WHY MRS. RADNOR FAINTED.
[Why Mrs. Radnor Fainted.]
YOU have seen hazel eyes,—have you not? I don't mean the quiet nut-brown ones, you meet every day, but bona fide hazel eyes, opaline in their wonderful changes,—that make you wonder, when you turn away from them, what color they will have assumed when you next look into their depths; for such eyes have depths, sometimes glowing emerald-like, with a steady, lambent flame, now gleaming with a soft lustre like pearls, or melted into sapphires by tears.
Such eyes had Mrs. Radnor,—cold, beautiful woman that she was; insensible, I was about to say, only I remember her fainting at sight of a pond-lily. How well I recollect the day! There was a party of us passing the midsummer at the old Richmond farm, a few miles from ——; Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Radnor among the rest. The latter, a haughty statuesque woman, with nothing save her wonderful eyes to indicate anything approaching a heart,—lovely as a dream, yet with beauty that repelled even in its fascination. Such hair, too, as she had, rolling in golden ripples down to her slender feet;—fine as silk, it was brown in the shade, but glowed and intensified in the light till it seemed as if a thousand stray sunbeams were imprisoned in the radiant mass. We always called her the "Princess with the golden locks." You remember her in the fairy tale,—do you not? That one, I mean, whose hair was the wonder and admiration of the whole world, and whose lovers delighted to bind themselves with fetters so exquisite; yet when they strove playfully to throw them off, they found themselves with gyves and manacles of steel, under which they were powerless.
Mr. Radnor was urbane and gentlemanly; but, possessing only half a soul, he divided the interest of that equally between admiring his own person and annoying Mrs. Radnor by his attentions.
It was a sultry July day, and we were all of us on the rose-terrace back of the house, some dozing,—I pretending to read, though all the time watching the "Princess" furtively from the shelter of my book.
She had a pile of cushions spread with a scarlet shawl, and, like an Eastern beauty, lay languidly upon them. Her dress of palest blue was open at the throat, and her hands toyed listlessly with the heavy cord that confined her waist. There was a blush-rose tint on her usually pale cheek, and her hair, half escaped from its little net, lay like flecks of gold on the scarlet cover. I think I never saw repose, utter and perfect, before.
"Down through her limbs a drooping languor crept,
Her head a little bent, and on her mouth
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon
In a still water."
Suddenly the charmed silence was broken, for round the corner of the house came Mr. Radnor, with his arms filled with superb water-lilies, which he threw in a fragrant shower over his wife. He was saluted with exclamations of wonder and delight, and while he was replying, I had leisure to observe his wife.
The change was frightful: an ashen pallor had spread itself over her face, she was panting violently for breath, and, at the same time, attempting to clasp both hands before her eyes. I cried aloud and sprang towards her,—but it was too late.
Mrs. Radnor had fainted!
At the same time, Anne Richmond threw herself upon her knees beside her, and, hastily gathering the snowy flowers from her dress and bosom, where they had fallen, thrust them into Mr. Radnor's arms, saying hurriedly, as she did so,—
"Pray, pray, take them away, sir, or your wife will die."
He obeyed blankly, and together Anne and I applied the usual restoratives, and, after some minutes, were rewarded by a faint color in her lips, then a quivering of the mouth, and I heard her murmur faintly,—"I saw him again, Anne. Oh, those dreadful flowers!"
Then her eyes opened,—those wonderful eyes, that were then almost startling in their blackness. She looked wildly round her for a single second, and, catching sight of me, was herself again,—haughty, self-sustained as before, even though lying helpless as a child on Anne Richmond's arms.
And, after all, pride is better for a fainting woman than all the sal volatile in the world, thought I, receiving her languidly uttered thanks, and retreating.
We saw no more of Mrs. Radnor that day. Her husband talked loudly of the extreme heat; and no one but the two who had observed the expression of her face when the perfume of the lilies first met her senses, knew anything to the contrary. As for me, I was restless and unquiet. There had been from the first a nameless something about Mrs. Radnor which had excited my deepest interest, and now my imagination was busy. One thing the painful scene of the morning had convinced me of, and that was, that some time in the past she had been quickened into life by the breath of love, and the flowers had played a terrible part in overwhelming her with memories possibly long buried in the deepest recesses of her heart; for—I acknowledged it—Mrs. Radnor had a heart. I never doubted it from the moment in which her face changed from its quiet repose into that torturing expression of fear that it wore when she fainted.
"Anne," I said that evening to Miss Richmond, as I drew her into my chamber after the party had separated for the night, "tell me something of Mrs. Radnor. I am sure you are in some way concerned in her past."
"Yes," she answered, with a little, fluttering sigh; "there is one page of her life that no one living has ever read but myself. Perhaps I do wrong in consenting to turn it for you; but it may be a warning to you, child. To-morrow we will go down to the lake together, and I will tell you what has changed Mrs. Radnor, from the brightest, sunniest girl that ever lived, to the breathing statue that she has been for ten years."
She sighed again, as she kissed my cheek, and then I heard her footsteps die away in the long corridor.
My room was in the second story, and directly over those occupied by the Radnors, which opened on a balcony leading down by a little flight of steps to the lawn.
The night was sultry and still. All the usual bustle and stir of retiring had ceased, and, extinguishing my candle, I curled myself on the broad window-seat, watching the stars that seemed to smile in the hazy atmosphere. It was late,—nearly midnight, I think; and I drank with delight the heavy fragrance which that hour always seems to draw from the heliotrope, great masses of which grew under my windows. I do not know how long I sat there. Waking dreams, such as flit lightly in the tender stillness of summer nights, wooed me with delicious repose. I fancied myself beneath Eastern skies, and the faint stir of a bird in a neighboring tree seemed to me the pluming of a bulbul's wing; and through the gilded lattice of the harem two starry eyes—and they were Mrs. Radnor's—glittered and gleamed. The soft running of a brook through the grounds was the lapping of waves against Venice stones. I heard the twinkle of a guitar, and, framed by carved, gray stone work, her rippling golden hair stirred in the night-breeze.
Then everything faded, and I slept a moment or an hour,—I cannot say which, so softly had the hours passed in softest sandals,—and it was with a start that I sat upright and heard, with a keen thrill of fear, a faint click, as of a drawn bolt, and immediately the distant bell of St. Michael's pealing out.
One—two; and with the dying of the second stroke there was a rustling sound beneath my window, and then a shuddering whisper,—"My God! my God! have mercy upon me!"
Shrouded by a half-closed blind, I peered out, and, kneeling on the balcony below, I saw a white figure illuminated by the strange, weird light of a waning moon. The face was uplifted, and the expression might have been that worn by Maria Therese in the solitude of her chamber when the Archduchess Josepha died.
I drew back,—it seemed like profanity for any but the God to whom she appealed to witness her despair,—for it was Mrs. Radnor. I heard a long, deep-drawn sigh, a footstep, and then the silky tones of her husband.
"My love,—why will you? The dew is very heavy." Then a stir and the sound of a closing door.
I shivered in the ghostly light that had crept into my window, and, softly closing my blinds, I laid down to sleep if I could.
The first person I saw, on entering the breakfast-room the next morning, was Mrs. Radnor, pale as the muslin wrapper she wore, but as coldly self-contained as usual. I felt the passionate sympathy, which had taken firm hold on me since the scenes of the previous night, almost vanish before her languidly uttered replies to my inquiries for her health. It was only in watching the drooping corners of her rarely beautiful mouth and the violet circles beneath the wonderful eyes, that I could connect the haughty being before me with the utterer of the despairing cry of the night before.
The day wore on slowly enough to me, and it was only when the lengthened shadows on the terrace, and Miss Richmond, equipped for her walk, greeted my eyes, that my impatience subsided.
The path led us through a shady grove of pines, that sighed mournfully as one passed through them, then across a sloping interval made green by recent rains, and so down through a fringe of alders to a little seat close by the margin of a charming lake on which myriads of water-lilies were closing their cups of incense.
"Sit here," said Anne, pointing to a place at her side.
"It is not always pleasant to think or speak of the past," she began, after a few moments' silence, "although day by day its scenes and actors appear to us. There are some memories in every heart that thrill us with grief unutterable, and when you know that one person in the story which I shall tell you was dear to me as my own soul, you will not wonder if my lip falters or I fail to dwell on the more painful portions of it."
Then for the first time I was aware of another unwritten heart-history, and knew why the soft lips and eyes of the woman beside me had so often uttered their fatal no.
"Ten years ago," she said, "our house was full of guests, and among them was Eleanor Orne,—the most perfectly beautiful girl I ever beheld. Fancy Mrs. Radnor, younger by as many years, with a bewildering smile ever ready to play around the lovely mouth, with expressions as rapidly following themselves in her eyes as clouds on an April day, and you can form a faint idea of her loveliness.
"There was also a young student of divinity, with an eye as clear as a star and a soul pure as prayer itself. Proud and calm he was; but it was a noble pride that clothed him as with a garment, and a gracious calmness resulting from a vaulting intellect, subdued and chastened by firmest faith.
"He had been fond of me in a way, but from the night that Eleanor came floating down the long piazza, attired in some diaphanous gray that streamed around her like mist, I knew how it would be. I marked, with one great heart-throb, the perfect delight that flashed in his dark eyes as they rested upon her face and form.
"After that they were always together. In the mornings he was reading to her as she worked; on afternoons, rocking together in the little boat on the lake; and then, in the purple twilight, singing dreamy German music, of which they were both passionately fond.
"I soon knew that James Alexander loved her. I read it in every glance, in every tone. But Eleanor? I was not sure. Watch her as narrowly as I would, I could not see that the rose in her cheek became a deeper pink when he approached, or that her eyes were raised more tenderly to him than to a dozen others who sought her smiles.
"There had been rumors of Eleanor's engagement and approaching marriage, which had drifted to me from her city home; but, when I saw her day by day allowing him to become more attached to her,—for she could not fail to perceive it all,—I rejected the rumor, and with it the impulse which had prompted me to repeat it to James, that he might, if not already too late, be upon his guard.
"At last the end came. I dozed one day on a sofa in an inner room, and watched with delicious delight my dream of fair woman that a dark-velvet lounging-chair brought out in clear relief. Eleanor sat there, with downcast eyes and clasped hands. Suddenly a step, hurried and joyous in its very lightness, sounded in the hall; the door opened and closed again, and Alexander stood before her with an open letter in his hand.
"'See,' he said, speaking rapidly, 'it has come at last, and I may speak. It is a call to one of the largest parishes in your own city, and I may say, what you must have known for weeks past, that I love you, Eleanor, deeply, devotedly; that I want you. My darling, tell me that you are not indifferent to me,—that you will be my wife.'
"It was too late for me to move; and something—perhaps it was a kind of dull despair—kept me motionless, with eyes riveted upon the group.
"'Speak to me, Eleanor,' he said, more eagerly, bending over her as he spoke.
"I saw her face flush, and an almost imperceptible shrinking from him, that made him quickly draw back.
"'Speak, Miss Orne,—Eleanor, I implore you.'
"'Oh, why have you said this to me?' she answered, faintly. 'I cannot hear you, Mr. Alexander. I am to be married next month.'
"I saw him reel for an instant as one would under a heavy blow, and heard a deep sigh—almost a groan—burst from him; then a silence so long and so profound that I could hear my heart beat. At last he spoke, in a voice husky and changed,—
"'Forgive me. I did not mean to offend; but God knows what a mercy it would have been if I could have known this before. I may touch your hand once,—may I not? And you will look up into my face? No, not that! Grant me this, at least then, before our long parting.' And he bent and kissed one of the sunny curls that streamed over the chair. Then I saw him raise one hand over her as in benediction, and, in another moment, he was gone. I looked at Eleanor. She had risen from her seat, and moved a step or two towards the door.
"'O James, James, I love you!' she said, piteously; and then I had just time to break her fall.
"An hour later, I met him on the doorstep. 'I am glad to have seen you,' he said slowly, 'and to thank you for your kindness; for I am going away. You will be good to her, Anne, for my sake,—will you not?'
"He turned from me, and passed down the walk. I watched him until a sharp turn hid him from my sight. I never saw him afterwards alive.
"The next day it rained, and the next; and it was not until the third day that Eleanor and I took our usual walk. As we left the house, she suggested that we shape our way towards the lake. Agreeing, we walked on slowly, and I tried to make James Alexander the subject of our talk. At first she evaded me; and, when at last she found my persistence was not in any other way to be turned aside, said,—
"'It is an unpleasant subject to me, dear Anne. I fear I have much to blame myself for. I suffer enough; for, in rejecting his love, I shut my eyes on a life that would have been a continual delight, to open them on one from which my very soul shrinks abhorrently, and yet to which I am solemnly pledged.'
"'But it may not yet be too late,' I said, eagerly; for God knows I loved James Alexander with no selfish love.
"'Yes, it is too late,' she replied mournfully. 'I shall never allude to it again, Anne; but I tell you now, that I do not and can never love Mr. Radnor; but there are family reasons that make the sacrifice of my hand a necessity. I never realized, until within the last few weeks, that it was such a sacrifice. I have been so happy, that I dared not break the spell by telling him the truth. And somehow the future seemed very far; and I did not dream that this summer would ever end.'
"Then there was silence between us for a space. At last she spoke again,—
"'I hope he will not suffer long. Tell him some time, Anne, what I have told you. He will not quite hate me, perhaps, then, if he knows that I was not drawing him on to gratify a foolish coquetry, but loved and suffered like himself.'
"I was about to reply, but she laid her hand on my mouth.
"'No,' she said. 'Let the subject go now forever. And no one will dream by-and-by how fair a love lies buried beneath my laces and jewels; or that, in the life of the noted man that he will one day surely become, is a romance that belongs to a dead past. It will all be the same a century hence. What does it matter after all?'
"But her words ended with a sigh that contrasted strangely with the forced lightness of her tone.
"Just then we came out of the grove, and could see far off the little waves of the lake dancing in the morning sunlight. I paused a moment to pick some late wild flowers, while Eleanor walked on quickly and disappeared among the alders that fringed the lake. I was following her slowly, when suddenly I heard one wild, thrilling cry, and then my name three times repeated. I flew almost down to the water, and there I saw Eleanor unconscious; and, close to the shore, among the lilies,—white and pure as their own petals,—a face upturned to the sky, swaying gently with the motion of the water. I need not tell you whose." Anne faltered.
"Do not go on," I said, with my own eyes and voice full of tears.
She raised her head quickly.
"I had schooled myself to it, dear, before I came, and I must finish. I am telling you of another's life, not mine.
"Then there was a brain fever for Eleanor, that no one believed she would ever rally from, in which she was either unconscious, or else singing snatches of German songs, with a pathos that was heart-rending.
"It was remarkable that neither to her mother nor to any one who watched over her did her words ever betray anything that could connect her illness with anything more than the bare horror of the discovery she made. She was married the next spring; and when I saw her, a month afterward, I should never, save for merest outline and coloring of beauty, have recognized her. Until last night, the past has never been alluded to by either of us. Then she confessed to me, that during the last ten years her life has been haunted by a perpetual remorse. The sun has set, dear, we will go home."
It was dusk when we crossed the pine grove, and the branches of the trees seemed, to my quickened imagination, to be singing a sad refrain to the story I had heard. We walked slowly,—Anne with head uplifted and a serene look upon her fair face that made me realize the refiner's work.
As we drew near the house there came forth a rolling symphony from the parlor organ, and then a voice that I had never heard before, in the Agnus Dei of the Twelfth Mass.
We paused, and Anne said quietly,—"She has never sung since he died until now."
We waited until the pure, pathetic tones had died away. Silence and the spirit of the hour was upon us. Overhead the large, calm stars hung low and bright. A gleam of light in Mrs. Radnor's rooms flashed for an instant, and disappeared; and a white figure came out upon the balcony of her apartment.
"Kyrie Eleison," said Anne, in a hushed voice. "Let us go in."