Dawson An Itinerant House And Other Stories

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-3-8496-2188-9
Verlag: Jazzybee Verlag
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten

A classic book from 1896 with a terrific assortment of stories. Sections of this book use old English grammar and writing, spotted typos are typically no typos at all. Contents: Preface An Itinerant House. Singed Moths. Biddy Gossips. Biddy Gossips Again. A Stray Reveler. The Night Before The Wedding The Dramatic In My Destiny. Prologue. Act I. Act II. Act III. Act IV. A Gracious Visitation. A Sworn Statement. 'The Second Card Wins.' I. The Lovely Mrs. Clare Speaks. II. Passage From The Diary Of Mrs. Capel. III. Paragraph From San Francisco Papers Of Thursday Evening. In Silver Upon Purple: 'Star-Cross'd Lovers.' 'Are The Dead Dead?'

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dawson, Emma Frances

Leseproben

A STRAY REVELER.

The Picture Which Was a Prophecy.

' Who hath known the ways and the wrath, The sleepless spirit, the root And blossom of evil will?"

" Which is the room, and which is the picture?" I asked my friend Aura, when she received me after my long absence abroad, during which I heard she had fallen heir to a fortune, but found her looking pinched and wan.

The picture filled nearly one side of the room, which was arranged as an exact copy of it, even having a lattice-window opening lengthwise, put in to match the painted one. Carpet, Navajo rugs, chairs, tables, draperies were alike. A strip of carpet hid the lower part of the frame, so that one might fancy he saw double parlors instead of one room and a painting. The screen in the room stood at just such an angle as just such a screen stood in the painted scene. Tall Japanese vases, low bookcase, hanging shelves filled with rare, odd trifles, were all thus doubled.

" Yes," she said, seeing me glance to and fro, " I felt impelled to copy everything painted there, and to banish all my room held before. That knotted rope under glass on the mantel? Well, no; that was neither in the picture nor here, till now ; the fact is, I hold the property Penniel left me only by keeping that there. Two of his friends, Dacre and Chartram, received bequests on condition of calling here unexpectedly at irregular intervals to see that I let it remain always in my sight."

"I don't like it there."

" Nor I; but there is nothing puzzling about it as about the picture, finished just before he he died. That is a legacy I have often pondered over. Why did he call it prophetic? I always wonder where the window in it looks, and that inner door ajar, showing a banquetscene. Is it a Christmas revel?"

" One of the female figures resembles you why, it is meant for you ! "

" Don't, don't say so! It makes me uneasy, and angry, too; for I will not believe in the  mystic nonsense of his scribbling, painting, and acting tribe."

" Yet you always let them hang round you."

"Because they are amusing, often handsome, and sometimes have money. But few come now, except Chartram and Dacre, in their uncertain visits. I am no longer gay enough company."

" Pshaw! as if the influence of one who is dead could thus last!"

"If not, how could there be so many true tales of curses which have followed individuals or families through generation after generation. I never used to believe any such thing. I am forced to keep the picture under the terms of Penniel's will, and I cannot help studying it."

"Did Penniel paint it?"

" Yes. He put me in that festive scene because I am yet alive. He once spoke of ghosts as stray revelers after life's banquet. The vacant seat beside me was to signify his absence. 'Not eternal,' he wrote; M shall come back when you least expect it.'"

"You make me shiver. Let us talk of other things. What a pretty inlaid table wild -fowl flying over a marsh isn't it? Ah! it is just like that one in the picture, even to a manuscript lying upon it spread open under a horseshoe paper-weight."

"You see," said Aura, "one drifts inevitably to that painting. What the manuscript there represents I have often asked myself. The one beside you, Dacre wrote. Read it."

It was :

"A FLIGHT OF FANCY.

" In single file wild-ducks drift by.

Dyed red by western glow. Belated swallows lonely fly, And strange birds trooping go.

" Though flown from forest-pine remote,

Or from near orchard-pear, Along the water-depths they float, As on the heights of air.

" The lake, with mirror-surface spread,

Bronzed by the day's bright close, To each wayfarer overhead, A shadowy double shows.

"Ah ! thus reflected in my soul

What flitting thoughts will stray From hidden source ancestors' dole, Or sunshine of my day.

" Fantastic shapes that, circling, throng,

Some charming, some unblest ; I snare one in this fragile song, I cannot count the rest."

I made another effort to divert her mind. " What is behind your lovely screen?" I asked.

" Nothing. What is behind that one?" she asked, pointing to the pictured one. " That question haunts me like the indefinite meaning of some passage in Browning or Rossetti."

" What have you learned by your study of it?"

"What do you discover by examining that screen near you?"

" Masses of interwoven flowers with trailing vines and lights and shadows athwart the whole. Who painted it?"

"Chartram; and while he was doing it he and I suddenly detected amid those apparently random dashes of color eleven letters. Look again begin at the lower left-hand corner and cross diagonally here are lilies of the valley, then eschscholtzias, a branch of xanthoxylum fraxineum, tuberoses, azalias, lobelia, irislilies, oleander blossoms, Neapolitan violets, ixia-lilies, and stephanotis flowers."

"Well?"

"Don't you see? Two words not merely spelled by the first letter of the plants' names, as the old-fashioned ' regard ' rings were set with ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby, and diamond, but by looking carefully you can discern, in the seemingly careless spray or cluster, the letter in indistinct and fanciful form."

As she spoke and I gazed at the screen, I was surprised to distinguish so plainly now the words, Lextalionis! so skillfully placed as to elude a careless glance. "The law of revenge!" I cried. "Was this more of your old coquetries?"

" No ; I did not tire of Penniel as usual. He had one charm all my other lovers had lacked : a stronger will than mine."

I looked at her inquiringly.

"When you went away you remember I was starving genteelly starving. I met Penniel; he was engaged to an heiress, I reasoned with myself that she did not need his money as I did. I used every art to win him from her."

"Oh, Aura!"

"I did, I did ! I may own it now, since both are dead."

"Both?"

" Yes; he broke the engagement on account of something I told him about her. She died soon after, some say broken-hearted; but, of course, we know that is a mere phrase. I presume she got a cold, or something."

"And your refusal of him killed him ? " "No; I accepted him. All went well until one night we went on horseback with a party of friends, on a moonlight trip to the Cliff House. While there, he overheard me own my worship for money. 'Not marry for it ? ' I said. ' It is a woman's duty. And he met there that night some old friend who completely disproved all I had told him about Helen Rothsay, the girl who died. Oh, how angry he was! his eyes were lurid, he never spoke to me again. Next day he sent back to me these verses he had found that Dacre had written for me to give him as mine, though you know there is nothing nonsensical about me." She gave me to read a

"VILLANELLE.

"What clouds of laughing little Loves arise On buoyant wing are all about me blown ! I dream within the night of his dark eyes.

" How blest to be, though but in flower guise,

Worn on his heart until my life were flown ! What clouds of laughing little Loves arise !

' Forgotten is the sun, to-day's blue skies,

I know nor time nor space nor any zone ; I dream within the night of his dark eyes

"By fancied blisses...