"You stayed an age!"
"Drive down the Bay Road, Wilson," was Cornelia"s reply, and, as she folded her rich cloak about her, the carriage was whirled away.
Beulah went back to the fire, warmed her fingers, and resumed her drawing, thinking that she would not willingly change places with the petted child of wealth and luxury.
CHAPTER XX.
It was a dreary Sat.u.r.day afternoon, but Beulah wrapped a warm shawl about her, and set out to pay the promised visit. The air was damp and raw, and leaden, marbled clouds hung in the sky. Mr. Graham"s house was situated in the fashionable part of the city, near Mr.
Grayson"s residence, and, as Beulah pa.s.sed the crouching lions, she quickened her steps, to escape the painful reminiscences which they recalled. In answer to her ring, the servant ushered her into the parlors, furnished with almost Oriental magnificence, and was retiring, when she gave her name.
"You are Miss Benton, then. I have orders to show you up at once to Miss Cornelia"s room. She has seen no visitors today. This way, miss, if you please."
He led the way, up an easy, spiral flight of steps, to the door of a room, which he threw open. Cornelia was sitting in a large cushioned chair by the fire, with a papier-mache writing-desk beside her, covered with letters. There was a bright fire in the grate, and the ruddy haze, together with the reflection from the crimson damask curtains, gave a dim, luxurious aspect to the chamber, which in every respect betokened the fastidious taste of a petted invalid.
Clad in a dark silk robe-de-chambre, with her cheek pressed against the blue velvet lining of the chair, Cornelia"s face wore a sickly, sallow hue, which was rendered more palpable by her black, glittering eyes and jetty hair. She eagerly held out her hand, and a smile of sincere pleasure parted the lips, which a paroxysm of pain seemed to have just compressed.
"It is such a gloomy day I feared you would not come. Take off your bonnet and shawl."
"It is not so gloomy out as you imagine," said Beulah.
"What? not, with dull clouds, and a stiff, raw, northeaster? I looked out of the window a while since, and the bay looked just as I have seen the North Sea, gray and cold. Why don"t you take off your bonnet?"
"Because I can only sit with you a short time," answered Beulah, resisting the attempt made to take her shawl.
"Why can"t you spend the evening?" said Cornelia, frowning.
"I promised not to remain more than an hour."
"Promised whom?"
"Clara Sanders. She is sick; unable to leave her room; and is lonely when I am away."
"My case is a.n.a.logous; so I will put myself on the charity list for once. I have not been downstairs for two days."
"But you have everything to interest you even here," returned Beulah, glancing around at the numerous paintings and engravings which were suspended on all sides, while ivory, marble, and bronze statuettes were scattered in profusion about the room. Cornelia followed her glance, and asked, with a joyless smile:
"Do you suppose those bits of stone and canvas satisfy me?"
"Certainly. "A thing of beauty should be a joy forever." With all these, and your library, surely you are never lonely."
"Pshaw! they tire me immensely. Sometimes the cramped positions and unwinking eyes of that "Holy Family" there over the chimneypiece make me perfectly nervous."
"You must be morbidly sensitive at such times."
"Why? Do you never feel restless and dissatisfied without any adequate reason?"
"No, never."
"And yet you have few sources of pleasure," said Cornelia, in a musing tone, as her eyes wandered over her visitor"s plain attire.
"No! my sources of enjoyment are as varied and extended as the universe."
"I should like you to map them. Shut up all day with a parcel of rude, stupid children, and released only to be caged again in a small room in a second-rate boarding house. Really, I should fancy they were limited indeed."
"No; I enjoy my brisk walk to school in the morning; the children are neither so dull nor so bearish as you seem to imagine. I am attached to many of them, and do not feel the day to be very long.
At three I hurry home, get my dinner, practice, and draw or sew till the shadows begin to dim my eyes; then I walk until the lamps are lighted, find numberless things to interest me, even in a winter"s walk, and go back to my room refreshed and eager to get to my books.
Once seated with them, what portion of the earth is there that I may not visit, from the crystal Arctic temples of Odin and Thor to the groves of Abyssinia? In this age of travel and cheap books I can sit in my room in the third story, and, by my lamplight, see all, and immeasurably more, than you, who have been traveling for eighteen months. Wherever I go I find sources of enjoyment; even the pictures in bookstores give me pleasure and contribute food for thought; and when, as now, I am surrounded by all that wealth can collect, I admire, and enjoy the beauty and elegance as much as if I owned it all. So you see that my enjoyments are as varied as the universe itself."
"Eureka!" murmured Cornelia, eying her companion curiously, "Eureka!
you shall have the tallest case in the British Museum, or Barnum"s, just as your national antipathies may incline you."
"What impresses you as so singular in my mode of life?" asked Beulah rather dryly.
"Your philosophic contentment, which I believe you are too candid to counterfeit. Your easy solution of that great human riddle given the world, to find happiness. The Athenian and Alexandrian schools dwindle into nothingness. Commend me to your "categories," O Queen of Philosophy." She withdrew her searching eyes, and fixed them moodily on the fire, twirling the ta.s.sel of her robe as she mused.
"You are most egregiously mistaken, Cornelia, if you have been led to suppose, from what I said a moment since, that I am never troubled about anything. I merely referred to enjoyments derived from various sources, open alike to rich and poor. There are Marahs hidden in every path; no matter whether the draught is taken in jeweled goblets or unpolished gourds."
"Sometimes, then, you are "blued" most dismally, like the balance of unphilosophic men and women, eh?"
"Occasionally my mind is very much perplexed and disturbed; not exactly "blued," as you express it, but dimmed, clouded."
"What clouds it? Will you tell me?" said Cornelia eagerly.
"The struggle to see that which I suppose it never was intended I should see."
"I don"t understand you," said Cornelia, knitting her brows.
"Nor would you even were I to particularize."
"Perhaps I am not so very obtuse as you fancy."
"At any rate, I shall not enter into detail," answered Beulah, smiling quietly at the effect of her words.
"Do you ever weary of your books?" Cornelia leaned forward, and bent a long searching look on her guest"s countenance as she spoke.
"Not of my books; but sometimes, nay, frequently, of the thoughts they excite."
"A distinction without a difference," said the invalid coldly.
"A true distinction, nevertheless," maintained Beulah.
"Be good enough to explain it then."
"For instance, I read Carlyle for hours, without the slightest sensation of weariness. Midnight forces me to lay the book reluctantly aside, and then the myriad conjectures and inquiries which I am conscious of, as arising from those same pages, weary me beyond all degrees of endurance."