Chapter IX: Lilith and the Baroness

Life is only bright when it proceedeth
Towards a truer, deeper life above;
Human love is sweetest when it leadeth
To a more divine and perfect love.

Learn the mission of progression duly;
Do not call each glorious change decay;
But know we only hold our treasures truly
When it seems as if they passed away.

Nor dare to blame God’s gifts for incompleteness;
In that want their beauty lies. They roll
Towards some infinite depth of love and sweetness,
Bearing onward man’s reluctant soul.
_A. A. Proctor._

The Baroness Von Bruyin, the name and title on the card, bore no especial significance for Lilith.

She bowed as she took the enameled bit of pasteboard and withdrew from the room.

The little old Frenchman came from some other room opening upon the same corridor, and politely escorted her downstairs and out of the hotel.

“Shall I have the honor to call a cab for you, madame?” he inquired, when they had reached the vestibule.

“No, monsieur, thank you. I prefer to walk,” replied Lilith.

The professor stood aside to let Lilith go out.

Lilith “preferred to walk” that she might be alone, and have a longer time for reflection and for self-collection before reaching her boarding-house, and having to meet the kind inquiries of Aunt Sophie.

The die was cast, then. Her fate was sealed. She had taken the step from which she felt there was no honorable retreat—unless, indeed, her husband should relent; should retract all his bitter charges against her; should seek her out, ask her to return to the home from which he had madly driven her, and set up his own superior claims to her allegiance in opposition to those of madame, the baroness.

But this, Lilith knew, was a possibility far too remote to be thought of.

And so she was—or she tried to persuade herself that she was—glad that her fate was decided for her by circumstances beyond her control.

With all a very young girl’s enthusiasm for an imperial beauty, Lilith admired the baroness, and felt that, since she must take service with some lady, she could be better satisfied with the companionship of the beautiful and gracious Madame Von Bruyin than with any one else.

Lilith walked so slowly that when she reached her boarding-house she found that lunch had been over for some time, and all her fellow-lodgers had dispersed to their business or to their rooms.

But Aunt Sophie was anxiously waiting for her in the parlor.

“Take off your things down here, dearie, and then come with me to the dining-room, and you shall have a cup of fresh tea before you tell me anything, though I am half dying to hear,” was the greeting of the old lady.

Lilith kissed her affectionately, and then followed her to the basement dining-room, where a fresh white cloth had been laid over one end of the long table, and adorned with a fine china tea service—that had been bought many years before for Aunt Sophie’s bridal housekeeping, but which was never, never used, except on the most sacred occasions.

The kettle was boiling, and the tea was soon made and brought in, with the accompaniments of light biscuits and lamb chops.

But not until Lilith had drunk her first cup of tea would Aunt Sophie, who sat beside her, watching her affectionately, ask one question.

Then when she had refilled the cup for her young guest, she inquired:

“And have you got the situation, honey?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie.”

“Oh, dearie me! I ought to be glad, but I ain’t. I had a heap rather kept you here long o’ me. And are you really going abroad, too?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie. I cannot help going. I must.”

“Oh, dearie me! dearie me! I hope you will do well, honey. When are you going?”

“We sail in the Kron Prinz on the first of June.”

“So soon! Ah me! I shall never live to see you come back, dearie.”

“Oh, yes, you will, dear Aunt Sophie. Your good and useful life will be prolonged for many years yet.”

“Oh, how selfish I am! I ought not to think about myself, but about you. Dearie, I hope the lady you are going with will not be too hard on you. You are such a child! Is she real old and ugly?” anxiously inquired Aunt Sophie.

“Oh, no! She is young, and very, very handsome.”

“Oh, then, I hope she is not haughty and tyrannical—so many of those rich, proud beauties are. But, oh, dear, how wrong of me to talk so, to discourage you. Though I did not mean to do that. It is because I am so anxious about you, honey. Just as anxious as if you were my own dear child.”

“I know it, dear Aunt Sophie. But do not be uneasy on my account. I think the lady with whom I have engaged will be very kind to me. I do, indeed. Certainly during our interview she was very gracious and considerate. She gives me a very large salary, and tells me that my duties will be very light—merely nominal. That I shall have nothing to do for her but to keep her company,” said Lilith, cheerfully.

“‘Nothing to do but to keep her company.’ But that’s the hardest sort of work with some people, my dearie. There I go again, discouraging of you, when I ought to be doing of the very opposite sort of thing. What an old fool I am, to be sure. Don’t mind me, honey, but tell me what this lady’s name is. Don’t you know, dear, I have never heard that yet?”

“I never heard it until about two hours ago. I had actually engaged myself to her before I knew her name,” said Lilith, with a faint smile.

“Lor’! Now that shows how very little you know of the world, and how unfit you are to be thrown, unprotected, upon it! But what is the lady’s name, now you do know it?”

“She is the Baroness Yon Bruyin.”

“Von—Brewing? Brewing? ’Pears to me I’ve heerd that name before—connected with—connected with—some grand wedding to-do at the great cathedral, where the archbishop and ever so many bishops performed the ceremony. Yes, yes, I disremember her name; but she was a great beauty and a great heiress, being an only darter of some rich city banker, rich as creases; and he was a Mr. Brewing, another rich banker, a heap richer than creases; but older than her own father—so old, so old, as never was seen before at a wedding. And they said how, when he went back to Germany and took his beautiful wife, he paid the emperor lots of money to make him a baron, and it was all to please his wife, so she might be a baroness. Yes, yes! I remember now! And so she’s a widow. And the old man is dead! Well, well, well, how things do turn about! Not much use in his getting married to a beautiful young woman and getting himself made a baron, when he was just ready to depart away from this life! Ah me! ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ saith the preacher, and it is true!”

Lilith made no reply, and presently Aunt Sophie resumed:

“I see how it is! She don’t like to shut herself up away from society, while she is in her first mourning, as she would have to do if she stayed in this city, where she was a sort of queen; so she is going to travel to amuse herself until the time of fashionable mourning is over, and she wants a bright young thing like you to keep her company! But in a year or two she will be back here, and then we shall see! But there I go again, sinning as fast as I can! I wonder what makes me so uncharitable? I reckon it is because I haven’t been to class-meeting lately. I’ll go this very evening, when my class meets, and I’ll get the brethren to pray for me. It’s a great help.”

And seeing that Lilith had finished her lunch, the old lady arose from the table and began carefully to gather her precious china and to wash it up to put it away.

Lilith went up to her own room, to look over her slender wardrobe, and to think over what she would have to buy for her sea voyage and her European tour.

While she was still engaged there, late in the afternoon, her fellow-lodgers were discussing the details of a horrible and mysterious murder that had been perpetrated in the city, the night previous, but only discovered that morning. It was in all the evening papers, forming the sensation of the hour.

In the same paper was a short paragraph, stating that:

“The body of an unknown woman, suspected to be that of Mrs. Tudor Hereward, wife of the Congressman from that district, a young lady who had disappeared from her home some weeks before, had been found in the woods bordering Cave Creek, near Frosthill, in West Virginia. A wound on the back of the head indicated that she had been the victim of tramps.”

That was all. If any one read it they paid but little attention to it; their imaginations being engrossed by the details of the more shocking tragedy in their midst.

At dinner in the evening the dreadful occurrence was discussed.

After dinner, Lilith took up the paper from the parlor table, not to read the details of the murder—her whole soul shrank in loathing from such a subject—but to look at the Congressional news, as she had looked at it daily since her flight from her home, to see if any mention was made of her husband.

But there was none. Not once since she parted with him on that bitter night at the Cliffs had she seen his name. The once active, industrious, irrepressible Hereward seemed to have dropped out of the Congressional debates.

This continued silence sometimes caused Lilith serious anxiety. Was Tudor ill? she asked herself, and then quickly repressed her rising anxiety with the recollection of that bitter taunt, which, like a poisoned arrow, had left an incurable, festering wound which daily ate deeper and deeper into her spirit.

At length Lilith put away the paper, without having seen the paragraph that concerned her so much that it might have changed the whole current of her life.

The next day, at the appointed hour, she went again to the hotel to see Madame Von Bruyin.

As we said, the name of the baroness had no especial significance for Lilith, for when Tudor Hereward, in the first weeks of their married life, had told Lilith the history of his first love adventure, he had in delicate consideration abstained from mentioning the name of the lady or of the gentleman who afterwards became her husband. And although the gossips she had heard talking of the matter in the parlor of the hotel had just once let fall the name of Mr. Bruyin, it had made no impression on her memory, and there was nothing to connect the personality of the baroness with that of the beauty who had been the object of Tudor Hereward’s first passion.

When Lilith reached the hotel and made inquiries she found the polite old Frenchman waiting in the parlor to conduct her to the apartment of the baroness.

The lady received Lilith with a kiss, saying, as she placed her in a comfortable chair and resumed her own seat:

“My dear, I have been thinking of you ever since I saw you last. I feel that I shall grow very fond of you.”

“You are very good, madame,” replied the girl.

“Child, I hope that in going abroad with me you are not leaving any one whom you will suffer in parting from?” said the baroness, in the gentlest tone.

“I am not leaving any one in the world who loves me, except my landlady, and she has only known me for a little while,” said Lilith, with a slight tone of sorrow in her voice that she could not quite repress.

“‘Only known you for a little while!’ And I for a less. But it does not take long to learn to love you, my dear. Will you tell me something about yourself? I am very much interested in you. Indeed, I am filled with wonder and speculation concerning you. When I advertised for a companion, young, agreeable and accomplished, as I desired her to be, Monsieur le Professeur plainly told me that rara avis was not to be found in the ranks of women who were seeking situations; that such an education as I required in my companion was the privilege only of wealth and genius. And the answers to my call proved that he was right. In about two hundred applications yours was the only one that suited me. And you, my dear, have really excelled my most unreasonable expectations. Your extreme youth, which at first view seemed an objection, is really an additional charm. Your having been married, too, seems to draw us nearer together. Two young and recently bereaved widows may surely sympathize with each other. I hope, dear, that you will consider me as a friend.”

“You are very kind to me, madame. I have no words to thank you, but I will try to make my actions speak,” said Lilith.

“And some time, dear, not now, but some time when you feel that you can do so, I hope that you will tell me something about yourself, something about the circumstances that have forced you, a young, beautiful and accomplished girl—you are little more than a child, although you have been married—to take the situation of lady’s companion,” said the baroness, gently.

Lilith had a struggle to control her emotions; but she soon conquered them, and replied, with forced calmness:

“You are entitled to my fullest confidence, dear madame, for you have taken me almost on trust, as everybody has so kindly done since I left home——”

“Who could do otherwise, my dear? Who could look in that pretty, tender, child face and doubt you? But go on, my dear, with what you were about to say.”

“Only this, madame, that some time, when I can, I will tell you my little story. But now I can only say this much—I am from West Virginia. A reverse, a calamity, sudden and overwhelming as a thunderbolt or an earthquake, laid waste my life and destroyed all my happiness in an instant, ‘in the twinkling of an eye,’ and cast me alone upon the world. I came to New York to get away from a scene so full of miserable associations as my home had become, and seek a living here among strangers, all of whom have so charitably taken me on trust, when they might have put out the last spark of hope and life by unjust but reasonable suspicions,” said Lilith, as if she deeply felt the truth of every word she uttered.

“Who could suspect a baby?” said the lady, gently; but nevertheless she inquired within herself:

“What can have happened to this girl? Has her husband killed her father and been hanged for it? Or vice versa, or what? There are so many homicides and hangings in this vast country that no one can keep trace of them all. Her words are very enigmatical.”

Something in the lady’s looks might have betrayed the drift of her thoughts, for Lilith, with a deepening color and in a low voice, ventured to say:

“There is one circumstance that I ought to have added to my statement, madame, and it is this: There has been no dishonor connected with my misfortunes, no dishonor of any one’s. I have no way of proving this, but oh! as I hope to be saved, I am speaking the sacred truth!” she concluded, clasping her hands in the earnestness of her asseveration.

“My child, I feel sure that you do,” answered the baroness, kindly; and then she changed the subject by asking Lilith if she had ever been abroad, and if she was a good sailor.

“No,” Lilith answered. “My longest sea voyages have been from Baltimore to New York and from New York to Newport. But I am a very good sailor, for I have been in more than one storm on Chesapeake Bay and have never been sea-sick.”

“That is very well. I hope you will be able to bear the unrest of Old Ocean as bravely,” said the baroness.

And then she told Lilith what her experience had told her, the outfit necessary for the comfort of the voyage, and the outfit that would be nothing but an impediment.

And then, when an hour had passed, Lilith arose to take leave.

Madame Von Bruyin would not allow her to go, but insisted that she should stay to luncheon, which was served in madame’s private apartments.

It was a tête-à-tête feast, and Lilith much enjoyed the delicate fare set before her—the well-dressed game, the delicious salad, the dainty confectionery, the luscious fruits, and the pure, light Chablis.

When the repast was finished and the service was removed, the baroness went and took a guitar from its place on a stand in the recess, and sat down to play. She touched a few chords and then floated into a mournful solo from “Il Trovatore.” Her voice was a deep, rich, full contralto, but so profoundly sad that Lilith felt her eyes fill with tears as she said to herself:

“Ah, madame has also suffered. I know it.”

The baroness finished her song and laid aside her guitar without a word.

But presently she said:

“You love music, my dear? Bah! who does not?”

“I love music. That was a beautiful solo, madame, only so sad!”

“Ah, my dear! But never mind. You have promised to tell me your story some day. I may tell you mine before that. For in this case I feel towards you somewhat like the ancient mariner to the wedding guest.”

“I shall be glad to hear, madame, very glad and grateful for your confidence,” said Lilith, as she once more arose to take leave.

“Why is it that I feel as if you belonged to me, dear?” said the baroness, as she took the girl in her arms and kissed her.

“It is because you are so good to me, madame. In an humble way, in my happy days at home, whenever I took any helpless creature under my care, I always felt as if it belonged to me, whether it did or not,” said Lilith, simply.

“Come again to-morrow, my dear, if you can. If not, come any day at this hour. I am always at home between twelve and two,” said the baroness, as she patted the cheek of her new favorite and let her go.

As before, the old Frenchman joined her in the corridor and escorted her downstairs and out to the sidewalk.

There she thanked and took leave of him.

Lilith walked home, where she arrived an hour later than on the preceding day.

“You have made a long visit this morning, honey,” said Aunt Sophie, who met her in the parlor.

“Yes, the baroness detained me,” answered Lilith.

“I am getting jealous of that there baroness. I am so,” said Aunt Sophie, half in jest, half in earnest. “But take off your things right here and come down to lunch. I have got such a beautiful cup of broma for you.”

“Thank you, dear Aunt Sophie. But I have had lunch. The baroness made me stay for it, with her,” replied Lilith.

“Now I am jealous of that baroness—downright jealous, that I am,” said Aunt Sophie, with such an aggrieved look that Lilith embraced her, and privately resolved never to be persuaded to stay to lunch with Madame Von Bruyin so long as they should remain in New York.

Lilith did not go to the baroness the next day, but she went down on Broadway to purchase the necessaries for her sea voyage.

When she returned to her boarding-house a great surprise awaited her.

Aunt Sophie met her at the door with a radiant, beaming countenance, and asked, with a very mysterious air:

“Well, honey! Who do you think has come? And is in the parlor waiting for you? You can’t guess!”

Lilith’s heart gave a great bound. For a moment she could not move, and her swiftly changing color and agitated features caused Aunt Sophie to laugh softly, as she added:

“Why, it is Emily Ponsonby, of course. She has just arrived from Boston, where she has been staying with her daughter ever since she left the city the morning after she brought you here. She reached the city last night, and is stopping with her other daughter, Mrs. Saxony. And this morning she came right down here to inquire after you. She came in just about ten minutes after you had gone out. Now come in and see her.”

Aunt Sophie’s long explanation had given Lilith time to recover from her mingled feelings of surprise, wild hope and disappointment. She quietly followed Aunt Sophie into the front parlor, where the ample form and rosy face of the good-hearted Baltimore lady met her view.

“Well, my dear, glad to see you again, and to hear from your good friend, Sophie Downie here, such splendid accounts of you,” said Mrs. Ponsonby, rising and embracing Lilith.

“Thank you, madam; but all my good fortune began with yourself. If you had not spoken to me on the train and brought me to this house, I really do not know what would have become of me.”

“Neither do I,” replied Mrs. Ponsonby, quite frankly. “It was the wildest freak I ever heard of in all my life—a young girl coming to a strange city to seek her fortune! Ugh! It makes my very flesh creep to think of it!”

“It was a forced measure, dear friend. I had no choice. I was obliged to come,” said Lilith, as she took a seat on the sofa beside the matron.

“Well, I suppose you were obliged to come, and so the Providence that takes care of the young ravens took care of you. But I tell you what, my girl, if you had come away from home from other impulse than stern necessity you would have gone to the deuce before this. It was an awful risk, my dear.”

“I knew it was, but I could not help it,” said Lilith, meekly.

“And Sophie has been telling me that you have just got a splendid situation with the Baroness Von Bruyin.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why, I knew her! I met her in Washington when she was a Miss Von Kirschberg. I have not seen her since she married the old banker, Mr. Bruyin, who got himself made Baron Von Bruyin to please his wife, and paid a good round sum to Emperor William for the honor, you may take my word for it. Bosh! I like nobility when it is real, that is, hereditary; but I should care no more for a purchased title than I should for a paste ‘diamond’ or an imitation ‘India’ shawl. And the poor old man is dead, and dead, too, without an heir to perpetuate his dearly bought title.”

“What sort of a woman is the baroness, anyway, to live with, do you think?” inquired Aunt Sophie, in anxiety for the happiness of her protégée.

“I think she is just about as good a woman as one could expect to find in an only child, a beauty and heiress, who had been petted and pampered and flattered and fairly idolized by everybody around her all the days of her life,” emphatically answered Mrs. Ponsonby.

“I am glad to hear it,” answered Aunt Sophie.

“And I think you will just have a splendid time with her, my dear. Why, you are really going to travel all over Europe. My! don’t I wish I was going to Europe! But, there! what is the use of talking. When Ponsonby and myself were young, with a family of little ones around us, we promised ourselves just as soon as we had raised and settled them all, we would travel and see the world; but Lor’! before the last of them were married the grandchildren of the first wedded began to come on, and they are just as strong fetters and as heavy iron balls to hinder our travels as ever their mothers were. You are to be envied, my dear, I can tell you that!”

“I am thankful,” replied Lilith. “But why should you have waited until your children grew up before you could go to Europe? Why not have taken them all with you?”

“Never saw the day when we could afford that, my dear. But I will live in hopes to see the old world some time or other before I die. Well, dear, I only called to inquire after you, and to see whether Sophie Downie had done a good part by you——”

“She is the best friend I have in this world!” hastily and warmly interrupted Lilith—“except yourself, Mrs. Ponsonby,” she added, on reflection.

“And I don’t doubt that Madame Von Bruyin will be a much more valuable friend than either of us,” said Mrs. Ponsonby.

“No! no!” exclaimed Lilith.

“Well, at least I hope for your sake she may be. You cannot have too many or too good friends. Well, I must go, or I shall be late for lunch. I shall fetch Polly Saxony to call on you; and then we must have you to come and spend a day with us before you sail,” said the Baltimore lady, as she arose, kissed Lilith good-bye, and left the drawing-room, followed by Aunt Sophie, with whom she chattered all the way out, and lingered to chat in the hall, and still loitered to chat on the stoop outside.

At length she was gone, and Aunt Sophie returned to the parlor.

“Wasn’t that a surprise?” inquired Aunt Sophie, gleefully, as she re-entered the room.

“Yes; quite a surprise,” assented Lilith.

“And now I have got another for you: John Moore has gone off to be married. The wedding is to be to-morrow, at the bride’s mother’s house, in Springfield. And he is to bring his wife home on Saturday, and take her straight to the parsonage, which is all ready. And I have fixed up his room for you. You can have it at once. Ah! if you were only going to stay I could make you so comfortable!” said Aunt Sophie, with a deep sigh.

“Dear friend, I would like to stay with you, but you know that I cannot; I must take the employment that is offered me,” gently replied Lilith.

“Yes, I know. Some of these days you will come back, though, and I hope I shall live to see you, and if so, you must come straight home to me, dear, do you hear?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie; and I certainly will come to you first of all, if we both live,” said Lilith.

And then the entrance of other persons ended their tête-à-tête.

The next day Lilith went to see the baroness, and was received with even more kindness than on the former occasions. But she declined an invitation to stay to lunch.

When she returned home Aunt Sophie met her with a smile, and put two cards in her hands, saying:

“They called while you were out, my dear, but they didn’t stay long. And they left an invitation for you and me to go and spend the day with them to-morrow.”

Lilith looked at the cards, which bore the names of MRS. JOHN PONSONBY and of MRS. THEOBALD E. B. SAXONY.

“I think I’ll go with you, my dear; I have not had a day out so long. I know Mary Farquier will look after the house for me one day.”

And so Aunt Sophie and her protégée accepted this invitation; and the next morning, at a most unfashionably early hour, they presented themselves at the Saxony mansion, where they were very kindly re-received and hospitably entertained by the mother and daughter.

They met none of Mrs. Saxony’s fashionable friends. It was not that lady’s receiving day; so she was “not at home” to all casual callers, and she devoted herself to her mother’s simple friends.

Aunt Sophie and Lilith returned in the evening, well pleased with their visit.

The next day the old lady invited Lilith to accompany her to the parsonage, where she and all her “family” were going, with many of the church people, to receive the young minister and his bride.

Lilith went, for she had resolved to give herself up to please Aunt Sophie for the short remainder of her stay with the affectionate woman.

They found the parsonage a very attractive home for the newly married pair. The house, which stood beside the church, had been newly papered and painted, and refurnished from top to bottom, and prettily decorated for the occasion. The church people had vied with each other in the choice of their wedding presents, which were tastefully displayed on the drawing-room tables.

The refreshments were laid out on the extension table in the dining-room at the rear.

The house was full, but not crowded, because the people dispersed themselves through all the apartments.

Aunt Sophie only waited long enough to welcome the young minister and his bride, to wish them all happiness, and to show them into their chamber, where they might change their traveling suits for festive dresses before going down into the drawing-room to meet their friends, and then she took leave.

She would have persuaded Lilith to stay with the company, but the latter insisted on going with her friend.

“You know I ain’t young, honey, and gay and festive scenes don’t suit me,” she said, apologetically.

“And as for me, I wish to go with you, and to be with you as much as I can while I remain in the country,” Lilith answered, affectionately.