The Argonauts Part 30

"Great G.o.d!" exclaimed Darvid.

"What do you say, father?" inquired she.

"Your age, the brilliant position in which you have lived since childhood--and this disenchantment."

"Just this brilliant position, father--just because of this brilliant position, perhaps. We are not talking of me, however--but because of this, which in me you call disenchantment, I am able to understand mamma's wish to leave society, all the more because, if I were in her position, all homage, show, luxury, amus.e.m.e.nts would for me be as impossible as they are for her. This depends on character. Moreover, mamma remembers that everything which she uses is yours, and the use of it attended by your contempt, and the evident impossibility of ever coming to any understanding is such a poison--so I beg you to give me Krynichna. I am your daughter, and, as it seems to me, you have no thought of disinheriting me, so if I own Krynichna, mamma will live with me and receive everything from me alone."

Her voice grew weaker, and her posture less constrained, in her whole form there was an expression of suffering. Everything which she said cost her, in spite of appearances to the contrary, much effort and suffering. Darvid was silent a while, then he said:

"It seems to me that I am Ali Baba, listening to the tales of Sheherazade. If I should agree to your plan what would you do there?"

"I do not know clearly as yet. This is mamma's idea; her wish; she will discover more and tell me. We will examine; we shall see. Into mamma's plans, besides quiet obscurity, and modesty of life, labor enters also."

She spoke in a low, wearied voice:

"An idyl!" laughed Darvid.

"An idyl, father; I used to laugh at all idyls without knowing that I had one in myself. It has saved me from many, and, perhaps, dreadful things. Yes, I have an idyl: I love mamma."

Then her thin lips, famous in society for their precocious, bitter irony, quivered as do those of children when preparing to cry.

Darvid turned to her quickly, and said with a prolonged hiss:

"Why?"

She raised sad eyes to him, and with a voice in which Malvina's sweet tones were heard, she answered:

"I am not sure that anyone could tell why he or she loves. Mamma has always been kind--but I do not know--she is very pleasant, and she and I have been together always--I do not know--it may be, besides, that often I have seen her so unhappy. You see, father, that I am sincere; I answer all your questions as far as I am able. Have regard to mamma's scruples, I beg, and my request; do not oppose our plans."

Darvid stood in the middle of the room, he raised his head, his eyes had the flash of steel.

"No," said he. "My daughter shall not wither away in a remote corner with my consent, because it pleases her mother to hide her--shame there."

"Father," answered Irene, "I must explain that your resistance will only give a more permanent, and, for you, a more disagreeable, form to our withdrawal."

She rose, and again on her face, surrounded by the high ruff, was an expression of resolve and energy. A moment before she was full of emotion and pain, now with the need of defence she found energy.

"Do you suppose, father, that you can understand what happened, forgive, to use the general phrase, and restore your esteem and friends.h.i.+p to mamma?"

With a form as rigid as iron, and with an evil smile on his lips, Darvid answered immediately:

"No. I am very sorry that I cannot play a comedy of n.o.ble-mindedness, for this is perhaps a popular comedy. But that of which you speak is forever and altogether impossible."

Irene moved her head affirmatively.

"Then mamma and I must withdraw; if not to Krynichna to some remote place abroad--I know four European languages well, I know how to paint, and I know a few other things. Mamma possesses a real genius in several rare accomplishments, and you remember well her beautiful music. We will give lessons, and do something else--I know not what--we shall find means of existence. But I beg you, father, to believe that in no case shall we remain in this house."

With pale, almost with blue lips, she laughed and added:

"Either as inhabitants of Krynichna, or making our own living in some distant place--which do you prefer, father? In the last instance it depends on you. One of these two things we shall do most certainly; that is, properly speaking, I shall do it; I, who am mamma's only defence. I became of age some months ago. I have finished my twenty-first year, and--no one can hinder me from acting in this way."

Whoever had seen her at that moment would have believed, perforce, that no man and no thing would have power to hinder her in carrying out her resolve. Omitting differences of age and s.e.x, she seemed the living portrait of her father. The same cold self-confidence as in him; the same clear penetrating glance as of steel; the same enigmatical smile on impressionable and also cold lips. As if involuntarily, and lowering her voice, she said in addition:

"It is our duty to put a radical stop to the family idyl out of regard also to Cara. She is innocent yet--she knows nothing--she loves all, and not only loves but wors.h.i.+ps. Life has not touched her, even with the tip of one of its angel feathers. Just imagine what would happen if, into that little volcano of lofty feeling, a spark of this knowledge were to fall. And this may happen any moment. If we do not change the condition of affairs it will happen."

She was silent, and Darvid was silent also. It might seem that he recognized only Irene's last argument as worthy of attention. The two voices had grown silent, one after the other; then, somewhere in the corner of the room, was heard a rustle, not so low as before, far stronger, a low knocking rather than a rustle, and almost at the same time a servant in the open door of the antechamber called:

"The horses are ready."

Irene, who had turned her face toward the rustle, or knocking, thought some of the countless papers in the room had dropped from the furniture, or that some book had fallen. Darvid, who also had heard the knocking, or rustle, forgot it while looking at his watch.

"I shall be late," said he. "You have told me things over which I must meditate. I cannot deny that they possess considerable importance. Hence, I delay, and shall beg you soon to continue this conversation. Good-night, and perhaps till to-morrow."

"Let it be only till to-morrow. I beg you, father. Tomorrow."

Miss Mary was sitting in her pupil's bedroom, a beautiful nest which wealth had formed as a symbol of the springtime of life.

From the top of the walls to the bottom, cretonne, interchanged with muslin, formed succeeding folds on which the freshest flowers of spring seemed to have been scattered. The walls, the windows, the furniture were covered with a shower of forget-me-nots and rosebuds, strewn on grounds of yellow as pale as if sunlight had penetrated them slightly. Groups of green plants at the windows looked like little groves made ready for the songs of nightingales; artistic playthings, porcelain figures, suggested a child amused with dolls yet; but a mult.i.tude of large books in gilt bindings suggested the active and methodical development of a young mind, which surely had dreams of Paradise on that lace and satin bed which covered a bedstead inlaid with mother-of-pearl. On all the furniture: small arm-chairs, tables, screens, which reminded one of b.u.t.terfly-wings, mother-of-pearl rainbow-tints pa.s.sed into milk-white. Spring tones, joyous motives, light and graceful forms, filled the room of that little daughter of a millionnaire with an atmosphere of childish innocence and tenderness; it was lighted, from floor to ceiling, and from wall to wall, with a cheering light, poured from the rosy tulip-shaped shade of a grand lamp.

In that rosy lamp-light Miss Mary seemed full of care. Under her smooth hair her forehead was smooth and calm, but in her thoughtful eyes, and in the way that her head rested on her hand, anxiety was evident. Conscientiously devoted to the duties undertaken by her, she retained the warmth and purity which permeated the house of an Anglican pastor; chance had committed to her care, in a strange atmosphere, a rare spirit, one of those which come to the world in the form of a flame. Even three years earlier, Cara had seemed to her, at first glance, one of those souls for whom life is love, wors.h.i.+p, trust, and--nothing more.

No ambitions or imaginings beyond those. All her thoughts and wishes issued from her heart and went back to it. Her innate sensitiveness was inexplicable in its source, just as genius is in other persons. Sensitiveness in her demanded the accomplishment of her wishes as imperiously as, in organisms of another sort, hunger claims satisfaction for the body. She was by nature a flame and a bird. The riddle of her existence was involved in two words: to blaze and to fly. Besides, she had impulse and caprice; she loved to twitter, and to laugh quietly in a corner. From the thoughtfulness into which she dropped oftener and oftener, she woke up as a gladsome and petted child; that room was filled with her quick speech, her thin voice, her gestures, almost theatrical, her laughing, her humming, and at times all the drawing-rooms were filled with them.

This day she woke up full of twittering, and before dressing threw her bare arms around Miss Mary, looking into her eyes, declaiming verses, telling childish dreams.

"Why are you so delighted?" inquired Miss Mary. "Is it at the coming ball?"

Cara pouted her scarlet lips contemptuously, and answered:

"The ball! What do I care? I do not want the ball! Mamma and Ira do not want it either, so I will go to-day and beg father to defer it. But I am delighted this morning! The sun is so pleasant! Do you see how the rays quiver; how they slip among the leaves, like little snakes, or spring, like golden b.u.t.terflies?"

With outstretched finger she showed the play of sunrays among the clumps of green at the windows; herself in white muslin which covered her slender neck and childish breast, and with naked arms, she might remind one of a b.u.t.terfly escaping from the chrysalis of childhood.

In the evening (of that day) Cara circled about the room; her mouth filled with historical names, and lines of poetry, with which she had been occupied all day. Finally, she caught Puffie in her arms, and, courtesying so low before Miss Mary that she touched the floor, announced that she was going to her father.

From time immemorial she had not talked with him a moment.

Sometimes he was going out, or had not the time. But to-day she would watch him, she would wait till all his business was finished, all his guests gone; she would seize her father and bring him to her mother's study. Miss Mary would go there; perhaps Maryan would be there too.

Her idyllic heart, like a bird in a grove, was eternally dreaming of quiet retreats, of confidential talks, of the attachment of hearts and the pressure of hands. Her picture of the Anglican rectory taken from Miss Mary's narrative, and situated in a grove of old oaks, smiled at her like a bit of Paradise. "But mamma's study is so quiet, and full of fragrant flowers--"

An hour had pa.s.sed since she had skipped away with Puffie in her arms, and with the reflection of a bit of Paradise in her eyes.

Miss Mary felt alarmed. For some time she had felt continual alarm. She observed carefully the change taking place in Cara's disposition, and discovered in it causes for anxiety. But she could do nothing. While she was friendly to the family to which fate had brought her, and while she experienced from it kindness mingled with respect, it was to her a stranger. She observed everything, and said nothing. She strove, more and more, to be inseparable from Cara, and to turn her attention toward things of remote interest. That was a splendid mansion, but terrors were roaming around in its drawing-rooms, among plushes, mirrors, damasks, satins, and gold.

From the gates of the mansion, the rumble of a carriage went forth, grew faint in the street, and was lost in the distance.

The master of the mansion was in that carriage which sank in the uproar of the city, to return, barely, at daybreak. A quarter of an hour pa.s.sed, Cara did not return. Maybe she went to her mother? Another quarter of an hour. Miss Mary rose up, took a small candlestick in her hand with a candle, which she lighted to use in her wandering through the series of drawing-rooms. But among the soft folds of cretonne and muslin the lofty door, ornamented with gilded arabesques and borders, opened slowly, and Cara walked into the chamber holding Puffie at her bosom. Her face was so bent that the lower part of it was hidden in the silky coat of the little animal. Miss Mary, sitting down again, inquired:

"Where were you, Cara, after your father went away? With mamma?"

In answer, a few steps from the door, the sound of a fall was heard. That was Puff, he had dropped from her arms to the floor.

She had let him slip down along her dress. Cara had never treated her favorite with such indifference, or so carelessly. Leaning forward, Miss Mary fixed her eyes on the young girl. Oh, my G.o.d!

What has happened? Who can tell, but something has happened, that is certain. Cara's cheeks, recalling usually the leaves of a full rose, were as white as the soft muslin covering her chamber, and her lips, always scarlet, formed a barely visible line, pale and narrow. Tall, slender, and erect, without the slightest movement of hand or head, with dry eyes looking somewhere into remoteness, she pa.s.sed through the room, and with automatic movement dropped into a low chair near Miss Mary, who touched her hand and felt the cold of ice in it.