Hermia Suydam

Title: Hermia Suydam

Author: Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

Release date: October 10, 2015 [eBook #50169] Most recently updated: October 22, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50169

Credits: Produced by Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) from page images generously made available by The Internet Archive American Libraries (https://archive.org/details/americana)

HERMIA SUYDAM

GERTRUDE FRANKLIN ATHERTON

AUTHOR OF “WHAT DREAMS MAY COME”

THE CURRENT LITERATURE PUBLISHING CO

NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO, LONDON, AND PARIS

Copyright, 1889.

The Current Literature Publishing Co.

[All rights reserved.]

Press of J. J. Little & Co.

Astor Place, New York.

Table of Contents

FROM HERBERT SPENCER’S CHAPTER ON “THE WILL.”

To say that the performance of the action is the result of his free will is to say that he determines the cohesion of the psychical states which arouse the action; and as these psychical states constitute himself at the moment, this is to say that these psychical states determine their own cohesion, which is absurd. These cohesions have been determined by experiences—the greater part of them, constituting what we call his natural character, by the experiences of antecedent organisms, and the rest by his own experiences. The changes which at each moment take place in his consciousness are produced by this infinitude of previous experiences registered in his nervous structure, co-operating with the immediate impressions on his senses; the effects of these combined factors being in every sense qualified by the psychical state, general or local, of his organism.

HERMIA SUYDAM

CHAPTER I.

A SECOND AVENUE HOUSEHOLD.

When Crosby Suydam died and left exactly enough money to bury himself, his widow returned to New York, and, taking her two little girls by the hand, presented herself at the old Suydam mansion on Second Avenue. “You must either take care of us or see us go to the poor-house,” she said to her brother-in-law; “I am not strong enough to work, and my relatives are as poor as myself.” And she sank into one of the library chairs with that air of indifference and physical weakness which makes a man more helpless than defiance or curse. Did John Suydam still, in his withered, yellow frame, carry a shrunken remnant of that pliable organ called the heart? His brother’s widow did not add this problem to the others of her vexed existence—she had done with problems forever—but in his little world the legend was whispered that, many years before, the last fragment had dried and crumbled to dust. It must be either dust or a fossil; and, if the latter, it would surely play a merry clack and rattle with its housing skeleton every time the old man drew a long

breath or hobbled across the room.

John Suydam’s age was another problem. His neighbors said that the little yellow old man was their parents’ contemporary. That he had ever had any youth those parents denied. He was many years older than Crosby Suydam, however, and the world had blamed him sharply for his treatment of his younger brother. Crosby had been wealthy when he married, and a great favorite. Some resentment was felt when he chose a New England girl for his wife; but Mrs. Suydam entertained so charmingly that society quickly forgave both, and filled their drawing-rooms whenever bidden. For ten years these two young people were illuminating stars in the firmament of New York society; then they swept down the horizon like meteors on a summer’s night. Crosby had withdrawn his fortune from the securities in which his father had left it, and blown bubbles up and down Wall street for a year or so. At the end of that time he possessed neither bubbles nor suds. He drifted to Brooklyn, and for ten years more, struggled along, at one clerkship or another, his brother never lending him

a dollar, nor offering him the shelter of his roof. He dropped out of life as he had dropped out of the world, which had long since forgotten both him and his unhappy young wife.

But, if John Suydam had no heart, he had pride. New York, in his opinion, should have been called Suydam, and the thought of one of his name in the poor-house aroused a passion stronger than avarice. He told his sister-in-law that she could stay, that he would give her food and shelter and a hundred dollars a year on condition that she would take care of her own rooms—he could not afford another servant.

It was a strange household. Mrs. Suydam sat up in her room all day with her two little girls and in her passive, mechanical way, heard their lessons, or helped them make their clothes. Her brother she met only at the table. At those awful meals not a word was ever spoken. John, who had atrocious table manners, crunched his food audibly for a half-hour at breakfast, an hour and a half at dinner, and an hour at supper. Mrs. Suydam, whose one desire was to die, accepted the hint he unconsciously gave, and swallowed her food whole; if longevity and mastication were correlatives, it was a poor rule that would not work both ways. She died before the year was out; not of indigestion, however, but of relaxation from the terrible strain to which her delicate constitution had been subjected during the ten preceding years.

John Suydam had her put in the family vault, under St. Mark’s, as economically as possible, then groaned in spirit as he thought of the two children left on his hands. He soon discovered that they would give him no trouble. Bessie Suydam was a motherly child, and adversity had filled many of the little store-rooms in her brain with a fund of common-sense, which, in happier conditions, might have been carried by. She was sixteen and Hermia was nine. The day after the funeral she slipped into her mother’s place, and her little sister never missed the maternal care. Their life was monotonous. Bessie did not know her neighbors, although her grandparents and theirs had played together. When Mrs. Suydam had come to live under her brother-in-law’s roof, the neighborhood had put its dislike of John Suydam aside and called at once. It neither saw Mrs. Suydam, nor did its kindness ever receive the slightest notice; and, with a sigh of relief, it forgot both her and her children.

A few months after Mrs. Suydam’s death another slight change occurred in the household. A fourth mendicant relative appeared and asked for help. He was a distant cousin, and had been a schoolmate of John Suydam in that boyhood in which no one but himself believed. He had spent his life in the thankless treadmill of the teacher. Several years before, he had been pushed out of the mill by younger propounders of more fashionable methods, and after his savings were spent he had no resource but John Suydam.

Suydam treated him better than might have been expected. These two girls, whom a malignant fate had flung upon his protection, must be educated, and he was unwilling to incur the expenses of a school or governess. The advent of William Crosby laid the question at rest. John told him that he would give him a home and a hundred dollars a year if he would educate his nieces, and the old man was glad to consent.

The professor taught the girls conscientiously, and threw some sunshine into their lives. He took them for a long walk every day, and showed them all the libraries, the picture galleries, and the shops. In spite of the meanness of her garb, Bessie attracted some attention during these ramblings; she had the pretty American face, and the freshness of morning was in it. Poor Hermia, who obediently trotted behind, passed unnoticed. Nature, who had endowed the rest of her family so kindly—her father and mother had been two of the old dame’s proudest works—had passed her by in a fit of abstraction. Under her high, melancholy forehead and black, heavy brows, stared solemnly a pair of unmistakably green eyes—even that hypocrite Politeness would never name them gray. Her dull, uninteresting hair was brushed severely back and braided in a tight pig-tail; and her sallow cheeks were in painful contrast to the pink and white of her sister’s delicate skin. Her eyelashes were thick and black, and she had the small, admirably shaped hands and feet of the

Suydams, but the general effect was unattractive. She was a cold, reserved child, and few people liked her.

The professor took the girls to the theater one night, and it was a memorable night in their lives. Each was in a fever of excitement, and each manifested it characteristically. Bessie’s cheeks were flushed to her eyelashes, and she jerked the buttons off both gloves. Her gray eyes shone and her pink lips were parted. People stared at her as she passed and wondered who she was. But for once in her life she was blind to admiration; she was going to see a play! Hermia was paler than ever and almost rigid. Her lips were firmly compressed, but her hands, in her little woolen gloves, were burning, and her eyes shone like a cat’s in the dark. They sat in the gallery, but they were in the front row, and as content as any jeweled dame in box or parquette.

The play was Monte Cristo, and what more was needed to perfect the delight of two girls confronted with stage illusion for the first time? Bessie laughed and wept, and rent her gloves to shreds with the vehemence of her applause. Hermia sat on the extreme edge of the seat, and neither laughed, wept, nor applauded. Her eyes, which never left the stage, grew bigger and bigger, her face paler, and her nostrils more tense.

After the play was over she did not utter a word until she got home; but the moment she reached the bedroom which the sisters shared in common she flung herself on the floor and shrieked for an hour. Bessie, who was much alarmed, dashed water over her, shook her, and finally picked her up and rocked her to sleep. The next morning Hermia was as calm as usual, but she developed, soon after, a habit of dreaming over her books which much perplexed her sister. Bessie dreamed a little too, but she always heard when she was spoken to, and Hermia did not.

One night, about three months after the visit to the theater, the girls were in their room preparing for bed. Hermia was sitting on the hearth-rug taking off her shoes, and Bessie was brushing her long hair before the glass and admiring the reflection of her pretty face.

“Bessie,” said Hermia, leaning back and clasping her hands about her knee, “what is your ambition in life?”

Bessie turned and stared down at the child, then blushed rosily. “I should like to have a nice, handsome husband and five beautiful children, all dressed in white with blue sashes. And I should like to have a pretty house on Fifth Avenue, and a carriage, and lots of novels. And I should like to go to Europe and see all the picture-galleries and churches.” She had been addressing herself in the glass, but she suddenly turned and looked down at Hermia.

“What is your ambition?” she asked.

“To be the most beautiful woman in the world!” exclaimed the child passionately.

Bessie sat down on a hassock. She felt but did not comprehend that agonized longing for the gift which nature had denied, and which woman holds most dear. She had always been pretty and was somewhat vain, but she had known little of the power of beauty, and power and uncomeliness alone teach a woman beauty’s value. But she was sympathetic, and she felt a vague pity for her sister. She thought it better, however, to improve the occasion.

“Beauty is nothing in itself,” she said, gently; “you must be good and clever, and then people will think——”

“Bessie,” interrupted Hermia, as if she had not heard, “do you think I will ever be pretty?”

Bessie hesitated. She was very conscientious, but she was also very tender-hearted. For a moment there was a private battle, then conscience triumphed. “No,” she said, regretfully, “I am afraid you never will be, dear.”

She was looking unusually lovely herself as she spoke. Her shoulders were bare and her chemise had dropped low on her white bosom. Her eyes looked black in the lamp’s narrow light, and her soft, heavy hair tumbled about her flushed face and slender, shapely figure. Hermia gazed at her for a moment, and then with a suppressed cry sprang forward and tore her sharp nails across her sister’s cheek.

Bessie gave a shriek of pain and anger, and, catching the panting, struggling child, slapped her until her arm ached. “There!” she exclaimed, finally, shaking her sister until the child’s teeth clacked together, “you little tiger cat! You sha’n’t have any supper for a week.” Then she dropped Hermia suddenly and burst into tears. “Oh, it is dreadfully wicked to lose one’s temper like that; but my poor face!” She rubbed the tears from her eyes and, standing up, carefully examined her wounds in the glass. She heaved a sigh of relief; they were not very deep. She went to the washstand and bathed her face, then returned to her sister. Hermia stood on the hearth-rug. She had not moved since Bessie dropped her hands from her shoulders.

Bessie folded her arms magisterially and looked down upon the culprit, her delicate brows drawn together, her eyes as severe as those of an angel whose train has been stepped on. “Are you not sorry?” she demanded sternly.

Hermia gazed at her steadily for a moment. “Yes,” she said, finally, “I am sorry, and I’ll never get outside-mad again as long as I live. I’ve made a fool of myself.” Then she marched to the other side of the room and went to bed.

CHAPTER II.

JOHN SUYDAM GIVES HIS BLESSING.

One day a bank clerk came up to the quiet house with a message to John Suydam. As he was leaving he met Bessie in the hall. Each did what wiser heads had done before—they fell wildly and uncompromisingly in love at first sight. How Frank Mordaunt managed to find an excuse for speaking to her he never remembered, nor how he had been transported from the hall into the dingy old drawing-room. At the end of an hour he was still there, seated on a sofa of faded brocade, and looking into the softest eyes in the world.

After that he came every evening. John Suydam knew nothing of it. Bessie, from the parlor window, watched Mordaunt come down the street and opened the front door herself; the old man, crouching over his library fire, heard not an echo of the whispers on the other side of the wall.

Poor Bessie! Frank Mordaunt was the first young man with whom she had ever exchanged a half-dozen consecutive sentences. No wonder her heart beat responsively to the first love and the first spoken admiration. Mordaunt, as it chanced, was not a villain, and the rôle of victim was not offered to Bessie. She was used to economy, he had a fair salary, and they decided to be married at once. When they had agreed upon the date, Bessie summoned up her courage and informed her uncle of her plans. He made no objection; he was probably delighted to get rid of her; and as a wedding-gift he presented her with—Hermia.

“I like her better than I do you,” he said, “for she has more brains in her little finger than you have in your whole head; and she will never be contented with a bank clerk. But I cannot be bothered with children. I will pay you thirty dollars a quarter for her board, and William Crosby can continue to teach her. I hope you will be happy, Elizabeth; but marriage is always a failure. You can send Hermia to me every Christmas morning, and I will give her twenty-five dollars with which to clothe herself during the year. I shall not go to the wedding. I dislike weddings and funerals. There should be no periods in life, only commas. When a man dies he doesn’t mind the period; he can’t see it. But he need not remind himself of it. You can go.”

Bessie was married in a pretty white gown, made from an old one of her mother’s, and St. Mark’s had never held a daintier bride. No one was present but Mordaunt’s parents, the professor, who was radiant, and Hermia, who was the only bridesmaid. But it was a fair spring morning, the birds were singing in an eager choir, and the altar had been decorated with a few greens and flowers by the professor and Hermia. At the conclusion of the service the clergyman patted Bessie on the head and told her he was sure she would be happy, and the girl forgot her uncle’s benediction.

“Bessie,” said Hermia an hour later, as they were walking toward their new home, “I will never be married until I can have a dress covered with stars like those Hans Andersen’s princesses carried about in a nutshell when they were disguised as beggar-maids, and until I can be married in a grand cathedral and have a great organ just pealing about me, and a white-robed choir singing like seraphs, and roses to walk on——”

“Hermia,” said Bessie dreamily, “I wish you would not talk so much, and you shouldn’t wish for things you can never have.”

“I will have them,” exclaimed the child under her breath. “I will! I will!”

CHAPTER III.

BROOKLYN AND BABYLON.

Thirteen years passed. Bessie had three of her desired children and a nice little flat in Brooklyn. Reverses and trials had come, but on the whole Mordaunt was fairly prosperous, and they were happy. The children did not wear white dresses and blue sashes; they were generally to be seen in stout ginghams and woolen plaids, but they were chubby, healthy, pretty things, and their mother was as proud of them as if they had realized every detail of her youthful and ambitious dreams.

Bessie’s prettiness had gone with her first baby, as American prettiness is apt to do, but the sweetness of her nature remained and shone through her calm eyes and the lines of care about her mouth. She had long since forgotten to sigh over the loss of her beauty, she had so little time; but she still remembered to give a deft coil to her hair, and her plain little gowns were never dowdy. She knew nothing about modern decorative art, and had no interest in hard-wood floors or dados; but her house was pretty and tasteful in the old-fashioned way, and in her odd moments she worked at cross-stitch.

And Hermia? Poor girl! She had not found the beauty her sister had lost. Her hair was still the same muddy blonde-brown, although with a latent suggestion of color, and she still brushed it back with the severity of her childhood. Nothing, she had long since concluded, could beautify her, and she would waste no time in the attempt. She was a trifle above medium height, and her thin figure bent a little from the waist. Her skin was as sallow as of yore, and her eyes were dull. She had none of Bessie’s sweetness of expression; her cold, intellectual face just escaped being sullen. Her health was what might be expected of a girl who exercised little and preferred thought to sleep. She had kept the promise made the night she had scratched her sister’s face; during the past fifteen years no one had seen her lose her self-control for a moment. She was as cold as a polar night, and as impassive as an Anglo-American. She was very kind to her sister, and did what she could to help her. She taught the children; and, though with much private rebellion,

she frequently made their clothes and did the marketing. Frank and Bessie regarded her with awe and distant admiration, but the children liked her. The professor had taught her until he could teach her no more, and then had earned his subsistence by reading aloud to John Suydam. A year or two before, he had departed for less material duties, with few regrets.

But, if Hermia no longer studied, she belonged to several free libraries and read with unflagging vigor. Of late she had taken a deep interest in art, and she spent many hours in the picture galleries of New York. Moreover, she grasped any excuse which took her across the river. With all the fervor of her silent soul she loved New York and hated Brooklyn.