The Sword of Damocles: A Story of New York Life
by Anna Katharine Green · English · Gutenberg #33301 · 793,050 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Sword of Damocles: A Story of New York Life
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Sword of Damocles: A Story of New York Life
Author: Anna Katharine Green
Release date: July 31, 2010 [eBook #33301]
Most recently updated: June 9, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33301
Credits: Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Revised by Richard Tonsing.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES: A STORY OF NEW YORK LIFE ***
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES
A STORY OF NEW YORK LIFE.
BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
AUTHOR OF “THE LEAVENWORTH CASE,” “A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE,” ETC.
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
27 & 29 West 23D Street
1881
COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS.
TO
MY FATHER
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
AS EXPRESSING SOME OF THE PRINCIPLES OF
JUSTICE AND MERCY WHICH,
BY PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE, HE HAS
INSTILLED INTO MY
BREAST
FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD.
NEW YORK, _April, 1881._
“When all else fails love saves”
CONTENTS.
BOOK I. TWO MEN.
I.—A WANDERER
II.—A DISCUSSION
III.—A MYSTERIOUS SUMMONS
IV.—SEARCHINGS
V.—THE RUBICON
VI.—A HAND CLASP
VII.—MRS. SYLVESTER
VIII.—SHADOWS OF THE PAST
IX.—PAULA
X.—THE BARRED DOOR
XI.—MISS STUYVESANT
XII.—MISS BELINDA MAKES CONDITIONS
XIII.—THE END OF MY LADY’S PICTURE
BOOK II. LIFE AND DEATH.
XIV.—MISS BELINDA HAS A QUESTION TO DECIDE
XV.—AN ADVENTURE—OR SOMETHING MORE
XVI.—THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES
XVII.—GRAVE AND GAY
XVIII.—IN THE NIGHT WATCHES
XIX.—A DAY AT THE BANK
XX.—THE DREGS IN THE CUP
XXI.—DEPARTURE
XXII.—HOPGOOD
BOOK III. THE JAPHA MYSTERY.
XXIII.—THE POEM
XXIV.—THE JAPHA MANSION
XXV.—JACQUELINE
XXVI.—A MAN’S JUSTICE AND A WOMAN’S MERCY
XXVII.—THE LONE WATCHER
XXVIII.—SUNSHINE ON THE HILLS
XXIX.—MIST IN THE VALLEY
BOOK IV. FROM A. TO Z.
XXX.—MISS BELINDA PRESENTS MR. SYLVESTER WITH A CHRISTMAS GIFT
XXXI.—A QUESTION
XXXII.—FULL TIDE
XXXIII.—TWO LETTERS
XXXIV.—PAULA MAKES HER CHOICE
XXXV.—THE FALLING OF THE SWORD
XXXVI.—MORNING
XXXVII.—THE OPINION OF A CERTAIN NOTED DETECTIVE
XXXVIII.—BLUEBEARD’S CHAMBER
XXXIX.—FROM A. TO Z
XL.—HALF-PAST SEVEN
BOOK V. WOMAN’S LOVE.
XLI.—THE WORK OF AN HOUR
XLII.—PAULA RELATES A STORY SHE HAS HEARD
XLIII.—DETERMINATION
XLIV.—IN MR. STUYVESANT’S PARLORS
XLV.—“THE HOUR OF SIX IS SACRED!”
XLVI.—THE MAN CUMMINS
Damocles, one of the courtiers of Dionysius, was perpetually
extolling with rapture that tyrant’s treasures, grandeur, the
number of his troops, the extent of his dominions, the
magnificence of his palaces, and the universal abundance of all
good things and enjoyments in his possession; always repeating,
that never man was happier than Dionysius. “Since you are of
that opinion,” said the tyrant to him one day, “will you taste
and make proof of my felicity in person?” The offer was
accepted with joy; Damocles was placed upon a golden couch,
covered with carpets richly embroidered. The side-boards were
loaded with vessels of gold and silver. The most beautiful
slaves in the most splendid habits stood around, ready to serve
him at the slightest signal. The most exquisite essences and
perfumes had not been spared. The table was spread with
proportionate magnificence. Damocles was all joy, and looked
upon himself as the happiest man in the world; when
unfortunately casting up his eyes, he beheld over his head the
point of a sword, which hung from the roof only by a single
horse-hair.
ROLLIN.
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.
BOOK I.
TWO MEN.
I.
A WANDERER.
“There’s no such word.”—BULWER.
A wind was blowing through the city. Not a gentle and balmy zephyr,
stirring the locks on gentle ladies’ foreheads and rustling the curtains
in elegant boudoirs, but a chill and bitter gale that rushed with a
swoop through narrow alleys and forsaken courtyards, biting the cheeks
of the few solitary wanderers that still lingered abroad in the darkened
streets.
In front of a cathedral that reared its lofty steeple in the midst of
the squalid houses and worse than squalid saloons of one of the
dreariest portions of the East Side, stood the form of a woman. She had
paused in her rush down the narrow street to listen to the music,
perhaps, or to catch a glimpse of the light that now and then burst from
the widely swinging doors as they opened and shut upon some tardy
worshipper.
She was tall and fearful looking; her face, when the light struck it,
was seared and desperate; gloom and desolation were written on all the
lines of her rigid but wasted form, and when she shuddered under the
gale, it was with that force and abandon to which passion lends its aid,
and in which the soul proclaims its doom.
Suddenly the doors before her swung wide and the preacher’s voice was
heard: “Love God and you will love your fellow-men. Love your fellow-men
and you best show your love to God.”
She heard, started, and the charm was broken. “Love!” she echoed with a
horrible laugh; “there is no love in heaven or on earth!”
And she swept by, and the winds followed and the darkness swallowed her
up like a gulf.
II.
A DISCUSSION.
“Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to
be so.”—RAY’S PROVERBS.
“And you are actually in earnest?”
“I am.”
The first speaker, a fine-looking gentleman of some forty years of age,
drummed with his fingers on the table before him and eyed the face of
the young man who had repeated this assent so emphatically, with a
certain close scrutiny indicative of surprise.
“It is an unlooked-for move for you to make,” he remarked at length.
“Your success as a pianist has been so decided, I confess I do not
understand why you should desire to abandon a profession that in five
years’ time has procured you both competence and a very enviable
reputation—for the doubtful prospects of Wall Street, too!” he added
with a deep and thoughtful frown that gave still further impressiveness
to his strongly marked features.
The young man with a sweep of his eye over the luxurious apartment in
which they sat, shrugged his shoulders with that fine and nonchalant
grace which was one of his chief characteristics.
“With such a pilot as yourself, I ought to be able to steer clear of the
shoals,” said he, a frank smile illumining a face that was rather
interesting than handsome.
The elder gentleman did not return the smile. Instead of that he
remained gazing at the ample coal-fire that burned in the grate before
him with a look that to the young musician was simply inexplicable. “You
see the ship in haven,” he murmured at last; “but do not consider what
storms it has weathered or what perils escaped. It is a voyage I would
encourage no son of mine to undertake.”
“Yet you are not the man to shrink from danger or to hesitate in a
course you had marked out for yourself, because of the struggle it
involved or the difficulties it presented!” the young man exclaimed
almost involuntarily as his glance lingered with a certain sort of
fascination on the powerful brow and steady if somewhat melancholy eye
of his companion.
“No; but danger and difficulty should not be sought, only subdued when
encountered. If you were driven into this path, I should say, ‘God pity
you!’ and hold you out my hand to steady you along its precipices and
above its sudden quicksands. But you are not driven to it. Your
profession offers you the means of an ample livelihood while your good
heart and fair talents insure you ultimate and honorable success, both
in the social and artistic world. For a man of twenty-five such
prospects are not common and he must be difficult to please not to be
satisfied with them.”
“Yes,” said the other rising with a fitful movement but instantly
sitting again; “I have nothing to complain of as the world goes,
only—Sir,” he exclaimed with a sudden determination that lent a force
to his features they had hitherto lacked, “you speak of being driven
into a certain course; what do you mean by that?”
“I mean,” returned the other; “forced by circumstances to enter a line
of business to which many others, if not all others are preferable.”
“You speak strongly, speculation evidently has none of your sympathy,
notwithstanding the favorable results which have accrued to you from it.
But excuse me, by circumstances you mean poverty, I suppose, and the
lack of every other opening to wealth and position. You would not
consider the desire to make a large fortune in a short space of time a
circumstance of a sufficiently determining nature to reconcile you to my
entering Wall Street speculation?”
The elder gentleman rose, not as the other had done with a restless
impulse quickly subsiding at the first excuse, but forcibly and with a
feverish impatience that to appearance was somewhat out of proportion to
the occasion. “A large fortune in a short space of time!” he reiterated,
pausing where he had risen with an eagle glance at his companion and a
ringing tone in his voice that bespoke a deep but hitherto suppressed
agitation. “It is the alluring inscription above the pitfall into which
many a noble youth has fallen; the battle-cry to a struggle that has led
many a strong man the way of ruin; the guide-post to a life whose
feverish days and sleepless nights offer but poor compensation for the
sudden splendors and as sudden reverses attached to it. I had rather you
had accounted for this sudden freak of yours by the strongest aspiration
after power than by this cry of the merely mercenary man who in his
desire to enjoy wealth, prefers to win it by a stroke of luck rather
than conquer it by a life of endeavor.” He stopped. “I am aware that
this tirade against the ladder by which I myself have risen so rapidly,
must strike you as in ill-taste. But Bertram, I am interested in your
welfare and am willing to incur some slight charge of inconsistency in
order to insure it,” and here he turned upon his companion with that
expression of extreme gentleness which lent such a peculiar charm to his
countenance and explained perhaps the almost unlimited power he held
over the hearts and minds of those who came within the circle of his
influence.
“You are very good, sir,” murmured his young friend, who to explain
matters at once was in reality the nephew of this Wall Street magnate,
though from the fact of his having taken another name on entering the
musical profession, was not generally known as such. “No one, not even
my father himself, could have been more considerate and kind; but I do
not think you understand me, or rather I should say I do not think I
have made myself perfectly intelligible to you. It is not for the sake
of wealth itself or the eclat attending its possession that I desire an
immediate fortune, but that by means of it I may attain another object
dearer than wealth, and more precious than my career.”
The elder gentleman turned quickly, evidently much surprised, and cast a
sudden inquiring glance at his nephew, who blushed with a modest
ingenuousness pleasing to see in one so well accustomed to the critical
gaze of his fellow-men.
“Yes,” said he, as if in answer to that look, “I am in love.”
A deep silence for a moment pervaded the apartment, a sombre silence
almost startling to young Mandeville, who had expected some audible
expression to follow this announcement if only the good-natured “Pooh!
pooh!” of the matured man of the world in the presence of ardent
youthful enthusiasm. What could it mean? Looking up he encountered his
uncle’s eye fixed upon him with the last expression he could have
anticipated seeing there, namely that of actual and unmistakable alarm.
“You are displeased,” Mandeville exclaimed. “You have thought me proof
against such a passion, or perhaps you do not believe in the passion
itself!” Then with a sudden remembrance of the notable if somewhat
indolent loveliness of his uncle’s wife, blushed again at his unusual
want of tact, while his eye with an involuntary impulse sought the large
panel at their right where, in the full bloom of her first youth, the
lady of the house smiled upon all beholders.
“I do not believe in that passion influencing a man’s career,” his uncle
replied with no apparent attention to the other’s embarrassment. “A
woman needs be possessed of uncommon excellences to justify a man in
leaving a path where success is certain, for one where it is not only
doubtful but if attained must bring many a regret and heart-ache in its
train. Beauty is not sufficient,” he went on with sterner and sterner
significance, “though it were of an angelic order. There must be worth.”
And here his mind’s eye if not that of his bodily sense, certainly
followed the glance of his companion.
“I believe there is worth,” the young man replied; “certainly, it is not
her beauty that charms me. I do not even know if she _is_ beautiful,” he
continued.
“And you believe you love!” the elder exclaimed after another short
pause.
There was so much of bitterness in the tone in which this was uttered,
that Mandeville forgot its incredulity. “I think I must,” returned he
with a certain masculine naïveté not out of keeping with his general
style of face and manner, “else I should not be here. Three weeks ago I
was satisfied with my profession, if not enthusiastic over it; to-day I
ask nothing but to be allowed to enter upon some business that in three
years’ time at least will place me where I can be the fit mate of any
woman in this land, that is not worth her millions.”
“The woman for whom you have conceived this violent attachment is, then,
above you in social position?”
“Yes, sir, or so considered, which amounts to the same thing, as far as
I am concerned.”
“Bertram, I have lived longer than you and have seen much of both social
and domestic life, and I tell you no woman is worth such a sacrifice on
the part of a man as you propose. No woman of to-day, I should say; our
mothers were different. The very fact that this young lady of whom you
speak, obliges you to change your whole course of life in order to
obtain her, ought to be sufficient to prove to you—” He stopped
suddenly, arrested by the young man’s lifted hand. “She does not oblige
you, then?”
“Not on her own account, sir. This lily,” lifting a vase of blossoms at
his elbow, “could not be more innocent of the necessities that govern
the social circle it adorns, than the pure, single-minded girl to whom I
have dedicated what is best and noblest in my manhood. It is her
father—”
“Ah, her father!”
“Yes, sir,” the young man pursued, more and more astonished at the
other’s tone. “He is a man who has a right to expect both wealth and
position in a son-in-law. But I see I shall have to tell you my story,
sir. It is an uncommon one and I never meant that it should pass my
lips, but if by its relation I can win your sympathy for a pure and
noble passion, I shall consider the sacred seal of secrecy broken in a
good cause. But,” said he, seeing his uncle cast a short and uneasy
glance at the door, “perhaps I am interrupting you. You expect some
one!”
“No,” said his uncle, “my wife is at church; I am ready to listen.”
The young man gave a hurried sigh, cast one look at his companion’s
immovable face, as if to assure himself that the narrative was
necessary, then leaned back and in a steady business-like tone that
softened, however, as he proceeded, began to relate as follows:
III.
A MYSTERIOUS SUMMONS.
“Without unspotted, innocent within,
She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.”—DRYDEN.
It was after a matinée performance at —— Hall some two weeks ago that
I stopped to light a cigar in the small corridor leading to the back
entrance. I was in a dissatisfied frame of mind. Something in the music
I had been playing or the manner in which it had been received had
touched unwonted chords in my own nature. I felt alone. I remember
asking myself as I stood there, what it all amounted to? Who of all the
applauding crowd would watch at my bedside through a long and harassing
sickness, or lend their sympathy as they now yielded their praise, if
instead of carrying off the honors of the day I had failed to do justice
to my reputation. I was just smiling over the only exception I could
make to this sweeping assertion, that of the pale-eyed youth you have
sometimes observed dogging my steps, when Briggs came up to me.
“There is a woman here, sir, who insists on seeing you; she has been
waiting through half the last piece. Shall I tell her you are coming
out?”
“A woman!” exclaimed I, somewhat surprised, for my visitors are not apt
to be of the gentler sex.
“Yes sir, an old one. She seems very anxious to speak to you. I could
not get rid of her no how.”
I hurried forward to the muffled figure which he pointed out cowering
against the wall by the door. “Well, my good woman, what do you want?” I
asked, bending towards her in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the
face she held partly concealed from me.
“Are you Mr. Mandeville?” she inquired in a tone shaken as much by
agitation as age.
I bowed.
“The one who plays upon the piano?”
“The very same,” I declared.
“You are not deceiving me,” she went on, looking up with a marked
anxiety plainly visible through her veil. “I haven’t seen you play and
couldn’t contradict you, but—”
“Here!” said I calling to Briggs with a kindly look at the old woman,
“help me on with my coat, will you?”
The “Certainly, Mr. Mandeville,” with which he complied seemed to
reassure her, and as soon as the coat was on and he was gone, she
grasped me by the arm and drew my ear down to her mouth.
“If you are Mr. Mandeville, I have a message for you. This letter,”
slipping one into my hand, “is from a young lady, sir. She bade me give
it to you myself. She is young and pretty,” she pursued as she saw me
make a movement of distaste, “and a lady. We depend upon your honor,
sir.”
I acknowledge that my first impulse was to fling her back the note and
leave the building; I was in no mood for trifling, my next to burst into
a laugh and politely hand her to the door, my last and best, to open the
poor little note and see for myself whether the writer was a lady or
not. Proceeding to the door, for it was already twilight in the dim
passage way, I tore open the envelope which was dainty enough and took
out a sheet of closely written paper. A certain qualm of conscience
assailed me as I saw the delicate chirography it disclosed and I was
tempted to thrust it back and return it unread to the old woman now
trembling in the corner. But curiosity overcame my scruples, and hastily
unfolding the sheet I read these lines:
“I do not know if what I do is right; I am sure aunty would not
say it was; but aunty never thinks anything is right but going
to church and reading the papers to papa. I am just a little
girl who has heard you play, and who would think the world was
too beautiful, if she could hear you say to her just once, some
of the kind things you must speak every day to the persons who
know you. I do not expect very much—you must have a great many
friends, and you would not care for me—but the least little
look, if it were all my own, would make me so happy and so
proud I should not envy anybody in the world, unless it was
some of those dear friends who see you always.
“I do not come and hear you play often, for aunty thinks music
frivolous, but I am always hearing you no matter where I am,
and it makes me feel as if I were far away from everybody, in a
beautiful land all sunshine and flowers. But nurse says I must
not write so much or you will not read it, so I will stop here.
But if you _would_ come it would make some one happier than
even your beautiful music could do.”
That was all; there was neither name nor date. A child’s epistle,
written with a woman’s circumspection. With mingled sensations of doubt
and curiosity I turned back to the old woman who stood awaiting me with
eager anxiety.
“Was this written by a child or woman?” I asked, meeting her eye with as
much sternness as I could assume.
“Don’t ask me—don’t ask me anything. I have promised to bring you if I
could, but I cannot answer any questions.”
I stepped back with an incredulous laugh. Here was evidently an
adventure. “You will at least tell me where the young miss lives,” said
I, “before I undertake to fulfil her request.”
She shook her head. “I have a carriage at the door, sir,” said she. “All
you have got to do is to get into it with me and we shall soon be at the
house.”
I looked from her face to the letter in my hand, and knew not what to
think. The spirit of simplicity and ingenuousness that marked the latter
was scarcely in keeping with this air of mystery. The woman observing my
hesitation moved towards the door.
“Will you come, sir?” she inquired. “You will not regret it. Just a
moment’s talk with a pretty young girl—surely—”
“Hush,” said I, hearing a hasty step behind me. And sure enough just
then my intimate friend Selby came along and grasping me by the arm
began dragging me towards the door. “You are my property,” said he.
“I’ve promised, on my word of honor as a gentleman and a musician, to
bring you to the Handel Club this afternoon. I was afraid you had
escaped me, but—” Here he caught sight of the small black figure
halting in the door-way, and paused.
“Who’s this?” said he.
I hesitated. For one instant the scale of my whole future destiny hung
trembling in the balance, then the demon of curiosity got the better of
my judgment, and with the rather unworthy consideration that I might as
well enjoy my youth while I could, I released myself from my friend’s
detaining hand and replied, “Some one with whom I have very particular
business. I cannot go to the Handel Club to-day,” and darting out
without further delay, I rejoined the old woman on the sidewalk.
Without a word she drew me towards a carriage I now observed standing by
the curbstone a few feet to the left. As I got in I remember pausing a
moment to glance at the man on the box, but it was too dark for me to
perceive anything but the fact that he was dressed in livery. More and
more astonished I leaned back in my seat and endeavored to open
conversation with my mysterious companion. But it did not work. Without
being actually rude, she parried my questions in such a way that by the
end of five minutes I found myself as far from any knowledge of the real
situation of the case as when I started. I therefore desisted from any
further attempts and turned to look out, when I made a discovery that
for the first time awoke some vague feelings of alarm within my breast.
This was, that the window was not covered by a curtain as I supposed,
but by closed blinds which when I tried to raise them resisted all my
efforts to do so.
“It is very close here,” I muttered, in some sort of excuse for this
display of uneasiness. “Cannot you give us a little air?” But my
companion remained silent, and I felt ashamed to press the matter though
I took advantage of the darkness to remove to a safer place a roll of
money which I had about me.
Yet I was far from being really anxious, and did not once meditate
backing out of an adventure that was at once so piquant and romantic.
For by this time I became conscious from the sounds about me that we had
left the side street for one of the avenues and were then proceeding
rapidly up town. Listening, I heard the roll of omnibuses and the jingle
of car-bells, which informed me that we were in Broadway, no other
avenue in the city being traversed by both these methods of conveyance.
But after awhile the jingle ceased and presently the livelier sounds of
constant commotion inseparable from a business thoroughfare, and we
entered what I took to be Madison Avenue at Twenty-third Street.
Instantly I made up mind to notice every turn of the carriage, that I
might fix to some degree the locality towards which we were tending. But
it turned but once and that after a distance of steady travelling that
quite overthrew any calculation I was able to make at that time of the
probable number of streets we had passed since entering the avenue.
Having turned, it went but about half a block to the left when it
stopped. “I shall see where I am when I get out,” thought I; but in this
I was mistaken.
First we had stopped in the middle of a block of houses built, as far as
I could judge, all after one model. Next the fact of the front door
being open, though I saw no one in the hall, somewhat disconcerted me,
and I hurried across the sidewalk and up the stoop in a species of maze
hardly to be expected from one of my naturally careless disposition. The
next moment the door closed behind me and I found myself in a
well-lighted hall whose quiet richness betokened it as belonging to a
private dwelling of no mean pretensions to elegance.
This was the first surprise I received.
“Follow me,” said the old woman, hurrying me down the hall and into a
small room at the end. “The young lady will be here in a moment,” and
without lifting her veil or affording me the least glimpse of her
features, she retired, leaving me to face the situation before me as
best I might.
It was anything but a pleasant one as it appeared to me at that moment,
and for an instant I seriously thought of retracing my steps and leaving
a domicile into which I had been introduced in such a mysterious manner.
Then the quiet aspect of the room, which though sparsely furnished with
a piano and chairs was still of an order rarely seen out of gentlemen’s
houses, struck my imagination and reawakened my curiosity, and nerving
myself to meet whatever interview might be accorded me, I waited. It was
only five minutes by the small clock ticking on the mantel-piece, but it
seemed an hour before I heard a timid step at the door, and saw it swing
slowly open, disclosing—well, I did not stop to inquire whether it was
a child or a woman. I merely saw the shrinking modest form, the eager
blushing face, and bowed almost to the ground in a sudden reverence for
the sublime innocence revealed to me. Yes, it did not take a second look
to read that tender countenance to its last guileless page. Had she been
a woman of twenty-five I could not have mistaken her expression of pure
delight and timid interest, but she was only sixteen, as I afterwards
learned, and younger in experience than in age.
Closing the door behind her, she stood for a moment without speaking,
then with a deepening of the blush which was only a child’s
embarrassment in the presence of a stranger, looked up and murmured my
name with a word or so of grateful acknowledgment that would have called
forth a smile on my lips if I had not been startled by the sudden change
that passed over her features when she met my eyes. Was it that I showed
my surprise too plainly, or did my admiration manifest itself in my
gaze? an admiration great as it was humble, and which was already of a
nature such as I had never before given to girl or woman. Whatever it
was, she no sooner met my look than she paused, trembled, and started
back with a confused murmur, through which I plainly heard her whisper
in a low distressed tone, “Oh, what have I done!”
“Called a good friend to your side,” said I in the frank, brotherly way
I thought most likely to reassure her. “Do not be alarmed, I am only too
happy to meet one who evidently enjoys music so well.”
But the hidden chord of womanhood had been struck in the child’s soul,
and she could not recover herself. For an instant I thought she would
turn and flee, and struck as I was with remorse at my reckless invasion
of this uncontaminated temple, I could not but admire the spirited
picture she presented as, with form half turned and face bent back, she
stood hesitating on the point of flight.
I did not try to stop her. “She shall follow her own impulse,” said I to
myself, but I felt a vague relief that was deeper than I imagined, when
she suddenly relinquished her strained attitude, and advancing a step or
so began to murmur:
“I did not know—I did not realize I was doing what was so very wrong.
Young ladies do not ask gentlemen to come and see them, no matter how
much they desire to make their acquaintance. I see it now; I did not
before. Will you—can you forgive me?”
I smiled; I could not help it. I could have taken her to my heart and
soothed her as I would a child, but the pallor of womanhood, which had
replaced the blush of the child, awed me and made my own words come
hesitatingly.
“Forgive you? You must forgive me! It was as wrong for me,” I went on
with a wild idea of not mincing matters with this pure soul, “to obey
your innocent request, as it was for you to make it. I am a man of the
world and know its _convenances_; you are very young.”
“I am sixteen,” she murmured.
The abrupt little confession, implying as it did her determination not
to accept any palliation of her conduct which it did not deserve,
touched me strangely. “But very young for that,” I exclaimed.
“So aunty says, but no one can ever say it any more,” she answered. Then
with a sudden gush, “We shall never see each other again, and you must
forget the motherless girl who has met you in a way for which she must
blush through life. It is no excuse,” she pursued hurriedly, “that nurse
thought it was all right. She always approves of everything I do or want
to do, especially if it is anything aunt would be likely to forbid. I
have been spoiled by nurse.”
“Was nurse the woman who came for me?” I asked.
She nodded her head with a quick little motion inexpressibly charming.
“Yes, that was nurse. She said she would do it all, I need only write
the note. She meant to give me a pleasure, but she did wrong.”
“Yes,” thought I, “how wrong you little know or realize.” But I only
said, “You must be guided by some one with more knowledge of the world
after this. Not,” I made haste to add, struck by the misery in her child
eyes, “that any harm has been done. You could not have appealed to the
friendship of any one who would hold you in greater respect than I.
Whether we meet again or not, my memory of you shall be sweet and
sacred, I promise you that.”
But she threw out her hand with a quick gesture. “No, do not remember
me. My only happiness will lie in the thought you have forgotten.” And
the last remnants of the child soul vanished in that hurried utterance.
“You must go now,” she continued more calmly. “The carriage that brought
you is at the door; I must ask you to take it back to your home.”
“But,” I exclaimed with a wild and unbearable sense of sudden loss as
she laid her hand on the knob of the door, “are we to part like this?
Will you not at least trust me with your name before I go?”
Her hand dropped from the knob as if it had been hot steel, and she
turned towards me with a slow yearning motion that whatever it betokened
set my heart beating violently. “You do not know it, then?” she
inquired.
“I know nothing but what this little note contains,” I replied, drawing
her letter from my pocket.
“Oh, that letter! I must have it,” she murmured; then, as I stepped
towards her, drew back and pointing to the table said, “Lay it there,
please.”
I did so, whereupon something like a smile crossed her lips and I
thought she was going to reward me with her name, but she only said, “I
thank you; now you know nothing;” and almost before I realized it she
had opened the door and stepped into the hall.
As I made haste to follow her, the sound of a low, “He is a gentleman,
he will ask no questions,” struck my ear, and looking up, I saw her just
leaving the side of the old nurse who stood evidently awaiting me half
down the hall. Bowing with formal ceremony, I passed her by and
proceeded to the front door. As I did so I caught one glimpse of her
face. It had escaped from all restraint and the expression of the eyes
was overpowering. I subdued a wild impulse to leap back to her side, and
stepped at once over the threshold. The nurse joined me, and together we
went down the stoop to the street.
“May I inquire where you wish to be taken?” she asked.
I told her, and she gave the order to the coachman, together with a few
words I did not hear; then stepping back she waited for me to get in.
There was no help for it. I gave one quick look behind me, saw the front
door close, realized how impossible it would ever be for me to recognize
the house again, and placed my foot on the carriage step. Suddenly a
bright idea struck me, and hastily dropping my cane I stepped back to
pick it up. As I did so I pulled out a bit of crayon I chanced to have
in my pocket, and as I stooped, chalked a small cross on the curbstone
directly in front of the house, after which I recovered my cane, uttered
some murmured word of apology, jumped into the carriage and was about to
shut the door, when the old nurse stepped in after me and quietly closed
it herself. By the pang that shot through my breast as the carriage
wheels left the house, I knew that for the first time in my life, I
_loved_.
IV.
SEARCHINGS.
“Patience, and shuffle the cards.”—CERVANTES.
If I had expected anything from the presence in the carriage of the
woman who had arranged this interview, I was doomed to disappointment.
Reticent before, she was absolutely silent now, sitting at my side like
a grim statue or a frozen image of watchfulness, ready to awake and stop
me if I offered to open the door or make any other move indicative of a
determination to know where I was, or in what direction I was going.
That her young mistress in the momentary conversation they had held
before our departure had succeeded in giving her some idea of the shame
with which she had felt herself overwhelmed and her present natural
desire for secrecy, I do not doubt, but I think now, as I thought then,
that the unusual precautions taken both at that time and before, to keep
me in ignorance of the young lady’s identity, were due to the elderly
woman’s own consciousness of the peril she had invoked in yielding to
the wishes of her young and thoughtless mistress; a theory which, if
true, argues more for the mind than the conscience of this mysterious
woman. However, it is with facts we have to deal, and you will be more
interested in learning what I did, than what I thought during that short
ride in perfect darkness.
The mark which I had left on the curbstone behind me sufficiently showed
the nature of my resolve, and when we made the first turn at the end of
the block I leaned back in my seat and laying my finger on my wrist,
began to count the pulsations of my blood. It was the only device that
suggested itself, by which I might afterward gather some approximate
notion of the distance we travelled in a straight course down town. I
had just arrived at the number seven hundred and sixty-two, and was
inwardly congratulating myself upon this new method of reckoning
distance, when the wheels gave a lurch and we passed over a car track.
Instantly all my fine calculations fell to the ground. We were not in
Madison Avenue, as I supposed; could not be, since no track crosses that
avenue below Fifty-ninth Street, and we were proceeding on as we could
not have done had we gained the terminus of the avenue at Twenty-third
Street. Could it be that the carriage had not been turned around while I
was in the house, and that we had come back by way of Fifth Avenue? I
could not remember—in fact, the more I tried to think which way the
horses’ heads were directed when we went into the house, the more I was
confused. But presently I considered that wherever we were, we certainly
had not passed over the narrow strip of smooth pavement in front of the
Worth monument, and therefore could not have reached Twenty-third Street
by way of Fifth Avenue. We must be up town, and that track we crossed
must have been at Fifty-ninth Street. And soon, as if to assure me of
this, we took a turn, quickly followed at a block’s length by another,
after which I had no difficulty in recognizing the smooth pavement of
the entrance to the Park or the roll down Fifth Avenue afterwards. “They
have thought to confuse me by an extra mile or so of travel,” thought I,
with some complacency, “but the streets of New York are too simply laid
out to lend themselves to any such easy mode of mystification.” Yet I
have thought since then how, with a smarter man on the box, the affair
might have been conducted so as to have baffled the oldest citizen in
any attempt at calculation.
When we stopped in front of the Albemarle I quietly thanked the woman
who had conducted me, and stepped to the ground. Instantly the door shut
behind me, the carriage drove off, and I was left standing there like a
man suddenly awakened from a dream.
Entering my hotel, I ordered supper, thinking that the very practical
occupation of eating would serve to divert my mind into its ordinary
channels. But the dream, if dream it was, had made too vivid an
impression to be shaken off so easily. It followed me to the hall in the
evening and mingled with every chord I struck.
I could scarcely sleep that night for thinking of the sweet child’s face
that had blossomed into a woman’s before my eyes, and what a woman! With
the first hint of daylight I rose, and as soon as it was in any degree
suitable to be out, hired a cab and proceeded to the corner of
Fifty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, where, according to my
calculations of the evening before, we had crossed the car track which
had first interrupted me in that very original method of computing
distance of which I have already spoken, a method by the way, which you
must acknowledge is an improvement on the boy’s plan of finding his way
back from the woods by means of the bread-crumbs he had scattered behind
him, forgetting that the birds would eat up his crumbs and leave him
without a clew. Bidding the driver proceed at the ordinary jog trot down
the avenue, I laid my finger on my wrist, and counted each throb of my
pulse till I had reached the magical number seven hundred and sixty-two.
Then putting my head out of the window, I bade him stop. We were in the
middle of a block, but that did not disconcert me. I had not expected to
gain more than an approximate idea of the spot where we had first turned
into the avenue, it being impossible to regulate the horses’ pace so as
to tally with that taken by the span of the night before, even if the
pulsations in my wrist were to be absolutely relied upon. Noting the
streets between which we had paused, I bade the driver to turn down one
and come back by the other, occupying myself in the meanwhile, in
searching the curbstone for the small mark I had left in front of her
door the night before. But though we drove slowly and I searched
carefully, not a trace did I perceive of that tell-tale sign, and
forsaking those two streets, I ordered my obedient Jehu to try the two
outlying ones below and above. He did so, and I again consulted the
curbstone, but with no better success. No mark or remnants of a mark was
to be found anywhere. Nor, though we travelled through three or four
other streets in the same way, did we come upon any clew liable to
assist me in my search. Clean discouraged and somewhat out of temper
with myself for my pusillanimity of the evening before in not having
braved the anger of my companion by opening the carriage door at the
first corner and leaping out, I commanded to be taken back to the hotel,
where for a whole miserable day I racked my brain with devices for
acquiring the knowledge I so much desired. The result was futile, as you
may imagine; nor will I stop to recount the various expedients to which
I afterwards resorted in my vain attempt to solve the mystery of this
young girl’s identity.
Enough that they all failed, even the very promising one of searching
the various photographic establishments of the city, for the valuable
clew which her picture would give me. And so a week passed.
“It is time this mad infatuation was at an end,” said I to myself one
morning as I sat down to write a letter. “There is no hope of my ever
seeing her again, and I am but frittering away the best emotions of my
life in thus indulging in a dream that is not the prelude to a reality.”
But in spite of the wise determination thus made, I soon found my
thoughts recurring to their old channel, and seized with sudden
impatience at my evident weakness, took up the letter I had been writing
and was about to read it, when to my great amazement I perceived that
instead of inditing the usual words of a business communication, I had
been engaged in scribbling a certain number up and down the page and
even across the bottom where my signature should have been.
“Am I a fool?” I exclaimed, and was about to tear the sheet in two, when
glancing again at the number, which was a simple thirty-six, I asked
myself where I had got those especial figures. Instantly there arose
before my mind’s eye the vision of a brown-stone front with its
vestibule and door. It was, then, the number of a house; but what house?
a _chateau en Espagne_ or a _bona fide_ New York dwelling, which for
some reason had unconsciously impressed itself upon my memory? I could
not answer. There on the page was the number thirty-six, and equally
plain in my mind was the look of the brown-stone front to which that
number belonged—and that was all.
But it was enough to awaken within me the spirit of inquiry. The few
houses thus numbered in that quarter of the city where I had lately
been, were not so hard to find but that a morning given to the business
ought to satisfy me whether the vision in my mind had its basis in
reality. Taking a cab, I rode up town and into that region of streets I
had traversed so carefully a week before. For I was assured that if the
impression had been made by an actual dwelling it had been done at that
time. Following the same course I then took, I consulted the appearance
of the various houses to which that number was assigned. The first was
built of brick; that was not it. The next one had pillars to the
vestibule; and that was not it. The third, to use an Irish bull, was no
house at all, but a stable, while the fourth was an elegant structure of
much more pretension than the plain and simple front I had in my mind or
memory. I was about to utter a curse upon my folly and go home, when I
remembered there was yet a street or two taken in my zig-zag course of
the week before, which I had not yet tested. “Might as well be
thorough,” I muttered, and bade my driver proceed down —— Street.
What was there in its aspect that dimly excited me at the first glance?
A dim remembrance, a certain ghostly assurance that we had reached the
right spot? As we neared the number I sought, I could not suppress an
exclamation of surprise. For there before me to its last detail, stood
the house which involuntarily presented itself to my mind, when my eye
first fell upon that mysterious number scribbled at the foot of the page
I was writing.
It was, then, no chimera of an overwrought brain, this vision of a
house-front which had been haunting me, but a distinct remembrance of an
actual dwelling seen by me in my former journey through this street. But
why this house-front above all others; what was there in it to make such
an impression? Looking at it I could not determine, but after we had
passed, something, I cannot tell what, brought back another remembrance,
trivial in itself, but yet a link in the chain that was destined sooner
or later to lead me out of the maze into which I had stumbled. It was
merely this; that as I rode along the streets on that memorable morning,
searching for that mark on the curbstone from which I hoped so much, I
had come upon a spot where the pavement had been freshly washed. With
that unconscious action of the brain with which we are familiar, I
looked at the sidewalk a moment, running even then with the water that
had been cast upon it, and then gave a quick glance at the house. That
glance, account for it as you will, took in the picture before it as the
camera catches the impression of a likeness, and though in another
instant I had forgotten the whole occurrence, it needed but a certain
train of thought or perhaps a certain state of emotion to revive it
again.
A noble cause for such an act of unconscious cerebration you will say, a
freshly washed pavement: _Le jeu ne faut pas la chandelle._ And so I
thought too, or would have thought if I had not been so interested in
the pursuit in which I was engaged, and if the idea had not suggested
itself that water and a broom might obliterate chalk-marks from
curbstones, and that the imps that preside over our mental forces would
not indulge in such a trick at my expense unless the play _was_ worth
the candle. At all events, from the moment I made this discovery, I
fixed my faith on that house as the one which held the object of my
search, and though I contented myself with merely noting the number of
the street as we left it, I none the less determined to pursue my
investigations, till I had learned beyond the possibility of a doubt
whether my conjectures were not true.
A perseverance worthy of a better cause you will say, but you are no
longer twenty-five and under the influence of your first passion. I own
I was astonished at myself and frequently paused in the pursuit I had
undertaken, to ask if I were the same person who but a fortnight before
laughed at the story of a man who had gone mad over the body of an
unknown woman he had saved from a wreck only to find her dead in his
arms.
The first thing I did was to ascertain the name of the gentleman
occupying the house I have specified. It was that of one of our
wealthiest and most respectable bankers, a name as well known in the
city—as your own for instance. This was somewhat disconcerting, but
with a dogged resolution somewhat foreign to my natural disposition, I
persevered in my investigations, and learning in the next breath that
the gentleman alluded to was a widower with an only child, a young
daughter of about sixteen or so, recovered my assurance, though not my
equanimity. Seeking out my friend Farrar, who as you know is a walking
gazette of New York society, I broached the subject of Mr.—excuse me
if I do not mention his name; allow me to say, Preston’s domestic
affairs, and learned that Miss Preston, “A naive little piece for so
great an heiress,” I remember Farrar called her, had left town within a
day or two for a visit to some friends in Baltimore. “I happen to know,”
said he with that careless sweep of his hand at which you have so often
laughed, “because my friend Miss Forsyth met her at the depot. She was
intending to be gone—two weeks, I think she said. Do you know her?”
That last question sprung upon me unawares, and I am afraid I blushed.
“No,” I returned, “I have not that honor but an acquaintance of mine
has—well—has met her and—”
“I see, I see,” broke in Farrar with his most disagreeable smile. Then
with a short laugh, meant to act as a warning, I suppose, added as he
walked off, “I hope your friend is in fair circumstances and not
connected with the fine arts. Music is Mr. Preston’s detestation, while
Miss Preston though too young to be much sought after yet, will in two
years’ time have the pick of the city at her command.”
“So!” thought I to myself; “my little innocent charmer is an embryo
aristocrat, eh? Well then, I was a greater fool than I imagined.” And I
walked out of the hotel where I had met Farrar, with the very sensible
conclusion to drop a subject that promised nothing but disappointment.
But the fates were against me, or the good angels perhaps, and at the
next comer I met an old acquaintance, the very opposite of Farrar in
character, who with a long love story of his own fired, my imagination
to such an extent that in spite of myself I turned down —— Street, and
was proceeding to pass her house, when suddenly the thought struck me,
“How do I know that this unapproachable daughter of one of our most
prominent citizens is one and the same person with my dainty little
charmer? Widowers with young daughters are not so rare in this great
city that I need consider the question as decided, because by a half
superstitious freak of my own I have settled upon this house as the one
I was in the other night. My inamorata may be the offspring of a
musician for all I know.” And inflamed at the thought of this
possibility—I remembered the piano, you see—I gave to the winds all my
fine resolutions and only asked how I could determine for once and all,
whether I had ever crossed the threshold of the house before me. Some
men would have run up the stoop, rung the bell and asked to see Mr.
Preston on some pretended business he could easily conjure up to suit
the occasion, but my face is too well known for me to risk any such
attempt, besides I was too anxious to win the confidence of the young
girl to shock her awakened sense of propriety by seeming to seek her
where she did not wish to be found. And yet I must enter that house and
see for myself if it was the one that held her on that memorable
evening.
Pondering the question, I looked back at the door so obstinately closed
against my curiosity, when to my satisfaction and delight it suddenly
opened and a man stepped out, whom I instantly recognized as a business
agent for one of the largest piano-forte manufactories in the city. “The
heavens smile upon my enterprise,” thought I, and waited for the man to
come up with me. He was not only a friend of mine but largely indebted
to me in various ways, so that I knew I had only to urge a request for
it to be immediately granted, and that, too, without any questions or
gossip.
You will not be interested in anything but the result, which was
somewhat out of the usual course, and may therefore shock you. But you
must remember that I am telling you of matters which young men usually
keep to themselves, and that whatever I did, was accomplished in a
spirit of respect only a shade less constraining in its power than the
love that was at once my impelling force, and my constant embarrassment.
To come, then, to the point, a piano was to be set up in that house on
that very day, Mr. Preston having yielded to the solicitations of his
daughter for a new instrument. My friend was to be engaged in the
transfer, and at my solicitation for leave to assist in the operation,
gave his consent in perfect confidence as to my possessing good and
sufficient reasons for such a remarkable request, and appointed the hour
at which I was to meet him at the ware-rooms.
Behold me, then, at half-past two that afternoon, assisting with my own
hands in carrying a piano up the stoop of that house which, four hours
before, I had regarded as unapproachable. Dressed in a workman’s blouse
and with my hair well roughened under a rude cap that effectually
disguised me, I advanced with but little fear of detection. And yet no
sooner had I entered the house and seen at a glance that the aspect of
the hall coincided with my rather vague remembrance of that through
which I had been ushered a week before, than I was struck by a sudden
sense of my situation, and experiencing that uncomfortable consciousness
of self-betrayal, which a blush always gives a man, stumbled forward
under my heavy burden, feeling as if a thousand eyes were fixed upon me
and my cherished secret, instead of the two sharp but totally
unsuspicious orbs of the elderly matron that surveyed us from the top of
the banisters. “Be careful there, you’ll knock a hole through that glass
door!” though a natural cry under the circumstances, struck on my ears
with the force and mysterious power of a secret warning, and when after
a moment of blind advance I suddenly lifted my eyes and found myself in
the little room, which like a silhouette on a white ground, stood out in
my memory in distinct detail as the spot where I had first heard my own
heart beat, I own that I felt my hands slipping from my burden, and in
another moment had disgraced my character of a workman if I had not
caught the sudden ring of a well known voice in the hall, as nurse
answered from above some question propounded by the elderly lady with
the piercing eyes. As it was, I recovered myself and went through my
duties as promptly and deftly as if my heart did not throb with memories
that each passing hour and event only served to hallow to my
imagination.
At length the piano was duly set up and we turned to leave. Will you
think I am too trivial in my details if I tell you that I lingered
behind the rest and for an instant let my hand with all its
possibilities for calling out a soul from that dead instrument, lie a
moment on the keys over which her dainty fingers were so soon to
traverse?
V.
THE RUBICON.
“I’ll stake my life upon her faith.”—OTHELLO.
Once convinced of the identity of my sweet young friend with the Miss
Preston at whose feet a two year hence, the wealth and aristocracy of
New York would be kneeling, I drew back from further effort as having
received a damper to my presumptuous hopes that would soon effectually
stifle them. Everything I heard about the family—and it seemed as if
suddenly each chance acquaintance that I met had something to say about
Mr. Preston either as a banker or a man, only served to confirm me in
this view. “He is a money worshipper,” said one. “The bluest of blue
Presbyterians,” declared another. “The enemy of presumption and anything
that looks like an overweening confidence in one’s own worth or
capabilities,” remarked a third. “A man who would beggar himself to save
the honor of a corporation with which he was concerned,” observed a
fourth “but who would not invite to his table the most influential man
connected with it if that man was unable to trace his family back to the
old Dutch settlers to which Mr. Preston’s own ancestors belonged.”
This latter statement I have no doubt was exaggerated for I myself have
seen him at dinners where half the gentlemen who lifted the wine glass
were self-made in every sense of the term. But it showed the bent of his
mind and it was a bent that left me entirely out of the sweep of his
acquaintanceship much less that of his exquisite daughter, the pride of
his soul if not the jewel of his heart.
But when will a man who has seen or who flatters himself that he has
seen in the eyes of the woman he admires, the least spark of that fire
which is consuming his own soul, pause at an obstacle which after all
has its basis simply in circumstances of position or will. By the time
the two weeks of her expected absence had expired, I had settled it in
my own mind that I would see her again and if I found the passing
caprice of a child was likely to blossom into the steady regard of a
woman, risk all in the attempt to win by honorable endeavor and
persistence this bud of loveliness for my future wife.
How I finally succeeded by means of my friend Farrar in being one
evening invited to the same house as Miss Preston it is not necessary to
state. You will believe me it was done with the utmost regard for her
feelings and in a way that deceived Farrar himself, who if he is the
most prying is certainly the most volatile of men. In a crowded parlor,
then, in the midst of the flash of diamonds and the flutter of fans Miss
Preston and I again met. When I first saw her she was engaged in
conversation with some young companion, and I had the pleasure of
watching for a few minutes, unobserved, the play of her ingenuous
countenance, as she talked with her friend, or sat silently watching the
brilliant array before her. I found her like and yet unlike the vision
of my dreams. More blithesome in her appearance, as was not strange
considering her party attire and the lustre of the chandelier under
which she sat, there was still that indescribable something in her
expression which more than the flash of her eye or the curve of her lip,
though both were lovely to me, made her face the one woman’s face in the
world for me; a charm which circumstances might alter, or suffering
impair, but of which nothing save death could ever completely divest her
and not death either, for it was the seal of her individuality, and that
she would take with her into the skies.
“If I might but advance and sit down by her side without a word of
explanation or the interference of conventionalities how happy I should
be,” thought I. But I knew that would not do, so I contented myself with
my secret watch over her movements, longing for and yet dreading the
advance of my hostess, with its inevitable introduction. Suddenly the
piano was touched in a distant room and not till I saw the quick change
in her face, a change hard to explain, did I recognize the selection as
one I was in the habit of playing. _She_ had not forgotten at least, and
thrilled by the thought and the remembrance of that surge of color which
had swept like a flood over her cheek, I turned away, feeling as if I
were looking on what it was for no man’s eyes to see, least of all mine.
My hostess’ voice arrested me and next moment I was bowing to the ground
before Miss Preston.
I am not a boy; nor have I been without my experiences: life with its
vicissitudes has taught me many a lesson, subjected me to many a trial,
yet in all my career have I never known a harder moment than when I
raised my eyes to meet hers after that lowly obeisance. That she would
be indignant I knew, that she might even misinterpret my motives and
probably withdraw without giving me an opportunity to speak, I felt to
be only too probable, but that she would betray an agitation so painful
I had not anticipated, and for an instant I felt that I had hazarded my
life’s happiness on a cast that was going against me. But the necessity
of saving her from remark speedily restored me to myself, and following
the line of conduct I had previously laid out, I addressed her with the
reserve of a stranger, and neither by word, look or manner conveyed to
her a suggestion that we had ever met or spoken to each other before.
She seemed to appreciate my consideration and though she was as yet too
much unused to the ways of the world to completely hide her
perturbation, she gradually regained a semblance of self-possession, and
ere long was enabled to return short answers to my remarks, though her
eyes remained studiously turned aside and never so much as ventured to
raise themselves to the passing throng much less to my face, half turned
away also.
Presently however a change passed over her. Pressing her two little
hands together, she drew back a step or two, speaking my name with a
certain tone of command. Struck with apprehension, I knew not why, I
followed her. Instantly like one repeating a lesson she spoke.
“It is very good in you to talk to me as though we were the strangers
that people believe us. I appreciate it and thank you very much. But it
is not being just true; that is I feel as if I were not being just true,
and as we can never be friends, would it not be better for us not to
meet in this way any more?”
“And why,” I gently asked, with a sense of struggling for my life, “can
we never be friends?”
Her answer was a deep blush; not that timid conscious appeal of the
blood that is beating too warmly for reply, but the quick flush of
indignant generosity forced to do despite to its own instincts.
“That is a question I would rather not answer,” she murmured at length.
“Only it is so; or I should not speak in this way.”
“But,” I ventured, resolved to know on just what foundations my
happiness was tottering, “you will at least tell me if this harsh decree
is owing to any offence I myself may have inadvertently given. The honor
of your acquaintance,” I went on, determined she should know just what a
hope she was slaying, “is much too earnestly desired, for me to wilfully
hazard its loss by saying or doing aught that could be in any way
displeasing to you.”
“You have done nothing but what was generous,” said she with increasing
womanliness of manner, “unless it was taking advantage of my being here,
to learn my name and gain an introduction to me after I had desired you
to forget my very existence.”
I recoiled at that, the chord of my self-respect was touched. “It was
not here I learned your name, Miss Preston. It has been known to me for
two weeks. At the risk of losing by your displeasure what is already
hazarded by your prudence, I am bound to acknowledge that from the hour
I left your father’s house that night, I have spared no effort
compatible with my deep respect for your feelings, to ascertain who the
young lady was that had done me such an honor, and won from me such a
deep regard. I had not intended to tell you this,” I added, “but your
truth has awakened mine, and whatever the result may be, you must see me
as I am.”
“You are very kind,” she replied governing with growing skill the
trembling of her voice. “The acquaintance of a girl of sixteen is not
worth so much trouble on the part of a man like yourself.” And blushing
with the vague apprehension of her sex in the presence of a devotion she
rather feels than understands, she waved her trembling little hand and
paused irresolute, seemingly anxious to terminate the interview but as
yet too inexperienced to know how to manage a dismissal requiring so
much tact and judgment.
I saw, comprehended her position and hesitated. She was so young, uncle,
her prospects in life were so bright; if I left her then, in a couple of
weeks she would forget me. What was I that I should throw the shadow of
manhood’s deepest emotion across the paradise of her young untrammelled
being. But the old Adam of selfishness has his say in my soul as well as
in that of my fellow-men, and forgetting myself enough to glance at her
half averted face, I could not remember myself sufficiently afterwards
to forego without a struggle, all hope of some day beholding that soft
cheek turn in confidence at my approach.
“Miss Preston,” said I, “the promise of the bud atones for its folded
leaves.” Then with a fervor I did not seek to disguise, “You say we
cannot be friends; would your decision be the same if this were our
first meeting?”
Again that flush of outraged feeling. “I don’t know—yes I think—I fear
it would.”
I strove to help her. “There is too great a difference between Bertram
Mandeville the pianist, and the daughter of Thaddeus Preston.”
She turned and looked me gently in the eye, she did not need to speak.
Regret, shame, longing flashed in her steady glance.
“Do not answer,” said I, “I understand; I am glad it is circumstances
that stand in the way, and not any misconception on your part as to my
motives and deep consideration for yourself. Circumstances can be
changed.” And satisfied with having thus dropped into the fruitful soil
of that tender breast, the seed of a future hope, I bowed with all the
deference at my command and softly withdrew.
But not to rest. With all the earnestness with which a man sets himself
to decide upon the momentous question of life or death, I gave myself up
to a night of reflection, and seated in my solitary bachelor apartment,
debated with myself as to the resolution at which I had dimly hinted in
my parting words to Miss Preston.
That I am a musician by nature, my success with the the public seems to
indicate. That by following out the line upon which I had entered I
would attain a certain eminence in my art, I do not doubt. But uncle,
there are two kinds of artists in this world; those that work because
the spirit is in them and they cannot be silent if they would, and those
that speak from a conscientious desire to make apparent to others the
beauty that has awakened their own admiration. The first could not give
up his art for any cause, without the sacrifice of his soul’s life; the
latter—well the latter could and still be a man with his whole inner
being intact. Or to speak plainer, the first has no choice, while the
latter has, if he has a will to exert it. Now you will say, and the
world at large, that I belong to the former class. I have risen in ten
years from a choir boy in Trinity Church to a position in the world of
music that insures me a full audience wherever and whenever I have a
mind to exert my skill as a pianist. Not a man of my years has a more
promising outlook in my profession, if you will pardon the seeming
egotism of the remark, and yet by the ease with which I felt I could
give it up at the first touch of a master passion, I know that I am not
a prophet in my art but merely an interpreter, one who can speak well
but who has never felt the descent of the burning tongue and hence not a
sinner against my own soul if I turn aside from the way I am walking.
The question was, then, should I make a choice? Love, as you say, seems
at first blush too insecure a joy, if not often too trivial a one, to
unsettle a man in his career and change the bent of his whole after
life; especially a love born of surprise and fed by the romance of
distance and mystery. Had I met her in ordinary intercourse, surrounded
by her friends and without the charm cast over her by unwonted
circumstances, and then had felt as I did now that of all women I had
seen, she alone would ever move the deep springs of my being, it would
be different. But with this atmosphere of romance surrounding and
hallowing her girl’s form till it seemed almost as ethereal and
unearthly as that of an angel’s, was I safe in risking fame or fortune
in an attempt to acquire what in the possession might prove as bare and
common-place as a sweep of mountain heather stripped of its sunshine.
Curbing every erratic beat of my heart, I summoned up her image as it
bloomed in my fancy, and surveying it with cruel eyes, asked what was
real and what the fruit of my own imagination. The gentle eye, the
trembling lip, the girlish form eloquent with the promise of coming
womanhood,—were these so rare, that beside them no other woman should
seem to glance or smile or move? And her words! what had she said, that
any simple-minded, modest yet loving girl might not have uttered under
the circumstances. Surely my belief in her being the one, the best and
the dearest was a delusion, and to no delusion was I willing to
sacrifice my art. But straight upon that conclusion came sweeping down a
flood of counter-reasons. If not the wonder she seemed, she was at least
a wonder to me. If I had seen her under romantic circumstances, and
unconsciously been influenced by them, the influence had remained and
nothing would ever rob her form of the halo thus acquired. Whether I
ever won her to my fireside or not, she must always remain the fairy
figure of my dreams, and being so, the gentle eye and tender lip
acquired a value that made them what they seemed, the exponent of love
and happiness. And lastly if love well or illy founded was an uncertain
joy, and the passion for a woman a poor substitute for the natural
incentive of talent or ambition, _this_ love had within it the beginning
of something deeper than joy, and in the passion thus cheaply
characterized, dwelt a force and living fire that notwithstanding all I
have hitherto achieved, has ever been lacking from my dreams of
endeavor.
As you will see, the most natural question of all did not disturb me in
these cogitations: And that was, whether in making the sacrifice I
proposed, I should meet with the reward I had promised myself. The
fancies of a young girl of sixteen are not usually of a stable enough
character to warrant a man in building upon them his whole future
happiness, especially a young girl situated like Miss Preston in the
midst of friends who would soon be admirers, and adulators who would
soon be her humble slaves. But the doubt which a serious contemplation
of this risk must have presented, was of so unnerving a character, I
dared not admit it. _If_ I made the sacrifice, I must meet with my
reward. I would listen to no other conclusion. Besides, something in the
young girl herself, I cannot tell what, assured me then as it assures me
now, that whatever virtues or graces she might lack, that of fidelity to
a noble idea was not among them; that once convinced of the purity and
value of the flame that had been lit in her innocent breast, nothing
short of the unworthiness of the object that had awakened it, would ever
serve to eliminate or extinguish it. That I was not worthy but would
make it the business of my life to become so, was certain; that she
would mark my endeavors and bestow upon me the sympathy they deserved, I
was equally sure. No one would ever make such a sacrifice to her love as
I was willing to do, and consequently in no one would I find a rival.
The morning light surprised me in the midst of the struggle, nor did I
decide the question that day. Mr. Preston might not be as determined in
his prejudices against musicians as my friends or even his daughter had
imagined. I resolved to see him. Taking advantage of his connection with
the —— Club, I procured an introducer in the shape of a highly
respected person of his own class, and went one evening to the
Club-rooms with the full intention of making his acquaintance if
possible. He was already there and in conversation with some business
associates. Procuring a seat as near him as possible, I anxiously
surveyed his countenance. It was not a reassuring one, and studied in
this way, had the effect of dampening any hopes I may have cherished in
the outset. He soften to the sounds of sweet strains or the voice of
youthful passion! As soon as the granite rock to the surge of the
useless billow. His very necktie spoke volumes. It was an old fashioned
stock, full of the traditions of other days, while his coat, shabbier
than any I would presume to wear, betrayed in every well-worn seam the
pride of the aristocrat and millionaire who in his native city and
before the eyes of his fellow magnates does not need to carry the
evidences of his respectability upon his back.
“It would be worse than folly for me to approach him on such a subject,”
I mentally ejaculated. “If he did not stare the musician out of
countenance he would the newly risen man.” And I came very near giving
up the whole thing.
But the genius that watches over the affairs of true love was with me
notwithstanding the unpropitious state of my surroundings. In a few
minutes I received my expected introduction to Mr. Preston, and I found
that underneath the repelling austerity of his expression, was a kindly
spark for youth, and a decided sympathy for all instances of manly
endeavor if only it was in a direction he approved; further that my own
personality was agreeable to him and that he was disposed to regard me
with favor until by some chance and very natural allusion to my
profession by the friend standing between us, he learned that I was a
musician, when a decided change came over his countenance and he
exclaimed in that blunt, decisive way of his that admits of no reply:
“A jingler on the piano, eh? Pretty poor use for a man to put his brains
to, I say, or even his fingers. Sorry to hear we cannot be friends.” And
without waiting for a reply, took my introducer by the arm and drew him
a step or so to one side. “Why didn’t you say at once he was Mandeville
the musician,” I overheard him ask in somewhat querulous tones. “Don’t
you know I consider the whole race of them an abomination. I would have
more respect for my bank clerk than I would for the greatest man of them
all, were it Rubenstein himself.” Then in a lower tone but distinctly
and almost as if he meant me to hear, “My daughter has a leaning towards
this same fol-de-rol and has lately requested my permission to make the
acquaintance of some musical characters, but I soon convinced her that
manhood under the disguise of a harlequin’s jacket could have no
interest for her; that when a human being, man or woman has sunk to be a
mere rattler of sweet sounds, he has reached a stage of infantile
development that has little in common with the nervous energy and
business force of her Dutch ancestry. And my daughter stoops to make no
acquaintances she cannot bid sit at her father’s table.”
“Your daughter is a child yet, I thought,” was ventured by his
companion.
“Miss Preston is sixteen, just the age at which my mother gave her hand
to my respected father sixty-seven years ago.” And with this drop of
burning lead let fall into my already agitated bosom they passed on.
He would have more respect for his bank clerk! Would his bank clerk or
what was better, a young man with means at his command, working in a
business capacity more in consonance with the tastes he had evinced,
have a chance of winning his daughter? I began to think he might. “The
way grows clearer!” I exclaimed.
But it was not till after another interview with him ten minutes later
in the lobby that I finally made up my mind. He was standing quite alone
in an obscure corner, fumbling in an awkward way with his muffler that
had caught on the button of his coat. Seeing it, I hastened forward to
his assistance and was rewarded by a kind enough nod to embolden me to
say,
“I have been introduced to you as a musician; would my acquaintance be
more acceptable to you if I told you that the pursuit of art bids fair
in my case to yield to the exigencies of business? That I purpose
leaving the concert-room for the banker’s office and that henceforth my
only ambition promises to be that of Wall Street?”
“It most certainly would,” exclaimed he, holding out his hand with an
unmistakable gesture of satisfaction. “You have too good a countenance
to waste before a piano-top strumming to the smirks of women and the
plaudits of weak-headed men. Let us see you at the desk, my lad. We are
in want of trustworthy young men to take the place of us older ones.”
Then politely, “Do you expect to make the change soon?”
“I do,” said I.
And the Rubicon was passed.
VI.
A HAND CLASP.
“_Fer._—Here’s my hand.
_Mir._—And mine with my heart in it.”
—TEMPEST.
Once arrived at a settled conclusion, I put every thought of wavering
out of my mind. Deciding that with such a friend in business circles as
yourself, I needed no other introducer to my new life, I set apart this
evening for a confab with you on the subject. Meanwhile it is pretty
generally known that I make no more engagements to appear through the
country.
I have but one more incident to relate. Last Sunday in walking down
Fifth Avenue I met her. I did not do this inadvertently. I knew her
custom of attending Bible class and for once put myself in her way. I
did not give her time to remonstrate.
“Do not express your displeasure,” said I, “this shall never be
repeated. I merely wish to say that I have concluded to leave a
profession so little appreciated by those whose esteem I most desire to
possess; that I am about entering a banker’s office where it shall be my
ambition to rise if possible, to wealth and consequence. If I
succeed—you shall then know what my incentive has been. But till I
succeed or at least give such tokens of success as shall insure respect,
silence must be my portion and patience my sole support. Only of one
thing rest assured, that until I inform you with my own lips that the
hope which now illumines me is gone, it will continue to burn on in my
breast, shedding light upon a way that can never seem dark while that
glow rests upon it.” And bowing with the ceremonious politeness our
positions demanded, I held out my hand. “One clasp to encourage me,” I
entreated.
It seemed as if she did not comprehend. “You are going to give up music,
and for—for—”
“You?” said I. “Yes, don’t forbid me,” I implored; “it is too late.”
Like a lovely image of blushing girlhood turned by a lightning flash
into marble, she paused, pallid and breathless where she was, gazing
upon me with eyes that burned deeper and deeper as the full
comprehension of all that this implied gradually forced itself upon her
mind.
“You make a chaos of my little world,” she murmured at length.
“No,” said I, “_your_ world is untouched. If it should never be my good
fortune to enter it, you are not to grieve. You are free, Miss Preston,
free as this sunshiny air we breathe; I alone am bound, and that because
I must be whether I will or no.”
Then I saw the woman I had worshipped in this young fair girl shine
fully and fairly upon me. Drawing herself up, she looked me in the face
and calmly laid her hand in mine. “I am young,” said she, “and do not
know what may be right to say to one so generous and so kind. But this
much I can promise, that whether or not I am ever able to duly reward
you for what you undertake, I will at least make it the study of my life
never to prove unworthy of so much trust and devotion.”
And with the last lingering look natural to a parting for years, we
separated then and there, and the crowd came between us, and the Sunday
bells rang on, and what was so vividly real to us at the moment, became
in remembrance more like the mist and shadow of a dream.
VII.
MRS. SYLVESTER.
Love is more pleasant than marriage, for the same reason that
romances are more amusing than history.
—CHAMFORT.
“He draweth out the thread of his verbosity, finer than the
staple of his argument.”
—LOVES LABOR LOST.
Young Mandeville having finished his story, looked at his uncle. He
found him sitting in an attitude of extreme absorption, his right arm
stretched before him on the table, his face bent thoughtfully downwards
and clouded with that deep melancholy that seemed its most natural
expression, “He has not heard me,” was the young man’s first mortifying
reflection. But catching his uncle’s eye which at that moment raised
itself, he perceived he was mistaken and that he had rather been
listened to only too well.
“You must forgive me if I have seemed to rhapsodize,” the young man
stammered. “You were so quiet I half forgot I had a listener and went on
much as I would if I had been thinking aloud.”
His uncle smiled and throwing off the weight of his reflections whatever
they might be, arose and began pacing the floor. “I see you are past
surgery,” quoth he, “any wisdom of mine would be only thrown away.”
Young Mandeville was hurt. He had expected some token of approval on his
uncle’s part, or at least some betrayal of sympathy. His looks expressed
his disappointment.
“You expected to convert me by this story,” continued the elder, pausing
with a certain regret before his nephew; “nothing could convert me
but—”
“What?” inquired Mandeville after waiting in vain for the other to
finish.
“Something which we will never find in the whirl of New York fashionable
life. A woman with faith to reward and soul to understand such
unqualified trust as yours.”
“But I believe Miss Preston is such a girl and will be such a woman. Her
looks, her last words prove it.”
“Nothing proves it but time and as for your belief, I have believed
too.” Then as if fearing he had said too much, assumed his most
business-like tone and observed, “But we will drop all that; you have
resolved to quit music and enter Wall Street, your object money and the
social consideration which money secures. Now, why Wall Street?”
“Because I can think of no other means for attaining what I desire, in
the space of time I would consent to keep a young lady of Miss Preston’s
position waiting.”
“Humph! and you have money, I suppose, which you propose to risk on the
hazard?”
“Some! enough to start with; a small amount to you, but sufficient if I
am fortunate.”
“And if you are not?”
The young man opened his arms with an expressive gesture, “I am done
for, that is all.”
“Bertram,” his uncle exclaimed with a change of tone, “has it ever
struck you that Mr. Preston might have as strong a prejudice against
speculation as against the musical profession?”
“No, that is, pardon me but I have sometimes thought that even in the
event of success I should have to struggle against his inherited
instincts of caste and his natural dislike of all things new, even
wealth, but I never thought of the possibility of my arousing his
distrust by speculating in stocks and engaging in enterprises so nearly
in accord with his own business operations.”
“Yet if I guess aright you would run greater risk of losing the support
of his countenance by following the hazardous course you propose, than
if you continued in the line of art that now engages you.”
“Do you know—”
“I know nothing, but I fear the chances, Bertram.”
“Then I am already defeated and must give up my hopes of happiness.”
A smile thin and indefinable crossed the other’s face. “No,” said he,
“not necessarily.” And sitting down by his nephew’s side, he asked if he
had any objections to enter a bank. “In a good capacity,” he exclaimed.
“No indeed; it would be an opportunity surpassing my hopes. Do you know
of an opening?”
“Well,” said he, “under the circumstances I will let you into the secret
of my own affairs. I have always had one ambition, and that was to be at
the head of a bank. I have not said much about it, but for the last five
years I have been working to this end, and to-day you see me the
possessor of at least three-fourths of the stock of the Madison Bank. It
has been deteriorating for some time, consequently I was enabled to buy
it low, but now that I have got it I intend to build up the concern. I
am able to throw business of an important nature in its way, and I dare
prophesy that before the year is out you will see it re-established upon
a solid and influential footing.”
“I have no doubt of it, sir; you have the knack of success, any thing
that you touch is sure to go straight.”
“Unhappily yes, as far as business operations go. But no matter about
that;—” as if the other had introduced some topic incongruous to the
one they were considering—“the point is this. In two weeks time I shall
be elected President of the Bank; if you will accept the position of
assistant cashier,—the best I can offer in consideration of your total
ignorance of all details of the business,—it is open to you—”
“Uncle! how generous! I—”
“Hush! your duties will be nominal, the present cashier is fully
competent; but the leisure thus afforded will offer you abundant
opportunity to make yourself acquainted with all matters connected with
the banking system as well as with such capitalists as it would be well
for you to know. So that when the occasion comes, I can raise you to the
cashier’s place or make such other disposal of your talents as will best
insure your rapid advance.”
The young man’s eyes sparkled; with a sudden impetuous movement he
jumped to his feet and grasped his uncle’s hand. “I can never thank you
enough; you have made me your debtor for life. Now let any one ask me
who is my father, and I will say—”
“He was Edward Sylvester’s brother. But come, come, this extreme
gratitude is unnecessary. You have always been a favorite with me,
Bertram, and now that I have no child, you seem doubly near; it is my
pleasure to do what I can for you. But—” and here he surveyed him with
a wistful look, “I wish you were entering into this new line from love
of the business rather than love of a woman. I fear for you my boy. It
is an awful thing to stake one’s future upon a single chance and that
chance a woman’s faith. If she should fail you after you had compassed
your fortune, should die—well you could bear that perhaps; but if she
turned false, and married some one else, or even married you and then—”
“What?” came in silvery accents from the door, and a woman richly clad,
her trailing velvets filling the air at once with an oppressive perfume,
entered the room and paused before them in an attitude meant to be arch,
but which from the massiveness of her figure and the scornful carriage
of her head, succeeded in being simply imperious.
Mr. Sylvester rose abruptly as if unpleasantly surprised. “Ona!” he
exclaimed, hastening, however, to cover his embarassment by a courteous
acknowledgement of her presence and a careless remark concerning the
shortness of the services that had allowed her to return from church so
early. “I did not hear you come in,” he observed.
“No, I judge not,” she returned with a side glance at Mandeville. “But
the services were not short, on the contrary I thought I should never
hear the last amen. Mr. Turner’s voice is very agreeable,” she went on,
in a rambling manner all her own, “it never interferes with your
thoughts; not that I am considered as having any,” she interjected with
another glance at their silent guest, “a woman in society with a
reputation for taste in all matters connected with fashionable living,
has no thoughts of course; business men with only one idea in their
heads, that of making money, have more no doubt. Do you know, Edward,”
she went on with sudden inconsequence, which was another trait of this
amiable lady’s conversation, “that I have quite come to a conclusion in
regard to the girl Philip Longtree is going to marry; she may be pretty,
but she does not know how to dress. I wish you could have seen her
to-night; she had on mauve with old gold trimmings. Now with one of her
complexion—But I forget you haven’t seen her. Bertram, I think I shall
give a German next month, will you come? Oh, Edward!” as if the thought
had suddenly struck her, “Princess Louise _is_ the sixth child of Queen
Victoria; I asked Mr. Turner to-night. By the way, I wonder if it will
be pleasant enough to take the horses out to-morrow? Bird has been
obliging enough to get sick just in the height of the season, Mr.
Mandeville. There are a thousand things I have got to do and I hate
hired horses.” And with a petulant sigh she laid her prayer-book on the
table and with a glance in the mirror near by, began pulling off her
gloves in the slow and graceful fashion eminently in keeping with her
every movement.
It was as if an atmosphere of worldliness had settled down upon this
room sanctified a moment before by the utterances of a pure and noble
love. Mr. Sylvester looked uneasy, while Bertram searched in vain for
something to say.
“I seem to have brought a blight,” she suddenly murmured in an easy tone
somewhat at variance with the glance of half veiled suspicion which she
darted from under her heavy lids, at first one and then the other of the
two gentlemen before her. “No, I will not sit,” she added as her husband
offered her a chair. “I am tired almost to death and would retire
immediately, but I interrupted you I believe in the utterance of some
wise saying about matrimony. It is an interesting subject and I have a
notion to hear what one so well qualified to speak in regard to it—”
and here she made a slow, half lazy courtesy to her husband with a look
that might mean anything from coquetry to defiance—“has to say to a
young man like Mr. Mandeville.”
Edward Sylvester who was regarded as an autocrat among men, and who
certainly was an acknowledged leader in any company he chose to enter,
bowed his head before this anomalous glance with a gesture of something
like submission.
“One is not called upon to repeat every inadvertent phrase he may
utter,” said he. “Bertram was consulting me upon certain topics and—”
“You answered him in your own brilliant style,” she concluded. “What did
you say?” she asked in another moment in a low unmoved tone which the
final act of smoothing out her gloves on the table with hands delicate
as white rose leaves but firm as marble, did not either hasten or
retard.
“Oh if you insist,” he returned lightly, “and are willing to bear the
reflection my unfortunate remark seems to cast upon the sex, I was
merely observing to my nephew, that the man who centered all his hopes
upon a woman’s faith, was liable to disappointment. Even if he succeeded
in marrying her there were still possibilities of his repenting any
great sacrifice made in her behalf.”
“Indeed!” and for once the delicate cheek flushed deeper than its rouge.
“And why do you say this?” she inquired, dropping her coquettish manner
and flashing upon them both, the haughty and implacable woman Bertram
had always believed her to be, notwithstanding her vagaries and fashion.
“Because I have seen much of life outside my own house,” her husband
replied with undiminished courtesy; “and feel bound to warn any young
man of his probable fate, who thinks to find nothing but roses and
felicity beyond the gates of fashionable marriage.”
“Ah then, it was on general principles you were speaking,” she remarked
with a soft laugh that undulated through an atmosphere suddenly grown
too heavy for easy breathing. “I did not know; wives are so little apt
to be appreciated in this world, Mr. Mandeville, I was afraid he might
be giving you some homely advice founded upon personal experience.” And
she moved towards their guest with that strange smile of hers which some
called dangerous but which he had always regarded as oppressive.
She saw him drop his eyes, and smiled again, but in a different way.
This woman, whom no one accused of anything worse than levity, hailed
every tribute to her power, as a miser greets the glint of gold. With a
turn of her large but elegant figure that in its slow swaying reminded
you of some heavy tropical flower, hanging inert, intoxicated with its
own fragrance, she dismissed at once the topic that had engaged them,
and launched into one of her choicest streams of inconsequent talk. But
Mandeville was in no mood to listen to trivialities, and being of a
somewhat impatient nature, presently rose and excusing himself, took a
hurried leave. Not so hurried however that he did not have time to
murmur to his uncle as they walked towards the door:
“You would make comparison between the girl I worship and other women in
fashionable life. Do not I pray; she is no more like them than a star
that shines is like a rose that blooms. My fate will not be like that of
most men that we know, but better and higher.”
And his uncle standing there in the grand hall-way, with the fresh
splendors of unlimited wealth gleaming upon him from every side, looked
after the young man with a sigh and repeated, “Better and higher? God in
his merciful goodness grant it.”
VIII.
SHADOWS OF THE PAST.
“Memory, the warder of the brain.”—MACBETH.
It was long past midnight. The fire in the grate burned dimly, shedding
its lingering glow on the face of the master of the house as with bowed
head and folded hands he sat alone and brooding before its dying embers.
It was a lonesome sight. The very magnificence of the spacious apartment
with its lofty walls and glittering works of art, seemed to give an air
of remoteness to that solitary form, bending beneath the weight of its
reflections. From the exquisitely decorated ceiling to the turkish rugs
scattered over the polished floor, all was elegant and luxurious, and
what had splendors like these to do with thoughts that bent the brows
and overshadowed the lips of man? The very lights burned deprecatingly,
illuminating beauties upon which no eye gazed and for which no heart
beat. The master himself seemed to feel this, for he presently rose and
put them out, after which he seated himself as before, only if possible
with more abandon, as if with the extinguishing of the light some eye
had been shut whose gaze he had hitherto feared. And in truth my lady’s
image shone fainter from its heavy panel, and the smile which had met
with unrelenting sweetness the glare of the surrounding splendor,
softened in the mellow glimmer of the fire-light to an etherial halo
that left you at rest.
_One, two_, THREE, the small clock sounded from the mantel and yet no
stir took place in the sombre figure keeping watch beneath. What were
the thoughts which could thus detain from his comfortable bed a man
already tired with manifold cares? It would be hard to tell. The waters
that gush at the touch of the diviner’s rod are tumultuous in their flow
and rush hither and thither with little heed to the restraining force of
rule and reason. But of the pictures that rose before his eyes in those
dying embers, there were two which stood out in startling distinctness.
Let us see if we can convey the impression of them to other eyes and
hearts.
First, the form of his mother. Ah grey-bearded men weighted with the
cares of life and absorbed in the monotonous round of duties that to you
are the be all and end all of existence, to whom morning means a
jostling ride to the bank, the store or the office, and with whom night
is but the name for a worse unrest because of its unfulfilled promises
of slumber, what soul amongst you all is so callous to the holy memories
of childhood, as not to thrill with something of the old time feeling of
love and longing as the memory of that tender face with its watchful eye
and ready smiles, comes back to you from the midst of weary years! Your
mother!
But Edward Sylvester with that black line across his life cutting past
from present, what makes him think of his mother to-night; and the
cottage door upon the hillside where she used to stand with eager eyes
looking up and down the road as he came trudging home from school,
swinging his satchel and shouting at every squirrel that started across
the road or peeped from the branches of the grand old maples overhead!
And the garret-chamber under the roof, the scene of many a romp with
Elsie and Sonsie and Jack, neighbors’ children to whom the man of to-day
would be an awe and a mystery! And the little room where he slept with
Tom his own blue-eyed brother so soon to die of a wasting disease, but
full of warm blood then and all alive with boyish pranks. He could
almost hear the wild clear laugh with which the mischievous fellow
started upon its travels, the rooster whose legs he had tied a short
space apart with one of Sonsie’s faded ribbons, a laugh that became
unrestrained when the poor creature in attempting to run down hill,
rolled over and over, cutting such a figure before his late admirers,
the hens, that even Elsie smiled in the midst of her gentle entreaties.
And Jocko the crow, whom taming had made one of the boys! poor Jocko! is
it nearly thirty years since you used to stalk in majesty through the
village streets, with your neat raven coat closely buttoned across your
breast and your genteel caw, caw, and condescending nod for old
acquaintances? The day seems but as yesterday when you marred the stolen
picnic up in the woods by flying off with a flock of your fellow
black-coats, nor is it easy to realize that the circle of tow-headed
fellows who hailed with shouts your ignominious return after a day or
so’s experience of the vaunted pleasures of freedom, are now sharp
featured men without a smile for youth or a thought beyond the hard cold
dollar buried deep in their pockets.
And the church up over the hills! and the long Sunday walk at mother’s
side with the sunshine glowing on the dusty road and beating on the
river flowing far beyond! The same road, the same river of Monday and
Tuesday but how different it looked to the boy; almost like another
scene, as if Sunday clothes were on the world as well as upon his
restless little limbs. How he longed for it to be Monday though he did
not say so; and what a different day Saturday would have been if only
there was no long, sleepy Sunday to follow it.
But the mother! She did not dread that day. Her eyes used to brighten
when the bell began to ring from the old church steeple. Her eyes! how
they mingled with every picture! They seemed to fill the night. What a
sparkle they had, yet how they used to soften at his few hurried
caresses. He was always too busy for kisses; there were the snares in
the north woods to be looked after; the nest in the apple-tree to be
inquired into; the skates to be ground before the river froze over; the
nuts to be gathered and stored in that same old garret chamber under the
eaves. But now how vividly her least look comes back to the tired man,
from the glance of wistful sympathy with which she met his childish
disappointments to the flash of joy that hailed his equally childish
delights.
And another scene there is in the embers to-night; a remembrance of
later days when the mother with her love and yearning was laid low in
the grave, and manhood had learned its first lessons of passion and
ambition from the glance of younger eyes and the smile of riper lips.
Not the picture of a woman, however; that was already present beside
him, shining from its panel with an insistence that not even the putting
out of the lights could quite quench or subdue, but of a child young,
pure and beautiful, sitting by the river in the glow of a June sunshine,
gazing at the hills of his boyhood’s home with a look on her face such
as he had never before seen on that of child or woman. A simple picture
with a simple villager’s daughter for its centre, but as he mused upon
it to-night, the success and triumph of the last ten years faded from
his sight like the ashes that fell at his feet, and he found himself
questioning in vain as to what better thing he had met in all the walks
of his busy life than that young child’s innocence and faith as they
shone upon him that day from her soft uplifted eyes.
He had been sitting the whole warm noontide at the side of her whose
half gracious, half scornful, wholly indolent acceptance of his homage,
he called love, and enervated by an atmosphere he was as yet too
inexperienced to recognize as of the world, worldly, had strolled forth
to cool his fevered brow in the fresh autumn breeze that blew up from
the river. He was a gay-hearted youth in those days, heedless of
everything but the passing moment; nature meant little to him; and when
in the course of his ramble he came upon the form of a child sitting on
the edge of the river, he remembers wondering what she saw in a sweep of
empty water to interest her so deeply. Indeed he was about to inquire
when she turned and he caught a glimpse of her eyes and knew at once
without asking. Yet in those days he was anything but quick to recognize
the presence of feeling. A face was beautiful or plain to him, not
eloquent or expressive. But this child’s countenance was exceptional. It
made you forget the cotton frock she wore, it made you forget yourself.
As he gazed on it, he felt the stir of something in his breast he had
never known before, and half dreaded to hear her speak lest the charm
should fail or the influence be lost. Yet how could he pass on and not
speak. Laying his hand on her head, he asked her what she was thinking
of as she sat there all alone looking off on the river; and the wee
thing drew in her breath and surveyed him with all her soul in her great
black eyes before she replied, “I do not know, I never know.” Then
looking back she dreamily added, “It makes me want to go away, miles
away,”—and she held out her tiny arms towards the river with a longing
gesture; “and it makes me want to cry.”
And he understood or thought he did and for the first time in his life
looked upon the river that had met his gaze from childhood, with eyes
that saw its exceeding beauty. Ah it was an exquisite scene, a rare
scene, mountain melting into mountain and meadow vanishing into meadow,
till the flow of silver waters was lost in a horizon of azure mist. No
wonder that a child without snares to set or nuts to gather, should
pause a moment to gaze upon it, as even he in the days gone by would
sometimes stop on Sabbath eves to snatch a kiss from his mother’s lips.
“It is like a fairy land, is it not?” quoth the child looking up into
his face with a wistful glance. “Do you know what it is that makes me
feel so?”
He smiled and sat down by her side. Somehow he felt as if a talk with
this innocent one would restore him more than a walk on the hills. “It
is the spirit of beauty, my child, you are moved by the loveliness of
the scene; is it a new one to you?”
“No, oh no, but I always feel the same. As if something here was hungry,
don’t you know?” and she laid her little hand on her breast.
He did not know, but he smiled upon her notwithstanding, and made her
talk and talk till the gush of the sweet child spirit with its hidden
longings and but half understood aspirations, bathed his whole being in
a reviving shower, and he felt as if he had wandered into a new world
where the languors of the tropics were unknown, and passion, if there
was such, had the wings of an eagle instead of the siren’s voice and
fascination.
Her name was Paula, she said, and before leaving he found that she was a
relative of the woman he loved. This was a slight shock to him. The lily
and the cactus abloom on one stalk! How could that be? and for a moment
he felt as if the splendors of the glorious woman paled before the
lustre of the innocent child. But the feeling, if it was strong enough
to be called such, soon passed. As the days swept by bringing evenings
with light and music and whispered words beneath the vine-leaves, the
remembrance of the pure, sweet hour beside the river, gradually faded
till only a vague memory of that gentle uplifted face sweet with its
childish dimples, remained to hallow now and then a passing reverie or a
fevered dream.
But to-night its every lineament filled his soul, vying with the
memories of his mother in its vividness and power. O why had he not
learned the lesson it taught. Why had he turned his back upon the high
things of life to yield himself to a current that swept him on and on
until the power of resistance left him and—O dwell not here wild
thoughts! Pause not on the threshold of the one dark memory that blasts
the soul and sears the heart in the secret hours of night. Let the dead
past bury its dead and if one must think, let it be of the hope, which
the remembrance of that short glimpse into a pure if infantile soul has
given to his long darkened spirit.
One, two, three, FOUR; and the fire is dead and the night has grown
chill, but he heeds it not. He has asked himself if his life’s book is
quite closed to the higher joys of existence? whether money getting and
money holding is to absorb him body and soul forever; and with the
question a great yearning seizes him to look upon that sweet child
again, if haply in the gleam of her pure spirit, something of the noble
and the pure that lay beneath the crust of life might be again revealed
to his longing sight.
“She must be a great girl now,” murmured he to himself, “as old as if
not older than she whom Bertram adores so passionately, but she will
always be a child to me, a sweet pure child whose innocence is my
teacher and whose ignorance is my better wisdom. If anything will save
me—”
But here the shadow settled again; when it lifted, the morning ray lay
cool and ghostly over the hearthstone.
IX.
PAULA.
“The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.”
—WORDSWORTH.
A wintry scene. Snow-piled hills stretching beyond a frozen river. On
the bank a solitary figure tall, dark and commanding, standing with eyes
bent sadly on a long narrow mound at his feet. It is Edward Sylvester
and the mound is the grave of his mother.
It is ten years since he stood upon that spot. In all that time no
memories of his childhood’s home, no recollection of that lonely grave
among the pines, had been sufficient to allure him from the city and its
busy round of daily cares. Indeed he had always shrunk at the very name
of the place and never of his own will alluded to it, but the reveries
of a night had awakened a longing that was not to be appeased, and in
the face of his wife’s cold look of astonishment and a secret dread in
his own heart, had left his comfortable fireside, for the scenes of his
early life and marriage, and was now standing, in the bleak December
air, gazing down upon the stone that marked his mother’s grave.
But tender as were the chords that reverberated at this sight, it was
not to revisit this tomb he had returned to Grotewell. No, that other
vision, the vision of young sweet appreciative life has drawn him more
strongly than the memory of the dead. It was to search out and gaze
again upon the innocent girl, whose eloquent eyes and lofty spirit had
so deeply moved him in the past, that he had braved the chill of the
Connecticut hills and incurred the displeasure of his wife.
Yet when he turned away from that simple headstone and set his face
towards the village streets it was with a sinking of the heart that
first revealed to him the severity of the ordeal to which he had thus
wantonly subjected himself. Not that the wintry trees and snow covered
roofs appealed to him as strongly as the same trees and homes would have
done in their summer aspect. The land was bright with verdure when that
shadow fell whose gloom resting upon all the landscape, made a walk down
this quiet road even at this remote day, a matter of such pain to him.
But scenes that have caught the reflection of a life’s joy or a heart’s
sorrow, lose not their power of appeal, with the leaves they shake from
their trees, and nothing that had met the eyes of this man from the hour
he left this spot, no, not the glance of his wife as his child fell back
dead in his arms, had shot such a pang to his soul as the sight of that
long street with its array of quiet homes, stretching out before him
into the dim grey distance.
But for all that he was determined to traverse it, ay to the very end,
though his steps must pass the house whose ghostly portals were fraught
with memories dismal as death to him. On then he proceeded, walking with
his usual steady pace that only faltered or broke, as he met the shy
eyes of some hurrying village maiden, speeding upon some errand down the
snowy street, or encountered some old friend of his youth who despite
his altered mien and commanding carriage, recognized in him the slim
young bank cashier who had left them now ten long years ago to make a
name and fortune in the great city.
It was noon by the time he gained the heart of the village, and school
was out and the children came rushing by with just the same shout and
scamper with which he used to hail that hour of joyous release. How it
carried him back to the days when those four red walls towered upon him
with awful significance, as with books on his back and a half eaten
apple in his pocket he crept up the walk, conscious that the bell had
rung its last shrill note a good half hour before. He felt half tempted
to stop and make his way through the crowd of shouting boys and dancing
girls to that same old door again, and see for himself if the huge LATE
which in a fit of childish revenge he had cut on its awkward panels, was
still there to meet the eyes of tardy boys and loitering girls. But the
wondering looks of the children unused to behold a figure so stately in
their simple streets deterred him and he passed thoughtfully on. So
engrossed was he by the reminiscences of Tom and Elsie which the school
house had awakened, that he passed the ominous mansion which had been
his dread, and the bank where he had worked, and the arbor by the side
of the road where he had sat out the first hours of his fatal courtship,
almost without realizing their presence, and was at the end of the
street and in full view of the humble cottage which the little Paula had
pointed out as her home on that day of their first acquaintance.
“Good heaven! and I do not even know if she is alive,” he suddenly
ejaculated, stopping where he was and eying the lowly walls before him
with a quick realization of the possibilities of a great disappointment.
“Ten years have strown many a grave on the hillside and Ona would not
mention it if she lost every relative she had in this town. What a fool
I have been,” thought he.
But with the stern resolution which had carried him through many a
difficulty, he prepared to advance, when he was again arrested by seeing
the door of the house he was contemplating, suddenly open and a girlish
figure issue forth. Could it be Paula? With eager, almost feverish
interest he watched her approach. She was a slight young thing and came
towards him with a rapid movement almost jaunty in its freedom. If it
were Paula, he would know her by her eyes, but for some reason he hoped
it was not she, not the child of his dreams.
At a yard or two in front of him she paused astonished. This grave, tall
figure with the melancholy brow, deep eyes and firmly compressed lips
was an unaccustomed sight in this primitive town. Scarcely realizing
what she did she gave a little courtesy and was proceeding on when he
stopped her with a hurried gesture.
“Is Mrs. Fairchild still living?” he asked, indicating the house she had
just left.
“Mrs. Fairchild? O no,” she returned, surveying him out of the corner of
a very roguish pair of brown eyes, with a certain sly wonder at the
suspense in his voice. “She has been dead as long as I can remember. Old
Miss Abby and her sister live there now.”
“And who are they?” he hurriedly asked; he could not bring himself to
mention Paula’s name.
“Why, Miss Abby and Miss Belinda,” she returned with a puzzled air.
“Miss Abby sews and Miss Belinda teaches the school. I don’t know
anything more about them, sir.”
The courteous gentleman bowed. “And they live there quite alone?”
“O no sir, Paula lives with them.”
“Ah, she does;” and the young girl looking at him could not detect the
slightest change in his haughty countenance. “Paula is Mrs. Fairchild’s
daughter.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you,” said he, and allowed the pretty brown-eyed miss to pass on,
which she did with lingering footsteps and many a backward glance of the
eye.
Halting at the door of that small cottage, Edward Sylvester reasoned
with himself.
“She may be just such another fresh-looking, round-faced,
mischievous-eyed school-girl. Spiritual children do not always make
earnest-souled women. Let me beware what hopes I build on a foundation
so unsubstantial.” Yet when in a moment later the door opened and a
weazen-faced dapper, little woman appeared, all smiles and welcome, he
owned to a sensation of dismay that sufficiently convinced him what a
hold this hope of meeting with something exceptionally sweet and high,
had taken upon his hitherto careless and worldly spirit.
“Mr. Sylvester I am sure! I thought Ona would remember us after a while.
Come in sir, do, my sister will be home in a few moments.” And with a
deprecatory flutter comical enough in a woman at least seventy odd years
old, she led her distinguished guest into a large unused room where in
spite of his remonstrances she at once proceeded to build a fire.
“It is a pleasure sir,” she said to every utterance of regret on his
part at the trouble he was causing. And though her vocabulary was thus
made to appear somewhat small, her sincerity was undoubted. “We have
counted the days, Belinda and I, since we sent the last letter. It may
seem foolish to you, sir; but Paula is growing so fast and Belinda says
is so uncommon smart for her age that we did think that it was time Ona
knew just what a straight we were in. Do you want to see Paula?”
“Very much,” he returned, shocked and embarrassed at the position in
which he found himself put by the reticence of his wife on the subject
of her relations. “They think I have come in reply to a letter,” he
mused, “and I did not even know my wife had received one.”
“You will be surprised,” she exclaimed with a complacent nod as the fire
blazed up brightly; “every one is surprised who sees her for the first
time. Is my niece well?” And thus it was he learned the relation between
his wife of ten years and these simple inhabitants of the little cottage
in Grotewell.
He replied as in duty bound, and presently by the use of a few dexterous
questions succeeded in eliciting from this simple-minded old lady, the
few facts necessary to a proper understanding of the situation. Miss
Abby and Miss Belinda were two maiden ladies, sisters of Mrs. Fairchild
and Ona’s mother, who on the death of the former took up their abode in
the little cottage for the purpose of bringing up the orphan Paula. They
had succeeded in this by dint of the utmost industry, but Paula was not
a common child, and Belinda, who was evidently the autocrat of the
house, had decided that she ought to have other advantages. She had
therefore written to Mrs. Sylvester concerning the child, in the hopes
that that lady would take enough interest in her pretty little cousin to
send her to boarding-school; but they had received no reply till now,
all of which was perfectly right of course, Mrs. Sylvester being
undoubtedly occupied and Mr. Sylvester himself being better than any
letter.
“And does Paula herself know what efforts you have been making in her
behalf,” asked Mr. Sylvester upon the receipt of this information.
The little lady shook her head with vivacity. “Belinda advised me to say
nothing,” she remarked. “The child is contented with her home and we did
not like to raise her expectations. You will never regret anything you
may do for her,” she went on in a hurried way with a peep now and then
towards the door as if while enjoying a momentary freedom of speech, she
feared an intrusion that would cut that pleasure short. “Paula is a
grateful child and never has given us a moment of concern from the time
she began to put pieces of patchwork together. But there is Belinda,”
she suddenly exclaimed, rising with the little dip and jerk of her left
shoulder that was habitual to her whenever she was amused or excited.
“Belinda,” she cried, going to the door and speaking with great
impressiveness, “Mr. Sylvester is in the parlor.” And almost instantly a
tall middle aged lady entered, whose plain but powerful countenance and
dignified demeanor, stamped her at once as belonging to a very different
type of woman from her sister.
“I am very glad to see you sir,” she exclaimed in a slow determined
voice as dissimilar as possible from the piping tones of Miss Abby. “Is
not Mrs. Sylvester with you?”
“No,” returned he, “I have come alone; my wife is not fond of travelling
in winter.”
The slightest gleam shot from her bright keen eye. “Is she not well?”
“Yes quite well, but not over strong,” he rejoined quietly.
She gave him another quick look, settled some matter with herself and
taking off her bonnet, sat down by the fire. At once her sister ceased
in her hovering about the room and sitting also, became to all
appearance her silent shadow.
“Paula has gone up stairs to take off her bonnet,” the younger woman
said in a straightforward manner just short of being brusque. “She is a
very remarkable girl, Mr. Sylvester, a genius I suppose some would call
her, a child of nature I prefer to say. Whatever there is to be learned
in this town she has learned. And in a place where nature speaks and
good books abound that is not inconsiderable. I have taken pride in her
talents I acknowledge, and have endeavored to do what I could to
cultivate them to the best advantage. There is no girl in my school who
can write so original a composition, nor is there one with a truer heart
or more tractable disposition.”
“You have then been her teacher as well as her friend, she owes you a
double debt of gratitude.”
A look hard to understand flashed over her homely face. “I have never
thought of debt or gratitude in connection with Paula. The only effort
which I have ever made in her behalf which cost me anything, is this one
which threatens me with her loss.” Then as if fearing she had said too
much, set her firm lips still firmer and ignoring the subject of the
child, astonished him by certain questions on the leading issues of the
day that at once betrayed a truly virile mind.
“She is a study,” thought he to himself, but meeting her on the ground
she had taken, replied at once and to her evident satisfaction in the
direct and simple manner that appeals the most forcibly to a strong if
somewhat unpolished understanding, while the meek little Miss Abby
glanced from one to the other with a humble awe more indicative of her
appreciation for their superiority than of her comprehension of the
subject.
But what with Miss Belinda’s secret anxiety and Mr. Sylvester’s
unconscious listening for a step upon the stair, the conversation, brisk
as it had opened, gradually languished, and ere long with a sort of
clairvoyant understanding of her sister’s wishes, Miss Abby arose and
with her customary jerk left the room for Paula.
“The child is not timid but has an unaccountable aversion to entering
the presence of strangers alone,” Miss Belinda explained; but Mr.
Sylvester did not hear her, for at that moment the door re-opened and
Miss Abby stepped in with the young girl thus heralded.
Edward Sylvester never forgot that moment, and indeed few men could have
beheld the picture of extraordinary loveliness thus revealed, without a
shock of surprise equal to the delight it inspired. She was not pretty;
the very word was a misnomer, she was simply one of nature’s most
exquisite and undeniable beauties. From the crown of her ebon locks to
the sole of her dainty foot, she was perfect as the most delicate
coloring and the utmost harmony of contour could make her. And not in
the conventional type either. There was an individuality in her style
that was as fresh as it was uncommon. She was at once unique and
faultless, something that can be said of few women however beautiful or
alluring.
Mr. Sylvester had not expected this, as indeed how could he, and for a
moment he could only gaze with a certain swelling of the heart at the
blooming loveliness that in one instant had transformed the odd little
parlor into a bower fit for the habitation of princes. But soon his
natural self-possession returned, and rising with his most courteous
bow, he greeted the blushing girl with words of simple welcome.
Instantly her eyes which had been hitherto kept bent upon the floor
flashed upward to his face and a smile full of the wonder of an unlooked
for, almost unhoped for delight, swept radiantly over her lips, and he
saw with deep and sudden satisfaction that the hour which had made such
an impression upon him, had not been forgotten by her; that his voice
had recalled what his face failed to do, and that he was recognized.
“It is Mr. Sylvester, your cousin Ona’s husband,” Miss Belinda
interposed in a matter-of-fact way, evidently attributing the emotion of
the child to her astonishment at the imposing appearance of their guest.
“And it was _you_ who married Ona!” she involuntarily murmured, blushing
the next moment at this simple utterance of her thoughts.
“Yes, dear child,” Mr. Sylvester hastened to say. “And so you remember
me?” he presently added, smiling down upon her with a sense of new life
that for the moment made every care and anxiety shrink into the
background.
“Yes,” she simply returned, taking the chair beside him with the
unconscious grace of perfect self-forgetfulness. “It was the first time
I had found any one to listen to my childish enthusiasms; it is natural
such kindness should make its impression.”
“Little Paula and I met long ago,” quoth Mr. Sylvester turning to the
somewhat astonished Miss Belinda. “It was before my marriage and she was
then—”
“Just ten years old,” finished Paula, seeing him cast her an inquiring
glance.
“Very young for such a thoughtful little miss,” he exclaimed. “And have
those childish enthusiasms quite departed?” he continued, smiling upon
her with gentle encouragement. “Do you no longer find a fairy-land in
the view up the river?”
She flushed, casting a timid glance at her aunt, but meeting his eyes
again seemed to forget everything and everybody in the inspiration which
his presence afforded.
“I fear I must acknowledge that it is more a fairy-land to me than
ever,” she softly replied. “Knowledge does not always bring disillusion,
and though I have learned one by one the names of the towns scattered
along those misty banks, and though I know they are no less prosaic in
their character than our own humdrum village, yet I cannot rid myself of
the notion that those verdant slopes with their archway of clouds, hide
the portals of Paradise, and that I have only to follow the birds in
their flight up the river to find myself on the verge of a mystery, the
banks at my feet can never disclose.”
“May the gates of God’s Paradise never recede as those would do, my
child, if like the birds you attempted to pierce them.”
“Paula is a dreamer,” quoth Miss Belinda in a matter-of-fact tone, “but
she is a good girl notwithstanding and can solve a geometrical problem
with the best.”
“And sew on the machine and make a very good pie,” timidly put in Miss
Abby.
“That is well,” laughed Mr. Sylvester, observing that the poor child’s
head had fallen forward in maidenly shame at her aunts’ elogiums as well
as at the length of the speech into which she had been betrayed. “It
shows that her eyes can see what is at hand as well as what is beyond
our reach.” Then with a touch of his usual formal manner intended to
restore her to herself, “Do you like study, Paula?”
In an instant her eyes flashed. “I more than like it; it feeds me.
Knowledge has its vistas too,” she added with an arch look, the first he
had seen on her hitherto serious countenance. “I can never outgrow my
recognition of the portals it discloses or the fairy-land it opens up to
every inquiring eye.”
“Even geometry,” he ventured, more anxious to probe this fresh young
mind than he had ever been to sound the opinions of the most notable men
of the day.
“Even geometry,” she smiled. “To be sure its portals are somewhat
methodical in shape, allowing no scope to the fancy, but from its
triangles and circles have been born the grandeurs of architecture, and
upright on the threshold of its exact laws and undeviating calculations,
I see an angel with a golden rod in his hand, measuring the heavens.”
“Even a stone speaks to a poet,” said Mr. Sylvester with a glance at
Miss Belinda.
“But Paula is no poet,” returned that lady with strict and impartial
honesty. “She has never put a line on paper to my knowledge. Have you
child?”
“No aunt, I would as soon imprison a falling sunbeam or try to catch the
breeze that lifts my hair or kisses my cheek.”
“You see,” continued Mr. Sylvester still looking at Miss Belinda.
She answered with a doubtful shake of the head and an earnest glance at
the girl as if she perceived something in that bright young soul, that
even she had never observed before.
“Have you ever been away from home?” he now asked.
“Never, I know as little of the great world as a callow nestling. No, I
should not say that, for the young bird has no Aunt Belinda to tell of
the great cathedrals and the wonderful music she has heard and the
glorious pictures she has seen in her visits to the city. It is almost
as good as travelling one’s self to hear Aunt Belinda talk.”
It was now the turn of the mature plain woman to blush, which she did
under Mr. Sylvester’s searching eye.
“You have then been in the habit of visiting New York?”
“I have been there twice,” she returned evasively.
“Since my marriage?”
“Yes sir;” with a firm closing of her lips.
“I did not know you were there or I should have insisted upon your
remaining at my house.”
“Thank you,” said she with a quick triumphant glance at her demure
little shadow, who looked back in amaze and was about to speak when Miss
Belinda proceeded. “My visits usually have been on business; I should
not think of troubling Mrs. Sylvester.” And then he knew that his wife
had been aware of those visits if he had not.
But he refrained from testifying to his discovery. “You speak of music,”
said he, turning gently back to Paula. “Have you a taste for it? Would
it make you happy to hear such music as your aunt tells about?”
“O yes, I can conceive nothing grander than to sit in a church whose
every line is beauty and listen while the great organ utters its song of
triumph or echoes in the wonderful way it does, the emotions you have
tried to express and could not. I would give a whole week of my life on
the hills, dear as it is, for one such hour, I think.”
Mr. Sylvester smiled. “It is a rare kind of coin to offer for such a
simple pleasure, but it may meet with its acceptance, nevertheless;” and
in his look and in his voice there was an appearance of affectionate
interest that completed the subjugation of the watchful Miss Belinda,
who now became doubly assured that whatever neglect had been shown her
by her niece was not due to that niece’s husband.
Mr. Sylvester recognized the effect he had produced and hastened to
complete it, feeling that the good opinion of Miss Belinda would be
valuable to any man. “I have been a boy on these hills,” said he, “and
know what it is to long for what is beyond while enjoying what is
present. You shall hear the organ my child.” And stopped, wondering to
himself over the new sweet interest he seemed to take in the prospect of
pleasures which he had supposed himself to have long ago exhausted.
“Hear the organ, I? why that means—O what does it mean?” she inquired,
turning with a look of beaming hope towards her aunt.
“You must ask Mr. Sylvester,” that uncompromising lady replied, with a
straightforward look at the fire.
And he with a smile told the blushing girl that according to his
reading, mortals went blindfold into fairy-land; and she understood what
he meant and was silent, whereupon he turned the conversation upon more
common-place subjects.
For how could he tell her then of the intention that had awakened in his
breast at the first glimpse of her grand young beauty. To make her his
child, to bequeath to her the place of the babe that had perished in his
arms three long years before—That meant to give Ona a care if not a
rival in his affections, and Ona shrank from care, and was not a subject
for rivalry. And the _if_ which this implied weighed heavily on his
heart as moment after moment flew by, and he felt again the reviving
power of an unsullied mind and an aspiring nature.
X.
THE BARRED DOOR.
“A school boy’s tale; the wonder of an hour.”—BYRON.
“Did you know that your niece was gifted with rare beauty as well as
talents?” asked Mr. Sylvester of Miss Belinda as a couple of hours or so
later, they sat alone by the parlor fire, preparatory to his departure.
“No, that is,” she hastily corrected herself, “I knew she was very
pretty of course, prettier by far than any of her mates, but I did not
suppose she was what you call a beauty, or at least would be so
considered by a person accustomed to New York society.”
“I do not know of a woman in New York who can boast of any such claims
to transcendent loveliness. Such faces are rare outside of art, Miss
Belinda; was Mrs. Fairchild a handsome woman?”
“She was my sister and if I may say so, my favorite sister, but she was
no more agreeable to the eye than some others of her family,” grimly
returned the heavy browed spinster with a compression of her lips. “What
beauty Paula has inherited came from her father. Her chief charm in my
eyes, however, springs from her pure nature and the unselfish impulses
of her heart.”
“And in mine,” rejoined he quietly. Then with a sudden change of tone as
he realized the necessity of saying something definite to this woman in
regard to his intentions toward the child, he remarked, “Her great and
unusual talents and manifest disposition to learn, demand as you say,
superior advantages to any she can have in a small country town like
this, fruitful as it has already been to her under your wise and
fostering care and such shall she have; but just when and how I cannot
say till I have seen my wife and learned what her wishes are likely to
be in regard to the subject.”
“You are very kind, sir,” returned Miss Belinda. “I have no doubt as to
the good-will of your intentions, and the child shall be prepared at
once for a change.”
“And will _the child_,” he exclaimed with a smile as Paula re-entered
the room, “be so kind as to give me her company in the walk I must now
take to the cars?”
“Of course,” replied her aunt before the young girl could speak, “we owe
you that much attention I am sure.”
And so it was that when he came to retrace his way through the village
with its heavy memories, he had a guardian spirit at his side that
robbed them of their power to sadden and oppress.
“What shall I say for you to the grim, city streets when I get back?”
inquired he as they hastened on over the snow covered road.
“Say to them from me? O you may give them my greeting,” she responded
half shyly, half confidingly. Evidently for her he was one of those rare
persons whose presence is perfect freedom and with whom she could not
only think her best but speak it also. “I should like to make their
acquaintance, but indeed they would have to do well to vie in attraction
with these white roads girded by their silver-limbed trees. The very
rush of life must seem oppressive. So many hopes, so many fears, so many
interests jostling you at every step! Yet the thought is exhilarating
too; don’t you find it so?”
It was the first question she had asked him and he knew not how to
reply. Her eyes were so confiding, he could not bear to shake her faith
in his imagined superiority. Yet what thoughts had he ever cherished in
walking the busy streets, save those connected with his own selfish
hopes and fears, plans and operations? “I have no doubt,” said he after
a moment’s pause, “that I have felt this exhilaration of which you
speak. Certainly the hurrying masses in Broadway awaken a far different
sensation in a man, than this solitary stretch of country road.”
“Yet the road has its companionships,” she murmured. “In the city one
thinks most of men, but in the country, of God. Its very solitude
compels you.”
“Compels _you_,” he involuntarily answered. And shuddered as he said it,
remembering days when he trod these very roads with anything but
reverence in his heart for the Creator of the landscape before him. “Not
every one has the inner vision, my child, to see the love and wisdom
back of the works, or rather most men have a vision so short it does not
reach so far. Yet I think I can understand what you mean and might even
experience your emotions if my eyes had leisure to explore this space
and my thoughts to rise out of their usual depressing atmosphere of care
and anxiety. You did not think I was a busy man, he continued,”
observing her gaze of wonder. “You thought riches brought ease; if you
ever come to think, ‘most of men’ you will learn that the wealthy man is
the greatest worker, for his rest comes not night or day.”
She shook her head with a sudden doubt. “It is a problem,” she said,
“which my knowledge of geometry does not help me to solve.”
“No,” assented he; “and one in which even your fanciful soul would fail
to find any poetry. But stop, Paula; isn’t this the place where I found
you that day, and you showed me the view up the river?”
“Yes, and it was on that stone I sat; it has a milk-white cushion now;
and there is where you stood, looking so tall and grand to my childish
eyes! The gates are of pearl now,” she said, pointing to the
snow-covered slopes in the west. “I wish the sky had been clear to-night
and you could have seen the effect of a rosy sunset falling over those
domes of ice and snow.”
“It would leave me less to expect when I come again,” he responded
almost gayly. “The next time we will have the sunset, Paula.”
She smiled and they hastened on, presently finding themselves in the
village streets. Suddenly she paused. “Small towns have their mysteries
as well as great cities,” said she; “we are not without ours, look.”
He turned, followed with a glance the direction of her pointing finger
and started in his sudden surprise. She had indicated to him the house
whose ghostly and frowning front bore written across its grim gray
boards, such an inscription of painful remembrance. “It is a solitary
looking place, isn’t it?” she went on, innocent of the pain she was
inflicting. “No one lives there or ever will, I imagine. Do you see that
board nailed across the front door?”
He forced himself to look. He did more, he fixed his eyes upon the
desolate structure before him until the aspect of its huge unpainted
walls with their long rows of sealed-up windows and high smokeless
chimneys was impressed indelibly upon his mind. The large front door
with its weird and solemn barrier was the last thing upon which his eye
rested.
“Yes,” said he, and involuntarily asked what it meant.
“We do not know exactly,” she responded. “It was nailed across there by
the men who followed Colonel Japha to the grave. Colonel Japha was the
owner of the house,” she proceeded, too interested to observe the shadow
which the utterance of that name had invoked upon his brow. “He was a
peculiar man I judge, and had suffered great wrongs they say; at all
events his life was very solitary and sad, and on his deathbed he made
his neighbors promise him that they would carry out his body through
that door and then seal it up against any further ingress or egress
forever. His wishes were respected, and from that day to this no one has
ever entered that door.”
“But the house!” stammered Mr. Sylvester in anything but his usual tone,
“surely it has not been deserted all these years!”
“Ah,” said she, “now we come to the greatest mystery of all.” And laying
her hand timidly on his arm, she drew his attention to the form of a
decrepit old lady just then advancing towards them down the street “Do
you see that aged figure?” she asked. “Every evening at this hour,
winter and summer, stormy weather or clear, she is seen to leave her
home up the street and come down to this forsaken dwelling, open the
worm-eaten gate before you, cross the otherwise untrodden garden and
enter the house by a side door which she opens with a huge key she
carries in her pocket. For just one hour by the clock she remains there,
and then she is seen to issue in the falling dusk, with a countenance
whose heavy dejection is in striking contrast to the expression of hope
with which she invariably enters. Why she makes this pilgrimage and for
what purpose she secludes herself for a stated time each day in this
otherwise deserted mansion, no man knows nor is it possible to
determine, for though she is a worthy woman and approachable enough on
all other topics, on this she is absolutely mute.”
Mr. Sylvester started and surveyed the woman as she passed with an
anxious gaze. “I know her,” he muttered; “she was a connection of—of
the family, who inhabited this house.” He could not speak the name.
“Yes, so they say, and the owner of this house, though she does not live
here. Did you notice how she looked at me? She often does that, just as
if she wanted to speak. But she always goes by and opens the gate as you
see her now and takes out the big key and—”
“Come away,” cried Mr. Sylvester with sudden impulse, seizing Paula by
the hand and hurrying her down the street. “She is a walking goblin; you
must have nothing to do with such uncanny folk.” And endeavoring to turn
off this irresistible display of feeling by a show of pleasantry he
laughed aloud, but in a strained and unnatural way that made her eyes
lift in unconscious amazement.
“You are infected by the atmosphere of unreality that pervades the
spot,” said she, “I do not wonder.” And with the gentle perversity that
sometimes affects the most thoughtful amongst us, she went on talking
upon the unwelcome subject. “I know of some folks who invariably cross
to the other side of the street at night, rather than go through the
shadows of the two gaunt poplars which guard that house. Yet there has
been no murder committed there or any great crime that I know of, unless
the disobedience of a daughter who ran away with a man her father
detested, could be denominated by so fearful a word.”
The set gaze with which Mr. Sylvester surveyed the landscape before him
quavered a trifle and then grew hard and cold. “And so,” said he in a
tone meant more for himself than her, “even your innocent ears have been
assailed by the gossip about Miss Japha.”
“Gossip! I have never thought of it as gossip,” returned she, struck for
the first time by the change in his appearance. “It all happened so long
ago it seems more like some quaint and ancient tale than a story of one
of our neighbors. Besides, the fact that a wilful girl ran away from the
house of her father, with the man of her choice, is not such a dreadful
one is it, though she never returned to its walls with her husband, and
her father was so overwhelmed by the shock, he was never seen to smile
again.”
“No,” said he, giving her a hurried glance of relief, “I only wondered
at the tenacity of old stories to engage the popular ear. I had supposed
even the remembrance of Jacqueline Japha would have been lost in the
long silence that has followed that one disobedient act.”
“And so it might, were it not for that closely shut house with the
sinister bar across its chief entrance, inviting curiosity while it
effectually precludes all investigation. With that token ever before our
eyes of a dead man’s implacable animosity, who can wonder that we
sometimes ponder over the fate of her who was its object.”
“And no intimations of that fate have been ever received in Grotewell.
For all that is known to the contrary, Jacqueline Japha may have
preceded her father to the tomb.”
Paula bowed her head, amazed at the gloomy tone in which this emphatic
assertion was made by one whose supposed ignorance she had been
endeavoring to enlighten. “You knew her history before, then,” observed
she, “I beg your pardon.”
“And it is granted,” said he with a sudden throwing off of the shadow
that had enveloped him. “You must not mind my sudden lapses into gloom.
I was never a cheerful man, that is, not since I—since my early youth I
should say. And the shadows which are short at your time of life grow
long and chilly at mine. One thing can illumine them though, and that is
a child’s happy smile. You are a child to me; do not deny me a smile,
then, before I go.”
“Not one nor a dozen,” cried she, giving him her hands in good-bye for
they had arrived at the depot by this time and the sound of the
approaching train was heard in the distance.
“God bless you!” said he, clasping those hands with a father’s heartfelt
tenderness. “God bless my little Paula and make her pillow soft till we
meet again!” Then as the train came sweeping up the track, put on his
brightest look and added, “If the fairy-godmother chances to visit you
during my departure, don’t hesitate to obey her commands, if you want to
hear the famous organ peal.”
“No, no,” she cried. And with a final look and smile he stepped upon the
train and in another moment was whirled away from that place of many
memories and a solitary hope.
XI.
MISS STUYVESANT.
“She smiled; but he could see arise
Her soul from far adown her eyes.”
—MRS. BROWNING.
“She is a beauty; it is only right I should forewarn you of that.”
“Dark or light?”
“Dark; that is her hair and eyes are almost oriental in their blackness,
but her skin is fair, almost as dazzling as yours, Ona.”
Mrs. Sylvester threw a careless glance in the long mirror before which
she was slowly completing her toilet, and languidly smiled. But whether
at this covert compliment to her greatest charm or at some passing fancy
of her own, it would be difficult to decide. “The dark hair and eyes
come from her father,” remarked she in an abstracted way while she tried
the effect of a bunch of snow-white roses at her waist with a backward
toss of her proud blonde head. “His mother was a Greek. ‘Tell it not in
Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon,’” she exclaimed in a
voice as nearly gay as her indolent nature would allow. For this lady of
fashion was in one of her happiest moods. Her dress, a new one, fitted
her to perfection and the vision mirrored in the glass before her was
not lacking, so far as she could see in one charm that could captivate.
“Do you think she could fasten a ribbon, or arrange a bow?” she further
inquired. “I should like to have some one about me with a knack for
helping a body in an emergency, if possible. Sarah is absolutely the
destruction of any bit of ribbon she undertakes to handle. Look at that
knot of black velvet over there for instance, wouldn’t you think a raw
Irish girl just from the other side would have known better than to tie
it with half the wrong side showing?”
With the habit long ago acquired of glancing wherever her ivory finger
chanced to point, the grave man of the world slowly turned his head full
of the weightiest cares and oppressed by the burden of innumerable
responsibilities, and surveyed the cluster of velvet bows thus
indicated, with a mechanical knitting of the brows.
“I pay Sarah twenty-five dollars a month and that is the result,” his
wife proceeded. “Now if Paula—”
“Paula is not to come here as a waiting maid,” her husband quickly
interposed, a suspicion of color just showing itself for a moment on his
cheek.
“If Paula,” his wife went on, unheeding the interruption save by casting
him a hurried glance over the shoulder of her own reflection in the
glass, “had the taste in such matters of some other members of our
family and could manage to lend me a helping hand now and then, why I
could almost imagine I had my younger sister back with me again, who
with her skill in making one look fit for the eyes of the world, was
such a blessing to us in our old home.”
“I have no doubt Paula could be taught to be equally efficient,” her
husband responded, carefully restraining any further show of impatience.
“She is bright, I am certain, and ribbon-tying is not such a very
difficult art, is it?”
“I don’t know about that; by the way Sarah succeeds I should say it was
about on a par with the science of algebra or—what is that horrid study
they used to threaten to inflict me with at the academy whenever I
complained of a headache? Oh I remember—conic sections.”
“Well, well,” laughed her husband, “she ought soon to to be an expert in
it then; Paula is a famous little mathematician.”
A silence followed this response; Mrs. Sylvester was fitting in her
ear-rings. “I suppose,” said she when the operation was completed, “that
the snow will prevent half the people from coming to-night.” It was a
reception evening at the Sylvester mansion. “But so long as Mrs.
Fitzgerald does not disappoint me, I do not care. What do you think of
the setting of these diamonds?” she inquired, leaning forward to look at
herself more closely, and slowly shaking her head till the rich gems
sparkled like fire.
“It is good,” came in short, quick tones from the lips of her husband.
“Well, I don’t know, there might be a shade more of enamel on the edge
of that ring. I shall speak to the jeweller about it to-morrow. But what
were we talking about?” she dreamily asked, still turning her head from
side to side before the mirror.
“We were talking about adopting your cousin in the place of our child
who is dead,” replied her husband with some severity, pausing in the
middle of the floor which he was pacing, to honor her with a steady
glance.
“O yes! Dear me! what an awkward clasp that man has given to these rings
after all. You will have to fasten them for me.” Then as he stepped
forward with studied courtesy, yawned just a trifle and remarked, “No
one could ever take the place of one’s own child of course. If Geraldine
had lived she would have been a blonde, her eyes were blue as
sapphires.”
He looked in his wife’s face and his hands dropped. He thought of the
day when those eyes, blue as sapphires indeed, flashed burning with
death’s own fever, from the little crib in the nursery, while with this
same cool and self-satisfied countenance, the wife and mother before him
had swept down the broad stairs to her carriage, murmuring
apologetically as she gathered up her train, “O you needn’t trouble
yourself to look after her, she will do very well with Sarah.”
She may have thought of it too, for the least little bit of real crimson
found its way through the rouge on her cheek as she encountered the
stern look of his eye, but she only turned a trifle more towards the
glass, saying, “I forgot you do not admire the rôle of waiting maid. I
will try and manage them myself, seeing that you have banished Sarah.”
He exerted his self-control and again for the thousandth time buried
that ghastly memory out of sight, actually forcing himself to smile as
he gently took her hand from her ear and began deftly to fasten the
rebellious ornaments.
“You mistake,” said he, “love can ask any favor without hesitation. I do
not object to waiting upon my own wife.”
She gave him a little look which he obligingly took as a guerdon for
this speech, and languidly held out her bracelets. As he stood clasping
them on her arms, she quietly eyed him over from head to foot. “I don’t
know of a man who has your figure,” said she with a certain tone of
pride in her voice; “it is well you married a wife who does not look
altogether inferior beside you.” Then as he bowed with mock appreciation
of the intended compliment, added with her usual inconsequence, “I dare
say it would give me something to interest myself in. I don’t suppose
she has a decent thing to wear, and the fact of her being a dark beauty
would lend quite a new impulse to my inventive faculty. Mrs. Walker has
a daughter with black eyes, but dear me, what a guy she does make of
her!”
With a sigh Mr. Sylvester turned to the window where he stood looking
out at the heavy flakes of snow falling with slow and fluctuating
movement between him and the row of brown stone houses in front. Paula
considered as a milliner’s block upon which to try the effect of
clothes!
“Even Mrs. Fitzgerald with all her taste don’t know how to dress her
child,” proceeded his wife, with a hurried, “Be still, Cherry!” to the
importunate bird in the cage. “Now I should take as much pride in
dressing any one under my charge as I would myself, provided the subject
was likely to do credit to my efforts.” And finding the bird
incorrigible in his shrill singing, she moved over to the cage, where
she stood balancing her white finger for the bird to peck at, with a
pretty caressing motion of her lip, the little Geraldine of the wistful
blue eyes, had never seen.
“You are welcome to do what you please in such matters,” was her
husband’s reply. He was thinking again of that same little Geraldine; a
fall of snow like the present always made him think of her and her
innocent query as to whether God threw down such big flakes to amuse
little children. “I give you _carte blanche_,” said he with sudden
emphasis.
Mrs. Sylvester paused in her attentions to the bird to give him a sharp
little look which might have aroused his surprise if he had been
fortunate enough to see it. But his back was towards her, and there was
nothing in the languidly careless tone with which she responded, to
cause him to turn his head. “I see that you would really like to have me
entertain the child; but—”
She paused, pursing up her lips to meet the chattering bird’s caress,
while her husband in his impatience drummed with his fingers on the
pane.
—“I must see her before I decide upon the length of her visit,”
continued she, as weary with the sport she drew back to give herself a
final look in the glass. “Will you please to hand me that shawl,
Edward.”
He turned with alacrity. In his relief he could have kissed the snowy
neck held so erectly before him, as he drew around it the shawl he had
hastily lifted from the chair at his side. But that would not have
suited this calm and languid beauty who disliked any too overt tribute
to her charms and saved her caresses for her bird. Besides it would look
like gratitude, and gratitude would be misplaced towards a wife who had
just indicated her acceptance of his offer to receive a relative of her
own into his house.
“She might as well come at once,” was her final remark, as satisfied at
last with the lay of every ribbon she swept in finished elegance from
the room. “Mrs. Kittredge’s reception comes off a week from Thursday,
and I should like to see how a dark beauty with a fair skin would look
in that new shade of heliotrope.”
And so the battle was over and the victory won; for Mrs. Sylvester for
all her seeming indifference was never known to change a decision she
had once made. As he realized the fact, as he meditated that ere long
this very room which had been the scene of so much frivolity and the
witness to so many secret heart-burnings, would reëcho to the tread of
the pure and innocent child, whose mind had flights unknown to the
slaves of fashion, and in whose heart lay impulses of goodness that
would satisfy the long smothered cravings of his awakened nature, he
experienced a feeling of relenting towards the wife who had not chosen
to thwart him in this the strongest wish of his childless manhood, and
crossing to her dressing table, he dropped among its treasures a costly
ring which he had been induced to purchase that day from an old friend
who had fallen into want. “She will wear it,” murmured he to himself,
“for its hue will make her hand look still whiter, and when I see it
sparkle I will remember this hour and be patient.” Had he known that she
had yielded to this wish out of a certain vague feeling of compunction
for the disappointments she had frequently occasioned him and would
occasion him again, he might have added a tender thought to the rich and
costly gift with which he had just endowed her.
“I expect a young cousin of mine to spend the winter with me and pursue
her studies,” were the first words that greeted his ears as an hour or
so later he entered the parlor where his wife was entertaining what few
guests had been anxious enough for a sight of Mrs. Sylvester’s newly
furnished drawing-room, to brave the now rapidly falling snow. “I hope
that you and she will be friends.”
Curious to see what sort of a companion his wife was thus somewhat
prematurely providing for Paula, he hastily advanced towards the little
group from which her voice had proceeded, and found himself face to face
with a brown-haired girl whose appealing glance and somewhat infantile
mouth were in striking contrast to the dignity with which she carried
her small head and managed her whole somewhat petite person.
“Miss Stuyvesant! my husband!” came in musical tones from his wife, and
somewhat surprised to hear a name that but a moment before had been the
uppermost in his mind, he bowed with courtesy and then asked if he was
so happy as to speak to a daughter of Thaddeus Stuyvesant.
“If it will give you especial pleasure I will say yes,” responded the
little miss with a smile that irradiated her whole face. “Do you know my
father?”
“There are but few bankers in the city who have not that pleasure,”
replied he with an answering look of regard. “I am especially happy to
meet his daughter in my house to-night.”
There was something in his manner of saying this and in the short
inquiring glance which at every opportunity he cast upon her bright
young face with its nameless charm of mingled appeal and reserve, that
astonished his wife.
“Miss Stuyvesant was in the carriage with Mrs. Fitzgerald,” said that
lady with a certain dignity she knew well how to assume. “I am afraid if
it had not been for that circumstance we should not have enjoyed the
pleasure of her presence.” And with the rare tact of which she was
certainly a mistress, as far as all social matters were concerned, she
left the aspiring magnate of Wall Street to converse with the daughter
of the man whom all New York bankers were expected to know, and hastened
to join a group of ladies discussing ceramics before a huge placque of
rarest _cloissone_.
Mr. Sylvester followed her with his eyes; he had never seen her look
more vivacious; had the hope of seeing a young face at their board
touched some secret chord in her nature as well as his? Was she more of
a woman than he imagined, and would she be, though in the most
superficial of ways, a mother to Paula? Flushed with the thought, he
turned back to the little lady at his side. She was gazing in an intent
and thoughtful way at an engraving of Dubufe’s “Prodigal Son” that
adorned the wall above her head. There was something in her face that
made him ask:
“Is that a favorite picture of yours?”
She smiled and nodded her small and delicate head.
“Yes sir, it is indeed, but I was not looking at the picture so much as
at the face of that dark-haired girl that sits in the centre, with that
far-away expression in her eyes. Do you see what I mean? She is like
none of the rest. Her form is before us, but her heart and her interest
are in some distant clime or forsaken home to which the music murmured
at her side recalls her. She has a soul above her surroundings, that
girl; and her face is indescribably pathetic to me. In the recesses of
her being she carries a memory or a regret that separates her from the
world and makes certain moments of her life almost holy.”
“You look deep,” said Mr. Sylvester, gazing down upon the little lady’s
face with strongly awakened interest. “You see more perhaps than the
painter intended.”
“No, no; possibly more than the engraving expresses, but not more than
the artist intended. I saw the original once, when as you remember it
was on exhibition here. I was a wee thing, but I never forgot that
girl’s face. It spoke more than all the rest to me; perhaps because I so
much honor reserve in one who holds in his breast a great pain or a
great hope.”
The eye that was resting upon her, softened indescribably. “You believe
in great hopes,” said he.
The little figure seemed to grow tall; and her face looked almost
beautiful. “What would life be without them?” she answered.
“True,” returned Mr. Sylvester; and entering into the conversation with
unusual spirit, was astonished to find how young she was and yet how
thoroughly bright and self-possessed.
“Lovely girls are cropping up around me in all directions,” thought he;
“I shall have to correct my judgment concerning our young ladies of
fashion if I encounter many more as sensible and earnest-hearted as
this.” And for some reason his brow grew so light and his tone so
cheerful that the ladies were attracted from all parts of the room to
hear what the demure Miss Stuyvesant could have to say to the grave
master of the house, to call forth such smiles of enjoyment upon his
usually melancholy countenance.
Take it all together, the occasion though small was one of the
pleasantest of the season, and so Mrs. Sylvester announced when the last
carriage had driven away, and she and her husband stood in the
brilliantly lighted library, surveying a new cabinet of rare and antique
workmanship which had been that day installed in the place of honor
beneath my lady’s picture.
“I thought you seemed to enjoy it, Ona,” her husband remarked.
“O, it was an occasion of triumph to me,” she murmured. “It is the first
time a Stuyvesant has crossed our threshold, _mon cher_.”
“Ha,” he exclaimed, turning upon her a brisk displeased look. He was
proud and considered no man his superior in a social sense. “Do you
acknowledge yourself a parvenue that you rejoice at the entrance of any
one special person into your doors?”
“I thought,” she replied somewhat mortified, “that you betrayed unusual
pleasure yourself at her introduction.”
“That may be; I was glad to see her here, for her father is one of the
most influential directors in the bank of which I shortly expect to be
made president.”
The nature of this disclosure was calculated to be especially gratifying
to her, and effectually blotted out any remembrance of the break by
which it had been introduced. After a few hasty inquiries, followed by a
scene of quite honest mutual congratulation, the gratified wife left her
husband to put out the lights himself or call Samuel as he might choose,
and glided up stairs to delight the curious Sarah with the broken
soliloquies and inconsequent self-communings which formed another of her
peculiar habits.
As for her husband, he stood a few minutes where she left him,
abstractedly eying the gorgeous vista that spread out before him down to
the further mirror of the elaborate drawing-room, thinking perhaps with
a certain degree of pride, of the swiftness with which he had risen to
opulence and the certainty with which he had conquered position in the
business as well as in the social world when he could speak of such a
connection with Thaddeus Stuyvesant as a project already matured. Then
with a hasty movement and a quick sigh which nothing in his prospects
actual or apparent would seem to warrant, he proceeded to put out the
lights, my lady’s picture shining with less and less importunity as the
flickering jets disappeared, till all was dark save for the faint
glimmer that came in from the hall, a glimmer just sufficient to show
the outlines of the various articles of furniture scattered about—and
could it be the tall figure of the master himself standing in the centre
of the room with his palms pressed against his forehead in an attitude
of sorrow or despair? Yes, or whose that wild murmur, “Is it never given
to man to forget!” Yet no, or who is this that calm and dignified, steps
at this moment from the threshold? It must have been a dream, a
phantasy. _This_ is the master of the house who with sedate and regular
step goes up flight after flight of the spiral staircase, and neither
pauses or looks back till he reaches the top of the house where he takes
out a key from his pocket, and opening a certain door, goes in and locks
it behind him. It is his secret study or retreat, a room which no one is
allowed to enter, the mystery of the house to the servants and something
more than that to its inquisitive mistress. What he does there no man
knows, but to-night if any one had been curious enough to listen, they
would have heard nothing more ominous than the monotonous scratch of a
pen. He was writing to Miss Belinda and the burden of his letter was
that on a certain day he named, he was coming to take away Paula.
XII.
MISS BELINDA MAKES CONDITIONS.
“For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the body make.”—SPENSER.
Miss Belinda was somewhat taken aback at the proposal of Mr. Sylvester
to receive Paula into his own house. She had not anticipated any such
result to her efforts; the utmost she had expected was a couple of years
or so of instruction in some state Academy. Nor did she know whether she
was altogether pleased at the turn affairs were taking. From all she had
heard, her niece Ona was, to say the least, a frivolous woman, and Paula
had a mind too noble to be subjected to the deteriorating influence of a
shallow and puerile companionship. Then the child had great beauty; Mr.
Sylvester who ought to be a judge in such matters had declared it so,
and what might not the adulation of the thoughtless and the envy of the
jealous, do towards belittling a nature as yet uncontaminated.
“We ought to think twice,” she said to Miss Abby with some bitterness,
who on the contrary never having thought once was full of the most
childish hopes concerning a result which she considered with a certain
secret complacency she would not have acknowledged for the world, had
been very much furthered by her own wise recommendations to Mr.
Sylvester in the beginning of his visit. Yet notwithstanding her doubts
Miss Belinda allowed such preparations to be made as she considered
necessary, and even lent her hand which was deft enough in its way, to
the task of enlarging the child’s small wardrobe. As for Paula, the
thought of visiting the great city with the dear friend whose image had
stood in her mind from early childhood as the impersonation of all that
was noble, generous and protecting, was more than joyful; it was an
inspiration. Not that she did not cling to the affectionate if somewhat
quaint couple who had befriended her childhood and sacrificed their
comfort to her culture and happiness. But the chord that lies deeper
than gratitude had been struck, and fond as were her memories of the
dear old home, the charm of that deep “My child,” with its hint of
fatherly affection, was more than her heart could stand; and no spot, no
not the realms of fairy-land itself, looked so attractive to her fancy
as that far fireside in an unknown home where she might sit with cousin
Ona and alternately with her exert her wit to beguile the smile to his
melancholy lips.
When therefore upon the stated day, Mr. Sylvester made his second
appearance at the little cottage in Grotewell, it was to find Paula
radiant, Miss Abby tearfully exultant and Miss Belinda—O anomaly of
human nature—silent and severe. Attributing this however to her very
natural regret at parting with Paula, he entered into all the
arrangements for their departure on the following morning without a
suspicion of the real state of her mind, nor was he undeceived until the
day was nearly over and they sat down to have a few minutes of social
conversation before the early tea.
They had been speaking on some local topic involving a question of right
and wrong, and Mr. Sylvester’s ears were yet thrilling to the deep
ringing tones with which Paula uttered the words, “I do not see how any
man can hesitate an instant when the voice of his conscience says no. I
should think the very sunlight would daunt him at the first step of his
foot across the forbidden line,” when Miss Belinda suddenly spoke up and
sending Paula out of the room on some trivial pretext, addressed Mr.
Sylvester without reserve.
“I have something to say to you, sir, before you take from my home the
child of my care and affection.”
Could he have guessed what that something was that he should turn with
such a flush of sudden anxiety to meet her determined gaze.
“The rules of our life here have been simple,” continued she in a tone
of voice which those who knew her well recognized as belonging to her
uncompromising moods. “To do our duty, love God and serve our neighbor.
Paula has been brought up to reverence those rules in simplicity and
honor; what will your gay city life with its hollow devices for pleasure
and its loose hold on the firm principles of life, do for this innocent
soul, Mr. Sylvester?”
“The city,” he said firmly but with a troubled undertone in his voice
that was not unnoted by the watchful woman, “is a vast caldron of
mingled good and evil. She will hear of more wrong doing, and be within
the reach of more self-denying virtue, than if she had remained in this
village alone with the nature that she so much loves. The tree of
knowledge bears two kinds of fruit, Miss Belinda; would you therefore
hinder the child from approaching its branches?”
“No, sir; I am not so weak as to keep a child in swaddling-clothes after
the period of infancy is past, neither am I so reckless as to set her
adrift on an unknown sea without a pilot to guide her. Your wife—” she
paused and fixed an intent look upon the flames leaping before her. “Ona
is my niece,” she resumed in a lower tone of voice, “and I feel entitled
to speak with freedom concerning her. Is she such a guide as I would
choose for a young girl just entering a new sphere in life? From all I
have heard, I should judge she was somewhat over-devoted to this world
and its fashions.”
Mr. Sylvester flushed painfully, but seeing that any softening of the
truth would be wholly ineffectual with this woman, replied in a candid
tone, “Ona is the same now as she was in the days of her girlhood. If
she loves the world too well she is not without her excuse; from her
birth it has strewn nothing but roses in her path.”
“Humph!” came from the lips of the energetic spinster. Then with a
second stern glance at the fire, continued, “Another question, Mr.
Sylvester. Does your wife consent to receive my niece into her house,
for the indefinite length of time which you mention, from interest in
the girl herself or indeed from any motive I should judge worthy of
Paula? It is a leading question I know, but this is no time for niceties
of speech.”
“Miss Belinda,” replied he, and his voice was firm though his fingers
slightly trembled where they rested upon the arms of his chair, “I will
try and forget for a moment that Ona is my wife, and frankly confide to
you that any such motive on her part, as would meet with your entire
approval, must not be expected from a woman who has never fully
recognized the solemn responsibilities of life. That she will be kind to
Paula I have no doubt, that she may even learn to take an interest in
her for her own sake, is also very possible, but that she will ever take
your place towards her as guide or instructor, I neither anticipate nor
would feel myself justified in leading you to.”
The look which Miss Belinda cast him was anything but reassuring. “And
yet,” said she, “you will take away my darling and give her up to an
influence that can not be for good, or your glance would not be so
troubled or your lip so uncertain. You would set her young feet in a
path where the very flowers are so thick they conceal its tendency and
obscure its dangers. Mr. Sylvester you are a man who has seen life with
naked eyes, and must recognize its responsibilities; dare you take this
Paula, whom you have seen, out of the atmosphere of truth and purity in
which she has been raised, and give her over to the enervating
influences of folly and fashion? Will you assume the risk and brave the
consequences?”
As though an electric shock had touched the nerve of his nature, Mr.
Sylvester hastily rose and moved in a restless manner to the window. It
was his favorite refuge in any time of sudden perplexity or doubt, and
this was surely an occasion for both.
“Miss Belinda,” he began and then paused, looking out on the hills of
his boyhood, every one of which spoke to him at that moment with a force
that almost sickened his heart and benumbed the faculties of his mind;
“I recognize the love which leads you to speak in this way, and I bow
before it, but—” here his tongue faltered again, that ready tongue
whose quick and persuasive eloquence on public occasions had won for him
the name of Silver-speech among his friends and admirers—“but there are
others who love your Paula also, love her with a yearning that only the
childless can feel or the disappointed appreciate. I had hoped—” here
he left the window and approached her side, “to do more for Paula than
to give her the temporal benefit of a luxurious home and such
instruction as her extraordinary talents demand. If Ona upon seeing and
knowing the child had found she could love her, I had intended to ask
you to yield her to us unreservedly and forever, in short to make her my
child in place of the daughter I have lost. But now—” with a quick
gesture he began pacing the floor and left the sentence unfinished.
Miss Belinda’s eyes which were of a light grey, wholly without beauty
but with strange flashes of expression in them, left the fire and fell
upon his face, and a tear of real feeling gathered beneath her lids.
“I had no idea,” said he, “that you cherished any such intention as
that. If I had I might have worded my apprehensions differently. The
yearning feeling of which you speak, I can easily understand, also the
strength of the determination it must take on the part of a man like
yourself, to give up a hope of this nature. Yet—” Seeing him pause in
his hurried pacing and open his lips as if to speak, she deferentially
stopped.
“Miss Belinda,” said he, in the firm and steadfast way more in keeping
with his features than his agitated manner of a moment before, “I cannot
give it up. The injury it would do me is greater than the harm, which
one of Paula’s lofty nature would be apt to acquire in any atmosphere
into which she might chance to be introduced. She is not a child, Miss
Belinda, though we allude to her as such. The texture of those
principles which you have instilled into her breast, is of no such weak
material as to give way to the first petty breeze that blows. Paula’s
house will stand, while mine—”
He paused and gave way to a momentary struggle, but that over, he set
his lips firmly together and the last vestige of irresolution vanished.
Sitting down by her side, he turned his face upon her, and for the first
time she realized the power which with one exception he had always
exerted over the minds of others. “Miss Belinda,” said he, “I am going
to give you an evidence of my trust; I am going to leave with you the
responsibility of Paula’s future. She shall go with me, and learn, if
she can, to love me and mine, but she shall also be under obligations to
open her heart to you on all matters that concern her life and happiness
in my house, and the day you see any falling off in her pure and upright
spirit, you shall demand her return, and though it tears the heart from
my breast, I will yield her up without question or parley as I am a
gentleman and a Christian. Does that content you?”
“It certainly ought to, sir. No one could ask more, I am sure,” returned
the other in a voice somewhat unsteady for her.
“It is opening my house to the gaze of a stranger,” said he, “for I
desire you to command Paula to withhold nothing that seriously affects
her; but my confidence in you is unbounded and I am sure that whatever
you may learn in this way, will be held as sacred by you as though it
were buried in a tomb.”
“It certainly will, sir.”
“As for the dearer hope which I have mentioned, time and the condition
of things must decide for us. Meanwhile I shall strive to win a father’s
place in her heart, if only to build myself a refuge for the days that
are to come. You see I speak frankly, Miss Belinda; will you give me
some token that you are not altogether dissatisfied with the result of
this conversation?”
With the straightforward if somewhat blunt action that characterized all
her movements, she stretched out her hand, which he took with something
more than his usual high-bred courtesy. “With you at the wheel,” said
she, “I think I may trust my darling, even to the whirl and follies of
such a society as I know Ona loves. A man who can so command himself,
ought to be a safe guide to pioneer others.”
And the considerate gentleman bowed; but the frank smile that hailed her
genial clasp had somehow vanished, and from the sudden cloud that at
that moment swept over the roseate heavens, fell a shadow that left its
impress on his lip long after the cloud itself had departed.
An hour or so had passed. The fire was burning brightly on the
hearthstone, illumining with a steady glow the array of stuffed birds,
worsted samplers and old-fashioned portraits with which the walls were
adorned, but reserving its richest glow and fullest irradiation for the
bended head of Paula, who seated on a little stool in the corner of the
hearth, was watching the rise and fall of the flickering flames.
She had packed her little trunk, had said good-bye to all her
neighboring friends and was now sitting on the old hearthstone, musing
upon the new life that was about to open before her. It was a happy
musing, as the smile that vaguely dimpled her cheeks and brightened her
eyes beneath their long lashes, amply testified. As Mr. Sylvester
watched her from the opposite side of the hearth where he was sitting
alone with his thoughts, he felt his heart sink with apprehension at the
fervor of anticipation with which she evidently looked forward to the
life in the new home. “The young wings think to gain freedom,” thought
he, “when they are only destined to the confinement of a gilded cage.”
He was so silent and looked so sad, Paula with a certain sort of
sensitiveness to any change in the emotional atmosphere surrounding her,
which was one of her chief characteristics, hastily looked up and
meeting his eye fixed on her with that foreboding glance, softly arose
and came and sat down by his side. “You look tired,” murmured she; “the
long ride after a day of business care has been too much for you.”
It was the first word of sympathy with his often over-wearied mind and
body, that had greeted his ears for years. It made his eyes moisten.
“I have been a little overworked,” said he, “for the last two months,
but I shall soon be myself again. What were you thinking of, Paula?”
“What was I thinking of?” repeated she, drawing her chair nearer to his
in her loving confidence. “I was thinking what wonders of beauty and art
lay in that great kernel which you call the city. I shall see lovely
faces and noble forms. I shall wander through halls of music, the echo
of whose songs may have come to me in the sob of the river or the sigh
of the pines, but whose notes in all their beauty and power have never
been heard by me even in my dreams. I shall look on great men and touch
the garments of thoughtful women. I shall see life in its fullness as I
have felt nature in its mightiness, and my heart will be satisfied at
last.”
Mr. Sylvester drew a deep breath and his eyes burned strangely in the
glow of the fire-light. “You expect high things,” said he; “did you ever
consider that the life in a great city, with its ceaseless rush and
constant rivalries, must be often strangely petty in despite of its
artistic and social advantages?”
“All life has its petty side,” said she, with a sweet arch look. “The
eagle that cleaves the thunder-cloud, must sometimes stop to plume its
wings. I should be sorry to lose the small things out of existence. Even
we in the face of that great sunset appealing to us from the west, have
to pile up the firewood on the hearth and set the table for supper.”
“But fashion, Paula,” he pursued, concealing his wonder at the maturity
of mind evinced by this simple child of nature, “that inexorable power
that rules the very souls of women who once step within the magic circle
of her realm! have you never thought of her and the demands that she
makes on the time and attention even of the worshippers of the good and
the true?”
“Yes, sometimes,” she returned with a repetition of her arch little
smile, “when I put on a certain bonnet I have, which Aunt Abby modeled
over from one of my grandmother’s. Fashion is a sort of obstinate
step-dame I imagine, whom it is less trouble to obey than to oppose. I
don’t believe I shall quarrel with Fashion if she will only promise to
keep her hands off my soul.”
“But if—” with a pause, “she asks your all, what then?”
“I shall consider that I am in a country of democratic principles,” she
laughed, “and beg to be excused from acceding to the tyrannical demands
of any autocrat male or female.”
“You have been listening to Miss Belinda,” said he; “she is also opposed
to all and any tyrannical measures.” Then with a grave look from which
all levity had fled, he leaned toward the young girl and gently asked,
“Do you know that you are a very beautiful girl, Paula?”
She flushed, looked at him in some surprise and slowly drooped her head.
“I have been told I looked like my father,” said she, “and I know that
means something very kind.”
“My child,” said he, with gentle insistence, “God has given you a great
and wonderful gift, a treasure-casket of whose worth you scarcely
realize the value. I tell you this myself, first because I prize your
beauty as something quite sacred and pure, and secondly because you are
going where you will hear words of adulation, whose folly and bluntness
will often offend your ears, unless you carry in your soul some talisman
to counteract their effect.”
“I understand,” said she, “I know what you mean. I will remember that
the most engaging beauty is nothing without a pure mind and a good
heart.”
“And you will remember too,” continued he, “that I blessed your innocent
head to-night, not because it is circled by the roses of a youthful and
fresh loveliness, but because of the pure mind and good heart I see
shining in your eyes.” And with a fond but solemn aspect he reached out
his hand and laid it on her ebon locks.
She bowed her head upon her breast. “I will never forget,” said she, and
the fire-light fell with a softening glow on the tears that trembled
from her eye-lashes.
XIII.
THE END OF MY LADY’S PICTURE.
“Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.”—POPE.
Mrs. Sylvester was spending an evening at home. This was something so
unusual for this august lady of fashion to indulge in, that she found it
difficult not to fall asleep in the huge crimson-backed chair in which
she had chosen to ensconce herself. Not that she had desisted from
making every effort known to mortal woman to keep herself awake and if
possible amused till the expected travellers should arrive. She had
played with her bird till the spoiled pet had himself protested, ducking
his head under his wing and proceeding without ceremony to make up his
little feather bed, as cunning Geraldine used to call the round, fluffy
ball into which he rolled himself at night. More than that, she had
looked over her ornaments and taken out such articles as she thought
could be spared for Paula, to say nothing of playing a bar or so from
the last operatic sensation, and laboriously cutting open the leaves of
the new magazine. But it was all of no use, and the heavy white lids
were slowly falling, when the bell rang and Mr. Bertram Mandeville was
announced, or rather Bertram Sylvester as he now chose to be called.
It was a godsend to her as she politely informed him upon his entrance;
and though in his secret heart he felt anything but God sent—he was not
of a make to appreciate his uncle’s wife at her very evident value—he
consented to remain and assist her in disposing of the evening till Mr.
Sylvester should return.
“He is going to bring a pretty girl with him,” remarked she, in a tone
of some interest, “a cousin of mine from Grotewell. I should like to
have you see her.”
“Thank you,” replied he, his mind roaming off at the suggestion, into
the region of a certain plain little music-room where the clock on the
mantel ticked to the beating of his own heart. And for ten minutes Mrs.
Sylvester had the pleasure of filling the room with a stream of easy
talk, in which Grotewell, dark beauties, the coming Seventh Regiment
reception, the last bit of gossip from London, and the exact situation
of the Madison Bank formed the principal topics.
To the one last mentioned, it having taken the form of a question, he
was forced to reply; but the simple locality having been learned, she
rambled easily on, this time indulging him with a criticism upon the
personal appearance of certain business gentlemen who visited the house,
ending with the somewhat startling declaration:
“If Edward were not the fine appearing gentleman that he undoubtedly is,
I should feel utterly out of place in these handsome parlors. Anything
but to see an elegant and modern home, decorated with the costliest
works of art, and filled with _bijouterie_ of the most exquisite
delicacy, presided over by a plain and common-place woman or a
bald-headed and inferior-looking man. The contrast is too vivid; works
of the highest art do not need such a startling comparison to bring out
their beauty. Now if Edward stood in the throne-room of a palace, he
would somehow make it seem to others as a handsome set off to his own
face and figure.”
This was all very wife-like if somewhat unnecessary, and Bertram could
have listened to it with pleasure, if she had not cast the frequent and
side-long glances at the mirror, which sufficiently betrayed the fact
that she included herself in this complacent conclusion; as indeed she
may have considered herself justified in doing, husband and wife being
undoubtedly of one flesh. As it was, he maintained an immovable
countenance, though he admired his uncle as much as she did, and the
conversation gradually languished till the white somnolent lids of the
lady again began to show certain premonitory signs of drooping, when
suddenly they were both aroused by the well known click of a latch-key
in the door, and in another moment Mr. Sylvester’s voice was heard in
the hall, saying, in tones whose cheery accents made his wife’s eyes
open in surprise—
“Welcome home, my dear.”
“They have come,” murmured Mrs. Sylvester rising with a look of
undeniable expectation. Had Paula not been a beauty she would have
remained seated.
“Yes, we have come,” was heard in hearty tones from the door-way, and
Mr. Sylvester with a proud look which Bertram long remembered, ushered
into their presence a young girl whose simple cloak and bonnet in no
wise prevented Mrs. Sylvester from recognizing the somewhat uncommon
beauty she had been led to expect.
“Paula, this is your cousin Ona, and—Ah, Bertram, glad to see you—this
is my only nephew, Mr. Sylvester.”
The young girl, lost in the sudden glamour of numerous lights, shining
upon splendors such as she may have dreamed of over the pages of
Irving’s Alhambra, but certainly had never before seen, blushed with
very natural embarrassment, but yet managed to bestow a pretty enough
greeting upon the elegant woman and handsome youth, while Ona after the
first moment of almost involuntary hesitation, took in hers the two
trembling hands of her youthful cousin and actually kissed her cheek.
“I am not given to caresses as you know,” she afterwards explained in a
somewhat apologetic tone to her husband; “and anything like an appeal
for one on the part of a child or an inferior, I detest; but her simple
way of holding out her hand disarmed me, and then such a face demands a
certain amount of homage, does it not?” And her husband in his surprise,
was forced to acknowledge to himself, that as closely as he had studied
his wife’s nature for ten years, there were certain crooks and turns in
it which even he had never penetrated.
“You look dazzled,” that lady exclaimed, gazing not unkindly into the
young girl’s face; “the sudden glare of so much gas-light has bewildered
you.”
“I do not think it is that,” returned Paula with a frank and admiring
look at the gorgeous room and the circle of pleasant faces about her.
“Sudden lights I can bear, but I have come from a little cottage on the
hillside and the magnificence of nature does not prepare you for the
first sudden view of the splendors of art.”
Mrs. Sylvester smiled and cast a side glance of amusement at Bertram.
“You admire our new hangings I see,” remarked she with an indulgence of
the other’s _näiveté_ that greatly relieved her husband.
But in that instant a change had come across Paula; the simple country
maid had assimilated herself with the surroundings, and with a sudden
grace and dignity that were unstudied as they were charming, dropped her
eyes from her cousin’s portrait—that for some reason seemed to shine
with more than its usual insistence—and calmly replied, “I admire all
beautiful color; it is my birthright as a Walton, to do so, I suppose.”
Mrs. Sylvester was a Walton also and therefore smiled; but her husband,
who had marked with inward distrust, the sudden transformation in Paula,
now stepped forward with a word or two of remark concerning his
appetite, a prosaic allusion that led to the rapid disappearance of the
ladies upstairs and a short but hurried conversation between the two
gentlemen.
“I have brought you a sealed envelope from the office,” said Bertram,
who, in accordance with his uncle’s advice, had already initiated
himself into business by assuming the position of clerk in the office of
the wealthy speculator.
“Ah,” returned his uncle hastily opening it. “As I expected, a meeting
has been held this day by the board of Directors of the Madison Bank, a
vote was cast, my proxy did his duty and I am duly elected President.
Bertram, we know what that means,” smiled he, holding out his hand with
an affectionate warmth greatly in advance of the emotion displayed by
him on a former occasion.
“I hope so indeed,” young Bertram responded. “An increase of fortune and
honor for you, though you seem to have both in the fullest measure
already, and a start in the new life for me to whom fortune and honor
mean happiness.”
A smile younger and more full of hope than any he had seen on his
uncle’s face for years, responded to this burst. “Bertram,” said he,
“since our conversation of a couple of weeks ago something has occurred
which somewhat alters the opinions I then expressed. If you have
patience equal to your energy, and a self-control that will not put to
shame your unbounded trust in women, I think I can say God-speed to your
serious undertaking, with something like a good heart. Women are not all
frivolous and foolish-minded; there are some jewels of simple goodness
and faith yet left in the world.”
“Thank God for your conversion,” returned his nephew smiling, “and if
this lovely girl whom you have just introduced to me, is the cause of
it, then thank God for her also.”
His uncle bowed with a gravity almost solemn, but the ladies returning
at this moment, he refrained from further reply. After supper, to which
unusual meal Mr. Sylvester insisted upon his nephew remaining, the two
gentlemen again drew apart.
“If you have decided upon buying the shares I have mentioned,” said the
former, “you had better get your money in a position to handle at once.
I shall wish to present you to Mr. Stuyvesant to-morrow, and I should
like to be able to mention you as a future stockholder in the bank.”
“Mr. Stuyvesant!” exclaimed Bertram, ignoring the rest of the sentence.
“Yes,” returned his uncle with a smile, “Thaddeus Stuyvesant is the next
largest stockholder to myself in the Madison Bank, and his patronage is
not an undesirable one.”
“Indeed—I was not aware—excuse me, I should be happy,” stammered the
young man. “As for the money, it is all in Governments and is at your
command whenever you please.”
“That is good, I’ll notify you when I’m ready for the transfer. And now
come,” said he, with a change from his deep business tone to the lighter
one of ordinary social converse, “forget for a half hour that you have
discarded the name of Mandeville, and give us an aria or a sonata from
Mendelssohn before those hands have quite lost their cunning.”
“But the ladies,” inquired the youth glancing towards the drawing-room
where Mrs. Sylvester was giving Paula her first lesson in ceramics.
“Ah, it is to see how the charm will act upon my shy country lassie,
that I request such a favor.”
“Has she never heard Mendelssohn?”
“Not with your interpretation.”
Without further hesitation the young musician proceeded to the piano,
which occupied a position opposite to my lady’s picture in this
anomalous room denominated by courtesy the library. In another instant,
a chord delicate and ringing, disturbed the silence of the long vista,
and one of Mendelssohn’s most exquisite songs trembled in all its
delicious harmony through these apartments of sensuous luxury.
Mr. Sylvester had seated himself where he could see the distant figure
of Paula, and leaning back in his chair, watched for the first startled
response on her part. He was not disappointed. At the first note, he
beheld her spirited head turn in a certain wondering surprise, followed
presently by her whole quivering form, till he could perceive her face,
upon which were the dawnings of a great delight, flush and pale by
turns, until the climax of the melody being reached, she came slowly
down the room, stretching out her hands like a child, and breathing
heavily as if her ecstacy of joy in its impotence to adequately express
itself, had caught an expression from pain.
“O Mr. Sylvester!” was all she said as she reached that gentleman’s
side; but Bertram Mandeville recognized the accents of an unfathomable
appreciation in that simple exclamation, and struck into a grand old
battle-song that had always made his own heart beat with something of
the fire of ancient chivalry under its breastplate of modern broadcloth.
“It is the voice of the thunder clouds when they marshal for battle!”
exclaimed she at the conclusion. “I can hear the cry of a righteous
struggle all through the sublime harmony.”
“You are right; it is a war-song ancient as the time of battle-axes and
spears,” quoth Bertram from his seat at the piano.
“I thought I detected the flashing of steel,” returned she. “O what a
world lies in those simple bits of ivory!”
“Say rather in the fingers that sweep them,” uttered Mr. Sylvester. “You
will not hear such music often.”
“I am glad of that,” she cried simply, then in a quick conscious tone
explained, “I mean that the hearing of such music makes an era in our
life, a starting-point for thoughts that reach away into eternity; we
could not bear such experiences often, it would confuse the spirit if
not deaden its enjoyment. Or so it seems to me,” she added naively,
glancing at her cousin who now came sweeping in from the further room,
where she had been trying the effect of a change in the arrangement of
two little pet monstrosities of Japanese ware.
“What seems to you?” that lady inquired. “O, Mr. Mandeville’s playing? I
beg pardon, Sylvester is the name by which you now wish to be addressed
I suppose. Fine, isn’t it?” she rambled on all in the same tone while
she cautiously hid an unfortunate gape of her rosy mouth behind the
folds of her airy handkerchief. “Mr. Turner says the hiatus you have
made in the musical world by leaving the concert room for the desk, can
never be repaired,” she went on, supposedly to her nephew though she did
not look his way, being at that instant engaged in sinking into her
favorite chair.
“I am glad,” Bertram politely returned with a frank smile, “to have
enjoyed the approval of so cultivated a critic as Mr. Turner. I own it
occasions me a pang now and then,” he remarked to his uncle over his
shoulder, “to think I shall never again call up those looks of
self-forgetful delight, which I have sometimes detected on the faces of
certain ones in my audience.”
And he relapsed without pause into a solemn anthem, the very reverse of
the stirring tones which he had previously accorded them.
“Now we are in a temple!” whispered Paula, subduing the sudden interest
and curiosity which this young man’s last words had awakened. And the
awe which crept over her countenance was the fittest interpretation to
those noble sounds, which the one weary-hearted man in that room could
have found.
“I have something to tell you, Ona,” remarked Mr. Sylvester shortly
after this, as the music being over, they all sat down for a final chat
about the fireside. “I have received notice that the directors of the
Madison Bank have this day elected me their president. I thought you
might like to know it to-night.”
“It is a very gratifying piece of news certainly. President of the
Madison Bank sounds very well, does it not, Paula?”
The young girl with her soul yet ringing with the grand and solemn
harmonies of Mendelssohn and Chopin, turned at this with her brightest
smile. “It certainly does and a little awe-inspiring too;” she added
with her arch glance.
“Your congratulations are also requested for our new assistant cashier.
Arise, Bertram, and greet the ladies.”
With a blush his young nephew arose to his feet.
“What! are you going into the banking business?” queried Mrs. Sylvester.
“Mr. Turner will be more shocked than ever: he chooses to say that
bankers, merchants and such are the solid rock of his church, while the
lighter fry such as artists, musicians, and let us hope he includes us
ladies, are its minarets, and steeples. Now to make a foundation out of
a steeple will quite overturn his methodical mind I fear.”
Mr. Sylvester looked genially at his wife; she was not accustomed to
attempt the facetious; but Paula seemed to have the power of bringing
out unexpected lights and shadows from all with whom she came in
contact.
“A clergyman who rears his church on the basis of wealth must expect
some overturning now and then,” laughed he.
“If by means of it he turns a fresh side to the sun, it will do him no
harm,” chimed in Paula.
Seldom had there been so much simple gaiety round that fireside; the
very atmosphere grew lighter, and the brilliance of my lady’s picture
became less oppressive.
“We ought to have a happy winter of it,” spoke up Mr. Sylvester with a
glance around him. “Life never looked more cheerful for us all, I think;
what do you say, Bertram my boy.”
“It certainly looks promising for me.”
“And for me,” murmured Paula.
The complacent way with which Mrs. Sylvester smoothed out the feathers
of her fan with her jewelled right hand,—she always carried a fan
winter and summer, some said for the purpose of displaying those same
jewelled fingers—was sufficient answer for her.
At that moment there was a hush, when suddenly the small clock on the
mantel-piece struck eleven, and instantly as if awaiting the signal,
there came a rush and a heavy crash which drew every one to their feet,
and the brilliant portrait of my lady fell from the wall, and toppling
over the cabinet beneath, slid with the various articles of bronze and
china thereon, almost to the very chair in which its handsome prototype
had been sitting.
It was a startling interruption and for an instant no one spoke, then
Paula with a look towards her cousin breathed to herself rather than
said, “Pray God it be not an omen!” And the pale countenances of the two
gentlemen standing face to face on either side of that fallen picture,
showed that the shadow of the same superstition had insensibly crossed
their own minds.
Mrs. Sylvester was the only one who remained unmoved. “Lift if up,”
cried she, “and let us see if it has sustained any injury.”
Instantly Bertram and her husband sprang forward, and in a moment its
glowing surface was turned upward. Who could read the meaning of the
look that crossed her husband’s face as he perceived that the sharp
spear of the bronze horseman, which had been overturned in the fall, had
penetrated the rosy countenance of the portrait and destroyed that
importunate smile forever.
“I suppose it is a judgment upon me for putting all the money you had
allowed me for charitable purposes, into that exquisite bit of bronze,”
observed Mrs. Sylvester, stooping above the overturned horseman with an
expression of regret she had not chosen to bestow on her own ruined
picture. “Ah he is less of a champion than I imagined; he has lost his
spear in the struggle.”
Paula glanced at her cousin in surprise. Was this pleasantry only a veil
assumed by this courtly lady to hide her very natural regret over the
more serious accident? Even her husband turned toward her with a certain
puzzled inquiry in his troubled countenance. But her expression of
unconcern was too natural; evidently the destruction of the picture had
awakened but small regret in her volatile mind.
“She is less vain than I thought,” was the inward comment of Paula.
Ah simple child of the woods and streams, it is the extent of her vanity
not the lack of it, that has produced this effect. She has begun to
realize that ten years have elapsed since this picture was painted, and
that people are beginning to say as they examine it, “Mrs. Sylvester has
not yet lost her complexion, I see.”
A break necessarily followed this disturbance, and before long Bertram
took his leave, not without a cordial pressure from his uncle’s hand and
a look of kindly interest from the stranger lassie, upon whose
sympathetic and imaginative mind the hints let fall as to his former
profession, had produced a deep impression. With his departure Mrs.
Sylvester’s weariness returned, and ere long she led the way to her
apartments up stairs. As Paula was hastening to follow Mr. Sylvester
stopped her.
“You will not allow this unfortunate occurrence,” he said, with a slight
gesture towards the picture now standing with its face against the wall,
“to mar your first sleep under my roof, will you Paula, my child?”
“No, not if you say that you think Cousin Ona will not be likely to
connect it with my appearance here.”
“I do not think she will; she is not superstitious and besides does not
seem to greatly regret the misfortune.”
“Then I will forget it all and only remember the music.”
“It was all you anticipated?”
“It was more.”
“Sometime I will tell you about the player and the sweet young girl he
loves.”
“Does he—” she paused, blushing; love was a subject upon which she had
never yet spoken to any one.
“Yes he does,” Mr. Sylvester returned smiling.
“I thought there was a meaning in the music I did not quite understand.
Good night, uncle,”—he had requested her to address him thus though he
was in truth her cousin, “and many, many thanks.”
But he stopped her again. “You think you will be happy in these rooms,”
said he; “you love splendor.”
She was not yet sufficiently acquainted with his voice to detect the
regret underlying its kindly tone, and answered without suspicion. “I
did not know it before, but I fear that I do. It dazzled at first, but
now it seems as if I had reached a home towards which I had always been
journeying. I shall dream away hours of joy before each little ornament
that adorns your parlors. The very tiles that surround the fireplace
will demand a week of attention at least.”
She ended with a smile, but unlike formerly he did not seem to catch the
infection. “I had rather you had cared less,” said he, but instantly
regretted the seeming reproach, for her eyes filled with tears and the
tones of her voice trembled as she replied,
“Do you think the beauty I have seen has made me forget the kindness
that has brought me here? I love fine and noble objects, glory of color
and harmony of shape, but more than all these do I love a generous soul
without a blot on its purity, or a flaw in its integrity.”
She had meant to utter something that would show her appreciation of his
goodness and the universal esteem in which he was held, but was quite
unprepared for the start that he gave and the unmistakable deepening of
the shadow on his sombre face. But before she could express her regret
at the offence, whatever it was, he had recovered himself, and it was
with a fatherly tenderness that he laid his hand upon hers while he
said, “Such a soul may yours ever continue, my child,” and then stood
watching her as she glided up the stairs, her charming face showing
every now and then as she leaned on her winding way to the top, to
bestow upon him the tender little smile she had already learned was his
solace and delight.
It was the beginning of happier days for him.
BOOK II.
LIFE AND DEATH.
XIV.
MISS BELINDA HAS A QUESTION TO DECIDE.
“I pray you in your letters,
* * * * *
Speak of
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/33301