Vashti Part 62

"Nothing destructive, I hope,--as I am disposed to think she has little to spare."

"Good heavens! You surely would not insinuate that you believe or consider,--or would admit, that she is not vastly superior to--to--there, Beauty, down! She is actually dining on the fringe of my pelerine!"

To cover her confusion, Constance addressed herself to the diminutive dog at her feet, and taking her flushed face in his hands, the brother looked steadily down, and answered,--

"I never insinuate. It impresses me as a cowardly and contemptible bit of plebeian practice that found favor after the royal purple was trailed in agrarian democratic dust; and lest you should unjustly impute abhorred innuendoes to me, I will say perspicuously, that the most attractive and beautiful woman I have ever seen is not your fair friend Miss Sutherland, nor any other darling of diamond and satin sheen, but a young lady whom I admire beyond expression, Miss Salome Owen."

An angry flush burned on the invalid's face, and her mouth curled scornfully.

"She is rather handsome sometimes,--so are gypsies and other waifs; but it is a wild sort of beauty,--if beauty you persist in terming it; and low birth and blood are visible in everything that appertains to her. I never expected to see my brother condescend to the level of opera-singers, and I am astonished at your infatuation. There! you need not expect to blast me with that fiery look, and besides, you know you mentioned her name, which I had scrupulously avoided. I confess I am very proud of my family, and of you, its sole male representative, and I wish it preserved from all taint."

"Untainted it shall remain, while a drop of the blood throbs in my veins, and I, who am jealous of my honor, have carefully pondered the matter, and maturely decided that he who entrusts his happiness to Salome Owen will be indeed an enviable man, and pardonably proud of his prize. Once I bartered myself away at the altar, and gave my name and hand for wealth, for aristocratic antecedents, for fashionable status, and five years of purgatorial misery was the richly merited penalty for the insult I offered my heart. Death freed me, and for ten years I have lived at least in peace, indulging no thought of a second alliance, and merely amused, or disgusted by the matrimonial snares that have lined my path. I no longer belong to that pitiable cla.s.s who feel constrained to marry for position, and who convert the altar-steps into so many rounds of the social ladder; and I have earned the right to indulge my outraged heart in any caprice that promises to mellow, to gild the evening of my life with that home-sunshine that was denied its gloomy tempestuous morning. My future, my fortune, my social standing, my unblemished name, are all my own,--and I shall exercise my privilege of bestowing them where and when I please, heedless of the sneers and howls of disappointed mercenary schemers. Come weal, come woe, I here announce that neither you nor the world need hope to influence me one 'jot or t.i.ttle' in an affair where I allow no impertinent interference. I warn you this is the last time I shall permit even an indirect allusion to matters with which you have no legitimate concern; and provided you do not obtrude them upon me, it is a question of indifference to me what your opinion and that of your 'circle' may chance to be. Constance, you here have your ultimatum. Defy me, if you please, but prompt separation will ensue; and you will unexpectedly find yourself _en route_ for America.

Peace or war? Before you decide, recollect that all your future will be irretrievably colored by it."

"In my state of health it is positively cruel for you to threaten me; and some day when you follow my coffin to Mount Auburn, you will repent your harshness. I wish to heaven I had never left home!"

A pa.s.sionate fit of weeping curtailed the sentence, and, while the face was covered with the lace handkerchief, the brother rose and made his escape.

Despite the fact that forty years had left their whitening touches on his head and luxuriant beard, Merton Minge, who had never been handsome, even in youth, was sufficiently agreeable in appearance to render him an object of deep interest in the circle where he moved.

Medium-statured, and very robust, a healthful ruddy tinge robbed his complexion of that sallow hue which mercantile pursuits are apt to induce, and brightened the deep-set black eyes which his debtors considered mercilessly keen, cold, and incisive.

The square face, with its broad, full forehead, and deep curved furrow dividing the thick straight brows,--its well-shaped but prominent nose, and ma.s.sive jaws and chin partially veiled by a grizzled beard that swept over his deep chest,--was suggestive of ledgers rent-roll, and stock-boards, rather than aesthetics, chivalry, or sentimentality.

The only son of a proud but impoverished family, who were eager to retrieve their fortune, he had early in life married the imperious spoiled daughter of a Boston millionaire, whose dower consisted of five hundred thousand dollars, and a temper that eclipsed the unamiable exploits of ancient and modern shrews.

Hopeless of domestic happiness in a union to which affection had not prompted him, Mr. Minge devoted himself to the rapid acc.u.mulation of wealth, and by judicious and successful speculations had doubled his fortune, ere, at the comparatively early age of thirty, he was left a childless widower. Whether he really thanked fate for his timely release, his most intimate friends were never able to ascertain, for he wore mourning, badges for three years, and conducted himself in all respects with exemplary dignity and scrupulous propriety. But the frigid indifference with which he received all matrimonial overtures indicated that his conjugal experience was not so rosy as to tempt him to repeat the experiment.

His mother was a haughty, frivolous woman, jealously tenacious of her position as one of the oligarchs of _le beau monde_, and his fragile sister had from childhood been the victim of rheumatism that frequently rendered her entirely helpless. To these two and their fashionable friends, he abandoned his elegant home, costly equipages, and opera-box, reserving only a suite of rooms, his handsome riding-horse, and yacht.

Grave and unostentatious, yet not moody,--neither impulsively liberal and generous nor habitually penurious and uncharitable,--he led a quiet and monotonously easy life, varied by occasional trips to foreign lands, and comforted by the a.s.surance that his income-tax was one of the heaviest in the state. Two years after the death of his mother, he took his sister a second time to Europe, hoping that the climate of the Levant might relieve her suffering; and upon the steamer in which he crossed the Atlantic he met Salome Owen.

Extravagantly fond of music, though unable to extract it from any instrument, his attention had first been attracted by her exquisite voice, which invested the voyage with a novel charm and rendered her a great favorite with the pa.s.sengers.

Human nature is wofully inflexible and obstinate, and not all the Menus, Zoroasters, Solomons, and Platos have taught it wisdom; wherefore it is not surprising that a caustic wit and savage cynic a.s.serts, "The vices, it may be said, await us in the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid them if we were to travel the same road a second time."

Habit may be second nature, but it is the Gurth, the thrall of the first,--the va.s.sal of inherent impulses; and even the most ossified natures contain some soft palpitating spot that will throb against the hand that is sufficiently dexterous to find it. In every man and woman there lurks a vein of sentiment, which, no matter how heavily crushed by the super-inc.u.mbent ma.s.s of utilitarian, practical commonplaceisms, will one day trickle through the dusty _debris_, and creep like a silver thread over the dun waste of selfishness; or, Arethusa-like, burst forth suddenly after long subterranean wandering.

For forty years it had crawled silently and sluggishly under the indurated and coldly egoistic nature of Merton Minge,--had been dammed up at times by avarice and at others by grim recollections of his domestic infelicity; but finally, after tedious meandering in the Desert of Heartlessness, it struggled triumphantly to the surface one glorious autumn night, when a golden moon illumined the Atlantic waves and kindled a bewitching beauty in the face of Salome, who sat on deck, singing an impa.s.sioned strain from _La Favorite_.

Her silvery voice was the miraculous rod that smote his petrified affections, and a wellspring of tenderness gushed forth, freshening, softening, and clothing with verdure and bloom his arid, sterile, stony temperament. Long-buried dreams of his boyhood stirred in their chilly graves and flitted dimly before him, and a hope that had slumbered so soundly he had utterly ignored its memory, started up, eager and starry-eyed, as in the college days of eld,--the precious hope, underlying all other emotions in a man's heart, that one day he too would be loved and prayed for by a pure womanly heart, and pure, sweet, womanly lips.

Fifteen years before, he had vowed "to cherish," not the haughty girl whose hand he clasped, but the five hundred thousand dollars that gilded it; and faithfully he had kept his oath to the G.o.d of his idolatry, sacrificing the best half of his life to insatiate _Kuvera_.

On that cloudless October night, as he watched the shimmer of the moon on Salome's silky hair, and noted the purely oval outline of her daintily carved face, and the childish grace of her fine form,--as he listened to flute-like tones, as irresistible as Parthenope's, his cold, formal, non-committal mouth stirred, his hand involuntarily opened and closed firmly, as if grasping some "pearl of great price,"

and his slow, almost stagnant pulses, leaped into feverish activity, and soon ran riot. Perhaps more regular features, and deeper, richer carnation bloom had confronted him, but love makes sad havoc of ideals and abstract standards, and he who defined beauty, "the woman I love," was wiser than Burke and more a.n.a.lytical than Cousin.

The freshness, the _brusquerie_, the outspoken honesty, that characterized Salome, strangely fascinated this grave, selfish, _blase_ aristocrat, who was weary of hollow, polished conventionalities and stereotyped society phrases; and, as he sat on deck watching her countenance, he would have counted out his fortune at her feet for the privilege of claiming her fair, slender hand, and her tremulous, scarlet lips, instinct with melody that entranced him.

Henceforth life had a different goal, a n.o.bler aim, a tenderer and more precious hope; and all the energy of his vigorous character was bent to the fulfilment of the beautiful dream that one day that young girl would bear his name, grace his princely home, and nestle in his heart.

He did not ask, Can that fair, graceful, gifted young thing ever love a gray-haired man, old enough to call her his daughter? Nay, nay!

Common sense was utterly dethroned and expelled,--romance usurped the realm, and draped the future with rainbows; and he only set his teeth firmly against each other, and said to his bounding heart and blinded soul, "Patience, ye shall soon possess her!"

To Paris, Lyons, Naples, he had followed her, and finally secured a villa at Palermo, where Prof. V---- had established himself and his household in a comfortable suite of rooms.

To-day, as he left his sister and approached the house where the professor dwelt, his countenance was moody and forbidding, but its expression changed rapidly, as he caught a glimpse of the white muslin dress that fluttered in the evening wind.

Salome was swiftly pacing the wide terrace that commanded a view of the Mediterranean, and her hands were clasped behind her, as was her habit when immersed in thought.

Over her head she had thrown a white gauze scarf of fringed silk, which, slipping back, displayed the elaborate braids of hair wound around the head, where a crescent of snowy hyacinths partially encircled the glossy coil, and drooped upon her neck.

Her face wore a haggard, anxious, restless expression, and the thin lips had lost their bright coral tint,--the smooth, clear cheeks something of their rounded perfection.

As Mr. Minge came forward, she paused in her walk and leaned against the marble railing of the terrace, where a lemon tree, white with bloom, overhung the mosaiced floor and powdered it with velvety petals.

He held out his hand.

"I hope I find you better?"

"Do I look so, think you?" said she, eyeing him impatiently, and keeping her hands folded behind her.

"Unfortunately, no; and if I possessed the right I have more than once solicited, other physicians should be consulted. Why will you tamper with so serious a matter, and unnecessarily augment the anxiety of those who love you?"

"I beg you to believe that my self-love is infinitely stronger than any other with which I am honored, and prompts me to all possible prudential precautions. Three doctors have already annoyed me with worthless prescriptions, and this morning I paid their bills and dismissed them; whereupon, one of them revenged himself by maliciously informing me that I should not be able to sing a note for one year at least."

"To what do they attribute the disease?"

"To that attack of scarlet fever, and also to the too frequent and severe cauterization of my throat. Time was when like other fond fools, I fancied Fate was not the hideous hag that wiser heads had painted her, but an affable old dame, easily cajoled and propitiated.

With Carthaginian grat.i.tude she repays my complimentary opinion by trampling my hopes and aims as I crush these petals, which yield perfume to their spoiler, while I could--"

She put her foot upon the drifting lemon blossoms, and bit her lip to keep back the bitter words that trembled on her tongue.

"Come and sit here on the steps, and confide your plans to one whose every scheme shall be subordinated to your wishes, your happiness."

Mr. Minge attempted to take her hand, but she drew back and repulsed him.

"Excuse me. I prefer to remain where I am; and when I am so fortunate and sagacious as to mature any plans, I shall be sure to lock them in my own heart beyond the tender mercies of meddling, marplot fortune."

Her whole face grew dark, sinister, almost dangerous in its sudden transformation, and, leaning against the railing, she impatiently swept off the snowy lemon leaves. Mr. Minge took the end of her scarf, and as he toyed with the fringe, sighed heavily.

"Of course you are forced to abandon your contemplated _debut_ in Paris?"

"Yes. A _debut_ minus a voice, does not tempt me. Ah! how bright the future looked when I sang for the agent of the Opera-House, and found myself engaged for the season. How changed, how cheerless all things seem now."

"Salome, fate is Ja.n.u.s-faced, and while frowning on you smiles benignantly on me. I joyfully hail every obstacle that bars your path, hoping that, weary of useless resistance, you will consent to walk in the flowery one I have offered you. My beautiful darling, why will you refuse the--"

"Silence! I am in no mood to listen to a repet.i.tion of sentiments which, however flattering to my vanity, have no power to touch my heart. Mr. Minge, I have twice declined the offer you have done me the honor to make; and while proud of your preference, my Saxon is not so ambiguous or redundant as to leave any margin for misconception of my meaning."

"My dear Salome, I fear your decision has been influenced by the consciousness that my poor, petted Constance has occasionally neglected the courtesies which you had a right to claim from the sister of the man who seeks to make you his wife."