 | A passionate pilgrim |  |
the Romance of Certain Old Clothes.
TOWARD the middle of the eighteenth century
there lived in the Province of Massachusetts
a widowed gentlewoman, the mother of three children.
Her name is of little account: I shall take
the liberty of calling her Mrs. Willoughby, — a name,
like her own, of a highly respectable sound. She had
been left a widow after some six years of marriage,
and had devoted herself to the care of her progeny.
These young persons grew up in a manner to reward
her zeal and to gratify her fondest hopes. The first-born
was a son, whom she had called Bernard, after
his father. The others were daughters, — born at an
interval of three years apart. Good looks were traditional
in the family, and this youthful trio were
not likely to allow the tradition to perish. The boy
was of that fair and ruddy complexion and of that
athletic mould which in those days (as in these) were
the sign of genuine English blood, — a frank, affectionate
brother, and a steadfast friend. Clever, however, he
was not; the wit of the family had been apportioned
chiefly to his sisters. Mr. Willoughby had been a
great reader of Shakespeare, at a time when this
pursuit implied more liberality of taste than at the
present day, and in a community where it required
much courage to patronize the drama even in the
closet; and he had wished to record his admiration
of the great poet by calling his daughters out of his
favorite plays. Upon the elder he had bestowed the
romantic name of Viola; and upon the younger, the
more serious one of Perdita, in memory of a little
girl born between them, who had lived but a few
weeks.
When Bernard Willoughby came to his sixteenth
year, his mother put a brave face upon it, and prepared
to execute her husband's last request. This
had been an earnest entreaty that, at the proper age,
his son should be sent out to England, to complete
his education at the University of Oxford, which had
been the seat of his own studies. Mrs. Willoughby
fancied that the lad's equal was not to be found in
the two hemispheres, but she had the antique wifely
submissiveness. She swallowed her sobs, and made
up her boy's trunk and his simple provincial outfit,
and sent him on his way across the seas. Bernard
years in England, without great honor, indeed, but
with a vast deal of pleasure and no discredit. On
leaving the University he made the journey to France.
In his twenty-third year he took ship for home, prepared
to find poor little New England (New England
was very small in those days) an utterly intolerable
place of abode. But there had been changes at home,
as well as in Mr. Bernard's opinions. He found his
mother's house quite habitable, and his sisters grown
into two very charming young ladies, with all the
accomplishments and graces of the young women of
Britain, and a certain native-grown gentle brusquerie
and wildness, which, if it was not an accomplishment,
was certainly a grace the more. Bernard privately
assured his mother that his sisters were fully a match
for the most genteel young women in England; whereupon
poor Mrs. Willoughby, you may be sure, bade
them hold up their heads. Such was Bernard's opinion,
and such, in a tenfold higher degree, was the opinion
of Mr. Arthur Lloyd. This gentleman, I hasten
to add, was a college-mate of Mr. Bernard, a young
man of reputable family, of a good person and a
handsome inheritance; which latter appurtenance he
proposed to invest in trade in this country. He and
Bernard were warm friends; they had crossed the ocean
together, and the young American had lost no time in
made quite as good an impression as that which he
had received, and of which I have just given a hint.
The two sisters were at this time in all the freshness
of their youthful bloom; each wearing, of course, this
natural brilliancy in the manner that became her best.
They were equally dissimilar in appearance and character.
Viola, the elder, — now in her twenty-second
year, — was tall and fair, with calm gray eyes and
auburn tresses; a very faint likeness to the Viola of
Shakespeare's comedy, whom I imagine as a brunette
(if you will), but a slender, airy creature, full of the
softest and finest emotions. Miss Willoughby, with
her candid complexion, her fine arms, her majestic
height, and her slow utterance, was not cut out for
adventures. She would never have put on a man's
jacket and hose; and, indeed, being a very plump
beauty, it is perhaps as well that she would not.
Perdita, too, might very well have exchanged the
sweet melancholy of her name against something more
in consonance with her aspect and disposition. She
was a positive brunette, short of stature, light of foot,
with a vivid dark brown eye. She had been from her
childhood a creature of smiles and gayety; and so far
from making you wait for an answer to your speech,
as her handsome sister was wont to do (while she
gazed at you with her somewhat cold gray eyes), she
by the successive clauses of your proposition, before
you had got to the end of it.
The young girls were very glad to see their brother
once more; but they found themselves quite able to
maintain a reserve of good-will for their brother's
friend. Among the young men their friends and
neighbors, the belle jeunesse of the Colony, there were
many excellent fellows, several devoted swains, and
some two or three who enjoyed the reputation of
universal charmers and conquerors. But the home-bred
arts and the somewhat boisterous gallantry of
those honest young colonists were completely eclipsed
by the good looks, the fine clothes, the punctilious
courtesy, the perfect elegance, the immense information,
of Mr. Arthur Lloyd. He was in reality no
paragon; he was an honest, resolute, intelligent young
man, rich in pounds sterling, in his health and comfortable
hopes, and his little capital of uninvested
affections. But he was a gentleman; he had a handsome
face; he had studied and travelled; he spoke
French, he played on the flute, and he read verses
aloud with very great taste. There were a dozen
reasons why Miss Willoughby and her sister should
forthwith have been rendered fastidious in the choice
of their male acquaintance. The imagination of woman
is especially adapted to the various small conventions
talk told our little New England maidens a vast deal
more of the ways and means of people of fashion in
European capitals than he had any idea of doing. It
was delightful to sit by and hear him and Bernard
discourse upon the fine people and fine things they
had seen. They would all gather round the fire after
tea, in the little wainscoted parlor, — quite innocent
then of any intention of being picturesque or of being
anything else, indeed, than economical, and saving an
outlay in stamped papers and tapestries, — and the two
young men would remind each other, across the rug,
of this, that, and the other adventure. Viola and
Perdita would often have given their ears to know
exactly what adventure it was, and where it happened,
and who was there, and what the ladies had on; but
in those days a well-bred young woman was not expected
to break into the conversation of her own
movement or to ask too many questions; and the poor
girls used therefore to sit fluttering behind the more
languid — or more discreet — curiosity of their mother.
That they were both very fine girls Arthur Lloyd
was not slow to discover; but it took him some time to
satisfy himself as to the apportionment of their charms.
He had a strong presentiment — an emotion of a nature
entirely too cheerful to be called a foreboding —
that he was destined to marry one of them; yet he was
a preference was certainly indispensable,
inasmuch as Lloyd was quite too gallant a fellow to
make a choice by lot and be cheated of the heavenly
delight of falling in love. He resolved to take things
easily, and to let his heart speak. Meanwhile, he was
on a very pleasant footing. Mrs. Willoughby showed
a dignified indifference to his “intentions,” equally remote
from a carelessness of her daughters' honor and
from that odious alacrity to make him commit himself,
which, in his quality of a young man of property, he
had but too often encountered in the venerable dames
of his native islands. As for Bernard, all that he asked
was that his friend should take his sisters as his own;
and as for the poor girls themselves, however each may
have secretly longed for the monopoly of Mr. Lloyd's
attentions, they observed a very decent and modest
and contented demeanor.
Towards each other, however, they were somewhat
more on the offensive. They were good sisterly friends,
betwixt whom it would take more than a day for the
seeds of jealousy to sprout and bear fruit; but the
young girls felt that the seeds had been sown on the
day that Mr. Lloyd came into the house. Each made
up her mind that, if she should be slighted, she would
bear her grief in silence, and that no one should be any
the wiser; for if they had a great deal of love, they
secret, nevertheless, that upon her the glory might fall.
They had need of a vast deal of patience, of self-control,
and of dissimulation. In those days a young girl of
decent breeding could make no advances whatever, and
barely respond, indeed, to those that were made. She
was expected to sit still in her chair with her eyes on
the carpet, watching the spot where the mystic handkerchief
should fall. Poor Arthur Lloyd was obliged
to undertake his wooing in the little wainscoted parlor,
before the eyes of Mrs. Willoughby, her son, and
his prospective sister-in-law. But youth and love are
so cunning that a hundred signs and tokens might
travel to and fro, and not one of these three pair of
eyes detect them in their passage. The young girls
had but one chamber and one bed between them, and
for long hours together they were under each other's
direct inspection. That each knew that she was being
watched, however, made not a grain of difference in
those little offices which they mutually rendered, or
in the various household tasks which they performed
in common. Neither flinched nor fluttered beneath
the silent batteries of her sister's eyes. The only apparent
change in their habits was that they had less
to say to each other. It was impossible to talk about
Mr. Lloyd, and it was ridiculous to talk about anything
else. By tacit agreement they began to wear
of coquetry, in the way of ribbons and top-knots
and furbelows as were sanctioned by indubitable
modesty. They executed in the same inarticulate
fashion an agreement of sincerity on these delicate
matters. “Is it better so?” Viola would ask, tying
a bunch of ribbons on her bosom, and turning about
from her glass to her sister. Perdita would look up
gravely from her work and examine the decoration.
“I think you had better give it another loop,” she
would say, with great solemnity, looking hard at her
sister with eyes that added, “upon my honor!” So
they were forever stitching and trimming their petticoats,
and pressing out their muslins, and contriving
washes and ointments and cosmetics, like the ladies
in the household of the Vicar of Wakefield. Some
three or four months went by; it grew to be mid-winter,
and as yet Viola knew that if Perdita had
nothing more to boast of than she, there was not
much to be feared from her rivalry. But Perdita by
this time, the charming Perdita, felt that her secret
had grown to be tenfold more precious than her sister's.
One afternoon Miss Willoughby sat alone before her
toilet-glass combing out her long hair. It was getting
too dark to see; she lit the two candles in their sockets
on the frame of her mirror, and then went to the
evening; the landscape was bare and bleak, and
the sky heavy with snow-clouds. At the end of the
long garden into which her window looked was a wall
with a little postern door, opening into a lane. The
door stood ajar, as she could vaguely see in the gathering
darkness, and moved slowly to and fro, as if
some one were swaying it from the lane without. It
was doubtless a servant-maid. But as she was about
to drop her curtain, Viola saw her sister step within
the garden, and hurry along the path toward the
house. She dropped the curtain, all save a little
crevice for her eyes. As Perdita came up the path,
she seemed to be examining something in her hand,
holding it close to her eyes. When she reached the
house she stopped a moment, looked intently at the
object, and pressed it to her lips.
Poor Viola slowly came back to her chair, and sat
down before her glass, where, if she had looked at it
less abstractedly, she would have seen her handsome
features sadly disfigured by jealousy. A moment
afterwards the door opened behind her, and her sister
came into the room, out of breath, and her cheeks
aglow with the chilly air.
Perdita started. “Ah,” said she, “I thought you
were with our mother.” The ladies were to go to a
tea-party, and on such occasions it was the habit of
Instead of coming in, Perdita lingered at the door.
“Come in, come in,” said Viola. “We 've more
than an hour yet. I should like you very much to
give a few strokes to my hair.” She knew that her
sister wished to retreat, and that she could see in
the glass all her movements in the room. “Nay, just
help me with my hair,” she said, “and I 'll go to
mamma.”
Perdita came reluctantly, and took the brush. She
saw her sister's eyes, in the glass, fastened hard upon
her hands. She had not made three passes, when Viola
clapped her own right hand upon her sister's left,
and started out of her chair. “Whose ring is that?”
she cried passionately, drawing her towards the light.
On the young girl's third finger glistened a little
gold ring, adorned with a couple of small rubies.
Perdita felt that she need no longer keep her secret,
yet that she must put a bold face on her avowal.
“It 's mine,” she said proudly.
“Who gave it to you?” cried the other.
Perdita hesitated a moment. “Mr. Lloyd.”
“Mr. Lloyd is generous, all of a sudden.”
“Ah no,” cried Perdita, with spirit, “not all of a
sudden. He offered it to me a month ago.”
“And you needed a month's begging to take it?”
said Viola, looking at the little trinket; which indeed
that the jeweller of the Province could furnish. “I
should n't have taken it in less than two.”
“It is n't the ring,” said Perdita, “it 's what it
means!”
“It means that you 're not a modest girl,” cried
Viola. “Pray does your mother know of your conduct?
does Bernard?”
“My mother has approved my `conduct,' as you call
it. Mr. Lloyd has asked my hand, and mamma has
given it. Would you have had him apply to you,
sister?”
Viola gave her sister a long look, full of passionate
envy and sorrow. Then she dropped her lashes on
her pale cheeks and turned away. Perdita felt that
it had not been a pretty scene; but it was her sister's
fault. But the elder girl rapidly called back her
pride, and turned herself about again. “You have
my very best wishes,” she said, with a low curtsey.
“I wish you every happiness, and a very long life.”
Perdita gave a bitter laugh. “Don't speak in that
tone,” she cried. “I 'd rather you cursed me outright.
Come, sister,” she added, “he could n't marry both
of us.”
“I wish you very great joy,” Viola repeated mechanically,
sitting down to her glass again, “and a very
long life, and plenty of children.”
There was something in the sound of these words
not at all to Perdita's taste. “Will you give me a
year, at least?” she said. “In a year I can have one
little boy, — or one little girl at least. If you 'll give
me your brush again I 'll do your hair.”
“Thank you,” said Viola. “You had better go to
mamma. It is n't becoming that a young lady with a
promised husband should wait on a girl with none.”
“Nay,” said Perdita, good-humoredly, “I have Arthur
to wait upon me. You need my service more
than I need yours.”
But her sister motioned her away, and she left the
room. When she had gone poor Viola fell on her
knees before her dressing-table, buried her head in her
arms, and poured out a flood of tears and sobs. She
felt very much the better for this effusion of sorrow.
When her sister came back, she insisted upon helping
her to dress, and upon her wearing her prettiest things.
She forced upon her acceptance a bit of lace of her
own, and declared that now that she was to be married
she should do her best to appear worthy of her lover's
choice. She discharged these offices in stern silence;
but, such as they were, they had to do duty as an
apology and an atonement; she never made any other.
Now that Lloyd was received by the family as an
accepted suitor, nothing remained but to fix the wedding-day.
It was appointed for the following April,
for the marriage. Lloyd, on his side, was busy with
his commercial arrangements, and with establishing
a correspondence with the great mercantile house to
which he had attached himself in England. He was
therefore not so frequent a visitor at Mrs. Willoughby's
as during the months of his diffidence and irresolution,
and poor Viola had less to suffer than she
had feared from the sight of the mutual endearments
of the young lovers. Touching his future sister-in-law,
Lloyd had a perfectly clear conscience. There
had not been a particle of sentiment uttered between
them, and he had not the slightest suspicion that she
coveted anything more than his fraternal regard. He
was quite at his ease; life promised so well, both domestically
and financially. The lurid clouds of revolution
were as yet twenty years beneath the horizon, and that
his connubial felicity should take a tragic turn it was
absurd, it was blasphemous, to apprehend. Meanwhile
at Mrs. Willoughby's there was a greater rustling of
silks, a more rapid clicking of scissors and flying of
needles, than ever. Mrs. Willoughby had determined
that her daughter should carry from home the most
elegant outfit that her money could buy, or that the
country could furnish. All the sage women in the
county were convened, and their united taste was
brought to bear on Perdita's wardrobe. Viola's situation,
The poor girl had an inordinate love of dress, and the
very best taste in the world, as her sister perfectly well
knew. Viola was tall, she was stately and sweeping,
she was made to carry stiff brocade and masses of
heavy lace, such as belong to the toilet of a rich man's
wife. But Viola sat aloof, with her beautiful arms
folded and her head averted, while her mother and
sister and the venerable women aforesaid worried and
wondered over their materials, oppressed by the multitude
of their resources. One day there came in a beautiful
piece of white silk, brocaded with celestial blue
and silver, sent by the bridegroom himself, — it not
being thought amiss in those days that the husband
elect should contribute to the bride's trousseau. Perdita
was quite at loss to imagine a fashion which should
do sufficient honor to the splendor of the material.
“Blue 's your color, sister, more than mine,” she said,
with appealing eyes. “It 's a pity it 's not for you.
You 'd know what to do with it.”
Viola got up from her place and looked at the great
shining fabric as it lay spread over the back of a chair.
Then she took it up in her hands and felt it, — lovingly,
as Perdita could see, — and turned about toward
the mirror with it. She let it roll down to her feet,
and flung the other end over her shoulder, gathering it
in about her waist with her white arm bare to the
image, and a hanging tress of her auburn hair fell upon
the gorgeous surface of the silk. It made a dazzling
picture. The women standing about uttered a little
“Ah!” of admiration. “Yes, indeed,” said Viola, quietly,
“blue is my color.” But Perdita could see that her
fancy had been stirred, and that she would now fall to
work and solve all their silken riddles. And indeed
she behaved very well, as Perdita, knowing her insatiable
love of millinery, was quite ready to declare. Innumerable
yards of lustrous silk and satin, of muslin,
velvet, and lace, passed through her cunning hands,
without a word of envy coming from her lips. Thanks
to her industry, when the wedding-day came Perdita
was prepared to espouse more of the vanities of life
than any fluttering young bride who had yet challenged
the sacramental blessing of a New England divine.
It had been arranged that the young couple should
go out and spend the first days of their wedded life at
the country house of an English gentleman, — a man
of rank and a very kind friend to Lloyd. He was
an unmarried man; he professed himself delighted to
withdraw and leave them for a week to their billing
and cooing. After the ceremony at church, — it had
been performed by an English parson, — young Mrs.
Lloyd hastened back to her mother's house to change
her wedding gear for a riding-dress. Viola helped her
they had been fond sisters together. Perdita then hurried
off to bid farewell to her mother, leaving Viola
to follow. The parting was short; the horses were at
the door and Arthur impatient to start. But Viola
had not followed, and Perdita hastened back to her
room, opening the door abruptly. Viola, as usual, was
before the glass, but in a position which caused the
other to stand still, amazed. She had dressed herself
in Perdita's cast-off wedding veil and wreath, and on
her neck she had hung the heavy string of pearls
which the young girl had received from her husband
as a wedding-gift. These things had been hastily laid
aside, to await their possessor's disposal on her return
from the country. Bedizened in this unnatural garb,
Viola stood at the mirror, plunging a long look into
its depths, and reading Heaven knows what audacious
visions. Perdita was horrified. It was a hideous image
of their old rivalry come to life again. She made
a step toward her sister, as if to pull off the veil and
the flowers. But catching her eyes in the glass, she
stopped.
“Farewell, Viola,” she said. “You might at least
have waited till I had got out of the house.” And
she hurried away from the room.
Mr. Lloyd had purchased in Boston a house which,
in the taste of those days, was considered a marvel
established himself with his young wife. He was
thus separated by a distance of twenty miles from
the residence of his mother-in-law. Twenty miles, in
that primitive era of roads and conveyances, were as
serious a matter as a hundred at the present day,
and Mrs. Willoughby saw but little of her daughter
during the first twelvemonth of her marriage. She
suffered in no small degree from her absence; and
her affliction was not diminished by the fact that
Viola had fallen into terribly low spirits and was
not to be roused or cheered but by change of air
and circumstances. The real cause of the young
girl's dejection the reader will not be slow to suspect.
Mrs. Willoughby and her gossips, however,
deemed her complaint a purely physical one, and
doubted not that she would obtain relief from the
remedy just mentioned. Her mother accordingly proposed
on her behalf a visit to certain relatives on
the paternal side, established in New York, who had
long complained that they were able to see so little
of their New England cousins. Viola was despatched
to these good people, under a suitable
escort, and remained with them for several months.
In the interval her brother Bernard, who had begun
the practice of the law, made up his mind to take
a wife. Viola came home to the wedding, apparently
lilies in her face, and a proud smile on her lips.
Arthur Lloyd came over from Boston to see his
brother-in-law married, but without his wife, who
was expecting shortly to present him with an heir.
It was nearly a year since Viola had seen him. She
was glad — she hardly knew why — that Perdita
had stayed at home. Arthur looked happy, but he
was more grave and solemn than before his marriage.
She thought he looked “interesting,” — for
although the word in its modern sense was not
then invented, we may be sure that the idea was.
The truth is, he was simply preoccupied with his
wife's condition. Nevertheless, he by no means failed
to observe Viola's beauty and splendor, and how she
quite effaced the poor little bride. The allowance
that Perdita had enjoyed for her dress had now been
transferred to her sister, who turned it to prodigious
account. On the morning after the wedding, he had
a lady's saddle put on the horse of the servant who
had come with him from town, and went out with
the young girl for a ride. It was a keen, clear
morning in January; the ground was bare and hard,
and the horses in good condition, — to say nothing
of Viola, who was charming in her hat and plume,
and her dark blue riding-coat, trimmed with fur.
They rode all the morning, they lost their way, and
The early winter dusk had fallen when they got
home. Mrs. Willoughby met them with a long face.
A messenger had arrived at noon from Mrs. Lloyd;
she was beginning to be ill, and desired her husband's
immediate return. The young man, at the
thought that he had lost several hours, and that
by hard riding he might already have been with
his wife, uttered a passionate oath. He barely consented
to stop for a mouthful of supper, but mounted
the messenger's horse and started off at a gallop.
He reached home at midnight. His wife had been
delivered of a little girl. “Ah, why were n't you
with me?” she said, as he came to her bedside.
“I was out of the house when the man came. I
was with Viola,” said Lloyd, innocently.
Mrs. Lloyd made a little moan, and turned about.
But she continued to do very well, and for a week
her improvement was uninterrupted. Finally, however,
through some indiscretion in the way of diet
or of exposure, it was checked, and the poor lady
grew rapidly worse. Lloyd was in despair. It very
soon became evident that she was breathing her last.
Mrs. Lloyd came to a sense of her approaching end,
and declared that she was reconciled with death.
On the third evening after the change took place
she told her husband that she felt she would not
also requested her mother to withdraw, — Mrs. Willoughly
having arrived on the preceding day. She
had had her infant placed on the bed beside her,
and she lay on her side, with the child against her
breast, holding her husband's hands. The night-lamp
was hidden behind the heavy curtains of the bed,
but the room was illumined with a red glow from
the immense fire of logs on the hearth.
“It seems strange to die by such a fire as that,”
the young woman said, feebly trying to smile. “If
I had but a little of such fire in my veins! But I 've
given it all to this little spark of mortality.” And
she dropped her eyes on her child. Then raising
them she looked at her husband with a long penetrating
gaze. The last feeling which lingered in her
heart was one of mistrust. She had not recovered
from the shock which Arthur had given her by telling
her that in the hour of her agony he had been
with Viola. She trusted her husband very nearly as
well as she loved him; but now that she was called
away forever, she felt a cold horror of her sister. She
felt in her soul that Viola had never ceased to envy
her good fortune; and a year of happy security had
not effaced the young girl's image, dressed in her
wedding garments, and smiling with coveted triumph.
Now that Arthur was to be alone, what might not
what arts might she not use, what impression might
she not make upon the young man's melancholy
heart? Mrs. Lloyd looked at her husband in silence.
It seemed hard, after all, to doubt of his constancy.
His fine eyes were filled with tears; his face was
convulsed with weeping; the clasp of his hands was
warm and passionate. How noble he looked, how
tender, how faithful and devoted! “Nay,” thought
Perdita, “he 's not for such as Viola. He 'll never
forget me. Nor does Viola truly care for him; she
cares only for vanities and finery and jewels.” And
she dropped her eyes on her white hands, which her
husband's liberality had covered with rings, and on
the lace ruffles which trimmed the edge of her nightdress.
“She covets my rings and my laces more than
she covets my husband.”
At this moment the thought of her sister's rapacity
seemed to cast a dark shadow between her and the
helpless figure of her little girl. “Arthur,” she said,
“you must take off my rings. I shall not be buried
in them. One of these days my daughter shall wear
them, — my rings and my laces and silks. I had
them all brought out and shown me to-day. It 's a
great wardrobe, — there 's not such another in the
Province; I can say it without vanity now that I 've
done with it. It will be a great inheritance for my
There are things there that a man never buys twice,
and if they 're lost you 'll never again see the like.
So you 'll watch them well. Some dozen things I 've
left to Viola; I 've named them to my mother. I 've
given her that blue and silver; it was meant for
her; I wore it only once, I looked ill in it. But the
rest are to be sacredly kept for this little innocent.
It 's such a providence that she should be my color;
she can wear my gowns; she has her mother's eyes.
You know the same fashions come back every twenty
years. She can wear my gowns as they are. They 'll
lie there quietly waiting till she grows into them, —
wrapped in camphor and rose-leaves, and keeping
their colors in the sweet-scented darkness. She shall
have black hair, she shall wear my carnation satin.
Do you promise me, Arthur?”
“Promise you what, dearest?”
“Promise me to keep your poor little wife's old
gowns.”
“Are you afraid I 'll sell them?”
“No, but that they may get scattered. My mother
will have them properly wrapped up, and you shall
lay them away under a double-lock. Do you know
the great chest in the attic, with the iron bands?
There 's no end to what it will hold. You can lay
them all there. My mother and the housekeeper will
in your secretary, and never give it to any one but
your child. Do you promise me?”
“Ah, yes, I promise you,” said Lloyd, puzzled at the
intensity with which his wife appeared to cling to this
idea.
“Will you swear?” repeated Perdita.
“Yes, I swear.”
“Well — I trust you — I trust you,” said the poor
lady, looking into his eyes with eyes in which, if he
had suspected her vague apprehensions, he might have
read an appeal quite as much as an assurance.
Lloyd bore his bereavement soberly and manfully.
A month after his wife's death, in the course of
commerce, circumstances arose which offered him an
opportunity of going to England. He embraced it
as a diversion from gloomy thoughts. He was absent
nearly a year, during which his little girl was tenderly
nursed and cherished by her grandmother. On
his return he had his house again thrown open, and
announced his intention of keeping the same state as
during his wife's lifetime. It very soon came to be
predicted that he would marry again, and there were
at least a dozen young women of whom one may say
that it was by no fault of theirs that, for six months
after his return, the prediction did not come true.
During this interval he still left his little daughter
that a change of residence at so tender an age was
perilous to her health. Finally, however, he declared
that his heart longed for his daughter's presence, and
that she must be brought up to town. He sent his
coach and his housekeeper to fetch her home. Mrs.
Willoughby was in terror lest something should befall
her on the road; and, in accordance with this feeling,
Viola offered to ride along with her. She could return
the next day. So she went up to town with her little
niece, and Mr. Lloyd met her on the threshold of
his house, overcome with her kindness and with gratitude.
Instead of returning the next day, Viola stayed
out the week; and when at last she reappeared, she
had only come for her clothes. Arthur would not hear
of her coming home, nor would the baby. She cried
and moaned if Viola left her; and at the sight of her
grief Arthur lost his wits, and swore that she was
going to die. In fine, nothing would suit them but
that Viola should remain until the poor child had
grown used to strange faces.
It took two months to bring this consummation
about; for it was not until this period had elapsed
that Viola took leave of her brother-in-law. Mrs. Willoughby
had shaken her head over her daughter's absence;
she had declared that it was not becoming, and
that it was the talk of the town. She had reconciled
the household enjoyed an unwonted term of peace.
Bernard Willoughby had brought his wife home to
live, between whom and her sister-in-law there existed
a bitter hostility. Viola was perhaps no angel; but
in the daily practice of life she was a sufficiently good-natured
girl, and if she quarrelled with Mrs. Bernard,
it was not without provocation. Quarrel, however, she
did, to the great annoyance not only of her antagonist,
but of the two spectators of these constant altercations.
Her stay in the household of her brother-in-law, therefore,
would have been delightful, if only because it
removed her from contact with the object of her antipathy
at home. It was doubly — it was ten times —
delightful, in that it kept her near the object of her
old passion. Mrs. Lloyd's poignant mistrust had fallen
very far short of the truth. Viola's sentiment had
been a passion at first, and a passion it remained, —
a passion of whose radiant heat, tempered to the delicate
state of his feelings, Mr. Lloyd very soon felt the
influence. Lloyd, as I have hinted, was not a modern
Petrarch; it was not in his nature to practise an ideal
constancy. He had not been many days in the house
with his sister-in-law before he began to assure himself
that she was, in the language of that day, a devilish
fine woman. Whether Viola really practised those
insidious arts that her sister had been tempted to impute
say that she found means to appear to the very best
advantage. She used to seat herself every morning before
the great fireplace in the dining-room, at work
upon a piece of tapestry, with her little niece disporting
herself on the carpet at her feet, or on the train of
her dress, and playing with her woollen balls. Lloyd
would have been a very stupid fellow if he had remained
insensible to the rich suggestions of this charming
picture. He was prodigiously fond of his little girl,
and was never weary of taking her in his arms and
tossing her up and down, and making her crow with
delight. Very often, however, he would venture upon
greater liberties than the young lady was yet prepared
to allow, and she would suddenly vociferate her displeasure.
Viola would then drop her tapestry, and
put out her handsome hands with the serious smile of
the young girl whose virgin fancy has revealed to her
all a mother's healing arts. Lloyd would give up the
child, their eyes would meet, their hands would touch,
and Viola would extinguish the little girl's sobs upon
the snowy folds of the kerchief that crossed her bosom.
Her dignity was perfect, and nothing could be more
discreet than the manner in which she accepted her
brother-in-law's hospitality. It may be almost said,
perhaps, that there was something harsh in her reserve.
Lloyd had a provoking feeling that she was
Half an hour after supper, at the very outset of the
long winter evenings, she would light her candle,
and make the young man a most respectful curtsey,
and march off to bed. If these were arts, Viola was
a great artist. But their effect was so gentle, so
gradual, they were calculated to work upon the young
widower's fancy with such a finely shaded crescendo,
that, as the reader has seen, several weeks elapsed
before Viola began to feel sure that her return would
cover her outlay. When this became morally certain,
she packed up her trunk, and returned to her
mother's house. For three days she waited; on the
fourth Mr. Lloyd made his appearance, — a respectful
but ardent suitor. Viola heard him out with
great humility, and accepted him with infinite modesty.
It is hard to imagine that Mrs. Lloyd should
have forgiven her husband; but if anything might
have disarmed her resentment, it would have been
the ceremonious continence of this interview. Viola
imposed upon her lover but a short probation. They
were married, as was becoming, with great privacy,
— almost with secrecy, — in the hope perhaps, as was
waggishly remarked at the time, that the late Mrs.
Lloyd would n't hear of it.
The marriage was to all appearance a happy one,
and each party obtained what each had desired —
desires, as the reader will have observed, have
remained a good deal of a mystery. There were,
indeed, two blots upon their felicity; but time would,
perhaps, efface them. During the first three years
of her marriage Mrs. Lloyd failed to become a
mother, and her husband on his side suffered heavy
losses of money. This latter circumstance compelled
a material retrenchment in his expenditure, and Viola
was perforce less of a great lady than her sister
had been. She contrived, however, to sustain with
unbroken consistency the part of an elegant woman,
although it must be confessed that it required the
exercise of more ingenuity than belongs to your real
aristocratic repose. She had long since ascertained that
her sister's immense wardrobe had been sequestrated
for the benefit of her daughter, and that it lay languishing
in thankless gloom in the dusty attic. It
was a revolting thought that these exquisite fabrics
should await the commands of a little girl who sat
in a high chair and ate bread-and-milk with a wooden
spoon. Viola had the good taste, however, to say
nothing about the matter until several months had
expired. Then, at last, she timidly broached it to her
husband. Was it not a pity that so much finery
should be lost? — for lost it would be, what with colors
fading, and moths eating it up, and the change
a negative to her inquiry, that she saw that
for the present her attempt was vain. Six months
went by, however, and brought with them new needs
and new fancies. Viola's thoughts hovered lovingly
about her sister's relics. She went up and looked
at the chest in which they lay imprisoned. There
was a sullen defiance in its three great padlocks
and its iron bands, which only quickened her desires.
There was something exasperating in its incorruptible
immobility. It was like a grim and grizzled
old household servant, who locks his jaws over a
family secret. And then there was a look of capacity
in its vast extent, and a sound as of dense fulness,
when Viola knocked its side with the toe of her little
slipper, which caused her to flush with baffled longing.
“It 's absurd,” she cried; “it 's improper, it 's wicked”;
and she forthwith resolved upon another attack
upon her husband. On the following day, after dinner,
when he had had his wine, she bravely began it.
But he cut her short with great sternness.
“Once for all, Viola,” said he, “it 's out of the
question. I shall be gravely displeased if you return
to the matter.”
“Very good,” said Viola. “I 'm glad to learn the
value at which I 'm held. Great Heaven!” she
cried, “I 'm a happy woman. It 's an agreeable
And her eyes filled with tears of anger and disappointment.
Lloyd had a good-natured man's horror of a woman's
sobs, and he attempted — I may say he condescended
— to explain. “It 's not a caprice, dear, it 's a
promise,” he said, — “an oath.”
“An oath? It 's a pretty matter for oaths! and
to whom, pray?”
“To Perdita,” said the young man, raising his eyes
for an instant, but immediately dropping them.
“Perdita, — ah, Perdita!' and Viola's tears broke
forth. Her bosom heaved with stormy sobs, — sobs
which were the long-deferred counterpart of the
violent fit of weeping in which she had indulged
herself on the night when she discovered her sister's
betrothal. She had hoped, in her better moments,
that she had done with her jealousy; but her
temper, on that occasion, had taken an ineffaceable
fold. “And pray, what right,” she cried, “had Perdita
to dispose of my future? What right had she to
bind you to meanness and cruelty? Ah, I occupy a
dignified place, and I make a very fine figure! I 'm
welcome to what Perdita has left! And what has she
left? I never knew till now how little! Nothing,
nothing, nothing.”
This was very poor logic, but it was very good passion.
tried to kiss her, but she shook him off with magnificent
scorn. Poor fellow! he had coveted a “devilish
fine woman,” and he had got one. Her scorn was
intolerable. He walked away with his ears tingling,
— irresolute, distracted. Before him was his
secretary, and in it the sacred key which with his
own hand he had turned in the triple lock. He
marched up and opened it, and took the key from a
secret drawer, wrapped in a little packet which he
had sealed with his own honest bit of blazonry.
Teneo, said the motto, — “I hold.” But he was
ashamed to put it back. He flung it upon the table
beside his wife.
“Keep it!” she cried. “I want it not. I hate it!”
“I wash my hands of it,” cried her husband. “God
forgive me!”
Mrs. Lloyd gave an indignant shrug of her shoulders,
and swept out of the room, while the young
man retreated by another door. Ten minutes later
Mrs. Lloyd returned, and found the room occupied
by her little step-daughter and the nursery-maid.
The key was not on the table. She glanced at the
child. The child was perched on a chair with the
packet in her hands. She had broken the seal with
her own little fingers. Mrs. Lloyd hastily took possession
of the key.
At the habitual supper-hour Arthur Lloyd came
back from his counting-room. It was the month of
June, and supper was served by daylight. The meal
was placed on the table, but Mrs. Lloyd failed to
make her appearance. The servant whom his master
sent to call her came back with the assurance that
her room was empty, and that the women informed
him that she had not been seen since dinner. They
had in truth observed her to have been in tears, and,
supposing her to be shut up in her chamber, had not
disturbed her. Her husband called her name in various
parts of the house, but without response. At last
it occurred to him that he might find her by taking
the way to the attic. The thought gave him a strange
feeling of discomfort, and he bade his servants remain
behind, wishing no witness in his quest. He reached
the foot of the staircase leading to the topmost flat,
and stood with his hand on the banisters, pronouncing
his wife's name. His voice trembled. He called
again, louder and more firmly. The only sound which
disturbed the absolute silence was a faint echo of his
own tones, repeating his question under the great
eaves. He nevertheless felt irresistibly moved to
ascend the staircase. It opened upon a wide hall,
lined with wooden closets, and terminating in a window
which looked westward, and admitted the last
rays of the sun. Before the window stood the great
saw with amazement and horror the figure of his wife.
In an instant he crossed the interval between them,
bereft of utterance. The lid of the chest stood open,
exposing, amid their perfumed napkins, its treasure
of stuffs and jewels. Viola had fallen backward from
a kneeling posture, with one hand supporting her on
the floor and the other pressed to her heart. On her
limbs was the stiffness of death, and on her face, in
the fading light of the sun, the terror of something
more than death. Her lips were parted in entreaty,
in dismay, in agony; and on her bloodless brow and
cheeks there glowed the marks of ten hideous wounds
from two vengeful ghostly hands.
| A passionate pilgrim | |