accounts with life, and she was rather amazed at the result. For she was
quite aware that she was in love with this William Smith in a way that
she had never been with the other. The first had been a sentimental
ideal; the second was a genuine case of sincere and passionate
affection. She felt that the desertion of this lover would be a grief
far beyond the power of satin and lace to cure.
But her new lover had never a disloyal thought to his mistress, and his
love transplanted to the pleasant places of New York life, seemed to
find its native air. It enveloped Eleanor now like a glad and heavenly
atmosphere; she was so happy that she dreaded any change; it seemed to
her that no change could make her happier.
But if good is good, still better carries the day, and Mr. Smith thought
marriage would be a great deal better than lovemaking. Eleanor and he
were sitting in the fire-lit parlor, very still and very happy, when he
whispered this opinion to her.
"It is only four months since we met, dear."
"Only four months, darling; but I had been dreaming about you four
months before that. Let me hold your hands, sweet, while I tell you. On
the 20th of last April I was on the point of leaving for Colorado to
look after the Silver Cliff Mine. My carriage was ordered, and I was
waiting at my hotel for it. A servant brought me a letter--the dearest,
sweetest little letter--see, here it is!" and this William Smith
absolutely laid before Eleanor her own pretty, loving reply to the first
William Smith's offer.
Eleanor looked queerly at it, and smiled.
"What did you think, dear?"
"That it was just the pleasantest thing that had ever happened to me. It
was directed to Mr. W. Smith, and had been given into my hands. I was
not going to seek up any other W. Smith."
"But you must have been sure that it was not intended for you, and you
did not know 'Eleanor Bethune.'"
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sweetheart; it _was intended_ for me. I can
imagine destiny standing sarcastically by your side, and watching you
send the letter to one W. Smith when she intended it for another W.
Smith. Eleanor Bethune I meant to know just as soon as possible. I was
coming back to New York to look for you."
"And, instead, she went to you in Colorado."
"Only think of that! Why, love, when that blessed telegraph clerk said,
'Who sends this message?' and you said, 'Mrs. Eleanor Bethune,' I wanted
to fling my hat to the sky. I did not lose my head as badly when they
found that new lead in the Silver Cliff."
"Won't you give me that letter, and let me destroy it, William? It was
written to the wrong Smith."
"It was written to the wrong Smith, but it was given to the right Smith.
Still, Eleanor, if you will say one little word to me, you may do what
you like with the letter."
Then Eleanor whispered the word, and the blaze of the burning letter
made a little illumination in honor of their betrothal kiss.
THE STORY OF MARY NEIL.
Poverty has not only many learned disciples, but also many hidden saints
and martyrs. There are humble tenements that are tabernacles, and
desolate, wretched rooms that are the quarries of the Almighty--where
with toil and weariness and suffering the souls He loves are being
prepared for the heavenly temple.
This is the light that relieves the deep shadow of that awful cloud of
poverty which ever hangs over this rich and prosperous city. I have been
within that cloud, wet with its rain of tears, chilled with its gloomy
darkness, "made free" of its innermost recesses; therefore I speak with
authority when I say that even here a little child may walk and not
stumble, if Jesus lead the way or hold the hand.
Nay, but children walk where strong men fall down, and young maidens
enter the kingdom while yet their parents are stumbling where no light
from the Golden City and "the Land very far off" reaches them. Last
winter I became very much interested in such a case. I was going to
write "Poor Mary Neil!" but that would have been the strangest misnomer.
Happy Mary Neil! rises impetuously from my heart to contradict my pen.
And yet when I first became acquainted with her condition, she was
"poor" in every bitter sense of the word.
A drunkard's eldest daughter, "the child of misery baptized with tears,"
what had her seventeen years been but sad and evil ones? Cold and
hunger, cares and labors far beyond her strength sowed the seeds of
early death. For two years she struggled amid such suffering as dying
lungs entail to help her mother and younger brothers and sisters, but at
last she was compelled to make her bed amid sorrow and suffering which
she could no longer assuage by her helpful hands and gentle words.
Her religious education had not been quite neglected, and she dimly
comprehended that through the narrow valley which lay between Time and
Eternity she would need a surer and more infallible guide than her own
sadly precocious intellect. Then God sent her just the help she
needed--a tender, pitiful, hopeful woman full of the love of Jesus.
Souls ripen quickly in the atmosphere of the Border Land, and very soon
Mary had learned how to walk without fearing any evil. Certain passages
of Scripture burned with a supernatural glory, and made the darkness
light; and there were also a few hymns which struck the finest chords
in her heart, and
"'Mid days of keenest anguish
And nights devoid of ease,
Filled all her soul with music
Of wondrous melodies."
As she neared the deeper darkness of death, this was especially
remarkable of that extraordinary hymn called "The Light of Death," by
Dr. Faber. From the first it had fascinated her. "Has he been _here_
that he knows just how it feels?" she asked, wonderingly, and then
solemnly repeated:
"Saviour, what means this breadth of death,
This space before me lying;
These deeps where life so lingereth,
This difficulty of dying?
So many turns abrupt and rude,
Such ever-shifting grounds,
Such strangely peopled solitudes,
Such strangely silent sounds?'"
Her sufferings were very great, and sometimes the physical depression
exerted a definable influence on her spiritual state. Still she never
lost her consciousness of the presence of her Guide and Saviour, and
once, in the exhaustion of a severe paroxysm, she murmured two lines
from the same grand hymn:
"Deeper! dark, dark, but yet I follow:
Tighten, dear Lord, thy clasp."
Ah! there was something touching and noble beyond all words, in this
complete reliance and perfect trust; and it never again wavered.
"Is it _very_ dark, Mary dear?" her friend said one morning, the _last_
for her on earth.
"Too dark to see," she whispered, "but I can go on if Christ will hold
my hand."
After this a great solemnity shaded her face; she lost all consciousness
of this world. The frail, shadowy little body lay gray and passive,
while that greatest of all struggles was going on--the struggle of the
Eternal out of Time; but her lips moved incessantly, and occasionally
some speech of earth told the anxious watchers how hard the conflict
was. For instance, toward sundown she said in a voice strangely solemn
and anxious:
"Who are we trying to avoid?
From whom, Lord, must we hide?
Oh! can the dying be decoyed,
With the Saviour by his side?"
"Loose sands and all things sinking!" "Are we near eternity?" "Can I
fall from Thee even now?" and ejaculations of similar kind, showed that
the spiritual struggle was a very palpable one to her; but it ended in a
great calm. For two hours she lay in a peace that passeth understanding,
and you would have said that she was dead but for a vague look of
expectancy in the happy, restful face. Then suddenly there was a
lightening of the whole countenance; she stretched out her arms to meet
the messenger of the King, and entered heaven with this prayer on her
lips:
"_Both hands_, dear Lord, _both hands_.'"
Don't doubt but she got them; their mighty strength lifted her over the
dark river almost dry shod.
"Rests she not well whose pilgrim staff and shoon
Lie in her tent--for on the golden street
She walks and stumbles not on roads star strewn
With her unsandalled feet."
THE HEIRESS OF KURSTON CHACE.
Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and
excitement had come--the master was returning with a young bride, whom
report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe
report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to
make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty.
It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither
ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor
and extravagant.
For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers,
had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds,
was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.
It was Clementina's beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened
heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty
seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden
hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a
sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind
to all her faults; deaf to all his friends--in the glamour of her
enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason
and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.
Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over,
nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had
departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston
spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her
trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the
reward of her seductive attentions came.
"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."
She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made
herself marvelous.
"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a
headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."
In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and
sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."
"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and
shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace
and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."
"Impossible, Tina! No _modiste_ in the world could get the things that
are absolutely necessary ready in that time."
"Everything is possible in New York--if you have money--and Uncle Gray
will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to
run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for
the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There
is no sentiment in the affair, and the sooner one gets to ordering
dinners and running up bills, the better."
"Poor Philip Lee!"
"Mother, why did you mention him? Of course he will be angry, and call
me all kinds of unpleasant names; but if he has a particle of common
sense he must see that it was impossible for me to marry a poor
lawyer--especially when I had such a much better offer. I suppose he
will be here to-night. You must see him, mother, and explain things as
pleasantly as possible. It would scarcely be proper for me, as Mr.
Kurston's affianced wife, to listen to all the ravings and protestations
he is sure to indulge in."
In this supposition Clementina was mistaken. Philip Lee took the news of
her engagement to his wealthy rival with blank calmness and a civil wish
for her happiness. He made a stay of conventional propriety, and said
all the usual polite platitudes, and then went away without any evidence
of the deep suffering and mortification he felt.
This was Clementina's first drop of bitterness in her cup of success.
She questioned her mother closely as to how he looked, and what he said.
It did not please her that, instead of bemoaning his own loss, he should
be feeling a contempt for her duplicity--that he should use her to cure
his passion, when she meant to wound him still deeper. She felt at
moments as if she could give up for Philip Lee the wealth and position
she had so hardly won, only she knew him well enough to understand that
henceforward she could not easily deceive him again.
It was pleasant to return to New York this fall; the news of the
engagement opened everyone's heart and home. Congratulations came from
every quarter; even Uncle Gray praised the girl who had done so well for
herself, and signified his approval by a handsome check.
The course of this love ran smooth enough, and one fine morning in
October, Grace Church saw a splendid wedding. Henceforward Clementina
Kurston was a woman to be courted instead of patronized, and many a
woman who had spoken lightly of her beauty and qualities, was made to
acknowledge with an envious pang that she had distanced them.
This was her first reward, and she did not stint herself in extorting
it. To tell the truth, Clementina had many a bitter score of this kind
to pay off; for, as she said in extenuation, it was impossible for her
to allow herself to be in debt to her self-respect.
Well, the wedding was over. She had abundantly gratified her taste for
splendor; she had smiled on those on whom she willed to smile; she had
treated herself extravagantly to the dangerous pleasure of social
revenge; she was now anxious to go and take possession of her home,
which had the reputation of being one of the oldest and handsomest in
the country.
Mr. Kurston, hitherto, had been intoxicated with love, and not a little
flattered by the brilliant position which his wife had at once claimed.
Now that she was his wife, it amused him to see her order and patronize
and dispense with all that royal prerogative which belongs to beauty,
supported by wealth and position.
Into his great happiness he had suffered no doubt, no fear of the
future, to come; but, as the day approached for their departure for
Kurston Chace, he grew singularly restless and uneasy.
For, much as he loved and obeyed the woman whom he called "wife," there
was another woman at Kurston whom he called "daughter," that he loved
quite as dearly, in a different way. In fact, of his daughter, Athel
Kurston, he stood just a little bit in fear, and she had ruled the
household at the Chace for many years as absolute mistress.
No one knew anything of her mother; he had brought her to her present
home when only five years old, after a long stay on the Continent. A
strange woman, wearing the dress of a Sclavonic peasant, came with the
child as nurse; but she had never learnt to speak English, and had now
been many years dead.
Athel knew nothing of her mother, and her early attempts to question her
father concerning her had been so peremptorily rebuffed that she had
long ago ceased to indulge in any curiosity regarding her.
However--though she knew it not--no one regarded her as Mr. Kurston's
heir; indeed, nothing in her father's conduct sanctioned such a
conclusion. True, he loved her dearly, and had spared no pains in her
education; but he never took her with him into the world, and, except in
the neighborhood of the Chace, her very existence was not known of.
She was as old as his new wife, willful, proud, accustomed to rule, not
likely to obey. He had said nothing to Clementina of her existence; he
had said nothing to his daughter of his marriage; and now both facts
could no longer be concealed.
But Frederick Kurston had all his life trusted to circumstances, and he
was rather disposed, in this matter, to let the women settle affairs
between them without troubling himself to enter into explanations with
either of them. So, to Athel he wrote a tender little note, assuming
that she would be delighted to hear of his marriage, as it promised her
a pleasant companion, and directing her to have all possible
arrangements made to add to the beauty and comfort of the house.
To Mrs. Kurston he said nothing. The elegantly dressed young lady who
met her with a curious and rather constrained welcome was to her a
genuine surprise. Her air of authority and rich dress precluded the idea
of a dependent; Mr. Kurston had kissed her lovingly, the servants obeyed
her. But she was far too prudent to make inquiries on unknown ground;
she disappeared, with her maid, on the plea of weariness, and from the
vantage-ground of her retirement sent Félicité to take observations.
The little French maid found no difficulty in arriving at the truth, and
Mrs. Kurston, not unjustly angry, entered the drawing-room fully
prepared to defend her rights.
"Who was that young person, Frederick, dear, that I saw when we
arrived?"
This question in the very sweetest tone, and with that caressing manner
she had always found omnipotent.
"That young person is Miss Athel Kurston, Clementina."
This answer in the very decided, and yet nervous, manner people on the
defensive generally assume.
"Miss Kurston? Your sister, Frederick?"
"No; my daughter, Clementina."
"But you were never married before?"
"So people say."
"Then, do you really expect me to live in the same house with a person
of--"
"I see no reason why you should not--that is, if you live in the same
house with me."
A passionate burst of tears, an utter abandonment of distress, and the
infatuated husband was willing to promise anything--everything--that his
charmer demanded--that is, for the time; for Athel Kurston's influence
was really stronger than her step-mother's, and the promises extorted
from his lower passions were indefinitely postponed by his nobler
feelings.
A divided household is always a miserable one; but the chief sufferer
here was Mr. Kurston, and Athel, who loved him with a sincere and
profound affection, determined to submit to circumstances for his sake.
One morning, he found on his table a letter from her stating that, to
procure him peace, she had left a home that would be ever dear to her,
assuring him that she had secured a comfortable and respectable asylum;
but earnestly entreating that he would make no inquiries about her, as
she had changed her name, and would not be discovered without causing a
degree of gossip and evil-speaking injurious to both himself and her.
This letter completely broke the power of Clementina over her husband.
He asserted at once his authority, and insisted on returning immediately
to New York, where he thought it likely Athel had gone, and where, at
any rate, he could find suitable persons to aid him in his search for
her--a search which was henceforth the chief object of his life.
A splendid house was taken, and Mrs. Kurston at once assumed the
position of a leader in the world of fashion. Greatly to her
satisfaction, Philip Lee was a favorite in the exclusive circle in which
she moved, and she speedily began the pretty, penitent, dejected rôle
which she judged would be most effective with him. But, though she would
not see it, Philip Lee was proof against all her blandishments. He was
not the man to be deluded twice by the same false woman; he was a man of
honor, and detested the social ethics which scoffed at humanity's
holiest tie; and he was deeply in love with a woman who was the very
antipodes of the married siren.
Yet he visited frequently at the Kurston mansion, and became a great
favorite, and finally the friend and confidant of its master. Gradually,
as month after month passed, the business of the Kurston estate came
into his hands, and he could have told, to the fraction of a dollar, the
exact sum for which Clementina Gray sold herself.
Two years passed away. There was no longer on Clementina's part, any
pretence of affection for her husband; she went her own way, and devoted
herself to her own interests and amusements. He wearied with a hopeless
search and anxiety that found no relief, aged very rapidly, and became
subject to serious attacks of illness, any one of which might deprive
him of life.
His wife now regretted that she had married so hastily; the settlements
promised had been delayed; she had trusted to her influence to obtain
more as his wife than as his betrothed. She had not known of a
counter-influence, and she had not calculated that the effort of a
life-long deception might be too much for her. Quarrels had arisen in
the very beginning of their life at Kurston, the disappearance of Athel
had never been forgiven, and now Mrs. Kurston became violently angry if
the settlement and disposing of his property was named.
One night, in the middle of the third winter after Athel's
disappearance, Philip Lee called with an important lease for Mr. Kurston
to sign. He found him alone, and strangely moved and sorrowful. He
signed the papers as Philip directed him, and then requested him to lock
the door and sit down.
"I am going," he said, "to confide to you, Philip Lee, a sacred trust. I
do not think I shall live long, and I leave a duty unfulfilled that
makes to me the bitterness of death. I have a daughter--the lawful
heiress of the Kurston lands--whom my wife drove, by subtle and
persistent cruelty, from her home. By no means have I been able to
discover her; but you must continue the search, and see her put in
possession of her rights."
"But what proofs, sir, can you give me in order to establish them?"
"They are all in this box--everything that is necessary. Take it with
you to your office to-night. Her mother--ah, me, how I loved her--was a
Polish lady of good family; but I have neither time nor inclination now
to explain to you, or to excuse myself for the paltry vanities which
induced me to conceal my marriage. In those days I cared so much for
what society said that I never listened to the voice of my heart or my
conscience. I hope, I trust, I may still right both the dead and the
living!"
Mr. Kurston's presentiment of death was no delusive one; he sank
gradually during the following week, and died--his last word,
"Remember!" being addressed, with all the strong beseeching of a dying
injunction, to Philip Lee.
A free woman, and a rich one, Mrs. Kurston turned with all the ardor of
a sentimental woman to her first and--as she chose to consider it--her
only true affection. She was now in a position to woo the poor lawyer,
dependent in a great measure on her continuing to him the management of
the Kurston property.
Business brought them continually together, and it was neither possible
nor prudent for him to always reject the attentions she offered. The
world began to freely connect their names, and it was with much
difficulty that he could convince even his most intimate friends of his
indifference to the rich and beautiful widow.
He found himself, indeed, becoming gradually entangled in a net of
circumstances it would soon be difficult to get honorably out of.
The widow received him at every visit more like a lover, and less like a
lawyer; men congratulated or envied him, women tacitly assumed his
engagement. There was but one way to free himself from the toils the
artful widow was encompassing him with--he must marry some one else.
But whom? The only girl he loved was poor, and had already refused him;
yet he was sure she loved him, and something bid him try again. He had
half a mind to do so, and "half a mind" in love is quite enough to begin
with.
So he put on his hat and went to his sister's house. He knew she was out
driving--had seen her pass five minutes before on her way to the park.
Then what did he go there for? Because he judged from experience, that
at this hour lovely Pauline Alexes, governess to his sister's daughters,
was at home and alone.
He was not wrong; she came into the parlor by one door as he entered it
by the other. The coincidence was auspicious, and he warmly pressed his
suit, pouring into Pauline's ears such a confused account of his
feelings and his affairs as only love could disentangle and understand.
"But, Philip," said Pauline, "do you mean to say that this Mrs. Kurston
makes love to you? Is she not a married woman, and her husband your best
friend and patron?"
"Mr. Kurston, Pauline darling, is dead!"
"Dead! dead! Oh, Philip! Oh, my father! my father!" And the poor girl
threw herself, with passionate sobbings, among the cushions of the sofa.
This was a revelation. Here, in Pauline Alexes, the girl he had fondly
loved for nearly three years, Philip found the long-sought heiress of
Kurston Chace!
Bitter, indeed, was her grief when she learned how sorrowfully her
father had sought her; but she was scarcely to be blamed for not knowing
of, and responding to, his late repentance of the life-long wrong he had
done her. For Philip's sister moved far outside the narrow and supreme
circle of the Kurstons.
She had hidden her identity in her mother's maiden name--the only thing
she knew of her mother. She had never seen her father since her flight
from her home but in public, accompanied by his wife; she had no reason
to suppose the influence of that wife any weaker; she had been made, by
cruel innuendoes, to doubt both the right and the inclination of her
father to protect her.
It now became Philip's duty to acquaint the second Mrs. Kurston with
her true position, and to take the necessary steps to reinstate Athel
Kurston in her rights.
Of course, he had to bear many unkind suspicions--even his friends
believed him to have been cognizant all the time of the identity of
Pauline Alexes with Athel Kurston--and he was complimented on his
cleverness in securing the property, with the daughter, instead of the
widow, for an incumbrance. But those may laugh who win, and these things
scarcely touched the happiness of Philip and Athel.
As for Mrs. Kurston she made a still more brilliant marriage, and gave
up the Kurston estate with an ostentatious indifference. "She was glad
to get rid of it; it had brought her nothing but sorrow and
disappointment," etc.
But from the heights of her social autocracy, clothed in Worth's
greatest inspirations, wearing priceless lace and jewels, dwelling in
unrivalled splendor, she looked with regret on the man whom she had
rejected for his poverty.
She saw him grow to be the pride of his State and the honor of his
country. Loveless and childless, she saw his boys and girls cling to the
woman she hated as their "mother," and knew that they filled with light
and love the grand old home for which she had first of all sacrificed
her affection and her womanhood.
"ONLY THIS ONCE."
Over the solemn mountains and the misty moorlands the chill spring night
was falling. David Scott, master shepherd for MacAllister, of Allister,
thought of his ewes and lambs, pulled his Scotch bonnet over his brows,
and taking his staff in his hand, turned his face to the hills.
David Scott was a mystic in his own way; the mountains were to him
"temples not made with hands," and in them he had seen and heard
wonderful things. Years of silent communion with nature had made him
love her in all her moods, and he passionately believed in God.
The fold was far up the mountains, but the sheep knew the shepherd's
voice, and the peculiar bark of his dog; they answered them gladly, and
were soon safely and warmly housed. Then David and Keeper slowly took
their way homeward, for the steep, rocky hills were not easy walking for
an old man in the late gloaming.
Passing a wild cairn of immense stones, Keeper suddenly began to bark
furiously, and a tall, slight figure leaped from their shelter, raised a
stick, and would have struck the dog if David had not called out,
"Never strie a sheep-dog, mon! The bestie willna harm ye."
The stranger then came forward; asked David if there was any cottage
near where he could rest all night, said that he had come out for a
day's fishing, had got separated from his companions, lost his way and
was hungry and worn out.
David looked him steadily in the face and read aright the nervous manner
and assumed indifference. However, hospitality is a sacred tradition
among Scotch mountaineers, whoever, or whatever the young man was, David
acknowledged his weariness and hunger as sufficient claim upon his oaten
cake and his embers.
It was evident in a few moments that Mr. Semple was not used to the
hills. David's long, firm walk was beyond the young man's efforts; he
stumbled frequently in the descent, the springy step necessary when they
came to the heather distressed him; he was almost afraid of the gullies
David took without a thought. These things the old man noted, and they
weighed far more with him than all the boastful tongue could say.
The cottage was soon reached--a very humble one--only "a but and a ben,"
with small windows, and a thatched roof; but Scotland has reared great
men in such cottages, and no one could say that it was not clean and
cheerful. The fire burnt brightly upon the white hearthstone, and a
little round deal table stood before it. Upon this table were oaten
cakes and Ayreshire cheese and new milk, and by its side sat a young man
reading.
"Archie, here is a strange _gentleman_ I found up at Donald's cairn."
The two youths exchanged looks and disliked each other. Yet Archie Scott
rose, laid aside his book, and courteously offered his seat by the fire.
The stranger took it, eat heartily of the simple meal, joined decently
in their solemn worship, and was soon fast asleep in Archie's bed. Then
the old man and his son sat down and curtly exchanged their opinions.
"I don't like yon lad, fayther, and I more than distrust his being aught
o' a gentleman."
David smoked steadily a few minutes ere he replied:
"He's eat and drank and knelt wi' us, Archie, and it's nane o' our duty
to judge him."
When Archie spoke again it was of other matters.
"Fayther, I'm sore troubled wi' MacAllister's accounts; what wi' the
sheep bills and the timber and the kelp, things look in a mess like.
There is a right way and a wrong way to keep tally of them and I can't
find it out."
"The right way is to keep the facts all correct and honest to a straw's
worth--then the figures are bound to come right, I should say."
It was an old trouble that Archie complained about. He was MacAllister's
steward, appointed by virtue of his sterling character and known worth;
but struggling constantly with ignorance of the methods by which even
the most honest business can alone satisfactorily prove its honest
condition.
When Mr. Semple awoke next morning, Archie had disappeared, and David
was standing in the door, smoking. David liked his guest less in the
morning than he had done at night.
"Ye dinna seem to relish your parritch, sir," said David rather grimly.
Mr. Semple said he really had never been accustomed to anything but
strong tea and hot rolls, with a little kippered salmon or marmalade; he
had never tasted porridge before.
"More's the pity, my lad. Maybe if you had been brought up on decent
oatmeal you would hae thankit God for your food;" for Mr. Semple's
omission of grace, either before or after his meat, greatly displeased
the old man.
The youth yawned, sauntered to the door, and looked out. There was a
fresh wind, bringing with it flying showers and damp, chilling
mists--wet heather under foot, and no sunshine above. David saw
something in the anxious, wretched face that aroused keen suspicion. He
looked steadily into Mr. Semple's pale, blue eyes, and said:
"Wha are you rinnin awa from, my lad?"
"Sir!"
There was a moment's angry silence. Suddenly David raised his hand,
shaded his eyes and peered keenly down the hills. Mr. Semple followed
this movement with great interest.
"What are you looking at, Mr. Scott? Oh! I see. Two men coming up this
way. Do you know who they are?"
"They may be gangers or they may be strangers, or they may be
policemen--I dinna ken them mysel'."
"Mr. Scott! For God's sake, Mr. Scott! Don't give me up, and I will tell
you the whole truth."
"I thought so!" said David, sternly. "Well, come up the hills wi' me;
yon men will be here in ten minutes, whoever they are."
There were numerous places of partial shelter known to the shepherd, and
he soon led the way to a kind of cave, pretty well concealed by
overhanging rocks and trailing, briery stems.
The two sat down on a rude granite bowlder, and the elder having waited
until his companion had regained his breath, said:
"You'll fare best wi' me, lad, if you tell the truth in as few words as
may be; I dinna like fine speeches."
"Mr. Scott, I am Duncan Nevin's bookkeeper and cashier. He's a tea
dealer in the Gallowgate of Glasgow. I'm short in my cash, and he's a
hard man, so I run away."
"Sortie, lad! Your cash dinna gang wrang o' itself. If you werna ashamed
to steal it, ye needna be ashamed to confess it. Begin at the
beginning."
The young man told his shameful story. He had got into gay, dissipated
ways, and to meet a sudden demand had taken three pounds from his
employer _for just once_. But the three pounds had swollen into sixteen,
and finding it impossible to replace it, he had taken ten more and fled,
hoping to hide in the hills till he could get rowed off to some passing
ship and escape to America. He had no friends, and neither father nor
mother. At mention of this fact, David's face relaxed.
"Puir lad!" he muttered. "Nae father, and nae mother, 'specially; that's
a awfu' drawback."
"You may give me up if you like, Mr. Scott. I don't care much; I've
been a wretched fellow for many a week; I am most broken-hearted
to-day."
"It's not David Scott that will make himself hard to a broken heart,
when God in heaven has promised to listen to it. I'll tell you what I
will do. You shall gie me all the money you have, every shilling; it's
nane o' yours, ye ken that weel; and I'll take it to your master, and
get him to pass by the ither till you can earn it. I've got a son, a
decent, hard-working lad, who's daft to learn your trade--bookkeeping.
Ye sail stay wi' me till he kens a' the ins and outs o' it, then I'll
gie ye twenty pounds. I ken weel this is a big sum, and it will make a
big hole in my little book at the Ayr Bank, but it will set Archie up.
"Then when ye have earned it, ye can pay back all you have stolen,
forbye having four pounds left for a nest-egg to start again wi'. I
dinna often treat mysel' to such a bit o' charity as this, and, 'deed,
if I get na mair thanks fra heaven, than I seem like to get fra you,
there 'ud be meikle use in it," for Alexander Semple had heard the
proposal with a dour and thankless face, far from encouraging to the
good man who made it. It did not suit that youth to work all summer in
order to pay back what he had come to regard as "off his mind;" to
denude himself of every shilling, and be entirely dependent on the
sternly just man before him. Yet what could he do? He was fully in
David's power; so he signified his assent, and sullenly enough gave up
the £9 14s. 2d. in his possession.
"I'm a good bookkeeper, Mr. Scott," he said; "the bargain is fair enough
for you."
"I ken Donald Nevin; he's a Campletown man, and I ken you wouldna hae
keepit his books if you hadna had your business at your finger-ends."
The next day David went to Glasgow, and saw Mr. Semple's master. The £9
odd was lost money found, and predisposed him to the arrangement
proposed. David got little encouragement from Mr. Nevin, however; he
acknowledged the clerk's skill in accounts, but he was conceited of his
appearance, ambitious of being a fashionable man, had weak principles
and was intensely selfish. David almost repented him of his kindness,
and counted grudgingly the shillings that the journey and the carriage
of Mr. Semple's trunks cost him.
Indeed it was a week or two before things settled pleasantly in the hill
cottage; the plain living, pious habits and early hours of the shepherd
and his son did not at all suit the city youth. But Archie, though
ignorant of the reasons which kept such a dandy in their humble home,
soon perceived clearly the benefit he could derive from him. And once
Archie got an inkling of the meaning of "double entry" he was never
weary of applying it to his own particular business; so that in a few
weeks Alexander Semple was perfectly familiar with MacAllister's
affairs.
Still, Archie cordially disliked his teacher, and about the middle of
summer it became evident that a very serious cause of quarrel was
complicating the offence. Coming up from MacAllister's one lovely summer
gloaming Archie met Semple with Katie Morrison, the little girl whom he
had loved and courted since ever he carried her dinner and slate to
school for her. How they had come to know each other he could not tell;
he had exercised all his tact and prudence to prevent it, evidently
without avail. He passed the couple with ill-concealed anger; Katie
looked down, Semple nodded in what Archie believed to be an insolent
manner.
That night David Scott heard from his son such an outburst of anger as
the lad had never before exhibited. In a few days Mr. Semple went to
Greenock for a day or two. Soon it was discovered that Katie had been in
Greenock two days at her married sister's. Then they heard that the
couple had married and were to sail for America. They then discovered
that Archie's desk had been opened and £46 in notes and gold taken.
Neither of the men had any doubt as to the thief; and therefore Archie
was angry and astonished to find his father doubt and waver and seem
averse to pursue him. At last he acknowledged all, told Archie that if
he made known his loss, _he also_ must confess that he had knowingly
harbored an acknowledged thief, and tacitly given him the opportunity of
wronging his employer. He doubted very much whether anyone would give
him credit for the better feelings which had led him to this course of
conduct.
Archie's anger cooled at once; he saw the dilemma; to these simple
people a good name was better than gold. It took nearly half the savings
of a long life, but the old man went to Ayr and drew sufficient to
replace the stolen money. He needed to make no inquiries about Semple.
On Tuesday it was known by everyone in the village that Katie Morrison
and Alexander Semple had been married the previous Friday, and sailed
for America the next day. After this certainty father and son never
named the subject but once more. It was on one calm, spring evening,
some ten years after, and David lay within an hour of the grave.
"Archie!" he said, suddenly, "I don't regret to-night what I did ten
years ago. Virtuous actions sometimes fail, but virtuous lives--never!
Perhaps I had a thought o' self in my good intent, and that spoiled all.
If thou hast ever a chance, do better than I did."
"I will, father."
During these ten years there had been occasional news from the exiles.
Mrs. Morrison stopped Archie at intervals, as he passed her door, and
said there had been a letter from Katie. At first they came frequently,
and were tinged with brightest hopes. Alexander had a fine place, and
their baby was the most beautiful in the world. The next news was that
Alexander was in business for himself and making money rapidly. Handsome
presents, that were the wonder of the village, then came occasionally,
and also remittances of money that made the poor mother hold her head
proudly about "our Katie" and her "splendid house and carriage."
But suddenly all letters stopped, and the mother thought for long they
must be coming to see her, but this hope and many another faded, and the
fair morning of Katie's marriage was shrouded in impenetrable gloom and
mystery.
Archie got bravely over his trouble, and a while after his father's
death married a good little woman, not quite without "the bit of
siller." Soon after he took his savings to Edinburgh and joined his
wife's brother in business there. Things prospered with him, slowly but
surely, and he became known for a steady, prosperous merchant, and a
douce pious householder, the father of a fine lot of sons and daughters.
One night, twenty years after the beginning of my story, he was passing
through the old town of Edinburgh, when a wild cry of "Fire! Fire!
Fire!" arose on every side of him.
"Where?" he asked of the shrieking women pouring from all the filthy,
narrow wynds around.
"In Gordon's Wynd."
He was there almost the first of any efficient aid, striving to make his
way up the smoke-filled stairs, but this was impossible. The house was
one of those ancient ones, piled story upon story; so old that it was
almost tinder. But those on the opposite side were so close that not
unfrequently a plank or two flung across from opposite windows made a
bridge for the benefit of those seeking to elude justice.
By means of such a bridge all the inhabitants of the burning house were
removed, and no one was more energetic in carrying the women and
children across the dangerous planks than Archie Scott; for his mountain
training had made such a feat one of no extraordinary danger to him.
Satisfied at length that all life was out of risk, he was turning to go
home, when a white, terrible face looked out of the top-most floor,
showing itself amid the gusts of smoke like the dream of a corpse, and
screaming for help in agonizing tones. Archie knew that face only too
well. But he remembered, in the same instant, what his father had said
in dying, and, swift as a mountain deer, he was quickly on the top floor
of the opposite house again.
In a few moments the planks bridged the distance between death and
safety; but no entreaties could make the man risk the dangerous passage.
Setting tight his lips, Archie went for the shrieking coward, and
carried him into the opposite house. Then the saved man recognized his
preserver.
"Oh, Mr. Scott!" he said, "for God's sake, my wife and my child! The
last of seven!"
"You scoundrel! Do you mean to say you saved yourself before Katie and
your child!"
Archie did not wait for the answer; again he was at the window of the
burning room. Too late! The flames were already devouring what the smoke
had smothered; their wretched pallet was a funeral pyre. He had hardly
time to save his own life.
"They are dead, Semple!"
Then the poor creature burst into a paroxysm of grief, moaned and
cried, and begged a few shillings, and vowed he was the most miserable
creature on earth.
After this Archie Scott strove for two years to do without taint of
selfishness what his father had begun twenty years before. But there was
not much now left to work upon--health, honor, self-respect were all
gone. Poor Semple was content to eat the bread of dependence, and then
make boastful speeches of his former wealth and position. To tell of his
wonderful schemes, and to abuse his luck and his false friends, and
everything and everybody, but the real cause of his misfortune.
Archie gave him some trifling post, with a salary sufficient for every
decent want, and never heeded, though he knew Semple constantly spoke
ill of him behind his back.
However the trial of Archie's patience and promise did not last very
long. It was a cold, snowy night in mid-winter that Archie was called
upon to exercise for the last time his charity and forbearance toward
him; and the parting scene paid for all. For, in the shadow of the
grave, the poor, struggling soul dropped all pretences, acknowledged all
its shortcomings, thanked the forbearance and charity which had been
extended so many years, and humbly repented of its lost and wasted
opportunities.
"Draw close to me, Archie Scott," he said, "and tell your four brave
boys what my dying words to them were: Never to yield to temptation for
_only this once_. To be quite sure that all the gear and gold that
_comes with sin_ will _go with sorrow_. And never to doubt that to every
_evil doer_ will certainly come his _evil day_."
PETRALTO'S LOVE STORY.
I am addicted to making strange friendships, to liking people whom I
have no conventional authority to like--people out of "my set," and not
always of my own nationality. I do not say that I have always been
fortunate in these ventures; but I have had sufficient splendid
exceptions to excuse the social aberration, and make me think that all
of us might oftener trust our own instincts, oftener accept the friends
that circumstance and opportunity offer us, with advantage. At any rate,
the peradventure in chance associations has always been very attractive
to me.
In some irregular way I became acquainted with Petralto Garcia. I
believe I owed the introduction to my beautiful hound, Lutha; but, at
any rate, our first conversation was quite as sensible as if we had gone
through the legitimate initiation. I know it was in the mountains, and
that within an hour our tastes and sympathies had touched each other at
twenty different points.
Lutha walked beside us, showing in his mien something of the proud
satisfaction which follows a conviction of having done a good thing. He
looked first at me and then at Petralto, elevating and depressing his
ears at our argument, as if he understood all about it. Perhaps he did;
human beings don't know everything.
People have so much time in the country that it is little wonder that
our acquaintance ripened into friendship during the holidays, and that
one of my first visits when I had got settled for the winter was to
Petralto's rooms. Their locality might have cooled some people, but not
me. It does not take much of an education in New York life to find out
that the pleasantest, loftiest, handsomest rooms are to be found in the
streets not very far "up town;" comfortably contiguous to the best
hotels, stores, theatres, picture galleries, and all the other
necessaries of a pleasant existence.
He was just leaving the door for a ride in the park, and we went
together. I had refused the park twice within an hour, and had told
myself that nothing should induce me to follow that treadmill procession
again, yet when he said, in his quiet way, "You had better take half an
hour's ride, Jack," I felt like going, and I went.
Now just as we got to the Fifth Avenue entrance, a singular thing
happened. Petralto's pale olive face flushed a bright crimson, his eyes
flashed and dropped; he whipped the horse into a furious gallop, as if
he would escape something; then became preternaturally calm, drew
suddenly up, and stood waiting for a handsome equipage which was
approaching. Its occupants were bending forward to speak to him. I had
no eyes for the gentleman, the girl at his side was so radiantly
beautiful.
I heard Petralto promise to call on them, and we passed on; but there
was a look on his face which bespoke both sympathy and silence. He soon
complained of the cold, said the park pace irritated him, but still
passed and repassed the couple who had caused him such evident
suffering, as if he was determined to inure himself to the pain of
meeting them. During this interval I had time to notice the caressing,
lover-like attitude of the beauty's companion, and I said, as they
entered a stately house together, "Are they married?"
"Yes."
"He seems devotedly in love with her."
"He loved her two years before he saw her."
"Impossible."
"Not at all. I have a mind to tell you the story."
"Do. Come home with me, and we will have a quiet dinner together."
"No. I need to be alone an hour or two. Call on me about nine o'clock."
Petralto's rooms were a little astonishment to me. They were luxurious
in the extreme, with just that excess of ornament which suggests
under-civilization; and yet I found him smoking in a studio destitute of
everything but a sleepy-looking sofa, two or three capacious lounging
chairs, and the ordinary furniture of an artist's atelier. There was a
bright fire in the grate, a flood of light from the numerous gas jets,
and an atmosphere heavy with the seductive, fragrant vapor of Havana.
I lit my own cigar, made myself comfortable, and waited until it was
Petralto's pleasure to begin. After a while he said, "Jack, turn that
easel so that you can see the picture on it."
I did so.
"Now, look at it well, and tell me what you see; first, the
locality--describe it."
"A dim old wood, with sunlight sifting through thick foliage, and long
streamers of weird grey moss. The ground is covered with soft short
grass of an intense green, and there are wonderful flowers of wonderful
colors."
"Right. It is an opening in the forest of the Upper Guadalupe. Now, what
else do you see?"
"A small pony, saddled and bridled, feeding quietly, and a young girl
standing on tip-toe, pulling down a vine loaded with golden-colored
flowers."
"Describe the girl to me."
I turned and looked at my querist. He was smoking, with shut eyes, and
waiting calmly for my answer. "Well, she has--Petralto, what makes you
ask me? You might paint, but it is impossible to describe _light_; and
the girl is nothing else. If I had met her in such a wood, I should have
thought she was an angel, and been afraid of her."
"No angel, Jack, but a most exquisite, perfect flower of maidenhood.
When I first saw her, she stood just so, with her open palms full of
yellow jasmine. I laid my heart into them, too, my whole heart, my whole
life, and every joy and hope it contained."
"What were you doing in Texas?"
"What are you doing in New York? I was born in Texas. My family, an old
Spanish one, have been settled there since they helped to build San
Antonio in 1730. I grew up pretty much as Texan youths do--half my time
in the saddle, familiar with the worst side of life and the best side of
nature. I should have been a thorough Ishmaelite if I had not been an
artist; but the artistic instinct conquered the nomadic and in my
twentieth year I went to Rome to study.
"I can pass the next five years. I do not pretend to regret them,
though, perhaps, you would say I simply wasted time and opportunity. I
enjoyed them, and it seems to me I was the person most concerned in the
matter. I had a fresh, full capacity then for enjoyment of every kind. I
loved nature and I loved art. I warmed both hands at the glowing fire of
life. Time may do his worst. I have been happy, and I can throw those
five careless, jovial years, in his face to my last hour.
"But one must awake out of every pleasant dream, and one day I got a
letter urging my immediate return home. My father had got himself
involved in a lawsuit, and was failing rapidly in health. My younger
brother was away with a ranger company, and the affairs of the ranch
needed authoritative overlooking. I was never so fond of art as to be
indifferent to our family prosperity, and I lost no time in hurrying
West.
"Still, when I arrived at home, there was no one to welcome me! The
noble, gracious Garcia slept with his ancestors in the old Alamo Church;
somewhere on the llano my brother was ranging, still with his wild,
company; and the house, in spite of the family servants and Mexican
peons, was sufficiently lonely. Yet I was astonished, to find how easily
I went back to my old life, and spent whole days in the saddle
investigating the affairs of the Garcia ranch.
"I had been riding one day for ten hours, and was so fatigued that I
determined to spend the night with one of my herdsmen. He had a little
shelter under some fine pecan trees on the Guadalupe, and after a cup of
coffee and a meal of dried beef, I sauntered with my cigar down the
river bank. Then the cool, dusky shadows of the wood tempted me. I
entered it. It was an enchanted wood, for there stood Jessy Lorimer,
just as I had painted her.
"I did not move nor speak. I watched her, spell-bound. I had not even
the power, when she had mounted her pony and was coming toward me, to
assume another attitude. She saw that I had been watching her, and a
look, half reproachful and half angry, came for a moment into her face.
But she inclined her head to me as she passed, and then went off at a
rapid gallop before I could collect my senses.
"Some people, Jack, walk into love with their eyes open, calculating
every step. I tumbled in over head, lost my feet, lost my senses,
narrowed in one moment the whole world down to one bewitching woman. I
did not know her, of course; but I soon should. I was well aware she
could not live very far away, and that my herd must be able to give me
some information. I was so deeply in love that this poor ignorant
fellow, knowing something about this girl, seemed to me to be a person
to be respected, and even envied.
"I gave him immediately a plentiful supply of cigars, and sitting down
beside him opened the conversation with horses, but drifted speedily
into the subject of new settlers.
"'Were there any since I had left?'
"'Two or three, no 'count travelers, one likely family.'
"'Much of a family?'
"'You may bet on that, sir.'
"'Any pleasant young men?'
"'Reckon so. Mighty likely young gal.'
"So, bit by bit, I found that Mr. Lorimer, my beauty's father, was a
Scotchman, who had bought the ranch which had formerly belonged to the
old Spanish family of the Yturris. Then I remembered pretty Inez and
Dolores Yturri, with their black eyes, olive skins and soft, lazy
_embonpoint_; and thought of golden-haired Jessy Lorimer in their dark,
latticed rooms.
"Jack, turn the picture to me. Beautiful Jessy! How I loved her in those
happy days that followed. How I humored her grave, stern father and
courted her brothers for her sake! I was a slave to the whole family,
so that I might gain an hour with or a smile from Jessy. Do I regret it
now? Not one moment. Such delicious hours as we had together were worth
any price. I would throw all my future to old Time, Jack, only to live
them over again."
"That is a great deal to say, Petralto."
"Perhaps; and yet I will not recall it. In those few months everything
that was good in me prospered and grew. Jessy brought out nothing but
the best part of my character. I was always at my best with her. No
thought of selfish pleasure mingled in my love for her. If it delighted
me to touch her hand, to feel her soft hair against my cheek, to meet
her earnest, subduing gaze, it also made me careful by no word or look
to soil the dainty purity of my white lily.
"I feared to tell her that I loved her. But I did do it, I scarcely know
how. The softest whisper seemed too loud against her glowing cheek. She
trembled from head to foot. I was faint and silent with rapture when she
first put her little hand in mine, and suffered me to draw her to my
heart. Ah! I am sick with joy yet when I think of it. I--I first, I
alone, woke that sweet young heart to life. She is lost, lost to me, but
no one else can ever be to her what I have been."
And here Petralto, giving full sway to his impassioned Southern nature,
covered his face with his hands and wept hot, regretful tears.
Tears come like blood from men of cold, strong temperaments, but they
were the natural relief of Petralto's. I let him weep. In a few minutes
he leaped up, and began pacing the room rapidly as he went on:
"Mr. Lorimer received my proposal with a dour, stiff refusal that left
me no hope of any relenting. 'He had reasons, more than one,' he said;
'he was not saying anything against either my Spanish blood or my
religion; but it was no fault in a Scotsman to mate his daughter with
people of her own kith.'
"There was no quarrel, and no discourtesy; but I saw I could bend an
iron bar with my pleadings just as soon as his determination. Jessy
received orders not to meet me or speak to me alone; and the possibility
of disobeying her father's command never suggested itself to her. Even I
struggled long with my misery before I dared to ask her to practice her
first deceit.
"She would not meet me alone, but she persuaded her mother to come once
with her to our usual tryst in the wood. Mrs. Lorimer spoke kindly but
hopelessly, and covered her own face to weep while Jessy and I took of
each other a passionate farewell. I promised her then never to marry
anyone else; and she!--I thought her heart would break as I laid her
almost fainting in her mother's arms.
"Yet I did not know how much Jessy really was to me until I suddenly
found out that her father had sent her back to Scotland, under the
pretence of finishing her education. I had been so honorably considerate
of Jessy's Puritan principles that I felt this hasty, secret movement
exceedingly unkind and unjust. Guadalupe became hateful to me, the
duties of the ranch distracting; and my brother Felix returning about
this time, we made a division of the estate. He remained at the Garcia
mansion, I rented out my possessions, and went, first to New Orleans,
and afterward to New York.
"In New York I opened a studio, and one day a young gentleman called and
asked me to draw a picture from some crude, imperfect sketch which a
friend had made. During the progress of the picture he frequently called
in. For some reason or other--probably because we were each other's
antipodes in tastes and temperament--he became my enthusiastic admirer,
and interested himself greatly to secure me a lucrative patronage.
"Yet some subtle instinct, which I cannot pretend to divine or explain,
constantly warned me to beware of this man. But I was ashamed and angry
at myself for linking even imaginary evil with so frank and generous a
nature. I defied destiny, turned a deaf ear to the whisperings of my
good genius, and continued the one-sided friendship--for I never even
pretended to myself that I had any genuine liking for the man.
"One day, when we had become very familiar, he ran up to see me about
something, I forget what, and not finding me in the outer apartments,
penetrated to my private room. There, upon that easel, Will Lennox first
saw the woman you saw with him to-night--the picture which you are now
looking at--and he fell as desperately in love with it, in his way, as I
had done in the Guadalupe woods with the reality. I cannot tell you how
much it cost me to restrain my anger. He, however, never noticed I was
angry. He had but one object now--to gain from me the name and residence
of the original.
"It was no use to tell him it was a fancy picture, that he was sighing
for an imagination. He never believed it for a moment. I would not sell
it, I would not copy it, I would not say where I had painted it; I kept
it to my most sacred privacy. He was sure that the girl existed, and
that I knew where she lived. He was very rich, without an occupation or
an object, and Jessy's pure, lovely face haunted him day and night, and
supplied him with a purpose.
"He came to me one day and offering me a large sum of money, asked me
finally to reveal at least the locality of which I had painted the
picture. His free, frank unembarrassed manner compels me to believe that
he had no idea of the intolerable insult he was perpetrating. He had
always been accustomed to consider more or less money an equivalent for
all things under the sun. But you, Jack, will easily understand that the
offer was followed by some very angry words, and that his threat to hunt
the world over to find my beauty was not without fear to me.
"I heard soon after that Will Lennox had gone to the South. I had
neither hidden nor talked about my former life and I was ignorant of how
much he knew or did not know of it. He could trace me easily to New
Orleans; how much further would depend upon his tact and perseverance.
Whether he reached Guadalupe or no, I am uncertain, but my heart fell
with a strange presentment of sorrow when I saw his name, a few weeks
afterward, among the European departures.
"The next thing I knew of Will Lennox was his marriage to some famous
Scotch beauty. Jack, do you not perceive the rest? The Scotch beauty was
Jessy Lorimer. I feared it at the first. I knew it this afternoon."
"Will you call there?"
"I have no power to resist it. Did you not notice how eagerly she
pressed the invitation?"
"Do not accept it, Petralto."
He shook his head, and remained silent. The next afternoon I was
astonished on going up to his rooms to find Will Lennox, sitting there.
He was talking in that loud, happy, demonstrative way so natural to men
accustomed to have the whole world minister unto them.
He did not see how nervous and angry Petralto was under his easy,
boastful conversation. He did not notice the ashy face, the blazing
eyes, the set lips, the trembling hands, of the passionate Spanish
nature, until Petralto blazed out in a torrent of unreasonable words and
taunts, and ordered Lennox out of his presence.
Even then the stupid, good-natured, purse-proud man could not see his
danger. He began to apologize to me for Petralto's rudeness, and excuse
"anything in a fellow whom he had cut out so badly."
"Liar!" Petralto retorted. "She loved me first; you can never have her
whole heart. Begone! If I had you on the Guadalupe, where Jessy and I
lived and loved, I would--"
The sentence was not finished. Lennox struck Petralto to the ground,
and before I raised him, I persuaded the angry bridegroom to retire. I
stayed with Petralto that night, although I was not altogether pleased
with him. He was sulky and silent at first, but after a quiet rest and a
few consoling Havanas he was willing to talk the affair over.
"Lennox tortured me," he said, passionately. "How could he be so
unfeeling, so mad, as to suppose I should care to learn what chain of
circumstances led him to find out my love and then steal her? Everything
he said tortured me but one fact--Jessy was alone and thoroughly
miserable. Poor little pet! She thought I had forgotten her, and so she
married him--not for love; I won't believe it."
"But," I said, "Petralto, you have no right to hug such a delusion; and
seeing that you had made no attempt to follow Jessy and marry her, she
had every right to suppose you really had forgotten her. Besides, I
think it very likely that she should love a young, rich, good-looking
fellow like Will Lennox."
"In not pursuing her I was following Jessy's own request and obeying my
own plighted promise. It was understood between us that I should wait
patiently until Jessy was twenty-one. Even Scotch customs would then
have regarded her as her own mistress and acknowledged her right to
marry as she desired; and if I did not write, she has not wanted
constant tokens of my remembrance. I have trusted her," he said,
mournfully, "without a sign from her."
That winter the beauty of Mrs. Lennox and the devotion of her husband
were on every tongue. But married is not mated, and the best part of
Jessy Lorimer's beauty had never touched Will Lennox. Her pure, simple,
poetic temperament he had never understood, and he felt in a dim,
uncertain way that the noblest part of his wife escaped him.
He could not enter into her feelings, and her spiritual superiority
unconsciously irritated him. Jessy had set her love's first music to the
broad, artistic heart of Petralto; she could not, without wronging
herself, decline to a lower range of feelings and a narrower heart. This
reserve of herself was not a conscious one. She was not one of those
self-involved women always studying their own emotions; she was simply
true to the light within her. But her way was not Will Lennox's way, her
finer fancies and lighter thoughts were mysteries to his grosser nature.
So the thing happened which always has and always will happen in such
cases; when the magic and the enchantment of Jessy's great personal
beauty had lost their first novelty and power, she gradually became to
her husband--"Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his
horse."
I did not much blame Will Lennox. It is very hard to love what we do not
comprehend. A wife who could have sympathized in his pursuits, talked
over the chances of his "Favorite," or gone to sea with him in his
yacht, would always have found Will an indulgent and attentive husband.
But fast horses did not interest Jessy, and going to sea made her ill;
so gradually these two fell much further apart than they ought to have
done.
Now, if Petralto had been wicked and Jessy weak, he might have revenged
himself on the man and woman who had wrought him so much suffering. But
he had set his love far too high to sully her white name; and Jessy, in
that serenity which comes of lofty and assured principles, had no idea
of the possibility of her injuring her husband by a wrong thought. Yet
instinctively they both sought to keep apart; and if by chance they met,
the grave courtesy of the one and the sweet dignity of the other left
nothing for evil hopes or thoughts to feed upon. One morning, two years
after Jessy's marriage, I received a note from Petralto, asking me to
call upon him immediately. To my amazement, his rooms were dismantled,
his effects packed up, and he was on the point of leaving New York.
"Whither bound?" I asked. "To Rome?"
"No; to the Guadalupe. I want to try what nature can do for me. Art,
society, even friendship, fail at times to comfort me for my lost love.
I will go back to nature, the great, sweet mother and lover of men."
So Petralto went out of New York; and the world that had known him
forgot him--forgot even to wonder about, much less to regret, him.
I was no more faithful than others. I fell in with a wonderful German
philosopher, and got into the "entities" and "non-entities," forgot
Petralto in Hegel, and felt rather ashamed of the days when I lounged
and trifled in the artist's pleasant rooms. I was "enamored of divine
philosophy," took no more interest in polite gossip, and did not waste
my time reading newspapers. In fact, with Kant and Fichte before me, I
did not feel that I had the time lawfully to spare.
Therefore, anyone may imagine my astonishment when, about three years
after Petralto's departure from New York, he one morning suddenly
entered my study, handsome as Apollo and happy as a bridegroom. I have
used the word "groom" very happily, for I found out in a few minutes
that Petralto's radiant condition was, in fact, the condition of a
bridegroom.
Of course, under the circumstances, I could not avoid feeling
congratulatory; and my affection for the handsome, loving fellow came
back so strongly that I resolved to break my late habits of seclusion,
and go to the Brevoort House and see his bride.
I acknowledge that in this decision there was some curiosity. I wondered
what rare woman had taken the beautiful Jessy Lorimer's place; and I
rather enjoyed the prospect of twitting him with his protestations of
eternal fidelity to his first love.
I did not do it. I had no opportunity. Madame Petralto Garcia was, in
fact, Jessy Lorimer Lennox. Of course I understood at once that Will
must be dead; but I did not learn the particulars until the next day,
when Petralto dropped in for a quiet smoke and chat. Not unwillingly I
shut my book and lit my cigar.
"'All's well that ends well,' my dear fellow," I said, when we had both
smoked silently for a few moments; "but I never heard of Will Lennox's
death. I hope he did not come to the Guadalupe and get shot."
Petralto shook his head and replied: "I was always sorry for that
threat. Will never meant to injure me. No. He was drowned at sea two
years ago. His yacht was caught in a storm, he ventured too near the
shore, and all on board perished."
"I did not hear of it at the time."
"Nor I either. I will tell you how I heard. About a year ago I went, as
was my frequent custom, to the little open glade in the forest where I
had first seen Jessy. As I lay dreaming on the warm soft grass I saw a
beautiful woman, clothed in black, walk slowly toward the very same
jasmine vine, and standing as of old on tip-toe, pull down a loaded
branch. Can you guess how my heart beat, how I leaped to my feet and
cried out before I knew what I was doing, 'Jessy! darling Jessy!' She
stood quite still, looking toward me. Oh, how beautiful she was! And
when at length we clasped hands, and I gazed into her eyes, I knew
without a word that my love had come to me."
"She had waited a whole year?"
"True; I liked her the better for that. After Will's death she went to
Scotland--put both herself and me out of temptation. She owed this much
to the memory of a man who had loved her as well as he was capable of
doing. But I know how happy were the steps that brought her back to the
Guadalupe, and that warm spring afternoon under the jasmine vine paid
for all. I am the happiest man in all the wide world."