Lily Pearl and The Mistress of Rosedale
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"I have an invitation for you to take an airing in the elegant turn-out of our pet senator, by the side of his queenly wife, this p.m., at four." The bustling housekeeper said this amid the superintending of the dinner arrangements. "You will go, of course, and so I told the servant who brought in the card. You are looking so pale and thin that I am sure the ride will do you good."
At the hour appointed the carriage stood before the door, and the senator's wife called out pleasantly, as the two ladies appeared in sight, "the air is delicious, Mrs. Southey, and I can fully recommend its sanitary powers, having been cured of an oppressive headache already. You are not looking as well as usual," she continued, as the lady addressed tripped down the stone steps where the footman was waiting to hand her into the carriage.
"Will it reach the heart and conscience and drive out its ailments?" queried the hostess.
The thin lips of Mrs. Southey parted slightly as she threw back a keen glance at the speaker in the doorway. Without apparently noticing it she continued, "If I thought it would I would order a carriage and perform some long-neglected duties."
It was a lovely afternoon, as the senator's wife had reported, and as Mrs. Southey reclined dreamily in one corner of the luxurious barouche, a sensation, almost peaceful, came stealing over her while she listened to the agreeable words of her companion, and felt the cool soft breezes playing about her. For a while, at least, she forgot herself with all the attending perplexities of her situation, in the musical clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard road. At last she was waked from her reveries as from a dream, by observing the carriage stop in the street and hearing her companion accost some one outside.
"I am happy to meet you," she said; "I have been so anxious about your patient. How is he getting along?"
"Slowly improving," came back the answer.
"Good heavens! That voice!" How the guilty woman trembled! It was that of her only daughter – her Lillian! Did she long to clasp again that form, once so beloved, in her maternal embrace? Why did her cheeks and lips suddenly become chill and pallid? Why should every nerve quiver as she sat there mute with a palsying fear? Ah, she well knew that a pair of large dark eyes were fastened upon her, reading the emotions of her very soul, avoid them as she would! In vain did she endeavor to adjust her veil, which was thoughtlessly thrown back from her face in her dream of peace; but it became entangled with the trimmings of her bonnet, and it was impossible to disengage it. With a sensation of despair she settled back as far as possible among the shadows and painfully waited for the issue.
"Then you will come to-morrow?" she heard Lillian say. "I want much to see you for more than one reason."
"I think I will not fail," was the cheerful answer.
"Then I will tell him. The prospect, I am sure, will speed his convalescence."
The carriage moved on. The crouching figure straightened a little for a freer breath.
"Did you see those beautiful eyes?" asked her companion turning towards her. "I beg your pardon!" was the impulsive exclamation as she looked into the face beside her. "I ought not to have kept you out so long. You look as though you were chilled through; we will return immediately!"
"O, no! I am not cold! A sudden – dizziness I think – must have come over me! Do not return; indeed – I am not cold – the ride is exceedingly pleasant! Let us go on."
Her listener was surprised. Never had she seen the aristocratic Mrs. Southey so beside herself. Her words and manner perplexed her, still she made no reply.
"The young lady – who was she? Her eyes? O, yes! They were very fine! I think I must have seen her before!"
"At the hospital then," was the reply; "for she seldom goes out. I must tell you about her. She has been in Alexandria, doing good service I believe, and has now come to the city to nurse her husband, who is badly wounded and was brought thither for better accommodations, as he is an officer in high rank and is much needed in the field."
"Her husband!" almost shrieked the miserable woman; "did you say her husband?"
"Certainly! Why not? Do you know her? You astonish me by your looks and appearance! Enlighten me, I beseech you, Mrs. Southey!" exclaimed the lady.
The wretched woman tried to speak, but found not the power to do so.
At last she gasped, "I beg your pardon! I am strangely nervous to-day, I confess. It is true, I thought at first that I had seen the lady some years ago, but conclude I must have been mistaken or she would have remembered me. The mother of the one she so much resembles is a very dear friend of mine and her marriage was clandestine and seriously against her parents' wishes. I knew that the news of their reunion would greatly distress them, and so allowed my sympathies to run away with me and frighten you. You will pardon me?" she interrogated, beseechingly, as she laid her hand on her companion's arm.
"Certainly. I do not wonder at your agitation! But really, I think your friend ought not to distress herself about her daughter's choice were it so. Colonel Hamilton is one of our noblest and most heroic officers, and it is now being whispered in military circles that as soon as he is recovered his promotion will be speedy to the rank of brigadier, whether he is ever able to occupy it or not. I wish you would go with me to-morrow and see him. He is certainly one of the finest looking men I ever saw!"
Mrs. Southey, however, declined the honor. She was "too weak and sensitive to endure excitement," as she had given abundant proof during the last hour.
It was true, and the lady accepted the refusal gracefully. "Sometime you must tell me more about this colonel's wife in whom we both are so much interested, will you?" she asked, as they reached the street where was Mrs. Southey's temporary home.
"I shall be happy to keep you informed as to his recovery, and will call as soon as possible after my next visit to the hospital."
"Thank you!" and so they parted.
How little either knew of the emotions or convictions of the other! What a long catalogue of ills were being chronicled in the inner chamber of the guilty soul! It was a slight peep the penetrating eyes caught through the partially opened door ere the power of self-control returned to close it, but no sophistry could dispose of the horrors thus revealed! When again in her room she dropped into an easy chair evidently exhausted.
"Your ride must have been wearisome," suggested her hostess. "You do not look as well as when you went out," she continued, carelessly, raising her eyes from the paper she had in her hand.
"I am not well," was the prompt reply.
"Have you been driven under a halter? One would imagine that justice had been close upon you;" and she turned the page with perfect sang froid.
"Be merciful, I beseech you!" was the plaintive wail of her companion. "I will tell you all! I have not been chased by justice as you intimate, but what is worse – I have seen Lillian and she has seen me! The carriage stopped while the two friends talked, and all the time her eyes were fixed upon my uncovered face; and to-morrow they meet at the hospital! I know my uncontrollable agitation has betrayed much, and there is little doubt but she will finish what I have so ignobly begun. Beside this my daughter has found her husband, who is none other than the Colonel Hamilton of whom so much has been said of late! Of course he will aid her in performing what she would never have the strength to accomplish herself!" The head of the wretched mother sank upon her hand, while her whole frame shook with emotion. Her companion had risen and now stood before her.
"The time has come when you must leave!" she said with a tone as ringing and metallic as the clinking of steel when rudely smiting its fellow. "I have the arrangements all made, expecting it would come to this, for, as you are well aware, it would not be very comfortable for the innocent to be found in such bad company!" The tall figure became erect as her keen eyes were fixed upon the face of the speaker, while she continued: "Send your usual message and add in postscript a command to get that horse ready as ordered and brought around at eleven to the spot designated. I have a suit prepared, and at about ten miles there is a friend who will grant you a retreat for the present. I can send you word when you must fly farther. Now I will leave you, for it is nearly six and the order must be written immediately!"
Alone! What dismal horrors haunt the guilty mind when let loose upon itself! A spy! And in the enemy's country, hemmed in by the barriers of war with no way of escape to a land of safety, if such a place could be found! A rebel! And truth all ready to whisper in the ear of offended justice "behold the traitor!"
"Where is my strength? My pride?" she murmured, as she arose and walked across the room. "How I tremble! The gallows! What a reward for my persevering and arduous labors! I understand it!"
Then her mind wandered to the story of a German monarch who caused the executioner to blow his death-blast before the door of his brother's palace. "Ah, you tremble," said the king, "when the prospect of temporal death is so near; but look a little farther and behold the eternal pangs of the soul! How now? Does the sight appall thee? Go to thy home, my brother, the king desires not thy life; but remember the errors of a temporal death and shun the horrors of the second!"
"If I had done this! O, Lillian, Lillian my child! You cannot see your mother at this hour, and it is well! The first – yes the second death is for such as I!"
"I shall do no such thing!" she exclaimed aloud at last as she reseated herself by the window. "The horse perish with its rider! I want neither; I swear it! This hateful business stops here! O wretched, wretched woman that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Was not that in the Bible? Ah, I remember! The voice that has been silent for many years once repeated those words in my hearing when his hour had come. The Bible! I will go to Philadelphia. Mrs. Cheevers will not turn me from her door for – for – she is a Christian! Pride? Away with it! O the curse of a false ambition!"
The shadows of twilight fell noiselessly about her, spreading over the bent figure a pall of tender sympathy. Then she arose, lighted the gas and hurriedly threw into her trunks the plain, rich wardrobe of the elegant "English lady," and locking them prepared to go out. She had remembered that the northern train left the depot at eight, and she was going upon it! She passed out without interruption, and in a half hour the drayman was standing in the hall ready to be shown where the trunks were waiting. "This way," called Mrs. Southey; "you will need help for they are large."
"Where are you going?" asked the lady of the house with great astonishment, opening the parlor door. "Surely you are not going to tear yourself away so abruptly? How lonely I shall be without my aristocratic English guest! But do tell me, where are you going?"
"Out of death unto life," was the quick reply. "This way! Do not mar the railing;" and the two men passed on with the last trunk. "Forty minutes before train time, I believe?" she interrogated as she stepped forward to close the door. "Yes, madam;" and she turned to the bewildered woman who was silently gazing at her.
"Well, I am going," she said calmly; "it matters not to you where, but remember this! If there is a path for such as I back to womanhood I am determined to find it!" A cynical laugh was her only response. "Nevertheless, it is true! The miseries of the last few days have completed the grave into which I have cast my pride and ambitions; would that the bitter memories of the past could be buried with them! But I must go. Farewell – do not wait to attempt your own rescue until the quicksands have swallowed you up; again farewell!"
Her companion did not speak, but turned coldly away, while Mrs. Belmont, with a heart lighter than it had been for many months, tripped down the steps. New resolutions had taken possession of her soul, and with them had entered a ray of cheering light. The door had been thrown ajar for the spirit of penitence, but how dark the long closed chamber appeared, how ghostly the spectral memories that crouched among its shadows! The "broken and contrite heart" had not as yet opened the windows to the glories of the noonday sun of righteousness; and the door was reclosed, and upon the outside the new resolves were laid with trembling hands. She was Mrs. Belmont again – the mistress of Rosedale, and nevermore would she stoop to fraud or ignominy! Her daughter would come to her and ask for the mother-love her disobedience had forfeited, and she would humbly grant it! Colonel Hamilton was not one to be ashamed of; and then the dark night at the seashore, the cry of the abducted Lily rolled its burden of remorse close where the new resolutions were lying, and she trembled as the engine whistled its frightful alarm – something was on the track! "O God! What if Thy anger should fall upon me, where O where shall the sinner appear?" burst from her lips as she covered her face with her hands.
"There is no danger," shouted the brakeman at last; "the track is clear." And with folded hands she rode on breathing freely once more.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A NIGHT UPON THE BILLOWS
How the circumstances of life throw us about! Now, upon the revolving wheel, we are raised high above our fellows, where, from our dizzy elevation, we look about us with a sense of giddiness lest we fall; then with sudden revolution we descend while those upon the low grounds are carried up. Change! Change!
Our little circle of actors in the present drama were on the "wheel," but not one experienced more disagreeable sensations in its turnings than did Mrs. Belmont, the once haughty mistress of Rosedale. Hers was not alone in the experience of external disagreeables; but in her soul, where the continual revolvings of the corresponding whirlings of good resolutions and evil passions, which the hand of avarice was turning. Poor soul; with only such a power to govern its weal or woe!
Mrs. Gaylord lingered about the maelstrom where her darling had disappeared from sight many weeks, loth to believe that she would not rise again to bless and cheer her loneliness. "She was so like me," she would repeat over and over again; "the same restless ambitions, the same longings after something her hand could never reach! And now she is gone! I could bear it if the beautiful casket, emptied of its treasure had been left for my stricken heart to cherish and lay away in its bed of flowers under the green grass; but to lose all but the memory of her uncertain fate! This is the darkest cloud of all. Then what will Willie, the poor struggling cripple, say? How shall I ever meet him."
The shadows deepened in the home of the St. Clair's, and none rejoiced more when the husband bore his weeping wife back to her Virginia life than did the sympathizing Mrs. Mason. "It was dreadful," she said to her mother, after the good-byes were over; "but as we could not help it became a trifle monotonous, – this petting and soothing."
"Well, as for me, I would give a pretty large sum to know the whole of that transaction," remarked Mr. St. Clair, one day as the whole matter was being talked over. "There is a wheel within a wheel or I am mistaken. These old eyes are not so very blind when they have their spectacles on."
"I do wish you would never again throw out one of your wild and foolish 'perhaps so's!" exclaimed the wife pettishly. "I should not be surprised if your cousin should bring you before the courts for slander."
The husband threw up his broad hands high above his head while a merry peal of laughter rang through the apartment.
"Only to think, wife! Slander! I tell you there are chapters in that woman's life that she would not like to have me or any one else be fumbling over, and there is not much danger that she will ever turn the leaves for my especial benefit."
"You are too bad; the mother of Lillian Belmont ought to be above such insinuations, Mr. St. Clair!"
"That is a fact, but she is not, and there is where the too bad comes in;" and the merry laugh again resounded.
Mrs. Gaylord reached her home in safety. It was a fine old residence, standing back from the highway, nearly hidden from the passer by because of the large wide-spreading trees with which it was surrounded; yet the broadly-paved walks that branched off in every direction as they wound around among the cool shadows of the overhanging branches were delightfully inviting to the weary traveler who looked in upon them. The mistress of that pleasant retreat now, however, walked with languid step up the winding path to the house with a heavy heart. The darker shades of an overhanging gloom oppressed her. On the portico the servants were collected to give her welcome, and as she took the tawny hand of each in her own, said, "You too will miss your young mistress. You loved her, Jenny, – she will make no more turbans for you, Phebe – and poor little Pegs! who will fix his kite or teach him how to spin his top?"
"Whar is she Missus?" asked Phebe, with the great tears rolling down her ebony cheeks, and several other voices chimed in "Dar – dar – Missus, whar is she?"
"Dead! Swallowed up by the big sea, and we shall see her no more!" She passed on, for Mr. Gaylord had taken her arm and was leading her into the long drawing-room, where he bade her stop her prating and making a simpleton of herself.
"It might as well be she as any one," he continued, noticing the look of distress on the pale face; "Seldom could there be found a young lady of her attractions who would break fewer hearts by disappearing than would she. But I am sorry for you. There was a little more color in your face, and a slight return of the former sprightliness in your manner while she was with you. But she is gone, Mrs. Gaylord, and what is the use of throwing misery over every one who crosses your path because of it? If you must pine away the few attractions you have left out of your life, why, do it silently and alone."
Her tears ceased at the commencement of this little sympathetic(?) speech and she now stood before her husband cold and chilling. Servants came and went with little acts of attention and considerable bustle of ceremony, yet, with her arm resting upon the marble mantel, she moved not, for her thoughts had driven away her weariness. A visitor was announced and she turned to see that her husband had seated himself by the window with his paper, and was deep in the perplexing problems it had brought to him.
"War! War!" Its columns were full. Preparations were going on everywhere. Calls were made for every lover of his country and home to see to it that his powers, of whatever sort, were immediately put in working order. He yawned as he turned to the last page, and looked up as if supposing his lady was still present, and he had something to say to her, but he was alone. "Well," he said, between the snatches of a military air which he was whistling; "I must away. 'The bugle sounds to arms, to arms,' and Fred Gaylord can as well be spared from the loving embraces of his adorable spouse as any one. Heigho! 'The echos are ringing alarms, alarms.' Hello, my good fellow! Nero, come and greet your master," and the huge mastiff walked boldly in through the open window, and with many demonstrations of pleasure licked the hand that caressed him.
"Yes, Mrs. Gaylord," he said the next morning as they were sitting at the breakfast table, "in a week I shall go to Richmond!"
"To join the army?"
"Well – no! I cannot say as I have any particular desire to set up this six feet of flesh and bones as a target for designing men to shoot at! It wouldn't be comfortable, you know! Besides, I can do a better thing for my country. Mine is to plan, advise and superintend. There will be plenty of this work to do, and you will get along very well without me." He arose and sauntered out into the open air, whistling as he went "the girl I left behind me." The wife watched the manly figure until it disappeared among the trees.
"Not much nobility in the character of a coward," she thought, as she looked after him. "Our grandest and noblest men in the South, as well as in the North, will enter the field of battle and – yes, will die and be buried! Hearts will ache and homes will be saddened, and the great wheel of destiny will keep on turning just as if nothing unusual was happening! Lives are being continually thrown upon it, and as rapidly hurled by its flying motion into darkness – into forgetfulness! Where is it? Where do they go? Where is Lily? That soul so full of longings, of ambitious, of unbounded faiths, hopes and shadowy desires, real to itself but mysterious to the uninitiated? Surely such a being has not been cast away among the rubbish of past ages as worthless, to find in the darkness the end of all these? No! no! She was right! There is something in these compounds of humanity that are not easily satisfied and cannot readily be extinguished. My own wild, restless cravings tell me this! Why should this 'hungering and thirsting' be given me if there was nothing with which to satisfy it? I once foolishly imagined that wealth and position would do this, but I starve with it all! I have said in my heart, 'eat, drink, and be merry; get the brightest things out of life that are possible, for the end cometh.' O Lily, my child! How much I need you! The shadows were lifting – there was a faint light in the east, the glimmering of a new day; but the darkness has set in again, the night is not ended!" She was listlessly walking up and down the elegant parlors as these thoughts ran through her mind.
Weeks passed. Mr. Gaylord had long been away, swallowed up in the excitements and business of war, and she seldom heard from him; still she had no fears, for he was only "planning, engineering and advising!" This was safe business surely! The grand old house had been filled with friends and relatives who had fled from the immediate scenes of action to take refuge out of harm's way; still when the hot July days were come with their enervating oppressiveness Mrs. Gaylord thought of the quiet village inn at the north where she had first met her Lily, and her heart pined for its cooling shades once more. But the husband had said she must not attempt to go into the enemy's country, or she would be taken for a spy.
"However," she thought one day, "I will write to Mr. Bancroft and hear about Willie; this will do me a little good at least." She did write. The tumults of war increased. The reports of conflicts were heard everywhere! The dark wave was rolling up from the far south and threatening to sweep over the boundary lines east and west, scorching and destroying everything in its progress. Mrs. Gaylord watched its coming with a great fear stirring her whole being. What would become of them? Then there came an answer to her letter. How greedily she broke the seal; how her heart bounded as she unfolded the well-filled sheet!
"How glad I was to hear from you," it began. "I did not know but you had been lost in the terrible fire! How it rages! Where will it end? When the passions of men become aroused Justice and Mercy must fold their arms and wait. But, my dear Mrs. Gaylord, cruelties, wrong dealings, abominations are not confined to war or kept within the machinations of my own sex. You speak of your loss and loneliness – come to us. You will be happier here, and a great problem still unsolved requires your aid. Next week a friend of mine will go to Washington for a few days only; now if you can get through Baltimore meet him there and he will conduct you safely to my home. I will see him to-day and write the particulars to-morrow. Willie is not with me just now, there being greater attractions elsewhere. All will be explained when you are with us. It is best that you should follow out my suggestions. I should have written you many weeks ago if I had not heard that you were not at home, and it was very uncertain whether a letter would find you in these troublesome times."
"How strangely he writes," she thought, as the paper dropped from her hand. "A problem! He had heard I was not at home; who told him? Why am I needed to help solve the problem? There is a mystery in all this! It is not like him. I must – yes, I will go! Mr. Gaylord's brother's widow, who must remain here with her family, should do all that I could, and I must go!" How restlessly she tossed upon her pillow that night! The problem! The mystery! Mr. Gaylord might not like it; he had told her to remain where she was; but something within bade her go. Another letter came, as was expected. There was much advise, counsel and many directions, and then it said: "I will just add for your perusal a short preface to a most exciting story. It may be that the interest it will awaken will have more power to draw you than anything I can say by way of persuasion. You know that there is an assurance somewhere that 'the sea shall give up its dead,' and that we 'shall meet our loved ones,' etc. These are, without doubt, true, for we have many a foretaste of the good things to come even here. One to the point is fresh before me. More than two months ago Willie received a letter from over the ocean that the good ship Constitution had picked up from off the dark billows a floating waif alone in an open boat somewhere along the southern shore, and as they were bound for Liverpool had no alternative but to take their prize with them. They did so and it was then lying in a hospital very sick, and the greater part of the time delirious. The physicians, however, had prophesied a speedy recovery when the crisis was passed, and as they had succeeded in learning the address of the one about whom she had talked almost incessantly, concluded to write to him. 'Be not alarmed' it went on to say, 'for it was not strange that such a night on the billows of a stormy sea should have upset a stronger set of nerves, or bewildered even a more massive brain.' But she would recover, and when strong enough would be brought back to Boston where her home was, as they had gathered from her talk. Still it was their desire to hear immediately if a young lady had been missing from those parts; a Miss 'Lily Gaylord', the name found on the clothing."