THE INDIA SHAWL.
Eva had no heart to enjoy her sister’s happiness after that one glimpse
of Ivon Lambert seated by the woman who had so cruelly broken up the
sweetest hope of her life. His cold bow and averted eyes cut her to the
soul, and she drove slowly home with a chilled and disappointed feeling
that contrasted forcibly with the generous and unselfish pleasure of the
morning.
Perfect happiness is always a hope of the future. With all her success
and triumphs Eva was haunted by this one cause of discontent. Ivon
Lambert had met her more than once in her social triumphs since she had
resided with Mrs. Carter, but it was always with a degree of reserve
that chilled her to the heart and made success itself almost worthless.
Indeed, after a few months of admiration and excitement which followed
her footsteps at every turn, society began to pall upon her. One party
was so like another, there was so little variety in the people she met,
that the girl sometimes felt a craving for the rest and quiet of her old
life.
At such times she would go back to the cottage, and strive to sink
gently down into the enjoyment which graced the tranquil existence of
her sister Ruth, but hers was a restlessness of the soul, and for that
there is little solace either in gaiety or quiet. Hunger of the heart
can only be appeased by that which it craves.
One thing seemed strange to Eva; from the time she left the cottage,
Mrs. Laurence had changed completely. There was something like reserve,
and even shyness in her manner when they met. This Eva could not
understand, but it chilled her a little. With James and Ruth she was
always welcome, and almost adored. To them she had never changed; all
the pomp and wealth of her surroundings only made her the more
beautiful.
Some months after Eva had settled down in her new home, like a
nightingale among the roses, she entered a little reception-room off the
hall, and found Mrs. Carter in conversation with a sharp-eyed, cringing
little man, who seemed to be urging some request with great persistence.
“I have been so long looking for the purchaser, madam. First I trace it
to one party, then to another, and at last to that dealer who would not
remember to oblige me. But I found a way to reach him and made an
arrangement. He gave me the number of this house, and madam’s name. I
had great hopes that you would be willing to part with the shawl for the
price you gave, as the owner wants it so much. I never, in all my
experience, saw any one feel the loss of a pledge so keenly. So, as
madam has a good heart, I can see that by her face, I am sure she will
not drive a hard bargain with the poor man.”
Mrs. Carter seemed restless and somewhat annoyed at this man’s eager
pertinacity. At one of the principal dealers in such expensive articles,
she had purchased one of those rare and most exquisite shawls, which are
manufactured expressly for eastern potentates. These rich shawls are
difficult to obtain, and precious among ordinary importations, as
diamonds compared with meaner stones. She knew that there was not
another shawl to compare with this one for sale in the city, and had
happened to purchase it at a bargain. Now this man, whom she did not
know, but who announced himself as a pawnbroker, who had once held the
shawl in pledge, and sold it among other forfeited articles, was
appealing to her, in a keen and pathetic way, to give it up, for the
moderate price she had paid, because its former owner was driven almost
frantic by the loss of it.
Mrs. Carter, being a woman, was touched by this appeal; but from the
same feminine reason, found her love of a bargain, and her ambition to
possess something more rare and beautiful than her neighbors, opposing
the kind impulse with peculiar force. When Eva entered the room, she
felt a sense of support, and was almost ready to leave the decision to
her, for she had already learned to depend on the young girl in most
matters of taste.
“Eva, dear, run up to my dressing-room, and bring a shawl you will find
in my armoire. I want you to look at it, and help me decide about
parting with it.”
Eva ran up stairs, found the shawl, and came down with it falling in
rich folds across her arm.
“Ah, that is it,” cried the pawnbroker, eagerly rubbing his hands. “I
should know the pattern among ten thousand. To think now that I should
have known its value so little! It cuts me to the soul!”
Mrs. Carter had taken the shawl, and was busy opening its marvelous
folds, revealing the long slender palm leaves, in which the best tints
of a rainbow were wrought with the toil and art seldom bestowed on the
modern fabrics that flood our market.
“Ah, it is so beautiful! I should hate to part with it,” said Eva, who
had learned to estimate a creation like that in her life behind the
counter. “You might search years without finding one like it.”
“You hear?” said Mrs. Carter, looking irresolutely at the anxious
pawnbroker.
“Yes, madam, I hear; but if it is beautiful to a stranger, how much more
so to the person who owned it?”
Mrs. Carter looked at Eva with distress in her eyes, and hesitation in
her manner.
“What can I do? It does seem hard.”
Before Eva could answer, the man broke in,
“Besides, madam will remember, that I am a poor man, and have spent much
time in searching for that shawl, which time is a dead loss, if I fail
to bring it back to the owner, who is ready to pay me.”
“That does seem hard!” said the good woman, appealing to Eva, who was so
lost in admiration of the shawl, that the man’s greedy eloquence half
escaped her.
“The owner has been to my shop again and again, wild to get it. At first
he wanted to have it back for a little; but now he will pay anything.
The last time he said, ‘get it, and I will not count the cost. It is a
case of life and death. I must have that shawl.’ Then I went to work in
earnest. This was an inducement for one who toils so hard and gets so
little. After all my pains, madam will not be so cruel as to take a poor
man’s time for nothing.”
“Eva, I think he must have it!”
“Wait a moment. Let me call Mr. Ross. He will comprehend the claim this
man has better than is possible for us. He is in the study; I will find
him in a minute.”
Eva ran up stairs, while the pawnbroker, half-baffled and wholly
anxious, stood eyeing the shawl with mercenary craving, and Mrs. Carter
felt like a victim.