Part 29 (1/2)
”You will! Has heaven then sent me the aid my failing spirits demand?
Can I count on you, child? But I will ask for no promise till you have heard my story. To no one have I ever imparted the secret of my life, but from the first moment I saw your fair young face, I felt that through you would come my help, if help ever came to make my final moments easier and my last days less bitter.” And rising up, she led Paula to a door which she solemnly opened. ”I am glad that you are here,” said she. ”I could never have asked you to come, but since you have braved the dead and crossed this threshold, you must see and know the whole. You will understand my story better.”
Taking her through a dark pa.s.sage, she threw wide another door, and the parlors of the vanished j.a.phas opened before them. It was a ghostly vision. A weird twilight scene of cl.u.s.tered shadows brooding above articles of musty grandeur. In spite of the self-command learned by her late experiences, Paula recoiled, saying,
”It is too sad, too lonesome!” But the woman without heeding her, hurried her on over the worm-eaten carpet and between the time-worn chairs and heavy-browed cabinets, to the hall beyond.
”I have not been here, myself, for a year,” said Mrs. Hamlin, glancing fearfully up and down the dusky corridor. ”It is not often I can brave the memories of this spot.” And she pointed with one hand towards the darkened door at its end, whose s.p.a.cious if not stately panels gave no hint to the eye of the dread bar that crossed it like a line of doom upon the outside, and then turning, let her eye fall with still heavier significance upon the broad and imposing staircase that rose from the centre of the hall to the duskier and more dismal regions above.
”A brave, old fas.h.i.+oned flight of steps is it not! But the scene of a curse, my child.” And unheeding Paula's shudder, she drew her up the stairs.
”See,” continued her panting guide as they reached a square platform near the top, from which some half dozen or more steps branched up on either side. ”They do not build like this nowadays. But Colonel j.a.pha believed in nothing new, and thought more of his grand old hall and staircase, than he did of all the rest of his house. He little dreamed of what a scene it would be the witness. But come, it is getting late and you must see her room.”
It was near the top of the staircase and was fully as musty, faded and dismal as the rest. Yet there was an air of expectancy about it, too, that touched Paula deeply. From between the dingy hangings of the bed, looked forth a pair of downy pillows, edged with yellowed lace, and beneath them a neatly spread counterpane carefully turned back over comfortable-looking blankets, as one sees in a bed that only awaits its occupant; while on the ancient hearth, a pile of logs stood heaped and ready for the kindling match.
”It is all waiting you see,” said the old lady in a trembling voice, ”like everything else, just waiting.”
There was an embroidery frame in one corner of the room, from which looked a piece of faded and half completed work. The needle was hanging from it by a thread, and a skein of green worsted hung over the top, Paula glanced at it inquiringly.
”It is just as she left it! He never entered the room after she went and I would never let it be touched. It is just the same with the piano below. The last piece she played is still standing open on the rack. I loved her so, and I thought then that a few months would bring her back!
See, here is her bible. She never used to read it, but she prized it because it was her mother's. I have placed it on the pillow where she will see it when she comes to lay her poor tired head down to rest.” And with a reverent hand the aged matron drew the curtains back from the open bed, and disclosed the little bible lying thick with dust in the centre of the nearest pillow.
”O who was this you loved so well? And why did she leave you?” cried Paula with the tears in her eyes, at sight of this humble token.
The aged lady seized her hand and hurried her back into the room below.
”I will tell you where I have waited and watched so long. Only be patient till I light the lamp. It is getting late and any chance wanderer going by and seeing all dark, might think I had forgotten my promise and was not here.”
XXV.
JACQUELINE.
”The cold in clime are cold in blood, And love as scarce deserves the name, But mine is like the lava flood That burns in Etna's breast of flame.”
--BYRON.
”There are some men that have the appearance of being devoid of family affection, who in reality cherish it in the deepest and most pa.s.sionate degree. Such a man was Colonel j.a.pha. You have doubtless heard from your cradle what the neighbors thought of this stately, old fas.h.i.+oned gentleman. He was too handsome in his youth, too proudly reticent in his manhood, too self-contained and unrelenting in his age, not to be the talk of any town that numbered him among its inhabitants. But only from myself, a relative of the family and his housekeeper for years, can you learn with what undeviating faith and love he clung to the few upon whom he allowed his heart to fasten in affection. When he married Miss Carey, the world said, 'He has chosen a beauty, because fine manners and a pretty face look well behind the j.a.pha coffee-urn!' But we, that is, this same young wife and myself, knew that in marrying her he had taken unto himself his other half, the one sweet woman for whom his proud heart could beat and before whom his stately head could bow. When she died, the world exclaimed, 'He will soon fill her place!' But I who watched the last look that pa.s.sed between them in the valley of the shadow of that death, knew that the years would come and the years would go without seeing Colonel j.a.pha marry again.
”The little babe whom she left to his care, took all the love which he had left. From the moment it began to speak, he centered in its tiny life all the hope and all the pride of his solitary heart. And the j.a.pha pride was nearly as great as the j.a.pha heart. She was a pretty child; not a beauty like her mother or like you, my dear, who however so nearly resemble her. But for all that, pretty enough to satisfy the eyes of her secretly doting father, and her openly doting nurse and cousin. I say secretly doting father. I do not mean by that that he regarded her with an affection which he never displayed, but that it was his way to lavish his caresses at home and in the privacy of her little nursery. He never made a parade of anything but his pride. If he loved her, it was enough for her to know it. In the street and the houses of their friends, he was the strict, somewhat severe father, to whom her childish eyes lifted at first with awe, but afterwards with a quiet defiance, that when I first saw it, made my heart stand still with unreasoning alarm.
”She was so reserved a child and yet so deeply pa.s.sionate. From the beginning I felt that I did not understand her. I loved her; I have never loved any mortal as I did her--and do; but I could not follow her impulses or judge of her feelings by her looks.
”When she grew older it was still worse. She never contradicted her father, or appeared in any open way to disobey his commands, or thwart him in his plans. Yet she always did what she pleased, and that so quietly, he frequently did not observe that matters had taken any other direction, than that which he had himself ordained. 'It is her mother's tact,' he used to say. Alas it was something more than that; it was her father's will united to the unscrupulousness of some forgotten ancestor.
”But with the glamour of her eighteen years upon me, I did not recognize this then, any more than he. I saw her through the magic gla.s.ses of my own absorbing love, and tremble as I frequently would in the still scorn of her unfathomable pa.s.sion, I never dreamed she could do anything that would seriously offend her father's affection or mortify his pride. The truth is, that Jacqueline did not love us. Say what you will of the claims of kindred, and the right of every father to his childrens'
regard, Jacqueline j.a.pha accepted the devotion that was lavished upon her, but she gave none in return. She could not, perhaps. Her father was too cold in public and too warm in his home-bursts of affection. I was plain and a widow; no mate for her in age, condition or estate. She could neither look up to me nor lean upon me. I had been her nurse in childhood and though a relative, was still a dependent; what was there in all that to love! If her mother had lived--But we will not dwell on possibilities. Jacqueline had no mother and no friend that was dear enough to her, to teach her unwilling soul the great lesson of self-control and sacrifice.
”You will say that is strange. That situated as she was, she ought to have found friends both dear and congenial; but that would be to declare that Jacqueline was like others of her age and cla.s.s, whereas she was single and alone; a dark-browed girl, who allured the gaze of both men and women, but who cared but little for any one till--But wait, child. I shall have to speak of matters that will cause your cheeks to blush. Lay your head down on my knee, for I cannot bear the sight of blushes upon a cheek more innocent than hers.”