After the Storm

T >> T. S. Arthur >> After the Storm

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"Why not?"

"I wished him to go to the arbor."

"He was your guest, and, in simple courtesy, if there was no other
motive, you should have let his wishes govern your movements," Mr.
Delancy replied.

"He is always opposing me!" said Irene, giving way to a flood of
tears and weeping for a time bitterly.

"It is not at all unlikely, my daughter," replied Mr. Delancy, after
the tears began to flow less freely, "that Hartley is now saying the
same thing of you, and treasuring up bitter things in his heart. I
have no idea that any business calls him to New York to-night."

"Nor I. He takes this means to punish me," said Irene.

"Don't take that for granted. Your conduct has blinded him, and he
is acting now from blind impulse. Before he is half-way to New York
he will regret this hasty step as sincerely as I trust you are
already regretting its occasion."

Irene did not reply.

"I did not think," he resumed, "that my late earnest remonstrance
would have so soon received an illustration like this. But it may be
as well. Trifles light as air have many times proved the beginning
of life-longs separations between friends and lovers who possessed
all the substantial qualities for a life-long and happy
companionship. Oh, my daughter, beware! beware of these little
beginnings of discord. How easy would it have been for you to have
yielded to Hartley's wishes!--how hard will it to endure the pain
that must now be suffered! And remember that you do not suffer
alone; your conduct has made him an equal sufferer. He came up all
the way from the city full of sweet anticipations. It was for your
sake that he came; and love pictured you as embodying all
attractions. But how has he found you? Ah, my daughter, your caprice
has wounded the heart that turned to you for love. He came in joy,
but goes back in sorrow."

Irene went up to her chamber, feeling sadder than she had ever felt
in her life; yet, mingling, with her sadness and self-reproaches,
were complaining thoughts of her lover. For a little half-playful
pettishness was she to be visited with a punishment like this? If be
had really loved her--so she queried--would be have flung himself
away after this hasty fashion? Pride came to her aid in the conflict
of feeling, and gave her self-control and endurance. At tea-time she
met her father, and surprised him with her calm, almost cheerful,
aspect. But his glance was too keen not to penetrate the disguise.
After tea, she sat reading--or at least affecting to read--in the
portico, until the evening shadows came down, and then she retired
to her chamber.

Not many hours of sleep brought forgetfulness of suffering through
the night that followed. Sometimes the unhappy girl heaped mountains
of reproaches upon her own head; and sometimes pride and
indignation, gaining rule in her heart, would whisper
self-justification, and throw the weight of responsibility upon her
lover.

Her pale face and troubled eyes revealed too plainly, on the next
morning, the conflict through which she had passed.

"Write him a letter of apology or explanation," said Mr. Delancy.

But Irene was not in a state of mind for this. Pride came whispering
too many humiliating objections in her ear. Morning passed, and in
the early hours of the afternoon, when the New York boat usually
came up the river, she was out on the portico watching for its
appearance. Hope whispered that, repenting of his hasty return on
the day before, her lover was now hurrying back to meet her. At last
the white hull of the boat came gliding into view, and in less than
half an hour it was at the landing. Then it moved on its course
again. Almost to a second of time had Irene learned to calculate the
minutes it required for Hartley to make the distance between the
landing and the nearest point in the road where his form could meet
her view. She held her breath in eager expectation as that moment of
time approached. It came--it passed; the white spot in the road,
where his dark form first revealed itself, was touched by no
obscuring shadow. For more than ten minutes Irene sat motionless,
gazing still toward that point; then, sighing deeply, she arose and
went up to her room, from which she did not come down until summoned
to join her father at tea.

The next day passed as this had done, and so did the next. Hartley
neither came nor sent a message of any kind. The maiden's heart
began to fail. Grief and fear took the place of accusation and
self-reproach. What if he had left her for ever! The thought made
her heart shiver as if an icy wind had passed over it. Two or three
times she took up her pen to write him a few words and entreat him
to come back to her again. But she could form no sentences against
which pride did not come with strong objection; and so she suffered
on, and made no sign.

A whole week at last intervened. Then the enduring heart began to
grow stronger to bear, and, in self-protection, to put on sterner
moods. Hers was not a spirit to yield weakly in any struggle. She
was formed for endurance, pride and self-reliance giving her
strength above common natures. But this did not really lessen her
suffering, for she was not only capable of deep affection, but
really loved Hartley almost as her own life; and the thought of
losing him, whenever it grew distinct, filled her with terrible
anguish.

With pain her father saw the color leave her cheeks, her eyes grow
fixed and dreamy, and her lips shrink from their full outline.

"Write to Hartley," he said to her one day, after a week had passed.

"Never!" was her quick, firm, almost sharply uttered response; "I
would die first!"

"But, my daughter--"

"Father," she interrupted him, two bright spots suddenly burning on
her cheeks, "don't, I pray you, urge me on this point. I have
courage enough to break, but I will not bend. I gave him no offence.
What right has he to assume that I was not engaged in domestic
duties while he sat talking with you? He said that he had an
engagement in New York. Very well; there was a sufficient reason for
his sudden departure; and I accept the reason. But why does he
remain away? If simply because I preferred a seat in the arbor to
one in the portico, why, the whole thing is so unmanly, that I can
have no patience with it. Write to him, and humor a whim like this!
No, no--Irene Delancy is not made of the right stuff. He went from
me, and he must return again. I cannot go to him. Maiden modesty and
pride forbid. And so I shall remain silent and passive, if my heart
breaks."

It was in the afternoon, and they were sitting in the portico,
where, at this hour, Irene might have been found every day for the
past week. The boat from New York came in sight as she closed the
last sentence. She saw it--for her eyes were on the look-out--the
moment it turned the distant point of land that hid the river
beyond. Mr. Delancy also observed the boat. Its appearance was an
incident of sufficient importance, taking things as they were, to
check the conversation, which was far from being satisfactory on
either side.

The figure of Irene was half buried in a deep cushioned chair, which
had been wheeled out upon the portico, and now her small, slender
form seemed to shrink farther back among the cushions, and she sat
as motionless as one asleep. Steadily onward came the boat, throwing
backward her dusky trail and lashing with her great revolving wheels
the quiet waters into foamy turbulence--onward, until the dark crowd
of human forms could be seen upon her decks; then, turning sharply,
she was lost to view behind a bank of forest trees. Ten minutes
more, and the shriek of escaping steam was heard as she stopped her
ponderous machinery at the landing.

From that time Irene almost held her breath, as so she counted the
moments that must elapse before Hartley could reach the point of
view in the road that led up from the river, should he have been a
passenger in the steamboat. The number was fully told, but it was
to-day as yesterday. There was no sign of his coming. And so the
eyelids, weary with vain expectation, drooped heavily over the
dimming eyes. But she had not stirred, nor shown a sign of feeling.
A little while she sat with her long lashes shading her pale cheeks;
then she slowly raised them and looked out toward the river again.
What a quick start she gave! Did her eyes deceive her? No, it was
Hartley, just in the spot she had looked to see him only a minute or
two before. But how slowly he moved, and with what a weary step!
and, even at this long distance, his face looked white against the
wavy masses of his dark-brown hair.

Irene started up with an exclamation, stood as if in doubt for a
moment, then, springing from the portico, she went flying to meet
him, as swiftly as if moving on winged feet. All the forces of her
ardent, impulsive nature were bearing her forward. There was no
remembrance of coldness or imagined wrong--pride did not even
struggle to lift its head--love conquered everything. The young man
stood still, from weariness or surprise, ere she reached him. As she
drew near, Irene saw that his face was not only pale, but thin and
wasted.

"Oh, Hartley! dear Hartley!" came almost wildly from her lips, as
she flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him over and over
again, on lips, cheeks and brow, with an ardor and tenderness that
no maiden delicacy could restrain. "Have you been sick, or hurt? Why
are you so pale, darling?"

"I have been ill for a week--ever since I was last here," the young
man replied, speaking in a slow, tremulous voice.

"And I knew it not!" Tears were glittering in her eyes and pressing
out in great pearly beads from between the fringing lashes. "Why did
you not send for me, Hartley?"

And she laid her small hands upon each side of his face, as you have
seen a mother press the cheeks of her child, and looked up tenderly
into his love-beaming eyes.

"But come, dear," she added, removing her hands from his face and
drawing her arm within his--not to lean on, but to offer support.
"My father, who has, with me, suffered great anxiety on your
account, is waiting your arrival at the house."

Then, with slow steps, they moved along the upward sloping way,
crowding the moments with loving words.

And so the storm passed, and the sun came out again in the firmament
of their souls. But looked he down on no tempest-marks? Had not the
ruthless tread of passion marred the earth's fair surface? Were no
goodly trees uptorn, or clinging vines wrenched from their support?
Alas! was there ever a storm that did not leave some ruined hope
behind? ever a storm that did not strew the sea with wrecks or mar
the earth's fair beauty?

As when the pain of a crushed limb ceases there comes to the
sufferer a sense of delicious ease, so, after the storm had passed,
the lovers sat in the warm sunshine and dreamed of unclouded
happiness in the future. But in the week that Hartley spent with his
betrothed were revealed to their eyes, many times, desolate places
where flowers had been; and their hearts grew sad as they turned
their eyes away, and sighed for hopes departed, faith shaken, and
untroubled confidence in each other for the future before them, for
ever gone.

CHAPTER III.

THE CLOUD AND THE SIGN.

_IN_ alternate storm and sunshine their lives passed on, until the
appointed day arrived that was to see them bound, not by the
graceful true-lovers' knot, which either might untie, but by a chain
light as downy fetters if borne in mutual love, and galling as
ponderous iron links, if heart answered not heart and the chafing
spirit struggled to get free.

Hartley Emerson loved truly the beautiful, talented and
affectionate, but badly-disciplined, quick-tempered, self-willed
girl he had chosen for a wife; and Irene Delancy would have gone to
prison and to death for the sake of the man to whom she had yielded
up the rich treasures of her young heart. In both cases the great
drawback to happiness was the absence of self-discipline,
self-denial and self-conquest. They could overcome difficulties,
brave danger, set the world at defiance, if need be, for each other,
and not a coward nerve give way; but when pride and passion came
between them, each was a child in weakness and blind self-will.
Unfortunately, persistence of character was strong in both. They
were of such stuff as martyrs were made of in the fiery times of
power and persecution.

A brighter, purer morning than that on which their marriage vows
were said the year had not given to the smiling earth. Clear and
softly blue as the eye of childhood bent the summer sky above them.
There was not a cloud in all the tranquil heavens to give suggestion
of dreary days to come or to wave a sign of warning. The blithe
birds sung their matins amid the branches that hung their leafy
drapery around and above Irene's windows, in seeming echoes to the
songs love was singing in her heart. Nature put on the loveliest
attire in all her ample wardrobe, and decked herself with coronals
and wreaths of flowers that loaded the air with sweetness.

"May your lives flow together like two pure streams that meet in the
same valley, and as bright a sky bend always over you as gives its
serene promise for to-day."

Thus spoke the minister as the ceremonials closed that wrought the
external bond of union between them. His words were uttered with
feeling and solemnity; for marriage, in his eyes, was no light
thing. He had seen too many sad hearts struggling in chains that
only death could break, ever to regard marriage with other than
sober thoughts that went questioning away into the future.

The "amen" of Mr. Delancy was not audibly spoken, but it was
deep-voiced in his heart.

There was to be a wedding-tour of a few weeks, and then the young
couple were to take possession of a new home in the city, Which Mr.
Emerson had prepared for his bride. The earliest boat that came up
from New York was to bears the party to Albany, Saratoga being the
first point of their destination.

After the closing of the marriage ceremony some two or three hours
passed before the time of departure came. The warm congratulations
were followed by a gay, festive scene, in which glad young hearts
had a merry-making time. How beautiful the bride looked! and how
proudly the gaze of her newly-installed husband turned ever and ever
toward her, move which way she would among her maidens, as if she
were a magnet to his eyes. He was standing in the portico that
looked out upon the distant river, about an hour after the wedding,
talking with one of the bridesmaids, when the latter, pointing to
the sky, said, laughing--

"There comes your fate."

Emerson's eyes followed the direction of her finger.

"You speak in riddles," he replied, looking back into the maiden's
face. "What do you see?"

"A little white blemish on the deepening azure," was answered.
"There it lies, just over that stately horse-chestnut, whose
branches arch themselves into the outline of a great cathedral
window."

"A scarcely perceptible cloud?"

"Yes, no bigger than a hand; and just below it is another."

"I see; and yet you still propound a riddle. What has that cloud to
do with my fate?"

"You know the old superstition connected with wedding-days?"

"What?"

"That as the aspect of the day is, so will the wedded life be."

"Ours, then, is full of promise. There has been no fairer day than
this," said the young man.

"Yet many a day that opened as bright and cloudless has sobbed
itself away in tears."

"True; and it may be so again. But I am no believer in signs."

"Nor I," said the young lady, again laughing.

The bride came up at this moment and, hearing the remark of her
young husband, said, as she drew her arm within his--

"What about signs, Hartley?"

"Miss Carman has just reminded me of the superstition about
wedding-days, as typical of life."

"Oh yes, I remember," said Irene, smiling. "If the day opens clear,
then becomes cloudy, and goes out in storm, there will be happiness
in the beginning, but sorrow at the close; but if clouds and rain
herald its awakening, then pass over and leave the sky blue and
sunny, there will be trouble at first, but smiling peace as life
progresses and declines. Our sky is bright as heart could wish." And
the bride looked up into the deep blue ether.

Miss Carman laid one hand upon her arm and with the other pointed
lower down, almost upon the horizon's edge, saying, in a tone of
mock solemnity--

"As I said to Mr. Emerson, so I now say to you--There comes our
fate."

"You don't call that the herald of an approaching storm?"

"Weatherwise people say," answered the maiden, "that a sky without a
cloud is soon followed by stormy weather. Since morning until now
there has not a cloud been seen."'

"Weatherwise people and almanac-makers speak very oracularly, but
the day of auguries and signs is over," replied Irene.

"Philosophy," said Mr. Emerson, "is beginning to find reasons in the
nature of things for results that once seemed only accidental, yet
followed with remarkable certainty the same phenomena. It discovers
a relation of cause and effect where ignorance only recognizes some
power working in the dark."

"So you pass me over to the side of ignorance!" Irene spoke in a
tone that Hartley's ear recognized too well. His remark had touched
her pride.

"Not by any means," he answered quickly, eager to do away the
impression. "Not by any means," he repeated. "The day of mere
auguries, omens and signs is over. Whatever natural phenomena appear
are dependent on natural causes, and men of science are beginning to
study the so-called superstitions of farmers and seamen, to find
out, if possible, the philosophical elucidation. Already a number of
curious results have followed investigation in this field."

Irene leaned on his arm still, but she did not respond. A little
cloud had come up and lay just upon the verge of her soul's horizon.
Her husband knew that it was there; and this knowledge caused a
cloud to dim also the clear azure of his mind. There was a singular
correspondence between their mental sky and the fair cerulean
without.

Fearing to pursue the theme on which they were conversing, lest some
unwitting words might shadow still further the mind of Irene,
Emerson changed the subject, and was, to all appearance, successful
in dispelling the little cloud.

The hour came, at length, when the bridal party must leave. After a
tender, tearful partings with her father, Irene turned her steps
away from the home of her childhood into a new path, that would lead
her out into the world, where so many thousands upon thousands, who
saw only a way of velvet softness before them, have cut their tended
feet upon flinty rocks, even to the verve end of their tearful
journey. Tightly and long did Mr. Delancy hold his child to his
heart, and when his last kiss was given and his fervent "God give
you a happy life, my daughter!" said, he gazed after her departing
form with eyes front which manly firmness could not hold back the
tears.

No one knew better than Mr. Delancy the perils that lay before his
daughter. That storms would darken her sky and desolate her heart,
he had too good reason to fear. His hope for her lay beyond the
summer-time of life, when, chastened by suffering and subdued by
experience, a tranquil autumn would crown her soul with blessings
that might have been earlier enjoyed. He was not superstitious, and
yet it was with a feeling of concern that he saw the white and
golden clouds gathering like enchanted land along the horizon, and
piling themselves up, one above another, as if in sport, building
castles and towers that soon dissolved, changing away into fantastic
forms, in which the eye could see no meaning; and when, at last, his
ear caught a far-distant sound that jarred the air, a sudden pain
shot through his heart.

"On any other day but this!" he sighed to himself, turning from the
window at which he was standing and walking restlessly the floor for
several minutes, lost in a sad, dreamy reverie.

Like something instinct with life the stately steamer, quivering
with every stroke of her iron heart, swept along the gleaming river
on her upward passage, bearing to their destination her freight of
human souls. Among theme was our bridal party, which, as the day was
so clear and beautiful, was gathered upon the upper deck. As Irene's
eyes turned from the closing vision of her father's beautiful home,
where the first cycle of her life had recorded its golden hours, she
said, with a sigh, speaking to one of her companions--

"Farewell, Ivy Cliff! I shall return to you again, but not the same
being I was when I left your pleasant scenes this morning."

"A happier being I trust," replied Miss Carman, one of her
bridemaids.

Rose Carman was a young friend, residing in the neighborhood of her
father, to whom Irene was tenderly attached.

"Something here says no." And Irene, bending toward Miss Carman,
pressed one of her hands against her bosom.

"The weakness of an hour like this," answered her friend with an
assuring smile. "It will pass away like the morning cloud and the
early dew."

Mr. Emerson noticed the shade upon the face of his bride, and
drawing near to her, said, tenderly--

"I can forgive you a sigh for the past, Irene. Ivy Cliff is a lovely
spot, and your home has been all that a maiden's heart could desire.
It would be strange, indeed, if the chords that have so long bound
you there did not pull at your heart in parting."

Irene did not answer, but let her eyes turn backward with a pensive
almost longing glance toward the spot where lay hidden among the
distant trees the home of her early years. A deep shadow had
suddenly fallen upon her spirits. Whence it came she knew not and
asked not; but with the shadow was a dim foreboding of evil.

There was tact and delicacy enough in the companions of Irene to
lead them to withdraw observation and to withhold further remarks
until she could recover the self-possession she had lost. This came
back in a little while, when, with an effort, she put on the light,
easy manner so natural to her.

"Looking at the signs?" said one of the party, half an hour
afterward, as she saw the eyes of Irene ranging along the sky, where
clouds were now seen towering up in steep masses, like distant
mountains.

"If I were a believer of signs," replied Irene, placing her arm
within that of the maiden who had addressed her, and drawing her
partly aside, "I might feel sober at this portent. But I am not.
Still, sign or no sign, I trust we are not going to have a storm. It
would greatly mar our pleasure."

But long ere the boat reached Albany, rain began to fall,
accompanied by lightning and thunder; and soon the clouds were
dissolving in a mimic deluge. Hour after hour, the wind and rain and
lightning held fierce revelry, and not until near the completion of
the voyage did the clouds hold back their watery treasures, and the
sunbeams force themselves through the storm's dark barriers,

When the stars came out that evening, studding the heavens with
light, there was no obscuring spot on all the o'erarching sky.

CHAPTER IV.

UNDER THE CLOUD.

_THE_ wedding party was to spend a week at Saratoga, and it was now
the third day since its arrival. The time had passed pleasantly, or
wearily, according to the state of mind or social habits and
resources of the individual. The bride, it was remarked by some of
the party, seemed dull; and Rose Carman, who knew her friend better,
perhaps, than any other individual in the company, and kept her
under close observation, was concerned to notice an occasional
curtness of manner toward her husband, that was evidently not
relished. Something had already transpired to jar the chords so
lately attuned to harmony.

After dinner a ride was proposed by one of the company. Emerson
responded favorably, but Irene was indifferent. He urged her, and
she gave an evidently reluctant consent. While the gentlemen went to
make arrangement for carriages, the ladies retired to their rooms.
Miss Carman accompanied the bride. She had noticed her manner, and
felt slightly troubled at her state of mind, knowing, as she did,
her impulsive character and blind self-will when excited by
opposition.

"I don't want to ride to-day!" exclaimed Irene, throwing herself
into a chair as soon as she had entered her room; "and Hartley knows
that I do not."

Her cheeks burned and her eyes sparkled.

"If it will give him pleasure to ride out," said Rose, in a gentle
soothing manner, "you cannot but have the same feeling in
accompanying him."

"I beg your pardon!" replied Irene, briskly. "If I don't want to
ride, no company can make the act agreeable. Why can't people learn
to leave others in freedom? If Hartley had shown the same
unwillingness to join this riding party that I manifested, do you
think I would have uttered a second word in favor of going? No. I am
provoked at his persistence."

"There, there, Irene!" said Miss Carman, drawing an arm tenderly
around the neck of her friend; "don't trust such sentences on your
lips. I can't bear to hear you talk so. It isn't my sweet friend
speaking."

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