PLAYERS ON A STAGE.
Now, then, here is Thursday. Jerome had said: "You will be on hand
without fail, Mell; and so will I, and so will something else."
"But that something else," moaned the hapless Mell, bowed down and
heart-stricken, "will never be on hand again in the meadow for me, nor
anywhere else."
Saddest of all, she had herself laid the axe to the root of her own
happiness; she had baited her own hook and caught a big fish; she had
provoked her own doom, and herself sealed it.
Rube was not to blame.
And Jerome--he had made out a good case. Had he loved her less he
would, perhaps, have acted differently.
She had digged a pitfall for her own occupation; and of all
comfortless and stony places, such pitfalls as this make the hardest
lying.
Out in the narrow hall, on its own particular peg, hung Mell's white
sun-bonnet. She took it down and put it on her head, and walked slowly
to the top of the hill. With no intention of going to the meadow
herself, her feelings demanded that she should find out if Jerome was
there.
He was, strolling moodily to and fro, in deep thought.
He knows now. Rube has told him. He despises her to-day, and yesterday
he had loved her. Look at him down there in the meadow! a beam from
the sun, a breath from the hills, a part of the morning, the most
glorious expression of nature in all nature's glory! Observe how he
walks! Note how he stands still! Most men know how to walk, and most
men know how to stand still, after a fashion; but not after Jerome's
fashion. In motion, Jerome is a poem set a-going; standing still, he
is grace doing nothing. He can lift one hand, and in that ordinary act
sow the seed of a dozen beautiful fancies; he can wield such mastery
over the physical forces of expression as has wondrous potency to sway
the emotions of others.
So she thought; so she stood, hidden herself from sight, but with the
meadow in full view; and while so thinking, and so standing, drinking
him in with every breath, feeding upon him with her eyes, devouring
him with her soul, she, the affianced wife of another!
Oh, wicked Mell!
Jerome grows impatient; he looks at his watch, and turns inquiringly
towards the hill; and Mell flies back to the house as if pursued by
fiery dragons. For if he but caught sight of her, if he but crooked
his finger at her, she would go down there, and then--what then?
Mell was not blind to her own weakness. The afternoon brought Rube,
overwhelmingly happy, overwhelmingly devoted. She must take an airing
with him in his brand new buggy; and while they scoured the country
round about, Rube was making diligent inquiry as to how soon they
might get married. Mell caught her breath, and, in the same breath, at
a possible reprieve.
"Won't you give me a little time to think?" she pleaded. "It has come
so sudden!"
"Hasn't it, though!" cried happy Rube. "Do you half realize the romance
of the thing, Mellville? 'Tis like a page out of Knight-Errantry, the
days of lances and standards, and blood-thrilling adventures, when
warriors in steel swore by the Holy-rood, and won fair women's
smiles by deeds of valor--something very unlike the prosaic happenings
of this practical modern life. But yesterday a wandering pilgrim, to-day
I have found a shrine. ''Tis a dream!' I thought, when I opened my
eyes this morning, 'a dream, too sweet to be true! Rube, old fellow,'
I said to myself, 'you've got something to live for now. You must
look to your ways and improve upon the old ones. There's a dear little
hand that belongs to you; there's a pair of blue eyes to watch for
your coming; there's a sweet little woman who believes in you, God bless
her! For her sake I will run the race of life like a man; for her
sweet sake I will win it!'"
This was the time for Mell to speak. She wanted to speak, but--she did
not. There were just exactly six reasons why she did not.
Here they are, all in a row:
Reason Number One.--She was not quite sure of Jerome--quite sure,
perhaps, in regard to his affections, but not his intentions. Love is
much, but not everything, and a lover surrounded by difficulties is
not to be depended upon matrimonially.
Number Two.--She was as resolutely bent upon getting out of this mean,
sordid life as ever, and what way was there but this way?
Number Three.--Rube was rich, and Rube's wife would be rich, too. For
her part, she was sick and tired of poverty. Poverty, in a world
governed by wealth, is the most unpardonable sin in that world's
decalogue.
Number Four.--Rube was in "society," and what ambitious woman ever yet
saved her soul outside the magic circle of society?
Number Five.--Rube was an aristocrat, and Rube's wife would be _ex
necessitate rei_, an aristocrat also. Her Creator, she believed, had
intended her for an aristocrat; otherwise why had He endowed her with
intellect, beauty, and the power to sway men's passions?
Number Six.--The fact that she did not love Rube had, in reality,
nothing to do with Rube's eligibility as a husband. He would make a
very good one, an infinitely better one than none at all!
Of course, she would be paying a tremendous price for all these
worldly advantages. Mell was aware of that all the while, but after
deducting from the gross weight of their true value the real or
approximate weight of their possible evils and disadvantages, she
would undoubtedly still be getting the best of a good bargain.
What is life but an enigmatical offset of losses and gain--so much
gain on the one hand, so much loss on the other? And what was this
transaction between herself and Rube but a repetition, under a
somewhat different formula, of those mathematical problems worked out
on her slate at school? It was all very simple.
Young woman, if you were in Mell's place; if you had six good reasons
for not telling the man you are about to marry that you did not care a
straw about him, wouldn't you hold your peace?
Then cast no stones at Mell.
Mell _was_ deeply moved by Rube's words, but not deep enough to damage
her future prospects. And since a woman has very poor prospects
outside of matrimony, ought we not to excuse her for attending closely
to business?
At all events, although Mell's thoughts were heavy, and her soul
stirred within her, and her thick breathing almost stifled in a
painful sense of guilt, she did not say a word. Feeling that Rube's
eyes were fixed upon her, she raised to him her own, suffused in
tears; an answer which fully satisfied her companion. From which it
will appear that a woman may weep for the man she takes in--weep, and
yet keep on taking him in.
And what can a man do? How could Rube tell that it was the hidden
pathos of his own groundless faith, and not a feeling of sympathetic
affection, which brought such softness of expression into that girl's
luminous orbs?
If the actual is the only true thing, and amounts to everything, as it
really does in the school of Realism, there is still one difficulty to
be encountered--to get hold of the actual. He who aspires to find out
the actual, where a woman is concerned, must get himself another kind
of eye, one whose vision is introspective and able to penetrate into
that mysterious element in a clever woman's nature which enables her
so successfully to clothe the Not-True in the beautiful garments of
Truth.
Rube Rutland felt uncertain about a good many things--his own strength
under temptation, his mother's consent to this marriage, Clara's
temper, the great sea serpent, the Pope's infallibility, the man in
the Iron Mask, and many a cock-and-bull story beside, but he never
once doubted Mell Creecy's love, the purest myth among them all.
He came, after this, every day to the little house upon the hill, and
had it out "comferterble in the parler," as old man Creecy had advised
Jerome to do. He courted with the enthusiasm of an incorrigible
faddist over a new fad; and no lover of those olden days of which he
had spoken, when goodly knights tilted in the jousts of arms, and won
fair lady's favor with deeds of prowess, ever yet surpassed a modern
mighty man with a mission. Devotion itself is paralyzed when it comes
to them.
At the Bigge House, as one may suppose, there had been considerable
consternation when its young master announced his intention of taking
to wife old Jacob Creecy's daughter. Consternation, but hardly
surprise; for Rube had ever been one of those lawless members of
well-conducted households privileged to say and do outrageous things,
and expected to turn out of the beaten track on the slightest
provocation.
Miss Rutland was most concerned. Said she to her brother:
"Rube, why not marry a female Ojibbwa, and be done with it? _That_
would be an improvement on Mell Creecy as a _mesalliance_. My God!
Rube, you can't bring a girl here into this house as your wife, whose
father talks like a nigger, who says 'dis,' and 'dat,' and 'udder;' or
do you expect to hold your position in society, your place among
honorable men, simply by the grace of heaven?"
This was severe; but it was not all--not half, in fact, that Rube had
to hear before he got rid of Clara. But it was not the first time he
had brought a hornet's nest about his ears, nor swam against the
stream, nor borne the brunt of Clara's tongue. Through much practice
Rube had pretty well mastered the art of holding out, which does not
consist so much in talking back as in saying nothing. Moreover, his
cause was good, and half a man can hold out with a good cause to hold
on. One hard speech Rube did make to Clara; he told her, in effect,
that whatever might be the grammatical shortcomings of old Jacob
Creecy himself, his daughter knew more in one single minute than Clara
would ever learn in a lifetime.
Mrs. Rutland was not less unwilling, but more reasonable.
"You are my only son," she said to him, "my first-born. I expected you
to add lustre to the family and make a great match."
"The family is illustrious enough," replied he; "if not, it will never
be more illustrious at my expense. I will have none of your great
matches, mother. I intend to marry the woman I love. I have loved her
ever since she was a child. None of the rest of you need marry her,
however; I will not impose that task upon you. But Mellville is to be
my wife to a dead certainty, and I am my own master."
"You are, my son. I have not sought to prevent your marrying her. I
have only expressed my disappointment."
"Well, I am sorry about that. But see here, mother; I will make it
easy for you. Keep this as your own home as long as you live, and I
will make another home for myself and the wife you do not like."
"No, no, my dear boy, ever generous, ever kind! As your wife she
_must_ be dear to me. What is a mother's greedy aspiration compared to
her child's real happiness? Follow your bent, my boy; follow it with
your mother's sanction. And now, do you still love me a little, Rube,
in spite of this new love?"
"A little, dear mother!" He threw his arms about her. "No, not a
little! Much, very much; more than ever before! And believe me, when
you know Mell, you will feel very differently about it. You have only
seen her so far, through Clara's eyes; come and see her as she is;
come now, mother, with me."
And so it came about that on a certain day Rube came as usual to the
farm-house, but not as usual, alone. His mother came with him--came,
looking about her with prying eyes, and a nose bent on thorough
investigation, and a mind ready to ferret out every idea in Mell's
brain; a mind ready to probe every weak place in Mell's character; a
mind ready to catechize every integument in Mell's body.
The look of things about the premises prepossessed her at once in the
girl's favor. The house was neither large, handsome, nor fresh; but it
was venerable, an attribute greatly esteemed by people of rank. Much
of its unpainted ugliness was concealed in trailing vines and creeping
ivy, much of its dilapidation shrouded in luxuriant shrubbery, an
every-day adaptation of the simplest elements of relief, technique.
The little front garden, in its white-sanded walks and well-weeded
beds, brilliant in many-hued blossoms, was just like a spruce
country-damsel in her best bib and tucker. The little parlor, daintily
furnished and tastefully arranged, where the visitor trod, not on bare
boards, but a neat carpet, commingling Turkish forms and Yankee
interpretations, was still more suggestive. Into this cozy apartment
Mell had really crowded, in practical forms, all she had learned of
human nature as it appears in man's nature. Pretty things there were,
but none too pretty for use. Perfect neatness there was, but not too
perfect to interfere with a man's love for the let-me-do-as-I-please
principle. Here a man who smokes might, after asking permission, puff
away to his heart's content, puff away without a compunction and
without a frown from its ministering spirit. Or, if my lord feels in a
breaking mood, let him break, break right and left, and there's no
great harm done; a few dollars would put them all back. This is a
consideration by no means small or unimportant to some men, who seem
inspired to break everything they touch, from a woman's heart to the
most venerated of old brass icons.
This little room did everything it could to please a man, and put
nothing in his way; although it made him feel, with its presiding
genius in it, every kind of way, except uncomfortable.
There's a rose upon the mantle, stuck by careless hand in a vase of
antique design--one rose, no more; for one such faultless rose as this
fills up all the spirit's longing in a rose. A thousand roses, perfect
of their kind, could do no more. Here we have _sub rosa_ a profound
philosophical maxim showing its colors--as brief as profound, i.e.,
enough is enough, whether it be enough rose or enough stewed pigeon
with green peas.
On a spider-legged table in this diminutive lady's bower, there sat a
dish of ferns; some moss was growing in a basket; some colored strands
of wool lay across a piece of canvas; a carved paper-cutter peeped out
from the leaves of an unread book, left lying on an ottoman by some
person who had been seated in an easy-chair with silken cushions, soft
to rest upon in weariness, in a cozy corner; and on a sofa of crimson
plush reposed, in restful quiet, a guitar with blue ribbon attached.
This guitar told its own tale; Mell _had_ learned something useful,
after all, at that famous boarding-school; for to the strumming of
this guitar she could sing you, with inimitable taste and in a
bird-like voice, an English madrigal, or a French _chansonnette_, or
one of those plaintive love ditties which finds its way into the
listener's heart through any language.
"Now, mother," said Rube, looking about him with pardonable pride,
"isn't this pleasant? Have we, amid all our grandeur, any such snug
den as this?"
"Well, no, Rube! It _is_ charming! _Multum in parvo_, one may say. But
whom have we here?"
It was Mell, halting for one awe-struck instant in the doorway,
attired in a fresh muslin dress, with ribbons to match her eyes, and
cheeks dyed a red carnation at the formidable prospect of meeting,
face to face, the august mistress of the Bigge House. Rube pressed
forward to meet her, and took her fluttering hand in his own, and led
her forward.
"Your new daughter, mother, and this, Mellville, is our good mother.
You'll get along famously with her, I believe, in spite of Clara."
Who but a blundering man, like dear honest Rube, would have so
completely let the domestic cat out of the bag?
No need for Mell to be the most wide-awake creature in existence to
understand on the spot, the real status of affairs, as concerned
herself, at the Bigge House.
Subjugated at once by her beauty, constrained to admit her lady-like
deportment, Mrs. Rutland kissed the rounded cheek and hoped she would
make her dear boy very happy. And Mell looked flatteringly conscious
of the great lady's condescension, and blushingly avowed her
unalterable determination to try. This interesting little ceremony
seemed to dissipate all the underlying displeasure at Rube's choice in
his mother's mind.
She watched the girl closely during the interview which followed. Many
girls are pretty and lady-like, not many are to be found as well
educated as Mell Creecy, or as thoroughly equipped by both nature and
education to entertain, to amuse, to fascinate. This was that part of
Mell which "tuck arter her ole daddy," as old Jacob was wont to say.
Even Clara Rutland's manners were not more easy and irreproachable,
and Clara had never been half so ready in speech and apt in reply. It
was a matter of agreeable wonder to Mrs. Rutland how a hard-working
uneducated farmer could have such a daughter, and she wondered also if
this phenomenal social prodigy could be found so strongly marked in
any other land under the sun.
Obeying an instinct of curiosity, the visitor inquired:
"Your father and mother, Melville, are they here? Will they see us?"
"Not if I can help it!" inwardly.
Outwardly very different.
"So sorry! Mother is not well to-day. She is rarely well, and rarely
sees anyone. Father is as usual busy upon the farm."
"Rube says your father is a very thorough farmer," remarked the
visitor.
"Doesn't a good farmer make money out of it," queried Mell, glancing
at her betrothed with a doubtful little smile, "just as a lawyer does
out of law, and a doctor out of physic? The earth is full of gold, and
ought not a good digger to strike it somewhere--some time? Father, at
any rate, is devoted to farming, as an occupation, and is happy in it,
getting out of the ground more of God's secrets than the rest of us
find among the stars."
"That is a pretty idea, Mellville," said Mrs. Rutland.
"Bless you!" exclaimed Rube, "that's nothing! She's full of 'em!"
Full of them, yes; and feeding his honest soul upon them, in place of
the real bread of affection.
The visit was long and pleasant, and at its close Mell accompanied her
guests to the very door of their carriage. There Mrs. Rutland again
touched the girl's soft cheek with her high-bred lips. Her foot was
upon the stepping-stone, when with a sudden thought, she turned once
more.
"Mellville, we are to be very gay next week, a house full of company;
but I suspect we shall be honored with very little of Rube's society
unless we first secure yours. Will you come, then, and make us a
little visit?"
"You are kind," answered she, coloring beautifully with intensity of
gratification. "Most kind! I will come with exceeding pleasure."
These were perhaps the first unstudied words she had uttered in Mrs.
Rutland's presence. There was no doubt about her wanting to go to the
Bigge House. She had been wanting to go there a long time. A veritable
flood-tide of joy filled her being at this speedy consummation of her
dearest hopes, but it was not of this she thought at that moment, nor
of Mrs. Rutland, nor of Rube. "I will see Jerome," was what Mell
thought.
"Sweetest of mothers!" said Rube inside the vehicle.
"Luckiest of men!" returned his mother. "I am returning home as did
the Queen of Sheba; the half was not told!"
Rube now felt solid, unquestionably solid, in his own mind.
Mell, standing yet in the gateway, looked after them; gladly received
they had been, like many another guest; gladly, too, dismissed.
"The chain tightens," cogitated the future mistress of the Bigge
House, "and if I should want to break it!"
But why should she want to break it, unless--
"There's no use counting upon that," Mell frankly admitted to herself,
"and no man's difficulties must be allowed to interfere with my
future. And Rube is _so_ eligible! A good fellow, too; a most
excellent fellow! There's a something, however. What is it?"
We will tell you, Mell--Rube is not Jerome.
Going back into the house she found her father and mother peeping
through the blinds.
"Lord, Lord!" exclaimed old Jacob. "You'se jess er gittin' up, Mell! I
knowed ye could do it, darter; but I mus' say, I never lookt fer yer
ter git es high es the Bigge House."
Mrs. Creecy inquired about Mrs. Rutland. Was she nice? pleasant?
"Very. No one could be nicer or pleasanter. She asked for you--both of
you."
"She did? Then why didn't you tell us?"
"Wife!" remonstrated the old farmer, "you is sartingly loss yo'
senses! Don't ye know, when Mell's fine friends comes er long, we's
expected ter run inter er rat-hole or some udder hole? All the use
chillun has fer parients these days is ter keep 'em er going. Onst
Mrs. Rullan', Mell aint gwine ter know us by site! She aint no chile
er mine, no how, Mell aint!"
"Wall, now, she is yourn, I kin tell ye," cried Mrs. Creecy, flaring
up, very much to the enjoyment of her liege lord.
The daughter turned off in disgust. Her father's pleasantries were the
least pleasant of all his disagreeable ways. A coarse man's humor is
apt to be the coarsest thing about him.
It was under very different auspices from those of her day dreams,
that Mell, after a few days of busy preparation, was admitted into the
sacred precincts of the social hierarchy.
Jerome was to have been the founder of her greatness, her steersman in
these unknown waters--not Rube.
None in this higher realm welcomed her more graciously than Clara.
Clara had high views of philosophy, but only one maxim: "See how the
hare runs, hear how the owl cries, accept the inevitable, and get all
you can out of it."
Jerome returned from Cragmore the day following her own domestication
into this new sphere of existence. How strange it all seemed, and how
unnatural! How strange he should find her there, and with so good a
right to be there! Surely years have intervened since those lovely
mornings in the meadow, when Sukey cropped the dew-wet grass, and she
sat on the old tree-stump and Jerome lay at her feet.
Surely long, long years!
So long that Jerome has forgotten all about them--and her. She is now
to him only Miss Creecy, the prospective wife of his nearest friend,
the prospective mistress of the Bigge House, and not attractive, it
would appear, in these new surroundings. Others, very likely, did not
notice how he never spoke to her, if he could help it; how he never
looked at her, if he could help it; how they kept far apart, as far as
the East is from the West, though sleeping under the same roof, and
eating at the same table, and constantly together morning, noon, and
night. Others did not notice all these things, but Mell did.
"He despises me," sobbed Mell in the darkness of her own chamber,
smothering her sobs in her own pillow. "Once he loved, and now he
despises me!"
Better go to sleep, Mell; tears cannot wash away stern facts, and what
good would it do now, if he did love you?
The other guest has come; the one of whom Jerome had spoken. It is the
Honorable Archibald Pendergast, who is middle-aged, well-fed, and
somewhat portly, who has big round shoulders and a jolly way of
looking at things, who bellows out his words with a broad accent, and
says, Aw! aw! with tremendous effect; who wears his whiskers _a la
maniere Anglaise_, as befits a man proud of his British ancestry and
his English ways. This great man's marvellous wealth and honors, and
incalculable influence in national councils, and stupendous grandeur
of future prospects, carry everything before him--at the Bigge House,
and everywhere else.
Adapting herself with versatile cleverness, to these prevailing
conditions in her unaccustomed environment, Mell's conception of modes
and manners expanded day by day, and she began to see plainly a good
many objects only dimly discerned before.
"I don't think," remarked she, quite innocently to Rube, the day after
the great man's advent, "that Mr. Devonhough admires the Senator as
much as the rest of us."
"I shouldn't wonder!"
Rube looked knowing and laughed.
"If he was as badly stuck on you as he appears to be on Clara, _I_
wouldn't admire him either!"
"But," said Mell, "is Jerome?"
"Yes, certainly. Didn't you know that? I thought you did. They are in
the same interesting predicament as ourselves. Only Clara won't
announce, because she wants to keep up to the last minute her good
times with other men. I don't see how Devonhough stands it, and I'm
awfully glad you're not that sort of a girl!"
"How long?" asked not-that-sort-of-a-girl, trying to steady her voice,
trying to maintain her role of a disinterested inquirer.
"How long have they been engaged!" repeated Rube. "Let me see--Six
months at least."
"Six months!"
"You seem surprised, Mell." He turned his glance full upon her.
"Not at all," said she, pulling herself to rights. "I was only
thinking that you ought to be willing to wait as long as that."
"So I would; as many years, for that matter, if there was any good
reason why I should. But there is not; not one, and so, Mell--"
"Six months!" ejaculated Mell, in the privacy of her own room. "So all
the while he lay at my feet he was engaged to Clara Rutland!"
Mell began to understand Jerome's difficulties.
Later on she saw clearly some other things. Clara is fond of Jerome,
and would gladly, for that reason, marry him; but she is likewise
attracted by the mighty Senator's wealth, and national importance, and
English ancestry, and future expectations; and for such reasons leans
matrimonially towards the Honorable Archibald, who is thirty years
older than Jerome, but thirty years richer and thirty years greater.
Between two fires Clara meanwhile keeps to the letter of the law with
Jerome, and holds out in ambuscade _le pot au lait_ to the Honorable
Archibald.
A closer acquaintance with the interior circuit of these unwanted
surroundings, so delicately refined, so distinctly aristocratic, so
far above her own poor world, and yet withal, so unsatisfying and so
"over-charged with surfeiting," developed to Mell the startling fact
that a life spent in incessant amusement not only soon ceases to
amuse, but becomes, in process of time, a devouring conflict with
_ennui_. She recalled with a sense of wondering comprehension the Arab
proverb: "All sunshine makes the desert."
Another thing, these women at ease, with nothing in the world to do,
Mell was thunderstruck to discover, were the hardest worked people she
had ever known, striving each on a daily battle-ground of dawdling,
dressing, and pleasure. Seeking after some personal end, some empty
honor, or some favorite phantom just out of reach. What bickering and
strife; what small conspiracies; what canker at the roots and stunting
in the fruit; what Guelph and Ghibbeline factions in the midst of all
this music, and dancing, and laughter! The same amount of time spent
in a good cause, Mell's long head could not but realize, would ease
the rack, plant many a blade of corn, staunch many a bleeding wound,
wipe the death drops from many a ghastly brow, lift up heaps of fallen
heroes prone on stony plains, and plant the standard of the cross on
many a benighted shore. Outside, Mell had yearned towards this
stronghold of the rich, as a place where there was plenty of room for
growth and happiness: inside, she discovered with astonishment and a
groan, that there was plenty of room there for dullness and
unhappiness as well. Idleness without repose, leisure and no ease,
tears and no time to shed them--on every side, and unexpected dry-rot
in the substance of things, she had pictured to her own fancy as fair,
and only fair.
"Then," interrogated Mell of her conscious Ego, "if not here, where
dwelleth content?"
Mayhap, Mell, upon the rock where the hawks nest, or in that haven
where the roving wind hideth its tired self for rest. Somewhere, but
never among the haunts of men. The deep hath its treasures, and there
are treasures of the mine; the mind hath its treasures, and there are
treasures of store; but content is the golden treasure, hardest of all
to find, and when found hardest to keep.
One night there was a ball, and the social lights of Pudney and
Cragmore, and the capital of the State itself, turned out in full
force. The Bigge House was crammed to its utmost capacity.
Dressing early, Mell left her room to other guests, in various stages
of evening toilet, and descending to the first floor, looked about her
for some quiet spot where, for a time, she could hide herself and her
tumultuous thoughts. The large reception room was dimly lighted as
yet, and empty apparently. Glad to find it so, she walked in, and
standing between the long pier-glasses, a tapering column draped in
tulle clouds, took a full-length, back and front inspection of her own
person.
Now this dainty rustic maiden, as we have seen, looked at when framed
in a high-necked, long-sleeved, simple morning-gown, made a sweet
picture for any eye; but it was, in some respects, a tame presentation
compared to this gorgeously arrayed being, bedecked in flowers and a
low corsage, with marble shoulders, shapely throat, alabaster neck and
rounded arms, bewilderingly displayed, cunningly concealed. This
fairy-like being cannot be a _bona fide_ woman; she is more likely a
study from Reynolds or Gainsborough, who has stepped out of canvas and
a gilt frame on the wall there, merely to delight the living eye and
inflame the fumes of vital fancy.
Not long, however, whether sprite or woman, did she pose there in
admiration of her own face and figure. For, truth to tell, they have
both become hateful in the girl's own sight. Her fair face looks to
herself no longer as a fresh-gathered blossom sparkling with dew, as
the ethereal interpreter of a woman's pure soul, blameless and serene.
Much more does it look, to her own acute sensibilities, as a painted
mask, put on for hard service; always in place, always properly
adjusted, proof against attack, but every little loophole needing to
be defended at every point. A mask very troublesome to wear, but not
upon any account to be discarded, since it concealed the discordance
of a secret love and the clanking of a chain.
But now, to-night, in this empty room, in this deep silence and
blessed solitude, where there is no eye to see, no ear to hear, she
will throw off for one thankful moment the ugly, hateful thing. She
will allow the dejected visage to fitly portray the dejected mind; she
will breathe freely once more, and sigh and sigh, and moan and moan,
and wring her hands in uncontrollable agony; and, ignoring the fact
that the heaviest part of her trouble is of her own making, wonder why
she had ever been born for such as this.
Hope is entirely dead in Mell's heart. Transplanted out of the lowly
valley of her own birth to the mountain-tops of her soul's desire, she
feels as lonely as we might imagine the spirit of Greek art, set down
in a modern world. Turn whatever way she would, there was but one fate
for her--martyrdom. If she did not marry Rube, she would be a martyr
in her own humble home; if she did marry him, she would be a martyr in
his more pretentious one; and there was not as great a difference as
she had thought between the air in the valley and the air on the
mountain-top. It is the lungs which breathe, and not the air inhaled,
most at issue, and a martyr is a martyr anywhere, the social type
being hardly less excruciating to undergo than others more quickly
ended.
Pitiful in the extreme are such thoughts in a young mind; pitiful such
manifestations of suffering in one too young to suffer.
How the people upstairs would be surprised if they could see her! How
the Honorable Archibald, who liked things jolly, begawd! who thought
all evidence of feeling bad form, you know; who believed, root and
branch, in British stoicism, even in the jaws of death; how he would
advise her in a spirit of friendliness and a well-bred way, not aw to
make a blawsted dolt of herself--if he only knew. Fortunately, he did
not know; fortunately, nobody knew.
Nobody?
Then who or what is that creature in semblance of man, in attitude of
deepest thought, with folded arms and hanging head, darkly shadowed,
dimly seen, scarcely discernible in the embrasure of the window over
there?
Spirit or man? If a man, he might be a dead one for all the noise he
makes--only a dead man was never known before to use his eyes in such
a lively manner, or his ears to such good purpose, or to betray so
deep an interest in a living woman, even in a ball dress.
Mell did not look towards him, did not know he was there; yet, on a
sudden, as if from some inward sense of vigilance rather than any
extraneous source of knowledge, her pulses strangely fluttered--she
became aware that she was not in reality alone. _How_, in the absence
of visual impression, we can only say by an instinct as unaccountable
as the phenomenon of sound waves which excite wire vibrations.
She was mysteriously imbued with another presence, if such a thing is
possible, and in all the world there was but one who could so clothe
the circumambient air in his own personality.
That one was Jerome Devonhough. Perceiving she now knew he was there,
he got up and came towards her.
Mell did not look at him; she looked upon the floor. He looked
straight at her, and looked so long and hard, and with a gaze so fixed
and steady, that he seemed to be slowly absorbing her very being into
his own entity.
When this became intolerable, the fairy-like apparition in tulle,
wrestling with the situation, on a war footing with her own feelings,
lifted from a glowing face those _lapis lazuli_ eyes of hers--pure
stones liquified by soul action--to his face and dropped them. In one
swift turn of those eyes she had taken in as much of that stern, cold,
accusing face as she could well bear. But there was nothing on it she
had not expected to see. She knew the unrelenting disdain of that
proud nature for what is stained, unworthy, unwomanly, as well as she
knew its strength to esteem, its gift to exalt, its power to bless.
And to look into a once loving face now grown cold, and to find there
no longer an indulgent smile nor approving aspect, is not an
experience to be coveted, even by the happiest.
"You are enjoying it, I hope," said at length a low mocking voice.
"Enjoying it!" retorted plucky Mell, "of course I am enjoying it! Why
shouldn't I? I am probably enjoying it as much as you are!"
"More, I hope. I, for one, never did enjoy being miserable."
"Oh, miserable!" exclaimed Mell, in a lively tone. His misery appeared
to put her in the highest spirits. "Going to marry a rich girl and
feeling miserable over it, how is that? You ought to be as happy,
almost, as I am!"
"The happiness which needs to be so extolled," replied Jerome, with a
sardonic laugh, "rests on a slim foundation. Mine is of a different
stamp. It leads me to envy the very worms as they crawl under my
feet. Even a worm is free to go where his wishes lead him--even a
worm is free to find an easy death and quick, when life becomes
insupportable."
Mell pressed her hand upon her heart, beating so fast--that pent-up
heart in a troubled breast, which rose and fell as a storm-tossed
vessel amid tempestuous seas.
"You cannot blame me for it," said she wildly. "You slighted me, you
trifled with me, you goaded me to it! I would do it again; if need
be!"
"Once has been enough," Jerome told her, in sadness. Speech was an
effort to him; when a man regards some treasure, once his own now lost
to him, he thinks much, but he has little to say. That little, nine
times out of ten, would better be left unsaid. Jerome felt it so; for
a long time he said nothing more--he only continued to look at the
woman he had lost.
She continued to contemplate the floor, until those polished boards,
waxed in readiness for gay dancers' feet, became to her a sorry sight
indeed, and a source of nervous irritation. When their glances
encountered again, hers was full of passionate entreaty, his of
inflamed regret.
"I have a question to put to you," he broke forth, harshly. "What
right have you to marry Rube Rutland, loving me?"
"The same right that you have to marry Clara Rutland, loving me!"
This turned the tables. Now Jerome's glance was riveted upon those
polished boards, and she looked at him. She had not had so good a look
at him in a long time, and her two eyes had never been eyes enough to
take in as much of him as her heart craved.
"At least," said Jerome, regaining his composure and holding up his
head, "this much may be said for me. My contract with her was made in
good faith. I liked her well enough--I loved no one else--it was all
right until I met you. My soul is as a pure white dove in this matter,
compared to yours! And these bonds of mine, they hang but by a single
thread. Our future would have been assured but for your broken
faith."
"Mine? It is all _your_ fault, not mine! Had you trusted me, as a man
ought to trust the woman he loves, all might have been well with us."
"All would have been well with us had you trusted _me_, as a woman
should trust the man she loves. Did I not ask you so to trust me?
Great God! Mellville, could I conceive that you would stake your
future happiness--our future happiness, on the paltry issues of a
foot-race? That whole day my mind was full of projects for bringing
about a happy termination to all our troubles. I could have done it! I
would have done it! But now!"
Lashed into fury by a vivid conception of his own wrongs, brought
about, as he chose to consider, through her treachery alone, Jerome
turned upon her angrily:
"Let me tell you one thing! You shall not marry Rube Rutland!"
"Shall I not?"
Mell laughed--not one of her musical laughs. Now that she was fairly
in for it, she rather enjoyed this fencing match with Jerome.
Hitherto, she had always by stress of circumstances, acted upon the
defensive with him; now she could assert her mastery.
"Shall I not? How will you prevent it?"
"I will open his eyes. I will tell him you do not care a rap for
him."
"You will tell him that? Very well. I will _swear_ to him that I do.
Whom will he believe? _Not you!_"
Her words, her manner, were exasperating, and they were intended to
be exasperating. That cool and systematic self-control which
characterized Jerome, had more than aroused a feeling of rebellious
protest in the girl's impetuous nature. If she could break him up a
little--
"_I say you shall not marry him!_" The words were not loudly spoken,
but they were the utterances of a man much in earnest. "Rather than
see you his wife I would gladly see you dead!"
"Oh, no doubt! But let me tell you, sir, I do not propose to die to
please you! I propose to please myself by becoming the wife of Rube
Rutland!"
This was too much, even for Jerome.
"You heartless, cruel, wicked woman!"
With a single stride he reached her side; he shook his finger rudely
in her face; nay, in a frenzy of mad passion he did worse than
that--he took hold of the wayward creature herself and shook her with
such violence that those heavy coils of hair, upon which she had
expended so much time and pains, loosened and fell about her in a
reckless loveliness beyond the reach of art.
"Woman, do you know what you are doing? Do you know that you are
playing with dangerous implements? toying with men's passions?
dallying with men's souls?"
It is safe to say, Mell had never had such a shaking up, however
frequent the occasions when she had deserved it.
This unconventional usage on the part of Jerome, a man who wore
self-possession and correct manners as an every day coat of mail, not
only surprised Mell, but terrified and subdued her. In undertaking to
"break up" Jerome by stirring up the green-eyed monster, Mell had
neglected to take into account the well-established fact, that no
jealous man stands long upon ceremony. Panting for breath, she awoke
unpleasantly to a full comprehension of a madman's possibilities, and
ignoring all those impassioned inquiries with which he had interlarded
the severer measures of corporeal punishment, she remarked in a spirit
of meekness and a very faint voice:
"Jerome, let me go, please; you are hurting me."
"But how much more you are hurting me," said Jerome, harshly.
He released her, however, and felt ashamed. No man with real manliness
in him, but does feel ashamed after he has hurt a woman. She may have
deserved it, and yet he feels ashamed.
One would think that now after this ungentlemanly conduct on Jerome's
part, Mell the high spirited will not only be full of a tremendous
indignation, but be willing, and more than willing, to give him up for
good and all.
How little you know a woman, you who think that! A harmless man never
does anywhere so little harm as in a woman's affections. The rod of
empire sways the world and a woman's mind--all women, to a great or
less degree; all women are sisters.
In other words, it is very necessary for a man to be capable of
shaking up a woman for past offences, and present naughtiness, when
she needs it, or else he must make up his mind to take a back seat and
give up the supremacy. Some of the fair sex never come to terms
without a shaking--there may be one or two, here and there among them,
who never come to terms, even with a shaking!
Mell did not belong to this small minority; she was completely
subdued. Contrite, and submissive, she now approached her audacious
antagonist; approached him timidly, where he stood a little apart, and
with his back turned to her, feeling, as we have said, quite ashamed
of himself, and said gently:
"Jerome, I will break with Rube if you will break with Clara."
"An honorable man cannot leave a woman in the lurch," answered he, in
a manner indicative of a strong protest under the existing law.
"And how about an honorable woman?" interrogated Mell.
"She can lie, and lie, and still be honorable," he informed her with
fierce irony.
"Then you expect me to----"
"I do! I confidently expect you to do it, and at once. Break with him,
and have a little patience with me, until Clara gets the Honorable
Archibald taut on the line, and awakens to the fact that she loves me
still--but only as a brother! It is coming--it is sure to come, and
before long."
"In the meantime," remarked Mell, with a peculiar expression, "what's
the use of hurting Rube's feelings?"
"Gods and angels, listen!" exclaimed her companion, in overwhelming
indignation. "The question then has narrowed down to the getting of a
husband without regard to any body's feelings--save Rube. His are not
to be hurt until you can hurt them with impunity! You are bound to
hold on to _him_ until you secure _me_, beyond a peradventure! That is
your little game, Mell, is it? Out upon you! Oh, unfortunate man that
I am, to have fallen into the hands of a woman who is particular as to
the fit of her ball dress, but has no preference when it comes to a
husband; who has the aspect of a goddess, but the easy principles of a
Delilah; who is, in fact, not a genuine woman at all, with a heart and
a soul in her, but a man-eating monster, seeking prey--a shark in
woman's clothing, ready to take into the matrimonial clutch, and
swallow at a single gulp, me, if you can get me; if not me, Rube; if
not Rube, any other eligible creature in man's guise, whether
descended from a molecule in the coral, or a tadpole in the spawn:
whether a swine of Epicurus, or an ape just from Barbary! Shame upon
you, woman! Shame! Shame!"
Restive under these severe strictures, Mell had made several
ineffectual attempts to put a stop to them, but her appealing gestures
implored in vain. Finding he would not desist, she bit her lips in
great agitation, and crimsoned violently.
"You are the most impertinent man in existence!" she informed him
petulantly, when he had done.
"That's right, Mell," he answered. "Turn red--turn red to the tips of
your eyelashes! It is the most hopeful sign I have yet seen.
Mellville, look at me."
She raised to him wonderingly her wondrously beautiful eyes.
"I have been asking myself how I could love you so well, a woman who
could condescend to sail under false colors; who knows how to stoop
from her high estate, and trick, and juggle, and blind; who has set a
trap to catch a mouse, and victimizes her prey; who has spread her
toils to obtain a husband under false pretences. I have asked myself
many times, 'how can you love that woman?' I have wished that I loved
you less--that I loved you not at all! And I would crush it out--this
unspeakable tenderness, which shields and defends your image in my
heart--crush it out, beat it down, tear it into tatters, grind it into
dust under the heel of an inexorable resolve, but that I believe, but
that I _know_, Mell, that there is something within you deeper,
better, worthier! 'Truth is God,' and the woman who is true in all
things is a part of Divinity. But what of the woman who is false where
she ought to be true? Let her hide her head in the presence of devils!
Be true, then, Mell, be earnest! This frivolous trifling with life's
most serious concerns shows so small in a being born to a noble
heritage! It is only excusable in a natural _niais_, or a woman
unendowed with a soul."
Jerome here paused. After a moment spent in thought, he approached his
companion very near, and in a voice of passionate tenderness resumed:
"My darling! you can never know what hours of torment, what days of
suffering, this conduct of yours has cost me. But I believe you have
erred more through thoughtlessness, and a pardonable feeling of
resentment--more through love turned into madness, than any settled
determination to do wrong. But now let it go no further. Hasten to set
yourself right with Rube. No matter whether you and I are destined to
be happy in each other's love or not; at all hazards be true to the
immortal within you. Promise me to undo the mischief you have done;
promise me to be a good, true, useful woman, thinking more of duty
than your own interest and pleasure. The world is overstocked with
butterflies, but it needs good women, and I want you to be one of
them--the best! My darling, you will promise me?"
Mell was much affected; she hung her head and her bosom heaved.
"Do you hesitate?" cried Jerome, mistaking her silence. "Promise me,
Mell, I implore, I beseech you!"
"Theatricals?" asked a voice in the doorway.
It was Rube.
"Rehearsing your parts?" he again inquired, coming in.
"Yes," replied Jerome. "For are we not all players upon a stage?"
"And what play have they decided upon?" next questioned the
unsuspecting Rube, who, carrying no concealed weapons himself, was
never on the lookout for concealed weapons on others.
"I don't recall the name," said Jerome. "Do you, Miss Creecy? It is
'Lover's Quarrel,' or some such twaddle, I think."
Mell thought it was something of that kind, but she furthermore
expressed the opinion that it would be well-nigh impossible to get it
up in time for the delectation of the Honorable Archibald.
"Which is no great pity," declared the off-hand Rube; "I wish he'd
take himself elsewhere to be delectated."
There was no doubt as to Rube's preferences for a brother-in-law;
which, however, did not take away from the awkwardness of this remark.
Not suspicious, neither was Rube obtuse; he noted a singular
contraction on Jerome's brow, he noted a strange confusion in Mell's
manner, and he put it all down to his own blundering tongue, which was
always placing his best friend either in a false or in an annoying
position before Mell. Out of these considerations he made haste to
subjoin:
"Ah, Mellville, you should have seen Devonhough how splendidly he
acquitted himself in our class plays at college!"
This was a pure offering from friendship's store. Honest Rube, with
his fine open countenance all aglow with enthusiasm for his friend and
joy in the presence of the woman he loved, looked the archetype of
hopeful young manhood, untouched, as yet, by sorrow or mistrust.
Regarded from an architectural standpoint, he had the sublime
simplicity and dignity of the Doric, which was just wherein he
differed from Jerome, who was a Corinthian column, delicately
chiselled, ornately moulded.
Mell remarked, in reply to this expression of lively admiration from
Rube, that she wished she could have seen Mr. Devonhough--or
something. Mr. Devonhough, with the expression of a man whose
self-respect will not admit of his bearing much more, said with an
impatient "Pshaw," that she needn't wish to have seen him, that this
good acting of his was all in Rube's eye, and nowhere else; that he
hated an actor, and that he never would act another part himself, as
long as he lived, not to oblige anybody, and so help him God!
After which, shadowed by clouds, beleaguered with dark thoughts, with
sombre fires of jealousy smoldering in his eye, and war-hounds of
anxiety gnawing at his vitals, he abruptly turned and left the
room--not with his usual deliberation.
And still Rube saw nothing.
"He's real cut up," said the sympathetic Rube, looking commiseratingly
after the friend of his bosom. "And all for what? Because a woman
never seems certain of her own mind. When judgment overtakes you women
what is to become of you all, anyhow--eh, Mell?"
Mell could hardly say; and Rube, dismissing Jerome from his mind for
the present, found other occupation. He had never seen Mell before in
full dress. He addressed himself _con amore_, and exclusively, for a
time, to the study of structural feminity and those marvels of nature
presented to the eye of the earnest investigator, in the shape of a
well-formed woman on the outside of a ball dress.
During this process Rube's sensations were indefinable.
Mell, preoccupied in thoughts of her own, hears, at length, his voice
dreamily, as a sound from afar, and looks up irritably to see, for the
hundredth time, how coarse of fibre Rube is compared to Jerome.
She resents the unpalatable fact. She resents something else, and
makes a very vigorous but unavailing effort to gain her freedom.
"I cannot understand," playfully remonstrated Rube, and with arms
immovable, "why so simple a matter disturbs you so much. You are as
white as a sheet, you are quivering like a leaf, your hands are icy
cold, and what is it all about?"
"I told you never, _never_ to do that!" cried out Mell, in an agony of
passionate protest.
Even the most cold-blooded among mortals finds the caress of a person
not dear to them offensive; but take the woman of emotional nature,
exquisitely sensitive in all matters of feeling, and to such the touch
of unloved lips is worse than a plague spot.
"Don't you hear me? I cannot bear it! I am not used to it!"
There was something more than maidenly coyness in her tone; there was
mental anguish, and a downright shade of anger. We wonder Rube did not
detect it. But you know, gentle reader, how it is. There are so many
things all around and about us which we do not hear and see, because
we are intent upon other matters, and are not looking for them. With
such feelings, in that dreadful moment Mell would rather have
submitted to a dozen stripes from Jerome, than one single caress from
Rube--her future husband, bear you in mind! the being by whose side
she expected to pass the rest of her days. Poor Mell! If getting up in
the world requires self-torture, self-immolation such as this,
wouldn't it be better, think you, not to get up? Wouldn't it be
better, in the long run, for every woman, situated as you are, to use
a dagger, and thereby not only settle her future, but get clean out of
a world where such sufferings are necessary? There can't be any other
world much worse, judged by your present sensations.
But Rube, as we have said, did not hear that piteous wail of a woman
coercing her flesh and blood, the frame of her mind, the bent of her
soul. She was his own, and no words could tell, how he loved her. If a
man cannot lawfully kiss his own wife, or one so near to being his own
wife, it is a hard case, truly. That one little slip "'twixt the cup
and the lip," which has played such havoc in men's expectations, from
the first beginnings of time to the present moment, did not enter into
Rube's calculations, or his thoughts.
He was in a playful and a loving mood. He tightened his clasp upon
her, he chucked her under the chin, he pinched her cheek, he patted
those sunny locks of hers and smiled down into that fair face, _faire
les yeux doux_, and babbled to her in lover-language, not unlike the
"pitty, pitty ittle shing" upon which we linguistically feed helpless
infancy, as little witting the possible sufferings of the child under
such an infliction, as Rube did Mell's.
"Now truly, Mell," asked Rube, "did you never let any other fellow
kiss you--never? not once?"
"No!" said Mell, emphatic and indignant. "_Never!_ And _you_ shouldn't
now, if I could help myself! Do go away! I tell you I'm not used to
such as this!"
She was almost ready to cry.
The whole thing was immensely amusing and entertaining to Rube, and
while he laughed, he could also understand how it might come hard on a
girl, at first, to feel the bloom despoiled on her chaste lips.
"But you will get used to it after awhile," he assured her, with a
quiet smile. "My word for it, you will! I will see to it that you do.
There now, my pretty one (just what Jerome called her) sweet,
frightened bird, why ruffle your beautiful plumage against these bars?
They are made of adamant; but only be quiet and take to them kindly
and they will not derange a single feather. You are exquisitely lovely
to-night! You will intoxicate all beholders! And have you been
thinking of that blissful time when we are going to get married?"
She had, of course; but what made him so impatient? Couldn't he wait
until she got back home? Rube could, certainly; but only on
conditions, and those conditions would come very hard on a girl not
used to a lover's kiss, and who objected to a lover's fondling, unless
she managed well.
Fortunately, Mell could manage well. She could have managed the
diversified attractions of a dime museum if necessary.
"And before he shall desecrate my lips again," Mell vowed to herself,
under her breath, "I will perish by my own hands!"
Ah! Mell, Mell, you should have thought of that before you sold
yourself!
At daylight she crawled upstairs and into bed. The ball had been a
great success and she its reigning belle. Women like her, with such a
form, with such a face, with such glory of hair and wealth of high
spirits and physical exuberance, work like a spell in a ball-room.
There was something bewildering in the gleam of her eye; something
intoxicating in the turn of her neck, the flow of her garments.
She had danced, to please Rube, more than once with Jerome. It was
while the two were floating together in that delirious rapture of
conscious nearness, to which the conventional waltz gives pretext
and the stamp of propriety, and while their senses swayed to the
rhythmic measure of the sweetest music they had ever heard, that
Mell looked up meltingly into her partner's face--a face absorbed,
excited, yet darkly set with a certain sternness which Mell fully
understood--looked up and said to him: "Only wait until I get back
home." Simple words indeed, and holding little meaning for those
who heard; but they gave a new lease of life to Jerome. He answered
back in a whisper, certain words. And now it only remained for
Clara Rutland to accept the Honorable Archibald Pendergast and the
happiness of two loving hearts would be assured.
The ball is over, gone, past, never to come back again, with its waltz
melody, its ravishing rhyme without reason, its sweet smelling
flowers, its foam-crested wine, its outlying joy, its underlying
pathos, its hidden sweetness, and its secret pain. For, there never
was a ball yet which had its lights and not its shadows; which did not
have some heavy foot among its light fantastic toes; some heavy heart
among its gallant men and beautiful women.
Mell lives it over in the pale dawn. It made her blood curdle and her
flesh creep to think of those two men. What was she going to do with
them--Rube and Jerome? How was it all to end?
Horrible it would be to break off with Rube, more horrible still not
to do so. Fearful it would be to tell him the truth--the whole truth.
But that was what Jerome expected her to do, what she ought to do.
Those words of his were burned into her memory with fire. He wanted
her to become a good, true, useful woman, and be no longer a
butterfly.
He had called her 'my darling.' He had called her so twice. He loved
her just as much as ever. In fact, he loved her more; for the man is
not living who does not love a woman more when he finds out somebody
else loves her as well as he.
She was quite decided, and Jerome was undeniably right; there was but
one honorable course for her to follow. Even if Jerome married Clara,
and she herself never had another offer of marriage (she never would
have another such as Rube) how sweet it would be, even in a life of
loneliness, to be free, to be able to maintain the dignity and the
probity of her womanhood, to be able to throw aside the despicable
part of a double-dealer and a deceiver, to be able to feel that she
had been worthy of Jerome though never his.
Thus Mell felt when she stretched her weary limbs on that silken couch
of ease in the dim morning light, and turned her face to the wall, and
closed her eyes, and thought of that exquisite moment, when from
Jerome's shoulder, conventionally used, she had proffered to him the
olive branch of peace and had caught the heavenly beams of that smile
which restored her to his favor. With the bewitchment of this smile
reflected upon the fair lineaments of her own face, Mell fell into
that sweet rest, which remains even for the people who flirt.
But how different everything always seems the day after the ball!
It must be the gas-light in the ball-room, it must be the sunlight in
the day-time, which makes all the difference. Sunlight is the
effulgence of a God, and lights up Reality; gas-light is a ray kindled
by the feeble hand of man to brighten the unreal--a delusion and a
snare.
The absurd fancies of a ball-room hide their fantastic fumes in the
broad daylight.
Coming down to a six o'clock dinner--finding Rube at the bottom of
the stairs to attend upon her--finding the assembled company,
including the Honorable Archibald, half-famished and yet kept
waiting for their dinner, until the future mistress of the Bigge
House put in an appearance, Mell began more clearly to estimate her
own importance--her own, but through Rube. Her beauty, her wit,
they were her own; but they had availed her little before her
betrothment to Rube. Especially was she impressed with this aspect of
the case, when, hanging upon his arm, she entered the brilliant
drawing-room to become immediately the bright particular star of the
social heavens, the cynosure of all eyes; to be immediately
surrounded by flattering sycophants; to be pelted with well-bred
raillery for her tardiness and sleepy-headedness; to be bowed down
to and reverenced and waited upon and courted and admired by these
high-born people--she, old Jacob Creecy's daughter, but the future
wife of the young master of this lordly domain.
And Jerome expected her to give all this up--did he? And to give it up
whether he gave up Clara, or not? Jerome was simply crazy--and she
would be a good deal crazier herself before he caught her doing it!
Mell still has an eye to the main chance. Mell still "tuck arter her
ole daddy!"
* * * * *
The summer wanes. The ripened grain is harvested and the chaff falling
from the sheaves on the threshing floor; the patient teams sniff the
first cool breeze and put their shoulders to the wheel; the wagons are
heaped in corn; the fields grow white for the picking. In the windings
of green valleys yellow leaves and red play fast and loose amid the
green, and go fluttering to the ground; the deer stalks abroad; glad
hunters blow their horns, and the unleashed hounds are joyful at the
scent of noble prey.
Twice has the moon changed, and Mell is still at the Bigge House,
showing up amid its polished refinements, as a choice bit of Corian
faience contrasted with cut-glass. Every day she spoke of going, but
every day there was some reason why she should not go and should stay.
Mrs. Rutland wanted her to stay; and Mell herself, whatever her
misgivings, whatever her struggles, whatever her trials, wanted, too,
on the whole, to stay. Here was a congenial atmosphere of style and
fashion, congenial occupation--or the congenial want of any, endless
variety of amusement, the hourly excitement of spirited contact with
kindred minds, and no vulgar father and mother to mortify her tender
sensibilities. Here, too, she was in the presence of the one being on
earth she most loved, and even to see him under cold restraint, was
better than not to see him at all. Sometimes it happened they sat near
each other for a few blissful seconds; sometimes it was a stolen look
into each other's eyes; sometimes an accidental touch of the hand when
Jerome was initiating the ladies into the ingenious methods of a
fore-overhand stroke or a back-underhand stroke, or the effective
results of skillful volleying--such casual trifles as these, unnoticed
by others, but more precious to them than "the golden wedge of
Ophir."
So the days passed on; rainy days, dry days, clear days, cloudy days,
bright days, dark days, every kind of day, and every one of them a
day's march nearer the imperishable day.
"There's a messenger outside, Miss Mellville, to say that your father
is sick and wishes you to come home."
Jerome, it was, who spoke.
"Father sick!" exclaimed Mell. "I will go at once."
"How provoking!" broke in Mrs. Rutland. "I wanted you particularly
to-day. Rube, too. Don't you remember he wants you to go to Pudney?"
"Yes, yes," interrupted Mell hastily. She did not wish Mrs. Rutland to
say before Jerome what Rube wanted her to go there for. It was to have
her picture taken. "I am very sorry, but if father is really sick I
ought to go."
"Rhesus is under saddle," said Jerome. "Shall I ride over and find out
just how he is? I can do so in a very few minutes."
"No!" said Mell, with quick speech and restrained emphasis. Whom would
he see there? What would he hear? Her mother in an old cotton frock,
talking bad grammar. And Jerome was so delicate in his tastes, so
fastidious and aesthetic.
"No," said Mell, decidedly. "I'm much obliged, but--"
"Yes," interposed Mrs. Rutland, "I wish you would go, for Rube is not
here and I've no notion of letting Mell go unless it is necessary."
"Did you say I must not?" inquired Jerome, addressing Mell and not
moving.
"Go, if Mrs. Rutland wishes it," stammered Mell, furiously angry with
herself that she could not utter such commonplace words to him without
getting all in a tremor. They were all blind, these people, or they
must have seen, long ago, how it stood with Jerome and herself.
He was back in an incredibly short space of time.
"I saw your mother," Jerome reported. (Great heavens! in her
poke-berry homespun, without a doubt!) "Your father is quite sick, but
not dangerously so. He only fancied seeing you, but can wait until
to-morrow."
While the old man waited, Mell had her pretty face photographed for
Rube.
He drove her home in the buggy the next morning. Coming in sight of
the quiet and shade of the old farm-house and recalling, as a
forgotten dream, its honest industry, its homely manners, its sweet
simplicity, Mell marvelled at her own sensations. Could it be
gladness, this feeling that swept over her at sight of the old home?
Yes, it was gladness. Perplexed in mind, heavy at heart, and fretted
to the lowest depths of her soul by this struggle within her, which
seemed to be never ending, Mell was glad to get back into the quietude
of the old farm house after the continuous strain and excitement of
the past few weeks. The flowers in the little garden stirred gently in
the breeze; there was a gleam of blue sky above the low roof; birds
chirped softly in the euonymus hedge under the window of her own
little room, and the tranquillity and serenity and staidness of the
spot soothed her feverish mind and calmed her feverish spirit. It was
lonely, desolate, mean, and poor, but none the less a refuge from the
storms of a higher region; from the weariness of pleasure and the
burden of empty enjoyment; from the tiresomeness of being amused, and
the troublesomeness of seeming to be amused without being; from an
ecstasy of suffering and an agony of transport; in short, a hoped-for
refuge from herself and Jerome.
"Hurry up, Mell! Hurry up! He's mos' gone!"
"What, mother! You don't mean--?"
"Yes, I does, Mell. He was tuck wuss in the night. He won't know ye,
I'm 'fraid."
But he did, and opening his eyes he smiled faintly, as she hung over
his ugly face--uglier now, after the ravages of disease, than ever
before; dried up by scorching fevers to a semblance of those
parched-up things we see in archaeological museums; deeply lined and
seamed and furrowed, as if old Time had never had any other occupation
since he was a boy but to make marks upon it; uglier than ever, but
with an expression upon it which had never been there before--that
solemn dignity which Death gives to the homeliest features.
"Father! father!" sobbed Mell, "don't die! Don't leave your little
Mell! Don't leave me now, when I've just begun to love you as I
ought!"
Ha, Mell! Just begun! He has reached a good old age, and you are a
woman grown, and you have just begun to love your father! It is too
late, Mell. He does not need your love now. He is trying to tell you
that, or something else. Put your ear a little closer.
"What did you say, father! Try to tell me again."
And he did; she heard every word:
"Good-bye, little Mell! I ain't gwine ter morteefy ye no mo'!"