From the window of one of those beautiful villas that encrust the
shores of Como, nestling like white birds at the base of the laurel
and vine-clad hills that lave their verdant feet in the blue waters,
Regina watched the sunshine falling across the placid bosom of the
lake. Far away, on the sky-line opposite, and towering above the
intervening mountains, glittered the white fire of the snowy Alps, as
if they longed to quench their dazzling lustre in the peaceful blue
sleeping beneath.
Luxuriant vines clambered along the hillsides, and where the latter
had been cut in terraces, and seemed swinging like the gardens of
Semiramis, orange, lemon, myrtle, and olive trees showed all their
tender green and soft grey tints, and longhaired acacias waved in the
evening air, that was redolent of the faint delicious vesper incense
swung from the pink chalices of climbing roses.
"No tree cumbered with creepers let the sunshine through,
But it was caught in scarlet cups, and poured
From these on amber tufts of bloom, and dropped
Lower on azure stars."
Never weary of studying the wonderful beauty of the surrounding
scenery, Regina surrendered herself to an enjoyment that would have
been unalloyed had not a lurking shadow cast its unwelcome chill on
all. Mr. and Mrs. Waul had returned to America, and for a month Mrs.
Laurance, accompanied by Mr. Chesley and Regina, had been quietly
ensconced in this lovely villa, whose terraces and balconies
projected almost into the water, and commanded some of the finest
views of the lake.
But anxiety had followed, taking up its dreary watch in the midst of
that witchery which might have exorcised the haunting grey ghost of
care; and though shrouded by every imaginable veil and garland of
beauty, its grim presence was as fully felt as that of the
byssus-clad mummy that played its allotted part at ancient Coptic
feasts.
The steamer in which Mr. Laurance embarked with his family for
America had been lost in mid Atlantic; and only one boat filled with
a portion of the passengers and crew had been rescued by a West
Indian ship bound for Liverpool. Among the published names of the few
survivors that of Laurance did not appear.
Had old ocean mercifully opened its crystal bosom and gathered to
coral caves and shrouding purple algae the unfortunate man, who had
quaffed all the rosy foam beading the goblet of life, and for whom it
only remained to drain the bitter lees of public humiliation and
social disgrace?
When Mrs. Laurance received the first intimation that Cuthbert had
probably perished, with his wife and child, she vehemently and
stubbornly refused her credence. It seemed impossible that envious
death could have so utterly snatched from her grasp the triumph upon
which her eager fingers were already closing.
Causing advertisements to be inserted in various journals, and
offering therein a reward for information of the missing passengers,
she forbade the topic broached in her presence, and quitting Paris
retired for a season to Lake Como, vainly seeking that coveted
tranquillity which everywhere her own harrowing thoughts and
ceaseless forebodings effectually murdered.
As time wore on she grew gloomy, taciturn, almost morose, and a
restlessness beyond the remedy of medicine robbed her of the power of
sleep. To-day she clung convulsively to her daughter, unwilling that
she should leave her even for an instant; to-morrow she would lock
herself in, and for hours refuse admittance to any human being. The
rich bloom forsook her cheek, deep shadows underlined her large
melancholy eyes, and her dimpled hands became so diaphanous, so
thin, that the black agate ring with difficulty held its place upon
the wasted fingers.
With patient loving care, Regina anticipated her wishes, indulged
all her varying caprices, devoted herself assiduously to the task of
diverting her mind, and comforting her heart by the tender
ministrations of her own intense filial affection. By day she read,
talked, sang to her. When in the tormenting still hours of night her
mother refused the thorns of a sleepless pillow, the daughter drew
her out upon the terrace against which the wavelets broke in a
silvery monologue, and directed her thoughts to the glowing stars
that clustered in the blue dome above, and shimmered in the azure
beneath; or with an arm around the mother's waist, led her into the
flowery garden, and up the winding walks that climbed the eminence
behind the villa, where oleanders whitened the gloom, and passionate
jasmines broke their rich hearts upon the dewy air; so, pacing to and
fro, until the moon went down behind myrtle groves, and the bald brow
of distant Alps flushed under the first kiss of day.
For Mrs. Laurance, nepenthe was indeed a fable, and while she
abstained from even an indirect allusion to the subject that absorbed
her, the nameless anxiety that seemed consuming her, Regina and her
uncle watched her with increasing apprehension.
This afternoon she had complained of headache, and, throwing herself
on a couch in the recess of the window that overlooked the lake,
desired to be left alone, in the hope of falling asleep.
Stooping to kiss her, Regina said:
"Mother, let me sit by you, and while I fan you gently read the
'Lotos Eaters.' The drowsy rhythm will lull you into that realm of
rest,--
'In which it seemed always afternoon.'
May I?"
"No. To-day your blue eyes would stab my sleep. I will ring when I
want you."
Dropping the filmy lace curtains, in order to lessen the reflection
from the water, Regina softly stole away, and sat down at the window
of the salon, where satin-leaved arums and dainty pearly orchids
embellished the consoles, and fragrant heliotrope and geraniums were
blooming in pots clustered upon the stone balcony outside.
Each day the favourite view of the lake and bending shore line, upon
which she gazed from this spot, developed some new beauty, hidden
hitherto under leafy laurel shadows, or behind the snowy soil of some
fishing-boat, rocking idly upon the azure waves.
Now the burden of her reflections was:
"If we could only spend our lives in this marble haven, away from the
turmoil and feverish confusion of the outside world--forgetting the
past, contented with the society of each other--and shut in with God
and nature, how peaceful the future would be! nay, how happy all
might yet become!"
Sympathy with her mother had forced her to put temporarily aside the
contemplation of her own sorrow, but in secret it preyed upon her
heart; and whenever a letter arrived, she dreaded the announcement of
Mr. Palma's marriage.
His parting allusion to a brief European visit she had by the aid of
her fears interpreted to mean a bridal tour, curtailed by his
business engagements; and though she never mentioned his name when it
could be avoided, she could not hear it casually pronounced by her
uncle or mother, without feeling her heart bound suddenly.
Once, soon after her arrival in Paris, her mother, in reading a
letter from Mr. Palma, glanced at her, and said:
"Your guardian desires me to say, that in your undisguised devotion
to Uncle Orme he presumes he is completely forgotten; but consoles
himself with the reflection, that from time immemorial wards have
been like the Carthaginians--proverbially ungrateful."
Regina made no response, and since then she had received no message.
While she sat gazing over Como, a mirage rose glistening between her
eyes, and the emerald shore beyond: the dear familiar outlines of
that Fifth Avenue library, the frescoed walls, polished floor, mellow
gas lamps; and above all, the stately form, massive head, high brow,
so like a slab of marble, and blight black eyes of the dear master.
She was glad when Mr. Chesley came in, with an open book in his hand,
and stood near her.
"Is your mother asleep?"
"I hope so. She sent me away that she might get a nap."
"Just now I stumbled upon a passage which reminded me so vividly of
the imaginary home you last week painted for us, somewhere along the
Pacific shore, that I thought I would show it to you. That home,
where you hope to indulge your bucolic tastes, your childish fondness
for pets--doves, rabbits, pheasants--and similar rustic appendages to
our cottage--in--the--air. Here, read it, aloud if you will."
She glanced over the lines, smiled, and read:
"'Mong the green lanes of Kent stood an antique home
Within its orchard, rich with ruddy fruits;
For the full year was laughing in his prime.
Wealth of all flowers grew in that garden green,
And the old porch with its great oaken door
Was smothered in rose-blooms, while o'er the walls
The honeysuckle clung deliciously.
Before the door there lay a plot of grass
Snowed o'er with daisies,--flower by all beloved,
And famousest in song,--and in the midst
A carved fountain stood,...
On which a peacock perched and sunned itself;
Beneath, two petted rabbits, snowy white,
Squatted upon the sward.
A row of poplars darkly rose behind,
Around whose tops, and the old-fashioned vanes,
White pigeons fluttered; and over all was bent
The mighty sky, with sailing, sunny clouds."
"Thank you, Uncle Orme. The picture is as sweet as its honeysuckle
blooms, and some day we will frame it with California mountains, and
call it Home. I shall only want to add a gently sloping field,
wherein pearly short-horns stand ankle deep in clover, while my dear
old dog Hero basks upon the doorstep; and upon the lawn,--
'An almond tree
Pink with her blossom and alive with bees,
Standing against the azure.'"
"Yonder come the letters."
As he spoke, Mr. Chesley left the room, and soon after a servant
entered with a letter addressed to Regina.
It was from Olga, dated Baden-baden; and the vein of subdued yet
hopeless melancholy that wandered through its contents, now and then
intertwined strangely with a thread of her old grim humour.
"Do you ever hear from that legal sphinx--Erle Palma? Mamma only now
and then receives epistles fashioned after those once in vogue in
Laconia. (I wonder if even the old toothless gossips in Sparta were
ever laconic?) I am truly sorry for Erle Palma. That beautifully
crystallized quartz heart of his is no doubt being ground between the
upper and nether millstones of his love and his pride; and Hymen
ought to charge him heavy mill-toll. My dear, _have_ you seen Elliott
Roscoe's little tinted-paper poem? Of course his apostrophe to
'violet eyes, overlaced with jet!' will sound quite Tennysonian to a
certain little shy girl, now hiding at Como, and who 'inspired the
strain.' But aside from the pleasant association that links you with
the verses, they are--pardon me, dear--as thin and flavourless
as--well, as the soup dished out at pauper restaurants. You are at
liberty to consider me consumed by envy, green with jealousy, when I
here spitefully record that Elliott's ambitious poem reminds me of M.
de Bonald's biting criticism on Madame de Krüdener: 'I make bold to
declare, with the Bible in my hand, that the poor we shall always
have with us, were it only the poor in intellect.' Coke and Story
will befriend poor Elliott much more effectually than the Muses, who
have most ingloriously snubbed him. Are you really happy, little
snowbird, nestling in the down of mother-love, which--like the
veritable baby you are--you so pined for?
"Regina, I am going to tell you something. Bar the windows, lock the
doors, shut it up for ever, close in your own heart. A few nights
ago, I went with an English friend to the _Conversationshaus_. When
we had leaned awhile against one of the columns, and watched the
dancers in the magnificent saloon, he proposed to show me the grand
gambling-room.
"As we walked slowly along, listening to the click of the gold that
pattered down from trembling hands, I saw, sitting at a _Roulette_
table, deeply immersed in the game (never tell it!) Belmont
Eggleston. Not the same classic, god-like face that I would once have
followed straight to Hades--not the man upon whom I wasted all the
love that God gives a woman to glorify her life and home; but a
flushed, bloated creature, as unlike the Belmont of my hopes and
dreams as 'Hyperion to a Satyr!' I watched him till my very soul
turned sick, and all Pandemonium seemed to have joined in a jeer at
my former infatuation. Next day, I saw him reel from a saloon to the
steps of his wife's carriage. Years ago, when Erle Palma told me that
my darling drank and gambled, I denied it; and in return for the
warning, emptied more wrath upon my informer than all the Apocalyptic
vials held. Ah! for poor Belmont, I fought as fiercely as a tawny
tigress, when her youngest cub is captured by the hunters. Ashes!
Bitter ashes of love and trust! Truly 'there is no pardon for
desecrated ideals.' I have lived to learn that--
'Man trusts in God;
He is eternal. Woman trusts in man,
And he is shifting sand.'"
"Regina!"
The girl looked up, and saw her uncle with an open letter in his
hand.
"What is it? Some bad news!"
"Dear little girl, you are indeed fatherless now."
She bent her head upon the ledge of the window, and after a moment
Mr. Chesley sighed, and smoothed her hair.
"With all his faults, he was still your father; and having had
several interviews with him in Paris, I was convinced he was more
'sinned against than sinning,' though of course he knew that he could
never have legally married again while Minnie lived. God help us to
forgive, even as we need and hope to be forgiven."
"He knows I forgave him. I told him so the night he held me to his
heart and kissed me; and you never can know how that thought comforts
me now. But mother! Uncle----"
She sprang up pale and tearful, but he detained her.
"Mr. Palma writes me that there remains no longer a doubt that
Laurance perished in the wreck. He encloses a detailed account of the
disaster, from an American naval surgeon, who was returning home on
furlough, when the storm overtook them, and who was one of the few
picked up by the West Indian vessel. Mr. Palma wrote to him, relative
to your father, and it appears from his reply--in my hand--that he
knew the Laurances quite well. He says that during the gale, he was
called to prescribe for Maud, who was really ill, and rendered worse
by terror. When it was evident the steamer could not outlive the
storm, he saw Cuthbert Laurance place his wife in one of the boats,
and return to the cabin for his sick child. Hastening back with the
little cripple in his arms, he found the boats were beyond reach, and
too crowded to admit another passenger. He shouted the nearest to
take his child, only his child; but the violence of the gale rendered
it impossible to do more than keep the boat from swamping, and with
many others, he was left upon the doomed vessel. There was no
remaining boat; night came swiftly on, the storm increased, and next
day there was no vestige of boat or ship visible. Mrs. Laurance was
in the second boat, the largest and strongest, but it was overladen,
and about twilight it capsized in the fury of the gale, and _all went
down_. The surgeon who heard the wild screams of the women knows that
the wife perished, and says he cannot indulge the faintest hope that
the father and child escaped. Cuthbert was a remarkably skilful
swimmer; he had once contended for a wager off Brighton, with a party
of naval officers, and Laurance won it; but none could live in the
sea that boiled and bellowed around that sinking ship, and encumbered
as he was with the helpless child, it was impossible that he would
have survived. I would rather not tell Minnie now, but Mr. Palma
writes that the sister and nephew of General Laurance will force a
suit to secure the remnants of the property, and he wishes to
anticipate their action. Come with me, dear. Minnie is not asleep. As
I passed her door, I heard her walk across the floor."
"Uncle Orme, can't you wait till to-morrow? I do not know how this
news will affect her, and I dread it."
"My dear child, her suspense is destroying her. After all, delay will
do no good. Poor Minnie! There is her bell. She knows the hour our
mail is due, and she will ask for letters."
Opening the door, both paused at the threshold, and neither could
ever forget the picture she represented.
In a snowy _peignoir_, she sat on the side of the couch, with her
long waving hair falling in disorder to the marble floor, and seemed
indeed like Japhet's "Amarant":
"She in her locks is like the travelling sun,
Setting, all clad in coifing clouds of gold."
The wan Phidian face was turned toward them, and was breathless in
its anxious eagerly questioning expression. Her brown eyes widened,
searching theirs; and reading all, in her daughter's tearful pitying
gaze, what a wild look crossed her face!
Regina pushed her uncle back, closed the door and sprang to the
couch, holding out the letters.
Sitting as still as stone, Mrs. Laurance did not appear to notice
them.
"Darling mother, God knows what is best for us all."
Slowly the strained eyes turned to the appealing face of her
kneeling child, and something there broke up the frozen deeps of her
heart.
"Are you sure? Is there no hope?"
"No hope; except to meet him in heaven."
Throwing her hands above her head, the wretched woman wrung them
despairingly, and the pain of all the bitter past wailed in her
passionate cry:
"Lost for ever! And I would not forgive him! My husband! My own
husband! When he begged for pardon I spurned, and derided, and
taunted him! Oh! I meant sometime to forgive him; after I had
accomplished all I planned. After he was beggared, and humiliated in
the eyes of the world, and that woman occupied the position where
they all sought to keep me, a mother and yet no lawful wife, after I
had enjoyed my triumph a little while, I fully intended to listen to
my heart long enough to tell him that I forgave him because he was
your father! And now, where is my revenge? Where is my triumph? God
has turned His back upon me; has struck from my hands all that I have
toiled for fifteen years to accomplish. They all triumph over me now,
in their quiet graves, resting in peace; and I live, only to regret!
To regret!"
Her eyes were dry, and shone like jewels, and when her arms fell, her
clenched hands rested unintentionally on her daughter's head.
"Mother, he knows now that you forgive him. Remember that for him all
grief is ended; and try to be comforted."
"And for me? What remains for me?"
Her voice was so deep, so sepulchral, so despairing, that Regina
clung closer to her.
"Your child, who loves you so devotedly; and the hope of that blessed
rest in heaven, where marriages are unknown, where at last we shall
all dwell together in peace."
For some time Mrs. Laurance remained motionless; then her lips moved
inaudibly. At length she said:
"Yes, my child, our child is all that is left. When he asked to kiss
me once more, I denied him so harshly, so bitterly! When he tried to
draw me for the last time to his bosom, I hurled away his arms, would
not let him touch me. Now I shall never see him again. My husband!
The one only love of my miserable and accursed life! Oh, my beloved!
do you know at last, that the Minnie of your youth, the bride of your
boyhood has never, never ceased to love her faithless, erring
husband?"
Her voice grew tremulous, husky, and suddenly bending back her
daughter's head, she looked long at the grieved countenance.
"His last words were: 'Minnie love, let our baby's eyes and lips
plead pardon for her father's unintentional sins.' They do; they
always shall. Cuthbert's own wonderful eyes shining in his
daughter's. My husband's own proud beautiful lips that kiss me so
fondly every time I press his child's mouth! At last I can thank God
that our baby is indeed her father's image; and because in death
Cuthbert is my own again, I can cherish the memory, and pray for the
soul of my husband! Kiss me, kiss me--oh, my darling!"
She kissed the girl's eyes and lips, held her off, gazing into her
face through gathering mist, then drew her again to her bosom, and
the long hoarded bitterness and agony found vent in a storm of sobs
and tears.
"I must sit joyless in my place; bereft
As trees that suddenly have dropped their leaves,
And dark as nights that have no moon."