[Scene:—A balcony opening by a wide, curtained window from a ball-room in which a masquerade is in progress. Two maskers, the lady dressed as a peasant girl of Britany and her companion as a brigand, come out. The curtains fall behind them so that they are hidden from those within.]
He.You waltz divinely, mademoiselle.
She.Thank you. So I have been told before, but I find that it depends entirely upon my partner.
He.You flatter me. Will you sit down?
She.Thank you. How glad one is when a ball is over. It is almost worth enduring it all, just to experience the relief of getting through with it.
He.What a world-weary sentiment for one so young and doubtless so fair.
She.Oh, everybody is young in a mask, and by benefit of the same doubt, I suppose, everybody is fair as well.
He.It were easy in the present case to settle all doubts by dropping the mask.
She.No, thank you. The doubt does not trouble me, so why should I take pains to dispel it? Say I am five hundred; I feel it.
He.What indifference; and in one who waltzes so well, too. Will you not give me another turn?
She.Pardon me. I am tired.
He.And you can resist music with such a sound of the sea in it?
She.It is not melancholy enough for the sea.
He.Is the sea so solemn to you, then?
She.Inexpressibly. It is just that—solemn. It is too sad for anger, and too great and grave for repining; it is as awful as fate.
He.I confess it never struck me so.
She.It did not me always. It was while I was in Britany—where I got this peasant dress; isn’t it quaint?—that I learned to know the sea. It judged me; it reiterated one burden over and over until it seemed to me that I should go mad; yet at the same time its calmness gave me self-control. If there had been the slightest trace of anger or relenting in its accusations, I could have turned away easily enough, and shaken its influence all off. But it was like an awful tribunal before which I had to stand silent, and review my past as interpreted by inexorable justice,—with no palliations, no shams, nothing but honest truth. But why should I say all this rigmarole to you? You must be amused,—if you are not too much bored, that is.
He.On the contrary, I thank you very much.
She.For what?
He.First, for your confidence in me; and second, for telling me an experience so like my own.It was not the sea, but circumstances that delivered me over to myself,—a long, slow convalescence, in which I, too, had an interview with the Nemesis of truth, and found a carefully built structure of shams and self-deception go down as mist before the sun. The most frightful being in the world to encounter is one’s estranged better self.
She.That is true. No one but myself could have persuaded me that it was I who was to blame. The more I was argued with, the more I believed myself a martyr, and my husband—
He.Your husband?
She.I have betrayed myself. I am not mademoiselle, but madame.
He.But I see no—
She.No ring? True; I returned that to my husband before I went to Britany.
He.And in Britany?
She.In Britany I would have given the world to have it back again.
He.But your husband? Did he accept it so easily?
She.What else can a man do when his wife casts him off?
He.Do? Oh, it is considered proper in such cases, I believe, for him to make a violent pretence of not accepting his freedom.
She.You seem to be sure he considered it freedom!
He.Pardon me. I forgot for the moment that you were his wife.
She.Compliments do not please me.
He.Then you are not a woman.
She.Will you be serious?
He.Why should I be—at a ball?
She.Because I choose.
He.Oh, good and sufficient reason!
She.But tell me soberly,—you are a man,—what could my husband have done?
He.Do you mean to make my ideas standards by which to try him?
She.Perhaps yes; perhaps no. At least tell me what you think.
He.A man need not accept a dismissal too easily.
She.But what then?
He.He might have followed; he might have argued. It is scarcely possible that you alone were to blame. Was there nothing in which he might have acknowledged himself wrong,—nothing with which he should reproach himself?
She.How can I tell what took place in his heart? I only know my own. He may have repented somewhat, or he may not. As for following— You do not know my husband. He is just, just, just. It was his one fault, I thought then. It took time for me to appreciate the worth of such a virtue.
He.But what has that to do with following you?
She.‘She has chosen,’ he would reason. ‘Let the event punish her; it is only right that she should suffer for her own act.’
He.But is his justice never tempered by mercy?
She.The highest mercy is to be just. To palliate is merely to postpone sentence.
He.You are the first woman I ever met who would acknowledge that.
She.Few women, I hope, have been taught by an experience so hard as mine. But how dolefully we are talking. Do say something amusing; we are at a ball.
He.I might give you an epigram for the one with which you served me a moment ago, and retort that to be amusing is to be insincere.
She.Then—for we came to be amused—why are we here?
He.Manifestly because we prize insincerity.
She.You are right. I came to get away from myself. One must do something, and even the dissipations of charity pall after a time.
He.We seem to be in much the same frame of mind, and perhaps cannot do better than to stay where we are, consorting darkly, while the others take pains to amuse themselves. So we get through the evening, that is the main thing.
She.You have forgotten to be as complimentary as you were half an hour since.
He.Have I? And yet the greatest compliment a man can pay a woman is sincerity.
She.If he does not love her, yes.
He.Ah, then you agree with Tom Moore:
“While he lies, his heart is yours;But oh! you’ve wholly lost the youth,The instant that he tells you truth!”
“While he lies, his heart is yours;But oh! you’ve wholly lost the youth,The instant that he tells you truth!”
“While he lies, his heart is yours;But oh! you’ve wholly lost the youth,The instant that he tells you truth!”
She.Perhaps; but it is no matter, since we were not talking of love.
He.But if we were?
She.If we were we should undoubtedly say a great many foolish things and quite as many false ones.
He.You are cynical.
She.Oh, no. Cynicism is like a cravat, very becoming to a man if properly worn, but always setting ill upon a lady.
He.Did you learn that, also, in Britany? It is a country of enlightenment. Would that my wife had gone there.
She.Or her husband!
He.You are keen. Her husband learned bitter truths enough by staying at home. I am evidently your complement; for I had a wedding-ring sent back to me.
She.And why?
He.Why? Why? Who ever knows a woman’s reason! Because I refused, perhaps, to call black white, to say I was pleased by what made me angry; because— No; on the whole, since I am not making love to her, it is hardly worth while to lie to a peasant from Britany, though it is of coursenecessary to sustain the social fictions with people nearer home. It was because the wedding-ring was a fetter that constrained my wife, body and soul; because I was as inflexible as steel. My purposes, my views, my beliefs were the Procrustean bed upon which every act of hers was measured.Voila tout!
She.I understand, I think.
He.Oh, I have learned well enough where the blame lay in the three years since she left me.
She.Three years!
He.Why do you start?
She.It is three years, too, since I—
He.Who are you?
She.It is no matter; my husband is far from here.
He.That is more than I can say of my wife.
She.Where is she, then?
He.Heaven knows; not I. But let that go. Why may we not be useful to each other? Our cases are similar; we are both lonely.
She.And strangers.
He.Acquaintance is not a matter of time, but of temperament. Should we have found it possible to be so frank with one another had we been merely strangers?
She.You are specious.
He.No; only honest.
She.But what—
He.What? Why, friendship. We have foundit possible to be frank in masks; why not out of them?
She.Then you propose a platonic friendship?
He.I want a woman who will be my friend, to whom I can talk freely. There are words a man has no power or wish to say to a man, yet which must be spoken or they fester in his mind.
She.I am, then, to be a safety-valve.
He.Every man must have a woman as a lodestar; you are to be that to me.
She.And your wife?
He.My wife? She voluntarily abandoned me. I haven’t seen her for three years; and surely she ought to cease to count by this time.
She.You are heartless.
He.Heartless?
She.You should be faithful to your lost—
He.Lost fiddlestick!
She.You are very rude!
He.I don’t see—
She.And very disagreeable.
He.But—
She.If you had really loved your wife, you’d always mourn for her, whatever she did.
He.Good Heavens! That is like a woman. A man is expected to bear anything, everything, and if at last he does not come weeping to kiss the hand that smites him, he is heartless, forsooth! Bah! I am not a whipped puppy, thank you.
She.Your love was, perhaps, never distinguished by meekness?
He.I’m afraid not.
She.It might be none the worst for that. The ideal man for whom I am looking will not be too lamblike, even in love.
He.You look for an ideal man, then?
She.As closely as did Diogenes.
He.And your husband?
She.Oh, like your wife, he should, perhaps, begin not to count.
He.Good. We are sworn friends, then, until you find your ideal man.
She.If you will.
He.Then unmask.
She.Is that in the bargain?
He.Of course. Else how should we know each other again?
She.But—
He.Unmask!
She.Very well,—when you do.
He.Now, then. [They unmask.]
She.Philip!
He.Agnes!
She.You knew all the time!
He.Who told you I was here?
She.I didn’t know it.
He.I thought you went to Russia.
She.Well, I didn’t. I hope you feel better! Good night.
He.Wait, Agnes. I—
[There is a moment’s silence, in which they look at each other intently. He takes her hand in both his.]
He.Agnes, I am not your ideal man, but—
She.Nor I your ideal woman, apparently. Your wife does not count, you say.
He.No more than your husband; so we are quits there.
She.It’s very horrid of you to remind me of that.
He.I acknowledge that I was always very horrid in everything.
She.Oh, if you acknowledge that, Phil, it is hardly worth while to spend any more time in explanations while this divine waltz is running to waste.
He.But you were tired and out of sorts.
She.You old goose, don’t you see that I’m neither!
He.And you do waltz divinely.
[They attempt to adjust their masks, but somehow get into each other’s arms. In a few moments more, however, they are seen among the dancers within.]
“I
“I shallfeel honored, Mistress Henshaw, if you will accept this posie as a token which may perchance serve to keep me in remembrance while I am over the sea.”
“I am extremely beholden to you,” replied the old dame addressed, her wrinkled face illuminated with a smile of pleasure. “But for keeping you in remembrance it needs not this posie or other token. I do not hold my friends so lightly.”
“I thank you for counting me one of your friends,” John Friendleton said frankly. “I have no kindlier memories of Boston than of the home under your roof.”
He had placed upon the many-legged table a flower-pot containing a thrifty tuberose, and with a kindly smile upon his handsome and winning face, he stood regarding the old dame into whose custody he had just given the plant. The dress of the period,—the days of the end of the seventeenth century,—plainthough it was, accorded well with the sturdy honesty and kindness of his face and the compact and strong build of his figure. The wrinkled crone returned his smile with one of frosty but genuine warmth.
“This plant is none the less pleasing to me,” she said, “though I by no means need it as a reminder. I shall be very careful in its nourishing.”
“It is by no means an ordinary herb,” Friendleton returned lightly. “There may be magic in it for aught I can tell. My uncle, who sent me the bulbs from even so far away as Spain, hath a shrewd name as a wise man; and to say sooth he belike doth know far more than altogether becometh a good Christian. I give you fair warning that there may be mischief in the herb; though to be sure,” he added laughing, “the earth in which it grows is consecrated, for I filled the pot from Copp’s Hill graveyard hard by here.”
A momentary gleam shot with a sinister light its fiery sparkle across the black eyes of Mistress Henshaw.
“To one who feareth no harm,” she answered, “it seldom haps. I trust the wind may hold fair for your sailing,” she added,glancing from the small-paned window, “and that you may safely return to Boston as you are minded.”
“Thank you, I have hitherto been much favored by Providence in my journeyings. Farewell, Mistress Henshaw.”
The old dame received his adieu, and a moment later she watched from the window his active young figure as he walked briskly away. She regarded it intently until a corner hid him from sight. Then she turned back to her room and her occupations.
“Providence, indeed!” she muttered half aloud, with a world of contempt in her tone.
Then she turned to the thrifty, healthy tuberose and caressed its leaves with her thin old fingers as if it were alive and could understand her attentions.
The house in which this conversation took place was still standing a few years since, the oldest in Boston, at the corner of Moon and Sun Court streets. It was erected in 1669; its timber, tradition says, being cut in the neighborhood. The upper story projected over the lower like a frowning brow, from beneath which the windows shone at night like the glowing eye-balls of a wild beast. It was a stout and almost warlike-looking edifice, which preserved even up to theday when, in 1878, it was at length pulled down by the hand of progress, a certain strongly individual appearance, which if less marked at the time when John Friendleton bade Mistress Henshaw good-by, and the building was thirty years old, must always have distinguished the dwelling from those about it.
Dwellings, however, take much of their air from dwellers, and Mistress Henshaw was likely to impart to any house she inhabited a bearing unlike that of its neighbors. She was a dame to all appearances of some three score winters, each frosty season having left its snow upon her hair. Her figure was still erect, while her eyes were piercing and black and capable of a glance of such strength and directness as almost to seem supernatural.
It may have been from the power and fervor of this glance that Mistress Henshaw acquired the uncanny reputation which she enjoyed in Boston. As she moved with surprising energy about the house, overseeing and directing her dumb negro servant Dinah, the eyes of passers-by who saw her erect figure flit by the windows were half averted as if from some deadly thing which yet held them with a weird fascination; and at nightfall the children whom chance belated in theneighborhood went skurrying past Dame Henshaw’s house like frightened hares.
It is not perhaps to be told why Satan should have been able to establish his kingdom among a people so devout and pious as the godly inhabitants of the Massachusetts colony; yet we have it upon the testimony of no less a man than the sage and reverend Cotton Mather, whose sepulchre is with us unto this day, and upon the word of many another scarcely less wise and devout, that the Father of Evil did establish a peculiar and covenant people of his own in the midst of the very elect of New England. It may be that it is always as it was in the days of Job, and that the sons of God never assemble without finding in their midst the dark form of Lucifer; for certain it is that the devil, to quote the Rev. Cotton Mather’s own words, “broke in upon the country after as astonishing a manner as was ever heard of.”
“Flashy people,” quaintly and solemnly remarks the learned divine, “may burlesque these things, but when hundreds of the most sober people in a country where they have as muchmother-witcertainly as the rest of mankind, know them to betrue, nothing but the absurd and forward spirit ofSadducismcan question them.” From all of which,and from much more which might be cited, it is evident that there was plenty of witchcraft abroad in those days, whether Mistress Henshaw was concerned therein or not.
It is sufficient to note that certain gossips scrupled not to declare that Dame Henshaw was one of the accursed who bore the mark of the beast and kept tryst at the orgies of the witches’ sabbath, and the report once started the facts in the case made little difference. Some of her neighbors went so far as to declare that if the dame’s residence were forcibly changed from Sun Court street to Prison lane, the community would be the better off.
Governor Belamont, however, in this last year of the century, was far more exercised about pirates than concerning witches; and better pleased at the capture of Captain Kidd, who had just fallen into his hands, than if he had discovered all the wise women in the colonies. Public feeling, moreover, was still in a reactionary state from the horrors of the Salem delusion of 1692; and thus it came about that Mistress Henshaw was left unmolested.
The second person in the dialogue given above, John Friendleton, was an Englishman, and, if tradition be true, the son of an oldlover of Mistress Henshaw. He had taken up his abode with that lady upon his arrival in the New World, whither he had been led, like many another stout young blade of his day, by the hope of finding fair fortunes in the growing colonies, and from the first he had been a favorite with the old lady. It was whispered over certain of those tea-cups which we now tenderly cherish from a respect for the memory of very great grandmothers and an æsthetic enjoyment of the beauties of old china, that it was by the aid of unhallowed power exercised in his behalf that the young man was always so fortunate in his undertakings. There were sinister tales of singular coincidences which had worked for his good, and behind which the gossips believed to lie the instigating will of his powerful landlady. Whether he himself was aware of this supernatural aid, opinion was divided, but he was so frank and handsome withal that the weight of opinion leaned toward acquitting him. The habit of New England thought, moreover, was so opposed to imagining a witch as exercising her power for anything but evil, that these rumors after all gained no great or general credence.
The friendship between the dame and her lodger was perhaps based upon mutual need.The young man gave her that full confidence which a pure-minded youth enjoys bestowing upon an elderly female friend; while in turn the childless old lady, alone and otherwise friendless, regarded him with tender affection. She cherished any chance token from him, and especially did she seem touched by this gift of a tuberose which he had given her at parting. She knew how carefully he had tended and cherished the plant, more rare then than now, and long after the sails of the ship which conveyed him to England, whither he had been summoned by the serious illness of a relative, had dipped under the horizon, the old witch—if witch she were—sat regarding the flower with eyes in which the tears glistened.
Itwas early springtime when John Friendleton once more caught sight of the beacon upon Trimountain, and the walls of the fort standing upon a hill which has itself been removed by the enterprise of Boston. The few months of the young man’s absence, and the progress of time from one century to another—for it was now 1700—had brought nogreat changes to the town; but to him it seemed far from being the same he had left.
The first tidings he had received from Boston, after landing in England, had been a letter telling of the death of Mistress Henshaw. She had set out from Boston, so the letter informed him, to visit a sister living somewhere in the wilds toward far Pemaquid, and had never returned. The letter was written by one Rose Dalton, who claimed to be a niece of the deceased, and who had come into possession of the small property of Mistress Henshaw by virtue of a will made before the adventurous and fatal journey. The writer added to her letter the information that she should live on with dumb Dinah, holding as nearly as possible to the fashion of her aunt’s housekeeping.
When John stood once more upon the well-remembered threshold, he felt half disposed to turn away and enter no more a place in which every familiar sight could but call up sad memories. Then, endeavoring to shake off his melancholy, he knocked.
A light, brisk step approached from within, and the door opened quickly.
John stood in amazement, unable to utter a word, so bewildered was he by the beauty of the maiden who stood before him; abeauty which now, after nearly two centuries, is still a tradition of marvel. Something unreal and almost supernatural there might seem in the wonderful loveliness of this exquisite creature, were it not that she seemed so to overflow with life and vitality. Her soft and dove like eyes were full of gleams of human energy, of joy, of passion; she had all the beauty of a perfect dream without its unreality; and then and there the young Englishman’s heart fell down and worshipped her, never after to swerve from its allegiance.
“You must be Mr. Friendleton,” the maiden said, courtesying bewitchingly. “I knew your ship was in.”
“I—I have been minding my luggage,” he stammered, rather irrelevantly, his eyes fastened upon her face.
“Be pleased to enter,” said she, smiling a little at the boldness and unconsciousness of his stare. “Your room has been preserved as you left it at your departure. My aunt, good Mistress Henshaw, as I wrote you, straitly enjoined in her will that everything should be kept for you as you had left it. Her affections were marvellously set upon you.”
That he should be allowed to enter underthe same roof with this beautiful creature seemed to John Friendleton the height of bliss, and he had no words to express his delight when he learned that Mistress Rose expected him to take up his abode there as in former times. Her aunt had wished it; had especially spoken of it in her will, and so it was to be.
It would be impossible to pretend that Friendleton struggled much against this proposition, when inclination so strongly pleaded for the carrying out of the wishes of his dead friend; and in this way he became the lodger of young Mistress Rose.
Itdid not long escape the eye of the young man that his new landlady wore always at her throat a cluster of the white, waxy blossoms of the tuberose. The circumstance was in itself sufficiently curious and unusual to excite his attention, and it recalled to his mind the plant he had given to Mistress Henshaw. He wondered what had been the fate of his gift, and one day he ventured to ask Mistress Rose about it. For reply she led him to the room formerly occupiedby her aunt, and showed him the tuberose in a quaint pot. It had grown tall and thrifty, and half a dozen slim stalks upon it stood up stoutly, covered with buds, which showed here and there touches of dull red evolved in their transformation from green to white.
“I marvel how it hath increased,” John said.
“It hath thriven marvellously,” she replied. “Never before hath it been known that the plant would bloom throughout all the year, but this sends out buds continually. I daily wear a blossom, as you may see, and I find its odor wonderfully cheering, although for most it is too powerfully sweet.”
“It is an ornament which becometh you exceedingly well,” he responded, flushing.
“My neighbors,” returned she smiling, “regard it as exceeding frivolous.”
The fragrance of the flower which Mistress Rose wore at her throat floated about John wherever his daily occupations led him, and doubly did the delicious perfume steal through his dreams. He never thought of the maiden without feeling in the air that divinely sweet odor; and a thousand times he secretly compared her to the flower she wore. Nor was the comparison inapt; since her beauty wasrendered somewhat unearthly by the strange pallor of her face, while the intense and passionate intoxication it produced might, without great straining of the simile, be directly compared to the exaltation which the delicious and powerful fragrance produces in sensuous and sensitive natures.
The intimacy between the young people was at first hindered by the shyness of Friendleton, who was only too conscious of the fervor and depth of his passion; but as Rose had many of the well-remembered ways of her aunt, and, stranger yet, appeared well versed in his own past history, he soon became more at his ease. In defiance of the proverb which condemns all true lovers to uneven ways and obstructed paths, the wooing of lovely Mistress Rose by John Friendleton ran smoothly and happily on, seeming to have begun with the young man’s first meeting with his lovely landlady. The gossips of Boston town, strangely enough, left the relations of the lovers untouched by any but friendly comment; and in a fashion as natural as the ripening of the year, their love ripened into completeness.
It was early autumn when Rose became Mistress Friendleton. The wedding was quietly celebrated in the old North Church,and never in its century of existence before its timbers went to feed the campfires of British soldiers, did that house shelter a more lovely bride or a more manly and blissful groom. A faint flush softened the pallor of the maiden, the one charm which could add to her beauty. Her only ornament was her usual cluster of tuberoses, and more than one spectator noted how like the flower was the lady. The circumstance was recalled afterward when the slab was placed above her grave in Copp’s Hill burial-ground. There still lingers among certain old gossips of tenacious memory the tradition of a stone which had on it “some sort of a flower.” It was the slab upon which John Friendleton, imaginative at sorest need, had caused to be carved simply a bunch of tuberoses.
If John had been happy in anticipation, he was, if such a thing be possible, no less so in reality. It is as trite to attempt as it is impossible to effect the portraying of the life of two young people who are profoundly happy in each other. Joy may be named, but not painted. Even were it easy to picture their existence, their self-absorption would prevent their being interesting. As I have sometimes passed the old house on Moon Street, standing worn and stained withthe storms of two centuries, a picture has risen before me of the young bride and groom sitting together and inhaling the fragrance of a quaint pot of tuberoses, blooming so wonderfully that the whole house was filled with their odor; and the memory brings always the tears to my eyes.
Novemberwas at its last day. A severe storm, half rain, half snow, was sweeping over Boston. The beacon upon Trimount trembled in the blast, and on the shores of the peninsula the waves roared sullenly. Few people were abroad, and there was never a watchman in the city who did not for that day at least regret having chosen a calling which kept him out of doors in such weather.
The house on Sun Court Street was too stoutly built to tremble, yet those within heard the wind howling over the hill as if scourged by all the furies. It was one of those nights when a man sits before his fire and realizes the value of all his blessings.
John and Rose sat together before the blazing hearth while the husband told stories of his boyhood in England. The wifenestled close to him, absorbed in the narration, yet not forgetting to fondle his hand with her smooth, soft fingers.
Suddenly into the room burst black, dumb Dinah, wringing her hands and moving her speechless lips with frightful earnestness. In her hands she carried the fragments of the pot which had held the tuberose.
Rose sprang up with a cry of anguish.
“Dinah! Dinah! My tuberose!”
The negress gesticulated wildly, but her mistress rushed past her; and, followed by her husband, hastened to see for herself the extent of the mischief.
The pot had been overturned by the wind, which had burst in one of the tiny greenish window panes, and the plant was completely crushed in the downfall. Not a single flower had escaped, and mingled with fragments of pottery and with the black church-yard mould in which the flower had—perhaps ill-fatedly—been planted, were the leaves and petals, torn and stained and mangled.
In the first sorrow of the discovery of the accident, Rose threw herself into her husband’s arms and burst into tears; but she soon controlled herself, and became perfectly calm. She directed Dinah to remove the débris, and returned to listen to her husband’sstories; and, although she was more quiet than before, she seemed no less interested.
It was late when they prepared to retire.
“John,” Rose said, hesitatingly, as they lingered a moment side by side before the wide hearth, “it is just a year to-night since Mistress Henshaw died. If you are willing, I wish to pass the night alone in her room.”
“I am always willing you should do whatever pleaseth you best,” he answered, smiling upon her; “but why do you mean to shut me out from your sorrow? I, too, loved her.”
“I know,” Rose returned, bending to kiss the hand he had laid upon hers, “and I fear you can never be shut out from my sorrows, however much I could wish to spare you. Still, I wish it to be so for to-night.”
“Then let it be so. The storm does not fright you?”
“The storm does not fright me.”
She took from her throat the tuberoses she had worn that day, and gazed at them sadly.
“I can never wear another,” she said. “These are faded like our happy days.”
“You speak but sadly,” returned her husband, with a look of such fondness that the tears started into her eyes despite all her efforts to restrain them. “You would havespoken so had you been bidding me farewell. The destruction of the flower makes you downcast. Mayhap there is still life in the root, and it may be made once more to grow and bloom.”
“John,” his wife said abruptly, “John, I have loved you from the first moment I saw you; I love you now, and I shall love you to all eternity. Whatever happens, remember that and believe it.”
“I have never doubted that you love me,” he answered, gathering her into his arms; “how else could it be that you could have made me so utterly happy?”
She clung to him passionately a moment. Then with an evident effort at self-control, she kissed his lips fervently, disengaged herself from his embrace, and turned away.
“Good-night, dear,” she said.
Then upon the threshold of Mistress Henshaw’s chamber she paused and looked back, tears shining in her beautiful dark eyes.
“Good-night,” she repeated; “good-night.”
Itwas somewhat past his usual hour of rising when John Friendleton next morning came downstairs. The storm was over, buteverywhere had it left its traces in broken boughs, overturned fences, and dilapidated chimneys, so that as he looked from the window, John could see on all sides the evidences of its violence.
The house was strangely quiet, and he looked about him with the impatience of a lover for his wife, that she might chase away the unaccustomed sombreness which seemed to have descended upon the place.
“Dinah,” he asked, “has not your mistress risen?”
The mute regarded him with a strange appearance of wildness and terror, but she replied by a shake of the head,—instantly hurrying out of the room as if in fear.
John looked after her an instant in bewilderment, not understanding her odd manner; and then approaching the door of the room occupied by his wife, he tapped softly.
There was no response.
He tapped again somewhat more loudly. Still there was no reply. A third time he rapped, now with a heavy hand. All within was as silent as the grave.
Startled by he knew not what fear, with a sudden impulse he set his strong shoulder to the door, and strained until with a crash it flew open.
The heavy curtains were undrawn, and a grey gloom filled the chamber. A fearful silence followed the crash of the breaking lock, and met him like a palpable terror. He saw Rose lying on the bed, her face buried in the pillows; and by some fantastic jugglery, the light from the open door, as it fell upon her hair,—those abundant tresses whose rich, dark glory he so loved,—seemed to silver them to the whiteness of hoary age.
“Rose!” he cried, starting forward to seize her hand which lay upon the coverlid.
The hand was cold with a chill which smote him to the very heart.
“Rose! Sweetheart!” he cried in a piercing voice, bending over and tenderly turning her dear face up to the light.
What horrible mockery confronted him? He started back like one stung by a serpent!
Along the pillow lay a crushed and withered tuberose, and he looked upon the face, ghastly in death, and old and haggard and wrinkled—of Mistress Henshaw.
[The scene is the parlor of a modern house, much adorned, and furnished with a wealth of bric-a-brac, which renders getting about a most difficult and delicate operation, unless one is wholly regardless of the consequences to the innumerable ornaments. Mrs. Greeleigh Vaughn, a corpulent and well-preserved widow, who passes for forty, and is not less, has just seated herself at the whist-table, with her daughter and two guests. One of these, Mr. Amptill Talbot, is one of those young men whose wits seem to be in some mysterious fashion closely connected with the parting of their hair exactly in the middle; the other is a handsome and keen-eyed gentleman of middle age, who answers to the name Colonel Graham.]
Mrs. Vaughn.I am so glad you could and would come, Colonel Graham. Now we shall have a delightful evening at whist. You are such a superb player that I am sure I shall learn more about the game by playing with you a single evening than I should by studying the books for a year.
Colonel Graham.You are too good. I make not the slightest pretence of—
Mrs. V.Oh, of course not. You are too modest; but everybody says that you are a wonderful player. I only hope you won’t be too hard on me if I make a mistake.
Miss Vaughn.Oh, I am so glad mamma is your partner, Colonel Graham. I should be frightened to death if I had to play with you. Mr. Talbot will be a good deal more merciful, I am sure.
Mr. Talbot.Anything you do is sure to be right, Miss Vaughn. If you can put up with me, I am sure I can afford to overlook any mistakes you make. I play whist so seldom that I am all out of practice.
Miss V.(dealing). Oh, I just never play, only when I have to make up the table. I have so many things on hand. Why weren’t you at the Wentworths’ last night, Mr. Talbot?
Mr. T.I was out of town. I think you gave yourself two cards that time.
Miss V.Oh, dear! Have I made a misdeal? I wish you’d count your cards.
Colonel G.You are right. The next card is mine.
Miss V.Thank you.
Mrs. V.That came out all right.
Colonel G.But the trump is not turned.
Miss V.Oh, which was the last card? I am sure I don’t know; I’ve got them all mixed up now.
Mrs. V.Well, never mind. Let me draw one. That will do just as well.
Mr. T.Diamonds? Can’t you draw again? I haven’t—
Miss V.I don’t think it was diamonds. I am almost sure it was spades.
Mrs. V.No, diamonds suits me, and of course you can’t change it now; can she, Colonel Graham?
Colonel G.It isn’t customary, I believe, unless we are to play Auction Pitch, and bid for the trump.
Miss V.Oh, now you are going to be sarcastic! I don’t think that’s fair.
Mrs. V.Do you put your trumps at one end of your hand, Colonel Graham?
Colonel G.No, I do not, but some people find it a convenience.
Mr. T.Is it my lead?
Colonel G.No, it is my partner’s.
Mrs. V.Oh, is it my lead? I’m sure I don’t know what to play. You always lead from your long suit, don’t you? There, I hope that queen will be good.
Mr. T.No, it won’t, for I have the ace.
Mrs. V.Oh, you mean man! Partner, can’t you trump that?
Colonel G.I have suit.
Miss V.There, I have got to put the king on, and I think it is mean.
Mr. T.I am awfully sorry. If I’d only known—
Miss V.I shook my head at you, but you wouldn’t look up.
Mrs. V.That wasn’t fair, and you deserve to be beaten. Now my jack is good, any way.
Mr. T.It isn’t your lead. I took the trick.
Mrs. V.Oh, I beg pardon.
Miss V.I would have trumped it, any way.
Mr. T.I wish I knew what you have.
Miss V.I wish I could tell you. Don’t make it too dark.
Mr. T.Then I’ll lead diamonds.
Miss V.That’s just right.
Mrs. V.Diamonds are trumps.
Miss V.Oh, are they? Oh, that’s too bad. I didn’t want trumps led.
Mr. T.But you said— Why, can’t you go over Colonel Graham’s nine-spot?
Miss V.I made a mistake. I meant to play the ten.
Mrs. V.Shall I put on a small one or a high one, Colonel Graham?
Colonel G.The trick is ours as it lies.
Mrs. V.Then if I put on a high one it will get it out of the way, so you’ll know what to do next time.
Mr. T.Why, you’ve thrown away the king of trumps!
Mrs. V.Wasn’t that right?
Miss V.Why, of course not, mamma. You ought to have put on either the ace or a low one.
Colonel G.It is your lead, Mrs. Vaughn.
Mrs. V.She says she’ll trump hearts, and I can’t play my knave. I’ll try spades. I hope you’ll take it.
Mr. T.And he did. How nice to have a partner do just what you tell him to.
Miss V.That means that I don’t.
Mr. T.You are always satisfactory, whatever you do.
Miss V.What was led? Clubs? Are clubs trumps?
Colonel G.No; diamonds.
Miss V.Second hand low. I know that, at any rate, so there’s a two-spot.
Mr. T.Your mother has taken it with the seven.
Miss V.Oh, and I had the ace, king, and queen. Ought I to have played one of those?
Colonel G.If you tell us your hand you must expect us to play to it.
Miss V.I didn’t mean to tell.
Mrs. V.(leading spades). That was your suit, wasn’t it?
Mr. T.But I hold the ace.
Miss V.It was your own lead, mamma. Any way, I’ll trump it.
Mr. T.Why, you’ve trumped my ace.
Miss V.Oh, did I? I didn’t mean to. Can’t I take it back?
Colonel G.It is a little late, but still—
Miss V.Oh, well, never mind. Let it go. I have the king, any way (leading it).
Colonel G.But you just trumped a spade.
Mrs. V.A revoke! That gives us three points.
Miss V.Oh, it doesn’t either! I didn’t see that king at all when I trumped, and that was theonly spade I had. I’ll change it on the last trick, and then it will be all right.
Mrs. V.You can’t do that; can she, Colonel Graham?
Colonel G.It isn’t customary.
Mr. T.Oh, who wants to play the stiff club rules? I don’t; there isn’t any fun in whist if you are going to be so particular.
Miss V.Whose lead is it now?
Colonel G.If it isn’t yours it must be Mr. Talbot’s, as you decide about that trick.
Mr. T.Then I’ll lead a spade, and you can trump it.
Miss V.There, that’s better than having that trump wasted on your ace.
Mrs. V.Did you ever play Stop? We played it last summer at Bar Harbor. It’s a Western game, and you have chips, just like poker; and then you stop it if you have the stop cards; and sometimes you’ll have the meanest little cards left in your hands, and if it is the ace of diamonds you have to pay five chips for it, or the king, or the queen, or the knave, or the ten; not so much, of course, but it all counts up awfully fast.
Mr. T.Why, that is ever so much like Sixty-six. Do you remember the time we tried to play Sixty-six on the Bar Harbor boat, Miss Vaughn?
Miss V.Oh, yes; and Ethel Mottwassuch fun. She just would cheat, and there was no stopping her.
Colonel G.It is your lead, Miss Vaughn.
Mrs. V.Oh, just wait a moment. I want to know if fourth best has anything to do with playing fourth hand?
Colonel G.Nothing whatever.
Mr. T.Oh, fourth best is one of those things they’ve put in to make whist scientific. For my part, I don’t think there’s any fun—
Miss V.That’s just what I say. When I play whist I want to have a good time, and not feel as if I were going through an examination at a scientific school. Oh, did you know we are going to have a whist figure at Janet Graham’s german, Mr. Talbot? Won’t that be fun?
Mr. T.I am sure then that you’ll be trump.
Miss V.Thank you.
Mrs. V.How pretty!
Colonel G.It is your lead, Miss Vaughn.
Miss V.Why, did I take the last trick? What shall I—oh, I know,—the ace of clubs.
Mrs. V.The two-spot of diamonds ought to be good for that.
Miss V.How horrid! Now the rest of my clubs aren’t any good. Well, any way, I can throw them away.
Mrs. V.Have hearts been led?
Mr. T.I’m sure I can’t remember.
Miss V.(examining tricks). Yes, here’s one heart trick.
Mrs. V.Well, I must lead it, and I’m sure Idon’t remember about it at all. I’ll lead a small one. Was that right, Colonel Graham?
Colonel G.You might have led your knave.
Mrs. V.Why, how did you know I had the knave. I declare, it’s like witchcraft, the way you keep run of the cards. I suppose you know where every card is. Who took that?
Colonel G.I did.
Mr. T.I ought to have trumped that, but I do hate to trump second hand.
Colonel G.But you played suit.
Mr. T.So I did. I forgot that.
Colonel G.(showing hand). The rest of the tricks are mine.
Miss V.Why, I have the king and queen of clubs, and you haven’t a club in your hand.
Colonel G.That is why the tricks are mine. I can keep the lead to the end. I am very sorry, Mrs. Vaughn; but I am suddenly attacked with a nervous headache, so that I cannot possibly go on playing. I shall have to ask to be excused.
Mrs. V.Oh, don’t break up the game when we are getting along so well.
Colonel G.I am very sorry; but I must go. I have enjoyed the game extremely.
Mr. T.Are you out?
Colonel G.Yes.
Mrs. V.I’m sure it was all owing to you.
Colonel G.It was all owing to the fall of the cards. I haven’t done anything.
Miss V.I’m sure we didn’t have anything on our side at all. I hate whist anyway; you have to be so quiet, and study on it so.
Mr. T.Yes, I think it’s awfully hard work.
Colonel G.Oh, you’ll have better luck next time. Good-by; don’t rise.
[And the Colonel goes to the club to relieve his mind by a quantity of vigorous expletives, and then to settle down to an evening of what he calls real whist.]