 | CHAPTER IX. Macaria, or, Altars of sacrifice |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
The artist stood at the window watching
for his pupil's return; it was the late afternoon
hour, which they were wont to spend in reading,
and her absence annoyed him. As he
rested carelessly against the window, his
graceful form was displayed to great advantage,
and the long brown hair drooped about
a classical face of almost feminine beauty.
The delicacy of his features was enhanced by
the extreme pallor of his complexion, and it
was apparent that close application to his profession
had made serious inroads on a constitution
never very robust. A certain listlessness
of manner, a sort of lazy-grace seemed
characteristic; but when his pupil came in
and laid aside her bonnet, the expression of
ennui vanished, and he threw himself on a
sofa, looking infinitely relieved. She drew
near, and without hesitation acquainted him
with the discovery of her relatives in New
York. He listened in painful surprise, and,
ere she had concluded, sprang up. “I understand!
they will want to take you; will
urge you to share their home of wealth. But,
Electra, you won't leave me; surely you won't
leave me?”
He put his hands on her shoulders, and she
knew from his quick, irregular breathing, that
the thought of separation greatly distressed
him.
“My aunt has not explicitly invited me to
reside with her, though I inferred from her
manner that she confidently expected me to
do so. Irene also spoke of it as a settled
matter.”
“You will not allow them to persuade you?
Oh, child! tell me at once that you will never
leave me.”
“Mr. Clifton, we must part some day; I
cannot always live here, you know. Before
very long I must go out and earn my bread.”
“Never! while I live. When I offered
you a home, I expected it to be a permanent
one. I intended to adopt you. Here, if you
choose, you may work and earn a reputation;
but away from me, among strangers, never.
Electra, you forget; you gave yourself to me
once.”
She shuddered, and tried to release herself,
but the hands were relentless in their grasp.
“Electra, you belong to me, my child.
Whom have I to love but you, my dear pupil?
What should I do without you?”
“I have no intention of living with my
aunt; I desire to be under obligations to no
one but yourself. But I am very proud, and
even temporary dependence on you galls me.
You are, I believe, the best friend I have on
earth, and until I can support myself I will
remain under your care; longer than that, it
would be impossible. I am bound to you, my
generous, kind master, as to no one else.”
“This does not satisfy me; the thought that
you will leave me, at even a distant day, will
haunt me continually—marring all my joy.
It can not be, Electra! You gave yourself to
me once, and I claim you.”
She looked into his eyes, and, with a woman's
quick perception, read all the truth.
In an instant her countenance changed
painfully; she stooped, touched his hand
with her lips, and exclaimed:
“Thank you, a thousand times, my friend,
my father! for your interest in, and your unvarying,
unparalleled kindness to me. All
the gratitude and affection which a child
could give to a parent I shall always cherish
toward you. Since it annoys you, we will say
no more about the future; let the years take
care of themselves as they come.”
“Will you promise me, positively, that you
will not go to your aunt?”
“Yes; I have never seriously entertained
the thought.”
She escaped from his hands, and, lighting
the gas, applied herself to her books for the
next hour.
If Irene had found the restraint of boarding-school
irksome, the separation from Russell
was well nigh intolerable to Electra. At first
she had seemed plunged in lethargy; but
after a time this mood gave place to restless,
unceasing activity. Like one trying to flee
from something painful, she rushed daily to
her work, and regretted when the hours of
darkness consigned her to reflection. Mrs.
Clifton was quite aged, and though uniformly
gentle and affectionate toward the orphan,
there was no common ground of congeniality
on which they could meet. To a proud, exacting
nature like Electra's, Mr. Clifton's constant
manifestations of love and sympathy
were very soothing. Writhing under the consciousness
of her cousin's indifference, she
turned eagerly to receive the tokens of affection
showered upon her. She knew that his
happiness centred in her, and vainly fancied
that she could feed her hungry heart with his
adoration. But by degrees she realized that
these husks would not satisfy her; and a singular
sensation of mingled gratitude and impatience
arose whenever he caressed her. In
his house her fine intellect found ample range;
an extensive library wooed her, when not engaged
with her pencil, and with eager curiosity
she plunged into various departments of
study. As might easily have been predicted,
from the idealistic tendency of her entire
imaginative realm as peculiarly her own.
Over moth-eaten volumes of mythologic lore
she pored continually; effete theogonies and
cosmogonies seized upon her fancy, and
peopled all space with the gods and heroes of
most ancient days. She lived among weird
phantasmagoric creations of Sagas and PuräPuranas
, and roamed from Asgard to Kinkadulle,
having little sympathy or care for the realities
that surrounded her. Mr. Clifton's associates
were principally artists, and the conversations
to which she listened tended to increase her
enthusiasm for the profession she had chosen.
She had no female companion, except Mrs.
Clifton, and little leisure to discuss the topics
which ordinarily engage girls of her age. The
warm gushings of her heart were driven back
to their springs, and locked from human gaze;
yet she sometimes felt her isolation almost intolerable.
To escape from herself, she was
goaded into feverish activity, and, toiling
to-day, shut her eyes to the to-morrow.
She counted the days between Russell's letters;
when they arrived, snatched them with
trembling fingers, and hastened to her own
room to devour them. Once read and folded
away, this thought fell with leaden weight
upon her heart: “There is so little in this letter,
and now I must wait another long week for
the next.” He never surmised half her
wretchedness, for she proudly concealed her
discontent, and wrote as if happy and hopeful.
The shell of her reserve was beautifully polished
and painted, and it never occurred to
him that it enclosed dark cells, where only
wailings echoed. In figure, she was decidedly
petit, but faultlessly symmetrical and graceful;
and the piquant beauty of her face won
her the admiration of those who frequented
the studio.
Among the artists especially, she was a well
established pet, privileged to inspect their
work whenever she felt disposed, and always
warmly welcomed. They encouraged her in
her work, stimulated her by no means dormant
ambition, and predicted a brilliant and
successful career. Mrs. Clifton was a rigid
Roman Catholic, her son a free-thinker, in the
broadest significance of the term, if one might
judge from the selections that adorned his
library shelves. But deep in his soul was the
germination of a mystical creed, which gradually
unfolded itself to Electra. The simple
yet sublime faith of her aunt rapidly faded
from the girl's heart; she turned from its severe
simplicity to the gorgeous accessories of
other systems. The pomps of ceremonial, the
bewildering adjuncts of another creed, wooed
her overweening, excited fancy. Of doctrine
she knew little, and cared less; the bare walls
and quiet service of the old church at home
had for her no attraction; she revelled in dim
cathedral light, among mellow, ancient pictures,
where pale wreaths of incense curled,
and solemn organ tones whispered through
marble aisles. She would sit with folded
arms, watching the forms of devotees glide in
and out, and prostrate themselves before the
images on the gilt altar; and fancy wafted
her, at such times, to the dead ages of imperial
Greece, when devout hearts bore offerings to
Delphi, Delos, Dodona, and Eleusis. An archidolatress
she would have been in the ancient
days of her Mycenæan namesake—a priestess
of Demeter or Artemis. At all hazards this
dainty fancy must be pampered, and she
gleaned aliment from every source that could
possibly yield it, fostering a despotic tendency
which soon towered above every other element
of her being. The first glimpse of her
teacher's Swedenborgian faith was sufficient
to rivet her attention. She watched the expansion
of his theories, and essayed to follow
the profound trains of argumentation, based on
physical analogies and correspondences, which
led him so irresistibly to his conclusions. But
dialectics formed no portion of her intellectual
heritage, and her imagination, seizing, by a
kind of secret affinity, the spiritualistic elements
of the system, turned with loathing from
the granite-like, scientific fundamentals.
Irene would have gone down among the mortar
and bricks, measuring the foundations, but
Electra gazed upon the exquisite acanthus
wreathings of the ornate capitals, the glowing
frescoes of the mighty nave, and here was content
to rest. Mr. Clifton never attempted to
restrain her movements or oppose her inclinations;
like a bee she roved ceaselessly from
book to book, seeking honey, and, without the
safeguard of its unerring instinct, she frequently
gathered poison from lovely chalices.
Ah, Amy Aubrey! it was an evil day for your
orphan charge, when Atropos cut the tangled
thread of your life, and you left her to
follow the dictates of her stormy temperament.
Yet otherwise, nature could never have fully
woven the pattern; it would have been but a
blurred, imperfect design. It was late at night
when Electra retired to her room, and sat
down to collect her thoughts after the unexpected
occurrences of the day.
More than one discovery had been made
since the sunrise, which she awoke so early
to study. She had found relatives, and an
opportunity of living luxuriously; but, in the
midst of this beautiful bouquet of surprises, a
serpent's head peered out at her. Once before,
she thought she had caught sight of its
writhing folds, but it vanished too instantaneously
to furnish disquiet. Now its glittering
eyes held her spell-bound; like the Pentagram
in Faust, it kept her in “durance vile.” She
would fain have shut her eyes, had it been possible.
Mr. Clifton loved her; not as a teacher
his pupil, not as guardian loves ward, not as
parent loves child. Perhaps he had not intended
that she should know it so soon, but his eyes
had betrayed the secret. She saw perfectly
him, from the first, to render her assistance;
he had resolved to make her his wife; nothing
less would content him. She twisted her
white fingers in her hair, and gazed vacantly
down on the carpet, and gradually the rich
crimson blood sank out of her face. She held
his life in the hollow of her hand, and this she
well knew; death hung over him like the
sword of Damocles; she had been told that
any violent agitation or grief would bring on
the hemorrhage which he so much dreaded,
and although he seemed stronger and better
than usual, the insidious nature of his disease
gave her little hope that he would ever be robust.
To feign ignorance of his real feelings
for her, would prove but a temporary stratagem;
the time must inevitably come, before
long, when he would put aside this veil and
set the truth before her. How should she
meet it—how should she evade him? Accept
the home which Mrs. Young would offer her,
and leave him to suffer briefly, to sink swiftly
into the tomb? No; her father's family had
cast him most unjustly off, withholding his patrimony;
and now she scorned to receive one
cent of the money which his father was unwilling
that he should enjoy. Beside, who
loved her as well as Henry Clifton? She
owed more to him than to any living being; it
would be the part of an ingrate to leave him;
it was cowardly to shrink from repaying the
debt. But the thought of being his wife froze
her blood, and heavy drops gathered on her
brow ass he endeavored to reflect upon this
possibility.
A feeling of unconquerable repulsion sprang
up in her heart, nerving, steeling her against
his affection. With a strange instantaneous
reaction, she thought with loathing of his
words of endearment. How could she endure
them in future, yet how reject without wounding
him? One, and only one, path of escape
presented itself — a path of measureless joy.
She lifted her hands, and murmured:
“Russell! Russell! save me from this.”
When Mr. and Mrs. Young visited the studio
the following day, and urged the orphan's
removal to their house, she gently but resolutely
declined their generous offer, expressing
an affectionate gratitude toward her
teacher, and a determination not to leave him,
at least for the present. Mrs. Young was
much distressed, and adduced every argument
of which she was mistress, but her niece remained
firm; and, finding their entreaties
fruitless, Mr. Young said that he would immediately
take the necessary steps to secure
Robert Grey's portion of the estate to his
daughter. Electra sat with her hand nestled
in her aunt's, but when this matter was alluded
to she rose, and said proudly:
“No, sir; let the estate remain just as it is.
I will never accept one cent. My grandfather
on his death-bed excluded my father from any
portion of it, and since he willed it so, even so
it shall be. I have no legal claim to a dollar,
and I will never receive one from your generosity.
It was the will of the dead that you
and my uncle, William, should inherit the
whole, and, as far as I am concerned, have it
you shall. I am poor, I know; so were my
parents; poverty they bequeathed as my
birthright, and even as they lived without aid
from my grandfather, so will I. It is very
noble and generous in you, after the expiration
of nearly twenty years, to be willing to
divide with the orphan of the outcast; but I
will not, can not, allow you to do so. I fully
appreciate and most cordially thank you both
for your goodness; but I am young and strong,
and I expect to earn my living. Mr. Clifton
and his mother want me to remain in his
house until I finish my studies, and I gratefully
accept his kind offer. Nay, aunt! don't
let it trouble you so; I shall visit you very
frequently.”
“She has all of Robert's fierce obstinacy.
I see it in her eyes, hear it ringing in the
tones of her voice. Take care, child! it ruined
your father,” said Mrs. Young sorrowfully.
“You should remember, Electra, that an
orphan girl needs a protector; such I would
fain prove myself.”
As Mr. Young spoke, he took one of her
hands and drew her to him. She turned
quickly and laid the other on the artist's arm.
“I have one here, sir; a protector as true
and kind as my own father could be.”
She understood the flash of his eyes and his
proud smile, as he assured her relatives that
he would guard her from harm and want so
long as he lived, or as she remained under his
care. She knew he regarded this as a tacit
sealing of the old compact, and she had no inclination
to undeceive him at this juncture.
Urging her to visit them as often as possible,
and extending the invitation to Mr. Clifton,
the Youngs withdrew, evidently much disappointed;
and, as the door closed behind them,
Electra felt that the circle of doom was narrowing
around her. Mr. Clifton approached
her, but averting her head she lifted the damask
curtain that divided the parlor from the
studio and effected her retreat, dreading to
meet his glance—putting off the evil day as
long as possible—trying to trample the serpent
that trailed after her from that hour.
| CHAPTER IX. Macaria, or, Altars of sacrifice | |