CHAPTER LXVI.THE INDIA SHAWL.
Eva had no heart to enjoy her sister’s happiness after that one glimpse of Ivon Lambert seated by the woman who had so cruelly broken up the sweetest hope of her life. His cold bow and averted eyes cut her to the soul, and she drove slowly home with a chilled and disappointed feeling that contrasted forcibly with the generous and unselfish pleasure of the morning.
Perfect happiness is always a hope of the future. With all her success and triumphs Eva was haunted by this one cause of discontent. Ivon Lambert had met her more than once in her social triumphs since she had resided with Mrs. Carter, but it was always with a degree of reserve that chilled her to the heart and made success itself almost worthless. Indeed, after a few months of admiration and excitement which followed her footsteps at every turn, society began to pall upon her. One party was so like another, there was so little variety in the people she met, that the girl sometimes felt a craving for the rest and quiet of her old life.
At such times she would go back to the cottage, and strive to sink gently down into the enjoyment which graced the tranquil existence of her sister Ruth, but hers was a restlessness of the soul, and for that there is little solace either in gaiety or quiet. Hunger of the heart can only be appeased by that which it craves.
One thing seemed strange to Eva; from the time she left the cottage, Mrs. Laurence had changed completely. There was something like reserve, and even shyness in her manner when they met. This Eva could not understand, but it chilled her a little. With James and Ruth she was always welcome, and almost adored. To them she had never changed; all the pomp and wealth of her surroundings only made her the more beautiful.
Some months after Eva had settled down in her new home, like a nightingale among the roses, she entered a little reception-room off the hall, and found Mrs. Carter in conversation with a sharp-eyed, cringing little man, who seemed to be urging some request with great persistence.
“I have been so long looking for the purchaser, madam. First I trace it to one party, then to another, and at last to that dealer who would not remember to oblige me. But I found a way to reach him and made an arrangement. He gave me the number of this house, and madam’s name. I had great hopes that you would be willing to part with the shawl for the price you gave, as the owner wants it so much. I never, in all my experience, saw any one feel the loss of a pledge so keenly. So, as madam has a good heart, I can see that by her face, I am sure she will not drive a hard bargain with the poor man.”
Mrs. Carter seemed restless and somewhat annoyed at this man’s eager pertinacity. At one of the principal dealers in such expensive articles, she had purchased one of those rare and most exquisite shawls, which are manufactured expressly for eastern potentates. These rich shawlsare difficult to obtain, and precious among ordinary importations, as diamonds compared with meaner stones. She knew that there was not another shawl to compare with this one for sale in the city, and had happened to purchase it at a bargain. Now this man, whom she did not know, but who announced himself as a pawnbroker, who had once held the shawl in pledge, and sold it among other forfeited articles, was appealing to her, in a keen and pathetic way, to give it up, for the moderate price she had paid, because its former owner was driven almost frantic by the loss of it.
Mrs. Carter, being a woman, was touched by this appeal; but from the same feminine reason, found her love of a bargain, and her ambition to possess something more rare and beautiful than her neighbors, opposing the kind impulse with peculiar force. When Eva entered the room, she felt a sense of support, and was almost ready to leave the decision to her, for she had already learned to depend on the young girl in most matters of taste.
“Eva, dear, run up to my dressing-room, and bring a shawl you will find in my armoire. I want you to look at it, and help me decide about parting with it.”
Eva ran up stairs, found the shawl, and came down with it falling in rich folds across her arm.
“Ah, that is it,” cried the pawnbroker, eagerly rubbing his hands. “I should know the pattern among ten thousand. To think now that I should have known its value so little! It cuts me to the soul!”
Mrs. Carter had taken the shawl, and was busy opening its marvelous folds, revealing the long slender palm leaves, in which the best tints of a rainbow were wrought with the toil and art seldom bestowed on the modern fabrics that flood our market.
“Ah, it is so beautiful! I should hate to part with it,” said Eva, who had learned to estimate a creation like that in her life behind the counter. “You might search years without finding one like it.”
“You hear?” said Mrs. Carter, looking irresolutely at the anxious pawnbroker.
“Yes, madam, I hear; but if it is beautiful to a stranger, how much more so to the person who owned it?”
Mrs. Carter looked at Eva with distress in her eyes, and hesitation in her manner.
“What can I do? It does seem hard.”
Before Eva could answer, the man broke in,
“Besides, madam will remember, that I am a poor man, and have spent much time in searching for that shawl, which time is a dead loss, if I fail to bring it back to the owner, who is ready to pay me.”
“That does seem hard!” said the good woman, appealing to Eva, who was so lost in admiration of the shawl, that the man’s greedy eloquence half escaped her.
“The owner has been to my shop again and again, wild to get it. At first he wanted to have it back for a little; but now he will pay anything. The last time he said, ‘get it, and I will not count the cost. It is a case of life and death. I must have that shawl.’ Then I went to work in earnest. This was an inducement for one who toils so hard and gets so little. After all my pains, madam will not be so cruel as to take a poor man’s time for nothing.”
“Eva, I think he must have it!”
“Wait a moment. Let me call Mr. Ross. He will comprehend the claim this man has better than is possible for us. He is in the study; I will find him in a minute.”
Eva ran up stairs, while the pawnbroker, half-baffled and wholly anxious, stood eyeing the shawl with mercenary craving, and Mrs. Carter felt like a victim.