LIFE AND DEATH.
XIV.
MISS BELINDA HAS A QUESTION TO DECIDE.
“I pray you in your letters,
* * * * *
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.”
—OTHELLO.
Miss Belinda sitting before her bedroom fire on a certain windy night in
January, presented a picture of the most profound thought. A year had
elapsed since, with heavy heart and moistened eye, she had bidden
good-bye to the child of her care, and beheld her drift away with her
new friend into a strange and untried life. And now a letter had come
from that friend, in which with the truest appreciation for the feelings
of herself and sister, he requested their final permission to adopt
Paula as his own child and the future occupant of his house and heart.
Yes, after a year of increased comfort, Mrs. Sylvester, who would never
have consented to receive as her own any child demanding care or
attention, had decided it was quite a different matter to give place and
position to a lovely girl already grown, whose beauty was sufficiently
pronounced to do credit to the family while at the same time it was of a
character to heighten by contrast her own very manifest attractions. So
the letter, destined to create such a disturbance in the stern and
powerful mind of Miss Belinda, had been written and dispatched.
And indeed it was matter for the gravest reflection. To accede to this
important request was to yield up all control over the dear young girl
whose affection had constituted the brightness of this somewhat
disappointed life, while to refuse an offer made with such evident love
and anxiety, was to bring a pang of regret to a heart she hesitated to
wound. The question of advantage which might have swayed others in their
decision, did not in the least affect Miss Belinda. Now that Paula had
seen the world and gained an insight into certain studies beyond the
reach of her own attainments, any wishes in which she might have
indulged on that score were satisfied, and mere wealth with its
concomitant of luxuriant living, she regarded with distrust, and rather
in the light of a stumbling-block to the great and grand end of all
existence.
Suddenly with that energy which characterized all her movements, she
rose from her seat, and first casting a look of somewhat cautious
inquiry at the recumbent figure of her sister, asleep in the heavy old
fashioned bed that occupied one corner of the room, she proceeded to a
bureau drawer and took out a small box which she unlocked on the table.
It was full of letters; those same honest epistles, which, as empowered
by Mr. Sylvester, she had requested Paula to send her from week to week.
Some of them were a year old, but she read them all carefully through,
while the clock ticked on the shelf and the wind soughed in the chimney.
Certain passages she marked, and when she had finished the pile, she
took up the letters again and re-read those passages. They were
necessarily desultory in their character, but they all had, in her mind
at least, a bearing upon the question on hand, and as such, I give them
to my readers.
* * * * *
“O aunty, I have made a friend, a sweet girl friend who I have reason to
hope will henceforth be to me as my other eye and hand. Her name is
Stuyvesant—a name by the way that always calls up a certain complacent
smile on Cousin Ona’s countenance—and she is the daughter of one of the
directors of Mr. Sylvester’s bank. I met her in a rather curious way.
For some reason Ona had expressed a wish for me to ride horseback. She
is rather too large for the exercise herself, but thought it looked
well, she said, to see a lady and groom ride from the front of the
house; moreover it would keep me in color by establishing my health. So
Mr. Sylvester who denies her nothing, promised us horses and the groom,
and as a preparation for acquitting myself with credit, has sent me to
one of the finest riding academies in the city. It was here I met Miss
Stuyvesant. She is a small interesting-looking girl whose chief beauty
lies in her expression which is certainly very charming. I was conscious
of a calm and satisfied feeling the moment I saw her. Her eyes which are
raised with a certain appeal to your face, are blue, while her lips that
break into smiles only at rare moments, are rosy and delicately curved.
In her riding-habit she looks like a child, but when dressed for the
street she surprises you with the reserved and womanly air with which
she carries her proud head. Altogether she is a sweet study to me,
alluring me with her glance yet awing me by her dainty ladyhood, a
ladyhood too unconscious to be affected and yet so completely a part of
her whole delicate being, that you could as soon dissociate the bloom
from the rose, as the air of highborn reserve, from this sweet scion of
one of New York’s oldest families.
“I was mounting my horse when our eyes first met, and I never shall
forget her look of delighted surprise. Did she recognize in me the
friend I now hope to become? Later we were introduced by Mr. Sylvester
who had been so kind as to accompany me that day. The way in which he
said to her, ‘This is Paula,’ proved that I was no new topic of
conversation between them, and indeed she afterwards explained to me
that she had been forewarned of my arrival during an afternoon call at
his house. There was in this first interview none of the unnecessary
gush which you have so often reprobated as childish; indeed Miss
Stuyvesant is not a person with whom one would presume to be familiar,
nor was it till we had met several times that any acknowledgement was
made of the mutual interest with which we found ourselves inspired.
Cousin Ona to whom I had naturally spoken of the little lady, wished me
to cultivate her acquaintance more assiduously, but I knew that if I had
excited in her the same interest she had awakened in me, this would not
be necessary; our friendship would grow of itself and blossom without
any hot-house forcing. And so it did. One day she came to the
riding-school with her eyes like stars and her cheeks like the oleanders
in your sitting-room. Her brightness was so contagious, I stepped up to
her. But she greeted me with almost formal reserve, and mounting her
horse, proceeded to engage in her usual exercise. I was not hurt; I
recognized the presence of some thought or feeling which made a barrier
around her sensitive nature, and duly respected it. Mounting my own
horse, I rode around the ring which is the somewhat limited field of my
present equestrian efforts, and waited. For I knew from the looks which
she cast me every now and then, that the flower of our friendship was
outgrowing its sheath and would soon burst into the bud of perfect
understanding. At the end of the lesson we approached each other. I do
not know how it was done, but we walked home together, or rather I
accompanied her to the stoop of her house, and before we parted we had
exchanged those words which give emphasis to a sentiment long cherished
but now for the first time avowed. Miss Stuyvesant and I are friends,
and I feel as though a new stream of enjoyment had opened in my breast.
“The fact that I still call her by this formal title instead of her very
pretty name of Cicely, proves the nature of the respect she inspires
even in the breasts of her girlish associates.”
“Why is it that I frequently hesitate as I go up the stairs and look
about me with a vague feeling of apprehension? The bronze figure of
Luxury that adorns the landing, wears no semblance of terror to the
wildest imagination, and yet I often find myself seized by an
inexplicable shudder as I hurry past it; and once I actually looked
behind me with the same sensation as if some one had plucked me by the
sleeve.
“It is a folly; for recording which, I make my excuses.”
* * * * *
“Cousin Ona has decided that I must never wear colors. ‘Soft grays, my
dear, dead blacks and opaque whites are all that you need to bring out
the fine contrast of your hair and complexion; the least hint of blue or
pink would destroy it.’ So she says and so I must believe, for who else
has made such a study of the all important subject of dress. Behold me,
then, arrayed for my first reception in a colorless robe of rich silk to
which Ona after long consideration allowed me to add some ornaments of
plain gold with which Mr. Sylvester has kindly presented me. But I think
more of the people I am going to meet than of anything else, though I
enjoy the home-feeling which a pretty dress gives me, as well as a
violet does its bright blue coat.”
* * * * *
“I have heard a great preacher! What shall I say? At first it seems as
if nothing could express my joy and satisfaction. The sapling that is
shaken to its root by the winds of heaven, keeps silence I imagine. But
O Aunty, if my smallness makes me quake, it also makes me feel. What
gates of thought have been opened to me! What shining tracks of inquiry
pointed out! I feel as if I had been shown a path where angels walked.
Can it be that such words have been uttered every week of my life and I
in ignorance of them? It is like the revelation of the ocean to
unaccustomed eyes. Henceforth small things must seem like pebble stones
above which stretch innumerable heavenly vistas. It is not so much that
new things have been revealed to me as that old things have been made
strangely eloquent. The voice of a daisy on the hill side, the breath of
thunder in the mountain gorges, the blossoming of a child’s smile under
its mother’s eye, the fact that golden portals are opened in every life
for the coming and going of the messengers of God, all have been made
real to me, real as the voice of the Saviour to his disciples as they
walked in the fields or started back awe-stricken from the stupendous
vision of the cross. It is a solemn thing to see one’s humble thoughts
caught by the imagination of a great mind and carried on and up into
regions you never realized existed.
“I was so burdened with joy that I could not forbear asking Mr.
Sylvester if he did not feel as if the whole face of the world had
changed since we entered those holy doors. He did not respond with the
glad ‘Yes’ for which I hoped, and though his smile was very kind, I
could not help wondering what it was that sometimes fell between us like
a veil.”
“O Aunty, how my heart does yearn towards Mr. Sylvester at times! As I
see him sitting with clouded brow in the midst of so much that ought to
charm and enliven him, I ask myself if the advantages of wealth
compensate for all this care and anxiety. But I notice he is much more
cheerful now than when I first came. Ona says he is in danger of losing
the air of melancholy reserve which made him look so distinguished, but
I think we can spare a little of such doubtful distinguishment for the
sake of the smiles with which he now and then indulges us.”
* * * * *
“I feel as if a hand had gripped my throat. Cousin Ona spoke to Mr.
Sylvester this morning in a way that made my very heart stand still. And
yet it was only a simple, ‘Follow your own judgment, Mr. Sylvester.’ But
how she said it! Do these languid women carry venom in their tongues? I
had always thought she was of too easy a disposition to feel anger or
display it; but the spring of a serpent is all the deadlier for his long
silent basking in the sun. O pardon me for making such a frightful
allusion. But if you had seen her and heard Mr. Sylvester’s sigh as he
turned and left the room!”
* * * * *
“Mr. Bertram Sylvester has awakened my deepest interest. His uncle has
told me his story, which alone of all the things I have heard in this
house, I do not feel at liberty to repeat, and it has aroused in me
strange thoughts and very peculiar emotions. He is devoted to some one
we do not know, and the idea surrounds him in my eyes with a sort of
halo that you would perhaps call fanciful, but which I am nevertheless
bound to reverence. He does not know that I am acquainted with his
story. I wish he did and would let me speak the words that rise to my
lips whenever I see him or hear him play.”
* * * * *
“There are moments when I long to flee back to Grotewell. It is when
Cousin Ona comes in from shopping with a dozen packages to be opened and
commented upon, or when Mrs. Fitzgerald has been here or some other of
her ultra-fashionable acquaintances. The atmosphere of the house for
hours after either of the above occurrences is too heavy for breathing.
I have to go away and clear my brain by a brisk walk or a look into
Knœdler’s or Schaus’.”
* * * * *
“The panel where Cousin Ona’s picture used to hang, has been filled by
one of Meissonier’s most interesting studies; and though I never thought
Mr. Sylvester particularly fond of the French style of art, he seems
very well satisfied with the result. I cannot understand how Cousin Ona
can regard the misfortune to her portrait so calmly. I think it would
break my heart to see a husband look with complacency on any picture, no
matter how exquisite, that took the place of my own, especially if like
her’s, it was painted in my bridal days. I sometimes wonder if those
days are as sacred to the memory of husband and wife as I have always
imagined them to be.”
* * * * *
“Why does Cousin Ona never speak of Grotewell, and why, if by chance I
mention the name, does she drop her eyes and a shadow cross the
countenance of Mr. Sylvester?”
* * * * *
“There is a word Mr. Sylvester uses in the most curious way; it is
_fuss_. He calls everything a fuss that while insignificant in size or
character has power either to irritate or please. A fly is a fuss; so is
a dimple in a girl’s cheek or a figure that goes wrong in accounts. I
have even heard him call a child, ‘That dear little fuss.’ Bertram
unconsciously imitates his uncle in this peculiar mannerism and is often
heard alluding to this or that as a _fuss of fusses_. Indeed they say
this use of the word is a peculiarity of the Sylvester family.”
* * * * *
“I think from the way Mr. Sylvester spoke yesterday, that he must have
experienced some dreadful trouble in his life. We were walking in the
wards of a hospital—that is, Miss Stuyvesant, Mr. Sylvester and
myself—when some one near us gave utterance to the trite expression, ‘O
it will heal, but the scar will always remain.’ ‘That is a common
saying,’ remarked Mr. Sylvester, ‘but how true a one no one realizes but
he who carries the scar.’”
* * * * *
“It may be imagination or simply the effect of increased appreciation on
my part, but it does seem as if Miss Stuyvesant grew lovelier and more
companionable each time that I meet her. She makes me think of a temple
in which a holy lamp is burning. Her very silences are eloquent, and yet
she is never _distraite_ but always cheerful and frequently the
brightest of the company. But it is a brightness without glitter, a
gentle lustre that delights you but never astonishes. I meet many sweet
girls in the so-called heartless circles of society, but none like her.
She is my white lily on which a moonbeam rests.”
* * * * *
“This house contains a mystery, as Ona is pleased to designate the room
at the top of the house to which Mr. Sylvester withdraws when he desires
to be alone. And indeed it is a sort of Bluebeard’s chamber, in that he
keeps it rigidly under lock and key, allowing no one to enter it, not
even his wife. The servants declare that no one but himself has ever
crossed its threshold, but I can scarcely believe that. Ona has not, but
there must surely be some trusty person to whom he allots the care of
its furniture. Am I only proving myself to be a true member of my sex
when I allow that I cannot hinder my own curiosity from hovering about a
spot so religiously guarded? Yet what should we see if its doors were
thrown open? A study surrounded with books it displeases him to see
misplaced, or a luxurious apartment fitted with every appointment
necessary to rest and comfort him when he comes home tired from
business.”
* * * * *
“I never saw Mr. Sylvester angry till to-day. By some inadvertence he
went down town without locking the door of his private room, and though
he returned immediately upon missing the key from his pocket, he was
barely in time to prevent Cousin Ona from invading the spot he has
always kept so sacred from intrusion. I was not present and of course
did not hear what was said, but I caught a glimpse of his face as he
left the house, and found it quite sufficient to assure me of his
dissatisfaction. As for Ona, she declares he pulled her back as if she
had been daring the plague. ‘I do not expect to find five beautiful
wives hanging up there by their necks,’ concluded she with a forced
laugh, ‘but I shall yet see the interior of that room, if only to
establish my prerogative as the mistress of this house.’
“I do not now feel as if I wished to see it.”
* * * * *
“There is one thing that strikes me as peculiar in Miss Stuyvesant, and
that is, that as much pleasure as she seems to take in my society when
we meet, she never comes to see me in Mr. Sylvester’s house. For a long
time I wondered over this but said nothing, but one day upon receiving a
second invitation to visit her, I mentioned the fact as delicately as I
could, and was quite distressed to observe how seriously she took the
rebuke, if rebuke it could be called. ‘I cannot explain myself,’ she
murmured in some embarrassment; ‘but Mr. Sylvester’s house is closed
against me. You must not ask me to seek you there or expect me to do
myself the pleasure of attending Mrs. Sylvester’s receptions. I cannot.
Is that enough for me to say to my dearest friend?’ I hardly knew what
to reply, but finally ventured to inquire if she was restrained by any
fact that would make it undignified in me to seek her society and enjoy
the pleasures she is continually offering me. And she answered with such
a cheerful negative I was quite reassured. And so the matter is settled.
Our friendship is to be emancipated from the bonds of etiquette and I am
to enjoy her company whenever I can. To-morrow we are going to take our
first ride in the park. The horses have been bought, and much to Cousin
Ona’s satisfaction, the groom has been hired.”
* * * * *
“I was told something the other day, of a nature so unpleasant that I
should not think of repeating it, if you had not expressly commanded me
to confide to you everything that for any reason produced an effect upon
me in my new home. My informant was Sarah, the somewhat gossiping woman
whom Ona has about her as seamstress and maid. She said—and she had
spoken before I could prevent her—that the way Mrs. Sylvester took on
about her mourning at the time of little Geraldine’s death was enough to
wear out the patience of Job. She even went so far as to tell the
dressmaker that if she could not have her dress made to suit her she
would not put on mourning at all! Aunty, can you wonder that Mr.
Sylvester looks so bitterly sombre whenever mention is made of his
child? He loved it, and its own mother could worry over the fit of a
dress while his bereaved heart was breaking! I confess I can never feel
the same indulgence towards what I considered the idiosyncrasies of a
fashionable beauty again. Her smooth white skin makes me tremble; it has
never flushed with delight over the innocent smiles of her firstborn.”
* * * * *
“Mr. Sylvester is very polite to Cousin Ona and seems to yield to her
wishes in everything. But if I were she I think my heart would break
over that very politeness. But then she is one who demands formality
even from the persons of her household. I have never seen him stoop for
a kiss or beheld her even so much as lay her hand on his shoulder. But I
have observed him wait on her at moments when he was pale from weariness
and she flushed with long twilight reclinings before her sleepy boudoir
fire.”
* * * * *
“There are times when I would not exchange my present opportunities for
any others which might be afforded me. General —— dined here to-day,
and what a vision of a great struggle was raised up before me by his few
simple words in regard to Gettysburg. I did not know which to admire
most, the military bearing and vivid conversation of the great soldier,
or the ease and dignity with which Mr. Sylvester met his remarks and
answered each glowing sentence. General —— spoke a few words to me.
How gentle these lion-like men can be when they stoop their tall heads
to address little children or young women!”
* * * * *
“What a noble-hearted man Mr. Sylvester is! Mr. Turner in speaking of
him the other night, declared there is no one in his congregation who in
a quiet way does so much for the poor. ‘He is especially interested in
young men,’ said he, ‘and will leave his own affairs at any time to aid
or advise them.’ I knew Mr. Sylvester was kind, but Mr. Turner’s
enthusiasm was uncommon. He evidently admires Mr. Sylvester as much as
every one else loves him. And he is not alone in this. Almost every day
I hear some remark made of a nature complimentary to my benefactor’s
character or ability. Even Mr. Stuyvesant who so seldom appears to
notice us girls, once interrupted a conversation between Cicely and
myself to inquire if Mr. Sylvester was quite well. ‘I thought he looked
pale to-day,’ remarked he, in his dry but not unkindly way, and then
added, ‘He must not get sick; he is too valuable to us.’ This was a
great deal for Mr. Stuyvesant to say, and it caused a visible
gratification to Mr. Sylvester when I related it to him in the evening.
‘I had rather satisfy that man than any other I know,’ declared he. ‘He
is of the stern old-fashioned sort, and it is an honor to any one to
merit his approval. I did not tell him that I had also heard Mr.
Stuyvesant observe in a conversation with some business friend of his,
that Edward Sylvester was the only speculator he knew in whom he felt
implicit confidence. Somehow it always gives me an uncomfortable feeling
to hear Mr. Sylvester alluded to as a speculator. Besides since he has
entered the Bank, he has I am told, entirely restricted himself to what
are called legitimate operations.’”
* * * * *
“Mr. Sylvester came home with a dreadful look on his face to-day. We
were standing in the hall at the time the door opened, and he went by us
without a nod, almost as if he did not see us. Even Ona was startled and
stood gazing after him with an anxiety such as I had never observed in
her before, while I was conscious of that sick feeling I have sometimes
experienced when he came upon me suddenly from his small room above, or
paused in the midst of the gayest talk, to ask me some question that was
wholly irrelevant and most frequently sad.
“‘He has met with some heavy loss,’ murmured his wife, glancing down the
handsome parlors with a look such as a mother might bestow upon the face
of a sick child. But I was sure she had not sounded his trouble, and in
my impetuosity was about to fly to his side when we saw him pause before
the image of Luxury that stands on the stair, look at it for a moment
with a strange intentness, then suddenly and with a gesture of
irrepressible passion, lift his arm as if he would fell it from its
place. The action was so startling, Ona clutched my sleeve in terror,
but he passed on and in another moment we heard him shut the door of his
room.
“Would he be down to dinner? that was the next question. Ona thought
not; I did not dare to think. Nevertheless it was a great relief to me
when I saw him enter the dining-room with that set immovable look he
sometimes wears when Ona begins one of her long and rambling streams of
fashionable gossip. ‘It is nothing,’ flashed from his wife’s eyes to
mine, and she lapsed at once into her most graceful self, but she
nevertheless hastened her meal and I was quite prepared to observe her
follow him, as with the polite excuse of weariness, he left the table
before desert. I could not hear what she asked him, but his answer came
distinctly to my ears from the midst of the library to which they had
withdrawn. ‘It is nothing in which you have an interest, Ona. Thank
heaven you do not always know the price with which the splendors you so
love are bought.’ And she did not cry out, ‘O never pay such a price for
any joy of mine! Sooner than cost you so dear I would live on crusts and
dwell in a garret.’ No, she kept silence, and when in a few minutes
later I joined her in the library, it was to find on her usually placid
lips, a thin cool smile that struck like ice to my heart, and made it
impossible for me to speak.
“But the hardest trial of the day was to hear Mr. Sylvester come in at
eleven o’clock—he went out again immediately after dinner—and go up
stairs without giving me my usual good-night. It was such a grief to me
I could not keep still, but hurried to the foot of the stairs in the
hopes he would yet remember me and come back. But instead of that, he no
sooner saw me than he threw out his hand almost as if he would push me
back, and hastened on up the whole winding flight till he reached the
refuge of that mysterious room of his at the top of the house.
“I could not go back to Ona after that—she had been to make a call
somewhere with a young gentleman friend of hers;—yes on this very night
had been to make a call—but I took advantage of the late hour to retire
to my own room where for a long time I lay awake listening for his
descending step and seeing, as in a vision, the startling picture of his
lifted arm raised against the unconscious piece of bronze on the stair.
Henceforth that statue will possess for me a still more dreadful
significance.”
“It is the twenty-fifth of February. Why should I feel as if I must be
sure of the exact date before I slept?”
* * * * *
The next extract followed close on this and was the last which Miss
Belinda read.
“Mr. Sylvester seems to have recovered from his late anxiety. He does
not shrink from me any more with that half bitter, half sad expression
that has so long troubled and bewildered me, but draws me to his side
and sits listening to my talk until I feel as if I were really of some
comfort to this great and able man. Ona does not notice the change; she
is all absorbed in preparing for the visit to Washington, which Mr.
Sylvester has promised her.”
* * * * *
Miss Belinda calmly folded up the letters and locked them again in the
little mahogany box, after which she covered up the embers and quietly
went to bed. But next morning a letter was despatched to Mr. Sylvester
which ran thus:
“DEAR MR. SYLVESTER:
“For the present at least you may keep Paula with you. But I am
not ready to say that I think it would be for her best good to
be received and acknowledged as your daughter—yet. Hoping you
will appreciate the motives that actuate this decision,
“I remain, respectfully yours,
“BELINDA ANN WALTON.”
XV.
AN ADVENTURE—OR SOMETHING MORE.
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven.”—WORDSWORTH.
“_Oph._—What means this, my lord?
_Ham._—Marry, this is the miching mallecho; it means
mischief.”
—HAMLET.
A ride in the Central Park is an every-day matter to most people. It
signifies an indolent bowling over a smooth road all alive with the
glitter of passing equipages, waving ribbons and fluttering plumes, and
brightened now and then by the sight of a well known face amid the
general rush of old and young, plain and handsome, sad and gay
countenances that flash by you in one long and brilliant procession.
But to Paula and her friend Miss Stuyvesant starting out in the early
freshness of a fair April morning, it meant new life, reawakening joy,
the sparkle of young leaves just loosed from the bonds of winter, the
sweetness and promise of spring airs, and all the budding glory of a new
year with its summer of countless roses and its autumn of incalculable
glories. Not the twitter of a bird was lost to them, not the smile of an
opening flower, not the welcome of a waving branch. Youth, joy, and
innocence lived in their hearts and showed them nothing in the mirror of
nature that was not equally young, joyous and innocent. Then they were
alone, or sufficiently so. The stray wanderers whom they met sitting
under the flowering trees, were equally with themselves lovers of nature
or they would not be seated in converse with it at this early hour;
while the laugh of little children startled from their play by the
prance of their high-stepping horses, was only another expression of the
sweet but unexpressed delight that breathed in all the radiant
atmosphere.
“We are two birds who have escaped thralldom and are taking our first
flight into our natural ether,” cried Miss Stuyvesant gaily.
“We are two pioneers lit by the spirit of adventure, who have left the
cosy hearth of wintry-fires to explore the domains of the frost king,
and lo, we have come upon a Paradise of bloom and color!” responded the
ringing voice of Paula.
“I feel as if I could mount that little white cloud we see over there,”
continued Cicely with a quick lively wave of her whip. “I wonder how
Dandy would enjoy an empyrean journey?”
“From the haughty bend of his neck I should say he was quite satisfied
with his present condition. But perhaps his chief pride is due to the
mistress he carries.”
“Are you attempting to vie with Mr. Williams, Paula?”
Mr. Williams was the meek-eyed, fair complexioned gentleman, whose
predilection for compliment was just then a subject of talk in
fashionable circles.
“Only so far as my admiration goes of the most charming lady I see this
morning. But who is this?”
Miss Stuyvesant looked up. “Ah, that is some one with whom there is very
little danger of your falling in love.”
Paula blushed. The gentleman approaching them upon horseback was
conspicuous for long side whiskers of a decidedly auburn tinge.
“His name is—” But she had not time to finish, for the gentleman with a
glance of astonished delight at Paula, bowed to the speaker with a
liveliness and grace that demanded some recognition.
Instantly he drew rein. “Do I behold Miss Stuyvesant among the nymphs!”
cried he, in those ringing pleasant tones that at once predispose you
towards their possessor.
“If you allude to my friend Miss Fairchild, you certainly do, Mr.
Ensign,” the wicked little lady rejoined with a waiving of her usual
ceremony that astonished Paula.
Mr. Ensign bestowed upon them his most courtly bow, but the flush that
mounted to his brow—making his face one red, as certain of his friends
were malicious enough to observe on similar occasions—indicated that he
had been taken a little more at his word than perhaps suited even one of
his easy and proverbially careless temperament. “Miss Fairchild will
understand that I am not a Harvey Williams—at least before an
introduction,” said he with something like seriousness.
But at this allusion to the gentleman whose name had been upon their
lips but a moment before, both ladies laughed outright.
“I have just been accused of attempting the rôle of that gentleman
myself,” exclaimed Paula. “If the fresh morning air will persist in
painting such roses on ladies’ cheeks,” continued she, with a loving
look at her pretty companion “what can one be expected to do?”
“Admire,” quoth the red bannered cavalier with a glance, however, at the
beautiful speaker instead of the demure little Cicely at her side.
Miss Stuyvesant perceived this look and a curious smile disturbed the
corners of her rosy lips. “What a fortunate man to be able to do the
right thing at the right time,” laughed she, gaily touching up her horse
that was beginning to show symptoms of restlessness.
“If Miss Stuyvesant will put that in the future tense and then assure us
she has been among the prophets, I should be singularly obliged,” said
he with a touch of his hat and a smiling look at Paula that was at once
manly and gentle, careless and yet respectful.
“Ah, life is too bright for prophesies this morning. The moment is
enough.”
“Is it Miss Fairchild?” queried Mr. Ensign looking back over his
shoulder.
She turned just a bit of her cheek towards him. “What Miss Stuyvesant
declares to be true, that am I bound to believe,” said she, and with the
least little ripple of a laugh, rode on.
“It is a pity you have such a dislike for whiskers,” Cicely presently
remarked with an air of great gravity.
Paula gave a start and cast a glance of reproach at her companion. “I
did not notice his whiskers after the first word or two,” said she,
fixing her eyes on a turn of the road before them. “Such cheerfulness is
infectious. I was merry before, but now I feel as if I had been bathed
in sunshine.”
Cicely’s eyes flashed wide with surprise and her face grew serious in
earnest. “Mr. Ensign is a delightful companion,” observed she; “a room
is always brighter for his entrance; and with all that, he is the only
young man I know, who having come into a large fortune, feels any of the
responsibilities of his position. The sunshine is the result of a good
heart and pure living, and that is what makes it infectious, I suppose.”
“Let us canter,” said Paula. And so the glad young things swept on, life
breaking in bubbles around them and rippling away into unfathomable
wells of feeling in one of their pure hearts at least. Suddenly a hand
seemed to swoop from heaven and dash them both back in dismay. They had
reached one of those places where the foot path crosses the equestrian
and they had run over and thrown down a little child.
“O heaven!” cried Paula leaping from her horse, “I had rather been
killed myself.” The groom rode up and she bent anxiously over the child.
It was a boy of some seven or eight years, whose misfortune—he was
lame, as the little crutch fallen at his side sufficiently denoted—made
appear much younger. He had been struck on his arm and was moaning with
pain, but did not seem to be otherwise hurt. “Are you alone?” cried
Paula, lifting his head on her arm and glancing hurriedly about.
The little fellow raised his heavy lids and for a moment stared into her
face with eyes so deeply blue and beautiful they almost startled her,
then with an effort pointed down the path, saying,
“Dad’s over there in the long tunnel talking to some one. Tell him I got
hurt. I want Dad.”
She gently lifted him to his feet and led him out of the road into the
apparently deserted path where she made him sit down. “I am going to
find his father,” said Paula to Cicely, “I will be back in a moment.”
“But wait; you shall not go alone,” authoritatively exclaimed that
little damsel, leaping in her turn to the ground. “Where does he say his
father is?”
“In the tunnel, by which I suppose he means that long passage under the
bridge over there.”
Holding up the skirts of their riding-habits in their trembling right
hands, they hurried forward. Suddenly they both paused. A woman had
crossed their path; a woman whom to look at but once was to remember
with ghastly shrinking for a lifetime. She was wrapped in a long and
ragged cloak, and her eyes, startling in their blackness, were fixed
upon the pain-drawn countenance of the poor little hurt boy behind them,
with a gleam whose feverish hatred and deep malignant enjoyment of his
very evident sufferings, was like a revelation from the lowest pit to
the two innocent-minded girls hastening forward on their errand of
mercy.
“Is he much hurt?” gasped the woman in an ineffectual effort to conceal
the evil nature of her interest. “Do you think he will die?” with a
shrill lingering emphasis on the last word as if she longed to roll it
like a sweet morsel under her tongue.
“Who are you?” asked Cicely, shrinking to one side with dilated eyes
fixed on the woman’s hardened countenance and the white, too white hand
with which she had pointed as she spoke of the child.
“Are you his mother?” queried Paula, paling at the thought but keeping
her ground with an air of unconscious authority.
“His mother!” shrieked the woman, hugging herself in her long cloak and
laughing with fiendish sarcasm: “I look like his mother, don’t I? His
eyes—did you notice his eyes? they are just like mine, aren’t they? and
his body, poor weazen little thing, looks as if it had drawn sustenance
from mine, don’t it? His mother! O heaven!”
Nothing like the suppressed force of this invocation seething as it was
with the worst passions of a depraved human nature, had ever startled
those ears before. Clasping Cicely by the hand, she called out to the
groom behind them, “Guard that child as you would your life!” and then
flashing upon the wretched creature before her with all the force of her
aroused nature, she exclaimed, “If you are not his mother, move aside
and let us pass, we are in search of assistance.”
For an instant the woman stood awe-struck before this vision of maidenly
beauty and indignation, then she laughed and cried out with shrill
emphasis:
“When next you look like that, go to your mirror, and when you see the
image it reflects, say to yourself, ‘So once looked the woman who defied
me in the Park!’”
With a quick shudder and a feeling as if the noisome cloak of this
degraded being had somehow been dropped upon her own fair and spotless
shoulders, Paula clasped the hand of Cicely more tightly in her own, and
rushed with her down the steps that led into the underground passage
towards which they had been directed.
There were but two persons in it when they entered. A short thickset man
and another man of a slighter and more gentlemanly build. They were
engaged in talking, and the latter was bringing down his right hand upon
the palm of his left with a gesture almost foreign in its expressive
energy.
“I tell you,” declared he, with a voice that while low, reverberated
through the hollow vault above him with strange intensity, “I tell you
I’ve got my grip on a certain rich man in this city, and if you will
only wait, you shall see strange things. I don’t know his name and I
don’t know his face, but I do know what he has done, and a thousand
dollars down couldn’t buy the knowledge of me.”
“But if you don’t know his name and don’t know his face, how in the name
of all that’s mischievous are you going to know your man?”
“Leave that to me! If I once meet him and hear him talk, one more rich
man goes down and one more poor devil goes up, or I’ve not the wit that
starvation usually teaches.”
The nature of these sentences together with the various manifestations
of interest with which they were received, had for a moment deterred the
two girls in their hurried advance, but now they put away every thought
save that of the poor little creature awaiting his Dad, and lifting up
her voice, Paula said,
“Are either of you the father of a little lame lad—”
Instantly and before she could conclude, the taller of the two, who had
also been the chief speaker in the above conversation, turned, and she
saw his hand begrimed though it was with dirt and dark with many a
disgraceful trick, go to his heart in a gesture too natural to be
anything but involuntary.
“Is he hurt?” gasped he, but in how different a tone from that of the
woman who had used the same words a few minutes before. Then seeing that
the persons who addressed him were ladies and one of them at least a
very beautiful one, took off his hat with an easy action, that together
with what they had heard, proved him to be one of that most dangerous
class among us, a gentleman who has gone thoroughly and irretrievably to
the bad.
“I am afraid he is, sir,” said Paula. “He was attempting to cross the
road, and a horse advancing hurriedly, struck him.” She had not courage
to say her horse in face of the white and trembling dismay that seized
him at these words.
“Where is he?” cried he. “Where’s my poor boy?” And he bounded up the
steps, his hat still in his hand, his long unkempt locks flying, and his
whole form expressive of the utmost alarm.
“Down by the carriage road,” called out Paula, finding it impossible for
them to keep up with such haste.
“But is he much injured?” cried a smooth voice at their side.
They turned; it was the short thickset man who had been the other’s
companion in the conversation above recorded.
“We trust not,” answered Cicely; “his arm received the blow, and he
suffers very much, but we hope it is not serious;” and they hurried on.
They found the father seated on the grass holding the little fellow in
his arms. The look on his once handsome but now thoroughly corrupt and
dissipated face, made their hearts melt within them. However wicked he
might be—and that sly treacherous eye, that false impudent lip, that
settling of the whole face into the mould which Vice applies to all her
votaries, left no doubt of his complete depravity—he dearly loved his
child, and love, no matter how it is expressed, or in what garb it
appears, is a sacred and beautiful thing, and ennobles for the time
being any creature who displays it.
“’Twas a hard knock up, Dad,” came from the white lips of the child as
he felt his father’s trembling hand feel up and down his arm, “but I
guess the ‘little fellar’ can stand it.” “Little feller” was evidently
the name by which his father was accustomed to address him.
“There are no bones broken,” said the father. “To be lame and maimed too
would be—”
He did not finish, for a delicately gloved hand was here laid on his
sleeve, and a gentle voice whispered, “Money cannot pay for an injury
like that, but please accept this;” and Paula thrust a purse into his
hand.
He clutched it eagerly, but at her next request that he should tell her
where he lived that they might inquire after the boy, he shook his head
with a return of his old emphasis.
“The haunts of bats and jackals are not for ladies.” Then as he caught
sight of her pitiful face bending in farewell over the little urchin,
some remembrance perhaps of the days when he had a right to stoop to the
ear of beautiful women and walk unrebuked at their side, returned to him
from the past, and respectfully lowering his voice, he asked her name.
She gave it and he seemed to lay it away in his mind; then as the ladies
turned to remount their horses, rose and began carrying the little
fellow off. As he vanished in the turn of the path that led towards the
main entrance, they perceived a tall dark figure arise from a seat in
the distance and stand looking after him, with a leer on its face and a
malicious hugging of itself in a long black cloak, that proclaimed her
to be the same ominous being who had before so grievously startled them.
XVI.
THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES.
“And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan’s smithy.”
—HAMLET.
“Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy.”
—MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
Mrs. Sylvester reclining on the palest of blue couches, in the slanting
sunlight of an April afternoon, is a study for a painter. Not that such
inspiring loveliness breathed from her person, conspicuous as it was for
its rich and indolent grace, but because in every attitude of her large
and well formed limbs, in every raise of the thick white lids from eyes
whose natural brightness was obscured by the mist of aimless fancies,
she presented such an embodiment of luxurious ease, one might almost
imagine they were gazing upon the favorite Sultana of some eastern
court, or, to be for once poetical as the subject demands, a full blown
Egyptian lotos floating in hushed enjoyment on the placid waters of its
native stream. Indeed for all the blonde character of her beauty, there
was certainly something oriental about the physique of this favored
child of fortune. Had the tint of her skin been richened to a magnolia
bloom instead of reminding you of that description accorded to the
complexion of one of Napoleon’s sisters, that it looked like white satin
seen through pink glass, she would have passed in any Eastern market,
for a rare specimen of Circassian beauty.
But Mr. Sylvester coming home fatigued and harassed, cared little for
Circassian beauties or Oriental odalisques. It was a welcome that he
desired, and such refreshment as a quick eye and ready hand can bestow
when guided by a tender and loving heart; or so thought the watchful
Paula as she glided from her room at the sound of his step in the hall,
and met him coming weary and disheartened from the side of Ona’s couch.
The sight of her revived him at once.
“Well, little one, what have you been doing to-day?”
Instantly a shade fell over her countenance. “I hardly know how to tell
you. It has been a day of great experiences to me. I am literally shaken
with them. I have been wanting to talk to Ona about what I have seen and
heard, but thought I had best wait till you came home, for I could not
repeat the story twice.”
“What! you look pale. Nothing has happened to frighten you I hope,”
exclaimed he, leading her back to Ona’s side, who stirred a little, and
presently deigned to take an upright position.
“I do not know if it is fear or horror,” cried Paula, shuddering; “I
have seen a fearful woman—But first I ought to tell you that I took a
ride with Miss Stuyvesant in the Park this morning—”
“Yes, and persisted in going for that lady on horseback instead of
sending the groom after her, and all starting from the front of our
house,” murmured Mrs. Sylvester with lazy chagrin.
Paula smiled, but otherwise took no notice of this standing topic of
disagreement.
“It was a beautiful day,” she proceeded, “and we enjoyed it very much,
but we were so unfortunate as to run over a little boy, at that place
where the equestrian road crosses the foot path; a lame child, Mr.
Sylvester, who could not get out of our way; poor too, with a ragged
jacket on which seemed to make it all the worse.”
Ona gave a shrug with her white shoulders, that seemed to question this.
“Did you injure him very much?” queried she, with a show of interest;
not sufficient however to impair her curiosity as to the cut of one of
her nails.
“I cannot say; his little arm was struck, and when I went to pick him
up, he lay back in my lap and moaned till I thought my heart would
break. But that was not the worst that happened. As we went hurrying up
the walk to find the child’s father, we were met by a woman wrapped in a
black cloak whose long and greasy folds seemed like the symbol of her
own untold depravity. Her glance as she encountered the child writhing
in pain at my feet, made my heart stand still. It was more than
malignant, it was actually fiendish. ‘Is he hurt?’ she asked, and it
seemed as if she gloated over the question; she evidently longed to hear
that he was, longed to be told that he would die; and when I inquired if
she was his mother, she broke into a string of laughter, that seemed to
darken the daylight. ‘His mother! O yes, we look alike, don’t we!’ she
exclaimed, pointing with a mocking gesture frightful to see, first at
his eyes which were very blue and beautiful, and then at her own which
were dark as evil thoughts could make them. I never saw anything so
dreadful. Malignancy! and towards a little lame child! what could be
more horrible!”
Mr. Sylvester and his wife exchanged looks, then the former asked, “Did
she follow you, Paula?”
“No; after telling me that I—But I cannot repeat what she said,”
exclaimed the young girl with a quick shudder. “Since I came home,” she
musingly continued, “I have looked and looked at my face in the glass,
but I cannot believe that what she declared is true. There is no
similarity between us, could never have been any: I will not have it
that she ever saw in all the days of her life such a picture as that in
her glass.” And with a sudden gesture Paula started up and pointed to
herself as she stood reflected in one of the tall mirrors with which
Ona’s boudoir abounded.
“And did she dare to make any comparison between you and her own
degraded self?” exclaimed Mr. Sylvester, with a glance at the exquisite
vision of pure girlhood thus doubly presented to his notice.
“Yes, what I am, she was once, or so she said. And it may be true. I
have never suffered sorrow or experienced wrong, and cannot measure
their power to carve the human face with such lines as I beheld on that
woman’s countenance to-day. But do not let us talk of her any more. She
left us at last, and we found the child’s father. Mr. Sylvester,” she
suddenly asked, “are there to be found in this city, men occupying
honorable positions and as such highly esteemed, who like Damocles of
old, may be said to sit under the constant terror of a falling sword in
the shape of some possible disclosure, that if made, would ruin their
position before the world forever?”
Mr. Sylvester started as if he had been shot. “Paula!” cried he, and
instantly was silent again. He did not look at his wife, but if he had,
he would have perceived that even her fair skin was capable of blanching
to a yet more startling whiteness, and that her sleepy eyes could flash
open with something like expression in their lazy depths.
“I mean,” dreamily continued Paula, absorbed in her own remembrance,
“that if what we overheard said by the father of that child to-day is
true, some one of our prominent men, whose life is not all it appears,
is standing on the verge of possible exposure and shame; that a hound is
on his track in the form of a starving man; and that sooner or later he
will have to pay the price of an unprincipled creature’s silence, or
fall into public discredit like some others of whom we have lately
read.” Then as silence filled the room, she added, “It makes me tremble
to think that a man of means and seeming honor should be placed in such
a position, but worse still that we may know such a one and be ignorant
of his misery and his shame.”
“It is getting time for me to dress,” murmured Ona, sinking back on her
pillow and speaking in her most languid tone of voice. “Could you not
hasten your story a little Paula?”
But Mr. Sylvester with a hurried glance at the closing eyes of his wife,
requested on the contrary that she would explain herself more
definitely. “Ona will pardon the delay,” said he, with a set, strained
politeness that called up the least little quiver of suppressed sarcasm
about the rosy infantile lips that he evidently did not consider it
worth his while to notice.
“But that is all,” said Paula. However she repeated as nearly as she
could just what the boy’s father had said. At the conclusion Mr.
Sylvester rose.
“What kind of a looking man was he?” said that gentleman as he crossed
to the window.
“Well, as nearly as I can describe, he was tall, dark and seedy, with a
shock of black hair and a pair of black whiskers that floated on the
wind as he walked. He was evidently of the order of decayed gentleman,
and his manner of talking, especially in the profuse use he made of his
arms and hands, was decidedly foreign. Yet his speech was pure and
without accent.”
Mr. Sylvester’s face as he asked the next question was comparatively
cheerful. “Was the other man with whom he was talking, as dark and
foreign as himself?”
“O no, he was round and jovial, a little too insinuating perhaps, in his
way of speaking to ladies, but otherwise a a well enough appearing man.”
Mr. Sylvester bowed and looked at his watch. (Why do gentlemen always
consult their watches even in the face of the clock?) “Ona, you are
right,” said he, “it is time you were dressing for dinner.” And
concluding with a word or two of sympathy as to the peculiar nature of
Paula’s adventures as he called them, he hastened from the room and
proceeded to his little refuge above.
“He has not asked me what became of the child,” thought Paula, with a
certain pang of surprise. “I expected him to say, ‘Shall we not try and
see the little fellow, Paula?’ if only to allow me to explain that the
child’s father would not tell me where they lived. But the later affair
has evidently put the child out of his head. And indeed it is only
natural that a business man should be more interested in such a fact as
I have related, than in the sprained arm of a wretched creature’s
‘little feller.’” And she turned to assist Ona, who had arisen from her
couch and was now absorbed in the intricacies of an uncommonly elaborate
toilet.
“Those men did not mention any names?” suddenly queried that lady,
looking with an expression of careful anxiety, at the twist of her back
hair, in the small hand-mirror she held over her shoulder.
“No,” said Paula, dropping a red rose into the blonde locks she was so
carefully arranging. “He expressly said he did not know the name of the
person to whom he alluded. It was a strange conversation for me to
overhear, was it not?” she remarked, happy to have interested her cousin
in anything out of the domains of fashion.
“I don’t know—certainly—of course—” returned Mrs. Sylvester with some
incoherence. “Do you think red looks as well with this black as the
lavender would do?” she rambled on in her lightest tone, pulling out a
box of feathers.
Paula gave her a little wistful glance of disappointment and decided in
favor of the lavender.
“I am bound to look well to-night if I never do so again,” said Ona.
They were all going to a public reception at which a foreign lord was
expected to be present. “How fortunate I am to have a perfect little
hairdresser in my own family, without being obliged to send for some
gossipy, fussy old Madame with her stories of how such and such a one
looked when dressed for the Grand Duke’s ball, or how Mrs. So and So
always gave her more than her price because she rolled up puffs so
exquisitely.” And stopping to aid the deft girl in substituting the
lavender feather for the red rose in her hair—she forgot to ask any
more questions.
* * * * *
“Ona,” remarked her husband, coming into the room on his way down to
dinner—Mrs. Sylvester never dined when she was going to any grand
entertainment; it made her look flushed she said—“I am not in the habit
of troubling you about your family matters, but have you heard from your
father of late?”
Mrs. Sylvester turned from her jewel-casket and calmly surveyed his
face. It was fixed and formal, the face he turned to his servants and
sometimes—to his wife. “No,” said she, with a light little gesture as
though she were speaking of the most trivial matter. “In one respect at
least, papa is like an angel, his visits are few and far between.”
Mr. Sylvester’s eye-brows drew heavily together. For a man with a smile
of strange sweetness, he could sometimes look very forbidding. “_When_
was he here last?” he inquired in a tone more commanding than he knew.
She did not appear to resent it. “Let me see,” mused she. “When was it I
lost my diamond ear-ring? O I remember, it was on the eve of New Year’s
day a year ago; I recollect because I had to wear pearls with my garnet
brocade,” she pettishly sighed. “And papa came the next week, after you
had given me the money for a new pair. I have reason to remember _that_,
for not a dollar did he leave me.”
“Ona!” exclaimed her husband, shrinking back in uncontrollable surprise,
while his eyes flashed inquiringly to her ears in which two noble
diamonds were brilliantly shining.
“O,” she cried, just raising one snowy hand to those sparkling
ornaments, while a faint blush, the existence of which he had sometimes
doubted, swept over her careless face. “I was enabled to procure them in
time; but for a whole two months I had to go without diamonds.” She did
not say that she had bartered her wedding jewels to make up the sum she
needed, but he may have understood that without being told.
“And that is the last time you have seen him?” He held her eyes with
his, she could not look away.
“The very last, sir; strange to say.”
His glance shifted from her face and he turned with a bow towards the
door.
“May I ask,” she slowly inquired as he moved across the floor, “what is
the reason of this sudden interest in poor papa?”
“Certainly,” said he, pausing and looking back, not without some emotion
of pity in his glance. “I am sometimes struck with a sense of the duty I
owe you, in helping you to bear the burden of certain secret
responsibilities which I fear may sometimes prove too heavy for you.”
She gave a little rippling laugh that only sounded hollow to the image
listening in the glass. “You choose strange times in which to be
struck,” said she, holding up two dresses for his inspection, with a
lift of her brows evidently meant as an inquiry as to which he thought
the most becoming.
“Conscience is the chooser, not I,” declared he, for once allowing
himself to ignore the weighty question of dress thus propounded.
His wife gave a little toss of her head and he left the room.
“I should like Edward very much,” murmured she in a burst of confidence
to her own reflection in the glass, “if only he would not bother himself
so much about that same disagreeable conscience.”
* * * * *
“You look unhappy,” said Mr. Sylvester to Paula as they came from the
dining-room. “Have the adventures of the day made such an impression
upon you that you will not be able to enjoy the evening’s festivities?”
She lifted her face and the quick smile came.
“I do not like to see your brow so clouded,” continued he, smoothing his
own to meet her searching eye. “Smiles should sit on the lips of youth,
or else why are they so rosy.”
“Would you have me smile in face of my first glimpse of wickedness,”
asked she, but in a gentle tone that robbed her words of half their
reproach. “You must remember that I have had but little experience with
the world. I have lived all my life in a town of wholesome virtues, and
while here I have been kept from contact with anything low or base. I
have never known vice, and now all in a moment I feel as if I have been
bathed in it.”
He took her by the hand and drew her gently towards him. “Does your
whole being recoil so from evil, my Paula? What will you do in this
wicked world? What will you say to the sinner when you meet him—as you
must?”
“I don’t know; it’s a problem I have never been brought to consider. I
feel as if launched on a dismal sea for which I have neither chart nor
compass. Life was so joyous to me this morning—” a flush swept over her
cheek but he did not notice it—“I held, or seemed to hold, a cup of
white wine in my hand, but suddenly as I looked at it, it turned black
and—”
Ah, the outreach, the dismal breaking away of thought into the
unfathomable, that lies in the pause of an _and_!
“And do you refuse to drink a cup across which has fallen a shadow,”
murmured Mr. Sylvester, his eyes fixed on her face, “the inevitable
shadow of that great mass of human frailty and woe which has been
accumulating from the foundation of the world?”
“No, no, I cannot, and retain my humanity. If there is such evil in the
world, its pressure must drive it across the path of innocence.”
“And you accept the cup?”
“I must; but oh, my vanished beliefs! This morning the wine of my life
was pure and white, now it is black and befouled. What will make it
clean again?”
With a sigh Mr. Sylvester dropped her hand and turned towards the
mantle-piece. It was April as I have said, and there was no fire in the
grate, but he posed his foot on the fender and looked sadly down at the
empty hearthstone.
“Paula,” said he after a space of pregnant silence, “it had to come. The
veil of the temple must be rent in every life. Evil is too near us all
for us to tread long upon the flowers without starting up the adders
that hide beneath them. You had to have your first look into the cells
of darkness, and perhaps it is best you had it here and now. The deeps
are for men’s eyes as well as the starry heavens.”
“Yes, yes.”
“There are some persons,” he went on slowly, “you know them, who tread
the ways of life with their eyelids closed to everything but the strip
of velvet lawn on which they choose to walk. Earth’s sighs and
deep-drawn groans are nothing to them. The world may swing on in its way
to perdition; so long as their pathway feels soft, they neither heed nor
care. But you do not desire to be one of these, Paula! With your great
soul and your strong heart, you would not ask to sit in a flowery maze,
while the rest of the world went sliding on and down into wells of
destruction, you might have made pools of healing by the touch of your
womanly sympathy.”
“No, no.”
“I cannot tell you, I dare not tell you,” he went on in a strange
pleading voice that tore at the very roots of her heart, and rung in her
memory forever, “what evil underlies the whole strata of life! At home
and abroad, on our hearthstones and within our offices, the mocking
devil sits. You can scarcely walk a block, my little one, without
encountering a man or brushing against the dress of a woman across whose
soul the black shadow lies heavier than any words of his or hers could
tell. What the man you saw to-day, said of one unhappy being in this
city, is true, God help us all, of many. Dark spots are easier acquired
than blotted out, my Paula. In business as in society, one needs to
carry the white shield of a noble purpose or a self-forgetting love, to
escape the dripping of the deadly upas tree that branches above all
humanity. I have walked its ways, my darling, and I know of what I
speak. Your white robe is spotless but—”
“O there is where the pain comes in,” she cried; “there, just there, is
where the dagger strikes. She says she was once like me. O, could any
temptation, any suffering, any wrong or misfortune that might befall me,
ever bring me to where she is! If it could—”
“Paula!” This time his voice came authoritatively. “You are making too
much of a frenzied woman’s impulsive exclamation. To her darkened and
despairing eyes any young woman of a similar style of beauty would have
called forth the same remark. It was a sign that she was not entirely
given up to evil, that she could remember her youth. Instead of feeling
contaminated by her words, you ought to feel, that unconsciously to
yourself, your fresh young countenance with its innocent eyes did an
angel’s work to-day. They made her recall what she was in the days of
her own innocence; and who can tell what may follow such a
recollection.”
“O Mr. Sylvester,” said she, “you fill me with shame. If I could think
that—”
“You can, nothing appeals to the heart of crime like the glance of
perfect innocence. If evil walks the world, God’s ministers walk it
also, and none can tell in what glance of the eye or what touch of the
hand, that ministry will speak.”
It was her turn now to take his hand in hers. “O how good, how
thoughtful you are; you have comforted me and you have taught me. I
thank you very much.”
With a look she did not perceive, he drew his hand away. “I am glad I
have helped you, Paula; there is but one thing more to say, and this I
would emphasize with every saddened look you have ever met in all your
life. Great sins make great sufferers. Side by side came the two
dreadful powers of vice and retribution into the world, and side by side
will they keep till they sink at last into the awful deeps of the
bottomless pit. When you turn your back on a man who has committed a
crime, one more door shuts in his darkened spirit.”
The tears were falling from Paula’s eyes now. He looked at them with
strange wistfulness and involuntarily his hand rose to her head,
smoothing her locks with fatherly touches. “Do not think,” said he,
“that I would lessen by a hair’s breadth your hatred of evil. I can more
easily bear to see the shadow upon your cup of joy than upon the banner
of truth you carry. These eyes must lose none of their inner light in
glancing compassionately on your fellow-men. Only remember that divinity
itself has stooped to rescue, and let the thought make your contact with
weary, wicked-hearted humanity a little less trying and a little more
hopeful to you. And now, my dear, that is enough of serious talk for
to-day. We are bound for a reception, you know, and it is time we were
dressing. Do you want me to tell you a secret?” asked he in a light
mysterious tone, as he saw her eyes still filling.
She glanced up with sudden interest.
“I know it is treason,” resumed he, “I am fully aware of the grave
nature of my offence; but Paula I hate all public receptions, and shall
only be able to enjoy myself to-night just so much as I see that you are
doing so. Life has its dark portals and its bright ones. This is one
that you must enter with your most brilliant smiles.”
“And they shall not be lacking,” said she. “When a treasure-box of
thought is given us, we do not open it and scatter its contents abroad,
but lay it away where the heart keeps its secrets, to be opened in the
hush of night when we are alone with our own souls and God.”
He smiled and she moved towards the door. “None the less do we carry
with us wherever we go, the remembrance of our hidden treasure,” she
smilingly added, looking back upon him from the stair.
And again as upon the first night of her entrance into the house, did he
stand below and watch her as she softly went up, her lovely face
flashing one moment against the dark background of the luxurious bronze,
towering from the platform behind, then glowing with faint and fainter
lustre, as the distance widened between them and she vanished in the
regions above.
She did not see the toss of his arm with which he threw off the burden
that rested upon his soul.
XVII.
GRAVE AND GAY.
“No scandal about Queen Elizabeth I hope.”
—SHERIDAN.
“Stands Scotland where it did?”
—MACBETH.
“Who is that talking with Miss Stuyvesant?” asked Mr. Sylvester,
approaching his wife during one of the lulls that will fall at times
upon vast assemblies.
Mrs. Sylvester followed the direction of his glance and immediately
responded, “O that is Mr. Ensign, one of the best _partis_ of the
season. He evidently knows where to pay his court.”
“I inquired because he has just requested me to honor him with a formal
introduction to Paula.”
“Indeed! then oblige him by all means; it would be a great match for
her. To say nothing of his wealth, he is _haut ton_, and his red
whiskers will not look badly beside Paula’s dark hair.”
Mr. Sylvester frowned, then sighed, but in a few minutes Paula observed
him approaching with Mr. Ensign. At once her hitherto pale cheek
flushed, but the young gentleman did not seem to object to that, and
after the formal introduction which he had sought was over, he exclaimed
in his own bright ringing tones,
“The fates have surely forgotten their usual rôle of unpropitiousness. I
did not dare hope to meet you here to-night, Miss Fairchild. Was the
ride all that your fancy painted?”
“O,” said she, speaking very low and glancing around, “do not allude to
it here. We had an adventure shortly after you parted from us.”
“An adventure! and no cavalier at your side! If I could but have known!
Was it so serious?” he inquired in a moment, seeing her look grave.
“Ask Miss Stuyvesant;” said she. “I cannot talk about it any more
to-night. Besides the music carries off one’s thoughts. It is like a
joyous breeze that whirls away the thistle-down whether it will or no.”
He gave her a short quick look grave enough in its way, but responded
with his usual graceful humor, “The thistle-down is too vicious a sprite
to be beguiled away so easily. If I were to give my opinion on the
subject, I should say there was method in its madness. If you have been
brought up in the country, as I suspect from your remark, you must know
that the white floating ball is not as harmless as it would lead you to
imagine. It is a meddlesome nobody, that’s what it is, and like some
country gossips I know, launches forth from a pure love of mischief to
establish his prickers in his neighbor’s field.”
“_His!_ I thought it must be feminine at least to fulfill the conditions
you mention. A male gossip, O fie! I shall never have patience with a
thistle-ball after this.”
“Well,” laughed he, “I did start with the intention of making it
feminine, but I caught a glimpse of your eyes and lost my courage. I did
what I could,” added he with a mirthful glance.
“So do the thistles,” cried she. Then while both voices joined in a
merry laugh, she continued, “But where have we strayed? For a moment it
seemed as if we were on the hills at Grotewell; I could almost see the
blue sky.”
“And I,” said he, with his eyes on her face.
“I am sure the brooks bubbled.”
“I distinctly heard a bird singing.”
“It was a whippowill.”
“But my name is Clarence?”
And here both being young and without a care in the world, they laughed
again. And the crowded perfumed room seemed to freshen as with a whiff
of mountain air.
“You love the country, Miss Fairchild?”
“Yes;” and her smile was the reflection of the summer-lands that arose
before her at the word. “With the right side of my heart do I love the
spot where nature speaks and man is dumb.”
“And with the left?”
“I love the place where great men congregate to face their destiny and
control it.”
“The latter is the deeper love,” said he.
She nodded her head and then said, “I need both to make me happy.
Sometimes as I walk these city streets, I feel as if my very longing to
escape to the heart of the hills, would carry me there. I remember when
I was a child, I was one day running through a meadow, when suddenly a
whole flock of birds flew up from the grass and surrounded my head. I
was not sure but what I should be caught up and carried away by the
force of their flight; and when they rose to mid heaven, something in my
breast seemed to follow them. So it is often with me here, only that it
is the rush of my thoughts that threatens such a Hegira. Yet if I were
to be transported to my native hills, I know I should long to be back
again.”
“The mountain lassie has wandered into the courts of the king. The
perfume of palaces is not easily forgotten.”
Her eye turned towards Mr. Sylvester standing near them upright and
firm, talking to a group of attentive gentlemen every one of whom
boasted a name of more than local celebrity. “Without a royal heart to
govern, there would be no palace;” said she, and blushed under a sudden
sense of the possible interpretation he might give to her words, till
the rose in her hand looked pallid.
But he had followed her glance and understood her better than she
thought. “And Mr. Sylvester has such a heart, so a hundred good fellows
have told me. You are fortunate to see the city from the loop-hole of
such a home as his.”
“It is more than a loop-hole,” said she.
“Of that I shall never be satisfied till I see it?”
And being content with the look he received, he took her on his arm and
led her into the midst of the dancers.
Meanwhile in a certain corner not far off, two gentlemen were talking.
“Sylvester shows off well to-night.”
“He always does. With such a figure as that, a man needs but to enter a
room to make himself felt. But then he’s a good talker too. Ever heard
him speak?”
“No.”
“Fine voice, true snap, right ring. Great favorite at elections. The
fact is, Sylvester is a remarkable man.”
“Hum, ha, so I should judge.”
“And so fortunate! He has never been known to run foul in a great
operation. Put your money in his hand and whew!—your fortune is as good
as made.”
The other, a rich man, connected heavily with the mining business in
Colorado, smiled with that bland overflow of the whole countenance which
is sometimes seen in large men of great self-importance.
“It’s a pity he’s gone out of Wall Street,” continued his companion.
“The younger fry feel now something like a flock of sheep that has lost
its bell-wether.”
“They straggle—eh?” returned his portly friend with an increase of his
smile that was not altogether pleasant. “So Sylvester has left Wall
Street?”
“He closed his last enterprise two weeks before accepting the Presidency
of the Madison Bank. Stuyvesant is down on speculation, and well—It
looks better you know; the Madison Bank is an old institution, and
Sylvester is ambitious. There’ll be no reckless handling of funds
_there_.”
“No!” What was there in that _no_ that made the other look up? “I’m not
acquainted with Sylvester myself. Has he much family?”
“A wife—there she is, that handsome woman talking with Ditman,—and a
daughter, niece or somebody who just now is setting all our young
scapegraces by the ears. You can see her if you just crane your neck a
little.”
“Humph, ha, very pretty, very pretty. How much do you suppose Mrs.
Sylvester is worth as she stands, diamonds you know, and all that?”
“Well I should say some where near ten thousand; that sprig in her hair
cost a clean five.”
“So, so. They live in a handsome house I suppose?”
“A regular palace, corner of Fifth Avenue and ——”
“All his?”
“Nobody’s else I reckon.”
“Sports horses and carriage I suppose?”
“Of course.”
“Yacht, opera box?”
“No reason why he shouldn’t.”
“What is his salary?”
“A nominal sum, five or ten thousand perhaps.”
“Owns good share of the bank’s stock I presume?”
“Enough to control it.”
“Below par though?”
“A trifle, going up, however.”
“And _don’t_ speculate?”
The way this man drawled his words was excessively disagreeable.
“Not that any one knows of. He’s made his fortune and now asks only to
enjoy it.”
The man from the West strutted back and looked at his companion
knowingly. “What do you think of my judgment, Stadler?”
“None better this side of the Pacific.”
“Pretty good at spying out cracks, eh?”
“I wouldn’t like to undertake the puttying up that would deceive you.”
“Humph! Well then, mark this. In two months from to-day you will see Mr.
Sylvester rent his house and go south for his health, or the pretty one
over there will marry one of the scapegraces you mention, who will lend
the man _who don’t engage in any further ventures_, more than one or two
hundred thousand dollars.”
“Ha, you know something.”
“I own mines in Colorado and I have my points.”
“And Mr. Sylvester?”
“Will find them too sharp for him.”
And having made his joke, he yielded to the other’s apparent
restlessness, and they sauntered off.
They did not observe a pale, demure, little lady that sat near them
abstractedly nodding her dainty head to the remarks of a pale-whiskered
youth at her side, nor notice the emotion with which she suddenly rose
at their departure and dismissed her chattering companion on some
impromptu errand. It was only one of the ordinary group of dancers, a
pretty, plainly dressed girl, but her name was Stuyvesant.
Rising with a decision that gave a very attractive color to her cheeks,
she hastily looked around. A trio of young gentlemen started towards her
but she gave them no encouragement; her eye had detected Mr. Sylvester’s
tall figure a few feet off and it was to him she desired to speak. But
at her first movement in his direction, her glance encountered another
face, and like a stream that melts into a rushing torrent, her purpose
seemed to vanish, leaving her quivering with a new emotion of so vivid a
character she involuntarily looked about her for a refuge.
But in another instant her eyes had again sought the countenance that
had so moved her, and finding it bent upon her own, faltered a little
and unconsciously allowed the lilies she was carrying to drop from her
hand. Before she realized her loss, the face before her had vanished,
and with it something of her hesitation and alarm.
With a hasty action she drew near Mr. Sylvester. “Will you lend me your
arm for a minute?” she asked, with her usual appealing look rendered
doubly forcible by the experience of a moment before.
“Miss Stuyvesant! I am happy to see you.”
Never had his face looked more cheerful she thought, never had his smile
struck her more pleasantly.
“A little talk with a little girl will not hinder you too much, will
it?” she queried, glancing at the group of gentlemen that had shrunk
back at her approach.
“Do you call that hindrance which relieves one from listening to
quotations of bank stock at an evening reception?”
She shook her head with a confused movement, and led him up before a
stand of flowering exotics.
“I want to tell you something,” she said eagerly but with a marked
timidity also, the tall form beside her looked so imposing for all its
encouraging bend. “I beg your pardon if I am doing wrong, but papa
regards you with such esteem and—Mr. Sylvester do you know a man by the
name of Stadler?”
Astonished at such a question from lips so young and dainty, he turned
and surveyed her for a moment with quick surprise. Something in her
aspect struck him. He answered at once and without circumlocution. “Yes,
if you refer to that spry keen-faced man, just entering the
supper-room.”