Infelice Part 46

"Of course I could not threaten him; but I told him the distressing truth, that I am very much afraid I shall fail if compelled to attempt a solo in public, for I know the audience at Mrs. Brompton's will be critical, and I feel extremely timid."

"And he dared you--under penalty of his everlasting wrath--to break down? Forbade you at your peril, to allow your frightened heart to beat the long-roll, or the tattoo?"

"No, though very positive, he was kind, and urged me to exert my will; reminding me that the effort was in behalf of dest.i.tute orphans, and that the charitable object should stimulate me."

"Charity! Madame Roland incautiously blundered in her grand apostrophe, hastily picked up the wrong word to fling at the heads of her brutal tormentors. Had she lived in this year of grace, she would certainly have said: 'Oh, Charity! how much hypocrisy is practised in thy name!' How many grim and ghastly farces are enacted in thy honour! Oh, Charity! heavenly maid! what solemn shameful shams are masked beneath thy celestial garments? Of late this fas.h.i.+onable amus.e.m.e.nt called 'Charity' has risen to the dignity of a fine art; and old-fas.h.i.+oned Benevolence that did its holy work silently and slyly in a corner, forbidding left hand to eavesdrop, or gossip with right hand, would never recognize its gaudy, noisy, bustling modern sister. Understand, it is not peculiar to our own great city,--is a rank growth that flourishes all over America, possibly elsewhere. At certain seasons, when it is positively wicked to eat chicken salad, porter-house steak, and boned turkey, and when the thought of attending the usual round of parties gives good people nightmare, and sinful folks yet in the bonds of iniquity a prospective claim to the pleasant and enticing style of future amus.e.m.e.nts which Orcagna painted at Pisa, then Charity rushes to the rescue of _ennuied_ society, and mercifully bids it give Calico b.a.l.l.s for a Foundling Hospital, or _The Musicale_ for the benefit of a Magdalen Home, or a Cantata and Refreshments to build a Sailors' Bethel, or help to clothe and feed the dest.i.tute. A few ladies dash around in open carriages and sell tickets, and somebody's daughters make ample capital for future investments, as Charity Angels, by riding, dancing, singing, and eating in becoming piquant costumes, for the 'benefit of the afflicted poor.'"

"Oh, Olga! how unjustly severe you are! How exceedingly uncharitable!

How can you think so meanly of the people with whom you a.s.sociate intimately?"

"I a.s.sure you I am not maligning 'our set,' only refer to a universal tendency of this advancing age. I merely strip the outside rind, and look at the kernel, and therefore I 'see the better, my dear,'

horrified little rustic Red Ridinghood! Now, you are quite in earnest, and you trudge along carrying your alms to this poor old Grandmother Charity; but before long you will have your eyes opened roughly, and learn as I did that the dear pitiful grandmother is utterly dead and gone; and the fangs and claws of the wolf will show you which way your cake and honey went. A most voracious wolf, this same Public Charity, and blessed with the digestion of an ostrich.

But go you to the Cantata, and sing your best, and if you happen to fall at the feet of pretty little Cecile Brompton, you will hear in the distance a subdued growl; the first note of the lupine fantasia that inevitably awaits you. Oh! I wonder if ever this green earth knew a time when hypocrisy and cant did not prowl even among the young lambs, pasturing in innocence upon the 'thousand hills' of G.o.d?

It seems to me that cant cropped out in the first pair that ever were born, and Cain has left an immense family. Cant everywhere, in science and religion; in churches and in courts; cant among lawyers, doctors, preachers; cant around the hearth; cant even around the hea.r.s.e. It is the carnival of cant, this age of ours, and heartily as I despise it, I too have been duly noosed and collared, and taught the b.u.t.tery dialect, and I am meekly willing to confess myself 'born thrall' of cant."

Regina smiled and shook her head, and tossing her large strong white hands restlessly over her pillow, Olga continued:

"Indeed, I am desperately in earnest, and it is a melancholy truth that Longfellow tells us: 'Things are not what they seem.' You appear disinclined to believe that I am one of those 'whited sepulchres,'

outwardly fair and comely, but filled with unsavoury dust and ugly grinning skulls? Life is a huge sham, and we are all masked puppets, jumping grotesquely, just as the strongest hands pull the wires.

Regina, I have gone to and fro upon the earth long enough to learn that the most acceptable present is never labelled advice; nevertheless, I would fain warn your unsophisticated young soul against some of the pitfalls into which I floundered, and got sadly bruised. Never openly defy or oppose your apparent destiny, so long as it is in the soft hands of that willow wand--your present guardian. Strategy is better than fierce a.s.sault, bloodless cunning than a gory pitched battle; Cambyses' cats took Pelusium more successfully than the entire Persian army could have done, and the head dresses Hannibal arranged for his oxen, delivered him from the clutches of Fabius and the legions. In my ignorance of polite and prudent tactics, I dashed into the conflict, yelled, clawed (metaphorically, you understand), and fought like the Austrians at Wagram; but of course came out always miserably beaten, with trailing banners and many gaping wounds. Regina, you might just as well stand below the Palisades, and fire at them with cartridges of boiled rice, as make open fight with Erle Palma. Be wise and a.s.sume the appearance of submission, no matter how stubbornly you are resolved not to give up. Don't you know that Cilician geese outwit even the eagles? In pa.s.sing over Taurus, the geese always carry stones in their mouths, and thus by bridling their gabbling tongues they safely cross the mountain infested with eagles, without being discovered by their foes. I commend to you the strategy of silence."

"Do not counsel me to be insincere and deceitful. I consider it dishonourable and contemptible."

"Why will you persist in using words that have been out of style as long as huge hoop-skirts, coal-scuttle bonnets, and long-tailed frock-coats? Once, I know, ugly things and naughty ways were called outright by their proper, exact names; but you should not forget that the world is improving, and _nous avons change tout cela!_

'We have that sort of courtesy about us, We would not flatly call a fool a fool.'

I daresay some benighted denizens of the remote rural districts might be found, who still say 'tadpole,' whereas we know only that embryonic batrachians exist: and it is just possible that in the extreme western wilds a poor girl might rashly state that being sleepy she intended 'going to bed,' which you must admit could be an everlasting stigma and disgrace here, where all refined people merely 'retire;' leaving the curious world to conjecture whither,--into the cabinet of a diplomatist, the confession box of a cathedral, the cell of an anchorite, or to that very essential and comfortable piece of household furniture which at this instant I fully appreciate, and which the Romans kept in their _cubiculum_. Even in my childhood, when I was soaped and rubbed and rinsed by my nurse, the place where the daily ablution was performed was frankly called a bath-rub in a bathroom; but now _creme de la creme_ know only 'lavatory.' Just so, in the march of culture and reform, such vulgarly nude phrases as 'deceitful' have been taken forcibly to a popular tailor, and when they are let loose on society again you never dream that you meet anything but becomingly dressed 'policy;' and fas.h.i.+onable 'diplomacy' has hunted 'insincerity'--that other horrid remnant of old-fogyism--as far away from civilization as are the lava beds of the Modocs. If ghosts have risible faculties, how Machiavelli must laugh, watching us from the Elysian Fields! Sometimes silence is power; try it."

"But is seems to me the line of conduct you advise is cowardly, and that, I think, I could never be."

"It is purely from ignorance that you fail to appreciate the valuable social organon I want to teach you. Of course you have heard your guardian quote Emerson? He is a favourite author with some who frequent the cla.s.sic halls of the 'Century;' but perhaps you do not know that he has investigated 'Courage,' and thrown new light upon that ancient and rare attribute of n.o.ble souls? Now, my dear, in dealing with Erle Palma, if you desire to trim the lion's claws, and crimp his mane, adopt the courage of silence."

"Have you found it successful?"

"Unfortunately I did not study Emerson early in life, else I night have been saved many conflicts, and much useless bloodshed. Now I begin to comprehend Tennyson's admonition, 'Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers,' and I generously offer to economize your school fees, and give you the benefit of my dearly bought experience."

"Thank you, Olga; but I would rather hear about the wonderful piece of good fortune, of which you promised to tell me."

"Ah, I had almost forgotten. Wonderful, glorious good fortune! The price of Circa.s.sian skins has gone up in the matrimonial slave-market."

Regina laid aside her sewing, opened her eyes wider, and looked perplexed.

"You have not lived in moral Constantinople long enough to comprehend the terms of traffic? You look like a stupid fawn, the first time the baying of the hounds scares it from its quiet sleep on dewy moss and woodland violets! Oh you fair pretty, innocent young thing! Why does not some friendly hand strangle you right now, before the pack open on your trial? You ought to be sewed up in white silk, and laid away safely under marble, before the world soils and spoils you."

For a moment a mist gathered in the bright eyes that rested so compa.s.sionately, so affectionately on the girlish countenance beside her, and then Olga continued in a lighter and more mocking tone:

"Can you keep a secret?"

"I think so. I will try."

"Well, then, prepare to envy me. Until yesterday I was poor Olga Neville, with no heritage but my slender share of good looks, and my ample dower of sound pink and white, strawberry and cream flesh, symmetrically spread over a healthy osseous structure. Perhaps you do not know (yet it would be remarkable if some gossip has not told you) that poor mamma was sadly cheated in her second marriage; and after bargaining with Mammon never collected her pay, and was finally cut off with a limited annuity which ceases at her death. My own poor father left nothing of this world's goods, consequently I am unprovided for. We have always been generously and kindly cared for, well fed, and handsomely clothed by Mr. Erle Palma, who, justice constrains me to say, in all that pertains to our physical well-being, has been almost lavish to both of us. But for some years I have lost favour in his eyes, have lived here as it were on sufferance, and my bread of late has not been any sweeter than the ordinary batch of charity loaves. Yesterday I was a pensioner on his bounty, but the G.o.d of this world's riches--_i.e._, Plutus--in consideration no doubt of my long and faithful wors.h.i.+p at his altars, has suddenly had compa.s.sion upon me, and to-day I am prospectively one of the richest women in New York. Now do you wonder that Circa.s.sia is so jubilant?"

"Do you mean that some one has died, and left you a fortune?"

"Oh no! you idiotic cherub! No such heavenly blessing as that. Plutus is even shrewder than a Wall Street broker, and has a sharp eye to his own profits. I mean that at last, after many vexatious and grievous failures, I am promised a most eligible alliance, the highest market price. Mr. Silas Congreve has offered me his real estate, his stocks of various kinds, his villa at Newport, and his fine yacht. Congratulate me."

"He gives them to you? Adopts and makes you his heiress? How very good and kind of him, and I am so glad to hear it."

"He offers to many me, you stupid dove!"

"Not that Mr. Congreve who dined here last week, and who is so deaf?"

"That same veritable Midas. You must know he is not deaf from age; oh no! Scarlet fever when he was teething."

"You do not intend to marry him?"

"Why not? Do you suppose I have gone crazy, and lost the power of computing rents and dividends? Are people ever so utterly mad as that? If I were capable of hesitating a moment, I should deserve a strait-jacket for the remainder of my darkened days. Why, I am reliably informed that his property is unenc.u.mbered, and worth at least two millions three hundred thousand dollars! I think even dear mamma, who mother-like overrates my charms, never in her rosiest visions dreamed I could command such a high price. The slave trade is looking up once more; threatens to grow brisk, in spite of Congressional prohibition."

She sat quite erect, with her hands clasped across the back of her head; a crimson spot burning on each cheek, and an unnatural l.u.s.tre in her laughing eyes.

"Olga, do you love him?"

"Now I am sure you are the identical white pigeon that Noah let out of the ark; for nothing less antediluvian could ask such obsolete, such utterly dead and buried questions! I love dearly and sincerely rich laces, old wines, fine gla.s.s, heavy silver, blooded horses fast and fiery, large solitaires, rare camei; and all these comfortable nice little things I shall truly honour, and tenaciously cling to, 'until death us do part,' and as Mrs. Silas Congreve--hus.h.!.+ Here comes mamma."

"Olga, why are you not up and dressed? You accepted the invitation to 'lunch' with Mrs. St. Clare, and what excuse can I possibly frame?"

"I have implicit faith in your ingenuity, and give you _carte blanche_ in the manufacture of an apology."

"And my conscience, Olga?"

"Oh dear! Has it waked up again? I thought you had chloroformed it, as you did the last spell of toothache a year ago. I hope it is not a severe attack this time?"

She took her mother's hand, and kissed it lightly.

"My daughter, are you really sick?"

"Very, mamma; such fits of palpitation."

"I never saw you look better. I shall tell no stories for you to Mrs.

St. Clare."

"Cruel mamma! when you know how my tender maidenly sensibilities are just now lacerated by the signal success of such patient manoeuvring!

Tell Mrs. St. Clare that like the man in the Bible who could not attend the supper, because he had married a wife, I stayed at home to ponder my brilliant prospects as Madame Silas----"

"Olga!" exclaimed Mrs. Palma, with a warning gesture toward Regina.

"Do you think I could hide my bliss from her? She knows the honour proffered me, and has promised to keep the secret."