"Stanton," said Van Berg, a little abruptly, before they parted that evening, "I fear, from your cousin"s appearance, she was ill when she left the parlor."
"I"ve given up trying to understand Ida. When she came down with her mother, she looked like an incensed G.o.ddess, and when she returned she reminded me of the fading white lily she wore in her hair. I give it up," concluded Stanton, whose language had become a trifle figurative and poetic of late.
"I don"t," muttered the artist, after smoking the third consecutive cigar in solitude.
Chapter XLVII. The Concert Garden Again.
Van Berg had scarcely ever known a day to pa.s.s more slowly and heavily than Monday. He had taken pains to be present at Ida"s departure with her father, and it had depressed him unaccountably that she had been so quiet as to seem even a little cold in her farewell. She would not look towards him, nor could he catch her eye or obtain one friendly expression. He did not know that the poor girl dared not smile or speak lest she should be too friendly, and that she avoided him with the instinct of self-preservation.
His conclusion was: "She finds, after thinking it all over, that she has far more to forgive than she thought, and my presence reminds her of everything she would be glad to forget."
He tried once or twice to find Jennie Burton, but did not succeed.
She made no apparent effort to avoid him, and was so cordial in her manner when they met that he had severe compunctions that he did not seek her society resolutely and press his suit. "The summer is drawing to a close," he muttered, "and nothing is settled. Confound it all! I"m the least settled of anything. The best chance I shall ever have is pa.s.sing swiftly. Ever faculty I possess a.s.sures me that she is the one woman of all the world. I honor her, I reverence her, I admire her and everything she does and says. I trust her implicitly, even though she is so shrouded in mystery. What the mischief is the matter with my old water-logged heart that it should be so heavy and dumpish?"
But so it was. Jennie Burton smiled on him and others as brightly as ever, and yet he knew her heart was breaking, for she was growing slighter and more spirit-like daily. His desire to comfort her, however, by a life-long effort ebbed away, till he was cursing himself for a fickle, cold-blooded wretch. "I had better shut myself up in my studio," he said to himself. "I may make a painter, but I never will anything else;" and early on Tuesday he went doggedly to work on Mr. Eltinge"s picture.
His perplexed and jarring thoughts gradually ceased their discord as he became absorbed in his loved and familiar tasks. Sweet and low at first, and in the faint, broken suggestion of his kindling fancy, the symphonic poem he had heard in the garden began again, but at last his imagination made it almost real. He listened once more to Ida"s girlish, plaintive voice blending with the murmur of the brook, the sighing wind and rustling leaves, and the occasional trill of a bird. He leaned back in his chair, and his eyes became full of deep and dreamy pleasure. Gradually a heavy frown contracted his brow, and his face grew white and stern as he repeated words that she once had spoken to him: "I meant to compel your respect, and I thought there was no other way."
"Pharisee, fool that I was! If I had been kind and trustful at the time her family wronged her, she would not now shrink from me as if I summed up in my person the whole of that wretched experience.
Even Stanton appreciated my unutterable folly, for he said: "You looked at her in a way that would have frozen even Jezebel herself,"
and now whenever I glance towards her she is reminded of that accursed stare. Would it be possible, in painting her likeness for Mr. Eltinge, to make her face so n.o.ble, womanly, and pure, that she would recognize my present estimate of her character, and so forgive me in very truth?"
The care and earnestness with which he filled in the outlines of his sketch proved how zealously he would make the effort. In the afternoon he drove over to the garden again, and made a careful drawing of the tree and of Mr. Eltinge sitting beneath it, for Ida, and he determined to go to the city the following day the he might avail himself of the resources of his studio, and by the aid of this hasty sketch make as fine a crayon picture as would be possible, before her return on Sat.u.r.day.
The old gentleman"s heart was naturally warm towards his protege, whom they both missed greatly, and he spoke of her often. He could not help noticing that the artist was ever an excellent listener at such times and would even suspend his work for a moment that he might not lose a word. "It seems to me he takes a wonderful deal of interest in her for a man who is seeking to engage himself to another lady," mused Mr. Eltinge. "I think the other lady had better be looking after him."
As Van Berg approached the hotel, he saw Miss Burton mounting the steps with a quant.i.ty of ferns in her hands. She evidently was returning from a long ramble, and when she came down to supper he saw that she had not been able to remove wholly all traces of grief.
His conscience smote him sorely. He hesitated in his purpose of going to the city, and determined to speak of it frankly, and abandon it, if she showed, even by the expression of her face, that she would prefer he would remain, but he found himself both surprised and relieved that, so far from manifesting the least reluctance to have him go, she encouraged the plan.
"You have a n.o.ble theme," she said cordially, "and you can"t do it justice in the room of a summer hotel. Besides I do think you owe it to Miss Mayhew to make all the amends in your power, and a fine picture of that emblematic tree, and her kind old friend beneath it, may be of very great help to her in her new life. I hope you will take me to see Mr. Eltinge on your return."
"I"ll wait over a day and take you there to-morrow," he said promptly.
"No," she replied decisively; "you have not enough time as it is, before Sat.u.r.day, to do justice to your work, and I want you to make Miss Mayhew"s friend look as if he were speaking to her."
"Miss Jennie," said the artist rather impulsively, "you haven"t a drop of selfish blood in your little body."
"I am under the impression that Mr. Van Berg"s estimates of his lady acquaintances are not always correct. Not that I was any wiser, but then such positive a.s.sertions seem hardly the thing from people who have shown themselves so fallible."
"I"m right for once," Van Berg insisted. "Do you know that Miss Mayhew and I nearly had a falling out. Indeed she has been rather cool towards me ever since, and you were the cause. I believed with absolute certainty that the new Ida Mayhew that I had learned to know in Mr. Eltinge"s garden would gravitate towards you as surely as two drops of dew run together when brought sufficiently near, and I began to speak quite enthusiastically of what friends you would surely become, when Miss Mayhew"s manner taught me I had better change the subject. Oddly enough, she has never liked you, and yet, in justice to her, I must add that she acted conscientiously, and I have never heard one lady speak of another more favorably and sincerely, than she spoke of you, though it seemingly cost her an effort."
A sudden moisture came into Jennie Burton"s eyes, and she said under her breath: "Poor child! that was n.o.ble and generous of her to speak so of me. Oh, how blind he is!" But with mock gravity she answered him:
"Your rather sentimental figure of speech, Mr. Van Berg, shows where your error lies. Miss Mayhew and myself are not pellucid drops of dew that you look through at a glance. We are women: and the one thing in this world which men never will learn to understand is a woman. I"m going to puzzle you still further. I am learning to have a very thorough respect for Miss Mayhew. I am beginning to admire her exceedingly, and to think that she is growing exquisitely beautiful; and yet were she here this week you would find that I would not seek her society. Give your mind to your art, and never hope to untangle the snarl of a woman"s mind. Men, in attempting such folly, have become hopelessly entangled. Take a woman"s word for it--what you see you can"t reason out. I"ve no doubt but that Miss Mayhew has excellent reasons for disliking me, and the fact that you can"t understand them is nothing against them."
"Miss Jennie," said Van Berg resolutely, "for once I cannot take your word for it. You two ladies have puzzled me all summer, and I"ll never be content till I solve the mysteries which so baffle me. My interest is not curiosity, but friendship, to say the least, that I hope will last through life. You will tell me some day all your trouble, and you will feel the better for telling me."
She became very pale at these words, and said gravely: "I cannot promise that--I doubt it. You may have to trust me blindly till you forget me."
"I do not trust you blindly; I never will forget you," he began, impetuously.
"Good-night, Mr. Van Berg," she said, and in a moment he was alone on the piazza.
"She is an angel of light, he muttered, "and not a woman. I could worship her, but I"m too earthy in my nature to lover her as I ought."
He took the earliest train to New York, and so had a long afternoon in his studio. He was surprised to find how absorbed he soon became in his work. "Miss Jennie is right," he thought; "I"m an artist, and not a reformer or a metaphysician, and I had better spend my time here than in trying to solve feminine enigmas;" and he worked like a beaver until the fading light compelled him to desist.
"There," he said, "that is a fair beginning. Two or three more days of work like this will secure me, I think, a friendlier glance than Miss Ida gave me last." From which words it might be gathered that he was thinking of other rewards than mere success in his art.
In the evening the wand of Theodore Thomas had a spell which he never thought of resisting, and it must be admitted that there lurked in his mind the hope that Ida and her father might be drawn to the concert garden also. If so, he was sure he would pursue his investigations.
He was rewarded, for Mr. Mayhew and his daughter soon entered and took seats in the main lobby, where he and Stanton had sat nearly three months before. Van Berg congratulated himself that he was outside in the promenade, and so had not been observed; and he sought a dusky seat from which he might seek some further knowledge of a character that had won and retained a deepening interest from the time of their first meeting, which now seemed an age ago. Events mark time more truthfully than the course of the sun.
At first she seemed only solicitous about her father, who lighted a cigar and said something to her that must have been very rea.s.suring and pleasant, for a glad smile broke over her pale face. But it vanished quickly, and the artist saw that her habitual expression was sad, and even dejected. She did not look around with the breezy alertness natural to a young girl in such a place. The curiously diverse people around her excited no interest, and she appeared inclined to lapse into deep reveries, even when the music was light and gay, as was the character of the earlier part of the entertainment. At times she would start perceptibly when her father spoke to her, and hesitate in her answer, as if she had to recall her thoughts from far-off wanderings. It would seem that Mr.
Mayhew was troubled by her sad face and absent manner. He justly felt that the brilliant music ought to enliven her like sunlight; and that it did not proved the presence of some intervening cloud.
Van Berg"s sympathies and interest at last became so strong that he determined to speak to her at once, but before he could take a step towards her the orchestra began playing Beethoven"s Fifth Symphony, the very music she ignored for the sake of Mr. Minty"s compliments when first she had so exasperated him by her marvellously perfect features, but disagreeable face. He had not looked at the programme, and that this symphony should now be repeated seemed such a fortunate coincidence that he could not resist the temptation of contrasting the woman before him with the silly and undeveloped girl he first had seen. Moreover, he knew that the music must remind her of him, and he might gain a hint of her present feelings toward him. Either the beauty or something familiar in the exquisite strains soon caught her attention, and she took up her programme, which hitherto had lain neglected on her lap. She crimsoned instantly, and her brow contracted into a frown; a moment later an expression of intense disgust pa.s.sed over her face.
"Now I know what she thinks of me," he thought with a sinking heart. "I doubt whether I had better speak to her this evening, and at this place."
"What"s the matter, Ida?" asked her father. "Don"t you like the music?"
"I have disagreeable a.s.sociations connected with it. The fault is wholly in me, and not the music."
"Ida, darling, you are making me so happy that I wish I could do as much for you."
"Don"t worry, father," she said, trying to smile. "I"m happier than I deserve. Listen!"
As the last exquisite cadences died away, Van Berg saw that there were tears in her eyes. What did they mean? "Stanton repeated my harsh words and she recalls them," was the best explanation he could think of. "By the fates!" he exclaimed, "if there isn"t Sibley with a toilet as spotless as he is himself smirched and blackened.
Curse him! he actually has the impudence to speak to Miss Mayhew,"
and the artist started up threateningly, but before discovering himself, he remembered that Ida"s natural protector was at her side. And yet he fairly trembled with rage and protest, that this fellow should be so near her again. He also saw that Mr. Mayhew rose and looked very menacing. But Ida was equal to the emergency, and extricated herself with womanly dignity, for while she blushed scarlet with shame, she was quiet and self-possessed, and paid no heed to his eagerly proffered hand.
"I was not myself that hateful day, Miss Ida," he said hastily.
"I fear you were, sir," she coldly replied. "At any rate, I am not my old self, and until you win and maintain the character of a gentleman, we must be strangers. Good evening, sir;" and she turned her back upon him.
His face became fairly livid with rage, but on encountering the stern and threatening eyes of Mr. Mayhew he slunk away and left the building.
"That"s my peerless, n.o.ble Ida," whispered her father. "Oh thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d! I could not have survived if you had realized the fears I once had about that low scoundrel."
Ida"s lip quivered as she said, "Father, please take me home. I don"t enjoy myself here." They had taken but a few steps toward the door when the artist confronted them with eyes aglow with admiration and sympathy.
Poor Ida had no time to mask her feelings or check her impulses, and she took his extended hand as if she were sinking, while the color and light of welcome flashed brightly into her face. Then her beautiful confusion suggested that she felt her greeting had been too cordial, and she sought with indifferent success to regain her dignity.