“Every man has his own style, as he has his own nose; and it is neither polite nor Christian to rally an honest man about his nose, however singular it may be. How can I help it that my style is not different? That there is no affectation in it, I am very certain.”
Lessing.
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“Yea, I take myself to witness, Matthew Arnold. |
“I can hear the sullen, savage roar of the breakers, if I do not see them, and my pretty painted bark—expectation—is bearing down helplessly upon them. Perhaps the unwelcome will not come to-day. What then? I presume I should not care; and yet, I am curious to see him,—anxious to know what sort of person will henceforth rule the house, and go in and out here as master. Of course the pleasant, peaceful days are at an end, for men always make din and strife in a household,—at least my father did, and he is the only one I know much about. But, after all, why borrow trouble?—the interloper may never come.”
The girl stood on tip-toe, shading her eyes with one hand, and peering eagerly down the winding road which stretched at right angles to the avenue, and over the hills, on towards the neighboring town. No moving speck was visible; and, with a sigh of relief, she sank back on the grassy mound and resumed the perusal of her book. Above and around her spread the wide branches of an aged apple-tree, feathered thickly with pearly petals, which the wind tossed hither and thither and drifted over the bermuda, as restless tides strew pink-chambered shells on sloping strands; and down through the flowery limbs streamed the waning March sun, throwing grotesque shadows on the sward and golden ripples over the face and figure of the young lounger. A few yards distant a row of whitewashed bee-hives extended along the western side of the garden-wall, where perched a peacock whose rainbow hues were burnished by the slanting rays that smote like 7 flame the narrow pane of glass which constituted a window in each hive and permitted investigation of the tireless workers within. The afternoon was almost spent; the air, losing its balmy noon breath, grew chill with the approach of dew, and the figure under the apple-tree shivered slightly, and, closing her book, drew her scarlet shawl around her shoulders and leaned her dimpled chin on her knee.
Sixteen years had ripened and rounded the girlish form, and given to her countenance that indefinable charm which marks the timid hovering between careless, frolicsome youth, and calmly conscious womanhood; while perfect health rouged the polished cheeks and vermillioned the thin lips, whose outlines sharply indexed more of decision than amiability of character.
There were hints of brown in the heavy mass of waveless dusky hair, that was elaborately braided and coiled around the well turned head, and certain amber rays suggestive of topaz and gold flashed out now and then in the dark-hazel iris of the large eyes, lending them an eldritch and baleful glow. Fresh as the overhanging apple-blooms, but immobile as if carved from pearl,—perhaps it was just such a face as hers that fronted Jason, amid the clustering boughs of Colchian rhododendrons, when first he sought old Æëtes’ prescient daughter,—the maiden face of magical Medea, innocent as yet of murder, sacrilege, fratricide, and plunder,—eloquent of all possibilities of purity and peace, but vaguely adumbrating all conceivable disquietude and guilt.
The hushed expectancy of the fair young countenance had given place to a dreamy languor, and the dark lashes drooped heavily, when a long shadow fell upon the grass, and simultaneously the peacock sounded its shrill alarm. Rising quickly the girl found herself face to face with one upon whose features she had never looked before, and for a moment each eyed the other searchingly. The stranger raised his hat, and inclining his head slightly, said,—
“Permit me to ask your name?”
“Salome Owen. And yours, sir, is—”
“Ulpian Grey.”
For a few seconds neither spoke; but the man smiled, and the girl bit her under-lip and frowned.
“Are you the miller’s daughter?”
“I am the miller’s daughter; and you are the master of Grassmere.”
“It seems that I come home like Rip Van Winkle, or Ulysses, unknown, unwelcomed,—unlike the latter,—even by a dog.”
“Where is your sister?”
“Not having seen her for five years, I am unable to answer.”
“She went to town two hours ago, to meet you.”
“Then, after all, I am expected; but pray by what route—balloon or telegraph?”
“Miss Jane went to the railroad dépot, but thought it possible you might not arrive to-day, and said she would attend a meeting at the church, if you failed to come. I presume she missed you in the crowd. Sir, will you walk into the house?”
Perhaps he did not hear the question, and certainly he did not heed it, amid the clamorous recollections that rushed upon him as he gazed earnestly over the lawn, down the avenue, and up at the ivy-mantled front of the old brick homestead. Thinking it might impress him as ludicrous or officious that she should invite him to enter and take possession of his own establishment, Salome reddened and compressed her lips. Apparently forgetful of her presence, he stood with his hat in his hand, noting the changes that time had wrought: the growth of venerable trees and favorite shrubs, the crumbling of fences, the gathering moss on the sun-dial, and the lichen stains upon two marble vases that held scarlet verbena on either side of the broad stone steps.
His close-fitting travelling suit of gray showed the muscular, well-developed form of a man of medium size, whose very erect carriage enhanced his height and invested him with a commanding air; while the unusual breadth of his chest and 9 shoulders seemed to indicate that life had called him to athletic out-door pursuits, rather than the dun and dusty atmosphere of a sedentary, cloistered career.
There are subtle countenances that baffle the dainty stipple and line tracery of time, refusing to become mere tablets, mere fleshy intaglios of the past, whereon every curious stranger may spell out the bygone, and, counting their footprints, cast up the number of engraving years. Thus it happened that if Salome had not known from the family Bible that this man was almost thirty-five, her eager scrutiny of his features would have discovered little concerning his age, and still less concerning his character. Exposure to the winds and heat of tropic regions had darkened and sallowed the complexion, which his clear deep blue eyes and light brown hair declared was originally of Saxon fairness; in proof whereof, when he drew off one glove and lifted his hand it seemed as if the marble fingers of one statue were laid against the bronze cheek of another.
Looking intently at this grave yet benignant countenance, full of serenity, because calmly conscious of its power, the girl set her teeth and ground her heel into the velvet turf, for frangas non flectes was written on his smooth, broad brow, and she felt fiercely rebellious as some fiery, free creature of the Kamse, when first confronted with the bit and trappings of him who will henceforth bridle and tame the desert-bred.
Waking from his brief reverie, the stranger turned and extended his hand, saying, in tones as low and sweet as a woman’s,—
“Will you not welcome a wanderer back to his home?”
She gave him the tips of her fingers, but the “Imp of the Perverse” dictated her answer,—
“As you saw fit to compare yourself, a few moments since, to certain celebrated absentees, I am constrained to tell you that I happen to be neither Penelope nor Gretchen, nor yet the illustrious dog referred to.”
He smiled good-humoredly, and replied,—
“I am not very sure that there is not a spice of Dame Van 10 Winkle somewhere in your nature. True, we are strangers, but I believe you are my sister’s adopted child, and I hope you are glad to see her brother at home once more. Jane is a dear kind link, who should make us at least good friends; for, if you are attached to her you will in time learn to like me.”
“I doubt it,—seeing that you resemble Miss Jane about as nearly as I do the Grand Lama of Larissa, or the idol Bhadrinath. But, sir, although it is not my office to welcome you, I presume you have not forgotten the front door, and once more I ask, Will you walk in and make yourself at home in your own house?”
As she led the way to the steps, the arched gate at the end of the avenue swung open, a carriage entered, and Salome retreated to her own room, leaving unwitnessed the happy meeting between an aged, infirm sister, and long-absent brother.
Locking the door to secure herself from intrusion, she drew a low rocking-chair to the hearth, where smouldered the embers of a dying fire, and dropping her face in her palms, stared abstractedly at the ashes. As she swayed slowly to and fro, her lips parted and closed, her brows bent from their customary curves of beauty, and half inaudibly she muttered,—
“The sceptre is departing from Judah. My rule is well nigh ended; the interregnum has been brief, and the old dynasty reigns once more. Just what I dreaded from the hour I heard he was coming home. I shall be reduced to a mere cipher, and made to realize my utter dependence,—and the iron will soon enter my soul. We paupers are adepts in the art of reading the countenance, and I have looked at this Ulpian Grey long enough to know that I might as well bombard Gibraltar with boiled peas as hope to conquer one of his whims or alter one of his purposes. There will be bitterness and strife between us. I shall wish him in his grave a thousand times before it closes over him,—and he, unless he is too good, will hate me cordially. I cannot and will not give up all my hopes and expectations, without a long, fierce struggle.”
Salome Owen was the eldest of five children, who, by the death of both parents, had been thrown penniless upon the world, and found a temporary asylum in the county poor-house. Her mother she remembered merely as a feeble, fractious invalid; and her father, who had long been employed as superintendent of large mills belonging to Miss Jane Grey, had, after years of reckless intemperance, ended his wretched career in a fit of mania a potu. His death occurred at a season when Miss Grey was confined to her bed by an attack of rheumatism, which rendered her a cripple for the remainder of her days; but the first hours of her convalescence were spent in devising plans for the education and maintenance of his helpless orphans. In the dusty, cheerless yard of the poor-house she had found the little group huddled under a mulberry tree one hot July noon; and, sending the two younger children to the orphan asylum in a neighboring town, she had apprenticed one boy to a worthy carpenter, another to an eminent horticulturist in a distant State; and Salome, the handsomest and brightest of the flock, she carried to her own home as an adopted child. Here, for four years, the girl had lived in peace and luxurious ease, surrounded by all the elegances and refining associations which though not inherent in are at the command of wealth; and so rapidly and gracefully had she fitted herself into the new social niche, that the dark and stormy morning of her life had become only a dim and hideous recollection, that rarely lifted its hated visage above the smooth and shining surface of the happy present.
Fortuitous circumstances constitute the moulds that shape the majority of human lives, and the hasty impress of an accident is too often regarded as the relentless decree of all-ordaining fate; while to the philosophic anthropologist it might furnish matter for curious speculation whether, if Attila and Alaric had chanced to find themselves the pampered sons of some merchant prince,—some Rothschild or Peabody of the fifth century,—their campaigns had not been purely fiscal and bloodless, limited to the leaves of a ledger, while the names of Goth and Hun had never crystallized into synonyms 12 of havoc and ruin; or had Timour been trained to cabbage-raising and vine-dressing, whether he would not have lived in history as the great horticulturist of Kesth, or the Diocletian of Samarcand, rather than the Tartar tyrant and conqueror of the East? How many possible Howards have swung at Tyburn? How many canonized and haloed heads have barely escaped the doom of Brinvilliers, and the tender mercies of Carnifex?
Analogous to that wonderful Gulf Stream, once a myth and still a mystery, the strange current of human existence, four score and ten years long, bears each and all of us with a strong, steady sweep away from the tropic lands of sunny childhood, enamelled with verdure and gaudy with bloom, through the temperate regions of manhood and womanhood, fruitful and harvest-hued, on to the frigid, lonely shores of dreary old age, snow-crowned and ice-veined; and individual destinies seem to resemble the tangled drift on those broad bounding gulf-billows, driven hither and thither, strewn on barren beaches, scattered over bleaching coral crags, stranded upon blue bergs,—precious germs from all climes and classes; some to be scorched under equatorial heats; some to perish by polar perils; a few to take root and flourish and triumph, building imperishable land-marks; and many to stagnate in the long, inglorious rest of a Sargasso Sea.
For all helpless human waifs in this surging ocean of time, there is comfort in the knowledge that the fiercest storms toss their drift highest; and one of these apparently savage waves of adversity had swept Salome Owen safely to an isle of palms and peace, where, under the fostering rays of prosperity, the selfish and sordid elements of her character found rapid development.
In affectionate natures, family ties serve as cords to strangle selfishness; for, in large domestic circles, each member contributes a moiety to swell the good of the whole—silently endures some trial, makes some sacrifice, shares some sympathy and sunshine, hoards some grief and gloom, and had Salome remained with her brothers and sisters, their continual claims 13 on her time and attention would have healthfully diverted thoughts that had long centred solely in self. Finding that fortune had temporarily sheathed in velvet the goad of necessity, the girl’s aspirations soared no higher than the maintenance of her present easy and luxurious position, as a petted dependent on the affection and bounty of a weak but generous and lonely old lady. Having no other object near, upon which to lavish the love and caresses that were stored in her heart, Miss Jane had turned fondly to Salome, and so earnestly endeavored to brighten her life, that the latter felt assured she was selected as the heiress of that house and estate where she had dwelt so happily; and thus sanguine concerning her future prospects, the strong will of the girl completely dominated the feebler and failing one of her benefactress, through whose fingers the reins of government slipped so gradually, that she was unconscious of her virtual abdication.
From this pleasant dream of a handsome heritage and life-long plenty, Salome had been rudely aroused by the unwelcome tidings that a young half-brother of Miss Jane was coming to reside under her roof; and prophetic fear whispered that the stranger would contest and divide her dominion. A surgeon in the United States navy, he had been absent for five years in distant seas, and only resigned his commission in consequence of letters which informed him of the feeble condition of his only surviving relative. Those who have eaten the bread of charity learn to interpret countenances with an unerring facility that eclipses the vaunted skill of Lavater, and the girl’s brief inspection of the face which would henceforth confront her daily, yielded little to dispel her gloomy forebodings. The sound of the tea-bell terminated her reverie, and rising, she walked slowly to the dining-room, throwing her head as erect as possible, and compressing her mouth like some gladiator summoned to the fatal arena of the Coliseum.
The dining-room was large and airy, with lofty wide windows, and neatly papered walls, where in numerous old-fashioned and quaintly carved frames hung the ancestral portraits of the family. Although one window was open, and the mild 14 air laden with the perfumed breath of spring, a bright wood fire flashed on the hearth, near which Miss Jane sat in her large, cushioned rocking-chair, resting her swollen slippered feet on a velvet stool, while her silver-mounted crutches leaned against the arm of her chair. An ugly and very diminutive brown terrier snarled and frisked on the rug, tormenting a staid and aged black cat, who occasionally arched her back and showed her teeth; and Dr. Grey stood leaning over his sister’s chair, smoothing the soft grizzled locks that clustered under the rich lace border of her cap. He was talking of other days,—those of his boyhood, when, kneeling by that hearth, she had pasted his kites, found strings for his tops, made bags for his marbles, or bound up his bleeding hands, bruised in boyish sports; and, while he read from the fresher page of his memory the blessed juvenile annals long since effaced from hers, a happy smile lighted her withered face, and she put up one thin hand to pat the brown and bearded cheek which nearly touched her head. To the pretty young thing who had paused on the threshold, watching what passed, it seemed a peaceful picture, cosy and complete, needing no adjuncts, defying intruders; but Miss Jane caught a glimpse of the shrinking figure, and beckoned her to the fire-place.
“Salome, come shake hands with my sailor-boy, and tell him how glad we are to have his sunburnt face once more among us. Ulpian, this is my dear child Salome, who makes noise and sunshine enough in an otherwise dark and silent dreary house. Why, children, don’t stand bowing at each other, like foreign ministers at court! Ulpian, you are to be a brother to that child; so go and kiss her like a Christian, and let us have no more state and ceremony.”
“Sans cérémonie we introduced ourselves this afternoon, under the apple-tree, and I presume Salome will accept the assurance of my friendly intentions and fraternal regard, and decline the seal which only long acquaintance and perfect confidence could induce her to permit. Notwithstanding the very evident fact that she is not entirely overwhelmed with delight at my return, I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to one 15 who has so largely contributed to my sister’s happiness, and shall avail myself of every opportunity to prove my appreciation of her devotion.”
Dr. Grey stepped forward, took Salome’s hand, and touched it lightly with his lips, while the grave dignity of his manner forbade the thought that affectation of gallantry or idle persiflage suggested the words or action.
Disarmed by the quiet courtesy which she felt she had not merited, the girl’s ready wit and nimbly obedient tongue for once proved treacherous; and, conscious that the flush was deepening on cheek and brow, she moved to the oval table in the centre of the floor, and seated herself behind the massive silver urn.
“Ulpian, take your place yonder, at the foot, and excuse my absence from the table this first evening of your return. I always have my meals here, close to the fire, and Salome presides in my place. Child, put no cream in his tea, but a bountiful share of sugar. You see, my boy, I have not grown too old to recollect your whims.”
As he obeyed her, Salome was preparing to pour out the tea; but, catching his eye, she paused, and Dr. Grey bowed his head on his hand, and solemnly and impressively asked a blessing, and offered up fervent thanks for the family reunion. In the somewhat fragmentary discourse that ensued between brother and sister the orphan took no part; and, a half hour later, when the little party removed to the library and established themselves comfortably for the evening, Salome drew her chair close to the lamp, and, under pretence of examining a book of engravings, covertly studied the features and mien of the new-comer.
His quiet, low-toned conversation was of other lands and distant nations, and, while there was an entire absence of that ostentatious braggardism and dropsical egotism which unfortunately attacks the majority of travellers, his descriptions of foreign scenery were so graceful and brilliant, that despite her ungracious determination and premeditated dislike, she became a fascinated listener; and, more than once, found herself 16 leaning forward to catch his words. Her own vivid fancy travelled with him over the lakes and isles, temples and palaces, he had visited; and, when the clock struck eleven, and a brief silence succeeded, she started as from some delightful dream.
“Janet, shall we have prayers, or have I already kept you up too late?”
Dr. Grey stooped and pressed his lips to his sister’s wrinkled forehead, and her voice faltered slightly, as she answered,—
“It is never too late to thank God for all his goodness, especially in bringing my dear boy safely back to me. Salome, get the large Bible from the cushion in the parlor.”
As the orphan placed the book in Dr. Grey’s hand it opened at the record of births, where on the wide page appeared only the name of Ulpian Grey, and from the leaves fluttered a small bow of blue ribbon.
He picked it up, and, considering it merely a book-mark, would have replaced it, but Miss Jane exclaimed,—
“It is the blue knot that fastens that child’s collar. Give it to her. She lost it yesterday, and has searched the house for it. How came it in that old Bible, which I am sure has not been used for fifteen years?”
Whatever solution of the mystery Salome might have deigned to offer, remained unuttered, for Dr. Grey kindly obviated the necessity of a reply by requesting her to bring him an additional candle from an adjoining room; and the superfluous celerity with which she started on the errand called a twinkle to his eye and a half-smothered smile to his lips. She felt assured that he was thoroughly cognizant of the curiosity which had prompted her researches among the family records, and inferred that he had either no vanity to be flattered by such trifles, or was dowered with too much generosity to evince any gratification at the discovery of an interest she would have vehemently disclaimed.
It was the first time she had ever bowed before the family altar, and, notwithstanding her avowed aversion to “Puritanic ceremonials and Pharisaical practices,” she was unexpectedly 17 awed and deeply impressed by the solemnity with which he conducted the brief services; while, despite her prejudice, his grave courtesy toward her, and the subdued tenderness that marked his treatment of his sister, commanded her involuntary respect. When she stood before the mirror in her own room, unbraiding her heavy hair, a dissatisfied expression robbed her features of half their loveliness, and discontent ploughed distorting lines about the scarlet lips which muttered,—
“I wonder if, in one of his evil fits, my father sold and signed me away to Satan? I certainly am bon gré mal gré in bondage to him; for, from my inmost heart I hate ‘good, pious, sanctified souls,’ such as that marble man upstairs, who has come back to usurp my kingdom, and lord it over this heritage. After to-day a new regime. The potter’s hands are fair and shapely, courteous and deft, but potter’s hands nevertheless. Tough kneading he shall find it, and stiffer clay than ever yet was moulded, or my name is not Salome Owen. After all, how much better are we than the lower beasts of prey? In the race for riches there is but one alternative,—to devour, or be devoured; consequently that was an immemorial and well tested rule in the warfare that commenced when Adam and Eve found themselves shut out of Eden. ‘Each for himself,’ etc., etc., etc. Since I must ex necessitate prey or be preyed upon, I shall waste no time in deliberation.”
When fifty-two years old, Daniel Grey amassed a handsome fortune by speculating in certain gold and coal mine stocks, which not only relieved him from the necessity of daily toil in his dusty counting-room, but elevated him to that more than Braminical caste, dubbed in Mammon-parlance—capitalists; whose decrees outweigh legislative statutes, and by feeling the pulse of stock-boards and all financial corporations, regulate the fiscal currents of the State. A few months subsequent 18 to this sudden accession of wealth, his meek and devoted wife—who had patiently shared all the trials and hardships of his early impecunious career, and brightened an humble home which boasted no treasure comparable to her loving, unselfish heart,—was summoned to the enjoyment of a heritage beyond the stars; and Daniel Grey, capitalist, found himself a florid handsome widower, with two children, Enoch and Jane, to remind him continually of the pale wife over whose quiet ashes rose a costly mausoleum, where rare exotics nodded to each other across gilded slab and sculptured angels. That he profoundly mourned his loss no charitable mind could doubt, notwithstanding the obstinate fact that ere the violets had bloomed a twelvemonth over the dead mother of his children he had provided them with one who certainly bore her name, usurped her precious privileges, walked in her footsteps, but wofully failed to fill her place.
Mrs. Daniel Grey, scarcely the senior of the step-daughter whose lips most reluctantly framed the sacred word “mother,” was a fresh fair young thing, whose ideas of marriage extended no further than diamonds, white satin, reception cards, and bridal presents; and whose regard for her worthy husband sought no surer basis than his bank-stock and insurance dividends. Dainty and bright, in tasteful and costly apparel, the pretty child-wife flitted up and down in his house and over the serene surface of his life, touching no feeling of his nature so deeply as that colossal parvenu vanity which exulted in the possession of a graceful walking announcement of his ability to clothe in fine fabrics and expensive jewels.
Perhaps the mildew that stained the ghastly gaunt angels who kept guard over the dust of the dead wife, extended yet further than the silent territory over which sexton and mattock reigned, for one dreary December night, instead of nestling for a post-prandial nap among the velvet cushions of his luxurious parlor, Daniel Grey, capitalist, slept his last sleep in a high-backed, comfortless chair before his desk, where the confidential clerk found him next morning, with his rigid icy fingers thrust between the leaves of his check-book.
According to the old Arab proverb,—
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“The black camel named Death kneeleth once at each door, |
And, past all peradventure, having borne away one member of the household, the “Last Carrier” from force of habit hastens to perform the same thankless service for the remainder;—thus ere summer sunshine streamed on the husband’s grave, another yawned at its side, and a wreathed and fluted shaft shot up close to his mausoleum, to tell sympathizing friends and careless strangers that the second wife of Daniel Grey had been snatched away in the morning of life.
Her infant son Ulpian was committed to the tender guardianship of his maternal grandmother, in whose hands he remained until the close of his fourth year, when her death necessitated his return to the home of his only relatives, Enoch and Jane. At the request of his sister, the former had sold the elegant new residence in a fashionable quarter of the town, and removed to the old homestead and farm, hallowed by reminiscences of their mother, and invested with the magic attractions that early association weaves about the spots frequented in youth.
Manifesting, even in boyhood, an unconquerable repugnance not only to curriculum, but the monotonous routine of mercantile pursuits, Enoch sullenly forswore stock-jobbing and finance, and declared his intention of indulging his rural tastes and becoming a farmer. Fine cattle and poultry of all kinds, heavy wheat-crops, and well-stored corn-cribs engrossed his thoughts, to the entire exclusion of abstract æsthetic speculation, of operatic music, and Pre-Raphaelitism; while the sight of one of his silky short-horned Ayrshires yielded him infinitely more pleasure than the possession of all Rosa Bonheur’s ideals could possibly have done, and the soft billowy stretch of his favorite clover-meadow was worth all the canvas that Claude or Poussin had ever colored. While Enoch had cordially hated his fair blue-eyed young step-mother, not from any personal or individual grounds of grievance, but simply 20 and solely because she dared to occupy the household niche, sanctified once and forever by his own meek gentle-toned mother, he nevertheless tenderly loved her baby-boy; and as Ulpian grew to manhood he became the idol, at whose shrine the brother and sister offered their pure and most intense affection.
Neither had married, and when the youngest of the household band completed his studies, and decided to accept a naval appointment, the consternation and grief which the announcement produced at the homestead, proved how essential the presence of the half-brother had become to the happiness of the sedate stolid Enoch, and equable unselfish Jane. But the desire to travel subordinated all other sentiments in Ulpian’s nature, and he eagerly embarked for a cruise, from which he was recalled by tidings of the death of his brother.
A brief sojourn at the homestead had sufficed to arrange the affairs of the carefully-managed estate, and the young surgeon returned to his post aboard ship, in distant oriental seas. The increasing infirmity of his sister had finally induced the resignation of his cherished commission, and brought the man of thirty-five back to his home, where the “old familiar faces” seemed to have vanished forever; and, in lieu thereof, legions of cold-eyed strangers carelessly confronted him.
Emancipated from all restraint, and early consigned to the guidance of his boyish caprices and immature judgment, Ulpian Grey’s character had unfolded itself under circumstances peculiarly favorable for the fostering of selfishness and the development of idiosyncrasies. As a plant, unmolested by man and beast, germinates, expands, and freely and completely manifests all its inherent tendencies, whether detrimental or beneficial to humanity, so Dr. Grey’s matured manhood was no distorted or discolored result of repeated educational experiments, but a thoroughly normal efflorescence of an unbiassed healthful nature.
Habits of unwavering application and searching study, contracted in collegiate cloisters, tightened their grasp upon him, 21 as he wandered away from the quiet precincts of Alma Mater and into the crowded noisy campus of life; and even the gregarious and convivial manners prevalent aboard ship failed to divert his attention from the prosecution of scientific researches, or to retard his rapid progress in classical scholarship.
For the treasures of knowledge thus patiently and indefatigably garnered through a series of years, travel proved an invaluable polyglot commentator, analyzing, comparing, annotating, and italicizing, and had converted his mind into a vast, systematically arranged pictorial encyclopædia of miscellaneous lore, embellished with delicate etchings, noble engravings, and gorgeous illuminations,—a thesaurus where savants might seek successfully for data, and whence artists could derive grand types, and pure tender coloring.
Reverent and loving appreciation of the intrinsically “true, good, and beautiful” was part of the homage that his nature rendered to its Creator, and instead of flowering into a morbid and maudlin sentimentality which craves low-browed, long straight-nosed, undraped statuettes in every nook and corner,—or dwarfs the soul and pins it to the surplice of some theologic dogmata claiming infallibility—or coffins the intellect in cramped, shallow, psychological categories,—it bore fruit in a wide-eyed, large-hearted, liberal-minded eclecticism, which, waging no crusade against the various Saladins of modern systems, quietly possessed itself of the really valuable elements that constitute the basis of every ethical, æsthetic, and scientific creed, which has for any length of time levied black-mail on the credulity of mankind.
Breadth of intellectual vision promotes moral and emotional expansion—for true catholicity of mind manufactures charity in the heart; and toleration is the real mesmeric current which brings the extremes of humanity en rapport,—is the veritable ubiquitous Samaritan always provided with wine and oil for the bruised and helpless, who are strewn along the highway of life; and those who penetrated beyond the polished surface of Dr. Grey’s character, realized that no tinge of cynicism, no affectation of contempt for his country and countrymen 22 lurked in his heart, while erudition and foreign sojourning seemed only to have warmed and intensified his sympathy with all noble aims—his compassion for all grovelling ones.
That his compulsory return to the uneventful routine of life at the homestead, involved a sacrifice which he would gladly have avoided, he did not attempt to deny; but having invested a large amount of earnest, vigorous faith in the final conservatism of that much-abused monster which the seditious army of the Disappointed anathematize as “Bad Luck,” he went to work contentedly in this new sphere of action, and waited patiently and trustfully for the slow grinding of the great mill of Compensation, into whose huge hopper Fate had unceremoniously poured all his plans.
His advent produced a very decided sensation not only in the quiet neighborhood in which the farm was located, but also in the adjacent town where the memory of Daniel Grey’s meteoric ascent to pecuniosity still lingered in the minds of the oldest citizens, and pleasantly paved the way for a cordial reception of the fortunate son who inherited not only his mother’s comeliness but his father’s hoarded wealth.
Living in the middle of the nineteenth century, and in a hemisphere completely antipodal to that in which Utopia was situated, or “Bensalem” dreamed of, the appearance of a good-looking, well-educated, affluent bachelor could not fail to stir all gossipdom to its dreg; and society, ever tenderly concerned about the individual affairs of its prominent members, was all agog—busily arranging for the ci-devant United States Surgeon a programme, than which he would sooner have undertaken the feats of Samson or the Avatars of Vishnu.
His published card, announcing the fact that he had permanently located in the city and was a patient candidate for the privilege of setting fractured limbs and administering medicine, somewhat dashed the expectations of many who conjected that the Grey estate could not possibly be worth the amount so long reputed, or the principal heir would certainly not soil his fingers with pills and plasters, instead of sauntering and dawdling with librettos, lorgnettes, meerschaums, 23 and curiously-carved canes cut in the Hebrides or the jungles of Java.
Over the door of that office, where the Angel of Death had smitten his father thirty-five years before, a new sign swung in the breeze, and showed the citizens the name of “Dr. Ulpian Grey. Office hours from nine to ten, and from two to three.”
The members of the profession called formally to welcome him to a share of their annual profits, and collectively gave him a dinner; the “best families” invited him to tea or luncheon, croquet or “German,” and thus, having accomplished his professional and social début, Ulpian Grey, M.D., henceforth claimed and exercised the privilege of selecting his associates, and employing his time as inclination prompted.
In the comprehensive course of study to which he had so long devoted his attention, he had not omitted that immemorial stereotyped volume—Human Nature—which, despite the attempted revisions of sages, politicians, and ecclesiastics, remains as immutable as the everlasting hills; printing upon the leaves of the youngest century phases of guilt and guilelessness which find their prototypes in the gray dawn of time, when the “morning stars sang together,”—yea, busy to-day as of yore, slaughtering Abel, stoning Stephen, fretting Moses, crucifying Christ. Finding much that was admirable, and more that seemed ignoble, he gravely and reverently sought to possess himself of the subtle arcana of this marvellous book, rejecting as equally erroneous and unreliable the magnifying zeal of optimism and the gloomy jaundiced lenses of sneering pessimism,—thoroughly satisfied that it was a solemn duty, obligatory upon all, to study that complex paradoxical human nature, for the mastery of which Lucifer and Jesus had ceaselessly battled since the day when Adam and Eve were called “to dress and to keep” the Garden by the Euphrates,—that heaven-born, heaven-cursed, restless human nature, which now, as then,—
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“Grasps at the fruitage forbidden, |
A few days’ residence under the same roof, and a guarded observation of Salome’s conduct, sufficed to acquaint Dr. Grey with the ungenerous motives that induced her chagrin at his return; and, without permitting her to suspect that he had so accurately read her character, he endeavored as unobtrusively as possible to bridge by kindness and courtesy the chasm of jealous distrust which divided them.
Indolent and self-indulgent, she neither brooked dictation, nor gracefully accepted any suggestions at variance with the reigning whim; for, since she became an inmate of Miss Jane’s hospitable home, existence had been a mere dreamy, aimless succession of golden dawns and scarlet-curtained sunsets—a slow, quiet lapsing of weeks into months,—an almost stagnant stream curled by no eddies, freighted with few aspirations, bearing no drift.
The circumstances and associations of her early life had destroyed her faith in abstract nobility of character; self-abnegation she neither comprehended nor deemed possible; and of a stern, innate moral heroism she was utterly sceptical; consequently a delicately graduated scale of selfishness was the sole balance by which she was wont to weigh men and women.
Her irregular method of study and desultory reading had rather enervated than strengthened a mind naturally clear and vigorous, and left its acquisitions in a confused and kaleidoscopic mass, bordering upon intellectual salmagundi.
One warm afternoon, on his return from town, as Dr. Grey ascended the steps he noticed Salome reclining on a bamboo settee at the western end of the gallery, where the sunshine was hot and glaring, unobstructed by the thin leafy screen of vines that drooped from column to column on the southern and eastern sides of the building. If conscious of his approach she vouchsafed not the slightest intimation of it, and when he stood beside her she remained so immovable that he might have imagined her asleep but for the lambent light 25 which rayed out from eyes that seemed intently numbering the soft fluttering young leaves on a distant clump of elm trees, which made a lace-like tracery of golden glimmer and quivering shadow on the purple-headed clover at their feet.
Her fair but long slender fingers carelessly held a book that threatened to slip from their light relaxing grasp, and compressing his lips in order to smother a smile under his heavy moustache, Dr. Grey stooped and put his hand on her plump white wrist, where the blue veins were running riot.
“So young,—yet cataleptic! Unfortunate, indeed,” he murmured.
She shook off his touch, and instantly sat erect.
“I should be glad to know what you mean.”
“I have an admirable, nay, I venture to add, an almost infallible prescription for catalepsy, which has cured two chronic and apparently hopeless cases, and it will afford me great pleasure to try the third experiment upon you, since you seem pitiably in want of a remedy.”
“Thank you. Were I as free from all other ills that ‘flesh is heir to,’ as I certainly am of the taint of catalepsy, I might indeed congratulate myself upon an immunity which would obviate the dire necessity of ever meeting a physician.”
“Are you sure that you sufficiently understand the symptoms, to recognize them unerringly?”
The rose tint in her cheeks deepened to scarlet, as she haughtily drew herself up to her full height, and answered,—
“Dr. Grey himself is not more sagacious and adroit in detecting them; especially when open eyes discover unwelcome and disagreeable objects, which, wishing to avoid, they are still compelled to see. I hope you are satisfied that I comprehend you.”
“My meaning was not so occult as to justify a doubt upon that subject; and moreover, Salome, lack of astuteness is far from being your greatest defect. My motive should eloquently plead pardon for my candor, if I venture to tell you that your frequent affectation of unconsciousness of the presence of others, ‘is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance,’ and may prove prolific of annoyance in coming 26 years; for courtesy constitutes the keystone in the beautiful arch of social amenities which vaults the temple of Christian virtues. Lest you should take umbrage at my frankness, which ought to assure you of my interest in your happiness and improvement, permit me to remind you of the oriental definition of a faithful friend, that has more pith than verbal polish,—
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“The true friend is not he who holds up Flattery’s mirror, |
Rising, Salome swept him a profound courtesy, and, while her fingers beat a tattoo on the book she held, she watched him with a peculiar sparkle in her eyes, which he had already learned to understand was a beacon flame kindled by intense displeasure. Dr. Grey seated himself, and, taking off his hat, said gently and winningly, as he pushed aside the hair that clustered in brown rings over his forehead,—
“Here is ample room for both of us. Sit down, and be reasonable; and let me catch a glimpse of the amiable elements which I feel assured must exist somewhere in your nature, notwithstanding your persistent endeavor to conceal them. Your Janus character has hitherto breathed only war—war; but, my young friend, I earnestly invoke its peaceful phase.”
The kindness of tone and evident sincerity of manner might have disarmed a prejudice better founded than hers; but wrath consumed all scruples, and, recollecting his forbearance with various former acts of rudeness, she presumed to attempt further aggressions.
Waving her hand in tacit rejection of the proffered share of the settee, she answered with more emphasis than perspicuity demanded,—
“Does your reading of the book of Job encourage you to believe that when those self-appointed counsellors—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite—returned to their respective homes, they had cause to 27 congratulate themselves upon their cordial welcome to Job’s bank of ashes, or felt bountifully repaid for their voluntary mission of advice?”
“Unfortunately, no. My study of the record of the man of Uz renders painfully patent that humiliating fact—old as humanity—that sanctity of motive is no coat-of-mail to the luckless few who bravely bear to the hearts of those with whom they associate the unwelcome burden of unflattering truths. Phraseology—definitions—vary with advancing centuries, but not so the human impulses they express or explain; and friendship in the days of Job was the identical ‘Mutual Admiration Society,’ which at present converts its consistent servile members into Damon and Pythias, but punishes any violation of its canons with hatred dire and inextinguishable. Were I blessed with the genius of Praxiteles or of Angelo, I would chisel and bequeath to the world a noble statue,—typical of that rare, fearless friendship, which, walking through the lazaretto of diseased and morbid natures, bears not honied draughts alone, but scalpel, caustic, and bitter tonics.”
The calm sweetness of voice and mien lent to his words an influence which no amount of gall or satire could have imparted; and, in the brief silence that ensued, Salome’s heart was suddenly smitten with a humiliating consciousness of her childish flippancy,—her utter inferiority to this man, who seemed to walk serenely in a starry plane far beyond the mire where she grovelled.
Ridicule braced and exaggerated her weaknesses, and the strokes of sarcasm she could adroitly parry; but for persistent magnanimity she was no match, and recoiled before it like the traditional Fiend at sight of the Santo Sudario. Watching her companion’s quiet countenance, she saw a shadow drift over it, betokening neither anger nor scorn, but serious regret; and involuntarily she drooped her head to avoid the eyes that now turned full upon her.
“Since I became a man, and to some extent capable of discriminating with reference to the characters of persons with whom I found myself in contact, I have made and invariably observed one rule of conduct,—namely, never to associate with 28 those whom I cannot respect. Ignorance, want of refinement, irritability of temper, and even lack of generous impulses, I can forgive, when redeemed by candor and stern honesty of purpose; but arrogance, dissimulation, and all-absorbing selfishness I will not tolerate. In you I hoped and expected better qualities than you permit me to find, and I trust you will acquit me of intentional rudeness if I acknowledge that you have painfully disappointed me. It was, and still is, my earnest wish to befriend and to aid you,—to contribute to your happiness, and cordially sympathize in any annoyances that may surround you; but thus far you have rendered it impossible for me to esteem you, and while I do not presume that my good opinion is of any importance to you, our present relations compel me to request that our intercourse may in future be characterized by more urbanity than has yet graced it. My sister has been much pained by the feelings with which you evidently regard me, and since you and I are merely guests under her roof, a due deference to her wishes should certainly repress the exhibition of antipathies towards those whom she loves. It is her earnest desire (as expressed in a conversation which I had with her yesterday) that I should treat you as a young sister; and, for her sake, I offer you once more, and for the last time, my hearty assistance in any department in which I am able to render it.”
“The folds of your flag of truce do not conceal the drawn sword beneath it; and let me tell you, sir, it is very evident that ‘demand’ would far better have expressed your purpose than the word ‘request.’”
“At least you should not be surprised if I doubt whether you regard any truce as inviolable, and am inclined to suspect you of latent treachery.”
“Your accusation of dissimulation is unjust, for I have openly, fearlessly manifested my prejudice—my aversion.”
“That you dislike me is my misfortune, but that you allow your detestation to generate discord in our small circle is an error which I trust you will endeavor to correct. That I have many faults I shall not attempt to deny; but mutual 29 forbearance will prove a mutual blessing. For Jane’s sake, shall there not be peace between us?”
Standing before her, he looked gravely down into her face, where flush and sparkle had died out, and saw—what she was too proud to confess—that he had partially conquered her waywardness, that she was reluctantly yielding to his influence; but he understood her nature too thoroughly to pause contented with this slight advantage in a contest which he foresaw must determine the direction of her aims through life.
“Salome, I am waiting for your decision.”
Her lips stirred twice, but the words they framed were either too haughty or too humble, for she refused them utterance; and, while she deliberated, two tears settled the question by rolling swiftly over her cheeks, and falling upon the cherry ribbon at her throat.