The Diothas, or, A Far Look Ahead/Chapter 24
The foregoing details being unknown to me at the time, my surprise may be imagined, when, shortly after all had returned up-stairs, I saw Reva re-enter the hall, with her beautiful hair arranged after the manner of the zeruan.
I land known she was coming; for my eyes had not rested till they lighted on Anvar, who seemed to be awaiting the entrance of some one through a certain door. He, poor fellow, was probably a prey to a stronger conflict of feeling than even myself. He had hazarded much upon a manœuvre known to be risky. But to me the demeanor of my rival—for as such I suddenly recognized him—seemed the easy confidence of assured success. Devoured with a secret rage, I could not turn any eyes from that direction.
Ialma, who stood beside me, probably felt that it would be both useless and cruel to endeavor to divert the direction of my eyes. She, accordingly, strove good-naturedly to keep me in countenance by talking of a picture that hung near the door in question. When Reva came forth, she was very pale, but, ah! more beautiful than ever. Anvar advanced to meet her, and they left the hall together.
"Let me show you this figure," said my companion, advancing suddenly toward the painting before mentioned.
"Look at the picture, not at me, while I speak," said she hurriedly. "Do not look so strange; be a man!"
I murmured something inaudible in reply, while obeying her injunction so far as to seem busily occupied with the picture, though feeling at the moment utterly indifferent to every thing in the world, now that its chief treasure was lost for me.
"I am sorry for Anvar, poor fellow," continued Ialma in the same tone.
"Why need you grieve for him?" said I, somewhat bitterly. Is he not successful? Has he not every reason to be happy?"
"Reva has gone with him, indeed, but because custom so requires. I know her, however, and can see that her heart is hardened against him. You will see whether I judge correctly."
With heart greatly lightened by these few words, I now left the hall with my kind-hearted monitress. The elders, and many of the younger people, were scattered in groups along the marble colonnades, or under the shade of the wide-spreading trees. The children, engaged in various pastimes, flitted about with the grace and activity of humming-birds. The prevalent notions of a day of rest did not include that of its being also a day of penance and natural quietude for the young.
When we reached the place where I had left my curricle, Reva and Anvar were already out of sight, Utis and Ulmene just about to start. Receiving a direction to follow Utis meanwhile, I started off at a rapid pace after him. I endeavored, after a while, to re-open the conversation upon the subject that lay nearest my heart; but Ialma diverted the conversation after a brief explanation.
"I have already said more than I ought, perhaps," said she. "But you really looked so unhappy, that I could not help saying something. I may say, however, what everybody has a right to know. Hulmar and Anvar's father are friends of long standing, and I have no doubt that Hulmar would be pleased to have Anvar as son-in-law. Who, indeed, would not? But—I have strong doubts that he ever will."
After this, to me, comforting assurance, she turned our conversation into other channels. This was the easier to do, since it was her task to introduce me to the country through which we were gliding on our noiseless chariot. There was not a house of which she could not both relate the history and define the exact relationship of its inmates to myself.
Presently we came in sight of our destination. The home of Semna Diotha-Nuval was prettily situated on a rising ground overlooking the Hudson, not far from where Peekskill now stands. My anticipations in regard to my venerable relative proved entirely wrong. Instead of an invalid confined to her chair, I found an energetic little lady, whose age I should have placed about midway between sixty and seventy. She had an abundance of lovely white hair, and her keen gray eyes were full of expression.
She sat like a queen surrounded by her court,—in this case her full-grown descendants of three generations; among the group being Reva, Semna Diotha,—my nearest cousin,—and her father. Anvar stood on one side, calm, but pale, and with by no means the expression of a happy lover. While talking with me, the old lady was gently stroking the hair of Reva, who sat on a tabouret by her side.
"It seems but yesterday," she went on saying, after the first salutations had passed, "since your father—you are very like him, but handsomer—came to this house to take away our Osna. She was my youngest grandchild, and had always said she was going to stay with grandma all her life. But there comes a stranger, and grandma is forgotten. That is as it should be, children; nor would your elders, however loath to part with you, have it otherwise. Here, now, is little Reva comes with her pretty hair tied up,"—at these words Reva flushed, but made no protest,—"my child, I have pulled down your hair: let me tie it up."
"No," said Reva, giving her head a vigorous shake, so that the rich masses of hair fell behind her: "let it remain so meantime; it is much more comfortable."
The old lady gave her a searching look. She said nothing further on the subject, but, rising briskly from her chair, invited us into the garden to see the flowers and fruit. Here most of the company soon after took their leave. But Ialma, remembering something said by me on our way there, told our hostess that I would like to see her collection of portraits. While, under the old lady's direction, I was employed in arranging the apparatus, Reva had a hurried conference with Ialma. The latter upon her entrance took me aside to inform me that Reva had begged Anvar to let her ride home with Ialma.
"I have come to beg the use of your curricle," she continued. "You can return with Anvar. You seem wonderfully pleased at the prospect of other company than mine. Yet I did my best to entertain you."
Accompanying these words with an arch smile, she returned to Reva, who was explaining to the old lady that she had no intention of binding up her hair, as she was about to return with Ialma.
The first portraits shown in the apparatus aroused in me but a faint interest. My mind was inclined to revert to a subject having no immediate connection with them. But at last my indifference was thoroughly dispelled.
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, with a start, as I looked in startled surprise at the portrait that had just made its appearance. It seemed to live and move, even to smile from the window-like aperture where it presented itself.
"What was that you said?" inquired our hostess. "It sounded strange."
How the above exclamation had escaped from me, I cannot explain except by the general tendency to revert, when under the influence of strong excitement, to the tongue first used in childhood. I explained, somewhat confusedly, that I had been startled by the lifelike fidelity of the portrait. It was indeed that of my own mother, changed, it is true, somewhat as I myself was changed, and wearing the costume of the period. Yet the change was not much greater than that sometimes seen in a person from one day to another. We all have our good days, on which we look and speak our best. On such a day might this portrait of my mother have been taken.
I was, however, relieved as well as startled. Those words spoken so lightly by Reva in regard to the expected arrival of my mother and sister, or, rather, as I thought to myself with dismay, the mother and sister of Ismar Thiusen, had given me the feeling of an impostor on the eve of exposure. Yet I could see no way of retreat from my strange position. With a sort of fatalistic recklessness I had resolved to abide the issue of events, with much the same confidence that all would turn out right in the end that we feel in regard to the hero or heroine of a story, however inextricable, to all appearance, the difficulties in which he or she may be involved.
Here, then, was the unlooked-for solution. This devoted and beloved mother would, perhaps, give me the clew to the issue from this labyrinth. But what if she and my sister should take the same view of things as Utis. Would I be obliged, for the sake of her peace of mind, to pretend a belief in what my entire memory of the past forbade me to believe? All this passed through my mind as in a flash. Seeing no solution to the new and difficult questions now presenting themselves, I tried to dismiss the subject by asking to see the portrait of my sister Maud.
This, too, was of startling fidelity; though I have no doubt that Maud herself, dear girl, would acknowledge that in no other had she been represented to better advantage. With a lingering trace of incredulity, I examined the backs of the pictures. I found the names Osna Diotha and Madene Diotha, written there apparently by the hand of the artist, evidently a lady. The printed address was a street of a, to me unknown, city situated somewhere on the northern coast of Alume, the lesser of the great islands of the Maorian group.
After some further conversation we took our leave. Anvar and I saw the ladies seated in the curricle I had brought to the door, and started after they were out of sight.
I must do my companion the justice to say that he took his punishment nobly. That he was very hard hit I could infer from various circumstances. But by not a word did he betray the fact that he had just met with a disappointment likely to color many years, if not the whole, of his life. He proved, on the contrary, a most interesting companion; and the hour or so of our return ride passed pleasantly enough in varied converse, though neither alluded to the subject that most occupied the minds of both.