NOW that Fred Lawrence had come home, there was no need of going so
often to Hope Terrace, Sylvie thought. Time never hung heavy on her
hands; for she was not indolent, and there were friends and pleasures.
Miss Barry had a conscientious misgiving that Sylvie ought to be taken
about like other young ladies; but she shrank from fashionable life
herself, and could not resolve to trust her darling with any other
person. Beside, Sylvie always seemed contented.
She was content indeed; at least, with her home and her aunt. Up-stairs,
just out of her sleeping-chamber, she had a studio, chosen because this
room, of all in the house, had the finest view in summer, when the tall
old trees shut out so much. From here there were two exquisite
perspectives. The trees and houses were so arranged that a long, arrowy
ray of light penetrated through a narrow space over to a small rise of
ground called Berry Hill on account of its harvest of blueberries. Two
old, scraggy, immense oak-trees still remained; and she used to watch
them from their first faint green to the blood-red and copper tints of
autumn, when the sun shone through them. Down behind he dropped when the
day was done; sometimes a ball of fire, at others bathed in roseate
hues, tinged with all the wondrous grades of color, and making fleecy
islands in a far-off, weird world, dream-haunted. She used to study the
grand effects of shifting light, that made the hill bold and strong, or
fused it into dreamy harmonies that seemed to have the subtile essence
of music; then contrasts that were abrupt and apparently dissonant,
quite against well-known edicts of human taste. Who was right,--the
great Author of all? She smiled to herself when she heard people talk so
glibly of nature, as if the one little rose-leaf were the whole world.
The other picture held in its soft, still, light, an old-fashioned,
low-gabled house with wide eaves; a broad doorway, with the upper half
always open in summer; a well with curb and sweep and bucket where
farm-hands came to drink; a pond with a shady side, where cows herded in
their peaceful fashion, wading knee-deep on hot days, chewing their cud
contentedly at others, browsing through golden hours; fields of glowing
grain, then tawny stubble, a bit of corn with nodding tassels, and not
infrequently a group of children, picturesque in this far light. It all
stood out with the clearness of a stereoscope.
She had her ambitions too, this bright little girl. They were tinctured
with the crudeness of youth, and its boundless vision, it is true; and
sometimes the passion of despair seized her soul in a cold grasp, when
she felt hemmed in on every side, and longed for some opening, some step
in the great world higher than fashionable frivolity.
Miss Barry had no taste for famous women. They were well enough in the
world: she paid a proper and polite deference to Mrs. Somerville, Mrs.
Browning, and Rosa Bonheur,--that kind of intellectual deference that
sets them out of the sphere of ordinary women. Wives and mothers were
better for the every-day life of the world; since pictures and poetry
were luxuries, accessories, but not home or food or clothes. Though she
had missed her woman's destiny, she had not lost faith in it; though she
had held out her hand to the woman who had made shipwreck of her own
life for the wild, graceless brother's sake, she still looked on clear
seas and smooth sailing as possible for lovers' barks. In her plans for
Sylvie there was a fine, manly, generous husband; a love so sweet and
entire that the girl should forget her restless yearnings; baby hands to
cling to her, baby lips to press, young lives to mould, and a future to
plan for others.
Miss Barry believed in work devoutly, but gentlewomen had a firm place
in her creed. The paintings and music were well enough as
accomplishments, and she was proud of them; but she delicately repressed
the other dreams and desires until Sylvie ceased to speak of them except
to her friend Jack.
Miss Barry had experienced some anxiety on this point, it must be
confessed. You would never have perceived it from the wise little
woman's face or any tone of her voice. She went more frequently to the
Darcys of an evening with Sylvie: she rolled her easy-chair and
work-table to the opposite side of the sitting-room, where it commanded
a view of the piano and the sofa in the parlor, the door being always
open. She could hear and see, she could make pleasant, trenchant
remarks: indeed, she was one of themselves, as young in heart, if the
hair did glisten silvery under the bit of exquisite thread-lace that did
duty as an apology for a cap.
Jack and Sylvie were not lovers. A rare good friendship it was, more
perfect than brotherly and sisterly regard, in that it held no
duty-element, and was spontaneous. Sylvie never laughed at Jack in his
awkward boyish days: he had never tormented her small belongings as
brothers are wont to do.
Miss Barry feared the flame might be easily fanned. A little opposition
or warning would bring Sylvie's innocent wandering thoughts to a focus,
and kindle the fire. She was very wary. She trusted Sylvie to Jack with
an air that said, "You are too honorable to betray the confidence I
repose in you."
The old class prejudice spoke out in this covert objection to Jack as
a suitor. She honored him sincerely for giving up the dreams of
ambitious and energetic manhood to stay at home and comfort these two
delicate women. Yet (strange contradiction) she had a half fancy that it
betokened weakness or lack of some kind in the very content with which
he seemed to go about his daily duties. Alas for consistency! We preach
content from the pulpit on Sunday, and on Monday glance with quiet
contempt on our plodding neighbor, who can commune with the daisies by
the wayside, while there is gold lying untroubled in desert gulches.
Honest, sturdy Jack, taking up the duty of to-day cheerfully with a
manful endurance, because the hands holding his fate were too weak and
tender to be wrestled with, and that in his large, generous soul he
could not war on a smaller antagonist, neither was it his nature to
continually thrust any sacrifice he might make before the eyes of the
one he was benefiting. How much silent heroism goes unpraised in the
world, while we stand on the highways, and prate of our discrimination,
our quick insight! Jack might be praised for his self-denial, but the
higher appreciation was withheld. Even Sylvie was fretted at times,
because he would get interested in all things pertaining to the mill.
Miss Barry said to herself, "It is best that Sylvie should marry in her
own circle, a man of cultivation, refinement, and position. Jack is a
dear good fellow, but not the person to satisfy her for a lifetime."
Jack thought nothing at all about it. He never gave up the idea of a
great wide world, where he could have a hand-to-hand struggle with
something as powerful as himself. He had come to no dreams of wife and
children. He did like Sylvie with all his big, honest heart. If she had
fallen in love with him, and betrayed it by some girlish sign, he would
have been startled at first, then thought it over in his slow, careful
way, asked her to marry him, and loved her devotedly all his days,
leaving the dreams to the past with a tender benediction.
But Sylvie was no more in love than he.
As I said, she decided that she was not needed at Hope Terrace, and
staid away four days. Then the carriage came, with a beseeching note.
Had Fred gone again?
She found him there in all his elegant listlessness. It exasperated her
strangely.
"What have you been about, Sylvie?" cried Mrs. Lawrence. "Is your aunt
ill? It seems a full week since you were here."
"Oh, no!" with her beguiling little smile. "I cannot tell exactly what,
only I thought"--
"You thought because Fred was home I would need no one else! As if a
love-story would not bore him, and an invalid's whims--well, men are not
women, my dear," decisively, and with a complacent expression as if she
had settled the argument beyond any question, for the first time since
the world began.
"Why, you never tried me on a love-story," interposed Fred. "You do not
know how deeply sympathetic I might be with your favorite heroines."
"He is laughing at us, Sylvie. Ah, well! I suppose it is a man's duty to
_make_ love, not to listen to it second-hand. How charming and fresh you
look this morning! And how lovely it is after the shower of last night!
Fred, if you could leave Latin verses and Greek essays you might take us
to drive. We could stop and bring your aunt with us for lunch, Sylvie."
"Thank you for her. She has gone to Coldbridge to see about a nurse for
the Orphans' Home, and will not be back until four."
"Then I can keep you without a single scruple," and Mrs. Lawrence looked
oddly pleased. "Fred, tell them not to put the horses out. What
wonderful health your aunt has, Sylvie! I don't see how she can endure
the bother of those schools and institutions: it would wear me out in
no time. But I have had a family of children;" and she leaned back on
her pillow with a satisfied air.
The carriage came around again; and with the assistance of a maid,
Sylvie, and her son, Mrs. Lawrence walked down stairs. He handed both
ladies in, and seated himself opposite with the air of a prince.
Sylvie looked so bright and gay this morning, her velvety eyes full of
tender light, her cheek all abloom with youth and health, the sweet
scarlet lips half smiling, and her attire far enough removed from the
rigor of fashion to have a kind of originality about it. She always wore
something that added tone and brightness,--a bit of colored ribbon or a
flower, or a bow that flashed out unexpectedly, as if greeting you with
laughing surprise.
"What do you do to mother, Sylvie?" Fred asked, with a touch of
complimentary curiosity in his voice. "Yesterday she was dull and
moping. I could not persuade her to drive."
"It was so warm, no wonder. I felt dull and drowsy myself. But to-day is
the perfection of loveliness."
"And you have a charm, Sylvie. I do not know but it is your perfect,
buoyant health. You seem to lift one up. I only wish I could keep you
all the time," remarked Mrs. Lawrence with a touch of longing.
Sylvie colored, and averted her eyes: then she gave herself a kind of
mental shaking, and resolutely glanced back, uttering some rather trite
remark. She would not suspect or understand.
They came home again, and had lunch: then, while Mrs. Lawrence was
taking her siesta, Fred carried off Sylvie to his study. It was
luxuriously beautiful. Several gems of pictures adorned the wall, which
had been newly frescoed to suit his fancy. Easy chairs lured one to test
their capacious depth, some exquisitely-bound books were arranged in a
carved and polished case, and the table was daintily littered with
papers. He had an idea that a man's surroundings were a very fair index
to his character and tastes, quite forgetting that it implied length of
purse as well.
He made spasmodic attempts at literary work. Abstruse essays were begun
under the impression that he had something brilliant and original to
say, but before they were finished a new train of thought led him
captive. He dreamed delicately sensuous dreams, lapped in luxurious
idleness, the rooms stifling with odorous hot-house flowers. He went
clothed in soft raiment, he sunned himself in languid seas of
imagination, and was too indifferent to concentrate his powers upon any
great faith or belief, or even emotion. He had a contempt for cheap and
plain belongings, as leaning insensibly to vitiation of taste. Nothing
modern met his approbation. The old-time philosophies won him with their
subtile flavor. He could propound his theories eloquently, but they did
not touch him deeply enough to rouse him into action of any kind. All
that his education and culture had done for him so far was to develop an
incapacity for any regular, wholesome work that would be of the
slightest use to any human being.
Something of this passed through Sylvie's mind as she sat there. This
handsome and stalwart lily of the valley, with no desire for toiling,
and no ability for spinning, would be content to drift and dawdle
through life on his father's money. At that moment he was more
contemptible to her than Irene, winning lovers by the score, and casting
them aside with no more compunction than if they were the litter of
faded flowers.
After all, why should she care if he did not reach her standard of moral
and intellectual excellence, of that knightly chivalry whose
rallying-cry was, "God and my fellow-men!" Why should she desire to
rouse him from that complacent ease and fastidiousness, brought about
by wealth, and the certainty of no need of effort on his part? Surely
she was no modern apostle carrying around the watchword of work.
Yet somehow--if all the subtile forces running to waste in both him and
Jack could be galvanized into earnest, active life; if the sturdy,
wholesome thought of the one could be mated with the clear, crisp
training of the other; if both could have the wide outlook beyond
material wants and comforts! It fretted her.
Yet these two, sitting here on this peerless summer day, skimmed over
wide fields like gay butterflies. She could not be in earnest with him.
Just when she was roused and warm, he seemed to lift her by some flight
of eloquence, and waft her to his realm of fancy. It annoyed her to find
he had that much power over her.
It must be admitted that when Fred Lawrence willed, he could be
extremely fascinating. Women yielded gracefully, nay, eagerly, to his
sway; and much delicate flattery had their eyes and lips fed him upon.
Sylvie piqued him a trifle by her utter unconcern--or was it the fine
instinct of coquetry inherent in feminine nature?
There was no telling what this queer, bright, unconventional little
thing might do if left to herself. A good marriage would prove her
salvation. She had many womanly possibilities: yet, with all due
deference to Miss Barry and her old blue blood, Sylvie might overstep
the bounds, and take up some of the reforming projects so dear to
elderly spinsters. As Mrs. Fred Lawrence she would be held regally above
them, and could depute her charitable work to her aunt.
In justice to the man, it must be confessed that Sylvie's dainty,
piquant loveliness stirred his soul; and, if self had not been so
intense a centre, he might have been ardently in love, or
clearer-sighted. Much of the time her demeanor toward him was coldly
indifferent: yet the misfortune was, her interest in all things kindled
so easily that she could not, at a moment, change to him. Her moods of
reticence and shy evasion added a flavor to the cup. With a man's
egregious vanity, he jumped at the conclusion that these little
intangible things signified love.
One day Sylvie stumbled over Irene. She came flying up stairs with some
choice nectarines for Mrs. Lawrence, a kind that seemed only to reach
perfection in Miss Barry's old-fashioned garden. There sat Irene,
superb, nonchalant.
"Oh, you little darling!" clasping her, and pinching the peach-bloom
cheek. "I am so glad to have a glimpse of you; for mamma has sung your
praises until I ought to be jealous, but out of my boundless generosity
I still smile upon you. No need to ask how _you_ are, but one may
inquire after your aunt?"
"Miss Barry is quite well," Sylvie said with some constraint,
remembering their last parting.
Irene had honestly forgotten it. She laughed now, a low, ringing,
melodious laugh.
"Why, it is quite a treat to see you open wide your sunrise eyes. I have
taken everybody by surprise, and enjoy it immensely. Gerty and I are off
to fresh fields and pastures new, and home came right in my way. Sylvie,
you are a good little creature to come and amuse mamma when her own
lovely and amiable daughter is racing after the pomps and vanities of
this naughty world. Sit down;" and she made room on the sofa beside
herself. "Don't let such a frivolous creature as I turn you from the
post of duty."
"I did not come to stay," Sylvie answered rather stiffly.
"As if the intention were cast in adamant! Oh! why is not Fred here to
use his persuasive tongue?"
There was a peculiar laughing light in Irene's eye that annoyed Sylvie,
for it seemed to indicate a secret knowledge.
"I can stay just half an hour," was the reply in a decisive tone. "At
eleven I take my lesson in painting.-- Aunt wanted you to have these,
Mrs. Lawrence, in their first bloom of ripeness."
"They are delightful. A thousand thanks to both of you, my dear."
"And you really manage to exist in this dull place, Sylvie! You are a
miracle of content," interposed Irene.
"I have not come near dying yet," was the rather dry rejoinder.
"You need not be so curt and sharply sweet, my dear. Here I have been
listening to marvellous accounts of your amiability and devotion"--
"Don't, Rene!" implored her mother. "Sylvie _is_ good to me."
"And it might make the sweetness weak if she stretched it out to me!
Keep it intact for those who so delight in it. I am fond of spice and
high flavoring."
"These nectarines are perfect," declared Mrs. Lawrence. "One can taste
the sunshine in them."
"How poetic, mother mine! Does Fred come and read Latin verses to you
and Sylvie? I may have one"--stretching out her jewelled hand. "Oh, they
are delicious! worth coming home for, even if I had not wanted mamma's
pearls."
"And money and every thing," added her mother. "Rene, you ought not to
be so extravagant. Papa is quite depressed with the state of business."
"Yes, I have heard _that_ ever since I left my cradle;" and Rene laughed
gayly.
It suddenly crossed Sylvie's mind: what if this proud, imperious girl
should be reduced to poverty some day?
"Don't plan a conspiracy against me, Sylvie Barry! I saw it in your
eyes!"
A vivid flush overspread Sylvie's face, as if she had been caught in the
commission of some crime. Irene's laugh rang again with a peculiar
irritating sound.
"I could not form a conspiracy against you--even if I so desired. And I
must go."
Sylvie rose with a haughty air.
"Wish me worlds to conquer at least, or scalps to hang at my belt. No?
You ungracious little thing! There is a good-by kiss to show you that I
always hold out the right hand of peace."
"Have the carriage, Sylvie: it will not take a moment"--
"No, thank you," in a crisp tone. She would have nothing of these
Lawrences just now.
"Fred will get a spicy wife," commented Irene, with a peculiar smile.
"She is never so with him. They get along beautifully," said the mother.
"Fred is too lazy to rouse Sylvie. Women have quite spoiled him. And
Sylvie is ever so much prettier when a trifle vexed. Don't tell me about
her angelic qualities, though I suppose she does keep super-amiable
before you and Fred just now. I wonder if I could if I were in love!"
"Irene, I am sorry I hinted it. If you begin to tease Fred"--
"I shall not: set your heart at rest. I give full and free consent, and
approve heartily. Beside, the little thing might throw herself away if
she was not looked after. There will always be some one to stay at home
with you."
Mrs. Lawrence turned to her book and her nectarines; and Irene tumbled
over jewel-cases,--a proud, imperious beauty, whose heart had never been
touched, who cared only for pleasure and triumphs. Over yonder, men and
women were toiling, that she might have gold to squander. They lived
scantily, that she might feast. And the brave old world, seeing it all,
uttered a silent groan. One day it would speak out.