Beulah - Page 100/348

"Miss Beulah, do you know how long master expects to be gone? I

thought maybe you could tell when you came home, for Mrs. Watson

does not seem to know any more than I do."

"Gone! What do you mean?"

"Don't you know he has gone up the river to the plantation? Why, I

packed his valise at daylight yesterday, and he left in the early

morning boat. He has not been to the plantation since just before

you came here. Hal says he heard him tell Dr. Asbury to take charge

of his patients, that his overseer had to be looked after. He told

me he was going to the plantation, and I would have asked him when

he was coming back, but he was in one of his unsatisfactory ways--

looked just like his mouth had been dipped in hot sealing-wax, so I

held my tongue."

Beulah bit her lips with annoyance, but sat down before the

melodeon, and said as unconcernedly as possible: "I did not know he had left the city, and, of course, have no idea

when he will be back. Harriet, please make me a fire here, or call

Hal to do it."

"There is a good fire in the dining room; better go in there and sit

with Mrs. Watson. She is busy seeding raisins for mincemeat and

fruit-cake."

"No; I would rather stay here."

"Then I will kindle you a fire right away."

Harriet moved about the room with cheerful alacrity. She had always

seemed to consider herself Beulah's special guardian and friend, and

gave continual proof of the strength of her affection. Evidently she

desired to talk about her master, but Beulah's face gave her no

encouragement to proceed. She made several efforts to renew the

conversation, but they were not seconded, and she withdrew,

muttering to herself: "She is learning all his ways. He does hate to talk any more than he

can help, and she is patterning after him just as fast as she can.

They don't seem to know what the Lord gave them tongues for."

Beulah practiced perseveringly for some time, and then, drawing a

chair near the fire, sat down and leaned her head on her hand. She

missed her guardian--wanted to see him--felt surprised at his sudden

departure and mortified that he had not thought her of sufficient

consequence to bid adieu to and be apprised of his intended trip. He

treated her precisely as he did when she first entered the house;

seemed to consider her a mere child, whereas she knew she was no

longer such. He never alluded to her plan of teaching, and when she

chanced to mention it he offered no comment, looked indifferent or

abstracted. Though invariably kind, and sometimes humorous, there

was an impenetrable reserve respecting himself, his past and future,

which was never laid aside. When not engaged with his flowers or

music, he was deep in some favorite volume, and, outside of these

sources of enjoyment, seemed to derive no real pleasure.

Occasionally he had visitors, but these were generally strangers,

often persons residing at a distance, and Beulah knew nothing of

them. Several times he had attended concerts and lectures, but she

had never accompanied him; and frequently, when sitting by his side,

felt as if a glacier lay between them. After Mrs. Chilton's

departure for New York, where she and Pauline were boarding, no

ladies ever came to the house, except a few of middle age, who

called now and then to see Mrs. Watson, and, utterly isolated from

society, Beulah was conscious of entire ignorance of all that passed

in polite circles. Twice Claudia had called, but, unable to forget

the past sufficiently to enter Mrs. Grayson's house, their

intercourse had ended with Claudia's visits. Mrs. Watson was a kind-

hearted and most excellent woman, who made an admirable housekeeper,

but possessed few of the qualifications requisite to render her an

agreeable companion. With an ambitious nature, and an eager thirst

for knowledge, Beulah had improved her advantages as only those do

who have felt the need of them. While she acquired, with unusual

ease and rapidity, the branches of learning taught at school, she

had availed herself of the extensive and select library, to which

she had free access, and history, biography, travels, essays, and

novels had been perused with singular avidity. Dr. Hartwell, without

restricting her reading, suggested the propriety of incorporating

more of the poetic element in her course. The hint was timely, and

induced an acquaintance with the great bards of England and Germany,

although her taste led her to select works of another character. Her

secluded life favored habits of study, and, at an age when girls are

generally just beginning to traverse the fields of literature, she

had progressed so far as to explore some of the footpaths which

entice contemplative minds from the beaten track. With earlier

cultivation and superiority of years, Eugene had essayed to direct

her reading; but now, in point of advancement, she felt that she was

in the van. Dr. Hartwell had told her, whenever she was puzzled, to

come to him for explanation, and his clear analysis taught her how

immeasurably superior he was, even to those instructors whose

profession it was to elucidate mysteries. Accustomed to seek

companionship in books, she did not, upon the present occasion, long

reflect on her guardian's sudden departure, but took from the

shelves a volume of Poe which contained her mark. The parting rays

of the winter sun grew fainter; the dull, somber light of vanishing

day made the room dim, and it was only by means of the red glare

from the glowing grate that she deciphered the print. Finally the

lamp was brought in, and shed a mellow radiance over the dusky

apartment. The volume was finished and dropped upon her lap. The

spell of this incomparable sorcerer was upon her imagination; the

sluggish, lurid tarn of Usher; the pale, gigantic water lilies,

nodding their ghastly, everlasting heads over the dreary Zaire; the

shrouding shadow of Helusion; the ashen skies, and sere, crisped

leaves in the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir, hard by the dim lake

of Auber--all lay with grim distinctness before her; and from the

red bars of the grate the wild, lustrous, appalling eyes of Ligeia

looked out at her, while the unearthly tones of Morella whispered

from every corner of the room. She rose and replaced the book on the

shelf, striving to shake off the dismal hold which all this

phantasmagoria had taken on her fancy. Her eyes chanced to fall upon

a bust of Athene which surmounted her guardian's desk, and

immediately the mournful refrain of the Raven, solemn and dirge-

like, floated through the air, enhancing the spectral element which

enveloped her. She retreated to the parlor, and, running her fingers

over the keys of the piano, endeavored by playing some of her

favorite airs to divest her mind of the dreary, unearthly images

which haunted it. The attempt was futile, and there in the dark,

cold parlor she leaned her head against the piano, and gave herself

up to the guidance of one who, like the "Ancient Mariner," holds his

listener fascinated and breathless. Once her guardian had warned her

not to study Poe too closely, but the book was often in his own

hand, and, yielding to the matchless ease and rapidity of his

diction, she found herself wandering in a wilderness of baffling

suggestions. Under the drapery of "William Wilson," of "Morella,"

and "Ligeia," she caught tantalizing glimpses of recondite

psychological truths and processes, which dimly hovered over her own

consciousness, but ever eluded the grasp of analysis. While his

unique imagery filled her mind with wondering delight, she shrank

appalled from the mutilated fragments which he presented to her as

truths, on the point of his glittering scalpel of logic. With the

eagerness of a child clutching at its own shadow in a glassy lake,

and thereby destroying it, she had read that anomalous prose poem

"Eureka." The quaint humor of that "bottled letter" first arrested

her attention, and, once launched on the sea of Cosmogonies, she was

amazed at the seemingly infallible reasoning which, at the

conclusion, coolly informed her that she was her own God. Mystified,

shocked, and yet admiring, she had gone to Dr. Hartwell for a

solution of the difficulty. False she felt the whole icy tissue to

be, yet could not detect the adroitly disguised sophisms. Instead of

assisting her, as usual, he took the book from her, smiled, and put

it away, saying indifferently: "You must not play with such sharp tools just yet. Go and practice

your music lesson."