Daisy's Necklace, and What Came of It

Daisy stood looking at Mortimer with her fond, thoughtful eyes. Soon she grew tired of this, and, placing a stool by his chair, sat down and commenced sewing. From time to time she looked up from her work and smiled quietly.

"How he sleeps!" said Daisy, with a low laugh. "Will he be cross if I disturb him?" – and she laughed again. "I wonder," she said, at length, "if a tiny song would awaken him?"

So she sang in a gentle voice those touching lines of Barry Cornwall, commencing with —

"Touch us gently, Father Time!As we glide adown the stream."

She sang them bewitchingly. The music must have stolen into Mortimer's dream, for he slept a quieter sleep than before. Miss Daisy did not like that, and pouted quite prettily, and shook her finger at him.

"O, how tiresome you are!" she said. Then she sewed for ten minutes quite steadily.

"I guess I'll arrange your books, Rip Van Winkle! and when you wake up, a half century hence, you won't know them, they'll be in such good order!"

And facetious Miss Daisy broke out in such a wild, merry laugh, that an early robin, perched on a tree beside the window, ceased chirping, and listened to her.

Her fingers grew very busy with Mortimer's books. Having dusted them carefully, she commenced to place them in an old black-walnut book-case, which must have had an antique look fifty years ago. And Daisy went on laughing and talking to herself in a most comical manner.

"Here, Mr. Theocritus!" she cried, taking up that venerable poet, and placing him upside down, "I'll just set you on your head for absorbing all that stupid boy's attention one live-long evening, when I wanted to chat with him."

An author is supposed to know everything about his characters; but I cannot tell why Daisy placed Mortimer's poet in such an uncomfortable position, unless she thought that the blood might run into the head of Mr. Theocritus, and cause him to be taken off with a brain fever!

"And you, Mr. Byron," Daisy continued, "you're a very wicked young fellow! and I won't let you sit next to Mrs. Hemans!" so she placed Plutarch between them. "But you and Shelly," Daisy said, resting her hand on Keats, "you are different sort of persons; you are too earnest and beautiful to be impure; and you shall sit side by side between L. E. L. and our own Alice Cary. And Chatterton! poor boy Chatterton! I'll place you in that shadowy corner of the book-case, where the sunshine never comes!"

So Daisy made merry or sad, as the case might be, over her lover's few volumes; and when she had arranged them to suit her capricious self, she kissed her hand to Tom Hood, and locked them all – poets, romancers, and historians – in the black, sombre old book-case.

Our friend Daisy was in one of those playful, half-childish moods, which came upon her not unfrequently.

Now she looked around the room for some other piece of useful mischief to do. She would turn over Mortimer's papers. Ah, what made her blush and laugh so prettily then? It was only a sheet of note-paper, on which Mortimer, in a dreamy moment, had written her name innumerable times – for know, good world, that true love takes the silliest ways to express itself.

Now she was curious.

She stood thoughtfully, with a small morocco case in her hand. The reader has seen it once in Flint's office. An undefined feeling stole over her; and it was some time before she thought of opening the case. She did so, however, and took from it a pearl necklace of rare design and workmanship. The necklace was in three parts, linked together by exquisitely carved clasps, from the largest of which hung a

composed of smaller and more costly pearls.

"How beautiful!" and she grew more thoughtful. Something within her recognized the jewels. It was not her sight, it was not her touch, but an intuitive something which is finer and subtler than either.

"I have seen this somewhere – somewhere," she said; "but where?"

And she closed her eyes, as if the sunlight blinded some timid memory that was stealing through her brain. Her fancy painted pictures of strange places and things. Now she saw a country-house, among cool, quiet trees; then a man dying – some one she loved – but who? Now she was in a large city, and heard the rumbling of wheels and confused voices. Now the snow was coming down, flake after flake, and everything was white; then it was night – dark, stormy, and dreadful – and she was cold, bitter cold! Some one had left her in the white, clinging snow, and she was freezing!

Daisy opened her eyes. The snow and wind were gone, and April's sunny breath blew shadows through the open window. The house, the death, the storm – how were they connected with the string of pearls? And Daisy held the necklace on her finger-tips and wondered.

"Somewhere, somewhere – but where?"

Daisy could not tell where.

"I may have seen one like it," Daisy thought. "Perhaps this was Bell's, and these stones may have rested many a time on her little neck. I wish I had known Bell!"

With this she placed the necklace in the case again, and tears gathered in her eyes, she knew not why.

"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean."

She laid the box in the place where she had found it, and thought she would not speak to Mortimer of the necklace; he might be displeased to have her touch it.

Her gaiety had given place to sadness, and when she knelt by Mortimer's chair she could not help sobbing. Mortimer awoke and bent over her.

"What, weeping, Daisy?"

X

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,And the winter winds are wearily sighing:Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,And tread softly and speak low,For the old year lies a-dying.Old year, you must not die:You came to us so readily,You lived with us so steadily,Old year you must not die.He lieth still: he doth not move:He will not see the dawn of day,He hath no other life above.He gave me a friend and a true love,And the new year will take 'em away.Old year, you must not go:So long as you have been with us,Such joy as you have seen with us,Old year, you shall not go.He frothed his bumpers to the brim:A jollier year we shall not see;But though his eyes are waxing dim,And though his foes speak ill of him,He was a friend to me.Old year, you shall not die:We did so laugh and cry with you,I've half a mind to die with you,Old year, if you must die.Alfred Tennyson.

X.

ST. AGNES' EVE

The Old Year – St. Agnes – Keats' Poem – The Circlet of Pearls – A Cloud – The Promise – Mrs. Snarle continues her Knitting.

The Old Year had just gone by – the dear, sad Old Year! He died in the blustering wind, out in the cold! He lay down in the shadows, moaned, and died! Something has gone with thee, Old Year, which will never come again: kind words, sweet smiles, warm lips – ah, no, they will never come again! Hold them near your heart for love of us, Old Year! They came with you, they went with you! Kyrie eleyson!

"I wish you could tarry with us," said Mortimer. "You were kind to us, merry and sad with us." And he repeated the lines,

"Old year, you shall not die:We did so laugh and cry with you,I've half a mind to die with you,Old year, if you must die."

"To-night, Daisy, will be St. Agnes' Eve, and if I sell my prose sketch to Filberty's Magazine, I'll be in a good humor to read you Keats' poem."

Since leaving Mr. Flint's employ, Mortimer had entirely supported himself with his pen. His piquant paragraphs and touching verses over the signature of "Il Penseroso," had attracted some attention; and he found but little difficulty in disposing of his articles, at starving prices, it is true; but he bore up, seeing a brighter time ahead. He had been so occupied in writing short stories and essays, that his romance, which lacked but one chapter of completion, was still unfinished.

Filberty's Magazine paid him so generously for the "prose article," that he could afford to devote himself to a task which did not promise immediate profit. He completed the novel at sundown that day; and after supper Daisy reminded him of his promise to read Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes."

"I sometimes think," said Mortimer, as good Mrs. Snarle seated herself in a low rocking-chair, preparatory to a dose, while Daisy sat on a stool at his feet, "I sometimes think that this poem is the most exquisite definition of one phase of poetry in our language. Musical rhythm, imperial words, gorgeous color and luxurious conceit, seem to have culminated in it. And the story itself is so touching that it would be poetical even if narrated in the plainest prose. How surpassingly beautiful is it, then, worked out with all the richness of that sweetest poet, who, in intricate verbal music and dreamy imagery, stands almost alone!"

Mrs. Snarle's head was inclined on one side, and the whole posé of her form was one of profound attention.

She was fast asleep.

The busy knitting-needles were placid in her motionless fingers; and Pinky, the kitten, was 'spinning a yarn' on her own account from the ball in Mrs. Snarle's lap.

"Who was St. Agnes?" asked Daisy.

"She was a saint who suffered martyrdom for her religious views during the persecution of the Christians in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian. But let us read the poem, which will make her more immortal than her heroism."

Mortimer opened the book, and his voice touched the verse with new music for Daisy's ears. Now his tones would be low and sad, as he read of the old Beadsman, who told his beads in the cold night air,

"While his frosted breath,Like pious incense from a censer old,Seemed taking flight for heaven."

Then his voice grew as tender as a lover's, when he came to the place where Porphyro, concealed, beholds Madeline as she disrobes:

"Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degreesHer rich attire creeps rustling to her knees."

"How few poets know how to handle color!" said Mortimer. "Azure, red, orange, and all poetic hues are mixed up in their pictures like a shattered rain-bow! But how artist-like is Keats! His famous window scene has not been surpassed:

"A casement high and triple-arched there was,All garlanded with carven imageriesOf fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,And diamonded with panes of quaint device,Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,And twilight saints and dim emblazonings,A shielded 'scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings."Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon:Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together pressed,And on her silver cross soft amethyst,And on her hair a glory, like a saint:She seemed a splendid angel, newly dressed,Save wings, for heaven!"

"Is it not exquisite?" asked Mortimer, looking in Daisy's face.

She nodded assent.

Mortimer fixed his eyes on a pearl necklace which gently clasped the girl's neck, and started. The cross undulated on her bosom, which rose and fell like two full white roses in the wind.

"Where did you get that?" and Mortimer laid his hand on her arm nervously.

"It was a freak," said Daisy, blushing. "Are you angry?"

"Not angry, Daisy."

"But you look so."

"Do I? I am not. I grow unhappy when I see that necklace."

"It was Bell's, then?"

"Yes – no – don't ask me, Daisy."

"Why?"

A shadow came over Mortimer's face.

That morning Daisy had been tempted to open the morocco case, and a desire to clasp the white necklace on her neck became irresistible. Something drew her to it, and the same feeling of mystery and longing which stole on her when she first held the circlet in her hand while Mortimer was sleeping, overpowered her. Almost unconsciously she fastened the gold clasp, and when the little cross sunk down on her bosom, her heart grew lighter, and she went over the house singing like a canary. She wore it the whole day, pausing at times in her household duties to admire the pearls. After a while she forgot its existence, and her intention to replace it before Mortimer returned.

When Mortimer's eye caught sight of the necklace, Daisy was much embarrassed, for she could, in no intelligible way, account for having taken it. Mortimer was equally pained. He had unwillingly become possessed of the ornament, and saw no means by which he could return it to Mr. Flint without acknowledging that he had also taken the check. He dreaded to make so humiliating a confession, and, perhaps, he stood a little in fear of Mr. Flint's anger. The circumstance had caused him many moments of anxiety, and an unpleasant thought came to him, as he saw the purloined necklace on Daisy's innocent bosom.

"But you are angry?" said Daisy, looking up with dimmed eyes.

"No, pet."

"Then you will kiss me?" said Daisy, in a most winning way.

Mortimer did what most every one would have done "in the premises" – an act which was quite sufficient to make one break that part of the commandment which refers to envy. Surely a man would be inhuman not to, having once seen Daisy Snarle!

"I am not angry, but pained; I cannot tell you why. I wish you to promise me something."

"I will. What is it?"

"That you will not doubt me, whatever may occur in connection with this necklace – that you will love me, though I may be unable to explain condemning circumstances, or dispel the doubts of others."

"I promise that. But how strange," thought Daisy. "I am sorry that I was so childish as to take the necklace. Put it away, Mortimer, and forget that I did so."

Mortimer's cheerfulness returned, and he commenced reading the poem at the place where he had interrupted himself. Just as he finished the last verse, telling how, ages long ago,

"The lovers fled away into the storm,"

Mrs. Snarle awoke with a jerk, and went to knitting as though she had been doing nothing else the whole evening – a harmless subterfuge peculiar to old people.

XI

Of making many books there is no end.

Ecclesiastes xii., 12.

XI.

MORTIMER HAS AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GREAT PUBLISHER, AND MR. FLINT MAKES A DISCOVERY

H. H. Hardwill, Publisher – Criminal Literature – Alliterative Titles – Goldwood – Poor Authors – A Heaven for them in the Perspective – Flint's Discovery, and the Horns of his Dilemma.

Mortimer looked up and read the sign – "H. H. Hardwill, Publisher." His heart half-failed him, and he stood looking in the large, book-filled window, with that romance which was to startle the literary world folded quietly under his arm, like any common paper. What kind of a man is Mr. Hardwill? he thought. Is he a large man, with a heavy watch-chain, or a thin, sky-rockety piece of humanity, dressed in black, and tipped off with red hair? Was he a cold, cast-iron man, like Flint? or a simple, sorrowful one, like Snarle that was? But this last idea melted of itself. How could the famous publisher resemble the poor, unobtrusive Snarle? He, Mr. Hardwill, who received notes from the great Hiawatha, and hob-nobbed with Knickerbocker Irving; he, who owned a phial of yellow sand, which had been taken from a scorching desert with an unpronounceable name, and presented to him by the Oriental Bayard; he, who chatted with genial Mr. Sparrow-grass – God bless him! – (Sparrow-grass,) and joked with Orpheus Stoddard, – he like simple Snarle? Pooh!

"Is Mr. Hardwill in?" asked Mortimer. He came near adding, "the great publisher."

The clerk, to whom his eyes looked, said he believed he was, and went on calling off from a slip of paper:

"'Murdered Milkmaid,' two copies; 'Bloody Hatchet,' twelve copies; 'The Seducer's Victim,' thirty copies; 'The Young Mother,' five copies; 'The Deranged Daughter,' seven copies; 'Hifiluten and other poems,' one copy."

"Can I speak with him?" ventured Mortimer, as the clerk, who was calling off the criminal literature, paused for breath.

"'The Merry Maniacs,' ten copies – Yes, sir; but he's engaged. Wait awhile," continued the clerk, as Mortimer turned to go. "'The Wizard of Wehawkin,' six copies; 'The Phantom of Philadelphia,' twelve copies, etc., etc."

So our author seated himself on a case of books, and looked at the wall of volumes which encompassed him. Somehow or another, it suggested the Great Wall of China and the Cordilleras. He could give no reason why. No more can I. Perhaps he felt that light literature, paradoxical as it may seem, is always heavy, and so his mind ran on the prodigious freaks of man and nature.

After the clerk had finished calling off from the slip of paper, that promising young gentleman suddenly discovered that Mr. Hardwill was not engaged, and offered to conduct our friend into his august presence. Mortimer gathered up his heart, as it were, and his loosened manuscript at the same moment – "Her heart and morning broke together!" – and followed the clerk through an avenue of literature, to a snug inner office – that literary Sebastopol, which is forever being stormed by seedy poets and their allies, historians, romancers, and strong-minded Eves.

Could it be possible?

Was that middle-sized, dark-eyed, light-haired, pleasant-looking man the Napoleon of publishers? However, there was something shrewd in his dark eye, or rather eyes – for he had two of them – and a certain expression of the mouth, which seemed full of dealings with the world.

"Is this Mr. Hardwill?" asked Mortimer.

"Yes, sir. Will you be seated?"

"I have a romance," commenced Mortimer, with hesitation, "which I would offer you for publication. I have written it carefully, and I think it possesses several new features – "

Here his voice broke down, for he felt those dark, scrutinizing eyes in his face; besides, the intense attention with which he was listened to disconcerted him. Mr. Hardwill came to his relief.

"What is the title of your book?"

"It is called 'Goldwood.'"

"That is not happy."

"No?"

"No," said Mr. Hardwill, "it should be something striking – something to catch the eye in an advertisement. For instance, the – the – "

"Frantic Father," suggested Mortimer, quietly; and he gazed at the carpet to keep from smiling.

Mr. Hardwill eyed him, and displayed his white teeth. There was a little satire in our author's remark which pleased Mr. H., who could not be hired to read the spasmodic books which he published. It was policy in him to cater for that largest class of readers whose tastes are morbid or inflamed, and he did so.

Mortimer had thrown aside his timidity. He gave a concise sketch of the plot, touching here and there on some supposed-to-be felicitous incident, and grew so autorially eloquent over his romance, that the careful Mr. Hardwill requested Mortimer to leave his manuscript with him, saying:

"I cannot give you much hope. I have more books ready for press than I can well attend to. If you will call on me the latter part of next week, you shall have my decision."

With these words, spoken in an off-hand, business-like way, Mr. Hardwill made a bow, which said, as kindly as such a thing can be said, "You needn't stay any longer."

Mortimer returned his bland smile frankly, and retired, though he would fain have called Mr. Hardwill's attention to that delightful and exciting scene in which Mr. Adine St. Clair meets Arabella Clementina after an estrangement of two weeks! but he didn't. He again threaded his way through the labyrinth of literature, and the last sound which fell on his ear, as he turned from the book-store into the street, was,

"'The Ruined Cigar Girl,' twenty copies!"

"What on earth could anybody want of a 'Ruined Cigar Girl,' or a 'Young Mother?'" and Mortimer laughed outright.

The wand of Prospero is neither more cunning nor more powerful than the pen of a well bred author. It creates something out of nothing, (more frequently nothing out of something), changes time, place, and human nature; it lifts up the blue roofing of ocean, and gives you a glimpse of fish-life; and deeper still, shows you the coral forests of the Naiads, and their aquatic palaces. It draws back the curtain of cloud-land, and feeds your fancy with forms that never have been, and never will be; summons spirits from the air, and gives melodious voices to all vernal things.

Pleasant magician that waves this wand! what curious people are walking in the chambers of your brain! What dreams are yours, and what cruel cuts this real world sometimes gives you! You have no right to be here, poor devil! You are somewhat misplanted; you belong to some sphere between earth and heaven, and not very near either. That such a place is provided for you I am certain. There it is that all your books will run through countless editions; there it is you can afford to hire some one to write your autograph for besieging admirers, and feed, as you should,

"On the roses, and lay in the lilies of life."

But I was speaking of pen-magic. It is not my present mood to do anything fantastical in that way. I only wish to give you a sight of Mr. Flint, as he appeared one afternoon some months after Mortimer had left his office. He was standing in that inner-room of his counting-house to which I have introduced the reader. I change my mind – he was not standing. He had just thrown himself into a chair, in which he did not seem at all easy.

I take peculiar delight in placing Mr. Flint in uncomfortable positions.

He was surprised, alarmed, and angry. He missed the forged check and the morocco case which he had watched so many years. That they had been purloined, he could not doubt, and his keen thought fell on Mortimer. The loss of the check troubled him; he liked to look at it occasionally, for Snarle's sake; but the necklace – that gave him strange alarm.

"Snake!" he hissed, "you have crawled into my affairs, and I'll tread on you – tread on you and kill you! You stole the check to save Snarle's name; and the necklace – why did you steal that? Was it valuable? Yes, that is it. I'll grind you in the dust. I'll put you in a prison, and let your brainless father look at you through the bars!"

This humane idea caused Mr. Flint to rub his dry hands, and chuckle violently.

"But" – here Mr. Flint's countenance fell. "If I do this, won't Walters ruin me with that unfortunate letter? O, I was a fool to write it; yet he would have murdered me if I had not."

And Mr. Flint thought and thought.

To obtain the letter was impossible. Walters might have left the city; even if he had not, there was a method in his madness which Flint knew he could not circumvent. He could not lose such a chance of crushing Mortimer as presented itself; and yet to attempt it while Walters had possession of the letter was unwise.

Mr. Flint was in a brown study.

He walked up and down his sanctum solemnly, neglecting to watch Tim and the book-keeper who had succeeded Mortimer. An half hour passed, and still he continued his walk and reverie, without any visible intention of stopping. His face lights up; he rubs his knuckles with ecstacy. He has got it! got it at last. He will have Mortimer arrested; he will have Mortimer's name suppressed, or give the newspapers a fictitious one. This will shield him from Walters, whose heart he will wring some of these days. Ah! that will be revenge.

It may strike the ingenious reader as strange that Mortimer, having charge of Flint & Snarle's books, never came across his father's name. This would have been the case, and somewhat interfered with our novel, if Mortimer, when he applied for a clerkship with the firm, had not given Mr. Flint all the particulars of his life. For reasons best known to himself, Mr. Flint took every opportunity to strengthen Mortimer in the belief of his father's death, and every precaution to keep Walters from meeting him. Once, indeed, they stood face to face in the office; but, taking into consideration the number of years they had been separated, and the circumstances under which they met, it would have been most strange if a recognition had taken place. As to Mr. Snarle, being profoundly ignorant of Mortimer's early history, he could throw no light on Mortimer's mind; and everything worked to Flint's satisfaction. Every circumstance seemed to mould itself to his will.