Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1875 — MY TWO PEARLS. [ARTICLE]

MY TWO PEARLS.

BY JULIA C. R. DORR.

• “Lightning express, gentlemen! All aboard voice in the station at Rochester at eleven o’clock at night. I stepped off board the train, choosing a palace and restaurant car, “through to Chicago.” “ Section?” said the conductor, with a rising inflection. “Ought to have telegraphed, sir. Only one berth left, and that’s a mere accident. Here it is. No. 9. Gentleman who engaged it missed connection at Syracuse.” Congratulating myself on my good fortune, I speedily crept into No. 9—a lower berth —and fell fast asleep. When I opened my eyes the gray dawn of an October morning—the October of 1868 —was stealing in through the curtained window. I lay for some minutes in a half-dream, listening to the multitudinous noises of the train, with scarcely a thought of where I was. Then, as the light grew stronger, I raised myself upon my elbow and looked about me, only to fall back a moment after with a start of surprise that was almost dismay.

Right before my eyes hung a white, shapely hand, with a dark seal-ring upon the third finger. It took me a minute or two to collect my scattered senses enough to discover that it belonged to the occupant of the upper berth, dropped carelessly from his quarters to my own in the heavy abandonment of sleep. I lay and looked at it —a white, shapely hand as I have said—a hand unmarred or unglorified—choose the word for yourself —by the seams and calluses of manual labor. The fingers were long and taper, the nails oval and well cared for. The wrist was not large, but well-knit arid sinewy; and half-buried in the fine linen of the shirt-sleeve I caught the sparkle of a diamond. The hand had a strange fascination for me, half-uncanny though it looked in the weird, struggling light of early morning I watched it, vaguely wondering what manner of man its owner might be, and what kind of a face w r ould assort with it, till there was a stir overhead, and it vanished. Then I made my toilet as I best might,'and went out on the platform for a breath of fresher air. "When, after the lapse of half an hour, I leisurely strolled back to my place again, all vestiges of the night before were removed, and a gentleman in a plain gray traveling-suit occupied one seat in "the compartment allotted to me. He held a newspaper in the hand. I recognized it at once. He lifted his eyes long enough to salute me with a courteous bow as I took the opfosite seat, and then resumed his reading. opened my paper also; but the attempt to engross mvself with its contents was a vain One. My eyes and my thoughts continually wandered to my vis-a-vis. Describe him? Not an easy matter. Neither is it easy to account for the fascination that he wore as an invisible mantle. I might tell you that he was tall and slight; that his complexion was clear and dark; that his black, crisp locks curled closely round a wellshaped head; that his eyes were large and liquid; that his mustache was a light and graceful penciling upon the firm, thin lip; and that his imperial was above reproach. But, having told you this, I should expect you to say with a glance of ineffable meaning that you could find his counterpart in any barber’s shop on Broadway, or, if not there, in your sister’s French dancing-master. You think so? Perhaps it is not strange. You see I cannot put into words the individuality of the man—the certain indefinable something that at once set him apart from the crowd and made him notable. He dropped his paper presently and turned to m<£ with some remark upon current events, made with a slight foreign accent. Thus we fell into conversation. “ Breakfast served whenever you please, gentlemen,” said the porter, passing through the car. •

My companion’bowed, smiling. “As we are to be section-hiates fora day or two,” lie said, “it is well w« should know each other. Shall I do myself the honor to present you witn mv card?” “ Hippolyte L’Estrange, Strasbourg,” I read from the little white parallelogram. So I had not been mistaken in supposing him to be a Frenchman. I may as well tell you here what he read from the card I gave him in return: “Edward Ripon, New York.” We breakfasted together at liis request. I found my “ chance acquaintance” to be a most intelligent and cultivated man and a great traveler. So much of the world had. he ..seen, so wide was his knowledge of men and things, that to my comparative inexperience it seemed little less than marvelous. He was years older than myself —I was just twenty-seven—or at least lie seemed so. A Frenchman is older than an American of the same age, always. But, allowing for all that, M. L’Estrange was doubtless eight or ten years my senior. He was at once reticent and communicative —reticent in all that was purely personal and related to his inner self; communicative as to his plans and projects. I soon discovered that he was on his way to San Francisco —so much farther off then than now. “ But what a circuitous route!” lexclaimed. “ You are going round Robin Hood’s barn.” “Robin Hood’s barn?” lie repeated, with a half-laugh, liis eyes lighting as lie caught my meaning. “ But, my friend, I liad hut just come from Panama. I was tired of the ship, the sea, the monotony, so I go this way.” “ Overland the whole, distance?” I asked. “Oh, no! Look here, I shall have the honor to show you,” and lie drew a folded map from liis breast-pocket. “I leave you here at Calumet” —noting the point with his pencil —“you see? There I take the lightning train for Cairo; thence by express this way”—pointing to Memphis and Jackson—“ down to New Orleans. That is right, eli ?” “ Yes; hut you will have to go to Vers Cruz. How about a steamer across the gulf?” “Ah! there I go round your Robin Hood’s barn!” lie said, laughing. “ See! I go across to Havana, and thence to Vera Cruz.” “And then—?” my eye followed his pencil. “ Then I go by diligence to the City o ’Mexico, where I take the saddle for Manzanilla. There, if the good fates befriend me, I catch a steamer ahead of the one that left New York when I did. So I lose no time; I see your great country; and I escape the dull, monotonous sea, of which I have had too much already.” The hours flew on silver wings. All day long we floated on a tide us talk, sometimes sparkling with wit and humor ; sometimes taking a devper tone as we touched upon themes that gave to each brief, passing glimpses of the soul of the other. It seemed to me that there was little worth knowing that my companion did not know; little worth seeing that he had not seen; little worth thinking that lie had not thought. Yet I learned little of his personal history, save that he had spent much time in South America; and that he had large in terests in the pearl fisheries at Lima, on business connected with which he was going to San Francisco. We had said nothing in any way relating to the war, its causes or its results. But suddenly my friend turned to me. “You have been in the army?” lie said. “ Yes,” I answered. “ I served through the war. But why do you think so ?”

“Ah, you have something—the air railitaire. I knew it from the first. I, too, am a soldier, and I did not need that you should give the countersign.” Another night passed" and hour after hour of the second day. We w T ere forty miles from Calumet. A deep silence fell upon us two who, in these days of chance companionship, had grown so strangely near each other. Soon our paths would diverge, never, in all probability, to cross again. In vain M. L’Estrange urged me to prolong my journey, at least as far as New Orleans. “We must not part as strangers,” he said, impulsively. “My heart has gone out to you—for we are akin! Somehow — somewhere —shall we not meet again?” and he clasped my hand warmly. .My reticent Northern nature stirred within me. “ I trust so, I hope so,” I responded. “ But the world is wide. I shall never forget you, M. L’Estrange.” “ Ah! you are young,” he said, with a slow r shake of the head, ‘ ‘ you are young,; and the young have short memories. But stay! hold! I shall give you a sign—a token. So shall you keep me in your heart.” Taking from his pocket a tiny box, he unlocked it with a key attached to his wateliguard. A number of pearl s gleamed and shimmered in the sunlight. He selected four of remarkable size and purity. “ You shall wear these for my sake,” he said, placing them in my hand. But I demurred, saying it was too costly a gift. |j|“ Are we not friends?” he cried, his lip curling with a superb scorn. “ How talk you then of cost ?" Two, then, to be mounted as sleeve-but-tons? Still I shook my head, and still he persisted. “ Here, then, mon ami," he said, at last, “ If you shall not have two, you shall have one;" and, taking my hand,"he placed one large, pure, lustrous pearl on the palm, and closed my fingers over it. “It shall be mounted like this,’’-drawing a design on the lid of the box, “ and you shall wear it for a sign. Then, you see, I shall have its mate set in the same manner. It shall be for a token between us; and the pearls shall bring us together again. Ah, I know it! The pearls—they are charmed!” r“Ah, M. L’Estrange!” I answered, “I c&n resist no longer. I will wear your pearl; and it shall at least be a souvenir of days never to be forgotten.” As he was replacing the box a cardphotograph fell to the floor. I picked it up, and was handing it to him, when my eye fell upon a face of such rare loveliness that I held the little picture as if spel -

hound—a woman’s face, softly outlined, delicately rounded; jj pure, calm forehead, crowned with “braided tresses darkly bright;” tender, unsmiling lips, that Wore a sweetness deeper and holier than smiles ; a chin and cheek that might well have served as models for a sculptor. There were soft laces resting about the throat; and a lace-sliawl, thrown gracefully over the stately head, rested "lightly on the shoulders, like a radiant cloud. But the eyes were the glory of the picture—large, dark, spiritual eyes, that look into yours with unfathomable meanings in their liquid depths. My self-possession and my good manners returned to me at the same moment. “ I beg your pardon,” I said, deprecatingly, as I gave the picture to its owner; “ hut it is so beautiful!' Is it your wife?” •' “My wife? No,” he said, with a low, wise smile, “hut it is my Marguerite—my pearl!” There was no time for further speech. We were at Calumet. L’Estrange threw his arm around me in liis impulsive French fashion, and kissed my cheek with a warm “ God bless you!” Another moment and our short chapter of romance was ended. But was there no second chapter? Certainly, or I should hardly have thought it worth while to tell you this. I returned to New York in a few weeks, had my pearl mounted precisely as L’Estrange had directed, and wore it, at first with a halfsuperstitious feeling that it was truly a link between us and would one day draw us together. It was, at all events, powerful in one way. It was, indeed, as he had said, h sign, a token. It kept fresh and green in my memory what might else have gradually faded away as one of the many forgotten incidents of a life tfiat was changeful and full of adventure. But it was not his face only that it recalled. I never wore it withoift seeing, as in a vision, the dark, soul-lit eyes that had looked up at me from the photograph, the pure, calm brow, the tender, wistful mouth of my friend’s “Marguerite.” Not his wife, but doubtless his betrothed. What other meaning could I give to the sudden light that illumined liis face as he exclaimed, in that last, hurried moment, ,“It is my Marguerite—my pearl?” “I shall write you from Ban Francisco,” he had said. But days, weeks and months lengthened into years, and I heard nothing. My pearl scarf-pin was the only token that"those charmed days of travel had been more than a dream. I believed that he was dead. Last summer I was in Paris. Early one morning I went to the Madeleine, and, leaning against one of the fluted columns, watched the worshipers as they came and went. The sun shot yellow rays through the grained windows in tlie roof; the chanting of a sounded far oft" and dream-like; the sculptured Magdalen of the high altar looked strangely real in the weird, uncertain light; and the whole atmosphere of the place was bewildering. As I stood near one of the great bronze doors a lady, veiled and gathering the folds of her mantle closely about her throat, passed me with a light step. The figure was exquisitely graceful and I watched her with a young man’s idle curiosity as she knelt at prayers, wondering if her face was worthy of her form. As she rose a fresh breeze from an opening door blew hack her veil and I caught a passing glimpse of her features. All the blood in my veins rushed madly to my heart. Surely it was the face of my dreams —the face of my friend’s Marguerite! Yet it seemed a younger face; perhaps less Madonna-like than in the picture, haloed by cloud-like drapery. You see I had not forgotten the slightest peculiarity of the photograph. I could have sworn to the very pattern jof the lace. Before I recovered my senses she had disappeared. For three days I haunted the Madeleine in vain. On the fourth I caught a glimpse of her again, stooping to drop a coin in the hand of a pallid child. But it was a etc-day and the crowd swayed in between us. After that I saw her no more.

I went on to Switzerland, lingering for a month among its mountain-passes; made a, short run into Italy and came back. I was loitering along Les Champs Elysees one evening in a fit of homesickness, half inclined to take the next steamer from Havre, and so end this roving life, when I became aware of being watched — watched by a dark figure under the shadow of the opposite trees. The red sunlight fell lull and strong where I was standng but it was twilight all about me. I changed my position hurriedly and hastened on. But in a moment I heard quick footsteps behind me, then a run and a shout. An arm fell across my shoulder, a hand clasped mine, and a well-remembered voice cried: “It is you! I have found you! Ah, mon ami! mon ami! But it was the pearl, even as I told you so in “that wild Calumet.” And Hippolyte L’Estrange pointed to the scarf-pin I wore that day. “But you are grown older, monsieur. You are changed; and I was not thinking of you at that moment. But the great pearl shimmered in the sunlight, and it drew my eyes to the face above it? Said I not that it was charmed?” It is needless to speak of the happiness of that reunion, all the greater for the mood in which it found me. “I shall not lose sight of you again,” said M. L’Estrange. “You will go home with me to-morrow to Strasbourg. Marguerite —you remember”—and he smiled more brightly than before—“ Marguerite will be glad'to know my friend. Very often have I talked of our days together.” Marguerite! Shall I confess that for one moment J shrank as from a coming pain j a hidden danger? Then every instinct in my manhood rose in quick rebellion. My friend’s wife was vestal to me even in thought; sacred as if shrined and guarded by inapproachable distances. I would go with him. Why had he not written me ? Simply because he had lost my address—“only this and nothing more.”. ' —^ It would take too long to tell of our delightful journey, and I pass on rapidly to the hour when the towers of Strasbourg rose before us, and the lofty spire of her cathedral pierced the clouds. My friend’s chateau was outside the I walls of the city, on rising ground.

“See!” he said, with a sweep\of his hand, as the carriage rolled along, “this is not so grand, so fresh, as your great New World, yet it is a fair picture.” He might well say so. The seven-gated city lay at our feet; the blue Rhine wound along between storied hanks; the branching 11l glided through the town, pictur esque witji its*many bridges. In the far distance rose the Vosges Mountains and the Black Forest of Germany. And now we were at the chateau, a stately pile, ivy-clad and moss-grown, yet bright, "seemingly with an eternal youth. “ Marguerite, this is the friend of whom you have so often heard me speak—Edward Ripon,” said L’Estrange, as I entered- tk a salon an hour after, and a fair, sweet, womanly face, the face at the Madeleine, looked up from the bit of embroidery over which it was bending. “Is she like, the picture—my Marguerite?” asked my host, but before I could reply he went on: “By that name you first heard of her and by that name you are to know her now. We are to live in Arcadia for a whole enchanted month, and,-as is fitting, we are to be to each other Marguerite and Edward and Hippolyte Have not the kind Fates proved that we are akin, as I told you years ago ? Why else have they brought us together ?” I bowed low above the lady’s hand, hut I did not call her “Marguerite.” Neither did I call her “Madame L’Estrange.” Some subtile, undefined feeling prevented that. I compromised by not calling her anything. ' J must not make my story too long. You anticipate all I would" say. There were no other guests at the chateau. We three were as isolated as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. That was truly an enchanted week, in which we rode, we rambled, we talked, we read, we sang—happy dwellers in Arcadia. And then — then—J awoke one day to find there was no safety for me hut in flight. This “Marguerite” was growing too dangerously dear. I, who pray daily, “Let me not be led into temptation,” what business had I there, dallying witli danger ? I was not a villain; I was not an idiot; I had no more conceit than my fellows; yet I could not help seeing that" Marguerite’s soft brown eyes grew softer, still when they met mine, and that the long lashes drooped over them with a subtiler grace when I drew near. I did not look for this, but it was there and I saw it—l must go. A determination that I made known to M. L’Estrange the next morning. “ But you are not going!” he said. “It is too soon. Did I not say you were bo stay a month ? We will have more guests if you tire of this dull life; and you shall see tlie old chateau alive with dance and song. My fri end must stay! ’ ’ “No,” I answered; “your friend must go. Do not make it too hard for him to leave you.” He looked at me narrowly. “ Has anything gone wrong?” he asked in a low tone. “ Tell me, my friend! I had thought—l had dreamed — Is there anjfliing amiss with you and Marguerite?” He spoke in his own tongue now, as he always did when any strong emotion stirred him. I answered in mine, my cheeks white and cold, hut my eyes ablaze: “Amiss —anything amiss, M. L’Estrange? Do I hear you aright? You are speaking of the lady who is your wife, and of one who fain would he an honorable man! Anything amiss, monsieur ?” Ha looked at me for an instant as if he thought I had gone mad. Then a sudden light broke over his face, and, to my anger and astonishment, he laughed a genuine, hearty laugh. But before I could speak his mood changed, and he caught me impulsively in his arms. “O my poor boy!” lie cried. “I see it all now. And you thought Marguerite was my wife ? But I told you she was not when you asked me so long ago. Do you not remember ? I supposed you understood. The woman who should have been my wife lies in the churchyard yonder. Mons Ripon, Marguerite is my sister!”

I covered my face with my hands. I could have sunk into the dust at his feet. It was all so clear now—as clear as noonday. Yet, with my preconceived ideas of tlieir relationship, and in a country with whose domestic life and habits I was so unfamiliar, I could not so much wonder at my mistake.. The patois of the servants, too, had helped to mislead.me —and I had seen no others. I dared not look at him. The gentle dignity of his last words overpowered me, even while, in,spite of my confusion and dismay, my heart’ was thrilling with a new-born hope. I lifted my eyes at last, to meet |iijs filled with ineffable tenderness. “You know my secret,” I said. “Shall you take me at my word, M. L’Estrange—must I go away?” “Nay, stay,” he whispered. “It was for this’ that we were thrown together that October morning. Was it not charmed, the token I gave you ? Stay now; and if you can win her gentle heart I will give you yet another pearl—my Marguerite!” Just as long as I live I mean to remember in my prayer the gentleman who “missed connections at Syracuse;” for, if it had not been for him, would I ever have worn the rare, pure pearl that was given tonne two months since by my brother Hippolyte L’Estrange?— Appleton's Journal. —Jh correspondent of the L'tica Observer writing from Rome, N. Y., tefls a curious story of one Hezekiah Wright, living a few miles from that city, who sold his wife to one Torrence. The agreement between the parties is reproduced, as follows: “The agreement witnesseth—That I, Hezekiah Wright, of the fffst part, for the consideration of three bunches of shingles, one-half acre of unharvested corn, and one-half of an acre of unharvested potatoes, do sell, assign and transfer all my right, title and interest in and to my wife, Mary Wright, to Joseph Torrbnce, of the second part.” [Signed and sealed.] After the instrumentin writing had been drawn the same was read to the wife of the seller, who witnessed the same ans agreed to become the property of the purchaser, and accordingly gathered her personal effects and took up her abode with Mr. Torrence.