The flower of doom

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AND

Chapter I. THE ATELIER

Why did the great Shakespeare put joyous thoughts into Romeo’s breast on the eve of doom? Do ecstatic moods indeed visit mortals when nearing, unawares, the verge of dread catastrophe ?

if disaster sends a herald in disguise, doth happier fortune ti^ * us after the same fashion ? Are such inner promptings hearkened to or distrusted ever ?

These questions must occur to most of us at some time or other, since certain it is that dark presageraent does not always betoken evil hap, nor will unwonted exuberance of spirits be surely followed by substantial joy. We feel more assurance about the connection between an unusual frame of mind and rare events. The common day is not begun with trumpetlike wakenings to destiny — thoughts like wings, to lift above grosser air.

“ I am far from being an unhappy woman,” mused Bernarda Burke, as she prepared for her busy day. “ If Fortune has no more golden gifts in store, she has surely no bad, either. Away, then, ye siren voices — ye stern forebodings ! To work — to work ! Therein lies sure healing for the bruised heart — redemption for all l”

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The vast city might be searched from one end to the other for a brighter, more poetic, spectacle than Bernarda’ s atelier presented an hour later. As if by magic, the bare, cold, London room was transformed into a garden within garden, parterre within parterre. The blonde, rosy-cheeked maidens now seated in rows before their embroidery frames, and models of fresh flowers of richest hue, seemed to mock the place and season, turning town October into June. The air was fragrant with scents, while bright and virginal as these living roses and lilies, and the ideal posies in silk and filoselle, were the golden braids, coral lips, and blue eyes of these English girls.

The mistress sat at the upper end of the lofty workroom, on an estrade raised above the rows of fair heads, flowers, and embroidery-frames, thus commanding the whole animated scene. But not by position only. Look, carriage, even dress, inspired authority. While her apprentices, whose ages varied from fifteen to twenty, wore colors such as the young love and choose by happy instinct, Bernarda was soberly, although beautifully, dressed in black, relieved by a magnificent gold-and-brosvn pansy . worn on her breast just above the region of the heart.

The girls often wondered at their mistress’s devotion to this especial flower. She never wore any other, and generally contrived to obtain splendid specimens that brightened her dress as a jewel. She was a tall, handsome woman, about thirty-two, with the dark hair, dark-blue eyes y and long silken lashes of a race famous for its beauty ; also with a certain piquancy of con -1 tour and expression which made her very fascinating, especially to the blonde. Hardly one of the fair, rosy, light-haired Saxons but envied their teacher’s raven hair, pearly skin, and dark eyebrows. Yet Bernarda could have no longer seemed young in their eyes. There must, then, have been some hidden charm of manner, some influence due to character, as well as looks, that subdued these careless young things, and made her task of keeping order, and getting through a proper amount of work, easy.

As Bernarda’s stately figure moved backwards and forwards

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amid these avenues of bright girls, silken blossoms, and their living prototypes, there was no diminution of the girlish chatter and laughter, well held in check. The empty-headed idler was expelled ; but, so long as her pupils were sedulous, the mistress encouraged them to talk to each other in undertone. The perpetual chirping, as of so many birds, was a relief, and enabled her to think.

One or two rules, of course, had to be rigidly enforced. Bernarda’s handsome brows knit darkly if any new-comer forgot the observance of these, and ventured on a suggestion regarding the daily task, or, what the teacher resented much more, any personal remark directed to herself. On this especial morning, however, the entire school sinned in company, and had to be forgiven. As Bernarda sat alone on her raised platform above the rest, the sun, that had hitherto been obscured all the morning, suddenly disentangled itself from clouds — not sufficiently so as to flood the whole room, but just enough to envelop the one black-robed figure and the white lilies she was busied upon in warm, golden light. The effect was strange and beautiful, and no wonder the young embroiderers seized upon it as an opportunity for unburdening themselves. For a moment every needle rested. Then one sentimentalist, more venturesome than the rest, cried out,

“ Please forgive us! We must look at you while you sit like a saint in your aureole.”

Bernarda smiled impatiently, and continued her own work, as if determined for once to be indulgent. Truth to tell, she was herself conscious of a desire to break through routine, to I burst this freezing silence.

Calm and dignified although she found her present mode of | life, congenial as it was to one enamoured of natural beauty, j there were yet moments when she longed to close her atelier and begin life anew.

The incident of the golden ray, now blinding her, and wrapping her round as a 'vesture, was a vexation, since it made her realize how much she had in common with these careless, rest-

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less girls. Was she not also ready to catch at any excuse for wearying of duty, letting thought stray beyond the limit of actuality? Yes, she acknowledged that it was so. Life must have more to give than a daily portion of restful toil.

In a moment the sunlight cloud was gone, and another exclamation went the round of the room. On the track of that warm effulgence now came an almost phenomenal gloom, which, like the glory, fastened upon Bernarda where she sat, hemming her round about with subtile cloud as she had before been enthroned in dazzling brightness.

“We cannot see you. Speak to us !” cried the girl who had before been spokeswoman of the rest. “ Oh, Miss Burke, good and evil luck will sure visit you to-day.”

“ Foolish children ! I will then hand over the good luck to you !” Bernarda replied, with one of her quietly sarcastic smiles. “Go home, all of you, and make what holiday you may in the fog.”

The place rang with a merry cheer, and in a few minutes the embroidery-frames were covered up, the baskets, piled with gorgeous silks and flosses, put away, the flowers carried off to the conservatory ; Bernarda found herself alone in the bare, . silent, unpictorial room ; no blotch of color left but that brilliant flower of hers, and, like a gem, a butterfly, a humming-bird, it now pierced the leaden London atmosphere, shining amid the gloom.

She glanced down at her heart’s-ease as she now passed out of the deserted atelier, and readjusted it tenderly. This fairy thing was the only companion of her solitude, ever fresh and perpetually beauteous, renewed day by day as if by magic. Was it not like some undisclosed memories that accompany us wherever we go, perchance saddening, but yet beautifying, the common ways of life ?

And once again she checked the disturbing thoughts that had come unbidden a few hours before.

“ What have I to do any more with joys or terrors, prognostics of evil or blissful harbingers ? To work, to work ! Therein lies healing for the bruised heart, redemption for all !”

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Chapter TI.

THE CONSPIRATOR.

The gloaming had come, a time Bernarda devoted on fine days to such business as lay out of doors. To-day, however, the heavy cloak of fog that enveloped the streets kept her indoors. It was a pleasant place to walk and think in, this airy, spacious workroom, dimly lighted from above, and Bernarda’s calling gave her much to think about. To-day, as she walked up and down the silent atelier, she was contriving a set of arras destined to carry the fame of her little school across the wide Atlantic. She soon became so absorbed in the pleasing task that she did not hear a gentle tap at the door. Then her young maid-servant intruded, with a card in her hand, saying that the bearer awaited an interview.

“ Light the lamp in my sitting-room. I will follow at once,” Bernarda said, carelessly. She was subject to interruptions at this hour, and cards were matters of daily occurrence also. Rich people would call, to order or inspect embroidery, modest parents to apprentice their children, young girls in search of employment, unknown artists to proffer designs. No day without its visitants.

Still dwelling on her arras, and without looking at the card, she went down-stairs to the little parlor set aside for her own exclusive use. What a contrast it presented to the spacious, chilly workroom she had just quitted ! All here was warm, rich, pictorial. And amid these belongings, which seemed part of herself — the little piano, handsel of her toil, the books, pictures, and works of art bought with her earnings — she dared to be herself. The black, abbess-like gown, with its plain folds, was discarded as soon as her day’s work had come to an end,

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and her pansy now rested on a background as brilliant as itself.

A fire burned brightly in the clean porcelain stove, and the lamp shed abundant light as she entered the room where her visitor waited alone. He stood conspicuous on the hearthiug, with his bared head turned towards the door.

Quick as lightning all things became clear to her — those undefined misgivings, those promptings of hope, the golden cloud, the shadow unutterable !

“ Edgeworth !” she cried, and that was all.

She was a very proud woman, and accustomed to exercise self-control. When, without a word more, he bent forward and kissed her on the brow, she still remained calm and collected, though frozen into haughty silence.

The man’s composure also seemed for a moment to desert him.

44 You had my card? I did not intend to startle you, he said, apologetically.

She dropped into a chair, and the unheeded card fell from her passive hand. He stooped down, picked it up, and coolly replaced it in his pocketbook. Then, depositing hat and stick on the table, by a matter-of-fact speech he broke the ice.

“ Can we talk undisturbed for an hour?” he asked. “I have something to say to you.”

“ Certainly,” Bernarda made reply, almost carelessly, as she handed him a chair. “ Pray be easy,” she added, as she saw him glance at the door ; “ the only creature in the house is my little maid. You can hear her singing in her kitchen down-stairs. If any one should call the door-bell will give due warning, and I have but to deny admittance.”

He did not look entirely reassured.

“ You must still remember our mother- tongue,” he said. “ Suppose — ”

She broke in impatiently, even scornfully,

“ No need to use outlandish jargon within these incurious walls. We are perfectly secure from eavesdroppers, I assure you.”

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r

The first part of her speech evidently disconcerted him, and before opening his lips again he perused her steadily. For a brief spell they sat looking at each other.

He was, like herself, strikingly handsome, and the thought must have occurred to others, if it had never struck themselves, how strong the likeness between the pair. It was a semblance due to race rather than kinship. Hid, like hers, those temples of his by raven curls ; shaded the dark-blue eyes, also, with long silken lashes ; his the self-same rich, tawny skin, fine features, and kindling, yet disdainful, smile. There was, however, a difference no less marked. While Bernarda, although perfectly dignified and self-possessed, was not without a certain proud timidity and almost girlish shyness — due, perhaps, to her solitary life — one saw at a glance that he was something more than a mere man of the world. Speech, demeanor, nay, his very dress, indicated the cosmopolitan, and, if not the courtier, at least one familiar with all conditions of society, perhaps the humblest, certainly not the least elevated.

Such things betray themselves in a man’s most insignificant action, also in that easy self-adaptation, versatility, amiableness, roughly summed up under the head of good manners, but which really mean much more than outward politeness. An adequate share in the world’s graver concerns, the give and take required in the management of public business or the leadership of masses, the necessity men of action are under of keeping their impulses well under control, naturally give them an advantage over those who move in small, circumscribed spheres.

Bernarda realized all this in a moment, and the conviction helped to make her self-reliant. He would not add to her embarrassment. Whatever he had to say would be said kindly, delicately, and with due regard for her feelings. He began with a question, smilingly put.

“ Why did you use that expression just now ?” he asked. ‘ 4 Outlandish jargon !’ Is it thus you speak of the tongue of your fathers ? Have you, then, abjured your country ?”

u Oh,” she cried, looking ready to burst into tears, “ our un-

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happy country ! must we talk of our country ? Yet, of course, I know all. Your rdle is no secret.”

“ Why should it be a secret ?” he said ; then looked at her as if to read her inmost thoughts. He added, in a voice that changed to gentle insinuation, “ First, we have to talk of ourselves. You are well and prosperous, I see” — and he glanced round the warm-tinted, elegant little room approvingly — “ but hardly satisfied with such a lot, I feel sure — hardly happy ?”

Bernarda’s frank, impetuous nature rose up in rebellion against the irony of this speech — an irony that was not intended, she felt sure of that, but that galled nevertheless. Memories fresh and sweet as the flower she wore on her breast lived once more. The youthfulness and fervid hope of a vanished yestreen came back. One day of life, its best and brightest, seemed to revive.

“ Why have you come after all these years ?” she cried, passionately. “ What can it matter to you whether I am happy or no ? Speak out. Make known your errand, then go away, and let me be.”

Her distress evidently troubled him, and, rising a second time, he kissed her on the forehead. That kiss, so respectfully, dispassionately, accorded, yet evidently intended both as a sign of reconcilement and apology, did not comfort, but at least tended to calm her. It served, moreover, to bring with sudden force the difference between his condition of mind and her own. They had loved each other passionately once, and now met suddenly, after fateful years. Yet while the very sound of his voice, calling her by name, the touch of his hand, could bring back the past that had been his and her own, could make this estrangement seem unreal and impossible, he remained calm and almost indifferent. The conviction forced her back on her womanly pride. She determined, no matter at what present cost to herself, to appear calm and indifferent too.

“ I will tell you why I have come,” he began, stooping to pick up the light shawl she had thrown round her shoulders,

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adjusting it with prompt care for her comfort, yet without the slightest trace of tenderness in the act. He saw that, in spite of the warmth of the room, his sudden apparition had made her tremble — that was all. “ Years ago I did you a great wrong,” he went on, fixing his dark, penetrating eyes upon her. “ Poor, obscure, and friendless, I then promised to marry you, and broke my troth. Rich, famous ” — here he smiled an odd, yet winning, smile — “ abounding in friends and followers, I am here to redeem it. My errand to-day is to offer you my fortunes and my name.”

She was too much overtaken by surprise to make any answer. He went on in the same prosaic, straightforward, friendly way, no vestige of lover-like enthusiasm or demonstrativeness in voice, look, or manner, yet a keen desire to gain his point evidently actuating each syllable.

“You protested at one time that you fully and freely forgave me. A proud, high-spirited woman could not feel otherwise. But, in spite of these silent years, I have never forgotten the past, and never forgiven myself. Pray believe that.”

“It was a wild dream. Let us forget it,” Bernarda said, stirred to hidden depths by his strange indifference, still stranger fervor. Since it was plain that his love for her was a forgotten thing, no joy, certes, hardly a memory any longer, why then had he come with this word “ marriage ” on his lips ?

They sat looking at each other, these two who had once been lovers, hardly, as they once fancied in their fond, foolish exaltation, any secrets between them, any separate interests possible, no matter in what remote future ; and now, after ten brief years, utter strangers could hardly be so wide apart. But the saddest experience of all was the conviction that this blank, awful separation, this wall of granite, which seemed to crush the very breath of life out of her, was scarcely perceptible to him. He was self -controlled, pleasant, persuasive, without an effort, without, apparently, an emotion.

“ There will be time enough to talk over the past, ample leisure for explanation on both sides,” he said, smiling — and there

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was wonderful fascination in the smile that lit up his dark physiognomy — “ if you will only marry me. Give your assent, then, Bernarda ; throw in your lot with that of the conspirator.”

Chapter III. APPEAL AND COUNTER- APPEAL

That word brought home to her mind with fresh and still more painful force the barrier separating her from her former lover. She crimsoned, indignant light flashed in her eyes, passionate words were on the point of rising to her lips ; but the impulse was checked. By what right should she remonstrate with him on the part he was playing, discommend the line of conduct he had laid down, asperse his convictions? With visible effort she controlled herself.

“ Concerning the future, also, we shall have abundant opportunity for discourse ; for you will be generous. You will repay injury by benefit,” he urged, still wearing that ingratiating — perhaps, under other circumstances, irresistible — smile. The smile, coupled as it was with such careless, almost self-complacent, words, stung Bernarda, and forced from her reluctant lips the question she had been burning to ask.

“ Be open,” she said ; “ why do you come to-day to ask me to be your wife? There is a hidden motive” — she did not dare to add — “ since your affection for me is dead.” He looked hardly taken aback by the question, only as if it were put too soon.

“You are right. There are other motives besides the desire to repair an injury.” Then he added, as he scanned her narrowly, “I hardly think you are in a frame of mind to do justice to them as yet; you must give me leave to come often; we will discuss the matters which, of course, lie nearest your heart as they do to mine, in spite of that aghast look at the word I used just now. Why that look ? Is not my country yours ?”

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Bernarda listened, with lips unsealed.

“ Is not my cause your own, also ?” he exclaimed, rising from his chair, as if on the point of lashing himself into a fury of expostulation. Suddenly recalled to his position, he reseated himself, and resumed his former manner. “ No word more from me on that subject, unless I obtain the promise I came in quest of, and then we must arrange our interviews with due circumspection, with absolute security from eavesdroppers. You understand ?”

Bernarda held up her finger, and a girl’s sweet voice sounded from below.

“ My little maid belongs to an amateur choir, and she always sings thus while sewing. Yet one precaution more, for your satisfaction.”

For her own also ! She had something secret, urgent, to say to this man, whose influence w r as already reasserting itself over her. And although, perhaps, in her inmost heart she felt that her fate was already sealed, yet it seemed impossible to her to I become the wife of one who loved her not — who was a conspirator ! Thus she swayed between two volitions, two assurances. All her future belonged to him. If she did not speak out now' t her one opportunity might be lost. She rang the bell then, and f her visitor heard her say to the singing-girl,

“ Marion, please go at once and match those silks I spoke to you about this morning. Meantime, should any one call, I will answer the door.”

, Two minutes later the gate clanged, a light step passed down J the street. Bernarda re-entered the little parlor, and closed the door, with beating heart. They were alone.

“ Edgeworth,” she began, her voice now freighted with feel- ! ing and emotion as before it had been impersonal and even, “ I had also a word to say to you. Many and many a time I i have half resolved to seek you out. Your ways are dark, but i not unknown of men. I may, then, judge of them as any other, j Could I marry you with this abhorrence of your conduct in my I soul, this condemnation of a part on which you pride yourself ?

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Ob, will nothing bend your awful purpose — nothing turn you from ways of blood and crime? Listen. We were young to- , getber. You loved me once. You are bound to hear me.”

She was sitting beside him, her clasped hands resting on his 1 passive arm, her face raised to his.

“For think of your conspicuousness, the prestige of your name, the influence of your fortune ! A common man could not ; do so much harm. You are the evil inspiration of thousands !” ..

He smiled down upon her now, not sadly, not contemptu- I ously, but with an unmistakable imperturbability, almost indifference. She hardly felt sure that he was listening to her till he spoke.

“ Say anything that you have to say. You are a grand woman,” he said.

“ But my words have no power to move you. You are stonedeaf, blind, insensible here. Yet you were humane once,” she went on ; “ you could not bear to see any living creature suffer ; and now” — she rose, and, leaning on the mantelpiece, added, with hardly restrained tears and passionate, inter jectional utterances — “you must see that, in a righteous cause, you are sinning against righteousness ! Is there not misery enough in the world, that you must heap up the sum? And, in these black complots and fiendish intrigues, it is ever the innocent who suffer for the guilty. You strike in the dark, and hit, perhaps, their blind ministers — our foes, never. For,” she cried, unable any longer to restrain herself, sinking to a low stool at his feet, and clasping his knees, “ I cannot pollute my soul in a sacred cause ; but I love my country, Edgeworth, as well as you. My country — my poor country !”

That self-constrained, quietly determined mood of his was not in the least touched by anything she could say. So much was evident to herself, but his eye rested admiringly on the beautiful head, now bowed low in anguish. She had surprised and impressed him. He was, perhaps, wondering to find that years had heightened instead of detracting from her beauty.

“You will marry me?” he now said, in a low voice.

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“ For my country’s sake!” she exclaimed, bitterly, and rising, no longer a suppliant, but proud and defiant, met his glances; “you would use me for your crooked purposes? Bend me also to work evil that good may come ? These are the hidden motives you hinted at just now.”

“ There shall be no secrets between us by and by,” he said, rising also and standing beside her. “You will learn to see things in a very different light when we have had more time together ; at least, I am sure of one thing — we respect each other’s opinions. We will each listen in turn, willing to be convinced.”

Again an irony that stung and galled. But Bernarda would not show any resentment of the speech. While realizing, moreover, the implacable nature of his resolve and the cruel sarcasm implied in his words, a new light was breaking on her mind. As his wife, she might influence him in spite of himself. This marriage, impossible as it seemed, might wear the aspect of a duty.

“ I cannot begin my vindication now. It would take too long. Give me leave to come on Sunday afternoon,” he said, pleasantly, in the friendliest voice ; “ you are probably at leisure then, as well as I.”

She stood irresolute.

I “You will, at least, grant me one interview more. I shall come next Sunday, then, to have my answer. Meantime, I take this token.”

He bent forward, and very deftly, but without a trace of sentimentality, removed the pansy she wore, in order to place it in his button-hole. The flower-head was securely fastened. The task occupied him several seconds, during which his face all but touched her own ; but he seemed wholly unconscious of the | contact, only gratified to have his way.

“ You shall have a rose, when I come next time, in exchange for your heart’s-ease. And what a heart’ s-ease !” he exclaimed, as he held up the blossom and looked at it admiringly. “ Where do you get these floral paragons, Erna?”

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The symbolic flower in his hand, the name none else had called her by on his lips ! Bernarda felt on the point of bursting into tears, like any love-sick schoolgirl. His sang-froid helped her to restrain herself.

“ My business is with flowers,” she said, watching him as he readjusted the pansy, wondering if he understood why she should ever wear one above her heart. “ I am an artificer of flowers in silk. Did you not know it ?”

“ Yes, indeed,” and his face for the first time showed real feeling. " My poor girl, life has indeed been hard to you, and all through fault of mine. But time presses to-day.” Here he glanced at his watch, and took up hat and stick. “ Adieu till the day after to-morrow. No hurry then, remember. Keep out intruders; let us have plenty of time for quiet talk.”

Then he made haste to go, leaving Bernarda to those sunny, deceptive paths, those dark tracks of remembered sorrow, in which she moved alone. For the isolating brightness and gloom of a few hours before — did they not symbolize her life, alike as much of it as was past, and whatever portion remained in store?

Alone ! Could any spell now break the solitude wrapping her round like a garment ?

He had sought her out at last, and for the purpose of asking her to become his wife, and marry him, without affection in his heart, without as much as a memory of what that affection had been. She recalled every look, word, and act of their unexpected interview, to her so fraught with passionate memories, to him so transparently unemotional, and could not discover any trace of the old love in the least little particular. He had certainly shown concern when reminded of the necessity she was under of earning her bread ; but it was of the purely benevolent kind. The pinched look of a beggar-woman might have called forth the same expression of sympathy. And he had carried off her flower — a transaction that should have been lover-like. Had he asked her for a lucifer-match in order to light his cigar, he could not have put less sentiment into the act.

Then she reviewed his looks, one by one— -the expression with which he had first greeted her, the smile accompanying this speech or that, the lingering farewell glance. No indication of deep, hidden feeling here ; only the measured, dispassionate interest of an old acquaintance. And those cold, careless, peacemaking kisses! He, her regressive lover — in the eyes of the world, her faithless bridegroom — coming, as he did, on an errand of atonement and reconciliation, might well be excused for proffering the kiss of peace. But could there be such a pact between them without love ? Was he cold to her simply because his heart was now shut to human affection, or had the pardoned lapse, the forfeited word, the broken troth, been followed by another kind of disloyalty, harder still to forgive ?

She sat lost in reverie till her little damsel’s ring at the front door recalled the world of actualities. Only two days before she should see him again — before her yea or nay must be accorded. Heaven be praised ! they were common days, dedicated to congenial toil and the daily task that seemed in itself a benediction.