 | CHAPTER V. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
“JANE, have you heard that we shall soon have some
new neighbors at `Solitude'?”
“No; who is brave enough to settle there?”
“Mrs. Gerome, a widow, has purchased and refitted the house,
preparatory to making it her home.”
“Do you suppose she knows the history of its former
owners?”
“Probably not, as she has never seen the place. The purchase
was made some months since by her agent, who stated
that she was in Europe.”
“Ulpian, I am sorry that the house will again be occupied,
for some mournful fatality seems to have attended all who ever
resided there; and I have been told that the last proprietor
changed the name from `Solitude' to `Bochim.'”
“You must not indulge such superstitious vagaries, my dear,
wise Janet. The age of hobgoblins, haunted houses, and supernatural
influences has passed away with the marvels of alchemy
and the weird myths of Rosicrucianism. Because many deaths
have occurred at that place, and the residents were consequently
plunged in gloom, you must not rashly impute eldritch influences
to the atmosphere surrounding it. Knowing its ghostly celebrity,
I have investigated the grounds of existing prejudice, and
find that of the ten persons who have died there during the last
fifteen years, three deaths were from hereditary consumption,
one from dropsy, two from paralysis, one from epilepsy, one
from brain-fever, one from drowning, and the last from a fall
that broke the victim's neck. Were these attributable to any
local cause, the results would certainly not have proved so
diverse.”
“Call it superstition, or what you will, no amount of coaxing,
argument, or ridicule, no imaginable inducement could prevail
on me to live there, — even if the house were floored with gold
and roofed with silver. It is the gloomiest-looking place this
side of Golgotha, and I would as soon crawl into a coffin for an
afternoon nap as spend a night there.”
“Your imagination invests it with a degree of gloom which
is adventitious, and referable solely to painful associations; for
intrinsically the situation is picturesque and beautiful, and the
grounds have been arranged with consummate taste. This
morning I noticed a quantity of rare and very superb lilies
clustered in a corner of the parterre.”
“Pray, what called you there?”
“A workman engaged in repairing some portion of the roof,
slipped on the slate and broke his arm; consequently, they sent
for me.”
“Just what he might have expected. I tell you something
happens to everybody who ever sleeps there.”
“Do you suppose there is a squad of malicious sprites hovering
in ambush to swoop upon all new-comers, and not only
fracture limbs, but scatter to right and left paralysis, epilepsy,
and other diseases? From your rueful countenance a stranger
`Bochim,' and that the very air was thick with miasma and
maledictions.”
“Oh, laugh on if you choose at my old-fashioned whims and
superstition; but, mark my words, that place will prove a curse
to whoever buys it and settles there! Has Mrs. Gerome a
family?”
“I believe I heard that she had no children, but I really
know little about her except that she must be a woman of
unusually refined and cultivated tastes, as the pictures, books,
and various articles of vertu that have preceded her seem to
indicate much critical and artistic acumen. The entire building
has been refitted in exceedingly handsome style, and the
upholsterer who was arranging the furniture told me it had
been purchased in Europe.”
“When is Mrs. Gerome expected?”
“During the present week.”
“What aged person is she?”
“Indeed, my dear, curious Janet, I have asked no questions
and formed no conjectures; but I trust your baleful prognostications
will find no fulfilment in her case.”
“Ulpian, I had some very fashionable visitors to-day, who
manifested an extraordinary interest in your past, present, and
future. Mrs. Channing and her two lovely daughters spent the
morning here, and left an invitation for you to attend a party
at their house next Thursday evening. Miss Adelaide went
into ecstasies over that portrait in which you wore your uniform,
and asked numberless questions about you; among others,
whether you were still heart-whole, or whether you had suffered
some great disappointment early in life which kept you a bachelor.
What do you suppose she said when I told her that you
had never had a love-scrape in your life?”
“Of course she impugned the statement, which, to a young
lady famed for flirtations, must indeed have appeared incredible.”
“On the contrary, she declared that the woman who succeeded
in captivating you would achieve a triumph more difficult and
was tempted to ask her if she might be considered the ambitious
Nelson, but of course politeness forbade. Ulpian, she is the
prettiest creature I ever looked at.”
“Yes, as pretty as mere healthy flesh can be without the
sublimation and radiance of an indwelling soul. There is
nothing which impresses me so mournfully as the sight of a
beautiful, frivolous, unscrupulous woman, who immolates all
that is truly feminine in her character upon the shrine of
swollen vanity; and whose career from cradle to grave is as
utterly aimless and useless as that of some gaudy, flaunting
ephemeron of the tropics. Such women act as extinguishers
upon the feeble, flickering flame of chivalry, which modern
degeneracy in manners and morals has almost smothered.”
His tone and countenance evinced more contempt than Salome
had known him to express on any former occasion, and, glancing
at his clear, steady, grave blue eyes, she said to herself, —
“At least he will never strike his colors to Admiral Adelaide
Channing, and I should dislike to occupy her place in his
estimation.”
“My dear boy, you must not speak in such ungrateful terms
of my beautiful visitor, who certainly has some serious design
on your heart, if I may judge from the very extravagant praise
she lavished upon you. I daresay she is a very nice, sweet girl,
and you know you told me once that if you should ever marry
your wife must be a beauty, else you could not love her.”
“Very true, Janet, and I have no intention of retracting or
diminishing my rigid requirements, but my definition of beauty
includes more than mere physical perfection, — than satin skin,
pearl-tinted, fine eyes, faultless teeth, abundant silky tresses, and
rounded figure. It demands that the heart whose blood paints
lips and cheek, shall be pure, generous, and holy; that the soul
which looks out at me from lustrous eyes shall be consecrated
to another deity than Fashion, — shall be as full of magnanimity,
and strength, and peace, as a harp is of melody; my beauty
means meekness, faith, sanctity, and exacts mental, moral, and
material excellence. Rest assured, my dear, sage counsellor,
her in obedience to the advice of Joubert, who admonished us,
`We should choose for a wife only the woman we would choose
for a friend, were she a man.'”
“You expect too much; you will never find your perfect
ideal walking in flesh.”
“I will content myself with nothing less — I promise you that.”
“Oh, no doubt you will believe that the woman you marry
is all that you dream or wish; but some fine morning you will
present me with a sister as full of foibles and vanities and
frailties as any other spoiled and cunning daughter of Eve. Of
course every bridegroom classes as `perfect' the blushing,
trembling young thing who peeps shyly at him from under a
tulle veil and an orange wreath; but, take my word for it, there
is a spice of Delilah in every pretty girl, and the credulity of
Samson slumbers in all lovers. Nevertheless, Ulpian, I would
sooner see you in bondage to a pair of white hands and hazel
eyes, — would rather know that like all your race you were
utterly humbugged — hoodwinked — by some fair-browed belle,
whose low voice rippled over pouting pink lips, than have you
live always alone, a confirmed old bachelor. After all, I doubt
whether you have really never had a sweetheart, for every
schoolboy swears allegiance to some yellow-haired divinity in
ruffled muslin aprons.”
Dr. Grey laid his hand gently on the shrivelled fingers that
were busily engaged in shelling some seed-beans, and answered,
jocosely, —
“Have I not often told you, that my dear, old, patient sister
Janet, is my only lady-love?”
“And your silly old Janet is not such an arrant fool as to
believe any such nonsense, — especially when she remembers that
from time immemorial sailors have had sweethearts in every
port, and that her spoiled pet of a brother is no exception to
his race or his profession.”
He laughed, and smoothed her grizzled hair.
“Since my sapient sister is so curious, I will confess that
once — and only once in my life — I was in dire danger of falling
and I went ashore. One afternoon, in sauntering through the
orange and lemon groves which render its environs so inviting,
I caught a glimpse of a countenance so serene, so indescribably
lovely, that for an instant I was disposed to believe I had
encountered the beatific spirit of St. Rosalie herself. The face
was that of a woman apparently about eighteen years old, who
evidently ranked among Sicilian aristocrats, and whose elegant
attire enhanced her beauty. I followed, at a respectful distance,
until she entered the garden of an adjacent convent and fell on
her knees before a marble altar, where burned a lamp at the
feet of a statue of the Virgin; and no painting in Europe
stamped itself so indelibly on my memory as the picture of
that beautiful votary. Her delicate hands were crossed over
her heart, — her large, liquid, black eyes, raised in adoration, —
her full, crimson lips parted as she repeated the `Ave Maria' in
the most musical voice I ever heard. Just above the purplish
folds of her abundant hair drooped pomegranate boughs all
aflame with scarlet blooms that fell upon her head like tongues
of fire, as the wind sprang from the blue hollows of the Mediterranean
and shook the grove. The sun was going swiftly
down behind the stone turrets of a monastery that crowned a
distant hill, and the last rays wove an aureola around my kneeling
saint, who, doubtless, aware of the effect of her graceful
attitudinizing, seemed in no haste to conclude her devotions.
As I recall the charming tableau, those lines wherein Buchanan
sought to photograph the picturesqueness of the Digentia, float
up from some sympathetic cell of memory, —
The wind is stirring them, as the sun is stirring me!
The woolly clouds move quiet and slow
In the pale blue calm of the tranquil skies,
And their shades that run on the grass below
Leave purple dreams in the violet's eyes!
The vine droops over my head with bright
Clusters of purple and green, — the rose
Breaks her heart on the air; and the orange glows
Like golden lamps in an emerald night.'
leading into the convent, and I returned to the hotel to dream
of her until the morning sunshine once more bathed Conca
D'Oro in splendor, — when I instituted a search for the name and
residence of my inamorata. Six hours of enthusiastic investigation
yielded me the coveted information, but imagine the profound
despair in which I was plunged when I ascertained from
her own smiling lips that she was a happy wife and the proud
mother of two beautiful children. As she rose to present her
swarthy husband, I bowed myself out and took refuge aboard
ship. Here ends the recital of the first and last bit of romance
that ever threw its rosy tinge over the quiet life of your staid
and humble brother — Ulpian Grey, M.D.”
“Ah, my dear sailor boy, I am afraid thirty-five years of
experience have rendered you too wary to be caught by such
chaff as pretty girls sprinkle along your path! I should be glad
to see your bride enter this door before I am carried out feet
foremost to my final rest by Enoch's side.”
“Do not despair of me, dear Jane, for I am not exactly
Methuselah's rival; and comfort yourself by recollecting that
Lessing was forty years old when he first loved the only woman
for whom he ever entertained an affection — his devoted Eva
König.”
Dr. Grey bent over his sister's easy-chair, and, taking her
thin, sallow face tenderly in his soft palms, kissed the sunken
cheeks — the wrinkled forehead; and then, laying her head gently
back upon its cushions, entered his buggy and drove to his
office.
“Salome, what makes you look so moody? There are as
many furrows on your brow as lines in a spider's web, and your
lips are drawn in as if you had dined on green persimmons.
Child, what is the matter?”
Miss Jane lifted her spectacles from her nose, and eyed the
orphan, anxiously.
“I am very sorry to hear that `Solitude' will be filled once
more with people, and bustle, and din. It is the nearest point
where we can reach the beach, and I have enjoyed many quiet
is by Dryads and Hamadryads, and I like the babble of their
leaves infinitely better than the strife of human tongues. Miss
Jane, if I were only a pagan!”
“I am not very sure that you are not,” sighed the invalid.
“Nor I. I have lost my place, — I am behind my time in this
world by at least twenty centuries, and ought to have lived in
the jovial age of fauns and satyrs, when groves were sacred for
other reasons than the high price of wood, — when gods and goddesses
were abundant as blackberries, and at the beck and call of
every miserable wretch who chose to propitiate them by offering
a flask of wine, a bunch of turnips, a litter of puppies, or a basket
of olives. Hesiod and Homer understood human nature
infinitely better than Paul and Luther.”
“Salome, you are growing shockingly irreverent and wicked.”
“No, madam, — begging your pardon. I am only desperately
honest in wishing that my salvation and future felicity
could be secured beyond all peradventure, by a sacrifice of oatcakes,
or white doves, or black cats, instead of a drab-colored
life of prayer, penance, purity, and patience. I don't deny
that I would rather spend my days in watching the gorgeous
pageant of the Panathenaea, or chanting dithyrambics to insure
a fine vintage, or even offering a Taigheirm, than in running
neck and neck with Lucifer for the kingdom of heaven. I love
kids, and fawns, and lambs, as well as Landseer; but I should
not long hesitate, had I the choice, between flaying their tender
flesh in sacrifice and mortifying my own as a devout life
requires.”
“But what would have become of your poor soul if you had
lived in Pagan times?”
“What will become of it under present circumstances, I
should be exceedingly glad to know. `The heathen are a law
unto themselves,' and I sometimes wish I had been born a
Fejee belle, who lived, was tastefully tattooed, and died without
having even dreamed of missionaries, — those officious martyrs
who hope to wear a whole constellation on their foreheads as
a reward for having been eaten by cannibals, to whom they
that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness
rather than light.' Moreover, I confess —”
“That is quite sufficient. I have already heard more than I
relish of such silly and sacrilegious chat. At least, you might
have more prudence and discretion than to hold forth so disgracefully
in the hearing of your little brother.”
Miss Jane's cheek flushed, and her feeble voice faltered.
“He has fallen fast asleep over the bean-pods; and, even if
he had not, how much of the conversation do you imagine he
would comprehend? His sole knowledge of Grecian theogony
consists of a brief acquaintance with a bottle of pseudo Greek
fire which burnt the pocket out of his best pantaloons.”
“Salome, you distress me; and, if Ulpian had not left us, you
would have kept all such heathenish stuff shut up in your sinful
and wayward heart.”
“Dr. Grey is no Gorgon, having power to petrify my tongue.
I am not afraid of him; and my respect for your feelings is
much stronger than my dread of his.”
“Hush, child! You are afraid of him, and well you may be.
I fear that all your Sabbath-school advantages — all your Christian
privileges — have been wofully wasted; and I shall ask
Ulpian to talk to you.”
“No, thank you, Miss Jane. You may save yourself the trouble,
for he has given me over to hardness of heart and `a reprobate
mind,' and his patience is not only `clean gone forever,'
but he has carefully washed his hands of all future interest in
my rudderless and drifting soul. Let me speak this once, and
henceforth I promise to hold my peace. I do not require to be
`talked to' by anybody, — I only need to be let alone. Sabbath-schools
are indisputably excellent things, — and I can testify that
they are ponderous ecclesiastical hammers, pounding creeds and
catechisms into the mould of memory; but these nurseries of
the church nourish and harbor some Satan's imps among their
half-fledged saints; and while they certainly accomplish a vast
amount of good, they are by no means infallible machines for
the manufacture of Christians, — of which fact I stand in melancholy
not grow up in a night, like Jonah's gourd or Jack the Giantkiller's
bean-stalk; but is a pure, glittering, spiritual stalactite,
built by the slow accretion of dripping tears. Do you suppose
that you can successfully train my soul as you have managed
my body? — that you can hold my nose and pour a dose of faith
down my throat, like ipecac or cod-liver oil? In matters of
theology I am no ostrich, and, if you afflict me ad nauseam with
religious dogmas, you must not wonder that my moral digestion
rebels outright. I shall not dispute the fact that in justice to
your precepts and example I ought to be a Christian; but, since
I am not, I may as well tell you at once and save future trouble,
that I can neither be baited into the church like a hawk
into a steel-trap, nor scared and driven into it like bees into a
hive by the rattling of tin pans and the screaking of horns.
Don't look at me so dolefully, dear Miss Jane, as if you had
already seen my passport to perdition signed and sealed. You,
at least, have done your whole duty, — have set all the articles of
orthodoxy, well-flavored and garnished, before me; and, if I am
finally lost, my spiritual starvation can never be charged against
you in the last balance-sheet. I am not ignorant of the Bible, nor
altogether unacquainted with the divers creeds that spring from
its pages as thick, as formidable, as ferocious, as the harvest from
the dragon's teeth; and, thanking you for all you have taught
me, I here undertake to pilot my own soul in this boiling, bellowing
sea of life. I doubt whether some of the charts you
value will be of any service in my voyage, or whether the beacons
by which you steer will save me from the reefs; but, nevertheless,
I take the wheel, and, if I wreck my soul, — why, then,
I wreck it.”
In the magic evening light, which touches all things with a
rosy, transitory glamour, the fresh young face with its daintily
sculptured lineaments seemed marvellously and surpassingly
fair; but, like morbidezza marble, hopelessly fixed and chill, and
might have served for some image of Eve, when, standing on the
boundary of eternal beatitude, she daringly put up her slender
womanly fingers to pluck the fatal fruit. Her large, brilliant
an eagle's; but the gleam that rayed out was baleful, presaging
storms, as infallibly as that sullen, lurid light, which glares
defiantly over helpless earth when to-day's sun falls into the
cloudy lap of to-morrow's tempest.
A heavy sigh struggled across Miss Jane's unsteady lips, as,
removing her glasses, she wiped her eyes, and said, slowly, —
“Yes; I am a stupid, unsuspecting old dolt; but I see it all
now.”
“My ultimate and irremediable ruin?”
“God forbid!”
Salome approached the arm-chair, and, stooping, looked intently
at the aged, wan face.
“What is it that you see? Miss Jane, when people stand,
as you do, upon the borders of two worlds, the Bygone fades, —
the Beyond grows distinct and luminous. Lend me your second
sight, to decipher the characters scrawled like fiery serpents over
the pall that envelops the future.”
“I see nothing but the grim, unmistakeable fact that my
little, clinging, dependent child, has, without my knowledge, put
away childish things, and suddenly steps before me a wilful,
irreverent, graceless woman, as eager to challenge the decress of
the Lord as was complaining Job before the breath of the whirlwind
smote and awed him. Some day, Salome, that same voice
that startled the old man of Uz will make you bend and tremble
and shiver like that acacia yonder, which the wind is toying
with before it snaps asunder. When that time comes the clover
will feed bees above my gray head, but I trust my soul will be near
enough to the great white throne to pray God to have mercy on
your wretched spirit, and bring you safely to that blessed haven
whither you can never pilot yourself.”
Nervous excitement gave unwonted strength to the feeble
limbs; and, grasping her crutches, Miss Jane limped into her
own room and closed the door after her.
For some moments the girl stood looking out over the lawn,
where fading sunshine and deepening shadow made fitful chiaroscuro
along the primrose-paved aisles that stretched under the
soft, gold-dusted atmosphere that surrounded her, she muttered
doggedly, —
“Yes; I am at sea! But, if God is just, Miss Jane and I
will yet shake hands on that calm, surgeless, crystal sea, shining
before the throne. So, now I take the helm and put the head
of my precious charge before the wind, and only the Almighty
can foresee the result. In His mercy I put my trust. So
be it.
By ruthless breezes borne from me;
And lessening, fading, faint, and pale,
My ships went forth to sea.'”
| CHAPTER V. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" | |