Rutledge

by Miriam Coles Harris

I did not mention it to Kitty, but I could not help being struck with the similarity of my own impressions on first meeting Victor Viennet. It was the vaguest, mistiest chain of reminiscence that his face seemed to stir, but till I had seen him several times, it continued to perplex me. I could not account for it in any way; but the association or recollection, or whatever it was, had faded before a closer acquaintance; and now Victor Viennet's handsome face suggested Victor Viennet, and nobody or nothing more.

"These will match your lilac muslin exactly, Miss," said Kitty, offering me a handful of purple "morning glories." "I ran out to get you some flowers before I came in to wake you, but I was in such a hurry, that I couldn't go as far as the garden, and so just picked these out of the hedge."

I thanked her as I fastened them in my dress; they looked lovely with the dew still shining on them. It was yet a good while to breakfast, but I turned to go downstairs, accepting, with a smile at the newness of such services, the dainty handkerchief that Kitty shook out for me.

The fresh morning breeze swept softly through the wide hall as I descended the stairs. Summer had come in and taken the gloomy old place by storm. A pyramid of flowers stood on the dark oak table in the centre, a mocking-bird in its gay cage hung at one end, and over the cold marble pavement the sunshine was creeping fast. The house was so quiet, that I could almost fancy I was alone in it, and crossing the hall, I went up to the library door; but a cowardly irresolution made me turn away, and pass on to the north door of the hall, which, as well as the front one, stood wide open. The broad fields stretched far away June-like and lovely in the sunshine; the hedges and trees were in such luxuriant leaf, that they quite hid the stables and outhouses on the left that last fall had been so prominent in the landscape. Looking from the parlor windows, there was the same view of the lake that I had from my room. The mists were rolling up from its fair bosom, and the foliage that crowned its banks was of the freshest and glossiest green. The dew was glittering on the lawn, early birds twittered and sang in the branches overhead, and on the breeze came the rich perfume of the roses that climbed from pillar to pillar of the piazza. Rutledge had fulfilled my anticipations; in my weary, longing day-dreams, I had never pictured anything fairer than this.

It was with a half-defined feeling of curiosity that I wandered through the large parlors, furnished in an odd mixture of old-fashioned splendor and modern elegance. It was terra incognita to me; I had never entered these rooms before. I could hardly understand how the sunshine and fresh air came to be so much at home in them, as it seemed they now were. It was difficult to believe that these finely furnished, habitable looking apartments, had been closed and unused for twenty years and more. They had been thoroughly revised, no doubt, and the past put to the rout; but they were strange and unattractive to me, and I turned again to the library. Listening at the door before I pushed it open, I entered noiselessly. There was no need of so much caution; this room was as untenanted as its neighbors, save by thronging memories and torturing regrets, and they entered with me.

Here at least there was no change; the wide casements were open to the morning, but the white north light seemed subdued and cold after the sunshine of the other rooms, and the dark panelling and frowning moldings looked a defiance at the intruding summer. I liked it better so; there had been change enough without this last stronghold of memory being invaded.

Every article of furniture in the room—the table, with its pile of papers at one end and books at the other, the familiar paper-cutter lying by the unopened review, the heavy bronze inkstand, the graceful lamp, the chair, pushed back half a yard from the table—minded me of the happy hours that it would have been wiser to forget. One of the bookcases stood open, and a book lay on the table as if recently read, and a card marked the reader's place. I took it up involuntarily. It was Sintram, and the words swam before me as I bent over its familiar pages. On the card that had served for a mark, were written a few lines in a well known hand; and as I raised my eyes from them to the window, I saw Mr. Rutledge himself approaching the house from the direction of the stables. With a hurried movement I slipped the card in my pocket, and finding nothing else to replace it with, pulled one of the flowers from my bosom, and hastily shutting it between the leaves, threw the book on the table, and ran into the hall. If I had been a fugitive from justice, I could not have had a more guilty feeling than that which now impelled me to escape from meeting Mr. Rutledge. But there was no time to get upstairs; he would see me from the piazza if I went into the parlor; and while I stood in the hall, trembling with eagerness, and alarm, and irresolution, my retreat was cut off by the sudden appearance of Victor descending the stairs, who with an exclamation of pleasure, hurried toward me, and taking my hand was bowing over it in most devout fashion, when Mr. Rutledge entered the hall. Victor looked a little confused, and paused in the midst of an elegant French speech, while the quick crimson dyed my cheeks, all of which Mr. Rutledge appeared to ignore, as, approaching us, he said good morning with his usual courtesy of manner, expressed his pleasure in the improvement apparent in my looks, and then to Victor his astonishment at finding him a person of such early habits.

"Pray do not give me any credit for getting up this morning," said Victor with a hasty wave of the hand. "I assure you I detest early rising with my whole French soul, and haven't seen a sun younger than three hours old since I can remember; but, my dear sir, with all homage to the most comfortable of beds, and the pleasantest room I ever occupied in my life, I never passed such a night! When at last I slept, my dreams were so frightful that I was thankful to wake, and would have resorted to any means to have kept myself awake, if there had been the slightest danger of my closing my eyes again."

"What room did you occupy?" I asked.

"The corner room at the north end of the hall, it is, I think."