The Sword of Damocles: A Story of New York Life

This was all very wife-like if somewhat unnecessary, and Bertram could have listened to it with pleasure, if she had not cast the frequent and side-long glances at the mirror, which sufficiently betrayed the fact that she included herself in this complacent conclusion; as indeed she may have considered herself justified in doing, husband and wife being undoubtedly of one flesh. As it was, he maintained an immovable countenance, though he admired his uncle as much as she did, and the conversation gradually languished till the white somnolent lids of the lady again began to show certain premonitory signs of drooping, when suddenly they were both aroused by the well known click of a latch-key in the door, and in another moment Mr. Sylvester's voice was heard in the hall, saying, in tones whose cheery accents made his wife's eyes open in surprise —

"Welcome home, my dear."

"They have come," murmured Mrs. Sylvester rising with a look of undeniable expectation. Had Paula not been a beauty she would have remained seated.

"Yes, we have come," was heard in hearty tones from the door-way, and Mr. Sylvester with a proud look which Bertram long remembered, ushered into their presence a young girl whose simple cloak and bonnet in no wise prevented Mrs. Sylvester from recognizing the somewhat uncommon beauty she had been led to expect.

"Paula, this is your cousin Ona, and – Ah, Bertram, glad to see you – this is my only nephew, Mr. Sylvester."

The young girl, lost in the sudden glamour of numerous lights, shining upon splendors such as she may have dreamed of over the pages of Irving's Alhambra, but certainly had never before seen, blushed with very natural embarrassment, but yet managed to bestow a pretty enough greeting upon the elegant woman and handsome youth, while Ona after the first moment of almost involuntary hesitation, took in hers the two trembling hands of her youthful cousin and actually kissed her cheek.

"I am not given to caresses as you know," she afterwards explained in a somewhat apologetic tone to her husband; "and anything like an appeal for one on the part of a child or an inferior, I detest; but her simple way of holding out her hand disarmed me, and then such a face demands a certain amount of homage, does it not?" And her husband in his surprise, was forced to acknowledge to himself, that as closely as he had studied his wife's nature for ten years, there were certain crooks and turns in it which even he had never penetrated.

"You look dazzled," that lady exclaimed, gazing not unkindly into the young girl's face; "the sudden glare of so much gas-light has bewildered you."

"I do not think it is that," returned Paula with a frank and admiring look at the gorgeous room and the circle of pleasant faces about her. "Sudden lights I can bear, but I have come from a little cottage on the hillside and the magnificence of nature does not prepare you for the first sudden view of the splendors of art."

Mrs. Sylvester smiled and cast a side glance of amusement at Bertram. "You admire our new hangings I see," remarked she with an indulgence of the other's näiveté that greatly relieved her husband.

But in that instant a change had come across Paula; the simple country maid had assimilated herself with the surroundings, and with a sudden grace and dignity that were unstudied as they were charming, dropped her eyes from her cousin's portrait – that for some reason seemed to shine with more than its usual insistence – and calmly replied, "I admire all beautiful color; it is my birthright as a Walton, to do so, I suppose."

Mrs. Sylvester was a Walton also and therefore smiled; but her husband, who had marked with inward distrust, the sudden transformation in Paula, now stepped forward with a word or two of remark concerning his appetite, a prosaic allusion that led to the rapid disappearance of the ladies upstairs and a short but hurried conversation between the two gentlemen.

"I have brought you a sealed envelope from the office," said Bertram, who, in accordance with his uncle's advice, had already initiated himself into business by assuming the position of clerk in the office of the wealthy speculator.

"Ah," returned his uncle hastily opening it. "As I expected, a meeting has been held this day by the board of Directors of the Madison Bank, a vote was cast, my proxy did his duty and I am duly elected President. Bertram, we know what that means," smiled he, holding out his hand with an affectionate warmth greatly in advance of the emotion displayed by him on a former occasion.

"I hope so indeed," young Bertram responded. "An increase of fortune and honor for you, though you seem to have both in the fullest measure already, and a start in the new life for me to whom fortune and honor mean happiness."

A smile younger and more full of hope than any he had seen on his uncle's face for years, responded to this burst. "Bertram," said he, "since our conversation of a couple of weeks ago something has occurred which somewhat alters the opinions I then expressed. If you have patience equal to your energy, and a self-control that will not put to shame your unbounded trust in women, I think I can say God-speed to your serious undertaking, with something like a good heart. Women are not all frivolous and foolish-minded; there are some jewels of simple goodness and faith yet left in the world."

"Thank God for your conversion," returned his nephew smiling, "and if this lovely girl whom you have just introduced to me, is the cause of it, then thank God for her also."

His uncle bowed with a gravity almost solemn, but the ladies returning at this moment, he refrained from further reply. After supper, to which unusual meal Mr. Sylvester insisted upon his nephew remaining, the two gentlemen again drew apart.

"If you have decided upon buying the shares I have mentioned," said the former, "you had better get your money in a position to handle at once. I shall wish to present you to Mr. Stuyvesant to-morrow, and I should like to be able to mention you as a future stockholder in the bank."

"Mr. Stuyvesant!" exclaimed Bertram, ignoring the rest of the sentence.

"Yes," returned his uncle with a smile, "Thaddeus Stuyvesant is the next largest stockholder to myself in the Madison Bank, and his patronage is not an undesirable one."

"Indeed – I was not aware – excuse me, I should be happy," stammered the young man. "As for the money, it is all in Governments and is at your command whenever you please."

"That is good, I'll notify you when I'm ready for the transfer. And now come," said he, with a change from his deep business tone to the lighter one of ordinary social converse, "forget for a half hour that you have discarded the name of Mandeville, and give us an aria or a sonata from Mendelssohn before those hands have quite lost their cunning."

"But the ladies," inquired the youth glancing towards the drawing-room where Mrs. Sylvester was giving Paula her first lesson in ceramics.

"Ah, it is to see how the charm will act upon my shy country lassie, that I request such a favor."

"Has she never heard Mendelssohn?"

"Not with your interpretation."

Without further hesitation the young musician proceeded to the piano, which occupied a position opposite to my lady's picture in this anomalous room denominated by courtesy the library. In another instant, a chord delicate and ringing, disturbed the silence of the long vista, and one of Mendelssohn's most exquisite songs trembled in all its delicious harmony through these apartments of sensuous luxury.

Mr. Sylvester had seated himself where he could see the distant figure of Paula, and leaning back in his chair, watched for the first startled response on her part. He was not disappointed. At the first note, he beheld her spirited head turn in a certain wondering surprise, followed presently by her whole quivering form, till he could perceive her face, upon which were the dawnings of a great delight, flush and pale by turns, until the climax of the melody being reached, she came slowly down the room, stretching out her hands like a child, and breathing heavily as if her ecstacy of joy in its impotence to adequately express itself, had caught an expression from pain.

"O Mr. Sylvester!" was all she said as she reached that gentleman's side; but Bertram Mandeville recognized the accents of an unfathomable appreciation in that simple exclamation, and struck into a grand old battle-song that had always made his own heart beat with something of the fire of ancient chivalry under its breastplate of modern broadcloth.

"It is the voice of the thunder clouds when they marshal for battle!" exclaimed she at the conclusion. "I can hear the cry of a righteous struggle all through the sublime harmony."

"You are right; it is a war-song ancient as the time of battle-axes and spears," quoth Bertram from his seat at the piano.

"I thought I detected the flashing of steel," returned she. "O what a world lies in those simple bits of ivory!"

"Say rather in the fingers that sweep them," uttered Mr. Sylvester. "You will not hear such music often."

"I am glad of that," she cried simply, then in a quick conscious tone explained, "I mean that the hearing of such music makes an era in our life, a starting-point for thoughts that reach away into eternity; we could not bear such experiences often, it would confuse the spirit if not deaden its enjoyment. Or so it seems to me," she added naively, glancing at her cousin who now came sweeping in from the further room, where she had been trying the effect of a change in the arrangement of two little pet monstrosities of Japanese ware.

"What seems to you?" that lady inquired. "O, Mr. Mandeville's playing? I beg pardon, Sylvester is the name by which you now wish to be addressed I suppose. Fine, isn't it?" she rambled on all in the same tone while she cautiously hid an unfortunate gape of her rosy mouth behind the folds of her airy handkerchief. "Mr. Turner says the hiatus you have made in the musical world by leaving the concert room for the desk, can never be repaired," she went on, supposedly to her nephew though she did not look his way, being at that instant engaged in sinking into her favorite chair.

"I am glad," Bertram politely returned with a frank smile, "to have enjoyed the approval of so cultivated a critic as Mr. Turner. I own it occasions me a pang now and then," he remarked to his uncle over his shoulder, "to think I shall never again call up those looks of self-forgetful delight, which I have sometimes detected on the faces of certain ones in my audience."

And he relapsed without pause into a solemn anthem, the very reverse of the stirring tones which he had previously accorded them.

"Now we are in a temple!" whispered Paula, subduing the sudden interest and curiosity which this young man's last words had awakened. And the awe which crept over her countenance was the fittest interpretation to those noble sounds, which the one weary-hearted man in that room could have found.

"I have something to tell you, Ona," remarked Mr. Sylvester shortly after this, as the music being over, they all sat down for a final chat about the fireside. "I have received notice that the directors of the Madison Bank have this day elected me their president. I thought you might like to know it to-night."

"It is a very gratifying piece of news certainly. President of the Madison Bank sounds very well, does it not, Paula?"

The young girl with her soul yet ringing with the grand and solemn harmonies of Mendelssohn and Chopin, turned at this with her brightest smile. "It certainly does and a little awe-inspiring too;" she added with her arch glance.

"Your congratulations are also requested for our new assistant cashier. Arise, Bertram, and greet the ladies."

With a blush his young nephew arose to his feet.

"What! are you going into the banking business?" queried Mrs. Sylvester. "Mr. Turner will be more shocked than ever: he chooses to say that bankers, merchants and such are the solid rock of his church, while the lighter fry such as artists, musicians, and let us hope he includes us ladies, are its minarets, and steeples. Now to make a foundation out of a steeple will quite overturn his methodical mind I fear."

Mr. Sylvester looked genially at his wife; she was not accustomed to attempt the facetious; but Paula seemed to have the power of bringing out unexpected lights and shadows from all with whom she came in contact.

"A clergyman who rears his church on the basis of wealth must expect some overturning now and then," laughed he.

"If by means of it he turns a fresh side to the sun, it will do him no harm," chimed in Paula.

Seldom had there been so much simple gaiety round that fireside; the very atmosphere grew lighter, and the brilliance of my lady's picture became less oppressive.

"We ought to have a happy winter of it," spoke up Mr. Sylvester with a glance around him. "Life never looked more cheerful for us all, I think; what do you say, Bertram my boy."