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A Face Illumined, a novel by Edward Payson Roe |
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Chapter 35. Desperately Wounded |
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_ Chapter XXXV. Desperately Wounded Stanton basked in Miss Burton's smiles until a significant look from Mrs. Mayhew reminded him of his disagreeable task, for the performance of which there seemed a greater urgency than ever. Ida's rather precipitate withdrawal from the supper-room was another proof in their eyes that some mischief was brewing. He listened at her door for a moment, and could not fail to hear the stifled sound of her passionate grief; then knocked, but there was no response. "Ida," he said, in a kinder tone than usual, "I want to see you." She tried to quiet her sobbing, and after a moment faltered: "You had better leave me to myself." "No, I must see you," he said kindly but firmly. "I have something to say to you." The poor girl was so lonely and heart-broken, that she was ready for the least ray of comfort. She now saw that she was ignorant and exceedingly faulty. She was ready to admit the fact that she had acted very foolishly and unwisely, and that circumstances were against her. Ill-omened circumstances have brought to condemnation and death innocent men. Ida would not now claim that she was innocent of blame, but events had seemed so unfortunate of late, that she was half ready to think that some vindictive hand was shaping them. But she did not feel that she was now worse than she had been. On the contrary, she had longings for a better life and a broader culture such as she had never experienced before. The artist's eyes, in searching for her woman's soul, revealed to her that she had been a fool; but now she would gladly become a woman if some one would only point out the way. "Mother and Ik might learn that I am not wholly bad if they would only take the trouble to find out," she murmured. "Ik used to be kind-hearted, and I thought he cared a little for me, in spite of our sparing. Why is he so hard on me of late? Why can't he believe that I am just as capable of detesting Sibley as he is? Perhaps he does mean to say a kind word, and give me a chance to explain." These thoughts passed through her mind as she lighted the gas and bathed her face, that she might, to some extent, remove the evidences of grief. Stanton misunderstood her wholly. The new Ida, that deep feeling and recent events were developing, was unknown to him, and he had been too preoccupied to see the changes, even had they been more apparent. He did feel a sort f commiseration for her evident suffering, for he was too kind-hearted not to sympathize even when he believed pain to be well-deserved. But he thought he must still deal with her as a wayward, passionate child, as he had in the past, when she cried till she obtained what she wished, right or wrong. He now believed that she was as fully bent on carrying out her own unreasonable will, but remembered that she was no longer a child, and might be guilty of folly that society would not forgive as childish. Therefore he wished to see her face, and was disposed to be wary and observant. He gave her a quick, keen glance as he entered and then said: "What's the matter, Ida? Why do you sit here in the shadows? It's as dark as a pocket;" and he turned the gas higher. She did not answer, but sat down with her face averted from him and the light. "He has come here as a spy, and not as a comforter," she thought. He looked at her a moment, mistook her silence as an expression of the settled obstinacy of her purpose. "Well, Ida," he said, a little irritably, "I know you of old. I suppose you will have your own way as usual. If we must submit, why then we must; but you can't expect us to do so with any grace. If you won't give up this Sibley, for heaven's sake let your mother arrange the matter after the fashion of the day! Out of regard for your family, go through all the regular formalities." She started violently and then leaned back in her chair as if she were faint, and half stunned by a blow. He regarded her manner as evidence of guilt, or, at least, of proposed criminal imprudence on her part, and went on still more plainly: "If you can't exist without Sibley--why, marry him; but see to it that there is a plenty of priest, altar, and service; for you know, or you ought to, that he's a man who can't be trusted a hair's breadth." She averted her face still farther, and said in a low constrained tone: "My family, then, consent that I should marry Mr. Sibley?" "No; we submit to the marriage as an odious necessity, on condition that you put the whole matter into your mother's hands and allow her to arrange everything according to society's requirements." "Please let me understand you," she said in a lower voice. "My family offer to submit to the marriage as a dire necessity lest my relations with Mr. Sibley cover them with a deeper shame?" "Well, in plain English, yes." "It is indeed extraordinarily plain English--brutally plain. And does--does Mr. Van Berg share in your estimate of me?" Her manner and words began to puzzle Stanton, and he remembered the artist's question--"Are you absolutely sure that Sibley is the cause of her trouble?" He thought that perhaps it might be good policy to contrast the two men. "To be frank," he replied, "I think Mr. Van Berg has both wished and tried to think well of you. He admired your beauty immensely, and sought to find something in your character that corresponded with it. Even after your studied rudeness to him, your open preference of Sibley's society to his, and your remark explaining your course, 'congenial society or none at all'" (Ida fairly groaned as he recalled her folly), "he tried to treat you politely. That you should refuse the society of a gentleman like my friend for the sake of such a low fellow as Sibley, is to us all a disgusting and fathomless mystery. The belief that you could throw yourself and your rare beauty into this abominable slough, was so revolting to Van Berg, that he never would wholly accept of it until to-day." She rose to her feet and turned upon him. Her eyes were fairly blazing with indignation, and her face was white and terrible from her anger. In tones such as he had never heard any woman use before, she said: "But to-day you have succeeded in satisfying him that this is not only possible, but the most natural thing for me to do. You have told him that my family will submit to my marriage with a loathsome wretch, who got drunk in the presence of ladies, insulted an orphan girl, and attempted murder--and all in one Sunday afternoon. I suppose you thought me captivated, and carried away by such a burst and blaze of villainy; and so my high-toned family explain to the faultless and aristocratic Mr. Van Berg that they will submit to an odious marriage lest I clandestinely follow the scoundrel who was very properly driven away, like the base cur he is. This is why you received me to-night as if I were a pestilence. This is why I was treated at the table as if I were a death's head. This is why your perfect friend looked towards me as if my chair were vacant. He refused even to recognize the existence of such a loathsome thing as my family explain to him that I am. Great heaven! may I never live to receive a deeper humiliation than this!" "But, Ida," cried Stanton, deeply alarmed and agitated by her manner, "how else could we explain your action and your reckless words to your mother?" "Oh, I admit that circumstances are against me, but there is no excuse for this outrage! I don't know what I did say to mother. I've been too wretched and discouraged to remember. She IS my mother, and I'll say nothing against her, though, heaven knows, she has been a strange mother to me. Would to God I had a father that I could go to, or a brother! But it seems I have not a friend in the great, scornful world. Don't interrupt me. Words count for nothing now, and mine least of all. If you were all ready to believe me capable of what you have plainly intimated, you need something stronger than words to convince you to the contrary. Of one thing I shall make sure--you and your faithless friend shall never have the chance to insult me again. I wish you to leave my room." "Oh come, Ida, listen to reason," Stanton began coaxingly. "I admitted you," she interrupted with a repellant gesture, "in the hope of receiving a little kindness, for which I was famishing, but I would rather you had stabbed me than have said what you have. Hush, not a word more. The brutal wrong has been done. Will you not go? This is my private apartment. I command you to leave it; and if you will not obey I will summon Mr. Burleigh;" and she placed her hand on the bell. Her manner was at once so commanding and threatening that Stanton, with a gesture of deprecation and protest, silently obeyed. He was so surprised and unnerved by the interview in which the maiden had turned upon him with a fiery indignation that was almost volcanic, that he wished to think the affair all over and regain his composure before meeting any one. Clearly they had failed to understand Ida of late, and had misjudged her utterly. And yet, guided by appearances, he felt that they could scarcely have come to any other conclusion. Now that he had been jostled out of his preoccupation, he began to realize that Ida had not appeared of late like the frivolous girl that had accompanied him to the country. Changes were taking place in her as well as in himself, "but not from the same cause," he thought. "After her words and manner to-night, I cannot doubt that Sibley has disgusted her as well as the rest of us, although she had a strange way of showing it. It cannot be that a woman would speak of a man for whom she had any regard, as Ida did of the wretch with whom we were associating her; and as for Van Berg, she has taken no pains to conceal her strong dislike for him from the first day of their meeting. I can't think of anyone else at present (although there might be a score) who is disturbing the shallow waters of her mind. "I'm inclined to think that she is deeply mortified at the false position in which Sibley has placed her, and is too proud to make explanations. It may be also that she is realizing more fully the disgrace of her father's course, and it is also possible that she is waking up to a sense of her own deficiencies. Although she could not fail to dislike such people as Jennie Burton and Van Berg, she would be apt to contrast herself with them and the impression which she and they made on society. Confound it all! I wish I had not taken it for granted that she was pining for Sibley and ready to throw herself away for his sake. It has placed me in a deucedly awkward position. I doubt if she ever fully forgives me, and I can't blame her if she doesn't." "Well?" said Mrs. Mayhew, as Stanton moodily approached her. "Come with me," he said. When they were alone he prefaced his story with the irritable remark: "It's a pity you can't understand your daughter better. She detests Sibley." "Thank heaven for that," exclaimed the mother. "I should be more inclined to thank both heaven and yourself if you had discovered the fact before sending me on such an intensely disagreeable mission. You must manage your daughter yourself hereafter, for she'll never take anything more from me;" and he told her substantially the nature of his interview, and his surmises as to the real causes of her trouble. "I think you are right," said Mrs. Mayhew, whose impressions were as changeable as superficial; "and I'm excessively glad to think so. With her beauty, Ida can, in spite of her father, make a brilliant match, in every sense of the word;" and with the prospect of this supreme consummation of life regained, the wife and mother gave a sigh of great relief. "But she's in an awful mood, I can tell you," said Stanton, dubiously. "I never knew a woman to look and speak as she did to-night. If you don't manage better she'll make us trouble yet." "Oh, I'm used to Ida's tantrums. They don't last. Nothing does with her. Time and another admirer will bring her around." "Well, you ought to know," said Stanton with a shrug; "but I retire from the management. I can't help saying, however, that something in her looks and words makes me uneasy. I regret exceedingly I spoke as I did, and shall apologize at the first opportunity." "You'll have that in the morning. Things are so much better than I feared that I am greatly relieved. She'll come around now if nothing more is said. Roiled water always settles when kept quiet;" and Mrs. Mayhew returned to the parlor in much better spirits. Stanton followed his aunt and joined a small group that had gathered around Miss Burton. Van Berg gave him a quick, questioning look, but gathered the impression only that he had been subjected to a very painful interview. "She has evidently realized his worst fears," he thought; "curses on her!" and his face grew fairly black for a moment with anger and disgust. But Jennie Burton's silver tongue soon charmed away the evil spirits from both the young men. She had fine conversation powers, and her keen intuition and her controlling passion to give pleasure enabled her to detect and draw out the best thoughts of others. Her evident sympathy put every one at ease, and gave people the power of such happy expression that they were surprised at themselves, and led to believe that they not only received but gave something better than average. Therefore, under the magic of her good-will, both eyes and minds kindled, and even common-place persons became almost brilliant and eloquent. Stanton's was the only clouded face in her circle that evening; and true to her instinct, she set about banishing his trouble, whatever it might be--an easy task with her power over him. Since it daily became more evident to her that she must wound his vanity, and perhaps his heart a little, she tried to make amends by showing him such public consideration as might rob his disappointment of humiliation and bitterness. Stanton, therefore, soon forgot Ida's desperate face, and was enjoying himself at his best. Yet Ida's face but faintly revealed her heart. It seemed that the end had now come in very truth, and she was conscious chiefly of a wild impulse to escape from her shame and suffering. There was also a bitter sense of wrong and a wish to retaliate. "I'll teach them all a lesson," she muttered, as she paced her room swiftly to and fro. "This proud artist thinks he can look at me as if I were empty air; that he can forget me as he has the rose-bud he tossed away. I will insure that he looks at me once with a face as white as mine will then be, and that he remembers me to his dying day." After becoming more calm, and as if acting under a sudden impulse, she hastily made a simple but singular toilet. When completed, her mirror reflected a plain, close-fitting, black gown, which left her neck and arms bare. Around her white throat she placed a black velvet band, and joined it by a small jet poniard studded with diamonds. Her sunny hair was wound into a severely simple coil, and also fastened with a larger poniard, from the haft and guard of which glistened diamonds of peculiar brilliancy. She took off all her rings, and wore no other ornaments. Then taking from her table a book, bearing conspicuously as its title the word "Misjudged," she went down to the parlor. She paused a moment on the threshold before she was noticed. Her mother was eagerly gossiping with two or three fashionable women about a scandal that she hoped might cause her own family's short-comings to be forgotten in part. Miss Burton was telling a story in her own inimitable style, and ripples of smiles and laughter eddied from her constantly. Stanton's and Van Berg's faces were aglow with pleasure, and it was plain the speaker absorbed all their thoughts. "In the same way he will forget me, after I am dead," said the unhappy girl to herself, and the thought sent a colder chill to her heart, and a deeper pallor to her face. Her gaze seemed to draw his, for he looked up suddenly. On recognizing her his first impulse was to coldly avert his eyes, but in a second her unusual appearance riveted his attention. She saw the impulse, however, and would not look towards him again. She entered as quietly and as unexpectedly as a ghost, and the people seemed as much surprised and perplexed as if she were a ghost. She took a seat somewhat apart from all others, and apparently commenced reading. She was not so far away but that Van Berg could decipher the title, "Misjudged," and having made out the significant word, its letters grew luminous like the diamonds in her hair. Never before had he been so impressed by her beauty, and yet there was an element in it which made him shiver with a dread he could not explain to himself. He was surprised and shocked to find how pale and wan her face had become, but in every severe marble curve of her features he saw the word, "Misjudged." He could scarcely recognize her as the blooming girl that he had first seen in the concert garden. Suffering, trouble of mind, was evidently the dark magician that was thus transforming her; but why did she suffer so deeply? As she sat there before him, not only his deeper instincts, but his reason refused almost indignantly to associate her any longer with Sibley. There was a time when she seemed akin to him; but now she suggested deep trouble, despair, death even, rather than a gross "bon vivant." Was she ill! Yes, evidently, but he doubted if her malady had physical causes. "What a very strange toilet she has made!" he thought; "simple and plain to the last degree, and yet singularly effective and striking. Her fingers were once loaded with rings, but she has taken them all off, and now her hands are as perfect as her features. She does not wear a single ornament, save those ominous poniards. Does she mean to signify by these that she is wounded, or that she proposes to inflict wounds? Ye gods! how strangely, terribly, exasperatingly beautiful she is! I have certainly both misjudged and misunderstood her." These thoughts passed through his mind as he stole an occasional glance at their object, who sat with her profile towards him almost in the line of his vision. At the same time he was apparently listening to a prosy and interminable story from one of the group of which he was a member. They had been telling anecdotes of travel, and the last speaker's experience was, like his journey, long and uninteresting. Van Berg soon observed that many others besides himself were observing Miss Mayhew. She seemed to fascinate, perplex, and trouble all who looked towards her. The singular beauty and striking toilet might account, in part, for the lingering glances, but not for the perplexity and uneasiness they caused. If Ida had been dead her features could not have been more colorless; and they had a stern, hard, desperate expression that was sadly out of harmony with what should be the appearance of a happy young girl. Her presence seemed to cause an increasing chill and restraint. The healthful and normal minds of those about her grew vaguely conscious of another mind that had been deeply moved, shaken to its foundations, and so had become almost abnormal and dangerous in its impulses. There is a very general tendency both to observe and to shrink from that which is unnatural, and if the departure from what is customary is shown in unexpected and unusual mental action, the stronger become the uneasiness and dread in those who witness it. All who saw Ida recognized that she was not only unlike herself, but unlike any one in an ordinary state of mind, and people who were intimate looked at each other significantly, as if to ask--"What is the matter with Miss Mayhew? What is the matter with us all?" Were it not that the maiden occasionally turned a leaf, in order to keep up the illusion that she was reading, she might have been a statue, so motionless was her form, and so pallid her face. But she felt that she was perplexing and troubling those who had wounded her, and the consciousness gave secret satisfaction. Her past experience taught her to appreciate stage effect, and, since she meditated a tragedy, she proposed that everything should be as tragic and blood-curdling as possible. There is usually but a short step between high tragedy and painful absurdity, which exasperates us while we laugh at it; but poor Ida's thoughts were so desperately dark and despairing, and her exquisite features, made almost transparent by grief and fasting, so perfectly interpreted her unfeigned wretchedness, that even those who knew her but slightly were touched and troubled in a way that they could not explain even to themselves. Miss Burton was evidently meditating how she could approach Ida, who seemed encased in a repellant atmosphere. Van Berg saw that Stanton looked anxious and perplexed, and that Mrs. Mayhew was exceedingly worried and annoyed. At last he hastily approached her daughter and whispered, "For heaven's sake, Ida, what's the matter? You look as if you had gone into mourning." The young lady glanced coldly up and said stonily: "You have at least taught me to dress appropriately." "Nonsense," continued the mother, in a low, irritable tone. "Why can't you cheer up and act like other people? Don't you see you're giving us all the shivers?" She slowly swept the room with her eyes, and saw that not a few curious glances were directed towards her. Then, with bowed head, she glided from the room without a word. Miss Burton caught up with her in the hall-way. "You are ill, Miss Mayhew," she said, with gentle solicitude. "Yes," Ida replied, in the same stony, repellant manner; "but you are not a physician, Miss Burton. Good evening." And she went swiftly up to her own room, as if determined to speak with no one else that evening. _ |
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