LULU.
"There is many a maiden more lovely by far,
With the step of a fawn and the glance of a star;
But heart there was never more tender and true
Than beats in the bosom of darling Lulu."
--OSGOOD.
Go with me, my reader, not many squares distant from that stately
Winans' mansion, to an humbler home--a small brick edifice standing
near to the street, and bearing over a side-door a small sign, with
the name of Willard Clendenon, Attorney-at-law, inscribed thereon in
very handsome gilt letters. But we have no business to transact with
the gallant captain, so we will not even look into his dusty office,
but pass on up the stairs, and without even knocking, enter the
guest-chamber of the house.
It is a large, airy, prettily appointed chamber, but the shutters are
closely akimboed, the lace curtains are drooped over the windows, and
the quiet air of a sick-room pervades the apartment. On the low, white
bed that occupies the center of the apartment is the recumbent figure
of a man, in whose handsome features, even though his eyes are closed
in a death-like sleep, we recognize Bruce Conway. He looks like marble
as he lies there, his black hair flowing back from his broad, white
brow, his closed eyes encircled with purplish rings, the dark mustache
slightly shading his mouth, only revealing more plainly the deathly
pallor and suffering of the lips.
Standing by the side of the bed, Captain Clendenon looks down at him
with infinite pity and tenderness in his dark-gray orbs.
And standing by the captain's side is a little figure that looks
fairy-like by contrast with his manly proportions. She clings to his
arm as he stands there, and her brown head leans lightly against him,
her fair girlish face wearing a look of sadness and pain as she gazes
at the sufferer's sleeping face.
"Oh, Brother Willie," she whispers, "I am so sorry for him! Oh, it is
so dreadful!"
And then her red lips quiver like a grieved child's, and two pearly
tears start on her cheeks, and, rolling down, are lost in the ruffles
on the breast of her blue morning-dress.
Captain Clendenon did not answer. He looked down at the quiet, handsome
face that the surgeon thought might never wake from that death-like
sleep, or if it did, it might only be to take on the deeper sleep of
eternity. He had lain like that all day--it was noon now.
The duel had taken place a few days before, at a little distance out of
Norfolk. The captain had done everything in his power to prevent the
terrible affair, but in vain; had refused the application of Bruce
that he should become his second, in the hope that he might be enabled
to compromise the affair by prevailing on Bruce to offer Winans an
apology for his untimely serenade.
Bruce had changed his mind about going away, and chose to feel offended
at the view taken by the captain of the whole affair; so he left him
out of his councils, and the duel came off without the captain's
knowledge or consent. A mere accident had brought the matter to his
knowledge at almost the hour appointed for it, and hurrying off to the
scene of action, he had arrived only in time to see him fall at the
first fire.
The appointed place was seven miles from Mrs. Conway's residence,
and after the surgeon had dressed the wound and declared its serious
nature, the captain took the right of an old friend to convey him to
his own home in Norfolk, which was nearer, more especially as the
surgeon thought the last lingering hope of recovery would be destroyed
by jolting him over seven miles to his home at Ocean View.
That was how he came to be lying there in that pleasant chamber, with
Captain Clendenon's pretty sister crying her brown eyes out over him.
"Poor boy! poor Bruce!" he murmured. "How the bitter consequences of
his wrong-doing has followed him! And now, in all probability, he must
die; yet, after all," thought this loyal heart, "it cannot be so very
hard to die for her."
The noiseless entrance of his pleasant-faced mother made him look up.
Taking a seat by the bed, she quietly dismissed them from the room.
"I will watch by him myself," she said, kindly, "and the fewer in the
room the better, you know. Both of you go and rest yourselves."
They both withdrew with lingering steps, and eyes that seemed loth to
quit that pale sleeper, but quietly obedient to their mother's wishes,
and content in knowing that she would do for him all that lay in human
power.
But down in the quiet little parlor the brother and sister sat down to
talk it all over.
"Oh, brother! what did Mrs. Conway say when you told her?"
"Went off into strong hysterics. The maid had to put her to bed. I sent
the doctor out there as I rode in town."
"How dreadful! all she had to love, poor, proud old lady; how I pity
her!" and the little maiden's tears flowed afresh from her sympathizing
soul.
"She may thank herself for the most of it," he answered, half bitterly.
"Why did she tempt his weak mind with her wealth and pride? She knew
better than any one else how wavering a will was his. Why did she
continually thwart all his best impulses?"
"But, brother, he ought to have had more manliness. But it is too
late to blame him now. I wonder if Mrs. Winans knows--how she feels
about it? Do you know, brother Willie, I would give much to see this
wonderful woman whose beauty has only been for bane. You have seen her.
Is she so very beautiful? What is she like?"
"Like nothing you ever saw, little Lulu--like some fair saint, or
angel."
The passion in his heart broke through his words. A faint red flushed
his brown cheek, and his eyes drooped as his sister looked up with
soft, astonished gaze.
"Why, brother, did you love her, too?
"That is the first time you have accused me of loving any one but
yourself, little sister," he answered, lightly, parrying the question.
"Well, tell me this, brother. Did you ever go to see her at all? Did
you like her--did she like you?"
"I went there sometimes--not often," his glance falling with
unconscious pathos on the empty sleeve that lay between him and any
aspiration toward woman's love. "I liked her very much indeed. She
was very sweet and attractive, very obliging always. She liked me a
little; I suppose, as a mere friend. I never presumed to ask for a
deeper regard. I knew she loved Bruce. I felt, Lulu, it seemed to me
then, in her dark days, every pang that struck home to that trusting
and deceived young heart. I felt sorry for her, and admired her for the
brave yet womanly strength that carried her through that bitter ordeal.
I rejoiced with her when she married a better man than Bruce and seemed
to have forgotten the past."
The tender brown eyes looked gravely at him as he spoke, reading his
heart with a woman's quick intuition. She put both arms about his neck
and touched her lips to the noble brow over which the brown curls
fell so carelessly. The mute caress told him that she understood and
sympathized in his unspoken grief. The man's heart in him could not
bear it. He rose, putting her kindly and gently aside.
"Lulu, she has a noble husband; a handsome, generous fellow, a 'man
among men,' but he is marred almost as much by his unreasoning jealousy
as is Bruce by his unstable character. I pity her. She is worthy of
confidence and all respect. It is an honor to any man to have loved her
even though hopelessly."
"And Senator Winans has left her, they say, Brother Willie?"
"So rumor says," he answered, meditatively.
"Why don't you see him, brother, and talk with him, and try to make him
look at things fairly? It seems a pity she should suffer so, through no
fault of hers, too. My heart aches for her in her loneliness."
He did not answer. He was walking slowly up and down the floor, pausing
now and then to look out of the window which overlooked the Elizabeth
River and the wharves crowded with the shipping of all nationalities.
His sister rose and paced the floor, also, her young heart full of
sympathy for the four people whose life-paths crossed each other so
strangely and sadly. She shuddered and hoped she would never love.
Of the three men who each loved Grace Winans in his own fashion, she
wondered which was the most unhappy; the husband who had stained his
hands in human blood for his selfish passion; Bruce Conway who was
dying for her, or her brother whose heart was silently breaking for
her. The little maiden who was all unversed in the lore of life found
herself bewildered in the maze of metaphysics into which she was
drifting. She sat herself down with a sigh, and thought of the handsome
face lying so deathly white up stairs, and half wishing her mother had
not banished her from the room.
"Lulu!"
"Yes, Brother Willie."
He was looking at her as she looked up at him with a flitting blush
on her round, dimpled face. She was wonderfully pretty, this Lulu
Clendenon, with her arch brown eyes, and pink and white skin, the wavy
brown hair that was gathered in a soft, loosely braided coil at the
back of her small head, and her blue lawn dress, with its frillings,
and flutings, and puffings, was very becoming, setting off the
whiteness of her throat and wrists as no other color ever does for a
pretty woman.
"Well," she said, as he did not answer her first reply.
"My little sister, I won't have you tangling your brain up with useless
speculations over things that must happen as long as the world stands
and men and women live, and breathe, and have their being. Don't let me
see that pretty brow all puckered up again. What would mother and I do
if our household fairy became dull, and dreamy, and philosophical."
"Brother Willie, am I always to be a child?"
"Always, my sweet? Why how old are you--sixteen?"
"I am nineteen, brother, and this Mrs. Winans of whom all Norfolk is
raving, who is a wife and mother--she, it is said, is barely more than
twenty."
"Yes, love; but the loss of parents and friends forced Grace Grey into
premature womanhood and premature responsibilities; she took up the
cross early, but you, dear little one----"
A low tinkle of the door-bell cut short whatever else he meant to say,
and he answered the summons himself. It was a messenger from Mrs.
Conway to inquire concerning her nephew. He sent back a message that
he still lay sleeping quietly. For the rest of the day the house was
besieged with callers and inquirers from all parts of the city, and
Captain Clendenon found himself kept busy in replying.
In the midst of it all, in his deep grief and anxiety for his friend's
life, in his pity and sympathy for the exiled duelist, a fair face
brooded over all his thoughts, a pang for a woman's suffering struck
coldly to his heart. To know that she was mourning alone, bowed to
earth in her unmerited sorrow and shame, was the height and depth of
bitterness to the man who loved her tenderly and purely as he did his
own little sister.
And the spring day wore to its close, and the silence of the balmy
spring night, with its wandering breeze of violets, its mysterious
stare, fell over all things. The string of inquirers from among the
friends of the wounded man thinned out, the surgeon came and went, and
still Bruce Conway lay locked in that strange pallid sleep on whose
waking so many hearts hung with anxiety and dread.
At ten o'clock the captain admitted John, who had come to seek fresh
tidings for his mistress. His honest black face looked up in vague,
awe-struck grief at the captain's mournful features.
"Oh, marse cap'en!" he pleaded, "lemme see him, if you please, sir,
once more before he dies!"
"Be very quiet, then," said the captain, "and it will do no harm for
you to go in."
The black boy went in with footfalls noiseless as the captain's own.
Lulu and her mother were there, one on each side of the bed, watching
the sleeper with anxious eyes. They looked up at the strange face of
the boy as he paused and gazed at the still, white face on the pillow.
His dark skin seemed to grow ashen white as he looked, his thick, ugly
lip quivered convulsively, and two tears darted from his black eyes
and rolled down upon his breast. He gazed long and mournfully, seeming
to take in every lineament of that beloved face; then, as he turned
reluctantly away, stooped carefully down, and touched his rough lips
tenderly and lightly on the cold, white hand that lay outside of the
coverlid.
"Twas a hand that never struck me, and was always kind to me," he
murmured, mournfully, as he went out, followed by the injunction
from Mrs. Clendenon to report that Mr. Conway was still in the same
condition--sleeping quietly.
Lulu looked down at the hand lying so still and lifeless on the
counterpane. A tear-drop that had fallen from the eyes of the poor
black boy lay on it, shining purely as a pearl in the subdued light.
Lulu would not wipe it away. It was a precious drop distilled from the
fountain of unselfish love and sorrow; it seemed to plead mutely to the
girl for the man who lay there so still and pale, unable to speak for
himself.
"There must have been much good in the poor young man," she thought,
impulsively, "or his servants would not have loved him like that."
By and by she stole down to her brother, who was still pacing, with
muffled footfalls, the parlor floor. He turned to her, inquiringly.
"Well?" he queried.
"No change yet--not the slightest."
"Probably there will not be until midnight. I trust it will be
favorable, though we have no grounds to expect it. The surgeon fears
internal hemorrhage from that great bullet-wound in the side--it
narrowly escaped the heart. He will be here again to-night before the
crisis comes."
Once more comes a low, muffled door-bell. Lulu drops into an arm-chair,
shivering, though the night is warm. Willard goes to the door.
Presently he comes back, ushering in a stranger. She rises up, thinking
as a matter of course that this is the surgeon.
"My sister, Lulu, Senator Winans," said her brother's quiet tones.
Lulu nearly dropped to the floor in astonishment and terror. She was
very nervous to-night--so nervous that she actually trembled when he
lightly touched her hand, and she almost pushed his away, thinking,
angrily, that that firm white hand had done Bruce Conway to death.
He was not so terrible to look at, though, she thought, as with woman's
proverbial curiosity she furtively scanned the tall, fine figure.
He was very young to fill such a post of honor in his country--he
certainly did not look thirty--and the fine white brow, crowned by
curling, jet-black hair, might have worn a princely crown and honored
it in the wearing. Beautiful, dusk-black eyes, gloomy now as a starless
midnight, looked at her from under slender, arched, black brows. The
nose was perfectly chiseled, of Grecian shape and profile; the mouth
was flexible and expressive--one that might be sweet or stern at will;
the slight, curling mustache did not hide it, though his firm chin was
concealed by the dark beard that rippled luxuriantly over his breast.
It was a face that breathed power; whose beauty was thoroughly
masculine; that was mobile always; that might be proud, or passionate,
or jealous--never ignoble. Altogether he was a splendidly handsome man.
Lulu could not help acknowledging this to herself--the very handsomest
man she had ever seen in her life. But for all that, after she had
politely offered him a chair, she retreated as far as possible from
his vicinity. Why had he come there in his proud, strong manhood and
beauty, and Bruce Conway lying up stairs like _that_? He did not take
the offered seat, but merely placing one hand on the back of it, looked
from her to her brother.
"I feel that this is an unwelcome intrusion, Captain Clendenon," he
said, slowly, and in soft, sad tones, that thrilled the girl's heart,
in spite of the anger she felt for him, "but I cannot help it, though
you may not believe me when I tell you that it was so impossible for me
endure the suspense and horror of to-night that I have come here to beg
you for news of the man whom I have almost murdered."
Black eyes and gray ones met each other without wavering. Soul met
soul, and read each other by the fine touchstone of a fellow-feeling.
Even in his anger for his friend, Willard Clendenon could not withhold
a merited kindly answer.
"I do believe you," he answered, quietly, "and am glad you came,
though I can tell you nothing satisfactory. The patient has slept all
day--still sleeps---- he will awaken to life or death. We are only
waiting."
"Waiting!" That word chilled the fiery, impulsive soul of Paul Winans
into a dumb horror. Waiting!--for what! To see his work completed. What
had he done? Taken in cold blood a human life that at this moment, in
his swift remorse and self-accusation, he would have freely given his
own to save; in the height of his jealous madness committed a deed from
which his calmer retrospection revolted in horror. He looked from one
to the other in pale, impotent despair. He had gone his length--the
length of human power and passion--now God's hand held the balance.
"Then, at least, you will let me wait," he said. "If he dies, I shall
surrender myself up to justice. If he lives, I shall all the sooner
know that I am not a murderer."
"You shall stay, certainly, and welcome," Willard said, cordially,
touched by the evident suffering of the other.
"Very well; I will sit here and wait, with thanks. I do not deserve
this kindness."
Lulu stole from the room, leaving them alone together, and resumed
her place up stairs. The patient slept calmly on, her mother placidly
watching him. Once or twice her brother looked quietly in, and as
quietly withdrew. There was something on his mind that must be spoken.
He turned once and looked at his companion as he sat upright in his
chair, still and pale almost as his victim lay up stairs.
"Winans," he said, slowly, "we have known each other for a long time,
and I knew your wife long before you ever met her, and knew her but to
reverence her as a pearl among women. Will you pardon me if I confess
to an interest in her that lends me to inquire frankly if you think you
are doing her justice?"
"Clendenon, I know that I am not. I know that I am unworthy of
her--pure, injured angel that she is--but what can I do? I dare not
remain near her. I should but make her miserable. It maddens me, in
my jealous bitterness, when I remember that young, fair, and sweet as
she was when I first met her, the pure page of her heart had already
been inscribed with the burning legend of a first love. Her first love
lost to me, her second only given to me, I cannot bear! When I can
overcome this fiery passion, and if Bruce Conway lives, I will return
to her--not till then."
"You are wrong, my friend--bitterly wrong. Think of what she suffers,
of the scandal, the conjecture that your course will create. You should
be her defender, not leave her defenseless to meet the barbed arrows of
caviling society. Return to your injured wife, Winans. Take the candid
advice of one who esteems you both. It is so hard on her. She suffers
deeply, I feel."
"Clendenon, hush! You madden me, and cannot shake my firm
resolve--would that I had never met her."
"Possibly she might have been happier," Clendenon says, with sudden
scathing sarcasm, "but I will say no more. It is not my province to
come between man and wife. May God have more mercy on her than you
have!"
The words pierced that proud heart deeply. The erring, passionate man
arose and looked at the other in his calm, truthful scorn, and burning
words leaped to his lips.
"Clendenon, you don't know what you are talking of. You blame me for
what I cannot overcome. Do you know where I was born? Under the burning
skies of Louisiana. The hot blood of the fiery South leaps through my
veins, the burning love of the Southern clime pours its flood-tide
through my heart, the passionate jealousy of the far South fires my
soul. I cannot help my nature. I cannot entirely control nor transform
it into a colder, calmer one. Blame me if you will, think me unmanly if
you will, but I have told you the truth. It shall be the study of my
life to bring this madness into subjection. Till then I will not hold
my wife in my arms, will not kiss her dear lips. It is for the best. I
will not frighten her from me forever by showing her how like a madman
I can be under the influence of my master-passion."
Slowly, slowly the hours wore on until midnight. Mrs. Clendenon fell
into a light doze in the sick-room, but Lulu was still watching that
still form. The shaded lamps burned dimly, the room was full of
shadows, the strange silence and awe that fill a room at an hour like
this brooded solemnly over all things.
Poor Lulu looked at her mother. The sweet old face, framed in its soft
lace cap, was locked in such gentle repose the girl had not the heart
to awaken her. It grew so lonely she wished her brother would return to
the room.
Presently she bent forward and looked into Conway's face, and laid her
hand tenderly on his brow; it felt warmer and more natural; he stirred
slightly. Before she could move her hand his white lids unclosed, the
dark eyes looked at her with the calm light of reason in their depths.
"Gracie, is it you?" he whispered, faintly.
"Not Gracie--Lulu," she answered.
"Not Gracie--Lulu?" he slowly murmured after her, and wearily closed
his eyes.
"I think he will live," said a voice above her.
She looked up. Her brother and the surgeon had come in so quietly she
had not heard them. She rose from her wearisome vigil and glided softly
down stairs, moved by a divine impulse of pity for the pale watcher
below.
"I think it is life," she said, simply.
He sprang up and looked at her, two stars dawning in the dusk eyes, a
glory shining on his darkly handsome face.
"Thank God!" he cried, "I am not a murderer!"
And strangely as he had come he was gone.