The Sword of Damocles: A Story of New York Life

by Anna Katharine Green

  XXI.

  DEPARTURE.

  "Forever and forever, farewell Cassius. If we do meet again, why we shall smile; If not, why then, this parting was well made."

  --JULIUS CAESAR.

  Samuel had received his orders to admit Mr. Bertram Sylvester to hisuncle's room, at whatever hour of the day or night he chose to make hisappearance. But evening wore away and finally the night, before hiswell-known face was seen at the door. Proceeding at once to theapartment occupied by Mr. Sylvester, he anxiously knocked. The door wasopened immediately.

  "Ah, Bertram, I have been expecting you all night." And from the haggardappearance of both men, it was evident that neither of them had slept.

  "I have sat down but twice since I left you, and then only inconveyances. I have been obliged to go to Brooklyn, to--"

  "But you have found him?"

  "Yes, I found him."

  His uncle glanced inquiringly at his hands; they were empty.

  "I shall have to sit down," said Bertram; his brow was very gloomy, hiswords came hesitatingly. "I had rather have knocked my head against thewall, than have disappointed you," he murmured after a moment's pause."But when I did find him, it was too late."

  "Too late!" The tone in which this simple phrase was uttered wasindescribable. Bertram slowly nodded his head.

  "He had already disposed of all the papers, and favorably," he said.

  "But--"

  "And not only that," pursued Bertram. "He had issued orders bytelegraph, that it was impossible to countermand. It was at the FortySecond Street depot I found him at last. He was just on the point ofstarting for the west."

  "And has he gone?"

  "Yes sir."

  Mr. Sylvester walked slowly to the window. It was raining drearilywithout, but he did not notice the falling drops or raise his eyes tothe leaden skies.

  "Did you meet any one?" he asked at length. "Any one that you know, Imean, or who knows you?"

  "No one but Mr. Stuyvesant."

  "Mr. Stuyvesant!"

  "Yes sir," returned Bertram, dropping his eyes before his uncle'sastonished glance. "I was coming out of a house in Broad Street when hepassed by and saw me, or at least I believed he saw me. There is nomistaking him, sir, for any one else; besides it is a custom of his I amtold, to saunter through the down town streets after the warehouses areall closed for the night. He enjoys the quiet I suppose, finds food forreflection in the sleeping aspect of our great city." There was gloom inBertram's tone; his uncle looked at him curiously.

  "What house was it from which you were coming when he passed you?"

  "A building where Tueller and Co. do business, shady operators in paper,as you know."

  "And you believed he recognized you?"

  "I cannot be sure, sir. It was dark, but I thought I saw him look at meand give a slight start."

  Ah, how desolate sounds the drip, drip of a ceaseless rain, whenconversation languishes and the ear has time to listen!

  "I will explain to Mr. Stuyvesant when I see him, that you were insearch of a man with whom I had pressing business," observed Mr.Sylvester at last.

  "No," murmured Bertram with effort, "it might emphasize the occurrencein his mind; let the matter drop where it is."

  There was another silence, during which the drip of the rain on thewindow-ledge struck on the young man's ears like the premonitory thud offalling earth upon a coffin-lid. At length his uncle turned and advancedrapidly towards him.

  "Bertram," said he, "you have done me a favor for which I thank you.What you have learned in the course of its accomplishment I cannot tell.Enough perhaps to make you understand why I warned you from thedangerous path of speculation, and set your feet in a way that ifadhered to with steadfast purpose, ought to lead you at last to a safeand honorable prosperity. Now--No, Bertram," he bitterly interruptedhimself as the other opened his lips, "I am in need of no especialcommiseration, my affairs seem bound to prosper whether I will ornot--now I have one more commission to give you. Miss Fairchild--" hisvoice quavered and he leaned heavily on the chair near which he wasstanding. "Have you seen her, Bertram? Is the poor child quiteprostrated? Has this frightful occurrence made her ill, or does she bearup with fortitude under the shock of this sudden calamity?"

  "She is not ill, but her suffering is undoubted. If you could see herand say a few words to relieve her anxiety in regard to yourself, Ithink it would greatly comfort her. Her main thought seems to be foryou, sir."

  Mr. Sylvester frowned, raised his hand with a repelling gesture, andhastily opened his lips. Bertram thought he was about to utter somepassionate phrase. But instead of that he merely remarked, "I am sorry Icannot see her, but it is quite impossible. You must stand between meand this poor child, Bertram. Tell her I send her my love; tell her thatI am quite well; anything to solace her and make these dark days lessdreary. If she wants a friend with her, let a messenger be sent forwhomever she desires. I place no restrictions upon anything you chooseto do for her comfort or happiness, but let me be spared the sight ofany other face than yours until this is all over. After the funeral--itnay sound ungracious, but I am far from feeling so--I shall wish to beleft alone for awhile. If she can be made to understand this--"

  "I think her instincts, sir, have already led her to divine your wishes.If I am not mistaken, she is even now making preparations to return toher relatives."

  Mr. Sylvester gave a start. "What, so soon!" he murmured, and thesadness of his tone smote Bertram to the heart. But in another moment herecovered himself and shortly exclaimed, "Well! well! that is as itshould be. You will watch over her Bertram, and see that she is kindlycared for. It would be a grief to me to have her go away with any morethan the necessary regret at losing one who was always kind to _her_."

  "I will look after her as after a sister," returned Bertram. "She shallmiss no attention which I can supply."

  With a look Mr. Sylvester expressed his thanks. Then while Bertram againattempted to speak, he gave him a cordial pressure of the hand, andwithdrew once more to his favorite spot.

  And the rain beat, beat, and it sounded more and more like the droppingsof earth upon a nailed down coffin-lid.

  * * * * *

  The funeral was a large one. The largest some said that had ever beenseen in that quarter of the city. If Mrs. Sylvester's position had notbeen what it was, the sudden and awful nature of her death, would havebeen sufficient to draw together a large crowd. Among those who thusendeavored to show their respect was Miss Stuyvesant.

  "I could not join you here in your pleasures," she whispered to Paula inthe short interview they had upstairs, preparatory to the services, "butI cannot keep away in the dark hours!" And from her look and the claspof her hand, Paula gained fresh courage to endure the slow pressure ofanxiety and grief with which she was secretly burdened.

  Moreover she had the pleasure of introducing her beloved friend to Mr.Bertram Sylvester, a pleasure which she had long promised herselfwhenever the opportunity should arrive, as Miss Stuyvesant was somewhatof an enthusiast as regards music. She did not notice particularly then,but she remembered afterwards, with what a blushing cheek and beautifulglance the dainty young girl received his bow, and responded to his fewrespectful words of pleasure at meeting the daughter of a man whom hehad learned to regard with so much respect.

  Mr. Sylvester was in a room by himself. The few glimpses obtained of himby his friends, convinced them all, that this trouble touched him moredeeply than those who knew his wife intimately could have supposed. Yethe was calm, and already wore that fixed look of rigidity which washenceforth to distinguish the expression of his fine and noble features.

  In the ride to Greenwood he spoke little. Paula who sat in the carriagewith him did not receive a word, though now and then his eye wanderedtowards her with an expression that drove the blood to her heart, andmade the whole day one awful memory of incomprehensible agony and dimbut terrible forebodings. The ways of the human soul, in its
crises ofgrief or remorse were so new to her. She had passed her life besiderippling streams and in peaceful meadows, and now all at once, withshadow on shadow, the dark pictures of life settled down before her, andshe could not walk without stumbling upon jagged rocks, deep yawningchasms and caves of impenetrable gloom.

  The sight of the grave appalled her. To lay in such a bed as that, thefair and delicate head that had often found the downy pillows of itsazure couch too hard for its languid pressure. To hide in such a dismal,deep, dark gap, a form so white and but a little while before, soimposing in its splendor and so commanding in its requirements. Thethought of heaven brought no comfort. The beauty they had known layhere; soulless, inert, rigid and responseless, but here. It was giftedwith no wings with which to rise. It owned no attachment to higherspheres. Death had scattered the leaves of this white rose, but from allthe boundless mirror of the outspread heavens, no recovered semblance ofits perfected beauty, looked forth to solace Paula or assuage the miseryof her glance into this gloomy pit. Ah, Ona, the social ladder reacheshigh, but it does not scale the regions where your poor soul could findcomfort now.

  Bertram saw the white look on Paula's face and silently offered his arm.But there are moments when no mortal help can aid us; instants when thesoul stands as solitary in the universe, as the ship-wrecked mariner ona narrow strip of rock in a boundless sea. Life may touch, but eternityenfolds us; we are single before God and as such must stand or fall.

  Upon their return to the house, Mr. Sylvester withdrew with a fewintimate friends to his room, and Paula, lonely beyond expression, wentto her own empty apartment to finish packing her trunks and answer suchnotes as had arrived during her absence. For attention from outsiderswas only too obtrusive. Many whom she had never met save in the mostformal intercourse, flooded her now with expressions of condolence,which if they had not been all upon one pattern and that the mostconventional, might have afforded her some relief. Two or three of thenotes were precious to her and these she stowed safely away, onecontained a deliberate offer of marriage from a wealthy oldstock-broker; this she as deliberately burned after she had written aproper refusal. "He thinks I have no home," she murmured.

  And had she? As she paced through the silent halls and elaboratelyfurnished rooms on her way to her solitary dinner, she asked herself ifany place would ever seem like home after this. Not that she wasinfatuated by its elegance. The lofty walls might dwindle, the gorgeousfurniture grow dim, the works of beauty disappear, the whole toweringstructure contract to the dimensions of a simple cottage or what wasworse, a seedy down-town house, if only the something would remain, thesomething that made return to Grotewell seem like the bending back of atowering stalk to the ground from which it had taken its root. "If?" shecried--and stopped there, her heart swelling she knew not why. Thenagain, "I thought I had found a father!" Then after a longer pause, awild uncontrollable; "Bless! bless! bless!" which seemed to re-echo inthe room long after her lingering step had left it.

  * * * * *

  "Will he let me go without a word?"

  It was early morning and the time had come for Paula's departure. Shewas standing on the threshold of her room, her hands clasped, her eyesroving up and down the empty halls. "Will he let me go without a word?"

  "O Miss Paula, what do you think?" cried Sarah, creeping slowly towardsher from the spectral recesses of a dim corner. "Jane says Mr. Sylvesterwas up all last night too. She heard him go down stairs about midnightand he went through all the rooms like a gliding spectre and into _her_room too!" she fearfully whispered; "and what he did there no one knows,but when he came out he locked the door, and this morning the cook heardhim give orders to Samuel to have the trunks that were ready in Mrs.Sylvester's room taken away. O Miss, do you think he can be going togive all those beautiful things to you?"

  Paula recoiled in horror. "Sarah!" said she, and could say no more. Thevision of that tall form gliding through the desolate house at midnight,bending over the soulless finery of his dead wife, perhaps stowing itaway in boxes, came with too powerful a suggestion to her mind.

  "Shure, I thought you would be pleased," murmured the girl anddisappeared again into one of the dim recesses.

  "Will he let me go without a word?"

  "Miss Paula, Mr. Bertram Sylvester is waiting at the door in acarriage," came in low respectful tones to her ears, and Samuel's facefull of regret appeared at the top of the stairs.

  "I am coming," murmured the sad-hearted girl, and with a sob which shecould not control, she took her last look of the pretty pink chamber inwhich she had dreamed so many dreams of youthful delight, and perhaps ofyouthful sorrow also, and slowly descended the stairs. Suddenly as shewas passing a door on the second floor, she heard a low deep cry.

  "Paula!"

  She stopped and her hand went to her heart, the reaction was so sudden."Yes," she murmured, standing still with great heart-beats of joy, orwas it pain?

  The door slowly opened. "Did you think I could let you go without ablessing, my Paula, my little one!" came in those deep heart-tones whichalways made her tears start. And Mr. Sylvester stepped out of theshadows beyond and stood in the shadows at her side.

  "I did not know," she murmured. "I am so young, so feeble, such a motein this great atmosphere of anguish. I longed to see you, to saygood-bye, to thank you, but--" tears stopped her words; this was aparting that rent her leader heart.

  Mr. Sylvester watched her and his deep chest rose spasmodically."Paula," said he, and there was a depth in his tone even she had neverheard before, "are these tears for me?"

  With a strong effort she controlled herself, looked up and faintlysmiled. "I am an orphan," she gently murmured; "you have been kind andtender to me beyond words; I have let myself love you as a father."

  A spasm crossed his features, the hand he had lifted to lay upon herhead fell at his side, he surveyed her with eyes whose despairingfondness told her that her love had been more than met by this desolatechildless man. But he did not reply as seemed natural, "Be to me then asa child. I can offer you no mother to guide or watch over you, but oneparent is better than none. Henceforth you shall be known as mydaughter." Instead of that he shook his head mournfully, yearningly butirrevocably, and said, "To be your father would have been a dearposition to occupy. I have sometimes hoped that I might be so blessed asto call it mine, but that is all past now. Your father I can never be.But I can bless you," he murmured brokenly, "not as I did that day inyour aunt's little cottage, but silently and from afar as God alwaysmeant you should be blessed by me. Good-bye, Paula."

  Then all the deeps in her great nature broke up. She did not weep, butshe looked at him with her large dark eyes and the cry in them smote hisheart. With a struggle that blanched his face, he kept his arms at hisside, but his lips worked in agony, and he slowly murmured, "If after atime your heart loves me like this, and you are willing to bear shadowas well as sunshine with me, come back with your aunt and sit at myhearthstone, not as my child but as a dear and honored guest. I will tryand be worthy--" He paused, "Will you come, Paula?"

  "Yes, yes."

  "Not soon, not now," he murmured, "God will show you when."

  And with nothing but a look, without having touched her or so much asbrushed her garments with his, he retired again into his room.