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St. Elmo

<h2 id="id01283" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XVI.</h2> One afternoon, about ten days after the receipt of Mr. Manning's letter, when Edna returned from the parsonage, she found the family assembled on the front veranda, and saw that the expected visitor had arrived. As Mrs. Murray introduced her to Mr. Allston, the latter rose, advanced a few steps, and held out his hand. Edna was in the act of giving him hers, when the heart-shaped diamond cluster on his finger flashed, and one swift glance at his face and figure made her snatch away her hand ere it touched his, and draw back with a half-smothered exclamation. He bit his lip, looked inquiringly around the circle, smiled, and returning to his seat beside Estelle, resumed the gay conversation in which he had been engaged. Mrs. Murray was leaning over the iron balustrade, twining a wreath of multiflora around one of the fluted columns, and did not witness the brief pantomime; but when she looked around she could not avoid remarking the unwonted pallor and troubled expression of the girl's face. "What is the matter, child? You look as if you were either ill or dreadfully fatigued." "I am tired, thank you," was the rather abstracted reply, and she walked into the house and sat down before the open window in the library. The sun had just gone down behind a fleecy cloud-mountain and kindled a volcano, from whose silver-rimmed crater fiery rays of scarlet shot up, almost to the clear blue zenith; while here and there, through clefts and vapory gorges, the lurid lava light streamed down toward the horizon. Vacantly her eyes rested on this sky-Hecla, and its splendor passed away unheeded, for she was looking far beyond the western gates of day, and saw a pool of blood—a ghastly face turned up to the sky—a coffined corpse strewn with white poppies and rosemary—a wan, dying woman, whose waving hair braided the pillow with gold—a wide, deep grave under the rustling chestnuts, from whose green arches rang the despairing wail of a broken heart: "Oh, Harry! my husband!" Imagination travelling into the past, painted two sunny-haired, prattling babes, suddenly smitten with orphanage, and robed in mourning garments for parents whose fond, watchful eyes were closed forever under wild clover and trailing brambles. Absorbed in retrospection of that June day, when she stood by the spring, and watched "God make himself an awful rose of dawn," she sat with her head resting against the window-facing, and was not aware of Mr. Murray's entrance until his harsh, querulous voice startled her. "Edna Earl! what apology have you to offer for insulting a relative and guest of mine under my roof?" "None, sir." "What! How dare you treat with unparalleled rudeness a visitor, whose claim upon the courtesy and hospitality of this household is certainly more legitimate and easily recognized than that of—" He stopped and kicked out of his way a stool upon which Edna's feet had been resting. She had risen, and they stood face to face. "I am waiting to hear the remainder of your sentence, Mr. Murray." He uttered an oath, and hurled his cigar through the window. "Why the d—l did you refuse to shake hands with Allston? I intend to know the truth, and it may prove an economy of trouble for you to speak it at once." "If you demand my reasons, you must not be offended at the plainness of my language. Your cousin is a murderer, and ought to be hung! I could not force myself to touch a hand all smeared with blood." Mr. Murray leaned down and looked into her eyes. "You are either delirious or utterly mistaken with reference to the identity of the man. Clinton is no more guilty of murder than you are, and I have been led to suppose that you are rather too 'pious' to attempt the role of Marguerite de Brinvillers or Joanna of Hainault! Cufic lore has turned your brain; 'too much learning hath made thee mad.'" "No, sir, it is no hallucination; there can be no mistake; it is a horrible, awful fact, which I witnessed, which is burned on my memory, and which will haunt my brain as long as I live. I saw him shoot Mr. Dent, and heard all that passed on that dreadful morning. He is doubly criminal—is as much the murderer of Mrs. Dent as of her husband, for the shock killed her. Oh! that I could forget her look and scream of agony as she fainted over her husband's coffin!" A puzzled expression crossed Mr. Murray's face; then he muttered: "Dent? Dent? Ah! yes; that was the name of the man whom Clinton killed in a duel. Pshaw! you have whipped up a syllabub storm in a tea-cup! Allston only took 'satisfaction' for an insult offered publicly by Dent." His tone was sneering and his lip curled, but a strange pallor crept from chin to temples; and a savage glare in his eyes, and a thickening scowl that bent his brows till they met, told of the brewing of no slight tempest of passion. "I know, sir, that custom, public opinion, sanctions—at least tolerates that relic of barbarous ages—that blot upon Christian civilization which, under the name of 'duelling,' I recognize as a crime, a heinous crime, which I abhor and detest above all other crimes! Sir, I call things by their proper names, stripped of the glozing drapery of conventional usage. You say 'honorable satisfaction'; I say murder! aggravated, unpardonable murder; murder without even the poor palliation of the sudden heat of anger. Cool, deliberate, willful murder, that stabs the happiness of wives and children, and for which it would seem that even the infinite mercy of Almighty God could scarcely accord forgiveness! Oh! save me from the presence of that man who can derive 'satisfaction' from the reflection that he has laid Henry and Helen Dent in one grave, under the quiet shadow of Lookout, and brought desolation and orphanage to their two innocent, tender darlings! Shake hands with Clinton Allston? I would sooner stretch out my fingers to clasp those of Gardiner, reeking with the blood of his victims, or those of Ravaillac! Ah! well might Dante shudder in painting the chilling horrors of Cama." The room was dusky with the shadow of coming night; but the fading flush, low in the west, showed St. Elmo's face colorless, rigid, repulsive in its wrathful defiance. He bent forward, seized her hands, folded them together, and grasping them in both his, crushed them against his breast. "Ha! I knew that hell and heaven were leagued to poison your mind! That your childish conscience was frightened by tales of horror, and your imagination harrowed up, your heart lacerated by the cunning devices of that arch maudlin old hypocrite! The seeds of clerical hate fell in good ground, and I see a bountiful harvest nodding for my sickle! Oh! you are more pliable than I had fancied! You have been thoroughly trained down yonder at the parsonage. But I will be—" There was a trembling pant in his voice like that of some wild creature driven from its jungle, hopeless of escape, holding its hunters temporarily at bay, waiting for death. The girl's hand ached in his unyielding grasp and after two ineffectual efforts to free them, a sigh of pain passed her lips and she said proudly: "No, sir; my detestation of that form of legalized murder, politely called 'duelling,' was not taught me at the parsonage. I learned it in my early childhood, before I ever saw Mr. Hammond; and though I doubt not he agrees with me in my abhorrence of the custom, I have never heard him mention the subject." "Hypocrite! hypocrite! Meek little wolf in lamb's wool! Do you dream that you can deceive me? Do you think me an idiot, to be cajoled by your low-spoken denials of a fact which I know? A fact, to the truth of which I will swear till every star falls!" "Mr. Murray, I never deceived you, and I know that however incensed you may be, however harsh and unjust, I know that in your heart you do not doubt my truthfulness. Why you invariably denounce Mr. Hammond when you happen to be displeased with me, I can not conjecture; but I tell you solemnly that he has never even indirectly alluded to the question of 'duelling' since I have known him. Mr. Murray, I know you do entirely believe me when I utter these words." A tinge of red leaped into his cheek, something that would have been called hope in any other man's eyes looked out shyly under his heavy black lashes, and a tremor shook off the sneering curl of his bloodless lips. Drawing her so close to him that his hair touched her forehead, he whispered: "If I believe in you, my—it is in defiance of judgment, will, and experience, and some day you will make me pay a most humiliating penalty for my momentary weakness. To-night I trust you as implicitly as Samson did the smooth-lipped Delilah; to-morrow I shall realize that, like him, I richly deserve to be shorn for my silly credulity." He threw her hands rudely from him, turned hastily and left the library. Enda sat down and covered her face with her bruised and benumbed fingers, but she could not shut out the sight of something that astonished and frightened her—of something that made her shudder from head to foot, and crouch down in her chair cowed and humiliated. Hitherto she had fancied that she thoroughly understood and sternly governed her heart—that conscience and reason ruled it; but within the past hour it had suddenly risen in dangerous rebellion, thrown off its allegiance to all things else, and insolently proclaimed St. Elmo Murray its king. She could not analyze her new feelings, they would not obey the summons to the tribunal of her outraged self-respect; and with bitter shame and reproach and abject contrition, she realized that she had begun to love the sinful, blasphemous man who had insulted her revered grandfather, and who barely tolerated her presence in his house. This danger had never once occurred to her, for she had always believed that love could only exist where high esteem and unbounded reverence prepared the soil; and she was well aware that this man's character had from the first hour of their acquaintance excited her aversion and dread. Ten days before she had positively disliked and feared him; now, to her amazement, she found him throned in her heart, defying ejection. The sudden revulsion bewildered and mortified her, and she resolved to crush out the feeling at once, cost what it might. When Mr. Murray had asked if she loved any one else better than Mr. Leigh, she thought, nay she knew, she answered truly in the negative. But now, when she attempted to compare the two men, such a strange, yearning tenderness pleaded for St. Elmo, and palliated his grave faults, that the girl's self-accusing severity wrung a groan from the very depths of her soul. When the sad discovery was first made, conscience lifted its hands in horror, because of the man's reckless wickedness; but after a little while a still louder clamor was raised by womanly pride, which bled at the thought of tolerating a love unsought, unvalued; and with this fierce rush of reinforcements to aid conscience, the insurgent heart seemed destined to summary subjugation. Until this hour, although conscious of many faults, she had not supposed that there was anything especially contemptible in her character; but now the feeling of self-abasement was unutterably galling. She despised herself most cordially, and the consistent dignity of life which she had striven to attain appeared hopelessly shattered. While the battle of reason versus love was at its height, Mrs. Murray put her head in the room and asked: "Edna! Where are you, Edna?" "Here I am." "Why are you sitting in the dark? I have searched the house for you." She groped her way across the room, lighted the gas, and came to the window. "What is the matter, child? Are you sick?" "I think something must be the matter, for I do not feel at all like myself," stammered the orphan, as she hid her face on the window-sill. "Does your head ache?" "No, ma'am." She might have said very truly that her heart did. "Give me your hand, let me feel your pulse. It is very quick, but shows nervous excitement rather than fever. Child, let me see your tongue, I hear there are some typhoid cases in the neighborhood. Why, how hot your cheeks are!" "Yes, I shall go up and bathe them, and perhaps I may feel better." "I wish you would come into the parlor as soon as you can, for Estelle says Clinton thought you were very rude to him; and though I apologized on the score of indisposition, I prefer that you should make your appearance this evening. Stop, you have dropped your handkerchief." Edna stooped to pick it up, saw Mr. Murray's name printed in one corner, and her first impulse was to thrust it into her pocket; but instantly she held it towards his mother. "It is not mine, but your son's. He was here about an hour ago and must have dropped it." "I thought he had gone out over the grounds with Clinton. What brought him here?" "He came to scold me for not shaking hands with his cousin." "Indeed! you must have been singularly rude if he noticed any want of courtesy. Change your dress and come down." It was in vain that Edna bathed her hot face and pressed her cold hands to her cheeks. She felt as if all curious eyes read her troubled heart. She was ashamed to meet the family—above all things to see Mr. Murray. Heretofore she had shunned him from dislike; now she wished to avoid him because she began to feel that she loved him, and because she dreaded that his inquisitorial eyes would discover the contemptible, and, in her estimation, unwomanly weakness. Taking the basket which contained her sewing utensils and a piece of light needlework, she went into the parlor and seated herself near the centre-table, over which hung the chandelier. Mr. Murray and his mother were sitting on a sofa, the former engaged in cutting the leaves of a new book, and Estelle Harding was describing in glowing terms a scene in "Phedre," which owed its charm to Rachel's marvelous acting. As she repeated the soliloquy beginning: "O toi, qui vois la honte ou je suis descendue, Implacable Venus, suis—je assez confondue!" Edna felt as if her own great weakness were known to the world, and she bent her face close to her basket and tumbled the contents into inextricable confusion. To-night Estelle seemed in unusually fine spirits, and talked on rapidly, till St. Elmo suddenly appeared to become aware of the import of her words, and in a few trenchant sentences he refuted the criticism on Phedre, advising his cousin to confine her comments to dramas with which she was better acquainted. His tone and manner surprised Mr. Allston, who remarked: "Were I Czar, I would issue a ukase, chaining you to the steepest rock on the crest of the Ural, till you learned the courtesy due to lady disputants. Upon my word, St. Elmo, you assault Miss Estelle with as much elan as if you were carrying a redoubt. One would suppose that you had been in good society long enough to discover that the fortiter in re style is not allowable in discussions with ladies." "When women put on boxing-gloves and show their faces in the ring, they challenge rough handling, and are rarely disappointed. I am sick of sciolism, especially that phase where it crops out in shallow criticism, and every day something recalls the reprimand of Apelles to the shoemaker. If a worthy and able literary tribunal and critical code could be established, it would be well to revive an ancient Locrian custom, which required that the originators of new laws or propositions should be brought before the assembled wisdom, with halters around their necks, ready for speedy execution if the innovation proved, on examination, to be utterly unsound or puerile. Ah! what a wholesale hanging of socialists would gladden my eyes!" Mr. Murray bowed to his cousin as he spoke, and rising, took his favorite position on the rug. "Really, Aunt Ellen, I would advise you to have him re-christened, under the name of Timon," said Mr. Allston. "No, no. I decidedly object to any such gratification of his would-be classic freaks; and, as he is evidently aping Timon, though, unfortunately, nature denied him the Attic salt requisite to flavor the character, I would suggest, as a more suitable sobriquet, that bestowed on Louis X., 'Le Hutin'—freely translated, The Quarrelsome!' What say you, St. Elmo?" Estelle walked up to her cousin and stood at his side. "That is very bad policy to borrow one's boxing-gloves; and I happened to overhear Edna Earl when she made that same suggestion to Gordon Leigh, with reference to my amiable temperament. However, there is a maxim which will cover your retreat, and which you can conscientiously utter with much emphasis, if your memory is only good in repeating all the things you may have heard: Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt! Shall I translate?" She laughed lightly and answered: "So much for eavesdropping! Of all the gentlemen of my acquaintance, I should fancy you were the very last who could afford to indulge in that amusement." "Miss Estelle, is this your first, second or third Punic war? You and St. Elmo, or rather, my cousin, 'The Quarrelsome,' seem to wage it in genuine Carthaginian style." "I never signed a treaty, sir, and, consequently, keep no records." "Clinton, there is a chronic casus belli between us, the original spring of which antedates my memory. But at present, Estelle is directing all her genius and energy to effect, for my individual benefit, a practical reenactment of the old Papia Poppoea, which Augustus hurled at the heads of all peaceful, happy bachelordom!" For the first time during the conversation Edna glanced up at Estelle, for, much as she disliked her, she regretted this thrust; but her pity was utterly wasted, and she was surprised to find her countenance calm and smiling. Mr. Allston shrugged his shoulders, and Mrs. Murray exclaimed: "I sound a truce! For heaven's sake, St. Elmo, lock up your learning with your mummies, and when you will say barbarous things, use language that will enable us to understand that we are being snubbed. Now, who do you suppose comprehends 'Papia Poppasa?' You are insufferably pedantic!" "My dear mother, do you remember ever to have read or heard the celebrated reply of a certain urbane lexicographer to the rashly ambitious individual who attempted to find fault with his dictionary? Permit me, most respectfully, to offer it for your consideration. 'I am bound to furnish good definitions, but not brains to comprehend them.'" "I think, sir, that it is a very great misfortune for those who have to associate with you now that you were not raised in Sparta, where it was everybody's privilege to whip their neighbor's vicious, spoiled children. Such a regimen would doubtless have converted you into an amiable, or at least endurable member of society." Miss Harding tapped his hand with her fan. "That is problematical, my fair cousin, for if my provocative playmate had accompanied me, I'll be sworn but I think the supply of Spartan birch would have utterly failed to sweeten my temper. I should have shared the fate of those unfortunate boys who were whipped to death in Lacedaemon, in honor of Diana; said whipping-festival (I here remark parenthetically, for my mother's enjoyment) being known in classic parlance as Diamastigosis!" Her mother answered laughingly: "Estelle is quite right; you contrived to grow up without the necessary healthful quota of sound whipping which you richly deserved." Mr. Murray did not seem to hear her words; he was looking down intently, smiling into his cousin's handsome face, and, passing his arm around her waist, drew her close to his side. He murmured something that made her throw her head quickly back against his shoulder and look up at him. "If such is the end of all your quarrels, it offers a premium for unamiability," said Mr. Allston, who had been studying Edna's face, and now turned again to his cousin. Curling the end of his moustache, he continued: "St. Elmo, you have travelled more extensively than any one I know, and under peculiarly favorable circumstances. Of all the spots you have visited, which would you pronounce the most desirable for a permanent residence?" "Have you an idea of expatriating yourself—of 'quitting your country for your country's good'?" "One never knows what contingencies may arise, and I should like to avail myself of your knowledge; for I feel assured only very charming places would have detained you long." "Then, were I at liberty to select a home, tranquil, blessed beyond all expression, I should certainly lose no time in domesticating myself in the Peninsula of Mount Athos." "Ah! yes; the scenery all along that coast is described as surprisingly beautiful and picturesque." "Oh, bah! the scenery is quite as grand in fifty other places. Its peculiar attraction consists in something far more precious." "To what do you refer?" "Its marvelous and bewildering charm is to be found entirely in the fact that, since the days of Constantine, no woman has set foot on its peaceful soil; and the happy dwellers in that sole remaining earthly Eden are so vigilant, dreading the entrance of another Eve, that no female animal is permitted to intrude upon the sacred precincts. The embargo extends even to cats, cows, dogs, lest the innate female proclivity to make mischief should be found dangerous in the brute creation. Constantine lived in the latter part of the third and the beginning of the fourth century. Think of the divine repose, the unapproachable beatification of residing in a land where no woman has even peeped for fifteen hundred years!" "May all good angels help me to steer as far as possible from such a nest of cynics! I would sooner confront an army of Amazons headed by Penthesilea herself, than trust myself among a people unhumanized and uncivilized by the refining influence and companionship of women! St. Elmo, you are the most abominable misogamist I ever met, and you deserve to fall into the clutches of those 'eight mighty daughters of the plow,' to which Tennyson's Princess consigned the Prince. Most heartily I pity you!" "For shame, St. Elmo! A stranger listening to your gallant diatribe would inevitably conclude that your mother was as unnatural and unamiable as Lord Byron's; and that I, your most devoted, meek, and loving cousin, was quite as angelic as Miss Edgeworth's Modern Griselda!" Affecting great indignation, Estelle attempted to quit his side; but, tightening his arm, Mr. Murray bowed and resumed: "Had your imaginary stranger ever heard of the science of logic, or even dreamed of Whately or Mill, the conclusion would, as you say, be inevitable. More fortunate than Rasselas, I found a happy spot where the names of women are never called, where the myths of Ate and Pandora are forgotten, and where the only females that have successfully run the rigid blockade are the tormenting fleas, that wage a ceaseless war with the unoffending men, and justify their nervous horror lest any other creature of the same sex should smuggle herself into their blissful retreat. I have seen crowned heads, statesmen, great military chieftains, and geniuses, whose names are destined to immortality; but standing here, reviewing my certainly extended acquaintance, I swear I envy above all others that handsome monk whom Curzon found at Simopetra, who had never seen a woman! He was transplanted to the Holy Mountain while a mere infant, and though assured he had had a mother, he accepted the statement with the same blind faith, which was required for some of the religious dogmas he was called on to swallow. I have frequently wondered whether the ghost of poor Socrates would not be allowed, in consideration of his past sufferings and trials, to wander forever in that peaceful realm where even female ghosts are tabooed." "There is some terrible retribution in store for your libels on our sex! How I do long to meet some woman brave and wily enough to marry and tame you, my chivalric cousin! to revenge the insults you have heaped upon her sisterhood!" "By fully establishing the correctness of my estimate of their amiability? That were dire punishment indeed for what you deem my heresies. If I could realize the possibility of such a calamity, I should certainly bewail my fate in the mournful words of that most astute of female wits, who is reported to have exclaimed, in considering the angelic idiosyncrasies of her gentle sisterhood, 'The only thought which can reconcile me to being a woman is that I shall not have to marry one." The expression with which Mr. Murray regarded Estelle reminded Edna of the account given by a traveller of the playful mood of a lion, who, having devoured one gazelle, kept his paw on another, and, amid occasional growls, teased and toyed with his victim. As the orphan sat bending over her work listening to the conversation, she asked herself scornfully: "What hallucination has seized me? The man is a mocking devil, unworthy the respect or toleration of any Christian woman. What redeeming trait can even my partial eyes discover in his distorted, sinful nature? Not one. No, not one!" She was rejoiced when he uttered a sarcasm or an opinion that shocked her, for she hoped that his irony would cauterize what she considered a cancerous spot in her heart. "Edna, as you are not well, I advise you to put aside that embroidery, which must try your eyes very severely," said Mrs. Murray. So she folded up the piece of cambric and was putting it in her basket, when Mr. Allston asked, with more effrontery than the orphan was prepared for: "Miss Earl, have I not seen you before to-day?" "Yes, sir." "May I ask where?" "In a chestnut grove, where you shot Mr. Dent." "Indeed! Did you witness that affair? It happened many years ago." There was not a shadow of pain or sorrow in his countenance or tone, and, rising, Edna said, with unmistakable emphasis: "I saw all that occurred, and may God preserve me from ever witnessing another murder so revolting!" In the silence that ensued she turned toward Mrs. Murray, bowed, and said as she quitted the parlor: "Mrs. Murray, as I am not very well, you will please excuse my retiring early." "Just what you deserve for bringing the subject on tapis; I warned you not to allude to it." As St. Elmo muttered these words, he pushed Estelle from him, and nodded to Mr. Allston, who seemed as nearly nonplussed as his habitual impudence rendered possible. Thoroughly dissatisfied with herself, and too restless to sleep, the orphan passed the weary hours of the night in endeavoring to complete a chapter on Buddhism, which she had commenced some days before; and the birds were chirping their reveille, and the sky blanched and reddened ere she lay down her pen and locked up her MS. Throwing open the blinds of the eastern window, she stood for some time looking out, gathering strength from the holy calm of the dewy morning, resolving to watch her own heart ceaselessly, to crush promptly the feeling she had found there, and to devote herself unreservedly to her studies. At that moment the sound of horse's hoofs on the stony walk attracted her attention, and she saw Mr. Murray riding from the stables. As he passed her window, he glanced up, their eyes met, and he lifted his hat and rode on. Were those the same sinister, sneering features she had looked at the evening before? His face was paler, sterner, and sadder than she had ever seen it, and, covering her own with her hands, she murmured: "God help me to resist that man's wicked magnetism! Oh, Grandpa! are you looking down on your poor little Pearl? Will you forgive me for allowing myself ever to have thought kindly and tenderly of this strange temptation which Satan has sent to draw my heart away from my God and my duty? Ah, Grandpa! I will crush it—I will conquer it! I will not yield!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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