Читать книгу Rutledge - Miriam Coles Harris - Страница 8

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"Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,

Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.

The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow

They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats.

And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then?

Who's sorry for a gnat—or girl?"

E.B. BROWNING.

The question, whether I should breakfast downstairs or alone, was settled by the ringing of the bell before Kitty had half done my hair, and as I would not for worlds have been two minutes late at any meal that Mr. Rutledge was to share, I determined to "take the benefit of the act," and remain an invalid till dinner-time.

"What a dismal day, Miss!" remarked my maid, as she made herself busy in removing my breakfast from the table. "How shall you manage to amuse yourself?"

"I don't mind the rain in the least," I answered, wheeling my admired chair up to the window, and throwing myself into it, with a lapful of books and work. "I think a rainy day is splendid."

And so, indeed, I found it for a while. I read till I had extracted all the honey from the pile of reviews and magazines before me, and then pushed them away, and leaning against the window, gazed out on the dreary landscape. A sheet of rain and mist hid the lake, the pine grove looked black and sullen, the trees in the park tossed mournfully about their naked branches, as showers of yellow leaves fell in gusts upon the ground; the wind moaned dismally around the house, and dashed the rain, by fits and starts, against the windows with a heavy sound. It was very nice to feel that it could not get in, and that there was stout glass and stone between me and the pitiless autumn storm, and a snug and cosy shelter from its fury. But by and by I grew rather tired of watching the rain and the leaves, and yawning, began to cast about for some more attractive occupation. This I found for a short time in my worsted work, which I disinterred from the depths of my trunk, and applied myself to in great earnest for half an hour. But the motive for exertion was wanting; I could not help thinking wearily, that there was not the least hurry about finishing it, and those roses would blow, on demand, any time during the next six years, with as much advantage as at present.

And so I laid it down and took to the window again, wondering, with a sigh, whether all young ladyhood were like this; and if it were, how it happened that we did not hear of more early deaths—deaths from utter ennui and exhaustion. I had for so long been used to having every half hour in the day filled up with some unavoidable exercise of mind or body, that I felt entirely lost without the routine, and firmly resolved, as soon as I should be settled at my aunt's, to begin a course of study which should fill up all these idle moments, and give some vigor to my faculties. "I should die of this in a month," I thought; and seizing one of the rejected Reviews, the only literature at hand, I resolutely set myself to read the longest, driest paper in it. And really, after the task was accomplished, though I am sorry to say I was not by much the clearer in my views on the particular branch of science of which it treated, still I felt decidedly better satisfied with myself for the effort, and experienced less compunction in taking, after lunch, a short nap.

Kitty had been absent all the morning, having been detailed for some pressing laundry work by the practical Mrs. Roberts, for which I was still owing her a grudge, when, just as I awoke from my nap, she walked in, and accepting the chair I offered her, made me quite a little visit. I exerted myself to appear amiable, and was congratulating myself on the success of my efforts, and on the absence of all disagreeable topics, when, just as she was going, her keen eyes having made the circuit of the room many times, she detected something amiss in the bed, and walking across to the recess where it stood, began to examine the manner in which it was made.

"That Kitty," she said, "was not to be trusted to make even a bed by herself. She was sure I did not lie comfortably."

And stooping down, she began to dissect it. My heart gave a spasmodic thump, and then stood "stock-still for sheer amazement," not to say consternation, when it flashed across me that I had left the guilty miniature between the mattresses, where, in the sleepless nervousness of last night, I had put it, in order to have it as far out of the way as possible. It was the strangest thing that I should never have thought of it since I waked up. "And now," I thought, with a cold chill, "now it is probably under Mrs. Roberts' very nose, and Kitty and I are undone." I hardly breathed as I watched her throwing back blanket and sheet, and making sad havoc among the bolsters and pillows, giving the one a contemptuous shake, and the other an indignant poke; all the while most animatedly anathematizing the the unlucky Kitty. I had already pictured Kitty and myself dragged by the hair of our guilty heads, before Mr. Rutledge, for judgment, and terrified into confession by that awful look of his, when to my unspeakable relief, Mrs. Roberts stopped just short of the mattress, and coming indignantly across the room, rang for Kitty, who promptly answered the bell. She looked somewhat blank to find that the summons was not to dress me, but to stand one of Mrs. Roberts' tirades.

Mrs. Roberts was, I believe, troubled with rheumatism, "the worst kind," and the cold storm and east wind had aggravated these long-tried enemies to an unbearable pitch, and it was well known in the house that there was but one remedy that succeeded in the least in allaying the irritation of her nerves, but one soothing panacea, and that was, a thorough and satisfactory "blow-out" or scolding; the raking fore-and-aft some adversary's craft with the unerring fire of her indignation, the entire annihilation, soul and body, for the time being, of the victim that happened first to cross her path. And tradition pointed to Kitty as the favorite scape-goat on these occasions. She knew her fate, I am certain, from the moment she caught the dull glare of Mrs. Roberts' eye, and doggedly tossing her pretty head to one side, stood ready to confront her.

Did she call that bed made, Mrs. Roberts would like to know? Kitty considered it made—yes.

She did, did she? Then she would please to come across the room and try if she could do it as well the second time.

I made Kitty an agonized gesture, which she promptly understood, but which Mrs. Roberts also caught sight of, and was at her elbow in an instant. It was a pretty severe contest of skill between the veteran rat-catcher and the keen little mouser; Mrs. Roberts knew there was something, and inly vowed to scent it out; Kitty was as determined to elude her vigilance, and as is not unusual, youth and dexterity triumphed. From under the very eyes of Mrs. Roberts, Kitty, under cover of a zealous shake of the mattress, bore off the miniature, and smuggling it in her apron, passed by where I was sitting, and threw it into my lap. I thrust it down to the lowest depths of my pocket, and looked with admiration at Kitty's unshaken composure, as she continued her work under the galling fire of Mrs. Roberts' sarcasms.

The bed at last was made irreproachably; even Mrs. Roberts could find no fault with its unruffled exterior; though to my unpractised eye, it had looked much the same before its revisal. It seemed a long time before the antagonists withdrew, and a longer still before my tranquillity of temper was restored. How I wished the miniature safely back in Kitty's trunk, in the furthest corner of the attic! That came of doing what I was ashamed of! I did not feel as if I could look any one in the face till it was out of my hands. I did not venture to ring for Kitty, for I felt certain Mrs. Roberts stood with the door of her room ajar, ready to pounce upon her if she came in sight again; so I exerted myself to perform the duties of my toilette unaided. They were not arduous, and I was soon dressed, and vainly trying to interest myself in my embroidery till the bell should ring. It was still an open question whether I should go downstairs; I half inclined to playing invalid a little longer, and taking this one more meal in my room. But then the dreary prospect of my solitary dinner, and the long dull twilight, with nothing but my own thoughts for entertainment, and the longer, duller evening, with nothing to amuse but what had failed of that object during the day, weighed down the balance in favor of a change of scene, and I was on my feet in an instant, as my watch pointed to three, and the bell announced dinner, simultaneously. I pushed the worsted into my workbox, and putting the miniature hastily into a drawer, essayed to lock it, but the key was defective, for some cause, and would not turn, and not daring to run the risk of being late, I again put it into my pocket, and hurried down.

As I reached the lower hall, I remembered that I had not the least idea which door led into the dining-room, and so had to try three or four which gave no evidence of being inhabited, furniture being covered and windows closed, before I hit upon the right one. I entered hesitatingly, not discovering, till I was fairly in the room, that I was the only occupant of it. The table was laid for two, and the dinner was already served, but the master was not yet down. As some minutes passed and he did not appear, I had time to look around, and get acquainted with the salle à manger. It was a fine room, old-fashioned though it was; and modern architecture has still to produce its rival in my eyes. The ceiling was very high, the fireplace wide, with tiled jambs; the wood-work carved in stiff but stately patterns; the windows were deep, with enticing window-seats, and the walls were covered with pictures. Pictures, I imagined, of people who had once owned Rutledge: some of them, perhaps, lived in this very house, ate and drank in this very room. There were several portraits, that I rather hurried over, of pompous-looking people in very old-time style, but I knew in a moment the handsome picture over the mantelpiece. It was the late Mr. Rutledge, like Mr. Arthur, but infinitely handsomer, on a larger scale, with a jovial, pleasant face, but I thought, less intellectual in the expression. Then I was certain that the picture on the right represented Richard, the heir, who had died so soon after his father. Ah! But, I thought, what a handsome, gentle face! What soft eyes! If Mr. Arthur had only looked like him, what a nice, thing it would be to be dining tête-à-tête with him. Quel dommage! If he had only lived! But I felt inclined to laugh when I remembered that his younger brother might easily, as far as age was concerned, have been my father, and the handsome Richard himself could almost, well, yes, quite, have stood to me in the relation, more reverend than romantic, of grandfather.

So, with a wistful look at the pensive, delicate face that never had grown, never could grow old, I glanced at the empty panel that intervened between this picture and the the next. That space surely once had held a portrait, and with a rapid transition of fancy, I thought of the picture with its face to the wall, in the deserted room upstairs. That was it, I made no manner of doubt, that had once hung here. Beyond it was the mother's portrait, fair, gentle, and sad: beneath this picture, and depending from its frame, hung a little crayon sketch, that I examined with interest, thinking to find it identical, possibly, with the miniature, which I pulled from my pocket to compare. But a glance refuted that idea; not the faintest likeness between them, nothing in common but human features. It represented (the sketch I mean) a boy of about my own age, with such a fine, glowing, ardent face as made "new life-blood warm the bosom," only to look into his truthful eyes, only to catch the merry smile that lingered about his handsome mouth. It had, however, such a likeness to Mr. Rutledge, that I should, despite the difference that time had wrought have imagined him to be the original of the picture, had I not found, written hastily and faintly in one corner, "Obit. 1830," and some words in Latin that I could not make myself mistress of.

I was so intent upon it, that I did not notice Mr. Rutledge's entrance till he stood beside me. I pocketed the miniature, which I still held in my hand, in hot haste, and turned to meet his inquiring eyes.

"Are you making acquaintance with my ancestors?" he asked.

I answered that I had been looking at the pictures. "But this," pointing to the crayon head, "this is not an ancestor, is it?"

"No," he said, with a half smile, "not exactly an ancestor; a relation."

I asked him if it was not considered like him.

He had been told, he said, that there was some resemblance. I looked at it with a critical eye, and then remarked that the resemblance lay, I thought, in the contour of the face, and perhaps something about the eyes; but the expression was as different from his as it was possible for an expression to be.

"That's true," he said looking at it sadly; "that face expresses what no man's face can express after thirty: hope and courage, and an unshaken confidence in the honesty of his fellows."

I did not fancy that doctrine very much, so I began talking of the other pictures. Of the older ones, Mr. Rutledge gave me some slight sketches, passing briefly by those that I knew he could have told me most about. But I turned admiringly back to the sketch that had so much taken my fancy.

"After all," I said, "this is the finest face among them."

Mr. Rutledge shook his head dissentingly, and looked sadly up at Richard's portrait.

"No indeed," I exclaimed, "that's not near so good a face as this; handsomer, perhaps, dreamy and poetical, but not so brave and spirited. Look at the impatient fire in those eyes! And his smile is truth itself. There is something so determined in the attitude too."

"He was, I believe, an honest, truthful lad," said Mr. Rutledge, unenthusiastically.

"He was more than that I'm sure," I exclaimed, "or would have been, if he had lived. With that high spirit he would have made everything bend to him; and if fair fortune hadn't smiled upon his humble birth (which, however, I suppose she did, being a Rutledge), he would have conquered her, you may be sure. I am certain he wouldn't have known the meaning of the words despair and doubt; but come what might, would have hoped and believed to the end."

"But perhaps," said my companion, "perhaps a hand of ice might have been laid upon his youth; a cruel blow might in one day have dashed from him all that feeds hope and faith; perhaps disgrace, grief, illness, coming all together, might have crushed out of him all energy and spirit. What would have become of your hero then? Would he have hoped, when death and the grave had all that he loved? Would he have believed, when what from his cradle he had most trusted in had proved false and worthless?"

I was a little startled at the bitterness of his tone, but persisted, "All that wouldn't have happened to him. 'Fortune favors the brave.'"

"Not always, petite, not always," he said, with an ironical laugh.

"Nevertheless, I wish he had lived," I said; "I am sure he would have been my hero."

"Why," said Mr. Rutledge, looking at me, "why, if, as you say, that boy had lived, he would have been—let me see—nearly forty years old: and that, you know, would have made it out of the question for you to love him."

"I never thought of that," I said naively. "Well then, I wish I had lived when he did, and been born thirty years ago."

"What! Your youth all over? No, little simpleton, whatever you wish, don't be wild enough to wish that! Make the best of your youth, and freshness, and spirit, for they'll take themselves off some fine day, and leave you nothing to do but to look back."

"That's according to the use I make of them, I suppose," I answered, a little ungraciously. "I am not at all afraid that I shall be bitter and misanthropical when I am old, if I spend my youth as I ought."

Mr. Rutledge laughed very much as if he thought I meant it for him; yet the laugh was not altogether a happy one, and he continued:

"See to it then, child, that you use them right. I do not mean to discourage you. I have no doubt you will be very happy and contented when forty comes around on the string of birth-days. Always being and provided, of course, that the hero, or one as near like him as possible, has come in at the right time to realize your dreams."

"But I don't believe," I said, perversely, "that I shall ever have any lover that I shall like as much as I should have done this one."

"He would have made you an earnest lover, certainly, if that would have won you, with perhaps a dash of impetuosity and tyranny in his love; but that is what you women like, is it not?"

"How can I tell?" I said, very demurely.

"I forgot," he answered, laughing, "I forgot that you were just out of school, and could not be supposed to know anything about love and lovers."

"Of course not," I said, putting my hands in the pockets of my basque, and looking at the ground over my left shoulder, after the manner of a French print I had seen in Mademoiselle Céline's room. "Of course not."

Mr. Rutledge seemed to take in such good part my saucy ways, that I began, to feel much more at my ease, and laughed quite like myself, when on going to the table we found the soup very unattractively cold; "glacée," Mr. Rutledge said it was.

"While people moralize they are very apt to forget the realities; and so we have let the soup get cold, and the dinner get burned, very likely, and shall have to wait for it as it has been waiting for us."

Mr. Rutledge rang, and a servant and hot soup promptly appeared, and dinner was soon in progress, and a very pleasant dinner it proved. For the time, my companion forgot abstraction, and I forgot timidity, and both forgot the dismal storm without. Mr. Rutledge condescended to be entertaining, and I deigned to forget all former slights, and be entertained. Unluckily, however, at dessert, I made some allusion to the loneliness in which he usually took his meals, and that seemed to raise some disagreeable recollection, for his face darkened, and he said, after a short pause:

"Yes, young lady, it is long since I have seen any face, and most of all, a woman's face, opposite me at this solitary table."

Then he fell into a fit of musing that made me feel uncomfortably sorry for my mal-à-propos speech. I could not help wondering who had last sat where I did, and the thought was anything but genial; my eyes wandered involuntarily to the empty panel; and it was with a feeling of relief that I arose from the table and followed my host toward the library. As we passed the crayon picture, however, I paused a moment, and Mr. Rutledge, turning, said:

"You're not tired of it yet?"

I said no, I liked it better all the time, and to-morrow I meant to bring my drawing materials down and make a copy of it, if he was willing.

"You are welcome to the picture itself, if you'll accept it," he said, indifferently, proceeding to unhook it from the frame of the picture above, to which it hung.

I was mute with amazement for a moment, and hardly found breath to exclaim:

"How strange that you do not value it!"

He replied that there were two or three sketches of the same face about the house, and he did not care particularly for this one. It gave him great pleasure to give it to me, if I fancied it.

I hope I thanked him, but I am not at all certain that I did. I seized the picture with great goût, and ran into the library, and up to the lightest window, to enjoy it by myself.

Mr. Rutledge threw himself into a chair, and his hand being before his eyes, I could not see whether he slept or not. I looked long and earnestly at my favorite in every light, and from every point; then got up on a chair and reached down a Latin Dictionary to help translate the sentence written below the date. But I could not get it right; and gave up in despair.

That amusement exhausted, and no other presenting, in the course of time the unavoidable weariness, and want of elasticity consequent upon my three days' confinement to the house, began to make themselves felt, and at last, I thought, to become utterly unbearable. I conceived the mad plan of getting my shawl and hood, and escaping to the piazza for a little exercise, though the rain had beaten furiously upon almost every part of it. I got up, and was stealing noiselessly toward the door, when Mr. Rutledge, whom I had fancied asleep, said uneasily, without altering his position:

"Why do you go away?"

"I am so tired of the house, sir, I am going to wrap up and walk up and down on the piazza for a little while. It will not hurt me," I continued, pleadingly; "mayn't I?"

"On no account," he said decidedly; "it would be absurd, after the fever you have had."

"I am positive it would not hurt me, sir."

"And I am positive it would."

As Mr. Rutledge had not turned toward me at all, I suppose he did not see how very angry I looked, and how very red my face was. Perhaps his thoughts had gone off to something else, for he did not say anything more; and I stood drumming on the table, waiting for him to continue; determined, determined not to go back and sit down, till, exasperated beyond patience by his silence, I said, moving toward the door:

"I suppose then, sir, you have no objection to my going to my own room."

"Why, yes," he said, "I have, decidedly. I think it would be much more sensible for you to amuse yourself down here."

"I've failed in doing that, sir, already."

"Well, then, stay and amuse me."

"That's entirely beyond my power, I am afraid; sir," I answered, shrugging my shoulders.

"You cannot tell till you have tried," he said; "I have a wretched headache. Don't you feel sorry for me?"

"Of course, sir, exceedingly. But unluckily, I don't see how I can help you."

"Oh, it's of no importance. Pray go."

I stood irresolute and very uncomfortable.

"If there's anything you'll have for your head, sir"——

"No, there's nothing, thank you."

This was the way in which I repaid his indulgence and attention! This was a nice return for the care he had taken of me during my illness. I would have given worlds for a good excuse to stay, but Mr. Rutledge seemed determined not to give me any. At last, after everything else had failed, I said, hesitatingly:

"Would it annoy you to have me read aloud to you, sir?"

He would not trouble me on any account, he said.

"But," I answered eagerly, "it is not the slightest trouble. I should like to do it, I assure you."

He would not think of putting such a task upon me.

"But do say," I exclaimed, "whether or not you like reading aloud."

He liked it very much, but begged me not to trouble myself.

That was enough, and in a moment I was by the fire.

"What shall I read, sir?"

"Anything you fancy."

"You are the most provoking man," I thought, as I looked up and down the shelves in search of a book. I shrewdly concluded that I might as well please myself in the choice, as it was not probable that Mr. Rutledge would attend to three words of what I read, even if he did not go to sleep. So recognizing an old friend in "Sintram," I took it from the bookcase, and sitting down in the window-seat, opened its familiar pages with some pleasure. Familiar, that is, they had been to my childhood, but it was some years since I had seen the book. It was not long, however, before I forgot myself and my auditor over the strange, wild, touching story. The dreary storm without, the growing gloom within, all added to the charm of its wild pathos. I read on, bending forward to catch the last grey light from the window, till, baffled by the rapidly-deepening twilight, I left it, and sitting down on a low seat by the fire, read on by its flickering light. If I had not been sure that no one was attending, I should have stopped for shame at the trembling of my voice, which I could not control, as I read the lines that tell to Sintram his release from terror and temptation:

"Death comes to set thee free—

O meet him cheerily

As thy true friend;

And all thy fears shall cease,

And in eternal peace

Thy penance end."

A low, quick-drawn sigh told me that I was not alone in my interest in the tale. I finished it, and dropping the book in my lap, sat resting my head on my hand, and gazing dreamily into the fire. Presently steps in the hall interrupted my revery, and I rose to put the book away. As I passed Mr. Rutledge, he held out his hand, and, as I laid my own in it, he said, "thank you," and looked at me with the most mournful expression in his eyes. The tears rushed involuntarily into mine as I met his glance; I did not know which to pity most, Sintram or my companion. He saw the pity in my look, and remembered it, long after the emotion had passed.

A servant entered at that moment, with the brightest of cheerful lamps; Mr. Rutledge ordered more wood on the fire, which presently blazed and crackled genially; the curtains were drawn, and the conquered twilight and moaning wind were banished from the room.

Mr. Rutledge roused himself from his abstracted mood, and I said to myself, "What can I do to keep him from thinking of the things that trouble him?" And, woman enough to like the task, I set myself to make the evening a pleasant one, and to keep all dullness and ennui away. And it was a very happy evening to me, and not a dull one, I am certain, to my host. I made tea with much less trepidation than on the evening before, and it proved almost magical in curing Mr. Rutledge's headache. I could hardly believe the clock was right when it struck ten, the evening had seemed so short. I took my picture from the mantelpiece, and bidding my companion good night, ran upstairs two steps at a time, not remembering till I reached the top, that Miss Crowen had condemned the practice as unladylike. "I hope Mr. Rutledge wasn't listening," I thought with mortification. If Mr. Rutledge wasn't, Mrs. Roberts was, though, for I heard her door shut softly soon after I had reached my room, and presently she found an excuse for coming in upon me, which she did rather suddenly, as I was standing before the new picture, looking at it very earnestly, as I leisurely unbraided my hair. I went over to the glass, however, very quickly upon her entrance; and after her errand was over, she quite inadvertently, it would seem, glanced up at the picture, but I knew she had seen it the first thing when she came in.

"Why," she exclaimed, looking surprised, "how came Mr. Rutledge's picture up here? It has always hung under his mother's in the dining-room. There must be some mistake," she continued, looking inquiringly at me.

An alarming truth began to dawn on my mind, a vivid blush spread over my face, and Mrs. Roberts never once took her eyes off me.

"I fancied it, and Mr. Rutledge said I might have it," I stammered. Mrs. Robert's blue lips parted for an instant in a contemptuous curl; then, looking stonier than ever, she said:

"Yes, it is a good likeness; or was, at least, when he was a young man; he's sadly changed since then; he's an old and an altered man now, is Mr. Arthur Rutledge."

The housekeeper, saying this with emphasis, and having no excuse for staying longer, was obliged to withdraw.

"Yes, ma'am," I muttered, as I locked the door after her, "I know he's an old man, I know he's nearly forty years old: who better? for he told me so himself." And my cheeks scorched with blushes, as one by one, I recalled my foolish speeches. How stupid, how blind I had been. Why, as I looked at the picture now, there wasn't a feature in the face that could possibly have been mistaken for any one else, not a shade nor outline that was not characteristic. I could have cried with vexation. How should I ever dare to look him in the face again? "My hero!" And I covered my face with my hands, and started up guiltily, and put it out of the way before I unlocked the door for Kitty.