"Light that never was on land or sea,
The consecration and the poet's dream."
"He has asked to be my friend," murmured she, as she slowly turned away. "It is enough; it must be enough." But the blossom she had stolen from the midst of the fragrant collection, seemed to whisper a merry nay, as it nodded against her hand, and afterwards gushed out its sweet life on her pure young breast.
XXIX
MIST IN THE VALLEY
"The true beginning of our end." – Midsummer Night's Dream.
Mr. Ensign was not slow in developing his ideas of friendship. Though he did not venture upon repeating his visit too soon, scarcely a week passed without bringing to Paula a letter or some other testimonial of his increasing devotion. The blindest eye could not fail to remark whither he was tending. Even Paula was forced to acknowledge to herself that she was on the verge of a flowery incline, that sooner or later would bring her up breathless against the dread alternative of a decided yes or no. Friendship is a wide portal, and sometimes admits love; had it served her traitorously in this?
Her aunt who watched her with secret but lynx-eyed scrutiny, saw no reason to alter the first judgment of that mysterious, "It is all coming right," with which she viewed the first symptoms of Paula's girlish appreciation of her lover. If eyes and lips could speak, Paula was happy. The mournful shadows which of late had flitted with more or less persistency over her face, had vanished in a living smile, which if not deep, was cloudlessly radiant; and her voice when not used in speech, was rippling away in song, as glad as a finch's on the mountain side.
Miss Belinda was therefore very much astonished when one day Paula burst into her presence, and flinging herself down on her knees, threw her arms about her waist, crying,
"Take me away, dear aunt, I cannot, dare not stay here another day."
"Paula, what do you mean?" exclaimed Miss Belinda, holding her back and endeavoring to look into her face. But the young girl gently resisted.
"I have just had a letter from Cicely," she returned in a low and muffled voice. "She has seen Mr. Sylvester, and says he looks both wan and ill. He told her, too, that he was lonely, and I know what that means; he wants his child. The time has come for me to go back. He said it would, and that I would know when it came. Take me, aunt, take me to Mr. Sylvester."
Miss Belinda, to whom self-control was one of the cardinal virtues, leaned back in her chair and contemplated the eager, tear-stained face that was now raised to hers, with silent scrutiny. "Paula," said she at last, "is that your only reason for desiring to return to New York?"
A flush, delicate as it was fleeting, swept over the dew of Paula's cheek. She rose to her feet and met her aunt's eye, with a look of gentle dignity. "No," said she, "I wish to test myself. Birds that are prisoned will caress any hand that offers them freedom. I wish to see if the lure holds good when my wings are in mid-heaven."
There was a dreamy cadence to her voice as she uttered that last phrase, that startled her aunt. "Paula," exclaimed she, "Paula, don't you know your own heart?"
"Who does?" returned Paula; then in a sudden rush of emotion threw herself once more at her aunt's side, saying, "It is in order to know it, that I ask you to take me away."
And Miss Belinda, as she smoothed back her darling's locks, was obliged to acknowledge to herself, that time has a way of opening, in the stream of life, unforeseen channels to whose current we perforce must yield, or else hopelessly strand upon the shoals.
BOOK IV
FROM A. TO Z
XXX
MISS BELINDA PRESENTS MR. SYLVESTER WITH A CHRISTMAS GIFT
"For, O; for, O the hobby horse is forgot." – Hamlet.
It was a clear winter evening. Mr. Sylvester sat in his library, musing before a bright coal fire, whose superabundant heat and blaze seemed to make the loneliness of the great empty room more apparent. He had just said to himself that it was Christmas eve, and that he, of all men in the world, had the least reason to realize it, when the door-bell rang. He was expecting Bertram, whose advancement to the position of cashier in place of Mr. Wheelock, now thoroughly broken down in health, had that day been fully determined upon in a late meeting of the Board of Directors. He therefore did not disturb himself. It was consequently a startling surprise, when a deep, pleasant voice uttered from the threshold of the door, "I have brought you a Christmas present;" and looking up, he saw Miss Belinda standing before him, with Paula at her side.
"My child!" was his involuntary exclamation, and before the young girl knew it, she was folded against his breast with a passionate fervor that more than words, convinced her of the depth of the sacrifice which had held them separate for so long. "My darling! my little Paula!"
She felt her heart stand still. Gently disengaging herself, she looked in his face. She found it thin and wan, but lit by such a pleasure she could not keep back her smile. "You are glad, then, of your little Christmas present?" said she.
He smiled and shook his head; he had no words with which to express a joy like this.
Miss Belinda meanwhile stood with a set expression on her face, that, to one who did not know her, would immediately have proclaimed her to be an ogress of the very worst type. Not a glance did she give to the unusual splendor about her, not a wavering of her eye betokened that she was in any way conscious that she had just stepped from the threshold of a very humble cottage, into a home little short of a palace in size and the splendor of its appointments. All her attention was concentrated on the two faces before her.
"The ride on the cars has made Paula feverish," cried she, in sharp clear tones that rang with unexpected brusqueness through the curtained alcoves of that lordly apartment.
They both started at this sudden introduction of the prosaic into the hush of their happy meeting, but remembering themselves, drew Miss Belinda forward to the fire and made her welcome in this house of many memories.
It was a strange moment to Paula when she first turned to go up those stairs, down which she had come in such grief eight months or more ago. She found herself lingering on its well-remembered steps, and the first sight of the rich bronze image at the top, struck her with a sense of the old-time pleasure, that was not unlinked with the old-time dread. But the aspect of her little room calmed her. It was just as she had left it; not an article had been changed. "It is as if I had gone out one door and come in another," she whispered. All the months that had intervened seemed to float away. She felt this even more when upon again descending, she found Bertram in the library. His frank and interesting face had always been pleasant to her, but in the joy of her return it shone upon her with almost the attraction of a brother's. "I am at home again," she kept whispering to herself, "I am at home."
Miss Belinda was engrossed in conversation with Bertram, so that Paula was left free to take her old place by Mr. Sylvester's side, where she sat with such an aspect of contentment, that her beauty was half forgotten in her happiness.
"You remembered me, then, sometimes in the little cottage in Grotewell?" asked he, after a silent contemplation of her countenance. "I was not forgotten when you left the city streets?"
She answered with a bright little shake of her head, but she was inwardly wondering as she looked at his strong and picturesque face, with its nobly carved features and melancholy smile, if he had been absent from her thoughts for so much as a moment, in all these dreary months of separation.
"I did not believe you would forget," he gently pursued, "but I scarcely dared hope you would lighten my fireside with your face again. It is such a dismal one, and youth is so linked to brightness."
The flush that crossed her cheek, startled him into sudden silence. She recovered herself and slowly shook her head. "It is not a dismal one to me. I always feel brighter and better when I sit beside it. I have missed your counsel," she said; "brightness is nothing without depth."
His eyes which had been fixed on her face, turned slowly away. He seemed to hold an instant's communion with himself; suddenly he said, "And depth is worse than nothing, without it mirrors the skies. It is not from shadowed pools, such bright young lips should drink, but from the waves of an inexhaustible sea, smote upon by all the winds and sunshine of heaven."
In another moment, however, he was all cheerfulness. "You have brought me a Christmas present," cried he, "and we must make it a Christmas holiday indeed. Here is the beginning: " and with one of his old grave smiles, he handed Bertram a little note which had been awaiting him on the library table. "But Paula and Miss Belinda must have their pleasure too. Paula, are you too tired for a ride down town? I will show you New York on a Christmas eve," continued he to Miss Walton, seeing that Paula's attention was absorbed by the expression of sudden and moving surprise which had visited Bertram's face, upon the perusal of his note. "It is a stirring sight. Nothing more cheering can be found the wide world over, for those who have a home and children to make happy."
"I certainly should enjoy a glimpse of holiday cheer," assented Miss Belinda. And Paula recalled to herself by the sound of her aunt's voice, gayly re-echoed her assertion.
So Samuel was despatched for a carriage, and in a few minutes they were all riding down Fifth Avenue, en route for Tiffany's, Macy's, and any other store that might offer special attractions. It was a happy company. As they rolled along, Paula felt her heart grow lighter and lighter, Mr. Sylvester was almost gay, while even Aunt Belinda condescended to be merry. Bertram alone was silent, but as Paula caught short glimpses of his face, while speeding past some illuminated corner, she felt that it was that silence which is "the perfectest herald of joy."
"I shall make you get out and mix with the crowd," said Mr. Sylvester. "I want you to feel the throb of the great heart of the city on such a night as this. It is as if all men were brothers – or fathers, I should say. People that ordinarily pass each other without a sign, nod and smile with pleasing recognition of the evening's cheer. Grave and reverend seigniors, are not ashamed to be seen carrying packages by the dozen. Indeed, he who is most laden is considered the best fellow, and he who is so unfortunate as to show nothing but empty arms, feels shy if not ashamed; a condition of mind into which I shall soon fall myself, if we do not presently reach our destination."
Paula never forgot that night. As from the midst of our common-place memories, some one hour stands out distinct and strange, like a sweet foreigner in a crowd of village faces, so to Paula, this ride through the lighted streets, with the ensuing rush from store to store, piloted by Bertram and Miss Belinda, and protected by Mr. Sylvester, was her one weird glimpse into the Arabian Nights' country. Why, she could not have told; why, she did not stop to think. She had been to all these places before, but never with such a heart as this – never, never with such an overflowing heart as this.
"I have washed away my reproach," cried Mr. Sylvester, coming out to the carriage with his arms full of bundles. "Aunt Belinda is to blame for this; she set the example, you see." And with a merry laugh, he tossed one thing after another into Paula's lap, reserving only one small package for himself. "I scarcely know what I have bought," said he. "I shall be as much surprised as any one, when you come to undo the bundles. 'A pretty thing,' was all I waited to hear from the shop girls."
"There is a small printing press for one thing," cried Paula merrily. "I saw the man at Holton's eye you with a certain sort of shrewd humor, and hastily do it up. You paid for it; probably thinking it one of the 'pretty things.' We shall have to make it over to Bertram, as being the only one amongst us who by any stretch of imagination can be said to be near enough the age of boyhood to enjoy it."
"I do not know about that," cried Bertram, with a ringing infectious laugh, "my imagination has been luring me into believing that I am not the only boy in this crowd."
And so they went on, toying with their new-found joy as with a plaything, and hard would it have been to tell in which of those voices rang the deeper contentment.
The opening of the packages on the library-table afforded another season of merriment. Such treasures as came to light! A roll of black silk, which could only have been meant for Miss Belinda. A casket of fretted silver, just large enough to hold Paula's gloves; a scarf-ring, to which no one but Bertram could lay claim; a bundle of confections, a pair of diamond-studded bracelets, a scarf of delicate lace, articles for the desk, and knick-knacks for the toilet table, and last, but not least, in weight at least, the honest little printing-press.
"Oh, I never dreamed of this," said Paula, "when we chose Christmas eve for our journey."
"Nor would you have done right to stay away if you had," returned Mr. Sylvester gayly.
But when the sport was all over, and Paula stood alone with Mr. Sylvester in the library, awaiting his last good-night, the deeper influences of this holy time made themselves felt, and it was with an air of gentle seriousness, he told her that it had been a happy Christmas eve to him.
"And to me," returned Paula. "Bertram too, seemed very happy. Would it be too inquisitive in me to ask what good news the little note contained, to work such wonders?"
A smile such as was seldom seen on Mr. Sylvester's face of late, flashed brightly over it. "It was only a card of invitation to dinner," said he, "but it came from Mr. Stuyvesant, and that to Bertram means a great deal."
The surprise in Paula's eyes made him smile again. "Will it be a great shock to you, if I tell you that the name of the woman for whom Bertram made the sacrifice of his art, was Cicely Stuyvesant?"
"Cicely? my Cicely?" Her astonishment was great, but it was also happy. "Oh, I never dreamed – ah, now I see," she went on naively. "That is the reason she refrained from coming to this house; she was afraid of meeting him. But to think I should never have guessed it, and she my dearest friend! Oh, I am very happy; I admire Bertram so much, and it is such a beautiful secret. And Mr. Stuyvesant has invited him to his house! I do not wonder you felt like making the evening a gala one. Mr. Stuyvesant would not do that if he were not learning to appreciate Bertram."
"No; there is method in all that Mr. Stuyvesant does. More than that, if I am not mistaken, he has known this beautiful secret, as you call it, from the first, and would be the last to receive Bertram as a guest to his table, if he did not mean him the best and truest encouragement."
"I believe you are right," said Paula. "I remember now that one day when I was spending the afternoon with Cicely, he came into the room where I was, and finding me for the moment alone, sat down, and in his quaint old-fashioned manner asked me in the most abrupt way what I thought of Bertram Sylvester. I was surprised, but told him I considered him one of the noblest young men I knew, adding that if a fine mind, a kind heart, and a pure life were open to regard, Bertram had the right to claim the esteem of all his friends and associates. The old gentleman looked at me somewhat curiously, but nodded his head as if pleased, and merely remarking, 'It is not necessary to mention we had this conversation, my dear,' got up and proceeded slowly from the room. I thought it was simply a not unnatural curiosity concerning a young man with whom he had more or less business connection; but now I perceive it had a deeper significance."
"He could scarcely have found a more zealous little advocate for Bertram if he had hunted the city over. Bertram may be more obliged to you than he knows. He has been very patient, but the day of his happiness is approaching."
"And Cicely's! I feel as if I could scarcely wait to see her with this new hope in her eyes. She has kept me without the door of her suspense, but she must let me across the threshold of her happiness."
The look with which Mr. Sylvester eyed the fair girl's radiant face deepened. "Paula," said be, "can you leave these new thoughts for a moment to hear a request I have to make?"
She at once turned to him with her most self-forgetful smile.
"I have been making myself a little present," pursued he, slowly taking out of his pocket the single package he had reserved from the rest. "Open it, dear."
With fingers that unconsciously trembled, she hastily undid the package. A little box rolled out. Taking off its cover, she took out a plain gold locket of the style usually worn by gentlemen on their watch-chains. "Fasten it on for me," said he.
Wondering at his tone which was almost solemn, she quietly did his bidding. But when she essayed to lift her head upon the completion of her task, he gently laid his hand upon her brow and so stood for a moment without a word.
"What is it?" she asked, with a sudden indrawing of her breath. "What moves you so, Mr. Sylvester?"
"I have just taken a vow," said he.
She started back agitated and trembling.
"I had reason to," he murmured, "pray at nights when you go to bed, that I may be able to keep it."
"What?" sprang to her lips; but she restrained herself and only allowed her glance to speak.
"Will you do it, Paula?"
"Yes, oh yes!" Her whole heart seemed to rush out in the phrase. She drew back as at the opening of a door in an unexpected spot. Her eye had something of fear in it and something of secret desperation too. He watched her with a gaze that strangely faltered.
"A woman's prayers are a man's best safeguard," murmured he. "He must be a wretch who does not feel himself surrounded by a sacred halo, while he knows that pure lips are breathing his name in love and trust before the throne of the Most High."
"I will pray for you as for myself," she whispered, and endeavored to meet his eyes. But her head drooped and she did not speak as she would have done a few months before; and when a few instants later they parted in their old fashion at the foot of the stairs, she did not turn to give him the accustomed smile and nod with which she used to mount the stairs, spiral by spiral, and disappear in her little room above. Yet he did not grieve at the change, but stood looking up the way she had gone, like a man before whom some vision of unexpected promise had opened.
XXXI
A QUESTION
"Think on thy sins." – Othello.
The next morning when Mr. Sylvester came down to breakfast, he found on the library-table an exquisite casket, similar to the one he had given Paula the night before, but larger, and filled with flowers of the most delicious odor.
"For Miss Fairchild," explained Samuel, who was at that moment passing through the room.
With a pang of jealous surprise, that, however, failed to betray itself in his steadily composed countenance, Mr. Sylvester advanced to the side of the table, and lifted up the card that hung attached to the beautiful present. The name he read there seemed to startle him; he moved away, and took up his paper with a dark flush on his brow, that had not disappeared when Miss Belinda entered the room.
"Humph!" was her immediate exclamation, as her eye rested upon the conspicuous offering in the centre of the apartment. But instantly remembering herself, advanced with a cheerful good-morning, which however did not prevent her eyes from wandering with no small satisfaction towards this fresh evidence of Mr. Ensign's assiduous regard.
"Paula is remembered by others than ourselves," remarked Mr. Sylvester, probably observing her glance.
"Yes; she has a very attentive suitor in Mr. Ensign," returned Miss Belinda shortly. "A pleasant appearing young man," she ejaculated next moment; "worthy in many respects of success, I should say."
"Has he – do you mean to say that he has visited you in Grotewell?" asked Mr. Sylvester, his eye upon the paper in his hand.
"Certainly; a few more interviews will settle it."
The paper rustled in Mr. Sylvester's grasp, but his voice was composed if not formal, as he observed, "She regards his attentions then with favor?"
"She wears his flowers in her bosom, and brightens like a flower herself when he is seen to approach. If allowed to go her way unhindered, I have but little doubt as to how it will end. Mr. Ensign is not handsome, but I am told that he has every other qualification likely to make a gentle creature like Paula happy."
"He is a good fellow," exclaimed Mr. Sylvester under his breath.
"And goodness is the first essential in the character of the man who is to marry Paula," inexorably observed Miss Belinda. "An open, cheerful disposition, a clear conscience and a past with no dark pages in its history, must mark him who is to link unto his fate our pure and sensitive Paula. Is it not so, Mr. Sylvester?"
The advertisements in that morning's Tribune must have been unusually interesting, judging from the difficulty which Mr. Sylvester experienced in withdrawing his eyes from them. "The man whom Paula marries," said he at last, "can neither be too good, too kind, or too pure. Nor shall any other than a good, kind, and pure man possess her," he added in a tone that while low, effectually hushed even the slow-to-be-intimidated Miss Belinda. In another moment Paula entered.
Oh, the morning freshness of some faces! Like the singing of birds in a prison, is the sound and sight of a lovely maiden coming into the grim, gray atmosphere of a winter breakfast room. Paula was exceptionally gifted with this auroral cheer which starts the day so brightly. At sight of her face Mr. Sylvester dropped his paper, and even Miss Belinda straightened herself more energetically. "Merry Christmas," cried her sweet young voice, and immediately the whole day seemed to grow glad with promise and gaysome with ringing sleigh-bells. "It's snowing, did you know it? A world of life is in the air; the flakes dance as they come down, like dervishes in a frenzy. It was all we lacked to make the day complete; now we have everything."
"Yes," said Miss Belinda, with a significant glance at the table, "everything."
Paula followed her glance, saw the silver box with its wealth of blossoms, and faltered back with a quick look at Mr. Sylvester's grave and watchful countenance.
"Mr. Ensign seems to be possessed of clairvoyance," observed Miss Belinda easily. "How he could know that you were to be in town to-day, I cannot imagine."
"I wrote him in my last letter that in all probability I should spend the holidays with Mr. Sylvester," explained Paula simply, but with a slow and deepening flush, that left the roses she contemplated nothing of which to boast. "I did so, because he proposed to visit Grotewell on Christmas."
There was a short silence in the room, then Mr. Sylvester rose, and remarking with polite composure, "It is a very pretty remembrance," led the way into the dining-room. Paula with a slow drooping of her head quickly followed, while Miss Belinda brought up the rear, with the look of a successful diplomat.
A meal in the Sylvester mansion was always a formal affair, but this was more than formal. A vague oppression seemed to fill the air; an oppression which Miss Belinda's stirring conversation found it impossible to dissipate. In compliance to Mr. Sylvester's request, she sat at the head of the table, and was the only one who seemed able to eat anything. For one thing she had never seen Ona in that post of honor, but Paula and Mr. Sylvester could not forget the graceful form that once occupied that seat. The first meal above a grave, no matter how long it has been dug, must ever seem weighted with more or less unreality.
Besides, with Paula there was a vague unsettled feeling, as if some delicate inner balance had been too rudely shaken. She longed to fly away and think, and she was obliged to sit still and talk.
The end of the meal was a relief to all parties. Miss Belinda went up stairs, thoughtfully shaking her firm head; Mr. Sylvester sat down again to his paper, and Paula advanced towards the dainty gift that awaited her inspection on the library table. But half way to it she paused. A strange shyness had seized her. With Mr. Sylvester sitting there, she dared not approach this delicate testimonial of another's affection. She did not know as she wished to. Her eyes stole in hesitation to the floor. Suddenly Mr. Sylvester spoke:
"Why do you not look at your pretty present, Paula?"
She started, gave him a quick glance, and advanced hurriedly towards the table; but scarcely had she reached it when she paused, turned and hastened over to his side. He was still reading, or appearing to read, but she saw his hand tremble where it grasped the sheet, though his face with its clear cut profile, shone calm and cold against the dark background of the wall beyond.
"I do not care to look at it now," said she, with a hurried interlacing of her restless fingers.
He turned towards her and a quick thrill passed over his countenance. "Sit down, Paula," said he, "I want to talk to you."
She obeyed as might an automaton. Was it the tone of his voice that chilled her, or the studied aspect of his fixed and solemn countenance? He did not speak at once, but when he did, there was no faltering in his voice, that was lower than common, but deep, like still waters that have run into dark channels far from the light of day.
"Paula, I want to ask you a question. What would you think of a man that, with deliberate selfishness, went into the king's garden, and plucking up by the roots the most beautiful flower he could find there, carried it into a dungeon to pant out its exquisite life amid chill and darkness?"
"I should think," replied she, after the first startled moment of silence, "that the man did well, if by its one breath of sweetness, the flower could comfort the heart of him who sat in the dungeon."
The glance with which Mr. Sylvester regarded her, suddenly faltered; he turned with quickness towards the fire. "A moment's joy is, then, excuse for a murder," exclaimed he. "God and the angels would not agree with you, Paula."
There was a quivering in his tone, made all the more apparent by its studied self-possession of a moment before. She trembled where she sat, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again, awed by his steady and abstracted gaze, now fixed before him in gloomy reverie. A moment passed. The clock ticking away on the mantel-piece seemed to echo the inevitable "Forever! never!" of Longfellow's old song. Neither of them moved. At length, in a low and trembling voice, Paula spoke:
"Is it murder, when the flower loves the dark of the dungeon more than it does the light of day?"
With a subdued but passionate cry he rose hastily to his feet. "Yes," said he, and drew back as if he could not bear the sight of her face or the glance of her eye. "Sunshine is the breath of flowers; sweet wooing gales, their natural atmosphere. He who meddles with a treasure so choice does it at his peril." Then as she hurriedly rose in turn, softened his whole tone, and assuming his usual air of kindly fatherhood, asked her in the most natural way in the world, what he could do to make her happy that day.
"Nothing," replied she, with a droop of her head; "I think I will go and see Cicely."
A short sigh escaped him. "The carriage shall be ready for you," said he. "I hope your friend's happiness will overflow into your own gentle bosom, and make the day a very pleasant one. God bless your young sweet heart, my Paula!"
Her breast heaved, her large, dark, mellow eyes flashed with one quick glance towards his face, then she drew back, and in another moment left his side and quietly glided from the room. His very life seemed to go with her, yet he did not stir; but he sighed deeply when, upon turning towards the library-table, he found that she had carried away with her the silent testimonial of another and more fortunate man's love and devotion.