The six weeks which had been allotted to me as the term of my captivity
were accomplished, and still Mr. Basil Bainrothe came not--wrote not. I
had seen the month of August glide away, its progress marked only by the
changing fruits and flowers of the season, and the more fervent light
that pierced through the Venetian blinds when turned heavenward, for it
was through these alone that the light of day was permitted to visit my
chamber.
Where, then, was the place of my captivity situated? In the environs of
a great city, possibly, for the wind often blew, laden with fragrance as
from choice rather than extensive gardens, through my casement, and the
shadow of a tall tree impending over the skylight of the bath-room was,
when windy, cast so distinctly on its panes as to convince me of the
neighborhood of an English elm, the foliage of which tree I knew like an
alphabet.
And then, those fairy, Sabbath chimes! Were such musical bells
duplicated in adjacent cities? or was I, indeed, near our old, beloved
church, in which memory so distinctly revealed our ancient, velvet-lined
pew, my father's bowed head, and the venerable pastor rising white-robed
and saintly in his pulpit to bid all the earth keep silent before the
Lord! Conjecture was rife! Thus August passed away.
My birthday had gone by, and the equinox was upon us, with its rapid
changes of sun and storm, when one of these tempests, accompanied by
hail of unusual size, shattered to fragments the skylight of the
bath-room. This hail-storm was succeeded by a deluge of rain, which
flooded not only the adjacent closet, but the chamber I occupied, among
other evils completely submerging the superb Wilton carpet, concerning
the safety of which Mrs. Clayton felt immense responsibility.
A glazier came as soon as the weather permitted, who was carefully
escorted through my chamber by Mrs. Clayton to ascertain the repairs to
be made--a fresh-looking, white-aproned Irish lad, I remember (for a
human being was a novelty to me then), who found it necessary, in order
to repaint the wood-work, to bear the sash away with him, leaving behind
his tray of chisels and putty, and the light step-ladder he had brought
with him on his shoulder, and on whose return I vainly waited as a
chance for communication with the outer world.
While Dinah was busy with mops and brooms drying the carpet, and Mrs.
Clayton thoroughly occupied with her active superintendence of the
needful operations, little mischievous, meddlesome Ernie had made his
way, contrary to all rules, beneath and behind my bed, and torn off a
goodly portion of the gray and gilded paper which had so far effectually
aided to conceal a closed door situated behind the bed-head, from which
the frame had been removed. Then, for the first time since our
acquaintance, did I slap sharply those little, busy fingers which I
could have kissed for thankfulness, and, watching my opportunity, I
replaced the paper, unseen by Mrs. Clayton, with the remains of a
gum-arabic draught which had been prescribed for his cough. I knew that,
after experiencing such condign punishment, he would return no more to
the scene of his destruction, and that he might forget both injury and
discovery, I devoted myself to his amusement during that active, long,
rainy day with unhoped-for success.
The glazier had announced to Mrs. Clayton that his return might be
deferred for four-and-twenty hours, and, as the succeeding day was clear
and warm, I proceeded, in spite of broken sashes, to take my daily bath
as usual at twelve o'clock.
Mrs. Clayton, with her prison-key in her pocket, and her snuffbox at
hand, yielded herself, to the delight of ginger-nuts and her
stocking-basket, and rested calmly after her fatigues of the preceding
day; and Ernie, attracted by the crunching noise--the sound of dropping
nuts, perhaps, which betrayed the presence of his favorite article of
food--hastened to keep her company--a thing he never did
disinterestedly, it most be confessed.
An opportunity, now presented itself for observation which I knew might
not again occur during my whole captivity; and surely no sailor ever
ascended to the mast-head of the Pinta with a heart more heaved with
emotion than was mine, as I placed my foot on the last rung of the
ladder, and towered from my waist upward above the skylight. I had drawn
the bolt within, as I invariably did while bathing, and with a feeling
of proud security I stood and surveyed the scene beneath and around me.
The angle of vision did not, it is true, embrace objects immediately
below me, owing to the projecting cornices of the flat roof (a mere
excrescence from the original structure, as this was), but beyond this
the eye swept for some distance uninterruptedly.
Bathed in the golden light of that autumn noonday sun, I saw and
recognized a long-familiar scene, and for a moment I reeled on the
slender step as I did so, and all grew dark around me. But, with one of
those energetic impulses that come to us all in time of emergency, I
recovered my balance in time to save myself from falling; and eagerly
and wistfully, as looks the dying wretch on the dear faces he is soon to
see no more, I gazed upon the paradise from which fiends had driven me.
There, indeed, just as I had left it, lay the deep-green grassy lawn,
with its richly-burdened flower-pots, its laburnums, and white and
purple lilacs, and drooping guelder-rose bushes, and its great English
walnut-tree towering, like a Titan, in the centre. There was the
hawthorn-hedge my father's hand had planted, and the fountain-like
weeping-willow my mother had set, in memory of her dead, whose graves
were far away; and there towered the lofty elm-trees, with their long,
low, sweeping branches, meeting in friendly greeting, to two of which a
swing had once been attached as a bond of union--a swing in which it had
once been my childish pleasure to sway and read, while Mabel sat beside
me with her head upon my shoulder, held securely in her place by my
strong, loving, encircling arm.
Nor were these all to assure me that, after a year of melancholy and
eventful absence, I looked again upon the precincts of home. A little
farther on rose the gray wall and tower of the library and belfry, half
concealed by its heavy coating of ivy, glossy and dark, and shutting
away all other view of the mansion. Beyond these last was the pavilion
my father had built for the playhouse of his children, through the open
lattice-door of which I saw a girl seated at her work, with graceful,
bending neck, and half-averted face. A moment later, Claude Bainrothe
lounged across the sward, cigar in hand. At his approach, the face
within was turned, and I recognized, at a glance, that of my young
aurora-like companion of the raft, Ada Greene. Then gazing cautiously
around, as if to elude observation (never dreaming of the eye dropped
like a bird's upon him), he lifted the rosy face in his hand and kissed
it thrice right loverly!
I saw no more--I would not witness more--for had I not learned already
all that I asked or ought to know? Well might the dear old chimes ring
out their Sabbath welcome to one who had obeyed their summons from her
childhood up to womanhood! Well might the summer air bear on its wings
greeting of familiar odors, lost and found!
This was no idle dream, no mirage of a vagrant brain like that
sea-picture, or that wild vision at Beauseincourt, but sober, and sad,
and strange reality. I understood my position from that moment,
geographically as well as physically. I was a prisoner in the house of
Basil Bainrothe (while he, perchance, reigned lordly in my own); that
house whose hidden arcana I had never explored, and which, beyond its
parlor and exterior, was to me as the dwelling of a stranger.
Derisively deferential, he had resigned to me this secluded chamber in
the ell--his own particular sanctum, I remember to have heard--and
betaken himself, in all probability, to the more spacious mansion of his
former neighbor.
Far wiser, even if sadder, than I went up its rounds, did I descend that
ladder!
Half an hour after I had entered it, and with new hope, I emerged from
the bath-room as fresh as a naiad, having first abstracted from the
tool-box of the glazier two tiny chisels of different sizes, and a
small lump of putty, which I secreted, on my first opportunity, in my
favorite hiding-place--a hollow in the post of my bedstead--an
accidental discovery of mine, made during Mrs. Clayton's first illness,
since which I had always insisted on making up my own bed, much to her
relief.
My conscience so disturbed me on the score of this theft, that I
hastened to secrete my only remaining piece of gold in the glazier's
box; ill-judged, as this appeared to me on reflection. The boy was an
apprentice, evidently, and might else, I thought, at the time, have been
the loser. I feared to add a line, and dared not seek a passing word
with him, so carefully was I watched.
I next examined, with the eye of scientific scrutiny, two massive rulers
that lay on my table, one made of maple-wood, and the other of ebony,
and, having selected the first as most available for my purpose,
prepared to commence the most arduous undertaking of my life--the
careful shaping of a wooden key.
I had read somewhere that, during the French Revolution, a young
peasant-girl, by means of such an instrument, had set at large her
lover, or her brother, in _La Vendee_; having taken with soft wax the
outline of the wards of the lock, in a moment of opportunity.
That day my work began--three times a failure, but at last successful.
With the aid of putty, gradually allowed to harden I obtained the mould
I desired, in the dead of night, and afterward, whenever privacy, even
for a few minutes, was mine, I drew from my bosom my sacred piece of
sculpture, and worked upon it with knife and chisel alternately, as
devotee never worked on sculptured crucifix. Never shall I forget the
rapture, the ecstasy of that moment, in which, ensconced between my
bed-head and the wall, I slowly turned the key, first thoroughly soaked
in oil, in the morticed wards, and knew, by the slight giving of the
door, that it was unlocked.
Not Ali Baba, when be entered the robbers' cave, and saw the heaps of
gold--all his by the force of one magic word; not Aladdin, when the
genius of the lamp rose to his bidding, bearing salvers of jewels, which
were to purchase for him the hand of the sultan's daughter; not Sindbad,
when he saw the light which led him to the aperture of egress from the
sepulchre in which he had been pent up with his wife's body to die--knew
keener or more triumphant sensations than filled my bosom as I laid that
completed key next my heart, after turning it cautiously backward and
forward in my prison-lock!
I dared not, at that time, draw back the bolt above, that confined it
loosely yet securely, or turn the silver knob sufficiently to set it
even ever so little ajar; but I did both later, when oil had time to do
its subtle work, and I could effect my experiment in silence. Yet I
hazarded nothing of the sort when the quick ear of Mrs. Clayton held
watch in the adjoining room. I was obliged to take advantage of those
moments of rare absence, when, double-locking the doors of her chamber,
both inner and outer, she would descend, for a few minutes, to the
realms below, returning so suddenly and silently as almost to surprise
me, on one or two occasions, at my work.
About the time of the completion of my experiment, I became aware of
sounds in the room beneath my chamber, and sometimes on the great
stairway (of which I now knew the largest platform was situated very
near the head of my bed), that gave token of occupancy.
The rattling of china and silver might be discerned in the ancient
dining-room, at morn and night. The occupant probably dined elsewhere,
but the regularity of these meals was unmistakable.
I recognized, faintly, the step of Bainrothe on the stairway,
distinguishing it readily from any other, as it passed and repassed my
hidden door.
October had now set in, with a chilliness unusual to that bland season,
and I asked for and obtained permission to have a fire kindled in the
wide and gloomy grate of my chamber, hitherto unused by me.
About this household flame, Ernie, Mrs. Clayton, and I gathered
harmoniously; she with her unfailing work-basket, I with book or pencil,
the baby with his blocks and dominoes and painted pictures--the only
happy and truly industrious spirit of the group. My true work was
done--else might it never have been completed.
The presence of fire was indispensable to Mrs. Clayton, and, from the
time of its first lighting, she left me but seldom alone. Her rheumatic
limbs needed the solace that I had no heart to grudge her, distasteful
as she was to me, and becoming more so day by day--false as I now knew
her to be--false at heart.
How hatred grows, when we once admit the germ--not, like love,
parasitically--but strong, stanch, stern, alone throwing down fresh
roots, even hour by hour, like the banyan, monarch of the Eastern
forest. I am afraid I have a turn for this passion naturally, but for
love as well, ten times more intense--so that one pretty well
counterbalances the other.
To carry out the vine-simile, I might as well add at once that, in the
end, the parasitical plant has triumphed, and stifled the sterner
growth. In other words, Christianity has conquered Judaism.
"I suppose I may soon expect a visit from Mr. Bainrothe," I said one day
to Mrs. Clayton. "I think my birthday approaches; can you tell me the
day of the month? I know that of the week from remembering the Sabbath
chimes."
I thought she started slightly at this announcement, but she replied,
unflinchingly:
"The 5th, yes, I am quite sure it is the 5th of the month."
"Do you never see a newspaper, Mrs. Clayton, and, if so, can you not
indulge me with a glimpse of one? I think it would do me good--remind me
that I was alive, I have seen none since the account of Miss Lamarque's
safety, for which God be praised."[5]
"No, Miss Monfort, it is simply impossible. I should be transgressing
the rules of the establishment."
"Dr. Englehart's, I suppose, as if indeed there were such a person," I
said, impetuously--unguardedly.
"Do you pretend to doubt it?" she asked, slowly, setting her greedy eyes
upon my face, and dropping her darning-work and shell upon her knee.
Why, what possesses you to-day, Miss Miriam?"
"I shall answer no questions, Mrs. Clayton--this right, at least, I
reserve--but, the fact is, I doubt every thing lately, except this
child and God. I do not believe my Creator will forsake me utterly--I
shall not, till the end." And tears rolled down my face, the first I had
shed for days. I had been petrified, of late, by the resolution I was
making, and the effort of mind it had cost me. I had felt, until now,
that I was hardening into atone.
"You desire to see Mr. Bainrothe, I suppose," she remarked, after a long
silence, daring which she had again betaken herself to her occupation,
without lifting her eyes as she asked the question.
"I desire to look my fate in the face at once, and understand his
conditions," I replied, sullenly.
"But what if he is not here--what if Dr. Englehart--" lifting her eyes
to mine.
"I cannot be mistaken," I interrupted, with impetuosity, "I have heard
his step; he eats in the room below; I am convinced, for I know of old
that bronchial cough of his--the effect of gormandism--"
Then suddenly, Ernie, looking up, made a revelation, irrelevant, yet to
my ear terrible and astounding, but fortunately incomprehensible to my
companion. What did that little vigilant creature ever fail to remark?
"Mirry make tea," he said, or seemed to say, and my face paled and
flushed alternately, until my brain swam.
"Make tea?" sail the voice of Mrs. Clayton, apparently at a great
distance. "No, I will make the tea, Ernie, as long as we stay together.
Mirry does not know how to draw tea like an Englishwoman."
Oh, fortunate misunderstanding! how great was the reaction it
occasioned! From an almost fainting condition I rallied to vivacity,
and, for long, weary hours, sat pointing out pictures to the boy, to win
him to oblivion, and persuade him to silence. Singularly enough, but
not unusual with him, he never resumed the topic. I had taken pains to
hide my work from his observing eyes; and how he knew it, unless he lay
silently and watched me from his little bed, when I worked at early dawn
in mine, I never could conjecture. A few days later Mrs. Clayton
announced to me that Mr. Bainrothe would call very shortly.
It was early morning, I remember, when she laid before me the card of
"Basil Bainrothe," with its elaborate German characters, on which was
written, in pencil, the addendum, "Will call at ten o'clock;" and,
punctual as the hand to the hour, he knocked at the dressing-room door
at the appointed time, and was admitted.
He entered with that light, jaunty step peculiar to him, and which I
have consequently ever associated in others with impudence and guile.
Hat and cane in the left hand, he entered; two fingers of the right
raised to his lips, by way of salutation (he clinched his glove in the
remainder), to be offered to me later, and ignored completely, then
waved carelessly, as if condoning the offense.
He was quite a picture as he came in--a fashion-plate, and as such I
coolly regarded him--fresh, fair, and smiling, looking younger, if
possible, than when we parted a year before, and handsome, as that
much-abused word goes, in his debonair, off-hand style of appearance.
He was dressed with even more than his usual care and trimness (wore
patent-leather boots, my aversion from that hour, for these were the
first I had ever seen), and lavender-colored pantaloons, very tightly
strapped down over them; a glossy black coat and vest, and linen of
unimpeachable quality and whiteness; while a chain of fine Venetian
gold held his watch, or eye-glass, or both, in suspension from his neck.
Yet no beggar in rags ever appeared to me half so loathly as did this
speckless dandy!
"You have come," I said, grimly, as he settled his shirt-collar to speak
to me, after formally depositing his hat and cane, and a roll of paper
he drew from his pocket, on the centre-table, and wiping his face
carefully with his cambric, musk-scented handkerchief, unspeakably
odious and unclean to my olfactories--"you have come at last; yet the
greatest wonder to me is, how you dare appear at all before me," and I
looked upon him right lionly, I believe.
"You were always inclined to assume the offensive with me, Miriam. Yet I
confess you have a little shadow of reason this time, or seem to have,
and I am here to-day for purposes of explanation or compromise" (bowing
gracefully), and he rubbed his palms together very gently and
complacently, looking around as he did so for a chair, which perceiving,
and drawing to the table so as to face me where I eat on the sofa, he
deposited himself upon, assuming at once his usual graceful pose.
It was _fauteuil_, and he threw one arm over that of the chair,
suffering his well-preserved white hand--always suggestive of poultices
to me--with its signet ring, to droop in front of it--a hand which he
moved up and down habitually, as he conversed, in a singularly soothing
and mechanical fashion--his "pendulum" we used to call it in old times,
Evelyn and I, when it was one of our chief resources for amusement to
laugh at "Cagliostro," our _sobriquet_ for this _ci-devant jeune homme_,
it may be remembered.
"Let me premise, Miriam," he began, "by congratulating you on your
improved appearance"--another benign bow. "You were so burned and
blackened by exposure, and so--in short, so very wild-looking when I
last saw you, that I began to fear for the result; but perfect rest and
retirement, and good nursing, have effected wonders. I have never seen
you so fair, so refined-looking, and yet so calm, as you are now
(calmness, my child, is aristocratic--cultivate it!); even if a little
thin and delicate from confinement, yet perfectly healthy, I cannot
doubt, from what I see. Do assure me of your health, my dear girl. You
are as dumb to-day as Grey's celebrated prophetess."
"All personal remarks as coming from you are offensive to me, Mr.
Bainrothe," I rejoined; "proceed to your business at once, whatever that
may be--a truce to preamble and compliments."
"You shall be obeyed," he remarked, bowing low and derisively. "Yet,
believe me, nothing but my care for your fair fame and my own have led
me to confine you in such narrow limits for a season which, I trust, is
almost over. As to my persecutions, which, I am told, you allege as a
reason for leaving your house and friends so precipitately, these are
out of the question henceforth forever, I assure you"--with a wave of
the velvet hand--"since I am privately married to a lady of rank and
fortune, who will soon be openly proclaimed 'my wife,' and who will be
found, on close acquaintance, worthy of your friendship."
While giving utterance to this tirade, Mr. Bainrothe was slowly
unwinding a string from around the roll of papers he had laid on the
table, and which he now proceeded to spread somewhat ostentatiously
before me, still mute and impassive to all his advances as I continued
to be.
"There are several," he said. "Your signature to each will be required,
which, now that you are in your right mind again, and of age, will be
binding, as you know. My witnesses shall be called in when the time
comes. Dr. Englehart and Mrs. Clayton will suffice as proofs of these
solemnities--these and others likely to occur."
"Solemnities! Levities, mockeries rather!" I could not help rejoining.
He felt the sarcasm. His florid cheek paled with anger, his
yellow-speckled eyes glowed with lurid fire, he compressed his lips
bitterly as he said:
"Marriage is usually considered a solemnity, Miss Monfort; and, let me
assure you, it is only as a married woman I can conscientiously release
you from confinement. You have shown yourself too erratic to be
intrusted in future with your own liberties."
"Possibly," I rejoined. "Yet I mean to have the selection, let me assure
you, in return, of the controller of my liberties--nay, have already
selected him, for aught you know!"
My cool audacity seemed for a moment to paralyze even his own. He paused
and surveyed me, as if in doubt of his own senses.
"_Impayable_!" I heard him murmur, softly, and, turning to the
book-shelves, he left me for a time to master the contents of the three
documents over which I was bending.
I read them in order as they were numbered, and became more and more
indignant as their meaning opened upon my brain, and culminated at last
in a sharp, sudden exclamation of utter disdain.
I started from my chair and approached him, paper in hand. I think for
a few moments the idea of personal danger possessed him, and the vision
of a concealed dirk or pistol swam before his eyes, which he shielded
with his hand, while he placed a chair between us; and, truth to say,
there was murder in my heart, and in my eyes as well, I suppose, even if
the mistrust went no further.
I could have obliterated him from the face of the earth at that moment
as remorselessly as if he had been a viper in my path striking to sting
me. Yet I advanced toward him with no demonstration or intentions of
this kind, having the habits of lady-like breeding and usual innocence
of weapons, and ignorance of the use thereof as well, to restrain me.
I forget. Close to my heart lay one of the sharp, shining chisels I had
taken from the glazier in the bath-room.
"What is it you object to, Miriam?" he asked, in faltering tones, as his
hand fell and his glimmering eyes encountered mine.
From that day I have believed the legend which tells that, when the
Roman, helpless in his dungeon, thundered forth, "Slave! darest thou
kill Caius Marius?" the armed minion of murder turned and fled, dropping
the knife he held, in his panic, at the feet of the man he came to slay.
Almost such effect was for a time observable in Basil Bainrothe.
It made me smile bitterly. "All, every thing," I answered. "The whole
requisition, from first to last, is base, dastardly--crime-confessing,
too--if seen with discriminating eyes. Why, if innocent of fraud toward
me and mine, should you ask a formal acknowledgment on my part as to
your just administration of my affairs, and a recantation of all I have
said to the contrary, both with regard to yourself and Evelyn Erle?
Such are the contents of this first paper, the only one that I could,
under any possible circumstances, be induced to sign as a compromise
with your villainy; for, not to gain my own life or liberty, will I ever
put hand to the others, infamous as they are on the very surface."
"Miriam, this violence surprises me, is wholly unlooked for, and
unnecessary," he remarked, mildly. "From what Mrs. Clayton has told me,
I had supposed that my disinterested care and assiduity with regard to
your condition were about to meet their reward in your rational
submission to the necessities of your case and mine. Resume your seat, I
entreat you, and let us calmly discuss a matter that seems to agitate
you so unduly. Perhaps I may be able to place it before you in a better
light ere we have concluded our interview. You will sit down again,
Miriam, will you not?"
"Oh, surely, if you are alarmed; but, really, I should suppose, with
Mrs. Clayton and Dr. Englehart no doubt in call, you need not be so
tremulous. There, you are quite safe, I assure you, in your old place,
with the table between us;" and I pointed derisively to _fauteuil_ he
had occupied so gracefully a few moments before, and into which he now
slowly subsided.
"Contemptuous girl," he broke forth at last, "you may yet live to regret
this behavior; so far, nothing has been denied you; no expense has been
spared for your comfort; in a tribunal of justice you could say this, no
more: 'My guardian, thinking me mad from his experiences of my conduct
and health, and regaining accidental possession of me at a time when,
under a feigned name, I was thought to be drowned, deemed it best,
before revealing my existence to the world, to try and restore me to
sanity by private measures, rather than bring upon my malady the eyes
of a mocking world. In doing this, he used all delicacy, all devotion,
surrounding me with comforts, and many luxuries, and even humoring my
insane whim to have the companionship of a year-old child found with me
on the raft under circumstances suspicious--if no more--'"
"Wretch!" I gasped, "dare only asperse me in thought, and"--the menace
hung suspended on my tongue. What power had I to execute it, even if
uttered?
"As to my name, I feigned none. It was my mother's, is my own, and from
her I inherited, or, from the race of which she sprang, the power to
remember and avenge my wrongs; to hate, and curse--and blast, perhaps,
as well--such as you and yours, granted to his chosen children through
the power of Almighty God!" And again I rose and confronted him; then
fiercely pointed down upon his ignoble head, now bowed involuntarily,
either from policy or nervous terror, I never knew, a finger quivering
and keen with scorn and rage, an index of the mind that directed it.
"I wonder you are not afraid to behave to me in this manner," he said,
at length, lifting his head with a spasmodic jerk, and raising to mine
his mottled, angry eyes, now cold and hard as pebbles, "seeing that you
are, so to speak, in the hollow of my hand;" and, suiting the action to
the word, he extended his long, spongy, right hand, and closed it
crushingly, as though it contained a worm, while he smiled and
sneered--oh, such a sneer! it seemed to fill the room.
"True, true--I am very helpless," I said, sitting down with a sudden
revulsion of feeling, and, clasping my hands above my eyes, I wept
aloud, adding, a moment later, as I indignantly wiped my tears: "Yes, if
the worst betide there will only be one more martyr; and, what is
martyrdom, that any need shrink from it? The world is fall of it!"
"Nothing, if you are used to it," he said, carelessly, "as the old woman
remarked of the eels she was skinning alive; I suppose you know all
about it by this time. But come, you are rational again, now, and I
don't wish to be hard on you, Miriam; I don't, upon my soul!"
"Your soul!" I murmured--"your soul!" I reiterated louder; and I smiled
at the idea that suggested itself--"have reptiles souls?"
"The memory of your father alone, my old, confiding friend, one of the
most perfect of men, as I always thought him, would incline me kindly to
his daughter, even if no other tie existed between us," he said calmly,
unmindful of my sarcasm. "But other ties do exist, mistaken girl! The
world looks upon us as one family--since the marriage of Claude and
Evelyn, that uncongenial union which, but for your caprice, would never
have taken place, and which is at the root of all our misfortunes, all
our fatal necessities."
"Necessities!" I muttered, between my clinched teeth, drumming with my
fingers impatiently on the table before me, and smiling scornfully a
moment later.
"You seem in a mood for iteration, to-day, Miss Monfort."
"I make my running commentaries in that way, Mr. Bainrothe. But a truce
to recrimination and reminiscence both. Let us adhere strictly to the
letter and verse of our affairs. These papers form the subject of your
visit, I believe. Know, at once, that the first I will sign, on certain
conditions, bitter and humiliating as I feel it to be obliged to do
this; but, that I will ever consent to yield the guardianship of my
sister wholly to Evelyn Erle and her husband, or divest myself of my
house and furniture, or my wild lands in Georgia, to you, here first
named to me, in consideration of expenses already incurred and to be
incurred for Mabel's education, and my own safe-keeping, during a long
attack of lunacy; or that I will, to crown the whole iniquitous
requisition, consent to give my hand in marriage to that scoundrel--Luke
Gregory!--are visions as vain as those of the child who tried to grasp a
comet or the moon--or, to descend in comparison, to catch a bird by
putting salt on its tail! There, you have my ultimatum; now go and make
the best of it!"
"I am prepared for your objections--prepared, too, to overcome them," he
said, coolly. "Take time to consider all this. I do not expect an answer
to-day, did not when I came, nor will I accept one signature without the
whole. There is no compromise possible. As to your marriage--it must be
accomplished before you leave this room. I, as a magistrate, can tie the
knot--fast enough to bind all the other agreements to certain
fulfillments, for Gregory is a friend of mine, and a man of honor, and
will see them carried out to the letter. He loves you, too, and proves
it, for he takes you penniless. Afterward a priest may complete the
ceremony if you have any scruples. Then, of course, it rests between you
and Gregory, whether you remain together or separate as wide as the
poles--I shall wash my hands of the whole affair thereafter, having
secured my good name and yours."
I stood with bowed head and moving lips before him--mutely,
indignantly.
"I shall, however, make all this," he continued, "appear as well as
possible to your friends and mine, especially, believe me, Miriam! I
shall state, for your sake, that, after being rescued from the raft, you
were partially insane, but still sufficiently mistress of yourself to
coincide with me and your sisters in the wish to let your death as Miss
Harz pass current with the world, until you should redeem your errors"
(what errors?), "and be restored to health and perfect reason. You will
see that your acknowledgment of the last paper includes these
extenuating facts, when you have leisure to re-read it (for I saw how
hastily you glanced over that one in particular); you must do me the
favor to peruse it much more carefully," drawing on his gloves coolly,
"before you make your final decision. You are very comfortable here, my
dear girl," glancing around benignly, "but you have no conception of the
frame of mind, bare walls, utter solitude, a tireless hearth and a
frugal table, would bring about in a very few days or weeks, or even in
one as resolute and defiant as yourself. I should be loath to try such
an experiment _or deprive you, of your child_--but _necessitas non habet
legem_, the school-book says. I think you, too, studied a little Latin,
Miriam?"
"Monster!"
"Not a very relevant or polite remark, I must confess. By-the-by,
Miriam, as you stand before me with your well-poised figure--your
blazing eyes--your quivering nostrils--your curling, compressed
lip--your heaving chest (always a splendid feature in your _physique_),
your folded arms, and the color coming and going in your pale-olive
cheek, in the old flame-like way I used to admire so much in your
girlhood--you are a splendid creature, by Jove! I could find it in my
heart to love you still--there, it is out at last--if it were not for
Mrs. Raymond--" glancing, as he spoke, in the direction of Mrs. Clayton,
with a knowing smile. "It was your magnificent disdain that kindled the
torch before. Beware how you revive that fanaticism of mine!"
I turned for one moment with an involuntary feeling of appeal to Mrs.
Clayton, but her cold, green eyes were quivering in accordance with the
smile that stretched her thin lips to a line of mocking mirth. One
glimpse of sympathy would have carried me to her arms for
refuge--distasteful as she was to me in every way save one. She, like
myself, was a woman. But such perversion of all natural feeling
estranged me from her irreconcilably and forever.
I was alone; shame, humiliation, despair, possessed me; indignation, for
the insult I was forced to bear in her presence, filled my soul--I stood
with my head cast down, tears raining on my bosom, my arms dropped
nervelessly beside me, my hands clinched, my whole frame trembling with
excitement.
Slowly and one by one came those convulsive sobs--that rend and wrench
the physical frame as earthquakes do the earth. Then rose the sudden
resolve--born of volcanic impulse, irresistible to mind as is the
lava-flood to matter, sweeping before it all obstructions of reason,
habit, expediency.
If it cost me my life I would avenge myself on this tiger, thirsting for
my blood; I would anticipate him in his work of destruction, and the
strength of Samson seemed to permeate my frame.
It was strange that at that moment of cold, impetuous energy I forgot
the steel I carried in my bosom, and thought only of the power I bore in
my own hands. I determined to strangle him with my strong, elastic
fingers, of which I knew full well the powerful grasp.
The consequences were as cobwebs in my estimate--compared to the ecstasy
of such revenge--for all this flashed through my brain with the swift
vividness of lightning, and in less than thirty seconds after his last
remark this matter was matured. The woman prevailed over the lady.
I raised my eyes slowly and dashed away my tears, preparatory to the
onset. He was looking at me wonder-struck, and, perhaps, with something
like compunction in his face as I met his gaze. He must have read an
expression that appalled him in those dilated eyes of mine that
confronted his, for, as I sprang toward him, he bounded backward and
escaped through the door of Mrs. Clayton's chamber, which he shot after
him with undignified alertness. I stood smiling, and strangely cold,
leaning against the mantel-shelf, while my heart beat as though, it
would have leaped from my throat, and I could feel the pallor of my face
as chill as marble.
Mrs. Clayton approached me, but I put her away with waving hands, "Go,
wretch!" I said, "woman no more, you have unsexed yourself. Leave me in
peace--your touch is poisonous."
She shrank away silently, and I stood for a while like one frozen; then
cast myself down on a chair and gave way to bitter weeping. The
flood-gates were open, and the "waters" had indeed "come in over my
soul." I had restrained my passionate inclinations until now, not only
from a sense of personal dignity, but from a determination not to play
into the hands of my enemies and captors, and all the more from such
long self-control was the revulsion potent and overwhelming.
The consciousness that Ernie was at my knee at last aroused me from the
indulgence of my grief, and I looked down to meet his corn passionate
and inquiring eyes fixed upon me with a masterful expression I have
never seen in any other childish face. It thrilled me to the heart.
"What Mirry cry for--is God mad with Mirry?" he asked at length.
"It seems so, Ernie--yet oh, no, no! I cannot, will not believe in such
injustice on the part of the Most High!" I pursued in sad soliloquy,
with folded hands, and shaking head, and musing eyes fixed on the fire
before me: "My God will not forsake me!"
"Did the bad man hurt Mirry?" he asked, leaning with both arms on my lap
and putting up his hand to touch my face.
"Yes, very cruelly, Ernie."
"Big giant will come and kill him, and fayways put him in the river, and
the old wolf wat eat Red Riding Hood eat him, and then the devil will
roast him for his dinner."
I could but smile, albeit through my tears, at the climax of these
threats which seemed to delight and stir the inmost soul of Ernie. His
eyes flashed, his cheek crimsoned, his wide red mouth curled with
disdainful ire, disclosing the small, pointed pearls within; he seemed
transfigured.
"And Ernie! what will Ernie do for Mirry?" I asked, as I watched the
workings of his expressive face. "Will Ernie let the wicked man kill
Mirry?"
He looked at his small hands and arms, then extended them wistfully.
"Ernie will tell good Jesus," he said, "and he will make Ernie grow
big--ever so big--to tie the man and put him in a bag like Clayton's
cat."
The burlesque was irresistible, and none the less so that the child was
so direfully in earnest. To his infant imagination no worse disaster
than had befallen Clayton's cat could be devised. This animal, adored by
him, had been bagged and exiled, perhaps drowned for aught I know, for
stealing cheese from the cupboard sacred to Clayton, by that vengeful
potentate, to the despair of Ernie. The idolized kittens, too, which had
followed her, had disappeared with their mother, and days of infant
melancholy ensued, during which the canaries before referred to were
brought as substitutes. The faithful heart still clung to its feline
passion, it was evident, though for weeks the memory of that hapless cat
had been ignored and its name unmentioned.
I believe, after my momentary wrath was over, I should have been content
with the punishment suggested by the child, as sufficient even for Basil
Bainrothe.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: The raft on which Miss Lamarque and her family had found
refuge had been swept by the tempest of nearly every soul that clung to
it, after a terrible night of storm and rain, during which that
courageous lady--that Sybarite of society--sustained the fainting souls
of her companions by singing the grand anthems of her Church, in a voice
loud, clear, and sweet as that of a dying swan. One child was saved of
the nine little ones, and the brother and sister remained almost alone
on the raft. Let it be here mentioned that, at no period of her
subsequent life, a long and apparently prosperous one, could Miss
Lamarque bear to hear the circumstances of the wreck alluded to. Mr.
Dunmore and his companions found a watery grave.]