University of Virginia Library

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7. CHAPTER VII.
LETTERS AND AIR-CASTLES.

AFTER Harry went out, Eva arranged the fire,
dropped the curtains over the window, drew up an
easy chair into a warm corner under the gas-light, and
began looking over the outside of her Parisian letters with
that sort of luxurious enjoyment of delay with which one
examines the post-marks and direction of letters that
are valued as a great acquisition. There was one from
her sister Ida and one from Harry's cousin Caroline.
Ida's was opened first. It was dated from a boarding-house
in the Rue de Clichy, giving a sort of journalised
view of their studies, their medical instructors, their
walks and duties in the hospital, all told with an evident
and vigorous sense of enjoyment. Eva felt throughout
what a strong, cheerful, self-sustained being her sister
was, and how fit it was that a person so sufficient to
herself, so equable, so healthfully balanced and poised
in all her mental and physical conformation, should have
undertaken the pioneer work of opening a new profession
for women. “I never could do as she does, in the
world,” was her mental comment, “but I am thankful
that she can.” And then she cut the envelope of Caroline's
letter.

To a certain extent there were the same details in it
—Caroline was evidently associated in the same studies,
the same plans, but there was missing in the letter the
professional enthusiasm, the firmness, the self-poise, and
calm clearness. There were more bursts of feeling on

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“You were right, my dear Eva, in saying, in our last
interview, that it did not seem to you that I had the kind
of character that was adapted to the profession I have
chosen. I don't think I have. I am more certain of it
from comparing myself from day to day with Ida, who
certainly is born and made for it, if ever a woman was.
My choice of it has been simply and only for the reason
that I must choose something as a means of self-support,
and more than that, as a refuge from morbid distresses
of mind which made the still monotony of my New England
country life intolerable to me. This course presented
itself to me as something feasible. I thought it,
too, a good and worthy career—one in which one might
do one's share of good for the world. But, Eva, I can
feel that there is one essential difference between Ida and
myself: she is peculiarly self-sustained and sufficient to
herself, and I am just the reverse. I am full of vague
unrest; I am chased by seasons of high excitement, alternating
with deadly languor. Ida has hard work to
know what to do with me. You were right in supposing,
as you intimate in your letter, that a certain common
friend has something to do with this unrest, but you cannot,
unless you know my whole history, know how much.
There was a time when he and I were all the world to
each other—when shall I ever forget that time! I was
but seventeen; a young girl, so ignorant of life! I never
had seen one like him; he was a whole new revelation to

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me; he woke up everything there was in me, never to go
to sleep again; and then to think of having all this tide
and current of feeling checked—frozen. My father overwhelmed
him with accusations; every baseness was laid
to his charge. I was woman enough to have stood for
him against the world if he had come to me. I would
have left all and gone to the ends of the earth with him
if he had asked me, but he did not. There was only
one farewell, self-accusing letter, and even that fell into
my father's hands and never came to me till after his
death. For years I thought myself wantonly trifled with
by a man of whose attentions I ought to be ashamed. I
was indignant at myself for the love that might have been
my glory, for it is my solemn belief that if we had been
let alone he would have been saved all those wretched
falls, those blind struggles that have marred a life whose
purpose is yet so noble.

“When the fates brought us together again in New
York, I saw at a glance that whatever may have been the
proud, morbid conscientiousness that dictated his long
silence, he loved me still;—a woman knows that by an
unmistakable instinct. She can feel the reality through
all disguises. I know that man loves me, and yet he does
not now in word or deed make the least profession beyond
the boundaries of friendship. He is my friend;
with entire devotion he is willing to spend and be spent
for me—but he will accept nothing from me. I, who
would give my life to him willingly—I must do nothing
for him!

“Well, it 's no use writing. You see now that I am a
very unworthy disciple of your sister. She is so calm
and philosophical that I cannot tell her all this; but you,
dear little Eva, you know the heart of woman, and you
have a magic key which unlocks everybody's heart in
confidence to you. I seem to see you, in fancy, with

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good Cousin Harry, sitting cosily in your chimney-corner;
your ivies and nasturtiums growing round your
sunny windows, and an everlasting summer in your
pretty parlors, while the December winds whistle without.
Such a life as you two lead, such a home as your
home, is worth a thousand `careers' that dazzle ambition.
Send us more letters, journals, of all your pretty, lovely
home life, and let me warm myself in the glow of your
fireside.

Your Cousin,

Carry.”

Eva finished this letter, and then folding it up sat
with it in her lap,gazing into the fire, and pondering its
contents. If the truth must be told, she was revolving
in her young, busy brain a scheme for restoring Caroline
to her lover, and setting them up comfortably at housekeeping
on a contiguous street, where she had seen a
house to let. In five minutes she had gone through the
whole programme—seen the bride at the altar, engaged
the house, bought the furniture, and had before her a
vision of parlors, of snuggeries and cosy nooks, where
Caroline was to preside, and where Bolton was to lounge
at his ease, while she and Caroline compared housekeeping
accounts. Happy young wives develop an aptitude
for match-making as naturally as flowers spring in a
meadow, and Eva was losing herself in this vision of
Alnaschar, when a loud, imperative, sharp bark of a dog
at the front door of the house called her back to life and
the world.

Now there are as many varieties to dog-barks as to
man-talks. There is the common bow-wow, which
means nothing, only that it is a dog speaking; there is
the tumultuous angry bark, which means attack; the
conversational bark, which, of a moonlight night, means
gossip; and the imperative staccato bark which means
immediate business. The bark at the front door was of

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Eva flew to the front door and opened it, and there
sat Jack, the spoiled darling of Miss Dorcas Vanderheyden
and her sister, over the way.

“Why, Jacky! where did you come from?” said Eva.
Jacky sat up on his haunches and waved his forepaws in
a vigorous manner, as was his way when he desired to
be specifically ingratiating.

Eva seized him in her arms and carried him into the
parlor, thinking that as he had accidentally been shut
out for the night she would domesticate him for a while,
and return him to his owners on the morrow. So she
placed him on the ottoman in the corner and attempted
to caress him, but evidently that was not the purpose he
had in view. He sprang down, ran to the door and
snuffed, and to the front windows and barked imperiously.

“Why, Jack, what do you want?”

He sprang into a chair and barked out at the Vanderheyden
house.

Eva looked at the mantel clock—it wanted a few
minutes of ten—without, it was a bright moonlight night.

“I 'll run across with him, and see what it is,” she
said. She was young enough to enjoy something like
an adventure. She opened the front door and Jack
rushed out, and then stopped to see if she would follow;
as she stood a moment he laid hold on the skirt of her
dress, as if to pull her along.

“Well, Jacky, I 'll go,” said Eva. Thereat the creature
bounded across the street and up the steps of the
opposite house, where he stood waiting. She went up
and rang the door-bell, which appeared to be what he
wanted, as he sat down quite contented on the doorstep.

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Nobody came. Eva looked up and down the street.
“Jacky, we shall have to go back, they are all asleep,”
she said. But Jacky barked contradiction, sprang nearer
to the door, and insisted on being let in.

“Well, if you say so, Jacky, I must ring again,” she
said, and with that she pulled the door-bell louder, and
Jack barked with all his might, and the two succeeded
after a few moments in causing a perceptible stir within.

Slowly the door unclosed, and a vision of Miss Dorcas
in an old-fashioned broad-frilled night-cap peeped
out. She was attired in a black water-proof cloak,
donned hastily over her night gear.

“Oh, Jack, you naughty boy!” she exclaimed, stooping
eagerly to the prodigal, who sprung tumultuously
into her arms and began licking her face.

“I 'm so much obliged to you, Mrs. Henderson,” she
said to Eva. “We went down in the omnibus this afternoon,
and we suddenly missed him, the naughty fellow,”
she said, endeavoring to throw severity into her tones.

Eva related Jack's ruse.

“Did you ever!” said Miss Dorcas; “the creature
knew that we slept in the back of the house, and he got
you to ring our door-bell. Jacky, what a naughty fellow
you are!”

Mrs. Betsey now appeared on the staircase in an
equal state of dishabille:

“Oh dear, Mrs. Henderson, we are so shocked!”

“Dear me, never speak of it. I think it was a cunning
trick of Jack. He knew you were gone to bed, and
saw I was up and so got me to ring his door-bell for
him. I do n't doubt he rode up town in the omnibus.
Well, good-night!”

And Eva closed the door and flew back to her own
little nest just in time to let in Harry.

The first few moments after they were fairly by the

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“It 's a capital move on Jack 's part. It got me into
the very interior of the fortress. Only think of seeing
them in their night-caps! That is carrying all the outworks
of ceremony at a move.”

“To say nothing of their eternal gratitude,” said
Harry.

“Oh, that of course. They were ready to weep on
my neck with joy that I had brought the dear little
plague back to them, and I do n't doubt are rejoicing
over him at this moment. But, oh, Harry, you must
hear the girls' Paris letters.”

“Are they very long?” said Harry.

“Fie now, Harry; you ought to be interested in the
girls.”

“Why, of course I am,” said Harry, pulling out his
watch, “only—what time is it?”

“Only half-past ten—not a bit late,” said Eva. As
she began to read Ida's letter, Harry settled back in the
embrace of a luxurious chair, with his feet stretched out
towards the fire, and gradually the details of Paris life
mingled pleasingly with a dream—a fact of which Eva
was made aware as she asked him suddenly what he
thought of Ida's views on a certain point.

“Now, Harry—you have n't been asleep?”

“Just a moment. The very least in the world,”
said Harry, looking anxiously alert and sitting up very
straight.

Then Eva read Caroline's letter.

“Now, is n't it too bad?” she said, with eagerness, as
she finished.

“Yes, it is,” said Harry, very gravely. “But, Eva
dear, it 's one of those things that you and I can do
nothing to help—it is ἀνάγκη.”

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“What 's ananke?”

“The name the old Greeks gave to that perverse
Something that brought ruin and misery in spite of and
out of the best human efforts.”

“But I want to bring these two together.”

“Be careful how you try, darling. Who knows what
the results may be? It 's a subject Bolton never speaks
of, where he has his own purposes and conclusions; and
it 's the best thing for Caroline to be where she has as
many allurements and distractions as she has in Paris,
and such a wise, calm, strong friend as your sister.

“And now, dear, may n't I go to bed?” he added,
with pathos, “You 've no idea, dear, how sleepy I am.”

“Oh, certainly, you poor boy,” said Eva, bustling
about and putting up the chairs and books preparatory
to leaving the parlor.

`You see,” she said, going up stairs, “he was so imperious
that I really had to go with him.”

“He! Who?”

“Why, Jack, to be sure, he did all but speak,” said
Eva, brush in hand, and letting down her curls before
the glass. “You see I was in a reverie over those letters
when the barking roused me—I don 't think you ever
heard such a barking; and when I got him in, he wouldn't
be contented—kept insisting on my going over with him
—was n't it strange?

Harry, by this time composed for the night and half
asleep, said it was.

In a few moments he was aroused by Eva 's saying,
suddenly,

“Harry, I really think I ought to bring them together.
Now, could n't I do something?”

“With Jack?” said Harry, drowsily.

“Jack!—oh, you sleepy-head! Well, never mind.
Good night.”