Vashti Part 9

'Gray distance hid each s.h.i.+ning sail, By ruthless breezes borne from me; And lessening, fading, faint, and pale, My s.h.i.+ps went forth to sea.'"

CHAPTER VI.

"Mother, I am afraid Mrs. Gerome does not like this place, or the furniture, or something, for she has not spoken a kind word about the house since she came. She looks closely at everything, but says nothing. What do you suppose she thinks?"

Robert Maclean, the gardener at "Solitude," paused abruptly, as his mother pinched his arm sharply and whispered,--

"Whist! There she comes down the azalea walk; and no one likes to stumble upon their own name when they are not expecting the sound or sight of it. No; she has turned off towards the cedars, and does not see us. As to her likes and dislikes, there is nothing this side of heaven that will content her; and you might have known better than to suppose she would be much pleased with anything. No matter what she thinks, she seldom complains, and it is hard to find out her views; but she told me to tell you that she approved all you had done, and thanked you for the pains you have taken to arrange things comfortably."

Old Elsie tied the strings of her white muslin cap, and turned her back to the wind that was playing havoc with its freshly fluted frills.

"Mother, I heard her laugh yesterday, for the first time. It was a short, quick, queer little laugh, but it pleased me greatly. The cook had set some duck-eggs under that fine black Spanish hen; and, when they hatched, she marched off with the brood into the fowl-yard, where they made straight for the duck-pool and sailed in. The hen set up such a din and clatter that Mrs. Gerome, who happened to get a glimpse of them, felt sorry for the poor frightened fowl, and tried to drive the little ones out of the water; but, whenever she put her hand towards them to catch the nearest, the whole brood would quack and dive,--and, when she had laughed that one short laugh, she called to me to look after them and went back to the house. You don't know how strangely that laugh sounded."

"Don't I? Speak for yourself, Robert. I have heard her laugh twice, but it was when she was asleep, and it was an uncanny, bitter sound,--about as welcome to my ears as her death-rattle. Last night she did not close her eyes,--did not even undress; and the hall clock was striking three this morning when I heard her open the piano and play one of those dismal, frantic, wailing things she calls 'fugues,'

that make the hair rise on my head and every inch of my flesh creep as if a stranger were treading on my grave. When she was a baby, cutting her eye-teeth, she had a spasm; and seeing her straighten herself out and roll back her eyes till only the white b.a.l.l.s showed, I took it for granted she was about to die, and, holding her in my arms, I fell on my knees and prayed that she might be spared. Well, now, Robert, I am sorry I put up that pet.i.tion, for the Lord knew best; and it would have been a crowning mercy if he had paid no attention to my half-crazy pleadings and taken her home then. What meddling fools we all are! I thought, at that time, it would break my heart to shroud her sweet little body; but ah! I would rather have laid my precious baby in her coffin, with violets under her fingers, than live to see that desperate, unearthly look, come and house itself in her great, solemn, hungry, tormenting eyes, that were once as full of sparkles and merriment as the sky is of stars on a clear, frosty night. My son, we never know what is good for us; for, many times, when we clamor for bread we break our teeth on it; and then, again, when we rage and howl because we think the Lord has dealt out scorpions to us, they prove better than the fish we craved. So, after all, I conclude Christ understood the whole matter when he enjoined upon us to say, 'Thy will be done.'"

The old nurse wiped her eyes with the corner of her black silk ap.r.o.n, and, leaning against the trunk of a tree, crossed her arms comfortably over her broad and ample chest, while Robert busied himself in repotting some choice carnations.

"But, mother, do you really think she will be satisfied to stay here, after travelling so long up and down in the world?"

"How can I tell what she will or will not do? You know very well that she goes to sleep with one set of whims and wakes up with new ones.

She catches odd freaks as some people catch diseases. She said yesterday that she had had enough of travel and change, and intended to settle and live and die right here; but that does not prove that I may not receive an order next week to pack her trunks and start to Jericho or Halifax, and I should not think the world was upside down and coming to an end if such an order came before breakfast to-morrow.

Poor lamb! My poor lamb! Yonder she comes again. Do you notice how fast she walks, as if the foul fiend were clutching at her skirts or she were trying to get away from herself,--trying to run her restless soul entirely out of her wretched body? Come away, Robert, and let her have all the grounds to herself. She likes best to be alone."

Mother and son walked off in the direction of the stables, and the advancing figure emerged from the dense shade where interlacing limbs roofed one of the winding walks, and paused before the circular stand on which lemon, rose, white, crimson, and variegated carnations, nodded their fringed heads and poured spicy aromas from their velvety chalices.

The face and form of Mrs. Gerome presented a puzzling paradox, in which old age and youth seemed struggling for mastery; and "death in life" found melancholy verification. Tall, slender, and faultlessly made, the perfection of her figure was marred by the unfortunate carriage of her head, which drooped forward so heavily that the chin almost touched her throat and nearly destroyed the harmony of the profile outline. The head itself was n.o.bly rounded, and sternly cla.s.sic as any well authenticated antique, but it was no marvel that it habitually bowed under the heavy glittering ma.s.s of silver hair, which wound in coil after coil and was secured at the back by a comb of carved jet, thickly studded with small silver stars. The extraordinary l.u.s.trousness of these waves of gray hair that rippled on her forehead and temples like molten metal, lent a weird and wondrous effect to the straight, regular, rigid features,--daintily cut as those of Pallas, and quite as pallid. The delicate and high arch of the eyebrows was black as ebony, and in conjunction with the long jetty lashes formed a very singular contrast to the s.h.i.+ning white tresses, which lay piled like freshly fallen snow-drift above them.

The brow was full, round, smooth, and fair as a child's; and more than one azure thread showed the subtle tracery of veins, whose crimson currents left no rosy reflex on the firm, gleaming white flesh, through which they branched.

Beneath that faultless forehead burned unusually large eyes, deep as mountain tarns, and of that pure bluish gray that tolerates no hint of green or yellow rays. The dilated pupils intensified the steel color, and faint violet lines ran out from the iris to meet the central shadows, while above and below the heavy black fringes enhanced their sombre depths, where mournful mysteries seemed to float like corpses just beneath the crystal shroud of ocean waves. The pale, pa.s.sionless lips,--perfect in their pure curves, but defrauded of the blood which resolutely refused to come to the surface and tint the fine satin skin,--were lined in ciphers that the curious questioned and wondered over, but which few could read and none fully comprehend. The beautiful, frigid mouth, where all sweetness was frozen out to make room for hopelessness and defiance, would have admirably suited some statue of discrowned and smitten Hecuba; and no amount of sighs and sobs, no stormy bursts of grief or fierce invective, could rival the melancholy eloquence of its mute, calm pallor.

The wan face, with its gray globe-like eyes, and the metallic glitter of the prematurely silvered hair, matched in hue the pearl-colored muslin dress which fluttered in the wind; and, standing there, this gray woman of twenty-three looked indeed like Pygmalion's stone darling,--

"Fair-statured, n.o.ble, like an awful thing Frozen upon the very verge of life, And looking back along eternity With rayless eyes that keep the shadow Time."

Her frail, white hands, with their oval nails polished and opalescent, were exceedingly beautiful; and, where the creamy foam of the fine lace fell back from the dimpled wrists, quaintly carved jet serpents with blazing diamond eyes coiled around the throbbing thread-like pulses of sullen _sang azure_.

Bending over the carnations, she examined the gorgeous hues,--toyed with their fragile stems,--and then, glancing shyly over her shoulder like a startled fawn half expectant of hounds and hunter, she glided rapidly to an artificial mound crowned with a mouldering mossy plaster image of Ariadne and her pard, and stood surveying her new domain.

"Solitude" filled a semicircular hollow between low wooded hills, which ran down to lave their gra.s.sy flanks in the blue brine of the Atlantic, and const.i.tuted the horns of a crescent bay, on whose sloping sandy beach the billows broke without barrier.

The old-fas.h.i.+oned brick house--with sharp, peaked roof, turreted chimneys, and gable window looking down in front upon the clumsily cl.u.s.tered columns that supported the arched portico--was built upon a rocky knoll, of which nature laid the foundation and art increased the height; and, around and above it, towered a dense grove of ancient trees that shut out the glare of the sea and effectually screened the mansion from observation. The damp walls were heavily draped with the sombre verdure of ivy, whose ambitious tendrils clambered to the cleft chimney-tops, and peered impertinently over the broad stone window-sills, whence the indignant housemaid remorselessly sheared them away as often as their encroachments grew perceptible.

In the rear of the house, and toward the west, stretched orchard, vegetable garden, vineyard, and wheat-field, whose rolling green waves seemed almost to break against the ruddy trunks of cedars that clothed the hillside. To the left and north lay low, marshy, meadow land, covered with rank gra.s.s and frosted with saline incrustations; while south of the building extended s.p.a.cious grounds, studded here and there with n.o.ble groups of deodars, Norway spruce, and various ornamental shrubs, and bounded by a tall impenetrable hedge of osage orange. Before the house, which faced the ocean and fronted east, the lawn sloped gently down to a terrace surmounted by a granite bal.u.s.trade; and just beyond, supported by stone piers on the golden sands, stood an octagonal boat-house, built in the Swiss style, with red-tiled roof, and floored with squares of white and black marble, whence a flight of steps led to the little boat chained to one of the rocky piers. Along the entire length of the terrace a line of giant poplars lifted their aged, weather-beaten heads, high above all surrounding objects,--ever on the _qui vive_, looking seaward,--trim and erect as soldiers on dress parade, and defiant of gales that had shorn them of many boughs, and left ghastly scars on their glossy limbs.

Tradition whispered, with bated breath, that in the dim dawn of colonial settlement a rude log hut had been erected here by pirates, who came ash.o.r.e to bury their ill-gotten booty, and rumors were rife of b.l.o.o.d.y deeds and midnight orgies,--all of which sprang into more vigorous circulation, when, in laying the foundations of the boat-house piers, an iron pot containing a number of old French and Spanish coins was dug out of the sh.e.l.ls and sand.

Melancholy tales of stranded vessels and drowned crews, of a slaver burned to the water's edge to escape capture, and of charred corpses strewn on the beach, thickened the atmosphere of legendary gloom that enveloped the spot,--where the successive demise of several proprietors certainly sanctioned the feeling of dread and superst.i.tious distrust with which it was regarded. That the unenviable celebrity it had attained was referable to local causes generating disease, appeared almost incredible; for, if miasmatic exhalations rose dank and poisonous from the densely shaded humid house, they were promptly dispelled by the strong, invincible ocean-breeze, which tore aside leafy branches and muslin curtains, and wafted all noxious vapors inland.

A committee of medical sages having cautiously examined the place, unanimously averred that its reputed fatality could not justly be ascribed to any topographical causes. Whereupon the popular nerve, which closely connected the community with supernaturaldom, thrilled afresh; and all the calamities, real and imaginary, that had afflicted "Solitude" from a period so remote that "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," were laid upon the galled shoulders of some red-liveried, sulphur-scented Imp of Abaddon, whose peculiar mission was to haunt the "piratical nest;" and, in lieu of human victims, to addle the eggs, blast the grape crop, and make night hideous with spectral sights and sounds.

To an unprejudiced observer the hills seemed to have gleefully clasped hands and formed a half-circle, shutting the place in for a quiet breezy communion with garrulous ocean, whose waves ran eagerly up the strand to gossip of wrecks and cyclones, with the staid martinet poplars that nodded and murmured a.s.sent to all their wild romances.

Such was the pleasant impression produced upon the mind of the lonely woman who now owned it, and who hoped to spend here in seclusion and peace the residue of a life whose radiant dawn had been suddenly swallowed by drab clouds and starless gloom.

The Scotch are proverbially credulous concerning all preternatural influences; and, had Robert Maclean been cognizant of half the ghostly a.s.sociations attached to the residence which he had selected in compliance with general instructions from his mistress, it is scarcely problematical whether the house would not have remained in the hands of the real-estate broker; but, fortunately for their peace of mind, Elsie and her son were as yet in blissful ignorance of the dismal celebrity of their new home.

Resting her folded hands on the bare shoulders of the Ariadne, which modest lichens and officious wreaths of purple verbena were striving to mantle, Mrs. Gerome scanned the scene before her; and a quick, nervous sigh, that was almost a pant, struggled across her lips.

"Unto this last nook of refuge have I come; and, expecting little, find much. Shut out from the world, locked in with the sea,--no neighbors, no visitors, no news, no gossip,--solitary, shady, cool, and quiet,--surely I can rest here. Forked tongues of scandal can not penetrate through those rock-ribbed hills yonder, nor dart across that defying sea; and neither wail nor wa.s.sail of men or women can disturb me more. But how do I know that it will not prove a mocking cheat like Baiae and Maggiore, or Copais and Cromarty? I have fled in disgust and _ennui_ from far lovelier spots than this, and what right have I to suppose that contentment has housed itself as my guest in that old, mossy, brick pile, where mice and wrens run riot? Like Cain and Cartophilus, my curse travels with me, and I no sooner pitch my tent, than lo! the rattle and grin of my skeleton, for which earth is not wide enough to furnish a grave! Well! well! at least I shall not be stared to death here,--shall not be tormented by eye-gla.s.ses and sketch-books; can live in that dim, dark, greenish den yonder, un.o.bserved and possibly forgotten and finally sleep undisturbed in the dank shade of those deodars, with twittering birds overhead and a sobbing sea at my feet. How long--how long before that dreamless slumber will fall upon my heavy lids,--weary with waiting? Only twenty-three yesterday! My G.o.d, if I should live to be an old woman!

The very thought threatens insanity! Ten--twenty--possibly thirty years ahead of me. No; I could not endure it,--I should go mad, or destroy myself! If I were a delicate woman, if I only had weak lungs or a dropsical heart, or a taint of any hereditary infirmity that would surely curtail my days, I could be tolerably patient, hoping daily for the symptoms to develop themselves. But, unfortunately, though my family all died early, no two members, selected the same mode of escape from this bastile of clay; and my flesh is sound, and I am as strong and compact as that granite bal.u.s.trade, and--ha!

ha!--quite as hard. _Au pis aller_, if the burden of life becomes utterly intolerable I can shuffle it off as quickly as did that proud Roman, who, 'when the birds began to sing' in the dawn of a day heralded by tempestuous winds laden with perfume from the vales of Sicily, shut his eyes forever from the warm sparkling Mediterranean billows that broke in the roads of Utica, and p.r.i.c.ked the memory of inattentive Azrael with the point of a sword. Neither Phaedo, family, nor fame, could coax Cato to respect the prerogative of Atropos; and if he, 'the only free and unconquered man,' quailed and fled before the apparition of numerous advancing years, what marvel that I, who am neither sage nor Roman, should be tempted some fine morning when the birds are sounding _reveille_ around my chamber windows, to imitate 'what Cato did, and Addison approved'? After all, what despicable cowards are human hearts, and how much easier to die like Socrates, Seneca, and Zeno, than stagger and groan under the load of hated, torturing years, that are about as welcome to my shoulders as the 'old man of the sea' to Sinbad's! How long?--oh, how long?"

The gloomy gray eyes had kindled into a dull flicker that resembled the fitful, ghostly gleam of sheet lightning, falling through painted windows upon crumbling and defiled altars in some lonely ruined cathedral; and her low, shuddering tones, were full of a hopeless, sneering bitterness, as painfully startling and out of place in a woman's voice as would be the scream of a condor from the irised throats of brooding doves, or the hungry howl of a wolf from the tender lips of unweaned lambs. In the gloaming light of a soft gray sky powdered by a few early stars, stood this desolate gray woman, about whose face and dress there was no stain of color save the blue glitter of a large sapphire ring, curiously cut in the form of a coiled asp, with hooded head erect and brilliant diamond eyes that twinkled with every quiver of the marble-white fingers.

Impatiently she turned her imperial head, when the sound of approaching steps broke the stillness; and her tone was sharp as that of one suddenly roused from deep sleep,--

"Well, Elsie! What is it?"

"Tea, my child, has been waiting half-an-hour."

"Then go and get your share of it. I want none."

"But you ate no dinner to-day. Does your head ache?"

"Oh, no; my heart jealously monopolizes that privilege!"

The old woman sighed audibly, and Mrs. Gerome added,--

"Pray, do not worry yourself about me! When I feel disposed to come in I can find the way to the door. Go and get your supper."

The nurse pa.s.sed her wrinkled hand over the drab muslin sleeves and skirt, and touched the folds of hair.

"But, my bairn, the dew is thick on your head and has taken all the starch out of your dress. Please come out of this fog that is creeping up like a serpent from the sea. You are not used to such damp air, and it might give you rheumatic cramps."

"Well, suppose it should? Does not my white head ent.i.tle me to all such luxuries of old age and decrepitude? Don't bother me, Elsie."

She put out her hand with a repellent gesture, but Elsie seized it, and clasping both her palms over the cold fingers, said, with irresistible tenderness,--

"Come, dearie!--come, my dearie!"

Without a word Mrs. Gerome turned and followed her across the lawn and into the house, whose internal arrangement was somewhat at variance with its unpretending exterior.

The rooms were large, with low ceilings; and fire-places, originally wide and deep, had been recently filled and fitted up with handsome grates, while the heavy mantelpieces of carved cedar, that once matched the broad facings of the windows and the ma.s.sive panels of the doors, were exchanged for costly _verd antique_ and lumach.e.l.la. The narrow pa.s.sage running through the centre of the building was also wainscoted with cedar and adorned with fine engravings of Landseer's best pictures, whose richly carved walnut frames looked almost cedarn in the pale chill light that streamed upon them through the violet-colored gla.s.s which surrounded the front door and effectually subdued the hot golden glare of the sunny sun. The old-fas.h.i.+oned folding doors that formerly connected the parlor and library had been removed to make room for a low, wide arch, over which drooped lace curtains, partially looped with blue silk cord and ta.s.sels, and both apartments were furnished with sofas and chairs of rosewood and blue satin damask, while the velvet carpet, with its azure ground strewn with wreaths of white roses and hyacinths, corresponded in color.

Handsome book-cases, burdened with precious lore, lined the walls of the rear room; and on either side of a ma.s.sive ormolu _escritoire_, bronze candelabra shed light on the blue velvet desk where lay delicate sheets of gossamer paper with varied and _outre_ monograms, guarded by an exquisite marble statuette of Harpocrates, which stood in the mirror-panelled recess reserved for pen, ink, and sealing-wax.