Beulah Part 18

She shook hands very quietly, but an expression of pleasure stole over her face. Her guardian observed it, and asked:

"Pray, Percy, what do you know of her?"

"That she sings very charmingly," answered his friend, smiling at Beulah.

"He saw me once when I was at the asylum," said she,

"And was singing part of the regime there?"

"No, Guy. She was wandering about the piney woods, near the asylum, with two beautiful elves, when I chanced to meet her. She was singing at the time. Beulah, I am glad to find you out again; and in future, when I pay the doctor long visits, I shall expect you to appear for my entertainment. Look to it, Guy, that she is present.

But I am fatigued with my unusual exercise, and must return home.

Good-by, Beulah; shake hands. I am going immediately to my room, Guy; so come as soon as you can." He rode slowly on, while Dr.

Hartwell shook the reins, and Mazeppa sprang down the road again.

Beulah had remarked a great alteration in Mr. Lockhart's appearance; he was much paler, and bore traces of recent and severe illness. His genial manner and friendly words had interested her, and, looking up at her guardian, she said timidly:

"Is he ill, sir?"

"He has been, and is yet quite feeble. Do you like him?"

"I know nothing of him, except that he spoke to me one evening some months ago. Does he live here, sir?"

"No; he has a plantation on the river, but is here on a visit occasionally. Much of his life has been spent in Europe, and thither he goes again very soon."

The sun had set. The bay seemed a vast sheet of fire, as the crimson clouds cast their shifting shadows on its bosom; and, forgetting everything else, Beulah leaned out of the buggy, and said almost unconsciously:

"How beautiful! how very beautiful!" Her lips were parted; her eyes clear and sparkling with delight. Dr. Hartwell sighed, and, turning from the bay road, approached his home. Beulah longed to speak to him of what was pressing on her heart; but, glancing at his countenance to see whether it was an auspicious time, she was deterred by the somber sternness which overshadowed it, and before she could summon courage to speak, they stopped at the front gate.

"Jump out, and go home; I have not time to drive in."

She got out of the buggy, and, looking up at him as he rose to adjust some part of the harness, said bravely:

"I am very much obliged to you for my ride. I have not had such a pleasure for years. I thank you very much."

"All very unnecessary, child. I am glad you enjoyed it."

He seated himself, and gathered up the reins, without looking at her. But she put her hand on the top of the wheel, and said in an apologetic tone:

"Excuse me, sir; but may I wait in your study till you come home? I want to ask you something." Her face flushed, and her voice trembled with embarra.s.sment.

"It may be late before I come home to-night. Can't you tell me now what you want? I can wait."

"Thank you, sir; to-morrow will do as well, I suppose. I will not detain you." She opened the gate and entered the yard. Dr. Hartwell looked after her an instant, and called out, as he drove on:

"Do as you like, Beulah, about waiting for me. Of course the study is free to you at all times."

The walk, or rather carriage road, leading up to the house was bordered by stately poplars and cedars, whose branches interlaced overhead, and formed a perfect arch. Beulah looked up at the dark- green depths among the cedars, and walked on with a feeling of contentment, nay, almost of happiness, which was a stranger to her heart. In front of the house, and in the center of a gra.s.sy circle, was a marble basin, from which a fountain ascended. She sat down on the edge of the reservoir, and, taking off her bonnet, gave unrestrained license to her wandering thoughts. Wherever her eyes turned, verdure, flowers, statuary met her gaze; the air was laden with the spicy fragrance of jasmines, and the low, musical babble of the fountain had something very soothing in its sound. With her keen appreciation of beauty, there was nothing needed to enhance her enjoyment; and she ceased to remember her sorrows. Before long, however, she was startled by the sight of several elegantly dressed ladies emerging from the house; at the same instant a handsome carriage, which she had not previously observed, drove from a turn in the walk and drew up to the door to receive them. Mrs. Chilton stood on the steps, exchanging smiles and polite nothings, and, as one of the party requested permission to break a sprig of geranium growing near, she gracefully offered to collect a bouquet, adding, as she severed some elegant cl.u.s.ters of heliotrope and jasmine:

"Guy takes inordinate pride in his parterre, arranges and overlooks all the flowers himself. I often tell him I am jealous of my beautiful rivals; they monopolize his leisure so completely."

"Nonsense! we know to our cost that you of all others need fear rivalry from no quarter. There; don't break any more. What superb taste the doctor has! This lovely spot comes nearer my ideal of European elegance than any place I know at the South. I suppose the fascination of his home makes him such a recluse! Why doesn't he visit more? He neglects us shamefully! He is such a favorite in society too; only I believe everybody is rather afraid of him. I shall make a most desperate effort to charm him so soon as an opportunity offers. Don't tell him I said so though--'forewarned, forearmed.'" All this was very volubly uttered by a dashing, showy young lady, dressed in the extreme of fashion, and bearing unmistakable marks of belonging to beau monde. She extended a hand eased in white kid, for the flowers, and looked steadily at the lady of the house as she spoke.

"I shall not betray your designs, Miss Julia. Guy is a great lover of the beautiful, and I am not aware that anywhere in the book of fate is written the decree that he shall not marry again. Take care, you are tearing your lace point on that rose bush; let me disengage it." She stooped to rescue the cobweb wrapping, and, looking about her, Miss Julia exclaimed:

"Is that you, Pauline? Come and kiss me! Why, you look as unsociable as your uncle, sitting there all alone!"

She extended her hand toward Beulah, who, as may be supposed, made no attempt to approach her. Mrs. Chilton smiled, and, clasping the bracelet on her arm, discovered to her visitor the mistake.

"Pauline is not at home. That is a little beggarly orphan Guy took it into his head to feed and clothe, till some opportunity offered of placing her in a respectable home. I have teased him unmercifully about this display of taste; asked him what rank he a.s.signed her in his catalogue of beautiful treasures." She laughed as if much amused.

"Oh, that reminds me that I heard some of the schoolgirls say that the doctor had adopted an orphan. I thought I would ask you about it. Mother here declared that she knew it could not be so; but I told her he was so very odd, there was no accounting for his notions. So he has not adopted her?"

"Pshaw! of course not! She was a wretched little object of charity, and Guy brought her here to keep her from starving. He picked her up at the hospital, I believe."

"I knew it must be a mistake. Come, Julia, remember you are going out to-night, and it is quite late. Do come very soon, my dear Mrs.

Chilton." Mrs. Vincent, Miss Julia, and their companions entered the carriage, and were soon out of sight. Beulah still sat at the fountain. She would gladly have retreated on the appearance of the strangers, but could not effect an escape without attracting the attention she so earnestly desired to be spared, and therefore kept her seat. Every word of the conversation, which had been carried on in anything but a subdued tone, reached her, and though the head was unbowed as if she had heard nothing, her face was dyed with shame.

Her heart throbbed violently, and as the words, "beggarly orphan,"

"wretched object of charity," fell on her ears, it seemed as if a fierce fire-bath had received her. As the carriage disappeared, Mrs.

Chilton approached her, and, stung to desperation by the merciless taunts, she instantly rose and confronted her. Never had she seen the widow look so beautiful, and for a moment they eyed each other.

"What are you doing here, after having been told to keep out of sight?--answer me!" She spoke with the inflexible sternness of a mistress to an offending servant.

"Madam, I am not the miserable beggar you represented me a moment since; nor will I answer questions addressed in any such tone of authority and contempt."

"Indeed! Well, then, my angelic martyr, how do you propose to help yourself?" answered Mrs. Chilton, laughing with undisguised scorn.

"Dr. Hartwell brought me to his house, of his own accord; you know that I was scarcely conscious when I came into it. He has been very kind to me--has offered to adopt me. This you know perfectly well.

But I am not in danger of starvation away from this house. You know that instead of having been picked up at the hospital, I was earning my living, humble though it was, as a servant. He offered to adopt me, because he saw that I was very unhappy; not because I needed food or clothes, as you a.s.serted just now, and as you knew was untrue. Madam, I have known, ever since my recovery, that you hated me, and I scorn to accept bounty, nay, even a shelter, where I am so unwelcome. I have never dreamed of occupying the place you covet for Pauline. I intended to accept Dr. Hartwell's kindness, so far as receiving an education, which would enable me to support myself less laboriously; but, madam, I will relieve you of my hated presence. I can live without any a.s.sistance from your family. The despised and ridiculed orphan will not remain to annoy you. Oh, you might have effected your purpose with less cruelty! You could have told me kindly that you did not want me here, and I would not have wondered at it. But to crush me publicly, as you have done--" Wounded pride stifled the trembling accents.

Mrs. Chilton bit her lip. She had not expected this expression of proud independence; and, seeing that she had gone too far, pondered the best method of rectifying the mischief with as little compromise of personal dignity as possible. Ultimately to eject her, she had intended from the first; but perfectly conscious that her brother would accept no explanation or palliation of the girl's departure at this juncture, and that she and Pauline would soon follow her from the house, she felt that her own interest demanded the orphan's presence for a season. Nearly blinded by tears of indignation and mortification, Beulah turned from her, but the delicate white hand arrested her, and pressed heavily on her shoulder. She drew herself up, and tried to shake off the hold; but firm as iron was the grasp of the snowy fingers, and calm and cold as an Arctic night was the tone which said:

"Pshaw, girl, are you mad? You have sense enough to know that you are one too many in this house; but if you only desire to be educated, as you profess, why, I am perfectly willing that you should remain here. The idea of your growing up as my brother's heiress and adopted child was too preposterous to be entertained, and you can see the absurdity yourself; but so long as you understand matters properly, and merely desire to receive educational advantages, of course you can and will remain. I do not wish this to go any further, and, as a sensible girl, you will not mention it. As a friend, however, I would suggest that you should avoid putting yourself in the way of observation." As she concluded she quietly brushed off a small spider which was creeping over Beulah's sleeve.

"Don't trouble yourself, madam; I am not at all afraid of poisonous things; I have become accustomed to them."

Smiling bitterly, she stooped to pick up her new bonnet, which had fallen on the gra.s.s at her feet, and, fixing her eyes defiantly on the handsome face before her, said resolutely:

"No! contemptible as you think me, beggarly and wretched as you please to term me, I have too much self-respect to stay a day longer where I have been so grossly, so needlessly insulted. You need not seek to detain me. Take your hand off my arm. I am going now; the sooner, the better. I understand, madam, your brother will not countenance your cruelty, and you are ashamed for him to know what, in his absence, you were not ashamed to do. I scorn to retaliate! He shall not learn from me why I left so suddenly. Tell him what you choose."

Mrs. Chilton was very pale, and her lips were compressed till they grew purple. Clinching her hand, she said under her breath:

"You artful little wretch. Am I to be thwarted by such a mere child?

You shall not quit the house. Go to your room, and don't make a fool of yourself. In future I shall not concern myself about you, if you take root at the front door. Go in, and let matters stand. I promise you I will not interfere again, no matter what you do. Do you hear me?"

"No. You have neither the power to detain nor to expel me. I shall leave here immediately, and you need not attempt to coerce me; for, if you do, I will acquaint Dr. Hartwell with the whole affair, as soon as he comes, or when I see him. I am going for my clothes; not those you so reluctantly had made, but the old garments I wore when I worked for my bread." She shook off the detaining hand, and went up to her room. Harriet had already lighted her lamp, and, as she entered the door, the rays fell brightly on the picture she had learned to love so well. Now she looked at it through scalding tears, and, to her excited fancy, the smile seemed to have faded from the lips of Hope, and the valley looked more dreary, and the pilgrims more desolate and miserable. She turned from it, and, taking off the clothes she wore, dressed herself in the humble apparel of former days. The old trunk was scarcely worth keeping, save as a relic; and folding up the clothes and books into as small a bundle as possible, she took it in her arms and descended the steps. She wished very much to tell Harriet good-by, and thank her for her unvarying kindness; and now, on the eve of her departure, she remembered the words whispered during her illness, and the offer of a.s.sistance when she "got into trouble," as Harriet phrased it; but, dreading to meet Mrs. Chilton again, she hurried down the hall, and left the house. The friendly stars looked kindly down upon the orphan, as she crossed the common, and proceeded toward the asylum, and raising her eyes to the jeweled dome, the solemn beauty of the night hushed the wild tumult in her heart, and she seemed to hear the words p.r.o.nounced from the skyey depths: "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end." Gradually, the results of the step she had taken obtruded themselves before her, and with a keen pang of pain and grief came the thought, "What will Dr. Hartwell think of me?" All his kindness during the time she had pa.s.sed beneath his roof--his genial tones; his soft, caressing touch on her head; his rare, but gentle smile; his constant care for her comfort and happiness--all rushed like lightning over her mind, and made the hot tears gush over her face. Mrs. Chilton would, of course, offer him some plausible solution of her sudden departure. He would think her ungrateful, and grow indifferent to her welfare or fate. Yet hope whispered, "He will suspect the truth; he must know his sister's nature; he will not blame me." But all this was in the cloudy realm of conjecture, and the stern realities of her position weighed heavily on her heart. Through Dr. Hartwell, who called to explain her sudden disappearance, Mrs. Martin had sent her the eighteen dollars due for three months' service, and this little sum was all that she possessed. As she walked on, pondering the many difficulties which attended the darling project of educating herself thoroughly, the lights of the asylum greeted her, and it was with a painful sense of desolation that she mounted the steps, and stood upon the threshold, where she and Lilly had so often sat, in years gone by. Mrs. Williams met her at the door, wondering what unusual occurrence induced a visitor at this unseasonable hour. The hall lamp shone on her kind but anxious face, and as Beulah looked at her, remembered care and love caused a feeling of suffocation, and, with an exclamation of joy, she threw her arms around her.

Astonished at a greeting so unexpected, the matron glanced hurriedly at the face pressed against her bosom, and, recognizing her quondam charge, folded her tenderly to her heart.

"Beulah, dear child, I am so glad to see you!" As she kissed her white cheeks, Beulah felt the tears dropping down upon them.

"Come into my room, dear, and take off your bonnet." She led her to the quiet little room, and took the bundle and the antiquated bonnet, which Pauline declared "Mrs. Noah had worn all through the forty days' shower."