Vashti Part 73

Mr. Granville cleared his throat several times, and loosened his neck-tie, which seemed to impede his breathing.

"Shall I go on? There is little more to tell."

"If you please, Granville."

"Mr. Minge would not abandon the hope of finally persuading her to accept his hand, but next day when he called to inquire about her health, and to request the sisters to watch her movements, and prevent her escape, he was shocked to learn that she had disappeared the previous night, leaving a few lines written in pencil on a handkerchief, in which she had wrapped her superb suit of hair. They were addressed to the Sisters of Charity, and briefly expressed her grat.i.tude for their kindness in providing for her wants, while she a.s.sured them that as soon as possible she would return and compensate them for their services in her behalf. Meantime, knowing the high price of hair, she had carefully cut off her own, which was unusually long and thick, and tendered it in part payment. When she was taken into the building, her nurse found concealed in her dress a very elegant watch, bearing her name in diamond letters, and she requested that the sisters would hold it in p.a.w.n, until she was able to redeem it. During her illness, it had been locked up, and they supposed she left it, fearing that an application for it would arouse suspicions of her intended flight. Mr. Minge bought the hair and handkerchief, and, after a liberal remuneration for their care of the invalid, he took charge of the watch, and left his address to be given her when she called for her property. That her mind had become seriously impaired, there can be little doubt, since nothing but insanity can explain her refusal to accept one of the handsomest estates in America. Unfortunately, a few days subsequent to her departure from the hospital, Mr. Minge was taken very violently ill with pneumonia, and died. Conscious of his condition, he prepared a codicil to his will, and bequeathed to Salome twenty-five thousand dollars, and an elegant house and lot in New York City. He exacted from his sister a solemn promise that she would leave no means untried to ferret out the wanderer, to whom he was so devotedly attached; and, should all efforts fail, at the expiration of five years the legacy should revert to the hospital which had sheltered her in the hour of her dest.i.tution. The watch he left with his sister Constance; the hair, he ordered buried with him. Three months have elapsed, and no tidings have reached Miss Minge, who remains in Paris for the purpose of complying with her brother's dying request."

"My poor, perverse Salome! To what desperate extremities has she been reduced by her unfortunate wilfulness. Gerard, will you tell me frankly your own conjecture concerning her fate?"

"If alive, I believe she has left Europe."

"Upon what do you base your supposition?"

"Mr. Minge was convinced that her attachment to some one in America was the insurmountable barrier to his success as a suitor; and, if so, she probably returned to her native land. Dr. Grey, I will speak candidly to you of a matter which has doubtless given you some disquiet. Muriel informs me that you have no confidence in the sincerity of my attachment to her, and that upon that fact is founded your refusal to allow the consummation of our engagement, so long as she continues your ward. I confess I am not free from censure, but, while I have acted weakly, I am not devoid of principle. Sir, I was strangely and powerfully attracted to Salome Owen, and she exerted a species of fascination over me which I scarcely endeavored to resist. In an evil hour, infatuated by her face and her marvellous voice, I was wild enough to offer her my hand, and resolved to ask Muriel to release me. Dr. Grey, even at my own expense, I wish to exonerate Salome, who never for an instant, by word or look, encouraged my madness. She repulsed my advances, refused every attention, and when I rashly uttered words, which, I admit, were treasonable to Muriel, she almost overwhelmed me with her fiery contempt and indignation,--threatening to acquaint Muriel with my inconstancy, and appealing to my honor as a gentleman to keep inviolate my betrothal vows. Dr. Grey, if my heart temporarily wandered from its allegiance to your ward, it was not Salome's fault, for in every respect her conduct towards me was that of a n.o.ble, unselfish woman, who scorned to gratify her vanity at the expense of another's happiness. She shamed me out of my folly, and her stern honesty and n.o.bility saved me from a brief and humiliating career of dishonorable duplicity. Whether living or dead, I owe this tribute to the pure character of Salome Owen."

"Thank Heaven! I had faith in her. I believed her too generous to stoop to a flirtation with the lover of her friend; and, deplorable as was your own weakness, I am rejoiced, Gerard, to find that you have conquered it. Tell Muriel all that you have confided to me, and in her hands we will leave the decision."

"Do you intend to prosecute the search which has proved so fruitless?"

"I do. She has not returned to America,--she is here somewhere; and, living or dead, I must and will find her."

Dr. Grey seemed lost in perplexing thought for some time, then drew a sheet of paper before him, and wrote, "Ulpian Grey wishes to see Salome Owen, in order to communicate some facts which will induce her return to her family; and he hopes she will call immediately at No.

Rue ----."

"Gerard, please be so good as to have this inserted in all the leading journals in the city; and give me the address of Mr. Minge's agent."

At the expiration of a month, spent in the most diligent yet unsuccessful efforts to obtain some information of the wanderer, Dr.

Grey began to feel discouraged,--to yield to melancholy forebodings that an untimely death had ended her struggles and suffering.

Once, while pacing the walks in the Champs-Elysees, he caught a glimpse of a face that recalled Salome's, and started eagerly forward; but it proved that of a Parisian _bonne_, who was romping with her juvenile charge.

Again, one afternoon, as he came out of the Church of St. Sulpice, his heart bounded at sight of a woman who leaned against the railing, and watched the play of the fountain. When he approached her and peered eagerly into her countenance, blue eyes and yellow curls mocked his hopes. One morning, while he walked slowly along the _Rue du Faubourg St. Honore_, his attention was attracted by the glitter of pretty baubles in the _Maison de la Pensee_, and he entered the establishment to purchase something for Jessie.

While waiting for his parcel, a woman came out of a rear apartment and pa.s.sed into the street, and, almost s.n.a.t.c.hing his package from the counter, he followed.

A few yards in advance was a graceful but thin figure, clad in a violet-colored muslin, with a rather dingy silk scarf wound around her shoulders. A straw hat, with a wreath of faded pink roses, drooped over her face, and streamers of black lace hung behind, while over the whole she had thrown a thin gray veil.

Dr. Grey had not seen a feature, but the _pose_ of the shoulders, the haughty poise of the head, the quick, nervous, elastic step, and, above all, the peculiar, free, childish swinging of the left arm, made his despondent heart throb with renewed hope.

Keeping sufficiently near not to lose sight of her, he walked on and on, down cross streets, up narrow alleys, towards a quarter of the city with which he was unacquainted. The woman never looked back, rarely turned her head, even to glance at those who pa.s.sed her, and only once she paused before a flower-stall, and seemed to price a bunch of carnations, which she smelled, laid down again, and then hurried on.

Dr. Grey quickly paid for the cl.u.s.ter, and hastened after her.

In turning a corner, she dropped a small parcel that she had carried under her scarf, and as she stooped to pick it up, her veil floated off. She caught it ere it reached the ground, and when she raised her hands to spread it over her hat, the loose open sleeves of her dress slipped back, and there, on the left arm, was a long, zigzag scar, like a serpentine bracelet.

With great difficulty Dr. Grey stifled a cry of joy, and waited until she had gained some yards in advance.

The woman was so absorbed in reverie that she did not notice the steady tramp of her pursuer, but as the number of persons on the street gradually diminished, he prudently fell back, fearing lest her suspicion should be excited.

At a sudden bend in the crooked alley which she rapidly threaded, he lost sight of her, and, running a few yards, he turned the angle just in time to see the flutter of her dress and scarf, as she disappeared through a postern, that opened in a crumbling brick wall.

Above the gate a battered tin sign swung in the wind, and dim letters, almost effaced by elemental warfare, announced, "_Adele Aubin, Blanchisseuse_."

Dr. Grey pa.s.sed through the postern, and found himself in a narrow, dark court, near a tall, dingy, dilapidated house, where a girl ten years of age sat playing with two ragged, untidy children.

It was a dreary, comfortless, uninviting place, and a greenish slime overspread the lower portions of the wall, and coated the uneven pavement.

From the girl, who chatted with genuine French volubility and freedom, Dr. Grey learned that her father was an attache of a barber-shop, and her mother a washer and renovater of laces and embroideries. The latter was absent, and, in answer to his inquiries, the child informed him that an upper room in this cheerless building was occupied by a young female lodger, who held no intercourse with its other inmates.

Placing a five-franc piece in her hand, the visitor asked the name of the lodger, but the girl replied that she was known to them only as "_La Dentelliere_," and lived quite alone in the right-hand room at the top of the third flight of stairs.

The parley had already occupied twenty minutes, when Dr. Grey cut it short by mounting the narrow, winding steps. The atmosphere was close, and redolent of the fumes of dishes not so popular in America as in France, and he saw that the different doors of this old tenement were rented to lodgers who cooked, ate, and slept in the same apartment. At the top of the last dim flight of steps, Dr. Grey paused, almost out of breath; and found himself on a narrow landing-place, fronting two attic rooms. The one on the right was closed, but as he softly took the bolt in his hand and turned it, there floated through the key-hole the low subdued sound of a sweet voice, humming "_Infelice_."

It was not the deep, rich, melting voice, that had arrested his drive when first he heard it on the beach, but a plaintive, thrilling echo, full of pathos, yet lacking power; like the notes of birds when moulting-season ends, and the warblers essay their old strains.

Cautiously he opened the door wide enough to permit him to observe what pa.s.sed within.

The room was large, low, and irregularly shaped, with neither fire-place nor stove, and only one dormer window opening to the south, and upon a wide waste of tiled roofs and smoking chimneys. The floor was bare, except a strip of faded carpet stretched in front of a small single bedstead; and the additional furniture consisted of two chairs, a tall table where hung a mirror, and a washstand that held beside bowl and pitcher a candlestick and china cup. On the table were several books, a plate and knife, and a partially opened package disclosed a loaf of bread, some cheese, and an apple.

In front of the window a piece of plank had been rudely fastened, and here stood two wooden boxes containing a few violets, mignonette, and one very luxuriant rose-geranium.

The faded blue cambric curtain was twisted into a knot, and as it was now nearly noon, the sun shone in and made a patch of gold on the stained and dusky floor.

On the bed lay the straw hat, garlanded with roses that had lost their primitive tints, and before the window in a low chair sat the lonely lodger.

On her knees rested a cushion, across which was stretched a parchment pattern bristling with pins, and with bobbins she was swiftly knitting a piece of gossamer lace, by throwing the fine threads around the pins.

Over the floor floated her delicate lilac dress, and the sleeves were looped back to escape the forest of pins.

Dr. Grey had only a three-quarter view of the face that bent over the cushion, and though it was sadly altered in every lineament,--was whiter and thinner than he had ever seen it,--yet it was impossible to mistake the emaciated features of Salome Owen.

The large, handsome head, had been shorn of its crown of glossy braids that once encircled it like a jet tiara, and the short locks cl.u.s.tered with childlike grace and beauty around the gleaming white brow and temples.

There was not a vestige of color in the whilom scarlet mouth, whose thin lines were now scarcely perceptible; and, in the finer oval of her cheeks, and along the polished chin, the purplish veins showed their delicate tracery. The hands were waxen and almost transparent, and the figure was wasted beyond the boundaries of symmetry.

In the knot of ribbon that fastened her narrow linen collar, she had arranged a sprig of mignonette, that now dropped upon the cushion as she bent over it. She paused, brushed it off, and for a few seconds her beautiful hazel eyes were fixed on the blue sky that bordered her window.

The whole expression of her countenance had changed, and the pa.s.sionate defiance of other days had given place to a sad, patient hopelessness, touching indeed, when seen on her proud features. Slowly she threw her bobbins, and a fragment of "_Infelice_" seemed to drift across her trembling lips, that showed some lines of bitterness in their time-chiselling.

As Dr. Grey watched her, tears which he could not restrain trickled down his face, and he was starting forward, when she said, as if communing with her own desolate soul,--

"I wonder if I am growing superst.i.tious. Last night I dreamed incessantly of Jessie and home, and to-day I cannot help thinking that something has happened there. Home! When people no longer have a home, how hard it is to forget that blessed home which sheltered them in the early years. Homeless! that is the dreariest word that human misery ever conjectured or human language clothed. Never mind, Salome Owen, when G.o.d s.n.a.t.c.hed your voice from you, He became responsible; and your claims are like the ravens and sparrows, and He must provide. After all, it matters little where we are housed here in the clay, and Hobbs was astute when he selected for the epitaph on his tombstone, 'This is the true philosopher's stone.' Home! Ah, if I sadly missed my heart's home, here in the flesh, I shall surely find it up yonder in the blessed land of blue."

A tear glided down her cheek, glistened an instant on her chin, and fell on her pattern. She brushed it away, and smiled sorrowfully,--

"It is ill-omened to sprinkle bridal lace with tears. Some day this fine web will droop around a bride's white shoulders and after a time it may serve to deck the cold limbs of some dead child. If I could only have my shroud now, I would not make lace a _desideratum_; serge or sackcloth would be welcome. Patience,--

... 'What if the bread Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod To meet the flints? At least it may be said, Because the way is _short_, I thank thee, G.o.d!'"

She partially rose in her chair, and took from the table a volume of poems. After some search, she found the desired pa.s.sage, and, rocking herself to and fro, she read it aloud in a low, measured tone,--