Vashti Part 50

Salome went down stairs and knocked at the door of Miss Jane's room, but no sound was audible within, and she softly turned the bolt and entered.

The lamp was burning very dimly on a table close to the bed, and upon the open Bible lay the spectacles which the old lady had placed there twelve hours before, when she finished reading the nightly chapter that generally composed her mind and put her to sleep.

Salome conjectured that she had forgotten to extinguish the lamp, and as she cautiously turned the wick down, her eyes rested on the open page where pencil-lines marked the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes, and enclosed the sixth and seventh verses, "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto G.o.d who gave it."

Removing the gla.s.ses, the girl closed the book, and leaned over the pillow to look at the sleeper. She had turned her face towards the wall, and one hand lay under her head, pressed against her cheek, while the other held her handkerchief on the outside of the counterpane.

Very softly she slumbered, with a placid smile half breaking over her aged, wrinkled features; and unwilling to shorten the morning nap in which she so rarely indulged, Salome sat down at the foot of the bed, and leaning her head on her hands, fell into a painful and profound reverie.

Nearly an hour pa.s.sed, unheeded by the unhappy girl, whose anguish rendered her indifferent to all that surrounded her; and after a while a keen pang thrilled her heart, as she heard Dr. Grey's pleasant voice jesting with Stanley on the lawn. His happiness seemed an insult to her misery, and she stopped her ears to exclude the sound of his quiet laugh.

A half hour elapsed, and then his well-known rap was heard at the door. Miss Jane did not answer, and Salome was in no mood to welcome him home; but he waited for neither, and came in, gently closing the door behind him.

At sight of the orphan, he started slightly, and said,--

"Is my sister sick?"

"I don't know, but she is sleeping unusually late. I thought it best not to disturb her."

The look of dread that swept over his countenance frightened her, and she rose as he moved hastily to the bedside.

"Salome, open the blinds. Quick! quick!"

She sprang to the window, threw the shutters wide open, and hastened back. Dr. Grey's hand was on his sister's wrist, and his ear pressed against her heart,--strained to catch some faint pulsation. His head went down on her pillow, and Salome held her breath.

"Oh, Janet! My dear, patient, good sister! This is indeed hard to bear. To die alone--unsoothed--unnoticed; with no kind hands about you! To die--without one farewell word!"

He hid his face in his hands, and Salome staggered to the bed, and grasped Miss Jane's rigid, icy fingers.

In the silence of midnight, Death stole her spirit from its clay garments, and while she slept peacefully had borne her beyond the confines of Time, and left her resting forever in the City Celestial.

A life dedicated to pure aims and charitable deeds had been rewarded with a death as painless as the slumber of a tired child on its mother's bosom, and, without struggle or premonition, the soul had slipped from the bondage of flesh into the Everlasting Peace that remaineth for the children of G.o.d.

It was impossible to decide at what hour she had died; and when the members of the appalled household were questioned, Muriel and Miss Dexter stated that she had kissed them good night and appeared as well as usual at her customary time of retiring; and Rachel testified that after she was in bed, she rang her bell and directed her to tell the cook that as Dr. Grey would probably come home about daylight, she must get up early and have a cup of coffee ready when he arrived.

Sobbing pa.s.sionately, Rachel added,--

"When I asked her if I should put out the lamp, she said, 'No; Ulpian may lose his patient, and come home sad, and then he will come in and talk to me awhile.' And just as I was leaving the room, she called to me, 'Rachel, what coat did Ulpian wear? It turns so cool now before daylight that he will take cold if he has on that linen one.' I told her I did not know, and she would not be satisfied till I went to his room and found that the linen coat was hanging in the closet, and the gray flannel one was missing. Then she opened her Bible and said, 'Ah, that is all right. The flannel one will do very well, and my boy will be comfortable.'"

Dr. Grey's grief was deep, but silent; and, during the dreary day and night that succeeded, he would allow no one to approach him except Muriel, whose soft little hands, and tearful, tender caresses, seemed in some degree to comfort him.

One month before, Salome would have wept and mourned with him, but the fountain of her tears was exhausted and scorched by the intense bitterness and despairing hate that had taken possession of her since the day of Elsie's burial; and stunned and dry-eyed, she watched the preparations for the obsequies of her benefactress.

Her love for Miss Jane had never been sufficiently fervent to render her distress very poignant; but in the death of this devoted friend she was fully aware that at last she was set once more adrift in the world, without chart or rudder save that furnished by her will.

Life to-day was not the beautiful web, all aglow with the tangling of gold and silver threads, that had once charmed and dazzled her, for the mildew of hopelessness had tarnished the gilding, and the mesh was only a ma.s.s of dark knots, and subtle crossings, and inextricable confusion.

Like that lost star that once burned so luridly in Ca.s.siopeia, and flickered out, leaving a gulf of gloom where stellar glory was, the one most precious hope that lights and sanctifies a woman's heart had waned and grown sickly, and finally had gone out utterly, and dust and ashes and darkness filled the void. In natures such as hers, this hope is not allied to the phoenix, and, once crushed, knows no resurrection; consequently she cheated herself with no vain expectation that the mighty wizard, Time, could evoke from corpse or funeral-pyre even a spark to cheer the years that were thundering before her.

A few months ago the future had glistened as peaceful and silvery as the Dead Sea at midnight, when a full-orbed Syrian moon glares down, searching for the palms and palaces that once marked Gomorrah's proud places; and, like some thirsty traveller smitten with surface sheen, she had laid her fevered lips to the treacherous margin, and, drinking eagerly, had been repaid with brine and bitumen.

Disappointment was with her no meek, mute affair, but a savage fiend that browbeat and anathematized fate, accusing her of rendering existence a mere Nitocris banquet, where, while every sense is sharpened and pampered, and fruition almost touches the outstretched hands of eager trust, the flood-gates of the mighty Nile of despair are lifted, and its chill, dusky waves make irremediable wreck of all.

With the quiet thoughtfulness and good sense that characterized her un.o.btrusive conduct, Miss Dexter had prepared from Muriel's wardrobe an entire suit of mourning, which she prevailed upon Salome to accept and wear; and, on the morning of the funeral, the latter went down early into the draped and darkened parlor, where the coffin and its cold tenant awaited the last offices that dust can perform for dust.

She had not spoken to Dr. Grey for twenty-four hours, and, finding him beside the table where his sister's body lay, the orphan would have retreated, but he caught the rustling sound of her c.r.a.pe and bombazine, and held out his hand.

"Come in, Salome."

She took no notice of the offered fingers, but pa.s.sed him, and went around the table to the opposite side.

The wrinkled, sallow face, still wore its tranquil half-smile, and, under the cap-border of fine lace, the grizzled hair lay smooth and glossy on the sunken temples.

In accordance with a wish which she had often expressed, the ghostly shroud was abandoned, and Miss Jane was dressed in her favorite black silk. Salome had gathered a small bouquet of the fragile white blossoms of apple-geranium, of which the old lady was particularly fond, and, bending over the coffin, she laid them between the fingers that were interlaced on the pulseless heart.

With a quiet mournfulness, more eloquent than pa.s.sionate grief, the girl stood looking for the last time at the placid countenance that had always beamed kindly and lovingly upon her since that dreary day, when, under the flickering shadow of the mulberry-tree, she had called her from the poor-house and given her a happy home.

She stooped to kiss the livid lips, that had never spoken harshly to her; and, for some seconds, her face was hidden on the bosom of the dead. When she raised it, the dry, glittering eyes and firm mouth, betokened the bitterness of soul that no invectives could exhaust, no language adequately express.

"Dr. Grey, if the exchange could be made, I would not only willingly, but gladly, thankfully, lie down here in this coffin, and give your sister back to your arms. The Reaper, Death, has cut down the perfect, golden grain, and left the tares to shiver in the coming winter. Some who are useless and life-weary bend forward, hoping to meet the sickle, but it sweeps above them, and they wither slowly among the stubble."

He looked at her, and found it difficult to realize that the pale, quiet, stern woman, standing there in sombre weeds, was the same fair young face that he had seen thirty-six hours before in the moonlight that brightened Elsie's grave. He thought that only the slow, heavy rolling of years could have worn those lines about her faded lips, and those dark purplish hollows under the steady, undimmed eyes. That composed, frigid Salome, watching him from across the corpse and coffin, seemed a mere chill shadow of the fiery, impetuous, radiant girl, whose pa.s.sionate waywardness had so often annoyed and grieved him. The alabaster vase was still perfect in form, but the lamp that had hitherto burned within, lending a rosy glow to clay, had fluttered and expired, and the change was painful indeed.

His attention was so riveted upon the extraordinary alteration in her appearance, that her words fell on his ear, as empty, as meaningless, as the echoes heard in dreams, and when she ceased speaking, he looked perplexed, and sighed heavily.

"What did you say? I do not think I understand you; my mind was abstracted when you spoke."

"True; you never will understand me. Only the dead sleeping here between us fully comprehended me, and even unto the end of my life-chapter I must walk on misapprehended. When the coffin-lid is screwed down over that dear, kind face, I shall have bidden adieu to my sole and last friend; for in the Hereafter she will not know me.

Ah, Miss Jane! you tried hard to teach me Christianity, but it was like geometry, I had no talent for it,--could not take hold of it,--and it all slipped through my fingers. If there is indeed an inexorable and incorruptible Justice reigning behind the stars, you will be so happy that I and my sins, and my desolation will not trouble you. Good-by, dear Miss Jane; it is not your fault that I missed my chance of being coaxed into the celestial fold with the elect sheep, and find myself scourged out with the despised goats. G.o.d grant you His everlasting rest."

She turned, but Dr. Grey stretched his arm across his sister's body, and caught the orphan's dress.

"Salome, G.o.d has called my own sister to her blessed rest in Christ, but my adopted sister He has left to comfort, to sympathize with me.

Here, in the sacred presence of my dear dead, I ask you to take her place, and be to me throughout life the true, loving, faithful friend whom nothing can alienate, and of whom only death can deprive me. My little sister, let the future ripen and sanctify our confidence, affection, and friendship."

"No, sir; sinners can not fill the niches of the saints; and to-day we are more completely divided than if the ocean roared between us. Once I struggled hard to cure myself of my faults,--to purify and fashion my nature anew, but the incentive has died, and I have no longer the proud aspirations that lifted me like eagle's wings high above the dust into which I have now fallen,--and where I expect to remain. You need not fear that I shall commit some capital sin, and go down in disgrace to my grave; for there must be some darling hope, some precious aim, that goads people to crime,--and neither of these have I. I do not want your friendship, and I will not allow your dictation; and, if you are as generous as I have believed you, I think you will spare me the manifestation of your pity. Miss Jane was the only link that united us in any degree, and now we are asunder and adrift. You see at least I am honest, and since I have not your confidence, I decline your compa.s.sion and espionage, and refuse to accept a sham friendship,--to trust myself upon a gossamer web that stretches across a dismal gulf of gloom, and wretchedness, and endless altercation.

When I am in one continent, and you are in another, we shall be better friends than now."

Her cold, slow, measured accents, and the calm pallor of her features told how complete was the change that had set its stern seal on body and soul; and Dr. Grey's heart ached, as he realized how withering was the blight that had fallen on her once buoyant, sanguine nature.

"My dear Salome, for Janet's sake, and in memory of all her love and counsel, let me beg you not to indulge feelings that can only result in utter--"

"Dr. Grey, let there be silence and peace between us, at least in the presence of the dead. Expostulation from your lips only exasperates and hardens me; so pray be quiet. No! do not touch me! Our hands have not clasped each other so often nor so closely that they must needs miss the warmth and pressure in the coming years of separation, and I will not soil your palm with mine."

She coldly put aside the hand that endeavored to take hers, and, after one long, sad gaze at the marble face in the coffin, turned away, and went back to her own room.

Miss Jane's charities had carried her name even to the secluded nooks of the county, and, when her death was announced, many humble beneficiaries of her bounty came to offer the last testimonial of respect and grat.i.tude, by following the remains to their final resting-place. As the hour approached for the solemn rites, the house was filled with friends and acquaintances; and the members of the profession to which Dr. Grey belonged came to attend the funeral, and officiate as pall-bearers.

Seated beside Dr. Grey, on one of the sofas, Salome's dry eyes noted all that pa.s.sed while the services were performed; and, when the hea.r.s.e moved down the avenue, she took his offered arm, and was placed in the same carriage.