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@@ -0,0 +1,5404 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Malbone, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Malbone + An Oldport Romance + +Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson + +Posting Date: July 27, 2008 [EBook #993] +Release Date: July 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MALBONE *** + + + + +Produced by Judy Boss + + + + + +MALBONE + +AN OLDPORT ROMANCE. + + +By Thomas Wentworth Higginson + + + "What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life + passing within her? + + Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in + which she shows most beautiful." + + --THOREAU, MS. Diary. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PRELUDE + I. AN ARRIVAL + II. PLACE AUX DAMES! + III. A DRIVE ON THE AVENUE + IV. AUNT JANE DEFINES HER POSITION + V. A MULTIVALVE HEART + VI. "SOME LOVER'S CLEAR DAY" + VII. AN INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION + VIII. TALKING IT OVER + IX. DANGEROUS WAYS + X. REMONSTRANCES + XI. DESCENSUS AVERNI + XII. A NEW ENGAGEMENT + XIII. DREAMING DREAMS + XIV. THE NEMESIS OF FASHION + XV. ACROSS THE BAY + XVI. ON THE STAIRS + XVII. DISCOVERY + XVIII. HOPE'S VIGIL + XIX. DE PROFUNDIS + XX. AUNT JANE TO THE RESCUE + XXI. A STORM + XXII. OUT OF THE DEPTHS + XXIII. REQUIESCAT + + + + +MALBONE. + + + + +PRELUDE. + +AS one wanders along this southwestern promontory of the Isle of Peace, +and looks down upon the green translucent water which forever bathes the +marble slopes of the Pirates' Cave, it is natural to think of the ten +wrecks with which the past winter has strewn this shore. Though almost +all trace of their presence is already gone, yet their mere memory lends +to these cliffs a human interest. Where a stranded vessel lies, thither +all steps converge, so long as one plank remains upon another. There +centres the emotion. All else is but the setting, and the eye sweeps +with indifference the line of unpeopled rocks. They are barren, till the +imagination has tenanted them with possibilities of danger and dismay. +The ocean provides the scenery and properties of a perpetual tragedy, +but the interest arrives with the performers. Till then the shores +remain vacant, like the great conventional armchairs of the French +drama, that wait for Rachel to come and die. + +Yet as I ride along this fashionable avenue in August, and watch the +procession of the young and fair,--as I look at stately houses, from +each of which has gone forth almost within my memory a funeral or a +bride,--then every thoroughfare of human life becomes in fancy but an +ocean shore, with its ripples and its wrecks. One learns, in growing +older, that no fiction can be so strange nor appear so improbable as +would the simple truth; and that doubtless even Shakespeare did but +timidly transcribe a few of the deeds and passions he had personally +known. For no man of middle age can dare trust himself to portray +life in its full intensity, as he has studied or shared it; he must +resolutely set aside as indescribable the things most worth describing, +and must expect to be charged with exaggeration, even when he tells the +rest. + + + + +I. AN ARRIVAL. + +IT was one of the changing days of our Oldport midsummer. In the morning +it had rained in rather a dismal way, and Aunt Jane had said she should +put it in her diary. It was a very serious thing for the elements when +they got into Aunt Jane's diary. By noon the sun came out as clear and +sultry as if there had never been a cloud, the northeast wind died away, +the bay was motionless, the first locust of the summer shrilled from the +elms, and the robins seemed to be serving up butterflies hot for their +insatiable second brood, while nothing seemed desirable for a human +luncheon except ice-cream and fans. In the afternoon the southwest wind +came up the bay, with its line of dark-blue ripple and its delicious +coolness; while the hue of the water grew more and more intense, till we +seemed to be living in the heart of a sapphire. + +The household sat beneath the large western doorway of the old Maxwell +House,--he rear door, which looks on the water. The house had just been +reoccupied by my Aunt Jane, whose great-grandfather had built it, though +it had for several generations been out of the family. I know no finer +specimen of those large colonial dwellings in which the genius of Sir +Christopher Wren bequeathed traditions of stateliness to our democratic +days. Its central hall has a carved archway; most of the rooms have +painted tiles and are wainscoted to the ceiling; the sashes are +red-cedar, the great staircase mahogany; there are pilasters with +delicate Corinthian capitals; there are cherubs' heads and wings that go +astray and lose themselves in closets and behind glass doors; there are +curling acanthus-leaves that cluster over shelves and ledges, and there +are those graceful shell-patterns which one often sees on old furniture, +but rarely in houses. The high front door still retains its Ionic +cornice; and the western entrance, looking on the bay, is surmounted +by carved fruit and flowers, and is crowned, as is the roof, with +that pineapple in whose symbolic wealth the rich merchants of the last +century delighted. + +Like most of the statelier houses in that region of Oldport, this abode +had its rumors of a ghost and of secret chambers. The ghost had +never been properly lionized nor laid, for Aunt Jane, the neatest +of housekeepers, had discouraged all silly explorations, had at once +required all barred windows to be opened, all superfluous partitions to +be taken down, and several highly eligible dark-closets to be nailed up. +If there was anything she hated, it was nooks and odd corners. Yet there +had been times that year, when the household would have been glad to +find a few more such hiding-places; for during the first few weeks the +house had been crammed with guests so closely that the very mice had +been ill-accommodated and obliged to sit up all night, which had caused +them much discomfort and many audible disagreements. + +But this first tumult had passed away; and now there remained only the +various nephews and nieces of the house, including a due proportion of +small children. Two final guests were to arrive that day, bringing +the latest breath of Europe on their wings,--Philip Malbone, Hope's +betrothed; and little Emilia, Hope's half-sister. + +None of the family had seen Emilia since her wandering mother had taken +her abroad, a fascinating spoiled child of four, and they were all eager +to see in how many ways the succeeding twelve years had completed or +corrected the spoiling. As for Philip, he had been spoiled, as Aunt Jane +declared, from the day of his birth, by the joint effort of all friends +and neighbors. Everybody had conspired to carry on the process except +Aunt Jane herself, who directed toward him one of her honest, steady, +immovable dislikes, which may be said to have dated back to the time +when his father and mother were married, some years before he personally +entered on the scene. + +The New York steamer, detained by the heavy fog of the night before, now +came in unwonted daylight up the bay. At the first glimpse, Harry and +the boys pushed off in the row-boat; for, as one of the children said, +anybody who had been to Venice would naturally wish to come to the very +house in a gondola. In another half-hour there was a great entanglement +of embraces at the water-side, for the guests had landed. + +Malbone's self-poised easy grace was the same as ever; his +chestnut-brown eyes were as winning, his features as handsome; his +complexion, too clearly pink for a man, had a sea bronze upon it: he was +the same Philip who had left home, though with some added lines of care. +But in the brilliant little fairy beside him all looked in vain for the +Emilia they remembered as a child. Her eyes were more beautiful than +ever,--the darkest violet eyes, that grew luminous with thought and +almost black with sorrow. Her gypsy taste, as everybody used to call it, +still showed itself in the scarlet and dark blue of her dress; but the +clouded gypsy tint had gone from her cheek, and in its place shone a +deep carnation, so hard and brilliant that it appeared to be enamelled +on the surface, yet so firm and deep-dyed that it seemed as if not even +death could ever blanch it. There is a kind of beauty that seems made to +be painted on ivory, and such was hers. Only the microscopic pencil of +a miniature-painter could portray those slender eyebrows, that arched +caressingly over the beautiful eyes,--or the silky hair of darkest +chestnut that crept in a wavy line along the temples, as if longing to +meet the brows,--or those unequalled lashes! "Unnecessarily long," Aunt +Jane afterwards pronounced them; while Kate had to admit that they did +indeed give Emilia an overdressed look at breakfast, and that she ought +to have a less showy set to match her morning costume. + +But what was most irresistible about Emilia,--that which we all noticed +in this interview, and which haunted us all thenceforward,--was a +certain wild, entangled look she wore, as of some untamed out-door +thing, and a kind of pathetic lost sweetness in her voice, which made +her at once and forever a heroine of romance with the children. Yet +she scarcely seemed to heed their existence, and only submitted to the +kisses of Hope and Kate as if that were a part of the price of coming +home, and she must pay it. + +Had she been alone, there might have been an awkward pause; for if you +expect a cousin, and there alights a butterfly of the tropics, what +hospitality can you offer? But no sense of embarrassment ever came near +Malbone, especially with the children to swarm over him and claim him +for their own. Moreover, little Helen got in the first remark in the way +of serious conversation. + +"Let me tell him something!" said the child. "Philip! that doll of mine +that you used to know, only think! she was sick and died last summer, +and went into the rag-bag. And the other split down the back, so there +was an end of her." + +Polar ice would have been thawed by this reopening of communication. +Philip soon had the little maid on his shoulder,--the natural throne of +all children,--and they went in together to greet Aunt Jane. + +Aunt Jane was the head of the house,--a lady who had spent more than +fifty years in educating her brains and battling with her ailments. She +had received from her parents a considerable inheritance in the way of +whims, and had nursed it up into a handsome fortune. Being one of +the most impulsive of human beings, she was naturally one of the most +entertaining; and behind all her eccentricities there was a fund of the +soundest sense and the tenderest affection. She had seen much and varied +society, had been greatly admired in her youth, but had chosen to remain +unmarried. Obliged by her physical condition to make herself the first +object, she was saved from utter selfishness by sympathies as democratic +as her personal habits were exclusive. Unexpected and commonly fantastic +in her doings, often dismayed by small difficulties, but never by large +ones, she sagaciously administered the affairs of all those around +her,--planned their dinners and their marriages, fought out their +bargains and their feuds. + +She hated everything irresolute or vague; people might play at +cat's-cradle or study Spinoza, just as they pleased; but, whatever +they did, they must give their minds to it. She kept house from an +easy-chair, and ruled her dependants with severity tempered by wit, and +by the very sweetest voice in which reproof was ever uttered. She never +praised them, but if they did anything particularly well, rebuked them +retrospectively, asking why they had never done it well before? But she +treated them munificently, made all manner of plans for their comfort, +and they all thought her the wisest and wittiest of the human race. So +did the youths and maidens of her large circle; they all came to see +her, and she counselled, admired, scolded, and petted them all. She had +the gayest spirits, and an unerring eye for the ludicrous, and she spoke +her mind with absolute plainness to all comers. Her intuitions were +instantaneous as lightning, and, like that, struck very often in +the wrong place. She was thus extremely unreasonable and altogether +charming. + +Such was the lady whom Emilia and Malbone went up to greet,--the one +shyly, the other with an easy assurance, such as she always disliked. +Emilia submitted to another kiss, while Philip pressed Aunt Jane's hand, +as he pressed all women's, and they sat down. + +"Now begin to tell your adventures," said Kate. "People always tell +their adventures till tea is ready." + +"Who can have any adventures left," said Philip, "after such letters as +I wrote you all?" + +"Of which we got precisely one!" said Kate. "That made it such an event, +after we had wondered in what part of the globe you might be looking +for the post-office! It was like finding a letter in a bottle, or +disentangling a person from the Dark Ages." + +"I was at Neuchatel two months; but I had no adventures. I lodged with a +good Pasteur, who taught me geology and German." + +"That is suspicious," said Kate. "Had he a daughter passing fair?" + +"Indeed he had." + +"And you taught her English? That is what these beguiling youths always +do in novels." + +"Yes." + +"What was her name?" + +"Lili." + +"What a pretty name! How old was she?" + +"She was six." + +"O Philip!" cried Kate; "but I might have known it. Did she love you +very much?" + +Hope looked up, her eyes full of mild reproach at the possibility of +doubting any child's love for Philip. He had been her betrothed for more +than a year, during which time she had habitually seen him wooing every +child he had met as if it were a woman,--which, for Philip, was saying +a great deal. Happily they had in common the one trait of perfect +amiability, and she knew no more how to be jealous than he to be +constant. + +"Lili was easily won," he said. "Other things being equal, people of six +prefer that man who is tallest." + +"Philip is not so very tall," said the eldest of the boys, who was +listening eagerly, and growing rapidly. + +"No," said Philip, meekly. "But then the Pasteur was short, and his +brother was a dwarf." + +"When Lili found that she could reach the ceiling from Mr. Malbone's +shoulder," said Emilia, "she asked no more." + +"Then you knew the pastor's family also, my child," said Aunt Jane, +looking at her kindly and a little keenly. + +"I was allowed to go there sometimes," she began, timidly. + +"To meet her American Cousin," interrupted Philip. "I got some +relaxation in the rules of the school. But, Aunt Jane, you have told us +nothing about your health." + +"There is nothing to tell," she answered. "I should like, if it were +convenient, to be a little better. But in this life, if one can walk +across the floor, and not be an idiot, it is something. That is all I +aim at." + +"Isn't it rather tiresome?" said Emilia, as the elder lady happened to +look at her. + +"Not at all," said Aunt Jane, composedly. "I naturally fall back into +happiness, when left to myself." + +"So you have returned to the house of your fathers," said Philip. "I +hope you like it." + +"It is commonplace in one respect," said Aunt Jane. "General Washington +once slept here." + +"Oh!" said Philip. "It is one of that class of houses?" + +"Yes," said she. "There is not a village in America that has not half +a dozen of them, not counting those where he only breakfasted. Did +ever man sleep like that man? What else could he ever have done? Who +governed, I wonder, while he was asleep? How he must have travelled! The +swiftest horse could scarcely have carried him from one of these houses +to another." + +"I never was attached to the memory of Washington," meditated Philip; +"but I always thought it was the pear-tree. It must have been that he +was such a very unsettled person." + +"He certainly was not what is called a domestic character," said Aunt +Jane. + +"I suppose you are, Miss Maxwell," said Philip. "Do you often go out?" + +"Sometimes, to drive," said Aunt Jane. "Yesterday I went shopping with +Kate, and sat in the carriage while she bought under-sleeves enough +for a centipede. It is always so with that child. People talk about the +trouble of getting a daughter ready to be married; but it is like being +married once a month to live with her." + +"I wonder that you take her to drive with you," suggested Philip, +sympathetically. + +"It is a great deal worse to drive without her," said the impetuous +lady. "She is the only person who lets me enjoy things, and now I +cannot enjoy them in her absence. Yesterday I drove alone over the three +beaches, and left her at home with a dress-maker. Never did I see so +many lines of surf; but they only seemed to me like some of Kate's +ball-dresses, with the prevailing flounces, six deep. I was so enraged +that she was not there, I wished to cover my face with my handkerchief. +By the third beach I was ready for the madhouse." + +"Is Oldport a pleasant place to live in?" asked Emilia, eagerly. + +"It is amusing in the summer," said Aunt Jane, "though the society is +nothing but a pack of visiting-cards. In winter it is too dull for young +people, and only suits quiet old women like me, who merely live here to +keep the Ten Commandments and darn their stockings." + +Meantime the children were aiming at Emilia, whose butterfly looks +amazed and charmed them, but who evidently did not know what to do with +their eager affection. + +"I know about you," said little Helen; "I know what you said when you +were little." + +"Did I say anything?" asked Emilia, carelessly. + +"Yes," replied the child, and began to repeat the oft-told domestic +tradition in an accurate way, as if it were a school lesson. "Once you +had been naughty, and your papa thought it his duty to slap you, and you +cried; and he told you in French, because he always spoke French with +you, that he did not punish you for his own pleasure. Then you stopped +crying, and asked, 'Pour le plaisir de qui alors?' That means 'For whose +pleasure then?' Hope said it was a droll question for a little girl to +ask." + +"I do not think it was Emilia who asked that remarkable question, little +girl," said Kate. + +"I dare say it was," said Emilia; "I have been asking it all my life." +Her eyes grew very moist, what with fatigue and excitement. But just +then, as is apt to happen in this world, they were all suddenly recalled +from tears to tea, and the children smothered their curiosity in +strawberries and cream. + +They sat again beside the western door, after tea. The young moon came +from a cloud and dropped a broad path of glory upon the bay; a black +yacht glided noiselessly in, and anchored amid this tract of splendor. +The shadow of its masts was on the luminous surface, while their +reflection lay at a different angle, and seemed to penetrate far below. +Then the departing steamer went flashing across this bright realm with +gorgeous lustre; its red and green lights were doubled in the paler +waves, its four reflected chimneys chased each other among the reflected +masts. This jewelled wonder passing, a single fishing-boat drifted +silently by, with its one dark sail; and then the moon and the anchored +yacht were left alone. + +Presently some of the luggage came from the wharf. Malbone brought +out presents for everybody; then all the family went to Europe in +photographs, and with some reluctance came back to America for bed. + + + + +II. PLACE AUX DAMES! + +IN every town there is one young maiden who is the universal favorite, +who belongs to all sets and is made an exception to all family feuds, +who is the confidante of all girls and the adopted sister of all young +men, up to the time when they respectively offer themselves to her, and +again after they are rejected. This post was filled in Oldport, in those +days, by my cousin Kate. + +Born into the world with many other gifts, this last and least definable +gift of popularity was added to complete them all. Nobody criticised +her, nobody was jealous of her, her very rivals lent her their new music +and their lovers; and her own discarded wooers always sought her to be a +bridesmaid when they married somebody else. + +She was one of those persons who seem to have come into the world +well-dressed. There was an atmosphere of elegance around her, like a +costume; every attitude implied a presence-chamber or a ball-room. The +girls complained that in private theatricals no combination of disguises +could reduce Kate to the ranks, nor give her the "make-up" of a +waiting-maid. Yet as her father was a New York merchant of the +precarious or spasmodic description, she had been used from childhood +to the wildest fluctuations of wardrobe;--a year of Paris dresses,--then +another year spent in making over ancient finery, that never looked like +either finery or antiquity when it came from her magic hands. Without +a particle of vanity or fear, secure in health and good-nature and +invariable prettiness, she cared little whether the appointed means of +grace were ancient silk or modern muslin. In her periods of poverty, +she made no secret of the necessary devices; the other girls, of course, +guessed them, but her lovers never did, because she always told them. +There was one particular tarlatan dress of hers which was a sort of +local institution. It was known to all her companions, like the State +House. There was a report that she had first worn it at her christening; +the report originated with herself. The young men knew that she was +going to the party if she could turn that pink tarlatan once more; but +they had only the vaguest impression what a tarlatan was, and cared +little on which side it was worn, so long as Kate was inside. + +During these epochs of privation her life, in respect to dress, was a +perpetual Christmas-tree of second-hand gifts. Wealthy aunts supplied +her with cast-off shoes of all sizes, from two and a half up to five, +and she used them all. She was reported to have worn one straw hat +through five changes of fashion. It was averred that, when square crowns +were in vogue, she flattened it over a tin pan, and that, when round +crowns returned, she bent it on the bedpost. There was such a charm in +her way of adapting these treasures, that the other girls liked to +test her with new problems in the way of millinery and dress-making; +millionnaire friends implored her to trim their hats, and lent her their +own things in order to learn how to wear them. This applied especially +to certain rich cousins, shy and studious girls, who adored her, and +to whom society only ceased to be alarming when the brilliant Kate +took them under her wing, and graciously accepted a few of their newest +feathers. Well might they acquiesce, for she stood by them superbly, and +her most favored partners found no way to her hand so sure as to dance +systematically through that staid sisterhood. Dear, sunshiny, gracious, +generous Kate!--who has ever done justice to the charm given to this +grave old world by the presence of one free-hearted and joyous girl? + +At the time now to be described, however, Kate's purse was well filled; +and if she wore only second-best finery, it was because she had lent her +very best to somebody else. All that her doting father asked was to pay +for her dresses, and to see her wear them; and if her friends wore a +part of them, it only made necessary a larger wardrobe, and more varied +and pleasurable shopping. She was as good a manager in wealth as in +poverty, wasted nothing, took exquisite care of everything, and saved +faithfully for some one else all that was not needed for her own pretty +person. + +Pretty she was throughout, from the parting of her jet-black hair to the +high instep of her slender foot; a glancing, brilliant, brunette beauty, +with the piquant charm of perpetual spirits, and the equipoise of a +perfectly healthy nature. She was altogether graceful, yet she had not +the fresh, free grace of her cousin Hope, who was lithe and strong as a +hawthorne spray: Kate's was the narrower grace of culture grown +hereditary, an in-door elegance that was born in her, and of which +dancing-school was but the natural development. You could not picture +Hope to your mind in one position more than in another; she had an +endless variety of easy motion. When you thought of Kate, you remembered +precisely how she sat, how she stood, and how she walked. That was all, +and it was always the same. But is not that enough? We do not ask of +Mary Stuart's portrait that it should represent her in more than one +attitude, and why should a living beauty need more than two or three? + +Kate was betrothed to her cousin Harry, Hope's brother, and, though she +was barely twenty, they had seemed to appertain to each other for a time +so long that the memory of man or maiden aunt ran not to the contrary. +She always declared, indeed, that they were born married, and that +their wedding-day would seem like a silver wedding. Harry was quiet, +unobtrusive, and manly. He might seem commonplace at first beside the +brilliant Kate and his more gifted sister; but thorough manhood is never +commonplace, and he was a person to whom one could anchor. His strong, +steadfast physique was the type of his whole nature; when he came +into the room, you felt as if a good many people had been added to the +company. He made steady progress in his profession of the law, through +sheer worth; he never dazzled, but he led. His type was pure Saxon, with +short, curling hair, blue eyes, and thin, fair skin, to which the color +readily mounted. Up to a certain point he was imperturbably patient +and amiable, but, when overtaxed, was fiery and impetuous for a single +instant, and no more. It seemed as if a sudden flash of anger went +over him, like the flash that glides along the glutinous stem of the +fraxinella, when you touch it with a candle; the next moment it had +utterly vanished, and was forgotten as if it had never been. + +Kate's love for her lover was one of those healthy and assured ties +that often outlast the ardors of more passionate natures. For other +temperaments it might have been inadequate; but theirs matched +perfectly, and it was all sufficient for them. If there was within +Kate's range a more heroic and ardent emotion than that inspired by +Harry, it was put forth toward Hope. This was her idolatry; she always +said that it was fortunate Hope was Hal's sister, or she should have +felt it her duty to give them to each other, and not die till the +wedding was accomplished. Harry shared this adoration to quite a +reasonable extent, for a brother; but his admiration for Philip Malbone +was one that Kate did not quite share. Harry's quieter mood had been +dazzled from childhood by Philip, who had always been a privileged guest +in the household. Kate's clear, penetrating, buoyant nature had divined +Phil's weaknesses, and had sometimes laughed at them, even from her +childhood; though she did not dislike him, for she did not dislike +anybody. But Harry was magnetized by him very much as women were; +believed him true, because he was tender, and called him only fastidious +where Kate called him lazy. + +Kate was spending that summer with her aunt Jane, whose especial pet and +pride she was. Hope was spending there the summer vacation of a Normal +School in which she had just become a teacher. Her father had shared in +the family ups and downs, but had finally stayed down, while the rest +had remained up. Fortunately, his elder children were indifferent to +this, and indeed rather preferred it; it was a tradition that Hope +had expressed the wish, when a child, that her father might lose +his property, so that she could become a teacher. As for Harry, he +infinitely preferred the drudgery of a law office to that of a gentleman +of leisure; and as for their step-mother, it turned out, when she was +left a widow, that she had secured for herself and Emilia whatever +property remained, so that she suffered only the delightful need of +living in Europe for economy. + +The elder brother and sister had alike that fine physical vigor which +New England is now developing, just in time to save it from decay. Hope +was of Saxon type, though a shade less blonde than her brother; she +was a little taller, and of more commanding presence, with a peculiarly +noble carriage of the shoulders. Her brow was sometimes criticised as +being a little too full for a woman; but her nose was straight, +her mouth and teeth beautiful, and her profile almost perfect. Her +complexion had lost by out-door life something of its delicacy, but had +gained a freshness and firmness that no sunlight could impair. She had +that wealth of hair which young girls find the most enviable point of +beauty in each other. Hers reached below her knees, when loosened, or +else lay coiled, in munificent braids of gold, full of sparkling lights +and contrasted shadows, upon her queenly head. + +Her eyes were much darker than her hair, and had a way of opening +naively and suddenly, with a perfectly infantine expression, as if she +at that moment saw the sunlight for the first time. Her long lashes were +somewhat like Emilia's, and she had the same deeply curved eyebrows; +in no other point was there a shade of resemblance between the +half-sisters. As compared with Kate, Hope showed a more abundant +physical life; there was more blood in her; she had ampler outlines, and +health more absolutely unvaried, for she had yet to know the experience +of a day's illness. Kate seemed born to tread upon a Brussels carpet, +and Hope on the softer luxury of the forest floor. Out of doors her +vigor became a sort of ecstasy, and she walked the earth with a jubilee +of the senses, such as Browning attributes to his Saul. + +This inexhaustible freshness of physical organization seemed to open the +windows of her soul, and make for her a new heaven and earth every day. +It gave also a peculiar and almost embarrassing directness to her mental +processes, and suggested in them a sort of final and absolute value, as +if truth had for the first time found a perfectly translucent medium. +It was not so much that she said rare things, but her very silence was +eloquent, and there was a great deal of it. Her girlhood had in it +a certain dignity as of a virgin priestess or sibyl. Yet her hearty +sympathies and her healthy energy made her at home in daily life, and +in a democratic society. To Kate, for instance, she was a necessity of +existence, like light or air. Kate's nature was limited; part of +her graceful equipoise was narrowness. Hope was capable of far more +self-abandonment to a controlling emotion, and, if she ever erred, +would err more widely, for it would be because the whole power of her +conscience was misdirected. "Once let her take wrong for right," said +Aunt Jane, "and stop her if you can; these born saints give a great deal +more trouble than children of this world, like my Kate." Yet in daily +life Hope yielded to her cousin nine times out of ten; but the tenth +time was the key to the situation. Hope loved Kate devotedly; but Kate +believed in her as the hunted fugitive believes in the north star. + +To these maidens, thus united, came Emilia home from Europe. The father +of Harry and Hope had been lured into a second marriage with Emilia's +mother, a charming and unscrupulous woman, born with an American body +and a French soul. She having once won him to Paris, held him there +life-long, and kept her step-children at a safe distance. She arranged +that, even after her own death, her daughter should still remain abroad +for education; nor was Emilia ordered back until she brought down some +scandal by a romantic attempt to elope from boarding-school with a Swiss +servant. It was by weaning her heart from this man that Philip Malbone +had earned the thanks of the whole household during his hasty flight +through Europe. He possessed some skill in withdrawing the female +heart from an undesirable attachment, though it was apt to be done by +substituting another. It was fortunate that, in this case, no fears +could be entertained. Since his engagement Philip had not permitted +himself so much as a flirtation; he and Hope were to be married soon; he +loved and admired her heartily, and had an indifference to her want of +fortune that was quite amazing, when we consider that he had a fortune +of his own. + + + + +III. A DRIVE ON THE AVENUE. + +OLDPORT AVENUE is a place where a great many carriages may be seen +driving so slowly that they might almost be photographed without +halting, and where their occupants already wear the dismal expression +which befits that process. In these fine vehicles, following each other +in an endless file, one sees such faces as used to be exhibited in +ball-rooms during the performance of quadrilles, before round dances +came in,--faces marked by the renunciation of all human joy. Sometimes +a faint suspicion suggests itself on the Avenue, that these torpid +countenances might be roused to life, in case some horse should run +away. But that one chance never occurs; the riders may not yet be toned +down into perfect breeding, but the horses are. I do not know what could +ever break the gloom of this joyless procession, were it not that youth +and beauty are always in fashion, and one sometimes meets an exceptional +barouche full of boys and girls, who could absolutely be no happier if +they were a thousand miles away from the best society. And such a joyous +company were our four youths and maidens when they went to drive that +day, Emilia being left at home to rest after the fatigues of the voyage. + +"What beautiful horses!" was Hope's first exclamation. "What grave +people!" was her second. + + "What though in solemn silence all + Roll round--" + +quoted Philip. + +"Hope is thinking," said Harry, "whether 'in reason's ear they all +rejoice.'" + +"How COULD you know that?" said she, opening her eyes. + +"One thing always strikes me," said Kate. "The sentence of stupefaction +does not seem to be enforced till after five-and-twenty. That young lady +we just met looked quite lively and juvenile last year, I remember, and +now she has graduated into a dowager." + +"Like little Helen's kitten," said Philip. "She justly remarks that, +since I saw it last, it is all spoiled into a great big cat." + +"Those must be snobs," said Harry, as a carriage with unusually gorgeous +liveries rolled by. + +"I suppose so," said Malbone, indifferently. "In Oldport we call all +new-comers snobs, you know, till they have invited us to their grand +ball. Then we go to it, and afterwards speak well of them, and only +abuse their wine." + +"How do you know them for new-comers?" asked Hope, looking after the +carriage. + +"By their improperly intelligent expression," returned Phil. "They look +around them as you do, my child, with the air of wide-awake curiosity +which marks the American traveller. That is out of place here. The +Avenue abhors everything but a vacuum." + +"I never can find out," continued Hope, "how people recognize each other +here. They do not look at each other, unless they know each other: and +how are they to know if they know, unless they look first?" + +"It seems an embarrassment," said Malbone. "But it is supposed that +fashion perforates the eyelids and looks through. If you attempt it in +any other way, you are lost. Newly arrived people look about them, and, +the more new wealth they have, the more they gaze. The men are uneasy +behind their recently educated mustaches, and the women hold their +parasols with trembling hands. It takes two years to learn to drive +on the Avenue. Come again next summer, and you will see in those same +carriages faces of remote superciliousness, that suggest generations of +gout and ancestors." + +"What a pity one feels," said Harry, "for these people who still suffer +from lingering modesty, and need a master to teach them to be insolent!" + +"They learn it soon enough," said Kate. "Philip is right. Fashion lies +in the eye. People fix their own position by the way they don't look at +you." + +"There is a certain indifference of manner," philosophized Malbone, +"before which ingenuous youth is crushed. I may know that a man can +hardly read or write, and that his father was a ragpicker till one day +he picked up bank-notes for a million. No matter. If he does not take +the trouble to look at me, I must look reverentially at him." + +"Here is somebody who will look at Hope," cried Kate, suddenly. + +A carriage passed, bearing a young lady with fair hair, and a keen, +bright look, talking eagerly to a small and quiet youth beside her. + +Her face brightened still more as she caught the eye of Hope, whose +face lighted up in return, and who then sank back with a sort of sigh +of relief, as if she had at last seen somebody she cared for. The lady +waved an un-gloved hand, and drove by. + +"Who is that?" asked Philip, eagerly. He was used to knowing every one. + +"Hope's pet," said Kate, "and she who pets Hope, Lady Antwerp." + +"Is it possible?" said Malbone. "That young creature? I fancied her +ladyship in spectacles, with little side curls. Men speak of her with +such dismay." + +"Of course," said Kate, "she asks them sensible questions." + +"That is bad," admitted Philip. "Nothing exasperates fashionable +Americans like a really intelligent foreigner. They feel as Sydney Smith +says the English clergy felt about Elizabeth Fry; she disturbs their +repose, and gives rise to distressing comparisons,--they long to burn +her alive. It is not their notion of a countess." + +"I am sure it was not mine," said Hope; "I can hardly remember that she +is one; I only know that I like her, she is so simple and intelligent. +She might be a girl from a Normal School." + +"It is because you are just that," said Kate, "that she likes you. +She came here supposing that we had all been at such schools. Then +she complained of us,--us girls in what we call good society, I +mean,--because, as she more than hinted, we did not seem to know +anything." + +"Some of the mothers were angry," said Hope. "But Aunt Jane told her +that it was perfectly true, and that her ladyship had not yet seen the +best-educated girls in America, who were generally the daughters of old +ministers and well-to-do shopkeepers in small New England towns, Aunt +Jane said." + +"Yes," said Kate, "she said that the best of those girls went to High +Schools and Normal Schools, and learned things thoroughly, you know; +but that we were only taught at boarding-schools and by governesses, and +came out at eighteen, and what could we know? Then came Hope, who had +been at those schools, and was the child of refined people too, and Lady +Antwerp was perfectly satisfied." + +"Especially," said Hope, "when Aunt Jane told her that, after all, +schools did not do very much good, for if people were born stupid they +only became more tiresome by schooling. She said that she had forgotten +all she learned at school except the boundaries of ancient Cappadocia." + +Aunt Jane's fearless sayings always passed current among her nieces; and +they drove on, Hope not being lowered in Philip's estimation, nor raised +in her own, by being the pet of a passing countess. + +Who would not be charmed (he thought to himself) by this noble girl, +who walks the earth fresh and strong as a Greek goddess, pure as Diana, +stately as Juno? She belongs to the unspoiled womanhood of another age, +and is wasted among these dolls and butterflies. + +He looked at her. She sat erect and graceful, unable to droop into the +debility of fashionable reclining,--her breezy hair lifted a little by +the soft wind, her face flushed, her full brown eyes looking eagerly +about, her mouth smiling happily. To be with those she loved best, and +to be driving over the beautiful earth! She was so happy that no mob of +fashionables could have lessened her enjoyment, or made her for a moment +conscious that anybody looked at her. The brilliant equipages which +they met each moment were not wholly uninteresting even to her, for her +affections went forth to some of the riders and to all the horses. She +was as well contented at that moment, on the glittering Avenue, as if +they had all been riding home through country lanes, and in constant +peril of being jolted out among the whortleberry-bushes. + +Her face brightened yet more as they met a carriage containing a +graceful lady dressed with that exquisiteness of taste that charms both +man and woman, even if no man can analyze and no woman rival its effect. +She had a perfectly high-bred look, and an eye that in an instant would +calculate one's ancestors as far back as Nebuchadnezzar, and bow to them +all together. She smiled good-naturedly on Hope, and kissed her hand to +Kate. + +"So, Hope," said Philip, "you are bent on teaching music to Mrs. +Meredith's children." + +"Indeed I am!" said Hope, eagerly. "O Philip, I shall enjoy it so! I do +not care so very much about her, but she has dear little girls. And you +know I am a born drudge. I have not been working hard enough to enjoy +an entire vacation, but I shall be so very happy here if I can have some +real work for an hour or two every other day." + +"Hope," said Philip, gravely, "look steadily at these people whom we are +meeting, and reflect. Should you like to have them say, 'There goes Mrs. +Meredith's music teacher'?" + +"Why not?" said Hope, with surprise. "The children are young, and it is +not very presumptuous. I ought to know enough for that." + +Malbone looked at Kate, who smiled with delight, and put her hand on +that of Hope. Indeed, she kept it there so long that one or two passing +ladies stopped their salutations in mid career, and actually looked +after them in amazement at their attitude, as who should say, "What a +very mixed society!" + +So they drove on,--meeting four-in-hands, and tandems, and donkey-carts, +and a goat-cart, and basket-wagons driven by pretty girls, with +uncomfortable youths in or out of livery behind. They met, had they but +known it, many who were aiming at notoriety, and some who had it; many +who looked contented with their lot, and some who actually were so. They +met some who put on courtesy and grace with their kid gloves, and laid +away those virtues in their glove-boxes afterwards; while to others +the mere consciousness of kid gloves brought uneasiness, redness of the +face, and a general impression of being all made of hands. They met the +four white horses of an ex-harness-maker, and the superb harnesses of an +ex-horse-dealer. Behind these came the gayest and most plebeian equipage +of all, a party of journeymen carpenters returning from their work in a +four-horse wagon. Their only fit compeers were an Italian opera-troupe, +who were chatting and gesticulating on the piazza of the great hotel, +and planning, amid jest and laughter, their future campaigns. Their work +seemed like play, while the play around them seemed like work. Indeed, +most people on the Avenue seemed to be happy in inverse ratio to their +income list. + +As our youths and maidens passed the hotel, a group of French naval +officers strolled forth, some of whom had a good deal of inexplicable +gold lace dangling in festoons from their shoulders,--"topsail halyards" +the American midshipmen called them. Philip looked hard at one of these +gentlemen. + +"I have seen that young fellow before," said he, "or his twin brother. +But who can swear to the personal identity of a Frenchman?" + + + + +IV. AUNT JANE DEFINES HER POSITION. + +THE next morning had that luminous morning haze, not quite dense +enough to be called a fog, which is often so lovely in Oldport. It was +perfectly still; the tide swelled and swelled till it touched the edge +of the green lawn behind the house, and seemed ready to submerge the +slender pier; the water looked at first like glass, till closer gaze +revealed long sinuous undulations, as if from unseen water-snakes +beneath. A few rags of storm-cloud lay over the half-seen hills beyond +the bay, and behind them came little mutterings of thunder, now +here, now there, as if some wild creature were roaming up and down, +dissatisfied, in the shelter of the clouds. The pale haze extended into +the foreground, and half veiled the schooners that lay at anchor with +their sails up. It was sultry, and there was something in the atmosphere +that at once threatened and soothed. Sometimes a few drops dimpled the +water and then ceased; the muttering creature in the sky moved northward +and grew still. It was a day when every one would be tempted to go out +rowing, but when only lovers would go. Philip and Hope went. + +Kate and Harry, meanwhile, awaited their opportunity to go in and visit +Aunt Jane. This was a thing that never could be done till near noon, +because that dear lady was very deliberate in her morning habits, +and always averred that she had never seen the sun rise except in +a panorama. She hated to be hurried in dressing, too; for she was +accustomed to say that she must have leisure to understand herself, and +this was clearly an affair of time. + +But she was never more charming than when, after dressing and +breakfasting in seclusion, and then vigilantly watching her handmaiden +through the necessary dustings and arrangements, she sat at last, with +her affairs in order, to await events. Every day she expected something +entirely new to happen, and was never disappointed. For she herself +always happened, if nothing else did; she could no more repeat herself +than the sunrise can; and the liveliest visitor always carried away +something fresher and more remarkable than he brought. + +Her book that morning had displeased her, and she was boiling with +indignation against its author. + +"I am reading a book so dry," she said, "it makes me cough. No wonder +there was a drought last summer. It was printed then. Worcester's +Geography seems in my memory as fascinating as Shakespeare, when I look +back upon it from this book. How can a man write such a thing and live?" + +"Perhaps he lived by writing it," said Kate. + +"Perhaps it was the best he could do," added the more literal Harry. + +"It certainly was not the best he could do, for he might have +died,--died instead of dried. O, I should like to prick that man with +something sharp, and see if sawdust did not run out of him! Kate, ask +the bookseller to let me know if he ever really dies, and then life may +seem fresh again." + +"What is it?" asked Kate. + +"Somebody's memoirs," said Aunt Jane. "Was there no man left worth +writing about, that they should make a biography about this one? It +is like a life of Napoleon with all the battles left out. They are +conceited enough to put his age in the upper corner of each page too, as +if anybody cared how old he was." + +"Such pretty covers!" said Kate. "It is too bad." + +"Yes," said Aunt Jane. "I mean to send them back and have new leaves +put in. These are so wretched, there is not a teakettle in the land so +insignificant that it would boil over them. Don't let us talk any more +about it. Have Philip and Hope gone out upon the water?" + +"Yes, dear," said Kate. "Did Ruth tell you?" + +"When did that aimless infant ever tell anything?" + +"Then how did you know it?" + +"If I waited for knowledge till that sweet-tempered parrot chose to tell +me," Aunt Jane went on, "I should be even more foolish than I am." + +"Then how did you know?" + +"Of course I heard the boat hauled down, and of course I knew that none +but lovers would go out just before a thunder-storm. Then you and Harry +came in, and I knew it was the others." + +"Aunt Jane," said Kate, "you divine everything: what a brain you have!" + +"Brain! it is nothing but a collection of shreds, like a little girl's +work-basket,--a scrap of blue silk and a bit of white muslin." + +"Now she is fishing for compliments," said Kate, "and she shall have +one. She was very sweet and good to Philip last night." + +"I know it," said Aunt Jane, with a groan. "I waked in the night and +thought about it. I was awake a great deal last night. I have heard +cocks crowing all my life, but I never knew what that creature could +accomplish before. So I lay and thought how good and forgiving I was; it +was quite distressing." + +"Remorse?" said Kate. + +"Yes, indeed. I hate to be a saint all the time. There ought to be +vacations. Instead of suffering from a bad conscience, I suffer from a +good one." + +"It was no merit of yours, aunt," put in Harry. "Who was ever more +agreeable and lovable than Malbone last night?" + +"Lovable!" burst out Aunt Jane, who never could be managed or +manipulated by anybody but Kate, and who often rebelled against Harry's +blunt assertions. "Of course he is lovable, and that is why I dislike +him. His father was so before him. That is the worst of it. I never in +my life saw any harm done by a villain; I wish I could. All the mischief +in this world is done by lovable people. Thank Heaven, nobody ever dared +to call me lovable!" + +"I should like to see any one dare call you anything else,--you dear, +old, soft-hearted darling!" interposed Kate. + +"But, aunt," persisted Harry, "if you only knew what the mass of young +men are--" + +"Don't I?" interrupted the impetuous lady. "What is there that is not +known to any woman who has common sense, and eyes enough to look out of +a window?" + +"If you only knew," Harry went on, "how superior Phil Malbone is, in his +whole tone, to any fellow of my acquaintance." + +"Lord help the rest!" she answered. "Philip has a sort of refinement +instead of principles, and a heart instead of a conscience,--just heart +enough to keep himself happy and everybody else miserable." + +"Do you mean to say," asked the obstinate Hal, "that there is no +difference between refinement and coarseness?" + +"Yes, there is," she said. + +"Well, which is best?" + +"Coarseness is safer by a great deal," said Aunt Jane, "in the hands +of a man like Philip. What harm can that swearing coachman do, I should +like to know, in the street yonder? To be sure it is very unpleasant, +and I wonder they let people swear so, except, perhaps, in waste places +outside the town; but that is his way of expressing himself, and he only +frightens people, after all." + +"Which Philip does not," said Hal. + +"Exactly. That is the danger. He frightens nobody, not even himself, +when he ought to wear a label round his neck marked 'Dangerous,' such as +they have at other places where it is slippery and brittle. When he is +here, I keep saying to myself, 'Too smooth, too smooth!'" + +"Aunt Jane," said Harry, gravely, "I know Malbone very well, and I never +knew any man whom it was more unjust to call a hypocrite." + +"Did I say he was a hypocrite?" she cried. "He is worse than that; at +least, more really dangerous. It is these high-strung sentimentalists +who do all the mischief; who play on their own lovely emotions, +forsooth, till they wear out those fine fiddlestrings, and then have +nothing left but the flesh and the D. Don't tell me!" + +"Do stop, auntie," interposed Kate, quite alarmed, "you are really worse +than a coachman. You are growing very profane indeed." + +"I have a much harder time than any coachman, Kate," retorted the +injured lady. "Nobody tries to stop him, and you are always hushing me +up." + +"Hushing you up, darling?" said Kate. "When we only spoil you by +praising and quoting everything you say." + +"Only when it amuses you," said Aunt Jane. "So long as I sit and cry my +eyes out over a book, you all love me, and when I talk nonsense, you are +ready to encourage it; but when I begin to utter a little sense, you all +want to silence me, or else run out of the room! Yesterday I read about +a newspaper somewhere, called the 'Daily Evening Voice'; I wish you +would allow me a daily morning voice." + +"Do not interfere, Kate," said Hal. "Aunt Jane and I only wish to +understand each other." + +"I am sure we don't," said Aunt Jane; "I have no desire to understand +you, and you never will understand me till you comprehend Philip." + +"Let us agree on one thing," Harry said. "Surely, aunt, you know how he +loves Hope?" + +Aunt Jane approached a degree nearer the equator, and said, gently, "I +fear I do." + +"Fear?" + +"Yes, fear. That is just what troubles me. I know precisely how he loves +her. Il se laisse aimer. Philip likes to be petted, as much as any cat, +and, while he will purr, Hope is happy. Very few men accept idolatry +with any degree of grace, but he unfortunately does." + +"Unfortunately?" remonstrated Hal, as far as ever from being satisfied. +"This is really too bad. You never will do him any justice." + +"Ah?" said Aunt Jane, chilling again, "I thought I did. I observe he is +very much afraid of me, and there seems to be no other reason." + +"The real trouble is," said Harry, after a pause, "that you doubt his +constancy." + +"What do you call constancy?" said she. "Kissing a woman's picture ten +years after a man has broken her heart? Philip Malbone has that kind of +constancy, and so had his father before him." + +This was too much for Harry, who was making for the door in indignation, +when little Ruth came in with Aunt Jane's luncheon, and that lady was +soon absorbed in the hopeless task of keeping her handmaiden's pretty +blue and white gingham sleeve out of the butter-plate. + + + + +V. A MULTIVALVE HEART. + +PHILIP MALBONE had that perfectly sunny temperament which is peculiarly +captivating among Americans, because it is so rare. He liked everybody +and everybody liked him; he had a thousand ways of affording pleasure, +and he received it in the giving. He had a personal beauty, which, +strange to say, was recognized by both sexes,--for handsome men must +often consent to be mildly hated by their own. He had travelled much, +and had mingled in very varied society; he had a moderate fortune, no +vices, no ambition, and no capacity of ennui. + +He was fastidious and over-critical, it might be, in his theories, but +in practice he was easily suited and never vexed. + +He liked travelling, and he liked staying at home; he was so continually +occupied as to give an apparent activity to all his life, and yet he +was never too busy to be interrupted, especially if the intruder were +a woman or a child. He liked to be with people of his own age, whatever +their condition; he also liked old people because they were old, and +children because they were young. In travelling by rail, he would woo +crying babies out of their mothers' arms, and still them; it was always +his back that Irishwomen thumped, to ask if they must get out at the +next station; and he might be seen handing out decrepit paupers, as +if they were of royal blood and bore concealed sceptres in their old +umbrellas. Exquisitely nice in his personal habits, he had the practical +democracy of a good-natured young prince; he had never yet seen a human +being who awed him, nor one whom he had the slightest wish to awe. +His courtesy, had, therefore, that comprehensiveness which we call +republican, though it was really the least republican thing about him. +All felt its attraction; there was really no one who disliked him, +except Aunt Jane; and even she admitted that he was the only person who +knew how to cut her lead-pencil. + +That cheerful English premier who thought that any man ought to find +happiness enough in walking London streets and looking at the lobsters +in the fish-markets, was not more easily satisfied than Malbone. He +liked to observe the groups of boys fishing at the wharves, or to hear +the chat of their fathers about coral-reefs and penguins' eggs; or to +sketch the fisher's little daughter awaiting her father at night on +some deserted and crumbling wharf, his blue pea-jacket over her fair +ring-leted head, and a great cat standing by with tail uplifted, her +sole protector. He liked the luxurious indolence of yachting, and +he liked as well to float in his wherry among the fleet of fishing +schooners getting under way after a three days' storm, each vessel +slipping out in turn from the closely packed crowd, and spreading its +white wings for flight. He liked to watch the groups of negro boys +and girls strolling by the window at evening, and strumming on the +banjo,--the only vestige of tropical life that haunts our busy Northern +zone. But he liked just as well to note the ways of well-dressed girls +and boys at croquet parties, or to sit at the club window and hear the +gossip. He was a jewel of a listener, and was not easily bored even when +Philadelphians talked about families, or New Yorkers about bargains, or +Bostonians about books. A man who has not one absorbing aim can get a +great many miscellaneous things into each twenty-four hours; and there +was not a day in which Philip did not make himself agreeable and useful +to many people, receive many confidences, and give much good-humored +advice about matters of which he knew nothing. His friends' children +ran after him in the street, and he knew the pet theories and wines of +elderly gentlemen. He said that he won their hearts by remembering every +occurrence in their lives except their birthdays. + +It was, perhaps, no drawback on the popularity of Philip Malbone that +he had been for some ten years reproached as a systematic flirt by all +women with whom he did not happen at the moment to be flirting. The +reproach was unjust; he had never done anything systematically in his +life; it was his temperament that flirted, not his will. He simply had +that most perilous of all seductive natures, in which the seducer is +himself seduced. With a personal refinement that almost amounted to +purity, he was constantly drifting into loves more profoundly perilous +than if they had belonged to a grosser man. Almost all women loved him, +because he loved almost all; he never had to assume an ardor, for he +always felt it. His heart was multivalve; he could love a dozen at once +in various modes and gradations, press a dozen hands in a day, gaze into +a dozen pair of eyes with unfeigned tenderness; while the last pair wept +for him, he was looking into the next. In truth, he loved to explore +those sweet depths; humanity is the highest thing to investigate, +he said, and the proper study of mankind is woman. Woman needs to be +studied while under the influence of emotion; let us therefore have +the emotions. This was the reason he gave to himself; but this refined +Mormonism of the heart was not based on reason, but on temperament and +habit. In such matters logic is only for the by-standers. + +His very generosity harmed him, as all our good qualities may harm us +when linked with bad ones; he had so many excuses for doing kindnesses +to his friends, it was hard to quarrel with him if he did them too +tenderly. He was no more capable of unkindness than of constancy; and +so strongly did he fix the allegiance of those who loved him, that the +women to whom he had caused most anguish would still defend him when +accused; would have crossed the continent, if needed, to nurse him in +illness, and would have rained rivers of tears on his grave. To do him +justice, he would have done almost as much for them,--for any of them. +He could torture a devoted heart, but only through a sort of half-wilful +unconsciousness; he could not bear to see tears shed in his presence, +nor to let his imagination dwell very much on those which flowed in his +absence. When he had once loved a woman, or even fancied that he loved +her, he built for her a shrine that was never dismantled, and in which +a very little faint incense would sometimes be found burning for years +after; he never quite ceased to feel a languid thrill at the mention +of her name; he would make even for a past love the most generous +sacrifices of time, convenience, truth perhaps,--everything, in short, +but the present love. To those who had given him all that an undivided +heart can give he would deny nothing but an undivided heart in return. +The misfortune was that this was the only thing they cared to possess. + +This abundant and spontaneous feeling gave him an air of earnestness, +without which he could not have charmed any woman, and, least of all, +one like Hope. No woman really loves a trifler; she must at least +convince herself that he who trifles with others is serious with her. +Philip was never quite serious and never quite otherwise; he never +deliberately got up a passion, for it was never needful; he simply found +an object for his emotions, opened their valves, and then watched their +flow. To love a charming woman in her presence is no test of genuine +passion; let us know how much you long for her in absence. This longing +had never yet seriously troubled Malbone, provided there was another +charming person within an easy walk. + +If it was sometimes forced upon him that all this ended in anguish to +some of these various charmers, first or last, then there was always in +reserve the pleasure of repentance. He was very winning and generous in +his repentances, and he enjoyed them so much they were often repeated. +He did not pass for a weak person, and he was not exactly weak; but he +spent his life in putting away temptations with one hand and pulling +them back with the other. There was for him something piquant in being +thus neither innocent nor guilty, but always on some delicious +middle ground. He loved dearly to skate on thin ice,--that was the +trouble,--especially where he fancied the water to be just within his +depth. Unluckily the sea of life deepens rather fast. + +Malbone had known Hope from her childhood, as he had known her cousins, +but their love dated from their meetings beside the sickbed of his +mother, over whom he had watched with unstinted devotion for weary +months. She had been very fond of the young girl, and her last earthly +act was to place Hope's hand in Philip's. Long before this final +consecration, Hope had won his heart more thoroughly, he fancied, than +any woman he had ever seen. The secret of this crowning charm was, +perhaps, that she was a new sensation. He had prided himself on his +knowledge of her sex, and yet here was a wholly new species. He was +acquainted with the women of society, and with the women who only wished +to be in society. But here was one who was in the chrysalis, and had +never been a grub, and had no wish to be a butterfly, and what should he +make of her? He was like a student of insects who had never seen a bee. +Never had he known a young girl who cared for the things which this +maiden sought, or who was not dazzled by things to which Hope seemed +perfectly indifferent. She was not a devotee, she was not a prude; +people seemed to amuse and interest her; she liked them, she declared, +as much as she liked books. But this very way of putting the thing +seemed like inverting the accustomed order of affairs in the polite +world, and was of itself a novelty. + +Of course he had previously taken his turn for a while among Kate's +admirers; but it was when she was very young, and, moreover, it was hard +to get up anything like a tender and confidential relation with that +frank maiden; she never would have accepted Philip Malbone for herself, +and she was by no means satisfied with his betrothal to her best +beloved. But that Hope loved him ardently there was no doubt, however it +might be explained. Perhaps it was some law of opposites, and she needed +some one of lighter nature than her own. As her resolute purpose charmed +him, so she may have found a certain fascination in the airy way in +which he took hold on life; he was so full of thought and intelligence; +possessing infinite leisure, and yet incapable of ennui; ready to oblige +every one, and doing so many kind acts at so little personal sacrifice; +always easy, graceful, lovable, and kind. In her just indignation at +those who called him heartless, she forgot to notice that his heart was +not deep. He was interested in all her pursuits, could aid her in all +her studies, suggest schemes for her benevolent desires, and could then +make others work for her, and even work himself. People usually loved +Philip, even while they criticised him; but Hope loved him first, and +then could not criticise him at all. + +Nature seems always planning to equalize characters, and to protect our +friends from growing too perfect for our deserts. Love, for instance, is +apt to strengthen the weak, and yet sometimes weakens the strong. Under +its influence Hope sometimes appeared at disadvantage. Had the object of +her love been indifferent, the result might have been otherwise, but her +ample nature apparently needed to contract itself a little, to find room +within Philip's heart. Not that in his presence she became vain or petty +or jealous; that would have been impossible. She only grew credulous and +absorbed and blind. A kind of gentle obstinacy, too, developed itself +in her nature, and all suggestion of defects in him fell off from her as +from a marble image of Faith. If he said or did anything, there was no +appeal; that was settled, let us pass to something else. + +I almost blush to admit that Aunt Jane--of whom it could by no means +be asserted that she was a saintly lady, but only a very charming +one--rather rejoiced in this transformation. + +"I like it better, my dear," she said, with her usual frankness, to +Kate. "Hope was altogether too heavenly for my style. When she first +came here, I secretly thought I never should care anything about her. +She seemed nothing but a little moral tale. I thought she would not last +me five minutes. But now she is growing quite human and ridiculous about +that Philip, and I think I may find her very attractive indeed." + + + + +VI. "SOME LOVER'S CLEAR DAY." + +"HOPE!" said Philip Malbone, as they sailed together in a little boat +the next morning, "I have come back to you from months of bewildered +dreaming. I have been wandering,--no matter where. I need you. You +cannot tell how much I need you." + +"I can estimate it," she answered, gently, "by my need of you." + +"Not at all," said Philip, gazing in her trustful face. "Any one whom +you loved would adore you, could he be by your side. You need nothing. +It is I who need you." + +"Why?" she asked, simply. + +"Because," he said, "I am capable of behaving very much like a fool. +Hope, I am not worthy of you; why do you love me? why do you trust me?" + +"I do not know how I learned to love you," said Hope. "It is a blessing +that was given to me. But I learned to trust you in your mother's +sick-room." + +"Ay," said Philip, sadly, "there, at least, I did my full duty." + +"As few would have done it," said Hope, firmly,--"very few. Such +prolonged self-sacrifice must strengthen a man for life." + +"Not always," said Philip, uneasily. "Too much of that sort of thing may +hurt one, I fancy, as well as too little. He may come to imagine that +the balance of virtue is in his favor, and that he may grant himself +a little indulgence to make up for lost time. That sort of recoil is a +little dangerous, as I sometimes feel, do you know?" + +"And you show it," said Hope, ardently, "by fresh sacrifices! How much +trouble you have taken about Emilia! Some time, when you are willing, +you shall tell me all about it. You always seemed to me a magician, but +I did not think that even you could restore her to sense and wisdom so +soon." + +Malbone was just then very busy putting the boat about; but when he had +it on the other tack, he said, "How do you like her?" + +"Philip," said Hope, her eyes filling with tears, "I wonder if you have +the slightest conception how my heart is fixed on that child. She has +always been a sort of dream to me, and the difficulty of getting any +letters from her has only added to the excitement. Now that she is here, +my whole heart yearns toward her. Yet, when I look into her eyes, a sort +of blank hopelessness comes over me. They seem like the eyes of some +untamable creature whose language I shall never learn. Philip, you are +older and wiser than I, and have shown already that you understand her. +Tell me what I can do to make her love me?" + +"Tell me how any one could help it?" said Malbone, looking fondly on the +sweet, pleading face before him. + +"I am beginning to fear that it can be helped," she said. Her thoughts +were still with Emilia. + +"Perhaps it can," said Phil, "if you sit so far away from people. Here +we are alone on the bay. Come and sit by me, Hope." + +She had been sitting amidships, but she came aft at once, and nestled +by him as he sat holding the tiller. She put her face against his knee, +like a tired child, and shut her eyes; her hair was lifted by the summer +breeze; a scent of roses came from her; the mere contact of anything +so fresh and pure was a delight. He put his arm around her, and all the +first ardor of passion came back to him again; he remembered how he had +longed to win this Diana, and how thoroughly she was won. + +"It is you who do me good," said she. "O Philip, sail as slowly as you +can." But he only sailed farther, instead of more slowly, gliding in +and out among the rocky islands in the light north wind, which, for a +wonder, lasted all that day,--dappling the bare hills of the Isle +of Shadows with a shifting beauty. The tide was in and brimming, the +fishing-boats were busy, white gulls soared and clattered round them, +and heavy cormorants flapped away as they neared the rocks. Beneath the +boat the soft multitudinous jellyfishes waved their fringed pendants, or +glittered with tremulous gold along their pink, translucent sides. +Long lines and streaks of paler blue lay smoothly along the enamelled +surface, the low, amethystine hills lay couched beyond them, and little +clouds stretched themselves in lazy length above the beautiful expanse. +They reached the ruined fort at last, and Philip, surrendering Hope to +others, was himself besieged by a joyous group. + +As you stand upon the crumbling parapet of old Fort Louis, you feel +yourself poised in middle air; the sea-birds soar and swoop around you, +the white surf lashes the rocks far below, the white vessels come and +go, the water is around you on all sides but one, and spreads its pale +blue beauty up the lovely bay, or, in deeper tints, southward towards +the horizon line. I know of no ruin in America which nature has so +resumed; it seems a part of the living rock; you cannot imagine it away. + +It is a single round, low tower, shaped like the tomb of Cacilia +Metella. But its stately position makes it rank with the vast sisterhood +of wave-washed strongholds; it might be King Arthur's Cornish Tyntagel; +it might be "the teocallis tower" of Tuloom. As you gaze down from its +height, all things that float upon the ocean seem equalized. Look at the +crowded life on yonder frigate, coming in full-sailed before the steady +sea-breeze. To furl that heavy canvas, a hundred men cluster like bees +upon the yards, yet to us upon this height it is all but a plaything for +the eyes, and we turn with equal interest from that thronged floating +citadel to some lonely boy in his skiff. + +Yonder there sail to the ocean, beating wearily to windward, a few slow +vessels. Inward come jubilant white schooners, wing-and-wing. There are +fishing-smacks towing their boats behind them like a family of children; +and there are slender yachts that bear only their own light burden. Once +from this height I saw the whole yacht squadron round Point Judith, and +glide in like a flock of land-bound sea-birds; and above them, yet more +snowy and with softer curves, pressed onward the white squadrons of the +sky. + +Within, the tower is full of debris, now disintegrated into one solid +mass, and covered with vegetation. You can lie on the blossoming clover, +where the bees hum and the crickets chirp around you, and can look +through the arch which frames its own fair picture. In the foreground +lies the steep slope overgrown with bayberry and gay with thistle +blooms; then the little winding cove with its bordering cliffs; and +the rough pastures with their grazing sheep beyond. Or, ascending the +parapet, you can look across the bay to the men making hay picturesquely +on far-off lawns, or to the cannon on the outer works of Fort Adams, +looking like vast black insects that have crawled forth to die. + +Here our young people spent the day; some sketched, some played croquet, +some bathed in rocky inlets where the kingfisher screamed above them, +some rowed to little craggy isles for wild roses, some fished, and then +were taught by the boatmen to cook their fish in novel island ways. The +morning grew more and more cloudless, and then in the afternoon a fog +came and went again, marching by with its white armies, soon met and +annihilated by a rainbow. + +The conversation that day was very gay and incoherent,--little fragments +of all manner of things; science, sentiment, everything: "Like a +distracted dictionary," Kate said. At last this lively maiden got Philip +away from the rest, and began to cross-question him. + +"Tell me," she said, "about Emilia's Swiss lover. She shuddered when she +spoke of him. Was he so very bad?" + +"Not at all," was the answer. "You had false impressions of him. He was +a handsome, manly fellow, a little over-sentimental. He had travelled, +and had been a merchant's clerk in Paris and London. Then he came back, +and became a boatman on the lake, some said, for love of her." + +"Did she love him?" + +"Passionately, as she thought." + +"Did he love her much?" + +"I suppose so." + +"Then why did she stop loving him?" + +"She does not hate him?" + +"No," said Kate, "that is what surprises me. Lovers hate, or those who +have been lovers. She is only indifferent. Philip, she had wound silk +upon a torn piece of his carte-de-visite, and did not know it till I +showed it to her. Even then she did not care." + +"Such is woman!" said Philip. + +"Nonsense," said Kate. "She had seen somebody whom she loved better, and +she still loves that somebody. Who was it? She had not been introduced +into society. Were there any superior men among her teachers? She is +just the girl to fall in love with her teacher, at least in Europe, +where they are the only men one sees." + +"There were some very superior men among them," said Philip. "Professor +Schirmer has a European reputation; he wears blue spectacles and a +maroon wig." + +"Do not talk so," said Kate. "I tell you, Emilia is not changeable, like +you, sir. She is passionate and constant. She would have married that +man or died for him. You may think that your sage counsels restrained +her, but they did not; it was that she loved some one else. Tell me +honestly. Do you not know that there is somebody in Europe whom she +loves to distraction?" + +"I do not know it," said Philip. + +"Of course you do not KNOW it," returned the questioner. "Do you not +think it?" + +"I have no reason to believe it." + +"That has nothing to do with it," said Kate. "Things that we believe +without any reason have a great deal more weight with us. Do you not +believe it?" + +"No," said Philip, point-blank. + +"It is very strange," mused Kate. "Of course you do not know much about +it. She may have misled you, but I am sure that neither you nor any one +else could have cured her of a passion, especially an unreasonable one, +without putting another in its place. If you did it without that, you +are a magician, as Hope once called you. Philip, I am afraid of you." + +"There we sympathize," said Phil. "I am sometimes afraid of myself, but +I discover within half an hour what a very commonplace land harmless +person I am." + +Meantime Emilia found herself beside her sister, who was sketching. +After watching Hope for a time in silence, she began to question her. + +"Tell me what you have been doing in all these years," she said. + +"O, I have been at school," said Hope. "First I went through the High +School; then I stayed out of school a year, and studied Greek and German +with my uncle, and music with my aunt, who plays uncommonly well. Then +I persuaded them to let me go to the Normal School for two years, and +learn to be a teacher." + +"A teacher!" said Emilia, with surprise. "Is it necessary that you +should be a teacher?" + +"Very necessary," replied Hope. "I must have something to do, you know, +after I leave school." + +"To do?" said the other. "Cannot you go to parties?" + +"Not all the time," said her sister. + +"Well," said Emilia, "in the mean time you can go to drive, or make +calls, or stay at home and make pretty little things to wear, as other +girls do." + +"I can find time for that too, little sister, when I need them. But I +love children, you know, and I like to teach interesting studies. I have +splendid health, and I enjoy it all. I like it as you love dancing, +my child, only I like dancing too, so I have a greater variety of +enjoyments." + +"But shall you not sometimes find it very hard?" said Emilia. + +"That is why I shall like it," was the answer. + +"What a girl you are!" exclaimed the younger sister. "You know +everything and can do everything." + +"A very short everything," interposed Hope. + +"Kate says," continued Emilia, "that you speak French as well as I do, +and I dare say you dance a great deal better; and those are the only +things I know." + +"If we both had French partners, dear," replied the elder maiden, "they +would soon find the difference in both respects. My dancing came by +nature, I believe, and I learned French as a child, by talking with my +old uncle, who was half a Parisian. I believe I have a good accent, +but I have so little practice that I have no command of the language +compared to yours. In a week or two we can both try our skill, as there +is to be a ball for the officers of the French corvette yonder," +and Hope pointed to the heavy spars, the dark canvas, and the high +quarter-deck which made the "Jean Hoche" seem as if she had floated out +of the days of Nelson. + +The calm day waned, the sun drooped to his setting amid a few golden +bars and pencilled lines of light. Ere they were ready for departure, +the tide had ebbed, and, in getting the boats to a practicable +landing-place, Malbone was delayed behind the others. As he at length +brought his boat to the rock, Hope sat upon the ruined fort, far above +him, and sang. Her noble contralto voice echoed among the cliffs down +to the smooth water; the sun went down behind her, and still she sat +stately and noble, her white dress looking more and more spirit-like +against the golden sky; and still the song rang on,-- + +"Never a scornful word should grieve thee, I'd smile on thee, sweet, as +the angels do; Sweet as thy smile on me shone ever, Douglas, Douglas, +tender and true." + +All sacredness and sweetness, all that was pure and brave and truthful, +seemed to rest in her. And when the song ceased at his summons, and she +came down to meet him,--glowing, beautiful, appealing, tender,--then all +meaner spells vanished, if such had ever haunted him, and he was hers +alone. + +Later that evening, after the household had separated, Hope went into +the empty drawing-room for a light. Philip, after a moment's hesitation, +followed her, and paused in the doorway. She stood, a white-robed +figure, holding the lighted candle; behind her rose the arched alcove, +whose quaint cherubs looked down on her; she seemed to have stepped +forth, the awakened image of a saint. Looking up, she saw his eager +glance; then she colored, trembled, and put the candle down. He came to +her, took her hand and kissed it, then put his hand upon her brow and +gazed into her face, then kissed her lips. She quietly yielded, but her +color came and went, and her lips moved as if to speak. For a moment he +saw her only, thought only of her. + +Then, even while he gazed into her eyes, a flood of other memories +surged over him, and his own eyes grew dim. His head swam, the lips he +had just kissed appeared to fade away, and something of darker, richer +beauty seemed to burn through those fair features; he looked through +those gentle eyes into orbs more radiant, and it was as if a countenance +of eager passion obliterated that fair head, and spoke with substituted +lips, "Behold your love." There was a thrill of infinite ecstasy in the +work his imagination did; he gave it rein, then suddenly drew it in and +looked at Hope. Her touch brought pain for an instant, as she laid her +hand upon him, but he bore it. Then some influence of calmness came; +there swept by him a flood of earlier, serener memories; he sat down in +the window-seat beside her, and when she put her face beside his, and +her soft hair touched his cheek, and he inhaled the rose-odor that +always clung round her, every atom of his manhood stood up to drive away +the intruding presence, and he again belonged to her alone. + +When he went to his chamber that night, he drew from his pocket a little +note in a girlish hand, which he lighted in the candle, and put upon the +open hearth to burn. With what a cruel, tinkling rustle the pages flamed +and twisted and opened, as if the fire read them, and collapsed again as +if in agonizing effort to hold their secret even in death! The closely +folded paper refused to burn, it went out again and again; while each +time Philip Malbone examined it ere relighting, with a sort of +vague curiosity, to see how much passion had already vanished out of +existence, and how much yet survived. For each of these inspections he +had to brush aside the calcined portion of the letter, once so warm +and beautiful with love, but changed to something that seemed to him a +semblance of his own heart just then,--black, trivial, and empty. + +Then he took from a little folded paper a long tress of dark silken +hair, and, without trusting himself to kiss it, held it firmly in the +candle. It crisped and sparkled, and sent out a pungent odor, then +turned and writhed between his fingers, like a living thing in pain. +What part of us has earthly immortality but our hair? It dies not with +death. When all else of human beauty has decayed beyond corruption into +the more agonizing irrecoverableness of dust, the hair is still fresh +and beautiful, defying annihilation, and restoring to the powerless +heart the full association of the living image. These shrinking hairs, +they feared not death, but they seemed to fear Malbone. Nothing but the +hand of man could destroy what he was destroying; but his hand shrank +not, and it was done. + + + + +VII. AN INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION. + +AT the celebrated Oldport ball for the French officers, the merit of +each maiden was estimated by the number of foreigners with whom she +could talk at once, for there were more gentlemen than ladies, and not +more than half the ladies spoke French. Here Emilia was in her glory; +the ice being once broken, officers were to her but like so many +school-girls, and she rattled away to the admiral and the fleet captain +and two or three lieutenants at once, while others hovered behind the +circle of her immediate adorers, to pick up the stray shafts of what +passed for wit. Other girls again drove two-in-hand, at the most, in the +way of conversation; while those least gifted could only encounter one +small Frenchman in some safe corner, and converse chiefly by smiles and +signs. + +On the whole, the evening opened gayly. Newly arrived Frenchmen are apt +to be so unused to the familiar society of unmarried girls, that the +most innocent share in it has for them the zest of forbidden fruit, and +the most blameless intercourse seems almost a bonne fortune. Most of +these officers were from the lower ranks of French society, but they all +had that good-breeding which their race wears with such ease, and can +unhappily put off with the same. + +The admiral and the fleet captain were soon turned over to Hope, who +spoke French as she did English, with quiet grace. She found them +agreeable companions, while Emilia drifted among the elder midshipmen, +who were dazzling in gold lace if not in intellect. Kate fell to the +share of a vehement little surgeon, who danced her out of breath. Harry +officiated as interpreter between the governor of the State and a lively +young ensign, who yearned for the society of dignitaries. The governor +was quite aware that he himself could not speak French; the Frenchman +was quite unaware that he himself could not speak English; but with +Harry's aid they plunged boldly into conversation. Their talk happened +to fall on steam-engines, English, French, American; their comparative +cost, comparative power, comparative cost per horse power,--until Harry, +who was not very strong upon the steam-engine in his own tongue, and was +quite helpless on that point in any other, got a good deal astray among +the numerals, and implanted some rather wild statistics in the mind of +each. The young Frenchman was far more definite, when requested by the +governor to state in English the precise number of men engaged on board +the corvette. With the accuracy of his nation, he beamingly replied, +"Seeshundredtousand." + +As is apt to be the case in Oldport, other European nationalities beside +the French were represented, though the most marked foreign accent was +of course to be found among Americans just returned. There were European +diplomatists who spoke English perfectly; there were travellers who +spoke no English at all; and as usual each guest sought to practise +himself in the tongue he knew least. There was the usual eagerness among +the fashionable vulgar to make acquaintance with anything that combined +broken English and a title; and two minutes after a Russian prince had +seated himself comfortably on a sofa beside Kate, he was vehemently +tapped on the shoulder by Mrs. Courtenay Brash with the endearing +summons: "Why! Prince, I didn't see as you was here. Do you set +comfortable where you be? Come over to this window, and tell all you +know!" + +The prince might have felt that his summons was abrupt, but knew not +that it was ungrammatical, and so was led away in triumph. He had been +but a month or two in this country, and so spoke our language no more +correctly than Mrs. Brash, but only with more grace. There was no great +harm in Mrs. Brash; like most loquacious people, she was kind-hearted, +with a tendency to corpulence and good works. She was also afflicted +with a high color, and a chronic eruption of diamonds. Her husband +had an eye for them, having begun life as a jeweller's apprentice, and +having developed sufficient sharpness of vision in other directions to +become a millionnaire, and a Congressman, and to let his wife do as she +pleased. + +What goes forth from the lips may vary in dialect, but wine and oysters +speak the universal language. The supper-table brought our party +together, and they compared notes. + +"Parties are very confusing," philosophized Hope,--"especially when +waiters and partners dress so much alike. Just now I saw an ill-looking +man elbowing his way up to Mrs. Meredith, and I thought he was bringing +her something on a plate. Instead of that, it was his hand he held out, +and she put hers into it; and I was told that he was one of the leaders +of society. There are very few gentlemen here whom I could positively +tell from the waiters by their faces, and yet Harry says the fast set +are not here." + +"Talk of the angels!" said Philip. "There come the Inglesides." + +Through the door of the supper-room they saw entering the drawing-room +one of those pretty, fair-haired women who grow older up to twenty-five +and then remain unchanged till sixty. She was dressed in the loveliest +pale blue silk, very low in the neck, and she seemed to smile on all +with her white teeth and her white shoulders. This was Mrs. Ingleside. +With her came her daughter Blanche, a pretty blonde, whose bearing +seemed at first as innocent and pastoral as her name. Her dress was of +spotless white, what there was of it; and her skin was so snowy, you +could hardly tell where the dress ended. Her complexion was exquisite, +her eyes of the softest blue; at twenty-three she did not look more +than seventeen; and yet there was such a contrast between these virginal +traits, and the worn, faithless, hopeless expression, that she looked, +as Philip said, like a depraved lamb. Does it show the higher nature +of woman, that, while "fast young men" are content to look like +well-dressed stable boys and billiard-markers, one may observe that +girls of the corresponding type are apt to addict themselves to white +and rosebuds, and pose themselves for falling angels? + +Mrs. Ingleside was a stray widow (from New Orleans via Paris), into +whose antecedents it was best not to inquire too closely. After many +ups and downs, she was at present up. It was difficult to state with +certainty what bad deed she had ever done, or what good deed. She simply +lived by her wits, and perhaps by some want of that article in her +male friends. Her house was a sort of gentlemanly clubhouse, where the +presence of two women offered a shade less restraint than if there had +been men alone. She was amiable and unscrupulous, went regularly to +church, and needed only money to be the most respectable and fastidious +of women. It was always rather a mystery who paid for her charming +little dinners; indeed, several things in her demeanor were +questionable, but as the questions were never answered, no harm was +done, and everybody invited her because everybody else did. Had she +committed some graceful forgery tomorrow, or some mild murder the next +day, nobody would have been surprised, and all her intimate friends +would have said it was what they had always expected. + +Meantime the entertainment went on. + +"I shall not have scalloped oysters in heaven," lamented Kate, as she +finished with healthy appetite her first instalment. + +"Are you sure you shall not?" said the sympathetic Hope, who would have +eagerly followed Kate into Paradise with a supply of whatever she liked +best. + +"I suppose you will, darling," responded Kate, "but what will you care? +It seems hard that those who are bad enough to long for them should not +be good enough to earn them." + +At this moment Blanche Ingleside and her train swept into the +supper-room; the girls cleared a passage, their attendant youths +collected chairs. Blanche tilted hers slightly against a wall, professed +utter exhaustion, and demanded a fresh bottle of champagne in a voice +that showed no signs of weakness. Presently a sheepish youth drew near +the noisy circle. + +"Here comes that Talbot van Alsted," said Blanche, bursting at last into +a loud whisper. "What a goose he is, to be sure! Dear baby, it promised +its mother it wouldn't drink wine for two months. Let's all drink with +him. Talbot, my boy, just in time! Fill your glass. Stosst an!" + +And Blanche and her attendant spirits in white muslin thronged around +the weak boy, saw him charged with the three glasses that were all his +head could stand, and sent him reeling home to his mother. Then they +looked round for fresh worlds to conquer. + +"There are the Maxwells!" said Miss Ingleside, without lowering +her voice. "Who is that party in the high-necked dress? Is she the +schoolmistress? Why do they have such people here? Society is getting so +common, there is no bearing it. That Emily who is with her is too +good for that slow set. She's the school-girl we heard of at Nice, or +somewhere; she wanted to elope with somebody, and Phil Malbone stopped +her, worse luck. She will be for eloping with us, before long." + +Emilia colored scarlet, and gave a furtive glance at Hope, half of +shame, half of triumph. Hope looked at Blanche with surprise, made +a movement forward, but was restrained by the crowd, while the noisy +damsel broke out in a different direction. + +"How fiendishly hot it is here, though! Jones junior, put your elbow +through that window! This champagne is boiling. What a tiresome time we +shall have to-morrow, when the Frenchmen are gone! Ah, Count, there you +are at last! Ready for the German? Come for me? Just primed and up to +anything, and so I tell you!" + +But as Count Posen, kissing his hand to her, squeezed his way through +the crowd with Hal, to be presented to Hope, there came over Blanche's +young face such a mingled look of hatred and weariness and chagrin, that +even her unobserving friends saw it, and asked with tender commiseration +what was up. + +The dancing recommenced. There was the usual array of partners, +distributed by mysterious discrepancies, like soldiers' uniforms, so +that all the tall drew short, and all the short had tall. There were the +timid couples, who danced with trembling knees and eyes cast over their +shoulders; the feeble couples, who meandered aimlessly and got tangled +in corners; the rash couples, who tore breathlessly through the +rooms and brought up at last against the large white waistcoat of the +violon-cello. There was the professional lady-killer, too supreme and +indolent to dance, but sitting amid an admiring bevy of fair women, +where he reared his head of raven curls, and pulled ceaselessly +his black mustache. And there were certain young girls who, having +astonished the community for a month by the lowness of their dresses, +now brought to bear their only remaining art, and struck everybody dumb +by appearing clothed. All these came and went and came again, and had +their day or their night, and danced until the robust Hope went home +exhausted and left her more fragile cousins to dance on till morning. +Indeed, it was no easy thing for them to tear themselves away; Kate was +always in demand; Philip knew everybody, and had that latest aroma of +Paris which the soul of fashion covets; Harry had the tried endurance +which befits brothers and lovers at balls; while Emilia's foreign court +held out till morning, and one handsome young midshipman, in special, +kept revolving back to her after each long orbit of separation, like a +gold-laced comet. + +The young people lingered extravagantly late at that ball, for the +corvette was to sail next day, and the girls were willing to make the +most of it. As they came to the outer door, the dawn was inexpressibly +beautiful,--deep rose melting into saffron, beneath a tremulous morning +star. With a sudden impulse, they agreed to walk home, the fresh air +seemed so delicious. Philip and Emilia went first, outstripping the +others. + +Passing the Jewish cemetery, Kate and Harry paused a moment. The sky was +almost cloudless, the air was full of a thousand scents and songs, the +rose-tints in the sky were deepening, the star paling, while a few vague +clouds went wandering upward, and dreamed themselves away. + +"There is a grave in that cemetery," said Kate, gently, "where lovers +should always be sitting. It lies behind that tall monument; I cannot +see it for the blossoming boughs. There were two young cousins who loved +each other from childhood, but were separated, because Jews do not allow +such unions. Neither of them was ever married; and they lived to be +very old, the one in New Orleans, the other at the North. In their last +illnesses each dreamed of walking in the fields with the other, as in +their early days; and the telegraphic despatches that told their deaths +crossed each other on the way. That is his monument, and her grave was +made behind it; there was no room for a stone." + +Kate moved a step or two, that she might see the graves. The branches +opened clear. What living lovers had met there, at this strange hour, +above the dust of lovers dead? She saw with amazement, and walked on +quickly that Harry might not also see. + +It was Emilia who sat beside the grave, her dark hair drooping and +dishevelled, her carnation cheek still brilliant after the night's +excitement; and he who sat at her feet, grasping her hand in both of +his, while his lips poured out passionate words to which she eagerly +listened, was Philip Malbone. + +Here, upon the soil of a new nation, lay a spot whose associations +seemed already as old as time could make them,--the last footprint of +a tribe now vanished from this island forever,--the resting-place of a +race whose very funerals would soon be no more. Each April the robins +built their nests around these crumbling stones, each May they reared +their broods, each June the clover blossomed, each July the wild +strawberries grew cool and red; all around was youth and life and +ecstasy, and yet the stones bore inscriptions in an unknown language, +and the very graves seemed dead. + +And lovelier than all the youth of Nature, little Emilia sat there +in the early light, her girlish existence gliding into that drama of +passion which is older than the buried nations, older than time, than +death, than all things save life and God. + + + + +VIII. TALKING IT OVER. + +AUNT JANE was eager to hear about the ball, and called everybody into +her breakfast-parlor the next morning. She was still hesitating about +her bill of fare. + +"I wish somebody would invent a new animal," she burst forth. "How +those sheep bleated last night! I know it was an expression of shame for +providing such tiresome food." + +"You must not be so carnally minded, dear," said Kate. "You must be very +good and grateful, and not care for your breakfast. Somebody says that +mutton chops with wit are a great deal better than turtle without." + +"A very foolish somebody," pronounced Aunt Jane. "I have had a great +deal of wit in my life, and very little turtle. Dear child, do not +excite me with impossible suggestions. There are dropped eggs, I might +have those. They look so beautifully, if it only were not necessary to +eat them. Yes, I will certainly have dropped eggs. I think Ruth could +drop them; she drops everything else." + +"Poor little Ruth!" said Kate. "Not yet grown up!" + +"She will never grow up," said Aunt Jane, "but she thinks she is a +woman; she even thinks she has a lover. O that in early life I had +provided myself with a pair of twins from some asylum; then I should +have had some one to wait on me." + +"Perhaps they would have been married too," said Kate. + +"They should never have been married," retorted Aunt Jane. "They should +have signed a paper at five years old to do no such thing. Yesterday I +told a lady that I was enraged that a servant should presume to have a +heart, and the woman took it seriously and began to argue with me. To +think of living in a town where one person could be so idiotic! Such a +town ought to be extinguished from the universe." + +"Auntie!" said Kate, sternly, "you must grow more charitable." + +"Must I?" said Aunt Jane; "it will not be at all becoming. I have +thought about it; often have I weighed it in my mind whether to be +monotonously lovely; but I have always thrust it away. It must make life +so tedious. It is too late for me to change,--at least, anything about +me but my countenance, and that changes the wrong way. Yet I feel so +young and fresh; I look in my glass every morning to see if I have not +a new face, but it never comes. I am not what is called well-favored. In +fact, I am not favored at all. Tell me about the party." + +"What shall I tell?" said Kate. + +"Tell me what people were there," said Aunt Jane, "and how they were +dressed; who were the happiest and who the most miserable. I think I +would rather hear about the most miserable,--at least, till I have my +breakfast." + +"The most miserable person I saw," said Kate, "was Mrs. Meredith. It was +very amusing to hear her and Hope talk at cross-purposes. You know her +daughter Helen is in Paris, and the mother seemed very sad about her. A +lady was asking if something or other were true; 'Too true,' said Mrs. +Meredith; 'with every opportunity she has had no real success. It was +not the poor child's fault. She was properly presented; but as yet she +has had no success at all.' + +"Hope looked up, full of sympathy. She thought Helen must be some +disappointed school-teacher, and felt an interest in her immediately. +'Will there not be another examination?' she asked. 'What an odd +phrase,' said Mrs. Meredith, looking rather disdainfully at Hope. 'No, I +suppose we must give it up, if that is what you mean. The only remaining +chance is in the skating. I had particular attention paid to Helen's +skating on that very account. How happy shall I be, if my foresight is +rewarded!' + +"Hope thought this meant physical education, to be sure, and fancied +that handsome Helen Meredith opening a school for calisthenics in Paris! +Luckily she did not say anything. Then the other lady said, solemnly, +'My dear Mrs. Meredith, it is too true. No one can tell how things will +turn out in society. How often do we see girls who were not looked at in +America, and yet have a great success in Paris; then other girls go out +who were here very much admired, and they have no success at all.' + +"Hope understood it all then, but she took it very calmly. I was so +indignant, I could hardly help speaking. I wanted to say that it was +outrageous. The idea of American mothers training their children for +exhibition before what everybody calls the most corrupt court in Europe! +Then if they can catch the eye of the Emperor or the Empress by their +faces or their paces, that is called success!" + +"Good Americans when they die go to Paris," said Philip, "so says the +oracle. Naughty Americans try it prematurely, and go while they are +alive. Then Paris casts them out, and when they come back, their French +disrepute is their stock in trade." + +"I think," said the cheerful Hope, "that it is not quite so bad." Hope +always thought things not so bad. She went on. "I was very dull not +to know what Mrs. Meredith was talking about. Helen Meredith is a +warm-hearted, generous girl, and will not go far wrong, though her +mother is not as wise as she is well-bred. But Kate forgets that the few +hundred people one sees here or at Paris do not represent the nation, +after all." + +"The most influential part of it," said Emilia. + +"Are you sure, dear?" said her sister. "I do not think they influence +it half so much as a great many people who are too busy to go to either +place. I always remember those hundred girls at the Normal School, and +that they were not at all like Mrs. Meredith, nor would they care to be +like her, any more than she would wish to be like them." + +"They have not had the same advantages," said Emilia. + +"Nor the same disadvantages," said Hope. "Some of them are not so well +bred, and none of them speak French so well, for she speaks exquisitely. +But in all that belongs to real training of the mind, they seem to me +superior, and that is why I think they will have more influence." + +"None of them are rich, though, I suppose," said Emilia, "nor of very +nice families, or they would not be teachers. So they will not be so +prominent in society." + +"But they may yet become very prominent in society," said Hope,--"they +or their pupils or their children. At any rate, it is as certain that +the noblest lives will have most influence in the end, as that two and +two make four." + +"Is that certain?" said Philip. "Perhaps there are worlds where two and +two do not make just that desirable amount." + +"I trust there are," said Aunt Jane. "Perhaps I was intended to be born +in one of them, and that is why my housekeeping accounts never add up." + +Here hope was called away, and Emilia saucily murmured, "Sour grapes!" + +"Not a bit of it!" cried Kate, indignantly. "Hope might have anything in +society she wishes, if she would only give up some of her own plans, and +let me choose her dresses, and her rich uncles pay for them. Count Posen +told me, only yesterday, that there was not a girl in Oldport with such +an air as hers." + +"Not Kate herself?" said Emilia, slyly. + +"I?" said Kate. "What am I? A silly chit of a thing, with about a dozen +ideas in my head, nearly every one of which was planted there by Hope. +I like the nonsense of the world very well as it is, and without her I +should have cared for nothing else. Count Posen asked me the other day, +which country produced on the whole the most womanly women, France or +America. He is one of the few foreigners who expect a rational answer. +So I told him that I knew very little of Frenchwomen personally, but +that I had read French novels ever since I was born, and there was not +a woman worthy to be compared with Hope in any of them, except Consuelo, +and even she told lies." + +"Do not begin upon Hope," said Aunt Jane. "It is the only subject +on which Kate can be tedious. Tell me about the dresses. Were people +over-dressed or under-dressed?" + +"Under-dressed," said Phil. "Miss Ingleside had a half-inch strip of +muslin over her shoulder." + +Here Philip followed Hope out of the room, and Emilia presently followed +him. + +"Tell on!" said Aunt Jane. "How did Philip enjoy himself?" + +"He is easily amused, you know," said Kate. "He likes to observe people, +and to shoot folly as it flies." + +"It does not fly," retorted the elder lady. "I wish it did. You can +shoot it sitting, at least where Philip is." + +"Auntie," said Kate, "tell me truly your objection to Philip. I think +you did not like his parents. Had he not a good mother?" + +"She was good," said Aunt Jane, reluctantly, "but it was that kind of +goodness which is quite offensive." + +"And did you know his father well?" + +"Know him!" exclaimed Aunt Jane. "I should think I did. I have sat up +all night to hate him." + +"That was very wrong," said Kate, decisively. "You do not mean that. You +only mean that you did not admire him very much." + +"I never admired a dozen people in my life, Kate. I once made a list of +them. There were six women, three men, and a Newfoundland dog." + +"What happened?" said Kate. "The Is-raelites died after Pharaoh, or +somebody, numbered them. Did anything happen to yours?" + +"It was worse with mine," said Aunt Jane. "I grew tired of some and +others I forgot, till at last there was nobody left but the dog, and he +died." + +"Was Philip's father one of them?" + +"No." + +"Tell me about him," said Kate, firmly. + +"Ruth," said the elder lady, as her young handmaiden passed the door +with her wonted demureness, "come here; no, get me a glass of water. +Kate! I shall die of that girl. She does some idiotic thing, and then +she looks in here with that contented, beaming look. There is an air of +baseless happiness about her that drives me nearly frantic." + +"Never mind about that," persisted Kate. "Tell me about Philip's father. +What was the matter with him?" + +"My dear," Aunt Jane at last answered,--with that fearful moderation +to which she usually resorted when even her stock of superlatives was +exhausted,--"he belonged to a family for whom truth possessed even less +than the usual attractions." + +This neat epitaph implied the erection of a final tombstone over the +whole race, and Kate asked no more. + +Meantime Malbone sat at the western door with Harry, and was running +on with one of his tirades, half jest, half earnest, against American +society. + +"In America," he said, "everything which does not tend to money is +thought to be wasted, as our Quaker neighbor thinks the children's +croquet-ground wasted, because it is not a potato field." + +"Not just!" cried Harry. "Nowhere is there more respect for those who +give their lives to intellectual pursuits." + +"What are intellectual pursuits?" said Philip. "Editing daily +newspapers? Teaching arithmetic to children? I see no others flourishing +hereabouts." + +"Science and literature," answered Harry. + +"Who cares for literature in America," said Philip, "after a man rises +three inches above the newspaper level? Nobody reads Thoreau; only an +insignificant fraction read Emerson, or even Hawthorne. The majority of +people have hardly even heard their names. What inducement has a writer? +Nobody has any weight in America who is not in Congress, and nobody gets +into Congress without the necessity of bribing or button-holing men whom +he despises." + +"But you do not care for public life?" said Harry. + +"No," said Malbone, "therefore this does not trouble me, but it troubles +you. I am content. My digestion is good. I can always amuse myself. Why +are you not satisfied?" + +"Because you are not," said Harry. "You are dissatisfied with men, and +so you care chiefly to amuse yourself with women and children." + +"I dare say," said Malbone, carelessly. "They are usually less +ungraceful and talk better grammar." + +"But American life does not mean grace nor grammar. We are all living +for the future. Rough work now, and the graces by and by." + +"That is what we Americans always say," retorted Philip. "Everything +is in the future. What guaranty have we for that future? I see none. We +make no progress towards the higher arts, except in greater quantities +of mediocrity. We sell larger editions of poor books. Our artists fill +larger frames and travel farther for materials; but a ten-inch canvas +would tell all they have to say." + +"The wrong point of view," said Hal. "If you begin with high art, you +begin at the wrong end. The first essential for any nation is to put +the mass of the people above the reach of want. We are all usefully +employed, if we contribute to that." + +"So is the cook usefully employed while preparing dinner," said Philip. +"Nevertheless, I do not wish to live in the kitchen." + +"Yet you always admire your own country," said Harry, "so long as you +are in Europe." + +"No doubt," said Philip. "I do not object to the kitchen at that +distance. And to tell the truth, America looks well from Europe. +No culture, no art seems so noble as this far-off spectacle of a +self-governing people. The enthusiasm lasts till one's return. Then +there seems nothing here but to work hard and keep out of mischief." + +"That is something," said Harry. + +"A good deal in America," said Phil. "We talk about the immorality of +older countries. Did you ever notice that no class of men are so apt +to take to drinking as highly cultivated Americans? It is a very +demoralizing position, when one's tastes outgrow one's surroundings. +Positively, I think a man is more excusable for coveting his neighbor's +wife in America than in Europe, because there is so little else to +covet." + +"Malbone!" said Hal, "what has got into you? Do you know what things you +are saying?" + +"Perfectly," was the unconcerned reply. "I am not arguing; I am only +testifying. I know that in Paris, for instance, I myself have no +temptations. Art and history are so delightful, I absolutely do not care +for the society even of women; but here, where there is nothing to do, +one must have some stimulus, and for me, who hate drinking, they are, at +least, a more refined excitement." + +"More dangerous," said Hal. "Infinitely more dangerous, in the morbid +way in which you look at life. What have these sickly fancies to do with +the career that opens to every brave man in a great nation?" + +"They have everything to do with it, and there are many for whom there +is no career. As the nation develops, it must produce men of high +culture. Now there is no place for them except as bookkeepers or +pedagogues or newspaper reporters. Meantime the incessant unintellectual +activity is only a sublime bore to those who stand aside." + +"Then why stand aside?" persisted the downright Harry. + +"I have no place in it but a lounging-place," said Malbone. "I do not +wish to chop blocks with a razor. I envy those men, born mere Americans, +with no ambition in life but to 'swing a railroad' as they say at the +West. Every morning I hope to wake up like them in the fear of God and +the love of money." + +"You may as well stop," said Harry, coloring a little. "Malbone, you +used to be my ideal man in my boyhood, but"-- + +"I am glad we have got beyond that," interrupted the other, cheerily, +"I am only an idler in the land. Meanwhile, I have my little +interests,--read, write, sketch--" + +"Flirt?" put in Hal, with growing displeasure. + +"Not now," said Phil, patting his shoulder, with imperturbable +good-nature. "Our beloved has cured me of that. He who has won the pearl +dives no more." + +"Do not let us speak of Hope," said Harry. "Everything that you have +been asserting Hope's daily life disproves." + +"That may be," answered Malbone, heartily. "But, Hal, I never flirted; +I always despised it. It was always a grande passion with me, or what +I took for such. I loved to be loved, I suppose; and there was always +something new and fascinating to be explored in a human heart, that is, +a woman's." + +"Some new temple to profane?" asked Hal severely. + +"Never!" said Philip. "I never profaned it. If I deceived, I shared the +deception, at least for a time; and, as for sensuality, I had none in +me." + +"Did you have nothing worse? Rousseau ends where Tom Jones begins." + +"My temperament saved me," said Philip. "A woman is not a woman to me, +without personal refinement." + +"Just what Rousseau said," replied Harry. + +"I acted upon it," answered Malbone. "No one dislikes Blanche Ingleside +and her demi monde more than I." + +"You ought not," was the retort. "You help to bring other girls to her +level." + +"Whom?" said Malbone, startled. + +"Emilia." + +"Emilia?" repeated the other, coloring crimson. "I, who have warned her +against Blanche's society." + +"And have left her no other resource," said Harry, coloring still more. +"Malbone, you have gained (unconsciously of course) too much power +over that girl, and the only effect of it is, to keep her in perpetual +excitement. So she seeks Blanche, as she would any other strong +stimulant. Hope does not seem to have discovered this, but Kate has, and +I have." + +Hope came in, and Harry went out. The next day he came to Philip and +apologized most warmly for his unjust and inconsiderate words. Malbone, +always generous, bade him think no more about it, and Harry for that day +reverted strongly to his first faith. "So noble, so high-toned," he said +to Kate. Indeed, a man never appears more magnanimous than in forgiving +a friend who has told him the truth. + + + + +IX. DANGEROUS WAYS. + +IT was true enough what Harry had said. Philip Malbone's was that +perilous Rousseau-like temperament, neither sincere enough for safety, +nor false enough to alarm; the winning tenderness that thrills and +softens at the mere neighborhood of a woman, and fascinates by its +reality those whom no hypocrisy can deceive. It was a nature half +amiable, half voluptuous, that disarmed others, seeming itself unarmed. +He was never wholly ennobled by passion, for it never touched him deeply +enough; and, on the other hand, he was not hardened by the habitual +attitude of passion, for he was never really insincere. Sometimes it +seemed as if nothing stood between him and utter profligacy but a little +indolence, a little kindness, and a good deal of caution. + +"There seems no such thing as serious repentance in me," he had once +said to Kate, two years before, when she had upbraided him with some +desperate flirtation which had looked as if he would carry it as far as +gentlemen did under King Charles II. "How does remorse begin?" + +"Where you are beginning," said Kate. + +"I do not perceive that," he answered. "My conscience seems, after all, +to be only a form of good-nature. I like to be stirred by emotion, I +suppose, and I like to study character. But I can always stop when it is +evident that I shall cause pain to somebody. Is there any other motive?" + +"In other words," said she, "you apply the match, and then turn your +back on the burning house." + +Philip colored. "How unjust you are! Of course, we all like to play with +fire, but I always put it out before it can spread. Do you think I have +no feeling?" + +Kate stopped there, I suppose. Even she always stopped soon, if she +undertook to interfere with Malbone. This charming Alcibiades always +convinced them, after the wrestling was over, that he had not been +thrown. + +The only exception to this was in the case of Aunt Jane. If she had +anything in common with Philip,--and there was a certain element of +ingenuous unconsciousness in which they were not so far unlike,--it only +placed them in the more complete antagonism. Perhaps if two beings were +in absolutely no respect alike, they never could meet even for purposes +of hostility; there must be some common ground from which the aversion +may proceed. Moreover, in this case Aunt Jane utterly disbelieved in +Malbone because she had reason to disbelieve in his father, and +the better she knew the son the more she disliked the father +retrospectively. + +Philip was apt to be very heedless of such aversions,--indeed, he had +few to heed,--but it was apparent that Aunt Jane was the only person +with whom he was not quite at ease. Still, the solicitude did not +trouble him very much, for he instinctively knew that it was not his +particular actions which vexed her, so much as his very temperament and +atmosphere,--things not to be changed. So he usually went his way; and +if he sometimes felt one of her sharp retorts, could laugh it off that +day and sleep it off before the next morning. + +For you may be sure that Philip was very little troubled by inconvenient +memories. He never had to affect forgetfulness of anything. The past +slid from him so easily, he forgot even to try to forget. He liked to +quote from Emerson, "What have I to do with repentance?" "What have my +yesterday's errors," he would say, "to do with the life of to-day?" + +"Everything," interrupted Aunt Jane, "for you will repeat them to-day, +if you can." + +"Not at all," persisted he, accepting as conversation what she meant as +a stab. "I may, indeed, commit greater errors,"--here she grimly nodded, +as if she had no doubt of it,--"but never just the same. To-day must +take thought for itself." + +"I wish it would," she said, gently, and then went on with her own +thoughts while he was silent. Presently she broke out again in her +impulsive way. + +"Depend upon it," she said, "there is very little direct retribution in +this world." + +Phil looked up, quite pleased at her indorsing one of his favorite +views. She looked, as she always did, indignant at having said anything +to please him. + +"Yes," said she, "it is the indirect retribution that crushes. I've seen +enough of that, God knows. Kate, give me my thimble." + +Malbone had that smooth elasticity of surface which made even Aunt +Jane's strong fingers slip from him as they might from a fish, or from +the soft, gelatinous stem of the water-target. Even in this case he only +laughed good-naturedly, and went out, whistling like a mocking-bird, to +call the children round him. + +Toward the more wayward and impulsive Emilia the good lady was far more +merciful. With all Aunt Jane's formidable keenness, she was a little apt +to be disarmed by youth and beauty, and had no very stern retributions +except for those past middle age. Emilia especially charmed her while +she repelled. There was no getting beyond a certain point with this +strange girl, any more than with Philip; but her depths tantalized, +while his apparent shallows were only vexatious. Emilia was usually +sweet, winning, cordial, and seemed ready to glide into one's heart as +softly as she glided into the room; she liked to please, and found it +very easy. Yet she left the impression that this smooth and delicate +loveliness went but an inch beyond the surface, like the soft, thin foam +that enamels yonder tract of ocean, belongs to it, is a part of it, yet +is, after all, but a bequest of tempests, and covers only a dark abyss +of crossing currents and desolate tangles of rootless kelp. Everybody +was drawn to her, yet not a soul took any comfort in her. Her very voice +had in it a despairing sweetness, that seemed far in advance of her +actual history; it was an anticipated miserere, a perpetual dirge, where +nothing had yet gone down. So Aunt Jane, who was wont to be perfectly +decisive in her treatment of every human being, was fluctuating and +inconsistent with Emilia. She could not help being fascinated by the +motherless child, and yet scorned herself for even the doubting love she +gave. + +"Only think, auntie," said Kate, "how you kissed Emilia, yesterday!" + +"Of course I did," she remorsefully owned. "I have kissed her a great +many times too often. I never will kiss her again. There is nothing but +sorrow to be found in loving her, and her heart is no larger than her +feet. Today she was not even pretty! If it were not for her voice, I +think I should never wish to see her again." + +But when that soft, pleading voice came once more, and Emilia asked +perhaps for luncheon, in tones fit for Ophelia, Aunt Jane instantly +yielded. One might as well have tried to enforce indignation against the +Babes in the Wood. + +This perpetual mute appeal was further strengthened by a peculiar +physical habit in Emilia, which first alarmed the household, but soon +ceased to inspire terror. She fainted very easily, and had attacks at +long intervals akin to faintness, and lasting for several hours. The +physicians pronounced them cataleptic in their nature, saying that they +brought no danger, and that she would certainly outgrow them. They were +sometimes produced by fatigue, sometimes by excitement, but they brought +no agitation with them, nor any development of abnormal powers. They +simply wrapped her in a profound repose, from which no effort could +rouse her, till the trance passed by. Her eyes gradually closed, +her voice died away, and all movement ceased, save that her eyelids +sometimes trembled without opening, and sweet evanescent expressions +chased each other across her face,--the shadows of thoughts unseen. +For a time she seemed to distinguish the touch of different persons by +preference or pain; but soon even this sign of recognition vanished, and +the household could only wait and watch, while she sank into deeper and +yet deeper repose. + +There was something inexpressibly sweet, appealing, and touching in this +impenetrable slumber, when it was at its deepest. She looked so young, +so delicate, so lovely; it was as if she had entered into a shrine, and +some sacred curtain had been dropped to shield her from all the cares +and perplexities of life. She lived, she breathed, and yet all the +storms of life could but beat against her powerless, as the waves beat +on the shore. Safe in this beautiful semblance of death,--her pulse a +little accelerated, her rich color only softened, her eyelids drooping, +her exquisite mouth curved into the sweetness it had lacked in +waking,--she lay unconscious and supreme, the temporary monarch of the +household, entranced upon her throne. A few hours having passed, she +suddenly waked, and was a self-willed, passionate girl once more. When +she spoke, it was with a voice wholly natural; she had no recollection +of what had happened, and no curiosity to learn. + + + + +X. REMONSTRANCES. + +IT had been a lovely summer day, with a tinge of autumnal coolness +toward nightfall, ending in what Aunt Jane called a "quince-jelly +sunset." Kate and Emilia sat upon the Blue Rocks, earnestly talking. + +"Promise, Emilia!" said Kate. + +Emilia said nothing. + +"Remember," continued Kate, "he is Hope's betrothed. Promise, promise, +promise!" + +Emilia looked into Kate's face and saw it flushed with a generous +eagerness, that called forth an answering look in her. She tried to +speak, and the words died into silence. There was a pause, while each +watched the other. + +When one soul is grappling with another for life, such silence may last +an instant too long; and Kate soon felt her grasp slipping. Momentarily +the spell relaxed. Other thoughts swelled up, and Emilia's eyes began to +wander; delicious memories stole in, of walks through blossoming paths +with Malbone,--of lingering steps, half-stifled words and sentences left +unfinished;--then, alas! of passionate caresses,--other blossoming paths +that only showed the way to sin, but had never quite led her there, she +fancied. There was so much to tell, more than could ever be explained or +justified. Moment by moment, farther and farther strayed the wandering +thoughts, and when the poor child looked in Kate's face again, the mist +between them seemed to have grown wide and dense, as if neither eyes +nor words nor hands could ever meet again. When she spoke it was to say +something evasive and unimportant, and her voice was as one from the +grave. + +In truth, Philip had given Emilia his heart to play with at Neuchatel, +that he might beguile her from an attachment they had all regretted. The +device succeeded. The toy once in her hand, the passionate girl had kept +it, had clung to him with all her might; he could not shake her off. Nor +was this the worst, for to his dismay he found himself responding to +her love with a self-abandonment of ardor for which all former loves had +been but a cool preparation. He had not intended this; it seemed hardly +his fault: his intentions had been good, or at least not bad. This +piquant and wonderful fruit of nature, this girlish soul, he had merely +touched it and it was his. Its mere fragrance was intoxicating. Good +God! what should he do with it? + +No clear answer coming, he had drifted on with that terrible facility +for which years of self-indulged emotion had prepared him. Each step, +while it was intended to be the last, only made some other last step +needful. + +He had begun wrong, for he had concealed his engagement, fancying that +he could secure a stronger influence over this young girl without the +knowledge. He had come to her simply as a friend of her Transatlantic +kindred; and she, who was always rather indifferent to them, asked no +questions, nor made the discovery till too late. Then, indeed, she +had burst upon him with an impetuous despair that had alarmed him. +He feared, not that she would do herself any violence, for she had +a childish dread of death, but that she would show some desperate +animosity toward Hope, whenever they should meet. After a long struggle, +he had touched, not her sense of justice, for she had none, but her love +for him; he had aroused her tenderness and her pride. + +Without his actual assurance, she yet believed that he would release +himself in some way from his betrothal, and love only her. + +Malbone had fortunately great control over Emilia when near her, and +could thus keep the sight of this stormy passion from the pure and +unconscious Hope. But a new distress opened before him, from the time +when he again touched Hope's hand. The close intercourse of the voyage +had given him for the time almost a surfeit of the hot-house atmosphere +of Emilia's love. The first contact of Hope's cool, smooth fingers, +the soft light of her clear eyes, the breezy grace of her motions, the +rose-odors that clung around her, brought back all his early passion. +Apart from this voluptuousness of the heart into which he had fallen, +Malbone's was a simple and unspoiled nature; he had no vices, and had +always won popularity too easily to be obliged to stoop for it; so all +that was noblest in him paid allegiance to Hope. From the moment they +again met, his wayward heart reverted to her. He had been in a dream, he +said to himself; he would conquer it and be only hers; he would go away +with her into the forests and green fields she loved, or he would share +in the life of usefulness for which she yearned. But then, what was he +to do with this little waif from the heart's tropics,--once tampered +with, in an hour of mad dalliance, and now adhering in-separably to his +life? Supposing him ready to separate from her, could she be detached +from him? + +Kate's anxieties, when she at last hinted them to Malbone, only sent him +further into revery. "How is it," he asked himself, "that when I only +sought to love and be loved, I have thus entangled myself in the fate of +others? How is one's heart to be governed? Is there any such governing? +Mlle. Clairon complained that, so soon as she became seriously attached +to any one, she was sure to meet somebody else whom she liked better. +Have human hearts," he said, "or at least, has my heart, no more +stability than this?" + +It did not help the matter when Emilia went to stay awhile with Mrs. +Meredith. The event came about in this way. Hope and Kate had been to a +dinner-party, and were as usual reciting their experiences to Aunt Jane. + +"Was it pleasant?" said that sympathetic lady. + +"It was one of those dreadfully dark dining-rooms," said Hope, seating +herself at the open window. + +"Why do they make them look so like tombs?" said Kate. + +"Because," said her aunt, "most Americans pass from them to the tomb, +after eating such indigestible things. There is a wish for a gentle +transition." + +"Aunt Jane," said Hope, "Mrs. Meredith asks to have a little visit from +Emilia. Do you think she had better go?" + +"Mrs. Meredith?" asked Aunt Jane. "Is that woman alive yet?" + +"Why, auntie!" said Kate. "We were talking about her only a week ago." + +"Perhaps so," conceded Aunt Jane, reluctantly. "But it seems to me she +has great length of days!" + +"How very improperly you are talking, dear!" said Kate. "She is not more +than forty, and you are--" + +"Fifty-four," interrupted the other. + +"Then she has not seen nearly so many days as you." + +"But they are such long days! That is what I must have meant. One of her +days is as long as three of mine. She is so tiresome!" + +"She does not tire you very often," said Kate. + +"She comes once a year," said Aunt Jane. "And then it is not to see +me. She comes out of respect to the memory of my great-aunt, with whom +Talleyrand fell in love, when he was in America, before Mrs. Meredith +was born. Yes, Emilia may as well go." + +So Emilia went. To provide her with companionship, Mrs. Meredith kindly +had Blanche Ingleside to stay there also. Blanche stayed at different +houses a good deal. To do her justice, she was very good company, when +put upon her best behavior, and beyond the reach of her demure mamma. +She was always in spirits, often good-natured, and kept everything in +lively motion, you may be sure. She found it not unpleasant, in rich +houses, to escape some of those little domestic parsimonies which +the world saw not in her own; and to secure this felicity she could +sometimes lay great restraints upon herself, for as much as twenty-four +hours. She seemed a little out of place, certainly, amid the precise +proprieties of Mrs. Meredith's establishment. But Blanche and her mother +still held their place in society, and it was nothing to Mrs. Meredith +who came to her doors, but only from what other doors they came. + +She would have liked to see all "the best houses" connected by secret +galleries or underground passages, of which she and a few others should +hold the keys. A guest properly presented could then go the rounds of +all unerringly, leaving his card at each, while improper acquaintances +in vain howled for admission at the outer wall. For the rest, her ideal +of social happiness was a series of perfectly ordered entertainments, +at each of which there should be precisely the same guests, the same +topics, the same supper, and the same ennui. + + + + +XI. DESCENSUS AVERNI. + +MALBONE stood one morning on the pier behind the house. A two days' +fog was dispersing. The southwest breeze rippled the deep blue water; +sailboats, blue, red, and green, were darting about like white-winged +butterflies; sloops passed and repassed, cutting the air with the white +and slender points of their gaff-topsails. The liberated sunbeams spread +and penetrated everywhere, and even came up to play (reflected from +the water) beneath the shadowy, overhanging counters of dark vessels. +Beyond, the atmosphere was still busy in rolling away its vapors, +brushing the last gray fringes from the low hills, and leaving over them +only the thinnest aerial veil. Farther down the bay, the pale tower +of the crumbling fort was now shrouded, now revealed, then hung with +floating lines of vapor as with banners. + +Hope came down on the pier to Malbone, who was looking at the boats. +He saw with surprise that her calm brow was a little clouded, her lips +compressed, and her eyes full of tears. + +"Philip," she said, abruptly, "do you love me?" + +"Do you doubt it?" said he, smiling, a little uneasily. + +Fixing her eyes upon him, she said, more seriously: "There is a more +important question, Philip. Tell me truly, do you care about Emilia?" + +He started at the words, and looked eagerly in her face for an +explanation. Her expression only showed the most anxious solicitude. + +For one moment the wild impulse came up in his mind to put an entire +trust in this truthful woman, and tell her all. Then the habit of +concealment came back to him, the dull hopelessness of a divided duty, +and the impossibility of explanations. How could he justify himself to +her when he did not really know himself? So he merely said, "Yes." + +"She is your sister," he added, in an explanatory tone, after a pause; +and despised himself for the subterfuge. It is amazing how long a man +may be false in action before he ceases to shrink from being false in +words. + +"Philip," said the unsuspecting Hope, "I knew that you cared about her. +I have seen you look at her with so much affection; and then again I +have seen you look cold and almost stern. She notices it, I am sure she +does, this changeableness. But this is not why I ask the question. I +think you must have seen something else that I have been observing, and +if you care about her, even for my sake, it is enough." + +Here Philip started, and felt relieved. + +"You must be her friend," continued Hope, eagerly. "She has changed her +whole manner and habits very fast. Blanche Ingleside and that set seem +to have wholly controlled her, and there is something reckless in all +her ways. You are the only person who can help her." + +"How?" + +"I do not know how," said Hope, almost impatiently. "You know how. You +have wonderful influence. You saved her before, and will do it again. I +put her in your hands." + +"What can I do for her?" asked he, with a strange mingling of terror and +delight. + +"Everything," said she. "If she has your society, she will not care for +those people, so much her inferiors in character. Devote yourself to her +for a time." + +"And leave you?" said Philip, hesitatingly. + +"Anything, anything," said she. "If I do not see you for a month, I can +bear it. Only promise me two things. First, that you will go to her this +very day. She dines with Mrs. Ingleside." + +Philip agreed. + +"Then," said Hope, with saddened tones, "you must not say it was I who +sent you. Indeed you must not. That would spoil all. Let her think +that your own impulse leads you, and then she will yield. I know Emilia +enough for that." + +Malbone paused, half in ecstasy, half in dismay. Were all the events +of life combining to ruin or to save him? This young girl, whom he so +passionately loved, was she to be thrust back into his arms, and was he +to be told to clasp her and be silent? And that by Hope, and in the name +of duty? + +It seemed a strange position, even for him who was so eager for fresh +experiences and difficult combinations. At Hope's appeal he was to risk +Hope's peace forever; he was to make her sweet sisterly affection its +own executioner. In obedience to her love he must revive Emilia's. The +tender intercourse which he had been trying to renounce as a crime +must be rebaptized as a duty. Was ever a man placed, he thought, in a +position so inextricable, so disastrous? What could he offer Emilia? How +could he explain to her his position? He could not even tell her that it +was at Hope's command he sought her. + +He who is summoned to rescue a drowning man, knowing that he himself may +go down with that inevitable clutch around his neck, is placed in some +such situation as Philip's. Yet Hope had appealed to him so simply, had +trusted him so nobly! Suppose that, by any self-control, or wisdom, or +unexpected aid of Heaven, he could serve both her and Emilia, was it not +his duty? What if it should prove that he was right in loving them +both, and had only erred when he cursed himself for tampering with their +destinies? Perhaps, after all, the Divine Love had been guiding him, and +at some appointed signal all these complications were to be cleared, and +he and his various loves were somehow to be ingeniously provided for, +and all be made happy ever after. + +He really grew quite tender and devout over these meditations. Phil was +not a conceited fellow, by any means, but he had been so often told by +women that their love for him had been a blessing to their souls, that +he quite acquiesced in being a providential agent in that particular +direction. Considered as a form of self-sacrifice, it was not without +its pleasures. + +Malbone drove that afternoon to Mrs. Ingleside's charming abode, whither +a few ladies were wont to resort, and a great many gentlemen. He timed +his call between the hours of dining and driving, and made sure that +Emilia had not yet emerged. Two or three equipages beside his own were +in waiting at the gate, and gay voices resounded from the house. A +servant received him at the door, and taking him for a tardy guest, +ushered him at once into the dining-room. He was indifferent to this, +for he had been too often sought as a guest by Mrs. Ingleside to stand +on any ceremony beneath her roof. + +That fair hostess, in all the beauty of her shoulders, rose to greet +him, from a table where six or eight guests yet lingered over flowers +and wine. The gentlemen were smoking, and some of the ladies were trying +to look at ease with cigarettes. Malbone knew the whole company, +and greeted them with his accustomed ease. He would not have been +embarrassed if they had been the Forty Thieves. Some of them, indeed, +were not so far removed from that fabled band, only it was their +fortunes, instead of themselves, that lay in the jars of oil. + +"You find us all here," said Mrs. Ingleside, sweetly. "We will wait till +the gentlemen finish their cigars, before driving." + +"Count me in, please," said Blanche, in her usual vein of frankness. +"Unless mamma wishes me to conclude my weed on the Avenue. It would be +fun, though. Fancy the dismay of the Frenchmen and the dowagers!" + +"And old Lambert," said one of the other girls, delightedly. + +"Yes," said Blanche. "The elderly party from the rural districts, who +talks to us about the domestic virtues of the wife of his youth." + +"Thinks women should cruise with a broom at their mast-heads, like +Admiral somebody in England," said another damsel, who was rolling a +cigarette for a midshipman. + +"You see we do not follow the English style," said the smooth hostess +to Philip. "Ladies retiring after dinner! After all, it is a coarse +practice. You agree with me, Mr. Malbone?" + +"Speak your mind," said Blanche, coolly. "Don't say yes if you'd rather +not. Because we find a thing a bore, you've no call to say so." + +"I always say," continued the matron, "that the presence of woman is +needed as a refining influence." + +Malbone looked round for the refining influences. Blanche was tilted +back in her chair, with one foot on the rung of the chair before her, +resuming a loud-toned discourse with Count Posen as to his projected +work on American society. She was trying to extort a promise that she +should appear in its pages, which, as we all remember, she did. One +of her attendant nymphs sat leaning her elbows on the table, "talking +horse" with a gentleman who had an undoubted professional claim to a +knowledge of that commodity. Another, having finished her manufactured +cigarette, was making the grinning midshipman open his lips wider and +wider to receive it. Mrs. Ingleside was talking in her mincing way with +a Jew broker, whose English was as imperfect as his morals, and who +needed nothing to make him a millionnaire but a turn of bad luck for +somebody else. Half the men in the room would have felt quite ill at +ease in any circle of refined women, but there was not one who did not +feel perfectly unembarrassed around Mrs. Ingleside's board. + +"Upon my word," thought Malbone, "I never fancied the English +after-dinner practice, any more than did Napoleon. But if this goes on, +it is the gentlemen who ought to withdraw. Cannot somebody lead the way +to the drawing-room, and leave the ladies to finish their cigars?" + +Till now he had hardly dared to look at Emilia. He saw with a thrill of +love that she was the one person in the room who appeared out of place +or ill at ease. She did not glance at him, but held her cigarette in +silence and refused to light it. She had boasted to him once of having +learned to smoke at school. + +"What's the matter, Emmy?" suddenly exclaimed Blanche. "Are you under a +cloud, that you don't blow one?" + +"Blanche, Blanche," said her mother, in sweet reproof. "Mr. Malbone, +what shall I do with this wild girl? Such a light way of talking! But +I can assure you that she is really very fond of the society of +intellectual, superior men. I often tell her that they are, after all, +her most congenial associates. More so than the young and giddy." + +"You'd better believe it," said the unabashed damsel. "Take notice that +whenever I go to a dinner-party I look round for a clergyman to drink +wine with." + +"Incorrigible!" said the caressing mother. "Mr. Malbone would hardly +imagine you had been bred in a Christian land." + +"I have, though," retorted Blanche. "My esteemed parent always +accustomed me to give up something during Lent,--champagne, or the New +York Herald, or something." + +The young men roared, and, had time and cosmetics made it possible, Mrs. +Ingleside would have blushed becomingly. After all, the daughter was +the better of the two. Her bluntness was refreshing beside the mother's +suavity; she had a certain generosity, too, and in a case of real +destitution would have lent her best ear-rings to a friend. + +By this time Malbone had edged himself to Emilia's side. "Will you drive +with me?" he murmured in an undertone. + +She nodded slightly, abruptly, and he withdrew again. + +"It seems barbarous," said he aloud, "to break up the party. But I must +claim my promised drive with Miss Emilia." + +Blanche looked up, for once amazed, having heard a different programme +arranged. Count Posen looked up also. But he thought he must have +misunderstood Emilia's acceptance of his previous offer to drive her; +and as he prided himself even more on his English than on his gallantry, +he said no more. It was no great matter. Young Jones's dog-cart was at +the door, and always opened eagerly its arms to anybody with a title. + + + + +XII. A NEW ENGAGEMENT. + +TEN days later Philip came into Aunt Jane's parlor, looking excited and +gloomy, with a letter in his hand. He put it down on her table without +its envelope,--a thing that always particularly annoyed her. A letter +without its envelope, she was wont to say, was like a man without a +face, or a key without a string,--something incomplete, preposterous. +As usual, however, he strode across her prejudices, and said, "I have +something to tell you. It is a fact." + +"Is it?" said Aunt Jane, curtly. "That is refreshing in these times." + +"A good beginning," said Kate. "Go on. You have prepared us for +something incredible." + +"You will think it so," said Malbone. "Emilia is engaged to Mr. John +Lambert." And he went out of the room. + +"Good Heavens!" said Aunt Jane, taking off her spectacles. "What a man! +He is ugly enough to frighten the neighboring crows. His face looks as +if it had fallen together out of chaos, and the features had come where +it had pleased Fate. There is a look of industrious nothingness about +him, such as busy dogs have. I know the whole family. They used to bake +our bread." + +"I suppose they are good and sensible," said Kate. + +"Like boiled potatoes, my dear," was the response,--"wholesome but +perfectly uninteresting." + +"Is he of that sort?" asked Kate. + +"No," said her aunt; "not uninteresting, but ungracious. But I like an +ungracious man better than one like Philip, who hangs over young girls +like a soft-hearted avalanche. This Lambert will govern Emilia, which is +what she needs." + +"She will never love him," said Kate, "which is the one thing she needs. +There is nothing that could not be done with Emilia by any person with +whom she was in love; and nothing can ever be done with her by anybody +else. No good will ever come of this, and I hope she will never marry +him." + +With this unusual burst, Kate retreated to Hope. Hope took the news more +patiently than any one, but with deep solicitude. A worldly marriage +seemed the natural result of the Ingleside influence, but it had not +occurred to anybody that it would come so soon. It had not seemed +Emilia's peculiar temptation; and yet nobody could suppose that she +looked at John Lambert through any glamour of the affections. + +Mr. John Lambert was a millionnaire, a politician, and a widower. The +late Mrs. Lambert had been a specimen of that cheerful hopelessness of +temperament that one finds abundantly developed among the middle-aged +women of country towns. She enjoyed her daily murders in the newspapers, +and wept profusely at the funerals of strangers. On every occasion, +however felicitous, she offered her condolences in a feeble voice, that +seemed to have been washed a great many times and to have faded. But she +was a good manager, a devoted wife, and was more cheerful at home than +elsewhere, for she had there plenty of trials to exercise her eloquence, +and not enough joy to make it her duty to be doleful. At last her poor, +meek, fatiguing voice faded out altogether, and her husband mourned +her as heartily as she would have bemoaned the demise of the most +insignificant neighbor. After her death, being left childless, he had +nothing to do but to make money, and he naturally made it. Having taken +his primary financial education in New England, he graduated at that +great business university, Chicago, and then entered on the public +practice of wealth in New York. + +Aunt Jane had perhaps done injustice to the personal appearance of Mr. +John Lambert. His features were irregular, but not insignificant, and +there was a certain air of slow command about him, which made some +persons call him handsome. He was heavily built, with a large, +well-shaped head, light whiskers tinged with gray, and a sort of dusty +complexion. His face was full of little curved wrinkles, as if it were +a slate just ruled for sums in long division, and his small blue eyes +winked anxiously a dozen different ways, as if they were doing the sums. +He seemed to bristle with memorandum-books, and kept drawing them from +every pocket, to put something down. He was slow of speech, and his very +heaviness of look added to the impression of reserved power about the +man. + +All his career in life had been a solid progress, and his boldest +speculations seemed securer than the legitimate business of less potent +financiers. Beginning business life by peddling gingerbread on a railway +train, he had developed such a genius for railway management as some +men show for chess or for virtue; and his accumulating property had the +momentum of a planet. + +He had read a good deal at odd times, and had seen a great deal of +men. His private morals were unstained, he was equable and amiable, had +strong good sense, and never got beyond his depth. He had travelled in +Europe and brought home many statistics, some new thoughts, and a few +good pictures selected by his friends. He spent his money liberally for +the things needful to his position, owned a yacht, bred trotting-horses, +and had founded a theological school. He submitted to these and other +social observances from a vague sense of duty as an American citizen; +his real interest lay in business and in politics. Yet he conducted +these two vocations on principles diametrically opposite. In business +he was more honest than the average; in politics he had no conception +of honesty, for he could see no difference between a politician and any +other merchandise. He always succeeded in business, for he thoroughly +understood its principles; in politics he always failed in the end, for +he recognized no principles at all. In business he was active, resolute, +and seldom deceived; in politics he was equally active, but was apt to +be irresolute, and was deceived every day of his life. In both cases +it was not so much from love of power that he labored, as from the +excitement of the game. The larger the scale the better he liked it; a +large railroad operation, a large tract of real estate, a big and noisy +statesman,--these investments he found irresistible. + +On which of his two sets of principles he would manage a wife remained +to be proved. It is the misfortune of what are called self-made men +in America, that, though early accustomed to the society of men of the +world, they often remain utterly unacquainted with women of the world, +until those charming perils are at last sprung upon them in full force, +at New York or Washington. John Lambert at forty was as absolutely +ignorant of the qualities and habits of a cultivated woman as of the +details of her toilet. The plain domesticity of his departed wife he had +understood and prized; he remembered her household ways as he did her +black alpaca dress; indeed, except for that item of apparel, she was not +so unlike himself. In later years he had seen the women of society; +he had heard them talk; he had heard men talk about them, wittily or +wickedly, at the clubs; he had perceived that a good many of them wished +to marry him, and yet, after all, he knew no more of them than of the +rearing of humming-birds or orchids,--dainty, tropical things which he +allowed his gardener to raise, he keeping his hands off, and only paying +the bills. Whether there was in existence a class of women who were both +useful and refined,--any intermediate type between the butterfly and the +drudge,--was a question which he had sometimes asked himself, without +having the materials to construct a reply. + +With imagination thus touched and heart unfilled, this man had been +bewitched from the very first moment by Emilia. He kept it to himself, +and heard in silence the criticisms made at the club-windows. To those +perpetual jokes about marriage, which are showered with such graceful +courtesy about the path of widowers, he had no reply; or at most +would only admit that he needed some elegant woman to preside over his +establishment, and that he had better take her young, as having habits +less fixed. But in his secret soul he treasured every tone of this +girl's voice, every glance of her eye, and would have kept in a casket +of gold and diamonds the little fragrant glove she once let fall. He +envied the penniless and brainless boys, who, with ready gallantry, +pushed by him to escort her to her carriage; and he lay awake at night +to form into words the answer he ought to have made, when she threw at +him some careless phrase, and gave him the opportunity to blunder. + +And she, meanwhile, unconscious of his passion, went by him in her +beauty, and caught him in the net she never threw. Emilia was always +piquant, because she was indifferent; she had never made an effort +in her life, and she had no respect for persons. She was capable of +marrying for money, perhaps, but the sacrifice must all be completed in +a single vow. She would not tutor nor control herself for the purpose. +Hand and heart must be duly transferred, she supposed, whenever the time +was up; but till then she must be free. + +This with her was not art, but necessity; yet the most accomplished art +could have devised nothing so effectual to hold her lover. His strong +sense had always protected him from the tricks of matchmaking mammas and +their guileless maids. Had Emilia made one effort to please him, once +concealed a dislike, once affected a preference, the spell might +have been broken. Had she been his slave, he might have become a very +unyielding or a very heedless despot. Making him her slave, she kept +him at the very height of bliss. This king of railways and purchaser of +statesmen, this man who made or wrecked the fortunes of others by his +whim, was absolutely governed by a reckless, passionate, inexperienced, +ignorant girl. + +And this passion was made all the stronger by being a good deal confined +to his own breast. Somehow it was very hard for him to talk sentiment +to Emilia; he instinctively saw she disliked it, and indeed he liked her +for not approving the stiff phrases which were all he could command. Nor +could he find any relief of mind in talking with others about her. It +enraged him to be clapped on the back and congratulated by his compeers; +and he stopped their coarse jokes, often rudely enough. As for the young +men at the club, he could not bear to hear them mention his darling's +name, however courteously. He knew well enough that for them the +betrothal had neither dignity nor purity; that they held it to be as +much a matter of bargain and sale as their worst amours. He would far +rather have talked to the theological professors whose salaries he +paid, for he saw that they had a sort of grave, formal tradition of the +sacredness of marriage. And he had a right to claim that to him it was +sacred, at least as yet; all the ideal side of his nature was suddenly +developed; he walked in a dream; he even read Tennyson. + +Sometimes he talked a little to his future brother-in-law, +Harry,--assuming, as lovers are wont, that brothers see sisters on their +ideal side. This was quite true of Harry and Hope, but not at all true +as regarded Emilia. She seemed to him simply a beautiful and ungoverned +girl whom he could not respect, and whom he therefore found it very hard +to idealize. Therefore he heard with a sort of sadness the outpourings +of generous devotion from John Lambert. + +"I don't know how it is, Henry," the merchant would gravely say, "I +can't get rightly used to it, that I feel so strange. Honestly, now, I +feel as if I was beginning life over again. It ain't a selfish feeling, +so I know there's some good in it. I used to be selfish enough, but I +ain't so to her. You may not think it, but if it would make her happy, I +believe I could lie down and let her carriage roll over me. By -----, +I would build her a palace to live in, and keep the lodge at the gate +myself, just to see her pass by. That is, if she was to live in it alone +by herself. I couldn't stand sharing her. It must be me or nobody." + +Probably there was no male acquaintance of the parties, however +hardened, to whom these fine flights would have seemed more utterly +preposterous than to the immediate friend and prospective bridesmaid, +Miss Blanche Ingleside. To that young lady, trained sedulously by a +devoted mother, life was really a serious thing. It meant the full rigor +of the marriage market, tempered only by dancing and new dresses. There +was a stern sense of duty beneath all her robing and disrobing; she +conscientiously did what was expected of her, and took her little +amusements meanwhile. It was supposed that most of the purchasers in the +market preferred slang and bare shoulders, and so she favored them with +plenty of both. It was merely the law of supply and demand. Had John +Lambert once hinted that he would accept her in decent black, she would +have gone to the next ball as a Sister of Charity; but where was the +need of it, when she and her mother both knew that, had she appeared as +the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, she would not have won him? So her only +resource was a cheerful acquiescence in Emilia's luck, and a judicious +propitiation of the accepted favorite. + +"I wouldn't mind playing Virtue Rewarded myself, young woman," said +Blanche, "at such a scale of prices. I would do it even to so slow an +audience as old Lambert. But you see, it isn't my line. Don't forget +your humble friends when you come into your property, that's all." +Then the tender coterie of innocents entered on some preliminary +consideration of wedding-dresses. + +When Emilia came home, she dismissed the whole matter lightly as a +settled thing, evaded all talk with Aunt Jane, and coolly said to Kate +that she had no objection to Mr. Lambert, and might as well marry him as +anybody else. + +"I am not like you and Hal, you know," said she. "I have no fancy for +love in a cottage. I never look well in anything that is not costly. I +have not a taste that does not imply a fortune. What is the use of love? +One marries for love, and is unhappy ever after. One marries for money, +and perhaps gets love after all. I dare say Mr. Lambert loves me, though +I do not see why he should." + +"I fear he does," said Kate, almost severely. + +"Fear?" said Emilia. + +"Yes," said Kate. "It is an unequal bargain, where one side does all the +loving." + +"Don't be troubled," said Emilia. "I dare say he will not love me long. +Nobody ever did!" And her eyes filled with tears which she dashed away +angrily, as she ran up to her room. + +It was harder yet for her to talk with Hope, but she did it, and that in +a very serious mood. She had never been so open with her sister. + +"Aunt Jane once told me," she said, "that my only safety was in marrying +a good man. Now I am engaged to one." + +"Do you love him, Emilia?" asked Hope, gravely. + +"Not much," said Emilia, honestly. "But perhaps I shall, by and by." + +"Emilia," cried Hope, "there is no such thing as happiness in a marriage +without love." + +"Mine is not without love," the girl answered. "He loves me. It +frightens me to see how much he loves me. I can have the devotion of a +lifetime, if I will. Perhaps it is hard to receive it in such a way, but +I can have it. Do you blame me very much?" + +Hope hesitated. "I cannot blame you so much, my child," she said, "as if +I thought it were money for which you cared. It seems to me that there +must be something beside that, and yet--" + +"O Hope, how I thank you," interrupted Emilia. "It is not money. You +know I do not care about money, except just to buy my clothes and +things. At least, I do not care about so much as he has,--more than a +million dollars, only think! Perhaps they said two million. Is it wrong +for me to marry him, just because he has that?" + +"Not if you love him." + +"I do not exactly love him, but O Hope, I cannot tell you about it. I am +not so frivolous as you think. I want to do my duty. I want to make you +happy too: you have been so sweet to me." + +"Did you think it would make me happy to have you married?" asked Hope, +surprised, and kissing again and again the young, sad face. And the two +girls went upstairs together, brought for the moment into more sisterly +nearness by the very thing that had seemed likely to set them forever +apart. + + + + +XIII. DREAMING DREAMS. + +SO short was the period between Emilia's betrothal and her marriage, +that Aunt Jane's sufferings over trousseau and visits did not last long. +Mr. Lambert's society was the worst thing to bear. + +"He makes such long calls!" she said, despairingly. "He should bring an +almanac with him to know when the days go by." + +"But Harry and Philip are here all the time," said Kate, the accustomed +soother. + +"Harry is quiet, and Philip keeps out of the way lately," she answered. +"But I always thought lovers the most inconvenient thing about a house. +They are more troublesome than the mice, and all those people who live +in the wainscot; for though the lovers make less noise, yet you have to +see them." + +"A necessary evil, dear," said Kate, with much philosophy. + +"I am not sure," said the complainant. "They might be excluded in the +deed of a house, or by the terms of the lease. The next house I take, I +shall say to the owner, 'Have you a good well of water on the premises? +Are you troubled with rats or lovers?' That will settle it." + +It was true, what Aunt Jane said about Malbone. He had changed his +habits a good deal. While the girls were desperately busy about the +dresses, he beguiled Harry to the club, and sat on the piazza, talking +sentiment and sarcasm, regardless of hearers. + +"When we are young," he would say, "we are all idealists in love. Every +imaginative boy has such a passion, while his intellect is crude and his +senses indifferent. It is the height of bliss. All other pleasures are +not worth its pains. With older men this ecstasy of the imagination is +rare; it is the senses that clutch or reason which holds." + +"Is that an improvement?" asked some juvenile listener. + +"No!" said Philip, strongly. "Reason is cold and sensuality hateful; a +man of any feeling must feed his imagination; there must be a woman of +whom he can dream." + +"That is," put in some more critical auditor, "whom he can love as a +woman loves a man." + +"For want of the experience of such a passion," Malbone went on, +unheeding, "nobody comprehends Petrarch. Philosophers and sensualists +all refuse to believe that his dream of Laura went on, even when he had +a mistress and a child. Why not? Every one must have something to which +his dreams can cling, amid the degradations of actual life, and this tie +is more real than the degradation; and if he holds to the tie, it will +one day save him." + +"What is the need of the degradation?" put in the clear-headed Harry. + +"None, except in weakness," said Philip. "A stronger nature may escape +it. Good God! do I not know how Petrarch must have felt? What sorrow +life brings! Suppose a man hopelessly separated from one whom he +passionately loves. Then, as he looks up at the starry sky, something +says to him: 'You can bear all these agonies of privation, loss of +life, loss of love,--what are they? If the tie between you is what you +thought, neither life nor death, neither folly nor sin, can keep her +forever from you.' Would that one could always feel so! But I am weak. +Then comes impulse, it thirsts for some immediate gratification; I +yield, and plunge into any happiness since I cannot obtain her. Then +comes quiet again, with the stars, and I bitterly reproach myself for +needing anything more than that stainless ideal. And so, I fancy, did +Petrarch." + +Philip was getting into a dangerous mood with his sentimentalism. No +lawful passion can ever be so bewildering or ecstatic as an unlawful +one. For that which is right has all the powers of the universe on +its side, and can afford to wait; but the wrong, having all those +vast forces against it, must hurry to its fulfilment, reserve nothing, +concentrate all its ecstasies upon to-day. Malbone, greedy of emotion, +was drinking to the dregs a passion that could have no to-morrow. + +Sympathetic persons are apt to assume that every refined emotion must +be ennobling. This is not true of men like Malbone, voluptuaries of the +heart. He ordinarily got up a passion very much as Lord Russell got up +an appetite,--he, of Spence's Anecdotes, who went out hunting for that +sole purpose, and left the chase when the sensation came. Malbone did +not leave his more spiritual chase so soon,--it made him too happy. +Sometimes, indeed, when he had thus caught his emotion, it caught him +in return, and for a few moments made him almost unhappy. This he liked +best of all; he nursed the delicious pain, knowing that it would die +out soon enough, there was no need of hurrying it to a close. At least, +there had never been need for such solicitude before. + +Except for his genius for keeping his own counsel, every acquaintance of +Malbone's would have divined the meaning of these reveries. As it +was, he was called whimsical and sentimental, but he was a man of +sufficiently assured position to have whims of his own, and could even +treat himself to an emotion or so, if he saw fit. Besides, he talked +well to anybody on anything, and was admitted to exhibit, for a man of +literary tastes, a good deal of sense. If he had engaged himself to +a handsome schoolmistress, it was his fancy, and he could afford it. +Moreover she was well connected, and had an air. And what more natural +than that he should stand at the club-window and watch, when his young +half-sister (that was to be) drove by with John Lambert? So every +afternoon he saw them pass in a vehicle of lofty description, with two +wretched appendages in dark blue broadcloth, who sat with their backs +turned to their masters, kept their arms folded, and nearly rolled off +at every corner. Hope would have dreaded the close neighborhood of those +Irish ears; she would rather have ridden even in an omnibus, could she +and Philip have taken all the seats. But then Hope seldom cared to drive +on the Avenue at all, except as a means of reaching the ocean, whereas +with most people it appears the appointed means to escape from that +spectacle. And as for the footmen, there was nothing in the conversation +worth their hearing or repeating; and their presence was a relief +to Emilia, for who knew but Mr. Lambert himself might end in growing +sentimental? + +Yet she did not find him always equally tedious. Their drives had some +variety. For instance, he sometimes gave her some lovely present before +they set forth, and she could feel that, if his lips did not yield +diamonds and rubies, his pockets did. Sometimes he conversed about +money and investments, which she rather liked; this was his strong and +commanding point; he explained things quite clearly, and they found, +with mutual surprise, that she also had a shrewd little brain for +those matters, if she would but take the trouble to think about them. +Sometimes he insisted on being tender, and even this was not so bad as +she expected, at least for a few minutes at a time; she rather enjoyed +having her hand pressed so seriously, and his studied phrases amused +her. It was only when he wished the conversation to be brilliant and +intellectual, that he became intolerable; then she must entertain him, +must get up little repartees, must tell him lively anecdotes, which he +swallowed as a dog bolts a morsel, being at once ready for the next. He +never made a comment, of course, but at the height of his enjoyment he +gave a quick, short, stupid laugh, that so jarred upon her ears, she +would have liked to be struck deaf rather than hear it again. + +At these times she thought of Malbone, how gifted he was, how +inexhaustible, how agreeable, with a faculty for happiness that would +have been almost provoking had it not been contagious. Then she looked +from her airy perch and smiled at him at the club-window, where he stood +in the most negligent of attitudes, and with every faculty strained in +observation. A moment and she was gone. + +Then all was gone, and a mob of queens might have blocked the way, +without his caring to discuss their genealogies, even with old General +Le Breton, who had spent his best (or his worst) years abroad, and was +supposed to have been confidential adviser to most of the crowned heads +of Europe. + +For the first time in his life Malbone found himself in the grasp of a +passion too strong to be delightful. For the first time his own heart +frightened him. He had sometimes feared that it was growing harder, but +now he discovered that it was not hard enough. + +He knew it was not merely mercenary motives that had made Emilia accept +John Lambert; but what troubled him was a vague knowledge that it was +not mere pique. He was used to dealing with pique in women, and had +found it the most manageable of weaknesses. It was an element of +spasmodic conscience than he saw here, and it troubled him. + +Something told him that she had said to herself: "I will be married, +and thus do my duty to Hope. Other girls marry persons whom they do not +love, and it helps them to forget. Perhaps it will help me. This is a +good man, they say, and I think he loves me." + +"Think?" John Lambert had adored her when she had passed by him without +looking at him; and now when the thought came over him that she would be +his wife, he became stupid with bliss. And as latterly he had thought of +little else, he remained more or less stupid all the time. + +To a man like Malbone, self-indulgent rather than selfish, this poor, +blind semblance of a moral purpose in Emilia was a great embarrassment. +It is a terrible thing for a lover when he detects conscience amidst +the armory of weapons used against him, and faces the fact that he +must blunt a woman's principles to win her heart. Philip was rather +accustomed to evade conscience, but he never liked to look it in the +face and defy it. + +Yet if the thought of Hope at this time came over him, it came as +a constraint, and he disliked it as such; and the more generous and +beautiful she was, the greater the constraint. He cursed himself that +he had allowed himself to be swayed back to her, and so had lost Emilia +forever. And thus he drifted on, not knowing what he wished for, but +knowing extremely well what he feared. + + + + +XIV. THE NEMESIS OF PASSION. + +MALBONE was a person of such ready, emotional nature, and such easy +expression, that it was not hard for Hope to hide from herself the +gradual ebbing of his love. Whenever he was fresh and full of spirits, +he had enough to overflow upon her and every one. But when other +thoughts and cares were weighing on him, he could not share them, nor +could he at such times, out of the narrowing channel of his own life, +furnish more than a few scanty drops for her. + +At these times he watched with torturing fluctuations the signs +of solicitude in Hope, the timid withdrawing of her fingers, the +questioning of her eyes, the weary drooping of her whole expression. +Often he cursed himself as a wretch for paining that pure and noble +heart. Yet there were moments when a vague inexpressible delight stole +in; a glimmering of shame-faced pleasure as he pondered on this visible +dawning of distrust; a sudden taste of freedom in being no longer +fettered by her confidence. By degrees he led himself, still half +ashamed, to the dream that she might yet be somehow weaned from him, and +leave his conscience free. By constantly building upon this thought, and +putting aside all others, he made room upon the waste of his life for a +house of cards, glittering, unsubstantial, lofty,--until there came some +sudden breath that swept it away; and then he began on it again. + +In one of those moments of more familiar faith which still alternated +with these cold, sad intervals, she asked him with some sudden impulse, +how he should feel if she loved another? She said it, as if guided by +an instinct, to sound the depth of his love for her. Starting with +amazement, he looked at her, and then, divining her feeling, he only +replied by an expression of reproach, and by kissing her hands with +an habitual tenderness that had grown easy to him,--and they were +such lovely hands! But his heart told him that no spent swimmer ever +transferred more eagerly to another's arms some precious burden beneath +which he was consciously sinking, than he would yield her up to any +one whom she would consent to love, and who could be trusted with the +treasure. Until that ecstasy of release should come, he would do his +duty,--yes, his duty. + +When these flushed hopes grew pale, as they soon did, he could at least +play with the wan fancies that took their place. Hour after hour, +while she lavished upon him the sweetness of her devotion, he was half +consciously shaping with his tongue some word of terrible revealing that +should divide them like a spell, if spoken, and then recalling it before +it left his lips. Daily and hourly he felt the last agony of a weak and +passionate nature,--to dream of one woman in another's arms. + +She, too, watched him with an ever-increasing instinct of danger, +studied with a chilly terror the workings of his face, weighed and +reweighed his words in absence, agonized herself with new and ever +new suspicions; and then, when these had accumulated beyond endurance, +seized them convulsively and threw them all away. Then, coming back to +him with a great overwhelming ardor of affection, she poured upon him +more and more in proportion as he gave her less. + +Sometimes in these moments of renewed affection he half gave words to +his remorse, accused himself before her of unnamed wrong, and besought +her to help him return to his better self. These were the most dangerous +moments of all, for such appeals made tenderness and patience appear +a duty; she must put away her doubts as sins, and hold him to her; she +must refuse to see his signs of faltering faith, or treat them as +mere symptoms of ill health. Should not a wife cling the closer to her +husband in proportion as he seemed alienated through the wanderings of +disease? And was not this her position? So she said within herself, and +meanwhile it was not hard to penetrate her changing thoughts, at least +for so keen an observer as Aunt Jane. Hope, at length, almost ceased to +speak of Malbone, and revealed her grief by this evasion, as the robin +reveals her nest by flitting from it. + +Yet there were times when he really tried to force himself into a +revival of this calmer emotion. He studied Hope's beauty with his eyes, +he pondered on all her nobleness. He wished to bring his whole heart +back to her--or at least wished that he wished it. But hearts that have +educated themselves into faithlessness must sooner or later share the +suffering they give. Love will be avenged on them. Nothing could +have now recalled this epicure in passion, except, possibly, a little +withholding or semi-coquetry on Hope's part, and this was utterly +impossible for her. Absolute directness was a part of her nature; she +could die, but not manouvre. + +It actually diminished Hope's hold on Philip, that she had at this +time the whole field to herself. Emilia had gone for a few weeks to the +mountains, with the household of which she was a guest. An ideal and +unreasonable passion is strongest in absence, when the dream is all pure +dream, and safe from the discrepancies of daily life. When the two girls +were together, Emilia often showed herself so plainly Hope's inferior, +that it jarred on Philip's fine perceptions. But in Emilia's absence the +spell of temperament, or whatever else brought them together, resumed +its sway unchecked; she became one great magnet of attraction, and all +the currents of the universe appeared to flow from the direction where +her eyes were shining. When she was out of sight, he needed to make no +allowance for her defects, to reproach himself with no overt acts of +disloyalty to Hope, to recognize no criticisms of his own intellect or +conscience. He could resign himself to his reveries, and pursue them +into new subtleties day by day. + +There was Mrs. Meredith's house, too, where they had been so happy. And +now the blinds were pitilessly closed, all but one where the Venetian +slats had slipped, and stood half open as if some dainty fingers held +them, and some lovely eyes looked through. He gazed so long and so often +on that silent house,--by day, when the scorching sunshine searched its +pores as if to purge away every haunting association, or by night, when +the mantle of darkness hung tenderly above it, and seemed to collect the +dear remembrances again,--that his fancy by degrees grew morbid, and +its pictures unreal. "It is impossible," he one day thought to himself, +"that she should have lived in that room so long, sat in that window, +dreamed on that couch, reflected herself in that mirror, breathed that +air, without somehow detaching invisible fibres of her being, delicate +films of herself, that must gradually, she being gone, draw together +into a separate individuality an image not quite bodiless, that replaces +her in her absence, as the holy Theocrite was replaced by the angel. If +there are ghosts of the dead, why not ghosts of the living also?" This +lover's fancy so pleased him that he brought to bear upon it the whole +force of his imagination, and it grew stronger day by day. To him, +thenceforth, the house was haunted, and all its floating traces of +herself visible or invisible,--from the ribbon that he saw entangled in +the window-blind to every intangible and fancied atom she had imparted +to the atmosphere,--came at last to organize themselves into one +phantom shape for him and looked out, a wraith of Emilia, through those +relentless blinds. As the vision grew more vivid, he saw the dim figure +moving through the house, wan, restless, tender, lingering where they +had lingered, haunting every nook where they had been happy once. In the +windy moanings of the silent night he could put his ear at the keyhole, +and could fancy that he heard the wild signals of her love and despair. + + + + +XV. ACROSS THE BAY. + +THE children, as has been said, were all devoted to Malbone, and this +was, in a certain degree, to his credit. But it is a mistake to call +children good judges of character, except in one direction, namely, +their own. They understand it, up to the level of their own stature; +they know who loves them, but not who loves virtue. Many a sinner has a +great affection for children, and no child will ever detect the sins of +such a friend; because, toward them, the sins do not exist. + +The children, therefore, all loved Philip, and yet they turned with +delight, when out-door pleasures were in hand, to the strong and adroit +Harry. Philip inclined to the daintier exercises, fencing, billiards, +riding; but Harry's vigorous physique enjoyed hard work. He taught +all the household to swim, for instance. Jenny, aged five, a sturdy, +deep-chested little thing, seemed as amphibious as himself. She could +already swim alone, but she liked to keep close to him, as all young +animals do to their elders in the water, not seeming to need actual +support, but stronger for the contact. Her favorite position, +however, was on his back, where she triumphantly clung, grasping his +bathing-dress with one hand, swinging herself to and fro, dipping +her head beneath the water, singing and shouting, easily shifting her +position when he wished to vary his, and floating by him like a little +fish, when he was tired of supporting her. It was pretty to see the +child in her one little crimson garment, her face flushed with delight, +her fair hair glistening from the water, and the waves rippling and +dancing round her buoyant form. As Harry swam farther and farther out, +his head was hidden from view by her small person, and she might have +passed for a red seabird rocking on the gentle waves. It was one of the +regular delights of the household to see them bathe. + +Kate came in to Aunt Jane's room, one August morning, to say that they +were going to the water-side. How differently people may enter a room! +Hope always came in as the summer breeze comes, quiet, strong, soft, +fragrant, resistless. Emilia never seemed to come in at all; you looked +up, and she had somehow drifted where she stood, pleading, evasive, +lovely. This was especially the case where one person was awaiting her +alone; with two she was more fearless, with a dozen she was buoyant, +and with a hundred she forgot herself utterly and was a spirit of +irresistible delight. + +But Kate entered any room, whether nursery or kitchen, as if it were the +private boudoir of a princess and she the favorite maid of honor. Thus +it was she came that morning to Aunt Jane. + +"We are going down to see the bathers, dear," said Kate. "Shall you miss +me?" + +"I miss you every minute," said her aunt, decisively. "But I shall do +very well. I have delightful times here by myself. What a ridiculous man +it was who said that it was impossible to imagine a woman's laughing at +her own comic fancies. I sit and laugh at my own nonsense very often." + +"It is a shame to waste it," said Kate. + +"It is a blessing that any of it is disposed of while you are not here," +said Aunt Jane. "You have quite enough of it." + +"We never have enough," said Kate. "And we never can make you repeat any +of yesterday's." + +"Of course not," said Aunt Jane. "Nonsense must have the dew on it, or +it is good for nothing." + +"So you are really happiest alone?" + +"Not so happy as when you are with me,--you or Hope. I like to have Hope +with me now; she does me good. Really, I do not care for anybody else. +Sometimes I think if I could always have four or five young kittens +by me, in a champagne-basket, with a nurse to watch them, I should be +happier. But perhaps not; they would grow up so fast!" + +"Then I will leave you alone without compunction," said Kate. + +"I am not alone," said Aunt Jane; "I have my man in the boat to watch +through the window. What a singular being he is! I think he spends hours +in that boat, and what he does I can't conceive. There it is, quietly +anchored, and there is he in it. I never saw anybody but myself who +could get up so much industry out of nothing. He has all his housework +there, a broom and a duster, and I dare say he has a cooking-stove and +a gridiron. He sits a little while, then he stoops down, then he goes to +the other end. Sometimes he goes ashore in that absurd little tub, with +a stick that he twirls at one end." + +"That is called sculling," interrupted Kate. + +"Sculling! I suppose he runs for a baked potato. Then he goes back. He +is Robinson Crusoe on an island that never keeps still a single instant. +It is all he has, and he never looks away, and never wants anything +more. So I have him to watch. Think of living so near a beaver or a +water-rat with clothes on! Good-by. Leave the door ajar, it is so warm." + +And Kate went down to the landing. It was near the "baptismal shore," +where every Sunday the young people used to watch the immersions; they +liked to see the crowd of spectators, the eager friends, the dripping +convert, the serene young minister, the old men and girls who burst +forth in song as the new disciple rose from the waves. It was the +weekly festival in that region, and the sunshine and the ripples made it +gladdening, not gloomy. Every other day in the week the children of the +fishermen waded waist-deep in the water, and played at baptism. + +Near this shore stood the family bathing-house; and the girls came down +to sit in its shadow and watch the swimming. It was late in August, and +on the first of September Emilia was to be married. + +Nothing looked cool, that day, but the bay and those who were going into +it. Out came Hope from the bathing-house, in a new bathing-dress of dark +blue, which was evidently what the others had come forth to behold. + +"Hope, what an imposter you are!" cried Kate instantly. "You declined +all my proffers of aid in cutting that dress, and now see how it fits +you! You never looked so beautifully in your life. There is not such +another bathing-dress in Oldport, nor such a figure to wear it." + +And she put both her arms round that supple, stately waist, that might +have belonged to a Greek goddess, or to some queen in the Nibelungen +Lied. + +The party watched the swimmers as they struck out over the clear +expanse. It was high noon; the fishing-boats were all off, but a few +pleasure-boats swung different ways at their moorings, in the perfect +calm. The white light-house stood reflected opposite, at the end of its +long pier; a few vessels lay at anchor, with their sails up to dry, but +with that deserted look which coasters in port are wont to wear. A few +fishes dimpled the still surface, and as the three swam out farther and +farther, their merry voices still sounded close at hand. Suddenly +they all clapped their hands and called; then pointed forward to the +light-house, across the narrow harbor. + +"They are going to swim across," said Kate. "What creatures they are! +Hope and little Jenny have always begged for it, and now Harry thinks it +is so still a day they can safely venture. It is more than half a mile. +See! he has called that boy in a boat, and he will keep near them. They +have swum farther than that along the shore." + +So the others went away with no fears. + +Hope said afterwards that she never swam with such delight as on that +day. The water seemed to be peculiarly thin and clear, she said, as well +as tranquil, and to retain its usual buoyancy without its density. It +gave a delicious sense of freedom; she seemed to swim in air, and felt +singularly secure. For the first time she felt what she had always +wished to experience,--that swimming was as natural as walking, and +might be indefinitely prolonged. Her strength seemed limitless, she +struck out more and more strongly; she splashed and played with +little Jenny, when the child began to grow weary of the long motion. A +fisherman's boy in a boat rowed slowly along by their side. + +Nine tenths of the distance had been accomplished, when the little girl +grew quite impatient, and Hope bade Harry swim on before her, and land +his charge. Light and buoyant as the child was, her tightened clasp had +begun to tell on him. + +"It tires you, Hal, to bear that weight so long, and you know I have +nothing to carry. You must see that I am not in the least tired, only a +little dazzled by the sun. Here, Charley, give me your hat, and then +row on with Mr. Harry." She put on the boy's torn straw hat, and they +yielded to her wish. People almost always yielded to Hope's wishes when +she expressed them,--it was so very seldom. + +Somehow the remaining distance seemed very great, as Hope saw them glide +away, leaving her in the water alone, her feet unsupported by any firm +element, the bright and pitiless sky arching far above her, and her head +burning with more heat than she had liked to own. She was conscious of +her full strength, and swam more vigorously than ever; but her head was +hot and her ears rang, and she felt chilly vibrations passing up and +down her sides, that were like, she fancied, the innumerable fringing +oars of the little jelly-fishes she had so often watched. Her body felt +almost unnaturally strong, and she took powerful strokes; but it seemed +as if her heart went out into them and left a vacant cavity within. More +and more her life seemed boiling up into her head; queer fancies came +to her, as, for instance, that she was an inverted thermometer with the +mercury all ascending into a bulb at the top. She shook her head and the +fancy cleared away, and then others came. + +She began to grow seriously anxious, but the distance was diminishing; +Harry was almost at the steps with the child, and the boy had rowed his +skiff round the breakwater out of sight; a young fisherman leaned over +the railing with his back to her, watching the lobster-catchers on the +other side. She was almost in; it was only a slight dizziness, yet she +could not see the light-house. Concentrating all her efforts, she shut +her eyes and swam on, her arms still unaccountably vigorous, though the +rest of her body seemed losing itself in languor. The sound in her ear +had grown to a roar, as of many mill-wheels. It seemed a long distance +that she thus swam with her eyes closed. Then she half opened her eyes, +and the breakwater seemed all in motion, with tier above tier of eager +faces looking down on her. In an instant there was a sharp splash close +beside her, and she felt herself grasped and drawn downwards, with a +whirl of something just above her, and then all consciousness went out +as suddenly as when ether brings at last to a patient, after the roaring +and the tumult in his brain, its blessed foretaste of the deliciousness +of death. + +When Hope came again to consciousness, she found herself approaching her +own pier in a sail-boat, with several very wet gentlemen around her, and +little Jenny nestled close to her, crying as profusely as if her pretty +scarlet bathing-dress were being wrung out through her eyes. Hope asked +no questions, and hardly felt the impulse to inquire what had happened. +The truth was, that in the temporary dizziness produced by her prolonged +swim, she had found herself in the track of a steamboat that was passing +the pier, unobserved by her brother. A young man, leaping from the +dock, had caught her in his arms, and had dived with her below the +paddle-wheels, just as they came upon her. It was a daring act, but +nothing else could have saved her. When they came to the surface, they +had been picked up by Aunt Jane's Robinson Crusoe, who had at last +unmoored his pilot-boat and was rounding the light-house for the outer +harbor. + +She and the child were soon landed, and given over to the ladies. Due +attention was paid to her young rescuer, whose dripping garments seemed +for the moment as glorious as a blood-stained flag. He seemed a simple, +frank young fellow of French or German origin, but speaking English +remarkably well; he was not high-bred, by any means, but had apparently +the culture of an average German of the middle class. Harry fancied that +he had seen him before, and at last traced back the impression of his +features to the ball for the French officers. It turned out, on inquiry, +that he had a brother in the service, and on board the corvette; but he +himself was a commercial agent, now in America with a view to business, +though he had made several voyages as mate of a vessel, and would not +object to some such berth as that. He promised to return and receive +the thanks of the family, read with interest the name on Harry's card, +seemed about to ask a question, but forbore, and took his leave amid +the general confusion, without even giving his address. When sought next +day, he was not to be found, and to the children he at once became as +much a creature of romance as the sea-serpent or the Flying Dutchman. + +Even Hope's strong constitution felt the shock of this adventure. She +was confined to her room for a week or two, but begged that there might +be no postponement of the wedding, which, therefore, took place without +her. Her illness gave excuse for a privacy that was welcome to all but +the bridesmaids, and suited Malbone best of all. + + + + +XVI. ON THE STAIRS. + +AUGUST drew toward its close, and guests departed from the neighborhood. + +"What a short little thing summer is," meditated Aunt Jane, "and +butterflies are caterpillars most of the time after all. How quiet it +seems. The wrens whisper in their box above the window, and there has +not been a blast from the peacock for a week. He seems ashamed of the +summer shortness of his tail. He keeps glancing at it over his shoulder +to see if it is not looking better than yesterday, while the staring +eyes of the old tail are in the bushes all about." + +"Poor, dear little thing!" said coaxing Katie. "Is she tired of autumn, +before it is begun?" + +"I am never tired of anything," said Aunt Jane, "except my maid Ruth, +and I should not be tired of her, if it had pleased Heaven to endow her +with sufficient strength of mind to sew on a button. Life is very rich +to me. There is always something new in every season; though to be sure +I cannot think what novelty there is just now, except a choice variety +of spiders. There is a theory that spiders kill flies. But I never +miss a fly, and there does not seem to be any natural scourge divinely +appointed to kill spiders, except Ruth. Even she does it so feebly, that +I see them come back and hang on their webs and make faces at her. I +suppose they are faces; I do not understand their anatomy, but it must +be a very unpleasant one." + +"You are not quite satisfied with life, today, dear," said Kate; "I fear +your book did not end to your satisfaction." + +"It did end, though," said the lady, "and that is something. What is +there in life so difficult as to stop a book? If I wrote one, it would +be as long as ten 'Sir Charles Grandisons,' and then I never should end +it, because I should die. And there would be nobody left to read it, +because each reader would have been dead long before." + +"But the book amused you!" interrupted Kate. "I know it did." + +"It was so absurd that I laughed till I cried; and it makes no +difference whether you cry laughing or cry crying; it is equally bad +when your glasses come off. Never mind. Whom did you see on the Avenue?" + +"O, we saw Philip on horseback. He rides so beautifully; he seems one +with his horse." + +"I am glad of it," interposed his aunt. "The riders are generally so +inferior to them." + +"We saw Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, too. Emilia stopped and asked after you, +and sent you her love, auntie." + +"Love!" cried Aunt Jane. "She always does that. She has sent me love +enough to rear a whole family on,--more than I ever felt for anybody in +all my days. But she does not really love any one." + +"I hope she will love her husband," said Kate, rather seriously. + +"Mark my words, Kate!" said her aunt. "Nothing but unhappiness will ever +come of that marriage. How can two people be happy who have absolutely +nothing in common?" + +"But no two people have just the same tastes," said Kate, "except Harry +and myself. It is not expected. It would be absurd for two people to be +divorced, because the one preferred white bread and the other brown." + +"They would be divorced very soon," said Aunt Jane, "for the one who ate +brown bread would not live long." + +"But it is possible that he might live, auntie, in spite of your +prediction. And perhaps people may be happy, even if you and I do not +see how." + +"Nobody ever thinks I see anything," said Aunt Jane, in some dejection. +"You think I am nothing in the world but a sort of old oyster, making +amusement for people, and having no more to do with real life than +oysters have." + +"No, dearest!" cried Kate. "You have a great deal to do with all our +lives. You are a dear old insidious sapper-and-miner, looking at first +very inoffensive, and then working your way into our affections, and +spoiling us with coaxing. How you behave about children, for instance!" + +"How?" said the other meekly. "As well as I can." + +"But you pretend that you dislike them." + +"But I do dislike them. How can anybody help it? Hear them swearing at +this moment, boys of five, paddling in the water there! Talk about the +murder of the innocents! There are so few innocents to be murdered! If I +only had a gun and could shoot!" + +"You may not like those particular boys," said Kate, "but you like good, +well-behaved children, very much." + +"It takes so many to take care of them! People drive by here, with +carriages so large that two of the largest horses can hardly draw them, +and all full of those little beings. They have a sort of roof, too, and +seem to expect to be out in all weathers." + +"If you had a family of children, perhaps you would find such a +travelling caravan very convenient," said Kate. + +"If I had such a family," said her aunt, "I would have a separate +governess and guardian for each, very moral persons. They should come +when each child was two, and stay till it was twenty. The children +should all live apart, in order not to quarrel, and should meet once +or twice a day and bow to each other. I think that each should learn a +different language, so as not to converse, and then, perhaps, they would +not get each other into mischief." + +"I am sure, auntie," said Kate, "you have missed our small nephews and +nieces ever since their visit ended. How still the house has been!" + +"I do not know," was the answer. "I hear a great many noises about the +house. Somebody comes in late at night. Perhaps it is Philip; but he +comes very softly in, wipes his feet very gently, like a clean thief, +and goes up stairs." + +"O auntie!" said Kate, "you know you have got over all such fancies." + +"They are not fancies," said Aunt Jane. "Things do happen in houses! Did +I not look under the bed for a thief during fifteen years, and find one +at last? Why should I not be allowed to hear something now?" + +"But, dear Aunt Jane," said Kate, "you never told me this before." + +"No," said she. "I was beginning to tell you the other day, but Ruth was +just bringing in my handkerchiefs, and she had used so much bluing, +they looked as if they had been washed in heaven, so that it was too +outrageous, and I forgot everything else." + +"But do you really hear anything?" + +"Yes," said her aunt. "Ruth declares she hears noises in those closets +that I had nailed up, you know; but that is nothing; of course she does. +Rats. What I hear at night is the creaking of stairs, when I know that +nobody ought to be stirring. If you observe, you will hear it too. At +least, I should think you would, only that somehow everything always +seems to stop, when it is necessary to prove that I am foolish." + +The girls had no especial engagement that evening, and so got into a +great excitement on the stairway over Aunt Jane's solicitudes. They +convinced themselves that they heard all sorts of things,--footfalls on +successive steps, the creak of a plank, the brushing of an arm against a +wall, the jar of some suspended object that was stirred in passing. Once +they heard something fall on the floor, and roll from step to step; and +yet they themselves stood on the stairway, and nothing passed. Then +for some time there was silence, but they would have persisted in their +observations, had not Philip come in from Mrs. Meredith's in the midst +of it, so that the whole thing turned into a frolic, and they sat on the +stairs and told ghost stories half the night. + + + + +XVII. DISCOVERY. + +THE next evening Kate and Philip went to a ball. As Hope was passing +through the hall late in the evening, she heard a sudden, sharp cry +somewhere in the upper regions, that sounded, she thought, like a +woman's voice. She stopped to hear, but there was silence. It seemed to +come from the direction of Malbone's room, which was in the third story. +Again came the cry, more gently, ending in a sort of sobbing monologue. +Gliding rapidly up stairs in the dark, she paused at Philip's deserted +room, but the door was locked, and there was profound stillness. She +then descended, and pausing at the great landing, heard other steps +descending also. Retreating to the end of the hall, she hastily lighted +a candle, when the steps ceased. With her accustomed nerve, wishing to +explore the thing thoroughly, she put out the light and kept still. +As she expected, the footsteps presently recommenced, descending +stealthily, but drawing no nearer, and seeming rather like sounds from +an adjoining house, heard through a party-wall. This was impossible, as +the house stood alone. Flushed with excitement, she relighted the hall +candles, and, taking one of them, searched the whole entry and stairway, +going down even to the large, old-fashioned cellar. + +Looking about her in this unfamiliar region, her eye fell on a door +that seemed to open into the wall; she had noticed a similar door on the +story above,--one of the closet doors that had been nailed up by Aunt +Jane's order. As she looked, however, a chill breath blew in from +another direction, extinguishing her lamp. This air came from the outer +door of the cellar, and she had just time to withdraw into a corner +before a man's steps approached, passing close by her. + +Even Hope's strong nerves had begun to yield, and a cold shudder went +through her. Not daring to move, she pressed herself against the wall, +and her heart seemed to stop as the unseen stranger passed. Instead of +his ascending where she had come down, as she had expected, she heard +him grope his way toward the door she had seen in the wall. + +There he seemed to find a stairway, and when his steps were thus turned +from her, she was seized by a sudden impulse and followed him, groping +her way as she could. She remembered that the girls had talked of secret +stairways in that house, though she had no conception whither they could +lead, unless to some of the shut-up closets. + +She steadily followed, treading cautiously upon each creaking step. The +stairway was very narrow, and formed a regular spiral as in a turret. +The darkness and the curving motion confused her brain, and it was +impossible to tell how high in the house she was, except when once she +put her hand upon what was evidently a door, and moreover saw through +its cracks the lamp she had left burning in the upper hall. This glimpse +of reality reassured her. She had begun to discover where she was. The +doors which Aunt Jane had closed gave access, not to mere closets, but +to a spiral stairway, which evidently went from top to bottom of the +house, and was known to some one else beside herself. + +Relieved of that slight shudder at the supernatural which sometimes +affects the healthiest nerves, Hope paused to consider. To alarm the +neighborhood was her first thought. A slight murmuring from above +dispelled it; she must first reconnoitre a few steps farther. As +she ascended a little way, a gleam shone upon her, and down the damp +stairway came a fragrant odor, as from some perfumed chamber. Then a +door was shut and reopened. Eager beyond expression, she followed on. +Another step, and she stood at the door of Malbone's apartment. + +The room was brilliant with light; the doors and windows were heavily +draped. Fruit and flowers and wine were on the table. On the sofa lay +Emilia in a gay ball-dress, sunk in one of her motionless trances, while +Malbone, pale with terror, was deluging her brows with the water he had +just brought from the well below. + +Hope stopped a moment and leaned against the door, as her eyes met +Malbone's. Then she made her way to a chair, and leaning on the back +of it, which she fingered convulsively, looked with bewildered eyes and +compressed lips from the one to the other. Malbone tried to speak, but +failed; tried again, and brought forth only a whisper that broke into +clearer speech as the words went on. "No use to explain," he said. +"Lambert is in New York. Mrs. Meredith is expecting her--to-night after +the ball. What can we do?" + +Hope covered her face as he spoke; she could bear anything better than +to have him say "we," as if no gulf had opened between them. She sank +slowly on her knees behind her chair, keeping it as a sort of screen +between herself and these two people,--the counterfeits, they seemed, +of her lover and her sister. If the roof in falling to crush them had +crushed her also, she could scarcely have seemed more rigid or more +powerless. It passed, and the next moment she was on her feet again, +capable of action. + +"She must be taken," she said very clearly, but in a lower tone than +usual, "to my chamber." Then pointing to the candles, she said, more +huskily, "We must not be seen. Put them out." Every syllable seemed to +exhaust her. But as Philip obeyed her words, he saw her move suddenly +and stand by Emilia's side. + +She put out both arms as if to lift the young girl, and carry her away. + +"You cannot," said Philip, putting her gently aside, while she shrank +from his touch. Then he took Emilia in his arms and bore her to the +door, Hope preceding. + +Motioning him to pause a moment, she turned the lock softly, and looked +out into the dark entry. All was still. She went out, and he followed +with his motionless burden. They walked stealthily, like guilty things, +yet every slight motion seemed to ring in their ears. It was chilly, and +Hope shivered. Through the great open window on the stairway a white fog +peered in at them, and the distant fog-whistle came faintly through; it +seemed as if the very atmosphere were condensing about them, to isolate +the house in which such deeds were done. The clock struck twelve, and it +seemed as if it struck a thousand. + +When they reached Hope's door, she turned and put out her arms for +Emilia, as for a child. Every expression had now gone from Hope's face +but a sort of stony calmness, which put her infinitely farther from +Malbone than had the momentary struggle. As he gave the girlish form +into arms that shook and trembled beneath its weight, he caught a +glimpse in the pier-glass of their two white faces, and then, looking +down, saw the rose-tints yet lingering on Emilia's cheek. She, the +source of all this woe, looked the only representative of innocence +between two guilty things. + +How white and pure and maidenly looked Hope's little room,--such a home +of peace, he thought, till its door suddenly opened to admit all this +passion and despair! There was a great sheaf of cardinal flowers on the +table, and their petals were drooping, as if reluctant to look on him. +Scheffer's Christus Consolator was upon the walls, and the benign figure +seemed to spread wider its arms of mercy, to take in a few sad hearts +more. + +Hope bore Emilia into the light and purity and warmth, while Malbone was +shut out into the darkness and the chill. The only two things to which +he clung on earth, the two women between whom his unsteady heart had +vibrated, and both whose lives had been tortured by its vacillation, +went away from his sight together, the one victim bearing the other +victim in her arms. Never any more while he lived would either of them +be his again; and had Dante known it for his last glimpse of things +immortal when the two lovers floated away from him in their sad embrace, +he would have had no such sense of utter banishment as had Malbone then. + + + + +XVIII. HOPE'S VIGIL. + +HAD Emilia chosen out of life's whole armory of weapons the means of +disarming Hope, she could have found nothing so effectual as nature +had supplied in her unconsciousness. Helplessness conquers. There was a +quality in Emilia which would have always produced something very like +antagonism in Hope, had she not been her sister. Had the ungoverned girl +now been able to utter one word of reproach, had her eyes flashed one +look of defiance, had her hand made one triumphant or angry gesture, +perhaps all Hope's outraged womanhood would have coldly nerved itself +against her. But it was another thing to see those soft eyes closed, +those delicate hands powerless, those pleading lips sealed; to see her +extended in graceful helplessness, while all the concentrated drama of +emotion revolved around her unheeded, as around Cordelia dead. In what +realms was that child's mind seeking comfort; through what thin air of +dreams did that restless heart beat its pinions; in what other sphere +did that untamed nature wander, while shame and sorrow waited for its +awakening in this? + +Hope knelt upon the floor, still too much strained and bewildered for +tears or even prayer, a little way from Emilia. Once having laid down +the unconscious form, it seemed for a moment as if she could no more +touch it than she could lay her hand amid flames. A gap of miles, of +centuries, of solar systems, seemed to separate these two young girls, +alone within the same chamber, with the same stern secret to keep, and +so near that the hem of their garments almost touched each other on the +soft carpet. Hope felt a terrible hardness closing over her heart. +What right had this cruel creature, with her fatal witcheries, to come +between two persons who might have been so wholly happy? What sorrow +would be saved, what shame, perhaps, be averted, should those sweet +beguiling eyes never open, and that perfidious voice never deceive any +more? Why tend the life of one who would leave the whole world happier, +purer, freer, if she were dead? + +In a tumult of thought, Hope went and sat half-unconsciously by the +window. There was nothing to be seen except the steady beacon of the +light-house and a pale-green glimmer, like an earthly star, from an +anchored vessel. The night wind came softly in, soothing her with a +touch like a mother's, in its grateful coolness. The air seemed full +of half-vibrations, sub-noises, that crowded it as completely as do the +insect sounds of midsummer; yet she could only distinguish the ripple +beneath her feet, and the rote on the distant beach, and the busy wash +of waters against every shore and islet of the bay. The mist was thick +around her, but she knew that above it hung the sleepless stars, and the +fancy came over her that perhaps the whole vast interval, from ocean +up to sky, might be densely filled with the disembodied souls of her +departed human kindred, waiting to see how she would endure that path +of grief in which their steps had gone before. "It may be from this +influence," she vaguely mused within herself, "that the ocean derives +its endless song of sorrow. Perhaps we shall know the meaning when we +understand that of the stars, and of our own sad lives." + +She rose again and went to the bedside. It all seemed like a dream, and +she was able to look at Emilia's existence and at her own and at all +else, as if it were a great way off; as we watch the stars and know that +no speculations of ours can reach those who there live or die untouched. +Here beside her lay one who was dead, yet living, in her temporary +trance, and to what would she wake, when it should end? This young +creature had been sent into the world so fresh, so beautiful, so richly +gifted; everything about her physical organization was so delicate and +lovely; she had seemed like heliotrope, like a tube-rose in her +purity and her passion (who was it said, "No heart is pure that is not +passionate"?); and here was the end! Nothing external could have placed +her where she was, no violence, no outrage, no evil of another's doing, +could have reached her real life without her own consent; and now what +kind of existence, what career, what possibility of happiness remained? +Why could not God in his mercy take her, and give her to his holiest +angels for schooling, ere it was yet too late? + +Hope went and sat by the window once more. Her thoughts still clung +heavily around one thought, as the white fog clung round the house. +Where should she see any light? What opening for extrication, unless, +indeed, Emilia should die? There could be no harm in that thought, +for she knew it was not to be, and that the swoon would not last much +longer. Who could devise anything? No one. There was nothing. Almost +always in perplexities there is some thread by resolutely holding to +which one escapes at last. Here there was none. There could probably +be no concealment, certainly no explanation. In a few days John Lambert +would return, and then the storm must break. He was probably a stern, +jealous man, whose very dulness, once aroused, would be more formidable +than if he had possessed keener perceptions. + +Still her thoughts did not dwell on Philip. He was simply a part of that +dull mass of pain that beset her and made her feel, as she had felt +when drowning, that her heart had left her breast and nothing but will +remained. She felt now, as then, the capacity to act with more than her +accustomed resolution, though all that was within her seemed boiling up +into her brain. As for Philip, all seemed a mere negation; there was a +vacuum where his place had been. At most the thought of him came to her +as some strange, vague thrill of added torture, penetrating her soul +and then passing; just as ever and anon there came the sound of the +fog-whistle on Brenton's Reef, miles away, piercing the dull air with +its shrill and desolate wail, then dying into silence. + +What a hopeless cloud lay upon them all forever,--upon Kate, upon Harry, +upon their whole house! Then there was John Lambert; how could they keep +it from him? how could they tell him? Who could predict what he would +say? Would he take the worst and coarsest view of his young wife's mad +action or the mildest? Would he be strong or weak; and what would be +weakness, and what strength, in a position so strange? Would he put +Emilia from him, send her out in the world desolate, her soul stained +but by one wrong passion, yet with her reputation blighted as if there +were no good in her? Could he be asked to shield and protect her, or +what would become of her? She was legally a wife, and could only be +separated from him through convicted shame. + +Then, if separated, she could only marry Philip. Hope nerved herself to +think of that, and it cost less effort than she expected. + +There seemed a numbness on that side, instead of pain. But granting that +he loved Emilia ever so deeply, was he a man to surrender his life and +his ease and his fair name, in a hopeless effort to remove the ban that +the world would place on her. Hope knew he would not; knew that even the +simple-hearted and straightforward Harry would be far more capable of +such heroism than the sentimental Malbone. Here the pang suddenly struck +her; she was not so numb, after all! + +As the leaves beside the window drooped motionless in the dank air, so +her mind drooped into a settled depression. She pitied herself,--that +lowest ebb of melancholy self-consciousness. She went back to Emilia, +and, seating herself, studied every line of the girl's face, the soft +texture of her hair, the veining of her eyelids. They were so lovely, +she felt a sort of physical impulse to kiss them, as if they belonged +to some utter stranger, whom she might be nursing in a hospital. Emilia +looked as innocent as when Hope had tended her in the cradle. What is +there, Hope thought, in sleep, in trance, and in death, that removes all +harsh or disturbing impressions, and leaves only the most delicate and +purest traits? Does the mind wander, and does an angel keep its place? +Or is there really no sin but in thought, and are our sleeping thoughts +incapable of sin? Perhaps even when we dream of doing wrong, the dream +comes in a shape so lovely and misleading that we never recognize it for +evil, and it makes no stain. Are our lives ever so pure as our dreams? + +This thought somehow smote across her conscience, always so strong, and +stirred it into a kind of spasm of introspection. "How selfish have I, +too, been!" she thought. "I saw only what I wished to see, did only what +I preferred. Loving Philip" (for the sudden self-reproach left her free +to think of him), "I could not see that I was separating him from one +whom he might perhaps have truly loved. If he made me blind, may he +not easily have bewildered her, and have been himself bewildered? How I +tried to force myself upon him, too! Ungenerous, unwomanly! What am I, +that I should judge another?" + +She threw herself on her knees at the bedside. + +Still Emilia slept, but now she stirred her head in the slightest +possible way, so that a single tress of silken hair slipped from its +companions, and lay across her face. It was a faint sign that the trance +was waning; the slight pressure disturbed her nerves, and her lips +trembled once or twice, as if to relieve themselves of the soft +annoyance. Hope watched her in a vague, distant way, took note of the +minutest motion, yet as if some vast weight hung upon her own limbs +and made all interference impossible. Still there was a fascination of +sympathy in dwelling on that atom of discomfort, that tiny suffering, +which she alone could remove. The very vastness of this tragedy that +hung about the house made it an inexpressible relief to her to turn and +concentrate her thoughts for a moment on this slight distress, so easily +ended. + +Strange, by what slender threads our lives are knitted to each other! +Here was one who had taken Hope's whole existence in her hands, crushed +it, and thrown it away. Hope had soberly said to herself, just before, +that death would be better than life for her young sister. Yet now it +moved her beyond endurance to see that fair form troubled, even while +unconscious, by a feather's weight of pain; and all the lifelong habit +of tenderness resumed in a moment its sway. + +She approached her fingers to the offending tress, very slowly, half +withholding them at the very last, as if the touch would burn her. She +was almost surprised that it did not. She looked to see if it did not +hurt Emilia. But it now seemed as if the slumbering girl enjoyed the +caressing contact of the smooth fingers, and turned her head, almost +imperceptibly, to meet them. This was more than Hope could bear. It was +as if that slight motion were a puncture to relieve her overburdened +heart; a thousand thoughts swept over her,--of their father, of her +sister's childhood, of her years of absent expectation; she thought how +young the girl was, how fascinating, how passionate, how tempted; all +this swept across her in a great wave of nervous reaction, and when +Emilia returned to consciousness, she was lying in her sister's arms, +her face bathed in Hope's tears. + + + + +XIX. DE PROFUNDIS. + +THIS was the history of Emilia's concealed visits to Malbone. + +One week after her marriage, in a crisis of agony, Emilia took up her +pen, dipped it in fire, and wrote thus to him:-- + +"Philip Malbone, why did nobody ever tell me what marriage is where +there is no love? This man who calls himself my husband is no worse, +I suppose, than other men. It is only for being what is called by that +name that I abhor him. Good God! what am I to do? It was not for money +that I married him,--that you know very well; I cared no more for his +money than for himself. I thought it was the only way to save Hope. She +has been very good to me, and perhaps I should love her, if I could love +anybody. Now I have done what will only make more misery, for I cannot +bear it. Philip, I am alone in this wide world, except for you. Tell me +what to do. I will haunt you till you die, unless you tell me. Answer +this, or I will write again." + +Terrified by this letter, absolutely powerless to guide the life with +which he had so desperately entangled himself, Philip let one day pass +without answering, and that evening he found Emilia at his door, she +having glided unnoticed up the main stairway. She was so excited, it was +equally dangerous to send her away or to admit her, and he drew her in, +darkening the windows and locking the door. On the whole, it was not so +bad as he expected; at least, there was less violence and more despair. +She covered her face with her hands, and writhed in anguish, when she +said that she had utterly degraded herself by this loveless marriage. +She scarcely mentioned her husband. She made no complaint of him, and +even spoke of him as generous. It seemed as if this made it worse, and +as if she would be happier if she could expend herself in hating him. +She spoke of him rather as a mere witness to some shame for which she +herself was responsible; bearing him no malice, but tortured by the +thought that he should exist. + +Then she turned on Malbone. "Philip, why did you ever interfere with my +life? I should have been very happy with Antoine if you had let me marry +him, for I never should have known what it was to love you. Oh! I wish +he were here now, even he,--any one who loved me truly, and whom I could +love only a little. I would go away with such a person anywhere, and +never trouble you and Hope any more. What shall I do? Philip, you might +tell me what to do. Once you told me always to come to you." + +"What can you do?" he asked gloomily, in return. + +"I cannot imagine," she said, with a desolate look, more pitiable than +passion, on her young face. "I wish to save Hope, and to save my--to +save Mr. Lambert. Philip, you do not love me. I do not call it love. +There is no passion in your veins; it is only a sort of sympathetic +selfishness. Hope is infinitely better than you are, and I believe she +is more capable of loving. I began by hating her, but if she loves you +as I think she does, she has treated me more generously than ever one +woman treated another. For she could not look at me and not know that I +loved you. I did love you. O Philip, tell me what to do!" + +Such beauty in anguish, the thrill of the possession of such love, the +possibility of soothing by tenderness the wild mood which he could not +meet by counsel,--it would have taken a stronger or less sympathetic +nature than Malbone's to endure all this. It swept him away; this +revival of passion was irresistible. When her pent-up feeling was +once uttered, she turned to his love as a fancied salvation. It was a +terrible remedy. She had never looked more beautiful, and yet she seemed +to have grown old at once; her very caresses appeared to burn. She +lingered and lingered, and still he kept her there; and when it was no +longer possible for her to go without disturbing the house, he led her +to a secret spiral stairway, which went from attic to cellar of that +stately old mansion, and which opened by one or more doors on each +landing, as his keen eye had found out. Descending this, he went forth +with her into the dark and silent night. The mist hung around the house; +the wet leaves fluttered and fell upon their cheeks; the water lapped +desolately against the pier. Philip found a carriage and sent her back +to Mrs. Meredith's, where she was staying during the brief absence of +John Lambert. + +These concealed meetings, once begun, became an absorbing excitement. +She came several times, staying half an hour, an hour, two hours. They +were together long enough for suffering, never long enough for soothing. +It was a poor substitute for happiness. Each time she came, Malbone +wished that she might never go or never return. His warier nature was +feverish with solicitude and with self-reproach; he liked the excitement +of slight risks, but this was far too intense, the vibrations too +extreme. She, on the other hand, rode triumphant over waves of passion +which cowed him. He dared not exclude her; he dared not continue to +admit her; he dared not free himself; he could not be happy. The privacy +of the concealed stairway saved them from outward dangers, but not from +inward fears. Their interviews were first blissful, then anxious, then +sad, then stormy. It was at the end of such a storm that Emilia had +passed into one of those deathly calms which belonged to her physical +temperament; and it was under these circumstances that Hope had followed +Philip to the door. + + + + +XX. AUNT JANE TO THE RESCUE. + +THE thing that saves us from insanity during great grief is that +there is usually something to do, and the mind composes itself to the +mechanical task of adjusting the details. Hope dared not look forward +an inch into the future; that way madness lay. Fortunately, it was plain +what must come first,--to keep the whole thing within their own walls, +and therefore to make some explanation to Mrs. Meredith, whose servants +had doubtless been kept up all night awaiting Emilia. Profoundly +perplexed what to say or not to say to her, Hope longed with her whole +soul for an adviser. Harry and Kate were both away, and besides, she +shrank from darkening their young lives as hers had been darkened. +She resolved to seek counsel in the one person who most thoroughly +distrusted Emilia,--Aunt Jane. + +This lady was in a particularly happy mood that day. Emilia, who did +all kinds of fine needle-work exquisitely, had just embroidered for Aunt +Jane some pillow-cases. The original suggestion came from Hope, but it +never cost Emilia anything to keep a secret, and she had presented the +gift very sweetly, as if it were a thought of her own. Aunt Jane, who +with all her penetration as to facts was often very guileless as to +motives, was thoroughly touched by the humility and the embroidery. + +"All last night," she said, "I kept waking up, and thinking about +Christian charity and my pillow-cases." + +It was, therefore, a very favorable day for Hope's consultation, though +it was nearly noon before her aunt was visible, perhaps because it took +so long to make up her bed with the new adornments. + +Hope said frankly to Aunt Jane that there were some circumstances about +which she should rather not be questioned, but that Emilia had come +there the previous night from the ball, had been seized with one of +her peculiar attacks, and had stayed all night. Aunt Jane kept her eyes +steadily fixed on Hope's sad face, and, when the tale was ended, drew +her down and kissed her lips. + +"Now tell me, dear," she said; "what comes first?" + +"The first thing is," said Hope, "to have Emilia's absence explained to +Mrs. Meredith in some such way that she will think no more of it, and +not talk about it." + +"Certainly," said Aunt Jane. "There is but one way to do that. I will +call on her myself." + +"You, auntie?" said Hope. + +"Yes, I," said her aunt. "I have owed her a call for five years. It is +the only thing that will excite her so much as to put all else out of +her head." + +"O auntie!" said Hope, greatly relieved, "if you only would! But ought +you really to go out? It is almost raining." + +"I shall go," said Aunt Jane, decisively, "if it rains little boys!" + +"But will not Mrs. Meredith wonder--?" began Hope. + +"That is one advantage," interrupted her aunt, "of being an absurd old +woman. Nobody ever wonders at anything I do, or else it is that they +never stop wondering." + +She sent Ruth erelong to order the horses. Hope collected her various +wrappers, and Ruth, returning, got her mistress into a state of +preparation. + +"If I might say one thing more," Hope whispered. + +"Certainly," said her aunt. "Ruth, go to my chamber, and get me a pin." + +"What kind of a pin, ma'am?" asked that meek handmaiden, from the +doorway. + +"What a question!" said her indignant mistress. "Any kind. The common +pin of North America. Now, Hope?" as the door closed. + +"I think it better, auntie," said Hope, "that Philip should not stay +here longer at present. You can truly say that the house is full, and--" + +"I have just had a note from him," said Aunt Jane severely. "He has gone +to lodge at the hotel. What next?" + +"Aunt Jane," said Hope, looking her full in the face, "I have not the +slightest idea what to do next." + +("The next thing for me," thought her aunt, "is to have a little plain +speech with that misguided child upstairs.") + +"I can see no way out," pursued Hope. + +"Darling!" said Aunt Jane, with a voice full of womanly sweetness, +"there is always a way out, or else the world would have stopped long +ago. Perhaps it would have been better if it had stopped, but you see it +has not. All we can do is, to live on and try our best." + +She bade Hope leave Emilia to her, and furthermore stipulated that Hope +should go to her pupils as usual, that afternoon, as it was their last +lesson. The young girl shrank from the effort, but the elder lady was +inflexible. She had her own purpose in it. Hope once out of the way, +Aunt Jane could deal with Emilia. + +No human being, when met face to face with Aunt Jane, had ever failed +to yield up to her the whole truth she sought. Emilia was on that day no +exception. She was prostrate, languid, humble, denied nothing, was ready +to concede every point but one. Never, while she lived, would she dwell +beneath John Lambert's roof again. She had left it impulsively, she +admitted, scarce knowing what she did. But she would never return there +to live. She would go once more and see that all was in order for Mr. +Lambert, both in the house and on board the yacht, where they were to +have taken up their abode for a time. There were new servants in the +house, a new captain on the yacht; she would trust Mr. Lambert's comfort +to none of them; she would do her full duty. Duty! the more utterly she +felt herself to be gliding away from him forever, the more pains she was +ready to lavish in doing these nothings well. About every insignificant +article he owned she seemed to feel the most scrupulous and wife-like +responsibility; while she yet knew that all she had was to him nothing, +compared with the possession of herself; and it was the thought of this +last ownership that drove her to despair. + +Sweet and plaintive as the child's face was, it had a glimmer of +wildness and a hunted look, that baffled Aunt Jane a little, and +compelled her to temporize. She consented that Emilia should go to +her own house, on condition that she would not see Philip,--which was +readily and even eagerly promised,--and that Hope should spend the night +with Emilia, which proposal was ardently accepted. + +It occurred to Aunt Jane that nothing better could happen than for John +Lambert, on returning, to find his wife at home; and to secure this +result, if possible, she telegraphed to him to come at once. + +Meantime Hope gave her inevitable music-lesson, so absorbed in her own +thoughts that it was all as mechanical as the metronome. As she came +out upon the Avenue for the walk home, she saw a group of people from +a gardener's house, who had collected beside a muddy crossing, where a +team of cart-horses had refused to stir. Presently they sprang forward +with a great jerk, and a little Irish child was thrown beneath the +wheel. Hope sprang forward to grasp the child, and the wheel struck +her also; but she escaped with a dress torn and smeared, while the +cart passed over the little girl's arm, breaking it in two places. She +screamed and then grew faint, as Hope lifted her. The mother received +the burden with a wail of anguish; the other Irishwomen pressed around +her with the dense and suffocating sympathy of their nation. Hope bade +one and another run for a physician, but nobody stirred. There was no +surgical aid within a mile or more. Hope looked round in despair, then +glanced at her own disordered garments. + +"As sure as you live!" shouted a well-known voice from a carriage which +had stopped behind them. "If that isn't Hope what's-her-name, wish I may +never! Here's a lark! Let me come there!" And the speaker pushed through +the crowd. + +"Miss Ingleside," said Hope, decisively, "this child's arm is broken. +There is nobody to go for a physician. Except for the condition I am +in, I would ask you to take me there at once in your carriage; but as it +is--" + +"As it is, I must ask you, hey?" said Blanche, finishing the sentence. +"Of course. No mistake. Sans dire. Jones, junior, this lady will join +us. Don't look so scared, man. Are you anxious about your cushions or +your reputation?" + +The youth simpered and disclaimed. + +"Jump in, then, Miss Maxwell. Never mind the expense. It's only the +family carriage;--surname and arms of Jones. Lucky there are no parents +to the fore. Put my shawl over you, so." + +"O Blanche!" said Hope, "what injustice--" + +"I've done myself?" said the volatile damsel. "Not a doubt of it. That's +my style, you know. But I have some sense; I know who's who. Now, Jones, +junior, make your man handle the ribbons. I've always had a grudge +against that ordinance about fast driving, and now's our chance." + +And the sacred "ordinance," with all other proprieties, was left in +ruins that day. They tore along the Avenue with unexplained and most +inexplicable speed, Hope being concealed by riding backward, and by a +large shawl, and Blanche and her admirer receiving the full indignation +of every chaste and venerable eye. Those who had tolerated all this +girl's previous improprieties were obliged to admit that the line must +be drawn somewhere. She at once lost several good invitations and a +matrimonial offer, since Jones, junior, was swept away by his parents to +be wedded without delay to a consumptive heiress who had long pined +for his whiskers; and Count Posen, in his Souvenirs, was severer on +Blanche's one good deed than on the worst of her follies. + +A few years after, when Blanche, then the fearless wife of a +regular-army officer, was helping Hope in the hospitals at Norfolk, she +would stop to shout with delight over the reminiscence of that stately +Jones equipage in mad career, amid the barking of dogs and the groaning +of dowagers. "After all, Hope," she would say, "the fastest thing I ever +did was under your orders." + + + + +XXI. A STORM. + +THE members of the household were all at the window about noon, next +day, watching the rise of a storm. A murky wing of cloud, shaped like +a hawk's, hung over the low western hills across the bay. Then the hawk +became an eagle, and the eagle a gigantic phantom, that hovered over +half the visible sky. Beneath it, a little scud of vapor, moved by some +cross-current of air, raced rapidly against the wind, just above the +horizon, like smoke from a battle-field. + +As the cloud ascended, the water grew rapidly blacker, and in half an +hour broke into jets of white foam, all over its surface, with an +angry look. Meantime a white film of fog spread down the bay from the +northward. The wind hauled from southwest to northwest, so suddenly +and strongly that all the anchored boats seemed to have swung round +instantaneously, without visible process. The instant the wind shifted, +the rain broke forth, filling the air in a moment with its volume, +and cutting so sharply that it seemed like hail, though no hailstones +reached the ground. At the same time there rose upon the water a dense +white film, which seemed to grow together from a hundred different +directions, and was made partly of rain, and partly of the blown edges +of the spray. There was but a glimpse of this; for in a few moments it +was impossible to see two rods; but when the first gust was over, +the water showed itself again, the jets of spray all beaten down, and +regular waves, of dull lead-color, breaking higher on the shore. All the +depth of blackness had left the sky, and there remained only an obscure +and ominous gray, through which the lightning flashed white, not red. +Boats came driving in from the mouth of the bay with a rag of sail up; +the men got them moored with difficulty, and when they sculled ashore +in the skiffs, a dozen comrades stood ready to grasp and haul them in. +Others launched skiffs in sheltered places, and pulled out bareheaded +to bail out their fishing-boats and keep them from swamping at their +moorings. + +The shore was thronged with men in oilskin clothes and by women with +shawls over their heads. Aunt Jane, who always felt responsible for +whatever went on in the elements, sat in-doors with one lid closed, +wincing at every flash, and watching the universe with the air of a +coachman guiding six wild horses. + +Just after the storm had passed its height, two veritable wild +horses were reined up at the door, and Philip burst in, his usual +self-composure gone. + +"Emilia is out sailing!" he exclaimed,--"alone with Lambert's boatman, +in this gale. They say she was bound for Narragansett." + +"Impossible!" cried Hope, turning pale. "I left her not three hours +ago." Then she remembered that Emilia had spoken of going on board the +yacht, to superintend some arrangements, but had said no more about it, +when she opposed it. + +"Harry!" said Aunt Jane, quickly, from her chair by the window, "see +that fisherman. He has just come ashore and is telling something. Ask +him." + +The fisherman had indeed seen Lambert's boat, which was well known. +Something seemed to be the matter with the sail, but before the storm +struck her, it had been hauled down. They must have taken in water +enough, as it was. He had himself been obliged to bail out three times, +running in from the reef. + +"Was there any landing which they could reach?" Harry asked. + +There was none,--but the light-ship lay right in their track, and if +they had good luck, they might get aboard of her. + +"The boatman?" said Philip, anxiously,--"Mr. Lambert's boatman; is he a +good sailor?" + +"Don't know," was the reply. "Stranger here. Dutchman, Frenchman, +Portegee, or some kind of a foreigner." + +"Seems to understand himself in a boat," said another. + +"Mr. Malbone knows him," said a third. "The same that dove with the +young woman under the steamboat paddles." + +"Good grit," said the first. + +"That's so," was the answer. "But grit don't teach a man the channel." + +All agreed to this axiom; but as there was so strong a probability that +the voyagers had reached the light-ship, there seemed less cause for +fear. + +The next question was, whether it was possible to follow them. All +agreed that it would be foolish for any boat to attempt it, till the +wind had blown itself out, which might be within half an hour. After +that, some predicted a calm, some a fog, some a renewal of the storm; +there was the usual variety of opinions. At any rate, there might +perhaps be an interval during which they could go out, if the gentlemen +did not mind a wet jacket. + +Within the half-hour came indeed an interval of calm, and a light shone +behind the clouds from the west. It faded soon into a gray fog, with +puffs of wind from the southwest again. When the young men went out with +the boatmen, the water had grown more quiet, save where angry little +gusts ruffled it. But these gusts made it necessary to carry a double +reef, and they made but little progress against wind and tide. + +A dark-gray fog, broken by frequent wind-flaws, makes the ugliest of all +days on the water. A still, pale fog is soothing; it lulls nature to +a kind of repose. But a windy fog with occasional sunbeams and sudden +films of metallic blue breaking the leaden water,--this carries an +impression of something weird and treacherous in the universe, and +suggests caution. + +As the boat floated on, every sight and sound appeared strange. The +music from the fort came sudden and startling through the vaporous +eddies. A tall white schooner rose instantaneously near them, like +a light-house. They could see the steam of the factory floating low, +seeking some outlet between cloud and water. As they drifted past a +wharf, the great black piles of coal hung high and gloomy; then a stray +sunbeam brought out their peacock colors; then came the fog again, +driving hurriedly by, as if impatient to go somewhere and enraged at the +obstacle. It seemed to have a vast inorganic life of its own, a volition +and a whim. It drew itself across the horizon like a curtain; then +advanced in trampling armies up the bay; then marched in masses +northward; then suddenly grew thin, and showed great spaces of sunlight; +then drifted across the low islands, like long tufts of wool; then +rolled itself away toward the horizon; then closed in again, pitiless +and gray. + +Suddenly something vast towered amid the mist above them. It was the +French war-ship returned to her anchorage once more, and seeming in that +dim atmosphere to be something spectral and strange that had taken form +out of the elements. The muzzles of great guns rose tier above tier, +along her side; great boats hung one above another, on successive pairs +of davits, at her stern. So high was her hull, that the topmost boat and +the topmost gun appeared to be suspended in middle air; and yet this +was but the beginning of her altitude. Above these were the heavy masts, +seen dimly through the mist; between these were spread eight dark lines +of sailors' clothes, which, with the massive yards above, looked +like part of some ponderous framework built to reach the sky. This +prolongation of the whole dark mass toward the heavens had a portentous +look to those who gazed from below; and when the denser fog sometimes +furled itself away from the topgallant masts, hitherto invisible, and +showed them rising loftier yet, and the tricolor at the mizzen-mast-head +looking down as if from the zenith, then they all seemed to appertain +to something of more than human workmanship; a hundred wild tales of +phantom vessels came up to the imagination, and it was as if that one +gigantic structure were expanding to fill all space from sky to sea. + +They were swept past it; the fog closed in; it was necessary to land +near the Fort, and proceed on foot. They walked across the rough +peninsula, while the mist began to disperse again, and they were buoyant +with expectation. As they toiled onward, the fog suddenly met them at +the turn of a lane where it had awaited them, like an enemy. As they +passed into those gray and impalpable arms, the whole world changed +again. + +They walked toward the sound of the sea. As they approached it, the dull +hue that lay upon it resembled that of the leaden sky. The two elements +could hardly be distinguished except as the white outlines of the +successive breakers were lifted through the fog. The lines of surf +appeared constantly to multiply upon the beach, and yet, on counting +them, there were never any more. Sometimes, in the distance, masses +of foam rose up like a wall where the horizon ought to be; and, as the +coming waves took form out of the unseen, it seemed as if no phantom +were too vast or shapeless to come rolling in upon their dusky +shoulders. + +Presently a frail gleam of something like the ghost of dead sunshine +made them look toward the west. Above the dim roofs of Castle Hill +mansion-house, the sinking sun showed luridly through two rifts of +cloud, and then the swift motion of the nearer vapor veiled both sun and +cloud, and banished them into almost equal remoteness. + +Leaving the beach on their right, and passing the high rocks of the +Pirate's Cave, they presently descended to the water's edge once more. +The cliffs rose to a distorted height in the dimness; sprays of withered +grass nodded along the edge, like Ossian's spectres. Light seemed to be +vanishing from the universe, leaving them alone with the sea. And when +a solitary loon uttered his wild cry, and rising, sped away into +the distance, it was as if life were following light into an equal +annihilation. That sense of vague terror, with which the ocean sometimes +controls the fancy, began to lay its grasp on them. They remembered that +Emilia, in speaking once of her intense shrinking from death, had said +that the sea was the only thing from which she would not fear to meet +it. + +Fog exaggerates both for eye and ear; it is always a sounding-board for +the billows; and in this case, as often happens, the roar did not appear +to proceed from the waves themselves, but from some source in the unseen +horizon, as if the spectators were shut within a beleaguered fortress, +and this thundering noise came from an impetuous enemy outside. Ever +and anon there was a distinct crash of heavier sound, as if some special +barricade had at length been beaten in, and the garrison must look to +their inner defences. + +The tide was unusually high, and scarcely receded with the ebb, though +the surf increased; the waves came in with constant rush and wail, and +with an ominous rattle of pebbles on the little beaches, beneath the +powerful suction of the undertow; and there were more and more of those +muffled throbs along the shore which tell of coming danger as plainly as +minute-guns. With these came mingled that yet more inexplicable humming +which one hears at intervals in such times, like strains of music caught +and tangled in the currents of stormy air,--strains which were perhaps +the filmy thread on which tales of sirens and mermaids were first +strung, and in which, at this time, they would fain recognize the voice +of Emilia. + + + + +XXII. OUT OF THE DEPTHS. + +AS the night closed in, the wind rose steadily, still blowing from the +southwest. In Brenton's kitchen they found a group round a great fire of +driftwood; some of these were fishermen who had with difficulty made a +landing on the beach, and who confirmed the accounts already given. +The boat had been seen sailing for the Narragansett shore, and when the +squall came, the boatman had lowered and reefed the sail, and stood for +the light-ship. They must be on board of her, if anywhere. + +"There are safe there?" asked Philip, eagerly. + +"Only place where they would be safe, then," said the spokesman. + +"Unless the light-ship parts," said an old fellow. + +"Parts!" said the other. "Sixty fathom of two-inch chain, and old Joe +talks about parting." + +"Foolish, of course," said Philip; "but it's a dangerous shore." + +"That's so," was the answer. "Never saw so many lines of reef show +outside, neither." + +"There's an old saying on this shore," said Joe:-- + + + + "When Price's Neck goes to Brenton's Reef, + Body and soul will come to grief. + But when Brenton's Reef comes to Price's Neck, + Soul and body are both a wreck." + + + +"What does it mean?" asked Harry. + +"It only means," said somebody, "that when you see it white all the way +out from the Neck to the Reef, you can't take the inside passage." + +"But what does the last half mean?" persisted Harry. + +"Don't know as I know," said the veteran, and relapsed into silence, in +which all joined him, while the wind howled and whistled outside, and +the barred windows shook. + +Weary and restless with vain waiting, they looked from the doorway at +the weather. The door went back with a slam, and the gust swooped down +on them with that special blast that always seems to linger just outside +on such nights, ready for the first head that shows itself. They closed +the door upon the flickering fire and the uncouth shadows within, and +went forth into the night. At first the solid blackness seemed to lay a +weight on their foreheads. There was absolutely nothing to be seen +but the two lights of the light-ship, glaring from the dark sea like +a wolf's eyes from a cavern. They looked nearer and brighter than in +ordinary nights, and appeared to the excited senses of the young men to +dance strangely on the waves, and to be always opposite to them, as they +moved along the shore with the wind almost at their backs. + +"What did that old fellow mean?" said Malbone in Harry's ear, as they +came to a protected place and could hear each other, "by talking of +Brenton's Reef coming to Price's Neck." + +"Some sailor's doggerel," said Harry, indifferently. "Here is Price's +Neck before us, and yonder is Brenton's Reef." + +"Where?" said Philip, looking round bewildered. + +The lights had gone, as if the wolf, weary of watching, had suddenly +closed his eyes, and slumbered in his cave. + +Harry trembled and shivered. In Heaven's name, what could this +disappearance mean? + +Suddenly a sheet of lightning came, so white and intense, it sent its +light all the way out to the horizon and exhibited far-off vessels, that +reeled and tossed and looked as if wandering without a guide. But this +was not so startling as what it showed in the foreground. + +There drifted heavily upon the waves, within full view from the shore, +moving parallel to it, yet gradually approaching, an uncouth shape that +seemed a vessel and yet not a vessel; two stunted masts projected above, +and below there could be read, in dark letters that apparently swayed +and trembled in the wan lightning, as the thing moved on, + + BRENTON'S REEF. + +Philip, leaning against a rock, gazed into the darkness where the +apparition had been; even Harry felt a thrill of half-superstitious +wonder, and listened half mechanically to a rough sailor's voice at his +ear:-- + +"God! old Joe was right. There's one wreck that is bound to make many. +The light-ship has parted." + +"Drifting ashore," said Harry, his accustomed clearness of head coming +back at a flash. "Where will she strike?" + +"Price's Neck," said the sailor. + +Harry turned to Philip and spoke to him, shouting in his ear the +explanation. Malbone's lips moved mechanically, but he said nothing. +Passively, he let Harry take him by the arm, and lead him on. + +Following the sailor, they rounded a projecting point, and found +themselves a little sheltered from the wind. Not knowing the region, +they stumbled about among the rocks, and scarcely knew when they neared +the surf, except when a wave came swashing round their very feet. +Pausing at the end of a cove, they stood beside their conductor, and +their eyes, now grown accustomed, could make out vaguely the outlines of +the waves. + +The throat of the cove was so shoal and narrow, and the mass of the +waves so great, that they reared their heads enormously, just outside, +and spending their strength there, left a lower level within the cove. +Yet sometimes a series of great billows would come straight on, heading +directly for the entrance, and then the surface of the water within was +seen to swell suddenly upward as if by a terrible inward magic of its +own; it rose and rose, as if it would ingulf everything; then as rapidly +sank, and again presented a mere quiet vestibule before the excluded +waves. + +They saw in glimpses, as the lightning flashed, the shingly beach, +covered with a mass of creamy foam, all tremulous and fluctuating in +the wind; and this foam was constantly torn away by the gale in great +shreds, that whirled by them as if the very fragments of the ocean were +fleeing from it in terror, to take refuge in the less frightful element +of air. + +Still the wild waves reared their heads, like savage, crested animals, +now white, now black, looking in from the entrance of the cove. And now +there silently drifted upon them something higher, vaster, darker than +themselves,--the doomed vessel. It was strange how slowly and steadily +she swept in,--for her broken chain-cable dragged, as it afterwards +proved, and kept her stern-on to the shore,--and they could sometimes +hear amid the tumult a groan that seemed to come from the very heart of +the earth, as she painfully drew her keel over hidden reefs. Over five +of these (as was afterwards found) she had already drifted, and she rose +and fell more than once on the high waves at the very mouth of the cove, +like a wild bird hovering ere it pounces. + +Then there came one of those great confluences of waves described +already, which, lifting her bodily upward, higher and higher and higher, +suddenly rushed with her into the basin, filling it like an opened +dry-dock, crashing and roaring round the vessel and upon the rocks, then +sweeping out again and leaving her lodged, still stately and steady, at +the centre of the cove. + +They could hear from the crew a mingled sound, that came as a shout +of excitement from some and a shriek of despair from others. The vivid +lightning revealed for a moment those on shipboard to those on +shore; and blinding as it was, it lasted long enough to show figures +gesticulating and pointing. The old sailor, Mitchell, tried to build a +fire among the rocks nearest the vessel, but it was impossible, because +of the wind. This was a disappointment, for the light would have taken +away half the danger, and more than half the terror. Though the cove was +more quiet than the ocean, yet it was fearful enough, even there. The +vessel might hold together till morning, but who could tell? It was +almost certain that those on board would try to land, and there was +nothing to do but to await the effort. The men from the farmhouse had +meanwhile come down with ropes. + +It was simply impossible to judge with any accuracy of the distance of +the ship. One of these new-comers, who declared that she was lodged very +near, went to a point of rocks, and shouted to those on board to heave +him a rope. The tempest suppressed his voice, as it had put out the +fire. But perhaps the lightning had showed him to the dark figures on +the stern; for when the next flash came, they saw a rope flung, which +fell short. The real distance was more than a hundred yards. + +Then there was a long interval of darkness. The moment the next flash +came they saw a figure let down by a rope from the stern of the vessel, +while the hungry waves reared like wolves to seize it. Everybody crowded +down to the nearest rocks, looking this way and that for a head to +appear. They pressed eagerly in every direction where a bit of plank or +a barrel-head floated; they fancied faint cries here and there, and went +aimlessly to and fro. A new effort, after half a dozen failures, sent +a blaze mounting up fitfully among the rocks, startling all with the +sudden change its blessed splendor made. Then a shrill shout from one of +the watchers summoned all to a cleft in the cove, half shaded from the +firelight, where there came rolling in amidst the surf, more dead than +alive, the body of a man. He was the young foreigner, John Lambert's +boatman. He bore still around him the rope that was to save the rest. + +How pale and eager their faces looked as they bent above him! But the +eagerness was all gone from his, and only the pallor left. While +the fishermen got the tackle rigged, such as it was, to complete the +communication with the vessel, the young men worked upon the boatman, +and soon had him restored to consciousness. He was able to explain that +the ship had been severely strained, and that all on board believed she +would go to pieces before morning. No one would risk being the first +to take the water, and he had at last volunteered, as being the +best swimmer, on condition that Emilia should be next sent, when the +communication was established. + +Two ropes were then hauled on board the vessel, a larger and a smaller. +By the flickering firelight and the rarer flashes of lightning (the rain +now falling in torrents) they saw a hammock slung to the larger rope; a +woman's form was swathed in it; and the smaller rope being made fast to +this, they found by pulling that she could be drawn towards the shore. +Those on board steadied the hammock as it was lowered from the ship, but +the waves seemed maddened by this effort to escape their might, and they +leaped up at her again and again. The rope dropped beneath her weight, +and all that could be done from shore was to haul her in as fast as +possible, to abbreviate the period of buffeting and suffocation. As she +neared the rocks she could be kept more safe from the water; faster and +faster she was drawn in; sometimes there came some hitch and stoppage, +but by steady patience it was overcome. + +She was so near the rocks that hands were already stretched to grasp +her, when there came one of the great surging waves that sometimes +filled the basin. It gave a terrible lurch to the stranded vessel +hitherto so erect; the larger rope snapped instantly; the guiding rope +was twitched from the hands that held it; and the canvas that held +Emilia was caught and swept away like a shred of foam, and lost amid +the whiteness of the seething froth below. Fifteen minutes after, the +hammock came ashore empty, the lashings having parted. + +The cold daybreak was just opening, though the wind still blew keenly, +when they found the body of Emilia. It was swathed in a roll of +sea-weed, lying in the edge of the surf, on a broad, flat rock near +where the young boatman had come ashore. The face was not disfigured; +the clothing was only torn a little, and tangled closely round her; but +the life was gone. + +It was Philip who first saw her; and he stood beside her for a moment +motionless, stunned into an aspect of tranquility. This, then, was +the end. All his ready sympathy, his wooing tenderness, his winning +compliances, his self-indulgent softness, his perilous amiability, his +reluctance to give pain or to see sorrow,--all had ended in this. For +once, he must force even his accommodating and evasive nature to meet +the plain, blank truth. Now all his characteristics appeared changed by +the encounter; it was Harry who was ready, thoughtful, attentive,--while +Philip, who usually had all these traits, was paralyzed among his +dreams. Could he have fancied such a scene beforehand, he would have +vowed that no hand but his should touch the breathless form of Emilia. +As it was, he instinctively made way for the quick gathering of the +others, as if almost any one else had a better right to be there. + +The storm had blown itself out by sunrise; the wind had shifted, beating +down the waves; it seemed as if everything in nature were exhausted. +The very tide had ebbed away. The light-ship rested between the rocks, +helpless, still at the mercy of the returning waves, and yet still +upright and with that stately look of unconscious pleading which all +shipwrecked vessels wear, it is wonderfully like the look I have seen +in the face of some dead soldier, on whom war had done its worst. Every +line of a ship is so built for motion, every part, while afloat, seems +so full of life and so answering to the human life it bears, that this +paralysis of shipwreck touches the imagination as if the motionless +thing had once been animated by a soul. + +And not far from the vessel, in a chamber of the seaside farm-house, +lay the tenderer and fairer wreck of Emilia. Her storms and her passions +were ended. The censure of the world, the anguish of friends, the +clinging arms of love, were nothing now to her. Again the soft shelter +of unconsciousness had clasped her in; but this time the trance was +longer and the faintness was unto death. + +From the moment of her drifting ashore, it was the young boatman who +had assumed the right to care for her and to direct everything. Philip +seemed stunned; Harry was his usual clear-headed and efficient self; but +to his honest eyes much revealed itself in a little while; and when Hope +arrived in the early morning, he said to her, "This boatman, who once +saved your life, is Emilia's Swiss lover, Antoine Marval." + +"More than lover," said the young Swiss, overhearing. "She was my wife +before God, when you took her from me. In my country, a betrothal is +as sacred as a marriage. Then came that man, he filled her heart with +illusions, and took her away in my absence. When my brother was here +in the corvette, he found her for me. Then I came for her; I saved her +sister; then I saw the name on the card and would not give my own. I +became her servant. She saw me in the yacht, only once; she knew me; she +was afraid. Then she said, 'Perhaps I still love you,--a little; I do +not know; I am in despair; take me from this home I hate.' We sailed +that day in the small boat for Narragansett,--I know not where. She +hardly looked up or spoke; but for me, I cared for nothing since she +was with me. When the storm came, she was frightened, and said, 'It is a +retribution.' I said, 'You shall never go back.' She never did. Here she +is. You cannot take her from me." + +Once on board the light-ship, she had been assigned the captain's +state-room, while Antoine watched at the door. She seemed to shrink from +him whenever he went to speak to her, he owned, but she answered kindly +and gently, begging to be left alone. When at last the vessel parted her +moorings, he persuaded Emilia to come on deck and be lashed to the mast, +where she sat without complaint. + +Who can fathom the thoughts of that bewildered child, as she sat amid +the spray and the howling of the blast, while the doomed vessel drifted +on with her to the shore? Did all the error and sorrow of her life pass +distinctly before her? Or did the roar of the surf lull her into quiet, +like the unconscious kindness of wild creatures that toss and bewilder +their prey into unconsciousness ere they harm it? None can tell. Death +answers no questions; it only makes them needless. + +The morning brought to the scene John Lambert, just arrived by land from +New York. + +The passion of John Lambert for his wife was of that kind which ennobles +while it lasts, but which rarely outlasts marriage. A man of such +uncongenial mould will love an enchanting woman with a mad, absorbing +passion, where self-sacrifice is so mingled with selfishness that the +two emotions seem one; he will hungrily yearn to possess her, to call +her by his own name, to hold her in his arms, to kill any one else who +claims her. But when she is once his wife, and his arms hold a body +without a soul,--no soul at least for him,--then her image is almost +inevitably profaned, and the passion which began too high for earth ends +far too low for heaven. Let now death change that form to marble, and +instantly it resumes its virgin holiness; though the presence of life +did not sanctify, its departure does. It is only the true lover to whom +the breathing form is as sacred as the breathless. + +That ideality of nature which love had developed in this man, and which +had already drooped a little during his brief period of marriage, was +born again by the side of death. While Philip wandered off silent and +lonely with his grief, John Lambert knelt by the beautiful remains, +talking inarticulately, his eyes streaming with unchecked tears. Again +was Emilia, in her marble paleness, the calm centre of a tragedy she +herself had caused. The wild, ungoverned child was the image of peace; +it was the stolid and prosperous man who was in the storm. It was not +till Hope came that there was any change. Then his prostrate nature +sought hers, as the needle leaps to the iron; the first touch of her +hand, the sight of her kiss upon Emilia's forehead, made him strong. It +was the thorough subjection of a worldly man to the higher organization +of a noble woman, and thenceforth it never varied. In later years, after +he had foolishly sought, as men will, to win her to a nearer tie, there +was no moment when she had not full control over his time, his energies, +and his wealth. + +After it was all ended, Hope told him everything that had happened; but +in that wild moment of his despair she told him nothing. Only she and +Harry knew the story of the young Swiss; and now that Emilia was gone, +her early lover had no wish to speak of her to any but these two, or to +linger long where she had been doubly lost to him, by marriage and by +death. The world, with all its prying curiosity, usually misses the key +to the very incidents about which it asks most questions; and of the +many who gossiped or mourned concerning Emilia, none knew the tragic +complication which her death alone could have solved. The breaking of +Hope's engagement to Philip was attributed to every cause but the true +one. And when the storm of the great Rebellion broke over the land, its +vast calamity absorbed all minor griefs. + + + + +XXIII. REQUIESCAT. + +THANK God! it is not within the power of one man's errors to blight the +promise of a life like that of Hope. It is but a feeble destiny that +is wrecked by passion, when it should be ennobled. Aunt Jane and Kate +watched Hope closely during her years of probation, for although she +fancied herself to be keeping her own counsel, yet her career lay +in broad light for them. She was like yonder sailboat, which floats +conspicuous by night amid the path of moonbeams, and which yet seems to +its own voyagers to be remote and unseen upon a waste of waves. + +Why should I linger over the details of her life, after the width +of ocean lay between her and Malbone, and a manhood of self-denying +usefulness had begun to show that even he could learn something by +life's retributions? We know what she was, and it is of secondary +importance where she went or what she did. Kindle the light of the +light-house, and it has nothing to do, except to shine. There is for it +no wrong direction. There is no need to ask, "How? Over which especial +track of distant water must my light go forth, to find the wandering +vessel to be guided in?" It simply shines. Somewhere there is a ship +that needs it, or if not, the light does its duty. So did Hope. + +We must leave her here. Yet I cannot bear to think of her as passing +through earthly life without tasting its deepest bliss, without the last +pure ecstasy of human love, without the kisses of her own children on +her lips, their waxen fingers on her bosom. + +And yet again, is this life so long? May it not be better to wait until +its little day is done, and the summer night of old age has yielded to +a new morning, before attaining that acme of joy? Are there enough +successive grades of bliss for all eternity, if so much be consummated +here? Must all novels end with an earthly marriage, and nothing be left +for heaven? + +Perhaps, for such as Hope, this life is given to show what happiness +might be, and they await some other sphere for its fulfilment. The +greater part of the human race live out their mortal years without +attaining more than a far-off glimpse of the very highest joy. Were this +life all, its very happiness were sadness. If, as I doubt not, there +be another sphere, then that which is unfulfilled in this must yet +find completion, nothing omitted, nothing denied. And though a thousand +oracles should pronounce this thought an idle dream, neither Hope nor I +would believe them. + +It was a radiant morning of last February when I walked across the low +hills to the scene of the wreck. Leaving the road before reaching +the Fort, I struck across the wild moss-country, full of boulders and +footpaths and stunted cedars and sullen ponds. I crossed the height of +land, where the ruined lookout stands like the remains of a Druidical +temple, and then went down toward the ocean. Banks and ridges of snow +lay here and there among the fields, and the white lines of distant +capes seemed but drifts running seaward. The ocean was gloriously +alive,--the blackest blue, with white caps on every wave; the shore was +all snowy, and the gulls were flying back and forth in crowds; you could +not tell whether they were the white waves coming ashore, or bits of +snow going to sea. A single fragment of ship-timber, black with time and +weeds, and crusty with barnacles, heaved to and fro in the edge of the +surf, and two fishermen's children, a boy and girl, tilted upon it as it +moved, clung with the semblance of terror to each other, and played at +shipwreck. + +The rocks were dark with moisture, steaming in the sun. Great sheets of +ice, white masks of departing winter, clung to every projecting cliff, +or slid with crash and shiver into the surge. Icicles dropped their slow +and reverberating tears upon the rock where Emilia once lay breathless; +and it seemed as if their cold, chaste drops were sent to cleanse from +her memory each scarlet stain, and leave it virginal and pure. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Malbone, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MALBONE *** + +***** This file should be named 993.txt or 993.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/9/993/ + +Produced by Judy Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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