Vashti Part 33

After awhile she heard Muriel's skilful touch on the piano, and, when an hour had elapsed, the echo of voices died away, and soon a profound silence seemed to reign over the house.

The hot blood was coursing thick and fast in her veins, and evil purposes brooded darkly over her oppressed and throbbing heart. She was thoroughly cognizant of the intense admiration with which Mr.

Granville regarded her, and to-night she had compared his handsome face with the older, graver, and less regular features of Dr. Grey, and wondered why the latter was so much more fascinating. Her beauty transcended Muriel's, and it would prove an easy task to supplant her in the affections of her not very ardent lover. Life in Paris, spiced with the political intrigues incident to diplomatic circles, would divert her thoughts, and might possibly make the coming years endurable. Was the game worth the candle? No thought of Muriel's misery entered for an instant into this entirely sordid calculation, or would have deterred her even momentarily, had it presented itself in expostulation. The girl's heart had suddenly grown callous, and her hand would have ruthlessly smitten down any object that dared to cross her path, or r.e.t.a.r.d the accomplishment of her schemes. Weary at last of pacing the dim starlit avenue, and yet too wretched to think of sleeping, she re-entered the house, and cautiously locking the door, threw herself into a corner of the parlor sofa, which stood just beneath the portrait she so often studied.

If she had not at this juncture been completely absorbed in gazing upon it, she might have seen the original, who soon rose and came forward from the shadow of the curtains.

"Salome, I wish to make you my confidante,--to tell you something which I have not yet mentioned even to Janet. Can I trust you, little sister?"

Resting against the arm of the sofa, he looked intently into her face, reading its perturbed lines.

"I presume you are amusing yourself by tantalizing my curiosity, as your experiments appear to have thoroughly satisfied you that I am utterly unworthy of trust. I follow the flattering advice you were so kind as to give me some time since, and make no promises, which shatter like crystal under the hammer of the first temptation. You see, sir, you are teaching me to be cautious."

"You are teaching yourself lessons in dissimulation and maliciousness, that you will heartily rue some day, but your repentance will come too tardily to mend the mischief."

She tried to screen her countenance, but he was in no mood for trifling, and putting his palm under her chin, forced her to submit to his scrutiny.

"Salome, if I did not cherish a strong faith in the latent generosity of your soul, I would not come to you as I do now to offer confidence, and demand it in return."

She guessed his meaning, and her eyes glowed with all the baleful light that he had hoped was extinguished forever.

"Dr. Grey makes a grace of necessity, and a pretence of confiding that which has ceased to be a secret. Is such his boasted candor and honesty?"

"If I believed that you were already acquainted with what I propose to divulge, I would not fritter away my time in appealing to a n.o.bility of feeling which that fact alone would prove the hopelessness of my ever finding in you."

He felt her face grow hot, and for an instant her eyes drooped before his, stern and almost threatening.

"Well, sir; I wait for your confidential disclosures. Is there a Guy Fawkes, or t.i.tus Oates, plotting against the peace and prosperity of the house of Grey?"

"Verily I am disposed to apprehend that there may be."

She endeavored to wrench her face from his hand, but he held it firmly, and continued,--

"I wish to say to you that Muriel is very sensitive, and I hope that during Mr. Granville's visit, you will try to be as considerate and courteous as possible, to both. Salome, Gerard Granville has asked Muriel to be his wife, and she has promised to marry him at the expiration of a year."

The girl laughed derisively, and exclaimed,--

"Pray, Dr. Grey, be so good as to indulge me with your motive in furnis.h.i.+ng this piece of information?"

"Your astuteness forbids the possibility of any doubt with reference to my motives,--which are, explicitly, anxiety for Muriel's happiness, and for the preservation of your integrity and self-respect."

"What jeopardizes either?"

"Your heartless, contemptible vanity, which tempts you to demand a homage and incense that should be offered only where it is due,--at another, and I grieve to add, a purer shrine."

"Ah! My unpardonable sin consists in having braided my black locks, and made myself comely! If you will procure an authentic portrait of the Witch of Endor, I will do proper penance by likening my appearance thereunto. Poor little rose! Can't you open your pink lips and cry _peccavi_? Come down, sole ally and accomplice of my heinous vanity, and plead for me, and make the _amende honorable_ to this grim guardian of Miss Muriel's peace!"

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the drooping rose from her hair, and tossed it at his feet.

"Salome, you forget yourself!"

His stern displeasure rendered her reckless, and she continued,--

"True, sir. I did forget that the poor miller's child had no right to obtrude her comeliness in the presence of the banker's daughter. I confess my 'high crime and misdemeanor' against the pet of fortune, and await my condign punishment. Is it your sovereign will that I shear my s.h.i.+ning locks like royal Berenice, and offer them in propitiation? Or, does it seem 'good, meet, and your bounden duty,' to have me promptly inoculated with small-pox, for the destruction of my skin, which is unjustifiably smoother and clearer than--"

"Hush, hus.h.!.+"

He laid his hand over her lips, and, for a while, there was an awkward pause.

"If it were only possible to inoculate your heart with a little genuine womanly charity,--if it were possible to persuade you to adopt as your rule of conduct that golden one which Christ gave as a patent of peace to all who followed it. But it is futile, hopeless. You will not, you will not,--and my fluttering dove is at the mercy of a famished eagle, already poised to swoop. I 'reckoned without my host'

when I so confidently appealed to your magnanimity, to your feminine integrity of soul. You are a 'deaf adder that stoppeth her ear.'"

"Which will not 'hearken to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.' Dr. Grey, what has the pampered heiress, the happy _fiancee_ of that handsome man upstairs, to fear from the poverty-stricken daughter of a miller, who you conscientiously inform your guest pa.s.sed from time to eternity through the gate opened by delirium tremens. Mark you, my 'adder ears' have not been sealed all the evening."

She had taken his hand from her lips, and thrown it from her.

"People who condescend to listen to conversations that are not intended for them, generally deserve the punishment of hearing unpleasant truths discussed. Salome, our interview is at an end."

"Not yet. Do you sincerely desire to see Muriel Mr. Granville's wife?"

"I do, because I know that she is strongly attached to him."

"And you are sufficiently generous to sacrifice your happiness, in order to promote hers? Oh, marvellous magnanimity!"

"Your insinuation is beneath my notice."

"How long have you known of her engagement?"

"Since the first interview I had with her, after her father's death."

"Let me see your face, Dr. Grey. If truth has not been hunted out of the earth, it took refuge in your eyes. There, I am satisfied. You never loved her. I think I must have been insane, or I would not have imagined it possible. No, no; she never touched your heart, save with a feeling of compa.s.sion. Don't go, I want to say something to you. Sit down, and let me think."

She walked up and down the room for ten minutes, and, with his face bowed on his hand, Dr. Grey watched and waited.

Finally he stooped to pick up the crushed rose on the floor, and then she came back and stood before him.

"I promise you I will not lay a straw in the path of Muriel's happiness, and it shall not be my fault if Mr. Granville fails in a lover's _devoir_. I was tempted to entice him from his sworn allegiance. Why should I deny what you know so well? But I will not, and when I give my word, it shall go hard with me but I keep it; especially when you hold the pledge. Are you satisfied? I know that you have little cause to trust me, but I tell you, sir, when I deceive you, then all heaven with its hierarchies of archangels can not save me."

After all, Ulpian Grey was only a man of flesh and blood, and his heart was touched by the beauty of the young face, and the mournful sweetness of the softened voice.

"Thank you, Salome. I accept your promise, and rely upon it. As a pledge of your sincerity I shall retain this rose, and return it to you when little Muriel is a happy wife."

She clasped her hands, and looked at him with a mournful, wistful expression, that puzzled him.

"My friend, my little sister, what is it? Tell me, and let me help you to do your duty, for I see that you are wrestling desperately with some great temptation."

"Dr. Grey, be merciful to me. Send me away. Oh, for G.o.d's sake, send me away!"

She had grown ghastly pale, and her whole face indexed a depth of anguish and despair that baffled utterance.