Vashti Part 68

"Then I should have become an inmate of the same gloomy walls; and, while you lived, should have shared with faithful Elsie the care and charge of you. G.o.d is my witness, I had resolved to dedicate my remaining years to the task of cheering and guarding yours. Oh, Evelyn! not until we stand in the great Court of Heaven can you realize how sincerely, how tenderly, and unwaveringly, I love you. My darling, how can you distrust my faithful heart?"

She sank on her knees, and, throwing her arms around the tall, slender form, looked with mournful, beseeching tenderness at the haughty features above her.

For a moment the proud, pale face glowed,--the great shadowy eyes kindled and shone like wintry planets in some crystalline sky; but doubt, murderous, cynical doubt, grappled with hope, and strangled it.

"Edith, I wish I could believe you. I am struggling desperately to lay hold of the fluttering garments of faith, but I cannot! Suspicion has walked hand in hand with me so long that I cannot shake off her numbing touch, and I distrust all human things, save the dusty heart that moulders yonder in my old Elsie's grave."

She pointed to the white columns of the temple, and then the uplifted fingers fell heavily on Edith's shoulder.

"Go on. I wish to learn whose treachery betrayed the secret of my retreat."

Pressing her feverish lips to the hand she admired so enthusiastically, Miss Dexter resumed her recital of what had occurred since her journey to London, and finally ended it with an account of her removal to 'Gra.s.smere,' and of the discovery of the miniatures that guided her to 'Solitude.'

A long pause followed, and a heavy sigh, only partially smothered, indexed the contest that raged under Mrs. Gerome's calm exterior.

"Edith, would you have inferred from Dr. Grey's manner that he was not only acquainted with my history, but yours, at least, so far as it intersected mine? Did he furnish no hint, no clew, that aided you in your search?"

"None whatever. On the contrary, he appeared so preoccupied, so abstracted, that I reproached him with indifference to my troubles. It is not possible that he knew all, while I briefly summed up a portion of the past."

"At that moment he was thoroughly cognizant of everything that I could tell him. But, at least, one honorable, trustworthy man yet graces the race; one pure, incorruptible, and consistent Christian remains to shed l.u.s.tre upon a church that can nowhere boast his peer. I confided all to Dr. Grey, and he has kept the trust. Ah, Edith, if you had only reposed the same confidence in me, during those halcyon days of our early friendship,--days that seem to me now as far off, as dim and unreal, as those starry nights when I lay in my little crib, dreaming of that mother whose face I never saw, whose smile is one of the surprises and blessings reserved for eternity,--how different my lot and yours might have been! Why did you not trust me with your happy hopes, your lover's name and difficulties? How differently I would have invested that fortune, which proved our common ruin, and doomed three lives to uselessness and woe. To-day you might have proudly worn the name that I utterly detest; and I, the outcast, the wanderer, the tireless, friendless waif, drifting despairingly down the tide of time,--even I, the unloved, might have been, not a solitary c.u.mberer, not a household upas,--but why taunt the hideous Actual with a blessed and beautiful Impossible? Ah, truly, truly,--

"'What might have been, I know, is not: What must be, must be borne; But ah! what hath been will not be forgot, Never, oh! never, in the years to follow!'"

She closed her eyes and seemed pondering the past, and mutely the governess prayed that hallowed memories of their former affection might soften her apparently petrified heart.

Edith saw a great change overspread the countenance, but could not accurately interpret its import; and her own heart began to beat the long-roll.

The heavy black eyelashes lying on Mrs. Gerome's marble cheeks glistened, trembled, and tears stole slowly across her face. She raised her hand, but dropped it in her lap, and frowned slightly and sighed. Then she lifted it once more, and looking through the shining mist that magnified her splendid eyes, she laid her fingers on the golden head of the kneeling woman.

"You and I have innocently wronged and ruined each other; you with your beauty, I with my accursed gold. Time was when at your bidding I would have laid my throbbing heart at your feet, provided I could thereby save you one pang; for I loved you as women very rarely love one another. But now, lonely and hopeless, I have lost the power, the capacity to love anything, and I have no heart left in my bosom. I acquit you of much for which I formerly held you responsible, and I honor the purity of purpose that forbade your receiving the visits or letters of him who must one day answer for our worthless lives. I fully forgive you the suffering that made me prematurely old; but my affection is as dead as all my girlish hopes, and buried under the crushing years that have dragged themselves over my poor, proud, pain-bleached head. You are more fortunate, more enviable than I, for you have the comforting antic.i.p.ation of a speedy release, the precious a.s.surance that your torture will ere long be ended; while I must front the prospect of perhaps fourscore and ten years: for, despite my ivory skin and fever-blanched locks, I am maddeningly healthy. Friend of my childhood, friend of my happy, sunny, sinless days, I cordially congratulate you on your approaching deliverance. G.o.d knows I would pay you my fortune, if I could innocently and successfully inject into my veins and lungs the poison that will soon rob you of care and regret. If I was harsh to-day, forgive and forget it, for nothing rankles in the grave; and now, Edith, go away quickly, before I repent and recant the words I here utter. G.o.d comfort you, Edith Dexter, and remember that I hold you guiltless of my wrecked destiny."

"Oh, Evelyn! add one thing more. Say, 'Edith, I love you.'"

A strangely mournful smile parted Mrs. Gerome's perfect lips over her dazzling teeth, as she pushed the kneeling figure from her, and said coldly,--

"Rise, and leave me. I love no living thing, brute or human, for even my faithful dog lies buried a few yards hence. Maurice treated my warm, loving nature, as Tofana did her unsuspecting victims, and for that slow poison there is no antidote. The sole interest I have in life centres in my art, and when death mercifully remembers me, some pictures I have patiently wrought out will be given to the public; and the next generation will, perhaps,--

'Hear the world applaud the hollow ghost, Which blamed the living woman,'

and, smiling grimly in my coffin, I shall echo,--

'Hither to come, and to sleep, Under the wings of renown.'"

Both rose, and the two so long divided faced each other sorrowfully.

"Dear Evelyn, do not hug despair so stubbornly to your bosom. You might brighten your solitary existence if you would, and be comparatively happy in this lovely seaside home."

"You think 'Solitude' a very desirable and beautiful retreat? Do you remember the gay raiment and glittering jewels that covered the radiant bride of Giacopone di Todi? One day an accident at a public festival mangled her mortally, and when her gorgeous garments were torn off, lo!

'A robe of sackcloth next the smooth, white skin.'"

A sudden pallor crept over the delicate face of the governess, and, folding her hands, she exclaimed with pa.s.sionate vehemence,--

"I cannot, I must not shrink from the chief object of my visit here. I came not only to exonerate myself, but to plead for poor Maurice."

Mrs. Gerome started back, and the pitiless gleam came instantly into her softened eyes.

"Do not mention his name again. I thought you had neither seen nor heard from him."

"I must plead his wretched cause, since he is denied the privilege of appealing to your mercy. Evelyn, my friends write me that he is almost in a state of dest.i.tution. Only last night I received this letter, which I leave for your perusal, and which a.s.sures me he is in want, and, moreover, is dangerously ill. Who has the right, the privilege,--whose is the duty, imperative and stern, to hasten to his bedside, to alleviate his suffering, to provide for his needs?

Yours, Evelyn Carlyle, and yours alone. Where are the marriage-vows that you s.n.a.t.c.hed from my lips eight years ago, and eagerly took upon your own? Did you not solemnly swear in the presence of heaven and earth to serve him and keep him in sickness, and, forsaking all others, to hold him from that day forward, for better, for worse, until death did part ye? Oh, Evelyn! do not scowl, and turn away.

However unworthy, he is your husband in the sight of G.o.d and man, and your wedding oath calls you to him in this hour of his terrible need. Can you sleep peacefully, knowing that he is tossing with paroxysms of pain, and perhaps hungering and thirsting for that which you could readily supply? If it were right,--if I dared, I would hasten to him; but my conscience inexorably forbids the thought, and consigns my heart to torture, for which there is no name. You will tell me that you provided once, twice, for all reasonable wants,--that he has recklessly squandered liberal allowances. But will that satisfy your conscience, while you still possess ample means to aid him? Will you permit the man whose name you bear to live on other charity than your own,--and finally, to fill a pauper's grave? Oh, Evelyn! was it for this that you took my darling, my idol, from my clinging, loving arms? Will you see his body writhing in the agony of disease, and his precious, immortal soul in fearful jeopardy, while you stand afar off, surrounded by every luxury that ingenuity can suggest, and gold purchase? Oh, Evelyn!

be merciful; do your duty. Like a brave, true, though injured woman, go to Maurice, and strive to make him comfortable; to lighten, by your pardon, his sad, heavily laden heart. By your past, your memories of your betrothal, your hopes of heaven, and above all, by your marriage vows, I implore you to discharge your sacred duties."

A bitter smile twisted the muscles about Mrs. Gerome's mouth, as she gazed into the quivering, eloquent face of her companion, and listened to the impetuous appeal that poured so pathetically over her burning lips.

"Edith, you amaze me. Is it possible that after all your injuries you can cling so fondly, so madly, to the man who slighted, and humiliated, and blighted you?"

"Ah! you are his wife, and I am the ridiculed and pitied victim of his flirtation, so says the world; but my affection outlives yours.

Evelyn, I have loved him from the time when I can first recollect; I loved him with a deathless devotion that neither his unworthiness, nor time, nor eternity can conquer; and to-day, I tell you that he is dear to me,--dear to me as some precious corpse, over which a gravestone has gathered moss for eight weary, dreary years. The angels in heaven would not blush for the feeling in my heart towards Maurice Carlyle; and the G.o.d who must soon judge me will not condemn the pure and sacred love I cherish for the only man who could ever have been my husband, but whom I have resolutely refused to see, even when the world believed you dead. I cannot go to him, and comfort, and provide for him now; but, in the name of G.o.d, and your oath, and if not for your own sake, at least for his and for mine, I ask you once more, Evelyn Carlyle, will you hasten to your erring but unhappy husband?"

Her scarlet cheeks and lips, her glowing brown eyes, and waving yellow hair, formed a singular contrast to the colorless, cold face of her listener; whose steely gaze was fixed on the distant sea, that lay like a beryl mirror beneath the hazy sky.

When the sound of the sweet but strained voice had died away, Mrs.

Gerome turned her eyes towards the governess, and answered,--

"I will do my duty, no matter how revolting."

"Thank G.o.d! When will you go?"

"If at all, at once."

"Evelyn, when you come home, will you not let me see you, now and then, and win my way back to my old place in your dear heart? Oh! my pale, peerless darling, do not deny me this."

"Home? I have no home. My heart is grayer than my head,--and your old niche is full of dust, and skeletons, and murdered hopes. Let me see you no more in this world; and perhaps in the Everlasting Rest I shall forget my hideous past, which your face recalls."

"Oh, my poor bruised darling! do not banish me," wailed the governess, endeavoring to fold her arms about the queenly form, which silently but effectually held her back.

"At least, dear Evelyn, let me kiss you once more, in token that you cherish no bitterness against me."

"Good-by, Edith. I hold you innocent of my injuries. May G.o.d help you, and call us both speedily to our dreamless sleep under moss and marble."

She bent down, and with firm, icy lips, lightly touched the forehead of the governess, and walked away, unheeding the burst of tears with which the frigid caress was welcomed.

"And I think, in the lives of most women and men, There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, If only the dead could find out when To come back, and be forgiven."