CHAPTER XVI.
“Dr. Grey, who is that beautiful girl to whom Muriel introduced me this morning? I was so absorbed in admiration of her face that I lost her name.”
As he spoke, Mr. Gerard Granville struck the ashes from his cigar, and walked up to the table where Dr. Grey was sealing some letters.
“Her name is Salome Owen, and she is my sister’s adopted child.”
“What is her age, if I may be pardoned such impertinent queries?”
“I believe she has entered her eighteenth year.”
“She is a regal beauty, and shows proud blood as plainly as any princess.”
“Take care, Granville; imagination has cantered away with your penetration. Salome’s family were coarse and common, though doubtless honest people. Her father was a drunken miller, who died in an attack of delirium tremens, and left his children as a legacy to the county. I merely mention these deplorable facts to show you that your boasted penetration is not entirely infallible.”
“Miller or millionaire,—the girl would grace any court in Europe, and only lacks a dash of aplomb to make her irresistible. I have seen few faces that attracted and interested me so powerfully.”
“Yes, she certainly is very handsome; but I do not agree with you in thinking that she lacks aplomb. Granville, if you have finished your cigar, we will adjourn to the parlor, where the ladies are taking their tea.”
Dr. Grey collected his letters and walked away, followed by his guest; and, a moment after, a low, scornful laugh, floated in through the window which opened on the little flower-garden.
Miss Jane had requested Salome to gather the seeds of some 202 apple and nutmeg geraniums that were arranged on a shelf near the western window of the library; and, while stooping over the china jars, and screened from observation by a spreading lilac-bush, the girl had heard the conversation relative to herself.
Excessive vanity had never been numbered among the faults that marred her character, but Dr. Grey’s indifference to personal attractions, which strangers admitted so readily, piqued, and thoroughly aroused a feeling that was destined to bring countless errors and misfortunes in its train; and, henceforth,—
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“There was not a high thing out of heaven, Her pride o’ermastereth not.” |
Hitherto the love of one man had been the only boon she craved of heaven; but now, conscious that the darling hope of her life was crushed and withering under Dr. Grey’s relentless feet, she resolved that the admiration of the world should feed her insatiable hunger,—a maddening hunger which one tender word from his true lips would have assuaged,—but which she began to realize he would never utter.
During the last eighteen hours, a mournful change had taken place in her heart, where womanly tenderness was rapidly retreating before unwomanly hate, bitterness, and blasphemous defiance; and she laughed scornfully at the “idiocy” that led her to weary heaven with prayers for the preservation of a life that must ever run as an asymptote to her own. How earnestly she now lamented an escape, for which she had formerly exhausted language in expressing her gratitude; and how much better it would have been if she could mourn him as dead, instead of jealously watching him,—living without a thought of her.
All the girlish sweetness and freshness of her nature passed away, and an intolerable weariness and disappointment usurped its place. Since her acquaintance with Dr. Grey, he had been her sole Melek Taous, adored with Yezidi fervor; but to-day she overturned, and strove to revile and desecrate 203 the idol, to whose vacant pedestal she lifted a colossal vanity. Her bruised, numb heart, seemed incapable of loving any one, or anything, and a hatred and contempt of her race took possession of her.
The changing hues of Muriel’s tell-tale face when Mr. Granville arrived, and the excessive happiness that could not be masked, had not escaped Salome’s lynx vision; and very accurately she conjectured the real condition of affairs, relative to which Dr. Grey had never uttered a syllable. Bent upon mischief, she had, malice prepense, dressed herself with unusual care, and arranged her hair in a new style of coiffure, which proved very becoming.
Now, as the hum of conversation mingled with the sound of Muriel’s low, soft laugh, reached her from the parlor, her chatoyant eyes kindled, and she hastily went in to join the merry circle.
“Come here, child, and sit by me,” said Miss Jane, making room on the sofa, as her protégée entered.
“Thank you, I prefer a seat near the window.”
Dr. Grey sat in a large chair in the centre of the floor, with Muriel on an ottoman close to him, and Mr. Granville leaned over the back of the chair, while Miss Dexter shared Miss Jane’s old-fashioned ample sofa. In full view of the whole party, Salome seated herself at a little distance, and, with admirably assumed nonchalance, began to enclose and sew up the geranium-seeds, in some pretty, colored paper bags, prepared for the purpose.
After a few minutes Mr. Granville sauntered across the room, looked at the cuckoo clock, and finally went over to the window, where he leaned against the facing and watched Salome’s slender white fingers.
She was dressed in a delicate muslin, striped with narrow pink lines, and flounced at the bottom of the skirt, and wore a ribbon sash of the same color; while in the broad braids of hair raised high on her head, she had fastened a superb half-blown Baron Provost rose, just where two long glossy curls crept down. The puffed sleeves, scarcely reaching the elbows, displayed the finely rounded white arms, and the exactness 204 with which the airy muslin fitted her form, showed its symmetrical outline to the greatest advantage.
Muriel touched her guardian, and whispered,—
“Did you ever see Salome look so beautiful? Her coiffure to-night is almost Parisian, and how very becoming!”
Dr. Grey was studying the innocent, happy countenance of his unsuspecting ward, and he could not repress a sigh, when, turning his eyes towards Salome, he noticed the undisguised admiration in Mr. Granville’s earnest gaze.
A nameless dread made him take Muriel’s hand and lead her to the piano.
“Play something for me. I am music-hungry.”
“Is Saul sad to-night?” she asked, smiling up at him.
“A little fatigued and perplexed, and anxious to have his cares exorcised by the magic of your fingers.”
With womanly tact she selected a fantasia which Mr. Granville had often pronounced the gem of her repertoire, and momentarily expected to hear his whispered thanks; but page after page was turned, and still her lover did not approach the piano, where Dr. Grey stood with folded arms and slightly contracted brows. Muriel played brilliantly, and was pardonably proud of her proficiency, which Mr. Granville had confessed first attracted his attention; and to-night, when the piece was concluded and she commenced a Polonaise, she looked over her shoulder hoping to meet a grateful, fond glance. But his eyes were riveted on the fair rosy face at his side, and his betrothed bit her pouting lip and made sundry blunders.
As she rose from the piano-stool, Mr. Granville exclaimed,—
“Miss Muriel, you love music so well that I trust you will add your persuasions to mine, and induce Miss Owen to sing for us, as she declares she is comparatively a tyro in instrumental music, and would not venture to perform in your presence.”
“She has never sung for me, but I hope she will not refuse your request. Salome, will you not oblige us?”
Muriel’s eyes were dim with tears, but her sweet voice did not falter.
“I was not aware that you sang at all,” said Miss Dexter, looking up from a mat which she was crocheting.
“She has a fine voice, but is very obstinate in declining to use it. Come, Salome, don’t be childish, dear. Sing something,” coaxed Miss Jane.
The girl waited a few seconds, hoping that another voice would swell the general request, but the lips she loved best were mute; and, suddenly tossing the paper bags from her lap, she rose and moved proudly to the piano.
“Miss Manton, will you or Miss Dexter be so kind as to play my accompaniment for me? I am neither Liszt, nor Thalberg, and the vocal gymnastics are all that I can venture to undertake.”
Muriel promptly resumed her seat before the instrument, and played the symphony of an aria from “Favorite,” which Salome placed on the piano-board. Barilli had assured her that she rendered this fiery burst of rage and hatred as well as he had ever heard it; and, folding her fingers tightly around each other she drew herself up to her full height, and sang it.
Mr. Granville leaned against the piano, and Dr. Grey was standing in the recess of the window when the song began, but ere long he moved forward unconsciously and paused, with his hand on his ward’s shoulder and his eyes riveted in astonishment on Salome’s countenance. She knew that the approbation and delight of this small audience was worth all the encore shouts of the millions who might possibly applaud her in future years; and if ever a woman’s soul poured itself out through her lips, all that was surging in Salome’s heart became visible to the man who listened as if spell-bound.
Miss Jane grasped her crutches, and rose, leaning upon them, while a look of mingled joy and wonder made her sallow face eloquent; and Miss Dexter dropped her ivory needle, and gazed in amazement at the singer. Muriel forgot her chords,—turned partially around, and watched in breathless surprise the marvelous execution of several difficult passages, 206 where the rich voice seemed to linger while improvising sparkling turns and trills that were strangely intricate, and indescribably sweet.
As she approached the close of her song, Salome became temporarily oblivious of pride, wounded vanity, and murdered hopes,—forgot all but the man at her side, for whose commendation she had toiled so patiently, and turning her flushed, radiant face, toward him, her magnificent eyes aflame with triumph looked appealingly up at his, and her hands were extended till they rested on his arm.
So the song ended, and for a moment the parlor was still as a tomb. Dr. Grey silently enclosed the girl’s two hands in his, and, for the first time since she had known him, Salome saw tears swimming in his grave, beautiful eyes, and noticed a slight tremor on his usually steady lips.
“There is nothing in the old world or the new comparable to that voice, and I flatter myself I speak ex cathedra. Miss Owen, you will soon have the public at your feet.”
She did not heed Mr. Granville’s enthusiastic eulogy. She saw nothing but Dr. Grey’s admiring eyes,—felt nothing but the close warm clasp, in which her folded fingers lay,—and her ears ached for the sound of his deep voice.
“Salome, I shall not soon forgive you for keeping me in ignorance of the existence of the finest voice it has ever been my good fortune to hear. Knowing your adopted brother’s fondness for music, how could you hoard your treasure so parsimoniously, denying him such happiness as you might have conferred?”
He untwined her fingers, which clung tenaciously to his, and saw that the blood ebbed out of cheeks and lips as she listened to his carefully guarded language. Silently she obeyed Miss Jane’s summons to the sofa.
“You perverse witch! Where have you been practising all these months, that have made you such a wonderful cantatrice? Child, answer me.”
“I did not wish to annoy the household by thrumming on the piano and afflicting their ears with false flat scales, consequently I followed the birds, and rehearsed with them, under 207 the trees, and down on the edge of the sea. If you like my voice I am glad, because I have studied to perfect it.”
“Like it, indeed! As if I could avoid liking it! But you must have had good training. Who taught you?”
“I took lessons from Barilli.”
“Aha,—Ulpian! Now you can understand how he contrives to feed his family. Salome’s sewing-money explains it all. Kiss me, dear. I always believed there was more in you than came to the surface.”
“Miss Owen ought to go upon the stage. Such gifts as hers belong to the public, who would soon crown her queen of song.”
Salome glanced at the handsome stranger, and bowed.
“It is my purpose, sir, to dedicate myself and future to the Opera, where I trust I shall not utterly fail, as I have been for a year studying with reference to this step.”
A bomb-shell falling in that quiet circle, would scarcely have startled its members more effectually; and, anxious to avoid comment, Salome quitted the parlor and ran out on the lawn.
After awhile she heard Muriel’s skilful touch on the piano, and, when an hour had elapsed, the echo of voices died away, and soon a profound silence seemed to reign over the house.
The hot blood was coursing thick and fast in her veins, and evil purposes brooded darkly over her oppressed and throbbing heart. She was thoroughly cognizant of the intense admiration with which Mr. Granville regarded her, and to-night she had compared his handsome face with the older, graver, and less regular features of Dr. Grey, and wondered why the latter was so much more fascinating. Her beauty transcended Muriel’s, and it would prove an easy task to supplant her in the affections of her not very ardent lover. Life in Paris, spiced with the political intrigues incident to diplomatic circles, would divert her thoughts, and might possibly make the coming years endurable. Was the game worth the candle? No thought of Muriel’s misery entered for an instant into this entirely sordid calculation, or would have deterred her even momentarily, had it presented itself 208 in expostulation. The girl’s heart had suddenly grown callous, and her hand would have ruthlessly smitten down any object that dared to cross her path, or retard the accomplishment of her schemes. Weary at last of pacing the dim starlit avenue, and yet too wretched to think of sleeping, she re-entered the house, and cautiously locking the door, threw herself into a corner of the parlor sofa, which stood just beneath the portrait she so often studied.
If she had not at this juncture been completely absorbed in gazing upon it, she might have seen the original, who soon rose and came forward from the shadow of the curtains.
“Salome, I wish to make you my confidante,—to tell you something which I have not yet mentioned even to Janet. Can I trust you, little sister?”
Resting against the arm of the sofa, he looked intently into her face, reading its perturbed lines.
“I presume you are amusing yourself by tantalizing my curiosity, as your experiments appear to have thoroughly satisfied you that I am utterly unworthy of trust. I follow the flattering advice you were so kind as to give me some time since, and make no promises, which shatter like crystal under the hammer of the first temptation. You see, sir, you are teaching me to be cautious.”
“You are teaching yourself lessons in dissimulation and maliciousness, that you will heartily rue some day, but your repentance will come too tardily to mend the mischief.”
She tried to screen her countenance, but he was in no mood for trifling, and putting his palm under her chin, forced her to submit to his scrutiny.
“Salome, if I did not cherish a strong faith in the latent generosity of your soul, I would not come to you as I do now to offer confidence, and demand it in return.”
She guessed his meaning, and her eyes glowed with all the baleful light that he had hoped was extinguished forever.
“Dr. Grey makes a grace of necessity, and a pretence of confiding that which has ceased to be a secret. Is such his boasted candor and honesty?”
“If I believed that you were already acquainted with what 209 I propose to divulge, I would not fritter away my time in appealing to a nobility of feeling which that fact alone would prove the hopelessness of my ever finding in you.”
He felt her face grow hot, and for an instant her eyes drooped before his, stern and almost threatening.
“Well, sir; I wait for your confidential disclosures. Is there a Guy Fawkes, or Titus Oates, plotting against the peace and prosperity of the house of Grey?”
“Verily I am disposed to apprehend that there may be.”
She endeavored to wrench her face from his hand, but he held it firmly, and continued,—
“I wish to say to you that Muriel is very sensitive, and I hope that during Mr. Granville’s visit, you will try to be as considerate and courteous as possible, to both. Salome, Gerard Granville has asked Muriel to be his wife, and she has promised to marry him at the expiration of a year.”
The girl laughed derisively, and exclaimed,—
“Pray, Dr. Grey, be so good as to indulge me with your motive in furnishing this piece of information?”
“Your astuteness forbids the possibility of any doubt with reference to my motives,—which are, explicitly, anxiety for Muriel’s happiness, and for the preservation of your integrity and self-respect.”
“What jeopardizes either?”
“Your heartless, contemptible vanity, which tempts you to demand a homage and incense that should be offered only where it is due,—at another, and I grieve to add, a purer shrine.”
“Ah! My unpardonable sin consists in having braided my black locks, and made myself comely! If you will procure an authentic portrait of the Witch of Endor, I will do proper penance by likening my appearance thereunto. Poor little rose! Can’t you open your pink lips and cry peccavi? Come down, sole ally and accomplice of my heinous vanity, and plead for me, and make the amende honorable to this grim guardian of Miss Muriel’s peace!”
She snatched the drooping rose from her hair, and tossed it at his feet.
“Salome, you forget yourself!”
His stern displeasure rendered her reckless, and she continued,—
“True, sir. I did forget that the poor miller’s child had no right to obtrude her comeliness in the presence of the banker’s daughter. I confess my ‘high crime and misdemeanor’ against the pet of fortune, and await my condign punishment. Is it your sovereign will that I shear my shining locks like royal Berenice, and offer them in propitiation? Or, does it seem ‘good, meet, and your bounden duty,’ to have me promptly inoculated with small-pox, for the destruction of my skin, which is unjustifiably smoother and clearer than—”
“Hush, hush!”
He laid his hand over her lips, and, for a while, there was an awkward pause.
“If it were only possible to inoculate your heart with a little genuine womanly charity,—if it were possible to persuade you to adopt as your rule of conduct that golden one which Christ gave as a patent of peace to all who followed it. But it is futile, hopeless. You will not, you will not,—and my fluttering dove is at the mercy of a famished eagle, already poised to swoop. I ‘reckoned without my host’ when I so confidently appealed to your magnanimity, to your feminine integrity of soul. You are a ‘deaf adder that stoppeth her ear.’”
“Which will not ‘hearken to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.’ Dr. Grey, what has the pampered heiress, the happy fiancée of that handsome man upstairs, to fear from the poverty-stricken daughter of a miller, who you conscientiously inform your guest passed from time to eternity through the gate opened by delirium tremens. Mark you, my ‘adder ears’ have not been sealed all the evening.”
She had taken his hand from her lips, and thrown it from her.
“People who condescend to listen to conversations that are not intended for them, generally deserve the punishment of 211 hearing unpleasant truths discussed. Salome, our interview is at an end.”
“Not yet. Do you sincerely desire to see Muriel Mr. Granville’s wife?”
“I do, because I know that she is strongly attached to him.”
“And you are sufficiently generous to sacrifice your happiness, in order to promote hers? Oh, marvellous magnanimity!”
“Your insinuation is beneath my notice.”
“How long have you known of her engagement?”
“Since the first interview I had with her, after her father’s death.”
“Let me see your face, Dr. Grey. If truth has not been hunted out of the earth, it took refuge in your eyes. There, I am satisfied. You never loved her. I think I must have been insane, or I would not have imagined it possible. No, no; she never touched your heart, save with a feeling of compassion. Don’t go, I want to say something to you. Sit down, and let me think.”
She walked up and down the room for ten minutes, and, with his face bowed on his hand, Dr. Grey watched and waited.
Finally he stooped to pick up the crushed rose on the floor, and then she came back and stood before him.
“I promise you I will not lay a straw in the path of Muriel’s happiness, and it shall not be my fault if Mr. Granville fails in a lover’s devoir. I was tempted to entice him from his sworn allegiance. Why should I deny what you know so well? But I will not, and when I give my word, it shall go hard with me but I keep it; especially when you hold the pledge. Are you satisfied? I know that you have little cause to trust me, but I tell you, sir, when I deceive you, then all heaven with its hierarchies of archangels can not save me.”
After all, Ulpian Grey was only a man of flesh and blood, and his heart was touched by the beauty of the young face, and the mournful sweetness of the softened voice.
“Thank you, Salome. I accept your promise, and rely upon it. As a pledge of your sincerity I shall retain this rose, and return it to you when little Muriel is a happy wife.”
She clasped her hands, and looked at him with a mournful, wistful expression, that puzzled him.
“My friend, my little sister, what is it? Tell me, and let me help you to do your duty, for I see that you are wrestling desperately with some great temptation.”
“Dr. Grey, be merciful to me. Send me away. Oh, for God’s sake, send me away!”
She had grown ghastly pale, and her whole face indexed a depth of anguish and despair that baffled utterance.
“My dear child, where do you desire to go? If your wishes are reasonable they shall be granted.”
“Will you persuade Miss Jane to take Jessie in my place, and send me to France or Italy?”
“To study music with the intention of becoming a prima donna?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My young friend, I cannot conscientiously advise a compliance with wishes so fraught with danger to yourself.”
“You fear that my voice does not justify so expensive an experiment?”
“On the contrary, I have not a doubt that your extraordinary voice will lift you to the highest pinnacle of musical celebrity; and, because your career on the stage promises to prove so brilliant, I shudder in anticipating the temptations that will unavoidably assail you.”
“You are afraid to trust me?”
“Yes, my little sister; you are so impulsive, so prone to hearken to evil dictates rather than good ones, that I dread the thought of seeing you launched into the dangerous career you contemplate, without some surer, safer, more infallible pilot than your proud, passionate heart. If you were homely, and a dullard, I should entertain less apprehension about your future.”
Her broad brow blackened with a frown that became a 213 terrible scowl, and her eyes gleamed like lightning under the edge of a thunderous summer cloud.
“What is it to you whether I live or die? The immaculate soul of Ulpian Grey, M.D., will serenely wing its way up through the stars, on and on to the great Gates of Pearl,—oblivious of the beggar who, from the lowest Hades, where she has fallen, eagerly watches his flight.”
“The anxious soul of Ulpian Grey will pray for yours, as long as we remain on earth. Salome, I am the truest friend you will ever find this side of the City of God; and, when I see you plunging madly into ruin, I shall snatch you back, cost me what it may. Your jeers and struggle have not deterred me hitherto, nor shall they henceforth. You are as incapable of guiding yourself aright, as a rudderless bark is of stemming the gulf-stream in a south-west gale; and I am afraid to trust you out of my sight.”
“Yes, I understand you; the good angel in your nature pities the demon in mine. But your pity stifles me; I could not endure it; and, besides, I cannot stay here any longer. I must go out into the world, and seize the fortune that people tell me my voice will certainly yield me.”
Flush and sparkle had died out of her face, which, in its worn, haggard pallor, looked five years older than when she entered the parlor, three hours before.
“Pecuniary considerations must not influence you, because, while Janet and I live, you shall want nothing; and when either dies, you will be liberally provided for. Dismiss from your mind a matter that has long been decided, and which no wish of yours can annul or alter.”
With an impatient wave of the hand, she answered,—
“Give to poor little Jessie and Stanley what was intended for me. They are helpless, but I can take care of myself; and, moreover, I am not contented here. I want to see something of the world in which—bon gré mal gré—I find myself. Let me go. Rousseau was a sage. ‘Le monde est le livre des femmes.’”
He shook his head, and said, sorrowfully,—
“No, your instincts are unreliable; and if you roam away 214 from Jane and from me, you will sip more poison than honey. Be wise, and remain where Providence has placed you. I will bring Jessie here, and you shall teach her what you choose, and Stanley can command all the educational advantages he will improve. After a while, you shall, if you prefer it, have a pleasant home of your own, and dwell there with the two little ones. Such has long been my scheme and purpose; but, during my sister’s life, she will never consent to give you up; and you owe it to her not to desert her in the closing years, when she most urgently requires the solace of your love and society.”
Salome covered her face with her hands, and something like a heavy dry sob shook her frame; but the spring of bitterness seemed exhaustless, and her voice was indescribably scornful in its defiant ring.
“You are very charitable, Dr. Grey, and I thank you for all your embryonic benevolent plans for me and my pauper relatives; but I have drawn a very different map for my future years. You seem to regard this house as a second ‘La Tour sans venin,’ which, like its prototype near Grenoble, possesses an atmosphere fatal to all poisonous, noxious things; but surely you forget that it has long sheltered me.”
“No, it has never arrogated the prerogative of ‘La Tour sans venin,’ but of one thing, my poor wilful child, you shall never have reason to be skeptical,—that dear Jane and I will indefatigably strive to serve you as faithfully and successfully, as did in ancient days, the Psylli whom Plutarch immortalized.”
While he spoke Dr. Grey had been turning over the leaves of the old family Bible, which happened to lie within his reach; and now, without premonition, he read aloud the fifty-fifth Psalm.
She listened, not willingly, but ex necessitate rei, and rebelliously; and, when he finished the Psalm, and knelt, with his face on his arms, which were crossed upon the back of a chair, she stood haughtily erect and motionless beside him.
His prayer was brief and fervent, that God would aid her in her efforts to curb her passionate temper, and to walk in 215 accordance with the teachings of Jesus; and that he would especially overrule all things, and guide her decision in the important step she contemplated. He rose, and turned towards her, but her countenance was hidden.
“Good night, Salome. God bless you and direct you.”
She raised her face, and her eyes sought his with a long, questioning, pleading gaze, so full of anguish that he could scarcely endure it. Then he saw the last spark of hope expire; and she bent her queenly head an instant, and silently passed from the parlor.
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“I have watched my first and holiest hopes depart, One after one; I have held the hand of Death upon my heart, And made no moan.” |