To age and experience, I doubt not that this period of my life seems childish and aimless. There is something in a pair of spectacles, astride the wrinkled noses of maturity, that makes the world of sentiment seem a mere nursery where growing boys and girls amuse themselves carelessly before stepping into their manhood or womanhood. Can it be that this glowing love of which poets sing, is, after all, survived by such a short, uncertain thing as a human life? When we are young it is so easy to believe our love will last unto the very end, and this conviction darts a golden sunbeam across the unborn years: a sunbeam in which our heaviest sorrows become dancing motes, a sunbeam which spans the full interval allotted us between this world and the next. But it is only rational to fear that some of those huge, black shadows which are ever flitting through the "corridors of time" will cross our sunbeam when we least expect it, and yet this is a warning we will not hear, until a personal experience teaches it to our hearts in sorrowful accents.
I had toyed with my own conjectures and speculations all through the gay season. Every where I went I met the same people. I saw the origin, progress, and final consummation of many a love-match, from the formal introduction of both parties, to the glittering tell-tale diamond on the finger of a dainty hand. I had learned many lessons both from passive observation and active experience, and now as the season of feasting and flirting and merry-making was waning into the quietude of advancing spring, I had only to sit me down and rehearse the wonderful little past which had come and gone, bringing wonderful changes to many another heart besides Amey Hampden's.
May came, with its dazzling sunshine and its whispers of summer warmth, and the birds carolled as birds have done every spring-time since the world began. June came, and the bare branches sent forth their tender buds to greet it. The birds flitted from bough to bough and carolled louder and lustier than ever. It was the early summer-time; that short but blissful interval between the ravages of spring and the tyranny of scorching mid-summer. It is our misfortune in Canada to know nothing whatever of the beauty of that spring-time which has been flattered and idolized by poets' pens in every age. With us this intermediate season is nothing more nor less than an eminently uninteresting transition, invariably announced by such harbingers as bare and brown and dirty roads; slushy pathways, running with melted snow and ice; a warm, wet and foggy atmosphere, with great drops falling constantly from the twigs of the trees and the drenched, black eaves of the houses. It is a time for macintoshes and sound rubbers; a golden age for patent cough mixtures and freckles, the sworn destroyer of artificial curls and long clothes. It is true that a glad, golden sunshine floods the earth at times, but what of that, when sullied, muddy streams are rushing and bubbling on with a roaring speed, plunging into hollow drains at every street-corner; when sulky foot-passengers pick their uncomfortable way through all the debris of what had been the beauty of the dead season. Fashionable young men, with the extremities of their expensive tweeds turned carefully up, choose their steps over the treacherous crossways, leaning upon their silk umbrellas with an unfeigned expression of utter disapproval, and ladies in trim ulsters and very short skirts pilot themselves along the unclean thoroughfares, with very emphatic airs of impatience and disgust. This is certainly not the season, in those Canadian cities whose winters are so severe, when "the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." If there is a time in the year when this worthy sentiment is ignored, and I may say deliberately ostracised, by Canadian youth, it is in the spring. But like all earthly circumstances, this, too, dies a natural death, and is succeeded by a truly enjoyable and suggestive period, that of early summer. It has been my experience to meet with many people who become the victims of a depressing melancholy in the spring. Some acknowledge that it is a presentiment, and resign themselves to many morbid feelings about the uncertain issue of this period of the year; but common sense rejects this theory. It is only natural that after having indulged our every energy while the air was bracing and cold, after having walked and talked, and feasted and danced, and made merry without interruption day and night during the winter months, we should feel a physical prostration in the end, and as a consequence something of a mental depression as well. For my own part, I have always had a reflective and serious spell in the spring-time. Those things that a few months before would have dazzled my eyes and tempted my senses, seem empty and vapid and worthless, and I go on wondering over my recent follies and weaknesses as if I were never to commit them again. It is true that the contemporary season of Lent has something to do with these effects. "Remember, man, thou art but dust," is not the most enlivening of warnings which can be submitted to us for moral digestion, and we who carry these solemn words back from church on Ash-Wednesday morning need not be surprised if our gayer inclinations desert us almost immediately.
All these changes had followed fast upon the receding items of my interesting season, and it was now summer time. My half-brother came back from college, an altered youth, as uninteresting in his transition as the season I have just described. He was an overgrown boy, of that age when boys are seldom interesting except to one another; that age of physical, mental and moral conflict, when the anxious mother can scarcely trust the testimony of her confidence in the future greatness of her growing son; when the calculating father becomes agitated in his eagerness to know if his bashful heir will favor religious, professional, or commercial tendencies, and when the grown-up sister tries to anticipate in a grown-up sisterly way what sort of a drawing room item her now unsophisticated relative will prove to be. This last is the most trying speculation of all. How big a boy's feet invariably look in a fashionable sister's eyes! how long his arms, and how shapeless his hands! Poor blushing youth, is not the ordeal worst for himself, at that period when he scarcely dares trust the most modest of monosyllabic discourses to be articulated by those lips that are warning a waiting public of the dawn of whiskerdom! Freddy, once so lithe and graceful and pretty, had been transformed into an ungainly being, all length, without breadth or thickness. He had not even the advantage of the average immatured youth, he had neither muscle nor physical bulk. He was still a delicate boy with a nervous cough and a fretted look. He was more than ever peevish and self-willed, with this only difference. In his earlier years his selfishness was at least manifested in a dependent sort of way; his thousand wants were made known in impatient requests. Now, it spoke in imperative accents and decided in its own favor, regardless of the comfort or concern of any other person. Of course I was not surprised, for "as the twig is bent so is the tree inclined," but my step-mother was disappointed with the results of all her anxious solicitude, and began to see when it was vain, how thankless such indulgent efforts prove in the end. Freddy's soul was altogether absorptive, taking in whatever offerings gratified him, but yielding no return, and I ask, is there anything so discouraging to an ardent love as this cold neutrality, which proves, without a scruple, that all affection lavished upon it is an irretrievable waste.
As fortune or accident would have it, I was destined to see very little of this relation. Before he had been a fortnight at home I received a letter from Hortense de Beaumont's mother, informing me of the serious illness of my little friend, and entreating me, if it were at all possible or convenient, to go to them for a little while, as my name was constantly on the lips of the dear invalid.
I had begun to wonder at the breach in the correspondence between Hortense and myself, but it had not then been so protracted as to have excited my fears. I attributed her delay to a thousand and one possible impediments, and went on, hoping each day would put an end to my vague conjectures. That day was come at length but the tidings were not what I had prepared myself to hear. I persuaded myself that her mother's excessive love had exaggerated the unfortunate condition of my little friend's health, but, nevertheless determined to go to her as soon as possible. I showed the letter to my father, who had long ago become familiar with the name and attributes of this loved companion, and having obtained his sanction to my eager proposals, I set about making immediate preparations for my journey.
Before ten days had elapsed I was nearing my destination and Hortense de Beaumont's home. My father had entrusted me to the wife of a professional friend of his who was travelling with her son, and whose route opportunely corresponded with mine at this particular time. But I may say with truth that I travelled alone, for with the exception of a few crude observations now and then, the silence of discretion was unbroken between us. The lady was old, bulky, and the victim of a prolonged bilious attack all the way. The son was a red-haired gentleman with very new gold-rimmed spectacles and a scented silk handkerchief. We travelled by rail to Prescott, keeping our peace in contemplative sullenness all the while. The day was hot and dusty, and the car as uncomfortable as it could possibly be.
I sheltered my tell-tale face behind a friendly paper, and distracted myself with an impartial view of the surrounding country. It was early in the afternoon, and the full sunshine lay hot and strong upon the tilled and furrowed fields that stretched away as far as the eye could see on either side. Picturesque little farm houses skirted the road here and there, and stalwart men with their bronzed arms bared to the elbows rested pleasantly on their instruments of toil as the train rushed past them, shouting and waving their broad-rimmed hats until we had left them far behind. Immediately in front of me propped up by innumerable coats and bundles, my lady patron dozed heavily. The thick green veil that screened her bilious expression from the general view quivered and heaved as each deep-drawn breath escaped her powerful nostrils. In her fat lap lay her folded hands with their half-gloves of thick black lace, the pitiful victims of countless flies. The exertion of eating a sandwich had sent her to sleep. The remnants of this popular refreshment were now being actively appreciated by a hungry, buzzing multitude that made their very best of their golden opportunity. Her hopeful heir sat at a little distance on the same seat twirling his thumbs with an apparently decided purpose. Once or twice he drew his scented handkerchief from his side pocket with an artful flourish and frightened the troublesome swarm away from his parent's sleeping form, but seeing their undaunted determination to restore themselves almost immediately, he respectfully stowed the scented article away with a final flourish and re-applied himself to the interrupted pleasure or task of twirling his thumbs with an apparent purpose.
Busied with my own intimate thoughts I escaped anennuithat would otherwise have proved almost unbearable, and was pleasantly enough distracted until the first monotony of fields and farm houses was broken by the outskirts of the romantic town of Prescott—romantic, because to the traveler who steps from the dusty afternoon train and alights amid its unpropitious surroundings, it suggests itself strongly as a living illustration of a "deserted village," as melancholy to look upon as ever sweet Auburn could have been. My drowsy chaperone was awakened too suddenly, and was therefore very cross and ill-humored for some time after. It was with difficulty we persuaded her to follow us along the track, at the end of which loomed up a dismal wooden building whither we directed our vagrant steps, not knowing what better to do. Here we deposited our sundry parcels and awaited some crisis, we hardly knew what. We were informed that our boat would not reach there before evening, and to escape the monotony of our new surroundings we decided to board the ferry which was now nearing shore, and spend the intervening hours with our neighbors across the line. The comfort and compensation which my drowsy chaperone found in a capacious rocking-chair on the upper deck of the ferry restored her ruffled temperament to its original neutrality, much to her hopeful heir's gratification, and sinking into its sympathetic depths, she made a worthy effort to repair her recent rudely broken slumbers.
Her son, with alarming gallantry, placed an easy-chair near the railing of the deck for me, paid the triple fare and discreetly kept at a distance. His bashfulness and timid reserve recommended him to my genuine admiration as much as if it had been pure amiability, or a desire to do me a good turn that had prompted him to leave me to myself.
I was gathering experience on new grounds and I feared interruption from any one. The briny odor of the St. Lawrence carried on the soft summer breeze was grateful and refreshing to me. The brightest sunlight I ever saw was dancing and riding on the green sparkling ripples that wrinkled the broad surging surface before me. Beside me on a bench under the awning sat a party of American ladies from the other side—at least so I conjectured, and with reason. A look decided it. They were clad in pronouncedly cool costumes, dresses that would make a full ball toilet in Canada, but which exposed much prettiness to the ruthless action of the sun and wind on this hot midsummer afternoon. They were using their lips and tongues in a violent manner, accompanying commonplace remarks with the most exaggerated varieties of facial expressions I ever saw. But they were only harbingers of what one meets on landing. These strangely attired damsels in elaborate head-gear and high-heeled shoes strutted about the streets of Ogdensburg in any number. They give life to the pretty town I must admit, and excite the interest of the uninitiated tourist who is accustomed to judge women, especially, according to the standard peculiar to Canada. It is a wonder to me that the drowsy and vapid condition of Ogdensburg'svis-a-visdoes not check, in some measure, the animation and spirit of that busy town. There was more life there on that sleepy summer afternoon than I have seen in a month in some of our cities, with all their pretensions. It is only fair to the United States to admit that the spirit of progress and enterprise underlies every square inch of its soil and animates every fibre of its constitution.
In the evening we boarded our boat for the West, and began our journey in earnest. I shall never forget this trip, and I cannot but wonder why. I was alone, for the most part, with my thoughts, which were far from being cheerful companions; still, whenever I steal into the adytum of my memory I find it there to greet me with its peculiar associations.
The evening being warm and sultry we remained on deck for many hours after supper. There was no moon, but heaven's vault was alive with twinkling stars. I sat a little apart from my friends, leaning over the railing, looking abstractedly into the dark restless water. I was disturbed once by my considerate cavalier, who brought me a shawl, saying the night air was likely to provoke rheumatism or neuralgia, or such other inconveniences to which our flesh is heir.
I took it with a grateful smile, made a limited remark upon the beauty of the panorama before us, enquired solicitously about the old lady's comfort and spirits, and then considering my duty accomplished, I wrapped myself warmly in the folds of my shawl and settled myself cosily for another reverie.
With a wonderful acumen, the gaunt gentleman seized the insinuating situation, and considering himself summarily dismissed, he edged away by stealthy strides and left me to my cogitations once again.
Strangely enough, I began to think of Mr. Dalton, and my several interviews with him. He had puzzled me, that was all, there was no harm in wondering about him, surely, if I did not give too much time and attention to the possibly dangerous subject. After all, there was something in him so different from other men, even from Arthur Campbell. There was always some deep, happy meaning to his simplest words, and his most commonplace conceptions of things were flavored with this mystifying attraction whatever it was.
That he had had some peculiar experience was evident in his every look, and tone, and word. His very reserve betrayed him and excited people's curiosity about his past career. I had known him all my life, and he had always been the same. I had sat upon his knee with my tiny arms twined about his neck, he had told me thrilling tales, had played with me, and had kissed me—not often—but on two or three occasions the last time was just before I went to school. Then, when I came back—how strange it was—he seemed surprised to see me grown and matured, while he apparently had remained the same.
I suppose he saw that I was no longer the dependent child who confided to him her petty joys and sorrows, but a young lady, self-conscious and reserved to a certain extent; a young lady with her own pronounced tastes and settled opinions, whose life had drilled out into an independent channel away from the early source which he had been pleased to control and guide.
Perhaps he was taking the right course, and that I had no need to feel disappointed over his attitude towards me, but I was disappointed all the same. I thought he would always be a dear friend, on whom I could lean and rely, but here my thought was checked. Would I have been satisfied with hisfriendship? Could I have kept within its narrow limits and been content to see him lavish something still more precious upon another?
We are frank at the tribunal of our own most intimate thought, and I know what answer came whispering itself into my heart at this crisis. I roused myself from my reverie and looked out at the changing scenery before us. We were among the Thousand Islands.
Dark broken outlines of trees and rock, with here and there the glimmer and twinkle of a light, the murmur of broken wavelets touching the shore on every side, and the faint sound of happy human voices somewhere in the misty distance, were what greeted my eyes and ears. I could see nothing defined in the wild panorama about me, only that the darkness was broken here and there, by a darker something, from which tall pine-tops reared themselves majestically, less shrouded than the rest. It was a soul-stirring sight, so gloomy, so misty, so silent. I was almost sorry later to have looked upon the same scene by daylight, although the hand of man has put an artificial touch here and there, which, by the light of day, improves the general view.
After all, what are nature's grandest phases to us unless they suggest something of our own selves? I have never been able to look upon mountain or valley with other than my corporal eyes, and I have always admired those places in a half-regretful way, where the print of human footsteps is unknown. There is no perfect beauty in the external world without the presence of man, and all that silent waste of prairie land and towering mountain, which stretches away in an unbroken monotony towards our northern limits, is to me a lifeless, useless mass, and will be so until it has submitted every inch of its wild, untrodden surface to the honest industry of toiling humanity. When these giant mountain-tops look down in friendly patronage upon the gables and towers, and curling smoke-wreaths of some struggling hamlets lying at their feet, I shall see their grandeur and admire it, but where dumb nature sits in lone and pensive solitude away from the hum of golden industry, beyond the reach and influence of civilization, it has for me only a cold surface of beauty like the sleep of death.
This thought came back to me on the following day, when we were riding the restless waters of Lake Ontario. As far as the eye could see in any direction nothing was visible but waves and sky. I tried to imagine myself doomed to live alone with nature's reckless beauty, such as I saw it then above and around me, and my heart shivered at the mere thought of such a terrible destiny. I know "there is society where none intrude," but I prefer to believe "it is not good for man to be alone." All the richest and rarest charms of Nature or of Art have never had more than a relative value for me, but give me one short moment of sympathetic human companionship, and with its borrowed light I see beauty above and around me everywhere. Yet how hard it is for us to find this influence that gifts the hours of time with golden opinions, and bears them away as if to the measure of some hallowed strains. There were human souls of every nature beside me, while I leaned over that sunny deck, looking vacantly out upon miles and miles of heaving water, and yet it was to me as if I stood alone calling after friends that could not hear my far-off voice, no bond of mutual interest, care or devotion united me to any one among that motley crowd. To them perhaps, I was not even a definite individual, but only a fraction of the bulk that moved about the boat in moody silence.
If circumstances such as these did not cross our daily lives at certain intervals, I wonder what would become of all the wholesale moralising and reflections which they engender for most of us. We, who are the playthings of the moods of fate, what would we do with ourselves if these moments of quiet reverie and placid realizations were taken away from us altogether? One thing is certain. Many a noble generous deed, the outgrowth of one pensive hour, would never have been performed; many lives now re-united and happy on account of some calm impartial meditation, would be drifting in lonely wretchedness asunder, the victims of some hasty, ill-explained impediment, that a little reason could easily have removed.
Thus busily entertained by my own peculiar cogitations, time sped without bringing me as muchennuias I had feared. When night fell again we were in view of Toronto City and looked upon our journey as well nigh accomplished. So much is suggested by the distant prospect of giant towers and steeples, the glimmer of countless lights and the muffled buzz of active reality, as one sees and hears them from the deck of a steamer nearing the shore. There were the lusty shouts of boatmen on the wharf, rising above the ringing of discordant bells, and the rumble of railway trains. There was clanging and clashing of metal on every side, hauling of ropes, pitching and heaving of merchandise, with now a shrill scream from the throat of some dainty craft hard by, and again a hoarse sepulchral response from a larger vessel as it came or went. There was a buzz of human voices expressive of every sort of agitation and confusion, and quietly through it all, the great waves slapped against the shore with a heavy monotonous splashing, and bounded back in sullen fury into the depths beyond.
The half-hour after ten rang clearly out from an illuminated clock in a distant tower, as we picked our steps along the narrow gangway, and deposited ourselves with a sense of infinite relief onterra firmaonce more.
Hortense was very ill and Madame de Beaumont very disconsolate, when I reached them. The lively, sparkling look was all gone from the pretty face I had learned to love so dearly, only a wasted remnant of her former beauty remained. Who could detect the change more keenly than I? I, who had feasted upon every line and curve that constituted her physical perfection, whose memory had been fed upon the recollection of their rare loveliness, and whose hope had lived upon this expectation of seeing her soon again.
When I arrived she was sleeping, the still quiet sleep of an infant, her breast scarcely heaving as the feeble breath came and went. Her mother was standing by the open doorway in an adjoining room looking in upon the peaceful invalid with tearful eyes. She advanced on tip-toe to meet me, and twining her arms around me led me away down a dimly-lit corridor into a cosy sitting-room at the end, where a cheerful gas-light greeted us. Our noiseless entrance disturbed the solitary occupant, who, as we crossed the threshold, rose up abruptly from where he sat by a small table near the window, and gathering up the books which he had been reading, strode eagerly towards a curtained doorway opposite, and vanished behind the waving drapery, just as we passed into the room.
There was an uneasy look in Madame de Beaumont's eyes for a second or two as they followed the receding figure. Then with an affectation of ordinary solicitude she turned and said to me,
"I did not know that anyone was here. We disturbed Bayard at his studies I am afraid."
"Let us go somewhere else," I suggested a little eagerly.
"Oh," she answered, shaking her head significantly, "that would not bring him back I assure you, we may as well be comfortable here as elsewhere, now. He is such a queer boy."
She was evidently under the impression that I knew something definite about this person who, in spite of his suggestive name, seemed timid and strange as a fawn, but as I had a burning desire to know everything about Hortense's illness I was not tempted to indulge this secondary curiosity, so his name was summarily abandoned for the dear invalid's.
Madame de Beaumont could not account in any definite or satisfactory manner for her daughter's present condition. It was the result, she said, of a growing indisposition that had stolen over her lately, and this was why her fears had such little hope lest her complaint should prove a constitutional decline that would baffle all the skilful efforts of her physicians.
"She began," the mother said in a voice of sobs, "by renouncing all her pleasures. She did not care for one thing and was too tired for another. She took no interest in anything that had distracted her before; she would only read, and write letters to you and in the end she renounced even these relaxations. The doctors suspect that some mental strain may have been worrying her, but I can think of none. All that we could do to make her happy and comfortable we did, and I have never heard her complain, or wish for anything that she had not already. What will I do if I lose her?" Madame de Beaumont suddenly cried, burying her face in her hands and weeping bitterly. "Her father, you know, died of consumption," she added in a hopeless whisper, raising her head and looking at me sorrowfully.
It was a sad scene and one that I was not prepared to meet. I had assured myself that Madame de Beaumont's letter was exaggerated, and now it seemed not to have conveyed to me half vividly enough the actual state of the unfortunate circumstances.
We had some slight refreshment served on the little table before us, but neither of us could partake of it heartily. I swallowed some mouthfuls of food more out of duty than anything else, and indulged myself with a cup of strong tea, my favorite beverage, after which we repaired quietly to the sick-room to have a look at Hortense before retiring.
Faint glimmers of light, leaping from the night lamp that burned dimly on a table by the bedside, danced in flickering shadows every now and then upon her pallid cheeks, but still she slept quietly and peacefully. One would think it was the sleep that knows no earthly waking were it not for the warm look of her paleness, and the feeble throbbing of something in her thin white neck.
"She will spend the whole night like this," her mother whispered, drawing me away. "The nurse watches her steadily and Bayard occupies the next room, but they are never disturbed. She dozes quietly the whole night long. To-morrow she will know you and talk to you. You must go to your room now, my dear, for you are tired and travel-worn. Come, I will show you the way," she added, putting her arm around my waist and leading me out of the room.
When we reached the door we were met by the timid hero of the sitting-room, who now found himself almost in our arms. He was making a stealthy entrance, and we a stealthy exit, and we came upon one another so suddenly that we all three stood motionless and silent for an awkward second or so.
Madame de Beaumont relieved the stupid situation by saying, "Miss Hampden, this is my son, I suppose you know him already by name."
I was too surprised to say or do anything appropriate. I merely raised my eyes and inclined my head a little, and worked my way through the door with an impatience almost equal to that with which he had flown from the room which we had invaded an hour or so before.
In a few minutes more I was safe and secure in my own apartment, free to sit down quietly and make out a calm realization of the whole state of affairs for my own private benefit. The figure I had just left standing in the opposite doorway came back to me now, more clearly-defined in memory than he was to my corporal eyes as they rested on him. He was a handsome fellow, very handsome, but how strange looking, with his rich embroidered gown falling about him in heavy folds, and his cap shoved back off his brow, throwing his marked features into exquisite relief, this was Hortense's brother of whom she had never spoken to me, whose name I had never heard until to-night! This was Bayard de Beaumont!
I stood up and began to unfasten my trinkets, and my eyes were instinctively raised to a picture which hung over the mirror beside me. It consisted of two photographs in a pretty delicate frame, one was Bayard's, the other was a woman's, not his mother's, nor his sister's. It was of some one I had never seen. I raised the lamp above my head and scrutinized it. It was a beautiful face, but one of cold, passive loveliness. There was something in the handsome mouth which made me wince as I looked upon it, and those large speaking eyes. What a depth theirs was, too deep, I thought, too alluring, might not one get lost in such labyrinths as these?
I gazed upon the picture until my hand, exhausted, trembled with the lighted lamp it held, and even then I had not seen it half enough but I turned away and went on in moody thoughtfulness with my final preparations for retiring.
I knelt and said my evening prayers, with many a struggle against teasing distractions, I must admit.
Such a queer nature was mine! I do not know whether others resemble me or not in this respect, but from my young girlhood, I have always been led away by those faces, books, sounds or pictures, that are suggestive of any kind of deep or pent up emotion. I know not exactly whether it be that I look upon them as associated in some dim distant way with my own uneventful life, yet how could that be? What have vagrant strains of unfamiliar music conceived by unknown minds, and played by unseen hands to do with the mechanism of one undreamt of human soul? What can those heart-moving pages of the authors I love, have to do with the issue of an existence of which they have never heard nor thought? What part could these fascinating faces have played in the personal drama of my life, when they have never been called upon to bestow even the tame smile of conventional greeting upon me? What bearing could those speaking pictures have upon the story of my individual experience when they are often the only reflection of days long past and forgotten, children of some pensive artist's fancy that never had another life outside of his conception, than that infused by brush or chisel? Yet it always seems to me that as I look into those books and faces, or as I lend my ear to those engaging sounds, some chord vibrates within me that makes me feel as if my memory were struggling to awake from some lethargy: scenes and sorrows of my yesterdays come back for a short moment to my vivid recollection, and seem to hang around these powerful incentives in a misty halo. It may be the caprice of an extravagant imagination, it may be the freak of a foolish fancy, an empty day-dream, an idle reverie, but to me while it lasts, it is sweeter than any reality.
Thus was it with this picture that hung upon my bedroom wall that night. I could not take my eyes from it. There I lay, tired and travel-worn, on an easy bed; but the light burned beside me and I could not sleep. Something held my gaze fixed upon the opposite wall. I could but stare and wonder at the curious loveliness of that woman's face, and ask myself doubtfully over and over again whether such beauty always engenders proportionate happiness for its possessor.
"And Bayard loved her," I went on in mental soliloquy. "This strange, handsome fellow with the sad face and solemn air." Did he still love her, I wondered, or was she called away in her youthful grace and loveliness to where he could only see her with the eyes of faith? Did he now live upon her cherished memory, isolated from all the profane distractions of social life? Where was she, or who was she, and why had Hortense never spoken of her in all her intimate conversations with me? Was she his wife? May not this picture have got there in some accidental way? She might be a relative. It might have happened that they were just the same size and style of portrait, and were put together on that account. But no! something in the faces of both insinuated a close relationship. They were more to one another, I felt sure, than friend or relative. There was love, quiet, steady, absorbing love in his great dark eyes, as if in resting upon the beauty of that other face they had found happiness and repose forever. They even suggested something of a reproachful love, as if they found those attractions too winning, and not human enough. I almost coveted the respectfully devouring glance of those contemplative brown eyes, for we women with faces of very ordinary fabric cannot believe that men love us altogether as they would if our cheeks were like damask roses and our eyes like dew-kissed violets. Nor do we blame them. Yet how often does it come to pass that a woman's beauty is the stumbling-block to her earthly happiness? With only a face for her fortune, many a bright-eyed, laughing belle has gone out to seek sorrow and misery. The world is full of them, they are rolling in easy carriages up and down the thoroughfares of life, each a pampered and dearly bought idol of some powerful old Croesus, whom to love would be to outrage every principle of nature and worthy sentiment, and, therefore, to live upon milk and honey and be clad in the finest of purple, beauty will sanction her own destruction, living a loveless life, ever haunted by a memory of something brighter and happier that might have been. And all for this, that others may look with admiration, and possibly with envy upon her glittering wealth, or that she may reflect some of the social power and prestige of the man who marries her. She may escape destitute gentility; she may pass into the higher walks of refined society, may be waited upon by many servants, and be the cynosure of eyes that under other circumstances had never deigned to favor her with a casual notice. What of that? She may, at last, recline in an expensive casket, and rich exotics may lie in splendid profusion about her, there may be tolling of many bells and sighing of many friends, but after that? Does the grave show any more respect to these remnants of dainty humanity stowed away in the stillness of an artistic vault, than to the handful of pauper human bones that crumble to their final dust under the unmarked, unnoticed sod?
With such reflections as these, and while my eyes were still fixed upon the fascinating photograph I fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed strange things that night. Phantom forms with a dark mystic beauty about them glided round me. I saw a woman with long raven tresses and tear-dimmed eyes shrouded in flowing draperies, leaning over a narrow rustic bridge under which dark and muddy water ran in a gurgling stream. Her elbow leaned upon the railing, and her pensive face lay half-buried in one slender hand. She was looking into the depths below, and a great misery was written upon her handsome features. I dreamed that I was hurrying by the spot where she was standing, eager to reach the other side unobserved by her. As I stole with noiseless tread behind her, I heard her talking to the waters in a slow and humdrum monotone:
"Even if I did it," she was saying "he wouldn't care now. No! Bayard wouldn't care, no one would care. Would you care?" She screamed, turning suddenly around and clutching me tightly with both trembling hands. My blood ran cold, my very hair stood up on end, as I saw the wild glitter in her dark, lustrous eyes, and the hopeless frenzy in her harsh and hollow laugh. I wrestled once, with all the strength I could command, and with a piercing scream I awoke! Cold clammy drops lay on my face and hands. My heart was throbbing wildly against my breast. I lay prostrate, paralyzed with fear, staring into the outer gloom. It was just at the turn of the darkness when things are outlined though still colorless and shadowy, and I could see the delicate frame opposite me suspended by invisible cords from an invisible nail—that cursed thing that had haunted me in my sleep and reduced me to this painful condition.
There was a flicker of light through the keyhole and crevices of my bed-room door at this crisis. Someone turned the handle cautiously and finding the bolt drawn from the inside, whispered huskily.
"What is the matter?"
I could not recognize the voice, but sitting up in my bed, I answered faintly:
"Oh! it is nothing. I have had a dreadful nightmare, that is all."
The light flickered again and the cautious footsteps retreated, leaving me alone with the dusk and my fears. I fell back upon my pillow and crept under the warm coverings. I was weak and shivering, and a violent pain darted through my head. In a few moments that seemed like hours to me, I fell asleep again. This time it was a quiet, dreamless slumber, which restored me greatly, and refreshed my looks and my humor for breakfast.
When I awoke a second time, a bright morning sunshine flooded the room. The birds sang lustily outside my window, carts and carriages rumbled along the road; bells were ringing and all the voices of industry and activity were united in a great chorus which proclaimed the advent of another day.
No one spoke of my tragic experience when I appeared at the breakfast table. Madame de Beaumont and her son were already in the dining-room when I went down, and we took our seats almost immediately. Hortense was still sleeping, they said, and looked quite refreshed after the night.
"I hope I did not disturb her when I screamed?" I ventured to remark.
"When you screamed!" Madame de Beaumont exclaimed in bewilderment.
"Yes! did you not hear me?" I asked, just as astonished.
"No indeed," she answered, "did you Bayard?" turning towards her son who sat at the upper end of the table.
"Miss Hampden had supper too late last night," he said, evading a direct reply, "and that with traveling, and the excitement of seeing Hortense so very ill, would disturb any one's slumber."
I thought he intended that the subject of my nightmare, should be summarily dismissed with this explanation, and feeling a little unkindness in the arbitrary way in which he expressed himself, I turned to Madame de Beaumont and with a self-justifying tone remarked:
"It is the first time in my life I have ever had a nightmare, and I cannot account for it. I had been looking at a picture that hangs over the looking-glass in the room you gave me, and do you know it suggested such a queer train of thought, that immediately on falling asleep I dreamed of it, and such a dream! It would have frightened any one."
Madame de Beaumout busied herself among the tea-things while I spoke, and never raised her eyes, but Bayard, laying down his knife and fork, turned his gaze full upon me. There was a covert sneer, I thought, in the look which he directed at me so steadily, and feeling painfully mystified and uncomfortable under the whole situation, I bent my head over my chocolate and sipped it slowly for need of a better distraction. After a moment or so of unflinching staring, the courteous Bayard resumed his breakfast with double the appetite, it seemed to me, with which he began it. This was my uncongenial initiation into my friend's home.
Before the week was out, Hortense, to the surprise and delight of us all, was able to move about from one room to another. She looked white and wasted still, but her old manner had returned to her in a great measure, and she laughed and chatted eagerly with us, one after another, thus giving strong confirmation to the hopes expressed by her medical adviser, who now predicted a rapid convalescence.
The sun was warm and invigorating, and nature at the very climax of her summer beauty, the leaves green and plentiful, and the breeze gentle and refreshing. Everything in the external world tempted one to "fling dull care away" and be happy while these propitious moments lingered with time.
Madame de Beaumont and her son were so hopeful now of Hortense's complete recovery that they ventured to leave home for a week or ten days to attend to some family business that had been delayed on account of her serious illness, but it was with many a parting injunction, regarding the care and attention that should be unceasingly bestowed upon her darling during her enforced absence, that the solicitous mother left me in charge. Anxious to fulfil my pledge to the very letter. I gave myself up to the exclusive companionship of my little friend from that moment. It was indeed a pleasure and a recreation for me, now that she was able to laugh and talk as before.
Two weeks had elapsed since my arrival in Toronto and many strange conjectures had held possession of my mind during this comparatively short interval. I had seen nothing, I may say, of the quiet hero of the household. His time was spent either in the solemn seclusion of his own apartments or out of doors. Occasionally we met going out of, or coming into, a room, going up or down stairs or passing along some corridor. We nearly always had meals together, and on a few occasions he even sat with us for an hour after dinner, but of what good was that? The conversation was tame and impersonal when we were all together, and when we two met by accident there was a quiet mutual greeting which began and ended on the spot.
I was still of the opinion that he was a handsome man and a fine fellow altogether, but the suspicion that he was shrouded in mystery repelled me, despite my best intentions and desires. I have never taken to those deep natures that talk in discreet monosyllables and cling to the sheltering refuge of such safe subjects as are the substance of everybody's and anybody's chit-chat. Maybe I judge them harshly when I persuade myself that the records of their past could not stand the open daylight of a free-and-easy discussion. This verdict is, however, the suggestion of my instinct, and need not carry weight with anyone but myself.
Lest any of the ardent believers in the pre-eminent curiosity of womankind be wondering how I could have restrained my burning desires to ferret out the secrets of this man's life for so long, I must hasten to inform them that conjointly with this feminine weakness I had a most unyielding pride, a pride that absorbedevenmy curiosity. Though I pined to know the wonderful story of his past, this prevailing vice forbade me to quench my devouring thirst at the fountainhead of satisfaction.
Hortense had not volunteered to open the subject with me, neither had her mother, though both must have known full well that my suspicions were aroused. I did not therefore intend to ask a confidence which could not be given willingly and freely. It was virtually nothing to me what this man did or did not, and as his experience had probably a painful halo about it, I was not eager to refer to it in the remotest possible way.
Before he left with Madame de Beaumont he came into the sitting-room where I was standing, looking out of the window, to bid me good-bye.
He wore a traveling costume of a becoming gray color, and held his hat in one gloved hand. I heard him come in, but purposely did not look around. As he was generally engaged with business of his own when he went in or out of a room, I was not supposed to know that, on this particular occasion, he was making a flattering exception for me. I went on biting my lips abstractedly, with my head leaning against the casement. He cleared his throat emphatically, but what was that to me? "Ahem" was not enough like either of my names, to justify my looking around.
He walked to the mantel-piece and inspected its familiar furnishings for a moment, making what seemed to me unnecessary noise and fuss as he did so. I would have given worlds for a pair of keen eyes at the back of my head during this artful performance, but as no such abnormal desire could be favored, I had to be satisfied with my conjectures and suppositions about his motives, and the various expressions that were chasing one another over his face as he went through this programme of failures.
At last, having spent his every indirect effort to attract my absorbed attention, he took a book from the table, and placing it deliberately under his arm, as if it were one of the many things that brought him into the room, he strode quietly towards me, saying in a very non-committal and yet courteous tone.
"I shall say goodbye, Miss Hampden, I hope you will take every care, of yourselves, and that we shall find you well on our return."
"Thank you," I answered, very politely, "there will be no fear of me. Good bye."
He took the tips of my three longest fingers, my thumb and little finger not having been ordained by nature to meet the cordial grasp of men of this stamp, and having repeated his good-bye, he stalked out of the room in conscious dignity and grandeur.
I made a mocking face, I know I did, when his back was turned. I hated him for not taking more notice of me than this. I did not want any violent attentions or silly love-making from him. He need not think I was a frivolous heart-hunter, for I was not. If I had been a man, he would have discussed politics or science or newspaper topics with me long before this. How did he know I could not match him in these being a woman? He was one of those wonderful erudites, I supposed, who think that a girl's conversational power lies rigidly between dry goods and sentiment. Poor things! What a heresy they foster? But what need I care? He was a glum, unsociable recluse anyway, may be at a loss for a second idea to keep his mind busy. He was certainly not worth worrying about, so I gathered up my needle-work that rested on the window-sill, and with a deliberate sullenness went in search of Hortense.
She had fallen asleep on the lounge in her bedroom, and the old nurse, having closed the shutters and drawn the curtains to keep out the afternoon light, was seated in the adjoining room, busily knitting a stocking.
Free, therefore, to dispose of myself as I wished for the next hour, I put on my things and went to stroll about the busy streets of the city.
Avoiding the fine, open thoroughfares, where business and pleasure were airing themselves, I leisurely turned down a gloomy by-way which was lined on either side by the massive walls and rear wings of huge, dismal, commercial establishments. Not a soul was visible anywhere, it was long and narrow and dirty, with deep ruts in the mud that lay in a thick covering over the road. It was intercepted, some distance down, by another street much worse to look at, and a little farther on, the woeful panorama became still more awful and repulsive. A little passage which seemed to have strayed away from all connection with human decency or sympathy ran to the left. It was so very narrow that though the surrounding buildings straggled up to only an ordinary height, the daylight scarcely penetrated it. And indeed it is to be wondered whether a bright sunlight would not but bring out more clearly than ever the appalling features of the place. Could gold and silver sunbeams hope to beautify the heaps of refuse and rubbish that were piled up here and there at intervals against some staggering fence? Could a flood of sunlight improve the dingy house-fronts that looked drearily out upon this cheerless prospect, or lend a charm to the hardened faces of those that peered through dirty window-panes, or who stood idly in some rickety doorway?
The spectacle was indeed heart-stirring.
"Why shines the sun except that he Makes gloomy nooks for grief tohide? And pensive shades for melancholy When all the earth is brightbeside?"
The words seemed written on the dingy house-tops before me, and borne on the gusty breeze that wafted noxious odors far and wide. My heart turned sick, and yet this was what I had come out to see. I could not have gone away from a lively city like this, where towers and steeples of lofty and majestic buildings reared themselves in proud beauty towards heaven, without having also looked on the picture's gloomy side. Where so much wealth and fashion and finery dazzled the casual eye, there must, said I, be also 'poverty, hunger and dirt,' and were my words not fully verified now?
I have been warned more than once of the danger of going unattended along these haunts of misery and vice, but whether or not it is because my motive is one of pure philanthropy, and my sentiments exclusively sympathetic I do not know, I have, however, escaped up to this without interference from the lowly inhabitants of these obscure corners, and can vouch for the latent gallantry of many a ragged hero, who restored a fallen umbrella or parcel with as much courtesy as his brother clad in broadcloth ever showed me.
That human mind which feasts exclusively upon the dainty morsels of life is only half educated, though there are grand fragments of knowledge and experience to be gathered among the haunts of high art, and where stand the immortal monuments of power and fame, though the heart may swell with a just enthusiasm at sight of the marvels which have risen out of gold piles, the coffers of nations or individuals, I hold that all the majesty of the best-spent wealth has not power to awaken such a depth of feeling in the human breast as one of these tottering huts with its mouldy walls and mud-spattered window-panes, the "Home Sweet Home" of flesh and blood as real and as sensitive as our pampered own.
To think that in the world's great capitals there is squalor which could never compare with what my eyes then beheld! Think of Murray Hill and the Alaska District, Fell's Point, or the Basin, and what a sea of human wrecks we contemplate in a fraction of America's continent alone. And again, think of the waste of wealth the wide world over. Think how vice is wined and dined, and clad in the finest of fabrics, while honest humanity, in helpless hunger, cries out to ears that are deaf and hearts that have turned to stone. Oh, well may it be said that the rich man's chances of heaven are as those of the camel going through the eye of a needle, if the recording angel pencils down the use and abuse of every dangerous penny that might have been well spent, and was not.
With such reflections as these I turned my steps slowly back through the dingy by-ways.
The afternoon was waning, and the hour was near when daily toil would be suspended, and the workers would repair to these their miserable homes. I had met a few already with their picks and shovels on their ragged shoulders, and had stood to see them vanish under these crooked doorways where little children lingered waiting and watching for their cheerless coming. I saw some others lay down the instruments of their honest labor outside the corner entrance of a large but smoky row of wooden tenements that skirted one gloomy street. A doorway cut through the sharp angles of the corner of the building, allowed a small canopy to project in a triangular peak over two dirty battered steps that led into a dimly-lit room on the ground floor. Suspended from the point of the canopy was a lamp of a dull red color, which with rain spatterings and droppings, and a long-standing accumulation of cobwebs and dust had grown barely translucent, and must have emitted but a sickly light at night-fall. A worn and ragged rope-mat lay on the second step, and across the upper half of the dilapidated door (which was of glass) a faded screen was drawn that kept the inner room secure from the curious gaze of passers-by.
Those who had been born and brought up under the shadow of this ominous establishment, must have known many a tale of sorrow and woe that owed its origin to that vile ground-floor.
I discovered, on closer scrutiny, that some faded letters across the dirty lamp, intimated to the general public that this was the "Ace of Spades." And in the money-till of the Ace of Spades, doubtless was the price of many a poor man's toil, the bread and meat of his hungry children squandered and sacrificed with a fiendish recklessness. Within the dingy walls of the Ace of Spades was bartered the domestic happiness of many a home that had been cheerless enough, God knows, without this extra curse.
I shivered as I passed it by, to think that amid such haunts of misery and starvation, a place like this could flourish, growing fat upon the life-blood of famishing humanity, and a pity that is akin to a most contemptuous hatred swelled my breast, when I asked myself: What sort of being presides over this soul-trap? Can it be rational? Can it have a soul? Can it ever understand what even animal sympathy is?
The gold that is stolen from the rich man's coffers has some claim to respectability, over these ill-gotten coins that are so many mouthfuls of bread snatched from the jaws of perishing hunger.
I turned away feeling sick at heart, and directed my vagrant steps towards home. All the pomp and glory of the world's wealth were dimmed and darkened before my eyes by this huge black shadow of penury and suffering, that had darted across my way at that moment. If such thoughts as these could be ever with us, if such vivid reminders of the shallowness and vanity of earth's transient splendors would abide with us constantly, how paltry would our idolized and coveted honors appear, and how much more profitable would our wasted energies become! But our minds are frivolous, and easily distracted from great pursuits by petty, external circumstances. We become too readily absorbed in the study of our own selves, and those elements of experience that may yield us pleasure or pain during our sojourn among mortal men. Very often our own instability of purpose annoys and discourages us. Our spirit has desired the accomplishment of one thing, but our contrary flesh has silenced these better demands in gratifying its own caprice. It takes us a very long time to learn the danger of trusting our fallible natures too far. The man who goes forward to defy temptation, telling himself he will not fall, is running down towards a steep precipice, and has not the power of self-control when he reaches the critical point.
I was faithful to my wholesome meditation while I sauntered back alone through the busy streets. When I raised my eyes to look upon glittering carriages, bearing beauty and ease and comfort along the highway, I said to myself in all sincerity, What will it avail them in the end?
But, gentle reader, if I have found fault with the weakness of human nature, and censured its infidelity to noble purposes, it is because I have taught myself the realization. Think you, I have stood where my brothers and sisters have fallen? or have been much the better for knowing so well where the straight path of duty lies?
When I entered the house of my friend I left the best part of my new convictions upon the threshold, and bounded up the stairway with as light a step as if life's darkest phases were unheard of mysteries to me.
Hortense was still lying on the lounge, and the curtains were still drawn, but her eyes were wide open, and the rosy warmth of a recent happy slumber lay on each delicate cheek.
I crept softly towards her, lest perhaps I should find her dozing, but her sleep had not left a languid trace behind. She looked up at me with a bright smile, saying,
"Oh, you naughty truant, where have you been?"
"I went for a little walk," I answered, stooping over her and kissing her brow. "I saw you were sleeping, and having nothing to do, I took a fancy to explore the town. Have you been awake long?"
"Oh, yes! for hours!" she said playfully. "I have counted my fingers about a dozen times. I have discovered that that picture between the windows hangs to one side, and the table-cover is longer at the back than in the front. That bottle casts a shadow just like a man's face and—"
"Oh, come!" I broke in, "you are improvising as you go along. You would not look so rosy and good-humored if you had been lying awake all that time. You will not make me believe such ponderous fibs," I added, throwing my hat and parasol wearily on the bed.
"You are quite too cute, Amey," she answered, rising slowly and taking my arm affectionately, "in fact you are a genius my dear," she added in a pompous tone.
"So they all tell me," I retorted quietly, "and yet I feel very much like other people."
"Well, you are not like other people, indeed you are not!" she exclaimed earnestly. "If you were I would never have liked you."
"Don't you like 'other people'?"
"Not generally, some other people I do, but not allMon Dieu! non pas tous!" she added, shaking her head emphatically and looking abstractedly before her.
The current of her thought must have changed suddenly, for she raised her face with a bright expression upon it now and said
"Let us do something—something to keep us alive—What shall it be?"
"We might drink your cod liver oil," I suggested; "it is recommended for that purpose, is it not?"
"How smart you are Miss Hampden!" she exclaimed. "Well, I will leave all that sport to yourself, it has no charm for me, I know," she then cried, interrupting herself, "let us go to your room, and you will show me all your pretty things. I have not seen anything since you came, such a prisoner as I have been."
"I hope you will feel repaid," I said, putting one arm tenderly around her frail waist, and leading her out, "but I have not much to show you, Hortense."
We repaired to my room at the other end of the corridor, and Hortense, seating herself on a pile of pillows on the floor, insisted on being shown all the new jewellery and trinkets that had been bestowed on me when I "came out."
This trivial circumstance is, I am fully conscious, quite enough to provoke the blandest of smiles from masculine lips.
"Such a paltry distraction for sensible people!" I hear them utter. So be it; we will not dispute the point in our own favor, but we will confess that whether it reflect or not upon the tone and dignity of our leading tastes, there is an undeniable gratification for every woman in the contemplation of another's wardrobe or jewel-box. It is a rest for our eyes that are wearied of gazing upon our own familiar belongings, to search among the novel trinkets of a friend. We like to touch them, to hold them, to try them in our ears, or on our fingers, or to twine them around our wrists, not that we covet them either, for a moment's inspection gratifies us, and we tire of them quickly.
It is an inherent peculiarity I dare say, and most certainly a harmless one. We all have it to some extent. I will admit that it has its abuses like all other innocent things, that it is often a powerful channel for individual venom and an incentive to the emptiest vanity. There are women I know, who buy bonnets on purpose to vex Mrs. Jones, their rival neighbor, and I have seen Mrs. Parvenue, time and again, indulging a magnificent caprice with some rare luxury, upon which straitened aristocracy was bestowing covetous and admiring glances. Our daily observations confirm the fact that feather brainedprotegeesof fortune, expend much wealth, and flaunt much finery for the passive pleasure of being looked at with wonder by a struggling gentility; and the essence of their gratification, virtually lies in the consciousness that they are provoking a scrutiny, at least, from better-bred people not in possession of such solid wealth as affords them these material comforts.
All this however is an abuse, the offspring of most sordid and contemptible motives. It is the unmistakable brand of the plebeian, and compromises the one who favors it, beyond amendment. It is well to mention it, however, for there are persons of limited observation, and there must needs be persons of a limited experience at all times who, for want of knowing the whole truth, will be tempted to pass a comprehensive general verdict where a particular one only is deserved. It is the misfortune of good to be counterfeited by a simpering evil which works its wonders among the uninitiated, and for this reason, it is not injudicious to openly discuss both sides of a question before adopting a partiality for either one.
When however as in our case, the pleasure is equally divided between the owner of the fine things and the one who appreciates them, there is a possibility of spending a very happy hour in their inspection. When one is free, as I was, to take up each pretty trinket separately and tell its little story to an attentive ear and a sympathetic heart, the circumstance becomes quite propitious for an interchange of friendly confidences, as we shall see.
I had opened and closed more than a dozen jewel-cases. I had revealed to my friend's devouring gaze, my newest acquisitions in silver and gold, and how earnestly she had admired them all. It was refreshing to me to watch her as she clasped my bracelets on her slender wrists, and hung my ear rings from her delicate little ears; now exclaiming over the novelty of one, now listening eagerly to the whispered account about another. At last we had emptied out the great box that held all these little cases of morocco and plush, and putting them back one by one, I turned the tiny key in its tiny lock, and opening my trunk lodged it safely inside. Hortense was sitting beside me still, pouring out a volley of impulsive praise upon what I had just shown her, and as I raised the lid of my trunk, with the privilege of an intimate friend she leaned over and peeped curiously in.
"What is in that red case there Amey?" she asked half timidly, then looking apologetically into my face added: "You see my curiosity is not satisfied yet."
"That is my ivory-covered prayer-book I told you of," said I, drawing it from its seclusion and laying it in her lap. "I seldom use it, it is too showy."
"It is very handsome" she muttered under her breath. "From your father," she continued, speaking to herself, "a Christmas gift. How lovely!"
She put it gently back in its padded holder, and returned it to me. Then peeping into the open trunk once more she said
"Don't be cross, old woman, I want to know all your things, so that I could recognize them any where again. I like them, chiefly because they belong to you. What is in that Japanese box over there?"
"Oh, that is not worth showing you," I said, with a smile of ridicule. "I keep all my odds and ends there, broken and old-fashioned trinkets. It is a very uninteresting heap, I assure you."
"I don't care," she persisted obstinately. "You must let me see them. I like old broken stuff, it will be a change from all the finery I have been feasting on."
"Well, if you will, you will I suppose, you tantalising child!" I exclaimed in mock resignation, dragging out the shabby receptacle upon which lingered the faint outlines of Japanese ladies in brilliant costumes.
"I hope you will like the contents," I remarked derisively, handing her the box. "While you are improving your mind studying them, I shall just restore some order to these dilapidated quarters," I said, as I turned around towards my neglected dressing table that was reduced to a most confusing state of chaos.
The fragments rattled and clinked awhile between her busy fingers, and then were silent. I was so occupied with my new purpose that I did not notice the stillness at first, but suddenly I looked around in questioning scrutiny. The box lay on the floor beside her, unheeded. Between her fingers was some small, shining thing, upon which her eyes were fastened greedily. While I stood watching her, she turned her head slowly round and in a quiet, almost supplicating, tone said,
"Amey, come here."
I went and knelt beside her, laying one arm fondly around her neck.
"What do you want?" I asked, hardly noticing what she held in one slender palm.
"Where did you get this Amey? Do you mind telling me?"
She looked up into my face as she spoke, with such pleading sorrowful eyes, that I snatched the trinket impulsively from her and turned it over in my own hand.
It was the forgotten locket I had found in the library on that March afternoon before the Merivales' musical. A change passed over my own face at sight of it, and it was with some agitation I answered Hortense's timid question:
"It is a strange thing how you came by this. I have never seen it but once, the night I found it, until now."
"You found it then," she murmured slowly with her eyes still buried in my face. "Have you ever opened it?"
I laughed dryly and said, "It is a queer thing, isn't it, but I never have."
"Open it now," she interrupted seriously. I took it between my fingers and after repeated efforts managed to open it. There were two small photographs inside. One was Ernest Dalton's—and the other was mine!
A crimson flush deluged my face and neck, my hand trembled and the locket fell into Hortense's lap. She raised her solemn eyes now grown sadder and more solemn than ever, and said in a voice more plaintive and pleading than any voice I ever heard before,
"Then you know him?"
I was mystified. I could hardly remember afterwards what I had answered to her strange question. I think I said in a seemingly indifferent voice,
"Is it Mr. Dalton?"
But I know she looked at me with an expression of infinite reproachful longing and asked,
"Have you a doubt of it?"
"But I never gave him a picture of mine," I argued, "and moreover, I never had pictures taken like this one. If it is he, where did he get this, and why did he put it here?"
She shot a wincing, suspicious glance at me from under her white lids and repeated huskily,
"You never gave him this picture?"
"On my word, I did not Hortense," I answered. "How could I? It never belonged to me. I never saw it in my life until this moment. We cannot be sure that it is my portrait."
"Look at those eyes and that mouth, and the hair waving over that brow," she muttered, half in soliloquy, with her gaze still bent upon the mysterious locket. "Of course it is you, Amey Hampden, and no one else."
"Well, it is a dark puzzle to me," I said, "and I wish I could explain it."
Then suddenly remembering the other strange feature of the circumstance, I turned impulsively to Hortense and observed:
"I did not know that you and Mr. Dalton were friends. I never heard him mention your name."
"Nor did I know that you and he were friends," she interrupted, a little incisively, I thought. "I never heard him mentionyourname."
"That is strange" said I, "for he has known me from my infancy. I have sat upon Mr. Dalton's knee time and again, listening to his thrilling anecdotes and telling him my petty confidences."
"Have you?" very indifferently.
"Yes, and that is why I am morally certain this picture can in no way be associated with me, for there is no reason why Mr. Dalton should have one and keep it secret. Besides, I ought to know" I argued warmly, "whether I had ever had such pictures taken, and whether he had been given one or not."
"Well it is very like you, Amey," Hortense resumed in a more calm and friendly tone "So much so, that when I saw you for the first time at Notre Dame Abbey, I recognized you from this."
"Oh then you have seen this before," I exclaimed.
A deep, red shadow flitted across her face for one moment and she answered timidly.
"Yes, he showed it to me, but when I met you I could not remember where it was I had seen your face before. It troubled me then, and it has often puzzled me since. Now, the whole mystery is solved" she said, rising from her lowly seat, and going towards the window. She still held the locket in one open palm, and I know she muttered, half audibly, as she turned away
"Who else could it be?"
From that moment Hortense was not the same. She tried hard to appear her old self. She even laughed and chatted more merrily than ever, but I felt rather than saw the difference. There was some undertone of mystery about this affair, that she was striving to hide from me, and that conviction built up an ugly barrier between our hitherto unswerving loves. I had never broached any subject to her that required to be spoken of reservedly or discreetly. I would not have had her know that secrets should exist between us, and therefore I could not help feeling the sting of these unfortunate circumstances that had been so strongly evolved out of chance.
Of one thing I was certain that Hortense did not look upon Earnest Dalton as an ordinary friend or acquaintance. Ordinary friends have not the same influence over us as he seemed to exercise over her. We do not blush at the mention of their names, nor are we agitated by every little reminder of their lives or persons. We can think of them without a far-away look in our eyes, and can speak of them without a tremor in our voice or a sudden change of expression in our countenance.
"If she loves him" said I, in my reverie, that night, and why should she not, it is no wonder that this strange likeness should be disagreeable to her. It has given me some pleasure to see this thing that only looks like me so carefully stowed away in his locket. There is every reason why the same discovery should grieve her—if she cares for him.
I then went back in memory to that dull March afternoon, I had passed in quiet reflection before the library fire. How vividly it all rose up before me. My sudden awakening from a stupid slumber, my firm conviction that some one else was in the room, my timid whispering question, the tinkling sound of something falling upon the floor, and my subsequent surprise on finding this queer, unfamiliar trinket lying at my feet. Now that it was proven to be Ernest Dalton's, the mystery was thicker than ever. How had it come there? I asked myself this perplexing question over and over again. Perhaps it had been lying in the folds of the upholstering for days or months, and that by chance I had disturbed it when I threw myself wearily upon the sofa. Mr. Dalton often came to sit and talk with my father of an evening when we were out. In fact we were never surprised to see him drop in at any moment, and it was quite likely, I concluded, that he had lost the little ornament without knowing it, and as no one of the household had made mention of it to him, as they would have done had it been found, he evidently thought it useless to speak about it under the circumstances, and out of his silence and mine grew this new aspect of affairs.
Satisfied with the probability of this solution, I dismissed the first view of the subject and gave my thought and attention to that other more interesting one, which compromised, to all appearances, my little friend's affections. There was no doubting her sentiment. All the artful veneering she could ever put upon her words or actions had no power to deceive me. There was no indifference in her indifferent attitudes, none at least that was real. Who could tell better than I, who had myself gone through the ordeal? I knew too well what the nature of such a conflict was, not to have detected its workings when they were going on under my very eyes. Besides, was there not some strange new feeling awakened within my own breast, by this unexpected turn of the tide; and was I not striving to guard it and hide it, maybe as vainly as my friend, for all I knew.
I had been making vague conjectures about Ernest Dalton for some time, wooing the possibility if not the probability of being more closely associated with his life some day, than I was at this period. His words had always an underlying signification for me apart from that which any casual listener would detect, and I had studied him so! Every outline of his face and figure was engraven upon my memory, the very curves of his ears, the shape of his figure, the form of his eye-brows, the fit of his collar, the pattern of his neck-ties, all were quite familiar to me. I had taken a pleasure in noticing them, and a still greater pleasure in telling them to myself over and over again. Surely then, he was more to me than all those other people who came and went and left not a trace of their personality inscribed upon my mind or heart. In spite of my wilful protestations, and avowals of indifference, I must have been living all along in the fetters of happy slavery, else, why so many fond recollections of a past that was, after all, but the interesting progress of a prosy human life?