"Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats.
And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then?
Who's sorry for a gnat--or girl?"
E.B. BROWNING.
The question, whether I should breakfast downstairs or alone, was
settled by the ringing of the bell before Kitty had half done my hair,
and as I would not for worlds have been two minutes late at any meal
that Mr. Rutledge was to share, I determined to "take the benefit of the
act," and remain an invalid till dinner-time.
"What a dismal day, Miss!" remarked my maid, as she made herself busy in
removing my breakfast from the table. "How shall you manage to amuse
yourself?"
"I don't mind the rain in the least," I answered, wheeling my admired
chair up to the window, and throwing myself into it, with a lapful of
books and work. "I think a rainy day is splendid."
And so, indeed, I found it for a while. I read till I had extracted all
the honey from the pile of reviews and magazines before me, and then
pushed them away, and leaning against the window, gazed out on the
dreary landscape. A sheet of rain and mist hid the lake, the pine grove
looked black and sullen, the trees in the park tossed mournfully about
their naked branches, as showers of yellow leaves fell in gusts upon the
ground; the wind moaned dismally around the house, and dashed the rain,
by fits and starts, against the windows with a heavy sound. It was very
nice to feel that it could not get in, and that there was stout glass
and stone between me and the pitiless autumn storm, and a snug and cosy
shelter from its fury. But by and by I grew rather tired of watching the
rain and the leaves, and yawning, began to cast about for some more
attractive occupation. This I found for a short time in my worsted work,
which I disinterred from the depths of my trunk, and applied myself to
in great earnest for half an hour. But the motive for exertion was
wanting; I could not help thinking wearily, that there was not the least
hurry about finishing it, and those roses would blow, on demand, any
time during the next six years, with as much advantage as at present.
And so I laid it down and took to the window again, wondering, with a
sigh, whether all young ladyhood were like this; and if it were, how it
happened that we did not hear of more early deaths--deaths from utter
ennui and exhaustion. I had for so long been used to having every half
hour in the day filled up with some unavoidable exercise of mind or
body, that I felt entirely lost without the routine, and firmly
resolved, as soon as I should be settled at my aunt's, to begin a course
of study which should fill up all these idle moments, and give some
vigor to my faculties. "I should die of this in a month," I thought; and
seizing one of the rejected Reviews, the only literature at hand, I
resolutely set myself to read the longest, driest paper in it. And
really, after the task was accomplished, though I am sorry to say I was
not by much the clearer in my views on the particular branch of science
of which it treated, still I felt decidedly better satisfied with myself
for the effort, and experienced less compunction in taking, after lunch,
a short nap.
Kitty had been absent all the morning, having been detailed for some
pressing laundry work by the practical Mrs. Roberts, for which I was
still owing her a grudge, when, just as I awoke from my nap, she walked
in, and accepting the chair I offered her, made me quite a little
visit. I exerted myself to appear amiable, and was congratulating myself
on the success of my efforts, and on the absence of all disagreeable
topics, when, just as she was going, her keen eyes having made the
circuit of the room many times, she detected something amiss in the bed,
and walking across to the recess where it stood, began to examine the
manner in which it was made.
"That Kitty," she said, "was not to be trusted to make even a bed by
herself. She was sure I did not lie comfortably."
And stooping down, she began to dissect it. My heart gave a spasmodic
thump, and then stood "stock-still for sheer amazement," not to say
consternation, when it flashed across me that I had left the guilty
miniature between the mattresses, where, in the sleepless nervousness of
last night, I had put it, in order to have it as far out of the way as
possible. It was the strangest thing that I should never have thought of
it since I waked up. "And now," I thought, with a cold chill, "now it is
probably under Mrs. Roberts' very nose, and Kitty and I are undone." I
hardly breathed as I watched her throwing back blanket and sheet, and
making sad havoc among the bolsters and pillows, giving the one a
contemptuous shake, and the other an indignant poke; all the while most
animatedly anathematizing the the unlucky Kitty. I had already pictured
Kitty and myself dragged by the hair of our guilty heads, before Mr.
Rutledge, for judgment, and terrified into confession by that awful look
of his, when to my unspeakable relief, Mrs. Roberts stopped just short
of the mattress, and coming indignantly across the room, rang for Kitty,
who promptly answered the bell. She looked somewhat blank to find that
the summons was not to dress me, but to stand one of Mrs. Roberts'
tirades.
Mrs. Roberts was, I believe, troubled with rheumatism, "the worst kind,"
and the cold storm and east wind had aggravated these long-tried enemies
to an unbearable pitch, and it was well known in the house that there
was but one remedy that succeeded in the least in allaying the
irritation of her nerves, but one soothing panacea, and that was, a
thorough and satisfactory "blow-out" or scolding; the raking
fore-and-aft some adversary's craft with the unerring fire of her
indignation, the entire annihilation, soul and body, for the time being,
of the victim that happened first to cross her path. And tradition
pointed to Kitty as the favorite scape-goat on these occasions. She knew
her fate, I am certain, from the moment she caught the dull glare of
Mrs. Roberts' eye, and doggedly tossing her pretty head to one side,
stood ready to confront her.
Did she call that bed _made_, Mrs. Roberts would like to know? Kitty
considered it made--yes.
She did, did she? Then she would please to come across the room and try
if she could do it as well the second time.
I made Kitty an agonized gesture, which she promptly understood, but
which Mrs. Roberts also caught sight of, and was at her elbow in an
instant. It was a pretty severe contest of skill between the veteran
rat-catcher and the keen little mouser; Mrs. Roberts knew there was
_something_, and inly vowed to scent it out; Kitty was as determined to
elude her vigilance, and as is not unusual, youth and dexterity
triumphed. From under the very eyes of Mrs. Roberts, Kitty, under cover
of a zealous shake of the mattress, bore off the miniature, and
smuggling it in her apron, passed by where I was sitting, and threw it
into my lap. I thrust it down to the lowest depths of my pocket, and
looked with admiration at Kitty's unshaken composure, as she continued
her work under the galling fire of Mrs. Roberts' sarcasms.
The bed at last was made irreproachably; even Mrs. Roberts could find no
fault with its unruffled exterior; though to my unpractised eye, it had
looked much the same before its revisal. It seemed a long time before
the antagonists withdrew, and a longer still before my tranquillity of
temper was restored. How I wished the miniature safely back in Kitty's
trunk, in the furthest corner of the attic! That came of doing what I
was ashamed of! I did not feel as if I could look any one in the face
till it was out of my hands. I did not venture to ring for Kitty, for I
felt certain Mrs. Roberts stood with the door of her room ajar, ready to
pounce upon her if she came in sight again; so I exerted myself to
perform the duties of my _toilette_ unaided. They were not arduous, and
I was soon dressed, and vainly trying to interest myself in my
embroidery till the bell should ring. It was still an open question
whether I should go downstairs; I half inclined to playing invalid a
little longer, and taking this one more meal in my room. But then the
dreary prospect of my solitary dinner, and the long dull twilight, with
nothing but my own thoughts for entertainment, and the longer, duller
evening, with nothing to amuse but what had failed of that object during
the day, weighed down the balance in favor of a change of scene, and I
was on my feet in an instant, as my watch pointed to three, and the bell
announced dinner, simultaneously. I pushed the worsted into my workbox,
and putting the miniature hastily into a drawer, essayed to lock it, but
the key was defective, for some cause, and would not turn, and not
daring to run the risk of being late, I again put it into my pocket, and
hurried down.
As I reached the lower hall, I remembered that I had not the least idea
which door led into the dining-room, and so had to try three or four
which gave no evidence of being inhabited, furniture being covered and
windows closed, before I hit upon the right one. I entered hesitatingly,
not discovering, till I was fairly in the room, that I was the only
occupant of it. The table was laid for two, and the dinner was already
served, but the master was not yet down. As some minutes passed and he
did not appear, I had time to look around, and get acquainted with the
_salle à manger._ It was a fine room, old-fashioned though it was; and
modern architecture has still to produce its rival in my eyes. The
ceiling was very high, the fireplace wide, with tiled jambs; the
wood-work carved in stiff but stately patterns; the windows were deep,
with enticing window-seats, and the walls were covered with pictures.
Pictures, I imagined, of people who had once owned Rutledge: some of
them, perhaps, lived in this very house, ate and drank in this very
room. There were several portraits, that I rather hurried over, of
pompous-looking people in very old-time style, but I knew in a moment
the handsome picture over the mantelpiece. It was the late Mr. Rutledge,
like Mr. Arthur, but infinitely handsomer, on a larger scale, with a
jovial, pleasant face, but I thought, less intellectual in the
expression. Then I was certain that the picture on the right represented
Richard, the heir, who had died so soon after his father. Ah! But, I
thought, what a handsome, gentle face! What soft eyes! If Mr. Arthur had
only looked like him, what a nice, thing it would be to be dining
_tête-à-tête_ with him. _Quel dommage!_ If he had only lived! But I felt
inclined to laugh when I remembered that his younger brother might
easily, as far as age was concerned, have been my father, and the
handsome Richard himself could almost, well, yes, quite, have stood to
me in the relation, more reverend than romantic, of grandfather.
So, with a wistful look at the pensive, delicate face that never had
grown, never could grow old, I glanced at the empty panel that
intervened between this picture and the the next. That space surely once
had held a portrait, and with a rapid transition of fancy, I thought of
the picture with its face to the wall, in the deserted room upstairs.
That was it, I made no manner of doubt, that had once hung here. Beyond
it was the mother's portrait, fair, gentle, and sad: beneath this
picture, and depending from its frame, hung a little crayon sketch, that
I examined with interest, thinking to find it identical, possibly, with
the miniature, which I pulled from my pocket to compare. But a glance
refuted that idea; not the faintest likeness between them, nothing in
common but human features. It represented (the sketch I mean) a boy of
about my own age, with such a fine, glowing, ardent face as made "new
life-blood warm the bosom," only to look into his truthful eyes, only to
catch the merry smile that lingered about his handsome mouth. It had,
however, such a likeness to Mr. Rutledge, that I should, despite the
difference that time had wrought have imagined him to be the original of
the picture, had I not found, written hastily and faintly in one corner,
"Obit. 1830," and some words in Latin that I could not make myself
mistress of.
I was so intent upon it, that I did not notice Mr. Rutledge's entrance
till he stood beside me. I pocketed the miniature, which I still held in
my hand, in hot haste, and turned to meet his inquiring eyes.
"Are you making acquaintance with my ancestors?" he asked.
I answered that I had been looking at the pictures. "But this," pointing
to the crayon head, "this is not an ancestor, is it?"
"No," he said, with a half smile, "not exactly an ancestor; a relation."
I asked him if it was not considered like him.
He had been told, he said, that there was some resemblance. I looked at
it with a critical eye, and then remarked that the resemblance lay, I
thought, in the contour of the face, and perhaps something about the
eyes; but the expression was as different from his as it was possible
for an expression to be.
"That's true," he said looking at it sadly; "that face expresses what no
man's face can express after thirty: hope and courage, and an unshaken
confidence in the honesty of his fellows."
I did not fancy that doctrine very much, so I began talking of the
other pictures. Of the older ones, Mr. Rutledge gave me some slight
sketches, passing briefly by those that I knew he could have told me
most about. But I turned admiringly back to the sketch that had so much
taken my fancy.
"After all," I said, "this is the finest face among them."
Mr. Rutledge shook his head dissentingly, and looked sadly up at
Richard's portrait.
"No indeed," I exclaimed, "that's not near so good a face as this;
handsomer, perhaps, dreamy and poetical, but not so brave and spirited.
Look at the impatient fire in those eyes! And his smile is truth itself.
There is something so determined in the attitude too."
"He was, I believe, an honest, truthful lad," said Mr. Rutledge,
unenthusiastically.
"He was more than that I'm sure," I exclaimed, "or would have been, if
he had lived. With that high spirit he would have made everything bend
to him; and if fair fortune hadn't smiled upon his humble birth (which,
however, I suppose she did, being a Rutledge), he would have conquered
her, you may be sure. I am certain he wouldn't have known the meaning of
the words despair and doubt; but come what might, would have hoped and
believed to the end."
"But perhaps," said my companion, "perhaps a hand of ice might have been
laid upon his youth; a cruel blow might in one day have dashed from him
all that feeds hope and faith; perhaps disgrace, grief, illness, coming
all together, might have crushed out of him all energy and spirit. What
would have become of your hero then? Would he have hoped, when death and
the grave had all that he loved? Would he have believed, when what from
his cradle he had most trusted in had proved false and worthless?"
I was a little startled at the bitterness of his tone, but persisted,
"All that wouldn't have happened to him. 'Fortune favors the brave.'"
"Not always, _petite_, not always," he said, with an ironical laugh.
"Nevertheless, I wish he had lived," I said; "I am sure he would have
been my hero."
"Why," said Mr. Rutledge, looking at me, "why, if, as you say, that boy
had lived, he would have been--let me see--nearly forty years old: and
that, you know, would have made it out of the question for you to love
him."
"I never thought of that," I said naively. "Well then, I wish I had
lived when he did, and been born thirty years ago."
"What! Your youth all over? No, little simpleton, whatever you wish,
don't be wild enough to wish that! Make the best of your youth, and
freshness, and spirit, for they'll take themselves off some fine day,
and leave you nothing to do but to look back."
"That's according to the use I make of them, I suppose," I answered, a
little ungraciously. "I am not at all afraid that I shall be bitter and
misanthropical when I am old, if I spend my youth as I ought."
Mr. Rutledge laughed very much as if he thought I meant it for him; yet
the laugh was not altogether a happy one, and he continued:
"See to it then, child, that you use them right. I do not mean to
discourage you. I have no doubt you will be very happy and contented
when forty comes around on the string of birth-days. Always being and
provided, of course, that the hero, or one as near like him as possible,
has come in at the right time to realize your dreams."
"But I don't believe," I said, perversely, "that I shall ever have any
lover that I shall like as much as I should have done this one."
"He would have made you an earnest lover, certainly, if that would have
won you, with perhaps a dash of impetuosity and tyranny in his love; but
that is what you women like, is it not?"
"How can I tell?" I said, very demurely.
"I forgot," he answered, laughing, "I forgot that you were just out of
school, and could not be supposed to know anything about love and
lovers."
"Of course not," I said, putting my hands in the pockets of my basque,
and looking at the ground over my left shoulder, after the manner of a
French print I had seen in Mademoiselle Céline's room. "Of course not."
Mr. Rutledge seemed to take in such good part my saucy ways, that I
began, to feel much more at my ease, and laughed quite like myself, when
on going to the table we found the soup very unattractively cold;
"glacée," Mr. Rutledge said it was.
"While people moralize they are very apt to forget the realities; and so
we have let the soup get cold, and the dinner get burned, very likely,
and shall have to wait for it as it has been waiting for us."
Mr. Rutledge rang, and a servant and hot soup promptly appeared, and
dinner was soon in progress, and a very pleasant dinner it proved. For
the time, my companion forgot abstraction, and I forgot timidity, and
both forgot the dismal storm without. Mr. Rutledge condescended to be
entertaining, and I deigned to forget all former slights, and be
entertained. Unluckily, however, at dessert, I made some allusion to the
loneliness in which he usually took his meals, and that seemed to raise
some disagreeable recollection, for his face darkened, and he said,
after a short pause:
"Yes, young lady, it is long since I have seen any face, and most of
all, a woman's face, opposite me at this solitary table."
Then he fell into a fit of musing that made me feel uncomfortably sorry
for my mal-à-propos speech. I could not help wondering who had last sat
where I did, and the thought was anything but genial; my eyes wandered
involuntarily to the empty panel; and it was with a feeling of relief
that I arose from the table and followed my host toward the library. As
we passed the crayon picture, however, I paused a moment, and Mr.
Rutledge, turning, said:
"You're not tired of it yet?"
I said no, I liked it better all the time, and to-morrow I meant to
bring my drawing materials down and make a copy of it, if he was
willing.
"You are welcome to the picture itself, if you'll accept it," he said,
indifferently, proceeding to unhook it from the frame of the picture
above, to which it hung.
I was mute with amazement for a moment, and hardly found breath to
exclaim:
"How strange that you do not value it!"
He replied that there were two or three sketches of the same face about
the house, and he did not care particularly for this one. It gave him
great pleasure to give it to me, if I fancied it.
I hope I thanked him, but I am not at all certain that I did. I seized
the picture with great _goût_, and ran into the library, and up to the
lightest window, to enjoy it by myself.
Mr. Rutledge threw himself into a chair, and his hand being before his
eyes, I could not see whether he slept or not. I looked long and
earnestly at my favorite in every light, and from every point; then got
up on a chair and reached down a Latin Dictionary to help translate the
sentence written below the date. But I could not get it right; and gave
up in despair.
That amusement exhausted, and no other presenting, in the course of time
the unavoidable weariness, and want of elasticity consequent upon my
three days' confinement to the house, began to make themselves felt, and
at last, I thought, to become utterly unbearable. I conceived the mad
plan of getting my shawl and hood, and escaping to the piazza for a
little exercise, though the rain had beaten furiously upon almost every
part of it. I got up, and was stealing noiselessly toward the door, when
Mr. Rutledge, whom I had fancied asleep, said uneasily, without
altering his position:
"Why do you go away?"
"I am so tired of the house, sir, I am going to wrap up and walk up and
down on the piazza for a little while. It will not hurt me," I
continued, pleadingly; "mayn't I?"
"On no account," he said decidedly; "it would be absurd, after the fever
you have had."
"I am positive it would not hurt me, sir."
"And I am positive it would."
As Mr. Rutledge had not turned toward me at all, I suppose he did not
see how very angry I looked, and how very red my face was. Perhaps his
thoughts had gone off to something else, for he did not say anything
more; and I stood drumming on the table, waiting for him to continue;
determined, _determined_ not to go back and sit down, till, exasperated
beyond patience by his silence, I said, moving toward the door:
"I suppose then, sir, you have no objection to my going to my own room."
"Why, yes," he said, "I have, decidedly. I think it would be much more
sensible for you to amuse yourself down here."
"I've failed in doing that, sir, already."
"Well, then, stay and amuse me."
"That's entirely beyond my power, I am afraid; sir," I answered,
shrugging my shoulders.
"You cannot tell till you have tried," he said; "I have a wretched
headache. Don't you feel sorry for me?"
"Of course, sir, exceedingly. But unluckily, I don't see how I can help
you."
"Oh, it's of no importance. Pray go."
I stood irresolute and very uncomfortable.
"If there's anything you'll have for your head, sir"----
"No, there's nothing, thank you."
This was the way in which I repaid his indulgence and attention! This
was a nice return for the care he had taken of me during my illness. I
would have given worlds for a good excuse to stay, but Mr. Rutledge
seemed determined not to give me any. At last, after everything else had
failed, I said, hesitatingly:
"Would it annoy you to have me read aloud to you, sir?"
He would not trouble me on any account, he said.
"But," I answered eagerly, "it is not the slightest trouble. I should
like to do it, I assure you."
He would not think of putting such a task upon me.
"But do say," I exclaimed, "whether or not you like reading aloud."
He liked it very much, but begged me not to trouble myself.
That was enough, and in a moment I was by the fire.
"What shall I read, sir?"
"Anything you fancy."
"You are the most provoking man," I thought, as I looked up and down the
shelves in search of a book. I shrewdly concluded that I might as well
please myself in the choice, as it was not probable that Mr. Rutledge
would attend to three words of what I read, even if he did not go to
sleep. So recognizing an old friend in "Sintram," I took it from the
bookcase, and sitting down in the window-seat, opened its familiar pages
with some pleasure. Familiar, that is, they had been to my childhood,
but it was some years since I had seen the book. It was not long,
however, before I forgot myself and my auditor over the strange, wild,
touching story. The dreary storm without, the growing gloom within, all
added to the charm of its wild pathos. I read on, bending forward to
catch the last grey light from the window, till, baffled by the
rapidly-deepening twilight, I left it, and sitting down on a low seat by
the fire, read on by its flickering light. If I had not been sure that
no one was attending, I should have stopped for shame at the trembling
of my voice, which I could not control, as I read the lines that tell to
Sintram his release from terror and temptation:
"Death comes to set thee free--
O meet him cheerily
As thy true friend;
And all thy fears shall cease,
And in eternal peace
Thy penance end."
A low, quick-drawn sigh told me that I was not alone in my interest in
the tale. I finished it, and dropping the book in my lap, sat resting my
head on my hand, and gazing dreamily into the fire. Presently steps in
the hall interrupted my revery, and I rose to put the book away. As I
passed Mr. Rutledge, he held out his hand, and, as I laid my own in it,
he said, "thank you," and looked at me with the most mournful expression
in his eyes. The tears rushed involuntarily into mine as I met his
glance; I did not know which to pity most, Sintram or my companion. He
saw the pity in my look, and remembered it, long after the emotion had
passed.
A servant entered at that moment, with the brightest of cheerful lamps;
Mr. Rutledge ordered more wood on the fire, which presently blazed and
crackled genially; the curtains were drawn, and the conquered twilight
and moaning wind were banished from the room.
Mr. Rutledge roused himself from his abstracted mood, and I said to
myself, "What can I do to keep him from thinking of the things that
trouble him?" And, woman enough to like the task, I set myself to make
the evening a pleasant one, and to keep all dullness and ennui away. And
it was a very happy evening to me, and not a dull one, I am certain, to
my host. I made tea with much less trepidation than on the evening
before, and it proved almost magical in curing Mr. Rutledge's headache.
I could hardly believe the clock was right when it struck ten, the
evening had seemed so short. I took my picture from the mantelpiece, and
bidding my companion good night, ran upstairs two steps at a time, not
remembering till I reached the top, that Miss Crowen had condemned the
practice as unladylike. "I hope Mr. Rutledge wasn't listening," I
thought with mortification. If Mr. Rutledge wasn't, Mrs. Roberts was,
though, for I heard her door shut softly soon after I had reached my
room, and presently she found an excuse for coming in upon me, which she
did rather suddenly, as I was standing before the new picture, looking
at it very earnestly, as I leisurely unbraided my hair. I went over to
the glass, however, very quickly upon her entrance; and after her errand
was over, she quite inadvertently, it would seem, glanced up at the
picture, but _I_ knew she had seen it the first thing when she came in.
"Why," she exclaimed, looking surprised, "how came Mr. Rutledge's
picture up here? It has always hung under his mother's in the
dining-room. There must be some mistake," she continued, looking
inquiringly at me.
An alarming truth began to dawn on my mind, a vivid blush spread over my
face, and Mrs. Roberts never once took her eyes off me.
"I fancied it, and Mr. Rutledge said I might have it," I stammered. Mrs.
Robert's blue lips parted for an instant in a contemptuous curl; then,
looking stonier than ever, she said:
"Yes, it is a good likeness; or was, at least, when he was a young man;
he's sadly changed since then; he's an old and an altered man now, is
Mr. Arthur Rutledge."
The housekeeper, saying this with emphasis, and having no excuse for
staying longer, was obliged to withdraw.
"Yes, ma'am," I muttered, as I locked the door after her, "I know he's
an old man, I know he's nearly forty years old: who better? for he told
me so himself." And my cheeks scorched with blushes, as one by one, I
recalled my foolish speeches. How stupid, how blind I had been. Why, as
I looked at the picture now, there wasn't a feature in the face that
could possibly have been mistaken for any one else, not a shade nor
outline that was not characteristic. I could have cried with vexation.
How should I ever dare to look him in the face again? "My hero!" And I
covered my face with my hands, and started up guiltily, and put it out
of the way before I unlocked the door for Kitty.