Not Pretty, but Precious; And Other Short Stories Part 18

"Have you friends there?"

"None."

"I wish I had some acquaintances among our fellow-pa.s.sengers, but I do not know a single one. Do you?"

"No."

"You have not told me your name yet. Mine is Marion Nugent; and yours--"

"Is not so pretty a one--Rhoda Steele."

There was something in the tone of these replies that quelled the invalid's disposition to talk, and she remained silent while her companion finished her arrangements and prepared to take possession of her berth. It was time that she did so. The threatened gale was by this time blowing in earnest, and the s.h.i.+p was commencing to roll fearfully; so, after securing all the boxes and bags as well as possible, and hanging up all the scattered garments, she made a hasty retreat to her couch, and lay there only half undressed, but utterly prostrate, and as unable to touch the tea and biscuits brought by the attentive stewardess as was her more delicate and suffering room-mate.

Time pa.s.sed on: the daylight faded from the sky, a feeble glimmering lamp shed its faint rays into the state-room, and the great steams.h.i.+p went steadily on, though rocked and tossed like a plaything by the whistling winds and angry sea. Then midnight came: the lights in the state-rooms were extinguished and a profound silence reigned throughout the cabins, broken only by the ceaseless throb of the mighty engines and the noisy clanking of the screw.

The state-room was wrapped in profound darkness when Rhoda Steele awoke with a start as from some troubled dream. Was she still dreaming, or did she indeed hear a strange choking sound proceeding from the lower berth?

She sprang to the floor at once, heeding neither the darkness nor the violent motion, and clinging to the side of the berth she called aloud.

There was no answer: even the gurgling, choking sound she had at first heard had ceased. She put out her hand, and it encountered her companion's face. It was deathly cold, and the features quivered as if convulsed under her touch. Again she called aloud--still no answer; and then, thoroughly frightened, she caught up a cloak from the sofa, threw it around her, and opening the state-room door, she rushed into the cabin. It was almost deserted. The lamps swung heavily overhead, swayed by the unceasing rolling of the s.h.i.+p; a drowsy waiter slumbered at one of the tables, his head resting on his folded arms; and one or two sleepy pa.s.sengers tried to maintain a rec.u.mbent posture on the broad sofas that lined the sides. The cries of the terrified girl soon brought several of the waiters to her a.s.sistance, and Captain Wessels himself, who had not retired to rest, owing to the stormy weather, came to ascertain the cause of the unusual disturbance. Her story was quickly told: lights were brought, and the captain accompanied her back to the state-room.

It was a pitiful sight that met their eyes. The young girl lay motionless in her berth, her face tinged with a livid bluish hue, her eyes closed, and her small hands clenched as if in agony.

"The doctor!--run for the doctor!" was the instant and universal exclamation. The doctor came. One look at the pallid face, one touch on the slender wrist, and he turned with a grave face to the bystanders.

"There is nothing to be done," he said. "She is dead. I feared some such catastrophe when I saw her last evening. She was in the last stages of heart disease."

"And who was she?--what was her name?" asked kind-hearted Captain Wessels, looking down with pitying eyes at the fair pale face.

The steward brought his lists.

"Berth No. 22," he read--"Miss Rhoda Steele."

"And this young lady?" continued the captain, turning to the other occupant of the state-room, who had sunk back as if exhausted on the sofa, still enveloped in the shrouding folds of her large waterproof cloak.

She raised her head. The answer came after a moment's hesitation--came with a strange, defiant ring in its tone:

"My name is Marion Nugent."

Chapter II.

Under Full Sail.

More than a year has pa.s.sed away since the events narrated in our first chapter took place, and the curtain now rises on a far different scene--a dinner-party in one of the most splendid of the gorgeous mansions on Madison avenue, New York.

Mrs. Walton Rutherford, the giver of the entertainment in question, was a member of a cla.s.s unhappily now fast dying out of New York society--one of those ladies of high social position and ancient lineage who adorn the station which they occupy as much by their virtues as by their social talents. A high-minded, pure-souled matron, a devoted wife and mother, as well as a queen of society, inheriting the n.o.ble qualities of her Revolutionary forefathers as well as their great estates--such was the lady who presided over the brilliant festivity we are about to describe.

She had been left for many years a widow, and her surviving children--two sons, Clement and Horace--were both of mature age; Horace, the younger, being just thirty years old, and Clement, the elder, some seven years his senior. Mrs. Rutherford herself was a few years over sixty. A year or two before the period at which our story opens a terrible misfortune had befallen her. Amaurosis--that most insidious and unmanageable of diseases of the eye--had attacked her vision, and in a few months after it declared itself she was totally, hopelessly blind. But, although debarred by her infirmity from going into society, she still received her friends in her own home; and her evening receptions and elegant dinners were always cited as being among the most agreeable and successful entertainments of the season.

Another sorrow had recently come to trouble the calm of her honored and tranquil existence--the marriage of her eldest son. Clement Rutherford, unlike any other member of the family, was a cold, reserved man, unpleasant in temper and disagreeable in manner. When he was still quite a boy, his mother's only sister, Miss Myra Van Vleyden, had died, and had bequeathed to him the large fortune which she had inherited conjointly with Mrs. Rutherford from her father, the two sisters being the only children of Schuyler Van Vleyden. She was a soured, morose old maid, and probably saw some congeniality of disposition in her eldest nephew which caused her to single him out as her heir. After he attained to years of manhood, he always manifested a decided antipathy to ladies' society, and was generally looked upon as a confirmed old bachelor; so that when he announced to his mother the fact of his engagement to Mrs. Archer's pretty governess, Miss Nugent, her distress of mind was fully equaled by her astonishment. The match met with her strongest disapproval, as was to have been expected; for it was hardly probable that she, the oldest surviving representative of the old Knickerbocker family the Van Vleydens, an acknowledged leader of society by the triple right of wealth, birth and intellect, should be inclined to welcome very warmly as a daughter-in-law the penniless beauty who had been occupied for some months past in teaching Mrs. Archer's little daughters the rudiments of French and music.

Moreover, the investigations and inquiries respecting the young lady's origin which she had at once caused to be inst.i.tuted on hearing of her son's engagement, had revealed a state of affairs which had placed Miss Nugent in a very unenviable light. Her parents were well born, though poor. She was the daughter of a curate in the North of England, who had lost his young wife by heart disease when Marion was but a few months old, and two years later Mr. Nugent died of consumption, leaving his little daughter to the care of his unmarried and elderly brother, the Reverend Walter Nugent, who, though the living he held was but a small one, contrived to rear and educate his niece as his own child. He had only allowed her to leave him and become a governess on the a.s.surance of the village physician that her health was seriously impaired, and that a sea voyage and complete change of scene would prove the best and surest of restoratives. But the pained though manly tone of the letter in which he replied to Mrs. Rutherford's inquiries had prepossessed that warm-hearted, high-minded lady most strongly against her future daughter-in-law. "I loved Marion always as though she were my own child," wrote Mr. Nugent, "and I cannot but look upon her total neglect of me since her arrival in America as being wholly inexcusable. She has never even written me one line since her departure, and I learned of her safe arrival only by the newspapers. I can but infer from her obstinate and persistent silence that she wishes to sever all ties between herself and me, and I have resigned myself to the prospect of a lonely and cheerless old age. I trust that she may be happy in the brilliant marriage which, you say, she is about to make, and I can a.s.sure her that her old uncle will never disturb her in her new prosperity."

Mrs. Rutherford had one long, stormy interview with her eldest son, and learning therein that his determination to marry Miss Nugent was fixed and unalterable, she had with commendable wisdom accepted the situation, and resolved to so order the conduct of herself and her relatives as to give the scandalous world no room for that contemptuous pity and abundant gossip which an open rupture between herself and her son would doubtless have occasioned.

The manner of the wooing had been in this wise: John Archer, a sober, staid gentleman of great wealth, was Clement Rutherford's most intimate friend, and naturally, when the Archers moved into their new and splendid villa at Newport, Clement was invited to spend a few weeks with them--an invitation which he readily accepted. A few days after his arrival, Mrs.

Archer, who was a pretty, lively little coquette, not in the least sobered by some thirteen years of married life, offered to drive him out in her little phaeton. "John has just given me a new pair of ponies," she said--"such perfect beauties and so gentle that I long to drive them." So the pretty, stylish equipage, with its fair driver and faultless appointments, made its first appearance on the avenue that afternoon, and also, I am sorry to say, its last; for the "gentle beauties" afore-said, excited to emulation by the number of spirited steeds around them, became ambitious of distinction, and sought for and decidedly obtained it by running away, thereby overturning the phaeton, breaking the harness, bruising Mrs. Archer severely and dislocating Mr. Rutherford's ankle.

Mrs. Archer was as well as ever in a few days, but the injuries received by her guest proved sufficiently serious to compel him to maintain a rec.u.mbent position for a long time, and prevented him from walking for several weeks. She made every arrangement possible for his comfort, and she had a charming little reception-room on the ground floor, adjoining the library, fitted up as a bed-chamber, and installed him there; so that as soon as he was able to quit his bed for a sofa, he could be wheeled into the latter apartment, and there enjoy the distractions of literature and society. For a few days after he made his first appearance there his lovely hostess was all attention and devotion; but, finding that he was anything but an agreeable or impressionable companion, she soon wearied of his society. Mr. Archer, shortly after the accident had taken place, had been summoned from home by important business connected with some mining property which he possessed, and which necessitated his presence in the interior of Pennsylvania; so Mrs. Archer, thus left with the entertainment of her most uncongenial guest exclusively confided to her care, came speedily to the conclusion that he was a nuisance, and began to look about for a subst.i.tute to relieve her from her unwelcome duties. She decided that her pretty governess, who spoke French so well, and sang little French _chansonettes_ so sweetly, and got herself up in such a charming manner, giving so much "chic" and style even to the simplest of toilettes, was just the person to take upon herself the task of amusing the uninteresting invalid.

"_Do_ look after Mr. Rutherford a little, there's a dear, good creature,"

whispered Mrs. Archer confidentially to Miss Nugent. "He is dreadfully tiresome, to be sure, but John thinks the world of him, you know, and it would not exactly do to leave him alone all the time. I wish him to receive every attention while he is in the house, of course; but as for sitting for hours at a time with him in that stuffy little library--just in the height of the season, too--why, I cannot think of doing it. If you will just go and sit with him sometimes, and read to him a little, it will be an absolute charity to me. I'll see that Alice and Emily do not get into any mischief."

Which, considering that the young ladies in question were, one twelve, the other ten years of age, and both much addicted to flirtation and dancing the "German," was rather a rash promise and inconsiderately made.

So Miss Nugent was definitely installed as reader and _garde malade_ in general, and Clement Rutherford soon learned to await her coming with impatience and to welcome her with delight. All his life long will he remember those summer days, when her voice and the low plash of the far-off ocean waves wove themselves together into music as she read, and when the blue splendors of her l.u.s.trous eyes lent a new meaning to the poet's story as it flowed in melodious verses from her lips. Then came a day when the book was laid aside, and the impa.s.sioned utterances of poetry gave place to the more prosaic but not less fervent accents of a newly-awakened pa.s.sion. Cold, silent and morose as Clement Rutherford had always been, it had so happened that but few women had ever attempted to attract him, notwithstanding his wealth and social position; and the interested motives of those few had been so apparent that he had been repelled and disgusted, instead of being fascinated, by their wiles; so that Miss Nugent's grace and beauty and syren charms proved all too potent for his unoccupied though icy heart to resist; and thus it chanced that the day before Mr. Rutherford left Newport he astonished his hostess by requesting a private interview with her, and therein announcing his engagement to her governess.

"You could have knocked me down with a feather," Mrs. Archer said afterward to an intimate friend. "I never should have suspected that such a quiet, stupid man as he was would fall in love in that ridiculous kind of a way. Good gracious! how indignant old Mrs. Rutherford will be! and I shall be blamed for the whole affair, no doubt. I wish John had never brought the man here--I never _did_ like him; and then, too, it is so provoking to lose Miss Nugent just now, while we are at Newport. Of course I can find no one to replace her till we return to New York. Well, I always _was_ an unlucky little woman."

The marriage took place in the latter part of September, only a few weeks after the engagement had been first announced. Mrs. Rutherford, true to her resolution of making the best of the affair, was careful that none of the usual courtesies and observances should be neglected. The bridal gifts from the Rutherford family, if less splendid, were as numerous as they would have been had Mr. Rutherford married a member of his mother's decorous, high-bred "set," and all his immediate relatives called most punctiliously on the bride when the newly-wedded pair arrived in New York after their six weeks' trip to Philadelphia and Was.h.i.+ngton.

Mr. Rutherford decided to take rooms at the Brevoort House till he could purchase a suitable residence. His mother's splendid home was not thrown open to receive him and his unwelcome bride, as it would have been had he made a choice more consonant with her wishes.

But we have wandered far from the dinner given by Mrs. Rutherford in honor of her new daughter-in-law, and with which our chapter commences.

It was a superb entertainment, as the Rutherford dinners usually were. The service of gold plate purchased by Schuyler Van Vleyden when he was minister to Austria adorned the table, which was also decorated with three splendid pyramids of choicest flowers. An exquisite bouquet bloomed in front of each lady's plate, and the painted blossoms on the peerless dinner-service of rare old Sevres vied in every respect save fragrance with their living counterparts. An unseen orchestra, stationed in the conservatory, sent forth strains of music, now grave, now gay, as Gounod or Offenbach ruled the tuneful spirit of the hour. Twelve guests only were present, including Mrs. John Archer, to whom Mrs. Rutherford had in this fas.h.i.+on testified her forgiveness, and who had accepted the proffered olive-branch with delight, wearing, in order to do honor to the occasion, an exquisite dress, fresh from one of the most renowned _ateliers_ of Parisian fas.h.i.+on. Mrs. Rutherford, as usual, notwithstanding her infirmity, presided with unfailing grace and dignity; and in her splendid dress of black satin, brocaded with bouquets of flowers in their natural hues, her cap and collar of priceless old point lace, and her antiquely set but magnificent ornaments of sapphires and diamonds, she still looked a queen of society. A well-trained servant was stationed behind her chair, who from time to time placed before her suitably-prepared portions of the various delicacies of the entertainment, of which she slightly partook, in order to obviate the restraint which her presence at the festivity without partic.i.p.ating in it would have occasioned. On her left hand sat her younger son, Horace, whose watchful eyes followed her every movement, and whose loving care antic.i.p.ated her every wish. He was a tall, stalwart-looking young man, fair-haired and blue-eyed, like his elder brother, but his frank, joyous expression and winning manners bore no resemblance to the sullen countenance and surly demeanor of Clement.

The bride was, of course, the, cynosure of all eyes. Attired in rich, creamy-white satin, the corsage shaded with folds of delicate lace, with coral ornaments on her neck and arms, and with the heavy ma.s.ses of her dark hair interwoven with coral beads, she looked extremely beautiful, and was p.r.o.nounced by the ladies present to be "handsome and stylish-looking, but decidedly dull." This latter accusation was more truthful than such charges usually are. Mrs. Clement Rutherford did feel unusually stupid.

She was _ennuye_ by the long, formal, stately dinner; she knew but few of the persons present; and her point-lace fan was frequently called into requisition to conceal her yawns. The game had been served before her next neighbor, a sprightly young New Yorker, who had been rather fascinated by her beauty, contrived to arouse her into something like animation. He succeeded at last, however, and it was not long before an unusually brilliant sally drew a merry laugh from her lips. Her laugh was peculiar--a low, musical, trilling sound, mirthful and melodious as the chime of a silver bell.

As its joyous music rang on the air, Mrs. Rutherford turned ghastly pale.

She gasped convulsively, half rose from her seat and fell back in a deathlike swoon.

Of course all was instantly confusion and dismay. The guests sprang up, the waiters hurried forward--Horace was instantly at his mother's side.

"She has only fainted," he said in his clear, decided tones. "She will be better in a few moments. Let me beg of you, my friends, to resume your seats. Clement, will you oblige me by taking our mother's post?"

With the help of Mrs. Rutherford's special attendant, Horace supported the already reviving sufferer from the room. They conveyed her to her sleeping apartment, where restoratives and cold water were freely used, and she soon regained perfect consciousness. But returning animation seemed to bring with it a strange and overwhelming sorrow. When the servant had retired, leaving her alone with her son, she refused to answer any of his queries, and burying her face in her pillow, she wept with convulsive and irrepressible violence. At length the very vehemence of her grief seemed, by exhausting itself, to restore her to comparative calm: her tears ceased to flow, her heavy sobs no longer shook her frame, and she remained for some time perfectly quiet and silent. At length she spoke:

"Horace!"

"What is it, mother?"

"Describe to me the personal appearance of your brother's wife--minutely, as though a picture were to be painted from your words."

It was no unusual request. Horace was in the habit of thus minutely describing persons and places for his mother's benefit.

"She is rather below the middle height, and her form, though slender, is finely moulded and of perfect proportions. Her hands and feet are faultless, and her walk is extremely graceful, resembling more the gait of a French-woman than that of an English girl. Her complexion is pale and rather sallow, and her countenance is full of expression, which varies constantly when she talks. The lower part of her face is somewhat too thin for perfect beauty, and the chin is inclined to be pointed, and the cheeks are rather hollow, but the upper part is superb. Her brow is low and broad, and she folds back from it the heavy waves of her black hair in the plainest possible style. Her eyes are her chief beauty, and would transfigure any face into loveliness. They are very large, and of a dark, transparent blue, of so l.u.s.trous and so perfect an azure that not even in shadow do they look black. Stay--I can give you a better idea of her appearance than by multiplying words. Did you, when you were in Munich, visit the Gallery of Beauties in the Royal Palace?"