Rutledge.

by Miriam Coles Harris.

CHAPTER I.

"Heavily hangs the broad sunflower, Over its grave i' the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger lily."

TENNYSON.

It was the gloomy twilight of a gloomy November day; dark and leaden clouds were fast shutting out every lingering ray of daylight; and the wind, which moaned dismally around the house, was tossing into mad antics the leaves which strewed the playground. The lamps were not lighted yet; of visible fires the _pensionnat_ of St. Catharine's was innocent; a dull black stove, more or less gigantic, according to the size of the apartment, gloomed in every one, and affected favorably the thermometer, if not the imagination. We paced untiringly up and down the dim corridor--Nelly, Agnes and I--three children, who, by virtue of our youth, ought to have been let off, one would have thought, for some years yet, from the deep depression that was fast settling on our spirits. In truth we were all three very miserable, we thought--Nelly and Agnes, I am afraid, more so than I, who in common justice ought to have partic.i.p.ated deeply in, as I was the chief occasion of, their grief.

My trunk was packed and strapped, and stood outside the door of my dormitory, ready for the porter's attention. In it lay my school-books, closed forever, as I hoped; and souvenirs innumerable of school friendships and the undying love of the extremely young persons by whom I was surrounded.

From them I was to be severed to-morrow, as was expected, and

"It might be for years, and it might be for ever,"

as Nelly had just said, choking up on the last sentence. I _did_ feel unhappy, and very much like "choking up" too, when I pa.s.sed the great windows, that looked into the playground, and remembered all the mad hours of frolic I had pa.s.sed there; when I took down my shawl from the peg where it had hung nightly for five years, and remembered, with a thrill, it was "the last time;" when the lid of my empty desk fell down with an echo that sounded drearily through the long school-room; when I thought "where I might be this time to-morrow," and when Agnes' and Nelly's arms twined about me, reminded me of the rapidly approaching hour of separation from those who had represented the world to me for five years--whom I had loved and hated, and by whom I had been loved and hated, with all the fervor of sixteen. The hatreds now were softened down by the nearness of the parting; all my ancient foes, (and they had not been few), had "made up" and promised forgiveness and forgetfulness entire; and all ancient feuds were dead. All my friends now loved me with tenfold the ardor they had ever felt before; all the staff of teachers, who had, I am afraid, a great deal to forgive, of impatient self-will, mad spirits and thoughtless inattention, were good enough to forget all, and remember only what they were pleased to call the truth and honesty and courage, that in the years we had been together, they had never known to fail.

They little knew how their unlooked for praise humbled me; and how far more deeply than any reproach, it made me realize the waste of time and talents that I had to look back upon.

So, most unexpectedly to myself, I found that I was going off with flying colors; that all were joining to deplore my departure and laud my good qualities; and that, from being rather a "limb" in the eyes of the school, and a hopeless sinner in my own, I was promoted, temporarily, to the dignity of heroine at St. Catharine's.

It was with a very full heart that I remembered all this; and deeper feelings than I had known since my childhood were stirred by the kindness I was certain was as undeserved as it was unexpected. But such a future dawned before me, that tender regret struggled hard with giddy hope for the mastery. In almost every girl's life, leaving school is a marked and important event; and imagination has always a wide, and generally well-cultivated field for its powers, even when home and future are as certain as things mundane can be. But in my case there was so much room for dreaming, so much raw material for fancy to work up, that a tamer and less imaginative child than I was, would have been tempted into castle-building. The sad event that five years before had placed me, a stunned, bewildered, motherless child, in the midst of strangers, had largely developed the turn for dreaming that such children always possess. The sympathy and love that G.o.d provides for every child that is born into the world, withdrawn, they turn "not sullen, nor in scorn," but from an instinct He has himself implanted, inward, for their sympathy and counsel. So it happened, that though Nelly and Agnes, and a dozen merry girls beside, were my sworn friends and very firmest allies, none of them knew anything of the keen wonder and almost painful longing with which I pictured the future to myself.

They knew, of course, the simple facts, that as I had no father or mother, I was to go and live with my aunt, who had been in Europe until this summer and whom I had not seen since my mother died; that she had three daughters, one older, two younger than myself; that she had sent me some pretty things from Paris, and was, probably, very kind, and I should have a very nice time.

They knew only these bare beams and framework of the gorgeous fabric I had reared upon them; they little knew the hours of wakefulness in which I wondered whether I should be happy or miserable in that new home; whether my aunt would love me as I already most ardently loved her; whether the new cousins were at all like Nelly and Agnes; and whether they were prepared to value the wealth of affection I had in reserve for them. But time would soon settle all this into certainty; and my aunt's last letter, containing all the final arrangements for my journey, I at present knew by heart. The only possible shade of uncertainty about my starting, lay in the chance of the gentleman who was to be my escort, being detained by business a day or two longer at C----, and not arriving to-night, as had been considered probable.

Nelly built greatly upon this possibility, and as the twilight deepened, and the moaning wind and growing darkness pressed more and more upon us, we turned to that as our only chance of comfort. Nelly had said, for the twentieth time, "I am sure he will not come till to-morrow, it is too late for him now," when a sharp ring at the bell made us all start, and sent the blood swiftly enough through _my_ veins, and, I suppose, no less swiftly through my young companions'; for Nelly convulsively clasped me round the neck and burst into tears, while Agnes said, in a choking voice, "I'm certain of it!" And for three dreadful minutes of suspense we stood motionless, holding our breath, and watching for the first token of the approach of the messenger who should confirm or confute our forebodings.

At last, steps echoed along the hall, and bearing a dim candle, which blinked nervously at every step, appeared the Biddy who officiated as waiter at St. Catharine's. She had a card in her hand, and our end of the corridor seemed her destination, and our party the party she was in search of.

"Well?" said Agnes, making a distracted effort to break the silence, as Biddy groped stupidly and slowly toward us. "A gentleman," she said, "a gentleman to see you, miss," and she handed me the card. "I knew it,"

said Agnes, with a deep sigh, as, per favor of the blinking candle, the three heads, cl.u.s.tered over the card, made out the name, "Mr. Arthur Rutledge."

"Oh, I am so frightened!" I said, sitting down on the lowest step of the stairs. "Girls, what shall I do?"

Nelly shook her head; she did not wonder I was afraid; for five years I had encountered no gentlemen more alarming than the professors, and no strangers more intimidating than occasional new scholars; and knew no more how to conduct myself on this occasion, than if I had not received Miss Crowen's valuable instructions on deportment. I had been taught to swim, theoretically, on sh.o.r.e, and now was to be pushed suddenly out into deep water, to make the best use I could of my scientific knowledge. As was to be supposed, I found myself not much the better for it.

"He's not a young gentleman though," said Agnes, "and I shouldn't mind it much if I were you."

"Oh, of course he's not young, or Aunt Edith would not have had me go with him. He's as old as the hills, I know but that makes it so much the worse; and then, he was abroad with my aunt and cousins, and knows them all so well; and Aunt Edith calls him 'an accomplished gentleman of high standing;' and oh! I am sure I shall blush and act like a fool, and disgrace myself; and aunt is so particular."

Nelly condoled, Agnes counselled, and I stood shivering in an agony of apprehension and dismay, when the heavy tread of Miss Crowen on the stairs, gave an impetus to my faltering steps, and sent me parlor-wards with emphasis.

"If you don't hurry," whispered Agnes. "Miss Crowen will drag you in, and make one of her horrible speeches about educational advantages and mental culture, and put you through a course of mathematical problems, and make you show off on the piano, if not sing."

The wily Agnes had touched the right chord. Threatened with this new horror, I grew reckless, and without a moment more of hesitation, bolted into the parlor, and stood confronting the object of my terror, before I had had time in the least to prepare my line of conduct. I stood for a moment with burning cheeks and downcast eyes, unable to articulate a word, and saw nothing, heard nothing, till I found myself seated on the sofa, and being talked to in a kind manner by the dreaded stranger, who sat beside me. If my "Yes sir," and "No sir," came in in the right places, I can claim no sort of credit for it; for neither then nor now, had or have I the faintest apprehension of anything he said. By and by, however, under the influence of that steady unmoved voice, my alarm began to subside, and my scared senses, after fluttering hopelessly about, like a dislodged brood of swallows, began at last to collect themselves again, and resume their proper functions. By degrees I began to comprehend what he was talking about, and in process of time, commanded my voice sufficiently to answer him audibly, and before the interview was over, had the courage to raise my eyes, and satisfy myself as to the personal appearance of this my destined protector in the three days' journey we had in prospect.

And the result of this investigation was, the instant establishment, upon a firm basis, of ease and confidence. For few men or women, much less children or girls, ever looked into Mr. Rutledge's face, without feeling that they saw their master, but withal so firm and kind a master, that all thought of resistance to his will, or stubborn maintenance of their own, together with all foolish vanity and consciousness, vanished at once and forever, or returned but seldom, and was soon conquered. If I had cherished any romantic hope that this "accomplished gentleman" might prove anything out of which I could make that dearest dream of schoolgirl's heart, a lover, I likewise relinquished that most speedily, for nothing in the person before me, gave encouragement to such an idea. Rather below than above the medium size, and of a firm, well-proportioned figure, Mr. Rutledge gave one, from his commanding and decided carriage, the impression of a much larger man. His dark hair was slightly dashed with grey, his eyes were keen and cold, the lines of care and thought about his brow were deep and strong. If his face could be said to have an attraction, it lay in the rare smile that sometimes changed the sternness of his mouth into winning sweetness and grace. But this was so rare that it could hardly be called a characteristic of his habitually cold stern face. That it wore it that evening however, I knew then as now, was because I was a child, and a miserable, frightened one besides. I never doubted that he knew how I felt, and read me thoroughly.

The interview was, according to the prim little clock on the mantelpiece, by no means a long one; and after introducing (with but indifferent grace) Miss Crowen, who entered the room with elephantine tread, to my visitor, he took leave, having arranged to come for me the next morning at six.

That last evening, with its half-strange, excited novelty of leave-taking, and last messages and last thoughts, is still distinct in my memory; and the start with which I answered Biddy's call in the darkness of the November morning, the dressing with cold hurried hands that were not half equal to the task, the wild way in which everything came dancing through my mind, as I tried to say my prayers, the utter inability to taste a mouthful of the breakfast Miss Crowen herself had superintended, the thrill with which I heard the carriage drive up to the door, are as vivid as recollections can well be. And I am in no danger, either of forgetting the moment, when, with half a dozen of my schoolfellows who had been allowed to see me off, I descended the steps toward the carriage, the door of which Mr. Rutledge was holding open.

The kind good bye of Miss Crowen, the warm embraces of the girls, Nelly's tears, Agnes' wistful look, are memories I cannot part with if I would.

The carriage door shut to with a snap, the horses started forward at a brisk pace, and we were off, and I had left school and childhood behind me forever. I did not cry at all, though I felt desperately like it; but the consciousness that Mr. Rutledge looked sharply at me to see how I took it, made me struggle harder to keep back my tears, and seem womanly and composed. In this I succeeded beyond my hopes, and before half an hour had pa.s.sed, the bracing air of the fine autumn morning, the rapid pace at which we rolled along, and the new delight to my cloistered eyes, of farms, and villages, woods rich in the many colors of the fall, and meadows and uplands basking in its sunshine, made me feel as if I had been months away from school, and as if the melancholy of last night were some strange distant dream. Seventeen never dreamed more fantastic dreams than I did that morning, however, as I leaned back in the carriage and idly watched the gay landscape past which we were hurrying.

It was quite a relief to me that my companion, after attending to my comfort in every necessary way, settled himself in his corner of the carriage, and taking a book from his valise, devoted himself to its perusal, and left me to my own thoughts the entire morning. He did not put it up till we reached the town where we were to dine and wait for the cars.

Dinner did not prove a very animated meal; my companion, after asking me about school, and whether I felt sorry to leave it, and a few more questions of the same nature (such as people always put to school-girls, and by which they unconsciously give great offence), seemed to consider his conversational duty performed, and fell into a state of abstraction, which made his face look harder and colder than ever; and as I stealthily regarded him from under my eyelashes, some of last night's alarm threatened to return. But I tried to overcome it, and endeavored to rea.s.sure myself by remembering how kind he was when I was so much embarra.s.sed, and how well he had helped me through the interview that he might have made so terrible; and that he did not talk to me--why, certainly it was not strange that a gentleman of his age should not have much in common with a girl of mine.

By and by the cars came tearing through the town with a whoop and a shriek, that seemed to excite everybody wonderfully, considering the frequency of the occurrence. Pa.s.sengers, porters, newsboys, in one mad crowd, rushed toward the depot, each emulating in his own proper person, the n.o.ble rage of the snorting, impatient monster, upon whose energy we were all depending. The only individual entirely unexcited, was my escort, who never for a moment lost the appearance of sang froid and indifference that an earthquake would not have startled him out of, I was convinced. Though we did not hurry, we were, before many of our fellow-voyagers, in possession of the best seats, and most commodiously, because most deliberately, settled for the journey. Mr. Rutledge was emphatically a good traveller, carrying the clear-sighted precision and deliberation of his mind into all the details of travel, and thereby securing himself from the petty annoyances that people often think unworthy of attention, but which do more than they suspect, toward marring pleasure and destroying comfort. I aptly followed his manner, and was a marvel of unconcerned deliberation in the matter of securing my seat and arranging my shawls, books and bags; which drew from him the remark, with an approving glance, that he perceived I was used to travelling. That observation, either from the fact of its being so absurdly incorrect in its premises, or from the stronger fact of its being the only one addressed to me until 7 P.M., when we stopped at F---- for purposes of refreshment, impressed itself very much upon my mind.

After the wretched meal, called by compliment tea, which we were allowed twenty minutes to partake of, had been dispatched, and we were again settled in the cars in which we were to travel all night, commenced the trials of the journey--to me, at least, for I was an entire novice, not having been twenty miles away from St. Catharine's since I was first taken there, and having but a dim recollection of that, my first and last journey till the present time. Being also subject to the most unbearably severe headaches upon any unusual excitement, it is not very wonderful that on this occasion I was attacked with one, and before night had actually set in, was as completely miserable, as in the morning I had been completely happy. Excitement and weariness began to tell most painfully upon me. Not a bone but ached, not a nerve in my whole body but throbbed and quivered. It was as impossible to think quietly as to sit quietly. Homesickness, for the home I had been longing to get away from for five years--all the miserable things I had ever suffered or dreaded--all the fancied and real trials of my life, then and there beset my aching head, and made sleep or composure an impossibility.

If there had been a soul to speak to, a human voice to say a single word of sympathy, however commonplace, I thought it would have made the night endurable. But among the sleepy, senseless crowd around, the only one I had a right to expect attention from, or to whom I was ent.i.tled to address a word, was as regardless of my existence as any of the rest.

Mr. Rutledge occupied the seat before me, and the imperfect light of the lamp that rattled and flickered above us, showed me more plainly than any other object, his fixed, unsympathizing face, as he leaned against the window of the car, his lips compressed and his brow knit. He did not sleep any more than I did, nor do I think he was a whit more comfortable; but he had his impatience under better control, and never moved a muscle or uttered a sound for hours together.

It was the most torturing thing to watch him, so entirely unmoved by the discomforts that were, I was firmly convinced, driving me mad; and in my jaundiced eyes, his profile took a thousand wizard shapes. It would have been a relief if he had moved in ever so slight a degree to one side or the other; but a painted face upon a painted window could not have been more rigid than the one before me. I was dying of thirst, was smothering for want of air, ached in every limb, and there were hours yet to morning! The monotonous motion of the cars, and their accompanying noises, harsh and shrill, made to my perfectly unaccustomed ear a frightful combination of discord; and this all coming upon my excited and sensitive nerves, worked me up into a state of wretchedness that naturally resulted in that climax of woes feminine, a fit of crying.

I could no more have helped it than the wind could have helped blowing, and never having learned to control myself, could not suppress the indulgence of an emotion which, an hour afterward, I remembered with acute mortification. I tried to smother my sobs, but they reached at last the ear of my silent companion, who started, and turning toward me, asked, with a shade of impatience in his tone, what was the matter? Was I ill?

That question, so put, in the indescribable tone that shows to a sensitive ear a want of sympathy the most galling, was the best cure that could have been devised for my tears. They were done, altogether; but in their place, the angry blood flew to my face, and I inly vowed, in accordance with school-girl notions of right, never to forget or forgive the insult. Angrily averting my head, I declined any a.s.sistance or attention whatever, and pride having thus stepped in to the rescue, I was able to maintain as rigid a demeanor as Mr. Rutledge himself. For a moment he looked at me with an expression that I could not quite make out, then with the slightest possible shrug of the shoulders, turned away, and seating himself again in the corner, resumed his former att.i.tude. That was enough; all my spirit was roused; I had always been good at hating, but the present crisis brought out powers I had never been aware of before; and there was a great deal in the fact of my having made a fool of myself in the presence of Mr. Rutledge, to help me along in detesting him; and not being in a particularly reasonable or well-governed frame of mind, the aversion I had conceived increased with alarming rapidity. It was wonderful how powerful my resentment was to keep my weariness and impatience in check. I did not move an inch nor utter a single word; I would have borne the rack and torture rather than exhibit, after that shrug, another shade of emotion.

When at last, morning being broadly awake, we were released from our prison for an hour to breakfast and rest at a way-station that seemed most utterly repugnant to those two ideas, Mr. Rutledge asked me if I would not prefer, on account of my fatigue, waiting there till the next train, which would arrive at noon?

I answered, "_Decidedly_ not," with so much emphasis, that he only bowed and turned away; with what opinion of my temper it is not pleasant to think. Before the day was over, he had, I presume, concluded, that he had taken under his charge about as willful and disagreeable a young miss as ever tried the patience of parent or protector.

The day wore on, much after the manner of yesterday. That night at twelve, we expected to arrive at C---- where we were to rest till morning; and thence taking the boat, were to reach our journey's end about noon.

It was toward evening of that weary day; I was sitting listlessly looking out upon the dreary suburbs of the town which we seemed approaching, and thinking, by way of diverting myself, of Nelly and Agnes and school, and what they were doing now, and whether they missed me; when there came a sudden jar, then a horrid crash, a shriek that rent the air, a blow upon my head that made a hideous glare of light, then darkness absolute, and I knew no more.

CHAPTER II.

"The brightest rainbows ever play Above the fountains of our tears."

MACKAY.

How long after it was that consciousness returned, I cannot tell; if indeed that bewildered dizzy realization of things present that gradually forced itself upon me, can be called consciousness. I was lying on the ground, and looked, upon opening my eyes, up at the clear evening sky. It could not have been long after sunset, and all the scene around me, when at last I tried to comprehend it, was distinct enough.

Some distance from where I lay, there was a bridge and an embankment, perhaps thirty feet high. Between that and me, a horrid ma.s.s loomed up against the sky, black and shapeless, one car piled above another in an awful wreck. Dark figures lay around me on the ground, some writhing in agony, others motionless and rigid; groans and cries the most appalling smote my ear. But my ear and all my senses were so stunned and bewildered, that to see and hear was not to feel alarm or awe or pity, only dull stupor and discomfort. I did not feel the least desire to move or speak, the least solicitude about my fate. Half unconsciously I lay watching the fading light in the sky, and the dark figures that soon were swarming around, bending over and raising up the wounded, and thrusting lanterns into the faces of such as lay stiff and still and did not heed their e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.