"I don't know exactly," I said, hesitatingly.
"I think I know," he said, with a laugh that nettled me, low and pleasant as it was. "I think there is small doubt about your preferences just now. You acknowledge my wisdom at last, do you not? You see it was best for you to come to the city?"
"Yes," I said, lifting my eyes for a moment. "You were very right. I ought to thank you very much for your advice."
"My dear," said my aunt, leaning toward us, "you cannot see at all there. You must take my place for a little while, I insist upon it."
The captain rose with greatempressement, and insisted upon my accepting his seat, and in the midst of the confusion consequent upon this change, the door of the box opened again, and Mr. Viennet entered. Mr. Rutledge was placing a chair for me as I looked up and recognized the new comer. The chilled and frightened blood that had crept fluttering round my heart, at this moment rushed into my face, and burned guiltily in my cheeks, as I caught Mr. Rutledge's eye. Mr. Viennet, after a moment devoted to salutation, inquiry and compliment, entered a protest against our remaining any longer in such a detestable corner, pronouncing itdetestable, in his charming little French way. No one could get at us; he had only found us by the merest chance. We must come downstairs—everybody was on the floor—everybody was dancing. He assured madame it was perfectlyconvenable;it was spoiling the pleasure of too many to hide ourselves any longer.
This met Josephine's views exactly, and she importuned "mamma" very prettily to yield. "Mamma" looked doubtingly for a moment at Mr. Rutledge, who responded to the look by saying that he really thought her strict ideas of propriety might allow this liberty without suffering any outrage. It was something new for New York, but these balls had taken very well, and the best people attended them, not only as spectators, but as participators. As for dancing, he said, with a slight shrug, he rather wondered at any lady's liking such an exhibition; but a promenade on the floor for half an hour or so, he really should think we would find more entertaining than remaining in our box.
This partly settled the wavering in Mrs. Churchill's mind, and with a dainty sort of reluctance, she gave her consent to our going on the floor for a little while.
"Cheek by jowl with Tom, Dick and Harry," muttered Phil, giving his arm to Josephine, who took it with but indifferent grace, and bit her lip in annoyance, as, standing nearest the door, Mr. Rutledge and Mr. Viennet at the same moment offered me an arm. Can any girl understand the impulse that made me accept Mr. Viennet's? No man possibly can; my only hope of comprehension is from my own incomprehensible, perverse, self-torturing sex.
Once on the floor, it was hardly to be expected that we could obey my aunt's injunction to keep together, and within sight of her. In five minutes her ermine and diamonds, and the captain's moustache and epaulettes, were, though very dear, of course, to memory, utterly lost to sight, and Paul and Virginia were not more romantically alone than were we, in that vast human wilderness. It was a very amusing and nice thing to be lost. For half an hour we searched for our party, though not, it must be confessed, as if our whole happiness in life depended on our success, but no trace of them could be discovered.
"We must amuse ourselvesalors, mademoiselle, and let them look for us," said my companion. "Was there ever such a waltz before? You cannot resist it any longer, I know you cannot."
Perhaps I might have resisted it, as well as his eloquent pleading, if, raising my eyes at this moment to the boxes we had occupied, I had not caught sight of Josephine and Mr. Rutledge, who had returned there, evidently much more interested in each other than in anything below them.
"I'll dance once," I said, and in a moment his arm was on my waist, and we were floating along the elastic floor to such music as the fairies dance to, on soft summer nights, with the blue vault of heaven above their heads, and the green sward beneath their feet, and all wild ecstatic and untamed rapture thrilling in their elfin bosoms.
Conscience was drugged that night; self-will and pride, self-appointed regents, were holding sway as only usurpers can; and the glowing hours fled away without record or remorse.
"N'importe," murmured my companion, when I suggested a doubt, andn'importeI allowed it to be, as, whirling giddily from end to end of the vast area, or sauntering slowly through the gradually lessening crowd, we let the minutes slip away into hours. It was rather a startling recall to stern reality, when, at one end of the hall, suddenly encountering Phil, he laid a heavy hand on my partner's arm, exclaiming:
"Victor, my boy, if you've any mercy on that unlucky girl, come this way. There is such a scolding in store for her as she never had before. The carriage has been waiting an hour, and the captain and I, being detailed for the detective service, have pursued you faithfully, but you have eluded us most skillfully, I'll do you the justice to say! And Mr. Rutledge and the ladies have watched you from upstairs, and said—well, we won't say what pretty things."
"Extraordinary!" exclaimed Victor. "Why,wehave been hunting foryoutill we were entirely discouraged, disheartened, in despair!"
"Ah, well!" exclaimed Phil, with a laugh, leading the way. "I only hope you'll be able to make Mrs. Churchill believe it. It's my duty to prepare you for the worst, however."
"And our duty to be brave," said my comrade. "And fortune favors such, they tell us, mademoiselle."
Certainly I could not feel otherwise than grateful to my protector for his ingenious and powerful defence, as we appeared before the offended group at the door of the cloakroom. Though my aunt received it politely, I well knew the wrath that her knit brow portended, and Josephine's look of contempt was unmistakable. Mr. Rutledge had his visor down; no earthly intelligence could discover anything of his emotions through that impassive exterior. Even the captain was irritated; Phil was neutral, but Victor was my only friend.
"Good night," he whispered, as he put me into the carriage. "We'll finish that redowa at Mrs. Humphrey's to-morrow night."
I wished, with all my heart, it was to-morrow night, and all that I foresaw must intervene, safely past. The scolding was not to come before morning, I saw at once, and when my aunt, on our arrival at home, dismissed me to my room, it was with a cold, "I wish to have a few minutes' conversation with you after breakfast to-morrow."
With that dread before me—with a guilty sense of wrong-doing, and a bitter sense of shame, a humbled condemnation of myself, and an angry resentment toward others, the restless hours of that night offered anything but repose, anything but pleasant retrospect or anticipation.
"And if some tones be false or low,What are all prayers beneathBut cries of babes, that cannot knowHalf the deep thought they breathe?"KEBLE.
Mrs. Churchill understood, if ever any did, the art of reprimand. Without the least appearance of agitation herself, with a perfectly unmoved and stony composure, she managed to overawe and disarm the prisoner at the bar, whatever might be his or her offence, or shade or degree of guilt. Defence died on my lips at the dreaded interview, and I bore my sentence in silence, which was, a total seclusion from society after to-night—a return to the oblivion of the nursery and study. This ball at Mrs. Humphrey's was to be my last appearance in public till I should have learned how to behave myself. As I had accepted, it was proper I should go to-night, otherwise she would no means have allowed it.
"Nous verrons," I said to myself, as I went upstairs. "If I continue to want to go to parties, no doubt she will have to let me go. I am a fraction too old to be put in a dark closet, or sent to bed for being naughty, and Aunt Edith knows it."
That Wednesday was a very busy day to Mrs. Churchill and Josephine. A wedding reception took up the morning, from which they returned but to dress for a dinner at the Wynkars, and thence returning, made a hurried toilette for the ball. It seemed making rather a toil of pleasure, if one might judge from my aunt's haggard looks, and Josephine's impatient complaints.
There was an anxious contraction on Mrs. Churchill's brow as she came down from the nursery after breakfast, and apparently a struggle in her mind between home duties and social duties, when it became necessary for her to decide about going out. That she sincerely believed in the stringent nature of both, no one could doubt who watched her closely. It was not pleasure that took her away from little Essie that morning; it was a mistaken sense of duty. She had set up for her worship an idol, in whose hard service she had unconsciously come to sacrifice time, ease, and affection, as stoically as many have suffered in a cause whose reward is not altogether seen and ended in this world.
So it was, that, trying to make up for her absence by many injunctions and cautions to those left in charge, she turned her back upon the child for the greater part of the day.
"I hoped," said she, as she paused at the nursery door, in her rustling silk and heavy India shawl, "I hoped that the doctor would have come before I went out, but I really do not see but what you can do as well as I can, Félicie. Pay particular attention to his directions, and send John out immediately for any prescription he may leave for her. And be sure you tell him just how she was yesterday, and how well she slept last night. I don't like," she continued, taking off one glove to feel again of the child's hot forehead, "her having fever again this morning. I thought yesterday she was so much better."
"Oh, madam is too anxious. It is nothing but a little excitement that has brought it on again," said the nurse. "If madam would tell Mademoiselle Esther how very naughty it is for her to cry to go into her cousin's room, and fret and strike me when I try to keep her quiet, perhaps she might mind better. It is that that brings her fever on, madam, I am afraid."
"Now, Esther," said her mother, with authority, "I shall have to punish you if you do so any more. I shall be very angry if you do not mind Félicie to-day, and if you hurt or strike her, remember I shall punish you when I come back—do you hear?"
Esther heard, yes. She sat bolt upright in her little bed, and looked at the speaker with her parched lips parted, and a strange, bewildered expression in her eyes, and a restless movement of her tiny hands. Before the interview was over, however, the startled look had settled into a vacant, listless stare; and a peevish moan, after her mother left the room, was all the evidence she gave of being impressed or alarmed by the injunctions laid upon her. I heard the miserable little complainer unmoved as long as I could; after a while, putting down my book, I went into the nursery. She stretched out her arms, and cried:
"Take me to your room."
"If you will stop crying," I said, taking her up in my arms, and wrapping her dressing-gown about her.
Félicie looked up quickly, and said, "Madame a dit que non."
Félicie always lied in her native tongue, and this was but an additional proof to me that madame had said no such thing, and I told her so, rather strongly. Grace came in just then, and Félicie appealed to her for confirmation.
"Certainly," said Grace, promptly, "mamma's last charge was that Esther should not go out of the nursery; so, missy, you may just make yourself easy where you are. Don't suppose everybody is going to spoil you like your precious cousin there."
Essie still clung tightly round my neck; much, however, as my pride rebelled, there was no way but to submit to the orders they promulged. So, carrying her back to the bed, and loosening her arms from my neck, I put her down with,
"No matter, sweetheart; if Mahomet brings his work, and sits down by the mountain, that will do as well, will it not?"
"I don't know what you mean," said the child, uneasily.
"She means to plague you, Esther; she's been scolded this morning, and she's in bad humor," said Grace.
"Don't throw stones, Miss Grace," I retorted. "I wasn't sent away from the table, if I was scolded."
"Mamma'll never forget your performance last night, the longest day she lives," continued Grace. "I never saw her half so angry before. In fact, from all accounts, you must have got it from all quarters, but what Mr. Rutledge said was the worst."
"What did he say, pray?"
"Wouldn'tyou like to know!" she cried, in her teasing, school-girl fashion.
"I don't believe you could tell me, if I did."
"I could if I wanted to," she exclaimed. "I heard mamma and Josephine talking it over this morning. The door of the dressing-room was open a crack, and I heard every word. Now, honey,don'tyou wish I'd tell you?"
"I don't want to hear half as much as you want to tell me," I returned, trying to be unmoved.
"Oh! don't be uneasy on my account," she said. "I haven't the least idea of telling you. Only, I didn't suppose Mr. Rutledge could be so severe, and on 'his little friend,' too!"
"That—for Mr. Rutledge!" I exclaimed, with a disdainful snap of my fingers. "I don't care the fraction of a pin for his opinion!"
"I'll tell him," cried Grace, with delighted eyes.
"Do," I answered; and hiding my burning face on the pillow with Esther, I said:
"What shall we do to amuse ourselves this morning, Essie? Shall I tell you a story?"
"Yes," said Esther, looking pleased.
"Ask her to tell you about the ball last night, and Mr. Victor Viennet," said Grace, as she went out of the door.
"No," said the little girl, "I'd rather have her tell me about the little dog Tigre at Rutledge, and how he used to stand outside of her door, and whine to come in. Won't you now?"
"Oh, that's tiresome, Essie," I said, "I'll tell you something else."
"Then tell me about the boys that stole the chestnuts, and about the lake, and the great trees, and the artemisias and the grapevines in the garden. Tell me, won't you now?" she went on, coaxingly.
"You'd rather hear a fairy story, Esther," I said; "or something out of your pretty Christmas book, I am sure."
"No," said Esther, "I want to hear about the country, I wish they'd take me to the country," she continued, wearily; then, raising herself on her elbow, and looking at me earnestly, she said, "do you believe they ever will? Do you believe I'll be made to always stay in this nursery, without any flowers or birds, or anything I like? If I should die in it, would I stay in it always, or would they take me out? Tell me, would they?"
"Of course, Essie," I said, half impatiently, uncomfortable under her earnest eyes. "I do not like to hear you talk so. You know, I've told you often, that there's a home for us where we shall go after we die, better than any home here, where good children are, and holy men and women; and it's all a great deal brighter and happier than anything we can imagine; so don't trouble yourself to think about it; only be good."
"But I am not good," she said, with a sort of agony in her voice; "you know I am not."
"Essie," I said, soothingly, drawing her toward me, "nobody is good. I am not, and you are not, and nobody is; but if we are sorry when we're wrong, and ask God to forgive us, and help us, He will, you may be sure. Why, Essie, He loves you, little foolish girl as you are, more than you can possibly tell. He loves you, and he would not let you perish for anything."
"Are you sure of that?" she said, eagerly.
"Perfectly sure," I answered.
"Madame ordered," said Félicie, "that Miss Esther should be kept perfectly quiet. She's talking too much, and exciting herself. It would be better to have the room darkened, and let her go to sleep."
"I can't go to sleep, and she shan't go away," exclaimed the child.
"I haven't the least idea of going, Essie; so lie down, and I'll tell you about the country."
And, till my own heart ached as hers did, in its narrow city bounds, I told her of the country, and how soon the first warm spring days would loose the ice-bound brooks, and let the pines see themselves once more in the lake. And in the lots, the violets would be springing up thickly in the moist sod, and the faint green would be coloring the meadows and lawns, and the skies would be soft and blue, and the slow, warm wind would waft along the fleecy clouds, and stir the budding trees, and linger over the soft, wet earth, and creep into cold and wintry houses, and into cold and wintry hearts, and stir all things with a sense of warmth and ecstasy.
Throughout the day I hardly left my little cousin; she was feverish and restless, and never closed her eyes or rested a moment. About four o'clock, however, I went down to practise for an hour, and when I came upstairs again, she had fallen asleep. Her mother, coming up at the same time, was much relieved to find her sleeping, and Félicie gave a very satisfactory account of her; so that she dressed for the dinner in comparative comfort. The doctor's visit had occurred while I was downstairs, and had been a very hurried one. Grace and I dined alone, very sociably and cheerfully, Grace reading a French novel, and I "the Newcomes," in all the pauses of the meal.
I went upstairs as soon as it was over, and found Esther still asleep. It was a wet, miserable evening. The rain was dripping slowly and heavily from the roof to the window-sill, and from the window-sill to the piazza below. A thick, suffocating fog, possessed the earth, through which the distant lights blinked drearily; even the noises of the streets sounded muffled and subdued. It was so warm, that the low soft-coal fire in the grate seemed oppressive; yet, when I opened the window, there was a damp, choking heaviness in the air that was worse, even, than the dry heat of the room. It seemed as if the spirit of the fog was sitting a night-mare on my breast, and pressing down with a hand like lead the beating of my heart, and stopping my very breath. There was no shaking off the weight, nor driving away the gloomy fancies that the hour bred. It was in vain that I lit the gas, and closed the blinds, and laying my ball-dress on the bed, tried to interest myself in my preparations for the evening. Between me and all pleasant anticipation, there hung a black pall of presentiment, and no effort of my will could put it aside. The very struggle to free myself from it, seemed to make the gloom close thicker around me. The house was so still; the servants were all downstairs; the ticking of the clock on the nursery mantelpiece was all the sound that broke the stillness, and that, so regular, so monotonous, was worse than silence. It was a time
"For thought to do her part,"
for conscience and reason to be heard. Should I go into the world and try to forget it? Should I leave the little helpless child asleep there, in charge of a woman I distrusted and disliked, and go where music and pleasure would drown the dread for her that was gnawing at my heart? What, that was good for hours of trial, had I learned in my short experience of pleasure? What, that I could remember with satisfaction, had occurred in the two nights of gaiety that I had just passed through? What, in the flatteries of Victor Viennet, in the admiring eyes of strangers, in the envy of my cousin, that I could dare to remember in church—on Sunday—under a quiet evening sky—or on a fresh, pure early summer morning? Alas! it was out of tune with all of these; there was utterly a fault about it—it turned to ashes as I grasped it. It was not true pleasure. It was not a worthy pursuit. As far as I had followed it already, it had led me into sin, into pride, insincerity and anger. It had done me no good. I felt that. Had I the courage to put it away from me now? Could I say, without an effort, I will keep myself out of the way of seeing Victor Viennet again? I will never remember but to condemn the hours that I have spent with him? Could I return to the dull routine I had formerly marked out for myself, without an effort that would cost me many tears? But if I could not do this, what was my religion worth? If this self-denial was so hard, did it not prove that the world had got a very tight hold of my heart, and that the sooner I wrenched myself from its grasp the better?
On the other hand, there was no definite reason why I should not go, there was only this vague feeling of uneasiness about Essie that tormented me and kept me back, and this unsettled question about the profitableness of going into the world. How should I decide? My affection for my little cousin tugged strongly at my heart. Pride and inclination pulled as fiercely the other way. A feeling that I did not give a name to, but which was stronger than either, prompted me to follow my own desires, and leave Essie to her fate. What business was it of mine? If other people neglected their children, and left their duties for their pleasures, why need I concern myself? Why need I take upon myself their discarded responsibilities?
At last I stole on tiptoe to the bed again, to see if she still slept. Not much sleep in those frightened eyes.
"Why! Essie, my pet, when did you wake up?"
With a sigh of relief, and a little relaxing of the look of terror, she raised herself up, and saying hurriedly, "how still it is! I thought you had gone away," she twined both small hands tightly round my wrist.
"Oh, no!" I said, sitting down by her, "it isn't time yet. I shall not go for an hour or two."
"Don't go at all, please don't go," whispered the child, panting for breath, and clinging to me in an agony. "If you knew how awful it was to be alone, and how still the room was, you wouldn't leave me, indeed you wouldn't. Besides," she went on hurriedly, "how can you tell what'll become of me while you're gone? Nobody else loves me, nobody else is good to me. I am troublesome and wicked—only God and you care anything about me."
It was useless to soothe or reason with her now. I knew little of illness, but I saw in a moment that the wild delirium of fever was burning in my little companion's veins, and raging in her brain. I was frightened at the strength of the little hands that fastened themselves on mine, and the hurry and wildness of the broken sentences she uttered. All I could do, was to promise that I would not go, and assure her that there were no "ugly shadows" on the wall—that nobody was coming to take her away—that it was all because her head ached so. But when Félicie appeared, it was a less easy matter to control her. She screamed, and hid her face, and cried to me to send her away—she hated her—she gave her horrid stuff—she made her angry, and a thousand other vehement exclamations in alternate French and English. The nurse, with a subdued glare of anger in her eyes, would fain have soothed her, for her voice, shrill with the strength of fever, could easily have been heard downstairs, and Mrs. Churchill had come home and was now in her dressing-room. My alarm had overcome my pride by this time, and loosing my hands from the child's grasp, I gave her into Félicie's charge, and ran downstairs.
The door of the dressing-room was locked, and it was some minutes before I was admitted, and during those minutes, my alarm had time to cool, and when at last I entered the room, it was with a full recollection of the last rebuff I had received when I pleaded Esther's cause, and a cold determination to do my duty and no more.
"Why are you not dressed, if you intend accompanying us?" she said.
"I do not intend going this evening," I answered; "and I came, Aunt Edith, to say that I think you had better see Esther before you go out; she has a great deal of fever, and is very much excited."
I never before had realized how dangerous a thing it was to touch with even the daintiest hand, the festering wound that both pride and remorse conspire to hide from the sight even of the sufferer's self. I could not have done anything worse for poor Essie's cause, than just what I did do, and she shared with me in the feeling of vexation and resentment that my words awakened in her mother's breast.
I soon forgot the severity of the rebuff I had received, however, when coming into the nursery, I took the struggling child from Félicie, and watched with anxiety the gradual subsiding of the fit of passion that had convulsed her. From whatever cause it might be, she was evidently growing quieter, and in less than half an hour, the little head on my arm had relaxed its tossings, and sunk into repose, while a dreamy languor dulled the wildness of her eyes, and save when the slightest movement woke an alarm that I would leave her, she lay quite motionless.
"She is better now," said Félicie, in a low tone, who was watching her with her basilisk eyes as she lay apparently sleeping. A nervous tightening of the slight fingers on my wrist at the sound of her voice, showed me that it was only apparently.
When Mrs. Churchill had completed her toilette, she came upstairs. Esther, with her long eyelashes sweeping her crimsoned cheeks, lay so quiet that there seemed some reason in her mother's cutting rebuke for the unnecessary alarm I had given her. I began to feel heartily ashamed of it myself, and wondered that I had been so easily frightened. Félicie, with a wicked look of exultation, said, that if Miss Esther hadn't been in a passion, she wouldn't have brought the fever on again. She had been better all day, the doctor had said she had scarcely any fever, when he was here.
Mrs. Churchill hoped, with a withering look, that I would get used to ill temper in time, and not think it necessary to disturb the household whenever Esther had a fit of crying. Then feeling the child's pulse, and giving many and minute directions for the care of her during the night, she went away. As, a moment after, the hall door closed with a heavy sound, a momentary tremor passed over the child's frame, and opening her eyes, a strange light fluttered for an instant in them, as she murmured, "you will not go away?" then closed them again, and she seemed to sleep. I watched beside her for an hour; then releasing myself from her unresisting hands, and kissing her lightly, I went into my own room.
I returned several times to look at her again, before I put the light out and lay down to sleep. How many times the monotonous nursery-clock struck the half hour before I slept, I cannot tell; the heavy air was broken by no other sound; there was nothing in the silent house, shrouded by the close fog without and the dead silence within, to keep me awake, yet it was long before I slept. But sleep, when it came, was heavy and dreamless—a sort of dull stifling of consciousness, in keeping with the night.
Hours of this sleep had passed over me, when a fierce grasp upon my arm, and a hissing voice in my ear, woke me with a terrified start, and chilled me with horror, as struggling to collect my senses, I tried to comprehend Félicie's frantic words. In a moment, they made their way to my brain, and burned themselves there.
"I've given her too much—I cannot wake her! O mon Dieu!Je l'ai tuée! Je l'ai tuée!"
A horrible sickening faintness for an instant rushed over me, then a keen sense of agony like an electric flash thrilled through me, and without a look, a thought, a word, I was kneeling at the little bed in the nursery. But, as my eager eyes searched the whitened face on the pillow there, and as my aching ears listened for the almost inaudible breathing, and my hand touched the cold arms that lay outside the covers, such a cry burst from my lips as might have waked the dead, if dead were indeed before me. But there was no voice nor answer; there was an awful stillness when I listened for response; when I raised my eyes in wild appeal from the white face of the child, there was but a horrible face above me, whereon was all the pallor of death, without its calm repose; such a face as the lost and damned may wear when their sentence is new in their ears—when endless perdition is but just begun, and life and hope but just cut off.
Another moment, and all the house was roused. Putting back, with one strong effort, the agony and hopelessness that welled up from my heart, I mastered myself enough to direct the terrified and helpless servants. Dispatching different ones to the nearest doctors I could think of, another for my aunt, another for all the restoratives that occurred to me, the next few minutes of suspense passed.
But before the doctor could arrive, I knew there was no need of his coming. There had been a little flutter of the drooping eyelid, ever so slight a quiver of the parted lip, and bending down, I had listened, with agonized suspense, for the low breathing, and called her name with the tenderness that never finds perfect expression till death warns us it shall be the last. Then a little arm crept round my neck, the soft eye opened for a moment, a sigh stirred the bosom that my forehead touched, and, as the arm relaxed its faint clasp, I knew that Essie was a stranger and an alien no longer, but was where it were better for us all to be—where there is peace, eternal, unbroken, beyond the reach of sin forever.
For those first moments, when I knelt alone beside the little bed, with the soft arm still round my neck, and the breath of that sigh still on the air, there was no feeling that I had suffered a bereavement, that death and sorrow had entered the house; but holy thoughts of God and heaven—strange longings for the rest that she had entered into—a sort of hushed and hallowed awe, as if the new angel still lingered, with a half regret at leaving me alone—as if the parting, if parting there were to be, were but for a "little while"—as if the communion of saints were so divine and comfortable a thing, that there was no need for tears and sorrow.
But when there came a sudden tumult below, hurried steps upon the stairs, a sound beside me, a pause, and then a cry that made my blood freeze in my veins, I knew that there was more than joy in heaven—that there was bitter agony on earth: that there was more than an angel won above—that there was a child dead below—a household in mourning—a mother's heart writhing in torture—a judgment fallen—a punishment following close upon a sin—a remorse begun that no time could heal, that no other life could quench, no other love allay.
"Back, then, complainer; loathe thy life no more,Nor deem thyself upon a desert shore,Because the rocks thy nearer prospect close."KEBLE.
Félicie had fled. When, in the agonized confusion of that dreadful night, she was at last remembered and searched for, there was no trace of her to be found, and all future inquiry was equally unavailing. The wretched woman need not have concealed herself with such desperate fear; no one felt any heart to search her out, or revenge on her the death of her little charge. No one of that sad household but knew, in their hearts, that there was a sin at more than her door—a sin that lay heavy in proportion to its unnaturalness and strangeness.
Those were wretched nights and days that followed little Esther's death. The vehement grief that, in the first hours of amazement and remorse, had burst from the miserable mother, was succeeded by a calm more unnatural and more alarming. My heart ached for the misery that showed itself but too plainly in her haggard face and restless eyes; but, shutting herself up in her cold and speechless wretchedness, from all sympathy, I longed, but did not dare, to offer any. And I, perhaps more than any other, involuntarily recalled the phantom she was trying to fly, the remorse that she was struggling to subdue. Though her self-control, even then, was almost perfect, I could see that she never looked at me unmoved—that she winced at any attention from me, as if a newly bleeding wound had been roughly handled, and shrunk more than ever into herself. She refused all visitors, even the most intimate. Josephine was the only one of the family whose presence did not seem to pain her, and at times even she was sent away. She was too strong and proud a woman not to bear her sorrow, as she bore all other emotions, alone. Not even Josephine saw any further into her heart than strangers did.
With the resumption of the ordinary household ways, came the cold insincerity that custom sanctions, of banishing from familiar mention the name that, a month ago, had been a household word, now recurring hourly to the lips, but hourly to be hushed and sent back to deal another pang to the aching heart. No more allusion was made to Essie than if, a few short weeks ago, she had not been one of this small circle, the youngest, and "the child," who, welcome or unwelcome, had necessarily, and by virtue of her position, claimed some part of the time and notice of those around her.
It was impossible to define how much of the subdued apathy of Grace's manner was owing to the grief she felt at her sister's loss, and how much to a sort of cowardly nervousness and shrinking from the idea of death. For days after the shock, she was like my shadow, dreading, evidently more than anything else, to be left alone, shunning her mother and everything that brought the hateful subject to her thoughts, trying, with all ingenuity, to divert herself and think of other things. It was useless to attempt to lead her higher, to make her see in her little sister's death anything but dread and horror. She shrunk from all mention of it with aversion, and turned eagerly to any diverting subject, and before any other member of the family, she shook off the depression it had caused. With Josephine it had been different. At first she was awe-struck and stunned, and for a while there seemed a danger of her falling into a morbid state of feeling; but as the freshness of the shock wore away, her elasticity returned, and with it the old impatience and imperiousness, that the absence of amusement and excitement only heightened.
A storm indeed had passed over our house, but a storm that had not purified and cleared the atmosphere, only left it more close and sultry than before; the black sky, indeed, had brightened again, leaving comparative sunshine overhead, but threatening clouds still lingered around the horizon, and distant rumbling still warned of danger.
I missed more than I had fancied possible, my little companion and pupil. No hour in the day but brought some fresh souvenir of the tortured young life that had ended its penance so early, the shrinking little soul that had been released so soon. It was not seldom, in those dark days, that I thought, with something like envy, of the peace she had inherited, and with something like repining of my lonely lot. How many years of warfare might stretch between me and the end; how many chances that I might fail or faint, grow weary, or yield to sin; while the little child I had so long looked upon with pity, so long tried to help and guide, now redeemed and safe, and everlastingly at peace, had passed "the golden portals of the City of the Blest." Good angels had pitied her, struggling and bewildered on her way, and lifting her in their arms, had carried her home; floating through the blue ether, in a moment of time she had passed the rough and weary road that would have taken a lifetime to have traversed alone. But no angels, it seemed to me, looked on my weary path; no sympathy, from heaven or of men, came to help me as I pressed on alone. Parting and death, repentance and self-accusation made that Lent a time of heartfelt sorrow; and before Easter-week was over, the low fever that had been hanging about me since the spring began, accomplished its errand, and laid me on a tedious bed of sickness.
Is there any one who has ever been sick "away from home," among strangers, courteous and attentive, perhaps, but whose courtesy and attention were of duty, not love, that cannot understand what it was to be lying, day after day, in a "home" like mine, knowing it was the only one I had a right to, or a hope of, this side heaven, and knowing, through all the exaggerating excitement of fever, and the languid hopelessness of slow convalescence, that in it there was no one to whom the care of me was not a penance, that no hour was so grudged as that spent by my bedside? Cold faces met me when I waked from my feverish, troubled sleep, commonplace, unsympathetic voices fell upon my ear, when, unnerved and childish, I longed for nothing so much as for a kind word or a caressing touch.
They were very attentive; I had every care; my recovery was as rapid as the doctor wished; it had not been a very alarming illness; nobody was particularly excited about it. They said it was a "light case," and I could not be doing better. They had a right to know, certainly; but oh! the weariness of that dark room, the length of those spring days, the stillness of those warm nights, the loathing of those city sounds, the longing for the country!
June was now not many weeks off; and hour after hour, the question, "would Mr. Rutledge remember his promise?" perplexed my brain. I knew I had done enough to have forfeited it; I knew it had been made hastily; that, indescribably and unaccountably, he was changed since then, and we had ceased to be anything like friends. Still, I was nearly certain he would keep his word; whatever else he might forget, he would not forget that. No matter if it bored him, as I almost knew it would, I was sure he would do it just the same. Though I had a thousand fears that I should not be allowed to go, I knew I should be sent for, and I was not disappointed.
It was the first morning that I had breakfasted downstairs; I had been well enough for a week, but a languor and indifference possessed me that made me averse to all thought of change or exertion. Now, however, that I was actually in the cool dining-room, where white curtains replaced the heavy winter drapery of the windows, and white matting the thick carpet, I wondered that I had not made the effort before. It was vastly more attractive than my own room, certainly; and the parlors, as I glanced into them, looked in comparison, almost imposing in their vastness. The world, I saw, had been creeping in again. There were notes and cards on the table, and a lovely basket of violets; the piano was open, and some new music lay on it. Josephine, too, at breakfast, talked of drives and engagements that showed the days of mourning were over. There was little difference in my aunt's manner from formerly, but she looked ten years older, and was somewhat colder and more precise.
"Who on earth can that be from?" Grace exclaimed, as John brought in the letters, and Mrs. Churchill took up the only one that did not look like an invitation or a milliner's circular. "It's from out of town," she continued, reaching out her hand for the envelope, as her mother laid it down. "It's postmarked Rutledge! What can Mr. Rutledge have to say to mamma? Joseph, doesn't your heart beat?"
If Joseph's didn't, mine did, and so quickly, too, that I felt sick and faint, and dreaded lest Grace's prying eyes should inquire the cause of my alternating color. But the letter absorbed the attention of all, and I could only wait till Mrs. Churchill should divulge its contents. Josephine tried to look undisturbed, but there was an accent of impatience in her tone, as she said:
"Well, dear mamma, may I see it, if ever you should finish it? I suppose there is nothing that I may not know about."
"It is a very kind letter," said Mrs. Churchill, as she glanced back to the beginning; "very kind, indeed, and you are all interested in it. Mr. Rutledge says that he has been detained at his place several weeks longer than he had anticipated, and there is now a prospect of his being obliged to remain till possibly the middle of summer; in which event, he thinks that we could not do a kinder thing than come and pay him a visit. He describes the country as looking very delightfully, and promises all sorts of rural amusements if we will come; and, by way of insuring the enjoyment of the young ladies, he begs we will make up a party to accompany us, and suggests the Wynkars, Mr. Reese, Captain McGuffy, Phil, of course, and any one else we may choose to ask. He is really very urgent, and begs we will not refuse to enliven the gloomy old mansion with our presence for awhile. He puts it entirely into my hands, and begs I will invite whom I choose."
"Delightful!" exclaimed Josephine. "Mamma, could anything be nicer?"
"Mr. Rutledge is 'a gentleman and a scholar,'" said Grace; "he ought to be encouraged. You'll accept, of course?"
"Cela dépend," said her mother, thoughtfully.
"Oh, mamma!" cried Josephine, "you cannot dream of refusing. What possible objection can there be? We do not want to go to Newport before the middle of July, and of course we can't stay in town all through June. This is the very thing; and you know I'd rather go to Rutledge than any other place in the world. Surely, mamma, you cannot think of refusing."
"There are a great many things to be considered, my dear."
"Ah," cried Grace, with unusual animation, "there'll be no peace till you say, yes. I long to get out of this dusty city. What else does he say, mamma?"
"Not much," answered her mother, glancing down the second page. "He says he only heard a few days ago of my niece's illness, which he hopes will not prove serious, and that a change of air, and return to the scene of her last year's convalescence will be of benefit to her."
"How do you imagine he heard she had been sick?" asked Grace.
"I haven't the least idea, I am sure," said Josephine. "It's of no great consequence, any way. But, mamma, who shall we ask? The captain, of course, and Phil, and, I suppose, the Wynkars; Ella will be delighted, no doubt, and think it's all on her account! And about Mr. Reese—he's such a tiresome old fogie, let's get somebody in his place."
"Ask Victor Viennet," said Grace, "just to spite Ella Wynkar. You know she hates him. He's as nice as anybody."
"I haven't quite made up my mind," said Josephine, with dignity.
"Wait till I have made up mine," said her mother, quietly.
So this was the way which Mr. Rutledge had found to keep his promise to me, and gratify his own wishes at the same time. It took away all the pleasure of my anticipations, however, to have it fulfilled in this way. It seemed to me a sort of desecration of the grand, quiet stateliness of the old place to have all these gay people invading it. I could hardly fancy it full of careless, noisy, chattering guests, resounding with the captain's loud laugh, and Ella Wynkar's unmeaning cackle. What would Mrs. Roberts say? How would Kitty like it?
"In all his humors, whether grave or mellow,He's such a testy, touchy, pleasant fellow,Has so much mirth, and wit, and spleen about him,There is no living with him, or without him."
"The next station will be Rutledge," said Phil, leaning back to announce the fact to the detachment of our party in the rear.
"I am not sorry to hear it, for one," said Ella Wynkar, with a yawn. "Josephine, chère, are you not tired to death?"
But Josephine, chère, was too busy with collecting books, shawls, and bags, and loading the captain therewith, in anticipation of our arrival at the station, to vouchsafe an answer.
"Travelling all day is rather exhausting," said Phil, looking at his watch. "It's half-past six—a little behind time, but it won't hurt Mr. Rutledge to wait for us awhile. Ah! there's the whistle. We shall be at the station in another minute. Now, Aunt Edith, if you and Miss Wynkar will trust yourselves to me, I think the rest are provided for. Victor! what are you about? Don't you see we're here, man?"
Victor started up, and taking my parasol and shawl, offered me his arm as the train stopped, and the conductor, bursting open the car door, shouted "Rutledge!" as if we were to escape for our lives.
I heard Mr. Rutledge's voice before I saw him. We were the last of the party, and there being a little crowd at the car-door, we were obliged to stand for a moment inside, while the others stepped on the platform. It was a lovely June evening; the air was fresh and soft, and the sunset had left a rich glow on the sky, and lighted up with new verdure the green earth. It was so delicious to be out of the city; it was so bewildering to feel I was at Rutledge again. And with a beating heart, I followed my escort, as he forced a way for me through the crowd, and stepped down on the platform.
Mr. Rutledge was waiting to receive us. I was not quite self-possessed enough myself to be certain that I saw a slight change in his manner as he recognized my companion; if it did occur, however, it was overcome as quickly, and he welcomed Mr. Viennet courteously. With a few words of welcome and congratulation upon my recovery, he led the way toward the carriage. My aunt and Miss Wynkar were already in it. Josephine and Captain McGuffy were established in a light wagon by themselves, while the open carriage and the bays stood as yet unappropriated.
"I think, Mrs. Churchill," said Mr. Rutledge, standing at the open door of the carriage, "that perhaps you had better make a place for this young lady inside. She is not very strong as yet, I fancy, and the evening air"——
"Oh! pray," I exclaimed, shrinking back, "let me go in the open carriage. I hate a close carriage—it always makes my head ache."
"There's not the least dampness in the air to-night," urged Mr. Viennet, and meeting with no further opposition, I turned to the open carriage, and at a whispered suggestion from him, mounted up upon the front seat. He sprang up beside me, and taking the reins from Michael, who, bowing delightedly, had been saying, "Welcome back, Miss," ever since the train stopped, we only waited for Grace and Ellerton Wynkar to get in, before we started off at a round pace, leaving the carriage and the captain, and Mr. Rutledge, who was on horseback, far behind.
It was a lovely evening. The fields and woods were in their freshest green; everything, from the grass by the roadside to the waving forest trees, looked as they never can look after June. The dust of summer, and its parching heat, had not yet soiled and shrivelled the smallest leaf or blade; but fresh from the warm spring rains, and the pleasant spring sunshine, they budded and shone as if there were no such thing as scorching summer heats, and choking dust, and parching thirst, to come. The sky—fit sky to bend over such an earth—was of the clearest blue, and the few clouds that hung around the setting sun were light and fleecy, tinged with rose and tipped with gold. The soft breeze, coming out of the west over fields of clover and acacias in bloom, and lilac hedges, and cottage gardens full of early flowers, and cottage porches covered with blowing roses and climbing honeysuckles, steeped the listening senses with a sort of silent ecstasy, that made commonplace conversation a profanation of the hour. WhywouldGrace and her companion keep up such a constant chattering. It was unbearable; and when Ellerton, leaning forward, offered Victor his cigar-case, the latter, with a quick gesture of impatience, exclaimed:
"Ah!merci, not to-night. It's too nice an evening, my good friend, to be spoiled with such perfumes. The young ladies like roses better than cigars, I fancy."
And Ellerton, who reverenced Victor as a high authority on all social questions, quietly put away his cigar-case, and said no more about it.
It was a long drive from the station to the house, and our hopes of being the first of the party to arrive, were dashed by the occurrence of a little accident just as we entered the village. The off horse, shying violently at a loaded wagon, as we passed it rapidly, reared and fell back, breaking the pole in two, and throwing himself and his fellow into ecstasies of fear, plunging and struggling with the want of presence of mind, and the reckless disregard of consequences always manifested by terrified horseflesh under circumstances of sudden alarm.
Victor, however, was a good horseman, and after a short battle, brought them to terms, Grace, meantime, shrieking violently, and Ellerton imploring him to let him get the ladies out at once, which looked rather like one word for the ladies and two for himself. Victor requested him simply to hold his tongue and sit still, and Ellerton, without a remonstrance, acquiesced, as the horses, now subdued, stood quite unresisting, while Victor, giving the reins to me, sprang down, followed by Michael from behind, and the countryman, whose load of brush had caused the accident. We were, fortunately, just by a blacksmith's shed, and in a few minutes that official himself, in his leathern apron and bare arms, was busily employed in remedying the mishap.
The horses were still a little restive, and Victor was standing by the head of one and Michael by the other, when the rest of the party came up. Quite an excitement was created, of course, at seeing us in this disabled condition, and our host, springing from his horse, hurried up in some alarm to ascertain for himself the extent of the accident, which Ellerton Wynkar, standing up in the carriage, explained at large to the rest of the party, adding that, "it might have been something serious if we had not been very prompt."
Victor bit his lip to keep from laughing, and Grace turned away her head; nothing but the consciousness of not having distinguished herself during the action, restrained her from bringing down Mr. Wynkar "a peg or two" by a statement of facts.
Mr. Rutledge, finding that the repairing of the pole was likely to occupy some little time longer, said that the young ladies had better get in the carriage; he had no doubt Mr. Arbuthnot would willingly give up his seat.
Phil, of course, most urgently begged we would do so, but for me, the idea of being cooped up in the carriage with Mrs. Churchill, and Ella, and Grace, was insupportable, and I expressed my resolution of staying by the ship. Mr. Viennet and the smithy said it would only be a few minutes more, and I declared I didn't in the least mind waiting, it was such a lovely evening, and I couldn't think of crowding the carriage.
Grace, partly from perversity, and partly from a little lingering fear of the bays, said she should accept Phil's invitation, and without more ado, gave her hand to Mr. Rutledge and sprang out.
"May I advise you?" said he, coming back to me after he had put Grace in the carriage.
"Not against my will, if you please. Indeed, I had rather wait."
"That settles it," he answered, bowing. "I'm sorry, gentlemen," he continued, to Victor and Ellerton, "to leave you in this fashion, but my duties, as host, require me to ride forward with the ladies, and I hope you will soon follow us."
Victor assured him of his perfect confidence, that we would be at home almost as soon as they would; and then, with a polite commendation of his fortitude under misfortune, Mr. Rutledge threw himself upon his horse, and galloped after the carriage. I could not help feeling a little awkwardly; it is never pleasant to be the only lady among a number of gentlemen. Besides those of our own party, several men of the village had collected around us, and with their hands in their pockets, and in a very easy, sauntering way, were offering their comments on the accident.
Victor walked angrily up to one, who, with a short pipe between his lips, had ventured rather too near, and was leaning nonchalantly against the fore-wheel; and knocking the pipe out of his mouth, took him by the shoulder and ordered him to take himself off. Didn't he see there was a lady in the carriage?
The man moved sulkily away, but I saw him more than once look back with an ugly expression in his eyes toward Victor, as he crossed the road and disappeared in the woods that skirted the highway.
Just at that moment, a sorrel horse drew up beside us, and an inquiring face was thrust out from the gig behind it.
"What's the matter, Michael? Anybody hurt? An accident, did you say?" inquired a voice that gave me a cold chill.
"That detestable doctor already!" And returning stiffly his salutations as he recognized me, and hurried up to the carriage, I said there had been no accident to anything but the pole of the carriage, and that was nearly remedied, and we had plenty of assistance.
The doctor bowed, but did not seem in the least discomposed by my too obvious rudeness, and leaning comfortably on the wheel, as the dismissed clown had done before him, continued to address me in a tone of easy familiarity that was too annoying to me to be concealed, and my face must have told the story; for Victor, calling to one of the men to hold the horses a moment, walked quickly up behind the doctor, and laying his hand heavily on his shoulder, said, in a tone by no means equivocal:
"I say, my good fellow, you are annoying this lady, and I must ask you to step back!"
The doctor did step back, and turning quickly, faced him.
"Victor Viennet, as I am a sinner!"
I looked on in wonder, as I saw Victor give a violent start, and change color; then recovering himself after a moment, he said, in altered voice:
"I ask your pardon, Dr. Hugh, I didn't see your face. How, under heaven, did you happen to turn up here?"
There was an expression on Victor's face, as he said this, which seemed involuntarily to indicate that the fact of Dr. Hugh's turning up here, was just the most disagreeable fact that could possibly have transpired, and so essentially "cute" a man as the doctor, could not have failed to see it, but it did not seem in the least to interfere with his complacency.
"How did I happen to turn up here? Why, my good fellow (as you said just now), by the most natural process in the world. You see, after we parted, a year ago, in the city"——
"Yes, yes," said Victor, hurriedly, and in a low tone, "I've got to look after the smith now. You can tell me there."
And making some apology to me for the continued detention, he turned to retrace his steps. The doctor followed, and passed his arm familiarly through Victor's, at which I saw he winced, but did not attempt to resent; and the doctor continued to talk to him in a low and confidential tone. Twilight had already descended before the smith pronounced the job completed, and Michael, backing up the horses, put them to the carriage. While this was being accomplished, Victor and Dr. Hugh, standing a few paces apart from the others, talked together, or rather, the doctor talked and Victor listened with ill-concealed impatience.
I could not hear a word that passed, but I could see that Victor was suffering torture at the hands of the bland doctor, and his face, for several minutes after he had parted from him and resumed his seat in the carriage, wore an expression of pain and anger. We had started and driven on for some distance before either spoke, and the first to break the silence, I said, with more curiosity than courtesy:
"How in the world did you happen to know that detestable doctor? I didn't suppose anybody had ever seen him before he came here."
"Detestable you may well call him," said Victor, below his breath, and with a sort of groan. "I'd rather have met the arch-fiend himself!"
Then hastily remembering himself, he apologized, exclaiming, with a laugh, that the fellow always put him out of temper, and bored him to death, and he hoped he should never see him again, and he didn't mean to trouble himself any further about him. With that last resolution, his spirits rose, and in a few minutes he was as gay as ever. We were dashing along at such an inspiriting pace, that no one could help throwing dull care, and all things sad and gloomy, to the winds, and being pro tem. in the highest spirits.
"I am sure you drive as well as you dance," said Victor, putting the reins into my hands. "Let me see whether you know how to handle the ribbons."
Put upon my mettle in that way, nothing could have induced me to have declined the undertaking, though I happened to know a thing or two in the early history of the bays that Mr. Viennet was evidently ignorant of, and the recollection of which put a nervous intensity into the grasp I had upon the reins.
"Admirable!" said Victor, with enthusiasm; "I see you understand what you are about. You manage those beasts as well as I could, and there's no denying it, they do pull."
"Pullisn't the word," I thought; "but no matter."
"What a good road!" exclaimed Victor. "We're going like the wind. Ellerton, this is fine, is it not?"
"Charming," said Ellerton, feebly, from the back seat; "charming; I never saw a lady drive so well; but don't you think, it's getting so dark, it would be better for you to take the reins? You can see better, you know."
"On the contrary," said Victor, with great glee, "on the contrary; the female vision, you know, is proverbially the sharpest. Shall I touch up that near horse? He rather lags," he continued, wickedly, to me.
"Oh no, thank you!" I said, breathlessly, but trying to laugh.
"I'm sure you're tired," said Mr. Wynkar, with great feeling. "You speak as if you were. Victor, you lazy dog, take the reins, if you have any politeness left."
"I haven't," said Victor, leaning back with composure. "I haven't a vestige left. I used up the last I had about me on that boor with the short pipe, who gave me such a gracious look as he walked off."
"Yes," I exclaimed, "I think you'll hear from him again."
"Not improbable," said Victor, coolly. "I have a knack at getting into scrapes that's only exceeded by my knack at getting out of them. Now I think of it, he didn't look like a pleasant sort of fellow to meet in a dark piece of woods like this."
We had just driven into the woods that stretched about half a mile this side of the gate of Rutledge Park, and the faint young moon that had been lighting us since we left the village, had no power to penetrate the dense foliage that met over our heads, and shut out moon and sky. It did not make me any more comfortable to remember that there was a short path from the village across these woods, and that any one on foot could reach this point almost as soon as in a carriage by the road. I did not feel like laughing at Ellerton Wynkar's little gasp of fear, and Victor's gay laugh and easy tone of assurance, far from inspiring me with confidence, made me doubly nervous and apprehensive. I only wished that I dared ask him to be quiet till we were out into the open road again. But he seemed possessed with mischief—he quizzed Ellerton, told droll stories, and laughed till the woods rang again. But through it all, I strained my ear to catch the faintest noise by the roadside; and when the horses, more intent than I, shied violently to one side and dashed forward, with a quivering, desperate pull upon the reins, I was quite prepared for what succeeded. A large stone whirred swiftly through the air, just grazed my cheek, and fell with a crashing sound on the other side of the road.
"Good heavens!" cried Victor, starting forward, "are you hurt?"
"No, no," I exclaimed; "for heaven's sake, be quiet."
"Give me the reins," he cried, snatching them.
"No, no!" I answered, keeping them by a desperate exertion of strength. "I shall never forgive you if you stop the horses."
"I shall never forgive myself for the danger I have brought you in," he said, in a low tone. "You will never trust yourself to my protection again, I fear," he continued earnestly, as we drove into the park gate.
"Oh, I'm not afraid as long as I hold the ribbons," I answered, trying to laugh, but drawing a freer breath as we cleared the woods and came into the moonlight again.
"You are cruel," he said, in a lower tone still.
"There's the house at last!" exclaimed Ellerton, with a sigh of relief so profound that we both started.
"How are you getting on, behind there?" asked Victor. "I'd forgotten all about you, Ellerton. That was a neat little compliment from our friend in the woods, now wasn't it? But the least said about those little attentions the better, I've always found; you understand. 'Oh no, we never mentions him,' under any circumstances."
"Of course not," said Ellerton, acquiescently. "I should not speak of it on any account."
"And, Michael, my man," continued Victor, putting his hand in his pocket, "whist's the word about this little adventure, you know."
Michael touched his hat, and, pocketing the coin that Victor tossed him, promised absolute silence on the subject.
The horses, as we came up the avenue, slackened their pace, and gave us time to look around. Sunset, starlight moonlight, had neither of them abdicated the bright June sky, but all combined to light up the picture for us, and make the lake a sheet of silver, and the dark, old house as fair as it could be made.
"A fine old place, indeed," said Victor, with a temporary shade of seriousness on his face. "It must be pleasant to have such an ancestral home as that. These Rutledges are a high family, are they not?"
"One of the very best in the State;" answered Ellerton, feeling that "family" was always a toast to which he was called upon to respond. "There are very few in the country who can go back so far. The Rutledges have always been very exclusive, and held themselves very high, and so have never lost their position."
"Ha!" said Victor, with a little darkening of the brow. "That's the style, is it? Our host, then, is a proud man, I am to understand—one who values birth, and that sort of thing, and plumes himself upon it, and regards with a proper scorn all who have come into the world under less favorable auspices than himself."
"Exactly," said Ellerton. "I think that's Rutledge exactly. He's what you'd call a regular aristocrat, and proud as Lucifer himself."
"I kiss his hand!" cried Victor, with a dash of bitterness in his tone. "Commend me to such a man as that! I reverence his largeness of soul, his nobility of nature! I long to show him in what esteem I hold him."
"I think you mistake Mr. Rutledge," I began eagerly; but before I had time to say another word we were at the door, and Mr. Rutledge himself, descending the steps quickly, and speaking with some anxiety, exclaimed:
"We have been very uneasy about you. I have just sent orders to the stable for horses to start to meet you. Has anything happened?"
"The pole required just three times as long to repair as Mr. Smithy said it would," answered Victor, "and we, very foolishly depending upon his word in the matter, were much disappointed in not reaching the house three-quarters of an hour ago. I am sorry to have caused you any uneasiness."
"It is dissipated now," said Mr. Rutledge, courteously. "I only regret that your arrival should have been marked by such a misadventure."
"What would he say if he knew of misadventure number two?" said Victor,sotto voce, as he assisted me to alight. "I feel positively superstitious. No good is coming of this visit, depend upon it!"
As we were half-way up the steps, I found I had forgotten my parasol, and Victor went back to look for it. Mr. Rutledge, seizing the opportunity of his absence, said to me quickly:
"I see you drove those horses; you must promise me you will never do it again."
"Why not?" I asked, haughtily.
"No matter why; you must promise me you will never touch the reins again behind them."
"I am sure I drove them up in style; Michael himself could not have done it better. I don't think I can bind myself never to do it again. You'll have to excuse me from promising."
"I remember; you have a prejudice against promising."
There was something in his tone, and in the short laugh that followed these words, that brought back so much of what I had been trying to forget, and revived so much of what I had half forgiven, that I made no effort to keep back the hasty words that rushed to my lips.
"Can you wonder at it? My experience has been so unfortunate; why, less than a year ago, I made a promise that, I suppose, was as binding as most other promises, and meant about as much; and I have found it a chain at once the lightest and most galling—empty as air, and yet the hatefullest restraint—the veriest mockery, and yet a thing I can't get rid of! That's briefly what I think of promises, and why you must excuse me from making one."
"I will excuse you," he said, looking at me with eyes that never faltered; "I will excuse you, with all my heart, from making or keeping any promise to me."
This upon the threshold! Under the very shadow of the doorway! I felt faint and giddy as I passed on into the hall. Kitty, with a low cry of delight, sprung forward to meet me.
"Kitty, I am so glad!" I said, laying my hand upon her arm. "Isn't it a long time since I went away? But I am so tired; do take me to my room."
Kitty flew up the stairs in delight, only stopping occasionally to ask me if I didn't feel well, and if she couldn't help me. All the others had gone to their rooms; not even Mrs. Roberts was to be seen.
"She's got her hands too full to prowl around now," said Kitty, with a wicked shake of the head. She led the way to my old room, and, to my surprise, putting her hand in her pocket, drew out the key, and fitted it in the lock.
"What's the reason of its being locked up?" I said in surprise.
"Reason enough, Miss," said Kitty, with a profound look. Then, admitting me and shutting the door carefully, continued, in a less guarded tone: "The idea of your coming back here and having any but your own room! And it's been just as much as I could do to keep Mrs. Roberts from putting Miss Churchill in it. Such a time as I had about it when the baggage came! None of the ladies had come upstairs yet; they were all walking about the piazza and hall with master, and Thomas was seeing to the trunks being carried up, and I overheard Mrs. Roberts say: 'Thomas, Miss Churchill's baggage is to be put in the blue room, and her mamma's and Miss Grace's in the oak-chamber opposite, and Miss Wynkar's goes in the south room.' 'No, I beg your pardon, ma'am,' I says, coming forward, 'myyoung lady's trunk goes to the blue room, if you please. I've master's own orders for it, and I'll go ask him again if you choose.'Youryoung lady, indeed!' says Mrs. Roberts, throwing me such an awful look. 'Thomas, you will attend to my orders.' I flew upstairs and put the key in my pocket, and Thomas tipped me a wink, and left your trunk outside the door. And now," said Kitty, stopping a moment to recover breath, "don't you think it looks pleasant, Miss?"
"Indeed it does, Kitty," I said, gratefully, sinking down in an easy-chair, and looking about me admiringly. It looked whiter and cooler than ever. There were new book-shelves in the recesses, and new curtains at the windows; roses, mignonette and heliotrope, filled the slender vases, and the wax candles on the dressing-table shed the softest light around the room. Kitty, busying herself about putting away my bonnet and shawls, chatted on eagerly.
"Gay times, these, for Rutledge," she went on, after having answered my inquiries for Stephen and the others. "Gay times, and busy times. Who'd ever have thought to see this house full of company again?"
"Yes," I said, "so busy, I am afraid, I shall not have much of your attendance, Kitty. It will not be like last fall, when you had nothing to do but wait on me. What nice times those were! I wish all the rest of the people were miles away, Kitty, and there was no one in the house that wasn't here last November."
"Oh!" exclaimed Kitty, deprecatingly, "I'm sure you'll enjoy it, Miss, with so many young gentlemen and ladies. I'm certain master thought you would, or he wouldn't have asked them. And as for my waiting on you, why that's all settled, and Mrs. Roberts knows it too. Mr. Rutledge told me this very morning that he supposed it would please me to be allowed to attend upon you, and that I was to consider that my duty as long as you were here. Mrs. Roberts had come in for some directions, and she heard it all. She jerked her head, and flounced a little, but didn't dare to say a word. But," continued Kitty, anxiously, "I'm afraid you are not well. Can I get you anything? Won't you lie down? Oh! I am afraid you are crying."
Kitty's fears were not unfounded. The tears rushed to my eyes, and hiding my face in my hands, I tried, but vainly, to suppress the hysterical sobs that choked me, as I essayed to answer her anxious questions. She was so disappointed and alarmed at my unexpected mood that she hardly knew what to do, and I tried, as soon as I could speak, to assure her that I was really very glad to get back, that there was nothing the matter, only I was very nervous and tired.
"And there's the tea-bell!" exclaimed Kitty, in dismay, "and everybody else is dressed! What's to be done?"
"There's nothing for it, Kitty, but to let me go to bed. I can't go downstairs to-night—it would kill me. Undress me, and then don't let a soul come in—not even my aunt. That's a good Kitty: it isn't the first time you've taken care of me."
"Ah!" said Kitty, with tears in her kind eyes, "if I only knew what to do to make you better! It isn't the headache that I mean—a cup of tea and a good night's rest will make that all right; but you ain't the same young lady that you were last fall. I saw that the minute you stepped into the hall. There's something on your mind; I knew it the instant you spoke. When you used to talk, it was as if there was a laugh in your voice all the time, and now you talk as if you were tired, and hated to open your lips."
"So I am, Kitty," I said, with a fresh burst of crying. "I am tired and heart-sick, and when I talk it's no wonder there are 'tears in my voice.' There are a great many things to make me unhappy; you mustn't ask me anything about them; but it's so long since I've had anybody to care for me, and nurse me, that it makes me babyish, I believe. There!" I exclaimed, after a minute, conquering my tears, "don't think anything more about it, Kitty, but help me to undress."
There could have been no better medicine for my aching head and heart, than that Kitty administered. It was a perfect luxury to resign myself into her hands, to feel that I needn't think again to-night if I didn't choose, that I was sure of being watched over and cared for, come what might. I had not realized, till I came into its sunshine again, how perfectly necessary to anything like happiness an atmosphere of love is. I had known that, in my home, I had felt chilled and forlorn. I had given no pleasure to others, and received none myself; but, child-like, I had only known it was, and had not asked why. But now, that kind and tender hands rendered the services that I had long wearily performed for myself, and a watchful care provided for my comfort and remembered my tastes, I realized how unnatural and unkind a thing it is for anything of human mold to be denied human love and sympathy; I realized how necessary to the fair growth and goodly proportions of a nature, is the sunshine of kindness and affection. Since I had left Rutledge, I had never known what it was to be caressed and favored; misconstrued, slighted, and put aside by those around me, the natural result had been reserve, distrust, and aversion on my part. I was, as Kitty said, not the same girl I had been. I knew better than Kitty did how deep the change had gone—how far below the surface the blight had struck. The brave, gay heart of the child was dead in my bosom forever. Whatever there might be to hope for, in the future, it must be the life-and-death struggle and victory of the woman, not the careless happiness of the child.