As yet she was incapable of Jennie Burton"s divine philosophy of "pleasing not" herself. he who "gave his life for others" was but a name at the p.r.o.nunciation of which, in the Service, she was accustomed to bow profoundly, but to whom, in her heart, she had never bowed or offered a genuine prayer. Religion seemed to her a sort of fashion which differed with the tastes of different people.
She was a practical atheist.
It is a fearful thing to permit a child to grow up ignorant of G.o.d, and of the sacred principles of duty which should be inwrought in the conscience, and enforced by the most vital considerations of well-being, both for this world and the world to come.
But Ida Mayhew thought not of G.o.d or duty, but only of her thwarted, unhappy life, from which she shrank weakly and selfishly, a.s.suring herself that she could not and would not endure it. In her father she saw only increasing humiliation; in her mother, one for whom she had but little affection and less respect, and who would of necessity irritate the wounds that time might slowly heal, could she live in an atmosphere of delicate, unspoken sympathy; in herself, one whom she now believed to be so ignorant and faulty that the man she loved had turned away in disgust on finding her out. If all this were not bad enough, unforeseen and unfortunate circ.u.mstances, even more than her own folly, had brought about a humiliation from which she felt she could never recover. In her blind, desperate effort to hide her pa.s.sion from the man she loved, she had made it appear that she was infatuated with the man she loathed, and who had shown himself such a contemptible villain that her a.s.sociation with him was the scandal of the house. If her own mother and cousin could believe that she was ready to throw herself away for the sake of such a wretch, what must the people of the hotel think?
What kind of a story would go abroad among her acquaintances in the city? She fairly cringed and writhed at the thought of it all.
It seemed to the tortured and morbidly excited girl that there was but one way out of her troubles, and dark and dreadful as was that path, she thought it could lead to nothing so painful as that from which she would escape.
But after all, her chief incentive to the fatal act was the hope of securing Van Berg"s respect, and of implanting herself in his heart as an undying memory, even though a sad and terrible one.
With her ideas of the fitness of things this would be a strong temptation at best; but the present conditions of her life, as we have seen, so far from restraining, added greatly to the temptation.
And, as has been said, while the act seemed a stern and dreadful alternative to worse evils, it was not revolting to her. She had seen so many of her favorite heroines in fiction and actresses on the stage "shuffle off the mortal coil" with the most appropriate expressions and in the most becoming toilets and att.i.tudes, that her perverted and melodramatic taste led her to believe that Van Berg would regard her crime as a sublime vindication of her honor.
Her only task now, therefore, was to frame a letter that would best accomplish this end, and at the same time wring his soul with unavailing regret.
But she was too sincere and sad to write diffusely and vaguely.
After a few moments" thought she rapidly traced the following lines:
"Mr. Van Berg:
"You first saw me at a concert, and your judgement of me was correct, though severe. Your eyes have since been very cold and critical.
I have followed your exploring glances, and have found that I am, indeed, ignorant and imperfect--that I was like the worm-eaten rose bud that you tossed contemptuously down where it would be trampled under foot. Seldom is that unfortunate little emblem of myself out of my thoughts. If I dared to appeal to G.o.d I would say that he knows that I would have tried to bloom into a better life, even though imperfectly, if some one had only thought it worth while to show me how. It is too late now. Like my counterpart, that you threw away, I shall soon be forgotten in the dust.
"Although your estimate has been so harsh, I will not dispute it.
Circ.u.mstances have been against me from the first, and my own folly has added whatever was wanting to confirm your unfavorable opinion.
But to-day your thoughts wronged me cruelly. You have slain all hope and self-respect. I do not feel that I can live after seeing an honorable man look at me as you looked this evening. You believed me capable of flying to he man who attempted your life--who insulted and orphan girl. You looked at me, not as a lady, but an object beneath contempt. This is a humiliation that I cannot and will not survive. When you know that i have sought death rather than the villain with whom you are a.s.sociating me, you may think of me more favorably. Possibly the memory of Ida Mayhew may lead you, when again you see a worm-eaten bud, to kill the destroyer and help the flower to bloom as well as it can. But now, like my emblem, I have lost my one chance.
The night was now far spent. Her mother, having been refused admittance, had fumed and fretted herself to sleep. The house was very still. She opened her window and looked out. Clouds obscured the stars, and it was exceedingly dark.
"The long night to which I"m going will be darker still," sighed the unhappy girl. "Well, I will live one more day. To-morrow I will go out and sit in the sunlight once more. I wish I could go now, for already I seem to feel the chill of death. Oh, how cold I shall be by this time to-morrow night!"
She shuddered as she closed the window.
After pacing her room a few moments, she exclaimed, recklessly,
"I must sleep--I must get through with the time until I bring time to an end," and she dropped a powerful opiate into a gla.s.s.
Holding it up for a moment with a smile on her fair young face that was terrible beyond words, she said slowly,
"After all it"s only taking a little more, and then--no waking."
Chapter x.x.xVII. Voices of Nature.
Before retiring, Ida had unfastened her door, so that her mother, finding her sleeping, might leave her undisturbed as late as possible the following day; and the sun was almost in mid-heaven before she began slowly to revive from her lethargy.
But as her stupor departed she became conscious of such acute physical and mental suffering that she almost wished she had carried out her purpose the night before. Her headache was equaled only by her heartache, and her wronged, overtaxed nervous system was jangling with torturing discord. But with the persistence of a simple and positive nature she resolved to carry out the tragic programme that she had already arranged.
She was glad to find herself alone. Her mother, with her usual sagacity, had concluded that she would sleep off her troubles as she often had before, and so left her to herself.
The poor, lost child made some pathetic attempts to put her little house in order. She destroyed all her letters. She arranged her drawers with many sudden rushes of tears as various articles called up memories of earlier and happier days. Among other things she came across a little birthday present that her father had given her when she was but six years of age, and she vividly recalled the happy child she was that day.
"Oh, that I had died then!" she sobbed. "What a wretched failure my life has been! Never was there a fitter emblem than the imperfect flower he threw away. I wish I could find the poor, withered, trampled thing, and that he might find it in my hand with his letter."
She wrote a farewell to her father that was inexpressibly sad, in which she humbly asked his forgiveness, and entreated him, as her dying wish, to cease destroying himself with liquor.
"But it is of no use," she moaned. "He has lost hope and courage like myself, and one can"t bear trouble for which there is no remedy. I"m afraid my act will only make him do worse; but I can"t help it."
To her mother she wrote merely, "Good-by. Think of me as well as you can till I am forgotten."
Her thoughts of her mother were very bitter, for she felt that she had been neglected as a child, and permitted to grow up so faulty and superficial that she repelled the man her beauty might have aided her in winning; and it was chiefly through her mother that her last bitter and unendurable humiliation had come.
Mrs. Mayhew bustled in from her drive with Stanton, just before dinner, and commenced volubly:
"Glad to see you up and looking so much better." (Ida knew she was almost ghastly pale from the effects of the opiate and her distress, but she recognized her mother"s tactics.) "Come now, go down with me and make a good dinner; then a drive this afternoon, to which Ik has invited you, and you will look like your old beautiful self."
"I do not wish to look like my old self," said Ida coldly.
"Who in the world ever looked better?"
"Every one who had a cultivated mind and a clear conscience."
"I declare, Ida, you"ve changed so since you came to the country that I can"t understand you at all."
"Do not try to any longer, mother, for you never will."
"Won"t you go down to dinner?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I don"t wish to, for one thing; and I"m too ill, for another.
Send me up something, if it"s not too much trouble."
"I"m going to have a doctor see you this very afternoon," said Mrs.
Mayhew, emphatically, as she left the room.
To do her justice she did send up a very nice dinner to Ida before eating her own. As far as doctors and dinners were concerned, she could do her whole duty in an emergency.