CHAPTER XVII.
“Pardon my intrusion, Mrs. Gerome, and ascribe it to Elsie’s anxiety concerning your health. In compliance with her request, I have come to ascertain whether you really require my attention.”
Dr. Grey placed his hat and gloves on the piano, and established himself comfortably in a large chair near the arch, where Mrs. Gerome, palette in hand, sat before her easel.
“Elsie’s nerves have run away with her sound common sense, and filled her mind with vagaries. She imagines that I need medicine, whereas I only require quiet and peace, which neither she nor you will permit me to enjoy.”
She did not even glance at the visitor, but mixed some colors rapidly, and deepened the rose-tints in a cluster of apple-blossoms she was scattering in the foreground of a picture.
“If it is not of vital importance that those pearly petals should be finished immediately, I should be glad to have you turn your face towards me for a few moments. There,—thank216you. Mrs. Gerome, do I look like a nervous, whimsical man, whose fancy mastered his professional judgment, or blunted his acumen?”
“You certainly appear as phlegmatic, as utterly unimaginative, as any lager-loving German, whom Teniers or Ostade ever painted ‘Unter den linden.’”
“Then my words should possess some influence when they corroborate Elsie’s statement, that you are far from well. Do not be childishly incredulous, and impatiently shake your head; from a woman of your age and sense one expects more dignity and prudence.”
“Sir, your rudeness has at least a flavor of stern honesty that makes it almost palatable. Do you propose to take my case into your skilful hands?”
“I merely propose to expostulate with you upon the unfortunate and ruinous course of life you have decided to pursue. No eremite of the Thebaid, or the Nitroon, is more completely immured than I find you; and the seclusion from society is quite as deleterious as the want of out-door air and sunshine. Your mind, debarred from communion with your race and denied novel and refreshing themes, centres in its own operations and creations, broods over threadbare topics until it has grown morbid; and, instead of deriving healthful nourishment from the world that surrounds it, exhausts and consumes itself, like fabled Araline, spinning its substance into filmy nothings.”
“Filmy nothings! Thank you. I flatter myself, when I am safely housed under marble, the world will place a different estimate upon some things I shall leave behind to challenge criticism.”
“How much value will public plaudits possess for ears sealed by death? Mrs. Gerome, you are too lonely; you must have companionship that will divert your thoughts.”
“Not I, indeed! All that I require, I have in abundance,—music, books, and my art. Here I am independent, for remember that he was a petted son of fame, who said, ‘Books are the true Elysian fields, where the spirits of the dead converse, and into these fields a mortal may venture unappalled.217What king’s court can boast such company,—what school of philosophy such wisdom?’ Verily if you had ever examined my library you would not imagine I lacked companionship. Why sir, yonder,—
‘The old, dead authors throng me round about,And Elzevir’s gray ghosts from leathern graves look out.’
Count Oxenstiern spoke truly, when he declared, ‘Occupied with the great minds of antiquity, we are no longer annoyed by contemporaneous fools.’”
She rose and pointed to the handsome cases in the rear room, filled with choice volumes; and, while she stood with one arm resting on the easel, Dr. Grey looked searchingly at her.
To-day there was aspirituellebeauty in the white face that he had never seen before; and the large eloquent eyes were full of dreamy sunset radiance, unlike their wonted steely glitter. A change, vague and indefinable, but unmistakable, had certainly passed over that countenance since its owner came to reside at “Solitude,” and, instead of marring, had heightened its loveliness. The features were thinner, the cheeks had lost something of their pure oval moulding, and the delicate nostrils were almost transparent in their waxen curves; but the arch of the lip was softened and lowered, and the face was like that of some marble goddess on which mid-summer moonshine sleeps.
Her white mull robe was edged at the skirt and up the front with a rich border of blue morning-glories, and a blue cord and tassel girded it at her waist, while the broad braids of hair at the back of her head were looped and fastened with a ribbon of the same color. Her sleeves were gathered up to keep them clear of the paint on the palette, and the dimples were no longer visible in her arms. The ivory flesh was shrinking closer to the small bones, and the diaphanous hands were so thin that the sapphire asp glided almost off the slender finger around which it was coiled.
“Mrs. Gerome, you have lost twenty pounds of flesh within the last two months, and your extreme pallor alarms me.”
218
“All things look pallid in these rooms, for the light is bluish, reflected from carpet, furniture, and curtains.”
“I have noticed that you invariably wear blue, to the exclusion of all other colors.”
“Yes. Throughout the Levant it is considered a mortuary color; and, moreover, I like its symbolism. TheMater dolorosaoften wears blue vestments; also the priests during Lent; and even the images of Christ are veiled in blue, as holy week approaches. Azure, in its absolute significance, represents truth, and is the symbol of the soul after death; so, as I walk the earth,—a fleshy ‘death in life,’—I clothe myself symbolically. In pagan cosmogonies the Creator is always colored blue. Jupiter Ammon, Vischnou, Cneph, Krischna,—all are azure. And because it is a solemn, consecrated color, mystic and mournful, I wear it.”
“My dear madam, this is a morbid whimsicality that trenches closely upon monomania, and would be more tolerable in a lackadaisical school-girl, than in a mature, intelligent, and gifted woman. Some of your fantasies would be positively respectable in a Bedlamite, and you seem an anomalous compound of eccentricities peculiar to extreme youth and to advanced age.”
“I believe, sir, that you are entirely correct in your analysis. I stand before you, young in years, but forsaken by that ‘blue-eyed Hope’ who frolics hand in hand with youth; and yet utterly devoid of that philosophy and wisdom which justly belong to the old age of my heart.”
Her tone was indescribably weary, and, as she laid aside her brush and folded her hands together on the cross-beam of the easel, the transient light died out of her countenance, and the worn, tired look, came back and settled on every feature.
...“The soft, sad eyes,
Set like twilight planets in the rainy skies,—With the brow all patience, and the lips all pain,”
wove a strange spell over the visitor, whose gaze was riveted on the only woman who had ever aroused even temporary interest in his heart.
219
She was always beautiful, but to-day there was a helpless, hopeless abandonment in her listless demeanor, that appealed successfully to the manly tenderness and chivalry of his nature; and into his strong, true, noble soul, came a longing to cheer, and guide, and redeem this strange, desolate woman, whose personal loveliness would have made her regnant over the gay circles of fashionable life, yet whose existence was more lonely than that of an eaglet in some mountain eyrie.
Rising, he leaned against the easel and looked down into the colorless face that possessed such a wondrous charm for him.
“Mrs. Gerome, for natures diseased like yours, the only remedy, the only cure, is earnest, vigorous labor; and the regimen you really require is mournfully at variance with your present habits and modes of thought.”
“I do labor incessantly; more indefatigably than any plowman, or mason, or carpenter. Your prescription has been thoroughly tested, and found worthless, as an antidote to my malady,—hopelessness.”
“Unfortunately the labor has all been mental; heart and soul have stood aloof, while the brain almost wore itself out. This canvas is destroying you; your creations are too rapid, too exhausting.”
“Dr. Grey, you grievously misapprehend the whole matter, for my work reminds me of what Canova once said of West’s pictures, ‘He groups; he does not compose.’”
Dr. Grey put his hand on her wrist, and counted the rapid, feeble, irregular pulse.
She made an effort to throw off his fingers, but they clung tenaciously to the polished arm.
“How many hours do you sleep, during the twenty-four?”
“Sometimes three, occasionally one, frequently none.”
“How much longer do you suppose your constitution will endure such merciless taxation?”
“I know very little about these things, and care still less, but as Horne Tooke said, when a foreigner inquired how much treason an Englishman might venture to write without220being hanged, ‘I cannot inform you just yet, but I am trying.’”
“Has life become such an intolerable burden that you are impatient to shake it off?”
“Even so, Dr. Grey. When Elsie dies the last link will have snapped, and I trust I shall not long survive her. If I prayed at all, it would be for speedy death.”
“If you prayed at all, existence would not prove so wearisome; for resignation would cure half your woes.”
“Confine your prescriptions to the body,—that is tangible, and may be handled and scrutinized; but venture no nostrums for a heart and soul of which you know nothing. Once I was almost a Moslem in the frequency and fervor of my prayers; but now, the only petition I could force myself to offer would be that prayer of Epictetus, ‘Lead me, Zeus and Destiny, whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to follow, all the same.’”
Dr. Grey sighed heavily, and answered,—
“It is painful to hear from feminine lips a fatalism so grim as to make all prayer a mockery; and it would seem that the loss of those dear to you, would have insensibly and unavoidably drawn your heart heavenward, in search of itstransplantedidols.”
He knew from the sudden spasm that seized her calm features, and shuddered through her tall figure, that he had touched, perhaps too rudely, some chord in her nature which—
“Made the coiled memory numb and cold,That slept in her heart like a dreaming snake,Drowsily lift itself, fold by fold,And gnaw, and gnaw hungrily, half-awake.”
“Ah, indeed, my heart was drawn after them,—but not heavenward! No, no, no! My idols were not transplanted,—they were shattered!—shattered!”
She leaned forward, looking up into his face; and, raising her hand impressively, she continued in a voice so mournful, so hopelessly bitter, that Dr. Grey shivered as he listened.
221
“Oh, sir, you who stand gazing down in sorrowful reproach upon what you regard as my unpardonable impiety, little dream of the fiery ordeal that consumed my childlike, beautiful faith, as flames crisp and blacken chaff. I am alone, and must ever be, while in the flesh; and I hoard my pain, sparing the world my moans and tears, my wry faces and desperate struggles. I tell you, Dr. Grey,—
‘None know the choice I made; I make it still.None know the choice I made, and broke my heart,Breaking mine idol; I have braced my willOnce, chosen for once my part.I broke it at a blow, I laid it cold,Crushed in my deep heart where it used to live.My heart dies inch by inch; the time grows old,Grows old in which I grieve.’”
He did not comprehend her, but felt that her past must have been melancholy indeed, of which the bare memory was so torturing.
“At least, Mrs. Gerome, let us thank God, that beyond the grave there remains an eternal reunion with your idol, and—”
“God forbid! You talk at random, and your suggestion would drive me mad, if I believed it. Let me be quiet.”
She walked away, and seemed intently watching the sea, of whose protean face she never wearied; and, puzzled and tantalized, Dr. Grey turned to examine the unfinished picture.
It represented an almost colossal woman, kneeling under an apple-tree, with her folded hands lifted towards a setting sun that glared from purple hills, across waving fields of green and golden grain. The azure mantle that enveloped the rounded form, floated on the wind and seemed to melt in air, so dim were its graceful outlines; and on one shoulder perched a dove with head under its wing, nestling to sleep,—while a rabbit nibbled the grass at her feet, and a squirrel curled himself comfortably on the border of her robe. In the foreground were scattered sheaves of yellow wheat, full ears of corn, bunches of blue, bloom-covered grapes, clusters222of olives, and various delicate flowers whose brilliant hues seemed drippings from some wrung and broken rainbow.
The face was unlike flesh and blood,—was dim, elfish, wan, with large, mild eyes, as blue and misty as thenebulæthat Herschel found in Southern skies,—eyes that looked at nothing, but seemed to penetrate the universe and shed soft solemn light over all things. Back from the broad, low brow, floated a cloud of silky yellow hair, that glittered in the slanting rays of sunshine as if powdered with gold dust; and over its streaming strands fluttered two mottled butterflies, and a honey-laden bee. On distant hill-slopes cattle browsed, and at the right of the kneeling woman a young lamb nibbled a cluster of snowy lilies, while a dappled fawn watched the gambols of a dun kid; and on the left, in a tuft of bearded grass, a brown snake arched its neck to peer at a brood of half-fledged partridges.
“Mrs. Gerome, will you be so kind as to explain this mythologic design?”
She came back to the easel, and took up her palette.
“If it requires an explanation it is an egregious failure, and shall find a vacant corner in some rubbish garret.”
“It is exceedingly beautiful, but I do not fully comprehend the symbolism.”
“If it does not clearly mean the one thing for which it was intended, it means nothing, and is worthless. Look, sir, she—
‘Forgets, remembers, grieves, and is not sad;The quiet lands and skies leave light upon her eyes;None knows her weak, or wise, or tired, or glad.’”
Dr. Grey bit his lip, but shook his head.
“You must read me your painted riddle more explicitly. Is it Ceres?”
“No, sir; a few sheaves do not make a harvest. I am a stupid bungler, spoiling canvas and wasting paint, or else you are as obtuse as the critics who may one day hover hungrily over it. Try the aid of one more clew, and if you fail to catch my purpose, I will dash my brush all loaded with ochre,223right into those mystic, prescient eyes, and blur them forever. Listen, and guess,—
‘This is my lady’s praise;God after many daysWrought her in unknown ways,In sunset lands;This was my lady’s birth,God gave her might and mirthAnd laid his whole sweet earthBetween her hands.’”
“Pray do not visit the sin of my stupidity upon that fascinating picture. I am not familiar with the lines you quote, but know that you have represented Nature, have embodied an ideal Isis, or Hertha, or Cybele; though I can not positively name the phase of the Universal Mother, which you have seized and perpetuated.”
He caught her arm, and removed from her fingers the palette and brushes.
“Dr. Grey, it is more than either or all of the three you mention; for Persian mythology, like Persian wines and Persian roses, is richer, more subtle, more fragrant, more glowing than any other. That woman is ‘Espendérmad.’”
“Thank you; now I comprehend the whole. God has endowed you with wonderful talent. The fruit and flowers in that foreground must have cost you much labor, for indeed you seem to have faithfully followed the injunction of Titian, ‘Study the effect of light and shade on a bunch of grapes.’ That luscious amber cluster lying near the poppies is tantalizingly suggestive of Rhineland, and of the vines that garland the hills of Crete and Cyprus.”
A shade of annoyance and disappointment crossed the artist’s face.
“Now, I quite realize what Cespedes felt, when, finding that visitors were absorbed by the admirable finish of some jars and vases in the foreground of the ‘Last Supper,’ upon which he had expended so much time and thought, he called his servant and exclaimed in great chagrin, ‘Andres, rub me224out these things, since, after all my care and study, people choose to see nothing but these impertinences.’”
“If Zeuxis’ grandest triumph consisted in painting grapes, you assuredly should not take umbrage at my praise of that fruit on your canvas, which hints of Tokay and Lachrima Christi. I am not an artist, but I have studied the best pictures in Europe and America, and you must acquit me of any desire to flatter when I tell you that background yonder is one of the most extraordinary successes I have ever seen, from either amateur or professional painters.”
Mrs. Gerome arched her black brows slightly, and replied,—
“Then the success was accidental, and I stumbled upon it, for I bestow little study on the backgrounds of my work. They are mere dim distances of bluish haze, and do not interest me, and, since I paint for amusement, I give most thought to my central figure.”
“Have you forgotten the anecdote of Rubens, who, when offered a pupil with the recommendation that he was sufficiently advanced in his studies to assist him at once in his backgrounds, laughed, and answered, ‘If the youth was capable of painting backgrounds he did not need his instruction; because the regulation and management of them required the most comprehensive knowledge of the art.’”
“Yes, I am aware that is one of thedogmataof the craft, but Rubens was no more infallible than you or I, and his pictures give me less pleasure than those of any other artist of equal celebrity. Dr. Grey, if I am even a tolerable judge of my own work, the best thing I have yet achieved is the drapery of that form. Perhaps I am inclined to plume myself upon this point, from the fact that it was the opinion of Carlo Maratti that ‘The arrangement of drapery is more difficult than drawing the human figure; because the right effect depends more upon the taste of the artist than upon any given rules.’ That sweep of blue gauze has cost me more toil than everything else on the canvas.”
“Pardon the expression of my curiosity concerning your modes of composition in these singular and quaint creations,225for which you have no models; and tell me how this ideal presented itself to your imagination.”
“Dr. Grey, I am not a great genius like Goethe, and unfortunately can not candidly echo his declaration, that, ‘Nothing ever came to me in my sleep.’ I can scarcely tell you when this idea was first born in my busy, tireless brain, but it took form one evening after I had read Charlotte Bronté’s ‘Woman Titan,’ in ‘Shirley,’ and compared it with that glowing description of Jean Paul Richter, ‘And so the Sun stands at the border of the Earth, and looks back on his stately Spring, whose robe-folds are valleys, whose breast-bouquet is gardens, whose blush is a vernal evening, and who, when she rises, will be Summer.’ Still it was vague, and eluded me, until I found somewhere in my most desultory reading, an account of ‘Espendérmad,’ one of the six angels of Ormuzd, to whom was entrusted the guardianship of the earth. That night I dreamed that I stood under a vine at Schiraz, gathering golden-tinted grapes, when a voice arrested me, and, looking over my shoulder, I saw that face peeping at me across a hedge of crimson roses. Next day I sketched the features as they had appeared in my dream, but I was not fully satisfied, and waited and pondered. Finally, I read ‘Madonna Mia,’ and then all was as you see it now, startlingly distinct and palpable.”
“Why did you not select some dusky-haired, dusky-eyed, olive-tinted oriental type, instead of a blonde who might safely venture into Valhalla as a genuine Celtic Iduna?”
“With the exception of the yellow locks, I suspect the face of my ‘Espendérmad’ might easily be matched among the maidens of the Caucasus, who furnish the most perfect types of Circassian beauty. You know there is a tradition that when Leonardo da Vinci chanced to meet a man with an expression of character that he wished to make use of in his work, he followed him until he was able to delineate the face on canvas; but, on the contrary, the countenances I paint present themselves to my imagination, and pursue me inexorably until I put them into pigment. I do not possess ideals,—they seize and possess me, teasing me for form and226color, and forcing me to object them on canvas. Such is themodus operandiof whims that give me my ‘Espendérmad’ praying to the Sun for benisons on the Earth, which she is appointed to guard. Ah, if like the lambkins and birds, I, too, could creep to the starry border of her azure robe, and lay my weary head down and find repose. Some day, if my mind ever grows calm enough, I want to paint a picture of Rest, that I can hang on my wall and look upon when I am worn out in body and soul, when, indeed,—
‘My feet are wearied, and my hands are tired,My heart oppressed,And I desire, what I long desired,Rest,—only Rest.’”
“My dear madam, unless you speedily change your present mode of life, you will not paint that contemplated picture, for a long rest will soon overtake you.”
A gleam that was nearer akin to joy than any expression he had yet seen, passed from eye to lip, and she answered, almost eagerly,—
“If that be true, it offers a premium for the continuance of habits you condemn so strenuously; but I dare not hope it, and I beg of you not to tantalize me with vain expectations of a release that may yet be far, far distant.”
Dr. Grey’s heart stirred with earnest sympathy for this lonely hopeless soul, who, standing almost upon the threshold of life, stretched her arms so yearningly to woo the advance of death.
The room was slowly filling with shadows, and, leaning there against her easel, she looked as unearthly as the pearly forms that summer clouds sometimes assume, when a harvest-moon springs up from sea foam and fog, and stares at them. When she spoke again, her voice was chill and crisp.
“My malady is beyond your reach, and baffles human skill. You mean only kindness, and I suppose I ought to thank you, but alas! the sentiment of gratitude is such a stranger in my heart, that it has yet to learn an adequate language.227Dr. Grey, the only help you can possibly render me is to prolong Elsie’s life. As for me, and my uncertain future, give yourself no charitable solicitude. Do you recollect what Lessing wrote to Claudius? ‘I am too proud to own that I am unhappy. I shut my teeth, and let the bark drift. Enough that I do not turn it over with my own hands.’ Elsie is signalling for me. Do you hear that bell? Good-night, Dr. Grey.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
“I have had a long conversation with Ulpian, and find him violently opposed to the scheme you mentioned to me several days since. He declares he will gladly share his last dollar with you sooner than see you embark in a career so fraught with difficulties, trials, and—”
Miss Jane paused to find an appropriate word, and Salome very promptly supplied her.
“Temptations. That is exactly what you both mean. Go on.”
“Well, yes, dear. I am afraid the profession you have selected is beset with dangerous allurements for one so inexperienced and unsophisticated as yourself.”
“Bah! Speak out. I am sick of circumlocution. What do you understand by unsophisticated?”
“Why, I mean,—well, what can I mean but just what the word expresses,—unsophisticated? That is, young, thoughtless, ignorant of the ways of the world, and the excessive cunning and deceit of human nature.”
“Begging your pardon, it has another significance, which you will find if you look into your dictionary,—that blessed Magna Charta of linguistic rights and privileges. I do not claim the prerogatives of Ruskin’s class of the ‘well educated, who are learned in the peerage of words; know the words of true descent and ancient blood at a glance, from words of moderncanaille;’ but I venture the assertion that I am228sufficiently sophisticated to plunge into the vortex of public life, and yet keep my head above water.”
“I don’t want to see my little girl an actress, or aprima donna, bold, forward, and eager to face a noisy, clamorous crowd, who feel privileged to say just what they please about her. It would break my heart; and, if you are bent on such a step, I hope you will wait, at least, till I am dead.”
“You ought to be willing to see me do anything honest, that will secure my dependent brother and sister from want.”
“The necessity of laboring for them is not especially imperative at this juncture, and why should you be more sensitive now than formerly? Do not deceive yourself, dear child, but face the truth, no matter how ugly it may possibly be. It is not a sense of duty to the younger children, but an inflated vanity, that prompts you to parade your beauty and your wonderful voice on the stage, where they will elicit applause and flattering adulation. My little girl, that is the most dangerous, the most unhealthy atmosphere, a woman can possibly breathe.”
“Pray tell me how you learned all this? You, who have spent your life in this quiet old house, who have been almost as secluded as some Cambrian Culdee, can really know nothing of that public life you condemn so bitterly.”
“The history of those who have walked in the path you are now preparing to follow, proves the deleterious influences and ruinous associations that surround that class of women.”
“Jenny Lind and Sarah Siddons redeem any class, no matter how much maligned.”
“But what assurance have I, that, unlike the ninety-nine, you will resemble the one-hundredth?”
“Only try me, Miss Jane.”
“Ah, child! A rash boy said the same thing when he tried to drive the sun, and not only consumed himself but nearly burned up the world. There is rather too much at stake to warrant such reckless experiments.”
“Quit mythology,—it is not in your line,—and come back to stern facts and serious realities. Because I wish to dance a quadrille or cotillion, and acquit myself creditably, does it229ensue as an inexorable consequence, that I shall join some strolling ballet troupe, and out-Bayadère the Bayadères?”
“That depends altogether upon your agility and grace. If you could reasonably hope to rival your Hebrew namesake, I am afraid my little girl would think it ‘her duty’ to dance instead of to sing, for the acquisition of a fortune; and insist upon executing wonderful things with her heels and toes, instead of her voice.”
“You and Dr. Grey seem to have simultaneously arrived at the charitable conclusion that my heart is pretty much in the same condition that the Hebrew temple was, when Christ undertook to drive out the profane. Thongs in hand you two have overturned my motives, and, by a very summary court-martial, condemned them to be scourged out. Now, mark you, I am neither making change nor selling doves, and still less are you and your brother—Jesus. Dr. Grey does me the honor to indulge a chronic skepticism concerning the possibility of any good and unselfish impulse in my nature, and I am sorry to see that you have caught the contagious doubt of me, and of my motives.”
She began the sentence in a challenging, sneering voice, but it was ended in a lower and faltering tone.
“While in the light of her large angry eyes,Uprose and rose a slow imperious sorrow.”
“My dear, don’t attempt to whip Ulpian over my shoulders. You know very well that I have invested in you an amount of faith that the united censure of the world cannot shake; and if Ulpian does not follow my example, whose fault is it, I should be glad to know? Evidently not his,—certainly not mine,—but undoubtedly yours. I have noticed that you took extraordinary care and a very peculiar pleasure in making him believe you much worse in all respects than you really are; and since you have labored so industriously to lower yourself in his estimation, it would be a poor compliment to your skill and energy if I told you that you had not entirely succeeded in your rather remarkable aim. Before he came230home you were as contented, and amiable, and happy, as my old cat there on the rug; but Ulpian’s appearance affected you as the entrance of a dog does my maltese, who arches her back, and growls, and claws, as long as he is in sight. I am truly sorry you two could never agree, but I feel bound to tell you that you have only yourself to blame. I do not claim that my sailor-boy is a saint, but he is assuredly some inches nearer sanctification than my poor little Salome. Don’t you think so? Be honest, dear.”
Miss Jane’s hand tenderly caressed the beautiful head; and, as Salome was too sullen or too much mortified to reply, the old lady continued,—
“Nevertheless, Ulpian is a true and devoted friend, and can not bear the thought of your leaving us, for any purpose, much less the one you contemplate. Last night he said, ‘Janet, I am her brother, and think you I shall allow my sister to go out from the sacred precincts of home, and become a target for the envy and malice of the better classes who will criticise her, and for the coarse plaudits of the pit? Do you suppose I can willingly see her bare feet turned towards a path paved with glowing ploughshares? Tell her, for me, that if ever she should carry her unfortunate freak into execution, I shall never wish to touch her hand again, for I shall feel that it has lost its purity in the clasp of many to whom she can not refuse it during a professional career.’”
The orphan lifted her head from the arm of Miss Jane’s chair, where it had rested for some minutes, and striking her palms forcibly together, she exclaimed, proudly,—
“Tell Dr. Grey I humbly thank him, but the threat has lost its sting; and if I should chance to meet him years hence, though my hands shall be pure and clean as Una’s, and as unsullied as his own,—so help me heaven! I will never thrust my touch on his, nor so far forget myself as to suffer his fingers to approach mine. When I pass from this threshold, we will have shaken hands forever.”
“Dr. Grey’s ears are not proof against such elevated, ringing tones of voice, and he could not avoid hearing, as he came231up the steps, the childish words which he assures you he has no intention of believing or remembering.”
He had tapped twice at the half-open door, and now came forward with a firm, quick step, to the ottoman where Salome sat. Taking her hands, he patted the palms softly against each other, and smiling good-humoredly, continued,—
“They are very white, and shapely, and pure, and I am not afraid that my little sister will soil them. Her brother looks forward to the day when they will gently and gracefully help him in his work among God’s suffering poor. I have not forgotten how dexterous and docile I found your fingers, when I had temporarily lost the use of my own, and I shall not fail to levy contributions of labor in the coming years.”
She had snatched her fingers from his, and no sooner had he ceased speaking, than she bowed haughtily, and answered,—
“Our reconciliations all belong to the Norman family, and are quite as lasting as Lamourette’s. Ceaseless war is preferable to a violated truce, and since I have not swerved from my purpose, I shall not falter in its enunciation. If I live it shall not be my fault if I fail to go upon the stage. I am not so fastidious as Dr. Grey, and one who sprang fromcanaillemust be pardoned if she betrays a longing for the ‘flesh-pots of Egypt.’”
She would have given her right hand to recall her words,—when, a moment later, she met the gaze of profound pity and disappointment with which Dr. Grey’s eyes dwelt upon her countenance, hardened now by its expression of insolent haughtiness; but he allowed her no opportunity for retraction, even had she mastered her overweening pride, and stooping to whisper a brief sentence in his sister’s ear, he took a medical book from the table, and left the room.
The silence that ensued seemed interminable to Salome, and at last she turned, bowed her head in Miss Jane’s lap, and muttered through set teeth,—
“You see it is best that I should go. Even you must be weary of this strife.”
232
The old lady’s trembling hands were laid lovingly on the girl’s hot brow and scorched cheeks.
“Not half so weary as your own oppressed heart. My dear child, why do you persist in tormenting yourself so unmercifully? Why will you say things that you do not mean?—that are absolute libels on your actual feelings? I have often seen and deplored affectations of generosity and refinement, but you are the first person I ever met who delighted in a pretence of meanness, which her genuine nature abhorred. Salome, I have tried to prove myself a mother to you since the day that I took you under my roof; and now, when I am passing away from the world,—when a few short months will probably end my feeble life, I think you owe it to me to give me no sorrow that your hands can easily ward off. Don’t leave me. When I am gone there will be time and to spare, for all your schemes. Stay here, and let me have peace and sunshine about me, in my last fading hours. Ah, dear, you can’t be cruel to the old woman who has long loved you so tenderly.”
The orphan pressed the withered hands to her lips, and, covering her face with the folds of Miss Jane’s black silk apron, exclaimed passionately,—
“Do not think me ungrateful,—do not think me insensible to your love and kindness; but, indeed I am very miserable here. Oh, Miss Jane! if you knew how I have suffered, you would not chide, you would only pity and sympathize with me; for your heart will never steel itself against your poor wretched Salome!”
She lost control of herself, and sobbed violently.
“My dear little girl, tell me all your sorrows. To whom can you reveal your trials and griefs, if not to me? For some weeks past I have observed that you shunned my gaze, and seemed restless when I endeavored to discover how you were employing your time; and I have realized that you were sorely distressed, but I disliked to force your confidence, or appear suspicious. Now, I have a right to ask what makes you miserable in my house? Is the little girl ashamed to show me her heart?”
233
“One month since, I would have gone to the stake rather than have shown it to you, or have had any one dream of the wretchedness locked in its chambers; but a week ago I was overwhelmed with humiliation, and now I am not ashamed to tell you. Now that Dr. Grey knows it, I would not care if the whole world were hissing and jeering at my heels, and shouting my shame with a thousand trumpets. I tried to keep it from him, and failing, the world is welcome to roll it as a sweet morsel under its busy, stinging, slanderous tongue. Miss Jane, I have intended to be sincere in every respect, but it appears that, after all, I have probably been an arrant hypocrite if you believe that I dislike your brother. I want to go away, because I can no longer endure to live in the same house with Dr. Grey, who shows me more plainly every hour that he can never return the affection I have been idiotic and presumptuous enough to cherish for him. There! I have said it,—and my lips are not blistered by the unwomanly confession, and you still permit my head to rest in your lap. I expected you would be indignant and insulted, and gladly send such a lunatic from your family circle,—or that you would dismiss me coolly, with lofty contempt; but only a woman can properly pity a woman’s weakness, and you are crying over me. Ah, if your tears were falling on my grave, instead of my face!”
Miss Jane was weeping bitterly, but now and then she stooped and kissed the quivering lips of her unhappy charge, who found some balm in the earnest sympathy with which her appeal was received.
“My precious child, why should you be ashamed of your love for the noblest man who ever unconsciously became a woman’s idol? I do not much wonder at your feelings, because you have seen no one else in any respect comparable to him, and it is difficult for you to realize the disparity in your ages. Poor thing! It must be terrible, indeed, to one who loves him as you do, to have no hope of possessing his affection in return. But I suppose it can’t be helped,—and one half the world seem to pour out their love on the wrong persons, and find misery where they should have only joy and234peace. Thank God, all this mischief is shut out of heaven! Dear, don’t hide your face, as if you had stolen half of my sheep; whereas my poor innocent sailor-boy has unintentionally stolen my little girl’s heart.”
“Miss Jane, you are too good,—too kind. Do not help me to excuse myself,—do not teach me to palliate my pitiable weakness. It is a grievous, a shameful, a disgraceful thing, for a woman to allow herself to love any man who gives her no evidence of affection, and shows her beyond all doubt that he is utterly indifferent to her. This is a sin against womanly pride and delicacy that demands sackcloth and ashes, and penance and long years of humiliation and self-abasement; and I tell you this is the one sin which my proud soul will never pardon in my poor weak, despised heart.”
“If you feel this so keenly, you will soon succeed in conquering and casting out of your heart an affection, which, having nothing to feed upon, will speedily exhaust itself. You are young, and your elastic nature will rebound from the pressure that you now find so painful. My dear, a few months or years will bring comparative oblivion of this period of your life.”
“No; they will engrave more deeply the consciousness that I have missed my sole chance of earthly happiness, for Dr. Grey is the only man I shall ever love,—is the only man who can lift me to his own noble height of excellence. I know it is customary to laugh at a girl’s protestations of undying devotion, and that the theory of feminine constancy is as entirely effete as the worship of the Cabiri, or the belief in Blokula and its witches; but, unfortunately, the world has not sneered it entirely out of existence, and I am destined to furnish a mournful exemplification of its reality. Whether my nature is unlike that of the majority of women, I shall not undertake to decide; but this I know,—God gave me only so much love to spend, and I poured it all out, I deluged my idol with it, instead of doling it carefully through the future years. Like the woman of Bethany, I have broken my box of alabaster, and spilled all my precious ointment, which might have served for a lifetime of anointing, and I cannot235renew the shattered receptacle, nor gather back the wasted fragrance; and so my heart must remain without spikenard or balm during its earthly sojourn. I have been prodigal,—have beggared my womanly nature,—and henceforth shall feast on husks. But this piece of folly can be laid on no shoulders but my own, and I must not wince if they are galled by burdens which only I have imposed. Some women, under similar circumstances, console themselves by fostering a tender and excessive gratitude, which they pet and fondle and call second love; but the feeling belongs to a different species, and is to strong, earnest, genuine love, what the stunted pines of second growth are to the noble, stalwart, unapproachable oaks, that spring from the primitive virgin soil.”
Miss Jane lifted the bowed face, and rested the head against her bosom.
“If you are so thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of mastering this affection, why talk of going away? You will be happier here, under any circumstances, than among strangers.”
“Do not misapprehend me. I do not intend to cherish my weakness,—to caress and pamper it. I mean to strangle, and mangle, and bury it, if possible. I meant, not that I should always love Dr. Grey, but that I should never be able to regard any one else as I once loved him. I can not stay here, seeing him daily trample my alabaster and ointment under his feet. I can not endure the humiliation that has for some days past made this house more intolerable than I may one day find Phlegethon. I want to go into the whirl and din of life, where my thoughts can dwell on some more comforting theme than the peerless preëminence of the man who is master here, where I can spend hours in elaboratingtoilettesandcoiffuresthat will show to the greatest advantage my small stock of personal charms; where the admiration and love of other men will at least amuse and soothe the heart that has no more love for anybody, or anything. Miss Jane, if I had never become so deeply attached to Dr. Grey, it might perhaps be unsafe for me to venture into the career which now lies before me; but when a woman’s heart is cold236and dead in her bosom, there is no peril she need fear; for only her warm, pleading heart, can ever silence the iron clang of conscience and the silvery accents of reason. Worshipping some clay god, my loving, yearning heart, might possibly have led me astray; but now, pride and ambition stand as sentinels over its corpse, and a heartless woman, desirous only of amassing a fortune and making herself a celebrity in musical circles, is as safe from harm as the bones of her grandmother, twenty yearsburied.”
The agony that convulsed the orphan’s features, and shivered the smoothness of her usually sweet voice, touched the old lady’s sympathy, and she wept silently; straining her imagination for some argument that would make an impression on the adamantine will with which she found her own in conflict.
“My child, tell me how long you have had this trouble. When did you first feel an interest in Ulpian?”
Unhesitatingly Salome related all that had occurred in her intercourse with Dr. Grey, and her companion was surprised at the frankness and mercilessness with which she analyzed her own feelings at each stage of the acquaintance that proved so disastrous to her peace of mind; and not only held her weakness up for scorn, but exonerated Dr. Grey from all censure.
The minuteness of the confession was exceedingly painful; and, at its conclusion, she pressed her palms to her cheeks, and moaned,—
“There, Miss Jane, I have not winced; I have kept back nothing. I have been as patient and inexorable in laying open my nature, in treating you to apost-mortemexamination of my heart, as a dentist in scraping and chiselling a sensitive tooth, or a surgeon in cutting out a cancer that baffled cauterization. Now you know all that I can tell you, and I here lay the past in a sepulchre, and roll the stone upon it, and henceforth I trust you will respect the dead; at least, let silence rest upon its ashes.Hic jacet cor cordium.”
Salome extricated herself from the arms of her best friend,237and smoothed the hair that constant strokes had somewhat disordered.
“Salome, I can not live much longer.”
“I know that, dear Miss Jane, and it pains me even to think of leaving the only person who ever really loved me.”
“For my sake, dear child, bear the trial of remaining here a little longer; at least, until I die. Do not desert me in my last hours. I do not want the hands of strangers about me, when I am cold and stiff.”
Salome rose and walked several times up and down the room; then paused beside the easy-chair, and laid her clasped hands in Miss Jane’s.
“You alone have a right to control me. Do with me as you think best. I will not forsake the true, tender friend, who has done more for me than all else on earth, or in heaven. For the present I remain here; but allow me to say that I do not abandon my scheme. I relinquish none of its details,—I only bide my time.”
“‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ Thank you, my precious little girl, for yielding to my wishes when they conflict with yours. Some day you will rejoice that you made what seemed a sacrifice of inclination on the altar of duty. Now, listen to me. Ulpian is so enraptured with your voice, that, while he will never consent to this stage-struck madness, he is exceedingly anxious that you should enjoy every musical advantage, and is curious to ascertain to what degree of perfection your voice can be trained. After consulting me, he wrote two days ago to a celebrated professor of music in Philadelphia or New York (I really forget where the man is now residing), and offered him a handsome salary if he would come and teach you for at least six months, or as much longer as he deems requisite. I believe the gentleman is delicate and threatened with consumption, which obliges him to spend the winters in a warm climate, and Ulpian first met him in Italy. My boy thinks that the opinion of this Professor Von Somebody is oracular in musical matters; and, as he has trained some of the best singers in Europe, Ulpian wishes238him to have charge of your voice. Say nothing about it until we hear whether he can accept our offer. Kiss me.”
Salome’s face crimsoned, and she said, hesitatingly,—
“Miss Jane, I can not consent that Dr. Grey should contribute one cent toward my musical tuition. I can humbly and gratefully accept your charitable aid, but not his. You love me, and therefore your bounty is not oppressive or humiliating, but he only pities and tolerates me, and I would starve in some gutter rather than live as the recipient of his charity. If you can conveniently spare the money necessary to give me additional cultivation, I shall thankfully receive it, for Barilli has taught me all of which he is master, and there is no one else in town in whom I have more confidence. It was my desire and determination that the work of my hands should pay for polishing my voice, but embroidery-fees would not suffice to defray the expenses of the professor to whom you allude; and, if Dr. Grey pays for his services, I must in advance assure you and him that I shall decline them, and rely upon Barilli and myself.”
“Pooh! pooh! It is poor philosophy to quarrel with your bread and butter, no matter who happens to hand it to you. Don’t be so savage on Ulpian, who really cares more for you than you deserve. But if it comforts your proud, fierce spirit, you are welcome to know that I—Jane Grey—pay Professor Von—whatever his name may be; and Ulpian’s pocket, about which you seem so fastidious, will not be damaged one dollar by the transaction. Are you satisfied,—you pretty piece of beggarly pride?”
“I am more grateful to you, dear Miss Jane, than I shall ever be able to express. God only knows what would have become of me if you had not mercifully snatched me, soul and body, from the purlieus of ruin.”
She stooped to receive the fond kiss of her benefactress, and went into her own room.
Nearly an hour later she slowly descended the stairs, and took her hat from the stand in the hall. As she adjusted it on her head, and tied the ribbons behind her knot of hair, Mr. Granville came out of the parlor and seized her hand.