The Sword of Damocles Part 30

'He holds the destinies of the j.a.phas in his hand, does he not?'

"'Does he?' I involuntarily whispered to myself; following the steady poise of her head and the a.s.sured movements of her graceful form, with a glance of doubt, but loving her all the same, O loving her all and ever the same!

"'Your father is not the man to cross you when the object of your affections is as worthy as this gentleman. He loved your mother too fondly.'

"'He did?' She had turned quick as a flash and was looking me straight in the eyes.

"'I never saw such union!' I exclaimed, vaguely remembering that her mother's name had always seemed to have power to move her. 'There was no parade of it before the world; but here at their own fireside, it was heart to heart and soul to soul. It was not love it was a.s.similation.'

"The young girl rose upon me like a flame; her very eyes seemed to dart fire; her lips looked like living coals; she was almost appalling in her terrible beauty and superhuman pa.s.sion. 'Not love!' she exclaimed, her every word falling like a burning spark, 'not love but a.s.similation! Yet do you suppose if I told my father that my soul had found its mate; my heart its other half; that this, _this_ nature,' here she struck her breast as she would a stone, 'had at last found its master; that the wayward spirit of which you have sometimes been afraid, was become a part of another's life, another's soul, another's hope, do you suppose he would listen? Hus.h.!.+' she cried, seeing me about to speak. 'You talk of love, what do you know of it, what does he know of it, who saw his young wife die, yet himself consented to live? Is love a sitting by the fire with hand locked in hand while the winter winds rage and the droning kettle sings? Love is a going through the fire, a braving of the winter winds, a scattering of the soul in sparks that the night and the tempest lick up without putting out the germ of the eternal flame.

Love!' she half laughed; 'O, it takes a soul that has never squandered its treasure upon every pa.s.sing beggar, to know how to love! Do you see that star?' It was night as I have said and we were standing near an open window. 'It has lost its moorings and is falling; when it descries the ocean it will plunge into it; so with some natures, they soar high and keep their orbit well, till an invisible hand turns them from their course and they fall, to be swallowed up, aye swallowed up, lost and buried in the great sea that has awaited them so long.'

"'And you love--like this--' I murmured, quailing before the power of her pa.s.sion.

"'Would it not be strange if I did not,' she asked in an altered voice.

'You say he is everything n.o.ble, handsome and attractive.'

"Yes, yes,' I murmured, 'but--'

"She did not wait to hear what lay behind that but. Picking up her flowers, she hastily crossed the room. 'Did my young mother shriek from joy, when my father's horses ran away with them along that deadly precipice at the side of the Southmore road? To lie for a few maddening moments on the breast of the man you love, earth reeling beneath you, heaven swimming above you, and then with a cry of bliss to fall heart to heart, down the hideous gap of some awful gulf, and be dashed into eternity with the cry still on your lips, that is what I call love and that is what I--'

"She paused, turned upon me the whole splendor of her face, seemed to realize to what an extent her impetuosity had lifted the veil with which she usually shrouded her bitterly suppressed nature, and calming herself with a sudden quick movement, gave me a short mocking courtesy and left the room.

"Do you wonder that for half the night I sat up brooding and alive to the faintest sounds!

"Next day Mr. Holt called again, and a couple of weeks after--long enough to enable Colonel j.a.pha to make whatever inquiries he chose as to his claims as a gentleman of means and position--sent a formal entreaty for Jacqueline's hand. I had never seen Colonel j.a.pha more moved. His admiration for the young man was hearty and sincere. From a worldly point of view, as well as from all higher standpoints, the match was one of which he could be proud; and yet to speak the word that would separate from him the only creature that he loved, was hard as the cutting off an arm or the plucking out of an eye. 'Do you think she loves him?' asked he of me with a rare condescension of which he was not often guilty. 'You are a woman and ought to understand her better than I. Do you think she loves him?'

"After the words I had heard her speak, what could I reply but, 'Yes, sir; she is of a reserved nature and controls her feelings in his presence, but she loves him for all that, with the intensest fervor and pa.s.sion.'

"He repeated again, 'You are a woman and you ought to know.' And then called his daughter to him.

"I cannot tell what pa.s.sed between them, but the upshot of it was, that the Colonel despatched an answer to the effect that the father's consent would not be lacking, provided the daughter's could be obtained. I learned this from Jacqueline herself who brought me the letter to post.

"'You see then, that your father understands,' said I.

"Her rich red lip curled mockingly, but she did not reply.

"Naturally Mr. Holt answered to this communication in person. Jacqueline received him with a fitful coquetry that evidently puzzled him, for all the distinguis.h.i.+ng charm which it added to a beauty apt to be too reserved and statue-like. She however took his ring which blazed on her finger like a drop of ice on congealed snow. 'I am engaged,' she murmured as she pa.s.sed by my door, 'and to a Holt!' The words rang long in my ears; why?

"She desired no congratulations; she permitted nothing to be said about her engagement, among the neighbors. She had even taken off her ring which I found lying loose in one of her bureau drawers. And no one dared to remonstrate, not even her father, punctillious as he was in all matters of social etiquette. The fact is, Jacqueline was not the same girl she had been before she gave her promise to Mr. Holt. From the moment he bade her good-bye, with the remark that he was going away to get a golden cage for his bride, she began to reveal a change. The cold reserve gave way to feverish expectancy. She trod these rooms as if there were burning steels in the floors, she looked from the windows as if they were prison bars; night and day she gazed from them yet she never went out. The letters she received from him were barely read and tossed aside; it was his coming for which she hungered. Her father noticed her restless and eager gaze, and frequently sighed. I felt her strange removed manner and secretly wept. 'If he does not amply return this pa.s.sion,' thought I, 'my darling will find her life a h.e.l.l!'

"But he did return it; of that I felt sure. It was my only comfort.

"Suddenly one day the restlessness vanished. Her beauty burst like a flame from smoke; she trod like a spirit that hears invisible airs. I watched her with amazement till she said 'Mr. Holt comes to-night,' then I thought all was explained and went smiling about my work. She came down in the afternoon clad as I had never seen her before. She wore one of her Boston dresses and she looked superb in it. From the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, she dazzled like a moving picture; but she lacked one adornment; there was no ring on her finger. 'Jacqueline!'

cried I, 'you have forgotten something.' And I pointed towards her hand.

"She glanced at it, blushed a trifle as I thought, and pulled it out of her pocket. 'I have it,' said she, 'but it is too large,' and she thrust it carelessly back.

"At three o'clock the train came in. Then I saw her eye flash and her lip burn. In a few minutes later two gentlemen appeared at the gate.

"'Mr. Holt and his brother!' were the words I heard whispered through the house. But I did not need that announcement to understand Jacqueline at last."

XXVI.

A MAN'S JUSTICE AND A WOMAN'S MERCY.

"Fair is foul and foul is fair."

--MACBETH.

"Have you ever seen a man whose instantaneous effect upon you was electrical; in whose expression, carriage, or manner, there was concealed a charm that attracted and interested you, apart from his actual worth and beauty? Such a one was Mr. Roger Holt, the gentleman I now discerned entering the gate with Jacqueline's lover. It was not that he was handsome. He could not for one moment bear any comparison with his brother in substantial attraction, and yet when they were both in the room, you looked at him in preference to the other, and was vexed with yourself for doing so. He seemed to be the younger as he was certainly the smaller; yet he took the lead, even in coming up the walk.

Why had he not taken it in the deeper and more important matter? Was it because he did not love her?

"I was not present when Jacqueline greeted her guests and presented Mr.

Roger Holt to her father. But later in the day I spent a half hour with them and saw enough to be able to satisfy myself as to the falsity of my last supposition. Never had I seen on a human countenance the evidences of a wilder pa.s.sion than that which informed his features, as he sat in the further window of the parlor, presumably engaged in admiring the autumn landscape, but really occupied in casting short side-long glances at Jacqueline, who sat listening with a superb nonchalence, but with a restless gleam in her wandering eye, to the genial talk between her acknowledged lover and the Colonel. I half feared he would rise from his seat, and flinging himself before her, demand then and there an explanation of her engagement.

"But beyond the impatience of those short burning glances, he controlled himself well, and it was Jacqueline who moved at last.

"I saw the purpose growing in her eyes long before she stirred. The face which had been a mystery to me from her cradle, was in the presence of this man, like an open page which all might read. Its letters were flame, but that did not make them any less clear. I felt her swaying towards him, before an eyelash trembled or a quiver shook her tall form.

He may have understood her purpose also, for his eye wandered towards the open piano. She rose like a queen.

"'Mr. Roger Holt is a singer,' said she in pa.s.sing her father, 'I am going to ask him to give us one of the old ballads you profess to like so much.'

"The conversation at once ceased. The Colonel who made no secret of his fondness for music, turned at once towards the stranger, with an expression of great courtesy. Instantly that gentleman rose, and meeting the request of his hostess with a profound bow, proceeded at once to the piano. 'He will not leave it till he has spoken to her,' thought I. Nor did he, for that very moment as they stood turning her music over, I perceived his lips move in a hurried question, to which she as briefly responded, whereupon he caught up a sheet of music from the pile, and flinging back his head with a victorious smile, began to sing.

"Had I known what lay behind his words, I would have braved everything rather than have allowed him to utter a note in that room which had once rung with the carols of Jacqueline's mother. But what could I guess of the possible evil underlying the natural ebullition of unrestrained pa.s.sion that from some cause of pride or pique, had met with a strange inexplicable check. So I sat still, shuddering perhaps, but quiet in my corner; while the haunting tones of his strange and thrilling voice, rose and fell in the most uncanny of Scottish love songs. Nor did I do more than wonder with all my agitated soul, when at the conclusion Jacqueline came back, and pausing beside the man to whom she had given her troth, looked down in his beaming face and smiled with that overflow of delight, which she dared not bestow upon his brother.

"Another little incident of that hour remains engraven upon my memory.

She had been showing to the gentlemen a rare plant that stood in the front parlor window, and was dilating upon its marvels, when Mr. Robert Holt, her accepted lover, took in his clasp the small white hand wandering so invitingly among the leaves of the huge palm, and glancing at the finger which should have worn his ring, looked inquiringly into her face.

"'O,' said she, interrupting her little speech to draw away her hand, 'you miss your diamond? I have it, sir. It lies very safe in my pocket; it is a beautiful gem, but _your ring does not fit me_.'

"The way she said those words and the air with which she tossed back her head, must have made one heart in that room beat joyously, but it did not rea.s.sure me or subdue my secret apprehension.

"'Not fit!' her lover responded; and begged her to allow him to try it on and see, but she shook her head with wilful coquetry, and turning to the piano, commenced singing a gay little song that was like silver bells, shaken by a sudden and mighty tempest.

"Even the Colonel felt the change in his daughter, though he never guessed the cause, and came and went during the evening that followed, with certain odd sighs that made my heart ache with strange forebodings.

Only her lover was unconscious, or if he felt the new and wayward force and fire in her manner, attributed it to his own presence and unspeakable devotion. Mr. Roger Holt, on the contrary, thoroughly understood it. Though he was strangely calm, as calm now as he had previously been alert and fiery, he never lost a gleam of her eye in his direction, or a turn of her form towards the chair where he sat. But the smile with which he contemplated her was not pleasant to me. It was informed with self-consciousness, and a certain hard triumph, that made it almost sinister. 'She has given her hand to the true man,' I mused, 'wherever her heart may be. But had she given it?' I began to doubt as I began to muse. With that uncontrollable will of hers, she was capable of anything; did she intend to break with Robert, now that she had seen Roger? I detected no signs of it beyond the evident delight they took in each other's presence. They were guilty of no further conversation of a secret or intimate character, and when with the striking of the clock at ten, Mr. Robert Holt rose to leave, his brother followed without any demur, even preceding him in his departure and limiting his farewell to a short brotherly pressure of Jacqueline's fair hand.

"But much may be conveyed in a pressure, or so I began to think as I heard the low laugh that rippled from Jacqueline's lips as she turned to go up to her room; and if I had been her mother--

"But that is not what you want to hear. Enough that I did not follow her, that I did not even acquaint Colonel j.a.pha with my fears, that indeed I did nothing but lie awake, praying and asking what I ought to do. There had been so little said; there had been so little done. A word, a sentence between them, the interchange of a couple of songs, and--What else that I could communicate to another?