A Face Illumined Part 38

"I dread to leave you looking so sad and ill, or else I would say good-night also," said Van Berg.

She started as if she had half forgotten his presence, and kept her face averted as she replied:

"I will say good-night to you, Mr. Van Berg. I would prove poor company this evening."

"Before you go I wish to thank you for letting me stay," he said, hastily. "As Mr. Musgrave a.s.serted, you would indeed never have told me what I have heard, and yet I would not have missed hearing it for more than you will believe. How many lives have you blessed, Jennie Burton?"

"Not very many, I fear, but I half wish I knew. Each one would be like an argument."

"Arguments that should prove that you ought to let the dead past bury its dead, and live in the richer present," he said, earnestly.

"The richer present!" she repeated slowly, and her face grew almost stern in its reproach.

"Forgive me--in the present you so enrich, then," he said, eagerly.

Again she averted her face, and he saw that for some reason she wished to avoid his eyes.

"I am too weak and unnerved to do more than say good-night again,"

she said, trying to smile. "You are fast learning that if you would be my friend you must be a patient and generous one."

"Thank heaven I came to the Lake House!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the artist as he strolled out into the star-light. Thank heaven for this mingling mystery and crystal purity. It does me good to trust her. There is a deep and abiding joy in the very generosity she inspires. I am learning the spell under which Emily Musgrave came. But how strange it all is! She expected some one to-night, whom she would have welcomed as she never will me. "The only rival I have to fear may not be dead, as I supposed, and yet my perverse heart is more full of pity for her than jealousy. I had no idea that I was capable of such self-abnegation. Has she the art of spiritual alchemy, and so can trans.m.u.te natures full of alloy into fine gold?"

Van Berg was an acute observer, and had large acquaintance with the world in which he lived, and its inhabitants. He was in the main, however, an unknown quant.i.ty to himself.

Chapter x.x.xIV. Puzzled.

Tuesday was dreary enough to more than one at the Lake House.

Clouds covered the sky, yet they gave little promise of the rain which the thirsty earth so needed. To Ida, as she looked out late in the morning, they seemed like a leaden wall around her, shutting off all avenues of escape.

Her mother joined her as she went down to a cold and dismal breakfast, long after all the other guests had left the dining-room, and she commenced fretting and fuming, as was her custom when the world did not arrange itself to suit her mood.

"Everything is on the bias to-day," she said, "and you most of all from your appearance. I wish I could see things straightened out for once. The little school-ma'am, who turns everybody's head, is sick in her room, and did not come down to breakfast. Therefore we had a Quaker meeting. If you had been present with your long face, the occasion would have been one of oppressive solemnity. Ik appeared as dejected as if he were to be executed before dinner, and scarcely ate a mouthful; I never saw a fellow so changed in all my life. Although your artist friend had a rapt, absorbed look, he was still able to absorb a good deal of steak and coffee. I saw him and Miss Burton emerge from a private parlor last night, and he probably understands Miss Burton's malady better than the rest of us. Why--what's the matter? Would to heaven I understood your malady better! Are you sick?"

"Yes," said Ida, rising abruptly from the table, "I am sick--sick of myself, sick of the world."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Mayhew, sharply, "are you so wrapt up in that fellow Sibley, that you can't live without him?"

Ida made a slight but expressive gesture of protest and disgust; then said, in a low tone, as if to herself: "If my own mother so misjudges me, what can I expect of others?"

Mrs. Mayhew followed her daughter to her room with a perplexed and worried look.

"Ida," she began, "you are all out of sorts; you are bilious; you've got this horrid malaria, that the doctors are always talking about, in your system. Let me send for our city physician, Doctor Betts.

Never was such a man at diagnosis. He seems to look right inside of one and see everything that's going on wrong."

"For heaven's sake don't send for him then!" exclaimed Ida.

Mrs. Mayhew looked askance at her daughter a moment, and then asked bluntly:

"Why? What's going on wrong in you?"

"I do not know of anything that's going on right,--to use your own phraseology."

"You mean to say, then, that there is something wrong?"

"You intimated at the breakfast-table that everything was going wrong. So it has seemed to me, for some time. But come, mother, drugs can't reach my trouble, and so you can't help me. You must leave me to myself."

"I think you might tell your own mother what is the matter," whined Mrs. Mayhew.

"I think I might also," said Ida, coldly. "It is not my fault but my great misfortune that I cannot."

At this Mrs. Mayhew whimpered: "You are very cruel to talk to me in that way."

"I suppose I'm everything that's bad," Ida answered recklessly.

"That seems to be the general verdict. Perhaps it would be best for you all were I out of the way. I can scarcely remember when I have had a friendly look from any one. Things could not be much worse with me than they are now. I think I would like a change, and may have a very decided one." Then seizing her hat, she left her mother to herself.

Mrs. Mayhew sank into a chair, and a heavy frown gathered on her brow as she thought deeply for a few moments.

"That girl means mischief," she muttered. "I wonder if she is holding any communication with Sibley? I always thought Ida would take care of herself, but she'll bear watching now. She hasn't been like herself since she came to this place. I must consult Ik at once. Things are bad enough now, heaven knows; but if Ida should do anything disgraceful, I'd have to throw up the game." (Mrs.

Mayhew was an inveterate card-player, and her favorite amus.e.m.e.nt often colored her thoughts and words.)

Stanton was found smoking and pretending to read a newspaper in a retired corner of the piazza, but from which, nevertheless, he could see whether Miss Burton made her appearance during the morning.

Mrs. Mayhew explained her fears, and the young man used very strong language in expressing his disgust and irritation.

"A curse upon it all!" he concluded. "Since she must, and apparently will gratify this low taste, can you not return to New York, patch up the fellow into some sort of respectability and marry them with a blare of brazen instruments that will drown the world's unpleasant remarks?"

"That would be better than the scandal of an elopement," mused perplexed Mrs. Mayhew. "From what you say, Sibley is bad enough, and Ida seems reckless enough to do anything. I wish we had never come here."

"So do I," groaned Stanton. "No, I don't, either. In fact I'm in a devil of a mess myself. You know it, and I suppose all see it.

I can't help it if they do. My pa.s.sion, no doubt, is vain, but it's to my credit. Ida's is disgraceful to herself and to us all.

If I'd been here alone and Van Berg had not come, I might have succeeded; but NOW"--and with a despairing gesture he turned away.

"Ik, come back," cried his aunt, "of course I feel for you. You are independent, and can marry whom you please, though heaven knows you could do better than---"

"Heaven knows nothing of the kind," he interrupted, irritably, "and if you were nearer heaven--but there, what's the use."

"You're right now, Ik. We can't afford to quarrel. You must talk to Ida. We must watch her. Find out if you can what is in her mind, and if the worst comes to the worst, they will have to be married. I suppose it will be wise to hint to her that if she WILL marry Sibley she had better do it in as respectable and quiet a way as possible."

"The idea of anything being respectable and quiet where they are concerned!" snarled Stanton.

"Well, well," groaned Mrs. Mayhew, "do your best."