By common consent it was determined that no summer exodus could be thought of until after the travellers had reached August, all being well, they would seek the limit of civilized intercourse in Africa. While waiting, to raise the spirits of the family, it was decided to invite a house party for the remainder of July, and in the beauties of Bar Harbor. Soon gaiety and laughter filled the grand old rooms; the days went merrily by.
Two men were sitting in the billiard room lounging over iced punch. Light, perfumed and golden, poured from the rooms below upon the summer night, and the music of a waltz made its way into the darkness.
“What an odd fish Livingston has grown to be,” said one, relighting a thin, delicate-looking cigar. “I watched him out of curiosity a while ago and was struck at the change in him.”
“Ah!” drawled the other sipping the cooling beverage. “Quite a Priuli on the whole, eh?”12
“Y-e-s! Precisely. And I have fancied that the beautiful Mrs. Briggs is his Clarisse. What do you think? She shudders every time he draws near, and sinks to the ground under the steady gaze of his eye. Odd, isn’t it?”
“Deucedly odd! About to marry Miss Vance, isn’t he?”
“That don’t count. Love is not always legitimate. If there’s anything in it, it is only a flirtation probably; that’s the style.”
“What you say is true, Skelton. Let’s drink the rest of this stuff and go down again. I know we’re missed already.”
When they had swallowed the punch and descended, the first person they saw was Livingston leaning against the door of the salon. His face was abstracted and in dead repose, there lurked about the corners of his full lips implacable resolution. The waltz was ended.
Some interminable argument was going on, generally, about the room. Conversation progressed in sharp, brisk sentences, which fell from the lips like the dropping shots of sharpshooters. There was a call for music. Molly mentally calculated her available talent and was about to give up the idea and propose something else, when she was amazed to see Dianthe rise hurriedly from her seat on an ottoman, go to the piano unattended and sit down. Unable to move with astonishment she watched in fascination the slender white fingers flash over the keys. There was a strange rigid appearance about the girl that was unearthly. Never once did she raise her eyes. At the first sharp treble note the buzz in the room was hushed at stillness. Livingston moved forward and rested his arm upon the piano fastening his gaze upon the singer’s quivering lips.
Slowly, tremulously at first, pealed forth the notes:
“Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land, tell ol’ Pharaoh, let my people go.”
Scarcely was the verse begun when every person in the room started suddenly and listened with eager interest. As the air proceeded, some grew visibly pale, and not daring to breathe a syllable, looked horrified into each other’s faces. “Great heaven!” whispered Mr. Vance to his daughter. “Do you not hear another voice—beside Mrs. Briggs’?”
It was true, indeed. A weird contralto, veiled as it were, rising and falling upon every wave of the great soprano, and reaching the ear as from some strange distance. The singer sang on, her voice dropping sweet and low, the echo following it, and at the closing word, she fell back in a dead faint. Mr. Vance caught her in his arms.
“Mrs. Briggs has the soul of an artiste. She would make a perfect prima donna for the Grand Opera,” remarked one man to Molly.
“We are as surprised as anyone,” replied the young girl. “We never knew that Mrs. Briggs was musical until this evening. It is a delightful surprise.”
They carried her to the quiet, cool library away from the glaring lights and the excitement, and at her request left her there alone. Her thoughts were painful. Memory had returned in full save as to her name. She knit her brow in painful thought, finally leaning back among her cushions wearily, too puzzled for further thought. Presently a step paused beside her chair. She looked up into Livingston’s face.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked, gently taking in his slender wrist and counting the pulse-beats.
Instead of answering his question, she began abruptly: “Mr. Livingston, Reuel told me to trust you implicitly. Can you and will you tell me what has happened to me since last I sang the song I have sung here tonight? I try to recall the past, but all is confusion and mystery. It makes my head ache so to think.”
Livingston suddenly drew closer to her.
“Yes, Felice, there is a story in your life! I can save you.”
“Save me!” exclaimed the girl.
“Yes, and will! Listen to me.” In gentle accents lie recounted to her there in the stillness, with the pulsing music of the viols beating and throbbing in her ears like muffled drums, the story of Dianthe Lusk as we have told it here. At the close of the tale the white-faced girl turned to him in despair the more eloquent because of her quietness.
“Did Reuel know that I was a Negress?”
“No; no one recognized you but myself.”
She hid her face in her hands.
“Who ever suffered such torture as mine?” she cried, bitterly. “And there is no rest out of the grave!” she continued.
“Yes, there is rest and security in my love! Felice, Dianthe, I have learned to love you!”
She sprang from his touch as if stung.
He continued: “I love you better than all in the world. To possess you I am prepared to prove false to my friend—I am prepared to save you from the fate that must be yours if ever Reuel learns your origin.”
“You would have me give up all for you?” she asked with a shudder.
“Ay, from your husband—from the world! We will go where none can ever find us. If you refuse, I cannot aid you.”
“Pity me!”
She sank upon her knees at his feet.
“I give you a week to think it over. I can love, but cannot pity.”
In vain the girl sought to throw off the numbing influence of the man’s presence. In desperation she tried to defy him, but she knew that she had lost her will-power and was but a puppet in the hands of this false friend.
12 Count Priuli and Clarisse, mentioned in the next paragraph, are figures in the play Retribution by Tom Taylor (1856). Taylor is better remembered for his play The Ticket-of-Leave Man (1856). In Retribution, Priuli attempts to seduce the wife of his friend.
CHAPTER IX
“THE Doctor is so good to you about letters; so different from poor Charlie. I can’t imagine what he finds to write about.”
It was the first of August, and the last guest had left the mansion; tomorrow they started for Bar Harbor. Molly, Dianthe, and Livingston sat together in the morning room.
“He tells me the incidents of the journey. This is the last letter for three months,” said Dianthe, with a sigh.
“Of course, there is no love-making,” said Aubrey, lazily letting fall his newspaper, and pushing his hands through his bright hair. He was a sight for gods and men. His handsome figure outlined against the sky, as he stood by the window in an attitude of listless grace, his finely-cut face, so rich in color and the charm of varying expression, turned indolently toward the two women to whom the morning mail had brought its offering.
“Have you ever read one of Reuel’s letters?” Dianthe said, quietly. “You may see this if you like.” A tap sounded on the door.
“Miss Molly, if you please, the dressmaker has sent the things.”
“Oh, thank you, Jennie, I’ll come at once!” and gathering up her letters, Molly ran off with a smile and a nod of apology.
Aubrey stood by the window reading Reuel’s letter. His face was deadly white, and his breath came quick and short. He read half the page; then crushed it in his hand and crossed the room to Dianthe. She, too, was pale and there was something akin to fear in the gaze that she lifted to his face.
“How dare you?” he as
ked breathlessly; “but you are a woman! Not one of you has any delicacy in her heart! Not one!”
He tore the letter across and flung it from him.
“I do not suffer enough,” he said in a suffocated voice. “You taunt me with this view of conjugal happiness—with his right to love and care for you.”
“I did not do it to hurt you,” she answered. “Do you have no thought for Molly’s sufferings if I succumb to your threats of exposure and weakly allow myself to be frightened into committing the great wrong you contemplate toward two true-hearted people? I thought you could realize if you could know how Reuel loves and trusts me, and how true and noble is his nature.”
“Do you think I have room to pity Reuel—Molly—while my own pain is more than I can bear? Without you my ambition is destroyed, my hope for the future—my life is ruined.”
He turned from her and going to a distant part of the room, threw himself into a chair and covered his face with his hands. Against her will, better promptings and desires, the unfortunate girl is drawn by invisible influences across the room to the man’s side. Presently he holds her in his eager, strong embrace, his face and tears hidden against her shoulder. She does not struggle in his clasp, only looks into the future with the hopeless agony of dumb despair.
At length he broke the silence. “There is nothing you can feel, or say to me that I do not realize—the sin, the shame, the lasting disgrace. I know it all. I told you once I loved you; I tell you now that I cannot live without you!”
An hour later Dianthe sat alone in the pleasant room. She did not realize the beauty of the languid mid-summer day. She thought of nothing but the wickedness of betraying her friends. Her perfect features were like marble. The dark eyes had deep, black circles round them and gazed wistfully into the far, far distance, a land where spirit only could compass the wide space. As she sat there in full possession of all her waking faculties, suddenly there rose from out the very floor, as it were, a pale and lovely woman. She neither looked at Dianthe nor did she speak; but walked to the table and opened a book lying upon it and wrote; then coming back, stood for a moment fixed; then sank, just as she rose, and disappeared. Her dress was that of a servant. Her head was bare; her hair fell loosely around her in long black curls. Her complexion was the olive of mulattoes or foreigners. As the woman passed from her view, Dianthe rose and went to the table to examine the book. She did not feel at all frightened, recognizing instantly the hand of mysticism in this strange occurrence. There on the open page, she perceived heavy marks in ink, under-scoring the following quotation from the 12th chapter of Luke: “For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed.” On the margin, at the end of this passage was written in a fine female hand, the single word, “Mira.”
* * *
After luncheon Aubrey proposed that they go canoeing on the river. The idea was eagerly embraced and by five o’clock the large and luxurious canoe floated out from the boat-house upon the calm bosom of the lovely Charles rocking softly to the little waves that lapped her sides.
The day had been oppressive, but upon the river a refreshing breeze was blowing now that the sun had gone down. For the time all Dianthe’s cares left her and her tortured mind was at peace. Molly was full of life and jested and sang and laughed. She had brought her mandolin with her and gave them soft strains of delicious waltzes.
On, on they glided under the impetus of the paddle-strokes in Aubrey’s skilful hands, now past the verdure-clad pine hills, now through beds of fragrant water-lilies getting gradually farther and farther from the companionship of other pleasure-seekers. On, into the uninhabited portion where silent woods and long green stretches of pasture-land added a wild loneliness to the scene.
How lovely was the evening sky with its white clouds dotting the azure and the pink tinting of the sunset casting over all its enlivening glow; how deep, and dark was the green of the water beneath the shadowing trees. From the land came the lowing of cows and the sweet scent of freshly spread hay.
Suddenly Aubrey’s paddle was caught and held in the meshes of the water-lily stems that floated all about them. He leaned far over to extricate it and in a moment the frail craft was bottom up, its living freight struggling in the river. Once, twice, thrice a thrilling call for help echoed over the darkening land; then all was still.
CHAPTER X
THE expedition with which Reuel Briggs found himself connected was made up of artists, savants and several men—capitalists—who represented the business interests of the venture. Before the white cliffs of the English coast were entirely lost to view, Reuel’s natural propensities for leadership were being fully recognized by the students about him. There was an immediate demand for his professional services and he was kept busy for many days. And it was the best panacea for a nature like his—deep and silent and self-suppressing. He had abandoned happiness for duty; he had stifled all those ominous voices which rose from the depth of his heart, and said to him: “Will you ever return? And if you return will you find your dear one? And, if you find her, will she not have changed? Will she have preserved your memory as faithfully as you will preserve hers?”
A thousand times a day while he performed his duties mechanically, his fate haunted him—the renunciation which called on him to give up happiness, to open to mishap the fatal door absence. All the men of the party were more or less silent and distrait, even Charlie Vance was subdued and thoughtful. But Briggs suffered more than any of them, although he succeeded in affecting a certain air of indifference. As he gradually calmed down and peace returned to his mind, he was surprised to feel the resignation that possessed him. Some unseen presence spoke to his inner being words of consolation and hope. He was shown very clearly his own inability to control events, and that his fate was no longer in his own hands but ordered by a being of infinite pity and love. After hours spent in soul-communion with the spirit of Dianthe, he would sink into refreshing slumber and away in peace. Her letters were bright spots, very entertaining and describing minutely her life and daily occupation since his departure. He lived upon them during the voyage to Tripoli, sustained by the hope of finding one upon arriving at that city.
One fine evening when the sun was setting, they arrived at Tripoli. Their course lay toward the southward, and standing on deck, Reuel watched the scene—a landscape strange in form, which would have delighted him and filled him with transports of joy; now he felt something akin to indifference.
The ripples that flit the burnished surface of the long undulating billows tinkled continually on the sides of the vessel. He was aware of a low-lying spectral-pale band of shore. That portion of Africa whose nudity is only covered by the fallow mantle of the desert gave a most sad impression to the gazer. The Moors call it “Bled el Ateusch,” the Country of Thirst; and, as there is an intimate relation between the character of a country and that of its people, Reuel realized vividly that the race who dwelt here must be different from those of the rest of the world.
“Ah! That is our first glimpse of Africa, is it?” said Adonis’s voice, full of delight, beside him.
He turned to see his friend offering him a telescope. “At last we are here. In the morning we shall set our feet on the enchanted ground.”
In the distance one could indeed make out upon the deep blue of the sky the profile of Djema el Gomgi, the great mosque on the shores of the Mediterranean. At a few cable lengths away the city smiles at them with all the fascination of a modern Cleopatra, circled with an oasis of palms studded with hundreds of domes and minarets. Against a sky of amethyst the city stands forth with a penetrating charm. It is the eternal enchantment of the cities of the Orient seen at a distance; but, alas! Set foot within them, the illusion vanishes and disgust seizes you. Like beautiful bodies they have the appearance of life, but within the worm of decay and death eats ceaselessly.
At twilight in this atmosphere the city outlines itself faintly, then disappears in dusky haz
e. One by one the stars came into the sky until the heavens were a twinkling blaze; the sea murmured even her soft refrain and slept with the transparency of a mirror, flecked here and there with fugitive traces of phosphorescence.
The two young men stood a long time on the deck gazing toward the shore.
“Great night!” exclaimed Adonis at length with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction. “It promises to be better than anything Barnum has ever given us even at a dollar extra reserved seat.”
Reuel smiled in spite of himself; after all, Charlie was a home-line warranted to ward off homesickness. On board there was the sound of hurrying feet and a murmur of suppressed excitement, but it had subsided shortly; an hour later “sleep and oblivion reigned over all.”
In the morning, amid the bustle of departure the mail came on board. There were two letters for Reuel. He seated himself in the seclusion of the cabin safe from prying eyes. Travelling across the space that separated him from America, his thoughts were under the trees in the garden of Vance Hall. In the fresh morning light he thought he could discern the dress of his beloved as she came toward him between the trees.
Again he was interrupted by Charlie’s jolly countenance. He held an open letter in his hand. “There, Doc, there’s Molly’s letter. Read it, read it; don’t have any qualms of conscience about it. There’s a good bit in it concerning the Madam, see? I thought you’d like to read it.” Then he sauntered away to talk with Jim Titus about the supplies for the trip across the desert.
Jim was proving himself a necessary part of the expedition. He was a Negro of the old régime who felt that the Anglo-Saxon was appointed by God to rule over the African. He showed his thoughts in his obsequious manner, his subservient “massa,” and his daily conversation with those about him. Jim superintended the arrangement of the table of the exploring party, haggled over prices with the hucksters, quarreled with the galley cooks and ended by doing all the cooking for his party in addition to keeping his eye on “Massa Briggs.” All of this was very pleasant, but sometimes Reuel caught a gleam in Jim’s furtive black eye which set him thinking and wondering at the latter’s great interest in himself; but he accounted for this because of Livingston’s admonitions to Jim to “take care of Dr. Briggs.”
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