31 For All Is Dark Where Thou Art Not

THE last picture fades out of the red glow, as Jemima’s key again turns in the lock, and she re-enters from her foraging expedition. Lady Valentine wakes from her dream with a sigh, that ends in a smile, as she looks at the laden tray. Chicken, raised pie, toast, tart, jelly, fruit, cream, coffee—it is a melange, but Jemima Ann knows her young mistress had a headache at luncheon, and ate nothing, and has indulged in a ride of many hours since then.

“The gentlemen have gone up to the drawing-room,” she says, panting under her load, “and Mr. and Mrs. Eccleman, and the two Miss, Ecclemans, has come, and that there young Squire Brooghton.”

“Indeed,” responds my lady, lifting her eyebrows, “well—they say there is safety in numbers—among so many, I will not be missed. Besides, is not the charming Camilla present to do the honors? Neither she nor Sir Vane really want me—all the same, I am certain of a reproof for my absence. I am glad Mrs. Eccleman is there, good motherly old soul. I can shelter myself and my sins, for an hour or two, under her broad, maternal wings.”

She says this to herself, as she partakes of Jemima’s spoil. Mr. Eccleman is the rector. Mrs. Eccleman is everything that’s true, is most plump, and genial, and matronly, and with both the rector and his wife Sir Vane’s pretty, graceful, youthful, half foreign wife is a pet and a favorite.

“And now to dress,” she says, getting up, “and to face my fate. What a bore it all is, Jemima Ann. I would much rather spend the evening here alone with you.”

“But it would not be right, Miss Snowball. They talk as it is, in the house, about your spending so much of your time with me, and bein’ so free and friendly like with your maid. Sir Vane don’t like it, and Miss Valentine gives me black looks whenever I meet her, and Miss Routh—”

“That will do, Jemima; we will leave Miss Routh’s name out. Button my dress, please, and keep out of Miss Routh’s way. She is not my keeper, at least. Now fasten this spray of honeysuckle in my hair. How old and ugly it makes me look, wearing my hair twisted up in these tight coils. Miss Dorothy would have a fit, I suppose, if I ever let it loose as I used.”

“Ah! very old and ugly!” assents Jemima Ann, standing with folded hands, and loving eyes, and gazing at the fair, girlish beauty before her; “even Miss Dorothy looks young and lovely beside you. How can Sir Vane have eyes for that simperin’ white cat up stairs,” she thinks, inwardly, “with that to look at. And yet—”

But even to herself she is loth to put her thought into words. Sir Vane’s partiality for his cousin, his coldness for his wife, are patent to all the household. And Jemima Ann is not the only one who wonders. For they know Miss Routh in that establishment, and she is not a favorite. “A green-eyed, spying, tattling cat!” that is the universal verdict below stairs. “And what Sir Vane wants either her, or t’other old ‘un for, now that he’s got a pretty young wife, nobody knows.” In their eyes she is neither useful nor ornamental; my lady is the latter, at least, and as gentle and “haffable ” as she is pretty. But Sir Vane is in love with Miss Routh, has always been in love with her, and can see neither beauty nor any other charm in his wife, now that she is his wife.

“How is it under our control

To love or not to love ?”

he might have demanded with the poet.

For Miss Routh—well, she is in love with the excellent menage and menu of Manor Valentine, with the allowance Sir Vane makes her, with her pretty rooms and “perquisites,” with being franked over the road whenever she travels, with the old, ivy-grown, ponderous Manor House in every way as a home.

“Will I do, do you think, Jemima?” demands Jemima’s mistress, looking at herself in rather a dissatisfied way in Jemima’s mirror. “I am dreadfully tanned riding in this March wind and sun, and Sir Vane will be sure to notice and disapprove. And I don’t think this eau de Nil dress becoming. Perhaps we had better go up to my own room, and do it all properly?”

“You look as pretty as pretty, Miss Snowball,” cries Jemima, warmly. “Go up jest as you be. Miss Camilla will have to be born again, I reckon, before she takes the shine off you!” And Jemima is right. Dolores is in great beauty this evening, despite sunburn, and eau de Nil green. The pale, lustrous train sweeps far behind her; its trying tint is toned by a profusion of tulle and lace. A little knot of fairy roses is twisted with the woodbine spray in her hair; she wears a blushing breast knot of the same sweet flowers. It is a combination that only first youth, a perfect complexion, and golden hair can carry off. So, in her fresh, pearly loveliness, bringing her silken tail of lace and flounces behind her, like Little Bo-Peep’s sheep, the culprit ascends to face the foe.

She means to enter by a portiere that opens from a cool, green fernery, filled just now with silvery light, and twinkling with the fall of a fountain in its marble basin. The tall, green fronds nod to her as she passes. Within, the piano is going; Miss Routh, as usual, is charming the company with a song. She has not much voice—what she has is thin and shrill—it is “linked sweetness long drawn out.” Dolores’ hand holds back the heavy curtain, while she takes a preparatory peep, but a pair of lynx eyes note even that. In a moment her husband stands before her, his hand hard on her wrist, and she is drawn backward into the fernery, and Sir Vane’s dark, hard face looks down upon her, darker, harder, than ever.

“Well!” he says, and his voice rasps every nerve in the girl’s body, “what have you to say for yourself, now?” She uplifts two blue, pleading eyes to his, eyes so innocent, so youthful, that they might have moved even him. But Sir Vane Valentine is not easily moved. “Do you know you have been missed—your singular absence commented on, your long, lonely rides wondered at? Do you know I am looked upon with suspicion because of them? Do you know people say you are unhappy—have something on your mind—that it is because you are wretched as my wife, that you go careering over the country like a mad woman? Do you know you neglect every social and household duty for these insane rides?”

She is in for it with a vengeance, and her spirit rises to meet the assault. “Social and household duty! ‘she repeats. “I did not know I had any. I am relieved from all cares of that sort, in this house.”

“Do you know, in a word, that your conduct is disgraceful—disgraceful?” goes on Sir Vane, twisting his mustache with those long, lean, nervous, brown fingers of his.

The color flushes up in Dolores’ face. The blue eyes uplift again, very steadily this time, and meet the irate black ones full. “Disgraceful!” she repeats once more, the slender figure very straight, the white throat held very high, “that is a strong word, Sir Vane Valentine. Since when has my conduct been disgraceful?”

“Since I have known you! In Rome you spent half your time in the workshop of that marble cutter Macdonald—a fellow in love with you, as you very well knew—as he took care to let you know, no doubt. And you—how was it with you in those days? Here, you contemn my sister, ignore my cousin, set at naught my wishes, slight my guests, spend your time in the saddle, or by the side of that atrocious Yankee woman, the very sight of whom—with her nasal twang and gorilla face—I have always detested. You defy me and public opinion by galloping breakneck across the country, heaven knows where, without so much as a groom. By what name are we to call such conduct as this?”

The flush has faded from her face, faded and left her strangely pallid and still. She stands, her hands clasped loosely before her, her steadfast, scornful gaze still fixed upon him.

“You make out a strong case;” there is a quick catch in her breath, but her voice is quiet. ” Is the indictment all read, Sir Vane, or is there more to come?”

“Your bravado will not avail you, Lady Valentine. It is time all this ceased. It shall cease from to-night, or I shall know the reason why.”

She bows. ” As the king wills! What are your wishes? It is not in form to lose your temper, is it? Be good enough to signify what you desire—no, command—me to do, distinctly, and I will endeavor to obey.”

“Yes, I am aware of the kind of obedience I may expect. Why have you dismissed Lennard, the groom?”

“Simply because if I must creep along at a snail’s pace, to accommodate Lennard’s rate of riding, I prefer not to ride at all. Appoint a man who can keep me in sight, and I shall submit to his surveillance. I can give up going out altogether, though, if you prefer it.”

“And have the country set me down as a tyrant, keeping my wife under lock and key. The role of martyr would suit you, no doubt. No, you may ride, with a groom, but not at the pace you indulge in, nor till such outrageous hours. For the rest, I desire you to dismiss that woman.”

“What woman?” startled. “You do not mean—no, impossible!—Jemima Ann?”

”I mean Jemima Ann. Her presence is odious to me. It always was. You have had her from the first, in open defiance of my express wishes. And only to-day she insulted Miss Routh.”

“Insulted Miss Routh! Jemima Ann insult any one! Oh! pardon me, Sir Vane, I cannot believe that.”

“Do you insinuate that Miss Routh says what is not true?”

“I think Miss Routh quite capable of it,” retorts Dolores, calmly, though her heart is beating passionately fast. “Miss Routh is capable of a good deal to injure a person she dislikes. And I know she dislikes poor Jemima. If she says my maid insulted her, I believe she says a thing deliberately untrue.”

“Upon my soul,” the angry baronet exclaims, “this is too much. To my very face you tell me my cousin lies! But this is no time nor place for such a discussion. We shall settle this matter later. At present, if you mean to appear among my guests at all this evening, it is high time.” He holds back the portiere, smooths, as well as he can, the black temper within him, and follows her in. She is perfectly pale, but the blue eyes are starrily bright, the delicate deer-like head held high. She is in a dangerous hum or at this moment; she holds herself as a princess born might. All timidity has vanished; she stands at ease, and surveys the long room. And she is a picture as she stands. One of the Eccleman girls has the piano now, an attendant cavalier, the extremely young Squire of Broughton, beside her. Miss Dorothy and the rector’s wife sit on a sofa and wag their cap ribbons in concert over ponderous household matters. Miss Routh, in a shadowy recess; if shadow exists in such brilliant light, lies back in a dormeuse, and looks up with that artless, infantile smile of hers into the face of a rather dashing looking military man beside her. He is a handsome man, and a distinguished one, of Sir Vane’s age, and as swarth as a Spaniard. Miss Routh is improving the shining moment with blue-green glances, and alluring smiles, and sweetest chit-chat—in the very depths, indeed, of a most pronounced flirtation.

Sir Vane looks, and his gloomy eyes grow baleful. Miss Routh is lost to him, true; all the same he glowers at her and this other man. He knows she is only here, pending what time she may bring down a golden goose of her own and fly away to another nest. She is quite ready to say “Yes, and thank you,” at this or any other moment Colonel Deering may see fit to throw down his heavy dragoon glove. And Sir Vane knows it, and is gloomy, and wrathful, and jealous accordingly. Standing here, Dolores sees it all; her husband’s frowning brow; Miss Routh’s absorption; the careless smile with which the dashing officer attends. What if she tries her hand at reprisal—plays at Miss Routh’s own game, and beats her on her own ground? She is in a dangerous mood. She is younger than Miss Routh; she is quite as pretty; what if she show her husband she can be as at tractive in the eyes of other men as even the captivating Camilla? She is no coquette; the game is beneath her, and she feels it, but she is sore, stung, smarting, hurt to the very heart. And Camilla Routh is the mischief-maker and direct cause of it all. Very well, let Camilla Routh look to it! for this one evening, at least,

“They shall take who have the power,

And they shall keep who can.”

Her fixed gaze perhaps magnetizes the handsome colonel. He looks up, across, and sees—a goddess! As it chances, although he has been here before, it is the first time he has seen this face. A face! it looks to him, in the sparkle of the lamp, a radiant vision, all gold and green, and starry eyes, an exquisite face. He looks and fairly catches his breath. “Good Heaven!” he says, under his thick trooper mustache, “what a perfectly lovely girl!”

Then he turns to Miss Routh, too much absorbed in her own vivacious tittle-tattle to have noticed, and says, in his customary tones:

“There is a new arrival, I fancy. Who is that young lady in the green dress?”

Camilla looks, and her face changes for a second; a sort of film, it seems to Colonel Deering, comes over the green eyes. “That,” she answers, coldly, “is Lady Valentine.”

“Lady Valentine? Ah!” in accents. of marked surprise, ” Sir Vane’s wife?”

“Sir Vane’s wife. A wild American who ousted him out of a fortune, and whom he married after to—secure it,” says Miss Routh, and some of the bitter hatred within her hardens her dulcet voice. “Her youthful adorer, Harry Broughton, is leading her to the piano; we are to hear as well as see her, it seems. She spends her time galloping over the country, like the Indians on her native plains; that is why you have not seen her on any previous call. She is called pretty,” carelessly, “do you think her so?”

Colonel Deering’s reply is of course to order; he is much too mature a bird to be caught with Camilla’s smiling chaff. His answer smooths away the rising frown; he does not even take the trouble to glance a second time at the group surrounding the piano. Maud Eccleman has given place to her hostess. She, as well as the youthful Squire of Broughton, is the ardent admirer of Lady Valentine.

“Sing that lovely thing of Adelaide Procter’s, you sang at the rectory the other evening,” says Miss Eccleman; “the plaintive air and exquisite words have been ringing through my head ever since.”

“‘ Where I fain would be’?” asks Dolores.

The smile leaves her face, lost in a sigh. In a moment the long, lamp-lit drawing-room fades away, and the sunny shore of Isle Perdrix rises before her. Rene is standing clasping her hands, trying to say good-by, the boat waits below that is to bear her away to her new life. All her passionate, sorrowful heart is in the words she sings:

“Where I am the halls are gilded,

Stored with pictures bright and rare;

Strains of deep melodious music

Float upon the perfumed air.

Nothing stirs the dreary silence,

Save the melancholy sea,

Near the poor and humble cottage Where I fain would be.

Where I am the sun is shining,

And the purple windows glow,

Till their rich armorial shadows

Stain the marble floor below.

Faded autumn leaves are trembling

On the withered jasmine tree,

Creeping round the little casement,

Where I fain would be.

Where I am all think me happy,

For so well I play my part,

None can guess, who smile around me,

How far distant is my heart—

Far away in a poor cottage,

Listening to the dreary sea,

Where the treasures of my life are

There I fain would be.”

There is silence. Something in the song, in the voice of the singer, in the suggestions of the words, holds all who hear, quite still for a moment. In that moment she rises—in that moment Colonel Deering, stroking his heavy mustache with his hand, thrilled by the song and the singer, sees the brow of Sir Vane black as night, sees the malicious smile and glance Camilla Routh flashes across at him, and in that moment knows that Sir Vane’s wife is as miserable as she is beautiful. “God! I don’t see how it could be otherwise,” he thinks, “married to that death’s-head. Miss Routh,” he says, aloud, but still carelessly, “Lady Valentine has a voice, and knows how to throw soul into words. Do me the favor—present me.”

Miss Routh rises at once—it is no part of her plans to show reluctance. She casts a second mocking, malicious glance at Sir Vane as she sweeps by—he is seated beside the elder Miss Eccleman, but, Camilla knows, loses not one sight or sound that goes on.

Colonel Deering is presented in form, and bows almost as profoundly as he does to her Majesty, when he attends a drawing-room. “You sang that song with more expression than I ever heard thrown into a song before,” he says. “We are all fortunate in having caged a singing bird at Valentine. I wish I could prevail upon you to let us hear it once more.”

“Sing a Scotch song, Dolores, dear,” chimes in Miss Routh, sweetly, “Sing Auld Robin Gray.”

The malice of the suggestion is lost on Dolores. Harry Broughton adds his entreaties, and she goes again to the piano, guarded by Colonel Deering. She strikes the chords, and sighs forth the sweet old song:

“And Auld Robin Gray was a gude man to me.”

“She means nothing personal, I hope, Vane,” laughs the artless Camilla, fluttering down by his side. “Nineteen and forty-three—it is a disparity. I wonder you were not afraid. It is a pity—it is so suggestive coming after the other.

“’Far away in a poor cottage,

Listening to the dreary sea,

Where the treasures of my life are

There I fain would be!’”

That means the island, of course. ‘Where the treasures of my life are,’ chief among them the handsome boy lover of those blissful days. He is handsome, Vane. I saw his picture, by chance, one day, in her album; his name underneath—Rene. He was her first lover; Colonel Deering bids fair, from his looks, to be her latest. Now, there is really no need for you to scowl in that way, my dear cousin, I am but in jest, of course. Of course she cannot help being pretty, and exciting admiration wherever she goes.

“‘I dinna think o’ Jamie now,

For that wad be a sin.’”

She laughs; it is a laugh that makes her victim writhe and grind his teeth, and rises to flutter away. Sir Vane twists his mustache in the old angry, nervous fashion, and looks up at his tormentor, and makes a feeble effort to strike back.

“Are you jealous, Camilla? I do see that Deering is evidently swerving in his allegiance. Land him, Camilla, if you can, he is a fish worth even your bait; he has ten thousand a year, and will write his name high in the peerage when his uncle goes.”

“It would suit me very well, ten thousand a year,” responds Miss Routh. coolly; “whether it suits him or not, cela depend. At present Lady Valentine seems rather to have the game in her own hands; you perceive she is going with him to visit the orchid house.”

The blue-green eyes flash balefully, then she laughs. ” Suppose we too go and look at the orchids, Vane?”

They go, Sir Vane still moodily gnawing his mustache, irritated with his wife, Colonel Deering, Camilla Routh, all the world. “Have you spoken to your wife about the impertinence of her maid?” she asks, as they cross the room.

“Yes. She declines to credit it; her maid is incapable of impertinence to any one. So she says.”

“Which is equivalent to saying I have told a falsehood. Am I to endure that, Cousin Vane?”

“What do you wish me to do?” sulkily.

“If that insolent servant remains in this house, I shall quit it. Insults from persons of that class are not to be endured. I shall not remain under the same roof with her. My mind is made up.”

“What the deuce did she say?”

“I made some remark, a harmless one, of course, about her mistress. She resented it at once, in a manner insolent to outrage. She said,” the words coming sharply between Miss Routh’s closed teeth, “that when ‘Miss Snowball’—ridiculous name!—was my age, she might perhaps be as ‘set like and settled.’ It wasn’t to be expected “—Miss Routh grows dramatic, and snuffles in imitation of unfortunate Jemima Ann—’ that a gal of nineteen could be as solid and prim as an—old maid!‘ Those were her odious words; she did not mean me to hear them, but I did. Do as you please, Vane, but—if she stays, I go.”

“What the—what’s the use of losing your temper, Camilla! You know she will go. I dislike her as much as you do. Say no more about it. She shall leave.”

“Thanks, dear Vane.” Tears fill Camilla’s pale eyes, she presses so gratefully the arm on which she leans. “I am foolishly proud and sensitive, I know. And you are, as you ever were, the best and dearest of cousins.”

The tall colonel, and the eau de Nil robe, are away in the midst of the orchids, like “Love among the Roses,” when the other pair enter. Dolores’ clear young laugh greets them—she is in greater beauty than ever, her cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling, a sort of reckless gayety in every look and word. Why not? She has done her best up to this night, and her best is a signal failure. Why not? Life’s roses and champagne are here—why not take her share, and defy the fates she can , not propitiate? She has made shipwreck of her life—the ruin looks to her so dire to-night, that no reckless act of her own can ever work greater woe. A fatal doctrine, and one quite foreign to all the instincts, all the training of her life, to every innocent and pure impulse of her heart. The past is dead and done with, the future is hopeless, the present is a dire anguish and pain. Why not try at least to laugh and be merry, and forget.

“I have put my days and dreams out of mind—days that are over, dreams that are done,” she thinks, with a pang of cruelest pain. Colonel Deering looks at her at least with human, friendly eyes—eyes that admire and praise, and that soothe. One grows weary of the stony stare of gorgons after awhile. Colonel Deering is agreeable, and Miss Routh is piqued. Alas, poor Dolores! That suffices for to-night. But when it is all over presently, and the Colonel, more deeply epris than he has been for many a day, has said his reluctant good-night, she goes wearily up to her room, trailing her sheeny silk and lace as though it weighed her down, and sinks into the depths of a downy chair, with a long, tired, heart-sick sigh.

“It was all dismally stupid, Jemima Ann,” she says; “I would have been a great deal happier down in the snuggery with you.”

“I heerd you singin’, Miss Snowball,” Jemima says, letting down the long hair. “I hoped you was enjoyin’ yourself. But I see easy enough you do look jest as white and wore out as—”

“Send this woman away, Lady Valentine,” says an abrupt voice, ”I have a word or two to say to you.” It is Sir Vane, forbidding and sullen.

Jemima Ann gives him a glance of unmistakable fear and aversion, and goes.

“Wait in the dressing-room,” says the sweet, clear voice of her mistress; “I shall want you again, Jemima. Now, then, Sir Vane?”

She looks up at him with the same steadfast glance of a few hours earlier. If it must be war to the knife, she thinks, is she to be blamed for trying to hold her own?

“I desire you to dismiss that woman!”

“I have dismissed her. We are alone.”

“I mean out of the house, out of your service. Why do you pretend to misunderstand? She has insulted Miss Routh. Her presence is not to be tolerated.”

“I am sorry if she has insulted any one. She must have been very greatly provoked. I shall speak to her about it, and if Miss Routh has not made a very great mistake, Jemima Ann will apologize.”

“I want no apologies. My cousin has given me her ultimatum. Either your maid leaves or she does.”

“That would be a pity—Valentine without Miss Routh—one fails to imagine it! But I do not think you need be seriously alarmed by that threat. Believe me, Miss Routh will think twice before she quits your house.”

“We do not require your beliefs. I have not come to discuss this question, or to ask a favor. I demand that you send away that woman, and at once.”

“And I distinctly refuse!”

“Madam—”

“Sir Vane,” she says, rising, “listen to me. I have borne a great deal since I became your wife. I have yielded in all things since I came here, to your sister and your cousin, for the sake of peace. But even peace may be bought too dearly. You ask too much to-night, or rather the mistress of your house, Miss Routh, does!”

“Lady Valentine,” furiously, “do you know what you say? The mistress of my house! Take care—take care! You may go too far!”

“She is that, is she not?” his wife responds, proudly, not quailing, standing pale and erect. “You do not mean to imply for a moment that I am. Jemima will apologize to her if she has offended her, she will keep as much as possible for the future out of her way, and yours. More than that I cannot promise. She is my one friend, I cannot part with her. I cannot—I will not!”

“By Heaven, you shall! Your one friend! And what of the marble cutter in Rome, to whom you were so anxious to return a few months ago? What of your new lover of to-night? Your one friend? She shall go—I swear it—though you go with her!”

He turns from the room, hoarse with passion, and confronts Jemima in the dressing-room door. “I give you warning,” he says; “do your hear? You leave this house, and at once! Pack up and go, and, until you are gone, don’t let me have to look at you again!”

“Oh, Miss Snowball! dear Miss Snowball!” gasps the, affrighted Jemima, “what—whatever have I done?”

“Nothing—that is, you have displeased Miss Routh. Sir Vane is excited to-night; keep out of his sight and hers for a few days, until this storm blows over. He will forget it—I hope. Go to your room, Jemima, dear; I shall not want you again.”

“And you will not send me away? Oh, my own Miss Snowball! how could I live away from you, my own dearest dear?”

“And I—oh!” the girl cries, catching her breath with a sob, “what—what have I left in all this world but you? No, you shall not go. Leave me now—yes, do, please—I would rather. Never mind my hair; I will twist it up. Good-night, good-night.”

Jemima goes, crying behind her apron. Her mistress locks the door, and drops on her knees, and burying her face in the cushions of her chair, “Rene!” she cries aloud, ” Rene! Rene!”

His name breaks from her lips in despite of herself. His image fills her heart as she kneels; his voice is in her ears; his eyes look upon her. She loves him! she loves him! In shame, in misery, in remorse, she realizes in this wretched hour, how utterly, how absolutely, how sinfully.

“Rene! Rene!” For this she gave him up, her heart’s darling! for this man she resigned the heaven on earth, that would have been hers as his wife. Lower and lower she seems to sink, in the passion of impotent longing, and love, and regret within her. Her loose hair falls about her; great sobs tear their way up from her heart and shake her from head to foot; the velvet is wet with her raining tears. And so, while the dark hours of the sighing April night drag away, while the household sleeps, Sir Vane Valentine’s wife keeps her vigil of tears and despair.