"SMILING AT GRIEF."
"Come, rouse thee, dearest; 'tis not well
To let the spirit brood
Thus darkly o'er the cares that swell
Life's current to a flood."
--MRS. DINNIES.
"And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep,
'Tis that our nature cannot always bring
Itself to apathy, which we must steep
First in the icy depths of Lethe's spring
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep."
--BYRON.
"Lulu, I have come to take you for a drive," said Grace Winans, as
she glided lightly into Miss Clendenon's sanctum, looking fair and
fresh, and smiling, in faultless summer costume of frilled and fluted
white muslin, and the daintiest of gray kid driving-gloves, for it is
six months since Captain Clendenon went to Europe, and the last days
of August are raining their burning sunshine on the sea-girt city of
Norfolk.
But Lulu's room, cool, fresh, inviting, a very bower of innocent
maidenhood--offers an exquisite relief from the burning heat and
general parched look of the world outside. A cool, white India matting
covers the floor; the chairs are light graceful affairs of willow-work;
the windows are shaded with curtains of pale green silk and lace,
swaying softly in the faint breeze that stirs the trees outside. A
few rare paintings adorn the creamy-hued walls--pictures of cool
woodland dells and streams, with meek-eyed cows standing knee-deep
in meadow grass; a charmingly romantic sketch of the Chesapeake Bay,
and over the white, dainty-covered lounge, where Lulu is reclining
at ease, a picture of a cross, to which a slender form, with a vail
of sweeping hair, clings with dark, uplifted eyes that breathe the
spirit of the inscription beneath: "Helpless to thy cross I cling."
A vase of fragrant and beautifully arranged flowers adorns the marble
center-table where the poems of Tennyson, Hemans, Owen Meredith, and
all the authors, peculiarly the favorites of young ladies, are ranged
in bindings of green and gold. Lulu, herself, lying idly with white
arms clasped over her head, her face like a rose, her dainty white
morning-dress loosely flowing, "a single stream of all her soft brown
hair poured on one side," looked as if Rose, the "Gardener's Daughter"
had stepped down out of Tennyson and laid herself down to rest.
"To drive--where?" she asked, as she rose to a sitting posture, and
"wound her looser hair in braid."
"To Ocean View, to call on Mrs. Conway. My neglect of her since her
great kindness to me in my illness is really unpardonable, so we will
drive down this morning, make a long, informal call, stay to luncheon,
and drive back in the cool of the afternoon."
"Hum! is not nine miles a long distance to drive this warm day?" asks
Lulu, rising and flitting into her dressing-room, the door of which
stands open beyond.
"What! Through the cool leafy arches of the woods, with the birds
singing, the bees humming, the flowers wasting their perfume for our
sole benefit, the spirit of summer abroad in the air--it will be
exquisite!" Mrs. Winans answers gayly, as she floats up and down the
room, and, pausing before a mirror, settles her broad straw hat a
little more jauntily on her waving ringlets.
"Sit down, won't you?" Lulu calls, from the dressing-room, where she is
attiring herself in fresh white robes similar to those of Grace.
"I thank you, no," she is answered back. "I am fidgety. I am
restless--not in the mood for keeping quiet. I prefer to walk about."
"Ah! Hysterical, I presume--is that it?" questions Lulu's rosy lips at
the door, glancing at her with gently solicitous eyes.
"I dare say," not pausing in her restless walk, and Lulu, looking
closer under the light mask of gayety, reads with a sigh traces of
unrest in the fair, proud face.
It is a peculiarity of Grace's constitution or temperament that she can
never keep still under the pressure of excitement or trouble. She is
always in a quiver, and even when sitting down she is always rocking
or tapping her foot, or perhaps it is only in the convulsive pressure
of her pearly teeth on her red lips that she betrays inward unrest. I
cannot give any psychological nor physical reason for this. I only know
that it is so, and Lulu had found out this characteristic of Grace long
ago.
"Darling," she says, coming into the room, swinging her broad straw hat
by its blue ribbons. "Darling, what is it that troubles you?--anything
new?"
"Anything new?" Mrs. Winans laughs, provokingly. "Lulu, dearest, is
there anything new under the sun?"
"I am certain the sun never shone on anything before as rare as
yourself," Lulu answers, with winning affection, lifting the small,
half-gloved hand to her tender lips.
Mrs. Winans pulls it away, and dashes it across eyes that look
suspiciously misty and dark.
"Don't, Lulu, you silly child! You are always making me cry."
"And I wish I could," she answers. "I am tired of this surface gayety,
my liege lady. Oh, I am going to talk plainly! You don't mean it--I
know how you suffer, Grace, darling, bravely as you repress it, and I
know, too, that you would feel better if you let it all blow over in
a great passionate storm--rain! But you won't. You have been living
the last few months in a whirl of gayety and pretended pleasure, and
damming up the fountain of feeling, till now it is breaking over all
your frail barriers of pride and scorn, and you will not give it way,
and it is bearing you on its current--where, oh! dearest, where?"
"Hush!" came in a stifled moan, from behind the hands that hid the
girlish wife's convulsed face. "You shall not talk so--I cannot bear
it!"
"But I must, love," and Lulu's arm stole around the convulsed form
that still held itself proudly erect, as if disdaining human help and
sympathy. "I must, and you will forgive poor Lulu, for it is her duty,
and I must be less your devoted friend than I am if I did not speak.
Oh, you know you are not taking the right course to procure oblivion
of your sad and grievous troubles! It does not make you happy to whirl
through the thoughtless rounds of society amusements and pleasures; it
does not make you happy nor contented to dazzle men's eyes and hearts
with your inaccessible beauty, when seas are rolling between you and
the only man in whose eyes you care to seem fair. Darling, I know
when you go back to your silent home your heart sinks heavier by the
contrast; I know that when you lay this lovely head upon its pillow you
recall, with agony, the time when your baby's cheek was pillowed there
against your own----"
"Oh, Heaven!" shuddered the listener, "be silent, Lulu. You will drive
me mad. I cannot, cannot bear the least reference to my child! Only
just now, as I drove up Main street in my little phaeton, taking a
silly sort of triumph to myself at the sensation created by my pretty
face and cream-white ponies, I met the funeral of a little child on its
way to the cemetery--the casket was covered with lilies and roses--and,
oh, Lulu, I thought of my own little one, and its probable fate! and,
oh, I wished my heart would break! Why, why does not God let me die!"
and, shivering with repressed agony, the young wife suffered Lulu to
hold her in her close-clasped arms, while she wept and moaned on her
breast.
And Lulu, wise in her young experience, let the saving tears flow on,
until Mrs. Winans lifted her head and said, mournfully;
"Oh, Lulu, you should not reproach me for trying to fill up in some way
the great blank in my life as best I can! I dare not brood alone over
my vacant heart and wretched doom, for I should go mad. I must seek
diversion, oblivion!--what would you have me do?"
Lulu's brown eyes lifted to the picture that hung over the lounge.
"Gracie," she said impressively, "is there no other way to fill up your
vacant heart and life than by utter abandonment to the pleasures of the
social world?"
The listener's eyes followed hers.
"'Simply to Thy cross I cling,'" she repeated listlessly.
"If you must have a salve for your wounded heart," Lulu went on, as
she toyed with the bright curls that lay against her shoulder still,
"there is nothing on earth that so fills up vacant heart and life as
the cross of Christ the Crucified; Gracie, do you ever pray?"
"I am too wretched," she answered, hopelessly.
"Too wretched! Oh, Gracie, dear friend, do you forget how in the
darkest hours our Lord spent in the Garden of Gethsemane that, _being
in an agony, He prayed more earnestly_? It is in hours of the deepest
suffering that we should pray most. When we feel that earth offers
no consolation, where can we look but to heaven? And the blessing of
God _must_ follow such prayers, since Christ himself has set us the
example," continued the young mentor, earnestly.
"No blessings ever follow my prayers," answered the mourner, with her
eyes fixed sadly, through a mist of tears, on the figure that clung
"helpless" to the cross, "even when I pray, which I do--sometimes."
"You do not pray in the right spirit, then," said her friend, gently
but firmly. "You do not expect a blessing to follow your prayers, and
we are only healed by faith, not by the simple act of prayer, but by
the faith that breathes in it. If you asked a blessing nightly, it
would follow prayer, be sure. Remember His promise, 'Ask and it shall
be given you, seek and ye shall find.'"
"I know, I know," answered Grace, mournfully; "but heaven and earth
alike seem to have no mercy on me. Come, Lulu, my little ponies
are impatient waiting so long," and pausing a moment to bathe her
tear-stained face in a basin of perfumed water, she floated down the
stairs, followed by the sweet little preacher.
"Now, then," with a forced laugh, as they disposed the elegant blue
silk carriage-robe over their white dresses to keep out the summer
dust, and dashed off in the exquisite little phaeton that was the envy
of all Norfolk; "now, then, we are off like the wind for Ocean View."
She was a skillful driver, and the beautiful, spirited little ponies
knew no law but her will. They flew like the wind, as she had said;
but as they rode on out of the narrow streets of Norfolk, and into
the cool, shady forest road, the sunshine glinting down through
interstices of the trees, the leafy boughs bending till they swept
against the brims of their broad straw hats--in the midst of all her
idle and incessant chatter, she heard one low sentence ringing in her
ears, and an involuntary prayer was rising in her heart: "Lord, teach
me to feel that simply to Thy cross I cling." She had been too proud
almost to humble herself even before the throne of God; she had felt
that God himself was unjust to her, and willful and wretched, she had
gone on her darkened way, asking no pity from God nor man. To-day, the
kind words of Lulu had stirred a chord in her thoughtful heart that
vibrated painfully as the question forced itself on her mind: "Have I
been unjust to and neglectful of my God?" In a mind so pure and clearly
balanced as was hers, the seeds of evil could not take very deep root,
and the word spoken "in season" by the gentle Lulu was beginning to
bear fruit already, though Lulu dreamed not of it, as she kept time
with the stream of light and careless words her companion unceasingly
kept up.
"Let me drive," she said, at last, noting the unwonted rose-tint that
colored the fair cheek, and thinking it was the effect of fatigue; "you
have been driving nearly an hour, and it will be another hour before
we see Ocean View," and taking the reins with gentle force, drove on;
while the other, relieving her fair hands of their damp driving-gloves,
folded them across her lap, and laying back her head, gave herself
up to mournful retrospection, watching the blue heavens smiling over
their heads, the play of the sunshine on the leaves and flowers as
they flashed past, and the transient glimpses of the sea now and then
glimmering through openings in the woods. Lulu's gaze dwelt pityingly
on the fair face that looked so child-like as it lay back against the
silken cushioning of the phaeton, the long black lashes shading the
flushed cheek, the golden locks, moist with the warmth of the day,
clustering in short, spiral rings all about the pearl-fair forehead,
whose blue veins were so distinctly outlined that Lulu could see how
they throbbed with the intensity of her thoughts. There was so much
fire and spirit, combined with sweetness in that face; its exquisite
chiseling, its full yet delicate lips, its round, dimpled chin, the
small, sensitive nostril, the perfection of dainty coloring and
expression, that Lulu could well understand how this beauty, joined to
so sweet a soul, could hold men willing captives, and at thought of her
brother, Lulu sighed deeply, and to shake off the depression that was
creeping over her, she said, gayly:
"A penny for your thoughts, lady fair."
The black lashes fluttered upward, and the pansy eyes met Lulu's own
with such impotent anguish in their soft depths that the girl started.
"Darling, what can you possibly be thinking of?"
"Of nothing that need alarm you, my dearest," answered Grace, summoning
a smile to her lips as she said, "and here we are at last at Ocean
View."
"And there is John to take the horses," jumping lightly out, and
shaking her tumbled skirts. "Is Mrs. Conway at home, John?"
"Ya'as'm, ole miss is at home," answered John, with a grin of delight,
as the fairy idol of the Conway retainers sprang lightly out, and
stood looking listlessly about her, nodding graciously to John as she
followed Lulu's example by shaking out her innumerable white frills and
embroideries, and leading the way to the house.
"Clar to gracious!" John said, looking open-mouthed after them, "if she
don't grow mo' angelical every day of her life! Shouldn't wonder if she
took wings any day and flew away to heben. T'other's pretty enough for
anything, but _she_--oh! _she's_ a fitter mate for de _President_!"
With which compliment he led away the ponies for food and water.
Mrs. Conway was charmed at the arrival of her two favorites.
"Just thinking of you both," she said, in her graceful way. "Talk of
angels and you'll see their wings."
The young ladies pleasantly returned the compliment as they refreshed
themselves with the iced wine and sponge cake she had ordered for them
immediately after their long and tiresome drive.
"And, indeed, Grace," she said, with some concern, "you do not look
as well as you should be doing by this time--really seem harassed
and worn. I am afraid you are too gay. I hear so frequently of your
appearance in social gatherings and society in general, that I hope
you are not overtaxing your strength."
"I think not," Mrs. Winans answered, with her grave, sweet dignity. "My
constitution is superb, you know."
"I should say it was," Mrs. Conway said, "after all it survived in
Washington. Still you are not looking over strong now. Your drive in
the warm sun has wearied you. Won't you go up to your old room and lie
down to rest?"
"No, thank you; I am feeling very well;" and Lulu, seeing the rapid
flutter of Grace's fan, knew she was getting excited and nervous,
and interposed with some trifling remark that diverted the attention
of their amiable hostess, who remembered then to ask when Captain
Clendenon had written, and how he was progressing in his mission abroad.
"He writes hopefully," Lulu answered, checking a sigh; "has nothing
definite, but still keeps on with the search, which he thinks must at
last be crowned with success."
"Let us hope so," Mrs. Conway said, fervently.
Presently our old friend, Bruce, saunters in, handsome, perfumed,
elegant as ever. He bows low to Mrs. Winans, offers a light
congratulation on her improving health, and shakes hands with Lulu,
who is blushing "celestial rosy red," for she has not seen him for a
month before, and her fluttering pulses move unsteadily, her whole
frame quivers with subdued ecstasy. Oh! love, conquerer of all hearts,
whether high or lowly, what a passionate, blissful pain thou art!
"And you had the energy to drive out here this sweltering day?" in
subdued surprise he queries.
"Yes, giving Mrs. Winans the credit of planning the trip--her energy is
untiring in creating pleasurable surprises for my benefit."
Grace turns aside from her chatter with her hostess to acknowledge the
compliment with a passing, fond smile on her favorite.
"If I remember rightly," Mr. Conway bows slightly toward her, "Mrs.
Winans has always had a quiet fund of energy in her composition that is
a reproach to many who are stronger physically, but, alas! weaker in
mental gifts. I am, unfortunately, Miss Lulu, one of those unstable
ones who shall not excel in anything."
Mrs. Winans never glances that way. She holds her small head high, her
underlying pride never more noticeable than now as she goes on talking
with Mrs. Conway, languidly fanning herself the while.
Is memory busy at her heart? We think not, or if it is she would not
go back to those happy, idly dreaming hours this spot recalls could
they bestow all the happiness they promised then, and denied her. So
often in our maturer experience we see the wisdom of God in withholding
gifts we craved, whose attainment could but disappoint expectation and
anticipation.
Bruce Conway would make Lulu, with her loving capacity of twisting
love's garlands over wanting capabilities, a very happy wife--he never
could have quite filled up the illimitable depths of Grace's heart, nor
crowned her life with the fullness of content.
"Will you go to see our flowers?" he asks, bending to Lulu with one of
his rarely sweet smiles. "You favor my aunt so seldom in this way that
I must needs do the honors in as great perfection as is possible to
me--one never expects any great quota of perfection from my indolence,
you know."
She smiles as she dons again the broad straw hat that, by Mrs. Conway's
request, she has laid aside, and rises to go.
He rises, too--oh, how peerless in her eyes, in his suit of cool white
linen, and his graceful indolence.
"I am going to rifle your flower-garden of its sweets, Mrs. Conway,"
she says, lightly, as she follows him out on the broad piazza, down the
steps, and into that exquisite garden that lay budding and glowing in
the burning August sunshine.
"Ah, life is sweet when life is young,
And life and love are both so long!"