Part 41 (1/2)
”Clara Van Zandt, no thank you! I would not give Regina's pure face and sweet violet eyes for all the other feminine flesh in New York!”
Had his attention been fixed just then upon Mr. Palma, he might have detected the sudden flash in his black eyes, and the nervous clenching of his right hand that rested on the arm of the chair; but the younger man was absorbed by his own emotions, and very soon his cousin rose.
”In future we will not discuss this folly. At present, please recollect that my ward's face has not yet been offered in the matrimonial market; consequently your bid is premature. Those papers I spoke of must be prepared as early as possible in the morning, and submitted to me for revision. Be careful in copying the record. Have a cigar? I shall not be back before dark.”
The happiest hours Regina had known during her residence in New York had been spent in the room where she now sat; a bas.e.m.e.nt room with low ceiling, and faded olive-tinted walls. The furniture was limited to an old-fas.h.i.+oned square table of mahogany, rich with that colour which comes only from the mellowing touch of age, and polished until it reflected the goblet of white and crimson phlox, which Regina had placed in the centre; a few chairs, some swinging shelves filled with books, and a couch or lounge covered with pink and white chintz, whereon lay a pillow with a freshly ironed linen case, whose ruffled edges were crisply fluted.
Upon the whitewashed hearth were several earthen pots, filled with odorous geraniums; and over the two windows that opened on a narrow border of ground between the house wall and the street were carefully trained a solanum jasminoides white with waxen stars, and an abutilor, whose orange bells striped and veined with scarlet, swung in every breath of air that fluttered the spotless white cotton curtains, so daintily trimmed with a calico border of rose-coloured convolvulus. In the morning when the sun shone hot upon the front of the building, this room was very bright and cheerful, but its afternoon aspect was dim, cool, shadowy. A gentle breeze now floated across a bunch of claret-hued carnations growing in a wooden box on the window-sill, which was on a level with the ground outside, and brought on its waves that subtle spiciness that dwells only in the deep heart of pinks.
In an old-fas.h.i.+oned maplewood rocking chair sat Mrs. Mason, with her wasted and almost transparent hands resting on her open Bible. The faded face which in early years had boasted of unusual comeliness, bore traces of severe sorrows meekly borne; and the patient sweetness that sat on the lip, and smiled serenely in the mild grey eyes, invested it with that irresistible charm that occasionally renders ripe old age more attractive than flus.h.i.+ng dimpled youth. Her hair, originally pale brown, was as snow-white as the tarlatan cap that now framed it in a crimped border; and her l.u.s.treless black dress was relieved at the neck and wrists by ruffles of the same material.
On the Bible lay her spectacles, and upon the third finger of the left hand was a gold ring, worn so thin that it was a mere glittering thread.
Near her sat Regina, playing with a large white and yellow cat that now and then sprang to catch a spray of lemon-scented geranium, which was swung teasingly just beyond the reach of her velvet paws.
”I am glad, my dear, to hear you speak so kindly of the members of your guardian's family. I have never yet seen that person who had not some redeeming trait. Many years ago, I knew Louise Neville very well. She was then the handsome happy bride of a young naval officer, who was soon after drowned in the Bay of Biscay; before the birth of their only child, Olga. At first Louise seemed heart-broken by the loss of her husband, but not more than two years afterward she married Mr. G.o.dwin Palma, who was reputed very wealthy. I have not seen her since Olga was a child, but have heard that her second husband was an exceedingly stem, exacting man; treating her with far less tenderness than she received from poor Leo Neville, who was certainly very fond of her. Mr. G.o.dwin Palma died suddenly one day, while riding down in his carriage to his office on Wall Street, but he had made a will only a few weeks previous, in which he bequeathed all his fortune--except a small annuity to Louise--to his son Erle, whose own mother had possessed a handsome estate. Louise contested the will, but the court sustained it; and I have heard that Mr. Erle Palma has always treated her with marked kindness and respect, and that he provides liberally for her and Olga. Louise is a proud, ambitious woman, fond of pomp and splendour; but in those tastes she was educated, and I always liked her, valued her kindness of heart, and strict integrity of purpose.”
”You do not know my guardian?”
”I never met him till the day he brought you first to see me, and I was surprised to find him so comparatively young a man, for he is rapidly building up a very enviable reputation in his profession. He has been quite generous in his treatment of some relatives, who were at one time much reduced. His father's sister, Julia Palma, married a dissipated young physician named Roscoe, and your guardian has almost entirely educated one of the boys; sent him to college, and then took him into his law-office, besides a.s.sisting in the maintenance of Mrs.
Roscoe, who died about three years ago. Regina, I had a letter from Elise Lindsay since you were here. She sends kindest messages of love to you, and says you must not allow new friends to supplant old ones.
She mentioned also that the climate of India did not seem very desirable for Dougla.s.s, who has been quite sick more than once since his settlement in Rohilcund. I am glad that Elise has gone to Dougla.s.s, for his father died of consumption, and I always feared he might have inherited the tendency, though his const.i.tution seems tolerably good. After Peyton's death, she had nothing to keep her from her n.o.ble boy. G.o.d grant that India may never prove as fatal to all her earthly hopes as it has been to mine.”
A spasm of pain made her gentle patient face quiver, and Regina remembered that Mrs. Mason's only daughter had married a gentleman connected with the English Board of Missions, and with her husband and babe perished in the Sepoy butchery.
Dropping the fragrant geranium sprig that so tormented the cat, the girl's fingers interlaced tightly, and she asked almost under her breath:
”Is Mr. Lindsay's health seriously impaired?”
”I hope not Elise merely said he had had two severe attacks of pneumonia, and it rendered her anxious. No man of his age ranks higher in the ministry than Dougla.s.s Lindsay, and as an Oriental scholar I am told he has few equals in this country. His death would be a great loss to his church, and----”
”Oh, do not speak of it! How can you? It would kill his mother,”
cried Regina, pa.s.sionately, clasping her hands across her eyes, as if to shut out some horrible vision.
”Let us pray G.o.d to mercifully avert such a heavy blow. But, my dear, keep this in mind: with terrible bereavement comes the strength to bear it. The strength of endurance,--a strength born only in the darkest hours of a soul's anguish; and at last when affliction has done its worst, and all earthly hope is dead, patience with tender grace and gentle healing mutely sits down in hope's vacant place.
To-day I found a pa.s.sage in a new book that impressed me as beautiful, strong, and true. Would you like to hear it?”
”If it will teach me patience, please let me hear it.”
”Give me the book lying on the lounge.”
She opened it, put on her spectacles, and read:
”There is the peace of surrendered, as well as of fulfilled, hopes,--the peace, not of satisfied, but of extinguished longings,--the peace, not of the happy love and the secure fireside, but of unmurmuring and accepted loneliness,--the peace, not of the heart which lives in joyful serenity afar from trouble and from strife, but of the heart whose conflicts are over, and whose hopes are buried,--the peace of the pa.s.sionless as well as the peace of the happy;--not the peace which brooded over Eden, but that which crowned Gethsemane.'”
”My dear Regina, only religion brings this blessed calm; this is indeed that promised 'Peace that pa.s.seth all understanding,' and therefore we would all do well to heed the words of Isaiah: 'Their strength is to sit still.'”
Looking reverently up at her pale, worn placid face, the girl thought it might have been considered a psalm of renunciation. Almost sorrowfully she answered:
”I begin to see that there is far more shadow than suns.h.i.+ne in this world; the night is longer than the day.”