Read Ebook: Holden with the Cords by Jay W M L

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Ebook has 574 lines and 42061 words, and 12 pages

tly, as if whatever else he had intended to say was suddenly put out of his head. He, too, had become dimly aware of some subtle change or development in Coralie, since the evening before,--a more womanly grace, a new character of beauty; which, however, only served to bring the image of Carice vividly before him--Carice, as he had seen her last, and would never see her again, under the shadowy pines, by the dreaming river, with the newborn love-light in her eyes, and the dawn-rose of love in her cheeks. Scarce knowing what he did, he lifted his hand, to see if, haply, he might shut out both images together.

Coralie's eyes fell on that hand, which was carefully bandaged from wrist to knuckles; and the unconquerable shyness which had seized her, on Bergan's appearance, was instantly dissipated.

"What is that?" she asked;--"oh, Mr. Arling, were you burned last night in trying to save me?"

Bergan looked at Diva and smiled. "It is nothing," said he, lightly,--"only your aunt and Miss Thane insisted upon binding it up after I got home; and the least that I can do is to wear their kindly handiwork for a day or two."

"Oh, Diva," exclaimed Coralie reproachfully, the quick moisture coming into her eyes, "why did you not tell me?"

"Miss Thane is quite right," said Bergan; "the matter was not worth mentioning. Certainly, it was not worth one of those tears, Miss Coralie; you will make me too proud of having gotten a small scratch in the fray. If it were ten times as much, it would in nowise offset what I owe your father. Now I must bid you farewell, or I shall miss the train."

"Will you not come up again soon?" asked Coralie, coloring a little, but strong in the certainty that she could not err in showing her preserver the most cordial courtesy. "It must be good for you to leave the city as often as you can. And you have certainly earned the right to consider Farview as your home, whenever it suits you to do so."

"Thank you," said Bergan, bowing in acknowledgment of the kind and thoughtful invitation. "But I am necessarily a busy and homeless man, and it is the truest wisdom for me not to stray too far out of my proper orbit, lest I get dissatisfied with it. When I become more fully and firmly settled therein, a day's absence may not matter so much; and then, if your invitation still holds good, I shall be only too happy to avail myself of it."

"It must always hold good, just as a kindness once done is done forever," replied Coralie warmly, turning a deaf ear to the unseasonable inner voice that cried out against the coolness and reserve of Bergan's response, and holding out a tremulous little hand, by way of signature and seal to her promise.

Bergan gave the hand a friendly pressure, and bowed low to Miss Thane. "A pleasant summer to you both," said he, "full of flowers and sunshine, both material and metaphorical. Farewell."

He lifted his hat as he rode through the gate; very soon a turn of the road hid him from sight. Coralie stood looking somewhat wistfully at the point where he had disappeared.

"Peace go with him!" said Diva lightly. "He was in a great hurry to leave us, but he said 'Farewell' in a way to indicate that he should not be in a hurry to return. Fortunately, we are not the sort of damsels to pine after an unwilling knight."

Coralie turned instantly, and, with heightened color, signified her readiness to go home.

For some days her spirits were fitful and changeable; nothing now so gay, nothing now so sad, as her smile. During this time Diva watched over her with a silent, patient, careful devotion that surrounded her like the atmosphere, viewless, but beneficent. She saved her from annoyance; she shielded her from observation; she stood between her and her guests, taking up the burden of their entertainment in a way that would have seemed incredible to those accustomed to see her only languidly indifferent or coldly haughty. Though her heart might be narrow, it was certainly deep.

She could now think of herself. Unselfish anxiety and effort had been very good for her thus far, there was not a doubt of that. Nevertheless, she was beginning to feel urgent need of quiet,--opportunity to commune with her own heart, and be still,--time to deal justly and thoroughly with questions seething in her mind ever since her talks with Bergan. But it was vain to look for quiet at Farview; the house was fast filling up with gay guests; and having once dropped her ice-mantle of reserve, she could not resume it without giving pain to her hosts. So, as Coralie was now quite capable of taking her rightful place as queen of the festivities, and as she had already stayed twice as long as had been contemplated at first, Diva went back to her studio.

AN AIMLESS STROLL.

Late one afternoon, about a month after Bergan's return to Savalla, he quitted the office, which seemed to have grown unaccountably barren and dreary of aspect, and set out for an aimless stroll through the city. The air was fresh and moist from a recent shower, and the slanting sunbeams were working alchemic wonders in the streets and squares; turning the polished leaves of the oak and olive trees to silver, and hanging them with prismatic jewels, enriching the grass with a vivider green, and the earth with a rich golden brown, and imprinting the sensitive surface of every tiny rain-pool with a lovely picture of blue sky, fleecy clouds, and pendent sprays of foliage.

Through all these pleasant sights Bergan moved slowly and half absently, occupying himself less with their beauty than with the sober monologue of his own thoughts. Yet his gaze was not without occasional moments of intelligence, and in one of these he noticed a child, attended by a large dog, standing with a curiously doubtful, undecided air, in the midst of the square that he was crossing. Suddenly making up her mind, it would seem, she held out her hand to a gentleman coming from the opposite direction, who took no further notice of the mute appeal than was implied by a shake of the head. The sight was a comparatively strange one in those days, when begging was resorted to as an occasional resource, rather than followed as a regular trade; and Bergan continued to observe the child with a certain degree of interest, though not with a wholly unpreoccupied mind, as he advanced toward her.

All at once, it struck him that there was something oddly familiar about her slender little figure. As for the dog, he was certainly an old acquaintance, as could easily be proven; and Bergan's lips emitted a low, peculiar whistle. There was an instant pricking up of the canine ears, and an inquisitive turning sidewise of the canine head, but the faithful animal would not leave his young mistress until he was absolutely certain that he recognized a friend. She, meanwhile, seemed to notice neither the whistle nor its effect; nor could she distinctly see what manner of man drew near, her eyes being dazzled by the level sun-rays, but she again mutely held out her hand.

It was instantly taken possession of. "Cathie," said Bergan, wonderingly, "what does this mean?"

She looked at him a moment in blank bewilderment, but ended by recognizing him and flinging herself into his arms exactly as the Cathie of a year before would have done; but with a deep, long-drawn, repressed sob, implying a profounder sorrow than had ever darkened the horizon of even that child of many and incomprehensible moods.

Yet Bergan was considerably relieved by her first words;--"Oh, Mr. Arling, don't tell mamma--don't tell Astra--please don't!" It seemed probable that the episode of the begging was simply one of the child's strange freaks.

"Did you do it for fun, then?" he asked.

"Fun?" repeated Cathie, with indignant emphasis, "do you think it's fun to beg, Mr. Arling? I don't. I was so ashamed that I wanted to hide my face with both hands."

"Then why did you do it?" asked Bergan, gravely.

The child's lip assumed its most sorrowful curve. "To get some money to give Astra," she answered. "We are very poor now; the Bank went and got broke, with all mamma's money in it; and she was taken sick, and Astra couldn't get much to do, and we've had to move into a little mean house, in a dirty little street, where there are no flowers, nor trees, nor anything that's nice. And this morning I saw Astra take the last money out of her purse, to pay the rent, and she looked--oh! I can't tell how she looked,--something like that big gray man, with the little boy on his back, that she made so long ago; and I did so wish that I could do something to help her, just a little bit. So, when she sent me out to take a walk with Nix, it came into my head that I could beg for her, if I couldn't do anything else, and I thought I'd try it. Was it doing wrong?"

Bergan did not answer except by stooping to kiss the child's upturned face. His eyes grew moist.

"I know it must be wrong," pursued Cathie, innocently, "if it makes you cry, Mr. Arling."

"No, Cathie," replied Bergan, smiling reassuringly. "I do not think it was wrong,--at least, you did not mean to do wrong, and that makes a great difference. But I don't think that you will need to try it again. Now, certainly you can do something better; that is, take me home with you."

On the way, Cathie, secure in the sympathy of this trusted friend of better days, gave a more detailed account of the misfortunes that had befallen the little family, since it left Berganton. His heart ached as he pictured to himself the weary and wasting struggle with poverty that Astra had maintained so bravely, yet so hopelessly; heavily weighted, on the one hand, with the burden of disappointed affection, and, on the other, with the anxiety caused by her mother's severe illness. For works of art, there had been no demand; for portrait busts and medallions, there had been only a scanty and fitful one. Her last resource had been pupils in drawing, but these had now failed her, in consequence of the usual summer exodus of the city's wealthier population; by reason of which she was reduced to the bitter straits shadowed forth by Cathie's earlier communications. It was touching, too, to see what real nobleness of character had all along been hidden under the child's caprice and waywardness, as evinced by the fact that she said little of the privations that had fallen to her own lot, but dwelt chiefly on her mother's lack of accustomed comforts, and the forlorn face that Astra wore, when out of that mother's sight.

The house was reached before the story had come to an end. It was a little better than Bergan's fears, but far worse than his hopes. It smote him to the heart to contrast it with the comfortable and spacious mansion that had opened its doors so readily to him at Berganton, and wherein he had come to feel himself so pleasantly at home.

Cathie ushered Bergan into the dingy little room that served both for parlor and studio, and then rushed through the opposite door, full of the importance of the news that she had to impart. There was a smothered exclamation of surprise from the adjoining room, followed by a murmured consultation; and then Astra appeared in the doorway.

But it was by no means the Astra of Bergan's remembrance. The features were the same, to be sure, but the light, the hope, the energy, that had animated them, and informed them with such rich and varied expression, was utterly lacking. There was a perceptible line between the eyebrows, as if the brow were wont to be knit over difficult problems; and the mouth expressed a settled melancholy, which a smile seemed only to vary slightly, not to displace. Nor could Bergan help detecting a little hardness in it,--the look of a defeated general, forced to lay down his weapons, but still unsubdued in will.

What he most marvelled at, however, was that it immediately brought Diva Thane's face before him, as if there were some subtle relation between them, though there was not the slightest resemblance.

Astra's manner to him was scarcely less altered than her face. It was not exactly cold, but it lacked much of the old warmth and heartiness. Bergan took no notice of it; he readily divined what chords of painful association were thrilled at the sight of him, and how inevitably her pride revolted against being seen in her present surroundings. Her hand was so cold, when he took it in his, that he pressed it between both his own, with a vague idea of warming it; then, stirred by a sympathy too deep for ordinary expression, he bent over and touched it with his lips.

"You are not wise," said Astra, with a faint smile; "you should not do homage to a fallen princess."

"Neither do I," rejoined Bergan, with a deep music in his voice. "She is not fallen, but holding out most bravely against the time when she may expect succor."

"Succor?" responded Astra, with a mixture of pride and mournfulness,--"from what or whom could acceptable succor come?"

Bergan smiled, and pointed upward. "From the Source of all succor, whatever be the channel."

Astra shook her head, and the lines of her mouth grew set and hard. "Acceptable succor comes in season," said she, "and through legitimate channels."

Bergan was confounded. This lack of faith, this arraignment of Providence, argued a more amazing change in Astra than he had yet suspected. At the same time it afforded him a clue to that mysterious connection, in his mind, between her face and Miss Thane's. Under the hardness of the one and the coldness of the other, the same scepticism lay hidden,--possibly engendered by similar causes. In Astra's case, he had no hesitation in attributing it to Doctor Remy's influence; and he could not but wonder at the singular and fatal power of the man over the minds of those who were brought into close contact with him. Was this deadly poison to be also instilled into the pure mind of Carice? He shuddered at the thought. Better for her to lie dead at the bottom of the river, by which he had last seen her soft, rapt face.

Feeling that this was no time to argue with Astra, Bergan turned to the table, which was littered with drawings and sketches, plaster reliefs, and small clay models, to a degree that implied no lack of patient industry, despite the want of encouragement, and the absence of faith.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Nothing, just now," she answered, mournfully. "I believe my hands have lost their cunning,--if ever they had any. That is the last." She pointed to a small bas-relief.

It represented a child, skipping lightly down a flowery slope, trailing a vine behind her. The face was turned so far away from the beholder, as to show only the rounded outline of the youthful cheek and brow, but the figure expressed a wonderful joyousness. In more senses than one, it was plainly, "In the Sunshine;" which title was lightly scratched in the plaster.

Bergan studied it attentively. "It is as fresh as a rose," said he, "and as sweet."

"The analogy, if there be any, goes deeper than that," rejoined Astra, bitterly. "A rose is born out of darkness and dampness and decay, and this is the offspring of pain and discouragement, and all that makes the hand weak and the heart sick."

"And that is probably the secret of its perfection," remarked Bergan, meditatively. "The loveliest graces of character--such as charity that thinketh no evil, and hope that lives by faith, not by sight--are the legitimate children of suffering. Then why not the finer works of art?"

Astra's eyes fell, and she did not answer.

"At any rate," pursued Bergan, "this 'Sunshine' is just what I want to brighten my office. I was thinking, this very day, that something must be done to make it less dismal. I suppose it is for sale?"

Astra bent her head a little stiffly. She doubted the reality of this new-born desire for office decorations.

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