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CHAPTER XXXV

Mr. John Howe sat comfortably in his easy-chair, smoking his chibouk. Mrs. Howe sat opposite to him, dressed in a fashionable suit of black, with her gaiter-boots on a bronze hound.

"John?"

John smoked away as imperturbably as if he were a bachelor.

"Mr. Howe?"

"Well," replied John, complacently regarding the curling smoke.

"Do you know this is the last day of June?"

"Well," repeated John.

"'Well – well!' Mr. Howe, I do wish you'd stop thinking of that contemptible political paper you are reading, and attend to me. But before I begin, I wish to say that I should like a paper in the house that has something in it. There is not an account of the fashions in that newspaper from one year's end to the other; in fact, there is nothing in it but politics – politics; it is the stupidest paper I ever read. Why don't you take the 'Lady's Garland,' now, or 'The Parlor Weekly,' or some such interesting periodical, with those lovely fashion-prints, and cuff and collar patterns, and crochet guides? One would think you imagined a woman's mind needed no nutriment at all. What are you laughing at, Mr. Howe?"

"Your thirst for knowledge," replied John.

"Laugh away – it is a great point gained to get one's husband good-humored. Now, listen: Mrs. St. Pierre has gone into the country, so has Mrs. Ralph Denys, and Mrs. George Cook goes to-morrow."

"What the deuce has that to do with us?" asked John.

"It is so vulgar to stay in the city in summer," replied Mrs. Howe. "Nobody does it but tradespeople, and those who can not afford to migrate. I tell you it is indispensable for people in our station not to be seen here in the summer months."

"I don't want to be seen," said John, still puffing. "Shut the front window-shutters; let the silver door-plate grow rusty, and the cobwebs gather on the blinds and front-door; live in the back part of the house; never go out except in the evening. That's the way half the fashionables 'go into the country;' confounded cheap way, too," and John laughed merrily.

"Now, John," said his wife, "where did you pick that up? I took good care not to tell you that, because I knew I should never hear the last of it; but even that is better than to be thought unfashionable. Still, it is not like having a country seat."

"A country-seat!" ejaculated John, wheeling square round, so as to face his wife; "catch me at it! Eat up by musquitos, kept awake by bull-frogs, serenaded by tree-toads, bored to death by riding-parties from the city, who devour your fruit, break off your flowers, and bark your trees; horses and carriages to keep, two or three extra servants, conservatory, hot-house, stables, barns, garden-tools, ice-house – shan't do it, Mrs. Howe;" and John turned his back, put his heels deliberately up on the window-seat, and resumed his chibouk.

Mrs. Howe smiled a little quiet smile, snapped her finger, as if at some invisible enemy, and tiptoeing up behind her husband's chair, whispered something in his conjugal ear.

The second time that magic whisper had conquered Mr. Howe!

CHAPTER XXXVI

Slowly Rose regained her consciousness. Had she been dreaming about Vincent's death? The dim light of morning was struggling in through the vines that latticed the window. She raised herself from the floor. Ah, now she remembered. It was only the incoherent ravings of the poor crazed being who had been in the evening before; how foolish to let it make her so miserable! As if there were not more than one person of the name of Vincent in the world. She tried to shake off her miserable thoughts; she knelt by the side of little Charley's bed, and kissed his blue eyes awake, although it was scarcely daylight; for she felt so lonely, just as if her Vincent were really dead, and the wide earth held but one. She took Charley up and held him in her arms, and laid her cheek to his. Strange she could not shake off that leaden feeling. It must be that she were ill, she was so excitable; she would be better after breakfast. Sad work those trembling fingers made with Charley's toilet that morning. Still she kept tying, and buttoning, and pinning, and rolling his curls over her fingers – for the restless, unquiet heart finds relief in motion; ay, motion – when the brain reels and despair tugs at the heart-strings. Oh, Time be merciful! bear swiftly on the restless spirit to meet its fate; torture it no longer, suspended by a hair over the dread abyss!

It had commenced raining. Rose believed it was that which made her linger on that morning, forgetting through how many drenching rains she had patiently traversed those streets.

She walks back and forth from the window irresolutely. She thinks she will wait till the skies clear. Poor Rose! will thy sky ever be clear? Now she listlessly takes up a newspaper, with which Charley has been playing. She smooths out its crumpled folds, and reads mechanically through advertisements of runaway negroes, sales of slaves at the auction block, ship-news, casualties, marriages, deaths. Ah! what is that?

"THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED

"It is at length ascertained that the young man who was poisoned in Natchez, in a house of questionable reputation, by an abandoned female, was Vincent L'Estrange Vincent. The deceased was about twenty-five, of splendid personal appearance, and will doubtless be much regretted by the large and fashionable circle in which he moved. The murderess has not yet been apprehended."

The arrow has reached its mark – the bolt has sped – the weary search is ended – Vincent is found. Rose's Vincent?

No, not hers.

The idol is dethroned forever: the Vincent her innocent heart loved was good, and pure, and true. Rose suffers, but she no longer loves. There is a deep sense of wrong and injury, a hurried look back upon all that is lost, a shuddering look forward, from youth's blighted threshhold, at the long, dreary years yet to come – a helpless folding of the hands at Fate – a hopeless, tearless, measureless grief.

Blessed tears come quickly; lighten that heavy load; moisten those burning eyelids; unclasp those icy hands; give to those dumb lips speech; take from young life death's stony semblance!

Speak to her, Charley. Stir the deep fountains of a mother's love, poor fatherless one! Nestle close to her desolate heart. Bid her live for thee, Charley. Tell her that 'mid thorns roses are found. Tell her that to the night alone, many a dew-gemmed flower yields up its incense.

CHAPTER XXXVII

"That will do, Mrs. Macque, thank you; now a small wine-glass and another tea-spoon, if you please, for the light stand. I think we can leave nurse Chloe with my patient now," said the speaker, turning to a tall negress. "You understand, Chloe, give her the drops at four in the morning, if she should waken; if the effect of the opiate lasts longer, do not disturb her. I shall be in by six in the morning," and Doctor Perry took his leave.

No, not his leave; he might not stay with Rose, but he could pace up and down beneath her window; he could see by the faint light of the shaded night-lamp, the shadow of the nurse's figure on the muslin window-curtains, and know that she was faithful at her post; yes, he could walk there, and the time would not seem long while he thought of Rose.

Did she think, poor child, that his love could be chilled by aught but unworthiness?

Did she think it could die out though no encouraging breath of her's fanned the flame?

Did she think he could leave her to traverse the crowded streets of that great Sodom, with no defense but her helplessness?

Did she think that a rejected lover could not be a trustworthy, firm, and untiring friend?

Did she think that, like other men, he would mete out his attendance, only so far as it met with an equivalent?

Dear Rose!

How often he had longed, as he had followed her at a distance through the crowded streets, and seen her slight form bend under Charley's burden, to offer her his protecting arm. How he had longed, when the day's fruitless tramp was over, to go to her in the little parlor, and bid her lay her weary head, fearlessly, as if on a brother's breast, and now, when the heart's tonic; – hope – had been suddenly withdrawn, would the drooping spirit sink? Medicine, he knew, could do little for the soul's malady, but what it could do, she should be benefited by.

The old colored nurse Chloe drew aside the bed-curtains to look at her charge. How still she lay – how white and wan. "Berry sick," she muttered, with a shake of her turbaned head, "missis berry sick," and she moved gently a long tress of hair which lay across Rose's forehead. "Missis berry young," she muttered, "no wrinkles dere; missis' heart is wrinkled, pr'aps; young face an' ole heart; some trouble been dere," and the old negress touched the little snow-flake of a hand which lay upon the coverlid. "Most see trough it," she muttered, following the tracery of the blue veins. "No ring on de wedding-finger; ah! pr'aps dat's it," said the old negress, "den she'd better nebber wake up again. Black skins and white skins, de Lord sends 'em both trouble to make it all even. Some one ting, some anodder. My ole missis Vincent berry rich, but had berry bad son; handsome, but berry bad; lub nobody but himself; die like a dog wid all his money. De Lord he makes it all even, dis nigger knows dat; ole missis Vincent good to gib ole Chloe her freedom, but missis' son berry bad. De Lord sends some one ting, some anodder," and Chloe folded her arms philosophically, and leaned back in her chair.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

The door of Gertrude's studio was ajar, for the day was warm, and the lady had sat persistently at her easel, as was her wont (when the glow was on), since early day-light.

Pictures and picture frames, canvas and brushes, sketches in oils, engravings and crayons, were scattered round, with as little regard to housewife-ly order, as if the apartment had been tenanted by one of the disorderly sex; the light was fine, and that was the most Gertrude cared about.

She was a picture herself as she sat there, and though a woman, was not aware of it. The loose, white wrapper she wore had become unfastened at the throat, and fallen partially off one shoulder, revealing as perfect a bust as ever set a sculptor or lover dreaming. No prettier ornament could have been found to keep back her light brown tresses than her tiny white ears. And as the light fell upon the arm and hand which held her palette, one ceased marveling, with such a model before her, at her successful reproductions of it in the female pictures.

There are some kinds of hair which always look poetical, whether arranged or disarranged; their glossy waves changing in the sun's rays like the arched neck of the peerless golden pheasant; now brown, now golden, beautiful whether in light or shade. This was one of Gertrude's greatest charms. And yet Gertrude was no beauty; but somehow there was a witchery about her which made you think so. It might have been the play of expression on the flexible lips, the warming up of the complexion, the sudden kindling of the eye with smiles, to be as suddenly quenched by tears; the rapid transitions from pensive sadness to mischievous mirth. When she spoke, you thought the charm in her musical voice, when she moved, in the symmetry of her form; every dress she wore you wished she would always wear, every thing she did struck you as being most perfectly and gracefully done; every thing she said was pertinent and piquant; she had thought much, and read little, hence she was always fresh and original; she was an independent thinker, and though strong-minded and clear-headed, was strictly feminine. You looked your watch in the face incredulously when you left her, as if it, not she, were at fault.

"I really do not think I can do better than that," she soliloquized, laying down her brushes, and stepping back to look at her picture, "that is a success; I feel it."

"Saints and angels!" she exclaimed as the door creaked slightly on its hinges; "where did you come from, you delicious little cherub?"

Well might she exclaim. There was Charley, the little truant, just as he had crept out of bed, looking (as a babe always does when it first wakes) like a delicate morning-glory, whose dewy beauty the first sun's ray will exhale. His little white night-robe hung loosely about him; his large lustrous eyes were full of childish wonder, his dark hair curled in moist rings round his white temples, and his cheek was yet warm with the flush of sleep.

"Where did you come from, you beautiful creature?" said Gertrude, snatching him up, and kissing first his cherry lips, then his bare, dimpled foot, with its pink-tipped toes, then his ivory shoulders; "I never saw any thing half so beautiful – who are you, you little dumb angel?"

Charley only replied by cuddling his little curly head on Gertrude's shoulder, for even infancy's ear may be won by the musical sweetness of a voice, and Gertrude's tones were heart-tones.

"You trusting little innocent," said Gertrude, as her eye moistened, "you are sweet and holy enough for an Infant Saviour. There, sit there now, darling," said she, placing him on the middle of the floor, and scattering a bunch of flowers about him by way of bribe, "sit there now, while I sketch you for one," and she flew to her easel.

"Yah – yah," said a voice at the door, as another model presented itself, in the picturesque turbaned head of Chloe, "yah – yah – you cheat ole nurse dis time, Massa Charley – "

"Oh, don't take him away," said Gertrude; "lend him to me a little while – whose child is it? I almost hoped he belonged to nobody."

"Missis, down stairs," answered Chloe; "I don't know her name; she berry sick, I only came las' night to nurse her, and while I busy here and dere, Massa Charley take hisself off."

"Your mistress is sick?" said Gertrude; "then of course she does not want this little piece of quicksilver squirming round her; I want to make a picture of him like those that you see," said Gertrude, pointing to her sketches about the room; – "he is as handsome as an angel; leave him with me, never fear, I can charm babies like a rattlesnake, and bite them too," she added, touching her lips to Charley's tempting shoulders.

"But my missis – " remonstrated Chloe.

"Oh, never mind," said Gertrude, with her usual independence; "no mother ever was angry yet because her child was admired. I will bring him down to your door when he gets weary – there, do go away – he grows more lovely every minute, and I am losing time."

It was not strange that Gertrude should have been unaware of the presence of the new lodger, rarely leaving her studio and the little room adjoining, where she had her meals served, except in the evening, when Rose was shut up in her own apartment, a prey to sorrowful thoughts.

Gertrude was as unlike other women in her dislike of gossip as in various other items we might name. Provided she were not interfered with, it mattered nothing to her who occupied the rooms about her. It is only the empty-minded who, having no resources of their own, busy themselves with the affairs of their neighbors. It was unaccountable to her how the number of another woman's dresses, or bonnets, the hours and the places in which she promenaded, the visitors she had, or refused to have, her hours for rising, eating, and retiring, or the exact state of her finances, could be matters of such momentous interest. Living contentedly in a world of her own, she had neither time nor inclination for such petty researches.

A month had elapsed since Rose's sickness; she was now convalescent, and able to part with the faithful Chloe, who claimed the privilege of calling in occasionally to see Massa Charley. Rose was again alone – no, not quite alone, for Gertrude had made her acquaintance, to explain her capture of Charley, and ask the loan of him till the picture should be finished.

Gertrude was at a loss to comprehend Rose's manner: at one moment frank and sisterly, at the next cold, silent, and repellant. Rose was struggling with two contending feelings; her straightforward ingenuousness made her shrink from the idea of concealing from one of her own sex, who thus sought her acquaintance, her real history. She shrank from a friendship based on deception.

Simple, straightforward Rose! as if half the friendships in the world would not snap in twain, placed on any other basis! If each heart, with its disingenuous trickeries, its selfish purposes and aims, were laid bare to its neighbor, if the real motives for seeming kindness, the inner life, whose pure outward seeming is often in direct inversion to the hidden corruption were as transparent to the human as to the Omniscient eye, who could stand the test?

A few interviews with Gertrude served to dispel, in a great measure, these feelings. Her ready tact, and quick, womanly sympathies, served to bridge over the chasm to Rose's naturally trusting heart.

Oh, that parting with the life-boat of faith – that unsettled, drifting, sinking, weary feeling – that turning away even from the substance, for fear of the mocking shadow – that heart-isolation which makes a desert of the green earth, with all its fragrance, and music, and sunshine – who that has known misfortune has not deplored it? Who has not striven in vain to get anchored back again where never a ripple of distrust might disturb his peace.

"Tell me how you like it," said Gertrude, placing Charley's finished picture in the most favorable light. "Now don't say you are no connoisseur, that is only a polite way of declining to give an unfavorable opinion. Find all the fault you can with it; you at least should know if it is true to life."

"It is perfect," said Rose, delightedly; "it is Charley's own self; he is a pretty boy," said the proud mother, looking alternately from him to the picture.

"You must remember," said Gertrude, "that of all the different expressions of a loved face, which the heart has daguerreotyped, the artist can catch but one, and that one may not always be to friends the favorite expression; hence you see, with all our good intentions, the craft sometimes labor to disadvantage. However, I seldom paint portraits; my forte is 'still life;' so, of course," she added, laughing; "your mercurial little Charley was quite out of my orbit, but thanks to flowers and lump-sugar, I think I may say there is his double."

"A mother's eye sees no flaw in it," said Rose.

"Thank you," said Gertrude, with a gratified smile. "It has already found a purchaser. A gentleman who was in my studio this morning thought it a fancy sketch, and would not believe me when I told him that there was a beautiful living type; he offered me a sum for it that would at one time have made my heart leap; I can afford to refuse it now."

"How early did your artistic talent develop itself?" asked Rose.

"I was always fond of pictures," replied Gertrude; "but the 'talent' which prosperity 'folded in a napkin,' the rough hand of adversity shook out."

"Adversity?" repeated the astonished Rose, looking at Gertrude's sunny face.

"You are skeptical," said Gertrude. "I forgive you, but I have learned not to wear my heart dangling like a lady's chatelaine at my girdle, to be plucked at by every idle, curious, or malicious hand.

"Listen!" And she drew her chair nearer to Rose.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

GERTRUDE'S STORY

"When I was about fifteen, I lost both my parents with an epidemic, which raged in the neighborhood. Up to that time, I had known poverty and sorrow only through an occasional novel, which fell in my way. My dear father, whose silver head I never can think of without involuntarily and reverentially bowing my own, had made my child-life one dream of delight. I felt free to think aloud in his presence. I feared no monastic severity at my childish blunders, or indiscretions; he was my friend, my play-fellow, as well as my teacher and guardian.

"I had an only brother, who had imbibed an unconquerable passion for travel and adventure, and the only mistake my father ever made educationally, was shutting him off from any mention of the subject. He thought himself right in this, and meant it kindly; but it resulted in my brother's secretly leaving home in disguise for a foreign port; he has never since been heard from, and was probably lost at sea.

"Upon the death of my parents there was found nothing left for my support, and I was left to the care of a distant relative. It was an unexpected and unwelcome legacy, for Mrs. Bluff had five children of her own, and though in comfortable circumstances, desired no addition to her family. The knowledge of this added poignancy to the grief which already burdened my heart. Upon entering this new life, I made many awkward attempts, with my city-bred fingers, to propitiate Mrs. Bluff on such occasions as baking-days, cleaning-days, washing-days, and ironing-days. Mrs. Bluff's daughters were as round as pumpkins, and as flaunting as sun-flowers; could spin and weave, and quilt, and bake, and brew, and had the reputation of driving the best bargain at the village store, of any customer for miles round; they pushed me this way and that, laughed at my small, baby hands and pale face, wondered where I had been brought up that I never saw a churn; 'swapped off' my dear books, my only comforts, unknown to me, to a traveling peddler for some bright-red ribbon, and voted me on all occasions a most useless piece of furniture. As for Mr. Bluff, provided his horses, hens, cows, pigs, and chickens, fulfilled their barn-yard destiny, and Squire Tompkins's rabbits did not girdle his young trees, and his mug of cider was ready for his cobwebbed throat as soon as his oxen's horns were seen turning down the lane, the world might turn round or stand still.

"Every effort I made to conciliate the Bluffs, or to render myself useful, met with a rude rebuff. I could not understand it then. I see now that it was the rough but involuntary tribute which uneducated minds involuntarily paid to a more refined one. Yet why should they feel thus? If I could have taught them many things I had learned from books, they, on the other hand, could have initiated me into the practical duties of every-day life, without a knowledge of which any woman is in a pitiable state of helplessness, for though she may be rich enough to have servants, she is yet at their mercy, for if she chooses to order a certain pudding for dinner, they may make a reply, which her ignorance can not controvert, as to the time necessary to prepare it, or the quantity of ingredients, not on hand, to make it.

"Deprived of my books, my mind preyed upon itself. I wandered off, in my leisure hours, in the woods and fields, and built such air-castles as architects of sixteen are apt to construct. So fond I became of my wood-rambles in all weathers, and talking to myself for want of company, that an old lady in the village asked Mrs. Bluff, with the most commiserating concern, 'if it wasn't a heap of trouble to look after that crazy critter?'

"I had been at Greytown about a year when a new pastor was settled over the village church. It was an event commensurate with the taking of Sebastopol. There was not an unwedded female in the parish, my cousins included, who did not give him a call in the most unmistakable manner. What with utter disgust at these open advances, and renewed signs of hostility on the part of my cousins since his advent, I resolved to absent myself on the occasion of every parochial call, and to confine my eyes to the pew crickets on Sunday.

"The barriers which my obstinacy thus built up chance threw down. City bred as I was, I had an extraordinary gift at climbing trees and scaling fences. In one of my rambles, trusting too much to my agile ankles, when climbing over a stone wall, I lost my foothold, and was precipitated to the ground, bringing down a large stone upon my foot. The pain was so great that I fainted.

"When I came to myself, the minister was bathing my face with some water he had brought from a brook near by. I roused myself, and after making several ineffectual attempts to bear my own weight, was obliged to accept his offered arm. I was vexed to have been seen in so awkward a predicament, vexed that the dread of the storm that was sure to burst on my head on my appearance with him at my aunt's, should render me incapable of even the most common-place conversation. For some reason or other, he seemed equally embarrassed with myself, and I shut myself up on reaching home, to give full vent to my mortification. From that moment I endured every species of persecution from my aunt and cousins, who, with their scheming eyes, saw in it only a well-planned stratagem, and drove me nearly distracted by speaking of it in that light to those who would be sure to report it to the party most concerned. Whether this suggested thoughts in the young minister he would not otherwise have entertained, I can not say – certain it is, that he very soon invited me to become mistress of the parsonage, and from its flowered windows, a few weeks after, with my husband's arm about me, I could smile on my parishioners, both male and female.

"Never was a wife blessed with a truer heart to rest upon – never was a wife nearer forgetting that happiness is but the exception in this world of change. What is this modern clamor about 'obedience' in the marriage relation? How easy to 'obey' when the heart can not yield enough to the loved one? Ah, the chain can not fret when it hangs so lightly! I never heard the clanking of mine. Oh, the deep, unalloyed happiness of those five short years! I look back upon it from this distance as one remembers some lovely scene in a sunny, far-off land, where earth and heaven put on such dazzling glory as dimmed the eyes forever after, making night's leaden pall denser, gloomier, for the brightness which had gone before. These are murmuring words; but Rose, if you ever loved deeply; if after drifting about alone in a stormy sea of trouble, you gained some gallant vessel, saw the port of peace in sight, and then were again shipwrecked and engulfed – but you are weak yet, dear Rose; I should not talk to you thus," said Gertrude, observing Rose's tears.

"It eases my heart sometimes to weep," was Rose's low reply. "Go on."

"I left the roof under which no sound of discord was ever heard, my child and I. The world is full of widows and orphans. One meets their sabled forms at every step. No one turns to look at them, unless perhaps some tearful one at whose hearthstone also death has been busy. And so we passed along, wondering, as thousands have done before us, as thousands will in time to come, how the sun could shine, how the birds could sing, how the flowers could bloom, and we so grief-stricken! I found the world what all find it who need it. Why weary you with a repetition of its repulses – of my humiliations, and struggles, and vigils? Years of privation and suffering passed over my head.

"Amid my ceaseless searches for employment I met a Mr. Stahle. He was a widower, with two little boys who were at that time with his first wife's relatives. He proposed marriage to me. My heart recoiled at the thought, for my husband was ever before me, I told him so, but still he urged his suit. I then told him that I feared to undertake the responsibilities of a stepmother. He replied that was the strongest argument in favor of my fitness for the office. He told me that my child should be to him dear and cherished as his own. These were the first words that moved me. For my child's sake should not I accept such a comfortable home? Often he had been sick and suffered for medicines not within my means to procure; was I not selfish in declining? I vacillated. Stahle saw his advantage, and pursued it. A promise of employment which had been held out to me that morning failed. I gave a reluctant consent. Mr. Stahle's delight was unbounded; his buoyant spirits oppressed me; his protestations of love and fidelity pained me; I shrank away from his caresses, and when, after a few days, he, fearful of a change in my resolution, urged a speedy union, I told him that the marriage must not be consummated – that my heart was in my husband's grave – that I could not love him as I saw he desired, and that our union under such circumstances could never be a happy one.

"He would listen to no argument; said I had treated him unkindly; that my promise was binding, and that I could not in honor retract it; that he did not expect me to love him as he loved me, and that if I could yield him no warmer feeling than friendship, he would rather have that than the love of any other woman. Perplexed, wearied, and desponding, I ceased to object rather than consented, while Stahle hurried the preparations for our union. Worn out in mind and body, I resigned myself as in a sort of stupor, like the wretch whom drowsiness overpowers in the midst of pathless snows. Oh, had I but then woke up to the consciousness of my own powers! But I will not anticipate.

"Mr. Stahle took a house much larger than I thought necessary, for he had only a limited salary. I begged him to expend nothing in show; that if his object were to gratify me, I cared for none of those things. He always had some reason, however, which he considered plausible, for every purchase he made; and skipped from room to room with the glee of a child in possession of a new toy, giving orders here and there for the arrangement of carpets, furniture, and curtains, occasionally referring to me. On such occasions I would answer at random, memory picturing another home, whose every nook and corner was cherished as he who had made it for me an earthly heaven!

"One morning early, Stahle came to my lodgings in great haste, saying, 'Gertrude, we must be married immediately; this very morning; see here,' and he drew from his pocket a paper, in which he read: 'Married, last night, by Rev. Dr. Briggs, Mrs. Gertrude Deane to John H. Stahle.'

"'Who could have done that?' asked I, no suspicion of the truth crossing my mind.