"Love is hurt with jar and fret,
Love is made a vague regret,
Eyes with idle tears are wet,
Idle habit links us yet--
What is love? for we forget;
Ah! no, no!"
TENNYSON.
My bright eyed maid had something evidently on her mind the next
morning, as stealing early to my bedside, she found me awake and quite
ready for her services. I caught sight of her perplexed face in the
glass, as she dressed my hair, and said at last, "What are you thinking
about, Kitty, has anything happened?"
"Happened? Oh, no, Miss," she said, blushing, and a little confused. "I
was only thinking--I was only wondering"----
"Well, Kitty?"
"I mean that--that is--are you very fond of Miss Churchill?"
I laughed and blushed a little in my turn, and said:
"Why no, not particularly, I think."
"Because _I_ think she's a very haughty lady, for my part; and if I am
any judge, her maid, Frances, is a much-put-upon young woman, that's
all."
"What has led you to that conclusion so soon?" I asked, with a smile.
"Oh! nothing particular, ma'am, only some of Miss Churchill's ruffled
morning dresses got crushed in the packing, and Frances was in the
laundry till after twelve o'clock last night, fluting 'em over; and I've
noticed, Frances starts and flusters when her lady's bell rings, as if
there were a scolding for her at the other end of the wire, that's all."
"Oh, that's a trifle! Frances is nervous," I said, apologetically. "What
did my aunt say when you told her my message last night?"
"Nothing but 'very well,' and 'I am sorry to hear it.' There wasn't time
for any more, for the gentleman they call Captain, with the big
moustache, came up for her to play whist, and she went away with him.
But," said Kitty, hesitatingly, and looking at me very sharply, "I don't
know whether I ought to tell you, but there was a gentleman who didn't
seem to take it quite so coolly as Mrs. Churchill did."
"Who, pray?" I asked, as the blood started to my cheeks.
"The young French gentleman, Miss; I think they call him Mr."----
"Oh, Mr. Viennet!"
"I wonder, Miss, why you say 'Oh, Mr. Viennet!' as if you were
disappointed," said Kitty, quite nettled. "I'm sure he's the handsomest
gentleman among 'em; and if you could have seen him, when he followed me
up the stairs, and asked about you, I am sure you'd think better of it;
and he's got the handsomest eyes! I can't think why you don't like him."
"I have not said I did not; and besides, Kitty," I continued, gravely,
"it's not right for you to talk to the gentlemen; you must be careful."
"I know, Miss; but who could help talking to such a nice gentleman, just
answering his questions? I'm sure he could get round Mrs. Roberts
herself, if he tried! let alone people that ain't made of stone or
leather. And," continued Kitty, "isn't it odd, Miss, but all the time he
was talking to me, I couldn't help wondering where I'd seen him before?
I know for a certainty, that he's never been within forty miles of
Rutledge till now, and I've never been twenty miles away from it; and
yet, for my life, I couldn't get it out of my head, that some where or
other I'd seen him before!"
"It's a very foolish idea to have in your head, Kitty, and a very
improbable one at the best; so I wouldn't trouble myself any further
about it, if I were you."
I did not mention it to Kitty, but I could not help being struck with
the similarity of my own impressions on first meeting Victor Viennet. It
was the vaguest, mistiest chain of reminiscence that his face seemed to
stir, but till I had seen him several times, it continued to perplex me.
I could not account for it in any way; but the association or
recollection, or whatever it was, had faded before a closer
acquaintance; and now Victor Viennet's handsome face suggested Victor
Viennet, and nobody or nothing more.
"These will match your lilac muslin exactly, Miss," said Kitty, offering
me a handful of purple "morning glories." "I ran out to get you some
flowers before I came in to wake you, but I was in such a hurry, that I
couldn't go as far as the garden, and so just picked these out of the
hedge."
I thanked her as I fastened them in my dress; they looked lovely with
the dew still shining on them. It was yet a good while to breakfast, but
I turned to go downstairs, accepting, with a smile at the newness of
such services, the dainty handkerchief that Kitty shook out for me.
The fresh morning breeze swept softly through the wide hall as I
descended the stairs. Summer had come in and taken the gloomy old place
by storm. A pyramid of flowers stood on the dark oak table in the
centre, a mocking-bird in its gay cage hung at one end, and over the
cold marble pavement the sunshine was creeping fast. The house was so
quiet, that I could almost fancy I was alone in it, and crossing the
hall, I went up to the library door; but a cowardly irresolution made me
turn away, and pass on to the north door of the hall, which, as well as
the front one, stood wide open. The broad fields stretched far away
June-like and lovely in the sunshine; the hedges and trees were in such
luxuriant leaf, that they quite hid the stables and outhouses on the
left that last fall had been so prominent in the landscape. Looking from
the parlor windows, there was the same view of the lake that I had from
my room. The mists were rolling up from its fair bosom, and the foliage
that crowned its banks was of the freshest and glossiest green. The dew
was glittering on the lawn, early birds twittered and sang in the
branches overhead, and on the breeze came the rich perfume of the roses
that climbed from pillar to pillar of the piazza. Rutledge had fulfilled
my anticipations; in my weary, longing day-dreams, I had never pictured
anything fairer than this.
It was with a half-defined feeling of curiosity that I wandered through
the large parlors, furnished in an odd mixture of old-fashioned splendor
and modern elegance. It was _terra incognita_ to me; I had never entered
these rooms before. I could hardly understand how the sunshine and fresh
air came to be so much at home in them, as it seemed they now were. It
was difficult to believe that these finely furnished, habitable looking
apartments, had been closed and unused for twenty years and more. They
had been thoroughly revised, no doubt, and the past put to the rout; but
they were strange and unattractive to me, and I turned again to the
library. Listening at the door before I pushed it open, I entered
noiselessly. There was no need of so much caution; this room was as
untenanted as its neighbors, save by thronging memories and torturing
regrets, and they entered with me.
Here at least there was no change; the wide casements were open to the
morning, but the white north light seemed subdued and cold after the
sunshine of the other rooms, and the dark panelling and frowning
moldings looked a defiance at the intruding summer. I liked it better
so; there had been change enough without this last stronghold of memory
being invaded.
Every article of furniture in the room--the table, with its pile of
papers at one end and books at the other, the familiar paper-cutter
lying by the unopened review, the heavy bronze inkstand, the graceful
lamp, the chair, pushed back half a yard from the table--minded me of
the happy hours that it would have been wiser to forget. One of the
bookcases stood open, and a book lay on the table as if recently read,
and a card marked the reader's place. I took it up involuntarily. It was
Sintram, and the words swam before me as I bent over its familiar pages.
On the card that had served for a mark, were written a few lines in a
well known hand; and as I raised my eyes from them to the window, I saw
Mr. Rutledge himself approaching the house from the direction of the
stables. With a hurried movement I slipped the card in my pocket, and
finding nothing else to replace it with, pulled one of the flowers from
my bosom, and hastily shutting it between the leaves, threw the book on
the table, and ran into the hall. If I had been a fugitive from justice,
I could not have had a more guilty feeling than that which now impelled
me to escape from meeting Mr. Rutledge. But there was no time to get
upstairs; he would see me from the piazza if I went into the parlor; and
while I stood in the hall, trembling with eagerness, and alarm, and
irresolution, my retreat was cut off by the sudden appearance of Victor
descending the stairs, who with an exclamation of pleasure, hurried
toward me, and taking my hand was bowing over it in most devout fashion,
when Mr. Rutledge entered the hall. Victor looked a little confused, and
paused in the midst of an elegant French speech, while the quick crimson
dyed my cheeks, all of which Mr. Rutledge appeared to ignore, as,
approaching us, he said good morning with his usual courtesy of manner,
expressed his pleasure in the improvement apparent in my looks, and then
to Victor his astonishment at finding him a person of such early
habits.
"Pray do not give me any credit for getting up this morning," said
Victor with a hasty wave of the hand. "I assure you I detest early
rising with my whole French soul, and haven't seen a sun younger than
three hours old since I can remember; but, my dear sir, with all homage
to the most comfortable of beds, and the pleasantest room I ever
occupied in my life, I never passed such a night! When at last I slept,
my dreams were so frightful that I was thankful to wake, and would have
resorted to any means to have kept myself awake, if there had been the
slightest danger of my closing my eyes again."
"What room did you occupy?" I asked.
"The corner room at the north end of the hall, it is, I think."
"It is most unfortunate," said Mr. Rutledge, looking a little annoyed.
"Are you subject to wakeful nights?"
"Never remember such an occurrence before," he returned. "I have enjoyed
the plebeian luxury of sound sleep all my life, and so am more at a loss
to account for my experience of last night."
"Were you disturbed by any noise--conscious of any one moving in the
house?"
"No, the house was silent, silent as death! _Ma foi!_ I believe that was
the worst of it. If I were superstitious, I should tell you of the only
thing that interrupted it; but I know how credulous and absurd it would
sound to dispassionate judges, and how I should ridicule anything of the
kind in another person; but this strange nightmare has taken such
possession of me, I cannot shake it off."
His face expressed intense feeling as he spoke, and the usual levity of
his manner was quite gone.
"What was it?" I said earnestly, and Mr. Rutledge looked indeed so far
from ridiculing his emotion, that Victor went on rapidly:
"You will think me a person of imaginative and excitable temperament,
but I must assure you to the contrary, and that I never before yielded
to a superstitious fancy, and have always held in great contempt all who
were influenced by such follies. Will you believe me then, when I tell
you that last night I was startled violently from my sleep, by a voice
that sounded, from its hollowness and ghastliness, as if it came from
the fleshless jaws of a skeleton, calling again and again, in tones that
made my blood curdle, a familiar name, and one that at any time, I
cannot hear without emotion. Sleep had nothing to do with it! I was as
wide awake as I am now. But pshaw!" he exclaimed, suddenly turning, "I
shall forget all about it in an hour, and I beg you'll do the same," and
not giving either of us time to answer, he went on in an altered tone:
"Mr. Rutledge, what a fine place you have! I have been admiring the view
from my window. Have you purchased it recently? I don't remember to have
seen a finer estate in America."
"It is a valuable and well located farm," answered Mr. Rutledge, rather
indifferently; "but farming is not my specialty, and I never should have
encumbered myself voluntarily with such a care, if it had not devolved
upon me by inheritance."
"Ah!" said Victor with a slight accent of irony, that from last night's
conversation I was prepared for; "It was then a case of greatness
thrust, etc. But sir, it must add a great charm to this already charming
home, to think that it has been the birth-place and family altar, as it
were, of generations of your ancestors? Surely you are not insensible to
such sentiments of pride and affection."
"Associations of that kind, of course, invest a place with a certain
kind of interest; but I cannot lay claim to as much feeling on the
subject as perhaps would be becoming. Like you, sir," he said, with a
bow, "I have a dread of claiming credit for habits and feelings that I
do not possess and entertain."
Victor looked a little annoyed that he had not succeeded in drawing out
Mr. Rutledge's aristocratic and overbearing sentiments, and he would
not have given up the subject, had not Mr. Rutledge, with a firm and
quiet hand, put it aside, and led the way to other topics.
"How is it," he said to me, "that you have not noticed your small friend
Tigre? He has been at your feet for the last five minutes, looking most
wistfully for a kind word."
I started in confusion and surprise, and stooping down, covered the dog
with caresses. The poor little rascal was frantic with delight,
springing up to my face, and ejaculating his welcome in short barks and
low whines, tearing around me, and then running off a little distance
and looking back enthusiastically.
"He is evidently inviting you to another steeple-chase," said Mr.
Rutledge.
I blushed violently at the recollection, and wished Tigre anywhere but
where he was.
"Have you lost your interest in the turf, since your season in town, or
have other interests and tastes developed themselves while it has lain
dormant?"
"Other tastes have developed themselves, I believe," I answered.
"Break it gently to Tigre, I beg you then, for I am sure he has been
living all winter on the hope of another romp. He does not appreciate
the lapse of time, and the changes involved, so readily as his betters,
you know."
"He has, at least, the grace to receive them more kindly," I returned,
stooping to pat him. "Tigre, if I am too old to run races, I am not
debarred as yet from taking walks, I believe, and I would propose that
we indulge in one. Mr. Viennet, are you too old to be of the party?"
Mr. Rutledge turned shortly toward the library, Victor and I passed out
on the piazza, and, with Tigre in close attendance, descended the broad
steps to the terrace.
Breakfast was nearly completed when we returned, and the party at the
table looked up in amazement as we entered the room.
"I should admire to know," exclaimed Ella Wynkar, who affected Boston
manners, and "admired" a good deal, "I should admire to know where you
two have been! Mr. Arbuthnot declares that Mr. Viennet has been up since
daybreak; and as for _you_," she said, turning to me, "I heard your door
shut hours ago."
"Restrain your admiration, Miss Wynkar," said Victor, as he placed a
chair for me. "We have been taking a short turn on the terrace for the
fresh air. I wonder you did not emulate our example."
"Terrace, indeed!" exclaimed Phil. "I've been on the piazza for half an
hour, and I'll take my oath you weren't within gunshot of the terrace
all that time."
"Don't perjure yourself, my good fellow," said Victor, coolly, "but
assist us to some breakfast. The terrace has given us an appetite."
"How is your headache, my dear?" said my aunt, from across the table.
"My headache, ma'am? Oh, I forgot--I beg your pardon; it's better, thank
you."
"How serious it must have been!" said Josephine. "Oh! by the way, Mr.
Rutledge, it isn't worth while to ask them to join us in _our_ party
this morning, is it? They didn't ask us to go with them."
Mr. Rutledge shrugged his shoulders. "I think, Miss Josephine, we are
safe in asking them; they wouldn't accept, of course, and we should save
our credit, you know."
"I would not trust them, sir. It's my advice that they're not asked."
"Then," returned Mr. Rutledge, with a low bow and his finest smile, "as
with me to hear is to obey, I resign all thought of remonstrance, and
acquiesce in the decree."
Josephine accepted the homage very graciously, and the jest was kept up
around the table till I, for one, was heartily sick of it. No one
supposed, however, that I would be fool enough to take it in earnest;
but I was just such a fool; and when, an hour or two later, the horses
were brought to the door, and the scattered party summoned from library,
parlor, billiard-room, and garden, to prepare for the drive, I was
struggling with a fit of ill-temper in my own room, which resulted in my
"begging to be excused," when Thomas came to the door to announce the
carriage.
My refusal didn't seem to damp the spirits of the party much. I looked
through the half closed blinds to see them start. Victor at the last
minute pleaded a headache, and "begged to be excused," on which occasion
the captain made one of the jokes for which he was justly famous, and
led off the laugh after it.
"The pretty darling's in the sulks, I suppose," I heard Grace say; but
no one was at the pains to resent or applaud the remark, and I listened
to the departing carriage-wheels and the lessening sound of merry voices
with anything but a merry heart.
One never feels very complacent after spiting oneself; the inelegant
describe the state of feeling by the adjective "small;" and I was not
rendered any more comfortable by finding that I had made a prisoner of
myself for the morning. If Victor had only gone, as I had anticipated, I
should have consoled myself for the loss of the drive by a nice ramble
around the grounds, and down to the stables; but as it was, I would not,
for any consideration, have run the risk of encountering him. I heartily
repented my walk before breakfast, and the relative position it seemed
to place us in, made worse by our both remaining at home. Everybody and
everything seemed to conspire to place us together, and my pride and my
honesty both rebelled against such an arrangement. So, after listening
to the sound of his steps pacing the terrace, the hall, and the piazza
for a full hour, I began to find my captivity intolerable, and
determined to make a visit to the housekeeper's room, and pay my
devoirs to that functionary. Looking stealthily over the balusters, I
ascertained that Victor was still smoking in the hall, so I ran across
to the door of Mrs. Roberts' room, which was standing partly open, and
asked if I might come in. Receiving permission, I entered, and did my
best to appear amiable in Mrs. Roberts' eyes. She was, of course, as
stiff as anything human could well be, but she was too busy to be very
ungracious. This sudden influx of visitors had startled her out of the
slow and steady routine of the last twenty years, and though, on the
whole, she acquitted herself well, it was a very trying and bewildering
position for the old woman. I longed for something to do to appease the
self-reproach I felt for my bad temper, and it struck me that I couldn't
do a more praiseworthy and disagreeable thing than to help Mrs. Roberts
in some of the duties that seemed to press so heavily upon her. So,
sitting down by her, I said:
"Mrs. Roberts, you'd better let me help you with those raisins; I
haven't a thing to do this morning."
"That's a pity," said Mrs. Roberts, briefly. "In my day, young ladies
always thought it most becoming to have some occupation."
"That's just my view of the case, Mrs. Roberts, and if you'll allow me,
I'll have an occupation immediately."
Sylvie set the huge bowl of raisins on the table, and I drew them toward
me, saying she must allow me to help her with them. Mrs. Roberts thought
not; it would spoil my dress.
"Then I'll put an apron on."
She was afraid I did not know how.
"You can teach me, Mrs. Roberts;" and I began without further
permission. To say that Mrs. Roberts melted before all this amiability
would be to say that Mrs. Roberts had ceased to be Mrs. Roberts. She was
a degree or two less gruff, I believe, at the end of the long hour I
spent in her service, in the seeding of those wretched raisins; but
that was all, and fortunately I had not expected more. I undertook it
as a penance, and it did not lose that character from any excess of
kindness on her part.
After the raisins were dispatched, Mrs. Roberts applied herself to the
copying of a recipe from an old cookery-book, for which she seemed in
something of a hurry. Dorothy was waiting for it, Sylvie said. "You'd
better let me do it for you, Mrs. Roberts," I said, leaning over her
shoulder. Mrs. Roberts declined, with dignity, for some time, but at
last thoughtfully slid the spectacles off her nose, and seemed to
deliberate about granting my request. She was not a very ready scribe,
and she had a dozen other things to do, all of which weighed with my
urgency, and in two minutes I was at the desk, copying out of a
venerable cookery-book, the receipt that Mrs. Roberts indicated. I was
in pretty engrossing business, I found one duty succeeded another very
regularly; Mrs. Roberts, I saw, had determined to get as much out of me
now as she could.
A dread of draughts was one of her peculiarities, so the door and the
front windows were closed against the pleasant breeze, and to this I
attribute it that we were unconscious of the return of the riding party
till the door opened suddenly and Mr. Rutledge entered.
"Mrs. Roberts," he said, "you are wanted below. Miss Churchill has hurt
her ankle in getting out of the carriage, and I have come to you for
some arnica."
Mrs. Roberts bustled over to the medicine chest, and, taking the bottle
of arnica and a roll of linen in her hand, hurried out of the room;
while Mr. Rutledge, crossing over to the table where I sat, stood
looking down at me without speaking, while I nervously went on with my
writing without raising my eyes.
"Why did you not go with us this morning?" he said at last, sitting down
by the table.
"I didn't want to."
"That is a very good reason; but I think you would have done better to
have thwarted your inclination for once. There are two reasons why it
would have been wiser to have gone."
"What is one?" I demanded.
"One is that your staying looked unamiable, and as if you could not take
a joke."
"Well, it only looked as I felt. I was unamiable, and I didn't like the
joke. What is the other?"
"The other, I am pretty sure to make you angry by giving, but I must
risk that. Your refusing to go looked very much as if you preferred
another tête-à-tête, to the society of us all."
"I cannot see that," I said, looking up flushed and angry. "When I
supposed that I was the only member of the party who intended to stay at
home, I cannot see how it could be inferred that I remained from any
such motive."
"I, for one, had no doubt of it."
"You are kind!" I cried. "It is pleasant to feel I am always sure of
one, at least, to put the kindest construction on what I do."
"Is my niece accounting for her willfulness in staying at home this
morning?" said the slow, soft voice of Mrs. Churchill, that crept into
my senses like a subtle poison, and silenced the angry words on my lips.
"Are you not penitent, _ma chère_," she said, approaching me, and laying
her cold hand lightly on my hair. "Do you not begin to see how unwise
such tempers are? How often must I entreat you, my love, to be less
hasty and suspicious and self-willed? Though I am not discouraged with
these childish faults, Mr. Rutledge," turning to him apologetically, "I
own they are somewhat trying. Ever since that unlucky night at the
Academy of Music, I have felt"----
"Aunt Edith!" I exclaimed, with flashing eyes, averting my head from her
touch and springing up. "Aunt Edith, that time has never been mentioned
between us since you gave me my reprimand. I cannot understand why you
bring it up now, and before a stranger!"
"Mr. Rutledge can hardly be called a stranger," she began.
"If not so to you, remember he is to me," I interrupted.
"However that may be," she went on, "he was unluckily the witness of
that evening's errors. He saw the self-will and temper that you took no
pains to conceal, and the love of admiration that led you to a most
unaccountable act of imprudence."
"I should think," I returned, trembling with passion, "that that time
would have no more pleasant memories for you than me. I should think we
might agree not to stir among its ashes. There may be some smoldering
remorse alive in them yet!"
For a moment, my aunt's face grew white, and her eye faltered and sunk;
angry as I was, I bitterly repented the stab I had given her. Then she
raised her eyes and fixed them on my face with a stern and freezing
look. I don't know what she said; it was too cruel to listen to. I don't
know what I answered; would that it had no record anywhere!
From that date, there was no disguise between aunt and niece of the
sentiments they had mutually inspired. The flimsy gauze that reserve and
decorum had raised between them was torn to fragments before that storm,
and henceforth there was no pretence of an affection that had never
existed. Two natures more utterly discordant and unsympathetic could not
well be imagined. There was nothing but some frail bands of duty and
convenience, that had kept up the mask of sympathy so far, and then and
there they were snapped irrevocably; and the mask fell prone upon the
ground and was trampled under foot.
They had better have turned me houseless into the street than have
turned me out of their hearts in this way; in one case, I could have
sought another shelter, and won myself another home. In this, I was
driven out, burning with anger and stung with injustice, from every
heart I had had a right to seek a home in, and before me lay a cold and
inhospitable world. Was the outcast or the world to blame for the
inevitable result? The outcast, no doubt; outcasts always are.
* * * * *
"Look--look, Josephine!" cried Grace, bursting into the library, where
most of the party were assembled that evening. Josephine, with her foot
on the sofa, being the nucleus. "Ella, and Phil, and I have just come
from rowing on the lake, and see what we found, up by the pine trees at
the other end of the lake, floating on the water."
"What is it?" said Josephine, languidly; "a water-lily?"
"Water-lilies used to be white when I studied botany, Joseph, and this,
you may observe, is purple."
"And morning-glories, when I studied botany," said Phil, "did not grow
on lakes, but in gardens. Now, as this was discovered on the water, the
question naturally arises, how, by whom, and under what circumstances,
did it get there?"
"And putting this and that together," said Ella Wynkar, "we think that
the young lady who had morning-glories in her dress this morning, must
have taken a row on the lake, instead of a walk on the terrace."
"That doesn't follow," said Victor, "any more than it would follow that
Miss Wynkar had visited the desert of Sahara, if a straw hat similar to
the one she has in her hand, should be found there."
"Mr. Viennet, you are not sufficiently calm for such difficult
reasoning. The fact is established; don't attempt to controvert it,"
said Josephine.
"In any case, I am entitled to the flower, I think," he returned, taking
it from the table, and fastening it in his button-hole.
"No one will dispute it with you, I fancy," said Josephine, with a
laugh.
"You seem to have marked your way with morning-glories," said Mr.
Rutledge, who, sitting by the table, was turning over the leaves of a
book. There was another, crushed and faded, and staining the leaves with
its purple blood.
"One can hardly believe they are contemporaries," said Victor, "mine is
so much fresher."
"They are the frailest and shortest-lived of flowers," said Mr.
Rutledge, tossing the flower away. "Hardly worth the passing admiration
that their beauty excites."