"Oh, a precious pair of idiots! They will have a glorious life. Such harmony, such congeniality! Such incomparable sweetness on her part, such equable spirits on his! Not the surpa.s.sing repose of a windless tropic night can approach to the divine serenity of their future.
Ha! by the Furies! he will have an enviable companion; a matchless Griselda!" Laughing scornfully, he started up and strode across the floor. As Beulah caught the withering expression which sat on every feature she shuddered involuntarily. Could she bear to incur his contempt? He approached her, and she felt as though her very soul shrank from him; his glowing eyes seemed to burn her face, as he paused and said ironically:
"Can"t you partic.i.p.ate in my joy? I have a new brother-in-law.
Congratulate me on my sister"s marriage. Such desperate good news can come but rarely in a lifetime."
"Whom has she married, sir?" asked Beulah, shrinking from the iron grasp on her shoulder.
"Percy Lockhart, of course. He will rue his madness. I warned him.
Now let him seek apples in the orchards of Sodom! Let him lay his parched lips to the treacherous waves of the Dead Sea! Oh, I pity the fool! I tried to save him, but he would seal his own doom. Let him pay the usurious school-fees of experience."
"Perhaps your sister"s love for him will--"
"Oh, you young, ignorant lamb! You poor, little, unfledged birdling!
I suppose you fancy she is really attached to him. Do you, indeed?
About as much as that pillar of salt in the plain of Sodom was attached to the memory of Lot. About as much as this peerless Niobe of mine is attached to me." He struck the marble statue as he spoke.
"Then, how could she marry him?" asked Beulah naively.
"Ha! ha! I will present you to the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution as the last embodiment of effete theories. Who exhumed you, patron saint of archaism, from the charnel-house of centuries?" He looked down at her with an expression of intolerable bitterness and scorn. Her habitually pale face flushed to crimson, as she answered with sparkling eyes:
"Not the hand of Diogenes, enc.u.mbered with his tub!"
He smiled grimly.
"Know the world as I do, child, and tubs and palaces will be alike to you. Feel the pulse of humanity, and you will--"
"Heaven preserve me from looking on life through your spectacles!"
cried she impetuously, stung by the contemptuous smile which curled his lips. "Amen." Taking his hands from her shoulder, he threw himself back into his chair. There was silence for some minutes, and Beulah said:
"I thought Mr. Lockhart was in Syria?"
"Oh, no; he wants a companion in his jaunt to the Holy Land. How devoutly May will kneel on Olivet and Moriah! What pious tears will stain her lovely cheek as she stands in the hall of Pilate, and calls to mind all the thirty years" history! Oh, Percy is cruel to subject her tender soul to such torturing a.s.sociations! Beulah, go and play something; no matter what. Anything to hush my cursing mood. Go, child." He turned away his face to hide its bitterness, and, seating herself at the melodeon, Beulah played a German air of which he was very fond. At the conclusion he merely said:
"Sing."
A plaintive prelude followed the command, and she sang. No description could do justice to the magnificent voice, as it swelled deep and full in its organ-like tones; now thrillingly low in its wailing melody, and now ringing clear and sweet as silver bells.
There were soft, rippling notes that seemed to echo from the deeps of her soul and voice its immensity. It was wonderful what compa.s.s there was, what rare sweetness and purity too. It was a natural gift, like that conferred on birds. Art could not produce it, but practice and scientific culture had improved and perfected it. For three years the best teachers had instructed her, and she felt that now she was mistress of a spell which, once invoked, might easily exorcise the evil spirit which had taken possession of her guardian.
She sang several of his favorite songs, then closed the melodeon and went back to the fire. Dr. Hartwell"s face lay against the purple velvet lining of the chair, and the dark surface gave out the contour with bold distinctness. His eyes were closed, and as Beulah watched him she thought, "How inflexible he looks, how like a marble image! The mouth seems as if the sculptor"s chisel had just carved it--so stern, so stony. Ah, he is not scornful now! he looks only sad, uncomplaining, but very miserable. What has steeled his heart, and made him so unrelenting, so haughty? What can have isolated him so completely? Nature lavished on him every gift which could render him the charm of social circles, yet he lives in the seclusion of his own heart, independent of sympathy, contemptuous of the world he was sent to improve and bless." These reflections were interrupted by his opening his eyes and saying, in his ordinary, calm tone:
"Thank you, Beulah. Did you finish that opera I spoke of some time since?"
"Yes, sir."
"You found it difficult?"
"Not so difficult as your description led me to imagine."
"Were you lonely while I was away?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why did not Clara come and stay with you?"
"She was engaged in changing her home; has removed to Mrs. Hoyt"s boarding house."
"When did you see her last? How does she bear the blow?"
"I was with her to-day. She is desponding, and seems to grow more so daily."
She wondered very much whether he suspected the preference which she felt sure Clara entertained for him; and, as the subject recurred to her, she looked troubled.
"What is the matter?" he asked, accustomed to reading her expressive face.
"Nothing that can be remedied, sir."
"How do you know that? Suppose you let me be the judge."
"You could not judge of it, sir; and, besides, it is no concern of mine."
A frigid smile fled over his face, and for some time he appeared lost in thought. His companion was thinking too; wondering how Clara could cope with such a nature as his; wondering why people always selected persons totally unsuited to them; and fancying that if Clara only knew her guardian"s character as well as she did the gentle girl would shrink in dread from his unbending will, his habitual, moody taciturnity. He was generous and unselfish, but also as unyielding as the Rock of Gibraltar. There was nothing pleasurable in this train of thought, and, taking up a book, she soon ceased to think of the motionless figure opposite. No sooner were her eyes once fastened on her book than his rested searchingly on her face. At first she read without much manifestation of interest, regularly and slowly pa.s.sing her hand over the black head which Charon had laid on her lap. After a while the lips parted eagerly, the leaves were turned quickly, and the touches on Charon"s head ceased. Her long, black lashes could not veil the expression of enthusiastic pleasure. Another page fluttered over, a flush stole across her brow; and, as she closed the volume, her whole face was irradiated.
"What are you reading?" asked Dr. Hartwell, when she seemed to sink into a reverie.
"a.n.a.lects from Richter."
"De Quincey"s!"
"Yes, sir."
"Once that marvelous "Dream upon the Universe" fascinated me as completely as it now does you."
Memories of earlier days cl.u.s.tered about him, parting the somber clouds with their rosy fingers. His features began to soften.
"Sir, can you read it now without feeling your soul kindle?"
"Yes, child; it has lost its interest for me. I read it as indifferently as I do one of my medical books. So will you one day."
"Never! It shall be a guide-book to my soul, telling of the pathway, arched with galaxies and paved with suns, through which that soul shall pa.s.s in triumph to its final rest!"
"And who shall remain in that "illimitable dungeon of pure, pure darkness, which imprisons creation? That dead sea of nothing, in whose unfathomable zone of blackness the jewel of the glittering universe is set and buried forever?" Child, is not that, too a dwelling-place?" He pa.s.sed his fingers through his hair, sweeping it all back from his ample forehead. Beulah opened the book, and read aloud:
"Immediately my eyes were opened, and I saw, as it were, an interminable sea of light; all s.p.a.ces between all heavens were filled with happiest light, for the deserts and wastes of the creation were now filled with the sea of light, and in this sea the suns floated like ash-gray blossoms, and the planets like black grains of seed. Then my heart comprehended that immortality dwelled in the s.p.a.ces between the worlds, and Death only among the worlds; and the murky planets I perceived were but cradles for the infant spirits of the universe of light! In the Zaarahs of the creation I saw, I heard, I felt--the glittering, the echoing, the breathing of life and creative power!"
She closed the volume, and, while her lips trembled with deep feeling, added earnestly:
"Oh, sir, it makes me long, like Jean Paul, "for some narrow cell or quiet oratory in this metropolitan cathedral of the universe." It is an infinite conception and painting of infinity, which my soul endeavors to grasp, but wearies in thinking of!"
Dr. Hartwell smiled, and, pointing to a row of books, said with some eagerness: