Wives and Widows; or The Broken Life Part 5

Hitherto our lives had been so tranquil that there was little to describe. We had, to an extent, isolated ourselves from the general world, and so surrounded ourselves with blessings, that the one misfortune of our lives had proved almost a beneficence, for Mrs. Lee's illness had only drawn us closer together. But all was to be changed now.

CHAPTER VII.

OUT IN THE WORLD.

When Jessie reached her eighteenth year, Mrs. Lee became more languid than usual, and early in the season her physician suggested a few weeks at the sea-side.

I think the dear lady was induced to follow his advice from a desire to give our girl a glimpse of the life which should have been opened to her about that time, rather than from any hopes of benefit from sea-bathing.

She entered into the project at once, and brightened visibly under the influence of Jessie's openly expressed enthusiasm. The dear girl had in reality seen nothing of life, and she was happy as a bird at the prospect of entering what seemed to her like an enchanted land.

Late in June, that year, we went to Long Branch upon the Jersey sh.o.r.e, and there among the crowd of fashionables from Philadelphia and New York, a new life opened to our Jessie, whose wealth and exceeding beauty soon made her an object of general admiration.

I cannot tell you how we first became acquainted with Mrs. Dennison. She was a Southern woman, about whom there was a vague reputation of wealth inherited from an old man, whom she had married in his dotage, and of a very luxurious life which had commenced so soon after the funeral as to create some scandal. She was certainly a very beautiful woman, tall, exquisitely formed, lithe and graceful as a leopardess. Her manners were caressing, her voice sweetly modulated, and her powers of conversation wonderfully varied. At first I was fascinated by the woman. She occupied rooms that opened on the same veranda with ours, and had stolen so completely into our companionship by a thousand little attentions to Mrs. Lee, before we really knew anything about her, that afterward it seemed unnecessary to make further inquiry. It would have proved of little avail had our research been ever so rigid, for no one seemed really to have any positive knowledge about her. Even the gossip I have mentioned could always be traced back to a remarkably bright mulatto lady's-maid, who was generally in attendance upon her, and who conversed freely with every one who chose to question her. But all the intelligence so gathered was sure to add to the power and wealth of a mistress whom the mulatto p.r.o.nounced to be one of the most distinguished and beautiful women of the South. All this rather interested Mr. Lee, who found this lady so often bestowing little attentions upon his wife, that he came to recognize her as a friend, and, after a time, seemed to take great pleasure in her conversation. All this troubled me a little.

Why? surely the feeling which turned my heart from that woman was not jealousy. Had I indeed so completely identified myself with my friends, that the approach to confidential relations with another person gave me pain? I could not understand the feeling, but, struggle against it as I would, the presence of that woman made me restless. She never touched Mrs. Lee that I did not long to dash her hand away.

Jessie, like the rest, was fascinated with her new friend. They would walk together for hours on the sh.o.r.e, where a crowd of admirers was sure to gather around them, while I sat upon the veranda with my benefactress, anxious and disturbed.

After a time, another person was introduced into our party. He first became acquainted with Mrs. Lee, and seemed to drop into our companionship in that way without any connection with Mrs. Dennison; but I learned afterward that Mr. Lawrence had been very attentive to her from her first appearance at the Branch, and that a rumor had for a time prevailed that they were engaged.

All this might not have interested me much but for something that I observed in Jessie, who was evidently far better acquainted with the man than any of us; for it seems he had been in the habit of joining her and Mrs. Dennison in their walks long before he attained an introduction to Mrs. Lee. Lawrence was a tall, powerful man, very distinguished and elegant in his bearing, wonderfully brilliant in conversation, and one who always would be a leader for good or evil among his fellow-men. He had been a good deal connected with the politics of the country, and at one time was considered a power in Wall Street, from which he had withdrawn, it was impossible to say whether penniless, or with a large fortune.

This man was soon on terms of cordial intimacy with our family, but I watched him with distrust. He was just the person to dazzle and fascinate an ardent, inexperienced girl like our Jessie, and I saw with pain that her color would rise and fade beneath his glances, and that a look of triumph lighted up his eyes when he remarked it.

Here was another source of anxiety. This man of the world, who had spent half his life in the struggles of Wall Street and a tangle of politics, was no match for a creature so pure and true as our Jessie. Yet I greatly feared that her heart was turning to him at the expense of that brave, honorable young man whose very existence seemed to have been forgotten among us.

But young Bosworth came at last, and I was more at rest. Jessie was certainly glad to see him, and, much to my surprise, he dropped at once into intimate relations with Lawrence, and recognized him as an old friend whom he had met during the few months that he had spent abroad.

I have not said that Lottie was one of the attendants whom we brought from the Ridge. This girl had grown somewhat in stature, but was still very small. Her light-yellow hair was wonderfully abundant, and she had a dozen fantastic ways of dressing it, which added to the singularity of her appearance. At times, her eyes were clear and steady in their glances; but, if a feeling of distrust came over her, both eyes would cross ominously, and she seemed to be glancing inward with the sharp vigilance of a fox.

There always had been a remarkable sympathy between me and this strange girl. From the day I first saw her, she seemed to divine my feelings, conceal them as I would, and to share all my dislikes almost before they were formed. At first, she had kept aloof from the servants of the hotel. This was not strange, for Lottie was, in fact, better educated than some of their mistresses. She had managed to pick up a great deal of knowledge as she sat by while Jessie took her lessons, and I had found pleasure in teaching her such English branches as befitted her station in life. In fact, Lottie had become more like a companion than a servant with us all.

To my surprise, after keeping aloof for a whole week, Lottie fell into the closest intimacy with Cora, Mrs. Dennison's maid, and I could see that she lost no opportunity of watching the mistress and Mr. Lawrence.

What all this might have ended in I cannot tell, for just as our intimacy became closest, the strong sea-air began to have an unfavorable effect on our patient.

A sudden longing for home seized upon her one day, after Lottie had been with her talking about the Ridge, and it was decided that we should leave the Branch at once, though the season was at its height, and Jessie had entered into its gayeties with all the zest of her ardent nature.

I think Mr. Lee was rather reluctant to go away so suddenly. He had been so long excluded from this form of social life that it had all the charm of novelty to him; but the least wish of his wife was enough to change all this, and he became only anxious to get her safely home again.

I do not know how it happened, or who really gave the invitation, but on the night before I left we learned from Mrs. Dennison herself, that she had promised to make us an early visit; and half an hour later, as I sat alone in the lower veranda, young Bosworth and Mr. Lawrence pa.s.sed me, talking earnestly. "Of course, my dear fellow, I shall come if a careless person like me will be acceptable to that fine old lady, your grandmother. That promise of partridge-shooting is beyond my powers of resistance."

It was Mr. Lawrence who spoke, and I knew by this fragment of conversation that he too was coming into our neighborhood.

CHAPTER VIII.

OUR GUEST.

I stood in the oriel window that curved out from one end of the large parlor and looked toward the east; that is, it commanded a broad view from all points, save the direct west. The heavenly glimpses of scenery that you caught at every turn through the small diamond panes were enough to drive an artist mad, that so much unpainted poetry could exist, and not glow warm and fresh on his canvas. I am an artist, at soul, and have a gallery of the most superb brain-pictures stowed away in my thoughts, but among them all there is nothing to equal the scene, or rather scenes, I was gazing upon.

The window was deep, and when that rich volume of curtains shut it out from the parlor, it was the most cosy little spot in the world. A deep easy-chair, and a tiny marble stand, filled it luxuriously. On the outside, white jasmines, pa.s.sion-flowers, and choice roses, crept up to the edge of the gla.s.s in abundance, encircling you with ma.s.sive wreaths of foliage and blossoms.

This window had always been my favorite retreat, when sadness or care oppressed me, as it had begun to do seriously of late, for a degree of estrangement had arisen between Jessie and myself, after our return from the sea-side. I could not share her enthusiasm regarding some of the persons we had met there, and for the first time in her life she was half offended with me.

I can hardly express the pain this gave me. All her life she had come to me in her troubles; and her bright, innocent joys I always shared; for, like a flower-garden, she sent back the sunshine that pa.s.sed over her, enriched and more golden from a contact with her loveliness. I can hardly tell you what a thing of beauty she was; yet, I doubt if you would have thought her so very lovely as I did, for my admiration was almost idolatry. Of late I had remarked a certain reserve about her, the reticence which kept a sanctuary of feeling and thought quite away from the world, and alas, from me also. Yet she was frank and truthful, as the flower which always folds the choicest perfume close in its own heart. What secret feeling was it that kept her from me, her oldest and best friend.

I was thinking of Jessie while I sat in the easy-chair, looking down the carriage-road that led through our private grounds from the highway; for ours was an isolated dwelling, and no carriage that was not destined for the house ever came up that sweep of road. I looked down upon it with a sad, heavy feeling, though my eyes pa.s.sed over a terrace crowned with a wilderness of flowers, reached by a flight of steps. The gleam of these flowers, and the green slope beyond, were a part of the scenery on which I gazed, yet I saw nothing of them.

We expected Mrs. Dennison. The carriage had gone over to the country town which lay behind the hills piled up at my left, and I was listening for the sound of its wheels on the gravel with a strange thrill of anxiety. Why was this? What did I care about the young widow who had been invited to spend a few days with our Jessie? She was only a watering-place acquaintance--a clever, beautiful woman of the world, who, having a little time on her hands, had condescended to remember Mrs. Lee's half-extorted invitation, and was expected accordingly.

Jessie was rather excited with the idea of a guest, for it so chanced that we had been alone for a week or two; and though I never saw a family more independent of society than Mrs. Lee's, guests always bring expectation and cheerfulness with them in a well-appointed country house.

"I wonder what keeps them?" said my darling, softly lifting one side of the silken curtains, and unconsciously dropping them into the background of as lovely a picture as you ever saw. "Here are some flowers for the stand, Aunt Matty. She'll catch their bloom through the window, and know it is my welcome."

I took the crystal vase from her hand, and set it on the little table before me.

"Hush!" she said, lifting the drapery higher, and bending forward to listen. "Hush! Isn't that the carriage coming through the pine grove?"

I turned in my chair, for Jessie was well worth looking at, even by a person who loved her less fondly than I did. Standing there, draped to artistic perfection in her pretty white dress, gathered in surplice folds over her bosom, and fastened there with an antique head, cut in coral, with its loose sleeves falling back from the uplifted arm, till its beautiful contour could be seen almost to the shoulder, she was a subject for Sir Joshua Reynolds. I am sure that great master would not have changed the grouping in a single point.

"No," I said, listening; "it is the gardener's rake on the gravel walk, I think."

She bent her head sideways, listening, and incredulous of my explanation. Some gleams of sunshine fell through the gla.s.s, and lay richly on the heavy braid of hair that crowned her head in a raven coronal.

We always remember those we love in some peculiar moment which lifts itself out of ordinary life by important a.s.sociations; or, as in this case, by the singular combinations of grace that render them attractive.

To my last breath, I shall never forget Jessie Lee, as she stood before me that morning.

"Well," she said, with an impatient movement that left the curtains falling between us like the entrance of a tent, "watched rose-buds never open. I'll go back to the piano, and let her take me by surprise. I'm glad you're looking so nice, aunt. She'll be sure to like you now in spite of herself, though you were so cold and stiff with her at the Branch, and I defy you to help liking her in the end."

As Jessie said this, her hand fell on the keys of the piano, and instantly a gush of music burst through the room, so joyous that the birds that haunted the old forest-trees around the house burst into a riot of rival melody. Amid this delicious serenade the carriage drove up.

I saw Mr. Lee alight, in his usual stately way; then Mrs. Dennison sprang upon the lowest step of the broad stairs that led up to the terrace, scarcely touching Mr. Lee's offered hand. There she stood a moment, her silk flounces fluttering in the sunlight, and her neatly gloved hands playing with the clasp of her travelling satchel, as the servant took a scarlet shawl and some books from the carriage. Then she gave a rapid glance over the grounds, and looked up to the house, smiling pleasantly, and doubtless paying Mr. Lee some compliment, for his usually sedate face brightened pleasantly, and he took the lady's satchel, with a gallant bow, which few young men of his time could have equalled.

Certainly our guest was a beautiful woman: tall, queenly, and conscious of it all; but I did not like her. One of those warnings, or antipathies, if you please, which makes the heart take shelter in distrust, seized upon me again that moment, and I felt like flying to my darling, who sat amid the sweet harmonies she was herself creating, to shield her from some unknown danger.

I left my seat and pa.s.sed through the curtains, thinking to warn Jessie of her friend's arrival; but when I was half across the room, our visitor came smiling and rustling through the door. She motioned me to be still, and, darting across the carpet, seized Jessie's head between both hands, bent it back, and, stooping with the grace of a Juno, kissed her two or three times, while her clear, ringing laugh mingled with the notes which had broken into sudden discords under Jessie's fingers.

"So I have chased my bird to its nest, at last," she said, releasing her captive with a movement that struck even me--who disliked her from the beginning--as one of exquisite grace. "Hunted it to the mountains, and find it in full song, while I searched every window in the house, as we drove up, and fancied all sorts of things: a cold welcome among the least."

"That you will never have," cried Jessie, and the smile with which she greeted her guest was enough of welcome for any one. "The truth is, I got out of patience, and so played to quiet myself while Aunt Matty watched."