Читать книгу Vashti; Or, Until Death Us Do Part - Augusta J. Evans - Страница 6

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When fifty-two years old, Daniel Grey amassed a handsome fortune by speculating in certain gold and coal mine stocks, which not only relieved him from the necessity of daily toil in his dusty counting-room, but elevated him to that more than Braminical caste, dubbed in Mammon-parlance—capitalists; whose decrees outweigh legislative statutes, and by feeling the pulse of stock-boards and all financial corporations, regulate the fiscal currents of the State. A few months subsequent 18 to this sudden accession of wealth, his meek and devoted wife—who had patiently shared all the trials and hardships of his early impecunious career, and brightened an humble home which boasted no treasure comparable to her loving, unselfish heart,—was summoned to the enjoyment of a heritage beyond the stars; and Daniel Grey, capitalist, found himself a florid handsome widower, with two children, Enoch and Jane, to remind him continually of the pale wife over whose quiet ashes rose a costly mausoleum, where rare exotics nodded to each other across gilded slab and sculptured angels. That he profoundly mourned his loss no charitable mind could doubt, notwithstanding the obstinate fact that ere the violets had bloomed a twelvemonth over the dead mother of his children he had provided them with one who certainly bore her name, usurped her precious privileges, walked in her footsteps, but wofully failed to fill her place.

Mrs. Daniel Grey, scarcely the senior of the step-daughter whose lips most reluctantly framed the sacred word “mother,” was a fresh fair young thing, whose ideas of marriage extended no further than diamonds, white satin, reception cards, and bridal presents; and whose regard for her worthy husband sought no surer basis than his bank-stock and insurance dividends. Dainty and bright, in tasteful and costly apparel, the pretty child-wife flitted up and down in his house and over the serene surface of his life, touching no feeling of his nature so deeply as that colossal parvenu vanity which exulted in the possession of a graceful walking announcement of his ability to clothe in fine fabrics and expensive jewels.

Perhaps the mildew that stained the ghastly gaunt angels who kept guard over the dust of the dead wife, extended yet further than the silent territory over which sexton and mattock reigned, for one dreary December night, instead of nestling for a post-prandial nap among the velvet cushions of his luxurious parlor, Daniel Grey, capitalist, slept his last sleep in a high-backed, comfortless chair before his desk, where the confidential clerk found him next morning, with his rigid icy fingers thrust between the leaves of his check-book.

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According to the old Arab proverb,—

“The black camel named Death kneeleth once at each door, And a mortal must mount to return nevermore.”

And, past all peradventure, having borne away one member of the household, the “Last Carrier” from force of habit hastens to perform the same thankless service for the remainder;—thus ere summer sunshine streamed on the husband’s grave, another yawned at its side, and a wreathed and fluted shaft shot up close to his mausoleum, to tell sympathizing friends and careless strangers that the second wife of Daniel Grey had been snatched away in the morning of life.

Her infant son Ulpian was committed to the tender guardianship of his maternal grandmother, in whose hands he remained until the close of his fourth year, when her death necessitated his return to the home of his only relatives, Enoch and Jane. At the request of his sister, the former had sold the elegant new residence in a fashionable quarter of the town, and removed to the old homestead and farm, hallowed by reminiscences of their mother, and invested with the magic attractions that early association weaves about the spots frequented in youth.

Manifesting, even in boyhood, an unconquerable repugnance not only to curriculum, but the monotonous routine of mercantile pursuits, Enoch sullenly forswore stock-jobbing and finance, and declared his intention of indulging his rural tastes and becoming a farmer. Fine cattle and poultry of all kinds, heavy wheat-crops, and well-stored corn-cribs engrossed his thoughts, to the entire exclusion of abstract æsthetic speculation, of operatic music, and Pre-Raphaelitism; while the sight of one of his silky short-horned Ayrshires yielded him infinitely more pleasure than the possession of all Rosa Bonheur’s ideals could possibly have done, and the soft billowy stretch of his favorite clover-meadow was worth all the canvas that Claude or Poussin had ever colored. While Enoch had cordially hated his fair blue-eyed young step-mother, not from any personal or individual grounds of grievance, but simply 20 and solely because she dared to occupy the household niche, sanctified once and forever by his own meek gentle-toned mother, he nevertheless tenderly loved her baby-boy; and as Ulpian grew to manhood he became the idol, at whose shrine the brother and sister offered their pure and most intense affection.

Neither had married, and when the youngest of the household band completed his studies, and decided to accept a naval appointment, the consternation and grief which the announcement produced at the homestead, proved how essential the presence of the half-brother had become to the happiness of the sedate stolid Enoch, and equable unselfish Jane. But the desire to travel subordinated all other sentiments in Ulpian’s nature, and he eagerly embarked for a cruise, from which he was recalled by tidings of the death of his brother.

A brief sojourn at the homestead had sufficed to arrange the affairs of the carefully-managed estate, and the young surgeon returned to his post aboard ship, in distant oriental seas. The increasing infirmity of his sister had finally induced the resignation of his cherished commission, and brought the man of thirty-five back to his home, where the “old familiar faces” seemed to have vanished forever; and, in lieu thereof, legions of cold-eyed strangers carelessly confronted him.

Emancipated from all restraint, and early consigned to the guidance of his boyish caprices and immature judgment, Ulpian Grey’s character had unfolded itself under circumstances peculiarly favorable for the fostering of selfishness and the development of idiosyncrasies. As a plant, unmolested by man and beast, germinates, expands, and freely and completely manifests all its inherent tendencies, whether detrimental or beneficial to humanity, so Dr. Grey’s matured manhood was no distorted or discolored result of repeated educational experiments, but a thoroughly normal efflorescence of an unbiassed healthful nature.

Habits of unwavering application and searching study, contracted in collegiate cloisters, tightened their grasp upon him, 21 as he wandered away from the quiet precincts of Alma Mater and into the crowded noisy campus of life; and even the gregarious and convivial manners prevalent aboard ship failed to divert his attention from the prosecution of scientific researches, or to retard his rapid progress in classical scholarship.

For the treasures of knowledge thus patiently and indefatigably garnered through a series of years, travel proved an invaluable polyglot commentator, analyzing, comparing, annotating, and italicizing, and had converted his mind into a vast, systematically arranged pictorial encyclopædia of miscellaneous lore, embellished with delicate etchings, noble engravings, and gorgeous illuminations,—a thesaurus where savants might seek successfully for data, and whence artists could derive grand types, and pure tender coloring.

Reverent and loving appreciation of the intrinsically “true, good, and beautiful” was part of the homage that his nature rendered to its Creator, and instead of flowering into a morbid and maudlin sentimentality which craves low-browed, long straight-nosed, undraped statuettes in every nook and corner,—or dwarfs the soul and pins it to the surplice of some theologic dogmata claiming infallibility—or coffins the intellect in cramped, shallow, psychological categories,—it bore fruit in a wide-eyed, large-hearted, liberal-minded eclecticism, which, waging no crusade against the various Saladins of modern systems, quietly possessed itself of the really valuable elements that constitute the basis of every ethical, æsthetic, and scientific creed, which has for any length of time levied black-mail on the credulity of mankind.

Breadth of intellectual vision promotes moral and emotional expansion—for true catholicity of mind manufactures charity in the heart; and toleration is the real mesmeric current which brings the extremes of humanity en rapport,—is the veritable ubiquitous Samaritan always provided with wine and oil for the bruised and helpless, who are strewn along the highway of life; and those who penetrated beyond the polished surface of Dr. Grey’s character, realized that no tinge of cynicism, no affectation of contempt for his country and countrymen 22 lurked in his heart, while erudition and foreign sojourning seemed only to have warmed and intensified his sympathy with all noble aims—his compassion for all grovelling ones.

That his compulsory return to the uneventful routine of life at the homestead, involved a sacrifice which he would gladly have avoided, he did not attempt to deny; but having invested a large amount of earnest, vigorous faith in the final conservatism of that much-abused monster which the seditious army of the Disappointed anathematize as “Bad Luck,” he went to work contentedly in this new sphere of action, and waited patiently and trustfully for the slow grinding of the great mill of Compensation, into whose huge hopper Fate had unceremoniously poured all his plans.

His advent produced a very decided sensation not only in the quiet neighborhood in which the farm was located, but also in the adjacent town where the memory of Daniel Grey’s meteoric ascent to pecuniosity still lingered in the minds of the oldest citizens, and pleasantly paved the way for a cordial reception of the fortunate son who inherited not only his mother’s comeliness but his father’s hoarded wealth.

Living in the middle of the nineteenth century, and in a hemisphere completely antipodal to that in which Utopia was situated, or “Bensalem” dreamed of, the appearance of a good-looking, well-educated, affluent bachelor could not fail to stir all gossipdom to its dreg; and society, ever tenderly concerned about the individual affairs of its prominent members, was all agog—busily arranging for the ci-devant United States Surgeon a programme, than which he would sooner have undertaken the feats of Samson or the Avatars of Vishnu.

His published card, announcing the fact that he had permanently located in the city and was a patient candidate for the privilege of setting fractured limbs and administering medicine, somewhat dashed the expectations of many who conjected that the Grey estate could not possibly be worth the amount so long reputed, or the principal heir would certainly not soil his fingers with pills and plasters, instead of sauntering and dawdling with librettos, lorgnettes, meerschaums, 23 and curiously-carved canes cut in the Hebrides or the jungles of Java.

Over the door of that office, where the Angel of Death had smitten his father thirty-five years before, a new sign swung in the breeze, and showed the citizens the name of “Dr. Ulpian Grey. Office hours from nine to ten, and from two to three.”

The members of the profession called formally to welcome him to a share of their annual profits, and collectively gave him a dinner; the “best families” invited him to tea or luncheon, croquet or “German,” and thus, having accomplished his professional and social début, Ulpian Grey, M.D., henceforth claimed and exercised the privilege of selecting his associates, and employing his time as inclination prompted.

In the comprehensive course of study to which he had so long devoted his attention, he had not omitted that immemorial stereotyped volume—Human Nature—which, despite the attempted revisions of sages, politicians, and ecclesiastics, remains as immutable as the everlasting hills; printing upon the leaves of the youngest century phases of guilt and guilelessness which find their prototypes in the gray dawn of time, when the “morning stars sang together,”—yea, busy to-day as of yore, slaughtering Abel, stoning Stephen, fretting Moses, crucifying Christ. Finding much that was admirable, and more that seemed ignoble, he gravely and reverently sought to possess himself of the subtle arcana of this marvellous book, rejecting as equally erroneous and unreliable the magnifying zeal of optimism and the gloomy jaundiced lenses of sneering pessimism,—thoroughly satisfied that it was a solemn duty, obligatory upon all, to study that complex paradoxical human nature, for the mastery of which Lucifer and Jesus had ceaselessly battled since the day when Adam and Eve were called “to dress and to keep” the Garden by the Euphrates,—that heaven-born, heaven-cursed, restless human nature, which now, as then,—

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“Grasps at the fruitage forbidden, The golden pomegranates of Eden, To quiet its fever and pain.”

A few days’ residence under the same roof, and a guarded observation of Salome’s conduct, sufficed to acquaint Dr. Grey with the ungenerous motives that induced her chagrin at his return; and, without permitting her to suspect that he had so accurately read her character, he endeavored as unobtrusively as possible to bridge by kindness and courtesy the chasm of jealous distrust which divided them.

Indolent and self-indulgent, she neither brooked dictation, nor gracefully accepted any suggestions at variance with the reigning whim; for, since she became an inmate of Miss Jane’s hospitable home, existence had been a mere dreamy, aimless succession of golden dawns and scarlet-curtained sunsets—a slow, quiet lapsing of weeks into months,—an almost stagnant stream curled by no eddies, freighted with few aspirations, bearing no drift.

The circumstances and associations of her early life had destroyed her faith in abstract nobility of character; self-abnegation she neither comprehended nor deemed possible; and of a stern, innate moral heroism she was utterly sceptical; consequently a delicately graduated scale of selfishness was the sole balance by which she was wont to weigh men and women.

Her irregular method of study and desultory reading had rather enervated than strengthened a mind naturally clear and vigorous, and left its acquisitions in a confused and kaleidoscopic mass, bordering upon intellectual salmagundi.

One warm afternoon, on his return from town, as Dr. Grey ascended the steps he noticed Salome reclining on a bamboo settee at the western end of the gallery, where the sunshine was hot and glaring, unobstructed by the thin leafy screen of vines that drooped from column to column on the southern and eastern sides of the building. If conscious of his approach she vouchsafed not the slightest intimation of it, and when he stood beside her she remained so immovable that he might have imagined her asleep but for the lambent light 25 which rayed out from eyes that seemed intently numbering the soft fluttering young leaves on a distant clump of elm trees, which made a lace-like tracery of golden glimmer and quivering shadow on the purple-headed clover at their feet.

Her fair but long slender fingers carelessly held a book that threatened to slip from their light relaxing grasp, and compressing his lips in order to smother a smile under his heavy moustache, Dr. Grey stooped and put his hand on her plump white wrist, where the blue veins were running riot.

“So young,—yet cataleptic! Unfortunate, indeed,” he murmured.

She shook off his touch, and instantly sat erect.

“I should be glad to know what you mean.”

“I have an admirable, nay, I venture to add, an almost infallible prescription for catalepsy, which has cured two chronic and apparently hopeless cases, and it will afford me great pleasure to try the third experiment upon you, since you seem pitiably in want of a remedy.”

“Thank you. Were I as free from all other ills that ‘flesh is heir to,’ as I certainly am of the taint of catalepsy, I might indeed congratulate myself upon an immunity which would obviate the dire necessity of ever meeting a physician.”

“Are you sure that you sufficiently understand the symptoms, to recognize them unerringly?”

The rose tint in her cheeks deepened to scarlet, as she haughtily drew herself up to her full height, and answered,—

“Dr. Grey himself is not more sagacious and adroit in detecting them; especially when open eyes discover unwelcome and disagreeable objects, which, wishing to avoid, they are still compelled to see. I hope you are satisfied that I comprehend you.”

“My meaning was not so occult as to justify a doubt upon that subject; and moreover, Salome, lack of astuteness is far from being your greatest defect. My motive should eloquently plead pardon for my candor, if I venture to tell you that your frequent affectation of unconsciousness of the presence of others, ‘is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance,’ and may prove prolific of annoyance in coming 26 years; for courtesy constitutes the keystone in the beautiful arch of social amenities which vaults the temple of Christian virtues. Lest you should take umbrage at my frankness, which ought to assure you of my interest in your happiness and improvement, permit me to remind you of the oriental definition of a faithful friend, that has more pith than verbal polish,—

“The true friend is not he who holds up Flattery’s mirror, In which the face to thy conceit most pleasing hovers; But he who kindly shows thee all thy vices, sirrah! And helps thee mend them ere an enemy discovers.”

Rising, Salome swept him a profound courtesy, and, while her fingers beat a tattoo on the book she held, she watched him with a peculiar sparkle in her eyes, which he had already learned to understand was a beacon flame kindled by intense displeasure. Dr. Grey seated himself, and, taking off his hat, said gently and winningly, as he pushed aside the hair that clustered in brown rings over his forehead,—

“Here is ample room for both of us. Sit down, and be reasonable; and let me catch a glimpse of the amiable elements which I feel assured must exist somewhere in your nature, notwithstanding your persistent endeavor to conceal them. Your Janus character has hitherto breathed only war—war; but, my young friend, I earnestly invoke its peaceful phase.”

The kindness of tone and evident sincerity of manner might have disarmed a prejudice better founded than hers; but wrath consumed all scruples, and, recollecting his forbearance with various former acts of rudeness, she presumed to attempt further aggressions.

Waving her hand in tacit rejection of the proffered share of the settee, she answered with more emphasis than perspicuity demanded,—

“Does your reading of the book of Job encourage you to believe that when those self-appointed counsellors—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—returned to their respective homes, they had cause to 27 congratulate themselves upon their cordial welcome to Job’s bank of ashes, or felt bountifully repaid for their voluntary mission of advice?”

“Unfortunately, no. My study of the record of the man of Uz renders painfully patent that humiliating fact—old as humanity—that sanctity of motive is no coat-of-mail to the luckless few who bravely bear to the hearts of those with whom they associate the unwelcome burden of unflattering truths. Phraseology—definitions—vary with advancing centuries, but not so the human impulses they express or explain; and friendship in the days of Job was the identical ‘Mutual Admiration Society,’ which at present converts its consistent servile members into Damon and Pythias, but punishes any violation of its canons with hatred dire and inextinguishable. Were I blessed with the genius of Praxiteles or of Angelo, I would chisel and bequeath to the world a noble statue,—typical of that rare, fearless friendship, which, walking through the lazaretto of diseased and morbid natures, bears not honied draughts alone, but scalpel, caustic, and bitter tonics.”

The calm sweetness of voice and mien lent to his words an influence which no amount of gall or satire could have imparted; and, in the brief silence that ensued, Salome’s heart was suddenly smitten with a humiliating consciousness of her childish flippancy,—her utter inferiority to this man, who seemed to walk serenely in a starry plane far beyond the mire where she grovelled.

Ridicule braced and exaggerated her weaknesses, and the strokes of sarcasm she could adroitly parry; but for persistent magnanimity she was no match, and recoiled before it like the traditional Fiend at sight of the Santo Sudario. Watching her companion’s quiet countenance, she saw a shadow drift over it, betokening neither anger nor scorn, but serious regret; and involuntarily she drooped her head to avoid the eyes that now turned full upon her.

“Since I became a man, and to some extent capable of discriminating with reference to the characters of persons with whom I found myself in contact, I have made and invariably observed one rule of conduct,—namely, never to associate with 28 those whom I cannot respect. Ignorance, want of refinement, irritability of temper, and even lack of generous impulses, I can forgive, when redeemed by candor and stern honesty of purpose; but arrogance, dissimulation, and all-absorbing selfishness I will not tolerate. In you I hoped and expected better qualities than you permit me to find, and I trust you will acquit me of intentional rudeness if I acknowledge that you have painfully disappointed me. It was, and still is, my earnest wish to befriend and to aid you,—to contribute to your happiness, and cordially sympathize in any annoyances that may surround you; but thus far you have rendered it impossible for me to esteem you, and while I do not presume that my good opinion is of any importance to you, our present relations compel me to request that our intercourse may in future be characterized by more urbanity than has yet graced it. My sister has been much pained by the feelings with which you evidently regard me, and since you and I are merely guests under her roof, a due deference to her wishes should certainly repress the exhibition of antipathies towards those whom she loves. It is her earnest desire (as expressed in a conversation which I had with her yesterday) that I should treat you as a young sister; and, for her sake, I offer you once more, and for the last time, my hearty assistance in any department in which I am able to render it.”

“The folds of your flag of truce do not conceal the drawn sword beneath it; and let me tell you, sir, it is very evident that ‘demand’ would far better have expressed your purpose than the word ‘request.’”

“At least you should not be surprised if I doubt whether you regard any truce as inviolable, and am inclined to suspect you of latent treachery.”

“Your accusation of dissimulation is unjust, for I have openly, fearlessly manifested my prejudice—my aversion.”

“That you dislike me is my misfortune, but that you allow your detestation to generate discord in our small circle is an error which I trust you will endeavor to correct. That I have many faults I shall not attempt to deny; but mutual 29 forbearance will prove a mutual blessing. For Jane’s sake, shall there not be peace between us?”

Standing before her, he looked gravely down into her face, where flush and sparkle had died out, and saw—what she was too proud to confess—that he had partially conquered her waywardness, that she was reluctantly yielding to his influence; but he understood her nature too thoroughly to pause contented with this slight advantage in a contest which he foresaw must determine the direction of her aims through life.

“Salome, I am waiting for your decision.”

Her lips stirred twice, but the words they framed were either too haughty or too humble, for she refused them utterance; and, while she deliberated, two tears settled the question by rolling swiftly over her cheeks, and falling upon the cherry ribbon at her throat.

Accepting it as a tacit signature to his terms of capitulation, and satisfied with the result, Dr. Grey forbore to urge verbal assurances. Taking the book from her hand, he said, pleasantly,—

“Are you fond of French? I frequently find you poring over your grammar.”

“I have never had a teacher, nor have I conquered the conjugations; consequently, I know comparatively little about the language.”

“Are you studying it with the intention of familiarizing yourself with French literature, or merely to enable you to translate the few phrases that modern writers sprinkle through novels and essays?”

“For neither purpose, but simply because it is the court language of the old world; and, if I should succeed in my hope of visiting Europe, I might regret my ignorance of the universally received medium of communication.”

“Have you, then, no desire to master those noble bursts of eloquence by which Racine, Bossuet, Fénélon, and Cousin have charmed the intellects of all nations?”

“None, whatever. I might as well tell you at once, what you will inevitably discover ere long if you condescend to inspect my meagre attainments, that for abstract study I have 30 no more inclination than to fondle some mummy in the crypts of Cyrene, or play ‘blind man’s buff’ with the corpses in the Morgue. My limited investments of time and thought in intellectual stock have been made solely with reference to speedy dividends of most practical and immediate benefits; and knowledge per se—knowledge which will not pay me handsome interest—has no more value in my eyes than a handful of the dust of those Atures found in the cavern of Ataruipe. Doubtless you think me pitiably benighted, and possibly I might find more favor in your sight if I affected a prodigious amount of literary enthusiasm, and boundless admiration for scholarship and erudition; but that would prove too troublesome an imposture,—for I am constitutionally, habitually, and premeditatedly lazy.”

She saw a smile lurking under his heavy lashes, and half ambushed in the corners of his mouth; and, vaguely conscious that she was rendering herself ridiculous, she bit her lip with ill-disguised vexation.

“Salome, I am afraid that under the garb of a jest you are making me acquainted with a very mournful truth. You have probably never heard of Lessing,—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.”

“Oh, I am not quite as ignorant as a Pitcairn’s Islander; and I think I have somewhere seen that such a person as Lessing lived at Wolfenbüttel. He once said, ‘The chase is always worth more than the quarry.’ And again, ‘Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand Truth, and in his left Search after Truth, deign to proffer me the one I might prefer,—in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request Search after Truth.’ When you have nothing more important to occupy your attention, give ten minutes’ reflection to his admonition, and perhaps it may declare a dividend years hence. Last week I found your algebra on the rug before the library grate, and noticed several sums worked out in pencil on the margin. Are you fond of mathematics?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“What progress have you made?”