CHAPTER XXXI.
Another week passed. Ben had received a letter from Veronica, informing him that letter-writing was a kind of composition she was not fond of. He must come to her, and then there would be no need for writing. Her letter exasperated him. His tenacious mind, lying in wait to close upon hers, was irritated by her simple, candid behavior. I could give him no consolation, nor did I care to. It suited me that his feelings for her weakened his penetration in regard to me.
When he roused at the expression which he saw Desmond fix upon me the night that Major Millard was there, I expected a rehearsal from him of watchfulness and suspicion; but no symptom appeared. I was glad, for I was in love with Desmond. I had known it from the night of Miss Munster's party. The morning after I woke to know my soul had built itself a lordly pleasure-house; its dome and towers were firm and finished, glowing in the light that "never was on land or sea." How elate I grew in this atmosphere! The face of Nemesis was veiled even. No eye saw the pure, pale nimbus ringed above it. I did not see him, except as an apparition, for suddenly he had become the most unobtrusive member of the family, silent and absent. Immunity from espionage was the immutable family rule. Mrs. Somers, under the direction of that spirit which isolated me from all exterior influences, for a little time had shut down the lid of her evil feelings, and was quiet; watching me, perhaps, but not annoying. Mr. Somers was engaged with the subject of ventilation. Ann, to convince herself that she had a musical talent, practiced of afternoons till she was turned out by Adelaide, who had a fit of reading abstruse works, sometimes seeking me with fingers thrust between their leaves to hold abstract conversations, which, though I took small part in them, were of service.
That portion of the world of emotions which I was mapping out she was profoundly indifferent to. My experiences to her would have been debasing. As she would not come to me, I went to her, and gained something.
Ben, always a favorite with his father, pursued him, rode with him, and made visits of pleasure or business, with a latent object which kept him on the alert.
I had been in Belem three weeks; in a week more I decided to return home. My indignation against Mrs. Somers, from our midnight interview, had not suggested that I should shorten my visit. On the contrary, it had freed me from any regard or fear of her opinion. I had discovered her limits.
It was Saturday afternoon. Reflecting that I had but a few days more for Belem, and summing up the events of my visit and the people I had met, their fashions and differences, I unrolled a tolerable panorama, with patches in it of vivid color, and laid it away in my memory, to be unrolled again at some future time. Then a faint shadow dropped across my mind like a curtain, the first that clouded my royal palace, my mental paradise!
I sighed. Joyless, vacant, barren hours prefigured themselves to me, drifting through my brain, till their vacant shapes crowded it into darkness. I must do something! I would go out; a walk would be good for me. Moreover, wishing to purchase a parting gift for Adelaide and Ann, I would go alone. Wandering from shop to shop in Norfolk Street, without finding the articles I desired, I turned into a street which crossed it, and found the right shop. Seeing Drummond Street on an old gable-end house, a desire to exchange with some one a language which differed from my thoughts prompted me to look up Mrs. Hepburn. I soon came to her house, and knocked at the door, which Mari opened. The current was already changed, as I followed her into a room different from the one where I had seen Mrs. Hepburn. It was dull of aspect, long and narrow, with one large window opening on the old-fashioned garden, and from which I saw a discolored marble Flora. Mrs. Hepburn was by the window, in her high chair. She held out her hand and thanked me for coming to see an old woman. Motioning her head toward a dark corner, she said, "There is a young man who likes occasionally to visit an old woman also."
The young man, twenty-nine years old, was Desmond. He crossed the room and offered me his hand. We had not spoken since we parted at the stairs that memorable night. He hastily brought chairs, and placed them near Mrs. Hepburn, who seized her spectacles, which were on a silk workbag beside her, scanned us through them, and exclaimed, "Ah ha! what is this?"
"Is it something in me, ma'am?" said Desmond, putting his head before my face so that it was hid from her.
"Something in both of you; thief! thief!"
She rubbed her frail hand against my sleeve, muttering, "See now, so!—the same characteristics."
"I spoke of the difference of the rooms; the one we were in reminded me of a lizard! The walls were faint gray, and every piece of furniture was covered with plain yellow chintz, while the carpet was a pale green. She replied that she always moved from her winter parlor to this summer room on the twenty-second day of April, which had fallen the day before, for she liked to watch the coming out of the shrubs in the garden, which were as old as herself. The chestnut had leaved seventy times and more; and the crippled plum, whose fruit was so wormy to eat, was dying with age. As for the elms at the bottom of the garden, for all she knew they were a thousand years old.
"The elms are a thousand years old," I repeated and repeated to myself, while she glided from topic to topic with Desmond, whose conversation indicated that he was as cultivated as any ordinary gentleman, when the Pickersgill element was not apparent. The form of the garden-goddess faded, the sun had gone below the garden wall. The garden grew dusk, and the elms began to nod their tops at me. I became silent, listening to the fall of the plummet, which dropped again and again from the topmost height of that lordly domain, over which shadows had come. Were they sounding its foundations?
My eyes roved the garden, seeking the nucleus of an emotion which beset me now—not they, but my senses, formed it—in a garden miles away, where nodded a row of elms, under which Charles Morgeson stood.
"I am glad you're here, my darling, do you smell the roses?"
"Are you going?" I heard Mrs. Hepburn say in a far-off voice. I was standing by the door.
"Yes, madam; the summer parlor does not delay the sunset."
"Come again. When do you leave Belem?"
"In few days."
Desmond made a grimace, and went to the window.
"Who returns with you," she continued, "Ben? He likes piloting."
"I hope he will; I came here to please him."
"Pooh! You came here because Mr. Somers had a crotchet."
"Well; I was permitted somehow to come."
"It was perfectly right. A woman like you need not question whether a thing is convenable."
Desmond turned from the window, and bestowed upon her a benign smile, which she returned with a satisfied nod.
This implied flattery tinkled pleasantly on my ears, allaying a doubt which I suffered from. Did I realize how much the prestige of those Belem saints influenced me, or how proud I was with the conviction of affiliation with those who were plainly marked with Caste?
"Walk with me," he demanded, as we were going down the steps.
We passed out of Drummond Street into a wide open common. Rosy clouds floated across the zenith, and a warm, balmy wind was blowing. I thought of Veronica, calm and happy, as the spring always made her, and the thought was a finishing blow to the variety of moods I had passed through. The helm of my will was broken.
"There is a good view from Moss Hill yonder," he said. "Shall we go up?"
I bowed, declining his arm, and trudged beside him. From its summit Belem was only half in sight. Its old, crooked streets sloped and disappeared from view; Wolf's Point was at the right of us, and its thread of sea. I began talking of our walk, and was giving an extended description of it, when he abruptly asked why I came to Belem.
"I know," he said, "that you would not have come, had there been any sentiment between you and Ben."
"Thanks for your implication. But I must have made the visit, you know, or how could I learn that I should not have made it?"
"You regret coming?"
"Veronica will give me no thanks."
"Who is she?"
"My sister, whom Ben loves."
"Ben love a sister of yours? My God—how? when first? where? And how came you to meet him?"
"That chapter of accidents need not be recounted. Can you help him?"
"What can I do?" he said roughly. "There is little love between us. You know what a devil's household ours is; but he is one of us—he is afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of mother—of our antecedents—of himself."
"I could not expect you to speak well of him."
"Of course not. Your sister has no fortune?"
"She has not. Men whose merchandise is ships are apt to die bankrupt."
"Your father is a merchant?"
"Even at that, the greatest of the name.
"We are all tied up, you know. Ben's allowance is smaller than mine.
He is easy about money; therefore he is pa's favorite."
"Why do you not help yourselves?"
"Do you think so? You have not known us long. Have you influenced Ben to help himself?"
I marched down the hill without reply. Repassing Mrs. Hepburn's, he said, "My grandfather was an earl's son."
"Mrs. Hepburn likes you for that. My grandfather was a tailor; I should have told her so, when she gave me the aqua marina jewels."
"Had you the courage?"
"I forgot both the fact and the courage."
I hurried along, for it grew dark, and presently saw Ben on the steps of the house.
"Have you been walking?" he asked.
"It looks so. Yes, with me," answered Desmond. "Wont you give me thanks for attention to your friend?"
"It must have been a whim of Cassandra's."
"Break her of whims, if you can—"
"I will."
We went into the parlor together.
"Where do you think I have been?" Ben asked.
"Where?"
"For the doctor. The baby is sick"; and he looked hard at Desmond.
"I hope it will live for years and years," I said.
"I know what you are at, Ben," said Desmond. "I have wished the brat dead; but upon my soul, I have a stronger wish than that—I have forgotten it."
There was no falseness in his voice; he spoke the truth.
"Forgive me, Des."
"No matter about that," he answered, sauntering off.
I felt happier; that spark of humanity warmed me. I might not have another. "I would," I said, "that the last day, the last moments of my visit had come. You will see me henceforth in Surrey. I will live and die there."
"To-night," Ben said, "I am going to tell pa."
"That is best."
"Horrible atmosphere!"
"It would kill Verry."
"You thrive in it," he said, with a spice of irritation in his voice.
"Thrive!"
Adelaide and Ann proved gracious over my gift. They were talking of the doctor's visit. Ann said the child was teething, for she had felt its gums; nothing else was the matter. There need be no apprehension. She should say so to Desmond and Ben, and would post a letter to her brother in unknown parts.
"Miss Hiticutt has sent for us to come over to tea," Adelaide informed me. The black silk I wore would do, for we must go at once.
The quiet, formal evening was a pleasant relief, although I was troubled with a desire to inform Mrs. Somers of Ben's engagement, for the sake of exasperating her. We came home too early for bed, Adelaide said; beside, she had music-hunger. I must sing. Mrs. Somers was by the fire, darning fine napkins, winking over her task, maintaining in her aspect the determination to avert any danger of a midnight interview with Desmond. That gentleman was at present sleeping on a sofa. I seated myself before the piano, wondering whether he slept from wine, ennui, or to while away the time till I should come. I touched the keys softly, waiting for an interpreting voice, and half unconsciously sang the lines of Schiller:
"I hear the sound of music, and the halls
Are full of light. Who are the revelers?"
Desmond made an inarticulate noise and sprang up, as if in answer to a call. A moment after he stepped quietly over the back of the sofa and stood bending over me. I looked up. His eyes were clear, his face alive with intuition. Though Adelaide was close by, she was oblivious; her eyes were cast upward and her fingers lay languid in her lap. Ann, more lively, introduced a note here and there into my song to her own satisfaction. Mrs. Somers I could not see; but I stopped and, giving the music stool a turn, faced her. She met me with her pale, opaque stare, and began to swing her foot over her knee; her slipper, already down at her heel, fell off. I picked it up in spite of her negative movement and hung it on the foot again.
"I shall speak with you presently," she whispered, glancing at
Desmond.
He heard her and his face flashed with the instinct of sport, which made me ashamed of any desire for a struggle with her.
"Good-night," I said abruptly, turning away.
"We are all sleepy except this exemplary housewife with her napkins," cried Ann. "We will leave her."
"Cassandra," said Adelaide, when we were on the stairs, "how well you look!"
Ann, elevating her candle, remarked my eyes shone like a cat's.
"Hiticutt's tea was too strong," added Adelaide; "it dilates the pupils. I am sorry you are going away," and she kissed me; this favor would have moved me at any other time, but now I rejoiced to see her depart and leave me alone. I sat down by the toilet table and was arranging some bottles, when Mrs. Somers rustled in. Out of breath, she began haughtily:
"What do you mean?"
A lethargic feeling crept over me; my thoughts wandered; I never spoke nor stirred till she pulled my sleeve violently.
"If you touch me it will rouse me. Did a child of yours ever inflict a blow upon you?"
She turned purple with rage, looming up before my vision like a peony.
"When are you going home?"
I counted aloud, "Sunday—Monday," and stopped at Wednesday. "Ben is going back with me."
"He may go."
"And not Desmond?"
"Do you know Desmond?"
"Not entirely."
"He has played with such toys as you are, and broken them."
"Alas, he is hereditarily cruel! Could I expect not to be broken?"
She caught up a glass goblet as if to throw it, but only grasped it so tight that it shivered. "There goes one of the Pickersgill treasures, I am sure," I thought.
"I am already scarred, you see. I have been 'nurtured in convulsions.'"
The action seemed to loosen her speech; but she had to nerve herself to say what she intended; for some reason or other, she could not remain as angry as she wished. What she said I will not repeat.
"Madam, I have no plans. If I have a Purpose, it is formless yet. If
God saves us what can you do?"
She made a gesture of contempt.
"You have no soul to thank me for what may be my work," and I opened the door.
Ben stood on the threshhold.
"In God's name, what is this?"
I pointed to his mother. She looked uneasy, and stepping forward put her hand on his arm; but he shook her off.
"You may call me a fool, Cassandra, for bringing you here," he said in a bitter voice, "besides calling me cruel for subjecting you to these ordeals. I knew how it would be with mother. What is it, madam?" he asked imperiously, looking so much like her that I shuddered.
"It is not you she is after," she hotly exclaimed.
"No, I should think not." And he led her out swiftly.
I heard Mrs. Somers say at breakfast, as I went in, "We are to lose Miss Cassandra on Wednesday." I looked at Desmond, who was munching toast abstractedly. He made a motion for me to take the chair beside him, which I obeyed. Ben saw this movement, and an expression of pain passed over his face. At that instant I remembered that Desmond's being seen in the evening and in the morning was a rare occurrence. Mr. Somers took up the remark of Mrs. Somers where she had left it, and expatiated on it till breakfast was over, so courteously and so ramblingly that I was convinced the affair Ben had at heart had been revealed. He invited me to go to church, and he spent the whole of the evening in the parlor; and although Desmond hovered near me all day and all the evening, we had no opportunity of speaking to each other.