife about him somewhere. It is one of my precautions. But the stranger laughed long and loud at the suggestion, so that his voice woke queer echoes in the silent street. Nino did not understand why he should laugh so much, but he found his knife under his cloak, and made sure it was loose in its leathern sheath. Presently the stranger stopped before the large door of an old palazzo,--every house is a palazzo that has an entrance for carriages, and let himself in with a key. There was a lantern on the stone pavement inside, and seeing a light, Nino followed him boldly. The old gentleman took the lantern and led the way up the stairs, apologising for the distance and the darkness. At last they stopped, and, entering another door, found themselves in the stranger's apartment.
"A cardinal lives downstairs," said he, as he turned up the light of a couple of large lamps that burned dimly in the room they had reached. "The secretary of a very holy order has his office on the other side of my landing, and altogether this is a very religious atmosphere. Pray take off your cloak; the room is warm."
Nino looked about him. He had expected to be ushered into some princely dwelling, for he had judged his interlocutor to be some rich and eccentric noble, unless he were an erratic scamp. He was somewhat taken aback by the spectacle that met his eyes. The furniture was scant, and all in the style of the last century. The dust lay half an inch thick on the old gilded ornaments and chandeliers. A great pier-glass was cracked from corner to corner, and the metallic backing seemed to be scaling off behind. There were two or three open valises on the marble floor, which latter, however, seemed to have been lately swept. A square table was in the centre, also free from dust, and a few high-backed leathern chairs, studded with brass nails, were ranged about it. On the table stood one of the lamps, and the other was placed on a marble column in a corner, that once must have supported a bust, or something of the kind. Old curtains, moth-eaten and ragged with age, but of a rich material, covered the windows. Nino glanced at the open trunks on the floor, and saw that they contained a quantity of wearing apparel and the like. He guessed that his acquaintance had lately arrived.
"I do not often inhabit this den," said the old gentleman, who had divested himself of his furs, and now showed his thin figure arrayed in the extreme of full dress. A couple of decorations hung at his button-hole. "I seldom come here, and on my return, the other day, I found that the man I had left in charge was dead, with, all his family, and the place has gone to ruin. That is always my luck," he added, with a little laugh.
"I should think he must have been dead some time," said Nino, looking about him. "There is a great deal of dust here."
"Yes, as you say, it is some years," returned his acquaintance, still laughing. He seemed a merry old soul, fifty years younger than his looks. He produced from a case a bottle of wine and two silver cups, and placed them on the table.
"But where is your friend, the violinist?" inquired Nino, who was beginning to be impatient; for except that the place was dusty and old, there was nothing about it sufficiently interesting to take his thoughts from the subject nearest his heart.
"I will introduce him to you," said the other, going to one of the valises and taking out a violin case, which he laid on the table and proceeded to open. The instrument was apparently of great age, small and well shaped. The stranger took it up and began to tune it.
"Do you mean to say that you are yourself the violinist?" he asked, in astonishment. But the stranger vouchsafed no answer, as he steadied the fiddle with his bearded chin and turned the pegs with his left hand, adjusting the strings.
Then, suddenly and without any preluding, he began to make music, and from the first note Nino sat enthralled and fascinated, losing himself in the wild sport of the tones. The old man's face became ashy white as he played, and his white hair appeared to stand away from his head. The long, thin fingers of his left hand chased each other in pairs and singly along the delicate strings, while the bow glanced in the lamplight as it dashed like lightning across the instrument, or remained almost stationary, quivering in his magic hold as quickly as the wings of the humming-bird strike the summer air. Sometimes he seemed to be tearing the heart from the old violin; sometimes it seemed to murmur soft things in his old ear, as though the imprisoned spirit of the music were pleading to be free on the wings of sound: sweet as love that is strong as death; feverish and murderous as jealousy that is as cruel as the grave; sobbing great sobs of a terrible death-song, and screaming in the outrageous frenzy of a furious foe; wailing thin cries of misery, too exhausted for strong grief; dancing again in horrid madness, as the devils dance over some fresh sinner they have gotten themselves for torture; and then at last, as the strings bent to the commanding bow, finding the triumph of a glorious rest in great, broad chords, splendid in depth and royal harmony, grand, enormous, and massive as the united choirs of heaven.
Nino was beside himself, leaning far over the table, straining eyes and ears to understand the wonderful music that made him drunk with its strength. As the tones ceased he sank back in his chair, exhausted by the tremendous effort of his senses. Instantly the old man recovered his former appearance. With his hand he smoothed his thick white hair; the fresh colour came back to his cheeks; and as he tenderly laid his violin on the table, he was again the exquisitely-dressed and courtly gentleman who had spoken to Nino in the street. The musician disappeared, and the man of the world returned. He poured wine into the plain silver cups, and invited Nino to drink; but the boy pushed the goblet away, and his strange host drank alone.
"You asked me for the musician's name," he said, with a merry twinkle in his eye, from which every trace of artistic inspiration had faded; "can you guess it now?" Nino seemed tongue-tied still, but he made an effort.
"I have heard of Paganini," he said, "but he died years ago."
"Yes, he is dead, poor fellow! I am not Paganini."
"I am at a loss, then," said Nino, dreamily, "I do not know the names of many violinists, but you must be so famous that I ought to know yours."
"No; how should you? I will tell you. I am Benoni, the Jew." The tall man's eyes twinkled more brightly than ever. Nino stared at him, and saw that he was certainly of a pronounced Jewish type. His brown eyes were long and oriental in shape, and his nose was unmistakably Semitic.
"I am sorry to seem so ignorant," said Nino, blushing, "but I do not know the name. I perceive, however, that you are indeed a very great musician,--the greatest I ever heard." The compliment was perfectly sincere, and Benoni's face beamed with pleasure. He evidently liked praise.
"It is not extraordinary," he said smiling. "In the course of a very long life it has been my only solace, and if I have some skill it is the result of constant study. I began life very humbly."
"So did I," said Nino, thoughtfully, "and I am not far from the humbleness yet."
"Tell me," said Benoni, with a show of interest, "where you come from, and why you are a singer."
"I was a peasant's child, an orphan, and the good God gave me a voice. That is all I know about it. A kind-hearted gentleman, who once owned the estate where I was born, brought me up, and wanted to make a philosopher of me. But I wanted to sing, and so I did."
"Do you always do the things you want to do?" asked the other, "You look as though you might. You look like Napoleon--that man always interested me. That is why I asked you to come and see me. I have heard you sing, and you are a great artist--an additional reason. All artists should be brothers. Do you not think so?"
"Indeed, I know very few good ones," said Nino simply; "and even among them I would like to choose before claiming relationship--personally. But Art is a great mother, and we are all her children."
"More especially we who began life so poorly, and love Art because she loves us." Benoni seated himself on the arm of one of the old chairs, and looked down across the worm-eaten table at the young singer. "We," he continued, "who have been wretchedly poor know better than others that Art is real, true, and enduring; medicine in sickness and food in famine; wings to the feet of youth and a staff for the steps of old age. Do you think I exaggerate, or do you feel as I do?" He paused for an answer, and poured more wine into his goblet.
"Oh, you know I feel as you do!" cried Nino, with rising enthusiasm.
"Very good; you are a genuine artist. What you have not felt yet you will feel hereafter. You have not suffered yet."
"You do not know about me," said Nino in a low voice. "I am suffering now."
Benoni smiled. "Do you call that suffering? Well, it is perhaps very real to you, though I do not know what it is. But Art will help you through it all, as it has helped me."
"What were you?" asked Nino. "You say you were poor."
"Yes. I was a shoemaker, and a poor one at that. I have worn out more shoes than I ever made. But I was brought up to it for many years."
"You did not study music from a child, then?"
"No. But I always loved it; and I used to play in the evenings when I had been cobbling all day long."
"And one day you found out you were a great artist and became famous. I see! What a strange beginning!" cried Nino.
"Not exactly that. It took a long time. I was obliged to leave my home, for other reasons, and then I played from door to door, and from town to town, for whatever coppers were thrown to me. I had never heard any good music, and so I played the things that came into my head. By and bye people would make me stay with them awhile, for my music sake. But I never stayed long."
"Why not?"
"I cannot tell you now," said Benoni, looking grave and almost sad: "it is a very long story. I have travelled a great deal, preferring a life of adventure. But of late money has grown to be so important a thing that I have given a series of great concerts, and have become rich enough to play for my own pleasure. Besides, though I travel so much, I like society, and I know many people everywhere. To-night, for instance, though I have been in Rome only a week, I have been to a dinner party, to the theatre, to a reception, and to a ball. Everybody invites me as soon as I arrive. I am very popular,--and yet I am a Jew," he added, laughing in an odd way.
"But you are a merry Jew," said Nino, laughing too, "besides being a great genius. I do not wonder people invite you."
"It is better to be merry than sad," replied Benoni. "In the course of a long life I have found out that."
"You do not look so very old," said Nino. "How old are you?"
"That is a rude question," said his host, laughing. "But I will improvise a piece of music for you." He took his violin, and stood up before the broken pier-glass. Then he laid the bow over the strings and struck a chord. "What is that?" he asked, sustaining the sound.
"The common chord of A minor," answered Nino immediately.
"You have a good ear," said Benoni, still playing the same notes, so that the constant monotony of them buzzed like a vexatious insect in Nino's hearing. Still the old man sawed the bow over the same strings without change. On and on, the same everlasting chord, till Nino thought he must go mad.
"It is intolerable; for the love of heaven, stop!" he cried, pushing back his chair and beginning to pace the room. Benoni only smiled, and went on as unchangingly as ever. Nino could bear it no longer, being very sensitive about sounds, and he made for the door.
"You cannot get out,--I have the key in my pocket," said Benoni, without stopping.
Then Nino became nearly frantic, and made at the Jew to wrest the instrument from his hands. But Benoni was agile, and eluded him, still playing vigorously the one chord, till Nino cried aloud, and sank in a chair, entirely overcome by the torture, that seemed boring its way into his brain like a corkscrew.
"This," said Benoni, the bow still sawing the strings, "is life without laughter. Now let us laugh a little, and see the effect."
It was indeed wonderful. With his instrument he imitated the sound of a laughing voice, high up above the monotonous chord: softly at first, as though far in the distance; then louder and nearer, the sustaining notes of the minor falling away one after the other and losing themselves, as the merriment gained ground on the sadness; till finally, with a burst of life and vitality of which it would be impossible to convey any idea, the whole body of mirth broke into a wild tarantella movement, so vivid and elastic and noisy that it seemed to Nino that he saw the very feet of the dancers, and heard the jolly din of the tambourine and the clattering, clappering click of the castanets.
"That," said Benoni, suddenly stopping, "is life with laughter, be it ever so sad and monotonous before. Which do you prefer?"
"You are the greatest artist in the world!" cried Nino, enthusiastically; "but I should have been a raving madman if you had played that chord any longer."
"Of course," said Benoni, "and I should have gone mad if I had not laughed. Poor Schumann, you know, died insane because he fancied he always heard one note droning in his ears."
"I can understand that," said Nino. "But it is late, and I must be going home. Forgive my rudeness and reluctance to come with you. I was moody and unhappy. You have given me more pleasure than I can tell you."
"It will seem little enough to-morrow, I dare say," replied Benoni. "That is the way with pleasures. But you should get them all the same, when you can, and grasp them as tightly as a drowning man grasps a straw. Pleasures and money, money and pleasures."
Nino did not understand the tone in which his host made this last remark. He had learned different doctrines from me.
"Why do you speak so selfishly, after showing that you can give pleasure so freely, and telling me that we are all brothers?" he asked.
"If you are not in a hurry, I will explain to you that money is the only thing in this world worth having," said Benoni, drinking another cup of the wine, which appeared to have no effect whatever on his brain.
"Well?" said Nino, curious to hear what he had to say.
"In the first place, you will allow that from the noblest moral standpoint a man's highest aim should be to do good to his fellow-creatures? Yes, you allow that. And to do the greatest possible good to the greatest possible number? Yes, you allow that also. Then, I say, other things being alike, a good man will do the greatest possible amount of good in the world when he has the greatest possible amount of money. The more money, the more good; the less money, the less good. Of course money is only the means to the end, but nothing tangible in the world can ever be anything else. All art is only a means to the exciting of still more perfect images in the brain; all crime is a means to the satisfaction of passion, or avarice, which is itself a king-passion; all good itself is a means to the attainment of heaven. Everything is bad or good in the world except art, which is a thing separate, though having good and bad results. But the attainment of heaven is the best object to keep in view. To that end, do the most good; and to do it, get the most money. Therefore, as a means, money is the only thing in the world worth having, since you can most benefit humanity by it, and consequently be the most sure of going to heaven when you die. Is that clear?"
"Perfectly," said Nino, "provided a man is himself good."
"It is very reprehensible to be bad," said Benoni, with a smile.
"What a ridiculous truism!" said Nino, laughing outright.
"Very likely," said the other. "But I never heard any preacher, in any country, tell his congregation anything else. And people always listen with attention. In countries where rain is entirely unknown, it is not a truism to say that 'when it rains it is damp.' On the contrary, in such countries that statement would be regarded as requiring demonstration, and once demonstrated, it would be treasured and taught as an interesting scientific fact. Now it is precisely the same with congregations of men. They were never bad, and never can be; in fact, they doubt, in their dear innocent hearts, whether they know what a real sin is. Consequently, they listen with interest to the statement that sin is bad, and promise themselves that if ever that piece of information should be unexpectedly needed by any of their friends, they will remember it."
"You are a satirist, Signor Benoni," said Nino.
"Anything you like," returned the other, "I have been called worse names than that in my time. So much for heaven and the prospect of it. But a gentleman has arisen in a foreign country who says that there is no heaven, anywhere, and that no one does good except in the pursuit of pleasure here or hereafter. But as his hereafter is nowhere, disregard it in the argument, and say that man should only do, or actually does, everything solely for the sake of pleasure here; say that pleasure is good, so long as it does not interfere with the pleasures of others, and good is pleasure. Money may help a man to more of it, but pleasure is the thing. Well, then, my young brother artist, what did I say? --'money and pleasure, pleasure and money.' The means are there; and as, of course, you are good, like everybody else, and desire pleasure, you will get to heaven hereafter, if there is such a place; and if not, you will get the next thing to it, which is a paradise on earth." Having reached the climax, Signor Benoni lit a cigarette, and laughed his own peculiar laugh.
Nino shuddered involuntarily at the hideous sophistry. For Nino is a good boy, and believes very much in heaven, as well as in a couple of other places. Benoni's quick brown eyes saw the movement, and understood it, for he laughed longer yet, and louder.
"Why do you laugh like that? I see nothing to laugh at. It is very bitter and bad to hear all this that you say. I would rather hear your music. You are badly off, whether you believe in heaven or not. For if you do, you are not likely to get there; and if you do not believe in it, you are a heretic, and will be burned for ever and ever."
"Not so badly answered, for an artist; and in a few words, too," said Benoni, approvingly. "But, my dear boy, the trouble is that I shall not get to heaven either way, for it is my great misfortune to be already condemned to everlasting flames."
"No one is that," said Nino, gravely.
"There are some exceptions, you know," said Benoni.
"Well," answered the young man thoughtfully, "of course there is the Wandering Jew, and such tales, but nobody believes in him."
"Good-night," said Benoni. "I am tired and most go to bed."
Nino found his way out alone, but carefully noted the position of the palazzo before he went home through the deserted streets. It was four in the morning.
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{
"id": "12346"
}
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11
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Early in the morning after Nino's visit to Signor Benoni, De Pretis came to my house, wringing his hands and making a great trouble and noise. I had not yet seen Nino, who was sound asleep, though I could not imagine why he did not wake. But De Pretis was in such a temper that he shook the room and everything in it, as he stamped about the brick floor. It was not long before he had told me the cause of his trouble. He had just received a formal note from the Graf von Lira, inclosing the amount due to him for lessons, and dispensing with his services for the future.
Of course this was the result of the visit Nino had so rashly made; it all came out afterwards, and I will not now go through the details that De Pretis poured out, when we only half knew the truth. The count's servant who admitted Nino had pocketed the five francs as quietly as you please; and the moment the count returned he told him how Nino had come and had stayed three-quarters of an hour just as if it were an everyday affair. The count, being a proud old man, did not encourage him to make further confidences, but sent him about his business. He determined to make a prisoner of his daughter until he could remove her from Rome. He accordingly confined her in the little suite of apartments that were her own, and set an old soldier, whom he had brought from Germany, as a body-servant, to keep watch at the outer door. He did not condescend to explain even to Hedwig the cause of his conduct, and she, poor girl, was as proud as he, and would not ask why she was shut up, lest the answer should be a storm of abuse against Nino. She cared not at all how her father had found out her secret, so long as he knew it, and she guessed that submission would be the best policy.
Meanwhile, active preparations were made for an immediate departure. The count informed his friends that he was going to pass Lent in Paris, on account of his daughter's health, which was very poor, and in two days everything was ready. They would leave on the following morning. In the evening the count entered his daughter's apartments, after causing himself to be formally announced by a servant, and briefly informed her that they would start for Paris on the following morning. Her maid had been engaged in the meantime in packing her effects, not knowing whither her mistress was going. Hedwig received the announcement in silence, but her father saw that she was deadly white and her eyes heavy from weeping. I have anticipated this much to make things clearer. It was on the first morning of Hedwig's confinement that De Pretis came to our house.
Nino was soon waked by the maestro's noise, and came to the door of his chamber, which opens into the little sitting-room, to inquire what the matter might be. Nino asked if the maestro were peddling cabbages, that he should scream so loudly.
"Cabbages, indeed! cabbage yourself, silly boy!" cried Ercole, shaking his fist at Nino's head, just visible through the crack of the door. "A pretty mess you have made with your ridiculous love affair! Here am I--" "I see you are," retorted Nino; "and do not call any affair of mine ridiculous, or I will throw you out of the window. Wait a moment!" With that he slammed his door in the maestro's face, and went on with his dressing. For a few minutes De Pretis raved at his ease, venting his wrath on me. Then Nino came out.
"Now, then," said he, preparing for a tussle, "what is the matter, my dear maestro?" but Ercole had expended most of his fury already.
"The matter!" he grumbled. "The matter is that I have lost an excellent pupil through you. Count Lira says he does not require my services any longer, and the man who brought the note says they are going away."
"Diavolo!" said Nino, running his fingers through his curly black hair, "it is indeed serious. Where are they going?"
"How should I know?" asked De Pretis angrily. "I care much more about losing the lesson than about where they are going. I shall not follow them, I promise you. I cannot take the basilica of St. Peter about with me in my pocket, can I?"
And so he was angry at first, and at length he was pacified, and finally he advised Nino to discover immediately where the count and his daughter were going; and if it were to any great capital, to endeavour to make a contract to sing there. Lent came early that year, and Nino was free at the end of Carnival,--not many days longer to wait. This was the plan that had instantly formed itself in Nino's brain. De Pretis is really a most obliging man, but one cannot wonder that he should be annoyed at the result of Nino's four months' courtship under such great difficulties, when it seemed that all their efforts had led only to the sudden departure of his lady-love. As for me, I advised Nino to let the whole matter drop then and there. I told him he would soon get over his foolish passion, and that a statue like Hedwig could never suffer anything, since she could never feel. But he glared at me, and did as he liked, just as he always has done.
The message on the handkerchief that Nino had received the night before warned him to keep away from the Palazzo Carmandola. Nino reflected that this warning was probably due to Hedwig's anxiety for his personal safety, and he resolved to risk anything rather than remain in ignorance of her destination. It must be a case of giving some signal. But this evening he had to sing at the theatre, and, therefore, without more ado, he left us, and went to bed again, where he stayed until twelve o'clock. Then he went to rehearsal, arriving an hour behind time, at least, a matter which he treated with the coolest indifference. After that he got a pound of small shot, and amused himself with throwing a few at a time at the kitchen window from the little court at the back of our house, where the well is. It seemed a strangely childish amusement for a great singer.
Having sung successfully through his opera that night, he had supper with us, as usual, and then went out. Of course he told me afterwards what he did. He went to his old post under the windows of the Palazzo Carmandola, and as soon as all was dark he began to throw small shot up at Hedwig's window. He now profited by his practice in the afternoon, for he made the panes rattle with the little bits of lead, several times. At last he was rewarded. Very slowly the window opened, and Hedwig's voice spoke in a low tone: "Is it you?"
"Ah, dear one! Can you ask?" began Nino.
"Hush! I am still locked up. We are going away,--I cannot tell where."
"When, dearest love?"
"I cannot tell. What _shall_ we do?" very tearfully. "I will follow you immediately; only let me know when and where."
"If you do not hear by some other means, come here to-morrow night. I hear steps. Go at once."
"Good-night, dearest," he murmured; but the window was already closed, and the fresh breeze that springs up after one o'clock blew from the air the remembrance of the loving speech that had passed upon it.
On the following night he was at his post, and again threw the shot against the pane for a signal. After a long time Hedwig opened the window very cautiously.
"Quick!" she whispered down to him, "go! They are all awake," and she dropped something heavy and white. Perhaps she added some word, but Nino would not tell me, and never would read me the letter. But it contained the news that Hedwig and her father were to leave Rome for Paris on the following morning; and ever since that night Nino has worn upon his little finger a plain gold ring,--I cannot tell why, and he says he found it.
The next day he ascertained from the porter of the Palazzo Carmandola that the count and contessina, with their servants, had actually left Rome that morning for Paris. From that moment he was sad as death, and went about his business heavily, being possessed of but one idea, namely, to sign an engagement to sing in Paris as soon as possible. In that wicked city the opera continues through Lent, and after some haggling, in which De Pretis insisted on obtaining for Nino the most advantageous terms, the contract was made out and signed.
I see very well that unless I hurry myself I shall never reach the most important part of this story, which is after all the only part worth telling. I am sure I do not know how I can ever tell it so quickly, but I will do my best, and you must have a little patience; for though I am not old, I am not young, and Nino's departure for Paris was a great shock to me, so that I do not like to remember it, and the very thought of it sickens me. If you have ever had any education, you must have seen an experiment in which a mouse is put in a glass jar, and all the air is drawn away with a pump, so that the poor little beast languishes and rolls pitifully on its side, gasping and wheezing with its tiny lungs for the least whiff of air. That is just how I felt when Nino went away. It seemed as though I could not breathe in the house or in the streets, and the little rooms at home were so quiet that one might hear a pin fall, and the cat purring through the closed doors. Nino left at the beginning of the last ten days of Carnival, when the opera closed, so that it was soon Lent; and everything is quieter then.
But before he left us there was noise enough and bustle of preparation, and I did not think I should miss him; for he always was making music, or walking about, or doing something to disturb me just at the very moment when I was most busy with my books. Mariuccia, indeed, would ask me from time to time what I should do when Nino was gone, as if she could foretell what I was to feel. I suppose she knew I was used to him, after fourteen years of it, and would be inclined to black humours for want of his voice. But she could not know just what Nino is to me, nor how I look on him as my own boy. These peasants are quick-witted and foolish; they guess a great many things better than I could, and then reason on them like idiots.
Nino himself was glad to go. I could see his face grow brighter as the time approached; and though he appeared to be more successful than ever in his singing, I am sure that he cared nothing for the applause he got, and thought only of singing as well as he could for the love of it. But when it came to the parting we were left alone.
"Messer Cornelio," he said, looking at me affectionately, "I have something to say to you to-night before I go away."
"Speak, then, my dear boy," I answered, "for no one hears us."
"You have been very good to me. A father could not have loved me better, and such a father as I had could not have done a thousandth part what you have done for me. I am going out into the world for a time, but my home is here,--or rather, where my home is will always be yours. You have been my father, and I will be your son; and it is time you should give up your professorship. No, not that you are at all old; I do not mean that."
"No, indeed," said I, "I should think not."
"It would be much more proper if you retired into an elegant leisure, so that you might write as many books as you desire without wearing yourself out in teaching those students every day. Would you not like to go back to Serveti?"
"Serveti! --ah, beautiful, lost Serveti, with its castle and good vine-lands!"
"You shall have it again before long, my father," he said. He had never called me father before, the dear boy! I suppose it was because he was going away. But Serveti again? The thing was impossible, and I said so.
"It is not impossible," he answered, placidly. "Successful singers make enough money in a year to buy Serveti. A year is soon passed. But now let us go to the station, or I shall not be in time for the train."
"God bless you, Nino mio," I said, as I saw him off. It seemed to me that I saw two or three Ninos. But the train rolled away and took them all from me,--the ragged little child who first came to me, the strong-limbed, dark-eyed boy with his scales and trills and enthusiasm, and the full-grown man with the face like the great emperor, mightily triumphing in his art and daring in his love. They were all gone in a moment, and I was left alone on the platform of the station, a very sorrowful and weak old man. Well, I will not think about that day.
The first I heard of Nino was by a letter he wrote me from Paris, a fortnight after he had left me. It was characteristic of him, being full of eager questions about home and De Pretis and Mariuccia and Rome. Two things struck me in his writing. In the first place, he made no mention of the count or Hedwig, which led me to suppose that he was recovering from his passion, as boys do when they travel. And secondly, he had so much to say about me that he forgot all about his engagement, and never even mentioned the theatre. On looking carefully through the letter again I found he had written across the top the words, "Rehearsals satisfactory." That was all.
It was not long after the letter came, however, that I was very much frightened by receiving a telegram, which must have cost several francs to send all that distance. By this he told me that he had no clue to the whereabouts of the Liras, and he implored me to make inquiries and discover where they had gone. He added that he had appeared in _Faust_ successfully. Of course he would succeed. If a singer can please the Romans, he can please anybody. But it seemed to me that if he had received a very especially flattering reception he would have said so. I went to see De Pretis, whom I found at home over his dinner. We put our heads together and debated how we might discover the Paris address of the Graf von Lira. In a great city like that it was no wonder Nino could not find them; but De Pretis hoped that some of his pupils might be in correspondence with the contessina, and would be willing to give the requisite directions for reaching her. But days passed, and a letter came from Nino written immediately after sending the telegram, and still we had accomplished nothing. The letter merely amplified the telegraphic message.
"It is no use," I said to De Pretis. "And besides, it is much better that he should forget all about it."
"You do not know that boy," said the maestro, taking snuff. And he was quite right, as it turned out.
Suddenly Nino wrote from London. He had made an arrangement, he said, by which he was allowed to sing there for three nights only. The two managers had settled it between them, being friends. He wrote very despondently, saying that although he had been far more fortunate in his appearances than he had expected, he was in despair at not having found the contessina, and had accepted the arrangement which took him to London because he had hopes of finding her there. On the day which brought me this letter I had a visitor. Nino had been gone nearly a month. It was in the afternoon, towards sunset, and I was sitting in the old green arm-chair watching the goldfinch in his cage, and thinking sadly of the poor dear baroness, and of my boy, and of many things. The bell rang and Mariuccia brought me a card in her thick fingers which were black from peeling potatoes, so that the mark of her thumb came off on the white pasteboard. The name on the card was "Baron Ahasuerus Benoni," and there was no address. I told her to show the signore into the sitting-room, and he was not long in coming. I immediately recognised the man Nino had described, with his unearthly freshness of complexion, his eagle nose, and his snow-white hair. I rose to greet him.
"Signor Grandi," he said, "I trust you will pardon my intrusion. I am much interested in your boy, the great tenor."
"Sir," I replied, "the visit of a gentleman is never an intrusion. Permit me to offer you a chair." He sat down, and crossed one thin leg over the other. He was dressed in the height of the fashion; he wore patent-leather shoes, and carried a light ebony cane with a silver head. His hat was perfectly new, and so smoothly brushed that it reflected a circular image of the objects in the room. But he had a certain dignity that saved his foppery from seeming ridiculous.
"You are very kind," he answered. "Perhaps you would like to hear some news of Signor Cardegna,--your boy, for he is nothing else."
"Indeed" I said, "I should be very glad. Has he written to you, baron?"
"Oh, no! We are not intimate enough for that. But I ran on to Paris the other day, and heard him three or four times, and had him to supper at Bignon's. He is a great genius, your boy, and has won all hearts."
"That is a compliment of weight from so distinguished a musician as yourself," I answered; for, as you know, Nino had told me all about his playing. Indeed, the description was his, which is the reason why it is so enthusiastic.
"Yes," said Benoni, "I am a great traveller, and often go to Paris for a day or two. I know everyone there. Cardegna had a perfect ovation. All the women sent him flowers, and all the men asked him to dinner."
"Pardon my curiosity," I interrupted, "but as you know everyone in Paris, could you inform me whether Count von Lira and his daughter are there at present? He is a retired Prussian officer." Benoni stretched out one of his long arms and ran his fingers along the keys of the piano without striking them. He could just reach so far from where he sat. He gave no sign of intelligence, and I felt sure that Nino had not questioned him.
"I know them very well," he said, presently, "but I thought they were here."
"No, they left suddenly for Paris a month ago."
"I can very easily find out for you," said Benoni, his bright eyes turning on me with a searching look. "I can find out from Lira's banker, who is probably also mine. What is the matter with that young man? He is as sad as Don Quixote."
"Nino? He is probably in love," I said, rather indiscreetly.
"In love? Then of course he is in love with Mademoiselle de Lira, and has gone to Paris to find her, and cannot. That is why you ask me." I was so much astonished at the quickness of his guesswork that I stared, open-mouthed.
"He must have told you!" I exclaimed at last.
"Nothing of the kind. In the course of a long life I have learned to put two and two together, that is all. He is in love, he is your boy, and you are looking for a certain young lady. It is as clear as day." But in reality he had guessed the secret long before.
"Very well," said I, humbly, but doubting him, all the same, "I can only admire your perspicacity. But I would be greatly obliged if you would find out where they are, those good people. You seem to be a friend of my boy's, baron. Help him, and he will be grateful to you. It is not such a very terrible thing that a great artist should love a noble's daughter, after all, though I used to think so." Benoni laughed, that strange laugh which Nino had described,--a laugh that seemed to belong to another age.
"You amuse me with your prejudices about nobility," he said, and his brown eyes flashed and twinkled again. "The idea of talking about nobility in this age! You might as well talk of the domestic economy of the Garden of Eden."
"But you are yourself a noble--a baron," I objected.
"Oh, I am anything you please," said Benoni. "Some idiot made a baron of me the other day because I lent him money and he could not pay it. But I have some right to it, after all, for I am a Jew. The only real nobles are Welshmen and Jews. You cannot call anything so ridiculously recent as the European upper classes a nobility. Now I go straight back to the creation of the world, like all my countrymen. The Hibernians get a factitious reputation for antiquity by saying that Eve married an Irishman after Adam died, and that is about as much claim as your European nobles have to respectability. Bah! I know their beginnings, very small indeed."
"You also seem to have strong prejudices on the subject," said I, not wishing to contradict a guest in my house.
"So strong that it amounts to having no prejudices at all. Your boy wants to marry a noble damosel. In Heaven's name let him do it. Let us manage it amongst us. Love is a grand thing. I have loved several women all their lives. Do not look surprised. I am a very old man; they have all died, and at present I am not in love with anybody. I suppose it cannot last long, however. I loved a woman once on a time"--Benoni paused. He seemed to be on the verge of a soliloquy, and his strange, bright face, which seemed illuminated always with a deathless vitality, became dreamy and looked older. But he recollected himself and rose to go. His eye caught sight of the guitar that hung on the wall.
"Ah," he cried suddenly, "music is better than love, for it lasts; let us make music." He dropped his hat and stick and seized the instrument. In an instant it was tuned and he began to perform the most extraordinary feats of agility with his fingers that I ever beheld. Some of it was very beautiful, and some of it very sad and wild, but I understood Nino's enthusiasm. I could have listened to the old guitar in his hands for hours together,--I, who care little for music; and I watched his face. He stalked about the room with the thing in his hands, in a sort of wild frenzy of execution. His features grew ashy pale, and his smooth white hair stood out wildly from his head. He looked, then, more than a hundred years old, and there was a sadness and a horror about him that would have made the stones cry aloud for pity. I could not believe he was the same man. At last he was tired, and stopped.
"You are a great artist, baron," I said. "Your music seems to affect you much."
"Ah, yes, it makes me feel like other men for the time," said he, in a low voice. "Did you know that Paganini always practised on the guitar? It is true. Well, I will find out about the Liras for you in a day or two, before I leave Rome again."
I thanked him and he took his leave.
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Benoni had made an impression on me that nothing could efface. His tall thin figure and bright eyes got into my dreams and haunted me, so that I thought my nerves were affected. For several days I could think of nothing else, and at last had myself bled, and took some cooling barley-water, and gave up eating salad at night, but without any perceptible effect.
Nino wrote often, and seemed very much excited about the disappearance of the contessina, but what could I do? I asked everyone I knew, and nobody had heard of them, so that at last I quite gave it over, and wrote to tell him so. A week passed, then a fortnight, and I had heard nothing from Benoni. Nino wrote again, enclosing a letter addressed to the Contessina di Lira, which he implored me to convey to her, if I loved him. He said he was certain that she had never left Italy. Some instinct seemed to tell him so, and she was evidently in neither London nor Paris, for he had made every inquiry, and had even been to the police about it. Two days after this, Benoni came. He looked exactly as he did the first time I saw him.
"I have news," he said, briefly, and sat down in the arm-chair, striking the dust from his boot with his little cane.
"News of the Graf?" I inquired.
"Yes. I have found out something. They never left Italy at all, it seems. I am rather mystified, and I hate mystification. The old man is a fool; all old men are fools, excepting myself. Will you smoke? No? Allow me, then. It is a modern invention, but a very good one." He lit a cigarette. "I wish your Liras were in Tophet," he continued, presently. "How can people have the bad taste to hide? It only makes ingenious persons the more determined to find them." He seemed talkative, and as I was so sad and lonely I encouraged him by a little stimulus of doubt. I wish I had doubted him sooner, and differently.
"What is the use?" I asked. "We shall never find them." " 'Never' is a great word,'" said Benoni. "You do not know what it means. I do. But as for finding them, you shall see. In the first place, I have talked with their banker. He says the count gave the strictest orders to have his address kept a secret. But, being one of my people he allowed himself to make an accidental allusion which gave me a clue to what I wanted. They are hidden somewhere in the mountains."
"Diavolo! among the brigands: they will not be very well treated," said I. "The old man will be careful. He will keep clear of danger. The only thing is to find them."
"And what then?" I asked.
"That depends on the most illustrious Signor Cardegna," said Benoni, smiling. "He only asked you to find them. He probably did not anticipate that I would help you."
It did not appear to me that Benoni had helped me much, after all. You might as well look for a needle in a haystack as try to find anyone who goes to the Italian mountains. The baron offered no further advice, and sat calmly smoking and looking at me. I felt uneasy, opposite him. He was a mysterious person, and I thought him disguised. It was really not possible that, with his youthful manner, his hair should be naturally so white, or that he should be so old as he seemed. I asked him the question we always find it interesting to ask foreigners, hoping to lead him into conversation.
"How do you like our Rome, Baron Benoni?"
"Rome? I loathe and detest it," he said, with a smile. "There is only one place in the whole world that I hate more."
"What place is that?" I asked, remembering that he had made the same remark to Nino before.
"Jerusalem," he answered, and the smile faded on his face. I thought I guessed the reason of his dislike in his religious views. But I am very liberal about those things.
"I think I understand you," I said; "you are a Hebrew, and the prevailing form of religion is disagreeable to you."
"No, it is not exactly that,--and yet, perhaps, it is." He seemed to be pondering on the reason of his dislike.
"But why do you visit these places if they do not please you?"
"I come here because I have so many agreeable acquaintances. I never go to Jerusalem. I also come here from time to time to take a bath. The water of the Trevi has a peculiarly rejuvenating effect upon me, and something impels me to bathe in it."
"Do you mean in the fountain? Ah, foreigners say that if you drink the water by moonlight you will return to Rome."
"Foreigners are all weak-minded fools. I like that word. The human race ought to be called fools generically, as distinguished from the more intelligent animals. If you went to England you would be as great a fool as any Englishman that comes here and drinks Trevi water by moonlight. But I assure you I do nothing so vulgar as to patronise the fountain, any more than I would patronise Mazzarino's church, hard by. I go to the source, the spring, the well where it rises."
"Ah, I know the place well," I said. "It is near to Serveti."
"Serveti? Is that not in the vicinity of Horace's villa?"
"You know the country well, I see," said I, sadly.
"I know most things," answered the Jew, with complacency. "You would find it hard to hit upon anything I do not know. Yes, I am a vain man, it is true, but I am very frank and open about it. Look at my complexion. Did you ever see anything like it? It is Trevi water that does it." I thought such excessive vanity very unbecoming in a man of his years, but I could not help looking amused. It was so odd to hear the old fellow descanting on his attractions. He actually took a small mirror from his pocket and looked at himself in most evident admiration.
"I really believe," he said at length, pocketing the little looking-glass, "that a woman might love me still. What do you say?"
"Doubtless," I answered politely, although I was beginning to be annoyed, "a woman might love you at first sight. But it would be more dignified for you not to love her."
"Dignity!" He laughed long and loud, a cutting laugh, like the breaking of glass. "There is another of your phrases. Excuse my amusement, Signor Grandi, but the idea of dignity always makes me smile." He called that thing a smile! "It is in everybody's mouth,--the dignity of the State, the dignity of the king, the dignity of woman, the dignity of father, mother, schoolmaster, soldier. Psh! an apoplexy, as you say, on all the dignities you can enumerate. There is more dignity in a poor patient ass toiling along a rough road under a brutal burden that in the entire human race put together, from Adam to myself. The conception of dignity is notional, most entirely. I never see a poor wretch of a general, or king, or any such animal, adorned in his toggery of dignity without laughing at him, and his dignity again leads him to suppose that my smile is the result of the pleasurable sensations his experience excites in me. Nature has dignity at times; some animals have it; but man, never. What man mistakes for it in himself is his vanity,--a vanity much more pernicious than mine, because it deceives its possessor, who is also wholly possessed by it, and is its slave. I have had a great many illusions in my life, Signor Grandi."
"One would say, baron, that you had parted with them."
"Yes, and that is my chief vanity,--the vanity of vanities which I prefer to all the others. It is only a man of no imagination who has no vanity. He cannot imagine himself any better than he is. A creative genius makes for his own person a 'self' which he thinks he is, or desires other people to believe him to be. It makes little difference whether he succeeds or not, so long as he flatters himself he does. He complacently takes all his images from the other animals, or from natural objects and phenomena, depicting himself bold as an eagle, brave as a lion, strong as an ox, patient as an ass, vain as a popinjay, talkative as a parrot, wily as a serpent, gentle as a dove, cunning as a fox, surly as a bear; his glance is lightning, his voice thunder, his heart stone, his hands are iron, his conscience a hell, his sinews of steel, and his love like fire. In short, he is like anything alive or dead, except a man, saving when he is mad. Then he is a fool. Only man can be a fool. It distinguishes him from the higher animals."
I cannot describe the unutterable scorn that blazed in his eyes as Benoni poured out the vials of his wrath on the unlucky human race. With my views, we were not likely to agree in this matter.
"Who are you?" I asked. "What right can you possibly have to abuse us all in such particularly strong terms? Do you ever make proselytes to your philosophy?"
"No," said he, answering my last question, and recovering his serenity with that strange quickness of transition I had remarked when he had made music during his previous visit. "No, they all die before I have taught them anything."
"That does not surprise me, baron," said I. He laughed a little.
"Well, perhaps it would surprise you even less if you knew me better," he replied. "But really, I came here to talk about Cardegna and not to chatter about that contemptible creature, man, who is not worth a moment's notice, I assure you. I believe I can find these people, and I confess it would amuse me to see the old man's face when we walk in upon him. I must be absent for a few days on business in Austria, and shall return immediately, for I have not taken my bath yet that I spoke of. Now, if it is agreeable to you, I would propose that we go to the hills, on my return, and prosecute our search together; writing to Nino in the meantime to come here as soon as he has finished his engagement in Paris. If he comes quickly, he may go with us; if not, he can join us. At all events, we can have a very enjoyable tour among the natives, who are charming people, quite like animals, as you ought to know."
I think I must be a very suspicious person. Circumstances have made me so, and perhaps my suspicions are very generally wrong. It may be. At all events I did suspect the rich and dandified old baron of desiring to have a laugh by putting Nino into some absurd situation. He had such strange views, or, at least, he talked so oddly, that I did not believe half he said. It is not possible that anybody should seriously hold the opinions he professed.
When he was gone I sat alone, pondering on this situation, which was like a very difficult problem in a nightmare, that could not or would not look sensible, do what I would. It chanced that I got a letter from Nino that evening, and I confess I was reluctant to open it, fearing that he would reproach me with not having taken more pains to help him. I felt as though, before opening the envelope, I should like to go back a fortnight and put forth all my strength to find the contessina, and gain a comforting sense of duty performed. If I had only done my best how easy it would have been to face a whole sheet of complaints! Meanwhile the letter was come, and I had done nothing worth mentioning. I looked at the back of it, and my conscience smote me; but it had to be accomplished, and at last I tore the cover off and read.
Poor Nino! He said he was ill with anxiety, and feared it would injure his voice. He said that to break his engagement and come back to Rome would be ruin to him. He must face it out, or take the legal consequences of a breach of contract, which are overwhelming to a young artist. He detailed all the efforts he had made to find Hedwig, pursuing every little sign and clue that seemed to present itself; all to no purpose. The longer he thought of it, the more certain he was that Hedwig was not in Paris or London. She might be anywhere else in the whole world, but she was certainly not in either of those cities. Of that he was convinced. He felt like a man who had pursued a beautiful image to the foot of a precipitous cliff; the rock had opened and swallowed up his dream, leaving him standing alone in hopeless despair; and a great deal more poetic nonsense of that kind.
I do not believe I had ever realised what he so truly felt for Hedwig until I sat at my table with his letter before me, overcome with the sense of my own weakness in not having effectually checked this mad passion at its rise; or, since it had grown so masterfully, of my wretched procrastination in not having taken my staff in my hand and gone out into the world to find the woman my boy loved and bring her to him. By this time, I thought, I should have found her. I could not bear to think of his being ill, suffering, heart-broken,--ruined, if he lost his voice by an illness,--merely because I had not had the strength to do the best thing for him. Poor Nino, I thought, you shall never say again that Cornelio Grandi has not done what was in his power to make you happy.
"That baron! an apoplexy on him! has illuded me with his promises of help," I said to myself. "He has no more intention of helping me or Nino than he has of carrying off the basilica of St. Peter. Courage, Cornelio! thou must gird up thy loins, and take a little money in thy scrip, and find Hedwig von Lira."
All that night I lay awake, trying to think how I might accomplish this end; wondering to which point of the compass I should turn, and, above all, reflecting that I must make great sacrifices. But my boy must have what he wanted, since he was consuming himself, as we say, in longing, for it. It seemed to me no time for counting the cost, when every day might bring upon him a serious illness. If he could only know that I was acting, he would allow his spirits to revive and take courage.
In the watches of the night I thought over my resources, which, indeed, were meagre enough; for I am a very poor man. It was necessary to take a great deal of money, for once away from Rome no one could tell when I might return. My salary as professor is paid to me quarterly, and it was yet some weeks to the time when it was due. I had only a few francs remaining,--not more than enough to pay my rent and to feed Mariuccia and me. I had paid at Christmas the last instalment due on my vineyard out of Porta Salara, and though I owed no man anything I had no money, and no prospect of any for some time. And yet I could not leave home on a long journey without at least two hundred scudi in my pocket. A scudo is a dollar, and a dollar has five francs, so that I wanted a thousand francs. You see, in spite of the baron's hint about the mountains, I thought I might have to travel all over Italy before I satisfied Nino.
A thousand francs is a great deal of money,--it is a Peru, as we say. I had not the first sou toward it. I thought a long time. I wondered if the old piano were worth anything; whether anybody would give me money for my manuscripts, the results of patient years of labour and study; my old gold scarf pin, my seal ring, and even my silver watch, which keeps really very good time,--what were they worth? But it would not be much, not the tenth part of what I wanted. I was in despair, and I tried to sleep. Then a thought came to me.
"I am a donkey," I said. "There is the vineyard itself,--my little vineyard beyond Porta Salara. It is mine and is worth half as much again as I need." And I slept quietly till morning.
It is true, and I am sure it is natural, that in the daylight my resolution looked a little differently to me than it did in the quiet night. I had toiled and scraped a great deal more than you know to buy that small piece of land, and it seemed much more my own than all Serveti had ever been in my better days. Then I shut myself up in my room and read Nino's letter over again, though it pained me very much; for I needed courage. And when I had read it, I took some papers in my pocket, and put on my hat and my old cloak, which Nino will never want any more now for his midnight serenades, and I went out to sell my little vineyard.
"It is for my boy," I said, to give myself some comfort.
But it is one thing to want to buy, and it is quite another thing to want to sell. All day I went from one man to another with my papers,--all the agents who deal in those things; but they only said they thought it might be sold in time; it would take many days, and perhaps weeks.
"But I want to sell it to-day," I explained.
"We are very sorry," said they, with a shrug of the shoulders; and they showed me the door.
I was extremely down-hearted, and though I could not sell my piece of land I spent three sous in buying two cigars to smoke, and I walked about the Piazza Colonna in the sun; I would not go home to dinner until I had decided what to do. There was only one man I had not tried, and he was the man who had sold it to me. Of course I knew people who do this business, for I had had enough trouble to learn their ways when I had to sell Serveti, years ago. But this one man I had not tried yet, because I knew that he would drive a cruel bargain with me when he saw I wanted the money. But at last I went to him and told him just what my wishes were.
"Well," he said, "it is a very bad time for selling land. But to oblige you, because you are a customer, I will give you eight hundred francs for your little place. That is really much more than I can afford."
"Eight hundred francs!" I exclaimed, in despair. "But I have paid you nearly twice as much for it in the last three years! What do you take me for? To sell such a gem of a vineyard for eight hundred francs? If you offer me thirteen hundred I will discuss the matter with you."
"I have known you a long time, Signor Grandi, and you are an honest man. I am sure you do not wish to deceive me. I will give you eight hundred and fifty."
Deceive him, indeed! The very man who had received fifteen hundred from me said I deceived him when I asked thirteen hundred for the same piece of land! But I needed it very much, and so, bargaining and wrangling, I got one thousand and seventy-five francs in bank-notes; and I took care they should all be good ones too. It was a poor price, I know, but I could do no better, and I went home happy. But I dared not tell Mariuccia. She is only my servant, to be sure, but she would have torn me in pieces.
Then I wrote to the authorities at the university to say that I was obliged to leave Rome suddenly, and would of course not claim my salary during my absence. But I added that I hoped they would not permanently supplant me. If they did I knew I should be ruined. Then I told Mariuccia that I was going away for some days to the country, and I left her the money to pay the rent, and her wages, and a little more, so that she might be provided for if I were detained very long. I went out again and telegraphed to Nino to say I was going at once in search of the Liras, and begging him to come home as soon as he should have finished his engagement.
To tell the truth, Mariuccia was very curious to know where I was going, and asked me many questions, which I had some trouble in answering. But at last it was night again, and the old woman went to bed and left me. Then I went on tiptoe to the kitchen, and found a skein of thread and two needles, and set to work.
I knew the country whither I was going very well, and it was necessary to hide the money I had in some ingenious way. So I took two waistcoats--one of them was quite good still,--and I sewed them together, and basted the bank-notes between them. It was a clumsy piece of tailoring, though it took me so many hours to do it. But I had put the larger waistcoat outside very cunningly, so that when I had put on the two, you could not see that there was anything beneath the outer one. I think I was very clever to do this without a woman to help me. Then I looked to my boots, and chose my oldest clothes,--and you may guess, from what you know of me, how old they were,--and I made a little bundle that I could carry in my hand, with a change of linen, and the like. These things I made ready before I went to bed, and I slept with the two waistcoats and the thousand francs under my pillow, though I suppose nobody would have chosen that particular night for robbing me.
All these preparations had occupied me so much that I had not found any time to grieve over my poor little vineyard that I had sold; and, besides, I was thinking all the while of Nino, and how glad he would be to know that I was really searching for Hedwig. But when I thought of the vines, it hurt me; and I think it is only long after the deed that it seems more blessed to give than to receive.
But at last I slept, as tired folk will, leaving care to the morrow; and when I awoke it was daybreak, and Mariuccia was clattering angrily with the tin coffee-pot outside. It was a bright morning, and the goldfinch sang, and I could hear him scattering the millet seed about his cage while I dressed. And then the parting grew very near, and I drank my coffee silently, wondering how soon it would be over, and wishing that the old woman would go out and let me have my house alone. But she would not, and, to my surprise, she made very little worry or trouble, making a great show of being busy. When I was quite ready she insisted on putting a handful of roasted chestnuts into my pocket, and she said she would pray for me. The fact is, she thought, foolish old creature, as she is, that I was old and in poor health, and she had often teased me to go into the country for a few days, so that she was not ill pleased that I should seem to take her advice. She stood looking after me as I trudged along the street, with my bundle and my good stick in my right hand, and a lighted cigar in my left.
I had made up my mind that I ought first to try the direction hinted at by the baron, since I had absolutely no other clue to the whereabouts of the Count von Lira and his daughter. I therefore got into the old stage that still runs to Palestrina and the neighbouring towns, for it is almost as quick as going by rail, and much cheaper; and half-an-hour later we rumbled out of the Porta San Lorenzo, and I had entered upon the strange journey to find Hedwig von Lira, concerning which frivolous people have laughed so unkindly. And you may call me a foolish old man if you like. I did it for my boy.
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I went to Palestrina because all foreigners go there, and are to be heard of from other parts of the mountains in that place. It was a long and tiresome journey; the jolting stage-coach shook me very much. There was a stout woman inside, with a baby that squealed; there was a very dirty old country curate, who looked as though he had not shaved for a week, or changed his collar for a month. But he talked intelligently, though he talked too much, and he helped to pass the time until I was weary of him. We jolted along over the dusty roads, and were at least thankful that it was not yet hot.
In the evening we reached Palestrina, and stopped before the inn in the market-place, as tired and dusty as might be. The woman went one way, and the priest the other, and I was left alone. I soon found the fat old host, and engaged a room for the night. He was talkative and curious, and sat by my side when he had prepared my supper in the dingy dining-room downstairs. I felt quite sure that he would be able to tell me what I wanted, or at least to give me a hint from hearsay. But he at once began to talk of last year, and how much better his business had been then than it was now, as country landlords invariably do.
It was to no purpose that I questioned him about the people that had passed during the fortnight, the month, the two months back; it was clear that no one of the importance of my friends had been heard of. At last I was tired, and he lit a wax candle, which he would carefully charge in the bill afterwards, at double its natural price, and he showed me the way to my room. It was a very decent little room, with white curtains and a good bed and a table,--everything I could desire. A storm had come up since I had been at my supper, and it seemed a comfortable thing to go to bed, although I was disappointed at having got no news.
But when I had blown out my candle, determining to expostulate with the host in the morning if he attempted to make me pay for a whole one, I lay thinking of what I should do; and, turning on my side, I observed that a narrow crack of the door admitted rays of light into the darkness of my chamber. Now I am very sensitive to draughts and inclined to take cold, and the idea that there was a door open troubled me, so that at last I made up my mind to get up and close it. As I rose to my feet, I perceived that it was not the door by which I had entered; and so, before shutting it, I called out, supposing there might be someone in the next room.
"Excuse me," I said, loudly, "I will shut this door." But there was no reply.
Curiosity is perhaps a vice, but it is a natural one. Instead of pulling the door to its place, I pushed it a little, knocking with my knuckles at the same time. But as no one answered, I pushed it further, and put in my head. It was a disagreeable thing I saw.
The room was like mine in every way, save that the bed was moved to the middle of the open space, and there were two candles on two tables. On the bed lay a dead man. I felt what we call a brivido,--a shiver like an ague.
It was the body of an old man, with a face like yellow wax, and a singularly unpleasant expression even in death. His emaciated hands were crossed on his breast, and held a small black crucifix. The candles stood, one at the head and one at the foot, on little tables. I entered the room and looked long at the dead old man. I thought it strange that there should be no one to watch him, but I am not afraid of dead men after the first shudder is past. It was a ghastly sight enough, however, and the candles shed a glaring yellowish light over it all.
"Poor wretch!" I said to myself, and went back to my room, closing the door carefully behind me.
At first I thought of rousing the host, and explaining to him my objections to being left almost in the same room with a corpse. But I reflected that it would be foolish to seem afraid of it, when I was really not at all timid, and so I went to bed and slept until dawn. But when I went downstairs I found the innkeeper, and gave him a piece of my mind.
"What sort of an inn do you keep? What manners are these?" I cried angrily. "What diavolo put into your pumpkin head to give me a sepulchre for a room?"
He seemed much disturbed at what I said, and broke out into a thousand apologies. But I was not to be so easily pacified.
"Do you think," I demanded, "that I will ever come here again, or advise any of my friends to come here? It is insufferable. I will write to the police--" But at this he began to shed tears and to wring his hands, saying it was not his fault.
"You see, signore, it was my wife who made me arrange it so. Oh! these women--the devil has made them all! It was her father--the old dead man you saw. He died yesterday morning--may he rest! --and we will bury him to-day. You see everyone knows that unless a dead man is watched by someone from another town his soul will not rest in peace. My wife's father was a jettatore; he had the evil eye, and people knew it for miles around, so I could not persuade anyone from the other villages to sit by him and watch his body, though I sent everywhere all day yesterday. At last that wife of mine--maledictions on her folly! --said, 'It is my father, after all, and his soul must rest, at any price. If you put a traveller in the next room, and leave the door open, it will be the same thing; and so he will be in peace.' That is the way it happened, signore," he continued, after wiping away his tears; "you see I could not help it at all. But if you will overlook it, I will not make any charges for your stay. My wife shall pay me. She has poultry by the hundred. I will pay myself with her chickens."
"Very good," said I, well pleased at having got so cheap a lodging. "But I am a just man, and I will pay for what I have eaten and drunk, and you can take the night's lodging out of your wife's chickens, as you say." So we were both satisfied. [Footnote: This incident actually occurred, precisely as related.]
The storm of the night had passed away, leaving everything wet and the air cool and fresh. I wrapped my cloak about me and went into the market-place to see if I could pick up any news. It was already late for the country, and there were few people about. Here and there, in the streets, a wine-cart was halting on its way to Rome, while the rough carter went through the usual arrangement of exchanging some of his employer's wine for food for himself, filling up the barrel with good pure water that never hurt anyone. I wandered about, though I could not expect to see any face that I knew; it is so many years since I lived at Serveti that even were the carters from my old place I should have forgotten how they looked. Suddenly, at the corner of a dirty street, where there was a little blue and white shrine to the Madonna, I stumbled against a burly fellow with a gray beard carrying a bit of salt codfish in one hand and a cake of corn bread in the other, eating as he went.
"Gigi!" I cried, in delight, when I recognised the old carrettiere who used to bring me grapes and wine, and still does when the fancy takes him.
"Dio mio! Signor Conte!" he cried, with his mouth full, and holding up the bread and fish with his two hands, in astonishment. When he recovered himself he instantly offered to share his meal with me, as the poorest wretch in Italy will offer his crust to the greatest prince, out of politeness. "Vuol favorire?" he said, smiling.
I thanked him and declined, as you may imagine. Then I asked him how he came to be in Palestrina; and he told me that he was often there in the winter, as his sister had married a vine-dresser of the place, of whom he bought wine occasionally. Very well-to-do people, he explained, eagerly, proud of his prosperous relations.
We clambered along through the rough street together, and I asked him what was the news from Serveti and from that part of the country, well knowing that if he had heard of any rich foreigners in that neighbourhood he would at once tell me of it. But I had not much hope. He talked about the prospects of the vines, and such things, for some time, and I listened patiently.
"By the by," he said at last, "there is a gran signore who is gone to live in Fillettino,--a crazy man, they say, with a beautiful daughter, but really beautiful, as an angel."
I was so much surprised that I made a loud exclamation.
"What is the matter?" asked Gigi.
"It is nothing, Gigi," I answered, for I was afraid lest he should betray my secret, if I let him guess it. "It is nothing. I struck my foot against a stone. But you were telling about a foreigner who is gone to live somewhere. Fillettino? Where is that?"
"Oh, the place of the diavolo! I do not wonder you do not know, conte, for gentlemen never go there. It is in the Abruzzi, beyond Trevi. Did you ever hear of the Serra di Sant' Antonio, where so many people have been killed?"
"Diana! I should think so! In the old days--" "Bene," said Gigi, "Fillettino is there, at the beginning of the pass."
"Tell me, Gigi mio," I said, "are you not very thirsty?" The way to the heart of the wine carter lies through a pint measure. Gigi was thirsty, as I supposed, and we sat down in the porch of my inn, and the host brought a stoup of his best wine and set it before us.
"I would like to hear about the crazy foreigner who is gone to live in the hills among the brigand," I said, when he had wet his throat.
"What I know I will tell you, Signor Conte," he answered, filling his pipe with bits that he broke off a cigar. "But I know very little. He must be a foreigner, because he goes to such a place; and he is certainly crazy, for he shuts his daughter in the old castle, and watches her as though she was made of wax, like the flowers you have in Rome under glass."
"How long have they been there, these queer folks?" I asked.
"What do I know? It may be a month or two. A man told me, who had come that way from Fucino, and that is all I know."
"Do people often travel that way, Gigi?"
"Not often, indeed," he answered, with a grin. "They are not very civil, the people of those parts." Gigi made a gesture, or a series of gestures. He put up his hands as though firing a gun. Then he opened his right hand and closed it, with a kind of insinuating twirl of the fingers, which means "to steal." Lastly he put his hand over his eyes, and looked through his fingers as though they were bars, which means "prison." From this I inferred that the inhabitants of Fillettino were addicted to murder, robbery, and other pastimes, for which they sometimes got into trouble. The place he spoke of is about thirty miles, or something more, from Palestrina, and I began planning how I should get there as cheaply as possible. I had never been there, and wondered what kind of a habitation the count had found; for I knew it must be the roughest sort of mountain town, with some dilapidated castle or other overhanging it. But the count was rich, and he had doubtless made himself very comfortable. I sat in silence while Gigi finished his wine and chatted about his affairs between the whiffs of his pipe.
"Gigi," I said at last, "I want to buy a donkey."
"Eh, your excellency can be accommodated: and a saddle, too, if you wish."
"I think I could ride without a saddle," I said, for I thought it a needless piece of extravagance.
"Madonna mia!" he cried. "The Signor Conte ride bareback on a donkey! They would laugh at you. But my brother-in-law can sell you a beast this very day, and for a mere song."
"Let us go and see the beast," I said. I felt a little ashamed of having wished to ride without a saddle. But as I had sold all I had, I wanted to make the money last as long as possible; or at least I would spend as little as I could, and take something back, if I ever went home at all. We had not far to go, and Gigi opened a door in the street, and showed me a stable, in which something moved in the darkness. Presently he led out an animal and began to descant upon its merits.
"Did you ever see a more beautiful donkey?" asked Gigi, admiringly. "It looks like a horse!" It was a little ass, with sad eyes, and ears as long as its tail. It was also very thin, and had the hair rubbed off its back from carrying burdens. But it had no sore places, and did not seem lame.
"He is full of fire," said Gigi, poking the donkey in the ribs to excite a show of animation. "You should see him gallop uphill with my brother on his back, and a good load into the bargain. Brrrr! Stand still, will you!" he cried, holding tight by the halter, though the animal did not seem anxious to run away.
"And then," said Gigi, "he eats nothing,--positively nothing."
"He does not look as though he had eaten much of late," I said.
"Oh, my brother-in-law is as good to him as though he were a Christian. He gives him corn bread and fish, just like his own children. But this ass prefers straw."
"A frugal ass," I said, and we began to bargain. I will not tell you what I gave Gigi's brother-in-law for the beast, because you would laugh. And I bought an old saddle, too. It was really necessary, but it was a dear bargain, though it was cheaper than hiring; for I sold the donkey and the saddle again, and got back something.
It is a wild country enough that lies behind the mountains towards the sources of the Aniene,--the river that makes the falls at Tivoli. You could not half understand how in these times, under the new government, and almost within a long day's ride from Rome, such things could take place as I am about to tell you of, unless I explained to you how very primitive that country is which lies to the south-east of the capital, and which we generally call the Abruzzi. The district is wholly mountainous, and though there are no very great elevations there are very ragged gorges and steep precipices, and now and then an inaccessible bit of forest far up among the rocks, which no man has ever thought of cutting down. It would be quite impossible to remove the timber. The people are mostly shepherds in the higher regions, where there are no vines, and when opportunity offers they will waylay the unwary traveller and rob him, and even murder him, without thinking very much about it. In the old days the boundary between the Papal States and the kingdom of Naples ran through these mountains, and the contrabbandieri--the smugglers of all sorts of wares--used to cross from one dominion to the other by circuitous paths and steep ways of which only a few had knowledge. The better known of these passes were defended by soldiers and police, but there have been bloody fights fought, within a few years, between the law and its breakers. Foreigners never penetrate into the recesses of these hills, and even the English guide-books, which are said to contain an account of everything that the Buon Dio ever made, compiled from notes taken at the time of the creation, make no mention of places which surpass in beauty all the rest of Italy put together.
No railroad or other modern innovation penetrates into those Arcadian regions, where the goatherd plays upon his pipe all the day long, the picture of peace and innocence, or prowls in the passes with a murderous long gun, if there are foreigners in the air. The women toil at carrying their scant supply of drinking-water from great distances during a part of the day, and in the evening they spin industriously by their firesides or upon their doorsteps, as the season will have it. It is an old life, the same to-day as a thousand years ago, and perhaps as it will be a thousand years hence. The men are great travellers, and go to Rome in the winter to sell their cheese, or to milk a flock of goats in the street at daybreak, selling the foaming canful for a sou. But their visits to the city do not civilise them; the outing only broadens the horizon of their views in regard to foreigners, and makes them more ambitious to secure one, and see what he is like, and cut off his ears, and get his money. Do not suppose that the shepherd of the Abruzzi lies all day on the rocks in the sun, waiting for the foreign gentleman to come within reach. He might wait a long time. Climbing has strengthened the muscles of his legs into so much steel, and a party of herdsmen have been known to come down from the Serra to the plains around Velletri, and to return to their inaccessible mountains, after doing daring deeds of violence, in twenty-four hours from the time of starting, covering at least from eighty to ninety miles by the way. They are extraordinary fellows, as active as tigers, and fabulously strong, though they are never very big.
This country begins behind the range of Sabine mountains seen from Rome across the Campagna, and the wild character of it increases as you go towards the south-east.
Since I have told you this much I need not weary you with further descriptions. I do not like descriptions, and it is only when Nino gives me his impressions that I write them, in order that you may know how beautiful things impress him, and the better judge of his character.
I do not think that Gigi really cheated me so very badly about the donkey. Of course I do not believe the story of his carrying the brother-in-law and the heavy load uphill at a gallop; but I am thin and not very heavy, and the little ass carried me well enough through the valleys, and when we came to a steep place I would get off and walk, so as not to tire him too much. If he liked to crop a thistle or a blade of grass, I would stop a moment, for I thought he would grow fatter in that way, and I should not lose so much when I sold him again. But he never grew very fat.
Twice I slept by the way before I reached the end of my journey,--once at Olevano and once at Trevi; for the road from Olevano to Trevi is long, and some parts are very rough, especially at first. I could tell you just how every stone on the road looks--Rojate, the narrow pass beyond, and then the long valley with the vines; then the road turns away and rises as you go along the plateau of Arcinazzo, which is hollow beneath, and you can hear the echoes as you tread; then at the end of that the desperate old inn, called by the shepherds the Madre dei Briganti,--the mother of brigands,--smoke-blackened within and without, standing alone on the desolate heath; farther on, a broad bend of the valley to the left, and you see Trevi rising before you, crowned with an ancient castle, and overlooking the stream that becomes the Aniene afterwards; from Trevi through a rising valley that grows narrower at every step, and finally seems to end abruptly, as indeed it does, in a dense forest far up the pass. And just below the woods lies the town of Fillettino, where the road ends; for there is a road which leads to Tivoli, but does not communicate with Olevano, whence I had come.
Of course I had made an occasional inquiry by the way, when I could do so without making people too curious. When anyone asked me where I was going, I would say I was bound for Fucino, to buy beans for seed at the wonderful model farm that Torlonia has made by draining the old lake. And then I would ask about the road; and sometimes I was told there was a strange foreigner at Fillettino, who made everybody wonder about him by his peculiar mode of life. Therefore, when I at last saw the town, I was quite sure that the count was there, and I got off my little donkey, and let him drink in the stream, while I myself drank a little higher up. The road was dusty, and my donkey and I were thirsty.
I thought of all I would do, as I sat on the stone by the water and the beast cropped the wretched grass, and soon I came to the conclusion that I did not know in the least what I should do. I had unexpectedly found what I wanted, very soon, and I was thankful enough to have been so lucky. But I had not the first conception of what course I was to pursue when once I had made sure of the count. Besides, it was barely possible that it was not he, after all, but another foreigner, with another daughter. The thought frightened me, but I drove it away. If it were really old Lira who had chosen this retreat in which to imprison his daughter and himself, I asked myself whether I could do anything save send word to Nino as soon as possible.
I felt like a sort of Don Quixote, suddenly chilled into the prosaic requirements of common sense. Perhaps if Hedwig had been my Dulcinea, instead of Nino's, the crazy fit would have lasted, and I would have attempted to scale the castle wall and carry off the prize by force. There is no telling what a sober old professor of philosophy may not do when he is crazy. But meanwhile I was sane. Graf von Lira had a right to live anywhere he pleased with his daughter, and the fact that I had discovered the spot where he pleased to live did not constitute an introduction. Or finally, if I got access to the old count, what had I to say to him? Ought I to make a formal request for Nino? I looked at my old clothes and almost smiled.
But the weather was cold, though the roads were dusty; so I mounted my ass and jogged along, meditating deeply.
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Fillettino is a trifle cleaner than most towns of the same kind. Perhaps it rains more often, and there are fewer people. Considering that its vicinity has been the scene of robbery, murder, and all manner of adventurous crime from time immemorial, I had expected to find it a villainous place. It is nothing of the kind. There is a decent appearance about it that is surprising; and though the houses are old and brown and poor, I did not see pigs in many rooms, nor did the little children beg of me, as they beg of everyone elsewhere. The absence of the pigs struck me particularly, for in the Sabine towns they live in common with the family, and go out only in the daytime to pick up what they can get.
I went to the apothecary--there is always an apothecary in these places--and inquired for a lodging. Before very long I had secured a room, and it seemed that the people were accustomed to travellers, for it was surprisingly clean. The bed was so high that I could touch the ceiling when I sat on it, and the walls were covered with ornaments, such as glazed earthenware saints, each with a little basin for holy water, some old engravings of other saints, a few paper roses from the last fair, and a weather-beaten game-pouch of leather. The window looked out over a kind of square, where a great quantity of water ran into a row of masonry tanks out of a number of iron pipes projecting from an overhanging rock. Above the rock was the castle, the place I had come to see, towering up against the darkening sky.
It is such a strange place that I ought to describe it to you, or you will not understand the things that happened there. There is a great rock, as I said, rising above the town, and upon this is built the feudal stronghold, so that the walls of the building do not begin less than forty feet from the street level. The height of the whole castle consequently seems enormous. The walls, for the most part, follow the lines of the gray rock, irregularly, as chance would have it, and the result is a three-cornered pile, having a high square tower at one angle, where also the building recedes some yards from the edge of the cliff, leaving on that side a broad terrace guarded by a stone parapet. On another side of the great isolated boulder a narrow roadway heads up a steep incline, impracticable for carriages but passable for four-footed beasts; and this path gives access to the castle through a heavy gate opening upon a small court within. But the rock itself has been turned to account, and there are chambers within it which formerly served as prisons, opening to the right and left of a narrow staircase, hewn out of the stone, and leading from the foot of the tower to the street below, upon which it opens through a low square door, set in the rock and studded with heavy iron rails.
Below the castle hangs the town, and behind it rises the valley, thickly wooded with giant beech-trees. Of course I learned the details of the interior little by little, and I gathered also some interesting facts regarding the history of Fillettino, which are not in any way necessary to my story. The first thing I did was to find out what means of communication there were with Rome. There was a postal service twice a week, and I was told that Count von Lira, whose name was no secret in the village, sent messengers very often to Subiaco. The post left that very day, and I wrote to Nino to tell him that I had found his friends in villeggiatura at Fillettino, advising him to come as soon as he could, and recruit his health and his spirits.
I learned, further, from the woman who rented me my lodging, that there were other people in the castle besides the count and his daughter. At least, she had seen a tall gentleman on the terrace with them during the last two days; and it was not true that the count kept Hedwig a prisoner. On the contrary, they rode out together almost every day, and yesterday the tall gentleman had gone with them. The woman also went into many details; telling me how much money the count had spent in a fortnight, bringing furniture and a real piano and immense loads of baskets, which the porters were told contained glass and crockery, and must be carefully handled. It was clear that the count was settled for some time. He had probably taken the old place for a year, by a lease from the Roman family to whom Fillettino and the neighbouring estates belong. He would spend the spring and the summer there, at least.
Being anxious to see who the tall gentleman might be, of whom my landlady had spoken, I posted myself in the street, at the foot of the inclined bridle-path, leading to the castle gate. I walked up and down for two hours, about the time I supposed they would all ride, hoping to catch a glimpse of the party. Neither the count nor his daughter knew me by sight, I was sure, and I felt quite safe. It was a long time to wait, but at last they appeared, and I confess that I nearly fell down against the wall when I saw them.
There they were on their horses, moving cautiously down the narrow way above me. First came the count, sitting in his saddle as though he were at the head of his old regiment, his great gray moustaches standing out fiercely from his severe wooden face. Then came Hedwig, whom I had not seen for a long time, looking as white and sorrowful as the angel of death, in a close black dress, or habit, so that her golden hair was all the colour there was to be seen about her.
But the third rider,--there was no mistaking that thin, erect figure, dressed in the affectation of youth; those fresh pink cheeks, with the snowy moustache, and the thick white hair showing beneath the jaunty hat; the eagle nose and the bright eyes. Baron Benoni, and no other.
My first instinct was to hide myself; but before I could retreat Benoni recognised me, even with my old clothes. Perhaps they are not so much older than the others, compared with his fashionable garments. He made no sign as the three rode by; only I could see by his eyes, that were fixed angrily upon me, that he knew me, and did not wish to show it. As for myself I stood stock still in amazement.
I had supposed that Benoni had really gone to Austria, as he had told me he was about to do. I had thought him ignorant of the count's retreat, save for the hint which had so luckily led me straight to the mark. I had imagined him to be but a chance acquaintance of the Lira family, having little or no personal interest in their doings. Nevertheless, I had suspected him, as I have told you. Everything pointed to a deception on his part. He had evidently gone immediately from Rome to Fillettino. He must be intimate with the count, or the latter would not have invited him to share a retreat seemingly intended to be kept a secret. He also, I thought, must have some very strong reason for consenting to bury himself in the mountains in company with a father and daughter who could hardly be supposed to be on good terms with each other.
But again, why had he seemed so ready to help me and to forward Nino's suit? Why had he given me the smallest clue to the count's whereabouts? Now I am not a strong man in action, but I am a very cunning reasoner. I remembered the man, and the outrageous opinions he had expressed, both to Nino and to me. Then I understood my suspicions. It would be folly to expect such a man to have any real sympathy or sense of friendship for anyone. He had amused himself by promising to come back and go with me on my search, perhaps to make a laughing-stock of me, or even of my boy, by telling the story to the Liras afterwards. He had entertained no idea that I would go alone, or that, if I went, I could be successful. He had made a mistake, and was very angry; his eyes told me that. Then I made a bold resolution. I would see him and ask him what he intended to do; in short, why he had deceived me.
There would probably be no difficulty in the way of obtaining an interview, I was not known to the others of the party, and Benoni would scarcely refuse to receive me. I thought he would excuse himself, with ready cynicism, and pretend to continue his offers of friendship and assistance. I confess I regretted that I was so humbly clad, in all my old clothes; but after all, I was travelling, you know.
It was a bold resolution, I think, and I revolved the situation in my mind during two days, thinking over what I should say. But with all my thought I only found that everything must depend on Benoni's answer to my own question--"Why?"
On the third day, I made myself look as fine as I could, and though my heart beat loudly as I mounted the bridle-path, I put on a bold look and rang the bell. It was a clanging thing, that seemed to creak on a hinge, as I pulled the stout string from outside. A man appeared, and on my inquiry said I might wait in the porch behind the great wooden gate, while he delivered my message to his excellency the baron. It seemed to take a long time, and I sat on a stone bench, eying the courtyard curiously from beneath the archway. It was sunny and clean, with an old well in the middle, but I could see nothing save a few windows opening upon it. At last the man returned and said that I might come with him.
I found Benoni, clad in a gorgeous dressing-gown, stalking up and down a large vaulted apartment, in which there were a few new arm-chairs, a table covered with books, and a quantity of ancient furniture that looked unsteady and fragile, although it had been carefully dusted. A plain green baize carpet covered about half the floor, and the remainder was of red brick. The morning sun streamed in through tall windows, and played in a rainbow-like effulgence on the baron's many-coloured dressing-gown, as he paused in his walk to greet me.
"Well, my friend," said Benoni, gaily, "how in the name of the devil did you get here?" I thought I had been right; he was going to play at being my friend again.
"Very easily, by the help of your little hint," I replied, and I seated myself, for I felt that I was master of the situation.
"Ah, if I had suspected you of being so intelligent, I would not have given you any hint at all. You see I have not been to Austria on business, but am here in this good old flesh of mine, such as it is."
"Consequently--" I began, and then stopped. I suddenly felt that Benoni had turned the tables upon me, I could not tell how.
"Consequently," said he, continuing my sentence, "when I told you that I was going to Austria I was lying."
"The frankness of the statement obliges me to believe that you are now telling the truth," I answered, angrily. I felt uneasy. Benoni laughed in his peculiar way.
"Precisely," he continued again, "I was lying. I generally do, for so long as I am believed I deceive people; and when they find me out, they are confused between truth and lying, so that they do not know what to believe at all. By the by, I am wandering, I am sorry to see you here. I hope you understand that." He looked at me with the most cheerful expression. I believe I was beginning to be angry at his insulting calmness. I did not answer him.
"Signor Grandi," he said in a moment, seeing I was silent, "I am enchanted to see you, if you prefer that I should be. But may I imagine if I can do anything more for you, now that you have heard from my own lips that I am a liar? I say it again,--I like the word,--I am a liar, and I wish I were a better one. What can I do for you?"
"Tell me why you have acted this comedy," said I, recollecting at the right moment the gist of my reflections during the past two days.
"Why? To please myself, good sir; for the sovereign; pleasure of myself."
"I would surmise," I retorted tartly, "that it could not have been for the pleasure of anyone else."
"Perhaps you mean, because no one else could be base enough to take pleasure in what amuses me?" I nodded savagely at his question. "Very good. Knowing this of me, do you further surmise that I should be so simple as to tell you how I propose to amuse myself in the future?" I recognised the truth of this, and I saw myself checkmated at the outset. I therefore smiled, and endeavoured to seem completely satisfied, hoping that his vanity would betray him into some hint of the future. He seemed to have before taken pleasure in misleading me with a fragment of truth, supposing that I could not make use of it. I would endeavour to lead him into such a trap again.
"It is a beautiful country, is it not?" I remarked, going to the window before which he stood, and looking out. "You must enjoy it greatly, after the turmoil of society." You see, I was once as gay as any of them, in the old days; and so I made the reflection that seemed natural to his case, wondering how he would answer.
"It is indeed a very passable landscape," he said, indifferently. "With horses and a charming companion one may kill a little time here, and find a satisfaction in killing it." I noticed the slip, by which he spoke of a single companion instead of two.
"Yes," I replied, "the count is said to be a most agreeable man."
He paused a moment, and the hesitation seemed to show that the count was not the companion he had in his mind.
"Oh, certainly," he said at length, "the count is very agreeable, and his daughter is the paragon of all the virtues and accomplishments." There was something a little disparaging in his tone as he made the last remark, which seemed to me a clumsy device to throw me off the scent, if scent there were. Considering his surpassing personal vanity, of which I had received an ocular demonstration when he visited me in Rome, I fancied that if there were nothing more serious in his thoughts he would have given me to understand that Hedwig found him entirely irresistible. Since he was able to control his vanity, there must be a reason for it.
"I should think that the contessina must be charmed at having so brilliant a companion as yourself in her solitude," I said, feeling my way to the point.
"With me? I am an old man. Children of that age detest old men." I thought his manner constrained, and it was unlike him not to laugh as he made the speech. The conviction grew upon me that Hedwig was the object of his visit. Moreover, I became persuaded that he was but a poor sort of villain, for he was impulsive, as villains should never be. We leaned over the stone sill of the window, which he had opened during the conversation. There was a little trail of ants climbing up and down the wall at the side, and he watched them. One of the small creatures, heavily laden with a seed of some sort, and toiling painfully under the burden, had been separated from the rest, and clambered over the edge of the window-sill. On reaching the level surface it paused, as though very weary, and looked about, moving its tiny horns. Benoni looked at it a moment, and then with one finger he suddenly whisked the poor little thing into space. It hurt me to see it, and I knew he must be cruel, for he laughed aloud. Somehow it would have seemed less cruel to have brushed away the whole trail of insects, rather than to pitch upon this one small tired workman, overladen and forgotten by the rest.
"Why did you do that?" I asked involuntarily.
"Why? Why do I do anything? Because I please, the best of all reasons."
"Of course; it was foolish of me to ask you. That is probably the cause of your presence here. You would like to hurl my boy Nino from the height he has reached in his love, and to satisfy your cruel instincts you have come here to attack the heart of an innocent girl." I watched him narrowly, and I have often wondered how I had the courage to insult him. It was a bold shot at the truth, and his look satisfied me that I was not very wide of the mark. To accuse a gray-haired old man of attempting to win the affections of a young girl would seem absurd enough. But if you had ever seen Benoni, you would understand that he was anything but old, save for his snowy locks. Many a boy might envy the strange activity of his thin limbs, the bloom and freshness of his eager face, and the fire of his eyes. He was impulsive, too; for instead of laughing at the absurdity of the thing, or at what should have been its absurdity, as a more accomplished villain would have done, he was palpably angry. He looked quickly at me and moved savagely, so that I drew back, and it was not till some moments later that it occurred to him that he ought to seem amused.
"How ridiculous!" he cried at last, mastering his anger. "You are joking."
"Oh, of course I am joking," I answered, leaving the window. "And now I must wish you good-morning, with many apologies for my intrusion." He must have been glad to be rid of me, but he politely insisted on showing me to the gate. Perhaps he wanted to be sure that I should not ask questions of the servants. As we passed through an outer hall we came suddenly upon Hedwig entering from the opposite direction, dressed in black, and looking like a beautiful shadow of pain. As I have told you, she did not know me. Benoni bowed to the ground as she went by, making some flattering speech about her appearance. She had started slightly on first seeing us, and then she went on without speaking; but there was on her face a look of such sovereign scorn and loathing as I never saw on the features of any living being. And more than scorn, for there was fear and hatred with it: so that if a glance could tell a whole history, there would have been no detail of her feeling for Benoni left to guess.
This meeting produced a profound impression on me, and I saw her face in my dreams that night. Had anything been wanting to complete, in my judgment, the plan of the situation in the castle, that something was now supplied. The Jew had come there to get her for himself. She hated him for his own sake; she hated him because she was faithful to Nino; she hated him because he perhaps knew of her secret love for my boy. Poor maiden, shut up for days and weeks to come with a man she dreaded and scorned at once! The sight of her recalled to me that I had in my pocket the letter Nino had sent me for her, weeks before, and which I had found no means of delivering since I had been in Fillettino. Suddenly I was seized with a mad determination to deliver it at any cost. The baron bowed me out of the gate, and I paused outside when the ponderous door had swung on its hinges and his footsteps were echoing back through the court.
I sat down on the parapet of the bridle-path, and with my knife cut some of the stitches that sewed my money between my two waistcoats. I took out one of the bills of a hundred francs that were concealed within, I found the letter Nino had sent me for Hedwig, and I once more rang the bell. The man who had admitted me came again, and looked at me in some astonishment. But I gave him no time to question me.
"Here is a note for a hundred francs," I said. "Take it, and give this letter to the Signora Contessina. If you bring me a written answer here to-morrow at this hour I will give you as much more." The man was dumfounded for a moment, after which he clutched the money and the letter greedily, and hid them in his coat.
"Your excellency shall be punctually obeyed," he said, with a deep bow, and I went away.
It was recklessly extravagant of me to do this, but there was no other course. A small bribe would have been worse than none at all. If you can afford to pay largely it is better to bribe a servant than to trust a friend. Your friend has nothing to gain by keeping your secret, whereas the servant hopes for more money in the future, and the prospect of profit makes him as silent as the grave.
I would certainly not have acted as I did had I not met Hedwig in the hall. But the sight of her pale face and heavy eyes went to my heart, and I would have given the whole of my little fortune to bring some gladness to her, even though I might not see it. The situation, too, was so novel and alarming that I felt obliged to act quickly, not knowing what evils delay might produce.
On the following morning I went up to the gateway again and rang the bell. The same man appeared. He slipped a note into my hand, and I slipped a bill into his. But, to my surprise, he did not shut the door and retire.
"The signorina said your excellency should read the note, and I should accompany you," he said; and I saw he had his hat in his hand as if ready to go. I tore open the note. It merely said that the servant was trustworthy, and would "instruct the Signor Grandi" how to act.
"You told the contessina my name, then?" I said to the man. He had announced me to the baron, and consequently knew who I was. He nodded, closed the door behind him, and came with me. When we were in the street he explained that Hedwig desired to speak with me. He expounded the fact that there was a staircase in the rock, leading to the level of the town. Furthermore, he said that the old count and the baron occasionally drank deeply, as soldiers and adventurers will do, to pass the evening. The next time it occurred he, the faithful servant, would come to my lodging and conduct me into the castle by the aforesaid passage, of which he had the key.
I confess I was unpleasantly alarmed at the prospect of making a burglarious entrance in such romantic fashion. It savoured more of the last century than of the quiet and eminently respectable age in which we live. But then, the castle of Fillettino was built hundreds of years ago, and it is not my fault if it has not gone to ruin, like so many others of its kind. The man recommended me to be always at home after eight o'clock in the evening in case I were wanted, and to avoid seeing the baron when he was abroad. He came and saw where I lived, and with many bows he left me.
You may imagine in what anxiety I passed my time. A whole week elapsed, and yet I was never summoned. Every evening at seven, an hour before the time named, I was in my room waiting for someone who never came. I was so much disturbed in mind that I lost my appetite and thought of being bled again. But I thought it too soon, and contented myself with getting a little tamarind from the apothecary.
One morning the apothecary, who is also the postmaster, gave me a letter from Nino, dated in Rome. His engagement was over, he had reached Rome, and he would join me immediately.
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"id": "12346"
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As it often happens that, in affairs of importance, the minor events which lead to the ultimate result seem to occur rapidly, and almost to stumble over each other in their haste, it came to pass that on the very evening after I had got Nino's letter I was sent for by the contessina.
When the man came to call me I was sitting in my room, from force of habit, though the long delay had made the possibility of the meeting seem shadowy. I was hoping that Nino might arrive in time to go in my place, for I knew that he would not be many hours behind his letter. He would assuredly travel as fast as he could, and if he had understood my directions he was not likely to go astray. But in spite of my hopes the summons came too soon, and I was obliged to go myself.
Picture to yourselves how I looked and how I felt: a sober old professor, as I am, stealing out in the night, all wrapped in a cloak as dark and shabby as any conspirator's; armed with a good knife in case of accidents; with beating heart, and doubting whether I could use my weapon if needful; and guided to the place of tryst by the confidential servant of a beautiful and unhappy maiden. I have often laughed since then at the figure I must have cut, but I did not laugh at the time. It was a very serious affair.
We skirted the base of the huge rock on which the castle is built, and reached the small, low door without meeting anyone. It was a moonlit night,--the Paschal moon was nearly at the full,--and the whiteness made each separate iron rivet in the door stand out distinct, thrown into relief by its own small shadow on the seamed oak. My guide produced a ponderous key, which screamed hoarsely in the lock under the pressure of his two hands, as he made it turn in the rusty wards. The noise frightened me, but the man laughed, and said they could not hear where they sat, far up in the vaulted chamber, telling long stories over their wine. We entered, and I had to mount a little way up the dark steps to give him room to close the door behind us, by which we were left in total darkness. I confess I was very nervous and frightened until he lighted a taper which he had brought and made enough light to show the way. The stairs were winding and steep, but perfectly dry, and when he had passed me I followed him, feeling that at all events the door behind was closed, and there was someone between me and any danger ahead.
The man paused in front of me, and when I had rounded the corner of the winding steps I saw that a brighter light than ours shone from a small doorway opening directly upon the stair. In another moment I was in the presence of Hedwig von Lira. The man retired and left us.
She stood, dressed in black, against the rough stone; the strong light of a gorgeous gilt lamp that was placed on the floor streamed upward on her white face. Her eyes caught the brightness, and seemed to burn like deep, dark gems, though they appeared so blue in the day. She looked like a person tortured past endurance, so that the pain of the soul has taken shape, and the agony of the heart has assumed substance. Tears shed had hollowed the marble cheeks, and the stronger suffering that cannot weep had chiselled out great shadows beneath her brows. Her thin clasped hands seemed wringing each other into strange shapes of woe; and though she stood erect as a slender pillar against the black rock, it was rather from the courage of despair than because she was straight and tall by her own nature.
I bent low before her, awed by the extremity of suffering I saw.
"Are you Signor Grandi?" she asked, in a low and trembling voice.
"Most humbly at your service, Signora Contessina," I answered. She put out her hand to me, and then drew it back quickly, with a timid nervous look as I moved to take it.
"I never saw you," she said, "but I feel as though you _must_ be a friend--" She paused.
"Indeed, signorina, I am here for that reason," said I, trying to speak stoutly, and so to inspire her with some courage. "Tell me how I can best serve you; and though I am not young and strong like Nino Cardegna, my boy, I am not so old but that I can do whatsoever you command."
"Then in God's name, save me from this--" But again the sentence died upon her lips, and she glanced anxiously at the door. I reflected that if anyone came we should be caught like mice in a trap, and I made as though I would look out upon the stairs. But she stopped me.
"I am foolishly frightened," she said. "That man is faithful, and will keep watch." I thought it time to discover her wishes.
"Signorina," said I, "you ask me to save you. You do not say from what. I can at least tell you that Nino Cardegna will be here in a day or two--" At this sudden news she gave a little cry, and the blood rushed to her cheeks, in strange contrast with their deathly whiteness. She seemed on the point of speaking, but checked herself, and her eyes, that had looked me through and through a moment before, drooped modestly under my glance.
"Is it possible?" she said at last, in a changed voice. "Yes, if he comes, I think the Signor Cardegna will help me."
"Madam," I said, very courteously, for I guessed her embarrassment, "I can assure you that my boy is ready to give you his life in return for the kindness he received at your hands in Rome." She looked up, smiling through her tears, for the sudden happiness had moistened the drooping lids.
"You are very kind, Signor Grandi. Signor Cardegna is, I believe, a good friend of mine. You say he will be here?"
"I received a letter from him to-day, dated in Rome, in which he tells me that he will start immediately. He may be here to-morrow morning," I answered. Hedwig had regained her composure, perhaps because she was reassured by my manner of speaking about Nino. I, however, was anxious to hear from her own lips some confirmation of my suspicions concerning the baron. "I have no doubt," I continued presently, "that, with your consent, my boy will be able to deliver you from this prison--" I used the word at a venture. Had Hedwig suffered less, and been less cruelly tormented, she would have rebuked me for the expression. But I recalled her to her position, and her self-control gave way at once.
"Oh, you are right to call it a prison!" she cried. "It is as much a prison as this chamber hewed out of the rock, where so many a wretch has languished hopelessly; a prison from which I am daily taken out into the sweet sun, to breathe and be kept alive, and to taste how joyful a thing liberty must be! And every day I am brought back, and told that I may be free if I will consent. Consent! God of mercy!" she moaned, in a sudden tempest of passionate despair. "Consent ever to belong, body--and soul--to be touched, polluted, desecrated, by that inhuman monster; sold to him, to a creature without pity, whose heart is a toad, a venomous creeping thing--sold to him for this life, and to the vengeance of God hereafter; bartered, traded, and told that I am so vile and lost that the very price I am offered is an honour to me, being so much more than my value." She came toward me as she spoke, and the passionate, unshed tears that were in her seemed to choke her, so that her voice was hoarse.
"And for what--for what?" she cried, wildly, seizing my arm and looking fiercely into my eyes. "For what, I say? Because I gave him a poor rose; because I let him see me once; because I loved his sweet voice; because--because--I love him, and will love him, and do love him, though I die!"
The girl was in a frenzy of passion and love and hate all together, and did not count her words. The white heat of her tormented soul blazed from her pale face and illuminated every feature, though she was turned from the light, and she shook my arm in her grasp so that it pained me. The marble was burnt in the fire, and must consume itself to ashes. The white and calm statue was become a pillar of flame in the life-and-death struggle for love. I strove to speak, but could not, for fear and wonder tied my tongue. And indeed she gave me short time to think.
"I tell you I love him, as he loves me," she continued, her voice trembling upon the rising cadence, "with all my whole being. Tell him so. Tell him he must save me, and that only he can: that for his sake I am tortured, and scorned, and disgraced, and sold; my body thrown to dogs, and worse than dogs; my soul given over to devils that tempt me to kill and be free,--by my own father, for his sake. Tell him that these hands he kissed are wasted with wringing small pains from each other, but the greater pain drives them to do worse. Tell him, good sir,--you are kind and love him, but not as I do,--tell him that this golden hair of mine has streaks of white in these terrible two months; that these eyes he loved are worn with weeping. Tell him--" But her voice failed her, and she staggered against the wall, hiding her face in her hands. A trembling breath, a struggle, a great wild sob: the long-sealed tears were free, and flowed fast over her hands.
"Oh, no, no," she moaned, "you must not tell him that." Then choking down her agony she turned to me: "You will not--you cannot tell him of this? I am weak, ill, but I will bear everything for--for him." The great effort exhausted her, and I think that if I had not caught her she would have fallen, and she would have hurt herself very much on the stone floor. But she is young, and I am not very strong, and could not have held her up. So I knelt, letting her weight come on my shoulder.
The fair head rested pathetically against my old coat, and I tried to wipe away her tears with her long golden hair; for I had not any handkerchief. But very soon I could not see to do it. I was crying myself, for the pity of it all, and my tears trickled down and fell on her thin hands. And so I kneeled, and she half lay and half sat upon the floor, with her head resting on my shoulder; I was glad then to be old, for I felt that I had a right to comfort her.
Presently she looked up into my face, and saw that I was weeping. She did not speak, but found her little lace handkerchief, and pressed it to my eyes,--first to one, and then to the other; and the action brought a faint maidenly flush to her cheeks through all her own sorrow. A daughter could not have done it more kindly.
"My child," I said at last, "be sure that your secret is safe in me. But there is one coming with whom it will be safer."
"You are so good," she said, and her head sank once more, and nestled against my breast, so that I could just see the bright tresses through my gray beard. But in a moment she looked up again, and made as though she would rise; and then I helped her, and we both stood on our feet.
Poor, beautiful, tormented Hedwig! I can remember it, and call up the whole picture to my mind. She still leaned on my arm, and looked up to me, her loosened hair all falling back upon her shoulders; and the wonderful lines of her delicate face seemed made ethereal and angelic by her sufferings.
"My dear," I said at last, smoothing her golden hair with my hand, as I thought her mother would do, if she had a mother,--"my dear, your interview with my boy may be a short one, and you may not have an opportunity to meet at all for days. If it does not pain you too much, will you tell me just what your troubles are here? I can then tell him, so that you can save time when you are together." She gazed into my eyes for some seconds, as though to prove me, whether I were a true man.
"I think you are right," she answered, taking courage. "I will tell you in two words. My father treats me as though I had committed some unpardonable crime, which I do not at all understand. He says my reputation is ruined. Surely that is not true?" She asked the question so innocently and simply that I smiled.
"No, my dear, it is not true," I replied.
"I am sure I cannot understand it," she continued; "but he says so, and insists that my only course is to accept what he calls the advantageous offer which has suddenly presented itself. He insists very roughly." She shuddered slightly. "He gives me no peace. It appears that this creature wrote to ask my father for my hand when we left Rome two months ago. The letter was forwarded, and my father began at once to tell me that I must make up my mind to the marriage. At first I used to be very angry; but seeing we were alone, I finally determined to seem indifferent, and not to answer him when he talked about it. Then he thought my spirit was broken, and he sent for Baron Benoni, who arrived a fortnight ago. Do you know him, Signor Grandi? You came to see him, so I suppose you do?" The same look of hatred and loathing came to her face that I had noticed when Benoni and I met her in the hall.
"Yes, I know him. He is a traitor, a villain," I said earnestly.
"Yes, and more than that. But he is a great banker in Russia--" "A banker?" I asked, in some astonishment.
"Did you not know it? Yes; he is very rich, and has a great firm, if that is the name for it. But he wanders incessantly, and his partners take care of his affairs. My father says that I shall marry him or end my days here."
"Unless you end his for him!" I cried, indignantly.
"Hush!" said she, and trembled violently. "He is my father, you know," she added, with sudden earnestness.
"But you cannot consent--" I began.
"Consent!" she interrupted with a bitter laugh. "I will die rather than consent."
"I mean, you cannot consent to be shut up in this valley for ever."
"If need be, I will," she said, in a low voice.
"There is no need," I whispered.
"You do not know my father. He is a man of iron," she answered, sorrowfully.
"You do not know my boy. He is a man of his word," I replied.
We were both silent, for we both knew very well what our words meant. From such a situation there could be but one escape.
"I think you ought to go now," she said, at last. "If I were missed it would all be over. But I am sorry to let you go, you are so kind. How can you let me know--" She stopped, with a blush, and stooped to raise the lamp from the floor.
"Can you not meet here to-morrow night, when they are asleep?" I suggested, knowing what her question would have been.
"I will send the same man to you to-morrow evening, and let you know what is possible," she said. "And now I will show you the way out of my house," she added, with the first faint shadow of a smile. With the slight gilt lamp in her hand she went out of the little rock chamber, listened a moment, and began to descend the steps.
"But the key?" I asked, following her light footsteps with my heavier tread.
"It is in the door," she answered, and went on.
When we reached the bottom we found it as she had said. The servant had left the key on the inside, and with some difficulty I turned the bolts. We stood for one moment in the narrow space, where the lowest step was set close against the door. Her eyes flashed strangely in the lamplight.
"How easy it would be!" I said, understanding her glance. She nodded, and pushed me gently out into the street; and I closed the door, and leaned against it as she locked it.
"Good-night," she said from the other side, and I put my mouth to the key-hole. "Good-night. Courage!" I answered. I could hear her lightly mounting the stone steps. It seemed wonderful to me that she should not be afraid to go back alone. But love makes people brave.
The moon had risen higher during the time I had been within, and I strolled round the base of the rock, lighting a cigar as I went. The terrible adventure I had dreaded was now over, and I felt myself again. In truth, it was a curious thing to happen to a man of my years and my habits; but the things I had heard had so much absorbed my attention that, while the interview lasted, I had forgotten the strange manner of the meeting. I was horrified at the extent of the girl's misery, more felt than understood from her brief description and passionate outbreaks. There is no mistaking the strength of a suffering that wastes and consumes the mortal part of us as wax melts at the fire.
And Benoni--the villain! He had written to ask Hedwig in marriage before he came to see me in Rome. There was something fiendish in his almost inviting me to see his triumph, and I cursed him as I kicked the loose stones in the road with my heavy shoes. So he was a banker, as well as a musician and a wanderer. Who would have thought it?
"One thing is clear," I said to myself, as I went to bed: "unless something is done immediately, that poor girl will consume herself and die." And all that night her poor thin face and staring eyes were in my dreams; so that I woke up several times, thinking I was trying to comfort her, and could not. But toward dawn I felt sure that Nino was coming, and that all would be well.
I was chatting with my old landlady the next morning, and smoking to pass the time, when there was suddenly a commotion in the street. That is to say, someone was arriving, and all the little children turned out in a body to run after the stranger, while the old women came to their doors with their knitting, and squinted under the bright sunlight to see what was the matter.
It was Nino, of course--my own boy, riding on a stout mule, with a countryman by his side upon another. He was dressed in plain gray clothes, and wore high boots. His great felt hat drooped half across his face, and hid his eyes from me; but there was no mistaking the stern square jaw and the close even lips. I ran toward him and called him by name. In a moment he was off his beast, and we embraced tenderly.
"Have you seen her?" were the first words he spoke. I nodded, and hurried him into the house where I lived, fearful lest some mischance should bring the party from the castle riding by. He sent his man with the mules to the inn, and when we were at last alone together he threw himself into a chair, and took off his hat.
Nino too was changed in the two months that had passed. He had travelled far, had sung lustily, and had been applauded to the skies; and he had seen the great world. But there was more than all that in his face. There were lines of care and of thought that well became his masculine features. There was a something in his look that told of a set purpose, and there was a light in his dark eyes that spoke a world of warning to anyone who might dare to thwart him. But he seemed thinner, and his cheeks were as white as the paper I write on.
Some men are born masters, and never once relax the authority they exercise on those around them. Nino has always commanded me, as he seems to command everybody else, in the fewest words possible. But he is so true and honest and brave that all who know him love him; and that is more than can be said for most artists. As he sat in his chair, hesitating what question to ask first, or waiting for me to speak, I thought that if Hedwig von Lira had searched the whole world for a man able to deliver her from her cruel father and from her hated lover she could have chosen no better champion than Nino Cardegna, the singer. Of course you all say that I am infatuated with the boy, and that I helped him to do a reckless thing, simply because I was blinded by my fondness. But I maintain, and shall ever hold, that Nino did right in this matter, and I am telling my story merely in order that honest men may judge.
He sat by the window, and the sun poured through the panes upon his curling hair, his travelling dress, and his dusty boots. The woman of the house brought in some wine and water; but he only sipped the water, and would not touch the wine.
"You are a dear, kind father to me," he said, putting out his hand from where he sat, "and before we talk I must tell you how much I thank you." Simple words, as they look on paper; but another man could not have said so much in an hour as his voice and look told me.
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"Nino mio," I began, "I saw the contessina last night. She is in a very dramatic and desperate situation. But she greets you, and looks to you to save her from her troubles." Nino's face was calm, but his voice trembled a little as he answered: "Tell me quickly, please, what the troubles are."
"Softly--I will tell you all about it. You must know that your friend Benoni is a traitor to you, and is here. Do not look astonished. He has made up his mind to marry the contessina, and she says she will die rather than take him, which is quite right of her." At the latter piece of news Nino sprang from his chair.
"You do not seriously mean that her father is trying to make her marry Benoni?" he cried.
"It is infamous, my dear boy; but it is true."
"Infamous! I should think you could find a stronger word. How did you learn this?" I detailed the circumstances of our meeting on the previous night. While I talked Nino listened with intense interest, and his face changed its look from anger to pity, and from pity to horror. When I had finished, he was silent.
"You can see for yourself," I said, "that the case is urgent."
"I will take her away," said Nino, at last. "It will be very unpleasant for the count. He would have been wiser to allow her to have her own way."
"Do nothing rash, Nino mio. Consider a little what the consequences would be if you were caught in the act of violently carrying off the daughter of a man as powerful as Von Lira."
"Bah! You talk of his power as though we lived under the Colonnesi and the Orsini, instead of under a free monarchy. If I am once married to her, what have I to fear? Do you think the count would go to law about his daughter's reputation? Or do you suppose he would try to murder me?"
"I would do both, in his place," I answered. "But perhaps you are right, and he will yield when he sees that he is outwitted. Think again, and suppose that the contessina herself objects to such a step."
"That is a different matter. She shall do nothing save by her own free will. You do not imagine I would try to take her away unless she were willing?" He sat down again beside me, and affectionately laid one hand on my shoulder.
"Women, Nino, are women," I remarked.
"Unless they are angels," he assented.
"Keep the angels for Paradise, and beware of taking them into consideration in this working-day world. I have often told you, my boy, that I am older than you."
"As if I doubted that!" he laughed.
"Very well. I know something about women. A hundred women will tell you that they are ready to flee with you; but not more than one in the hundred will really leave everything and follow you to the end of the world when the moment comes for running away. They always make a fuss at the last and say it is too dangerous, and you may be caught. That is the way of them. You will be quite ready with a ladder of ropes, like one of Boccaccio's men, and a roll of banknotes for the journey, and smelling-salts, and a cushion for the puppy dog, and a separate conveyance for the maid, just according to the directions she has given you; then, at the very last, she will perhaps say that she is afraid of hurting her father's feelings by leaving him without any warning. Be careful, Nino!"
"As for that," he answered, sullenly enough, "if she will not, she will not; and I would not attempt to persuade her against her inclination. But unless you have very much exaggerated what you saw in her face, she will be ready at five minutes' notice. It must be very like hell up there in that castle, I should think."
"Messer Diavolo, who rules over the house, will not let his prey escape him so easily as you think."
"Her father?" he asked.
"No; Benoni. There is no creature so relentless as an old man in pursuit of a young woman."
"I am not afraid of Benoni."
"You need not be afraid of her father," said I, laughing. "He is lame, and cannot run after you." I do not know why it is that we Romans laugh at lame people; we are sorry for them, of course, as we are for other cripples.
"There is something more than fear in the matter," said Nino, seriously. "It is a great thing to have upon one's soul."
"What?" I asked.
"To take a daughter away from her father without his consent,--or at least without consulting him. I would not like to do it."
"Do you mean to ask the old gentleman's consent before eloping with his daughter? You are a little donkey, Nino, upon my word."
"Donkey, or anything else you like, but I will act like a galantuomo. I will see the count, and ask him once more whether he is willing to let his daughter marry me. If not, so much the worse; he will be warned."
"Look here, Nino," I said, astonished at the idea. "I have taught you a little logic. Suppose you meant to steal a horse instead of a woman. Would you go to the owner of the horse, with your hat in your hand, and say, 'I trust your worship will not be offended if I steal this horse, which seems to be a good animal and pleases me'; and then would you expect him to allow you to steal his horse?"
"Sor Cornelio, the case is not the same. Women have a right to be free, and to marry whom they please; but horses are slaves. However, as I am not a thief, I would certainly ask the man for the horse; and if he refused it, and I conceived that I had a right to have it, I would take it by force and not by stealth."
"It appears to me that if you meant to get possession of what was not yours, you might as well get it in the easiest possible way," I objected. "But we need not argue the case. There is a much better reason why you should not consult the count."
"I do not believe it," said Nino, stubbornly.
"Nevertheless, it is so. The Contessina di Lira is desperately unhappy, and if nothing is done she may die. Young women have died of broken hearts before now. You have no right to endanger her life by risking failure. Answer me that, if you can, and I will grant you are a cunning sophist, but not a good lover."
"There is reason in what you say now," he answered. "I had not thought of that desperateness of the case which you speak of. You have seen her." He buried his face in his hand, and seemed to be thinking.
"Yes, I have seen her, and I wish you had been in my place. You would think differently about asking her father's leave to rescue her." From having been anxious to prevent anything rash, it seemed that I was now urging him into the very jaws of danger. I think that Hedwig's face was before me, as it had been in reality on the previous evening. "As Curione said to Caesar, delay is injurious to anyone who is fully prepared for action. I remember also to have read somewhere that such waste of time in diplomacy and palavering is the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds, who regard the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as an evidence of the most admirable and consummate prudence."
"Oh, you need not use so much learning with me," said Nino. "I assure you that I will be neither dilatory nor ambiguous. In fact, I will go at once, without even dusting my boots, and I will say, Give me your daughter, if you can; and if you cannot, I will still hope to marry her. He will probably say 'No,' and then I will carry her off. It appears to me that is simple enough."
"Take my advice, Nino. Carry her off first, and ask permission afterwards. It is much better. The real master up there is Benoni, I fancy, and not the count. Benoni is a gentleman who will give you much trouble. If you go now to see Hedwig's father, Benoni will be present at the interview." Nino was silent, and sat stretching his legs before him, his head on his breast. "Benoni," I continued, "has made up his mind to succeed. He has probably taken this fancy into his head out of pure wickedness. Perhaps he is bored, and really wants a wife. But I believe he is a man who delights in cruelty, and would as lief break the contessina's heart by getting rid of you as by marrying her." I saw that he was not listening.
"I have an idea," he said at last. "You are not very wise, Messer Cornelio, and you counsel me to be prudent and to be rash in the same breath."
"You make very pretty compliments, Sor Nino," I answered, tartly. He put out his hand deprecatingly.
"You are as wise as any man can be who is not in love," he said, looking at me with his great eyes. "But love is the best counsellor."
"What is your idea?" I asked, somewhat pacified.
"You say they ride together every day. Yes--very good. The contessina will not ride to-day, partly because she will be worn out with fatigue from last night's interview, and partly because she will make an effort to discover whether I have arrived to-day or not. You can count on that."
"I imagine so."
"Very well," he continued; "in that case, one or two things will happen: either the count will go out alone, or they will all stay at home."
"Why will Benoni not go out with the count?"
"Because Benoni will hope to see Hedwig alone if he stays at home, and the count will be very glad to give him the opportunity."
"I think you are right, Nino. You are not so stupid as I thought."
"In war," continued the boy, "a general gains a great advantage by separating his adversary's forces. If the count goes out alone, I will present myself to him in the road, and tell him what I want."
"Now you are foolish again. You should, on the contrary, enter the house when the count is away, and take the signorina with you then and there. Before he could return you would be miles on the road to Rome."
"In the first place, I tell you once and for all, Sor Cornelio," he said, slowly, "that such an action would be dishonourable, and I will not do anything of the kind. Moreover, you forget that, if I followed your advice, I should find Benoni at home,--the very man from whom you think I have everything to fear. No; I must give the count one fair chance." I was silent, for I saw he was determined, and yet I would not let him think I was satisfied.
The idea of losing an advantage by giving an enemy any sort of warning before the attack seemed to me novel in the extreme; but I comprehended that Nino saw in his scheme a satisfaction to his conscience, and smelled in it a musty odour of forgotten knight-errantry that he had probably learned to love in his theatrical experiences. I had certainly not expected that Nino Cardegna, the peasant child, would turn out to be the pink of chivalry and the mirror of honour. But I could not help admiring his courage, and wondering if it would not play him false at the perilous moment. I did not half know him then, though he had been with me for so many years. But I was very anxious to ascertain from him what he meant to do, for I feared that his bold action would make trouble, and I had visions of the count and Benoni together taking sudden and summary vengeance on myself.
"Nino," I said, "I have made great sacrifices to help you in finding these people,"--I would not tell him I had sold my vineyard to make preparations for a longer journey, though he has since found it out,--"but if you are going to do anything rash I will get on my little ass and ride a few miles from the village until it is over." Nino laughed aloud.
"My dear professor," he said, "do not be afraid. I will give you plenty of time to get out of the way. Meanwhile, the contessina is certain to send the confidential servant of whom you speak to give me instructions. If I am not here, you ought to be, in order to receive the message. Now listen to me."
I prepared to be attentive and to hear his scheme. I was by no means expecting the plan he proposed.
"The count may take it into his head to ride at a different hour, if he rides alone," he began. "I will therefore have my mule saddled now, and will station my man--a countryman from Subiaco and good for any devilry--in some place where he can watch the entrance to the house, or the castle, or whatever you call this place. So soon as he sees the count come out he will call me. As a man can ride in only one of two directions in this valley, I shall have no trouble whatever in meeting the old gentleman, even if I cannot overtake him with my mule."
"Have you any arms, Nino?"
"No. I do not want weapons to face an old man in broad daylight; and he is too much of a soldier to attack me if I am defenceless. If the servant comes after I am gone, you must remember every detail of what he says, and you must also arrange a little matter with him. Here is money, as much as will keep any Roman servant quiet. The man will be rich before we have done with him. I will write a letter which he must deliver; but he must also know what he has to do.
"At twelve o'clock to-night the contessina must positively be at the door of the staircase by which you entered yesterday. _Positively_--do you understand? She will then choose for herself between what she is suffering now and flight with me. If she chooses to fly, my mules and my countryman will be ready. The servant who admits me had better make the best of his way to Rome, with the money he has got. There will be difficulties in the way of getting the contessina to the staircase, especially as the count will be in a towering passion with me, and will not sleep much. But he will not have the smallest idea that I shall act so suddenly, and he will fancy that when once his daughter is safe within the walls for the night she will not think of escaping. I do not believe he even knows of the existence of this staircase. At all events, it appears, from your success in bribing the first man you met, that the servants are devoted to her interests and their own and not at all to those of her father."
"I cannot conceive, Nino," said I, "why you do not put this bold plan into execution without seeing the count first, and making the whole thing so dangerous. If he takes alarm in the night he will catch you fast enough on his good horses before you are at Trevi."
"I am determined to act as I propose," said Nino, "because it is a thousand times more honourable, and because I am certain that the contessina would not have me act otherwise. She will also see for herself that flight is best; for I am sure the count will make a scene of some kind when he comes home from meeting me. If she knows she can escape to-night she will not suffer from what he has to say; but she will understand that without the prospect of freedom she would suffer very much."
"Where did you learn to understand women, my boy?" I asked.
"I do not understand women in general," he answered, "but I understand very well the only woman who exists for me personally. I know that she is the soul of honour, and that at the same time she has enough common sense to perceive the circumstances of the situation."
"But how will you make sure of not being overtaken?" I objected, making a last feeble stand against his plan.
"That is simple enough. My countryman from Subiaco knows every inch of these hills. He says that the pass above Fillettino is impracticable for any animals save men, mules, and donkeys. A horse would roll down at every turn. My mules are the best of their kind, and there are none like them here. By sunrise I shall be over the Serra and well on the way to Ceprano, or whatever place I may choose for joining the railroad."
"And I? Will you leave me here to be murdered by that Prussian devil?" I asked, in some alarm.
"Why, no, padre mio. If you like, you can start for Rome at sunset, or as soon as I return from meeting the count; or you can get on your donkey and go up the pass, where we shall overtake you. Nobody will harm you, in your disguise, and your donkey is even more surefooted than my mules. It will be a bright night, too, for the moon is full."
"Well, well, Nino," said I at last, "I suppose you will have your own way, as you always do in the world. And if it must be so, I will go up the pass alone, for I am not afraid at all. It would be against all the proprieties that you should be riding through a wild country alone at night with the young lady you intend to marry; and if I go with you there will be nothing to be said, for I am a very proper person, and hold a responsible position in Rome. But for charity's sake, do not undertake anything of this kind again--" "Again?" exclaimed Nino, in surprise. "Do you expect me to spend my life in getting married,--not to say in eloping?"
"Well, I trust that you will have enough of it this time."
"I cannot conceive that when a man has once married the woman he loves he should ever look at another," said Nino, gravely.
"You are a most blessed fellow," I exclaimed.
Nino found my writing materials, which consisted of a bad steel pen, some coarse ruled paper, and a wretched little saucer of ink, and began writing an epistle to the contessina. I watched him as he wrote, and I smoked a little to pass the time. As I looked at him I came to the conclusion that to-day, at least, he was handsome. His thick hair curled about his head, and his white skin was as pale and clear as milk. I thought that his complexion had grown less dark than it used to be, perhaps from being so much in the theatre at night. That takes the dark blood out of the cheeks. But any woman would have looked twice at him. Besides, there was, as there is now, a certain marvellous neatness and spotlessness about his dress; but for his dusty boots you would not have guessed he had been travelling. Poor Nino. When he had not a penny in the world but what he earned by copying music, he used to spend it all with the washerwoman, so that Mariuccia was often horrified, and I reproved him for the extravagance.
At last he finished writing, and put his letter into the only envelope there was left. He gave it to me, and said he would go out and order his mules to be ready.
"I may be gone all day," he said, "and I may return in a few hours. I cannot tell. In any case, wait for me, and give the letter and all instructions to the man, if he comes." Then he thanked me once more very affectionately, and having embraced me he went out.
I watched him from the window, and he looked up and waved his hand. I remember it very distinctly--just how he looked. His face was paler than ever, his lips were close set, though they smiled, and his eyes were sad. He is an incomprehensible boy--he always was.
I was left alone, with plenty of time for meditation, and I assure you my reflections were not pleasant. O love, love, what madness you drive us into, by day and night! Surely it is better to be a sober professor of philosophy than to be in love, ever so wildly, or sorrowfully, or happily. I do not wonder that a parcel of idiots have tried to prove that Dante loved philosophy and called it Beatrice. He would have been a sober professor, if that were true, and a happier man. But I am sure it is not true, for I was once in love myself.
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It fell out as Nino had anticipated, and when he told me all the details, some time afterwards, it struck me that he had shown an uncommon degree of intelligence in predicting that the old count would ride alone that day. He had, indeed, so made his arrangements that even if the whole party had come out together nothing worse would have occurred than a postponement of the interview he sought. But he was destined to get what he wanted that very day, namely, an opportunity of speaking with Von Lira alone.
It was twelve o'clock when he left me, and the mid-day bell was ringing from the church, while the people bustled about getting their food. Every old woman had a piece of corn cake, and the ragged children got what they could, gathering the crumbs in their mothers' aprons. A few rough fellows who were not away at work in the valley munched the maize bread with a leek and a bit of salt fish, and some of them had oil on it. Our mountain people eat scarcely anything else, unless it be a little meat on holidays, or an egg when the hens are laying. But they laugh and chatter over the coarse fare, and drink a little wine when they can get it. Just now, however, was the season for fasting, being the end of Holy Week, and the people made a virtue of necessity, and kept their eggs and their wine for Easter.
When Nino went out he found his countryman, and explained to him what he was to do. The man saddled one of the mules and put himself on the watch, while Nino sat by the fire in the quaint old inn and ate some bread. It was the end of March when these things happened, and a little fire was grateful, though one could do very well without it. He spread his hands to the flame of the sticks, as he sat on the wooden settle by the old hearth, and he slowly gnawed his corn cake, as though a week before he had not been a great man in Paris, dining sumptuously with famous people. He was not thinking of that. He was looking in the flame for a fair face that he saw continually before him, day and night. He expected to wait a long time,--some hours, perhaps.
Twenty minutes had not elapsed, however, before his man came breathless through the door, calling to him to come at once; for the solitary rider had gone out, as was expected, and at a pace that would soon take him out of sight. Nino threw his corn bread to a hungry dog that yelped as it hit him, and then fastened on it like a beast of prey.
In the twinkling of an eye he and his man were out of the inn. As they ran to the place where the mule was tied to an old ring in the crumbling wall of a half-ruined house near to the ascent to the castle, the man told Nino that the fine gentleman had ridden toward Trevi, down the valley, Nino mounted, and hastened in the same direction.
As he rode he reflected that it would be wiser to meet the count on his return, and pass him after the interview, as though going away from Fillettino. It would be a little harder for the mule; but such an animal, used to bearing enormous burdens for twelve hours at a stretch, could well carry Nino only a few miles of good road before sunset, and yet be fresh again by midnight. One of those great sleek mules, if good-tempered, will tire three horses, and never feel the worse for it. He therefore let the beast go her own pace along the road to Trevi, winding by the brink of the rushing torrent: sometimes beneath great overhanging cliffs, sometimes through bits of cultivated land, where the valley widens; and now and then passing under some beech-trees, still naked and skeleton-like in the bright March air.
But Nino rode many miles, as he thought, without meeting the count, dangling his feet out of the stirrups, and humming snatches of song to himself to pass the time. He looked at his watch,--a beautiful gold one, given him by a very great personage in Paris,--and it was half-past two o'clock. Then, to avoid tiring his mule, he got off and sat by a tree, at a place where he could see far along the road. But three o'clock came, and a quarter past, and he began to fear that the count had gone all the way to Trevi. Indeed, Trevi could not be very far off, he thought. So he mounted again, and paced down the valley. He says that in all that time he never thought once of what he should say to the count when he met him, having determined in his mind once and for all what was to be asked; to which the only answer must be "yes" or "no."
At last, before he reached the turn in the valley, and just as the sun was passing down behind the high mountains on the left, beyond the stream, he saw the man he had come out to meet, not a hundred yards away, riding toward him on his great horse, at a foot pace. It was the count, and he seemed lost in thought, for his head was bent on his breast, and the reins hung carelessly loose from his hand. He did not raise his eyes until he was close to Nino, who took off his hat and pulled up short.
The old count was evidently very much surprised, for he suddenly straightened himself in his saddle, with a sort of jerk, and glared savagely at Nino; his wooden features appearing to lose colour, and his long moustache standing out and bristling. He also reined in his horse, and the pair sat on their beasts, not five yards apart, eying each other like a pair of duelists. Nino was the first to speak, for he was prepared.
"Good day, Signor Conte," he said, as calmly as he could. "You have not forgotten me, I am sure." Lira looked more and more amazed as he observed the cool courtesy with which he was accosted. But his polite manner did not desert him even then, for he raised his hat.
"Good-day," he said, briefly, and made his horse move on. He was too proud to put the animal to a brisker pace than a walk, lest he should seem to avoid an enemy. But Nino turned his mule at the same time.
"Pardon the liberty, sir," he said, "but I would take advantage of this opportunity to have a few words with you."
"It is a liberty, as you say, sir," replied Lira, stiffly, and looking straight before him. "But since you have met me, say what you have to say quickly." He talked in the same curious constructions as formerly, but I will spare you the grammatical vagaries.
"Some time has elapsed," continued Nino, "since our unfortunate encounter. I have been in Paris, where I have had more than common success in my profession. From being a very poor teacher of Italian to the signorina, your daughter, I am become an exceedingly prosperous artist. My character is blameless and free from all stain, in spite of the sad business in which we were both concerned, and of which you knew the truth from the dead lady's own lips."
"What then?" growled Lira, who had listened grimly, and was fast losing his temper. "What then? Do you suppose, Signor Cardegna, that I am still interested in your comings and goings?"
"The sequel to what I have told you, sir," answered Nino, bowing again, and looking very grave, "is that I once more most respectfully and honestly ask you to give me the hand of your daughter, the Signorina Hedwig von Lira."
The hot blood flushed the old soldier's hard features to the roots of his gray hair, and his voice trembled as he answered: "Do you intend to insult me, sir? If so, this quiet road is a favourable spot for settling the question. It shall never be said that an officer in the service of his majesty the King and Emperor refused to fight with anyone,--with his tailor, if need be." He reined his horse from Nino's side, and eyed him fiercely.
"Signor Conte," answered Nino, calmly, "nothing could be further from my thoughts than to insult you, or to treat you in any way with disrespect. And I will not acknowledge that anything you can say can convey an insult to myself." Lira smiled in a sardonic fashion. "But," added Nino, "if it would give you any pleasure to fight, and if you have weapons, I shall be happy to oblige you. It is a quiet spot, as you say, and it shall never be said that an Italian artist refused to fight a German soldier."
"I have two pistols in my holsters," said Lira, with a smile. "The roads are not safe, and I always carry them."
"Then, sir, be good enough to select one and to give me the other, and we will at once proceed to business."
The count's manner changed. He looked grave.
"I have the pistols, Signor Cardegna, but I do not desire to use them. Your readiness satisfies me that you are in earnest, and we will therefore not fight for amusement. I need not defend myself from any charge of unwillingness, I believe," he added, proudly.
"In that case, sir," said Nino, "and since we have convinced each other that we are serious and desire to be courteous, let us converse calmly."
"Have you anything more to say?" asked the count, once more allowing his horse to pace along the dusty road, while Nino's mule walked by his side.
"I have this to say, Signor Conte," answered Nino: "that I shall not desist from desiring the honour of marrying your daughter, if you refuse me a hundred times. I wish to put it to you whether with youth, some talent,--I speak modestly,--and the prospect of a plentiful income, I am not as well qualified to aspire to the alliance as Baron Benoni, who has old age, much talent, an enormous fortune, and the benefit of the Jewish faith into the bargain."
The count winced palpably at the mention of Benoni's religion. No people are more insanely prejudiced against the Hebrew race than the Germans. They indeed maintain that they have greater cause than others, but it always appears to me that they are unreasonable about it. Benoni chanced to be a Jew, but his peculiarities would have been the same had he been a Christian or an American. There is only one Ahasuerus Benoni in the world.
"There is no question of Baron Benoni here," said the count severely, but hurriedly. "Your observations are beside the mark. The objections to the alliance, as you call it, are that you are a man of the people,--I do not desire to offend you,--a plebeian, in fact; you are also a man of uncertain fortune, like all singers: and lastly, you are an artist. I trust you will consider these points as a sufficient reason for my declining the honour you propose."
"I will only say," returned Nino, "that I venture to consider your reasons insufficient, though I do not question your decision. Baron Benoni was ennobled for a loan made to a Government in difficulties; he was, by his own account, a shoemaker by early occupation, and a strolling musician--a great artist if you like--by the profession he adopted."
"I never heard these facts," said Lira, "and I suspect that you have been misinformed. But I do not wish to continue the discussion of the subject."
Nino says that after the incident of the pistols the interview passed without the slightest approach to ill-temper on either side. They both felt that if they disagreed they were prepared to settle their difficulties then and there, without any further ado.
"Then, sir, before we part, permit me to call your attention to a matter which must be of importance to you," said Nino. "I refer to the happiness of the Signorina di Lira. In spite of your refusal of my offer, you will understand that the welfare of that lady must always be to me of the greatest importance."
Lira bowed his head stiffly, and seemed inclined to speak, but changed his mind, and held his tongue, to see what Nino would say.
"You will comprehend, I am sure," continued the latter, "that in the course of those months, during which I was so far honoured as to be of service to the contessina, I had opportunities of observing her remarkably gifted intelligence. I am now credibly informed that she is suffering from ill health. I have not seen her, nor made any attempt to see her, as you might have supposed, but I have an acquaintance in Fillettino who has seen her pass his door daily. Allow me to remark that a mind of such rare qualities must grow sick if driven to feed upon itself in solitude. I would respectfully suggest that some gayer residence than Fillettino would be a sovereign remedy for her illness."
"Your tone and manner," replied the count, "forbid my resenting your interference. I have no reason to doubt your affection for my daughter, but I must request you to abandon all idea of changing my designs. If I choose to bring my daughter to a true sense of her position by somewhat rigorous methods, it is because I am aware that the frailty of reputation surpasses the frailty of woman. I will say this to your credit, sir, that if she has not disgraced herself, it has been in some measure because you wisely forbore from pressing your suit while you were received as an instructor beneath my roof. I am only doing my duty in trying to make her understand that her good name has been seriously exposed, and that the best reparation she can make lies in following my wishes, and accepting the honourable and advantageous marriage I have provided for her. I trust that this explanation, which I am happy to say has been conducted with the strictest propriety, will be final, and that you will at once desist from any further attempts toward persuading me to consent to a union that I disapprove."
Lira once more stopped his horse in the road, and taking off his hat bowed to Nino.
"And I, sir," said Nino, no less courteously, "am obliged to you for your clearly-expressed answer. I shall never cease to regret your decision, and so long as I live I shall hope that you may change your mind. Good-day, Signor Conte," and he bowed to his saddle.
"Good-day, Signor Cardegna." So they parted: the count heading homeward toward Fillettino, and Nino turning back toward Trevi.
By this manoeuvre he conveyed to the count's mind the impression that he had been to Fillettino for the day, and was returning to Trevi for the evening; and in reality the success of his enterprise, since his representations had failed, must depend upon Hedwig being comparatively free during the ensuing night. He determined to wait by the roadside until it should be dark, allowing his mule to crop whatever poor grass she could find at this season, and thus giving the count time to reach Fillettino, even at the most leisurely pace.
He sat down upon the root of a tree, and allowed his mule to graze at liberty. It was already growing dark in the valley; for between the long speeches of civility the two had employed and the frequent pauses in the interview, the meeting had lasted the greater part of an hour.
Nino says that while he waited he reviewed his past life and his present situation.
Indeed, since he had made his first appearance in the theatre, three months before, events had crowded thick and fast in his life. The first sensation of a great public success is strange to one who has long been accustomed to live unnoticed and unhonoured by the world. It is at first incomprehensible that one should have suddenly grown to be an object of interest and curiosity to one's fellow-creatures, after having been so long a looker-on. At first a man does not realise that the thing he has laboured over, and studied, and worked on, can be actually anything remarkable. The production of the every-day task has long grown a habit, and the details which the artist grows to admire and love so earnestly have each brought with them their own reward. Every difficulty vanquished, every image of beauty embodied, every new facility of skill acquired, has been in itself a real and enduring satisfaction for its own sake, and for the sake of its fitness to the whole,--the beautiful perfect whole he has conceived.
But he must necessarily forget, if he loves his work, that those who come after, and are to see the expression of his thought, or hear the mastery of his song, see or hear it all at once; so that the assemblage of the lesser beauties, over each of which the artist has had great joy, must produce a suddenly multiplied impression upon the understanding of the outside world, which sees first the embodiment of the thought, and has then the after-pleasure of appreciating the details. The hearer is thrilled with a sense of impassioned beauty, which the singer may perhaps feel when he first conceives the interpretation of the printed notes, but which goes over farther from him as he strives to approach it and realise it; and so his admiration for his own song is lost in dissatisfaction with the failings which others have not time to see.
Before he is aware of the change, a singer has become famous, and all men are striving for a sight of him, or a hearing. There are few like Nino, whose head was not turned at all by the flattery and the praise, being occupied with other things. As he sat by the roadside, he thought of the many nights when the house rang with cheers and cries and all manner of applause; and he remembered how, each time he looked his audience in the face, he had searched for the one face of all faces that he cared to see, and had searched in vain.
He seemed now to understand that it was his honest-hearted love for the fair northern girl that had protected him from caring for the outer world, and he now realised what the outer world was. He fancied to himself what his first three months of brilliant success might have been, in Rome and Paris, if he had not been bound by some strong tie of the heart to keep him serious and thoughtful. He thought of the women who had smiled upon him, and of the invitations that had besieged him, and of the consternation that had manifested itself when he declared his intention of retiring to Rome, after his brilliant engagement in Paris, without signing any further contract.
Then came the rapid journey, the excitement, the day in Rome, the difficulties of finding Fillettino; and at last he was here, sitting by the roadside, and waiting for it to be time to carry into execution the bold scheme he had set before him. His conscience was at rest, for he now felt that he had done all that the most scrupulous honour could exact of him. He had returned in the midst of his success to make an honourable offer of marriage, and he had been refused,--because he was a plebeian, forsooth! And he knew also that the woman he loved was breaking her heart for him.
What wonder that he set his teeth, and said to himself that she should be his, at any price! Nino has no absurd ideas about the ridicule that attaches to loving a woman, and taking her if necessary. He has not been trained up in the heart of the wretched thing they call society, which ruined me long ago. What he wants he asks for, like a child, and if it is refused, and his good heart tells him that he has a right to it, he takes it like a man, or like what a man was in the old time before the Englishman discovered that he is an ape. Ah, my learned colleagues, we are not so far removed from the ancestral monkey but that there is serious danger of our shortly returning to that primitive and caudal state! And I think that my boy and the Prussian officer, as they sat on their beasts and bowed, and smiled, and offered to fight each other, or to shake hands, each desiring to oblige the other, like a couple of knights of the old ages, were a trifle farther removed from our common gorilla parentage than some of us.
But it grew dark, and Nino caught his mule and rode slowly back to the town, wondering what would happen before the sun rose on the other side of the world. Now, lest you fail to understand wholly how the matter passed, I must tell you a little of what took place during the time that Nino was waiting for the count, and Hedwig was alone in the castle with Baron Benoni. The way I came to know is this: Hedwig told the whole story to Nino, and Nino told it to me,--but many months after that eventful day, which I shall always consider as one of the most remarkable in my life. It was Good Friday, last year, and you may find out the day of the month for yourselves.
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As Nino had guessed, the count was glad of a chance to leave his daughter alone with Benoni, and it was for this reason that he had ridden out so early. The baron's originality and extraordinary musical talent seemed to Lira gifts which a woman needed only to see in order to appreciate, and which might well make her forget his snowy locks. During the time of Benoni's visit the count had not yet been successful in throwing the pair together, for Hedwig's dislike for the baron made her exert her tact to the utmost in avoiding his society.
It so happened that Hedwig, rising early, and breathing the sweet, cool air from the window of her chamber, had seen Nino ride by on his mule, when he arrived in the morning. He did not see her, for the street merely passed the corner of the great pile, and it was only by stretching her head far out that Hedwig could get a glimpse of it. But it amused her to watch the country people going by, with their mules and donkeys and hampers, or loads of firewood; and she would often lean over the window-sill for half an hour at a time gazing at the little stream of mountain life, and sometimes weaving small romances of the sturdy brown women and their active, dark-browed shepherd lovers. Moreover, she fully expected that Nino would arrive that day, and had some faint hope of seeing him go along the road. So she was rewarded, and the sight of the man she loved was the first breath of freedom.
In a great house like the strange abode Lira had selected for the seclusion of his daughter, it constantly occurs that one person is in ignorance of the doings of the others; and so it was natural that when Hedwig heard the clatter of hoofs in the courtyard, and the echoing crash of the great doors as they opened and closed, she should think both her father and Benoni had ridden away, and would be gone for the morning. She would not look out, lest she should see them and be seen.
I cannot tell you exactly what she felt when she saw Nino from her lofty window, but she was certainly glad with her whole heart. If she had not known of his coming from my visit the previous evening, she would perhaps have given way to some passionate outburst of happiness; but as it was, the feeling of anticipation, the sweet, false dawn of freedom, together with the fact that she was prepared, took from this first pleasure all that was overwhelming. She only felt that he had come, and that she would soon be saved from Benoni; she could not tell how, but she knew it, and smiled to herself for the first time in months, as she held a bit of jewelry to her slender throat before the glass, wondering whether she had not grown too thin and pale to please her lover, who had been courted by the beauties of the world since he had left her.
She was ill, perhaps, and tired. That was why she looked pale; but she knew that the first day of freedom would make her as beautiful as ever. She spent the morning hours in her rooms; but when she heard the gates close she fancied herself alone in the great house, and went down into the sunny courtyard to breathe the air, and to give certain instructions to her faithful man. She sent him to my house to speak with me; and that was all the message he had for the present. However, he knew well enough what he was to do. There was a strong smell of banknotes in the air, and the man kept his nose up.
Having despatched this important business, Hedwig set herself to walk up and down the paved quadrangle on the sunny side. There was a stone bench in a warm corner that looked inviting. She entered the house and brought out a book, with which she established herself to read. She had often longed to sit there in the afternoon and watch the sun creeping across the flags, pursued by the shadow, till each small bit of moss and blade of grass had received its daily portion of warmth. For though the place had been cleared and weeded, the tiny green things still grew in the chinks of the pavement. In the middle of the court was a well with a cover and yoke of old-fashioned twisted iron and a pulley to draw the water. The air was bright and fresh outside the castle, but the reverberating rays of the sun made the quiet courtyard warm and still.
Sick with her daily torture of mind the fair, pale girl rested her, at last, and dreaming of liberty drew strength from the soft stillness. The book fell on her lap, her head leaned back against the rough stones of the wall, and gradually, as she watched from beneath her half-closed lids the play of the stealing sunlight, she fell into a sweet sleep.
She was soon disturbed by that indescribable uneasiness that creeps through our dreams when we are asleep in the presence of danger. A weird horror possesses us, and makes the objects in the dream appear unnatural. Gradually the terror grows on us and thrills us, and we wake, with bristling hair and staring eyes, to the hideous consciousness of unexpected peril.
Hedwig started and raised her lids, following the direction of her dream. She was not mistaken. Opposite her stood her arch-horror, Benoni. He leaned carelessly against the stone well, and his bright brown eyes were riveted upon her. His tall, thin figure was clad, as usual, in all the extreme of fashion, and one of his long, bony hands toyed with his watch-chain. His animated face seemed aglow with the pleasure of contemplation, and the sunshine lent a yellow tinge to his snowy hair.
"An exquisite picture, indeed, countess," he said, without moving. "I trust your dreams were as sweet as they looked?"
"They were sweet, sir," she answered coldly, after a moment's pause, during which she looked steadily toward him.
"I regret that I should have disturbed them," he said, with a deferential bow; and he came and sat by her side, treading as lightly as a boy across the flags. Hedwig shuddered and drew her dark skirts about her as he sat down.
"You cannot regret it more than I do," she said, in tones of ice. She would not take refuge in the house, for it would have seemed like an ignominious flight. Benoni crossed one leg over the other, and asked permission to smoke, which she granted by an indifferent motion of her fair head.
"So we are left all alone to-day, countess," remarked Benoni, blowing rings of smoke in the quiet air.
Hedwig vouchsafed no answer.
"We are left alone," he repeated, seeing that she was silent, "and I make it hereby my business and my pleasure to amuse you."
"You are good, sir. But I thank you. I need no entertainment of your devising."
"That is eminently unfortunate," returned the baron, with his imperturbable smile, "for I am universally considered to be the most amusing of mortals,--if, indeed, I am mortal at all, which I sometimes doubt."
"Do you reckon yourself with the gods, then?" asked Hedwig scornfully. "Which of them are you? Jove? Dionysus? Apollo?"
"Nay, rather Phaethon, who soared too high--" "Your mythology is at fault, sir,--he drove too low; and besides, he was not immortal."
"It is the same. He was wide of the mark, as I am. Tell me, countess, are your wits always so ready?"
"You, at least, will always find them so," she answered, bitterly.
"You are unkind. You stab my vanity, as you have pierced my heart."
At this speech Hedwig raised her eyebrows and stared at him in silence. Any other man would have taken the chilling rebuke and left her. Benoni put on a sad expression.
"You used not to hate me as you do now," he said.
"That is true. I hated you formerly because I hated you."
"And now?" asked Benoni, with a short laugh.
"I hate you now because I loathe you." She uttered this singular saying indifferently, as being part of her daily thoughts.
"You have the courage of your opinions, countess," he replied, with a very bitter smile.
"Yes? It is only the courage a woman need have." There was a pause, during which Benoni puffed much smoke and stroked his white moustache. Hedwig turned over the leaves of her book, as though hinting to him to go. But he had no idea of that. A man who will not go because a woman loathes him will certainly not leave her for a hint.
"Countess," he began again, at last, "will you listen to me?"
"I suppose I must. I presume my father has left you here to insult me at your noble leisure."
"Ah, countess, dear countess,"--she shrank away from him,--"you should know me better than to believe me capable of anything so monstrous. I insult you? Gracious heaven! I, who adore you; who worship the holy ground whereon you tread; who would preserve the precious air you have breathed in vessels of virgin crystal; who would give a drop of my blood for every word you vouchsafe me, kind or cruel,--I, who look on you as the only divinity in this desolate heathen world, who reverence you and do you daily homage, who adore you--" "You manifest your adoration in a singular manner, sir," said Hedwig, interrupting him with something of her father's severity.
"I show it as best I can," the old scoundrel pleaded, working himself into a passion of words. "My life, my fortune, my name, my honour,--I cast them at your feet. For you I will be a hermit, a saint, dwelling in solitary places and doing good works; or I will brave every danger the narrow earth holds, by sea and land, for you. What? Am I decrepit, or bent, or misshapen, that my white hair should cry out against me? Am I hideous, or doting, or half-witted, as old men are? I am young; I am strong, active, enduring. I have all the gifts, for you."
The baron was speaking French, and perhaps these wild praises of himself might pass current in a foreign language. But when Nino detailed the conversation to me in our good, simple Italian speech, it sounded so amazingly ridiculous that I nearly broke my sides with laughing.
Hedwig laughed also, and so loudly that the foolish old man was disconcerted. He had succeeded in amusing her sooner than he had expected. As I have told you, the baron is a most impulsive person, though he is poisoned with evil from his head to his heart.
"All women are alike," he said, and his manner suddenly changed.
"I fancy," said Hedwig, recovering from her merriment, "that if you address them as you have addressed me you will find them very much alike indeed."
"What good can women do in the world?" sighed Benoni, as though speaking with himself. "You do nothing but harm with your cold calculations and your bitter jests." Hedwig was silent. "Tell me," he continued presently, "if I speak soberly, by the card as it were, will you listen to me?"
"Oh, I have said that I will listen to you!" cried Hedwig, losing patience.
"Hedwig von Lira, I hereby offer you my fortune, my name, and myself. I ask you to marry me of your own good will and pleasure." Hedwig once more raised her brows.
"Baron Benoni, I will not marry you, either for your fortune, your name, or yourself,--nor for any other consideration under heaven. And I will ask you not to address me by my Christian name." There was a long silence after this speech, and Benoni carefully lighted a second cigarette. Hedwig would have risen and entered the house, but she felt safer in the free air of the sunny court. As for Benoni, he had no intention of going.
"I suppose you are aware, countess," he said at last, coldly eying her, "that your father has set his heart upon our union?"
"I am aware of it."
"But you are not aware of the consequences of your refusal. I am your only chance of freedom. Take me, and you have the world at your feet. Refuse me, and you will languish in this hideous place so long as your affectionate father pleases."
"Do you know my father so little, sir," asked Hedwig very proudly, "as to suppose that his daughter will ever yield to force?"
"It is one thing to talk of not yielding, and it is quite another to bear prolonged suffering with constancy," returned Benoni coolly, as though he were discussing a general principle instead of expounding to a woman the fate she had to expect if she refused to marry him. "I never knew anyone who did not talk bravely of resisting torture until it was applied. Oh, you will be weak at the end, countess, believe me. You are weak now; and changed, though perhaps you would be better pleased if I did not notice it. Yes, I smile now,--I laugh. I can afford to. You can be merry over me because I love you, but I can be merry at what you must suffer if you will not love me. Do not look so proud, countess. You know what follows pride, if the proverb lies not."
During this insulting speech Hedwig had risen to her feet, and in the act to go she turned and looked at him in utter scorn. She could not comprehend the nature of a man who could so coldly threaten her. If ever anyone of us can fathom Benoni's strange character we may hope to understand that phase of it along with the rest.
He seemed as indifferent to his own mistakes and follies as to the sufferings of others.
"Sir," she said, "whatever may be the will of my father, I will not permit you to discuss it, still less to hold up his anger as a threat to scare me. You need not follow me," she added, as he rose.
"I will follow you, whether you wish it or not, countess," he said, fiercely; and, as she flew across the court to the door he strode swiftly by her side, hissing his words into her ear. "I will follow you to tell you that I know more of you than you think, and I know how little right you have to be so proud. I know your lover. I know of your meetings, your comings and your goings--" They reached the door, but Benoni barred the way with his long arm, and seemed about to lay a hand upon her wrist, so that she shrank back against the heavy doorpost in an agony of horror and loathing and wounded pride. "I know Cardegna, and I knew the poor baroness who killed herself because he basely abandoned her. Ah, you never heard the truth before? I trust it is pleasant to you. As he left her he has left you. He will never come back. I saw him in Paris three weeks ago. I could tell tales not fit for your ears. And for him you will die in this horrible place unless you consent. For him you have thrown away everything,--name, fame, and happiness,--unless you will take all these from me. Oh, I know you will cry out that it is untrue; but my eyes are good, though you call me old! For this treacherous boy, with his curly hair, you have lost the only thing that makes woman human,--your reputation!" And Benoni laughed that horrid laugh of his, till the court rang again, as though there were devils in every corner, and beneath every eave and everywhere.
People who are loud in their anger are sometimes dangerous, for it is genuine while it lasts. People whose anger is silent are generally either incapable of honest wrath or cowards. But there are some in the world whose passion shows itself in few words but strong ones, and proceeds instantly to action.
Hedwig had stood back against the stone casing of the entrance, at first, overcome with the intensity of what she suffered. But as Benoni laughed she moved slowly forward till she was close to him, and only his outstretched arm barred the doorway.
"Every word you have spoken is a lie, and you know it. Let me pass, or I will kill you with my hands!"
The words came low and distinct to his excited ear, like the tolling of a passing bell. Her face must have been dreadful to see, and Benoni was suddenly fascinated and terrified at the concentrated anger that blazed in her blue eyes. His arm dropped to his side, and Hedwig passed proudly through the door, in all the majesty of innocence gathering her skirts, lest they should touch his feet or any part of him. She never hastened her step as she ascended the broad stairs within and went to her own little sitting-room, made gay with books and flowers and photographs from Rome. Nor was her anger followed by any passionate outburst of tears. She sat herself down by the window and looked out, letting the cool breeze from the open casement fan her face.
Hedwig, too, had passed through a violent scene that day, and, having conquered, she sat down to think over it. She reflected that Benoni had but used the same words to her that she had daily heard from her father's lips. False as was their accusation, she submitted to hearing her father speak them, for she had no knowledge of their import, and only thought him cruelly hard with her. But that a stranger--above all, a man who aspired, or pretended to aspire, to her hand--should attempt to usurp the same authority of speech was beyond all human endurance. She felt sure that her father's anger would all be turned against Benoni when he heard her story.
As for what her tormentor had said of Nino, she could have killed him for saying it, but she knew that it was a lie; for she loved Nino with all her heart, and no one can love wholly without trusting wholly. Therefore she put away the evil suggestion from herself, and loaded all its burden of treachery upon Benoni.
How long she sat by the window, compelling her strained thoughts into order, no one can tell. It might have been an hour, or more, for she had lost the account of the hours. She was roused by a knock at the door of her sitting-room, and at her bidding the man entered who, for the trifling consideration of about a thousand francs, first and last made communication possible between Hedwig and myself.
This man's name is Temistocle,--Themistocles, no less. All servants are Themistocles, or Orestes, or Joseph, just as all gardeners are called Antonio. Perhaps he deserves some description. He is a type, short, wiry, and broad-shouldered, with a cunning eye, a long hooked nose, and very plentiful black whiskers, surmounted by a perfectly bald crown. His motions are servile to the last degree, and he addresses everyone in authority as "excellency," on the principle that it is better to give too much titular homage than too little. He is as wily as a fox, and so long as you have money in your pocket, as faithful as a hound and as silent as the grave. I perceive that these are precisely the epithets at which the baron scoffed, saying that a man can be praised only by comparing him with the higher animals, or insulted by comparison with himself and his kind. We call a man a fool, an idiot, a coward, a liar, a traitor, and many other things applicable only to man himself. However, I will let my description stand, for it is a very good one; and Temistocle could be induced, for money, to adapt himself to almost any description, and he certainly had earned, at one time or another, most of the titles I have enumerated.
He told me, months afterwards, that when he passed through the courtyard, on his way to Hedwig's apartment, he found Benoni seated on the stone bench, smoking a cigarette and gazing into space, so that he passed close before him without being noticed.
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Temistocle closed the door, then opened it again, and looked out, after which he finally shut it, and seemed satisfied. He advanced with cautious tread to where Hedwig sat by the window.
"Well? What have you done?" she inquired, without looking at him. It is a hard thing for a proud and noble girl to be in the power of a servant. The man took Nino's letter from his pocket, and handed it to her upon his open palm. Hedwig tried hard to take it with indifference, but she acknowledges that her fingers trembled and her heart beat fast.
"I was to deliver a message to your excellency from the old gentleman," said Temistocle, coming close to her and bending down.
"Ah!" said Hedwig, beginning to break the envelope.
"Yes, excellency. He desired me to say that it was absolutely and most indubitably necessary that your excellency should be at the little door to-night at twelve o'clock. Do not fear, Signora Contessina; we can manage it very well."
"I do not wish to know what you advise me to fear, or not to fear," answered Hedwig, haughtily; for she could not bear to feel that the man should counsel her or encourage her.
"Pardon, excellency; I thought--" began Temistocle humbly; but Hedwig interrupted him.
"Temistocle," she said, "I have no money to give you, as I told you yesterday. But here is another stone, like the other. Take it, and arrange this matter as best you can."
Temistocle took the jewel and bowed to the ground, eying curiously the little case from which she had taken it.
"I have thought and combined everything," he said. "Your excellency will see that it is best you should go alone to the staircase; for, as we say, a mouse makes less noise than a rat. When you have descended, lock the door at the top behind you; and when you reach the foot of the staircase, keep that door open. I will have brought the old gentleman by that time, and you will let me in. I shall go out by the great gate."
"Why not go with me?" inquired Hedwig.
"Because, your excellency, one person is less likely to be seen than two. Your excellency will let me pass you. I will mount the staircase, unlock the upper door, and change the key to the other side. Then I will keep watch, and if anyone comes I will lock the door and slip away till he is gone."
"I do not like the plan," said Hedwig. "I would rather let myself in from the staircase."
"But suppose anyone were waiting on the inside, and saw you come back?"
"That is true. Give me the keys, Temistocle, and a taper and some matches."
"Your excellency is a paragon of courage," replied the servant, obsequiously. "Since yesterday I have carried the keys in my pocket. I will bring you the taper this evening."
"Bring it now. I wish to be ready."
Temistocle departed on the errand. When he returned Hedwig ordered him to give a message to her father.
"When the count comes home, ask him to see me," she said. Temistocle bowed once more, and was gone.
Yes, she would see her father, and tell him plainly what she had suffered from Benoni. She felt that no father, however cruel, would allow his daughter to be so treated, and she would detail the conversation to him.
She had not been able to read Nino's letter, for she feared the servant, knowing the writing to be Italian and legible to him. Now she hastened to drink in its message of love. You cannot suppose that I know exactly what he said, but he certainly set forth at some length his proposal that she should leave her father, and escape with her lover from the bondage in which she was now held. He told her modestly of his success, in so far as it was necessary that she should understand his position. It must have been a very eloquent letter, for it nearly persuaded her to a step of which she had wildly dreamed, indeed, but which in her calmer moments she regarded as impossible.
The interminable afternoon was drawing to a close, and once more she sat by the open window, regardless of the increasing cold. Suddenly it all came over her,--the tremendous importance of the step she was about to take, if she should take Nino at his word, and really break from one life into another. The long restrained tears, that had been bound from flowing through all Benoni's insults and her own anger, trickled silently down her cheek, no longer pale, but bright and flushed at the daring thought of freedom.
At first it seemed far off, as seen in the magician's glass. She looked and saw herself as another person, acting a part only half known and half understood. But gradually her own individual soul entered into the figure of her imagination; her eager heart beat fast; she breathed and moved and acted in the future. She was descending the dark steps alone, listening with supernatural sense of sound for her lover's tread without. It came; the door opened, and she was in his arms,--in those strong arms that could protect her from insult and tyranny and cruel wooing; out in the night, on the road, in Rome, married, free, and made blessed for ever. On a sudden the artificial imagery of her labouring brain fell away, and the thought crossed her mind that henceforth she must be an orphan. Her father would never speak to her again, or ever own for his a daughter that had done such a deed. Like icy water poured upon a fevered body, the idea chilled her and woke her to reality.
Did she love her father? She had loved him--yes, until she crossed his will. She loved him still, when she could be so horror-struck at the thought of incurring his lasting anger. Could she bear it? Could she find in her lover all that she must renounce of a father's care and a father's affection,--stern affection, that savoured of the despot,--but could she hurt him so?
The image of her father seemed to take another shape, and gradually to assume the form and features of the one man of the world whom she hated, converting itself little by little into Benoni. She hid her face in her hands and terror staunched the tears that had flown afresh at the thought of orphanhood.
A knock at the door. She hastily concealed the crumpled letter.
"Come in!" she answered, boldly; and her father, moving mechanically, with his stick in his hand, entered the room. He came as he had dismounted from his horse, in his riding boots, and his broad felt hat caught by the same fingers that held the stick.
"You wished to see me, Hedwig," he said, coldly, depositing his hat upon the table. Then, when he had slowly sat himself down in an arm-chair, he added, "Here I am." Hedwig had risen respectfully, and stood before him in the twilight. "What do you wish to say?" he asked in German. "You do not often honour your father by requesting his society."
Hedwig stood one moment in silence. Her first impulse was to throw herself at his feet and implore him to let her marry Nino. The thought swept away for the time the remembrance of Benoni and of what she had to tell. But a second sufficed to give her the mastery of her tongue and memory, which women seldom lose completely, even at the most desperate moments.
"I desired to tell you," she said, "that Baron Benoni took advantage of your absence to-day to insult me beyond my endurance." She looked boldly into her father's eyes as she spoke.
"Ah!" said he, with great coolness. "Will you be good enough to light one of those candles on the table, and to close the window?"
Hedwig obeyed in silence, and once more planted herself before him, her slim figure looking ghostly between the fading light of the departing day and the yellow flame of the candle.
"You need not assume this theatrical air," said Lira, calmly. "I presume you mean that Baron Benoni asked you to marry him?"
"Yes, that is one thing, and is an insult in itself," replied Hedwig, without changing her position. "I suspect that it is the principal thing," remarked the count. "Very good; he asked you to marry him. He has my full authority to do so. What then?"
"You are my father," answered Hedwig, standing like a statue before him, "and you have the right to offer me whom you please for a husband, but you have no authority to allow me to be wantonly insulted."
"I think that you are out of your mind," said the count, with imperturbable equanimity. "You grant that I may propose a suitor to you, and you call it a wanton insult when that suitor respectfully asks the honour of your hand, merely because he is not young enough to suit your romantic tastes, which have been fostered by this wretched southern air. It is unfortunate that my health requires me to reside in Italy. Had you enjoyed an orderly Prussian education, you would have held different views in regard to filial duty. Refuse Baron Benoni as often as you like. I will stay here, and so will he, I fancy, until you change your mind. I am not tired of this lordly mountain scenery, and my health improves daily. We can pass the summer and winter, and more summers and winters, very comfortably here. If there is anything you would like to have brought from Rome, inform me, and I will satisfy any reasonable request."
"The baron has already had the audacity to inform me that you would keep me a prisoner until I should marry him," said Hedwig; and her voice trembled as she remembered how Benoni had told her so.
"I doubt not that Benoni, who is a man of consummate tact, hinted delicately that he would not desist from pressing his suit. You, well knowing my determination, and carried away by your evil temper, have magnified into a threat what he never intended as such. Pray let me hear no more about these fancied insults." The old man smiled grimly at his keen perception.
"You shall hear me, nevertheless," said Hedwig, in a low voice, coming close to the table and resting one hand upon it as though for support.
"My daughter," said the count, "I desire you to abandon this highly theatrical and melodramatic tone. I am not to be imposed upon."
"Baron Benoni did not confine himself to the course you describe. He said many things to me that I did not understand, but I comprehended their import. He began by making absurd speeches, at which I laughed. Then he asked me to marry him, as I had long known he would do as soon as you gave him the opportunity. I refused his offer. Then he insisted, saying that you, sir, had determined on this marriage, and would keep me a close prisoner here until the torture of the situation broke down my strength. I assured him that I would never yield to force. Then he broke out angrily, telling me to my face that I had lost everything--name, fame, and honour,--how, I cannot tell; but he said those words; and he added that I could regain my reputation only by consenting to marry him."
The old count had listened at first with a sarcastic smile, then with increased attention. Finally, as Hedwig repeated the shameful insult, his brave old blood boiled up in his breast, and he sat gripping the two arms of his chair fiercely, while his gray eyes shot fire from beneath the shaggy brows.
"Hedwig," he cried, hoarsely, "are you speaking the truth? Did he say those words?"
"Yes, my father, and more like them. Are you surprised?" she asked bitterly. "You have said them yourself to me."
The old man's rage rose furiously, and he struggled to his feet. He was stiff with riding and rheumatism, but he was too angry to sit still.
"I? Yes, I have tried to show you what might have happened, and to warn you and frighten you, as you should be frightened. Yes, and I was right, for you shall not drag my name in the dirt. But another man--Benoni!" He could not speak for his wrath, and his tall figure moved rapidly about the room, his heart seeking expression in action. He looked like some forgotten creature of harm, suddenly galvanised into destructive life. It was well that Benoni was not within reach.
Hedwig stood calmly by the table, proud in her soul that her father should be roused to such fury. The old man paused in his walk, came to her, and with his hand turned her face to the light, gazing savagely into her eyes.
"You never told me a lie," he growled out.
"Never," she said, boldly, as she faced him scornfully. He knew his own temper in his child, and was satisfied. The soldier's habit of self-control was strong in him, and the sardonic humour of his nature served as a garment to the thoughts he harboured.
"It appears," he said, "that I am to spend the remainder of an honourable life in fighting with a pack of hounds. I nearly killed your old acquaintance, the Signor Professore Cardegna, this afternoon." Hedwig staggered back, and turned pale.
"What! Is he wounded?" she gasped out, pressing her hand to his side.
"Ha! That touches you almost as closely as Benoni's insult," he said, savagely. "I am glad of it. I repent me, and wish that I had killed him. We met on the road, and he had the impertinence to ask me for your hand,--I am sick of these daily proposals of marriage; and then I inquired if he meant to insult me."
Hedwig leaned heavily on the table in an agony of suspense.
"The fellow answered that if I were insulted he was ready to fight then and there, in the road, with my pistols. He is no coward, your lover,--I will say that. The end of it was that I came home and he did not."
Hedwig sank into the chair that her father had left, and hid her face.
"Oh, you have killed him!" she moaned.
"No," said the count shortly; "I did not touch a hair of his head. But he rode away toward Trevi." Hedwig breathed again. "Are you satisfied?" he asked, with a hard smile, enjoying the terror he had excited.
"Oh, how cruel you are, my father!" she said, in a broken voice.
"I tell you that if I could cure you of your insane passion for this singer fellow, I would be as cruel as the Inquisition," retorted the count. "Now listen to me. You will not be troubled any longer with Benoni,--the beast! I will teach him a lesson of etiquette. You need not appear at dinner to-night. But you are not to suppose that our residence here is at an end. When you have made up your mind to act sensibly, and to forget the Signor Cardegna, you shall return to society, where you may select a husband of your own position and fortune, if you choose; or you may turn Romanist, and go into a convent, and devote yourself to good works and idolatry, or anything else. I do not pretend to care what becomes of you, so long as you show any decent respect for your name. But if you persist in pining and moaning and starving yourself, because I will not allow you to turn dancer and marry a strolling player, you will have to remain here. I am not such pleasant company when I am bored, I can tell you, and my enthusiasm for the beauties of nature is probably transitory."
"I can bear anything if you will remove Benoni," said Hedwig, quietly, as she rose from her seat. But the pressure of the iron keys that she had hidden in her bosom gave her a strange sensation.
"Never fear," said the count, taking his hat from the table. "You shall be amply avenged of Benoni and his foul tongue. I may not love my daughter, but no one shall insult her. I will have a word with him this evening."
"I thank you for that, at least," said Hedwig, as he moved to the door.
"Do not mention it," said he, and put his hand on the lock.
A sudden impulse seized Hedwig. She ran swiftly to him, and clasped her hands upon his arm.
"Father?" she cried, pleadingly.
"What?"
"Father, do you love me?" He hesitated one moment.
"No," he said, sternly; "you disobey me"; and he went out in rough haste. The door closed behind him, and she was left standing alone. What could she do, poor child? For months he had tormented her and persecuted her, and now she had asked him plainly if she still held a place in his heart, and he had coldly denied it.
A gentle, tender maiden, love-sick and mind-sick, yearning so piteously for a little mercy, or sympathy, or kindness, and treated like a mutinous soldier, because she loved so honestly and purely,--is it any wonder that her hand went to her bosom and clasped the cold, hard keys that promised her life and freedom? I think not. I have no patience with young women who allow themselves to be carried away by an innate bad taste and love for effect, quarrelling with the peaceful destiny that a kind Providence has vouchsafed them, and with an existence which they are too dull to make interesting to themselves or to anyone else; finally making a desperate and foolish dash at notoriety by a runaway marriage with the first scamp they can find, and repenting in poverty and social ostracism the romance they conceived in wealth and luxury. They deserve their fate. But when a sensitive girl is motherless, cut off from friends and pleasures, presented with the alternative of solitude or marriage with some detested man, or locked up to forget a dream which was half realised and very sweet, then the case is different. If she breaks her bonds, and flies to the only loving heart she knows, forgive her, and pray Heaven to have mercy on her, for she takes a fearful leap into the dark.
Hedwig felt the keys, and took them from her dress, and pressed them to her cheek, and her mind was made up. She glanced at the small gilt clock, and saw that the hands pointed to seven. Five hours were before her in which to make her preparations, such as they could be.
In accordance with her father's orders, given when he left her, Temistocle served her dinner in her sitting-room; and the uncertainty of the night's enterprise demanded that she should eat something, lest her strength should fail at the critical moment. Temistocle volunteered the information that her father had gone to the baron's apartment, and had not been seen since. She heard in silence, and bade the servant leave her as soon as he had ministered to her wants. Then she wrote a short letter to her father, telling him that she had left him, since he had no place for her in his heart, and that she had gone to the one man who seemed ready both to love and to protect her. This missive she folded, sealed, and laid in a prominent place upon the table addressed to the count.
She made a small bundle,--very neatly, for she is clever with her fingers,--and put on a dark travelling dress, in the folds of which she sewed such jewels as were small and valuable and her own. She would take nothing that her father had given her. In all this she displayed perfect coolness and foresight.
The castle became intensely quiet as the evening advanced. She sat watching the clock. At five minutes before midnight she took her bundle and her little shoes in her hand, blew out her candle, and softly left the room.
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I need not tell you how I passed all the time from Nino's leaving me until he came back in the evening, just as I could see from my window that the full moon was touching the tower of the castle. I sat looking out, expecting him, and I was the most anxious professor that ever found himself in a ridiculous position. Temistocle had come, and you know what had passed between us, and how we had arranged the plan of the night. Most heartily did I wish myself in the little amphitheatre of my lecture-room at the University, instead of being pledged to this wild plot of my boy's invention. But there was no drawing back. I had been myself to the little stable next door, where I had kept my donkey, and visited him daily since my arrival, and I had made sure that I could have him at a moment's notice by putting on the cumbrous saddle. Moreover, I had secretly made a bundle of my effects, and had succeeded in taking it unobserved to the stall, and I tied it to the pommel. I also told my landlady that I was going away in the morning with the young gentleman who had visited me, and who, I said, was the engineer who was going to make a new road to the Serra. This was not quite true; but lies that hurt no one are not lies at all, as you all know, and the curiosity of the old woman was satisfied. I also paid for my lodging, and gave her a franc for herself, which pleased her very much. I meant to steal away about ten o'clock, or as soon as I had seen Nino and communicated to him the result of my interview with Temistocle.
The hours seemed endless, in spite of my preparations, which occupied some time; so I went out when I had eaten my supper, and visited my ass, and gave him a little bread that was left, thinking it would strengthen him for the journey. Then I came back to my room, and watched. Just as the moonlight was shooting over the hill, Nino rode up the street. I knew him in the dusk by his broad hat, and also because he was humming a little tune through his nose, as he generally does. But he rode past my door without looking up, for he meant to put his mule in the stable for a rest.
At last he came in, still humming, and apologised for the delay, saying he had stopped a few minutes at the inn to get some supper. It could not have been a very substantial meal that he ate in that short time.
"What did the man say?" was his first question, as he sat down.
"He said it should be managed as I desired," I answered. "Of course I did not mention you. Temistocle--that is his name--will come at midnight, and take you to the door. There you will find this inamorata, this lady-love of yours, for whom you are about to turn the world upside down."
"What will you do yourself, Sor Cornelio?" he asked, smiling.
"I will go now and get my donkey, and quietly ride up the valley to the Serra di Sant' Antonio," I said. "I am sure that the signorina will be more at her ease if I accompany you. I am a very proper person, you see."
"Yes," said Nino, pensively, "you are very proper. And besides, you can be a witness of the civil marriage."
"Diavolo!" I cried, "a marriage! I had not thought of that."
"Blood of a dog!" exclaimed Nino, "what on earth did you think of?" He was angry all in a moment.
"Piano,--do not disquiet yourself, my boy. I had not realised that the wedding was so near,--that is all. Of course you will be married in Rome, as soon as ever we get there."
"We shall be married in Ceprano to-morrow night, by the sindaco, or the mayor, or whatever civil bishop they support in that God-forsaken Neopolitan town," said Nino, with great determination.
"Oh, very well; manage it as you like. Only be careful that it is properly done, and have it registered," I added. "Meanwhile, I will start."
"You need not go yet, caro mio; it is not nine o'clock."
"How far do you think I ought to go, Nino?" I inquired. To tell the truth, the idea of going up the Serra alone was not so attractive in the evening as it had been in the morning light. I thought it would be very dark among those trees, and I had still a great deal of money sewn between my waistcoats.
"Oh, you need not go so very far," said Nino. "Three or four miles from the town will be enough. I will wait in the street below, after eleven."
We sat in silence for some time afterwards, and if I was thinking of the gloomy ride before me, I am sure that Nino was thinking of Hedwig. Poor fellow! I dare say he was anxious enough to see her, after being away for two months, and spending so many hours almost within her reach. He sat low in his chair, and the dismal rays of the solitary tallow candle cast deep shadows on his thoughtful face. Weary, perhaps, with waiting and with long travel, yet not sad, but very hopeful he looked. No fatigue could destroy the strong, manly expression of his features, and even in that squalid room, by the miserable light, dressed in his plain gray clothes, he was still the man of success, who could hold thousands in the suspense of listening to his slightest utterance. Nino is a wonderful man, and I am convinced that there is more in him than music, which is well enough when one can be as great as he, but is not all the world holds. I am sure that massive head of his was not hammered so square and broad by the great hands that forge the thunderbolts of nations, merely that he should be a tenor and an actor, and give pleasure to his fellow-men. I see there the power and the strength of a broader mastery than that which bends the ears of a theatre audience. One day we may see it. It needs the fire of hot times to fuse the elements of greatness in the crucible of revolution. There is not such another head in all Italy as Nino's that I have ever seen, and I have seen the best in Rome. He looked so grand, as he sat there, thinking over the future. I am not praising his face for its beauty; there is little enough of that, as women might judge. And besides, you will laugh at my ravings, and say that a singer is a singer, and nothing more, for all his life. Well, we shall see in twenty years; you will,--perhaps I shall not.
"Nino," I asked, irrelevantly, following my own train of reflection, "have you ever thought of anything but music--and love?" He roused himself from his reverie, and stared at me.
"How should you be able to guess my thoughts?" he asked at last.
"People who have lived much together often read each other's minds. What were you thinking of?" Nino sighed, and hesitated a moment before he answered.
"I was thinking," he said, "that a musician's destiny, even the highest, is a poor return for a woman's love."
"You see: I was thinking of you, and wondering whether, after all, you will always be a singer."
"That is singular," he answered slowly. "I was reflecting how utterly small my success on the stage will look to me when I have married Hedwig von Lira."
"There is a larger stage, Nino mio, than yours."
"I know it," said he, and fell back in his chair again, dreaming.
I fancy that at any other time we might have fallen into conversation and speculated on the good old-fashioned simile which likens life to a comedy, or a tragedy, or a farce. But the moment was ill-chosen, and we were both silent, being much preoccupied with the immediate future.
A little before ten I made up my mind to start. I glanced once more round the room to see if I had left anything. Nino was still sitting in his chair, his head bent, and his eyes staring at the floor.
"Nino," I said, "I am going now. Here is another candle, which you will need before long, for these tallow things are very short." Indeed, the one that burned was already guttering low in the old brass candlestick. Nino rose and shook himself.
"My dear friend," he said, taking me by both hands, "you know that I am grateful to you. I thank you and thank you again with all my heart. Yes, you ought to go now, for the time is approaching. We shall join you, if all goes well, by one o'clock."
"But, Nino, if you do not come?"
"I will come, alone, or with her. If--if I should not be with you by two in the morning, go on alone, and get out of the way. It will be because I am caught by that old Prussian devil. Good-bye." He embraced me affectionately, and I went out. A quarter of an hour later I was out of the town, picking my way, with my little donkey, over the desolate path that leads toward the black Serra. The clatter of the beast's hoofs over the stones kept time with the beatings of my heart, and I pressed my thin legs close to his thinner sides for company.
When Nino was left alone,--and all this I know from him,--he sat again in the chair and meditated; and although the time of the greatest event in his life was very near, he was so much absorbed that he was startled when he looked at his watch and found that it was half-past eleven. He had barely time to make his preparations. His man was warned, but was waiting near the inn, not knowing where he was required, as Nino himself had not been to ascertain the position of the lower door, fearing lest he might be seen by Benoni. He now hastily extinguished the light and let himself out of the house without noise. He found his countryman ready with the mules, ordered him to come with him, and returned to the house, instructing him to follow and wait at a short distance from the door he would enter. Muffled in his cloak, he stood in the street awaiting the messenger from Hedwig.
The crazy old clock of the church tolled the hour, and a man wrapped in a nondescript garment, between a cloak and an overcoat, stole along the moonlit street to where Nino stood, in front of my lodging.
"Temistocle!" called Nino, in a low voice, as the fellow hesitated.
"Excellency"--answered the man, and then drew back. "You are not the Signor Grandi!" he cried, in alarm.
"It is the same thing," replied Nino. "Let us go."
"But how is this?" objected Temistocle, seeing a new development. "It was the Signor Grandi whom I was to conduct." Nino was silent, but there was a crisp sound in the air as he took a banknote from his pocket-book. "Diavolo!" muttered the servant, "perhaps it may be right, after all." Nino gave him the note.
"That is my passport," said he.
"I have doubts," answered Temistocle, taking it, nevertheless, and examining it by the moonlight. "It has no _visa_," he added, with a cunning leer. Nino gave him another. Then Temistocle had no more doubts.
"I will conduct your excellency," he said. They moved away, and Temistocle was so deaf that he did not hear the mules and the tramp of the man who led them not ten paces behind him.
Passing round the rock they found themselves in the shadow; a fact which Nino noted with much satisfaction, for he feared lest someone might be keeping late hours in the castle. The mere noise of the mules would attract no attention in a mountain town where the country people start for their distant work at all hours of the day and night. They came to the door. Nino called softly to the man with the mules to wait in the shadow, and Temistocle knocked at the door. The key ground in the lock from within, but the hands that held it seemed weak. Nino's heart beat fast.
"Temistocle!" cried Hedwig's trembling voice.
"What is the matter, your excellency?" asked the servant through the keyhole, not forgetting his manners.
"Oh, I cannot turn the key! What _shall_ I do?"
Nino heard, and pushed the servant aside.
"Courage, my dear lady," he said, aloud, that she might know his voice. Hedwig appeared to make a frantic effort, and a little sound of pain escaped her as she hurt her hands.
"Oh, what _shall_ I do!" she cried, piteously. "I locked it last night, and now I cannot turn the key!"
Nino pressed with all his weight against the door. Fortunately it was strong, or he would have broken it in, and it would have fallen upon her. But it opened outward, and was heavily bound with iron. Nino groaned.
"Has your excellency a taper?" asked Temistocle suddenly, forcing his head between Nino's body and the door, in order to be heard.
"Yes. I put it out."
"And matches?" he asked again.
"Yes."
"Then let your excellency light the taper, and drop some of the burning wax on the end of the key. It will be like oil." There was a silence. The key was withdrawn, and a light appeared through the hole where it had been. Nino instantly fastened his eye to the aperture, hoping to catch a glimpse of Hedwig. But he could not see anything save two white hands trying to cover the key with wax. He withdrew his eye quickly, as the hands pushed the key through again.
Again the lock groaned,--a little sob of effort, another trial, and the bolts flew back to their sockets. The prudent Temistocle, who did not wish to be a witness of what followed, pretended to exert gigantic strength in pulling the door open, and Nino, seeing him, drew back a moment to let him pass.
"Your excellency need only knock at the upper door," he said to Hedwig, "and I will open. I will watch, lest anyone should enter from above."
"You may watch till the rising of the dead," thought Nino, and Hedwig stood aside on the narrow step, while Temistocle went up. One instant more, and Nino was at her feet, kissing the hem of her dress, and speechless with happiness, for his tears of joy flowed fast.
Tenderly Hedwig bent to him, and laid her two hands on his bare head, pressing down the thick and curly hair with a trembling, passionate motion.
"Signor Cardegna, you must not kneel there,--nay, sir, I know you love me! Would I have come to you else? Give me your hand--now--do not kiss it so hard--no--Oh, Nino, my own dear Nino--" What should have followed in her gentle speech is lacking, for many and most sweet reasons. I need not tell you that the taper was extinguished, and they stood locked in each other's arms against the open door, with only the reflection of the moon from the houses opposite to illuminate their meeting.
There was and is to me something divinely perfect and godlike in these two virgin hearts, each so new to their love, and each so true and spotless of all other. I am old to say sweet things of loving, but I cannot help it; for though I never was as they are, I have loved much in my time. Like our own dear Leopardi, I loved not the woman, but the angel which is the type of all women, and whom not finding I perished miserably as to my heart. But in my breast there is still the temple where the angel dwelt, and the shrine is very fragrant still with the divine scent of the heavenly roses that were about her. I think, also, that all those who love in this world must have such a holy place of worship in their hearts. Sometimes the kingdom of the soul and the palace of the body are all Love's, made beautiful and rich with rare offerings of great constancy and faith; and all the countless creations of transcendent genius, and all the vast aspirations of far-reaching power, go up in reverent order to do homage at Love's altar, before they come forth, like giants, to make the great world tremble and reel in its giddy grooves.
And with another it is different. The world is not his; he is the world's, and all his petty doings have its gaudy stencil blotched upon them. Yet haply even he has a heart, and somewhere in its fruitless fallows stands a poor ruin, that never was of much dignity at its best,--poor and broken, and half choked with weeds and briers; but even thus the weeds are fragrant herbs, and the briers are wild roses, of few and misshapen petals, but sweet, nevertheless. For this ruin was once a shrine too, that his mean hands and sterile soul did try most ineffectually to build up as a shelter for all that was ever worthy in him.
Now, therefore, I say, Love, and love truly and long,--even for ever; and if you can do other things well, do them; but if not, at least learn to do that, for it is a very gentle thing and sweet in the learning. Some of you laugh at me, and say, Behold, this old-fashioned driveller, who does not even know that love is no longer in the fashion! By Saint Peter, Heaven will soon be out of the fashion too, and Messer Satanas will rake in the just and the unjust alike, so that he need no longer fast on Fridays, having a more savoury larder! And no doubt some of you will say that hell is really so antiquated that it should be put in the museum at the University of Rome, for a curious old piece of theological furniture. Truth! it is a wonder it is not worn out with digesting the tough morsels it gets, when people like you are finally gotten rid of from this world! But it is made of good material, and it will last, never fear! This is not the gospel of peace, but it is the gospel of truth.
Loving hearts and gentle souls shall rule the world some day, for all your pestiferous fashions; and old as I am,--I do not mean aged, but well on in years,--I believe in love still, and I always will. It is true that it was not given to me to love as Nino loves Hedwig, for Nino is even now a stronger, sterner man than I. His is the nature that can never do enough; his the hands that never tire for her; his the art that would surpass, for her, the stubborn bounds of possibility. He is never weary of striving to increase her joy of him. His philosophy is but that. No quibbles of "being" and "not being," or wretched speculations concerning the object of existence; he has found the true unity of unities, and he holds it fast.
Meanwhile, you object that I am not proceeding with my task, and telling you more facts, recounting more conversations, and painting more descriptions. Believe me, this one fact, that to love well is to be all man can be, is greater than all the things men have ever learned and classified in dictionaries. It is, moreover, the only fact that has consistently withstood the ravages of time and social revolution; it is the wisdom that has opened, as if by magic, the treasures of genius, of goodness, and of all greatness, for everyone to see; it is the vital elixir that has made men of striplings, and giants of cripples, and heroes of the poor in heart though great in spirit. Nino is an example; for he was but a boy, yet he acted like a man; a gifted artist in a great city, courted by the noblest, yet he kept his faith.
But when I have taken breath I will tell you what he and Hedwig said to each other at the gate, and whether at the last she went with him, or stayed in dismal Fillettino for her father's sake.
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"Let us sit upon the step and talk," said Hedwig, gently disengaging herself from his arms.
"The hour is advancing, and it is damp here, my love. You will be cold," said Nino, protesting against delay as best he could.
"No; and I must talk to you." She sat down, but Nino pulled off his cloak and threw it round her. She motioned him to sit beside her, and raised the edge of the heavy mantle with her hand. "I think it is big enough," said she.
"I think so," returned Nino; and so the pair sat side by side and hand in hand, wrapped in the same garment, deep in the shadow of the rocky doorway. "You got my letter, dearest?" asked Nino, hoping to remind her of his proposal.
"Yes, it reached me safely. Tell me, Nino, have you thought of me in all this time?" she asked, in her turn; and there was the joy of the answer already in the question.
"As the earth longs for the sun, my love, through all the dark night. You have never been out of my thoughts. You know that I went away to find you in Paris, and I went to London, too; and everywhere I sang to you, hoping you might be somewhere in the great audiences. But you never went to Paris at all. When I got Professor Grandi's letter saying that he had discovered you, I had but one night more to sing, and then I flew to you."
"And now you have found me," said Hedwig, looking lovingly up to him through the shadow.
"Yes, dear one; and I have come but just in time. You are in great trouble now, and I am here to save you from it all. Tell me, what is it all about?"
"Ah, Nino dear, it is very terrible. My father declared I must marry Baron Benoni, or end my days here, in this dismal castle." Nino ground his teeth, and drew her even closer to him, so that her head rested on his shoulder.
"Infamous wretch!" he muttered.
"Hush, Nino," said Hedwig gently; "he is my father."
"Oh, I mean Benoni, of course," exclaimed Nino quickly.
"Yes, dear, of course you do," Hedwig responded. "But my father has changed his mind. He no longer wishes me to marry the Jew."
"Why is that, sweetheart?"
"Because Benoni was very rude to me to-day, and I told my father, who said he should leave the house at once."
"I hope he will kill the hound!" cried Nino, with rising anger. "And I am glad your father has still the decency to protect you from insult."
"My father is very unkind, Nino mio, but he is an officer and a gentleman."
"Oh, I know what that means,--a gentleman! Fie on your gentleman! Do you love me less, Hedwig, because I am of the people?"
For all answer Hedwig threw her arms round his neck, passionately.
"Tell me, love, would you think better of me if I were noble?"
"Ah, Nino, how most unkind! Oh, no: I love you, and for your sake I love the people,--the strong, brave people, whose man you are."
"God bless you, dear, for that," he answered tenderly. "But say, will your father take you back to Rome, now that he has sent away Benoni?"
"No, he will not. He swears that I shall stay here until I can forget you." The fair head rested again on his shoulder.
"It appears to me that your most high and noble father has amazingly done perjury in his oath," remarked Nino, resting his hand on her hair, from which the thick black veil that had muffled it had slipped back. "What do you think, love?"
"I do not know," replied Hedwig, in a low voice.
"Why, dear, you have only to close this door behind you, and you may laugh at your prison and your jailer!"
"Oh, I could not, Nino; and besides, I am weak, and cannot walk very far. And we should have to walk very far, you know."
"You, darling? Do you think I would not and could not bear you from here to Rome in these arms?" As he spoke he lifted her bodily from the step.
"Oh!" she cried, half frightened, half thrilled, "how strong you are, Nino!"
"Not I; it is my love. But I have beasts close by, waiting even now; good stout mules, that will think you are only a little silver butterfly that has flitted down from the moon for them to carry."
"Have you done that, dear?" she asked, doubtfully, while her heart leaped at the thought. "But my father has horses," she added, on a sudden, in a very anxious voice.
"Never fear, my darling. No horse could scratch a foothold in the place where our mules are as safe as in a meadow. Come, dear heart, let us be going." But Hedwig hung her head, and did not stir. "What is it, Hedwig?" he asked, bending down to her and softly stroking her hair. "Are you afraid of me?"
"No,--oh no! Not of you, Nino,--never of you!" She pushed her face close against him, very lovingly.
"What then, dear? Everything is ready for us. Why should we wait?"
"Is it quite right, Nino?"
"Ah, yes, love, it is right,--the rightest right that ever was! How can such love as ours be wrong? Have I not to-day implored your father to relent and let us marry? I met him in the road--" "He told me, dear. It was brave of you. And he frightened me by making me think he had killed you. Oh, I was so frightened, you do not know!"
"Cruel--" Nino checked the rising epithet. "He is your father, dear, and I must not speak my mind. But since he will not let you go, what will you do? Will you cease to love me, at his orders?"
"Oh, Nino, never, never, never!"
"But will you stay here, to die of solitude and slow torture?" He pleaded passionately.
"I--I suppose so, Nino," she said, in a choking sob.
"Now, by Heaven, you shall not!" He clasped her in his arms, raising her suddenly to her feet. Her head fell back upon his shoulder, and he could see her turn pale to the very lips, for his sight was softened to the gloom, and her eyes shone like stars of fire at him from beneath the half-closed lids. But the faint glory of coming happiness was already on her face, and he knew that the last fight was fought for love's mastery.
"Shall we ever part again, love?" he whispered, close to her. She shook her head, her starry eyes still fastened on his.
"Then come, my own dear one,--come," and he gently drew her with him. He glanced, naturally enough, at the step where they had sat, and something dark caught his eye just above it. Holding her hand in one of his, as though fearful lest she should escape him, he stooped quickly and snatched the thing from the stair with the other. It was Hedwig's little bundle.
"What have you here?" he asked. "Oh, Hedwig, you said you would not come?" he added, half laughing, as he discovered what it was.
"I was not sure that I should like you, Nino," she said, as he again put his arm about her. Hedwig started violently. "What is that?" she exclaimed, in a terrified whisper.
"What, love?"
"The noise! Oh, Nino, there is someone on the staircase, coming down. Quick,--quick! Save me, for love's sake!"
But Nino had heard, too, the clumsy but rapid groping of heavy feet on the stairs above, far up in the winding stone steps, but momentarily coming nearer. Instantly he pushed Hedwig out to the street, tossing the bundle on the ground, withdrew the heavy key, shut the door, and double turned the lock from the outside, removing the key again at once. Nino is a man who acts suddenly and infallibly in great emergencies. He took Hedwig in his arms, and ran with her to where the mules were standing, twenty yards away.
The stout countryman from Subiaco, who had spent some years in breaking stones out of consideration for the Government, as a general confession of the inaccuracy of his views regarding foreigners, was by no means astonished when he saw Nino appear with a woman in his arms. Together they seated her on one of the mules, and ran beside her, for there was no time for Nino to mount. They had to pass the door, and through all its oaken thickness they could hear the curses and imprecations of someone inside, and the wood and iron shook with repeated blows and kicks. The quick-witted muleteer saw the bundle lying where Nino had tossed it, and he picked it up as he ran.
Both Nino and Hedwig recognised Benoni's voice, but neither spoke as they hurried up the street into the bright moonlight, she riding and Nino running as he led the other beast at a sharp trot. In five minutes they were out of the little town, and Nino, looking back, could see that the broad white way behind them was clear of all pursuers. Then he himself mounted, and the countryman trotted by his side.
Nino brought his mule close to Hedwig's. She was an accomplished horsewoman, and had no difficulty in accommodating herself to the rough country saddle. Their hands met, and the mules, long accustomed to each other's company, moved so evenly that the gentle bond was not broken. But although Hedwig's fingers twined lovingly with his, and she often turned and looked at him from beneath her hanging veil, she was silent for a long time. Nino respected her mood, half guessing what she felt, and no sound was heard save an occasional grunt from the countryman as he urged the beasts, and the regular clatter of the hoofs on the stony road.
To tell the truth, Nino was overwhelmed with anxiety; for his quick wits had told him that Benoni, infuriated by the check he had received, would lose no time in remounting the stairs, saddling a horse, and following them. If only they could reach the steeper part of the ravine they could bid defiance to any horse that ever galloped, for Benoni must inevitably come to grief if he attempted a pursuit into the desolate Serra. He saw that Hedwig had not apprehended the danger, when once the baron was stopped by the door, conceiving in her heart the impression that he was a prisoner in his own trap. Nevertheless, they urged the beasts onward hotly, if one may use the word of the long, heavy trot of a mountain mule. The sturdy countryman never paused or gasped for breath, keeping pace in a steady, determined fashion.
But they need not have been disturbed, for Hedwig's guess was nearer the truth than Nino's reasoning. They knew it later, when Temistocle found them in Rome, and I may as well tell you how it happened. When he reached the head of the staircase, he took the key from the one side to the other, locked the door, as agreed, and sat down to wait for Hedwig's rap. He indeed suspected that it would never come, for he had only pretended not to see the mules; but the prospect of further bribes made him anxious not to lose sight of his mistress, and certainly not to disobey her, in case she really returned. The staircase opened into the foot of the tower, a broad stone chamber, with unglazed windows.
Temistocle sat himself down to wait on an old bench that had been put there, and the light of the full moon made the place as bright as day. Now the lock on the door was rusty, like the one below, and creaked loudly every time it was turned. But Temistocle fancied it would not be heard in the great building, and felt quite safe. Sitting there, he nodded and fell asleep, tired with the watching.
Benoni had probably passed a fiery half hour with the count. But I have no means of knowing what was said on either side; at all events, he was in the castle still, and, what is more, he was awake. When Hedwig opened the upper door and closed it behind her, the sound was distinctly audible to his quick ears, and he probably listened and speculated, and finally yielded to his curiosity.
However that may have been, he found Temistocle asleep in the tower basement, saw the key in the lock, guessed whence the noise had come, and turned it. The movement woke Temistocle, who started to his feet, and recognised the tall figure of the baron just entering the door. Too much confused for reflection, he called aloud, and the baron disappeared down the stairs. Temistocle listened at the top, heard distinctly the shutting and locking of the lower door, and a moment afterwards Benoni's voice, swearing in every language at once, came echoing up.
"They have escaped," said Temistocle to himself. "If I am not mistaken, I had better do the same." With that he locked the upper door, put the key in his pocket, and departed on tiptoe. Having his hat and his overcoat with him, and his money in his pocket, he determined to leave the baron shut up in the staircase. He softly left the castle by the front gate, of which he knew the tricks, and he was not heard of for several weeks afterwards. As for Benoni, he was completely caught, and probably spent the remainder of the night in trying to wake the inmates of the building. So you see that Nino need not have been so much disturbed after all.
While these things were happening Nino and Hedwig got fairly away, and no one but a mountaineer of the district could possibly have overtaken them. Just as they reached the place where the valley suddenly narrows to a gorge, the countryman spoke. It was the first word that had been uttered by any of the party in an hour, so great had been their haste and anxiety.
"I see a man with a beast," he said, shortly.
"So do I," answered Nino. "I expect to meet a friend here." Then he turned to Hedwig. "Dear one," he said, "we are to have a companion now, who says he is a very proper person."
"A companion?" repeated Hedwig, anxiously.
"Yes. We are to have the society of no less a person than the Professor Cornelio Grandi, of the University of Rome. He will go with us, and be a witness."
"Yes," said Hedwig, expecting more, "a witness--" "A witness of our marriage, dear lady; I trust to-morrow,--or to-day, since midnight is past." He leaned far over his saddle-bow, as the mules clambered up the rough place. Her hand went out to him, and he took it. They were so near that I could see them. He dropped the reins and bared his head, and so, riding, he bent himself still farther, and pressed his lips upon her hand: and that was all the marriage contract that was sealed between them. But it was enough.
There I sat, upon a stone in the moonlight, just below the trees, waiting for them. And there I had been for two mortal hours or more, left to meditate upon the follies of professors in general and of myself in particular. I was beginning to wonder whether Nino would come at all, and I can tell you I was glad to see the little caravan. Ugh! it is an ugly place to be alone in.
They rode up, and I went forward to meet them.
"Nino mio," said I, "you have made me pass a terrible time here. Thank Heaven, you are come; and the contessina, too! Your most humble servant, signorina." I bowed low and Hedwig bent a little forward, but the moon was just behind her, and I could not see her face.
"I did not think we should meet so soon, Signor Grandi. But I am very glad." There was a sweet shyness in the little speech that touched me. I am sure she was afraid that it was not yet quite right, or at least that there should be some other lady in the party.
"Courage, Messer Cornelio," said Nino. "Mount your donkey, and let us be on our way."
"Is not the contessina tired?" I inquired. "You might surely rest a little here."
"Caro mio," answered Nino, "we must be safe at the top of the pass before we rest. We were so unfortunate as to wake his excellency the Baron Benoni out of some sweet dream or other, and perhaps he is not far behind us."
An encounter with the furious Jew was not precisely attractive to me, and I was on my donkey before you could count a score. I suggested to Nino that it would be wiser if the countryman led the way through the woods, and I followed him. Then the contessina would be behind me, and Nino would bring up the rear. It occurred to me that the mules might outstrip my donkey if I went last, and so I might be left to face the attack, if any came; whereas, if I were in front, the others could not go any faster than I.
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The gorge rises steep and precipitous between the lofty mountains on both sides, and it is fortunate that we had some light from the moon, which was still high at two o'clock, being at the full.
It is a ghastly place enough. In the days of the Papal States the Serra di Sant' Antonio, as it is called, was the shortest passage to the kingdom of Naples, and the frontier line ran across its summit. To pass from one dominion to the other it would be necessary to go out of the way some forty or fifty miles, perhaps, unless one took this route; and the natural consequence was that outlaws, smugglers, political fugitives, and all such manner of men, found it a great convenience. Soldiers were stationed in Fillettino and on the other side, to check illicit traffic and brigandage, and many were the fights that were fought among these giant beeches.
The trees are of primeval dimensions, for no one has yet been enterprising enough to attempt to fell the timber. The gorge is so steep, and in many places so abruptly precipitous, that the logs could never be removed; and so they have grown undisturbed for hundreds of years, rotting and falling away as they stand. The beech is a lordly tree, with its great smooth trunk and its spreading branches, and though it never reaches the size of the chestnut, it is far more beautiful and long-lived.
Here and there, at every hundred yards or so, it seemed to me, the countryman would touch his hat and cross himself as he clambered up the rocky path, and then I did likewise; for there was always some rude cross or rough attempt at the inscription of a name at such spots, which marked where a man had met his untimely end. Sometimes the moonbeams struggled through the branches, still bare of leaves, and fell on a few bold initials and a date; and sometimes we came to a broad ledge where no trees were, but only a couple of black sticks tied at right angles for a cross. It was a dismal place, and the owls hooted at us.
Besides, it grew intensely cold towards morning, so that the countryman wanted to stop and make a fire to warm ourselves. Though it was the end of March, the ground was frozen as hard as any stone wherever it was free from rocks. But Nino dismounted, and insisted upon wrapping his cloak about Hedwig; and then he walked, for fear of catching cold, and the countryman mounted his mule and clambered away in front. In this way Hedwig and Nino lagged behind, conversing in low tones that sounded very soft; and when I looked round, I could see how he held his hand on her saddle and supported her in the rough places. Poor child, who would have thought she could bear such terrible work! But she had the blood of a soldierly old race in her veins, and would have struggled on silently till she died.
I think it would be useless to describe every stone on the desolate journey, but when the morning dawned we were at the top, and we found the descent much easier. The rosy streaks came first, quite suddenly, and in a few minutes the sun was up, and the eventful night was past. I was never so glad to get rid of a night in my life. It is fortunate that I am so thin and light, for I could never have reached the high-road alive had I been as fat as De Pretis is; and certainly the little donkey would have died by the way. He was quite as thin when I sold him again as when I bought him, a fortnight before, in spite of the bread I had given him.
Hedwig drew her veil close about her face as the daylight broke, for she would not let Nino see how pale and tired she was. But when at last we were in the broad, fertile valley which marks the beginning of the old kingdom of Naples, we reached a village where there was an inn, and Nino turned everyone out of the best room with a high hand, and had a couch of some sort spread for Hedwig. He himself walked up and down outside the door for five whole hours, lest she should be disturbed in her sleep. As for me I lay, on a bench, rolled in my cloak, and slept as I have not slept since I was twenty.
Nino knew that the danger of pursuit was past now, and that the first thing necessary was to give Hedwig rest; for she was so tired that she could not eat, though there were very good eggs to be had, of which I ate three, and drank some wine, which does not compare to that on the Roman side.
The sturdy man from Subiaco seemed like iron, for he ate sparingly and drank less, and went out into the village to secure a conveyance and to inquire the nearest way to Ceprano.
But when, as I have said, Nino had guarded Hedwig's door for five hours he woke me from my sleep, and by that time it was about two in the afternoon.
"Hi, Messer Cornelio! wake up!" he cried pulling my arm. And I rubbed my eyes.
"What do you want, Nino?" I inquired.
"I want to be married immediately," he replied, still pulling at my elbow.
"Well, pumpkin-head," I said angrily, "marry, then, in Heaven's name, and let me sleep! I do not want to marry anybody."
"But I do," retorted Nino, sitting down on the bench and laying a hand on my shoulder. He could still see Hedwig's door from where he sat.
"In this place?" I asked. "Are you serious?"
"Perfectly. This is a town of some size, and there must be a mayor here who marries people when they take the fancy."
"Diavolo! I suppose so," I assented.
"A sindaco,--there must be one, surely."
"Very well, go and find him, good-for-nothing!" I exclaimed.
"But I cannot go away and leave that door until she wakes," he objected. "Dear Messer Cornelio, you have done so much for me, and are so kind,--will you not go out and find the sindaco, and bring him here to marry us?"
"Nino," I said, gravely, "the ass is a patient beast, and very intelligent, but there is a limit to his capabilities. So long as it is merely a question of doing things you cannot do, very well. But if it comes to this, that I must find not only the bride, but also the mayor and the priest, I say, with good Pius IX.,--rest his soul,--_non possumus_." Nino laughed. He could afford to laugh now.
"Messer Cornelio, a child could tell you have been asleep. I never heard such a string of disconnected sentences in my life. Come, be kind, and get me a mayor that I may be married."
"I tell you I will not," I cried, stubbornly. "Go yourself."
"But I cannot leave the door. If anything should happen to her--" "Macchè! What should happen to her, pray? I will put my bench across the door, and sit there till you come back."
"I am not quite sure--" he began.
"Idiot!" I exclaimed.
"Well, let us see how it looks." And with that he ousted me from my bench, and carried it, walking on tiptoe, to the entrance of Hedwig's room. Then he placed it across the door. "Now sit down," he said, authoritatively, but in a whisper; and I took my place in the middle of the long seat. He stood back and looked at me with an artistic squint.
"You look so proper," he said, "that I am sure nobody will think of trying the door while you sit there. Will you remain till I come back?"
"Like Saint Peter in his chair," I whispered, for I wanted to get rid of him.
"Well, then, I must risk whatever may happen, and leave you here." So he went away. Now I ask you if this was not a ridiculous position. But I had discovered, in the course of my fortnight's wanderings, that I was really something of a philosopher in practice, and I am proud to say that on this occasion I smoked in absolute indifference to the absurdity of the thing. People came and stood at a distance in the passage, and eyed me curiously. But they knew I belonged to the party of foreigners, and doubtless they supposed it was the custom of my country to guard doors in that way.
An hour passed, and I heard Hedwig stirring in the room. After a time she came close to the door and put her hand on the lock, so that it began to rattle, but she hesitated, and went away again. I once more heard her moving about. Then I heard her open the window, and at last she came boldly and opened the door, which turned inward. I sat like a rock, not knowing whether Nino would like me to turn round and look.
"Signor Grandi!" she cried at last in laughing tones.
"Yes, signorina!" I replied, respectfully, without moving. She hesitated.
"What are you doing in that strange position?" she asked.
"I am mounting guard," I answered. "I promised Nino that I would sit here till he came back." She fairly laughed now, and it was the most airy, silvery laugh in the world.
"But why do you not look at me?"
"I am not sure that Nino would let me," said I. "I promised not to move, and I will keep my promise."
"Will you let me out?" she asked, struggling with her merriment.
"By no means," I answered; "anymore than I would let anybody in."
"Then we must make the best of it," said she. "But I will bring a chair and sit down, while you tell me the news."
"Will you assume all responsibility toward Nino, signorina, if I turn so that I can see you?" I asked, as she sat down.
"I will say that I positively ordered you to do so," she answered, gaily. "Now look, and tell me where Signor Cardegna is gone."
I looked indeed, and it was long before I looked away. The rest, the freedom, and the happiness had done their work quickly, in spite of all the dreadful anxiety and fatigue. The fresh, transparent colour was in her cheeks, and her blue eyes were clear and bright. The statue had been through the fire, and was made a living thing, beautiful, and breathing, and real.
"Tell me," she said, the light dancing in her eyes, "where is he gone?"
"He is gone to find the mayor of this imposing capital," I replied. Hedwig suddenly blushed, and turned her glistening eyes away. She was beautiful so.
"Are you very tired, signorina? I ought not to ask the question, for you look as though you had never been tired in your life."
There is no saying what foolish speeches I might have made had not Nino returned. He was radiant, and I anticipated that he must have succeeded in his errand.
"Ha! Messer Cornelio, is this the way you keep watch?" he cried.
"I found him here," said Hedwig, shyly, "and he would not even glance at me until I positively insisted upon it." Nino laughed, as he would have laughed at most things in that moment, for sheer superfluity of happiness.
"Signorina," he said, "would it be agreeable to you to walk for a few minutes after your sleep? The weather is wonderfully fine, and I am sure you owe it to the world to show the roses which rest has given you."
Hedwig blushed softly, and I rose and went away, conceiving that I had kept watch long enough. But Nino called after me, as he moved the bench from the door.
"Messer Cornelio, will you not come with us? Surely you need a walk very much, and we can ill spare your company. My lady, let me offer you my arm."
In this manner we left the inn, a wedding procession which could not have been much smaller, and the singing of an old woman, who sat with her distaff in front of her house, was the wedding march. Nino seemed in no great haste, I thought, and I let them walk as they would, while I kept soberly in the middle of the road, a little way behind.
It was not far that we had to go, however, and soon we came to a large brick house, with an uncommonly small door, over which hung a wooden shield with the arms of Italy brightly painted in green and red and white.
Nino and Hedwig entered arm in arm, and I slunk guiltily in after them. Hedwig had drawn her veil, which was the only head-dress she had, close about her face.
In a quarter of an hour the little ceremony was over, and the registers were signed by us all. Nino also got a stamped certificate, which he put very carefully in his pocket-book. I never knew what it cost Nino to overcome the scruples of the sindaco about marrying a strange couple from Rome in that outlandish place, where the peasants stared at us as though we had been the most unnatural curiosities, and even the pigs in the street jogged sullenly out of our way as though not recognising that we were human.
At all events, the thing was done, and Hedwig von Lira became for the rest of her life Edvigia Cardegna. And I felt very guilty. The pair went down the steps of the house together in front of me, and stopped as they reached the street; forgetting my presence, I presume. They had not forgotten me so long as I was needed to be of use to them; but I must not complain.
"We can face the world together now, my dear lady," said Nino, as he drew her little hand through his arm. She looked up at him, and I could see her side face. I shall never forget the expression. There was in it something I really never saw before, which made me feel as though I were in church; and I knew then that there was no wrong in helping such love as that to its fulfilment.
By the activity of the man from Subiaco a curious conveyance was ready for us, being something between a gig and a cart, and a couple of strong horses were hired for the long drive. The countryman, who had grown rich in the last three days, offered to buy the thin little ass which had carried me so far and so well. He observed that he was blind of one eye, which I had never found out, and I do not believe it was true. The way he showed it was by snapping his fingers close to the eye in question. The donkey winked, and the countryman said that if the eye were good the beast would see that the noise was made by the fingers, and would not be frightened, and would therefore not wink.
"You see," said he, "he thinks it is a whip cracking, and so he is afraid."
"Do donkeys always wink when they are frightened?" I inquired. "It is very interesting."
"Yes," said the countryman, "they mostly do." At all events, I was obliged to take the man's own price, which was little enough,--not a third of what I had given.
The roads were good, and the long and the short of the matter, without any more details, is that we reached Rome very early the next morning, having caught the night train from Naples. Hedwig slept most of the time in the carriage and all the time in the train, while Nino, who never seemed to tire or to need sleep, sat watching her with wide, happy eyes. But perhaps he slept a little too, for I did, and I cannot answer for his wakefulness through every minute of the night.
Once I asked him what he intended to do in Rome.
"We will go to the hotel Costanzi," he answered, which is a foreigners' resort. And if she is rested enough we will come down to you, and see what we can do about being married properly in church by the old curato."
"The marriage by the sindaco is perfectly legal," I remarked.
"It is a legal contract, but it is not a marriage that pleases me," he said, gravely.
"But, caro mio, without offence, your bride is a Protestant, a Lutheran; not to mince matters, a heretic. They will make objections."
"She is an angel," said Nino, with great conviction.
"But the angels neither marry nor are given in marriage," I objected, arguing the point to pass the time.
"What do you make of it, then, Messer Cornelio?" he asked, with a smile.
"Why, as a heretic she ought to burn, and as an angel she ought not to marry."
"It is better to marry than to burn," retorted Nino, triumphantly.
"Diavolo! Have you had St. Paul for a tutor?" I asked, for I knew the quotation, being fond of Greek.
"I heard a preacher cite it once at the Gesù, and I thought it a good saying."
Early in the morning we rolled into the great station of Rome, and took an affectionate leave of each other, with the promise that Hedwig and Nino would visit me in the course of the day. I saw them into a carriage, with Nino's small portmanteau, and Hedwig's bundle, and then mounted a modest omnibus that runs from the termini to St. Peter's, and goes very near my house.
All the bells were ringing gladly, as if to welcome us, for it was Easter morning; and though it is not so kept as it used to be, it is nevertheless a great feast. Besides, the spring was at hand, and the acacia-trees in the great square were budding, though everything was still so backward in the hills. April was at hand, which the foreigners think is our best month; but I prefer June and July, when the weather is warm, and the music plays in the Piazza Colonna of an evening. For all that, April is a glad time, after the disagreeable winter.
There was with me much peace on that Easter day, for I felt that my dear boy was safe after all his troubles. At least he was safe from anything that could be done to part him from Hedwig; for the civil laws are binding, and Hedwig was of the age when a young woman is legally free to marry whom she pleases. Of course old Lira might still make himself disagreeable, but I fancied him too much a man of the world to desire a scandal, when no good could follow. The one shadow in the future was the anger of Benoni, who would be certain to seek some kind of revenge for the repulse he had suffered. I was still ignorant of his whereabouts, not yet knowing what I knew long afterwards, and have told you, because otherwise you would have been as much in the dark as he was himself, when Temistocle cunningly turned the lock of the staircase door and left him to his curses and his meditations. I have had much secret joy in thinking what a wretched night he must have passed there, and how his long limbs must have ached with sitting about on the stones, and how hoarse he must have been from the dampness and the swearing.
I reached home, the dear old number twenty-seven in Santa Catarina dei Funari, by half-past seven, or even earlier; and I was glad when I rang the bell on the landing, and called through the keyhole in my impatience.
"Mariuccia, Mariuccia, come quickly! It is I!" I cried.
"O Madonna mia!' I heard her exclaim, and there was a tremendous clatter, as she dropped the coffee-pot. She was doubtless brewing herself a quiet cup with my best Porto-Rico, which I do not allow her to use. She thought I was never coming back, the cunning old hag!
"Dio mio, Signor Professore! A good Easter to you!" she cried, as I heard the flat pattering of her old feet inside, running to the door. "I thought the wolves had eaten you, padrone mio!" And at last she let me in.
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"id": "12346"
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"A tall gentleman came here late last night, Signor Professore," said Mariuccia, as I sat down in the old green arm-chair. "He seemed very angry about something, and said he must positively see you." The idea of Benoni flashed uneasily across my brain.
"Was he the grave signore who came a few days before I left?" I asked.
"Heaven preserve us!" ejaculated Mariuccia. "This one was much older, and seemed to be lame; for when he tried to shake his stick at me, he could not stand without it. He looked like one of the old Swiss guards at Palazzo." By which she meant the Vatican, as you know.
"It must have been the count," I said, thinking aloud.
"A count! A pretty sort of count, indeed, to come waking people from their beds in the night! He had not even a high hat like the one you wear when you go to the University. A count, indeed!"
"Go and make me some good coffee, Mariuccia," I said, eying her severely to show I suspected her of having used mine; "and be careful to make it of my best Porto-Rico, if you have any left, without any chicory."
"A count, indeed!" she muttered angrily as she hobbled away, not in the least heeding my last remark, which I believed to be withering.
I had not much time for reflection that morning. My old clothes were in tatters, and the others looked very fine by contrast, so that when I had made my toilet I felt better able to show myself to the distinguished company I expected. I had seen so much extraordinary endurance in Nino and Hedwig during the last two or three days that I was prepared to see them appear at any moment, brushed and curled and ready for anything. The visit of the count, however, had seriously disturbed me, and I hardly knew what to look for from him. As it turned out, I had not long to wait.
I was resting myself in the arm-chair, and smoking one of those infamous cigars that nearly suffocate me, just for company, and I was composing in my mind a letter to the authorities of the University, requesting that I might begin to lecture again. I did not find out until later that I need not have written to them at all when I went away, as ten days are always allowed at Easter, in any case. It is just like my forgetfulness, to have made such a mistake. I really only missed four lectures. But my composition was interrupted by the door-bell, and my heart sank in my breast. Mariuccia opened, and I knew by the sound of the stick on the bricks that the lame count had come to wreak his vengeance.
Being much frightened, I was very polite, and bowed a great many times as he came toward me. It was he, looking much the same as ever, wooden and grizzly.
"I am much honoured, sir," I began, "by seeing you here."
"You are Signor Grandi?" he inquired, with a stiff bow.
"The same, Signor Conte, and very much at your service," I answered, rubbing my hands together to give myself an air of satisfaction.
"Let us not waste time," he said, severely but not roughly. "I have come to you on business. My daughter has disappeared with your son, or whatever relation the Signor Giovanni Cardegna is to you."
"He is no relation, Signor Conte. He was an orphan, and I--" "It is the same," he interrupted. "You are responsible for his doings."
I responsible! Good heavens, had I not done all in my power to prevent the rashness of that hot-headed boy?
"Will you not sit down, sir?" I said, moving a chair for him. He took the seat rather reluctantly.
"You do not seem much astonished at what I tell you," he remarked. "It is evident that you are in the plot."
"Unless you will inform me of what you know, Signor Conte," I replied with urbanity, "I cannot see how I can be of service to you."
"On the contrary," said he, "I am the person to ask questions. I wake up in the morning and find my daughter gone. I naturally inquire where she is."
"Most naturally, as you say, sir. I would do the same."
"And you, also very naturally, answer my questions," he continued severely.
"In that case, sir," I replied, "I would call to your attention the fact that you have asked but one question,--whether I were Signor Grandi. I answered that in the affirmative." You see I was apprehensive of what he might do, and desired to gain time. But he began to lose his temper.
"I have no patience with you Italians," he said, gruffly; "you bandy words and play with them as if you enjoyed it."
Diavolo, thought I, he is angry at my silence. What will he be if I speak?
"What do you wish to know, Signor Conte?" I inquired, in suave tones.
"I wish to know where my daughter is. Where is she? Do you understand? I am asking a question now, and you cannot deny it."
I was sitting in front of him, but I rose and pretended to shut the door, thus putting the table and the end of the piano between us, before I answered.
"She is in Rome, Signor Conte," I said.
"With Cardegna?" he asked, not betraying any emotion.
"Yes."
"Very well. I will have them arrested at once. That is all I wanted." He put his crutch-stick to the floor as though about to rise. Seeing that his anger was not turned against me, I grew bold.
"You had better not do that," I mildly observed, across the table.
"And why not, sir?" he asked, quickly, hesitating whether to get upon his feet or to remain seated.
"Because they are married already," I answered, retreating toward the door. But there was no need for flight. He sank back in the chair, and the stick fell from his hands upon the bricks with a loud rattle. Poor old man! I thought he was quite overcome by the news I had communicated. He sat staring at the window, his hands lying idly on his knees. I moved to come toward him, but he raised one hand and began to twirl his great gray moustache fiercely; whereat I resumed my former position of safety.
"How do you know this?" he demanded on a sudden.
"I was present at the civil marriage yesterday," I answered, feeling very much scared. He began to notice my manoeuvre.
"You need not be so frightened," he said, coldly. "It would be no use to kill any of you now, though I would like to."
"I assure you that no one ever frightened me in my own house, sir," I answered. I think my voice must have sounded very bold, for he did not laugh at me.
"I suppose it is irrevocable," he said, as if to himself.
"Oh, yes--perfectly irrevocable," I answered, promptly. "They are married, and have come back to Rome. They are at the Hotel Costanzi. I am sure that Nino would give you every explanation."
"Who is Nino?" he asked.
"Nino Cardegna, of course--" "And do you foolishly imagine that I am going to ask him to explain why he took upon himself to carry away my daughter?" The question was scornful enough.
"Signor Conte," I protested, "you would do well to see them, for she is your daughter, after all."
"She is not my daughter any longer," growled the count. "She is married to a singer, a tenor, an Italian with curls and lies and grins, as you all have. Fie!" And he pulled his moustache again.
"A singer," said I, "if you like, but a great singer, and an honest man."
"Oh, I did not come here to listen to your praises of that scoundrel!" he exclaimed, hotly. "I have seen enough of him to be sick of him."
"I wish he were in this room to hear you call him by such names," I said; for I began to grow angry, as I sometimes do, and then my fear grows small and my heart grows big.
"Ah!" said he, ironically. "And pray, what would he do to me?"
"He would probably ask you again for that pistol you refused to lend him the other day." I thought I might as well show that I knew all about the meeting in the road. But Lira laughed grimly, and the idea of a fight seemed to please him.
"I would not refuse it this time. In fact, since you mention it, I think I will go and offer it to him now. Do you think I should be justified, Master Censor?"
"No," said I, coming forward and facing him. "But if you like you can fight me. I am your own age, and a better match." I would have fought him then and there, with the chairs, if he had liked.
"Why should I fight you?" he inquired, in some astonishment. "You strike me as a very peaceable person indeed."
"Diavolo! do you expect me to stand quietly and hear you call my boy a scoundrel? What do you take me for, signore? Do you know that I am the last of the Conti Grandi, and as noble as any of you, and as fit to fight, though my hair is gray?"
"I knew, indeed, that one member of that illustrious family survived in Rome," he answered, gravely, "but I was not aware that you were he. I am glad to make your acquaintance, and I sincerely wish that you were the father of the young man who has married my daughter. If you were, I would be ready to arrange matters." He looked at me searchingly.
"Unfortunately, I am not any relation of his," I answered. "His father and mother were peasants on my estate of Serveti, when it still was mine. They died when he was a baby, and I took care of him and educated him."
"Yes, he is well educated," reflected the count, "for I examined him myself. Let us talk no more about fighting. You are quite sure that the marriage is legal?"
"Quite certain. You can do nothing, and any attempt would be a useless scandal. Besides, they are so happy, you do not know."
"So happy, are they? Do you think I am happy too?
"A man has every reason to be so, when his daughter marries an honest man. It is a piece of good luck that does not happen often."
"Probably from the scarcity of daughters who are willing to drive their fathers to distraction by their disobedience and contempt of authority,'" he said, savagely.
"No,--from the scarcity of honest men," I said. "Nino is a very honest man. You may go from one end of Italy to the other and not meet one like him."
"I sincerely hope so," growled Lira. "Otherwise Italy would be as wholly unredeemed and unredeemable as you pretend that some parts of it are now. But I will tell you, Conte Grandi, you cannot walk across the street, in my country, without meeting a dozen men who would tremble at the idea of such depravity as an elopement."
"Our ideas of honesty differ, sir," I replied. "When a man loves a woman, I consider it honest in him to act as though he did, and not to go and marry another for consolation, beating her with a thick stick whenever he chances to think of the first. That seems to be the northern idea of domestic felicity." Lira laughed gruffly, supposing that my picture was meant for a jest. "I am glad you are amused," I added.
"Upon my honour, sir," he replied, "you are so vastly amusing that I am half inclined to forgive my daughter's rashness, for the sake of enjoying your company. First you entrench yourself behind your furniture; then you propose to fight me; and now you give me the most original views upon love and marriage that I ever heard. Indeed I have cause to be amused."
"I am happy to oblige you," I said, tartly, for I did not like his laughter. "So long as you confine your amusement to me, I am satisfied; but pray avoid using any objectionable language about Nino."
"Then my only course is to avoid the subject?"
"Precisely," I replied, with a good deal of dignity.
"In that case I will go," he said. I was immensely relieved, for his presence was most unpleasant, as you may readily guess. He got upon his feet, and I showed him to the door, with all courtesy. I expected that he would say something about the future before leaving me, but I was mistaken. He bowed in silence, and stumped down the steps with his stick.
I sank into my arm-chair with a great sigh of relief, for I felt that, for me at least, the worst was over. I had faced the infuriated father, and I might now face anybody with the consciousness of power. I always feel conscious of great power when danger is past. Once more I lit my cigar, and stretched myself out to take some rest. The constant strain on the nerves was becoming very wearing, and I knew very well that on the morrow I should need bleeding and mallows tea. Hardly was I settled and comfortable when I heard that dreadful bell again.
"This is the day of the resurrection indeed," cried Mariuccia frantically from the kitchen. And she hurried to the door. But I cannot describe to you the screams of joy and the strange sounds, between laughing and crying, that her leathern throat produced when she found Nino and Hedwig on the landing, waiting for admission. And when Nino explained that he had been married, and that this beautiful lady with the bright eyes and the golden hair was his wife, the old woman fairly gave way, and sat upon a chair in an agony of amazement and admiration. But the pair came toward me, and I met them with a light heart.
"Nino," said Hedwig, "we have not been nearly grateful enough to Signor Grandi for all he has done. I have been very selfish," she said, penitently turning to me.
"Ah no, signora," I replied,--for she was married now, and no longer "signorina,"--"it is never selfish of such as you to let an old man do you service. You have made me very happy." And then I embraced Nino, and Hedwig gave me her hand, which I kissed in the old fashion.
"And so this is your old home, Nino?" said Hedwig presently, looking about her, and touching the things in the room, as a woman will when she makes acquaintance with a place she has often heard of. "What a dear room it is! I wish we could live here!" How very soon a woman learns that "we" that means so much! It is never forgotten, even when the love that bred it is dead and cold.
"Yes," I said, for Nino seemed so enraptured, as he watched her, that he could not speak. "And there is the old piano, with the end on the boxes because it has no leg, as I dare say Nino has often told you."
"Nino said it was a very good piano," said she.
"And indeed it is," he said, with enthusiasm. "It is out of tune now, perhaps, but it is the source of all my fortune." He leaned over the crazy instrument and seemed to caress it.
"Poor old thing!" said Hedwig, compassionately. "I am sure there is music in it still--the sweet music of the past."
"Yes," said he laughing, "it must be the music of the past, for it would not stand the 'music of the future,' as they call it, for five minutes. All the strings would break." Hedwig sat down on the chair that was in front of it, and her fingers went involuntarily to the keys, though she is no great musician.
"I can play a little, you know, Nino," she said shyly, and looked up to his face for a response, not venturing to strike the chords. And it would have done you good to see how brightly Nino smiled and encouraged her little offer of music--he, the great artist, in whose life music was both sword and sceptre. But he knew that she had greatness also of a different kind, and he loved the small jewels in his crown as well as the glorious treasures of its larger wealth.
"Play to me, my love," he said, not caring now whether I heard the sweet words or not. She blushed a little, nevertheless, and glanced at me; then her fingers strayed over the keys, and drew out music that was very soft and yet very gay. Suddenly she ceased, and leaned forward on the desk of the piano, looking at him.
"Do you know, Nino, it was once my dream to be a great musician. If I had not been so rich I should have taken the profession in earnest. But now, you see, it is different, is it not?"
"Yes, it is all different now," he answered, not knowing exactly what she meant, but radiantly happy, all the same.
"I mean," she said, hesitating--"I mean that now that we are to be always together, what you do I do, and what I do you do. Do you understand?"
"Yes, perfectly," said Nino, rather puzzled, but quite satisfied.
"Ah no, dear," said she, forgetting my presence, and letting her hand steal into his as he stood, "you do not understand--quite. I mean that so long as one of us can be a great musician it is enough, and I am just as great as though I did it all myself."
Thereupon Nino forgot himself altogether, and kissed her golden hair. But then he saw me looking, for it was so pretty a sight that I could not help it, and he remembered.
"Oh!" he said in a tone of embarrassment that I had never heard before. Then Hedwig blushed very much too, and looked away, and Nino put himself between her and me, so that I might not see her.
"Could you play something for me to sing, Hedwig?" he asked suddenly.
"Oh, yes! I can play 'Spirto gentil,' by heart," she cried, hailing the idea with delight.
In a moment they were both lost, and indeed so was I, in the dignity and beauty of the simple melody. As he began to sing, Nino bent down to her, and almost whispered the first words into her ear. But soon he stood erect, and let the music flow from his lips just as God made it. His voice was tired with the long watching and the dust and cold and heat of the journey; but, as De Pretis said when he began, he has an iron throat, and the weariness only made the tones soft and tender and thrilling, that would perhaps have been too strong for my little room.
Suddenly he stopped short in the middle of a note, and gazed open-mouthed at the door. And I looked, too, and was horrified; and Hedwig, looking also, screamed and sprang back to the window, overturning the chair she had sat on.
In the doorway stood Ahasuerus Benoni, the Jew.
Mariuccia had imprudently forgotten to shut the door when Hedwig and Nino came, and the baron had walked in unannounced. You may imagine the fright I was in. But, after all, it was natural enough that after what had occurred he, as well as the count, should seek an interview with me, to obtain what information I was willing to give.
There he stood in his gray clothes, tall and thin and smiling as of yore.
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Nino is a man for great emergencies, as I have had occasion to say, and when he realised who the unwelcome visitor was, he acted as promptly as usual. With a face like marble he walked straight across the room to Benoni and faced him.
"Baron Benoni," he said, in a low voice, "I warn you that you are most unwelcome here. If you attempt to say any word to my wife, or to force an entrance, I will make short work of you." Benoni eyed him with a sort of pitying curiosity as he made this speech:-- "Do not fear, Signor Cardegna. I came to see Signor Grandi, and to ascertain from him precisely what you have voluntered to tell me. You cannot suppose that I have any object in interrupting the leisure of a great artist, or the privacy of his very felicitous domestic relations. I have not a great deal to say. That is, I have always a great deal to say about everything, but I shall at present confine myself to a very little."
"You will be wise," said Nino, scornfully, "and you would be wiser if you confined yourself to nothing at all."
"Patience, Signor Cardegna," protested Benoni. "You will readily conceive that I am a little out of breath with the stairs, for I am a very old man."
"In that case," I said, from the other side of the room, "I may as well occupy your breathing time by telling you that any remarks you are likely to make to me have been forestalled by the Graf von Lira, who has been with me this morning." Benoni smiled, but both Hedwig and Nino looked at me in surprise.
"I only wished to say," returned Benoni, "that I consider you in the light of an interesting phenomenon. Nay, Signor Cardegna, do not look so fierce. I am an old man--" "An old devil," said Nino hotly.
"An old fool," said I. "An old reprobate," said Hedwig, from her corner, in deepest indignation.
"Precisely," returned Benoni, smilingly. "Many people have been good enough to tell me so before. Thanks, kind friends, I believe you with all my heart. Meanwhile, man, devil, fool, or reprobate, I am very old. I am about to leave Rome for St. Petersburg, and I will take this last opportunity of informing you that in a very singularly long life I have met with only two or three such remarkable instances as this of yours."
"Say what you wish to say, and go," said Nino, roughly.
"Certainly. And whenever I have met with such an instance I have done my very utmost to reduce it to the common level, and to prove to myself that no such thing really exists. I find it a dangerous thing, however; for an old man in love is likely to exhibit precisely the agreeable and striking peculiarities you have so aptly designated." There was something so odd about his manner and about the things he said that Nino was silent, and allowed him to proceed.
"The fact is," he continued, "that love is a very rare thing, nowadays, and is so very generally an abominable sham that I have often amused myself by diabolically devising plans for its destruction. On this occasion I very nearly came to grief myself. The same thing happened to me some time ago--about forty years, I should say,--and I perceive that it has not been forgotten. It may amuse you to look at this paper, which I chance to have with me. Good-morning. I leave for St. Petersburg at once."
"I believe you are really the Wandering Jew!" cried Nino, as Benoni left the room.
"His name was certainly Ahasuerus," Benoni replied from the outer door. "But it may be a coincidence, after all. Good-day." He was gone.
I was the first to take up the paper he had thrown upon a chair. There was a passage marked with a red pencil. I read it aloud:-- "... Baron Benoni, the wealthy banker of St. Petersburg, who was many years ago an inmate of a private lunatic asylum in Paris, is reported to be dangerously insane in Rome." That was all. The paper was the _Paris Figaro_.
"Merciful Heavens!" exclaimed Hedwig, "and I was shut up with that madman in Fillettino!" Nino was already by her side, and in his strong arms she forgot Benoni, and Fillettino, and all her troubles. We were all silent for some time. At last Nino spoke.
"Is it true that the count was here this morning?" he asked, in a subdued voice, for the extraordinary visit and its sequel had made him grave.
"Quite true," I said. "He was here a long time. I would not spoil your pleasure by telling you of it, when you first came."
"What did he--what did my father say?" asked Hedwig, presently.
"My dear children," I answered, thinking I might well call them so, "he said a great many unpleasant things, so that I offered to fight him if he said any more." At this they both laid hold of me and began to caress me; and one smoothed my hair, and the other embraced me, so that I was half smothered.
"Dear Signor Grandi," cried Hedwig, anxiously, "how good and brave you are!" She does not know what a coward I am, you see, and I hope she will never find out, for nothing was ever said to me that gave me half so much pleasure as to be called brave by her, the dear child; and if she never finds out she may say it again, some day. Besides, I really did offer to fight Lira, as I have told you.
"And what is he going to do?" asked Nino, in some anxiety.
"I do not know. I told him it was all legal, and that he could not touch you at all. I also said you were staying at the Hotel Costanzi, where he might find you if he wished."
"Oh! Did you tell him that?" asked Hedwig.
"It was quite right," said Nino. "He ought to know, of course. And what else did you tell him?"
"Nothing especial, Nino mio. He went away in a sort of ill temper because I would not let him abuse you as much as he pleased."
"He may abuse me and be welcome," said Nino. "He has some right to be angry with me. But he will think differently some day." So we chatted away for an hour, enjoying the rest and the peace and the sweet sunshine of the Easter afternoon. But this was the day of interruptions. There was one more visitor to come,--one more scene for me to tell you, and then I have done.
A carriage drove down the street and seemed to stop at the door of my house. Nino looked idly out of the window. Suddenly he started.
"Hedwig, Hedwig!" he cried, "here is your father coming back!" She would not look out, but stood back from the window, turning pale. If there was one thing she dreaded, it was a meeting with her father. All the old doubt as to whether she had done right seemed to come back to her face in a moment. But Nino turned and looked at her, and his face was so triumphant that she got back her courage, and, clasping his hand, bravely awaited what was to come.
I went myself to the door, and heard Lira's slow tread on the stairs. Before long he appeared, and glanced up at me from the steps, which he climbed, one at a time, with his stick.
"Is my daughter here?" he asked, as soon as he reached me; and his voice sounded subdued, just as Nino's did when Benoni had gone, I conducted him into the room. It was the strangest meeting. The proud old man bowed stiffly to Hedwig, as though he had never before seen her. They also bent their heads, and there was a silence as of death in the sunny room.
"My daughter," said Von Lira at last, and with evident effort, "I wish to have a word with you. These two gentlemen--the younger of whom is now, as I understand it, your husband--may well hear what I wish to say."
I moved a chair so that he might sit down, but he stood up to his full height, as though not deigning to be older than the rest. I watched Hedwig, and saw how with both hands she clung to Nino's arm, and her lip trembled, and her face wore the look it had when I saw her in Fillettino.
As for Nino, his stern, square jaw was set, and his brow bent, but he showed no emotion, unless the darkness in his face and the heavy shadows beneath his eyes foretold ready anger.
"I am no trained, reasoner, like Signor Grandi," said Lira, looking straight at Hedwig, "but I can say plainly what I mean, for all that. There was a good old law in Sparta, whereby disobedient children were put to death without mercy. Sparta was a good country,--very like Prussia, but less great. You know what I mean. You have cruelly disobeyed me,--cruelly, I say, because you have shown me that all my pains and kindness and discipline have been in vain. There is nothing so sorrowful for a good parent as to discover that he has made a mistake."
(The canting old proser, I thought, will he never finish?)
"The mistake I refer to is not in the way I have dealt with you," he went on, "for on that score I have nothing to reproach myself. But I was mistaken in supposing you loved me. You have despised all I have done for you."
"Oh, father! How can you say that?" cried poor Hedwig, clinging closer to Nino.
"At all events, you have acted as though you did. On the very day when I promised you to take signal action upon Baron Benoni you left me by stealth, saying in your miserable letter that you had gone to a man who could both love and protect you."
"You did neither the one nor the other, sir," said Nino, boldly, "when you required of your daughter to marry such a man as Benoni."
"I have just seen Benoni; I saw him also on the night you left me, madam,"--he looked severely at Hedwig,--"and I am reluctantly forced to confess that he is not sane, according to the ordinary standard of the mind."
We had all known from the paper of the suspicion that rested on Benoni's sanity, yet somehow there was a little murmur in the room when the old count so clearly stated his opinion.
"That does not, however, alter the position in the least," continued Lira, "for you knew nothing of this at the time I desired you to marry him, and I should have found it out soon enough to prevent mischief. Instead of trusting to my judgment you took the law into your own hands, like a most unnatural daughter, as you are, and disappeared in the night with a man whom I consider totally unfit for you, however superior," he added, glancing at Nino, "he may have proved himself in his own rank of life."
Nino could not hold his tongue any longer. It seemed absurd that there should be a battle of words when all the realities of the affair were accomplished facts; but for his life he could not help speaking.
"Sir," he said, addressing Lira, "I rejoice that this opportunity is given me of once more speaking clearly to you. Months ago, when I was betrayed into a piece of rash violence, for which I at once apologised to you, I told you under somewhat peculiar circumstances that I would yet marry your daughter, if she would have me. I stand here to-day with her by my side, my wedded wife, to tell you that I have kept my word, and that she is mine by her own free consent. Have you any cause to show why she is not my wedded wife? If so, show it. But I will not let you stand there and say bitter and undeserved things to this same wife of mine, abusing the name of father and the terms 'authority' and 'love,' forsooth! And if you wish to take vengeance on me personally, do so if you can. I will not fight duels with you now, as I was ready to do the day before yesterday. For then--so short a time ago--I had but offered her my life, and so that I gave it for her I cared not how nor when. But now she has taken me for hers, and I have no more right to let you kill me than I have to kill myself, seeing that she and I are one. Therefore, good sir, if you have words of conciliation to speak, speak them; but if you would only tell her harsh and cruel things, I say you shall not!"
As Nino uttered these hot words in good, plain Italian, they had a bold and honest sound of strength that was glorious to hear. A weaker man than the old count would have fallen into a fury of rage, and perhaps would have done some foolish violence. But he stood silent, eying his antagonist coolly, and when the words were spoken he answered.
"Signor Cardegna," he said, "the fact that I am here ought to be to you the fullest demonstration that I acknowledge your marriage with my daughter. I have certainly no intention of prolonging a painful interview. When I have said that my child has disobeyed me, I have said all that the question holds. As for the future of you two, I have naturally nothing more to say about it. I cannot love a disobedient child, nor ever shall again. For the present, we will part; and if at the end of a year my daughter is happy with you, and desires to see me, I shall make no objection to such a meeting. I need not say that if she is unhappy with you my house will always be open to her, if she chooses to return to it."
"No, sir, most emphatically, you need not say it!" cried Nino, with blazing eyes. Lira took no notice of him, but turned to go.
Hedwig would try once more to soften him, though she knew it was useless.
"Father," she said, in tones of passionate entreaty, "will you not say you wish me well? Will you not forgive me?" She sprang to him and would have held him back.
"I wish you no ill," he answered shortly, pushing her aside, and he marched to the door, where he paused, bowed as stiffly as ever, and disappeared.
It was very rude of us, perhaps, but no one accompanied him to the stairs. As for me, I would not have believed it possible that any human being could be so hard and relentlessly virtuous; and if I had wondered at first that Hedwig should have so easily made up her mind to flight, I was no longer surprised when I saw with my own eyes how he could treat her.
I cannot, indeed, conceive how she could have borne it so long, for the whole character of the man came out, hard, cold, and narrow,--such a character as must be more hideous than any description can paint it, when seen in the closeness of daily conversation. But when he was gone the sun appeared to shine again, as he had shone all day, though it had sometimes seemed so dark. The storms were in that little room.
As Lira went out, Nino, who had followed Hedwig closely, caught her in his arms, and once more her face rested on his broad breast. I sat down and pretended to be busy with a pile of old papers that lay near by on the table, but I could hear what they said. The dear children, they forgot all about me.
"I am so sorry, dear one," said Nino soothingly.
"I know you are, Nino. But it cannot be helped."
"But are you sorry, too, Hedwig?" he asked, stroking her hair.
"That my father is angry? Yes. I wish he were not," said she, looking wistfully toward the door.
"No, not that," said Nino. "Sorry that you left him, I mean."
"Ah, no, I am not sorry for that. Oh, Nino, dear Nino, your love is best." And again she hid her face.
"We will go away at once, darling," he said, after a minute, during which I did not see what was going on. "Would you like to go away?"
Hedwig moved her head to say "Yes."
"We will go, then, sweetheart. Where shall it be?" asked Nino, trying to distract her thoughts from what had just occurred. "London? Paris? Vienna? I can sing anywhere now, but you must always choose, love."
"Anywhere, anywhere; only always with you, Nino, till we die together."
"Always, till we die, my beloved," he repeated. The small white hands stole up and clasped about his broad throat, tenderly drawing his face to hers, and hers to his. And it will be "always," till they die together, I think.
* * * * * This is the story of that Roman singer whose great genius is making such a stir in the world. I have told it to you, because he is my own dear boy, as I have often said in these pages; and because people must not think that he did wrong to carry Hedwig von Lira away from her father, nor that Hedwig was so very unfilial and heartless. I know that they were both right, and the day will come when old Lira will acknowledge it. He is a hard old man, but he must have some affection for her; and if not, he will surely have the vanity to own so famous an artist as Nino for his son-in-law.
I do not know how it was managed, for Hedwig was certainly a heretic when she left her father, though she was an angel, as Nino said. But before they left Rome for Vienna there was a little wedding, early in the morning, in our parish church, for I was there; and De Pretis, who was really responsible for the whole thing, got some of his best singers from St. Peter and St. John on the Lateran to come and sing a mass over the two. I think that our good Mother Church found room for the dear child very quickly, and that is how it happened.
They are happy and glad together, those two hearts that never knew love save for each other, and they will be happy always. For it was nothing but love with them from the very first, and so it must be to the very last. Perhaps you will say that there is nothing in this story either but love. And if so, it is well; for where there is naught else there can surely be no sinning, or wrongdoing, or weakness, or meanness; nor yet anything that is not quite pure and undefiled.
Just as I finish this writing, there comes a letter from Nino to say that he has taken steps about buying Serveti, and that I must go there in the spring with Mariuccia and make it ready for him. Dear Serveti, of course I will go.
THE END
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"That child," said my aunt Mercy, looking at me with indigo-colored eyes, "is possessed."
When my aunt said this I was climbing a chest of drawers, by its knobs, in order to reach the book-shelves above it, where my favorite work, "The Northern Regions," was kept, together with "Baxter's Saints' Rest," and other volumes of that sort, belonging to my mother; and those my father bought for his own reading, and which I liked, though I only caught a glimpse of their meaning by strenuous study. To this day Sheridan's Comedies, Sterne's Sentimental Journey, and Captain Cook's Voyages are so mixed up in my remembrance that I am still uncertain whether it was Sterne who ate baked dog with Maria, or Sheridan who wept over a dead ass in the Sandwich Islands.
After I had made a dash at and captured my book, I seated myself with difficulty on the edge of the chest of drawers, and was soon lost in an Esquimaux hut. Presently, in crossing my feet, my shoes, which were large, dropped on the painted floor with a loud noise. I looked at my aunt; her regards were still fixed upon me, but they did not interfere with her occupation of knitting; neither did they interrupt her habit of chewing cloves, flagroot, or grains of rice. If these articles were not at hand, she chewed a small chip.
"Aunt Merce, poor Hepburn chewed his shoes, when he was in Davis's Straits."
"Mary, look at that child's stockings."
Mother raised her eyes from the _Boston Recorder_, and the article she had been absorbed in the proceedings of an Ecclesiastical Council, which had discussed (she read aloud to Aunt Merce) the conduct of Brother Thaddeus Turner, pastor of the Congregational Church of Hyena. Brother Thaddeus had spoken lightly of the difference between Sprinkling and Immersion, and had even called Hyena's Baptist minister "_Brother_." He was contumacious at first, was Brother Thaddeus, but Brother Boanerges from Andover finally floored him.
"Cassandra," said mother, presently, "come here."
I obeyed with reluctance, making a show of turning down a leaf.
"Child," she continued, and her eyes wandered over me dreamily, till they dropped on my stockings; "why will you waste so much time on unprofitable stories?"
"Mother, I hate good stories, all but the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain; I like that, because it makes me hungry to read about the roasted potatoes the shepherd had for breakfast and supper. Would it make me thankful if you only gave me potatoes without salt?"
"Not unless your heart is right before God." "' _The Lord my Shepherd is_,'" sang Aunt Merce.
I put my hands over my ears, and looked defiantly round the room. Its walls are no longer standing, and the hands of its builders have crumbled to dust. Some mental accident impressed this picture on the purblind memory of childhood.
We were in mother's winter room. She was in a low, chintz-covered chair; Aunt Merce sat by the window, in a straight-backed chair, that rocked querulously, and likewise covered with chintz, of a red and yellow pattern. Before the lower half of the windows were curtains of red serge, which she rattled apart on their brass rods, whenever she heard a footstep, or the creak of a wheel in the road below. The walls were hung with white paper, through which ran thread-like stripes of green. A square of green and chocolate-colored English carpet covered the middle of the floor, and a row of straw chairs stood around it, on the bare, lead-colored boards. A huge bed, with a chintz top shaped like an elephant's back, was in one corner, and a six-legged mahogany table in another. One side of the room where the fireplace was set was paneled in wood; its fire had burned down in the shining Franklin stove, and broken brands were standing upright. The charred backlog still smoldered, its sap hissed and bubbled at each end.
Aunt Merce rummaged her pocket for flagroot; mother resumed her paper.
"May I put on, for a little while, my new slippers?" I asked, longing to escape the oppressive atmosphere of the room.
"Yes," answered mother, "but come in soon, it will be supper-time."
I bounded away, found my slippers, and was walking down stairs on tiptoe, holding up my linsey-woolsey frock, when I saw the door of my great-grandfather's room ajar. I pushed it open, went in, and saw a very old man, his head bound with a red-silk handkerchief, bolstered in bed. His wife, grandmother-in-law, sat by the fire reading a great Bible.
"Marm Tamor, will you please show me Ruth and Boaz?" I asked.
She complied by turning over the leaves till she came to the picture.
"Did Ruth love Boaz dreadfully much?"
"Oh, oh," groaned the old man, "what is the imp doing here? Drive her away. Scat."
I skipped out by a side door, down an alley paved with blue pebbles, swung the high gate open, and walked up and down the gravel walk which bordered the roadside, admiring my slippers, and wishing that some acquaintance with poor shoes could see me. I thought then I would climb the high gateposts, which had a flat top, and take there the position of the little girl in "The Shawl Dance." I had no sooner taken it than Aunt Merce appeared at the door, and gave a shriek at the sight, which tempted me to jump toward her with extended arms. I was seized and carried into the house, where supper was administered, and I was put to bed.
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At this time I was ten years old. We lived in a New England village, Surrey, which was situated on an inlet of a large bay that opened into the Atlantic. From the observatory of our house we could see how the inlet was pinched by the long claws of the land, which nearly enclosed it. Opposite the village, some ten miles across, a range of islands shut out the main waters of the bay. For miles on the outer side of the curving prongs of land stretched a rugged, desolate coast, indented with coves and creeks, lined with bowlders of granite half sunken in the sea, and edged by beaches overgrown with pale sedge, or covered with beds of seaweed. Nothing alive, except the gulls, abode on these solitary shores. No lighthouse stood on any point, to shake its long, warning light across the mariners' wake. Now and then a drowned man floated in among the sedge, or a small craft went to pieces on the rocks. When an easterly wind prevailed, the coast resounded with the bellowing sea, which brought us tidings from those inaccessible spots. We heard its roar as it leaped over the rocks on Gloster Point, and its long, unbroken wail when it rolled in on Whitefoot Beach. In mild weather, too, when our harbor was quiet, we still heard its whimper. Behind the village, the ground rose toward the north, where the horizon was bounded by woods of oak and pine, intersected by crooked roads, which led to towns and villages near us. The inland scenery was tame; no hill or dale broke its dull uniformity. Cornfields and meadows of red grass walled with gray stone, lay between the village and the border of the woods. Seaward it was enchanting--beautiful under the sun and moon and clouds. Our family had lived in Surrey for years. Probably some Puritan of the name of Morgeson had moved from an earlier settlement, and, appropriating a few acres in what was now its center, lived long enough upon them to see his sons and daughters married to the sons and daughters of similar settlers. So our name was in perpetuation, though none of our race ever made a mark in his circle, or attained a place among the great ones of his day. The family recipes for curing herbs and hams, and making cordials, were in better preservation than the memory of their makers. It is certain that they were not a progressive or changeable family. No tradition of any individuality remains concerning them. There was a confusion in the minds of the survivors of the various generations about the degree of their relationship to those who were buried, and whose names and ages simply were cut in the stones which headed their graves. The _meum_ and _tuum_ of blood were inextricably mixed; so they contented themselves with giving their children the old Christian names which were carved on the headstones, and which, in time, added a still more profound darkness to the anti-heraldic memory of the Morgesons. They had no knowledge of that treasure which so many of our New England families are boastful of--the Ancestor who came over in the Mayflower, or by himself, with a grant of land from Parliament. It was not known whether two or three brothers sailed together from the Old World and settled in the New. They had no portrait, nor curious chair, nor rusty weapon--no old Bible, nor drinking cup, nor remnant of brocade.
_Morgeson_--_Born_--_Lived_--_Died_--were all their archives. But there is a dignity in mere perpetuity, a strength in the narrowest affinities. This dignity and strength were theirs. They are still vital in our rural population. Occasionally something fine is their result; an aboriginal reappears to prove the plastic powers of nature.
My great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, the old man whose head I saw bound in a red handkerchief, was the first noticeable man of the name. He was a scale of enthusiasms, ranging from the melancholy to the sarcastic. When I heard him talked of, it seemed to me that he was born under the influence of the sea, while the rest of the tribe inherited the character of the landscape. Comprehension of life, and comprehension of self, came too late for him to make either of value. The spirit of progress, however, which prompted his schemes benefited others. The most that could be said of him was that he had the rudiments of a Founder.
My father, whose name was Locke Morgeson also, married early. My mother was five years his elder; her maiden name was Mary Warren. She was the daughter of Philip Warren, of Barmouth, near Surrey. He was the best of the Barmouth tailors, though he never changed the cut of his garments; he was a rigidly pious man, of great influence in the church, and was descended from Sir Edward Warren, a gentleman of Devon, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. The name of his more immediate ancestor, Richard Warren, was in "New England's Memorial." How father first met mother I know not. She was singularly beautiful--beautiful even to the day of her death; but she was poor, and without connection, for Philip Warren was the last of his name. What the Warrens might have been was nothing to the Morgesons; they themselves had no past, and only realized the present. They never thought of inquiring into that matter, so they opposed, with great promptness, father's wish to marry Mary Warren. All, except old Locke Morgeson, his grandfather, who rode over to Barmouth to see her one day, and when he came back told father to take her, offered him half his house to live in, and promised to push him in the world. His offer quelled the rioters, silencing in particular the opposition of John Morgeson, father's father.
In a month from this time, Locke Morgeson, Jr., took Mary Warren from her father's house as his wife. Grandfather Warren prayed a long, unintelligible prayer over them, helped them into the large, yellow-bottomed chaise which belonged to Grandfather Locke, and the young couple drove to their new home, the old mansion. Grandfather Locke went away in the same yellow-bottomed chaise a week after, and returned in a few days with a tall lady of fifty by his side--"Marm Tamor," a twig of the Morgeson tree, being his third cousin, whom he had married. This marriage was Grandfather Locke's last mistake. He was then near eighty, but lived long enough to fulfill his promises to father. The next year I was born, and four years after, my sister Veronica. Grandfather Locke named us, and charged father not to consult the Morgeson tombstones for names.
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"Mrs. Saunders," said mother, "don't let that soap boil over. Cassy, keep away from it."
"Lord," replied Mrs. Saunders, "there's no fat in the bones to bile. Cassy's grown dreadful fast, ain't she? How long has the old man been dead, Mis Morgeson?"
"Three years, Mrs. Saunders."
"How time do fly," remarked Mrs. Saunders, mopping her wrinkled face with a dark-blue handkerchief. "The winter's sass is hardly put in the cellar 'fore we have to cut off the sprouts, and up the taters for planting agin. We shall all foller him soon." And she stirred the bones in the great kettle with the vigor of an ogress.
When I heard her ask the question about Grandfather Locke, the interval that had elapsed since his death swept through my mind. What a little girl I was at the time! How much had since happened! But no thought remained with me long. I was about to settle whether I would go to the beach and wade, or into the woods for snake-flowers, till school-time, when my attention was again arrested by Mrs. Saunders saying, "I spose Marm Tamor went off with a large slice, and Mr. John Morgeson is mad to this day?"
Mother was prevented from answering by the appearance of the said Mr. John Morgeson, who darkened the threshold of the kitchen door, but advanced no further. I looked at him with curiosity; if he were mad, he might be interesting. He was a large, portly man, over sixty, with splendid black hair slightly grizzled, a prominent nose, and fair complexion. I did not like him, and determined not to speak to him.
"Say good-morning, Cassandra," said mother, in a low voice.
"No," I answered loudly, "I am not fond of my grandfather."
Mrs. Saunders mopped her face again, grinning with delight behind her handkerchief.
"Debby, my wife, wants you, Mis Saunders, after you have made Mary's soap," he said.
"Surely," she answered.
"Where is the black horse to-day?" he asked mother.
"Locke has gone to Milford with him."
"I wanted the black horse to-day," he said, turning away.
"He's a mighty grand man, he is," commented Mrs. Saunders. "I am pesky glad, Mis Morgeson, that you have never put foot in his house. I 'plaud your sperit!"
"School-time, Cassy," said mother. "Will you have some gingerbread to carry? Tell me when you come home what you have read in the New Testament."
"My boy does read beautiful," said Mrs. Saunders. "Where's the potash, Mis Morgeson?"
I heard the bell toll as I loitered along the roadside, pulling a dandelion here and there, for it was in the month of May, and throwing it in the rut for the next wheel to crush. When I reached the schoolhouse I saw through the open door that the New Testament exercise was over. The teacher, Mrs. Desire Cushman, a tall, slender woman, in a flounced calico dress, was walking up and down the room; a class of boys and girls stood in a zigzag line before her, swaying to and fro, and drawling the multiplication table. She was yawning as I entered, which exercise forbade her speaking, and I took my seat without a reprimand. The flies were just coming; I watched their sticky legs as they feebly crawled over my old unpainted notched desk, and crumbled my gingerbread for them; but they seemed to have no appetite. Some of the younger children were drowsy already, lulled by the hum of the whisperers. Feeling very dull, I asked permission to go to the water-pail for a drink; let the tin cup fall into the water so that the floor might be splashed; made faces at the good scholars, and did what I could to make the time pass agreeably. At noon mother sent my dinner, with the request that I should stay till night, on account of my being in the way while the household was in the crisis of soap-making and whitewashing. I was exasperated, but I stayed. In the afternoon the minister came with two strangers to visit the school. I went through my lessons with dignified inaccuracy, and was commended. Going back, I happened to step on a loose board under my seat. I determined to punish Mrs. Desire for the undeserved praise I had just received, and pushed the board till it clattered and made a dust. When Mrs. Desire detected me she turned white with anger. I pushed it again, making so much noise that the visitors turned to see the cause. She shook her head in my direction, and I knew what was in store, as we had been at enmity a long time, and she only waited for a decisive piece of mischief on my part. As soon as the visitors had gone, she said in a loud voice: "Cassandra Morgeson, take your books and go home. You shall not come here another day."
I was glad to go, and marched home with the air of a conqueror, going to the keeping-room where mother sat with a basket of sewing. I saw Temperance Tinkham, the help, a maiden of thirty, laying the table for supper.
"Don't wrinkle the tablecloth," she said crossly; "and hang up your bonnet in the entry, where it belongs," taking it from me as she gave the order, and going out to hang it up herself.
"I am turned out of school, mother, for pushing a board with my foot."
"Hi," said father, who was waiting for his supper; "come here," and he whistled to me. He took me on his knee, while mother looked at me with doubt and sorrow.
"She is almost a woman, Mary."
"Locke, do you know that I am thirty-eight?"
"And you are thirty-three, father," I exclaimed. He looked younger. I thought him handsome; he had a frank, firm face, an abundance of light, curly hair, and was very robust. I took off his white beaver hat, and pushed the curls away from his forehead. He had his riding-whip in his hand. I took that, too, and snapped it at our little dog, Kip. Father's clothes also pleased me--a lavender-colored coat, with brass buttons, and trousers of the same color. I mentally composed for myself a suit to match his, and thought how well we should look calling at Lady Teazle's house in London, only I was worried because my bonnet seemed to be too large for me. A loud crash in the kitchen disturbed my dream, and Temperance rushed in, dragging my sister Veronica, whose hair was streaming with milk; she had pulled a panful over her from the buttery shelf, while Temperance was taking up the supper. Father laughed, but mother said: "What have I done, to be so tormented by these terrible children?"
Her mild blue eyes blazed, as she stamped her foot and clenched her hands. Father took his hat and left the room. Veronica sat down on the floor, with her eyes fixed upon her, and I leaned against the wall. It was a gust that I knew would soon blow over. Veronica knew it also. At the right moment she cried out: "Help Verry, she is sorry."
"Do eat your supper," Temperance called out in a loud voice. "The hash is burnt to flinders."
She remained in the room to comment on our appetites, and encourage Veronica, who was never hungry, to eat.
Veronica was an elfish creature, nine years old, diminutive and pale. Her long, silky brown hair, which was as straight as an Indian's, like mother's, and which she tore out when angry, usually covered her face, and her wild eyes looked wilder still peeping through it. She was too strange-looking for ordinary people to call her pretty, and so odd in her behavior, so full of tricks, that I did not love her. She was a silent child, and liked to be alone. But whoever had the charge of her must be watchful. She tasted everything, and burnt everything, within her reach. A blazing fire was too strong a temptation to be resisted. The disappearance of all loose articles was ascribed to her; but nothing was said about it, for punishment made her more impish and daring in her pursuits. She had a habit of frightening us by hiding, and appearing from places where no one had thought of looking for her. People shook their heads when they observed her. The Morgesons smiled significantly when she was spoken of, and asked: "Do you think she is like her mother?"
There was a conflict in mother's mind respecting Veronica. She did not love her as she loved me; but strove the harder to fulfill her duty. When Verry suffered long and mysterious illnesses, which made her helpless for weeks, she watched her day and night, but rarely caressed her. At other times Verry was left pretty much to herself and her ways, which were so separate from mine that I scarcely saw her. We grew up ignorant of each other's character, though Verry knew me better than I knew her; in time I discovered that she had closely observed me, when I was most unaware.
We began to prosper about this time.
"Old Locke Morgeson had a long head," people said, when they talked of our affairs. Father profited by his grandfather's plans, and his means, too; less visionary, he had modified and brought out practically many of his projections. Old Locke had left little to his son John Morgeson, in the belief that father was the man to carry out his ideas. Besides money, he left him a tract of ground running north and south, a few rods beyond the old house, and desired him to build upon it. This he was now doing, and we expected to move into our new house before autumn.
All the Morgesons wished to put money in a company, as soon as father could prove that it would be profitable. They were ready to own shares in the ships which he expected to build, when it was certain that they would make lucky voyages. He declined their offers, but they all "knuckled" to the man who had been bold enough to break the life-long stagnation of Surrey, and approved his plans as they matured. His mind was filled with the hope of creating a great business which should improve Surrey. New streets had been cut through his property and that of grandfather, who, narrow as he was, could not resist the popular spirit; lots had been laid out, and cottages had gone up upon them. To matters of minor importance father gave little heed; his domestic life was fast becoming a habit. The constant enlargement of his schemes was already a necessary stimulant.
I did not go back to Mrs. Desire's school. Mother said that I must be useful at home. She sent me to Temperance, and Temperance sent me to play, or told me to go "a visitin'." I did not care to visit, for in consequence of being turned out of school, which was considered an indelible disgrace and long remembered, my schoolmates regarded me in the light of a Pariah, and put on insufferably superior airs when they saw me. So, like Veronica, I amused myself, and passed days on the sea-shore, or in the fields and woods, mother keeping me in long enough to make a square of patchwork each day and to hear her read a Psalm--a duty which I bore with patience, by guessing when the "Selahs" would come in, and counting them. But wherever I was, or whatever I did, no feeling of beauty ever stole into my mind. I never turned my face up to the sky to watch the passing of a cloud, or mused before the undulating space of sea, or looked down upon the earth with the curiosity of thought, or spiritual aspiration. I was moved and governed by my sensations, which continually changed, and passed away--to come again, and deposit vague ideas which ignorantly haunted me. The literal images of all things which I saw were impressed on my shapeless mind, to be reproduced afterward by faculties then latent. But what satisfaction was that? Doubtless the ideal faculty was active in Veronica from the beginning; in me it was developed by the experience of years. No remembrance of any ideal condition comes with the remembrance of my childish days, and I conclude that my mind, if I had any, existed in so rudimental a state that it had little influence upon my character.
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One afternoon in the following July, tired of walking in the mown fields, and of carrying a nest of mice, which I had discovered under a hay-rick, I concluded I would begin a system of education with them; so arranging them on a grape-leaf, I started homeward. Going in by the kitchen, I saw Temperance wiping the dust from the best china, which elated me, for it was a sign that we were going to have company to tea.
"You evil child," she said, "where have you been? Your mother has wanted you these hours, to dress you in your red French calico with wings to it. Some of the members are coming to tea; Miss Seneth Jellatt, and she that was Clarissa Tripp, Snow now, and Miss Sophrony G. Dexter, and more besides."
I put my mice in a basket, and begged Temperance to allow me to finish wiping the china; she consented, adjuring me not to let it fall. "Mis Morgeson would die if any of it should be broken." I adored it, too. Each piece had a peach, or pear, or a bunch of cherries painted on it, in lustrous brown. The handles were like gold cords, and the covers had knobs of gilt grapes.
"What preserves are you going to put on the table?" I asked.
"Them West Ingy things Capen Curtis's son brought home, and quartered quince, though I expect Mis Dexter will remark that the surup is ropy."
"I wish you wouldn't have cheese."
"We _must_ have cheese," she said solemnly. "I expect they'll drink our green tea till they make bladders of themselves, it is so good. Your father is a first-rate man; he is an excellent provider, and any woman ought to be proud of him, for he does buy number one in provisions."
I looked at her with admiration and respect.
"Capen Curtis," she continued, pursuing a train of thought which the preserves had started, "will never come home, I guess. He has been in furen parts forever and a day; his wife has looked for him, a-twirling her thumb and fingers, every day for ten years. I heard your mother had engaged her to go in the new house; she'll take the upper hand of us all. Your grandfather, Mr. John Morgeson, is willing to part with her; tired of her, I spose. She has been housekeeping there, off and on, these thirty years. She's fifty, if she is a day, is Hepsy Curtis."
"Is she as stingy as you are?" I asked.
"You'll find out for yourself, Miss. I rather think you won't be allowed to crumble over the buttery shelves."
I finished the cup, and was watching her while she grated loaf-sugar over a pile of doughnuts, when mother entered, and begged me to come upstairs with her to be dressed.
"Where is Verry, mother?"
"In the parlor, with a lemon in one hand and Robinson Crusoe in the other. She will be good, she says. Cassy, you won't teaze me to-day, will you?"
"No, indeed, mother," and clapping my hands, "I like you too well."
She laughed.
"These Morgesons beat the dogs," I heard Temperance say, as we shut the door and went upstairs.
I skipped over the shiny, lead-colored floor of the chamber in my stockings, while mother was taking from the bureau a clean suit for me, and singing "Bonny Doon," with the sweetest voice in the world. She soon arrayed me in my red calico dress, spotted with yellow stars. I was proud of its buckram undersleeves, though they scratched my arms, and admired its wings, which extended over the protecting buckram.
"It is three o'clock; the company will come soon. Be careful of your dress. You must stand by me at the table to hand the cups of tea."
She left me standing in a chair, so that I might see my pantalettes in the high-hung glass, and the effect of my balloon-like sleeves. Then I went back to the kitchen to show myself to Temperance, and to enjoy the progress of tea.
The table was laid in the long keeping-room adjoining the kitchen, covered with a striped cloth of crimson and blue, smooth as satin to the touch. Temperance had turned the plates upside-down around the table, and placed in a straight line through the middle a row of edibles. She was going to have waffles, she said, and shortcake; they were all ready to bake, and she wished to the Lord they would come and have it over with. With the silver sugar-tongs I slyly nipped lumps of sugar for my private eating, and surveyed my features in the distorting mirror of the pot-bellied silver teapot, ordinarily laid up in flannel. When the company had arrived, Temperance advised me to go in the parlor.
"Sit down, when you get there, and show less," she said. I went in softly, and stood behind mother's chair, slightly abashed for a moment in the presence of the party--some eight or ten ladies, dressed in black levantine, or cinnamon-colored silks, who were seated in rocking-chairs, all the rocking-chairs in the house having been carried to the parlor for the occasion. They were knitting, and every one had a square velvet workbag. Most of them wore lace caps, trimmed with white satin ribbon. They were larger, more rotund, and older than mother, whose appearance struck me by contrast. Perhaps it was the first time I observed her dress; her face I must have studied before, for I knew all her moods by it. Her long, lusterless, brown hair was twisted around a high-topped tortoise-shell comb; it was so heavy and so carelessly twisted that the comb started backward, threatening to fall out. She had minute rings of filigreed gold in her ears. Her dress was a gray pongee, simply made and short; I could see her round-toed morocco shoes, tied with black ribbon. She usually took out her shoestrings, not liking the trouble of tying them. A ruffle of fine lace fell around her throat, and the sleeves of her short-waisted dress were puffed at the shoulders. Her small white hands were folded in her lap, for she was idle; on the little finger of her left hand twinkled a brilliant garnet ring, set with diamonds. Her face was colorless, the forehead extremely low, the nose and mouth finely cut, the eyes of heavenly blue. Although youth had gone, she was beautiful, with an indescribable air of individuality. She influenced all who were near her; her atmosphere enveloped them. She was not aware of it, being too indifferent to the world to observe what effect she had in it, and only realized that she was to herself a self-tormentor. Whether she attracted or repelled, the power was the same. I make no attempt to analyze her character. I describe her as she appeared, and as my memory now holds her. I never understood her, and for that reason she attracted my attention. I felt puzzled now, she seemed so different from anybody else. My observation was next drawn to Veronica, who, entirely at home, walked up and down the room in a blue cambric dress. She was twisting in her fingers a fine gold chain, which hung from her neck. I caught her cunning glance as she flourished some tansy leaves before her face, imitating Mrs. Dexter to the life. I laughed, and she came to me.
"See," she said softly, "I have something from heaven." She lifted her white apron, and I saw under it, pinned to her dress, a splendid black butterfly, spotted with red and gold.
"It is mine," she said, "you shall not touch it. God blew it in through the window; but it has not breathed yet."
"Pooh; I have three mice in the kitchen."
"Where is the mother?"
"In the hayrick, I suppose, I left it there."
"I hate you," she said, in an enraged voice. "I would strike you, if it wasn't for this holy butterfly."
"Cassandra," said Mrs. Dexter, "does look like her pa; the likeness is ex-tri-ordinary. They say my William resembles me; but parients are no judges."
A faint murmur rose from the knitters, which signified agreement with her remark.
"I do think," she continued, "that it is high time Dr. Snell had a colleague; he has outlived his usefulness. I never could say that I thought he was the right kind of man for our congregation; his principals as a man I have nothing to say against; but _why_ don't we have revivals?"
When Mrs. Dexter wished to be elegant she stepped out of the vernacular. She was about to speak again when the whole party broke into a loud talk on the subject she had started, not observing Temperance, who appeared at the door, and beckoned to mother. I followed her out.
"The members are goin' it, ain't they?" she said. "Do see if things are about right, Mis Morgeson." Mother made a few deviations from the straight lines in which Temperance had ranged the viands, and told her to put the tea on the tray, and the chairs round the table.
"There's no place for Mr. Morgeson," observed Temperance.
"He is in Milford," mother replied.
"The brethren wont come, I spose, till after dark?"
"I suppose not."
"Glad to get rid of their wives' clack, I guess."
From the silence which followed mother's return to the parlor, I concluded they were performing the ancient ceremony of waiting for some one to go through the doorway first. They came at last with an air of indifference, as if the idea of eating had not yet occurred, and delayed taking seats till mother urged it; then they drew up to the table, hastily, turned the plates right-side up, spread large silk handkerchiefs over their laps, and, with their eyes fixed on space, preserved a dead silence, which was only broken by mother's inquiries about their taste in milk or sugar. Temperance came in with plates of waffles and buttered shortcake, which she offered with a cut and thrust air, saying, as she did so, "I expect you can't eat them; I know they are tough."
Everybody, however, accepted both. She then handed round the preserves, and went out to bake more waffles.
By this time the cups had circled the table, but no one had tasted a morsel.
"Do help yourselves," mother entreated, whereat they fell upon the waffles.
"Temperance is as good a cook as ever," said one; "she is a prize, isn't she, Mis Morgeson?"
"She is faithful and industrious," mother replied.
All began at once on the subject of help, and were as suddenly quenched by the reappearance of Temperance, with fresh waffles, and a dish of apple-fritters.
"Do eat these if you can, ladies; the apples are only russets, and they are kinder dead for flavoring. I see you don't eat a mite; I expected you could not; it's poor trash." And she passed the cake along, everybody taking a piece of each kind.
After drinking a good many cups of tea, and praising it, their asceticism gave way to its social effect, and they began to gossip, ridiculing their neighbors, and occasionally launching innuendoes against their absent lords. It is well known that when women meet together they do not discuss their rights, but take them, in revealing the little weaknesses and peculiarities of their husbands. The worst wife-driver would be confounded at the air of easy superiority assumed on these occasions by the meekest and most unsuspicious of her sex. Insinuations of So and So's not being any better than she should be passed from mouth to mouth, with a glance at me; and I heard the proverb of "Little pitchers," when mother rose suddenly from the table, and led the way to the parlor.
"Where is Veronica?" asked Temperance, who was piling the debris of the feast. "She has been in mischief, I'll warrant; find her, Cassandra."
She was upstairs putting away her butterfly, in the leaves of her little Bible. She came down with me, and Temperance coaxed her to eat her supper, by vowing that she should be sick abed, unless she liked her fritters and waffles. I thought of my mice, while making a desultory meal standing, and went to look at them; they were gone. Wondering if Temperance had thrown the creatures away, I remembered that I had been foolish enough to tell Veronica, and rushed back to her. When she saw me, she raised a saucer to her face, pretending to drink from it.
"Verry, where are the mice?"
"Are they gone?"
"Tell me."
"What will you do if I don't?"
"I know," and I flew upstairs, tore the poor butterfly from between the leaves of the Bible, crushed it in my hand, and brought it down to her. She did not cry when she saw it, but choked a little, and turned away her head.
It was now dark, and hearing a bustle in the entry I looked out, and saw several staid men slowly rubbing their feet on the door-mat; the husbands had come to escort their wives home, and by nine o'clock they all went. Veronica and I stayed by the door after they had gone.
"Look at Mrs. Dexter," she said; "I put the mice in her workbag."
I burst into a laugh, which she joined in presently.
"I am sorry about the butterfly, Verry." And I attempted to take her hand, but she pushed me away, and marched off whistling.
A few days after this, sitting near the window at twilight, intent upon a picture in a book of travels, of a Hindoo swinging from a high pole with hooks in his flesh, and trying to imagine how much it hurt him, my attention was arrested by a mention of my name in a conversation held between mother and Mr. Park, one of the neighbors. He occasionally spent an evening at our house, passing it in polemical discussion, revising the prayers and exhortations which he made at conference meetings. The good man was a little vain of having the formulas of his creed at his tongue's end. She sometimes lost the thread of his discourse, but argued also as if to convince herself that she could rightly distinguish between Truth and Illusion, but never discussed religious topics with father. Like all the Morgesons, he was Orthodox, accepting what had been provided by others for his spiritual accommodation. He thought it well that existing Institutions should not be disturbed. "Something worse might be established instead." His turn of mind, in short, was not Evangelical.
"Are the Hindoos in earnest, mother?" and I thrust the picture before her. She warned me off.
"Do you think, Mr. Park, that Cassandra can understand the law of transgression?"
An acute perception that it was in my power to escape a moral penalty, by willful ignorance, was revealed to me, that I could continue the privilege of sinning with impunity. His answer was complicated, and he quoted several passages from the Scriptures. Presently he began to sing, and I grew lonesome; the life within me seemed a black cave. " _Our nature's totally depraved-- The heart a sink of sin; Without a change we can't be saved, Ye must be born again_."
Temperance opened the door. "Is Veronica going to bed to-night?" she asked.
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The next September we moved. Our new house was large and handsome. On the south side there was nothing between it and the sea, except a few feet of sand. No tree or shrub intercepted the view. To the eastward a promontory of rocks jutted into the sea, serving as a pier against the wash of the tide, and adding a picturesqueness to the curve of the beach. On the north side flourished an orchard, which was planted by Grandfather Locke. Looking over the tree-tops from the upper north windows, one would have had no suspicion of being in the neighborhood of the sea. From these windows, in winter, we saw the nimbus of the Northern Light. The darkness of our sky, the stillness of the night, mysteriously reflected the perpetual condition of its own solitary world. In summer ragged white clouds rose above the horizon, as if they had been torn from the sky of an underworld, to sail up the blue heaven, languish away, or turn livid with thunder, and roll off seaward. Between the orchard and the house a lawn sloped easterly to the border of a brook, which straggled behind the outhouses into a meadow, and finally lost itself among the rocks on the shore. Up by the lawn a willow hung over it, and its outer bank was fringed by the tangled wild-grape, sweet-briar, and alder bushes. The premises, except on the seaside, were enclosed by a high wall of rough granite. No houses were near us, on either side of the shore; up the north road they were scattered at intervals.
Mother said I must be considered a young lady, and should have my own room. Veronica was to have one opposite, divided from it by a wide passage. This passage extended beyond the angle of the stairway, and was cut off by a glass door. A wall ran across the lower end of the passage; half the house was beyond its other side, so that when the door was fastened, Veronica and myself were in a cul-de-sac.
The establishment was put on a larger footing. Mrs. Hepsey Curtis was installed mistress of the kitchen. Temperance declared that she could not stand it; that she wasn't a nigger; that she must go, but she had no home, and no friends--nothing but a wood lot, which was left her by her father the miller. As the trees thereon grew, promising to make timber, its value increased; at present her income was limited to the profit from the annual sale of a cord or two of wood. So she staid on, in spite of Hepsey. There were also two men for the garden and stable. A boy was always attached to the house; not the same boy, but a Boy dynasty, for as soon as one went another came, who ate a great deal--a crime in Hepsey's eyes--and whose general duty was to carry armfuls of wood, pails of milk, or swill, and to shut doors.
We had many visitors. Though father had no time to devote to guests, he was continually inviting people for us to entertain, and his invitations were taken as a matter of course, and finally for granted. A rich Morgeson was a new feature in the family annals, and distant relations improved the advantage offered them by coming to spend the summer with us, because their own houses were too hot, or the winter, because they were too cold! Infirm old ladies, who were not related to us, but who had nowhere else to visit, came. As his business extended, our visiting list extended. The captains of his ships whose homes were elsewhere brought their wives to be inconsolable with us after their departure on their voyages. We had ministers often, who always quarter at the best houses, and chance visitors to dinner and supper, who made our house a way-station. There was but small opportunity to cultivate family affinities; they were forever disturbed. Somebody was always sitting in the laps of our Lares and Penates. Another class of visitors deserving notice were those who preferred to occupy the kitchen and back chambers, humbly proud and bashfully arrogant people, who kept their hats and bonnets by them, and small bundles, to delude themselves and us with the idea that they "had not come to stay, and had no occasion for any attention." These people criticised us with insinuating severity, and proposed amendments with unrelenting affability. To this class Veronica was most attracted--it repelled me; consequently she was petted, and I was amiably sneered at.
This period of our family life has left small impression of dramatic interest. There was no development of the sentiments, no betrayal of the fluctuations of the passions which must have existed. There was no accident to reveal, no coincidence to surprise us. Hidden among the Powers That Be, which rule New England, lurks the Deity of the Illicit. This Deity never obtained sovereignty in the atmosphere where the Morgesons lived. Instead of the impression which my after-experience suggests to me to seek, I recall arrivals and departures, an eternal smell of cookery, a perpetual changing of beds, and the small talk of vacant minds.
Despite the rigors of Hepsey in the kitchen, and the careful supervision of Temperance, there was little systematic housekeeping. Mother had severe turns of planning, and making rules, falling upon us in whirlwinds of reform, shortly allowing the band of habit to snap back, and we resumed our former condition. She had no assistance from father in her ideas of change. It was enough for him to know that he had built a good house to shelter us, and to order the best that could be bought for us to eat and to wear. He liked, when he went where there were fine shops, to buy and bring home handsome shawls, bonnets, and dresses, wholly unsuited in general to the style and taste of each of us, but much handsomer than were needful for Surrey. They answered, however, as patterns for the plainer materials of our neighbors. He also bought books for us, recommended by their covers, or the opinion of the bookseller. His failing was to buy an immense quantity of everything he fancied.
"I shall never have to buy this thing again," he would say; "let us have enough."
Veronica and I grew up ignorant of practical or economical ways. We never saw money, never went shopping. Mother was indifferent in regard to much of the business of ordinary life which children are taught to understand. Father and mother both stopped at the same point with us, but for a different reason; father, because he saw nothing beyond the material, and mother, because her spiritual insight was confused and perplexing. But whatever a household may be, the Destinies spin the web to their will, put of the threads which drop hither and thither, floating in its atmosphere, white, black, or gray.
From the time we moved, however, we were a stirring, cheerful family, independent of each other, but spite of our desultory tastes, mutual habits were formed. When the want of society was felt, we sought the dining-room, sure of meeting others with the same want. This room was large and central, connecting with the halls, kitchen, and mother's room. It was a caravansary where people dropped in and out on their way to some other place. Our most public moments were during meal-time. It was known that father was at home at breakfast and supper, and could be consulted. As he was away at our noonday dinner, generally we were the least disturbed then, and it was a lawless, irregular, and unceremonious affair. Mother establisher her arm-chair here, and a stand for her workbasket. Hepsey and Temperance were at hand, the men came for orders, and it was convenient for the boy to transmit the local intelligence it was his vocation to collect. The windows commanded a view of the sea, the best in the house. This prospect served mother for exercise. Her eyes roved over it when she wanted a little out-of-doors life. If she desired more variety, which was seldom, she went to the kitchen. After we moved she grew averse to leaving the house, except to go to church. She never quitted the dining-room after our supper till bedtime, because father rarely came from Milford, where he went on bank days, and indeed almost every other day, till late, and she liked to be by him while he ate his supper and smoked a cigar. All except Veronica frequented this room; but she was not missed or inquired for. She liked the parlor, because the piano was there. As soon as father had bought it she astonished us by a persistent fingering of the keys, which produced a feeble melody. She soon played all the airs she had heard. When I saw what she could do, I refused to take music lessons, for while I was trying to learn "The White Cockade," she pushed me away, played it, and made variations upon it. I pounded the keys with my fist, by way of a farewell, and told her she should have the piano for her own.
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{
"id": "12347"
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6
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One winter morning before daylight, Veronica came to my room, and asked me if I had heard any walking about the house during the night. She had, and was going to inquire about it. She soon returned with, "You have a brother. Temperance says my nose is broken. He will be like you, I suppose, and have everything he asks for. I don't care for him; but," crying out with passion, "get up. Mother wants to see _you_, I know."
I dressed quickly, and went downstairs with a feeling of indignation that such an event should have happened without my knowledge.
There was an unwonted hush. A bright fire was burning on the dining-room hearth, the lamps were still lighted, and father was by the fire, smoking in a meditative manner. He put out his hand, which I did not take, and said, "Do you like his name--Arthur?"
"Yes," I mumbled, as I passed him, and went to the kitchen, where Hepsey and Temperance were superintending the steeping of certain aromatic herbs, which stood round the fire in silver porringers and earthen pitchers.
"Another Morgeson's come," said Temperance. "There's enough of them, such as they are--not but what they are good enough," correcting herself hastily.
"Go into your mother's room, softly," said Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb--her habit when she was in a tranquil frame of mind. " _You_ are mighty glad, Hepsey," said Temperance.
"Locke Morgeson ought to have a son," she replied, "to leave his money to."
"I vow," answered Temperance, "girls are thought nothing of in this 'ligous section; they may go to the poor house, as long as the sons have plenty."
An uncommon fit or shyness seized me, mixed with a feeling of dread, as I crept into the room where mother was. My eyes first fell upon an elderly woman, who wore a long, wide, black apron, whose strings girded the middle of her cushion-like form. She was taking snuff. It was the widow Mehitable Allen, a lady whom I had often seen in other houses on similar occasions.
"Shoo," she whispered nasally.
I was arrested, but turned my eyes toward mother; hers were closed. Presently she murmured, "Thank God," opened them, and saw me. A smile lighted her pale countenance. "Cassy, my darling, kiss me. I am glad it is not a woman." As I returned her kiss her glance dropped on a small bunch by her side, which Mehitable took and deftly unrolled, informing me as she did so that it was a "Rouser."
Aunt Mercy came the next day. She had not paid us a visit in a long time, being confined at home with the care of her father, Grandfather Warren. She took charge of Veronica and me, if taking charge means a series of guerilla skirmishes on both sides. I soon discovered, however, that she was prone to laughter, and that I could provoke it; we got on better after that discovery; but Veronica, disdaining artifice, was very cross with her. Aunt Mercy had a spark of fun in her composition, which was not quite crushed out by her religious education. She frequented the church oftener than mother, sang more hymns, attended all the anniversary celebrations, but she had no dreams, no enthusiasm. Her religion had leveled all needs and all aspirations. What the day brought forth answered her. She inspired me with a secret pity; for I knew she carried in her bosom the knowledge that she was an old maid.
Before mother left her room Veronica was taken ill, and was not convalescent till spring. Delicacy of constitution the doctor called her disorder. She had no strength, no appetite, and looked more elfish than ever. She would not stay in bed, and could not sit up, so father had a chair made for her, in which she could recline comfortably. Aunt Merce put her in it every morning, and took her out every evening. My presence irritated her, so I visited her but seldom. She said I looked so well, it hurt her, and wished me to keep out of her sight, begged me never to talk loud in the vicinity of her room, my voice was so breezy. She amused herself in her own strange way. One of her amusements was to cut off her hair, lock by lock, and cut it short before she was well enough to walk about. She played on a jewsharp, and on a little fife when her breath permitted, and invented grotesque costumes out of bits of silk and lace. Temperance was much engaged, at her dictation, in the composition of elaborate dishes, which she rarely ate, but forced Temperance to. She was more patient with her than any other person; with us she was excessively high-tempered, especially with father. She could not bear to catch a glimpse of the sea, nor to hear it; if she heard it echoing in the house, she played on her fife, or jewsharp, or asked Aunt Merce to sing some old song. But she liked the view from the north windows, even when the boughs were bare and the fields barren. When the grass came, she ordered handfuls to be brought her and put in saucers of water. With the coming of the blossoms she began to mend. As for me, I was as much an animal as ever--robust in health--inattentive, and seeking excitement and exhilaration. I went everywhere, to Bible class, to Sunday school, and to every funeral which took place within our precincts. But I never looked upon the dead; perhaps that sight would have marred the slumbrous security which possessed me--the instinctive faith in the durability of my own powers of life.
But a change was approaching. Aunt Merce considered my present state a hopeless one. She was outside the orbit of the family planet, and saw the tendency of its revolutions, perceiving that father and mother were absorbed in their individual affairs. She called mother's attention to my non-improvement, and proposed that I should return to Barmouth with her for a year, and become a pupil in a young lady's school, which had been recently established there, by a graduate of the Nipswich Female Seminary, a school distinguished for its ethics. Mother looked astonished, when she heard this proposal. "What!" she began with vehemence, "shall I subject"--but checked herself when she caught my eye, and continued more calmly: "We will decide soon."
It was decided that I should go, without my being consulted in the matter. I felt resentful against mother, and could not understand till afterward, why she had consented to the plan. It was because she wished me to comprehend the influences of her early life, and learn some of the lessons she had been taught. At first, father "poohed" at the plan, but finally said it was a good place to tame me. When Veronica heard that I was going, she told me that I would be stifled, if I lived at Grandfather Warren's; but added that the plums in his garden were good, and advised me to sit on the yellow stone doorstep, under which the toads lived. She also informed me that she was glad of it, and hoped I would stay forever.
To Barmouth I went, and in May entered Miss Black's genteel school. Miss Black had a conviction that her vocation was teaching. Necessity did not compel it, for she was connected with one of the richest families in Barmouth. At the end of the week my curiosity regarding my new position was quenched, and I dropped into the depths of my first wretchedness. I frantically demanded of father, who had stopped to see me on his way to Milford, to be taken home. He firmly resisted me. Once a month, I should go home and spend a Sunday, if I chose, and he would come to Barmouth every week.
My agitation and despair clouded his face for a moment, then it cleared, and pinching my chin, he said, "Why don't you look like your mother?"
"But she _is_ like her mother," said Aunt Merce.
"Well, Cassy, good-by"; and he gave me a kiss with cruel nonchalance. I knew my year must be stayed out.
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{
"id": "12347"
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My life at Grandfather Warren's was one kind of penance and my life in Miss Black's school another. Both differed from our home-life. My filaments found no nourishment, creeping between the two; but the fibers of youth are strong, and they do not perish. Grandfather Warren's house reminded me of the casket which imprisoned the Genii. I had let loose a Presence I had no power over--the embodiment of its gloom, its sternness, and its silence.
With feeling comes observation; after that, one reasons. I began to observe. Aunt Mercy was not the Aunt Merce I had known at home. She wore a mask before her father. There was constraint between them; each repressed the other. The result of this relation was a formal, petrifying, unyielding system,--a system which, from the fact of its satisfying neither, was kept up the more rigidly; on the one side from a morbid conscience, which reiterated its monitions against the dictates of the natural heart; on the other, out of respect and timidity.
Grandfather Warren was a little, lean, leather-colored man. His head was habitually bent, his eyes cast down; but when he raised them to peer about, their sharpness and clear intelligence gave his face a wonderful vitality. He chafed his small, well-shaped hands continually; his long polished nails clicked together with a shelly noise, like that which beetles make flying against the ceiling. His features were delicate and handsome; gentle blood ran in his veins, as I have said. All classes in Barmouth treated him with invariable courtesy. He was aboriginal in character, not to be moved by antecedent or changed by innovation--a Puritan, without gentleness or tenderness. He scarcely concealed his contempt for the emollients of life, or for those who needed them. He whined over no misfortune, pined for no pleasure. His two sons, who broke loose from him, went into the world, lived a wild, merry life, and died there, he never named. He found his wife dead by his side one morning. He did not go frantic, but selected a text for the funeral sermon; and when he stood by the uncovered grave, took off his hat and thanked his friends for their kindness with a loud, steady voice. Aunt Mercy told me that after her mother's death his habit of chafing his hands commenced; it was all the difference she saw in him, for he never spoke of his trouble or acknowledged his grief by sign or word.
Though he had been frugal and industrious all his life, he had no more property than the old, rambling house we lived in, and a long, narrow garden attached to it, where there were a few plum and quince trees, a row of currant bushes, Aunt Mercy's beds of chamomile and sage, and a few flowers. At the end of the garden was a peaked-roof pigsty; it was cleanly kept, and its inhabitant had his meals served with the regularity which characterized all that Grandfather Warren did. Beautiful pigeons lived in the roof, and were on friendly terms with the occupant on the lower floor. The house was not unpicturesque. It was built on a corner, facing two streets. One front was a story high, with a slanting roof; the other, which was two-storied, sloped like a giraffe's back, down to a wood-shed. Clean cobwebs hung from its rafters, and neat heaps of fragrant chips were piled on the floor.
The house had many rooms, all more or less dark and irregularly shaped. The construction of the chambers was so involved, I could not get out of one without going into another. Some of the ceilings slanted suddenly, and some so gradually that where I could stand erect, and where I must stoop, I never remembered, until my head was unpleasantly grazed, or my eyes filled with flakes of ancient lime-dust. A long chamber in the middle of the house was the shop, always smelling of woolen shreds. At sunset, summer or winter, Aunt Mercy sprinkled water on the unpainted floor, and swept it. While she swept I made my thumb sore, by snipping the bits of cloth that were scattered on the long counter by the window with Grand'ther's shears, or I scrawled figures with gray chalk, where I thought they might catch his eye. When she had finished sweeping she carefully sorted the scraps, and put them into boxes under the counter; then she neatly rolled up the brown-paper curtains, which had been let down to exclude the afternoon sun; shook the old patchwork cushions in the osier-bottomed chairs; watered the rose-geranium and the monthly rose, which flourished wonderfully in that fluffy atmosphere; set every pin and needle in its place, and shut the door, which was opened again at sunrise. Of late years, Grand'ther's occupation had declined. No new customers came. A few, who did not change the fashion of their garb, still patronized him. His income was barely three hundred dollars a year--eked out to this amount by some small pay for offices connected with the church, of which he was a prominent member. From this income he paid his pulpit tithe, gave to the poor, and lived independent and respectable. Mother endeavored in an unobtrusive way to add to his comfort; but he would only accept a few herrings from the Surrey Weir every spring, and a basket of apples every fall. He invariably returned her presents by giving her a share of his plums and quinces.
I had only seen Grand'ther Warren at odd intervals. He rarely came to our house; when he did, he rode down on the top of the Barmouth stagecoach, returning in a few hours. As mother never liked to go to Barmouth, she seldom came to see me.
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{
"id": "12347"
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It was five o'clock on Saturday afternoon when father left me. Aunt Mercy continued her preparations for tea, and when it was ready, went to the foot of the stairs, and called, "Supper." Grand'ther came down immediately followed by two tall, cadaverous women, Ruth and Sally Aikin, tailoresses, who sewed for him spring and fall. Living several miles from Barmouth, they stayed through the week, going home on Saturday night, to return on Monday morning. We stood behind the heavy oak chairs round the table, one of which Grand'ther tipped backward, and said a long grace, not a word of which was heard; for his teeth were gone, and he prayed in his throat. Aunt Mercy's "Moltee" rubbed against me, with her back and tail erect. I pinched the latter, and she gave a wail. Aunt Mercy passed her hand across her mouth, but the eyes of the two women were stony in their sockets. Grand'ther ended his grace with an upward jerk of his head as we seated ourselves. He looked sharply at me, his gray eyebrows rising hair by hair, and shaking a spoon at me said, "You are playing over your mother's capers."
"The caper-bush grows on the shores of the Mediterranean sea, Grand'ther. Miss Black had it for a theme, out of the _Penny Magazine_; it is full of themes."
"She had better give you a gospel theme."
He was as inarticulate when he quoted Scripture as when he prayed, but I heard something about "thorns"; then he helped us to baked Indian pudding--our invariable Saturday night's repast. Aunt Mercy passed cups of tea; I heard the gulping swallow of it in every throat, the silence was so profound. After the pudding we had dried apple-pie, which we ate from our hands, like bread. Grand'ther ate fast, not troubling himself to ask us if we would have more, but making the necessary motions to that effect by touching the spoon in the pudding or knife on the pie. Ruth and Sally still kept their eyes fixed on some invisible object at a distance. What a disagreeable interest I felt in them! What had they in common with me? What could they enjoy? How unpleasant their dingy, crumbled, needle-pricked fingers were! Sally hiccoughed, and Ruth suffered from internal rumblings. Without waiting for each other when we had finished, we put our chairs against the wall and left the room. I rushed into the garden and trampled the chamomile bed. I had heard that it grew faster for being subjected to that process, and thought of the two women I had just seen while I crushed the spongy plants. Had _they_ been trampled upon? A feeling of pity stung me; I ran into the house, and found them on the point of departure, with little bundles in their hands.
"Aunt Mercy will let me carry your bundles a part of the way for you; shall I?"
"No, indeed," said Ruth, in a mild voice; "there's no heft in them; they are mites to carry."
"Besides," chimed Sally, "you couldn't be trusted with them."
"Are they worth anything?" I inquired, noticing then that both wore better dresses, and that the bundles contained their shop-gowns.
"What made you pinch the moltee's tail?" asked Sally. "If you pinched my cat's tail, I would give you a sound whipping."
"How could she, Sally," said Ruth, "when our cat's tail is cut short off?"
"For all the world," remarked Sally, "that's the only way she can be managed. If things are cut off, and kept out of sight, or never mentioned before her, she may behave very well; not otherwise."
"Good-by, Miss Ruth, and Sally, good-by," modulating my voice to accents of grief, and making a "cheese."
They retreated with a less staid pace than usual, and I sought Aunt Mercy, who was preparing the Sunday's dinner. Twilight drew near, and the Sunday's clouds began to fall on my spirits. Between sundown and nine o'clock was a tedious interval. I was not allowed to go to bed, nor to read a secular book, or to amuse myself with anything. A dim oil-lamp burned on the high shelf of the middle room, our ordinary gathering-place. Aunt Mercy sat there, rocking in a low chair; the doors were open, and I wandered softly about. The smell of the garden herbs came in faintly, and now and then I heard a noise in the water-butt under the spout, the snapping of an old rafter, or something falling behind the wall. The toads crawled from under the plantain leaves, and hopped across the broad stone before the kitchen door, and the irreverent cat, with whom I sympathized, raced like mad in the grass. Growing duller, I went to the cellar door, which was in the front entry, opened it, and stared down in the black gulf, till I saw a gray rock rise at the foot of the stairs which affected my imagination. The foundation of the house was on the spurs of a great granite bed, which rose from the Surrey shores, dipped and cropped out in the center of Barmouth. It came through the ground again in the woodhouse, smooth and round, like the bald head of some old Titan, and in the border of the garden it burst through in narrow ridges full of seams. As I contemplated the rock, and inhaled a moldy atmosphere whose component parts were charcoal and potatoes, I heard the first stroke of the nine o'clock bell, which hung in the belfry of the church across the street. Although it was so near us that we could hear the bellrope whistle in its grooves, and its last hoarse breath in the belfry, there was no reverberation of its clang in the house; the rock under us struck back its voice. It was an old Spanish bell, Aunt Mercy told me. How it reached Barmouth she did not know. I recognized its complaining voice afterward. It told me it could never forget it had been baptized a Catholic; and it pined for the beggar who rang it in the land of fan-leaved chestnuts! It would growl and strangle as much as possible in the hands of Benjamin Beals, the bell-ringer and coffin-maker of Barmouth. Except in the morning when it called me up, I was glad to hear it. It was the signal of time past; the oftener I heard it, the nearer I was to the end of my year. Before it ceased to ring now Aunt Mercy called me in a low voice. I returned to the middle room, and took a seat in one of the oak chairs, whose back of upright rods was my nightly penance. Aunt Mercy took the lamp from the shelf, and placed it upon a small oak stand, where the Bible lay. Grand'ther entered, and sitting by the stand read a chapter. His voice was like opium. Presently my head rolled across the rods, and I felt conscious of slipping down the glassy seat. After he had read the chapter he prayed. If the chapter had been long, the prayer was short; if the chapter had been short, the prayer was long. When he had ceased praying, he left the room without speaking, and betook himself to bed. Aunt Mercy dragged me up the steep stairs, undressed me, and I crept into bed, drugged with a monotony which served but to deepen the sleep of youth and health. When the bell rang the next morning, Aunt Mercy gave me a preparatory shake before she began to dress, and while she walked up and down the room lacing her stays entreated me to get up.
If the word lively could ever be used in reference to our life, it might be in regard to Sunday. The well was so near the church that the house was used as an inn for the accommodation of the church-goers who lived at any distance, and who did not return home between the morning and afternoon services. A regular set took dinner with us, and there were parties who brought lunch, which they ate off their handkerchiefs, on their knees. It was also a watering-place for the Sunday-school scholars, who filed in troops before the pail in the well-room, and drank from the cocoanut dipper. When the weather was warm our parlor was open, as it was to-day. Aunt Mercy had dusted it and ornamented the hearth with bunches of lilacs in a broken pitcher. Twelve yellow chairs, a mahogany stand, a dark rag-carpet, some speckled Pacific sea-shells on the shelf, among which stood a whale's tooth with a drawing of a cranky ship thereon, and an ostrich's egg that hung by a string from the ceiling, were the adornments of the room. When we were dressed for church, we looked out of the window till the bell tolled, and the chaise of the Baxters and Sawyers had driven to the gate; then we went ourselves. Grand'ther had preceded us, and was already in his seat. Aunt Mercy went up to the head of the pew, a little out of breath, from the tightness of her dress, and the ordeal of the Baxter and Sawyer eyes, for the pew, though off a side aisle, was in the neighborhood of the elite of the church; a clove, however, tranquilized her. I fixed my feet on a cricket, and examined the bonnets. The house filled rapidly, and last of all the minister entered. The singers began an anthem, singing in an advanced style of the art, I observed, for they shouted "_Armen_," while our singers in Surrey bellowed "_Amen_." When the sermon began I settled myself into a vague speculation concerning my future days of freedom; but my dreams were disturbed by the conduct of the Hickspold boys, who were in a pew in front of us. As in the morning, so in the afternoon and all the Sundays in the year. The variations of the season served but to deepen the uniformity of my heartsickness.
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{
"id": "12347"
}
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9
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Aunt Mercy had not introduced me to Miss Black as the daughter of Locke Morgeson, the richest man in Surrey, but simply as her niece. Her pride prevented her from making any exhibition of my antecedents, which was wise, considering that I had none. My grandfather, John Morgeson, was a nobody,--merely a "Co."; and though my great-grandfather, Locke Morgeson, was worthy to be called a Somebody, it was not his destiny to make a stir in the world. Many of the families of my Barmouth schoolmates had the fulcrum of a moneyed grandfather. The knowledge of the girls did not extend to that period in the family history when its patriarchs started in the pursuit of Gain. Elmira Sawyer, one of Miss Black's pupils, never heard that her grandfather "Black Peter," as he was called, had made excursions, in an earlier part of his life, on the River Congo, or that he was familiar with the soundings of Loango Bay. As he returned from his voyages, bringing more and more money, he enlarged his estate, and grew more and more respectable, retiring at last from the sea, to become a worthy landsman; he paid taxes to church and state, and even had a silver communion cup, among the pewter service used on the occasion of the Lord's Supper; but he never was brought to the approval of that project of the Congregational Churches,--the colonization of the Blacks to Liberia. Neither was Hersila Allen aware that the pink calico in which I first saw her was remotely owing to West India Rum. Nor did Charlotte Alden, the proudest girl in school, know that her grandfather's, Squire Alden's, stepping-stone to fortune was the loss of the brig _Capricorn_, which was wrecked in the vicinity of a comfortable port, on her passage out to the whaling-ground. An auger had been added to the meager outfit, and long after the sea had leaked through the hole bored through her bottom, and swallowed her, and the insurance had been paid, the truth leaked out that the captain had received instructions, which had been fulfilled. Whereupon two Insurance Companies went to law with him, and a suit ensued, which ended in their paying costs, in addition to what they had before paid Squire Alden, who winked in a derisive manner at the Board of Directors when he received its check.
There were others who belonged in the category of Decayed Families, as exclusive as they were shabby. There were parvenus, which included myself. When I entered the school it was divided into clans, each with its spites, jealousies, and emulations. Its _esprit de corps_, however, was developed by my arrival; the girls united against me, and though I perceived, when I compared myself with them, that they were partly right in their opinions, their ridicule stupefied and crushed me. They were trained, intelligent, and adroit; I uncouth, ignorant, and without tact. It was impossible for Miss Black not to be affected by the general feeling in regard to me. Her pupils knew sooner than I that she sympathized with them. She embarrassed me, when I should have despised her. At first her regimen surprised, then filled me with a dumb, clouded anger, which made me appear apathetic.
Miss Emily Black was a young woman, and, I thought, a handsome one. She had crenelated black hair, large black eyes, a Roman nose, and long white teeth. She bit her nails when annoyed, and when her superiority made her perceive the mental darkness of others she often laughed. Being pious, she conducted her school after the theologic pattern of the Nipswich Seminary, at which she had been educated. She opened the school each day with a religious exercise, reading something from the Bible, and commenting upon it, or questioning us regarding our ideas of what she read. She often selected the character of David, and was persistent in her efforts to explain and reconcile the discrepancies in the history of the royal Son of Israel.
"Miss _C._ Morgeson, we will call you," she said, in our first interview; "the name of Cassandra is too peculiar."
"My Grandfather Locke liked the name; my sister's is Veronica; do you like that better?"
"It is of no consequence in the premises what your sister may be named," she replied, running her eyes over me. "What will she study, Miss Warren?"
Aunt Mercy's recollections of my studies were dim, and her knowledge of my school days was not calculated to prepossess a teacher in my favor; but after a moment's delay, she said: "What you think best."
"Very well," she answered; "I will endeavor to fulfill my Christian duty toward her. We will return to the school-room."
We had held the conversation in the porch, and now Aunt Mercy gave me a nod of encouragement, and bidding Miss Black "Good day," departed, looking behind her as long as possible. I followed my teacher. As she opened the door forty eyes were leveled at me; my hands were in my way suddenly; my feet impeded my progress; how could I pass that wall of eyes? A wisp of my dry, rough hair fell on my neck and tickled it; as I tried to poke it under my comb, I glanced at the faces before me. How spirited and delicate they were! The creatures had their heads dressed as if they were at a party--in curls, or braids and ribbons. An open, blank, _noli me tangere_ expression met my perturbed glance. I stood still, but my head went round. Miss Black mounted her desk, and surveyed the school-room. "Miss Charlotte Alden, the desk next you is vacant; Miss C. Morgeson, the new pupil, may take it."
Miss Charlotte answered, "Yes mim," and ostentatiously swept away an accumulation of pencils, sponges, papers, and books, to make room for me. I took the seat, previously stumbling against her, whereat all the girls, whose regards were fixed upon me, smiled. That was my initiation.
The first day I was left to myself, to make studies. The school-room was in the vestry of the church, a building near grand'ther's house. Each girl had a desk before her. Miss Black occupied a high stool in a square box, where she heard single recitations, or lectured a pupil. The vestry yard, where the girls romped, and exercised with skipping ropes, a swing, and a set of tilting-boards, commanded a view of grand'ther's premises; his street windows were exposed to the fire of their eyes and tongues.
After I went home I examined myself in the glass, and drew an unfavorable conclusion from the inspection. My hair was parted zigzag; one shoulder was higher than the other; my dress came up to my chin, and slipped down to my shoulder-blades. I was all waist; no hips were developed my hands were red, and my nails chipped. I opened the trunk where my wardrobe was packed; what belonged to me was comfortable, in reference to weather and the wash, but not pretty. I found a molasses-colored silk, called Turk satin--one of mother's old dresses, made over for me, or an invidious selection of hers from the purchases of father, who sometimes made a mistake in taste, owing to the misrepresentations of shopkeepers and milliners. While thus engaged Aunt Mercy came for me, and began to scold when she saw that I had tumbled my clothes out of the trunk.
"Aunt Mercy, these things are horrid, all of them. Look at this shawl," and I unrolled a square silk fabric, the color of a sick orange. "Where did this come from?"
"Saints upon earth!" she exclaimed, "your father bought it at the best store in New York. It was costly."
"Now tell me, why do the pantalettes of those girls look so graceful? They do not twirl round the ankle like a rope, as mine do."
"I can't say," she answered, with a sigh. "But you ought to wear long dresses; now yours are tucked, and could be let down."
"And these red prunella boots--they look like boiled crabs." I put them on, and walked round the room crab-fashion, till she laughed hysterically. "Miss Charlotte Alden wears French kid slippers every day, and I must wear mine."
"No," she said, "you must only wear them to church."
"I shall talk to father about that, when he comes here next."
"Cassy, did Charlotte Alden speak to you to-day?"
"No; but she made an acquaintance by stares."
"Well, never mind her if she says anything unpleasant to you; the Aldens are a high set."
"Are they higher than we are in Surrey? Have they heard of my father, who is equal to the President?"
"We are all equal in the sight of God."
"You do not look as if you thought so, Aunt Mercy. Why do you say things in Barmouth you never said in Surrey?"
"Come downstairs, Cassandra, and help me finish the dishes."
Our conversation was ended; but I still had my thoughts on the clothes question, and revolved my plans.
After the morning exercises the next day, Miss Black called me in to her desk. "I think," she said, "you had better study Geology. It is important, for it will lead your mind up from nature to nature's God. My young ladies have finished their studies in that direction; therefore you will recite alone, once a day."
"Yes 'em," I replied; but it was the first time that I had heard of Geology. The compendium she gave me must have been dull and dry. I could not get its lessons perfectly. It never inspired me with any interest for land or sea. I could not associate any of its terms, or descriptions, with the great rock under grand'ther's house. It was not for Miss Black to open the nodules of my understanding, with her hammer of instruction. She proposed Botany also. The young ladies made botanical excursions to the fields and woods outside Barmouth; I might as well join the class at once. It was now in the family of the Legumes. I accompanied the class on one excursion. Not a soul appeared to know that I was present, and I declined going again. Composition I must write once a month. A few more details closed the interview. I mentioned in it that father desired me to study arithmetic. Miss Black placed me in a class; but her interests were in the higher and more elegant branches of education. I made no more advance in the humble walks of learning than in those adorned by the dissection of flowers, the disruption of rocks, or the graces of composition. Though I entered upon my duties under protest, I soon became accustomed to their routine, and the rest of my life seemed more like a dream of the future than a realization of the present. I refused to go home at the end of the month. I preferred waiting, I said, to the end of the year. I was not urged to change my mind; neither was I applauded for my resolution. The day that I could have gone home, I asked father to drive me to Milford, on the opposite side of the river which ran by Barmouth. I shut my eyes tight, when the horse struck the boards of the long wooden bridge between the towns, and opened them when we stopped at an inn by the water side of Milford. Father took me into a parlor, where sat a handsome, fat woman, hemming towels.
"Is that you, Morgeson?" she said. "Is this your daughter?"
"Yes; can I leave her with you, while I go to the bank? She has not been here before."
"Lord ha' mercy on us; you clip her wings, don't you? Come here, child, and let me pull off your pelisse."
I went to her with a haughty air; it did not please me to hear my father called "Morgeson," by a person unknown to me. She understood my expression, and looked up at father; they both smiled, and I was vexed with him for his unwarrantable familiarity. Pinching my cheek with her fat fingers, which were covered with red and green rings, she said, "We shall do very well together. What a pretty silk pelisse, and silver buckles, too."
After father went out, and my bonnet was disposed of, Mrs. Tabor gave me a huge piece of delicious sponge-cake, which softened me somewhat.
"What is your name, dear?"
"Morgeson."
"It is easy to see that."
"Well, Cassandra."
"Oh, what a lovely name," and she drew from her workbasket a paper-covered book; "there is no name in this novel half so pretty; I wish the heroine's name had been Cassandra instead of Aldebrante."
"Let me see it," I begged.
"There is a horrid monk in it"; but she gave it to me, and was presently called out. I devoured its pages, and for the only time in that year of Barmouth life, I forgot my own wants and woes. She saw my interest in the book when she came back, and coaxed it from me, offering me more cake, which I accepted. She told me that she had known father for years, and that he kept his horse at the inn stables, and dined with her. "But I never knew that he had a daughter," she continued. "Are you the only child?"
"I have a sister," and after a moment remembered that I had a brother, too; but did not think it a fact necessary to mention.
"I have no children."
"But you have novels to read."
She laughed, and by the time father returned we were quite chatty. After dinner I asked him to go to some shops with me. He took me to a jeweler's, and without consulting me bought an immense mosaic brooch, with a ruined castle on it, and a pretty ring with a gold stone.
"Is there anything more?" he asked, "you would like?"
"Yes, I want a pink calico dress."
"Why?"
"Because the girls at Miss Black's wear pink calico."
"Why not get a pink silk?"
"I must have a pink French calico, with a three-cornered white cloud on it; it is the fashion."
"The fashion!" he echoed with contempt. But the dress was bought, and we went back to Barmouth.
When I appeared in school with my new brooch and ring the girls crowded round me.
"What does that pin represent, whose estate?" inquired one, with envy in her voice.
"Don't the ring make the blood rush into your hand?" asked another; "it looks so."
"Does it?" I answered; "I'll hold up my hand in the air, as you do, to make it white."
"What is your father's business?" asked Elmira Sawyer, "is he a tailor?"
Her insolence made my head swim; but I did not reply. When recess was over a few minutes afterward, I cried under the lid of my desk. These girls overpowered me, for I could not conciliate them, and had no idea of revenge, believing that their ridicule was deserved. But I thought I should like to prove myself respectable. How could I? Grand'ther _was_ a tailor, and I could not demean myself by assuring them that my father was a gentleman.
In the course of a month Aunt Mercy had my pink calico made up by the best dressmaker in Barmouth. When I put it on I thought I looked better than I ever had before, and went into school triumphantly with it. The girls surveyed me in silence; but criticised me. At last Charlotte Alden asked me in a whisper if old Mr. Warren made my dress. She wrote on a piece of paper, in large letters--"Girls, don't let's wear our pink calicoes again," and pushing it over to Elmira Sawyer, made signs that the paper should be passed to all the girls. They read it, and turning to Charlotte Alden nodded. I watched the paper as it made its round, and saw Mary Bennett drop it on the floor with a giggle.
It was a rainy day, and we passed the recess indoors. I remained quiet, looking over my lesson. "The first period ends with the carboniferous system; the second includes the saliferous and magnesian systems; the third comprises the oolitic and chalk systems; the fourth--" "How attentive some people are to their lessons," I heard Charlotte Alden say. Looking up, I saw her near me with Elmira Sawyer.
"What is that you say?" I asked sharply.
"I am not speaking to you."
"I am angry," I said in a low tone, and rising, "and have borne enough."
"Who are _you_ that you should be angry? We have heard about your mother, when she was in love, poor thing."
I struck her so violent a blow in the face that she staggered backward. "You are a liar," I said, "and you must let me alone." Elmira Sawyer turned white, and moved away. I threw my book at her; it hit her head, and her comb was broken by my geological systems. There was a stir; Miss Black hurried from her desk, saying, "Young ladies, what does this mean? Miss C. Morgeson, your temper equals your vulgarity, I find. Take your seat in my desk."
I obeyed her, and as we passed Mary Bennett's desk, where I saw the paper fall, I picked it up. "See the good manners of your favorite, Miss Black; read it." She bit her lips as she glanced over it, turned back as if to speak to Charlotte Alden, looked at me again, and went on: "Sit down, Miss C. Morgeson, and reflect on the blow you have given. Will you ask pardon?"
"I will not; you know that."
"I have never resorted to severe punishment yet; but I fear I shall be obliged to in your case."
"Let me go from here." I clenched my hands, and tried to get up. She held me down on the seat, and we looked close in each other's eyes. "You are a bad girl." "And you are a bad woman," I replied; "mean and cruel." She made a motion to strike me, but her hand dropped; I felt my nostrils quiver strangely. "For shame," she said, in a tremulous voice, and turned away. I sat on the bench at the back of the desk, heartily tired, till school was dismissed; as Charlotte Alden passed out, courtesying, Miss Black said she hoped she would extend a Christian forgiveness to Miss C. Morgeson, for her unladylike behavior. "Miss C. Morgeson is a peculiar case."
She gave her a meaning look, which was not lost upon me. Charlotte answered, "Certainly," and bowed to me gracefully, whereat I felt a fresh sense of my demerits, and concluded that I was worsted in the fray.
Miss Black asked no explanation of the affair; it was dropped, and none of the girls alluded to it by hint or look afterward. When I told Aunt Mercy of it, she turned pale, and said she knew what Charlotte Alden meant, and that perhaps mother would tell me in good time.
"We had a good many troubles in our young days, Cassy."
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The atmosphere of my two lives was so different, that when I passed into one, the other ceased to affect me. I forgot all that I suffered and hated at Miss Black's, as soon as I crossed the threshold, and entered grand'ther's house. The difference kept up a healthy mean; either alone would perhaps have been more than I could then have sustained. All that year my life was narrowed to that house, my school, and the church. Father offered to take me to ride, when he came to Barmouth, or carry me to Milford; but the motion of the carriage, and the conveying power of the horse, created such a fearful and realizing sense of escape, that I gave up riding with him. Aunt Mercy seldom left home; my schoolmates did not invite me to visit them; the seashore was too distant for me to ramble there; the storehouses and wharves by the river-side offered no agreeable saunterings; and the street, in Aunt Mercy's estimation, was not the place for an idle promenade. My exercise, therefore, was confined to the garden--a pleasant spot, now that midsummer had come, and inhabited with winged and crawling creatures, with whom I claimed companionship, especially with the red, furry caterpillars, that have, alas, nearly passed away, and given place to a variegated, fantastic tribe, which gentleman farmers are fond of writing about.
Mother rode over to Barmouth occasionally, but seemed more glad when she went away than when she came. Veronica came with her once, but said she would come no more while I was there. She too would wait till the end of the year, for I spoiled the place. She said this so calmly that I never thought of being offended by it. I told her the episode of the pink calico. "It is a lovely color," she said, when I showed it to her. "If you like, I will take it home and burn it."
As I developed the dramatic part of my story--the blow given Charlotte Alden, Verry rubbed her face shrinkingly, as if she had felt the blow. "Let me see your hand," she asked; "did I ever strike anybody?"
"You threw a pail of salt downstairs, once, upon my head, and put out my sight."
"I wish, when you are home, you would pound Mr. Park; he talks too much about the Resurrection. And," she added mysteriously, "he likes mother."
"Likes mother!" I said aghast.
"He watches her so when she holds Arthur! Why do you stare at me? Why do I talk to you? I am going. Now mind, I shall never leave home to go to any school; I shall know enough without."
While Veronica was holding this placable talk with me, I discovered in her the high-bred air, the absence of which I deplored in myself.
How cool and unimpressionable she looked! She did not attract me then. My mind wandered to what I had heard Mary Bennett say, in recess one day, that her brother had seen me in church, and came home with the opinion that I was the handsomest girl in Miss Black's school.
"Is it possible!" replied the girl to whom she had made the remark. "I never should think of calling her pretty."
"Stop, Veronica," I called; "am I pretty?" She turned back. "Everybody in Surrey says so; and everybody says I am not." And she banged the door against me.
She did not come to Barmouth again. She was ill in the winter, and, father told me, queerer than ever, and more trouble. The summer passed, and I had no particular torment, except Miss Black's reference to composition. I could not do justice to the themes she gave us, not having the books from which she took them at command, and betrayed an ignorance which excited her utmost contempt, on "The Scenery of Singapore," "The Habits of the Hottentots," and "The Relative Merits of Homer and Virgil."
In October Sally and Ruth Aiken came for the fall sewing. They had farmed it all summer, they said, and were tanned so deep a hue that their faces bore no small resemblance to ham. Ruth brought me some apples in an ochre-colored bag, and Sally eyed me with her old severity. As they took their accustomed seats at the table, I thought they had swallowed the interval of time which had gone by since they left, so precisely the same was the moment of their leaving and that of their coming back. I knew grand'ther no better than when I saw him first. He was sociable to those who visited the house, but never with those abiding in his family. Me he never noticed, except when I ate less than usual; then he peered into my face, and said, "What ails you?" We had the benefit of his taciturn presence continually, for he rarely went out; and although he did not interfere with Aunt Mercy's work, he supervised it, weighed and measured every article that was used, and kept the cellar and garden in perfect order.
It was approaching the season of killing the pig, and he conferred often with Aunt Mercy on the subject. The weather was watched, and the pig poked daily, in the hope that the fat was thickening on his ribs. When the day of his destiny arrived, there was almost confusion in the house, and for a week after, of evenings, grand'ther went about with a lantern, and was not himself till a new occupant was obtained for the vacant pen, and all his idiosyncracies revealed and understood.
"Grand'ther," I asked, "will the beautiful pigeons that live in the pig's roof like the horrid new pig?"
"Yes," he answered, briskly rubbing his hands, "but they eat the pig's corn; and I can't afford that; I shall have to shoot them, I guess."
"Oh, don't, grand'ther."
"I will this very day. Where's the gun, Mercy?"
In an hour the pigeons were shot, except two which had flown away.
"Why did you ask him not to shoot the pigeons?" said Aunt Mercy. "If you had said nothing, he would not have done, it."
"He is a disagreeable relation," I answered, "and I am glad he is a tailor."
Aunt Mercy reproved me; but the loss of the pigeons vexed her. Perhaps grand'ther thought so, for that night he asked after her geraniums, and told her that a gardener had promised him some fine slips for her. She looked pleased, but did not thank him. There was already a beautiful stand of flowers in the middle room, which was odorous the year round with their perfume.
The weather was now cold, and we congregated about the fire; for there was no other comfortable room in the house. One afternoon, when I was digging in Aunt Mercy's geranium pots, and picking off the dead leaves, two deacons came to visit grand'ther, and, hovering over the fire with him, complained of the lukewarmness of the church brethren in regard to the spiritual condition of the Society. A shower of grace was needed; there were reviving symptoms in some of the neighboring churches, but none in Barmouth. Something must be done--a fast day appointed, or especial prayer-meetings held. This was on Saturday; the next day the ceremony of the Lord's Supper would take place, and grand'ther recommended that the minister should be asked to suggest something to the church which might remove it from its hardness.
"Are the vessels scoured, Mercy?" he asked, after the deacons had gone.
"I have no sand."
He presently brought her a biggin of fine white sand, which brought the shore of Surrey to my mind's eye. I followed her as she carried it to the well-room, where I saw, on the meal-chest, two large pewter plates, two flagons of the same metal, and a dozen or more cups, some of silver, and marked with the owner's name. They were soon cleaned. Then she made a fire in the oven, and mixed loaves in a peculiar shape, and launched them into the oven. She watched the bread carefully, and took it out before it had time to brown.
"This work belongs to the deacons' wives," she said; "but it has been done in this house for years. The bread is not like ours--it is unleavened."
Grand'ther carried it into the church after she had cut it with a sharp knife so that at the touch it would fall apart into square bits. When the remains were brought back, I went to the closet, where they were deposited, and took a piece of the bread, eating it reflectively, to test its solemnizing powers. I felt none, and when Aunt Mercy boiled the remnants with milk for a pudding, the sacred ideality of the ceremony I had seen at church was destroyed for me.
Was it a pity that my life was not conducted on Nature's plan, who shows us the beautiful, while she conceals the interior? We do not see the roots of her roses, and she hides from us her skeletons.
November passed, with its Thanksgiving--the sole day of all the year which grand'ther celebrated, by buying a goose for dinner, which goose was stewed with rye dumplings, that slid over my plate like glass balls. Sally and Ruth betook themselves to their farm, and hybernated. December came, and with it a young woman named Caroline, to learn the tailor's trade. Lively and pretty, she changed our atmosphere. She broke the silence of the morning by singing the "Star-spangled Banner," or the "Braes of Balquhither," and disturbed the monotony of the evenings by making molasses candy, which grand'ther ate, and which seemed to have a mollifying influence. Grand'ther kept his eye on Caroline; but his eye had no disturbing effect. She had no perception of his character; was fearless with him, and went contrary to all his ideas, and he liked her for it. She even reproved him for keeping such a long face. Her sewing, which was very bad, tried his patience so, that if it had not been for her mother, who was a poor widow, he would have given up the task of teaching her the trade. She said she knew she couldn't learn it; what was the use of trying? She meant to go West, and thought she might make a good home-missionary, as she did, for she married a poor young man, who had forsaken the trade of a cooper, to study for the ministry, and was helped off to Ohio by the Society of Home Missions. She came to see me in Surrey ten years afterward, a gaunt, hollow-eyed woman, of forbidding manners, and an implacable faith in no rewards or punishments this side of the grave.
I suffered so from the cold that December that I informed mother of the fact by letter. She wrote back: "My child, have courage. One of these days you will feel a tender pity, when you think of your mother's girlhood. You are learning how she lived at your age. I trembled at the prosperity of your opening life, and believed it best for you to have a period of contrast. I thought you would, by and by, understand me better than I do myself; for you are not like me, Cassy, you are like your father. You shall never go back to Barmouth, unless you wish it. Dear Cassy, do you pray any? I send you some new petticoats, and a shawl. Does Mercy warm the bed for you? Your affectionate Mother."
I dressed and undressed in Aunt Mercy's room, which was under the roof, with benumbed fingers. My hair was like the coat of a cow in frosty weather; it was so frowzy, and so divided against itself, that when I tried to comb it, it streamed out like the tail of a comet. Aunt Mercy discovered that I was afflicted with chilblains, and had a good cry over them, telling me, at the same moment, that my French slippers were the cause. We had but one fire in the house, except the fire in the shop, which was allowed to go down at sunset. Sometimes I found a remaining warmth in the goose, which had been left in the ashes, and borrowed it for my stiffened fingers. I did not get thoroughly warm all day, for the fire in the middle room, made of green wood, was continually in the process of being stifled with a greener stick, as the others kindled. The school-room was warm; but I had a back seat by a window, where my feet were iced by a current, and my head exposed to a draught. In January I had so bad an ague that I was confined at home a week. But I grew fast in spite of all my discomforts. Aunt Mercy took the tucks out of my skirts, and I burst out where there were no tucks. I assumed a womanly shape. Stiff as my hands were, and purple as were my arms, I could see that they were plump and well shaped. I had lost the meagerness of childhood and began to feel a new and delightful affluence. What an appetite I had, too!
"The creature will eat us out of house and home," said grand'ther one day, looking at me, for him good-humoredly.
"Well, don't shoot me, as you shot the pigeons."
"Pah, have pigeons a soul?"
In February the weather softened, and a great revival broke out. It was the dullest time of the year in Barmouth. The ships were at sea still, and the farmers had only to fodder their cattle, so that everybody could attend the protracted meeting. It was the same as Sunday at our house for nine days. Miss Black, in consequence of the awakening, dismissed the school for two weeks, that the pupils might profit in what she told us was The Scheme of Salvation.
Caroline was among the first converts. I observed her from the moment I was told she was under Conviction, till she experienced Religion. She sang no more of mornings, and the making of molasses candy was suspended in the evenings. I thought her less pleasing, and felt shy of holding ordinary conversations with her, for had she not been set apart for a mysterious work? I perceived that when she sewed between meetings her work was worse done than ever; but grand'ther made no mention of it. I went with Aunt Mercy to meetings three times a day, and employed myself in scanning the countenances around me, curious to discover the first symptoms of Conviction.
One night when grand'ther came in to prayers, he told Aunt Mercy that Pardon Hitch was awfully distressed in mind, in view of his sins. She replied that he was always a good man.
"As good as any unregenerate man can be."
"I might as well be a thorough reprobate then," I thought, "like Sal Thompson, who seems remarkably happy, as to try to behave as well as Pardon Hitch, who is a model in Barmouth."
When we went to church the next morning, I saw him in one of the back pews, leaning against the rail, as if he had no strength. His face was full of anguish. He sat there motionless all day. He was prayed for, but did not seem to hear the prayers. At night his wife led him home. By the end of the third day, he interrupted an exhorting brother by rising, and uttering an inarticulate cry. We all looked. The tears were streaming down his pale face, which was lighted up by a smile of joy. He seemed like a man escaped from some great danger, torn, bruised, breathless, but alive. The minister left the pulpit to shake hands with him; the brethren crowded round to congratulate him, and the meeting broke up at once.
Neither grand'ther nor Aunt Mercy had spoken to me concerning my interest in Religion; but on that very evening Mr. Boold, the minister, came in to tea and asked me, while he was taking off his overcoat, if I knew that Christ had died for me? I answered that I was not sure of it.
"Do you read your Bible, child?"
"Every day."
"And what does it teach you?"
"I do not know."
"Miss Mercy, I will thank you for another cup. 'Now is the day, and now is the hour; come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest.'"
"But I do not want rest; I have no burden," I said.
"Cassandra," thundered grand'ther, "have you no respect for God nor man?"
"Have you read," went on the minister, "the memoir of Nathan Dickerman? A mere child, he realized his burden of sin in time, and died sanctified."
I thought it best to say no more. Aunt Mercy looked disturbed, and left the table as soon as she could with decency.
"Cassandra," she said, when we were alone, "what will become of you?"
"What will, indeed? You have always said that I was possessed. Why did you not explain this fact to Mr. Boold?"
She kissed me,--her usual treatment when she was perplexed.
The revival culminated and declined. Sixty new members were admitted into the church, and things settled into the old state. School was resumed; I found that not one of my schoolmates had met with a change, but Miss Black did not touch on the topic. My year was nearly out; March had come and gone, and it was now April. One mild day, in the latter part of the month, the girls went to the yard at recess. Charlotte Alden said pleasantly that the weather was fair enough for out-of-doors play, and asked if I would try the tilt. I gave a cordial assent. We balanced the board so that each could seat herself, and began to tilt slowly. As she was heavy, I was obliged to exert my strength to keep my place, and move her. She asked if I dared to go higher. "Oh yes, if you wish it." Happening to look round, I caught her winking at the girls near us, and felt that she was brewing mischief, but I had no time to dwell on it. She bore the end she was on to the ground with a sudden jerk, and I fell from the other, some eight feet, struck a stone, and fainted.
The next thing that I recollect was Aunt Mercy's carrying me across the street in her arms. She had seen my fall from the window. Reaching the house, she let me slide on the floor in a heap, and began to wring her hands and stamp her feet.
"I am not hurt, Aunt Mercy."
"You are nearly killed, you know you are. This is your last day at that miserable school. I am going for the doctor, as soon as you say you wont faint again."
Thus my education at Miss Black's was finished with a blow.
When Aunt Mercy represented to Miss Black that I was not to return to school, and that she feared I had not made the improvement that was expected, Miss Black asked, with hauteur, what had been expected--what my friends _could_ expect. Aunt Mercy was intimidated, and retired as soon as she had paid her the last quarter's bills.
A week after my tournament with Charlotte Alden I went back to Surrey. There was little preparation to make--few friends to bid farewell. Ruth and Sally had emerged from their farm, and were sewing again at grand'ther's. Sally bade me remember that riches took to themselves wings and flew away; she _hoped_ they had not been a snare to my mother; but she wasn't what she was, it was a fact.
"No, she isn't," Ruth affirmed. "Do you remember, Sally, when she came out to the farm once, and rode the white colt bare-back round the big meadow, with her hair flying?"
"Hold your tongue, Ruth."
Ruth looked penitent as she gave me a paper of hollyhock seeds, and said the flowers were a beautiful blood-red, and that I must plant them near the sink drain. Caroline had already gone home, so Aunt Mercy had nothing cheery but her plants and her snuff; for she had lately contracted the habit of snuff-taking but very privately.
"Train her well, Locke; she is skittish," said grand'ther as we got into the chaise to go home.
"Grand'ther, if I am ever rich enough to own a peaked-roof pig-sty, will you come and see me?"
"Away with you." And he went nimbly back to the house, chafing his little hands.
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I was going home! When we rode over the brow of the hill within a mile of Surrey, and I saw the crescent-shaped village, and the tall chimneys of our house on its outer edge, instead of my heart leaping for joy, as I had expected, a sudden indifference filled it. I felt averse to the change from the narrow ways of Barmouth, which, for the moment, I regretted. When I entered the house, and saw mother in her old place, her surroundings unaltered, I suffered a disappointment. I had not had the power of transferring the atmosphere of my year's misery to Surrey.
The family gathered round me. I heard the wonted sound of the banging of doors. "The doors at grand'ther's," I mused, "had list nailed round their edges; but then he _had_ the list, being a tailor."
"I vum," said Temperance, with her hand on her hip, and not offering to approach me, "your hair is as thick as a mop."
Hepsey, rubbing her fingers against her thumb, remarked that she hoped learning had not taken away my appetite. "I have made an Indian bannock for you, and we are going to have broiled sword-fish, besides, for supper. Is it best to cook more, Mrs. Morgeson, now that Cassandra has come?"
The boy, by name Charles, came to see the new arrival, but smitten with diffidence crept under the table, and examined me from his retreat.
"Don't you wish to see Arthur?" inquired mother; "he is getting his double teeth."
"Oh yes, and where's Veronica?"
"She's up garret writing geography, and told me nothing in the world must disturb her, till she had finished an account of the city of Palmiry," said Temperance.
"Call her when supper is ready," replied mother, who asked me to come into the bedroom where Arthur was sleeping. He was a handsome child, large and fair, and as I lifted his white, lax fingers, a torrent of love swept through me, and I kissed him.
"I am afraid I make an idol of him, Cassy."
"Are you unhappy because you love him so well, mother, and feel that you must make expiation?"
"Cassandra," she spoke with haste, "did you experience any shadow of a change during the revival at Barmouth?"
"No more than the baby here did."
"I shall have faith, though, that it will be well with you, because you have had the blessing of so good a man as your grand'ther."
"But I never heard a word of grand'ther's prayers. Do you remember his voice?"
A smile crept into her blue eye, as she said: "My hearing him, or not, would make no difference, since God could hear and answer."
"Grand'ther does not like me; I never pleased him."
She looked astonished, then reflective. It occurred to her that she, also, had been no favorite of his. She changed the subject. We talked on what had happened in Surrey, and commenced a discussion on my wardrobe, when we were summoned to tea. Temperance brought Arthur to the table half asleep, but he roused when she drummed on his plate with a spoon. Hepsey was stationed by the bannock, knife in hand, to serve it. As we began our meal, Veronica came in from the kitchen, with a plate of toasted crackers. She set the plate down, and gravely shook hands with me, saying she had concluded to live entirely on toast, but supposed I would eat all sorts of food, as usual. She had grown tall; her face was still long and narrow, but prettier, and her large, dark eyes had a slight cast, which gave her face an indescribable expression. Distant, indifferent, and speculative as the eyes were, a ray of fire shot into them occasionally, which made her gaze powerful and concentrated. I was within a month of sixteen, and Veronica was in her thirteenth year; but she looked as old as I did. She carefully prepared her toast with milk and butter, and ate it in silence. The plenty around me, the ease and independence, gave me a delightful sense of comfort. The dishes were odd, some of china, some of delf, and were continually moved out of their places, for we helped ourselves, although Temperance stayed in the room, ostensibly as a waiter. She was too much engaged in conversation to fulfill her duties that way. I looked round the room; nothing had been added to it, except red damask curtains, which were out of keeping with the old chintz covers. It was a delightful room, however; the blue sea glimmered between the curtains, and, turning my eyes toward it, my heart gave the leap which I had looked for. I grew blithe as I saw it winking under the rays of the afternoon sun, and, clapping my hands, said I was glad to get home. We left Veronica at the table, and mother resumed her conversation with me in a corner of the room. Presently Temperance came in with Charles, bringing fresh plates. As soon as they began their supper, Veronica asked Temperance how the fish tasted.
"Is it salt?"
"Middling."
"How is the bannock?"
"Excellent. I will say it for Hepsey that she hasn't her beat as a cook; been at it long enough," she added, in expiation of her praise.
"Temperance, is that pound cake, or sponge?"
"Pound."
"Charles can eat it," Verry said with a sigh.
"A mighty small piece he'll have--the glutton. But he has not been here long; they are all so when they first come."
She then gave him a large slice of the cake.
Veronica, contrary to her wont, huddled herself on the sofa. Arthur played round the chair of mother, who looked happy and forgetful. After Temperance had rearranged the table for father's supper we were quiet. I meditated how I could best amuse myself, where I should go, and what I should do, when Veronica, whom I had forgotten, interrupted my thoughts.
"Mother," she said, "eating toast does not make me better-tempered; I feel evil still. You know," turning to me, "that my temper is worse than ever; it is like a tiger's."
"Oh, Verry," said mother, "not quite so bad; you are too hard upon yourself."
"Mother, you said so to Hepsey, when I tore her turban from her head, it was _so_ ugly. Can you forget you said such a thing?"
"Verry, you drive me wild. Must I say that I was wrong? Say so to my own child?"
Verry turned her face to the wall and said no more; but she had started a less pleasant train of thought. It was changed again by Temperance coming with lights. Though the tall brass lamps glittered like gold, their circle of light was small; the corners of the room were obscure. Mr. Park, entering, retreated into one, and mother was obliged to forego the pleasure of undressing Arthur; so she sent him off with Temperance and Charles, whose duty it was to rock the cradle as long as his babyship required.
Soon after father came, and Hepsey brought in his hot supper; while he was eating it, Grandfather John Morgeson bustled in. As he shook hands with me, I saw that his hair had whitened; he held a tasseled cane between his knees, and thumped the floor whenever he asked a question. Mr. Park buzzed about the last Sunday's discourse, and mother listened with a vague, respectful attention. Her hand was pressed against her breast, as if she were repressing an inward voice which claimed her attention. Leaning her head against her chair, she had quite pushed out her comb, her hair dropped on her shoulder, and looked like a brown, coiled serpent. Veronica, who had been silently observing her, rose from the sofa, picked up the comb, and fastened her hair, without speaking. As she passed she gave me a dark look.
"Eh, Verry," said father, "are you there? Were you glad to see Cassy home again?"
"Should I be glad? What can _she_ do?"
Grandfather pursed up his mouth, and turned toward mother, as if he would like to say: "You understand bringing up children, don't you?"
She comprehended him, and, giving her head a slight toss, told Verry to go and play on the piano.
"I was going," she answered pettishly, and darting out a moment after we heard her.
Grandfather went, and presently Mr. Park got up in a lingering way, said that Verry must learn to play for the Lord, and bade us "Good night." But he came back again, to ask me if I would join Dr. Snell's Bible Class. It would meet the next evening; the boys and girls of my own age went. I promised him to go, wondering whether I should meet an ancient beau, Joe Bacon. Mother retired; Verry still played.
"Her talent is wonderful," said father, taking the cigar from his mouth. "By the way, you must take lessons in Milford; I wish you would learn to sing." I acquiesced, but I had no wish to learn to play. I could never perform mechanically what I heard now from Verry. When she ceased, I woke from a dream, chaotic, but not tumultuous, beautiful, but inharmonious. Though the fire had gone out, the lamps winked brightly, and father, moving his cigar to the other side of his mouth, changed his regards from one lamp to the other, and said he thought I was growing to be an attractive girl. He asked me if I would take pains to make myself an accomplished one also? I must, of course, be left to myself in many things; but he hoped that I would confide in him, if I did not ask his advice. A very strong relation of reserve generally existed between parent and child, instead of a confidential one, and the child was apt to discover that reserve on the part of the parent was not superiority, but cowardice, or indifference. "Let it not be so with us," was his conclusion. He threw away the stump of his cigar, and went to fasten the hall-door. I took one of the brass lamps, proposing to go to bed. As I passed through the upper entry, Veronica opened her door. She was undressed, and had a little book in her hand, which she shook at me, saying, "There is the day of the month put down on which you came home; and now mind," then shut the door. I pondered over what father had said; he had perceived something in me which I was not aware of. I resolved to think seriously over it; in the morning I found I had not thought of it at all.
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The next evening I dressed my hair after the fashion of the Barmouth girls, with the small pride of wishing to make myself look different from the Surrey girls. I expected they would stare at me in the Bible Class. It would be my debut as a grown girl, and I must offer myself to their criticism. I went late, so that I might be observed by the assembled class. It met in the upper story of Temperance Hall--a new edifice. As I climbed the steep stairs, Joe Bacon's head came in view; he had stationed himself on a bench at the landing to watch for my arrival, of which he had been apprized by our satellite, Charles. Joe was the first boy who had ever offered his arm as my escort home from a party. After that event I had felt that there was something between us which the world did not understand. I was flattered, therefore, at the first glimpse of him on this occasion. When Dr. Snell made his opening prayer, Joe thrust a Bible before me, open at the lesson of the evening, and then, rubbing his nose with embarrassment, fixed his eyes with timid assurance on the opposite wall. Several of my Morgeson cousins were present, greeting me with sniffs. But I was disappointed in Joe Bacon; how young and shabby he looked! He wore a monkey jacket, probably a remnant of his sea-going father's wardrobe. He had done his best, however, for his hair was greased, and combed to a marble smoothness; its sleekness vexed me, not remembering at that moment the pains I had taken to dress my own hair, for a more ignoble end.
The girls gathered round me, after the class was dismissed; and when Dr. Snell came down from his desk, he said he was glad to see me, and that I must come to his rooms to look over the new books he had received. Dr. Snell was no exception to the rule that a minister must not be a native among his own people. His long residence in Surrey had failed to make him appear like one. A bachelor, with a small private fortune, his style of living differed from the average of Congregational parsons. His library was the only lion in our neighborhood. His taste as a collector made him known abroad, and he had a reputation which was not dreamed of by his parishioners, who thought him queer and simple. He loved old fashions; wore knee-breeches, and silver buckles in his shoes; brewed metheglin in his closet, and drank it from silver-pegged flagons; and kept diet bread on a salver to offer his visitors. He lived near us on the north road, and was very much afraid of his landlady, Mrs. Grossman, who sat in terrible state in her parlor, the year through, wearing a black satin cloak and an awful structure of a cap, which had a potent nod.
I was pleased with Dr. Snell's notice; his smile was courtly and his bow Grandisonian.
Joe Bacon was waiting at the foot of the stairs. He obtruded his arm, and hoarsely muttered, "See you home." I took it, and we marched along silently, till we were beyond the sound of voices. He began, rather inarticulately, to say how glad he was to see me, and that he hoped he was going to have better times now; but I could make no response to his wishes; the suspicion that he had a serious liking for me was disgusting. As he talked on I grew irritable, and replied shortly. When we reached our house, I slipped my hand from his arm, and ran up the steps, turning back with my hand on the door-knob to say, "Good-night." The lamp in the hall shone through the fanlight upon his face; it looked intelligent with pain. I skipped down the steps. "Please open the door, Joe." He brightened, but before he could comply with my request Temperance flung it wide, for the purpose of making a survey of the clouds and guessing at to-morrow's weather. His retreat was precipitate.
"Oh ho," said Temperance, "a feller came home with you. We shall have somebody sitting up a-Thursday nights, I reckon, before long."
"Nonsense with your Thursday nights."
"Everybody is just alike. We shall have rain, see if we don't; rain or no rain, I'll whitewash to-morrow."
Poor Joe! That night ended my first sentiment. He died with the measles in less than a month.
"I wish," said Temperance, who was spelling over a newspaper, "that Dr. Snell would come in before the plum-cake is gone, that Hepsey made last. The old dear loves it; he is always hungry. I candidly believe Mis Grossman keeps him short."
I expected that Temperance would break out then about Joe; but she never mentioned him, except to tell me that she had heard of his death. She did not whitewash the next day, for Charles came down with the measles, and was tended by her with a fretful tenderness. Veronica was seized soon after, and then Arthur, and then I had them. Veronica was the worst patient. When her room was darkened she got out of bed, tore down the quilt that was fastened to the window, and broke three panes of glass before she could be captured and taken back. The quilt was not put up again, however. She cried with anger, unless her hands were continually washed with lavender water, and made little pellets of cotton which she stuffed in her ears and nose, so that she might not hear or smell.
I went to Dr. Snell's as soon as I was able. He was in his bedchamber, writing a sermon on fine note-paper, and had disarranged the wide ruffles of his shirt so that he looked like a mildly angry turkey. Thrusting his spectacles up into the roots of his hair, he rose, and led me into a large room adjoining his bedroom, which contained nothing but tall bookcases, threw open the doors of one, pushed up a little ladder before it, for me to mount to a row of volumes bound in calf, whose backs were labeled "British Classics." "There," he said, "you will find 'The Spectator,'" and trotted back to his sermon, with his pen in his mouth. I examined the books, and selected Tom Jones and Goldsmith's Plays to take home. From that time I grazed at pleasure in his oddly assorted library, ranging from "The Gentleman's Magazine" to a file of the "Boston Recorder"; but never a volume of poetry anywhere. I became a devourer of books which I could not digest, and their influence located in my mind curious and inconsistent relations between facts and ideas.
My music lessons in Milford were my only task. I remained inapt, while Veronica played better and better; when I saw her fingers interpreting her feelings, touching the keys of the piano as if they were the chords of her thoughts, practice by note seemed a soulless, mechanical effort, which I would not make. One day mother and I were reading the separate volumes of charming Miss Austen's "Mansfield Park," when a message arrived from Aunt Mercy, with the news of Grand'ther Warren's dangerous illness. Mother dropped her book on the floor, but I turned down the leaf where I was reading. She went to Barmouth immediately, and the next day grand'ther died. He gave all he had to Aunt Mercy, except six silver spoons, which he directed the Barmouth silversmith to make for Caroline, who was now married to her missionary. Mother came home to prepare for the funeral. When the bonnets, veils, and black gloves came home, Veronica declared she would not go. As she had been allowed to stay away from Grand'ther Warren living, why should she be forced to go to him when dead? She was so violent in her opposition that mother ordered Temperance to keep her in her room. Father tried to persuade her, but she grew white, and trembled so that he told her she should stay at home. While we were gone she sent her bonnet to the Widow Smith's daughter, who appeared in the Poor Seats wearing it, on the very Sunday after the funeral, when we all went to church in our mourning to make the discovery, which discomposed us exceedingly.
All the church were present at grand'ther's funeral,--obsequies, as Mr. Boold called it, who exalted his character and behavior so greatly in his discourse that his nearest friends would not have recognized him, although everybody knew that he was a good man. Mr. Boold expatiated on his tenderness and delicate appreciation, and his study of the feelings and wants of others, till he was moved to tears himself by the picture he drew. I thought of the pigeons he had shot, and of the summary treatment he gave me--of his coldness and silence toward Aunt Mercy, and my eyes remained dry; but mother and Aunt Mercy wept bitterly. After it was over, and they had gone back to the empty house, they removed their heavy bonnets, kissed each other, said they knew that he was in heaven, and held a comforting conversation about the future; but my mind was chained to the edge of the yawning grave into which I had seen his coffin lowered.
"Shut up the old shell, Mercy," said father. "Come, and live with us."
She was rejoiced at the prospect, for the life at our house was congenial, and she readily and gratefully consented. She came in a few days, with a multitude of boxes, and her plants. Mother established her in the room next the stairs--good place for her, Veronica said, for she could be easily locked out of our premises. The plants were placed on a new revolving stand, which stood on the landing-place beneath the stair window. Veronica was so delighted with them that she made amicable overtures to Aunt Mercy, and never quarreled with her afterward, except when she was ill. She entreated her to leave off her bombazine dresses; the touch of them interfered with her feelings for her, she said; in fact, their contact made her crawl all over.
Aunt Mercy took upon herself many of mother's irksome cares; such as remembering where the patches and old linen were--the hammer and nails; watching the sweetmeat pots; keeping the run of the napkins and blankets; packing the winter clothing, and having an eye on mice and ants, moth and mold. Occasionally she read a novel; but was faithful to all the week-day meetings, making the acquaintance thereby of mother's tea-drinking friends, who considered her an accomplished person, because she worked lace so beautifully, and had _such_ a faculty for raising plants! Mother left the house in her charge, and made several journeys with father this year. This period was perhaps her happiest. The only annoyance, visible to me, that I can remember, was one between her and father on the subject of charity. He was for giving to all needy persons, while she only desired to bestow it on the deserving, but they had renounced the wish of manufacturing each other's habits and opinions. Whether mother ever desired the expression of that exaltation of feeling which only lasts in a man while he is in love, I cannot say. It was not for me to know her heart. It is not ordained that these beautiful secrets of feeling should be revealed, where they might prove to be the sweetest knowledge we could have.
Though the days flew by, days filled with the busy nothings of prosperity, they bore no meaning. I shifted the hours, as one shifts the kaleidoscope, with an eye only to their movement. Neither the remembrance of yesterday nor the hope of to-morrow stimulated me. The mere fact of breathing had ceased to be a happiness, since the day I entered Miss Black's school. But I was not yet thoughtful. As for my position, I was loved and I was hated, and it pleased me as much to be hated as to be loved. My acquaintances were kind enough to let me know that I was generally thought proud, exacting, ill-natured, and apt to expect the best of everything. But one thing I know of myself then--that I concealed nothing; the desires and emotions which are usually kept as a private fund I displayed and exhausted. My audacity shocked those who possessed this fund. My candor was called anything but truthfulness; they named it sarcasm, cunning, coarseness, or tact, as those were constituted who came in contact with me. Insight into character, frankness, generosity, disinterestedness, were sometimes given me. Veronica alone was uncompromising; she put aside by instinct what baffled or attracted others, and, setting my real value upon me, acted accordingly. I do not accuse her of injustice, but of a fierce harshness which kept us apart for long years. As for her, she was the most reticent girl I ever knew, and but for her explosive temper, which betrayed her, she would have been a mystery. The difference in our physical constitutions would have separated us, if there had been no other cause. The weeks that she was confined to her room, preyed upon by some inscrutable disease, were weeks of darkness and solitude. Temperance and Aunt Merce took as much care of her as she would allow; but she preferred being alone most of the time. Thus she acquired the fortitude of an Indian; pain could extort no groan from her. It reacted on her temper, though, for after an attack she was exasperating. Her invention was put to the rack to tease and offend. I kept out of her way; if by chance she caught sight of me, she forced me to hear the bitter truth of myself. Sometimes she examined me to learn if I had improved by the means which father so _generously_ provided for me. "Is he not yet tired of his task?" she asked once. And, "Do you carry everything before you, with your wide eyebrows and sharp teeth? Temperance, where's the Buffon Dr. Snell sent me? I want to classify Cass."
"I'll warrant you'll find her a sheep," Temperance replied.
"Sheep are innocent," said Veronica. "You may go," nodding to me, over the book, and Temperance also made energetic signs to me to go, and not bother the poor girl.
Always regarding her from the point of view she presented, I felt little love for her; her peculiarities offended me as they did mother. We did not perceive the process, but Verry was educated by sickness; her mind fed and grew on pain, and at last mastered it. The darkness in her nature broke; by slow degrees she gained health, though never much strength. Upon each recovery a change was visible; a spiritual dawn had risen in her soul; moral activity blending with her ideality made her life beautiful, even in the humblest sense. Veronica! you were endowed with genius; but while its rays penetrated you, we did not see them. How could we profit by what you saw and heard, when we were blind and deaf? To us, the voices of the deep sang no epic of grief; the speech of the woods was not articulate; the sea-gull's flashing flight, and the dark swallow's circling sweep, were facts only. Sunrise and sunset were not a paean to day and night, but five o'clock A.M. or P.M. The seasons that came and went were changes from hot to cold; to you, they were the moods of nature, which found response in those of your own life and soul; her storms and calms were pulses which bore a similitude to the emotions of your heart!
Veronica's habits of isolation clung to her; she would never leave home. The teaching she had was obtained in Surrey. But her knowledge was greater than mine. When I went to Rosville she was reading "Paradise Lost," and writing her opinions upon it in a large blank book. She was also devising a plan for raising trees and flowers in the garret, so that she might realize a picture of a tropical wilderness. Her tastes were so contradictory that time never hung heavy with her; though she had as little practical talent as any person I ever knew, she was a help to both sick and well. She remembered people's ill turns, and what was done for them; and for the well she remembered dates and suggested agreeable occupations--gave them happy ideas. Besides being a calendar of domestic traditions, she was weather-wise, and prognosticated gales, meteors, high tides, and rains.
Home, father said, was her sphere. All that she required, he thought he could do; but of me he was doubtful. Where did I belong? he asked.
I was still "possessed," Aunt Merce said, and mother called me "lawless." "What upon earth are you coming to?" asked Temperance. "You are sowing your wild oats with a vengeance."
"Locke Morgeson's daughter can do anything," commented the villagers. In consequence of the unlimited power accorded me I was unpopular. "Do you think she is handsome?" inquired my friends of each other. "In what respect _can_ she be called a beauty?" "Though she reads, she has no great wit," said one. "She dresses oddly for effect," another avowed, "and her manners are ridiculous." But they borrowed my dresses for patterns, imitated my bonnets, and adopted my colors. When I learned to manage a sailboat, they had an aquatic mania. When I learned to ride a horse, the ancient and moth-eaten sidesaddles of the town were resuscitated, and old family nags were made back-sore with the wearing of them, and their youthful spirits revived by new beginners sliding about on their rounded sides. My whims were sneered at, and then followed. Of course I was driven from whim to whim, to keep them busy, and to preserve my originality, and at last I became eccentric for eccentricity's sake. All this prepared the way for my Nemesis. But as yet my wild oats were green and flourishing in the field of youth.
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I was preaching one day to mother and Aunt Merce a sermon after the manner of Mr. Boold, of Barmouth, taking the sofa for a desk, and for my text "Like David's Harp of solemn sound," and had attracted Temperance and Charles into the room by my declamation, when my audience was unexpectedly increased by the entrance of father, with a strange gentleman. Aunt Merce laughed hysterically; I waved my hand to her, _à la_ Boold, and descended from my position.
"Take a chair," said Temperance, who was never abashed, thumping one down before the stranger.
"What is all this?" inquired father.
"Only a _Ranz des Vaches_, father, to please Aunt Merce."
The stranger's eyes were fastened upon me, while father introduced us to "Mr. Charles Morgeson, of Rosville."
"Please receive me as a relative," he said, turning to shake hands with mother. "We have an ancestor in common that makes a sufficient cousinship for a claim, Mrs. Morgeson."
"Why not have looked us up before?" I asked.
"Why," said Veronica, who had just come in, "there are six Charles Morgesons buried in our graveyard."
"I supposed," he said, "that the name was extinct. I lately saw your father's in a State Committee List, and feeling curious regarding it, I came here."
He bowed distantly to Veronica when she entered, but she did not return his bow, though she looked at him fixedly. Temperance and Hepsey hurried up a fine supper immediately. A visitor was a creature to be fed. Feeding together removes embarrassment, and before supper was over we were all acquainted with Mr. Morgeson. There were three cheerful old ladies spending the week with us--the widow Desire Carver, and her two maiden sisters, Polly and Serepta Chandler. They filled the part of chorus in the domestic drama, saying, "Aha," whenever there was a pause. Veronica affected these old ladies greatly, and when they were in the house gave them her society. But for their being there at this time, I doubt whether she would have seen Mr. Morgeson again. That evening she played for them. Her wild, pathetic melodies made our visitor's gray eyes flash with pleasure, and light up his cold face with gleams of feeling; but she was not gratified by his interest. "I think it strange that you should like my music," she said crossly.
"Do you" he answered, amused at her tone, "perhaps it is; but why should I not as well as your friends here?" indicating the old ladies.
"Ah, we like it very much," said the three, clicking their snuff-boxes.
"You, too, play?" he asked me.
"Miss Cassy don't play," answered the three, looking at me over their spectacles. "Miss Verry's sun puts out her fire."
"Cassandra does other things better than playing," Veronica said to Mr. Morgeson.
"Why, Veronica," I said, surprised, going toward her.
"Go off, go off," she replied, in an undertone, and struck up a loud march. He had heard her, and while she played looked at her earnestly. Then, seeming to forget the presence of the three, he turned and put out his hand to me, with an authority I did not resist. I laid my hand in his; it was not grasped, but upheld. Veronica immediately stopped playing.
He stayed several days at our house. After the first evening we found him taciturn. He played with Arthur, spoke of his children to him, and promised him a pony if he would go to Rosville. With father he discussed business matters, and went out with him to the shipyards and offices. I scarcely remember that he spoke to me, except in a casual way, more than once. He asked me if I knew whether the sea had any influence upon me; I replied that I had not thought of it. "There are so many things you have not thought of," he answered, "that this is not strange."
Veronica observed him closely; he was aware of it, but was not embarrassed; he met her dark gaze with one keener than her own, and neither talked with the other. The morning he went away, while the chaise was waiting, which was to go to Milford to meet the stagecoach, and he was inviting us to visit him, a thought seemed to strike him. "By the way, Morgeson, why not give Miss Cassandra a finish at Rosville? I have told you of our Academy, and of the advantages which Rosville affords in the way of society. What do you say, Mrs. Morgeson, will you let her come to my house for a year?"
"Locke decides for Cassy," she answered; "I never do now," looking at me reproachfully.
Cousin Charles's hawk eyes caught the look, and he heard me too, when I tapped her shoulder till she turned round and smiled. I whispered, "Mother, your eyes are as blue as the sea yonder, and I love you." She glanced toward it; it was murmuring softly, creeping along the shore, licking the rocks and sand as if recognizing a master. And I saw and felt its steady, resistless heaving, insidious and terrible.
"Well," said father, "we will talk of it on the way to Milford."
"I have a kinder of a-creeping about your Cousin Charles, as you call him," said Temperance, after she had closed the porch door. "He is too much shut up for me. How's Mis Cousin Charles, I wonder?"
"He is fond of flowers," remarked Aunt Merce; "he examined all my plants, and knew all their botanical names."
"That's a balm for every wound with you, isn't it?" Temperance said. "I spose I can clean the parlor, unless Mis Carver and Chandler are sitting in a row there?"
Veronica, who had hovered between the parlor and the hall while Cousin Charles was taking his leave, so that she might avoid the necessity of any direct notice of him, had heard his proposition about Rosville, said, "Cassandra will go there."
"Do you feel it in your bones, Verry?" Temperance asked.
"Cassandra does."
"Do I? I believe I do."
"You are eighteen; you are too old to go to school."
"But I am not too old to have an agreeable time; besides, I am not eighteen, and shall not be till four days from now."
"You think too much of having a good time, Cassandra," said mother. "I foresee the day when the pitcher will come back from the well broken. You are idle and frivolous; eternally chasing after amusement."
"God knows I don't find it."
"I know you are not happy."
"Tell me," I cried, striking the table with my hand, making Veronica wink, "tell me how to feel and act."
"I have no influence with you, nor with Veronica."
"Because," said Verry, "we are all so different; but I like you, mother, and all that you do."
"Different!" she exclaimed, "children talk to parents about a difference between them."
"I never thought about it before." I said, "but _where_ is the family likeness?"
Aunt Merce laughed.
"There's the Morgesons," I continued, "I hate 'em all."
"All?" she echoed; "you are like this new one."
"And Grand'ther Warren"--I continued.
"Your talk," interrupted Aunt Merce, jumping up and walking about, "is enough to make him rise out of his grave."
"I believe," said Veronica, "that Grand'ther Warren nearly crushed you and mother, when girls of our age. Did you know that you had any wants then? or dare to dream anything beside that he laid down for you?"
Aunt Merce and mother exchanged glances.
"Say, mother, what shall I do?" I asked again.
"Do," she answered in a mechanical voice; "read the Bible, and sew more."
"Veronica's life is not misspent," she continued, and seeming to forget that Verry was still there. "Why should she find work for her hands when neither you nor I do?"
Veronica slipped out of the room; and I sat on the floor beside mother. I loved her in an unsatisfactory way. What could we be to each other? We kissed tenderly; I saw she was saddened by something regarding me, which she could not explain, because she refused to explain me naturally. I thought she wished me to believe she could have no infirmity in common with me--no temptations, no errors--that she must repress all the doubts and longings of her heart for example's sake.
There was a weight upon me all that day, a dreary sense of imperfection.
When father came home he asked me if I would like to go to Rosville. I answered, "Yes." Mother must travel with me, for he could not leave home. The sooner I went the better. He also thought Veronica should go. She was called and consulted, and, provided Temperance would accompany us to take care of her, she consented. It was all arranged that evening. Temperance said we must wait a week at least, for her corns to be cured, and the plum-colored silk made, which had been shut up in a band-box for three years.
We started on our journey one bright morning in June, to go to Boston in a stagecoach, a hundred miles from Surrey, and thence to Rosville, forty miles further, by railroad. We stopped a night on the way to Boston at a country inn, which stood before an egg-shaped pond. Temperance remade our beds, declaiming the while against the unwholesome situation of the house; the idea of anybody's living in the vicinity of fresh water astonished her; to impose upon travelers' health that way was too much. She went to the kitchen to learn whether the landlady cooked, or hired a cook. She sat up all night with our luggage in sight, to keep off what she called "prowlers"--she did not like to say robbers, for fear of exciting our imaginations--and frightened us by falling out of her chair toward morning. Veronica insisted upon her going to bed, but she refused, till Veronica threatened to sit up herself, when she carried her own carpet-bag to bed with her.
We arrived in Boston the next day and went to the Bromfield House in Bromfield Street, whither father had directed us. We were ushered to the parlor by a waiter, who seemed struck by Temperance, and who was treated by her with respect. "Mr. Shepherd, the landlord, himself, I guess," she whispered.
Three cadaverous children were there eating bread and butter from a black tray on the center-table.
"Good Lord!" exclaimed Temperance, "what bread those children are eating! It is made of sawdust."
"It's good, you old cat," screamed the little girl.
Veronica sat down by her, and offered her some sugar-plums, which the child snatched from her hand.
"We are missionaries," said the oldest boy, "and we are going to Bombay next week in the _Cabot_. I'll make the natives gee, I tell ye."
"Mercy on us!" exclaimed Temperance, "did you ever?"
Presently a sickly, gentle-looking man entered, in a suit of black camlet, and carrying an umbrella; he took a seat by the children, and ran his fingers through his hair, which already stood upright.
"That girl gave Sis some sugar-plums," remarked the boy.
"I hope you thanked her, Clarissa," said the father.
"No; she didn't give me enough," the child answered.
"They have no mother," the poor man said apologetically to Veronica, looking up at her, and, as he caught her eye, blushing deeply. She bowed, and moved away. Mother rang the bell, and when the waiter came gave him a note for Mr. Shepherd, which father had written, bespeaking his attention. Mr. Shepherd soon appeared, and conveyed us to two pleasant rooms with an unmitigated view of the wall of the next house from the windows.
"This," remarked Temperance, "is worse than the pond."
Mr. Shepherd complimented mother on her fine daughters; hoped Mr. Morgeson would run for Congress soon told her she should have the best the house afforded, and retired.
I wanted to shop, and mother gave me money. I found Washington Street, and bought six wide, embroidered belts, a gilt buckle, a variety of ribbons, and a dozen yards of lace. I repented the whole before I got back; for I saw other articles I wanted more. I found mother alone; Temperance had gone out with Veronica, she said, and she had given Veronica the same amount of money, curious to know how she would spend it, as she had never been shopping. It was nearly dark when they returned.
"I like Boston," said Verry.
"But what have you bought?"
She displayed a beautiful gold chain, and a little cross for the throat; a bundle of picture-books for the missionary children; a sewing-silk shawl for Hepsey, and some toys for Arthur.
"To-morrow, _I_ shall go shopping," said mother. "What did you buy, Temperance?"
"A mean shawl. In my opinion, Boston is a den of thieves."
She untied a box, from which she took a sky-blue silk shawl, with brown flowers woven in it.
"I gave eighteen dollars for it, if I gave a cent, Mis Morgeson; I know I am cheated. It's sleazy, isn't it?"
The bell for tea rang, and Mr. Shepherd came up to escort us to the table. Temperance delayed us, to tie on a silk apron, to protect the plum-colored silk, for, as she observed to Mr. Shepherd, she was afraid it would show grease badly. I could not help exchanging smiles with Mr. Shepherd, which made Veronica frown. The whole table stared as we seated ourselves, for we derived an importance from the fact that we were under the personal charge of the landlord.
"How they gawk at you," whispered Temperance. I felt my color rise.
"The gentlemen do not guess that we are sisters," said Veronica quietly.
"How do I look?" I asked.
"You know how, and that I do not agree with your opinion. You look cruel."
"I am cruel hungry."
Her eyes sparkled with disdain.
"What do you mean to do for a year?" I continued.
"Forget you, for one thing."
"I hope you wont be ill again, Verry."
"I shall be," she answered with a shudder; "I need all the illnesses that come."
"As for me," I said, biting my bread and butter, "I feel well to my fingers' ends; they tingle with strength. I am elated with health."
I had not spoken the last word before I became conscious of a streak of pain which cut me like a knife and vanished; my surprise at it was so evident that she asked me what ailed me."
"Nothing."
"I never had the feeling you speak of in my finger ends," she said sadly, looking at her slender hand.
"Poor girl!"
"What has come over you, Cass? An attack of compassion? Are you meaning to leave an amiable impression with me?"
After supper Mr. Shepherd asked mother if she would go to the theater. The celebrated tragedian, Forrest, was playing; would the young ladies like to see Hamlet? We all went, and my attention was divided between Hamlet and two young men who lounged in the box door till Mr. Shepherd looked them away. Veronica laughed at Hamlet, and Temperance said it was stuff and nonsense. Veronica laughed at Ophelia, also, who was a superb, black-haired woman, toying with an elegant Spanish fan, which Hamlet in his energy broke. "It is not Shakespeare," she said.
"Has she read Shakespeare?" I asked mother.
"I am sure I do not know."
That night, after mother and Veronica were asleep, I persuaded Temperance to get up, and bore my ears with a coarse needle, which I had bought for the purpose. It hurt me so, when she pierced one, that I could not summon resolution to have the other operated on; so I went to bed with a bit of sewing silk in the hole she had made. But in the morning I roused her, to tell her I thought I could bear to have the other ear bored. When mother appeared I showed her my ears red and sore, insisting that I must have a certain pair of white cornelian ear-rings, set in chased gold, and three inches long, which I had seen in a shop window. She scolded Temperance, and then gave me the money.
The next day mother and I started for Rosville. Veronica decided to remain in Boston with Temperance till mother returned. She said that if she went she might find Mrs. Morgeson as disagreeable as Mr. Morgeson was; that she liked the Bromfield; besides, she wanted to see the missionary children off for Bombay, and intended to go down to the ship on the day they were to sail. She was also going to ask Mr. Shepherd to look up a celebrated author for her. She must see one if possible.
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{
"id": "12347"
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14
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It was sunset when we arrived in Rosville, and found Mr. Morgeson waiting for us with his carriage at the station. From its open sides I looked out on a tranquil, agreeable landscape; there was nothing saline in the atmosphere. The western breeze, which blew in our faces, had an earthy scent, with fluctuating streams of odors from trees and flowers. As we passed through the town, Cousin Charles pointed to the Academy, which stood at the head of a green. Pretty houses stood round it, and streets branched from it in all directions. Flower gardens, shrubbery, and trees were scattered everywhere. Rosville was larger and handsomer than Surrey.
"That is my house, on the right," he said.
We looked down the shady street through which we were going, and saw a modern cottage, with a piazza, and peaked roof, and on the side toward us a large yard, and stables.
We drove into the yard, and a woman came out on the piazza to receive us. It was Mrs. Morgeson, or "My wife, Cousin Alice," as Mr. Morgeson introduced her. Giving us a cordial welcome, she led us into a parlor where tea was waiting. A servant came in for our bonnets and baskets. Cousin Alice begged us to take tea at once. We were hardly seated when we heard the cry of a young child; she left the table hastily, to come back in a moment with an apology, which she made to Cousin Charles rather than to us. I had never seen a table so well arranged, so fastidiously neat; it glittered with glass and French china. Cousin Charles sent away a glass and a plate, frowning at the girl who waited; there must have been a speck or a flaw in them. The viands were as pretty as the dishes, the lamb chops were fragile; the bread was delicious, but cut in transparent slices, and the butter pat was nearly stamped through with its bouquet of flowers. This was all the feast except sponge cake, which felt like muslin in the fingers; I could have squeezed the whole of it into my mouth. Still hungry, I observed that Cousin Charles and Alice had finished; and though she shook her spoon in the cup, feigning to continue, and he snipped crumbs in his plate, I felt constrained to end my repast. He rose then, and pushing back folding-doors, we entered a large room, leaving Alice at the table. Windows extending to the floor opening on the piazza, but notwithstanding the stream of light over the carpet, I thought it somber, and out of keeping with the cottage exterior. The walls were covered with dark red velvet paper, the furniture was dark, the mantel and table tops were black marble, and the vases and candelabra were bronze. He directed mother's attention to the portraits of his children, explaining them, while I went to a table between the windows to examine the green and white sprays of some delicate flower I had never before seen. Its fragrance was intoxicating. I lifted the heavy vase which contained it; it was taken from me gently by Charles, and replaced.
"It will hardly bear touching," he said. "By to-morrow these little white bells will be dead."
I looked up at him. "What a contrast!" I said.
"Where?"
"Here, in this room, and in you."
"And between you and me?"
His face was serene, dark, and delicate, but to look at it made me shiver. Mother came toward us, pleading fatigue as an excuse for retiring, and Cousin Charles called Cousin Alice, who went with us to our room. In the morning, she said, we should see her three children. She never left them, she was so afraid of their being ill, also telling mother that she would do all in her power to make my stay in Rosville pleasant and profitable. As a mother, she could appreciate her anxiety and sadness in leaving me. Mother thanked her warmly, and was sure that I should be happy; but I had an inward misgiving that I should not have enough to eat.
"I hear Edward," said Alice. "Good-night."
Presently a girl, the same who had taken our bonnets, came in with a pitcher of warm water and a plate of soda biscuit. She directed us where to find the apparel she had nicely smoothed and folded; took off the handsome counterpane, and the pillows trimmed with lace, putting others of a plainer make in their places; shook down the window curtains; asked us if we would have anything more, and quietly disappeared. I offered mother the warm water, and appropriated the biscuits. There were six. I ate every one, undressing meanwhile, and surveying the apartment.
"Cassy, Mrs. Morgeson is an excellent housekeeper."
"Yes," I said huskily, for the dry biscuit choked me.
"What would Temperance and Hepsey say to this?"
"I think they would grumble, and admire. Look at this," showing her the tassels of the inner window curtains done up in little bags. "And the glass is pinned up with nice yellow paper; and here is a damask napkin fastened to the wall behind the washstand. And everything stands on a mat. I wonder if this is to be my room?"
"It is probably the chamber for visitors. Why, these are beautiful pillow-cases, too," she exclaimed, as she put her head on the pillow. "Come to bed; don't read."
I had taken up a red morocco-bound book, which was lying alone on the bureau. It was Byron, and turning over the leaves till I came to Don Juan, I read it through, and began Childe Harold, but the candle expired. I struck out my hands through the palpable darkness, to find the bed without disturbing mother, whose soul was calmly threading the labyrinth of sleep. I finished Childe Harold early in the morning, though, and went down to breakfast, longing to be a wreck!
The three children were in the breakfast-room, which was not the one we had taken tea in, but a small apartment, with a door opening into the garden. They were beautifully dressed, and their mother was tending and watching them. The oldest was eight years, the youngest three months. Cousin Alice gave us descriptions of their tastes and habits, dwelling with emphasis on those of the baby. I drew from her conversation the opinion that she had a tendency to the rearing of children. I was glad when Cousin Charles came in, looking at his watch. "Send off the babies, Alice, and ring the bell for breakfast."
She sent out the two youngest, put little Edward in his chair, and breakfast began.
"Mrs. Morgeson," said Charles, "the horses will be ready to take you round Rosville. We will call on Dr. Price, for you to see the kind of master Cassandra will have. I have already spoken to him about receiving a new pupil."
"Oh, I am homesick at the idea of school and a master," I said.
Mother tried in vain to look hard-hearted, and to persuade that it was good for me, but she lost her appetite, with the thought of losing me, which the mention of Dr. Price brought home. The breakfast was as well adapted to a delicate taste as the preceding supper. The ham was most savory, but cut in such thin slices that it curled; and the biscuits were as white and feathery as snowflakes. I think also that the boiled eggs were smaller than any I had seen. Cousin Alice gave unremitting attention to Edward, who ate as little as the rest.
"Mother," I said afterward, "I am afraid I am an animal. Did you notice how little the Morgesons ate?"
"I noticed how elegant their table appointments were, and I shall buy new china in Boston to-morrow. I wish Hepsey would not load our table as she does."
"Hepsey is a good woman, mother; do give my love to her. Now that I think of it, she was always making up some nice dish; tell her I remember it, will you?"
When Cousin Charles put us into the carriage, and hoisted little Edward on the front seat, mother noticed that two men held the horses, and that they were not the same he had driven the night before. She said she was afraid to go, they looked ungovernable; but he reassured her, and one of the men averring that Mr. Morgeson could drive anything, she repressed her fears, and we drove out of the yard behind a pair of horses that stood on their hind legs as often as that position was compatible with the necessity they were under of getting on, for they evidently understood that they were guided by a firm hand. Edward was delighted with their behavior, and for the first time I saw his father smile on him.
"These are fine brutes," he said, not taking his eyes from them; "but they are not equal to my mare, Nell. Alice is afraid of her; but I hope that you, Cassandra, will ride with me sometimes when I drive her."
"Oh!" exclaimed mother, grasping my arm.
"You would, would you?" he said, taking out the whip, as the horses recoiled from a man who lay by the roadside, leaping so high that the harness seemed rattling from their backs. He struck them, and said, "Go on now, go on, devils." There was no further trouble. He encouraged mother not to be afraid, looking keenly at me. I looked back at him.
"How much worse is the mare, cousin Charles?"
"You shall see."
After driving round the town we stopped at the Academy. Morning prayers were over, and the scholars, some sixty boys and girls, were coming downstairs from the hall, to go into the rooms, each side of a great door. Dr. Price was behind them. He stopped when he saw us, an introduction took place, and he inquired for Dr. Snell, as an old college friend. Locke Morgeson sounded familiarly, he said; a member of his mother's family named Somers had married a gentleman of that name. He remembered it from an old ivory miniature which his mother had shown him, telling him it was the likeness of her cousin Rachel's husband. I replied we knew that grandfather had married a Rachel Somers. Cousin Charles was surprised and a little vexed that the doctor had never told him, when he must have known that he had been anxiously looking up the Morgeson pedigree; but the doctor declared he had not thought of it before, and that only the name of Locke had recalled it to his mind. He then proposed our going to Miss Prior, the lady who had charge of the girls' department, and we followed him to her school-room.
I was at once interested and impressed by the appearance of my teacher that was to be. She was a dignified, kind-looking woman, who asked me a few questions in such a pleasant, direct manner that I frankly told her I was eighteen years old, very ignorant, and averse from learning; but I did not speak loud enough for anybody beside herself to hear.
"Now," said mother, when we came away, "think how much greater your advantages are than mine have ever been. How miserable was my youth! It is too late for me to make any attempt at cultivation. I have no wish that way. Yet now I feel sometimes as if I were leaving the confines of my old life to go I know not whither, to do I know not what."
But her countenance fell when she heard that Dr. Price had been a Unitarian minister, and that there was no Congregational church in Rosville.
She went to Boston that Friday afternoon, anxious to get safely home with Veronica. We parted with many a kiss and shake of the hand and last words. I cried when I went up to my room, for I found a present there--a beautiful workbox, and in it was a small Bible with my name and hers written on the fly-leaf in large print-like, but tremulous letters. I composed my feelings by putting it away carefully and unpacking my trunk.
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{
"id": "12347"
}
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15
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Rosville was a county town. The courts were held there, and its society was adorned with several lawyers of note who had law students, which fact was to the lawyers' daughters the most agreeable feature of their fathers' profession. It had a weekly market day and an annual cattle show. I saw a turnout of whips and wagons about the hitching-posts round the green of a Tuesday the year through, and going to and from school met men with a bovine smell. Caucuses were prevalent, and occasionally a State Convention was held, when Rosville paid honor to some political hero of the day with banners and brass bands. It was a favorite spot for the rustication of naughty boys from Harvard or Yale. Dr. Price had one or two at present who boarded in his house so as to be immediately under his purblind eyes, and who took Greek and Latin at the Academy.
Social feuds raged in the Academy coteries between the collegians and the natives on account of the superior success of the former in flirtation. The latter were not consoled by their experience that no flirtation lasted beyond the period of rustication. Dr. Price usually had several young men fitting for college also, which fact added more piquancy to the provincial society. In the summer riding parties were fashionable, and in the winter county balls and cotillion parties; a professor came down from Boston at this season to set up a dancing school, which was always well attended.
The secular concerns of life engaged the greatest share of the interests of its inhabitants; and although there existed social and professional dissensions, there was little sectarian spirit among them and no religious zeal. The rich and fashionable were Unitarians. The society owned a tumble-down church; a mild preacher stood in its pulpit and prayed and preached, sideways and slouchy. This degree of religious vitality accorded with the habits of its generations. Surrey and Barmouth would have howled over the Total Depravity of Rosville. There was no probationary air about it. Human Nature was the infallible theme there. At first I missed the vibration of the moral sword which poised in our atmosphere. When I felt an emotion without seeing the shadow of its edge turning toward me, I discovered my conscience, which hitherto had only been described to me.
There were churches in the town beside the Unitarian. The Universalists had a bran-new one, and there was still another frequented by the sedimentary part of the population--Methodists.
I toned down perfectly within three months. Soon after my arrival at his house I became afraid of Cousin Charles. Not that he ever said anything to justify fear of him--he was more silent at home than elsewhere; but he was imperious, fastidious, and sarcastic with me by a look, a gesture, an inflection of his voice. My perception of any defect in myself was instantaneous with his discovery of it. I fell into the habit of guessing each day whether I was to offend or please him, and then into that of intending to please. An intangible, silent, magnetic feeling existed between us, changing and developing according to its own mysterious law, remaining intact in spite of the contests between us of resistance and defiance. But my feeling died or slumbered when I was beyond the limits of his personal influence. When in his presence I was so pervaded by it that whether I went contrary to the dictates of his will or not I moved as if under a pivot; when away my natural elasticity prevailed, and I held the same relation to others that I should have held if I had not known him. This continued till the secret was divined, and then his influence was better remembered.
I discovered that there was little love between him and Alice. I never heard from either an expression denoting that each felt an interest in the other's individual life; neither was there any of that conjugal freemasonry which bores one so to witness. But Alice was not unhappy. Her ideas of love ended with marriage; what came afterward--children, housekeeping, and the claims of society--sufficed her needs. If she had any surplus of feeling it was expended upon her children, who had much from her already, for she was devoted and indulgent to them. In their management she allowed no interference, on this point only thwarting her husband. In one respect she and Charles harmonized; both were worldly, and in all the material of living there was sympathy. Their relation was no unhappiness to him; he thought, I dare say, if he thought at all, that it was a natural one. The men of his acquaintance called him a lucky man, for Alice was handsome, kind-hearted, intelligent, and popular.
Whether Cousin Alice would have found it difficult to fulfill the promise she made mother regarding me, if I had been a plain, unnoticeable girl, I cannot say, or whether her anxiety that I should make an agreeable impression would have continued beyond a few days. She looked after my dress and my acquaintances. When she found that I was sought by the young people of her set and the Academy, she was gratified, and opened her house for them, giving little parties and large ones, which were pleasant to everybody except Cousin Charles, who detested company--"it made him lie so." But he was very well satisfied that people should like to visit and praise his house and its belongings, if Alice would take the trouble of it upon herself. I made calls with her Wednesday afternoons, and went to church with her Sunday mornings. At home I saw little of her. She was almost exclusively occupied with the children--their ailments or their pleasures--and staid in her own room, or the nursery.
When in the house I never occupied one spot long, but wandered in the garden, which had a row of elms, or haunted the kitchen and stables, to watch black Phoebe, the cook, or the men as they cleaned the horses or carriages. My own room was in a wing of the cottage, with a window overlooking the entrance into the yard and the carriage drive; this was its sole view, except the wall of a house on the other side of a high fence. I heard Charles when he drove home at night, or away in the morning; knew when Nell was in a bad humor by the tone of his voice, which I heard whether my window was open or shut. It was a pretty room, with a set of maple furniture, and amber and white wallpaper, and amber and white chintz curtains and coverings. It suited the color of my hair, Alice declared, and was becoming to my complexion.
"Yes," said Charles, looking at my hair with an expression that made me put my hand up to my head as if to hide it; I knew it was carelessly dressed.
I made a study that day of the girls' heads at school, and from that time improved in my style of wearing it, and I brushed it with zeal every day afterward. Alice had my room kept so neatly for me that it soon came to be a reproach, and I was finally taught by her example how to adjust chairs, books, and mats in straight lines, to fold articles without making odd corners and wrinkles; at last I improved so much that I could find what I was seeking in a drawer, without harrowing it with my fingers, and began to see beauty in order. Alice had a talent for housekeeping, and her talent was fostered by the exacting, systematic taste of her husband. He examined many matters which are usually left to women, and he applied his business talent to the art of living, succeeding in it as he did in everything else.
Alice told me that Charles had been poor; that his father was never on good terms with him. She fancied they were too much alike; so he had turned him off to shift for himself, when quite young. When she met him, he was the agent of a manufacturing company, in the town where her parents lived, and even then, in his style of living, he surpassed the young men of her acquaintance. The year before they were married his father died, and as Charles was his only child, he left his farm to him, and ten thousand dollars--all he had. The executors of the will were obliged to advertise for him, not having any clue to his place of residence. He sold the farm as soon as it was put in his hands, took the ten thousand dollars, and came back to be married. A year after, he went to Rosville, and built a cotton factory, three miles from town, and the cottage, and then brought her and Edward, who was a few months old, to live in it. He had since enlarged the works, employed more operatives, and was making a great deal of money. Morgeson's Mills, she believed, were known all over the country. Charles was his own agent, as well as sole owner. There were no mills beside his in the neighborhood; to that fact she ascribed the reason of his having no difficulties in Rosville, and no enmities; for she knew he had no wish to make friends. The Rosville people, having no business in common with him, had no right to meddle, and could find but small excuse for comment. They spent, she said, five or six thousand a year; most of it went in horses, she was convinced, and she believed his flowers cost him a great deal too. "You must know, Cassandra, that his heart is with his horses and his flowers. He is more interested in them than he is in his children."
She looked vexed when she said this; but I took hold of the edge of her finely embroidered cape, and asked her how much it cost. She laughed, and said, "Fifty dollars; but you see how many lapels it has. I have still a handsomer one that was seventy-five."
"Are they a part of the six thousand a year, Alice?"
"Of course; but Charles wishes me to dress, and never stints me in money; and, after all, I like for him to spend his money in his own way. It vexes me sometimes, he buys such wild brutes, and endangers his life with them. He rides miles and miles every year; and it relieves the tedium of his journeys to have horses he must watch, I suppose."
Nobody in Rosville lived at so fast a rate as the Morgesons. The oldest families there were not the richest--the Ryders, in particular. Judge Ryder had four unmarried daughters; they were the only girls in our set who never invited us to visit them. They could not help saying, with a fork of the neck, "Who are the Morgesons?" But all the others welcomed Cousin Alice, and were friendly with me. She was too pretty and kind-hearted not to be liked, if she was rich; and Cousin Charles was respected, because he made no acquaintance beyond bows, and "How-de-do's." It was rather a stirring thing to have such a citizen, especially when he met with an accident, and he broke many carriages in the course of time; and now and then there was a row at the mills, which made talk. His being considered a hard man did not detract from the interest he inspired.
My advent in Rosville might be considered a fortunate one; appearances indicated it; I am sure I thought so, and was very well satisfied with my position. I conformed to the ways of the family with ease, even in the matter of small breakfasts and light suppers. I found that I was more elastic than before, and more susceptible to sudden impressions; I was conscious of the ebb and flow of blood through my heart, felt it when it eddied up into my face, and touched my brain with its flame-colored wave. I loved life again. The stuff of which each day was woven was covered with an arabesque which suited my fancy. I missed nothing that the present unrolled for me, but looked neither to the past nor to the future. In truth there was little that was elevated in me. Could I have perceived it if there had been? Whichever way the circumstances of my life vacillated, I was not yet reached to the quick; whether spiritual or material influences made sinuous the current of being, it still flowed toward an undiscovered ocean.
Half the girls at the Academy, like myself, came from distant towns. Some had been there three years. They were all younger than myself. There never had been a boarding-house attached to the school, and it was not considered a derogatory thing for the best families to receive these girls as boarders. We were therefore on the same footing, in a social sense. I was also on good terms with Miss Prior. She was a cold and kindly woman, faithful as a teacher, gifted with an insight into the capacity of a pupil. She gave me a course of History first, and after that Physical Philosophy; but never recommended me to Moral Science. When I had been with her a few months, she proposed that I should study the common branches; my standing in the school was such that I went down into the primary classes without shame, and I must say that I was the dullest scholar in them. We also had a drawing master and a music-teacher. The latter was an amiable woman, with theatrical manners. She was a Mrs. Lane; but no Mr. Lane had ever been seen in Rosville. We girls supposed he had deserted her, which was the fact, as she told me afterward. She cried whenever she sang a sentimental song, but never gave up to her tears, singing on with blinded eyes and quavering voice. I laughed at her dresses which had been handsome, with much frayed trimming about them, the hooks and eyes loosened and the seams strained, but liked her, and although I did not take lessons, saw her every day when she came up to the Academy. She asked me once if I had any voice. I answered her by singing one of our Surrey hymns, "_Once on the raging seas he rode_." She grew pale, and said, "Don't for heaven's sake sing that! I can see my old mother, as she looked when she sang that hymn of a stormy night, when father was out to sea. Both are dead now, and where am I?"
She turned round on the music stool, and banged out the accompaniment of "_O pilot, 'tis a fearful night_," and sang it with great energy. After her feelings were composed, she begged me to allow her to teach me to sing. "You can at least learn the simple chords of song accompaniments, and I think you have a voice that can be made effective."
I promised to try, and as I had taken lessons before, in three months I could play and sing "_Should those fond hopes e'er forsake thee_," tolerably well. But Mrs. Lane persisted in affirming that I had a dramatic talent, and as she supposed that I never should be an actress, I must bring it out in singing; so I persevered, and, thanks to her, improved so much that people said, when I was mentioned, "She sings."
The Moral Sciences went to Dr. Price, and he had a class of girls in Latin; but my only opportunity of going before him was at morning prayers and Wednesday afternoons, when we assembled in the hall to hear orations in Latin, or translations, and "pieces" spoken by the boys; and at the quarterly reviews, when he marched us backward and forward through the books we had conned, like the sharp old gentleman he was, notwithstanding his purblind eyes.
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I heard from home regularly; father, however, was my only correspondent. He stipulated that I should write him every other Saturday, if not more than a line; but I did more than that at first, writing up the events of the fortnight, interspersing my opinions of the actors engaged therein, and dwindling by degrees down to the mere acknowledgment of his letter. He read without comment, but now and then he asked me questions which puzzled me to answer.
"Do you like Mr. Morgeson?" he asked once.
"He is very attentive," I wrote back. "But so is Cousin Alice,--she is fond of me."
"You do not like Morgeson?" again.
"Are there no agreeable young men," he asked another time, "with Dr. Price?"
"Only boys," I wrote--"cubs of my own age."
Among the first letters I received was one with the news of the death of my grandfather, John Morgeson. He had left ten thousand dollars for Arthur, the sum to be withdrawn from the house of Locke Morgeson & Co., and invested elsewhere, for the interest to accumulate, and be added to the principal, till he should be of age. The rest of his property he gave to the Foreign Missionary Society. "Now," wrote father, "it will come your turn next, to stand in the gap, when your mother and I fall back from the forlorn hope--life." This merry and unaccustomed view of things did not suggest to my mind the change he intimated; I could not dwell on such an idea, so steadfast a home-principle were father and mother. It was different with grandfathers and grandmothers, of course; they died, since it was not particularly necessary for them to live after their children were married.
It was early June when I went to Rosville; it was now October. There was nothing more for me to discover there. My relations at home and at school were established, and it was probable that the next year's plans were all settled.
"It is the twentieth," said my friend, Helen Perkins, as we lingered in the Academy yard, after school hours. "The trees have thinned so we can see up and down the streets. Isn't that Mr. Morgeson who is tearing round the corner of Gold Street? Do you think he is strange-looking? I do. His hair, and eyes, and complexion are exactly the same hue; what color is it? A pale brown, or a greenish gray?"
"Is he driving this way?"
"Yes; the fore-legs of his horse have nearly arrived."
I moved on in advance of Helen, toward the gate; he beckoned when he saw me, and presently reined Nell close to us. "You can decide now what color he is," I whispered to her.
"Will you ride home?" he asked. "And shall I take you down to Bancroft's, Miss Helen?"
She would have declined, but I took her arm, pushed her into the chaise, and then sprang in after her; she seized the hand-loop, in view of an upset.
"You are afraid of my horse, Miss Helen," he said, without having looked at her.
"I am afraid of your driving," she answered, leaning back and looking behind him at me. She shook her head and put her finger on her eyelid to make me understand that she did not like the color of his eyes.
"Cassandra is afraid of neither," he said.
"Why should I be?" I replied coldly.
We were soon at the Bancrofts', where Helen lived, which was a mile from the Academy, and half a mile from our house. When we were going home, he asked: "Is she your intimate friend?"
"The most in school."
"Is there the usual nonsense about her?"
"What do you mean by nonsense?"
"When a girl talks about her lover or proposes one to her friend."
"I think she is not gifted that way."
"Then I like her."
"Why should she not talk about lovers, though? The next time I see her I will bring up the subject."
"You shall think and talk of your lessons, and nothing more, I charge you. Go on, Nell," he said, in a loud voice, turning into the yard and grazing one of the gate-posts, so that we struck together. I was vexed, thinking it was done purposely, and brushed my shoulder where he came in contact, as if dust had fallen on me, and jumped out without looking at him, and ran into the house.
"Are you losing your skill in driving, Charles?" Alice asked, when we were at tea, "or is Nell too much for you? I saw you crash against the gate-post."
"Did you? My hand was not steady, and we made a lurch."
"Was there a fight at the mills last night? Jesse said so."
"Jesse must mind his business."
"He told Phoebe about it."
"I knocked one of the clerks over and sprained my wrist."
I met his eye then. "It was your right hand?" I asked.
"It was my right hand," in a deferential tone, and with a slight bow in my direction.
"Was it Parker?" she asked.
"Yes, he is a puppy; but don't talk about it."
Nothing more was said, even by Edward, who observed his father with childish gravity, I meditated on the injustice I had done him about the gate-post. After tea he busied himself in the garden among the flowers which were still remaining. I lingered in the parlor or walked the piazza with an undefined desire of speaking to him before I should go to my room. After he had finished his garden work he went to the stable; I heard the horses stepping about the floor as they were taken out for his inspection. The lamps were lighted before he came in again; Alice was upstairs as usual. When I heard him coming, I opened my book, and seated myself in a corner of a sofa; he walked to the window without noticing me, and drummed on the piano.
"Does your wrist pain you, Charles?" still reading.
"A trifle," adjusting his wristband.
"Do you often knock men down in your employ?"
"When they deserve it."
"It is a generous and manly sort of pastime."
"I am a generous man and very strong; do you know that, you little fool? Here, will you take this flower? There will be no more this year." I took it from his hand; it was a pink, faintly odorous blossom.
"I love these fragile flowers best," he continued--"where I have to protect them from my own touch, even." He relapsed into forgetfulness for a moment, and then began to study his memorandum book.
"A note from the mills, sir," said Jesse, "by one of the hands."
"Tell him to wait."
He read it, and threw it over to me. It was from Parker, who informed Mr. Morgeson that he was going by the morning's train to Boston, thinking it was time for him to leave his employ; that, though the fault was his own in the difficulty of the day before, a Yankee could not stand a knock-down. It was too damned aristocratic for an employer to have that privilege; our institutions did not permit it. He thanked Mr. Morgeson for his liberality; he couldn't thank him for being a good fellow. "And would he oblige him by sending per bearer the arrears of salary?"
"Parker is in love with a factory girl. He quarreled with one of the hands because he was jealous of him, and would have been whipped by the man and his friends; to spare him that, I knocked him down. Do you feel better now, Cassy?"
"Better? How does it concern me?"
He laughed.
"Put Black Jake in the wagon," he called to Jesse.
Alice heard him and came downstairs; we went out on the _piazza_, to see him off. "Why do you go?" she asked, in an uneasy tone.
"I must. Wont you go too?"
She refused; but whispered to me, asking if I were afraid?
"Of what?"
"Men quarreling."
"Cassandra, will you go?" he asked. "If not, I am off. Jump in behind, Sam, will you?"
"Go," said Alice; and she ran in for a shawl, which she wrapped round me.
"Alice," said Charles, "you are a silly woman."
"As you have always said," she answered, laughing. "Ward the blows from him, Cassandra."
"It's a pretty dark night for a ride," remarked Sam.
"I have rode in darker ones."
"I dessay," replied Sam.
"Cover your hand with my handkerchief," I said; "the wind is cutting."
"Do you wish it?"
"No, I do not wish it; it was a humanitary idea merely."
He refused to have it covered.
The air had a moldy taint, and the wind blew the dead leaves around us. As we rode through the darkness I counted the glimmering lights which flashed across our way till we got out on the high-road where they grew scarce, and the wind whistled loud about our faces. He laid his hand on my shawl. "It is too light; you will take cold."
"No."
We reached the mills, and pulled up by the corner of a building, where a light shone through a window.
"This is my office. You must go in--it is too chilly for you to wait in the wagon. Hold Jake, Sam, till I come back."
I followed him. In the farthest corner of the room where we had seen the light, behind the desk, sat Mr. Parker, with his light hair rumpled, and a pen behind his ear.
I stopped by the door, while Charles went to the desk and stood before him to intercept my view, but he could not help my hearing what was said, though he spoke low.
"Did you give something to Sam, Parker, for bringing me your note at such a late hour?"
"Certainly," in a loud voice.
"He must be fifty, at least."
"I should say so," rather lower.
"Well, here is your money; you had better stay. I shall be devilish sorry for your father, who is my friend; you know he will be disappointed if you leave; depend upon it he will guess at the girl. Of course you would like to have me say I was in fault about giving you a blow--as I was. Stay. You will get over the affair. We all do. Is she handsome?"
"Beautiful," in a meek but enthusiastic tone.
"That goes, like the flowers; but they come every year again."
"Yes?"
"Yes, I say."
"No; I'll stay and see."
Charles turned away.
"Good-evening, Mr. Parker," I said, stepping forward. I had met him at several parties at Rosville, but never at our house.
"Excuse me, Miss Morgeson; I did not know you. I hope you are well."
"Come," said Charles, with his hand on the latch.
"Are you going to Mrs. Bancroft's whist party on Wednesday night, Mr. Parker?"
"Yes; Miss Perkins was kind enough to invite me."
"Cassandra, come." And Charles opened the door. I fumbled for the flower at my belt. "It's nice to have flowers so late; don't you think so?" inhaling the fragrance of my crushed specimens; "if they would but last. Will you have it?" stretching it toward him. He was about to take it, with a blush, when Charles struck it out of my hand and stepped on it.
"Are you ready now?" he said, in a quick voice.
I declared it was nothing, when I found I was too ill to rise the next morning. At the end of three days, as I still felt a disinclination to get up, Alice sent for her physician. I told him I was sleepy and felt dull pains. He requested me to sit up in bed, and rapped my shoulders and chest with his knuckles, in a forgetful way.
"Nothing serious," he said; "but, like many women, you will continue to do something to keep in continual pain. If Nature does not endow your constitution with suffering, you will make up the loss by some fatal trifling, which will bring it. I dare say, now, that after this, you never will be quite well."
"I will take care of my health."
He looked into my face attentively.
"You wont--you can't. Did you ever notice your temperament?"
"No, never; what is it?"
"How old are you?"
"Eighteen, and four months."
"Is it possible? How backward you are! You are quite interesting."
"When may I get up?"
"Next week; don't drink coffee. Remember to live in the day. Avoid stirring about in the night, as you would avoid Satan. Sleep, sleep then, and you'll make that beauty of yours last longer."
"Am I a beauty? No living creature ever said so before."
"Adipose beauty."
"Fat?"
"No; not that exactly. Good-day."
He came again, and asked me questions concerning my father and mother; what my grandparents died of; and whether any of my family were strumous. He struck me as being very odd.
My school friends were attentive, but I only admitted Helen Perkins to see me. Her liking for me opened my heart still more toward her. She was my first intimate friend--and my last. Though younger than I, she was more experienced, and had already passed through scenes I knew nothing of, which had sobered her judgment, and given her feelings a practical tinge. She was noted for having the highest spirits of any girl in school--another result of her experiences. She never allowed them to appear fluctuating; she was, therefore, an aid to me, whose moods varied.
After my illness came a sense of change. I had lost that careless security in my strength which I had always possessed, and was troubled with vague doubts, that made me feel I needed help from without.
I did not see Charles while I was ill, for he was absent most of the time. I knew when he was at home by the silence which pervaded the premises. When he was not there, Alice spread the children in all directions, and the servants gave tongue.
He was not at home the day I went downstairs, and I missed him, continually asking myself, "Why do I?" As I sat with Alice in the garden-room, I said, "Alice." She looked up from her sewing. "I am thinking of Charles."
"Yes. He will be glad to see you again."
"Is he really related to me?"
"He told you so, did he not? And his name certainly is Morgeson."
"But we are wholly unlike, are we not?"
"Wholly; but why do you ask?"
"He influences me so strongly."
"Influences you?" she echoed.
"Yes"; and, with an effort, "I believe I influence him."
"You are very handsome," she said, with a little sharpness. "So are flowers," I said to myself.
"It is not that, Alice," I answered peevishly; "you know better."
"You are peculiar, then; it may be he likes you for being so. He is odd, you know; but his oddity never troubles me." And she resumed her sewing with a placid face.
"Veronica is odd, also," was my thought; "but oddity there runs in a different direction." Her image appeared to me, pale, delicate, unyielding. I seemed to wash like a weed at her base.
"You should see my sister, Alice."
"Charles spoke of her; he says she plays beautifully. If you feel strong next week, we will go to Boston, and make our winter purchases. By the way, I hope you are not nervous. To go back to Charles, I have noticed how little you say to him. You know he never talks. The influence you speak of--it does not make you dislike him?"
"No; I meant to say--my choice of words must be poor--that it was possible I might be thinking too much of him; he is your husband, you know, though I do not think he is particularly interesting, or pleasing."
She laughed, as if highly amused, and said: "Well, about our dresses. You need a ball dress, so do I; for we shall have balls this winter, and if the children are well, we will go. I think, too, that you had better get a gray cloth pelisse, with a fur trimming. We dress so much at church."
"Perhaps," I said. "And how will a gray hat with feathers look? I must first write father, and ask for more money."
"Of course; but he allows you all you want."
"He is not so very rich; we do not live as handsomely as you do."
It was tea-time when we had finished our confab, and Alice sent me to bed soon after. I was comfortably drowsy when I heard Charles driving into the stable. "There he is," I thought, with a light heart, for I felt better since I had spoken to Alice of him. Her matter-of-fact air had blown away the cobwebs that had gathered across my fancy.
I saw him at the breakfast-table the next morning. He was noting something in his memorandum book, which excused him from offering me his hand; but he spoke kindly, said he was glad to see me, hoped I was well, and could find a breakfast that I liked.
"For some reason or other, I do not eat so much as I did in Surrey."
Alice laughed, and I blushed.
"What do you think, Charles?" she said, "Cassandra seems worried by the influence, as she calls it, you have upon each other."
"Does she?"
He raised his strange, intense eyes to mine; a blinding, intelligent light flowed from them which I could not defy, nor resist, a light which filled my veins with a torrent of fire.
"You think Cassandra is not like you," he continued with a curious intonation.
"I told her that your oddities never troubled me."
"That is right."
"To-day," I muttered, "Alice, I shall go back to school."
"You must ride," she answered.
"Jesse will drive you up," said Charles, rising. Alice called him back, to tell him her plan of the Boston visit.
"Certainly; go by all means," he said, and went on his way.
I made my application to father, telling him I had nothing to wear. He answered with haste, begging me to clothe myself at once.
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It was November when we returned from Boston. One morning when the frost sparkled on the dead leaves, which still dropped on the walks, Helen Perkins and I were taking a stroll down Silver Street, behind the Academy, when we saw Dr. White coming down the street in his sulky, rocking from side to side like a cradle. He stopped when he came up to us.
"Do ye sit up late of evenings, Miss Morgeson?"
"No, Doctor; only once a week or so."
"You are a case." And he meditatively pulled his shaggy whiskers with a loose buckskin glove. "There's a ripple coming under your eyes already; what did I tell you? Let me see, did you say you were like father or mother?"
"I look like my father. By the way, Doctor, I am studying my temperament. You will make an infidel of me by your inquiries."
Helen laughed, and staring at him, called him a bear, and told him he ought to live in a hospital, where he would have plenty of sick women to tease.
"I should find few like you there."
He chirruped to his horse, but checked it again, put out his head and called, "Keep your feet warm, wont you? And read Shakespeare."
Helen said that Dr. White had been crossed in love, and long after had married a deformed woman--for science's sake, perhaps. His talent was well known out of Rosville; but he was unambitious and eccentric.
"He is interested in you, Cass, that I see. Are you quite well? What about the change you spoke of?"
"Dr. White has theories; he has attached one to me. Nature has adjusted us nicely, he thinks, with fine strings; if we laugh too much, or cry too long, a knot slips somewhere, which 'all the king's men' can't take up again. Perhaps he judges women by his deformed wife. Men do judge that way, I suppose, and then pride themselves on their experience, commencing their speeches about us, with 'you women.' I'll answer your question, though,--there's a blight creeping over me, or a mildew."
"Is there a worm i' the bud?"
"There may be one at the root; my top is green and flourishing, isn't it?"
"You expect to be in a state of beatitude always. What is a mote of dust in another's eye, in yours is a cataract. You are mad at your blindness, and fight the air because you can't see."
"I feel that I see very little, especially when I understand the clearness of your vision. Your good sense is monstrous."
"It will come right somehow, with you; when twenty years are wasted, maybe," she answered sadly. "There's the first bell! I haven't a word yet of my rhetoric lesson," opening her book and chanting, "'Man, thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.' Are you going to Professor Simpson's class?" shutting it again. "I know the new dance"; and she began to execute it on the walk. The door of a house opposite us opened, and a tall youth came out, hat in hand. Without evincing surprise, he advanced toward Helen, gravely dancing the same step; they finished the figure with unmoved countenances. "Come now," I said, taking her arm. He then made a series of bows to us, retreating to the house, with his face toward us, till he reached the door and closed it. He was tall and stout, with red hair, and piercing black eyes, and looked about twenty-three. "Who can that be, Helen?"
"A stranger; probably some young man come to Dr. Price, or a law student. He is new here, at all events. His is not an obscure face; if it had been seen, we should have known it."
"We shall meet him, then."
And we did, the very next day, which was Wednesday, in the hall, where we went to hear the boys declaim. I saw him, sitting by himself in a chair, instead of being with the classes. He was in a brown study, unaware that he was observed; both hands were in his pockets, and his legs were stretched out till his pantaloons had receded up his boots, whose soles he knocked together, oblivious of the noise they made. In spite of his red hair, I thought him handsome, with his Roman nose and firm, clefted chin. Helen and I were opposite him at the lower part of the hall, but he did not see us, till the first boy mounted the platform, and began to spout one of Cicero's orations; then he looked up, and a smile spread over his face. He withdrew his hands from his pockets, updrew his legs, and surveyed the long row of girls opposite, beginning at the head of the hall. As his eyes reached us, a flash of recognition shot across; he raised his hand as if to salute us, and I noticed that it was remarkably handsome, small and white, and ornamented with an old-fashioned ring. It was our habit, after the exercises were over, to gather round Dr. Price, to exchange a few words with him. And this occasion was no exception, for Dr. Price, with his double spectacles, and his silk handkerchief in his hand, was answering our questions, when feeling a touch, he stopped, turned hastily, and saw the stranger.
"Will you be so good as to introduce me to the two young ladies near you? We have met before, but I do not know their names."
"Ah," said the Doctor, taking off his spectacles and wiping them leisurely; then raising his voice, said, "Miss Cassandra Morgeson and Miss Helen Perkins, Mr. Ben Somers, of Belem, requests me to present him to you. I add the information that he is, although a senior, suspended from Harvard College, for participating in a disgraceful fight. It is at your option to notice him."
"If he would be kind enough," said Mr. Somers, moving toward us, "to say that I won it."
"With such hands?" I asked.
"Oh, Somers," interposed the Doctor, "have you much knowledge of the Bellevue Pickersgills' pedigree?"
"Certainly; my grandpa, Desmond Pickersgill, although he came to this country as a cabin boy, was brother to an English earl. This is our coat of arms," showing the ring he wore.
"That is a great fact," answered the Doctor.
"This lad," addressing me, "belongs to the family I spoke of to you, a member of which married one of your name."
"Is it possible? I never heard much of my father's family."
"No," said the Doctor dryly; "Somers has no coat of arms. I expected, when I asked you, to hear that the Pickergills' history was at your fingers' ends."
"Only above the second joint of the third finger of my left hand."
I thought Dr. Price was embarrassing.
"Is your family from Troy?" Mr. Somers asked me, in a low tone.
"Do you dislike my name? Is that of Veronica a better one? It is my sister's, and we were named by our great-grandfather, who married a Somers, a hundred years ago."
Miss Black, my Barmouth teacher, came into my mind, for I had said the same thing to her in my first interview; but I was recalled from my wandering by Mr. Somers asking, "Are you looking for your sister? Far be it from me to disparage any act of your great-grandfather's, but I prefer the name of Veronica, and fancy that the person to whom the name belongs has a narrow face, with eyes near together, and a quantity of light hair, which falls straight; that she has long hands; is fond of Gothic architecture, and has a will of her own."
"But never dances," said Helen.
There was a whist party at somebody's house every Wednesday evening. Alice had selected the present for one, and had invited more than the usual number. I asked Mr. Somers to come.
"Dress coat?" he inquired.
"Oh, no."
"Is Rosville highly starched?"
"Oh, no."
"I'll be sure to go into society, then, as long as I can go limp."
He bowed, and, retiring with Dr. Price, walked through the green with him, perusing the ground.
I wore a dark blue silk for the party, with a cinnamon-colored satin stripe through it; a dress that Alice supervised. She fastened a pair of pearl ear-rings in my ears, and told me that I never looked better. It was the first time since grandfather's death that I had worn any dress except a black one. My short sleeves were purled velvet, and a lace tucker was drawn with a blue ribbon across the corsage. As I adjusted my dress, a triumphant sense of beauty possessed me; Cleopatra could not have been more convinced of her charms than I was of mine. "It is a pleasant thing," I thought, "that a woman's mind may come and go by the gate Beautiful."
I went down before Alice, who stayed with the children till she heard the first ring at the door.
"Where is Charles?" I asked, after we had greeted the Bancrofts.
"He will come in time to play, for he likes whist; do you?"
"No."
We did not speak again, but I noticed how gay and agreeable she was through the evening.
Ben Somers came early, suffering from a fit of nonchalance, to the disgust of several young men, standard beaux, who regarded him with an impertinence which delighted him.
"Here comes," he said, "'a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair.'" Meaning me, which deepened their disgust.
"Come to the piano," I begged. Helen was there, but his eyes did not rest upon her, but upon Charles, whom I saw for the first time that evening. I introduced them.
"Cassandra," said Charles, "let us make up a game in the East Room. Miss Helen, will you join? Mr. Somers, will you take a hand?"
"Certainly. Miss Morgeson, will you be my partner?"
"Will you play with me then, Miss Helen?" asked Charles.
"If you desire it," she answered, rather ungraciously.
We took our seats in the East Room, which opened from the parlor, at a little table by the chimney. The astral lamp from the center table in the parlor shone into our room, intercepting any view toward us. I sat by the window, the curtain of which was drawn apart, and the shutters unclosed. A few yellow leaves stuck against the panes, unstirred by the melancholy wind, which sighed through the crevices. Charles was at my right hand, by the mantel; the light from a candelabra illuminated him and Mr. Somers, while Helen and I were in shadow. Mr. Somers dealt the cards, and we began the game.
"We shall beat you," he said to Charles.
"Not unless Cassandra has improved," he replied.
I promised to do my best, but soon grew weary, and we were beaten. To my surprise Mr. Somers was vexed. His imperturbable manner vanished; he sat erect, his eyes sparkled, and he told me I must play better. We began another game, which he was confident of winning. I kept my eyes on the cards, and there was silence till Mr. Somers exclaimed, "Don't trump now, Mr. Morgeson."
I watched the table for his card to fall, but as it did not, looked at him for the reason. He had forgotten us, and was lost in contemplation, with his eyes fixed upon me. The recognition of some impulse had mastered him. I must prevent Helen and Mr. Somers perceiving this! I shuffled the cards noisily, rustled my dress, looked right and left for my handkerchief to break the spell.
"How the wind moans!" said Helen. I understood her tone; she understood him, as I did.
"I _like_ Rosville, Miss Perkins," cried Mr. Somers.
"Do you?" said Charles, clicking down his card, as though his turn had just come. "I must trump this in spite of you."
"I am tired of playing," I said.
"We are beaten, Miss Perkins," said Mr. Somers, rising. "Bring it here," to a servant going by with a tray and glasses. He drank a goblet of wine, before he offered us any. "Now give us music!" offering his arm to Helen, and taking her away. Charles and I remained at the table. "By the way," he said abruptly, "I have forgotten to give you a letter from your father--here it is." I stretched my hand across the table, he retained it. I rose from my chair and stood beside him.
"Cassandra," he said at last, growing ashy pale, "is there any other world than this we are in now?"
I raised my eyes, and saw my own pale face in the glass over the mantel above his head.
"What do you see?" he asked, starting up.
I pointed to the glass.
"I begin to think," I said, "there is another world, one peopled with creatures like those we see there. What are they--base, false, cowardly?"
"Cowardly," he muttered, "will you make me crush you? Can we lie to each other? Look!"
He turned me from the glass.
At that moment Helen struck a crashing blow on the piano keys.
"Charles, give me--give me the letter."
He looked vaguely round the floor, it was crumpled in his hand. A side door shut, and I stood alone. Pinching my cheeks and wiping my lips to force the color back, I returned to the parlor. Mr. Somers came to me with a glass of wine. It was full, and some spilled on my dress; he made no offer to wipe it off. After that, he devoted himself to Alice; talked lightly with her, observing her closely. I made the tour of the party, overlooked the whist players, chatted with the talkers, finally taking a seat, where Helen joined me.
"Now I am going," she said.
"Why don't they all go?"
"Look at Mr. Somers playing the agreeable to Mrs. Morgeson. What kind of a woman is she, Cass?"
"Go and learn for yourself."
"I fear I have not the gift for divining people that you have."
"Do you hear the wind moan now, Helen?"
She turned crimson, and said: "Let us go to the window; I think it rains."
We stood within the curtains, and listened to its pattering on the floor of the piazza, and trickling down the glass like tears.
"Helen, if one could weep as quietly as this rain falls, and keep the face as unwrinkled as the glass, it would be pretty to weep."
"Is it hard for you to cry?"
"I can't remember; it is so long since."
My ear caught the sound of a step on the piazza.
"Who is that?" she asked.
"It is a man."
"Morgeson?"
"Morgeson."
"Cassandra?"
"Cassandra."
"I can cry," and Helen covered her face.
"Cry away, then. Give me a fierce shower of tears, with thunder and lightning between, if you like. Don't sop, and soak, and drizzle."
The step came close to the window; it was not in harmony with the rain and darkness, but with the hot beating of my heart.
"We are breaking up," called Mr. Somers. "Mr. Bancroft's carriage is ready, I am bid to say. It is inky outside."
"Yes," said Helen, "I am quite ready."
"There are a dozen chaises in the yard; Mr. Morgeson is there, and lanterns. He is at home among horses, I believe."
"Do you like horses?" I asked.
"Not in the least."
Somebody called Helen.
"Good-night, Cass."
"Good-night; keep out of the rain."
"Good-night, Miss Morgeson," said Mr. Somers, when she had gone. "Good-night and good-morning. My acquaintance with you has begun; it will never end. You thought me a boy; I am just your age." " 'Never,' is a long word, Boy Somers."
"It is."
It rained all night; I wearied of its monotonous fall; if I slept it turned into a voice which was pent up in a letter which I could not open.
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Alice was unusually gay the next morning. She praised Mr. Somers, and could not imagine what had been the cause of his being expelled from the college.
"Don't you like him, Cassandra? His family are unexceptionable."
"So is he, I believe, except in his fists. But how did you learn that his family were unexceptionable?"
"Charles inquired in Boston, and heard that his mother was one of the greatest heiresses in Belem."
"Did you enjoy last night, Alice?"
"Yes, I am fond of whist parties. You noticed that Charles has not a remarkable talent that way. Did he speak to Mr. Somers at all, while you played? I was too busy to come in. By the by, I must go now, and see if the parlor is in order."
I followed her with my bonnet in hand, for it was school time. She looked about, then went up to the mantel, and taking out the candle-ends from the candelabra, looked in the glass, and said, "I am a fright this morning."
"Am I?" I asked over her shoulder, for I was nearly a head taller.
"No; you are too young to look jaded in the morning. Your eyes are as clear as a child's; and how blue they are."
"Mild and babyish-like, are they not? almost green with innocence. But Charles has devilish eyes, don't you think so?"
She turned with her mouth open in astonishment, and her hand full of candle-ends. "Cassandra Morgeson, are you mad?"
"Good-by," Alice.
I only saw Mr. Somers at prayers during the following fortnight. But in that short time he made many acquaintances. Helen told me that he had decided to study law with Judge Ryder, and that he had asked her how long I expected to stay in Rosville. Nothing eccentric had been discovered in his behavior; but she was convinced that he would astonish us before long. The first Wednesday after our party, I was absent from the elocutionary exercise; but the second came round, and I took my place as usual beside Helen.
"This will be Mr. Somers's first and last appearance on our stage," she whispered; "some whim prompts him to come to-day."
He delighted Dr. Price by translating from the Agamemnon of Æschylus.
"Re-enter Clytemnestra." " _Men! Citizens! ye Elders of Argos present here. _" "Who was Agamemnon?" I whispered.
"He gave Cassandra her last ride."
"Did he upset her?"
"Study Greek and you will know," she replied, frowning at him as he stepped from the platform.
We went to walk in Silver Street after school, and he joined us.
"Do you read Greek?" he asked her.
"My father is a Greek Professor, and he made me study it when I was a little girl."
"The name of Cassandra inspired me to rub up my knowledge of the tragedies."
Helen and he had a Homeric talk, while I silently walked by them, thinking that Cassandra would have suited Veronica, and that no name suited me. From some reason I did not discover, Helen began to loiter, pretending that she wanted to have a look at the clouds. But when I looked back her head was bent to the ground. Mr. Somers offered to carry my books.
"Carry Helen's; she is smaller than I am."
"Confound Helen!"
"And the books, too, if you like. Helen," I called, "why do you loiter? It is time for dinner. We must go home."
"I am quite ready for my dinner," she replied. "Wont you come to our house this afternoon and take tea with me?"
"Oh, Miss Perkins, do invite me also," he begged. "I want to bring Tennyson to you."
"Is he related to Agamemnon?" I asked.
"I'll ask Mrs. Bancroft if I may invite you," said Helen, "if you are sure that you would like a stupid, family tea."
"I am positive that I should. Tennyson, though an eminent Grecian, is not related to the person you spoke of."
We parted at the foot of Silver Street, with the expectation of meeting before night. Helen sent me word not to fail, as she had sent for Mr. Somers, and that Mrs. Bancroft was already preparing tea. Alice drove down there with me, to call on Mrs. Bancroft. The two ladies compared children, and by the time Alice was ready to go, Mr. Somers arrived. She staid a few moments more to chat with him, and when she went at last, told me Charles would come for me on his way from the mills.
My eyes wandered in the direction of Mr. Somers. His said: "No; go home with _me_."
"Very well, Alice, whatever is convenient," I answered quietly.
Mrs. Bancroft was a motherly woman, and Mr. Bancroft was a fatherly man. Five children sat round the tea-table, distinguished by the Bancroft nose. Helen and I were seated each side of Mr. Somers. The table reminded me of our table at Surrey, it was so covered with vast viands; but the dishes were alike, and handsome. I wondered whether mother had bought the new china in Boston, and, buttering my second hot biscuit, I thought of Veronica; then, of the sea. How did it look? Hark! Its voice was in my ear! Could I climb the housetop? Might I not see the mist which hung over our low-lying sea by Surrey?
"Will you take quince or apple jelly, Miss Morgeson?" asked Mrs. Bancroft.
"Apple, if you please."
"Do you write that sister of yours often?" asked Mr. Somers, as he passed me the apple jelly.
"I never write her."
"Will you tell me something of Surrey?"
"Mr. Somers, shall I give you a cup-custard?"
"No, thank you, mam."
"Surrey is lonely, evangelical, primitive."
"Belem is dreary too; most of it goes to Boston, or to India."
"Does it smell of sandal wood? And has everybody tea-caddies? _Vide_ Indian stories."
"We have a crate of queer things from Calcutta."
"Are you going to study law with Judge Ryder?" Mr. Bancroft inquired.
"I think so."
Then Helen pushed back her chair; and Mrs. Bancroft stood in her place long enough for us to reach the parlor door.
"And I must go to the office," Mr. Bancroft said, so we had the parlor to ourselves; but Mr. Somers did not read from Tennyson--for he had forgotten to bring the book.
"Now for a compact," he said. "I must be called Ben Somers by you; and may I call you Cassandra, and Helen?"
"Yes," we answered.
"Let us be confidential."
And we were. I was drawn into speaking of my life at home; my remarks, made without premeditation, proved that I possessed ideas and feelings hitherto unknown. I felt no shyness before him, and, although I saw his interest in me, no agitation. Helen was also moved to tell us that she was engaged. She rolled up her sleeve to show us a bracelet, printed in ink on her arm, with the initials, "L.N." Those of her cousin, she said; he was a sailor, and some time, she supposed, they would marry.
"How could you consent to have your arm so defaced?" I asked.
Her eyes flashed as she replied that she had not looked upon the mark in that light before.
"We may all be tattooed," said Mr. Somers.
"I am," I thought.
He told us in his turn that he should be rich. "There are five of us. My mother's fortune cuts up rather; but it wont be divided till the youngest is twenty-one. I assure you we are impatient."
"Some one of your family happened to marry a Morgeson," I here remarked.
"I wrote father about that; he must know the circumstance, though he never has a chance to expatiate on _his_ side of the house. Poor man! he has the gout, and passes his time in experiments with temperature and diet. Will you ever visit Belem? I shall certainly go to Surrey."
Mrs. Bancroft interrupted us, and soon after Mr. Bancroft arrived, redolent of smoke. Ten o'clock came, and nobody for me. At half-past ten I put on my shawl to walk home, when Charles drove up to the gate.
"Say," said Ben Somers, in a low voice, "that you will walk with me."
"I am not too late, Cassandra?" called Charles, coming up the steps, bowing to all. "I am glad you are ready; Nell is impatient."
"My dear," asked Mrs. Bancroft, "how dare you trust to the mercy of such vicious beasts as Mr. Morgeson loves to drive?"
"Come," he said, touching my arm.
"Wont you walk?" said Mr. Somers aloud.
"Walk?" echoed Charles. "No."
"I followed him. Nell had already bitten off a paling; and as he untied her he boxed her ears. She did not jump, for she knew the hand that struck her. We rushed swiftly away through the long shadows of the moonlight.
"Charles, what did Ben Somers do at Harvard?"
"He was in a night-fight, and he sometimes got drunk; it is a family habit."
"Pray, why did you inquire about him?"
"From the interest I feel in him."
"You like him, then?"
"I detest him; do you too?"
"I like him."
He bent down and looked into my face.
"You are telling me a lie."
I made no reply.
"I should beg your pardon, but I will not. I am going away to-morrow. Give me your hand, and say farewell."
"Farewell then. Is Alice up? I see a light moving in her chamber."
"If you do, she is not waiting for me."
"I have been making coffee for you," she said, as soon as we entered, "in my French biggin. I have packed your valise too, Charles, and have ordered your breakfast. Cassy, we will breakfast after he has gone."
"I have to sit up to write, Alice. See that the horses are exercised. Ask Parker to drive them. The men will be here to-morrow to enlarge the conservatory."
"Yes."
"I shall get a better stock while I am away."
I sipped my coffee; Alice yawned fearfully, with her hand on the coffee-pot, ready to pour again. "Why, Charles," she exclaimed, "there is no cream in your coffee."
"No, there isn't," looking into his cup; "nor sugar."
She threw a lump at him, which he caught, laughing one of his abrupt laughs.
"How extraordinarily affectionate," I thought, but somehow it pleased me.
"Why do you tempt me, Alice?" I said. "Doctor White says I must not drink coffee."
"Tempted!" Charles exclaimed. "Cassandra is never tempted. What she does, she does because she will. Don't worry yourself, Alice, about her."
"Because I will," I repeated.
A nervous foreboding possessed me, the moment I entered my room. Was it the coffee? Twice in the night I lighted my candle, looked at the little French clock on the mantel, and under the bed. At last I fell asleep, but starting violently from its oblivious dark, to become aware that the darkness of the room was sentient. A breath passed over my face; but I caught no sound, though I held my breath to listen for one. I moved my hands before me then, but they came in contact with nothing. My forebodings passed away, and I slept till Alice sent for me. I sat up in bed philosophizing, and examining the position of the chairs, the tops of the tables and the door. No change had taken place. But my eyes happened to fall on my handkerchief, which had dropped by the bedside. I picked it up; there was a dusty footprint upon it. The bell rang, and, throwing it under the bed, I dressed and ran down. Alice was taking breakfast, tired of waiting. She said the baby had cried till after midnight, and that Charles never came to bed at all.
"Do eat this hot toast; it has just come in."
"I shall stay at home to-day, Alice, I feel chilly; is it cold?"
"You must have a fire in your room."
"Let me have one to day; I should like to sit there."
She gave orders for the fire, and went herself to see that it burned. Soon I was sitting before it, my feet on a stool, and a poker in my hand with which I smashed the smoky lumps of coal which smoldered in the grate.
I stayed there all day, looking out of the window when I heard the horses tramp in the stable or a step on the piazza. It was a dull November day; the atmosphere was glutinous with a pale mist, which made the leaves stick together in bunches, helplessly cumbering the ground. The boughs dropped silent tears over them, under the gray, pitiless sky. I read Byron, which was the only book in the house, I believe; for neither Charles nor Alice read anything except the newspapers. I looked over my small stores also, and my papers, which consisted of father's letters. As I was sorting them the thought struck me of writing to Veronica, and I arranged my portfolio, pulled the table nearer the fire, and began, "Dear Veronica." After writing this a few times I gave it up, cut off the "Dear Veronicas," and made lamplighters of the paper.
Ben Somers called at noon, to inquire the reason of my absence from school, and left a book for me. It was the poems he had spoken of. I lighted on "Fatima," read it and copied it. In the afternoon Alice came up with the baby.
"Let me braid your hair," she said, "in a different fashion."
I assented; the baby was bestowed on a rug, and a chair was put before the glass, that I might witness the operation.
"What magnificent hair!" she said, as she unrolled it. "It is a yard long."
"It is a regular mane, isn't it?"
She began combing it; the baby crawled under the bed, and coming out with the handkerchief in its hand, crept up to her, trying to make her take it. She had combed my hair over my face, but I saw it.
"Do I hurt you, Cass?"
"No, do I ever hurt you, Alice?" And I divided the long bands over my eyes, and looked up at her.
"Were any of your family ever cracked? I have long suspected you of a disposition that way."
"The child is choking itself with that handkerchief."
She took it, and, tossing it on the bed, gave Byron to the child to play with, and went on with the hair-dressing.
"There, now," she said, "is not this a masterpiece of barber's craft? Look at the back of your head, and then come down."
"Yes, I will, for I feel better."
When I returned to my room again it was like meeting a confidential friend.
A few days after, father came to Rosville. I invited Ben Somers and Helen to spend with us the only evening he stayed. After they were gone, we sat in my room and talked over many matters. His spirits were not as buoyant as usual, and I felt an undefinable anxiety which I did not mention. When he said that mother was more abstracted than ever, he sighed. I asked him how many years he thought I must waste; eighteen had already gone for nothing.
"You must go in the way ordained, waste or no waste. I have tried to make your life differ from mine at the same age, for you are like me, and I wanted to see the result."
"We shall see."
"Veronica has been let alone--is master of herself, except when in a rage. She is an extraordinary girl; independent of kith and kin, and everything else. I assure you, Miss Cassy, she is very good."
"Does she ever ask for me?"
"I never heard her mention your name but once. She asked one day what your teachers were. You do not love each other, I suppose. What hatred there is between near relations! Bitter, bitter," he said calmly, as if he thought of some object incapable of the hatred he spoke of.
"That's Grandfather John Morgeson you think of. I do not hate Veronica. I think I love her; at least she interests me."
"The same creeping in the blood of us all, Cassy. I did not like my father; but thank God I behaved decently toward him. It must be late."
As he kissed me, and we stood face to face, I recognized my likeness to him. "He has had experiences that I shall never know," I thought. "Why should I tell him mine?" But an overpowering impulse seized me to speak to him of Charles. "Father," and I put my hands on his shoulders. He set his candle back on the table.
"You look hungry-eyed, eager. What is it? Are you well?"
"No."
"You are faded a little. Your face has lost its firmness."
My impulse died a sudden death. I buried it with a swallow.
"Do you think so?"
"You are all alike. Let me tell you something; don't get sick. If you are, hide it as much as possible. Men do not like sick women."
"I'll end this fading business as soon as possible. It _is_ late. Good-night, dad."
I examined my face as soon as he closed the door. There _was_ a change. Not the change from health to disease, but an expression lurking there--a reflection of some unrevealed secret.
The next morning was passed with Alice and the children. He was pleased with her prettiness and sprightliness, and his gentle manner and disposition pleased her. She asked him to let me spend another year in Rosville; but he said that I must return to Surrey, and that he never would allow me to leave home again.
"She will marry."
"Not early."
"Never, I believe," I said.
"It will be as well."
"Yes," she replied; "if you leave her a fortune, or teach her some trade, that will give her some importance in the world."
Her wisdom astonished me.
He was sorry, he said, that Morgeson was not at home. When he mentioned him I looked out of the window, and saw Ben Somers coming into the yard. As he entered, Alice gave him a meaning look, which was not lost upon me, and which induced him to observe Ben closely.
"The train is nearly due, Mr. Morgeson; shall I walk to the station with you?"
"Certainly; come, Cassy."
On the way he touched me, making a sign toward Ben. I shook my head, which appeared satisfactory. The rest of the time was consumed in the discussion of the relationship, which ended in an invitation, as I expected, to Surrey.
"The governor is not worried, is he?" asked Ben, on our way back.
"No more than I am."
"What a pity Morgeson was not at home!"
"Why a pity?"
"I should like to see them together, they are such antipodal men. Does your father know him well?"
"Does any one know him well?"
"Yes, I know him. I do not like him. He is a savage, living by his instincts, with one element of civilization--he loves Beauty--beauty like yours." He turned pale when he said this, but went on. "He has never seen a woman like you; who has? Forgive me, but I watch you both."
"I have perceived it."
"I suppose so, and it makes you more willful."
"You said you were but a boy."
"Yes, but I have had one or two manly wickednesses. I have done with them, I hope."
"So that you have leisure to pry into those of others."
"You do not forgive me."
"I like you; but what can I do?"
"Keep up your sophistry to the last."
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Alice and I were preparing for the first ball, when Charles came home, having been absent several weeks. The conservatory was finished, and looked well, jutting from the garden-room, which we used often, since the weather had been cold. The flowers and plants it was filled with were more fragrant and beautiful than rare. I never saw him look so genial as when he inspected it with us. Alice was in good-humor, also, for he had brought her a set of jewels.
"Is it not her birthday," he said, when he gave her the jewel case, "or something, that I can give Cassandra this?" taking a little box from his pocket.
"Oh yes," said Alice; "show it to us."
"Will you have it?" he asked me.
I held out my hand, and he put on my third finger a diamond ring, which was like a star.
"How well it looks on your long hand!" said Alice.
"What unsuspected tastes I find I have!" I answered. "I am passionately fond of rings; this delights me."
His swarthy face flushed with pleasure at my words; but, according to his wont, he said nothing.
A few days after his return, a man came into the yard, leading a powerful horse chafing in his halter, which he took to the stable. Charles asked me to look at a new purchase he had made in Pennsylvania. The strange man was lounging about the stalls when we went in, inspecting the horses with a knowing air.
"I declare, sir," said Jesse, "I am afeared to tackle this ere animal; he's a reglar brute, and no mistake."
"He'll be tame enough; he is but four years old."
"He's never been in a carriage," said the man.
"Lead him out, will you?"
The man obeyed. The horse was a fine creature, black, and thick-maned; but the whites of his eyes were not clear; they were streaked with red, and he attempted continually to turn his nostrils inside out. Altogether, I thought him diabolical.
"What's the matter with his eyes?" Charles asked.
"I think, sir," the man replied, "as how they got inflamed like, in the boat coming from New York. It's nothing perticalar, I believe."
Alice declared it was too bad, when she heard there was another horse in the stable. She would not look at him, and said she would never ride with Charles when he drove him.
I had been taking lessons of Professor Simpson, and was ready for the ball. All the girls from the Academy were going in white, except Helen, who was to wear pink silk. It was to be a military ball, and strangers were expected. Ben Somers, and our Rosville beaux, were of course to be there, all in uniform, except Ben, who preferred the dress of a gentleman, he said,--silk stockings, pumps, and a white cravat.
We were dressed by nine o'clock, Alice in black velvet, with a wreath of flowers in her black hair--I in a light blue velvet bodice, and white silk skirt. We were waiting for the ball hack to come for us, as that was the custom, for no one owned a close coach in Rosville, when Charles brought in some splendid scarlet flowers which he gave to Alice.
"Where are Cassandra's?"
"She does not care for flowers; besides, she would throw them away on her first partner."
He put us in the coach, and went back. I was glad he did not come with us, and gave myself up to the excitement of my first ball. Alice was surrounded by her acquaintances at once, and I was asked to dance a quadrille by Mr. Parker, whose gloves were much too large, and whose white trowsers were much too long.
"I kept the flowers you gave me," he said in a breathless way.
"Oh yes, I remember; mustn't we forward now?"
"Mr. Morgeson's very fond of flowers."
"So he is. How de do, Miss Ryder."
Miss Ryder, my vis-à-vis, bowed, looking scornfully at my partner, who was only a clerk, while hers was a law student. I immediately turned to Mr. Parker with affable smiles, and went into a kind of dumb-show of conversation, which made him warm and uncomfortable. Mrs. Judge Ryder sailed by on Ben Somers's arm.
"Put your shoulders down," she whispered to her daughter, who had poked one very much out of her dress. "My love," she spoke aloud, "you mustn't dance _every_ set."
"No, ma," and she passed on, Ben giving a faint cough, for my benefit. We could not find Alice after the dance was over. A brass band alternated with the quadrille band, and it played so loudly that we had to talk at the top of our voices to be heard. Mine soon gave out, and I begged Mr. Parker to bring Helen, for I had not yet seen her. She was with Dr. White, who had dropped in to see the miserable spectacle. The air, he said, shaking his finger at me, was already miasmal; it would be infernal by midnight Christians ought not to be there. "Go home early, Miss. Your mother never went to a ball, I'll warrant."
"We are wiser than our mothers."
"And wickeder; you will send for me to-morrow."
"Your Valenciennes lace excruciates the Ryders," said Helen. "I was standing near Mrs. Judge Ryder and the girls just now. 'Did you ever see such an upstart?' And, 'What an extravagant dress she has on--it is ridiculous,' Josephine Ryder said. When Ben Somers heard this attack on you, he told them that your lace was an heirloom. Here he is." Mr. Parker took her away, and Ben Somers went in pursuit of a seat. The quadrille was over, I was engaged for the next, and he had not come back. I saw nothing of him till the country dance before supper. He was at the foot of the long line, opposite a pretty girl in blue, looking very solemn and stately. I took off the glove from my hand which wore the new diamond, and held it up, expecting him to look my way soon. Its flash caught his eyes, as they roamed up and down, and, as I expected, he left his place and came up behind me.
"Where did you get that ring?" wiping his face with his handkerchief.
"Ask Alice."
"You are politic."
"Handsome, isn't it?"
"And valuable; it cost as much as the new horse."
"Have you made a memorandum of it?"
"Destiny has brilliant spokes in her wheel, hasn't she?"
"Is that from the Greek tragedies?"
"To your places, gentlemen," the floor-manager called, and the band struck up the Fisher's Hornpipe. At supper, I saw Ben Somers, still with the pretty girl in blue; but he came to my chair and asked me if I did not think she was a pretty toy for a man to play with.
"How much wine have you drunk? Enough to do justice to the family annals?"
"Really, you have been well informed. No, I have _not_ drunk enough for that; but Mrs. Ryder has sent her virgins home with me. I am afraid their lamps are upset again. I drink nothing after to-night. You shall not ask again, 'How much?'"
My fire was out when I reached home. My head was burning and aching. I was too tired to untwist my hair, and I pulled and dragged at my dress, which seemed to have a hundred fastenings. Creeping into bed, I perceived the odor of flowers, and looking at my table discovered a bunch of white roses.
"Roses are nonsense, and life is nonsense," I thought.
When I opened my eyes, Alice was standing by the bed, with a glass of roses in her hand.
"Charles put these roses here, hey?"
"I suppose so; throw them out of the window, and me too; my head is splitting."
"To make amends for not giving you any last night," she went on; "he is quite childish."
"Can't you unbraid my hair, it hurts my head so?"
She felt my hands. I was in a fever, she said, and ran down for Charles. "Cass is sick, in spite of your white roses."
"The devil take the roses. Can't you get up, Cassandra?"
"Not now. Go away, will you?"
He left the room abruptly. Alice loosened my hair, bound my head, and poured cologne-water over me, lamenting all the while that she had not brought me home; and then went down for some tea, presently returning to say that Charles had been for Dr. White, who said he would not come. But he was there shortly afterward. By night I was well again.
Dr. Price gave us a lecture on late hours that week, requesting us, if we had any interest in our education, or expected him to have any, to abstain from balls.
Ben Somers disappeared; no one knew where he had gone. The Ryders were in consternation, for he was an intimate of the family, since he had gone into Judge Ryder's office, six weeks before. He returned, however, with a new overcoat trimmed with fur, the same as that with which my new cloak was trimmed. A great snowstorm began the day of his return, and blocked us indoors for several days, and we had permanent sleighing afterward.
In January it was proposed that we should go to the Swan Tavern, ten miles out of Rosville.
I had made good resolutions since the ball, and declined going to the second, which came off three weeks afterward. The truth was, I did not enjoy the first; but I preferred to give my decision a virtuous tinge. I also determined to leave the Academy when the spring came, for I felt no longer a schoolgirl. But for Helen, I could not have remained as I did. She stayed for pastime now, she confessed, it was so dull at home; her father was wrapped in his studies, and she had a stepmother. I resolved again that I would study more, and was translating, in view of this resolve, "Corinne," with Miss Prior, and singing sedulously with Mrs. Lane, and had begun a course of reading with Dr. Price.
I refused two invitations to join the sleighing party, and on the night it was to be had prepared to pass the evening in my own room with Oswald and Corinne. Before the fire, with lighted candles, I heard a ringing of bells in the yard and a stamping of feet on the piazza. Alice sent up for me. I found Ben Somers with her, who begged me to take a seat in his sleigh. Helen was there, and Amelia Bancroft. Alice applauded me for refusing him; but when he whispered in my ear that he had been to Surrey I changed my mind. She assisted me with cheerful alacrity to put on a merino dress, its color was purple;--a color I hate now, and never wear--and wrapped me warmly. Charles appeared before we started. "Are you really going?" he asked, in a tone of displeasure.
"She is really going," Ben answered for me. "Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft are going," Helen said. "Why not drive out with Mrs. Morgeson?"
"The night is splendid," Ben remarked.
"Wont you come?" I asked.
"If Alice wishes it. Will you go?" he asked her.
"Would you?" she inquired of all, and all replied, "Yes."
We started in advance. Helen and Amelia were packed on the back seat, in a buffalo robe, while Ben and I sat in the shelter of the driver's box, wrapped in another. It was moonlight, and as we passed the sleighs of the rest of the party, exchanging greetings, we grew very merry. Ben, voluble and airy, enlivened us by his high spirits.
We were drinking mulled wine round the long pine dinner-table of the Swan, when Charles and Alice arrived. There were about thirty in the room, which was lighted by tallow candles. When he entered, it seemed as if the candles suddenly required snuffing, and we ceased to laugh. All spoke to him with respect, but with an inflection of the voice which denoted that he was not one of us. As he carelessly passed round the table all made a movement as he approached, scraping their chairs on the bare floor, moving their glass of mulled wine, or altering the position of their arms or legs. An indescribable appreciation of the impression which he made upon others filled my heart. His isolation from the sympathy of every person there gave me a pain and a pity, and for the first time I felt a pang of tenderness, and a throe of pride for him. But Alice, upon whom he never made any impression, saw nothing of this; her gayety soon removed the stiffness and silence he created. The party grew noisy again, except Ben, who had not broken the silence into which he fell as soon as he saw Charles. The mulled wine stood before him untouched. I moved to the corner of the table to allow room for the chair which Charles was turning toward me. Ben ordered more wine, and sent a glass full to him. Taking it from the boy who brought it, I gave it to him. "Drink," I said. My voice sounded strangely. Barely tasting it, he set the glass down, and leaning his arm on the table, turned his face to me, shielding it with his hand from the gaze of those about us. I pushed away a candle that flared in our faces.
"You never drink wine?"
"No, Cassandra."
"How was the ride down?"
"Delightful."
"What about the new horse?"
"He is an awful brute."
"When shall we have a ride with him?"
"When you please."
The boy came in to say would we please go to the parlor; our room was wanted for supper. An immediate rush, with loud laughing, took place, for the parlor fire; but Charles and I did not move. I was busy remaking the bow of my purple silk cravat. " 'I drink the cup of a costly death,'" Ben hummed, as he sauntered along by us, hands in his pockets--the last in the room, except us two.
"Indeed, Somers; perhaps you would like this too." And Charles offered him his glass of wine.
Ben took it, and with his thumb and finger snapped it off at the stem, tipping the wine over Charles's hand.
I saw it staining his wristband, like blood. He did not stir, but a slight smile traveled swiftly over his face.
"I know Veronica," said Ben, looking at me. "Has this man seen _her_?"
His voice crushed me. What a barrier his expression of contempt made between her and me!
Withal, I felt a humiliating sense of defeat.
Charles read me.
As he folded his wristband under his sleeve, carefully and slowly, his slender fingers did not tremble with the desire that possessed him, which I saw in his terrible eyes as plainly as if he had spoken, "I would kill him."
They looked at my hands, for I was wringing them, and a groan burst from me.
"Somers," said Charles, rising and touching his shoulder, "behave like a man, and let us alone; I love this girl."
His pale face changed, his eyes softened, and mine filled with tears.
"Cassandra," urged Ben, in a gentle voice, "come with me; come away."
"Fool," I answered; "leave _me_ alone, and go."
He hesitated, moved toward the door, and again urged me to come.
"Go! go!" stamping my foot, and the door closed without a sound.
For a moment we stood, transfixed in an isolation which separated us from all the world beside.
"Now Charles, we"--a convulsive sob choked me, a strange taste filled my mouth, I put my handkerchief to my lips and wiped away streaks of blood. I showed it to him.
"It is nothing, by God!" snatching the handkerchief. "Take mine--oh, my dear--" I tried to laugh, and muttered the imperative fact of joining the rest.
"Be quiet, Cassandra."
He opened the window, took a handful of snow from the sill and put it to my mouth. It revived me.
"Do you hear, Charles? Never say those frightful words again. Never, never."
"Never, if it must be so."
He touched my hand; I opened it; his closed over mine.
"Go, now," he said, and springing to the window, threw it up, and jumped out. The boy came in with a tablecloth on his arm, and behind him Ben.
"Glass broken, sir."
"Put it in the bill."
He offered me his arm, which I was glad to take.
"Where is Charles?" Alice asked, when we went in.
"He has just left us," Ben answered; "looking after his horses, probably."
"Of course," she replied. "You look blue, Cass. Here, take my chair by the fire; we are going to dance a Virginia reel."
I accepted her offer, and was thankful that the dance would take them away. I wanted to be alone forever. Helen glided behind my chair, and laid her hand on my shoulder; I shook it off.
"What is the matter, Cass?"
"I am going away from Char--school."
"We are all going; but not to-night."
"I am going to-night."
"So you shall, dear; but wait till after supper."
"Do you think, Helen, that I shall ever have consumption?" fumbling for my handkerchief, forgetting in whose possession it was. Charles came in at that instant, and I remembered that he had it.
"What on earth has happened to you? Oh!" she exclaimed, as I looked at her. "You were out there with Morgeson and Ben Somers," she whispered; "something has occurred; what is it?"
"You shall never know; never--never--never."
"Cassandra, that man is a devil."
"I like devils."
"The same blood rages in both of you."
"It's mulled wine,--thick and stupid."
"Nonsense."
"Will there be tea, at supper?"
"You shall have some."
"Ask Ben to order it."
"Heaven forgive us all, Cassandra!"
"Remember the tea."
Charles stood near his wife; wherever she moved afterwards he moved. I saw it, and felt that it was the shadow of something which would follow.
At last the time came for us to return. Helen had plied me with tea, and was otherwise watchful, but scarcely spoke.
"It is an age," I said, "since I left Rosville."
She raised her eyebrows merely, and asked me if I would have more tea.
"In my room," I thought, "I shall find myself again." And as I opened my door, it welcomed me with so friendly and silent an aspect, that I betrayed my grief, and it covered my misery as with a cloak.
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Helen was called home by the illness of her father and did not return to Rosville. She would write me, she said; but it was many weeks before I received a letter. Ben Somers about this time took a fit of industry, and made a plan for what he called a well-regulated life, averring that he should always abide by it. Every hour had its duty, which must be fulfilled. He weighed his bread and meat, ate so many ounces a day, and slept watch and watch, as he nautically termed it. I guessed that the meaning of his plan was to withdraw from the self-chosen post of censor. His only alienation was an occasional disappearance for a few days. I never asked him where he went, and had never spoken to him concerning his mysterious remark about having been in Surrey. Neither had I heard anything of his being there from father. Once he told me that his father had explained the marriage of old Locke Morgeson; but that it was not clear to him that we were at all related.
In consequence of his rigorous life, I saw little of him. Though urged by Alice, he did not come to our house, and we rarely met him elsewhere. People called him eccentric, but as he was of a rich family he could afford to be, and they felt no slight by his neglect.
There was a change everywhere. The greatest change of all was in Charles. From the night of the sleigh-ride his manner toward me was totally altered. As far as I could discern, the change was a confirmed one. The days grew monotonous, but my mind avenged itself by night in dreams, which renewed our old relation in all its mysterious vitality. So strong were their impressions that each morning I expected to receive some token from him which would prove that they were not lies. As my expectation grew cold and faint, the sense of a double hallucination tormented me--the past and the present.
The winter was over. I passed it like the rest of Rosville, going out when Alice went, staying at home when she stayed. It was all one what I did, for my aspect was one of content.
Alice alone was unchanged; her spirits and pursuits were always the same. Judging by herself, if she judged at all, she perceived no change in us. Her theory regarding Charles was too firm to be shaken, and all his oddity was a matter of course. As long as I ate, and drank, and slept as usual, I too must be the same. He was not at home much. Business, kept him at the mills, where he often slept, or out of town. But the home machinery was still under his controlling hand. Not a leaf dropped in the conservatory that he did not see; not a meal was served whose slightest detail was not according to his desire. The horses were exercised, the servants managed, the children kept within bounds; nothing in the formula of our daily life was ever dropped, and yet I scarcely ever saw him! When we met, I shared his attentions. He gave me flowers; noticed my dress; spoke of the affairs of the day; but all in so public and matter-of-fact a way that I thought I must be the victim of a vicious sentimentality, or that he had amused himself with me. Either way, the sooner I cured myself of my vice the better. But my dreams continued.
"I miss something in your letters," father complained. "What is it? Would you like to come home? Your mother is failing in health--she may need you, though she says not."
I wrote him that I should come home.
"Are you prepared," he asked in return, "to remain at home for the future? Have you laid the foundation of anything by which you can abide contented, and employed? Veronica has been spending two months in New York, with the family of one of my business friends. All that she brings back serves to embellish her quiet life, not to change it. Will it be so with you?"
I wrote back, "No; but I am coming."
He wrote again of changes in Surrey. Dr. Snell had gone, library and all, and a new minister, red hot from Andover, had taken his place. An ugly new church was building. His best ship, the _Locke Morgeson_, was at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, he had just heard. Her loss bothered him, but his letters were kinder than ever.
I consulted with Alice about leaving the Academy. She approved my plan, but begged me not to leave her. I said nothing of my determination to that effect, feeling a strange disinclination toward owning it, though I persisted in repeating it to myself. I applied diligently to my reading, emulating Ben Somers in the regularity of my habits, and took long walks daily--a mode of exercise I had adopted since I had ceased my rides with Charles. The pale blue sky of spring over me, and the pale green grass under me, were charming perhaps; but there was the same monotony in them, as in other things. I did not frequent our old promenade, Silver Street, but pushed my walks into the outskirts of Rosville, by farms bordered with woods. My schoolmates, who were familiar with all the pleasant spots of the neighborhood, met me in groups. "Are you really taking walks like the rest of us?" they asked. "Only alone," I answered.
I bade farewell at last to Miss Prior. We parted with all friendliness and respect; from the fact, possibly, that we parted ignorant of each other. It was the most rational relation that I had ever held with any one. We parted without emotion or regret, and I started on my usual walk.
As I was returning I met Ben Somers. When he saw me he threw his cap into the air, with the information that he had done with his plans, and had ordered an indigestible supper, in honor of his resolve. As people had truly remarked, he could afford to be eccentric. He was tired of it; he had money enough to do without law. "Not as much as your cousin Morgeson, who can do without the Gospel, too."
This was the first time that he had referred to Charles since that memorable night. Trifling as his words were, they broke into the foundations of my stagnant will, and set the tide flowing once more.
"You went to Surrey."
"I was there a few hours. Your father was not at home. He asked me there, you remember. I introduced myself, therefore, and was politely received by your mother, who sent for Veronica. She came in with an occupied air, her hands full of what I thought were herbs; but they were grasses, which she had been re-arranging, she said. " 'You know my sister?' she asked, coming close, and looking at me with the most singular eyes that were ever on earth." He stopped a moment. "Not like yours, in the least," he continued. " 'Cassandra is very handsome now, is she?' " 'Why, Veronica,' said your mother, 'you astonish Mr. Somers.' " 'You are not astonished,' she said with vehemence, 'you are embarrassed.' " 'Upon my soul I am,' I replied, feeling at ease as soon as I had said so. " 'Tell me, what has Cassandra been taught? Is Rosville suited to her? We are not.' " 'Veronica!' said your mother again. " 'Mother," and she shook the grasses, and made a little snow fall round her; 'what shall I say then? I am sure he knows Cassandra. What did you come here for?' turning to me again. " 'To see you,' I answered foolishly. " 'And has Cassandra spoken of me?' Her pale face grew paler, and an indescribable expression passed over it. 'I do not often speak of her.' " 'She does not of you,' I was obliged to answer. And then I said I must go. But your mother made me dine with them. When I came away Veronica offered me her hand, but she sent no message to you. She has never been out of my mind a moment since."
"You remember the particulars of the interview very well."
"Why not?"
"Would she bear your supervision?"
"Forgive me, Cassandra. Have I not been making a hermit of myself, eating bread and meat by the ounce, for an expiation?"
"How did it look there? Oh, tell me!"
"You strange girl, have you a soul then? It is a grand place, where it has not been meddled with. I hired a man to drive me as far as any paths went, into those curving horns of land, on each side of Surrey to the south. The country is crazy with barrenness, and the sea mocks it with its terrible beauty."
"You will visit us, won't you?"
"Certainly; I intend to go there."
"Do you know that I left school to-day?"
"It is time."
I hurried into the house, for I did not wish to hear any questions from him concerning my future. Charlotte, who was rolling up an umbrella in the hall, said it was tea-time, adding that Mr. Morgeson had come, and that he was in the dining-room. I went upstairs to leave my bonnet. As I pulled off my glove the ring on my finger twisted round. I took it off, for the first time since Charles had given it to me. A sense of haste came upon me; my hands trembled. I brushed my hair with the back of the brush, shook it out, and wound it into a loose mass, thrust in my comb and went down. Charlotte was putting candles on the tea table. Edward was on his father's knee; Alice was waiting by the tray.
"Here--is--Cassandra," said Charles, mentioning the fact as if he merely wished to attract the child's attention.
"Here--is--Cassandra," I repeated, imitating his tone. He started. Some devil broke loose in him, and looking through his eyes an instant, disappeared, like a maniac who looks through the bars of his cell, and dodges from the eye of his keeper. Jesse brought me a letter while we were at the table. It was from Helen. I broke its seal to see how long it was, and put it aside.
"I am free, Alice. I have left the Academy, and am going to set up for an independent woman."
"What?" said Charles; "you did not tell me. Did you know it, Alice?"
"Yes; we can't expect her to be at school all her days."
"Cassandra," he said suddenly, "will you give me the salt?"
He looked for the ring on the hand which I stretched toward him.
He not only missed that, but he observed the disregard of his wishes in the way I had arranged my hair. I shook it looser from the comb and pushed it from my face. An expression of unspeakable passion, pride, and anguish came into his eyes; his mouth trembled; he caught up a glass of water to hide his face, and drank slowly from it.
"Are you going away again soon?" Alice asked him presently.
"No."
"To keep Cassandra, I intend to ask Mrs. Morgeson to come again. Will you write Mr. Morgeson to urge it?"
"Yes."
"I shall ask them to give up Cass altogether to us."
"You like her so much, do you, Alice?"
His voice sounded far off and faint.
Again I refrained from speaking my resolution of going home. I would give up thinking of it even! I felt again the tension of the chain between us. That night I ceased to dream of him.
"My letter is from Helen, Alice," I said.
"When did you see Somers?" Charles asked.
"To-day. I have an idea he will not remain here long."
"He is an amusing young man," Alice remarked.
"Very," said Charles.
Helen's letter was long and full of questions. What had I done? How had I been? She gave an account of her life at home. She was her father's nurse, and seldom left him. It was a dreary sort of business, but she was not melancholy. In truth, she felt better pleased with herself than she had been in Rosville. She could not help thinking that a chronic invalid would be a good thing for me. How was Ben Somers? How much longer should I stay in Rosville? It would know us no more forever when we left, and both of us would leave it at the same time. Would I visit her ever? They lived in a big house with a red front door. On the left was a lane with tall poplars dying on each side of it, up which the cows passed every night. At the back of it was a huge barn round which martins and pigeons flew the year through. It was dull but respectable and refined, and no one knew that she was tattooed on the arm.
I treasured this letter and all she wrote me. It was my first school-girl correspondence and my last.
Relations of Alice came from a distance to pay her a visit. There was a father, a mother, a son about twenty-one, and two girls who were younger. Alice wished that they had stayed at home; but she was polite and endeavored to make their visit agreeable. The son, called by his family "Bill," informed Charles that he was a judge of horseflesh, and would like to give his nags a try, having a high-flyer himself at home that the old gentleman would not hear of his bringing along. His actions denoted an admiration of me. He looked over the book I was reading or rummaged my workbox, trying on my thimble with an air of tenderness, and peeping into my needlebook. He told Alice that he thought I was a whole team and a horse to let, but he felt rather balky when he came near me, I had such a smartish eye.
"What am I to do, marm?" asked Jesse one morning when Charles was away. "That ere young man wants to ride the new horse, and it is jist the one he mus'n't ride."
"I will speak to Cousin Bill myself," she said.
"He seems a sperrited young feller, and if he wants to break his neck it's most a pity he shouldn't."
"I think," she said when Jesse had retired, "that Charles must be saving up that beast to kill himself with. He will not pull a chaise yet."
"Has Charles tried him?"
"In the lane in an open wagon. He has a whim of having him broken to drive without blinders, bare of harness; he has been away so of late that he has not accomplished it."
Bill entered while we were talking, and Alice told him he must not attempt to use the horse, but proposed he should take her pair and drive out with me. I shook my head in vain; she was bent on mischief. He was mollified by the proposal, and I was obliged to get ready. On starting he placed his cap on one side, held his whip upright, telling me that it was not up to the mark in length, and doubled his knuckles over the reins. He was a good Jehu, but I could not induce him to observe anything along the road.
"Where's Mr. Morgeson's mills?"
We turned in their direction.
"He is a man of property, ain't he?"
"I think so."
"He has prime horses anyhow. That stallion of his would bring a first-rate price if he wanted to sell. Do you play the piano?"
"A little."
"And sing?"
"Yes."
"I have not heard you. Will you sing '_A place in thy memory, dearest,'_ some time for me?"
"Certainly."
"Are you fond of flowers and the like?"
"Very fond of them."
"So am I; our tastes agree. Here we are, hey?"
Charles came out when he saw us coming over the bridge, and Bill pulled up the horses scientifically, giving him a coachman's salute. "You see I am quite a whip."
"You are," said Charles.
"What a cub!" he whispered me. "I think I'll give up my horses and take to walking as you have."
On the way home Bill held the reins in one hand and attempted to take mine with the other, a proceeding which I checked, whereupon he was exceedingly confused. The whip fell from his clutch over the dasher, and in recovering it his hat fell off; shame kept him silent for the rest of the ride.
I begged Alice to propose no more rides with Cousin Bill. That night he composed a letter which he sent me by Charlotte early the next morning.
"Why, Charlotte, what nonsense is this?"
"I expect," she answered sympathizingly, "that it is an offer of his hand and heart."
"Don't mention it, Charlotte."
"Never while I have breath."
In an hour she told Phoebe, who told Alice, who told Charles, and there it ended. It was an offer, as Charlotte predicted. My first! I was crestfallen! I wrote a reply, waited till everybody had gone to breakfast, and slipping into his room, pinned it to the pincushion. In the evening he asked if I ever sang "_Should these fond hopes e'er forsake thee." _ I gave him the "_Pirate's Serenade_" instead, which his mother declared beautiful. I saw Alice and Charles laughing, and could hardly help joining them, when I looked at Bill, in whose countenance relief and grief were mingled.
It was a satisfaction to us when they went away. Their visit was shortened, I suspected, by the representations Bill made to his mother. She said, "Good-by," with coldness; but he shook hands with me, and said it was all right he supposed.
The day they went I had a letter from father which informed me that mother would not come to Rosville. He reminded me that I had been in Rosville over a year. "I am going home soon," I said to myself, putting away the letter. It was a summer day, bright and hot. Alice, busy all day, complained of fatigue and went to bed soon after tea. The windows were open and the house was perfumed with odors from the garden. At twilight I went out and walked under the elms, whose pendant boughs were motionless. I watched the stars as they came out one by one above the pale green ring of the horizon and glittered in the evening sky, which darkened slowly. I was coming up the gravel walk when I heard a step at the upper end of it which arrested me. I recognized it, and slipped behind a tree to wait till it should pass by me; but it ceased, and I saw Charles pulling off a twig of the tree, which brushed against his face. Presently he sprang round the tree, caught me, and held me fast.
"I am glad you are here, my darling. Do you smell the roses?"
"Yes; let me go."
"Not till you tell me one thing. Why do you stay in Rosville?"
The baby gave a loud cry in Alice's chamber which resounded through the garden.
"Go and take care of your baby," I said roughly, "and not busy yourself with me."
"Cassandra," he said, with a menacing voice, "how dare you defy me? How dare you tempt me?"
I put my hand on his arm. "Charles, is love a matter of temperament?"
"Are you mad? It is life--it is heaven--it is hell."
"There is something in this soft, beautiful, odorous night that makes one mad. Still I shall not say to you what you once said to me."
"Ah! you do not forget those words--'_I love you_.'"
Some one came down the lane which ran behind the garden whistling an opera air.
"There is your Providence," he said quietly, resting his hand against the tree.
I ran round to the front piazza, just as Ben Somers turned out of the lane, and called him.
"I have wandered all over Rosville since sunset," he said "and at last struck upon that lane. To whom does it belong?"
"It is ours, and the horses are exercised there." " 'In such a night, Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, And sighed his soul towards the Grecian tents, Where Cressid lay that night.'" ' "In such a night, Stood Dido with a willow in her hand, Upon the wild sea banks, and waved her love To come again to Carthage.'"
"Talk to me about Surrey, Cassandra."
"Not a word."
"Why did you call me?"
"To see what mood you were in."
"How disagreeable you are! What is the use of venturing one's mood with you?"
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Alice called me to her chamber window one morning. "Look into the lane. Charles and Jesse are there with that brute. He goes very well, now that they have thrown the top of the chaise back; he quivered like a jelly at first."
"I must have a ride, Alice."
"Charles," she called. "Breakfast is waiting."
"What shall be his name, girls?" he asked.
"Aspen," I suggested.
"That will do," said Alice.
"Shall we ride soon?" I asked.
"Will you?" he spoke quickly. "In a day or two, then."
"Know what you undertake, Cass," said Alice.
"She always does," he answered.
"Let me go, papa," begged Edward.
"By and by, my boy."
"What a compliment, Cass! He does not object to venture you."
He proposed Fairtown, six miles from Rosville, as he had business there. The morning we were to go proved cloudy, and we waited till afternoon, when Charles, declaring that it would not rain, ordered Aspen to be harnessed. I went into Alice's room tying my bonnet; he was there, leaning over the baby's crib, who lay in it crowing and laughing at the snapping of his fingers. Alice was hemming white muslin.
"Take a shawl with you, Cass; I think it will rain, the air is so heavy."
"I guess not," said Charles, going to the window. "What a nuisance that lane is, so near the garden! I'll have it plowed soon, and enclosed."
"For all those wild primroses you value so?" she asked.
"I'll spare those."
Charlotte came to tell us that the chaise was ready.
"Good-bye, Alice," he said, passing her, and giving her work a toss up to the ceiling.
"Be careful."
"Take care, sir," said Penn, after we were in the chaise, "and don't give way to him; if you do, he'll punish you. May be he feels the thunder in the air."
We reached Fairtown without any indication of mischief from Aspen, although he trotted along as if under protest. Charles was delighted, and thought he would be very fast, by the time he was trained. It grew murky and hot every moment, and when we reached Fairtown the air was black and sultry with the coming storm. Charles left me at the little hotel, and returned so late in the afternoon that we decided not to wait for the shower. Two men led Aspen to the door. He pulled at his bridle, and attempted to run backward, playing his old trick of trying to turn his nostrils inside out, and drawing back his upper lip.
"Something irritates him, Charles."
"If you are afraid, you must not come with me. I can have you sent home in a carriage from the tavern."
"I shall go back with you."
But I felt a vague alarm, and begged him to watch Aspen, and not talk. Aspen went faster and faster, seeming to have lost his shyness, and my fears subsided. We were within a couple of miles of Rosville, when a splashing rain fell.
"You must not be wet," said Charles. "I will put up the top. Aspen is so steady now, it may not scare him."
"No, no," I said; but he had it up already, and asked me to snap the spring on my side. I had scarcely taken my arm inside the chaise when Aspen stopped, turned his head, and looked at us with glazed eyes; flakes of foam flew from his mouth over his mane. The flesh on his back contracted and quivered. I thought he was frightened by the chaise-top, and looked at Charles in terror.
"He has some disorder," he cried. "Oh, Cassandra! My God!"
He tried to spring at his head, but was too late, for the horse was leaping madly. He fell back on his seat.
"If he will keep the road," he muttered.
I could not move my eyes from him. How pale he was! But he did not speak again. The horse ran a few rods, leaped across a ditch, clambered up a stone wall with his fore-feet, and fell backward!
Dr. White was in my room, washing my face. There was a smell of camphor about the bed. "You crawled out of a small hole, my child," he said, as I opened my eyes. It was quite dark, but I saw people at the door, and two or three at the foot of my bed, and I heard low, constrained talking everywhere.
"His iron feet made a dreadful noise on the stones, Doctor!"
I shut my eyes again and dozed. Suddenly a great tumult came to my heart.
"Was he killed?" I cried, and tried to rise from the bed. "Let me go, will you?"
"He is dead," whispered Dr. White.
I laughed loudly.
"Be a good girl--be a good girl. Get out, all of you. Here, Miss Prior."
"You are crying, Doctor; my eyes feel dry."
"Pooh, pooh, little one. Now I am going to set your arm; simple fracture, that's all. The blow was tempered, but you are paralyzed by the shock."
"Miss Prior, is my face cut?"
"Not badly, my dear."
My arm was set, my face bandaged, some opium administered, and then I was left alone with Miss Prior. I grew drowsy, but suffered so from the illusion that I was falling out of bed that I could not sleep.
It was near morning when I shook off my drowsiness and looked about; Miss Prior was nodding in an arm-chair. I asked for drink, and when she gave it to me, begged her to lie down on the sofa; she did not need urging, and was soon asleep.
"What room is he in?" I thought. "I must know where he is."
I sat up in the bed, and pushed myself out by degrees, keeping my eyes on Miss Prior; but she did not stir. I staggered when I got into the passage, but the cool air from some open window revived me, and I crept on, stopping at Alice's door to listen. I heard a child murmur in its sleep. He could not be there. The doors of all the chambers were locked, and I must go downstairs. I went into the garden-room--the door was open, the scent of roses came in and made me deadly sick; into the dining-room, and into the parlor--he was there, lying on a table covered with a sheet. Alice sat on the floor, her face hid in her hands, crying softly. I touched her. She started on seeing me. "Go away, Cassy, for God's sake! How came you out of bed?"
"Hush! Tell me!" And I went down on the floor beside her. "Was he dead when they found us?"
She nodded.
"What was said? Did you hear?"
"They said he must have made a violent effort to save you. The side of the chaise was torn. The horse kicked him after you were thrust out over the wheel. Or did you creep out?"
I groaned. "Why did he thrust me out?"
"What?"
"Where is Aspen?"
She pointed to the stable. "He had a fit. Penn says he has had one before; but he thought him cured. He stood quiet in the ditch after he had broken from the chaise."
"Alice, did you love him?"
"My husband!"
A door near us opened, and Ben Somers and young Parker looked in. They were the watchers. Parker went back when he saw me; but Ben came in. He knelt down by me, put his arm around me, and said, "Poor girl!" Alice raised her tear-stained face, looking at me curiously, when he said this. She took hold of my streaming hair and pulled my head round. "Did _you_ love him?" Ben rose quickly and went to the window.
"Alice!" I whispered, "you may or you may not forgive me, but I was strangely bound to him. And I must tell you that I hunger now for the kiss he never gave me."
"I see. Enough. Go back to your room. I must stay by him till all is over."
"I can't go back. Ben!"
"What is it?"
"Take me upstairs."
Raising me in his arms, he whispered: "Leave him forever, body and soul. I am not sorry he is dead." He called Charlotte on the way, and with her he put me to back to bed. I asked him to let me see the dress they had taken off.
"That is enough," I said, "Charles broke my arm."
It was torn through the shoulder, and the skirt had been twisted like a rope. Ben made no reply, but bent over me and kissed me tenderly. All this time Miss Prior had slept the sleep of the just; but he had barely gone when she started up and said, "Did you call, my dear?"
"No, it is day."
"So it is; but you must sleep more."
I could not obey, and kept awake so long that Dr. White said he himself should go crazy unless I slept.
"Presently, presently," I reiterated; "and am I going home?"
At last my mind went astray; it journeyed into a dismal world, and came back without an account of its adventures. While it was gone, my friends were summoned to witness a contest, where the odds were in favor of death. But I recovered. Whether it was youth, a good constitution, or the skill of Dr. White, no one could decide. It was a faint, feeble, fluttering return at first. The faces round me, mobile with life, wearied me. I was indifferent to existence, and was more than once in danger of lapsing into the void I had escaped.
When I first tottered downstairs, he had been buried more than three weeks. It was a bright morning; the windows of the parlor, where Charlotte led me, were open. Little Edward was playing round the table upon which I had seen his father stretched, dead. I measured it with my eye, remembering how tall he looked. I would have retreated, when I saw that Alice had visitors, but it was too late. They rose, and offered congratulations. I was angry that there was no change in the house. The rooms should have been dismantled, reflecting disorder and death, by their perpetual darkness and disorder. It was not so. No dust had been allowed to gather on the furniture, no wrinkles or stains. No mist on the mirrors, no dimness anywhere. Alice was elegantly dressed, in the deepest mourning. I examined her with a cynical eye; her bombazine was trimmed with crape, and the edge of her collar was beautifully crimped. A mourning brooch fastened it, and she wore jet ear-rings. She looked handsome, composed, and contented, holding a black-edged handkerchief. Charlotte had placed my chair opposite a glass; I caught sight of my elongated visage in it. How dull I looked! My hair was faded and rough; my eyes were a pale, lusterless blue. The visitors departed, while I still contemplated my rueful aspect, and Alice and I were alone.
"I want some broth, Alice. I am hungry."
"How many bowls have you had this morning?"
"Only two."
"You must wait an hour for the third; it is not twelve o'clock."
We were silent. The flies buzzed in and out of the windows; a great bee flew in, tumbled against the panes, loudly hummed, and after a while got out again. Alice yawned, and I pulled the threads out of the border of my handkerchief.
"The hour is up; I will get your broth."
"Bring me a great deal."
She came back with a thin, impoverished liquid.
"There is no chicken in it," I said tearfully.
"I took it out."
"How could you?" And I wept.
She smiled. "You are very weak, but shall have a bit." She went for it, returning with an infinitesimal portion of chicken.
"What a young creature it must have been, Alice!"
She laughed, promising me more, by and by.
"Now you must lie down. Take my arm and come to the sofa.
"Not here; let us go into another room."
"Come, then."
"Don't leave me," I begged, after she had arranged me comfortably. She sat down by me with a fan.
"What happened while I was ill?"
She fanned rapidly for an instant, taking thought what to say.
"I shot Aspen, a few days after."
"With your own hand?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"Penn protested, said I interfered with Providence. Jesse added, also, that what had happened was ordained, and no mistake, and then I sent them both away."
"And I am going at last, Alice; father will be here again in a few days."
"You did not recognize Veronica, when they came."
"Was she here?"
"Yes, and went the same day. What great tears rolled down her unmovable face, when she stood by your bed! She would not stay; the atmosphere distressed her so, she went back to Boston to wait for your father. I could neither prevail on her to eat, drink, or rest."
"What will you do, Alice?"
"Take care of the children, and manage the mills."
"Manage the mills?"
"I can. No wonder you look astonished," she said, with a sigh. "I am changed. When perhaps I should feel that I have done with life, I am eager to begin it. I have lamented over myself lately."
"How is Ben?"
"He has been here often. How strange it was that to him alone Veronica gave her hand when they met! Indeed, she gave him both her hands."
"And he?"
"Took them, bowing over them, till I thought he wasn't coming up again. I do not call people eccentric any more," she said, faintly blushing. "I look for a reason in every action. Tell me fairly, have you had a contempt for me--for my want of perception? I understand you now, to the bone and marrow, I assure you."
"Then you understand more than I do. But you will remember that once or twice I attempted to express my doubts to you?"
"Yes, yes, with a candor which misled me. But you are talking too much."
"Give me more broth, then."
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I was soon well enough to go home. Father came for me, bringing Aunt Merce. There was no alteration in her, except that she had taken to wearing a false front, which had a claret tinge when the light struck it, and a black lace cap. She walked the room in speechless distress when she saw me, and could not refrain from taking an immense pinch of snuff in my presence.
"Didn't you bring any flag-root, Aunt Merce?"
"Oh Lord, Cassandra, won't anything upon earth change you?"
And then we both laughed, and felt comfortable together. Her knitting mania had given way to one she called transferring. She brought a little basket filled with rags, worn-out embroideries, collars, cuffs, and edges of handkerchiefs, from which she cut the needle-work, to sew again on new muslin. She looked at embroidery with an eye merely to its capacity for being transferred. Alice proved a treasure to her, by giving her heaps of fine work. She and Aunt Merce were pleased with each other, and when we were ready to come away, Alice begged her to visit her every year. I made no farewell visits--my ill health was sufficient excuse; but my schoolmates came to bid me good-bye, and brought presents of needlebooks, and pincushions, which I returned by giving away yards of ribbon, silver fruit-knives, and Mrs. Hemans's poems, which poetess had lately given my imagination an apostrophizing direction. Miss Prior came also, with a copy of "Young's Night Thoughts," bound in speckled leather This hilarious and refreshing poem remained at the bottom of my trunk, till Temperance fished it out, to read on Sundays, in her own room, where she usually passed her hours of solitude in hemming dish-towels, or making articles called "Takers." Dr. Price came, too, and even the haughty four Ryders. Alice was gratified with my popularity. But I felt cold at heart, doubtful of myself, drifting to nothingness in thought and purpose. None saw my doubts or felt my coldness.
I shook hands with all, exchanged hopes and wishes, and repeated the last words which people say on departure. Alice and I neither kissed nor shook hands. There was that between us which kept us apart. A hard, stern face was still in our recollection. We remembered a certain figure, whose steps had ceased about the house, whose voice was hushed, but who was potent yet.
"We shall not forget each other," she said.
And so I took my way out of Rosville. Ben Somers went with us to Boston, and stayed at the Bromfield. In the morning he disappeared, and when he returned had an emerald ring, which he begged me to wear, and tried to put it on my finger, where he had seen the diamond. I put it back in its box, thanking him, and saying it must be stored with the farewell needlebooks and pincushions.
"Shall we have some last words now?"
Aunt Merce slipped out, with an affectation of not having heard him. We laughed, and Ben was glad that I could laugh.
"How do you feel?"
"Rather weak still."
"I do not mean so, but in your mind; how are you?"
"I have no mind."
"Must I give up trying to understand you, Cassandra?"
"Yes, do. You'll visit Alice? You can divine her intentions. She is a good woman."
"She will be, when she knows how."
"What o'clock is it?"
"Incorrigible! Near ten."
"Here is father, and we must start."
The carriage was ready; where was Aunt Merce?
"Locke," she said, when she came in, "I have got a bottle of port for Cassandra, some essence of peppermint, and sandwiches; do you think that will do?"
"We can purchase supplies along the road, if yours give out. Come, we are ready. Mr. Somers, we shall see you at Surrey? Take care, Cassy. Now we are off."
"I shall leave Rosville," were Ben's last words.
"What a fine, handsome young man he is! He is a gentleman," said Aunt Merce.
"Of course, Aunt Merce."
"Why of course? I should think from the way you speak that you had only seen young gentlemen of his stamp. Have you forgotten Surrey?"
Father and she laughed. They could laugh very easily, for they were overjoyed to have me going home with them. Mother would be glad, they said. I felt it, though I did not say so.
How soundly I slept that night at the inn on the road! A little after sunset, on the third day, for we traveled slowly, we reached the woods which bordered Surrey, and soon came in sight of the sea encircling it like a crescent moon. It was as if I saw the sea for the first time. A vague sense of its power surprised me; it seemed to express my melancholy. As we approached the house, the orchard, and I saw Veronica's window, other feelings moved me. Not because I saw familiar objects, nor because I was going home--it was the relation in which _I_ stood to them, that I felt. We drove through the gate, and saw a handsome little boy astride a window-sill, with two pipes in his mouth, "Papa!" he shrieked, threw his pipes down, and dropped on the ground, to run after us.
"Hasn't Arthur grown?" Aunt Merce asked. "He is almost seven."
"Almost seven? Where have the years gone?"
I looked about. I had been away so long, the house looked diminished. Mother was in the door, crying when she put her arms round me; she could not speak. I know now there should have been no higher beatitude than to live in the presence of an unselfish, unasking, vital love. I only said, "Oh, mother, how gray your hair is! Are you glad to see me? I have grown old too!"
We went in by the kitchen, where the men were, and a young girl with a bulging forehead. Hepsey looked out from the buttery door, and put her apron to her eyes, without making any further demonstration of welcome. Temperance was mixing dough. She made an effort to giggle, but failed; and as she could not cover her face with her doughy hands, was obliged to let the tears run their natural course. Recovering herself in a moment, she exclaimed: "Heavenly Powers, how you're altered! I shouldn't have known you. Your hair and skin are as dry as chips; they didn't wash you with Castile soap, I'll bet."
"How you do talk, Temperance," Hepsey quavered.
The girl with the bulging forehead laughed a shrill laugh.
"Why, Fanny!" said mother.
The hall door opened. "Here _she_ is," muttered this Fanny.
"Veronica!"
"Cassandra!"
We grasped hands, and stared mutely at each other. I felt a contraction in the region of my heart, as if a cord of steel were binding it. She, at least, was glad that I was alive!
"They look something alike now," Hepsey remarked.
"Not at all," said Veronica, dropping my hand, and retreating.
"Why, Arthur dear, come here!"
He clambered into my lap.
"Were you killed, my dear sister?"
"Not quite, little boy."
"Well; do you know that I am a veteran officer, and smoke my pipe, lots?"
"You must rest, Cassy," said mother. "Don't go upstairs, though, till you have had your supper. Hurry it up, Temperance."
"It will be on the table in less than no time, Miss Morgeson," she answered, "provided Miss Fanny is agreeable about taking in the teapot."
I had a comfortable sense of property, when I took possession of my own room. It was better, after all, to live with a father and mother, who would adopt my ideas. Even the sea might be mine. I asked father the next morning, at breakfast, how far out at sea his property extended.
"I trust, Cassandra, you will now stay at home," said mother; "I am tired of table duty; you must pour the coffee and tea, for I wish to sit beside your father."
"You and Aunt Merce have settled down into a venerable condition. You wear caps, too! What a stage forward!"
"The cap is not ugly, like Aunt Merce's; I made it," Veronica called, sipping from a great glass.
"Gothic pattern, isn't it?" father asked, "with a tower, and a bridge at the back of the neck?"
"This hash is Fanny's work, mother," said Verry.
"So I perceive."
"Hepsey is not at the table," I said.
"It is her idea not to come, since I have taken Fanny. Did you notice her? She prefers to have her wait."
"Who is Fanny?"
"Her father is old Ichabod Bowles, who lives on the Neck. Last winter her mother sent for me, and begged me to take her. I could not refuse, for she was dying of consumption; so I promised. The poor woman died, in the bitterest weather, and a few days after Ichabod brought Fanny here, and told me he had done with womankind forever. Fanny was sulky and silent for a long time. I thought she never would get warm. If obliged to leave the fire, she sat against the wall, with her face hid in her arms. Veronica has made some impression on her; but she is not a good girl."
"She will be, mother. I am better than I was."
"Never; her disposition is hateful. She is angry with those who are better off than herself. I have not seen a spark of gratitude in her."
"I never thought of gratitude," said Verry, "it is true; but why must people be grateful?"
"We might expect little from Fanny, perhaps; she saw her mother die in want, her father stern, almost cruel to them, and soured by poverty. Fanny never had what she liked to eat or wear, till she came here, or even saw anything that pleased her; and the contrast makes her bitter."
"She is proud, too," said Aunt Merce. "I hear her boasting of what she would have had if she had stayed at home."
"She is a child, you know," said Verry.
"A year younger than you are."
"Where is the universal boy?"
"Abolished," father answered. "Arthur is growing into that estate."
"Papa, don't forget that I am a veteran officer."
"Here, you rascal, come and get this nice egg."
He slipped down, went to his father, who took him on his knee.
"What shall I do first? the garden, orchard, village, or what?" I asked.
"Gardens?" said Verry. "Have they been a part of your education?"
"I like flowers."
"Have you seen my plants?" Aunt Merce inquired.
"I will look at them. How different this is from Rosville?"
Then a pang cut me to the soul. The past whirled up, to disappear, leaving me stunned and helpless. Veronica's eye was upon me. I forced myself to observe her. The difference between us was plainer than ever. I was in my twentieth year, she was barely sixteen; handsome, and as peculiar-looking as when a child. Her straight hair was a vivid chestnut color. Her large eyes were near together; and, as Ben Somers said, the most singular eyes that were ever upon earth. They tormented me. There was nothing willful in them; on the contrary, when she was willful, she had no power over them; the strange cast was then perceptible. Neither were they imperious nor magnetic; they were _baffling_. She pushed her chair from the table, and stood by me quiet. Tall and slender, she stooped slightly, as if she were not strong enough to stand upright. Her dress was a buff-colored cambric, trimmed with knots of ribbon of the same color, dotted with green crosses. It harmonized with her colorless, fixedly pale complexion. I counted the bows of ribbon on her dress, and would have counted the crosses, if she had not interrupted me with, "What do you think of me?"
"Do you ever blush, Verry?"
"I grow paler, you know, when I blush."
"What do you think of me?"
"As wide-eyed as ever, and your eyebrows as black. Who ever saw light, ripply hair with such eyebrows? I see wrinkles, too."
"Where?"
"Round your eyes, like an opening umbrella."
We dispersed as our talk ended, in the old fashion. I followed Aunt Merce to the flower-stand, which stood in its old place on the landing.
"I have a poor lot of roses," she said, "but some splendid cactuses."
"I do not love roses."
"Is it possible? But Verry does not care so much for them, either. Lilies are her favorites; she has a variety. Look at this Arab lily; it is like a tongue of fire."
"Where does she keep her flowers?"
"In wire baskets, in her room. But I must go to make Arthur some gingerbread. He likes mine the best, and I like to please him."
"I dare say you spoil him."
"Just as you were spoiled."
"Not in Barmouth, Aunt Merce."
"No, not in Barmouth, Cassy."
I went from room to room, seeing little to interest me. My zeal oozed away for exploration, and when I entered my chamber I could have said, "This spot is the summary of my wants, for it contains me." I must be my own society, and as my society was not agreeable, the more circumscribed it was, the better I could endure it. What a dreary prospect! The past was vital, the present dead! Life in Surrey must be dull. How could I forget or enjoy? I put the curtains down, and told Temperance, who was wandering about, not to call me to dinner. I determined, if possible, to surpass my dullness by indulgence. But underneath it all I could not deny that there was a specter, whose aimless movements kept me from stagnating. I determined to drag it up and face it.
"Come," I called, "and stand before me; we will reason together."
It uncovered, and asked: "Do you feel remorse and repentance?"
"Neither!"
"Why suffer then?"
"I do not know why."
"You confess ignorance. Can you confess that you are selfish, self-seeking--devilish?"
"Are you my devil?"
No answer.
"Am I cowardly, or a liar?"
It laughed, a faint, sarcastic laugh.
"At all events," I continued, "are not my actions better than my thoughts?"
"Which makes the sinner, and which the saint?"
"Can I decide?"
"Why not?"
"My teachers and myself are so far apart! I have found a counterpart; but, specter, you were born of the union."
My head was buried in my arms; but I heard a voice at my elbow--a shrill, scornful voice it was. "Are you coming down to tea, then?"
Looking up, I saw Fanny. "Tea-time so soon?"
"Yes, it is. You think nothing of time; have nothing to do, I suppose."
And she clasped her hands over her apron--hands so small and thin that they looked like those of an old woman. Her hair was light and scanty, her complexion sallow, and her eyes a palish gray; but her features were delicate and pretty. She seemed to understand my thoughts.
"You think I am stunted, don't you?"
"You are not large to my eye."
"Suppose you had been fed mostly on Indian meal, with a herring or a piece of salted pork for a relish, and clams or tautog for a luxury, as I have been, would you be as tall and as grand-looking as you are now? And would you be covering up your face, making believe worry?"
"May be not. You may tell mother that I am coming."
"I shall not say 'Miss Morgeson,' but 'Cassandra.' 'Cassandra Morgeson,' if I like."
"Call me what you please, only tone down that voice of yours; it is sharper than the east wind."
I heard her beating a tattoo on Veronica's door next. She had been taught to be ceremonious with her, at least. No reply was made, and she came to my door again. "I expect Miss Veronica has gone to see poor folks; it is a way _she_ has," and spitefully closed it.
After tea mother came up to inquire the reason of my seclusion. My excuse of fatigue she readily accepted, for she thought I still looked ill. I had changed so much, she said, it made her heart ache to look at me. When I could speak of the accident at Rosville, would I tell her all? And would I describe my life there; what friends I had made; would they visit me? She hoped so. And Mr. Somers, who made them so hurried a visit, would he come? She liked him. While she talked, she kept a pitying but resolute eye upon me.
"Dear mother, I never can tell you all, as you wish. It is hard enough for me to bear my thoughts, without the additional one that my feelings are understood and speculated upon. If I should tell you, the barrier between me and self-control would give way. You will see Alice Morgeson, and if she chooses she can tell you what my life was in her house. She knows it well."
"Cassandra, what does your bitter face and voice mean?"
"I mean, mother, all your woman's heart might guess, if you were not so pure, so single-hearted."
"No, no, no."
"Yes."
"Then I understand the riddle you have been, one to bring a curse."
"There is nothing to curse, mother; our experiences are not foretold by law. We may be righteous by rule, we do not sin that way. There was no beginning, no end, to mine."
"Should women curse themselves, then, for giving birth to daughters?"
"Wait, mother; what is bad this year may be good the next. You blame yourself, because you believe your ignorance has brought me into danger. Wait, mother."
"You are beyond me; everything is beyond."
"I will be a good girl. Kiss me, mother. I have been unworthy of you. When have I ever done anything for you? If you hadn't been my mother, I dare say we might have helped each other, my friendship and sympathy have sustained you. As it is, I have behaved as all young animals behave to their mothers. One thing you may be sure of. The doubt you feel is needless. You must neither pray nor weep over me. Have I agitated you?"
"My heart _will_ flutter too much, anyway. Oh, Cassy, Cassy, why are you such a girl? Why will you be so awfully headstrong?" But she hugged and kissed me. As I felt the irregular beating of her heart, a pain smote me. What if she should not live long? Was I not a wicked fool to lacerate myself with an intangible trouble--the reflex of selfish emotions?
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Veronica's room was like no other place. I was in a new atmosphere there. A green carpet covered the floor, and the windows had light blue silk curtains.
"Green and blue together, Veronica?"
"Why not? The sky is blue, and the carpet of the earth is green."
"If you intend to represent the heavens and the earth here, it is very well."
The paper on the wall was ash-colored, with penciled lines. She had cloudy days probably. A large-eyed Saint Cecilia, with white roses in her hair, was pasted on the wall. This frameless picture had a curious effect. Veronica, in some mysterious way, had contrived to dispose of the white margin of the picture, and the saint looked out from the soft ashy tint of the wallpaper. Opposite was an exquisite engraving, which was framed with dark red velvet. At the end of an avenue of old trees, gnarled and twisted into each other, a man stood. One hand grasped the stalk of a ragged vine, which ran over the tree near him; the other hung helpless by his side, as if the wrist was broken. His eyes were fixed on some object behind the trees, where nothing was visible but a portion of the wall of a house. His expression of concentrated fury--his attitude of waiting--testified that he would surely accomplish his intention.
"What a picture!"
"The foliage attracted me, and I bought it; but when I unpacked it, the man seemed to come out for the first time. Will you take it?"
"No; I mean to give my room a somnolent aspect. The man is too terribly sleepless."
A table stood near the window, methodically covered with labelled blank-books, a morocco portfolio, and a Wedgewood inkstand and vase. In an arch, which she had manufactured from the space under the garret stairs, stood her bed. At its foot, against the wall, a bunch of crimson autumn leaves was fastened, and a bough, black and bare, with an empty nest on it.
"Where is the feminine portion of your furnishing?"
"Look in the closet."
I opened a door. What had formerly been appropriated by mother to blankets and comfortables, she had turned into a magazine of toilet articles. There were drawers and boxes for everything which pertained to a wardrobe, arranged with beautiful skill and neatness. She directed my attention to her books, on hanging shelves, within reach of the bed. Beneath them was a small stand, with a wax candle in a silver candlestick.
"You read o' nights?"
"Yes; and the wax candle is my pet weakness."
"Have you put away Gray, and Pope, and Thomson?"
"The Arabian Nights and the Bible are still there. Mother thought you would like to refurnish your room. It is the same as when we moved, you know."
"Did she? I will have it done. Good-by."
"Good-by."
She was at the window now, and had opened a pane.
"What's that you are doing?"
"Looking through my wicket."
I went back again to understand the wicket. It had been made, she said, so that she might have fresh air in all weathers, without raising the windows. In the night she could look out without danger of taking cold. We looked over the autumn fields; the crows were flying seaward over the stubble, or settling in the branches of an old fir, standing alone, midway between the woods and the orchard. The ground before us, rising so gradually, and shortening the horizon, reminded me of my childish notion that we were near the North Pole, and that if we could get behind the low rim of sky we should be in the Arctic Zone.
"The Northern Lights have not deserted us, Veronica?"
"No; they beckon me over there, in winter."
"Do you never tire of this limited, monotonous view--of a few uneven fields, squared by grim stone walls?"
"That is not all. See those eternal travelers, the clouds, that hurry up from some mysterious region to go over your way, where I never look. If the landscape were wider, I could never learn it. And the orchard--have you noticed that? There are bird and butterfly lives in it, every year. Why, morning and night are wonderful from these windows. But I must say the charm vanishes if I go from them. Surrey is not lovely." She closed the wicket, and sat down by the table. My dullness vanished with her. There might be something to interest me beneath the calm surface of our family life after all.
"Veronica, do you think mother is changed? I think so."
"She is always the same to me. But I have had fears respecting her health."
Outside the door I met Temperance, with a clothes-basket.
"Oh ho!" she said, "you are going the rounds. Verry's room beats all possessed, don't it? It is cleaned spick and span every three months. She calls it inaugurating the seasons. She is as queer as Dick's hatband. Have you any fine things to do up?"
Her question put me in mind of my trunks, and I hastened to them, with the determination of putting my room to rights. The call to dinner interrupted me before I had begun, and the call to supper came before anything in the way of improvement had been accomplished. My mind was chaotic by bed-time. The picture of Veronica, reading by her wax candle, or looking through the wicket, collected and happy in her orderly perfection, came into my mind, and with it an admiration which never ceased, though I had no sympathy with her. We seemed as far apart as when we were children.
I was eager for employment, promising to perform many tasks, but the attempt killed my purpose and interest. My will was nerveless, when I contemplated Time, which stretched before me--a vague, limitless sea; and I only kept Endeavor in view, near enough to be tormented.
One day father asked me to go to Milford, and I then asked him for money to spend for the adornment of my room.
"Be prudent," he replied. "I am not so rich as people think me. Although the _Locke Morgeson_ was insured, she was a loss. But you need not speak of this to your mother. I never worry her with my business cares. As for Veronica, she has not the least idea of the value of money, or care for what it represents."
When we went into the shops, I found him disposed to be more extravagant than I was. I bought a blue and white carpet; a piece of blue and white flowered chintz; two stuffed chairs, covered with hair-cloth (father remonstrated against these), and a long mirror to go between the windows, astonishing him with my vanity. What I wanted besides I could construct myself, with the help of the cabinet maker in Surrey.
In one of the shops I heard a familiar voice, which gave me a thrill of anger. I turned and saw Charlotte Alden, of Barmouth, the girl who had given me the fall on the tilt. She could not control an expression of surprise at the sight of the well-dressed woman before her. It was my dress that astonished her. Where could _I_ have obtained style?
"Miss Alden, how do you do? Pray tell me whether you have collected any correct legends respecting my mother's early history. And do you tilt off little girls nowadays?"
She made no reply, and I left her standing where she was when I began speaking. When we got out of town, my anger cooled, and I grew ashamed of my spitefulness, and by way of penance I related the affair to father. He laughed at what I said to her, and told me that he had long known her family. Charlotte's uncle had paid his addresses to mother. There might have been an engagement; whether there was or not, the influence of his family had broken the acquaintance. This explained what Charlotte said to me in Miss Black's school about mother's being in love.
"You might have been angry with the girl, but you should not have felt hurt at the fact implied. Are you so young still as to believe that only those who love marry? or that those who marry have never loved, except each other?"
"I have thought of these things; but I am afraid that Love, like Theology, if examined, makes one skeptical."
We jogged along in silence for a mile or two.
"Whether every man's children overpower him, I wonder? I am positively afraid of you and Veronica."
"What do you mean?"
"I am always unprepared for the demonstrations of character you and she make. My traditional estimate, which comes from thoughtfulness, or the putting off of responsibility, or God knows what, I find will not answer. I have been on my guard against that which everyday life might present--a lie, a theft, or a meanness; but of the undercurrent, which really bears you on, I have known nothing."
"If you happen to dive below the surface, and find the roots of our actions which are fixed beneath its tide--what then? Must you lament over us?"
"No, no; but this is vague talk."
Was he dissatisfied with me? What could he expect? We all went our separate ways, it is true; was it that? Perhaps he felt alone. I studied his face; it was not so cheerful as I remembered it once, but still open, honest, and wholesome. I promised myself to observe his tastes and consult them. It might be that his self-love had never been encouraged. But I failed in that design, as in all others.
"Much of my time is consumed in passing between Milford and Surrey, you perceive."
"I will go with you often."
According to habit, on arriving, I went into the kitchen. It was dusk there, and still. Temperance was by the fire, attending to something which was cooking.
"What is there for supper, Temperance? I am hungry."
"I spose you are," she answered crossly. "You'll see when it's on the table."
She took a coal of fire with the tongs, and blew it fiercely, to light a lamp by. When it was alight, she set it on the chimney-shelf, revealing thereby a man at the back of the room, balancing his chair on two legs against the wail; his feet were on its highest round, and he twirled his thumbs.
"Hum," he said, when he saw me observing him; "this is the oldest darter, is it?"
"Yes," Temperance bawled.
"She is a good solid gal; but I can't recollect her christened name."
"It is Cassandra."
"Why, 'taint Scriptur'."
"Why don't you go and take off your things?" Temperance asked, abruptly.
"I'll leave them here; the fire is agreeable."
"There is a better fire in the keeping-room."
"How are you, Mr. Handy?" father inquired, coming in.
"I should be well, if my grinders didn't trouble me; they play the mischief o'nights. Have you heard from the _Adamant_, Mr. Morgeson? I should like to get my poor boy's chist. The Lord ha' mercy on him, whose bones are in the caverns of the deep."
"Now, Abram, do shut up. Tea is ready, Mr. Morgeson. I'll bring in the ham directly," said Temperance.
There was no news from the _Adamant_. I lingered in the hope of discovering why Mr. Handy irritated Temperance. He was a man of sixty, with a round head, and a large, tender wart on one cheek; the two tusks under his upper lip suggested a walrus. Though he was no beauty, he looked thoroughly respectable, in garments whose primal colors had disappeared, and blue woolen stockings gartered to a miracle of tightness.
"Temperance," he said, "my quinces have done fust rate this year. I haint pulled 'em yet; but I've counted them over and over agin. But my pig wont weigh nothin' like what I calkerlated on. Sarved me right. I needn't have bought him out of a drove; if Charity had been alive, I shouldn't ha' done it. A man can't--I say, Tempy--a man _can't_ git along while here below, without a woman."
She gave my arm a severe pinch as she passed with the ham, and I thought it best to follow her. Mother looked at her with a smile, and said: "Deal gently with Brother Abram, Temperance."
"Brother be fiddlesticked!" she said tartly. "Miss Morgeson, _do_ you want some quinces?"
"Certainly."
"We'll make hard marmalade this year, then. You shall have the quinces to-morrow." And she retired with a softened face. I was told that Abram Handy was a widower anxious to take Temperance for a second helpmeet, and that she could not decide whether to accept or refuse him. She had confessed to mother that she was on the fence, and didn't know which way to jump. He was a poor, witless thing, she knew; but he was as good a man as ever breathed, and stood as good a chance of being saved as the wisest church-member that ever lived! Mother thought her inclined to be mistress of an establishment over which she might have sole control. Abram owned a house, a garden, and kept pigs, hens, and a cow; these were his themes of conversation. Mother could not help thinking he was influenced by Temperance's fortune. She was worth two thousand dollars, at least. The care of her wood-lot, the cutting, selling, or burning the wood on it, would be a supreme happiness to Abram, who loved property next to the kingdom of heaven. The tragedy of the old man's life was the loss of his only son, who had been killed by a whale a year since. The _Adamant_, the ship he sailed in, had not returned, and it was a consoling hope with Abram that his boy's chist might come back.
"We heard of poor Charming Handy's death the tenth of September, about three months after Abram began his visits to Temperance," Veronica said.
"Was his name Charming?" I asked.
"His mother named him," Abram said, "with a name that she had picked out of Novel's works, which she was forever and 'tarnally reading."
"What day of the month is it, Verry?"
"Third of October."
"What happened a year ago to-day?"
"Arthur fell off the roof of the wood-house."
"Verry," he cried, "you needn't tell my sister of that; now she knows about my scar. You tell everything; she does not. You have scars," he whispered to me; "they look red sometimes. May I put my finger on your cheek?"
I took his hand, and rubbed his fingers over the cuts; they were not deep, but they would never go away.
"I wish mine were as nice; it is only a little hole under my hair. Soldiers ought to have long scars, made with great big swords, and I am a soldier, ain't I, Cassy?"
"Have I heard you sing, Cassy?" asked father. "Come, let us have some music." " 'And the cares which infest the day,'" added Verry.
I had scarcely been in the parlor since my return, though the fact had not been noticed. Our tacit compact was that we should be ignorant of each other's movements. I ran up to my room for some music, and, not having a lamp, stumbled over my shawl and bonnet and various bundles which somebody had deposited on the floor. I went down by the back way, to the kitchen; Fanny was there alone, standing before the fire, and whistling a sharp air.
"Did you carry my bonnet and shawl upstairs?"
"I did."
"Will you be good enough to take this music to the parlor for me?"
She turned and put her hands behind her. "Who was your waiter last year?"
"I had one," putting the leaves under her arm; they fluttered to the floor, one by one.
"You must pick them up, or we shall spend the night here, and father is waiting for me."
"Is he?" and she began to take them up.
"I am quite sure, Fanny, that I could punish you awfully. I am sick to try."
She moved toward the door slowly. "Don't tell him," she said, stopping before it.
"I'll tell nobody, but I am angry. Let us arrive."
She marched to the piano, laid the music on it, and marched out.
"By the way, Fanny," I whispered, "the bonnet and shawl are yours, if you need them."
"I guess I do," she whispered back.
When I returned to my room, I found it in order and the bundles removed.
One day some Surrey friends called. They told me I had changed very much, and I inferred from their tone they did not consider the change one for the better.
"How much Veronica has improved," they continued, "do not you think so?"
"You know," she interrupted, "that Cassandra has been dangerously ill, and has barely recovered."
Yes, they had heard of the accident, everybody had; Mr. Morgeson must be a loss to his family, a man in the prime of life, too.
"The prime of life," Veronica repeated.
She was asked to play, and immediately went to the piano. Strange girl; her music was so filled with a wild lament that I again fathomed my desires and my despair. Her eyes wandered toward me, burning with the fires of her creative power, not with the feelings which stung me to the quick. Her face was calm, white, and fixed. She stopped and touched her eyelids, as if she were weeping, but there were no tears in her eyes. They were in mine, welling painfully beneath the lids. I turned over the music books to hide them.
"That is a singular piece," said one. "Now, Cassandra, will you favor us? We expect to find you highly accomplished."
"I sang myself out before you came in."
In the bustle of their going, Veronica stooped over my hand and kissed it, unseen. It was more like a sigh upon it than a kiss, but it swept through me, tingling the scars on my face, as if the flesh had become alive again.
"Take tea with us soon, do. We do not see you in the street or at church. It must be dull for you after coming from a boarding-school. Still, Surrey has its advantages." And the doors closed on them.
"Still, Surrey has its advantages," Veronica repeated.
"Yes, the air is sleepy; I am going to bed."
I made resolutions before I slept that night, which I kept, for I said, "Let the dead bury its dead."
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Helen's letters followed me. She had heard from Rosville all that had happened, but did not expatiate on it. Her letters were full of minute details respecting her affairs. It was her way of diverting me from the thoughts which she believed troubled me. "L.N." was expected soon. Since his last letter, she had caught herself more than once making inventories of what she would like to have in the way of a wardrobe for a particular occasion, which he had hinted at.
I heard nothing from Alice, and was content that it should be so. Our acquaintance would be resumed in good time, I had no doubt. Neither did I hear from Ben Somers. He very likely was investing in another plan. Of its result I should also hear.
My chief occupation was to drive with father. The wharves of Milford, the doors of its banks and shipping offices, became familiar. I witnessed bargains and contracts, and listened to talk of shipwrecks, mutinies, insurance cases, perjuries, failures, ruin, and rascalities. His private opinions, and those who sought him, were kept in the background; the sole relation between them was--Traffic. Personality was forgotten in the absorbed attention which was given to business. They appeared to me, though, as if pursuing something beyond Gain, which should narcotize or stimulate them to forget that man's life was a vain going to and fro.
Mother reproached father for allowing me to adopt the habits of a man. He thought it a wholesome change; besides, it would not last. While I was his companion there were moments when he left his ledger for another book.
"You never call yourself a gambler, do you, Locke?" mother asked. "Strange, too, that you think of Cassy in your business life instead of me."
"Mary, could I break your settled habits. Cassy is afloat yet. I can guide her hither and yon. Moreover, with her, I dream of youth."
"Is youth so happy?" we both asked.
"We think so, when we see it in others."
"Not all of us," she said. "You think Cassandra has no ways of her own! She can make us change ours; do you know that?"
"May be."
A habit grew upon me of consulting the sea as soon as I rose in the morning. Its aspect decided how my day would be spent. I watched it, studying its changes, seeking to understand its effect, ever attracted by an awful materiality and its easy power to drown me. By the shore at night the vague tumultuous sphere, swayed by an influence mightier than itself, gave voice, which drew my soul to utter speech for speech. I went there by day unobserved, except by our people, for I never walked toward the village. Mother descried me, as she would a distant sail, or Aunt Merce, who had a vacant habit of looking from all the windows a moment at a time, as if she were forever expecting the arrival of somebody who never came. Arthur, too, saw me, as he played among the rocks, waded, caught crabs and little fish, like all boys whose hereditary associations are amphibious. But Veronica never came to the windows on that side of the house, unless a ship was arriving from a long voyage. Then her interest was in the ship alone, to see whether her colors were half-mast, or if she were battered and torn, recalling to mind those who had died or married since the ship sailed from port; for she knew the names of all who ever left Surrey, and their family relations.
Weeks passed before I had completed the furnishing of my room; I had been to Helen's wedding, and had returned, and it was still in progress. The ground was covered with snow. The sea was dark and rough under the frequent north wind, sometimes gray and silent in an icy atmosphere; sometimes blue and shining beneath the pale winter sun. The day when the room was ready, Fanny made a wood fire, which burned merrily, and encouraged the new chairs, tables, carpet, and curtains into a friendly assimilation; they met and danced on the round tops of the brass dogs. It already seemed to me that I was like the room. Unlike Veronica, I had nothing odd, nothing suggestive. My curtains were blue chintz, and the sofa and chairs were covered with the same; the ascetic aspect of my two hair-cloth arm-chairs was entirely concealed. The walls were painted amber color, and varnished. There were no pictures but the shining shadows. A row of shelves covered with blue damask was on one side, and my tall mirror on the other. The doors were likewise covered with blue damask, nailed round with brass nails. When I had nothing else to do I counted the nails. The wooden mantel shelf, originally painted in imitation of black marble, I covered with damask, and fringed it. I sent Fanny down for mother and Aunt Merce. They declared, at once, they were stifled; too many things in the room; too warm; too dark; the fringe on the mantel would catch fire and burn me up; too much trouble to take care of it. What was under the carpet that made it so soft and the steps so noiseless? How nice it was! Temperance, who had been my aid, arrived at this juncture and croaked.
"Did you ever see such a stived-up hole, Mis Morgeson?"
"I like it now," she answered, "it is so comfortable. How lovely this blue is!"
"It's a pity she wont keep the blinds shut. The curtains will fade to rags in no time; the sun pours on 'em."
"How could I watch the sea then?" I asked.
"Good Lord! it's a mystery to me how you can bother over that salt water."
"And the smell of the sea-weed," added Aunt Merce.
"And its thousand dreary cries," said mother.
"Do you like my covered doors?" I inquired.
"I vow," Temperance exclaimed, "the nails are put in crooked! And I stood over Dexter the whole time. He said it was damned nonsense, and that you must be awfully spoiled to want such a thing. 'You get your pay, Dexter,' says I, 'for what you do, don't you?' 'I guess I do,' says he, and then he winked. 'None of your gab,' says I. I do believe that man is a cheat and a rascal, I vow I do. But they are all so."
"In my young days," Aunt Merce remarked, "young girls were not allowed to have fires in their chambers."
"In our young days, Mercy," mother replied, "_we_ were not allowed to have much of anything."
"Fires are not wholesome to sleep by," Temperance added.
"Miss Veronica never has a fire," piped Fanny, who had remained, occasionally making a stir with the tongs.
"But she ought to have!" Temperance exclaimed vehemently. "I do wonder, Mis Morgeson, that you do not insist upon it, though it's none of my business."
Father was conducted upstairs, after supper. The fire was freshly made; the shaded lamp on the table before the sofa and the easy-chair pleased him. He came often afterward, and stayed so long, sometimes, that I fell asleep, and found him there, when I woke, still smoking and watching the fire.
Veronica looked in at bed-time. "I recognize you here," she said as she passed. But she came back in a few moments in a wrapper, with a comb in her hand, and stood on the hearth combing her hair, which was longer than a mermaid's. The fire was grateful to her, and I believe that she was surprised at the fact.
"Why not have a fire in your room, Verry?"
"A fire would put me out. One belongs in this room, though. It is the only reality here."
"What if I should say you provoke me, perverse girl?"
"What if you should?"
She gathered up her hair and shook it round her face, with the same elfish look she wore when she pulled it over her eyes as a child. It made me feel how much older I was.
"I do not say so, and I will not."
"I wish you would; I should like to hear something natural from you."
Fanny, coming in with an armful of wood, heard her. Instead of putting it on the fire, she laid it on the hearth, and, sitting upon it with an expression of enjoyment, looked at both of us with an expectant air.
"You love mischief, Fanny," I said.
"Is it mischief for me to look at sisters that don't love each other?" and, laughing shrilly, she pulled a stick from under her, and threw it on the fire.
Veronica's eyes shot more sparks than the disturbed coals, for Fanny's speech enraged her. Giving her head a toss, which swept her hair behind her shoulders, she darted at Fanny, and picked her up from the wood, with as much ease as if it had been her handkerchief, instead of a girl nearly as heavy as herself. I started up.
"Sit still," she said to me, in her low, inflexible voice, holding Fanny against the wall. "I must attend to this little demon. Do you dare to think," addressing Fanny with a gentle vehemence, "that what you have just said, is true of _me_? Are you, with your small, starved spirit, equal to any judgment against _her? _ I admire her; you do, too. I _love_ her, and I love you, you pitiful, ignorant brat."
Her strength gave way, and she let her go.
"All declarations in my behalf are made to third persons," I thought.
"I do believe, Miss Veronica," said Fanny, who did not express any astonishment or resentment at the treatment she had received, "that you are going to be sick; I feel so in my bones."
"Never mind your bones. Twist up my hair, and think, while you do it, how to get rid of your diabolical curiosity."
"I have had nothing to do all my life," she answered, carefully knotting Verry's hair, "but to be curious. I never found out much, though, till lately"; and she cast her eyes in my direction.
"Put her out, Cassandra," said Verry, "if you like to touch her."
"I'll sweep the hearth, if you please, first," Fanny answered. "I am a good drudge, you know. Good-night, ladies."
I followed Veronica, wishing to know if her room was uncomfortable. She had made slight changes since my visit to her. The flowers had been moved, the stand where the candle stood was covered with crimson cloth. The dead bough and the autumn leaves were gone; but instead there was a branch of waving grasses, green and fresh, and on the table was a white flower, in a vase.
"It is freezing here, but it looks like summer. Is it design?"
"Yes; I can't sit here much; still, I can read in bed, and write, especially under my new quilt, which you have not seen."
It was composed of red, black, and blue bits of silk, and beautifully quilted. Hepsey and Temperance had made it for her.
"How about the wicket, these winter nights?"
"I drag the quilt off, and wrap it round me when I want to look out."
We heard a bump on the floor, and Temperance appeared with warm bricks wrapped in flannel.
"You know that I will not have those things," Verry said.
"Dear me, how contrary you are! And you have not eaten a thing to-day."
"Carry them out."
Her voice was so unyielding, but always so gentle! Temperance was obliged to deposit the bricks outside the door, which she did with a bang.
"I should think you might sleep in Cassandra's room; her bed is big enough for three."
No answer was made to this proposition, but Verry said, "You may undress me, if you like, and stay till you are convinced I shall not freeze."
"I've staid till I am in an ager. I might as well finish the night here, I spose."
She called me after midnight, for she had not left Verry, who had been attacked with one of her mysterious disorders.
"You can do nothing for her; but I am scared out, when she faints so dreadful; I don't like to be alone."
Veronica could not speak, but she shook her head at me to go away. Her will seemed to be concentrated against losing consciousness; it slipped from her occasionally, and she made a rotary motion with her arms, which I attempted to stop, but her features contracted so terribly, I let her alone.
"Mustn't touch her," said Temperance, whose efforts to relieve her were confined to replacing the coverings of the bed, and drawing her nightgown over her bosom, which she often threw off again. Her breath scarcely stirred her breast. I thought more than once she did not breathe at all. Its delicate, virgin beauty touched me with a holy pity. We sat by her bed in silence a long time, and although it was freezing cold, did not suffer. Suddenly she turned her head and closed her eyes. Temperance softly pulled up the clothes over her and whispered: "It is over for this time; but Lord, how awful it is! I hoped she was cured of these spells."
In a few minutes she asked, "What time is it?"
"It must be about eleven," Temperance replied; but it was nearly four. She dozed again, but, opening her eyes presently, made a motion toward the window.
"There's no help for it," muttered Temperance, "she must go."
I understood her, and put my arm under Verry's neck to raise her. Temperance wrapped the quilt round her, and we carried her to the window. Temperance pushed open the pane; an icy wind blew against us.
"It is the winter that kills little Verry," she said, in a childlike voice. "God's breath is cold over the world, and my life goes. But the spring is coming; it will come back."
I looked at Temperance, whose face was so corrugated with the desire for crying and the effort to keep from it, that for the life of me, I could not help smiling. As soon as I smiled I laughed, and then Temperance gave way to crying and laughing together. Veronica stared, and realized the circumstances in a second. She walked back to the bed, laughing faintly, too. "Go to bed, do. You have been here a long time, have you?"
I left Temperance tucking the clothes about her, kissing her, and calling her "deary and her best child."
I could not go to bed at once, for Fanny was on my hearth before the fire, which she had rekindled, watching the boiling of something.
"She has come to, hasn't she?" stirring the contents of the kettle. "I knew it was going to be so with her, she was so mad with me. She is like the Old Harry before she has a turn, and like an angel after. I am fond of people who have their ups and downs. I have seen her so before. She asked me to keep the doors locked once; they are locked now. But I couldn't keep _you_ out. The doctor said she must have warm drinks as soon as she was better. This is gruel."
"If it is done, away with you. Calamity improves you, don't it? You seem in excellent spirits."
"First-rate; I can be somebody then."
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Before spring there were three public events in Surrey. A lighthouse was built on Gloster Point, below our house. At night there was a bridge of red, tremulous light between my window and its tower, which seemed to shorten the distance. A town-clock had been placed in the belfry of the new church in the western part of the village. Veronica could see the tips of its gilded hands from the top of her window, and hear it strike through the night, whether the wind was fair to bring the sound or not. She liked to hear the hours cry that they had gone. Soon after the clock was up, she recollected that Mrs. Crossman's dog had ceased to bark at night, as was his wont, and sent her a note inquiring about it, for she thought there was something poetical in connection with nocturnal noises, which she hoped Mrs. Crossman felt also. Fanny conveyed the note, and read it likewise, as Mrs. Crossman declared her inability to read writing with her new spectacles, which a peddler had cheated her with lately. She laughed at it, and sent word to Veronica that she was the curiousest young woman for her age that she had ever heard of; that the dog slept in the house of nights, for he was blind and deaf now; but that Crossman should get a new dog with a loud bark, if the dear child wanted it.
A new dog soon came, so fierce that Abram told Temperance that people were afraid to pass Crossman's. She guessed it wasn't the dog the people were afraid of, but of their evil consciences, which pricked them when they remembered Dr. Snell.
The third event was Mr. Thrasher's revival. It began in February, and before it was over, I heard the April frogs croaking in the marshy field behind the church. We went to all the meetings, except Veronica, who continued her custom of going only on Sunday afternoons. Mr. Thrasher endeavored to proselyte me, but he never conversed with her. His manner changed when he was at our house; if she appeared, the man tore away the mask of the minister. She called him a Bible-banger, that he made the dust fly from the pulpit cushions too much to suit her; besides, he denounced sinners with vituperation, larding his piety with a grim wit which was distasteful. He was resentful toward me, especially after he had seen her. It was needful, he said, from my influence in Surrey, that I should become an example, and asked me if I did not think my escape from sudden death in Rosville was an indication from Providence that I was reserved for some especial work?
Surrey was never so evangelical as under his ministration, and it remained so until he was called to a larger field of usefulness, and offered a higher salary to till it. We settled into a milder theocracy after he left us. Mr. Park renewed his zeal, about this time, resuming his discussions; but mother paid little attention to what he said. There were days now when she was confined to her room. Sometimes I found her softly praying. Once when I went there she was crying aloud, in a bitter voice, with her hands over her head. She was her old self when she recovered, except that she was indifferent to practical details. She sought amusement, indeed, liked to have me with her to make her laugh, and Aunt Merce was always near to pet her as of old, and so we forgot those attacks.
Abram Handy, inspired with religious fervor during the revival, was also inspired with the twin passion--love--to visit Temperance, and begged her, with so much eloquence, to marry him before his cow should calve, that she consented, and he was happy. He spent the Sunday evenings with her, coming after conference meeting, hymn-book in hand. She was angry and ashamed, if I happened to see them sitting in the same chair, and singing, in a quavering voice, "Greenland's Icy Mountains," and continued morose for a week, in consequence.
"What will Veronica do without me?" she said. "I vow I wish Abram Handy would keep himself out of my way; who wants him?"
"She will visit you, and so shall I." "Certain true, will you, really?"
"If you will promise to return our visits, and leave Abram at home, for a week now and then."
"Done. I can mend your things and look after Mis Morgeson. Your mother is not the woman she was, and you and Veronica haven't a mite of faculty. What you are all coming to is more than I can fathom."
"Who will fill your place?"
"I don't want to brag, but you wont find a soul in Surrey to come here and live as I have lived. You will have to take a Paddy; the Paddies are spreading, the old housekeeping race is going. Hepsey and I are the last of the Mohicans, and Hepsey is failing."
She was right, we never found her equal, and when she went, in May, a Celtic dynasty came in. We missed her sadly. Verry refused to be comforted. Symptoms of disorganization appeared everywhere.
In the summer Helen visited Surrey. Her enlivening gayety was the means of our uniting about her. She was never tired of Veronica's playing, nor of our society; so we must stay where she and the piano were. We trimmed the parlor with flowers every day. Veronica transferred some of her favorite books to the round table, and privately sent for a set of flower vases. When they came, she said we must have a new carpet to match them, and although mother protested against it, she was loud in her admiration when she saw the handsome white Brussels, thickly covered with crimson roses. Helen's introduction proved an astonishing incentive; we set a new value on ourselves. I never saw so much of Veronica as at that time; her health improved with her temper. She threw us into fits of laughter with her whimsical talk, never laughing herself, but enjoying the effect she produced. To please her, Helen changed her style of dress, and bought a dress at Milford, which Veronica selected and made. The trying on of this dress was the means of her discovering the letters on Helen's arm, which never ceased to be a source of interest. She asked to see them every day afterward, and touched them with her fingers, as if they had some occult power.
"You think her strange, do you not?" I asked Helen.
"She has genius, but will be a child always."
"You are mistaken; she was always mature."
"She stopped in the process of maturity long ago. It is her genius which takes her on. You advance by experience."
"I shall learn nothing more."
"Of course you have suffered immensely, and endured that which isolates you from the rest of us."
"You are as wise as ever."
"Well, I am married, you know, and shall grow no wiser. Marriage puts an end to the wisdom of women; they need it no longer."
"You are nineteen years old?"
"What is the use of talking to you? Besides, if we keep on we may tell secrets that had better not be revealed. We might not like each other so well; friendship is apt to dull if there is no ground for speculation left. Let us keep the bloom on the fruit, even if we know there is a worm at the core."
I owed it to her that I never had any confidante. My proclivities were for speaking what I felt; but her strong common-sense influenced me greatly against it; her teaching was the more easy to me, as she never invaded my sentiments.
Her visit was the occasion of our exchanging civilities with our acquaintances, which we neglected when alone. Tea parties were always fashionable in Surrey. Veronica went with us to one, given by our cousin, Susan Morgeson. She had taken tea out but twice, since she was grown, she told us, then it was with her friend Lois Randall, a seamstress. To this girl she read the contents of her blank-books, and Lois in her turn confided to Veronica her own compositions. Essays were her forte. We met her at Susan Morgeson's, and, as I never saw her without her having on some article given her by Veronica, this occasion was no exception. She wore an exquisitely embroidered purple silk apron, over a dull blue dress. I saw Verry's grimace when her eyes fell on it, and could not help saying, "I hope Lois's essays are better than her taste in dress."
"She is an idiot in colors; but she admires what I wear so much that she fancies the same must become her."
"As they become you?"
"I make a study of dress--an anomaly must. It may be wicked, but what can I do? I love to look well."
The dress she wore then was an India stuff, of linen, with a cream-colored ground, and a vivid yellow silk thread woven in stripes through it; each stripe had a cinnamon-colored edge. There were no ornaments about her, except a band of violet-colored ribbon round her head. When tea was brought in, she asked me in a whisper whether it was tea or coffee in the cup which was given her.
"Why, Cass," said Helen, "are you making a wonderment because she does not know? It is strange that you have not known that she drinks neither."
"What does she drink?"
"Is it eccentric to drink milk?" Verry asked, swallowing the tea with an accustomed air. "I think this must be coffee, it stings my mouth so."
"It is green tea," said Helen; "don't drink it, Verry."
"Green tea," she said, in a dreamy voice. "We drank green tea ten years ago, in our old house; and I did not know it! Cassandra, do you remember that I drank four cups once, when mother had company? I laughed all night, and Temperance cried."
She contributed her share toward entertaining, and invariably received the most attention. My indifference was called pride, and her reserve was called dignity, and dignity was more popular than pride.
Before Helen went, Ben wrote me that he was going to India. It was a favorite journey with the Belemites. By the time the letter reached me he should be gone. Would I bear him in remembrance? He would not forget me, and promised me an Indian idol. In eighteen months he expected to be at home again; sooner, perhaps. P.S. Would I give his true regards to my sister? N.B. The property might be divided according to his grandfather's will, before his return, and he wanted to be out of the way for sundry reasons, which he hoped to tell me some day. I read the letter to Helen and Veronica. Helen laughed, and said "Unstable as water"; but Veronica looked displeased; she closed her eyes as if to recall him to mind, and asked Helen abruptly if she did not like him.
"Yes; but I doubt him. With all his strength of character he has a capacity for failure."
"I consider him a relation," I said. " _I_ do not own him," said Veronica.
"At all events, he is not an affectionate one," Helen remarked. "You have not heard from him in a year."
"But I knew that I should hear," I said.
"We shall _see_ him," said Veronica, "again."
I was dull after I received his letter. My youth grew dim; somehow I felt a self-pity. I found no chance to embalm those phases of sensation which belonged to my period, and I grew careless; Helen's influence went with her. The observances so vital to Veronica, so charming in her, I became utterly neglectful of. For all this a mad longing sometimes seized me to depart into a new world, which should contain no element of the old, least of all a reminiscence of what my experience had made me.
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Alice Morgeson sent for Aunt Merce, asking her to fulfill the promise she had made when she was in Rosville.
With misgivings she went, stayed a month, and returned with Alice. I felt a throe of pain when we met, which she must have seen, for she turned pale, and the hand she had extended toward me fell by her side; overcoming the impulse, she offered it again, but I did not take it. I had no evidence to prove that she came to Surrey on my account; but I was sure that such was the fact, as I was sure that there was a bond between us, which she did not choose to break, nor to acknowledge. She appeared as if expecting some explanation or revelation from me; but I gave her none, though I liked her better than ever. She was business-like and observant. Her tendencies, never romantic, were less selfish; it was no longer society, dress, housekeeping, which absorbed her, but a larger interest in the world which gave her a desire to associate with men and women, independent of caste. None of her children were with her; had it been three years earlier, she would not have left home without them. Her hair was a little gray, and a wrinkle or two had gathered about her mouth; but there was no other change. I was not sorry to have her go, for she paid me a close and quiet observation. At the moment of departure, she said in an undertone: "What has become of that candor of which you were so proud?" "I am more candid than ever," I answered, "for I am silent."
"I understand you better, now that I have seen you _en famille." _ "What do you think now?"
"I don't think I know; the Puritans have much to answer for in your mother--" Turning to her she said, "My children, too, are so different."
Mother gave her a sad smile, as Fanny announced the carriage, and they drove away.
"No more visitors this year," said Veronica, yawning.
"No agreeable ones, I fancy," I answered.
"All the relations have had their turn for this year," remarked Aunt Merce. But she was mistaken; an old lady came soon after this to spend the winter. She lived but four miles from Surrey, but brought with her all her clothes, and a large green parrot, which her son had brought from foreign parts. Her name was Joy Morgeson; the fact of her being cousin to father's grandmother entitled her to a raid upon us at any season, and to call us "cousins." She felt, she said, that she must come and attend the meetings regular, for her time upon earth was short. But Joy was a hearty woman still, and, pious as she was, delighted in rough and scandalous stories, the telling of which gave her severe fits of repentance. She quilted elaborate petticoats for us, knit stockings for Arthur, and was useful. Mr. and Mrs. Elisha Peckham surprised us next. They arrived from "up country" and stayed two weeks. I did not clearly understand why they came before they went; but as they enjoyed their visit, it was of little consequence whether I did or not.
Midwinter passed, and we still had company. There was much to do, but it was done without system. Mother or Aunt Merce detailed from their ordinary duties as keeper of the visitors, Fanny was for the first time able to make herself of importance in the family tableaux, and assumed cares no one had thought of giving her. She left the town-school, telling mother that learning would be of no use to her. The rights of a human being merely was what she wanted; she should fight for them; that was what paupers must do. Mother allowed her to do as she pleased. Her duties commenced with calling us up to breakfast _en masse_, and for once the experiment was successful, for we all met at the table. The dining-room was in complete order, a thing that had never happened early before; the rest of us missed the straggling breakfast which consumed so much time.
"Whose doing is this?" asked father, looking round the table.
"It is Fanny's," I answered, rattling the cups. "All the coffee to be poured out at once, don't agitate me."
Fanny, bearing buckwheat cakes, looked proud and modest, as people do who appreciate their own virtues.
"Why, Fanny," said the father, "you have done wonders; you are more original than Cassy or Verry."
Her green eyes glowed; her aspect was so feline that I expected her hair to rise.
"Father's praise pleases you more than ours," Verry said.
"You never gave me any," she answered, marching out.
Father looked up at Verry, annoyed, but said nothing. We paid no attention to Fanny's call afterward; but she continued her labors, which proved acceptable to him. Temperance told me, when she was with us for a week, that his overcoats, hats, umbrellas, and whips never had such care as Fanny gave them. He omitted from this time to ask us if we knew where his belongings were, but went to Fanny; and I noticed that he required much attendance.
Temperance, who had arrived in the thick of the company, as she termed it, was sorry to go back to Abram. He _was_ a good man, she said; but it was a dreadful thing for a woman to lose her liberty, especially when liberty brought so much idle time. "Why, girls, I have quilted and darned up every rag in the house. He _will_ do half the housework himself; he is an everlasting Betty." She was cheerful, however, and helped Hepsey, as well as the rest of us.
The guests did not encroach on my time, but it was a relief to have them gone and the house our own once more.
I went to Milford again, almost daily, to feast my eyes on the bleak, flat, gray landscape. The desolation of winter sustains our frail hopes. Nature is kindest then; she does not taunt us with fruition. It is the luxury of summer which tantalizes--her long, brilliant, blossoming days, her dewy, radiant nights.
Entering the house one March evening, when it was unusually still, I had reached the front hall, when masculine tones struck my ears. I opened the parlor door softly, and saw Ben Somers in an easy-chair, basking before a glowing fire, his luminous face set toward Veronica, who was near him, holding a small screen between her and the fire. "She is always ready," I thought, contemplating her as I would a picture. Her ruby-colored merino dress absorbed the light; she was a mass of deep red, except her face and hair, above which her silver crescent comb shone. Her slender feet were tapping the rug. She wore boots the color of her dress; Ben was looking at them. Mother was there, and in the background Aunt Merce and Fanny figured. I pushed the door wide; as the stream of cold air reached them, they looked toward it, and cried--"Cassandra!" Ben started up with extended hands.
"I went as far as Cape Horn only, but I bought you the idol and lots of things I promised from a passing ship. I have been home a week, and I am _here_. Are you glad? Can I stay?"
"Yes, yes," chorused the company, and I was too busy trying to get off my gloves to speak. Father came in, and welcomed him with warmth. Fanny ran out for a lamp; when she brought it, Veronica changed the position of her screen, and held it close to her face.
"Did you have a cold ride, Locke?" asked mother, gazing into the fire with that expression of satisfaction we have when somebody beside ourselves has been exposed to hardships. It is the same principle entertained by those who depend upon and enjoy seeing criminals hung.
Meanwhile my bonnet-strings got in a knot, which Fanny saw, and was about to apply scissors, when Aunt Merce, unable to bear the sacrifice, interfered and untied them, all present so interested in the operation that conversation was suspended. Presently Aunt Merce was called out, and was shortly followed by mother and Fanny. Ben stood before me; his eyes, darting sharp rays, pierced me through; they rested on the thread-like scars which marked my cheek, and which were more visible from the effect of cold.
"Tattooed still," I said in a low voice, pointing to them.
"I see"--a sorrowful look crossed his face; he took my hand and kissed it. Veronica, who had dropped the screen, met my glance toward her with one perfectly impassive. As they watched me, I saw myself as they did. A tall girl in gray, whose deep, controlled voice vibrated in their ears, like the far-off sounds we hear at night from woods or the sea, whose face was ineffaceably marked, whose air impressed with a sense of mystery. I think both would have annihilated my personality if possible, for the sake of comprehending me, for both loved me in their way.
"What are you reading, father?" asked Veronica suddenly.
"To-day's letters, and I must be off for Boston; would you like to go?"
"My sister Adelaide has sent for you, Cassandra, to visit us," said Ben, "and will you go too, Veronica?"
"Thanks, I must decline. If Cass should go--and she will--I may go to Boston."
He looked at her curiously. "It would not be pleasant for you to attempt Belem. I hate it, but I feel a fate-impelling power in regard to Cassandra; I want her there."
"May I go then?" I asked.
"Certainly," father replied.
"Please come out to supper," called Fanny. "We have something particular for you, Mr. Morgeson."
We saw mother at the table, a book in her hand. She was finishing a chapter in "The Hour and the Man." Aunt Merce stood eyeing the dishes with the aspect of a judge. As father took his seat, near Veronica, Fanny, according to habit, stood behind it. With the most _degagé_ air, Ben suffered nothing to escape him, and I never forgot the picture of that moment.
We talked of Helen's visit--a subject that could be commented on freely. Veronica told Ben Helen's opinion of him; he reddened slightly, and said that such a sage could not be contradicted. When father remarked that the opinions of women were whimsical, Fanny gave an audible sniff, which made Ben smile.
Soon after tea I met Veronica in the hall, with a note in her hand. She stopped and hesitatingly said that she was going to send for Temperance; she wanted her while Mr. Somers stayed.
"Your forethought astonishes me."
"She is a comfort always to me."
"Do you stand in especial need of a comforter?"
She looked puzzled, laughed, and left me.
Temperance arrived that evening, in time to administer a scolding to Fanny.
"That girl needs looking after," she said. "She is as sharp as a needle. She met me in the yard and told me that a man fit for a nobleman had come on a visit. 'It may be for Cass,' says she, 'and it may not be. I have my doubts.' Did you ever?" concluded Temperance, counting the knives. "There's one missing. By jingo! it has been thrown to the pigs, I'll bet."
When Ben made a show of going, we asked him to stay longer. He said "Yes," so cordially, that we laughed. But it hurt me to see that he had forgotten all about my going to Belem. "I like Surrey so much," he said, "and you all, I have a fancy that I am in the Hebrides, in Magnus Troil's dwelling; it is so wild here, so _naïve_. The unadulterated taste of sea-spray is most beautiful."
"We will have Cass for Norna," said Verry; "but, by the way, it is you that must be of the fitful head; have you forgotten that she is going to Belem soon?"
"I shall remember Belem in good time; no fear of my forgetting that ace--ancient spot. At least I may wait till your father goes to Boston, and we can make a party. You will be ready, Cassandra? I wrote Adelaide yesterday that you were coming, and mother will expect you."
It often stormed during his visit. We had driving rains, and a gale from the southeast, oceanward, which made our sea dark and miry, even after the storm had ceased and patches of blue sky were visible.
Our rendezvous was in the parlor, which, from the way in which Ben knocked about the furniture, cushions, and books, assumed an air which somehow subdued Veronica's love for order; she played for him, or they read together, and sometimes talked; he taught her chess, and then they quarreled. One day--a long one to me,--they were so much absorbed in each other, I did not seek them till dusk.
"Come and sing to me," called Ben.
"So you remember that I do sing?"
"Sing; there is a spell in this weird twilight; sing, or I go out on the rocks to break it."
He dropped the window curtains and sat by me at the piano, and I sang: "I feel the breath of the summer night, Aromatic fire; The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir With tender desire.
"If I were alone, I could not sing, Praises to thee; O night! unveil the beautiful soul That awaiteth me!"
"A foolish song," said Veronica, pulling her hair across her face. No reply. She glided to the flower-basket, broke a rosebud from its stalk, and mutely offered it to him. Whether he took it, I know not; but he rose up from beside me, like a dark cloud, and my eyes followed him.
"Come Veronica," he whispered, "give me yourself. I love you, Veronica."
He sank down before her; she clasped her hands round his head, and kissed his hair.
"I know it," she said, in a clear voice.
I shut the door softly, thinking of the Wandering Jew, went upstairs, humming a little air between my teeth, and came down again into the dining-room, which was in a blaze of light.
"What preserves are these, Temperance?" I asked, going to the table. "Some of Abram's quinces?"
"Best you ever tasted, since you were born."
"Call Mr. Somers, Fanny," said mother. "Is Verry in the parlor, too?"
"I'll call them," I said; "I have left my handkerchief there."
"Is anything else of yours there?" said Fanny, close to my ear.
Ben had pushed back the curtain, and was staring into the darkness; Veronica was walking to and fro on the rug.
"Haven't I a great musical talent?" I inquired.
"Am I happy?" she asked, coming toward me.
Ben turned to speak, but Veronica put her hand over his mouth, and said: "Why should I be 'hushed,' my darling?"
"Come to supper, and be sensible," I urged.
The light revealed a new expression in Verry's face--an unsettled, dispossessed look; her brows were knitted, yet she smiled over and over again, while she seemed hardly aware that she was eating like an ordinary mortal. The imp Fanny tried experiments with her, by offering the same dishes repeatedly, till her plate was piled high with food she did not taste.
The next day was clear, and mild with spring. Ben and I started for a walk on the shore. We were half-way to the lighthouse before he asked why it was that Veronica would not come with us.
"She never walks by the shore; she detests the sea."
"Is it so? I did not know that."
"Do you mind that you know few of her tastes or habits? I speak of this as a general truth."
"I am a spectacle to you, I suppose. But this sea charms me; I shall live by it, and build a house with all the windows and doors toward it."
"Not if you mean to have Verry in it."
"I do mean to have her in it. She shall like it. Are you willing to have me for a brother? Will you go to Belem, and help break the ice? _She_ could never go," and he began to skip pebbles in the water.
"I will take you for a brother gladly. You are a fool--not for loving her, but all men are fools when in love, they are so besotted with themselves. But I am afraid of one fault in you."
"Yes," he answered hurriedly, "don't I know? On my honor, I have tried; why not leave me to God? Didn't you leave yourself that way once?"
"Oh, you are cruel."
"Pardon me, dear Cass. I _must_ do well now, surely. Will you believe in me? Oh, do you not know the strength, the power, that comes to us in the stress of passion and duty?"
"This is from _you_, Ben."
"Never mind; I knew I wanted to marry her, when I saw her. I love her passionately," and he threw a pebble in the water farther than he had yet; "but she is so pure, so delicate, that when I approach her, in spite of my besottedness, my love grows lambent. That's not like me, you know," with great vehemence. "Will she never understand me?"
His face darkened, and he looked so strangely intent into my eyes that I was obliged to turn away; he disturbed me.
"Veronica probably will not understand you, but you must manage for yourself. As you have discerned, she and I are far apart. She is pure, noble, beautiful, and peculiar. I will have no voice between you."
"You must, you do. We shall hear it if you do not speak. You have a great power, tall enchantress."
"Certainly. What a powerful life is mine!"
"You come to these shores often. Are you not different beside them? This colorless picture before us--these vague spaces of sea and land--the motion of the one--the stillness of the other--have you no sense that you have a powerful spirit?"
"Is it power? It is pain."
"Your gold has not been refined then."
"Yes, I confess I have a sense of power; but it is not a spiritual sense."
"Let us go back," he said abruptly.
We mused by our footprints in the wet sand, as we passed them. We were told when we reached home that Veronica had gone on some expedition with Fanny. She did not return till time for supper, looking elfish, and behaving whimsically, as if she had received instructions accordingly. I fancied that the expression Ben regarded her with might be the Bellevue Pickersgill expression, it was so different from any I had seen. There was a haughty curiosity in his face; as she passed near him, he looked into her eyes, and saw the strange cast which made their sight so far off.
"Veronica, where are you?" he asked.
The tone of his voice attracted mother's regards; an intelligent glance was exchanged, and then her eyes sought mine. "It is not as you thought, mamma," I telegraphed. But Verry, not bringing her eyes back into the world, merely said, "I am here, am I not?" and went to shut herself up in her room. I found her there, looking through the wicket.
"The buds are beginning to swell," she said. "I should hear small voices breaking out from the earth. I grow happy every day now."
"Because the earth will be green again?" I asked, in a coaxing voice.
She shut the wicket, and, looking in my face, said, "I will go down immediately." For some reason the tears came into my eyes, which she, taking up the candle, saw. "I am going to play," she said hurriedly, "come." She ran down before me, but turning, by the foot of the stairs, she pointed to the parlor door, and said, "Is he my husband?"
"Answer for yourself. Go in, in God's name."
Ben was chatting with father over the fire; he stretched out his hand to her, with so firm and assured an air, and looked so noble, that I felt a pang of admiration for him. She laid her hand in his a moment, passed on to the piano, and began to play divinely, drawing him to her side. Father peeled and twisted his cigar, as he contemplated them with a thoughtful countenance.
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When we went to Boston we went to a new hotel, as Ben had advised, deserting the old Bromfield for the Tremont. It was dusk when we arrived, and tea was served immediately, in a large room full of somber mahogany furniture. Its atmosphere oppressed Veronica, who ate her supper in silence.
"Charles Dickens is here, sir," said the waiter, who knew Ben. "Two models of the Curiosity Shop have just gone upstairs, sir. His room is right over here, sir."
Veronica looked adoringly at the ceiling.
"Then," said Ben, "our hunters are up from Belem. Anybody in from Belem, John?"
"Oh yes, sir, every day."
"I'll look them up," he said to us; but he returned soon, and begged us not to look at Dickens, if we had a chance.
Veronica, with a sigh, gave him up, and lost a chance of being immortalized with that perpetual and imperturbable beefsteak, covered with "the blackest of all possible pepper," which was daily served to him.
Father being out in pursuit of a cigar, Ben asked Veronica what she would do while he was in Belem.
"Walk round this lion-clawed table."
"I shall be gone from you."
"Alas!"
"Are we to part this way?"
"Father," she cried, as he entered with a theater bill, "had I better marry this friend of Cassy's?"
"Have you the courage? Do you know each other?"
"Having known Cassandra so long, sir," began Ben, but was interrupted by Veronica's exclaiming, "We do not know each other at all. What is the use of making _that_ futile attempt? I am over eighteen, and do you know me, father?"
"If I do not, it is because you have no shadow."
"Shall I, then?" giving Ben a delicious smile. "I promise."
"I promise, too, Veronica," heaven dawning in his eyes.
"We will see about it," said father. "Now who will go to the theater?"
We declined, but Ben signified his willingness to accompany him.
We took the first morning train, so that father could return before evening, and ran through in the course of an hour the wooden suburbs of Belem, bordered by an ancient marsh, from which the sea had long retired. Taking a cab, we turned into Norfolk Street, at the head of which, Ben said, a mile distant, was his father's house. It was not a cheerful street, and when we stopped before an immense square, three-storied house, it looked still more gloomy! There was a gate on one side, with white wooden urns on the posts, that shut off a paved courtway. On each side of the street were houses of the same pattern, with the same gates. Down the paved court of the opposite house a coach pulled by two fat horses clattered, and as the coach turned we saw two old ladies inside, highly dressed, bowing and smiling at Ben.
"The Miss Hiticutts--hundred thousand apiece."
"Hundred thousand apiece," I echoed in an anguish of admiration, which made my father laugh and Ben scowl. A servant in a linen jacket opened the door. "Is it yourself, Mr. Ben?"
"Open the parlor door, Murph. Where's my mother and my sister?"
"Miss Somers is taking her exercise, sir, and Mrs. Somers is with the owld gentleman"; opening the door, with the performance of taking father's hat.
"Sit down, Cassandra. I'll look up somebody."
It was a bewildering matter where to go; the room, vast and dark, was a complete litter of tables and sofas. The tables were loaded with lamps, books, and knick-knacks of every description; the sofas were strewn with English and French magazines, novels, and papers. I went to the window, while father perched on the music stool.
My attention was diverted to a large dog in the court, chained to a post near a pump, where a man was giving water to a handsome bay horse, at the same time keeping his eye on an individual who stood on a stone block, dressed in a loose velvet coat, a white felt hat, and slippers down at the heel. He had a coach whip in his hand--the handsomest hand I ever saw, which he snapped at the dog, who growled with rage. I heard Ben's voice in remonstrance; then a lazy laugh from velvet coat, who gave the dog a cut which made him bound. Ben, untying him, was overwhelmed with caresses. "Down, you fool! Off, Rash!" he said. "Look there," pointing to the window where I stood. The gentleman with the coach whip looked at me also. The likeness to Ben turned my suspicion into certainty that they were brothers. His disposition, I thought, must be lovely, judging from the episode with "Rash." I turned away, almost running against a lady, who extended her fingers toward me with a quick little laugh, and said: "How de do? Where's Ben, to introduce us properly?"
"Here, mother," he said behind her, followed by the dog. "You were expecting Cassandra, my old chum; and Mr. Morgeson has come to leave her with us."
"Certainly. Rash, go out, dear. Mr. Morgeson, I am sorry to say," she spoke with more politeness, "that Mr. Somers is confined to his room with gout. May I take you up?"
"I have a short time to stay," looking at his watch and rising. "Do you consider the old school friendship between your son and Cassandra a sufficient reason for leaving her with you? To say nothing of the faint relationship which, we suppose, exists."
"Of course, very happy; Adelaide expects her," she said vaguely. I saw at once that she had never heard a word of our being relations. Ben had managed nicely in the affair of my invitation to Belem. But I desired to remain, in spite of Mrs. Somers's reception.
Mr. Somers was bolstered up in bed, in a flowered dressing gown, with a bottle of colchicum and a pile of Congressional reports on a stand beside him. His urbanity was extreme; it was evident that the gout was not allowed to interfere with his deportment, though the joints of his hands were twisted and knotty. He expatiated upon Ben's long ungratified wish for a visit from me, and thanked father for complying with it. He mentioned the memento of the miniature, and gave every particular of Locke Morgeson's early marriage, explaining the exact shade of consanguinity--a faint one. I glanced at Mrs. Somers, who sat remote, in the act of inspecting me, with an eye askance, which I afterward found was her mode of looking at those whom she doubted or disliked; it changed its expression, as it met mine, into one of haughty wonder, that said there could be no tie of blood between us. She irritated and embarrassed me. I tried to think of something to say, and uttered a few words, which were uncommonly trivial and awkward. Mr. Somers touched on politics. The door opened, and Ben's brother entered, with downcast eyes. Advancing to the footboard of the bed, he leaned his chin on its edge, looked at his father, and in a remarkably clear, ringing voice, said: "The check."
Mr. Somers coughed behind his hand. "To-morrow will do, Desmond."
"To-day will do."
"Desmond," said Ben in a low voice, "you do not see Mr. Morgeson and Miss Morgeson. My brother, Cassandra."
"Beg pardon, good-morning"; and he pulled off his hat with an air of grace which became him, though it was very indifferent. Mrs. Somers in a soft voice said: "Ring, Des, dear, will you?" He warned her with a satirical smile, and gave such a pull at the bell-rope that it came down. Her florid face flushed a deeper red, but he had gone. Father looked at his watch, and got up with alacrity.
"You are to dine with us, at least, Mr. Morgeson."
"I must return to Boston on account of my daughter, who is there alone."
"Have you been remiss, Ben," said his father affectionately, "in not bringing her also?"
"She would not come, of course, father."
A tall, black-haired girl of twenty-five rushed in.
"Why, Ben," she said, "you were not expected. And this is Miss Morgeson," shaking hands with me. "You will spend a month, won't you?" She put her chin in her hand, and scanned me with a cool deliberateness. "Pa, do you think she is like Caroline Bingham?"
"Yes, so she is; but fairer. She is a great belle," nodding to me.
"Do you _really_ think she looks like her, Somers?" said Mrs. Somers, in a tone of denial.
"Certainly, but handsomer," Adelaide replied for him, without looking at her mother.
"Would you like to go to your room?" she asked. "What a pretty dress this is!" taking hold of the sleeve, her chin in her hand still. "We will have some walks; Belem is nice for walking. Pa, how do you feel now?"
She allowed me to go downstairs with father, without following, and sent Murphy in with wine and biscuit. I put my arms round his neck and kissed him, for I had a lonesome feeling, which I could not define at the last moment.
"You will not stay long," he said; "there is something oppressive in this atmosphere."
"Something artificial, is it? It must be the blood of the Bellevue Pickersgills that thickens the air."
"Now," said Ben, with father's hat in his hand, "the time is up."
Adelaide was at the door to take courteous leave of him, and Mrs. Somers bowed from the top of the stairs, revealing a pair of large ankles, whose base rested in a pair of shabby, pudgy slippers. Adelaide then took me to my room, telling me not to change my dress, but to come down soon, for dinner was ready. Hearing a bell, I hurried down to the parlor which we were in before, and waited for directions respecting the dinner. Adelaide came presently. "We are dining; come and sit next me," offering her arm. Mrs. Somers, Desmond, and a girl of fifteen were at the table. The latter had just come from school, I concluded, as a satchel of books hung at her chair. Murphy was removing the soup, and I derived the impression that I had been forgotten. While taking mine, they vaguely stared about till Murphy brought in the roast mutton, except Adelaide, who rubbed her teeth with a dry crust, making a feint of eating it. Desmond kept the decanter, occasionally swallowing a glassful.
"What wine is that, Murphy?" Mrs. Somers asked. He hesitatingly answered, "I think it is the Juno, mum."
"You stole the key from pa's room, Des," said the girl. He shook the carving-knife at her, at which gesture she said "Pooh!" and applied herself to the roast mutton with avidity. They all ate largely, especially the girl, whose wide mouth was filled with splendid teeth. Mrs. Somers made a motion with her glass for Murphy to bring her the wine, and pouring a teaspoonful, held it to her mouth, as if she were practicing drinking healths. Her hands were beautiful, too; they all had handsome hands, whose movements were graceful and expressive. When Ben arrived, Murphy set the dishes before him, and Adelaide began to talk in a lively, brilliant way. He did not ask for wine, but I saw him look toward it and Desmond. The decanter was empty. After the dessert, Mrs. Somers arose and we followed; but she soon left us, and we went to the parlor. The girl, taking a seat beside me, said: "My name is Ann Somers. I am never introduced; Adder, my sister, is in the way, you know. I dare say Ben never spoke of me to you. I am never spoken of, am never noticed. I have never had new dresses; yet pa is my friend, the dear soul."
Adelaide looked upon her with the same superb indifference with which she regarded her mother and Desmond.
"Would you like to go to your room?" she asked again. "You are too tired to take a walk, perhaps?"
"Lord!" said Ann, "do let her do as she likes. Adder, don't be too disagreeable."
I picked up my bonnet, which she took from me, and put on the top of her head as we went upstairs.
"Murph must bring up your trunk," said Ann, opening the closet. "But there is no space to hang anything; the great Mogul's wardrobe stops the way."
My chamber was stately in size and appointments. The afternoon sun shone in, where a shutter was open, behind the dull red curtains, and illuminated the portrait of a nimble old lady in a scarlet cloak, which hung near the gigantic curtained bed, over a vast chair, covered with faded green damask.
"Grandmother Pickersgill," said Ann, who saw me observing the picture. Adelaide contemplated it also. "It was painted by Copley," she said, "Lord Lyndhurst afterwards. Grandfather entertained him, and he went to one of grandmother's parties; he complimented her on her beauty. But you see that she has not a handsome hand. Ours is the Pickersgill hand," and she spread her fingers like a fan. "She was a regular old screw," continued Ann, "and used to have mother's underclothes tucked to last for ever; she was a beast to servants, too."
My trunk was brought in, which I unlocked and unpacked, while Adelaide opened a drawer in a great bureau.
"Oh, you know it is full of Marm's fineries," said Ann, in a confidential tone; "I'll ring for Hannah." Adelaide busied herself in throwing the contents of the drawers on the floor. "There's her ball dresses," commented Ann, as a pink satin, trimmed with magnificent lace, tumbled out. "Old Carew brought the lace over for her."
"Bring a basket, Hannah, and take these away somewhere, to some other closet of Mrs. Somers's."
"That gold fringe, do you remember, Adder? She looked like an elephant with his howdah on when she wore it."
Her impertinence inspired Adelaide, who joined her in a flow of vituperative wit at the expense of their mother and other relatives, incidentally brought in. Instead of being aghast, I enjoyed it, and was feverish with a desire to be as brilliant, for my vocabulary was deficient and my sense of inferiority was active during the whole of my visit in Belem. I blushed often, smiled foolishly, and was afflicted with a general apprehension in regard to _gaucherie_.
I changed my traveling dress, as they were not inclined to leave me, with anxiety, for I was weak enough to wish to make an impression with my elegant bearing and appointments. Being so anatomized, I was oppressed with an indefinite discouragement. Their stealthy, sharp, selfish scrutiny brought out my failures. My dress seemed ill-made; my hair unbecomingly dressed; my best collar and ribbon, which I put on, were nothing to the lace I had just seen falling on the floor. When we descended it was twilight. Ann said she must study, and left us by the parlor fire. Adelaide lighted a candle, and took a novel, which she read reclining on a sofa. Reclining on sofas, I discovered, was a family trait, though they were all in a state of the most robust health, with the exception of Mr. Somers. I walked up and down the rooms. "They were fine once," said Ben, who appeared from a dark corner, "but faded now. Mother never changes anything if she can help it. She is a terrible aristocrat," he continued, in a low voice, "fixed in the ideas imbedded in the Belem institutions, which only move backward. We laugh, though, at everybody's claims but our own. You despised me for mentioning the Hiticutts' income; it was the atmosphere."
"It amuses me to be here."
"Of course; but stir up Adelaide, she is genuine; has fine sense, and half despises her life; but she knows no other, and is proud."
"Let's go and find tea," she said, yawning, dropping her book. "Why don't that lazy Murph light the lamp? I wish pa was down to regulate affairs." No one was at the tea-table but Mrs. Somers.
"Ben is very polite, don't you think so?" she said with her peculiar laugh, which made my flesh creep, as he pulled up a chair for me. Her voice made me dizzy, but I smiled. Ben was not the same in Belem, I saw at once, and no longer wondered at its influence, or at the vacillating nature of his plans and pursuits. Mrs. Somers gave me some tea from a spider-shaped silver tea-pot, which was related to a spider-shaped cream-jug and a spider-shaped sugar-dish. The polished surface of the mahogany table reflected a pair of tall silver candlesticks, and the plates, being of warped blue and white Chinese ware, joggled and clattered when we touched them. The tea was delicious; I said so, but Mrs. Somers deigned no answer. We were regaled with spread bread and butter and baked apples. Adelaide ate six.
"We do not have your Surrey suppers," Ben remarked.
"How should you know?" his mother asked. Ben's eyes looked violent and he bit his lips. Adelaide commenced speaking before her mother had finished her question, as if she only needed the spur of her voice to be lively and agreeable, _per contra_.
"Hepburn must ask us to tea. Her jam and her gossip are wonderful. Aunt Tucker might ask us too, with housekeeper Beck's permission. I like tea fights with the old Hindoos. They like us too, Ben; we are the children of Hindoos also--superior to the rest of the world. There will be a party or two for this young person."
"Parties be hanged!" he said. "Then we must have a rout here, and I hate 'em."
"But we owe an entertainment," said Mrs. Somers. "I have been thinking of giving one as soon as Mr. Somers gets out."
"I have no such idea," said Adelaide, with her back toward her mother. "We shall have no party until some one has been given to our young friend, Ben."
Ben and I visited his father, who asked questions relative to the temperature, the water, and the dietetic qualities of Surrey. He was affable, but there was no nearness in his affability. He skated on the ice of appearances, and that was his vocation in his family. He fulfilled it well, but it was a strain sometimes. His family broke the ice now and then, which must have made him plunge into the depths of reality. I learned to respect his courage, bad as his cause was. Marrying Bellevue Pickersgill for her money, he married his master, and was endowed only with the privilege of settling her taxes. Simon Pickersgill, her father, tied up the main part of his money for his grandchildren. It was to be divided among them when the youngest son should arrive at the age of twenty-one--an event which took place, I supposed, while Ben was on his way to India. Desmond and an older son, who resided anywhere except at home, made havoc with the income. As the principal prospectively was theirs, or nearly the whole of it, why should they not dispose of that?
At last Mr. Somers looked at his watch, a gentle reminder that it was time for us to withdraw. Adelaide was still in the parlor, lying on her favorite sofa contemplating the ceiling. I asked permission to retire, which she granted without removing her regards. In spite of my sound sleep that night, I was started from it by the wail of a young child. The strangeness of the chamber, and the continued crying, which I could not locate, kept me awake at intervals till dawn peeped through the curtains.
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A few days after my arrival, some friends dined with Mrs. Somers. The daughters of a senator, as Ann informed me, and an ex-governor, or I should not have known this fact, for I was not introduced. The dinner was elaborate, and Desmond did the honors. With the walnuts one of the ladies asked for the baby.
Mrs. Somers made a sign to Desmond, who pulled the bell-rope--mildly this time. An elderly woman instantly appeared with a child a few months old, puny and anxious-looking. Mrs. Somers took it from her, and placed it on the table; it tottered and nodded to the chirrups of the guests. Ben, from the opposite side of the table, addressed me by a look, which enlightened me. His voyage to India was useless, as the property would stand for twenty-one years more, lacking some months, unless Providence interposed. Adelaide was oblivious of the child, but Desmond thumped his glass on the mahogany to attract it, for its energies were absorbed in swallowing its fists and fretfully crying. When Murphy announced coffee in the parlor, the nurse took it away; and after coffee and sponge cake were served the visitors drove off. That afternoon some friends of Adelaide called, to whom she introduced me as "cousin." She gave graphic descriptions of them, after their departure. One had achieved greatness by spending her winters in Washington, and contracting a friendship with John C. Calhoun. Another was an artist who had painted an ideal head of her ancestor, Sir Roger de Roger, not he who had arrived some years ago as a weaver from Glasgow, but the one who had remained on the family estate. A third reviewed books and collected autographs.
The next afternoon one of the Miss Hiticutts from across the way came, in a splendid camel's-hair shawl and a shabby dress. "How _is_ Mr. Somers?" she asked. "He is such a martyr."
Here Mrs. Somers entered. "My dear Bellevue, you are worn out with your devotion to him; when have you taken the air?" She did not wait for a reply, but addressed Adelaide with, "This is your young friend, and where is my favorite, Mr. Ben, and little Miss Ann? Have you anything new? I went down to Harris yesterday to tell her she must sweep away her old trash of a circulating library, and begin with the New Regime of Novels, which threatens to overwhelm us."
Adelaide talked slowly at first, and then soared into a region where I had never seen a woman--an intellectual one. Miss Hiticutt followed her, and I experienced a new pleasure. Mrs. Somers was silent, but listened with respect to Miss Hiticutt, for she was of the real Belem azure in blood as well as in brain; besides, she was rich, and would never marry. It was a Pickersgill hallucination to be attentive to people who had legacies in their power. Mrs. Somers had a bequested fortune already in hair rings and silver ware. While appearing to listen to Adelaide, her eyes wandered over me with speculation askant in them. Adelaide was so full of _esprit_ that I was again smitten with my inferiority, and from this time I felt a respect for her, which never declined, although she married an Englishman, who, too choleric to live in America, took her to Florence, where they settled with their own towels and silver, and are likely to remain, for her heart is too narrow to comprise any further interest in Belem.
Miss Hiticutt chatted herself out, giving us an invitation to tea, for any day, including Ben and Miss Ann, who had not been visible since breakfast.
April rains kept us indoors for several days. Ann refused to go to school. She must have a holiday; besides, pa needed her; she alone could take care of him, after all. Her mother said that she must go.
"Who can make me, mum?"
Desmond ordered the coach for her. When it was ready he put her in it, seated himself beside her, with provoking nonchalance, and carried her to school. Murphy, with his velvet-banded hat, left her satchel at the door, with a ceremonious air, which made Ann slap his cheek and call him an old grimalkin. But she was obliged to walk home in the rain, after waiting an hour for him to come back.
Mr. Somers hobbled about his room, with the help of his cane, and said that he should be out soon, and requested Adelaide to put in order some book-shelves that were in the third story, for he wanted to read without confusion. We went there together, and sorted some odd volumes; piles of Unitarian sermons, bound magazines, political works, and a heap of histories. Ben found a seat on a bunch of books, pleased to see us together.
"This is a horrid hole," he said. "I have not been up in this floor for ages. How do the shelves look?"
A hiccough near us caused us to look toward the door.
"It is only Des, in his usual afternoon trim," said Ben.
She nodded, as he pushed open the door, thrusting in his head. "What the hell are you doing here? This region is sacred to Chaos and old Night," striking the panels, first one and then the other, with the tassels of his dressing-gown. No one answered him. Adelaide counted a row of books, and Ben whistled.
"Damn you, Ben," he said, in a languid voice: "you never seem bored. Curse you all. I hate ye, especially that she-Calmuck yonder--that Siberian-steppe-natured, malachite-hearted girl, our sister."
"Oh come away, Mr. Desmond. What are the poor things doing that you should harry them?" and the woman who had brought in the baby the day of the dinner laid her hands on him and pulled him away.
"Sarah will never give him up," said Ben.
"She swears there is good in him. I think he is a wretch," turning over the leaves of a book with her beautiful hand, such a hand as I had just seen beating the door--such a hand as clasped its fellow in Ben's hair. Adelaide was not embarrassed at my presence. She neither sought nor avoided my look. But Ben said, "You are thinking."
"Is she?" And Adelaide raised her eyes.
"You are all so much alike," I said.
"You are right," she answered seriously. "Our grandfather--" "Confound him!" broke in Ben. "I wish he had never been born. Are you proud, Addie, of being like the Pickersgills? But I know you are. Remember that the part of us which is Pickersgill hates its like. I am off; I am going to walk."
Adelaide coolly said, after he had gone, that he was very visionary, predicting changes that could not be, and determined to bring them about.
"Why did he bring me here?" I asked, as if I were asking in a dream.
"Ben's hospitality is genuine. He is like pa. Besides, you are related to us--on the Somers side, and are the first visitor we ever saw, outside of mother's connection. Do you not know, too, that Ben's friendship is very sincere--very strong?"
"I begin to comprehend the Pickersgills," I remarked as if in a dream. "How words with any meaning glance off, when addressed to them. How impossible it is to return the impression they give. How incapable they are of appreciating what they cannot appropriate to the use of their idiosyncrasies."
She gazed at me, as if she heard an abstract subject discussed, with a slight interest in her black eyes.
"Are they vicious to the death?" I went on with this dream. "It is not fair--their overpowering personality--it is not fair to others. It overpowers me, though I know it is _all_ fallacious."
"I am ignorant of Ethical Philosophy."
"Miss Somers," said Murphy, knocking, "if Major Millard is below?"
"I am coming."
She smiled when she looked at me again. I stared at her with a singular feeling. Had I touched her, or had I made a fool of myself?
"There is some nice gingerbread in the closet. Sha'n't I get you a piece?"
I fell out of my dream.
"Major Millard is an old beau. Come down and captivate him. He likes fair women."
Declining the gingerbread, I accepted the Major. He was an old gentleman, in a good deal of highly starched linen, amusing himself by teazing Ann, who liked it, and paid him in impertinence. Adelaide played chess with him. Desmond sauntered in about nine, threw himself into a chair behind the sofa where I sat, and swung his arm over the back. The chessboard was put aside, and a gossipy conversation was started, which included Mrs. Somers, who was on a sofa across the room, but he did not join in it. I watched Mrs. Somers, as her fingers moved with her Berlin knitting, feeling more composed and settled as to my identity, in spite of my late outburst, than I had felt at any moment since my arrival in Belem. They were laughing at a funny description, which Ann was giving of a meeting she had witnessed between Miss Hiticutt and Mr. Pearsall, a gentleman lately arrived from China, after a twenty years' residence, with several lacs of rupees. Her delineation of Miss Hiticutt, who attempted to appear as she had twenty years before, was excellent. Ben, who was rolling and unrolling his mother's yarn, laughed till the tears ran, but Major Millard looked uneasy, as if he expected to be served _à-la_-Hiticutt by the satirical Ann after his departure. Before the laughter subsided, I heard a low voice at my ear, and felt a slight touch from the tip of a finger on my cheek.
"How came those scars?"
I brushed my cheek with my handkerchief, and answered, "I got them in battle."
He left his chair, and walked slowly through the room into the dark front parlor. Major Millard took leave, and was followed by Mrs. Somers and Ann, neither of whom returned. As Ben stretched himself on his sofa with an air of relief, Desmond emerged from the dark and stood behind him, leaning against a column, with his hands in his coat pockets and his eyes searchingly fixed upon me. Ben, turning his head in my direction, sprang up so suddenly that I started; but Desmond's eyes did not move till Ben confronted him; then he gave him a haughty smile, and begged him to take his repose again.
I went to the piano and ran my fingers over the keys.
"Do you play? Can you sing?" asked Adelaide, rousing herself.
"Yes."
"Do sing. I never talk music; but I like it."
"Some old song," said Ben.
Singing "Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine," I became conscious that Desmond was near me. With a perfectly pure voice he joined in the song: "The thirst that from the soul doth rise, Doth ask a drink divine."
As the tones of his voice floated through the room, I was where I saw the white sea-birds flashing between the blue deeps of our summer sea and sky, and the dark rocks that rose and dipped in the murmuring waves.
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One pleasant afternoon Adelaide and I started on a walk. We must go through the crooked length of Norfolk Street, till we reached the outskirts of Belem, and its low fields not yet green; that was the fashionable promenade, she said. After the two o'clock dinner, Belem walked. All her acquaintances seemed to be in the street, so many bows were given and returned with ceremony. Nothing familiar was attempted, nothing beyond the courtliness of an artificial smile.
Returning, we met Desmond with a lady, and a series of bows took place. Desmond held his hat in his hand till we had passed; his expression varied so much from what it was when I saw him last, at the breakfast table, he being in a desperate humor then, that it served me for mental comment for some minutes.
"That is Miss Brewster," said Adelaide. "She is an heiress, and fancies Desmond's attentions: she will not marry him, though."
"Is every woman in Belem an heiress?"
"Those we talk about are, and every man is a fortune-hunter. Money marries money; those who have none do not marry. Those who wait hope. But the great fortunes of Belem are divided; the race of millionaires is decaying."
"Is that Ann yonder?"
"I think so, from that bent bonnet."
It proved to be Ann, who went by us with the universal bow and grimace, sacrificing to the public spirit with her fine manners. She turned soon, however, and overtook us, proposing to make a detour to Drummond Street, where an intimate family friend, "Old Hepburn," lived, so that the prospect of our going to tea with her might be made probable by her catching a passing glimpse of us; at this time she must be at the window with her Voltaire, or her Rousseau. The proposition was accepted, and we soon came near the house, which stood behind a row of large trees, and looked very dismal, with three-fourths of its windows barred with board shutters.
"Walk slow," Ann entreated. "I see her blinking at us. She has not shed her satin pelisse yet."
Before we got beyond it a dirty little girl came out of the gate, in a pair of huge shoes and a canvas apron, which covered her, to call us back. Mrs. Hepburn had seen us, and wished us to come in, wanting to know who Miss Adelaide had with her, and to talk with her. She ran back, reappearing again at the door, out of breath, and minus a shoe. As we entered a small parlor, an old lady in a black dress, with a deep cape, held out her withered hand, without rising from her straight-backed arm-chair, smiling at us, but shaking her head furiously at the small girl, who lingered in the door.
"Mari, Mari," she called, but no Mari came, and the small girl took our shawls, for Mrs. Hepburn said we must stay, now that she had inveigled us inside her doors. Ann mimicked her at her back, but to her face behaved servilely. The name of Morgeson belonged to the early historical time of New England, Mrs. Hepburn informed me. I never knew it; but bowed, as if not ignorant. Old Mari must be consulted respecting the sweetmeats, and she went after her.
"What an old mouser it is!" said Ann. "What unexpected ways she has! She scours Belem in her velvet shoes, to find out everybody's history. Don't you smell buttered toast?"
"Your father is getting the best of the gout," said Mrs. Hepburn, returning. "How is Desmond? He may be the wickedest of you all, but I like him the best. I shall not throw away praise of him on you, Adelaide." And she looked at me.
"He bows well," I said.
"He resembles his mother, who was a great beauty. Mr. Somers was handsome, too. I was at a ball at Governor Flam's thirty years ago. Your mother was barely fifteen, then, Adelaide; she was just married, and opened the ball."
She examined me all the while, with a pair of small, round eyes, from which the color had faded, but which were capable of reading me.
Tea was served by candlelight, on a small table. Mrs. Hepburn kept her eyes on everything, talking volubly, and pulled the small, girl's ears, or pushed her by the shoulder, with faith that we were not observing her. The toast was well buttered, the sweetmeats were delicious, and the cake was heavenly, as Ann said. Mrs. Hepburn ate little, but told us a great deal about marriages in prospect and incomes which waxed or waned in consequence. When tea was over, she said to the small girl who removed the tea things, "On your life taste not of the cake or the sweetmeats; and bring me two sticks of wood, you huzzy." She arranged the sticks on a decaying fire, inside a high brass fender, pulled up a stand near the hearth, lighted two candles, and placed on it a pack of cards.
"Some one may come, so that we can play."
Meantime she dozed upright, walking, talking, and dozing again, like a crafty old parrot.
"She has a great deal of money saved," Ann whispered behind a book. "She is over seventy. Oh, she is opening her puss eyes!"
Adelaide mused, after her fashion, on the slippery hair-cloth sofa, looking at the dim fire, and I surveyed the room. Its aspect attracted me, though it was precise and stiff. An ugly Turkey carpet covered the floor; a sideboard was against the wall, with a pair of silver pitchers on it, and two tall vases, filled with artificial flowers, under glass shades. Old portraits hung over it. Upon one I fixed my attention.
"That is the portrait of Count Rumford," Mrs. Hepburn said.
"Can't we see the letters?" begged Ann. "And wont you show us your trinkets? It is three or four years since we looked them over."
"Yes," she answered, good-humoredly; "ring the bell."
An old woman answered it, to whom Mrs. Hepburn said, in a friendly voice, "The box in my desk." Adelaide and Ann said, "How do you do, Mari?" When she brought the box, Mrs. Hepburn unlocked it, and produced some yellow letters, which we looked over, picking out here and there bits of Parisian gossip, many, many years old. They were directed to Cavendish Hepburn, by his friend, the original of the portrait. But the letters were soon laid aside, and we examined the contents of the box. Old brooches, miniatures painted on ivory, silhouettes, hair rings, necklaces, ear-rings, chains, and finger-rings.
"Did you wear this?" asked Ann with a longing voice, slipping an immense sapphire ring on her forefinger.
"In Mr. Hepburn's day," she answered, taking up a small case, which she unfastened and gave me. It contained a peculiar pair of ear-rings, and a brooch of aqua-marina stones, in a setting perforated like a net.
"They suit you. Will you accept such an old-fashioned ornament? Put the rings in; here Ann, fasten them."
Ann glared at her in astonishment, and then at me, for the reason which had prompted so unexpected a gift.
"Is it possible that I am to have them? Why do you give them to me? They are beautiful," I replied.
"They came from Europe long ago," she said. "And they happen to suit you."
'Sabrina fair, Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.'"
"Those lines make me forgive Paradise Lost," said Adelaide.
"They are very long, these ear-rings," Ann remarked.
I put the brooch in the knot of ribbon I wore; Mrs. Hepburn joggled the white satin bows of her cap in approbation.
The knocker resounded. "There is our partner," she cried.
"It must be late, ma'am," said Adelaide; "and I suspect it is some one for us. You know we never venture on impromptu visits, except to you, and our people know where to send."
"Late or not, you shall stay for a game," she said, as Ben came in, hat in hand, declaring he had been scouting for us since dark. Mrs. Hepburn snuffed the candles, and rang the bell. The small girl, with a perturbed air, like one hurried out of a nap, brought in a waiter, which she placed on the sideboard.
"Get to bed," Mrs. Hepburn loudly whispered, looking over the waiter, and taking from it a silver porringer, she put it inside the fender, and then shuffled the cards.
"Now, Ann, you may sit beside me and learn."
"If it is whist, mum, I know it. I played every afternoon at Hampton last summer, and we spoiled a nice polished table, we scratched it so with our nails, picking up the cards."
"Young people do too much, nowadays."
I was in the shadow of the sideboard; Ben stood against it.
"When have you played whist, Cassandra?" he asked in a low voice. "Do you remember?"
"Is my name Cassandra?"
"Have you forgotten that, too?"
"I remember the rain."
"It is not October, yet."
"And the yellow leaves do not stick to the panes. Would you like to see Helen?"
"Come, play with me, Ben," called Mrs. Hepburn.
"Ann, try your skill," I entreated, "and let me off."
"She can try," Mrs. Hepburn said sharply. "Don't you like games? I should have said you were by nature a bold gamester." She dealt the cards rapidly, and was soon absorbed in the game, though she quarreled with Ann occasionally, and knocked over the candlestick once. Adelaide played heroically, and was praised, though I knew she hated play.
Two hours passed before we were released. The fire went out, the candles burnt low, and whatever the contents of the silver porringer, they had long been cold. When Mrs. Hepburn saw us determined to go, she sent us to the sideboard for some refreshment. "My caudle is cold," taking off the cover of the porringer. "Why, Mari, what is this?" she said, as the woman made a noiseless entrance with a bowl of hot caudle.
"I knew how it would be," she answered, putting it into the hands of her mistress.
"I am a desperate old rake, you mean, Mari. There, take your virtue off, you appall me."
She poured the caudle into small silver tumblers, and gave them to us. "The Bequest of a Friend" was engraved on them. Her fingers were like ice, and her head shook with fatigue; but her voice was sprightly and her smile bright. Ann ate a good deal of sponge cake, and omitted the caudle, but I drank mine to the memory of the donor of the cup.
"You know that sherry, Ben," and Mrs. Hepburn nodded him toward a decanter. He put his hand on it, and took it away. "None to-night," he said. Mari came with our shawls, and we hastened away, hearing her shoot the bolt of the door behind us. Ben drew my arm in his, and the girls walked rapidly before us. It was a white, hazy night, and the moon was wallowing in clouds.
"Let us walk off the flavor of Hep's cards," said Adelaide, "and go to Wolf's Point."
"Do you wish to go?" he asked me.
"Yes."
Ann skipped. A nocturnal excursion suited her exactly.
"You are not to have the toothache to-morrow, or pretend to be lame," said Adelaide.
"Not another hiss, Adder. _En avant! _" We passed down Norfolk Street, now dark and silent, and reached our house. A light was burning in a room in the third story, and a window was open. Desmond sat by it, his arms folded across his chest, smoking, and contemplating some object beyond our view. Ann derisively apostrophized him, under her breath, while Ben unlocked the court gate and went in after Rash, who came out quietly, and we proceeded. In looking behind me, I stumbled.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you afraid?"
"Yes."
"Of what?"
"The Prince of Darkness."
"The devil lives a little behind us."
"In you, too, then?"
"In Rash. Look at him; he is bigger than Faust's dog, jumps higher, and is blacker. You can't hear the least sound from him as he gambols with his familiar."
We left the last regular street on that side of the city, and entered a road, bordered by trees and bushes, which hid the country from us. We crept through a gap in it, crossed two or three spongy fields, and ascended a hill, reaching an abrupt edge of the rocks, over whose earthy crest we walked. Below it I saw a strip of the sea, hemmed in on all sides, for the light was too vague for me to see its narrow outlet. It looked milky, misty, and uncertain; the predominant shores stifled its voice, if it ever had one. Adelaide and Ann crouched over the edge of the rock, reciting, in a chanting tone, from a poem beginning: "The river of thy thoughts must keep its solemn course too still and deep For idle eyes to see."
Their false intonation of voice and the wordy spirit of the poem convinced me that poetry with them was an artificial taste. I turned away. The dark earth and the rolling sky were better. Ben followed.
"I hope Veronica's letter will come to-morrow," he said with a groan.
"Veronica! Why Veronica?"
"Don't torment me."
"She writes letters seldom."
"I have written her."
"She has never written me."
"It might be the means of revealing you to each other to do so."
"Ben, your native air is deleterious."
"You laugh. I feel what you say. I do not attempt to play the missionary at home, for my field is not here."
"You were wise not to bring Veronica, I see already."
"She would see what I hate myself for."
"One may venture farther with a friend than a lover."
"I thought that _you_ might understand the results of my associations. Curse them all! Come, girls, we must go back."
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I took a cold that night. Belem was damp always, but its midnight damp was worse than any other. Mrs. Somers sent me medicine. Adelaide asked me, with an air of contemplation, what made me sick, and felt her own pulse. Ann criticised my nightgown ruffles, and accused me of wearing imitation lace; but nursing was her forte, and she stayed by me, annoying me by a frequent beating up of my pillow, and the bringing in of bowls of strange mixtures for me to swallow, which she persuaded the cook to make and her father to taste.
Before I left my room, Mrs. Somers came to see me.
"You are about well, I hear," she said, in a cold voice.
I felt as if I had been shamming sickness.
"I thought you were in remarkable health, your frame is so large."
Adelaide was there, and answered for me. "You _are_ delicate. It must be because you do not take care of yourself."
"Wolf's Point to be avoided, perhaps!"
"I have walked to Wolf's Point for fifteen years, night and day, many times."
"Mr. Munster's man left this note for you," her mother said, handing it to her.
She read an invitation from Miss Munster, a cousin, to a small party.
"You will not be able to go," Mrs. Somers remarked to me.
"You will go," Adelaide said; "it is an attention to you altogether."
She never replied to her mother, never asked her any questions, so that talking between them was a one-sided affair.
"Let us go out shopping, Adelaide; I want some lace to wear," I begged.
Mrs. Somers looked into her drawers, out of which Adelaide had thrust her finery, and found mine, but said nothing.
"We are going to a party, Ann. Thanks to your messes and your nursing," as I passed her in the hall.
"Where is your evening dress?"
"Pinned in a napkin--like my talent."
"Old Cousin Munster, the pirate, who made his money in the opium trade, has good things in his house. I suppose," with a coquettish air, "that you will see Ned Munster; he _would_ walk to the door with me to-day. He wishes me out, I know."
We consumed that evening in talking of dress. Adelaide showed me her camel's-hair scarfs which Desmond had brought, and her dresses. Ann tried them all on, walking up and down, and standing tiptoe before the glass, while I trimmed a handkerchief with the lace I had purchased. I unfolded my dress after they were gone, with a dubious mind. It was a heavy white silk, with a blue satin stripe. It might be too old-fashioned, for it belonged to mother, who would never wear it. The sleeves were puffed with bands of blue velvet, and the waist was covered with a berthé of the same. It must do, however, for I had no other.
We were to go at nine. Adelaide came to my room dressed, and with her hair arranged exactly like mine. She looked well, in spite of her Mongolic face.
"Pa wants to see us in his room; he has gone to bed."
"Wait a moment," I begged. I took my hair down, unbraided it, brushed it out of curl as much as I could, twisted it into a loose mass, through which I stuck pins enough to hold it, bound a narrow fillet of red velvet round my head, and ran after her.
"That is much better," she said; "you are entirely changed." Desmond was there, in his usual careless dress, hanging over the footboard of the bed, and Ann was huddled on the outside. Mrs. Somers was reading.
"Pa," said Ann, "just think of Old Hepburn's giving her a pair of lovely ear-rings."
"Did she? Where are they?" asked Mrs. Somers.
"I am not surprised," said Mr. Somers. "Mrs. Hepburn knows where to bestow. Why not wear them?"
"I'll get them," said Ann.
Mr. Somers continued his compliments. He thought there was a pleasing contrast between Adelaide and myself, referred to Diana, mentioned that my hair was remarkably thick, and proceeded with a dissertation on the growth and decay of the hair, when she returned with the ear-rings.
"It is too dark here," she said.
Desmond, who had remained silent, took the candle, which Mrs. Somers was reading by, and held it for Ann, close to my face. The operation was over, but the candle was not taken away till Mrs. Somers asked for it sharply.
"I dare say," murmured Mr. Somers, who was growing drowsy, "that Mrs. Hepburn wore them some night, when she went to John Munster's, forty years ago, and now you wear them to the son's. How things come round!"
The Munsters' man opened the door for us.
The rooms were full. "Very glad," said Mr., Mrs., and Miss Munster, and amid a loud buzz we fell back into obscurity. Adelaide joined a group, who were talking at the top of their voices, with most hilarious countenances.
"They pretend to have a Murillo here, let us go and find it," said Ben.
It was in a small room. While we looked at a dark-haired, handsome woman, standing on brown clouds, with hands so fat that every finger stood apart, Miss Munster brought up a young gentleman with the Munster cast of countenance.
"My brother begs an introduction, Miss Morgeson."
Ben retired, and Mr. Munster began to talk volubly, with wandering eyes, repeating words he was in danger of forgetting. No remarks were required from me. At the proper moment he asked me to make the tour of the rooms, and offered his arm. As we were crossing the hall, I saw Desmond, hat in hand, and in faultless evening dress, bowing to Miss Munster.
"Your Cousin Desmond, and mine, is a fine-looking man, is he not? Let us speak to him."
I drew back. "I'll not interrupt his _devoir_."
He bowed submissively.
"My cousin Desmond," I thought; "let me examine this beauty." He was handsomer than Ben, his complexion darker, and his hair black. There was a flush across his cheek-bones, as if he had once blushed, and the blush had settled. The color of his eyes I could not determine. As if to resolve my doubt, he came toward us; they were a deep violet, and the lids were fringed with long black lashes. I speculated on something animal in those eyes. He stood beside me, and twisted his heavy mustache.
"What a pretty boudoir this is," I said, backing into a little room behind us.
"Ned," he said abruptly, "you must resign Miss Morgeson; I am here to see her."
"Of course," Ned answered; "I relinquish."
Before a word was spoken between us, Mrs. Munster touched Desmond on the shoulder, and told him that he must come with her, to be introduced to Count Montholon.
"Bring him here, please."
"Tyrant," she answered playfully, "the Count shall come."
He brought a chair. "Take this; you are pale. You have been ill." Bringing another, he seated himself before me and fanned himself with his hat.
Mrs. Munster came back with the Count, an elderly man, and Desmond rose to meet him, keeping his hand on the back of his chair. They spoke French. The freedom of their conversation precluded the idea of my understanding it. The Count made a remark about me. Desmond replied, glancing at me, and both pulled their mustaches. The Count was called away soon, and Desmond resumed his chair.
"I understood you," I said.
"The deuce you did."
He placed his hat over a vase of flowers, which tipping over, he leisurely righted, and bending toward me, said: "It was in battle."
"Yes."
"And women like you, pure, with no vice of blood, sometimes are tempted, struggle, and suffer."
His words, still more his voice, made we wince.
"Even drawn battles bring their scars," I replied.
"Convince me beyond all doubt that a woman can reason with her impulses, or even fathom them, and I will be in your debt."
"Maybe--but Ben is coming."
He looked at me strangely.
"You must find this very dull, Cassandra," said Ben, joining us. " _Cassandra_," said Desmond, "are you bored?"
The accent with which he spoke my name set my pulses striking like a clock. I got up mechanically, as Ben directed.
"They are going to supper. There's game. Des. Munster told me to take the northeast corner of the table."
"I shall take the southwest, then," he replied, nodding to a tall gentleman who passed with Adelaide. When we left him, he was observing a carved oak chair, in occult sympathy probably with the grain of the wood. Nature strikes us with _her_ phenomena at times when other resources are not at hand.
We were compelled to wait at the door of the supper-room, the jam was so great.
"What fairy story do you like best?" asked Ben "I know which you like."
"Well?"
"Bluebeard. You have an affinity with Sister Ann in the tower."
"Do you think I see nothing 'but the sun which makes a dust and the grass which looks green?' I believe you like Bluebeard, too."
That was a great joke, at which we both laughed.
When I saw Desmond again, he was surrounded by men, the French Count among them, drinking champagne. He held a bottle, and was talking fast. The others were laughing. His listless, morose expression had disappeared; in the place of a brutal-tempered, selfish, bored man, I saw a brilliant, jovial gentleman. Which was the real man?
"Finish your jelly," said Ben.
"I prefer looking at your brother."
"Leave my brother alone."
"You see nothing but 'the sun which makes a dust, and the grass which looks green.'"
Miss Munster hoped I was cared for. How gay Desmond was! she had not seen such a look in his face in a long time. And how strongly he was marked with the family traits.
"How am I marked, May?" asked Ben.
"Oh, we know worse eccentrics than you are. What are you up to now? You are not as frank as Desmond."
He laughed as he looked at me, and then Adelaide called to us that it was time to leave.
We were among the last; the carriage was waiting. We made our bows to Mrs. Munster, who complained of not having seen more of us. "You are a favorite of Mrs. Hepburn's, Miss Morgeson, I am told. She is a remarkable woman, has great powers." I mentioned my one interview with her. Guests were going upstairs with smiles, and coming down without, released from their company manners. We rode home in silence, except that Adelaide yawned fearfully, and then we toiled up the long stairs, separating with a tired, "good-night."
I extinguished my candle by dropping my shawl upon it, and groped in vain for matches over the tops of table and shelf.
"To bed in the dark, then," I said, pulling off my gloves and the band, from my head, for I felt a tightness in it, and pulled out the hairpins. But a desire to look in the glass overcame me. I felt unacquainted with myself, and must see what my aspect indicated just then.
I crept downstairs, to the dining-room, passed my hands over the sideboard, the mantel shelf, and took the round of the dinner-table, but found nothing to light my candle with.
"The fire may not be out in the parlor," I thought; "it can be lighted there." I ran against the hatstand in the hall, knocking a cane down, which fell with a loud noise. The parlor door was ajar; the fire was not out, and Desmond was before it, watching its decay.
"What is it?" he asked.
"The candle," I stammered, confused with the necessity of staying to have it lighted, and the propriety of retreating in the dark.
"Shall I light it?"
I stepped a little further inside the door and gave it to him. He grew warm with thrusting it between the bars of the grate, and I grew chilly. Shivering, and with chattering teeth, I made out to say, "A piece of paper would do it." Raising his head hastily, it came crash against the edge of the marble shelf. Involuntarily I shut the door, and leaned against it, to wait for the effect of the blow; but feeling a pressure against the outside, I yielded to it, and moved aside. Mrs. Somers entered, with a candle flaring in one hand, and holding with the other her dressing-gown across her bosom.
"What are you doing here?" she asked harshly, but in a whisper, her eyes blazing like a panther's.
"Doing?" I replied; "stay and see."
She swept along, and I followed, bringing up close to Desmond, who had his hand round his head, and was very pale, either from the effect of the blow or some other cause. Even the flush across his cheeks had faded. She looked at him sharply; he moved his hands from his head, and met her eyes. "I am not drunk, you see," he said in a low voice. She made an insulting gesture toward me, which meant, "Is this an adventure of yours?"
The blaze in her eyes kindled a more furious one in his; he stepped forward with a threatening motion.
Anger raged through me--like a fierce rain that strikes flat a violent sea. I laid my hand on her arm, which she snapped at like a wolf, but I spoke calmly: "You tender, true-hearted creature, full of womanly impulses, allow me to light my candle by yours!"
I picked it from the hearth, lighted it, and held it close to her face, laughing, though I never felt less merry. But I had restrained him.
He took the candle away gently.
"Leave the room," he said to her.
She beckoned me to go.
"No, you shall go."
They made a simultaneous movement with their hands, he to insist, she to deprecate, and I again observed how exactly alike they were. " _Desmond_," I implored, "pray allow me to go."
A deep flush suffused his face. He bowed, threw wide the door, and followed me to the foot of the stairs. I reached my hand for the candle, for he retained both.
"You, pardon first."
"For what?"
"For much? oh--for much."
What story my face told, I could not have told him. He kissed my hand and turned away.
At the top of the stairs I looked down. He was there with upturned face, watching me. Whether he went back to confer with his mother, I never knew; if he did, the expression which he wore then must have troubled her. I went to bed, wondering over the mischief that a candle could do. After I had extinguished it, its wick glowed in the dark like a one-eyed demon.
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Another week passed. Ben had received a letter from Veronica, informing him that letter-writing was a kind of composition she was not fond of. He must come to her, and then there would be no need for writing. Her letter exasperated him. His tenacious mind, lying in wait to close upon hers, was irritated by her simple, candid behavior. I could give him no consolation, nor did I care to. It suited me that his feelings for her weakened his penetration in regard to me.
When he roused at the expression which he saw Desmond fix upon me the night that Major Millard was there, I expected a rehearsal from him of watchfulness and suspicion; but no symptom appeared. I was glad, for I was in love with Desmond. I had known it from the night of Miss Munster's party. The morning after I woke to know my soul had built itself a lordly pleasure-house; its dome and towers were firm and finished, glowing in the light that "never was on land or sea." How elate I grew in this atmosphere! The face of Nemesis was veiled even. No eye saw the pure, pale nimbus ringed above it. I did not see _him_, except as an apparition, for suddenly he had become the most unobtrusive member of the family, silent and absent. Immunity from espionage was the immutable family rule. Mrs. Somers, under the direction of that spirit which isolated me from all exterior influences, for a little time had shut down the lid of her evil feelings, and was quiet; watching me, perhaps, but not annoying. Mr. Somers was engaged with the subject of ventilation. Ann, to convince herself that she had a musical talent, practiced of afternoons till she was turned out by Adelaide, who had a fit of reading abstruse works, sometimes seeking me with fingers thrust between their leaves to hold abstract conversations, which, though I took small part in them, were of service.
That portion of the world of emotions which I was mapping out she was profoundly indifferent to. My experiences to her would have been debasing. As she would not come to me, I went to her, and gained something.
Ben, always a favorite with his father, pursued him, rode with him, and made visits of pleasure or business, with a latent object which kept him on the alert.
I had been in Belem three weeks; in a week more I decided to return home. My indignation against Mrs. Somers, from our midnight interview, had not suggested that I should shorten my visit. On the contrary, it had freed me from any regard or fear of her opinion. I had discovered her limits.
It was Saturday afternoon. Reflecting that I had but a few days more for Belem, and summing up the events of my visit and the people I had met, their fashions and differences, I unrolled a tolerable panorama, with patches in it of vivid color, and laid it away in my memory, to be unrolled again at some future time. Then a faint shadow dropped across my mind like a curtain, the first that clouded my royal palace, my mental paradise!
I sighed. Joyless, vacant, barren hours prefigured themselves to me, drifting through my brain, till their vacant shapes crowded it into darkness. I must do something! I would go out; a walk would be good for me. Moreover, wishing to purchase a parting gift for Adelaide and Ann, I would go alone. Wandering from shop to shop in Norfolk Street, without finding the articles I desired, I turned into a street which crossed it, and found the right shop. Seeing Drummond Street on an old gable-end house, a desire to exchange with some one a language which differed from my thoughts prompted me to look up Mrs. Hepburn. I soon came to her house, and knocked at the door, which Mari opened. The current was already changed, as I followed her into a room different from the one where I had seen Mrs. Hepburn. It was dull of aspect, long and narrow, with one large window opening on the old-fashioned garden, and from which I saw a discolored marble Flora. Mrs. Hepburn was by the window, in her high chair. She held out her hand and thanked me for coming to see an old woman. Motioning her head toward a dark corner, she said, "There is a young man who likes occasionally to visit an old woman also."
The young man, twenty-nine years old, was Desmond. He crossed the room and offered me his hand. We had not spoken since we parted at the stairs that memorable night. He hastily brought chairs, and placed them near Mrs. Hepburn, who seized her spectacles, which were on a silk workbag beside her, scanned us through them, and exclaimed, "Ah ha! what is this?"
"Is it something in me, ma'am?" said Desmond, putting his head before my face so that it was hid from her.
"Something in both of you; thief! thief!"
She rubbed her frail hand against my sleeve, muttering, "See now, so! --the same characteristics."
"I spoke of the difference of the rooms; the one we were in reminded me of a lizard! The walls were faint gray, and every piece of furniture was covered with plain yellow chintz, while the carpet was a pale green. She replied that she always moved from her winter parlor to this summer room on the twenty-second day of April, which had fallen the day before, for she liked to watch the coming out of the shrubs in the garden, which were as old as herself. The chestnut had leaved seventy times and more; and the crippled plum, whose fruit was so wormy to eat, was dying with age. As for the elms at the bottom of the garden, for all she knew they were a thousand years old.
"The elms are a thousand years old," I repeated and repeated to myself, while she glided from topic to topic with Desmond, whose conversation indicated that he was as cultivated as any ordinary gentleman, when the Pickersgill element was not apparent. The form of the garden-goddess faded, the sun had gone below the garden wall. The garden grew dusk, and the elms began to nod their tops at me. I became silent, listening to the fall of the plummet, which dropped again and again from the topmost height of that lordly domain, over which shadows had come. Were they sounding its foundations?
My eyes roved the garden, seeking the nucleus of an emotion which beset me now--not they, but my senses, formed it--in a garden miles away, where nodded a row of elms, under which _Charles Morgeson_ stood. " _I am glad you're here, my darling, do you smell the roses? _" "Are you going?" I heard Mrs. Hepburn say in a far-off voice. I was standing by the door.
"Yes, madam; the summer parlor does not delay the sunset."
"Come again. When do you leave Belem?"
"In few days."
Desmond made a grimace, and went to the window.
"Who returns with you," she continued, "Ben? He likes piloting."
"I hope he will; I came here to please him."
"Pooh! You came here because Mr. Somers had a crotchet."
"Well; I was permitted somehow to come."
"It was perfectly right. A woman like you need not question whether a thing is convenable."
Desmond turned from the window, and bestowed upon her a benign smile, which she returned with a satisfied nod.
This implied flattery tinkled pleasantly on my ears, allaying a doubt which I suffered from. Did I realize how much the prestige of those Belem saints influenced me, or how proud I was with the conviction of affiliation with those who were plainly marked with Caste?
"Walk with me," he demanded, as we were going down the steps.
We passed out of Drummond Street into a wide open common. Rosy clouds floated across the zenith, and a warm, balmy wind was blowing. I thought of Veronica, calm and happy, as the spring always made her, and the thought was a finishing blow to the variety of moods I had passed through. The helm of my will was broken.
"There is a good view from Moss Hill yonder," he said. "Shall we go up?"
I bowed, declining his arm, and trudged beside him. From its summit Belem was only half in sight. Its old, crooked streets sloped and disappeared from view; Wolf's Point was at the right of us, and its thread of sea. I began talking of our walk, and was giving an extended description of it, when he abruptly asked why I came to Belem.
"I know," he said, "that you would not have come, had there been any sentiment between you and Ben."
"Thanks for your implication. But I must have made the visit, you know, or how could I learn that I should not have made it?"
"You regret coming?"
"Veronica will give me no thanks."
"Who is she?"
"My sister, whom Ben loves."
"Ben love a sister of yours? My God--how? when first? where? And how came you to meet him?"
"That chapter of accidents need not be recounted. Can you help him?"
"What can I do?" he said roughly. "There is little love between us. You know what a devil's household ours is; but he is one of us--he is afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of mother--of our antecedents--of himself."
"I could not expect you to speak well of him."
"Of course not. Your sister has no fortune?"
"She has not. Men whose merchandise is ships are apt to die bankrupt."
"Your father is a merchant?"
"Even at that, the greatest of the name.
"We are all tied up, you know. Ben's allowance is smaller than mine. He is easy about money; therefore he is pa's favorite."
"Why do you not help yourselves?"
"Do you think so? You have not known us long. Have you influenced Ben to help himself?"
I marched down the hill without reply. Repassing Mrs. Hepburn's, he said, "My grandfather was an earl's son."
"Mrs. Hepburn likes you for that. My grandfather was a tailor; I should have told her so, when she gave me the aqua marina jewels."
"Had you the courage?"
"I forgot both the fact and the courage."
I hurried along, for it grew dark, and presently saw Ben on the steps of the house.
"Have you been walking?" he asked.
"It looks so. Yes, with me," answered Desmond. "Wont you give me thanks for attention to your friend?"
"It must have been a whim of Cassandra's."
"Break her of whims, if you can--" "I _will_."
We went into the parlor together.
"Where do you think I have been?" Ben asked.
"Where?"
"For the doctor. The _baby_ is sick"; and he looked hard at Desmond.
"I hope it will live for years and years," I said.
"I know what you are at, Ben," said Desmond. "I have wished the brat dead; but upon my soul, I have a stronger wish than that--I have _forgotten_ it."
There was no falseness in his voice; he spoke the truth.
"Forgive me, Des."
"No matter about that," he answered, sauntering off.
I felt happier; that spark of humanity warmed me. I might not have another. "I would," I said, "that the last day, the last moments of my visit had come. You will see me henceforth in Surrey. I will live and die there."
"To-night," Ben said, "I am going to tell pa."
"That is best."
"Horrible atmosphere!"
"It would kill Verry."
"You thrive in it," he said, with a spice of irritation in his voice.
"Thrive!"
Adelaide and Ann proved gracious over my gift. They were talking of the doctor's visit. Ann said the child was teething, for she had felt its gums; nothing else was the matter. There need be no _apprehension_. She should say so to Desmond and Ben, and would post a letter to her brother in unknown parts.
"Miss Hiticutt has sent for us to come over to tea," Adelaide informed me. The black silk I wore would do, for we must go at once.
The quiet, formal evening was a pleasant relief, although I was troubled with a desire to inform Mrs. Somers of Ben's engagement, for the sake of exasperating her. We came home too early for bed, Adelaide said; beside, she had music-hunger. I must sing. Mrs. Somers was by the fire, darning fine napkins, winking over her task, maintaining in her aspect the determination to avert any danger of a midnight interview with Desmond. That gentleman was at present sleeping on a sofa. I seated myself before the piano, wondering whether he slept from wine, ennui, or to while away the time till I should come. I touched the keys softly, waiting for an interpreting voice, and half unconsciously sang the lines of Schiller: "I hear the sound of music, and the halls Are full of light. Who are the revelers?"
Desmond made an inarticulate noise and sprang up, as if in answer to a call. A moment after he stepped quietly over the back of the sofa and stood bending over me. I looked up. His eyes were clear, his face alive with intuition. Though Adelaide was close by, she was oblivious; her eyes were cast upward and her fingers lay languid in her lap. Ann, more lively, introduced a note here and there into my song to her own satisfaction. Mrs. Somers I could not see; but I stopped and, giving the music stool a turn, faced her. She met me with her pale, opaque stare, and began to swing her foot over her knee; her slipper, already down at her heel, fell off. I picked it up in spite of her negative movement and hung it on the foot again.
"I shall speak with you presently," she whispered, glancing at Desmond.
He heard her and his face flashed with the instinct of sport, which made me ashamed of any desire for a struggle with her.
"Good-night," I said abruptly, turning away.
"We are all sleepy except this exemplary housewife with her napkins," cried Ann. "We will leave her."
"Cassandra," said Adelaide, when we were on the stairs, "how well you look!"
Ann, elevating her candle, remarked my eyes shone like a cat's.
"Hiticutt's tea was too strong," added Adelaide; "it dilates the pupils. I am sorry you are going away," and she kissed me; this favor would have moved me at any other time, but now I rejoiced to see her depart and leave me alone. I sat down by the toilet table and was arranging some bottles, when Mrs. Somers rustled in. Out of breath, she began haughtily: "What do you mean?"
A lethargic feeling crept over me; my thoughts wandered; I never spoke nor stirred till she pulled my sleeve violently.
"If you touch me it will rouse me. Did a child of yours ever inflict a blow upon you?"
She turned purple with rage, looming up before my vision like a peony.
"When are you going home?"
I counted aloud, "Sunday--Monday," and stopped at Wednesday. "Ben is going back with me." " _He_ may go."
"And not Desmond?"
"Do you know Desmond?"
"Not entirely."
"He has played with such toys as you are, and broken them."
"Alas, he is hereditarily cruel! Could _I_ expect not to be broken?"
She caught up a glass goblet as if to throw it, but only grasped it so tight that it shivered. "There goes one of the Pickersgill treasures, I am sure," I thought.
"I am already scarred, you see. I have been 'nurtured in convulsions.'"
The action seemed to loosen her speech; but she had to nerve herself to say what she intended; for some reason or other, she could not remain as angry as she wished. What she said I will not repeat.
"Madam, I have no plans. If I have a Purpose, it is formless yet. If God saves us what can you do?"
She made a gesture of contempt.
"You have no soul to thank me for what may be my work," and I opened the door.
Ben stood on the threshhold.
"In God's name, what is this?"
I pointed to his mother. She looked uneasy, and stepping forward put her hand on his arm; but he shook her off.
"You may call me a fool, Cassandra, for bringing you here," he said in a bitter voice, "besides calling me cruel for subjecting you to these ordeals. I knew how it would be with mother. What is it, madam?" he asked imperiously, looking so much like her that I shuddered.
"It is not you she is after," she hotly exclaimed.
"No, I should think not." And he led her out swiftly.
I heard Mrs. Somers say at breakfast, as I went in, "We are to lose Miss Cassandra on Wednesday." I looked at Desmond, who was munching toast abstractedly. He made a motion for me to take the chair beside him, which I obeyed. Ben saw this movement, and an expression of pain passed over his face. At that instant I remembered that Desmond's being seen in the evening and in the morning was a rare occurrence. Mr. Somers took up the remark of Mrs. Somers where she had left it, and expatiated on it till breakfast was over, so courteously and so ramblingly that I was convinced the affair Ben had at heart had been revealed. He invited me to go to church, and he spent the whole of the evening in the parlor; and although Desmond hovered near me all day and all the evening, we had no opportunity of speaking to each other.
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{
"id": "12347"
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On Tuesday morning Adelaide sent out invitations to a farewell entertainment, as she called it, for Tuesday evening. Mrs. Somers, affecting great interest in it, engaged my services in wiping the dust from glass and china; "too valuable," she said, "for servants to handle." We spent a part of the morning in the dining-room and pantry. Ann was with us. If she went out, Mrs. Somers was silent; when present she chatted. While we were busy Desmond came in, in riding trousers and whip in hand.
"What nonsense!" he said, touching my hand with the whiplash. "Will you ride with me after dinner?"
"I must have the horses at three o'clock," said his mother, "to go to Mrs. Flint's funeral. She was a family friend, you know." The funeral could not be postponed, even for Desmond; but he grew ill-humored at once, swore at Murphy, who was packing a waiter at the sideboard, for rattling the plates; called Ann a minx, because she laughed at him; and bit a cigar to pieces because he could not light it. Rash had followed him, his nose against his velveteens, in entreaty to go with him; I was pleased at this sign of amity between them. At a harder push than common he looked down and kicked him away.
"Noble creature," I said, "try your whip on him. Rash, go to your master," and I opened the door. Two smaller dogs, Desmond's property, made a rush to come in; but I shut them out, whereat they whined so loudly that Mrs. Somers was provoked to attack him for bringing his dogs in the house. An altercation took place, and was ended by Desmond declaring that he was on his way after a bitch terrier, to bring it home. He went out, giving me a look from the door, which I answered with a smile that made him stamp all the way through the hall. Mrs. Somers's feelings as she heard him peeped out at me. Groaning in spirit, I finished my last saucer and betook myself to my room and read, till summoned by Mrs. Somers to a consultation respecting the furniture coverings. Desmond came home, but spoke to no one, hovering in my vicinity as on the day before.
In the afternoon Adelaide and I went in the carriage to make calls upon those we did not expect to see in the evening. She wrote P.P.C. on my cards and laughed at the idea of paying farewell visits to strangers. The last one was made to Mrs. Hepburn. A soft melancholy crept over me when I entered the room where I had met Desmond last. We should probably not see each other alone again. Mrs. Somers's policy to that effect would be a success, for I should make no opposition to it. Not a word of my feelings could I speak to Mrs. Hepburn--Adelaide was there--provided I had the impulse; and Mrs. Hepburn would be the last to forgive me should I make the conventional mistake of a scene or an aside. This old lady had taught me something. I went to the window, curious to know whether any nerve of association would vibrate again. Nothing stirred me; the machinery which had agitated and controlled me was effete.
Mrs. Hepburn said, as we were taking leave: "If you come to Belem next year, and I am above the sod, I invite you to pass a month with me. But let it be in the summer. I ride then, and should like you for a companion."
She might have seen irresolution in me, for she added quickly, "You need not promise--let time decide," and shook my hands kindly.
"Hep, is smitten with you, in her selfish way," Adelaide remarked, as we rode from the door. She ordered the coachman to drive home by the "Leslie House," which she wanted me to see. A great aunt had lived and died there, leaving the house--one of the oldest in Belem--to her brother Ned.
"Who is he like?"
"Desmond; but worse. There's only a year's difference in their ages. They were educated together, kept in the nursery till they were great boys and tyrants, and then sent abroad. They were in Amiens three years."
"There are Desmond and Ben; they are walking in the street we are passing."
She looked out.
"They are quarreling, I dare say. Ben is a prig, and preaches to Des."
While we were in the house, and Adelaide talked with the old servant of her aunt, my thoughts were occupied with Desmond. What had they quarreled on? Desmond was pale, and laughed; but Ben was red, and looked angry.
"Why do you look at me so fixedly?" Adelaide asked, when we were in the carriage again.
It was on my tongue to say, "Because I am beset." I did not, however; instead I asked her if she never noticed what a rigid look people wore in their best bonnets, and holding a card-case? She said, "Yes," and shook out her handkerchief, as if to correct her own rigidity.
After an early tea she compelled me to sing, and we delayed dressing till Mrs. Somers bloomed in, with purple satin and feather head-dress.
"Now we must go," she said, "and get ready."
"What shall you wear?" Mrs. Somers asked, advising a certain ugly, claret-colored silk.
"Be sure not," said Adelaide on the stairs. "That dress makes your hair too yellow."
I heard loud laughing in the third story, and heavy steps, while I was in my room; and when I went down, I saw two gentlemen in evening dress, standing by Desmond, at the piano, and singing, "_Fill, fill the sparkling brimmer_." They were, as Ann informed me, college friends of Des, who had arrived for a few days' visit, she supposed; disagreeable persons, of course. They were often in Belem to ride, fish, or play billiards. "Pa hates them," she said in conclusion. Mr. Somers entering at this moment, in his _diplomatique_ style, his gouty white hands shaded with wristbands, and his throat tied with a white cravat, appeared to contradict her assertion, he was so affable in his salutations to the young men. Desmond turned from the piano when he heard his father's voice, and caught sight of me. He started toward me; but his attention was claimed by one of the gentlemen, who had been giving me a prolonged stare, and he dropped back on his seat, with an indifferent air, answering some question relating to myself. He looked as when I first saw him--flushed, haughty, and bored. His hair and dress were disordered, his boots splashed with mud; and it was evident that he did not intend to appear at the party.
Adelaide called me to remain by her; but I slipped away when I thought no more would arrive, and sought a retired corner, to which Mr. Somers brought Desmond's friends, introducing them as the sons of his college chums, and leaving them, one lolling against the mantel, the other over the back of a chair. They were muzzy with drink, and seemed to grow warm, as I looked from one to the other, with an attentive air.
"You are visiting in Belem," said one.
"That is true," I replied.
"It is too confoundedly aristocratic for me; it knocks Beacon Street into nothingness."
"Where is Beacon Street?"
"Don't you know _that_? Nor the Mall?"
"No."
Our conversation was interrupted by Ben, whom I had not seen since the day before. He had been out of town, transacting some business for his father. We looked at each other without speaking, but divined each other's thoughts. "You _are_ as true and noble as I think you are, Cassy. I must have it so. You _shall not_ thwart me." "Faithful and good Ben,--do you pass a sufficiently strict examination upon yourself? Are you not disposed to carry through your own ideas without considering _me_?" Whatever our internal comments were, we smiled upon each other with the sincerity of friendship, and I detected Mr. Digby in the act of elevating his eyebrows at Mr. Devereaux, who signified his opinion by telegraphing back: "It is all over with them."
"Hey, Somers," said the first; "what are you doing nowadays?"
"Pretty much the same work that I always have on hand."
"Do you mean to stick to Belem?"
"No."
"I thought so. But what has come over Des. lately? He is spoony."
"He is going backward, may be, to some course he omitted in his career with you fellows. We must run the same round somehow, you know."
"He'll not find much reason for it, when he arrives," Mr. Devereaux said.
Miss Munster joined us, with the intention of breaking up our conclave, and soon moved away, with Mr. Digby and Devereaux in her train.
"I have changed my mind," said Ben, "about going home with you."
"Are your plans growing complicated again?"
"Can you go to Surrey alone?"
"Why not, pray?"
"I have an idea of going to Switzerland to spend the summer. Will Veronica be ready in the autumn?"
"How can I answer? Shall you not take leave of her?"
"Perhaps. Yes,--I must," he said excitedly; "but to-morrow we will talk more about it. I shall go to Boston with you; pa is going too. How well you look to-night, Cassy! What sort of dress is this?" taking up a fold of it. "Is it cotton-silk, or silk-cotton? It is soft and light. How delicate you are, with your gold hair and morning-glory eyes!"
"How poetical! My dress is new, and was made by Adelaide's dressmaker."
"Mother beckons me. What a headdress that is of hers!"
"What beckons you to go to Switzerland?" I mused.
I listened for Desmond's voice, which would have sounded like a silver bell, in the loud, coarse buzz which pervaded the rooms. All the women were talking shrill, and the men answering in falsetto. He was not among them, and I moved to and fro unnoticed, for the tide of entertainment had set in, and I could withdraw, if I chose. I took a chair near an open door, commanded a view into a small room, on the other side of the hall, opened only on occasions like these; there was no one in it. Perceiving that my shoelace was untied, I stooped to refasten it, and when I looked in the room again saw Desmond standing under the chandelier, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the floor, his hair disordered and falling over his forehead; its blackness was intense against the relief of the crimson wall-paper. Was it that which had unaccountably changed his appearance?
He raised his head, looked across the hall, and saw me.
"Come here," he signaled. I rose like an automaton, and cast an involuntary glance about me; the guests were filing through the drawing-room, into the room where refreshments were laid. When the last had gone, I left the friendly protection of the niche by the fire-place, and stood so near him that I saw his nostrils quiver! Then there came into his face an expression of pain, which softened it. I had wished him to please me; _now_ I wished to please him. It seemed that he had no intention of speaking, and that he had called me to him to witness a struggle which I must find a key to hereafter, in the depths of my own heart. I watched him in silence, and it passed. As he pushed the door to with his foot, the movement caused something to swing and glitter against his breast--a ring on his watch-ribbon smaller than I could wear, a woman's ruby ring. The small, feminine imp, who abides with those who have beams in their eyes, and helps them to extract motes from the eyes of others, inspired me. I pointed to the ring. Dropping his eyes, he said: "I loved her shamefully, and she loved me shamefully. When shall I take it off--cursed sign?" And he snapped it with his thumb and finger.
I grew rigid with virtue.
"You may not conjure up any tragic ideas on the subject. She is no outcast. She is here to-night; if there was ruin, it was mutual."
"And your other faults?"
"Ah!" he said, with a terrible accent, "we shall see."
There was a tap on the door; it was Ben's. I fell back a step, and he came in. "Will you bring Cassandra to the supper-room?" he said, turning pale.
"No."
"Come with me, then; you must." And he put my arm in his.
"Hail, and farewell, Cassandra!" said Desmond, standing before the door. "Give me your hand."
I gave him both my hands. He kissed one, and then the other, and moved to let us pass out. But Ben did not go; he fumbled for his handkerchief to wipe his forehead, on which stood beads of sweat. " _Allons,_ Ben," I said.
"Go on, go on," said Desmond, holding the door wide open.
A painful curiosity made me anxious to discover the owner of the ruby ring! The friendly but narrow-minded imp I have spoken of composed speeches, with which I might assail her, should she be found. I looked in vain at every women present; there was not a sorrowful or guilty face among them. Another feeling took the place of my curiosity. I forgot the woman I was seeking, to remember the love I bore Desmond. I was mad for the sight of him--mad to touch his hand once more. I could have put the asp on my breast to suck me to sleep, as Cleopatra did; but _Cæsar_ was in the way. He stayed by me till the lights were turned down.
Digby and Devereaux were commenting on Desmond's disappearance, and Mrs. Somers was politely yawning, waiting their call for candles.
"If you are to accompany me, Ben," I said, "now is the time." And he slipped out. He preserved a determined silence. I shook him, and said--"_Veronica_." He put his hand over my mouth with an indignant look, which was lost upon me, for I whispered in his ear; "Do you know now that I _love_ Desmond?"
"Will you bring him into our Paradise?"
"Where?"
"Our home, in Surrey."
"Wont an angel with a flaming sword make it piquant?"
"If you marry Desmond Somers," he said austerely, "you will contradict three lives,--yours, mine, and Veronica's. What beast was it that suggested this horrible discord? Have you so much passion that you cannot discern the future you offer yourself?"
"Imperator, you have an agreeable way of putting things. But they are coming through the hall. Good-night."
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{
"id": "12347"
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At eleven o'clock the next day I was ready for departure. All stood by the open hall door, criticising Murphy's strapping of my trunks on a hack. Messrs. Digby and Devereaux, in black satin scarfs, hung over the step railings; Mrs. Somers, Adelaide, and Ann were within the door. Mr. Somers and Ben were already on the walk, waiting for me; so I went through the ceremony of bidding good-by--a ceremony performed with so much cheerfulness on all sides that it was an occasion for well-bred merriment, and I made my exit as I should have made it in a genteel comedy, but with a bitter feeling of mortification, because of their artificial, willful imperturbability I was forced to oppose them with manners copied after their own.
I looked from the carriage window for a last view of my room. The chambermaid was already there, and had thrown open the shutters, to let in daylight upon the scene of the most royal dreams I had ever had. The ghost of my individuality would lurk there no longer than the chairs I had placed, the books I had left, the shreds of paper or flowers I had scattered, could be moved or swept away.
All the way to Boston the transition to my old condition oppressed me. I felt a dreary disgust at the necessity of resuming relations which had no connection with the sentiment that bound me to Belem. After we were settled at the Tremont, while watching a sad waiter engaged in the ceremonial of folding napkins like fans, I discovered an intermediate tone of mind, which gave my thoughts a picturesque tinge. My romance, its regrets, and its pleasures, should be set in the frame of the wild sea and shores of Surrey. I invested our isolated house with the dignity of a stage, where the drama, which my thoughts must continually represent, could go on without interruption, and remain a secret I should have no temptation to reveal. Until after the tedious dinner, a complete rainbow of dreams spanned the arc of my brain. Mr. Somers dispersed it by asking Ben to go out on some errand. That it was a pretext, I knew by Ben's expression; therefore, when he had gone I turned to Mr. Somers an attentive face. First, he circumlocuted; second, he skirmished. I still waited for what he wished to say, without giving him any aid. He was sure, he said at last, that my visit in his family had convinced me that his children could not vary the destiny imposed upon them by their antecedents, without bringing upon _others_ lamentable consequences. "Cunning pa," I commented internally. Had I not seen the misery of unequal marriages?
"As in a glass, darkly."
Doubtless, he went on, I had comprehended the erratic tendency in _Ben's_ character, good and honorable as he was, but impressive and visionary. Did I think so?
"Quite the contrary. Have you never perceived the method of his visions in an unvarying opposition to those antecedents you boast of?"
"Well, _well_, well?"
"Money, Family, Influence,--are a ding-dong bell which you must weary of, Mr. Somers--sometimes."
"Ben has disappointed me; I must confess that."
"My sister is eccentric. Provided she marries him, the family programme will be changed. You must lop him from the family tree."
He took up a paper, bowed to me with an unvexed air, and read a column or so.
"It may be absurd," and he looked over his spectacle tops, as if he had found the remark in his paper, "for parents to oppose the marriages their children choose to make, and I beg you to understand that I may _oppose_, not _resist_ Ben. You know very well," and he dropped the paper in a burst of irritation and candor, "that the devil will be to pay with Mrs. Somers, who has a right of dictation in the affair. She does not suspect it. I must say that Ben is mistaking himself again. I mean, I think so."
I looked upon him with a more friendly countenance. The one rude word he had spoken had a wonderful effect, after the surprise of it was over. Real eyes appeared in his face, and a truthful accent pervaded his voice. I think he was beginning to think that he might confide his perplexities to me on other subjects, when Ben returned. As it was, a friendly feeling had been established between us. He said in a confidential tone to Ben, as if we were partners in some guilty secret, "You must mention it to your mother; indeed you must."
"You have been speaking with Cassandra, in reference to her sister," he answered indifferently. Mr. Somers was chilled in his attempt at a mutual confidence.
"Can you raise money, if Desmond should marry?" asked Ben. "Enough for both of us?"
"Desmond? he will never marry."
"It is certainly possible."
"You know how I am clogged."
I rang for some ice-water, and when the waiter brought it, said that it was time to retire.
"Now," said Mr. Somers, "I shall give you just such a breakfast as will enable you to travel well--a beefsteak, and old bread made into toast. Don't drink that ice-water; take some wine."
I set the glass of ice-water down, and declined the wine. Ben elevated his eyebrows, and asked: "What time shall I get up, sir?"
"I will call you; so you may sleep untroubled."
He opened the door, and bade me an affectionate good night.
"The coach is ready," a waiter announced, as we finished our breakfast. "We are ready," said Mr. Somers. "I have ordered a packet of sandwiches for you--_beef_, not ham sandwiches--and here is a flask of wine mixed with water."
I thanked him, and tied my bonnet.
"Here is a note, also," opening his pocketbook and extracting it, "for your father. It contains our apologies for not accompanying you, and one or two allusions," making an attempt to wink at Ben, which failed, his eyes being unused to such an undignified style of humor.
He excused himself from going to the station on account of the morning air, and Ben and I proceeded. In the passage, the waiter met us with a paper box. "For you, Miss. A florist's boy just left it." I opened it in the coach, and seeing flowers, was about to take them out to show Ben, when I caught sight of the ribbon which tied them--a piece of one of my collar knots I had not missed. Of course the flowers came from Desmond, and half the ribbon was in his possession; the ends were jagged, as if it had been divided with a knife. Instead of taking out the flowers, I showed him the box.
"What a curious bouquet," he said.
In the cars he put into my hand a jewel box, and a thick letter for Verry, kissed me, and was out of sight.
"No vestige but these flowers," uncovering them again. "In my room at Surrey I will take you out," and I shut the box. The clanking of the car wheels revolved through my head in rhythm, excluding thought for miles. Then I looked out at the flying sky--it was almost May. The day was mild and fair; in the hollows, the young grass spread over the earth like a smooth cloth; over the hills and unsheltered fields, the old grass lay like coarse mats. A few birds roved the air in anxiety, for the time of love was at hand, and their nests were not finished. By twelve I arrived at the town where the railroad branched in a direction opposite the road to Surrey, and where a stage was waiting for its complement of passengers from the cars. I was the only lady "aboard," as one of the passengers intelligently remarked, when we started. They were desirable companions, for they were gruff to each other and silent to me. We rode several miles in a state of unadjustment, and then yielded to the sedative qualities of a stagecoach. I lunched on my sandwiches, thanking Mr. Somers for his forethought, though I should have preferred them of ham, instead of beef. When I took a sip from my flask, two men looked surprised, and spat vehemently out of the windows. I offered it to them. They refused it, saying they had had what was needful at the Depot Saloon, conducted on the strictest temperance principles.
"Those principles are cruel, provided travelers ever have colic, or an aversion to Depot tea and coffee," I said.
There was silence for the space of fifteen minutes, then one of them turned and said: "You have a good head, marm."
"Too good?"
"Forgetful, may be."
I bowed, not wishing to prolong the conversation.
"Your circulation is too rapid," he continued.
The man on the seat with him now turned round, and, examining me, informed me that electricity would be first-rate for me.
"Shoo!" he replied, "it's a humbug."
I was forgotten in the discussion which followed, and which lasted till our arrival at a village, where one of them resided. He left, telling us he was a "natral bone-setter." One by one the passengers left the stage, and for the last five miles I was alone. I beguiled the time by elaborating a multitude of trivial opinions, suggested by objects I saw along the roadside, till the old and new church spires of Surrey came in sight, and the curving lines at either end of the ascending shores. We reached the point in the north road, where the ground began its descent to the sea, and I hung from the window, to see all the village roofs humble before it. The streets and dwellings looked as insignificant as those of a toy village. I perceived no movement in it, heard no hum of life. At a cross-road, which would take the stage into the village without its passing our house, a whim possessed me. I would surprise them at home, and go in at the back door, while they were expecting to hear the stage. The driver let me out, and I stood in the road till he was out of sight.
A breeze blew round me, penetrating, but silent; the fields, and the distant houses which dotted them, were asleep in the pale sunshine, undisturbed by it. The crows cawed, and flew over the eastern woods. I walked slowly. The road was deserted. Mrs. Grossman's house was the only one I must pass; its shutters were closed, and the yard was empty. As I drew near home a violent haste grew upon me, yet my feet seemed to impede my progress. They were like lead; I impelled myself along, as in a dream. Under the protection of our orchard wall I turned my merino mantle, which was lined with an indefinite color, spread my veil over my bonnet, and bent my shoulders, and passed down the carriage-drive, by the dining-room windows, into the stable-yard. The rays of sunset struck the lantern-panes in the light-house, and gave the atmosphere a yellow stain. The pigeons were skimming up and down the roof of the wood-house, and cooing round the horses that were in the yard. A boy was driving cows into the shed, whistling a lively air; he suspended it when he saw me, but I shook my finger at him, and ran in. Slipping into the side hall, I dropped my bonnet and shawl, and listened at the door for the familiar voices. Mother must be there, as was her wont, and Aunt Merce. All of them, perhaps, for I had seen nobody on my way. There was no talking within. The last sunset ray struck on my hand its yellow shade, through the fan-light, and faded before I opened the door. I was arrested on the threshold by a silence which rushed upon me, clutching me in a suffocating embrace. Mother was in her chair by the fire, which was out, for the brands were black, and one had fallen close to her feet. A white flannel shawl covered her shoulders; her chin rested on her breast. "She is ill, and has dropped asleep," I thought, thrusting my hands out, through this terrible silence, to break her slumber, and looked at the clock; it was near seven. A door slammed, somewhere upstairs, so loud it made me jump; but she did not wake. I went toward her, confused, and stumbling against the table, which was between us, but reached her at last. Oh, I knew it! She was dead! People must die, even in their chairs, alone! What difference did it make, how? An empty cup was in her lap, bottom up; I set it carefully on the mantel shelf above her head. Her handkerchief was crumpled in her nerveless hand; I drew it away and thrust it into my bosom. My gloves tightened my hands as I tried to pull them off, and was tugging at them, when a door opened, and Veronica came in.
"She is dead," I said. "I can't get them off."
"It is false"; and she staggered backward, with her hand on her heart, till she fell against the wall. I do not know how long we remained so, but I became aware of a great confusion--cries, and exclamations; people were running in and out. Fanny rolled on the floor in hysterics.
"Get up," I said. "I can't move; help me. Where did Verry go?"
She got up, and pulled me along. I saw father raise mother in his arms. The dreadful sight of her swaying arms and drooping head made me lose my breath; but Veronica forced me to endurance by clinging to me, and dragging me out of the room and upstairs. She turned the key of the glass-door at the head of the passage, not letting go of me. I took her by the arms, placed her in a chair, and closing my window curtains, sat down beside her in the dark.
"Where will they carry her?" she asked, shuddering, and putting her fingers in her ears. "How the water splashes on the beach! Is the tide coming in?"
She was appalled by the physical horror of death, and asked me incessant questions.
"Let us keep her away from the grave," she said.
I could not answer, or hear her at last, for sleep overpowered me. I struggled against it in vain. It seemed the greatest good; let death and judgment come, I must sleep. I threw myself on my bed, and the touch of the pillow sealed my eyes. I started from a dream about something that happened when I was a little child. "Veronica, are you here?"
"Mother is dead," she answered.
A mighty anguish filled my breast. Mother! --her goodness and beauty, her pure heart, her simplicity--I felt them all. I pitied her dead, because she would never know how I valued her. Veronica shed no tears, but sighed heavily. _Duty_ sounded through her sighs. "Verry, shall _I_ take care of you? I think I can." She shook her head; but presently she stretched her hands in search of my face, kissed it, and answered, "Perhaps."
"You must go to your own room and rest."
"Can you keep everybody from me?"
"I will try."
Opening her window, she looked out over the earth wistfully, and at the sky, thickly strewn with stars, which revealed her face. We heard somebody coming up the back stairs.
"Temperance," said Verry.
"Are you in the dark, girls?" she asked, wringing her hands, when she had put down her lamp. "What an awful Providence!" She looked with a painful anxiety at Veronica.
"It is all Providence, Temperance, whether we are alive or dead," I said. "Let us let Providence alone."
"What did I ever leave her for? She wasn't fit to take care of herself. Why, Cassandra Morgeson, you haven't got off all your things yet. And what's this sticking out of your bosom?"
"It is her handkerchief." I kissed it, and now Verry began to weep over it, begging me for it. I gave it up to her.
"It will kill your father."
I had not thought of him.
"It's most nine o'clock. Sofrony Beals is here; she lays out beautifully."
"No, no; don't let anybody touch her!" shrieked Verry.
"No, they shan't. Come into the kitchen; you must have something to eat."
I was faint from the want of food, and when Temperance prepared us something I ate heartily. Veronica drank a little milk, but would taste nothing. Aunt Merce, who had been out to tea, Temperance said, came into the kitchen.
"My poor girl, I have not seen you," embracing me, half blind with crying, "How pale you are! How sunken! Keep up as well as you can. I little thought that the worthless one of us two would be left to suffer. Go to your father, as soon as possible."
"Drink this tea right down, Mercy," said Temperance, holding a cup before her. "There isn't much to eat in the house. Of all times in the world to be without good victuals! What could Hepsey have meant?"
"Poor old soul," Aunt Merce replied, "she is quite broken. Fanny had to help her upstairs."
The kitchen door opened, and Temperance's husband, Abram, came in.
"Good Lord!" she said in an irate voice, "have you come, too? Did you think I couldn't get home to get your breakfast?"
She hung the kettle on the fire again, muttering too low for him to hear: "Some folks could be spared better than other folks."
Abram shoved back his hat. " 'The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,' but she is a dreadful loss to the poor. There's my poor boy, whose clothes--" "Ain't he the beatum of all the men that ever you see?" broke in Temperance, taking to him a large piece of pie, which he took with a short laugh, and sat down to eat. I could not help exchanging a look with Aunt Merce; we both laughed. Veronica, lost in revery, paid no attention to anything about her. I saw that Temperance suffered; she was perplexed and irritated.
"Let Abram stay, if he likes," I whispered to her; "and be sure to stay yourself, for you are needed."
She brightened with an expression of gratitude. "He is a nuisance," she whispered back; "but as I made a fool of myself, I must be punished according to my folly. I'll stay, you may depend. I'll do _everything_ for you. I vow I am mad, that I ever went away."
"Have the neighbors gone?" I asked.
"There's a couple or so round, and will be, you know. I'll take Verry to bed, and sleep on the floor by her. You go to your father."
He was in their bedroom, on the bed. She was lying on a frame of wood, covered with canvas, a kind of bed which went from house to house in Surrey, on occasions of sickness or death.
"Our last night together has passed," he said in a tremulous voice, while scanty tears fell from his seared eyes. "The space between then and now--when her arm was round me, when she slept beside me, when I woke from a bad dream, and she talked gently close to my face, till I slept again--is so narrow that I recall it with a sense of reality which agonizes me; it is so immeasurable when I see her there--_there_, that I am crushed."
If I had had any thought of speaking to him, it was gone. And I must go too. Were the hands folded across her breast, where I, also, had slept? Were the blue eyes closed that had watched me there? I should never see. A shroud covered her from all eyes but his now. Till I closed the door upon him, I looked my last farewell. An elderly woman met me as I was going upstairs, and offered me a small packet; it was her hair. "It was very long," she said. I tried in vain to thank her. "I will place it in a drawer for you," she said kindly.
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The house was thronged till after the funeral. We sat in state, to be condoled with and waited upon. Not a jot of the customary rites was abated, though I am sure the performers thereof had small encouragement. Veronica alone would see no one; her room was the only one not invaded; for the neighbors took the house into their hands, assisted by that part of the Morgesons who were too distantly related to consider themselves as mourners to be shut up with us. It was put under rigorous funeral law, and inspected from garret to cellar. They supervised all the arrangements, if there were any that they did not make, received the guests who came from a distance, and aided their departure. Every child in Surrey was allowed to come in, to look at the dead, with the idle curiosity of childhood. Veronica knew nothing of this. Her course was taken for granted; mine was imposed upon me. I remonstrated with Temperance, but she replied that it was all well meant, and always done. I endured the same annoyances over and over again, from relays of people. Bed-time especially was their occasion. I was not allowed to undress alone. I must have drinks, either to compose or stimulate; I must have something read to me; I must be watched when I slept, or I must be kept awake to give advice or be told items of news. All the while, like a chorus, they reiterated the character, the peculiarities, the virtues of the mother I had lost, who could never be replaced--who was in a better world. However, I was, in a measure, kept from myself during this interval. The matter is often subservient to the manner. Arthur's feelings were played upon also. He wept often, confiding to me his grief and his plans for the future. "If people would die at the age of seventy-five, things would go well," he said, "for everybody must expect to die then; the Bible says so." He informed me also that he expected to be an architect, and that mother liked it. He had an idea, which he had imparted to her, of an arch; it must be made of black marble, with gold veins, and ought to stand in Egypt, with the word "_Pandemonium_" on it. The kitchen was the focus of interest to him, for meals were prepared at all hours for comers and goers. Temperance told me that the mild and indifferent mourners were fond of good victuals, and she thought their hearts were lighter than their stomachs when they went away. She presided there and wrangled with Fanny, who seemed to have lost her capacity for doing anything steadily, except, as Temperance said, where father was concerned. "It's a pity she isn't his dog; she might keep at his feet then. I found her crying awfully yesterday, because he looked so grief-struck."
Aunt Merce was engaged with a dressmaker, and with the orders for bonnets and veils. She discussed the subject of the mourning with the Morgesons. I acquiesced in all her arrangements, for she derived a simple comfort from these external tokens. Veronica refused to wear the bonnet and veil and the required bombazine. Bombazine made her flesh crawl. Why should she wear it? Mother hated it, too, for she had never worn out the garments made for Grand'ther Warren.
"She's a bigger child than ever," Temperance remarked, "and must have her way."
"Do you think the border on my cap is too deep?" asked Aunt Merce, coming into my room dressed for the funeral.
"No."
"The cap came from Miss Nye in Milford; she says they wear them so. I could have made it myself for half the price. Shall you be ready soon? I am going to put on my bonnet. The yard is full of carriages already."
Somebody handed me gloves; my bonnet was tied, a handkerchief given to me, and the door opened. In the passage I heard a knocking from Veronica's room, and crossed to learn what she wanted.
"Is this like her?" she asked, showing me a drawing.
"How could you have done this?"
"Because I have tried. _Is_ it like?"
"Yes, the idea."
But what a picture she had attempted to make! Mother's shadowy face serenely looked from a high, small window, set in clouds, like those which gather over the sun when it "draws water." It was closely pressed to the glass, and she was regarding dark, indefinite creatures below it, which Veronica either could not or would not shape.
"Keep it; but don't work on it any more." And I put it away. She was wan and languid, but collected.
"I see you are ready. Somebody must bury the dead. Go. Will the house be empty?"
"Yes."
"Good; I can walk through it once more."
"The dead must be buried, that is certain; but why should it be certain that _I_ must be the one to do it?"
"You think I can go through with it, then?"
"I have set your behavior down to your will."
"You may be right. Perhaps mother was always right about me too; she was against me."
She looked at me with a timidity and apprehension that made my heart bleed. "I think we might kiss each other _now_," she said.
I opened my arms, holding her against my breast so tightly that she drew back, but kissed my cheek gently, and took from her pocket a flaçon of salts, which she fastened to my belt by its little chain, and said again, "Go," but recalling me, said, "One thing more; I will never lose temper with you again."
The landing-stair was full of people. I locked the door, and took out the key; the stairs were crowded. All made way for me with a silent respect. Aunt Merce, when she saw me, put her hand on an empty chair, beside father, who sat by the coffin. Those passages in the Bible which contain the beautifully poetic images relating to the going of man to his long home were read, and to my ear they seemed to fall on the coffin in dull strife with its inmate, who mutely contradicted them. A discourse followed, which was calculated to harrow the feelings to the utmost. Arthur began to cry so nervously, that some considerate friend took him out, and Aunt Merce wept so violently that she grew faint, and caught hold of me. I gave her the flaçon of salts, which revived her; but I felt as father looked--stern, and anxious to escape the unprofitable trial.
As the coffin was taken out to the hearse, my heart twisted and palpitated, as if a command had been laid upon it to follow, and not leave her. But I was imprisoned in the cage of Life--the Keeper would not let me go; her he had let loose.
We were still obliged to sit an intolerable while, till all present had passed before her for the last time. When the hearse moved down the street, father, Arthur, and I were called, and assisted in our own chaise, as if we were helpless; the reins were put in father's hands, and the horse was led behind the hearse. At last the word was given, and the long procession began to move through the street, which was deserted. A cat ran out of a house, and scampered across the way; Arthur laughed, and father jumped nervously at the sound of his laugh.
The graveyard was a mile outside the village--a sandy plain where a few stunted pines transplanted from the woods near it struggled to keep alive. As we turned from the street into the lane which led to it, and rode up a little hill where the sand was so deep that it muffled the wheels and feet of the horses, the whole round of the gray sky was visible. It hung low over us. I wished it to drop and blot out the vague nothings under it. We left the carriage at the palings and walked up the narrow path, among the mounds, where every stone was marked "Morgeson." Some so old that they were stained with blotches of yellow moss, slanting backward and forward, in protest against the folly of indicating what was no longer beneath them. The mounds were covered with mats of scanty, tangled grass, with here and there a rank spot of green. I was tracing the shape of one of those green patches when I felt father's arm tremble. I shut my eyes, but could not close my ears to the sound of the spadeful of sand which fell on the coffin.
It was over. We must leave her to the creatures Veronica had seen. I looked upward, to discern the shadowy reflection behind the gray haze of cloud, where she might have paused a moment on her eternal journey to the eternal world of souls.
It was the custom, and father took his hat off to thank his friends for their sympathy and attention. His lips moved, but no words were audible.
The procession moved down the path again. Arthur's hand was in mine; he stamped his feet firmly on the sand, as if to break the oppressive silence which no one seemed disposed to disturb. The same ceremonies were performed in starting us homeward, by the same person, who let go the reins, and lifted his hat as we passed, as the final token of attention and respect.
The windows were open; a wind was blowing through the house, the furniture was set in order, the doors were thrown back, but not a soul was there when we went in. The duties of friendship and tradition had been fulfilled; the neighbors had gone home to their avocations. For the public, the tragedy was over; all speculation on the degree of our grief, or our indifference, was settled. We could take off our mourning garments and our mourning countenance, now that we were alone; or we could give way to that anguish we are afraid and ashamed to show, except before the One above human emotion.
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Temperance stayed to the house-cleaning. It was lucky, she could not help saying, as house-cleaning must always be after a funeral, that it should have happened at the regular cleaning-time. She went back to her own house as soon as it was over. Father drove to Milford as usual; Arthur resumed his school, and Aunt Merce, who had at first busied herself in looking over her wardrobe, and selecting from it what she thought could be dyed, folded it away. She passed hours in mother's room, from which father had fled, crying over her Bible, looking in her boxes and drawers to feed her sorrow with the sight of the familiar things, alternating those periods with her old occupation of looking out of the windows. In regard to myself, and Veronica, she evinced a distress at the responsibility which, she feared, must rest upon her. Veronica, dark and silent, played such heart-piercing strains that father could not bear to hear her; so when she played, for he dared not ask her to desist, he went away. To me she had scarcely spoken since the funeral. She wore the same dress each day--one of black silk--and a small black mantle, pinned across her bosom. Soon the doors began to open and shut after their old fashion, and people came and went as of old on errands of begging or borrowing.
At the table we felt a sense of haste; instead of lingering, as was our wont, we separated soon, with an indifferent air, as if we were called by business, not sent away by sorrow. But if our eyes fell on a certain chair, empty against the wall, a cutting pang was felt, which was not at all concealed; for there were sudden breaks in our commonplace talk, which diverged into wandering channels, betraying the tension of feeling.
Many weeks passed, through which I endured an aching, aimless melancholy. My thoughts continually drifted through the vacuum in our atmosphere, and returned to impress me with a disbelief in the enjoyment, or necessity of keeping myself employed with the keys of an instrument, which, let me strike ever so cunningly, it was certain I could never obtain mastery over.
One day I went to walk by the shore, for the first time since my return. When I set my foot on the ground, the intolerable light of the brilliant day blazed through me; I was luminously dark, for it blinded me. Picking my way over the beach, left bare by the tide, with my eyes fixed downward till I could see, I reached the point between our house and the lighthouse and turned toward the sea, inhaling its cool freshness. I climbed out to a flat, low rock, on the point; it was dry in the sun, and the weeds hanging from its sides were black and crisp; I put my woolen shawl on it, and stretched myself along its edge. Little pools meshed from the sea by the numberless rocks round me engrossed my attention. How white and pellucid was the shallow near me--no shadow but the shadow of my face bending over it--nothing to ripple its surface, but my imperceptible breath! By and by a bunch of knotted wrack floated in from the outside and lodged in a crevice; a minute creature with fringed feet darted from it and swam across it. After the knotted wrack came the fragment of a green and silky substance, delicate enough to have been the remnant of a web, woven in the palace of Circe. "There must be a current," I thought, "which sends them here." And I watched the inlet for other waifs; but nothing more came. Eye-like bubbles rose from among the fronds of the knotted wrack, and, sailing on uncertain voyages, broke one by one and were wrecked to nothingness. The last vanished; the pool showed me the motionless shadow of my face again, on which I pondered, till I suddenly became aware of a slow, internal oscillation, which increased till I felt in a strange tumult. I put my hand in the pool and troubled its surface.
"Hail, Cassandra! Hail!"
I sprang up the highest rock on the point, and looked seaward, to catch a glimpse of the flying Spirit who had touched me. My soul was brought in poise and quickened with the beauty before me! The wide, shimmering plain of sea--its aerial blue, stretching beyond the limits of my vision in one direction, upbearing transverse, cloud-like islands in another, varied and shadowed by shore and sky--mingled its essence with mine.
The wind was coming; under the far horizon the mass of waters begun to undulate. Dark, spear-like clouds rose above it and menaced the east. The speedy wind tossed and teased the sea nearer and nearer, till I was surrounded by a gulf of milky green foam. As the tide rolled in I retreated, stepping back from rock to rock, round which the waves curled and hissed, baffled in their attempt to climb over me. I stopped on the verge of the tide-mark; the sea was seeking me and I must wait. It gave tongue as its lips touched my feet, roaring in the caves, falling on the level beaches with a mad, boundless joy!
"Have then at life!" my senses cried. "We will possess its longing silence, rifle its waiting beauty. We will rise up in its light and warmth, and cry, 'Come, for we wait.' Its roar, its beauty, its madness--we will have--_all_." I turned and walked swiftly homeward, treading the ridges of white sand, the black drifts of sea-weed, as if they had been a smooth floor.
Aunt Merce was at the door.
"Now," she said, "we are going to have the long May storm. The gulls are flying round the lighthouse. How high the tide is! You must want your dinner. I wish you _would_ see to Fanny; she is lording it over us all."
"Yes, yes, I will do it; you may depend on me. I will reign, and serve also."
"Oh, Cassandra, _can_ you give up _yourself? _" "I must, I suppose. Confound the spray; it is flying against the windows."
"Come in; your hair is wet, and your shawl is wringing. Now for a cold."
"I never shall have any more colds, Aunt Merce; never mean to have anything to myself--entirely, you know."
"You do me good, you dear girl; I love you"; and she began to cry. "There's nothing but cold ham and boiled rice for your dinner."
"What time is it?"
"Near three."
I opened the door of the dining-room; the table was laid, and I walked round it, on a tour of inspection.
"I thought you might as well have your dinner, all at once," said Fanny, by the window, with her feet tucked up on the rounds of her chair. "Here it is."
"I perceive. Who arranged it?"
"Me and Paddy Margaret."
"How many tablecloths have we?"
"Plenty. I thought as you didn't seem to care about any regular hour for dinner, and made us all wait, _I_ needn't be particular; besides, I am not the waiter, you know."
She had set on the dishes used in the kitchen. I pulled off cloth and all--the dishes crashed, of course--and sat down on the floor, picking out the remains for my repast.
"What will Mr. Morgeson say?" she asked, turning very red.
"Shall you clear away this rubbish by the time he comes home?"
"Why, I must, mustn't I?"
"I hope so. Where's Veronica?"
"She has been gone since twelve; Sam carried her to Temperance's house."
I continued my meal. Fanny brought a chair for me, which I did not take. I scarcely tasted what I ate. A wall had risen up suddenly before me, which divided me from my dreams; I was inside it, on a prosaic domain I must henceforth be confined to. The unthought-of result of mother's death--disorganization, began to show itself. The individuality which had kept the weakness and faults of our family life in abeyance must have been powerful; and I had never recognized it! I attempted to analyze this influence, so strong, yet so invisibly produced. I thought of her mildness, her dreamy habits, her indifference, and her incapacity of comprehending natures unlike her own. Would endowment of character explain it--that faculty which we could not change, give, or take? Character was a mysterious and indestructible fact, and a fact that I had had little respect for. Upon what a false basis I had gone--a basis of extremes. I had seen men as trees walking; that was my experience.
"You'll choke yourself with that dry bread," exclaimed Fanny, really concerned at my abstraction.
"Where is my trunk? Did you unlock it?"
"I took from it what you needed at the time: but it is not unpacked, and it is in the upper hall closet."
She was picking up the broken delf meekly.
"Did you see a small bag I brought? And where's my satchel? Good heavens! What has made me put off that letter so? For I have thought of it, and yet I have kept it back."
"It is safe, in your closet, Miss Cassandra; and the box is there."
"Aunt Merce," I called, "will you have nothing to eat?"
She laughed hysterically, when she saw what I had done.
"Where is Hepsey, Aunt Merce?"
"She goes to bed after dinner, you know, for an hour or two."
"She must go from here."
"Oh!" they both chorused, "what for?"
"She is too old."
"She _has_ money, and a good house," said Aunt Merce, "if she must go. I wonder how Mary stood it so long."
"Turn 'em off," said Fanny, "when they grow useless."
Aunt Merce reddened, and looked hurt.
"I shall keep _you_; look sharp now after your own disinterestedness."
I wanted to go to my room, as I thought it time to arrange my trunks and boxes; besides, I needed rest--the sad luxury of reaction. But word was brought to the house that Arthur had disappeared, in company with two boys notorious for mischief. His teacher was afraid they might have put out to sea in a crazy sailboat. We were in a state of alarm till dark, when father came home, bringing him, having found him on the way to Milford. Veronica had not returned. It stormed violently, and father was vexed because a horse must be sent through the storm for her. At last I obtained the asylum of my room, in an irritable frame of mind, convinced that such would be my condition each day. Composure came with putting my drawers and shelves in order. The box with Desmond's flowers I threw into the fire, without opening it, ribbon and all, for I could not endure the sight of them. I unfolded the dresses I had worn on the occasions of my meeting him; even the collars and ribbons I had adorned myself with were conned with jealous, greedy eyes; in looking at them all other remembrances connected with my visit vanished. The handkerchief scented with violets, which I found in the pocket of the dress I had worn when I met him at Mrs. Hepburn's, made me childish. I was holding it when Veronica entered, bringing with her an atmosphere of dampness.
"Violet! I like it. There is not one blooming yet, Temperance says. Why are they so late? There's only this pitiful snake-grass," holding up a bunch of drooping, pale blossoms.
"Oh, Verry, can you forgive me? I did not forget these, but I felt the strangest disinclination to look them up." And I gave her the jewel box and letter.
She seized them, and opened the box first.
"Child-Verry."
"I never was a child, you know; but I am always trying to find my childhood."
She took a necklace from the box, composed of a single string of small, beautiful pearls, from which hung an egg-shaped amethyst of pure violet. She fastened the necklace round her throat.
"It is as lucent as the moon," she said, looking down at the amethyst, which shed a watery light; "I wish you had given it to me before."
Breaking the seal of the letter, with a twist of her mouth at the coat-of-arms impressed upon it, she shook out the closely written pages, and saying, "There is a volume," began reading. "It is very good," she observed at the end of the first page, "a regular composition," and went on with an air of increasing interest. "How does he look?" she asked, stopping again.
"As if he longed to see you."
Her eyes went in quest of him so far that I thought they must be startled by a sudden vision.
"How did you find his family?"
"Not like him much."
"I knew that; he would not have loved me so suddenly had I not been wholly unlike any woman he had known."
"His character is individual."
"I should know that from his influence upon you."
She looked at me wistfully, smoothed my hair with her cool hand, and resumed the letter.
"He thinks he will not come to Surrey with you; asks me to tell him my wishes," she repeated rapidly, translating from the original. "What do I think of our future? How shall we propose any change? Will Cassandra describe her visit? Will she tell me that he thinks of going abroad?"
She dropped the letter. "What pivot is he swinging on? What is he uncertain about?"
"There must be more to read."
She turned another page.
"If I go to Switzerland (I think of going on account of family affairs), when shall I return? My family, of course, expected me to marry in their pale; that is, my mother rather prefers to select a wife for me than that I should do it. But, as you shall never come to Belem, her plans or wishes need make no difference to us. If Cassandra would be to us what she might, how things would clear! Don't you think, my love, that there should be the greatest sympathy between sisters?"
I laughed.
Verry said she did not like his letter much after all. He evidently thought her incapable of understanding ordinary matters. It was well, though; it made their love idyllic.
"Let us speak of matters nearer home."
"Let us go to my room; the storm is so loud this side of the house."
"No; you must stay till the walls tremble. Have you seen, Verry, any work for me to do here?"
"Everything is changed. I have tried to be as steady as when mother was here, but I cannot; I whirl with a vague idea of liberty. Did she keep the family conscience? Now that she has gone I feel responsible no more."
"An idea of responsibility has come to me--what plain people call Duty."
"I do not feel it," she cried mournfully. "I must yield to you then. You can be good.'
"I must act so; but help me, Verry; I have contrary desires."
"What do they find to feed on? What are they? Have you your evil spirit?"
"Yes; a devil named Temperament."
"Now teach me, Cassandra."
"Not I. Go, and write Ben. Make excuses for my negligence toward you about his letter. Tell him to come. I shall write Alice and Helen this evening. We have been shut off from the world by the gate of Death; but we must come back."
"One thing you may be sure of--though I shall be no help, I shall never annoy you. I know that my instincts are fine only in a self-centering direction; yours are different. I shall trust them. Since you have spoken, I perceive the shadows you have raised and must encounter. I retreat before them, admiring your discernment, and placing confidence in your powers. You convince if you do not win me. Who can guess how your every plan and hope of well-doing may be thwarted? I need say no more?"
"Nothing more."
She left the room. There would be no antagonism between us; but there would be pain--on one side. The distance which had kept us apart was shortened, but not annihilated. What could I expect? The silent and serene currents which flow from souls like Veronica's and Ben's, whose genius is not of the heart, refuse to enter a nature so turbulent as mine. But my destiny must be changed by such! It was taken for granted that my own spirit should not rule me. And with what reward? Any, but that of sympathy. But I muttered: "'I dimly see My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother Conjectures of the features of her child Ere it is born.'"
The house trembled in the fury of the storm. The waves were hoarse with their vain bawling, and the wind shrieked at every crevice of chimney, door, and window. No answering excitement in me now! I had grown older.
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A few days after, I went to Milford with father, to make some purchases. I sought a way to speak to him about the future, intending also to go on with various remarks; but it seemed difficult to begin. Observing him, as he contemplated the road before us, grave and abstracted, I recollected the difference between his age and mother's, and wondered at my blindness, while I compared the old man of my childhood, who existed for the express purpose of making money for the support and pleasure of his family, and to accommodate all its whims, with the man before me,--barely forty-eight, without a wrinkle in his firm, ruddy face, and only an occasional white hair, in ambuscade among his fair, curly locks. My exclusive right over him I felt doubtful about. I gave my attention to the road also, and remarked that I thought the season was late.
"Yes. Why didn't Somers come home with you?"
"I hardly know. The matter of the marriage was not settled, nor a plan of spending a summer abroad."
"Will it suit him to vegetate in Surrey? Veronica will not leave home."
"He has no ambition."
"It is a curse to inherit money in this country. Mr. Somers writes that Ben will have three thousand a year; but that the disposal, at present, is not in his power."
I explained as well as I could the Pickersgill property.
"I see how it is. The children are waiting for the principal, and have exacted the income; and their lives have been warped for this reason. Ben has not begun life yet. But I like Somers exceedingly."
"He is the best of them, his mother the worst."
"Did you have a passage?"
"She attempted."
"I can give Veronica nothing beyond new clothes or furniture; whatever she likes that way. To draw money from my business is impossible. My business fluctuates like quicksilver, and it is enormously extended. If they should have two thousand a year, it would be a princely income; I should feel so now, if they had it clear of incumbrance."
"Do you mean to say that your income does not amount to so much?"
"My outgoes and incomes have for a long time been involved with each other. I do not separate them. I have never lived extravagantly. My luxury has been in doing too much."
A cold feeling came over me.
"By the way, Mr. Somers pays you compliments in his note. How old are you? I forget." He surveyed me with a doubtful look. Are you thin, or what is it?"
"East wind, I guess. I am twenty-five."
"And Veronica?"
"Over twenty."
"She must be married. I hope she will cut her practical eye-teeth then, for Somers's sake."
"He does not require a practically minded woman."
"What do men require!"
"They require the souls and bodies of women, without having the trouble of knowing the difference between the one and other."
"So bad as that? Whoa!"
He stopped to pay toll, and the conversation stopped.
On the way home, however, I found a place to begin my proposed talk, and burst out with, "I think Hepsey should leave us."
"What ails Hepsey?"
"She is so old, and is such a poke."
"You must tell her yourself to go. She has money enough to be comfortable; I have some of it, as well as that of half the widows, old maids, and sailors' wives in Surrey,' being better than the Milford banks, they think."
I felt another cold twinge.
"What! are our servants your creditors?"
"Servants--don't say that," he said harshly; "we do not have these distinctions here."
"It costs you more than two thousand a year."
"How do you know?"
"Think of the hired people--the horses, the cows, pigs, hens, garden, fields--all costing more than they yield."
"What has come over you? Did you ever think of money before? Tell me, have you ever been in our cellar?"
"Yes, to look at the kittens."
"In the store-room?"
"For apples and sweetmeats."
"Look into these matters, if you like; they never troubled your mother, at least I never knew that they did; but don't make your reforms tiresome."
What encouragement!
In the yard we saw Fanny contemplating a brood of hens, which were picking up corn before her. "Take Fanny for a coadjutor; she is eighteen, and a bright girl." She sprang to the chaise, and caught the reins, which he threw into her hands, unbuckled the girth, and, before I was out of sight, was leading the horse to water.
"We might economize in the way of a stable-boy," I said.
"Pooh! you are not indulgent. Here," whistling to Fanny, "let Sam do that." She pouted her lips at him, and he laughed.
Aunt Merce gave me a letter the moment I entered. "It is in Alice's hand; sit down and read it."
She took her handkerchief and a bit of flagroot from her pocket, to be ready for the sympathetic flow which she expected. But the letter was short. She had seen, it said, the announcement of mother's death in a newspaper at the time. She knew what a change it had made. We might be sure that we should never find our old level, however happy and forgetful we might grow. She bore us all in mind but sent no message, except to Aunt Merce; she must come to Rosville before summer was over. And could she assist me by taking Arthur for a while? Edward was a quiet, companionable lad, and Arthur would be safe with him at home and at school.
"I wish you would go, Aunt Merce."
"Yes, why not, Mercy?" asked father. "Would it be a good thing for Arthur, Cassandra? You know what Surrey is for a boy."
"I know what Rosville was for a girl," I thought. It was an excellent plan for Arthur; but a feeling of repulsion at the idea of his going kept me silent.
"Is it a good idea?" he repeated.
"Yes, yes, father; send him by all means."
Aunt Merce sighed. "If he goes, I must go; I can be the receptacle for his griefs and trials for a while at least, and be a little useful that way. You know, Locke, I am but a poor creature."
"I was not aware of that fact, and am astonished to hear you say so, Mercy, when you know how far back I can remember. Mary shines all along those years, and you with her."
"Locke, you are the kindest man in the world."
"He feels fifty years younger than she appears to him," I thought; but I thanked him for his consideration for her.
"Veronica has had a letter to-day from Mr. Somers. What did you buy in Milford?"
"Mr. Morgeson," Fanny called, "Bumpus, the horse-jockey, is in the yard. He says Bill is spavined. I think he lies; he wants to trade."
He went out with her.
"Aunt Merce, let us be more together. What do you think of spending our evenings in the parlor?"
"Do you expect to break up our habits?"
"I would if I could."
"Try Veronica."
"I have."
"Will she give up solitude?"
"Bring your knitting to the parlor and see."
Veronica came in to tell me that Ben was coming in a week.
"Glad of it."
"Sends love to you."
"Obliged."
"Calls me 'poor girl'; speaks beautifully of his remembrance of mother, and--" "What?"
"Tells me to rely on your faithful soul; to trust in the reasonable hope of our remaining together; to try to establish an equality of tastes and habits between us. He tells me what I never knew,--that I need you--that we need each other."
"Is that all?"
"There is more for _me_."
I left her. Closing the door of my room gently, I thought: "Ben is a good man; but for all that, I feel like blind Sampson just now. Could I lay my hands on the pillars which supported the temple he has built, I would wrench them from their foundation and surprise him by toppling the roof on his head."
His arrival was delayed for a few days. When he came Surrey looked its best, for it was June; and though the winds were chilly, the grass was grown and the orchard leaves were crowding off the blossoms. The woods were vividly green. The fauns were playing there, and the sirens sang under the sea. But I had other thoughts; the fauns and sirens were not for me, perplexed as I was with household cares. Hepsey proposed staying another year, but I was firm; and she went, begging Fanny to go with her and be as a daughter. She declined; but the proposition influenced her to be troublesome to me. She told me she was of age now, and that no person had a right to control her. At present she was useful where she was, and might remain.
"Will you have wages?" I asked her.
"That is Mr. Morgeson's business."
My anger would have pleased her, so I concealed it.
"Your ability, Fanny, is better than your disposition. Me,--you do not suit at all; but it is certain that father depends on you for his small comforts, and Veronica likes you. I wish you would stay."
She placed her arms akimbo.
"I should like to find you out, exactly. I can't. I never could find out your mother; all the rest of you are as clear as daylight." And she snapped her fingers as if 'the rest' were between them.
"You lack faith."
"You believe that this is a beautiful world, don't you? I hate it. I should think _you_ had reason, too, for hating it. Pray what have you got?"
"An ungrateful imp that was bequeathed to me."
She saw father in the garden beckoning me. "He wants you. I do _not_ hate the world always," she added, with her eyes fixed on him.
I was disposed to trouble the still waters of our domestic life with theories. Our ways were too mechanical. The old-fashioned asceticism which considered air, sleep, food, as mere necessities was stupid. But I had no assistance; Veronica thought that her share of my plans must consist of a diligent notice of all that I did, which she gave, and then went to her own life, kept sacredly apart. Fanny laughed in her sleeve and took another side--the practical, and shone in it, becoming in fact the true manager and worker, while I played. Aunt Merce was helpless. She neglected her former cares; and father was, what he always had been at home,--heedless and indifferent.
One morning we stood on the landing stair--Ben, Veronica, and myself--looking from the window. A silver mist so thinly wrapped the orchard that the wet, shining leaves thrust themselves through in patches. Birds were singing beneath, feeling the warmth of the sun, scarcely hid. The young leaves and blossoms steeping in the mist sent up a delicious odor.
"I like Surrey better and better," he said; "the atmosphere suits me."
"Oh, I am glad," answered Verry. "I could never go away. It is not beautiful, I know; in fact, it is meager when it comes to be talked of; but there are suggestions here which occasionally stimulate me."
"Verry, can you keep people away from me when I live here?"
"I do not like that feeling in you."
"I like fishermen."
"And a boat?"
"Yes, I'll have a boat."
"I shall never go out with you."
"Cass will. I shall cruise with her, and you, in your house, need not see us depart. Eric the Red made excursions in this region. We will skirt the shores, which are the same, nearly, as when he sailed from them, with his Northmen; and the ancient barnacles will think, when they see her fair hair, which she will let ripple around her stately shoulders, that he has come back with his bride."
Verry looked with delight at him and then at me. "Her long, yellow hair and her stately shoulders," she repeated.
"Will you go?" he asked.
"Of course," I answered, going downstairs. I happened to look back on the way. His arm was round Verry, but he was looking after me. He withdrew it as our eyes met, and came down; but she remained, looking from the window. We went into the parlor, and I shut the door.
"Now then," I said.
He took a note from his pocket and gave it to me.
I broke its seal, and read: "Tell Ben, before you can reflect upon it, that _I_ will go abroad, and then repent of it,--as I shall. Desmond." " 'Tell Ben,'" I repeated aloud, "'that _I_ will go abroad. Desmond.'"
"Do you guess, as he does, that my reason for going was that I might be kept aloof from all sight and sound of you and him? In the result toward which I saw _you_ drive I could have no part."
"Stay; I know that he will go."
"You do not know. Nor do you know what such a man is when--" checking himself.
"He is in love?"
"If you choose to call it that."
"I do."
All there was to say should be said now; but I felt more agitated than was my wont. These feelings, not according with my housewifely condition, upset me. I looked at him; he began to walk about, taking up a book, which he leaned his head over, and whose covers he bent back till they cracked.
"You would read me that way," I said.
"It is rather your way of reading."
"Can you remember that Desmond and I influence each other to act alike? And that we comprehend each other without collision? I love him, as a mature woman may love,--once, Ben, only once; the fire-tipped arrows rarely pierce soul and sense, blood and brain."
He made a gesture, expressive of contempt.
"Men are different; he is different."
"You have already spoken for me, and, I suppose, you will for him."
"I venture to. Desmond is a violent, tyrannical, sensual man; his perceptions are his pulses. That he is handsome, clever, resolute, and sings well, I can admit; but no more."
"We will not bandy his merits or his demerits between us. Let us observe him. And now, tell me,--what am I?"
"You have been my delight and misery ever since I knew you. I saw you first, so impetuous, yet self-contained! Incapable of insincerity, devoid of affection and courageously naturally beautiful. Then, to my amazement, I saw that, unlike most women, you understood your instincts; that you dared to define them, and were impious enough to follow them. You debased my ideal, you confused me, also, for I could never affirm that you were wrong; forcing me to consult abstractions, they gave a verdict in your favor, which almost unsexed you in my estimation. I must own that the man who is willing to marry you has more courage than I have. Is it strange that when I found your counterpart, Veronica, that I yielded? Her delicate, pure, ignorant soul suggests to me eternal repose."
"It is not necessary that you should fatigue your mind with abstractions concerning her. It will be the literal you will hunger for, dear Ben."
"Damn it! the world has got a twist in it, and we all go round with it, devilishly awry."
I said no more. He had defined my limits, he would, as far as possible, control me without pity or compassion, thinking, probably, that I needed none; the powers he had always given me credit for must be sufficing. I could not comprehend him. How was it that he and Verry gave me such horrible pain? Was it exceptional? Could I claim nothing from women? Had they thought me an anomaly? --while I thought it was Veronica who was called peculiar and original? The end of it all must be for me to assimilate with their happiness!
"Well?" he said.
"Thank you."
Then Veronica came, swinging her bonnet. "The _Sagamore_ has arrived, and I am going to stand on the wharf to count the sailors, and learn if they have all come home. Will you go, Ben?"
He complied, and I was left alone.
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When Ben left Surrey, I sent no message or letter by him, and he asked for none. But at once I wrote to Desmond, and did not finish my letter till after midnight. Intoxicated with the liberty my pen offered me, I roamed over a wide field of paper. The next morning I burnt it. But there was something to be said to him before his departure, and again I wrote. I might have condensed still more. In this way-- VESTIGIA RETRORSUM.
CHARLES MORGESON.
When the answer came I reflected before I read it, that it might be the last link of the chain between us. Not a bright one at the best, nor garlanded with flowers, nor was it metal, silver, or gold. There was rust on it, it was corroded, for it was forged out of his and my substance.
I read it: "I am yours, as I have been, since the night I asked you 'How came those scars?' Did you guess that I read your story? I go from you with one idea; I love you, and I _must_ go. Brave woman! you have shamed me to death almost."
He sent me a watch. I was to wear it from the second of July. It was small and plain, but there were a few words scratched inside the case with the point of a knife, which I read every day. Veronica's eye fell on it the first time I put it on.
"What time is it?"
"Near one."
"I thought, from the look of it, that it might be near two."
"Don't mar my ideal of you, Verry, by growing witty."
She shrugged her shoulders. "I guess you found it washed ashore, among the rocks; was it bruised?"
"A man gave it to me."
"A merman, who fills the sea-halls with a voice of power?"
"May be."
"Tut, Ben gave it to you. It is a kind of housekeepish present; did he add scissors and needle-case?"
"What if the merman should take me some day to the 'pale sea-groves straight and high?'"
"You must never, never go. You cannot leave me, Cass!" She grasped my sleeve, and pulled me round. "How much was there for you to do in the life before us, which you talked about?"
"I remember. There is much, to be sure."
Fanny's quick eye caught the glitter of the watch. The mystery teased her, but she said nothing.
Aunt Merce had gone to Rosville with Arthur. There was no visitor with us; there had been none beside Ben since mother died. All seemed kept at bay. I wrote to Helen to come and pass the summer, but her child was too young for such a journey, she concluded. Ben had sailed for Switzerland. The summer, whose biography like an insignificant life must be written in a few words, was a long one to live through. It happened to be a dry season, which was unfrequent on our coast. Days rolled by without the variation of wind, rain, or hazy weather. The sky was an opaque blue till noon, when solid white clouds rose in the north, and sailed seaward, or barred the sunset, which turned them crimson and black. The mown fields grew yellow under the stare of the brassy sun, and the leaves cracked and curled for the want of moisture. It was dull in the village, no ships were building, none sailed, none arrived. But father was more absorbed than ever, more away from home. He wrote often in the evening, and pored over ledgers with his bookkeeper. Late at night I found him sorting and reading papers. He forgot us. But Fanny, as he grew forgetful, improved as housekeeper. Her energy was untiring; she waited so much on him that I grew forgetful of him. Veronica was the same as before; her room was pleasant with color and perfume, the same delicate pains with her dress each day was taken. She looked as fair as a lily, as serene as the lake on which it floats, except when Fanny tried her. With me she never lost temper. But I saw little of her; she was as fixed in her individual pursuits as ever.
There were intervals now when all my grief for mother returned, and I sat in my darkened chamber, recalling with a sad persistence her gestures, her motions, the tones of her voice, through all the past back to my first remembrance. The places she inhabited, her opinions and her actions I commented on with a minuteness that allowed no detail to escape. When my thoughts turned from her, it seemed as if she were newly lost in the vast and wandering Universe of the Dead, whence I had brought her.
In September a letter came from Ben, which promised a return by the last of October. With the ruffling autumnal breezes my stagnation vanished, and I began my shore life again in a mood which made memory like hope; but staying out too late one evening, I came home in a chill. From the chill I went to a fever, which lasted some days. Veronica came every day to see me, and groaned over my hair, which fell off, but she could not stay long, the smell of medicine made her ill, the dark room gave her an uneasiness; besides, she did not know what she should say. I sent her away always. Fanny took care of me till I was able to move about the room, then she absented herself most of the time. One afternoon Veronica came to tell me that Margaret, the Irish girl, was going; she supposed that Fanny was insufferable, and that she could not stay.
"I must be well by to-morrow," I said.
The next day I went down stairs, and was greeted with the epithet of "Scarecrow."
"Do you feel pretty strong?" asked Fanny, with a peculiar accent, when we happened to be alone.
"What is the matter? Out with it!"
"Something's going to turn up here; something ails Mr. Morgeson."
I guess his ailment.
"He is going to fail, he is smashed all to nothing. He knows what will be said about him, yet he goes about with perfect calmness. But he feels it. I tried him this morning, I gave him tea instead of coffee, and he didn't know it!"
"Margaret's gone?"
"There must be rumors; for she asked him for her wages a day or two ago. He paid her, and said she had better go."
I examined my hands involuntarily. She tittered.
"How easily you will wash the long-necked glasses and pitchers, with your slim hand!"
I dropped into a mental calculation, respecting the cost of an entire change of wardrobe suitable to our reduced circumstances, and speculated on a neat cottage-style of cookery.
"I think I must go, too," she said with cunning eyes.
"How can you bear to, when there will be so much trouble for you to enjoy?"
"How tired you look, Cass," said Veronica, slipping in quietly. "What are you talking about? Has Fanny been tormenting you?"
"Of course," she answered. "But if am not mistaken, you will be tormented by others besides me."
"Go out!" said Veronica. "Leave us, pale pest."
"You may want me here yet."
"What does she mean, Cass?"
I hesitated.
"Tell me," she said, in her imperative, gentle voice. "What is there that I cannot know?"
"Now she is what you call high-toned, isn't it?" inquired Fanny.
Veronica threw her book at her.
"The truth is, ladies, that your father, the principal man in Surrey, is not worth a dollar. What do you think of it? And how will you come off the high horse?" And Fanny drummed on the table energetically.
"Did you really think of going, Fanny?" asked Veronica. "You will stay, and do better than ever, for if you attempt to go, I shall bring you back."
This was the invitation she wanted, and was satisfied with.
"I must give up flowers," said Veronica, "of course."
"I wonder if we shall keep pigs this fall?" said Fanny. "Must we sit in the free seats in the meeting-house? It will be fine for the boys to drop paper balls on our heads from the gallery. I'd like to see them do it, though," she concluded, as if she felt that such an insult would infringe upon her rights.
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It was true. Locke Morgeson had been insolvent for five years. All this time he had thrown ballast out from every side in the shape of various ventures, which he trusted would lighten the ship, that, nevertheless, drove steadily on to ruin. Then he steered blindly, straining his credit to the utmost; and then--the crash. His losses were so extended and gradual that the public were not aware of his condition till he announced it. There was a general exasperation against him. The Morgeson family rose up with one accord to represent the public mind, which drove Veronica wild.
"Have you acted wrongly, father?" she asked.
"I have confessed, Verry, will that suit you!"
Our house was thronged for several days. "Pay us," cried the female portion of his creditors. In vain father represented that he was still young--that his business days were not over--that they must wait, for paid they should be. "Pay us now, for we are women," they still cried. Fanny opened the doors for these persons as wide as possible when they came, and shut them with a bang when they went, astonishing them with a satirical politeness, or confounding them with an impertinent silence. The important creditors held meetings to agree what should be done, and effected an arrangement by which his property was left in his hands for three years, to arrange for the benefit of his creditors. The arrangement proved that his integrity was not suspected; but it was an ingenious punishment, that he should keep in sight, improve, or change, for others, what had been his own. I was glad when he decided to sell his real estate and personal property, and trust to the ships alone, but would build no more. I begged him to keep our house till Ben should return. He consented to wait; but I did not tell Verry what I had done. All the houses he owned, lots, carriages, horses, domestic stock, the fields lying round our house--were sold. When he began to sell, the fury of retrenchment seized him, and he laid out a life of self-denial for us three. Arthur's ten thousand dollars were safe, who was therefore provided for. He would bring wood and water for us; the rest we must do, with Fanny's help. We could dine in the kitchen, and put our beds in one room; by shutting up the house in part, we should have less labor to perform. We attempted to carry out his ideas, but Veronica was so dreadfully in Fanny's way and mine, that we were obliged to entreat her to resume her old rôle. As for Fanny, she was happy--working like a beaver day and night. Father was much at home, and took an extraordinary interest in the small details that Fanny carried out.
When Temperance heard of these arrangements, she came down with Abram in their green and yellow wagon. Temperance drove the shaggy old white horse, for Abram was intrusted with the care of a meal bag, in which were fastened a cock and four hens. We should see, she said when she let them out, whether we were to keep hens or not. Was Veronica to go without new-laid eggs? Had he sold the cat, she sarcastically inquired of father.
"Who is going to do your washing, girls?" she asked, taking off her bonnet.
"We all do it."
"Now I shall die a-laughing!" But she contradicted herself by crying heartily. "One day in every week, I tell _you_, I am coming; and Fanny and I can do the washing in a jiffy."
"Sure," said Abram, "you can; the sass is in."
"Sass or no sass, I'm coming."
She made me laugh for the first time in a month. I was too tired generally to be merry, with my endeavors to carry out father's wishes, and keep up the old aspect of the house. When she left us we all felt more cheerful. Aunt Merce wanted to come home, but Verry and I thought she had better stay at Rosville. We could not deny it to ourselves, that home was sadly altered, or that we were melancholy; and though we never needed her more, we begged her not to come. Happily father's zeal soon died away. A boy was hired, and as there was no out-of-doors work for him to do, he relieved Fanny, who in her turn relieved me. Finding time to look into myself, I perceived a change in my estimation of father; a vague impression of weakness in him troubled me. I also discovered that I had lost my atmosphere. My life was coarse, hard, colorless! I lived in an insignificant country village; I was poor. My theories had failed; my practice was like my moods--variable. But I concluded that if _to-day_ would go on without bestowing upon me sharp pains, depriving me of sleep, mutilating me with an accident, or sending a disaster to those belonging to me, I would be content. Arthur held out a hope, by writing me, that he meant to support me handsomely. He wished me to send him some shirt studs; and told me to keep the red horse. He had heard that I was very handsome when I was in Rosville. A girl had asked him how I looked now. When he told her I was handsomer than any woman Rosville could boast of, she laughed.
October had gone, and we had not heard from Ben. Veronica came to my room of nights, and listened to wind and sea, as she never had before. Sometimes she was there long after I had gone to bed, to look out of the windows. If it was calm, she went away quietly; if the sea was rough, she was sorrowful, but said nothing. The lethargic summer had given way to a boisterous autumn of cold, gray weather, driving rains, and hollow gales. At last he came--to Veronica first. He gave a deep breath of delight when he stood again on the hearth-rug, before our now unwonted parlor fire. The sight of his ruddy face, vigorous form, and gay voice made me as merry as the attendants of a feast are when they inhale the odor of the viands they carry, hear the gurgle of the wine they pour, and echo the laughter of the guests.
There was much to tell that astonished him, but he could not be depressed; everything must be arranged to suit us. He would buy the house, provided he could pay for it in instalments. Did I know that his mother had docked his allowance as soon as she knew that he would marry Verry?
"How should I know it?"
I had not heard then that Desmond's was doubled, when she heard his intention of going to Spain.
"How should I know that?"
One thing I should learn, however--and that was, that Desmond had begged his mother to make no change in the disposition of her income. He had declined the extra allowance, and then accepted it, to offer him--Ben. Was not that astonishing?
"Did you take it?"
"No; but pa did."
All he could call his was fifteen hundred a year. Was that enough for them to live on, and pay a little every year for the house? Could we all live there together, just the same? Would we, he asked father, and allow him to be an inmate?
Father shook hands with him so violently that he winced; and Verry crumpled up a handful of his tawny locks and kissed them, whereat he said: "Are you grown a human woman?"
About the wedding? He could only stay to appoint a time, for he must post to Belem. It must be very soon.
"In a year or two," said Verry.
"Verry!"
"In three weeks, then."
"From to-day?"
"No, that will be the date of the wreck of the _Locke Morgeson_; but three weeks from to-morrow. Must we have anybody here, Ben?"
"Helen, and Alice, Cassandra?"
"Certainly."
"I have no friends," said Verry.
"What will you wear, Verry?" I asked.
"Why, this dress," designating her old black silk. Her eyes filled with tears, and went on a pilgrimage toward the unknown heaven where our mother was. _She_ could only come to the wedding as a ghost. I imagined her flitting through the empty spaces, from room to room, scared and troubled by the pressure of mortal life around her.
"I shall not wear white," Verry said hastily.
The very day Ben went to Belem one of father's outstanding ships arrived. She came into the harbor presenting the unusual sight of trying oil on deck. Black and greasy from hull to spar, she was a pleasant sight, for she was full of sperm oil. Little boys ran down to the house to inform us of that fact before she was moored. "Wouldn't Mr. Morgeson be all right now that his luck had changed?" they asked.
At supper father said "By George!" several times, by that oath resuming something of his old self. "Those women can now be paid," he said. "If I could have held out till now, I could have gone on without failing. This is the first good voyage the _Oswego_ ever made me; if another ship, the _Adamant_, will come full while oil is high, I shall arrange matters with my creditors before the three years are up. To hold my own again--ah! I never will venture all upon the uncertain field of the sea."
The _Oswego's_ captain sent us a box of shells next day, and a small Portuguese boy, named Manuel--a handsome, black-eyed, husky-voiced fellow, in a red shirt, which was bound round his waist with a leather belt, from which hung a sailor's sheath-knife.
"He is volcanic," said Verry.
"The Portuguese are all handsome," said Fanny, poking him, to see if he would notice it. But he did not remove his eyes from Veronica.
"He shall be your page, Verry."
The next night a message came to us that Abram was dying. If we ever meant to come, Temperance sent word, some of us might come now; but she would rather have Mr. Morgeson. Fanny insisted upon going with him to carry a lantern. Manuel offered her his knife, when he comprehended that she was going through a dark road.
"You are a perfect heathen. There's nothing to be afraid of, except that Mr. Morgeson may walk into a ditch; will a knife keep us out of that?"
"Knife is good--it kills," he said, showing his white, vegetable-ivory teeth.
Verry and I sat up till they returned, at two in the morning. Abram had died about midnight, distressed to the last with worldly cares. "He asked," said father, "if I remembered his poor boy, whose chest never came home, and wished to hear some one read a hymn; Temperance broke down when I read it, while Fanny cried hysterically."
"I was freezing cold," she answered haughtily.
In the morning Verry and I started for Temperance's house; but she waited on the doorstep till I had inquired whether we were wanted. I called her in, for Temperance asked for her as soon as she saw me.
"He was a good man, girls," she said with emphasis.
"Indeed he was."
"A little mean, I spose."
I put in a demurrer; her face cleared instantly.
"He thought a great deal of your folks."
"And a great deal of you."
"Oh, what a loss I have met with! He had just bought a first-rate overcoat."
"But Temperance," said Verry, with a lamentable candor, "you can come back now."
"Can't you wait for him to be put into the ground?" And she tried to look shocked, but failed.
A friend entered with a doleful face, and Temperance groaned slightly.
"It is all done complete now, Mis Handy. He looks as easy as if he slept, he was _so_ limber."
"Yes, yes," answered Temperance, starting up, and hurrying us out of the room, pinching me, with a significant look at Verry. She was afraid that her feelings might be distressed. "The funeral will be day after to-morrow. Don't come; your father will be all that must be here of the family. I shall shut up the house and come straight to you. I know that I am needed; but you mustn't say a word about pay--I can't stand it, I have had too much affliction to be pestered about wages."
Verry hugged her, and Temperance shed the honestest tears of the day then, she was so gratified at Verry's fondness. Before Abram had been buried a week, she was back again--a fixture, although she declared that she had only come for a spell, as we might know by the size of the bundle she had, showing us one, tied in a blue cotton handkerchief. What should she stay from her own house for, when as good a man as ever lived left it to her? We knew that she merely comforted a tender conscience by praising the departed, for whom she had small respect when living. We felt her brightening influence, but Fanny sulked, feeling dethroned.
Ben Pickersgill Somers and Veronica Morgeson were "published." Contrary to the usual custom, Verry went to hear her own banns read at the church. She must do all she could, she told me, to realize that she was to be married; had I any thoughts about it, with which I might aid her? She thought it strange that people should marry, and could not decide whether it was the sublimest or the most inglorious act of one's life. I begged her to think about what she should wear--the time was passing. Father gave me so small a sum for the occasion, I had little opportunity for the splendid; but I purchased what Veronica wanted for a dress, and superintended the making of it--black lace over lavender-colored silk. She said no more about it; but I observed that she put in order all her possessions, as if she were going to undertake a long and uncertain journey. Every box and drawer was arranged. All her clothes were repaired, refolded, and laid away; every article was refreshed by a turn or shake-up. She made her room a miracle of cleanliness. What she called rubbish she destroyed--her old papers, things with chipped edges, or those that were defaced by wear. She went once to Milford in the time, and bought a purple Angola rug, which she put before her arm-chair, and two small silver cups, with covers; in one was a perfume which Ben liked, the other was empty. Her favorite blank-books were laid on a shelf, and the table, with its inkstand and portfolio, was pushed against the wall. The last ornament which she added to her room was a beautifully woven mat of evergreens, with which she concealed the picture of the avenue and the nameless man. After it was done, she inhabited my room, appearing to feel at home, and glad to have me with her. As the time drew near, she grew silent, and did not play at all. Temperance watched her with anxiety. "If ever she can have one of those nervous spells again she will have one now," she said. "Don't let her dream. I am turning myself inside out to keep up her appetite."
"Do you ever feel worried about _me_, Tempy?"
"Lord 'a marcy! you great, strong thing, why should I? May be you do want a little praise. I never saw anybody get along as well as you do, nowadays; you have altered very much; I never would have believed it."
"What _was_ the trouble with me?" " _I_ always stuck up for you, gracious knows. Do you know what has been said of you in Surrey?"
"No."
"Then I shan't tell you; if I were you, though, I shouldn't trouble myself to be overpolite to the folks who have come and gone here, nigh on to twenty years,--hang 'em!"
A few days before the wedding Aunt Merce and Arthur came home. Arthur was shy at first regarding the great change, but being agreeably disappointed, grew lively. I perceived that Aunt Merce had aged since mother's death; her manner was changed; the same objects no longer possessed an interest. She looked at me penitentially. "I wish I could say," she said, "what I used to say to you,--that you were 'possessed.' Now that there is no occasion for me to comprehend people, I begin to. My education began wrong end foremost. I think Mary's death has taught me something. Do you think of her? She was the love of my life."
"Women do keep stupid a long time; but I think they are capable of growth, beyond the period when men cease to grow or change."
"Oh, I don't know anything about men, you know."
Temperance and I cleaned the house, opened every room, and made every fire-place ready for a fire--a fire being the chief luxury which I could command. Baking went on up to within a day of the wedding, under Hepsey's supervision, who had been summoned as a helper; Fanny was busy everywhere.
"Mr. Morgeson," said Temperance, "the furniture is too darned shabby for a wedding."
"It is not mine, you must remember."
"Plague take the creditors! they know as well as I that you turned Surrey from a herring-weir into a whaling-port, and that the houses they live in were built out of the wages you gave them. I am thankful that most of them have water in their cellars."
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The day came. Alice Morgeson, and Helen with her baby, arrived the night before; and Ben and Mr. Somers drove from Milford early in the afternoon. Mr. Somers was affable and patronizing. When introduced to Veronica, he betrayed astonishment. "She is not like you, Cassandra. Are you in delicate health, my dear!" addressing her.
"I have a peculiar constitution, I believe." He made excuses to her for Mrs. Somers and his daughters to which she answered not a word. He was in danger of being embarrassed, and I enticed him away from her--not before she whispered gravely, "Why did _he_ come?" I went over the house with him, he remarking on its situation, for sun and shade, and protection from, or exposure to, the winds; and tasting the water, pronounced it excellent. He thought I had a true idea of hospitality; the fires everywhere proclaimed that. Temperance had the air of a retainer; there was an atmosphere about our premises which placed them at a distance from the present. Then Alice came to my assistance and entertained him so well that I could leave him.
We had invited a few friends and relations to witness the ceremony, at eight o'clock. I had been consulted so often on various matters that it was dark before I finished my tasks. The last was to arrange some flowers I had ordered in Milford. I kept a bunch of them in reserve for Verry's plate; for we were to have a supper, at father's request, who thought it would be less tiresome to feed the guests than to talk to them. Verry did not know this, though she had asked several times why we were all so busy.
It was near seven when I went upstairs to find her. Temperance had sent Manuel and Fanny to the different rooms with tea, bread and butter, and the message that it was all we were to have at present. Ben had been extremely silent since his arrival, and disposed to reading. I looked over his shoulder once, and saw that it was "Scott's Life of Napoleon" he perused; and an hour after, being obliged to ask him a question, saw him still at the same page. He was now dressing probably. Helen and Alice were in their rooms. Mr. Somers was napping on the parlor sofa; father was meditating at his old post in the dining-room and smoking. It was a familiar picture; but there was a rent in the canvas and a figure was missing--she who had been its light!
I found Verry sound asleep on the sofa in my room.
A glass full of milk was on the floor beside her, and a plate with a slice of bread. The lamp had been lighted by some one, and carefully shaded from her face. She had been restless, I thought, for her hair had fallen out of the comb and half covered her face, which was like marble in its whiteness and repose. Her right arm was extended; I took her hand, and her warm, humid fingers closed over mine.
"Wake up, Verry; it is time to be married."
She opened her eyes without stirring and fixed them upon me. "Do you know any man who is like Ben? Or was it he whom I have just left in the dark world of sleep?"
"I know his brother, who is like him, but dark in complexion--and his hair is black."
"His hair is not black."
I rushed out of the room, muttering some excuse, came back and arranged her toilette; but she remained with her arm still extended, and continued: "It was a strange place where we met; curious, dusty old trees grew about it. He was cutting the back of one with a dagger, and the pieces he carved out fell to the ground, as if they were elastic. He made me pick them up, though I wished to listen to a man who was lying under one of the trees, wrapped in a cloak, keeping time with _his_ dagger, and singing a wild air. " 'What do you see?' said the first. " 'A letter on every piece,' I answered, and spelt Cassandra. 'Are you Ben transformed?' I asked, for he had his features, his air, though he was a swarthy, spare man, with black, curly hair, dashed with gray; but he pricked my arm with his dagger, and said, 'Go on.' I picked up the rest, and spelt 'Somers.' " 'Cassandra Somers! now tell her,' he whispered, turning me gently from him, with a hand precisely like Ben's."
"No, it is handsomer," I muttered.
"Before me was a space of sea. Before I crossed I wanted to hear that wild music; but your voice broke my dream."
She sat up and unbuttoned her sleeve. _As I live_, there was a red mark on her arm above her elbow!
I crushed my hands together and set my teeth, for I would have kissed the mark and washed it with my tears. But Verry must not be agitated now. She divined my feelings for the first time in her life. "I have indeed been in a long sleep, as far _you_ are concerned; this means something. My blindness is removed by a dream. Do you despise me?" Two large, limpid tears dropped down her smooth cheeks without ruffling the expression of her face.
"I have prided myself upon my delicacy of feeling. You may have remarked that I considered myself your superior?"
"You are all wrong. I have no delicate feelings at all; they are as coarse and fibrous as the husk of a cocoanut. Do for heaven's sake get up and let me dress you."
She burst into laughter. "Bring me some water, then."
I brought her a bowl full, and stood near her with a towel; but she splashed it over me, and dribbled her hands in it till I was in despair. I took it away and wiped her face, which looked at me so childly, so elfish, so willful, and so tenderly, that I took it between my hands and kissed it. I pulled her up to a chair, for she was growing willful every moment; but she must be humored. I combed her hair, put on her shoes and stockings, and in short dressed her. Father came up and begged me to hurry, as everybody had come. I sent him for Ben, who came with a pale, happy face and shining eyes. She looked at him seriously. "I like you best," she said.
"It _is_ time you said that. Oh, Verry! how lovely you are!"
"I feel so."
"Come, come," urged father.
"I do not want these gloves," she said, dropping them.
Ben slipped on the third finger of her left hand a plain ring. She kissed it, and he looked as if about to be translated.
"Forever, Verry?"
"Forever."
"Wait a moment," I said, "I want a collar," giving a glance into the glass. What a starved, thin, haggard face I saw, with its border of pale hair! Whose were those wide, pitiful, robbed eyes?
I hurried into the room in advance to show them their place in front of a screen of plants. When they entered the company rose, and the ceremony was performed. Veronica's dress was commented upon and not approved of; being black, it was considered ominous. She looked like a 'cloud with a silver lining.' I also made my comments. Temperance, whose tearful eyes were fixed on her darling, was unconscious that she had taken from her pocket, and was flourishing, a large red and yellow silk handkerchief, while the cambric one she intended to use was neatly folded in her left hand. She wore the famous plum-colored silk, old style, which had come into a fortune in the way of wrinkles. A large bow of black ribbon testified that she was in mourning. Hepsey rubbed her thumb across her fingers with the vacant air of habit. I glanced at Alice; she was looking intently at Fanny, whose eyes were fixed upon father. A strange feeling of annoyance troubled me, but the ceremony was over. Arthur congratulated himself on having a big brother. Ben was so pale, and wore so exalted an expression, that he agitated me almost beyond control.
After the general shaking of hands, there came retorts for me. "When shall we have occasion to congratulate you?" And, "You are almost at the corner." And, "Your traveling from home seems only to have been an advantage to Veronica."
"I tell you, Cousin Sue," said Arthur, who overheard the last remark, "that you don't know what they say of Cassandra in Rosville. She's the biggest beauty they ever had, and had lots of beaus."
A significant expression passed over Cousin Sue's face, which was noticed by Alice Morgeson, who colored deeply.
"Have you not forgotten?" I asked her.
"It was of you I thought, not myself. I cannot tell you how utterly the past has gone, or how insignificant the result has proved."
"Alice," said father, "can you carve?"
"Splendidly."
"Come and sit at the foot of my table; Mr. Somers will take charge of the smaller one."
"With pleasure."
"Slip out," whispered Fanny, "and look at the table; Temperance wants you."
"For the Lord's sake!" cried Temperance, "say whether things are ship-shape."
I was surprised at the taste she had displayed, and told her so.
"For once I have tried to do my best," she said; "all for Verry. Call 'em in; the turkeys will be on in a whiffle."
Tables were set in the hall, as well as in the dining-room. "They must sit down," she continued, "so that they may eat their victuals in peace." The supper was a relief to Veronica, and I blessed father's forethought. Nobody was exactly merry, but there was a proper cheerfulness. Temperance, Fanny, and Manuel were in attendance; the latter spilled a good deal of coffee on the carpet in his enjoyment of the scene; and when he saw Veronica take the flowers in her hand, he exclaimed, "Santa Maria!"
Everybody turned to look at him.
"What are you doing here, Manuel?" asked Ben.
"I wait on the señoritas," he answered. "Take plum-duff?"
Everybody laughed.
"Do you like widows?" whispered Fanny at the back of my chair. I made a sign to her to attend to her business, but, as she suggested, looked at Alice. At that moment she and father were drinking wine together. I thought her handsomer than ever; she had expanded into a fair, smooth middle age.
The talking and clattering melted vaguely into my ears; I was a lay-figure in the scene, and my soul wandered elsewhere. Mr. Somers began to fidget gently, which father perceiving, rose from the table. Soon after the guests departed. The remains of the feast vanished; the fires burnt down, "winding sheets" wrapped the flame of the candles, and suppressed gaping set in.
The flowers, left to themselves, began to give out odors which perfumed the rooms. I went about extinguishing the waning candles and stifling the dying fires, finished my work, and was going upstairs when I heard Veronica playing, and stopped to listen. It was not a paean nor a lament that she played, but a fluctuating, vibratory air, expressive of mutation. I hung over the stair-railing after she had ceased, convinced that she had been playing for herself a farewell, which freed me from my bond to her. Mr. Somers came along the hall with a candle, and I waited to ask him if I could do anything for his comfort.
"My dear," he said with apprehension, "your sister is a genius, I think."
"In music--yes."
"What a deplorable thing for a woman!"
"A woman of genius is but a heavenly lunatic, or an anomaly sphered between the sexes; do you agree?"
He laughed, and pushed his spectacles up on his forehead.
"My dear, I am astonished that Ben's choice fell as it did--" "Good-night, sir," I said so loudly that he almost dropped his candle, and I retired to my room, taking a chair by the fire, with a sigh of relief. After a while Ben and Veronica came up.
"It is a cold night," I remarked.
"I am in an enchanted palace," said Ben, "where there is no weather."
"Cassy, will you take these pins out of my hair?" asked Verry, seating herself in an easy-chair. "Ben, we will excuse you."
"How good of you." He strode across the passage, went into her room, and shut the door.
"There, Verry, I have unbound your hair."
"But I want to talk."
I took her hand, and led her out. She stood before her door for a moment silently, and then gave a little knock. No answer came. She knocked again; the same silence as before. At last she was obliged to open it herself, and enter without any bidding.
"Which will rule?" I thought, as I slipped down the back stairs, and listened at the kitchen door. I heard nothing. Finding an old cloak in the entry, I wrapped myself in it and left the house. The moon was out-riding black, scudding clouds, and the wind moaned round the sea, which looked like a vast, wrinkled serpent in the moonlight.
I walked to Gloster Point, and rested under the lee of the lighthouse, but could not, when I made the attempt, see to read the inscription inside my watch, by the light of the lantern. I must have fallen asleep from fatigue, still holding it in my hand; for when I started homeward, there was a pale reflection of light in the east, and the sea was creeping quietly toward it with a murmuring morning song.
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I looked across the bay from my window. "The snow is making 'Pawshee's Land' white again, and I remain this year the same. No change, no growth or development! The fulfillment of duty avails me nothing; and self-discipline has passed the necessary point."
I struck the sash with my closed hand, for I would now give my life a new direction, and it was fettered. But I would be resolute, and break the fetters; had I not endured a "mute case" long enough? Manuel, who had been throwing snowballs against the house, stopped, and looked toward the gate, and then ran toward it. A pair of tired, splashed horses dashed down the drive. Manuel had the reins, and Ben was beside him, reeling slightly on the seat of the wagon. I ran down to meet him; he had been on a trip to Belem, where he never went except when he wanted money.
"I have some news for you," he said, putting his arm in mine, as he jumped from the wagon. "Come in, and pull off my boots, Manuel." I brought a chair for him, and waited till his boots were off. "Bring me a glass of brandy."
I stamped my foot. Verry entered with a book. "Ah, Verry, darling, come here."
"Why do you drink brandy? Have you over-driven the horses?"
He drank the brandy. She nodded kindly to him, shut her book, and slipped out, without approaching him.
"That's _her_ way," he said, staring hard at me. "She always says in the same unmoved voice, 'Why do you drink brandy?'"
"And then--she will not come to kiss you."
"The child is dead, for the first thing. (Cigar, Manuel.) Second, I was possessed to come home by the way of Rosville. When did your father go away, Cass?"
I felt faint, and sat down.
"Ah, we _all_ have a weakness; does yours overcome you?"
"He went three days ago."
"I saw him at Alice Morgeson's."
"Arthur?"
"He didn't go to see Arthur. He will marry Alice, and I must build my house now."
A devil ripped open my heart; its fragments flew all over me, blinding and deafening me.
"He will be home to-night."
"Very well."
"What shall you say, Cassy?"
"Expose that little weakness to him."
"When will you learn real life?"
"Please ask him, when he comes, if he will see me in my room."
I waited there. My cup was filled at last. My sin swam on the top.
Father came in smoking, and taking a chair between his legs, sat opposite me, and tapped softly the back of it with his fingers. "You sent for me?"
"I wanted to tell you that Charles Morgeson loved me from the first, and you remember that I stayed by him to the last."
"What more is there?" knocking over the chair, and seizing me; "tell me."
His eyes, that were bloodshot with anger, fastened on my mouth. "I know, though, damn him! I know his cunning. Was Alice aware of this?" And he pushed me backward.
"All."
An expression of pain and disappointment crossed his face; he ground his teeth fiercely.
"Don't marry her, father; you will kill me if you do!"
"Must you alone have license?"
He resumed his cigar, which he picked up from the floor.
"It would seem that we have not known each other. What evasiveness there is in our natures! Your mother was the soul of candor, yet I am convinced I never knew her."
"If you bring Alice here, I must go. We cannot live together."
"I understand why she would not come here. She said that she must see you first. She is in Milford."
He knocked the ashes from his cigar, looked round the room, and then at me, who wept bitterly. His face contracted with a spasm.
"We were married two days ago." And turning from me quickly, he left the room.
I was never so near groveling on the face of the earth as then; let me but fall, and I was sure that I never should rise.
Ben knew it, but left it to me to tell Veronica.
My grief broke all bounds, and we changed places; she tried to comfort me, forgetting herself.
"Let us go away to the world's end with Ben." But suddenly recollecting that she liked Alice, she cried, "What shall I do?"
What could she do, but offer an unreasoning opposition? Aunt Merce cried herself sick, fond as she was of Alice, and Temperance declared that if she hadn't married a widower herself, she would put in an oar. Anyhow, she hadn't married a man with grown-up daughters.
"What ails Fanny?" she asked me the next day. "She looks like a froze pullet."
"Where is she now?"
"Making the beds."
Temperance knew well what was the matter, but was too wise to interfere. I found her, not bed-making, but in a spare room, staring at the wall. She looked at me with dry eyes, bit her lips, and folded her hands across her chest, after her old, defiant fashion. I did not speak.
"It is so," she said; "you need not tear me to pieces with your eyes, I can confess it to _you_, for you are as I am. I love him!" And she got up to shake her fist in my face. "My heart and brain and soul are as good as hers, and _he_ knows it."
I could not utter a word.
"I know him as you never knew him, and have for years, since I was that starved, poor-house brat your mother took. Don't trouble yourself to make a speech about ingratitude. I know that your mother was good and merciful, and that I should have worshiped her; but I never did. Do you suppose I ever thought he was perfect, as the rest of you thought? He is full of faults. I thought he was dependant on me. He knows how I feel. Oh, what shall I do?" She threw up her arms, and dropped on the floor in a hysteric fit. I locked the door, and picked her up. "Come out of it, Fanny; I shall stay here till you do."
By dint of shaking her, and opening the window, she began to come to. After two or three fearful laughs and shudders, she opened her eyes. She saw my compassion, and tears fell in torrents; I cried too. The poor girl kissed my hands; a new soul came into her face.
"Oh, Fanny, bear it as well as you can! You and I will be friends."
"Forgive me! I was always bad; I am now. If that woman comes here, I'll stab her with Manuel's knife."
"Pooh! The knife is too rusty; it would give her the lockjaw. Besides, she will never come. I know her. She is already more than half-way to meet me; but I shall not perform my part of the journey, and she will return."
"You don't say so!" her ancient curiosity reviving.
"Manuel keeps it sharp," she said presently, relapsing into jealousy.
"You are a fool. Have you eaten anything to-day?"
"I can't eat."
"That's the matter with you--an empty stomach is the cause of most distressing pangs."
Ben urged me to go to Milford to meet Alice, and to ask her to come to our house. But father said no more to me on the subject. Neither did Veronica. In the afternoon they drove over to Milford, returning at dusk. She refused to come with them, Ben said, and never would probably. "You have thrown out your father terribly."
"You notice it, do you?"
"It is pretty evident."
"What is your opinion?"
He was about to condemn, when he recollected his own interference in my life. "Ah! you have me. I think you are right, as far as the past which relates to Alice is concerned. But if she chooses to forget, why don't you? We do much that is contrary to our moral ideas, to make people comfortable. Besides, if we do not lay our ghosts, our closets will be overcrowded."
"We may determine some things for ourselves, irrespective of consequences."
"Well, there is a mess of it."
Fanny had watched for their return, counting on an access of misery, for she believed that Alice would come also. It was what _she_ would have done. Rage took possession of her when she saw father alone. She planted herself before him, in my presence, in a contemptuous attitude. He changed color, and then her mood changed.
"What shall I do?" she asked piteously.
I tried to get away before she made any further progress; but he checked me, dreading the scene which he foreboded, without comprehending.
"Fanny," he said harshly, but with a confused face, "you mistake me."
"Not I; it was your wife and children who mistook you."
"What is it you would say?"
"You have let me be your slave."
"It is not true, I hope--what your behavior indicates?"
I forgave him everything then. Fanny had made a mistake. He had only behaved very selfishly toward her, without having any perception of her--that was all! She was confounded, stared at him a moment, and rushed out. That interview settled her; she was a different girl from that day.
"Father, you will go to Rosville, and be rich again. Can you buy this house from Ben, for me? A very small income will suffice me and Fanny, for you may be sure that I shall keep her. Temperance will live with Verry; Ben will build, now that his share of his grandfather's estate will come to him."
"Very well," he said with a sigh, "I will bring it about."
"It is useless for us to disguise the fact--I have lost you. You are more dead to me than mother is."
"You say so."
It was the truth. I was the only one of the family who never went to Rosville. Aunt Merce took up her abode with Alice, on account of Arthur, whom she idolized. When father was married again, the Morgeson family denounced him for it, and for leaving Surrey; but they accepted his invitations to Rosville, and returned with glowing accounts of his new house and his hospitality.
By the next June, Ben's house was completed and they moved. Its site was a knoll to the east of our house, which Veronica had chosen. Her rooms were toward the orchard, and Ben's commanded a view of the sea. He had not ventured to intrude, he told her, upon the Northern Lights, and she must not bother him about his boat-house or his pier. They were both delighted with the change, and kept house like children. Temperance indulged their whims to the utmost, though she thought Ben's new-fangled notions were silly; but they might keep him from _something worse_. This something was a shadow which frightened me, though I fought it off. I was weary of trouble, and shut my eyes as long as possible. Whenever Ben went from home, and he often drove to Milford, or to some of the towns near, he came back disordered with drink. At the sight my hopes would sink. But they rose again, he was so genial, so loving, so calmly contented afterward. As Verry never spoke of it either to Temperance or me, I imagined she was not troubled much. She could not feel as I felt, for she knew nothing of the Bellevue Pickersgill family history.
The day they moved was a happy one for me. I was at last left alone in my own house, and I regained an absolute self-possession, and a sense of occupation I had long been a stranger to. My ownership oppressed me, almost, there was so much liberty to realize.
I had an annoyance, soon after I came into sole possession. Father's business was not yet settled, and he came to Surrey. He was paying his debts in full, he told me, eking out what he lacked himself with the property of Alice. He could not have used much of it, however, for the vessels that were out at the time of the failure came home with good cargoes. I fancied that he had more than one regret while settling his affairs; that he missed the excitement and vicissitudes of a maritime business. Nothing disagreeable arose between us, till I happened to ask him what were the contents of a box which had arrived the day before.
"Something Alice sent you; shall we open it?"
"I made no answer; but it was opened, and he took out a sea-green and white velvet carpet, with a scarlet leaf on it, and a piece of sea-green and white brocade for curtains. Had she sought the world over, she could have found nothing to suit me so well.
"She thought that Verry might have a fancy for some of the old furniture, and that you would accept these in its place."
"There's nothing here to match this splendor, and I cannot bear to make a change. Verry must have them, for she took nothing from me."
"Just as you please."
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"What a hot day!" said Fanny. "Every door and window is open. There is not a breath of air."
"It will be calm all day," I said. "We have two or three days like this in a year. Give me another cup of coffee. Is it nine yet?"
"Nearly. I ought to go to Hepsey's to-day. She wont be able to leave her bed, the heat weakens her so."
"Do go. How still it is! The shadows of the trees on the Neck reach almost from shore to shore, and there's a fish-boat motionless."
"The boat was there when I got up."
"Everything is blue and yellow, or blue and white."
"How your hair waves this morning! It is handsomer than ever."
I went to the glass with my cup of coffee. "I look younger in the summer."
"What's the use of looking younger here?" she asked gruffly. "You never see a man."
"I see Ben coming with Verry, and Manuel behind."
"Hillo!" cried Ben, pulling up his horses in front of the window. "We are going on a picnic. Wont you go?"
"How far?"
"Fifteen or twenty miles."
"Go on; I had rather imprison the splendid day here."
"There's nothing for dinner," said Fanny.
"The fish-boat may come in, in time."
"Will three o'clock do for you? If so, I'll stay with Hepsey till then."
"Four will answer?"
She cleared away my breakfast things and left me. I sat by the window an hour, looking over the water, my thoughts drifting through a golden haze, and then went up to my room and looked out again. If I turned my eyes inside the walls, I was aware of the yearning, yawning empty void within me, which I did not like. I sauntered into Verry's room, to see if any clouds were coming up from the north. There were none. The sun had transfixed the sky, and walked through its serene blue, "burning without beams." Neither bird nor insect chirped; they were hid from the radiant heat in tree and sod. I went back again to my own window. The subtle beauty of these inorganic powers stirred me to mad regret and frantic longing. I stretched out my arms to embrace the presence which my senses evoked.
It would be better to get a book, I concluded, and hunted up Barry Cornwall's songs. With it I would go to the parlor, which was shaded. I turned the leaves going down, and went in humming: "Mount on the dolphin Pleasure," and threw myself on the sofa beside--_Desmond_!
I dropped Barry Cornwall.
"I have come," he said, in a voice deathly faint.
"How old you have grown, Desmond!"
"But I have taken such pains with my hands for you! You said they were handsome; are they?"
I kissed them.
He was so spare, and brown, and his hair was quite gray! Even his mustache looked silvery.
"Two years to-day since I have worn the watch, Desmond."
He took one exactly like it from his pocket, and showed me the inscription inside.
"And the ruby ring, on the guard?"
"It is gone, you see; you must put one there now."
"Forgive me."
"Ah, Cassy! I couldn't come till now. You see what battles _I_ must have had since I saw you. It took me so long to break my cursed habits. I was afraid of myself, afraid to come; but I have tried myself to the utmost, and hope I am worthy of you. Will you trust me?"
"I am yours, as I always have been."
"I have eaten an immense quantity of oil and garlic," he said with a sigh. "But Spain is a good place to reform in. How is Ben?"
I shook my head.
"Don't tell me anything sad now. Poor fellow! God help him."
Fanny was talking to some one on the walk; the fisherman probably, who was bringing fish.
"Do you want some dinner?"
"I have had no breakfast."
"I must see about something for you."
"Not to leave me, Cassy."
"Just for a few minutes."
"No."
"But I want to cry by myself, besides looking after the dinner."
"Cry here then, with me. Come, Cassandra, my wife! My God, I shall die with happiness."
A mortal paleness overspread his face.
"Desmond, Desmond, do you know how I love you? Feel my heart,--it has throbbed with the weight of you since that night in Belem, when you struck your head under the mantel."
He was speechless. I murmured loving words to him, till he drew a deep breath of life and strength.
"These fish are small," said Fanny at the door. "Shall I take them!"
"Certainly," said Desmond, "I'll pay for them."
"It is Ben in black lead," said Fanny.
We laughed.
At dusk Ben and Veronica drove up. Desmond was seated in the window. Ben fixed his eyes upon him, without stopping.
We ran out, and called to him.
"Old fellow," said Desmond, "willing or not, I have come."
Ben's face was a study; so many emotions assailed him that my heart was wrung with pity.
"Give her to me," Desmond continued in a touching voice. "You are her oldest friend, and have a right."
"She was always yours," he answered. "To contend with her was folly."
Veronica took hold of Ben's chin and raised his head to look into his face. "What dreams have you had?"
But he made no reply to her. We were all silent for a moment, then he said, "Was I wrong, Des. ?"
"No, no."
While, I was saying to myself, in behalf of Veronica, whose calm face baffled me, "Enigma, Sphinx"; she turned to Desmond, holding out her right arm, and said, "You are the man I saw in my dream."
"And you are like the Virgin I made an offering to, only not quite so bedizened." He took her extended hand and kissed it.
Ben threw the reins with a sudden dash toward Manuel, who was standing by, and jumped down.
"Have tea with me," I asked, "and music, too. Verry, will you play for Desmond?"
She took his arm, and entered the house.
"Friend," I said to Ben, who lingered by the door, "to contend with me was not folly, unless it has kept you from contending with yourself. Tell me--how is it with you?"
"Cassandra, the jaws of hell are open. If you are satisfied with the end, I must be."
* * * * * After I was married, I went to Belem. But Mrs. Somers never forgave me; and Mr. Somers liked Desmond no better than he had in former times. Neither did Adelaide and Ann ever consider the marriage in any light but that of a misalliance. Nor did they recognize any change in him. It might be permanent, but it was no less an aberration which they mistrusted. The ground plan of the Bellevue Pickersgill character could not be altered.
In a short time after we were married we went to Europe and stayed two years.
These last words I write in the summer time at our house in Surrey, for Desmond likes to be here at this season, and I write in my old chamber. Before its windows rolls the blue summer sea. Its beauty wears a relentless aspect to me now; its eternal monotone expresses no pity, no compassion.
Veronica is lying on the floor watching her year-old baby. It smiles continually, but never cries, never moves, except when it is moved. Her face, thin and melancholy, is still calm and lovely. But her eyes go no more in quest of something beyond. A wall of darkness lies before her, which she will not penetrate. Aunt Merce sits near me with her knitting. When I look at her I think how long it is since mother went, and wonder whether death is not a welcome idea to those who have died. Aunt Merce looks at Verry and the child with a sorrowful countenance, exchanges a glance with me, shakes her head. If Verry speaks to her, she answers cheerfully, and tries to conceal the grief which she feels when she sees the mother and child together.
Ben has been dead six months. Only Desmond and I were with him in his last moments. When he sprang from his bed, staggered backwards, and fell dead, we clung together with faint hearts, and mutely questioned each other.
"God is the Ruler," he said at last. "Otherwise let this mad world crush us now."
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{
"id": "12347"
}
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1
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_FALLING IN LOVE._
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[Illustration: LILLIE.]
“WHO _is_ that beautiful creature?” said John Seymour, as a light, sylph-like form tripped up the steps of the veranda of the hotel where he was lounging away his summer vacation.
“That! Why, don’t you know, man? That is the celebrated, the divine Lillie Ellis, the most adroit ‘fisher of men’ that has been seen in our days.”
“By George, but she’s pretty, though!” said John, following with enchanted eyes the distant motions of the sylphide.
The vision that he saw was of a delicate little fairy form; a complexion of pearly white, with a cheek of the hue of a pink shell; a fair, sweet, infantine face surrounded by a fleecy radiance of soft golden hair. The vision appeared to float in some white gauzy robes; and, when she spoke or smiled, what an innocent, fresh, untouched, unspoiled look there was upon the face! John gazed, and thought of all sorts of poetical similes: of a “daisy just wet with morning dew;” of a “violet by a mossy stone;” in short, of all the things that poets have made and provided for the use of young gentlemen in the way of falling in love.
This John Seymour was about as good and honest a man as there is going in this world of ours. He was a generous, just, manly, religious young fellow. He was heir to a large, solid property; he was a well-read lawyer, established in a flourishing business; he was a man that all the world spoke well of, and had cause to speak well of. The only duty to society which John had left as yet unperformed was that of matrimony. Three and thirty years had passed; and, with every advantage for supporting a wife, with a charming home all ready for a mistress, John, as yet, had not proposed to be the defender and provider for any of the more helpless portion of creation. The cause of this was, in the first place, that John was very happy in the society of a sister, a little older than himself, who managed his house admirably, and was a charming companion to his leisure hours; and, in the second place, that he had a secret, bashful self-depreciation in regard to his power of pleasing women, which made him ill at ease in their society. Not that he did not mean to marry. He certainly did. But the fair being that he was to marry was a distant ideal, a certain undefined and cloudlike creature; and, up to this time, he had been waiting to meet her, without taking any definite steps towards that end. To say the truth, John Seymour, like many other outwardly solid, sober-minded, respectable citizens, had deep within himself a little private bit of romance. He could not utter it, he never talked it; he would have blushed and stammered and stuttered wofully, and made a very poor figure, in trying to tell any one about it; but nevertheless it was there, a secluded chamber of imagery, and the future Mrs. John Seymour formed its principal ornament.
The wife that John had imaged, his _dream_-wife, was not at all like his sister; though he loved his sister heartily, and thought her one of the best and noblest women that could possibly be.
But his sister was all plain prose,—good, strong, earnest, respectable prose, it is true, but yet prose. He could read English history with her, talk accounts and business with her, discuss politics with her, and valued her opinions on all these topics as much as that of any man of his acquaintance. But, with the visionary Mrs. John Seymour aforesaid, he never seemed to himself to be either reading history or settling accounts, or talking politics; he was off with her in some sort of enchanted cloudland of happiness, where she was all to him, and he to her,—a sort of rapture of protective love on one side, and of confiding devotion on the other, quite inexpressible, and that John would not have talked of for the world.
So when he saw this distant vision of airy gauzes, of pearly whiteness, of sea-shell pink, of infantine smiles, and waving, golden curls, he stood up with a shy desire to approach the wonderful creature, and yet with a sort of embarrassed feeling of being very awkward and clumsy. He felt, somehow, as if he were a great, coarse behemoth; his arms seemed to him awkward appendages; his hands suddenly appeared to him rough, and his fingers swelled and stumpy. When he thought of asking an introduction, he felt himself growing very hot, and blushing to the roots of his hair.
“Want to be introduced to her, Seymour?” said Carryl Ethridge. “I’ll trot you up. I know her.”
“No, thank you,” said John, stiffly. In his heart, he felt an absurd anger at Carryl for the easy, assured way in which he spoke of the sacred creature who seemed to him something too divine to be lightly talked of. And then he saw Carryl marching up to her with his air of easy assurance. He saw the bewitching smile come over that fair, flowery face; he saw Carryl, with unabashed familiarity, take her fan out of her hand, look at it as if it were a mere common, earthly fan, toss it about, and pretend to fan himself with it.
[Illustration: “I didn’t know he was such a puppy.”]
“I didn’t know he was such a puppy!” said John to himself, as he stood in a sort of angry bashfulness, envying the man that was so familiar with that loveliness.
Ah! John, John! You wouldn’t, for the world, have told to man or woman what a fool you were at that moment.
“What a fool I am!” was his mental commentary: “just as if it was any thing to me.” And he turned, and walked to the other end of the veranda.
“I think you’ve hooked another fish, Lillie,” said Belle Trevors in the ear of the little divinity.
“Who. . . ?”
“Why! that Seymour there, at the end of the veranda. He is looking at you, do you know? He is rich, very rich, and of an old family. Didn’t you see how he started and looked after you when you came up on the veranda?”
“Oh! I saw plain enough,” said the divinity, with one of her unconscious, baby-like smiles.
“What are you ladies talking?” said Carryl Ethridge.
“Oh, secrets!” said Belle Trevors. “You are very presuming, sir, to inquire.”
“Mr. Ethridge,” said Lillie Ellis, “don’t you think it would be nice to promenade?”
This was said with such a pretty coolness, such a quiet composure, as showed Miss Lillie to be quite mistress of the situation; there was, of course, no sort of design in it.
Ethridge offered his arm at once; and the two sauntered to the end of the veranda, where John Seymour was standing.
The blood rushed in hot currents over him, and he could hear the beating of his heart: he felt somehow as if the hour of his fate was coming. He had a wild desire to retreat, and put it off. He looked over the end of the veranda, with some vague idea of leaping it; but alas! it was ten feet above ground, and a lover’s leap would have only ticketed him as out of his head. There was nothing for it but to meet his destiny like a man.
Carryl came up with the lady on his arm; and as he stood there for a moment, in the coolest, most indifferent tone in the world, said, “Oh! by the by, Miss Ellis, let me present my friend Mr. Seymour.”
[Illustration: “Let me present my friend, Mr. Seymour.”]
The die was cast.
John’s face burned like fire: he muttered something about “being happy to make Miss Ellis’s acquaintance,” looking all the time as if he would be glad to jump over the railing, or take wings and fly, to get rid of the happiness.
Miss Ellis was a belle by profession, and she understood her business perfectly. In nothing did she show herself master of her craft, more than in the adroitness with which she could soothe the bashful pangs of new votaries, and place them on an easy footing with her.
“Mr. Seymour,” she said affably, “to tell the truth, I have been desirous of the honor of your acquaintance, ever since I saw you in the breakfast-room this morning.”
“I am sure I am very much flattered,” said John, his heart beating thick and fast. “May I ask why you honor me with such a wish?”
“Well, to tell the truth, because you strikingly resemble a very dear friend of mine,” said Miss Ellis, with her sweet, unconscious simplicity of manner.
“I am still more flattered,” said John, with a quicker beating of the heart; “only I fear that you may find me an unpleasant contrast.”
“Oh! I think not,” said Lillie, with another smile: “we shall soon be good friends, too, I trust.”
“I trust so certainly,” said John, earnestly.
Belle Trevors now joined the party; and the four were soon chatting together on the best footing of acquaintance. John was delighted to feel himself already on easy terms with the fair vision.
“You have not been here long?” said Lillie to John.
“No, I have only just arrived.”
“And you were never here before?”
“No, Miss Ellis, I am entirely new to the place.”
“I am an old _habituée_ here,” said Lillie, “and can recommend myself as authority on all points connected with it.”
“Then,” said John, “I hope you will take me under your tuition.”
“Certainly, free of charge,” she said, with another ravishing smile.
“You haven’t seen the boiling spring yet?” she added.
“No, I haven’t seen any thing yet.”
“Well, then, if you’ll give me your arm across the lawn, I’ll show it to you.”
All of this was done in the easiest, most matter-of-course manner in the world; and off they started, John in a flutter of flattered delight at the gracious acceptance accorded to him.
Ethridge and Belle Trevors looked after them with a nod of intelligence at each other.
“Hooked, by George!” said Ethridge.
“Well, it’ll be a good thing for Lillie, won’t it?”
“For her? Oh, yes, a capital thing _for her_!”
“Well, for _him_ too.”
“Well, I don’t know. John is a pretty nice fellow; a very nice fellow, besides being rich, and all that; and Lillie is somewhat shop-worn by this time. Let me see: she must be seven and twenty.”
“Oh, yes, she’s all that!” said Belle, with ingenuous ardor. “Why, she was in society while I was a school-girl! Yes, dear Lillie is certainly twenty-seven, if not more; but she keeps her freshness wonderfully.”
“Well, she looks fresh enough, I suppose, to a good, honest, artless fellow like John Seymour, who knows as little of the world as a milkmaid. John is a great, innocent, country steer, fed on clover and dew; and as honest and ignorant of all sorts of naughty, wicked things as his mother or sister. He takes Lillie in a sacred simplicity quite refreshing; but to me Lillie is played out. I know her like a book. I know all her smiles and wiles, advices and devices; and her system of tactics is an old story with me. I shan’t interrupt any of her little games. Let her have her little field all to herself: it’s time she was married, to be sure.”
Meanwhile, John was being charmingly ciceroned by Lillie, and scarcely knew whether he was in the body or out. All that he felt, and felt with a sort of wonder, was that he seemed to be acceptable and pleasing in the eyes of this little fairy, and that she was leading him into wonderland.
They went not only to the boiling spring, but up and down so many wild, woodland paths that had been cut for the adornment of the Carmel Springs, and so well pleased were both parties, that it was supper-time before they reappeared on the lawn; and, when they did appear, Lillie was leaning confidentially on John’s arm, with a wreath of woodbine in her hair that he had arranged there, wondering all the while at his own wonderful boldness, and at the grace of the fair entertainer.
[Illustration: “Lillie was leaning confidentially on John’s arm.”]
The returning couple were seen from the windows of Mrs. Chit, who sat on the lookout for useful information; and who forthwith ran to the apartments of Mrs. Chat, and told her to look out at them.
Billy This, who was smoking his cigar on the veranda, immediately ran and called Harry That to look at them, and laid a bet at once that Lillie had “hooked” Seymour.
“She’ll have him, by George, she will!”
“Oh, pshaw! she is always hooking fellows, but you see she don’t get married,” said matter-of-fact Harry. “It won’t come to any thing, now, I’ll bet. Everybody said she was engaged to Danforth, but it all ended in smoke.”
Whether it would be an engagement, or would all end in smoke, was the talk of Carmel Springs for the next two weeks.
At the end of that time, the mind of Carmel Springs was relieved by the announcement that it was an engagement.
The important deciding announcement was first authentically made by Lillie to Belle Trevors, who had been invited into her room that night for the purpose.
“Well, Belle, it’s all over. He spoke out to-night.”
“He offered himself?”
“Certainly.”
“And you took him?”
“Of course I did: I should be a fool not to.”
“Oh, so I think, decidedly!” said Belle, kissing her friend in a rapture. “You dear creature! how nice! it’s splendid!”
Lillie took the embrace with her usual sweet composure, and turned to her looking-glass, and began taking down her hair for the night. It will be perceived that this young lady was not overcome with emotion, but in a perfectly collected state of mind.
“He’s a little bald, and getting rather stout,” she said reflectively, “but he’ll do.”
“I never saw a creature so dead in love as he is,” said Belle.
A quiet smile passed over the soft, peach-blow cheeks as Lillie answered,— “Oh, dear, yes! He perfectly worships the ground I tread on.”
“Lil, you fortunate creature, you! Positively it’s the best match that there has been about here this summer. He’s rich, of an old, respectable family; and then he has good principles, you know, and all that,” said Belle.
“I think he’s nice myself,” said Lillie, as she stood brushing out a golden tangle of curls. “Dear me!” she added, “how much better he is than that Danforth! Really, Danforth was a little too horrid: his teeth were dreadful. Do you know, I should have had something of a struggle to take him, though he was so terribly rich? Then Danforth had been horridly dissipated,—you don’t know,—Maria Sanford told me such shocking things about him, and she knows they are true. Now, I don’t think John has ever been dissipated.”
[Illustration: “I think he’s nice myself.”]
“Oh, no!” said Belle. “I heard all about him. He joined the church when he was only twenty, and has been always spoken of as a perfect model. I only think you may find it a little slow, living in Springdale. He has a fine, large, old-fashioned house there, and his sister is a very nice woman; but they are a sort of respectable, retired set,—never go into fashionable company.”
“Oh, I don’t mind it!” said Lillie. “I shall have things my own way, I know. One isn’t obliged to live in Springdale, nor with pokey old sisters, you know; and John will do just as I say, and live where I please.”
She said this with her simple, soft air of perfect assurance, twisting her shower of bright, golden curls; with her gentle, childlike face, and soft, beseeching, blue eyes, and dimpling little mouth, looking back on her, out of the mirror. By these the little queen had always ruled from her cradle, and should she not rule now? Was it any wonder that John was half out of his wits with joy at thought of possessing _her_? Simply and honestly, she thought not. He was to be congratulated; though it wasn’t a bad thing for her, either.
“Belle,” said Lillie, after an interval of reflection, “I won’t be married in white satin,—that I’m resolved on. Now,” she said, facing round with increasing earnestness, “there have been five weddings in our set, and all the girls have been married in just the same dress,—white satin and point lace, white satin and point lace, over and over, till I’m tired of it. _I’m_ determined I’ll have something new.”
“Well, I would, I’m sure,” said Belle. “Say white tulle, for instance: you know you are so _petite_ and fairy-like.”
“No: I shall write out to Madame La Roche, and tell her she must get up something wholly original. I shall send for my whole _trousseau_. Papa will be glad enough to come down, since he gets me off his hands, and no more fuss about bills, you know. Do you know, Belle, that creature is just wild about me: he’d like to ransack all the jewellers’ shops in New York for me. He’s going up to-morrow, just to choose the engagement ring. He says he can’t trust to an order; that he must go and choose one worthy of me.”
“Oh! it’s plain enough that that game is all in your hands, as to him, Lillie; but, Lil, what will your Cousin Harry say to all this?”
“Well, of course he won’t like it; but I can’t help it if he don’t. Harry ought to know that it’s all nonsense for him and me to think of marrying. He does know it.”
“To tell the truth, I always thought, Lil, you were more in love with Harry than anybody you ever knew.”
Lillie laughed a little, and then the prettiest sweet-pea flush deepened the pink of her cheeks.
“To say the truth, Belle, I could have been, if he had been in circumstances to marry. But, you see, I am one of those to whom the luxuries are essential. I never could rub and scrub and work; in fact, I had rather not live at all than live poor; and Harry is poor, and he always will be poor. It’s a pity, too, poor fellow, for he’s nice. Well, he is off in India! I know he will be tragical and gloomy, and all that,” she said; and then the soft child-face smiled to itself in the glass,—such a pretty little innocent smile!
All this while, John sat up with his heart beating very fast, writing all about his engagement to his sister, and, up to this point, his nearest, dearest, most confidential friend. It is almost too bad to copy the letter of a shy man who finds himself in love for the first time in his life; but we venture to make an extract:— “It is not her beauty merely that drew me to her, though she is the most beautiful human being I ever saw: it is the exquisite feminine softness and delicacy of her character, that sympathetic pliability by which she adapts herself to every varying feeling of the heart. You, my dear sister, are the noblest of women, and your place in my heart is still what it always was; but I feel that this dear little creature, while she fills a place no other has ever entered, will yet be a new bond to unite us. She will love us both; she will gradually come into all our ways and opinions, and be insensibly formed by us into a noble womanhood. Her extreme beauty, and the great admiration that has always followed her, have exposed her to many temptations, and caused most ungenerous things to be said of her.
“Hitherto she has lived only in the fashionable world; and her literary and domestic education, as she herself is sensible, has been somewhat neglected.
“But she longs to retire from all this; she is sick of fashionable folly, and will come to us to be all our own. Gradually the charming circle of cultivated families which form our society will elevate her taste, and form her mind.
“Love is woman’s inspiration, and love will lead her to all that is noble and good. My dear sister, think not that any new ties are going to make you any less to me, or touch your place in my heart. I have already spoken of you to Lillie, and she longs to know you. You must be to her what you have always been to me,—guide, philosopher, and friend.
“I am sure I never felt better impulses, more humble, more thankful, more religious, than I do now. That the happiness of this soft, gentle, fragile creature is to be henceforth in my hands is to me a solemn and inspiring thought. What man is worthy of a refined, delicate woman? I feel my unworthiness of her every hour; but, so help me God, I shall try to be all to her that a husband should; and you, my sister, I know, will help me to make happy the future which she so confidingly trusts to me.
“Believe me, dear sister, I never was so much your affectionate brother, “JOHN SEYMOUR.
“P.S.—I forgot to tell you that Lillie remarkably resembles the ivory miniature of our dear sainted mother. She was very much affected when I told her of it. I think naturally Lillie has very much such a character as our mother; though circumstances, in her case, have been unfavorable to the development of it.”
Whether the charming vision was realized; whether the little sovereign now enthroned will be a just and clement one; what immunities and privileges she will allow to her slaves,—is yet to be seen in this story.
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{
"id": "12354"
}
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2
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_WHAT SHE THINKS OF IT._
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[Illustration: “From John, good fellow.”]
SPRINGDALE was one of those beautiful rural towns whose flourishing aspect is a striking exponent of the peculiarities of New-England life. The ride through it presents a refreshing picture of wide, cool, grassy streets, overhung with green arches of elm, with rows of large, handsome houses on either side, each standing back from the street in its own retired square of gardens, green turf, shady trees, and flowering shrubs. It was, so to speak, a little city of country-seats. It spoke of wealth, thrift, leisure, cultivation, quiet, thoughtful habits, and moral tastes.
Some of these mansions were of ancestral reputation, and had been in the family whose name they bore for generations back; a circumstance sometimes occurring even in New-England towns where neither law nor custom unites to perpetuate property in certain family lines.
The Seymour house was a well-known, respected mansion for generations back. Old Judge Seymour, the grandfather, was the lineal descendant of Parson Seymour; the pastor who first came with the little colony of Springdale, when it was founded as a church in the wilderness, amid all the dangers of wild beasts and Indians.
This present Seymour mansion was founded on the spot where the house of the first minister was built by the active hands of his parishioners; and, from generation to generation, order, piety, education, and high respectability had been the tradition of the place.
The reader will come in with us, on this bright June morning, through the grassy front yard, which has only the usual New-England fault of being too densely shaded. The house we enter has a wide, cool hall running through its centre and out into a back garden, now all aglow with every beauty of June. The broad alleys of the garden showed bright stores of all sorts of good old-fashioned flowers, well tended and kept. Clumps of stately hollyhocks and scarlet peonies; roses of every hue, purple, blush, gold-color, and white, were showering down their leaves on the grassy turf; honeysuckles climbed and clambered over arbors; and great, stately tufts of virgin-white lilies exalted their majestic heads in saintly magnificence. The garden was Miss Grace Seymour’s delight and pride. Every root in it was fragrant with the invisible blossoms of memory,—memories of the mother who loved and planted and watched them before her, and the grandmother who had cared for them before that. The spirit of these charming old-fashioned gardens is the spirit of family love; and, if ever blessed souls from their better home feel drawn back to any thing on earth, we think it must be to their flower-garden.
Miss Grace had been up early, and now, with her garden hat on, and scissors in hand, was coming up the steps with her white apron full of roses, white lilies, meadow-sweets, and honeysuckle, for the parlor-vases, when the servant handed her a letter.
“From John,” she said, “good fellow;” and then she laid it on the mantel-shelf of the parlor, while she busied herself in arranging her flowers.
“I must get these into water, or they will wilt,” she said.
The large parlor was like many that you and I have seen in a certain respectable class of houses,—wide, cool, shady, and with a mellow _old_ tone to every thing in its furniture and belongings. It was a parlor of the past, and not of to-day, yet exquisitely neat and well-kept. The Turkey carpet was faded: it had been part of the wedding furnishing of Grace’s mother, years ago. The great, wide, motherly, chintz-covered sofa, which filled a recess commanding the window, was as different as possible from any smart modern article of the name. The heavy, claw-footed, mahogany chairs; the tall clock that ticked in one corner; the footstools and ottomans in faded embroidery,—all spoke of days past. So did the portraits on the wall. One was of a fair, rosy young girl, in a white gown, with powdered hair dressed high over a cushion. It was the portrait of Grace’s mother. Another was that of a minister in gown and bands, with black-silk gloved hands holding up conspicuously a large Bible. This was the remote ancestor, the minister. Then there was the picture of John’s father, placed lovingly where the eyes seemed always to be following the slight, white-robed figure of the young wife. The walls were papered with an old-fashioned paper of a peculiar pattern, bought in France seventy-five years before. The vases of India-china that adorned the mantels, the framed engravings of architecture and pictures in Rome, all were memorials of the taste of those long passed away. Yet the room had a fresh, sweet, sociable air. The roses and honeysuckles looked in at the windows; the table covered with books and magazines, and the familiar work-basket of Miss Grace, with its work, gave a sort of impression of modern family household life. It was a wide, open, hospitable, generous-minded room, that seemed to breathe a fragrance of invitation and general sociability; it was a room full of associations and memories, and its daily arrangement and ornamentation made one of the pleasant tasks of Miss Grace’s life.
She spread down a newspaper on the large, square centre-table, and, emptying her apronful of flowers upon it, took her vases from the shelf, and with her scissors sat down to the task of clipping and arranging them.
Just then Letitia Ferguson came across the garden, and entered the back door after her, with a knot of choice roses in her hand, and a plate of seed-cakes covered with a hem-stitched napkin. The Fergusons and the Seymours occupied adjoining houses, and were on footing of the most perfect undress intimacy. They crossed each other’s gardens, and came without knocking into each other’s doors twenty times a day, _apropos_ to any bit of chit-chat that they might have, a question to ask, a passage in a book to show, a household receipt that they had been trying. Letitia was the most intimate and confidential friend of Grace. In fact, the whole Ferguson family seemed like another portion of the Seymour family. There were two daughters, of whom Letitia was the eldest. Then came the younger Rose, a nice, charming, well-informed, good girl, always cheerful and chatty, and with a decent share of ability at talking lively nonsense. The brothers of the family, like the young men of New-England country towns generally, were off in the world seeking their fortunes. Old Judge Ferguson was a gentleman of the old school,—formal, stately, polite, always complimentary to ladies, and with a pleasant little budget of old-gentlemanly hobbies and prejudices, which it afforded him the greatest pleasure to air in the society of his friends. Old Mrs. Ferguson was a pattern of motherliness, with her quaint, old-fashioned dress, her elaborate caps, her daily and minute inquiries after the health of all her acquaintances, and the tender pityingness of her nature for every thing that lived and breathed in this world of sin and sorrow.
Letitia and Grace, as two older sisters of families, had a peculiar intimacy, and discussed every thing together, from the mode of clearing jelly up to the profoundest problems of science and morals. They were both charming, well-mannered, well-educated, well-read women, and trusted each other to the uttermost with every thought and feeling and purpose of their hearts.
As we have said, Letitia Ferguson came in at the back door without knocking, and, coming softly behind Miss Grace, laid down her bunch of roses among the flowers, and then set down her plate of seed-cakes.
Then she said, “I brought you some specimens of my Souvenir de Malmaison bush, and my first trial of your receipt.”
“Oh, thanks!” said Miss Grace: “how charming those roses are! It was too bad to spoil your bush, though.”
“No: it does it good to cut them; it will flower all the more. But try one of those cakes,—are they right?”
“Excellent! you have hit it exactly,” said Grace; “exactly the right proportion of seeds. I was hurrying,” she added, “to get these flowers in water, because a letter from John is waiting to be read.”
“A letter! How nice!” said Miss Letitia, looking towards the shelf. “John is as faithful in writing as if he were your lover.”
“He is the best lover a woman can have,” said Grace, as she busily sorted and arranged the flowers. “For my part, I ask nothing better than John.”
“Let me arrange for you, while you read your letter,” said Letitia, taking the flowers from her friend’s hands.
Miss Grace took down the letter from the mantelpiece, opened, and began to read it. Miss Letitia, meanwhile, watched her face, as we often carelessly watch the face of a person reading a letter.
Miss Grace was not technically handsome, but she had an interesting, kindly, sincere face; and her friend saw gradually a dark cloud rising over it, as one watches a shadow on a field.
When she had finished the letter, with a sudden movement she laid her head forward on the table among the flowers, and covered her face with her hands. She seemed not to remember that any one was present.
Letitia came up to her, and, laying her hand gently on hers, said, “What is it, dear?”
Miss Grace lifted her head, and said in a husky voice,— “Nothing, only it is so sudden! John is engaged!”
“Engaged! to whom?”
“To Lillie Ellis.”
“John engaged to Lillie Ellis?” said Miss Ferguson, in a tone of shocked astonishment.
[Illustration: “She laid her head forward on the table.”]
“So he writes me. He is completely infatuated by her.”
“How very sudden!” said Miss Letitia. “Who could have expected it? Lillie Ellis is so entirely out of the line of any of the women he has ever known.”
“That’s precisely what’s the matter,” said Miss Grace. “John knows nothing of any but good, noble women; and he thinks he sees all this in Lillie Ellis.”
“There’s nothing to her but her wonderful complexion,” said Miss Ferguson, “and her pretty little coaxing ways; but she is the most utterly selfish, heartless little creature that ever breathed.”
“Well, _she_ is to be John’s wife,” said Miss Grace, sweeping the remainder of the flowers into her apron; “and so ends my life with John. I might have known it would come to this. I must make arrangements at once for another house and home. This house, so much, so dear to me, will be nothing to her; and yet she must be its mistress,” she added, looking round on every thing in the room, and then bursting into tears.
Now, Miss Grace was not one of the crying sort, and so this emotion went to her friend’s heart. Miss Letitia went up and put her arms round her.
“Come, Gracie,” she said, “you must not take it so seriously. John is a noble, manly fellow. He loves you, and he will always be master of his own house.”
“No, he won’t,—no married man ever is,” said Miss Grace, wiping her eyes, and sitting up very straight. “No man, that is a gentleman, is ever master in his own house. He has only such rights there as his wife chooses to give him; and this woman won’t like me, I’m sure.”
“Perhaps she will,” said Letitia, in a faltering voice.
“No, she won’t; because I have no faculty for lying, or playing the hypocrite in any way, and I shan’t approve of her. These soft, slippery, pretty little fibbing women have always been my abomination.”
“Oh, my _dear_ Grace!” said Miss Ferguson, “do let us make the best of it.”
“I _did_ think,” said Miss Grace, wiping her eyes, “that John had some sense. I wasn’t such a fool, nor so selfish, as to want him always to live for me. I wanted him to marry; and if he had got engaged to your Rose, for instance ... O Letitia! I always did so _hope_ that he and Rose would like each other.”
“We can’t choose for our brothers,” said Miss Letitia, “and, hard as it is, we must make up our minds to love those they bring to us. Who knows what good influences may do for poor Lillie Ellis? She never has had any yet. Her family are extremely common sort of people, without any culture or breeding, and only her wonderful beauty brought them into notice; and they have always used that as a sort of stock in trade.”
“And John says, in this letter, that she reminds him of our mother,” said Miss Grace; “and he thinks that naturally she was very much such a character. Just think of that, now!”
“He must be far gone,” said Miss Ferguson; “but then, you see, she is distractingly pretty. She has just the most exquisitely pearly, pure, delicate, saint-like look, at times, that you ever saw; and then she knows exactly how she does look, and just how to use her looks; and John can’t be blamed for believing in her. I, who know all about her, am sometimes taken in by her.”
“Well,” said Miss Grace, “Mrs. Lennox was at Newport last summer at the time that she was there, and she told me all about her. I think her an artful, unscrupulous, unprincipled woman, and her being made mistress of this house just breaks up our pleasant sociable life here. She has no literary tastes; she does not care for reading or study; she won’t like our set here, and she will gradually drive them from the house. She won’t like me, and she will want to alienate John from me,—so there is just the situation.”
“You may read that letter,” added Miss Grace, wiping her eyes, and tossing her brother’s letter into Miss Letitia’s lap. Miss Letitia took the letter and read it. “Good fellow!” she exclaimed warmly, “you see just what I say,—his heart is all with you.”
“Oh, John’s heart is all right enough!” said Miss Grace; “and I don’t doubt his love. He’s the best, noblest, most affectionate fellow in the world. I only think he reckons without his host, in thinking he can keep all our old relations unbroken, when he puts a new mistress into the house, and such a mistress.”
“But if she really loves him”— “Pshaw! she don’t. That kind of woman can’t love. They are like cats, that want to be stroked and caressed, and to be petted, and to lie soft and warm; and they will purr to any one that will pet them,—that’s all. As for love that leads to any self-sacrifice, they don’t begin to know any thing about it.”
“Gracie dear,” said Miss Ferguson, “this sort of thing will never do. If you meet your brother in this way, you will throw him off, and, maybe, make a fatal breach. Meet it like a good Christian, as you are. You know,” she said gently, “where we have a right to carry our troubles, and of whom we should ask guidance.”
“Oh, I do know, ’Titia!” said Miss Grace; “but I am letting myself be wicked just a little, you know, to relieve my mind. I ought to put myself to school to make the best of it; but it came on me so _very_ suddenly. Yes,” she added, “I am going to take a course of my Bible and Fénelon before I see John,—poor fellow.”
“And try to have faith for her,” said Miss Letitia.
“Well, I’ll try to have faith,” said Miss Grace; “but I do trust it will be some days before John comes down on me with his raptures,—men in love are such fools.”
“But, dear me!” said Miss Letitia, as her head accidentally turned towards the window; “who is this riding up? Gracie, as sure as you live, it is John himself!”
“John himself!” repeated Miss Grace, becoming pale.
“Now do, dear, be careful,” said Miss Letitia. “I’ll just run out this back door and leave you alone;” and just as Miss Letitia’s light heels were heard going down the back steps, John’s heavy footsteps were coming up the front ones.
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{
"id": "12354"
}
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3
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_THE SISTER._
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GRACE SEYMOUR was a specimen of a class of whom we are happy to say New England possesses a great many.
She was a highly cultivated, intelligent, and refined woman, arrived at the full age of mature womanhood unmarried, and with no present thought or prospect of marriage. I presume all my readers, who are in a position to run over the society of our rural New-England towns, can recall to their minds hundreds of such. They are women too thoughtful, too conscientious, too delicate, to marry for any thing but a purely personal affection; and this affection, for various reasons, has not fallen in their way.
The tendency of life in these towns is to throw the young men of the place into distant fields of adventure and enterprise in the far Western and Southern States, leaving at their old homes a population in which the feminine element largely predominates. It is not, generally speaking, the most cultivated or the most attractive of the brethren who remain in the place where they were born. The ardent, the daring, the enterprising, are off to the ends of the earth; and the choice of the sisters who remain at home is, therefore, confined to a restricted list; and so it ends in these delightful rose-gardens of single women which abound in New England,—women who remain at home as housekeepers to aged parents, and charming persons in society; women over whose graces of conversation and manner the married men in their vicinity go off into raptures of eulogium, which generally end with, “Why hasn’t that woman ever got married?”
It often happens to such women to expend on some brother that stock of hero-worship and devotion which it has not come in their way to give to a nearer friend. Alas! it is building on a sandy foundation; for, just as the union of hearts is complete, the chemical affinity which began in the cradle, and strengthens with every year of life, is dissolved by the introduction of that third element which makes of the brother a husband, while the new combination casts out the old,—sometimes with a disagreeable effervescence.
John and Grace Seymour were two only children of a very affectionate family; and they had grown up in the closest habits of intimacy. They had written to each other those long letters in which thoughtful people who live in retired situations delight; letters not of outward events, but of sentiments and opinions, the phases of the inner life. They had studied and pursued courses of reading together. They had together organized and carried on works of benevolence and charity.
The brother and sister had been left joint heirs of a large manufacturing property, employing hundreds of hands, in their vicinity; and the care and cultivation of these work-people, the education of their children, had been most conscientiously upon their minds. Half of every Sunday they devoted together to labors in the Sunday school of their manufacturing village; and the two worked so harmoniously together in the interests of their life, that Grace had never felt the want of any domestic ties or relations other than those that she had.
Our readers may perhaps, therefore, concede that, among the many claimants for their sympathy in this cross-grained world of ours, some few grains of it may properly be due to Grace.
Things are trials that try us: afflictions are what afflict us; and, under this showing, Grace was both tried and afflicted by the sudden engagement of her brother. When the whole groundwork on which one’s daily life is built caves in, and falls into the cellar without one moment’s warning, it is not in human nature to pick one’s self up, and reconstruct and rearrange in a moment. So Grace thought, at any rate; but she made a hurried effort to dash back her tears, and gulp down a rising in her throat, anxious only not to be selfish, and not to disgust her brother in the outset with any personal egotism.
So she ran to the front door to meet him, and fell into his arms, trying so hard to seem congratulatory and affectionate that she broke out into sobbing.
“My dear Gracie,” said John, embracing and kissing her with that gushing fervor with which newly engaged gentlemen are apt to deluge every creature whom they meet, “you’ve got my letter. Well, were not you astonished?”
“O John, it was so sudden!” was all poor Grace could say. “And you know, John, since mother died, you and I have been all in all to each other.”
“And so we shall be, Gracie. Why, yes, of course we shall,” he said, stroking her hair, and playing with her trembling, thin, white hands. “Why, this only makes me love you the more now; and you will love my little Lillie: fact is, you can’t help it. We shall both of us be happier for having her here.”
“Well, you know, John, I never saw her,” said Grace, deprecatingly, “and so you can’t wonder.”
“Oh, yes, of course! Don’t wonder in the least. It comes rather sudden,—and then you haven’t seen her. Look, here is her photograph!” said John, producing one from the most orthodox innermost region, directly over his heart. “Look there! isn’t it beautiful?”
“It is a very sweet face,” said Grace, exerting herself to be sympathetic, and thankful that she could say that much truthfully.
“I can’t imagine,” said John, “what ever made her like me. You know she has refused half the fellows in the country. I hadn’t the remotest idea that she would have any thing to say to me; but you see there’s no accounting for tastes;” and John plumed himself, as young gentlemen do who have carried off prizes.
“You see,” he added, “it’s odd, but she took a fancy to me the first time she saw me. Now, you know, Gracie, I never found it easy to get along with ladies at first; but Lillie has the most extraordinary way of putting a fellow at his ease. Why, she made me feel like an old friend the first hour.”
[Illustration: “It _is_ a very sweet face.”]
“Indeed!”
“Look here,” said John, triumphantly drawing out his pocket-book, and producing thence a knot of rose-colored satin ribbon. “Did you ever see such a lovely color as this? It’s so exquisite, you see! Well, she always is wearing just such knots of ribbon, the most lovely shades. Why, there isn’t one woman in a thousand could wear the things she does. Every thing becomes her. Sometimes it’s rose color, or lilac, or pale blue,—just the most trying things to others are what she can wear.”
“Dear John, I hope you looked for something deeper than the complexion in a wife,” said Grace, driven to moral reflections in spite of herself.
“Oh, of course!” said John: “she has such soft, gentle, winning ways; she is so sympathetic; she’s just the wife to make home happy, to be a bond of union to us all. Now, in a wife, what we want is just that. Lillie’s mind, for instance, hasn’t been cultivated as yours and Letitia’s. She isn’t at all that sort of girl. She’s just a dear, gentle, little confiding creature, that you’ll delight in. You’ll form her mind, and she’ll look up to you. You know she’s young yet.”
“Young, John! Why, she’s seven and twenty,” said Grace, with astonishment.
“Oh, no, my dear Gracie! that is all a mistake. She told me herself she’s only twenty. You see, the trouble is, she went into company injudiciously early, a mere baby, in fact; and that causes her to have the name of being older than she is. But, I do assure you, she’s only twenty. She told me so herself.”
“Oh, indeed!” said Grace, prudently choking back the contradiction which she longed to utter. “I know it seems a good many summers since I heard of her as a belle at Newport.”
“Ah, yes, exactly! You see she went into company, as a young lady, when she was only thirteen. She told me all about it. Her parents were very injudicious, and they pushed her forward. She regrets it now. She knows that it wasn’t the thing at all. She’s very sensitive to the defects in her early education; but I made her understand that it was the _heart_ more than the head that I cared for. I dare say, Gracie, she’ll fall into all our little ways without really knowing; and you, in point of fact, will be mistress of the house as much as you ever were. Lillie is delicate, and never has had any care, and will be only too happy to depend on you. She’s one of the gentle, dependent sort, you know.”
To this statement, Grace did not reply. She only began nervously sweeping together the _débris_ of leaves and flowers which encumbered the table, on which the newly arranged flower-vases were standing. Then she arranged the vases with great precision on the mantel-shelf. As she was doing it, so many memories rushed over her of that room and her mother, and the happy, peaceful family life that had hitherto been led there, that she quite broke down; and, sitting down in the chair, she covered her face, and went off in a good, hearty crying spell.
Poor John was inexpressibly shocked. He loved and revered his sister beyond any thing in the world; and it occurred to him, in a dim wise, that to be suddenly dispossessed and shut out in the cold, when one has hitherto been the first object of affection, is, to make the best of it, a real and sore trial.
But Grace soon recovered herself, and rose up smiling through her tears. “What a fool I am making of myself!” she said. “The fact is, John, I am only a little nervous. You mustn’t mind it. You know,” she said, laughing, “we old maids are like cats,—we find it hard to be put out of our old routine. I dare say we shall all of us be happier in the end for this, and I shall try to do all I can to make it so. Perhaps, John, I’d better take that little house of mine on Elm Street, and set up my tent in it, and take all the old furniture and old pictures, and old-time things. You’ll be wanting to modernize and make over this house, you know, to suit a young wife.”
“Nonsense, Gracie; no such thing!” said John. “Do you suppose I want to leave all the past associations of my life, and strip my home bare of all pleasant memorials, because I bring a little wife here? Why, the very idea of a wife is somebody to sympathize in your tastes; and Lillie will love and appreciate all these dear old things as you and I do. She has such a sympathetic heart! If you want to make me happy, Gracie, stay here, and let us live, as near as may be, as before.”
“So we will, John,” said Grace, so cheerfully that John considered the whole matter as settled, and rushed upstairs to write his daily letter to Lillie.
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{
"id": "12354"
}
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4
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_PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE._
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MISS LILLIE ELLIS was sitting upstairs in her virgin bower, which was now converted into a tumultuous, seething caldron of millinery and mantua-making, such as usually precedes a wedding. To be sure, orders had been forthwith despatched to Paris for the bridal regimentals, and for a good part of the _trousseau_; but that did not seem in the least to stand in the way of the time-honored confusion of sewing preparations at home, which is supposed to waste the strength and exhaust the health of every bride elect.
Whether young women, while disengaged, do not have proper under-clothing, or whether they contemplate marriage as an awful gulf which swallows up all future possibilities of replenishing a wardrobe,—certain it is that no sooner is a girl engaged to be married than there is a blind and distracting rush and pressure and haste to make up for her immediately a stock of articles, which, up to that hour, she has managed to live very comfortably and respectably without. It is astonishing to behold the number of inexpressible things with French names which unmarried young ladies never think of wanting, but which there is a desperate push to supply, and have ranged in order, the moment the matrimonial state is in contemplation.
Therefore it was that the virgin bower of Lillie was knee-deep in a tangled mass of stuffs of various hues and description; that the sharp sound of tearing off breadths resounded there; that Miss Clippins and Miss Snippings and Miss Nippins were sewing there day and night; that a sewing-machine was busily rattling in mamma’s room; and that there were all sorts of pinking and quilling, and braiding and hemming, and whipping and ruffling, and over-sewing and cat-stitching and hem-stitching, and other female mysteries, going on.
As for Lillie, she lay in a loose _negligé_ on the bed, ready every five minutes to be called up to have something measured, or tried on, or fitted; and to be consulted whether there should be fifteen or sixteen tucks and then an insertion, or sixteen tucks and a series of puffs. Her labors wore upon her; and it was smilingly observed by Miss Clippins across to Miss Nippins, that Miss Lillie was beginning to show her “engagement bones.” In the midst of these preoccupations, a letter was handed to her by the giggling chambermaid. It was a thick letter, directed in a bold honest hand. Miss Lillie took it with a languid little yawn, finished the last sentences in a chapter of the novel she was reading, and then leisurely broke the seal and glanced it over. It was the one that the enraptured John had spent his morning in writing.
“Miss Ellis, now, if you’ll try on this jacket—oh! I beg your pardon,” said Miss Clippins, observing the letter, “we can wait, _of course_;” and then all three laughed as if something very pleasant was in their minds.
“No,” said Lillie, giving the letter a toss; “it’ll _keep_;” and she stood up to have a jaunty little blue jacket, with its pluffy bordering of swan’s down, fitted upon her.
“It’s too bad, now, to take you from your letter,” said Miss Clippins, with a sly nod.
“I’m sure you take it philosophically,” said Miss Nippins, with a giggle.
“Why shouldn’t I?” said the divine Lillie. “I get one every day; and it’s all the old story. I’ve heard it ever since I was born.”
“Well, now, to be sure you have. Let’s see,” said Miss Clippins, “this is the seventy-fourth or seventy-fifth offer, was it?”
“Oh, you must ask mamma! she keeps the lists: I’m sure I don’t trouble my head,” said the little beauty; and she looked so natty and jaunty when she said it, just arching her queenly white neck, and making soft, downy dimples in her cheeks as she gave her fresh little childlike laugh; turning round and round before the looking-glass, and issuing her orders for the fitting of the jacket with a precision and real interest which showed that there _were_ things in the world which didn’t become old stories, even if one had been used to them ever since one was born.
Lillie never was caught napping when the point in question was the fit of her clothes.
When released from the little blue jacket, there was a rose-colored morning-dress to be tried on, and a grave discussion as to whether the honiton lace was to be set on plain or frilled.
So important was this case, that mamma was summoned from the sewing-machine to give her opinion. Mrs. Ellis was a fat, fair, rosy matron of most undisturbed conscience and digestion, whose main business in life had always been to see to her children’s clothes. She had brought up Lillie with faithful and religious zeal; that is to say, she had always ruffled her underclothes with her own hands, and darned her stockings, sick or well; and also, as before intimated, kept a list of her offers, which she was ready in confidential moments to tell off to any of her acquaintance. The question of ruffled or plain honiton was of such vital importance, that the whole four took some time in considering it in its various points of view.
“Sarah Selfridge had hers ruffled,” said Lillie.
“And the effect was perfectly sweet,” said Miss Clippins.
“Perhaps, Lillie, you had better have it ruffled,” said mamma.
“But three rows laid on plain has such a lovely effect,” said Miss Nippins.
“Perhaps, then, she had better have three rows laid on plain,” said mamma.
“Or she might have one row ruffled on the edge, with three rows laid on plain, with a satin fold,” said Miss Clippins. “That’s the way I fixed Miss Elliott’s.”
“That would be a nice way,” said mamma. “Perhaps, Lillie, you’d better have it so.”
“Oh! come now, all of you, just hush,” said Lillie. “I know just how I want it done.”
The words may sound a little rude and dictatorial; but Lillie had the advantage of always looking so pretty, and saying dictatorial things in such a sweet voice, that everybody was delighted with them; and she took the matter of arranging the trimming in hand with a clearness of head which showed that it was a subject to which she had given mature consideration. Mrs. Ellis shook her fat sides with a comfortable motherly chuckle.
“Lillie always did know exactly what she wanted: she’s a smart little thing.”
And, when all the trying on and arranging of folds and frills and pinks and bows was over, Lillie threw herself comfortably upon the bed, to finish her letter.
Shrewd Miss Clippins detected the yawn with which she laid down the missive.
“Seems to me your letters don’t meet a very warm reception,” she said.
“Well! every day, and such long ones!” Lillie answered, turning over the pages. “See there,” she went on, opening a drawer, “What a heap of them! I can’t see, for my part, what any one can want to write a letter every day to anybody for. John is such a goose about me.”
[Illustration: “Shrewd Miss Clippins detected the yawn.”]
“He’ll get over it after he’s been married six months,” said Miss Clippins, nodding her head with the air of a woman that has seen life.
“I’m sure I shan’t care,” said Lillie, with a toss of her pretty head. “It’s _borous_ any way.”
Our readers may perhaps imagine, from the story thus far, that our little Lillie is by no means the person, in reality, that John supposes her to be, when he sits thinking of her with such devotion, and writing her such long, “borous” letters.
She is not. John is in love not with the actual Lillie Ellis, but with that ideal personage who looks like his mother’s picture, and is the embodiment of all his mother’s virtues. The feeling, as it exists in John’s mind, is not only a most respectable, but in fact a truly divine one, and one that no mortal man ought to be ashamed of. The love that quickens all the nature, that makes a man twice manly, and makes him aspire to all that is high, pure, sweet, and religious,—is a feeling so sacred, that no unworthiness in its object can make it any less beautiful. More often than not it is spent on an utter vacancy. Men and women both pass through this divine initiation,—this sacred inspiration of our nature,—and find, when they have come into the innermost shrine, where the divinity ought to be, that there is no god or goddess there; nothing but the cold black ashes of commonplace vulgarity and selfishness. Both of them, when the grand discovery has been made, do well to fold their robes decently about them, and make the best of the matter. If they cannot love, they can at least be friendly. They can tolerate, as philosophers; pity, as Christians; and, finding just where and how the burden of an ill-assorted union galls the least, can then and there strap it on their backs, and walk on, not only without complaint, but sometimes in a cheerful and hilarious spirit.
Not a word of all this thinks our friend John, as he sits longing, aspiring, and pouring out his heart, day after day, in letters that interrupt Lillie in the all-important responsibility of getting her wardrobe fitted.
Shall we think this smooth little fair-skinned Lillie is a cold-hearted monster, because her heart does not beat faster at these letters which she does not understand, and which strike her as unnecessarily prolix and prosy? Why should John insist on telling her his feelings and opinions on a vast variety of subjects that she does not care a button for? She doesn’t know any thing about ritualism and anti-ritualism; and, what’s more, she doesn’t care. She hates to hear so much about religion. She thinks it’s pokey. John may go to any church he pleases, for all her. As to all that about his favorite poems, she don’t like poetry,—never could,—don’t see any sense in it; and John _will_ be quoting ever so much in his letters. Then, as to the love parts,—it may be all quite new and exciting to John; but she has, as she said, heard that story over and over again, till it strikes her as quite a matter of course. Without doubt the whole world is a desert where she is not: the thing has been asserted, over and over, by so many gentlemen of credible character for truth and veracity, that she is forced to believe it; and she cannot see why John is particularly to be pitied on this account. He is in no more desperate state about her than the rest of them; and secretly Lillie has as little pity for lovers’ pangs as a nice little white cat has for mice. They amuse her; they are her appropriate recreation; and she pats and plays with each mouse in succession, without any comprehension that it may be a serious thing for him.
When Lillie was a little girl, eight years old, she used to sell her kisses through the slats of the fence for papers of candy, and thus early acquired the idea that her charms were a capital to be employed in trading for the good things of life. She had the misfortune—and a great one it is—to have been singularly beautiful from the cradle, and so was praised and exclaimed over and caressed as she walked through the streets. She was sent for, far and near; borrowed to be looked at; her picture taken by photographers. If one reflects how many foolish and inconsiderate people there are in the world, who have no scruple in making a pet and plaything of a pretty child, one will see how this one unlucky lot of being beautiful in childhood spoiled Lillie’s chances of an average share of good sense and goodness. The only hope for such a case lies in the chance of possessing judicious parents. Lillie had not these. Her father was a shrewd grocer, and nothing more; and her mother was a competent cook and seamstress. While he traded in sugar and salt, and she made pickles and embroidered under-linen, the pretty Lillie was educated as pleased Heaven.
Pretty girls, unless they have wise mothers, are more educated by the opposite sex than by their own. Put them where you will, there is always some _man_ busying himself in their instruction; and the burden of masculine teaching is generally about the same, and might be stereotyped as follows: “You don’t need to be or do any thing. Your business in life is to look pretty, and amuse us. You don’t need to study: you know all by nature that a woman need to know. You are, by virtue of being a pretty woman, superior to any thing we can teach you; and we wouldn’t, for the world, have you any thing but what you are.” When Lillie went to school, this was what her masters whispered in her ear as they did her sums for her, and helped her through her lessons and exercises, and looked into her eyes. This was what her young gentlemen friends, themselves delving in Latin and Greek and mathematics, told her, when they came to recreate from their severer studies in her smile. Men are held to account for talking sense. Pretty women are told that lively nonsense is their best sense. Now and then, an admirer bolder than the rest ventured to take Lillie’s education more earnestly in hand, and recommended to her just a little reading,—enough to enable her to carry on conversation, and appear to know something of the ordinary topics discussed in society,—but informed her, by the by, that there was no sort of need of being either profound or accurate in these matters, as the mistakes of a pretty woman had a grace of their own.
At seventeen, Lillie graduated from Dr. Sibthorpe’s school with a “finished education.” She had, somehow or other, picked her way through various “ologies” and exercises supposed to be necessary for a well-informed young lady. She wrote a pretty hand, spoke French with a good accent, and could turn a sentimental note neatly; “and that, my dear,” said Dr. Sibthorpe to his wife, “is all that a woman needs, who so evidently is intended for wife and mother as our little Lillie.” Dr. Sibthorpe, in fact, had amused himself with a semi-paternal flirtation with his pupil during the whole course of her school exercises, and parted from her with tears in his eyes, greatly to her amusement; for Lillie, after all, estimated his devotion at just about what it was worth. It amused her to see him make a fool of himself.
Of course, the next thing was—to be married; and Lillie’s life now became a round of dressing, dancing, going to watering-places, travelling, and in other ways seeking the fulfilment of her destiny.
She had precisely the accessible, easy softness of manner that leads every man to believe that he may prove a favorite, and her run of offers became quite a source of amusement. Her arrival at watering-places was noted in initials in the papers; her dress on every public occasion was described; and, as acknowledged queen of love and beauty, she had everywhere her little court of men and women flatterers. The women flatterers around a belle are as much a part of the _cortége_ as the men. They repeat the compliments they hear, and burn incense in the virgin’s bower at hours when the profaner sex may not enter.
The life of a petted creature consists essentially in being deferred to, for being pretty and useless. A petted child runs a great risk, if it is ever to outgrow childhood; but a pet woman is a perpetual child. The pet woman of society is everybody’s toy. Everybody looks at her, admires her, praises and flatters her, stirs her up to play off her little airs and graces for their entertainment; and passes on. Men of profound sense encourage her to chatter nonsense for their amusement, just as we delight in the tottering steps and stammering mispronunciations of a golden-haired child. When Lillie has been in Washington, she has had judges of the supreme court and secretaries of state delighted to have her give her opinions in their respective departments. Scholars and literary men flocked around her, to the neglect of many a more instructed woman, satisfied that she knew enough to blunder agreeably on every subject.
Nor is there any thing in the Christian civilization of our present century that condemns the kind of life we are describing, as in any respect unwomanly or unbecoming. Something very like it is in a measure considered as the appointed rule of attractive young girls till they are married.
Lillie had numbered among her admirers many lights of the Church. She had flirted with bishops, priests, and deacons,—who, none of them, would, for the world, have been so ungallant as to quote to her such dreadful professional passages as, “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.”
In fact, the clergy, when off duty, are no safer guides of attractive young women than other mortal men; and Lillie had so often seen their spiritual attentions degenerate into downright, temporal love-making, that she held them in as small reverence as the rest of their sex. Only one dreadful John the Baptist of her acquaintance, one of the camel’s-hair-girdle and locust-and-wild-honey species, once encountering Lillie at Saratoga, and observing the ways and manners of the court which she kept there, took it upon him to give her a spiritual admonition.
“Miss Lillie,” he said, “I see no chance for the salvation of your soul, unless it should please God to send the small-pox upon you. I think I shall pray for that.”
“Oh, horrors! don’t! I’d rather never be saved,” Lillie answered with a fervent sincerity.
The story was repeated afterwards as an amusing _bon mot_, and a specimen of the barbarity to which religious fanaticism may lead; and yet we question whether John the Baptist had not the right of it.
For it must at once appear, that, had the small-pox made the above-mentioned change in Lillie’s complexion at sixteen, the entire course of her life would have taken another turn. The whole world then would have united in letting her know that she must live to some useful purpose, or be nobody and nothing. Schoolmasters would have scolded her if she idled over her lessons; and her breaking down in arithmetic, and mistakes in history, would no longer have been regarded as interesting. Clergymen, consulted on her spiritual state, would have told her freely that she was a miserable sinner, who, except she repented, must likewise perish. In short, all those bitter and wholesome truths, which strengthen and invigorate the virtues of plain people, might possibly have led her a long way on towards saintship.
As it was, little Lillie was confessedly no saint; and yet, if much of a sinner, society has as much to answer for as she. She was the daughter and flower of the Christian civilization of the nineteenth century, and the kind of woman, that, on the whole, men of quite distinguished sense have been fond of choosing for wives, and will go on seeking to the end of the chapter.
Did she love John? Well, she was quite pleased to be loved by him, and she liked the prospect of being his wife. She was sure he would always let her have her own way, and that he had a plenty of worldly means to do it with.
Lillie, if not very clever in a literary or scientific point of view, was no fool. She had, in fact, under all her softness of manner, a great deal of that real hard grit which shrewd, worldly people call common sense. She saw through all the illusions of fancy and feeling, right to the tough material core of things. However soft and tender and sentimental her habits of speech and action were in her professional capacity of a charming woman, still the fair Lillie, had she been a man, would have been respected in the business world, as one that had cut her eye-teeth, and knew on which side her bread was buttered.
A husband, she knew very well, was the man who undertook to be responsible for his wife’s bills: he was the giver, bringer, and maintainer of all sorts of solid and appreciable comforts.
Lillie’s bills had hitherto been sore places in the domestic history of her family. The career of a fashionable belle is not to be supported without something of an outlay; and that innocence of arithmetical combinations, over which she was wont to laugh bewitchingly among her adorers, sometimes led to results quite astounding to the prosaic, hard-working papa, who stood financially responsible for all her finery.
Mamma had often been called in to calm the tumult of his feelings on such semi-annual developments; and she did it by pointing out to him that this heavy present expense was an investment by which Lillie was, in the end, to make her own fortune and that of her family.
When Lillie contemplated the marriage-service with a view to going through it with John, there was one clause that stood out in consoling distinctness,—“_With all my worldly goods I thee endow. _” As to the other clause, which contains the dreadful word “obey,” about which our modern women have such fearful apprehensions, Lillie was ready to swallow it without even a grimace.
“Obey John!” Her face wore a pretty air of droll assurance at the thought. It was too funny.
“My dear,” said Belle Trevors, who was one of Lillie’s incense-burners and a bridesmaid elect, “_have_ you the least idea how rich he is?”
“He is well enough off to do about any thing I want,” said Lillie.
“Well, you know he owns the whole village of Spindlewood, with all those great factories, besides law business,” said Belle. “But then they live in a dreadfully slow, pokey way down there in Springdale. They haven’t the remotest idea how to use money.”
“I can show him how to use it,” said Lillie.
“He and his sister keep a nice sort of old-fashioned place there, and jog about in an old countrified carriage, picking up poor children and visiting schools. She is a _very_ superior woman, that sister.”
“I don’t like superior women,” said Lillie.
“But you must like her, you know. John is perfectly devoted to her, and I suppose she is to be a fixture in the establishment.”
“We shall see about that,” said Lillie. “One thing at a time. I don’t mean he shall live at Springdale. It’s horridly pokey to live in those little country towns. He must have a house in New York.”
“And a place at Newport for the summer,” said Belle Trevors.
“Yes,” said Lillie, “a cottage in Newport does very well in the season; and then a country place well fitted up to invite company to in the other months of summer.”
“Delightful,” said Belle, “_if_ you can make him do it.”
“See if I don’t,” said Lillie.
“You dear, funny creature, you,—how you do always ride on the top of the wave!” said Belle.
“It’s what I was born for,” said Lillie. “By the by, Belle, I got a letter from Harry last night.”
“Poor fellow, had he heard”— “Why, of course not. I didn’t want he should till it’s all over. It’s best, you know.”
“He is such a good fellow, and so devoted,—it does seem a pity.”
“Devoted! well, I should rather think he was,” said Lillie. “I believe he would cut off his right hand for me, any day. But I never gave him any encouragement. I’ve always told him I could be to him only as a sister, you know.”
“You ought not to write to him,” said Belle.
“What can I do? He is perfectly desperate if I don’t, and still persists that he means to marry me some day, spite of my screams.”
“Well, he’ll have to stop making love to you after you’re married.”
“Oh, pshaw! I don’t believe that old-fashioned talk. Lovers make a variety in life. I don’t see why a married woman is to give up all the fun of having admirers. Of course, one isn’t going to do any thing wrong, you know; but one doesn’t want to settle down into Darby and Joan at once. Why, some of the young married women, the most stunning belles at Newport last year, got a great deal more attention after they were married than they did before. You see the fellows like it, because they are so sure not to be drawn in.”
“I think it’s too bad on us girls, though,” said Belle. “You ought to leave us our turn.”
“Oh! I’ll turn over any of them to you, Belle,” said Lillie. “There’s Harry, to begin with. What do you say to him?”
“Thank you, I don’t think I shall take up with second-hand articles,” said Belle, with some spirit.
But here the entrance of the chamber-maid, with a fresh dress from the dressmaker’s, resolved the conversation into a discussion so very minute and technical that it cannot be recorded in our pages.
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{
"id": "12354"
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5
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_WEDDING, AND WEDDING-TRIP._
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WELL, and so they were married, with all the newest modern forms, ceremonies, and accessories.
Every possible thing was done to reflect lustre on the occasion. There were eight bridesmaids, and every one of them fair as the moon; and eight groomsmen, with white-satin ribbons and white rosebuds in their button-holes; and there was a bishop, assisted by a priest, to give the solemn benedictions of the church; and there was a marriage-bell of tuberoses and lilies, of enormous size, swinging over the heads of the pair at the altar; and there were voluntaries on the organ, and chantings, and what not, all solemn and impressive as possible. In the midst of all this, the fair Lillie promised, “forsaking all others, to keep only unto him, so long as they both should live,”—“to love, honor, and obey, until death did them part.”
During the whole agitating scene, Lillie kept up her presence of mind, and was perfectly aware of what she was about; so that a very fresh, original, and crisp style of trimming, that had been invented in Paris specially for her wedding toilet, received no detriment from the least unguarded movement. We much regret that it is contrary to our literary principles to write half, or one third, in French; because the wedding-dress, by far the most important object on this occasion, and certainly one that most engrossed the thoughts of the bride, was one entirely indescribable in English. Just as there is no word in the Hottentot vocabulary for “holiness,” or “purity,” so there are no words in our savage English to describe a lady’s dress; and, therefore, our fair friends must be recommended, on this point, to exercise their imagination in connection with the study of the finest French plates, and they may get some idea of Lillie in her wedding robe and train.
Then there was the wedding banquet, where everybody ate quantities of the most fashionable, indigestible horrors, with praiseworthy courage and enthusiasm; for what is to become of “_paté de fois gras_” if we don’t eat it? What is to become of us if we do is entirely a secondary question.
On the whole, there was not one jot nor tittle of the most exorbitant requirements of fashion that was not fulfilled on this occasion. The house was a crush of wilting flowers, and smelt of tuberoses enough to give one a vertigo for a month. A band of music brayed and clashed every minute of the time; and a jam of people, in elegant dresses, shrieked to each other above the din, and several of Lillie’s former admirers got tipsy in the supper-room. In short, nothing could be finer; and it was agreed, on all hands, that it was “stunning.” Accounts of it, and of all the bride’s dresses, presents, and even wardrobe, went into the daily papers; and thus was the charming Lillie Ellis made into Mrs. John Seymour.
Then followed the approved wedding journey, the programme of which had been drawn up by Lillie herself, with _carte blanche_ from John, and included every place where a bride’s new toilets could be seen in the most select fashionable circles. They went to Niagara and Trenton, they went to Newport and Saratoga, to the White Mountains and Montreal; and Mrs. John Seymour was a meteor of fashionable wonder and delight at all these places. Her dresses and her diamonds, her hats and her bonnets, were all wonderful to behold. The stir and excitement that she had created as simple Miss Ellis was nothing to the stir and excitement about Mrs. John Seymour. It was the mere grub compared with the full-blown butterfly,—the bud compared with the rose. Wherever she appeared, her old admirers flocked in her train. The unmarried girls were, so to speak, nowhere. Marriage was a new lease of power and splendor, and she revelled in it like a humming-bird in the sunshine.
And was John equally happy? Well, to say the truth, John’s head was a little turned by the possession of this curious and manifold creature, that fluttered and flapped her wings about the eyes and ears of his understanding, and appeared before him every day in some new device of the toilet, fair and fresh; smiling and bewitching, kissing and coaxing, laughing and crying, and in all ways bewildering him, the once sober-minded John, till he scarce knew whether he stood on his head or his heels. He knew that this sort of rattling, scatter-brained life must come to an end some time. He knew there was a sober, serious life-work for him; something that must try his mind and soul and strength, and that would, by and by, leave him neither time nor strength to be the mere wandering _attaché_ of a gay bird, whose string he held in hand, and who now seemed to pull him hither and thither at her will.
John thought of all these things at intervals; and then, when he thought of the quiet, sober, respectable life at Springdale, of the good old staple families, with their steady ways,—of the girls in his neighborhood with their reading societies, their sewing-circles for the poor, their book-clubs and art-unions for practice in various accomplishments,—he thought, with apprehension, that there appeared not a spark of interest in his charmer’s mind for any thing in this direction. She never had read any thing,—knew nothing on all those subjects about which the women and young girls in his circle were interested; while, in Springdale, there were none of the excitements which made her interested in life. He could not help perceiving that Lillie’s five hundred particular friends were mostly of the other sex, and wondering whether he alone, when the matter should be reduced to that, could make up to her for all her retinue of slaves.
Like most good boys who grow into good men, John had unlimited faith in women. Whatever little defects and flaws they might have, still at heart he supposed they were all of the same substratum as his mother and sister. The moment a woman was married, he imagined that all the lovely domestic graces would spring up in her, no matter what might have been her previous disadvantages, merely because she was a woman. He had no doubt of the usual orthodox oak-and-ivy theory in relation to man and woman; and that his wife, when he got one, would be the clinging ivy that would bend her flexible tendrils in the way his strong will and wisdom directed. He had never, perhaps, seen, in southern regions, a fine tree completely smothered and killed in the embraces of a gay, flaunting parasite; and so received no warning from vegetable analogies.
Somehow or other, he was persuaded, he should gradually bring his wife to all his own ways of thinking, and all his schemes and plans and opinions. This might, he thought, be difficult, were she one of the pronounced, strong-minded sort, accustomed to thinking and judging for herself. Such a one, he could easily imagine, there might be a risk in encountering in the close intimacy of domestic life. Even in his dealings with his sister, he was made aware of a force of character and a vigor of intellect that sometimes made the carrying of his own way over hers a matter of some difficulty. Were it not that Grace was the best of women, and her ways always the very best of ways, John was not so sure but that she might prove a little too masterful for him.
But this lovely bit of pink and white; this downy, gauzy, airy little elf; this creature, so slim and slender and unsubstantial,—surely he need have no fear that he could not mould and control and manage her? Oh, no! He imagined her melting, like a moon-beam, into all manner of sweet compliances, becoming an image and reflection of his own better self; and repeated to himself the lines of Wordsworth,— “I saw her, on a nearer view, A spirit, yet a woman too,— Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty. A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food, For transient pleasures, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.”
John fancied he saw his little Lillie subdued into a pattern wife, weaned from fashionable follies, eagerly seeking mental improvement under his guidance, and joining him and Grace in all sorts of edifying works and ways.
The reader may see, from the conversations we have detailed, that nothing was farther from Lillie’s intentions than any such conformity.
The intentions of the married pair, in fact, ran exactly contrary to one another. John meant to bring Lillie to a sober, rational, useful family life; and Lillie meant to run a career of fashionable display, and make John pay for it.
Neither, at present, stated their purposes precisely to the other, because they were “honey-mooning.” John, as yet, was the enraptured lover; and Lillie was his pink and white sultana,—his absolute mistress, her word was law, and his will was hers. How the case was ever to be reversed, so as to suit the terms of the marriage service, John did not precisely inquire.
But, when husband and wife start in life with exactly opposing intentions, which, think you, is likely to conquer,—the man, or the woman? That is a very nice question, and deserves further consideration.
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{
"id": "12354"
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6
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_HONEY-MOON, AND AFTER._
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WE left Mr. and Mrs. John Seymour honey-mooning. The honey-moon, dear ladies, is supposed to be the period of male subjection. The young queen is enthroned; and the first of her slaves walks obediently in her train, carries her fan, her parasol, runs of her errands, packs her trunk, writes her letters, buys her any thing she cries for, and is ready to do the impossible for her, on every suitable occasion.
A great strong man sometimes feels awkwardly, when thus led captive; but the greatest, strongest, and most boastful, often go most obediently under woman-rule; for which, see Shakspeare, concerning Cleopatra and Julius Cæsar and Mark Antony.
But then all kingdoms, and all sway, and all authority must come to an end. Nothing lasts, you see. The plain prose of life must have its turn, after the poetry and honey-moons—stretch them out to their utmost limit—have their terminus.
So, at the end of six weeks, John and Lillie, somewhat dusty and travel-worn, were received by Grace into the old family-mansion at Springdale.
Grace had read her Bible and Fénelon to such purpose, that she had accepted her cross with open arms.
Dear reader, Grace was not a severe, angular, old-maid sister, ready to snarl at the advent of a young beauty; but an elegant and accomplished woman, with a wide culture, a trained and disciplined mind, a charming taste, and polished manners; and, above all, a thorough self-understanding and discipline. Though past thirty, she still had admirers and lovers; yet, till now, her brother, insensibly to herself, had blocked up the doorway of her heart; and the perfectness of the fraternal friendship had prevented the wish and the longing by which some fortunate man might have found and given happiness.
Grace had resolved she would love her new sister; that she would look upon all her past faults and errors with eyes of indulgence; that she would put out of her head every story she ever had heard against her, and unite with her brother to make her lot a happy one.
“John is so good a man,” she said to Miss Letitia Ferguson, “that I am sure Lillie cannot but become a good woman.”
So Grace adorned the wedding with her presence, in an elegant Parisian dress, ordered for the occasion, and presented the young bride with a set of pearl and amethyst that were perfectly bewitching, and kisses and notes of affection had been exchanged between them; and during various intervals, and for weeks past, Grace had been pleasantly employed in preparing the family-mansion to receive the new mistress.
John’s bachelor apartments had been new furnished, and furbished, and made into a perfect bower of roses.
The rest of the house, after the usual household process of purification, had been rearranged, as John and his sister had always kept it since their mother’s death in the way that she loved to see it. There was something quaint and sweet and antique about it, that suited Grace. Its unfashionable difference from the smart, flippant, stereotyped rooms of to-day had a charm in her eyes.
Lillie, however, surveyed the scene, the first night that she took possession, with a quiet determination to re-modernize on the very earliest opportunity. What would Mrs. Frippit and Mrs. Nippit say to such rooms, she thought. But then there was time enough to attend to that. Not a shade of these internal reflections was visible in her manner. She said, “Oh, how sweet! How perfectly charming! How splendid!” in all proper places; and John was delighted.
She also fell into the arms of Grace, and kissed her with effusion; and John saw the sisterly union, which he had anticipated, auspiciously commencing.
The only trouble in Grace’s mind was from a terrible sort of clairvoyance that seems to beset very sincere people, and makes them sensitive to the presence of any thing unreal or untrue. Fair and soft and caressing as the new sister was, and determined as Grace was to believe in her, and trust her, and like her,—she found an invisible, chilly barrier between her heart and Lillie. She scolded herself, and, in the effort to confide, became unnaturally demonstrative, and said and did more than was her wont to show affection; and yet, to her own mortification, she found herself, after all, seeming to herself to be hypocritical, and professing more than she felt.
As to the fair Lillie, who, as we have remarked, was no fool, she took the measure of her new sister with that instinctive knowledge of character which is the essence of womanhood. Lillie was not in love with John, because that was an experience she was not capable of. But she had married him, and now considered him as her property, her subject,—_hers_, with an intensity of ownership that should shut out all former proprietors.
We have heard much talk, of late, concerning the husband’s ownership of the wife. But, dear ladies, is that any more pronounced a fact than every wife’s ownership of her husband? —an ownership so intense and pervading that it may be said to be the controlling nerve of womanhood. Let any one touch your right to the first place in your husband’s regard, and see!
Well, then, Lillie saw at a glance just what Grace was, and what her influence with her brother must be; and also that, in order to live the life she meditated, John must act under her sway, and not under his sister’s; and so the resolve had gone forth, in her mind, that Grace’s dominion in the family should come to an end, and that she would, as sole empress, reconstruct the state. But, of course, she was too wise to say a word about it.
“Dear me!” she said, the next morning, when Grace proposed showing her through the house and delivering up the keys, “I’m sure I don’t see why you want to show things to me. I’m nothing of a housekeeper, you know: all I know is what I want, and I’ve always had what I wanted, you know; but, you see, I haven’t the least idea how it’s to be done. Why, at home I’ve been everybody’s baby. Mamma laughs at the idea of my knowing any thing. So, Grace dear, you must just be prime minister; and I’ll be the good-for-nothing Queen, and just sign the papers, and all that, you know.”
Grace found, the first week, that to be housekeeper to a young duchess, in an American village and with American servants, was no sinecure.
The young mistress, the next week, tumbled into the wash an amount of muslin and lace and French puffing and fluting sufficient to employ two artists for two or three days, and by which honest Bridget, as she stood at her family wash-tub, was sorely perplexed.
But, in America, no woman ever dies for want of speaking her mind; and the lower orders have their turn in teaching the catechism to their superiors, which they do with an effectiveness that does credit to democracy.
“And would ye be plased to step here, Miss Saymour,” said Bridget to Grace, in a voice of suppressed emotion, and pointing oratorically, with her soapy right arm, to a snow-wreath of French finery and puffing on the floor. “What I asks, Miss Grace, is, _Who_ is to do all this? I’m sure it would take me and Katy a week, workin’ day and night, let alone the cookin’ and the silver and the beds, and all them. It’s a pity, now, somebody shouldn’t spake to that young crather; fur she’s nothin’ but a baby, and likely don’t know any thing, as ladies mostly don’t, about what’s right and proper.” Bridget’s Christian charity and condescension in this last sentence was some mitigation of the crisis; but still Grace was appalled. We all of us, my dear sisters, have stood appalled at the tribunal of good Bridgets rising in their majesty and declaring their ultimatum.
[Illustration: “_Who_ is to do all this?”]
Bridget was a treasure in the town of Springdale, where servants were scarce and poor; and, what was more, she was a treasure that knew her own worth. Grace knew very well how she had been beset with applications and offers of higher wages to draw her to various hotels and boarding-houses in the vicinity, but had preferred the comparative dignity and tranquillity of a private gentleman’s family.
But the family had been small, orderly, and systematic, and Grace the most considerate of housekeepers. Still it was not to be denied, that, though an indulgent and considerate mistress, Bridget was, in fact, mistress of the Seymour mansion, and that her mind and will concerning the washing must be made known to the young queen.
It was a sore trial to speak to Lillie; but it would be sorer to be left at once desolate in the kitchen department, and exposed to the marauding inroads of unskilled Hibernians.
In the most delicate way, Grace made Lillie acquainted with the domestic crisis; as, in old times, a prime minister might have carried to one of the Charleses the remonstrance and protest of the House of Commons.
“Oh! I’m sure I don’t know how it’s to be done,” said Lillie, gayly. “Mamma always got my things done _somehow_. They always _were_ done, and always must be: you just tell her so. I think it’s always best to be decided with servants. Face ’em down in the beginning.”
“But you see, Lillie dear, it’s almost impossible to _get_ servants at all in Springdale; and such servants as ours everybody says are an exception. If we talk to Bridget in that way, she’ll just go off and leave us; and then what shall we do?”
“What in the world does John want to live in such a place for?” said Lillie, peevishly. “There are plenty of servants to be got in New York; and that’s the only place fit to live in. Well, it’s no affair of mine! Tell John he married me, and must take care of me. He must settle it some way: I shan’t trouble my head about it.”
The idea of living in New York, and uprooting the old time-honored establishment in Springdale, struck Grace as a sort of sacrilege; yet she could not help feeling, with a kind of fear, that the young mistress had power to do it.
“Don’t, darling, talk so, for pity’s sake,” she said. “I will go to John, and we will arrange it somehow.”
A long consultation with faithful John, in the evening, revealed to him the perplexing nature of the material processes necessary to get up his fair puff of thistledown in all that wonderful whiteness and fancifulness of costume which had so entranced him.
Lillie cried, and said she never had any trouble before about “getting her things done.” She was sure mamma or Trixie or somebody did them, or got them done,—she never knew how or when. With many tears and sobs, she protested her ardent desire to realize the Scriptural idea of the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, which were fed and clothed, “like Solomon in all his glory,” without ever giving a moment’s care to the matter.
John kissed and embraced, and wiped away her tears, and declared she should have every thing just as she desired it, if it took the half of his kingdom.
After consoling his fair one, he burst into Grace’s room in the evening, just at the hour when they used to have their old brotherly and sisterly confidential talks.
“You see, Grace,—poor Lillie, dear little thing,—you don’t know how distressed she is; and, Grace, we must find somebody to do up all her fol-de-rols and fizgigs for her, you know. You see, she’s been _used_ to this kind of thing; can’t do without it.”
“Well, I’ll try to-morrow, John,” said Grace, patiently. “There is Mrs. Atkins,—she is a very nice woman.”
“Oh, exactly! just the thing,” said John. “Yes, we’ll get her to take all Lillie’s things every week. That settles it.”
“Do you know, John, at the prices that Mrs. Atkins asks, you will have to pay more than for all your family service together? What we have this week would be twenty dollars, at the least computation; and it is worth it too,—the work of getting up is so elaborate.”
John opened his eyes, and looked grave. Like all stable New-England families, the Seymours, while they practised the broadest liberality, had instincts of great sobriety in expense. Needless profusion shocked them as out of taste; and a quiet and decent reticence in matters of self-indulgence was habitual with them.
Such a price for the fine linen of his little angel rather staggered him; but he gulped it down.
“Well, well, Gracie,” he said, “cost what it may, she must have it as she likes it. The little creature, you see, has never been accustomed to calculate or reflect in these matters; and it is trial enough to come down to our stupid way of living,—so different, you know, from the gay life she has been leading.”
Miss Seymour’s saintship was somewhat rudely tested by this remark. That anybody should think it a sacrifice to be John’s wife, and a trial to accept the homestead at Springdale, with all its tranquillity and comforts,—that John, under her influence, should speak of the Springdale life as _stupid_,—was a little drop too much in her cup. A bright streak appeared in either cheek, as she said,— “Well, John, I never knew you found Springdale stupid before. I’m sure, we _have_ been happy here,”—and her voice quavered.
“Pshaw, Gracie! you know what I mean. I don’t mean that _I_ find it stupid. I don’t like the kind of rattle-brained life we’ve been leading this six weeks. But, then, it just suits Lillie; and it’s so sweet and patient of her to come here and give it all up, and say not a word of regret; and then, you see, I shall be just up to my ears in business now, and can’t give up all my time to her, as I have. There’s ever so much law business coming on, and all the factory matters at Spindlewood; and I can see that Lillie will have rather a hard time of it. You must devote yourself to her, Gracie, like a dear, good soul, as you always were, and try to get her interested in our kind of life. Of course, all our set will call, and that will be something; and then—there will be some invitations out.”
“Oh, yes, John! we’ll manage it,” said Grace, who had by this time swallowed her anger, and shouldered her cross once more with a womanly perseverance. “Oh, yes! the Fergusons, and the Wilcoxes, and the Lennoxes, will all call; and we shall have picnics, and lawn teas, and musicals, and parties.”
“Yes, yes, I see,” said John. “Gracie, _isn’t_ she a dear little thing? Didn’t she look cunning in that white wrapper this morning? How do women do those things, I wonder?” said John. “Don’t you think her manners are lovely?”
“They are very sweet, and she is charmingly pretty,” said Grace; “and I love her dearly.”
“And so affectionate! Don’t you think so?” continued John. “She’s a person that you can do any thing with through her heart. She’s all heart, and very little head. I ought not to say that, either. I think she has fair natural abilities, had they ever been cultivated.”
“My dear John,” said Grace, “you forget what time it is. Good-night!”
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{
"id": "12354"
}
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7
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_WILL SHE LIKE IT?_
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“JOHN,” said Grace, “when are you going out again to our Sunday school at Spindlewood? They are all asking after you. Do you know it is now two months since they have seen you?”
“I know it,” said John. “I am going to-morrow. You see, Gracie, I couldn’t well before.”
“Oh! I have told them all about it, and I have kept things up; but then there are so many who want to see _you_, and so many things that you alone could settle and manage.”
“Oh, yes! I’ll go to-morrow,” said John. “And, after this, I shall be steady at it. I wonder if we could get Lillie to go,” said he, doubtfully.
Grace did not answer. Lillie was a subject on which it was always embarrassing to her to be appealed to. She was so afraid of appearing jealous or unappreciative; and her opinions were so different from those of her brother, that it was rather difficult to say any thing.
“Do you think she would like it, Grace?”
“Indeed, John, you must know better than I. If anybody could make her take an interest in it, it would be you.”
Before his marriage, John had always had the idea that pretty, affectionate little women were religious and self-denying at heart, as matters of course. No matter through what labyrinths of fashionable follies and dissipation they had been wandering, still a talent for saintship was lying dormant in their natures, which it needed only the touch of love to develop. The wings of the angel were always concealed under the fashionable attire of the belle, and would unfold themselves when the hour came. A nearer acquaintance with Lillie, he was forced to confess, had not, so far, confirmed this idea. Though hers was a face so fair and pure that, when he first knew her, it suggested ideas of prayer, and communion with angels, yet he could not disguise from himself that, in all near acquaintance with her, she had proved to be most remarkably “of the earth, earthy.” She was alive and fervent about fashionable gossip,—of who is who, and what does what; she was alive to equipages, to dress, to sightseeing, to dancing, to any thing of which the whole stimulus and excitement was earthly and physical. At times, too, he remembered that she had talked a sort of pensive sentimentalism, of a slightly religious nature; but the least idea of a moral purpose in life—of self-denial, and devotion to something higher than immediate self-gratification—seemed never to have entered her head. What is more, John had found his attempts to introduce such topics with her always unsuccessful. Lillie either gaped in his face, and asked him what time it was; or playfully pulled his whiskers, and asked him why he didn’t take to the ministry; or adroitly turned the conversation with kissing and compliments.
Sunday morning came, shining down gloriously through the dewy elm-arches of Springdale. The green turf on either side of the wide streets was mottled and flecked with vivid flashes and glimmers of emerald, like the sheen of a changeable silk, as here and there long arrows of sunlight darted down through the leaves and touched the ground.
The gardens between the great shady houses that flanked the street were full of tall white and crimson phloxes in all the majesty of their summer bloom, and the air was filled with fragrance; and Lillie, after a two hours’ toilet, came forth from her chamber fresh and lovely as the bride in the Canticles. “Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.” She was killingly dressed in the rural-simplicity style. All her robes and sashes were of purest white; and a knot of field-daisies and grasses, with French dew-drops on them, twinkled in an infinitesimal bonnet on her little head, and her hair was all _créped_ into a filmy golden aureole round her face. In short, dear reader, she was a perfectly got-up angel, and wanted only some tulle clouds and an opening heaven to have gone up at once, as similar angels do from the Parisian stage.
“You like me, don’t you?” she said, as she saw the delight in John’s eyes.
John was tempted to lay hold of his plaything.
“Don’t, now,—you’ll crumple me,” she said, fighting him off with a dainty parasol. “Positively you shan’t touch me till after church.”
John laid the little white hand on his arm with pride, and looked down at her over his shoulder all the way to church. He felt proud of her. They would look at her, and see how pretty she was, he thought. And so they did. Lillie had been used to admiration in church. It was one of her fields of triumph. She had received compliments on her toilet even from young clergymen, who, in the course of their preaching and praying, found leisure to observe the beauties of nature and grace in their congregation. She had been quite used to knowing of young men who got good seats in church simply for the purpose of seeing her; consequently, going to church had not the moral advantages for her that it has for people who go simply to pray and be instructed. John saw the turning of heads, and the little movements and whispers of admiration; and his heart was glad within him. The thought of her mingled with prayer and hymn; even when he closed his eyes, and bowed his head, she was there.
Perhaps this was not exactly as it should be; yet let us hope the angels look tenderly down on the sins of too much love. John felt as if he would be glad of a chance to die for her; and, when he thought of her in his prayers, it was because he loved her better than himself.
As to Lillie, there was an extraordinary sympathy of sentiment between them at that moment. John was thinking only of her; and she was thinking only of herself, as was her usual habit,—herself, the one object of her life, the one idol of her love.
Not that she knew, in so many words, that she, the little, frail bit of dust and ashes that she was, was her own idol, and that she appeared before her Maker, in those solemn walls, to draw to herself the homage and the attention that was due to God alone; but yet it was true that, for years and years, Lillie’s unconfessed yet only motive for appearing in church had been the display of herself, and the winning of admiration.
But is she so much worse than others? —than the clergyman who uses the pulpit and the sacred office to show off his talents? —than the singers who sing God’s praises to show their voices,—who intone the agonies of their Redeemer, or the glories of the _Te Deum_, confident on the comments of the newspaper press on their performance the next week? No: Lillie may be a little sinner, but not above others in this matter.
“Lillie,” said John to her after dinner, assuming a careless, matter-of-course air, “would you like to drive with me over to Spindlewood, and see my Sunday school?”
“_Your_ Sunday school, John? Why, bless me! do _you_ teach Sunday school?”
“Certainly I do. Grace and I have a school of two hundred children and young people belonging to our factories. I am superintendent.”
“I never did hear of any thing so odd!” said Lillie. “What in the world can you want to take all that trouble for,—go basking over there in the hot sun, and be shut up with a room full of those ill-smelling factory-people? Why, I’m sure it can’t be your duty! I wouldn’t do it for the world. Nothing would tempt me. Why, gracious, John, you might catch small-pox or something!”
“Pooh! Lillie, child, you don’t know any thing about them. They are just as cleanly and respectable as anybody.”
“Oh, well! they may be. But these Irish and Germans and Swedes and Danes, and all that low class, do smell so,—you needn’t tell me, now! —that working-class smell is a thing that can’t be disguised.”
“But, Lillie, these are our people. They are the laborers from whose toils our wealth comes; and we owe them something.”
“Well! you pay them something, don’t you?”
“I mean morally. We owe our efforts to instruct their children, and to elevate and guide them. Lillie, I feel that it is wrong for us to use wealth merely as a means of self-gratification. We ought to labor for those who labor for us. We ought to deny ourselves, and make some sacrifices of ease for their good.”
“You dear old preachy creature!” said Lillie. “How good you must be! But, really, I haven’t the smallest vocation to be a missionary,—not the smallest. I can’t think of any thing that would induce me to take a long, hot ride in the sun, and to sit in that stived-up room with those common creatures.”
John looked grave. “Lillie,” he said, “you shouldn’t speak of any of your fellow-beings in that heartless way.”
“Well now, if you are going to scold me, I’m sure I don’t want to go. I’m sure, if everybody that stays at home, and has comfortable times, Sundays, instead of going out on missions, is heartless, there are a good many heartless people in the world.”
“I beg your pardon, my darling. I didn’t mean, dear, that _you_ were heartless, but that what you said _sounded_ so. I knew you didn’t really mean it. I didn’t ask you, dear, to go to _work_,—only to be company for me.”
“And I ask you to stay at home, and be company for _me_. I’m sure it is lonesome enough here, and you are off on business almost all your days; and you might stay with me Sundays. You could hire some poor, pious young man to do all the work over there. There are plenty of them, dear knows, that it would be a real charity to help, and that could preach and pray better than you can, I know. I don’t think a man that is busy all the week ought to work Sundays. It is breaking the Sabbath.”
“But, Lillie, I am _interested_ in my Sunday school. I know all my people, and they know me; and no one else in the world could do for them what I could.”
“Well, I should think you might be interested in _me_: nobody else can do for me what you can, and I want you to stay with me. That’s just the way with you men: you don’t care any thing about us after you get us.”
“Now, Lillie, darling, you know that isn’t so.”
“It’s just so. You care more for your old missionary work, now, than you do for me. I’m sure I never knew that I’d married a home-missionary.”
“Darling, please, now, don’t laugh at me, and try to make me selfish and worldly. You have such power over me, you ought to be my inspiration.”
“I’ll be your common-sense, John. When you get on stilts, and run benevolence into the ground, I’ll pull you down. Now, I know it must be bad for a man, that has as much as you do to occupy his mind all the week, to go out and work Sundays; and it’s foolish, when you could perfectly well hire somebody else to do it, and stay at home, and have a good time.”
“But, Lillie, I _need_ it myself.”
“Need it,—what for? I can’t imagine.”
“To keep me from becoming a mere selfish, worldly man, and living for mere material good and pleasure.”
“You dear old Don Quixote! Well, you are altogether in the clouds above me. I can’t understand a word of all that.”
“Well, good-by, darling,” said John, kissing her, and hastening out of the room, to cut short the interview.
Milton has described the peculiar influence of woman over man, in lowering his moral tone, and bringing him down to what he considered the peculiarly womanly level. “You women,” he said to his wife, when she tried to induce him to seek favors at court by some concession of principle,—“you women never care for any thing but to be fine, and to ride in your coaches.” In Father Adam’s description of the original Eve, he says,— “All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded; wisdom, in discourse with her, Loses, discountenanced, and like folly shows.”
Something like this effect was always produced on John’s mind when he tried to settle questions relating to his higher nature with Lillie. He seemed, somehow, always to get the worst of it. All her womanly graces and fascinations, so powerful over his senses and imagination, arrayed themselves formidably against him, and for the time seemed to strike him dumb. What he believed, and believed with enthusiasm, when he was alone, or with Grace, seemed to drizzle away, and be belittled, when he undertook to convince her of it. Lest John should be called a muff and a spoon for this peculiarity, we cite once more the high authority aforesaid, where Milton makes poor Adam tell the angel,— “Yet when I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems And in herself complete, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.”
John went out from Lillie’s presence rather humbled and over-crowed. When the woman that a man loves laughs at his moral enthusiasms, it is like a black frost on the delicate tips of budding trees. It is up-hill work, as we all know, to battle with indolence and selfishness, and self-seeking and hard-hearted worldliness. Then the highest and holiest part of our nature has a bashfulness of its own. It is a heavenly stranger, and easily shamed. A nimble-tongued, skilful woman can so easily show the ridiculous side of what seemed heroism; and what is called common-sense, so generally, is only some neatly put phase of selfishness. Poor John needed the angel at his elbow, to give him the caution which he is represented as giving to Father Adam:— “What transports thee so? An outside? —fair, no doubt, and worthy well Thy cherishing, thy honor, and thy love, Not thy subjection. Weigh her with thyself, Then value. Oft-times nothing profits more Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right Well managed: of that skill the more thou knowest, The more she will acknowledge thee her head, And to realities yield all her shows.”
But John had no angel at his elbow. He was a fellow with a great heart,—good as gold,—with upward aspirations, but with slow speech; and, when not sympathized with, he became confused and incoherent, and even dumb. So his only way with his little pink and white empress was immediate and precipitate flight.
Lillie ran to the window when he was gone, and saw him and Grace get into the carriage together; and then she saw them drive to the old Ferguson House, and Rose Ferguson came out and got in with them. “Well,” she said to herself, “he shan’t do that many times more,—I’m resolved.”
No, she did not say it. It would be well for us all if we _did_ put into words, plain and explicit, many instinctive resolves and purposes that arise in our hearts, and which, for want of being so expressed, influence us undetected and unchallenged. If we would say out boldly, “I don’t care for right or wrong, or good or evil, or anybody’s rights or anybody’s happiness, or the general good, or God himself,—all I care for, or feel the least interest in, is to have a good time myself, and I mean to do it, come what may,”—we should be only expressing a feeling which often lies in the dark back-room of the human heart; and saying it might alarm us from the drugged sleep of life. It might rouse us to shake off the slow, creeping paralysis of selfishness and sin before it is for ever too late.
But Lillie was a creature who had lost the power of self-knowledge. She was, my dear sir, what you suppose the true woman to be,—a bundle of blind instincts; and among these the strongest was that of property in her husband, and power over him. She had lived in her power over men; it was her field of ambition. She knew them thoroughly. Women are called ivy; and the ivy has a hundred little fingers in every inch of its length, that strike at every flaw and crack and weak place in the strong wall they mean to overgrow; and so had Lillie. She saw, at a glance, that the sober, thoughtful, Christian life of Springdale was wholly opposed to the life she wanted to lead, and in which John was to be her instrument. She saw that, if such women as Grace and Rose had power with him, she should not have; and her husband should be hers alone. He should do her will, and be her subject,—so she thought, smiling at herself as she looked in the looking-glass, and then curled herself peacefully and languidly down in the corner of the sofa, and drew forth the French novel that was her usual Sunday companion.
Lillie liked French novels. There was an atmosphere of things in them that suited her. The young married women had lovers and admirers; and there was the constant stimulus of being courted and adored, under the safe protection of a good-natured “_mari_.”
In France, the flirting is all done after marriage, and the young girl looks forward to it as her introduction to a career of conquest. In America, so great is our democratic liberality, that we think of uniting the two systems. We are getting on in that way fast. A knowledge of French is beginning to be considered as the pearl of great price, to gain which, all else must be sold. The girls must go to the French theatre, and be stared at by French _débauchées_, who laugh at them while they pretend they understand what, thank Heaven, they cannot. Then we are to have series of French novels, carefully translated, and puffed and praised even by the religious press, written by the corps of French female reformers, which will show them exactly how the naughty French women manage their cards; so that, by and by, we shall have the latest phase of eclecticism,—the union of American and French manners. The girl will flirt till twenty _à l’Américaine_, and then marry and flirt till forty _à la Française_. This was about Lillie’s plan of life. Could she hope to carry it out in Springdale?
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{
"id": "12354"
}
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8
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_SPINDLEWOOD._
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IT seemed a little like old times to Grace, to be once more going with Rose and John over the pretty romantic road to Spindlewood.
John did not reflect upon how little she now saw of him, and how much of a trial the separation was; but he noticed how bright and almost gay she was, when they were by themselves once more. He was gay too. In the congenial atmosphere of sympathy, his confidence in himself, and his own right in the little controversy that had occurred, returned. Not that he said a word of it; he did not do so, and would not have done so for the world. Grace and Rose were full of anecdotes of this, that, and the other of their scholars; and all the particulars of some of their new movements were discussed. The people had, of their own accord, raised a subscription for a library, which was to be presented to John that day, with a request that he would select the books.
“Gracie, that must be your work,” said John; “you know I shall have an important case next week.”
“Oh, yes! Rose and I will settle it,” said Grace. “Rose, we’ll get the catalogues from all the book-stores, and mark the things.”
“We’ll want books for the children just beginning to read; and then books for the young men in John’s Bible-class, and all the way between,” said Rose. “It will be quite a work to select.”
“And then to bargain with the book-stores, and make the money go ‘far as possible,’” said Grace.
“And then there’ll be the covering of the books,” said Rose. “I’ll tell you. I think I’ll manage to have a lawn tea at our house; and the girls shall all come early, and get the books covered,—that’ll be charming.”
“I think Lillie would like that,” put in John.
“I should be so glad!” said Rose. “What a lovely little thing she is! I hope she’ll like it. I wanted to get up something pretty for her. I think, at this time of the year, lawn teas are a little variety.”
“Oh, she’ll like it of course!” said John, with some sinking of heart about the Sunday-school books.
There were so many pressing to shake hands with John, and congratulate him, so many histories to tell, so many cases presented for consultation, that it was quite late before they got away; and tea had been waiting for them more than an hour when they returned.
Lillie looked pensive, and had that indescribable air of patient martyrdom which some women know how to make so very effective. Lillie had good general knowledge of the science of martyrdom,—a little spice and flavor of it had been gently infused at times into her demeanor ever since she had been at Springdale. She could do the uncomplaining sufferer with the happiest effect. She contrived to insinuate at times how she didn’t complain,—how dull and slow she found her life, and yet how she endeavored to be cheerful.
“I know,” she said to John when they were by themselves, “that you and Grace both think I’m a horrid creature.”
“Why, no, dearest; indeed we don’t.”
“But you do, though; oh, I feel it! The fact is, John, I haven’t a particle of constitution; and, if I should try to go on as Grace does, it would kill me in a month. Ma never would let me try to do any thing; and, if I did, I was sure to break all down under it: but, if you say so, I’ll try to go into this school.”
“Oh, no, Lillie! I don’t want you to go in. I know, darling, you could not stand any fatigue. I only wanted you to take an interest,—just to go and see them for my sake.”
“Well, John, if you must go, and must keep it up, I must try to go. I’ll go with you next Sunday. It will make my head ache perhaps; but no matter, if you wish it. You don’t think badly of me, do you?” she said coaxingly, playing with his whiskers.
“No, darling, not the least.”
“I suppose it would be a great deal better for you if you had married a strong, energetic woman, like your sister. I do admire her so; but it discourages me.”
“Darling, I’d a thousand times rather have you what you are,” said John; for— “What she wills to do, Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.”
“O John! come, you ought to be sincere.”
“Sincere, Lillie! I am sincere.”
“You really would rather have poor, poor little me than a woman like Gracie,—a great, strong, energetic woman?” And Lillie laid her soft cheek down on his arm in pensive humility.
“Yes, a thousand million times,” said John in his enthusiasm, catching her in his arms and kissing her. “I wouldn’t for the world have you any thing but the darling little Lillie you are. I love your faults more than the virtues of other women. You are a thousand times better than I am. I am a great, coarse blockhead, compared to you. I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings this noon; you know, Lillie, I’m hasty, and apt to be inconsiderate. I don’t really know that I ought to let you go over next Sunday.”
“O John, you are so good! Certainly if you go I ought to; and I shall try my best.” Then John told her all about the books and the lawn tea, and Lillie listened approvingly.
So they had a lawn tea at the Fergusons that week, where Lillie was the cynosure of all eyes. Mr. Mathews, the new young clergyman of Springdale, was there. Mr. Mathews had been credited as one of the admirers of Rose Ferguson; but on this occasion he promenaded and talked with Lillie, and Lillie alone, with an exclusive devotion.
“What a lovely young creature your new sister is!” he said to Grace. “She seems to have so much religious sensibility.”
“I say, Lillie,” said John, “Mathews seemed to be smitten with you. I had a notion of interfering.”
“Did you ever see any thing like it, John? I couldn’t shake the creature off. I was so thankful when you came up and took me. He’s Rose’s admirer, and he hardly spoke a word to her. I think it’s shameful.”
The next Sunday, Lillie rode over to Spindlewood with John and Rose and Mr. Mathews.
Never had the picturesque of religion received more lustre than from her presence. John was delighted to see how they all gazed at her and wondered. Lillie looked like a first-rate French picture of the youthful Madonna,—white, pure, and patient. The day was hot, and the hall crowded; and John noticed, what he never did before, the close smell and confined air, and it made him uneasy. When we are feeling with the nerves of some one else, we notice every roughness and inconvenience. John thought he had never seen his school appear so little to advantage. Yet Lillie was an image of patient endurance, trying to be pleased; and John thought her, as she sat and did nothing, more of a saint than Rose and Grace, who were laboriously sorting books, and gathering around them large classes of factory boys, to whom they talked with an exhausting devotedness.
When all was over, Lillie sat back on the carriage-cushions, and smelled at her gold vinaigrette.
“You are all worn out, dear,” said John, tenderly.
“It’s no matter,” she said faintly.
“O Lillie darling! _does_ your head ache?”
“A little,—you know it was close in there. I’m very sensitive to such things. I don’t think they affect others as they do me,” said Lillie, with the voice of a dying zephyr.
“Lillie, _it is not your duty to go_,” said John; “if you are not made ill by this, I never will take you again; you are too precious to be risked.”
“How can you say so, John? I’m a poor little creature,—no use to anybody.”
Hereupon John told her that her only use in life was to be lovely and to be loved,—that a thing of beauty was a joy forever, &c., &c. But Lillie was too much exhausted, on her return, to appear at the tea-table. She took to her bed at once with sick headache, to the poignant remorse of John. “You see how it is, Gracie,” he said. “Poor dear little thing, she is willing enough, but there’s nothing of her. We mustn’t allow her to exert herself; her feelings always carry her away.”
The next Sunday, John sat at home with Lillie, who found herself too unwell to go to church, and was in a state of such low spirits as to require constant soothing to keep her quiet.
“It is fortunate that I have you and Rose to trust the school with,” said John; “you see, it’s my first duty to take care of Lillie.”
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{
"id": "12354"
}
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9
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_A CRISIS._
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ONE of the shrewdest and most subtle modern French writers has given his views of womankind in the following passage:— “There are few women who have not found themselves, at least once in their lives, in regard to some incontestable fact, faced down by precise, keen, searching inquiry,—one of those questions pitilessly put by their husbands, the very idea of which gives a slight chill, and the first word of which enters the heart like a stroke of a dagger. Hence comes the maxim, _Every woman lies_—obliging lies—venial lies—sublime lies—horrible lies—but always the obligation of lying.
“This obligation once admitted, must it not be a necessity to know how to lie well? In France, the women lie admirably. Our customs instruct them so well in imposture. And woman is so naïvely impertinent, so pretty, so graceful, so true, in her lying! They so well understand its usefulness in social life for avoiding those violent shocks which would destroy happiness,—it is like the cotton in which they pack their jewelry.
“Lying is to them the very foundation of language, and truth is only the exception; they speak it, as they are virtuous, from caprice or for a purpose. According to their character, some women laugh when they lie, and some cry; some become grave, and others get angry. Having begun life by pretending perfect insensibility to that homage which flatters them most, they often finish by lying even to themselves. Who has not admired their apparent superiority and calm, at the moment when they were trembling for the mysterious treasures of their love? Who has not studied their ease and facility, their presence of mind in the midst of the most critical embarrassments of social life? There is nothing awkward about it; their deception flows as softly as the snow falls from heaven.
“Yet there are men that have the presumption to expect to get the better of the Parisian woman! —of the woman who possesses thirty-seven thousand ways of saying ‘No,’ and incommensurable variations in saying ‘Yes. ’” This is a Frenchman’s view of life in a country where women are trained more systematically for the mere purposes of attraction than in any other country, and where the pursuit of admiration and the excitement of winning lovers are represented by its authors as constituting the main staple of woman’s existence. France, unfortunately, is becoming the great society-teacher of the world. What with French theatres, French operas, French novels, and the universal rush of American women for travel, France is becoming so powerful on American fashionable society, that the things said of the Parisian woman begin in some cases to apply to some women in America.
Lillie was as precisely the woman here described as if she had been born and bred in Paris. She had all the thirty-seven thousand ways of saying “No,” and the incommensurable variations in saying “Yes,” as completely as the best French teaching could have given it. She possessed, and had used, all that graceful facility, in the story of herself that she had told John in the days of courtship. Her power over him was based on a dangerous foundation of unreality. Hence, during the first few weeks of her wedded life, came a critical scene, in which she was brought in collision with one of those “pitiless questions” our author speaks of.
Her wedding-presents, manifold and brilliant, had remained at home, in the charge of her mother, during the wedding-journey. One bright day, a few weeks after her arrival in Springdale, the boxes containing the treasures were landed there; and John, with all enthusiasm, busied himself with the work of unpacking these boxes, and drawing forth the treasures.
Now, it so happened that Lillie’s maternal grandfather, a nice, pious old gentleman, had taken the occasion to make her the edifying and suggestive present of a large, elegantly bound family Bible.
The binding was unexceptionable; and Lillie assigned it a proper place of honor among her wedding-gear. Alas! she had not looked into it, nor seen what dangers to her power were lodged between its leaves.
[Illustration: “He found the date of the birth of ‘Lillie Ellis. ’”] But John, who was curious in the matter of books, sat quietly down in a corner to examine it; and on the middle page, under the head “Family Record,” he found, in a large, bold hand, the date of the birth of “Lillie Ellis” in figures of the most uncompromising plainness; and thence, with one flash of his well-trained arithmetical sense, came the perception that, instead of being twenty years old, she was in fact twenty-seven,—and that of course she had lied to him.
It was a horrid and a hard word for an American young man to have suggested in relation to his wife. If we may believe the French romancer, a Frenchman would simply have smiled in amusement on detecting this petty feminine _ruse_ of his beloved. But American men are in the habit of expecting the truth from respectable women as a matter of course; and the want of it in the smallest degree strikes them as shocking. Only an Englishman or an American can understand the dreadful pain of that discovery to John.
The Anglo-Saxon race have, so to speak, a worship of truth; and they hate and abhor lying with an energy which leaves no power of tolerance.
The Celtic races have a certain sympathy with deception. They have a certain appreciation of the value of lying as a fine art, which has never been more skilfully shown than in the passage from De Balzac we have quoted. The woman who is described by him as lying so sweetly and skilfully is represented as one of those women “qui ont je ne sais quoi de saint et de sacré, qui inspirent tant de respect que l’amour,”—“a woman who has an indescribable something of holiness and purity which inspires respect as well as love.” It was no detraction from the character of Jesus, according to the estimate of Renan, to represent him as consenting to a benevolent fraud, and seeming to work miracles when he did not work them, by way of increasing his good influence over the multitude.
But John was the offspring of a generation of men for hundreds of years, who would any of them have gone to the stake rather than have told the smallest untruth; and for him who had been watched and guarded and catechised against this sin from his cradle, till he was as true and pure as a crystal rock, to have his faith shattered in the woman he loved, was a terrible thing.
As he read the fatal figures, a mist swam before his eyes,—a sort of faintness came over him. It seemed for a moment as if his very life was sinking down through his boots into the carpet. He threw down the book hastily, and, turning, stepped through an open window into the garden, and walked quickly off.
“Where in the world is John going?” said Lillie, running to the door, and calling after him in imperative tones.
“John, John, come back. I haven’t done with you yet;” but John never turned his head.
“How very odd! what in the world is the matter with him?” she said to herself.
John was gone all the afternoon. He took a long, long walk, all by himself, and thought the matter over. He remembered that fresh, childlike, almost infantine face, that looked up into his with such a bewitching air of frankness and candor, as she professed to be telling all about herself and her history; and now which or what of it was true? It seemed as if he loathed her; and yet he couldn’t help loving her, while he despised himself for doing it.
When he came home to supper, he was silent and morose. Lillie came running to meet him; but he threw her off, saying he was tired. She was frightened; she had never seen him look like that.
“John, what is the matter with you?” said Grace at the tea-table. “You are upsetting every thing, and don’t drink your tea.”
“Nothing—only—I have some troublesome business to settle,” he said, getting up to go out again. “You needn’t wait for me; I shall be out late.”
“What can be the matter?”
Lillie, indeed, had not the remotest idea. Yet she remembered his jumping up suddenly, and throwing down the Bible; and mechanically she went to it, and opened it. She turned it over; and the record met her eye.
“Provoking!” she said. “Stupid old creature! must needs go and put that out in full.” Lillie took a paper-folder, and cut the leaf out quite neatly; then folded and burned it.
She knew now what was the matter. John was angry at her; but she couldn’t help wondering that he should be so angry. If he had laughed at her, teased her, taxed her with the trick, she would have understood what to do. But this terrible gloom, this awful commotion of the elements, frightened her.
She went to her room, saying that she had a headache, and would go to bed. But she did not. She took her French novel, and read till she heard him coming; and then she threw down her book, and began to cry. He came into the room, and saw her leaning like a little white snow-wreath over the table, sobbing as if her heart would break. To do her justice, Lillie’s sobs were not affected. She was lonesome and thoroughly frightened; and, when she heard him coming, her nerves gave out. John’s heart yearned towards her. His short-lived anger had burned out; and he was perfectly longing for a reconciliation. He felt as if he must have her to love, no matter what she was. He came up to her, and stroked her hair. “O Lillie!” he said, “why couldn’t you have told me the truth? What made you deceive me?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t like me if I did,” said Lillie, in her sobs.
“O Lillie! I should have liked you, no matter how old you were,—only you should have told me _the truth_.”
“I know it—I know it—oh, it _was_ wrong of me!” and Lillie sobbed, and seemed in danger of falling into convulsions; and John’s heart gave out. He gathered her in his arms. “I can’t help loving you; and I can’t live without you,” he said, “be you what you may!”
Lillie’s little heart beat with triumph under all her sobs: she had got him, and should hold him yet.
“There can be no confidence between husband and wife, Lillie,” said John, gravely, “unless we are perfectly true with each other. Promise me, dear, that you will never deceive me again.”
Lillie promised with ready fervor. “O John!” she said, “I never should have done so wrong if I had only come under your influence earlier. The fact is, I have been under the worst influences all my life. I never had anybody like you to guide me.”
John may of course be excused for feeling that his flattering little penitent was more to him than ever; and as to Lillie, she gave a sigh of relief. _That_ was over, “anyway;” and she had him not only safe, but more completely hers than before.
A generous man is entirely unnerved by a frank confession. If Lillie had said one word in defence, if she had raised the slightest shadow of an argument, John would have roused up all his moral principle to oppose her; but this poor little white water-sprite, dissolving in a rain of penitent tears, quite washed away all his anger and all his heroism.
The next morning, Lillie, all fresh in a ravishing toilet, with field-daisies in her hair, was in a condition to laugh gently at John for his emotion of yesterday. She triumphed softly, not too obviously, in her power. He couldn’t do without her,—do what she might,—that was plain.
“Now, John,” she said, “don’t you think we poor women are judged rather hardly? Men, you know, tell all sorts of lies to carry on their great politics and their ambition, and nobody thinks it so dreadful of _them_.”
“I _do_—I should,” interposed John.
“Oh, well! _you_—you are an exception. It is not one man in a hundred that is so good as you are. Now, we women have only one poor little ambition,—to be pretty, to please you men; and, as soon as you know we are getting old, you don’t like us. And can you think it’s so very shocking if we don’t come square up to the dreadful truth about our age? Youth and beauty is all there is to us, you know.”
“O Lillie! don’t say so,” said John, who felt the necessity of being instructive, and of improving the occasion to elevate the moral tone of his little elf. “Goodness lasts, my dear, when beauty fades.”
“Oh, nonsense! Now, John, don’t talk humbug. I’d like to see _you_ following goodness when beauty is gone. I’ve known lots of plain old maids that were perfect saints and angels; and yet men crowded and jostled by them to get the pretty sinners. I dare say now,” she added, with a bewitching look over her shoulder at him, “you’d rather have me than Miss Almira Carraway,—hadn’t you, now?”
And Lillie put her white arm round his neck, and her downy cheek to his, and said archly, “Come, now, confess.”
Then John told her that she was a bad, naughty girl; and she laughed; and, on the whole, the pair were more hilarious and loving than usual.
But yet, when John was away at his office, he thought of it again, and found there was still a sore spot in his heart.
She had cheated him once; would she cheat him again? And she could cheat so prettily, so serenely, and with such a candid face, it was a dangerous talent.
No: she wasn’t like his mother, he thought with a sigh. The “je ne sais quoi de saint et de sacré,” which had so captivated his imagination, did not cover the saintly and sacred nature; it was a mere outward purity of complexion and outline. And then Grace,—she must not be left to find out what he knew about Lillie. He had told Grace that she was only twenty,—told it on her authority; and now must he become an accomplice? If called on to speak of his wife’s age, must he accommodate the truth to her story, or must he palter and evade? Here was another brick laid on the wall of separation between his sister and himself. It was rising daily. Here was another subject on which he could never speak frankly with Grace; for he must defend Lillie,—every impulse of his heart rushed to protect her.
But it is a terrible truth, and one that it will not hurt any of us to bear in mind, that our judgments of our friends are involuntary.
We may long with all our hearts to confide; we may be fascinated, entangled, and wish to be blinded; but blind we cannot be. The friend that has lied to us once, we may long to believe; but we cannot. Nay, more; it is the worse for us, if, in our desire to hold the dear deceiver in our hearts, we begin to chip and hammer on the great foundations of right and honor, and to say within ourselves, “After all, why be so particular?” Then, when we have searched about for all the reasons and apologies and extenuations for wrong-doing, are we sure that in our human weakness we shall not be pulling down the moral barriers in ourselves? The habit of excusing evil, and finding apologies, and wishing to stand with one who stands on a lower moral plane, is not a wholesome one for the soul.
As fate would have it, the very next day after this little scene, who should walk into the parlor where Lillie, John, and Grace were sitting, but that terror of American democracy, the census-taker. Armed with the whole power of the republic, this official steps with elegant ease into the most sacred privacies of the family. Flutterings and denials are in vain. Bridget and Katy and Anne, no less than Seraphina and Isabella, must give up the critical secrets of their lives.
John took the paper into the kitchen. Honest old Bridget gave in her age with effrontery as “twinty-five.” Anne giggled and flounced, and declared on her word she didn’t know,—they could put it down as they liked. “But, Anne, you _must_ tell, or you may be sent to jail, you know.”
Anne giggled still harder, and tossed her head: “Then it’s to jail I’ll have to go; for I don’t know.”
“Dear me,” said Lillie, with an air of edifying candor, “what a fuss they make! Set down my age ‘twenty-seven,’ John,” she added.
Grace started, and looked at John; he met her eye, and blushed to the roots of his hair.
“Why, what’s the matter?” said Lillie, “are you embarrassed at telling your age?”
“Oh, nothing!” said John, writing down the numbers hastily; and then, finding a sudden occasion to give directions in the garden, he darted out. “It’s so silly to be ashamed of our age!” said Lillie, as the census-taker withdrew.
“Of course,” said Grace; and she had the humanity never to allude to the subject with her brother.
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{
"id": "12354"
}
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10
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_CHANGES._
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SCENE. —_A chamber at the Seymour House. Lillie discovered weeping. John rushing in with empressement. _ “LILLIE, you _shall_ tell me what ails you.”
“Nothing ails me, John.”
“Yes, there does; you were crying when I came in.”
“Oh, well, that’s nothing!”
“Oh, but it _is_ a great deal! What is the matter? I can see that you are not happy.”
“Oh, pshaw, John! I am as happy as I ought to be, I dare say; there isn’t much the matter with me, only a little blue, and I don’t feel quite strong.”
“You don’t feel strong! I’ve noticed it, Lillie.”
“Well, you see, John, the fact is, that I never have got through this month without going to the sea-side. Mamma always took me. The doctors told her that my constitution was such that I couldn’t get along without it; but I dare say I shall do well enough in time, you know.”
“But, Lillie,” said John, “if you do need sea-air, you must go. I can’t leave my business; that’s the trouble.”
“Oh, no, John! don’t think of it. I ought to make an effort to get along. You see, it’s very foolish in me, but places affect my spirits so. It’s perfectly absurd how I am affected.”
“Well, Lillie, I hope this place doesn’t affect you unpleasantly,” said John.
“It’s a nice, darling place, John, and it’s very silly in me; but it is a fact that this house somehow has a depressing effect on my spirits. You know it’s not like the houses I’ve been used to. It has a sort of old look; and I can’t help feeling that it puts me in mind of those who are dead and gone; and then I think I shall be dead and gone too, some day, and it makes me cry so. Isn’t it silly of me, John?”
“Poor little pussy!” said John.
“You see, John, our rooms are lovely; but they aren’t modern and cheerful, like those I’ve been accustomed to. They make me feel pensive and sad all the time; but I’m trying to get over it.”
“Why, Lillie!” said John, “would you like the rooms refurnished? It can easily be done if you wish it.”
“Oh, no, no, dear! You are too good; and I’m sure the rooms are lovely, and it would hurt Gracie’s feelings to change them. No: I must try and get over it. I know just how silly it is, and I shall try to overcome it. If I had only more strength, I believe I could.”
“Well, darling, you must go to the sea-side. I shall have you sent right off to Newport. Gracie can go with you.”
“Oh, no, John! not for the world. Gracie must stay, and keep house for you. She’s such a help to you, that it would be a shame to take her away. But I think mamma would go with me,—if you could take me there, and engage my rooms and all that, why, mamma could stay with me, you know. To be sure, it would be a trial not to have you there; but then if I could get up my strength, you know,”— “Exactly, certainly; and, Lillie, how would you like the parlors arranged if you had your own way?”
“Oh, John! don’t think of it.”
“But I just want to know for curiosity. Now, how would you have them if you could?”
“Well, then, John, don’t you think it would be lovely to have them frescoed? Did you ever see the Folingsbees’ rooms in New York? They were so lovely! —one was all in blue, and the other in crimson, opening into each other; with carved furniture, and those _marquetrie_ tables, and all sorts of little French things. They had such a gay and cheerful look.”
“Now, Lillie, if you want our rooms like that, you shall have them.”
“O John, you are too good! I couldn’t ask such a sacrifice.”
“Oh, pshaw! it isn’t a sacrifice. I don’t doubt I shall like them better myself. Your taste is perfect, Lillie; and, now I think of it, I wonder that I thought of bringing you here without consulting you in every particular. A woman ought to be queen in her own house, I am sure.”
“But, Gracie! Now, John, I know she has associations with all the things in this house, and it would be cruel to her,” said Lillie, with a sigh.
“Pshaw! Gracie is a good, sensible girl, and ready to make any rational change. I suppose we have been living rather behind the times, and are somewhat rusty, that’s a fact; but Gracie will enjoy new things as much as anybody, I dare say.”
“Well, John, since you are set on it, there’s Charlie Ferrola, one of my particular friends; he’s an architect, and does all about arranging rooms and houses and furniture. He did the Folingsbees’, and the Hortons’, and the Jeromes’, and no end of real nobby people’s houses; and made them perfectly lovely. People say that one wouldn’t know that they weren’t in Paris, in houses that he does.”
Now, our John was by nature a good solid chip of the old Anglo-Saxon block; and, if there was any thing that he had no special affinity for, it was for French things. He had small opinion of French morals, and French ways in general; but then at this moment he saw his Lillie, whom, but half an hour before, he found all pale and tear-drenched, now radiant and joyous, sleek as a humming-bird, with the light in her eyes, and the rattle on the tip of her tongue; and he felt so delighted to see her bright and gay and joyous, that he would have turned his house into the Jardin Mabille, if that were possible.
Lillie had the prettiest little caressing tricks and graces imaginable; and she perched herself on his knee, and laughed and chatted so gayly, and pulled his whiskers so saucily, and then, springing up, began arraying herself in such an astonishing daintiness of device, and fluttering before him with such a variety of well-assorted plumage, that John was quite taken off his feet. He did not care so much whether what she willed to do were, “Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,” as feel that what she wished to do must be done at any rate.
[Illustration: “She perched herself on his knee.”]
“Why, darling!” he said in his rapture; “why didn’t you tell me all this before? Here you have been growing sad and blue, and losing your vivacity and spirits, and never told me why!”
“I thought it was my duty, John, to try to bear it,” said Lillie, with the sweet look of a virgin saint. “I thought perhaps I should get used to things in time; and I think it is a wife’s duty to accommodate herself to her husband’s circumstances.”
“No, it’s a husband’s duty to accommodate himself to his wife’s wishes,” said John. “What’s that fellow’s address? I’ll write to him about doing our house, forthwith.”
“But, John, do pray tell Gracie that it’s _your_ wish. I don’t want her to think that it’s I that am doing this. Now, pray do think whether you really want it yourself. You see it must be so natural for you to like the old things! They must have associations, and I wouldn’t for the world, now, be the one to change them; and, after all, how silly it was of me to feel blue!”
“Don’t say any more, Lillie. Let me see,—next week,” he said, taking out his pocket-book, and looking over his memoranda,—“next week I’ll take you down to Newport; and you write to-day to your mother to meet you there, and be your guest. I’ll write and engage the rooms at once.”
“I don’t know what I shall do without you, John.”
“Oh, well, I couldn’t stay possibly! But I may run down now and then, for a night, you know.”
“Well, we must make that do,” said Lillie, with a pensive sigh.
Thus two very important moves on Miss Lillie’s checker-board of life were skilfully made. The house was to be refitted, and the Newport precedent established.
Now, dear friends, don’t think Lillie a pirate, or a conspirator, or a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing, or any thing else but what she was,—a pretty little, selfish woman; undeveloped in her conscience and affections, and strong in her instincts and perceptions; in a blind way using what means were most in her line to carry her purposes. Lillie had always found her prettiness, her littleness, her helplessness, and her tears so very useful in carrying her points in life that she resorted to them as her lawful stock in trade. Neither were her blues entirely shamming. There comes a time after marriage, when a husband, if he be any thing of a man, has something else to do than make direct love to his wife. He cannot be on duty at all hours to fan her, and shawl her, and admire her. His love must express itself through other channels. He must be a full man for her sake; and, as a man, must go forth to a whole world of interests that takes him from her. Now what in this case shall a woman do, whose only life lies in petting and adoration and display?
Springdale had no _beau monde_, no fashionable circle, no Bois de Boulogne, and no beaux, to make amends for a husband’s engrossments. Grace was sisterly and kind; but what on earth had they in common to talk about? Lillie’s wardrobe was in all the freshness of bridal exuberance, and there was nothing more to be got, and so, for the moment, no stimulus in this line. But then where to wear all these fine French dresses? Lillie had been called on, and invited once to little social evening parties, through the whole round of old, respectable families that lived under the elm-arches of Springdale; and she had found it rather stupid. There was not a man to make an admirer of, except the young minister, who, after the first afternoon of seeing her, returned to his devotion to Rose Ferguson.
You know, ladies, Æsop has a pretty little fable as follows: A young man fell desperately in love with a cat, and prayed to Jupiter to change her to a woman for his sake. Jupiter was so obliging as to grant his prayer; and, behold, a soft, satin-skinned, purring, graceful woman was given into his arms.
But the legend goes on to say that, while he was delighting in her charms, she heard the sound of _mice_ behind the wainscot, and left him forthwith to rush after her congenial prey.
Lillie had heard afar the sound of _mice_ at Newport, and she longed to be after them once more. Had she not a prestige now as a rich young married lady? Had she not jewels and gems to show? Had she not any number of mouse-traps, in the way of ravishing toilets? She thought it all over, till she was sick with longing, and was sure that nothing but the sea-air could do her any good; and so she fell to crying, and kissing her faithful John, till she gained her end, like a veritable little cat as she was.
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{
"id": "12354"
}
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11
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_NEWPORT; OR, THE PARADISE OF NOTHING TO DO._
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BEHOLD, now, our Lillie at the height of her heart’s desire, installed in fashionable apartments at Newport, under the placid chaperonship of dear mamma, who never saw the least harm in any earthly thing her Lillie chose to do.
All the dash and flash and furbelow of upper-tendom were there; and Lillie now felt the full power and glory of being a rich, pretty, young married woman, with oceans of money to spend, and nothing on earth to do but follow the fancies of the passing hour.
This was Lillie’s highest ideal of happiness; and didn’t she enjoy it?
Wasn’t it something to flame forth in wondrous toilets in the eyes of Belle Trevors and Margy Silloway and Lottie Cavers, who were _not_ married; and before the Simpkinses and the Tomkinses and the Jenkinses, who, last year, had said hateful things about her, and intimated that she had gone off in her looks, and was on the way to be an old maid?
And wasn’t it a triumph when all her old beaux came flocking round her, and her parlors became a daily resort and lounging-place for all the idle swains, both of her former acquaintance and of the newcomers, who drifted with the tide of fashion? Never had she been so much the rage; never had she been declared so “stunning.” The effect of all this good fortune on her health was immediate. We all know how the spirits affect the bodily welfare; and hence, my dear gentlemen, we desire it to be solemnly impressed on you, that there is nothing so good for a woman’s health as to give her her own way.
Lillie now, from this simple cause, received enormous accessions of vigor. While at home with plain, sober John, trying to walk in the quiet paths of domesticity, how did her spirits droop! If you only could have had a vision of her brain and spinal system, you would have seen how there was no nervous fluid there, and how all the fine little cords and fibres that string the muscles were wilting like flowers out of water; but now she could bathe the longest and the strongest of any one, could ride on the beach half the day, and dance the German into the small hours of the night, with a degree of vigor which showed conclusively what a fine thing for her the Newport air was. Her dancing-list was always over-crowded with applicants; bouquets were showered on her; and the most superb “turn-outs,” with their masters for charioteers, were at her daily disposal.
All this made talk. The world doesn’t forgive success; and the ancients informed us that even the gods were envious of happy people. It is astonishing to see the quantity of very proper and rational moral reflection that is excited in the breast of society, by any sort of success in life. How it shows them the vanity of earthly enjoyments, the impropriety of setting one’s heart on it! How does a successful married flirt impress all her friends with the gross impropriety of having one’s head set on gentlemen’s attentions!
“I must say,” said Belle Trevors, “that dear Lillie does astonish me. Now, I shouldn’t want to have that dissipated Danforth lounging in my rooms every day, as he does in Lillie’s: and then taking her out driving day after day; for my part, I don’t think it’s respectable.”
“Why don’t you speak to her?” said Lottie Cavers.
“Oh, my dear! she wouldn’t mind _me_. Lillie always was the most imprudent creature; and, if she goes on so, she’ll certainly get awfully talked about. That Danforth is a horrid creature; I know all about him.”
As Miss Belle had herself been driving with the “horrid creature” only the week before Lillie came, it must be confessed that her opportunities for observation were of an authentic kind.
Lillie, as queen in her own parlor, was all grace and indulgence. Hers was now to be the sisterly _rôle_, or, as she laughingly styled it, the maternal. With a ravishing morning-dress, and with a killing little cap of about three inches in extent on her head, she enacted the young matron, and gave full permission to Tom, Dick, and Harry to make themselves at home in her room, and smoke their cigars there in peace. She “adored the smell;” in fact, she accepted the present of a fancy box of cigarettes from Danforth with graciousness, and would sometimes smoke one purely for good company. She also encouraged her followers to unveil the tender secrets of their souls confidentially to her, and offered gracious mediations on their behalf with any of the flitting Newport fair ones. When they, as in duty bound, said that they saw nobody whom they cared about now she was married, that she was the only woman on earth for them,—she rapped their knuckles briskly with her fan, and bid them mind their manners. All this mode of proceeding gave her an immense success.
[Illustration: “And would sometimes smoke one purely for good company.”]
But, as we said before, all this was talked about; and ladies in their letters, chronicling the events of the passing hour, sent the tidings up and down the country; and so Miss Letitia Ferguson got a letter from Mrs. Wilcox with full pictures and comments; and she brought the same to Grace Seymour.
“I dare say,” said Letitia, “these things have been exaggerated; they always are: still it does seem desirable that your brother should go there, and be with her.”
“He can’t go and be with her,” said Grace, “without neglecting his business, already too much neglected. Then the house is all in confusion under the hands of painters; and there is that young artist up there,—a very elegant gentleman,—giving orders to right and left, every one of which involves further confusion and deeper expense; for my part, I see no end to it. Poor John has got ‘the Old Man of the Sea’ on his back in the shape of this woman; and I expect she’ll be the ruin of him yet. I can’t want to break up his illusion about her; because, what good will it do? He has married her, and must live with her; and, for Heaven’s sake, let the illusion last while it can! I’m going to draw off, and leave them to each other; there’s no other way.”
“You are, Gracie?”
“Yes; you see John came to me, all stammering and embarrassment, about this making over of the old place; but I put him at ease at once. ‘The most natural thing in the world, John,’ said I. ‘Of course Lillie has her taste; and it’s her right to have the house arranged to suit it.’ And then I proposed to take all the old family things, and furnish the house that I own on Elm Street, and live there, and let John and Lillie keep house by themselves. You see there is no helping the thing. Married people must be left to themselves; nobody can help them. They must make their own discoveries, fight their own battles, sink or swim, together; and I have determined that not by the winking of an eye will I interfere between them.”
“Well, but do you think John wants you to go?”
“He feels badly about it; and yet I have convinced him that it’s best. Poor fellow! all these changes are not a bit to his taste. He liked the old place as it was, and the old ways; but John is so unselfish. He has got it in his head that Lillie is very sensitive and peculiar, and that her spirits require all these changes, as well as Newport air.”
“Well,” said Letitia, “if a man begins to say A in that line, he must say B.” “Of course,” said Grace; “and also C and D, and so on, down to X, Y, Z. A woman, armed with sick-headaches, nervousness, debility, presentiments, fears, horrors, and all sorts of imaginary and real diseases, has an eternal armory of weapons of subjugation. What can a man do? Can he tell her that she is lying and shamming? Half the time she isn’t; she can actually work herself into about any physical state she chooses. The fortnight before Lillie went to Newport, she really looked pale, and ate next to nothing; and she managed admirably to seem to be trying to keep up, and not to complain,—yet you see how she can go on at Newport.”
“It seems a pity John couldn’t understand her.”
“My dear, I wouldn’t have him for the world. Whenever he does, he will despise her; and then he will be wretched. For John is no hypocrite, any more than I am. No, I earnestly pray that his soap-bubble may not break.”
“Well, then,” said Letitia, “at least, he might go down to Newport for a day or two; and his presence there might set some things right: it might at least check reports. You might just suggest to him that unfriendly things were being said.”
“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” said Grace.
So, by a little feminine tact in suggestion, Grace despatched her brother to spend a day or two in Newport.
* * * * * His coming and presence interrupted the lounging hours in Lillie’s room; the introduction to “my husband” shortened the interviews. John was courteous and affable; but he neither smoked nor drank, and there was a mutual repulsion between him and many of Lillie’s _habitués_.
“I say, Dan,” said Bill Sanders to Danforth, as they were smoking on one end of the veranda, “you are driven out of your lodgings since Seymour came.”
“No more than the rest of you,” said Danforth.
“I don’t know about that, Dan. I think _you_ might have been taken for master of those premises. Look here now, Dan, why didn’t you _take_ little Lill yourself? Everybody thought you were going to last year.”
“Didn’t want her; knew too much,” said Danforth. “Didn’t want to keep her; she’s too cursedly extravagant. It’s jolly to have this sort of concern on hand; but I’d rather Seymour’d pay her bills than I.” “Who thought you were so practical, Dan?”
“Practical! that I am; I’m an old bird. Take my advice, boys, now: keep shy of the girls, and flirt with the married ones,—then you don’t get roped in.”
“I say, boys,” said Tom Nichols, “isn’t she a case, now? What a head she has! I bet she can smoke equal to any of us.”
“Yes; I keep her in cigarettes,” said Danforth; “she’s got a box of them somewhere under her ruffles now.”
“What if Seymour should find them?” said Tom.
“Seymour? pooh! he’s a muff and a prig. I bet you he won’t find her out; she’s the jolliest little humbugger there is going. She’d cheat a fellow out of the sight of his eyes. It’s perfectly wonderful.”
“How came Seymour to marry her?”
“He? Why, he’s a pious youth, green as grass itself; and I suppose she talked religion to him. Did you ever hear her talk religion?”
A roar of laughter followed this, out of which Danforth went on. “By George, boys, she gave me a prayer-book once! I’ve got it yet.”
“Well, if that isn’t the best thing I ever heard!” said Nichols.
“It was at the time she was laying siege to me, you see. She undertook the part of guardian angel, and used to talk lots of sentiment. The girls get lots of that out of George Sand’s novels about the _holiness_ of doing just as you’ve a mind to, and all that,” said Danforth.
“By George, Dan, you oughtn’t to laugh. She may have more good in her than you think.”
“Oh, humbug! don’t I know her?”
“Well, at any rate she’s a wonderful creature to hold her looks. By George! how she _does_ hold out! You’d say, now, she wasn’t more than twenty.”
“Yes; she understands getting herself up,” said Danforth, “and touches up her cheeks a bit now and then.”
“She don’t paint, though?”
“Don’t paint! _Don’t_ she? I’d like to know if she don’t; but she does it like an artist, like an old master, in fact.”
“Or like a young mistress,” said Tom, and then laughed at his own wit.
Now, it so happened that John was sitting at an open window above, and heard occasional snatches of this conversation quite sufficient to impress him disagreeably. He had not heard enough to know exactly what had been said, but enough to feel that a set of coarse, low-minded men were making quite free with the name and reputation of his Lillie; and he was indignant.
“She is so pretty, so frank, and so impulsive,” he said. “Such women are always misconstrued. I’m resolved to caution her.”
“Lillie,” he said, “who is this Danforth?”
“Charlie Danforth—oh! he’s a millionnaire that I refused. He was wild about me,—is now, for that matter. He perfectly haunts my rooms, and is always teasing me to ride with him.”
“Well, Lillie, if I were you, I wouldn’t have any thing to do with him.”
“John, I don’t mean to, any more than I can help. I try to keep him off all I can; but one doesn’t want to be rude, you know.”
“My darling,” said John, “you little know the wickedness of the world, and the cruel things that men will allow themselves to say of women who are meaning no harm. You can’t be too careful, Lillie.”
“Oh! I am careful. Mamma is here, you know, all the while; and I never receive except she is present.”
John sat abstractedly fingering the various objects on the table; then he opened a drawer in the same mechanical manner.
“Why, Lillie! what’s this? what in the world are these?”
“O John! sure enough! well, there is something I was going to ask you about. Danforth used always to be sending me things, you know, before we were married,—flowers and confectionery, and one thing or other; and, since I have been here now, he has done the same, and I really didn’t know what to do about it. You know I didn’t want to quarrel with him, or get his ill-will; he’s a high-spirited fellow, and a man one doesn’t want for an enemy; so I have just passed it over easy as I could.”
“But, Lillie, a box of cigarettes! —of course, they can be of no use to you.”
“Of course: they are only a sort of curiosity that he imports from Spain with his cigars.”
“I’ve a great mind to send them back to him myself,” said John.
“Oh, don’t, John! why, how it would look! as if you were angry, or thought he meant something wrong. No; I’ll contrive a way to give ’em back without offending him. I am up to all such little ways.”
“Come, now,” she added, “don’t let’s be cross just the little time you have to stay with me. I do wish our house were not all torn up, so that I could go home with you, and leave Newport and all its bothers behind.”
“Well, Lillie, you could go, and stay with me at Gracie’s,” said John, brightening at this proposition.
“Dear Gracie,—so she has got a house all to herself; how I shall miss her! but, really, John, I think she will be happier. Since you would insist on revolutionizing our house, you know”— “But, Lillie, it was to please you.”
“Oh, I know it! but you know I begged you not to. Well, John, I don’t think I should like to go in and settle down on Grace; perhaps, as I am here, and the sea-air and bathing strengthens me so, we may as well put it through. I will come home as soon as the house is done.”
“But perhaps you would want to go with me to New York to select the furniture?”
“Oh, the artist does all that! Charlie Ferrola will give his orders to Simon & Sauls, and they will do every thing up complete. It’s the way they all do—saves lots of trouble.”
John went home, after three days spent in Newport, feeling that Lillie was somehow an injured fair one, and that the envious world bore down always on beauty and prosperity.
But incidentally he heard and overheard much that made him uneasy. He heard her admired as a “bully” girl, a “fast one;” he heard of her smoking, he overheard something about “painting.”
The time was that John thought Lillie an embryo angel,—an angel a little bewildered and gone astray, and with wings a trifle the worse for the world’s wear,—but essentially an angel of the same nature with his own revered mother.
Gradually the mercury had been falling in the tube of his estimation. He had given up the angel; and now to himself he called her “a silly little pussy,” but he did it with a smile. It was such a neat, white, graceful pussy; and all his own pussy too, and purred and rubbed its little head on no coat-sleeve but his,—of that he was certain. Only a bit silly. She would still _fib_ a little, John feared, especially when he looked back to the chapter about her age,—and then, perhaps, about the cigarettes.
Well, she might, perhaps, in a wild, excited hour, have smoked _one or two_, just for fun, and the thing had been exaggerated. She had promised fairly to return those cigarettes,—he dared not say to himself that he feared she would not. He kept saying to himself that she would. It was necessary to say this often to make himself believe it.
As to painting—well, John didn’t like to ask her, because, what if she shouldn’t tell him the truth? And, if she did paint, was it so great a sin, poor little thing? he would watch, and bring her out of it. After all, when the house was all finished and arranged, and he got her back from Newport, there would be a long, quiet, domestic winter at Springdale; and they would get up their reading-circles, and he would set her to improving her mind, and gradually the vision of this empty, fashionable life would die out of her horizon, and she would come into his ways of thinking and doing.
But, after all, John managed to be proud of her. When he read in the columns of “The Herald” the account of the Splandangerous ball in Newport, and of the entrancingly beautiful Mrs. J. S., who appeared in a radiant dress of silvery gauze made _à la nuage_, &c., &c., John was rather pleased than otherwise. Lillie danced till daylight,—it showed that she must be getting back her strength,—and she was voted the belle of the scene. Who wouldn’t take the comfort that is to be got in any thing? John owned this fashionable meteor,—why shouldn’t he rejoice in it?
Two years ago, had anybody told him that one day he should have a wife that told fibs, and painted, and smoked cigarettes, and danced all night at Newport, and yet that he should love her, and be proud of her, he would have said, Is thy servant a dog? He was then a considerate, thoughtful John, serious and careful in his life-plans; and the wife that was to be his companion was something celestial. But so it is. By degrees, we accommodate ourselves to the actual and existing. To all intents and purposes, for us it is the inevitable.
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