Fashion and Famine. Ann S. Stephens
to walk about again.
As the lady was pacing to and fro in her boudoir, her foot became entangled in the handkerchief which she had so passionately wrested from the strawberry-girl, when in her gentle sympathy the child would have wiped the tears from her eyes. She took the cambric in her hand, not without a shudder; it might be of pain; it might be that some hidden joy blended itself with the emotion; but with an effort at self-control she turned to a corner of the handkerchief, and examined a name written there with attention.
Again some powerful change of feeling seemed to sweep over her; she folded the handkerchief with care, and went out of the room, still grasping it in her hand. Slowly, and as if impelled against her wishes, this singular woman mounted a flight of serpentine stairs, which wound up the tower that Julia had described as a steeple, and entered a remote room of the dwelling. Even here the same silent splendor, the same magnificent gloom that pervaded the whole dwelling, was darkly visible. Though perfectly alone, carpets thick as forest moss muffled her foot-steps, till they gave forth no echo to betray her presence. Like a spirit she glided on, and but for her breathing she might have been taken for something truly supernatural, so singular was her pale beauty, so strangely motionless were her eyes.
For a moment the lady paused, as if calling up the locality of some object in her mind, then she opened the door of a small room and entered.
A wonderful contrast did that little chamber present to the splendor through which she had just passed. No half twilight reigned there; no gleams of rich coloring awoke the imagination; everything was chaste and almost severe in its simplicity. Half a shutter had been left open, and thus a cold light was admitted to the chamber, revealing every object with chilling distinctness:—the white walls; the faded carpet on the floor; and the bed piled high with feathers, and covered with a patch-work quilt pieced from many gorgeously colored prints, now somewhat faded and mellowed by age. Half a dozen stiff maple chairs stood in the room. In one corner was a round mahogany stand, polished with age, and between the windows hung a looking-glass framed in curled maple. No one of these articles bore the slightest appearance of recent use, and common-place as they would have seemed in another dwelling, in that house they looked mysteriously out of keeping.
The lady looked around as she entered the room, and her face expressed some new and strong emotion; but she had evidently schooled her feelings, and a strong will was there to second every mental effort. After one quick survey her eyes fell upon the carpet. It was an humble fabric, such as the New England housewives manufacture with their own looms and spinning wheels; stripes of hard, positive colors contrasted harshly together, and even time had failed to mellow them into harmony; though faded and dim, they still spread away from the feet harsh and disagreeable. No indifferent person would have looked upon that cheerless object twice; but it seemed to fascinate the gaze of the singular woman, as no artistic combination of colors could have done. Her eyes grew dim as she gazed; her step faltered as she moved across the faded stripes; and reaching a chair near the bed, she sunk upon it pale and trembling. The tremor went off after a few minutes, but her face retained its painful whiteness, and she fell into thought so deep that her attitude took the repose of a statue.
Thus an hour went by. The storm had increased, and through the window which opened upon a garden, might be seen the dark sway of branches tossed by the roaring wind, and blackened with the gathering night. The rain poured down in sheets, and beat upon the spacious roof like the rattle of artillery. Gloom and commotion reigned around. The very elements seemed vexed with new troubles as that beautiful woman entered the room whose humble simplicity seemed so unsuited to her.
Ada saw nothing of the storm, or if she did, the wildness and gloom seemed but a portion of the tumult in her own heart. Yet how still and calm she was—that strange being! At length the chain of iron thought seemed broken; she turned toward the bed, laid her hand gently down upon the quilt, and gazed at the faded colors till some string in her proud heart gave way, and sinking down with her face buried in the scant pillows, she wept like a child. Every limb in her body began to tremble. The bed shook under her, and notwithstanding the stormy elements, the noise of her bitter sobs filled the room. The voice of her grief was soon broken by another sound—the sound of passionate kisses lavished upon the pillows, the quilt, and the homespun linen upon the bed. She looked at them through her tears; she smoothed them out with her trembling hands; she laid her cheek against them lovingly, as a punished child will sometimes caress the very garments of a mother whose forgiveness it craves; yet in all this you saw that this strange, almost insane excitement was not usual to the woman—that she was not one to yield her strength to a light passion; and this made her grief the more touching. You felt that if such storms often swept across her track of life, she did not bow herself to them without a fierce struggle.
She lay upon the bed weeping and faint with exhausted emotion, when the sound of a closing door rang through the building. This was followed by stumbling footsteps so heavy that even the turf-like carpets could not muffle them. The lady started up, listened an instant, and then hurried from the room, closing the door carefully after her. It was now almost dark, and but for the angular figure and ungainly attitude of the person she found in her boudoir, she might not have recognized her own servant, who stood waiting her approach.
"Jacob, you have come—well!" said the lady in a low voice.
"Yes, and a pretty time I have had of it," said the man, drawing back from the hand which she had almost placed upon his arm, and shaking himself with much of the surliness, and all the indifference of a mastiff, till the rain fell in showers from his coat. "I am soaking wet, ma'm, and dangerous to come near—it might give you a cold."
"It is raining then?" said the lady, subduing her impatience.
"Raining! I should think it was, and blowing too. Why, don't you hear the wind yelling and tusseling with the trees back of the house?"
"I have not noticed," answered the lady, mournfully; "I was thinking of other things."
"Of him, I suppose!" There was something husky in the man's voice as he spoke, the more remarkable that his strong Down East pronunciation was usually prompt, and clear from any signs of feeling.
"Yes, of him and of them! Jacob, this has been a terrible day to me."
"And to me, gracious knows!" muttered the man, giving his coat another rough shake.
"Yes, you have been upon your feet all day—you are wet through, my kind friend, and all to serve me—I know that it is hard!"
"Nothing of the sort!—nothing of the sort! Who on earth complained, I should like to know? A little rain, poh!" exclaimed the man, evidently annoyed that his vexation, uttered in an under tone, should have reached the lady's ear.
"No, you never do complain, Jacob; and yet you have often found me an exacting mistress—or friend, I should rather say—for it is long since I have considered you as anything else. I have often taxed your strength and patience too far!"
"There it is again!" answered the man, with a sort of rough impatience, which, however, had nothing unkind or disrespectful in it—"jist as if I was complaining or discontented—jist as if I wasn't your hired man—no, servant, that is the word—to serve, wait, tend on you; and hadn't been ever since the day—but no matter about that—jist now I've been down town as you ordered."
"Well!"
Oh! how much of exquisite self-control was betrayed by the low, steady tone in which that little word was uttered.
"Of course," said the man, "I could do nothing without help. The little girl's story was enough to prove that—that he was in town, but it only went so far. She neither knew which way he drove, or how the coach was numbered; so it seemed very much like searching for a needle in a hay-mow. But you wanted to know where he was, and I determined to find out. Wal, this morning, as we left the steamer, I saw a man in the crowd with a great, gilt star on his breast, and as the thing looked rather odd for a republican, I asked what it meant. It was a policeman; they have got up a new system here in the city, it seems, and from what was said on the wharf, I thought it no bad idea to get some of these men to help me to search for Mr. Leicester."
"Hush,