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A Face Illumined, a novel by Edward Payson Roe |
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Chapter 34. Puzzled |
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_ Chapter XXXIV. Puzzled Tuesday was dreary enough to more than one at the Lake House. Clouds covered the sky, yet they gave little promise of the rain which the thirsty earth so needed. To Ida, as she looked out late in the morning, they seemed like a leaden wall around her, shutting off all avenues of escape. Her mother joined her as she went down to a cold and dismal breakfast, long after all the other guests had left the dining-room, and she commenced fretting and fuming, as was her custom when the world did not arrange itself to suit her mood. "Everything is on the bias to-day," she said, "and you most of all from your appearance. I wish I could see things straightened out for once. The little school-ma'am, who turns everybody's head, is sick in her room, and did not come down to breakfast. Therefore we had a Quaker meeting. If you had been present with your long face, the occasion would have been one of oppressive solemnity. Ik appeared as dejected as if he were to be executed before dinner, and scarcely ate a mouthful; I never saw a fellow so changed in all my life. Although your artist friend had a rapt, absorbed look, he was still able to absorb a good deal of steak and coffee. I saw him and Miss Burton emerge from a private parlor last night, and he probably understands Miss Burton's malady better than the rest of us. Why--what's the matter? Would to heaven I understood your malady better! Are you sick?" "Yes," said Ida, rising abruptly from the table, "I am sick--sick of myself, sick of the world." "Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Mayhew, sharply, "are you so wrapt up in that fellow Sibley, that you can't live without him?" Ida made a slight but expressive gesture of protest and disgust; then said, in a low tone, as if to herself: "If my own mother so misjudges me, what can I expect of others?" Mrs. Mayhew followed her daughter to her room with a perplexed and worried look. "Ida," she began, "you are all out of sorts; you are bilious; you've got this horrid malaria, that the doctors are always talking about, in your system. Let me send for our city physician, Doctor Betts. Never was such a man at diagnosis. He seems to look right inside of one and see everything that's going on wrong." "For heaven's sake don't send for him then!" exclaimed Ida. Mrs. Mayhew looked askance at her daughter a moment, and then asked bluntly: "Why? What's going on wrong in you?" "I do not know of anything that's going on right,--to use your own phraseology." "You mean to say, then, that there is something wrong?" "You intimated at the breakfast-table that everything was going wrong. So it has seemed to me, for some time. But come, mother, drugs can't reach my trouble, and so you can't help me. You must leave me to myself." "I think you might tell your own mother what is the matter," whined Mrs. Mayhew. "I think I might also," said Ida, coldly. "It is not my fault but my great misfortune that I cannot." At this Mrs. Mayhew whimpered: "You are very cruel to talk to me in that way." "I suppose I'm everything that's bad," Ida answered recklessly. "That seems to be the general verdict. Perhaps it would be best for you all were I out of the way. I can scarcely remember when I have had a friendly look from any one. Things could not be much worse with me than they are now. I think I would like a change, and may have a very decided one." Then seizing her hat, she left her mother to herself. Mrs. Mayhew sank into a chair, and a heavy frown gathered on her brow as she thought deeply for a few moments. "That girl means mischief," she muttered. "I wonder if she is holding any communication with Sibley? I always thought Ida would take care of herself, but she'll bear watching now. She hasn't been like herself since she came to this place. I must consult Ik at once. Things are bad enough now, heaven knows; but if Ida should do anything disgraceful, I'd have to throw up the game." (Mrs. Mayhew was an inveterate card-player, and her favorite amusement often colored her thoughts and words.) Stanton was found smoking and pretending to read a newspaper in a retired corner of the piazza, but from which, nevertheless, he could see whether Miss Burton made her appearance during the morning. Mrs. Mayhew explained her fears, and the young man used very strong language in expressing his disgust and irritation. "A curse upon it all!" he concluded. "Since she must, and apparently will gratify this low taste, can you not return to New York, patch up the fellow into some sort of respectability and marry them with a blare of brazen instruments that will drown the world's unpleasant remarks?" "That would be better than the scandal of an elopement," mused perplexed Mrs. Mayhew. "From what you say, Sibley is bad enough, and Ida seems reckless enough to do anything. I wish we had never come here." "So do I," groaned Stanton. "No, I don't, either. In fact I'm in a devil of a mess myself. You know it, and I suppose all see it. I can't help it if they do. My passion, no doubt, is vain, but it's to my credit. Ida's is disgraceful to herself and to us all. If I'd been here alone and Van Berg had not come, I might have succeeded; but NOW"--and with a despairing gesture he turned away. "Ik, come back," cried his aunt, "of course I feel for you. You are independent, and can marry whom you please, though heaven knows you could do better than---" "Heaven knows nothing of the kind," he interrupted, irritably, "and if you were nearer heaven--but there, what's the use." "You're right now, Ik. We can't afford to quarrel. You must talk to Ida. We must watch her. Find out if you can what is in her mind, and if the worst comes to the worst, they will have to be married. I suppose it will be wise to hint to her that if she WILL marry Sibley she had better do it in as respectable and quiet a way as possible." "The idea of anything being respectable and quiet where they are concerned!" snarled Stanton. "Well, well," groaned Mrs. Mayhew, "do your best." But Ida was not to be found. She appeared at dinner, however, and not a few looked at her, and stole furtive glances again and again. Among these observers was the artist, and it was evident that he was both perplexed and troubled. Was this cold, marble-cheeked woman the butterfly that had fluttered into the country a few weeks since? "She may be a bad woman," he thought, "but she has become a woman in the last few days. She looks years older. I thought her shallow, but she's too deep for me. For some reason I can't associate that face, as it now appears, with Sibley, and yet it is so full of mingled pain and defiance, that one might almost think she meditated a crime. She looks ill. She is ill--she is growing thin and hollow-eyed. What a magnificent study she would make of a half-famished captive; or of beauty chained--not married to a man hateful and hated; or, possibly, of innocence meditating guilt, and yet seeking vainly to disguise the dark thoughts by a marble mask. There is some transforming process going on in Ida Mayhew's mind, and from her appearance I rather dread the outcome; but her face is becoming a rare study." Although with the exception of a slight response to his formal bow she had sought to ignore his presence and to avoid his eyes, she was still conscious of this furtive scrutiny, and it hurt her cruelly. It seemed as if he were studying her as one might a peculiar specimen. "His critical eyes are trying to look into me heart as they did into the poor little rose-bud," she thought; and her face grew more rigid and inscrutable under his gaze. as early as possible she left the table. "I wish I knew just what her trouble was," thought the artist. "If not connected with that wretch Sibley, I could pity her with all my heart. Well, take all the good the gods send, I'll sketch her face this afternoon as I have last seen it." "Your cousin begins to look decidedly ill," he said to Stanton, after dinner. His friend's only reply was an imprecation. "Your remark is emphatic enough, but I don't understand it any better than I do Miss Mayhew." "It's to your credit you don't. Her mother has reason to believe that there is some deviltry on foot between her and Sibley. I'm to find out and thwart her if I can. I suppose I shall have to say, in substance: 'Since you will throw yourself away on the fellow, go through all the formalities that society demands. In such case your family will submit, if they can't approve. You see I'm frank with you, as I've been from the first.' Would to heaven she had never come here, and now think of it there has been a change in her for the worse ever since she came. It must be the influence of that cursed Sibley. Some women are fools to begin with; but from a fool infatuated with a villain, good Lord deliver us!" "You fear an elopement then?" said Van Berg, his face darkening into his deepest frown. "I fear worse than that. Sibley is as treacherous as a quagmire. If a woman ventured into a false position with him he would marry her only when compelled to do so. I'm savage enough to shoot them both this afternoon. I see but one way out. I must warn her promptly, and in language so emphatic that she will understand it, that everything must be after the regulation style." Van Berg made a gesture of contempt, but said to his friend: "Stanton, I'm sorry for you. Such trouble as this would cut me deeper than any other kind. If I can do anything to help you, count on me. I'm in the mood myself to shoot Sibley, for he has spoiled for me the fairest face that evil ever perverted." Van Berg did not sketch Ida Mayhew's face that afternoon. On the contrary, he resolutely sought to banish her image from his mind. When last he saw that face, it seemed made of Parian marble. Now it rose before him so blackened and besmirched that he thought of it only with anger and disgust. Ida kept herself so secluded in the afternoon that Stanton could not find her, but this very seclusion, which the poor girl sought in order to hide her wounds, only increased his own and Mrs. Mayhew's fears deepened their suspicions. She was a little late in appearing at the super-table, for her return from the wanderings of the afternoon had required more time than she supposed. She was very weary; moreover, the hours spent in solitude with nature had quieted her overstrung nerves. The sun had shone upon her, though the world seemed to frown. Flowers had looked shyly and sweetly into her face as if they saw nothing there to criticise. She had plucked a few and fastened them into her breast-pin, and their faint perfume was like a low, soothing voice. She was in a softened and receptive mood, and a kind word, even a kind glance, might have tuned the scale in favor of better thoughts and better living. But she did not receive them. Her coming to the table was greeted with an ominous silence, for each one was conscious of thoughts so greatly to her prejudice that they scarcely wished to meet her eye. Mrs. Mayhew looked excessively worried and anxious. Stanton was flushed and angry. The artist was icy as he only knew how to be when he deemed there was sufficient occasion; and in his opinion, the presence of the prospective and willing bride of the man who had attempted his life, and, what was far worse, insulted the woman he most honored, was occasion, indeed. From time to time he gave her a cold, curious glance, as one might look at some strange, abnormal thing for which there is no accounting; but his slight scrutiny was no longer furtive. He looked at her openly as he would at an OBJECT, and not at a woman whose feelings he would not wound for the world. His thought was: "A creature akin to Sibley deserves no consideration, and can put in no just claim for delicacy." Indeed he felt a peculiar vindictiveness towards her to-night, because she had so thwarted him, and was about to carry her extraordinary dower of beauty to the moral slough that seemingly awaited her. Therefore, his glance swept carelessly over her with a cold indifference that chilled her very soul. But these transient glances caught enough to trouble him with a vague uneasiness. Although he was steeled against her by prejudice and anger, something in her appearance so pleaded in her favor that misgivings would arise. Once he thought she met his eyes with something like an appeal in her own, but he would not look long enough to be sure. A moment later he was vexed with himself that he had not. The silence or the forced remarks at the table were equally oppressive, and Ida immediately felt that she was the cause of the restraint. She was about to leave the table in order to relieve them of her presence, when Miss Burton unexpectedly entered and took her chair, which hitherto had been vacant. She was a little pale and wan, but this only made her look the more interesting, and both Stanton and Van Berg welcomed her as they would the sunshine after a dreary storm. Even Mrs. Mayhew seemed to find a wonderful relief in her coming, and added her voluble congratulations. "I have had nervous headaches myself, and know how to sympathize with you," she concluded. "She does not know how to sympathize with me," sighed her daughter. The sigh caught Van Berg's attention, and he was surprised to see that the maiden's eyes were full of tears. She bowed her head a moment to hide them, and then abruptly left the table and the room. The artist's misgivings ended in something like compunction, as he thought: "Her tears are caused by the contrast between the icy reception we gave her, and the cordial welcome we have just given Miss Burton. Confound it all! I wish I knew the exact truth, or that she would leave for parts unknown where I could never see her again." Miss Burton glanced wistfully after the retreating maiden, but no explanation was offered. Then, as if feeling that she had lost a day's opportunity for diffusing sunshine, she became more genial and brilliant than Van Berg had ever known her to be. They lingered long at the table; Mr. Burleigh and others joined them. Their laughter rang out and up to the dusky room in which poor Ida was sobbing, "I wish I were dead and out of every one's way." Van Berg laughed with the others, but never for a moment did he lose the uneasy consciousness that he might possibly be misjudging Ida Mayhew. Although Mr. Burleigh's portly form occupied her chair, it did not prevent him from seeing a pale tearful face that was far too beautiful, far too free from all gross and sensual elements, to harmonize with the character he was supposing her to possess. He re-called what she had said about the "fragrance" of the rose-bud he had torn and tossed away, rising to him like "a low, timid appeal for mercy." Had she shyly and timidly appealed to him for a kinder judgement that evening, and had he been too blind and prejudiced to see anything save the stains left by Sibley's name? If she proposed to go to Sibley, why was she not like him in manner? It was strange that one akin to such a fellow should fasten wild flowers on her bosom, and still more strange that they should be so becoming. The cool and sagacious Van Berg, who so prided himself on his correct judgment, was decidedly perplexed and perturbed. _ |
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