not how to evade or lie.
"And the father--you spoke of him--was he a relative?"
A sudden and painful blush dyed the thin old face, creeping up to the
very temples.
"Ah," said the singer, with scornful amusement in her voice, "if that is
all, I shall take the boy without more ado"; and, lifting her glasses,
she fixed her eyes full on the poor face before her, as though it was
some rare variety of animal.
"You shall not have him; I say you shall not!" cried the elder woman,
rousing to the contest like a tigress defending her young.
"Will you let him choose?" said Kernadi, with her mocking laugh. "See! I
dare you to let him choose"; and, springing to her feet, she wheeled her
visitor around suddenly, so that they stood side by side before the
mirror. It was a cruel deed. Never before had the old eyes realized that
their mild blue had faded; that the curls, once so soft, had grown gray
and thin; that the figure, once sylph-like, was now but angles; and the
throat, once so fair, yellow and sinewed. It came upon her suddenly--the
face, the coloring, and the dress; a veil was torn away, and she saw it
all. At the same instant gleamed the golden beauty of the other, the
folds of her flowing robe, the mists of her laces. It was too much. With
ashen face the stricken woman turned away, and sought the door-knob; she
could not speak; a sob choked all utterance. Doro would choose.
But Cécile Kernadi rushed forward; her better nature was touched.
"No, no," she said impulsively, "you shall not go so. See! I will
promise; you shall keep the boy, and I will let him go. He is all you
have, perhaps, and I--I have so much! Do you not believe me? I will go
away this very day and leave no trace behind. He will pine, but it will
pass--a boy's first fancy. I promised him my picture, but you shall take
it. There! Now go, go, before I regret what I do. He has such a
voice!--but never mind, you shall not be robbed by me. Farewell, poor
lady; I, too, may grow old some day. But hear one little word of advice
from my lips: The boy has waked up to life; he will never be again the
child you have known. Though I go, another will come; take heed!"
That night, in the silence of her own room, Miss Elisabetha prayed a
little prayer, and then, with firm hand, burned the bright picture to
ashes.
Wild was the grief of the boy; but the fair enchantress was gone. He
wept, he pined; but she was gone. He fell ill, and lay feverish upon
his narrow bed; but she was none the less gone, and nothing brought her
back. Miss Elisabetha tended him with a great patience, and spoke no
word. When he raved of golden hair, she never said, "I have seen it";
when he cried, "Her voice, her angel-voice!" she never said, "I have
heard it." But one day she dropped these words: "Was she not a false
woman, Theodore, who went away not caring, although under promise to see
you, and to give you her picture?" And then she walked quietly to her
own room, and barred the door, and wept; for the first time in her pure
life she had burdened her soul with falsehood--yet would she have done
it ten times over to save the boy.
Time and youth work wonders; it is not that youth forgets so soon; but
this--time is then so long. Doro recovered, almost in spite of himself,
and the days grew calm again. Harder than ever worked Miss Elisabetha,
giving herself hardly time to eat or sleep. Doro studied a little
listlessly, but he no longer cared for his old amusements. He had freed
his pets: the mocking-birds had flown back to the barrens, and the young
alligators, who had lived in the sunken barrel, found themselves
unexpectedly obliged to earn their own living along the marshes and
lagoons. But of music he would have none; the piano stood silent, and
his guitar had disappeared.
"It is wearing itself away," thought the old maid; "then he will come
back to me." But nightly she counted her secret store, and, angered at
its smallness, worked harder and harder, worked until her shoulders
ached and her hands grew knotted. "One more year, only one more year,"
she thought; "then he shall go!" And through all the weary toil these
words echoed like a chant--"One more year--only one more!"
Two months passed, and then the spring came to the winterless land--came
with the yellow jasmine. "But four months now, and he shall go," said
Miss Elisabetha, in her silent musings over the bag of coin. "I have
shortened the time by double tasks." Lightly she stepped about the
house, counted her orange-buds, and reckoned up the fish. She played
the cathedral organ now on Sundays, making inward protest after every
note, and sitting rigidly with her back toward the altar in the little
high-up gallery during the sermon, as much as to say: "It is only my
body which is here. Behold! I do not even bow down in the house of
Rimmon." Thus laboring early and late, with heart, and hand, and
strength, she saw but little of Doro, save at meals and through his one
hour of listless study; but the hidden hope was a comforter, and she
worked and trusted on. There was one little gleam of light: he had begun
to play again on his guitar, softly, furtively, and as it were in
secret. But she heard him, and was cheered.
One evening, toiling home through the white sand after a late
music-lesson, laden with a bag of flour which she would not trust Viny
to buy, she heard a girl's voice singing. It was a plaintive, monotonous
air that she sang, simple as a Gregorian chant; but her voice was a
velvet contralto, as full of rich tones as a peach is full of
lusciousness. The contralto voice is like the violoncello.
"The voice is not bad," thought Miss Elisabetha, listening critically,
"but there is a certain element of the _sauvage_ in it. No lady, no
person of culture, would permit herself to sing in that way; it must be
one of the Minorcans."
Still, in spite of prejudices, the music in her turned her steps toward
the voice; her slippers made no sound, and she found it. A young girl, a
Minorcan, sat under a bower of jasmine, leaning back against her lover's
breast; her dark eyes were fixed on the evening star, and she sang as
the bird sings, naturally, unconsciously, for the pure pleasure of
singing. She was a pretty child. Miss Elisabetha knew her
well--Catalina, one of a thriftless, olive-skinned family down in the
town. "Not fourteen, and a lover already," thought the old maid with
horror. "Would it be of any use, I wonder, if I spoke to her mother?"
Here the lover--the Paul of this Virginia--moved, and the shadows slid
off his face; it was Doro!
Alone in her chamber sat Miss Elisabetha. Days had passed, but of no
avail. Even now the boy was gone to the tumble-down house in the village
where Catalina's little brothers and sisters swarmed out of doors and
windows, and the brown, broad mother bade him welcome with a hearty slap
on the shoulder. She had tried everything--argument, entreaty, anger,
grief--and failed; there remained now only the secret, the secret of
years, of much toil and many pains. The money was not yet sufficient for
two; so be it. She would stay herself, and work on; but he should go.
Before long she would hear his step, perhaps not until late, for those
people had no settled hours (here a remembrance of all their ways made
her shudder), but come he would in time; this was still his home. At
midnight she heard the footfall, and opening the door called gently,
"Theodore, Theodore." The youth came, but slowly. Many times had she
called him lately, and he was weary of the strife. Had he not told her
all--the girl singing as she passed, her voice haunting him, his search
for her, and her smile; their meetings in the _chaparral_, where she
sang to him by the hour, and then, naturally as the bud opens, their
love? It seemed to him an all-sufficient story, and he could not
understand the long debates.
"And the golden-haired woman," Miss Elisabetha had said; "she sang to
you too, Theodore."
"I had forgotten her, aunt," replied the youth simply.
So he came but slowly. This time, however, the voice was gentle, and
there was no anger in the waiting eyes. She told him all as he sat
there: the story of his father, who was once her friend, she said with a
little quiver in her voice, the death of the young widowed mother, her
own coming to this far Southern land, and her long labors for him. Then
she drew a picture of the bright future opening before him, and bringing
forth the bag showed him its contents, the savings and earnings of
seventeen years, tied in packages with the contents noted on their
labels. "All is for you, dear child," she said, "for you are still but a
child. Take it and go. I had planned to accompany you, but I give that
up for the present. I will remain and see to the sale of everything
here, and then I will join you--that is, if you wish it, dear. Perhaps
you will enjoy traveling alone, and--and I have plenty of friends to
whom I can go, and shall be quite content, dear--quite content."
"Where is it that you wish me to go, aunt?" asked Doro coldly. They were
going over the same ground, then, after all.
"Abroad, dear--abroad, to all the great cities of the world," said the
aunt, faltering a little as she met his eyes. "You are well educated,
Theodore; I have taught you myself. You are a gentleman's son, and I
have planned for you a life suited to your descent. I have written to my
cousins in Amsterdam; they have never seen me, but for the sake of the
name they will--O my boy, my darling, tell me that you will go!" she
burst forth, breaking into entreaty as she read his face.
But Doro shook off her hands. "Aunt," he said, rising, "why will you
distress yourself thus? I shall marry Catalina, and you know it; have I
not told you so? Let us speak no more on the subject. As to the money, I
care not for it; keep it." And he turned toward the door as if to end
the discussion. But Miss Elisabetha followed and threw herself on her
knees before him.
"Child!" she cried, "give me, give yourself a little delay; only that, a
little delay. Take the money--go; and if at the end of the year your
mind is still the same, I will say not one word, no, not one, against
it. She is but young, too young to marry. O my boy, for whom I have
labored, for whom I have planned, for whom I have prayed, will you too
forsake me?"
"Of course not, aunt," replied Doro; "I mean you to live with us
always"; and with his strong young arms he half led, half carried her
back to her arm-chair. She sat speechless. To live with them
always--with _them!_ Words surged to her lips in a flood--then, as she
met his gaze, surged back to her heart again. There was that in the
expression of his face which told her all words were vain; the placid,
far-away look, unmoved in spite of her trouble, silenced argument and
killed hope. As well attack a creamy summer cloud with axes; as well
attempt to dip up the ocean with a cup. She saw it all in a flash, as
one sees years of past life in the moment before drowning; and she was
drowning, poor soul! Yet Doro saw nothing, felt nothing, save that his
aunt was growing into an old woman with foolish fancies, and that he
himself was sleepy. And then he fell to thinking of his love, and all
her enchanting ways--her little angers and quick repentances, the
shoulder turned away in pretended scorn, and the sudden waves of
tenderness that swept him into paradise. So he stood dreaming, while
tearless, silent Miss Elisabetha sat before her broken hopes. At last
Doro, coming back to reality, murmured, "Aunt, you will like her when
you know her better, and she will take good care of you."
But the aunt only shuddered.
"Theodore, Theodore!" she cried, "will you break my heart? Shall the son
of Petrus Oesterand marry so?"
"I do not know what you mean by 'so,' aunt. All men marry, and why not
I? I never knew my father; but, if he were here, I feel sure he would
see Catalina with my eyes. Certainly, in all my life, I have never seen
a face so fair, or eyes so lustrous."
"Child, you have seen nothing--nothing. But I intended, Heaven knows I
intended--"
"It makes no difference now, aunt; do not distress yourself about it."
"Theodore, I have loved you long--your youth has not been an unhappy
one; will you, for my sake, go for this one year?" she pleaded, with
quivering lips.
The young man shook his head with a half smile.
"Dear aunt," he said gently, "pray say no more. I do not care to see the
world; I am satisfied here. As to Catalina, I love her. Is not that
enough?" He bent and kissed her cold forehead, and then went away to his
happy dreams; and, if he thought of her at all as he lingered in the
soft twilight that comes before sleep, it was only to wonder over her
distress--a wonder soon indolently comforted by the belief that she
would be calm and reasonable in the morning. But, across the hall, a
gray old woman sat, her money beside her, and the hands that had earned
it idle in her lap. God keep us from such a vigil!
* * * * *
And did she leave him? No; not even when the "him" became "them."
The careless young wife, knowing nothing save how to love, queened it
right royally over the old house, and the little brown brothers and
sisters ran riot through every room. The piano was soon broken by the
ignorant hands that sounded its chords at random; but only Doro played
on it now, and nothing pleased him so well as to improvise melodies from
the plaintive Minorcan songs the little wife sang in her velvet voice.
Years passed; the money was all spent, and the house full--a careless,
idle, ignorant, happy brood, asking for nothing, planning not at all,
working not at all, but loving each other in their own way, contented to
sit in the sunshine, and laugh, and eat, and sing, all the day long. The
tall, gaunt figure that came and went among them, laboring ceaselessly,
striving always against the current, they regarded with tolerating eyes
as a species differing from theirs, but good in its way, especially for
work. The children loved the still silent old woman, and generously
allowed her to take care of them until she tried to teach them; then
away they flew like wild birds of the forest, and not one learned more
than the alphabet.
Doro died first, a middle-aged man; gently he passed away without pain,
without a care. "You have been very good to me, aunt; my life has been a
happy one; I have had nothing to wish for," he murmured, as she bent to
catch the last look from his dying eyes.
He was gone; and she bore on the burden he had left to her. I saw her
last year--an old, old woman, but working still.
OLD GARDISTON.
One by one they died--
Last of all their race;
Nothing left but pride,
Lace and buckled hose;
Their quietus made,
On their dwelling-place
Ruthless hands are laid:
Down the old house goes!
Many a bride has stood
In yon spacious room;
Here her hand was wooed
Underneath the rose;
O'er that sill the dead
Reached the family tomb;
All that were have fled--
Down the old house goes!
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
Old Gardiston was a manor-house down in the ricelands, six miles from a
Southern seaport. It had been called Old Gardiston for sixty or seventy
years, which showed that it must have belonged to colonial days, since
no age under that of a century could have earned for it that honorable
title in a neighborhood where the Declaration of Independence was still
considered an event of comparatively modern times. The war was over, and
the mistress of the house, Miss Margaretta Gardiston, lay buried in St.
Mark's churchyard, near by. The little old church had long been closed;
the very road to its low stone doorway was overgrown, and a second
forest had grown up around it; but the churchyard was still open to
those of the dead who had a right there; and certainly Miss Margaretta
had this right, seeing that father, grandfather, and great-grandfather
all lay buried there, and their memorial tablets, quaintly emblazoned,
formed a principal part of the decorations of the ancient little
sanctuary in the wilderness. There was no one left at Old Gardiston now
save Cousin Copeland and Gardis Duke, a girl of seventeen years, Miss
Margaretta's niece and heir. Poor little Gardis, having been born a girl
when she should have been a boy, was christened with the family name--a
practice not uncommon in some parts of the South, where English customs
of two centuries ago still retain their hold with singular tenacity; but
the three syllables were soon abbreviated to two for common use, and the
child grew up with the quaint name of Gardis.
They were at breakfast now, the two remaining members of the family, in
the marble-floored dining-room. The latticed windows were open; birds
were singing outside, and roses blooming; a flood of sunshine lit up
every corner of the apartment, showing its massive Chinese vases, its
carved ivory ornaments, its hanging lamp of curious shape, and its
spindle-legged sideboard, covered with dark-colored plates and platters
ornamented with dark-blue dragons going out to walk, and crocodiles
circling around fantastically roofed temples as though they were waiting
for the worshipers to come out in order to make a meal of them. But, in
spite of these accessories, the poor old room was but a forlorn place:
the marble flooring was sunken and defaced, portions were broken into
very traps for unwary feet, and its ancient enemy, the penetrating
dampness, had finally conquered the last resisting mosaic, and climbed
the walls, showing in blue and yellow streaks on the old-fashioned
moldings. There had been no fire in the tiled fireplace for many years;
Miss Margaretta did not approve of fires, and wood was costly: this last
reason, however, was never mentioned; and Gardis had grown into a girl
of sixteen before she knew the comfort of the sparkling little fires
that shine on the hearths morning and evening during the short winters
in well-appointed Southern homes. At that time she had spent a few days
in the city with some family friends who had come out of the war with
less impoverishment than their neighbors. Miss Margaretta did not
approve of them exactly; it was understood that all Southerners of "our
class" were "impoverished." She did not refuse the cordial invitation
_in toto_, but she sent for Gardis sooner than was expected, and set
about carefully removing from the girl's mind any wrong ideas that might
have made a lodgment there. And Gardis, warmly loving her aunt, and
imbued with all the family pride from her birth, immediately cast from
her the bright little comforts she had met in the city as plebeian, and,
going up stairs to the old drawing-room, dusted the relics enshrined
there with a new reverence for them, glorifying herself in their
undoubted antiquity. Fires, indeed! Certainly not.
The breakfast-table was spread with snowy damask, worn thin almost to
gossamer, and fairly embroidered with delicate darning; the cups and
plates belonged to the crocodile set, and the meager repast was at least
daintily served. Cousin Copeland had his egg, and Gardis satisfied her
young appetite with fish caught in the river behind the house by Pompey,
and a fair amount of Dinah's corn-bread. The two old slaves had refused
to leave Gardiston House. They had been trained all their lives by Miss
Margaretta; and now that she was gone, they took pride in keeping the
expenses of the table, as she had kept them, reduced to as small a sum
as possible, knowing better than poor Gardis herself the pitiful
smallness of the family income, derived solely from the rent of an old
warehouse in the city. For the war had not impoverished Gardiston House;
it was impoverished long before. Acre by acre the land had gone, until
nothing was left save a small corn-field and the flower-garden; piece by
piece the silver had vanished, until nothing was left save three
teaspoons, three tablespoons, and four forks. The old warehouse had
brought in little rent during those four long years, and they had fared
hardly at Gardiston. Still, in their isolated situation away from the
main roads, their well-known poverty a safeguard, they had not so much
as heard a drum or seen a uniform, blue or gray, and this was a rare and
fortunate exemption in those troublous times; and when the war was at
last ended, Miss Margaretta found herself no poorer than she was before,
with this great advantage added, that now everybody was poor, and,
indeed, it was despicable to be anything else. She bloomed out into a
new cheerfulness under this congenial state of things, and even invited
one or two contemporaries still remaining on the old plantations in the
neighborhood to spend several days at Gardiston. Two ancient dames
accepted the invitation, and the state the three kept together in the
old drawing-room under the family portraits, the sweep of their
narrow-skirted, old-fashioned silk gowns on the inlaid staircase when
they went down to dinner, the supreme unconsciousness of the break-neck
condition of the marble flooring and the mold-streaked walls, the airy
way in which they drank their tea out of the crocodile cups, and told
little stories of fifty years before, filled Gardis with admiring
respect. She sat, as it were, in the shadow of their greatness, and
obediently ate only of those dishes that required a fork, since the
three spoons were, of course, in use. During this memorable visit Cousin
Copeland was always "engaged in his study" at meal-times; but in the
evening he appeared, radiant and smiling, and then the four played whist
together on the Chinese table, and the ladies fanned themselves with
stately grace, while Cousin Copeland dealt not only the cards, but
compliments also--both equally old-fashioned and well preserved.
But within this first year of peace Miss Margaretta had died--an old
lady of seventy-five, but bright and strong as a winter apple. Gardis
and Cousin Copeland, left alone, moved on in the same way: it was the
only way they knew. Cousin Copeland lived only in the past, Gardis in
the present; and indeed the future, so anxiously considered always by
the busy, restless Northern mind, has never been lifted into the place
of supreme importance at the South.
When breakfast was over, Gardis went up stairs into the drawing-room.
Cousin Copeland, remarking, in his busy little way, that he had
important work awaiting him, retired to his study--a round room in the
tower, where, at an old desk with high back full of pigeon-holes, he had
been accustomed for years to labor during a portion of the day over
family documents a century or two old, recopying them with minute care,
adding foot-notes, and references leading back by means of red-ink stars
to other documents, and appending elaborately phrased little comments
neatly signed in flourishes with his initials and the date, such as
"Truly a doughty deed. C. B. G. 1852."--"'Worthy,' quotha? Nay, it
seemeth unto my poor comprehension a _marvelous_ kindness! C. B. G.
1856."--"May we all profit by this! C. B. G. 1858."