startling in their blackness. She looked wildly round her for a
single second, and, catching sight of me, was herself again,--haughty,
self-sustained as before, even though lying helpless as a child on Anne
Richmond's arms.
And, after all, pride is better for a fainting woman than all the sal
volatile in the world, thought I, receiving her languidly uttered
thanks, and retreating.
We saw no more of Mrs. Radnor that day. Her husband talked loudly
of the extreme heat; and no one but the two who had observed the
expression of her face when the perfume of the lilies first met her
senses, knew anything to the contrary. As for me, I was restless and
unquiet. There had been from the first a nameless something about Mrs.
Radnor which had excited my deepest interest, and now my imagination
was busy. One thing the painful scene of the morning had convinced me
of, and that was, that some time in the past she had been quickened
into life by the breath of love, and the flowers had played a terrible
part in overwhelming her with memories possibly long buried in the
deepest recesses of her heart; for--I acknowledged it--Mrs. Radnor had
a heart. I never doubted it from the moment in which her face changed
from its quiet repose into that torturing expression of fear that it
wore when she fainted.
"Anne," I said that evening to Miss Richmond, as I drew her into my
chamber after the party had separated for the night, "tell me something
of Mrs. Radnor. I am sure you are in some way concerned in her past."
"Yes," she answered, with a little, fluttering sigh; "there is one page
of her life that no one living has ever read but myself. Perhaps I do
wrong in consenting to turn it for you; but it may be a warning to you,
child. To-morrow we will go down to the lake together, and I will tell
you what has changed Mrs. Radnor, from the brightest, sunniest girl
that ever lived, to the breathing statue that she has been for ten
years."
She sighed again, as she kissed my cheek, and then I heard her
footsteps die away in the long corridor.
My room was in the second story, and directly over those occupied by
the Radnors, which opened on a balcony leading down by a little flight
of steps to the lawn.
The night was sultry and still. All the usual bustle and stir of
retiring had ceased, and, extinguishing my candle, I curled myself on
the broad window-seat, watching the stars that seemed to smile in the
hazy atmosphere. It was late,--nearly midnight, I think; and I drank
with delight the heavy fragrance which that hour always seems to draw
from the heliotrope, great masses of which grew under my windows. I do
not know how long I sat there. Waking dreams, such as flit lightly in
the tender stillness of summer nights, wooed me with delicious repose.
I fancied myself beneath Eastern skies, and the faint stir of a bird
in a neighboring tree seemed to me the pluming of a bulbul's wing;
and through the gilded lattice of the harem two starry eyes--and they
were Mrs. Radnor's--glittered and gleamed. The soft running of a brook
through the grounds was the lapping of waves against Venice stones. I
heard the twinkle of a guitar, and, framed by carved, gray stone work,
her rippling golden hair stirred in the night-breeze.
Then everything faded, and I slept a moment or an hour,--I cannot say
which, so softly had the hours passed in softest sandals,--and it was
with a start that I sat upright and heard, with a keen thrill of fear,
a faint click, as of a drawn bolt, and immediately the distant bell of
St. Michael's pealing out.
One--two; and with the dying of the second stroke there was a rustling
sound beneath my window, and then a shuddering whisper,--"My God! my
God! have mercy upon me!"
Shrouded by a half-closed blind, I peered out, and, kneeling on the
balcony below, I saw a white figure illuminated by the strange, weird
light of a waning moon. The face was uplifted, and the expression might
have been that worn by Maria Therese in the solitude of her chamber
when the Archduchess Josepha died.
I drew back,--it seemed like profanity for any but the God to whom
she appealed to witness her despair,--for it was Mrs. Radnor. I heard
a long, deep-drawn sigh, a footstep, and then the silky tones of her
husband.
"My love,--why will you? The dew is very heavy." Then a stir and the
sound of a closing door.
I shivered in the ghostly light that had crept into my window, and,
softly closing my blinds, I laid down to sleep if I could.
The first person I saw, on entering the breakfast-room the next
morning, was Mrs. Radnor, pale as the muslin wrapper she wore, but as
coldly self-contained as usual. I felt the passionate sympathy, which
had taken firm hold on me since the scenes of the previous night,
almost vanish before her languidly uttered replies to my inquiries for
her health. It was only in watching the drooping corners of her rarely
beautiful mouth and the violet circles beneath the wonderful eyes, that
I could connect the haughty being before me with the utterer of the
despairing cry of the night before.
The day wore on slowly enough to me, and it was only when the
lengthened shadows on the terrace, and Miss Richmond, equipped for her
walk, greeted my eyes, that my impatience subsided.
The path led us through a shady grove of pines, that sighed mournfully
as one passed through them, then across a sloping interval made green
by recent rains, and so down through a fringe of alders to a little
seat close by the margin of a charming lake on which myriads of
water-lilies were closing their cups of incense.
"Sit here," said Anne, pointing to a place at her side.
"It is not always pleasant to think or speak of the past," she began,
after a few moments' silence, "although day by day its scenes and
actors appear to us. There are some memories in every heart that thrill
us with grief unutterable, and when you know that one person in the
story which I shall tell you was dear to me as my own soul, you will
not wonder if my lip falters or I fail to dwell on the more painful
portions of it."
Then for the first time I was aware of another unwritten heart-history,
and knew why the soft lips and eyes of the woman beside me had so often
uttered their fatal no.
"Ten years ago," she said, "our house was full of guests, and among
them was Eleanor Orne,--the most perfectly beautiful girl I ever
beheld. Fancy Mrs. Radnor, younger by as many years, with a bewildering
smile ever ready to play around the lovely mouth, with expressions as
rapidly following themselves in her eyes as clouds on an April day, and
you can form a faint idea of her loveliness.
"There was also a young student of divinity, with an eye as clear as a
star and a soul pure as prayer itself. Proud and calm he was; but it
was a noble pride that clothed him as with a garment, and a gracious
calmness resulting from a vaulting intellect, subdued and chastened by
firmest faith.
"He had been fond of me in a way, but from the night that Eleanor came
floating down the long piazza, attired in some diaphanous gray that
streamed around her like mist, I knew how it would be. I marked, with
one great heart-throb, the perfect delight that flashed in his dark
eyes as they rested upon her face and form.
"After that they were always together. In the mornings he was reading
to her as she worked; on afternoons, rocking together in the little
boat on the lake; and then, in the purple twilight, singing dreamy
German music, of which they were both passionately fond.
"I soon knew that James Alexander loved her. I read it in every glance,
in every tone. But Eleanor? I was not sure. Watch her as narrowly as I
would, I could not see that the rose in her cheek became a deeper pink
when he approached, or that her eyes were raised more tenderly to him
than to a dozen others who sought her smiles.
"There had been rumors of Eleanor's engagement and approaching
marriage, which had drifted to me from her city home; but, when I saw
her day by day allowing him to become more attached to her,--for she
could not fail to perceive it all,--I rejected the rumor, and with it
the impulse which had prompted me to repeat it to James, that he might,
if not already too late, be upon his guard.
"At last the end came. I dozed one day on a sofa in an inner room,
and watched with delicious delight my dream of fair woman that a
dark-velvet lounging-chair brought out in clear relief. Eleanor sat
there, with downcast eyes and clasped hands. Suddenly a step, hurried
and joyous in its very lightness, sounded in the hall; the door opened
and closed again, and Alexander stood before her with an open letter in
his hand.
"'See,' he said, speaking rapidly, 'it has come at last, and I may
speak. It is a call to one of the largest parishes in your own city,
and I may say, what you must have known for weeks past, that I love
you, Eleanor, deeply, devotedly; that I want you. My darling, tell me
that you are not indifferent to me,--that you will be my wife.'
"It was too late for me to move; and something--perhaps it was a kind
of dull despair--kept me motionless, with eyes riveted upon the group.
"'Speak to me, Eleanor,' he said, more eagerly, bending over her as he
spoke.
"I saw her face flush, and an almost imperceptible shrinking from him,
that made him quickly draw back.
"'Speak, Miss Orne,--Eleanor, I implore you.'
"'Oh, why have you said this to me?' she answered, faintly. 'I cannot
hear you, Mr. Alexander. I am to be married next month.'
"I saw him reel for an instant as one would under a heavy blow, and
heard a deep sigh--almost a groan--burst from him; then a silence so
long and so profound that I could hear my heart beat. At last he spoke,
in a voice husky and changed,--
"'Forgive me. I did not mean to offend; but God knows what a mercy it
would have been if I could have known this before. I may touch your
hand once,--may I not? And you will look up into my face? No, not that!
Grant me this, at least then, before our long parting.' And he bent and
kissed one of the sunny curls that streamed over the chair. Then I saw
him raise one hand over her as in benediction, and, in another moment,
he was gone. I looked at Eleanor. She had risen from her seat, and
moved a step or two towards the door.
"'O James, James, I love you!' she said, piteously; and then I had just
time to break her fall.
* * * * *
"An hour later, I met him on the doorstep. 'I am glad to have seen
you,' he said slowly, 'and to thank you for your kindness; for I am
going away. You will be good to _her_, Anne, for my sake,--will you
not?'
"He turned from me, and passed down the walk. I watched him until a
sharp turn hid him from my sight. I never saw him afterwards alive.
"The next day it rained, and the next; and it was not until the third
day that Eleanor and I took our usual walk. As we left the house, she
suggested that we shape our way towards the lake. Agreeing, we walked
on slowly, and I tried to make James Alexander the subject of our talk.
At first she evaded me; and, when at last she found my persistence was
not in any other way to be turned aside, said,--
"'It is an unpleasant subject to me, dear Anne. I fear I have much to
blame myself for. _I_ suffer enough; for, in rejecting his love, I shut
my eyes on a life that would have been a continual delight, to open
them on one from which my very soul shrinks abhorrently, and yet to
which I am solemnly pledged.'
"'But it may not yet be too late,' I said, eagerly; for God knows I
loved James Alexander with no selfish love.
"'Yes, it is too late,' she replied mournfully. 'I shall never allude
to it again, Anne; but I tell you now, that I do not and can never
love Mr. Radnor; but there are family reasons that make the sacrifice
of my hand a necessity. I never realized, until within the last few
weeks, that it _was_ such a sacrifice. I have been so happy, that I
dared not break the spell by telling him the truth. And somehow the
future seemed very far; and I did not dream that this summer would ever
end.'
"Then there was silence between us for a space. At last she spoke
again,--
"'I hope he will not suffer long. Tell him some time, Anne, what I have
told you. He will not quite hate me, perhaps, then, if he knows that
I was not drawing him on to gratify a foolish coquetry, but loved and
suffered like himself.'
"I was about to reply, but she laid her hand on my mouth.
"'No,' she said. 'Let the subject go now forever. And no one will dream
by-and-by how fair a love lies buried beneath my laces and jewels; or
that, in the life of the noted man that he will one day surely become,
is a romance that belongs to a dead past. It will all be the same a
century hence. What does it matter after all?'
"But her words ended with a sigh that contrasted strangely with the
forced lightness of her tone.
"Just then we came out of the grove, and could see far off the little
waves of the lake dancing in the morning sunlight. I paused a moment
to pick some late wild flowers, while Eleanor walked on quickly and
disappeared among the alders that fringed the lake. I was following her
slowly, when suddenly I heard one wild, thrilling cry, and then my name
three times repeated. I flew almost down to the water, and there I saw
Eleanor unconscious; and, close to the shore, among the lilies,--white
and pure as their own petals,--a face upturned to the sky, swaying
gently with the motion of the water. I need not tell you whose." Anne
faltered.
"Do not go on," I said, with my own eyes and voice full of tears.
She raised her head quickly.
"I had schooled myself to it, dear, before I came, and I must finish. I
am telling you of another's life, not mine.
"Then there was a brain fever for Eleanor, that no one believed she
would ever rally from, in which she was either unconscious, or else
singing snatches of German songs, with a pathos that was heart-rending.
"It was remarkable that neither to her mother nor to any one who
watched over her did her words ever betray anything that could connect
her illness with anything more than the bare horror of the discovery
she made. She was married the next spring; and when I saw her, a month
afterward, I should never, save for merest outline and coloring of
beauty, have recognized her. Until last night, the past has never been
alluded to by either of us. Then she confessed to me, that during the
last ten years her life has been haunted by a perpetual remorse. The
sun has set, dear, we will go home."
It was dusk when we crossed the pine grove, and the branches of the
trees seemed, to my quickened imagination, to be singing a sad refrain
to the story I had heard. We walked slowly,--Anne with head uplifted
and a serene look upon her fair face that made me realize the refiner's
work.
As we drew near the house there came forth a rolling symphony from the
parlor organ, and then a voice that I had never heard before, in the
_Agnus Dei_ of the Twelfth Mass.
We paused, and Anne said quietly,--"She has never sung since he died
until now."
We waited until the pure, pathetic tones had died away. Silence and the
spirit of the hour was upon us. Overhead the large, calm stars hung
low and bright. A gleam of light in Mrs. Radnor's rooms flashed for an
instant, and disappeared; and a white figure came out upon the balcony
of her apartment.
"Kyrie Eleison," said Anne, in a hushed voice. "Let us go in."
UNDER A CLOUD.
UNDER A CLOUD.
[Illustration]
One bitter cold day in January, four years ago, I had occasion to wait
for a street-car in Chicago, on one of those aside lines where the
cars pass but once in every ten or fifteen minutes. There was a German
lager-bier saloon close by, and I entered it for shelter. As I stood
by the stove, enjoying the grateful warmth, I observed near me a young
man, in very seedy apparel, engaged in reading the _Staats-Zeitung_.
Something in the air of the young man awakened my curiosity, and led
me to address him. Although reading a German newspaper, he was not
a German in appearance, and I put to him the question, "_Sind Sie
Deutsch?_" by way of experiment.
"No, sir," he replied, "I am not German, but I speak and read the
language."
I drew a chair near him, as he laid aside the newspaper, with the air
of one willing to enter into conversation.
"Where did you pick up your German?" I asked.
"I picked it up," said the young man, with an air of some pride in the
statement, "where I picked up my Latin and Greek,--at college."
At this I ran my eye over him curiously. He had not the appearance of a
scholar.
"You look surprised," said he. "Despite my present appearance, and the
place you find me in, I am a graduate; but at present, I am under a
cloud."
"So I should imagine."
I also imagined that the young man was probably shiftless, and no doubt
addicted to liquor; but I did not say so. As if he read my thoughts, he
spoke again:
"People are always ready to think ill of a seedy man, I suppose.
Probably you think me a good-for-nothing, and would give me some
valuable advice about hanging around beer-saloons; but the fact is, I
am an employé of this establishment."
He spoke with a bitter irony, that ill-concealed a sort of shame in the
confession.
"May I ask in what capacity?" said I.
"You may, sir; and I may answer or not, I suppose. I think I will
decline to answer. As I said, I am under a cloud. I am not proud of my
employment, but I do what I do because I can't do better, and idleness
is synonymous with hunger and cold for me and mine."
"You are married, then?"
"Yes, sir,"--with sudden reserve.
"Don't be offended at my inquisitiveness," said I. "I spoke to you
first out of mere curiosity, it is true; but I speak now out of
interest in you. If I could help you, I would. There is my card."
He took it with a respectful inclination of the head.
"I've heard of you," said he, as he glanced at the name. "I can't give
you my card, sir, because I don't own such a thing." He smiled. "My
name is Brock St. John."
"I hear the car coming," said I. "I'll see you again, Mr. St. John. I
don't set up for a philanthropist; but I like to do a good turn when I
can. Good-morning."
And I went my own way.
Henry Kingsley,--or rather a character of his creation,--in one of his
novels, remarks that he suspects there is some of the poetical faculty
about him, because he is accustomed to walk out of nights when anything
goes wrong.
This is also my case.
To "fetch a walk" about the streets, late in the evening, has long been
a favorite antidote for trouble with me. When the night is stormy, the
value of this remedy for fretting cares is tenfold increased. There is
an exhilarating sense of power in overcoming the opposing forces of the
elements, and breasting along at a brisk pace against a furious storm
of sleet or rain. As Leigh Hunt said, you have a feeling of respect
for your legs under such circumstances; you admire their toughness as
they propel you along in the teeth of the storm. As your blood begins
to warm up, and to whirl through your veins with an exhilaration beside
which that of wine is tame and effeminate, the "blues" that have been
gibing you vanish like magic. Always, after such a bout, I return home
and "sleep like a top," no matter what discomforts or sorrows have been
running their sleep-dispelling race through my head before starting out.
On the night of the day that I met St. John I started out about eleven
o'clock for such a walk. The winds were holding high carnival that
night, and a fierce storm of mingled hail and rain swept through the
almost deserted streets. I forged along (as the sailors say), with my
head down, block after block, fighting the forces of nature, with the
same pleasure that Victor Hugo's hero felt, no doubt, in like effort.
True, my fight was to his as a cock-fight is to an encounter of lions;
but the limit of power is the limit of delight in overcoming in any
case. The boy who declaims "the Roman Soldier" at school to the rapture
of his gaping audience is as happy in his achievement as the tragedian
who thrills a theatreful. Gilliatt conquered storms, and so did I; he
was on the high seas, and I was in the streets of Chicago.
Sounds of music and dancing fell on my ear. They came from the
beer-saloon of the morning. Curiosity impelled me to enter.
The air was reeking with tobacco-smoke and the fumes of lager-bier. The
seats about the half-dozen tables were crowded with Teutonic guzzlers;
and, at the lower part of the room there was a cleared space where a
half-dozen couples were whirling in a waltz with that thorough abandon
which characterizes your German in his national dance. On a slightly
raised platform against the wall was a band composed of a violin, a
clarionet, and a trombone.
The violinist was my acquaintance of the morning.
He caught sight of me as I elbowed my way toward the dancing-floor, and
blushed violently. Then an expression of angry pride settled on his
countenance, and he continued his playing with stolid indifference to
my gaze.
When the dance was over (and St. John kept up the music till the
surprised Teutons who played the wind-instruments were sheer worn-out
with their prolonged exertions), I went up to the young man, and shook
hands with him.
"At work, eh?" I remarked, with a miserable effort to seem cheerful and
easy.
"Yes, sir. You have found me out. You know now how I keep the wolf from
my door."
"Yes, Mr. St. John; and I do not forget that it _is_ to keep the wolf
from your door. Still, I hope you are thoroughly misplaced here,--I
_hope_ you are!"
He grasped my hand with a quick, strong pressure.
"I must prove to you that I am, that's all," said he; "come to--to
where I live, to-morrow, and let me tell you the whole story."
He took my pencil and wrote the address in my note-book.
"To-morrow afternoon," said I, "I will call."
The next day I found my way to the wretched tenement house in North
Clark street, where St. John lived, and climbed three pair of stairs
to the door of his room. I rapped, and the young man opened the door.
I have seen a good deal of poverty in my day, and I was prepared to
find it here, as I did. But I was not prepared for the sight of such
a beautiful young face as that which met my gaze here, and to the
possessor of which St. John introduced me as his wife. She seemed like
some little girl that was lost. The unmistakable air of the true lady
showed itself in every detail of her dress and manner,--in the small,
white collar at the neck of the calico dress, in the smooth-banded hair
that matched the brown eyes, in the quiet demeanor that told of natural
and unconscious self-respect. It showed itself, too, in the perfect
neatness of the room, in which there was a cheerful, homelike air,
despite the poor and barren nature of its furnishings. The room was
kitchen and bedroom, dining-room and sitting-room, in one; but the bed
was smooth and clean, and the little cooking-stove was without spot.
Mrs. St. John was engaged in the unpoetic occupation of mending her
husband's only coat. He was in his shirt-sleeves.
"Aggie expected to get the coat done before our guest came," said St.
John, with a smile. "If you are at all particular, I'll put it on with
the needle sticking in it, and she can finish it after you are gone.
But I am accustomed to sitting in my shirt-sleeves."
"So am I," was my reply; and, accordingly, I pulled off my own coat,
and sat in my shirt-sleeves, too. In the act, my cigar-case fell out of
my pocket.
"Light a cigar, sir, if you like," said St. John, with a brisk
assumption of the airs of a genial host; "my wife don't allow me to
smoke, but my guests always do. She is fond of cigars, is Aggie."
The little wife looked up with a demure and childlike air.
"He never offers to smoke, sir," said she, "because"--
"Because I can't afford it," put in St. John. "I was a great smoker in
college; but those were my wild days. Thank you."
The last remark was in acknowledgment of an offered cigar. We were soon
puffing great cloud-wreaths toward the ceiling, and an air of restraint
that had rested on us at first, despite our efforts to avoid it, was
speedily vanished. Cigars are social.
"And now, sir," said St. John, "you shall hear the story I promised
you. I hope it wont bore you."
"If it does I'll cry out," said I.
The little wife laughed quietly.
"I graduated; I married; I came to Chicago," began St. John,
sententiously.
"_Veni, vidi, vici_," said I.