Changes in the world without often make sad havoc in our content
and happiness. Loss of fortune and friends, removal to new scenes,
death and disaster, sometimes so alter the outlook that we have
to ask ourselves: Is this the same earth in which we have dwelt
hitherto? But the changes that can most blast and blacken, or, on
the other hand, glorify the world about us, are those which take
place within our souls.
Such a radical change had apparently taken place in Ida Mayhew's
world. She was bewildered with her trouble, and could not understand
the dreary outlook. She had come to the Lake House but a few weeks
before, a vain, light-hearted maiden, looking upon life with laughing
and thoughtless glances, and having no more definite purposes than
the butterfly that flits from flower to flower, caring not which
are harmless and which poisonous, so that they yield a momentary
sweetness.
But now, for causes utterly unforeseen and half-inexplicable, all
flowers had withered, and the old pleasures once so exhilarating
were a weariness even in thought. Her world, once a pleasure
garden, had been transformed into a path so thorny and flinty that
every step brought new bruises and lacerations; and it led away
among shadows so cold and dark, that she shivered at the thought
of her prospective life.
Her heart had so suddenly and thoroughly betrayed her, that she
was overwhelmed with a sense of helplessness and perplexity. The
spoiled and flattered girl had always been accustomed to have her
own way. Self-gratification had been the rule and habit of her
life. If Van Berg had only admired and complimented her, if he
had joined the honeyed chorus of flattery that had waited on her
sensuous beauty, his voice would probably have been unheeded and
lost among many others. But his sharp demand for something more
than a face and form had awakened her, and to her dismay she learned
that her real and lasting self was as dwarfed and deformed as her
transient and outward self was perfect.
The artist seemed to her princely, regal even, in his strong
cultivated manhood, his lofty calling and ambition, and his high
social rank. As for herself, it now appeared that her beauty,
whose spell she had thought no man could resist, had lured him to
her side only long enough to discover what she was and who she was,
and then he had turned away in disgust.
From their first moment of meeting, she felt that she had been
peculiarly unfortunate in the impressions she had made upon him.
Her attendant at the concert-garden had been a fool; and now he
was associating her with a man whom he more than despised. She
believed that he pitied her father as the victim of a wife's
heartlessness and a daughter's selfishness and frivolity, and that
he felt a repugnance toward her mother which his politeness could
not wholly disguise. He was probably learning to characterize them
in his mind by her father's horrible words--"froth and mud."
Such miserable thoughts were flocking round her like croaking
ravens as she sat rigid and motionless in her room, her form tense
from the severity of her mental distress. Suddenly Sibley's loud
tones, and her cousin's voice in reply, caught her attention, and
she opened the lattice of the blinds. She had scarcely done so
before she saw Stanton strike the blow which had felled Sibley to
the earth.
With breathless interest she watched the scene till Van Berg
stepped forward. Then she sprang to a drawer, and taking out a
small field-glass which she carried on her summer excursions was
able to see the expression of the young men's faces, although she
could not distinguish their words. The stern, menacing aspect
of the artist made her tremble even at her distance, and it was
evident that his words were throwing Sibley into a transport of
rage; and when in his passion he tried to shoot Van Berg, she could
not repress the cry that attracted their attention.
Her mother, in the adjoining room, commenced knocking at the door,
asking what was the matter, but received no answer until Ida saw
that the young men were coming toward the house. Then she threw
open the door, and told Mrs. Mayhew that she had seen something
that looked like a large spider, and that nothing was the matter.
Without waiting for further questioning she flitted hastily
down-stairs and from one concealed post of observation to another
until she saw the angry party enter Mr. Burleigh's private office.
A small parlor next to it was empty, and once within it, the loud
tones spoken on the other side of the slight partition were distinctly
heard.
As she listened to the words which Van Berg and Mr. Burleigh
addressed to the man whom all in the house had regarded as her
accepted lover, or at least her congenial friend, her cheeks grew
scarlet, and when he was dismissed from the house, she fled to her
room; wishing that it were a place in which she might hide forever,
so overwhelming was her sense of shame and humiliation.
How could she meet the guests of the Lake House again? Worse than
all, how could she meet the scornful eyes of the man who had driven
from the place the suitor that she was supposed to favor as he
might have scourged away a dog.
She could not now explain that Sibley was and ever had been less
than nothing to her--that she had both detested and despised him.
She had permitted herself to touch pitch, and it had of necessity
left its stain. To go about now and proclaim her real sentiments
toward the man who apparently had been her favorite, would seem to
others, she thought, the quintessence of meanness. She felt that
she had been caught in the meshes of an evil web, and that it was
useless to struggle.
Despairing, hopeless, her cheeks burning with shame as with a fever,
she sat hour after hour refusing to see any one. She would not go
down to supper. She left the food untasted that was sent to her
room. She sat staring at vacancy until her face became a dim pale
outline in the deepening twilight, and finally was lost in the
shadow of night. But the darkness that gathered around the poor
girl's heart was deeper and almost akin to the rayless gloom that
positive crime creates, so nearly did she feel that she was associated
with one from whom her woman's soul, perverted as it was, shrank
with inexpressible loathing.
"Ida is in one of her worst tantrums," whispered Mrs. Mayhew to
Stanton; "I never knew her to act so badly as she has of late. I
wouldn't have thought that such a man as you have found Sibley to
be could gain so great a hold upon her feelings. But law! she'll
be all over it in a day or two. Nothing lasts with Ida, and least
of all, a beau."
"Well," said Stanton, bitterly, "she is disgracing herself and all
related to her by her inexcusable folly in this instance. Those
who pretended to be Sibley's friends at dinner, are now trying to
win a little respectability by turning against him, and the story
of his behavior is circulating through the house. All will soon
know that he shot at Van Berg, and that he made insulting remarks
about Miss Burton. It will appear to every one as if Ida were
sulking in her room on Sibley's account; and people are usually
thought to be no better than their friends."
"Oh, dear!" half sobbed Mrs. Mayhew, "won't you go up to her room
and show her the consequences of her folly?"
"No," said Stanton, irritably; "not to-night. I know her too
well. She will take no advice from me or any one else at present.
To-morrow I will have one more plain talk with her; and if she
won't listen to reason I wash my hands of her. Where is Uncle?"
"Don't ask me. Was there ever a more unfortunate woman? With such
a husband and daughter, how can I keep up appearances?"
Stanton walked away with a gesture of disgust and impatience.
"Curse it all!" he muttered; "and their shadows fall on me too.
What chance have I with the snow-white maiden I'd give my life for
when followed by such associations?"