"I did not know that anyone was here. We disturbed Bayard at his studies I am afraid."
"Let us go somewhere else," I suggested a little eagerly.
"Oh," she answered, shaking her head significantly, "that would not bring him back I a.s.sure you, we may as well be comfortable here as elsewhere, now. He is such a queer boy."
She was evidently under the impression that I knew something definite about this person who, in spite of his suggestive name, seemed timid and strange as a fawn, but as I had a burning desire to know everything about Hortense"s illness I was not tempted to indulge this secondary curiosity, so his name was summarily abandoned for the dear invalid"s.
Madame de Beaumont could not account in any definite or satisfactory manner for her daughter"s present condition. It was the result, she said, of a growing indisposition that had stolen over her lately, and this was why her fears had such little hope lest her complaint should prove a const.i.tutional decline that would baffle all the skilful efforts of her physicians.
"She began," the mother said in a voice of sobs, "by renouncing all her pleasures. She did not care for one thing and was too tired for another. She took no interest in anything that had distracted her before; she would only read, and write letters to you and in the end she renounced even these relaxations. The doctors suspect that some mental strain may have been worrying her, but I can think of none. All that we could do to make her happy and comfortable we did, and I have never heard her complain, or wish for anything that she had not already. What will I do if I lose her?" Madame de Beaumont suddenly cried, burying her face in her hands and weeping bitterly. "Her father, you know, died of consumption," she added in a hopeless whisper, raising her head and looking at me sorrowfully.
It was a sad scene and one that I was not prepared to meet. I had a.s.sured myself that Madame de Beaumont"s letter was exaggerated, and now it seemed not to have conveyed to me half vividly enough the actual state of the unfortunate circ.u.mstances.
We had some slight refreshment served on the little table before us, but neither of us could partake of it heartily. I swallowed some mouthfuls of food more out of duty than anything else, and indulged myself with a cup of strong tea, my favorite beverage, after which we repaired quietly to the sick-room to have a look at Hortense before retiring.
Faint glimmers of light, leaping from the night lamp that burned dimly on a table by the bedside, danced in flickering shadows every now and then upon her pallid cheeks, but still she slept quietly and peacefully. One would think it was the sleep that knows no earthly waking were it not for the warm look of her paleness, and the feeble throbbing of something in her thin white neck.
"She will spend the whole night like this," her mother whispered, drawing me away. "The nurse watches her steadily and Bayard occupies the next room, but they are never disturbed. She dozes quietly the whole night long. To-morrow she will know you and talk to you. You must go to your room now, my dear, for you are tired and travel-worn.
Come, I will show you the way," she added, putting her arm around my waist and leading me out of the room.
When we reached the door we were met by the timid hero of the sitting-room, who now found himself almost in our arms. He was making a stealthy entrance, and we a stealthy exit, and we came upon one another so suddenly that we all three stood motionless and silent for an awkward second or so.
Madame de Beaumont relieved the stupid situation by saying, "Miss Hampden, this is my son, I suppose you know him already by name."
I was too surprised to say or do anything appropriate. I merely raised my eyes and inclined my head a little, and worked my way through the door with an impatience almost equal to that with which he had flown from the room which we had invaded an hour or so before.
In a few minutes more I was safe and secure in my own apartment, free to sit down quietly and make out a calm realization of the whole state of affairs for my own private benefit. The figure I had just left standing in the opposite doorway came back to me now, more clearly-defined in memory than he was to my corporal eyes as they rested on him. He was a handsome fellow, very handsome, but how strange looking, with his rich embroidered gown falling about him in heavy folds, and his cap shoved back off his brow, throwing his marked features into exquisite relief, this was Hortense"s brother of whom she had never spoken to me, whose name I had never heard until to-night! This was Bayard de Beaumont!
I stood up and began to unfasten my trinkets, and my eyes were instinctively raised to a picture which hung over the mirror beside me. It consisted of two photographs in a pretty delicate frame, one was Bayard"s, the other was a woman"s, not his mother"s, nor his sister"s. It was of some one I had never seen. I raised the lamp above my head and scrutinized it. It was a beautiful face, but one of cold, pa.s.sive loveliness. There was something in the handsome mouth which made me wince as I looked upon it, and those large speaking eyes. What a depth theirs was, too deep, I thought, too alluring, might not one get lost in such labyrinths as these?
I gazed upon the picture until my hand, exhausted, trembled with the lighted lamp it held, and even then I had not seen it half enough but I turned away and went on in moody thoughtfulness with my final preparations for retiring.
I knelt and said my evening prayers, with many a struggle against teasing distractions, I must admit.
Such a queer nature was mine! I do not know whether others resemble me or not in this respect, but from my young girlhood, I have always been led away by those faces, books, sounds or pictures, that are suggestive of any kind of deep or pent up emotion. I know not exactly whether it be that I look upon them as a.s.sociated in some dim distant way with my own uneventful life, yet how could that be? What have vagrant strains of unfamiliar music conceived by unknown minds, and played by unseen hands to do with the mechanism of one undreamt of human soul? What can those heart-moving pages of the authors I love, have to do with the issue of an existence of which they have never heard nor thought? What part could these fascinating faces have played in the personal drama of my life, when they have never been called upon to bestow even the tame smile of conventional greeting upon me?
What bearing could those speaking pictures have upon the story of my individual experience when they are often the only reflection of days long past and forgotten, children of some pensive artist"s fancy that never had another life outside of his conception, than that infused by brush or chisel? Yet it always seems to me that as I look into those books and faces, or as I lend my ear to those engaging sounds, some chord vibrates within me that makes me feel as if my memory were struggling to awake from some lethargy: scenes and sorrows of my yesterdays come back for a short moment to my vivid recollection, and seem to hang around these powerful incentives in a misty halo. It may be the caprice of an extravagant imagination, it may be the freak of a foolish fancy, an empty day-dream, an idle reverie, but to me while it lasts, it is sweeter than any reality.
Thus was it with this picture that hung upon my bedroom wall that night. I could not take my eyes from it. There I lay, tired and travel-worn, on an easy bed; but the light burned beside me and I could not sleep. Something held my gaze fixed upon the opposite wall.
I could but stare and wonder at the curious loveliness of that woman"s face, and ask myself doubtfully over and over again whether such beauty always engenders proportionate happiness for its possessor.
"And Bayard loved her," I went on in mental soliloquy. "This strange, handsome fellow with the sad face and solemn air." Did he still love her, I wondered, or was she called away in her youthful grace and loveliness to where he could only see her with the eyes of faith? Did he now live upon her cherished memory, isolated from all the profane distractions of social life? Where was she, or who was she, and why had Hortense never spoken of her in all her intimate conversations with me? Was she his wife? May not this picture have got there in some accidental way? She might be a relative. It might have happened that they were just the same size and style of portrait, and were put together on that account. But no! something in the faces of both insinuated a close relationship. They were more to one another, I felt sure, than friend or relative. There was love, quiet, steady, absorbing love in his great dark eyes, as if in resting upon the beauty of that other face they had found happiness and repose forever.
They even suggested something of a reproachful love, as if they found those attractions too winning, and not human enough. I almost coveted the respectfully devouring glance of those contemplative brown eyes, for we women with faces of very ordinary fabric cannot believe that men love us altogether as they would if our cheeks were like damask roses and our eyes like dew-kissed violets. Nor do we blame them. Yet how often does it come to pa.s.s that a woman"s beauty is the stumbling-block to her earthly happiness? With only a face for her fortune, many a bright-eyed, laughing belle has gone out to seek sorrow and misery. The world is full of them, they are rolling in easy carriages up and down the thoroughfares of life, each a pampered and dearly bought idol of some powerful old Croesus, whom to love would be to outrage every principle of nature and worthy sentiment, and, therefore, to live upon milk and honey and be clad in the finest of purple, beauty will sanction her own destruction, living a loveless life, ever haunted by a memory of something brighter and happier that might have been. And all for this, that others may look with admiration, and possibly with envy upon her glittering wealth, or that she may reflect some of the social power and prestige of the man who marries her. She may escape dest.i.tute gentility; she may pa.s.s into the higher walks of refined society, may be waited upon by many servants, and be the cynosure of eyes that under other circ.u.mstances had never deigned to favor her with a casual notice. What of that? She may, at last, recline in an expensive casket, and rich exotics may lie in splendid profusion about her, there may be tolling of many bells and sighing of many friends, but after that? Does the grave show any more respect to these remnants of dainty humanity stowed away in the stillness of an artistic vault, than to the handful of pauper human bones that crumble to their final dust under the unmarked, unnoticed sod?
With such reflections as these, and while my eyes were still fixed upon the fascinating photograph I fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed strange things that night. Phantom forms with a dark mystic beauty about them glided round me. I saw a woman with long raven tresses and tear-dimmed eyes shrouded in flowing draperies, leaning over a narrow rustic bridge under which dark and muddy water ran in a gurgling stream. Her elbow leaned upon the railing, and her pensive face lay half-buried in one slender hand. She was looking into the depths below, and a great misery was written upon her handsome features. I dreamed that I was hurrying by the spot where she was standing, eager to reach the other side un.o.bserved by her. As I stole with noiseless tread behind her, I heard her talking to the waters in a slow and humdrum monotone:
"Even if I did it," she was saying "he wouldn"t care now. No! Bayard wouldn"t care, no one would care. Would you care?" She screamed, turning suddenly around and clutching me tightly with both trembling hands. My blood ran cold, my very hair stood up on end, as I saw the wild glitter in her dark, l.u.s.trous eyes, and the hopeless frenzy in her harsh and hollow laugh. I wrestled once, with all the strength I could command, and with a piercing scream I awoke! Cold clammy drops lay on my face and hands. My heart was throbbing wildly against my breast. I lay prostrate, paralyzed with fear, staring into the outer gloom. It was just at the turn of the darkness when things are outlined though still colorless and shadowy, and I could see the delicate frame opposite me suspended by invisible cords from an invisible nail--that cursed thing that had haunted me in my sleep and reduced me to this painful condition.
There was a flicker of light through the keyhole and crevices of my bed-room door at this crisis. Someone turned the handle cautiously and finding the bolt drawn from the inside, whispered huskily.
"What is the matter?"
I could not recognize the voice, but sitting up in my bed, I answered faintly:
"Oh! it is nothing. I have had a dreadful nightmare, that is all."
The light flickered again and the cautious footsteps retreated, leaving me alone with the dusk and my fears. I fell back upon my pillow and crept under the warm coverings. I was weak and shivering, and a violent pain darted through my head. In a few moments that seemed like hours to me, I fell asleep again. This time it was a quiet, dreamless slumber, which restored me greatly, and refreshed my looks and my humor for breakfast.
When I awoke a second time, a bright morning sunshine flooded the room. The birds sang l.u.s.tily outside my window, carts and carriages rumbled along the road; bells were ringing and all the voices of industry and activity were united in a great chorus which proclaimed the advent of another day.
No one spoke of my tragic experience when I appeared at the breakfast table. Madame de Beaumont and her son were already in the dining-room when I went down, and we took our seats almost immediately. Hortense was still sleeping, they said, and looked quite refreshed after the night.
"I hope I did not disturb her when I screamed?" I ventured to remark.
"When you screamed!" Madame de Beaumont exclaimed in bewilderment.
"Yes! did you not hear me?" I asked, just as astonished.
"No indeed," she answered, "did you Bayard?" turning towards her son who sat at the upper end of the table.
"Miss Hampden had supper too late last night," he said, evading a direct reply, "and that with traveling, and the excitement of seeing Hortense so very ill, would disturb any one"s slumber."
I thought he intended that the subject of my nightmare, should be summarily dismissed with this explanation, and feeling a little unkindness in the arbitrary way in which he expressed himself, I turned to Madame de Beaumont and with a self-justifying tone remarked:
"It is the first time in my life I have ever had a nightmare, and I cannot account for it. I had been looking at a picture that hangs over the looking-gla.s.s in the room you gave me, and do you know it suggested such a queer train of thought, that immediately on falling asleep I dreamed of it, and such a dream! It would have frightened any one."
Madame de Beaumout busied herself among the tea-things while I spoke, and never raised her eyes, but Bayard, laying down his knife and fork, turned his gaze full upon me. There was a covert sneer, I thought, in the look which he directed at me so steadily, and feeling painfully mystified and uncomfortable under the whole situation, I bent my head over my chocolate and sipped it slowly for need of a better distraction. After a moment or so of unflinching staring, the courteous Bayard resumed his breakfast with double the appet.i.te, it seemed to me, with which he began it. This was my uncongenial initiation into my friend"s home.
CHAPTER X.
Before the week was out, Hortense, to the surprise and delight of us all, was able to move about from one room to another. She looked white and wasted still, but her old manner had returned to her in a great measure, and she laughed and chatted eagerly with us, one after another, thus giving strong confirmation to the hopes expressed by her medical adviser, who now predicted a rapid convalescence.
The sun was warm and invigorating, and nature at the very climax of her summer beauty, the leaves green and plentiful, and the breeze gentle and refreshing. Everything in the external world tempted one to "fling dull care away" and be happy while these propitious moments lingered with time.
Madame de Beaumont and her son were so hopeful now of Hortense"s complete recovery that they ventured to leave home for a week or ten days to attend to some family business that had been delayed on account of her serious illness, but it was with many a parting injunction, regarding the care and attention that should be unceasingly bestowed upon her darling during her enforced absence, that the solicitous mother left me in charge. Anxious to fulfil my pledge to the very letter. I gave myself up to the exclusive companionship of my little friend from that moment. It was indeed a pleasure and a recreation for me, now that she was able to laugh and talk as before.
Two weeks had elapsed since my arrival in Toronto and many strange conjectures had held possession of my mind during this comparatively short interval. I had seen nothing, I may say, of the quiet hero of the household. His time was spent either in the solemn seclusion of his own apartments or out of doors. Occasionally we met going out of, or coming into, a room, going up or down stairs or pa.s.sing along some corridor. We nearly always had meals together, and on a few occasions he even sat with us for an hour after dinner, but of what good was that? The conversation was tame and impersonal when we were all together, and when we two met by accident there was a quiet mutual greeting which began and ended on the spot.
I was still of the opinion that he was a handsome man and a fine fellow altogether, but the suspicion that he was shrouded in mystery repelled me, despite my best intentions and desires. I have never taken to those deep natures that talk in discreet monosyllables and cling to the sheltering refuge of such safe subjects as are the substance of everybody"s and anybody"s chit-chat. Maybe I judge them harshly when I persuade myself that the records of their past could not stand the open daylight of a free-and-easy discussion. This verdict is, however, the suggestion of my instinct, and need not carry weight with anyone but myself.
Lest any of the ardent believers in the pre-eminent curiosity of womankind be wondering how I could have restrained my burning desires to ferret out the secrets of this man"s life for so long, I must hasten to inform them that conjointly with this feminine weakness I had a most unyielding pride, a pride that absorbed _even_ my curiosity. Though I pined to know the wonderful story of his past, this prevailing vice forbade me to quench my devouring thirst at the fountainhead of satisfaction.