Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, November, 1878

CHAPTER XIV

No one knows what change means, what frightful possibilities of sadness it covers, until one has such an experience as mine that night. In former times the Holt house had been a sort of fairyland to me: our own ménage was simple and inexpensive, and, in contrast, the profusion and splendor of Jack's home had impressed me powerfully. Their expenditure was not moderated by what we call good taste, and they did not possess that fine grace of compassing elegance without ostentation which is one of the last results of culture; but as a boy I had missed nothing that money could buy in their house, and I had often thought how my mother would shine there. Mr. Holt had been a man to look up to with respect, although somewhat arrogant and dictatorial, and Mrs. Holt—good, easy soul!—had enjoyed her prosperity with an equal pride and joy in her husband, her children, her silver plate, her heavy silks and her jewels, which, displayed in their satin cases, were the chief show in Belfield for the women, who used to tiptoe up the grand staircase to Mrs. Holt's dressing-room, and come down with awe in their faces.

Mrs. Holt at this later time I write of was a sad, soft-eyed little woman, with a patient smile: she was so much of a lady that her dress was neat and pleasing, although of the plainest. She kissed me when I went in with Jack, and I felt like going on my knees before her. She treated Jack as if he were older than herself, although with the utmost tenderness qualifying the respect she gave him; but I was a boy to her still, and she looked lovingly in my face and told me that she knew I was a comfort to my mother. I had been a good deal of a man in my own eyes in Europe, but in these familiar places I did not feel much older than I had done six years before, full-grown although I was, and so tall that I had to stoop very low to meet the little woman's kiss.

"Here is father," said Mrs. Holt in a tender, cooing voice; and she went up to a feeble old man in an arm-chair and began telling him that this was Floyd come back—Floyd Randolph, whom he used to like so well years ago. Mr. Holt looked at me with hopeless, bleared eyes, and shook his head and complained in mumbling tones that dinner was not ready, that nobody took care of him, that he was neglected by wife and son.

Jack himself led his father to the table, and it was a hard task to guide the tottering footsteps, but not so hard perhaps as for the poor wife to tend him while he ate as if he were a baby. There are sad things upon which one may dwell, for some sorrows bring sweetness with them, and give meaning and perfume to a life, just as the night is almost lovelier in its shadows than the garish day; but I cannot write about Jack's troubles, for it was so pitiful to me to see this strong man so fretted, so bound, by the fine chains which duty sometimes forges for men. The meal we ate was of the poorest, but I think there is no bitterness in bearing personal deprivation, and I did not pity Jack that neither the taste of the palate nor the taste of the eye could be gratified at his board; but when I saw him playing backgammon with his father afterward I did pity him. The old man's hand shook so that his wife had to guide his wrist as he threw the dice, and he burst into senile tears if the throw did not suit him. But Jack was hopeful and cordial through it all, and would patiently tell his father little trifles of news about his business, and engage his attention so kindly that once or twice the heavy fallen features would almost gather expression again. At such times happy tears would start to Mrs. Holt's eyes. "I do believe father's getting better," she would say, looking at her son.

It was still early, however, when Jack and I were left alone. He had carried the poor old man to bed, and now for a few hours the burden had fallen from the son.

"Let us go out and walk about the old places," said he. "The house is dreary, is it not?"

"I have only thought of you all, Jack," was my answer. "My dreariness has not been induced by the look of the house. Still, when I do look around and see the rich carpets gone, the pictures, statues, all the thousand beautiful things we used to take pleasure in, I say to myself, 'This just man will have his reward.' Don't despond, Jack: I tell you, things will come right again."

"Thank you, Floyd," said he in his cool way. "I am better for having seen you. But let us talk of something besides my troubles to-night. It is a sweet evening."

He took my arm, and we walked out along the avenue into the street. It was a beautiful night, calm and warm, with a full moon shining down upon the deserted squares. We went up the hill and stood on the steps of the academy, then sat down upon a bench on the playground beneath the poplars, and found our initials there where we had cut them years before. Missing Dart in these old familiar places, it was natural for us to talk of him, for, well as Jack loved me, Harry was his dearest friend. A peculiar tenderness had always knit their hearts together, and it had been another sorrow to Holt that in all his trouble his cousin was too far away to give him a glance of his eyes, a grip of his strong hand.

I told him all I knew of Harry. We had not been mistaken in our estimate of his genius: he had not been in Rome three months before the famous Z–had become interested in him and allowed him to study in his atelier. Every one predicted success for the young artist, and dealers were already beginning to buy up his pictures, paying a mere song for studies to-day which years hence they expected to sell for a big sum on the strength of the reputation he would have gained. Harry's strong points were his unequalled distinctness of vision and his intensity of feeling for art. He put a passionate throb into every movement of his brush. When once an idea occurred to him as desirable to work out, it defined itself to his imagination with a reality, a power, an amplitude of detail, which blinded him for the time being to everything else, and he worked so faithfully that he stamped his conception and his meaning upon not only every figure, but every accessory of his picture; so that the most commonplace observer gazed at his canvas with some of the same feeling with which he gazed at an experience of life. But Z– was not yet satisfied to have him attempt compositions, and he was spending much time over the curious processes by which the perfection of skill in art is attained—productive analyses of coloring, light, shadow and the mellowed harmonies of time-worn pictures.

"We shall be proud of Harry by and by," said Holt as I paused. "I hope he won't stay too long abroad. I have missed you so, Floyd!" And we fell to telling stories of our boyhood, and again and again Jack's laugh broke the silence of the night, for there were droll tales to tell. We heard the chimes of midnight before we stirred from our seat, and then we moved with some reluctance, for the moonlight was rare, and the light upon the water where the sea-line showed through the interstices of the trees was a silvery radiance too blessed to lose. But at last we rose and moved carelessly homeward. We did not take the nearest way, but turned as with one intention through another street than that by which we came. Our feet knew the way to a little Gothic cottage on the hill, and we stood outside silently for a time. No sight or sound of any creature stirring in the world but ourselves met eyes or ears. No light was in the windows, and the blinds of a casement beneath the gable were close drawn. I wondered if a white hand had closed them a few hours before, and if a fair sleep-flushed face and bright disordered hair lay on the pillow inside. Just then some bird, brooding over her three eggs in her nest, stirred drowsily and cooed softly at some delicious dream of love or maternity. It broke the spell, and we turned to go away.

"Don't fancy," said Jack, "that this is a habit of mine. I have not been here before since December."

"Is she here?"

"I have no idea. I never hear her name, and when I am in church I never turn to look."

I left Belfield early the next morning, and pursued my way to The Headlands. I had many thoughts of Jack as I went on, wondering if this cruel and irremediable wrong which Fate had inflicted was to shadow all his life. Indeed, I felt disheartened, for I had warm sympathies; and besides, the cruel prose of his experience broke upon the easy, pleasure-loving harmony of my life like the sudden crash of kettledrums in the midst of moribund flute melody. I had always possessed too much leisure not to have become saddened and perplexed at times with doubts before the eternal problem of life; and they all returned now, and not until I reached The Headlands in the late afternoon did I rouse myself into an anticipation of the pleasant life I was to meet.

CHAPTER XV

I was not expected: no one met me at the station, and, finding no conveyance, I walked on myself to the place, and entered the grounds not more than an hour before sunset. Everything was curiously calm and at peace except the breakers, which moaned against the rocks below as the tide came in. The shadows were long upon the grass, and looked like things that had felt life all day, but now had coiled themselves up for sleep. Beyond the trees the fiery sun still shone, gilding the stately house with gold and resting lovingly upon the roses which clambered riotously over embrasures and abutments, lighting up the piazzas and columns with their bloom. I recognized a change at once in the aspect of the place: more windows and doors were open than formerly, and the porticoes showed signs of careless occupancy with their chairs and afghans, tables and a litter of books, papers and work. I stood before the door, gazing through the wide-columned vista of the hall, and the infinite seemed open before my eyes as I saw the blue and opal-tinted sea. But still there was no sound except the murmur from the shore, and nothing stirred except the sunbeams as they climbed the carved balustrade of the great staircase and gleamed on the frozen faces of a marble group in a niche. I did not ring at first, for it seemed as if my mother or Helen must come out—that they were close at hand, picking roses on the terrace or descending from their rooms. But it was Mills who presently issued from the dining-room and saw me. He greeted me as if I were one of the family, and ushered me into the library as he had done at the time of my first visit years before.

Sitting there quietly, I seemed for the first time to realize the fact of old Mr. Raymond's death. I saw his chair by the fireplace, and the low seat on which Helen and I had sat together many and many a time. I had not grieved at the old man's death, but had felt that weeping for the dead might sometimes be a less dreary task than bearing with the living; yet here I could not see these beautiful inanimate things, once his intimate surroundings, without a thrill of regret that he was gone.

A shadow fell across the doorway, and a young girl came in, one of the sunset gleams reflected from some of the endless mirrors of the house falling on her and lighting up her face. My first thought was, "She is almost a woman:" my second was, "I had never expected she would be so beautiful."

We had not spoken yet: she ran up to me eagerly and looked into my face, and I clasped her hands. When I saw that she was crying there seemed to me but one way of greeting the child. I took her in my arms and kissed her. It seemed strange, I think, to neither of us that we should meet in this way. But when we looked at each other now, I felt a curious glow over my face, and she hung her head and was blushing vividly, as I had never suspected the pale little Helen I had once known so well, with her aspect of almost severe purity, could ever blush. There was a new sort of beauty about her: a soft richness of tint and texture seemed added to cheek and lip, and the old imperious concentration of her glance was, for the moment, quite gone. Still, although I could easily see that she was frightened at her own temerity in allowing my more than brotherly freedom, I could not find it in my heart to repent it.

"Where is my mother, Helen?" I asked, taking her hand in mine to reassure her, for I saw that something was embarrassing her very much. "It seems I was not expected to-day?"

"Not so late as this," she explained; and presently I was talking freely with her, and she was listening without a particle of self-consciousness in her manner. It appeared that my mother and Mr. Floyd had gone out to drive, but would presently return to tea—that my mother had been longing for me, and they had all wondered why I had delayed coming. This was all very pleasant, uttered in the sweetest voice by my young hostess, and when she asked me if I would go out and see the sunset from the terrace, it was very easy to say that I would follow her anywhere.

She was a shy child still, I discovered, despite her tall figure, her pretty womanly shape and elegant air. My manhood was too recent a possession not to be rejoiced in when I saw that a woman's blushes came and went as she felt the weight of my glance. We went out of doors and saw the surges breaking on the shore, but the waves seemed happy that night, and lisped joyfully like children at their play. There was no voice of sorrow in all Nature: the birds circling about their nests began glad strains, then hushed them only to break forth again into fresh confused and joyful beginnings which they were too sleepy to finish. We talked of sorrow and loss, yet I think neither of us was very sorrowful, although Helen's tears flowed unchecked as she poured forth the simple narrative of her grandfather's last days—how he had never been so tender, so self-forgetful, as then; how he could not do enough to show his deep love for her; and then how, in the night, all at once, without a last look, word or caress, he was gone and his tenderness was but a memory.

"I felt at first," said Helen, "as if there were no longer anything for me to do in the world. It seemed a treason to poor grandpa that I saw how beautiful the crocuses were as they blossomed in the beds on the terrace here, and when the mayflowers came I did not dare to pick them except to put them on his grave. Then, you know, as not even papa knows, that with all my reverence for my grandfather I had still had a terrible sense of responsibility mingled with my love for him; and not even yet can I go out a few hours for a drive or a ride without my feeling every now and then, through all my pleasure with papa, a sudden pang of dread. After such times I run to his room: it is easy enough to believe then that he no longer has any need of me."

"You were all alone at first, Helen, until my mother came to you? Two weeks alone! It seems dreadful."

"Georgy Lenox was here, you know."

"Georgy Lenox here?" I echoed in surprise. "I never heard anything so strange. How did it happen?"

Helen looked at me in her turn in astonishment. "Why was it strange?" she asked, as if regarding the matter in a new light. "She was one of the family: she came to grandpapa's funeral. Cousin Charles Raymond himself invited all the Lenoxes, for Mr. Lenox's mother was a Raymond—was grandpa's own sister, I believe. Why was it strange?"

"Natural for her to come perhaps, but I should not have expected her to remain. You asked her, no doubt?"

"No-o-o," returned Helen doubtfully. "I don't know how it was. The house was filled with people for a week: then they went away and Georgy stayed. She said it was horrid for me to have no lady near me in my trouble. Cousin Charles was here all the time until your mother came, but his wife was ill in New York."

"And when my mother arrived Georgy left you?"

"No, indeed: she is still here. You see," said Helen with a little of her old imperious way when she took control of things, "Georgy was greatly disappointed at the terms of the will. She had been led to expect that she would be quite an heiress when grandpa died. I don't know who taught her to believe in so strange an idea, for, to tell the truth, grandpapa did not fancy Georgy. Poor girl! everything has gone wrong with her. She was to have been married to Mr. Holt, you know, but it is all quite broken off; and she was very unhappy about that. She hates being in Belfield, because she sees him all the time, and is reminded of what she is trying to forget. So I asked her to stay here for a little while. You are not angry to find her here, Floyd?"

I laughed with an indefinable feeling of embarrassment. "I shall be most happy to see Miss Lenox," I rejoined; "and if I were not, it would be great impertinence in me to question for a moment the doings of the lady of the house."

"I am not the lady of the house," said she, a little piqued. "Mrs. Randolph is that. I give no orders now: everybody goes to papa. He says I have governed too long, and that I must be a little girl again. It seems so strange sometimes to have nobody consult me: I do nothing all day long but enjoy myself."

"But I belong to the old régime," said I, "and to me you will always be the châtelaine. I remember how you used to give orders to Mills and Mrs. Black: I can still smell the aromatic odors of the store-room when we used to make the weekly survey together, and can hear you talking 'horse' solemnly with the coachman down at the stables. I am not at all sure if I shall like you so well as a gay young lady of pleasure, with all your thoughts on your dresses and your lovers."

"As if I should ever think about my dresses or my lovers!" she replied with deep disdain.

"What do you think about?"

"I think about papa," she rejoined, still indignantly: "I think about your mother and you. I have a great many nice things to think about without being taken up with those horrid subjects."

"'Horrid subjects'! Good gracious!" I exclaimed: "I intend some day to be somebody's lover: shall I be a 'horrid subject'?"

She laughed frankly, a delightful girlish laugh which showed her little pearly teeth. "It depends on how you behave," she said with a little nod. "Georgy Lenox has lovers: she tells me about them, and I think them horrid."

"Do they come to the house here?"

"Oh yes. One is a stout man with a red face. He wears a solitaire diamond in his necktie. Papa knows him: he was in Congress, and his name is Judge Talbot. Then there is a young man—not so young as you, but still young. He remembers you: he used to be in Belfield. He is Mr. Thorpe."

"Tony Thorpe here? What unlikely people I come across! Which is Miss Lenox's favorite admirer?"

"As if she would have favorites among such admirers! Georgy is the most beautiful girl in the world. Papa is not fond of her, but even he says she is a superb creature. Why does nobody like Georgy? Papa does not, and I am sure Mrs. Randolph does not, nor do you. Yet she is so beautiful, so winning, so clever!"

"You don't need to pity her for not gaining love," said I gravely. "My mother may not like her, because she knew her as a faulty child who did considerable mischief first and last; and Mr. Floyd dislikes her because—You know why he dislikes her, Helen. But many people love her: I think few women in the world have won so much devotion. I have just seen Jack Holt, who had to give her up, and I am far from believing that nobody likes her."

"But why did he give her up?" questioned Helen.

"Why did she give him up," I returned with heat, "except that he had lost his fortune, and instead of being able to endow her with all the good things of life, himself needed aid, sympathy, love and comfort?"

Helen stared at me: "But he told Georgy she was free."

"Suppose," said I passionately, "that a man had loved you from your earliest childhood, Helen—that instead of your being possessed of wealth and other facilities for making your life all you wished, you were poor and obscure, and this man had made every sacrifice to gratify every desire of your heart. Suppose you had read his soul like a printed page, and found every thought in it noble, lofty and pure; suppose you knew that his happiness depended on you—that without you he could not have one sacred personal hope,—when you found that he was poor instead of rich, would you throw him over as you put away a glove that is worn out, even though he told you you were free—that although you had shared his prosperity he shrank from letting you endure the pains of his adversity?"