THE FIRST CLOUD.
Cora arose the next morning with a delicious sense of home-life upon
her. She entered her dressing-room in a pretty morning robe, looking
fresh as a flower, and informed Alice that she wished to have her
breakfast served there, if Mr. Seymour would take it with her.
“Monsieur had eaten his breakfast and gone out,” Alice said. “It was
past ten o’clock, and he had been gone half an hour at least.”
Cora was vexed. Why should he have gone out before she was awake? Then,
eating his breakfast alone, as if he were a business man, and had any
excuse for neglecting his wife. She would take no breakfast; he had
broken up all the happiness of her morning by these strange actions.
Indeed, she would go back to the hotel and stay there till he knew how
to appreciate her company.
These were the first thoughts that flashed into her mind. Her life with
Seymour had been one of perpetual adoration. No man ever loved a woman
more sincerely, but it must be wonderful genius which can perpetuate
through all married life the devotion of the lover or the bridegroom.
Having created her Paradise and chosen her husband, Cora expected the
first passionate homage which he lavished on her to last forever.
Without knowing it, she held him as a sort of splendid vassal conquered
by her charms and bought by her munificence. This act of leaving her
alone was his first offence, and she resented it as a great wrong. A
little persuasion from Alice, however, induced her to taste some
breakfast, which was placed temptingly before her on a sofa-table; but
she was really too much annoyed for any relish of the meal. The
tête-à-tête set of snowy Parian provoked her with its one empty cup.
Lubin had done his best with the little breakfast, looking upon her
visit as a sort of gala season in the house. Everything was perfect; the
biscuit white as snow, the butter absolutely tasted of the sweet grasses
upon which the cows were fed, coffee that filled the little room with
its fragrance. But he was not there, and this very perfection stung her
with fresh anger.
“I have a great fancy to go up the river,” she said, pushing the cup
from her after taking one sip of the coffee.
“It would serve him right; I really seem to be in the way here in my own
house.”
_Her own house!_ She was beginning to remember that everything was hers.
How much love can rest in a woman’s heart when such thoughts become
familiar to it?
“Who is that? Go look, Alice; I heard the gate close.”
Alice went to one of the front windows and saw a tall, fine-looking man,
with light brown hair and a pointed moustache, walking toward the house.
She returned to the boudoir and told her mistress.
“Who can it be, Alice, we have no visitors?” said Cora, a little
disturbed. “Some one to see Lubin, I suppose.”
“No, madame, his air was too gentlemanly for that.”
“It can be no one else, that is certain,” answered Cora. “Besides these
French artists—Lubin is one, I am sure—sometimes look like gentlemen.”
The mistress and servant were so deeply engaged in this discussion that
they did not hear the faint click of a latch-key or the footsteps of a
man as he ascended the stairs and entered Seymour’s dressing-room.
The first thing that the young man did on entering the room was to lock
himself in. Then he took the wig from his head and the moustache from
his lip, and crushed them both into a drawer, which he locked with
force. While doing this he panted for breath, and drops of perspiration
stood thickly on his forehead. But now he took time to bathe his face
and hands, change his coat and brush his hair with scrupulous nicety.
After thus refreshing his toilet, he took a package from an inner pocket
in his vest, opened it and counted fourteen bank-notes of five hundred
dollars each. These notes he secured in a travelling-belt and laid upon
the bureau, while he counted what might have been some thousands of
dollars in gold in a hurried, breathless manner, as if the task was one
which he longed to get over. Both the gold and the notes he crushed into
the writing-desk we have seen him use for the same purpose before, which
he locked with care.
“Now,” he said to himself, wiping the moisture away which would keep
gathering on his forehead; “now I can go to her with a lighter heart.
Great Heavens! that man’s eyes are on me yet! I wish there was brandy or
wine up here. He has driven all my strength away.”
There was no brandy or wine, so he poured out some cologne water from a
bottle on the dressing-table and drank it off eagerly. Even that did not
give him strength to appear at his ease before his wife, but he heard
her voice in the next room and entered.
This is what Seymour had been doing that morning. While his wife was
asleep he had gone into his dressing-room and carefully put on that wig
with its light, curling hair, and the moustache with its curved points
turning upwards after a fashion that changed the entire expression of
his mouth. Then the glasses were put carefully over his eyes, and a coat
of pinkish drab cloth replaced the quiet color that he usually wore.
This disguise he completed with a stove-pipe hat, so new that it shone
like satin, and a little rattan cane.
Thus, entirely changed in his appearance, Seymour went softly down
stairs, a little before ten, and let himself into the street. He hailed
an omnibus at the next corner, and rode down Broadway, with some ten
other persons, all going to the lower part of the city on business. One
of these men was the person of whom he had bought those chestnut
carriage horses. He resolved to court this man’s attention, and thus
test his disguise.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but permit me to open the window, it seems a
little close.”
The man of horses looked at him indifferently, moved, and allowed the
window to be opened. Seymour drew a deep breath as he sat down. The man
had not recognized him in the least.
He entered the bank where some of his money was still on deposit, and
where his bills of exchange had been cashed; after a few moments’ delay
he quietly presented a draft at the desk, and to the very clerk who had
done business with him before, signed by Alfred N. Seymour, with Philip
Ware’s name on the back. The clerk examined the signature, compared it
with one in his books, took a quiet survey of the person who presented
it, and counted out the money. There was still a balance left in the
bank.
“Where is Mr. Seymour just now? I see this is dated at Quebec. On his
way home, perhaps?”
This was exactly what Seymour wanted. He had been all the way
fruitlessly studying how to open a conversation that should lead to the
answer he was ready to give.
“More than probable. He was intending to sail from Halifax the week
after I left Quebec.”
“Well, I suppose we shall hear from him when he wants the rest of his
money,” observed the clerk.
Seymour smiled, lifted his hat and walked out of the bank. On the steps
he almost ran against a man, who came up so suddenly that he sallied
back with a sharp recoil, as if the stranger had struck him.
“I beg pardon,” said the stranger, lifting his hat. “Did I run against
you, sir?”
“It is I who should beg pardon, I fear—pray excuse my awkwardness,”
answered Seymour, in a voice so hoarse and changed that his best friend
would not have recognized it.
The two men bowed politely to each other and Seymour passed on, hurrying
to the nearest omnibus, which he entered, trembling from head to foot
and pale as agitation could make him.
Thus it was that Seymour returned home. No wonder he wanted a few
minutes rest before he entered the presence of his wife.
“Am I late, my angel?” he said, drawing a chair to the little table. “Is
there not at least one cup for me?”
Seymour took up the little silver coffee-pot, and lifting the lid,
looked in.
“Why it is almost full,” he said. “Waiting for me? How good you are. I
had almost given up the pleasure of our breakfast in this pretty nest.”
“But why—why did you go out this morning, of all others?” said Cora,
rather sharply.
“Why because my head ached fearfully, and I hoped to drive it off before
you awoke to be annoyed with it; but, unhappily, I got into the wrong
omnibus, and it took me out of the way.”
Smiles began to hover about Cora’s mouth again; she filled one of the
Parian cups and gave it to him, resuming her own breakfast with fresh
appetite.
“The air does not seem to have given you much color,” she said, looking
at him earnestly.
“No, it must be change of air, I fear, Cora, before I am quite myself
again. It enervates one to be idle so long, even with the sweetest and
dearest woman that ever lived, coming to one like an angel now and then.
You must let me take flight for a week or two, Cora; after that I will
come back to my birdie the happiest fellow alive.”
“You are very anxious to leave me, Alfred.”
“Yes, dearest, since you have told me how unpleasant the presence of a
sick man is to you, I dread being taken down. Really, love, I am no fit
companion for you. An excursion West among the prairies will send me
back to you healthy as a crusader.”
“If I could only go with you, Alfred.”
“But that is impossible. We must not be seen together until all the
world knows of our marriage.”
“I have a great mind to proclaim it to-morrow,” answered Cora. “Only I
do want all my affairs settled first and out of the executor’s hands.
When he once renders up his charge we need not hide away in this stupid
place. I am tired of it already.”
“And I like its solitude. It is a little romance we are living out here,
Cora. The very secrecy is charming.”
“But you will leave it and me.”
“Only because I must, or you will cease to love me.”
“But not yet—a week from now, say.”
“Very well. Only you must nurse me, pet me, read to me, swear to love me
forever and ever, let what will befall us. That will make this one week
a heaven.”
“You are not content with that, but spend the whole morning no one knows
where, and leave me to eat my breakfast alone,” she said, with a look of
pleasant reproach.
“Ah! yes, I must atone for that. Not one step will I walk from this
house till the week is up. Will that satisfy you, Mrs. Seymour?”
“Are you in earnest? Is this a promise?”
“A solemn promise.”
“Then I must forgive you; but it was a little hard.”
Seymour arose from the table laughing.
“Now let us begin our week,” he said. “That at least, we will snatch
from fate itself.”
Cora took no heed of the significance of these words, though they came
from a heart heavy with foreboding.
“Now what shall we begin this glorious week with? Let it be music—how
you did love music in those old days.”
“And now as well as ever—better, if you are the musician. Come, the
piano has not been opened yet—your hands shall consecrate it.”
Cora looked into the glass, pushed the hair back from her temples, shook
out the lilac-tinted folds of her morning dress, and swept on before her
husband into that gem of a drawing room. There stood a grand piano, and
close by a music stand, for nothing had been omitted in that
establishment. Seymour opened the instrument, drew an easy chair so
close to the music stand that the flow of her dress fell over his knees,
and, leaning back, prepared to listen or think such thoughts as make men
grow old in their youth. Heaven help the man! Such was his strait that
he was thankful to be silent and reflect a little—thankful to shield his
agony of apprehension under the sweet storm of music that soon broke
over him.
Thus the young couple spent the week, all alone, surrounded by splendor
in every form, loving each other and putting that love into language
sweeter than poetry, but which did grow just a little tiresome from
eternal repetition. Cora brought forth all her accomplishments to charm
him with. When she sat down to the piano, people in the street stopped
to listen, and wondered who and what the family were that had surrounded
itself so richly, and from which such music came floating like strains
from Paradise.
Sometimes, in her more fanciful moods, Cora would take her guitar from
its case and sing ballad after ballad with a sprightliness which would
have brought any man to her feet. They played chess in her boudoir,
arranged flowers in the vases, watched the fountain throw up its waters
in the moonlight—in fact lived out the picture which Claude Melnotte
placed before Pauline as his bright ideal of a love life. Yet something
was wanting. Those young hearts, so close together, were far, far away
from each other at times, each busy with its own hidden secret, and each
tempted almost beyond endurance to own everything, and thus get rid of
the one hindrance to a happiness which might have been so complete.
At times, during that week, Cora had almost wished for some change. She
was not satisfied that Seymour had kept his promise so faithfully, but
would have given anything to see him go in and out as if occupied like
other men. Sometimes she would shut herself up for hours only that she
might feel the pleasure of welcoming him when her door was opened. After
all, I think this one week of unbroken happiness had more effect on the
after fate of these two persons than any one reading this history will
admit. Satiety is a worse evil to deal with than want itself. Love is
sometimes smothered under too much luxury, as honeysuckles and roses
strangle each other when they grow close together.
Seymour was saved from this by his own troubles. He had an inner life of
apprehension and regrets which lifted him out of the enervating effects
which fell upon his wife so imperceptibly, that she was all unconscious
of the change as the bough from which a ripe pear has fallen. Cora told
the truth, she began to feel a loathing for the home which her taste had
made so beautiful. I think a week, at this time, in the log cabin, which
Seymour could not keep out of his mind, with prairie chickens cooking by
an out-door fire, and fresh water brought from some spring under the
rocks, would have been far better for those two young hearts. Under the
blue sky, with God’s grand old wilderness shading them, they might have
found out the secret of making love immortal. As it was, they were about
to part—he for the woods and the prairies, and the woman for her
ill-gotten home and crime-stricken mother.
They stood together that morning in the little room of which both would
have been weary but for the anticipation of this parting hour—stood
together with arms interlaced, looking into each other’s faces till
tears blinded them.
“We have been so happy here,” she sobbed, looking around with new
interest on everything. “Oh! Seymour, Seymour, will this ever come to us
again!”
The man commenced trembling, and could only answer her with passionate
kisses. With that cloud over his head, how dare he reassure her?
“You will not forget me?” she pleaded, clinging to him. “Nothing shall
drive me one moment from your heart?”
“Nothing but death can drive you from this heart, my wife—nothing but
death.”
“What can I do for you? I would give the world to work for you, suffer
something for you!”
“Rather be happy for me, sweet wife.”
“I cannot be that, and you gone.”
“It will not be for long—I pray to God that it may not be for long,” he
said straining her to his heart. “Do you doubt it; is there a single
fear in your heart that we shall meet again and that speedily?”
“No, darling, no. I talked at random. Now farewell! Kiss me once more,
again—again! God bless you, Cora. Think kindly of me. Love me, let what
will come. Nothing but death can really part us, remember that, for you
are my wife—no human power can change that. Once more, farewell!”
“Seymour! Seymour!”
There was no answer. The door closed and he was gone.