Читать книгу Fashion and Famine - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 8

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There are some feelings all too deep,

For grief to shake, or torture numb,

Sorrows that strengthen as they sleep,

And struggle though the heart is dumb.

Little Julia Warren had given a very correct description of the house to which she had been so strangely conveyed. Grand, imposing, and unsurpassed for magnificence by anything known in our city, it was nevertheless filled with a sort of gorgeous gloom that fell like a weight upon the beholder. Most of the shutters were closed, and where the glass was not painted, rich draperies muffled and tinted the light wherever it penetrated a crevice, or struggled through the reversed fold of a blind.

As you passed through those sumptuous rooms, so vast, so still, it seemed like traversing a flower-garden by the faintest starlight; you knew that beautiful objects lay around you on every side, without the power of distinguishing them, save in shadowy masses. All this indistinctness took a strong hold on the imagination, rendered more powerful, perhaps, by the profound stillness that reigned in the dwelling.

Since the great front door had fallen softly to its latch after the little girl left the building, no sound had broken the intense hush that surrounded it. Still the lady, who had so marvelously impressed herself upon the heart of that child, lay prone upon the couch in her boudoir in the second story. She was the only living being in that whole dwelling, and but for the quick breath that now and then disturbed her bosom, she appeared lifeless as the marble Flora that seemed scattering lilies over the cushion where she rested.

After a time the stillness seemed to startle her. She lifted her head and looked around the room.

"Gone!" she said, in a tone of disappointment, which had something of impatience in it—"gone!"

The lady started up, pale and with an imperious motion, as one whose faintest wish had seldom been opposed. She approached a window, and flinging back the curtains of azure damask, cast another searching look over the room. But the pale, sweet features of the Flora smiling down upon her lilies, was the only semblance to a human being that met her eye. She dropped the curtain impatiently. The statue seemed mocking her with its cold, classic smile. It suited her better when the wind came with a sweep, dashing the rain-drops fiercely against the window.

The irritation which this sound produced on her nerves seemed to animate her with a keen wish to find the child who had disappeared so noiselessly. She went to the door, traversed the hall and the great stair-case; and her look grew almost wild when she found no signs of the little girl! Two or three times she parted her lips, as if to call out; but the name that she would have uttered clung to her heart, and the parted lips gave forth no sound.

It was strange that a name, buried in her bosom for years, unuttered, hidden as the miser hides his gold, at once the joy, and agony of his life, should have sprung to her memory there and then; but so it was, and the very attempt to syllable that name seemed to freeze up the animation in her face. She grew much paler after that, and her white fingers clung to the silver knob like ice as she opened the great hall-door and looked into the street.

The entrance to the mansion was sheltered, and though the rain was falling, it had not yet penetrated to the threshold. Up and down the broad street no object resembling the strawberry girl could be seen; and with an air of disappointment, the lady was about to close the door, when she saw upon the threshold a broken rose-bud, which had evidently fallen from the child's basket, and beside it the prints of a little, naked foot left in damp tracery on the granite. These foot-prints descended the steps, and with a sigh the lady drew back, closing the door after her gently as she had opened it.

She stood awhile musing in the vestibule, then slowly mounting the stairs, entered the boudoir again. She sat down, but it was only for a minute; the solitude of the great house might have shaken the nerves of a less delicate woman, now that the rain was beating against the windows, and the gloom thickening around her, but she seemed quite unconscious of this. Some new idea had taken possession of her mind, and it had power to arouse her whole being. She paced the room, at first gently, then with rapid footsteps, becoming more and more excited each moment; though this was only manifested by the brilliancy of her eyes, and the breathless eagerness with which she listened from time to time. No sound came to her ears, however—nothing but the rain beating, beating, beating against the plate-glass.

The lady took out her watch, and a faint, mocking smile stole over her lips. It seemed as if she had been expecting the return of her servant for hours; and lo! only half an hour had passed since he went forth.

"And this," she said, with a gesture and look of self-reproach—"this is the patience—this the stoicism which I have attained—Heaven help me!" She walked slower then, and at length sunk upon the couch with her eyes closed resolutely, as one who forced herself to wait and be still. Thus she remained, perhaps fifteen minutes, and the marble statue smiled upon her through its chill, white flowers.

She had wrestled with herself and conquered. So much time! Only fifteen minutes, but it seemed an hour. She opened her eyes, and there was that smiling face of marble peering down into hers; it seemed as if something human were scanning her heart. The fancy troubled her, and she began to walk about again.

As the lady was pacing to and fro in her boudoir, her foot became entangled in the handkerchief which she had so passionately wrested from the strawberry-girl, when in her gentle sympathy the child would have wiped the tears from her eyes. She took the cambric in her hand, not without a shudder; it might be of pain; it might be that some hidden joy blended itself with the emotion; but with an effort at self-control she turned to a corner of the handkerchief, and examined a name written there with attention.

Again some powerful change of feeling seemed to sweep over her; she folded the handkerchief with care, and went out of the room, still grasping it in her hand. Slowly, and as if impelled against her wishes, this singular woman mounted a flight of serpentine stairs, which wound up the tower that Julia had described as a steeple, and entered a remote room of the dwelling. Even here the same silent splendor, the same magnificent gloom that pervaded the whole dwelling, was darkly visible. Though perfectly alone, carpets thick as forest moss muffled her foot-steps, till they gave forth no echo to betray her presence. Like a spirit she glided on, and but for her breathing she might have been taken for something truly supernatural, so singular was her pale beauty, so strangely motionless were her eyes.

For a moment the lady paused, as if calling up the locality of some object in her mind, then she opened the door of a small room and entered.

A wonderful contrast did that little chamber present to the splendor through which she had just passed. No half twilight reigned there; no gleams of rich coloring awoke the imagination; everything was chaste and almost severe in its simplicity. Half a shutter had been left open, and thus a cold light was admitted to the chamber, revealing every object with chilling distinctness:—the white walls; the faded carpet on the floor; and the bed piled high with feathers, and covered with a patch-work quilt pieced from many gorgeously colored prints, now somewhat faded and mellowed by age. Half a dozen stiff maple chairs stood in the room. In one corner was a round mahogany stand, polished with age, and between the windows hung a looking-glass framed in curled maple. No one of these articles bore the slightest appearance of recent use, and common-place as they would have seemed in another dwelling, in that house they looked mysteriously out of keeping.

The lady looked around as she entered the room, and her face expressed some new and strong emotion; but she had evidently schooled her feelings, and a strong will was there to second every mental effort. After one quick survey her eyes fell upon the carpet. It was an humble fabric, such as the New England housewives manufacture with their own looms and spinning wheels; stripes of hard, positive colors contrasted harshly together, and even time had failed to mellow them into harmony; though faded and dim, they still spread away from the feet harsh and disagreeable. No indifferent person would have looked upon that cheerless object twice; but it seemed to fascinate the gaze of the singular woman, as no artistic combination of colors could have done. Her eyes grew dim as she gazed; her step faltered as she moved across the faded stripes; and reaching a chair near the bed, she sunk upon it pale and trembling. The tremor went off after a few minutes, but her face retained its painful whiteness, and she fell into thought so deep that her attitude took the repose of a statue.

Thus an hour went by. The storm had increased, and through the window which opened upon a garden, might be seen the dark sway of branches tossed by the roaring wind, and blackened with the gathering night. The rain poured down in sheets, and beat upon the spacious roof like the rattle of artillery. Gloom and commotion reigned around. The very elements seemed vexed with new troubles as that beautiful woman entered the room whose humble simplicity seemed so unsuited to her.

Ada saw nothing of the storm, or if she did, the wildness and gloom seemed but a portion of the tumult in her own heart. Yet how still and calm she was—that strange being! At length the chain of iron thought seemed broken; she turned toward the bed, laid her hand gently down upon the quilt, and gazed at the faded colors till some string in her proud heart gave way, and sinking down with her face buried in the scant pillows, she wept like a child. Every limb in her body began to tremble. The bed shook under her, and notwithstanding the stormy elements, the noise of her bitter sobs filled the room. The voice of her grief was soon broken by another sound—the sound of passionate kisses lavished upon the pillows, the quilt, and the homespun linen upon the bed. She looked at them through her tears; she smoothed them out with her trembling hands; she laid her cheek against them lovingly, as a punished child will sometimes caress the very garments of a mother whose forgiveness it craves; yet in all this you saw that this strange, almost insane excitement was not usual to the woman—that she was not one to yield her strength to a light passion; and this made her grief the more touching. You felt that if such storms often swept across her track of life, she did not bow herself to them without a fierce struggle.

She lay upon the bed weeping and faint with exhausted emotion, when the sound of a closing door rang through the building. This was followed by stumbling footsteps so heavy that even the turf-like carpets could not muffle them. The lady started up, listened an instant, and then hurried from the room, closing the door carefully after her. It was now almost dark, and but for the angular figure and ungainly attitude of the person she found in her boudoir, she might not have recognized her own servant, who stood waiting her approach.

"Jacob, you have come—well!" said the lady in a low voice.

"Yes, and a pretty time I have had of it," said the man, drawing back from the hand which she had almost placed upon his arm, and shaking himself with much of the surliness, and all the indifference of a mastiff, till the rain fell in showers from his coat. "I am soaking wet, ma'm, and dangerous to come near—it might give you a cold."

"It is raining then?" said the lady, subduing her impatience.

"Raining! I should think it was, and blowing too. Why, don't you hear the wind yelling and tusseling with the trees back of the house?"

"I have not noticed," answered the lady, mournfully; "I was thinking of other things."

"Of him, I suppose!" There was something husky in the man's voice as he spoke, the more remarkable that his strong Down East pronunciation was usually prompt, and clear from any signs of feeling.

"Yes, of him and of them! Jacob, this has been a terrible day to me."

"And to me, gracious knows!" muttered the man, giving his coat another rough shake.

"Yes, you have been upon your feet all day—you are wet through, my kind friend, and all to serve me—I know that it is hard!"

"Nothing of the sort!—nothing of the sort! Who on earth complained, I should like to know? A little rain, poh!" exclaimed the man, evidently annoyed that his vexation, uttered in an under tone, should have reached the lady's ear.

"No, you never do complain, Jacob; and yet you have often found me an exacting mistress—or friend, I should rather say—for it is long since I have considered you as anything else. I have often taxed your strength and patience too far!"

"There it is again!" answered the man, with a sort of rough impatience, which, however, had nothing unkind or disrespectful in it—"jist as if I was complaining or discontented—jist as if I wasn't your hired man—no, servant, that is the word—to serve, wait, tend on you; and hadn't been ever since the day—but no matter about that—jist now I've been down town as you ordered."

"Well!"

Oh! how much of exquisite self-control was betrayed by the low, steady tone in which that little word was uttered.

"Of course," said the man, "I could do nothing without help. The little girl's story was enough to prove that—that he was in town, but it only went so far. She neither knew which way he drove, or how the coach was numbered; so it seemed very much like searching for a needle in a hay-mow. But you wanted to know where he was, and I determined to find out. Wal, this morning, as we left the steamer, I saw a man in the crowd with a great, gilt star on his breast, and as the thing looked rather odd for a republican, I asked what it meant. It was a policeman; they have got up a new system here in the city, it seems, and from what was said on the wharf, I thought it no bad idea to get some of these men to help me to search for Mr. Leicester."

"Hush, hush; don't speak so loud," said the lady, starting as a name her lips had not uttered for years was thus suddenly pronounced.

"I inquired the way, and went to the police office at once: it is in the Park, ma'm, under the City Hall. Wal, there I found the chief, a smart, active fellow as I ever set eyes on; I told him what brought me there, and who I wanted to find. He called a young man from the out room; wrote on a slip of paper; gave it to the man, and asked me to sit down. Wal, I sat down, and we began to talk about my travels, and things in gineral, like old acquaintances, till by-and-bye in came the very policeman that I had seen on the wharf.

"'Mr. Johnson,' says the chief, 'a Southern vessel arrived to-day at the same wharf where the steamer lies. Did you observe a tall gentlemen with a young lady on his arm, leave that vessel?'

"'Dark hair; large eyes; a black coat?' says the man, looking at me.

"'Exactly,' says I.

"'The lady beautiful; eyes you could hardly tell the color of; lashes always down; black silk dress; cashmere scarf; cottage-bonnet!' says he, again.

"'Jist so!' says I.

"'Yes,' says he to the chief, 'I saw them.'

"'Where did they go?' questions the chief.

"'Hack No. 117 took three fares from the vessel and steamer, one to the City Hall, one to the New York, one to the Astor. This was the second, he went to the Astor.'"

"And the young girl—did she go with him?" cried the lady, striving in vain to conceal the keen interest which prompted the question.

"That was just what the chief asked," was the reply.

"And the answer—was she with him?"

"Wal, the chief put that question, only a little steadier; and the man answered that the young lady——"

"Well."

"That the coachman first took the young lady to a house in—I believe it was Ninth street, or Tenth, or——"

"No matter, so she was not with him," answered the lady, drawing a deep breath, while an expression of exquisite relief, came to her features; "and he is there alone at the Astor House. And I in the same city! Does nothing tell him?—has his heart no voice that clamors as mine does? The Astor House! Jacob, how far is the Astor House from this?"

"More than a mile—two miles. I don't exactly know how far it is."

"A mile, perhaps two, and that is all that divides us. Oh! God, would that it were all!" she cried, suddenly clasping her hands with a burst of wild agony.

The servant man recoiled as he witnessed this burst of passion, wherefore it were difficult to say; for he remained silent, and the twilight had gathered fast and deep in the room. For several minutes no word was spoken between the two persons so unlike in looks, in mind, in station, and yet linked together by a bond of sympathy strong enough to sweep off these inequalities into the dust. At length the lady lifted her head, and looked at the man almost beseechingly through the twilight.

The storm was still fierce. The wind shook and tore through the foliage of the trees; and the rain swept by in sheets, now and then torn with lightning, and shaken with loud bursts of thunder.

"The weather is terrible!" said the lady, with a sad, winning smile, and with her beautiful eyes bent upon the man.

He thought that she was terrified by the lightning, and this brought his kind nature back again.

"This—oh! this is nothing, madam. Think of the storms we used to have in the Alps, and at sea."

A beautiful brilliancy came into the lady's eyes.

"True, this is nothing compared to them: and the evening, it is not yet entirely dark!"

"The storm makes it dark—that is all. It isn't far off from sun-down by the time!" answered Jacob, taking out an old silver watch, and examining it by the window.

"Jacob, are you very tired?"

"Tired, ma'm! What on earth should make me tired? One would think I had been hoeing all day, to hear such questions!"

The lady hesitated. She seemed ashamed to speak again, and her voice faltered as she at length forced herself to say—

"Then, Jacob, as you are not quite worn out—perhaps you will get me a carriage—there must be stables in the neighborhood."

"A carriage!" answered the man, evidently overwhelmed with surprise: "a carriage, madam, to-night, in all this rain!"

"Jacob—Jacob, I must see him—I must see him now, to-night—this hour! The thought of delay suffocates me—I am not myself—do you not see it? All power over myself is gone. Jacob, I must see him now, or die!"

"But the storm, madam," urged poor Jacob, from some cause almost as pale as his mistress.

"The better—all the better. It gives me courage. How can we two meet, save in storm and strife? I tell you the tempest will give me strength."

"I beg of you, I—I——"

"Jacob, be kind—get me the carriage!" pleaded the lady, gently interrupting him: "urge nothing more, I entreat you; but instead of opposing, help me. Heaven knows, but for you I am helpless enough!"

There was no resisting that voice, the pleading eloquence of those eyes. A deep sigh was smothered in that faithful breast, and then he went forth perfectly heedless of the rain; which, to do him justice, had never been considered in connection with his own personal comfort.

He returned after a brief absence; and a dark object before the iron gate, over which the rain was dripping in streams, bespoke the success of his errand. The lady had meantime changed her dress to one of black silk, perfectly plain, and giving no evidence of position, by which a stranger might judge to what class of society she belonged; a neat straw bonnet and a shawl completed her modest costume.

"I am ready, waiting!" she cried, as Jacob presented himself at the door, and drawing down her veil that he might not see all that was written in her face, she passed him and went forth.

But Jacob caught one glance of that countenance with all its eloquent feeling, for a small lamp had been lighted in the boudoir during his absence; and that look was enough. He followed her in silence.