CHAPTER XII.

AN ECCENTRIC DRIVE.

Miss Eliza Halstead was very eccentric in her drive about town that day. She had some shopping to do, but forgot it entirely, for the first time in her life. Miss Eliza had a taste for that especial amusement; and it must have been an absorbing passion that could have drawn it from her mind. As it was, Chestnut street saw but little of the Halstead carriage that day; but it appeared in parts of the town where such equipages seldom presented themselves; threaded cross-streets, and drove slowly by tenement-houses, astonishing the children that played on the doorsteps, and chased each other along the unswept side-walks. Once or twice Miss Eliza left her carriage and examined the numbers of these houses herself, rather than trust the coachman to leave his horses. This singular conduct disturbed the serenity of this high potentate, who muttered his indignation to the air, and lashed little boys with his whip, as if they had been to blame for bringing him into a neighborhood which revolted every aristocratic sense of his nature. Miss Eliza, too, held up her skirts as she crossed the pavements, and threaded the side-walks with an air of infinite disdain; but comforted herself by reflecting that the people who saw her would believe that some noble purpose of charity had brought her there; and, to strengthen this idea, she took a showy porte-monnaie from her pocket, and tangled its gold chain in her gloved fingers, which was suggestive of unbounded benevolence searching in the highways and hedges for objects of charity.

Miss Eliza was a good deal puzzled by all the numbers, which she found contradicting each other along the battered doors, and was about to abandon the exploration, when she saw a young man leave one of the houses, and walk down the block, as if in haste to leave the neighborhood.

“That is young Ward, I’ll stake any thing,” said Miss Eliza, leaning out of the carriage she had just entered. “What on earth can he be doing there?”

Young Ward did not notice her, but turned a corner and disappeared; but Eliza had taken a correct survey of the house, and ordering the coachman to drive slowly by it, took the number in her memory.

“She came down this block and darted into a door somewhere close by this very place, I’ll be sworn to that,” muttered the spinstress. “Savage kept by her side almost to the corner. They must have walked together a full hour, and he with his head bent half the time—the artful creature. I wonder if he knows that she left him to meet this handsome young gambler in that place? Oh! it’s all true! That boy in the door is her brother, one of the barefooted creatures who stood in the picture of ‘a soldier’s home.’ There is no mistake about the thing now. Jacob! I say, Jacob! You may drive home!”

Jacob muttered heavily under his breath, and, seeing a long space of broken pavement, avenged his outraged dignity by driving through it so roughly that the carriage rocked and toiled in the ruts like some ship in a storm. Liking the faint screams that came from within the carriage, Jacob resolved to give his lady the full benefit of the neighborhood she had forced him into; so he lost his way, and drove around in a circle, where the squalid children were thickest along the side-walks, and women with naked arms, sometimes dripping with soapsuds, thrust their heads from the windows, wondering at the splendor of her equipage. But Jacob revolted himself at this amusement, after a little, and drove back to a level with aristocracy again, after which he condescended to take a tolerably straight line for home.

Miss Eliza went into her step-brother’s house in a state of sublime exaltation. Two distinct tints of red flushed her cheeks; her pale blue eyes darkened and gleamed. Up the steps she ran, and into the house, eager to unbosom herself of the secret that possessed her. Some feline instinct carried her directly to the little room in which Georgiana Halstead spent her leisure hours, and where she then was somewhat lonely and dispirited. Georgie had kept much by herself during the last few days, for a gentle sadness had fallen upon her, such as loving hearts know when locked up with anxious suspense.

It was a beautiful room which the girl occupied, half library, half boudoir, warmed with the mellow sunshine and bright with tasteful ornaments. The walls were wainscoted with black walnut, enriched with gilded beading, and the ceiling was crossed with beams of the same dark wood, giving an antique air to the whole. The floor was also of polished walnut, which a Persian carpet, bright with scarlet and green, left exposed at the edges. Turkish chairs, and a pretty couch, all cushions and crimson silk, gave warmth to the dark shades of the wall, while crimson curtains imparted to them a double richness when the sun shone through them. Mosaic tables blended these commingling shades harmoniously. A harp, that seemed one net-work of gold, stood in one corner. A guitar, around which clustered a wreath of gold and mother-of-pearl, lay upon the couch; and superbly bound books were scattered on the tables. But all these had given no happiness to pretty Georgiana, who lay huddled together in one of the Turkish chairs, pale as a lily, and with soft, bluish shadows deepening under her eyes. Whoever the man was that she grieved about, I think he never could have resisted so much tender loveliness, had he seen Georgie then, with her hair disturbed and rippling, half in ringlets, half in waves, shading her face here and revealing it there, absolutely rendering her one of the most interesting creatures in the world. A morning dress of very pale green merino, with some swans’-down about the neck and sleeves, lay in soft folds around her. She had been crying, poor girl! and the dew of her tears hung on those long, curling lashes, which were brown, and several shades darker than her golden hair.

Georgie heard Miss Eliza’s step, and wiped the tears away quickly with her hand, starting up and holding her breath, like a white hare afraid of being driven from its covert, as the rustle of silk drew nearer and nearer.

“Oh, you are here yet! I fancied so,” cried Miss Eliza, flinging open the door, and sweeping into the room with a rush and flutter which always accompanied her movements; “and in that morning dress, too, intensely interesting. But do you know it is almost dinner-time?”

“I was not going down to dinner, Aunt Eliza,” answered Georgie; “my head aches a little, I think.”

“What! have your dinner sent up? Why, child, this is putting on airs.”

“No, I am not putting on airs, Aunt Eliza.”

“Aunt Eliza! How often am I to tell you that I detest the title; besides, it does not belong to me. I am aunt to no one, certainly not to a person who has not a single drop of my blood in her veins.”

“I am sorry to have used the word; excuse me,” said Georgie, with childlike sweetness. “I never wish to offend you, Miss Eliza.”

“No one wishes to offend me; and yet—but no matter, I came to tell you something, but I dare say it will only set you off into hysterics, or something of that kind. I have made a discovery, a painful, heart-rending discovery. It ought not to concern you, but you have a woman’s heart, and can sympathize with me.”

“What, what has happened?” cried Georgie, sitting up, and turning her eyes full upon Miss Eliza. “Nothing very serious, I hope.”

“That depends,” answered the spinster, sitting down on the floor with a swoop of her garments that raised a little whirlwind around them, and leaning her elbow on Georgiana’s lap. This was a favorite position with Miss Eliza when the spirit of extreme youthfulness grew strong within her. “That depends on the susceptibility of the heart that is wounded. Oh, child! may you never be gifted with those exquisite feelings which make up that heavenly thing called genius in a human soul; but without that you can never know how I suffer, how the pride of suppressed tenderness struggles in this soul!”

Georgiana had heard these intense rhapsodies before, and knew what trifling occasions could bring them forth. She closed her eyes wearily, and laid her head back on the cushions of the chair, waiting in weary patience for the explanation that might be long in coming.

“No wonder you sigh; no wonder the lids droop over your eyes. My own are full of unshed tears. But I must be brave. I will be brave, and struggle against the destiny that threatens me.”

Georgiana sighed a little wearily and moved back in her seat, for Miss Eliza’s arm pressed heavily upon her.

“Is there—is there a man on earth that may be trusted, who is not ready to break the heart that confides in him?”

Georgiana shrunk back from the prying glance fixed upon her, and strove against the thrill of pain that passed over her.

“Whom are you speaking of, Miss Eliza?” she inquired, in a faint voice.

“Of the man whom you, weak, silly thing, have loved vainly; and I—oh! too well!—too well! He is faithless, like the rest—cruelly, cruelly faithless—I saw it with my own eyes. After that scene in the carriage, too, when my hand rested in the firm clasp of his; when his eyes met all the maidenly tenderness that flooded mine. Oh, Georgiana! that was a heavenly moment; but the earthquake has come; the tornado is passed, and my heart lies a wreck under his feet.

‘He may break—he may ruin the vase, if he will, But the scent of the roses will cling to it still.’”

Here Miss Eliza took out her cobweb of a handkerchief, and wiped some mythical tears from her pale, gray eyes. Then grasping the handkerchief tightly in her hand, she cried out, “But you cannot feel. He never loved you, never encouraged your love.”

Georgiana started up, and shook the arm from her lap with some impatience.

“Who are you talking about? What does all this mean?” she said.

“It means,” said Eliza, gathering herself up from the floor, “that the man you love to idolatry—but who loves me in spite of every thing—is fascinated with that girl who played Rebecca in that hideous tableau. I saw them walking together a whole hour this very day, his face bent to hers, her hand clasping his arm.”

Georgiana sunk to her chair again, white and faint.

“Aunt Eliza, please let me rest a little, I am not well, you know.” Tears were in her voice, tears trembled on her eyelashes. Eliza was satisfied, and went out of the room.