Anna Katharine Green

“ Bertram alone was silent, but as Paula caught short glimpses of his face, while speeding past some illuminated corner, she felt that it was that silence which is “the perfectest herald of joy.”
“I shall make you get out and mix with the crowd,” said Mr. Sylvester. “I want you to feel the throb of the great heart of the city on such a night as this. It is as if all men were brothers—or fathers, I should say. People that ordinarily pass each other without a sign, nod and smile with pleasing recognition of the evening’s cheer. ”

“ Ensign was approaching.
“Mr. Sylvester! you are worse than the old woman of the tale, who declaring she would not, that nothing could ever induce her to—did.”
“You utter a deeper truth than you realize,” returned that gentleman, with a grave emphasis meant rather for her ears than his. “It is the curse of mortals to overrate their strength in the face of great temptations. I am no exception to the rule.” And with a second bow that included this apparently triumphant lover within its dignified sweep, he calmly proceeded upon his way, and in a few moments had left the house. ”

“ There are days when the whole world seems to smile upon one without stint or reservation. Bertram Sylvester wending his way to the bank on the morning following the reception, was a cheerful sight to behold. Youth, health, hope spake in every lineament of his face and brightened every glance of his wide-awake eye. His new life was pleasant to him. Bach, Beethoven and Chopin were scarcely regretted now by the ambitious assistant cashier of the Madison Bank, with a friend in each of its directors and a something more than that in the popular president himself. ”

“ Sylvester experienced in withdrawing his eyes from them. “The man whom Paula marries,” said he at last, “can neither be too good, too kind, or too pure. Nor shall any other than a good, kind, and pure man possess her,” he added in a tone that while low, effectually hushed even the slow-to-be-intimidated Miss Belinda. In another moment Paula entered.
Oh, the morning freshness of some faces! Like the singing of birds in a prison, is the sound and sight of a lovely maiden coming into the grim, gray atmosphere of a winter breakfast room. ”

“ Was it the tone of his voice that chilled her, or the studied aspect of his fixed and solemn countenance? He did not speak at once, but when he did, there was no faltering in his voice, that was lower than common, but deep, like still waters that have run into dark channels far from the light of day.
“Paula, I want to ask you a question. What would you think of a man that, with deliberate selfishness, went into the king’s garden, and plucking up by the roots the most beautiful flower he could find there, carried it into a dungeon to pant out its exquisite life amid chill and darkness?” ”

“ The voice of a daisy on the hill side, the breath of thunder in the mountain gorges, the blossoming of a child’s smile under its mother’s eye, the fact that golden portals are opened in every life for the coming and going of the messengers of God, all have been made real to me, real as the voice of the Saviour to his disciples as they walked in the fields or started back awe-stricken from the stupendous vision of the cross. It is a solemn thing to see one’s humble thoughts caught by the imagination of a great mind and carried on and up into regions you never realized existed. ”

“ Like a star seen above the glare of a conflagration, the pure spirit that informed your glance, flashed on my burning soul, and for a moment I knew that in you budded the kind of woman-nature which it befitted a man to seek; that in the hands of such a one as you would make, should he trust his honor and bequeath his happiness. But when did a lover ever break the bonds that imprisoned his fancy, at the inspiration of a passing voice. I went back to Ona and forgot the child by the river. ”

“ When he walked, he seemed to tread on air. His every glance was a question as to whether this great joy, for which he had so long and patiently waited, was to be his? Love, living and apotheosized, appeared to blaze before them, and no one can look on love without feeling somewhere in his soul the stir of those deep waters, whose pulsing throb even in the darkness of midnight, proves that we are the children of God.
Cicely was uncommunicative, but her face, when Paula beheld it, was like the glowing countenance of some sculptured saint, from which the veil is slowly being withdrawn. ”

“ Paula, I would be unworthy the name of a man, if with the consciousness of possessing a dark and evil nature, I strove by use of any hypocrisy or specious pretense at goodness, to lure to my side one so exceptionally pure, beautiful and high-minded. The ravening wolf and the innocent lamb would be nothing to it. Neither would I for an instant be esteemed worthy of your regard, if in this hour of my wooing there remained in my life the shadow of any latent wrong that might hereafter rise up and overwhelm you. ”

“ Hamlin’s swaying form. “Yes,” she smiled; and with the calmness of one who has entered the gates of peace, whispered in low and reverent tones: “She lies in the bed that you spread for her, with the Bible held close to her breast.”
There are moments when the world about us seems to pause; when the hopes, fears and experiences of all humanity appear to sway away and leave us standing alone in the presence of our own great hope or scarcely comprehended fear. Such a moment was that which saw Paula re-enter Jacqueline’s presence with Mrs. Hamlin at her side. ”

“ I am afraid of the skeleton in the closet, Paula. I never feel at ease when I am with him, much as I admire his conversation and appreciate the undoubtedly noble instincts of his heart. His brow is not open enough to satisfy an eye which has accustomed itself to the study of human nature.”
“He has had many sorrows!” Paula faintly exclaimed, stricken by this echo of her own doubts.
“Yes,” returned her aunt, “and sorrow bows the head and darkens the eye, but it does not make the glance wavering or its expression mysterious.” ”

“ By every wild throb of her heart at the sound of his voice in her ear, by every out-reaching of her soul to enter into his every mood, by the deep sensation of rest she felt in his presence, and the uneasy longing that absorbed her in his absence, she knew that she loved Mr. Sylvester as she never could his younger, blither, and perhaps nobler rival. Each word spoken by him lay treasured in her heart of hearts. When she thought of manly beauty, his face and figure started upon her from the surrounding shadows, making all romance possible and poetry the truest expression of the human soul. ”

“ Sin is a hideous thing; the gulf it opens is wide and deep; well may it be said to swallow those who trust themselves above its flower-hung brink. But we who are human, owe something to humanity. Love stops not because of the gulf; love follows the sinner with wilder and more heart-breaking longing, the deeper and deeper he sinks into the illimitable darkness. Ten years have passed since we laid the Colonel away in the burying-place of all the Japhas, and dutiful to his last request, nailed up the front door of his speedily to be forsaken mansion. ”

“ Sunshine filled the air and freshness invigorated the breeze. Cicely was blind to it all, but as Paula looked from her window preparatory to going below, a close observer might have perceived that the serenity of the cloudless sky was reflected in her beaming eyes, that peace brooded above her soul and ruled her tender spirit. She had held a long conversation with Miss Belinda, she had prayed, she had slept and she had risen with a confirmed love in her heart for the man who was at once the admiration of her eyes and the well-spring of her deepest thoughts and wildest longings. ”

“ The success which Bertram had met in his first visit at Mr. Stuyvesant’s, was not the least agitating factor in this fortnight’s secret history. He was too much a part of the home life at Mr. Sylvester’s, not to make the lightest thrill of his frank and sensitive nature felt by all who invaded its precincts. And he was in a state of repressed expectancy at this time, that unconsciously created an atmosphere about him of vague but restless excitement. The hearts of all who encountered his look of concentrated delight, must unconsciously beat with his. ”

“ Stuyvesant and Mr. Sylvester were descending the stairs. Mr. Sylvester came in first. Walking straight up to Paula, he took her in his arms and kissed her on the forehead.
“My betrothed wife!” he whispered.
With a start of incredulous joy, Paula looked up. His glance was clear but strangely solemn and peaceful.
“He has heard all I had to say,” added he; “he is a just man, but he is also a merciful one. Like you he declares that not what a man was, but what he is, determines the judgment of true men concerning him.” And taking her on his arm, he stood waiting for Mr. Stuyvesant who now came in. ”

“ Sylvester regarded her, suddenly faltered; he turned with quickness towards the fire. “A moment’s joy is, then, excuse for a murder,” exclaimed he. “God and the angels would not agree with you, Paula.”
There was a quivering in his tone, made all the more apparent by its studied self-possession of a moment before. She trembled where she sat, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again, awed by his steady and abstracted gaze, now fixed before him in gloomy reverie. A moment passed. The clock ticking away on the mantel-piece seemed to echo the inevitable “Forever! never!” ”

“ Colonel Japha recovered from his shock, but was never the same man again. All that was genial, affectionate and confiding in his nature, had been turned as by a lightning’s stroke, to all that was hard, bitter and suspicious. He would not allow the name of Jacqueline to be spoken in his presence; he would listen to no allusion made to those days when she was the care and perplexity, but also the light and pleasure of the house. Men are not like women, my child; when they turn, it is at an angle, the whole direction of their nature changes. ”

“ Turning, she encountered the shadowy form of a woman leaning close at her side and appearing in the dim light that shone on her from the lamps beyond, an eager image of expectancy.
“Yes,” returned Paula, “why do you ask?”
The woman, whoever she was, did not answer. “And you believe in such devotion as that!” she murmured. “You can understand a man, aye, or a woman either, risking happiness and fame, life and death, for the sake of a trust! Such things are not folly to you! ”

“ In her riding-habit she looks like a child, but when dressed for the street she surprises you with the reserved and womanly air with which she carries her proud head. Altogether she is a sweet study to me, alluring me with her glance yet awing me by her dainty ladyhood, a ladyhood too unconscious to be affected and yet so completely a part of her whole delicate being, that you could as soon dissociate the bloom from the rose, as the air of highborn reserve, from this sweet scion of one of New York’s oldest families. ”

“ Ah, Ona, the social ladder reaches high, but it does not scale the regions where your poor soul could find comfort now.
Bertram saw the white look on Paula’s face and silently offered his arm. But there are moments when no mortal help can aid us; instants when the soul stands as solitary in the universe, as the ship-wrecked mariner on a narrow strip of rock in a boundless sea. Life may touch, but eternity enfolds us; we are single before God and as such must stand or fall. ”

“ Mr. Sylvester watched him with growing pallor. “You are right,” murmured his nephew at last; “there is something more, and it is only justice that you should hear it. I have had two adventures to-night; one quite apart from my conversation with Mr. Stuyvesant. Heaven that watches above us, has seen fit to accumulate difficulties in my path, and this last, perhaps, is the least explainable and the hardest to encounter.”
“What do you allude to?” cried his uncle, imperatively; “I have had an evening of too much agitation to endure suspense with equanimity. Explain yourself.” ”

“ For Paula’s heart was heavy. Fears too unsubstantial to be met and vanquished, had haunted her steps all day. The short note which Mr. Sylvester had written her, lay like lead upon her bosom. She longed for the hours to fly, yet dreaded to hear the clock tick out the moments that possibly were destined to bring her untold suffering and disappointment. A revelation awaiting her in Mr. Sylvester’s desk up stairs? That meant separation and farewell; for words of promise and devotion can be spoken, and the heart that hopes, does not limit time to hours. ”

“ Beauty, while it wins the lover, can never of itself hold the heart of a husband who possesses aspirations beyond that which passion supplies. Reckless, worldly and narrow-minded as I had been before the commission of that deed which embittered my life, I had become by the very shock that followed the realization of my wrong-doing, a hungry-hearted, eager-minded and melancholy-spirited man, asking but one boon in recompense for my secret remorse, and that was domestic happiness and the sympathetic affection of wife and children. ”

“ Earth’s sighs and deep-drawn groans are nothing to them. The world may swing on in its way to perdition; so long as their pathway feels soft, they neither heed nor care. But you do not desire to be one of these, Paula! With your great soul and your strong heart, you would not ask to sit in a flowery maze, while the rest of the world went sliding on and down into wells of destruction, you might have made pools of healing by the touch of your womanly sympathy. ”

“ Sylvester dropped her hand and turned towards the mantle-piece. It was April as I have said, and there was no fire in the grate, but he posed his foot on the fender and looked sadly down at the empty hearthstone.
“Paula,” said he after a space of pregnant silence, “it had to come. The veil of the temple must be rent in every life. Evil is too near us all for us to tread long upon the flowers without starting up the adders that hide beneath them. You had to have your first look into the cells of darkness, and perhaps it is best you had it here and now. ”

“ Seizing it, she bathed the face and hands of the woman before her, moaning aloud in her grief and dismay, “Have I killed her! O what is this mystery that brings such a doom of anguish to this poor heart?”
But from those pallid lips came no response, and feeling greatly alarmed, Paula was about to rush from the house for assistance, when she felt a tremulous pull upon her skirt, and turning, saw that the glassy eyes had opened at last and were now gazing upon her with mute but eloquent appeal. ”

“ A smile younger and more full of hope than any he had seen on his uncle’s face for years, responded to this burst. “Bertram,” said he, “since our conversation of a couple of weeks ago something has occurred which somewhat alters the opinions I then expressed. If you have patience equal to your energy, and a self-control that will not put to shame your unbounded trust in women, I think I can say God-speed to your serious undertaking, with something like a good heart. Women are not all frivolous and foolish-minded; there are some jewels of simple goodness and faith yet left in the world.” ”

“ If these fresh young girls could smile and look back upon him, with that lingering glance which his presence ever invoked, why not she who was not only sweet, tender, and lovely, but gifted with a nature that responded to the deep things of life, and the stern passions of potent humanity. Could a merry laugh lure her while he stood by? Was the sunshine the natural atmosphere of this flower, that had bloomed under his eye so sweetly and shed out its innocent fragrance, at the approach of his solemn-pacing foot? ”

“ The elder gentleman turned quickly, evidently much surprised, and cast a sudden inquiring glance at his nephew, who blushed with a modest ingenuousness pleasing to see in one so well accustomed to the critical gaze of his fellow-men.
“Yes,” said he, as if in answer to that look, “I am in love.”
A deep silence for a moment pervaded the apartment, a sombre silence almost startling to young Mandeville, who had expected some audible expression to follow this announcement if only the good-natured “Pooh! pooh!” of the matured man of the world in the presence of ardent youthful enthusiasm. ”

“ Could he have guessed what that something was that he should turn with such a flush of sudden anxiety to meet her determined gaze.
“The rules of our life here have been simple,” continued she in a tone of voice which those who knew her well recognized as belonging to her uncompromising moods. “To do our duty, love God and serve our neighbor. Paula has been brought up to reverence those rules in simplicity and honor; what will your gay city life with its hollow devices for pleasure and its loose hold on the firm principles of life, do for this innocent soul, Mr. Sylvester?” ”

“ A man is not always responsible for what he does in moments of great suspense or agitation. But if, upon reflection, he finds that he has spoken harshly or acted unwisely, it is his duty to remedy his fault; and therefore it is that I write you this little note. Paula, I love you; not as I once did, with a fatherly longing and a protective delight, but passionately, yearningly, and entirely, with the whole force of my somewhat disappointed life; as a man loves for whom the world has dissolved leaving but one creature in it, and that a woman. ”

“ At length, in a low and trembling voice, Paula spoke:
“Is it murder, when the flower loves the dark of the dungeon more than it does the light of day?”
With a subdued but passionate cry he rose hastily to his feet. “Yes,” said he, and drew back as if he could not bear the sight of her face or the glance of her eye. “Sunshine is the breath of flowers; sweet wooing gales, their natural atmosphere. He who meddles with a treasure so choice does it at his peril.” ”

“ Take me, aunt, take me to Mr. Sylvester.”
Miss Belinda, to whom self-control was one of the cardinal virtues, leaned back in her chair and contemplated the eager, tear-stained face that was now raised to hers, with silent scrutiny. “Paula,” said she at last, “is that your only reason for desiring to return to New York?”
A flush, delicate as it was fleeting, swept over the dew of Paula’s cheek. She rose to her feet and met her aunt’s eye, with a look of gentle dignity. “No,” said she, “I wish to test myself. Birds that are prisoned will caress any hand that offers them freedom. ”

“ Strong as I believed myself to be in the determination never again to flaw my manhood by the least action unworthy of my position as the guardian of trusts, earnest as I was in my recoil from evil, and sincere as I may have been in my admiration of and desire for the good, I no sooner saw myself tottering between ruin and a compromise with conscience, than I hesitated—hesitated with you under my roof, and with the words we had been speaking still ringing in my ears. Ona’s influence, for all the trials of our married life, was still too strong upon me. ”

“ Whatever of wrong has ever been committed by me—and it is my punishment that I must acknowledge before your pure eyes that my soul is not spotless—was done in the past, and is known only to my own heart and the God who I reverently trust has long ago pardoned me. The shadow is that of remorse, not of fear, and the evil, one against my own soul, rather than against the life or fortunes of other men. ”

“ A vague oppression seemed to fill the air; an oppression which Miss Belinda’s stirring conversation found it impossible to dissipate. In compliance to Mr. Sylvester’s request, she sat at the head of the table, and was the only one who seemed able to eat anything. For one thing she had never seen Ona in that post of honor, but Paula and Mr. Sylvester could not forget the graceful form that once occupied that seat. The first meal above a grave, no matter how long it has been dug, must ever seem weighted with more or less unreality. ”

“ With folded hands lying across the white page, with glance fixed on the fire always kept burning brightly in the grate, she sat querying her own soul and the awful future. He was such a charming companion; life had flashed and glimmered with a thousand lights and colors since she knew him; his very laugh made her want to sing. With him she would move in sunshiny paths, open to the regard of all the world, giving and receiving good. Life would need no veils and love no check. A placid stream would bear her on through fields of smiling verdure. ”

“ A world of life is in the air; the flakes dance as they come down, like dervishes in a frenzy. It was all we lacked to make the day complete; now we have everything.”
“Yes,” said Miss Belinda, with a significant glance at the table, “everything.”
Paula followed her glance, saw the silver box with its wealth of blossoms, and faltered back with a quick look at Mr. Sylvester’s grave and watchful countenance.
“Mr. Ensign seems to be possessed of clairvoyance,” observed Miss Belinda easily. ”

“ Her aunt smiled and gently stroked her niece’s hand. “When the time comes, I shall bid you God speed, Paula. I am no ogress to tie my dove’s wings to her nest. Love and the home it provides are the natural lot of women. None feel it more than those who have missed both.”
“Aunt!” Paula was shocked and perplexed. A breaking wave full of doubts and possibilities, seemed to dash over her at this suggestion.
“Young men of judgment and principle do not come so many miles to see a youthful maiden, without a purpose,” continued her aunt inexorably. “You know that, do you not, Paula?” ”