Manuela Parédes

Front matter

PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT.

From the Boston Daily Advertiser.

THE "NO NAME SERIES."

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. ON THE RIGI 9

II. LUCERNE ' . . 28

Chapter I. On The Rigi

IT was a warm afternoon in the latter part of June. A gentle breeze from the north was driving high the few white clouds in a sky of perfect blue. Two young men, leaving the Kaltbad Hotel, half way up the Rigi, had gradually ascended until they reached the base of that shoulder of the mountain which is called the Rothstock ; there they turned northward, and began to climb its grassy slope, often pausing and turning toward the grand view which opened wider ranges at each upward stage. They did not know that they were only a few hundred yards below the little summer-house which crowns this minor peak, and had seated themselves to watch the cloud-shadows trooping across the blue lake, and the green fields and forests beyond. Behind them the grassy slope rose sharply.

The younger, a boy of twenty-one or two, was a fair type of life at its fairest. From his broad, low forehead heavy masses of chestnut hair were pushed back beneath a broad felt hat. Large blue eyes, a full mouth, fine teeth, and a bold, frank air comported well with his erect and muscular figure, and gave promise of a manhood fit for labor and apt for adventure.

The elder brother was evidently nearing forty. From his forehead the hair had receded and was rather closely cut over the high crown, its dark brown streaked here and there with a silver line. The deep-set, steady eyes, the strong jaw, prominent nose, thin and mobile lips, and the full beard, shaven on the upper lip only and draping the lower face and the sinewy throat, betokened a man positive, tenacious, resolute, expert. In repose his face might seem stern, but the light of thought and the shadow of emotion swept over it so fast that such an impression of his character could not well abide. His tall and well-rounded figure also, by its quick and precise movements, indicated alert and disciplined self-reliance.

The brothers had been silent for some moments, absorbed in the panorama beneath them, when the elder spoke. "Walter, don't you hear voices behind and above us?"

" Yes, women's voices j they '11 be rolling stones down on us presently."

Even as he spoke a dark object sprang from the edge of the ledge above them, and, passing quite over their sheltered seat, fell at their feet.

The younger shouted, " Look out there ! " adding, as he glanced at the missile, " That 's no stone, though." Lifting it from the ground, he found a leathern box in-

OAT THE RIGI. II

closing a large opera or rather field glass, and bearing in gilt letters the name

ADRIAN DYSART, N. Y.

The elder took the box from his brother's hand, and said, " Walter, I know that name. We must go and see who has dropped it"

A climb of a few minutes brought them in view of the upper slope, which receded above the brink of the ledge under which they had been seated, and revealed the figures of two women, slowly retracing their steps from the edge of rock whence the glass had sprung and been lost to sight. The parties were separated by a hundred yards or more, and the ladies, who were a little above and in advance, did not notice the approach of the brothers, who had thus the opportunity of examining the persons of their unconscious neighbors.

They were too unlike to be sisters. The elder was somewhat above the ordinary height of women. Her erect carriage, firm step, and the rounded symmetry of her figure betokened physical perfection and untroubled health. A full throat supported a small and well-poised head, and the face when turned toward the observer showed a rosy mouth, a straight nose with thin nostril, eyes full in form and in color like brown sherry, and hair of the same shade, rolled in wavy masses from the brow to the small ear, and knotted behind in sunny coils. Form and face recalled more than one type of classic beauty; there were suggestions of the Venus Victrix, of Athene, and of Artemis. Her dress, of soft stuff, was of one shade, — a dark olive, — and relieved by a broad belt of bronzed leather, bordered with golden lines. The broad, low hat of black and white straw which shadowed her face was crested with a knot of poppies and golden wheat. Her age might be twenty-five, perhaps a little more. Her companion, a plump, fair girl of twenty, was habited in a coquettish mountain costume of gray and blue, which suited well her golden hair, soft gray eyes, and the arch regard in which lurked at once ready reserve and familiar ease.

The ladies had gained the little summer-house, and turned to seat themselves, before they perceived that they were not alone.

A moment later the elder gentleman advanced, with the glass in his outstretched hand. " If I am not mistaken, this is yours," he said.

"Oh, thank you, — yes, it is ours," and the elder lady stepped forward to receive it. " I am so glad to get it back, for my father has had it a long time, and it suits his eyes perfectly."

" You are a daughter, then, of Mr. Dysart, the banker of New York? I have the pleasure of knowing him slightly."

" Indeed ! Do you know my father ? You must be an American then ? Yes, I am Helen Dysart."

" And may I introduce myself as Robert Audran, a Colorado farmer, and my brother, Walter Audran, an undergraduate of the Harvard Law School."

" Let me in return introduce you both to Miss Alice Carroll, of New Brunswick," replied Miss Dysart, smil-

ON THE RIGL 13 ing. " We are glad to meet you, particularly since you know my father."

" Your father is not with you at present, I presume, Miss Dysart, as I left him in his banking-house less than three weeks since."

"No. Only my mother and brother are with us. They are coming up from Lucerne this afternoon to spend a day or two on the Rigi. They, too, will be glad to see some one direct from New York. I hope papa seemed well and happy when you parted from him."

Robert smiled. " I thought so, certainly, Miss Dysart. He was looking in admirable health and seemed to be very busy."

"And what about New York, Mr. Audran? — the dear, the beautiful city! One needs to have known these dead-and-alive old towns to appreciate New York."

" I fear that I can tell very little of that part of New York which probably interests you most, Miss Dysart. My recent observation of it has been mostly limited to the stage-route between Wall Street and the Hoffman House."

" Oh, it all interests me. I was born in Rutgers Street, went to school from Bleecker, had my first party in 236, and have now retired to 57th Street."

" I am afraid I have not been in any one of those localities for five years. I can only tell you that when I came up town in the afternoon the streets were full of ladies, making purchases, I suppose, for the summer vacation; and one day, a beautiful May afternoon, when I drove to the Park, I thought I had never seen the place so lovely or so full of people. The trees were in their freshest leaf, the turf was smooth as velvet, wistaria-blooms covered the trellises, the larch and spruce showed their finger-tips of pale green, clover and honeysuckle scented the air ; the four-in-hands were out, there was a base-ball game on the Green, children were riding on ponies and in goat-carriages ; it was brighter than Hyde Park ten times over, and more beautiful than the Bois de Boulogne."

" Oh, how charming it sounds ! " said Helen. " I am there at this instant; and I suppose if we have any common acquaintances we shall find it out by and by. I must not begin by asking you if you know this one and that one."

"I know hardly any one, Miss Dysart, for I never spent a week at a time in New York, and my brief visits are always passed at a hotel."

" Well," said Helen, " I suppose we are not here, in the presence of all these mountains, for the first time, to cultivate our memories, are we ? "

" No, I suppose not," answered Robert, " unless our memories are the best part of us : if so, they should be cultivated everywhere. But pardon me for even seeming to suggest that the past can have more of interest than the future for a lady so young as yourself." He began the sentence with a glow of pleasure at the forming thought, and finished with the hesitation which marked a sense of danger in its utterance.

ON THE RIGL IS

She interpreted both as she answered, "I hope so certainly ; and yet, —

" the past will always win A glory from its being far, And orb into the perfect star We saw not when we moved therein.' "

She looked up, with a little blush, and a startled expression at finding herself quoting poetry. But there was a sudden light in his eye and a thrill in his ear, as he recognized the extract from a book half of whose pages were long ago transcribed upon his own brain. There is no introduction so comprehensive as the recognition that our own solitary pleasures have also been those of another. From that moment each knew that there were threads of sympathy woven between them far beneath the surface.

" Perhaps," continued she, " it would be better that you should tell us something of that which lies before us here."

" I can do that more satisfactorily," said Robert. " It is a new aspect of an old scene with me. I spent five months in Switzerland ten years ago, though I never climbed the Rigi before."

"To me it is all new," said Helen. " We came from Bale yesterday ; this is our first excursion."

"You have a great deal of pleasure before you, then."

" Was it a good plan to get our first impression of the Alps from this point ? "

"Hardly so, I think. You have lost part of the pleasure of approach by setting yourself within the open door at once. You should have seen this panorama from some more remote and northern point, — from the Uetliberg at Zurich; or if you had turned from your route at Soleure and ascended the Weissenstein, from either of those points, you would have seen most of what is now before you lying low and dim on the southern horizon, while you would also have seen how the Alps reach down their arms into the plains of Germany and France, in the Vosges and the Odenwald on either side of the Rhine, and the Rauke Alp of Wurtemburg and the Austrian Tyrol. You would have seen, too, the relations of the lakes and rivers and mountains to each other, which it is difficult to realize as you go from one to the other in detail. And you would also have had the great pleasure of studying the essential forms of the mountains, so that you could identify them by name at each forward step, though they might each time show you a different facet of the crystal. For the ordinary traveller the Rigi is the last practicable external point of view as he advances toward the semicircle of mountains which stretches round from the Vorarlberg, through the Engelberger group and the Bernese Oberland, to the Jura. You are here on the chord of the arc, the string of a strongly bent bow. Don't you think it would have been better to have had your first view from the centre of the circle ? Here the northern third of that circle is out of sight entirely."

" Yes, indeed, I do think so," said Miss Dysart, and the shadow of a genuine regret passed across her beautiful face. " I wish we had been so fortunate as to find an adviser as intelligent as yourself in time. You seem to have made a study of Switzerland."

" Mountains have always been a study to me. I was born among the hills of New England, and have chosen my home among the Rocky Mountains."

" Tell me, then," said she, " is it the study which has awakened the love, or the love which has developed the study ? " She spoke impulsively, and the instinct that her question was too personal for slight acquaintance made her cheek burn.

Mr. Audran observed and rightly interpreted the blush as he replied, " Oh, they cannot be divided. Each will grow with the other if at all ; neither would be worth anything if it were not so."

" Our friends seem to have begun already," said Miss Dysart, glancing toward Walter and Alice, who had left the summer-house and were seated on the bank below. The youth was pointing with his alpenstock to the horizon, and the girl was intently following with her eye. " May I not have a lesson ? "

So Robert began, weaving together history, geography, legend, and science, stories of Caesar and Hannibal, Diocletian and Maximin, Charles the Bold and Prince Eugene, Napoleon and Suwarrow, Escher and Agassiz, De Candolle and Dufour. There is much in a fit audience, and Robert himself was surprised at the continual inflow of suggestions and memories as, from this Mount of Vision, the wholg chain of the Bernese Oberland rose clear and fair before them in the light of the western sun.

At length the younger party returned to the summer-house, and Miss Dysart, resuming her parasol and field-glass, said, " I can hardly tell you, Mr. Audran, how much I am indebted to you. You have not only restored my glass, — you have opened my eyes to use it. But we must return to the Staffel. My mother and brother are probably there by this time. I hope we may meet again."

To which Robert replied, "We too have taken rooms at the Staffel by telegraph, and were on our way thither when we met you."

After supper the two parties encountered each other in the public room of the hotel, and Helen presented the gentlemen to her mother. Mrs. Dysart seemed about fifty years of age, but retained much of the freshness of youth, and a vivacity of manner which Robert better understood when he learned something of her history.

Eugenia Mavrosigi was the daughter of a Greek merchant, who, as a boy, had wandered from Smyrna to Boston, where he entered the employ of a house in the Mediterranean trade, in which he presently became a partner, and the son-in-law of the senior member. His eldest daughter had received part of her education in a private school at Portsmouth, where her favorite teacher had been Lucy Elmer, afterward the wife of Stephen Audran, and the mother of our friends. Miss Mavrosigi, after leaving school, had for a time lived in

ON THE R1GI. 19

Glasgow, where her father was acting as the resident factor of the Boston house, and there she met and married Mr. Adrian Dysart, at that time an engineer and afterward a banker in New York. During her foreign residence, she lost sight of her friend, now buried in the interior of New Hampshire, where her husband, Mr. Audran, had large possessions in lumber lands on the head-waters of the Saco and Androscoggin Rivers.

Mrs. Dysart was delighted at the opportunity of learning something of the fortunes of her former friend, and, more enthusiastic and less reserved than her daughter, gradually drew Robert into many details of his family and personal history.

They learned that from his first boyhood he had been accustomed to accompany his father on his long visits to the wilderness, where he spent several months of each year in moose-hunting and trout-fishing, — reluctantly given up a little later for college life at Harvard ; how, by his father's death in 1858, he had been left to the care and charge of a large and involved estate, which had forced him to leave college, and to spend five years of arduous work, for the most part in the forest. By the death of his mother, in 1862, he had become the guardian of his brother, and in 1863 had found himself at liberty to enter the military service as Major of a Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. At Spottsylvania, in 1864, he was so seriously wounded in the lungs that his life had been long in danger, and his career as a soldier was absolutely closed. In 1866 he had returned to his law studies at Heidelberg, but, after prolonged and often-renewed experiment, had been obliged to accept the verdict of his physicians, — that the consequences of his wound would never allow him to become either advocate or jurist, and that if he would live at all his life must be passed in the open air. It was then that he had spent a long summer in Switzerland, and travelled through the East as far as India. Health had gradually returned to him, and seemed to be endangered only so often as he made the attempt to return to a studious or sedentary life. Four years previously he had become the owner of a Colorado cattle-farm, upon which, for the larger part of the time since, he had been living.

He had come on to New York, he told them, to confer with certain parties about the opening of railway connections in Colorado, and, finding that no important action would be taken before September, had determined to spend the interval in Switzerland and Germany. His brother had been for two years preparing for the profession which he himself had been obliged to forego, and after this summer vacation would settle himself for a period of study at Heidelberg.

In return for these confidences, Mrs. Dysart explained that after a severe illness a year previously, she had been advised to spend a summer in England, an autumn in France, and a winter at Nice, from which latter place she had returned two months before to Paris ; and, St. Moritz being recommended for August and September, had determined to give the intervening time to such travel in Switzerland as her own strength permitted, allowing to her children any larger opportunity which occasion might afford.

During this conversation, Helen, her brother Eugene, a fine, manly boy of nineteen, and Miss Carroll, had been talking with Walter, or listening to his brilliant music at the piano.

The candles were beginning to sputter in their sockets when Mrs. Dysart closed the conference, and the party separated for the night.

The next day they went to the Schiedeck to dine, and to get the beautiful prospective of the lake which that point affords. Returning to the Rothstock before sunset, they lingered far into the soft summer evening, entranced by the stories and the poetry which Robert, inspired by the scene, the hour, and the audience, recited to them. When they parted it was arranged that at three o'clock on the following morning, horses should be ready to carry the two young ladies to the Kulm to await the sunrise on the highest point.

Miss Dysart's room was at the rear of the house, and as she lay with closed lids awaiting sleep, the pictures of the day — lakes of sapphire and turquoise, innumerable snow-tipped mountains — rose and rose within her darkened eyes ; the-fresh night wind, sweeping up the valley above Goldau, fanned her cheek and played in her soft hair, bringing with it the- scent of hillsides covered with June flowers and the far-off chime of a thousand cattlebells. " Surely," said she, " this is the paradise of the senses and the imagination."

Mr. Audran was the first astir on the following morning. At three o'clock he sent off a porter with a roll of carpet to spread upon the damp grass of the mountaintop, a bundle of rugs, and the materials for making coffee. Very soon the young ladies made their appearance in ulsters and veils. Robert swung Miss Dysart's lithe and elastic figure to her saddle ; Walter rendered like service to Miss Carroll. Eugene led the way up the stony road of three fourths of a mile which connects the Staffel with the Kulm, and in little more than half an hour the party were seated on the topmost knoll. Forever after, that morning mystery of beauty remained a fair and vivid picture in the memory of each one of them.

The night was not dark, but heavy with dampness ; the moon, in her last quarter, with down-turned horns, hung low in the west ; the blue dome above was set with fading lights, the morning star flamed in the forehead of the eastern sky ; strands and pencils of auroral gray streamed in the north, narrow bands of dark cloud on the distant horizon were bordered with a pale yellow streak. How still it was ! On the faint undertone of far-off, falling waters and whispering trees only the shrill note of the cricket in the grass was thrown. As their eyes became wonted to the pathetic blending of moonlight, dawn-light, and dream-light they saw that a floor of white mist was spread high above the lake and over the region beyond ; it filled all the valleys and wound up the gorges of the hills. Ridge beyond ridge they rose, like islands in a white sea. Flushes began to grow upon and succeed each other in the east, — pearl, rose, violet; brightening into -liquid, serene, widespread amber.

Helen's face glowed with its radiance as she brok'e the long silence with Milton's lines, —

1 Hail, Holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born ! Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest ,

The rising world."

She paused, with dew-gemmed face uplifted, and Robert added to her text fit commentary from Bacon : —

" The first creature of God, in the works of the Days, was the light of Sense ; the last was the light of Reason, and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his Spirit. First, he breathed light upon the face of matter; then he breathed light into the face of man ; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen."

She heard him with moistened eyes and swelling heart, but a moment after her voice rang clear and fresh, " See ! oh, see ! "

The mountains, which till now had shown their feet wound with wreaths of mist, and their cloven crests outlined black upon the golden sky, were just catching the rays of the yet unrisen sun. Pinnacle and dome and spire flashed back their welcome ; the cone of Uri reddened, the shoulder of Titlis gleamed, the brow of Wetterhorn glittered, and the crown of the Jungfrau lifted high the orison of the Alps. Then came the great sun, — broad, shorn of its rays, — climbing through the clouds which clustered in its path until its planting beams glanced across the summit on which they stood, projecting their shadows far on the banks of fog below, like the spectral shapes of the Brocken. Borne on the rfsing wind, battalions of fog swept up the ravines of the mountains, to melt in warmer air as they passed the crest, as melt the columns of assault in the blaze of parked artillery ; and even so, when the white day shone down upon the^ party, the exaltation and enthusiasm of that twilight hour gave place to the more human and trivial moods of every day.

Gathering up their couch of shawls, they began the descent. Half way down the steep Miss Dysart called to Robert, and asked him to get a pebble for her from the bank of conglomerate which lined the upper side of the road as a memento of the morning. With the spike of his alpenstock he dug from the breccia an egg-shaped nugget, so smooth and heavy and cold that he said, as he handed it to her, " By its weight that should be a black onyx ; and if you permit me I will have some charm or trinket made for you and myself from it." He got no answer, perhaps expected none, as he added gayly, " For the present I will carry it ; sometime you shall see part of it again."

Mrs. Dysart was waiting breakfast for them at the hotel, and curious to learn something of their excursion. The elder members of the party were singularly silent, but the lively Alice came to the rescue of conversation, describing the darkness and the light, the mountains and the mist, winding up her story with, " O auntie, it was just awfully grand and beautiful ! It was like an infinite cathedral, with incense and music, and high mass

ON THE R1GI. 2$ and benediction." And a smile of assent rose to every face.

They were to return to Lucerne at two o'clock, and meantime the ladies retired to make up their lost sleep.

Miss Dysart was ill at ease. Who was this man who had beguiled her into enthusiasm ? Was he amusing himself by drawing out her fancy, imagination, and sympathies ? What was he ? A chance acquaintance, not three days known. She was vexed with herself and piqued at him. Was he intentionally doing this ? Would he continue it ? He was a man of the world, secure in a large experience of society, ready to weave a little web of romance when occasion suited, and equally ready to break the thread when need were. By degrees her complacency returned. " Forewarned is forearmed," she said. " If it pleases him to give me pleasure, I can take it as it flies. It is too agreeable to be needlessly foregone. I am not a child to be run away with. If this unlocking business is to go on, why should not I also open a chamber in his consciousness now and then ? "

So she went to sleep, with a smile upon her sweet lips, and she saw her own smile, an hour later, as she stood before her glass arranging the rippling bands of hair around her classic head.

Mr. Audran was the only member of the party who did not seek sleep. A little chilly, after the exposure of the morning, he found a warm corner of the piazza, turned his back to the brilliant sun, stretched himself along a convenient bench, and, lighting his morning cigar, fell into a review of his aspect of the situation. A verse of Shelley was haunting his memory, and now it came to his lips : —

" A lady, the wonder of her kind, Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind, Which, dilating, unfolded her mien and motion As a sea-flower 's unfolded beneath the ocean."

Firm and fair and fine was she. Nature had given her health perfect as her form. He knew the worth of that, for even at that moment he was conscious of a pang where the bullet, in passing through his chest, had twice shattered a rib. She at least did not know what it was to breathe with pain. Years of well-appointed life and thoughtful culture had ripened that Ionian grace which he fancied had come to her through her Greek mother. He had at home a bronze vase, found at Herculaneum ; — she might have been the model for that figure of Ceres impressed upon it. How sweet were the tones of her voice, how crisp and perfect her articulation, how warm and soft the touch of her shapely hand ! And over all lay an air of regulated impulse, of clear sense, and loyalty to common life. What a piece of good fortune to meet her, what a blameless pleasure to know her better, to guide her feet and her fancy through this Alpine land, which had for him such a perennial charm ! Was there harm in it ? Not to her at least, he thought. He was a ranchman, leading a lonely life in the bleak solitudes of Colorado : she was encompassed with the light and charm of a brilliant social life, — already pledged to some man of fortune and position, for all he

ON THE RIGI.

knew. Such were about her constantly, no doubt. She had but to accept one of these fortunate lovers to be installed in some home stately and rich as her father's house, in which he had recently spent an evening. And she was old enough and wise enough to know the value of such things.

And how about himself? He had been schooled in disappointments ; his youth had been passed in the rude forests of the north, fighting for the fortunes of his family ; manhood had been darkened by that eclipse of life which followed the battle-day at Spottsylvania ; his plans and ambitions had dropped dead again at Heidelberg, where he found himself sinking under, the confinement of study ; and now that he was strong again, his youth was gone from him, he had grown wonted to solitude relieved only by books, had become exact and self-indulgent in his ways, and believed that he could not and would not now submit them to be reorganized by any woman. But why should he throw away this little chance episode which had intruded itself into his selfish life ? It might disturb his pulses for a moment, but it would warm and brighten his memory by and by. He would be careful that no attention of his should ever compromise her, he would neither seek nor take what she might not discreetly give and happily remember.