Vashti Part 20

Not a muscle of Elsie's grave face moved, as she received the card, and answered,--

"I am very sorry, madam, but Mrs. Gerome sees no visitors, and my orders are positive."

Mrs. Spiewell bit her lip, and reddened.

"Then take these papers to her, and ask if she will please be so good as to examine their claims to her charity. In the meantime I will wait in the parlor, and must trouble you for a gla.s.s of water."

She thrust the pet.i.tions into Elsie's hand, and attempted to slip into the hall, through the partial opening of the door which the servant held during the parley; but, planting her ma.s.sive frame directly in the way, the resolute woman effectually barred entrance, and, pointing to an iron _tete-a-tete_ on the portico, said, decisively,--

"I beg pardon, madam, but you will find a seat there; and I will bring the water while Mrs. Gerome reads your letters. If you are fatigued, I will hand you luncheon and some wine."

Mortified and enraged, Mrs. Spiewell grew scarlet, but threw herself into the seat designated, resolved to s.n.a.t.c.h a glimpse of the interior the instant the servant had disappeared.

Very softly Elsie closed and securely latched the door on the inside, knowing that at that moment her mistress was sitting in the oriel window of the front parlor.

In vain the visitor tried and twisted the bolt, and, completely baffled, tears of chagrin moistened her eyes. She had scarcely time to regain her seat, when Elsie reappeared, bearing on a handsome salver a wine-gla.s.s, silver goblet, and an elegant basket filled with cake.

"Mrs. Gerome presents her compliments, and sends you this fifty dollar bill for whatever society you represent."

Too thoroughly discomfited to conceal her pique and indignation, Mrs.

Spiewell s.n.a.t.c.hed letters and donation, and, without lingering an instant, swept haughtily down the steps, "shaking off the dust of her feet" against "Solitude" and its incorrigible owner.

An innocent impertinence once coldly frustrated soon takes unto itself a sting and branding-irons, and thus, what was originally merely idle curiosity, becomes bitter malice; and henceforth the worthy minister's gossiping wife lost no opportunity of inveighing against the superciliousness of the stranger, and of insinuating that some very extraordinary circ.u.mstances led her "to fear that something was radically wrong about that poor Mrs. Gerome, for troubles that could not be poured into the sympathetic ears of pastors and of pastors'

wives must be very dark, indeed."

Whenever the name of the new-comer was mentioned, Mrs. Spiewell compressed her lips, shook her head, and shrugged her round shoulders; and, of course, persons present surmised that the "minister's lady"

was acquainted with melancholy facts which charity prevented her from divulging.

Many of the grievances and ills that afflict society spring not from sinful, envenomed hearts, but from weak souls and empty heads; and Mrs. Spiewell, who sat up with all the measle-stricken, teething, sick children in her husband's charge, and would have felt disgraced had she missed a meeting of the "Dorcas Society," or of the "Barefeet Relief Club," would have been duly shocked if any one had boldly charged her with slandering a woman whom she had never seen, and of whose antecedents she knew absolutely nothing. Verily, it is difficult, indeed, even for "the elect" to keep themselves "unspotted from the world;" and Zimmerman was a seer when he declared, "Who lives with wolves must join in their howls."

Absorbed by professional engagements, or fiscal cares, the gentlemen of a community are rarely interested in or informed of the last wreck of character which the whirlpool of scandal strews on the strand of society; but vague rumors relative to Mrs. Gerome's isolation had penetrated even into the quiet precincts of Dr. Grey's sanctum, and consequently invested his present mission with extraneous interest.

For the first time since her arrival he approached the confines of her residence, and, as he threw the reins over the dashboard of his buggy and stood under the lofty old trees that surrounded the house, he paused to admire the beauty of the grounds, the grouping of some statues and pot plants on a neighboring mound, and the far-stretching sheen of the rippling sea.

No living thing was visible except a golden pheasant and scarlet flamingo strutting along the stone terrace at the foot of the lawn, and silence and repose seemed brooding over house and yard; when suddenly a rapid, pa.s.sionate, piano-prelude smote the stillness till the air appeared to throb and quiver, and a thrillingly sweet yet intensely mournful voice sang the wailing strains of _Addio del Pa.s.sato_.

The indescribable yet almost overwhelming pathos of the tones affected Dr. Grey much as the tremolo-stop in some organ-overture in a dimly-lighted cathedral; and, as the singer seemed to pour her whole aching heart and wearied soul into the concluding "_Ah! tutto-tutto fini!_" he turned, and involuntarily followed the sound, like one in a dream.

The front door was closed; but the sash of the oriel window had been raised, and through the delicate lace curtains that were swaying in the salt breath of ocean he could see what pa.s.sed in the parlor. A woman sat before the piano, running her snowy fingers idly across the keys, now striking _fortissimo_ a wild stormy _fugue_ theme, and then softly evoking a subtle minor chord that seemed the utterance of some despairing spirit breathing its last prayer for peace.

Her Marie-Louise blue dress was girded at the waist by a belt and buckle of silver, and the loose sleeve of the right arm was looped and pinned up, showing the dimpled elbow and daintily rounded wrist encircled by the jet serpent. Around her throat she had carelessly thrown a lace handkerchief, and from the ma.s.s of hair that seemed tiny, snow-capped waves, a cl.u.s.ter of blue nemophila leaned down to touch the white forehead beneath, and peep at the answering blue gleams in the large, shining, steely eyes. Her fingers strayed listlessly into a _Nocturne_; but from the dreamy expression of the face, upraised to gaze at the busts on the brackets above, it was evident that her thoughts had wandered far away from _Addio del Pa.s.sato_, and were treading the drift-strewn strands of melancholy memory.

Presently she rose, walked twice across the room, and came back to an _etagere_ where stood an azure Bohemian gla.s.s vase, supported by silver Tritons, and filled with late blue hyacinths and early pancratiums.

Bending her regal head, she inhaled the mingled perfumes, worthy of Sicilian or Cyprian meadows; and, while her slight fingers toyed with the fragile petals, a proud smile lent its sad light to the chill face, and she said aloud, as if striving to comfort herself,--

"'Not the ineffable stars that interlace The azure canopy of Zeus himself Have surer sweetness than my hyacinths When they grow blue, in gazing on blue heaven, Than the white lilies of my rivers, when In leafy spring Selene's silver horn Spills paleness, peace, and fragrance.'"

With a heavy sigh she turned away, and sat down in the rear room, near the arch, where an easel now stood, containing a large, unfinished picture; and, taking her ivory palette and brushes, she began to retouch the violet robe of one of the figures.

Dr. Grey had seen more beautiful women among the gilded pillars and frescoes of palaces, and amid the olives and vineyards of Parthenope; but in Mrs. Gerome he found a fascinating mystery that baffled a.n.a.lysis and riveted his attention. Neither young nor old, she had crowned herself with the glories of both seasons, and seemed some sweet, dewy spring, wrapped in the snows and frozen in the icy garb of winter.

He had expected to meet a middle-aged person, habited in widow's weeds, and meek from the severe scourging of a recent and terrible bereavement; but that anomalous white face and proud, queenly form were unlike all other flesh that his keen eyes had hitherto scanned; and he regarded her as curiously as he would have examined some abnormal-looking specimen of nerves and muscles laid upon the marble slab of a dissecting-table.

Recollecting suddenly that, if he did not present himself, the wagon would arrive before he had accomplished the object of his visit, he drew a card from his pocket, and, stepping over the low sill of the oriel window, advanced to the arch.

The mistress of the house sat with her back turned towards him, and was apparently absorbed in putting purple shadows into the folds of a mantle that hung from the shoulders of a kneeling figure on the canvas.

Face-downward on an ottoman near, lay a beautiful copy of Owen Meredith's poems; and, after a few seconds, she paused, brush in hand, and, taking up the book, slowly read aloud--glancing, as she did so, from page to picture,--

... "'Then I could perceive A glory pouring through an open door, And in the light five women. I believe They wore white vestments, all of them. They were Quite calm; and each still face unearthly fair, Unearthly quiet. So like statues all, Waiting they stood without that lighted hall; And in their hands, like a blue star, they held Each one a silver lamp.'"

Standing immediately behind her, Dr. Grey saw that she had seized the weird "_Vision of Virgins_," and was putting into pigment that solemn phantasm of the poet's imagination where five radiant women were pa.s.sing to their reward,--and five wailing over flickering, dying lamps, were huddled helplessly and hopelessly under a black and starless midnight sky. Although unfinished, there was marvellous power in the picture, and the sickly gleam from the expiring wicks made the surrounding gloom more supernatural, like the deep shadows skulking behind the lurid glare in some old Flemish painting.

He saw also that she had followed the general outline of the poem; but one of the faces was so supreme in its mute anguish that he thought of Reni's "Cenci," and of a wan "Alcestis," and a desperate "Ca.s.sandra,"

he had seen at Rome; and, in comparison, the description of the poet seemed almost vapid,--

... "One as still as death Hollowed her hands about her lamp, for fear Some motion of the midnight, or her breath, Should fan out the last flicker. Rosy clear The light oozed through her fingers o'er her face.

There was a ruined beauty hovering there Over deep pain, and dashed with lurid grace A waning bloom."

The room with its costly, quaint, and tasteful furniture,--the solitary and singularly beautiful woman; the wonderful picture, growing beneath her hand; the solemn silence, broken only by the deep, hollow murmur of the dimpling sea that sent its shimmer in at the window to meet the painted shimmer in a marine view framed on the wall,--all these wove a spell about the intruder that temporarily held him a mute captive.

The artist laid a delicate green on the stripped and scattered leaves from a wreath of Syrian lilies lying on the marble steps of the bridegroom's mansion, and once more she read a pa.s.sage from the open book,--

... "'Then I beheld A shadow in the doorway. And One came Crown'd for a feast. I could not see the Face.

The Form was not all human. As the Flame Streamed over it, a presence took the place With awe. He, turning, took them by the hand And led them each up the wide stairway, and The door closed.'"

The sound of her voice, low but clear, and burdened with a sadness that no language could exhaust or interpret, thrilled Dr. Grey's steady nerves as no music had ever done, and, stepping forward, he held out his card, and said,--

"Mrs. Gerome, a painful necessity has compelled me to intrude upon your seclusion, and I trust you will acquit me of impertinence."

Rising, she fronted him with a frown severe as that which clouded Artemis' brow when profane eyes peered through myrtle boughs into her sacred retreat, and the changed voice seemed thick with bristling icicles.

"Your business must be imperative, indeed, if it warrants this intrusion. What servant admitted you?"

"None. I came in haste, and, seeing the window open, entered without ringing. Madam, my card will explain my errand."

"Has Dr. Grey an unpaid bill? I was not aware the servants had needed your services; but if so, present your claim to Robert Maclean, my agent."

"Mrs. Gerome owes me nothing, and I came here reluctantly and in compliance with Robert Maclean's request, to inform her of an accident which happened this afternoon while--"

He paused, awed by the change that swept over her countenance, filling it with horrible dread.

"Those gray horses?"

"Yes, madam."

"Not Elsie? Oh! don't tell me that my dear old Elsie was mangled!