83
“Darling, you will never be anything but a child to me,—the same pretty child I took from its dead mother’s arms and carried for years close to my heart. So scold me as you may, my pet, I shall love you and try to take care of you just as long as there is breath left in my body.”
She ended by kissing the struggling hands; and, striving to conceal her vexation, Mrs. Gerome finally turned and said,—
“If you will eat your supper, and stay with Robert, and leave me in peace, I promise you I will close the piano, which your flinty Scotch soul can no more appreciate than the brick and mortar that compose these walls. You mean well, my dear, faithful Elsie, but sometimes you bore me fearfully. I know I am often wayward; but you must bear with me, for, after all, how could I endure to lose you,—you the only human being who cares whether I live or die? There,—go! Good night!”
She threw her arms around Elsie’s neck, leaned her wan cheek for an instant only on her shoulder, then pushed her away and hastily closed the piano.
Two hours later, when the devoted servant stole up on tip-toe, and peeped through the half-open door that led into the hall, she found the queenly figure walking swiftly and lightly across the room from oriel to arch, with her hands clasped over the back of her head, and the silvery lamp-light shining softly on the waves of burnished hair that rippled around her pure, polished forehead.
As she watched her mistress, Elsie’s stout frame trembled, and hot tears streamed down her furrowed face while she lifted her heart in prayer, for the dreary, lonely, lovely woman, who had long ago ceased to pray for herself. But when the quivering lips of one breathed a petition before the throne of God, the beautiful cold mouth of the other was muttering bitterly,—
“Yea, love is dead, and by her funeral bierAmbition gnaws the lips, and sheds no tears;And, in the outer chamber Hope sits wild,—Hope, with her blue eyes dim with looking long.”
84CHAPTER VII.
“Ulpian, why do you look so grave and grieved? Does your letter contain bad news?”
Miss Jane pushed back her spectacles and glanced anxiously at her brother, who stood with his brows slightly knitted, twirling a crumpled envelope between his fingers.
“It is not a letter, but a telegraphic dispatch, summoning me to the death-bed of my best friend, Horace Manton.”
“The man whose life you saved at Madeira?”
“Yes; and the person to whom, above all other men, I am most strongly and tenderly attached. His constitution is so feeble that I have long been uneasy about him; but the end has come even earlier than I feared.”
“Where does he live?”
“On the Hudson, a few miles above New York City. I have no time to spare, for I shall take the train that leaves at one o’clock, and must make some arrangement with Dr. Sheldon to attend my patients. Will it trouble or tire you too much to pack my valise while I write a couple of business letters? If so, I will call Salome to assist you.”
“Trouble me, indeed! Nonsense, my dear boy; of course I will pack your valise. Moreover, Salome is not at home. How long will you be absent?”
“Probably a week or ten days,—possibly longer. If poor Horace lingers, I shall remain with him.”
“Wait one moment, Ulpian. Before you go I want to speak to you about Salome.”
“Well, Janet, I lend you my ears. Has the girl absolutely turned pagan and set up an altar to Ceres, as she threatened some weeks since? Take my word for the fact that she does not believe or mean one half that she says, and is only amusing herself by trying to discover how wide her audacious heresies can expand your dear orthodox eyes. Expostulation and entreaty only feed her affected eccentricities and skepticism,85and if you will persistently and quietly ignore them, they will shrivel as rapidly as a rank gourd-vine, uprooted on an August day.”
“Pooh! pooh! my dear boy. How you men do prate sometimes of matters concerning which you are as ignorant as the yearling calves and gabbling geese that I suppose your learned astronomers see driven every day to pasture on that range of mountains in the moon—Eratosthenes—that modern science pretends to have discovered, and about which you read so marvellous a paper last week.”
Miss Jane reverently clung to the dishonored remnants of the Ptolemaic theory, and scouted the philosophy of Copernicus which she vehemently averred was not worth “a pinch of snuff,” else the water in the well would surely run out once in every twenty-four hours. Now, as she dived into the depths of her stocking-basket, collecting the socks neatly darned and rolled over each other, her brother smiled, and answered, good humoredly,—
“Dear Janet, I really have not time to follow you to the moon, nor to prove to you that your astronomical doctrines have been dead and decently buried for nearly three hundred years; but I should like to hear what you desire to tell me with reference to Salome. What is the matter now?”
“Nothing ails her, except a violent attack of industry, which has lasted much longer than I thought possible; for, to tell you the truth without stint or varnish, she certainly was the most sluggish piece of flesh I ever undertook to manage. Study she would not, keep house she could not, sewing gave her the headache, and knitting made her cross-eyed; but, behold! she has suddenly found out that her pretty little pink palms were made for something better than propping her peach-bloom cheeks. A few days ago I accidentally discovered that she was sitting up until long after midnight, and when I questioned her closely, she finally confessed that she had entered into a contract to furnish a certain amount of embroidery every month. Bless the child! can you guess what she intends to do with the money? Hoard it up in order to rent a couple of rooms, where she can take Jessie and Stanley86to live with her. Ulpian, it is a praiseworthy aim, you must admit.”
“Eminently commendable, and I respect and admire the motive that incites her to such a laborious course. At present she is too young and inexperienced to take entire charge of the children, and I know nothing of your plans or intentions concerning her future; but, let me assure you, dear Jane, that I will cordially coöperate in all your schemes for aiding her and providing a home for them, and my purse shall not prove a laggard in the race with yours. Recently I have been revolving a plan for their benefit, but am too much hurried just now to give you the details. When I return we will discuss itin extenso.”
“You know that I ascribe great importance to blood, but strange as it may appear, that girl Salome has always tugged hard at my heart-strings, as if our proud old blood beat in her veins; and sometimes I fancy there must be kinship hidden behind the years, or buried in some unknown grave.”
“Amuse yourself while I am away by digging about the genealogical tree of the house of Grey, and, if you can trace a fibre that ramifies in the miller’s family, I will gladly bow to my own blood wherever I find it, and claim cousinship. Meantime, my dear sister, do keep a corner of your loving heart well swept and dusted for your errant sailor-boy.”
He hastily kissed her cheek and turned away to write letters, while she went into the adjoining room to pack his clothes.
When Salome returned from town, whither she had gone to carry a package of finished work and obtain a fresh supply, she found Miss Jane alone in the dining-room, and wearing a dejected expression on her usually cheerful countenance.
“Did Ulpian tell you good-by?”
“No, I have not seen him. Where has he gone?”
“To New York.”
The long walk and sultry atmosphere had unwontedly flushed the girl’s face, and the damp hair clung in glossy rings to her brow; but, as Miss Jane spoke, the blood ebbed from87cheeks and lips, and sweeping back the dark tresses that seemed to oppress her, she asked, shiveringly,—
“Is Dr. Grey going back to sea?”
“Oh no, child! An old friend is very ill, and telegraphed for him. Sit down, dear,—you look faint.”
“Thank you, I don’t wish to sit down, and there is nothing the matter with me. When will he come home?”
“I can not tell precisely, as his stay is contingent upon the condition of his friend.”
“Is it a man or woman whom he has gone to see?”
The astonishment painted on Miss Jane’s face would have been ludicrous to a careless observer, less interested than the orphan in her slow and deliberate reply.
“A man, of course.”
“Did he tell you so?”
“Certainly. He went to see Mr. Horace Manton, with whom he was associated while abroad. But suppose it had been some winsome, brown-eyed witch of a woman, instead of a dying man, what then?”
“Then you would have lost your brother, and I my French pronouncing dictionary,—that is all. Did he leave any message about my grammar and exercises?”
“No, dear; but he started so hurriedly—so unexpectedly—he had not time for such trifles. Where are you going?”
“To put away my bonnet and bundle, and look after Stanley, who is romping with the kittens on the lawn.”
The old lady laid down her knitting, leaned her elbows on the arms of her rocking-chair, and, clasping her hands, bowed her chin upon them, while a half-stifled sigh escaped her.
“Mischief,—mischief, where I meant only kindness! I sowed good seed, and reap thistles and brambles! My charity-cake turns out miserable dough! But how could I possibly foresee that the child would be such a simpleton? What right has she to be so unnecessarily interested in my brother, who is old enough to have been her father? It is unnatural, absurd, and altogether unpardonable in Salome to be guilty of such presumptuous nonsense; and, of course, it is not in the least my fault, for the possibility of this piece of mischief never88once occurred to me! True, she is as old as Ulpian’s mother was when father married her; but then Mrs. Grey was not at all in love with her white-haired husband, and had set her affections solely on that Mercer-Street house, with marble steps and plate-glass windows. How do I know that, after all, Salome is not in love with Ulpian’s fortune instead of the dear boy’s blue eyes, and handsome hair, and splendid teeth? However, I ought not to think so harshly of the child, for I have no cause to consider her calculating and selfish. Poor thing! if she really cares for him there are breakers ahead of her, for I am sure that he is as far from falling in love with her as I would be with the ghost of my great-grandfather’s uncle. Thank Providence, all this troublesome, mischievous, Lucifer machinery of love and marriage is shut out of heaven, where we shall be as the angels are. Ah, Salome! I fear you are a giddy young idiot, and that I am a blind old imbecile, and I wish from the bottom of my heart you had never darkened my doors.”
The quiet current of Miss Jane’s secluded life had never been ruffled by a seriousaffaire du cœur; consequently she indulged little charity towards those episodes, which displayed what she considered the most humiliating weakness of her sex.
While puzzling over the best method of extricating herprotégéefrom the snare into which she was disposed to apprehend that her own well-meant but mistaken kindness had betrayed her, she saw an unsealed note lying beneath the table, and, by the aid of her crutch, drew it within reach of her fingers. A small sheet of paper, carelessly folded and addressed to Salome, merely contained these words,—
“I congratulate you, my young friend, on the correctness of your French themes, which I leave in the drawer of the library-table. When I return I will examine those prepared during my absence; and, in the interim, remain,“Very respectfully,“Ulpian Grey.”
“I congratulate you, my young friend, on the correctness of your French themes, which I leave in the drawer of the library-table. When I return I will examine those prepared during my absence; and, in the interim, remain,
“Very respectfully,
“Ulpian Grey.”
Miss Jane wiped her glasses, and read the note twice; then held it between her thumb and third finger, and debated the89expediency of changing its destination. Her delicate sense of honor revolted at the first suggestion of interference, but an intense aversion to “love-scrapes” finally strengthened her prudential inclination to crush this one in its incipiency; and she deliberately tore the paper into shreds, which she tossed out of the window.
“If Ulpian only had his eyes open he would never have scribbled one line to her; and, since I know what I know, and see what I see, it is my duty to take the responsibility of destroying all fuel within reach of a flame that may prove as dangerous as a torch in a hay-rick.”
Limping into the library, she took from the drawer the two books containing French exercises and laid them in a conspicuous place on the table, where they could not fail to arrest the attention of their owner; after which she resumed her knitting, consoling herself with the reflection that she had taken the first step towards smothering the spark that threatened the destruction of all her benevolent schemes.
Up and down, under the spreading trees in the orchard, wandered Salome, anxious to escape scrutiny, and vaguely conscious that she had reached the cross-roads in her life, where haste or inadvertence might involve her in inextricable difficulties.
She was neither startled, nor shocked, nor mortified, that the unceremonious departure of the master of the house stabbed her heart with pangs that made her firm lips writhe, for she had long been cognizant of the growth of feelings whose discovery had so completely astounded Miss Jane.
The orphan had not eagerly watched and listened for the sight of his face—the sound of his voice—without fully comprehending herself; for, however ingeniously and indefatigably women may mask their hearts from public gaze and comment, they do not mock their own reason by such flimsy shams, and Salome could find no prospect of gain in playing a game of brag with her inquisitive soul.
In the quiet orchard, where all things seemed drowsy—where the only spectators were the mellowing apples that reddened the boughs above her, and her sole auditors the brown90partridges that nestled in the tall grass, and the shy cicadæ ambushed under the clover leaves—her pent-up pain and disappointment bubbled over in a gush of passionate words.
“Gone without giving me a syllable, a word, a touch! Gone, for an indefinite period, without even a cold ‘good-by, Salome!’ You call yourself a Christian, Dr. Grey, and yet you are cruel, now and then, and make me writhe like a worm on a fish-hook! He told Stanley he would return in two or three weeks, perhaps sooner,—but I know better. I have a dull monitor here that says it will be a long, dreary time, before I see him again. A wall of ice is rising to divide us—but it shall not! it shall not! I will have my own! I will look into his calm eyes! I will touch his soft, warm, white palms! I will hear his steady, low, clear voice, that makes music in my ears and heaven in my heart! It is three months since he shook hands with me, but all time cannot remove the feeling from my fingers; and some day I can cling to his hand and lean my cheek against it,—and who dare dispute my right? He says he never loved any woman! I heard him tell his sister he had yet to meet the woman whom he could marry,—and, if truth lingers anywhere in this world of sin, it finds a sanctuary in his soul! He never loved any woman! Thank God! I can’t afford to doubt it. No one but his sister has touched his lips, or his noble, beautiful forehead. How I envied little Jessie when he put his arm around her and stooped and laid his cheek on hers. Oh, Dr. Grey, nobody else will ever love you as I do! I know I am unworthy, but I will make myself good and great to match you! I know I am beneath you, but I will climb to your proud height,—and, so help me God, I will be all that your lofty standard demands! He does not care for me now,—does not even think of me; but I must be patient and merit his notice, for my own folly sank me in his good opinion. When these apples were pale, pink blossoms, I dreaded his coming, and hoped the vessel would be wrecked; now, ere they are ripe, I am disposed to curse the cause of his temporary absence and think myself ill-used that no farewell privileges were granted me. Now I can understand why people find comfort in praying for those they love;91for what else can I do but pray while he is away? Oh, I shall not, cannot, will not, miss my way to heaven if he gets there before me!”
In utter abandonment she threw herself down in the long yellow sedge-grass,—frightening a whole covey of gossiping young partridges and a couple of meek doves, all of which whirred away to an adjacent pea-field, leaving her with her face buried in her hands, and watched by trembling mute crickets and cicadæ.
On the topmost twig of the tallest tree a mocking-bird poised himself, and sympathetically poured out his vesper canticle,—a song of condolence to the prostrate figure who, just then, would have preferred the echo of a man’s deep voice to all Pergolese’s strains.
After a little while pitying Venus swung her golden globe in among the apple-boughs, peeping compassionately at her luckless votary; and, finally, in the violet west,—
“Two silver beacons sphered in the skies,Eve in her cradle opening her eyes.”
Two weeks dragged themselves away without bringing any tidings of the absent master; but, towards the close of the third, a brief letter informed his sister that the invalid friend was still alive, though no hope of his recovery was entertained, and that it was impossible to fix any period for the writer’s return. Salome asked no questions, but the eager, hungry expression, with which she eyed the letter as it lay on the top of the stocking-basket, touched Miss Jane’s tender heart; and, knowing that it contained no allusion to the orphan, she put it into her hand, and noticed the cloud of disappointment that gathered over her features as she perused and refolded it. Another week—monotonous, tedious, almost interminable—crept by, and one morning as Salome passed the post-office she inquired for letters, and received one post-marked New York and addressed to Miss Jane.
Hurrying homeward with the precious missive, her pace would well-nigh have distanced Hermes, and the dusty winding road seemed to mock her with lengthening curves while92she pressed on; but at last she reached the gate, sped up the avenue, and, pausing a moment at the threshold to catch her breath and appearnonchalant, she demurely entered Miss Jane’s apartment. The only occupant was a servant sewing near the window, and who, in reply to an eager question, informed Salome that the mistress had gone to spend the day with a friend whose residence was six miles distant.
The girl bit her lip until the blood started, and, to conceal her chagrin, took refuge in the parlor, where the quiet dimness offered a covert. Locking the door, she sat down in one of the cushioned rocking-chairs and looked at the letter lying between her fingers. The gilt clock on the mantel uttered a dull, clicking sound, and a little green and gold-colored bird hopped out and “cuckooed” ten times. Miss Jane would not probably return before seven, possibly eight o’clock, and what could be done to strangle those intervening nine hours?
The blood, heated by exercise and impatience, throbbed fiercely in her temples and thumped heavily at her heart, producing a half-suffocating sensation; and, in her feverish anxiety, the doom of Damiens appeared tolerable in comparison with the torturing suspense of nine hours on the rack.
The envelope was an ordinary white one, merely sealed with a solution of gum arabic, and dexterous fingers could easily open and reclose it without fear of detection, especially by eyes so dim and uncertain as those for which it had been addressed. A damp cloth laid upon the letter would in five minutes prove anopen sesameto its coveted contents, and a legion of fiends patted the girl’s tingling fingers and urged her to this prompt and feasible relief from her goading impatience. Secure from intrusion and beyond the possibility of discovery, she turned the envelope up and down and over, examining the seal; and the amber gleams lyingperduunder the shadows of her pupils rayed out, glowing with a baleful Lucifer light, as infallibly indicative of evil purposes as the sudden kindling in a crouching cat’s or cougar’s gaze, just as they spring upon their prey.
It was a mighty temptation, cunningly devised and opportunely93presented, and six months ago her parley with the imps of Apollyon who contrived it would not have lasted five minutes; but, in some natures, love for a human being will work marvels which neither the fear of God, nor the hope of heaven, nor yet the promptings of self-respect have power to accomplish.
Now while Salome dallied with the temper and gave audience to the clamors of her rebellious heart, she looked up and met the earnest gaze of a pair of sunny blue eyes in a picture that hung directly opposite.
It was an admirable portrait of Dr. Grey, clad in full uniform as surgeon in the U.S. Navy, and painted when he was twenty-eight years old. Up at that calm, cloudless countenance, the girl looked breathlessly, spell-bound as if in the presence of a reproving angel; and, after some seconds had elapsed, she hurled the unopened letter across the room, and lifted her hands appealingly,—
“No,—no! I did not—I cannot—I will not act so basely! I must not soil fingers that should be pure enough to touch yours. I was sorely tempted, my beloved; but, thank God, your blessed blue eyes saved me. It is hard to endure nine hours of suspense, but harder still to bear the thought that I have stooped to a deed that would sink me one iota in your good opinion. I will root out the ignoble tendencies of my nature, and keep my heart and lips and hands stainless,—hold them high above the dishonorable things that you abhor, and live during your absence as if your clear eyes took cognizance of every detail. Yea,—search me as you will, dear deep-blue eyes,—I shall not shrink; for the rule of my future years shall be to scorn every word, thought, and deed that I would not freely bare to the scrutiny of the man whose respect I would sooner die than forfeit. Oh, my darling, it were easier for me to front the fiercest flames of Tophet than face your scorn! I can wait till Miss Jane sees fit to show me the letter, and, if it bring good news of your speedy coming, I shall have my reward; if not, why should I hasten to meet a bitter disappointment which may be lagging out of mercy to me?”
Picking up the letter as suspiciously as if it had been94dropped by the Prince of Darkness on the crest of Quarantina, she stepped upon a table and inserted the corner of the envelope in the crevice between the canvas and the portrait-frame, repeating the while a favorite passage that she had first heard from Dr. Grey’s lips,—
“‘God meant me good too, when he hindered meFrom saying “yes” this morning. I say no,—no!I tie up “no” upon His altar-horns,Quite out of reach of perjury!’”
Young though she was, experience had taught her that the most effectual method of locking the wheels of time consisted in sitting idly down to watch and count their revolutions; consequently, she hastened upstairs and betook herself vigorously to the work of embroidering aparterreof flowers on the front breadth of an infant’s christening dress which her employer had promised should be completed before the following Sabbath.
Stab the laggard seconds as she might with her busy needle, the day was drearily long; and few genuine cuckoo-carols have been listened to with such grateful rejoicing as greeted those metallic gutturals that once in every sixty minutes issued from the throat of the gaudy automaton caged in the gilt clock.
True, nine hours are intrinsically nine hours under all circumstances, whether decapitation or coronation awaits their expiration; but to the doomed victim or the heir-apparent they appear relatively shorter or longer. At last Salome saw that the shadows on the grass were lengthening. Her head ached, her eyes burned from steady application to her trying work, and laying aside the cambric, she leaned against the window-facing and looked out over the lawn, where Time seemed to have fallen asleep in the mild autumn sunshine.
How sweet and welcome was the distance-muffled sound of tinkling cow-bells, and the low bleating of homeward-strolling flocks, wending their way across the hills through which the road crawled like a dusty gray serpent.
A noisy club of black-birds that had been holding an indignation95meeting in the top of a walnut tree near the gate, adjourned to the sycamore grove that overshadowed the barn in the rear of the house; and Stanley’s pigeons, which had been cooing and strutting in the avenue, went to roost in the pretty painted pagoda Dr. Grey had erected for their comfort. Finally, the low-swung, heavy carriage, with its stout dappled horses, gladdened Salome’s strained eyes; and, soon after, she heard the thump of Miss Jane’s crutches and her cheerful voice, asking,—
“Where are the children? Tell them I have come home. Bless me, the house is as dark as a dungeon! Rachel, have we neither lamps nor candles?”
The orphan stole down the steps, climbed upon the table in the parlor, and, seizing the letter, hurried into the dining-room, where, quite exhausted by the fatigue of the day, the old lady lay on the sofa.
She held out her hand and drew the girl’s face within reach of her lips, saying,—
“My child, I am afraid you have had rather a lonely day.”
“Decidedly the loneliest and longest I ever spent, and I believe I never was half so glad to see you come home as just now when the carriage stopped at the door.”
Ah, what hypocrisy is sometimes innocently masked by the earnest utterance of the truth! And what marvels of industry are accomplished by self-love, which seeks more assiduously than bees for the honied drops of flattery that feed its existence!
Miss Jane was pardonably proud that her presence was so essential to the happiness of the orphan whom she fondly loved, and gratification spread a pleasant smile over her worn features.
“Where is Stanley? The child ought not to be out so late.”
“He went down to the sheep-pen to count the lambs and look after one that broke its leg yesterday. Miss Jane, are you too much fatigued to read a letter which I found this morning in your box at the post-office?”
“Is it from Ulpian? I was wondering to-day why I did96not hear from him. Dear me, what have I done with my spectacles? They are the torment of my life, for the instant I take them off my nose they seem to find wings. Give me the letter, and see whether I left my glasses on the bed where I put my bonnet.”
Salome went into the next room and unsuccessfully searched the bed, bureau, table, and wardrobe; and in an agony of impatience, returned to the invalid.
“You must have lost them before you came home; I can’t find them anywhere. Let me read the letter to you.”
“No; I must have my glasses. Perhaps I dropped them in the carriage. Send word to the driver to look for them. It was very careless in me to lose them, but I am growing so forgetful. Rachel, do hunt for my spectacles.”
Salome ground her teeth to suppress a cry of vexation; and, to conceal her impatience, joined heartily in the search.
Finally she found the glasses on the front steps, where they had fallen when their owner left the carriage; and, feeling that adverse fate could no longer keep her in suspense, she hurried into the house and adjusted them on Miss Jane’s eagle nose.
Conscious that she was fast losing control over the nerves that were quivering from long-continued tension, Salome stepped to the open window and stood waiting. Would the old lady never finish the perusal? The minutes seemed hours, and the pulsing of the blood in the girl’s ears sounded like muttering thunder.
Miss Jane sighed heavily,—cleared her throat, and sighed again.
“It is very sad, indeed! It is too bad,—too bad!”
Salome turned around, and exclaimed, savagely,—
“Why can’t you speak out? What is the matter? What has happened?”
“Ulpian’s friend is dead.”
“Thank God!”
“For shame! How can you be so heartless?”
“If the man could not recover I should think you would97be glad that he is at rest, and that your brother can come home.”
“But the worst of the matter is that Ulpian is not coming home. Mr. Manton wished him to act as guardian for his daughter, who is in Europe, and Ulpian will sail in the next steamer for England, to attend to some business connected with the estate. It is too provoking, isn’t it? He says it is impossible to tell when we shall see him again.”
There was no answer, and, when Miss Jane wiped her eyes and looked around, she saw the girl tottering towards the door, groping her way like one blind.
“Salome,—come here, child!”
But the figure disappeared in the hall, and when the moonlight looked into the orphan’s chamber the soft rays showed a girlish form kneeling at the window, with a white face drenched by tears, and quivering lips that moaned in feeble, broken accents,—
“God help me! I might have known it, for I had a presentiment of terrible trouble when he went away. How can I trust God and be patient, while the Atlantic raves and surges between me and my idol? After all, it was an angel of mercy whose tender white hands held back this bitter blow for nine hours. Gone to Europe, and not one word—not one line—to me! Oh, my darling! you are trampling under your feet the heart that loves you better than everything else in the universe,—better than life, and its hopes of heaven!”
CHAPTER VIII.
“Salome, where did you learn to sing? I was astonished this morning when I heard you.”
“I have not yet learned,—I have only begun to practise.”
“But, my child, I had no idea you owned such a voice. Where have you kept it concealed so long?”
“I was not aware that I had it until a month ago, when it accidentally discovered itself.”
“It is very powerful.”
98
“Yes, and very rough; but care and study will smooth and polish it. Miss Jane, please keep your eye on Stanley until I come home; for, although I left him with his slate and arithmetic, it is by no means certain that they will not part company the moment I am out of sight.”
“Where are you going?”
“To carry back some work which would have been returned yesterday had not the weather been so inclement.”
In addition to the package of embroidered handkerchiefs, Salome carried under her arm a roll of music and an instruction-book; and, when she reached the outskirts of the town, turned away from the main street and stopped at the door of a small comfortless-looking house that stood without enclosure on the common.
Two swart, black-eyed children were playing mumble-peg with a broken knife, in one corner of the room; a third, with tears still on its lashes, had just sobbed itself to sleep on a strip of faded carpet stretched before the smouldering embers on the hearth; while the fourth, a feeble infant only six months old, was wailing in the arms of its mother,—a thin, sickly woman, with consumption’s red autograph written on her hollow cheeks, where the skin clung to the bones as if resisting the chill grasp of death. As she slowly rocked herself, striving to hush the cry of the child, her dry, husky cough formed a melancholy chorus, which seemed to annoy a man who sat before the small table covered with materials for copying music. His cadaverous, sallow complexion, and keen, restless eyes, bespoke Italian origin; and, although engaged in filling some blank sheets with musical notes, he occasionally took up a violin that lay across his knees, and, after playing a few bars, laid aside the bow and resumed the pen. Now and then he glanced at his wife and child with a scowling brow; but, as his eyes fell on their emaciated faces, something like a sigh seemed to heave his chest.
When Salome’s knock arrested his attention he rose and advanced to the half-open door, saying, impatiently,—
“Well, miss, have you brought me any money?”
“Good morning, Mr. Barilli. Here are the ten dollars that99I promised, but I wish you to understand that in future I shall not advance one cent of my tuition-money. When the month ends you will receive your wages, but not one day earlier.”
“I beg pardon, miss; but, indeed, you see—”
He did not conclude the sentence, but waved his hand towards the two in the rocking-chair and proceeded to count the money placed in his palm.
“Yes, I see that you are very destitute, but charity begins at home, and I have to work hard for the wages that you have demanded before they are due. Good morning, madam; I hope you feel better to-day. Come, Mr. Barilli, I have no time to waste in loitering. Are you ready for my lesson?”
“Quite ready, miss. Commence.”
For three-quarters of an hour he listened to her exercises, which he accompanied with his violin, and afterwards directed her to sing an air from a collection of songs on the table. As her deep, rich contralto notes swelled round and full, he shut his eyes and nodded his head as if in an ecstacy; and, when she concluded, he rapped his violin heavily with the bow, and exclaimed,—
“Some day when you sing that atDella Scala, remember the poor devil who taught it to you in a hovel. Soaked as those old walls are with music from the most famous lips the world ever applauded, they hold no echoes sweeter than that last trill. After all, there is no passion—no pathos—comparable to a perfect contralto crescendo. It is wonderful how you Americans squander voices that would rouse all Europe into afurore.”
“I am afraid your eager desire for pupils biases your judgment, and invests my voice with fictitious worth,” answered Salome, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Ha! you mean that I flatter, in order to keep you. Not so, miss. If St. Cecilia herself asked tuition without good pay, I should shut the door in her face; but, much as I need money, I would not risk my reputation by praising what was poor. If one of my children—that miserable littleBeatrice,yonder—only had your voice, do you think I would copy music, or teach beginners, or live in this cursed hole? You100have a fortune shut up in your throat, and some day, when you are celebrated, at least do me the justice to tell the world who first found the treasure; and, out of your wealth, spare me a decent tombstone in the Campo Santo of—of—”
He laughed bitterly, and, seizing his violin, filled the room with mournfulmisererestrains.
“How long a course of training do you think will be necessary before the inequalities in my voice can be corrected and my vocalization perfected?”
“You are very young, miss, and it would not do to strain your voice, which is well-nigh perfect in itself; but, of course, your execution is defective,—just as a young nightingale cannot warble all its strains before it is full-feathered. If you study faithfully, in one year, or certainly one and a half, you will be ready for your engagement at Della Scala. Hist! see if you can follow me?”
He played a subtle, chromatic passage, ending in a trill, and the orphan echoed it with such accuracy and sweetness that the teacher threw down his bow, and, while tears stood in his glittering eyes, he put his brown hand on the girl’s head, and said, earnestly,—
“There ought to be feathers here instead of hair, for no nightingale, nestled in the olive groves of Italy, ever warbled more easily and naturally. Don’t go out to the world as Miss Owen,—make it call youRosignuolo. Take the next page in the instruction-book for a new lesson, and practise the old scales over before you touch the new,—they are like steps in a ladder, and save jumps and jars. God made your voice wonderful, and, if you are only careful not to undo his work, it will develop itself every year in fresh power and depth. Ha! if my poor squeaking Beatrice only had it! But there is no more music stored in her throat and chest than in a regiment of rats. Good day, miss. Your lesson is ended, and I go to buy some wood for my miserable shiverers.”
He seized his hat and walking-stick and quitted the house, leaving his pupil to gather up her music and conjecture, meanwhile, whether the wood-yard or a neighboring bar-room was his real destination.
101
His dissipated habits had greatly impaired her faith in the accuracy of his critical acumen touching professional matters, and, as she rolled up the sheet of paper in her hands, Salome approached the feeble occupant of the rocking-chair, and said, rather abruptly,—
“Madam Barilli, you ought to know when your husband speaks earnestly and when he is merely indulging in idle flattery, and I wish to learn his real opinion of my voice. Will you tell me the truth?”
“Yes, miss, I will. I am no musician, and never was in Europe, where he studied; but he talks constantly of your voice, and tells me there is a fortune in it. Only last night he swore that if he could control it, he would not take a hundred thousand dollars for the right; and then, poor fellow, he fell into one of his fierce ways and boxed my little Beatrice’s ears, because, he said, all the teachers in theConservatoirecould not put into her throat the trill that you were born with. Ah, no, he flatters no one now! He has forgotten how, since the day that I was coaxed to run away from my father’s elegant home and marry the tenor singer of an opera troupe and the professor who taught me the gamut at boarding-school. Miss, you may believe him, for Sebastian Barilli means what he says.”
“One hundred thousand dollars! I promise him and you that if one-half of that amount can be ‘trilled’ into my pocket you shall both be comfortable during the remainder of your days.”
“Mine are numbered, and will end before your career begins; and, when you sing in Della Scala, I trust I shall be singing up yonder behind the stars, where cold and hunger and heart-ache and cruel words cannot follow me. But, miss, when I am gone, and Sebastian is over at the corner trying to drown his troubles, and my four helpless little ones are left here unprotected, for God’s sake look in upon them now and then, and don’t let them cry for bread. My own family long ago cast me off, and here I am a stranger; but you, who have felt the pangs of orphanage, will not stand by and see102my darlings starve! Oh, miss, the poor who cannot pity the poor must be hard-hearted indeed!”
The suffering woman pressed her moaning babe closer to her bosom, and, taking Salome’s hand between her thin, hot fingers, bowed her tear-stained face upon it.
Grim recollections of similar scenes enacted in the old house behind the mill crowded upon the mind of the miller’s daughter, hardening instead of melting her heart; but, withdrawing her fingers, she said in as kind a tone as she could command,—
“The poor are sometimes too poor to aid each other, and pity is most unpalatable fare; but, if your husband has not grossly deceived himself and me with reference to my voice, I will promise that your children shall not suffer while I live. For their sake do not despond, but try to keep up your spirits, else your husband will be utterly ruined. Gloomy hearthstones make club-rooms and bar-rooms populous. Good-by. When I come again, I will bring something to stimulate your appetite, which seems to require coaxing.”
She stooped and looked for a minute at the gaunt, white face of the half-famished infant pressed against the mother’s feverish breast, and an irresistible impulse impelled her to stroke back the rings of black hair that clustered on its sunken temples; then, snatching her music and bundle, she hurried out of the close, untidy room, and, once more upon the grassy common, drew a long, deep breath of pure fresh air.
Autumn, with orange dawns, and mellow, misty moons, when
“Sweet, calm days, in golden hazeMelt down the amber sky,”
had died on bare brown stubble-fields and vine-veined hill-sides, purple with clustering grapes on leafless branches; and wintry days had come, with sleety morns and chill, crisp noons, and scarlet sunset banners flouting the silver stars in western skies, where the shivering, gasping old year had woven,—
“One strait gown of redAgainst the cold.”
103
None of the earlier years of Salome’s life seemed to her half so drearily long as the four monotonous months that followed Dr. Grey’s departure; and, during the intervals between his brief letters to his sister, the orphan learned a deceptive quietude of manner, at variance with thetumultuousfeelings that agitated her heart; for painful suspense which is borne with clenched hands and firmly-set teeth is not the more patient because sternly mute.
Which suffered least, Philoctetes howling on the shores of Lemnos, or the silent Trojan priest, writhing in a death-struggle with the serpent folds that crushed him before the altar of Neptune?
If any messages intended for Salome found their way across the ocean, they finally missed their destination, and reached the dead-letter office of Miss Jane’s vast and inviolate pocket; and, while this apparent neglect piqued the girl’s vanity, the blessed assurance that the absent master was alive and well proved a sovereign balm for all the bleeding wounds ofamour propre.
In order to defray the expense of her musical tuition, which was carried on in profound secrecy, it was necessary to redouble her exertions; and all the latent energy of her character developed itself in unflagging work, which she persistently prosecuted early and late, and in quiet defiance of Miss Jane’s expostulations and predictions that she would permanently impair her sight.
Paramount to the desire of amassing wealth that would enable her to provide for Jessie and Stanley rose the hope that the cultivation of her voice would invest her with talismanic influence over the man who was singularly susceptible of the magic of music; and, jealously guarding the new-found gift, she spared no toil to render it perfect.
Fearful that her suddenly acquired fondness for singing might arouse suspicion and inquiry, she rarely practised at home unless Miss Jane were absent; and, having procured a tuning-fork, she retreated to the most secluded portion of the adjoining forest and rehearsed her lessons to a mute audience of grazing cattle, sombre pines, nodding plumes of golden-rod,104and shivering white asters, belated and overtaken by wintry blasts. Alone with nature, she warbled as unrestrainedly as the birds who listened to her quavering crescendos; and more than once she had become so absorbed in this forest practising, that twinkling stars peeped down at her through the fringy canopy of murmuring firs.
In fulfilment of a promise given to Stanley, with the hope of stimulating him to more earnest study, Salome one day took a piece of sewing and her music-book, and set off with her brother for the sea-shore, where he was sometimes allowed to amuse himself by catching crabs and shrimps. The route they were compelled to take was very circuitous, since strangers were now forbidden to stroll through the grounds attached to “Solitude,” which was the nearest point where land and ocean met. Following a cattle-path that threaded the bare brown hills and wound through low marsh meadows, Salome at length climbed a cliff that overhung the narrow strip of beach running along the base of the promontory, and, while Stanley prepared his net, she applied herself vigorously to the completion of a cluster of lilies of the valley which she had begun to embroider the preceding night.
It was a mild, sunny afternoon, late in December, with only a few flakes of white curd-like cirri drifting slowly before the stiffening south wind that came singing a song of the tropics over the gently heaving waste of waters—
“Where the green buds of waves burst into white froth flowers.”
Two glimmering sails stood like phantoms on the horizon; and a silent colony of snowy gulls, perched in conclave on a bit of weed-wreathed drift floating landward, were the only living things in sight, save the childish figure on the yellow beach under the bleaching rocks, and the girlish one seated on the tallest cliff, where a storm-scarred juniper, bending inland, waved its scanty fringe in the fresh salt breeze.
No note of human strife entered here, nor hum of noisy business marts; and the solemn silence, so profound and holy, was broken only by the soft, mysterious murmur of the immemorial105ocean, as its crystal fingers smote the harp of rosy shells and golden sands.
Clasped in the crescent that curved a mile northward lay the house, and grove, and grounds of “Solitude,” looking sombre in the distance, as the shadow of surrounding hills fell upon the dense foliage that overhung its quiet precincts, and toned down the garish red of the boat-house roof, which lent a brief dash of color to the peaceful picture. Beyond the last guarding promontory that seemed to have plunged through the shelving strand to bathe in blue brine and cut off all passage along its base, a strong well-trained eye might follow the trend of the coast even to the dim outlines and thread-like masts, that told where the distant town hugged its narrow harbor; and, in the opposite direction, low, irregular sand hills and brown marshes crept southward, as if hunting the warmth that alone could mantle them with living verdure.
As the afternoon wore away, the sinking sun dipped suddenly behind a wooded eminence, which, losing the warm purples it had worn since noon, grew chill and blue as his rays departed; and, weary of her work, Salome put it aside and began to practise her music lesson, beating time with her slender fingers on the bare juniper-roots, from which wind and rain had driven the soil. Running her chromatic scales, and pausing at will to trill upon any minor note that wooed her vagrant fancy, she played with her flexible voice as dexterous violinists toy with the obedient strings they hold in harmonious bondage to their bows.
Finally she pushed the exercises away, and began afantasusfrom “Traviata,” which she had heard Mr. Barilli play several times; and so absorbed was she in testing her capacity for vocal gymnastics that she failed to observe the moving figure dwarfed by distance and pacing the sands in front of “Solitude.”
The rich, fresh tones which seemed occasionally to tremble with the excess of melody that burdened them played hide-and-seek among the hills, startling whole choruses of deep-throated echoes, and attending and retentive ocean, catching the strains on her beryl strings, bore them whither—and how106far? To palm-plumed equatorial isles, where dying auricular nerves mistook them for seraphic utterances? To toiling mariners, tossed helplessly by fierce typhoons, who, pausing in their scramble for spars, listened to the weird melody that presaged woe and wreck? To the broken casements of fishermen’s huts, on distant shores, where anxious wives peered out in the blackening tempest, and shrank back appalled by sounds which sea-tradition averred were born in coral caves, mosaiced with blanching human skulls? What hoary hierophant in the mysteries of cataphonics and diacoustics will undertake to track those trills across the blue bosom of the Atlantic or the purplish billows of the Indian Ocean?
The wind went down with the sun; silver-edged cirri lost their glitter, and swift was
...“The spread
Of orange lustre through these azure spheresWhere little clouds lie still like flocks of sheep,Or vessels sailing in God’s other deep.”
In that wondrous and magical after-glow which tenderly hovers over the darkening face of the dying day, like the strange, spectral smile that only sheds its cold, supernatural light on lips twelve hours dead, Salome’s fair face and gracefulposewas as softly defined against the western sky as some nimbussed saint or madonna on the golden background of old Byzantine pictures. Her small straw hat, wreathed with scarlet poppies, lay at her feet; and around her shoulders she had closely folded a bright plaid flannel cloak, which tinted her complexion with its ruddy hues, as firelight flushes the olive portraits that stare at it from surrounding walls, and the braided black hair and large hazel eyes showed every brown tint and topaz gleam.
Leaning her arms on the top of her music-book, she rested her chin upon them, and sat looking seaward, singing a difficult passage, in the midst of which her nimble voice tripped on an E flat, and, missing the staccato step, rolled helplessly down in a legato flood of melody; whereupon, with an impatient grimace she shut her eyes, weary of watching the wave-shimmer107that almost dazzled her. After a few seconds, when she opened them, there stood just on the edge of the cliff, as if poised in air, a woman whose face and form were as sharply cut in profile on the azure sea and sky as white cameo features on black agate grounds.
Around the tall figure shining folds of silver poplin hung heavy and statuesque, and over the shoulders a blue crape shawl was held by a beautiful blue-veined hand, where a sapphire asp kept guard; while a cluster of double violets fastened behind one shell-like ear breathed their perfume among glossy bands of gray hair.
“There was no color in the quiet mouth,Nor fulness; yet it had a ghostly grace,Pathetically pale,”
and wan, and woful—the still face turned seaward, fronting a round white moon that was lifting its full disk out of the line where air and water met—she stood motionless.
Lifting her head, Salome shivered involuntarily, and grew a shade paler as she breathlessly watched the apparition, expecting that it would fade into blue air or float down and mingle with the waters that gave it birth. But there was no wavering mistiness about the shining drapery; and, presently, when she turned and came forward, the orphan, despite her sneers at superstition, felt the hair creep and rise on her temples, and, springing to her feet, they faced each other. As the stranger advanced, Salome unconsciously retreated a few steps, and exclaimed,—
“Gray-eyed, gray-haired, gray-clad, gray-faced, and rising out of that gray sea, I suppose I have at last met the gray ghost that people tell me haunts old ‘Solitude.’ But how came such a young face under that drift of white hair? If all ghosts have such finely carved, delicate noses and chins, such oval cheeks and pretty brows, most of us here in the flesh might thank fortune for a chance to ‘shuffle off this mortal coil.’ Say, are you the troubled evil spirit that haunts ‘Solitude’?”
“I am.”