"Presently, Mr. Flint. You must first witness the _denouement_ of our little drama."
With this the lawyer turned to Mortimer, and handed him a paper.
"What this fails to explain relative to your father, you must seek from his own lips."
"My father!--his lips!"--repeated Mortimer, bewildered.
He opened the paper.
"My father! where is he?"
"Mortimer!" cried Walters, pushing aside the screen.
And they stood face to face.
XVI.
_Our revels now are ended: these our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind!_
SHAKESPEARE.
XVI.
THE OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA.
_Clap-Trap--John Flint--The Old House by the Sea--Joe Wilkes--Strephon and Chloe--Tim Enjoying Himself--Edward Walters and Little Bell--A Last Word._
It is an artistic little weakness we scribblers have of seducing our dramatis personae into _tableaux vivants_, and deserting them abruptly. In a story of this kind, which depends rather on action than fine writing for interest, this species of autorial clap-trap is very effective, if cleverly done. So we will make no excuse for leaving _nuestros amigos_ at the lawyer"s office, and drawing a green curtain, as it were, on the actors of this humble comedy.
Some six years are supposed to have elapsed since the drop-scene fell on our last act.
From this out our story is rather a pantomime than a play. We give pictures and figures, instead of dialogues and soliloquies. Will the reader follow us?
I.
Time has not touched Mr. Flint gently. His hair is grayer, his step more feeble, and his eyes have a lack-l.u.s.tre look. His cravat is whiter and stiffer, if possible, than ever; and he looks more religious. G.o.d grant that he is so. But we doubt it. For to such as he, nor April, with its purple-mouthed violets, nor red ripe summer, with its wealth of roses, nor the rich fruit-harvest of autumnal suns, bring wisdom"s goodness. The various months teach him no lesson. Let him go. He came like a shadow into our plot, so let him depart. He is not a myth, however, but flesh and blood mortality; and though we have only outlined his weakness--his love of gold, his cold, intriguing spirit--yet the sketch is such that, if he looks at it, he will have the felicity of seeing himself as others see him!
II.
It is a day in June, an hour before sunset. The lanes leading to an old house situated between Ivyton and the sea, are fringed with pink peach blossoms, and the air is freighted with their odors. The violets, with dew in their azure eyes, peep from every possible nook; and those sweet peris of the summer wood, wild roses, are grouping everywhere. Surely t.i.tania has been in this spot, breathing exquisite beauty upon the flowers, or, perhaps, Flora"s dainty self. The blue-bells, these yellow-chaliced b.u.t.ter-cups, are fit haunts for fairies, and, perchance, wild Puck, or Prospero"s good Ariel has been slumbering in them. But let us draw near to the fine old house which stands in this new Eden. It was here that we first met the little castle-builders--the child Bell and Mortimer. The place is not changed much. The same emerald waves break on the white beach; the same cherry-trees are spreading their green tresses, and the simple church-yard sleeps, as it used, in sunshine and shadow.
The house has been newly painted, and the fresh green blinds make one feel a sense of shade and coolness. The garden in front has been re-made with a careful eye to its old beauties. The white pebbled walks, the strawberry and clover beds, the globes of pansies, and the clambering honeysuckle vines, are all as they were years ago. Even the groups of wild roses, by the door, bud and bloom as if the autumn winds had never beaten them down.
We shall accuse the reader with having a bad memory, if he does not recognise Joe Wilkes in the stalwart form and honest face of the gardener, who occupies himself with tying up a refractory vine, which persists in running wild over the new summer-house. It is he, indeed--the whilome jailor of the Tombs, who has laid aside his ponderous prison-keys, and taken up the shovel and the hoe.
III.
Two persons are standing at the "round window," where Bell and her brother used to linger, dreamily, in the twilights of long ago. The rays of the setting sun glance over the waves, and fall on the faces of Mortimer and Daisy--Daisy Snarle no more, but little Maude Walters. Their honey-moon has been of six years" duration, and to such as they, that sweet moon of tenderness never wanes, but runs from full to full--never new and never old! Strephon woos Chloe as of yore. The lover, as in some antique picture, is ever kneeling at the feet of his mistress, and she, through the gathering of years, looks down on him with the olden tenderness and the April blushes of womanhood! To such as they, life plays on a dulcimer. The golden age is not dead to them. They see the shepherd Daphnis seated on the slopes of aetna, and hear him pipe to the nymph Eschenais. This "bank-note world," to them, is Arcady, and their lives are sweet and simple as pastoral hymns!
But we, the author of this MS., are growing pastoral ourselves, and Heaven forbid that we should venture into a field which one of our poets has recently brought into disrepute by his indifferent blank verse.
Mortimer, leaning on the sill of the window, is looking at Daisy, who stands a little in the background, with that kissable white hand of hers shading the sun from as dangerous a pair of black eyes as ever looked "no"
when they meant "yes." She is watching a speck of a boat, which is dancing up and down on the waves like a cork. Mortimer has just brought a telescope to bear on the distant object, and we, with that lack of good-breeding which has characterized all romancers from time immemorial, will look over his shoulder. The delighted occupant of the boat is that audacious fellow, Tim, who has taken a trip up to Ivyton from the great city, to spend a week with "Mr. Mortimer." It may be well to say that Tim--Timothy Jones, Esq., Mr. Reader--has ceased to have a proclivity for the "machine;" and now-a-days, the City Hall alarm bell never disturbs his equanimity. Indeed, he is so metamorphosed by time and a respectable tailor, that the gentle reader stands in some danger of not recognizing him at all. Hence the above formal introduction. Just notice the set of those cream-colored pants, falling without a wrinkle over those mirror-like patent leathers, and the graceful curve of that Shanghai over the hips! Just notice! And more than all, that incipient _moustache_, which only the utmost perseverance on the part of Tim and _Mr. Phalon_ has coaxed out into mundane existence!
The writer of this veritable history has a great mind to drown Tim for his impudence; but as that young gentleman has a good situation in a Front-street commission-house, he refrains, for a capsize a mile from land would considerably interfere with Young America"s prospects.
IV.
CAPTAIN EDWARD WALTERS sits on the door-step of the old house; and through a curtain of honeysuckle vines, which he draws aside, is watching the fawn-like motions of
"A six years loss to Paradise!"
Is it little Bell come back again? It is very like her. Walters thinks so, as the child runs from flower to flower like a golden-belted bee, and a mist comes over his fine eyes, and he can scarcely see his grandchild for tears.
His lips move, and perhaps he is saying: "Little Bell! Little Bell!"
And he thinks of the angel whom he left years ago, playing on the _partarre_, in front of the gate. He hears her clear, crystal laugh, and sees her golden ringlets floating among the flowers, and cannot tell if they be curls or sunshine!
The child in the garden resembles the dead Bell as one white lily does another. She has the same wavy tresses, shading the same dreamy eyes, with their longing, languid expression. Her form has the _abandon_ of childhood, with a certain shadow of dignity that is charming. She is very fragile and spiritual; and it seems to us as if Heaven, in moulding the child, had hesitated whether to make her an Angel or a Flower, and so gave her the better parts of each!
Let us take one more look at her sweet young face--
"A thing of beauty is a joy forever!
Its loveliness increases; it will never Pa.s.s into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."
Little Bell holds an armful of lilacs against her bosom; and, with her eyes running over with childish merriment, trips toward the house; but two arms stretching out from the vines catch her. She utters a pretty scream, and then sits quietly on Walters" knee. He kisses her laughingly; but his face grows serious as his eyes fall on a string of almond-shaped pearls which encircle the child"s delicate neck; on the innocent white bosom lies a
[Ill.u.s.tration: Cross]
It is DAISY"S NECKLACE; that is WHAT CAME OF IT; and here, gentle reader, is
THE END OF THE CHAIN.
EPILOGUE.
DON SEBASTIAN.--_You have no plot._
FABRICIO.--_But such characters! and every one is as true as truth: copied right off from nature._
DON SEBASTIAN.--_Badly done, sir Poet._
LOPE DE VEGA.