# Ilka on the Hill Top (collection)/How Mr. Storm Met His Destiny

II — III — IV

### HOW MR. STORM MET HIS DESTINY.

I.
Hüt' dich vor Mägdelein, Söhnelein, Söhnelein.—Heine.
I do not know why people always spoke of my friend Edmund Storm as a confirmed bachelor, considering the fact that he was not far on the shady side of thirty. It is true, he looked considerably older, and had to all appearances entered that bloomless and sapless period which with women is called "uncertain age." Nevertheless, I had a private conviction that Storm might some fine day shed this dry and shrunken chrysalis, and emerge in some brilliant and unexpected form. I cannot imagine what ground I had for such a belief; I only know that I always felt called upon to combat the common illusion that he was by nature and temperament set apart for eternal celibacy, or even that he had ceased to be agitated by matrimonial aspirations. I dimly felt that there was a sort of refined cruelty in thus excluding a man from the common lot of the race; men often have pity but seldom love for those who either from eccentricity or peculiar excellence separate themselves from the broad, warm current of human life, having no part in the errors, ideals, and aspirations of their more commonplace brethren. Even a slight deviation from the physical type of common manhood and womanhood, as for instance, the possession of a sixth toe or finger, would in the eyes of the multitude go far toward making a man morally objectionable. It was, perhaps, because I wished to save my friend Storm from this unenviable lot that I always contended that he was yet a promising candidate for matrimony.
Edmund Storm was a Norseman by birth, but had emigrated some five or six years before I made his acquaintance. Our first meeting was brought about in rather a singular manner. I had written an article in one of our leading newspapers, commenting upon the characteristics of our Scandinavian immigrants and indulging some fine theories, highly eulogistic of the women of my native land. A few days after the publication of this article, my pride was seriously shocked by the receipt of a letter which told me in almost so many words that I was a conceited fool, with opinions worthy of a bedlam. The writer, who professed to be better informed, added his name and address, and invited me to call upon him at a specified hour, promising to furnish me with valuable material for future treatises on the same subject. My curiosity naturally piqued, and, swallowing my humiliation I determined to obey the summons. I found some satisfaction in the thought that my unknown critic resided in a very unfashionable neighborhood, and mentally put him down as one of those half-civilized boors whom the first breath of our republican air had inflated a good deal beyond their natural dimensions. I was therefore somewhat disconcerted when, after having climbed half a dozen long staircases, I was confronted with a pale, thin man, of calm, gentlemanly bearing, with the unmistakable stamp of culture upon his brow. He shook my hand with grave politeness, and pointing to a huge arm-chair of antediluvian make, invited me to be seated. The large, low-ceiled room was filled with furniture of the most fantastic styles;—tables and chairs with twisted legs and scrolls of tarnished gilt; a solid-looking, elaborately carved chiffonier, exhibiting Adam and Eve in airy dishabille, sowing the seeds of mischief for an unborn world; a long mirror in broad gilt frame of the most deliciously quaint rococo, calling up the images of slim, long-waisted ladies and powdered gentlemen with wristbands of ancient lace, silk stockings, and gorgeous coats, à la Louis XV. The very air seemed to be filled with the vague musty odor of by-gone times, and the impression grew upon me that I had unawares stepped into a lumber-room, where the eighteenth century was stowed away for safe-keeping.
"You see I have a weakness for old furniture," explained my host, while his rigid features labored for an instant to adjust themselves into something resembling a smile. I imagined I could hear them creaking faintly in the effort like tissue-paper when crumpled by an unwary hand. I almost regretted my rudeness in having subjected him to the effort. I noticed that he spoke with a slow, laborious enunciation, as if he were fashioning the words carefully in his mouth before making up his mind to emit them. His thin, flexible lips seemed admirably adapted for this purpose.
"It is the only luxury I allow myself," he continued, seeing that I was yet ill at ease. "My assortment, as you will observe, is as yet a very miscellaneous one, and I do not know that I ever shall be able to complete it."
"You are a fortunate man," remarked I, "who can afford to indulge such expensive tastes."
"Expensive," he repeated musingly, as if that idea had never until then occurred to him. "You are quite mistaken. Expensive, as I understand the term, is not that which has a high intrinsic worth, but that which can only be procured at a price considerably above its real value. In this sense, a hobby is not an expensive thing. It is, as I regard it, one of the safest investments life has to offer. An unambitious man like myself, without a hobby, would necessarily be either an idler or a knave. And I am neither the one nor the other. The truth is, my life was very poorly furnished at the start, and I have been laboring ever since to supply the deficiency. I am one of those crude colorless, superfluous products which Nature throws off with listless ease in her leisure moments when her thoughts are wandering and her strength has been exhausted by some great and noble effort."
Mr. Storm uttered these extraordinary sentiments, not with a careless toss of the head, and loud demonstrative ardor, but with a grave, measured intonation, as if he were reciting from some tedious moral book recommended by ministers of the gospel and fathers of families. His long, dry face, with its perpendicular wrinkles, and the whole absurd proportion between his longitude and latitude, suggested to me the idea that Nature had originally made him short and stout, and then, having suddenly changed her mind, had subjected him to a prolonged process of stretching in order to adapt him to the altered type. I had no doubt that if I could see those parts of his body which were now covered, they would show by longitudinal wrinkles the effects of this hypothetical stretching. His features in their original shape may have been handsome, although I am inclined to doubt it; there were glimpses of fine intentions in them, but, as a whole, he was right in pronouncing them rather a second-rate piece of workmanship. His nose was thin, sharp, and aquiline, and the bone seemed to exert a severe strain upon the epidermis, which was stretched over the projecting bridge with the tensity of a drum-head. I will not reveal what an unpleasant possibility this niggardliness on Nature's part suggested to me. His eyes (the only feature in him which was distinctly Norse) were of a warm gray tint, and expressed frank severity. You saw at once that, whatever his eccentricities might be, here was a Norseman in whom there was no guile. It was these fine Norse eyes which at once prepossessed me in Storm's favor. They furnished me approximately with the key-note to his character; I knew that God did not expend such eyes upon any but the rarest natures. Storm's taste for old furniture was no longer a mystery; in fact, I began to suspect that there lurked a fantastic streak of some warm, deep-tinged hue somewhere in his bony composition, and my fingers began to itch with the desire to make a psychological autopsy.
"Apropos of crude workmanship," began my host after a pause, during which he had been examining his long fingers with an air of criticism and doubtful approbation. "You know why I wrote to you?"
I confessed that I was unable to guess his motive.
"Well, then, listen to me. Your article was written with a good deal of youthful power; but it was thoroughly false. You spoke of what you did not know. I thought it was my duty to guard you from future errors, especially as I felt that you were a young man standing upon the threshold of life, about to enter upon a career of great mischief or great usefulness. Then you are of my own blood—but there is no need of apologies. You have come, as I thought you would."
"It was especially my sentiments regarding Norsewomen, I believe, that you objected to," I said hesitatingly; for in spite of his fine eyes, my friend still impressed me as an unknown quantity, and I mentally labelled him x, and determined by slow degrees to solve his equation.
"Yes," he answered; "your sentiments about Norsewomen, or rather about women in general. They are made very much of the same stuff the world over. I do not mind telling you that I speak from bitter experience, and my words ought, therefore, to have the more weight."
"Your experience must have been very wide," I answered by way of pleasantry, "since, as you hint, it includes the whole world."
He stared for a moment, did not respond to my smile, but continued in the same imperturbable monotone:
"When God abstracted that seventh or ninth rib from Adam, and fashioned a woman of it, the result was, entre nous, nothing to boast of. I have ever ceased to regret that Adam did not wake up in time to thwart that hazardous experiment. It may have been necessary to introduce some tragic element into our lives, and if that was the intention, I admit that the means were ingenious. To my mind the only hope of salvation for the human race lies in its gradual emancipation from that baleful passion which draws men and women so irresistibly to each other. Love and reason in a well-regulated human being, form at best an armed neutrality, but can never cordially co-operate. But few men arrive in this life at this ideal state, and women never. As it is now, our best energies are wasted in vain endeavors to solve the matrimonial problem at the very time when our vitality is greatest and our strength might be expended with the best effect in the service of the race, for the advancement of science, art, or industry."
"But would you then abolish marriage?" I ventured to ask. "That would mean, as I understand it, to abolish the race itself."
"No," he answered calmly. "In my ideal state, marriage should be tolerated; but it should be regulated by the government, with a total disregard of individual preferences, and with a sole view to the physical and intellectual improvement of the race. There should be a permanent government commission appointed, say one in each State consisting of the most prominent scientists and moral teachers. No marriage should be legal without being approved and confirmed by them. Marriage, as it is at present, is, in nine cases out of ten, an unqualified evil; as Schopenhauer puts it, it halves our joys and doubles our sorrows——"
"And triples our expenses," I prompted, laughing.
"And triples our expenses," he repeated gravely. "Talk about finding your affinity and all that sort of stuff! Supposing the world to be a huge bag, as in reality it is; then take several hundred million blocks, representing human beings, and label each one by pairs, giving them a corresponding mark and color. Then shake the whole bag violently, and you will admit that the chances of an encounter between the two with the same label are extremely slim. It is just so with marriage. It is all chance—a heartless, aimless, and cruel lottery. There are more valuable human lives wrecked every hour of the day in this dangerous game than by all the vices that barbarism or civilization has ever invented."
I hazarded some feeble remonstrance against these revolutionary heresies (as I conceived them to be), but my opponent met me on all sides with his inflexible logic. We spent several hours together without at all approaching an agreement, and finally parted with the promise to dine together and resume the discussion the next day.
This was the beginning of my acquaintance with the pessimist, Edmund Storm.
II.
"Freundschaft, Liebe, Stein der Weisen, Diese Dreie hört' ich preisen, Und ich pries und suchte sie, Aber ach! ich fand sie nie."—Heine.
During the next two years there was never a week, and seldom a day, when I did not see Storm. We lunched together at a much-frequented restaurant not far from Wall street, and my friend's sarcastic epigrams would do much to reconcile me to my temperance habits by supplying in a more ethereal form the stimulants with which others strove to facilitate or to ruin their digestions.
"Existence is even at best a doubtful boon," he would say while he dissected his beefsteak with the seriousness of a scientific observer. "A man's philosophy is regulated by his stomach. No amount of stoicism can reconcile a man to dyspepsia. If our nationality were not by nature endowed with the digestion of a boa-constrictor, I should seriously consider the propriety of vanishing into the Nirvana."
I often wondered what could be the secret of Storm's liking for me; for that he liked me, in his own lugubrious fashion, there could be no doubt. As for myself, I never could determine how far I reciprocated his feeling. I should hardly say that I loved him, but his talk fascinated me, and it always irritated me to hear any one speak ill of him. He was the very opposite of what the world calls "a good fellow;" he did not slap you on the shoulder and salute you with a "Hallo, old boy!" and I am inclined to think that he would have promptly resented any undue familiarity. He was a man of the most exact habits, painfully conscientious in all his dealings, and absolutely devoid of vices, unless, indeed, his extravagance in the purchase of old furniture might be classed under that head. To people of slipshod habits, his painstaking exactness was of course highly exasperating, and I often myself felt that he was in need of a redeeming vice. If I could have induced him to smoke, take snuff, or indulge in a little innocent gambling, I believe it would have given me a good deal of satisfaction. Once, I remember, I exerted myself to the utmost to beguile him into taking a humorous view of a mendacious tramp, who, after having treated us to a highly pathetic autobiography, importuned us for a quarter. But no, Storm could see nothing but the moral hideousness of the man, lectured him severely, and would have sent him away unrewarded, if I had not temporarily suspended my principles.
During our continued intercourse, I naturally learned a good deal about my friend's previous life and occupation. He was of very good family, had enjoyed an excellent university education, and had the finest prospects of a prosperous career at home, when, as far as I could ascertain, he took a sudden freak to emigrate. He had inherited a modest fortune, and now maintained himself as cashier in a large tea importing house in the city. He read the newspapers diligently, apparently with a view to convincing himself of the universal wretchedness of mankind in general and the American people in particular, had a profound contempt for ambition of every sort, believed nothing that life could offer worthy of an effort, except—old furniture.
In the autumn of 187- he was taken violently ill with inflammation of the lungs, and I naturally devoted every evening to him that I could spare from my work. He suffered acutely, but was perfectly calm and hardly ever moved a muscle.
"I seldom indulge in the luxury of whining," he said to me once, as I was seated at his bedside. "But, if I should die, as I believe I shall, it would be a pity if the lesson of my life should be lost to humanity. It is the only valuable thing I leave behind me, except, perhaps, my furniture, which I bequeath to you."
He lay for a while looking with grave criticism at his long, lean fingers, and then told me the following story, of which I shall give a brief resumé.
Some ten years ago, while he was yet in the university, he had made the acquaintance of a young girl, Emily Gerstad, the daughter of a widow in whose house he lived. She was a wild unruly thing, full of coquettish airs, frivolous as a kitten, but for all that, a phenomenon of most absorbing interest. She was a blonde of the purest Northern type, with a magnificent wealth of thick curly hair and a pair of blue eyes, which seemed capable of expressing the very finest things that God ever deposited in a woman's nature. It was useless to disapprove of her, and to argue with her on the error of her ways was a waste of breath: her moral nature was too fatally flexible. She could assume with astonishing facility a hundred different attitudes on the same question, and acted the penitent, the indifferent, the defiant, with such a perfection of art as really to deceive herself. And in spite of all this, poor Storm soon found that she had wound herself so closely about his heart, that the process of unwinding, as he expressed it, would require greater strength and a sterner philosophy than he believed himself to possess. He had always been shy of women, not because he distrusted them, but because he was painfully conscious of being, in point of physical finish, a second-rate article, a bungling piece of work, and naturally felt his disadvantages more keenly in the presence of those upon whom Nature had expended all her best art. He was, according to his own assertion, an idealist by temperament, and had kept a sacred chamber in his heart where the vestal fire burned with a pure flame. Now the deepest strata of his being were stirred, and he loved with an overwhelming fervor and intensity which fairly frightened him. In a moment of abject despair he proposed to Emily, and to his surprise was accepted. And what was more, it was no comedy on her part; he even now believed that she really loved him. All the turbulent forces of her being were toned down to a beautiful, womanly tenderness. She clung to him with a passionate devotion which seemed to be no less of a surprise to herself than it was to him—clung to his stronger self, perhaps, as a refuge from her own waywardness, listened with a sweet, shame-faced happiness to his bright plans for their common future, and shared his pleasures and his light disappointments with an ardor and an ever ready sympathy, as if her whole previous life had been an education for this one end—to be a perfect wife and to be his wife.
But alas, their happiness was of brief duration. At the end of a year he had finished his legal studies, and passed a brilliant examination. An excellent situation was obtained for him in a small town on the sea-coast, whither he removed and began to prepare for the foundation of his home. It was here he contracted his taste for quaint furniture, all that was now left to him of his happiness—nay, of his life. Suddenly, at the end of eight months, she ceased writing to him—a fact which after all, argued well for her sincerity; full of apprehension, he hastened to the capital and found her engaged to a young lieutenant,—a dashing, hare-brained fellow, covered all over with gilt embroidery, undeniably handsome, but otherwise of very little worth. At least that was Storm's impression of him; he may have done him injustice, he added, with his usual conscientiousness. A man who sees the whole structure of his life tumbling down over his head is not apt to take a charitable view of the author of the ruin. A week later, Storm was on his way to America,—that was the end of the story.
Yes, if my friend had died, according to his promise, the story would have ended here; but, as for once, he broke his word, I am obliged to add the sequel. I noticed that for some time after his recovery he kept shy of me. As he afterward plainly told me, he felt as if I had purloined a piece of his most precious private property, in sharing a grief which had hitherto been his own exclusive treasure.
III.
Fürcht' dich nicht, du liebes Kindchen, Vor der bösen Geister Macht; Tag und Nacht, du liebes Kindchen, Halten Engel bei dir Wacht.—Heine.
Once, on a warm moonlight night in September, Storm and I took a walk in the Park. The night always tuned him into a gentle mood, and I even suspect that he had some sentiment about it. The currents of life, he said, then ran more serenely, with a slower and healthier pulse-beat; the unfathomable mysteries of life crowded in upon us; our shallow individualities were quenched, and our larger human traits rose nearer to the surface. The best test of sympathy was a night walk; two persons who then jarred upon each other might safely conclude that they were constitutionally unsympathetic. He had known silly girls who in moonlight were sublime; but it was dangerous to build one's hopes of happiness upon this moonlight sublimity. Just as all complexions, except positive black, were fair when touched by the radiance of the night, so all shades of character, except downright wickedness, borrowed a finer human tinge under this illusory illumination. Thus ran his talk, I throwing in the necessary expletives, and as I am neither black nor absolutely wicked, I have reason to believe that I appeared to good advantage.
"It is very curious about women," he broke forth after a long meditative pause. "In spite of all my pondering on the subject, I never quite could understand the secret of their fascination. Their goodness, if they are good, is usually of the quality of oatmeal, and when they are bad——"
"'They are horrid,'" I quoted promptly.
"Amen," he added with a contented chuckle. "I never could see the appropriateness of the Bible precept about coveting your neighbor's wife," he resumed after another brief silence. "I, for my part, never found my neighbor's wife worth coveting. But I will admit that I have, in a few instances, felt inclined to covet my neighbor's child. No amount of pessimism can quite fortify a man against the desire to have children. A child is not always a 'thing of beauty,' nor is it apt to be a 'joy for ever'; but I never yet met the man who would not be willing to take his chances. It is a confounded thing that the paternal instinct is so deeply implanted, even in such a piece of dried-up parchment as myself. It is like discovering a warm, live vein of throbbing blood under the shrivelled skin of an Egyptian mummy."
We sauntered on for more than an hour, now plunging into dense masses of shadow, now again emerging into cool pathways of light. The conversation turned on various topics, all of which Storm touched with a kindlier humor than was his wont. The world was a failure, but for all that, it was the part of a wise man to make the best of it as it was. The clock in some neighboring tower struck ten; we took a street-car and rode home. As we were about to alight (I first, and Storm following closely after me), I noticed a woman with a wild, frightened face hurrying away from the street-lamp right in front of us. My friend, owing either to his near-sightedness, or his preoccupation, had evidently not observed her. We climbed the long dimly lighted stairs to his room, and both stumbled at the door against a large basket.
"That detestable washwoman!" he muttered. "How often have I told her not to place her basket where everybody is sure to run into it!"
He opened the door and I carried the basket into the room, while he struck a match and lighted the drop-light on the table.
"Excuse me for a moment," he went on, stooping to lift the cloth which covered the basket. "I want to count—— Gracious heavens! what is this?" he cried suddenly, springing up as if he had stepped on something alive; then he sank down into an arm-chair, and sat staring vacantly before him. In the basket lay a sleeping infant, apparently about eight months old. As soon as I had recovered from my first astonishment, I bent down over it and regarded it attentively. It was a beautiful, healthy-looking child,—not a mere formless mass of fat with hastily sketched features, as babes of that age are apt to be. Its face was of exquisite finish, a straight, well-modelled little nose, a softly defined dimpled little chin, and a fresh, finely curved mouth, through which the even breath came and went with a quiet, hardly perceptible rhythm. It was all as sweet, harmonious, and artistically perfect as a Tennysonian stanza. The little waif won my heart at once, and it was a severe test of my self-denial that I had to repress my desire to kiss it. I somehow felt that my friend ought to be the first to recognize it as a member of his household.
"Storm," I said, looking up at his pale, vacant face. "It is a dangerous thing to covet one's neighbor's child. But, if you don't adopt this little dumb supplicant, I fear you will tempt me to break the tenth commandment. I believe there is a clause there about coveting children."
Storm opened his eyes wide, and with an effort to rouse himself, pushed back the chair and knelt down at the side of the basket. With a gentle movement he drew off the cover under which the child slept, and discovered on its bosom a letter which he eagerly seized. As he glanced at the direction of the envelope, his face underwent a marvellous change; it was as if a mask had suddenly been removed, revealing a new type of warmer, purer, and tenderer manhood.
The letter read as follows:
"Dearest Edmund:
It has gone all wrong with me. You know I would not come to if there was any other hope left. As for myself, I do not care what becomes of me, but you will not forsake my little girl. Will you dear Edmund? I know you will not. I promise you, I shall never claim her back. She shall be yours always. Her name is Ragna; she was born February 25th, and was christened two months later. I have prayed to God that she may bring happiness into your life, that she may expiate the wrong her mother did you.
Emily.
If you should decide not to keep my little girl (as I do not think you will), send a line addressed E. H. H., to the personal column in the 'N. Y. Herald.' But do not try to find me. I shall answer you in the same way and tell you where to send the child. E.H."
This letter was not shown to me until several years after, but even then the half illegible words, evidently traced with a trembling hand, the pathetic abruptness of the sentences, sounding like the grief-stricken cries of a living voice, and the still visible marks of tears upon the paper, made an impression upon me which is not easily forgotten.
In the meanwhile Storm, having read and reread the letter, was lifting his strangely illumined eyes to the ceiling.
"God be praised," he said in a trembling whisper. "I have wronged her, too, and I did not know it. I will be a father to her child."
The little girl, who had awaked, without signalling the fact in the usual manner, fixed her large, fawn-like eyes upon him in peaceful wonder. He knelt down once more, took her in his arms, and kissed her gravely and solemnly. It was charming to see with what tender awkwardness he held her, as if she were some precious thing made of frail stuff that might easily be broken. My curiosity had already prompted me to examine the basket, which contained a variety of clean, tiny articles,—linen, stockings, a rattle with the distinct impress of its nationality, and several neatly folded dresses, among which a long, white, elaborately embroidered one, marked by a slip of paper as "Baby's Christening Robe."
I will not reproduce the long and serious consultation which followed; be it sufficient to chronicle the result. I hastened homeward, and had my landlady, Mrs. Harrison, roused from her midnight slumbers; she was, as I knew, a woman of strong maternal instincts, who was fond of referring to her experience in that line,—a woman to whom your thought would naturally revert in embarrassing circumstances. She responded promptly and eagerly to my appeal; the situation evidently roused all the latent romance of her nature, and afforded her no small satisfaction. She spent a half hour in privacy with the baby, who re-appeared fresh and beaming in a sort of sacerdotal Norse night-habit which was a miracle of neatness.
"Bless her little heart," ejaculated Mrs. Harrison, as the small fat hands persisted in pulling her already demoralized side curls. "She certainly knows me;" then in an aside to Storm: "The mother, whoever she may be, sir, is a lady. I never seed finer linen as long as I lived; and every single blessed piece is embroidered with two letters which I reckon means the name of the child."
Storm bowed his head silently and sighed. But when the baby, after having rather indifferently submitted to a caress from me, stretched out its arms to him and consented with great good humor to a final good-night kiss, large tears rolled down over his cheeks, while he smiled, as I thought only the angels could smile.
I am obliged to add before the curtain is dropped upon this nocturnal drama, that my friend was guilty of an astonishing piece of Vandalism. When my landlady had deposited the sleeping child in his large, exquisitely carved and canopied bed (which, as he declared, made him feel as if a hundred departed grandees were his bed-fellows), we both went in to have a final view of our little foundling. As we stood there, clasping each other's hands in silence, Storm suddenly fixed his eyes with a savage glare upon one of the bed-posts which contained a tile of porcelain, representing Joseph leaving his garment in the hand of Potiphar's wife; on the post opposite was seen Samson sheared of his glory and Delilah fleeing through the opened door with his seven locks in her hand; a third represented Jezebel being precipitated from a third-story window, and the subject of the fourth I have forgotten. It was a remnant of the not always delicate humor of the seventeenth century. My friend, with a fierce disgust, strangely out of keeping with his former mood, pulled a knife from his pocket, and deliberately proceeded to demolish the precious tiles. When he had succeeded in breaking out the last, he turned to me and said:
"I have been an atrocious fool. It is high time I should get to know it."
A week later I found four new tiles with designs of Fra Angelico's angels installed in the places of the reprobate Biblical women.
IV.
"Wer zum ersten Male liebt,
Sei es auch glücklos ist ein Gott."—Heine.
During the following week, Storm and I, with the aid of the police, searched New York from one end to the other; but Emily must have foreseen the event, and covered up her tracks carefully. Our seeking was all in vain. In the meanwhile the baby was not neglected; my friend's third room, which had hitherto done service as a sort of state parlor, was consecrated as a nursery, a stout German nurse was procured, and much time was devoted to the designing of a cradle (an odd mixture of the Pompeiian and the Eastlake style), which was well calculated to stimulate whatever artistic sense our baby may have been endowed with. If it had been heir to a throne, its wants could not have been more carefully studied. Storm was as flexible as wax in its tiny hand. Life had suddenly acquired a very definite meaning to him; he had discovered that he had a valuable stake in it. Strange as it may seem, the whole gigantic world, with its manifold and complicated institutions, began to readjust itself in his mind with sole reference to its possible influence upon the baby's fate. Political questions were no longer convenient pegs to hang pessimistic epigrams on, but became matters of vital interest because they affected the moral condition of the country in which the baby was to grow up. Socialistic agitations, which a dispassionate bachelor could afford to regard with philosophic indifference, now presented themselves as diabolical plots to undermine the baby's happiness, and deprive her of whatever earthly goods Providence might see fit to bestow upon her, and so on, ad infinitum. From a radical, with revolutionary sympathies, my friend in the course of a year blossomed out into a conservative Philistine with a decided streak of optimism, and all for the sake of the baby. It was very amusing to listen to his solemn consultations with the nurse every morning before he betook himself to the office, and to watch the lively, almost child-like interest with which, on returning in the evening, he listened to her long-winded report of the baby's wonderful doings during the day. On Sundays, when he always spent the whole afternoon at home, I often surprised him in the most undignified attitudes, creeping about on the floor with the little girl riding on his back, or stretched out full length with his head in her lap, while she was gracious enough to interest herself in his hair, and even laughed and cooed with much inarticulate contentment. At such times, when, perhaps, through the disordered locks, I caught a glimpse of a beaming happy face (for my visits were never of sufficient account to interfere with baby's pleasures), I would pay my respectful tribute to the baby, acknowledging that she possessed a power, the secret of which I did not know.
But in spite of all this, I did not fail to detect that Storm's life was not even now without its sorrow. At our luncheons, I often saw a sad and thoughtful gloom settling upon his features; it was no longer the bitter reviling grief of former years, but a deep and mellow sadness, a regretful dwelling on mental images which were hard to contemplate and harder still to banish.
"Do you know," he exclaimed once, as he felt that I had divined his thoughts, "her face haunts me night and day! I feel as if my happiness in possessing the child were a daily robbery from her. I have continued my search for her up to this hour, but I have found no trace of her. Perhaps if you will help me, I shall not always be seeking in vain."
I gave him my hand silently across the table; he shook it heartily, and we parted.
It was about a month after this occurrence that I happened to be sitting on one of the benches near the entrance to Central Park. That restless spring feeling which always attacks me somewhat prematurely with the early May sunshine, had beguiled me into taking a holiday, and with a book, which had been sent me for review, lying open upon my knees, I was watching the occupants of the baby carriages which were being wheeled up and down on the pavement in front of me. Presently I discovered Storm's nurse seated on a bench near by in eager converse with a male personage of her own nationality. The baby, who was safely strapped in the carriage at the roadside, was pleasantly occupied in venting her destructive instincts upon a linen edition of "Mother Goose." As I arose to get a nearer view of the child, I saw a slender, simply dressed lady, with a beautiful but careworn face, evidently approaching with the same intention. At the sight of me she suddenly paused; a look of recognition seemed to be vaguely struggling in her features,—she turned around, and walked rapidly away. The thought immediately flashed through me that it was the same face I had seen under the gas-lamp on the evening when the child was found. Moreover, the type, although not glaringly Norse, corresponded in its general outline to Storm's description. Fearing to excite her suspicion, I forced my face into the most neutral expression, stooped down to converse with the baby, and then sauntered off with a leisurely air toward "Ward's Indian Hunter." I had no doubt that if the lady were the child's mother, she would soon reappear; and I need not add that my expectations proved correct. After having waited some fifteen minutes, I saw her returning with swift, wary steps and watchful eyes, like some lithe wild thing that scents danger in the air. As she came up to the nurse, she dropped down into the seat with a fine affectation of weariness, and began to chat with an attempt at indifference which was truly pathetic. Her eyes seemed all the while to be devouring the child with a wild, hungry tenderness. Suddenly she pounced upon it, hugged it tightly in her arms, and quite forgetting her rôle, strove no more to smother her sobs. The nurse was greatly alarmed; I heard her expostulating, but could not distinguish the words. The child cried. Suddenly the lady rose, explained briefly, as I afterward heard, that she had herself lately lost a child, and hurried away. At a safe distance I followed her, and succeeded in tracking her nearly a mile down Broadway, where she vanished into what appeared to be a genteel dressmaking establishment. By the aid of a friend of mine, a dealer in furnishing goods, whom I thought it prudent to take into my confidence, I ascertained that she called herself Mrs. Helm (an ineffectual disguise of the Norwegian Hjelm), that she was a widow of quiet demeanor and most exemplary habits, and that she had worked as a seamstress in the establishment during the past four months. My friend elicited these important facts under the pretence of wishing to employ her himself in the shirtmaking department of his own business. Having through the same agency obtained the street and number of her boarding-place, I visited her landlady, who dispelled my last doubts, and moreover, informed me (perhaps under the impression that I was a possible suitor) that Mrs. Helm was as fine a lady as ever trod God's earth, and a fit wife for any man. The same evening I conveyed to Storm the result of my investigations.
He sat listening to me with a grave intensity of expression, which at first I hardly knew how to interpret. Now and then I saw his lips quivering, and as I described the little scene with the child in the park, he rose abruptly and began to walk up and down on the floor. As I had finished, he again dropped down into the chair, raised his eyes devoutly to the ceiling, and murmured:
"Thank God!"
Thus he sat for a long while, sometimes moving his lips inaudibly, and seemingly unconscious of my presence. Then suddenly he sprang up and seized his hat and cane.
"It was number 532?" he said, laying hold of the door-knob.
"Yes," I answered, "but you surely do not intend to see her to-night."
"Yes, I do."
"But it is after nine o'clock, and she may——"
But he was already half way down the stairs.
Through a dense, drizzling rain which made the gas-lights across the street look like moons set in misty aureoles, Storm hastened on until he reached the unaristocratic locality of Emily's dwelling. He rang the door-bell, and after some slight expostulation with the servant was permitted to enter. Groping his way through a long, dimly-lit hall, he stumbled upon a staircase, which he mounted, and paused at the door which had been pointed out to him. A slender ray of light stole out through the key-hole, piercing the darkness without dispelling it. Storm hesitated long at the door before making up his mind to knock; a strange quivering agitation had come upon him, as if he were about to do something wrong. All sorts of wild imaginings rushed in upon him, and in his effort to rid himself of them he made an unconscious gesture, and seized hold of the door-knob. A hasty fluttering motion was heard from within, and presently the door was opened. A fair and slender lady with a sweet pale face stood before him; in one hand she held a needle, and in the other a bright-colored garment which resembled a baby's jacket. He felt rather than saw that he was in Emily's presence. His head and his heart seemed equally turbulent. A hundred memories from the buried past rose dimly into sight, and he could not chase them away. It was so difficult, too, to identify this grave and worn, though still young face, with that soft, dimpled, kitten-like Emily, who had conquered his youth and made his life hers. Ah! poor little dimpled Emily; yes, he feared she would never return to him. And he sighed at the thought that she had probably lost now all that charming naughtiness which he had once spent so much time in disapproving of. He was suddenly roused from these reflections by a vague, half-whispered cry; Emily had fled to the other end of the room, thrown herself on the bed, and pressed her face hard down among the pillows. It was an act which immediately recalled the Emily of former days, a childish, and still natural motion like that of some shy and foolish animal which believes itself safe when its head is hidden. Storm closed the door, walked up to the bed, and seated himself on a hard, wooden chair.
"Emily," he said at last.
She raised herself abruptly on her arms, and gazed at him over her shoulder with large, tearless, frightened eyes.
"Edmund," she whispered doubtfully. "Edmund."
"Yes, Emily," he answered in a soothing voice, as one speaks to a frightened child. "I have come to see you and to speak with you."
"You have come to see me, Edmund," she repeated mechanically. Then, as if the situation were gradually dawning upon her, "You have come to see me."
His rôle had appeared so easy as he had hastily sketched it on the way,—gratitude on her part, forgiveness on his, and then a speedy reconciliation. But it was the exquisite delicacy of Storm's nature which made him shrink from appearing in any way to condescend, to patronize, to forgive, where perhaps he needed rather to be forgiven. A strange awkwardness had come over him. He felt himself suddenly to be beyond his depth. How unpardonably blunt and masculinely obtuse he had been in dealing with this beautiful and tender thing, which God had once, for a short time, intrusted to his keeping! How cruel and wooden that moral code of his by which he had relentlessly judged her, and often found her wanting! What an effort it must have cost her finer-grained organism to assimilate his crude youthful maxims, what suffering to her tiny feet to be plodding wearily in his footsteps over the thorny moral wastes which he had laid behind him! All this came to him, as by revelation, as he sat gazing into Emily's face, which looked very pathetic just then, with its vague bewilderment and its child-like surrender of any attempt to explain what there was puzzling in the situation. Storm was deeply touched. He would fain have spoken to her out of the fulness of his heart; but here again that awkward morality of his restrained him. There were, unfortunately, some disagreeable questions to be asked first.
Storm stared for a while with a pondering look at the floor; then he carefully knocked a speck of dust from the sleeve of his coat.
"Emily," he said at last, solemnly. "Is your husband still alive?"
It was the bluntest way he could possibly have put it, and he bit his lip angrily at the thought of his awkwardness.
"My husband," answered Emily, suddenly recovering her usual flute-like voice (and it vibrated through him like an electric shock)—"is he alive? No, he is dead—was killed in the Danish war."
"And were you very happy with him, Emily? Was he very good to you?"
It was a brutish question to ask, and his ears burned uncomfortably; but there was no help for it.
"I was not happy," answered she simply, and with an unthinking directness, as if the answer were nothing but his due; "because I was not good to him. I did not love him, and I never would have married him if mother had not died. But then, there was no one left who cared for me."
A blessed sense of rest stole over him; he lifted his grave eyes to hers, took her listless hand and held it close in his. She did not withdraw it, nor did she return his pressure.
"Emily, my darling," he said, while his voice shook with repressed feeling (the old affectionate names rose as of themselves to his lips, and it seemed an inconceivable joy to speak them once more); "you must have suffered much."
"I think I have deserved it, Edmund," she answered with a little pout and a little quiver of her upper lip. "After all, the worst was that I had to lose my baby. But you are very good to her, Edmund, are you not?"
Her eyes now filled with tears, and they began to fall slowly, one by one, down over her cheeks.
"Yes, darling," he broke forth,—the impulse of tenderness now overmastering all other thoughts. "And I will be good to you also, Emily, if you will only let me."
He had risen and drawn her lithe, unresisting form to his bosom. She wept silently, a little convulsive sob now and then breaking the stillness.
"You will not leave me again, Edmund, will you?" she queried, with a sweet, distressed look, as if the very thought of being once more alone made her shudder.
"No, Emily dear, I will never leave you."
"Can you believe me, Edmund?" she began suddenly, after a long pause. "I have always been true to you."
He clasped her face between his palms, drew it back to gaze at it, and then kissed her tenderly.
"God bless you, darling!" he whispered, folding her closely in his arms, as if he feared that some one might take her away from him.
How he would love and keep and protect her—this poor bruised little creature, whom he had once so selfishly abandoned at the very first suspicion of disloyalty! As she stood there, nestling so confidingly against his bosom, his heart went out to her with a great yearning pity, and he thanked God even for the long suffering and separation which had made their love the more abiding and sacred.
The next day Storm and Emily were quietly married, and the baby and I were present as witnesses. They now live in a charming little cottage on the Jersey side, which is to me a wonder of taste and comfort. Out of my friend's miscellaneous assortment of ancient furniture his wife has succeeded in creating a series of the quaintest, most fascinating boudoirs and parlors and bedrooms—everything, as Storm assures me, historically correct and in perfect style and keeping; so that, in walking through the house, you get a whiff of at least three distinct centuries. To quote Storm once more, he sleeps in the sober religious atmosphere of the German Reformation, with its rational wood-tints and solid oaken carvings, dines amid the pagan splendors of the Italian Renaissance, and receives company among the florid conventionalities of the French rococo period.