 | CHAPTER XVI.
EMMA DENMAN. Cecil Dreeme |  |
16. CHAPTER XVI.
EMMA DENMAN.
Densdeth rang. We were admitted at once.
The footman introduced us into a parlor fronting
on the avenue. The interior of the house was
worthy of its stately architecture. I do not describe.
People, not things, passions, not objects,
are my topics.
Presently, in a mirror at the end of the long
suite of rooms, I was aware of the imaged figure
of a young lady approaching. Semblance before
substance, instead of preparing me for the interview,
it almost startled me. I half fancied that
shadowy reflection to be the spirit of the dead
sister watching. The living sister was coming in
the body; the presence of the sister dead tarried
in the background, curious to see what would
grow from the germ of a childish friendship revived.
In a moment the lady herself stepped forward.
No thought of shadows any more!
She, the substance, took a stand among the
foremost figures in my drama.
The effect of the room where I sat was rich
and festal, almost to the verge of gorgeousness.
Had sorrow dared to intrude among such courtly
splendors? Carpets thick with the sunburnt
flowers of late summer, — had these felt the trailing
step that carries grief on to another moment
of grief? Heavy crimson curtains, — must these
have uttered muffled echoes when a sigh, out-ward
bound, drifted against their folds? And
deep-toned pictures, full of victory and jubilee, —
could they not outface the pale countenance of
mourning in that luxurious room? It made
the power of sorrow and the bitterness of death
seem far more giant in their strength, that they
had crowded in hither, and hung a dim film
of funereal black before all this magnificence.
Crimson was the chief color in carpet, curtains,
and walls. This deep, rich background
magically heightened the effect of the pale, elegant
figure in deep mourning who was approaching.
Emma Denman passed in front of the mirror,
erasing her own reflection there. She came
forward, and offered her hand to me with shy
cordiality. The shyness remembered the old
familiar playmate of the days of “little husband
and little wife”; the cordiality was for the
unforgotten friend.
I found no change, only development, in Emma
had been her charm as a child. It seized me at
once. I lost my power of quiet discrimination.
I can hardly analyze her power even now. These
subtle influences refuse to be subject to my chemical
methods and my formulas.
It was not the power of beauty, alone. Physical
beauty she had, but something higher also.
Nor spiritual beauty alone, but something other.
The mere flesh-and-blood charms, lilies and
roses, the commonplace traits of commonplace
women, whose inventory describes the woman,
she could afford to disdain. It was a face that
forbade all formal criticism. No passport face.
Other women one names beautiful for a feature,
a smile, or a dimple, — that link between a
feature and a smile. Hers was a face suffused
with the fine essence of beauty. It seemed to
wrong the whole, if one let eyes or mind make
any part distinct.
Grace she had, — exquisite grace. Grace is
perhaps a more subtle charm than beauty. Beauty
is passive; grace is active. Beauty reveals
the nature; grace interprets it. Beauty wins;
grace woos.
Emma Denman's coloring did not classify her.
Her hair was in the indefinite shades between
light and dark. One would not expect from her
the steadiness of the fair temperaments, nor the
dismissing her with the label of a well-known
type. I must have a new and composite thought
in my mind while I curiously studied her.
Her eyes wanted color. They were not blue
and constant, not black and passionate. Indeed,
but for their sparkle and vivacity, they would
have seemed expressionless. Restless eyes! they
might almost have taken a lesson from Densdeth's,
so rapid were they to come and go, so
evanescent and elusive was their glance. But
Densdeth's were chasing eyes; hers were flying.
Her swift eyes, her transitory smile, her motions,
soft as the bend of a branch, light as the spring
of a bird, lithe as the turn of a serpent, all were
elements in her singular fascination, — it was
almost elfin.
She was in deep mourning; and, partly because
mourning quickens sympathy, partly because
to a person of her doubtful coloring
positive contrasts are valuable, it seemed the
very dress to heighten her beauty. And yet,
as I saw her afterwards, I found that all costume
and scenery became thus tributary to her, and
all objects and people so disposed themselves,
and all lights and shades so fell, as to define
and intensify her charm.
Densdeth witnessed our recognition, and then
excused himself. “He had business with Mr.
and by.” We both breathed freer upon his
exit. It was impossible not to feel that he was
always reading every act and thought; and that
consciousness of a ruthless stare turned in upon
one's little innocencies of heart is abashing to
young people.
Miss Denman had seemed uneasy while Densdeth
stayed. She changed her seat, and with it
her manner, as he departed. The chair she
now took brought her again within range of
the distant mirror. Her shadow became a third
party in our interview. When I observed it,
its presence disturbed me. Sometimes, as before,
I fancied it the sprite of the sister dead, sometimes
the double of the person before me, — her
true self, or her false self, which she had dismissed
for this occasion, while she made her
impression upon me.
Strange fancies! faintly drifting across my
mind. But I did not often observe that dim
watcher in the mirror. My companion engaged
me too closely. Now that Densdeth was gone,
we sat in quiet mood, and let our old acquaintance
renew itself.
Our talk was hardly worth chronicling. Words
cannot convey the gleam of pleasure with which
our minds alighted together on the same memory
of days gone by, as we used to spring upon
the wayside.
“Ah! those sorrowless days of childhood!”
I said. “Not painless, — not quite painless!”
“There are never any painless days,” said she.
“No. Pain is the elder brother of Pleasure.
But the days when the sense of injury passed
away with the tears it compelled; when the
sense of wrong-doing vanished with the light
penance of a pang, with the brief penitence
of an hour, and left the heart untainted. Those
days were sorrowless.”
As I spoke thus, Emma Denman suddenly
burst into tears.
I had not suspected her of any such uncontrollable
emotion. She had seemed to me one
to smile and flash, hardly earnest enough for
an agony.
“Pardon me,” she said, quelling her tears,
“but since those bright days I have suffered
bitter sorrow. As you, my old playmate, speak,
all that has passed since we met comes up
newly.”
This was all she said, at the moment, of her
sister's death. I respected the recent wound.
I had no right to renew her distress even by
sympathy. I changed the subject.
“I find myself,” said I, “between two opposites,
as guardians for my second childhood at
work. Mr. Densdeth introduces me at the
club. Which shall my boyship obey?”
“Such opposites will neutralize each other.
You will be left free for a guardian in my
sex. Have you sought one yet?”
“Destiny selects for me. I am thrust into
your hands. Will you take me in charge?”
The look she gave as I said this touched me
strangely. It seemed as if her double had suddenly
glided forward and peered at me through
her evasive eyes. A mysterious expression. I
could no more comprehend it from my present
shallow knowledge of the lady, than a novice
perceives why Titian's surface glows, until he has
scraped the surface and knows the undertones.
“Will I take you in charge?” she rejoined,
with this strange look, henceforth my controlling
memory of her face. “Will you trust me with
such grave office? What say the other guardians?
Do they recommend me? Does Mr.
Churm? Have you consulted him?”
“Churm has rather evaded forming a prejudice
in your favor in my mind. He gave me no ideal
to alter. I had no counter-charm of the fancy
to oppose to your actual charm.”
“Your other choice among mentors, Mr. Densdeth,
— has he offered you any light upon my
qualifications?”
“Not a word! But he is not my choice. He
has chosen me, if our companionship is choice,
not chance.”
“You accept him?”
“I have not thought of rejecting a man of such
peculiar power.”
“Has he mastered you, too?”
“Mastered? I am my own master. He attracts
my curiosity greatly. I cannot resist the
desire to know him by heart.”
“To know him by heart!” she repeated, with
almost a shudder. “To know Densdeth by
heart! Study him, then, for yourself! I will
give you no help! No help from me! God forbid!”
I must have looked, as I felt, greatly surprised
at this outburst, for she recovered her usual
manner, with an effort, and said: “Pardon me,
again! Do not let me prejudice you against Mr.
Densdeth. He is our friend, our best friend;
but sometimes I suddenly have superstitious panics
when I think of him and my sister's death.”
She seemed to struggle now against a flood of
sorrowful recollections. The force of the struggle
carried her over to the side of gayety.
Smiles create smiles more surely than yawns
yawns. I yielded readily to Miss Denman's gay
mood. She threw off the depression of the early
moments of our interview. “This should be a
“be the next what it might.”
All the while, as we sat in the crimson dimness
of that luxurious room, — she eager, animated,
flashing from thought to thought, talking as an
old friend who has yearned for friendship and
sympathy might talk to an old friend who has
both to give, — all the while, as she held me
bound by her witchery, her shadow in the distant
mirror sat, a ghostly spy.
She was in the midst of a lively sketch of the
society I was to know under her auspices, when
all at once a blight came upon her spirits. She
paused. Her color faded. Her eyes became
flighty. Her smile changed to a look of pain.
She shivered slightly. These were almost imperceptible
tokens, felt rather than perceived.
Steps approached as I was regarding this
transformation with a certain vague alarm, such
as one feels at a doubtful sound, that may be a
cry for help, by night in a forest. In a moment
Densdeth entered the room. With him was a
large man, of somewhat majestic figure, a marked
contrast to the slender grace of Densdeth. This
new-comer was following, not leading, as if not
he, but Densdeth, were the master in the house.
Mr. Denman! As he came up the suite of
parlors, I could observe him, form, mien, and
manner.
Without any foreknowledge of him, I might
have said, “An over-busy man, — a man over-weighted
with social responsibilities. Too many
banks choose him director. Too many companies
want his administrative power. Too many
charities must have him as trustee. One of the
Caryatides of society. No wonder that he looks
weary and his shoulders stoop. No wonder at
his air of uneasy patience, or perhaps impatient
endurance and eagerness to be free!”
But Churm had told me of other burdens this
proud, self-confident man must bear. I could
not be surprised that Mr. Denman looked old
beyond his years, and that as he spoke his eyes
wandered off, and stared vaguely into his own
perplexities.
He received me cordially. His manner had a
certain broken stateliness, as of a defeated sovereign,
to whom his heart says, “Abdicate and
die.” As he welcomed me to his house, he
glanced at Densdeth. Did he fear a smile on
that dark, cruel face, and a look which said, “O
yes! you may keep up the pretence of lordship
here a little longer, if you enjoy the lie!”
“You are an old friend, Mr. Byng. Robert, I
am happy to see you again,” said Mr. Denman.
“You must be at home with us. We dine at six.
You will always find a plate. Come to-day, if
you have no pleasanter engagement.”
Miss Denman's look repeated the invitation.
I accepted. The old intimacy was renewed.
And renewed with a distincter purpose on my
part, because I said to myself, “Who knows but
I may, with my young force, aid this worn and
weary man to shake off the burden that oppresses
him, and frustrates or perverts his life, — be it
the mere dead weight of an old error, — be it
the lacerating grapple of a crime?”
And now the tale of my characters is complete.
This drama, short and sad, marches,
without much delay, to its close. If I have, in
any scene thus far, dallied with details that may
seem trivial, let me be pardoned! It may be
that I have flinched, as I looked down the vista of
my story, and discerned an ending of its path
within some sombre cavern, like a place of sepulture.
It may be that I have purposely halted to
pluck the few pale flowers which grew along my
road, and to listen a moment to the departing
laugh, and the departing echoes of the laugh, of
every merry comrade, as he went his way, and
left me to fare as I might along my own.
| CHAPTER XVI.
EMMA DENMAN. Cecil Dreeme | |