A Face Illumined Part 5

"You seem to be learning your friend's hateful manners."

"I asked you this morning if you would take a drive, and you declined."

"I changed my mind."

"Very abruptly, indeed, it seemed. Since you took so much touble to annoy my friend, it's a pity you failed."

"I don't believe I failed. He's probably as cross as you are about it, only he can keep it to himself."

"Dove-like creatiah! thanks. Will you please drive while I light a cigar?"

"I don't like any one to smoke as near me as you are."

"If your theory in regard to Van Berg is correct, none of us will enjoy what we like this afternoon. Of course I never smoke without a lady's permission, but unless quieted by a cigar, I am a very reckless driver," and he enforced his words by a sharp crack of the whip, which sent the horses off like the wind.

"Oh, stop them; smoke; do anything hateful you wish, so you don't break my neck. I will never ride with you again, and I wish I had never come to this horrid place; and if your sneering painter does not leave soon, I will."

"I'm afraid Van would survive, and you only suffer from your spite.

But come, since you have so sweetly permitted me to smoke, I'll make your penance as light as possible, and then we will consider matters even between us," and away they bowled up breezy hills and down into shady valleys, Stanton stolidly smoking, and Ida nursing her petty wrath. Two flitting ghosts hastening to escape from the light of day, could not have seen less, or have felt less sympathy with the warm beautiful scenes through which they were pa.s.sing.

There is no insulation so perfect as that of small, selfish natures preoccupied with a pique.

When, late in the afternoon, her cousin, with mock politeness, a.s.sisted her to alight at the entrance of the hotel, Ida was compelled to feel that she had indeed been the chief victim of her own spite.

but, with the usual logic of human nature, she never thought of blaming herself, and her resentment was chiefly directed against the man whose every word and glance, although he was but a stranger, had seemed to possess a power to annoy and wound from the first.

She felt an almost venomous desire to retaliate; but he appeared invulnerable in his quiet and easy superiority, while she, who expected, as a matter of course, that all masculine thoughts should follow her admiringly, had been compelled to see that his critical eyes had detected that in her which had awakened his contempt.

"I'll teach him this evening, when my gentlemen friends arrive, how ridiculous are his airs," she muttered, as she went to her room and sought to enhance her beauty by all the arts of which she was the mistress. "I'll show him that there are plenty who can see what he cannot, or will not. Because he is an artist, he need not think he can face me out of the knowledge of my beauty, the existence of which I have been a.s.sured of by so many eyes and tongues ever since I can remember."

When she came down to await the arrival of the stages and carriages, she was indeed radiant with all the beauty of which she was then capable. Her neck and shoulders, with their exquisite lines and curves, were more suggestively revealed than hidden by a slight drapery of gauze-like illusion, and her white rounded arms were bare. She trod with the light airy grace of youth, and yet with the a.s.sured manner of one who is looking forward to the familiar experiences of a reigning belle.

Van Berg, from his quiet corner of observation, was compelled to admit that, seen at her present distance, she almost embodied his best dreams, and might do so wholly were there less of the fas.h.i.+onable art of the hour, and more of nature in her appearance. But he knew well that if she came nearer, and spoke so as to reveal herself, the fatal defect in her beauty would be as apparent as a black line running athwart the sculptured face of a Greek G.o.ddess. The only question with him was, did the ominous deformity lie so near the surface that it could be refined away, or was it ingrained into the very material of her nature, thus forming an essential part of herself? He feared that the latter might be true, or that the remedy was far beyond his skill or power; but every glance he caught of the girl, as with her mother she paced the farther end of the piazza, deepened his regret, as an artist, that so much beauty should be in degrading bondage to a seeming fool.

Chapter VI. Reckless Words and Deeds.

Light carriages now began to wheel rapidly up to the entrance, and were followed soon by the lumbering and heavily-laden stages.

Joyous greetings and merry repartee made the scene pleasant to witness even by one who, like Van Berg, had no part in it. Stanton, who at this moment joined him, drew his special attention to a thin and under-sized gentleman somewhat past middle age, who mounted the steps with a tread that was as inelastic as his face was devoid of animation.

"There is poor Uncle Mayhew," remarked the young man indifferently.

"I suppose I must go and speak to him."

"Mr. Mayhew?" said Van Berg, in some surprise. "You have not spoken of him before. I was not aware that there was any such person in existence."

"You are not to blame for that," replied Stanton with a shrug.

"You might have been one of the friends of the family and scarcely have learned the fact. Indeed, poor man, he only about half exists, for he has been so long overshadowed by his fas.h.i.+onable wife and daughter, that he is but a sickly plant of a man."

Van Berg saw that the greeting received by Mr. Mayhew from his wife and daughter was very undemonstrative to say the least, and that then the gentleman quickly disappeared, as if fearing that he might be in the way.

"From my very limited means of judging," Van Berg remarked, "I cannot see anything more objectionable in the head of the family than in the other members."

"Your phrase, 'head of the family,' as applied to Mr. Mayhew, makes me smile. His name figures at the head of the large family bills, but scarcely elsewhere with much prominence. You will soon learn, if you remain here, that Mr. Mayhew imbibes rather more than is good for him, so I may as well mention the disagreeable fact at once. But to do the poor man justice, I suppose he drinks to keep his spirits up to the ordinary level, rather than from any hope of becoming a little jolly occasionally. Why my aunt married him I scarcely know; and yet I have often thought that he might be a very different did she not so quench him by a manner all her own.

As it is, his life seems to consist of toiling and moiling all the week, and of stolidly and joylessly soaking himself into semi-stupidity on Sunday. It this wretched state of affairs could be kept secret I would not mention it even to you, my intimate friend; but, since it continues no secret wherever they happen to remain for any length of time, I would rather tell you the exact truth at once, than permit you to guess at it through distorted rumors. As you artists occasionally express yourselves concerning pictures, so I suppose you will think that this family, with all its wealth is quite lacking in tone."

"Well, Stanton, I must admit that I find myself chiefly inclined towards the subdued and neutral-tinted Mr. Mayhew. If you have a chance I wish you would introduce me to him."

"Are you in earnest?"

"Certainly."

"Then I'll ask him to smoke with us after supper. Well, Van, I congratulate you again that your correct and cultivated taste enabled you to see the fatal flaw in my cousin's beauty. If you had been bewitched by her, and had insisted on imagining (as so many others have done) that her faultless features were the reflex of what she is or could become in mind and character, I might have had a good deal of trouble with you; for you are a mulish fellow when you get a purpose in your head. I don't care how badly singed the average run of moths become. You may see two or three fluttering around to-night, if you care to look on, but I wish no friend of mine to make sport, at serious cost to himself, for yonder incorrigible coquette, if she is my cousin. But after what you have seen and now know, you would be safe enough, even if predisposed to folly. The little minx! but I punished her well for her spite this afternoon."

"O most prudent Ulysses! you have indeed filled my ears with wax.

I thank you all the same as if my danger were greater."

"Well, view them all with such charity as you can. I hope you were not very much annoyed by the loss of your ride. The young lady will not be in a hurry to play such a trick again. I'll join you after supper in this your favorite and out-of-the-way corner."

"Was beauty ever environed within and without by such desperately prosaic and inartistic surroundings?" mused Van Berg. "It glistens like a lost jewel in an ash-barrel; or, more correctly, it is like an exquisite flower that nature has perversely made the outcome of a rank and poisonous vine. Of course the flower is poisonous also, and as soon as its first delicate bloom is over, will grow as rank and repulsive as the vine that bears it. Like produces like; and with such parentage, what hope is there for her? I am glad no one suspects my absurd project; for every hour convinces me of its impracticability. The ancient Undine was a myth, and my modern Undine might be called a white lie, but one that will grow darker every day. At a distance she presents the semblance of a very fair woman, but I have been unable to detect a single element yet that will prevent her from developing into an old and ugly hag, in spite of all that art and costume can do for her."

After supper Stanton brought Mr. Mayhew to Van Berg's retired nook, and the artist gave the hand of the weary, listless man such a cordial pressure as to cause him a slight surprise, but after satisfying his faint interest by a brief glance, he turned the back of his chair towards all the gay company, although it contained his wife and daughter, puffed mechanically at his cigar, and looked vacantly into s.p.a.ce. Before the evening was over, however, Van berg had drawn from him several quite animated remarks, and secured the promise that he would join him and Stanton in a ramble immediately after breakfast the following morning.

Nor had the young man been oblivious of the daughter who now seemed in her native element. From his dusky point of observation he caught frequent glimpses of her, now whirling through a waltz in the parlor, now talking and laughing in a rather p.r.o.nounced way from the midst of a group of gentlemen, and again coquettishly stealing off with one of them through the moonlit walks. Her manner, whether a.s.sumed or real, was that of extravagant gaiety. Occasionally she seemed to glance towards their obscure corner, but neither she nor her mother came to seek the man who had been toiling all the week to maintain their idle luxury.

As Mrs. Mayhew and her daughter were preparing for dinner on the following day, Mr. Mayhew entered with a brisker step than usual.

"Why, father, where have you been?" Ida asked, surprised by the fact that he had not been drinking and dozing in his room all the morning.

"I have been shown a glimpse of something that I have not seen for many years."

"Indeed, and what is that?"

"Beauty that seemed beautiful."

"That's a compliment to us," remarked Mrs. Mayhew, acidly.

"I mean the kind of beauty which does one good and makes a man wish that he were a man."

"Do you mean an unmarried man?" said his wife with a discordant laugh.

"Probably your own wishes suggested that speech, madam," replied the husband, bitterly.

"And pray, where did you find so much beauty?" said Mrs. Mayhew, ignoring his last remark.

"On a breezy hill-side. It's a kind of beauty, too, that one can enjoy without paying numberless bills for its enhancement. I refer to that of the scenery."