CHAPTER XXIX.

A NIGHT UPON THE BILLOWS.

How the circumstances of life throw us about! Now, upon the revolving wheel, we are raised high above our fellows, where, from our dizzy elevation, we look about us with a sense of giddiness lest we fall; then with sudden revolution we descend while those upon the low grounds are carried up. Change! Change!

Our little circle of actors in the present drama were on the "wheel," but not one experienced more disagreeable sensations in its turnings than did Mrs. Belmont, the once haughty mistress of Rosedale. Hers was not alone in the experience of external disagreeables; but in her soul, where the continual revolvings of the corresponding whirlings of good resolutions and evil passions, which the hand of avarice was turning. Poor soul; with only such a power to govern its weal or woe!

Mrs. Gaylord lingered about the maelstrom where her darling had disappeared from sight many weeks, loth to believe that she would not rise again to bless and cheer her loneliness. "She was so like me," she would repeat over and over again; "the same restless ambitions, the same longings after something her hand could never reach! And now she is gone! I could bear it if the beautiful casket, emptied of its treasure had been left for my stricken heart to cherish and lay away in its bed of flowers under the green grass; but to lose all but the memory of her uncertain fate! This is the darkest cloud of all. Then what will Willie, the poor struggling cripple, say? How shall I ever meet him."

The shadows deepened in the home of the St. Clair's, and none rejoiced more when the husband bore his weeping wife back to her Virginia life than did the sympathizing Mrs. Mason. "It was dreadful," she said to her mother, after the good-byes were over; "but as we could not help it became a trifle monotonous,--this petting and soothing."

"Well, as for me, I would give a pretty large sum to know the whole of that transaction," remarked Mr. St. Clair, one day as the whole matter was being talked over. "There is a wheel within a wheel or I am mistaken. These old eyes are not so very blind when they have their spectacles on."

"I do wish you would never again throw out one of your wild and foolish 'perhaps so's!" exclaimed the wife pettishly. "I should not be surprised if your cousin should bring you before the courts for slander."

The husband threw up his broad hands high above his head while a merry peal of laughter rang through the apartment.

"Only to think, wife! Slander! I tell you there are chapters in that woman's life that she would not like to have me or any one else be fumbling over, and there is not much danger that she will ever turn the leaves for my especial benefit."

"You are too bad; the mother of Lillian Belmont ought to be above such insinuations, Mr. St. Clair!"

"That is a fact, but she is not, and there is where the too bad comes in"; and the merry laugh again resounded.

Mrs. Gaylord reached her home in safety. It was a fine old residence, standing back from the highway, nearly hidden from the passer by because of the large wide-spreading trees with which it was surrounded; yet the broadly-paved walks that branched off in every direction as they wound around among the cool shadows of the overhanging branches were delightfully inviting to the weary traveler who looked in upon them. The mistress of that pleasant retreat now, however, walked with languid step up the winding path to the house with a heavy heart. The darker shades of an overhanging gloom oppressed her. On the portico the servants were collected to give her welcome, and as she took the tawny hand of each in her own, said, "You too will miss your young mistress. You loved her, Jenny,--she will make no more turbans for you, Phebe--and poor little Pegs! who will fix his kite or teach him how to spin his top?"

"Whar is she Missus?" asked Phebe, with the great tears rolling down her ebony cheeks, and several other voices chimed in "Dar--dar--Missus, whar is she?"

"Dead! Swallowed up by the big sea, and we shall see her no more!" She passed on, for Mr. Gaylord had taken her arm and was leading her into the long drawing-room, where he bade her stop her prating and making a simpleton of herself.

"It might as well be she as any one," he continued, noticing the look of distress on the pale face; "Seldom could there be found a young lady of her attractions who would break fewer hearts by disappearing than would she. But I am sorry for you. There was a little more color in your face, and a slight return of the former sprightliness in your manner while she was with you. But she is gone, Mrs. Gaylord, and what is the use of throwing misery over every one who crosses your path because of it? If you must pine away the few attractions you have left out of your life, why, do it silently and alone."

Her tears ceased at the commencement of this little sympathetic(?) speech and she now stood before her husband cold and chilling. Servants came and went with little acts of attention and considerable bustle of ceremony, yet, with her arm resting upon the marble mantel, she moved not, for her thoughts had driven away her weariness. A visitor was announced and she turned to see that her husband had seated himself by the window with his paper, and was deep in the perplexing problems it had brought to him.

"War! War!" Its columns were full. Preparations were going on everywhere. Calls were made for every lover of his country and home to see to it that his powers, of whatever sort, were immediately put in working order. He yawned as he turned to the last page, and looked up as if supposing his lady was still present, and he had something to say to her, but he was alone. "Well," he said, between the snatches of a military air which he was whistling; "I must away. 'The bugle sounds to arms, to arms,' and Fred Gaylord can as well be spared from the loving embraces of his adorable spouse as any one. Heigho! 'The echos are ringing alarms, alarms.' Hello, my good fellow! Nero, come and greet your master," and the huge mastiff walked boldly in through the open window, and with many demonstrations of pleasure licked the hand that caressed him.

"Yes, Mrs. Gaylord," he said the next morning as they were sitting at the breakfast table, "in a week I shall go to Richmond!"

"To join the army?"

"Well--no! I cannot say as I have any particular desire to set up this six feet of flesh and bones as a target for designing men to shoot at! It wouldn't be comfortable, you know! Besides, I can do a better thing for my country. Mine is to plan, advise and superintend. There will be plenty of this work to do, and you will get along very well without me." He arose and sauntered out into the open air, whistling as he went "the girl I left behind me." The wife watched the manly figure until it disappeared among the trees.

"Not much nobility in the character of a coward," she thought, as she looked after him. "Our grandest and noblest men in the South, as well as in the North, will enter the field of battle and--yes, will die and be buried! Hearts will ache and homes will be saddened, and the great wheel of destiny will keep on turning just as if nothing unusual was happening! Lives are being continually thrown upon it, and as rapidly hurled by its flying motion into darkness--into forgetfulness! Where is it? Where do they go? Where is Lily? That soul so full of longings, of ambitious, of unbounded faiths, hopes and shadowy desires, real to itself but mysterious to the uninitiated? Surely such a being has not been cast away among the rubbish of past ages as worthless, to find in the darkness the end of all these? No! no! She was right! There is something in these compounds of humanity that are not easily satisfied and cannot readily be extinguished. My own wild, restless cravings tell me this! Why should this 'hungering and thirsting' be given me if there was nothing with which to satisfy it? I once foolishly imagined that wealth and position would do this, but I starve with it all! I have said in my heart, 'eat, drink, and be merry; get the brightest things out of life that are possible, for the end cometh.' O Lily, my child! How much I need you! The shadows were lifting--there was a faint light in the east, the glimmering of a new day; but the darkness has set in again, the night is not ended!" She was listlessly walking up and down the elegant parlors as these thoughts ran through her mind.

Weeks passed. Mr. Gaylord had long been away, swallowed up in the excitements and business of war, and she seldom heard from him; still she had no fears, for he was only "planning, engineering and advising!" This was safe business surely! The grand old house had been filled with friends and relatives who had fled from the immediate scenes of action to take refuge out of harm's way; still when the hot July days were come with their enervating oppressiveness Mrs. Gaylord thought of the quiet village inn at the north where she had first met her Lily, and her heart pined for its cooling shades once more. But the husband had said she must not attempt to go into the enemy's country, or she would be taken for a spy.

"However," she thought one day, "I will write to Mr. Bancroft and hear about Willie; this will do me a little good at least." She did write. The tumults of war increased. The reports of conflicts were heard everywhere! The dark wave was rolling up from the far south and threatening to sweep over the boundary lines east and west, scorching and destroying everything in its progress. Mrs. Gaylord watched its coming with a great fear stirring her whole being. What would become of them? Then there came an answer to her letter. How greedily she broke the seal; how her heart bounded as she unfolded the well-filled sheet!

"How glad I was to hear from you," it began. "I did not know but you had been lost in the terrible fire! How it rages! Where will it end? When the passions of men become aroused Justice and Mercy must fold their arms and wait. But, my dear Mrs. Gaylord, cruelties, wrong dealings, abominations are not confined to war or kept within the machinations of my own sex. You speak of your loss and loneliness--come to us. You will be happier here, and a great problem still unsolved requires your aid. Next week a friend of mine will go to Washington for a few days only; now if you can get through Baltimore meet him there and he will conduct you safely to my home. I will see him to-day and write the particulars to-morrow. Willie is not with me just now, there being greater attractions elsewhere. All will be explained when you are with us. It is best that you should follow out my suggestions. I should have written you many weeks ago if I had not heard that you were not at home, and it was very uncertain whether a letter would find you in these troublesome times."

"How strangely he writes," she thought, as the paper dropped from her hand. "A problem! He had heard I was not at home; who told him? Why am I needed to help solve the problem? There is a mystery in all this! It is not like him. I must--yes, I will go! Mr. Gaylord's brother's widow, who must remain here with her family, should do all that I could, and I must go!" How restlessly she tossed upon her pillow that night! The problem! The mystery! Mr. Gaylord might not like it; he had told her to remain where she was; but something within bade her go. Another letter came, as was expected. There was much advise, counsel and many directions, and then it said: "I will just add for your perusal a short preface to a most exciting story. It may be that the interest it will awaken will have more power to draw you than anything I can say by way of persuasion. You know that there is an assurance somewhere that 'the sea shall give up its dead,' and that we 'shall meet our loved ones,' etc. These are, without doubt, true, for we have many a foretaste of the good things to come even here. One to the point is fresh before me. More than two months ago Willie received a letter from over the ocean that the good ship Constitution had picked up from off the dark billows a floating waif alone in an open boat somewhere along the southern shore, and as they were bound for Liverpool had no alternative but to take their prize with them. They did so and it was then lying in a hospital very sick, and the greater part of the time delirious. The physicians, however, had prophesied a speedy recovery when the crisis was passed, and as they had succeeded in learning the address of the one about whom she had talked almost incessantly, concluded to write to him. 'Be not alarmed' it went on to say, 'for it was not strange that such a night on the billows of a stormy sea should have upset a stronger set of nerves, or bewildered even a more massive brain.' But she would recover, and when strong enough would be brought back to Boston where her home was, as they had gathered from her talk. Still it was their desire to hear immediately if a young lady had been missing from those parts; a Miss 'Lily Gaylord', the name found on the clothing."

"My Lily!" almost shrieked the excited woman unable to read farther. "Preserved again! What a wonderful power is holding her! But how did she come on the sea? This is the problem--O, who can solve it?" Her burning eyes again fell upon the paper.

"And now she is with Willie in their old home. I was there a few days ago and found her very pale and thin. I told her I was going to insist that you should come north, when her dark eyes brightened and she said, 'O do!' Her story told Willie is a strange one; more wonderful than fiction. But you will come now, and so I will reserve the rest until your arrival."

Did she go? How laggard were the days that intervened between the receipt of this letter and the "next Thursday week" when she was to meet Mr. Bancroft's friend in Washington. Then she thought it all over. The strange incidents concerning the disappearance of her darling; the suspicions so abruptly spoken by Mr. St. Clair on that sad evening! True, he was excited and might have said what he did not feel; but Mrs. Belmont's unsatisfactory explanations as to why she should be out in such a place, at such a time, with no other attendant than a cowardly servant, was all such a mystery! Why should that lady wish to injure the child? Had she not said on several occasions that she "had taken a fancy to the dear girl?" Yes, several times! And this was nothing strange; everybody admired her! Certainly she had done nothing to the mistress of Rosedale to excite in her a desire to do her harm! It could not be! The more she thought it over, the more she recalled half-forgotten looks and words, the more was she perplexed.

"I will wait," she thought at last; "perhaps Lily can throw a little light upon the transaction. Whatever were the designs of Mrs. Belmont, Lily is safe! More than ever now will she believe that a mighty hand kept her above the dark billows! Twice has she ridden alone and unguided upon them, yet she did not sink! The picture in the old Bible in the library, which I have pondered so many times, seems to impress itself now upon my soul. Like Peter, Jesus must have walked beside her, upheld and guided the frail boat with its precious freight; and it may be--it may be He spoke to the angry deep 'peace, be still'! I wish I believed it all. How cheering it must be--such faith I mean--to the lone mariner on the dark billows of life to be cared for by one who can do these things! Hush the storms and command the waves and they obey Him! I think I should not toss about in my little boat as hopelessly, or shudder with such fear as I look out over the dark waters that are rolling about me, if this faith were mine. O Lily! So like me, yet so far removed, with the great God of heaven for your father, and the Saviour for your friend and protector! I will know more of this! I am disappointed, hungry and thirsty. The waters are deep; the waves dash upon my frail bark!"