Fashion and Famine Part 39

"No!" answered the child, now quite resolutely. "I am paid. The poor young lady is welcome to them."

Leicester laughed. "The poor young lady!--my own pretty bride! Well, I like that."

Julia walked on. She hoped that he would forget his object, or only intended to frighten her. But he kept by her side, and was really amused by the terror inflicted on the child. He had half an hour's time on his hand--how could he kill it more pleasantly? Besides, he really was anxious to know with certainty where the young creature lived. She was one of his witnesses. She had, in a degree, become connected with his fate. Above all, she was terrified to death, and like Nero, Leicester would have amused himself with torturing flies, if no larger or fiercer animal presented itself. His evil longing to give pain was insatiable as the Roman tyrant's, and more cruel; for while Nero contented himself with physical agony, Leicester appeased his craving spirit with nothing but keen mental feeling. The Roman emperor would sometimes content himself with a fiddle; but the music that Leicester loved best was the wail of sensitive heart-strings.

"I live here," said Julia, stopping short, before a low, old house, in a close side street, breathless with the efforts she had made to escape her tormentor. "Do not go any farther, Grandpa never likes to see strangers."

"Go on--go on," answered Leicester, in a tone that was jeeringly good-natured; "grandpa will be delighted."

Julia ran desperately down the area steps. She longed to close the bas.e.m.e.nt door after her and hold it against the intruder, but as this idea flashed across her mind, Leicester stood by her side in the dark hall. She ran forward and opened the door of that poor bas.e.m.e.nt room which was her home. Still he kept by her side. The bas.e.m.e.nt was full of that dusky gloom which a handful of embers had power to shed through the darkness; for the old people, whose outlines were faintly seen upon the hearth, were still too poor for a prodigal waste of light when no work was to be done by it.

"Is it you, darling, and so out of breath?" said the voice of an old man, who rose and began to grope with his hand upon the mantel-piece.

"What kept you so long? poor grandma has been in a terrible way about it." While he spoke, the grating of a match that would not readily ignite, was heard against the chimney piece.

"The gentleman, grandpa--here is a gentleman. He would come!" cried the child, artlessly.

This seemed to startle the old man. The match would not kindle; he stooped down and touched it to a live ember; as he rose again the pale blue flames fell upon the face of his wife, and rose to his own features. The illumination was but for a moment--then the wick began to fuse slowly into flame, but it was nearly half a minute before the miserable candle gave out its full complement of light. The old man turned toward the open door, shading the candle with his hand.

"Where, child? I see no gentleman."

Julia looked around. A moment before, Leicester had stood at her side.

"He is gone--he is gone," she exclaimed, springing forward. "Oh, grandma--oh, grandpa, how he did frighten me; it was the man I saw on the wharf, that day!"

CHAPTER XIX.

NIGHT AND MORNING.

We think to conquer circ.u.mstance, and sometimes win A hold upon events that seemeth power.

But nothing stable waiteth upon sin; G.o.d holds the cords of life, and in an hour The strongest fabric built by human mind Falls with a crash, and leaves a wreck behind.

Splendid beyond anything hitherto known in American life, was the ball, of which our readers have obtained but partial glimpses. At least a dozen rooms, some of them palatial in dimensions, others bijoux of elegance, were thrown open to the brilliant throng that had begun to a.s.semble when the flower-girl left the mansion. The conservatory was filled with blossoming plants, and lighted entirely by lamps, placed in alabaster vases, or swinging-like moons, from the waves of crystal that formed the roof. Ma.s.ses of South American plants sheeted the sides with blossoms. Pa.s.sion flowers crept up the crystal roof, and drooped their starry blossoms among the lamps. Trees, rich with the light feathery foliage peculiar to the tropics, bent over and sheltered the blossoming plants. An aquatic lily floated in the marble basin of a tiny fountain, spreading its broad green leaves on the water, and sheltering a host of arrowy, little gold-fish, that flashed in and out from their shadows.

The air was redolent with heliotrope, daphnes, and cape-jessamines. Soft mosses crept around the marble basin, and dropped downward to the tesselated floor. It was like entering fairy land, as you came into this star-lit wilderness of flowers, from a n.o.ble picture-gallery, which divided it from the reception room. It was one of Dunlap's master-pieces. No artist ever arranged a more n.o.ble picture--no peri ever found a lovelier paradise. The silken curtains that divided the picture-gallery from the reception rooms were drawn back; thus a vista was formed down which the eye wandered till the perspective lost itself in the star-lighted ma.s.ses of foliage; and on entering the first drawing-room, which was flooded with gas-light, a scene was presented that no European palace could rival, save in extent. Each of the tall, stained windows, had a corresponding recess, filled with mirrors that multiplied and reflected back every beautiful object within its range.

Fresco paintings gleamed from the ceilings, but so delicately managed and enwrought in the light golden scrolls, that all over-gorgeousness was avoided. Each room possessed distinct colors, and had its own style of ornament; but natural contrasts were so strictly maintained, and harmonies so managed, that the rooms, when all thrown open, presented one brilliant whole, that might have been studied like the work of a great artist, and always found to present new beauties.

The rooms filled rapidly. The fancy dresses gave new eclat to the rooms.

No royal court day ever presented a scene of greater magnificence. The flash of jewels--the wave of feathers--the glitter of brocades, had something regal in it, quite at variance with the simple republican habits with which our young country began its career among the nations of the earth. But in all this dazzling throng, our story deals more particularly with the four persons toward whom destiny was making rapid strides through all this glitter and gaiety.

William Leicester entered among the latest guests. The evening had been so full of events, that even his iron nerves were shaken, and he entered the mansion with pale cheeks and glittering eyes, as if conscious that he was rushing forward to his fate.

What was it that prompted the tantalizing wish to follow that young girl home, till she led him into the presence of that old couple, cowering over the fire in that dark bas.e.m.e.nt? What evil spirit was crowding events so closely around him? He began to feel a sort of self-distrust; something like superst.i.tion crept over him, and he panted to place the Atlantic between himself and all these haunting perplexities.

A few distinguished persons had been allowed to attend the ball in citizens' dress, and among these, was Leicester, who appeared in the elegant but unostentatious suit worn at his wedding ceremony.

"Why, Leicester, you are pale! Has anything happened; or is it only the effect of that white vest?" said a young Turk, who stood near the entrance, removing his admiring eyes from the point of his own embroidered slipper, to regard his friend.

"Pale! No, I am only tired, making preparations for Europe, you know."

"A great bore, isn't it?" answered the young man, adjusting his cashmere scarf. "Isn't Mrs. Gordon beautiful to-night; the handsomest woman in the room, not to speak of uncounted pyramids! She'd be a catch--even for you, Leicester."

"She must have demolished some of her pyramids, before this paradise was created, I fancy," answered Leicester, looking down the vista of open rooms, now crowded with life and beauty.

"Yes, three at least," replied the juvenile Turk, planting one foot forward on the carpet, that he might admire the flow of his ample trousers; "one hundred and fifty thousand never paid for a place like this."

"So you, young gentleman, set fifty thousand down as a pyramid. Now, what if a lady chances to have only the half of that sum; how do you estimate her?"

"Twenty-five thousand!" repeated the exquisite; "a woman with no more than that isn't worth estimating; at any rate, till after a fellow gets to be an old fogy of two or three and twenty."

A quiet, mocking smile curved Leicester's lip. Though rather sensitive regarding his own age, he was really amused by this specimen of Young America.

"So, this widow, with so many pyramids--you think she would be a match worth looking after. What if I make the effort?"

"If you were twenty or twenty-five years younger, it might do."

Leicester laughed outright.

"Well, as I am too old for a rival, perhaps you will show me where the lady is; I have never seen her yet."

"What--never seen Mrs. Gordon, the beautiful Mrs. Gordon! I thought you old chaps were keener on the scent. I know half a hundred young gentlemen dead in for it."

"Then there is certainly no chance for me."

"I should rather think not," replied the youth, smiling complacently at his own reflection in an opposite mirror; "especially without costume. A dress like this, now, is a sort of thing that takes with women."

Leicester was getting weary of the youth.

"Well," he said, "if you will not aid me, I must find the lady myself."

"Oh, wait till the crowd leaves us an opening. There, the music strikes up--they are off for the waltz; now you have a good view; isn't she superb?"

For one moment a cloud came over Leicester's eyes. He swept his gloved hand over them, and now he saw clearly.

"Which--which is Mrs. Gordon?" he said in a sharp voice, that almost startled the young exquisite out of his oriental propriety.

"Why, how dull you are--as if there ever existed another woman on earth to be mistaken for her."

"Is that the woman?" questioned Leicester, almost extending his arm toward a lady dressed as Ceres, who stood near the door of an adjoining room.

"Of course it is. Come, let me present you, while there is a chance, though how the deuce you got here without a previous introduction, I cannot tell. Come, she is looking this way."

"Not yet," answered Leicester, drawing aside, where he was less liable to observation.

"Why, how strangely you look all at once. Caught with the first glance, ha?" persisted his tormentor.

Leicester attempted to smile, but his lips refused to move. He would have spoken, but for once speech left him.