A week later, at the close of a dull winter day, Beulah sat as usual
in the study. The large parlors and dining room had a desolate look
at all times, and of the whole house only the study seemed genial.
Busily occupied during the day, it was not until evening that she
realized her guardian's absence. No tidings of him had been
received, and she began to wonder at his prolonged stay. She felt
very lonely without him, and, though generally taciturn, she missed
him from the hearth, missed the tall form and the sad, stern face.
Another Saturday had come, and all day she had been with Clara in
her new home, trying to cheer the mourner and dash away the gloom
that seemed settling down upon her spirits. At dusk she returned
home, spent an hour at the piano, and now walked up and down the
study, wrapt in thought. The room had a cozy, comfortable aspect;
the fire burned brightly; the lamplight silvered the paintings and
statues; and on the rug before the grate lay a huge black dog of the
St. Bernard order, his shaggy head thrust between his paws. The
large, intelligent eyes followed Beulah as she paced to and fro, and
seemed mutely to question her restlessness. His earnest scrutiny
attracted her notice, and she held out her hand, saying musingly:
"Poor Charon; you too miss your master. Charon, King of Shadows,
when will he come?"
The great black eyes gazed intently into hers, and seemed to echo,
"When will he come?" He lifted his grim head, snuffed the air,
listened, and sullenly dropped his face on his paws again. Beulah
threw herself on the rug, and laid her head on his thick neck; he
gave a quick, short bark of satisfaction, and very soon both girl
and dog were fast asleep. A quarter of an hour glided by, and then
Beulah was suddenly roused by a violent motion of her pillow. Charon
sprang up, and leaped frantically across the room. The comb which
confined her hair had fallen out, and, gathering up the jetty folds
which swept over her shoulders, she looked around. Dr. Hartwell was
closing the door.
"Down, Charon; you ebon scamp! Down, you keeper of Styx!" He forced
down the paws from his shoulders, and patted the shaggy head, while
his eyes rested affectionately on the delightful countenance of his
sable favorite. As he threw down his gloves, his eyes fell on
Beulah, who had hastily risen from the rug, and he held out his
hand, saying
"Ah! Charon waked you rudely. How are you?"
"Very well, thank you, sir. I am so glad you have come home, so
glad." She took his cold hand between both hers, rubbed it
vigorously, and looked up joyfully in his face. She thought he was
paler and more haggard than she had ever seen him, his hair
clustered in disorder about his forehead, his whole aspect was weary
and wretched. He suffered her to keep his hand in her warm, tight
clasp, and asked kindly.
"Are you well, Beulah? Your face is flushed, and you feel feverish."
"Perfectly well. But you are as cold as an Esquimaux hunter. Come to
the fire." She drew his armchair, with its candle-stand and book-
board, close to the hearth, and put his warm velvet slippers before
him. She forgot her wounded pride, forgot that he had left without
even bidding her good by, and only remembered that he had come home
again, that he was sitting there in the study, and she would be
lonely no more. Silently leaning back in the chair, he closed his
eyes with a sigh of relief. She felt as if she would like very much
to smooth off the curling hair that lay thick and damp on his white,
gleaming brow, but dared not. She stood watching him for a moment,
and said considerately.
"Will you have your tea now? Charon and I had our supper long ago."
"No, child, I only want to rest."
Beulah fancied he spoke impatiently. Had she been too officious in
welcoming him to his own home? She bit her lip with proud vexation,
and, taking her geometry, left him. As she reached the door the
doctor called to her.
"Beulah, you need not go away. This is a better fire than the one in
your own room." But she was wounded, and did not choose to stay.
"I can study better in my own room. Good-night, sir."
"Why, child, this is Saturday night. No lessons until Monday."
She was not particularly mollified by the reiteration of the word
"child," and answered coldly:
"There are hard lessons for every day we live."
"Well, be good enough to hand me the letters that have arrived
during my absence."
She emptied the letter receiver, and placed several communications
in his hand. He pointed to a chair near the fire, and said quietly:
"Sit down, my child; sit down."
Too proud to discover how much she was piqued by his coldness, she
took the seat and commenced studying. But lines and angles swam
confusedly before her, and, shutting the book, she sat looking into
the fire. While her eyes roamed into the deep, glowing crevices of
the coals, a letter was hurled into the fiery mass, and in an
instant blazed and shriveled to ashes. She looked up in surprise,
and started at the expression of her guardian's face. Its Antinous-
like beauty had vanished; the pale lips writhed, displaying the
faultless teeth; the thin nostrils were expanded, and the eyes
burned with fierce anger. The avalanche was upheaved by hidden
volcanic fires, and he exclaimed, with scornful emphasis:
"Idiot! blind lunatic! In his dotage!"
There was something so marvelous in this excited, angry
manifestation that Beulah, who had never before seen him other than
phlegmatic, looked at him with curious wonder. His clenched hand
rested on the arm of the chair, and he continued sarcastically:
"Oh, a precious pair of idiots! They will have a glorious life. Such
harmony, such congeniality! Such incomparable sweetness on her part,
such equable spirits on his! Not the surpassing repose of a windless
tropic night can approach to the divine serenity of their future.
Ha! by the Furies! he will have an enviable companion; a matchless
Griselda!" Laughing scornfully, he started up and strode across the
floor. As Beulah caught the withering expression which sat on every
feature she shuddered involuntarily. Could she bear to incur his
contempt? He approached her, and she felt as though her very soul
shrank from him; his glowing eyes seemed to burn her face, as he
paused and said ironically:
"Can't you participate in my joy? I have a new brother-in-law.
Congratulate me on my sister's marriage. Such desperate good news
can come but rarely in a lifetime."
"Whom has she married, sir?" asked Beulah, shrinking from the iron
grasp on her shoulder.
"Percy Lockhart, of course. He will rue his madness. I warned him.
Now let him seek apples in the orchards of Sodom! Let him lay his
parched lips to the treacherous waves of the Dead Sea! Oh, I pity
the fool! I tried to save him, but he would seal his own doom. Let
him pay the usurious school-fees of experience."
"Perhaps your sister's love for him will--"
"Oh, you young, ignorant lamb! You poor, little, unfledged birdling!
I suppose you fancy she is really attached to him. Do you, indeed?
About as much as that pillar of salt in the plain of Sodom was
attached to the memory of Lot. About as much as this peerless Niobe
of mine is attached to me." He struck the marble statue as he spoke.
"Then, how could she marry him?" asked Beulah naively.
"Ha! ha! I will present you to the Smithsonian Institution as the
last embodiment of effete theories. Who exhumed you, patron saint of
archaism, from the charnel-house of centuries?" He looked down at
her with an expression of intolerable bitterness and scorn. Her
habitually pale face flushed to crimson, as she answered with
sparkling eyes:
"Not the hand of Diogenes, encumbered with his tub!"
He smiled grimly.
"Know the world as I do, child, and tubs and palaces will be alike
to you. Feel the pulse of humanity, and you will--"
"Heaven preserve me from looking on life through your spectacles!"
cried she impetuously, stung by the contemptuous smile which curled
his lips. "Amen." Taking his hands from her shoulder, he threw
himself back into his chair. There was silence for some minutes, and
Beulah said:
"I thought Mr. Lockhart was in Syria?"
"Oh, no; he wants a companion in his jaunt to the Holy Land. How
devoutly May will kneel on Olivet and Moriah! What pious tears will
stain her lovely cheek as she stands in the hall of Pilate, and
calls to mind all the thirty years' history! Oh, Percy is cruel to
subject her tender soul to such torturing associations! Beulah, go
and play something; no matter what. Anything to hush my cursing
mood. Go, child." He turned away his face to hide its bitterness,
and, seating herself at the melodeon, Beulah played a German air of
which he was very fond. At the conclusion he merely said:
"Sing."
A plaintive prelude followed the command, and she sang. No
description could do justice to the magnificent voice, as it swelled
deep and full in its organ-like tones; now thrillingly low in its
wailing melody, and now ringing clear and sweet as silver bells.
There were soft, rippling notes that seemed to echo from the deeps
of her soul and voice its immensity. It was wonderful what compass
there was, what rare sweetness and purity too. It was a natural
gift, like that conferred on birds. Art could not produce it, but
practice and scientific culture had improved and perfected it. For
three years the best teachers had instructed her, and she felt that
now she was mistress of a spell which, once invoked, might easily
exorcise the evil spirit which had taken possession of her guardian.
She sang several of his favorite songs, then closed the melodeon and
went back to the fire. Dr. Hartwell's face lay against the purple
velvet lining of the chair, and the dark surface gave out the
contour with bold distinctness. His eyes were closed, and as Beulah
watched him she thought, "How inflexible he looks, how like a marble
image! The mouth seems as if the sculptor's chisel had just carved
it--so stern, so stony. Ah, he is not scornful now! he looks only
sad, uncomplaining, but very miserable. What has steeled his heart,
and made him so unrelenting, so haughty? What can have isolated him
so completely? Nature lavished on him every gift which could render
him the charm of social circles, yet he lives in the seclusion of
his own heart, independent of sympathy, contemptuous of the world he
was sent to improve and bless." These reflections were interrupted
by his opening his eyes and saying, in his ordinary, calm tone:
"Thank you, Beulah. Did you finish that opera I spoke of some time
since?"
"Yes, sir."
"You found it difficult?"
"Not so difficult as your description led me to imagine."
"Were you lonely while I was away?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why did not Clara come and stay with you?"
"She was engaged in changing her home; has removed to Mrs. Hoyt's
boarding house."
"When did you see her last? How does she bear the blow?"
"I was with her to-day. She is desponding, and seems to grow more so
daily."
She wondered very much whether he suspected the preference which she
felt sure Clara entertained for him; and, as the subject recurred to
her, she looked troubled.
"What is the matter?" he asked, accustomed to reading her expressive
face.
"Nothing that can be remedied, sir."
"How do you know that? Suppose you let me be the judge."
"You could not judge of it, sir; and, besides, it is no concern of
mine."
A frigid smile fled over his face, and for some time he appeared
lost in thought. His companion was thinking too; wondering how Clara
could cope with such a nature as his; wondering why people always
selected persons totally unsuited to them; and fancying that if
Clara only knew her guardian's character as well as she did the
gentle girl would shrink in dread from his unbending will, his
habitual, moody taciturnity. He was generous and unselfish, but also
as unyielding as the Rock of Gibraltar. There was nothing
pleasurable in this train of thought, and, taking up a book, she
soon ceased to think of the motionless figure opposite. No sooner
were her eyes once fastened on her book than his rested searchingly
on her face. At first she read without much manifestation of
interest, regularly and slowly passing her hand over the black head
which Charon had laid on her lap. After a while the lips parted
eagerly, the leaves were turned quickly, and the touches on Charon's
head ceased. Her long, black lashes could not veil the expression of
enthusiastic pleasure. Another page fluttered over, a flush stole
across her brow; and, as she closed the volume, her whole face was
irradiated.
"What are you reading?" asked Dr. Hartwell, when she seemed to sink
into a reverie.
"Analects from Richter."
"De Quincey's!"
"Yes, sir."
"Once that marvelous 'Dream upon the Universe' fascinated me as
completely as it now does you."
Memories of earlier days clustered about him, parting the somber
clouds with their rosy fingers. His features began to soften.
"Sir, can you read it now without feeling your soul kindle?"
"Yes, child; it has lost its interest for me. I read it as
indifferently as I do one of my medical books. So will you one day."
"Never! It shall be a guide-book to my soul, telling of the pathway,
arched with galaxies and paved with suns, through which that soul
shall pass in triumph to its final rest!"
"And who shall remain in that 'illimitable dungeon of pure, pure
darkness, which imprisons creation? That dead sea of nothing, in
whose unfathomable zone of blackness the jewel of the glittering
universe is set and buried forever?' Child, is not that, too a
dwelling-place?" He passed his fingers through his hair, sweeping it
all back from his ample forehead. Beulah opened the book, and read
aloud:
"Immediately my eyes were opened, and I saw, as it were, an
interminable sea of light; all spaces between all heavens were
filled with happiest light, for the deserts and wastes of the
creation were now filled with the sea of light, and in this sea the
suns floated like ash-gray blossoms, and the planets like black
grains of seed. Then my heart comprehended that immortality dwelled
in the spaces between the worlds, and Death only among the worlds;
and the murky planets I perceived were but cradles for the infant
spirits of the universe of light! In the Zaarahs of the creation I
saw, I heard, I felt--the glittering, the echoing, the breathing of
life and creative power!"
She closed the volume, and, while her lips trembled with deep
feeling, added earnestly:
"Oh, sir, it makes me long, like Jean Paul, 'for some narrow cell or
quiet oratory in this metropolitan cathedral of the universe.' It is
an infinite conception and painting of infinity, which my soul
endeavors to grasp, but wearies in thinking of!"
Dr. Hartwell smiled, and, pointing to a row of books, said with some
eagerness:
"I will test your love of Jean Paul. Give me that large volume in
crimson binding on the second shelf. No--further on; that is it."
He turned over the leaves for a few minutes, and, with a finger
still on the page, put it into her hand, saying:
"Begin here at 'I went through the worlds,' and read down to 'when I
awoke.'"
She sat down and read. He put his hand carelessly over his eyes, and
watched her curiously through his fingers. It was evident that she
soon became intensely interested. He could see the fierce throbbing
of a vein in her throat and the tight clutching of her fingers. Her
eyebrows met in the wrinkling forehead, and the lips were compressed
severely. Gradually the flush faded from her cheek, an expression of
pain and horror swept over her stormy face, and, rising hastily, she
exclaimed:
"False! false! 'That everlasting storm which no one guides' tells me
in thunder tones that there is a home of rest in the presence of the
infinite Father! Oh, chance does not roam, like a destroying angel,
through that 'snow-powder of stars!' The love of our God is over all
his works as a mantle! Though you should 'take the wings of the
morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,' lo! he is
there! The sorrowing children of the universe are not orphans!
Neither did Richter believe it; well might he declare that with this
sketch he would 'terrify himself' and vanquish the specter of
Atheism! Oh, sir! the dear God stretches his arm about each and all
of us! 'When the sorrow-laden lays himself, with a galled back, into
the earth, to sleep till a fairer morning,' it is not true that 'he
awakens in a stormy chaos, in an everlasting midnight!' It is not
true! He goes home to his loved dead, and spends a blissful eternity
in the kingdom of Jehovah, where death is no more, 'where the wicked
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest!'"
She laid the volume on his knee, and tears which would not be
restrained rolled swiftly over her cheeks.
He looked at her mournfully, and took her hand in his.
"My child, do you believe all this as heartily as you did when a
little girl? Is your faith in your religion unshaken?"
He felt her fingers close over his spasmodically, as she hastily
replied:
"Of course, of course! What could shake a faith which years should
strengthen?"
But the shiver which crept through her frame denied her assertion,
and with a keen pang he saw the footprints of the Destroyer. She
must not know, however, that he doubted her words, and, with an
effort, he said:
"I am glad, Beulah; and if you would continue to believe, don't read
my books promiscuously. There are many on those shelves yonder which
I would advise you never to open. Be warned in time, my child."
She snatched her hand from his, and answered proudly:
"Sir, think you I could be satisfied with a creed which I could not
bear to have investigated? If I abstained from reading your books,
dreading lest my faith be shaken, then I could no longer confide in
that faith. Christianity has triumphed over the subtleties of
infidelity for eighteen hundred years. What have I to fear?"
"Beulah, do you want to be just what I am? Without belief in any
creed! hopeless of eternity as of life! Do you want to be like me?
If not, keep your hands off of my books! Good night; it is time for
you to be asleep."
He motioned her away, and, too much pained to reply, she silently
withdrew.