HOWEVER pleasant may be the scenes to which we are going, we cannot
repress a feeling of sadness as we leave those with which we have been
long associated, and which have become, as it were, part of our life.
As the train bearing us from our home moved off from the shed, I went
out to the rear platform, and stood looking at each familiar place and
object as they passed, with a fond farewell upon my lips, and a desire
to stamp all so indelibly upon my memory that in years to come I might
remember exactly how everything appeared. As I stood with my face down
the track I could not see an object till it passed, and then I gazed at
it as it receded, till other objects flashing by claimed my attention.
Now the bridge overhead, where I had so often stood to throw bits of
coal and wood at the engines passing underneath, its arch and railing
almost hidden in the curling volumes of smoke our engine has left
behind; now the machine shops, where as a boy I had gathered the spiral
iron shavings as great wonders of art, still clinking noisily above
the rattle of the train, and blinking their red eyes from every forge;
now engine yards, with old rusty boilers cast aside, and broken smoke
stacks lying on the ground; here a pond where I have fished, its yellow
surface darkened with cinders and wrinkled with the breath of our
speed; there the river where I have bathed, hidden by the trees itself,
but its course revealed by some naked mast and gliding sails; now we
rattle through the coal and lumber yards, almost brushing against great
piles of timber heaped along the track, and almost grazing dusty carts,
with coal-begrimed drivers in red shirts, and heavy plodding horses
with brass-studded harness, nodding their heads at every step, as if to
say they were used to the cars and could not be prevailed upon to shy;
now flash by streets that open, for a second, elm-bordered vistas ‘way
up into the city, and close them as they whirl past; now we overtake
and pass some one who knows me, walking along a very narrow sidewalk,
and who bows and says something I cannot understand, and which I can
only reply to by a great many shakes of the head; now we rattle by a
little house with a dingy porch, and a goat with two kids browsing
in front, where a schoolmate of mine used to live and invite me, and
mother would not let me go; and now we roar out through the suburbs,
where greasy looking men are smoking short pipes in rickety doorways,
and red-armed women, with tumbled-down hair, are ever carrying water in
painted buckets to the crazy shanties, and never seeming to use it,
and where flocks of dirty children run out to wave and scream at the
train; on till the last tenement is passed, and in the hazy distance I
can only recognize the steeples of the different churches. Even these
at last fade into the sky, and still, in my reverie, I stand there
watching the black rails gliding like two long serpents from under the
train, and the cross-ties ever flitting like steps to an interminable
ladder down the track.
As I had several matters of business to attend to in New York, I
determined to take steamer from that point to Havana, instead of from
Charleston, as we first thought of doing.
The evening after our arrival in the metropolis being bright and sunny,
I ordered an open carriage, and Carlotta and I, with little Johnnie,
drove out to the Park. Ordering our coachman to let the horses go
slowly, we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of the beautiful scene.
Pausing at each object of interest—here a marble statue, there a
bronze, getting out at the museum, that Johnnie might see the animals,
stopping on the edge of the lake, that he might feed the swans—time
passed swiftly, and the sun was nearly down as we found ourselves over
the terrace, the dress parade ground for the equipages of the Park. The
press of vehicles here forced us to stop for a moment, and at the same
instant a most superb turnout caught our attention. A pair of jet black
horses, whose champing mouths almost bit their foam-flecked breasts,
covered with harness that dazzled the eye with its gleaming plate, a
glittering gold-mounted chariot, and a coachman and lackey in green and
gold liveries! There were only two occupants—a handsome, middle-aged
man, and a lady of striking yet haggard beauty. Clustering brown curls
fell around her shoulders, and her hazel eyes were very bright, but her
wan cheek was rouged, and the smile she wore was plainly forced and
meaningless. All this we saw in a moment, and then we looked in each
other’s faces, and exclaimed in one breath:
”Lulie Mayland!”
Ere we could extricate ourselves from the throng of carriages and
follow, their chariot was out of sight, and we could only return to our
hotel in wonder and surprise.
That night Carlotta and I went to the Academy of Music. Parepa was to
open the season with _Maritana_, and the vast edifice was crowded. The
curtain was down for the second act, and Carl Rosa, with his nervous
baton was wafting up from the orchestra a soft, exquisite aria, when
the door of a box across the circle was opened by an obsequious usher,
and a gentleman in an agony of fashion bowed a tremendous satin trail,
a superb white cloak, and a profusion of diamonds into the seat. Laying
a harp of camelias and tube-roses in his crush hat, he assisted her
in removing her cloak, and, as a cluster of brown curls fell over her
bare white shoulders, we recognized again Lulie. He seemed to bend over
her with pleasant words, for she frequently smiled; but oh! the look
of weariness and despair that at times would flit across her face! The
curtain rose and fell, Parepa sang her sweetest, and the dome reëchoed
the thunders of applause, but we sat regardless of the stage, with our
opera glasses fixed on the box where Lulie sat. The gentleman, too, who
was with her was an object of interest to me, for I could not divest
myself of the idea that I had seen him somewhere. The deep red hair,
parted so exactly in the middle, the flowing side whiskers, and the
foppish dress, all seemed familiar, but I could not recall them, till
presently he lowered his lorgnon and stuck in his eyeglass, and then
I recognized Mr. Monte. I immediately rose and left our box to go to
them, but before I had gotten half around the aisle I saw them both
rise from their seats and leave the house. I followed as fast as I
could through the throng, and reached the pavement just in time to see
them drive off in their carriage.
When we returned to the hotel I rang for a directory and found Monte’s
name and place of business, and lay down to sleep, resolved to seek out
Lulie, and, with Carlotta’s aid, reclaim her if possible.