The sailor grasped Flint's arm.
"Only little Bell! – that was all. But it was all the world to me! What a tale it told! What a tale of weary waiting, and despair, and death! Did her little heart wait for me! Did she sicken and die when I did not come to her? Aye, it said all this and more. And my boy – was he living? was he searching for me? No, not searching, for close by my child's grave, a white stone had these words carved on it: " and the man repeated them slowly,
SACRED
TO THE MEMORY
OF
OUR FATHER,
LOST AT SEA
"Not lost at sea," he said, almost inaudibly, "but lost! Ah, I could have died in that quiet place, with the moonlight on me! But I was startled from my grief by the shouts of some men on the roadside, and I turned and fled. Have you looked at the picture, John Flint?"
He spoke so mournfully, that Flint raised his little, sharp eyes, which all this time had been fixed on the carpet; but he made no reply.
"I'll have none of your gold, man. I was weak to want it. Give it to the poor. The shining round pieces may fall like sunlight into some wretched home. To me they are like drops of blood!"
And he pushed the gold from him, and went to the window. He saw the dim eyes of Heaven looking down through the mist – heard the murmurs of the city dying away, and the calm of night entered his soul.
"May you be a better man when we meet again," he said, turning to Flint.
"But the letter," cried Flint, fearfully, "you won't – "
The sailor's lips curled, and something of his former severity returned.
"Take off your sanctimonious cravat," he answered, "wrap charity around you like a robe, that you may be pleasing in God's sight. You sent some gold to convert the Hindoos – the papers said so. Why, man! there is a Heathen Land at your door-step! John Flint, good night!"
The merchant stood alone.
The night wind swayed the heavy curtains to and fro, and half extinguished the brilliant jets of gas. He threw himself into a chair, and a vision of the Past rose up before him – the terrible Past. The ghosts of dead years haunted his brain, and remorse sat on his heart, boding and mysterious, like the Raven of the sweet poet —
"That unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast, and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore!"
That night, as we have said, he dreamt of two blue, innocent eyes, which once looked confidingly in his – of two infant arms which encircled his neck. Those eyes haunted him into the realm of sleep, where myriads of little arms were stretched out to him, and he turned restlessly on his pillow!
VIII
He trudged along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went, for want of thought.
Dryden.
VIII.
MR. FLINT IS PERFECTLY ASTONISHED, AND MORTIMER HAS A VISION
The Light Heart – A Scene – The Sunny Heart – A Dream of Little Bell – A Hint.
Now that Mortimer Walters had destroyed the record of poor Snarle's guilt, he determined to be no longer a subject of Flint's authority. He had watched for months for an opportunity to become possessed of the forged cheque; and it was with a heart as light as a singing bird's that he tripped up the office stairs an hour before his time the next morning.
Tim was sweeping out.
Sleep had left no cobwebs in his young eyes; but when he saw Mortimer throw open the office door, humming a light-hearted air, he rubbed his eyelids with the sleeve of his dusty coat, as if it were a question in his mind whether or not he was dreaming.
"My last day here!" said Mortimer gaily to himself. "Weary, tiresome old books! my soul has grown sick over you for the last time."
He brushed the dust from off the dull-looking ledger, and went to work. "Won't I astonish him?" he thought, looking up; and he laughed so pleasantly that Tim, who was sweeping the rubbish into a dust-pan, suspended operations, and expressed his surprise in a somewhat dubious ejaculation:
"I vum!"
When Mr. Flint came in, he saw the same tall form bending over the accustomed desk that had met his eyes every morning for the last ten years; but he did not see the heart that was leaping with new life. And when, in his usual snarly way, he gave Mortimer orders to make up certain invoices, which would have employed the clerk till midnight, he opened a brief conversation which ended in his utter amazement.
"You will render Bowen & Cleet their account current, and make up the pork sale; it has been standing open long enough. And," added Mr. Flint, "fill up bills of lading for the D. D. coffee."
"I don't think I will," was the quiet reply.
Mr. Flint did not believe his ears.
"Mr. Walters!"
"Mr. Flint."
"You will fill up those bills of lading immediately."
"I won't!" plumply.
This caused Mr. Flint to sink in a chair with astonishment; and Mortimer went on writing.
"Did you say that you wouldn't?" asked Mr. Flint, looking at him.
"Yes, sir."
"You did!"
"My year," said Mortimer, leisurely, "expires to-day, and with it, I am happy to state, my connection with Flint & Snarle."
Mr. Flint hunted twenty seconds for his lost voice.
"You insolent – "
"Sir!" cried Mortimer, turning to him abruptly, "until now I have borne your tyranny with meekness. We are no longer employer and clerk. We are man and man, with the advantage on my side. If you apply an insulting epithet to me, I shall pull your ears!"
O Tim, how you rubbed your hands, you little villain! How your limbs seemed to be receiving a series of galvanic shocks from an invisible battery! How your eyes sparkled, and your proclivity for fight got uppermost, till you cried out, "Pitch into him, old boy!"
"Go!" hissed Flint, through his closed teeth; "go!" that was all the word he could master.
Mortimer passed out of the office.
The genial sunshine slid from the house-tops, and fell under his feet; a thousand airy forms walked with him, and he felt their presence, though he could not see them.
He wandered through the Park. April had breathed on the cold ground, and the green grass was springing up to welcome her. The leaves were unfolding themselves, and the air was full of spring. The fountain had thrown off its icy manacles, and leaped up with a sense of freedom.
His dreamy eyes saw it all. The black shadows had fallen from him; he had left them with Flint; and a bright day had dawned within him and without him. Everything was tinged with iridescent light, for he looked at the world, as it were, through dew-drops. Happy morning – happy life! when one can put aside the trailing vines of painful memory, and let the warm sunshine of Heaven find its way into the heart.
In this sunny mood he turned his way homeward. He passed Mrs. Snarle on the stairs with a smile; he heard Daisy singing in the sitting-room; and he sat himself down in the yellow light which streamed through the window of his bedroom, making a hundred golden fancies on the worn carpet:
"The shadows of the coming flowers!
The phantoms of forget-me-nots,
And roses red and sweet!"
His eyes made pictures; his fancy inverted the hour-glass of his life, and the old sands ran back! He floated down the stream of time, instead of onward.
The sunshine grew deeper and broader, and filled the little room. Then it became condensed and brighter. Gradually it moulded itself into form, and little Bell, in her golden ringlets, stood at the side of Mortimer. Her white hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up – not in surprise, but with tenderness – with the air of a man who can gaze with unclouded eyes into the spiritual world and lose himself.
"I knew you were near," he said, dreamily. "I thought you would come. You have something to tell me. What is it, my little Bell? Thus you stood at my side, thus you looked into my eyes, the day on which I told Daisy that I loved her. Thus you come to me whenever the current of my life changes, to love and advise me. What is it, Bell – dainty little Bell?"
A sunny lip rested on his for a moment.
"Be strong!" said little Bell.
A cloud of sunlight floated around Mortimer, slipped down at his feet, and lost itself in the orange stream which flooded the window.
"He is dreaming of Bell," said Daisy, as she bent over him – "dreaming of lost Bell!"
And she closed the door after her softly.
Then Mortimer's vision of sister Bell was a dream? Perhaps it was not. Perhaps this real world is linked more closely to the invisible sphere than in our guesses. It may be an angel's hand which touches our cheek, when we think that it is only the breeze. ¿Quien sabe? Who can say that in sleep we do not touch hands with the spirits of another world – the angels of hereafter? And what may death be but an intellectual dream! – Who knows?
Nobody knows. "But," suggests the gentle reader, "suppose you dispense with your Hamlet-like philosophy, and go on with your story, like the pleasant author that you are, instead of putting us to sleep, as you have your hero."
Reader, the hint was merited.
IX
"My eyes make pictures when they are shut."
Coleridge.
IX.
DAISY AND THE NECKLACE
Our petite Heroine – How she talked to the Poets – The Morocco Case – Daisy's Eyes make Pictures – Tears, idle Tears!
Mortimer was still sleeping an "azure-lidded sleep," as Keats has it, when Daisy again came softly to the door.
A pretty little woman was Daisy Snarle.
She had one of those faces which you sometimes pass in the street and remember afterward, ever connecting it with some exquisite picture, or, if you happen to be in a poetical mood, a dainty bit of music. That face was very sweet in the coquettish red and white "kiss-me-quick" which used to shade it sunny mornings, when Daisy went to market – a very beautiful face when she looked up earnestly – a very holy face when she sat thoughtfully in her room at twilight. Her hair was dark chestnut, and she wore it in one heavy braid over her forehead. Her eyes were so gentle and saucy by turns that I could never tell whether they were gray or hazel; but her smile was frank, her laugh musical, and her whole presence so purely womanly, that one could not but be better for knowing her. Yet Daisy was not faultless. She had a wild little will of her own – none the worse for that, however. She could put her foot down – and a sweet little foot it was! – a temptation of a foot, cased in a tight boot – high in the instep, and arched like the proud neck of an Arabian mare, or the eye-brows of a Georgian girl. And then the heel of said boot! – But I daren't trust myself further.
Daisy stood looking at Mortimer with her fond, thoughtful eyes. Soon she grew tired of this, and, placing a stool by his chair, sat down and commenced sewing. From time to time she looked up from her work and smiled quietly.
"How he sleeps!" said Daisy, with a low laugh. "Will he be cross if I disturb him?" – and she laughed again. "I wonder," she said, at length, "if a tiny song would awaken him?"
So she sang in a gentle voice those touching lines of Barry Cornwall, commencing with —
"Touch us gently, Father Time!
As we glide adown the stream."
She sang them bewitchingly. The music must have stolen into Mortimer's dream, for he slept a quieter sleep than before. Miss Daisy did not like that, and pouted quite prettily, and shook her finger at him.
"O, how tiresome you are!" she said. Then she sewed for ten minutes quite steadily.
"I guess I'll arrange your books, Rip Van Winkle! and when you wake up, a half century hence, you won't know them, they'll be in such good order!"
And facetious Miss Daisy broke out in such a wild, merry laugh, that an early robin, perched on a tree beside the window, ceased chirping, and listened to her.
Her fingers grew very busy with Mortimer's books. Having dusted them carefully, she commenced to place them in an old black-walnut book-case, which must have had an antique look fifty years ago. And Daisy went on laughing and talking to herself in a most comical manner.
"Here, Mr. Theocritus!" she cried, taking up that venerable poet, and placing him upside down, "I'll just set you on your head for absorbing all that stupid boy's attention one live-long evening, when I wanted to chat with him."
An author is supposed to know everything about his characters; but I cannot tell why Daisy placed Mortimer's poet in such an uncomfortable position, unless she thought that the blood might run into the head of Mr. Theocritus, and cause him to be taken off with a brain fever!
"And you, Mr. Byron," Daisy continued, "you're a very wicked young fellow! and I won't let you sit next to Mrs. Hemans!" so she placed Plutarch between them. "But you and Shelly," Daisy said, resting her hand on Keats, "you are different sort of persons; you are too earnest and beautiful to be impure; and you shall sit side by side between L. E. L. and our own Alice Cary. And Chatterton! poor boy Chatterton! I'll place you in that shadowy corner of the book-case, where the sunshine never comes!"
So Daisy made merry or sad, as the case might be, over her lover's few volumes; and when she had arranged them to suit her capricious self, she kissed her hand to Tom Hood, and locked them all – poets, romancers, and historians – in the black, sombre old book-case.
Our friend Daisy was in one of those playful, half-childish moods, which came upon her not unfrequently.
Now she looked around the room for some other piece of useful mischief to do. She would turn over Mortimer's papers. Ah, what made her blush and laugh so prettily then? It was only a sheet of note-paper, on which Mortimer, in a dreamy moment, had written her name innumerable times – for know, good world, that true love takes the silliest ways to express itself.
Now she was curious.
She stood thoughtfully, with a small morocco case in her hand. The reader has seen it once in Flint's office. An undefined feeling stole over her; and it was some time before she thought of opening the case. She did so, however, and took from it a pearl necklace of rare design and workmanship. The necklace was in three parts, linked together by exquisitely carved clasps, from the largest of which hung a
composed of smaller and more costly pearls.
"How beautiful!" and she grew more thoughtful. Something within her recognized the jewels. It was not her sight, it was not her touch, but an intuitive something which is finer and subtler than either.
"I have seen this somewhere – somewhere," she said; "but where?"
And she closed her eyes, as if the sunlight blinded some timid memory that was stealing through her brain. Her fancy painted pictures of strange places and things. Now she saw a country-house, among cool, quiet trees; then a man dying – some one she loved – but who? Now she was in a large city, and heard the rumbling of wheels and confused voices. Now the snow was coming down, flake after flake, and everything was white; then it was night – dark, stormy, and dreadful – and she was cold, bitter cold! Some one had left her in the white, clinging snow, and she was freezing!
Daisy opened her eyes. The snow and wind were gone, and April's sunny breath blew shadows through the open window. The house, the death, the storm – how were they connected with the string of pearls? And Daisy held the necklace on her finger-tips and wondered.
"Somewhere, somewhere – but where?"
Daisy could not tell where.
"I may have seen one like it," Daisy thought. "Perhaps this was Bell's, and these stones may have rested many a time on her little neck. I wish I had known Bell!"
With this she placed the necklace in the case again, and tears gathered in her eyes, she knew not why.
"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean."
She laid the box in the place where she had found it, and thought she would not speak to Mortimer of the necklace; he might be displeased to have her touch it.
Her gaiety had given place to sadness, and when she knelt by Mortimer's chair she could not help sobbing. Mortimer awoke and bent over her.
"What, weeping, Daisy?"
X
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die:
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year you must not die.
He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day,
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend and a true love,
And the new year will take 'em away.
Old year, you must not go:
So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.
He frothed his bumpers to the brim:
A jollier year we shall not see;
But though his eyes are waxing dim,
And though his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die:
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die.
Alfred Tennyson.
X.
ST. AGNES' EVE
The Old Year – St. Agnes – Keats' Poem – The Circlet of Pearls – A Cloud – The Promise – Mrs. Snarle continues her Knitting.
The Old Year had just gone by – the dear, sad Old Year! He died in the blustering wind, out in the cold! He lay down in the shadows, moaned, and died! Something has gone with thee, Old Year, which will never come again: kind words, sweet smiles, warm lips – ah, no, they will never come again! Hold them near your heart for love of us, Old Year! They came with you, they went with you! Kyrie eleyson!
"I wish you could tarry with us," said Mortimer. "You were kind to us, merry and sad with us." And he repeated the lines,
"Old year, you shall not die:
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die."
"To-night, Daisy, will be St. Agnes' Eve, and if I sell my prose sketch to Filberty's Magazine, I'll be in a good humor to read you Keats' poem."
Since leaving Mr. Flint's employ, Mortimer had entirely supported himself with his pen. His piquant paragraphs and touching verses over the signature of "Il Penseroso," had attracted some attention; and he found but little difficulty in disposing of his articles, at starving prices, it is true; but he bore up, seeing a brighter time ahead. He had been so occupied in writing short stories and essays, that his romance, which lacked but one chapter of completion, was still unfinished.
Filberty's Magazine paid him so generously for the "prose article," that he could afford to devote himself to a task which did not promise immediate profit. He completed the novel at sundown that day; and after supper Daisy reminded him of his promise to read Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes."
"I sometimes think," said Mortimer, as good Mrs. Snarle seated herself in a low rocking-chair, preparatory to a dose, while Daisy sat on a stool at his feet, "I sometimes think that this poem is the most exquisite definition of one phase of poetry in our language. Musical rhythm, imperial words, gorgeous color and luxurious conceit, seem to have culminated in it. And the story itself is so touching that it would be poetical even if narrated in the plainest prose. How surpassingly beautiful is it, then, worked out with all the richness of that sweetest poet, who, in intricate verbal music and dreamy imagery, stands almost alone!"
Mrs. Snarle's head was inclined on one side, and the whole posé of her form was one of profound attention.
She was fast asleep.
The busy knitting-needles were placid in her motionless fingers; and Pinky, the kitten, was 'spinning a yarn' on her own account from the ball in Mrs. Snarle's lap.
"Who was St. Agnes?" asked Daisy.
"She was a saint who suffered martyrdom for her religious views during the persecution of the Christians in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. But let us read the poem, which will make her more immortal than her heroism."
Mortimer opened the book, and his voice touched the verse with new music for Daisy's ears. Now his tones would be low and sad, as he read of the old Beadsman, who told his beads in the cold night air,
"While his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seemed taking flight for heaven."
Then his voice grew as tender as a lover's, when he came to the place where Porphyro, concealed, beholds Madeline as she disrobes:
"Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees."
"How few poets know how to handle color!" said Mortimer. "Azure, red, orange, and all poetic hues are mixed up in their pictures like a shattered rain-bow! But how artist-like is Keats! His famous window scene has not been surpassed:
"A casement high and triple-arched there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints and dim emblazonings,
A shielded 'scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.
"Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon:
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together pressed,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly dressed,
Save wings, for heaven!"
"Is it not exquisite?" asked Mortimer, looking in Daisy's face.
She nodded assent.
Mortimer fixed his eyes on a pearl necklace which gently clasped the girl's neck, and started. The cross undulated on her bosom, which rose and fell like two full white roses in the wind.
"Where did you get that?" and Mortimer laid his hand on her arm nervously.
"It was a freak," said Daisy, blushing. "Are you angry?"
"Not angry, Daisy."
"But you look so."
"Do I? I am not. I grow unhappy when I see that necklace."
"It was Bell's, then?"
"Yes – no – don't ask me, Daisy."
"Why?"
A shadow came over Mortimer's face.
That morning Daisy had been tempted to open the morocco case, and a desire to clasp the white necklace on her neck became irresistible. Something drew her to it, and the same feeling of mystery and longing which stole on her when she first held the circlet in her hand while Mortimer was sleeping, overpowered her. Almost unconsciously she fastened the gold clasp, and when the little cross sunk down on her bosom, her heart grew lighter, and she went over the house singing like a canary. She wore it the whole day, pausing at times in her household duties to admire the pearls. After a while she forgot its existence, and her intention to replace it before Mortimer returned.
When Mortimer's eye caught sight of the necklace, Daisy was much embarrassed, for she could, in no intelligible way, account for having taken it. Mortimer was equally pained. He had unwillingly become possessed of the ornament, and saw no means by which he could return it to Mr. Flint without acknowledging that he had also taken the check. He dreaded to make so humiliating a confession, and, perhaps, he stood a little in fear of Mr. Flint's anger. The circumstance had caused him many moments of anxiety, and an unpleasant thought came to him, as he saw the purloined necklace on Daisy's innocent bosom.
"But you are angry?" said Daisy, looking up with dimmed eyes.
"No, pet."
"Then you will kiss me?" said Daisy, in a most winning way.
Mortimer did what most every one would have done "in the premises" – an act which was quite sufficient to make one break that part of the commandment which refers to envy. Surely a man would be inhuman not to, having once seen Daisy Snarle!
"I am not angry, but pained; I cannot tell you why. I wish you to promise me something."
"I will. What is it?"
"That you will not doubt me, whatever may occur in connection with this necklace – that you will love me, though I may be unable to explain condemning circumstances, or dispel the doubts of others."
"I promise that. But how strange," thought Daisy. "I am sorry that I was so childish as to take the necklace. Put it away, Mortimer, and forget that I did so."
Mortimer's cheerfulness returned, and he commenced reading the poem at the place where he had interrupted himself. Just as he finished the last verse, telling how, ages long ago,
"The lovers fled away into the storm,"
Mrs. Snarle awoke with a jerk, and went to knitting as though she had been doing nothing else the whole evening – a harmless subterfuge peculiar to old people.