Ishmael; Or, In the Depths Part 33

In the first instance, where she had expected to give a joyful surprise, she had only given a painful shock; where she had looked for a cordial welcome, she had received a cold repulse; finally, where she had hoped her presence would confer happiness, it had brought misery!

On the very evening of her arrival her husband, after meeting her with reproaches, had fled from the house, leaving no clew to his destination, and giving no reason for his strange proceeding.

Berenice did not understand this. She cast her memory back through all the days of her short married life spent with Herman Brudenell, and she sought diligently for anything in her conduct that might have given him offense. She could find nothing. Neither in all their intercourse had he ever accused her of any wrong-doing. On the contrary, he had been profuse in words of admiration, protestations of love and fidelity. Now what had caused this fatal change in his feelings and conduct towards her? Berenice could not tell. Her mind was as thoroughly perplexed as her heart was deeply wounded. At first she did not know that he was gone forever. She thought that he would return in an hour or two and openly accuse her of some fault, or that he would in some manner betray the cause of offense which he must suppose she had given him. And then, feeling sure of her innocence, she knew she could exonerate herself from every shadow of blame--except from that of loving him too well, if he should consider that a fault.

Therefore she waited patiently for his return; but when the night pa.s.sed and he had not come, she grew more and more uneasy, and when the next day had pa.s.sed without his making his appearance her uneasiness rose to intolerable anxiety.

The visit of poor Nora at night had aroused at once her suspicions, her jealousy, and her compa.s.sion. She half believed that in this girl she saw her rival in her husband's affections, the cause of her own repudiation and--what was more bitter still to the childless Hebrew wife--the mother of his children! This had been very terrible! But to the Jewish woman the child of her husband, even if it is at the same time the child of her rival, is as sacred as her own. Berenice was loyal, conscientious, and compa.s.sionate. In the anguish of her own deeply wounded and bleeding heart she had pitied and pleaded for poor Nora--had even a.s.serted her own authority as mistress of the house, for the sake of protecting Nora: her husband's other wife, as in the merciful construction of her gentle spirit she had termed the unhappy girl! But then, my readers, you must remember that Berenice was a Jewess. This poor unloved Leah would have sheltered the beloved Rachel.

We all know how her generous intentions were carried out. A second and a third day pa.s.sed, and still there came no news of Herman.

Berenice, prostrated with the heart-wasting sickness of hope deferred, kept her own room. Mrs. Brudenell was indignant at her son, not for his neglect of his lovely young wife, but for his indifference to a wealthy countess! She deferred her journey to Was.h.i.+ngton in consideration of her n.o.ble daughter-in-law, and in the hope of her son's speedy reappearance and reconciliation with his wife, when, she antic.i.p.ated, they would all go to Was.h.i.+ngton together, where the Countess of Hurstmonceux would certainly be the lioness and the Misses Brudenell the belles of the season.

On the evening of the fourth day, while Berenice lay exhausted upon the sofa of her bedroom, her maid entered the chamber saying:

"Please, my lady, you remember the young woman that was here on Friday evening?"

"Yes!" Berenice was up on her elbow in an instant, looking eagerly into the girl's face.

"Your ladys.h.i.+p ordered me to make inquiries about her, but I could get no news except from the old man who took her home out of the snowstorm and who came back and said she was ill."

"I know! I know! You told me that before. But you have heard something else. What is it?"

"My lady, the old woman Dinah, who went to nurse her, never came back till to-day; that is the reason I couldn't hear any more news until to-night."

"Well, well, well? Your news! Out with it, girl!"

"My lady, she is dead and buried!"

"Who?"

"The young woman, my lady. She died on Sat.u.r.day. She was buried to-day."

Berenice sank back on the sofa and covered her face with her hands. So!

her dangerous rival was gone; the poor unhappy girl was dead! Berenice was jealous, but pitiful. And she experienced in the same moment a sense of infinite relief and a feeling of the deepest compa.s.sion.

Neither mistress nor maid spoke for several minutes. The latter was the first to break silence.

"My lady!"

"Well, Phoebe!"

"There was something else I had to tell you."

"What was it?"

"The young woman left a child, my lady."

"A child!" Again Berenice was up on her elbow, her eyes fixed upon the speaker and blazing with eager interest.

"It is a boy, my lady; but they don't think it will live!"

"A boy! He shall live! He is mine--my son! I will have him. Since his mother is dead, it is I who have the best right to him!" exclaimed the countess vehemently, rising to her feet.

The maid recoiled--she thought her mistress had suddenly gone mad.

"Phoebe," said the countess eagerly, "what is the hour?"

"Nearly eleven, my lady."

"Has it cleared off?"

"No, my lady; it has come on to rain hard; it is pouring."

The countess went to the windows of her room, but they were too closely shut and warmly curtained to give her any information as to the state of the weather without. Then she hurried impatiently into the pa.s.sage where the one end window remained with its shutters still unclosed, and she looked out. The rain was las.h.i.+ng the gla.s.s with fury. She turned away and sought her own room again--complaining:

"Oh, I can never go to-night! It is too late and too stormy! Mrs.

Brudenell would think me crazy, and the woman at the hut would never let me have my son. Yet, oh! what would I not give to have him on my bosom to-night," said Berenice, pacing feverishly about the room.

"My lady," said the maid uneasily, "I don't think you are well at all this evening. Won't you let me give you some salvolatile?"

"No, I don't want any!" replied the countess, without stopping in her restless walk.

"But, my lady, indeed you are not well!" persisted the affectionate creature.

"No, I am not well, Phoebe! My heart is sore, sore, Phoebe! But that child would be a balm to it! If I could press my son to my bosom, Phoebe, he would draw out all the fire and pain!"

"But, my lady, he is not your son!" said the maid, with tears of alarm starting in her eyes.

"He is, girl! Now that his mother is dead he is mine! Who has a better right to him than I, I wonder? His mother is gone! his father--" Here the countess suddenly recollected herself, and as she looked into her maid's astonished face she felt how far apart were the ideas of the Jewish matron and the Christian maiden. She controlled her emotion, took her seat, and said:

"Don't be alarmed, Phoebe. I am only a little nervous to-night, my girl. And I want something more satisfactory than a little dog to pet."

"I don't think, my lady, you could get anything in the world more grateful, or more faithful, or more easy to manage, than a little dog.

Certainly not a baby. Babies is awful, my lady. They aint got a bit of grat.i.tude or faithfulness in them; and after you have toted them about all day, you may tote them about all night. And then they are bawling from the first day of January until the thirty-first day of December.

Take my advice, my lady, and stick to the little dogs, and let babies alone, if you love your peace."

The countess smiled faintly and kept silence. But--she kept her resolution also.

The last words that night spoken after she was in bed, and when she was about to dismiss her maid, were these:

"Phoebe, mind that you are not to say one word to any human being of the subject of our conversation to-night. But you are to call me at eight o'clock, have my breakfast brought to me here at half-past eight, and the carriage at the door at nine. Do you hear?"

"Yes, my lady," answered the girl, who immediately went to the small room adjoining her mistress' chamber, where she usually sat by day and slept by night.

The countess could only sleep in perfect darkness; so when Phoebe had put out all the lights she took advantage of that darkness to leave her door open, so that she could listen if her mistress was restless or wakeful. The maid soon discovered that her mistress was wakeful and restless.

The countess could not sleep for contemplating her project of the morning. According to her Jewish ideas, the motherless son of her husband was as much hers as though she had brought him into the world.

And thus she, poor, unloved and childless wife, was delighted with the son that she thought had dropped from heaven into her arms.