"Yonder they come! They have just left the carriage, and as usual she
is escorted by her body-guard; those grim old fogies, who watch her
like a pair of grey owls. Now, Doctor, you must contrive an
introduction."
General René Laurance raised his gold eyeglass, and looked curiously
toward a group of three persons who were walking amid the ruins of
Pozzuoli.
His companion Dr. Plymley, who was examining an inscription, turned
around and looked in the direction indicated.
"Are you sure? I am quite near-sighted."
"Very sure, for no other figure could be mistaken for hers. By all
the gods ever worshipped here, she is the loveliest woman I ever saw,
but as coy as a maid of fifteen. The fact that she secludes herself
so rigidly only stimulates curiosity, and I have sworn a solemn oath
to make her acquaintance; for it is something novel in my experience
to have my overtures rejected, my courtesies ignored."
"Come this way, General. This encounter must appear purely
accidental, for Madame Orme is very peculiar, very suspicious; and if
she imagines we planned this excursion to meet her, or left Naples
with the intention of joining her party, the chances are that I as
well as you would be snubbed. In her desire to avoid society and
personal attention, one might suppose her an escaped abbess from some
convent, instead of a popular actress. It was with much difficulty
that I prevailed on her to receive my son and wife one afternoon; as
she remarked that her object in coming here was to secure health, not
acquaintances. In treating her professionally, I was called upon to
prescribe for what in her case is more than ordinary sleeplessness,
is veritably _pervigilium_; and when she refused opiates, I asked if
there were not some trouble weighing upon her mind which prevented
her from sleeping. Her reply was singular: 'Many years have passed
since I became a widow and was forced to leave my only child in
America, and the power of sound healthy sleep has deserted me.' Even
in Naples her beauty attracts attention wherever she is seen."
"Certainly I am not a tyro in these matters, and have probably had as
much experience as any other man of my years and well improved
opportunities, and you can form an estimate of my appreciation of her
charms, when I tell you I have followed her since the night I first
saw her on the stage at Milan. I see your wife beckoning us to join
her."
Although sixty-five years old, General Laurance carried himself as
erectly as the son he left in Paris, and his proud bearing and
handsome face seemed to contradict the record of years that had
passed so lightly over him. A profusion of silver threads streaked
the black locks that scorned all artificial colouring, and his
moustache and beard were quite grizzled; but as he stood tracing
triangles on the sand with the point of his light cane, and pushed
back the hat from his heated brow, no one unacquainted with his
history would have deemed him more than fifty: a man of distinguished
appearance, commanding stature, with rather haughty, martial mien,
healthful ruddy complexion, and sparkling blue eyes keen and
incisive.
From boyhood self had been his openly and devoutly worshipped god,
and upon its altars conscience had long ago been securely bound and
silenced. Pride of family, love of pomp, power, and luxury, and an
inordinate personal vanity were the predominating characteristics of
a man, who indulged his inclinations, no matter how devious the paths
into which they strayed, nor how mercilessly obstacles must be
tramped down, in order to facilitate the accomplishment of his
purposes. Naturally neither cruel nor vindictive, he had gradually
grown pitiless in all that conduced to self-aggrandizement or
self-indulgence; incapable of a generosity that involved even slight
sacrifice, a polished handsome epicurean, an experienced man of the
world, putting aside all scruples in the attainment of his selfish
aims.
From wholly politic motives, and in order to extend his estates and
increase his revenue, he had married early in life, and his
affection, never bestowed upon his wife, had centred in their only
child Cuthbert. When death removed the unloved mother, freedom was
joyfully welcomed, and the memory of his neglected bride rarely
visited the heart, which was not invulnerable to grace and beauty.
The consummation of an alliance between his son and Abbie Ames, the
banker's daughter, had cost him much manoeuvring and tedious
diplomacy, for like his father, Cuthbert was fastidious in his
tastes, and an ardent devotee to female beauty; but when finally
accomplished, General Laurance considered his paternal obligations
fully discharged, and henceforth roamed from city to city, sipping
such enjoyment as money, aristocratic status, urbane manners, and a
heritage of well-preserved good looks enabled him to taste at will.
Six months before, he had first seen Madame Orme as "Deborah," in
Mosenthal's popular drama, and, charmed by her face and figure, had
attempted to make her acquaintance. But his floral offerings had been
rejected, his jewels and notes returned, his presentation refused,
his visits interdicted; and as usually occurs in natures like his,
opposition to his wishes intensified them, cold indifference and
denial only deepened and strengthened his determination to crush all
barriers. His pride was wounded, his vanity sorely piqued, and to
compel her acknowledgment of his power, her submission to his sway,
became for the while his special aim, his paramount purpose. Hence
he loitered at Naples, seeking occasions, lying in wait for an
opportunity to open a campaign that promised him new triumphs.
Dr. Plymley was an English physician travelling with an invalid wife
and consumptive son, and having been consulted by Mrs. Orme on
several occasions in Milan, had at length been prevailed upon by
General Laurance to arrange an apparently casual introduction.
It was a cloudless spring day, and leaving Mr. and Mrs. Waul to read
a package of American papers, Mrs. Orme walked away toward the lonely
outlines of the Serapeon.
The delicious balmy atmosphere, the interest of the objects that
lined the drive from Naples, and the exercise of wandering from point
to point had brought a delicate glow to her cheeks, and a brighter
carmine to her lips; and beneath the white chip hat, with its wreath
of clustering pink convolvulus lying on her golden hair, the lovely
face seemed almost unsurpassed in its witchery.
She wore a sea-green dress of some soft fabric that floated in the
wind as she moved, and over her shoulders was wound a white fleecy
mantle fastened at the throat by a costly green cameo, which also
secured a spray of lemon flowers that lavished their fragrance on the
bright warm air. Closing her parasol, she walked down to the ruined
Temple, and approached the wonderful cipollino columns that bear such
mysterious attestation of the mutations of land and sea, of time and
human religions. Since the days of Agrippina and Julia, had a fairer
prouder face shone under the hoary marble shafts, and mirrored itself
in the marvellous mosaic floor, than that which now looked calmly
down on the placid water flowing so silently over the costly
pavements, where sovereigns once reverently trod?
In imagination she beheld the vast throng of worshippers, who two
thousand years ago had filled the magnificent court, where the sun
was now shining unimpeded; and above the low musical babble of
wavelets breaking upon the chiselled marbles, rose the hum of the
generations sleeping to-day in the columbaria, and the chant of the
priests before the statue of Serapis, which sacrilegious hands had
borne away from his ancient throne. Were the blue caverns of the
Mediterranean not deep enough to entomb these colossal relics of that
dim vast Past, whose feebly ebbing tide still drifts so mournfully,
so solemnly, so mysteriously upon our listening souls? Did
compassionate Neptune, tenderly guarding the ruins of his own
desecrated fane, once resonant with votive pæans now echoing only
sea-born murmurs, refuse sepulture to Serapis, and again and again
return to the golden light of land the sculptured friezes, that could
find permanent rest neither upon sea not shore?
To-day the lonely woman, standing amid crumbling cornices and
architraves, wondered whether the sunken pavement of the Serapeon
were a melancholy symbol of her own blighted youth, never utterly
lost to view, often overwhelmed by surging waves of bitterness, hate,
and despair, but now and then lifted by memory to the light, and
found as fresh and glowing as in the sacred bygone? To-day buried
beneath the tide of sorrow, to-morrow shining clear and imperishable?
Gazing out across the sapphire sea that mirrored a cloudless sapphire
sky, Mrs. Orme's beautiful solemn face seemed almost a part of the
classic surroundings, a statue of Fate shaken from its ancient niche;
and the cameo Sappho on her breast was not more faultlessly cut and
polished than the features that rose above it.
A shadow fell aslant the glassy water through which was visible the
glint of the submerged pavement, and turning her head, she saw the
familiar countenance of her quondam physician.
"A glorious day, Dr. Plymley?"
"Glorious indeed, Madame, for a dinner at Baiæ. I hope you are
feeling quite well, and bright as this delicious sunshine? Mrs. Orme,
will you allow me the favour of presenting my friend General
Laurance, who requests the honour of an introduction?"
She had been unaware of the presence of his companion, who was
concealed from view, and as he stepped forward and took off his hat,
she drew herself up, and at last they were face to face.
How her brown eyes widened, lightened, and what a sudden whiteness
fell upon her features, as if June roses had been smitten with snow!
Holding with both hands the frail fluted ivory handle of her parasol,
it snapped, and the carved leopard that constituted the head fell
with a ringing sound upon one of the marble blocks, thence into the
sluggish water beneath; but her eyes had not moved from his,--seemed
to hold them, as with some magnetic spell. A radiant smile parted her
pale lips, and she said in her wonderfully sweet, rich, liquid tones
which sank into people's ears and hearts, as some mellow old wine
creeps through the grey cells of the brain, bringing lotos dreams:
"Is the gentleman before me General René Laurance of America?"
"I am, Madame; and supremely happy in the accident which enables me
to make an acquaintance so long and earnestly desired. Surely the
ruins amidst which we meet must be those, not of the Serapeon, but of
some antique shrine of Good Fortune, and I vow a libation worthy of
the boon received."
With that unwavering gaze still upon his dark blue eyes, she drew off
her glove and held out her fair hand, smiling the while, as Circe
doubtless did before her.
"I am sincerely glad to meet General Laurance, of whom I heard the
American minister at Paris speak in glowing terms of commendation. I
believe I Also met a son of General Laurance in Paris? Certainly he
resembles you most strikingly."
As he received into his own the pretty pearly hand, and bowed low
over it, he felt agreeably surprised by the cordiality of a reception
which appeared utterly inconsistent with her stern contemptuous
rejection of his previous attempts to form her acquaintance; and he
could not quite reconcile the beaming smile on her lip, and the
sparkling radiance in her eyes, with the pallor which he saw settle
swiftly upon her face when his name was first pronounced.
"Ah! My son Cuthbert? Handsome young dog, and like his father, finds
beauty the most powerful magnet. Where did you meet him?"
"Once only, when he was introduced by our minister, who deputized him
to deliver to me some custom-house regulations.
"Did you meet Mrs. Laurance?"
"Your wife, sir?"
Annoyance instantaneously clouded his countenance, and Dr. Plymley
gnawed his lower lip to hide a smile.
"My son's wife. Cuthbert and I are the only survivors of my own
immediate family."
"If Madame had not so rigidly adhered to her recluse habits, she
could scarcely have failed to learn from his brilliant campaigns in
gay society that the General is unfettered by matrimonial bonds, and
almost as irresistible and popular as his naughty model D'Orsay."
"Madame, Plymley is a traitor, jealously stabbing my spotless
reputation. I deny the indictment, and appeal to your heavenly
charity, praying you to believe that I plead guilty only to the
possession of a heart tenderly vulnerable to the shafts of grace and
beauty."
The earnestness of his tone and manner was unmistakable, and beneath
the bold admiration of his fine eyes, the carmine came swiftly back
to her blanched cheek.
"_Beau monde_ and its fashionable foibles constitute a sealed volume
to me. My world is apart from that in which General Laurance wins
myrtle crowns, and wears them so royally."
"When genius like Madame's monopolizes the bay, we less gifted
mortals must even twine myrtle leaves, or else humbly bow, bare of
chaplets. But may I ask why you so sternly taboo that social world
which you are so pre-eminently fitted to grace and adorn? When your
worshippers are wellnigh frenzied with delight, watching you beyond
the footlights, you cruelly withdraw behind the impenetrable curtain
of seclusion; and only at rare intervals allow us tantalizing glimpses
of you, seated in mocking inaccessibility between those two most
abominable ancient griffons, whose claws and beaks are ever
ferociously prominent. When some desperate deluded adorer rashly
hires a band of Neapolitan experts to stab, and bury that grim pair
of jailers in the broad deep grave out there, toward Procida, the
crime of murder will be upon Madame's fair head."
"And if I answer that that fine world you love so well is to me but
as a grey stone quarry wherein I daily toil, solely for food and
raiment for my child and myself, what then?"
"Then verily if that be possible, Pygmalion's cold beauty were no
longer a fable; and I should turn sculptor. Do you not find that here
in Parthenope you rapidly drift into the classic tide that strands
you on Paganism?"
"Has it borne you one inch away from the gods of your life-long
worship?"
As she spoke, she bent slightly forward, and searched his bright
eyes, as if therein floated his soul.
"Indeed I can answer reverently, with my band upon my heart, Italy
has given me a new worship, a goddess I never knew before. My
divinity----"
"Belongs, sir, to the _Dïï Involuti!_ Fortunate provision of fate,
which leaves us at least liberty to deify, you perhaps family pride,
Venus, or even avaricious Pluto; I possibly ambition or revenge. We
all have our veiled gods, shrouded close from curious gaze; 'the
heart knoweth his own bitterness, and the stranger doth not
intermeddle with his joy.'"
She had interrupted him with an imperious wave of her hand, and spoke
through closed teeth, like one tossing down a gage of battle; but the
brilliant smile still lighted her splendid eyes, and showed the
curves of her temptingly beautiful mouth.
"Mrs. Orme, my wife and Percy are waiting for me at the amphitheatre,
and we have an engagement to dine at Baiæ. Can I persuade you to join
our party? I promise you a delightful visit to the old home of Rome's
proudest patricians in her palmiest days; and a dinner eaten in
accordance with General Laurance's suggestion on the site of the
temple of Venus, or if you prefer, upon that of Diana. Will you not
contribute the charm of your presence to the pleasure of our
excursion? Remember I am your physician, and this morning prescribe
Baiæ air."
"You are very kind, Doctor, but I devote to-day to Avernus, Cumæ, and
the infernal gods. Next week I shall bask at Baiæ. Gentlemen, I bid
you good-day, and a pleasant hour over your Falernian."
She turned once more to the mysterious solemn face of that wonderful
legendary blue bay, and the light died out of her countenance, as in
a room where the lamps are unexpectedly extinguished. She started
visibly, when a voice close beside her asked:
"Permit me the pleasure of seeing you to your carriage."
"I am not going just yet. General Laurance should not detain the
Doctor's party."
"They have a carriage. I am on horseback, and can easily overtake
them; but if I dared, would beg the privilege of accompanying you,
instead of drinking sour wine, and smoking poor cigars among the
ivy-wreathed ruins that await me at Baiæ Ah, may I hope? Be generous,
banish me not. May I attend you to-day?
"No, sir. Go pay your _devoir_ to friendship and courtesy. I have
faithful guardians in the two coming yonder to meet me."
She pointed to the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Waul just visible over the
mass of ruins that intervened, and lifting her handkerchief, waved it
twice.
"You have established a system of signal service with those antique
ogres, griffons? Really they resemble crouching cougars, ready to
spring upon the unwary who dare penetrate to the sacred precincts
that enclose you. Why do you always travel with that grim body-guard?
Surely they are not relatives?"
"They are faithful old friends who followed me across the Atlantic,
who are invaluable, and shield me from impertinent annoyances, to
which all women of my profession are more or less subjected. The
world to which you belong sometimes seem disposed to forget that
beneath and behind the paint and powder, false hair and fine tragic
airs and costumes they pay to strangle time for them at _San Carlo_,
or _Teatro de' Fiorentini_ there breathes a genuine human thing; a
creature with a true, pure, womanly heart beating under the velvet,
gauze, and tinsel, and with blood that now and then boils under
unprovoked and dastardly insult. If I were cross-eyed, or had been
afflicted with small-pox, or were otherwise disfigured, I should not
require Mr. and Mrs. Waul; but Madame Orme, the lonely widow deprived
by death of a father's or brother's watchful protection, finds her
humble companions a valuable barrier against presumption and
insolence. For instance, when strangers, pleased with my carefully
practised _jeu de theâtre_, send fulsome notes and costly
_bijouterie_ to my lodgings, praying in return a lock of my hair or
a photograph, my griffons, as you facetiously term them, rarely even
consult me, but generally send back the jewels by the bearer, and
twist the _billets-doux_ into tapers to light Mr. Waul's pipe.
Sometimes I see them; often I am saved the trouble of knowing
anything about the impertinence."
Her voice was sweet and mellow as a Phrygian flute sounding softly on
moonlight nights through acacia and oleander groves, but the scorn
burning in her eyes was intolerable, and before it the old man seemed
to shrink, while a purplish flush swept across his proud face.
"Mrs. Orme is an anomaly among lovely women, and especially among
popular _tragediennes_, and as I am suffering the consequences of
that unexpected fact, may I venture, in pleading for pardon, to
remind her of that grand prayer: '_Be it my will that my mercy
overpower my justice_.' Will she not nobly forgive errors committed
in ignorance of the peculiar sensitiveness of her nature, the mimosa
delicacy of her admirable character?"
Not until this moment had the likeness between father and son shown
itself so conspicuously, and in the handsome features and
insinuating, beguiling velvet voice she found sickening resemblances
that made her heart surge, until she seemed suffocating. Hastily she
loosened the ribbons of her hat that were tied beneath her chin.
"Is General Laurance pleading abstractly for forgiveness for his vain
and presumptuous sex?"
"Solely for my own audacious impertinence, which, had I known you,
would never have been perpetrated. My rejected emeralds accuse me.
Pardon me, and I will immediately donate them in expiatory offering
to some Foundling Asylum, Hospital, or other public charity."
"If I condone past offences, it must be upon condition that they are
never repeated, for leniency is not one of my characteristics.
Hitherto we have been strangers; you are from America the land of my
adoption, and have been presented to me as a gentleman, as the friend
of my physician. Henceforth consider that your acquaintance with me
dates from to-day."
She suffered him to take her hand, and bow low over it, breathing,
volubly his thanks for her goodness, his protestations of profound
repentance, and undying gratitude; and all the while she shut her
eyes as if to hide some approaching horror,--and the blood in her
views seemed to freeze at his touch, gathered like icicles around her
aching heart, turning her gradually to stone.
Taking his offered arm, they walked back toward the spot where she
had desired her companions to await her return, and as he attempted
to analyze the strange perplexing expression on her chiselled white
face, he said:
"I trust this delicious climate has fully restored your health?"
"Thank you. I am as well as I hope to be, until I can go home to
America, and be once more with my baby."
"It is difficult to realize that you are a mother. How old is this
darling, who steals so many of your thoughts?"
"Oh, quite a large girl now! able to write me long delightful
letters; still in memory and imagination she remains my baby, for I
have not seen her for nearly seven years."
"Indeed I you must have married when a mere child?"
"Yes, unfortunately I did, and lost my husband, became a destitute
widow when I was scarcely older than my own daughter now is. Mr.
Waul, this is your countryman, General Laurance; and doubtless you
have mutual acquaintances in the United States."
They proceeded to the carriage, and as he assisted her to enter it,
General Laurance asked:
"Will you grant me the privilege of accompanying you next week to
Baiæ?"
"I cannot promise that."
"Then allow me to call upon you to-morrow."
"To-morrow will be the day for my exercises in Italian recitation and
declamation. I am desirous of perfecting myself in the delicate
inflections of this sweet intoxicating language, which is as
deliciously soft as its native skies, and golden as its Capri
vintage. I long to electrify these fervid enthusiastic yet critical
Neapolitans with one of their own favourite impassioned Italian
dramas."
She had taken off her hat which pressed heavily upon her throbbing
brow, and as the sun shone full on the coil of glittering hair, with
here and there a golden tress rippling low on her snowy neck and ear,
her ripe loveliness seized the man's senses with irresistible
witchery; and the thought of her reappearance as a public idol, of
her exhibition of her wonderful beauty to the critical gaze of all
Naples, suddenly filled him with jealous horror and genuine pain. As
if utterly weary and indifferent, she leaned back, nestling her head
against the cushions of the carriage; and looking eagerly, almost
hungrily at her, General Laurance silently registered a vow, that the
world should soon know her no more as the Queen of Tragedy, that ere
long the only kingdom over which she reigned should be restricted to
the confines of his own heart and life.
Pale as marble she coolly met the undisguised ardent admiration in
his gaze, and bending forward he asked pleadingly:
"Not to-morrow? Then next day, Mrs. Orme?"
"Perhaps so, if I chance to be at home; which is by no means certain.
Naples is a sorceress and draws me hither and thither at will.
General Laurance, I wish you a pleasant ride to Baiæ, and must bid
you good-bye."
She inclined her head, smiled proudly, and closed her eyes; and,
watching her as the carriage rolled away, he wondered if mere fatigue
had brought that ghastly pallor to the face he knew he was beginning
to love so madly.
"Shall we not return to Naples? You look weary, and unhappy," said
Mr. Waul, who did not like the expression of the hopeless, fixed
blanched lips.
"No, no! We go to Avernus. That is the mouth of Hell, you know, and
to Hecate and all the infernal gods I dedicate this fateful day, and
those that will follow. It is only the storm-beaten worthless wreck
of a life; let it drift--on--on, down! Had I ten times more to lose,
I would not shrink back now; I would offer all--all as an oblation to
Nemesis."
"The gods have made us mighty certainly--That we can bear such
things, and yet not die."