IN WHICH MR. HORACE BELDEN PROSPERS CERTAIN PLANS
Diana had been left a few days with Miss Sullivan. It was pleasant
after the wide, rolling sea, dreary sometimes and lonely in its
grandeur, to look quietly across the tranquil lawn upon a cultivated
landscape, full of life and homes of seeming happy lives. Summer was
ripening all along the gentle slopes--a pleasant, quiet summer for
Diana and her hostess, and they spent the few days of Diana’s stay in
closest confidence.
Mr. Belden did not call upon Diana at Miss Sullivan’s, but he
discovered the day of her departure. A carefully considered chance
made him a passenger on the same train. He did not appear until Miss
Sullivan had taken leave of her former pupil. Diana had no fear of
travelling alone. Railroad conductors are among the errant knights of
modern chivalry; but I never heard that Diana needed protection. She
could wither impertinence with a look. But though she did not need an
escort, she did not hate one, and when Belden came up with the manner
of his better self, she made place and accepted him as companion of
dustyish hours.
Diana was happy that day. Her talks with Miss Sullivan had cleared away
much darkness from her mind. She was younger by many years than a week
before. All the beautiful sights and scenes of her past fleeted before
her in bright and changing pictures. She was thinking much of her free
and huntress life in Texas. She could even forget the terrible death of
her mother. The whole story of that dreadful event was no longer a dark
secret with her and one other, and that other she no longer dreaded to
meet--that other she need no longer exclude from her presence and her
thoughts.
A few hours with Miss Sullivan had changed the current of her life. She
was no longer drifting hopelessly toward maddening terrors, forever
in dread of herself lest she should yield to a hope that she must
deem sacrilege. She had called Miss Sullivan mother, and when that
lady, studying her, perhaps by the light of some bitter experience of
her own, had said, like a mother firm and wise, “My child! you are
hiding something from me,” Diana flung herself into this mother’s
arms, and with such agonised tears as you had not looked for in her
clear and fearless eyes, told the secret that had been with her like a
death--between her and God and hope and life and love.
And now that this, her mother, had shown her how her guiltless and
natural terrors were only superstitions, and how she might blamelessly
accept an offered happiness, should it ever offer, there was no more
vision of death between Diana and the beloved hopes of her soul.
Yet she did not wish to think of the future; therefore she was glad
to be diverted in her journey by an agreeable companion. And to him,
also, it was good to be with her. This radiant nature shone upon him,
and if there was anywhere in his being a dwarfed and colourless germ
of better emotion among the thickets of his daily thoughts, this now
sprang up and seemed ready to flourish and blossom. Belden, the petted
and successful man, did not with Diana promise himself his usual easy
triumph. He was willing to win her by pains. But sometimes in this day,
her manner was so transparently full of happiness, and to him was so
frank and gracious, that he began to draw inferences rapidly favourable
to himself.
You have, perhaps, my young gentleman reader of more or less purity
of mind and ardent temperament, sat apart in a poisoned mental ambush
watching the woman you loved, while some quite unworthy personage,
quite vulpine or quite viperine, was pouring into her ears talk that
made you feel like a fox-hound or a snake exterminator. It was not
that the talk itself was poison--it was, perhaps, no more than easy
clap-trap, shining and shallow, cleverish things, such as may suit a
weekly newspaper, philosophy of a man-about-town, gossip from all the
courts from the Grand Lama to Brigham Young--the very subjects yourself
would, like the cosmopolite you are, have descanted on, were it not
that here you could only breathe phrases deep and devoted. It is not
the talk that troubles you; it is that the talker, a man you know to be
false and foul, should bring his presence so near your shrine of vestal
purity. But pardon him, the viper, that he eloquently orates, and
pardon her, the Loved One, that she answers gaily. Viper, under that
good influence, has perhaps ceased to be venomous; and the Loved One
is perhaps gay for remembering those meaning words uttered by you so
tenderly before the serpent trailed in and you retired to discontented
ambuscade under the fiery shelter of crimson curtains.
Belden, whether he deceived himself or not, was quite willing to think
he had made a conquest of Diana. He was one of those who have been
encouraged by vulgarish women, tending toward demirepdom, to think
that, when he entered, “all fair, all rich--all won, all conquered
stand.” Diana was guiltless of any willing coquetry. She was thinking
of herself and did not concern herself as to what impression she made
upon others. But unwittingly, by the gift of nature, she had all those
slight fascinations and winning charms that self-made coquettes study
for in laborious hours, and persuade themselves they have attained.
Mr. Belden was, no doubt, properly solicitous for Diana’s baggage.
This goddess was mundane enough to have made purchases beyond belief
of Parisian dresses. “I dare do all that may become a man,” but to
enter her boxes and describe their contents I dare not. Thinking of
Diana, one thought not of the robes, but of the Mistress of the Robes.
Belden was experienced in the small cares of society. It was part of
his profession as a ladies’ man to recognise all properties of his
escorted. She therefore arrived unimpaired at Newport. Clara Waddie,
who met her at the boat, would hardly have given the escort so cordial
a reception. Mr. Belden, probably, did not resemble any friend of hers.
Diana’s presence completed the charm of the Waddies’ house at Newport,
and the house was a worthy temple for its two deities, for Clara had
always been the mistress of its decorations, and her cultivation and
intuitive judgment were everywhere apparent.
Clara and Diana! the A and B of this C, D, were Dunstan and Paulding, a
pair of the best men. A noble thing is the friendship of two brothers
in love. California began just as they left college together. They
dashed off immediately. Being fellows who were up to anything, they
got on wonderfully. They mined, drove coaches, were judges or counsel
at the plentiful hangings of the day. Each of them shot a pillager or
two and rescued a few Mexicans and Chinamen from pillage by escaped
Australians. In the starvation winter, they headed the party that
relieved the involuntary cannibals of the Sierra Nevada. They bought a
ranch, and finding on its edge among the hills a ready-money boulder
of gold, quite an Ajax cast in fact, they opened dry diggings there
and took out neat piles before the outsiders came in. Then they took
a little run to San Francisco. Everyone who has had California--and
what one brave and bold of those days is there that could have it and
did not?--every Californian of the early times knows what two men
drawing together, not indulging in hebdomadal big drunks or diurnal
little drunks, and not beguiled in any sense by the sirens of the Bella
Union or other halls, what such a whole team could achieve. These two
friends, living together, acting together, having common purse, common
purposes for the future, when they had seen the lights and shadows of
this phase of life, had gained each the other’s good qualities. When
they were together in presence, you saw their marked difference of
nature, marked as their differences of physique. When they were apart,
each seemed the other’s counterpart. One sometimes sees this singular
likeness in man and wife of some marriage of happy augury.
At San Francisco, they chanced to pick up one of the Mexicans whom they
had protected and befriended in the mines. Through him they became
interested in a land claim, which the poor fellow had by inheritance.
They carried it on in his behalf, and when he died they found
themselves by his will owners of the claim. It was made good. They
were selling it at the fabulous prices of that day when Paulding was
recalled by his mother’s death. Dunstan remained to close the business.
He was able to remit to his friend wealth for them both.
Dunstan returned home across the plains by New Mexico and Texas. In the
up-country of Texas, he was detained some time by an accident. After
some delay, he joined his friend in New York. Several years of toil
and danger entitled them to brief repose. When action again became
necessary to them, they essayed to revive at home the interest they had
felt in constructive politics in California, but the ripeness of times
had not yet come. The line was not yet drawn upon the great national
question of America, which has since made the position of man and man
inevitable according to character and education. Politics were not
interesting.
Paulding observed his friend falling into melancholy. Since the trip
across the plains and the accident in Texas, Dunstan had lost that
ardent vigour and careless hopefulness which had made him the leader
in their California adventures. Perhaps he had achieved success too
early and was blasé. Paulding took his friend to Europe, where they
remained knocking about and occasionally amusing themselves with making
the aborigines stare with some stupendous California extravagance,
until they heard of Frémont’s nomination. They knew the man. They had
shared with him, and others good and true, the labours of constituting
the State of California. He was one after their own hearts--a gentleman
pioneer--a scholar forester--a man of untrammelled vigour and truth of
character--a Californian, which is a type of man alike incomprehensible
to the salon and the saloon. It was the man they wanted; it was also
the cause they wanted. They made for home as friends, Californians, and
lovers of right, to take part in the campaign. Dunstan was nominated
for Congress at home, up the North River. They went to Newport for days
a few--they were staying for many days.
Why?
Paulding and Dunstan had known the Waddies and Clara in Europe. The two
friends were presented to Diana.
It was all over with Paulding at once--over head and ears. So it
happened with too many men who met Diana.
Diana was very happy in these few weeks, brilliantly happy. All their
friends came constantly to the Waddies’. At Newport, everyone is at
leisure; pleasure is the object. Where it dwells, all go. So the young
ladies held perpetual levées without tête-à-têtes.
At these levées Mr. Belden appeared frequently. He was in most
amicable and laudatory mood. He pleased both the ladies by speaking
in terms almost affectionate of Miss Sullivan. He had known her, he
said, from his boyhood. They had been playmates in the fresh days
of childhood. Many a morning he had gone proud to school with her
rosebud in his buttonhole. They had grown up together, like brother and
sister--no, more like cousins. He spoke of it with some sentiment. She
was very lovely then.
“She seems to me still very lovely,” said Diana. “The loveliest woman
I have ever seen. There is a serene sweetness and tranquillity in her
beauty. No one else has that look of tender resignation. She is my idea
of Faith.”
Belden uttered a strange sound like a sigh.
“Yes,” he said, “she is what you describe. She has had need
of resignation after so much domestic trouble--her father’s
disgrace--their poverty. And then her life of teaching--ah! that can
hardly have been miserable, with pupils like you, young ladies! We
can hardly regret that she was compelled temporarily to leave her own
sphere for the purpose of educating you to fill yours so charmingly.”
“You are flattering Miss Sullivan through us,” retorted Diana. “We
thank you in her name. You cannot praise her too highly. She is wise
and good and noble. Only I could wish that she were not so sad.”
“Let us hope that her spirits will improve, now that she is rich in the
means to do good,” Belden said.
In the same laudatory strain he spoke of Mr. Waddy.
“He, also, was one of my playmates. We have been separated for several
years, but I hope to revive our old intimacy here.”
“Was he always the same odd, hasty, irascible, placable person?” asked
Clara.
“Yes,” replied Belden; “we called him at school Ira the Irate. It was
always a tropical climate wherever he was. I do not wonder he found our
boreal Boston too chilly for his nature.”
“He does not resemble at all the typical nabob,” observed Diana. “He is
not fat and curry-coloured. He does not wear yellow slippers and Madras
cravats and queer white clothes of the last cycle. He sits a morning
with us and does not ask for ale. He doesn’t call lunch tiffin. In
fact, if he did not have a Chinese servant and smoke an immense number
of cheroots, one could scarcely observe anything in which he differs
from other men of the world.”
“How much Chin Chin looks like Julia Wilkes’s friends, Mr. Cutus and
Mr. Fortisque,” said Clara.
“Those two unfortunate youths, with chop-stick legs, no perceptible
moustache, complexions _de foie gras_?” and Belden laughed. “The
bohoys call them Shanghais. They are indeed changeling Chinese--not
quite men. There is in South America one variety of monkey that has a
moustache--most have not--they have not.”
“Why does Julia allow such amorphous objects to be perpetually before
her?” asked Diana.
“They have surrounded her,” Clara replied. “She is very good-natured
and not very wise. One of them is always standing sentinel. I suppose
no clever man likes to have a sprightly fool forever standing by and
filling vacancy with smiling dumminess while he is talking. So the
clever men have actually been thrust away from poor Julia by these two
pertinacious friends.”
“Very different from your two civilised California friends,” said
Belden, still in a complimentary vein.
“Did you know them in California?” asked Diana.
“No; I was in San Francisco. They were up the country. They were well
known from their efficiency in relieving the starved emigration of ’49,
and from the very active part they took [G-- d--n them!] in making
California a free State.”
Belden went on commending judiciously the friends, whom he hated on
general principles and found in his way at present. He relieved himself
by internal salvos of cursing and achieved his object of buttering all
his antagonists, so that he could slip by, as he hoped, and win the
prize. He _must_ win. Yes. Or what?
“How handsomely he spoke of Paulding and Dunstan,” said Clara, after
he had gone. “I must learn to think better of a man who has the rare
virtue of not being jealous.”
“Can it be,” said Diana, “that he was ever attached to Miss Sullivan?
He speaks almost tenderly of her. I have noticed a certain coolness or
awkwardness between them hardly to be accounted for in any other way.
If it is so, he shows another rare trait, that of remembering without
unkindness a woman who has rejected him.”
So this serpent charmed away Clara’s prejudices, or for a moment
persuaded her that she was unjust, and beguiled Diana into something
more like intimacy. They, as innocent women, knew very little of
the man. And, indeed, there were no positive charges against him,
except that he was what is pleasantly called a “lady-killer.” Their
gentlemen friends, though sharing in the general distrust of him,
had no brother’s privilege of warning against an acquaintance, if
merely undesirable. Therefore, the ladies did not hear of Mr. Belden’s
flirtation with Mrs. Budlong. The Waddies did not know her. Her
storming of good society had taken place during their absence. Mr.
Belden, in reply to their inquiries, spoke of her with respect.
Diana, at this time, occasionally felt a slight recurrence of that
pain in her side which has already been noticed. Once when Belden
was accompanying her in a ride, a privilege he now frequently had,
this pain for a moment overcame her terribly. She would have fallen
but for his ready aid and judgment. She was restored in a moment and
insisted upon continuing her ride. Belden was even better received than
usual when he called in the evening to make proper inquiries. He had
shown a very respectful delicacy and was rewarded by gratitude and an
invitation to dinner. He congratulated himself upon his luck and hoped
the lady would faint every day.
Diana was seized with this same pain one evening when she was sitting a
little apart with Dunstan. He sprang to support her. She had strength
to repel him, almost rudely. Clara retired with her a moment till
the spasm passed. When the gentlemen took their leave, which they
did immediately upon the ladies’ re-entrance, Diana gave her hand to
Dunstan, as if to apologise. Her manner was grave, even solemn, as she
said to him some commonplaces of thanks for his intended courtesy.
Clara felt some anxiety for her sister-friend. What meant these sudden
pains? Diana made light of them. They were nothing, transitory only--a
reminder of an unimportant hurt she had received in Texas. She was
perfectly well--and so she seemed, brilliantly full of life, that must
sing and laugh and blush at each emotion.
There arose a singular coolness between the sisters at this time--a
lover’s quarrel, as it were; and yet no quarrel, but a seeming
hesitancy before some more perfect confidence. They were more
affectionate than ever when together, but more apart, shunning each
other, talking of trifles. Clara was conscious of this partial
estrangement. In fact, it was almost wholly on her side. The high and
careless spirits of her friend seemed to jar upon her. She seemed to
long for solitude. Anywhere but at Newport in the summer, she might
have indulged in lonely walks. There she was compelled to encounter the
world and be gay with it.
But she grew pale--they told her so. She said it was moonshine. And so
it was--beautiful moonshine--sweet, melancholy pallor; but bloom was
better. Sorrow, unmerited, came to her--sorrow such as even to herself
she could not confess. The wish, the hope that she would not admit, for
all its besetting sieges, would make her untrue to herself and disloyal
to her friend. Disloyal to Diana--her rival! The first was as far from
her thoughts as the last seemed unimaginable. No one could be the rival
of Diana!