Читать книгу Miriam Monfort - Catherine A. Warfield - Страница 9

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For a discarded lover heartlessly played with, as she herself confessed he had been, Claude Bainrothe bore himself very proudly and calmly in Evelyn Erle's presence, I thought. At first, there was a shade of coolness, of pique even in my own manner toward him as the memory of Evelyn's insinuations rose between us; but after the lapse of a few weeks all thought of this kind was put away, and he was received with a pleasure as undisguised, as it was innocent and undesigning on my part.

The repugnant idea of succeeding to Evelyn in his affections had stifled the very germs of coquetry, and my manner to him was unmistakable; nor was it without evident dissatisfaction that Mr. Basil Bainrothe surveyed the ruin of his hopes.

A sudden and painful change took place about midsummer in Claude's manner toward me (with Evelyn it was uniform). He became cold, restrained, embarrassed in his intercourse with me, hitherto so frank and brotherly. He made his visits shorter and at last at greater intervals; yet I knew, through others, that he remained strictly at home, eschewing all places of amusement, all society—"all occupation even," as Mr. Basil Bainrothe himself complained.

"I can't think what has got into Claude lately," he said to my father one day at our dinner-table. "The boy mopes. He is in love, I believe, but with whom I can't conjecture," and he glanced askance at Evelyn and me.—"Can you assist me, ladies?"

"Not with me, I assure you," said Evelyn, proudly. "That measure has been trodden, and the dance is over."

"Nor with me," I faltered, for the careless words had struck to my heart. "That fancy dance has yet to be solicited. We both plead innocent, you see, Mr. Bainrothe," and I tried to laugh, but the glittering, kaleidoscopic eye was fixed upon me, and my face was crimson.

"Never blush, Miriam," whispered Evelyn, maliciously, "it makes you look the color of a new mahogany bedstead. You are best pale, child. Always remember that."

"It must be with Miss Stanbury, then," said Mr. Bainrothe, evasively. "She is a very pretty girl, and I don't wonder at Claude's infatuation. The old man is rich, too; it will answer very well, I think. What do you say, Mr. Monfort."

"Well, really, I think Claude could scarcely do better," rejoined my ever literal father. "She is an admirable young person, pious, and discreetly brought up—and—yes, quite pretty, certainly. Let us drink to his success in that quarter.—Ladies!—Mr. Bainrothe!—fill your glasses.—Franklin, the sherry.—Morton, the port. Which will you have, Bainrothe? or do you prefer Rhine wines?"

"A glass of Hockheimer, if you have it convenient, Franklin. Those heavy wines are too heating for our summers, I think, Mr. Monfort. You yourself would do well to follow my example."

"Thank you," said my father, loftily. "When you feed lions on pound-cake you may expect to see Englishmen drink German acidulations instead of the generous juice of the grape—fostered on southern soil, above volcanoes even—to which they have been used since the time of the last Henrys. Beer were a better alternative. Give me claret or madeira."

Mr. Bainrothe had his limits, and usually took care not to exceed them. My father's easy good-nature was converted into frozen hauteur at any open effort to transcend the boundaries of his independence. He gloried in "Magna Charta," and never knowingly sacrificed his baronial privileges, yet he was wax in the hands of a skillful wheedler, and his "adamantine will" was readily fused in the fires of flattery.

We drank the proposed toast, much to Mr. Bainrothe's discomfiture. He had made the remark as a skillful feeler, and was mortified at my father's ready acquiescence in his plans. Of course, Evelyn and I both saw through the unskillful ruse, and pledged him with hearty malice; but he had yet another shot in reserve, which told with fatal effect.

"Mr. Biddle has offered me a cashiership for Claude," he remarked, carelessly, "in a thriving town in Georgia, and I shall accept for him forthwith. Then, if Miss Stanbury chooses to accompany him into exile, it will be all for the best; but, were he about to remain here, I would not suffer him to think of matrimony for years to come. 'A young man married is a young man marred,' as Shakespeare says somewhere, I believe; and I agree with him. A youth of twenty-one ought to be free for a season until he can shape his life."

I felt myself tremble from head to foot. I had never contemplated the possibility of his absence, and the conviction of my deep interest in him flashed across me for the first time with lightning force and vividness. Evelyn did not reproach me for blushing this time; I was pale enough to satisfy even her spleen. Indeed, some better feeling than she had before manifested seemed to inspire her now, for she filled another glass of wine and motioned me to drink it. I had merely sipped from mine when papa proposed his toast, and Franklin had borne it away with the others in making ready for the dessert.

"Don't let that man read you," she said, in a low, eager voice, not lost on me. I drank the wine, and met his glance steadily this time, and gave him look for look. My secret had nerved me well.

That evening Claude Bainrothe came.

"When do you enter the sacred bands of matrimony with Miss Stanbury, Mr. Bainrothe?" asked Evelyn, in her usual, cool, provoking way, sipping a glass of iced lemonade as she spoke, which Claude had brought her from the refreshment-slab and humbly offered.

"And when do you assume your office in Georgia?" I asked in the next breath, encouraged by her example, and perhaps, alas! eager to know the truth, scarcely lifting my eyes to his as I spoke.

He glanced from one to the other with a bewildered air, quite foreign from his usual self-possession.

"I protest, ladies, I do not understand your allusions," he replied at last, with such an air of truth that, taking pity on him, we explained the matter laughingly.

"My poor father is falling into that sear and yellow leaf, his dotage," he said, "that is evident; what could possess him to maunder so? I really believe he is in love with Miss Stanbury himself, and is wire-working merely to gain my consent. As to going to Georgia, I would as soon bury myself up to my neck in the sea-sand and bear the vertical sun for twenty sequent noons, as to dream of such a step. The old gentleman is a lunatic, and should be cared for without delay. I will get Dr. Parrish to see after him to-morrow."

"But I did hear you say you were going to Copenhagen with our minister," said George Gaston, who had swung himself softly up to our party on his crutches, unobserved by any one, while Claude was speaking, and now stood glaring upon him.

"Ah, that is a different matter. I may go there, George. I am told it is a very gay court; besides, I am curious about Denmark, naturally. Every one is who loves Shakespeare and the 'royal Dane,' you know."

Again that fatal pallor of mine swept from my heart to brow, and this time the large, dark gray eye of the boy was fixed on me with agony unspeakable. He dropped it suddenly, wheeled on his supporting-sticks, and turned away, ghastly pale himself, to seek the shelter of the portico, where I joined him a few minutes later.

"Are you ill, George?" I asked. "I felt anxious about you when I saw you leave the parlor so suddenly. Have you had one of your spells?"

"A very severe spell, Miriam; but not of the usual kind." I understood him now. There was a dry anguish in the very tone of his voice that smote heavily on my ear, yet I felt impatient with him, provoked beyond endurance.

"George, you should be more of a man," I said, with asperity, "than to yield in this way to every impulse that besets you. Your whims are hard to bear with lately, and scarcely worth understanding, I am convinced."

"Would I were more or less of a man!" he answered, meekly. "I should suffer less, probably."

"Tell me what does ail you, George Gaston," I added, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, caused by his patient, deprecating manner. "You know you always have my warmest sympathy, and affection—sisterly interest."

"Ah, Miriam, it is that! You love that man; yes, you love him a thousand-fold more than you have ever loved me. I suspected it before—I know it now; and I would rather see you floating a corpse on the river, with your dead face turned up to heaven, than married to that man, I hate him so!"

The last words were ground between his set teeth, and he trembled with passion.

"George," I said, "you are still a child in years, in strength, in stature! I, but a few months older, am already a woman in age, experience, feeling, character. It is always thus with persons of our sexes who contract childish friendships—one outgrows the other. Then there are bitterness, reproach, suffering, resentment, on one part or the other. But is this just? Remember Byron and Miss Chaworth—how was it with them? He grasped too much, and lost every thing; he embittered his whole nature, his whole life, for the want of common-sense to guide him; but, with almost as much genius—more, in some things, than he possessed—you HAVE this governing principle. I know my dearest George will do me justice. I shall be an old, faded woman when you are of an age to marry—unlovely in your eyes, George,"—I hesitated. "I have always hoped you would be our Mabel's husband. You know you have promised me." I smiled tearfully this time.

He bounded off the bench, interrupting me with a low cry. "Do not mock me, Miriam Monfort," he exclaimed, "if you can do no better. My God! a baby of five years old suggested as a wife by you, my idol! Oh, yes, wildly-beloved Miriam, the noblest, truest, as I have ever thought you—the most beautiful, too, surely, of all God's created beings!" and he caught my hand wildly.

"George, you are dreaming," I said; "your vivid fancy misleads you utterly. I am not beautiful—you cannot think so; no one has ever thought me so; you must not say such an absurd thing of me. It only humiliates me. But I do believe I still deserve your esteem. Let us separate now, and to-morrow come to me in a better mood."

"If I must give you up," he murmured, in a low, grieved voice, "let it be to a husband who loves and appreciates you—is worthy of you. I cannot tell you all I know—have heard; but of this I am certain: Claude Bainrothe loves you not! It is Evelyn he worships, and you are blind not to see it; Evelyn who has goaded him almost to madness already for her own purposes. I heard—but no, I cannot tell you this; I ought not—honor forbids;" and he laid his hand on his boyish breast, in a tragic, lofty manner, all his own, that almost made me smile.

"I know, I know all this, dear George," I said. "Claude Bainrothe addressed Evelyn before he knew me, and she refused him. Nor have I craved the honor, this is all that can be said as yet, of being her successor." I faltered here. "Let this satisfy you for the present. He has not spoken to me."

"But you love him—love him, Miriam!" he groaned. "Oh, I saw it plainly to-night, and, what is far more terrible and hard to bear, he saw it too! He was watching you from the corner of his furtive, downcast eye when he was speaking of going to Copenhagen, and a smile trembled around his mouth when you turned so pale—white as a poplar-leaf, Miriam, when the wind blows it over! If I were a woman I would cut out my heart rather than open it thus to the gaze of any man, far less one like that, shallow, selfish, superficial. O Miriam! not worthy of you at all—not fit to tie your shoe-latchet!"

"George, you overrate me, you always did, and—and—you undervalue Mr. Bainrothe, believe me; nay, I am sure you do. Let us part now, George. My father is calling me, you hear. Go home, my own dear boy, and rest and pray. Oh, be convinced that I love you better than all the world, except those I ought to love more.—Yes, yes, papa! I am coming.—Good-night, dear George."

And I kissed his clammy brow, hastening in the next moment to my father's side, who, missing me, could not rest in this new phase of his until I was forthcoming. Certainly, whatever tenderness I had missed in former years was amply lavished on me now. Evelyn, Mabel—all former idols sank out of sight in my presence, and the very touch of my hand, the sound of my voice, seemed to inspire him with happiness and a new sense of security. Sometime I flattered myself that I had earned this affection, since it had not seemed my birthright, nor come to me earlier; but no, it was the grace of God, I must believe, touching his heart at last, as the rod of Moses brought forth waters from the rock. Yet the simile is at fault here: my father's heart was never a stone, but tender and true and constant ever, even if locked away.

It may seem strange, but from the very evidences of his carelessness, as they seemed to others, I gathered, after a time, the blissful conviction that Claude Bainrothe was not indifferent to me. His reserve, his moroseness almost, the despairing way in which he spoke sometimes of his future life, his want of purpose, of interest in what was passing around him, his entire self-possession with Evelyn, so different from his embarrassment with me; his manner of pursuing me with his eyes, and holding me fast, and the long sidelong glances he often dropped at my feet like offerings, as I detected his vigilance—all persuaded me that what I most wished to believe was true, and that I had awakened interest if not passion in his heart, for—at last, I loved him!

The time came when his own lips confirmed my suspicions, my hopes—when faintly, and in broken accents, he related to me the story of his love; mine, as he declared, since the evening of our first meeting; and asked my troth in turn. I was so inexperienced in matters of this sort, I scarcely knew how to behave, I suppose; besides, I never thought of giving any other reply than the one he craved, for I too had inclined to him from the first. I recognized this now, and did not deny it when he urged me for the truth, holding my hands in his, and looking into my eyes in a deep and tender and devoted way peculiar to himself, that thrilled to my very life—an adoring expression that I have seen in no other gaze than his own, and which cast a glamour about him, I well believe, irresistible wherever it was exercised.

It was in September that we became engaged, with the joyful coincidence of Mr. Bainrothe, the somewhat reluctant consent of my father, the half-derisive approbation of Evelyn, the entire disapproval, expressed in eloquent silence, of the whole Stanbury family. For a time, this grave coldness on their part alienated me greatly from them all, George Gaston especially; and had it not been for Mabel, and the bond she proved between us, we might have been divided for life thereafter.

My father's declining health alone threw a bleakness over that rosy time of joy, and held in check the exuberance of my happy spirit, brimming like sparkling wine above the vase that contained it. Sometimes, when I met Evelyn's cold and gloomy eye, I felt myself rebuked for the indulgence of my perfect happiness. "She knows that my father is more ill than he seems!" I would conjecture—"Dr. Pemberton has told her what he conceals from me. I am making festal garlands in readiness for my father's grave, perhaps." Then with tears and entreaties I would question her: "I cannot be mistaken," I would say; "something is wrong with you. Is it about my father? If not of him, what is it, Evelyn, that makes your face like a stone mask of late—once all life and joy?" "Miriam, I am not quite well," she would reply evasively, or say, "I am meditating a step that will cost me dear. My uncle, the Earl of Pomfret, the head of our house since my grandfather's death, you know, writes me to visit him. It is this fatal necessity—for such for some reasons I feel it—that oppresses me so heavily."

"Why a necessity, dear Evelyn, why go at all? You certainly can never feel to any relative as you do to my father and yours."

"Your father does not find me as important to his happiness as he once did, Miriam. You have absorbed his whole affection of late; even Mabel, once his darling and plaything, is put aside."

"He surrendered her to me again, Evelyn, when I returned; this is all, believe me. He loves, he esteems you as much as ever; he consults you in all his arrangements. He has made you the mistress of his house; your judgment, your advice, are paramount with, him as to all matters of outlay; and, Evelyn, suffer me to speak to you on one subject of great delicacy—sister! I must. Whenever you marry from this house, understand well that you shall not go empty-handed."

"Fortune is not his to bestow," she responded, "and large charities have absorbed, I know, much of his yearly income, princely as that is. Besides, he reinvests all that remains from that source for Mabel, as I know. I feel assured he will provide for me, but it must be in a very small way, and I must go to England and make my establishment there."

"Would you marry for money, Evelyn?" I asked gravely. "O sister, can you conceive of no higher happiness than this?"

"I can," she said with emotion, while her lips blanched to the hue of ashes. "I have dreamed such a dream in days past, but now the dark reality alone remains and sweeps all before it. I shall embrace my first eligible offer regardless of feeling, and I prefer to cast my destiny with my own people, however estranged they may be. Certainly, this letter is not very affectionate, nor even a courteous one from so near a relative," and she placed in my hand the cold and supercilious note of the Earl of Pomfret, containing a permission to visit his castle, rather than invitation.

"Yet you will go, Evelyn?"

"Miriam, I must go. I should go mad were I to stay here, or die in the struggle."

"Sister, what can this be? Evelyn, hear me: I swear to you, on the day of my majority, to endow you richly in your own right. It is independence you want—you shall have it. My father will consent to this I know, and consider it no more than your due."

"You are kind," she said; "generous, very. You are not like your mother's people in that respect, such as they are in these degenerate days, at least. She herself was unlike them, I have heard, for her hand was princely. But, Miriam, I could not receive such obligations from you—ought not. Besides—your husband!"

"Ah, Evelyn, there is nothing he would refuse me—nothing."

A gloomy mockery transfused itself into her eyes, her lips were fixed in a suppressed and sneering smile. Incredulity was written on her aspect. Her face at that moment was very repulsive to contemplate.

"You do not believe in men," I said, coldly. "I have always remarked it; yet there are some worthy of confidence, believe me."

"Very few, Miriam, and Claude Bainrothe is not unlike the majority of his fellows. Men count it no wrong to deceive women."

"O Evelyn, you are too severe, I think. Why seek to shake my confidence in the man I love? He did not happen to suit your fancy, and you rejected him. I took what you cast aside, humbly, thankfully, dear Evelyn. Why resent this, and scorn me for my humility? Let not your pride for me make you unjust toward him. You, of all women, can best afford to be generous to Claude Bainrothe."

But still the cold shadow veiled her face, and still she looked inauspiciously on our betrothal, which, owing to our youth, it was understood, should continue a year. In the interval I was to travel with my father to the different large cities of the Union which I had never seen, and abide awhile in Washington.

His health, Dr. Pemberton thought, required this change, but a darker one was in store for him.

On Christmas-day, of that year, he was smitten with paralysis, and his decline was sure and rapid from that hour. Let me pass over the agony of that period of six weeks, lengthened into years by the dread tension of anxiety, most relentless of the furies. But for the confidence I felt in Claude's affection, and the vista of hope it opened for me, I think I should have succumbed under the unequal struggle.

During this period, his attentions to me and to my helpless father were most kind and assiduous. Mr. Bainrothe and Evelyn, too, between whom some unexplained alienation had existed for some time, met in apparent harmony above his bed of death.

In addition to the services of our own dear and valued physician, we had others of eminence coming and going daily, with the knowledge in their own breasts that all was vain.

Still I never ceased entirely to hope until the very last. "He is not old, he is still vigorous," I would say to myself. "There may be—there must be—reaction. I have so often heard him boast of his English constitution, I cannot, oh, I cannot think that the end is yet!"

I wondered then at the inattention of the Stanburys, in whose disinterested friendship I had reposed so much confidence, even though a shadow of late had been thrown over our intercourse by my engagement with Claude Bainrothe, a shadow of which I thought I saw the substance in the bitter jealousy and rancorous, unreasonable love and hatred of the morbid George Gaston.

Later I found by the merest accident, through one note of his that had been left in a drawer of a desk long disused, that Mr. Gerald Stanbury and Evelyn had maintained a rather fierce correspondence on the subject of her refusal to accept his services at my father's pillow; founded, as she alleged, on the recent unexplained but deep-rooted aversion Mr. Monfort seemed to have imbibed for his neighbor and friend, and which his physicians said must be regarded.

Allusion was made, not unmixed with bitterness, in Mr. Stanbury's note, to this assertion of hers, which he pronounced, if true, to rest on the misrepresentations of villains who had interposed between the too confiding Mr. Monfort and himself for no good purpose. No names were given, but it was easy to see to whom his reference was made, and I had every reason to suppose that Evelyn had communicated these opinions to those most interested in knowing them long before this record accidentally fell into my hands.

On the day of the funeral, however, Mr. and Mrs. Stanbury were present, with Laura and George. All seemed deeply affected, and one by one came to me in my shadowed chamber with a few words of tender sympathy or kindly condolence, for I could not bear to go down into that crowded parlor and see him dead amid all that tide of life, who had so lately stood there powerful and beloved—Monfort the master!

It was a superb day, they told me, such as we often have at that season in our changeful clime, and the distant peal of military music, the chiming of bells, the firing of cannon, the roar of the awakened multitude, reached my ear even in that secluded street, that quiet room.

The people were celebrating an anniversary that in all times has brought joy and pride to millions of united hearts. It was the birthday of Washington.

Laura Stanbury remained with me while all the rest went to the stately funeral, Evelyn leading Mabel down-stairs, they told me, attired in her little black dress, in sad contrast with her ivory skin, her yellow hair, her childish years, and her unconsciousness of the grave loss she had sustained; Mrs. Austin following these, her darlings, to go with them in the principal mourning-coach, in which Mr. Bainrothe also found himself ensconced, by some diplomacy of his own, no doubt, all clad in sables, and with his polished aspect fixed in woe!

After the funeral, Dr. Pemberton came up for a few minutes to my chamber. He found me reasonably calm and composed, and expressed his gratification at my condition.

"Now, do be very careful of yourself, my dear Miriam, or you may have one of your sleepy attacks, and they are exhausting to Nature, trying to both body and soul. We must guard against any thing of this sort at this time. You know how apt they are to supervene on excitement of any kind with you." He said this in his own kind, encouraging manner.

"Then they are strictly nervous?" I inquired.

"I don't know; can't say, indeed.—Here, Mrs. Austin, give Miriam one of these powders," and he drew them from his pocket-book, "every six hours until I come again, and keep her as quiet as possible. Some light nourishment she must take, but let there be no preaching and praying about her this evening, and advise Mr. Bainrothe to go quietly home for the present. She must not be excited, only soothed. Let Mabel come, of course."

He came again on the next day and the next, and so on until he was satisfied that all was going on very well, he said, but he would not suffer my father's will to be opened for a week, knowing that my presence would be necessary at the reading, and he permitted no disturbance of any kind to approach me during that interval of probation.

"Do you think you could get through with a few business details to-morrow?" he asked me on the last day of his visit. "They all seem very impatient, though I cannot see why."

"I think so, Dr. Pemberton."

"Well, then, notify Mr. Bainrothe to make ready for you in the library at any hour you may fix upon. He was your father's attorney, it seems, and had the will in his keeping. Of course it will be a very simple matter to carry out its provisions, since all was fixed before, as every one knows, but there may be some little agitation. Now, don't give way, I charge you."

"How can I help it. Dr. Pemberton?"

"Oh, with a will like yours, one can do a great deal. I had an obstinate patient once determined not to die, and she did not die, though death was due. Resistance is natural to some temperaments. Yours is one of them. Fight off those attacks, Miriam, in future."

"I will try," I said, half amused at his suggestion, "but, if all physicians gave such prescriptions, medicine would be at a discount."

"Not at all. Medicine is a great aid in any case—I have never thought it more. A doctor is only a pilot; he steers a ship sometimes past dangerous places on which it would founder otherwise, but he never pretends, unless he is a charlatan, to upheave shoals and rocks, or to control tempests. He can only mind his rudder and shift his sails; the rest is with Providence. Now, suppose the captain of this ship is calm and firm, and coincides with the pilot's efforts, instead of counteracting and embarrassing them. Don't you see the advantage to the ship?"

"Oh, certainly, and I admire the ingenuity of your allegory. You must have been studying Bunyan, lately."

"No, Miriam, I have little time for books, save those necessary to my profession. I study a mightier volume daily than scholar ever wrote—the wondrous mind and body of man, the one illustrated by the other, and both so mutually dependent that short-sighted people have occasionally confounded them, yet distinct after all as God and the universe."

"I am glad to hear you say this; doctors are so often accused of being materialists."

"No men living have less excuse for being so. The phenomenon of death alone ought to set that matter at rest in any reasoning mind. The impalpable is gone, and the material perishes. It is so plain that he that runs might read, one would think. That sudden change from volition to inertia is, in itself, conviction to every right-seeing mind."

"Yet I wish we knew more," I mused, aloud. "We ought to know more, it seems to me. God has not told us half enough for our satisfaction. It is so cruel to leave us in the dark, lit only by partial flashes of lightning. If we were certain of the future, we could bear separation better from those we love. It would not seem so hopeless."

"If we were certain of the future, we would not bear it all," he remarked, "but grow impatient and exacting like children who rise in the night to examine the Christmas stocking, rather than wait until morning. Most often we should join those we loved rather than bide our time if we were certain. Moreover, what merit would there be in faith or fortitude? No, Miriam, it is best as it is, believe me. Every thing is for the best that God has done; we must not dare to question the ways any more than the will of the Eternal."

"You ought to have been a preacher, Dr. Pemberton," I said, smiling sadly, "instead of a physician."

"No, my dear little girl, I ought to have been just what I am, since it was God's will. And now be calm and self-sustaining until I come again, which will be before long, I think."

I tried as far as in me lay to regard the instructions of my kind friend and physician (and happy are those who unite both in one person), but, prepare as we may to receive the waves of the sea when we bathe in its margin, and skillful as we may believe ourselves in buffeting or avoiding them, there comes one now and then with a strength and suddenness that sweeps us from our feet, overthrows us, and lays us prostrate at the sandy bottom of the ocean, to emerge therefrom half stifled with the bitter brine.

Such experience was destined to be mine before many hours.