 | CHAPTER I. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" |  |
1. CHAPTER I.
“I CAN hear the sullen, savage roar of the breakers, if
I do not see them, and my pretty painted bark —
expectation — is bearing down helplessly upon them.
Perhaps the unwelcome will not come to-day. What then? I
presume I should not care; and yet, I am curious to see him, —
anxious to know what sort of person will henceforth rule the
house, and go in and out here as master. Of course the pleasant,
peaceful days are at an end, for men always make din and strife
in a household, — at least my father did, and he is the only one I
know much about. But, after all, why borrow trouble? — the
interloper may never come.”
The girl stood on tiptoe, shading her eyes with one hand, and
peering eagerly down the winding road which stretched at right
angles to the avenue, and over the hills, on towards the neighboring
town. No moving speck was visible; and, with a sigh
of relief, she sank back on the grassy mound and resumed the
perusal of her book. Above and around her spread the wide
branches of an aged apple-tree, feathered thickly with pearly
petals, which the wind tossed hither and thither and drifted over
the bermuda, as restless tides strew pink-chambered shells on
sloping strands; and down through the flowery limbs streamed
the waning March sun, throwing grotesque shadows on the
sward and golden ripples over the face and figure of the young
lounger. A few yards distant a row of whitewashed bee-hives
extended along the western side of the garden-wall, where
perched a peacock whose rainbow hues were burnished by the
which constituted a window in each hive and permitted investigation
of the tireless workers within. The afternoon was
almost spent; the air, losing its balmy noon breath, grew chill
with the approach of dew, and the figure under the apple-tree
shivered slightly, and, closing her book, drew her scarlet shawl
around her shoulders and leaned her dimpled chin on her knee.
Sixteen years had ripened and rounded the girlish form, and
given to her countenance that indefinable charm which marks the
timid hovering between careless, frolicsome youth, and calmly
conscious womanhood; while perfect health rouged the polished
cheeks and vermilioned the thin lips, whose outlines sharply
indexed more of decision than amiability of character.
There were hints of brown in the heavy mass of waveless
dusky hair, that was elaborately braided and coiled around the
well turned head, and certain amber rays suggestive of topaz
and gold flashed out now and then in the dark-hazel iris of the
large eyes, lending them an eldritch and baleful glow. Fresh as
the overhanging apple-blooms, but immobile as if carved from
pearl, — perhaps it was just such a face as hers that fronted
Jason, amid the clustering boughs of Colchian rhododendrons,
when first he sought old Æëtes' prescient daughter, — the maiden
face of magical Medea, innocent as yet of murder, sacrilege,
fratricide, and plunder, — eloquent of all possibilities of purity
and peace, but vaguely adumbrating all conceivable disquietude
and guilt.
The hushed expectancy of the fair young countenance had
given place to a dreamy languor, and the dark lashes drooped
heavily, when a long shadow fell upon the grass, and simultaneously
the peacock sounded its shrill alarum. Rising quickly,
the girl found herself face to face with one upon whose features
she had never looked before, and for a moment each eyed the
other searchingly. The stranger raised his hat, and inclining his
head slightly, said, —
“Permit me to ask your name?”
“Salome Owen. And yours, sir, is —”
“Ulpian Grey.”
For a few seconds neither spoke; but the man smiled, and the
girl bit her under-lip and frowned.
“Are you the miller's daughter?”
“I am the miller's daughter; and you are the master of
Grassmere.”
“It seems that I come home like Rip Van Winkle, or Ulysses,
unknown, unwelcomed, — unlike the latter, — even by a
dog.”
“Where is your sister?”
“Not having seen her for five years, I am unable to answer.”
“She went to town two hours ago, to meet you.”
“Then, after all, I am expected; but pray by what route —
balloon or telegraph?”
“Miss Jane went to the railroad dépot, but thought it possible
you might not arrive to-day, and said she would attend a
meeting at the church, if you failed to come. I presume she
missed you in the crowd. Sir, will you walk into the house?”
Perhaps he did not hear the question, and certainly he did
not heed it, amid the clamorous recollections that rushed upon
him as he gazed earnestly over the lawn, down the avenue, and
up at the ivy-mantled front of the old brick homestead. Thinking
it might impress him as ludicrous or officious that she
should invite him to enter and take possession of his own
establishment, Salome reddened and compressed her lips. Apparently
forgetful of her presence, he stood with his hat in his
hand, noting the changes that time had wrought: the growth of
venerable trees and favorite shrubs, the crumbling of fences,
the gathering moss on the sun-dial, and the lichen stains upon
two marble vases that held scarlet verbena on either side of
the broad stone steps.
His close-fitting travelling suit of gray showed the muscular,
well-developed form of a man of medium size, whose very erect
carriage enhanced his height and invested him with a commanding
air; while the unusual breadth of his chest and shoulders
seemed to indicate that life had called him to athletic out-door
pursuits, rather than the dun and dusty atmosphere of a sedentary,
cloistered career.
There are subtle countenances that baffle the dainty stipple
and line tracery of time, refusing to become mere tablets, mere
fleshy intaglios of the past, whereon every curious stranger may
spell out the bygone, and, counting their footprints, cast up the
number of engraving years. Thus it happened that if Salome
had not known from the family Bible that this man was almost
thirty-five, her eager scrutiny of his features would have discovered
little concerning his age, and still less concerning his
character. Exposure to the winds and heat of tropic regions
had darkened and sallowed the complexion, which his clear deep
blue eyes and light brown hair declared was originally of Saxon
fairness; in proof whereof, when he drew off one glove and
lifted his hand it seemed as if the marble fingers of one statue
were laid against the bronze cheek of another.
Looking intently at this grave yet benignant countenance, full
of serenity, because calmly conscious of its power, the girl set
her teeth and ground her heel into the velvet turf, for frangas
non flectes was written on his smooth, broad brow, and she felt
fiercely rebellious as some fiery, free creature of the Kamse,
when first confronted with the bit and trappings of him who
will henceforth bridle and tame the desert-bred.
Waking from his brief reverie, the stranger turned and
extended his hand, saying, in tones as low and sweet as a
woman's, —
“Will you not welcome a wanderer back to his home?”
She gave him the tips of her fingers, but the “Imp of the
Perverse” dictated her answer, —
“As you saw fit to compare yourself, a few moments since, to
certain celebrated absentees, I am constrained to tell you that I
happen to be neither Penelope nor Gretchen, nor yet the illustrious
dog referred to.”
He smiled good-humoredly, and replied, —
“I am not very sure that there is not a spice of Dame Van
Winkle somewhere in your nature. True, we are strangers, but
I believe you are my sister's adopted child, and I hope you are
glad to see her brother at home once more. Jane is a dear kind
attached to her you will in time learn to like me.”
“I doubt it, — seeing that you resemble Miss Jane about as
nearly as I do the Grand Lama of Larissa, or the idol Bhadrinath.
But, sir, although it is not my office to welcome you, I
presume you have not forgotten the front door, and once more
I ask, Will you walk in and make yourself at home in your own
house?”
As she led the way to the steps, the arched gate at the end of
the avenue swung open, a carriage entered, and Salome retreated
to her own room, leaving unwitnessed the happy meeting between
an aged, infirm sister, and long-absent brother.
Locking the door to secure herself from intrusion, she drew
a low rocking-chair to the hearth, where smouldered the embers
of a dying fire, and dropping her face in her palms, stared
abstractedly at the ashes. As she swayed slowly to and fro, her
lips parted and closed, her brows bent from their customary
curves of beauty, and half inaudibly she muttered, —
“The sceptre is departing from Judah. My rule is well nigh
ended; the interregnum has been brief, and the old dynasty
reigns once more. Just what I dreaded from the hour I heard
he was coming home. I shall be reduced to a mere cipher, and
made to realize my utter dependence, — and the iron will soon
enter my soul. We paupers are adepts in the art of reading the
countenance, and I have looked at this Ulpian Grey long enough
to know that I might as well bombard Gibraltar with boiled
peas as hope to conquer one of his whims or alter one of his
purposes. There will be bitterness and strife between us. I
shall wish him in his grave a thousand times before it closes
over him, — and he, unless he is too good, will hate me cordially.
I cannot and will not give up all my hopes and expectations,
without a long, fierce struggle.”
Salome Owen was the eldest of five children, who, by the
death of both parents, had been thrown penniless upon the
world, and found a temporary asylum in the county poor-house.
Her mother she remembered merely as a feeble, fractious invalid;
and her father, who had long been employed as superintendent
years of reckless intemperance, ended his wretched career in a
fit of mania a potu. His death occurred at a season when Miss
Grey was confined to her bed by an attack of rheumatism,
which rendered her a cripple for the remainder of her days; but
the first hours of her convalescence were spent in devising plans
for the education and maintenance of his helpless orphans. In
the dusty, cheerless yard of the poor-house she had found the
little group huddled under a mulberry-tree one hot July noon;
and, sending the two younger children to the orphan asylum in
a neighboring town, she had apprenticed one boy to a worthy
carpenter, another to an eminent horticulturist in a distant
State; and Salome, the handsomest and brightest of the flock,
she carried to her own home as an adopted child. Here, for
four years, the girl had lived in peace and luxurious ease, surrounded
by all the elegances and refining associations which
though not inherent in are at the command of wealth; and so
rapidly and gracefully had she fitted herself into the new social
niche, that the dark and stormy morning of her life had become
only a dim and hideous recollection, that rarely lifted its hated
visage above the smooth and shining surface of the happy
present.
Fortuitous circumstances constitute the moulds that shape
the majority of human lives, and the hasty impress of an
accident is too often regarded as the relentless decree of all-ordaining
fate; while to the philosophic anthropologist it might
furnish matter for curious speculation whether, if Attila and
Alaric had chanced to find themselves the pampered sons of
some merchant prince, — some Rothschild or Peabody of the
fifth century, — their campaigns had not been purely fiscal and
bloodless, limited to the leaves of a ledger, while the names of
Goth and Hun had never crystallized into synonyms of havoc
and ruin; or had Timour been trained to cabbage-raising and
vine-dressing, whether he would not have lived in history as
the great horticulturist of Kesth, or the Diocletian of Samarcand,
rather than the Tartar tyrant and conqueror of the East?
How many possible Howards have swung at Tyburn? How
doom of Brinvilliers, and the tender mercies of Carnifex?
Analogous to that wonderful Gulf Stream, once a myth and
still a mystery, the strange current of human existence, fourscore
and ten years long, bears each and all of us with a strong,
steady sweep away from the tropic lands of sunny childhood,
enamelled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the
temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful and
harvest-hued, on to the frigid, lonely shores of dreary old age,
snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to
resemble the tangled drift on those broad bounding gulf-billows,
driven hither and thither, strewn on barren beaches, scattered
over bleaching coral crags, stranded upon blue bergs, — precious
germs from all climes and classes; some to be scorched under
equatorial heats; some to perish by polar perils; a few to
take root and flourish and triumph, building imperishable landmarks;
and many to stagnate in the long, inglorious rest of a
Sargasso Sea.
For all helpless human waifs in this surging ocean of time,
there is comfort in the knowledge that the fiercest storms toss
their drift highest; and one of these apparently savage waves of
adversity had swept Salome Owen safely to an isle of palms and
peace, where, under the fostering rays of prosperity, the selfish
and sordid elements of her character found rapid development.
In affectionate natures, family ties serve as cords to strangle
selfishness; for, in large domestic circles, each member contributes
a moiety to swell the good of the whole — silently endures
some trial, makes some sacrifice, shares some sympathy
and sunshine, hoards some grief and gloom; and had Salome
remained with her brothers and sisters, their continual claims
on her time and attention would have healthfully diverted
thoughts that had long centred solely in self. Finding that
fortune had temporarily sheathed in velvet the goad of necessity,
the girl's aspirations soared no higher than the maintenance
of her present easy and luxurious position, as a petted dependent
on the affection and bounty of a weak but generous and lonely
old lady. Having no other object near, upon which to lavish
had turned fondly to Salome, and so earnestly endeavored to
brighten her life, that the latter felt assured she was selected as
the heiress of that house and estate where she had dwelt so
happily; and thus sanguine concerning her future prospects, the
strong will of the girl completely dominated the feebler and
failing one of her benefactress, through whose fingers the reins
of government slipped so gradually, that she was unconscious
of her virtual abdication.
From this pleasant dream of a handsome heritage and life-long
plenty, Salome had been rudely aroused by the unwelcome
tidings that a young half-brother of Miss Jane was coming to
reside under her roof; and prophetic fear whispered that the
stranger would contest and divide her dominion. A surgeon
in the United States navy, he had been absent for five years in
distant seas, and only resigned his commission in consequence of
letters which informed him of the feeble condition of his only
surviving relative. Those who have eaten the bread of charity
learn to interpret countenances with an unerring facility that
eclipses the vaunted skill of Lavater, and the girl's brief inspection
of the face which would henceforth confront her daily,
yielded little to dispel her gloomy forebodings. The sound of
the tea-bell terminated her reverie, and rising, she walked slowly
to the dining-room, throwing her head as erect as possible, and
compressing her mouth like some gladiator summoned to the
fatal arena of the Coliseum.
The dining-room was large and airy, with lofty wide windows,
and neatly papered walls, where in numerous old-fashioned
and quaintly carved frames hung the ancestral portraits of the
family. Although one window was open, and the mild air
laden with the perfumed breath of spring, a bright wood fire
flashed on the hearth, near which Miss Jane sat in her large,
cushioned rocking-chair, resting her swollen slippered feet on a
velvet stool, while her silver-mounted crutches leaned against
the arm of her chair. An ugly and very diminutive brown
terrier snarled and frisked on the rug, tormenting a staid and
aged black cat, who occasionally arched her back and showed
smoothing the soft grizzled locks that clustered under the rich
lace border of her cap. He was talking of other days, —
those of his boyhood, when, kneeling by that hearth, she had
pasted his kites, found strings for his tops, made bags for his
marbles, or bound up his bleeding hands, bruised in boyish
sports; and, while he read from the fresher page of his
memory the blessed juvenile annals long since effaced from
hers, a happy smile lighted her withered face, and she put up
one thin hand to pat the brown and bearded cheek which nearly
touched her head. To the pretty young thing who had paused
on the threshold, watching what passed, it seemed a peaceful picture,
cosy and complete, needing no adjuncts, defying intruders;
but Miss Jane caught a glimpse of the shrinking figure, and
beckoned her to the fire-place.
“Salome, come shake hands with my sailor-boy, and tell him
how glad we are to have his sunburnt face once more among us.
Ulpian, this is my dear child Salome, who makes noise and sunshine
enough in an otherwise dark and silent dreary house.
Why, children, don't stand bowing at each other, like foreign
ministers at court! Ulpian, you are to be a brother to that
child; so go and kiss her like a Christian, and let us have no
more state and ceremony.”
“Sans cérémonie we introduced ourselves this afternoon,
under the apple-tree, and I presume Salome will accept the
assurance of my friendly intentions and fraternal regard, and
decline the seal which only long acquaintance and perfect confidence
could induce her to permit. Notwithstanding the very
evident fact that she is not entirely overwhelmed with delight
at my return, I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to one
who has so largely contributed to my sister's happiness, and
shall avail myself of every opportunity to prove my appreciation
of her devotion.”
Dr. Grey stepped forward, took Salome's hand, and touched
it lightly with his lips, while the grave dignity of his manner
forbade the thought that affectation of gallantry or idle persiflage
suggested the words or action.
Disarmed by the quiet courtesy which she felt she had not
merited, the girl's ready wit and nimbly obedient tongue for
once proved treacherous; and, conscious that the flush was deepening
on cheek and brow, she moved to the oval table in the
centre of the floor, and seated herself behind the massive silver
urn.
“Ulpian, take your place yonder, at the foot, and excuse my
absence from the table this first evening of your return. I
always have my meals here, close to the fire, and Salome presides
in my place. Child, put no cream in his tea, but a bountiful
share of sugar. You see, my boy, I have not grown too
old to recollect your whims.”
As he obeyed her, Salome was preparing to pour out the
tea; but, catching his eye, she paused, and Dr. Grey bowed his
head on his hand, and solemnly and impressively asked a
blessing, and offered up fervent thanks for the family reunion.
In the somewhat fragmentary discourse that ensued between
brother and sister the orphan took no part; and, a half hour
later, when the little party removed to the library and established
themselves comfortably for the evening, Salome drew her
chair close to the lamp, and, under pretence of examining a book
of engravings, covertly studied the features and mien of the
new-comer.
His quiet, low-toned conversation was of other lands and distant
nations, and, while there was an entire absence of that
ostentatious braggardism and dropsical egotism which unfortunately
attacks the majority of travellers, his descriptions of
foreign scenery were so graceful and brilliant, that despite
her ungracious determination and premeditated dislike, she became
a fascinated listener; and, more than once, found herself
leaning forward to catch his words. Her own vivid fancy
travelled with him over the lakes and isles, temples and palaces,
he had visited; and, when the clock struck eleven, and a brief
silence succeeded, she started as from some delightful dream.
“Janet, shall we have prayers, or have I already kept you
up too late?”
Dr. Grey stooped and pressed his lips to his sister's wrinkled
forehead, and her voice faltered slightly, as she answered, —
“It is never too late to thank God for all his goodness, especially
in bringing my dear boy safely back to me. Salome, get
the large Bible from the cushion in the parlor.”
As the orphan placed the book in Dr. Grey's hand it opened
at the record of births, where on the wide page appeared only
the name of Ulpian Grey, and from the leaves fluttered a small
bow of blue ribbon.
He picked it up, and, considering it merely a book-mark,
would have replaced it, but Miss Jane exclaimed, —
“It is the blue knot that fastens that child's collar. Give it
to her. She lost it yesterday, and has searched the house for it.
How came it in that old Bible, which I am sure has not been
used for fifteen years?”
Whatever solution of the mystery Salome might have deigned
to offer, remained unuttered, for Dr. Grey kindly obviated the
necessity of a reply by requesting her to bring him an additional
candle from an adjoining room; and the superfluous
celerity with which she started on the errand called a twinkle
to his eye and a half-smothered smile to his lips. She felt
assured that he was thoroughly cognizant of the curiosity which
had prompted her researches among the family records, and
inferred that he had either no vanity to be flattered by such
trifles, or was dowered with too much generosity to evince any
gratification at the discovery of an interest she would have
vehemently disclaimed.
It was the first time she had ever bowed before the family
altar, and, notwithstanding her avowed aversion to “Puritanic
ceremonials and Pharisaical practices,” she was unexpectedly
awed and deeply impressed by the solemnity with which he
conducted the brief services; while, despite her prejudice, his
grave courtesy toward her, and the subdued tenderness that
marked his treatment of his sister, commanded her involuntary
respect. When she stood before the mirror in her own room,
unbraiding her heavy hair, a dissatisfied expression robbed her
lines about the scarlet lips which muttered, —
“I wonder if, in one of his evil fits, my father sold and signed
me away to Satan? I certainly am bon gré mal gré in bondage
to him; for, from my inmost heart I hate `good, pious, sanctified
souls,' such as that marble man upstairs, who has come
back to usurp my kingdom, and lord it over this heritage.
After to-day a new regime. The potter's hands are fair and
shapely, courteous and deft, but potter's hands nevertheless.
Tough kneading he shall find it, and stiffer clay than ever yet
was moulded, or my name is not Salome Owen. After all, how
much better are we than the lower beasts of prey? In the
race for riches there is but one alternative, — to devour, or be
devoured; consequently that was an immemorial and well
tested rule in the warfare that commenced when Adam and Eve
found themselves shut out of Eden. `Each for himself,' &c.,
&c., &c. Since I must ex necessitate prey or be preyed upon, I
shall waste no time in deliberation.”
| CHAPTER I. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" | |